Heavenfield

From Muirchu’s Life of Patrick:

“And on the very night that St Patrick was celebrating the Passover, they were partaking of the worship of their great pagan festival. Now there was a custom among the pagans — made clear to all by edict — that it would be death for anyone, wherever they were, to light a fire on the night before the fire was lit in the house of the king (ie the palace of Tara). So when St Patrick celebrating the Passover lit the great bright and blessed divine fire, it shone clearly and was seen by nearly everyone living on the plain of Tara. And those who saw it viewed it with great wonder. All the elders and nobles of the nation were called in the king’s presence and he spoke to them. ‘Who is this man who has dared to commit such a crime in my kingdom? Let him perish by death!” And the answer from those around him was that they did not know. Then the wise men answered: “‘O king, life forever!” This fire, which we see lit this might before the fire of your own house, must be quenched this night. Indeed, if it should not be put out tonight, it will never be extinguished! You should know that it will keep rising up and will supplant all the fires of our own religion. This one who lit it, and the kingdom he bringing upon us this night, will overcome us all — both you and us– by leading away everyone in your kingdom. All the kingdoms will fall down before it, and it will fill the whole country and it ’shall reign forever and ever.’”

[The king and men confront Patrick to try to kill him but he and his followers escape. The king sees only 8 deer and one fawn in the darkness...]

“The next day, which [for us] was the Day of the Passover [Easter Day], was for the pagans the day of their greatest festival…. While they were eating and drinking in the place of Tara,…Patrick with only five companions appeared among them, having come through ‘closed doors’ in the way we read about Christ. He went there to proclaim and demonstrate the holy faith in Tara in the presence of all nations.” (Davies and O’Loughlin trans, Celtic Spirituality, Paulist press, 1999, p. 99-100, 102)

Theology as narrative at its best. As Thomas O’Loughlin describes it in his Celtic Theology (2000, p. 107):

“Muirchu had a few uncertain traditions about Patrick, but he had one theological certainty: the changing of people from being not-the-people-of-God to being part of Christ was the drama of the Paschal Mystery; the Paschal Mystery was entered through the drama of the liturgy, so the story of his people was the story of Easter Night. From his perspective as theologian/churchman could he have provided a more fitting origin story — a people reborn in the great event of Christian rebirth– for his people’s faith?”

Muirchu never calls Patrick’s fire a bonfire that is our assumption. The divine fire that Patrick lights represents the Paschal candle lit during the Easter vigil symbolizing the light of Christ in the world. Just as Muirchu claims that every fire in the kingdom was to be lit from the king’s pagan fire, every candle used during the easter vigil is lit from the paschal candle. Muirchu wrote for and was read by primarily monastics who would have immediately recognized this divine light as the paschal candle that they light every Easter Vigil. This candle is known to go back to at least the time of Jerome in the 4th century. Paschal means passover, and Muirchu calls Patrick’s Easter Vigil his celebration of Passover. In early medieval literature, including the Historia Brittonum, Patrick is consistently linked with Moses.

Muirchu says that Patrick went to Tara to speak to all the nations this is because the King of Tara was the High King of Ireland and representatives from most of the kingdoms of Ireland would have been present for the greatest pagan festival of the year.

As far as the king mistaking Patrick and his followers for deer in the darkness recall that the prayer known as St Patrick’s Lorica (Breastplate) is also known as “The Deer’s Cry“.

Somehow I think Muirchu would have been very pleased by the convergence of Patrick’s feast day with Holy Week.

Have a Blessed St Patrick’s Day and Holy Week!

Happy St. Bridget’s day!

As the patron saint of bounty, St. Bridget is a fine patron saint to open Marti Gras weekend. Ash Wednesday will fall on Feb 6 this year, the earliest date until at least 2023! Maybe that explains why we are getting the biggest snow storm of the year so far yesterday and today. Bridget’s bounty got me a rare snow day today!

