The Flat Earth and Propaganda

You probably know by now that I like this sort of thing. Writing for History Today in 1991, Jeffrey Russel uncovers the sources of the lie that people in the Middle Ages thought the earth was flat and that Christopher Columbus was going to fall off the edge when he headed out to explore the world. It's an absolute fabrication that, like Marie Antoinette saying "Let Them Eat Cake", has been debunked over and over and yet persists in sloppy thinking about the past. The article concludes:

We have seen how the Error was established. The question is why it persists in gripping the educated public imagination after having been debunked by historians over six decades. Because the medieval worldview is so foreign to the modern, positivist worldview, it is misunderstood as superstition: medieval people were so superstitious that they must have believed in something as foolish as the flat earth. Underlying this is the Protestant prejudice against the Middle Ages for being Catholic, the Rationalist prejudice against Judeo-Christianity as a whole, and the Anglo-American prejudice against the Spanish, a prejudice so common that it is known to historians as 'the Black Legend of Spain'. The few actual medieval flat-earthers were belaboured to confirm the prejudice, and the bulk of the evidence on the other side was ignored.

And beneath this distortion is the ethnocentric contemporary urge to believe that contemporary post-industrial society is the outcome of a beneficent progress. The attribution to a group of a belief system which the group itself does not actually hold is a manifestation of blind prejudice familiar to sociologists.

Chronocentrism – the assumption of the superiority of 'our' views to that of older cultures – is the most stubborn remaining variety of ethnocentrism. 'Irrationalism born of hope never dies', and the trust that we are making progress toward a goal (which is not defined and about which there is no consensus) leads us to undervalue the past in order to convince ourselves of the superiority of the present. And this extracts a heavy price. The belief that history or providence or whatever is inexorably leading us in some direction reduces our sene of responsibility for ourselves in the moment that is the present.

Our determination to believe that Flat Error arises out of our contempt for the past and our need to believe in the superiority of the present – that is, of ourselves. And since the present is transformed day by day, minute by minute, second by second, into the past, while the future is unknown and unknowable, we are left on the dark sea without stars, without compass or astrolabe, more unsure of our position and our goal than any of Columbus's sailors. The terror of meaninglessness, of falling off the edge of knowledge, is greater than the imagined fear of falling off the edge of the earth. And so we prefer to believe a familiar error than to search, unceasingly, the darkness.

Russell introduces a new term for the whig view of history--chronocentrism--based on our rather irrational belief that we are always progressing.

Read the rest of the article here.

The Tudors Arrive in Paris

The Tudors--their portraits, more precisely--are on exhibition at the Musee du Luxembourg in Paris. From Time Out magazine:

Family drama, throne politics, religious quarrels, beheadings and sumptuous clothing ensured that the Tudor dynasty was anything but dull. This exhibition by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery looks beyond stiff-backed royal portraits to explore how the fact and fiction of the dynasty have merged in our collective cultural consciousness – so compelling are tales of Henry VIII, his six unfortunate wives, Bloody Mary and The Virgin Queen that the Tudor dynasty has been a rich source of drama for writers and directors ever since.

There's an impressive collection of Renaissance portraits by Nicholas Hilliard, Joos van Cleve, Hans Holbein and more, set alongside film and book extracts that emphasise the dynasty’s legendary status through the ages. Everyone from Shakespeare to Gioacchino Rossini and Shekhar Kapur seems to have tried their hand at fictionalising the family dramas, and the Tudors captured the French imagination too, in the writings of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas and paintings by Paul Delaroche. This is the first exhibition about the dynasty in France, and it highlights a mutual fascination and power play between French and English royals: from the friendly rivalry between Francois I and Henry VIII to Elizabeth I’s cordial relationship with Catherine de Médicis as the two countries’ foreign policies drew closer and closer together.

The National Portrait Gallery in London has this input into the development of the exhibition:

In 1523 Henry VIII’s troops, lead by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, made a bold - but ultimately unsuccessful - move to take Paris and reclaim the French throne for the English king. Nearly five hundred years later, Henry VIII is finally making it to Paris.

In partnership with the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the Gallery is co-presenting an exhibition on the Tudor dynasty at the Musée du Luxembourg. This exciting collaboration extends the research undertaken for ‘The Real Tudors’ to consider Anglo-French relations and artistic exchange in the sixteenth century. The scale of the exhibition has also offered the opportunity to incorporate a number of important international loans and to look beyond portraiture to the broader material culture of the English renaissance.

