Nine Things You Didn't Know About Edward the Confessor

In honour of the feast of St Edward the Confessor, nine days from today, I'm going to post nine facts about my favourite saint which you may not know. If you do, I apologise sincerely for redundancy; it's an academic's ever-present trap.

1. In total, from his parents' two marriages, Edward had nine brothers and at least six sisters. All seven of his half-brothers on his father's side were dead by the time he was fifteen, and in the end Edward outlived all his brothers by more than twenty years.

Nine Things You Didn't Know About Edward the Confessor

Or maybe you did, what do I know.


5. After the death of Edward's father Ethelred, his mother married Cnut, king of Denmark, the man who had replaced Ethelred on the English throne. This would have made for some awkward family Christmasses, except that there isn’t any evidence that Edward ever met his stepfather.

When Cnut was dead and there was some confusion over the succession, Queen Emma is said to have supported the claim of Magnus, king of Norway, over that of her son. She was popularly accused of all kinds of scheming against, well, anyone who wasn't Harthacnut, the son she had with Cnut. After he became king, Edward, in a supremely unsaintly act, had his mother's property and lands seized, supposedly because of her support for Magnus. It was a political mess but also, I think, rather a sad situation all round.

(That's Cnut and Emma up there, demonstrating their piety in front of an altar in a manuscript from the New Minster at Winchester. As ruler of England, Cnut, always astute, adopted a model of Christian kingship which went down rather well among his new subjects, becoming a patron of the Church and a devotee of English saints. His sudden love for all things English extended to everything except his stepsons, who spent the twenty-five years of his reign in exile.)

Nine Things You Didn't Know About Edward the Confessor

6. Edward's younger brother Alfred, who had shared his exile, visited England in 1036. Cnut had just died, and Alfred came to see their mother the queen, but before he reached her he was waylaid by Earl Godwin, one of the most powerful noblemen in England. Godwin had been a supporter of Cnut, and probably thought his best chance of continuing influence was to help one of Cnut's sons to power - which meant eliminating the English claimants to the throne would work in his favour. He later denied all involvement in what happened next, but his guilt was widely accepted.

He met Alfred just outside Guildford (Alfred was on his way to his mother at Winchester), captured him, killed or mutilated most of his men, and blinded Alfred with a red-hot poker. Alfred, mortally wounded, was taken to the monks at Ely, where he died some time later of his injuries. Alfred was the last of Edward's many brothers, and his death affected both Edward and his mother deeply. However, Godwin was a formidable man to have as an enemy, and when Edward eventually became king he found he needed the support of Godwin and his family. So they were reconciled, but Edward apparently never forgot what Godwin had been accused of with regards to Alfred's death.

And then, the story goes that one day in 1053 King Edward was at a feast with Godwin at Winchester, and Edward’s serving-man, while carrying wine to the table, slipped and saved himself from falling by stretching out his other foot. Godwin said, "See how one brother has helped another!" (This was a proverb; the two feet are like two brothers, which aid each other in need). The king looked at him and said, "So would my brother now be able to aid me, had it not been for your treachery." Godwin said to Edward, "I see that at every reference to your brother, you look at me with an angry frown," and he held up a piece of bread and swore, "but may this morsel choke me, if I am guilty of his death!" He swallowed the bread, choked on it, and died.

Nine Things You Didn't Know About Edward the Confessor

7. King Edward agreed to marry Godwin’s daughter Edith (Eadgyth) as a gesture of reconciliation after his brother’s death. Medieval writers are divided on whether Edith shared the difficult temperament exhibited by her father and brothers: one chronicle (a forgery, but possibly based on an authentic source), praises her generosity and sweet nature, and quotes a line of verse written about her which marks the difference between her and her family: "sicut spina rosam, genuit godwinus egitham" (roughly: 'as thorns [bring forth] roses, so did Godwin beget Edith').

Others considered her, in the words of Edward's modern biographer Frank Barlow, "a determined woman, interfering, hard, probably bad-tempered".

Either way, it was not a successful marriage. It followed the course of Edward's troubled relationship with the rest of Godwin's family: when Edith's brothers were exiled for their disruptive behaviour, he put Edith aside; when they returned, he took her as his wife again. But the marriage produced no children and tradition says it was never consummated. For this reason, Edward is the patron saint of troubled marriages and separated spouses.

(I blame Godwin).

Nine Things You Didn't Know About Edward the Confessor

2. He was born at Islip in Oxfordshire, about five miles from where I'm currently sitting.

Nine Things You Didn't Know About Edward the Confessor

8. He had a lot of visions. One day he was in church and at the moment of the elevation, he burst out laughing. Afterwards, the people around him asked what was so funny.

Edward said he had seen a vision: "The king of the Danes was making preparations with a countless army and a great fleet of ships to come and harry our land, and just as he was stepping up into his ship from a boat, he fell overboard and was drowned."

Not the funniest story I've ever heard, but it has a certain slapstick charm.

Another time, he was sitting at a feast and, again, burst out laughing. He was asked what he saw, and he said that the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus had been lying on their right sides for two hundred years, and he laughed because he saw them turn over to their left sides. They would lie on the left side for forty-eight years, and in that time there would be much upheaval and turmoil in the world. Apparently "he described them as exactly as though he had often stood by the Seven Sleepers," although how you would know, I'm not sure...

(These slightly bizarre stories are found in the earliest lives of Edward, and also in the fourteenth-century Icelandic saga about him, Játvarðar saga).

Nine Things You Didn't Know About Edward the Confessor

9: He turned people into leeks.

No, not really. This is one of Edward's miracles of healing, from the Old Norse saga about his life, Játvarðar saga:

"It happened another time that when king Edward was sitting on his throne, a crippled man came before the door of his lodging and said that Peter the Apostle had sent him thither, and that Peter had told him that the king himself should bear him to Peter's church, and then he would be cured. When this was told to king Edward he went to him, and heard these words himself from the man's mouth. And, showing his faith and humility, he took the man up in his arms and bore him to Peter's church in London, and set him down there. Then the crippled man was made whole and upright as a leek."

Upright as a leek in Old Norse = réttr sem laukr. A leek to an Old Norse writer was a rather more dignified object than we might imagine today: a noble, straight-limbed, smooth kind of thing, fresh and young and green (compare this poem from the Edda). Apparently there is still a Scottish proverb "as clean as a leek", meaning, according to the OED, "perfectly, completely, entirely". That's the same sort of idea as we've got here.

Leeks aside, this is a lovely story. Edward the Confessor was the first king of England of whom it was said that he could cure illness by his touch, in particular the sickness later known as 'the king's evil'. Shakespeare has him doing this off-stage in Macbeth, and you may know that Tolkien borrowed this medieval legend for Aragorn in The Return of the King, where it's said in the ancient lore of Gondor that "the hands of the king are the hands of the healer". Aragorn's healing touch reveals his royal identity, and takes us from leeks to Tolkien in two easy steps.

(I've just noticed that the OED entry on 'the king's evil' cites one manuscript from 1398: "the smel of leke..heleth the kinges yuel and the dropsie". Well, there you go then.)

Let's give the last word on Edward to Shakespeare:

The mere despair of surgery, he cures,
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and ’tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
That speak him full of grace.

Edward carrying a beggar on his back, BL Egerton 745, f.91

Nine Things You Didn't Know About Edward the Confessor

3. Edward's uncle, also called Edward, was a saint too. Edward-the-uncle was murdered at the age of 13 by his stepmother (the grandmother of Edward the Confessor), who wanted her own son to be king. Her son, Ethelred the Unready, was too young to have had a hand in the murder, but it haunted the early years of his reign, and some people believed that his later deposition at the hands of the Danes was God's punishment for the murder of Edward.

The uncle is thus known as Edward the Martyr, and this is why the younger Edward is universally known as Edward the Confessor, to distinguish him from his namesake. This has confused generations of schoolchildren, among them future BBC announcers, judging by their attempts to cover the Pope's visit to Westminster Abbey a few weeks ago. "Edward was known as the Confessor because he was faithful to God". Well, yes... and no. Technically, lots of saints are confessors; it doesn't convey anything more about Edward than that he did not die a martyr, but lived a holy life. Unlike, it must be said, his dissolute teenage uncle, who never did anything more saintly than be murdered...

Bonus fact you may, actually, have known: not only was Edward the Confessor nephew to a saint, he was also the great-uncle of St Margaret of Scotland.

Nine Things You Didn't Know About Edward the Confessor

Edward in the Bayeux Tapestry, because the Norman Conquest was all his fault.

4. Edward is often called "the last Anglo-Saxon king",* but I don't like that designation (this may be more 'a thing you didn't know about me' than about Edward). Yes, he was the son of an Anglo-Saxon king, but by blood and inclination he was Anglo-Norman: his mother was Norman, and he spent 25 years in exile in Normandy before becoming king of England. When he returned to England in 1041, he barely knew the place; he hadn't seen it since he was a teenager, and I'd love to know what kind of English he spoke at that point - future patron saint of the English! He brought Norman priests and noblemen with him, and didn't get on very well with the Englishmen who had served Cnut (more of that tomorrow).

So it might be more accurate to call Edward's valiant elder half-brother, Edmund Ironside, the last Anglo-Saxon king. Edmund died in 1016, having given half his kingdom to Cnut; then there were three Danish kings of England, Anglo-Norman Edward, and, in 1066, Norman William. Not a Saxon among them. The eleventh century was awfully complicated - but so much fun.


*The other two kings of 1066 notwithstanding: poor uncrowned Edgar Atheling doesn't count, and Harold Godwinsson certainly doesn't.

'Ceasing from the voice of joy and gladness': Ælfric's Homily for Septuagesima

Some last Alleluias, from the liturgy for the eve of Septuagesima in an Anglo-Saxon Missal 

(BL Harley 2961, f. 41v)

Today, nine weeks before Easter, is traditionally Septuagesima Sunday, the beginning of a period of preparation for Lent. One of its most distinctive features was the custom of ceasing to sing 'Alleluia' at mass, a practice referred to in medieval England as 'locking the Alleluia'. The word was symbolically locked away, to be unlocked again amid the celebration of Easter - then the word was imagined to be released from its captivity, just as Christ would break out of the tomb and human beings would be liberated from captivity to their sins.