“I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us. I would like an abundance of peace. I would like full vessels of charity. I would like rich treasures of mercy. I would like cheerfulness to preside over all. I would like Jesus to be present. I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us. I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts. I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord; that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me. I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings. I would like to be watching Heaven’s family drinking it through all eternity.”

Saint Brigid (from the Patron Saint Index)

May you have a happy and safe St Bridget’s day and Marti Gras weekend! (Try not to drink an entire lake of beer….)

I have to admit that St Genevieve of Paris holds a special place in my heart. She is one of a very small collection of saints outside my chosen study area who resonate with me for one reason or another. I think there is a good chance that St Genevieve (423-502) was the first non-biblical saint that I became conscious of. This is for a completely non-religious reason… the town of Ste. Genevieve Missouri (called “St Gen” locally) was an important marker on my family’s trips to visit my great grandparents house in southern Missouri. If I recall correctly, we crossed the Mississippi River into Missouri at the old bridge at Ste. Genevieve, and then traveled further south to Cape Girardeau, and then we were really close. It was the longest trip I can recall when I was really little, younger than five years old, and great grandparents always have a special place in the life of a child. Those old French names had an embedded sense of history in a regional community of primarily German and old stock American ancestry. For me, “St Genevieve” always brought to mind the saint as much or probably more than the town, perhaps because we rarely actually stopped in the town. It was a signpost on the highway and where we crossed that really big river.

So as I was thinking of what to write for this post, it occurred to me that the only other French saint that really resonates with me is Joan of Arc and how much Genevieve and Joan have in common. First, they are both non-royal and although Genevieve’s family is not well known (and may have been aristocratic) her family did not play a role in her promotion as a saint. Both the Virgin of Paris and the Maid of Orleans were dedicated religious women, but neither had a typical religious career. Neither of them were cloistered or a founder of an enduring monastery. Both of them defined their own way of religious life on their terms. Both of them won early improbable support from local leaders, in Genevieve’s case that would be Bishop Germanus of Auxerre. Both saved their people by military successes: Joan in the relief of Orleans and elsewhere and Genevieve in her reputed turning of Attila the Hun from devastating Paris and obtaining relief for the people besieged by Frankish King Childeric. Of all the female saints, it seems to me that Genevieve is the best forerunner for Joan.

Unlike Joan, Genevieve lived a good long life of 80 years, full of healing miracles and church building. She builds the Cathedral of St. Denis and had won over the Frankish kings Childeric and his son King Clovis I. Clovis’ queen St Clothild insured that Genevieve was buried with honor in Clovis’ new church in Paris, later renamed for St. Genevieve, and there is reason to believe that St. Clothild had the Life of Genovefa written in about 520, 18 years after Genevieve’s death.

Further reading:

Life of Genovefa in Jo Ann McNamara & John Halborg with E.G. Whatley , ed and trans. Sainted Women of the Dark Ages. Duke UP, 1992.

Forthcoming in 2008:

Lisa Bitel’s Landscape of Two Saints, a book on the cults of St. Genevieve of Paris and St Bridget of Ireland.

Another topic in William Trent Foley’s article “Imitatio Apostoli: St Wilfrid of York and the Andrew Script” (1989, Am Benedictine Rev) that I found very interesting is his discussion of Cuthbert and Wilfrid following different and indeed clashing life scripts.

“The difference between Aidan and Cuthbert, on the one hand, and Wilfrid on the other can be traced to their different scripts. Aidan and Cuthbert received their scripts exclusively through the Celtic Christian meliu of northern Britain. In that melieu, sanctity has long been bound up in the ideal of martyrdom that centered on ascetic self-control. Wilfrid had taken more of his script, however, from the Latin-Mediterranean cities of Rome and Lyon … both… had been drenched with the blood of Christian martyrs who stood firm against persecution from secular authorities. …In both places, Wilfrid encountered through legend and witnessed in person this ancient ideal which understood martyrdom as the holy person’s struggle against the secular ruler who is hostile to God’s people and purposes. …the Hexham church’s dedication to Andrew is owing to more than simply some general devotion that Wilfrid had for the Roman Gregorian tradition which Andrew supposedly symbolized; it can be traced more specifically to Wilfrid’s recognition that Andrew’s story was also his own. The Hexham church thus stands as a memorial not only to Andrew’s ordeal, but to Wilfrid’s as well.

