A fragment for the eve of the Resurrection

Today, April 3, is the Easter eve, the day between Christ's death on the cross and His resurrection, and the middle point in the liturgical climax of the Christian year. Due to the importance of Easter in the liturgical celebration of the medieval churches, there survives a great amount of manuscripts containing the texts to be sung or read for that season. I have previously posted examples of such paschal fragments from my work in the special collections at Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek, for instance here. This Easter, I was reminded of the fragment RARA K 284, about which I have previously written here and here, which contains a part of the mass for the Easter vigil. The fragment comes from a missal, and despite its heavily worn lettering, it has been possible to identify the text as belonging to the Book of Jonah, chapter 3, verses 1-6.  

Syddansk Universitestsbibliotek, RARA K 284

 

Syddansk Universitestsbibliotek, RARA K 284

The text from the Book of Jonah points to an important aspect of the use of the Bible both in the Middle Ages and also today, namely the idea that episodes and events in the Old Testament were repeated in the New Testament. This pattern is also known as typology, whereby the anti-type - or the precursor - can be found in the Old Testament, and the type can be found in the New. In the Christian interpretation, therefore, the Book of Jonah contains an anti-type to the story of Christ's resurrection, because Jonah was swallowed by a whale and emerged from it afterwards, just as Christ came back to life. For this reason, the Book of Jonah provided a suitable reading for the liturgy leading up to Resurrection Sunday, and this is what we see in this now-tattered fragment.   

The Ascension in Bellinge

Today is the feast of the Ascension, which commemorates Christ's departure from the disciples after the Resurrection. It was an important feast in the cycle of liturgical celebrations known as the temporale, i.e. the movable feasts that celebrated events in the life of Christ. The Ascension is attested to in the gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles, but with varying details. Moreover, additional details in the narrative accrued in the centuries following the time of Christ, as can be seen in the rendition of the Ascension from Bellinge Church on Fyn in Denmark. 

Bellinge Church as it stands today is mostly a late-medieval structure, although elements of the Romanesque style points to an older structure. In 1496, the interior of the church was decorated with scenes from the Bible, as well as some saint stores (most notably the legend of Saint George, which will hopefully be the subject of a future blogpost). These wall-paintings were executed by Ebbe Olesen and Simen Petersen, two Danish painters, and it is thanks to an inscription incorporated into the wall-painting programme that we know it was finished in 1496.

The Ascension is depicted on the second of the three vaults of the nave, and is visible when standing with your back against the choir. The scene depicts Christ being taken up into a cloud, as recounted in the gospels and in Acts, with only the lower parts of the kirtle and his bare feet showing. The Virgin Mary and the disciples surround the place from which he was taken up.

As with several episodes from the Bible, further details were added to the Ascension narrative as Christianity developed and spread. One such detail came into place relatively early, namely that when Christ ascended into Heaven, his feet left an imprint on the stone on which he had stood. This belief led to the building of a chapel on this site at a relatively early date, and it became part of the story that was told to the new converts to Christianity. The detail of Christ's footprints can be seen quite prominently in the heavily-restored wall-paintings of Bellinge, as two black sole marks are shown beneath Christ's rising feet. It is yet another example of how apocryphal details that are not mentioned in the Bible came to be accepted as historical truth, and thus shaped the way the narratives of Scripture were rendered in text and image.

The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius and the nations of the north

Recently, I finished writing an article in which I explored aspects of medieval otherness in texts concerned in one way or another with peripheral geographies. The article grew out of a paper I gave at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds in 2016, and allowed me to further develop the ideas I had been playing with then. The writing of this article brought me into contact with a wide range of texts which somehow engaged with geography and ideas of the monstrous, and especially texts wich contained some inclusion of the story of Gog and Magog. (I here refrain from using the term "legend", largely because to scholars in the Middle Ages, Gog and Magog were part of historical - and theological - reality.)

Gog and Magog entered the historical awareness of medieval scholars through the Bible, and have become synonymous with forces of destruction and evil. The names first appear in Ezekiel (38-39) where Gog, king of the land Magog, will be unleashed from the north as punishment for the iniquities of the Israelites. The situation of Magog to the north also tied this vision in with the prophecies of Jeremiah and Isaiah where the north is likewise presented as a house of evil forces. Although Gog and Magog are not featured in either Isaiah or Jeremiah, they nonetheless contribute to the same biblical typology of the north. In the Revelation of Saint John (19:11-21:8), however, Gog and Magog reappear, this time as two separate persons and allies of Satan in the battle at the end of days.

Jeremiah and the vision of the cauldron
Bourges - BM - ms. 0003, f.196v, Bible, last quarter of the twelfth century, Central France

Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr

One of the several texts with which I became engaged in my research for this article was the Apocalypse of the so-called Pseudo-Methodius. This work of prophetic historiography was originally written in Syriac by an anonymous author situated somewhere northwest of Mosul, a location based on the Syriac preface where it says that Saint Methodius received the vision disseminated in the book on a mountain in this area (Garstad 2012: viii). The attribution of the Apocalypse to Methodius of Olympus is difficult to explain but of great significance in one respect, namely the book's function as a prophectic writ. Saint Methodius, reportedly bishop of Tyre, is said to have been martyred in 311 according to Jerome. That Methodius could have written the book is impossible, as it has been dated to around 690, and since it was written not far from Mosul in today's Iraq. Impossible though it be, the attribution of the authorship to such an important and historic figure as Methodius serves perhaps first of all to give weight to this book's value as a prophecy. After all, it purports to have been written almost four hundred years before the times of the book's first readers. For this reason, the anonymous author has been eternized as Pseudo-Methodius.

The Apocalypse was written in response to the political situation of the time. The area around Mosul had earlier in the century been conquered and was under Muslim overlordship by the time the book was written. By the beginning of the 690s, the Muslim government increased their taxation of the Christian communities, and this resulted in conversion to Islam, or apostasy from the Christian faith as was how the author would have seen it. Apostasy is one of the signs of the end times in biblical chiliastic typology, and throughout the Apocalypse this point is emphasized by references to 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 (Garstad 2012: ix). In short, the Apocalypse is a work of historical exegesis which presents the Muslims, referred to as Ishmaelites, as a sign of the beginning of the endtimes, and which chastises those who converted to Islam from Christianity as the apostates whose apostasy confirmed the role of the Ishmaelites as the heralds of the apocalypse.

