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Notes on the Shrine of St. Swithun formerly in Winchester Cathedral

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Extract

The Shrine of St. Swithun was, next to that of St. Thomas of Canterbury, perhaps the most famous and important in the south of England. Indeed, many of the pilgrims going to Canterbury broke their journey at Winchester in order to pay their vows at this shrine, and to rest their weary limbs for a day or two in the Guest House of St. Swithun's monastery.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1924

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References

page 361 note 1 At the time of writing (December 1923) these fragments are being carefully preserved in the feretory by the special instructions of the Dean, the Very Rev. Dr. W. H. Hutton.

page 362 note 1 As far as the twisted columns are concerned, it is only fair to say that this suggestion was first made, in the spring of 1922, by our friend Mr. Arthur Llewellyn Smith, then a Winchester scholar, but it was impossible to carry out further researches at that time.

page 363 note 1 See The Ancient Painted Glass Windows in the Minster and Churches of the City of York, by George Benson, A.R.I.B.A. (Transactions of Yorkshire Philosophical Society, 1914, p. 105).

page 363 note 2 See The Rites of Durham, edited by the Rev. Canon J. T. Fowler (Publications of the Surtees Society, cvii, 4).

page 364 note 1 The story is told in Mr. J. C. Wall's book, Shrines of British Saints.

page 365 note 1 Lethaby's Westminster Abbey and the King's Craftsmen, p. 322, in notis.

page 365 note 2 This reconstruction was carried out by the late Mr. J. T. Micklethwaite, F.S.A., assisted by the then Clerk of the Works of St. Albans, Mr. Chapple.

page 366 note 1 We are indebted to our friend Mr. J. Nowell L. Myres, of New College, Oxford, for supplying us with the measurements of St. Frideswide's shrine.

page 366 note 2 Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i, 307. ‘Anno MCCXLI feretrum S. Swithuni fractum est flabello de turri cadente. Reliquiæ eiusdem Sancti ostensæ sunt xvi Cal. Junii.’ ‘Anno MCCXLVIII.… Item v Cal. Junii, sc. die Ascensionis, cecidit flabellum de turri S. Swithuni, quando classicum vespertinum pulsabatur, & fere contrivit J. Monachum.’ Whatever may be the meaning of the word in these passages, ‘flabellum’ is usually synonymous with ‘muscarium’, a fly-flap used at the altar and carried, like a fan, in processions. It was often a large, heavy, richly-wrought article, too good for its original purpose. See Du Cange, Glossatium, iii (1884), 515; v (1885), 555. But it appears there that the word was occasionally used of other articles, such as the bellows of an organ.

page 367 note 1 ‘Jam vero valefacturus cadaver suum extra ecclesiam prsecipit tumulari, ubi postea constructa est modica capella que adhuc cernitur ad Boreale ostium navis ecclesiæ.’ Historia Major Wintoniensis (Wharton, i, 203).

page 367 note 2 Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, App. no. xvi (edition of 1840, Oxford, ii, 709); Dugdale's Monasticon, i (1817), 202; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, 13, pt. ii, no. 402.

page 368 note 1 ‘In solutis pro uno dolio iii quarteriis mæremii emptis pro factura unius scaffolde facti pro reparatione vaultæ ultra scrinium Sancti Swithuni…viis. viid.… Johanni Tyby operario fodienti duodecim dolia calcis apud montem Sancti Egidii … iiis. xjd. … Pro xx cwt. de plaster de Parrys emptis apud Hamptone pro vaulta iiis. iiid. Pro xxx lb. de le yolowe oker emptis pro predicta vaulta vs.… Pro factura scaffolde ultra scrinium Sancti Swithuni ac removendo tumbam unius episcopi ante scrinium et pro fixura ejusdem tumbæ iterum xs.’ Obedientiary Rolls of St. Swithun's (Hampshire Record Society), pp. 217–19. ‘Ultra scrinium’ means ‘over the shrine’, not ‘beyond it’.

page 369 note 1 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, 13, pt. ii, no. 401.