Popery in 1908: The Eucharistic Congress

In the United States of America, at least, many Catholics are celebrating the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ. I hope that we all sing the entire Sequence by St. Thomas Aquinas, hear an excellent homily, and participate in a great outdoor procession, Adoration and Benediction of the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament, singing Aquinas' other great Eucharistic hymns, the Salutoris Hostia and Tantum Ergo. Exposition and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a great traditional devotion of the Catholic Church. The Real Presence, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the source and summit, the center of our Sacramental life.

Before the Reformation in England, Corpus Christi was a day of great ritual, with processions comparable to Holy Thursday and the performance of the Mystery Plays, which enacted salvation history from Creation to the Second Coming. This Feast was introduced in England during the early 14th century (1318) with the Office by St. Thomas Aquinas, but it gained almost immediate popularity among the English, according to both Eamon Duffy and Miri Rubin. The English expressed their devotion to the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist with the formation of Corpus Christi Guilds to prepare for the annual celebrations. The cycle of Mystery plays required months of preparation and fundraising for the decorations. Anthony Esolen interprets the Wakefield cycle of plays here. Corpus Christi College in Cambridge was founded by such a guild in 1352.

Adoration and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was essential to pre-Reformation Catholic spirituality in England. The Corpus Christi was the center of the entire Paschal Mystery of Incarnation, Redemption and Resurrection. For the individual Christian, Christ's Real Presence in Mass and in adoration outside of Mass, symbolized their participation in that Mystery--even though they in the normal course of the liturgical year received Holy Communion rarely.

Of course, this all ended after the English Reformation and was revived among Catholics in England only after Emancipation in 1829 and Restoration of the Hierarchy in 1850. In September of 1908, a great Eucharistic Congress was held in London. The Spectator editorial page commented on the event, raising some concerns:

IT is typical of the national detachment from the practice and institutions of the Church of Rome that the Eucharistic Congress now being held at Westminster should come upon us as a novelty, and that its purport should require elaborate explanation. "An International Eucharistic Congress," we are told officially, "is an assembly of Bishops, priests, and lay-folk from all parts of the world who meet together to proclaim their belief in the Real Presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, to assert the supremacy of the Holy Eucharist in human life, to discuss all matters connected with the Great Mystery, and to endeavour to promote and to develop practical devotion to the great Gift of our Lord's love." The present is the eighteenth of these annual gatherings, and its purely religious aspect is emphasised in the statement of Cardinal Vannutelli to a representative of the Times. "The members of the Congress are not assembling in England with any political intent. They come with an object which is exclusively religious,—to affirm with all simplicity their faith in the Eucharist, recalling the time when that faith was universal in England." It is impossible to deny, however, that this assemblage of princes of the Church and of lesser members of the Roman hierarchy from all parts of the world wears the appearance of a demonstration, and almost of a challenge, which excites apprehension in respectable quarters, and has given rise to regrettable effusions of bigotry in others. An unfounded idea has been disseminated that the Congress is a move in the campaign for the restoration of the temporal power of the Papacy, and for the re-establishment of direct diplomatic relations with the Vatican. Others regard it as a great proselytizing agency. The visit to England of a Papal Legate, after an interval of three centuries and a half, cannot fail to recall memories of Reginald Pole and his disastrous Mission of Reconciliation; while the triumphant progress of Cardinal Vannutelli from Dover to Westminster, the cheering crowds in the streets, the hoisting of the Papal flag as the Legate crossed the threshold of his archiepiscopal host, have all combined to administer a series of shocks to a people by temperament and conviction distrustful of anything that smacks of "Popery." . . . 

Since Cardinal Pole had not visited England for 350, who had any living memory of it? What immediate memories were there to recall? What they had was the memory of the hatred of Catholicism.

The Spectator editorial then goes on to comment on the progress that Catholics had made in England since Emancipation in 1829 and indeed the progress English Protestants had made in accepting the progress that Catholics had made. But then, the editors note one problem: the public procession of the Blessed Sacrament:

One jarring note, and one only, has been struck. The solemn closing of the Congress on Sunday afternoon is to be marked by a "Great Procession of the Blessed Sacrament," which is to follow the celebration of Pontifical vespers and to precede the " Te Deum " and "Benediction". The route has been carefully chosen in the quieter streets round Westminster Cathedral, and has received the approval of the police authorities. Unfortunately, however, such a procession "falls within the mischief" of the twenty-sixth section of the Catholic Emancipation Act, which subjects all persons taking part in it to a substantial fine. The Protestant societies are up in arms, are appealing to the Sovereign to forbid it by Proclamation, and are calling upon the Ministry and upon the head of the Metropolitan Police to enforce the statute. The law is the law, and we do not deny that it is on the side of the protest. But the Protestant position is so safe in this country, so deep-rooted in the convictions of the people, that we should deeply regret open unpleasantness in the streets, not only as a discourtesy to our visitors, but as something like a declaration of weakness,—a distrust in our great tradition of toleration. . . .

