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November 18, 2007

Antipapal Antiquities

AMONG THE CURIOSITIES held in the St Andrews University Museum is the death mask of Pedro de Luna (1328-1423), one of the Avignon antipopes, who styled himself Benedict XIII. De Luna issued bulls granting university status to the group of scholars at St Andrews, and thus the Universitas Doctorum Magistrorum et Scholarum Sancti Andreae apud Scotus was born. The bulls were later confirmed by Pope Martin V, whose election ended the Great Western Schism. De Luna's name lives on at St Andrews in the University's coat of arms: the chief of the shield features a crescent, punning on the Antipope's last name, which of course is Spanish for 'moon'.

Posted by Andrew Cusack at November 18, 2007 05:06 PM
Comments

the chief of the shield features a crescent

Any significance to the fact that it's a crescent reversed?

Posted by: mike
at November 22, 2007 07:56 AM


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About
More or less, the musings of a 24-year-old New Yorker, a graduate of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, currently resident in his native County of Westchester. [MORE]
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Maces of America
A series of post covering the history, design, and use of ceremonial maces in the United States.

I: The University of the South
II: The City of Norfolk
III: The South Carolina House of Representatives
IV: The Virginia House of Delegates
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