The Auckland 'Cope'
The Auckland 'Cope', 15th century textile
Current Location: The Auckland Project
Altar frontal
The Auckland ‘cope’ is a rare survival of two medieval vestments associated with a known figure- John Morton (c.1420 - 1500) who was both Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. The ‘cope’ is now in the form of a flat textile, made up of oblongs and squares cut from sections of a cope and, probably, a chasuble. Amongst other more conventional flowers and fleur - de - lys, it has the very unusual motif of a lily crucifix which shows Christ hanging on a lily rather than a cross. This is placed in the centre of the oblong piece, below God the Father.
In its reconfigured state, the panel was probably used as an altar frontal, possibly in the hidden chapel at Sawston Hall, a recusant house owned by the Catholic Huddleston family in Cambridgeshire famous for its priest holes.
These physical changes in the presentation of the vestments seem to reflect different phases of the suppression and legalisation of the Roman Catholic faith in England. The cope is now at Auckland Castle collection.
Acknowledgements:
Our thanks go to the Auckland Castle Trust (now the Auckland Project) for acquiring the ‘cope’ and making it available for research. Particular thanks are due to Lauren Barnes, Claire Baron, Ann Chumbley, Andrew Ferrara, Anna Harnden and Sam Smith for their support. We thank the Society of Antiquaries, London, for the award of the Janet Arnold Grant and the Auckland Castle Trust for further funding. The technical expertise of Jeff Veitch (Durham University) in taking photographs of the cope (Durham University) and of Dr Sonia O’Connor (University of Bradford) and Dr Jane Colbourne and Jason Revel (University of Northumbria) for facilitating Xradiography is gratefully acknowledged.
We would like to thank colleagues who attended the ‘cope’ workshop in 2017 for their thoughtful reflections and stimulating ideas.
Photography: Jeff Veit
Image and information copyright: The Auckland Project
ch, Department of Archaeology, Durham University
