Stephanie A. Mann's Blog, page 256

St. Winifred, Shrewsbury, and Holywell

Today is the feast of St. Winifred, Welsh abbess and niece of St. Beuno, who raised her back to life after her beheading by Caradog of Hawarden. This site outlines her life and provides this Sarum Rite hymn:
A virgin flourishing as the rose,
The comely bride of Him Who is the Lamb,
As the precious martyr of Christ,
Hath Winifred richly blossomed.

Sprung from the stock of Britons,
Unshakable in faith, joyful in hope,
Holy in deeds, and pure of mind,
She was free of this world’s deceptions.

This virgin was slain by Caradoc,
And immediately the pit of Orcus hell swallowed him up.
For that is the place for the wicked,
And there with Satan he is burning.

In demonstrating proof of this happening,
A fountain welleth up at the bidding of God,
In the likeness of crimson reddening,
Where she was deprived of her head.

There many miracles are performed;
The blind see, and the dumb are given speech,
All manner of disease is put to flight,
When those who ask have faith.

O Winifred, our glorious lady,
Calm for us the billows of the sea,
Lest we become the ready prey of the enemy,
O compassionate one, afford us thy protection.
Amen.

Holywell, St. Winifred's well in northern Wales, was a tremendous shrine of pilgrimage and cures in medieval England--the English Lourdes of its day. Henry VIII dissolved the Abbey at Shrewsbury in 1540 and had the saint's relics and shrine destroyed. Blessed Edward Oldcorne, SJ, a martyr who suffered after the Gunpowder Plot was discovered in 1605, had traveled to Holywell when suffering from throat cancer during his sixteen years of missionary work--and was cured. Holywell is still a place of pilgrimage and, indeed, the town touts itself as "The Lourdes of Wales".

Image credit: Wikipedia commons.

Byrd on My Mind

William Byrd has been on my mind lately, as I had written and revised a poem about him--I don't write poetry very often, but sometimes an inspiration comes to me--and I submitted it for publication, and I just heard that it's been accepted. (I'll tell you more about its appearance in print when I know more about the schedule.)

Then I've been listening to the new Stile Antico album of Tudor Church music, The Phoenix Rising--and then I read this blog post at the English Historical Fiction blog by Melanie Spiller, placing William Byrd as "A Catholic Composer in Queen Elizabeth's Court" in historical and musical context:

Byrd was firmly part of the group that defined Elizabethan culture, and it was his musical innovations that shaped what would become known as the English sound.

Byrd’s motets, the English version of the Italian madrigal, are the epitome of High Renaissance style. He also took the disheveled condition of English song in the 1560s and pulled it together to produce a rich and extensive repertoire of songs for consorts, a form that Byrd took seriously and that had no true imitators. He influenced lute songs with his consort pieces, and these evolved into what would become a distinctively English anthem form, Byrd’s most lasting legacy in English music.

His works for the virginal (a harpsichord-like keyboard instrument) transformed it from a parlor toy into an instrument of power and beauty. Byrd changed the direction of keyboard music, making it possible for later lights to shine, such as Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) and Frederic Chopin (1810-1949)—especially after the invention of the piano in 1770 or so.

Byrd’s direct impact on English composition can be compared to that of Shakespeare’s influence on the theater. Thomas Morley (c1557-1602) and Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656) were his pupils, and possibly Peter Philips (c1560-1628), Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623), and John Bull (c1562-1628). These, if you hadn’t guessed, are the royalty of English music during the Renaissance.

Spiller is attentive to the recusancy issue:

Times were tough for Catholics, and noblemen held secret Mass services in their private chapels. Few were prosecuted for this treasonous act, although it’s doubtful that Elizabeth I turned a blind eye. Byrd and Tallis were public figures and they had to put on a show of compliance.

But Byrd was known to be a Roman Catholic recusant, and he risked prosecution by writing Masses for undercover use. For English Catholics, 1581 became a year of decision and renewed commitment. In Harlingon, Byrd’s wife was cited for recusancy along with a servant. Byrd himself wasn’t cited until 1585, when lists of suspected recusant gathering places named his own house. The Byrd family was repeatedly accused of being recusants and in 1605, they were accused of being long-time seducers for the Catholic cause.

