How Medieval! Venerating St. Cuthbert

News from The Catholic Herald about a Catholic shrine in an Anglican Cathedral:

Relics of one of Britain’s earliest saints, St Cuthbert, have gone on display in Durham Cathedral.

The centrepiece of the permanent exhibition at the cathedral – which was built in his honour – is an oak coffin, made in Lindisfarne in AD 698, 11 years after Cuthbert’s death. Other exhibits include the saint’s pectoral cross – Cuthbert was called back from his hermit’s cell to become a bishop – and his ivory comb.

Cuthbert’s body and relics were carried by Lindisfarne’s monks when they fled inland to escape Viking raids. They eventually settled in Durham, which became a place of pilgrimage. Although his shrine was destroyed in the Reformation, his relics survived, and his remains were finally reburied in the cathedral in 1899.

The BBC notes that St. Cuthbert's shrine could help save the Cathedral:

Many cathedrals across the UK are suffering financial pressures with some facing closure.

Durham Cathedral's Very Reverend Andrew Tremlett said the £7.50 admission fee for the Treasures of St Cuthbert exhibition would "keep the cathedral open for everybody".

He said: "These things are different in different parts of the country. It depends on your visitor mix.

"We want to keep the cathedral there for the whole community, but also be able to balance the books."

More about the shrine at the Durham Cathedral website, including this detail about Cromwell's commissioners preparing to destroy the shrine:

He found Cuthbert “lying whole with his face bare and his beard as if it had a fortnight’s growth.”

The goldsmith shouted out “Alas, I have broken one of his legs”

Dr Henley called out “throw down the bones”

But the goldsmith replied that he could not do so because the bones were kept together by skin and tissue.

Dr Ley went to the feretory to see for himself, and then told Dr Henley in Latin:

“He was lying whole”

Dr Henley did not believe this and repeated “Cast down the bones,”

“If you do not believe me, come up and see for yourself,” Dr Ley said.

At which point Dr Henley came up and handled him and saw that he was indeed un-decayed.

The commissioners then ordered the monks to move the body to the vestry until the King decided what should be done.

Which just goes to show that some grave robbers have a conscience! Nevertheless, the commissioners knew what to do with the jewels and gold of the shrine.

Golden Years: English Saints by English Greats

Cluny Media sent me a copy of this book for my opinion. As the blurb states:

The English Way, edited by one of the most important Christian humanists and publishers of the twentieth century, Maisie Ward, looks at the lives, ideas, and deaths of the great Roman Catholic Anglo-Saxons. All the men and women in this book served the Church faithfully and with great zeal. Contributors to The English Way include Bede Jarrett and Christopher Dawson, Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton, as well as E. I. Watkin and Maisie Ward herself.

It's a collection of essays about the great English saints of the medieval and recusant era written by the English greats of the early twentieth century. It includes not just the great Anglo-Saxon saints, but the holy men and women of the post-Reformation era. As with all of these compilations, there is a variety of writing styles and voices, academic and popular.

G.K. Chesterton, for example, writes about Alfred the Great, whom he had portrayed in The Ballad of the White Horse, and St. Thomas More. Other great Catholics profiled include St. Bede the Venerable, Julian Norwich, St. Bonaventure, St. Aelred of Rievaulx, St. Thomas of Canterbury, Julian of Norwich,St. John Fisher, St. Edmund Campion, Richard Crashaw, Venerable Mary Ward, Bishop Richard Challoner, and Blessed John Henry Newman. The writers include Bede Jarrett, C.C. Martindale, E.I. Watkin, Hilaire Belloc, David Knowles, Douglas Woodruff, Gervase Mathew and David Mathew, Maisie Ward, and Martin D'Arcy. The collection was originally published by Sheed & Ward.

The passion the writers felt for their subjects often comes through strongly, as when Christopher Dawson laments that the greatest religious poem in English history, The Vision of Pier Plowman by William Langland, was not available to the public in an affordable and complete edition:

Here is the Catholic Englishman par excellence, at once the most English of Catholic poets and the most Catholic of English poets; a man in whom Catholic faith and national feeling are fused in a single flame. He saw Christ walking in English fields in the dress of an English laborer, and to understand his work is to know English religion in its most autochthonous and yet most Catholic form.

[autochthonous means indigenous; I had to look it up!]

Dawson goes on to tell us that Langland tells us much about the fourteenth century, that "age of profound social and spiritual change", "an age of poets and mystics and saints." He notes that England came into its own as English in that century, and compares and contrasts the two great poets of the era in England, Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland. Dawson's essay is a masterpiece of literary exposition and historical explanation. He sees Langland as a great prophet and poet, and has inspired me to search out a readable edition.

Cluny Media has done a great service to readers to bring this book back into print. I have some caveats, however, about their edition. I think we need brief biographies of the contributors, who would have been well known--and some still will be of course-when the book was published. Many of the names were familiar to me, but who was Fr. Aelfric Manson, O. P., who writes about St. Boniface? 

In an otherwise sympathetic and helpful introduction, Bradley Birzer commits a strange error, dating the beatification of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More to 1935, "only two years after the appearance of The English Way." Fisher and More were beatified in 1886--they were canonized in 1935! 

There are some formatting errors too--the wrong author is cited on page 50, for example. The heading for the essay on St. Edmund Campion indicates the essay is about St. Thomas More. In a book dedicated to "Studies in English Sanctity" these are minor things of course. The English Way is great book to read through to see the variety of English saints and Catholic heroes and heroines, and also great just to pick up and read about a certain saint. Highly recommended.

And in Post-Reformation England, Even More True

Amy Welborn writes for The Catholic Herald on how the Reformation did not so much help but hindered the influence of women in religious life by cutting off access to the convent:

For many years, the narrative on the Reformation and women has maintained that it must have been all good news. How could it not be? After all, Martin Luther and others had emphasised the freedom of the individual Christian believer, encouraged Bible reading and, therefore, literacy for all and, of course, had elevated and celebrated marriage. This, we are assured, was progress.

Perhaps not. As has been the case with many historical narratives and assumptions, the certainty that the Reformation produced net gains for women has been upended in recent decades. A survey of the large and continually growing body of research reveals wide agreement that is, in fact, 180 degrees away from the former view.

As Lutheran historian Kirsi Stjerna writes, “With the fading of the nuns and other related, traditionally important religious roles for women (such as the mystics and visionaries), which coincided with the theologically argued women’s domestication, women’s spiritual presence and theological voice in the church at large seemed to radically diminish.”