The tenth-century English homilist Ælfric wrote a sermon for Septuagesima in which he discusses the reason for this custom, the significance of observing a period of seventy days, and the parallel with the captivity of the Israelites in Babylon. During that period, he says, the Israelites 'ceased their song of joy and gladness', and so the church in emulation ceases to sing 'Alleluia'. The first part of the sermon deals with the Gospel for the day (the parable of the workers in the vineyard - you can read the whole thing here) but he concludes by saying:

We willað eow secgan be ðyssere andweardan tide, hwi seo halige gelaðung forlæt on Godes cyrcan ‘Alleluian’ and ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’, fram ðisum andwerdum dæge oð þa halgan Eastertide. Sum wis lareow hatte Amalarius, se awrat ane boc be cyrclicum ðeawum, hwæt ða gesetnyssa Godes þenunga of gearlicum ymbryne getacniað, and cwæð be ðyssere andwerdan tide, þe is gecweden Septuagesima, þæt heo gefylð ða getacnunge þæra hundseofontig geara þe Israhela folc on hæftnede Babiloniscum cyninge þeowde. Septuagesima is hundseofontigfeald getel. Seo tid onginð on ðisum Sunnandæge, nigon wucon ær Eastron, and geendað on ðam Saternesdæge þære Easterlican wucan: to ðam daæge sind heonon getealde hundseofontig daga; and þæt Israhela folc, for heora mandædum and forgægednyssum, wurdon gehergode, and hundseofontig geara on Babiloniscum þeowdome, buton blisse and myrhðe, wunodon. Nu hylt Godes gelaðung þis hundseofontigfealde getel sylfwilles for hire gyltum, swa swa se ealda Israhel neadunge heold on hæftnunge, oðþæt se mildheorta God eft, æfter heora gedrefednyssum, hi ahredde, and to heora earde gelædde.

Se witega Hieremias witegode be ðære Israhela ðeode, þæt hi sceoldon, on ðam hund-seofontig geara fæce, geswican blisse stemne and fægnunge, brydguman stemne and bryde. Nu on ðære gelicnysse forlætað Godes ðeowas ða heofonlican lofsangas, ‘Alleluian’ and ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo,’ on ðissere Septuagesima, forðan þe us gedafenað þæt we sylfwilles fram ðisum andwerdan dæge mid sumere stiðnysse to ðam gastlicum gefeohte us sylfe gegearcian, swa swa seo cyrclice þenung us manað to heofunge and to ure synna bereowsunge. Ærest on ðære mæssan officio we singað ‘Circumdederunt me gemitus mortis’: ‘Deaþes geomerunga me beeodon, and helle sarnyssa me beeodon, and ic on minre gedrefednysse Drihten clypode, and he of his halgan temple mine stemne gehyrde.’ Eft, on ðære mæssan collectan we cweðað, ‘Qui juste pro peccatis nostris affligimur,’ þæt is, ‘We ðe rihtlice for urum synnum sind geswencte.’ Eac se apostol on ðam pistole cwæð, ‘Ælc ðæra þe on gecampe winð, forhæfð hine sylfne fram eallum ðingum.’

Witodlice ðas dægðerlican ðenunga cyðað þæt fram ðisum dæge oð Eastron is ure heofungtid and bereowsungtid ure synna mid sumere stiðnysse. ‘Alleluia’ is Ebreisc word, þæt is on Leden ‘Laudate Dominum,’ and nan gereord nis swa healic swa Ebreisc. Nu forlæte we þæt healice gereord on ure Septuagesima, and cweðað on Leden, ‘Laus tibi, Domine, Rex aeterne gloriae’; þæt is, ‘Sy ðe, Drihten, lof, eces wuldres Cyning.’ We geswuteliað mid þære eadmodan Leden spræce, þæt we sceolon us sylfe to eadmodran drohtnunge on ðyssere tide gebigan. ‘Alleluia’ is, swa we cwædon, heofonlic sang, swa swa Iohannes se apostol cwæð, þæt he gehyrde micele stemne on heofonum, swylce bymena dream, and hi sungon ‘Alleluian.’ ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’ sungon englas, þaþa Crist on middanearde lichamlice acenned wæs. Nu forlæte we ðas heofonlican lofsangas on ure bereowsung-tide, and we biddað mid soðre eadmodnysse ðone Ælmihtigan, þæt we moton geseon his heofenlican Easter-tide, æfter þam gemænelicum æriste, on ðam we him singað ecelice Alleluian butan geswince. Amen.

'We wish to speak to you about this present season, why the holy congregation in God’s church omits ‘Alleluia’ and ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’, from this present day until the holy season of Easter. There was a wise teacher named Amalarius, who wrote a book about the church’s customs and what the ceremonies of God’s servants symbolise through the course of the year; and he said about this present season, which is called Septuagesima, that it acts as a token of the seventy years for which the people of Israel served the king of Babylon in captivity. Septuagesima is the number 'seventy'. The season begins on this Sunday, nine weeks before Easter, and ends on the Saturday in Easter week; from now until that day are counted seventy days, and the people of Israel, for their sins and transgressions, were taken into captivity and lived for seventy years in slavery to Babylon, without joy and bliss. Now God’s church keeps this period of seventy, by choice, for their sins, just as Israel of old was forced to keep it in captivity, until merciful God rescued them after their tribulations and led them to their homeland.

The prophet Jeremiah prophesied about the people of Israel that during that period of seventy years they should cease from the voice of joy and gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride. Now in emulation of that, God’s servants leave the heavenly songs of praise, ‘Alleluia’ and ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’, in this period of Septuagesima, because it is fitting for us that from this present day we prepare ourselves voluntarily with a degree of strictness for the spiritual battle, as the liturgy of the church exhorts us to sorrow and repent of our sins. First in the Office of the Mass we sing ‘Circumdederunt me gemitus mortis’, ‘The mournings of death surrounded me, and the pains of hell surrounded me, and I cried to the Lord in my trouble and he heard my voice from his holy temple.’ Then in the Collect of the Mass we say, ‘Qui juste pro peccatis nostris affligimur’, that is, ‘We who are justly afflicted for our sins.’ Again, the apostle in the Epistle says, ‘Every one of those who strives in battle withholds himself from all things.’

Truly the liturgy of the day shows that from this day until Easter is our season of mourning and repenting for our sins with a degree of strictness. ‘Alleluia’ is a Hebrew word – which in Latin is ‘Laudate Dominum’ – and no language is as elevated as Hebrew. Now we leave that elevated language in our Septuagesima, and say in Latin, ‘Laus tibi, Domine, Rex aeterne gloriae’, that is, ‘Praise be to thee, Lord, King of eternal glory.’ We show by our humble Latin speech that we should incline to a humbler way of living in this season. ‘Alleluia’ is, as we said, a heavenly song; as the Apostle John said, he heard great voices in heaven, like the music of trumpets, and they sang ‘Alleluia’. ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’ sang the angels, when Christ became incarnate in flesh in this world. Now we leave the heavenly songs of praise in our season of repentance, and we pray with true humility to the Almighty, that we may see his heavenly Eastertide, after the general resurrection, in which we will sing ‘Alleluia’ to him eternally without ceasing. Amen.'

Hanging up harps by the waters of Babylon (BL Harley 603, f. 70, 11th century)

It's interesting to see this opinion on the relative holiness and humbleness of Hebrew and Latin! This is Ælfric at his best as a teacher, clearly and concisely explaining to his congregation the liturgical practices associated with Septuagesima and the reasons for them. There's a good deal of learning here, lightly worn, as Ælfric moves confidently between Latin, Ebreisc and English, between the texts of the liturgy, the Old Testament, and the New. His last paragraph touches on a similar idea to the Septuagesima hymn 'Alleluia dulce carmen' (glossed as 'Alleluia, myrige leoþ' in one Anglo-Saxon manuscript of hymns), which J. M. Neale translated as 'Alleluia, song of sweetness':

'Alleluia', song of sweetness,
voice of joy that cannot die;
'alleluia' is the anthem
ever raised by choirs on high;
in the house of God abiding
thus they sing eternally.

'Alleluia' thou resoundest,
true Jerusalem and free;
'alleluia', joyful mother,
all thy children sing with thee;
but by Babylon's sad waters
mourning exiles now are we.

'Alleluia' cannot always
be our song while here below;
'alleluia' our transgressions
make us for awhile forgo;
for the solemn time is coming
when our tears for sin must flow.

Therefore in our hymns we pray thee,
grant us, blessed Trinity,
at the last to keep thine Easter,
in our home beyond the sky,
there to thee for ever singing
'alleluia' joyfully.

Septuagesima is not widely observed today, and the opportunities to sing this ancient hymn are therefore few. Hymns about hymn-singing are always interesting to me; the idea of singing together is a powerful image of unity, and in this case the practice of singing - and ceasing to sing - in concert with the Israelites is, as Ælfric explains, an important symbol of how the medieval church saw its relationship with its Jewish heritage. The practice of 'locking' the alleluia is a liturgical re-imagining of one of the most poignant laments in human history, a despairing question which for thousands of years has given voice to many different political and personal situations of loss, exile, and dispossession: 'how can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?' For the medieval church, this question was interpreted as the cry of a universal experience of estrangement: all human beings are in exile and captivity on earth, longing for their home in heaven, and every year through Lent and Easter the church re-enacts its longed-for progression from exile to homecoming, from grief to joy.

Today is one of those occasions on which the modern church has chosen not to sing in harmony with its medieval forebears, but if you would like to make an exception, you can find the tune to 'Alleluia dulce carmen' here.

'Alleluia dulce carmen' in an Anglo-Saxon hymnal, with English gloss (BL Cotton MS Vespasian D XII, f.48v)

March in the Menologium

Opening of a calendar for March (BL Lansdowne 383, f. 4)

At the beginning of a new month, we can have a look at the Old English calendar poem known as the Menologium (last seen here in February heralding the start of spring) to see what it has to say about March.

