Bishop's cape embroidered with Stavanger’s patron saint

Bishop's cape embroidered with Stavanger’s patron saint
In 1866, an antependium is discovered during a restoration of the cathedral. An antependium is a cloth that decorates the front of the altar. More than 50 years later, it is found that the cloth is an example of redesign or alteration. The altar cloth is in fact an altered priest's or bishop's cape. The saint depicted in the centre of the cape is probably St. Svithun, which tells us that the cape was a Catholic vestment, dated to the transition between the 15th and 16th centuries. The cape can thus be linked to Hoskuld Hoskuldsson, the last Catholic bishop of Stavanger.

Stavanger does not have its own museum when the antependium is discovered, so the cloth becomes part of the collection of the University Museum in Bergen, where it remains. In 1919, Stavanger Museum, which was established in 1877, loaned the antependium in order to exhibit it. In 1925, when the bishopric of Stavanger was reinstated, the altered cape was returned in honour of Stavanger’s new bishop.