Two poems for Saint Brigid of Kildare by Seamus Heaney

Tomorrow (February 01) is the feast of St Brigid of Kildare, founder and abbess of the monastery of Kildare and one of Ireland's major saints. She is believed to have been baptised by St Patrick and died around 525. However, since the earliest lives date to the sixth century there is good reason to question her historicity, especially in light of the attempts of Kildare Monastery to buttress their claim to monastic supremacy in Ireland through her figure. The hagiographical material echoes her dubious place in history since it is largely comprised of miracle stories. One of the most famous of these is how she dried her clothes on a sunbeam when she could find nowhere else to hang them. This miracle is recounted in the South English Legendary, compiled in the latter half of the 13th century.

Brigid's miracles are also recounted by Gerald of Wales in his exposition of the Irish saints. In a previous blogpost I wrote more thoroughly on this, so suffice it to say that Gerald warned the Norman conquerors of Ireland not to transgress against Brigid and her places of worship, as she was - like all Irish saints according to Gerald, of a very vindictive nature.

St Brigid of Kildare

Stained glass window from 1934 in Our Lady and Saint Non's Chapel, St Davids, Wales

Courtesy of Wikimedia

Saint Brigid has also caught the fascination of Irish poet Seamus Heaney, so for Brigid's day tomorrow, I here present two poems featuring the abbess (with thanks to Trias Thaumaturga).



A Brigid's Girdle

(from The Spirit Level)

Last time I wrote I wrote from a rustic table

Under magnolias in South Carolina

As blossoms fell on me, and a white gable

As clean-lined as the prow of a white liner

Bisected sunlight in the sunlit yard.

I was glad of the early heat and the first quiet

I'd had for weeks. I heard the mocking bird

And a delicious, articulate

Flight of small plinkings from a dulcimer

Like feminine rhymes migrating to the north

Where you faced the music and the ache of summer

And earth's foreknowledge gathered in the earth.

Now it's St Brigid's Day and the first snowdrop

In County Wicklow, and this a Brigid's Girdle

I'm plaiting for you, an airy fairy hoop

(Like one of those old crinolines they'd trindle),

Twisted straw that's lifted in a circle

To handsel and to heal, a rite of spring

As strange and lightsome and traditional

As the motions you go through going through the thing.



From Crossings
On St. Brigid's Day the new life could be entered

By going through her girdle of straw rope

The proper way for men was right leg first

Then right arm and right shoulder, head, then left

Shoulder, arm and leg.

Women drew it down

Over the body and stepped out of it

The open they came into by these moves

Stood opener, hoops came off the world

They could feel the February air

Still soft above their heads and imagine

The limp rope fray and flare like wind-born gleanings

Or an unhindered goldfinch over ploughland.

For the Archbishop's Sins - a healing miracle of St Olaf concerning Archbishop Eystein Erlendsson

Today is the feast of Eystein Erlendsson, archbishop of Nidaros (modern-day Trondheim) from 1161 to 1188. Although he never achieved formal canonisation - despite petitions from the archsee - his saintly powers were acknowledged at a local church synod in 1229. Eystein was the second man to hold that office since the establishment of the Norwegian archsee in 1152/53, and his reign was a crucial era in the founding of a strong Norwegian ecclesiastical network that spanned from Northern Norway to Greenland until the Reformation. This establishment of the Norwegian church province can be seen perhaps most clearly in the cathedral which was completed and rebuilt in several phases throughout history, and which was likely meant to replace a wooden structure raised over the bones of St Olaf (d.1030), Norway's martyr-king and eventually patron saint.

Aside from the stone edifice embracing the holy bones of Olaf, Eystein was also a key figure in the establishment of a Norwegian ecclesiastical literature. He was the dedicatee of Theodoricus Monachus' Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium, written c.1180, and he oversaw the compilation of the hagiography for St Olaf which we today refer to as Passio et Miracula Beati Olavi. In this blogpost I will present one of the most famous episode, in which Eystein himself enters the miraculous narrative and becomes the interlocutor for his scribe.

 

Eystein Erlendsson holding the cathedral

Modern statue situated in the courtyard of the archepiscopal palace, Nidaros

Courtesy of Wikimedia

Having read all those accounts which antiquity has entrusted to us concerning the life and miracles of the blessed Óláfr, we deem it fitting that we, who have personally been enlightened by his widespread miracles in our own day, should also commit to the attention of future generations, in writing, those things which have been performed by miraculous powers, to his greater glory, as we have seen for ourselves or have learnt from the testimony of truthful men. Truly, as we are enjoined by the duty of charity to suffer with those in affliction so doubtless are we obliged to rejoice with those relieved from sickness who rejoice in the newfound Health. But since no one is closer to a man than the only son of his mother, then if we are bidden for charity's sake to praise the blessings of Health conferred upon others, how much more are we bound, first and foremost, to render praise with thanksgiving for those blessings which we know to have flowed abundantly for our own needs from the powers of the martyr, through the grace of God. And thus I, Eysteinn, was at one time carrying out my episcopal duties, by God's will, in the church of the blessed martyr when I was summoned by the master-builder to the top of a wall, to settle certain matters concerning the Construction. But the walkway, over which stones were carried, broke under the weight of the crowd that followed us and collapsed. I alone, for my sins, was thrown from that height, to teach me to be more careful of my life and duty, while the others clung to the scaffolding and hoists. My side Struck against the narrow edge of a mortar-trough, and the narrowness of the surface that broke my fall made the accident all the more dangerous. my people bore me away like one lifeless, and when after a time I recovered my senses, I was brought to my own bed, where I lay anguished and anxious, aggrieved by a twofold grief. For my broken ribs gave pain, but it pained me no less that I would be unable to attend the approaching ceremonies in honour of the martyr; for in three days it would be Saint Óláfr's day, attended by an influx of people form far and wide. Distressed by these troubles of body and soul, I turned in prayer to my patron, the blessed Óláfr, although doubting my own worthiness, nevertheless with full faith; and as experience shows, not forgetful of his own, he came to the aid of the one who called upon him. For when the festal day had dawned, and the people had as usual been summoned to the celebration of the mass by the sound of bells, I discussed with my attendants whether I ought to be carried to the church, since I was too weak to walk. They urged me to it, and I welcomed their advice, for my own inclination drew me on. At first I hardly expected to take part in the ceremonies of the mass, fearing that my strength would fail me, but when I entered the church, the pain abated somewhat, and when I had taken a little time to gather my strength and resolution, I dared to hope for greater things. Therefore I asked to be robed again, quickly, that I might appear with the clergy in the procession. When we had arrived at the place where the procession customarily halted for a sermon, I did not venture to preach, but I attempted, nevertheless to expound a little upon the Lord Pope's indulgence of sins and remission of penance. But when, in answer to my prayers, my strength grew even as I spoke, I drew out the exhortation in the usual - albeit unexpected - sermon. And I carried out the rites of mass and of the Whole ceremony, in such a way that the effort did not leave me fatigued, but rather the fatigue left me thoroughly refreshed, and, although the pain had not yet fully left me, my bones were nevertheless fully knit and perfect health was gradually to follow.
- Passio Olavi, translated by Devra Kunin (printed in Phelpstead 2001: 61-63)

