of a certain tribute which they claimed as due to them, they fell upon Canterbury, and spoiled and burnt both the city and church: nine parts in ten of the people they put to the sword; and after seven months miserable imprisonment, stoned the good archbishop to death at Greenwich; who was thereupon canonized for a saint and martyr, and had the nineteenth of April allowed him as his festival. 23. Saint §. 4. St. George, the famous patron of the English nation, was born in Cappadocia, and suffered for the sake of his religion, A. D. 290, under the emperor Diocletian, (in whose army he had before been a colonel,) being supposed to have been the person that pulled down the edict against the Christians, which Diocletian had caused to be affixed upon the church doors.22 The legends relate several strange stories of him, which are so common, they need not here be related: I shall only give a short account how he came to be so much esteemed of in England. How he came to When Robert duke of Normandy, son to William the Conqueror, was prosecuting his victories be patron of the against the Turks, and laying siege to the famous English. city of Antioch, which was like to be relieved by a mighty army of the Saracens ; St. George appeared with an innumerable army coming down from the hills all in white, with a red cross in his banner, to reinforce the Christians; which occasioned the infidel army to fly, and the Christians to possess themselves of the town. This story made St. George extraordinary famous in those times, and to be esteemed a patron, not only of the English, but of Christianity itself. Not but that St. George was a considerable saint before this, having had a church dedicated to him by Justinian the emperor. May 3. Inven cross. SECT. V. Of the Romish Saints-days and Holy-days in May. THE third of this month is celebrated as a festival by the Church of Rome, in memory of the tion of the Invention of the Cross, which is said to be owing to this occasion. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, being admonished in a dream to search for the cross of Christ at Jerusalem, took a journey thither with that intent and having employed labourers to dig at Golgotha, after opening the ground very deep, (for vast heaps of rubbish had 22 See Lactantius de Mortibus Persecutorum. purposely been thrown there by the spiteful Jews or hea thens,) she found three crosses, which she presently concluded were the crosses of our Saviour and the two thieves who were crucified with him. But being at a loss to know which was the cross of Christ, she ordered them all three to be applied to a dead person. Two of them, the story says, had no effect; but the third raised the carcass to life, which was an evident sign to Helena, that that was the cross she looked for. As soon as this was known, every one was for getting a piece of the cross; insomuch that in Paulinus's time (who being a scholar of St. Ambrose, and bishop of Nola, flourished about the year 420) there was much more of the relics of the cross, than there was of the original wood. Whereupon that father says, "it was miraculously increased; it very kindly afforded wood to men's importunate desires, without any loss of its substance." 6. St. John Evang. ante §. 2. The sixth of this month was anciently dedicated to the memory of St. John the evangelist's miraculous deliverance from the persecution of Domitian: to whom being accused as an eminent asserter of atheism and impiety, and a public subverter of the religion of the empire, he was sent for to Rome, where he was treated with all the cruelty that could be expected from so bloody and barbarous a prince; for he was immediately put into a caldron of boiling oil, or rather oil set on fire, before the gate called Porta Latina, in the presence of the senate. But his Master and Lord, who favoured him when on earth above all the Apostles, so succoured him here, that he felt no harm from the most violent rage; but, as if he had been only anointed, like the athlete of old, he came out more vigorous and active than before: the same divine Providence that secured the three children in the fiery furnace, bringing the holy man safe out of this, one would think, inevitable destruction; and so vouchsafing him the honour of martyrdom, without his enduring the torments of it. 19. Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury. §. 3. Dunstan, of whom we are next to speak, was well extracted, being related to king Athelstan. He was very well skilled in most of the liberal arts, and among the rest in refining metals and forging them; which being qualifications much above the genius of the age he lived in, first gained him the name of a conjurer, and then of a saint. He was certainly a very honest man, and never feared to reprove vice in any of the kings of the West Saxons, of whom he was confessor to four successively. But the monks (to whom he was a very great friend, applying all his endeavours to enrich them and their monasteries) have filled his life with several nonsensical stories: such as are, his making himself a cell at Glastenburg all of iron at his own forge; his harp playing of itself, without a hand; his taking a she-devil, who tempted him to lewdness under the shape of a fine lady, by the nose with a pair of red-hot tongs; and several other such ridiculous relations not worth repeating. He was promoted by king Edgar, first to the bishopric of Worcester, soon after to London, and two years after that to Canterbury; where, having sat twenty-seven years, he died May 19, A. D. 988. §. 