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Thomas à Becket

              ... from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Canterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke. 
      - Canterbury Tales, General Prologue

Canterbury, Canterbury, Thomas à Becket, everybody loves a martyr!
      - Sheriff Vaisey, BBC Robin Hood, 2006.

Today is, as every inhabitant of the Middle Ages would have known, the feast day of Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, killed in Canterbury Cathedral on 29th December 1170 by four knights of Henry II. The king and the Archbishop had been at odds as to whether the king had jurisdiction over the church. According to legend, when the Archbishop refused to sign the Constitutions of Clarendon, which would have restricted ecclesiastical powers, Henry cried "Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?" - an invitation which the four knights took literally.

Henry II and Thomas à Becket, via

This is an eyewitness account of the Archbishop's murder, by one Edward Grim, displaying the usual medieval flair for the dramatic:

...The wicked knight leapt suddenly upon [the Archbishop], cutting off the top of the crown which the unction of sacred chrism had dedicated to God. Next he received a second blow on the head, but still he stood firm and immovable. At the third blow he fell on his knees and elbows, offering himself a living sacrifice, and saying in a low voice, 'For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death.' But the third knight inflicted a terrible wound as he lay prostrate. By this stroke, the crown of his head was separated from the head in such a way that the blood white with the brain, and the brain no less red from the blood, dyed the floor of the cathedral. The same clerk who had entered with the knights placed his foot on the neck of the holy priest and precious martyr, and, horrible to relate, scattered the brains and blood about the pavements, crying to the others, 'Let us away, knights; this fellow will arise no more...

Thomas was immediately hailed as a martyr and the King was not popular (he later performed public penance - whether out of genuine remorse or political astuteness is debatable...) The Archbishop's tomb quickly became a drawcard for pilgrims (the medieval equivalent of tourists!) - famously, the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales are all on their way to the shrine of St Thomas.

The site of Becket's murder in Canterbury Cathedral, via

Thanks almost solely to Thomas à Becket, medieval Canterbury became the pilgrimage capital of England. This seems rather to have annoyed its northern counterpart, York; for most of the Middle Ages there was a rather undignified struggle between the two sees, each seeking supremacy and one-upmanship over the other. Rivalry between the north and south of England appears to go a long way back!

If Canterbury's pet saint was Archbishop Thomas, York's was Archbishop William, who died in 1154 (reportedly from poisoned wine in his chalice). Following his burial in York Minster, rumours of miracles abounded, including the miraculous preservation of his body in one of the Minster's many fires (a miracle which was later mirrored almost exactly at Canterbury with St Thomas' body). William's cult, however, only really took off from the 1170s onward - at exactly the time of Thomas à Becket's murder and the outpouring of veneration which followed.

It is probable, however, that the sudden renewed interest in St William at York was not coincidence at all, and that York began to play up its association with William in response to events at Canterbury. The latter, finding itself suddenly the centre of pilgrimages from all over the country, no doubt thought itself immensely important. York must have resented Canterbury and Canterbury's saint being the centre of attention; the sudden blossoming of the cult of St William was surely at least partly an attempt to redress the balance. If this was indeed so it was only partially successful; York did become a popular tourist, sorry, pilgrimage destination, but never to the same degree as Canterbury.

Feast of the Holy Innocents: Coventry Carol

Many people know the Coventry Carol, but most do not realise that it comes from one of the Middle English mystery play cycles - not the York cycle, but a now-lost Coventry cycle (not to be confused with the Ludus Coventriae cycle, which is now thought to come from East Anglia). It appears in the play known as the Shearmen and Tailors' pageant - one of the only two plays from the cycle to survive (the other is the Weavers').

The Shearmen and Tailors' play tells the story of the nativity, but this song is not a joyful carol welcoming the birth of Christ; instead it is a lament for the innocent children killed by Herod.

When sung today the words are modernised, but the Middle English words to the carol are:

Lulla, lulla, thow littell tine child,
By, by, lully, lullay, thow littell tyne child,

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By, by, lully, lullay!

O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This pore yongling for whom we do singe  
By, by, lully, lullay?

 Herod, the king, in his raging,
Chargid he hath this day
His men of might in his owne sight
All yonge children to slay, - 

That wo is me, pore child, for thee,
And ever morne and may
For thi parting nether say nor singe,
By, by, lully, lullay.