Alexander enclosing the nations in the north
BL MS Harley 4979, f.47, prose Roman d'Alexandre, the Netherlands, 1st quarter of the 14th century

Courtesy of British Library

The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius was translated into Greek and Latin within fifty years of its composition, and in those languages the book spread to Byzantium and Europe. Among the works it affected was the so-called Primary Chronicle of Novgorod, a monastic chronicle written at the monastery of Caves in the first quarter of the twelfth century. In this chronicle, an extract from the Apocalypse was included, having possibly made its way to Novgorod via an Old Slavonic translation. The extract included in the Primary Chronicle concerns the unclean nations to the north which, according to Pseudo-Methodius, had been enclosed behind a great wall by Alexander the Great when he beheld how filthy their habits were (Lunde and Stone 2012: 180-81). Among these nations were, unsurprisingly, Gog and Magog. This combination of the story of Alexander's Wall with the nations of the north so familiar to the Abrahamic religions is not a novel feature in the Apocalypse, it can already be glimpsed in the Quranic story of D'hul Quarnayn, but it has no doubt popularized the conflation and helped bringing its imagery to new audiences, as evidenced by the inclusion of the story in the Primary Chronicle.

The story of the enclosed nations is found in chapter eight of the Apocalypse, and is one of the longest chapters in the book. It begins by recording Alexander's heritage, being - according to Pseudo-Methodius - born of the Ethiopian princess Chouseth and King Philip of Macedonia. After Alexander's victory over Darius, he sojourned to the "Country of the Son" where he encountered the sons of Japheth, son of Noah. The nations descending from Japheth were found abominable by Alexander and he was repulsed by their unclean, cadaverous diet, and out of fear that they would "pollute the whole earth" and, most importantly, the Holy Land, he sought aid from God and then began to round up the sons of Japheth and drive them into the north. Pseudo-Methodius says:

And he drove tehm out of the land of th dawn and pursud close behind them, until they were brought into the lands beyond the North, and there is neither a way in nor a way out for them from east to west, through which one might come in to them or might go out. (Garstad 2012: 25)

Alexander then prays to God for help again, and God makes two mountains move closer together, so that the passage between them is small enough to be covered with a gate. This gate is made of brass and covered with a material, asyncite, seemingly Pseudo-Methodius' own invention (Garstad 2012: 339, n. 20),  that resists fire and iron. When the wall was finished:

So these accursed, false, and foul nations employed all kinds of magical intrigues, and in these things he [Alexander] rendered their sordid and inhuman, or to put it more strongly, godless sorcery ineffectual, so that they were not able by fire or iron or any other device to force open gates such as these and make their escape. (Garstad 2012: 27)

Among these nations are Gog and Magog, and by a reference to the prophecy of Ezekiel, Pseudo-Methodius states that they will break free from their enclosure at the end of times.

Alexander fighting dragons and firebreathing, horse-headed men
BL MS Royal 20 A V, f.73 Roman d'Alexandre, first quarter of 14th century, French

Courtesy of British Library

Among the nations of the north, there are both historical peoples such as the Sarmatians and the Alans, but also the mythical Dogheads. The Ishmaelites, however, are not found in this monstrous catalogue, and therefore serve a different role in the apocalyptic drama of the latter days than Gog and Magog. Pseudo-Methodius records that the Ishmaelites emerged from the desert of Yathrib, i.e. the Arabian peninsula, and this is of course in keeping with the first spread of Islam, and we are reminded that what the Apocalypse does is to weave historical events into a tapestry whose ending has been foretold in the Bible. Consequently, the role of the Ishmaelites is not to emerge onto the world at the endtimes, but to facilitate the emerging of Satan and the nations of the north and thus usher in the Apocalypse. This should be understood as a reference to the Muslim government, under whose rule many Christians converted to Islam and thus committed the apostasy of which Paul spoke in 2 Thessalonians. This also partly explains why the biblical intertextuality of the Apocalypse is as curiously selective as it is, with no reference to Revelation, and with an emphasis on the brief prophectic extract from 2 Thessalonians described above.

Nonethelss, the nations of the north will emerge in the end. Pseudo-Methodius describes how the oppression by the Ishmaelites will be overturned and things will resume their happy state once more. This happiness, however, will then be followed by this:

 Then the gates of the North will be opened up and out will come the powers of the nations which were enclosed within, and the whole earth will reel from their face and men will cry aloud and flee and hide themselves in the mountains and in the caves and among the gravestones. And they will be deadened with fear and many will perish and there will be none to bury their bodies. (Garstad 2012: 61-63)

Of course, in the end the nations of the north and Lucifer will alike be vanquished, and Pseudo-Methodius identifies the champion of Christianity as Rome. This is the Rome that descended from the kings of Ethiopia, according to a novel historical twist brought into the story by Pseudo-Methodius. As mentioned above, Alexander the Great was descended from the Ethiopian royal house by way of his mother Chouseth, the king's daughter. After Alexander's death, however, Chouseth married one of Alexander's general and bore him a daughter, Byzantia. Byzantia then became the mother of three sons, each of whom became the leader of an important city: Alexandria, Byzantium, and Rome. Therefore, the future leader of Rome will be a new Alexander, the antitype in the typology of history, and just as the half-Ethiopian conquerer enclosed the nations in the past, so will Rome, descendants of the Ethiopian kingdom, enclose the the nations at the end of the world. In this way, Pseudo-Methodius tells us, we see a fulfillment of Psalm 68:31, "Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God".

The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius is a fascinating little work, and it is fascinating for many reasons. When I was working on my article, it provided me with a terrific, and horrific, example of how the typology of the north inherited both from the biblical and the Graeco-Roman cultures could be used in a specific context. I also came to better understand how that use could travel beyond its initial context and still carry meaning, all thanks to the spread of the typology handed down through the Bible and also the Graeco-Roman traditions that influenced the Alexander legends.


