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Mar. 25th, 2010
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Mar. 25th, 2010 05:48 amHumbert of Marolles (d. c. 680) Humbert was born at Maizières, on the river Oise. Humbert was a disciple of St. Amand and co-founder and first abbot of Marolles in Flanders. He seldom left his monastery, except to meet S. Aldegunda, abbess of Maubeuge, with whom he had contracted an intimate union of charity and prayers. In art he is sometimes shown with a bear carrying his baggage.
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Margaret Clitherow, martyr (1586) Margaret was a native of York, the daughter of a prosperous candlemaker, who married the butcher John Clitherow in 1571. A few years after the marriage, Margaret converted to Catholicism. She was notorious. Her husband was repeatedly fined because Margaret wouldn't attend the services of the Church of England; she was even imprisoned for two years, and on her release set up a Catholic school. She even sent her oldest son to Douai to study, for which she was put under house arrest for over a year. M was also a prominent hider of fugitive priests. In 1586 her house was searched, and a missal and mass vessels were discovered. So she was arrested and put on trial, but she refused to plead to protect those she had helped. She refused to enter a plea, so was pressed (laid on the ground with a door over her and then weights added to the door until she should finally answer the courts with a plea) and died, refusing to speak.
Not only that, no plea meant no trial at all. She was also saving her children, her stepchildren and her neighbor’s children from being haled into the witness box and being bullied into giving the evidence to condemn her. (There was no minimum age for giving evidence and no protection for minors.) Also this evidence would have fingered other Catholics in York. By keeping silent she sabotaged the entire anti-Catholic clampdown and gained the moral high ground in popular opinion - even among the extreme Protestants in the neighborhood. This was of course not only at the price of her own life but the life of her unborn - and unbaptised - child. Has she pleaded (guilty or not guilty would have made no odds) and been found guilty then her execution would have been deferred until after the child's birth. It was an even harder choice that it looked at first.
Visitors to York can see the house in the Little Shambles where she lived for some time, and the dormer window at the Black Swan, which she hired as a mass-house. You can also see her hand at the Bar Convent Museum in York - it's in a cabinet, so you have to ask for someone to show you.
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The Annunciation. Already in the 2nd century, Tertullian referred to the belief that the crucifixion took place on this day, and apparently it was a traditional belief in Africa that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same day. Also known as Lady Day, the first known commemoration of this feast is to be found in the statutes of Sonnatius, bishop of Reims (c. 625).
In years when the Annunciation falls on Good Friday a jubilee is declared at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame at Le Puy, when a plenary indulgence can be gained. The oldest attested jubilee at Le Puy was in 1407 when seven deaths were reported in the crush of the crowds (inflated to 200 in some accounts).
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Margaret Clitherow, martyr (1586) Margaret was a native of York, the daughter of a prosperous candlemaker, who married the butcher John Clitherow in 1571. A few years after the marriage, Margaret converted to Catholicism. She was notorious. Her husband was repeatedly fined because Margaret wouldn't attend the services of the Church of England; she was even imprisoned for two years, and on her release set up a Catholic school. She even sent her oldest son to Douai to study, for which she was put under house arrest for over a year. M was also a prominent hider of fugitive priests. In 1586 her house was searched, and a missal and mass vessels were discovered. So she was arrested and put on trial, but she refused to plead to protect those she had helped. She refused to enter a plea, so was pressed (laid on the ground with a door over her and then weights added to the door until she should finally answer the courts with a plea) and died, refusing to speak.
Not only that, no plea meant no trial at all. She was also saving her children, her stepchildren and her neighbor’s children from being haled into the witness box and being bullied into giving the evidence to condemn her. (There was no minimum age for giving evidence and no protection for minors.) Also this evidence would have fingered other Catholics in York. By keeping silent she sabotaged the entire anti-Catholic clampdown and gained the moral high ground in popular opinion - even among the extreme Protestants in the neighborhood. This was of course not only at the price of her own life but the life of her unborn - and unbaptised - child. Has she pleaded (guilty or not guilty would have made no odds) and been found guilty then her execution would have been deferred until after the child's birth. It was an even harder choice that it looked at first.
Visitors to York can see the house in the Little Shambles where she lived for some time, and the dormer window at the Black Swan, which she hired as a mass-house. You can also see her hand at the Bar Convent Museum in York - it's in a cabinet, so you have to ask for someone to show you.
---***---
The Annunciation. Already in the 2nd century, Tertullian referred to the belief that the crucifixion took place on this day, and apparently it was a traditional belief in Africa that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same day. Also known as Lady Day, the first known commemoration of this feast is to be found in the statutes of Sonnatius, bishop of Reims (c. 625).
In years when the Annunciation falls on Good Friday a jubilee is declared at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame at Le Puy, when a plenary indulgence can be gained. The oldest attested jubilee at Le Puy was in 1407 when seven deaths were reported in the crush of the crowds (inflated to 200 in some accounts).
(no subject)
Mar. 25th, 2010 01:26 pmOur main bathroom has no cabinet, no toilet, and no floor... but it does have a new ceiling fan that also sports a light* (overhead light! Whoda thunk it?). Poor BossMan was tearing out the linoleum last night while I was in the kitchen with the 'woodburn the designs onto the new travel thrones' crew... I looked at what the linoleum was covering. Yeech. My respect for the previous owner, already low, sank yet more.