The part of Herod seems to have been played as a raving, maniacal bully; there is a stage direction in the York Slaughter of the Innocents play to the effect of now shall Herod descend [from the pageant wagon] and rage in the streets. When Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, by which time the mystery cycles had long been banned for being too Catholic, the part of Herod was still a by-word for blustering, over-theatrical behaviour: "O, it offends me to the soul," laments the Melancholy Dane, "to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it."

Coventry is not very far from Stratford-Upon-Avon so several scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have seen the mystery plays when a boy.

Rubens' Massacre of the Innocents, via

Happy Christmas!

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MARY: This has he ordained of his grace,
My son so young,
A star to be shining a space
At his bearing.

For Balaam told full long before
How that a star should rise full high,
And of a maiden should be born
A son that shall our saving be
From cares keen.
Forsooth, it is my son so free
By whom Balaam gan mean.

JOSEPH: Now welcome, flower fairest of hue,
I shall thee mensk [worship] with main and might.
Hail, my maker, hail Christ Jesu,
Hail, royal king, root of all right,
Hail, saviour.
Hail, my Lord, learner of light,
Hail, blessed flower.

MARY: Now, Lord, that all this world shll win,
To thee, my son is that I say,
Here is no bed to lay thee in.
Therefore, my dear son, I thee pray,
Since it is so,
Here in this crib I might thee lay
Between these beasts two.

And I shall hap thee, mine own dear child,
With such clothes as we have here.
JOSEPH: Oh, Mary, behold these beasts mild,
They make lofing in their manner
As they were men.
Forsooth, it seems well by their cheer
Their Lord they ken.

From The Nativity, l.95-126, in York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling, edited by Richard Beadle and Pamela King (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Thesis update

This card was sitting on a shelf in the university bookshop just begging to be bought for my supervisor, so I duly obliged :) It is a Mike Williams cartoon.

I'm dreaming of... not a white Christmas, but of getting my thesis finished sometime before Doomsday :D

I have the required number of words - 40,000 (well actually a few more than that by now...) Whether they make sense or not is another matter. Currently I am trying to determine the sense or otherwise of my many words, a process also known as editing (colloquially termed tearing one's hair out). This delightful little procedure shall be finished by the end of February, because it has to be, otherwise this is what the university will do to me:

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Working title number... well, I can't remember, but it's very many, is currently Faith and the City: Piety, Place and the Passion in Fifteenth-Century York. The thesis is in two parts, the first looking at the nature and character of the York Mass and the York mystery plays, the second re-imagining or re-creating the medieval experience of Mass and and plays. This gives me opportunity liberally to illustrate Part II with lots of my lovely photographs of the lovely York churches.

This is what my future examiner will ask when confronted with my thesis. Via

MA students discuss their work in the University of Auckland Arts Computer Lab, which is so dark, dingy and grey as to pass for a very fair imitation of a medieval dungeon. (This is why I work mostly from home.) via

Deutsche Weihnachtslieder

No one does Christmas carols quite like the Germans and Austrians! These are some of my favourites...

Pop-Up Globe looking for volunteer ushers

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The Pop-Up Globe is looking for volunteers to act as ushers during its Auckland run, February to April 2016. Join ze fun and see Shakespeare for free :D

link to Expression of Interest form

As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious.
Richard II V.2.

Christmas at Camelot

This kyng lay at Camylot upon Kyristmasse
With mony luflych lorde, ledes of the best,
Rekenly of the Rounde Table all tho rich brether,
With rych revel oryght and rechles merthes.
Ther tournayed tulkes by tymes ful mony,
Justed ful jolilé thise gentyle knightes,
Sythen kayred to the court, caroles to make.
For ther the fest was ilyche ful fiften dayes,
With alle the mete and the mirthe that men couthe avyse;
Such glaum ande gle glorious to here
Dere dyn upon day, daunsing on nyghtes;
Al was hap upon heghe in halles and chambres
With lordes and lades, as levest him thoght.
With all the wele of the worlde thay woned ther samen,
The most kyd knights under Krystes selven,
And the lovelokkest ladies that ever lif haden,
And he the comlokest kyng that the court haldes.
Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, edited by A.C. Cawley (London: Everyman, 1970), l.37-53.

This is part of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, describing the festive atmosphere at Camelot just before the Green Knight so dramatically appears on the scene and puts rather a dampner on things.

