Robert Campin, the Flemish master painter, died today in 1444. Legendary in his own lifetime for his detailed realism, Campin painted a succession of triptychs and altarpieces that are sophisticated theologically as well as artistically. They include his annunciation scene (above) in the Merode Altarpiece, where the Angel Gabriel meets the Virgin Mary in the dining room of a Flemish town house.
It is the feast of St Stephen of Perm, a 14th century icon painter and missionary to the Zyriane people in northern Russia. He carried with him an icon of the Trinity, labelled with the names of the Father, Son and Spirit, so he could teach the Christian faith to the Zyrianes. He also learned their language and invented an alphabet which they used for the following three centuries.
I ask: How shall I eulogize you?
Shall I call you…
the saviour of the heathens,
the curser of demons,
the breaker of idols,
the destroyer of graven images,
the servant of God,
the upholder of wisdom,
the lover of philosophy,
the protector of chastity,
the defender of the truth,
the writer of books,
the creator of Permian letters?
Epiphanius the Wise, ‘Panegyric to Saint Stephen of Perm’
Today is St Basileus’s day, a fourth-century Bishop of Amasea, in what is now northern Turkey. He was beheaded for his attack on the pagan gods, and his head was thrown off one side of a ship and his body off the other. When the corpse was recovered by fishermen, the two had of course been miraculously reunited.
Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, died today in 1366. His two predecessors died within months of each other of the Black Death. Simon avoided that fate, although during the last three years of his time as Archbishop, he was unable to speak because of a stroke. Before that, he solved a pointless, long running dispute over whether the Archbishop of York was allowed to swan about with his processional cross whenever he visited the province of Canterbury.
Image: The Met