Selby Abbey

[imported_SimonMember]

I went on another of my occasional forays into the Yorkshire countryside today and visited Selby Abbey and Temple Hirst. Selby Abbey, in particular, was quite amazing and seemed to span a number of topics that will be familiar to questers. I’ll reproduce my photos of the day with some covering explanations so this will be quite a long post but hopefully it will spawn some separate conversation threads.

1. It’s “Talk like a pirate day” on Tuesday so I was immediately struck by the skull and crossbones carving on one of the memorial boards inside the abbey (dated 1620?). Although this motif has been atrributed to the templars (and, as we’ll see later, there’s plenty of templar links to the abbey) it made me wonder if this was just a common motif that was associated with funerary symbolism which was hijacked by the pirates and used to scare people with the thought that “it will be your funeral soon” when they saw the skull and crossbones flag flying towards them.

2. In the side chapel there is a very good example of a green man on the ceiling and I was quite chuffed with the quality of the picture I took (despite the fact that it’s easily available on the web anyway!). Here’s a lower res version which is necessarily smaller but you’ll get the idea.

This wasn’t the only one, though. I spotted another on the ceiling of the main nave above the altar. Because it was so far away my flash was never going to make much difference but I’ve blown it up and zero’ed in on the face and you get a reasonable idea, I think, of what it’s like.

3. The Swan Connection. In 1069 a monk called Benedict of Auxerre voyaged from France with the dried finger of St. Germain and landed at a bleak marsh beside the Ouse. There he saw three swans alight on the water which reminded him of a vision he had seen before he left France. He decided that this should be the site for his new Abbey (Selby) and the symbol of the three swans eventually became the Abbey’s crest.

By the way there is still a Swan Inn in Selby (not to mention my local, the Swan and Cygnet, though this latter is almost certainly of more recent provenance).

4. Sir Hugh de Pickworth, Knight. The lid on the tomb of Hugh de Pickworth is still very well preserved as you can see. The idea that any effigy with crossed legs depicted a templar knight appears to be untrue however (I feel like a real debunker today!) as the knight’s good lady lies in a tomb across the nave from him. Also he is recorded as having a house in High Street Hull. Both would suggest that he wasn’t living the monastic life.

5. John Lord Darcy and Temple Hirst.

Selby Abbey has another tomb – that of John Lord Darcy who was a member of the Darcy family that owned nearby Temple Hirst. Temple Hirst had been a templar preceptory but after the suppression of the templars it had been given to John, Lord Darcy (whose tomb, I believe is the one in the abbey). Here is an account of another Templar Preceptory (very close by) which gives some further, suggestive, background to the Darcys and those who followed. Is it just me or do I detect a certain pro-monastery, pro-Catholic theme running through this (similar to that in The Green Stone).

“TEMPLE-NEWSAM, in the parish of Whitkirk, lower-division of Skyrack; 4.5 miles from Leeds, 8 from Wakefield, 9 from Pontefract. –Pop. 1,166.

Here formerly stood a Preceptory for Knights Templars, whence it derives its name of Temple-Newsam, being called in Domesday only Neshusum.
After the suppression of the Knights Templars, it was granted by Edward III. together with Temple-Hirst, to Sir John Darcy, and his heirs male; in whose descendants it remained until the time of Thomas, Lord Darcy, on whose attainder, for the active part which he took in the Pilgrimage of Grace [more info here: [url:7und8shq]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrimage_of_Grace[/url]], became forfeited to the Crown. Henry VIII. granted it to Matthew, Earl of Lenox, who resided here at the birth of his celebrated, but unhappy son, Henry, Lord Darnley, husband of Mary Queen of Scots, and father of James I. On the death of the Duke of Lenox, it came into to the possession of James I.”

Another tantalising glimpse comes from the contents page of a book called “The History of Haddlesey” by Rev. J.N. Worsfold (1894) (link here: [url:7und8shq]http://blunham.com/CDroms/Descriptions/haddlesey.html[/url] which mentions that after the Darcys had been given Temple Hirst the Hospitallers tried to (re-?)claim it for themselves.

Here’s the tomb (mutilation described as “recent” by the reverend in 1894)

and here’s the remaining Temple Hirst Precptory tower (the rest of the building is modern).

Whew! Hope there’s something in there for everyone.

Cheers,

Simon

[imported_YURIMember]

Nice pics Simon,

Regarding knight effigies with crossed legs (I dont know if there is any rigid dogma to this) but I’ve been under the belief that the crossed legs didn’t specifically mean a Templar, but that the crossing of the legs meant that this knight had been on Crusade, ‘taken the Cross’ to the Holy Lands

…but I’m not sure how factual that is either, just a notion I’d been lead to have in my head.

[imported_HernesSonMember]

Someone with crossed legs usually denotes the need for a toilet!
Sorry, yes, Yuri you are correct. It meant they had been in the crusades. There are variations too. A knight with crossed legs on the back of a lion meant that they had died specifically in the service of the king. I’ve also seen effigies resting on dogs, boars … not quite sure of their meaning however. I think the position of the arms also has significance.

Dan

[imported_YURIMember]

I was speaking to a friend today who said he’d heard that if the right leg crosses over the left it means the knight had been on 1 crusade and if the left crossed over the right, it means he’d been on 2 crusades…

… again, my friend said that he didn’t know if there was any factual evidence for this, just a theory he’d heard.

It reminds me of the Hanged Man tarot card, he usually has a leg crossed over they other, too.

Also I think the floor effigies at the Temple in London, all have crossed legs, so that is probably why some people think it a Templar thing, but I don’t think its specifically Templar in origin.

[imported_SimonMember]

I was in York Minster at the weekend and many of the effigies of the archbishops had their feet resting on either lions or dogs. I wonder if these are meant to suggest simple traits (brave, loyal) or whether there was a more precise meaning…like heralrdy symbols?

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