4. Augustin was the person we have al- 26. Augustin, ready mentioned, as sent by pope Gregory the first archbishop Great to convert the Saxons, from whence he of Canterbury. got the name of the apostle of the English. Whilst he was over here, he was made archbishop of Canterbury, A. D. 596. He had a contest with the monks of Bangor, about submission to the see of Rome, who refused any subjection but to God, and the bishop of Caerleon. Soon after this difference, Ethelfride, a pagan king of Northumberland, invaded Wales, and slaughtered a hundred and fifty of these monks, who came in a quiet manner to mediate a peace: which massacre is by some writers (but without just grounds) imputed to the instigation of Austin, in revenge for their opposition to him. After he had sat some time in the see of Canterbury, he deceased the twenty-sixth of May, about the year 610. 27. Venerable Bede. §. 5. Bede was born at Yarrow, in Northumberland, A. D. 673, and afterwards well educated in Greek and Latin studies, in which he made a proficiency beyond most of his age. He is author of several learned philosophical and mathematical tracts, as also of comments upon the Scripture: but his most valuable piece is his Ecclesiastical History of the Saxons. Being a monk, he studied in his cell; where spending more hours, and to better purpose, than the monks were wont to do, a report was raised that he never went out of it. However, he would not leave it for preferment at Rome, which the pope had often invited him to. How he got the name of Venerable. His learning and piety gained him the surname of Venerable. Though the common story which goes about that title's being given him, is this: his scholars having a mind to fix a rhyming title upon his tombstone, as was the custom in those times, the poet wrote, Placing the word ossa at the latter end of the verse for the rhyme, but not being able to think of any proper epithet that would stand before it. The monk being tired in this perplexity to no purpose, fell asleep; but when he awaked, he found his verse filled up by an angelic hand, standing thus in fair letters upon the tomb: HAC SUNT IN FOSSA, BEDE VENERABILIS OSSA. SECT. VI. Of the Romish Saints-days and Holy-days in June. Nicomede was scholar to St. Peter, and was June 1. Nico priest and mede, a Roman discovered to be a Christian by his honourably burying one Felicula, a martyr. He was beat to death with leaden plummets for the sake of his religion, in the reign of Domitian. martyr. 5. Boniface, bishop of Ments, and martyr. §. 2. Boniface was a Saxon presbyter, born in England, and at first called Winfrid. He was sent a missionary by Pope Gregory II. into Germany, where he converted several countries, and from thence got the name of the apostle of Germany. He was made bishop of Ments in the year 745. He was one of the most considerable men of his time, (most ecclesiastical matters going through his hands, as appears by his letters,) and was also a great friend and admirer of Bede. Carrying on his conversions in Frisia, he was killed by the barbarous people near Utrecht, A. D. 755. martyr. §. 3. St. Alban was the first Christian martyr 17. St. Alban, in this island, about the middle of the third century. He was converted to Christianity by one Amphialus, a priest of Caerleon in Wales, who, flying from persecution into England, was hospitably entertained by St. Alban at Verulam, in Hertfordshire, now called from him St. Albans. When, by reason of a strict search made for Amphialus, St. Alban could entertain him safe no longer, he dressed him in his own clothes, and by that means gained him an opportunity of escaping. But this being soon found out, exposed St. Alban to the fury of the pagans; who summoning him to do sacrifice to their gods, and he refusing, they first miserably tormented him, and then put him to death. The monks have fathered several miracles upon him, which it is not worth while here to relate. Saxons. §. 4. Edward king of the West Saxons being 20. Translation barbarously murdered by his mother-in-law, was of Edward, king first buried at Warham without any solemnity; of the West but after three years was carried by duke Alferus to the minister of Shaftesbury, and there interred with great pomp. To the memory of which the twentieth of June has been since dedicated. SECT. VII. Of the Romish Saints-days and Holy-days in July. ABOUT the year 1338 there was a terrible July 2. Visita schism in the Church of Rome between two tion of the blessanti-popes, Urban VI. and Clement VII., the ed Virgin Mary. first chosen by the Italian, the other by the French faction among the cardinals. Upon this several great disorders happened. To avert which for the future, pope Urban instituted a feast to the memory of that famous journey, which the mother of our Lord took into the mountains of Judæa, to visit the mother of St. John the Baptist; that by this means the intercession of the blessed Virgin might be obtained for the removal of those evils. The same festival was confirmed by the decree of Boniface IX., though it was not universally observed until the Council of Basil: by decree of which Council in their forty-third session, upon July 1, 1441, it was ordered that this holy-day, called the Visitation of the blessed Virgin Mary, should be celebrated in all Christian churches, that "she being honoured with this solemnity, might reconcile her Son by her intercession, who is now angry for the sins of men; and that she might grant peace and unity among the faithful." §. 2. St. Martin was born in Pannonia, and 4. Translation for some time lived the life of a soldier, but at of St. Martin, last took orders, and was made bishop of Tours bishop and conin France. He was very diligent in breaking F fessor. |