The Reformation was, of course, a diverse and constantly evolving phenomenon. Common to the entire movement, however, was the conviction that vowed, celibate religious life as an ideal was non-Scriptural, harmful and must be eliminated, supplanted by another model of ideal Christian life: the individual, saved by faith alone, dwelling productively in the community as believer, spouse and parent.

The strongest symbol of this “non-biblical” ideal of virginity was, of course, the monastery, so in Reformed lands the closing of male and female religious houses was a priority, and the Gospel of domesticity was preached and enforced in their stead. Every woman, it was assumed, was meant for marriage, children and the home. Gone was that space – as the convent was – for women to pursue intellectual and artistic pursuits, to provide institutionalised charity, to interact with religious, political and business interests as leaders of their communities, and – very importantly – to support the community and serve the living and the dead through their once highly valued but now “useless” prayers.

She also points out how the elimination of the commemoration of saints meant that holy women like Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Bridget of Sweden, and Catherine of Siena, even the Beguine mystics, were forgotten and of course, that devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary was questioned and reduced. Shutting off that avenue of vocation diminished feminine influence in the Church, not increased it.

Read the rest there.

And think about England: Henry VIII wiped out the religious vocations of his subjects, thwarting God's call to them when he dissolved the monasteries, convents, and friaries. English women, like Venerable Mary Ward, had to exile themselves from their native home to make their religious vows. 

Of course, we can't know what might have been, but think of the contributions English women religious might have made to the reform and renewals efforts of the Catholic Church--England could have its own St. Teresa of Avila or St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, influencing prayer and spirituality for centuries.

As it is, the Catholic women saints--except for Mary Ward--of the post English Reformation era are the martyrs, St. Margaret Clitherow, St. Margaret Ward, and St. Anne Line. 

Since All Saints Day is dedicated to ALL the saints, officially canonized or not, I'd like to think of all the women who remained in England, trying to remain also true to their Catholic faith, assisting priests, attending Mass and availing themselves of the other Sacraments whenever they could, teaching their children the Catechism, praying the Rosary and maintaining other devotions, celebrating the saints and feast days in the traditional way, always in hiding, sometimes in danger--and always praying that a missionary priest might be close by when they were pregnant or when they were dying, so that their babies could be baptized or they finally would receive Extreme Unction and Viaticum. Those are saints! Great confessors of the Faith!

And the exiled English sisters and nuns, far from home, praying for the conversion of England, praying for their families at home, probably particularly for their mothers, trying to live a Catholic life when it had been proscribed by the State.

All holy men and women, pray for us!!

Image Credit: St. Julian of Norwich. Mary Ward image is in the public domain.

There's Just Something about Those Thwings

St. John of Bridlington or St. John Thwing or Thweng, is a Yorkshire saint of the fourteenth century and an ancestor of two recusant era martyrs, Blesseds Edward and Thomas Thwing, uncle and nephew. Saint John was born in 1320 near Bridlington:

John was schooled in the village from the age of five, before completing his studies at Oxford.

He then entered the Augustinian Canons Regular community of Priory of Bridlington. He carried out his duties with humility and diligence, and was in turn novice master, almsgiver, preacher and sub-prior. He became Canon of the Priory in 1346 and was eventually elected Prior in 1356. John initially declined out of humility, but after being re-elected, probably in 1361, that he took on the duties of Prior in January 1362. He served as Prior for 17 years before his death on 10 October 1379.

There's a connection between Henry V and St. John:

St John of Bridlington was commended for the integrity of his life, his scholarship, and his quiet generosity. He was the last English saint to be canonised before the English Reformation. King Henry V attributed his victory at Agincourt to the intercession in heaven of this Saint John and of Saint John of Beverley. Women in difficult labour may pray to St John of Bridlington as their patron saint and he is also associated with the local fishing industry.

Of course Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries led to the destruction of his shrine:

At the English Reformation Henry VIII was asked to spare the magnificent shrine of the saint, but in vain; it was destroyed in 1537. The nave of the church, restored in 1857, is all that now remains of Bridlington Priory. 

In fact, the last Prior might also be considered a saint as  martyr, for he stood up against the Dissolution of the Monasteries and participated in the Pilgrimage of Grace, according to BHO:

The last prior, William Wood, took part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, was attainted of high treason on 17 January 1537,(fn. 47) and with the Abbots of Fountains and Jervaulx, the ex Abbot of Rievaulx and the ex-Prior of Guisborough, was put to death, the property of the house being then treated as forfeited to the Crown. (fn. 48)

A letter is extant from Prior Wood to Thomas Cromwell, (fn. 49) the exact date of which is uncertain, in reply to one advising the prior to recognize Henry VIII as patron and founder, or to appear before one of the king's councillors. Prior Wood pleaded that he was 'deteyned with divers infirmities' of body 'and in lyke manner am feble of nature, so that without great jeopardie of my lyffe, I cannot, nor am not hable to labor in doing of my deuty to appere before your mastershipp,' &c. The prior therefore sent his brother to represent him.

Another letter, printed more than once elsewhere, is from Richard Bellasys, one of the commissioners for the suppression of monasteries, (fn. 50) to Cromwell, and bears date 14 November 1538. After relating how he had treated Jervaulx Abbey, the writer goes on to say, 'As for Byrdlington I have doyn nothing there as yet, but spayrethe itt to March next, bycause the days now are so short, and from such tyme as I begyn I trust shortly to dyspatche it after such fashion that when all is fynished, I trust your Lordshipp shall think that I have bene no evyll howsbound in all such things as your Lordshipp haith appoynted me to doo.'

Pugin and St. Augustine of Canterbury

St. Bede the Venerable, St. Philip Neri, and now St. Augustine of Canterbury, there has been quite a sequence of English or English related saints this week. In The Catholic Herald, Father Marcus Holden discusses the revival of St. Augustine's Ramsgate, the shrine church designed and built by A.W.G. Pugin:

Pugin’s church of St Augustine in Ramsgate became a shrine in 2012. It is now the official place to honour the coming of Christianity from Rome to the Anglo-Saxon people with the mission of St Augustine.

In a stunning location overlooking the sea, the shrine is near to where St Augustine first landed in AD 597. Augustus Pugin moved to this place and built his own “ideal” church (and was buried there) precisely because “blessed Austen had landed nearby”. He called it “the cradle of Catholicism in England”.