When developing this exhibition with Tarnya Cooper and Cécile Maisonneuve, it became evident that presenting the Tudors in Paris meant that the dynasty could also be considered in a very different context to that provided by the National Portrait Gallery – that of ‘La République française’. For the Tudors have a French ‘history’ too, created by the writers, artists and composers of the nineteenth century, such as Victor Hugo, Eugène Devéria and Camille Saint-Saëns. This has allowed us to consider the notion of ‘The Real Tudors’ from an entirely different standpoint – Une dynastie. Une légende.

The timing is also perfect, for 2015 marks the 500th anniversary of the accession of François Ier. Henry’s greatest rival will be celebrated in an exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and in terms of cultural competition their presentation in Paris will perhaps capture something of the magnificence of their meeting in 1520 at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Information about the BNF's exhibition mentioned above may be found here. It's at the huge newer library on the Seine, named for Francois-Mitterand.

Time for More Canonized Martyrs of England and Wales

In The Catholic Herald, Simon Caldwell proposes that the time has come for the 85 Martyrs of England and Wales and other beatified martyrs to be canonized during the pontificate of Pope Francis. He cites the devotion to these martyrs seen at Tyburn Convent:

Mother Xavier McMonagle, the assistant mother general of Tyburn Convent, the enclosed religious community at the site of the Tyburn Tree, says interest in the English martyrs has soared in recent years and the international cult surrounding them is “plainly evident in the ever-increasing stream of pilgrims to the crypt of these martyrs at Tyburn Convent”.

Some of the interest, she suggests, derives from a “desire to learn more about martyrdom as a phenomenon” in an age when Christians are once again being violently persecuted. She says this “highlights the religious heroism of our Reformation martyrs also, and drives people to seek out the truth of what really took place in their lives and what inspired their heroic acceptance of a cruel and barbaric death”.

She believes there is a powerful case, in particular, for the canonisation of the 85 martyrs beatified by St John Paul in 1987. This group included a substantial number of lay Catholics, people with ordinary occupations such as a glover, a servant, a joiner, a tailor and a bookseller. But there are also 50 martyrs beatified by Leo XIII and 108 people beatified by Pius XI. Some of them make very compelling cases indeed.

Because we are living in a time of Christian martyrdom around the world, Caldwell believes that Pope Francis will canonize these men and women, if the bishops of England and Wales ask:

Perhaps it is time to shake off this excessive timidity and wake up to changes in the Church under Pope Francis, particularly in the way the Holy Father is approaching canonisations. We need to grasp that this may be the moment Rome again bends a sympathetic ear to a plea for our beatified martyrs to be finally recognised as saints.

Most popes tend to bring their own personal touch to proclaiming saints, and in this Holy Father we can see a pontiff performing canonisations at a faster rate than his predecessors. In just two years, Francis has canonised 829 saints, surpassing the number previously recognised by any single pope, including St John Paul II, who canonised 483 saints in his 27-year reign. But since the figures are skewed by Francis’s group canonisation of the 812 Otranto martyrs, a more reliable indicator of changing patterns would perhaps be the number of canonisation ceremonies performed by each pope. Yet even when this is taken into account, Francis emerges as the most enthusiastic of modern popes when it comes to canonisations.

I agree--it is time. Also, these saints should be on the universal Roman Calendar. Large groups of martyred saints from Japan, Mexico, Africa, China, and Canada are honored on the calendar. May 4th should be a universal feast for the English Martyrs: "St. John Houghton and companions, Martyrs"!

Magdalen Dacre, Viscountess Montagu, RIP

Yesterday was the anniversary of Magdalen Dacre's death in 1608. She and her husband, Anthony Brown, First Viscount Montagu, were Catholics who survived the changes in religion during the Tudor era. She was a maid of honor at Queen Mary's wedding with Philip of Spain and was also favored by Elizabeth I--and she obviously survived in James I's reign. This website depicts her burial effigy, which has unfortunately been damaged (the hands cut off), as part of the Viscount's funeral monument:

On the lower stage, west of this, rest the effigies of his two wives, Jane Ratcliffe and Margaret Dacre, in mantles and kirtles; on the front of this stage, which is in the form of a chest tomb, are their epitaphs; at each end are small kneeling effigies of their descendants . . ., some headless (Salzman, 1953, 47-53).

Anthony, Viscount Mountague (died 1592) was a Roman Catholic who was nevertheless valued by Queen Elizabeth. She visited him on his sickbed in 1591. Jane Ratcliffe (his first wife) died in childbirth in 1552 aged 20; her funeral was on 4 August 1553. She had twins: a son who married Jane Sackville, the daughter of the Earl of Dorset and a daughter Mary, who married Henry Wriothesley, the second earl of Southampton. The son predeceased his father (in June 1592). Magdalen Dacre (born c1532) was Montague's second wife after her career as Maid of Honour to Queen Mary. Despite her Catholicism, she retained a friendship with Queen Elizabeth. She had six sons and three daughters. She died in 1608.