Swylce eac is wide cuð
ymb III and twa þeodum gewelhwær
his cyme kalend ceorlum and eorlum
butan þænne bises geboden weorðe
feorðan geare; þænne he furðor cymeð
ufor anre niht us to tune,
hrime gehyrsted hagolscurum færð
geond middangeard Martius reðe,
Hlyda healic. Ðænne se halga þæs
emb XI niht æþele scynde
Gregorius in godes wære,
breme in Brytene. Swylce Benedictus
embe nigon niht þæs nergend sohte,
heard and higestrang, þæne heriað wel
in gewritum wise, wealdendes þeow,
rincas regolfæste. Swylce eac rimcræftige
on þa ylcan tiid emniht healdað,
forðan wealdend god worhte æt frymðe
on þy sylfan dæge sunnan and monan.
Hwæt, ymb feower niht fæder onsende,
þæs þe emnihte eorlas healdað,
heahengel his, se hælo abead
Marian mycle, þæt heo meotod sceolde
cennan, kyninga betst, swa hit gecyðed wearð
geond middangeard; wæs þæt mære wyrd,
folcum gefræge.

So also is widely known
after three and two [nights] to peoples everywhere
the coming of the month to churls and chiefs,
(except when the extra day is appointed
every fourth year - then it comes to us
one night later to town);
adorned with frost, with hail-showers
fierce March journeys through the earth,
lofty Hlyda. Then, after eleven nights, the holy one,
noble Gregory, hastened into God's keeping,
brilliant in Britain. And Benedict
after nine nights sought the Saviour,
strong and stout-minded, he whom
rulefast men well praise in wise writings,
the Master's servant. And, too, the number-skilled
keep the equinox at that same time,
because the Lord God created in the beginning
the sun and moon on that same day.
Lo, four nights after men keep the equinox
the Father sent his archangel,
who announced salvation to
mighty Mary, that she should bear the Measurer,
best of kings, as it was made known
throughout earth; that was a glorious event,
famous among the peoples.

Two great saints, an equinox, and an annunciation; no wonder Byrhtferth says in his Enchiridion that 'though all the months are adorned with various joys and honours, March is the most so' (Ðeah ealle þa monðas synd mid mislicre blisse and wurðscipe geglengde, þeah is Martius swyðost). The Menologium uses some particularly nice words for March, who is figured - naturally enough, given his name - as a warrior. This is the month of Mars, god of war, whom one might well call reðe (fierce, savage) and healic (noble, lofty, proud). This characterisation also fits neatly with the recorded Old English names for the month, which include (as here) Hlyda, often interpreted as 'the loud', and Hreðmonað, of which the first element is probably the same as reðe. March is loud with blustery winds and savage with the last blasts of winter; this fierce warrior is hrime gehyrsted, 'adorned with frost', and accompanied by armies of hail-showers on his martial journey. (In this same poem, you might remember, Winter too is a warrior, who takes the earth prisoner with an 'army of frost and snow'.)

After the warrior March we hear about two great men of a very different kind. The month of March is distinguished by the feasts of two saints who loomed very large in Anglo-Saxon perceptions of their own history: Gregory the Great (March 12), who was credited with sending Christianity to England, and Benedict (March 21), father of monasticism, to whom the many Benedictines of Anglo-Saxon England looked as their founder and inspiration. Gregory is described as breme in Brytene 'famous, brilliant in Britain' because of his central place in the history of the English church. Not only was he, according to Bede, the prime mover in the conversion of the English, but his writings were among the works King Alfred considered 'necessary for all men to know', and many had been already translated into English more than a century before this poem was written.

As for Benedict - well, whoever the author of this poem was, we can be pretty sure he was a Benedictine monk, and probably a product of the tenth-century Benedictine Revival, perhaps a member of the circle of St Æthelwold. He would thus count himself among the group of those he describes as rincas regolfæst, 'men keeping fast to the Rule' (the Regula) and holding Benedict in great veneration. To a tenth-century monk, Benedict and Gregory were two of the most important figures in Anglo-Saxon history - even though neither ever came anywhere near England. (The author of this poem would have been puzzled by a programme I recently watched about monasticism in early Britain which didn't even refer to Gregory by name, and didn't mention Benedict until halfway through - not a narrative of Anglo-Saxon monasticism this Anglo-Saxon monk would have recognised! It's interesting to think about how our perception of such things can be so different from theirs.)

St Benedict in the Benedictional of St Æthelwold (BL Additional 49598, f. 99v)

Like Ælfric in his sermon for New Year's Day, this poem notes the coincidence of St Benedict's feast on March 21 with the spring equinox - the Old English word for the equinox is emniht, from efen + niht 'even nights'. The spring equinox was the key date for calculating the rest of the calendar: it was considered to be the day on which the sun and moon were made, and therefore the day 'all times were created' (as Ælfric puts it), on the fourth day after the creation of the world on March 18. From this, every other date in the year - the solstices and equinoxes, the duration of the seasons, etc. - could be worked out, as well as the date of Easter. This was all very carefully calculated by the people this poem calls the rimcræftige, 'those skilled in numbers' (a fantastic word for any mathematicians out there!). In Anglo-Saxon England these rimcræftig scientists were usually the rincas regolfæst, the learned Benedictine monks. I have to confess that these subtleties of computus are a bit beyond me; I'd number myself among the manega sydefulle clericas who, as Byhrtferth gently notes in his attempt to explain the system, don't understand such mysteries as quadrans and bissextile days. I content myself with marvelling at the skill, patience, and learning of the rimcræftige, who work these things out so the rest of us don't have to.

Diagrams for calculating the date of Easter (BL Egerton 3314, f. 74v)

Oxford Interviews: Not That Much Fun

OK, I'll bite. Normally when stories about Oxford interviews appear in the national press I just roll my eyes and turn the page, because they're always inaccurate, irrelevent and, most of all, boring. They always go the same way:

Someone rejected by Oxford: Oxford is elitist!
Oxford (feebly protesting, but usually shouted down): We're not elitist, we take lots of state school kids and do lots of outreach...
Rejectee: Oxford is elitist!
Uninformed audience concludes: Oxford is elitist.

So I tried to ignore this story which is in the news about a kid who wrote a 'rejection letter' to Magdalen College after being interviewed there; all over my facebook page Oxford students are protesting that Oxford isn't elitist and she's just bitter, and it's all the same argument as usual. Her letter is indeed fairly silly and pretty badly-written (heaven defend us from teenagers who think they can be witty!) but she obviously has a flair for self-publicity, so good luck to her.

The thing that got to me about this story, and which made me unable to ignore it, is that I too was interviewed at Magdalen College, more than eight years ago now. It was the most miserable experience of my life. Magdalen is a beautiful place and the person who interviewed me is, I now know, an extremely talented literary scholar; but I have never, ever felt as unhappy and lonely and lost as I was after that interview, and so I do think this girl, silly as her letter is, raises a useful point.

Oxford interviews are often not much fun. The letter-writer complains that the college took it too seriously, but that isn't the problem; it's a serious matter, and it's quite right that tutors who conduct interviews should take the responsibility of it very seriously indeed. They work hard to make sure they choose the right students for their college. But it's important to remember that not every student who is bright enough to be at Oxford is the right fit for every college, and that quickly becomes apparent at interview. It is heart-wrenching to be in an ancient, venerable institution which by reputation you already love (Magdalen, home of C. S. Lewis and Oscar Wilde, my teenage self's ill-assorted heroes!) and to which you sorely want to belong - and yet to find out that the people there are not like you; you don't belong there, and they know it as well as you do. I didn't belong there; I still don't, even now, eight years later, with my First Class Honours from Oxford, my Master's degree, and my soon-to-be-obtained doctorate. I'm not listing those things to boast - I'm using them to suggest that it's not about academic ability. I'm very glad I didn't get into Magdalen, but was accepted by another college, and have been at Oxford ever since. I've been happy; I've done well. I still think I would have been miserable at Magdalen.

I don't blame Magdalen for this. I blame my state school, who didn't have the faintest idea how to prepare me for the interview; I blame myself, for being so shy and awkward; and I blame Oxford, a little, for perpetuating the fiction that all colleges are the same and that it doesn't really matter which one you apply to. That's simply not true. Magdalen, because it's famous and beautiful, attracts a high number of applicants and is thus statistically harder to get into. I wish someone had told me that when I applied. Furthermore, from my experience of Oxford over the past nine years, I have also seen that Magdalen has a college culture in which extremely self-confident people particularly shine. There's nothing wrong with either of those facts, but the truth is that not all old, beautiful colleges are like that, and if I'd known a single thing about the Oxford admissions process I would never have applied to Magdalen in a million years. It's just a bad fit for me.

If you find this post because you're a state school pupil who wants to go to Oxford, take heart: if you love learning and you want to enjoy everything Oxford has to offer, you really can do that. I dreamed about going to Oxford all through my teenage years, but it always seemed more or less impossible for someone like me. My unhappiness at my first encounter with Magdalen was the misery of disappointed love and a shattered dream; but nothing since that has disappointed me here, and it has been better than my best dreams. I love Oxford and I am immensely grateful for my time here - though everything about its way of life baffles the people I went to school with!

If you come here, you will not be discriminated against in any way. But it's a big university and you will like some parts of it more than others. There's no point pretending that you won't meet people who make you feel bad about yourself - even without meaning to - because a lot of the people here are extremely intelligent, prosperous, confident, beautiful and happy. That's the nature of the place. If you're lucky, it will teach you to learn how to value yourself at your real worth - to see what you have that other people don't, and to understand how to use it. If you can learn how to distinguish between what is important and what merely claims to be important, you'll gain more from your time here than a degree with an impressive name.


P.S. I really think that demystifying the differences between colleges would help a lot in giving people unfamiliar with Oxford a fair chance in the applications process. So, these are some of the colleges at which I think I, as a shy, academically-minded state-school-educated eighteen-year-old, would have been happy (I'm not saying anything specifically against the others - I don't have experience of them all - but these are where I would think first of applying to now):

Brasenose
In my experience it's hands down the most friendly and welcoming college in Oxford.

Exeter

Lady Margaret Hall

Lincoln

Pembroke

Somerville

St Anne's

St Hilda's
The college who took me when Magdalen wouldn't, and who gave me a positive, generous, encouraging experience at my interview.

