Textiles have always played an important role in the life of our churches and cathedrals but tend not to get the attention afforded to ecclesiastical art, architecture or stained glass.
In historical times when few people could read words, the use of colours and symbolism, a language understood by most people, was used instead to emphasise the deeper meaning behind the church seasons. Over the centuries, we have largely lost the gift to interpret these hidden meanings yet each piece tells a story if we only knew how to read it.
The Broderers’ Guild has produced a Broderers’ Trail to the Cathedral and recently staged a major exhibition entitled "Symbolism and Mythology in Ecclesiastical Textiles” bringing together important ecclesiastical textiles from across the county as well as from the Cathedral’s own collection.
Some of the key areas explored by the exhibition were
- Liturgical colours used
- Commonly used symbols
The significance of different colours
The church has a pattern of festivals throughout the year and the colours used in textiles such as altar frontals and clergy vestments at these times generally reflect this.
Green is the ‘ordinary’ colour used for most of the year, from Epiphany until Lent, and from Pentecost until Advent.
White/Gold is used for special occasions at Christmas, Easter and Ascension as well as feast days for example St. Benedict.
Purple is used during Advent (and can be used in Lent).
Red is used on Good Friday, at Pentecost, Kingship Sundays in November, and for the feast days of martyred saints.
Unbleached Linen is used during Lent. This is a very sombre time; no flowers are allowed in the Cathedral, altar screens are closed where possible and altars are stripped of their frontals on Good Friday.
Commonly used symbols
In addition to the different colours for seasons, symbols are also used to emphasise the messages being put across.
For example:
- Lent textiles feature symbols of the Passion such as a crown of thorns, sponge, spear, vinegar, nails, five wounds or a ladder.
- Pentecostal textiles feature flames or tongues of fire representing the Holy Spirit.
- The vine is a common symbol of Christ and the Christian faith and grapes symbolic of the Eucharistic wine, and hence the Blood of Christ.
- Roses and lilies are symbolic of the Virgin Mary. The Bauchon Chapel altar frontal designed by Helen Jenkins and made by the Broderers’ Guild in 2005 has a design of fifteen red roses, in various states of bloom, representing the fifteen ‘Mysteries of the Rosary’ which are sets of Marian sequential prayers. The chapel, also known as the ‘Friends’ Chapel’ is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The colours of the frontal reflect those of John Opie’s painting of ‘The Presentation of Christ in the Temple’ which hangs behind the altar.