Read the rest there. You may also peruse this record of the presentations, homilies, and addresses given during the course of the Congress here.

Bishop Fox's Corpus Christi in Washington

(Image Credit)

The Wall Street Journal has a well-illustrated review of an upcoming exhibition of manuscripts and artifacts from the Corpus Christi Library in Oxford set to open at the Folger Library on February 4 (subscription required). The Folger Library website has this announcement:

Founded 500 years ago in 1517, Corpus Christi College, one of the oldest of the 38 self-governing colleges at the modern University of Oxford, is a repository of extraordinary treasures, few of which have ever been seen by the public. To mark its 500th anniversary, a selection of fifty manuscripts and early printed books from its celebrated Library, ranging in date from the 10th to the 17th centuries, is being brought to America for the first time.

Focusing on the first hundred years of the College’s existence, the exhibition introduces its Founder, Richard Fox, powerful Bishop of Winchester and adviser to Henry VII and Henry VIII, and its first President, John Claymond, who laid the foundations of the Library’s great collection. From the start, Corpus—the first Renaissance college at Oxford—was to pursue Humanist ideals of scholarship in three languages: not just Latin, but also Greek and Hebrew, the original languages of the Bible, along with such other subjects as Astronomy, Mathematics, Medicine, and Philosophy.

A series of display-cases present books in each of these languages, including a number that are bilingual and even trilingual. Most notable among them are a group that has been called "the most important collection of Anglo-Jewish manuscripts in the world"; these works of the 12th and 13th centuries include a series of volumes apparently commissioned by Christians from Jews, from which to learn Hebrew and study biblical texts in their original language, as well as the commentaries of Rashi and what is thought to be the oldest surviving Ashkenazi prayer book.

Highlighting Corpus’ role in the development of science and medicine at Oxford, the exhibition finishes with a series of ground-breaking works, from Galileo’s first observation of the moon using a telescope and Sir Isaac Newton’s autograph observations of Halley’s comet to Hooke’s observations of insects using a microscope and Vesalius’ studies of the human body.

Among the items on display will be Bishop Fox's crozier, shown in the photograph above in situ at Corpus Christi. Bishop Fox may have been more statesman than bishop, however, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica:

After receiving ordination into the priesthood Foxe became secretary in Paris to Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, an exiled claimant to the throne. On Richmond’s accession as King Henry VII, Foxe was made principal secretary of state and lord privy seal. He later became bishop of Exeter (1487–91), Bath and Wells (1491–94), Durham (1494–1501), and Winchester (1501–28).

Nevertheless, he neglected his ecclesiastical duties to concentrate on diplomacy. He negotiated the treaties and directed the diplomatic maneuvers that minimized the aid given by the Scots, the French, and the Dutch to rival claimants to Henry’s throne. In addition, he helped formulate and execute Henry’s ruthlessly efficient financial policies.

After Henry VII’s death in 1509 Foxe for a time remained in favour with the new ruler, Henry VIII. By 1511 he was, however, losing influence to Thomas Wolsey, who became Henry’s chief minister. Foxe resigned from the government in 1516 and—by then nearly blind—spent the last years of his life administering his diocese. His tomb in Winchester Cathedral, showing him as a wasted cadaver, is one of the most extraordinary of the period.

But The Wall Street Journal article's comments about Fox's intellectual vision for Corpus Christi, tied as it was to understanding the Holy Bible better through language arts, might indicate there was something more to Bishop Fox than politics:

Corpus Christi’s founder, Bishop Richard Fox, was a political fixture in Tudor-era England. (He served as a chief adviser to Henry VII and Henry VIII.) Part of the Renaissance spirit he envisioned for the college included a commitment to reading ancient texts, especially the Bible, in their original languages.

“There was this idea that the college would be a trilingual college, where Greek and Hebrew would be taught alongside Latin,” says the show’s curator, Peter Kidd. English scholars “realized that the only way to get back to the true meaning of the Bible was to find out what it said in Hebrew.”

