The Medieval Student

by James Williams

Scotus and a Latin Plato -
Nought our student knew of Greek -
No tobacco, no potato,
Disputations twice a week.

He was quite a rank outsider,
Never had his people up,
Was not cricketer or rider,
Never heard of claret-cup.

Now and then a blood-stained battle
Surging through the frightened town
Drowned the ineffective rattle
Sprung for aid against the gown.

Combat was his recreation,
Combat, and the real thing;
Football is an imitation
Far and feebly following.

When his fight was over, bleeding
Crept he to his fireless hall,
Patient for his chance of reading
Manuscripts misused by all.

When at nine the curfew thundered,
Shivering rose he from his form,
Stamped his feet in vain and wondered
If he ever would be warm.

Beaumont Palace and Bocardo
Northward marked he day by day,
Names that live, for pede tardo
Names in Oxford pass away.

Did his tutor and his lecture
Muddle as they muddle now?
We to-day can but conjecture
If he called a plough a plough.

Bacon of the Opus Majus
Viva’d him an hour perchance
Till his spirit once courageous
Wavered in a troubled trance.

Ockham may have said demurely,
‘Never mind Franciscan tips!’
Howlers of the period surely
Flowed in plenty from his lips.

Life was costly, for the student
Kept examiners in view,
Were he moderately prudent,
If he wanted to be through.

So his Ockham or his Bacon
Primed he well with stoups of ale
That his viva might be taken
Ere the smack of it should fail.

The curfew bell still rings from Christ Church at nine o'clock, though no one takes any notice of it now (it's at 9.05, actually, because Oxford time is five minutes ahead of GMT). Beaumont Palace was the royal palace situated where Beaumont St now is - where the Ashmolean and Worcester College are; Bocardo was the medieval prison, near the church of St Michael at the Northgate. Names in Oxford don't pass away that quickly!

Wickhambreaux

I have a lot of work to do in the four weeks before term ends, and it's all quite interesting and about Vikings and so on, but right now I'm taking a break to post about pretty Kent churches. Wickhambreaux is not far from Canterbury and it's a beautiful little place, with a village green and a watermill which I'm a bit in love with, and a house by the green which in my favourite film ever is the symbol of all the loveliness of rural life. So it's kind of an ideal village for me. I'd never been in the church, however, before this Easter. It's fairly ordinary to look at on the outside, though it does have this nice little porch:


Then you go inside, and you see this (click to enlarge, you'll be glad you did!):

It's the most extraordinary window, full of wonderful colours: lilies below and angels above, and Mary in the middle, kneeling before Gabriel. It was installed in 1896, designed by Arild Rosenkrantz. The seven archangels are there: Michael to the right, with Adam and Eve on his shield:

And Gabriel, of course:

The colour of the light in Mary's halo is so gentle and delicate:

There are lilies all across the bottom of the window, glowing white but spotted with scarlet blood, as a reminder of the Crucifixion. When the light strikes the red glass...

I adore lilies. A kind friend gave me some last week, and as is their right they have regally assumed lordship over my room; it is now the abode of the lilies, and they just condescendingly allow me to share their space. I was at a seminar a few days ago where the speaker mentioned illustrations to the Old English poem Genesis which show Lucifer, just before the Fall, holding a lily-sceptre as a symbol of his desire to be king. Apparently this is something Carolingian monarchs may have done; I can well believe it.

There's one bit of medieval glass in the church, too, depicting the popular if rather gruesome subject of the beheading of John the Baptist:

A memorial or two, including this to Alexander Young, a parish priest 'cheerful and easy in himself' (fortunate man!):

And Angels on the roof:

But nothing compares to that window - or even its reflection.

Ascension Day

OK, back to seasonal appropriateness now. Kind of. Because although the Catholic Church in England and Wales no longer celebrates today as Ascension Day, and instead transfers it to Sunday on the principle that it's apparently unreasonable to expect people to go to Mass more than once in a week... despite that, well, today is Ascension Day. It just is. It's 40 days after Easter. You can't play around with that without giving the impression that you don't understand how the church year works, how sacred time and calendar time intersect, or really anything about the human mind at all.

