Our Lady of Ipswich

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Our Lady of Ipswich (also known as Our Lady of Grace) was a popular English Marian shrine before the Reformation. Only the shrine at Walsingham attracted more visitors.

1 Location
2 History
3 Modern Day Devotions
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Location

The shrine was just outside the walls of Ipswich, Suffolk, England. The site of the original shrine was Lady Lane just outside the west gate of the medieval town wall of Ipswich. Today this is marked by a plaque. A modern shrine is now in the Anglo-Catholic parish church of Saint Mary Elms, a short distance away.

[edit] History

Anglo-Saxon England sheltered many shrines to the Virgin Mary: shrines were dedicated to her at Glastonbury in 540, Evesham in 702, Tewkesbury in 715, Canterbury in 866, Willesden in 939, Abingdon before 955, Ely in 1020, Coventry in 1043, York in 1050, and Walsingham in 1061. By the High Middle Ages there were sixteen shrines to Mary in Suffolk alone, the shrine to Our Lady of Grace at Ipswich receiving its first recorded mention in 1152.

The shrine became important during the High Middle Ages. In 1297 the daughter of Edward I, Princess Elizabeth, married the Count of Holland in the shrine.

Between 1517 and 1522, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon paid separate visits to the shrine, as did Sir Thomas More and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who, incidentally, was born in Ipswich.

The shrine was suppressed during the English Reformation, and its famous statue was taken to Chelsea to be burnt, along with the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham on 20 September 1538. There are no eyewitness accounts of the statue actually being burnt, although it is documented that the statue arrived at Chelsea.

A wooden statue of the Madonna and Child displayed in the local church of the Italian seaside town of Nettuno closely matches various descriptions of the Ipswich statue. There is also evidence in the Netunno archives that a statue arrived there from Ipswich.

It was classified as being in the English iconic style in 1938 by Martin Gillett, an historian of 13th century iconography. Although the statue had been altered (a throne had been replaced and the posture of the Christ child had changed), details such as the folds in the material and Christ's position on the right rather than the left knee suggest that the statue came from England.

The statue is known locally as "Our Lady of the Graces" or "The English Lady". During restoration work on the statue an inscription was found on its back with the words IU? ARET GRATIOSUS, a rendition of the Marian phrase, "Thou art gracious". Ipswich was the only Marian shrine in England dedicated to Our Lady of Grace.

There are two theories as to how the statue may have reached Italy. One theory is that it was sold by an English official (perhaps Thomas Cromwell) instead of being burnt, although it is not clear why it would have got as far as southern Italy.

The second theory is that the statue was rescued by English sailors before it could be burnt, and smuggled on board a ship. In the Mediterranean they met a storm and took refuge in Nettuno and they donated the statue.

The shrine itself was destroyed, although it survived in legal deeds as a boundary description until the eighteenth century.

[edit] Modern Day Devotions

In 1987, the Guild of Our Lady of Ipswich was founded by people from the Catholic church of St Pancras and the Anglican church of St Mary at the Elms. Their two aims have been: to pray for Christian unity and to plan and achieve the re-establishment of the shrine of Our Lady of Grace at Ipswich.

On 10 September 2002 a modern replica of the Italian statue, carved by Robert Mellamphy, was blessed and installed by the Anglican Bishop of Richborough in the church of Saint Mary at the Elms. The ceremony was attended by the Anglican Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, the Roman Catholic Dean of Ipswich and representatives of the Orthodox and the Methodist churches.