Christmas at King Arthur's court must have been rather fun - at least, if it really was anything like that described in the poem. Roughly translated, the lines mean:

This King [Arthur] lay at Camelot at Christmas time
With many noble lords, men of the best,
All courteous brethren of the Round Table,
With rich revelry and carefree [or reckless?] mirth.
There travelled very many knights -
They jousted full jollily, these noble knights,
Then rode to the court, carols to make.
For there the feast was the same full fifteen days,
With all the meat and mirth that men could devise;
Such noise and merriment glorious to hear,
Day upon day, dancing by night;
All was high happiness in the halls and chambers
Among the lords and ladies, as they preferred.
With all the joy of the world they lived there together,
The most renowned knights under Christ Himself,
And the loveliest ladies that ever had life,
And the comeliest king that the court could hold.

 

I doubt this is an authentic medieval Christmas song, but never mind :D via

The origins of the Christmas tree: a mystery?

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Most people regard the Christmas tree as a German tradition, brought to the English-speaking world in the 1840s by Prince Albert, the German prince who married Queen Victoria. The German custom seems to date from the Middle Ages, but what are its origins and the reasoning behind it?

As usual when dealing with the Middle Ages, there are lots of suggestions and no definite answer. But one theory is that the Christmas tree comes from the German mystery plays - not, as one might reasonably expect, from the Nativity plays, but from those dramatising the Fall of Adam and Eve.

These plays seem to have been staged on Christmas Eve and their props would have included a tree of some kind, representing the Tree of Knowledge and hung with apples symbolising the forbidden fruit. Over time, scholars suggest, the trees moved inside homes, where they remain today - and the traditional round baubles are what remain of the original 'fruits.' (In Germany and Austria some still do decorate their trees with dried fruit.)

A nice little story, but unfortunately one hard to prove. (There is an alternative tradition that the Christmas tree is neither Germanic nor Christian, but an adaption of a very old pagan custom Christianised by St Boniface.) Still, it deserves to be made known, if only because very few realise they may have the mystery plays to thank for their Christmas trees. Told you the mystery plays were still relevant :D

NB I must confess that despite being thoroughly acquainted with the English mystery plays and reasonably aware of the German and French ones I had never heard this story until last Sunday's sermon... which shows, firstly, that one can never know everything; secondly, that a good grounding in medieval literature comes in handy when writing sermons.

And thirdly, it proves that I was listening to the sermon ;)

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Tota pulchra es, Maria, et macula non est in te

 

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Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set forth in battle array?

Hayle, jentilest of Jesse in Jewes generacioun,
Haile, welthe of þis worlde, all welthis is weldand,
Haile, hendest, enhaused to high habitacioun,
Haile, derworth and dere is þi diewe dominacioun,
Haile, floure fressh flourissed, þi frewte is full felesome,
Haile, sete of oure saveour and sege of saluacioun,
Haile, happy to helde to, þi helpe is full helesome.
Haile, pereles in plesaunce,
Haile, precious and pure,
Haile, salue þat is sure,
Haile, lettir of langure,
Haile, bote of oure bale in obeyesaunce.

Thomas' speech praising Mary, The Assumption of the Virgin l. 132-43, in The York Plays: A Critical Edition of the York Corpus Christi Play as recorded in British Library Additional MS 35290, edited by Richard Beadle, Oxford University Press for the Early English Text Society, 2009.

The translation of this lovely German Christmas song is:

There is a rose sprung up,
From a tender root,
As it was sung to us in the old days,
From Jesse came its lineage.
And it has brought forth a bloom
In the middle of the cold winter
Halfway through the night.

The rose which I mean,
Of which Isiah told,
Has alone brought us
Mary, the pure maid.
According to God's eternal plan
Has she a child borne
Halfway through the night.

From the heart we ask you
Mary, gentle rose,
Through this flower's pain
Which it has felt,
Will thou help us
That we may make for Him
A home beautiful and fine.

(Es klingt besser auf Deutsch!!)

Christmas preparations

Christmas is coming,
The geese are getting fat,
Won't you please put a penny in the old man's hat?
If you haven't got a penny, then a ha'penny will do,
If you haven't got a ha'penny then God bless you!

Advent wreath

Roasting almonds

Lighting home the soldiers on Finnish Independence Day

Finnish Independence Day

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 6th December is Nikolaustag for the Germans, Austrians and Swiss but for the Finnish it is their Independence Day - itsenäisyyspäivä according to Wikipedia; unfortunately it does not provide a guide to the pronunciation!