St Olaf enthroned, trampling the dragon

Wooden sculpture from Austevold Church, c.1400

Courtesy of Wikimedia

The passage above is widely referred to in the scholarship on St Olaf, and it led the earliest scholars - above all Eiliv Skard who translated the hagiography into Norwegian - to believe that it was Eystein who had written or at least dictated the entire book. Recent scholarship, for instance by Inger Ekrem and Lars Boje Mortensen, has shown that the archbishop's personal interjection in the narrative is an anomaly rather than indicative of his omnipresence in the writing process. Most likely - according to Mortensen - the section on Olaf's miracles have been compiled during several years and were taken from the miracle records kept at the shrine itself. Furthermore, according to Inger Ekrem and Jon Gunnar Jørgensen, Passio Olavi has been composed in at least four stages, rather than being a uniform project penned by Eystein. Regardless of this mistake, brought on perhaps by a romantic quest for a single author which is a perennial scourge in medieval studies, Eystein's importance to the Ecclesiastical literature of medieval Norway can hardly be underestimated. In addition to the compilation of the Passio and the patronage of Theodoricus' history, he also very likely oversaw the composition of an office of St Olaf, and we know that he played an important part in the establishment of a liturgy which bound the province of Nidaros to the Network of Augustinian canons, as shown by Roman Hankeln. Through these literary and liturgical endeavours Eystein helped weave the archbishopric of Norway into the wider fabric of Latin Christendom, and thus he drew his province closer to Europe. Even though he no longer stands as the sole author of Passio Olavi, his legacy is impressive enough as it is.


Literature

Ekrem, Inger, “Om Passio Olavis tilblivelse og eventuelle forbindelse med Historia Norwegie, printed in Ekrem, Inger; Mortensen, Lars Boje; Skovgaard-Petersen, Karen, Olavslegenden og den latinske historieskrivning i 1100-tallets Norge, Museum Tusculanum Forlag, 2000: 108-56

Hankeln, Roman, "St. Olav's Augustine-Responsories: Contrafactum Technique and Political Message", printed in Hankeln, Roman (ed.), Political Plainchant? Music, Text and Historical Context of Medieval Saints' Offices, The Institute of Mediaeval Music, Ottawa, 2009: 171-99

Jørgensen, Jon Gunnar, “Passio Olavi og Snorre”, printed in Ekrem, Inger; Mortensen, Lars Boje; Skovgaard-Petersen, Karen, Olavslegenden og den latinske historieskrivning i 1100-tallets Norge, Museum Tusculanum Forlag, 2000: 157-69

Mortensen, Lars Boje, “Olav den helliges mirakler i det 12.årh.: streng tekstkontrol eller fri fabuleren?”, printed in Ekrem, Inger; Mortensen, Lars Boje; Skovgaard-Petersen, Karen, Olavslegenden og den latinske historieskrivning i 1100-tallets Norge, Museum Tusculanum Forlag, 2000: 89-107Østrem, Eyolf, The Office of Saint Olav – A Study in Chant Transmission, Studia Musicologica Upsaliensia Nova Series 18, Uppsala, 2001

The Divided Child - Two poems by Derek Walcott

Today is the birthday of Derek Walcott, my favourite contemporary poet, and for the occasion I'm posting two of his poems. Walcott was born in the city of Castries on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, and had from an early age a strong sense of his dual heritage of part European, part African. This duality is a very strong presence in his poetry, and it is strengthened by the tension between the heritage of Saint Lucia's colonial past, and the modernity of Saint Lucia as an independent country. Walcott has expressed a great fondness for, and a significant debt to, writers from early modern England, while also showing admiration for the modernist movement, perhaps most tangibly Ezra Pound.

This sensation of belonging and yet not belonging, of being modern and at the same time part of something very old, are two prevailing themes in Walcott's poetry. In some of his poems, Walcott unifies the old and the new in various ways, such as communicating through old poems through epigraphs, or by moving elements from the old world into the Caribbean. This latter technique is the fundamental feature in his long poem Omeros, where elements of the Homeric epics are translated into a Saint Lucian setting. Another example can be found in the cycle of poem called A Tropical Bestiary, which was published in his Collection The Castaway (1965). The title of the cycle refers to the old medieval bestiaries in which the allegorical aspect of animals were explained, and Walcott describes animals of the New World with an allegorical poetry reminiscent of the Middle Ages.


