Latest discoveries at Glastonbury

The BBC News website had a report about the latest archaeological discoveries at Beckery, near Glastonbury, and the evidence for an early monastic community there. The account can be read at Beckery Chapel near Glastonbury 'earliest known UK monastic life'


There are links from it to two older posts - the first, also about Beckery can be seen at 'King Arthur' chapel near Glastonbury uncovered

The second, from last year, about the latest archaeological interpretations of the early history of the abbey complex can be viewed at New Research 'rewites' Glastonbury Abbey history

Glastonbury, its history and its legends have fascinated me since long before I was able to visit the town and stay there on retreat, and modern archaeology continues to both illuminate our understanding and to pose fascinating hypotheses and possibilities.

Glastonbury in the news again

Stephanie A Mann at Supremacy and Survival has picked up a report on the latest archaeological work at Glastonbury Abbey and links to it with some pertinent comments of her own in her post Glastonbury and Its Legends

St Paul in Sussex

Last night Fr Jerome entertained the Brothers of the Oratory with a talk based upon a wonderful mixture of archaeological finds, Biblical references, possible hypotheses and a lot of wishful thinking. this was his retelling of the theories and interpretations in Edwin Wilmshurst's St Paul and Britain;notes on the dedication stone of the temple of Neptune and Minerva, at Chichester, which connects the Roman senator Pudens, the British princess Claudia, and St Paul, with the city of Chichester .This pamphlet was published in Chichester in 1910.

In it the author blends together facts and suppositions to talk of the connections berween St Paul, Caractacus, Old King Coel, Young King Coel, St Helena and a Palestinian-Roman-British dynasty based in what is now Sussex. Heady stuffy, and thought provoking in the bemused scratchings of heads kind of way.

Apart from its entertainment value Fr Jerome was making a serious point. Here, once again, was an attempt to create a British Church anterior to that of Rome - thus the British Christian Llyr becomes Linus successor of Paul, not Peter, as Bishop of Rome...

As Fr Jerome pointed out, and as a historian I quite agree, the "Celtic Church" and analagous institutions are modern - very modern - notions. When St Augustine met the native British episcopate, and tried, not perhaps too tactfully, to get them to co-opertate with him in evangelising the pagan Anglo-Saxons, he recognised them as being, like himself, bishops who derived their authority from the Universal Church, not from some autonomous independent origin. Similarly the Synod of Whitby recognised a common episcopate, and sought to resolve procedural and practical difficulties, not fundamental differences in origin. One cannot create an independent paleo-British Christianity just because it satisfies an emotional or national need centuries later.

Which does not deny the theoretical possibility of St Paul coming to Britannia after preaching in Hispania, or indeed the teenage Jesus coming with Joseph of Arimathea, who, as of course we all know was in the tin-trade, to Glastonbury...

 

Esther de Waal on St Benedict

Each term the Anglican church of St Giles here in Oxford offers a series of themed lunchtime talks by distinguished speakers on an appropriate theme of spirituality and church life. This term the topic is St Benedict and Benedictine spirituality. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the first two, but I made the effort to go today as the speaker was Esther de Waal. Over many years Mrs de Waal has established herself as a well known writer and retreat conductor on the application of St Benedict's Rule, particularly for the laity.

In, I think, 1990, I attended a week long retreat on the Benedictine way at Glastonbury which she led. For that week we led an adapted version of the Benedictine life. We also had talks by monks from Downside and by other speakers - Geoffrey Ashe and Douglas Dales on the history of the legends of Glastonbury and on St Dunstan respectively.  Not a little of that week has remained with me, and I wanted to hear her again.

St Benedict

Image: clydemonastery.org

In her talk today Esther de Waal concentrated on the Prologue to the Rule of St Benedict and drew out its inherent poetic qualities. She is of the view that like a poem the Rule of St Benedict is designed to make us stop in our tracks and think about what we are doing.

The text of the Prologue can be accessed here and we were urged to take away the copies we were given and to not only read  it, but to read it aloud so as to savour the ideas St Benedict was seeking to transmit.

In the story of him leaving Rome after his studies with his old nurse Esther de Waal sees an image of St Benedict leaving Rome equipped with Wisdom, for which the nurse is a symbol. That pursuit of Wisdom through the Rule and then by living the Benedictine life is central to her presentation of the Benedictine vision for today. Thus the Divine Light, a reference to II Cor., iii,18, is the light that makes us like God, makes us into the likeness of God,  and is exemplified by the Transfiguration. This is part of the Divine exhuberance, and the source of St Benedict's desire wherein he wants to energise the faithful in Christ.

So St Benedict bases his approach on the return of the Prodigal Son to set out his school of the Lord's service. Mrs de Waal stressed that the approach of some, particularly in the US, was to see the Rule as a lifestyle self-improvement guide, and that it most cetainly is not to be understood in that way.