Pugin desired a rebirth of Catholic culture in the place where it had been first conceived. When Archbishop Peter Smith inaugurated the new shrine he was filling a gap of 474 years since the last great shrine of St Augustine had been destroyed in Canterbury. This significant act has inspired thousands of pilgrims to visit ever since.

Shrines are powerhouses of the new evangelisation. At St Augustine’s, the majority of our visitors are not Catholic and yet they too enjoy the experience. Beauty reaches everyone. Heritage is a forgotten tool for sharing the faith in a gentle, non-intrusive manner.

At present we are welcoming more than 10,000 visitors each year and that number is increasing. The shrine celebrates liturgy to a very high standard in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms. Artists and historians are making important contributions. Last year we also launched with Explore Kent a signed walking route called “the Way of St Augustine”. It connects Canterbury to Ramsgate, following the route that the saint took after preaching to King Ethelbert.

More about St. Augustine of Canterbury from the shrine Pugin built:

Augustine of England was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the “Apostle to the English” and a founder of the English Church. Augustine was the prior of the monastery of St Andrew in Rome when Pope Gregory the Great chose him in 595 to lead a mission, usually known as the Gregorian mission, to convert the English from paganism. The Anglo-Saxons had invaded and settled on the island of Britannia one hundred and fifty years before. In 597, Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet. At a meeting at Ebbesfleet with King Ethelbert, the principal ruler of the Anglo-Saxons, Augustine first proclaimed the gospel to the English. Augustine and his group of forty monks were invited back to Canterbury and through their holy lives, miracles and preaching converted 10,000 souls. King Ethelbert was also baptised and allowed the monks to establish a Cathedral church and a Monastery. There began the long and fruitful Christian history of the English people. From Augustine’s foundation missionaries were sent to establish the Christian faith in London, Rochester and York. He probably died on 26th May 604 and was soon revered as a saint. Many centuries of devotion followed. In 1534 his shrine at Canterbury was destroyed only to be restored on 1st March 2012 on the Isle of Thanet near to where he first landed, at Pugin’s Church of St Augustine, Ramsgate.

St. Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us!

(Image credit: Wikipedia Commons, public domain).

February 21 in London--at Tyburn in 1595 and in The City in 1801

What a remarkable doctrine of the Church is the Communion of Saints! Two great holy men were born this day--one to eternal life, the other to life on earth: St. Robert Southwell was executed on February 21, 1595 and Blessed John Henry Newman was born on February 21, 1801.

St. Robert Southwell was 33 years old when he was executed at Tyburn on February 21, 1595. When he cited his age during his trial, his torturer Richard Topcliffe mocked him for claiming equality with Jesus Christ. Southwell answered that he was but a worm.

It is hard to be temperate when writing about his arrest, torture and execution--it is obviously a horrendous blot against the Elizabethan "regime". He was betrayed by a woman that Elizabeth's pursuivant Richard Topcliffe had raped and blackmailed--he promised to find her a husband since she was pregnant with his child if she would turn Southwell in; he was tortured--illegally and excruciatingly--numerous times, starting with a visit to Topcliffe's personal torture chamber, while Elizabeth's officials looked on; then he was held in fetid conditions until his father visited him in Westminster's gatehouse and petitioned the queen to put him to death rather than leave him there, in his own filth.

Moved to the Tower of London he was held in greater but solitary comfort, but Queen Elizabeth allowed the sadistic Topcliffe to continue torturing Southwell, who had readily admitted his priesthood. Prior to his trial on February 20 he was moved into a hole called Limbo; the government did not even try to implicate him in any plot against the Queen; he was executed just because he was a Catholic priest. When he was executed on February 21st, the crowds made sure he was dead before the butchery began--and no one cheered when his severed head was displayed to the crowd. Indeed, Elizabeth's government recognized that they had gone too far--there was lull in executions of Catholic priests in London. Lord Cecil even ignored Topcliffe's desires to get started on new victims.

Robert Southwell was canonized by Pope Paul VI among the group called The Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. In addition to be a great saint and steadfast martyr, he is regarded as one of the great poets of the Elizabethan Age. Much of his poetry was written while he was held in solitary confinement in the Tower of London and was published posthumously.

Pope St. John Paul II remembered the 200th anniversary of Newman's birth in this 2001 letter to Birmingham:

Newman was born in troubled times which knew not only political and military upheaval but also turbulence of soul. Old certitudes were shaken, and believers were faced with the threat of rationalism on the one hand and fideism on the other. Rationalism brought with it a rejection of both authority and transcendence, while fideism turned from the challenges of history and the tasks of this world to a distorted dependence upon authority and the supernatural. In such a world, Newman came eventually to a remarkable synthesis of faith and reason which were for him "like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of the truth" (Fides et Ratio,Introduction; cf. ibid., 74). It was the passionate contemplation of truth which also led him to a liberating acceptance of the authority which has its roots in Christ, and to the sense of the supernatural which opens the human mind and heart to the full range of possibilities revealed in Christ. "Lead kindly light amid the encircling gloom, lead Thou me on", Newman wrote in "The Pillar of the Cloud"; and for him Christ was the light at the heart of every kind of darkness. For his tomb he chose the inscription: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem; and it was clear at the end of his life’s journey that Christ was the truth he had found.

But Newman’s search was shot through with pain. Once he had come to that unshakeable sense of the mission entrusted to him by God, he declared: "Therefore, I will trust Him... If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him... He does nothing in vain... He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me. Still, He knows what He is about" (Meditations and Devotions). All these trials he knew in his life; but rather than diminish or destroy him they paradoxically strengthened his faith in the God who had called him, and confirmed him in the conviction that God "does nothing in vain". In the end, therefore, what shines forth in Newman is the mystery of the Lord’s Cross: this was the heart of his mission, the absolute truth which he contemplated, the "kindly light" which led him on.

Pilgrimages Yesterday and Today

Interesting project:

'Pilgrimage and England's cathedrals' employs a ground-breaking combination of interdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies to identify and analyse the core dynamics of pilgrimage and sacred sites in England from the 11th to 21st centuries, assess the growing significance of English cathedrals as sacred/heritage sites today, and inform management of/public engagement with these iconic buildings. Set against the background of the worldwide growth of pilgrimage and increasing importance of sacred sites, the project's innovative approaches and timely research agenda also contributes substantially to defining and establishing the emerging field of Pilgrimage Studies.