The Whale, His Bulwark

from A Tropical Bestiary

To praise the blue whale's crystal jet,
To write, 'O fountain!' honouring a spout
Provokes this curse:
                                  'The high are humbled yet'
From those who humble Godhead, beasthood, verse.

Once, the Lord raised this bulwark to our eyes,
Once, in our seas, whales threshed,
The harpooner was common. Once, I heard
Of a baleine beached up the Grenadines, fleshed
By derisive, antlike villages: a prize
Reduced from majesty to pygmy-size.
Salt-crusted, mythological,
And dead.

The boy who told me couldn't believe his eyes,
And I believed him. When I was small
God and a foundered whale were possible.
Whales are rarer, God as invisible.
Yet, through His gift, I praise the unfathomable,
Though the boy may be dead, the praise unfashionable,
The tale apocryphal.

Pieter van der Heyden, Big Fish Eat Little Fish, after a drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Flanders, 1557

Courtesy of The British Museum

Another poem from the same collection enunciates the divided nature of Walcott's heritage - a division he himself expressed through the phrase "divided child" in his autobiographical poem Another Life. The poem in question is Codicil, a poem of exile where the contrasts of belonging and yet being a prodigal can be sensed very poignantly.

Codicil

Schizophrenic, wrenched by two styles,
one a hack's hired prose, I earn
my exile. I trudge this sickle, moonlit Beach for miles,

tan, burn
to slough off
this love of ocean that's self-love.

To change your language you must change your life.

I cannot right old wrongs.
Waves tire of horizons and return.
Gulls screech with rusty tongues

Above the beached, rotting pirogues,
they were a venomous beaked cloud at Charlotteville.

Once I thought love of country was enough,
now, even if I chose, there's no room at the trough.

I Watch the best minds root like dogs
for scraps of favour.
I am nearing middle-

age, burn skin
peels from my hand like paper, onion-thin,
like Peer Gynt's riddle.

At Heart there's nothing, not the dread
of death. I know too many dead.
They're all familiar, all in character,

even how they died. On fire,
the flesh no longer fears that furnace mouth
of earth,

that kiln or ashpit of the sun,
nor this clouding, unclouding sickle moon
whitening htis Beach Again like a blank page.

All its indifference is a different rage.



These two poems not only showcase two of the major themes in Walcott's poetical oeuvre, they also emphasise his dual nature as a poet both in touch with the traditional and the modern. The first poem, drawing on medieval culture and the idea of a near-mythological past, is written in a rhyme-scheme somewhat reminiscent of the metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century, whom Walcott much admired in his early verse. The second, however, also contains the occasional rhyme, but is first of all written in free verse, yet drawing on aspects from the tradition writers - his reference to middle age is possibly a reference to Dante.

Derek Walcott has nourished his sense of being prodigal for decades, yet after he received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992 he was duly commemorated in his home city. Columbus Square in Castries was re-named Walcott Square in his honour, and stands as a suitable reminder that in order to be a true prodigal, one has to return to one's home.

The entrance of Walcott Square, Castries

From Wikimedia

The bandstand in Walcott Square

From Wikimedia

Guthlac and the demons - the importance of liturgy in the Middle Ages

The legends about St Guthlac of Crowland and his encounters with demons are well-known to medievalists, and in a previous blogpost I drew the attention to the iconographic similarities between the struggles of Guthlac and the temptations of St Anthony, the latter being a saint whose vita by Anasthasius influenced the eighth-century life of Guthlac written by the monk Felix. In this blogpost I will return to the topic of Guthlac’s encounter with demons. However, while his most famous episode is where the demonic host brings him to the gates of Hell where he is saved by St Bartholomew, this episode takes place in Guthlac’s hermitage at Crowland.

A few prefatory words are, however, needed to put this anecdote in a wider hagiographical context. Guthlac (674-715) was born into the royal dynasty of Mercia, and showed early signs of maturity which foreshadowed his later embrace of the monastic life. As a young man he learned of the martial deeds of his forefathers and decided to emulate them, taking up arms and ravaging the lands of the enemies of his house. The chronicler Felix makes sure, however, to tell the reader that although a heathen soldier, Guthlac never showed signs of greed and always returned a third of what his men had captured. At the age of twenty-four, the young soldier reflected further on his forefathers and found that they had all come to violent ends thanks to their violent lives. He then repented his former life and left for the monastery of Repton in order to receive the tonsure. At Repton he showed such diligent abstemiousness towards alcohol that his fellow brethren began to hate him, an episode reminiscent of Benedict of Nursia as described in Gregory the Great’s Dialogi. Shortly afterwards, after having read about the desert fathers, Guthlac leaves for the fens in order to become a hermit of the desert, and on the remote island of Crowland he establishes his cell. Since he arrives at the island on the feast of St Bartholomew (then celebrated at 25^th of August), Guthlac commends himself to the saint and is later aided by him as mentioned above. It should be noted that Bartholomew’s gift of the scourge does not appear in Felix’ Vita Guthlaci, but is a product of a later local tradition at Crowland Abbey. 