Wadham


My advice would be to at least look at those before you check out the big, intimidating colleges, at least if you're as much of a wuss as teenage me was.


P.P.S. This girl has a point in complaining they didn't give her a glass of water. Those tiny things count. I still remember how it nearly made me burst into tears when one of the scouts at Magdalen was kind to me, while the academics were so distant. It was very cold that winter, and I was huddled up under a duvet in the room they'd allocated me, freezing and desperately trying to cram for the interview; I can't remember what she said, but she was sympathetic and gently kind, human. A smile like hers from the person who interviewed me would have made worlds of difference.

Earendel at Epiphany

BL Yates Thompson 3, f. 93v

For the Feast of the Epiphany, here's a curiosity for you. There are lots of medieval carols about the Epiphany ('Twelfth Day', as it was usually called in the Middle Ages) - I posted two last year, and you'll find more under this tag. This one, however, is a medieval pastiche - a carol written in a version of Middle English, with a bit of Old English thrown in, and published in 1899. 

'Eala Earendel

Engla beorhtast.'

I. They came three Kings who rode apace,

To Bethlem town by God's good grace:

Hail Earendel,

Brightest of Angels!

Pardie! It was a duteous thing,

Wise men to worship childë King:

Godlight be with us,

Hail Earendel!

II. They gave Him gifts of far-brought things,

Of Recells, Myrrh, and Gold of Kings.

Hail Earendel,

Brightest of Angels!

And setten there in strawy tent,

Their mystic signs of Orient:

Godlight be with us,

Hail Earendel!

III. The Gold and Frankincense and Myrrh

For King, for Priest, for digne Martyr.

Hail Earendel,

Brightest of Angels!

Upon the great Good Friday morn

Is't Crown of Gold or Crown of Thorn?

Godlight be with us,

Hail Earendel!

IV. From Calvary's Tree the Priestly hands

Are stretched in blessing o'er the lands:

Hail Earendel,

Brightest of Angels!

In Garden tomb His tired limbs sleep.

Bring Myrrh and Spices, Vigil keep:

Godlight be with us,

Hail Earendel!

V. O hymn we then these Orient Kings,

Who brought for Him their offerings:

Hail Earendel,

Brightest of Angels!

And grant in Holy Mystery

Ourselves His Sacrifice may be.

Godlight be with us,

Hail Earendel!

This poem is by Charles William Stubbs (1845-1912), who at the time it was published was Dean of Ely. The poem was included in his book Bryhtnoth's Prayer and Other Poems, which among other things features a number of poems inspired by medieval topics, especially relating to the Anglo-Saxon history of Ely. One is his 'Carol of King Canute', a Christmas carol based on a short verse which the 12th-century Liber Eliensis claims Cnut composed when visiting the abbey. Another poem on an Ely theme is inspired by the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon, whose fallen hero, Byrhtnoth, was buried at Ely. Here's a taste of Stubbs' take on that:

This was his death cry,

Bryhtnoth the Ealdorman,

When to the earth at last

Fell from his failing hand

Sword of the mighty hilt...

Could he no longer then

Fast on his feet stand,

Bryhtnoth the Ealdorman;

Looked he to Heaven's King,

Meter of meeds:

“Thanks be to Thee, God, Ruler of nations,

For all the joy of life

Winsome and wealthful-

Bairns' love and wife's love,

Heart-trust of comrades,

War-weal and hearth’s-gear -

All I have here below

Fared for or gotten.

Now, oh my Maker mild,

Most need have I that Thou

Good speed my ghost:

Yea, that my soul to Thee safely may journey,

Safe to Thy Kingdom, Lord of the angels.”

Died then Earl Bryhtnoth

There by the Panta stream,

Slain in the battle, by

Maldon Blackwater.

Monks of the minster,

Monks of Saint Ætheldryht,

Thanes of the White Christ,

Brought him to Ely

Rowed they the death barge,

Down the long water-street,

Shimmering in moonlight;

Cold blew the night wind,

O'er the wan water: 

Far in the sedge reeds

Boomed the wild bittern;

High on the wall tower

Blickered the beacon.

If you know The Battle of Maldon you'll recognise some echoes of the poem here, but it's much augmented by faux-medieval archaisms in fine Victorian style! Similarly, Stubbs' Epiphany poem makes use of a refrain from a real Old English poem, part of the Advent Lyrics based on the O Antiphons:

Eala earendel, engla beorhtast,

ofer middangeard monnum sended...

O Earendel, brightest of angels,

sent to mankind over middle-earth...

In that poem 'Earendel' is used as a title for Christ, equivalent to the Latin 'O Oriens' ('O Dayspring'), the antiphon sung on the day of the winter solstice. Stubbs, however, accompanies his poem with a note saying that Earendel is 'the mythical name of the Star of Bethlehem'. I couldn't say where he got that idea, but 'Earendel' is used of different kinds of light in Old English and related languages - of a star, but also of the radiance of the sun and the first gleam of the dawn. And engla beorhtast, 'brightest of angels', really means 'brightest of messengers' - which the Star of Bethlehem was, of course. If the idea is that the Star to which the carol appeals is also Christ himself, 'Godlight', it's not so far from the Old English poem.

Stubbs also includes a note on the word 'recells', an Old English word for 'incense', pointing out where you can find it in an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospels. Apart from these bits of Anglo-Saxondom, though, much of the poem is written in an imitation of Middle English - 'Pardie!', 'childë King', and so on.

'The Carol of King Canute' was set to music by T. Tertius Noble, who was organist of Ely Cathedral and also Stubbs' son-in-law. (Though it's through Benjamin Britten's setting that it's perhaps better-known.) Noble also set this 'Carol of the Star', in a slightly amended version. And look, it's even on Youtube:

I learn from this wonderful website that after Stubbs became Bishop of Truro, the carol was performed at his cathedral's 'Festival of Lessons and Carols' in 1911 - Truro being the place where services of 'Nine Lessons and Carols' first originated at the end of the 19th century.

That same winter, 1911, the young Tolkien had just finished his first term at Oxford. A year or two later, in the course of his studies, he stumbled across the Old English 'Earendel' poem, and its first lines had a remarkable effect on him:

I felt a curious thrill, as if something had stirred in me, half wakened by sleep. There was something very remote and strange and beautiful behind those words, if I could grasp it, far beyond ancient English.

Tolkien adopted Earendel into his own growing imaginative cosmos, as a mariner 'who launched his ship like a bright spark from the havens of the Sun... a herald star, and a sign of hope to men'. He later called the Old English poem 'rapturous words from which ultimately sprang the whole of my mythology'. His sense that there was something 'very remote and strange' about the words eala Earendel, engla beorhtast is one of those instincts no one can explain. Why these lines more than any other? What moved Stubbs to make them the basis of his Epiphany carol? No one really knows what 'Earendel' means, and yet perhaps it draws the imagination all the more for that, as the Star of Bethlehem drew the Magi on their long and weary way. Such is the magic of mystery, of words half-understood - of a glimpse of Godlight.

Bodleian MS. Douce d. 19

A Meditation of St Anselm

(Text from here; it's attributed to Anselm, though its authorship is uncertain.)

My heart’s voice is to Thee, my Lord and eternal King, Christ Jesus. The work of Thy hand dares to address Thee with loving boldness, for it yearns after Thy beauty and longs to hear Thy voice. O Thou, my heart’s desired One, how long must I bear Thy absence; how long must I sigh after Thee, and my eyes drop tears? O Lord, all love, all loveable, where dwellest Thou? Where is the place of Thy rest, where Thou reposest all joyful among Thy favourite ones, and satisfiest them with the revelations of Thy glory? How happy, how bright, how holy, how ardently to be longed for, is that place of perennial joys! My eye has never reached far enough, nor my heart soared high enough, to know the multitude of the sweetnesses which Thou hast stored up in it for Thy children. And yet I am supported by their fragrance, though I am far away from them. The breath of Thy sweetness comes to me from afar; a sweetness which to me exceeds the odour of balsam, and the breath of frankincense and myrrh, and every kind of sweetest smell. It awakes chaste longings in my heart; and delightful, yet scarce tolerable are its flames. For ‘what have I in heaven?’ (Ps. lxxiii. 25.) What is my treasure in that celestial shrine? What is my heritage in the land of the living? Is it not Christ, my Lord, my sole salvation, my total good, my fulness of joy? And how, O Lord, shall I restrain my heart from loving Thee? If I love not Thee, what shall I love? If I transfer my love from Thee, where shall I bestow it worthily? O longed-for Lord, where shall my longings find a rest outside of Thee? If my love stir its wing away from Thee, outside of Thee, it will be soiled; and my longings will be all in vain if they glance aside from Thee. For art not Thou loveable and desirable above all things that can be desired or loved? Whatever worth and beauty all creation has, it has from Thee; and what marvel, since Thou alone excellest all things? Thou hast clothed the sun among the stars with an excellent brightness, and brighter than the sun art Thou. Nay, what is the sun, or what is all created light, in comparison of Thee, but darkness? Thou hast peopled the sky with stars, the empyrean with angels, the air with birds, the waters with fish, the earth with herbs, and plants with flowers. But there is no beauty nor no grace in all of them in comparison of Thee, O Fountain of universal beauty, Lord Jesus. Thou hast stored honey with its sweetness, and sweeter than honey art Thou. Thou hast infused its pleasantness into oil, and pleasanter than oil art Thou. Thou hast shed their odours into all fragrant gums, and sweet and pleasant above all rare spices is Thy fragrance. Thou hast set gold among minerals in rare pre-eminence for worth and beauty; yet what is all of it compared to my priceless Lord, and His fathomless glory, that the angels long to gaze into? Every precious stone and desirable to look upon is the work of Thy hands,—sardius, topaz, jasper, chrysolite, onyx, beryl, amethyst, sapphire, carbuncle, emerald; and yet what are all of them but toys compared with Thee, all-loveable and all-beauteous King? And Thine own handiwork are those precious and immortal jewels with which Thou, O wise Master-builder, didst in the beginning of the ages beautifully embellish the superethereal palace to the praise and glory of the Father.