At the heart of this project is a new, wide-ranging analysis of the meaning and breadth of 'pilgrimage' and the role of sacred places past and present. Why did pilgrimage matter in the past and why does it still matter today? In exploring these issues, the project focuses attention on the role of cathedrals: places where, uniquely, national and local history and identity, material culture and traditional and emerging religious practice can be encountered together. Pilgrimage was central to the development and status of English cathedrals in the Middle Ages and although most shrines were destroyed at the Reformation, many of the great churches and monasteries which housed them remain as cathedrals today, literally shaped by their pilgrim past and retaining a strong pilgrimage legacy. Anglican cathedrals are increasingly refocusing on and reinstating shrines, reflecting an international multi-faith phenomenon in which an estimated 200 million people across the world engage in pilgrimage and religious tourism annually.

Historically the pilgrims going to a certain cathedral were intent on visiting a saint's shrine, praying for his or her intercession, acting in penitence for some great personal sin or in reparation for the sake some great blessing on themselves or another. Pilgrimage on earth was aimed at eventual arrival in heaven. It was expensive, dangerous--although pilgrims were supposed to be protected--arduous, and time-consuming. Walking along the pilgrimage route, the pilgrims were focused on their goal.

Although they were stripped of their shrines and saintly significance after the English Reformation, English cathedrals have remained a goal of pilgrimage. The project organizers comment that many coming to the cathedrals in the study, York, Durham, Canterbury, and Westminster, are not even Christian or may practice no faith at all:

Moreover, over 40% of those visitors came from faith traditions other than Christianity or had no religious affiliation. This suggests that cathedrals are seen as shaped by, but transcending, Christianity, offering unique access to the 'spiritual' within the context of history, heritage and culture, and providing meaningful spaces for people of all faiths and none. These developments demand fuller, rigorous, multi-disciplinary investigation so that implications for cathedrals, visitors and communities can be explored in detail.

File that under the heading "The Unintended Reformation"! The Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century in England would be shocked. Since Christianity means Jesus Christ, transcending Christianity would be the furthest thing in their minds; yet, their reformation started the process of destroying the worldview that held saints in heaven and sinners on earth (and in purgatory) in a community of pilgrimage and love.

Another Victim of the English Reformation

The Catholic Herald writes about the eclipse of St. Hugh of Lincoln, brought about by the English Reformation:

A leading figure in the 12th century proto-Renaissance, Hugh of Lincoln has suffered a spectacular historical decline, going from being one of the most famous saints in English history at one point to a virtual unknown today.

He was born in Avalon in southern France around 1135. His father was the local lord and a soldier, who later retired to a monastery near Grenoble. Hugh’s mother died when he was sent to boarding school, becoming a religious novice at 15 and a deacon four years later.

In 1159, Hugh was sent to a nearby Benedictine monastery in Saint-Maximin, after which he left the order to enter the Grande Chartreuse, the head monastery of the Carthusian order, just outside Grenoble.

In this famously austere environment he rose to become procurator, before being sent to Witham Charterhouse priory in Somerset, the first of the Carthusian houses in England. . . .

Then, in 1186, he was chosen as Bishop of Lincoln, a role in which he excelled. Generous and kind to his flock, he was also firm in standing up to the Crown. He also helped to improve education in the country and protected the Jews of Lincoln during the persecutions that begun during the Lionheart’s reign.

He also rebuilt Lincoln Cathedral, which had been damaged in 1186, and consecrated St Giles’s in Oxford in 1200. But he was also overworked, taking on the thankless task of being a diplomat for the new king, Richard’s appalling brother, John, and he died on November 16 1200.

Canonised 20 years later, St Hugh was very well known in the later medieval period but became less so after the Reformation.

He is the patron of sick children, shoemakers and swans.

David Farmer's 1985 biography is still probably the most reliable source. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

A magnificent golden shrine contained his relics, and Lincoln became the most celebrated centre of pilgrimage in the north of England. It is not known what became of St. Hugh's relics at the Reformation; the shrine and its wealth were a tempting bait to Henry VIII, who confiscated all its gold, silver and precious stones, "with which all the simple people be moch deceaved and broughte into greate supersticion and idolatrye". . . . In the Carthusian Order he is second only to St. Bruno, and the great modern Charterhouse at Parkminster, in Sussex, is dedicated to him.

St. Hugh of Lincoln, pray for us!

The Missing Shrine, the Whitewashed Painting: St. William of Rochester

Today is the feast of St. William of Perth (Scotland) or Rochester, a pilgrim martyr. According to the old Catholic Encylopedia he

died about 1201. Practically all that is known of this martyr comes from the "Nova legenda Anglie", and that is little. In youth he had been somewhat wild, but on reaching manhood he devoted himself wholly to the service of God. A baker by trade, he was accustomed to set aside every tenth loaf for the poor. He went to Mass daily, and one morning, before it was light, found on the threshold of the church an abandoned child, whom he adopted and to whom he taught his trade. Later he took a vow to visit the Holy Places, and, having received the consecrated wallet and staff, set out with his adopted son, whose name is given as "Cockermay Doucri", which is said to be Scots for "David the Foundling". They stayed three days at Rochester, and purposed to proceed next day to Canterbury, but instead David wilfully misled his benefactor and, with robbery in view, felled him with a blow on the head and cut his throat. The body was discovered by a mad woman, who plaited a garland of flowers and placed it first on the head of the corpse and then her own, whereupon the madness left her. On learning her tale the monks of Rochester carried the body to the cathedral and there buried it. In 1256 the Bishop of Rochester, Lawrence de S. Martino, obtained the canonization of St. William by Pope Alexander IV. A beginning was at once made with his shrine, which was situated in the northeast transept, and attracted crowds of pilgrims. At the same time a small chapel was built at the place of the murder, which was thereafter called Palmersdene. Remains of this chapel are still to be seen near the present St. William's Hospital, on the road leading by Horsted Farm to Maidstone. On 18 and 19 February, 1300, King Edward I gave two donations of seven shillings to the shrine. On 29 November, 1399, Pope Boniface IX granted an indulgence to those who visited and gave alms to the shrine on certain specified days. St. William is represented in a wall-painting, which was discovered in 1883 in Frindsbury church, near Rochester, which is supposed to have been painted about 1256-1266. His feast was kept on 23 May.

