19th September
Late Summer Garlanding
Sculpture of the Virgin Mary by Daniel Seghers (1645). Source: Web Gallery Art website
A curious pre- Reformation survival takes place today at Charlton-on-Otmoor in Oxfordshire. Before the rule of King Edward VI and his Calvinist government, the local church had statues of the Virgin Mary and St John, both of which were ceremonially garlanded in late summer prior to a parade, which was viewed as irredeemably pagan by the sixteenth century Reformers and the statues were removed. The enthusiastic Protestants probably had a point: the garlanding of representations of Mary was a direct descendant of similar flower dressing of images the Roman goddess Flora. Crosses of evergreen were erected in the statues’ place, but Mary’s replacement continued to be garlanded on May Day and on 19th September. The cross was even taken to the nearby Benedictine monastery for a blessing, as the statue had been, until the monastery was closed down too. The cross is regarlanded today and returned to the church in time for its Thanksgiving Service. This echo of England’s Roman Catholic and pagan past is a vestige of a custom still common in Catholic countries - the parading of effigies of the saints on holy days.