Guthlac receiving the scourge from St Bartholomew

MS Harley Roll Y.6, England, turn of the 12th Century

Courtesy of British Library

Even though Guthlac is brought back from the mouth of Hell, he is still troubled by demons, even in his own hermitage, and in chapter 34 we are told of a trick the demons played on him, pretending to be British marauders:


Now it happened in the days of Cænred King of the Mercians, while the Britons the implacable enemies of the Saxon race, were troubling the English with their attacks, their pillaging, and their devastations of the people, on a certain night about the time of cockcrow, when Guthlac of blessed memory was as usual engaged in vigils and prayers, that he was suddenly overcome by a dream-filled sleep, and it seemed to him that he heard the shouts of a tumultuous crowd. Then, quicker than words, he was aroused from his light sleep and went out of the cell in which he was sitting; standing, with ears alert, he recognized the words that the crowd were saying, and realized that British hosts were approaching his dwelling: for in years gone by he had been an exile among them, so that he was able to understand their sibilant speech. Straightway they strove to approach his dwelling through the marshes, and at almost the same moment he saw all his buildings burning, the flames mounting upwards: indeed they caught him too and began to lift him into the air on the sharp points of their spears. Then at length the man of God, perceiving the thousand-fold forms of this insidious foe and his thousand-fold tricks, sang the first verse of the sixty-seventh psalm as if prophetically, ‘Let God arise’, etc.: when they had heard this, at the same moment, quicker than words, all the hosts of demons vanished like smoke from his presence.
- Felix, Life of Guthlac, translated by Bertram Colgrave (1956: 109-11)

The first two verses of  psalm 67 (68 in the modern numbering) are rendered thus in the Vulgate:

[E]xsurgat Deus et dissipentur inimici eius et fugiant qui oderunt eum a facie eius
sicut deficit fumus deficiant sicut tabescit cera a facie ignis pereant impii a facie Dei

In the English translation:

Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee from before his face.
As smoke vanisheth, so let them vanish away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.

While Felix tells us that Guthlac only sang the first verse, I have included the second verse here because Felix obviously draws on that verse for his comparison with the demons to vanishing smoke.

There are many significant things to comment on here, but my focus now is the martial aspects of the episode, and indeed in the whole text itself. Throughout the work, Felix refers to Guthlac as the soldier of Christ, a sobriquet based on St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians where his listeners are asked to put on the armour of God. This title is not merely a play on Guthlac’s military past, it is also a very apt description of how monks were seen in medieval theology: They were soldiers of God whose weapons were prayer and song, and through their asceticism and their mortification of their own flesh, they kept the devil away. In this episode, Guthlac does not physically drive away the demons as he will do in later traditions using the scourge of St Bartholomew. Nor is he here saved by the apostle’s intervention, but through his faithful incantation of the psalm. Through his arms of faith, the weapons of song and prayer, Guthlac overcomes the phantasmal spears of the demonic army and emerges victorious, a miles Christi faithfully resisting against the soldiers of Satan. When we consider this episode, therefore, we get a better understanding of why the daily performance of the office was such an important aspect of medieval religious life: Not only was it a way of strengthening the religious community through a mystic experience, it was also a feat of spiritual arms that kept the devil’s army away from the soul, and which could allow the faithful to withstand the phantasms coaxing it to fear and loss of faith in God’s protection. Guthlac's struggle with the demons, in other words, allows us to grasp the rationale of medieval liturgy as something more than mere music, and we understand that the office is not just an ornament in the church service, it is part of the arsenal which St Paul included in his letter to the Ephesians.

Gerald of Wales and the Irish saints

 This seems to me a thing to be noticed that just as the men of this country are during this mortal life more prone to anger and revenge than any other race, so in eternal death the saints of this land that have been elevated by their merits are more vindictive than the saints of any other region.

- Gerald of Wales, The Topography of Ireland (transl. by John O'Meara)

A priest accosted by a werewolf

MS Royal 13 B VIII, Gerald's Topographia, England, c.1196-c.1223

Courtesy of British Library

In this blogpost I'm looking at Gerald of Wales' presentation of some Irish saints in his famous work Topographica Hiberniae which was composed in the latter half of the 1180s. The book is in part a recollection of things Gerald heard or witnessed during his trips to Ireland in the period 1183-85. On his second visit he was a part of King Henry II's retinue and was the tutor of his son John. When Gerald returned to Ireland in 1185, he was part of John's retinue. Gerald was also related to members of the Anglo-Norman invasion force, and was therefore doubly invested in the Anglo-Norman campaign to subdue Ireland.

It is in this context Gerald's comments on Ireland and its people must be understood, and in this blogpost I wish to see how Gerald's treatment of Ireland's saints can be explained by context of invasion and subjugation (I hesitate to use the term "colonial context").

The fish with three gold teeth

MS Royal 13 B VIII, Gerald's Topographia, England, c.1196-c.1223

Courtesy of British Library

Gerald's views on the Irish saints as expressed in the epigraph are found as the last chapter of part two of his Topographia hiberniae. In this chapter, Gerald records the wonders, the miracles and the holy men and women of Ireland. The chapter begins with natural wonders, such as a fish with three gold teeth, or the wonderful well of Munster whose water turned things put into it grey. After these natural wonders, Gerald moves on to wonders pertaining to men and beasts, and he records a boy of Wicklow who was a man in most physiognomical respects, but whose nose, eyes, hands and feet resembled those of an ox. This deformed boy was regularly given food at the court of Maurice fitzGerald, one of Gerald's relatives and one of the leaders of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland.

The werewolves of St Natalis

MS Royal 13 B VIII, Gerald's Topographia, England, c.1196-c.1223

Courtesy of British Library

Saint Natalis and the Werewolves

As for the Irish saints, their vindictive nature becomes apparent already in the first story in Gerald's catalogue of animal wonders. The story tells of a priest who was travelling through a wood together with a young boy, and after they had lit up a fire for the night a wolf came up to them and started speaking. In order to calm them down, the wolf spoke about God - and said reasonable and Catholic things, Gerald notes - and then he explained what he wanted:

We are natives of Ossory. From there every seven years, because of the imprecation of a certain saint, namely the abbot Natalis, two persons, a man and a woman, are compelled to go into exile not only from their territory but also from their bodily shape. They put off the form of man compltely and put on the form of wolf. When the seven years are up, and if they have survived, two others take their place in the same way, and the first pair return to their former country and nature.

