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14/12/2014

Christmas fasting, not feasting (continued)

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Whilst you all face the traumatic Christmas quandary of whether or not to break with the traditional turkey and finally try goose this year, the Anglo-Saxon Monk continues his lonely struggles with Christmas fasting.  Have a little compassion, please!

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Cooking in the Bayeux Tapestry: spot the kebabs! (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
Well, what a blessed kerfuffle!  This fasting business for Yule-tide Lent – the forty days before Christmas – is proving to be rather problematic, as you already know if you were one of the compassionate readers of my previous post. 

OK
, I only have myself to blame.  Trying to get back on track with my fasting seemed such an honourable endeavour, but I’m beginning to have qualms about my methods. 


As I informed my blessed readers, I’m attempting to find a greater purpose, or motivation, for fasting.  I don’t know why, but the fact that fasting should allow me to devote myself more fully to my spiritual duties just isn’t cutting the mustard (and German sausage). 

It’s been suggested to me that attempting to draw inner strength by imagining the sin of vomiting due to gluttony and drunkenness – which attracts 7 days of fasting as penance – was, quite frankly, ridiculous logic.  But that’s what absence of food does to you.  It addles your brain.  And mine, I can tell you, has been just like scrambled eggs these last couple of days.  (I like them softly scrambled, by the way, with no stinting on the butter, and well seasoned.)

So, I’ve moved direction with my sinning – my imagining of it, that is.  And here’s what I’ve come up with through my careful reading of my scriftboc, my handbook of penance:

‘If a little boy steals or eats carrion, and he understands this, he should fast seven days.  If he’s twenty winters old and does such a thing, he should fast twenty nights.’ (Scriftboc, my own translation)

So, as you see, for this sin I need to imagine myself as a little boy, probably some ruffian or village urchin.  Any older, and I would have to fast for another twenty days, and I don’t have enough days left before Yule to do that.

Now, I know you’re thinking that this is another case of me falling to another eating-related sin, but please take note: I am just imagining stealing the carrion, not eating it! 

And what would I want anyway with mangled, putrescent carcasses when some nice cheese, a few softly boiled eggs, a hunk of roast lamb and a flagon of mead is to be had – in my imagination, I mean?!


Oh, this is no good!  I have to get my thoughts away from food!  But what is a poor, fasting Anglo-Saxon monk to do?  There’s only one thing for it.  No more food-related sins.  Instead, I  must think about ... sex. 

The trouble is, will I be able to find a sexual sin in my scriftboc that attracts less than a year’s fasting?  Well, it would be most educational to find out ...


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11/12/2014

Christmas fasting, not feasting!

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Never mind those advent chocolates, or that mulled wine and German sausage at the Christmas market!  We good Anglo-Saxons are expected to fast before Christmas - forty days, I'll have you know!

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Feasting in the Bayeux Tapestry. Image from Wikipedia Commons.
Two weeks to go until Geol! That’s ‘Yule’ or Christmas to you, my blessed readers. (Old English Geol, by the way, is pronounced quite similarly to ‘Yule’, that is, with a soft ‘g’). 

Alas!  I’m failing miserably in my preparations.  You see, I’m supposed to be fasting the forty days before Christmas, so that I can concentrate on reading prayers for everyone. 

Well, I’m doing pretty well with the latter, well at least when I can keep my mind off food!  But having to stave off the hunger until nones (the ninth hour, or 3 p.m. in your world) is, I fear, just too much for me. 

And I’d promised so faithfully – vowed, in fact – that I would lose a few pundas (that’s ‘pounds’ to you, no funny kilo stuff in my world) before the inevitable onslaught of festivities and feasting. 

You understand my logic: I’m getting a bit porky around my middle so I need to anticipate my Christmas gluttony; lose the weight beforehand, in order that I won’t feel the need to confess in the New Year once I’ve piled on the fat.  I’m nothing if not imaginative. 

Now, I’ve been wondering all day if I should try to get back on track somehow.  Then I realised I needed a greater motivation for fasting, a stronger reason, something more than the fact that fasting gives me more time to pray for you all. 

So I’ve just been poring over my penitential (penance book) to see what sins would attract two weeks of fasting.  I’m not saying I’m going to commit the sins, I just want to imagine that I’ve committed them.  That way, then, I will feel more obligated than at present to complete the remainder of my fasting period.  You understand, I know you do.

