Westminster Abbey’s monastic foundations are still recognizable as one walks through the current tourist-icon. In Westminster’s earliest foundation the space between the church and the chapter house was called the slype, a bare room that was used as a passageway. The chapel was certainly one of the oldest sections of the Abbey.
During the ever-practical English Reformation, the room became a special sacristy for the Abbott called the Revestry. On the east side of the Revestry the Abbot built a small personal chapel he sanctified as St. Blaise Chapel. He was not aware that monks, hundreds of years before, had used the nook as a private space of prayer. Their altar was long gone but the Abbott built another small stone altar against the eastern wall. He had no idea that hidden paintings rested under centuries of dust and dirt directly behind his altar.
But the chapel fell out of fashion in the early 19th century and was relegated to a storage closet filled with such items as a broken oak pulpit and iron work from graves. In 1849, Westminster’s surveyor, Sir Gilbert Scott saw potential in the closet when he noticed the buried vestige of old St, Blaise under a pile of wooden beams. He had the space cleared out, designed the heavy oak door in Poet’s Corner that led into the room, put in a tile floor and moved and expanded the small St. Blaise altar to the eastern wall, which contained some ancient religious paintings. In 1895, St. Faith’s had her first communion while the chapel of St. Blaise faded from memory.
Other works of religious art were restored for St. Faith’s Chapel soon after its sanctification. The sculptured heads that look down on the worshippers are mid 13th century creations initially placed in the passage for simple aesthetics, maybe to amuse those using the passageway. On the eastern wall, where the current altar is placed, there is the painting of a penitent Benedictine monk from Henry III’s time. Art historians believe it is a self-portrait by a man Henry III referred to as “my beloved painter”. It is a work on an empty space by a curious artist. An inscription is written by the lips of the monk:
Me quem culpa permit, erige, Virgo suavis
Fac mihi placatum Christum, delasque reatum
(From the burden of my sore transgressions, sweet Virgin deliver
me; make my peace with Christ and blot out my iniquity)
But the most arresting piece of art is directly behind the altar under the plain pointed arch. The painting was here 550 years before the chapel and quite possibly painted by William the monk-painter. The painting was lost under dust and dirt until her discovery in the mid-1800s**. A life-size oil painting of the chapel’s namesake, St. Faith, stands on a deep red pedestal formed by two pillars. A canopy of light blue edged with sun yellow surrounds her. St. Faith wears a scarlet mantle thrown over an emerald robe. Her long hair flows in ringlets and she is wearing a tiara. Her right hand clutches the word of God, which she holds like a shield over her heart. Her left hand hangs to her side grasping a small gridiron, an ancient torture device used to cook Christian martyrs.
This leads me to my next mystery. Who was this woman that this chapel honors with its name?
(Continued in The Story of St. Faith)
*I researched the history of St. Faith’s Chapel for months but with little luck. I eventually came across The Poetry of Westminster Abbey by Charles W. Spurgeon (© 2008 Xlibris Corporation), which contained, in its entirety, an earlier booklet published by David Marsh (a verger at Westminster) in 1976 named The Story of St. Faith and St. Faith’s Chapel at Westminster. This is the most complete and possibly the only history of St. Faith’s Chapel that has been written.
**On October 23, 1731 one of Britain’s finest libraries caught fire. A quarter of this great collection of books were burned or damaged. A remarkable restoration program was put in place. Abbot Ware’s thirteenth century work Customs of the Abbey narrowly escaped destruction. As the book was being carefully restored they discovered a passage about the figure of St. Faith painted over the altar on the eastern wall. At the time, all records of the ancient altar and paintings were lost. In the years following the wall was cleaned and the paintings carefully restored. St. Faith was released from the dust-cloak and her chapel properly restored.
I love the sense of connection to history, to humanity and Christianity through the ages. Thank you for stirring us to remember those who have laid foundations for our faith and paid dearly for what we walk in so blithely. Our country has little sense of the ‘ages’, we are so young. The architecture and art from so long ago gives a worthy pause in the midst of our frenetic existence.
Comments on this entry are closed.