Through Thee, for the fulfilling of the behests of the eternal Father, thousands of thousands glide in swift flight twixt heaven and earth, like industrious bees that flit to and fro between their hive and the flowers; a busy throng, innocent and stainless, neither laggard nor disobedient. Through Thee a hundred times ten thousand stand ministrant in the sanctuary of the temple of highest heaven, staring on the Face of Majesty with a clear unflinching gaze, and sounding forth their harmonious ceaseless hymn to the glory of the triune undivided Godhead.

Through Thee the Seraphim burn, the Cherubim shine, the Thrones give judgment.

Thou, O Lord, art a fire that burns and consumes not; and, from their immediate nearness to the fires of Thy Godhead, all the sacred choir of the Seraphim are wrapt in coruscating flame, and pour abroad the overflowing of their blissful ardours on the other armies of Thy battling hosts; and of these we in our turn have tasted of the fulness.

Thou, our God, art very Light; and the hills catch Thy glory and shed it on Thy people, when Thou dost largely shower forth Thy hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge on the eyes of the Cherubim, who fix their nearer gaze on Thee. And from them are lighted in their turn the elect subordinated lamps of Thy marvellous tabernacle, which inextinguishably shine before Thy Face, O Lord...

Thine, O sweet Jesus, are the magnificent Archangels, in whom the benignity of Thy great condescension chiefly works; for, glorious satraps of Thy palace, Thou disdainest not to dispatch them down to this poor world to support and help our lowliness, creatures of clay that we are, and close allied to dust and ashes. Through them, by Thy command, the chiefest interests of our salvation are administered, and the profoundest secrets of Thy supreme purpose are conveyed to us by them; by them come sicknesses and health to the generations of mankind; by them the kingdoms and the empires of the world subsist. And, chief amongst them do we own Thy Michael, the stalwart standard-bearer and the citizen of heaven, who stands in advance of the army of the living God, and brandishing his champion’s blade thunders with terrible voice against the marshalled hosts of the enemy. ‘Who is like God?’

And the blessed Angels, so loveable in their innocence, are they not the choice work of Thy Fingers, O Wisdom of God? For on the day of their creation Thou didst deck them with an incorruptible vestiture for the work of Thy holy service. These are the living stars of the higher heaven, the lilies of the inner paradise, the rose-trees planted by the silent-flowing waters of Siloe, with their roots immovably fixed in Thee. O River of peace, O Breath of the garden of delights, O only Wisdom ranging round about the circling bourne of heaven; by Thee they shine, and burn, and glow in perfect wisdom, in virginal chastity, and in the ardours of a deathless love. Blooming in endless youth, they find in our weakness the sphere of their faithful service; for they lead us by the hand like tender guides, and direct our steps as we travel through this darksome world, and ward off the assaults of the enemy, and whisper to us the secrets of Thy will, and brace up our failing hearts to good, and carry up the incense of our prayers to the altar of gold, and always supplicate the Face of our merciful Father for us.

Thus, merciful Father, Thou hast indeed some care for us, though for a season we are far away from home. And if the tenth drachma which once slipped from Thy bosom and has now been recovered by Thy toils and sorrows have any worth, it is all Thy gift, good Jesus. If there be aught of sweetest sound in this tenth chord strung of yore for the praise of God, it is the persuasive touch of Thy Sovereign Hand that evokes it, when on the ten-stringed psaltery Thou singest the glory of the Father. Sing as Thou singest, O Lord; play Thy sweet music with the swift and changeful modulations of a manifold thanks giving. Strike those nine tuneful heavenly strings, which never yet sounded harsh or sad. And touch that tenth, of lowest note, whose upper part strained and set in tune to Thee sounds joyfully; whilst its lower part, bound as yet awhile to the earth, knows only how to yield dull sounds of sadness and untunefulness.

When, O First-begotten of God, I muse with intensest thought upon all Thy wonderful works, I tremble with amazement; for Thou dost shine forth all-glorious in every way in all of them. And yet, great though they be, and beautiful and very good, they show as emptiness and nothing compared with Thee. Earth and sky and all their bravery subsist by Thee their Creator and Governor, and utter forth Thy power and fulness, Thy wisdom and beauty, Thy goodness and love; and as light excels darkness, so Thou and Thou alone transcendest all of them. And Thou, my God, awaitest me in heaven, the Treasure and the Reward of Thy servant; Giver at once and Gift, Saviour and Salvation. The expected of my soul, ‘what besides Thee has it desired upon earth?’ (Ps. lxxiii. 25.)

Why then should I leave heaven for an atom? What is it in all the earth that I have deemed a greater good than Thee, or a dearer love than Thee, that I should steal my heart from Thee and desire anything in all the universe outside of Thee? Why in all my life have I ever loved any thing or desired anything but Thee, Jesus my God? Why, Jesus, have I delayed, why have I ever for a moment stopped entertaining Thee in my heart, embracing Thee with my whole soul, and delighting all the inward recesses of my being with Thy sweetness? When I was not with Thee, where was I? When my desires rested not on Thee only, whither, whither did they fly?

God of my life, how vainly have my days been spent, how unprofitably have they slipped by! days which Thou gavest me that I might do Thy will in them, and I have not done it. How long the years, how many the hours that I have squandered, living but bringing forth no fruit in Thy sight! And how then shall I stand? How shall I dare to lift my eyes and look in Thy Face at that great reckoning, if Thou shalt bid me give an account of all my sins or of all my opportunities, and shalt demand the issues of all! O let it not be so, most patient Father; nay, let it not be so, but rather let my wasted opportunities—alas, how many!—be buried in forgetfulness. And if, by Thy help, I have husbanded some few of them—their number is small enough, I know—let these be remembered to eternity; and, Father of all love, let at least this my residue of time be fruitful and hallowed by Thy grace, that it may find a place in the days of eternity and be reckoned in my favour in Thy sight.

Now, then, from this moment do you, all my desires, bestir yourselves and fly to your Lord Jesus: fly away; why linger ye? Speed ye to your goal, seek whom ye seek. ‘You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified’ (St. Mark xvi. 6)...

And thou now, my soul, lift up thyself again with all thy best endeavours, and join the thousands of saints who are rejoicing in Jesus their Lord. Fly thither in the chariot of faith and hope, and by the fire of love take there thy dwelling ‘where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God’ (Col. iii. 1). Strain thine eye, and see thou in the light of His countenance. Linger about the marks of His blessed Scars, and kiss them one by one with thankful devotion; Scars whence gushed those rivers of the precious Blood with which the only-begotten Son of God paid for thy salvation, and for thy sanctification to eternal life. O Jesus, he who loves Thee not, let him be anathema; whoso loves Thee not, let him be filled with bitterness. Thy love, O Lord, is chaste and admits of no impurity; the savour of Thy love is pure, and draws aside no soul from rectitude; Thy love is sweet, and no bitterness is in it, for it sweetens the world’s bitters, and turns to bitterness its sweets. It is not cramped by adversities, and no oppression overburdens it; it sinks not under want, and is embittered by no grief; it is even and undisturbed in bodily labours, careless of threats, incorruptible in the midst of blandishments; in tortures it remains invincible, and it lives for ever more in death. As the miser gloats over his hoard, and the mother delights in the love of her only child, even so, sweet Jesus, the soul that loves Thee sips joy and gladness from the treasures of Thy dear love. The sweetness of honey, the softness of milk, wine with its freshening taste, and all delight some things—none, none of them so please the palate of those who taste them as Thy love charms the souls of them that love Thee.

O sweet Jesus, living and all-desirable Bread; sweet Fruit of the vine; Oil of mingled rarities; gentle Lamb; strong Lion; lovely Leopard; guileless Dove; swift Eagle; Star of the morning; Sun of eternity; Angel of peace; fontal Light of the sempiternal lights; let my every sense conspire to praise Thee, and love Thee, delight in Thee, and admire Thee; Thee, the God of my heart and my portion, Christ Jesus. Let my heart die to its will, and my flesh to its desires; do Thou live in me, and let the live coal of Thy love glow in the midst of my soul, and break forth into a consuming fire; let Thy grace foster and nourish it in me, that it burn continually on my heart’s altar; let it glow in my inmost marrow, and rage in all the recesses of my soul; and in the perfect day let it be found perfected in Thee. In the day when Thou shalt see me stripped of this clothing of mortality, which I now carry about with me, let Thy Love enfold me, and be for a garment of beauty to my soul; that it be found not naked, but clothed upon, and have wherewithal to hide its infirmities from thine Eye. And that strange, that other fire, the fire that shall burn Thine adversaries; let the fervour of Thy love keep it far from me, and raise my soul to Thee, her Creator, and plunge her deep in the ocean of Thy Light Divine. Jesus, my Lord, let all who love Thee be filled with Thy benedictions; and coming home to Thee let their names be written in heaven, that they may have peace ‘under the covert of Thy wings’ (Ps. lxii. 8). To Thee therefore, only-begotten of God, be with the Eternal Father, and the Holy Ghost, unceasing praise, inviolable beauty, and Kingdom never to be moved, enduring for ever and for evermore. Amen.

The images are all from eleventh- and twelfth-century Canterbury manuscripts, now in the British Library: Harley 603, Arundel 155, and Arundel 91.

Sundays

In the past few years, Sunday has become my favourite day of the week. I liked it when I was a child, too - we used to go to church, and then my family would often go out somewhere, and we'd have Sunday lunch together, and watch the Antiques Roadshow, and it was lovely - but there was always the thought of going back to school on Monday hanging over the day. Homework would always have to be done on Sundays, which is enough to spoil any day. It never occurred to me to do all my homework on the Saturday and keep the Sunday free from work, which Christians are after all supposed to do - that just seemed massively impractical. When would you have time for it all? When I came to university and lived with an evangelical Christian who said she never did any work on Sundays, I wondered how she managed, and thought I could never do that - when would the work get done?