- Topography of Ireland, chapter 52 (translated by John O'Meara)

The wolf then goes on to explain that his "companion in this pilgrimage" is close to death, and he asks the priest to give her the solace of divine mercy at her life's end. The priest agrees and after some exhortation also gives the dying woman the last rites, including the communion. This story bears some echoes of an old Celtic tale where two brothers are punished by being sent into the woods as a he-wolf and a she-wolf. They later return in their human shape and with the children they have incestuously reared while bearing the shape of wolf. This is not to say that Gerald knew this story, or that it had any impact on the anecdote related above, but it suggests a deep-rooted belief in lycanthropy in Irish folklore. More interesting for my purpose here, is the detail that the fate of these wolves was ordained by St Natalis as a punishment, perhaps a particularly Irish punishment at that, which presents us right away with the vindictive nature of the Irish saints.

St Kevin and the blackbird

MS Royal 13 B VIII, Gerald's Topographia, England, c.1196-c.1223

Courtesy of British Library

The Curse of Saint Kevin

Another example of this vindictiveness is related in chapter 61, which tells about St Kevin, "a great confessor of the faith". Kevin is perhaps most famous for his patience exhibited when, during the saint's prayer, a blackbird started building a nest in his outstretched hand, which was the subject of a poem by Seamus Heaney. In kindness to the bird, Kevin did not move until the birds were hatched, and Gerald notes that because of this, the blackbird features in the iconographical representations of the saint. However, Gerald also tells us about Kevin's vengefulness to birds. We are told that on his feast days, the ravens of Glendalough are "prevented by a curse of Saint Kevin" from being on the ground and from eating, so the birds fly about the village and make "a great noise". The reason for this curse, Gerald speculates, might be that the ravens had caused one of Kevin's students to spill some milk.  

The teal of St Colman

MS Royal 13 B VIII, Gerald's Topographia, England, c.1196-c.1223

Courtesy of British Library

The Teal of Saint Colman

The next chapter records a story in which saintly vindictiveness is protecting rather than harming birds. Here Gerald tells of some teal inhabiting a lake in Leinster, who have resided there since the time of St Colman (it is not specified when that time was). These birds are tame enough to take food from people's hands, but

[w]henever any injury or molestation happens to the church, the clergy, or themselves, they go off to a lake at some distance, and do not return to their former abode until due satisfaction has been made. In the meantime during their absence the waters of the lake, which before were limpid and clear, become brackish and dirty, and cannot be use either for man or beast.

- Topography of Ireland, chapter 62 (translated by John O'Meara)

Gerald further records that once a teal was accidentally brought back from the lake with some cooking water, but although the water was cooking for a long time, the bird - thanks, no doubt, to the miraculous protection of St Colman - remained unhurt. Similarly, Gerald tells of a story happening "in our own times" when the Anglo-Norman invader Robert fitzStephen travelled through the area in the company of King Dermot of Leinster. An archer, ostensibly belonging to the retinue of King Dermot, shot one of the teal and tried to cook it for his king. When he showed King Dermot the miserable result of hours and hours of cooking, the king understood that this was a bird protected by Colman, and exclaimed "Alas form me! That this misfortune should ever have happened in my house". The archer perished miserably a short while after.

The anecdote is relatively sparing in contextual detail, but it is tempting to see King Dermot's fear of St Colman's vengeance in the light of his apparent alliance with the Anglo-Normans, dreading perhaps that his seemingly secure standing would change in the vicissitudes of occupation. Or perhaps this anecdote can be seen as Gerald's warning to the Anglo-Norman barons and their soldiers, that although the subjugation of Ireland is right - since they presented as a nation of bestial and uncivilised men - they should not suffer needless injuries, and nor should their churches be plundered. This should be seen in light of part three of the book, where Gerald gives praise to the Irish clergy, both monks and priests, although he reproves them for lack of discipline.

Minor incidents and lack of vermin

After the anecdote about the teal of St Colman, Gerald soon comes to some minor examples of the powers of Irish sanctity. The first of these is treated in chapter 64, where we are told of a village in Connacht which was "celebrated for a church of Saint Nannan". Once this village was badly infested with fleas, but St Nannan had them miraculously brought to a meadow close by, where the fleas were confined and made it inaccessible to men and beasts alike.

A similar story follows in chapter 65, where we learn of the district of Ferneginan. Here lived Bishop Yvor, who was so plagued by rats eating his books that he cursed them, and the result was that they all were expelled from Ferneginan, and from that day on, it was impossible for rats to live in that district. If rats were to be brought in, they would die. This particular anecdote becomes even more interesting because of its similarities to the supposition noted by Gerald in chapters 21 and 22 that poisonous reptiles are not found in Ireland. This is an old story, and the legend states that it was St Patrick who drove the snakes and other reptiles from the island. Gerald records this belief as a "pleasant conjecture that Saint Patrick and other saints of the land purged the island of all harmful animals", but goes on to suggest that Ireland must have been without these creatures from the beginning of the island's existence.

 

However, this does not explain why reptiles brought into the island perish upon entering the the land, and in chapter 23 Gerald suggests that this has to do with qualities in the Irish soil rather than saintly protection. What is significant about this, is that in chapter 48 Gerald tells how the jurisdiction of the island of Man was granted to Britain rather than Ireland, because poisonous reptiles could live there. And already in chapter 25 Gerald has recorded the discovery of a live frog near Waterford - significantly where the Anglo-Norman invaders entered Ireland in 1174 - which was taken as a sign by King Duvendalus "of the coming of the English, and the imminent conquest and defeat of his people". Ireland allows for heretofore alien reptiles and prepares itself to allow the Anglo-Norman conquest. But the saints are not in the picture, they are not relinquishing patronage nor endorsing the invaders, it is the soil itself that changes - although presumably through divine machinations. Gerald does not pit Irish saints against English saints, but relies instead on what we might call scientific rumination to explain the relationship of reptiles to Ireland.  