Bibliography


Anonymous, The Primary Chronicle, translated extract in Lunde, Paul, and Stone, Caroline, Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness - Arab Travellers in the Far North, Penguin Books, 2012: 180-81

Garstad, Benjamin, introduction to The Apocalypse fo Pseudo-Methodius, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 2012

Pseudo-Methodius, The Apocalypse, edited and translated from its Greek version by Benjamin Garstad, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 2012

A rose from the root of Jesse - a Christmas song in Norwegian and German

One of my favourite Christmas songs is the German song Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, a text of an unknown author. The music is a traditional German composition, and it was arranged for choral use by Michael Praetorius (1571-1621). The song is regularly performed during the Advent and Christmas season in my village, but then of course in its Norwegian rendition, "Det hev ei rose sprunge", which was translated by Peter Hognestad in the period 1919-21. The text of the song is a meditation on the birth of Christ as a fulfillment of Isaiah 11:1, where it says that a shoot will spring up from the root of Jesse, i.e. Christ. Jesse is the father of King David, and since the Gospel of Luke emphasizes that Joseph was of the house of David, Christ is seen as belonging to the branch of Jesse and thus fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy.

Below are two renditions, one in Norwegian and one in German.

Veni Veni Emmanuel

Advent is progressing rapidly and Christmas is just a few days away. For a last-year PhD candidate, this means to be shoulder-deep in writing and in sundry preparations that are required before leaving for home and the Christmas holiday (and more writing, but hopefully on a different text than at present). As usual at the end of term, my work means that I have less energy left for blogging. So, in order to keep up some activity here, I will give you this brief blogpost featuring three versions of one of my all-time favourite songs for Advent, Veni veni Emmanuel.

I first heard this song in elementary school, probably in connection with the marking of Advent which the classes performed for each other towards the end of term. Or it might have been for the school's Christmas feast, or simply our teacher's attempt to provide us with some culture. In any case, the lyrics - sung in Norwegian - and the music stuck with me and returns to me each Advent, even though I have not yet learned the complete text.

The song is a famous one, and is often - even in the Norwegian hymnal - marked as a text written by an anonymous author in the twelfth century. This is a popular claim, but the earliest evidence of the text comes from early eighteenth-century Germany. The song is a synthesis of the seven O antiphons, a name given to seven antiphons for Magnificat (i.e. performed during the office of Vesper), which address Christ in different titles drawn from the prophecies of Isaiah, which are believed to have foretold the coming of Christ.

Below are three versions of the song, two with the Latin text, one with an English translation. I had hoped to provide a Norwegian version instead, but could find none to my liking.

Enjoy, and have a happy Advent.

Mary the Maiden, Christ the Unicorn

Many a time did the older hands mutter something about virginity, maidenhead; and this, with a melancholy shake of the head conveyed all that was to be conveyed
- Patrick O'Brian, The Hundred Days

As every medievalist knows, back in the Middle Ages unicorns were fierce beasts. They were too swift for hunters and could easily outrun any man. For this reason, there was only one way of catching them: A maiden must go to the unicorn's territory and sit down and wait for it to discover her. When the unicorn sees the maiden, he will immedately come to her, embrace her and place his head in her lap.

This description of its behaviour appears to be universally agreed upon in all medieval bestiaries, and there have survived numerous depictions of this scene. Most of these depictions are like the ones shown towards the end of this blogpost: scenes in which the smiling unicorn in the maiden's lap is given the death-blow by a hunter or a knight. The imagery of these renditions and the very symbolism of the unicorn legend has a distinct erotic quality, although this quality is not acknowledged in medieval expositions of the unicorn - at least not to my knowledge.

Instead, the writer of a bestiary was concerned with another symbolic dimension, and this one was made overtly clear in all cases: The unicorn was a symbol of Jesus Christ. Or, as it is more aptly stated in one bestiary: "Our Lord Jesus Christ is the spiritual unicorn" (quoted from Richard Barber's incomplete translation of MS. Bodley 764). This same bestiary,also connects the unicorn imagery to biblical typology by a refrence to Song of Songs 2:9, where it says, in the Vulgate, "Similis est dilectus meus capreae, hinnuloque cervorum", which in the New International Version of the Bible is translated "My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag". As you will notice, neither the Vulgate nor the modern rendition mentions unicorns, so the medieval authors looking for a typological connection between Christ and the unicorn, interpreted the gazelle of the Song of Songs as a reference to Christ the spiritual unicorn. The Christic symbolism of the unicorn was well-known in the Middle Ages and various renditions of this symbolism can be found in medieval art.

A few weeks ago, a good friend and I were at the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen, which is a wonderful museum housing a number of interesting collections - we spent about four hours there, but only had time to get through the medieval and the pre-historic sections. One of the first items exhibited in the medieval section was the altar piece seen below, and I was very surprised by its motif, or rather its conflation of two typical and usually distinct medieval motifs.

In this altar front, the Annunciation (Luke 1) where Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear the world's saviour, is rendered as a typical depiction of a unicorn hunt. The scene itself is ubiquitously identified by the text on the top of frame, where it is written a well-known passage from the passage in Luke: Ave gratia plena Dominus tecum (Hail [Mary] full of gifts, God be with you. (I have here translated "gratia" not as "grace" but as "gifts" since that is closer to the meaning of "gratia".)

The altar front is item number D1257 of the Danish National Museum, and it is assumed to be a Dutch-inspired work from Northern Germany. c.1525. It belonged to Gyrstinge Church in Sjælland, Denmark. The frame is painted to resemble textile.

As an Annunciation scene, this one seemed to me highly unusual since it applies such a traditionally violent motif as an allegorical vehicle. Gabriel is the hunter whose dogs - identified by the curators as Mercy and Peace - chase the unicorn into the lap, or rather in this case into the womb of the maiden. This is a curious reversal of the traditional unicorn legend: Here it is not the maiden who lures the wily unicorn to its lap so that the hunter can kill it. Instead, it is the hunter - horn in hand and dogs in a leash - who drives the unicorn towards the maiden, while God beholds everything from above in his papal tiara. Because of the reversal of the traditional scene, there is no death but rather a conception, there is no violence and no death, and the erotic imagery common to the unicorn motif has disappeared.

