Plough Monday

Since this is the Monday after Epiphany (traditionally celebrated on January 6 but moved to a Sunday celebration here in the U.S.A. for most Catholic parishes and chapels), today is Plough Monday. The Twelve Days of Christmas are over, Twelfth Night has been celebrated, and things are getting back to normal, even though the Christmas/Epiphany season lasts until Candlemas, keeping the 40 days and 40 nights biblical tradition intact.

The Tudor Society blog describes the festivities of the day:

Plough Monday was the first Monday after 6th January and was the day on which things would return to normal after the Twelve Days of Christmas and people would return to work. It was also the first day of the new agricultural year and 16th century poet and farmer Thomas Tusser wrote:

Plough Monday, next after that Twelfth tide is past
Bids out with the plough, the worst husband is last.

Ronald Hutton, in his book Stations of the Sun [:A History of the Ritual Year in Britain], writes of how there are records from the 15th century of ploughs being dragged around the streets "while money was collected behind it for parish funds" and that this money might be spent on the “"pkeep" of plough lights, which were candles that were kept burning in church at this time to bring the Lord's blessing on those working in the fields. Steve Roud, in The English Year writes of how there was often a 'common' or 'town' plough that was loaned out to locals who could not afford to buy their own and that this would be kept at the parish church. Roud notes: "its presence presumably gave the opportunity for services based on blessing the plough and praying for success in the coming year".

The Reformation put an end to the practice of plough lights, because the lighting of these candles to bring a blessing was seen as superstitious, but the practice of processing around towns and villages with the plough continued.

More about Plough Monday here.

The Conscience of the King: November 8, 1528

The Tudor Society reminds us that on November 8, 1528:

Henry VIII made a public oration to “the nobility, judges and councillors and divers other persons” at Bridewell Palace to explain his troubled conscience regarding the lawfulness of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In this speech, the King explained that due to his worry that Mary was not his lawful daughter and that Catherine was not his lawful wife, he had sent for a legate “to know the truth and to settle my conscience.”

The issue of Henry VIII's conscience, like St. Thomas More's, is central to our views of the English Reformation and can even be a crucial element in our evaluation of Henry VIII's character. Was he really so troubled by his conscience regarding his marriage to Katherine of Aragon? Was he just citing his conscience and his concern about the admonitions in Leviticus as an excuse? Why wasn't his concern answered by the contrary admonitions in Deuteronomy and the fact that his father had obtained a dispensation from any possible affinity from the Pope?

Henry Ansgar Kelly's The Matrimonial Trials of Henry VIII was first published by Stanford University Press in 1976 and is now published by Wipf and Stock. He analyses Henry's conscience and notes that we will never really know "Henry's mind". Kelly says that Henry is neither a Machiavellian nor a great Protestant hero (defying the Pope) in this matter, but that the truth is somewhere in between these extremes: Henry was "partly hypocritical and partly conscientious". Kelly says that Henry VIII had to justify himself before God and did believe that his marriage to Katherine was sinful, but also that he "possessed massive powers of rationalization, and was prepared to resort to cant and skulduggery to attain ends that he believed were fundamentally righteous."

Cant means "hypocritical and sanctimonious talk" and skulduggery is "underhanded or unscrupulous behavior; trickery".
I have not read Kelly's book and think it would be low on my reading list, though it does look interesting and well written.

If we compare what a semi-apologist for Henry VIII says and what an enemy of Thomas More says, however, I think you readers would agree that even his enemy would never say that Thomas More, in citing his conscience in the matter of Henry VIII's supremacy, was "partly hypocritical", that he "possessed massive powers of rationalization" or was "prepared to resort to cant and skulduggery" in defense of his unstated position against Henry VIII's Supremacy over the Church in England. The opposite would be true; he could have rationalized away his objections to the monarch, the representative of the State taking over the spiritual authority of the Church; evidently many Englishmen did.