Although his tomb at Rochester Cathedral was a great draw for pilgrims, according to the Rochester Cathedral website:

A Place of Pilgrimage - The Cathedral became a major place of pilgrimage in the 13th century, following the death of William of Perth, a Scottish baker who was murdered nearby. His body was brought to the Cathedral and at his shrine, of which no trace remains, miracles were reported. Modern pilgrims who journey to the Cathedral still climb the Pilgrim Steps, now worn by the many thousands of medieval pilgrims visiting the shrine, often lighting candles at the William of Perth prayer-station in front of the oratory. Visitors who journey to the Cathedral today are direct descendents of those early pilgrims.

The church referred to in the Catholic Encyclopedia article, with the wall-paintig of St. William of Rochester, is All Saints Anglican Church. The wall painting, along with those of St. Edmund of Canterbury and St. Lawrence, were whitewashed during the English Reformation. St. William is, of course, depicted as a pilgrim, as you can see in this image.

St. Simon Stock and England

Yesterday, May 16, was the memorial of St. Simon Stock. The Catholic Herald published this story on his life and influence, even beyond the private revelation of the Brown Scapular, a popular Catholic devotion:

Simon Stock, who died in 1265, is a shadowy figure, of whom little is known with any certainty. Tradition holds, however, that he played an important part in the spread of the Carmelite order in western Europe. . . .

The precise point at which Simon Stock joined the order is not clear. He is said to have been an Englishman, born in Kent, where he spent much of his youth living in the hollow trunk, or “stock”, of a tree. According to one account, he was with the Carmelites in Palestine. According to another he became the first member of the order to receive a degree from Oxford University. Still another tradition places him as a monk at Hulme in Northumberland.

More certainly, he became the sixth prior-general of the Carmelites in 1245. Soon afterwards he is said to have called a general chapter at Aylesford in Kent and to have instituted a revision of the Rule, better adapted to monks who were now rather mendicant friars than hermits.

Simon has also been credited with establishing Carmelite houses in Oxford, Cambridge, Paris and Bologna, as well as in Ireland and Spain.

In 1251, he was granted a vision in which the Virgin Mary instructed him to introduce into the order the wearing of the scapular. This consists of two strips of dark cloth, worn on the breast and the back, and fastened at the shoulders. Anyone who died in this garment, the Virgin assured him, would never be lost at the day of judgment.

It's not certain if the vision took place at Aylesford Priory or in Cambridge, but St. Simon Stock's relics are venerated at the Priory today. Aylesford Priory in Kent was revived in the 1950's after the Carmelites were able to purchase the lands and rededicate the buildings--it is now a retreat center and pilgrimage site. Of course, it had been suppressed during the reign of Henry VIII; the Wyatt family obtained it through the Court of Augmentations, but lost it during the reign of Mary I as a result of Wyatt's Rebellion.

Beverley Minster and St. John of Beverley

St. John of Beverley died on May 7, 721 and was buried in Beverley Minster, Beverley, Yorkshire and was canonized in 1037. Devotion to him led to the building of a tremendous Perpendicular Gothic abbey church (beginning in 1220) and to many pilgrimages. Henry VIII ordered the destruction of his shrine 820 years after his death and the dissolution of the monastery, but the church survived as a parish church. His relics were discovered in the 17th century and are venerated in the church today.

The EWTN Library provides this biography of St. John of Beverley:

This illustrious saint was born at Harpham, a village in the province of the Deiri, which comprised Yorkshire, Lancashire, and the rest of the kingdom of the Northumbers, on the south side of the Tyne; what lay beyond it being called Bernicia.

An earnest desire of qualifying himself for the service of God drew him young into Kent, where he made great progress in learning and piety, in the famous school of St. Theodorus, the archbishop, under the direction of the holy abbot Adrian. . . .

In 717, being much broken with age and fatigues, he resigned his bishopric to his chaplain, St. Wilfrid the, younger, and having ordained him bishop of York, he retired to Beverley, where he spent the remaining four years of his life in the punctual performance of all monastic duties. He died there the death of the just, on the 7th of May, 721. His successor governed the see of York fifteen years, was a great lover of the beauty of God's house and is named among the saints, April the 29th. The monastery of Beverley having been destroyed by the Danes, king Athelstan, who had obtained a great victory over the Scots by the intercession of St. John, founded in his honor, in the same place, a rich collegiate church of canons. . .Alcuin of York, Julian of Norwich and St. John Fisher all had tremendous devotion to St. John of Beverley. Henry V attributed his victory at Agincourt to him and encouraged--nay, ordered--devotion to him throughout England. His feast in the Church of England is a civil holiday in Beverley, with special prayers and processions. There is a Catholic church dedicated to St. John in his hometown, Hexham.

The Unfinished Vespers of December 29, 1170

This recording by the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge, founded by the late Mary Berry tells the story of the martyrdom of St. Thomas a Becket by recreating the vespers interrupted that night by Henry II's knights:

The story of the Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket has been told many times. There are contemporary eye-witness accounts of how the four knights rushed in and slew the Archbishop in his own cathedral of Canterbury; there are scholarly modern historical studies; the story is told in the stained-glass windows of the cathedral itself; and of course there are Chaucer’s entertaining Canterbury Tales… This recording approaches the story from another angle: it is an attempt to capture through music each major act of the grim drama as it unfolds. . . . It is rare to find intact the office music for the feast of St Thomas. In nearly all the sources the relevant pages have been torn out or defaced in the 16th century by order of Henry VIII. However, in an early 13th-century noted breviary from Lewes Priory it appears in pristine condition and it is from this source that the music for the recording has been transcribed.

Mary Berry was an Augustinian Canoness Congregation of Notre-Dame de Jupille in Belgium and a great champion of Gregorian Chant who died on May 1, 2008. Her Times obituary is here:

Devout and erudite, Berry radiated a joyful and sunny blessing, occasionally interspersed with crisp commands if singers flat-footed a wrong note. There were no concessions to ignorance — either of the chant or the liturgy — but her bubbling humour leavened long hours of choir practice. With a fund of interesting and mildly scurrilous anecdotes delivered with a twinkle in her eye, she was fortunate to attract many fine cantors to sing at festivals and record CDs on the Herald label.

The cantors of the Schola, a professional group of singers interested in Gregorian chant and early music, specialise in the reconstruction and performance of liturgy from the 10th century to modern times. Led by Berry, they were the first in the field to record a reconstruction of a complete festal service based on the tropes and organa of the Winchester Troper, and this won the Michael Beazley Medieval Recording of the Year in 1991. Their work was, and continues to be, very significant in bringing early music to a wider audience.

