St Birinus Festival at Dorchester Abbey

Rotate Cæli has an article by Peter Kwasniewski about the forthcoming St Birinus Festival at Dorchester Abbey in Oxfordshire for the celebration of All Saints and All Souls over October 30th to November 2nd. This is an initiative from the Catholic Church in Dorchester and seeks to draw attention to the wonderful heritage of Classical settings for the liturgical music of the Traditional Rite, and to raise funds to make such celebrations possible.

The article, together with the relevant links, can be seen at The Latin Mass Returns to Dorchester Abbey: The St Birinus Festival, 30 Oct - 2 Nov 2024

Dorchester Abbey is a remarkable and fascinating survival, an instance of a complete church from a moderately sized Augustinian house. It has not a few noteworthy architectural features, such as the carved stone Jesse tracery of the east window, and some fine medieval effigies. No monastic buildings survive save some carved capitals in a modern gallery on the site of south walk of the cloister. The abbey stands on the site of the Anglo-Saxon cathedral, founded by St Birinus, a site from which the later dioceses of Winchester and Lincoln can claim their origin. The move of the seat of the bishopric of the great East Midlands diocese to its largest city, that of Lincoln, in 1072 resulted not only in the creation of Lincoln Cathedral, but the eventual foundation of the Augustinian house at Dorchester to preserve the memory of St Birinus at Dorchester.

The mid-nineteenth century Catholic Church, which lies to the south of the medieval monastic church, was built by William Wardell who had been a leading pupil of Pugin. His most famous works are in his adopted home of Australia. For the church at Dorchester, and for one of his smaller, early Australian commissions he clearly followed Pugin’s now tragically destroyed Jesus Chapel at Ackworth in Yorkshire.

In recent years St Birinus has had a splendid renovation which has decked it out in an exquisite Puginesque decorative scheme which is a delight to behold. It has also become a centre of excellence for Traditional liturgy and music.

St Francis receives the Stigmata 1224

The other day I posted about the eighth centenary of the establishment of the Franciscan Order in England. At the same time in Umbria St Francis became the first recorded follower of Christ to receive the Stigmata. That was on this day in 1224. Such a configuration to the Passion emphasised the apparently unique status of St Francis, and the sense of a New Age having dawned with his movement.. Later bearers of the Stigmata were sometimes shown to be fraudulent, but others were deemed to be genuine recipients. Probably the most celebrated recognised Stigmatist of recent years was the Capuchin St Pio of Pietrelcina,  

The New Liturgical Movement has an illustrated article about the history of its liturgical commemoration at The Stigmata of St Francis

May St Francis pray for us all

Aspects of the Bourbon Restoration

Whilst looking online into background for my post about King Louis XVIII I came upon these articles which may interest readers. They not only illustrate specific aspects of French political life in the King’s reign but help to indicate the tensions that ran through France at so many levels. Maintains national cohesion was no mean achievement.

Wikipedia has a good entry about the 1814 Charter granted by the King. The article gives a good introduction to its provisions, .points to its similarity to the British constitutional  arrangements at the time, and its status as a document - was it a Fundamental Law or a description of how the legislative life of the country was to be conducted? The article can be read at Charter of 1814

There is a short piece about a real risk to the survival of the main Royal House caused by the assassination of the Duc de Berry, nephew to King Louis, and third in line to the throne in 1820, and the pregnancy of his widow. It is from Elena Maria Vidal’s Tea at Trianon blog and can be seen at The Murder of the Duc de Berry and the Miracle Child

The third is an excellent article, the transcript of a podcast from The Siècle 1814-1914 and looks at the underground opposition to the Restoration in the early 1820s and the reaction to that of the government. Entitled ‘Charbonnerie’ it is a well researched and balanced account of the secret radical groups, imitating contemporary Italian examples, and  which sought to overthrow the Restoration. It describes the response of the government to their discovery,  and their signal failure to incite revolt in those years. Being in print rather than just a sound broadcast it boasts those academic desiderata of having both illustrations and footnotes. It is well worth reading and can be seen at  Episode 23: Charbonnerie

More on the death of King Louis XVIII

By chance I came upon a blog post by Catherine Curzon from a decade ago about the death of King Louis XVIII in 1824. 

