Our Lady of Ipswich
Encyclopedia
Shrines to the Virgin Mary
In the culture and practice of some Christian Churches - mainly, but not solely, the Roman Catholic Church - a Shrine to the Virgin Mary is a shrine marking an apparition or other miracle ascribed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or a site on which is centered a historically strong Marian devotion...
before the English Reformation
English Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
. Only the shrine at Walsingham
Walsingham
Walsingham is a village in the English county of Norfolk. The village is famed for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary and as a major pilgrimage centre...
attracted more visitors.
Location
The shrineShrine
A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....
was just outside the walls of Ipswich
Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...
, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The site of the original shrine was just outside the west gate of the medieval town wall of Ipswich, today this is marked by a plaque and a statue of Our Lady. A modern shrine is now in the Anglican parish church of Saint Mary Elms, a short distance away.
History
Anglo-SaxonHistory of Anglo-Saxon England
Anglo-Saxon England refers to the period of the history of that part of Britain, that became known as England, lasting from the end of Roman occupation and establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th century until the Norman conquest of England in 1066 by William the Conqueror...
England sheltered many shrines to the Virgin Mary: shrines were dedicated to her at Glastonbury
Glastonbury
Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,784 in the 2001 census...
in 540, Evesham
Evesham
Evesham is a market town and a civil parish in the Local Authority District of Wychavon in the county of Worcestershire, England with a population of 22,000. It is located roughly equidistant between Worcester, Cheltenham and Stratford-upon-Avon...
in 702, Tewkesbury
Tewkesbury
Tewkesbury is a town in Gloucestershire, England. It stands at the confluence of the River Severn and the River Avon, and also minor tributaries the Swilgate and Carrant Brook...
in 715, Canterbury
Canterbury
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
in 866, Willesden
Willesden
Willesden is an area in North West London which forms part of the London Borough of Brent. It is situated 5 miles north west of Charing Cross...
in 939, Abingdon
Abingdon, Oxfordshire
Abingdon or archaically Abingdon-on-Thames is a market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Vale of White Horse district. Previously the county town of Berkshire, Abingdon is one of several places that claim to be Britain's oldest continuously occupied town, with...
before 955, Ely
Ely, Cambridgeshire
Ely is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England, 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about by road from London. It is built on a Lower Greensand island, which at a maximum elevation of is the highest land in the Fens...
in 1020, Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
in 1043, York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
in 1050, and Walsingham
Walsingham
Walsingham is a village in the English county of Norfolk. The village is famed for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary and as a major pilgrimage centre...
in 1061. By the High Middle Ages there were sixteen shrines to Mary in Suffolk alone, the shrine to Our Lady of Grace at Ipswich receiving its first recorded mention in 1152.
The shrine became important during the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
. In 1297 the daughter of Edward I
Edward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
, Princess Elizabeth, married the Count of Holland in the shrine.
Between 1517 and 1522, Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
and Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...
paid separate visits to the shrine, as did Sir Thomas More and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who was born in Ipswich.
The shrine was suppressed during the English Reformation, and its famous statue was taken to Chelsea
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
to be burnt, along with the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham
Walsingham
Walsingham is a village in the English county of Norfolk. The village is famed for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary and as a major pilgrimage centre...
on 20 September 1538. There are no eyewitness accounts of the statue actually being burnt, although it is documented that the statue arrived at Chelsea. Regarding the image, Thomas Cromwell's steward wrote to him that he had received it, with 'nothing about her but two half shoes of silver'..
A wooden statue of the Madonna and Child displayed in the local church of the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
seaside town of Nettuno
Nettuno
Nettuno is a town and comune of the province of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy, 60 kilometers south of Rome. It is named in honour of the Roman god Neptune...
closely matches various descriptions of the Ipswich statue. There is also evidence in the Netunno archives that a statue arrived there from Ipswich in 1550.
It was classified as being in the English iconic style in 1938 by Martin Gillett, an historian of 13th century iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
. Although the statue had been altered (a throne had been replaced and the posture of the Christ child had changed), details such as the folds in the material and Christ's position on the right rather than the left knee suggest that the statue came from England.
The statue is known locally as "Our Lady of the Graces" or "The English Lady". During restoration work on the statue in 1959 an inscription was found on its back with the words IU? ARET GRATIOSUS, a rendition of the Marian phrase, "Thou art gracious". Ipswich was the only Marian shrine in England dedicated to Our Lady of Grace. Even more striking, when Martin Gillett first examined the statue in 1938, it was wearing two half shoes made of English silver, just like those described by Thomas Cromwell's steward 400 years before.
There are two theories as to how the statue may have reached Italy. One theory is that it was sold by an English official (perhaps Thomas Cromwell) instead of being burnt, although it is not clear why it would have got as far as southern Italy.