Accordingly, the collection contains 13 rare Hebrew manuscripts, an extraordinary number for one library. A 12th-century prayer book once owned by a Sephardic Jew who traveled to England contains notes that use Hebrew characters to write Arabic words on the fly-leaves—the only such example from medieval England. A 13th-century book of psalms includes side-by-side Latin and Hebrew versions. The college’s scholars likely would have used these works, which will be part of the tour, to learn Hebrew.

This juxtaposition of judgments reminds me again how complex the past is and how careful we have to be in "labeling" a person (in the past or present).

Matthew Parker, RIP--And His Library!

Matthew Parker, Elizabeth I's first Archbishop of Canterbury, and formerly one of Anne Boleyn's chaplains, died on May 17, 1575. In 1574 he gave his library, including a collection of books and manuscripts from the monasteries dissolved from 1536 to 1540, to Corpus Christi College at the University of Cambridge. According to this website:

Matthew Parker (1504-75) was a powerful figure of the English Reformation who was largely responsible for the Church of England as a national institution. Parker's talents were sought by both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. He served as chaplain to Anne Boleyn and proved himself a capable administrator, becoming Master of Corpus Christi College (1544-53), Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, and Archbishop of Canterbury (1559-75). A benefactor to the University of Cambridge, Parker's greatest tangible legacy is his library of manuscripts and early printed books entrusted to Corpus Christi College in 1574. He was an avid book collector, salvaging medieval manuscripts dispersed at the dissolution of the monasteries; he was particularly keen to preserve materials relating to Anglo-Saxon England, motivated by his search for evidence of an ancient English-speaking Church independent of Rome. The extraordinary collection of documents that resulted from his efforts is still housed at Corpus Christi College, and consists of items spanning from the sixth-century Gospels of St. Augustine to sixteenth-century records relating to the English Reformation.

The Parker Library's holdings of Old English texts account for a substantial proportion of all extant manuscripts in Anglo-Saxon, including the earliest copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (c. 890), unique copies of Old English poems and other texts, and King Alfred's translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care. The Parker Library also contains key Anglo-Norman and Middle English texts ranging from the Ancrene Wisse and the Brut Chronicle to one of the finest copies of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. Other subjects represented in the collection are theology, music, medieval travelogues and maps, apocalypses, bestiaries, royal ceremonies, historical chronicles and Bibles. The Parker Library holds a magnificent collection of English illuminated manuscripts, such as the Bury and Dover Bibles (c. 1135 and c. 1150) and the Chronica maiora by Matthew Paris (c. 1230-50). Scholars in a variety of disciplines - including historians of art, music, science, literature, politics and religion - find invaluable resources in the Library's collection.

More biographical information here, at his alma mater.

Hebrew Manuscripts at Fox's Corpus Christi

In The Wall Street Journal, Richard Carwardine writes "Out of the Anglo-Jewish Past", about a Hebrew prayer book in the Corpus Christi College library:

Corpus Christi College, which will reach its 500th birthday in 2017, is celebrated as Oxford's first Renaissance institution. The bishop-statesman Richard Fox, right-hand man to the Tudor monarchs Henry VII and Henry VIII, founded the college to instruct students in the sciences and the languages of the Bible: Hebrew and Greek. From the first, Corpus took a lead in Jewish learning and built an acclaimed library. Among the scores of manuscripts the college used for teaching its young men were Hebrew texts, several donated by the first president and noted collector, John Claymond. How and when he acquired them we don't know—and this is only a part of their mystery. They are the jewels of a small but spectacular collection of medieval Anglo-Jewish books.

These materials shaped the scholarship that gave Corpus a primary role in the translation of the King James Bible. The 400th anniversary of that publication, in 2011, sparked particular interest in the Hebrew manuscripts at Corpus. These include commentaries by the acclaimed medieval French rabbi, Rashi; other items present passages from the Hebrew Bible with a literal translation in Latin written, from the outset, directly above the Hebrew text. They point to the cooperation between Jewish and Christian scholars, eager to help non-Jews learn Hebrew and understand the primary sources of a shared scriptural tradition. The texts could equally have been used to teach Jews Latin—not impossible, given that most English law, property transactions and accounting were conducted in Latin. Command of the language would have been especially beneficial to Jewish financiers in doing business.

Read the rest there. Note that Mr Carwardine is the president of Corpus Christi College, which will observe its 500th anniversary in 2017. More about the College's Hebrew manuscripts here at the Bodleian Library website from a previous exhibition.