Nor did she think it should be, in effect, re-written, as some feminist writers and commentators have sought to do, so as to suit modern predilictions and attitudes. St Benedict stands on his own ground, and that should suffice for us.

So for the modern laity the three Benedictine vows are to be followed in their original intent. So Stability involves us not running away, not indulging in escapism but dealing with life as it is and where we are.

Obedience is, literally, to listen. Hence in a monastery the cloister is always a quiet space in the midst of the day to day management of the monastic community. As individuals we need to make provision for that quiet space in our daily lives.

In the call to Conversion we are called to the metanoia of going forward to meet the challenges we are called to face.

The result is a continuing transformation of the individual, and to discover that the heart expands as it grows in the love of Christ.

Thus, based on the story in St Gregory's Dialogues, at the end of his life St Benedict came to see as God sees - in a vision shortly before his death he saw the world and all it contained as small and like a  nut (my memory recalled Julian of Norwich's vision at this point) and that he had become so united to God that he saw with the Divine vision.

After her talk I had the opportunity to reintroduce myself to the speaker and say that I still recalled insights from that week at Glastonbury.

Troy and turf mazes

Yesterday afternoon I visited Troy. 

Now in case you think I had a day trip to western Anatolia I had better point out that I did not leave the county of Oxfordshire, but was at Troy, near Somerton, viewing the Turf maze there.

 

It all began with a chance remark in a conversation with my friend Tony Griffiths, Sacristan of the Oxford Oratory, the previous weekend in which we found that we had both visited the Brandsby turf maze in north Yorkshire, and I said that I had also visited the example at Alkborough in Lincolnshire, and had seen the famous stone one in the pavement of Chartres cathedral. I also recalled that Geoffrey Ashe in his book Avalonian Quest makes a good case for the terracing on the Tor at Glastonbury being a ritual labyrinth or maze rather than agricultural terracing.

Next time we met Tony said he had been looking into the topic and that we ought to go and look at the example near us at Somerton, to the north of Oxford. Significantly the adjacent farm is called Troy - a name which, along with Julian's Bower, is often associated with these features. It is one of only 8 such turf labyrinths to survive in England, although more are known to have existed. Their purpose is unclear - both ritual and recreational origins have been suggested. I rather like the Scandinavian idea of them being places to bind evil spirits, as mentioned in the articles below.

There is more about turf mazes, or more accutately, labyrinths ( they come to one end point, and do not have dead ends as in a true maze) in an informative online article here. There is another very useful online article, also well illustrated, at English turf mazes . The Somerton labyrinth is described at this local website.

 

After Mass and lunch we drove up to Troy Farm, whose own website with a picture of the labyrinth before the present hedges grew up, is here  and found the place. Like those at Brandsby and Alkborough it is away from the village on high ground.

 

We spent quite ahile speculating as to its origins and purpose, and will, I think continue to do so. Any reasonable theories out there amongst the readership?

 

Vandalism at Glastonbury

From Let Nothing You Dismay, which I recently discovered, I learned that before Christmas the specimen of the Glastonbury Thorn which grew on the site of the original Holy Thorn on Wearyall Hill on the edge of the town was hacked down just before Christmas. Legend has it that St Joseph of Aramathea's staff  blossomed when he stood on Wearyall.You can read the post, which has a link to a newspaper article about the incident and the history of the tree here. The tree was a prominent landmark on the slopes of the hill, and the present specimen dated from 1952, although its wind bent profile suggested something more venerable.

The Holy Thorn on Wearyall Hill, with Glastonbury Tor in the background

Photo by jingjok on Flickr

Such vandalism is always to be deplored. In this case the tree can be replaced by another specimen of the thorn. There are examples in the churchyard of St John the Baptist's Church and there used to be one in the abbey grounds. I recall seeing small specimens on sale in Glastonbury. 

I spent Christmas in Glastonbury in 1996 and did see the specimen of the Holy Thorn in St John's churchyard blooming at that time of year.

Whether the attack is anti-Christian is unclear. From the reports it was premediated, not drunken revellers going home. The thorn's location it is such that you would clearly go out of your way to be passing it with a woodman's saw. So it is a disturbing incident. Being a living tree it would surely not attract the ire of modern eco-friendly green pagans in Glastonbury. Is it a return to the actions of the puritan who chopped down the original in the Civil War? Perhaps - but we may never know.

I fear its replacement may be surrounded by security measures that will detract from the solitary, strange dignity of the tree I recall on visits to Glastonbury. However I would comment on the fact that from the pictures in the report the thorn was surrounded by votive offerings of strips of cloth and ribbons, something that was not there when I visited it in the late 1980s. That was the sort of thing one associated with the tree at the Chalice Well in the town. Now I think I know there are Christian precedents around holy wells for such votives, but in Glastonbury I associate them with fringe Christianity - invented "Celtic" spirituality. I think it suspect. The fact that this had spread to the Holy Thorn is interesting, or may indeed be worrying. Has that led some latter-day puritan to assault the tree itself as being the focus of idolatry?