The book-eating rats of Ferneginan

MS Royal 13 B VIII, Gerald's Topographia, England, c.1196-c.1223

Courtesy of British Library

Miracles of St Brigid

The next saint to be treated in Gerald's catalogue of wonders is "the glorious Brigid". Some miracles pertaining to St Brigid's fire are mentioned, and a longer account is given of a falcon in Kildare who was believed to have lived there since the time of Brigid (i.e. several generations). This bird is used by Gerald as an example "of honour to churchmen", because during its mating season it flew away from the hallowed precincts of the church where it resided and fornicated elsewhere. The bird "was killed by a rustic" at the time when John, son of King Henry, departed from Ireland the first time.

For my purpose here, however, the significant aspect of St Brigid's powers is her protection of a hedge which surrounds the perpetual fire which is kept burning by her devotees. Since only women are allowed to perform the office as fire-keepers, a man who crosses the hedge "does not escape the divine vengeance". The curse of St Brigid also prevents goats to "have young here".

St Brigid's hedge is described in chapter 69, and Gerald returns to it in chapter 77 where we learn of an archer belonging to the retinue of the Anglo-Norman earl Richard. The archer crossed the hedge and blew upon the saint's fire and immediately went mad. The chapter concludes with an anecdote about a man who had only gotten his shin across the hedge before he was pulled back, and consequently lost his leg. This kind of violent territorial protection is not a feature unique to the Irish saints. Several instances are found in hagiographical texts from all over the Latin West, perhaps most famously St Edmund's killing of Sweyn Forkbeard at Bury St Edmunds. However, when seen in the context of Anglo-Norman invasion and settlement, this anecdote seems to reinforce Gerald's preoccupation with the importance of respecting the Irish places of religion. It seems as if common decency can't prevent the invaders from violating the churches, perhaps a fear of the vengeance of saints might be of help.

Protection of the Land

Keeping in this vein, in the following chapters we find several anecdotes rehearsing the dangers of encroaching upon land belonging to the Irish saints. Chapter 78 contains an anecdote about a soldier who had unlawfully expropriated land belonging to St Finbar in Cork. The bishop of the place, in sadness and anger, asked God (rather Finbar himself) not to allow this land to bear fruit. God listened to the bishop and performed the requested miracle "through the merits of the holy man" (although we are left uncertain as to whether this is Finbar the saint or the bishop of Cork).

The next chapter records how two Anglo-Normans were punished for their lack of piety. The first was Philip of Worcester who forced tribute from the clergy of Armagh, the seat of St Patrick, during Lent. On his departure from Armagh, Philip "was stricken with an illness and scarcely survived". Then we are told of Hugh Tyrrell who stole a cooking-pot from the clergy of Armagh, and the night after he had returned to his lodgings in Louth a fire broke out that burned down a great part of the settlement, killing two horses that had carried the pot away from Armagh. Tyrrell himself was later cast into a civil strife between Anglo-Norman factions. Although it is not elaborated upon, the two aforementioned anecdotes are related to injuries committed against the clergy of Armagh, i.e. under the protection of Patrick, patron of Ireland.

After these vengeful miracles of St Patrick, we are presented with two revenges performed by St Fechin, who was very protective of a mill in Meath, which he had himself cut "out of the side of a rock". When a archer in the army of Hugh de Lacy raped a girl there, he "was stricked in his member with hell-fire in sudden vengeance and immediately began to burn throughout his whole body. He died the same night". Fechin's protection of his mill was not only concerned with violent injuries, but also with minor occurrances. In chapter 82, Gerald tells that two horses who had eaten stolen corn from the mill died afterwards.  

Bernard and the horn of St Brendan

MS Royal 13 B VIII, Gerald's Topographia, England, c.1196-c.1223

Courtesy of British Library

Confessors, not martyrs

Gerald's Topographia hiberniae is to a great degree a document intended to justify the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland, yet as we have seen it is apparent that Gerald is concerned with the proper conduct of the conquerors. Ireland is lawfully occupied by the Anglo-Normans because, as is suggested in part three, the Irish are uncivilised and maintain evil customs (ch. 100), not all of them have been baptised (ch. 103) and their kingship ritual contains element of bestiality (ch. 102). However, Ireland and its places are not completely up for grabs, for the Irish saints are protecting their clergy, their pastures and their holy places with a fearful vengeance and they must therefore be respected. Furthermore, despite some shortcomings in discipline and religious practice, the Irish clergy has many good qualities, and its people has a proper respect for saints and their relics. As an example of this, Gerald includes in chapter 108 an anecdote that happened in Wales, where an Irishman carried a horn which was a relic of St Brendan. The horn was held in such great reverence that nobody dared to blow it, and when a Welsh priest did this, he turned mad and had to learn the psalter from the start.

However, despite the vindictiveness "in which the saints of this country seem to be very interested", the saints of Ireland appear to have accepted the coming of the Anglo-Normans. An explanation for this is offered by Gerald in chapter 105, in which he provides further comments on the nature of the Irish saints. For he states that

all the saints of this country are confessors, and there is no martyr. It would be difficult to find such a state of things in any other Christian kingdom. There was found no one in thise parts to cement the foundations of the growing church with the shedding of his blood. There was no one to do this service; not a single one.

- Topography of Ireland, chapter 105 (translated by John O'Meara)

These lines are very important for several reason. Although Gerald emphasises the sanctity of the Irish holy men and women, it appears that he suggests there is no protector of Ireland as a whole, not even the venerable Patrick. Gerald blames the Irish prelates for this state of affairs, because none of them have stood up for their church, or shed blood or suffered exile for its cause. Since this is written less than twenty years after the martyrdom of Thomas Becket (d.1170), for which King Henry II was punished and for which he sought reparation, it is tempting to suggest that Gerald has the model of Becket in mind when he chastises the Irish clergy. He then recounts a comment made by the Archbishop of Cashel:

'It is true,' he said, 'that although our people are very barbarous, uncivilized, and savage, nevertheless they have always paid great honour and reverence to churchmen, and they have never put out their hands against the saints of God. But now a people has come to the kingdom which knows how, and is accustomed, to make martyrs. From now on Ireland will have its martyrs, just as other countries.'