Mary receives the unicorn

Gabriel with his dogs

[Edit:] Since first writing this blogpost, I was alerted to the fact that this conflation is "a standard iconography of Gabriel on the mystical hunt", to quote Henrike Lähnemann. She very helpfully directed me to a lectern cloth whose rendition of this scene is very similar to the one depicted above, which comes from Ebstorf Abbey in Northern Germany. The cloth can be seen here.
As a contrast to this highly religious rendition of the motif, here are two scenes from English bestiaries, both from the thirteenth century. As can be seen, there are many similarities between the these illuminations and the altar fronts, but also some differences - which makes sense given the different message of the altar front.

BL MS Harley 3244, f.38, Peraldus, theological miscellany, 2nd or 3rd quarter of 13th century

Courtesy of British Library

BL MS Royal 12 F XIII, f.10v, bestiary, England, 2nd quarter of the 13th century

Courtesy of British Library

Bibliography


Richard Barber (editor and translator), Bestiary, The Folio Society, 1992 (this is an abridgement)

T. H. White (editor and translator), The Book of Beasts, Dover Publications, 1984






For similar blogposts, see:


A poem based on BL MS Royal 12 F XIII

An artist's conflation of Saint George and Saint Ladislas

On the lynx in the medieval imagination

On Saint Edmund as a hedgehog

On the Annunciation and the Passion falling on the same day

Poems on the Annunciation

Upon the Annunciation and Passion falling on one day, by John Donne

March 25 is a day of great importance in the Christian calendar since it is celebrated as the feast of the Annunciation, when Gabriel the Archangel visited Mary and announced that she would carry the son of God. It is commonly held that Christ was immaculately conceived in this episode from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, which is daily rehearsed in the liturgical office as the Magnificat. The Annunciation has been a feast of high status throughout Christian history, and even after the Reformation it was celebrated in Protestant countries. In Norway, for instance, the feast is known as "Maria bodskapsdag" (in Nynorsk) or "Bebudelsen" (in Bokmål), meaning the day of Mary's message.

This year, however, March 25 has a double importance as it is also Good Friday, the day of Christ's crucifixion, one of the two most important events in the Christian salvation story. That these two celebrations are conjoined in one and the same day is of great mystical importance to a Christian, as it is possible to commemorate both the conception and the death of Christ, both the beginning and the end of his life as a man on earth (save a short while after the Resurrection).

This combination of feasts is a rare occurrence, and I was first notified of it via a recent blogpost on the excellent blog Clerk of Oxford. For the details I will therefore refer you to the Clerk's exposition. In the Clerk's blogpost, however, I was made aware of a poem by John Donne which he wrote when the same confluence occurred in 1608. Being immensely fond of John Donne's poetry, I've read the verse twice today, and I'm presenting it to you here so that you can share the brilliance that is Donne.


Upon the Annunciation and Passion falling on one day

1608

Tamely frail body' abstain today; today
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came, and went away;
She sees him nothing twice at once, who is all;
She sees a cedar plant itself, and fall,
Her maker put to making, and the head
Of life, at once, not yet alive, and dead;
She sees at once the virgin mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha.
Sad and rejoiced she's seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen.
At once a son is promised her, and gone,
Gabriel gives Christ to her, he her to John;
Not fully a mother, she's in orbity,
At once receiver and the legacy;
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
Th'abridgement of Christ's story, which makes one
(As in plain maps, the furthest west is east)
Of the angel's Ave, 'and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God's court of faculties
Deals, in sometimes, and seldom joining these;
As by the self-fixed pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where the 'other is, and which we say
(Because it strays not far) doth never stray;
So God by his Church, nearest to him, we know
And stand firm, if we by her motion go;
His Spirit, as his fiery pillar doth
Lead, and his Church, as cloud; to one end both:
This Church, by letting these days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one:
Or 'twas in him the same humility,
That he would be a man, and leave to be:
Or as creation he had made, as God,
With the last judgement, but one period,
His imitating spouse would join in one
Manhood's extremes: he shall come, he is gone:
Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall,
Accepted, would have served, he yet shed all;
So though the least of his pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords;
This treasure then, in gross, my soul uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.


Here taken from Carey, John (ed.), John Donne - the Major Works, Oxford World's Classics, 1990: 155-56.

Saint Wilfrid and the Easter controversy

In the Christian year, the celebration of Easter is the mystical climax and the most important feast of the annual cycle. Since Easter is a movable feast there have been many debates throughout the early Christian centuries about when the feast should be celebrated, and there have been many attempts at calculating a calendar cycle that would accurately predict the time of Easter.

One of the arguably best known examples of this ongoing Easter controversy took place in England at the Synod of Whitby in 664, where representatives of the Celtic and the Roman churches presented their arguments for their respective views. The story is perhaps most famously recorded in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, book III, chapter 25, but it is also expounded in dramatic detail in the Life of Wilfrid written by Eddius Stephanus in 720. Wilfrid (d.709) was a monk from Lindisfarne who studied in Rome and became bishop of York, and he was among the representatives from the Roman church at the Synod in 664. In the account by Eddius Stephanus' it is Wilfrid who single-handedly is responsible for the victory of the Roman party and the introduction of the Roman calculation in all of Britain.

I will not go into great detail here regarding the Synod of Whitby (an introduction can be found here). Suffice it to say that the matter was one of great importance, since there were in Britain at that time two competing Christian traditions. The Celtic church had its origin in the Roman era and had established its own missionary tradition which had founded centres on the Continent, and which had a strong influence in the north of England. The other side is referred to as the Roman side since it had been established by the missionary work from Rome as ordered by Pope Gregory the Great. At Whitby, therefore, not only correct religious observance - itself an important issue - but also ecclesiastical power struggles were at play.

As an overview of this event and as a reminder of the importance of Easter, I will here quote from J. F. Webb's translation of Eddius Stephanus' Life of Wilfrid, published in The Age of Bede, Penguin Classics, 2004: 116-17. The account is found in chapter 10. Eddius' introductory information about Bishop Colman is largely incorrect (see Webb 2004: 116). It is also worth noting that this takes place before Wilfrid ascended to the episcopacy of York.

