Holy Week and the Weapons of Christ

Paradoxically, while the natural world signals the return of light, we burn the processional palm leaves to mark our entrance into the depths of Lent.

To signal this change, we introduce the heavy coverings of Lenten Array in our bright churches, and we wear the dark red vestments of Holy Week on top of our white albs. In short, we cast shadows on our light. 

From the Watts archive: a service at St Magdalene's Church, Toronto, featuring a passiontide set crafted by Watts.

 

As a result, to mark the transition from Ordinary Time to this season of penance, reflection, and fasting, we are looking back at one of our favourite archival pieces that captures the mood of this immersive season.

The ancient liturgies and rhythmic rituals of Holy Week are some of the most rich in the Christian liturgical calendar. For many, it is the ultimate reminder of what it means to be Christian. 

We are transported through the quick succession of heralded procession, anointed hands, broken and shared bread, the echo of silenced bells, and the crescendo of Christ’s death until we keep our hopeful vigil to finally be met by the jubilation of the Exultet, marking the moment humanity is reborn with his resurrection. Encouraged to experience Christ’s presence through simultaneous senses, we feel, hear, taste and see Christ with unparalleled proximity. Holy Week invites us to share a message that transcends geographical borders and has been transmitted and celebrated for over a thousand years. Our vestments are pivotal to evoking this long-shared emotional response.  

This sombre celebration is neatly envisioned with clarity in our Cathedral cope in Sarum Red ‘Bellini’ with Black Velvet Orphreys. As part of a Palm Sunday set, the cope looks to punctuate the emotional ebbs and flows of the liturgy, utilising a rich crimson-red damask that is equally shocking and confrontational. 

Cathedral Cope in Sarum Red 'Bellini' for Palm Sunday. From the Watts Archive.

 

The use of red for vestments is still a very young convention. Traditionally, the vestments of the Roman rite for Palm Sunday utilised indigo to reflect Holy Week’s inclusion within the penitential season of Lent. The change of colour from indigo to red coincided with the significant sets of liturgical changes that took place in the twentieth century, beginning in 1955 and concluding in 1969.

Whilst there are denominational and regional variations to this, typically, red is used during Holy Week on any day related to the Passion of Christ to symbolise the colour of love, fire, passion, and the blood of sacrifice. It is in this tradition that our cope and set follow. Here, the depth of the Sarum Red ‘Bellini’ creates a richness to the reading of the vestment as a simulacrum for the blood of Christ and pre-empting his sacrificial wounds. 

But this set is almost unique in that it does not isolate the historic tradition of indigo. In fact, in addition to the red of the silk damask, indigo velvet is incorporated into the orphreys and the hood  of the cope, placing both traditions side-by-side the gravitas of the emotional tone is duly emphasised. Whereby, the almost-black of the indigo marks the mourning that pre-empts the sombre grief of the sacrifice and suffering that will be endured on Good Friday. 

On the cope hood, the material scheme of black and red is then surmounted by an embroidered crucifix, framed by the palm leaves that signify Christ’s last week of mortal ministry. In particular, in Ancient Greece, palm branches symbolised goodness, well-being, and victory. Ancient Greek victors of funerary and celebratory games would mark their triumph with the processional waving of palm leaves. As the antecedent of this tradition, in Leviticus 23:40, Nehemiah 8:15, the palm leaf became a Christian topos of joy and triumph. 

As such, embroidered in silver, the iconography lifts the emotional effect of the cope. Instead of solely lamenting Christ’s suffering, one is reminded of the anticipation of Christ’s victory, first as he rode into Jerusalem (John 12: 12-15; Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; and Luke 19:28-44.) and culminating in his resurrection and ultimate triumph over mortal death.

The dichotomy of the lamentation of Christ’s death and the victory of his sacrifice takes on a chivalric tone in the Anglo-Saxon Poem known as 'The Descent into Hell':

Before dawn those noble women began

to prepare themselves for the journey. The company of men knew

that the prince's body was enclosed in an earthen tomb.

The sorrowful women wanted for a while

to mourn with weeping the prince's death,

to grieve with lamentation. The place of rest had grown cold,

bitter was the journey of death; but brave was the man

whom they would meet rejoicing at the tomb

…

But something very different

would those women know, when they returned on their way.

Before dawn there came a throng of angels,

the joy of the host surrounded the Saviour's tomb.

Open was the earthen vault. The prince's body

received the breath of life, the ground shook,

hell-dwellers laughed; the young warrior awoke,

dauntless from the dust, majesty arose,

victorious and wise.  

The man John

spoke to the inhabitants of hell, rejoicing explained

boldly to the crowd about his kinsman's coming

…

Then the Lord of mankind hastened to his journey.

The shield of the heavens wanted to destroy and demolish

the walls of hell, to carry off the people of the city,

most righteous of all kings.

In that battle he gave no thought for helmeted warriors

nor would he bring mail-clad soldiers 

to the gates of that fortress; but the locks fell apart,

the barriers from the city, and the king rode in.