We must hope that the replacement lives to a riper age, and that it continues to remind the visitor of the legends of Glastonbury's Christian origins.  

Arms and the man

Last Tuesday evening was the first meeting this academic year of the Oxford University Heraldry Society. We had a most interesting lecture from Dr Paul Fox of Imperial College in London on the heraldry ascribed to King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.

Having made the point that heraldry began to develop very much at the same time as the Arthurian romances became popular in the twelfth century he went on to show how the arms of the members of the Round Table were developed and received.

Thus King Arthur's own arms, dervied from an early chronicle reference to him bearing on his shoulders in battle the image of Our Lady , were originaly shown as Gules, the Virgin and Child proper, but then, following King Edward I and Queen Eleanor's visit to Glastonbury for the re-burial of Arthur and Guinevere's remains, and to other places associated with the legend, in 1278 a new coat appeated, Azure, threee crowns or, 2 and I - as in the arms of Sweden. Other versions had an azure shield crowns semee, indicating the kingdoms arthur had conquered. This remained the standard coat for Arthur through the middle ages.

King Arthur from The Nine Heroes tapesteries
France or South Netherlandish, circa 1400-1410. The Cloisters, New York

Image from www.navema.com

King Edward III was also an Arthurian enthusiast like his grandfather, and is known to have visited the site at South Cadbury which John Leland two centuries recorded as the site of Camelot, and which upon ecxcavation has been shown to have been a major centre in the sixth century. Both of these King Edwards held tournaments at which they and their courtiers and guests dressed and jousted as Knights of the Round Table. Edward III's use of lion imagery on such occasions may well have influenced his choice of the name Lionel for his son in 1338, the future Duke of Clarence.

Some men, especially thise who could attempt to claim descent from the paladins retained these Arthurian arms as their own coat armour. Two families adopted Lancelot's arms (Argent, three bendlets rouge), and appear to have resolved the issue of a shared heraldic identity amicably, with one family raising the bendlets to the upper part of the shield to differentiate the arms.

Another added red scimitars to his argent and noir checky coat from the persona of Sir Pallamedes from the legends to stress the idea of eastern exoticism. In connection with this I have included an extract from the Sigillum Secretum website:

Because they are described in the "Tristam und Isult" cycles, the arms of Sir Pallamedes, the Moorish prince who becomes a knight of the Round Table, have received a certain amount of scholarly attention. Chequered in black and white, this highly contrasting design would appear to be nothing more than perhaps the most abstract icon of those dualities already pointed to, such as God and Jacob (Jacquelado is the word for checkered in Spanish), or Church and State. Instead of his coat armour, it is the body of Sir Fierfitz Angevin, the black knight from Eschenbach's "Parzival" that is patterned in a piebald motif. The fact that the poet likens Fierfitz's skin to a parchment with writing is what expands this symbol to its most encompassing parameters.

The OUHS talk opened up a wide range of insights into chivalric court and heraldic culture, and Dr Fox plans to publish a version in the magazine Family History.

St Dunstan

Today is the feast of St Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury and Archbishop of Canterbury, who died on this day in 988. He was one of the dominant figures of the tenth century and the alliance of the Englsih Crown with the Catholic Church that created a vibrant and fertile tradition in both the ecclesial and secular world. Not least amongst his achievements is the creation of the ordo for the coronation of King Edgar at Bath in 973, usually regarded as the basis of all subsequent English Coronation rites down to that of the present Queen in 1953. 

A self-portrait of St Dunstan.  Detail from the Glastonbury Classbook. The MS is in the Bodleian Library. There is a biography of him here .  In 1988, back in my Anglo-Catholic days, I was able to attend part of the milleniary celebrations of St Dunstan at Glastonbury. The high point was the visit of Archbishop Runcie to celebrate at the Pilgrimage in honour of his great predecessor, and it was a suitably splendid occasion, with a sense of history.  Which links me to a point raised by Fr Hunwicke on his blog, as to how St Dunstan fits with the concept of an Anglican patrimony that can be exercised under Anglicanorum coetibus. The fine tuning of that point I will leave to others, indeed those qualified to comment from their own personal experience - I am neither in orders, nor married - but St Dunstan is unquestionably part of the wider patrimony of Catholic and Anglo-Catholic England, and that fact cannot be ignored. St Dunstan typifies that partnership of Church and Crown that underlay the tenth century English achievement, and that of subsequent centuries. It was not infrequently a tense relationship, and it had one or two spectacular explosions, but until Henry VIII seized power over the Church it served both parties and the realm well. If the Anglo-Catholic claim to continuity, and indeed a patrimony, anterior to 1533 is to be made it clearly must include St Dunstan, and thereby all that is indicated by that. In such a situation, and with all respect clerical marriage is an adiaphora. St Dunstan may not have liked it, but it took another couple of centuries to deal with the issue. In the wider cause of the unity of Christ's church it can be assimilated and resolved - it should not be a stumbling block.