Thomas More made no public statement and maintained silence, merely refusing personally, in the name of conscience, to swear the oaths Henry VIII wanted enforced. Therefore, there was no cant to speak of and no skulduggery at all, since More never did anything tricky or underhanded.

For Members Only

You have to be a member of The Tudor Society to access the material and every issue Tudor Life on-line, although there is a small sample the public may see, and a monthly issue option. In the October issue, editor Gareth Russell kindly featured my explanation of the name and main symbol of The Pilgrimage of Grace on the cover! More information about The Tudor Society here. One of the aspects I like about Tudor Life is that it is multidisciplinary, offering articles beyond historical narration and biography, including information about music, diet, clothing, etc--all those other aspects of life during the Tudor era.

My "Expert Talk" at The Tudor Society

You have to be a subscriber, but I still wanted to let you know that I worked with Tim Ridgway of the Tudor Society to create a talk on St. Thomas More, based upon presentations I've made recently. With software available on my laptop, I recorded my comments and narrative. I sent him a deck of slides to sync up with my commentary, promising in my recording not to read the slides to people who can read--of course, if they don't want to watch, they might miss out on that part of the information that I don't read! But what a remarkable process: I didn't need a separate piece of equipment (a tape recorder or reel-to-reel machine) or any other extraordinary arrangements. I just sat at my laptop and made my presentation. Tim put it together and voila, I can provide insights to people all over the world!

Later in the month I'll participate in an on-line chat with members of the Tudor Society.

My thesis is that for all his fame and notoriety, Thomas More is relatively unknown. He is immediately recognized but not that well understood. He is controversial and yet we can rely too much on popular presentations of his life and times and even on biographies or books about him. Like many other historical figures, if we really want to understand him, we need to read what he wrote, not just what others wrote about him or about what he wrote, so I encourage those viewing the "expert talk" to investigate More's works, including those that Scepter Publishers has been printing that update the text of even More's English compositions, so they are more accessible.

The video is introduced with this comment:

This month's amazing Expert Talk is by Stephanie Mann, author of "Supremacy and Survival". Her topic, one which is clearly close to her heart, is Thomas More, a fascinating man who it turns out we really don't know as much about as we should.

Prepare to learn about St. Thomas More ...

Also, please note that I've updated my presentations tab here.

Happy New Year!

I am sorry for the lack of blogging in the past few days, but I've been much at the hospital with a family member and focused on the present, not the past.

I do want to let you know that I've had an article published in the January 2016 issue of Tudor Life: The Tudor Society Magazine: "Elizabeth I and Her Catholic Subjects".

And, I'll start the New Year on the broadcast of the Son Rise Morning Show Monday morning, January 4, 2016, talking with Matt Swaim about the "Twelve Days of Christmas" carol as a hidden, coded Catholic catechism during the Recusant period in England. My usual time slot: after the 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central update/break. Listen live here.

In the meantime, Happy New Year--and try to get used to writing 2016!

A Presentation and An Article

I wrote an article for the October issue of Tudor Life: The Tudor Society Magazine (membership/ prescription required) on "The Choices Catholics Faced in Tudor England", tracing religious change through the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I and what those changes meant for a Catholic who just wanted to attend Mass, receive the Sacraments, and live as his or her English ancestors had for years. Editor Gareth Russell specifically asked me to write an article from the Catholic perspective for this special Reformation issue.

On Tuesday, September 29, my sister and I will drive to Hutchinson, Kansas, where I'll make a presentation to the Hutchinson Theology on Tap group on "The Continuing Relevance of the English Reformation". I'll cover some highlights of English Reformation history but mostly discuss how that history is so relevant today, with examples of current events like changes in the Royal succession, the burial of Richard III (Anglican or Catholic service?), Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Scotland and England five years ago, the Anglican Ordinariate, religious freedom issues, etc. More information here on the facebook page for TOT in Hutchinson.