In 2000 she was awarded the Papal Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice for her work with Gregorian chant, and in 2002 she was appointed CBE for her services to plainsong and Gregorian chant.

I ordered this CD last December and did not receive it until February! Customs between the U.K. and the U.S. held it up considerably. I will listen to it again today.

St. Thomas a Becket, pray for us.

It is rather interesting to note that the breviary that provided the office music for the Feast of St. Thomas a Becket survived the suppression of Lewes Priory, the great Cluniac house.

St. Birinus and St. Osmund

John Whitehead reminds us of two saints: St. Birinus (at Dorchester on Thames) and St. Osmund (at Salisbury Cathedral):

St Birinus, whose feast it is today [December 5], was the missionary bishop who evangelised the mid-Thames valley and later the Kingdom of Wessex. He died in 649 0r 650. Originally buried at Dorcherster on Thames his relics were later tranlated to Winchester, although there were relics and a shrine, of which part remains in a modern reconstruction, at Dorchester. This served as the site of the of a cathedral until 1072 when the cathedra of the united east-midland dioceses was established at Lincoln.

The former cathedral, which retained for some time pro-cathedral status, was refounded as an Augustinian priory, now known as Dorchester Abbey, and its surviving church is one of the most interesting examples of a medium-sized monastic building and its gradual eveolution. It has some wonderful medieval glass and carving, both on the building itself and in the fine selection of tomb effigies.

More on Dorchester Abbey here and more on the Catholic church in Dorchester here.

and

Were today not Sunday [December 4] it would be the feast of St Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, who died in 1099, but was only canonised in 1457 - the last pre-reformation recognition of sanctity for an English saint. There is an online life of him here.

The cathedral he knew at Old Sarum was replaced in the thirteenth century by the present Salisbury cathedral, and it was there that his bones were enshrined, and to that building that my thoughts turn. Or rather to some of its features which were destroyed in the eighteenth century. Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my revulsion at the destruction of historic and beautiful buildings and monuments, and here is another example of what shocks me.

At the end of the 1780s the Chapter of Salisbury called in as their architect James Wyatt. Now as an exponent of Neo-Classicism he was fine - witness the library at Oriel built in 1788. Let loose on a medieval cathedral he was lethal. Durham, Hereford and Salisbury bear witness to his ravages. If at Hereford he had in part the excuse of the collapse of the west tower in 1786, and at Durham his schemes were stopped short of destroying the Galilee Chapel, at Salisbury there seems to be neither excuse nor restraint.

Demolishing two later Hungerford and Beauchamp chantry chapels of 1464 and 1481 which flanked the Trinity Chapel at the east end can, I suppose, be explained, but not excused, as restoring the original configuration of the eastern chapels. . . .

More on St. Osmund of Salisbury here.

St. Werburgh and Chester Cathedral

Following up on the surrender of Fountains Abbey, let's look at the Chester Abbey church that became Chester Cathedral in 1541. It was surrendered in January of 1540. The church at Chester had been famed as the site of St. Werburgh's tomb. St. Werburgh was a seventh century royal Benedictine abbess. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1912, she was

born in Staffordshire early in the seventh century; died at Trentham, 3 February, 699or 700. Her mother was St. Ermenilda, daughter of Ercombert, King of Kent, and St. Sexburga, and her father, Wulfhere, son of Penda the fiercest of the Mercian kings. St. Werburgh thus united in her veins the blood of two very different races: one fiercely cruel and pagan; the other a type of gentle valour and Christian sanctity. In her, likewise, centred the royal blood of all the chief Saxon kings, while her father on the assassination of his elder brother Peada, who had been converted to Christianity, succeeded to the largest kingdom of the heptarchy. . . . On account of her beauty and grace the princess was eagerly sought in marriage, chief among her suitors being Werebode, a headstrong warrior, to whom Wulfhere was much indebted; but the constancy of Werbrugh overcame all obstacles so that at length she obtained her father's consent to enter the Abbey of Ely, which had been founded by her great- aunt, St. Etheldra, and the fame of which was widespread.

When her uncle Ethelred succeeded to the throne, he asked St. Werburgh to take on a great challenge:

This king invited St. Werburgh to assume the direction of all the monasteries of nuns in his dominion, in order that she might bring them to that high level of discipline and perfection which had so often edified him at Ely. The saint with some difficulty consented to sacrifice the seclusion she prized, and undertook the work of reforming the existing Mercian monasteries, and of founding new ones which King Ethelred generously endowed, namely, Trentham and Hanbury, in Staffordshire, and Weedon, in Northamptonshire. It had been the privilege of St. Werburgh to be trained by saints; at home by St. Chad (afterwards Bishop of Lichfield), and by her mother, and in the cloister by her aunt and grandmother. Her position worked no change in the humility which had always characterized her, so that in devotedness to all committed to her care she seemed rather the servant than the mistress. Her sole thought was to excel her sisters in the practice of religious perfection. God rewarded her childlike trust by many miracles, which have made St. Werburgh one of the best known and loved of the Saxon saints.

After her death:

So numerous and marvellous were the cures worked at the saint's tomb that in 708 her body was solemnly translated to a more conspicuous place in the church, in the presence of her brother, Kenred, who had now succeeded King Ethelred. In spite of having been nine years in the tomb, the body was intact. So great was the impression made on Kenred that he resolved to resign his crown and followed in his sister's footsteps. In 875, through fear of the Danes and in order to show greater honour to the saint, the body was removed to Chester. The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, on the site of the present cathedral of Chester, was rededicated to St. Werburgh and St. Oswald, most probably in the reign of Athelstan. The great Leofric, Earl of Mercia (who was likewise styled Earl of Chester), and his wife, Lady Godiva, repaired and enlarged the church, and in 1093, Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, richly endowed the abbey and its church. By the instrumentality of this noble, Chester, which had been in the hands of secular canons, became a great Benedictine abbey, the name of St. Anselm, then a monk at Bee, being associated with this transformation.

Her shrine, of course, was demolished and her remains scattered with the dissolution of the abbey. According to the wikipedia article (source of the image above), Chester Cathedral is a magnificent Norman/Gothic structure. It was, however, one of those cathedrals that suffered much damage, especially to its stained glass, from Parliamentary troops in the English Civil War. St. Werburgh is still the patron saint of Chester, and this site provides some detail of her reconstructed shrine.

October 25, 1970: Pope Paul VI and the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales

Pope Paul VI canonized the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales on October 25, 1970--although their Feast is celebrated in the dioceses of England and Wales on May 4 (since the year 2000) it's appropriate to remember that his action was not without controversy.

