Handbook of Christian Symbolism

By W. & G. Audsley, Architects. Originally published in London by Day & Son, 1865
170 Pages | With Illustrations in Chromo-Lithography and Wood-Engraving

Every cross has a name. Every colour has a season. Every emblem stitched into an orphrey once meant something specific to the people who knelt in front of it.

Much of that vocabulary has quietly slipped away. Makers today often choose a symbol because it looks right, not because they know what it says. This book gives that language back.

The Audsley brothers were working architects who spent their careers designing and decorating churches. They wrote this handbook for the people doing the actual work of decorating churches, and it shows. It is organized to be used, not merely admired.

What You'll Find Inside

• The Nimbus, Aureole, and Glory: how the nimbus of God differs from that given to angels and saints, and why the distinction matters
• Symbols and Emblems of God: the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and the Trinity, each treated separately
• The Cross: its varieties, its symbolism, and the monograms of the Saviour's Name
• Emblems of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension
• Symbols of Baptism and the Eucharist
• The Evangelists and the Apostles: a full chapter of emblems and attributes
• Emblems and Attributes of the Saints: how to recognize who you are looking at
• Liturgical Colours, Precious Stones, and Miscellaneous Symbols

Why It Belongs on a Vestment Maker's Shelf

When you are designing an orphrey, a pulpit fall, or a chalice veil, the question is never only what will look beautiful. It is what will be true: what the parish will still be reading, quietly, twenty years from now.

This handbook is a reference for exactly those decisions. The plates are reproduced in colour, and the wood-engravings throughout show the forms clearly enough to draft from.

Format: Paperback, 8.5" x 11", 170 pages, eight plates, seven of them in colour.

NOTE: This book is a reproduction of an informative historical work. Ecclesiastical Sewing has digitally remastered this text, preserving the original ideas for future generations. Since this is the reconstructed original, the original blemishes may be present in our reproduction. These have been left with the intention to preserve the integrity of this historical work.

Modern readers may not be as familiar with the writing style of historical works. These books were written at a time when there was an assumed level of knowledge. They are unlike today's works where people expect to be taken by the hand through every possible detail.