October, with Wilfrid on the far right
BL MS Royal 17 A XVI, almanac, England, c.1420
Courtesy of British Library


On a certain occasion while Colman was bishop of York and metropolitan archbishop, during the reign of Oswiu and Alhfrith, abbots, priests, and clerics of every rank gathered at Whitby Abbey in the presence of the most holy Abbess Hilda, the two kings and Bishop Colman and Agilberht, to discuss the proper time for celebrating Easter: whether the practice of the British, Scots, and the northern province of keeping it on the Sunday between the fourteenth and twenty-ssecond day of th moon was correct or whether they ought to give way to the Roman plan for fixing it for the Sunday between the fifteenth and twenty-first days of the moon. Bishop Colman, as was proper, was given the first chance to state his case. He spoke with complete confidence, as follows: 'Our fathers and theirs before them, clearly inspired by the Holy Spirit,as was Columba, stipulated that Easter Sunday should be celebrated on the fourteenth day of the moon if that day were a Sunday, following the example of St John the Evangelist "who leaned on the Lord's breast at supper", the disciple whom Jesus loved. He celebrated Easter on the fourteenth day of the moon, as did his disciples and Polycarp and his disciples, and as we do on their authority. Out of respect to our fathers we dare not change, nor do we have the least desire to do so. I have spoken for our party. Now let us hear your side of the question.'

Agilberht, the foreign prelate, and his priest Agatho bade St Wilfrid, priest and abbot, use his winning eloquence to express in his own words the case of the Roman Church and Apostolic See. His speech was, as usual, humble. 

'This question has already been admirably treated by a gathering of our most holy and learned fathers, three hundred and eighteen strong, at Nicaea, a city in Bithynia. Among other things they decided upon a lunar cycle recurring every nineteen years. This cycle gives no room for celebrating Easter on the fourteenth day of the moon. This is the rule followed by the Apostolic See and by nearly the whole world. At the end of the decrees of the fathers of Nicaea come these words: "Let him who condemns any one of these decrees be anathema."'

These are Wilfrid's word on the subject, and the chapter continues with the king asking rhetorically the synod whose authority is the greatest, Columba or Peter the apostle. Since no one can deny the primacy of the prince of apostle, the case is settled and Colman is allowed to resign rather than having to enforce a break with his own tradition.

The Easter controversy was a matter of great contention, and we do well in treating Eddius' report with due skepticism. However, what we know for certain is that the Roman party won, and Wilfrid solidified his reputation as a learned man in these debates.  

As a final note of explanation: Bishop Colman argues that they follow the tradition established by Saint John the Evangelist, and although both this and the Roman use of Saint Peter are questionable in historical weight, this highlights the importance of longevity, tradition and Biblical roots in church ritual. What is of particular interest to a saint-scholar like me is the reference to Polycarp (d.155). He was martyred in Smyrna and was believed to have been the disciple of John the Evangelist, hence his inclusion in Colman's argument of the chain of tradition. Aside from being a valuable insight to the rhetoric of the period, Colman's speech gives us also a glimpse of the standing of Saint Polycarp in seventh-century Britain.

The Mannerist Saint Louis

 

Yesterday, August 25, was the feast of St. Louis of France who died in 1270 and was canonised by Pope Boniface VIII in 1297. Louis is an immensely fascinating character, and I have written about him elsewhere as a saint rather than as a living monarch (see here, here and here). The cult of Saint Louis became very widely disseminated in Europe, largely thanks to the family ties of the Capetian dynasty which introduced him to Spain, The Kingdom of Neaples, Bohemia and Hungary. (1) As a consequence, Louis is endowed with a rich iconography which has received input from changing trends in art. In this brief blogpost, I give you a rather late rendition of the royal saint, painted by El Greco c.1586. El Greco was influenced by the Mannerist movement, but in his own version in which the the shapes are more voluble and elongated, and the use of perspective is applied more playfully and with less rigour than in the Italian schools of the sixteenth century. As we see in the image below, El Greco also employs shadows and light in a way reminiscent of the chiaroscuro technique perfected by Caravaggio but which had been developed since the late fifteenth century or so.

El Greco's Saint Louis, c.1586
Courtesy of Wikimedia

Louis as we see him here has greater resemblance to the Renaissance princes that were so often subject of mannerist portraits, and when compared with the medieval illuminations below we see that El Greco has brought out Louis' personality more acutely. This is of course unsurprising since completely different iconographic rules applied to Mannerist painting and manuscript illuminations of the high and later Middle Ages. It is nonetheless interesting to note that the Louis seen in the illuminations are more serenely beatific, almost as an embodiment of the perfect Christian king, whereas in El Greco's painting he is more reminiscent of the worldly king. El Greco's Saint Louis has no halo to suggest sanctity, and only his sombre, almost sad, expression and his thin, almost scrawny face might give a hint of the strict mendicant lifestyle he is said to have embraced.

Saint Louis standing serene
Châteauroux - BM - ms. 0002, f.298v, breviary, use of Paris, c.1414
Courtesy of enluminures.cultures.fr

The liturgical Saint Louis
Paris - Bibl. Mazarine - ms. 0344, f.242, breviary, Use of Paris, c.1318
Courtesy of enluminures.cultures.fr

Naturally, the image of Saint Louis changed over the years, both in art and in literature, and this is the normal progression in saints' cults. When comparing to so diverse expressions of imagery as the medieval illumination and the sixteenth-century painting we see how differently one saint might be imagined. The important thing about this difference need not be the medium through which these images come down to us. Naturally, illumination and painting work differently and have different audiences and purposes, which also means that they have different messages in their iconography. But we also could argue that aside from the iconographic rules intrinsic to the various pictorial genres, we see here how the king and saint has been envisioned in different milieus and different spiritual climates. The medieval illuminations belong to a period close to the canonisation and close to that widespread enthusiasm which found expression both in lay and monastic art. The mannerist depiction by El Greco, however, belong to the Counter-Reformation and its more sober, restrained approach to the cult of saints, which might more than anything else account for Louis' dark, gloomy appearance.


