The Fetternear Chasuble

The Fetternear Chasuble

Current location: Blairs Museum : The Museum of Scotland’s Catholic Heritage

Museum No. T8002: White satin chasuble, two stoles and two maniples with silk flowers (dalmatics described in another post)

Description: Ground of white satin covered in embroidered silk flowers, worked in polychrome silks and interspersed with padded gold-work. The orphreys are silk embroidered vine leaves and clusters of grapes embroidered over a back-ground of laid-couched silver thread. The back orphrey has the sacred monogram I.H.S with a cross surmounting the H – matching the badge of the Society of Jesus. The letters are padded giving a raised effect. The silver-work on the orphreys have been likened to South-German work and Davidson and King argue that they were constructed in Vienna. There are slight differences between the orphreys on the chasuble and on the dalmatics. The flowers are European work and consist of roses, lilies, tulips and cornflowers. Gold work on the chasuble has affinity with Turkish tel kakma work and can be linked to the Turkish armoury via provenance. The stoles and maniples are on the same white satin ground as the chasuble and have flowers as their sole decoration.

Provenance: The chasuble is associated with the Leslie family, who owned Fetternear House, Kenmay (Aberdeenshire). Count James Leslie (1621-94) of the Holy Roman Empire sent the vestments home to Scotland after the siege of Vienna in 1683, and a Leslie family inventory of 1690 mentions vestments made from captured Turkish armoury. Walter Leslie (1606-67) converted or re-converted the family to Catholicism in the 1630s, and the Leslies became prominent Scottish Catholic nobility, fostering the survival of the ‘old faith’ on their estates. Little of what James Leslie sent home to Scotland has survived after two Jacobite risings and a fire which destroyed Fetternear House in the 1920s.

Fortunately, the vestments were bequeathed to the Diocese of Aberdeen in 1921 by the Leslie family and thus avoided destruction.

Material: Satin ground and silk embroidery

Dimensions: 119cm x 75cm

Maker / Artist / Origin: Turkish goldwork, European

Date: 17^th Century

Sources: Davidson, P., & King, P. (2016). The Fetternear vestments at the Blairs Museum. British Catholic History, 33(2), 259-277. doi:10.1017/bch.2016.27