The account records the declining health of the King from the beginning of 1824, and its distressing nature as gangrene worked its way slowly through his system. Notwithstanding that he continued as best he could to exercise his functions as monarch until only a few days before his death.

The article, together with comments, can be seen at "The king rotted on his throne": The Death of Louis XVIII

King Louis XVIII

Today is the bicentenary of the death in 1824 of King Louis XVIII.  

King Louis XVIII

A portrait from 1814

Image: Wikipedia 

Wikipedia offers a reasonably concise and well illustrated biography of the King. It sets his life in the context in which he lived, the Ancient Regime, the early stages of the revolution, his various places of exile until the Bourbon Restoration in 1814-15, and his effective reign until his death. It brings out how he changed his views about how France should be governed from the lead up to the meeting of the States General in 1789 through to his Constitutional Charter of 1814 and its later adaptation. The article can be read at Louis XVIII

There is a similar biographical account and interpretation, also well illustrated, from The Mad Monarchist which can be seen at Monarch Profile: King Louis XVIII of France

For those who want more, and it is much more, there is Philip Mansel’s massive and magisterial biography. For one of my friends this is his favourite history book.

Ten years ago I wrote about the King in King Louis XVIII, and in 2011 I wrote about his younger brother and successor in King Charles X.

Rather than more or less re- write them I have given the links to make them available  I apologise that some of the illustrations have disappeared due to copyright issues. The comparison of the Bourbon Restoration in France with the Stuart Restoration in Britain is often made, and indeed seems at times uncannily similar. Happily for this country a constitutional compromise was arrived at and has endured. The question may then be as to why that was not to be achieved in France. Two centuries on from the death of the last French monarch to die as sovereign occupying the throne, France still appears to be in a state of perennial constitutional flux that goes far beyond the ebb and flow of representative politics. 

The verdict of King Leopold I of the Belgians in his letter to his niece the future Queen Victoria on King Louis XVIII and King Charles X, which I quote in the second of those posts, is worth reflecting upon as King Leopold, married as he was by then to an Orleanist Princess, is acknowledged as a skilled politician and great experience.

King Louis XVIII was himself a shrewd politician in his later years in exile and as sovereign. His skill in managing the situation in France marks him out in contrast to so many who succeeded him - it should not, as I argued in the linked post be seen as merely a way to contrast him with his younger brother. Both in power and as exiles later Bourbons, as well as Bonapartes, failed to be as adroit as this perhaps rather unprepossessing man, hindered by declining and poor health, and possessed of a not especially attractive temperament. 

As both a man and as a monarch he demonstrated what might be seen as a hard nosed political realism and a determined pursuit of his own ideas and his political interests. This can be seen in from actions in the 1780s as the old world crumbled, through all the upheavals of exile in a war torn world, and a resolve for his security once restored to the throne of his ancestors. As King he managed to reign over the political tinder box that was France, fractured by factions, and to hand it on. Whether he was just fortunate, and the French were not yet again in the mood to revolt,  or to what extent he and his ministers possessed an enhanced skill in managing the nation is a question to muse upon. There is, doubtless, no single answer.

The funeral carriage of King Louis XVIII from 1824. Eight black horses drew it from the Tuileries Palace in Paris to the burial in the Basilica of St Denis

Image: The Good Life France

Not so popular entertainment in Durham in 1433-4

I happened by chance today upon a report by the BBC News North East about a novel by Glen James Brown set in the Durham area in the early fifteenth century. As regular readers will recall I am not much of a fan or reader of historical fiction, and I must admit I am not entirely sure that I particularly feel drawn to the book under discussion from the comments from the author. Maybe I will give it a try. 

However, like him, I do respond to the fact, and it is a solitary fact, that in the accounts for the cathedral priory at Durham for 1433-34 there is a payment to a visiting entertainer. Known as Mother Naked - “ Modyr Nakett “ - he was a minstrel who received a mere 4d for his performance, the lowest such fee paid out by any bursar in the priory records.