Notes
1) For the cult in Spain and Neaples, see Gaposchkin 2010: 210ff; for the cult in Bohemia see Marosi 2011: 188; for the cult in Hungary see Szakács 2011: 222.


Bibliography


Gaposchkin, Cecilia, The Making of Saint Louis, Cornell University Press, 2010

Giorgi, Rosa, Saints in Art, translated by Thomas Michael Hartmann, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003

Marosi, Erno, "Saints at Home and Abroad: Some Observations on the Creation of Iconographic Types in Hungary of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries", printed in Gecser, Ottó; Laszlovszky, József; Nagy, Balázs; Sebók, marcell; Szende, Katalin (eds.), Promoting the Saints – Cults and Their Contexts from late Antiquity until the Early Modern Period – Essays in Honor of Gábor Klaniczay for His 60th Birthday, CEU Press, 2011

Szakácz, Béla Zsolt, "Palatine Lackfi and his Saints: Frescos in the Franciscan Church of Keszthely", printed in Gecser, Ottó; Laszlovszky, József; Nagy, Balázs; Sebók, marcell; Szende, Katalin (eds.), Promoting the Saints – Cults and Their Contexts from late Antiquity until the Early Modern Period – Essays in Honor of Gábor Klaniczay for His 60th Birthday, CEU Press, 2011

Cosmas and Damian in Anglo-Saxon Literature

 

 In a recent blogpost I introduced the legend of SS Cosmas and Damian, and their place in the Collegiate Church in Covarrubias. In this blogpost, however, I want to revisit the two twin-brother physician saints and look at how they appeared in Anglo-Saxon literature. The summary of their legend in the earlier blogpost relied chiefly on the version in Legenda Aurea, written in the 1260s by Jacobus de Voragine. As with all legends, the story of Cosmas and Damian was constantly in development, some elements being added, others subtracted and yet others altered.

The main story remains the same, however. Cosmas and Damian lived during the persecutions of Diocletian. The two brothers – two out of five born by a devout Christian woman in the city of Egea – were doctors who took no fee for their work as it was seen as unchristian to charge for help. Once Cosmas was told that his brother had accepted a fee from a grateful man, and although this was in reality a gift which the man had pressed Damian to receive, Cosmas thought this to be a breach of their principles and declared that he did not want to be buried next to his brother in death. After a while all the five brothers were summoned, tortured and – when the torture proved unfruitful – beheaded. After the beheading, the bodies of the martyrs were taken by the Christians and prepared for burial. They then remembered that Cosmas had said he did not want to share the burial site of his brother, but as they were discussing what to do there entered a camel on the scene and, in a human voice, spoke to them and told them to bury all the brothers jointly.

Cosmas and Damian

Avignon - BM - ms. 0136, f.273, Roman missal, c.1370

Courtesy of Enluminures

The cult of Cosmas and Damian was long-lived and seems to have been very successful, although the extent of their cult is – as far as I know – not thoroughly mapped. In the following, I will present two renditions of the story from two Anglo-Saxon texts. The oldest of these is the prose De Virginitate by Aldhelm of Malmesbury (d.709/10), abbot of Malmesbury and bishop of Sherborne, who wrote a two-fold work on virginity with exempla from virgin saints intended as educational literature for a community of nuns at Barking Abbey. Aldhelm was an influential figure in Anglo-Saxon literature, and I have written about his prose De Virginitate elsewhere.

XXXIV. But I think it worthwhile that we do not in any way exclude from (our) historical account of virgins – as if unworthy of the company of the others – COSMAS and DAMIANUS, the most famous warriors of spiritual warfare and arch-physicians of celestial medicine. We confidently trust that these two, predestined to citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem and inscribed in the register of celestial writing, will rejoice with their aforementioned colleagues. For in the times of Diocletian and Maximian , at the two hundred-and-sixty-seventh Olympiad, when as a result of cruel edicts the followers of the catholic faith, whom they called ‘Christians and ‘cross-worshippers’, were compelled to burn incense at the petty little statues of the pagans, and those not wishing to apostatize, that is, to revert to (wallowing in) the more of apostasy, were compelled to undergo capital punishment – at this time a devout mother gave birth to twins, the aforementioned novices of Christ (Cosmas and Damianus). (These twins), gradually instructed in medicinal treatments from the beginnings of their adolescence, were able to cure by means of celestial poultices both the diseases of dropsical persons and (other) internal discomforts and spiritual disorders as well: imparting sight, that is, to the blind and emollients to the one-eyed, opening the door of silence in the dumb, renewing the harmonies of the outside world in the ears of the deaf, granting correctness of speech to stutterers and stammerers, restoring the lame and the maimed to their former healthiness, reviving through the grace of their merits those possessed by devils and the short-sighted, and even recalling to earthly life those overthrown by the accidents of fortune. Nevertheless, enriched by the munificence of powers of this kind, they conferred the wished-for health on the infirm, not for the traffic of avarice but out of a freely-given generosity, (thus) conforming to the message of the Gospel: ‘Freely have you received; freely give’ [Matth. X. 8]. Meanwhile, at the time of the aforementioned persecutors (Diocletian and Maximian), when holy martyrs were being sacrificed ‘like sheep for the slaughter’ [Psalm. XLIII. 22] by the bloody swords of butchers, and these athletes of church in no sense terrified were struggling, as if they were in a wrestling-arena, who would be able to describe the many great instruments of punishment with which the aforesaid confessors were tortured at the jurisdiction of the tribune Lysias? Since indeed, with their arms bound and the shanks of their legs tied together, they were cast into the depths of the sea; but, sustained by angelic intervention, the wild ferocity of the waves, not daring to touch them, returned them unharmed to the shore. Again the savage governor, confounded and put to silence by so brilliant a triumph by the holy soldiers, orders them to be cruelly thrust into a furnace which was stoked up by much tinder of brushwood and crackling with diverse flaming logs. But in no way did the conflagration of the raging furnace burn (the twins), who were as salamanders which, by nature, burning lumps of coal are unable to scorch or consume. Next, the patronage of angels protected them (while they were) tormented by the anguish of the rack and suspended from the fork of the gallows, and in addition buried under the dreadful blows of arrows. In the end they were sentenced to be beheaded: with their palm of virginity they earned a martyr’s triumph.
- De Virginitate, Aldhelm of Malmesbury (translated by Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren, D. S. Brewer, 1979: 95-96