Next, destruction of the wallpaper. Opi and Bossman have already started on the paper-pricking, soon to continue and move on to 'paper pulling'. And then, I'm guessing, it will be time for refinishing the cement and laying in a new floor.
I really wish I could help.
*The new light is in an 'antique' style, which threw me the first time I saw it turned off - the bulb cover looks dirty, but it's not, it's just sort of 'smoky' to look right when it is turned on. But still... one's first reaction upon seeing a new fixture is not supposed to be dismay that it looks like it needs to be replaced!
Next, destruction of the wallpaper. Opi and Bossman have already started on the paper-pricking, soon to continue and move on to 'paper pulling'. And then, I'm guessing, it will be time for refinishing the cement and laying in a new floor.
I really wish I could help.
*The new light is in an 'antique' style, which threw me the first time I saw it turned off - the bulb cover looks dirty, but it's not, it's just sort of 'smoky' to look right when it is turned on. But still... one's first reaction upon seeing a new fixture is not supposed to be dismay that it looks like it needs to be replaced!
(no subject)
Mar. 25th, 2010 11:42 pmBasil the Younger (d. 952) Basil was a hermit who moved near Constantinople after being arrested and tortured as a suspected spy by the Moslems (he was miraculously vindicated). He was tossed into the sea but was returned to shore by dolphins. After his release, he became famous for his miracles and upright life. He made a specialty of denouncing aristocrats for their wicked ways, and suffered persecution. He lived to be 100. There is an extant biography by one of his disciples that tells especially of Basil's prophetic gifts.
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Peter Marginet (blessed) (d. 1435) The subject of an unconfirmed cult, Peter Marginet has an interesting story. He was a monk at the Cistercian house of Poblet near Tarragona (Spain), moving up to the office of cellarer. But he seems to have gotten tired of it, jumped the cloister wall, and became the head of a gang of bandits for a few years. But he then repented, returned to the monastery, and spent the rest of his life doing penance.
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Bathus (priest), Verca, and their children, martyrs (about A.D. 370) Bathus, a Gothic priest, his wife Verca, their two sons and two daughters, and some others were burned in the church by the Gothic Jungeric. Gaatha, a Gothic queen, collected their relics, and conveyed them into Roumania; but on her return she was stoned to death.
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Castulus (d. 3d cent?) Castulus is a martyr of the Via Labicana, entered for this date in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. According to the legendary Acta of St. Sebastian, he was a high official in the imperial palace who looked after the welfare of Christians and who converted many to the faith. The legend goes on to say that he sheltered Christians, arranged for secret Christian services at the palace, was denounced, tortured, and then placed in a pit and suffocated by having "sand” poured over him (probably pozzolana, the compacted volcanic ash quarried locally for use in cement). This also tells us that it was Castulus’ widow, Irene, who found St Sebastian still alive after Diocletian's archers had left him for dead and who nursed him back to health, thereby permitting S. to later confront D. with his divinely ordained recovery.
By the year 809 relics believed to be those of Castulus had reached the monastery at Moosburg in southern Bavaria (today's Moosburg an der Isar). Moosburg's present collegiate church of St. Castulus / Kastulus (begun 1171) was the monastery's church until the latter's closing in the early seventeenth century.
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Peter Marginet (blessed) (d. 1435) The subject of an unconfirmed cult, Peter Marginet has an interesting story. He was a monk at the Cistercian house of Poblet near Tarragona (Spain), moving up to the office of cellarer. But he seems to have gotten tired of it, jumped the cloister wall, and became the head of a gang of bandits for a few years. But he then repented, returned to the monastery, and spent the rest of his life doing penance.
---***---
Bathus (priest), Verca, and their children, martyrs (about A.D. 370) Bathus, a Gothic priest, his wife Verca, their two sons and two daughters, and some others were burned in the church by the Gothic Jungeric. Gaatha, a Gothic queen, collected their relics, and conveyed them into Roumania; but on her return she was stoned to death.
---***---
Castulus (d. 3d cent?) Castulus is a martyr of the Via Labicana, entered for this date in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. According to the legendary Acta of St. Sebastian, he was a high official in the imperial palace who looked after the welfare of Christians and who converted many to the faith. The legend goes on to say that he sheltered Christians, arranged for secret Christian services at the palace, was denounced, tortured, and then placed in a pit and suffocated by having "sand” poured over him (probably pozzolana, the compacted volcanic ash quarried locally for use in cement). This also tells us that it was Castulus’ widow, Irene, who found St Sebastian still alive after Diocletian's archers had left him for dead and who nursed him back to health, thereby permitting S. to later confront D. with his divinely ordained recovery.
By the year 809 relics believed to be those of Castulus had reached the monastery at Moosburg in southern Bavaria (today's Moosburg an der Isar). Moosburg's present collegiate church of St. Castulus / Kastulus (begun 1171) was the monastery's church until the latter's closing in the early seventeenth century.
(no subject)
Mar. 25th, 2010 11:51 pmI'm kinda thinking that it would be better to have a different LJ for the posts about medieval saints. I mean, I know I'm going to keep gushing over them, every once in a while, while I'm working on this project (you do remember that I'm only doing 'saint of the day' during Lent, yes?)[Poll #1543178][Poll #1543178]