The monument builder was Richard Stevens of Southwark, who was also responsible for the Wriothesley monument at Titchfield, Hampshire (Pevsner and Nairn, 1965, 212). Sir Anthony's parents (Anthony and Alice Browne née Gage) are represented in effigy at Battle, Sussex (Mosse, 1933, 62).

Richard Smith, the Bishop of Chalcedon (Vicar Apostolic for England from 1625-1631), served from 1603 to 1609 as the chaplain (secretly and illegally) for Jane, Viscountess Montagu, the wife of Anthony-Maria Browne, Second Viscount Montagu, the First Viscount's grandson (his father had preceded his father by a few months). Smith wrote a life of Magdalen Dacre Browne, which Father Philip Caraman, SJ, references in his book The Years of Siege: Catholic Life from James I to Cromwell (London: Longmans, 1966). He provides details about her last sickness and death, including her devout preparations, attending Mass in her sick bed, and encouraging everyone in her household to remain true to the Catholic Church. (Caramon also cites Smith about Viscountess Montagu in his The Other Face: Catholic Life Under Elizabeth I (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1960).)

According to her obit, Magdalen died at Battle Abbey.

This should give us pause. Battle Abbey was founded after the Battle of Hastings, as Norman reparation for so many deaths in conquering England, as ordered by Pope Alexander II. William the Conqueror vowed to build Battle Abbey, dedicated to St. Martin of Tours.

The historic abbey was destroyed by Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, organized, administered, and facilitated by Thomas Cromwell. And now it's a place to go on your holiday!

Phineas Fletcher and Orlando Gibbons

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Phineas Fletcher was baptized on April 8, 1582. He was an:

English poet best known for his religious and scientific poem The Purple Island.

He was the elder son of Giles Fletcher the Elder and brother of Giles Fletcher the Younger. He was educated at Eton and at King’s College, Cambridge. Fletcher became chaplain to Sir Henry Willoughby, who presented him in 1621 to the rectory of Hilgay, Norfolk, where he spent the rest of his life.

His greatest work, The Purple Island, was published in 1633. It included the Piscatorie Eclogs and other Poetical Miscellanies. The Purple Island: or the Isle of Man, is a poem in 12 cantos describing allegorically the human physiology and soul. The manner of Edmund Spenser is employed throughout, and the chief charm of the poem is considered by critics to be its descriptions of rural scenery. The Piscatorie Eclogs are pastorals, the characters of which are represented as fisherboys on the banks of the Cam, and are interesting for the light they cast on the biography of the poet himself (Thyrsil) and his father (Thelgon), and on Phineas’ friendship with Cambridge men. Fletcher’s poetry has not the sublimity sometimes reached by his brother Giles.

He also wrote Locustes or Apollyonists, an anti-Catholic, anti-Jesuit, anti-foreigner, anti-Real Presence satire, which seems to drip with hatred, animosity, and nationalism. 

On the other hand, his poem, "Drop, drop, slow tears", was set to music by Orlando Gibbons.

Drop, drop, slow tears, and bathe those beauteous feet,
which brought from heaven the news and Prince of Peace.

Cease not, wet eyes, his mercies to entreat;
to cry for vengeance sin doth never cease.

In your deep floods drown all my faults and fears;
nor let his eye see sin, but through my tears.

Walpole and Rawlins; Oldcorne and Ashley

Four martyrs on April 7: two in 1595 and two more in 1606:

St. Henry Walpole, who is one of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales canonized in 1970, was influenced by the martyrdom of St. Edmund Campion to become a priest and return to England as a Jesuit missionary (drops of blood from Campion's torturous death fell on Walpole):

According to this blog, after studying for the priesthood on the Continent, becoming a Jesuit, and enduring imprisonment while serving English Catholics in the Spanish Netherlands, Walpole returned to England on December 4, 1593 and was betrayed and captured almost immediately.

One night of freedom in England was followed by 16 months of imprisonment. Walpole admitted during his first interrogation that he was a Jesuit and had come to England to convert people. He was transferred to York Castle for three months, and was permitted to leave the prison to discuss theology with Protestant visitors. Then he was transferred to the Tower of London at the end of February, 1594, so that the notorious priest-torturer Richard Topcliffe could wrest information from him.