Anyway, two years ago I joined my college choir, which sings at Evensong on Sundays. We practise in the afternoon beforehand and have formal hall afterwards, which often goes on until eight or nine. It takes up a large part of the day, and lots of people complain that they don't have time to do it because they have so much work to do. For a few weeks I would try and squeeze in a few hours of work between coming home from church in the morning and going to choir practice, and it did indeed feel rushed and busy. But gradually the ritual of being in the choir - the unchanging succession of practice, the service, drinks, dinner - began to impress itself on me as not a fun way of spending the time, but a proper way of spending a Sunday. I began to feel that I ought to keep Sunday better. So I tried not doing any work in those spare hours, and instead started to read the books I don't have time for in the week, to play music, or to write to friends.

It sounds idle and self-indulgent to spend a whole day without doing work, and I know it's a luxury I'm lucky to have as a student (and a graduate student at that, able to set my own timetable). But it's amazing what a difference it makes to how I approach the remaining days in the week. Sunday is a real day of rest for me now. I look forward to it, and I find that unlike in the days when I would come home from church and get straight back to my regular work, the prayers and hymns I hear at the services I attend impress deeply on my mind and my imagination, undiluted by having to compete with the ordinary concerns of every other day.

Even if it means Saturdays and Mondays are more of a rush, the work gets done somehow. Sundays are free of work, and that means free of worry, too; I force myself to be more trusting, and to concentrate on what really matters, not on the everyday things which nag away at me all the rest of the week. Sunday belongs to God, and not to me.

George Herbert wrote a lovely poem called 'Sunday', which you can find here. These are my two favourite verses:

Sundays the pillars are,
On which heav'n's palace arched lies:
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitful beds and borders
In God's rich garden: that is bare,
Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundays of man's life,
Threaded together on time's string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal glorious King.
On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope;
Blessings are plentiful and rife,
More plentiful than hope.

Some Miracles of St Swithun

Swithun at St-Swithun-upon-Kingsgate, Winchester

'St Swithun's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain;
St Swithun's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain na mair.'

Thanks to this little bit of weather-lore, St Swithun, who died in c.863, is one of the few Anglo-Saxon saints most people have heard of. This is a bit odd when you consider how many fascinating Anglo-Saxon saints actually did important and interesting things and get no attention at all, while what we know about Swithun's life could be summarised very quickly:

1) he was Bishop of Winchester
2) he did the usual things Anglo-Saxon bishops did, repairing churches, witnessing charters, etc.
3) he died in c.863.

That's pretty much it. Is any of that as exciting as standing up to Vikings, being taught songs by angels, fighting devils in desolate fens, standing up to a different lot of Vikings, being a wise and holy queen, or defending your followers from unjust attack? I don't really think so. But Swithun's weather-lore makes him more famous than any of those much better-attested saints.

(In fact I love traditional weather-lore and even more Jane Austen's poem about it, but nonetheless, a word for the underrated Anglo-Saxons...)

What Swithun did or didn't do in his life must remain a mystery; his legend concerns what he did after his death. He was buried at Winchester and about a hundred years after his death, when Bishop Æthelwold was engaged in a revival of monastic life at the minster there, miracles were attributed to St Swithun along with dream-visions which claimed to reveal his greatness in the eyes of God. Today I'm going to post some extracts from the story as told by Ælfric, the homilist and hagiographer, writing in English in the 990s. You can read Ælfric's whole text in Old English and in translation online here. Ælfric had been educated under Æthelwold at Winchester, and he gives us a detailed picture of how the cult of Swithun developed at Æthelwold's instigation.

The main problem with St Swithun - the complete absence of evidence for his saintliness - was clear to Ælfric too. This is how he begins his account of Swithun:

On Eadgares dagum ðæs æðelan cynincges
þaþa se cristendom wæs wel ðeonde þurh god
on angel-cynne under ðam ylcan cynincge
þa geswutelode god þone Sanct Swyðun
mid manegum wundrum þæt he mære is.
His dæda næron cuðe ærðan þe hi god sylf cydde
ne we ne fundon on bocum hu se bisceop leofode
on þysre worulde ærðan þe he gewende to criste.
Þæt wæs þæra gymeleast þe on life hine cuþon
þæt hi noldon awritan his weorc and drohtnunge
þam towerdum mannum ðe his mihte ne cuðon
ac god hæfð swa þeah his lif geswutelod
mid swutelum wundrum and syllicum tacnum.
Đes Swyðun wæs bisceop on winceastre
swa þeah ofer hamtun-scire gesælig godes þeowa
and eahta bisceopas wæron betwux him and Sancte Æðelwolde.
nu næs us his lif cuð swa swa we ær cwædon
butan þæt he wæs bebyrged æt his bisceop-stole
be westan þære cyrcan and ofer-worht syððan
oþþæt his wundra geswutelodon his gesælða mid gode.

In the days of the noble king Edgar, when by the grace of God Christianity was thriving among the English people under that king, God revealed St Swithun, showing by many signs that he is glorious. His deeds were not known until God himself made them known, and we do not find written in books in what manner the bishop lived in this world before he went to Christ. Such was the carelessness of those who knew him in life, that they did not write about his deeds and conduct for the benefit of future generations who did not know his virtue; but God nonetheless made known his life with manifest miracles and wonderful tokens. This Swithun was Bishop of Winchester, that is, over Hampshire, a blessed servant of God; there were eight bishops between him and St Æthelwold. Now, as we said before, nothing about his life is known to us, except that he was buried at his episcopal seat, to the west of the church, and a tomb was built over him, until his miracles revealed that he was blessed by God.

So, there you go - it's all attributable to the carelessness of those who knew him. Ælfric goes on to describe how Swithun's existence was revealed, leading to the moving of his body into the cathedral on 15 July, 971:

Þrym gearum ærðan þe se sanct into cyrcan wære gebroht
of ðære stænenan þryh þe stent nu wið-innan
þam niwan geweorce com se arwurða Swyðun
to sumum gelyfedan smyðe on swefne æteowiende
wurðlice geglencged and ðas word him cwæð to:
“Canst þu ðone preost þe is gehaten Eadzige
þe wæs of ealdan mynstre mid ðam oðrum preostum adræfed
for heora unþeawum þurh Æðelwold bisceop?”
Se smið þa andwyrde þam arwurðan Swyðune þus:
“Gefyrn ic hine cuðe, leof, ac he ferde heonon
and ic nat to gewissan hwær he wunað nu.”
Þa cwæð eft se halga wer to ðam ealdan smyðe:
“Witodlice he wunað nu on wincel-cumbe ham-fæst
and ic ðe nu halsige on þæs hælendes naman
þæt ðu him min ærende ardlice abeode
and sege him to soþan þæt Swiðun se bisceop
het þæt he fare to Æðelwolde bisceope
and secge þæt he ge-openige him sylf mine byrgene
and mine ban gebringe binnan ðære cyrcan
forðan þe him is getiþod þæt ic on his timan
beo mannum geswutelod. And se smið him cwæð to,
“La leof, Eadzige nele gelyfan minum wordum.”
Đa cwæð se bisceop eft, “Gange him to minre byrgene
and ateo ane hringan up of ðære þryh
and gif seo hringe him folgað æt þam forman tige,
þonne wat he to soðan þæt ic þe sende to him.
Gif seo hringe nele up þurh his anes tige
þonne ne sceall he nates hwon þinre sage gelyfan.
Sege him eac siððan þæt he sylf geriht-læce
his dæda and þeawas to his drihtnes willan
and efste anmodlice to þam ecan life.
Sege eac eallum mannum þæt sona swa hi
geopeniað mine byrgene þæt hi magon ðær findan
swa deorwurðne hord þæt heora dyre gold
ne bið nahte wurð wið þa fore-sædan maðmas.”

Se halga Swyðun þa ferde fram þam smiðe up
and se smið ne dorste secgan þas gesihðe ænigum menn
nolde beon gesewen unsoðsagul boda.
Hwæt ða se halga wer hine eft gespræc
and git þryddan siðe and swyðe hine þreade
hwi he nolde gehyrsumian his hæsum mid weorce.
Se smið þa æt nextan eode swa ðeah to his byrgene
and genam ane hringan earhlice swa ðeah
and clypode to gode þus cwæðende mid wordum:
“Eala þu drihten god, ealra gesceafta scyppend,
getiða me synfullum þæt ic ateo þas hringan
up of ðysum hlyde, gif se lið her on innan
seðe me spræc to on swæfne þriwa.”
He teah ða þæt isen up swa eaðelice of ðam stane,
swilce hit on sande stode, and he swyðe þæs wundrode.
He ða hit eft sette on þæt ylce þyrl
and þyde mid his fet and hit swa fæste eft stod
þæt nan man ne mihte hit þanon ateon.
þa eode se smið ge-egsod þanon
and gemette on cypincge þæs Eadzies mann
and sæde him gewislice hwæt Swyðun him behead
and bæd hine georne þæt he hit abude him.
He cwæð þæt he hit wolde cyðan his hlaforde
and ne dorste swa ðeah hit secgan æt fruman
ærþan ðe he beþohte þæt him ðearflic nære
þæt he ðæs halgan hæse forhule his hlaforde,
sæde þa be ende-byrdnysse hwæt Swyðun him bebead
þa onscunode se Eadsige Æðelwold þone bisceop
and ealle ða munecas þe on ðam mynstre wæron
for þære ut-dræfe þe he gedyde wið hi
and nolde gehyran þæs halgan bebod
þeah ðe se sanct wære gesib him for worulde.
He gebeah swa þeah binnan twam gearum
to þam ylcan mynstre and munuc wearð þurh god
and þær wunode oðþæt he gewat of life.
Geblætsod is se ealmihtiga god þe ge-eadmed þone modigan
and ða eadmodan ahæfð to healicum geðincþum
and gerihtlæcð þa synfullan and symle hylt ða godan
þe on hine hihtað forðan þe he hælend is.

Three years before the saint was brought into the church from the stone coffin which now stands inside the new building, the venerable Swithun appeared to a certain faithful blacksmith in a dream, richly adorned, and said to him: "Do you know the priest called Eadsige, who, with the other priests, was driven out of the Old Minster by Bishop Æthelwold because of their sinfulness?"

The smith answered venerable Swithun, "I knew him long ago, sir, but he went away from here, and I don't know for certain where he lives now."

