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The Fetternear vestments at the Blairs Museum
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2016
Abstract
This article illustrates and describes in detail a fine central European chasuble of the late c17 which, together with two dalmatics, ‘The Fetternear Vestments,’ were bequeathed to the Diocese of Aberdeen, in 1921 by the Leslie family, many of whom had been distinguished soldiers on the continent and especially in the Empire. After some contextual discussion of the alleged origins of the Leslie family and of their success in Imperial service, the article examines the traditional belief that the vestments, now at the Blairs Museum, Aberdeen, were made for Count James Leslie (c.1621-1694) partly out of Turkish textiles captured in 1683 at the Siege of Vienna. Detailed analysis of the embroidery on the chasuble, especially of the use of metal thread and ‘plate,’ demonstrates that the gold work is indeed of Turkish origin, the rest of the needle work central European, and thus makes the case that this extraordinary hybrid object is indeed a votive vestment made for the Catholic Leslies partly from captured Turkish work.
Keywords
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- Research Article
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- © Trustees of the Catholic Record Society 2016. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
1 Prue King wishes to thank for Dr. Marta Járó of Budapest for her photographs of samples, for accessing the Pazmany Chasuble photograph, and for corrections to typography. Ian Forbes and the Blairs Museum, are especially thanked for photographs old and new, and for access to the vestment itself. All photographs of the Fetternear vestments were specially taken for this article by Ian Forbes.
2 Stevenson, Jane, Beavan, Iain, and Davidson, Peter, ‘The Breviary of Aberdeen’, Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, 6 (2011): 28–29 Google Scholar. The only surviving copy of the early sixteenth century Compassio is now bound in with the first volume of the Breviarium Aberdonense formerly in the library of the Earls of Strathmore at Glamis Castle, now National Library of Scotland RB.x.002-003, and bears the early seventeenth century ownership mark ‘Liber Joannis Lesly de eodem’ i.e. John Leslie of Leslie. The Glamis copy of the Breviarium belonged in the seventeenth century to Count Walter Leslie’s nephew Francis Hay of Delgaty, who accompanied his Turkish Embassy in the year 1665-66. Cf. Worthington, David, Scots in Habsburg Service (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004), 279-282 Google Scholar. It is unknown how or where these copies of the Breviarium and the Compassio were brought together and eventually bound together.
3 McRoberts, Rev David, ‘The Fetternear Banner’ Innes Review, 7, 2 (1956): 69-88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 David Worthington, Eduard Damisch, Igor Weigl and Marieke Ciglenecki in The Legacy of the Leslie Family at the Castle of Ptuj, exhibition catalogue, Narodna Galerija, Ljubljana, 22nd January – 24th February, 2002.
5 A recent overview is found in Murdoch, Steve and Grosjean, Alexia, Alexander Leslie and the Scottish Generals of the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2014)Google Scholar.
6 Col. Balquhain, Leslie of, Historical Records of the Family of Leslie from 1067 to 1868-9 (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1869), viii Google Scholar, ix.
7 Leslie, Historical Records, ix.
8 Worthington, David, ‘Walter Leslie, Count Leslie in the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire (1606-1667)’, ODNB Google Scholar online, accessed 9 February 2016.
9 Worthington, David, British and Irish Experiences and Impressions of Central Europe, c.1560-1688 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 170 Google Scholar. Other members of the Leslie family seem at various times to have converted to both German Lutheranism and Russian Orthodoxy. The religious position of the Balquhain Leslies will be considered in more detail below, but there seems every reason to concur with David McRobert’s assertion that the family were essentially Roman Catholic, a position to which they, at the least, continually reverted. It would appear that there were catholic members in every generation from the reformation onwards. Cf.‘The Fetternear Banner’, 69.
10 ‘Walter Leslie, Count Leslie’ ODNB.
11 Worthington, British and Irish Experiences, 111.
12 ‘Walter Leslie, Count Leslie’ ODNB.
13 Ciglenecki, Marjeta, ‘A Set of Verdure Tapestries in Ptuj Castle’, https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/.../SpisyFF_382-2009-1_57.pdf? Google Scholar...1 accessed 6 April, 2016, 724.
14 William Aloysius Leslie, SJ, Laurus Leslaeana explicata, sive clarior enumeratio personarum utriusque sexus cognominis Leslie (Graz, 1692)Google Scholar.
