The Confirmation from the Seven Sacraments

This fragment of a much larger tapestry shows one of the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church: Confirmation. A sacrament is an outward sign of an invisible grace (or spiritual gift) from God through the ministry of his Church. In Confirmation baptised children are made full members of the Church.

The fragment comes from a hanging in which the Seven Sacraments are shown arranged in two horizontal layers, with a central scene of the Apparition of the Holy Spirit. The lower register of the complete tapestry shows scenes of the sacraments with the participants in 15th-century dress. The upper register shows Old Testament prefigurations ('precursors') of the seven sacraments. The seven sacraments include Baptism, Confirmation into the Church as seen here, the Holy Eucharist (partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ at Mass) and Extreme Unction (administered to the dying). Other parts of the tapestry are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Burrell Collection in Glasgow.

The scene is also interesting in that it shows both ecclesiastical and fashionable dress. The bishop on the right is shown wearing a cope (the cape-like outer garment worn for church ceremonies) and a mitre (a pointed hat worn only by bishops and archbishops). He is cutting the hair of a boy in preparation for his being into the Church. The nobleman at the back (presumably a parent) wears a fashionable headdress and an outer garment with a fur collar.