A song for Saint Swithun - typology and identity in tenth-century Winchester

Today, July 2, is the feast of the deposition of Saint Swithun. In Norwegian tradition, this feast is called 'Syftesok', Syfte's wake, or Swithun's wake, and is included among those feast days on which work is prohibited in the Norwegian provincial laws from the eleventh, twelfth, and early thirteenth centuries. Swithun's place in the law texts might be due to the close contact between the English and the Norwegian church organizations, or it might be a result of the translation of a relic of Saint Swithun to Stavanger sometime in the early twelfth century, following which Swithun also became the patron of Stavanger.

Swithun was bishop of Winchester in the period 852-62, and his body was translated to a shrine in Old Minster, Winchester, on July 15 971. The early cult of Swithun was overseen by his successor Æthelwold (r.963-84), and several texts were composed within the first few decades following the translation. As part of this early cult material, we also find a number of chants which are recorded in the early-eleventh-century manuscript Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 473. On the folios 186v-189r, thirteen chants comprise the 'Istoria de S[an]c[t]o Suuithuno', the history of Saint Swithun. Several of these chants are marked as responsories, which are chants to be performed after the reading of lessons during the office of Matins on the saint's feast day. Interestingly, the Istoria does not have a narrative, which is what we often find in chants for Matins, and as the name itself - Istoria - implies. The reason for this lack of narrative is unclear, but it might be a consequence of there being no biographical account of the living Swithun by the early eleventh century. Even though several texts recording the translation and the miracles God was believed to have performed for the sake of Swithun's merits were composed in the early stage of the cult construction, it was not until the late eleventh century that Swithun received his own vita, at least as far as we know.    

Although the Istoria of Saint Swithun is not narrative, it is nonetheless full of interesting details that position the holy bishop in a wider Christian historical framework. One such detail is included in the chant marked as responsory 7 in the Cambridge manuscript. The text of this chant is as follows: 



Ecce uere Israelita, in quo dolus non est inuentus, qui probatus repertus est sacerdos magnus iuxta ordinem Melchisedech. 

Behold the true Israelite, in whom no deceit is found, who is discovered to be a great priest according to the order of Melchisedech.

- Translated by Michael Lapidge (see Michael Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 2003, p. 124) 


What we see here is that Swithun, an English ninth-century bishop proclaimed a saint in the tenth century, is typologically connected to Melchisedech, the priest-king of Genesis, who was seen as an archetype of Christian church leaders. By stating that Melchisedech and Swithun belong to the same social order, and by referring to Swithun as a 'true Israelite', the responsory links the past and the present together, and also England and the Holy Land, in a way that demonstrates how Swithun belongs in God's historical scheme, and how England belongs in the same salvation narrative as does the Holy Land. This kind of historical thinking - where individuals and locations in the present or in a local context were connected to people and places elsewhere in both time and space - was the dominant approach to history in the Middle Ages. By mapping such details, we can therefore see how those who formulated these connections thought of themselves in the grand scheme of things, and how they understood their own identity, either as individuals or, as in the case of the monks of Winchester, as an institution.

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 473, f.188v