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reetings from Australia.
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St Dunstan, as the story goes, When I was with you, the closeness
of your love would give me great joy. In contrast, now that I am away
from you, the distress of your suffering fills me daily with deep
grief, when heathens desecrated God's sanctuaries, and poured the
blood of saints within the compass of the altar, destroyed the house
of our hope, trampled the bodies of saints in God's temple like animal
dung in the street … ... consider the splendour of your
churches, the beauty of your buildings, your way of life according to
the Rule… Let the boys be present with praises of the heavenly king,
and not be digging foxes out of holes or following the fleeting
courses of hares...he who does not learn when he is young, does not
teach when he is old. |
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In the morning, at the height of my powers, I
sowed the seed in Britain, now in the evening when my blood is growing
cold I am still sowing in France, hoping both will grow, by the grace of
God, giving some the honey of the holy scriptures, making others drunk on
the old wine of ancient learning ...
Alcuin, towards the end of his life
At peace in my tall-windowed Wiltshire room,
(Birds overheard from chill March twilight's close)
I read, translated, Alcuin's verse, in whom
A springtide of resurgent learning rose.
Homely and human, numb in feet and fingers,
Alcuin believed in angels; asked their aid;
And still the essence of that asking lingers
In the aureoled invocation which he made
For Charlemagne, his scholar. Alcuin, old,
Loved listening to the nest-near nightingale,
Forgetful of renown that must enfold
His world-known name; remembering pomps that fail.
Alcuin, from temporalities at rest,
Sought grace within him, given from afar;
Noting how sunsets worked around to west;
Watching, at spring's approach, that beckoning star;
And hearing, while one thrush sang through the rain,
Youth, which his soul in Paradise might regain.
Siegfried Sassoon, 'Awareness of Alcuin'
Vox Populi, Vox Dei
(The voice of the people is the voice of God.)
Alcuin
May the nineteenth, in year of the Lord 1248. We, William Alegnan and
Bernard Mute, of Cannet, have sold jointly in good faith and without guile
to you, John Aleman, son of Peter Aleman, a certain Saracen maid of ours,
commonly called Aissa, for a price of nine pounds and fifteen solidi in
the mixed money now current in Marseilles.
Bill of sale for the
purchase of a Saracen (Muslim) girl, Aissa, 1248 Source
Good Christian people, I am come hither to die,
for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die, and
therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no
man, nor to speak anything of that, whereof I am accused and condemned
to die, but I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over
you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never: and to me
he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord. And if any person will
meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And thus I take my
leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray
for me. O Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my soul.
Anne Boleyn's speech at her execution, May 19,
1536, 8 o'clock in the morning; recorded by Edward Hall
The dark day in North America was one of those
wonderful phenomena of nature which will always be read of with interest,
but which philosophy is at a loss to explain.
William Herschel (1738
- 1822),
German-born English astronomer, on the Darkness of 1780
... in the
beginning of March, the seventh night, or the fourteenth day, let [i.e. spill] the
blood of the right arm; and in the beginning of April, the 11th day, of
the left arm; and in the end of May, 3d or 5th day, on whether arm thou
wilt; and thus, of all the year, thou shalt orderly be kept from the
fever, the falling gout, the sister gout, and loss of thy sight.
Book of Knowledge b. 1, p 19,
quoted in Robert Chambers's
The
Book of Days:
A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, etc, 1881, p 42. (The third day of
the end of May was the 19th, as the beginning of a month of 31
days was reckoned to be the first 16 days.)
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
Abraham
Lincoln; in a speech on May
19, 1856
The executioner is, I believe, very expert; and my
neck is very slender.
Anne Boleyn's last words, before
her execution on May 19, 1536
Sing 'em muck.
Dame Nellie Melba, Australian opera diva, born on May 19, 1861;
on the public's tastes
The Dark Day, May 19, 1780 – so called on account of a remarkable darkness on that day extending over all New England ... The true cause of this phenomenon is not known.
Webster's Dictionary, 1869
We laid him down carefully
– and put his body in a dugout by the side of the track, and carried on
with our job. There was great gloom on Anzac that night when it became
known that Simpson had died. We finished our duty at 7 pm, and all that
was left of our section gathered around our old pal and carried him down
to Hell Spit, where we buried him.