So over the next few days I will let all my blessed readers know what I come up with: that is, what sin(s) = 14 days fasting.  I’m feeling better motivated already.  Here’s my first sin; well, looks like I’m going to have to imagine doing it twice:

‘If he vomits because of drunkenness or gluttony or illness, he is to fast 7 days or is to sing two psalters’.  (Scriftboc: translation by Allen J. Frantzen)

Seems straight forward enough.  The only caveat is that I mustn’t ‘throw up the host’ (that’s the holy bread at Mass), otherwise I get 40 days.  Well, I could never imagine doing that!



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9/12/2014

Textus Roffensis on BBC History Extra

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The Anglo-Saxon Monk writes a piece for the official website of the BBC History Magazine.  Click here.

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8/12/2014

When words are inadequate but words are all we have

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Yesterday evening I received a message via Twitter from a lovely fella who always reads and comments on my meagre musings.  He goes by the name of @Huscarl1066.  In his DM, he said he wasn’t ignoring my recent posts, but that he didn’t feel up to tweeting at the moment, for his gorgeous wife had just passed away.  What can one say?  Words sometimes seem so useless, don’t they?

Nevertheless, they're sometimes all we have.  So I hope that, here, some words of another husband may prove beneficial, perhaps of some comfort, sometime in the days to come for @Huscarl1066.  I know he loves the history of the Anglo-Saxon era, so here I leave him some words, like a message-bearer, from one of the period’s loveliest poems.

The Husband’s Message is a poem about an exiled man who has been separated from his beloved wife, his dearest friend.  Though he now is a wealthy man in the land to which he was exiled, none of his wealth compares to the desire he has to be reunited with his beloved.

The narrator of the poem is the husband’s message bearer, and so we hear the words he speaks to the wife.  I have adapted the translation by S. A. J. Bradley.

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The Winchester Psalter. David playing the harp. British Library, Royal 2A XXII (Winchester or St Albans, c.1200), folio 14v. Image: Public Domain
Look to the ocean, the domain of sea-men.
Take to the ship, go southward hence.
Meet the man beyond the ocean’s way.
Go where your lord is expecting you.


No worldly wish greater in his thoughts –
according to what he told me –
than that it be realized for him
that the all-wielding God
should grant that you two together
may distribute treasure, bossed circlets,
to men and to comrades.

He has plenty of burnished gold,           though his domain is held
within another country,
a lovely land of trusty heroes.

Though to there was my lord impelled by need.
He launched his ship upon the stirring waves,
journeyed alone upon the sea-road,
swirling round the ocean currents,
desperate for the onward way.

But now your man has prevailed above the feud
and has no need of desirable things.
Not of horses nor treasures
Nor the pleasures of mead
Nor the noble stores of wealth upon this earth.
           
O prince’s daughter, if he may possess but you

in accordance with that ancient vow
of the two of you.

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3/12/2014

Mercy for monks' bottoms

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Picture
1. Cartmel Priory, misericord showing, centrally, the 'Trinity face' (a crowned head set in foliage, with accompanying matching leaf motifs, left and right. Photo: © Christopher Monk 2014
I was born before I should’ve been! Where were the mercy seats in Anglo-Saxon England?  Not invented, I'll have you know! 

No, indeed, monks in England could not rest their weary legs and blessed behinds until late in the thirteenth century, though some of their European brothers had their mercy seats a century earlier.

Now I recently went to see some fifteenth-century (c.1440s) misericords up in England's Lake District.  Well, I didn't purposely set out to see them.  I don't have a misericord fetish, you know ... and certainly not one for monks' bottoms!  What are you thinking!

Anyhow, it just so happened that as I was visiting the rather splendid Cartmel Priory, I wandered into the choir stalls, the area of the church where Cartmel's Augustinian monks would have performed their liturgical services (before that nasty man Henry VIII had his wicked way with the monasteries). 

And there they were.
 I couldn't prevent a little outburst of envy.  What I would have given for a little ledge upon which to perch my buttocks whilst singing my eight daily services: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline!

And don't get me started on High Mass for the whole community, and all those special masses for all the  blessed benefactors.  There was a lot of standing around in those days.  But, I never grumbled. 

Now, if you want to know exactly what a misericord is, and how it functions, then take a look at my pictures.  

What you're actually looking at are hinged seats raised into the up position. This allowed the monks to stand and do their liturgical business, their prayers and singing.  When not performing, monks got to sit on the full seat in its down position. 

If you're struggling to imagine this (God help you), the mercy seats are a bit like those new-fangled cinema seats of the twentieth century, only misericords are finely balanced so that they can remain up and down as desired.  No dreadful swinging back up as soon as you stand up!

