Three Medieval English Embroidered Chasubles

If you enjoy late medieval and/or early Renaissance English vestment work, then you're in luck. Today we're going to share with you three distinctive chasubles taken from the period. Each of this three vestments were made sometime in the 1400's to early 1500's. Each of them also contained the much coveted English embroidery of the period -- and all of them are found within the collections of the excellent Victoria and Albert Museum. 

 Interestingly, all of these chasuble have precisely the same 'cut' or shape, which leads me to believe they've at some point come from a singular source, as standardization of shapes was not typical in this era, so it is unlikely a coincidence. 

At any rate, the first chasuble comes in a lovely (now faded) shade of bluish satin that has been covered with embroideries of six-winged seraphim -- one of the popular design motifs found within English vestment work of this particular period.  Fleur-de-lys are also found peppered over the body of the chasuble as well as flowers (which may depict a lily). All of this has been paired with a reddish-gold orphrey with a depiction of Christ the King and other embroidered designs found within it. 

As a reminder, liturgical colours were far less regulated and precise in these times, so whether this was really meant to be 'blue'  or whether it was actually meant to function as a colour like purple or even black is a question mark. In its heyday, this particular chasuble would likely have appeared more like a darker, bluish-purple colour with a red/rose coloured orphrey -- a popular colour combination from this particular time. 

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Just by way of comment on the first chasuble, it is interesting to see just how much of the front is trimmed away by comparison with the back. The shape of this particular chasuble is already trimmed back from the conical shapes of the first millennium, but within this we can start to see how the chasuble was gradually made more ceremonially practical, ultimately leading to the so-called 'Roman' shape. 

Our second chasuble is given a more precise dating of circa 1500-1525. It is a chasuble of velvet, and while the colour is more orangey, it may have been more reddish in hue at one time -- that said, there are vestment inventories from the period can be found to document vestments of orange, so one never knows for certain where this period is concerned.   

The velvet is very rich and beautiful of course, but it is the embroideries on this particular chasuble that are the real start of the show.  Once again we see angelic figures covering the entire body of the chasuble, along with floral designs. The orphrey in this case is quite ornate, being comprised of scenes of various saints set into architectural niches.  The fact that this design is cut off at the bottom on both the front and the back suggests that either this chasuble was once more ample and has since been trimmed back to a more manageable shape (and possibly due to wear). 

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Our last chasuble for your consideration might appear to be black, but it is actually a very dark blue velvet -- but here, again, it may well have been intended to be used liturgically as either black or even violet.  Here again we see embroideries of flowers and six-winged seraphim over the body of the chasuble, as well as a double-headed eagle.  Like the previous chasuble, it has a fully embroidered orphrey, this time containing a scene of the crucifixion and, once again, images of saints set into architectural niches (two of which have, regrettably, at some point been cut out to be repurposed to some other use). 

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Medieval vestment work is often thought of as being very simple and plain and that may well have been true in the case of smaller, more rural and less affluent parish church settings, but the medieval perogative was for ornament, ornament and more ornament.  The medievals loved their images and they loved their symbols.  As noted, they had a particular fascination with six-winged seraphim, with floral symbolism, and of course with the saints.  

Each of these popular themes turn up here, giving us a sense of what higher end vestment design was like in pre-Reformation England.

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