Long Remembered.

 

 Interior of Jerusalemkerk with the monumental tomb in the
foreground.

 As mentioned in my previous blog, the news that the monumental memorial tomb of Anselmus Adornes and his wife, Margriet van der Banck, in Jerusalemkerk is currently under much-needed renovation in Antwerp, brought me to consider the astonishing length of time which the name of Anselm Adornes has remained in the public eye. Born in Brugge in 1424, Anselm was the fifth generation of a Bruges-based noble family originally from Genoa; he regularly fulfilled all kinds of functions in Bruges City council, and on behalf of the central authority of the Duke of Burgundy. The Adornes family was pious and had an enduring connection to, and reverence for, Jerusalem. Pieter 11 and his brother, Jacob Adornes, began the building of Jerusalemkerk in 1428, inspired by the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and, though unfinished, it was consecrated in 1429. The architecture and layout provide an exceptional illustration of the great reverence of the Adornes family for Jerusalem while the

Stained glass window in Jeerusalemkerk showing
Anselm Adornes and his wife, Margriet van der Banck.

beautiful stained glass, the monumental grave itself and its relic of the Holy Cross, are unique. Anselm, often credited erroneously with having built the church, merely completed the work started by his father, Pieter, and uncle, Jacob.

Anselm lived a public and adventurous life. He became a merchant, patron, politician and diplomat. and, in concert with the family tradition of public duty, filled many prestigious functions on the City Council between 1447/8 and 50/51. He became Comptroller in 1459-1460 and Mayor of the Council 1475-6, surviving accusations of theft from the City Treasury, with several other notables, during the infamous Brugge riots. Alone in retaining his possessions, a pointer, perhaps, to lesser guilt [the other two accused lost everything and were forced to retire to a monastery for life], in May 1477, he nonetheless had to parade publicly, barefoot and bareheaded, confessing his guilt and asking for forgiveness. Adornes had to repay four times the amount he had allegedly stolen, and was disbarred from future public office. All of this turmoil occurred during a period of civil unrest and riots in Brugge and when eventually peace was restored, lords like Adornes were honoured again though he never held public office in Brugge afterwards.

Urban jousts in the Middle Ages..

From 1444-1449 he took part in the jousts organised by the knightly company of the White Bear. His
public life, more or less coincided with his marriage to Margriet van der Banck in 1443 and the couple went on to have 16 children. The family lived in a large complex on Vervesdijk in the midst of the important Scottish merchant community until a sudden decision by the Scottish Parliament to forbid trade with Flanders caused the Scots to leave Brugge altogether in 1468. Adornes headed delegations to Scotland to try to restore the previous mutually-beneficial Scots-Bruges trade and it was during this period that he established a positive relationship with James 111, leading to a restoration of the Scots’ merchant presence in Bruges with the attendant trade, in 1470.. His status was elevated by this success particularly when King James made him a Knight of the Order of the Unicorn in Scotland in 1468. On 14 June 1470, Adornes was appointed Curator of Scottish Privileges in the realm of the Duke of Burgundy and was effectively Ambassador for the Duke of Burgundy to the court of James 111.

Close-up of the Adornes tomb.

In 1470 Adornes left on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem accompanied by his oldest son, Jan, eventual Canon of St. Peter’s Chapter in Lille, and after their return, the completion of Jerusalemkerk was accomplished with some added “Eastern” flourishes to the architecture, fashioning the little church into more of a true copy of the Holy Sepulchre Chapel in Jerusalem as originally intended. It is believed that the idea of the monumental tomb originated with Anselm himself at this time, and with the central importance of the funerary monument, this succeeded in moving the identity of little church into that of a mausoleum.

Tommaso Portinari.

In 1472 Edward 1V and James 111 of Scotland authorised Anselm to represent the Scottish Court in Rome and “among the Muslims of the East.” He acted as intermediary between Hugo van der Goes and King James for the portrait of the King and his wife, now kept in the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. In the 1460s and 1470s Adornes fulfilled many assignments for Charles the Bold, including important advice, based on his first-hand knowledge of Jerusalem, on a proposed Crusade. He led negotiations in 1473 for Bruges, to try to regain the Tommaso Portinari ship, the San Matteo, high-jacked and taken to Gdansk in Poland. The ship had been laden with precious goods including a large painting by Hans Memling depicting The Last Judgement. Adornes’ subsequent failure to retrieve the ship and its contents.

King James 111 and his wife, Margaret of Denmark.
Painted by Hugo van der Goes.
National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.

 means that the painting is still in Gdansk today!

Anselm Adornes’ strong relationship with King James 111 was further evidenced in the years 1477,1479 and 1480 when he made the long and arduous trips to Scotland to contact, and be of service to, the king. In 1482, again to Scotland where he led a military expedition on the King’s behalf in Linlithgow, and then, on a pilgrimage subsequently, he stayed in a monastery in North Berwick where he was ambushed on January 23, 1483, by an armed gang and killed. His body is interred at Linlithgow but his heart was subsequently returned to Brugge and installed inside the monumental tomb in Jerusalemkerk where his wife already lay, having died in 1480.

The life of Anselm Adornes lasted less than sixty
years but it was hugely influential and high-achieving. In addition to his varied and important public life in Bruges, Flanders and in Scotland, he taught himself Latin to further his interest in manuscripts and literary texts; he delved into contacts with humanists and polyphonic religious music and in 1472, commissioned by King James of Scotland, trained a lute player. This was an extraordinary life of action and service; learning and leading. Adornes’ highly original and magnetic personality managed to exert a profound influence both

The White Bear on the 
Poorters Loge where the company
of the White Bear met.

locally and internationally 
accounting, at least in part, for the enduring fame of his name.

Jerusalemkerk.