Andy Davidson, Australian soldier in WWI; on the death of John Simpson
Kirkpatrick, 'the man with the donkey', Gallipoli, Turkey, May 19,
1915 Source
May
19
is
the 139th
day of the year in the Gregorian
Calendar (140th in leap years), with 226
days remaining.
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(Monk's hood, Aconitum napellus, is today's plant, dedicated to St Dunstan, whose feast day this is.)
Dunstan (909 ? - May 19, 988) was an Archbishop of Canterbury (961 - 980) who was later
canonized
as a saint.
He gained fame for the many stories told about his cunning in dealing with
the Devil.
He is the patron saint of goldsmiths, and himself worked as a
blacksmith, painter, and jeweller. His patronage also includes armourers, blacksmiths, blind people,
gold workers, jewellers, lighthouse keepers, locksmiths, musicians, silver workers, silversmiths and swordsmiths.
Dunstan was a highly
intelligent nobleman whose parents incited him to study hard, and he
acquired 'brain fever'. Though his friends gave him up for dead, in
his delirium he climbed into a locked church at night and the next day was
found asleep there, apparently miraculously cured.
Born in King
Arthur's 'isle' of Glastonbury (Avalon), England, he
became abbot there in 945, and
the abbey flourished under his administration, with a substantial extension of
the irrigation system on the surrounding Somerset Levels. At the court of King Athelstan (c.
895
- 939), he was a favourite with the ladies, who took his advice on
embroidery. Once, he was embroidering with Lady Ethelwyne, when his
unattended harp began playing by itself. Banished from the court for
witchcraft, he returned to Glastonbury and established the Benedictine
rule throughout English monasteries.
Following the accession of King Edwy of England, he became less influential
and went overseas to Flanders. Despite
this tenth-century saint's prestige as the initiator of Benedictine
rule, he was banished when he offended the sixteen-year-old King. Dunstan
heard the Devil laughing and told him to contain his joy as it wouldn't
last long.
According to one legend, the feud with Dunstan began
on the day of Edwy's consecration, when he failed to attend a meeting of
nobles. When Dunstan eventually found the young monarch, he was cavorting
with a noblewoman named Ethelgive and refused to return with the bishop.
Infuriated by this, Dunstan dragged Edwy back and forced him to renounce
the girl as a "strumpet." Later realizing that he had provoked
the king, Dunstan fled to the apparent sanctuary of his cloister, but Edwy,
incited by Ethelgive, followed him and plundered the monastery. Though
Dunstan managed to escape, he refused to return to England until after
Edwy's death.
On his return, in 957, he imported Benedictine
customs, becoming bishop of Worcester and London in 959. In 961, Edgar made St
Dunstan Archbishop of Canterbury, from which position he, rather than the
king, virtually ruled England. His innovations in Britain included the
standardising of measures and the establishment of regular justice
circuits.
Having crowned Edgar in 973, he performed the same service for his successor, Edward the Martyr, and later for Æthelred II (Ethelred the Unready). The service is still used as the basis for contemporary British coronations. He died in 988 and was canonized in 1029.
St Dunstan and the pegs
St Dunstan introduced
to England a practice to prevent fights among drinkers. He ordered that
ale tankards be fitted with pegs marking equal intervals, so that when
more than one drank from the same cup they would drink equal amounts.
Hence the expression "I am a peg too low".
St Dunstan's tongs
Dunstan was famed for his cunning in dealing with
Satan. In one celebrated incident, he used a red-hot pair of tongs to
pinch the nose of the Devil when he tried to tempt him in the form of a
girl. For many years the tongs were on display at Mayfield, England. From this tale, tongs have become
a symbol of St Dunstan and are featured in the arms of Tower
Hamlets.
Another story relates how Dunstan nailed a horseshoe
to the Devil's hoof when he was asked to reshoe the Devil's horse. The
Devil was only allowed to go once he had promised never to enter a place
where a horseshoe is over the door. This is claimed by some as the origin
of the lucky horseshoe.
English literature
contains many references to him; for example in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and in the folk rhyme quoted
above.
R
Chambers Book of Days, 1879 on St Dunstan
The True Legend of St Dunstan and the Devil, by Edward G Flight, ill. by George Cruikshank, 1871, at Project Gutenberg
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