The archbishop's words are chilling and seem prophetic in such a short time after the battle at Waterford, and the canonisation of Becket (1169/70 and 1173 respectively). However, Gerald states that the archbishop's comment, although hard-hitting, does not invalidate Gerald's opinion on the Irish prelates.

Saints and the conquest of Ireland

A final point is worth noting in Gerald's treatment of the Irish saints. As stated, the holiness of the Irish saints remains undisputed and their vengeful patronage are held up as a perennial warning against misconduct against the Irish churches. In chapter 97, Gerald records how the Anglo-Normans themselves showed their due respect for the native saints of Ireland:

Saint Columba and Saint Brigid were contemporaries of Patrick. Their three bodies were buried in Ulster in the same city, namely, Down. They were found there in our times, in the year, that is, that Lord John first came to Ireland, in a cave that had three sections. Patrick was lying in the middle, and the others were lying one on either side. John de Courci, who was in command there, took charge when these three noble treasures were, through divine revelation, found and translated.

- The Topography of Ireland, chapter 97 (translated by John O'Meara)

In other words, through the revelatory will of God, the Anglo-Norman conquerors have become devotees of Ireland's three major saints, and the patrons of Ireland are now the patrons of the Anglo-Normans. The episode is reminiscent of the legend of the seven sleepers at Ephesus recorded at length by Osbert of Clare in his hagiography of Edward the Confessor (c.1138). It is also interesting for its resemblance to similar aspects of Plantagenet appropriation of popular belief. In 1198 the remains of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere were reported to have been found in Glastonbury, thus proving to the Celtic world that Arthur was not resting at Avalon or anywhere else, but was dead and buried. In the late 1200s, King Edward I, during his Welsh campaign, had Arthur's remains translated and perhaps even canonised (although informally so since it was never accepted by the papal church). The purpose was the same at both these instances: to expropriate local history, and display the dynasty's reverence of and protection from these legendary figures.

It is tempting to suggest that this strategy had also been used by the Anglo-Norman conquerors in Ireland, and although Gerald does not elaborate on the importance of this revelation in any great degree, it might explain why Gerald's concern is to warn about local patronage and vindictiveness rather than worrying about the revenge of the great patrons of Ireland.

The making of an Irish king

MS Royal 13 B VIII, Gerald's Topographia, England, c.1196-c.1223

Courtesy of British Library

Mary in the Wood of Thorns - a German folksong for Christmas

One of my favourite aspects of Christmas is the singing of carols and hymns in commemoration of the birth of Christ, and - perhaps on account of me being a historian - I usually prefer the older songs. Here in Norway, we have a rich tradition of Christmas songs in both our official variants of Norwegian (bokmål and nynorsk), and some of these are translation of songs from other languages, most notably German, Danish and Latin, with a few from English as well.

In previous blogposts I've posted links to some of my favourite English carols, such as the Herefordshire Carol or God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. In this blogpost I wish to present a favourite from the German tradition, Maria durch ein Dornwald ging. This was originally not a Christmas song, but a song of pilgrimage which came about in Thüringen and the bishopric of Paderborn during the 19th century. The oldest printed source can be dated to 1850, and this edition contained seven strophes. In the early 20th century, a new edition with three strophes became the standard edition and this is currently the rendition most frequently performed. The author or authors of this song are unknown to us and so are the composers of the music, and it is perhaps chiefly this trait which allows us to label this song a folksong. (Information is taken from this website.) The text is found below taken from Edition B, and an English translation follows at the end.

Thomaner Chor, Leipzig

Maria durch ein Dornwald ging

Maria durch ein'n Dornwald ging
Kyrie eleison

Maria durch ein'n Dornwald ging
der hat in sieben Jahr'n kein Laub getrag'n
Jesus und Maria

Was trug Maria unter ihrem Herzen?
Kyrie eleison
Ein kleines Kindlein ohne Schmerzen
das trug Maria unter ihrem Herzen,
Jesus und Maria

Da haben die Dornen Rosen getrag'n
Kyrie Eleison
Als das Kindlein durch den Wald getrag'n
da haben die Dornen Rosen getrag'n
Jesus und Maria

Sandro Botticelli, Madonna with child and singing angels
c.1477, currently in Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Courtesy of Wikimedia

Mary through the thornwood walked

(My translation)

Mary through the thornwood walked
Kyrie Eleison
Mary through the thornwood walked
Which had not borne for seven years a leaf
Jesus and Maria

What bore Mary underneath her heart?
Kyrie Eleison
A little child withouten pain
that's what Mary bore underneath her heart
Jesus and Maria

Then the thorns were bearing roses
Kyrie Eleison
As the little child through the wood did walk
Then the thorns were bearing roses
Jesus and Maria

The Psalter of Quendrada - a miracle of St Kenelm

Kenelm holding a virginal lily

From the Digby Chantry, St Augustine's Church Ramsgate, John Hardman Powell, mid-19th century

Courtesy of this website

The elusively historical Kenelm of Mercia was the head of the Mercian kingdom for some time at the turn of the 8th century, at least according to his legend. Little is known about his life, and what appears in later texts is the stuff of saint-biographical legend, cultivated especially at Winchcombe Abbey, which was the centre of his cult. From documents and charters we know that a royal person by this name existed in this period, but little can be suggested beyond this. The first tokens of a liturgical cult can be found almost two centuries after his death, a time when many royal figures were the subject of new cults, such as Ethelreda, Edward Martyr and Sexburga, to mention only a few.