…In the final chapter of Wilfrid’s Life, Eddius [Stephan] writes the following in loving admiration of his late master: ‘But now it is for us to believe fully and perfectly that our intercessor [Wilfrid] by the sign of the holy cross has been made equal to the apostles of God, Peter and Andrew, who he specifically loved.” … I suspect that by so ending his Life in ascribing to Wilfrid an apostle-martyr status equal to Andrew’s, Eddius was remembering his old abbot to the world in exactly the way that Wilfrid would have wanted.” (p. 29-31)

I think Foley’s identification of the Latin-Mediterranean model for Wilfrid’s life is a very important one. We often write/talk about authors modeling their subjects on this or that, but it is also probable that people really did model their lives on their heroes. Remember that a saint is a hero; a more important hero to a true monastic than any secular hero, real or fictional. Its also not surprising that these two different religious lifestyles would each choose a local model saint that exemplified those ideas, Wilfrid for the Mediterranean model and Cuthbert for the Anglo-Celtic/Celtic model. I think it may be better to talk of Wilfrid in this Mediterranean mode because the term Romanist (which I admit that I use all the time) is charged with many post-Reformation feelings and images that are not relevant for the seventh century.

I wonder if it is likely that two such polar examples of piety could have only developed in direct opposition to one another. Both living in the same kingdom at the same time. Cuthbert is the student of Eata, who was the bishop in most direct contact and conflict with Wilfrid (previously discussed here), and Eata was the oldest and perhaps most trusted English pupil of Aidan of Lindisfarne. Wilfrid was the student of Bishop ‘Dalphinus’ of Lyon and Bishop Agilbert (later of Paris, originally of somewhere in Gaul).

I think we also sometimes get into this mode of considering Cuthbert to be all goodness and light and Wilfrid to be nasty and political, but that is a trap. Each followed their own model and teacher. I don’t doubt Wilfrid’s faith, sincerity, or belief that it was right — and he usually was! Contemporary kings gave him plenty of reason to feel persecuted. I’m sure they did prefer the quiet monks who, as far as we know, very rarely interfered in politics and didn’t want their wealth. Yet, Wilfrid’s practical approach to politics and endowments to his monasteries got results. Endowments are a necessary thing when your king dies and the throne passes from his lineage, as no doubt Jarrow knew full well. Their endowments ended abruptly with the death of King Ecgfrith. From then on they have to barter with King Aldfrith for additional lands and there are no royal building programs at Wearmouth-Jarrow. I really have to wonder how monasteries like Lastingham survived when their founder was branded a traitor. They must have got help from the episcopal sees of Cedd and Chad. Their political position would have made establishing veneration of Cedd even more important than usual.

St. Eata died of dysentery on October 26, 686/7 at Hexham in Bernicia, 22 years to the day after St Cedd, Aidan of Lindisfarne’s other famous disciple. I have to admit that I have always like Eata. Although consistently described by Bede as the “gentlest and simplest of men”, he was the real worker of Aidan’s mission who did whatever had to be done. Eata is the only one of Aidan’s original twelve English boys who is positively identified by Bede. He is the first one entrusted with a major assignment — he was abbot of Melrose before the death of Aidan in 651 when Cuthbert enters Melrose. It is possible that Eata was the founder of Melrose. The name Mailros is Old British, but that does not mean that there was a British church or monastery there.

Eldon Hills near Old Melrose. Old Melrose was situated on a peninsula in a bend of the River Tweed.

Melrose was a monastery intimately tied to Lindisfarne throughout the seventh and eighth century. From the time of Eata, Melrose became the training ground for future bishops of Lindisfarne.