Then the holy man spoke again to the old smith: "Truly, he is now settled at Winchcombe, and I command you now, in the Saviour's name, to swiftly tell him my message, and tell him truly that Bishop Swithun orders him to go to Bishop Æthelwold and say that he should open my tomb himself and bring my bones inside the church, because it has been appointed that in his time I should be made known to men."

And the smith said to him, "But, sir, Eadsige will not believe my words."

The bishop said, "Let him go to my tomb and pull a ring out of the coffin, and if the ring comes away at the first try, then he will know for certain that I sent you to him. If the ring will not come away by his effort alone, then he should not put any faith in what you have said. Tell him, also, that he should amend his behaviour and conduct to the will of his Lord, and hasten with a single purpose towards eternal life. And tell everyone that as soon as they have opened my tomb, they will find there a hoard so valuable that their precious gold will be worthless compared to those treasures."

The holy Swithun then left the smith. The smith did not dare to speak of that vision to anyone, not wishing to be thought a liar. But the holy man spoke to him again, and yet a third time, and severely challenged him why he would not obey him and put his commands into action. So the smith went to the tomb, and took hold of a ring on it - though he was terrified - and cried out to God, saying, "O Lord God, Creator of all things, grant to me, a sinful man, that I may be able to pull this ring out of the coffin, if he who has spoken to me three times in a dream lies within here."

He drew the iron out of the stone as easily as if it stood in sand, and he marvelled greatly at that. Then he placed it back in the same hole, and pressed it down with his foot, and it was again attached so fast that no one could pull it away.

The smith, awestruck, went out and found Eadsige's servant in the marketplace, and told him exactly what Swithun had told him, and asked him earnestly to tell it to Eadsige. The man said he would tell his lord, but he did not dare to tell him straight away. Then after a time he realised that it would not be good for him if he concealed the saint's commands from his lord, so he told him all that Swithun had commanded. Eadsige was angry with Bishop Æthelwold and all the monks in the monastery, because they had driven him out, and he would not heed the saint's commands, although that holy man [Æthelwold] was a kinsman of his. But, within two years, he returned to the monastery and became a monk, through God's grace, and lived there until his death. Blessed is Almighty God, who humbles the proud and exalts the humble to a high place, and corrects the sinful and ever protects the good who hope in him, because he is the Saviour.

This is a great story - Swithun as Merlin granting his own sword-in-the-stone moment. After this a number of miraculous cures take place, and Bishop Æthelwold is convinced to follow the command of the vision and bring Swithun inside the cathedral. (It's interesting that this is the exact opposite of the later legend that Swithun insisted on being buried outside the cathedral and showed his displeasure on being brought inside).

Swithun in the Benedictional of St Æthelwold (BL Additional 49598, f.97v)

The miracles continue, and Swithun appears again in a vision to chastise lazy monks:

Æþelwold þa se arwurða and se eadiga bisceop
þe on ðam dagum wæs on winceastre bisceop
bead his munecum eallum þe on ðam mynstre wunodon
þæt hi ealle eodon endemes to cyrcan
and mid sange heredon þæs sanctes mærða
and god mærsodon swa on þam mæran halgan
swa oft swa ænig wan-hal mann wurde gehæled.
Þa dydon hi sona swa and sungon þone lofsang
oðþæt heora laðode eallum þæt hi swa oft arisan
hwilon þrywa on niht hwilon feower syðum
to singenne þone lofsang þonne hi slapan sceoldon
and forleton ealle endemes þone sang
forðam þe se bisceop wæs bysig mid þam cynincge
and nyste butan hi sungon þone lof-sang forð on.
Hwæt ða se halga Swyðun sylf com on swefne
wundorlice geglencged to sumum godan menn and cwæð,
“Gang nu to ealdan mynstre and þam munecum sege
þæt gode swyðe oflicað heora ceorung and slæwð
þæt hi dæg-hwamlice geseoð drihtnes wundra mid him
and hi nellað herian þone hælend mid sange
swa swa se bisceop behead þam gebroðrum to donne
and sege gif hi nellað þone sang gelæstan
þonne geswicað eac sona ða wundra
and gif hi þone lofsang willað æt þam wundrum singan
swa oft swa wanhale menn þær wurðað gerihte
þonne wurðaþ mid him wundra swa fela
þæt nan man ne mæg gemunan on life
þæt ænig man gesawe swylce wundra ahwær.”
þa awæcnode se wer of þam wynsuman slæpe
and swyðe be-sargode þæt he geseon ne moste
ne nan læncg brucan þæs beorhtan leohtes
þe he mid swiðune hæfde ða gesewen.
He aras swaðeah and swiðe hraðe ferde
to Æþelwolde bisceope and him eall þis sæde.
Æþelwold þa asende sona to þam munecum
of cyninges hyrede and cwæð þæt hi sceoldon
þone lof-sang singan swa swa he ge-set hæfde
and se þe hit forsawe sceolde hit mid fæstene
seofon niht on an swarlice gebetan.
Hi hit heoldon þa syððan symle on ge-wunon
swa swa we gesawon sylfe for oft
and þone sang we sungon unseldon mid heom.

Æthelwold, the venerable and blessed bishop, who in those days was Bishop of Winchester, commanded all his monks who lived in the Minster that every time a sick person was healed they should all go in procession to the church, and praise in song the merits of the saint and glorify God because of the saint's holiness. They began to do this straightaway, and sang the song of praise, until it grew tiresome for them to have to get up so often - sometimes three times a night, sometimes four - to sing the Te Deum, when they could have been asleep. At last they all left off singing the hymn, because the bishop was busy with the king, and did not know that they had ceased their custom of singing.

But then St Swithun himself appeared to a certain good man in a dream, richly attired, and said, "Go to the Old Minster, and say to the monks that God is greatly displeased by their grumbling and sloth, that every day they see the miracles of God performed among them, but they do not want to praise the Saviour with hymns as the bishop commanded the brothers to do. Tell them that if they do not sing the hymn, the miracles will soon cease; but if they sing the Te Deum for the miracles, as often as sick people are healed there, then so many wonders will be performed among them that no one alive will be able to remember when any man saw such wonders anywhere."

The man woke up from his sweet sleep, and mourned that he could no longer see and enjoy the beautiful light which he had seen accompanying Swithun. Nonetheless he got up and quickly went to Bishop Æthelwold, and told him all this. Æthelwold straightaway sent a message from the king's court to the monks, and said that they should sing the Te Deum just as he had set down for them, and that anyone who neglected to do this should heavily atone for it by fasting for seven nights continuously. Afterwards they always kept this custom, as we have very often seen for ourselves - and we have often sung that hymn with them.

I do enjoy a good 'lazy monks' story. And that final sentence is Ælfric reminding us of his own personal connection with Winchester, of which he was justly proud.

St Swithun in BL Stowe 12 f. 273v. I have no idea what's going on here...

More miracles take place:

Is swa ðeah to witenne þæt we ne moton us gebiddan
swa to godes halgum swa swa to gode sylfum
forðan þe he is ana god ofer ealle þincg
Ac we sceolon biddan soðlice þa halgan
þæt hi us þingion to þam þrym-wealdendum gode
seþe is heora hlaford þæt he helpe us.
Hwilon wacodon menn swa swa hit gewunelic is
ofer an dead lic and ðær wæs sum dysig mann
plegol ungemetlice and to þam mannum cwæð
swylce for plegan þæt he Swyðun wære:
“Ge magon to soðum witan þæt ic Swyðun eom
seðe wundra wyrð and ic wille þæt ge beran
eower leoht to me and licgað on cneowum
and ic eow forgife þæt þæt ge gyrnende beoð.”
He woffode ða swa lange mid wordum dyslice
oðþæt he feoll geswogen swylce he sawl-leas wære
and hine man bær ham to his bædde sona
and he læg swa lange his lifes orwene.
His magas ða æt nextan þone mann feredon
to þam halgan Swiþune and he sylf andette
his dyslican word þe he dyrstiglice sprae
and bæd him forgifnysse and he wearð þa gehæled
swa þæt he hal eode ham mid his magum.
Is eac to witenne þæt menn unwislice doð
þa ðe dwollice plegað æt deadra manna lice
and ælce fulnysse þær forð-teoð mid plegan
þonne hi sceoldon swyðor be-sargian þone deadan
and ondrædan him sylfum þæs deaðes tocyme
and biddan for his sawle butan gewede georne.
Sume menn eac drincað æt deadra manna lice
ofer ealle þa niht swiðe unrihtlice
and gremiað god mid heora gegaf-spræce.
þonne nan gebeorscype ne gebyrað æt lice
ac halige gebedu þær gebyriað swiþor.

It is important to know that we must not pray to God's saints in the same way as to God Himself, because He alone is God above all things; but we should truly ask the saints to intercede for us with Almighty God, who is their Lord, that he may help us. On one occasion, men were keeping vigil by a dead body, as is the custom, and there was a foolish man who was joking around in an immoderate way. As a joke, he spoke to the other men as if he were St Swithun, saying, "Know in truth that I am Swithun, who performs miracles! I want you to carry your candles to me, and kneel before me, and I will grant you what you desire." In this way he blasphemed for a long time with foolish words, until he fell silenced, as if he were lifeless.

They carried him home to his bed straight away, and he lay there for a long time, despairing of his life. At last the man's kinsmen carried him to Saint Swithun, and he confessed the foolish words which he had presumptously spoken and begged for forgiveness from him; he was healed, and went home with his kinsmen in perfect health. It should be known that people act very unwisely when they joke around like fools at the bodies of dead men, and bring foul behaviour there in their sport, when they should rather be mourning for the dead man, dreading the coming of death for themselves, and earnestly praying for his soul without any senseless behaviour. Some men sinfully drink the whole night over the body of a dead man, and anger God with their foolish speech; no beer-drinking is appropriate at a wake, but rather holy prayers are fitting there...