On the underside of each seat, you can see the small, protruding ledge which is supported by a console.  It was the consoles of misericords that received much attention by contemporary woodcarvers.

Typical of British mercy seats, the Cartmel ones have tripartite carving schemes: a large central carving accompanied by, to the left and right, two smaller carved motifs, known as supporters.

And what fascinating subject matter!  Though I have heard that in some medieval churches a monk wouldn't have known where to put his blessed gaze, what with, shall we say, some of the rather more earthier designs in these houses of the Lord.

I have been reliably informed that at St Mary's in Swine there is a 'Man lying prostrate, looking through his legs which are held up in the air'.  Well, that's one way of putting it.  Let's just say that's not the only thing this legs-a-kimbo fellow is getting up to. 

If you must see it (shame on you) click here. 

The designs at Cartmel Priory are generally a little more polite, even if not always obviously spiritual. 

I've included one here known locally as the 'Trinity Face', a crowned head with a triple face set in foliage (image 1).  It may signify the Holy Trinity, though it has also been suggested that it represents a member of the mythical Macrobii, one of the marvellous, or monstrous, races of the East.

Other mythical creatures find there way into the designs, including a griffin, a dragon with flapping wings (image 2), and a rather buxom, double-tailed mermaid (image 3).  I wonder who sat on that one?

There are plenty of depictions of real creatures, too, such as a deer being chased by dogs, feeding geese, an eagle in flight, and an elephant (paired, typically, with a castle). 

Some of the creatures may have had 
particular Christian symbolism attached to them, such as the peacock and the pelican, both of which in medieval art are associated with Christ himself.

Sometimes it's difficult to determine what exactly is being represented.  For example, is the figure in image 4 a mythical 'Green Man' with foliate facial outgrowth (the Green Man is usually seen as a Pagan symbol of rebirth), or is he just an ordinary chap with a rather dapper beard, like the fellow in image 5?

Some of the designs might be read as representing popular public opinion of the time, such as the one of an ape holding a urine bottle.  This may very well have served as a cynical comment about the medical profession, since the ape probably signified deceit, and the urine vessel was part of the medieval doctor's equipment.

Clearly, there is much to think about when looking at the carvings on misericords, much to contemplate in terms of cultural meaning. 

Are we, for example, in the case of the more profane themes (of which I've largely spared you) simply looking at examples of medieval bawdy humour?  Naughty carvers, or (God forbid) even naughtier monks and clerics?!
 
Or is there even in the profane something didactic, something spiritual, perhaps serving to emphasize, by means of contrast, the importance of devotion?

We should probably avoid thinking that everyone in the medieval congregation would have seen the carvings.  After all, they were designed for monks' and clerics' bottoms, and probably for only their eyes, since these blessed ones performed their duties separated off from the laity. 

And – as I'm sure you've deduced from 
your examination of my own pristine example – monks and the like were educated men of God whose contemplative focus was the uncovering of God's will in this world.  So, in other words, we monks have the capacity to see the spiritual in everything.

Now, did I tell you about the carving in Bristol Cathedral of the naked woman and the phallovitrobolus?  Well, I never! ...

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For an excellent study of English misericords, see Paul Hardwick's English Medieval Misericords: The Margins of Meaning, published by Boydell Press (2011).

You can purchase a copy of a booklet about the misericords at Cartmel Priory, written by Eric Rothwell, at the bookshop inside the priory. 

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Go on ... you know you want to!  The Anglo-Saxon Monk loves to hear your comments.  Just follow the link below.

'Misericords', from the Latin for mercy, or just plain 'mercy seats'.  Call them what you will, these carved wooden resting places for monks' bottoms were a godsend.  Shame they weren't around in my era ...





















Picture2. Cartmel Priory, misericord showing a flapping dragon. Photo: © Christopher Monk 2014




































Picture
3. Cartmel Priory, misericord showing double-tailed mermaid holding a comb and mirror (central); with leaf pattern (left) and dolphin (right). Photo: © Christopher Monk 2014









































Picture
4. Cartmel Priory, misericord showing a 'Green Man' in the central carving, along with leaf designs, left and right. Photo: © Christopher Monk 2014




Picture
5. Cartmel Priory, misericord showing head of bearded man (central), with leaf design (left) and lion mask (right). Photo: © Christopher Monk 2014

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    Welcome, blessed readers! This is the blog of the Medieval Monk, the alter ego of Dr Christopher Monk.

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