Cosmas, Damian and an unknown beast

Chambéry - BM - ms. 0004, f.624, Franciscan breviary, c.1430

Courtesy of Enluminures

Châteauroux - BM - ms. 0002, f. 343v, Breviary, Use of Paris, c.1414

Courtesy of Enluminures

We don’t know which text was the basis for Aldhelm’s account, but there are some significant differences when compared with the story as rendered in Legenda Aurea. Since the latter is a very conservative body of work, it is not sufficient to ascribe these differences solely to the near half-century that separates these two books. Although we have no clear-mapped account of the legend’s development and therefore must be alert to changes in texts separated by so many centuries, it is also important to note that the authors had different purposes with their respective texts. Aldhelm wrote to educate a specific nunnery, and it is interesting to note that the story of Damian’s gift and the consequent confusion concerning their burial, the intermediation of the camel, and their posthumous miracles are not included. It might of course be that these elements were unknown to Aldhelm, but the explanation might rather be sought in Aldhelm’s focus on their healings – emphasised with great detail and with overt references to the Gospels through the nature of the cures (cf. Matthew 8) – and his emphasis on their fervour for Christ. Aldhelm portrays these saints as champions of Christ, athletes of Christ, confessors and martyrs, typical sobriquets that are here applied with great frequency. Interestingly, Aldhelm calls them virgin saints, although this is not specified anywhere in the legends as far as I know. It might be, therefore, that Aldhelm emphasises their holy works to persuade his audience that the holiness of their works – and the miracles surrounding their martyrdom – is evidence for their virginity.

MS Royal 19 B XVII, Legenda Aurea translated by Jean de Vignay, Central France, 1382

Courtesy of British Library

The next rendition of the story is found in The Old English Martyrology, written c.900 and containing the stories of the saints according to the calendar. As in the case of Aldhelm, we don’t know exactly which texts provided the compiler with material.

On the twenty-seventh day of the month [i.e. September] is the feast of the holy brothers St Cosmas and St Damian; they were expert doctors and they cured any human illness, and they received nothing from anybody, neither from the wealthy nor from the poor. When they cured a woman of a great illness, she secretly brought St Damian a small gift; the texts say that it was three eggs. And she begged him for God’s sake to accept them. He then took them. Then [his] brother Cosmas was very sad because of that, and therefore he asked that their bodies should not be buried together at the end of their lives. Then during the same night our Lord appeared to Cosmas and said: ‘Why would you talk like that about the gift which Damian received? He did not receive it as payment, but because he was asked in my name.’ These brothers suffered a great martyrdom in the days of the emperor Diocletian at the hands of the governor Lysias. They were stoned, and the stones turned back and hurt the ones who were stoning the saints. They were shot at with arrows, but the arrows turned around and killed the pagans. But through beheading they gave up the ghost to God. Then the men who collected their bodies were wondering whether they should be buried together, because Cosmas had earlier prohibited that. Then a camel came running there, and said in a human voice: ‘ Do not separate the saints’ bodies, but bury them together.’ Then they did as the dumb animal had told them, and yet heavenly miracles happened after that through the saints’ power.
- The Old English Martyrology, translated by Christine Rauer, D. S. Brewer, 2013: 193

Cosmas and Damian carrying their palms of martyrdom

Orléans - Musée hist. et arch. - inv. 6988, liturgical fragment, c.1440

Courtesy of Enluminures

 

As we see, the dramaturgical focus is different here than in Aldhelm’s De Virginitate. We might speculate on the reason for this, but although we know the addressees of Aldhelm’s book, the audience of the Martyrology is a slightly more difficult matter. Aldhelm wrote an educational book, while the Martyrology probably had as its main purpose to provide material for the homilists when writing the texts of the days, so that they could address topical problems, such as suspicion against brothers, or perhaps the miraculous intervention of dumb animals speaking like humans. We can’t say for sure, especially since so much uncertainty still surrounds the genesis of the Martyrology, but the shift in focus is interesting as should not merely be ascribed to the possibility of Aldhelm and the martyrologist working from different sources, or that the legend had changed that radically in just two hundred years (a short period in the evolution of saints’ cults before c.1050). The martyrologist refers moreover to a plurality of texts, suggesting that these elements are found in at least two sources available at the period. Although we can’t say much about these differences, we see at least that the legend of Cosmas and Damian were known in the Anglo-Saxon literature, and that there were several sources available.

Pocomania - a little madness for Pentecost

This weekend is Pentecost, and since I'm having some busy days this blogpost will be rather short and feature one of my favourite poems from my favourite poet, Derek Walcott (b.1930). The poem is one of the earliest of Walcott's printed poems (printed in the 1960s), and this can be seen in his mingling of Caribbean culture and European literary tradition which is particularly visible at this stage of his verse. The struggle to carve out an identity that embraces Walcott's Afro-Caribbean as well as European roots has always pervaded his poetry, and I've gone into greater detail about this elsewhere.

In Pocomania, Derek Walcott describes a Caribbean ritual of folk-religiosity whose name, possibly coming from "little madness", was applied to Jamaican religious ritual in the 1860s during what was known as the Great Revival. The popular atmosphere is invoked through Walcott's use of vernacularisms like "De sisters" and "De bredren", while echoes of the traditional English poetry is found in the verse form, the use of Capital letters and references to Yeats ("death in life", see Sailing to Byzantium) and Blake ("eye" and "eternity" as rhymes, see The Tyger). Such allusions to great anglophone poets is also particularly typical of his early verse, as seen in his Ruins of a Great House.






Pocomania

De shepherd shrieves in Egyptian light,
The Abyssinian sweat has poured
From armpits and the graves of sight,
The black sheep of their blacker Lord.