The second theory is that the statue was rescued by English sailors before it could be burnt, and smuggled on board a ship. In the Mediterranean they met a storm and took refuge in Nettuno and they donated the statue. Moreover,a scientific analysis of a sliver of wood from the base of the statue has been found to have a high salt content - proving that it had at some point been in contact with seawater or sea spray.
The shrine itself was destroyed, although it survived in legal deeds as a boundary description until the eighteenth century.
Early-16th-century miracle
A miracle at the shrine of Our Lady of Ipswich is recorded by none other than Sir Thomas More in his book The Supplication of Souls, and he had news of it on first-hand knowledge. The miracle was bestowed on Anne Wentworth, the 12 year old daughter of Sir Roger Wentworth, a friend of More's. Anne suffered from seizures in which she spasmed, blasphemed and was said to be able to utter prophesy "vexed and tourmented by our gostly enemye the devyll". After a vision in which she beheld the image of Our Lady of Grace at Ipswich, she was taken to the shrine and "layde before the ymage of our Blessyd Lady....grevously tourmented and in face, eyen, loke and countenance so grysely chaunged...that it was a terrible syght to beholde". There in the presence of the whole company, she was restored "perfytely and sodeynly". Perhaps More's later spirited defence of the Catholic Church was in small part due to this miracle so close at hand which obviously edified him greatly. Anne, in grateful recognition of the miracle, took the veil and became a nun.Modern devotions
In 1987, the Guild of Our Lady of Ipswich was founded by people from the CatholicCatholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
church of St Pancras
St Pancras, Ipswich
Saint Pancras is a Roman Catholic parish church in Ipswich, England covering the Ipswich town center.It was built by George Goldie and intended as the Catholic cathedral of Eastern England. It is a grade II listed building....
and the Anglican church of St Mary at the Elms. Their two aims have been: to pray for Christian unity and to plan and achieve the re-establishment of the shrine of Our Lady of Grace at Ipswich.
On 10 September 2002 a modern replica of the Italian statue, carved by Robert Mellamphy, was blessed and installed by the Anglican Bishop of Richborough
Bishop of Richborough
__noTOC__The Bishop of Richborough is a suffragan bishop and provincial episcopal visitor for the whole of the Province of Canterbury in the Church of England....
in the church of Saint Mary at the Elms
Saint Mary at the Elms
Saint Mary at the Elms is a Church of England church in Ipswich, England.It is a high Anglican Church and affiliated to Forward in Faith. It houses the statue of Our Lady of Ipswich. which is a copy of a statue in Nettuno that was originally in Ipswich...
. The ceremony was attended by the Anglican Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, the Roman Catholic Dean of Ipswich and representatives of the Orthodox and the Methodist churches.
See also
- Our Lady of WalsinghamOur Lady of WalsinghamOur Lady of Walsingham is a title used for Mary, the mother of Jesus. The title derives from the belief that Mary appeared in a vision to Richeldis de Faverches, a devout Saxon noblewoman, in 1061 in the village of Walsingham in Norfolk, England...
- Religion in the United KingdomReligion in the United KingdomReligion in the United Kingdom and the states that pre-dated the UK, was dominated by forms of Christianity for over 1,400 years. Although a majority of citizens still identify with Christianity in many surveys, regular church attendance has fallen dramatically since the middle of the 20th century,...
- Anglican Marian theologyAnglican Marian theologyAnglican Marian theology is the summation of the doctrines and beliefs of Anglicanism concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary. As Anglicans believe that Jesus was both human and God the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, within the Anglican Communion and Continuing Anglican churches, Mary is...
- Our Lady of WestminsterOur Lady of WestminsterOur Lady of Westminster is a late Medieval statue of the Madonna and child, now to be found at the entrance of the Lady Chapel in Westminster Cathedral, London, under the thirteenth Station of the Cross by Eric Gill. The image is made of English alabaster, is flat backed, 36 inches high and...
, Westminster CathedralWestminster CathedralWestminster Cathedral in London is the mother church of the Catholic community in England and Wales and the Metropolitan Church and Cathedral of the Archbishop of Westminster...
, London - Our Lady of DoncasterOur Lady of DoncasterOur Lady of Doncaster is a Marian shrine located in Doncaster, UK, whose original statue was destroyed during the Reformation.-The Carmelites & the Shrine:...
- Our Lady of CardiganOur Lady of CardiganOur Lady of Cardigan , also known as Our Lady of the Taper, the national Catholic shrine of Wales, is a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary located in a chapel in Cardigan, Ceredigion, Wales.-History:...
External links
- Shrine of Our Lady of Grace, Ipswich
- St Pancras, Ipswich - Roman Catholic
- St Mary's, Ipswich - Roman Catholic
- St Mary at the Elms, Ipswich - Church of England
- St Mary at the Elms Website
- "The Mother of God of Felixstowe," in Orthodox England vol. 5 no 2
- BBC Suffolk report on the shrine in St Mary Elms
- the shrine & links to a radio broadcast and pictures from the annual visit to Nettuno
- Magazine article about the shrines in Ipswich and Nettuno