The day marks Finland's 1917 Declaration of Independence from Russia and is a public holiday.

Finland shares 1,340km of its borders with Russia; in 1917 the population of Finland was around 3 million compared to well over a hundred million in Russia. So winning independence from its much larger, more powerful neighbour was no small feat for Finland.

Traditionally on this day the Finnish put lighted candles in their windows, to guide the Finnish soldiers home from the Russian frontier.

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Nikolaustag

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6th December is St Nicholas' Day, or Nikolaustag in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In these countries Nikolaustag is an anticipation of Christmas. Customs vary between countries and even between regions. In parts of Germany children leave their shoes outside their doors on the evening of the 5th; by the next morning St Nikolaus will have filled them with fruit and sweets (let us hope the shoes are not over-old...).

In other areas, St Nikolaus comes to find out whether children have been good enough for him to dole out presents. On these visits he is accompanied by the Krampus (this is the Austrian name: in Germany he is Knecht Ruprecht and in Switzerland Schmutzli). The Krampus is as scary as St Nikolaus is benign; he is an ugly, troll-like figure, trailing clanking chains and carrying a switch and a big sack. If children have been good, St Nikolaus will reward them with fruits and sweet treats, but naughty children get a spanking by the Krampus. Really naughty children get put in the sack and carted off to the Black Forest!

Draussen weht es bitterkalt,

Wer kommt da durch den Winterwald?

Stipp stapp, stipp stapp und huckepack

- Knecht Ruprecht ist's mit seinem Sack.

Was ist denn in dem Sack drin?

Äpfel, Mandeln und Rosin' und schöne Zuckerrosen,

auch Pfeffernüss fürs gute Kind;

die andern, die nicht artig sind,

die klopft er auf die Hosen!

Outside it is blowing bitter cold,

Who comes there through the winter forest?

Stipp stapp, stipp stapp and piggy-back

- It is the Krampus with his sack.

What then is inside the sack?

Apples, almonds, raisins and beautiful sugar roses

and Pfeffernüsse for the good child;

the others who are not good

get spanked on the seat of the trousers!

St Nikolaus is based on a historical (according to some) or legendary (according to others) figure, Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, who is thought to have lived in the second half of the third century AD in modern-day Turkey (did he know St Barbara, I wonder?). He is the patron of children, sailors, students, teachers and merchants, but is best known for being very generous, giving readily to those in need. Somehow this became the basis of the Christmas present-giving tradition.

Barbaratag

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4th December is the feast day of St Barbara, known in German as Barbaratag. Barbara is thought to have lived in what is now Turkey. She died around 306, martyred by her own father after converting to Catholicism. 

Her father, Dioscorus, apparently kept her locked up in a tower when he was away from home so that his daughter's virtue would remain unsullied. You can see the tower, and just make out its three windows, in the picture above; legend has it that it originally had only two windows and that Barbara added the extra one after her conversion, as a symbol of the Trinity.

Dioscorus, coming home to find the extra window and his daughter a Christian, was not happy. He had her tortured and eventually executed. After burning her failed (the torches were apparently miraculously extinguished as soon as they came near her), Dioscorus himself beheaded her. However, his triumph was cut short; on his way home he was struck dead by lightening!

St Barbara is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and (presumably due to the method of her father's premature but hardly untimely end) is also invoked against thunderstorms. Because of her association with fire, she is also the patron of firemen and those who handle explosives, including miners and artillerymen. Her name comes from the Greek, meaning 'foreign' or 'stranger.'


Der Barbarazweig

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An old German tradition attached to Barbaratag is the Barbarazweig (Barbara branch). According to legend, while locked in her cell waiting execution, Barbara watered a stick of cherry with her drinking water (what the branch was doing there is not recorded!) The branch blossomed, comforting her with its beautiful flowers.

The German tradition sees cherry branches, or other fruit trees such as apple, peach or pear, brought into the house on St Barbara's Day. The idea is that the branch blossoms in time for Christmas, thus recalling the "Flos Carmeli... Radix Jesse, germinans flosculum" [Flower of Carmel, stem of Jesse, who bore one bright flower] - i.e. Mary and her Son.

Telegraph | Commonly misused words and phrases

The 51 most commonly misused words and phrases

See how many you know!!

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