The suggestion is that Mother Naked was a “Betty” , a female impersonator, perhaps originating with folk dance, and the precursor of Pantomime Dames, and not a few great comedians.  The suggestion is that his small fee indicated that his act was deemed inappropriate or even obscene. Perhaps it was that he just wasn’t very good. The vision of the Durham monks sitting down to watch a drag act in the 1430s is an intriguing one to say the least. 

Given the reaction of some modern Evangelicals to actors in drag appearing at children’s libraries it does make one wonder. But then one also hears stories of Catholic and AngloCatholic seminaries with rather rumbustuous end of year pantomimes, and with the tradition of  the use of “Names in Religion” in such places, so maybe it is more traditional than one might have thought.

It would be interesting to know how often minstrels were engaged to entertain the monks, and at what time of the year - the accounts run from November 11, Martinmas, each year.

Drama as entertainment was clearly not unknown in cathedral communities.  I recall seeing a reference to the residentiary canons of the cathedral in Lincoln, which had a vibrant tradition of religious drama, putting on a play to raise the mood in, I think, 1317, when famine, bad weather and political turmoil swirled around.

The BBC article can be viewed at Name from old Durham Cathedral record inspires new novel

The Feasts of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary

The New Liturgical Movement has an interesting article today about the two Feasts of the Seven Sorrows which appear, with different rankings over time, in the pre-1970 Calendar. The coincidence of today, September 15th, where the celebration was fixed by St Pius X, being a Sunday, and the third of the month, when it would have been observed from Pope Pius VII’s inclusion of it in the universal Calendar in 1814, obviously helped inspire the article.

The two feasts, one in Passiontide on the Friday of Passion Week, and one in September, arise from popular devotion In the first case this originated in the later medieval Rhineland, and spread across much of the continent. The second is a somewhat later fruit of the work of the Servite Order. Both represent the organic development of private devotion over time and place to become a part of the life of the whole Church. Often called the Compassion of Our Lady it is part of the religious culture that made carvings and paintings of the Pieta so much a part of late medieval spirituality and devotion.

The article gives a detailed account of the evolution of the two celebrations and of the Office for the two days. It can be seen at Liturgical Notes on the Feasts of the Seven Sorrows

The Princes in the Tower - a series of academic videos

The continuing fascination with the fate of the Princes in the Tower generates ever more commentary and theories. 

King Edward V and his brother Richard Duke of York and Norfolk, or, if you look at their legal status after late June 1483, the bastardised children of the adulterous, invalid, marriage of the late King Edward IV, and thus no longer Princes, disappeared that summer. No one has proof of whatever happened to them subsequently. In the absence of clear proof speculation has grown, and continued to grow. Today, for many, it boils down, with various caveats, to whether you think King Richard III was responsible directly or indirectly for their deaths, or whether you think he acted honourably as Lord Protector in removing two illegitimate interlopers, and that their fate was not his responsibility, or indeed that he quietly removed them to live out their lives elsewhere. Barring natural death or genuine accident it depends on whether you are a Ricardian or not.

I came upon another video on YouTube about an aspect of the case which led me to find it is part of an ongoing series of related videos made over the past year by a German historian. There are at present twenty of these videos, which vary in length but explore the minutiae of the disappearance, and focus in particular on the physical layout of the Tower of London. They are well researched and informative, raising points and questions I have not seen made elsewhere. The underlying argument is that King Richard III was indeed responsible for the deaths of his two nephews, and is hostile to the idea that they escaped and reappeared as Lambert Simnel or Perkin Warbeck - so you have been warned if you are a committed Ricardian. If not, or have an open mind on this not much cold case as one permanently on the back burner, simmering away for five and a half centuries, they are worth watching or certainly dipping into. Some are upwards of an hour long, others much shorter, but taken together form a very interesting resource. One even undertakes the risky business of enquiring as to what drives so many Ricardians and their dedication to exculpating the King. 

They can be found from the first in the series, by clicking on the information link, at The Princes In The Tower Without DNA: A Historian's Project Idea To Find New Evidence - And A Theory