This is an intriguing insight into Anglo-Saxon funeral customs!  Another particularly evocative vision:

Sum eald þegn wæs eac on wihtlande untrum
swa þæt he læg bæddryda sume nigon gear
and of ðam bedde ne mihte buton hine man bære.
Him comon þa on swefne to twegen scinende halgan
and heton hine yrnan ardlice mid him.
þa cwæð se adliga, “hu mæg ic yrnan mid eow
þonne ic ne aras of þysum bedde ana
nu for nigon gearum butan oþres mannes fylste?”
þa cwædon þa halgan, “þu cymst to ðære stowe
gif ðu færst mid us nu ðær þær ðu under-fehst þine hæle.”
He wearð þa swyðe fægen and wolde faran mid heom
ac þaþa he ne mihte heom mid syðian.
þa flugon hi geond þa lyft and feredon þone adligan
oðþæt hi becomon to sumum ænlicum felda fægre geblowen .
and þær wæs an cyrce of scinendum golde
and of gymstanum standende on þam felda
and se halga Swiðun on scinendum mæsse-reafe
stod æt ðam weofode swylce he wolde mæssian.
Swyðun cwæð þa sona to þam seocan menn,
“ic secge ðe broðor þu ne scealt heonon-forð
nanon menn yfel don ne nanne man wyrigan
ne nænne man tælan ne teonful beon
ne ðu man-slagum ne geðwærlæce ne manfullum reaferum
ne ðeofum þa ne olæce ne yfeldædum ne ge-ðwærlæce
ac swiðor gehelp swa þu selost mæge
wan-hafolum mannum mid þinum agenum spedum
and þu swa þurh godes mihte sylf bist gehæled.”
Se adliga þa ðohte þæt he yfel nolde don
buton þam anum þe him ær yfel dyde
and ðam wolde don wel þe him wel dyde ær.
þa wiste se halga Swiðun hu his heorte smeade
and cwæð bliðelice him to, “Broðor, ic þe secge,
ne do þu swa þu smeadest, þæt ðu derige ænigum
þeah ðe he derige ðe ac þinum drihtne ge-efenlæc
se ðe nolde wyrian þa ðe hine dydon to cwale
and het his folgeras þæt hi for heora fyondum ge-bædon.
Eac cwæð Paulus se apostol to eallum cristenum mannum
gif ðinum fynd hingrige fed hine mid mettum
oððe gif him þyrste ðu do him drincan.”
þa cwæð se bedryda to ðam bisceope eft,
“La leof, sege me hwæt þu sy manna
nu ðu manna heortan miht swa asmeagen.”
þa cwæð se halga Swyðun, “ic eom seþe nu niwan com,”
swylce he cwæde swa, “ic wæs geswutelod nu niwan.”
þa cwæð se bædryda to ðam bisceope eft,
“hu eart ðu gehaten?” And se halga him cwæð to,
“þonne ðu cymst to winceastre þu wast minne naman.”
Se man wearð þa gebroht to his bedde eft sona
and awoc of slæpe and sæde his wife
ealle ða ge-sihðe þe he gesewen hæfde.
þa cwæð þæt wif him to þæt hit wære Swyðun
se ðe hine lærde mid þære halgan lare
and þone ðe he geseah on ðære cyrcan swa fægerne.
Heo cwæð ða to þam were, “hit wære nu full good
þæt ðe man bære to cyrcan and þu bæde þone halgan
þæt he ðe gehælde þurh his halgan ge-earnunga.”
Hine man bær ða sona of ðam bedde to cyrcan
binnan withlande and he wearð gehæled sona
þurh þone ælmihtigan god for Swyðunes ge-earnungum
and eode him ða ham hal on his fotum
seðe ær wæs geboren on bære to cyrcan.
He ferde eac siððan to winceastre for-raðe
and cydde Aðelwolde þam arwurþan bisceope
hu he wearð gehæled þurh þone halgan Swiþun
and Landferð se ofer-sæwisca hit gesette on læden.

A certain old thane in the Isle of Wight was very ill, so that he lay bedridden for some nine years, and could not leave the bed unless he was being carried by someone. To him in a dream came two shining holy ones, and told him to run swiftly with them. The sick man said, "How can I run with you, when I have not risen from this bed alone, without help from someone else, for nine years now?" The holy ones said, "If you go with us now, you will come to the place where you will receive your health."

He was very glad, and wanted to go with them. Since he could not walk with them, they flew through the air, and carried the sick man until they came to a solitary field, fair with flowers, and in the field there stood a church, made of shining gold and precious stones; and St. Swithun, in bright vestments, stood before the altar, as if about to say Mass. Swithun straightaway said to the sick man, "Brother, I tell you, henceforth you must not do evil to anyone, nor curse anyone, nor speak evil of anyone, nor be spiteful, nor take part in killings, nor conspire with wicked robbers and thieves, nor join in evil deeds, but rather, to the best of your ability, help the needy with your goods; and you shall be healed by the power of God."

Then the sick man thought to himself that he did not wish to do evil, except to those who had done evil to him, and that he wished to act well to those who had acted well to him. But St. Swithun knew how he was reasoning in his heart, and said merrily to him, "Brother, I tell you, do not do as you are thinking - that you can harm a man as he harms you! Instead, imitate your Lord, who would not curse those who put him to death, and commanded his followers to pray for their enemies. In the same way, the Apostle Paul said to all Christians, "If your enemy is hungry, give him food, and if he is thirsty, give him something to drink."

Then the bedridden man said to the bishop, "Sir, tell me what kind of man you are, that you can read the hearts of men in this way!"

St Swithun said, "I am he who has newly arrived" - as if he had said, "I have now recently been made known."

The bedridden man said to the bishop, "What is your name?"

The saint said to him, "When you get to Winchester, you will know my name."

The man was then at once brought back to his bed, and he awoke from sleep and told his wife all about the vision he had seen. His wife told him it was Swithun who had instructed him with holy teaching, and whom he had seen so glorious at the church. She said to her husband, "Now it would be best if you are carried to church, and pray to the saint for him to heal you through his holy merits."

At once they carried him from his bed to a church in the Isle of Wight, and he was instantly healed by Almighty God, through the merits of Swithun; he went home, healed, on his feet, who had been borne on a bier to the church. Then afterwards he went very quickly to Winchester, and told the venerable bishop Æthelwold how he had been healed by St Swithun, and Landferth, the foreigner, set it down in Latin...

A manuscript of the text Ælfric is referring to here, Landferth's Life and Miracles of Swithun (BL Royal C VII, f. 2)

That last is my favourite of the numerous miracles of healing in this story; I think it's because it took place on the Isle of Wight, and the vision of the flowery field is so memorable! Ælfric concludes:

Ne mage we awritan ne mid wordum asecgan
ealle þa wundra þe se halga wer Swiðun
þurh god gefremode on ðæs folces gesihþe
ge on gehæftum mannum ge on unhalum mannum
mannum to swutelunge þæt hi sylfe magon
godes rice geearnian mid godum weorcum
swa swa Swiþun dyde þe nu scinð þurh wundra.
Seo ealde cyrce wæs eall behangen mid criccum
and mid creopera sceamelum fram ende oð oþerne
on ægðrum wage þe ðær wurdon gehælede
and man ne mihte swa ðeah macian hi healfe up.
þyllice tacna cyþað þæt crist is ælmihtig god
þe his halgan geswutelode þurh swylce wel-dæda...
We habbað nu gesæd be Swiðune þus sceortlice
and we secgað to soðan þæt se tima wæs gesælig
and wynsum on angel-cynne þaþa Eadgar cynincg
þone cristen-dom ge-fyrtðrode and fela munuclifa arærde
and his cynerice wæs wunigende on sibbe
swa þæt man ne gehyrde gif ænig scyp-here wære
buton agenre leode þe ðis land heoldon
and ealle ða cyningas þe on þysum iglande wæron
cumera and scotta comon to Eadgare
hwilon anes dæges eahta cyningas
and hi ealle gebugon to Eadgares wissunge.
þaer-to-eacan wæron swilce wundra gefremode
þurh þone halgan Swyðun . swa swa we sædon ær
and swa lange swa we leofodon þær wurdon gelome wundra.
On ðam timan wæron eac wurð-fulle bisceopas
Dunstan se anræda æt ðam erce-stole
and Aþelwold se arwurða and oðre gehwylce
ac Dunstan and Aþelwold wæron drihtne gecorene
and hi swyðost manodon menn to godes willan
and ælc god arærdon gode to cwemednysse
þæt geswuteliað þa wundra þe god wyrcð þurh hi.

We cannot write, nor recount in words, all the miracles that the holy man Swithun performed, by the power of God, in the sight of the people, for prisoners in chains and for sick people, to show to everyone that they themselves may earn the kingdom of heaven by good works, just as Swithun did, who is now made glorious by his miracles. The old church was hung all round with the crutches and stools of cripples who had been healed there, from one end to the other on either wall - and even so they could not put half of them up. Such tokens declare that Christ is Almighty God, who revealed his saint by such good deeds...

We have now spoken thus briefly of Swithun. We say, truly, that time was a blessed and happy one in England, when King Edgar fostered Christianity and built many monasteries, and his kingdom ever continued in peace, so that no fleet was heard of, except that of the people who ruled this land. All the kings of the Welsh and Scots in this island came to Edgar in one day - that was eight kings - and they all submitted themselves to Edgar's rule. And, moreover, many miracles were performed through St Swithun, as we have said, and as long as we have lived frequent wonders have been done in that place. At that time there were worthy bishops, Dunstan the resolute, in the archbishopric, and Æthelwold the venerable, and others like them; Dunstan and Æthelwold were chosen of God, and they, most of all, exhorted men to do God's will, and advanced everything good, to the pleasure of God, as is testified by the miracles which God works through them.

This last paragraph is a reminder of the fraught times in which Ælfric was writing: the last decade of the tenth century, the reign of King Æthelred, when England was being repeatedly attacked by Viking fleets. (Hence his reference to the happy time when 'no fleet was heard of'.) The reign of King Edgar, guided by Archbishop Dunstan and Bishop Æthelwold, was to Ælfric a golden age of peace and prosperity, such as had collapsed under Edgar's unfortunate son Æthelred. A general lack of holiness and good counsel is Ælfric's diagnosis for the problems of his time, and he looks back to the example of Edgar, Dunstan and Æthelwold as an implicit rebuke to the king and bishops of his own days.

I think he might have been disappointed to know that a thousand years later, Swithun's fame far outshines any of the other three...

The replacement for the destroyed tomb of St Swithun in Winchester Cathedral