Fermo chasuble of St. Thomas Becket

[1] It was donated by Presbitero, bishop of Fermo (1184-1201), who, scholar David Storm Rice suggests, had received it from Thomas Becket himself, when they were both students at the Studium of Bologna.

[1] There are also representations of elephants with howdahs, one with women inside; four groups of turbaned hunters holding falcons seated on horses with rabbits below, and two enthroned men flanked by musicians and other attendants, all of which portray scenes of the Princely Cycle, a common theme in Islamic art.

[1][2] There is also evidence to suggest the presence of pseudo-Arabic script, common at the time in art objects attempting to appear worldly.

[6] This in part with the animal imagery commonly found during the Fatimid and Norman periods, eastern Mediterranean, and Central Asia, and the object eventual presence in Fermo, supports the evidence of a globally connected middle ages.

His version includes the Bismillah prayer from the Quran, but the remainder of his translation is contested due to anachronistic and a-geographical language factors.

[1] The Christianisation process is proven both by the fact that the textile became a garment used in Christian liturgy and by its association with the worship of Thomas Becket as a saint and martyr, which spread all over Europe during the 13th century.

Early modern research done on the chasuble is somewhat limited, and looks primarily at the garment for its basic elements- cloth, silk, embroidery.

[8] Professor David Storm Rice, from University of London, studied the chasuble extensively and was the first to detect and decipher the inscription on the textile.

[9][3] Working together from 1958-60 with textile historian Sigrid Müller-Christensen, they compiled what is known today as the Fermo File, which is now stored in the archives of the Bavarian National Museum.

[1] Furthermore, due to its importance and exceptional state of preservation, the chasuble has undergone thorough analysis by the art historian Avinoam Shalem with the publication of his book, The Chasuble of Thomas Becket: A Biography, in 2017, who studied the textile and its history in collaboration with the Bruschettini Foundation, Germano Liberati, Birgitt Borkopp-Restle, Regula Schorta, Miriam Ali-de-Unzaga, Ariane Dor, David Jacoby, Ursula Nilgen, and Marta Jaro.