In about 660, Alhfrith son of Oswiu, King of Deira (655-c.665) invited Eata into his kingdom to found a monastery, which he did at Ripon. Coming south with Cuthbert and others from Melrose, established the monastery at Ripon following the Irish rule of Lindisfarne and Melrose. After a couple years, King Alhfrith decided that he wanted his kingdom and the monasteries that he supported to follow the Roman rite. He gave Eata an ultimatum to either change to the Roman rite or surrender the monastery of Ripon. Eata chose to remain loyal to Lindisfarne and he left Ripon, which was handed over to the young monk Wilfrid. This was Eata and Wilfrid’s first clash. It must have been very bitter for Eata to turn over Ripon, where he and the monks of Melrose had labored for a couple years to build a monastery, over to a young arrogant monk who was supporting Alhfrith’s religious rebellion against his father. Wilfrid was not ordained by Bishop Agilberht until he already had possession of Ripon. Eata returned to Melrose for the next few years.

At the synod of Whitby in 664, that same young priest, Wilfrid, convinced King Oswiu to accept Roman rule and Lindisfarne’s church thrown into chaos. Bishop Colman of Lindisfarne got King Oswiu to grant two concessions: 1. an Irish Romanist, Tud, would become the next Bishop of Lindisfarne and 2. Eata, one of Aidan’s original twelve disciples, would become the next Abbot of Lindisfarne. We must remember that under Lindisfarne’s rule everyone, including the bishop, was subject to the Abbot of Lindisfarne (following Iona’s model). Bishop Tuda died of the plague after only a couple months, and King Oswiu was persuaded by his son to send Wilfrid to be consecrated in Gaul. Leaving aside the conflicts between Wilfrid and Chad, Eata continued as Abbot of Lindisfarne until c. 678 when Bishop Wilfrid was exiled for the first time. I think passing over Eata at this time for Bishop of York was probably more of a reflection of Lindisfarne’s need rather than preference for Chad who had only recently returned to the kingdom.

Eata was chosen as one of three men consecrated to Wilfrid’s divided see in 678. He was consecrated by Archbishop Theodore at York as Bishop of Bernicia seated at Lindisfarne and Hexham. By making Hexham as one of his episcopal seats, Eata took direct control of Wilfrid’s best Bernician monastery. He remained Bishop of Bernicia until 671 when the see was split again to form two diocese — Lindisfarne and Hexham. Easta remained Bishop of Lindisfarne while Hexham returned to one of Wilfrid’s men, Tunberht. Cuthbert had worked closely with Eata since their time together at Melrose before the founding of Ripon. He had transferred everywhere with Eata and when Eata became Abbot of Lindisfarne, Cuthbert became his prior trusted with enforcing the new Roman rites. In 685 Cuthbert had actually been elected to the new see of Hexham recently vacated by the deposed Bishop Tunberht, but he refused to accept episcopal office if he had to leave Lindisfarne. Again, Eata did what was necessary and accepted the transfer to Hexham. It was at Hexham that Eata later died of dysentery on October 26th of the next year.

He was given a burial fitting for a bishop but was soon forgotten. He had only ruled over Hexham for 4-5 years, 3 years after Bishop Wilfrid was initially exiled and 1-2 years after Bishop Tunberht (Wilfrid’s man) had been deposed. Both periods would have been a time when Hexham was hostile to those imposed upon them from outside of Wilfrid’s monastic family. Eata was succeeded by John of Beverly, who had been trained at Whitby. John remained Bishop of Hexham from 687 to 706, when Wilfrid returned from his second exile and regained his old monastery. Just as we know next to nothing of Eata’s activities at Hexham, memories of John at Hexham are limited to those kept at his monastery in Beverly. Hexham’s willful amnesia over Eata is best illustrated by the fact that he is not mentioned in the Life of Wilfrid even once! His main monastery of Melrose lacked his body/grave, and instead seems to have focused on the legacy of Boisil (whose body they presumably did have) and his disciple Cuthbert. The relationship between Boisil and Cuthbert mirrored the relationship between Melrose and Lindisfarne. The second most likely place to remember Eata was Lindisfarne but their history is dominated by Aidan and Cuthbert. Yet, it was Eata’s career that spanned the entire lifetime of the Irish mission in England from the earliest days of Aidan until the switch to the Roman rite had been completed by the 680s. Joining Lindisfarne in about 636, he lived for 50 years within its monastic system.

Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Book III Chapter 26; Book IV Chapter 12, 27, 28; Book V Chapters 2, 9

Bede, Life of Cuthbert, chapters 6, 7, 8, 16

I was thinking about the feast of St Wilfrid today and flipping through the Life of Bishop Wilfrid. It occurred to me how much Wilfrid is surrounded by women in his Life. In some ways we learn as much about seventh century women in Stephen’s Life of Bishop Wilfrid as we do in Bede’s History, particularly relative to their lengths. It is important to note that Stephan and Wilfrid’s disciples apparently thought that it was important to show him nearly constantly interacting with women. Stephen wrote this Life only about ten years after Wilfrid’s death when many of the protagonists in the Life were still alive, or at the very least their children or disciples were very much still in power. So today I thought I would start a series of blogs on Wilfrid’s interactions with women.

Women are critical in the Life from the very beginning with the miraculous light shining over his pious mother’s labor and Wilfrid’s birth. This miracle is later repeated as divine light brightens Wilfrid’s dark dungeon cell as he sings the psalms. After this Stephan inserts a rare prayer:

“O Christ, Eternal light, who dost not desert those who acknowledge Thee, Thou whom we believe to be the true light illuminating ‘every man that cometh into this world’, who in the beginning didst mark with fiery glory from the hour of thy future servant’s birth when he came forth from his mother’s womb, now as he prayed in the darkness of his prison cell Thou didst deign to send an angel to visit him and to bring him light, just as when Thine apostle Peter was imprisoned in chains by wicked Herod. To Thee be glory and thanksgiving!”

(Stephen, Life of Wilfrid, ch. 36; Farmer ed. The Age of Bede, 1983, p. 144)

We hear no more from Wilfrid’s pious mother. By age 14, Wilfrid is suffering under the gaze of a harsh stepmother. We hear no specifics of her treatment of young Wilfrid, but obviously she did not measure up to the boy’s pious mother.

Wilfrid now equips himself and his servants and with the help of his father’s friends who he has impressed, presents himself before Queen Eanflæd. There have been various reasons put forward why this young noble offers his service to the queen rather than to King Oswiu. Most of these reasons focus on Eanflæd as a princess of Deira, but I think this very young boy is looking for a new surrogate mother. He is offering his service to a mother-figure who will look after him like a son, unlike his stepmother.

Surrogate mother is exactly the role that Eanflæd takes on. She is the one who recognizes that this clever boy would be better in the church than in a retinue or serving her household. She finds an older thane Cudda who wants to retire to the church and sets up Wilfrid as his servant, so they both join Lindisfarne together. When Wilfrid wants to go to Rome, on Cudda’s advice, he returns to Queen Eanflæd who takes care of him. She “fits him out handsomely for the journey” and has letters written to commend him to her cousin King Erconberht of Kent, who is asked to find other travelers to accompany him to Rome. Erconberht kept him in Kent for a whole year until — on Queen Eanflæd’s proding — he found (Benedict) Biscop Baducing to guide him to Rome. Eanflæd is not mentioned again in the Life, her role as surrogate mother is over.

Bede, on the other hand, claims that Eanflæd’s insistence on celebrating Easter according to the Roman calendar is one of the causes of the Synod of Whitby. It is nearly certain that she was present at the synod. What must it have meant to Wilfrid to come home and win the decision at Whitby in front of Queen Eanflæd who had initially sent him to Rome? Stephan surely knew that from 664, if not before, Wilfrid’s relationship with Queen Eanflæd had become much more complicated and was better ignored. It seems likely that Wilfrid’s relationship with Eanflæd soured over his relationship with her step-sons Alhfrith and Aldfrith, and her sons Ecgfrith and Ælfwine. Further, when King Oswiu died and was buried at Whitby, Eanflæd retired there as a nun to be with her daughter Ælfflæd and her cousin Hild. The monastery of Whitby continued to be opponents of Wilfrid until the synod of Nidd in 706. Yes, it was better for Stephan to leave Eanflæd as just the benevolent surrogate mother who sends him to Rome.