It was a terrible period for English Catholics, with rumors flying, forced retirement, assassinations, and executions. Byrd’s home at Harlington was searched twice, perhaps because he was there when he should have been in London. Byrd and his family were fined hugely, but there were concessions, probably at the behest of Elizabeth I. After all, he was still composing official pieces for her.

And she also provides some analysis of Byrd's achievement that inspires me to look at other aspects of his music, especially his compositions for the keyboard:

Byrd was both a traditionalist and an innovator, converting Continental ideas of counterpoint and imitation into a new native-English tradition, and his expressive range was unusually wide.

Although his works were colored by the times in which he lived, many of his motets, galliards, and pastorals are exuberant and joyous. As a precaution against religious persecution, he took his texts from the Bible and other unassailable sources and he wrote for both Catholic and Anglican churches with equal genius.

His lifetime output—at least what is credited to him—includes 180 motets, three Latin Masses, four Anglican Services, dozens of anthems, secular part-songs, fantasias and other works for viol consort, and variations, fantasias, dances, and other works for keyboards. His vocal music includes psalms, sonnets and songs, and around 50 consort songs that could be sung or played by a consort of instruments.

Read the rest here.

A Blogging Hiatus; AKA Vacation

Sorry for the blogging blankness the past few days. My husband and I are on vacation in a cabin in the Ozarks (in Missouri). The Eighth Day Books 25th Anniversary party was a tremendous event last Saturday night; more about it next week.

Archbishop Justin Welby on Baptism and Buddhism

From The Washington Post :

Some day, Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge will become the leader of the Church of England.

First, he needed to become a Christian.

When the newest member of Great Britain’s royal family was christened on Wednesday, he didn’t just become the country’s newest Anglican, he also secured his place in line with all British monarchs as the future head of Church of England.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, administering the sacrament to the royal baby, capitalizing on the interest in the “hugely important moment” of George’s baptism in a well-timed YouTube video that explains the religious and political significance at play.

For Anglicans in Britain, church is sometimes synonymous with state. This means that the reigning monarch, today Queen Elizabeth, holds official roles as “Defender of the Faith” and “Supreme Governor of the Church of England.” As the future king, George will be responsible for a number of religious duties that are largely symbolic but also rich with history and theology. These duties date back to the 16th century with King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church. The English Reformation lives.

Yeah, right: The English Reformation lives. More on that idea below.

But the Archbishop's theology of the Baptism seems to be lacking, because after emphasizing Baptism as the means for becoming part of the Christian family, mentioning the symbolism of the water and the Sign of the Cross, the next day he said that Prince George could easily become a Buddhist!

(Indeed, his comments about Baptism are not as clear as the Thirty-Nine Articles: "Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of Regeneration or New-Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed, Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God.
The Baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.")

From The Daily Mail :

The Archbishop of Canterbury says he has no objection to Prince George converting to Buddhism.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby, speaking one day after he led the christening of the future Supreme Governor of the Church of England, said the prince is ‘perfectly entitled’ to change his religion should he so choose.

The remark is likely to alarm traditionalists. However, it is in keeping with Prince Charles’s oft-repeated claim that he wants to be seen as ‘Defender of Faiths’ instead of ‘Defender of the Faith’, to reflect Britain’s multicultural society.

The remarkable statement came just 24 hours after he conducted the young prince’s christening at the Chapel Royal in St James’s Palace.

Indeed, the Archbishop had chosen in his address to urge George’s parents and godparents to help the future monarch ‘make sure he knows who Jesus is’, imploring: ‘Speak of him, read stories about him. Introduce him in prayer.’

His latest comments will concern many within the Church, who consider the Archbishop to be a leader who seeks to be ‘all things to all men’.

Isn't that last part part of the problem? At any rate, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Prince George can learn all about Jesus, how much Jesus loves him, what Jesus did to redeem him, how Jesus promises him eternal life--and then turn away from that love and grace and follow the Buddha?

So, to be clear:

"Your Grace, may Prince George decide to become a Buddhist and be the Head of the Anglican Church and the Defender of the Faith?"

"Of course . . ."

"Your Grace, may Prince George decide to become a Catholic and be the Head of the Anglican Church and Defender of the Faith?"

"No, of course not."

If the English Reformation lives, it lives only as Erastian Anti-Catholicism. All things to all men, except Catholics, of course--except for Confession. The Archbishop likes that.