Walpole was tortured brutally on the rack and was suspended by his wrists for hours, but Topcliffe stretched the tortures out over the course of a year to prevent an accidental death. Walpole endured torture 14 different times before being returned in 1595 to York to stand trial under the law that made it high treason for an Englishman simply to return home after receiving Holy Orders abroad. The man who had once aspired to be a lawyer defended himself ably, pointing out that the law only applied to priests who had not given themselves up to officials within three days of arrival. He himself had been arrested less than a day after landing in England, so he had not violated that law. The judges responded by demanding that he take the Oath of Supremacy, acknowledging the queen's complete authority in religion. He refused to do so and was convicted of high treason.

On April 7, Walpole was dragged out of York to be executed along with another priest who was killed first. Then the Jesuit climbed the ladder to the gallows and asked the onlookers to pray with him. After he finished the Our Father but before he could say the Hail Mary, the executioner pushed him away from the ladder; then he was taken down and dismembered. The Jesuits in England lost a promising young priest whom they had hoped would take the place of Father Southwell; they received another example of fidelity and courage.

Blessed Alexander Rawlins:

Alexander was born in Worcestershire, England, where he was jailed twice for his fervent Catholicism. In 1589 he went to the English seminary in Reims and was ordained there in 1590. Returning to England the following year (with another future martyr and saint, Father Edmund Gennings), Alexander was arrested. He was condemned to death and on April 7, 1595, and along with Henry Walpole was hanged, drawn, and quartered in York, England. He was beatified in 1929.

For the stories of Blessed Edward Oldcorne and Blessed Ralph Ashley, click here. They were arrested, tortured, and executed in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot during the reign of James I.

Saint Henry Walpole, Blessed Alexander Rawlins, Blessed Edward Oldcorne, Blessed Ralph Askley, pray for us.

Defending St. Thomas More in The National Catholic Register

Just in time for the first episode of Wolf Hall this evening on PBS, my article for The National Catholic Register is on-line:

Catholic bishops and fair-minded historians in England protested against the inaccurate portrayal of Sir Thomas More in the BBC miniseries based on Hilary Mantel’s historical novel Wolf Hall when it made its debut in January this year. Since Thomas Cromwell, one of King Henry VIII’s advisers, is Mantel’s hero, Thomas More must be her villain. Mantel and the BBC portray More as cruel, bigoted, fanatical, misogynistic and sado-masochistical.

Viewers of Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, whether the 1963 film or the stage play, won’t recognize the witty, intelligent family man and friend if they watch Wolf Hall during its run on PBS’ Masterpiece starting Easter Sunday, April 5, through the Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 10.

Mantel writes historical fiction, so she has the artistic license to interpret historical characters in her novels.

What readers and viewers have to remember is that Mantel’s More is not the real Thomas More; her version of his character does not resemble the description contemporaries like Desiderius Erasmus have left us of a humble, loving, humorous and honest man. Bolt didn’t tell the whole story of Thomas More either, when he made him a hero of individual conscience; Bolt did at least get More’s character and personality right.

If Mantel’s More were the real Thomas More, viewers might be horrified that the Catholic Church has honored More by canonizing him (in 1935 — 80 years ago this year), including him on the universal calendar of saints on June 22 (with St. John Fisher, the great bishop of Rochester, who also opposed Henry VIII’s supremacy and was beheaded) and proclaiming him the patron saint of politicians and statesmen (announced by Pope St. John Paul II in 2000).

St. Thomas More faced charges of treason for opposing Henry VIII’s desire to get a divorce in 1535. In 2015 (480 years later), he now faces charges of being “fussily pious, stiff-necked and unnaturally fond of torturing heretics” (according to Charles McGrath in The New York Times), “with a penchant for self-punishment and a misogynist to boot” (according to Vanessa Thorpe in The Guardian). Since he is not here to defend himself, here are some facts to represent the real Thomas More: . . .

Read the rest at The National Catholic Register.

Christ Is Risen, Truly He is Risen!

Music for Easter Sunday from the great Abbey of Solesmes:

Happy Easter!

Holy Saturday In "The Man Born to be King"

Dorothy L. Sayers' radio drama The Man Born to be King depicts the drama of Holy Saturday, that day of mourning and wondering as a day of activity and action for Jesus' female disciples. The men have nothing to do. Her notes for the production of the episode after the crucifixion emphasize this:

Note that, for the WOMEN, there is, on an occasion such as this, the consolation of being able to act. The male disciples are lethargic because they have come to a dead end; the women can occupy themselves with funeral details, and get a certain mournful satisfaction out of them. The bustle of preparing spices, of collecting towels and basins, of the early morning excursion--the contemplation of fine grave-clothes, a rich casket, a beautiful tomb--it all soothes and braces them. At births and deaths, women come into their own and can do something, while the men can only sit about helplessly. Melancholy as it all is, the women are on top--it is their adventure.

