During the past few weeks, I’ve made a few posts over at instagram about some of my favorite Medieval English Catholic devotions, traditions, and legends. Ironically I have been in the U.S. with family for most of the advent/Christmas season and hence while researching these reflections, but I almost felt more motivated because I missed Cambridge so much. Praise the Lord we are back in our little Tudor era flat once more!
For me, as a medievalist with a rather narrow geographic and temporal sphere of “expertise “(Visigothic Iberia), learning new medieval history is on of my favorite ways to get to know a new place. It’s a bit like having a common language with a city, town, or country—and given the comparative dearth of medievalists compared to other academics, I imagine it to be getting to know the more guarded, mysterious side of the locale. Everyone can recognize the classic double decker tour bus in London, but can everyone recognize an image of Our Lady of Walsingham or read a Latin grave inscription? (Lord deliver me from my pride in knowing these ridiculous details!)
Moving to England was a big shift in lifestyle and culture (but fortunately not language!), not the least because it followed my marriage by just a few weeks. Especially since I am not a student here myself, I felt an extra urge to find a deeper connection to calling Cambridge and the British Isles as a whole home. Medieval English History, for me, is a way to better understand the cultural fabric of the stones under my feet and the majestic arches under which I walk. It is a window into a world altered and even partially obliterated by the English Reformation, but which persistently lingers in alleyways, old cemeteries, manuscripts, liturgical art, and countryside customs.
The first time I visited England, in January 2018, I visited a friend and fellow-medievalist in Durham, where I was delighted to witness a traditional Plough Sunday blessing. This was perhaps the first time when I, as an American, recognized in situ the rich and magical culture of English religious tradition, which had seeped into my psyche through my favorite childhood authors like Dickens, MacDonald, and Tolkien. At Durham they really brought a traditional plough into the Cathedral; I learned from the internet they often bring a more modern tractor to approximate the spirit, if not the substance, of the tradition.
In more recent centuries, the Church of England has picked up many of the practices which she formerly eschewed as “Popish,” Our Lady of Walsingham being a prime example. The Walsingham priory was suppressed and all statues removed in 1538, an particularly symbolic gesture of the reformation efforts due to its importance as a pilgrimage site (even Henry VIII himself went there seeking solutions for his son-conceiving problems). Devotion, however, ran so deep that the townspeople continued to attribute miracles to Our Lady of Walsingham despite such claims warranting the stocks and public humiliation. Ironically, the Anglicans adopted the devotion in the 20th century shortly after Pope Leo XIII revived it, and the main shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham today is an Anglican one.
Reading about Our Lady of Walsingham led me to wonder…what else of the Catholic Culture in Medieval England was suppressed, only clung to by tenacious villagers, and never so lucky as to be revived? What Anglican traditions were once Catholic, and how did they change over history? Almost daily I walk under the nose of Henry VIII, glaring down over King’s Parade, but how did Cambridge act and feel before he left his mark on England?
The origins of some Medieval English traditions, such as Wassailing, lie deep in pagan mysteries, somehow fascinatingly integrated into a Catholic medieval society. In Saint Isidore’s time, the prevalence of gory pagan rituals in the rural reaches of Iberia led to a wariness of demons and a love for exorcisms among devout Catholics (see J.N. Hillgarth’s work on Popular Religion in Visigothic Spain). Did such a dichotomy exist in medieval England, or were folk traditions more benign? I have yet to find out, but there is so much to learn!
I was also shocked to discover that many common Catholic devotions have more connection to England than I knew. One of the legendaria around Saint Simon Stock’s vision of Our Lady of Mount Carmel states that it occurred while he was leading the Carmelite community at Cambridge…in all my years in Catholic circles which espoused the Brown Scapular, I certainly never heard that! Indeed, so much to learn.
My big bucket list item in the specifically Catholic side of this little project of cultural awareness is reading Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars. Recommended to me when I was at Oxford, I never got around to reading more than excerpts as it is a very large book. Perhaps the relatively promising odds of running into Professor Duffy out and about in Cambridge gave me the extra motivation I needed; my dad kindly gifted me the book for Christmas when he heard I was interested so I have begun in earnest. As a liturgiologist myself, though an amateur one, I trust that the liturgical and para-liturgical lens which Duffy uses to illustrate how the religious landscape of England changed will open my eyes to better understanding the quaint little city and beautiful little Island which I now call home.
Beyond my reading material, I look forward to picking up more gems of centuries-old Medieval English culture and sharing with you.
I will leave you with one such gem, one which I witnessed during my first stint in England in 2018 and only recently researched: St. Margaret’s Well. Saint Frideswide, patroness of Oxford, established a monastery at Binsey in the seventh century. The water from the well supposedly restored the sight of Frideswide’s malicious suitor Algar, who had been struck blind by lightning while he tried to wrest her away from her monastic pursuits. Frideswide’s priory and shrine were desecrated during the Reformation and the well fell into disrepair, but an Anglican Vicar named T. J. Prout restored it during the Victorian era (as the Latin inscription attests). The wildest thing about St. Margaret’s Well is its supposed connection to the ‘treacle well’ story narrated by a dormouse in Alice in Wonderland...as “treacle well” refers not to a syrupy mess, but to a healing medicine (helpful explanation here). As Lewis Carroll (or Charles Dodgson as was his actual name) and the original Alice of Alice frequented the Oxford countryside, they doubtless were both aware of this exact well…and so was the Dormouse!
St. Margaret’s Well and the Dormouse of Wonderland being stuck into the Teapot, pictured for your edification.
Musings of a medievalist mama 