Touchstone on Tolkien and Peter Jackson

I came to The Lord of the Rings trilogy late: my husband was surprised that I had never read it, probably about ten years ago. Then we enjoyed the trilogy of movies, even though we noticed that Peter Jackson did not always "follow the book" and left out much of the poetry and some of the spirituality, over-emphasizing the battles and even the tempting power of the Ring.

Donald T. Williams, Professor of English and Director of the School of Arts and Sciences at Toccoa Falls College in Georgia, explains why Peter Jackson did not "get" much of the spirit of The Lord of the Rings in a Touchstone Magazine article, noting that Tolkien, following a long tradition in literature, created role models for us to follow that Jackson could not accept as realistic:

Literature, then, has the serious moral purpose of providing role models that help us form the ideals and aspirations we live by; it achieves that purpose through concrete images of virtue and vice. Great literature is also fun; as Horace said, it teaches and delights.

But it does teach. Where in history or experience will you find a better picture of wise counsel than Gandalf, of sacrificial service than Frodo, of loyal friendship than Sam Gamgee, of leadership than Aragorn, of single-minded devotion in love than Aragorn and Arwen, of personal integrity than Faramir? I would hate to have had to live my life without the example and the inspiration that those characters have provided along the way.
But he notes that Peter Jackson does not accept these models of virtue--they are too good to be true--and therefore, Jackson and his creative team introduce doubt and weakness where Tolkien depicts self-sacrifice, loyalty, love, and devotion:

Peter Jackson, by contrast, comes from a more modern tradition that is suspicious of such moral didacticism and is more focused on "realism" (though this realism is somewhat inconsistently pursued, one might think, when it leads to a rabbit-drawn sledge that can travel over dry ground and doesn't need snow, as in Jackson's The Hobbit). Jackson apparently thinks the characters Tolkien gave us are too simply good to be fully believable to modern audiences, and so he feels obligated to "complicate" them, to give them internal conflicts other than the ones they actually have, in the hopes that we will better be able to relate to them.

Or so his consistent changes to Tolkien's characters would suggest. By this process, Faramir's "I wouldn't pick this thing [the One Ring] up if I found it lying in the road" becomes "Tell my father I send him a powerful weapon!" By this process, Aragorn becomes ambivalent about taking up his kingship rather than devoted to his calling with fixed purpose. By this process, Arwen actually contemplates deserting Aragorn and going to the Grey Havens to escape from Middle Earth despite their earlier pact, and he thinks she would.
Read the rest here.

Prayers and More from the Tower of London

As a follow up to my post on the launch of The 1535 Society, here is a report from the event on Tuesday:

The Anglican Bishop and the Catholic Archbishop prayed, respectively, a prayer by St. Thomas More and a prayer for St. Thomas More's intercession:

O Lord, give us a mind
that is humble, quiet, peaceable,
patient and charitable,
and a taste of your Holy Spirit
in all our thoughts, words and deeds.
O Lord, give us a lively faith, a firm hope,
a fervent charity, a love of you.
Take from us all lukewarmness in meditation
and all dullness in prayer.
Give us fervour and delight in thinking of you,
your grace, and your tender compassion toward us.
Give us, good Lord,
the grace to work for
the things we pray for.
Amen.

O God, who in martyrdom,
have brought true faith to its highest expression,
graciously grant that,
strengthened through the intercession of Saint Thomas More,
we may confirm by witness of our life
that faith we profess with our lips,
and our unity be ever deepened.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
One God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

They also issued a joint statement about the importance of The 1535 Society:

"We must never forget our past if we want to walk wisely into the future. That is why it is so important that we preserve this shrine to remind us of the dangers of religious intolerance and to recall men and women of faith to the primacy of love for God which leads to love of neighbour."

The Tower of London website has been updated with information about the restoration effort, and there's a series of photos of the event here.

Eighth Day Books: 25 Year Anniversary Celebration

  Eighth Day Books is celebrating its 25th anniversary this weekend, October 25th and 26th. In honor of its anniversary, this festschrift has been published by Eighth Day Press, to which I contributed a reflection. So I'll be there Saturday evening (10/26) at 7 p.m. to read from my reflection, enjoy some refreshments, and celebrate the greatest indepedent bookstore in the world: Eighth Day Books!