Sayers wanted to depict the Church's teaching about Jesus Christ, the dogma of the Incarnation, the Gospel, the Passion, Death and Resurrection through drama so that it would have an impact on people. She thought that hearing the human voices of actors portraying Jesus, Pilate, Mary and Mary Magdalen, Judas and John, would make the story compelling again. How can this story not be compelling? Particularly the story of the Passion, Death and Resurrection?

Blessed John Henry Newman, in a sermon I've posted before, noted that Christians in his day read the story of the Passion without realizing what it meant to them; they were detached and not involved--they did not feel anything:

Unless we have a true love of Christ, we are not His true disciples; and we cannot love Him unless we have heartfelt gratitude to Him; and we cannot duly feel gratitude, unless we feel keenly what He suffered for us. I say it seems to us impossible, under the circumstances of the case, that any one can have attained to the love of Christ, who feels no distress, no misery, at the thought of His bitter pains, and no self-reproach at having through his own sins had a share in causing them.

I know quite well, and wish you, my brethren, never to forget, that feeling is not enough; that it is not enough merely to feel and nothing more; that to feel grief for Christ's sufferings, and yet not to go on to obey him, is not true love, but a mockery. True love both feels right, and acts right; but at the same time as warm feelings without religious conduct are a kind of hypocrisy, so, on the other hand, right conduct, when unattended with deep feelings, is at best a very imperfect sort of religion. And at this time of year especially are we called upon to raise our hearts to Christ, and to have keen feelings and piercing thoughts of sorrow and shame, of compunction and of gratitude, of love and tender affection and horror and anguish, at the review of those awful sufferings whereby our salvation has been purchased.

Let us pray God to give us all graces; and while, in the first place, we pray that He would make us holy, really holy, let us also pray Him to give us the beauty of holiness, which consists in tender and eager affection towards our Lord and Saviour: which is, in the case of the Christian, what beauty of person is to the outward man, so that through God's mercy our souls may have, not strength and health only, but a sort of bloom and comeliness; and that as we grow older in body, we may, year by year, grow more youthful in spirit.

Sayers and Newman agree, as Gilbert Meilaender offers evidence in an article for Touchstone Magazine, recommending her plays on the Passion for Holy Week reading, just as C.S. Lewis did:

"God was executed," she writes, "by people painfully like us, in a society very similar to our own—in the over-ripeness of the most splendid and sophisticated Empire the world has ever seen." In her hands, "the greatest drama in history" regains the sting we sometimes, with the best of intentions, take out of it. Hers is the story of a man, but a man born to be king, and she will not allow us to "hear that story of the killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at all." Lent is surely the right time for such a reminder.

Good Friday

By Father Frederick Faber:

O come and mourn with me awhile;
And tarry here the cross beside;
O come, together let us mourn;
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.

Have we no tears to shed for Him,
While soldiers scoff and foes deride?
Ah! look how patiently He hangs;
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.

How fast His hands and feet are nailed;
His blessed tongue with thirst is tied,
His failing eyes are blind with blood:
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.

His mother cannot reach His face;
She stands in helplessness beside;
Her heart is martyred with her Son’s:
Jesus, our Lord, is Crucified.

Seven times He spoke, seven words of love;
And all three hours His silence cried
For mercy on the souls of men;
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.

Come, let us stand beneath the cross;
So may the blood from out His side
Fall gently on us drop by drop;
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.

O break, O break, hard heart of mine!
Thy weak self-love and guilty pride
His Pilate and His Judas were:
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.

A broken heart, a fount of tears,
Ask, and they will not be denied;
A broken heart love’s cradle is:
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.

O love of God! O sin of man!
In this dread act Your strength is tried;
And victory remains with love;
For Thou our Lord, art crucified!

By Hilaire Belloc:

Our Lord and Our Lady

They warned Our Lady for the Child
That was Our Blessed Lord,
And She took Him into the desert wild,
Over the camel's ford.

And a long song She sang to Him
And a short story told:
And she wrapped Him in a woollen cloak
To keep Him from the cold.

But when Our Lord was grown a man
The rich they dragged Him down,
And they crucified Him in Golgotha,
Out and beyond the town.

They crucified Him on Calvary,
Upon an April day;
And because He had been Her little Son
She followed Him all the way.

Our Lady stood beside the Cross,
A little space apart,
And when She heard Our Lord cry out
A sword went through her heart.

They laid Our Lord in a marble tomb,
Dead, in a winding sheet.
But Our Lady stands above the world
With the white moon at her feet.