Storytime: Why there are no Welshmen in heaven

As it is St David’s day tomorrow, I thought I’d mark the occasion with a medieval Welsh ‘joke’. Thus proving that they have been picked on for a veeeeeeeeeeery long time:

“I find written among old stories how God made Saint Peter port of Heaven, and how God, in his goodness soon after his suffering on the cross allowed many men to come to the kingdom of heaven who very little deserved it. So at this time there were in heaven a lot of Welshmen, who troubled all the rest with their boasting and chatter. So God said to Saint Peter that he was fed up with them, and that he’d be very glad to have them out of heaven. Saint Peter replied to him, 

“Good lord, I guarantee that it will be done in no time.” So Saint Peter went outside the gates of heaven and shouted in a loud voice,

“Cause bobe!” which is as much as to say, “Roasted cheese.” 

When they heard this the Welshmen ran out of heaven at great speed. And when Saint Peter saw that they were all outside, he quickly went in to Heaven and locked the door, and so he barred all the Welshmen out.

By this you can see that there is no sense in a man loving or setting his mind too much upon any dainty or worldly pleasure whereby he may lose heavenly or eternal joy.”

Notes

1 of 8 stories about the Welsh in the 1526, “The Hundred Mery Talys”, printed in Medieval Comic Tales, ed. D. Brewer (Cambridge, Boydell & Brewer Press: 1973)

Shrove Tuesday

Well, it's not really shrove Tuesday any more, but I wanted to write about it anyway so here's your dose of trivia, four days late.

Shrovetide, or Shrove Tuesday, is a feast celebrated across Europe and called “Carnival” in Southern regions from the latin “carne levare” (taking away of flesh) which heralded the beginning of the Lenten fast. The importance of this day in the relgious calendar is emphasised c. 1000 by Abbot Aelfric’s  who in his Ecclesiastical Institutes states that:

"In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do [in the way of penance]".

   

It was a very important religious day then, so where do the pancakes come in? Well, traditionally making pancakes enables you to use up your remaining eggs and fat, freeing your kitchen from their temptation during lent. Pancakes were not the only tradition however, and plays, football games and general festivities accompanied the day. 

The tradition of games continues to the present day with annual pancake races taking place across the country which are said to have originated in 1445 in the village of Olney. A woman, according to legend, was making pancakes that morning and running late ran out of the house still clutching the frying pan upon hearing the church bells. How you go about providing evidence for this custom is beyond me so I present it to you as a charming myth that may, or may not, have any truth to it.

On the subject of plays, these have largely fallen out of modern practice but were alive and well in the sixteenth century and Shakespeare’s “As you like it” was performed at Richmond on the 20^th February 1599. The play was accompanied by the Elizabethan version of pancakes (which were stuffed with meat), and the following quote from the play has been argued to have been either an improvisation by the actor, or a nod to the occasion by the playwright.

“Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they were good pancakes and swore by his honour themustard was naught: now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.” 

-  Touchstone, As you like it, Act I, scene i

Notes

BL Harley 3448 f. 2v Two men eating
BL Royal 10 E IV f. 94v Men playing a game
BL Yates Thompson 31 f. 167v A priest absolving a penitent sinne

Dusinberre, J. Pancakes and a Date for "As You like It" in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Winter, 2003), pp. 371-405

Nilles, Calendarium Manuale Utriusque Ecclessiae, II (Innsbruck, 1897) pp/ 55-70

Olney pankcake race:

http://olneypancakerace.org/

Thurston, H. (1912).“Shrovetide” in The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved February 17, 2015 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13763a.htm

St Valentine's day

A little bit on the origins of Valentine's day this week.

The romantic elements of Valentine's Day appear to have begun in the medieval England and France and the chosen date of the 14th of February is impart due to the changing seasons and belief that birds began pairing up for mating on this date.

 For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

 

- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parlement of Foules, lines 309-310

 
Literature and traditions of the time followed suit and Valentines gradually accrued a catalogue of poems, letters, and tokens of affection exchanged on this day. One of the oldest of these Valentine's day letters was written by Margery Brews to her fiance John Paston in 1477:

Unto my right well-beloved Valentine John Paston, squire, be this bill delivered.