Timely . . . Timeless: 25 Years at Eighth Day Books will also be available on-line--but it's much better to be there in the bookstore, browse around, and buy a copy. There's a sale too--20% off new books and 35% off used books.

Did I mention I'll be baking a cake and contributing it to the refreshments?

"The 1535 Society": Where Was St. Thomas More Held in the Tower of London?

According to this story in The Telegraph, Sir Richard Dannatt, Constable of the Tower of London, is launching a campaign to reburbish parts of the Tower in the name of religious freedom, focusing on the memory of St. Thomas More:
“Thomas More was a very intelligent, articulate man, a scholar and a personal friend of Henry VIII,” says Lord Dannatt, the former head of the Army who is now the Constable of the Tower.
“However, he could not support Henry’s divorce, nor the king’s decision to split from Rome and make himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England. This was a man who stood up for what he believed, and who was willing to die for it.”
The cell is in the basement of a tower built in the 12th century. It is not usually open to the public, as the entrance is within a historic house now occupied by Lord Dannatt, as the man in charge of the Tower of London.
He is allowing me to spend the night in the cell in support of his campaign to focus attention on More and others who lost their lives “in pursuit of religious freedom” during that turbulent time.
The martyrs of both the Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions will be remembered on Tuesday morning, when the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Westminster meet in the cell to pray.
They will then walk to the nearby Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula, where the headless body of More now lies. Since 1980, he has been recognised as a saint by both Anglicans and Catholics. . . .
The article describes how poorly the correspondent faired in the cell overnight, and includes a video. As the author notes, however, he was able to leave the cell after that one night for a hot shower and nice breakfast--Thomas More did not leave it except for his trial and then his execution. A special ecumenical service is being held today to launch "The 1535 Society", as both the Catholic Church and the Church of England honor St. Thomas More as a martyr (and St. John Fisher).
It was not until 1935 that Pope Pius XI canonised More, along with Cardinal John Fisher, who had also been kept in the Tower and executed. The Church of England has since recognised More as one of the Saints and Heroes of the Christian Church.
The traditions will meet in the cell on Tuesday when the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, prays with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols.
Choir members will also sing. “This is a very special ecumenical moment,” says Lord Dannatt, who will use it to begin the final phase of his appeal. So far he has raised £1.1 million. The first donation came from the Queen, who is expected to attend a service of thanksgiving in a year’s time, when the refurbishment is complete.
“The furniture in the Chapel Royal has been there for 50 years. A million visitors a year sit on it,” says Lord Dannatt. “The whole thing needs a lift as befits its status.”
Members of the 1535 Society will have the right to name some of the new furniture in the chapel and to attend the royal thanksgiving, as well as other exclusive events. The inaugural society dinner will be held in February.
Obviously, St. Thomas More was in a "nicer" cell in the Tower of London when he and his daughter Meg watched the protomartyrs leave the Tower for Tyburn on May 4, 1535 (the Carthusian priors whom More knew well among them), as depicted above by John Rogers Herbert of the Royal Academy. (Remember that he had been imprisoned in the Tower in April of 1534 and was writing devotional and meditative works like A Treatise on the Passion, A Treatise on the Blessed Body, A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, and De Tristitia Christi (The Sadness of Christ).)

The article emphasizes the cold and dampness of the cell and of course the removal of books, paper and pen from More's use, which I believe occurred early in 1535. I am a little confused by the Constable of the Tower's references to the coldness of the winter in 1535: if St. Thomas More and Margaret were in the Bell Tower on an upper floor, in a cell with a window, when they saw the martyrs leave on May 4, 1535, when was Thomas More moved to this smaller underground cell? If it was in June of 1535, he certainly did not spend the winter there. In fact, there is some controversy about exactly where he was held, according to this article from The Guardian 13 years ago:
Historians have demolished the claim that a small white-washed cell at the Tower of London, which opens to the public for the first time today, [the cell in which The Telegraph correspondent just spent the night, I presume] was the last prison of Sir Thomas More. To mark the millennium, Historic Royal Palaces, which manages the tower, will launch guided tours of the cell, and a display of historical material including the hairshirt worn by More, one of the most likeable figures in English history.

Visitors will be told the room is where More was held prisoner for 14 months, and that he walked from there to his death on Tower Green on July 6 1535. However the official Tower historian, Geoffrey Parnell, said: "There isn't a shred of evidence that More was ever held there." . . .