…

Then John saw the victorious Son of God

coming with royal majesty to hell,

the mourning man perceived the journey of God himself.

He saw the doors of hell brightly shining 

which had been locked long ago,

shrouded in darkness. The thegn was full of joy.

 

Here, as Christ journeys from life to death and rebirth, the Passion takes on a victorious tone that is echoed in the sliver embroidered palm leaves of our cope. 

The poem is rich with chivalric language that removes Christ from the arid landscape of first-century Jerusalem to the arboreal battlefields of Western Europe. With verbs like destroy and demolish, matched with rich imagery like the ‘Shield of the heavens,’ you are invited to hear Christ at the centre of a clamorous crash between life and death. 

Christ as ‘the young warrior’ is also seen in the silver embroidered Arma Christi on our set. Popular, especially in the Late Middle Ages, the Arma Christi are a group of about 20 items that would typically be placed in a composition held by angels around the crucifix or a Man of Sorrows Christ. 

As can be seen on folio 13r of this Fifteenth Century Psalter from Trinity College, Cambridge, the Arma Christi are laid out in a plain and self-explanatory fashion. Nothing is left for misinterpretation, so that the message of Christ’s sacrifice remains clear and succinct. 

Manuscript O.3.10, C15th, Trinity College, Cambridge.

 

This is further emphasised by the gaping and bloodied disembodied side wound on the corresponding leaf. As the final wound Christ sustains, the wound was created in Christ’s side after his death on the cross, signifying the official end to his mortal ministry. Isolated from the Arma Christi, the reader is encouraged to contemplate the torn flesh in the contrast of porous and pale skin to the bright orange-red tones of the moist wound, deepening in colour to convey the depth of the lesion. Read in conjunction with the Arma Christi, the graphic symbols engage their viewer in an intense emotional contemplation of Christ’s sacrifice.

It is this same emotional response that our Palm Sunday set inherits. In our chasubles, the following symbols are included:

• The hammer used to drive the nails into Christ's hands and feet.
• The pincers used to remove the nails.
• The ladder used for the Deposition.
• The Holy Lance, which the Roman soldier used to inflict the side wound.
• The Crown of Thorns.
• The reed placed in Christ's hand as a sceptre in mockery.
• The Seamless robe of Jesus; the chiton said to have been worn during or shortly before Christ’s crucifixion.
• The dice used by the soldiers to cast lots to determine who would keep the chiton, rather than divide it because it was woven in one piece.
• The Titulus Crucis, attached to the Cross, inscribed with INRI, Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum.
• The rooster that crowed after Peter's third denial of Jesus.
• The pillar or column of the Flagellation of Christ.

High Mass set in Watts' Sarum Red 'Bellini' silk damask, featuring hand-embroideries of the Arma Christi.

 

Ultimately, despite the fact these items are used to inflict pain, embarrassment and mortal wounds on Christ, as the possessive pronoun of the latin dictates, these so-called “weapons of Christ” are arms in which, Christ as warrior, achieves his conquest over mortal sin. 

This triumphal duality is the prevailing theme present in the Anglo-Saxon poem. Ultimately, what the Arma Christi and poem bring to life are these deeply chivalric sentiments burgeoning in Early Medieval sensibilities, which in turn, are perfectly encapsulated in our cope and set.

Whilst not it might not be immediately obvious, there is a strong medieval voice to the detailing of our cope and set, that helps to reinforce this chivalric topos. 

For example, our Bellini fabric, designed by Augustus Pugin, is believed to have been influenced by the Fifteenth Century fabric design in Rogier van der Weyden’s Medici Madonna. A product of van Der Weyden’s pilgrimage to Rome in 1450, the painting was a devotional picture commissioned for the Medici. The fabric was then re-drawn by Augustus Pugin with a more pointed stylised design and re-imagined in pure silk, offering a Gothic and Anglicised dialect to the floral sensibility of late medieval Italy.

  Medici Madonna by Rogier van der Weyden

 

The accents of medieval England can also be seen in the quatrefoil design that boldly outlines the weapons. Whilst no influence is directly cited, it can surely be no coincidence that, with the Watts & Co’s headquarters just around the corner, there is a striking similarity between the outlines and the diaper design that heavily adorns the nave of Westminster Abbey. 

Much more than just a beautiful design, the quatrefoil's floral unfurling is representative of the living and breathing church. In that, the church building, filled with the breath of life of singing Christians, comes to life with the shared voices of acclamation. Thus, when we sing the Exultet during the Easter Vigil, for the redemption we owe to the wounds Christ sustained on our behalf, we in turn sustain the life of the church. As such, Christ’s victory, as marked by the poem and weapons, is also present in the essence of the quatrefoil  design. 

Consequently, our cope and set present a palimpsest of iconography and meaning that layer in quick succession like the ebb and flow of Holy Week. Contributing a richness of design, these vestments have been carefully considered to meet the intensity and depth of liturgy that is fairly demanded of us to fully appreciate the multi-faceted nature of Christ’s sacrifice.