In future blogs I look at Stephan’s oscillating use of wicked and holy women, particularly queens in the Life of Bishop Wilfrid.

Did you ever notice that you can tell that Adomnan of Iona was a lawyer in all of his surviving works? Of course, to medieval historians Adomnan is best known as the promoter or author of the ‘Law of the Innocents’, which protected women, children and clerics from the violence of war and domestic abuse of women. This work gained Adomnan the praise of the 9th century Oengus the Culdee who wrote in his Martyrology for September 23:

“To Adomnan of Iona, whose troop is radiant, noble Jesus has granted the lasting liberation of the women of the Gaels.”

As ground breaking as this law was, what really wows the historians is the list of guarantors of the law, probably the most impressive group of kings, bishops and abbots of any similar medieval list. This is proof that Adomnan was a good politician too.

During Adomnan’s tenure as abbot of Iona he seems to have found a need for more local laws as well. The Canons of Adomnan — distinct from Cain Adomnan — have nothing to do with international politics, like the ‘Law of the Innocents’ or his work to liberate hostages from Northumbria. These canons are about simple things like food laws, what is good to eat even if scripture says all is ‘clean’. O’Loughlin quotes canon 1 in his Celtic Theology (p. 75):

“Sea animals found dead on the shore and where we do not know how they died, can be eaten in good faith; but may not be eaten if they are putrid.”

Sea animals here probably refers to mammals like dolphins, whales or seals. Jesus’ lesson that all foods are now clean, in contradiction to the Jewish food laws, played havoc with local food health norms.

In reality, we can see Adomnan the lawyer at work in all of his surviving works. Thomas O’Loughlin (Celtic Theology, 2000 and elsewhere) has written about the importance of Arculf, the eyewitness of the holy land, in Adomnan’s De Locis Sanctus (On the Holy Places). Even though more of this work is Adomnan’s own research than he admits, he feels the need to claim reliance on an eyewitness. Close inspection of the works shows that Arculf’s material is mainly descriptive of contemporary churches and shrines. Background material and conclusions come from Iona’s library.

Adomnan’s background is also apparent in his Life of Columba, where he provides a number of witnesses. In cases like Oswald’s vision of Columba, he provides a chain of witnesses back to Oswald himself. Adomnan builds his case for Columba’s sanctity carefully and methodically in the face of fierce criticism of Iona, as it became isolated from the growing insular church of Rome. Indeed, I wonder if Adomnan’s unique format of three books — prophetic revelations (I), miracles of power (II), and visions of angels (III) — also reveal is legal training. Rather than writing a narrative of Columba’s life, he has presented three different types of evidence, arranged as a lawyer might lay out his case.

In short, the corpus of Adomnan’s work — ‘Law of the Innocents’/Cain Adomnan, Canons of Adomnan, De Locis Sanctus, and Life of Columba — provides a unique window into the work and mindset of a seventh century Irish priest-lawyer. Adomnan may be a unique case of surviving works in international law (Law of the Innocents), local law (Canons of Adomnan), geography/exegesis (De Locis Sanctus) and theology/hagiography (Life of Columba). (I hope to write more on hagiography as theology in the future.) Adomnan wore many hats — priest, abbot, lawyer, exegete, historian/geographer, hagiographer/theologian, and politician. However, I believe that these works show the that he fundamentally saw and approached the world as a lawyer.

As today is St. Adomnan’s feast day, I would like to remember him with a collect written by Thomas Owen Clancy in The Radical Tradition: Revolutionary Saints in the Battle for Justice and Human Rights. (G. Markus ed., 1993, p. 114):

Lord God, your servant Adomnan, filled with the power of your Spirit, walked the paths of peace and justice and brought reconciliation to a divided world. Grant that by this same Spirit we may act wisely and courageously so that Innocents may find in your Church the sign of liberation for which they long.