Right reverent and worshipful and my right well-beloved valentine, I recommend me unto you full heartedly, desiring to hear of your welfare, which I beseech Almighty God long for to preserve unto his pleasure and your hearts desire. And if it pleases you to hear of my welfare, I am not in good health of body nor of heart, nor shall I be till I hear from you. For there knows no creature what pain that I endure, And even on the pain of death I would reveal no more. And my lady my mother hath laboured the matter to my father full diligently, but she can no more get than you already know of, for which God knoweth I am full sorry. But if you love me, as I trust verily that you do, you will not leave me therefore. For even if you had not half the livelihood that you have, for to do the greatest labour that any woman alive might, I would not forsake you. And if you command me to keep me true wherever I go, indeed I will do all my might you to love and never anyone else. And if my friends say that I do amiss, they shall not stop me from doing so. My heart me bids evermore to love you truly over all earthly things. And if they be never so angry, I trust it shall be better in time coming. No more to you at this time, but the Holy Trinity have you in keeping. And I beseech you that this bill be not seen by any non earthly creature save only yourself. And this letter was written at Topcroft with full heavy heart.

Be your own Margery Brews.

Of the actual St Valentine, details are a little sketchy (as there are several individuals) but the primary martyr appears to have been martyred in Rome in the 3rd century and he, or the others bearing his name, became associated with the 14th February.

Finishing with something practical (or not) those of you wishing to entrap the object of your desires may wish to go and find a wolf:

 "Soliunus, who tells us much about the nature of things, says that there is a little patch of hair on its tail which is a love-charm: if the wolf is afraid that it will be caught, it tears it off with its teeth of its own accord. The hair has no effect if it is not taken from the wolf while it is still alive"

Notes 
Bestiary Image: Aberdeen University Library MS 24, f. 16v
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/translat/16v.hti

Bestiary text:
Bestiary, being an English Version of the Bodleian Libary, Oxford, MS Bodley 764, ed. R. Barber (Woodbridge, Boydell Press: 1992) p. 70

Miniature of Queen Guinevere questioning Lancelot about his love for her:
BL, MS Additional 10293 f. 199




Parlement of Foules:
http://www.bartleby.com/258/58.html

Paston letter:
http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126579.html


"St. Valentine." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15254a.htm

Sainthood - St Thecla

St Thecla was a well known saint as early as the second century AD.

Described as a companion of St Paul, she chose a life devoted to virginity and refused to marry. This led her to be twice condemned to execution for her beliefs (she failed to obligingly die twice) yet despite her lack of death, she is often cited as the first female martyr.

In her story, upon being condemned to death (for the second time) in the arena by the Romans, she baptises herself (according Bartlett) by "throwing herself into a tank full of savage seals".

Bartlett does however suggest that these seals may actually have been sharks, but I personally prefer the idea of savage seals.

As well as his unusual baptism, she cross-dresses, preaches as an apostle,  and according to a fifth century version of her life, she finally "dies" by sinking into the ground alive.

On the topic of seals, the Aberdeen bestiary has this to say:

"Other fish produce living offspring from their bodies, like the great whales, dolphins, seals and others of this sort; when they have produced their young and have, perhaps, a premonition that these are ever threatened by some kind of trap or in danger, in order to protect them or to calm with a mother's love the fear of those of tender years, they are said to open their mouths and hold their young, without harming them, in their teeth, and also to take them back into their body, concealed in their womb.

What human affection can equal the sense of duty that we find in fish? For us, kisses suffice. For them, it is not enough to open the innermost parts of their body, to swallow their young then bring them back whole, to give their offspring life once again with their own warmth, to breathe into their young their own breath, and to live as two in one body until either they have carried them off to safety or by interposing their own bodies, have protected their young from the threatened danger.

Which fisherman seeing this, even if he were still able to catch the fish, would not give in to such a display of duty? Who would not marvel and stand amazed that nature has preserved in fish a quality that is not found in men?

Many men, acting out of mistrust, driven by malevolence and hatred, have killed their children; we have read of others, women, who have eaten their own children in times of famine. The mother thus becomes a tomb for her infants. To the spawn of the fish, however, the mother's womb is like a wall; she preserves her harmless brood by turning her innermost parts into a sort of fortress."

Notes


Bartlett, R., Why can the Dead do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013) p. 25

Catholic Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14564a.htm

"Roundel with Thecla Surrounded by Beasts and Angels"
https://inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/DetailsPage.aspx?Feminae_ID=30983

"Sea pig"
MS Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 61r

"Seals", Aberdeen bestiary
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/translat/74r.hti