2 The Reformation Period

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seventeenth century and rediscovered in the early nineteenth century, when it was transferred to Stonyhurst. The original cloth of gold background had deteriorated beyond repair and in 1827 was replaced by the present silk cloth of gold.

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1.7 THE LEAGRAM CHASUBLE

1290 x 600mm

Circa 1450

This blue and gold silk damask velvet chasuble is named after Leagram Hall, a medieval house near Chipping, in the Forest of Bowland in north Lancashire, largely rebuilt in the eighteenth century. There was a Catholic chapel at Leagram from its earliest days, and it is probable that the Hoghton family who lived there in the fifteenth century bought this vestment for use in their domestic chapel. The main branch of the family lived at nearby Hoghton Tower, which in Elizabethan times sheltered Edmund Campion and is reputed to have links with the young WilliamShakespeare.

The Hoghtons were a wealthy family, well able to afford the very expensive Genoese silk velvet fabric for this vestment. The embroi dered orphreys are of the type known as opus anglicanum, or English work, which was famous and much sought after throughout Europe. The embroideries are particularly fine, with much gold thread work, and among the usual figures of saints and prophets is a charming scene of St Anne teaching the young Virgin Mary to read. The shape of the vestment would suggest that it has not been altered much, if at all, since it was first made.

Leagram Hall chapel continued to serve the Catholics of the parish of Chipping quietly throughout the Reformation and until 1828 when changes to the law forbidding Catholic worship in England allowed the building of a public parish church. The chasuble was kept at Leagram until 1953 when the Weld family, who had inherited the house in the eighteenth century from the Shireburns of Stonyhurst, passed it to Father Martin D’Arcy SJ (1888-1976), and he in turnpresented it to Stonyhurst College.

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31 1.7