This document archived at EWTN describes some of the difficulty:

Some months before the Consistory the General Postulation, as well as the Vice-Postulation, had charged specialized agencies with following the whole national and provincial press of England and Wales, together with the European and American press, and sending it constantly everything that was published in connection with the Cause. At the same time it redoubled its efforts to obtain the widest and most accurate information not only on the attitude of English and Welsh Catholics, but above all on that of the Anglicans, with many of whose best qualified representatives there had long existed relations marked by sincere and brotherly frankness and a genuine spirit of mutual understanding and collaboration. The Hierarchy of England and Wales, in its turn, and in the first place Card. Godfrey's successor, His Eminence Card. Heenan, Vice-President of the Secretariat for the Union of Christians, made a point of establishing and maintaining exchanges of views with the competent authorities of the various Christian denominations in their country.
On the basis of this huge mass of material, it was established beyond al] shadow of doubt that at least 85 per cent of what had been printed in England and Wales, both on the Catholic and the non-Catholic side, far from being unfavourable to the Cause, was clearly in favour of it or at least showed great understanding for the opportuneness of the canonization. This applies to publications such as "Church Times", or the "Church of England Newspaper." and the most widely read English national papers such as "The Times", "The Guardian", "The Economist", "The Spectator" "The Daily Telegraph", "The Sunday Times" and many others.
On the other hand some foreign publications—including some well-known papers of protest—raised difficulties. It was at once clear, however, that these were based on insufficient knowledge of the complicated historical situation in which the Martyrs sacrificed their lives, and, to an even greater degree, of the present ecumenical situation in England. The latter calls for at least a minimum of concrete knowledge and cannot easily be understood by those who do not take the trouble to study it thoroughly Of course, everything possible has been done, by means of press conferences and other opportune methods, to eliminate this type of misunderstanding, generally most successfully.
A serious, serene and objective study of the whole situation led to the conclusion, therefore, that besides the numerous reasons clearly in favour of the canonization of the 40 blessed Martyrs, there were no real ecumenical objections to it, on the contrary the canonization offered considerable advantages also from the genuinely ecumenical point of view.
It was precisely these ideas that His Holiness Paul VI expressed and explained in a masterly fashion in the address he delivered on the occasion of the Consistory on May 18th, 1970, in which he announced his intention to proceed with the solemn canonization of the 40 blessed Martyrs of England and Wales on October 25th, 1970. In this address the Holy Father, besides pointing out, with serene frankness and great charity, the ecumenical value of this Cause, also laid particular stress on the fact that we need the example of these Martyrs particularly today not only because the Christian religion is still exposed to violent persecution in various parts of the world, but also because at a time when the theories of materialism and naturalism are constantly gaining ground and threatening to destroy the spiritual heritage of our civilization, the forty Martyrs—men and women from all walks of life—who did not hesitate to sacrifice their lives in obedience to the dictates of conscience and the divine will, stand out as noble witnesses to human dignity and freedom.
This declaration of the Sovereign Pontiff was received with practically unanimous approval, which showed how right the decision had been to proceed with the canonization. His address was given a great deal of attention and certainly contributed effectively to dispelling any doubts that may still have existed in certain quarters.

The New Liturgical Movement blog links information about Masses composed in honor of four of the forty: St. Ralph Sherwin, St. Edmund Arrowsmith, St. Edmund Jennings, and St. Anne Line.

Follow up on Saint Frideswide

I highlighted this saint and her shrine at the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford last Sunday. At that time, I mentioned that the Once I Was a Clever Boy blog featured news of celebration of her feast on Wednesday, October 19. John Whitehead has followed up on that announcement on his blog with this hymn to St. Frideswide:

It is sung to Handel's March from Judas Maccabeus - Hail the conquering hero comes - and also used for Thine be the Glory.

Frideswide our patron, clear our clouded sight;
Help dissolve our darkness, bring us God's own light.
Child of royal parents, courted by a king,
Sought a crown of glory, spurned a wedding ring.

Frideswide our patron, clear our clouded sight;
Help dissolve our darkness, bring us God's own light.

Powerful and peaceful, vowed to God alone,
Frideswide chose a heavenly, not an earthly throne.
Prayer and meditation raised her soul above
All this world's attraction; Jesus held herlove.

Frideswide our patron, clear our clouded sight;
Help dissolve our darkness, bring us God's own light.

Algar of Leicester planned to do her wrong,
Sent his men to seize her, Frideswide's faith was strong -
In an instant blinded then his sight restored,
They knew both the wrath and mercy of the Lord.

Frideswide our patron, clear our clouded sight;
Help dissolve our darkness, bring us God's own light.

Wonders of healing Frideswide's prayers obtained -
Crooked limbs were straightened, speech the dumb regained.
Through her intercession may the grace be ours
For God's use to offer all our gifts and powers

Frideswide our patron, clear our clouded sight;
Help dissolve our darkness, bring us God's own light.

Light filled the city as she passed away
Journeyed through death's shadow into endless day,
There we hope to join her, by the truth set free,
Where we have our treasure, there our hearts shall be.

Frideswide our patron, clear our clouded sight;
Help dissolve our darkness, bring us God's own light.

I am reading a volume on the Elizabethan era by Lacey Baldwin Smith. He commented on how the remains of St. Frideswide were discovered when the remains of Peter Martyr Vermigli's first wife Catherine were returned to their resting place inside Christ Church, having been tossed out during Mary I's reign. Elizabeth told the canons of the cathedral to mix the bones together. Thus one of the canons wrote a much less reverent verse:

Papists and Protestants should now
In peace abide,
As here religion true and false
Lie side by side.

The Last Englishman Canonized Before the English Reformation

According to The Catholic Herald:

Thomas Cantelupe (1220-82), Bishop of Hereford from 1275 to his death, was a formidable medieval ecclesiastic and man of affairs, whose private virtues were widely acknowledged. This was a man horrified to be kissed by his own sister.

In his diocese he sought, and obtained, the highest standards. In matters of state he fiercely defended the the Church against lay encroachment. He proved equally vigilant, moreover, in confronting challenges to his own authority.

Born at Hambleden in Buckinghamshire, the third child in a family of seven, Thomas entered the world with every advantage. His father and grandfather had served in the royal household. His mother was the widow of Amaury de Montfort, Count of Evreux. His uncle Walter was Bishop of Worcester.