De sisters shout and lift the floods
Of skirts where bark n' balm take root,
De bredren rattle withered gourds
Whose seeds are the forbidden fruit.

Remorse of poverty, love of God
Leap as one fire; prepare the feast,
Limp now is each divining rod,
Forgotten love, the double beast.

Above the banner and the crowd
The Lamb bleeds on the Coptic cross,
De Judah Lion roars to shroud
The sexual fires of Pentecost.

In jubilation of The Host,
the goatskin greets the bamboo fife
Have mercy on those furious lost
Whose life is praising death in life.

Now the blind beast butts on the wall,
Bodily delirium is death,
Now the worm curls upright to crawl
Between the crevices of breath.

Lower the wick, and fold the eye!
Anoint the shriveled limb with oil!
The waters of the moon are dry,
Derision of the body, toil.

Till Armageddon stains the fields,
And Babylon is yonder greeen,
Till the dirt-holy roller feels
The obscene breeding the unseen.

Till those black forms be angels white,
And Zion fills each eye.
High overhead the crow of night
Patrols eternity.

Saint Lucia scenery, Petit Piton and Gros Piton
Courtesy of Telegraph

Santa Agnese da Montepulciano

Agnese holding Montepulciano

Fresco by unknown painter, c.1690, Duomo di Santa Maria Assunta

Courtesy of Schäfer, Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon

Today is the feast of Santa Agnese da Montepulciano, who was born around 1270 and who died in 1137. A later tradition fixes her day of death – her dies natalis – more specifically to January 28, 1268 (1). She was born into a wealthy family in Gracchiano-Vecchio, but – in a move very common among zealously religious men and women of the time, and in keeping with the expectations of a saint - she renounced her family and its wealth in favour of the religious life. At Montepulciano she entered an order of mendicant tertiaries – lay religious men and women who were connected to the mendicant orders – which was known as sisters of the sack, a name deriving from their coarse clothing (2). Around the age of twenty, she was assigned together with a senior sister Margherita to a new foundation in Proceno where she embarked on what we might call an administrative career which moved her from housekeeper to bursar and superior of the foundation. While at Proceno, Agnese became known for her austere life, her visions of Christ and – according to some sources – miracles that multiplied loaves and fishes, and that brought the infirm back to health (3). On account of her signs of holiness, she was eventually called back to Montepulciano, recognised as more than a common tertiary.

The Angelic communion of Agnese da Montepulciano

1879, Proceno

Courtesy of Schäfer, Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon

Agnes with the lamb and the lily, both symbols of virginity

Mosaic of unknown date, Chiesa di Sant'Agnese in Montepulciano

Courtesy of Schäfer, Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon

Back in Montepulciano she founded the convent of Santa Maria Nuova, and according to tradition this convent was situated on the premises of an old brothel (4). While this might be true, it is here tempting to suggest that this particular detail is a clever way of typologically connect Agnese with her namesake Agnes, who was put in a brothel to lose her virginity by her pagan suitor, but who escaped unscathed and untouched by angelic intervention. Such a connection is inevitable, and – although I haven’t read the text in question – might be something her Dominican hagiographer Raimondo da Capua, himself considered a beatus, would be tempted to emphasise and expand upon in the vita of Agnese which he wrote in 1366.

The convent of Santa Maria Nuova was consecrated in 1306, and Agnese brought it under the control of the Dominican order, apparently in 1311 (5), and this was ostensibly done to provide a more secure management for the convent, and Agnese herself became the prioress. Under her guidance, the convent prospered and her saintly fame – her fama sanctitatis – reported of visions and cures effected through her (6). She died at forty-nine after a prolonged illness, and was canonised in 1726 by Benedict XIII.

Chiesa di Sant Agnese, Montepulciano

Courtesy of Wikimedia

The angelic communion of Agnese da Montepulciano,

High-altar relief, the Dominican church of Friesach, 19th century

Courtesy of Bistum Augsburg

Although Agnese was canonised at a very late date relative to her historical life, she was still held to be a saint by a significant number of people and celebrated throughout the Middle Ages. Agnese belonged to a group of religious women who became increasingly popular as objects of veneration from the late thirteenth century onwards, namely women who embraced a mendicant spirituality that was more active than that professed by older, established orders such as the Benedictines, the Augustinians and the Cistercians. At the time when Agnese entered the religious life, there had already been established a number of female religious who were venerated as saints and who were connected to the mendicant orders. The first generation was represented by Clare of Assisi (d.1253), the sister of Francis and the founder of the Poor Clares, and towards the end of the thirteenth century the female mendicant sainthood was dominated by contemplative visionaries and mystics (7). Agnese was, for instance, an early contemporary of Margherita da Cortona (d.1297), and would herself feature in the visions of the later Catherine da Siena (d.1380) who herself became a saint in 1461 and who became an epitome of the mystical, mendicant sanctity of the later Middle Ages (8).

The Virgin with Catherine of Siena, Rosa of Lima (with the Christ-child) and Agnes,

Giambattista Tiepolo, 1747-48, Jesuit church of Santa Maria del Rosario, Venice

Courtesy of Schäfer, Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon

For similar saints, see:

Fina da San Gimignano

Margherita da Cortona

Verdiana da Castelfiorentino

Footnotes

1) http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/agnese-segni-da-montepulciano-santa_(Dizionario-Biografico)/

2) Farmer 2004: 8

3) http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/50150

4) Farmer 2004: 8

5: https://www.heiligenlexikon.de/BiographienA/Agnes_von_Montepulciano.htm. 6) Farmer 2004: 8

7) Vauchez 2005: 376ff

8: Vauchez 2005: 121




Bibliography

Farmer, David, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford University Press, 2004

Vauchez, André, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, 2005


Online sources


Schäfer, Joachim, Ökumenishces Heligenlexicon: https://www.heiligenlexikon.de/BiographienA/Agnes_von_Montepulciano.htm

Relief from Friesach: http://www.bistum-augsburg.de/index.php/bistum/Heilige-des-Tages/Heilige/AGNES-VON-MONTEPULCIANO
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/agnese-segni-da-montepulciano-santa_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/50150