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stitchwhich) wrote2010-03-25 05:48 am
stitchwhich) wrote2010-03-25 05:48 am
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Humbert 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).
---***---
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).