Anyway, here is J.M. Neale's translation of the fifth-century hymn Aeterne Rex altissime. I love the fourth verse in particular.

Eternal Monarch, King most high,
whose blood hath brought redemption nigh,
by whom the death of Death was wrought,
and conquering Grace's battle fought.

Ascending to the throne of might,
and seated at the Father's right,
all power in heaven is Jesus' own,
that here his manhood had not known.

That so, in nature's triple frame,
each heavenly and each earthly name,
and things in hell's abyss abhorred,
may bend the knee and own him Lord.

Yea, angels tremble when they see
how changed is our humanity;
that flesh hath purged what flesh had stained,
and God, the flesh of God, hath reigned.

Be thou our joy and strong defense,
who art our future recompense:
so shall the light that springs from thee
be ours through all eternity.

O risen Christ, ascended Lord,
all praise to thee let earth accord,
who art, while endless ages run,
with Father and with Spirit one.

A Nocturnall Upon St Lucies Day

Continuing from yesterday, and with due apologies for both the depressing and the absurdly unseasonal nature of this, I must post the poem I can't get out of my head:

A Nocturnall Upon St. Lucies Day, Being The Shortest Day
John Donne

’Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,
Lucies, who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes,
The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;
The worlds whole sap is sunke:
The generall balme th’ hydroptique earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the beds-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr’d; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar’d with mee, who am their Epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers bee
At the next world, that is, at the next Spring:
For I am every dead thing,
In whom love wrought new Alchimie.
For his art did expresse
A quintessence even from nothingnesse,
From dull privations, and leane emptinesse:
He ruin’d mee, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darknesse, death—things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,
Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have;
I, by loves limbecke, am the grave
Of all, that’s nothing. Oft a flood
Have wee two wept, and so
Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two Chaosses, when we did show
Care to ought else; and often absences
Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death — which word wrongs her —
Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown;
Were I a man, that I were one,
I needs must know; I should preferre,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; Yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; All, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.

But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew.
You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne
At this time to the Goat is runne
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall,
Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call
This houre her Vigill, and her Eve, since this
Bothe the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is.

Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum: verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur?

This is generally a rather cheerful blog, full of joy and beauty and suchlike, but sometimes we must have a little Hopkins-misery too.


Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?

Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,

Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes

Them; birds build — but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

An Easter Hymn

Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander is sometimes treated as a bit of a joke as a hymnwriter. People who want to make fun of Victorian hymns use her compositions as an example of all that they think is sentimental and cliched about Victorian religion, ignoring or ignorant of the fact that the hymns they're making fun of - especially 'There is a green hill far away' and 'All things bright and beautiful' - were written for children, not sophisticated adults like themselves. Sadly, I have even heard the odd college chaplain say this.

(The clue, if you were wondering, is in the title of the book in which those works were first published - Hymns for Little Children. Not much of a riddle, is it?)

Anyway, whatever you may think of those hymns, she wrote some which are certainly good. I like this one, and since it's still the Easter season, I feel able to post it.

There's even an Oxford connection, since her husband William Alexander, Archbishop of Armagh, was educated at Brasenose - one of the better colleges...

He is risen, he is risen!
Tell it out with joyful voice:
he has burst his three days' prison;
let the whole wide earth rejoice:
death is conquered, man is free,
Christ has won the victory.

Come, ye sad and fearful-hearted,
with glad smile and radiant brow!
Lent's long shadows have departed;
Jesus' woes are over now,
and the passion that he bore--
sin and pain can vex no more.

Come, with high and holy hymning,
hail our Lord's triumphant day;
not one darksome cloud is dimming
yonder glorious morning ray,
breaking o'er the purple east,
symbol of our Easter feast.

He is risen, he is risen!
He hath opened heaven's gate:
we are free from sin's dark prison,
risen to a holier state;
and a brighter Easter beam
on our longing eyes shall stream.

The Crucifixion scene is from Canterbury Cathedral. Technically I suppose it's not appropriate for a Resurrection hymn, but it is so very colourful...

Overheard

Caffe Nero, Oxford High St, 4pm.

Undergraduate #1, casually: How's your day been?
Undergraduate #2, equally casually: I realised I don't understand the second half of Plato's Republic. You?