However Dr Parnell, and the historical researcher Stephen Priestley, an expert on early manuscripts, have been tracking More through reams of documents on Tower history, and can find no evidence that he was ever in the cell, though he was certainly in the Tower of London. "There is no evidence at all that he was held in the Bell Tower, and some reasons why he was not likely to have been," Dr Parnell said.

Mr Priestley said: "It is really very frustrating because there is so much documentation about his imprisonment, his letters, details of his visitors, details of his interrogation, and you would think one of them would mention where he was held. But there is nothing."

The mystery deepened when Mr Priestley found an inventory of prisoners, tower by tower, taken on the day of More's execution, which does not mention his name. It is known that he was a prisoner there, because an earlier inventory mentions the cost maintaining him and his servant. . . .

A Historic Royal Palaces spokeswoman admitted: "We cannot be 100% sure that More was held in the Bell Tower, but it seems very likely".

Dr Parnell said: "It is the sort of story that everyone wanted to believe, but I think they just made an inspired guess."

So the (now former) official historian of the Tower of London and the Constable of the Tower of London have differing views on how confident we can be of where St. Thomas More spent his last days on earth in 1535. Rather awkward.

Not Shakespeare's "Othello", nor Verdi's "Otello" . . .

. . . but Rossini's Otello was in our CD player this weekend, the digitally remastered version of Philips 1979 premiere recording with Jose Carreras, Frederica von Stade, and Samuel Ramey:

You do have to forget about Shakespeare's Othello, because as the liner notes in the CD state, Rossini's librettist turned the story into the usual tale of a secret marriage and animosity between rivals. Iago is not the great tempter of Otello, and Rodrigo has a much bigger role. Desdemona and Otello don't have any romantic duets at all--in fact, they sing only one duet and that is when Otello is preparing to kill Desdemona! This is not a tragedy, but an opera seria, and Rossini even wrote a comic--that is, happy--ending in which Otello and Desdemona are reconciled! (This recording ends with Otello killing Desdemona and then himself: no bacio, however.)

Here is the cover from the original LP release, which we also own:

 Carreras appears in makeup as the Moor on the cover and in the booklet, and von Stade is also pictured in makeup and costume in the booklet, while the other singers are photographed in the recording studio. There was no stage production before the recording, however, as there had been of Massenet's Werther before von Stade and Carreras recorded it (at Covent Garden in 1980). In both recordings, however, Frederica von Stade was singing in her prime and with great dramatic fervour and affect. Years later, von Stade sang the aria "Assisa a' piè d'un salice" (The Willow Song) at a gala, and the harpist who accompanied her posted this on her blog about the experience!

Iconoclasm on the BBC (Radio 3)

At 12:45 p.m. Central Time TODAY, BBC 3 will broadcast an examination of the iconoclasm of the English Reformation and of the Civil War:

From the Dissolution of the monasteries to the Civil War, Diarmaid MacCulloch tells the dramatic story of iconoclasm and reformation in the English church.

A difficult and gradual process, the English Reformation eventually succeeded in denuding churches up and down the country of all their images - and (during the Civil War) even their organs. Word replaced image as the medium for worship. Looking at the white-washed churches of Wetherden and Bures in Suffolk, Diarmaid assesses the complex set of motivations which drove the iconoclasts to tear down statues, dismantle rood screens and smash stained glass. He examines the journal of William Dowsing, probably the most notorious iconoclast of the Civil War period, and other documents that shine a light on the complex motivations of Reformation iconoclasts.

Diarmaid's journey also takes him to Winchester Cathedral where the great rood screen was attacked (probably under Edward) and the stained glass later smashed by Cromwell's soldiers. Academic Philip Lindley and sculptor Richard Deacon help to explain the power of religious images and the corresponding fear they induced in iconoclasts.

Finally, the Reverend Canon Doctor Roland Riem of Winchester and artist Sophie Hacker talk about the place of images in today's churches and cathedrals. Diarmaid considers whether the fanaticism of the Reformation reformers bears any relation to the iconoclastic attacks we have witnessed in our own century. And Tabitha Barber, Tate Britain curator, reflects on the legacy of this iconoclastic movement: has the destructiveness of the Reformation made a lasting impact on the history of British Art?