15 Laurus Lesleiana,unsigned prelims. ‘Walter SRI Comes de Leslie in Germania, Alexander Comes de Leven in Scotia, tertius Alexander Eques Auratus de Auchintoul in Muscovia.’
16 Sir Urquhart, Thomas, ΠΑΝΤΟΧΡΟΝΟΧΑΝΟΝ: or a peculiar promptuary of time. . . deducing the true pedigree and lineal descent of the most ancient and honourable name of the Urquharts in the house of Cromartie, since the Creation of the World until this present yeer of God, 1652 (London, 1652)Google Scholar, The Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart (Edinburgh: The Maitland Club, 1834), 155, 159.
17 Laurus Leslaeana, sig.[A1r]
18 Laurus Leslaeana, sig.[A1v]
19 Laurus Leslaeana, sig.[A2r]
20 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, xxiii, 1-9.
21 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie,10-14.
22 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 39.
23 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 65.
24 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 66. ‘Like many of David II’s favoured retainers, Walter and Norman Leslie were active crusaders, obtaining numerous safe conducts for expeditions to the Holy Land and the Baltic crusades. Walter’s exploits were commemorated in the Saracen’s head crest adorning his coat of arms in the late fourteenth-century “Armorial de Gelres” [sic] and may well have provided the inspiration for a now lost vernacular work, “The Tail of Syr Valtir the Bald Leslye”. In 1363-5 Walter and Norman, possibly at the instigation of David II, seem to have been involved in the crusade organized by Pierre I of Cyprus which ended in the sack of Alexandria (where Norman Leslie may have been killed)’: S.I. Boardman, ‘Leslie, Sir Walter, Lord of Ross (d. 1382)’, ODNB online, accessed 9 February 2016
25 David McRoberts, ‘The Fetternear Banner’, 69.
26 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 112.
27 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 113.
28 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 55.
29 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 113-14.
30 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 114.
31 For a consideration of post-reformation Catholics in the Leslie family, cf Roberts, Alasdair and Dean, Ann, ‘The Leslies of Balquhain and the Burial of Bishop Hay’, Recusant History 22 (1995): 536-548 Google Scholar.
32 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 103-4.
33 Sharples, Joseph, Walker, David W. and Woodworth, Matthew, The Buildings of Scotland, Aberdeenshire: South and Aberdeen (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015), 490-493 Google Scholar. This arrangement may well be a deliberate recollection of the elaborate, defiantly Catholic, scheme of carving on the courtyard elevation of Huntly Castle. This scheme, dated 1602, included the Huntly Arms and the Royal Arms but also the Instruments of the Passion, a representation of the Resurrection, and a figure of St Michael. It was defaced by a Covenanting garrison in 1640, cf. Aberdeenshire: South and Aberdeen, 537-44.
34 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 121-22.
35 McRoberts, Rev David, ‘The Fetternear Banner’ Innes Review, 7, 2 (1956): 84 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Margaret Swain, The Needlework of Mary, Queen of Scots (New York: Van Norstrand Reinhold Co.,1973), 52.
37 Johnstone, Pauline, High Fashion in the Church (Leeds: Maney Publishing, 2002)Google Scholar, plate XIX
Mehmet Ozel. Director General – Fine Arts, Ministry of Culture, Istanbul. http://www.turkishculture.org/textile-arts/embroidery/turkish-embroidery-598.htm?type=1 accessed 29 March, 2016.
38 A Hungarian visitor to the Blairs Museum has confirmed the work to be typically Hungarian.
39 There is a magnificent diorama of Gustavus Adolphus in the Stables of the Royal Castle in Stockholm which shows the King thus mounted and ready for battle with full accoutrements.
40 Mehmet Ozel. Director General – Fine Arts, Ministry of Culture, Istanbul. http://www.turkishculture.org/textile-arts/embroidery/turkish-embroidery-598.htm?type=1 accessed 29 March, 2016.
41 Johnstone, Pauline, Turkish Embroidery (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1985), 141 Google Scholar.
42 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 122.
43 Historical Records of the Family of Leslie, 122.
44 According to Burke’s Landed Gentry, 1871 edn., vol. 2, p. 785, Leslie-Grant was a grandson of Count Patrick Leslie’s second daughter.
45 Records of the Family of Leslie, 123-4.
46 A few random manuscripts from Fetternear are preserved at Stonyhurst College, Clitheroe, Lancashire, whither they were removed in the nineteenth century.