This flourishing of English royal saints has been treated in great detail by Susan J. Ridyard in her Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England, where she distinguishes between king-saints and royal women who became saints by virtue of their monastic pursuits. Ridyard's study was published in 1988, and was a counterargument against the beliefs that royal women in the convent abandoned their roles as royal patrons (hagiography shows this not to be the case), and that these saints were cultivated to protect weak royal houses. In fact, the royal houses benefitting from these cults were all very strong at this time.

Kenelm's role as a saint, therefore, fits into a larger historical canvas, and like the other royal saints boosted by the Benedictine reform movement, his cult enjoyed a perhaps surprising longevity, as can be seen by his inclusion in the 13th-century South English Legendary, and even in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Traditions belonging to the cult of Kenelm have endured for a long time, as suggested by a certain piece of folklore expounded by Eleanor Parker in this blogpost I have given some details about his cult and iconography in an earlier blogpost, so I will avoid undue repetition. In this blogpost, however, I will present a miracle of Kenelm which is reported by Gerald of Wales in his Journey through Wales, a work completed at the turn of the 1180s. This miracle is one among many reported by Gerald in chapter 2 of Book 1. The text quoted is taken from Lewis Thorpe's translation published in Penguin Classics (reprinted in 1984).

Kenelm's dream by H. A. Payne

From The Artistic Crafts Series of Technical Handbooks edited by W. R. Lethaby, plate 71

Courtesy of Project Gutenberg

Before presenting the miracle, however, a brief summary of Kenelm's legend might be appropriate. Kenelm was a child-king of Mercia c.800, and he had a wicked sister Cwenthryth, or Quendrada, who plotted against him. She ordered a huntsman to slay him during the child-king's hunt, and although forewarned by a vision given to his nurse, the boy accepted his death with the stoicism so typical of martyrs. After he had died, his body was discovered by the aid of a cow who began to feed at its burial-place, while the pope had been alerted of Kenelm's death by a dove. Kenelm's body was exhumed and taken back to the royal palace, and upon seeing his brother return, Quendrada's eyes fell out of her head and onto the psalter she was reading (backwards, because she was so very evil). The miracle reported by Gerald concerns this psalter:


In our days another great miracle has caused quite a stir. This had to do with the psalter of Quendrada, the sister of Saint Kenelm, at whose instigation he was murdered. In Winchcombe, on the vigil of Saint Kenelm, when, at the invitation of the monks, a great crowd of women from the neighbourhood had congregated for the celebrations, as their custom was, the assistant cellarer had intercourse with on of them inside the precincts of the monastery. The next day he had the audacity to carry this psalter in the procession of the relics of the saints. When the solemn procession was over, he made his way back to the choir. The psalter stuck to his hands and he could not put it down. He was greatly astonished and confounded by what had happened. Then he remembered the crime which he had committed the previous eveing. He confessed his sin and did penance. His repentance was sincere enough, and he was helped by the prayers of his fellow-monks. In the end, by divine intervention, he was able to free himself from the psalter and so was liberated. The book in question is held in great veneration in the monastery, for, when the dead body of Kenelm carried out and the crowd shouted: 'He is God's martyr! There is no doubt about it! He is the martyr of God!' Quendrada, who was guilty of her brother's murder and had it very much on her conscience, replied: 'He is indeed God's martyr, as truly as my eyes are resting on this psalter!' By chance she was reading the psalter at the moment. Thereupon, by divine intervention, her two eys were torn from her head and fell plop on the open book, where you can still see the marks of her blood to this day.
- Thorpe 1984: 85-86

Carving of St Kenelm at the gateway to Romsley Church

Photograph by Pollyanna Jones

There are several interesting iconographical details to pick up on in this anecdote. First, it should be mentioned that although a seemingly novel grisly detail, the loss of eyes is also found in the legend of St Alban, protomartyr of Britain together with his companion Amphibalus. Like the wicked Quendrada, Alban's murderer lost his eyes after killing him, as depicted in gory detail by Matthew Paris in the St Alban's Psalter (as seen below). On the obverse side of the coin we find a story - mentioned by Benedicta Ward in her book on medieval miracles - in the legends of St Cuthbert (if I remember correctly) where a man who had lost his eyesight and was healed by the saint, told a miraculous tale of how birds had carried his eyes away, but that they were returned after he had prayed for healing.

The prototype of British eye-losses: St Alban's beheader

Royal 2 B VI, English psalter, c.1246-c.1260

Another interesting feature is the immediate recognition by the populace of Kenelm's status as martyr. Although we have no information about the death of the historical Kenelm and how his subjects reacted, Gerald's description - perhaps drawn from William of Malmesbury's record, or the anonymous 11th-century vita - invokes a trait typical of Northern European royal cults, namely the immediate canonisation by the vox populi following the trauma of the death of a leader-figure. André Vauchez, in his study of saints' cults, has marked this as an aspect common to several English leaders in the Middle Ages, for instance Simon Montfort and Edward II.

A final aspect I want to draw your attention to in this case, is the punitive nature of Kenelm's miracle. By way of an overly adhesive psalter, Kenelm makes the assistant cellarer's guilt obvious to everyone and forces him thus to repent his crime. Punitive miracles could take many forms, either in a mundane manner or more severely through disfigurement, disablement or death. The assistant cellarer might be grateful that his punishment was not more severe than this.

Kenelm guarding his well-head

From the chapel at the Well-Head of St Kenelm's Well, by J. D. Wyatt, 1887

Courtesy of this website

Literature

Gerald of Wales, The Journey Through Wales, (trl. by Lewis Thorpe), Penguin Classics, 1984

Love, Rosalind, Three Anglo-Saxon Saints' Lives, Clarendon Press, 1996

Ridyard, Susan J., Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge University Press, 1988

Vauchez, André, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, (trl. by Jean Birrell), 2005

Ward, Benedicta, Miracles and the medieval mind, 1982