Thomas studied in Oxford, Paris and Orleans. In 1245 he attended the Council of Lyons, where he was appointed a papal chaplain by Innocent IV, and obtained a dispensation which allowed him to hold several benefices at the same time. This concession he would amply exploit.

In 1261 Cantelupe became Chancellor of Oxford. In a wider ambit, his de Montfort connections drew him to support the barons in their struggle against Henry III. After Simon de Montfort’s triumph at the Battle of Lewes (1264), Cantelupe was briefly Chancellor of England. . . .

Through conscientious visitations of his diocese Cantelupe rooted out corruption, being especially severe on priests guilty of simony, non-residence and pluralism. As to his own multiple benefices, it sufficed, obviously, that they had been sanctioned by the Pope. He was also influential in King Edward I’s counsels, being particularly hostile to the Jews, who would be expelled from England in 1290. . . .

He met his match, however, when John Peckham became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1279. Cantelupe resisted the archbishop’s jurisdictional claims so fiercely that in 1280 he fled to Normandy to avoid an interdict. When he returned to England in 1282 he was excommunicated by Peckham.

Cantelupe travelled to Italy to plead his cause before the Pope, only to die at Montefiascone on August 25 1282.

Richard Swinfield, his successor at Hereford, promoted his canonisation and by 1312 some 500 miracles had been attributed to Cantelupe’s intercession. And so, in 1320, this rigorous and daunting ecclesiastic became St Thomas Cantelupe.

As you might imagine, his shrine at Hereford Cathedral (full name: Cathedral Church of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Ethelbert the King) was a very popular pilgrimage site, but of course it was destroyed during the English Reformation. More on the saint here. Once I Was a Clever Boy provides some excellent detail here.

Blow-by-Blow on "The Good Fight"

EWTN has posted the audio from my interview on "The Good Fight" with Barbara McGuigan.

She began the show with the story of Blessed William Hartley as an example of the dangers Catholic priests endured in England, since the three saints and martyrs we were discussing all died because they had protected priests when English law determined to do so was a felony, punishable by death.

I then told the story of each of the martyrs (St. Margaret Clitherow, St. Margaret Ward, and St. Anne Line) and we discussed them in turn.

We had a few technical difficulties and lost a couple of calls. I enjoyed the calls we did receive, with two from former Anglicans commenting on their conversions to the Catholic Church.

Barbara was then kind enough to mention my book on her Tuesday, August 30 Open Line program!

Sunday Series Post #4: St. David's in Wales

According to the timeline on the website for the Cathedral of St. David's in Wales:

1538: Bishop [William] Barlow strips St Davids shrine of its jewels and confiscates the relics of St David and St Justinian in order to counteract "superstition".(sic)

According to the homepage on the same website, they need 150,000 BPS to restore the medieval shrine of St. David!

In the 12th century Pope Calixtus II declared St Davids Cathedral to be a place of pilgrimage. It was at this time that the medieval shrine was constructed and situated in the presbytery, close to the High Altar. Pope Calixtus II also stated that the Shrine was so important that two pilgrimages to St Davids were equivalent to one to Rome, three were equivalent to one to Jerusalem. Since then the path of pilgrimage has been trodden by hundreds of thousands of individuals. The destruction of the Shrine during the Reformation caused a steep decline in this important religious practice. However throughout the periods of religious and political turmoil, pilgrims have continued to visit the site.

The restoration of the Shrine will return the relics of St David to their rightful place in the Cathedral. It will offer visitors and pilgrims an opportunity to pray at the Shrine and to give thanks to God for the example of St David. With the restoration of the Shrine it is hoped that St Davids Cathedral will once again become the most important place of pilgrimage in Wales.

This website describes the career and answers questions about William Barlow who destroyed that shrine:

What of the man and his achievements? The date of his birth is unknown but he died in 1568. He became an Augustinian Canon of St. Osyth Priory in Essex. He wrote many tracts such as "Burying of the Mass" and had very strong reforming views which got him into trouble in the early years of Henry VIII's reign. He then rose to be a prominent member of the Augustinian Order becoming Prior of Haverfordwest by 1534, acted as Chaplain to Henry VIII, and had led an embassy to Scotland on behalf of the King. In 1536 he was consecrated Bishop of St. Asaph followed by St. David's in the same year, being the the first Protestant Bishop to be appointed by the King and not elected. During the reign of Edward VI he was appointed Bishop of Bath and Wells He fled to the Continent after a short term of imprisonment under Queen Mary only to return under Elizabeth to be made Bishop of Chichester.

He was the only Bishop who played a part in the consecration of Mathew Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1559 who had been consecrated under the traditional forms of the Roman Church. Considered to be a distinguished father of the Protestant Church. What of his five daughters? They all married Bishops.

Of course, 150,000 BPS won't restore medieval grandeur and jewels!

Thinking of Wales recalls Tintern Abbey and William Wordsworth. I hope to see it some day!

Sunday Series Post #3: The Eve of St. James

Since tomorrow is the Feast of St. James I've chosen Malmesbury Abbey for today's Sunday shrine post. The saint honored there was St. Aldhelm who wrote about St. James's missionary journeys to Spain. Compostela in Spain is of course the great site of pilgrimage to honor St. James.

Malmesbury Abbey is in Wiltshire England; it was founded as a Benedictine house in 676 A.D. by Aldhelm, a scholar and poet who was a nephew of the king of Wessex, Ine. Until its suppression in 1539 by Henry VIII, it was known as a great site of learning with an excellent library. The 12th century English historian William of Malmesbury was a monk there. He wrote his Gesta Regum Anglorum based on the Venerable Bede's model for historical writing.

The last Abbot of Malmesbury, Robert Selwyn or Frampton, surrendered with 21 monks on December 15, 1539 and they all received generous pensions. The abbey church became the parish church when Henry VIII sold the lands and buildings to one William Stumpe. During the English Civil War both Royalist and Roundhead armies occupied Malmesbury. The parish there now is very open (extremely broad church perhaps?) and well-staffed, according to the website linked above, but only uses part of the abbey complex.

St. Aldhelm was not only the Abbot of Malmesbury but also the first Bishop of Sherborne, a see which was later transferred to Salisbury, from 705 to 709 A.D. He was a poet, a writer of letters, scholarly treastises, and religious instruction. St. Aldhelm is also honored at Salisbury Cathedral.

More and more here.

Malmesbury is also famous for Elmer, the 11th century "Flying Monk"!