The Arms of the National Shrine and Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham

Arms prepared by Dr. David Andrew Woolf and painted by Tom Meek (both of the UK) in honor of the National Shrine's elevation to a minor basilica by Pope Francis in 2015.

Walsingham is truly an ecumenical place.  You feel this as soon as you enter the village; Orthodox, Anglican, and Roman Catholics all venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of Walsingham.  I've long felt that Walsingham is the key to fruitful ecumenical relations for the Body of Christ.

I've posted previously on the arms of the Guardians of the Holy House of Walsingham, the Anglican Shine, and now it's time to examine our brothers over at the Roman Catholic National Shrine and Basilica.

Coat of arms, the College of Guardians of the Holy House of Our Lady of Walsingham.
Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2024.

Click here for a really good historical overview of the Roman Catholic presence in Walsingham.

Long known as the "Slipper Chapel," this structure dates to the mid-14th century and is dedicated to Catherine of Alexandria.  It was the last chapel where pilgrims would stop on their pilgrimage to Walsingham.  The chapel is located about one mile from Walsingham and thus many pilgrims would remove their shoes here and walk the last mile barefooted. 

When this chapel was built, Walsingham was second only to Canterbury in the ranks of English pilgrimage. The replica of the Holy House, where Mary had received news of her pregnancy from the Angel Gabriel, contained the precious statue of Our Lady of Walsingham. Thousands of people made their way here, down the muddy tracks and over the rolling Norfolk fields. At Houghton St Giles, they would enter the orbit of Walsingham, their goal now almost in sight. It may be that they took off their shoes here, and walked the last stretch barefoot. It might also be the case that this is why it is called the Slipper Chapel. And it may be that it is not true, or even likely, for many of the pilgrims here would probably have been barefoot long before they reached Houghton.  Simon Knott, September 2007 

    

The National Shrine and Basilica of Walsingham.
Source: ExploreWestNorfolk.co.uk

The chapel's history waxed and waned through the years and eventually fell into disrepair.  A wealthy lady, Miss Charlotte Pearson Boyd discovered the property and quickly purchased it on June 26, 1896. and gave it to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Northampton for use.  The Bishop charged the nearby Benedictines at Downside Abbey to care for the place.  In time, a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was commissioned and stayed at the nearby Roman Catholic church in Kings Lynn.  Knott shares that from time to time pilgrimages with the statue would take place from Kings Lynn to Walsingham.

Knott continues his story of the chapel:

And so things might have remained, if it had not been for the emergence on to the Walsingham scene of one Alfred Hope Patten. In 1921, he became Anglican Vicar of Little Walsingham. A devout and energetic Anglo-catholic, Hope Patten found himself to be the right person in the right place at the right time. Everything came together, in this decade when Anglo-catholicism reached the peak of its influence in the Church of England, and the Church itself was the most vivid it would ever be in the national consciousness. He installed an image of Our Lady of Walsingham in the Anglican parish church of St Mary. Throughout the 1920s, visits to the statue grew in popularity, until thousands of Anglo-catholics each year were coming to pray in the church and to process around it. As you may imagine, the Anglican Bishop of Norwich was outraged, and demanded that Hope Patten remove the image from his church. Hope Patten being the kind of man he was, he acceded to this request by building a new replica of the Holy House on the other side of the Priory ruins, and placing the statue inside it. At last, the Shrine of Our Lady had been returned to Walsingham - but, much to the the chagrin of the Catholic Church, it was an Anglican one.  Simon Knott, September 2007

         

Good old Hope Patten!  From here the National Shrine's presence grows.  The shrine is elevated by a canonical coronation decreed by Pope Pius XII in 1954.  And most recently, Pope Francis elevated the National Shrine to a minor basilica in 2015.

 

So now the heraldry bit.  Upon the elevation of the Shrine to a basilica, new external ornaments are required to show the papal umbraculum or "big umbrella" and crossed keys.  Over at the UK's Anglican Ordinate blog, I found the following:

Dr. David [Andrew] Woolf has been a longstanding pilgrim and supporter of the Shrine and remains a member of the Order of Our Lady of Walsingham. He was links with the Rector of the Basilica, Monsignor John Armitage, who has since asked him to ensure that heraldically suitable Arms might be adopted by the Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham.

A manuscript dating from c. 1510 records the Arms of the Priory of Walsingham as Argent on a cross sable five lilies slipped argent, i.e. a black cross on a white background, with five lilies superimposed on the cross. The Basilica is now the modern day successor of the Priory of Walsingham, and as such it is appropriate that the Basilica has assumed the Arms of the Priory. These Arms have been augmented to include the ombrellino and the Papal crossed keys: one gold, the other silver.  

And here's where I ask the question:  does the basilica have the right to bear the undifferenced arms of the Augustinian Priory of Walsingham?  With all due respect to Dr. Woolf, a fellow member of The Heraldry Society, my answer:  no.  

Consider the following:

1. When the College of Guardians of the Holy House of Walsingham applied for a grant of arms from the College in 1945, the grant of arms were differenced with, "a canton Azure, charged with a Holy House Or."   

2. When the Anglican Ordinariate (intentionally named "The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham") was established under Pope Benedict XVI, the ordinariate assumed arms in 2011 and selected to difference their arms with a cross Azure and Fleurs-de-lis rather than the cross Sable and Madonna lilies.  The arms are blazoned: "per pale, in dexter argent upon a cross azure five fleurs-de-lis proper [of the field]; the sinister half, Or upon a fasce dancette gules between three heart gules."   

3.  The original arms, as far as we know, were granted to a Priory of Augustinian canons in Walsingham.  The National Shrine is simply not a successor to that group, for they are neither a priory nor Augustinian.  Simply being the same denomination does not grant successor status in my opinion.  

I'm not the sort of chap that complains without proffering a solution.  I propose a revision to the arms currently being used by the National Shrine and Basilica of Walsingham.  

The revised arms of the National Shrine and Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham.
Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2024.

My proposal:  Argent, on a cross sable five Madonna lilies slipped and seeded proper, on a canton Azure a crescent Or.  This revision, in my opinion, is in keeping with the College of Arms' differencing of the Guardians' arms and frankly looks quite slick.  The crescent charge has long been a Marian symbol and rendering it in gold alludes to Pope Pius XII's canonical coronation.  I also like how the crescent charge plays with the cadency mark.  In a sense, the Basilica is the "child" of the Priory (albeit a distance one, like a different cadet branch, and not able to inherit the undifferenced arms!). 

Maybe I've missed something?  Kindly let me know.  I am by no means an expert in heraldic law and inheritance.