#st Frideswide

[maypoleman1]

19th October

St Frideswide’s Day

Source: cornwalllive.com

Today is St Frideswide’s Day. Frideswide was another early English saint who, despite being chaste and energetically pursued by a lustful King AElfgar of Mercia, took pity on her unwanted suitor when the king later lost his sight as a divine punishment. Frideswide prayed to St Margaret for AElfgar’s sight to be restored, which it duly was. Frideswide’s grave and shrine can be seen at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford.

On this day in 1645, a wedding party was being ferried across Lake Windermere in Cumbria from the Nab to the Ferry Inn. The boat capsized and everyone drowned after which ghostly cries for help could be heard regularly across the Nab. Although the ferrymen eventually started ignoring the calls, they became so loud and insistent that an exorcism was performed that forbade the ghosts from ever again calling out in distress until ‘men can walk over Windermere without wetting their socks; until horses can walk through stone walls; and for as long as ivy remains green.’ The spectral voices have remained silent ever since.

[lawrenceop]

Homily for the feast of St Frideswide

A few years ago there was a wonderful exhibition in the British Library called ‘Anglo Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War’. However this somewhat bland title masked the fact that the exhibition was really about the light that the Christian Faith and Christian culture brought to these lands during a time that is still referred to as ‘the Dark Ages’. For the Art that was featured came from illuminated Gospel books and psalters and were depictions of Christ, the angels, and Saints; the Word that was preserved was written by Christian monks and scribes, whose fine uncial script copied the words of Scripture, and the Rule of St Benedict, and the thought of Beothius, and the lives of the Saints, including of course, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People written by St Bede in the 8th-century. All this was written in Latin, the language of the Western Church and of Roman civilisation, and the ancient rite of Mass we celebrate today connects us to our common heritage. 

And the War referred to in the title of this exhibition involved Christian kings and their realms struggling against pagan ideas and the pushback of pagan powers – the war for Christian civilisation in other words, which we in our generation are called to take up, for the Gospel has to be heard anew in every generation, and the light must shine through our lives and our example in order to keep the darkness at bay. Here in Oxford, which has St Frideswide for its patron saint, and in its venerable University, whose motto declares the Lord to be our light, we must strive to live up to that motto and to the example of St Frideswide.

For the saint we celebrate in today’s Mass comes from that ancient pre-Norman Christian world, and she is numbered among those Anglo-Saxon saints whom we do well to recall because they remind us that the Catholic Faith, founded on the faith of St Peter and linked to Rome, is truly the “faith of our fathers”. It is for this ancient and true Faith that the Oxford Martyrs shed their blood, after all. Our procession this afternoon to the site of Blessed George Napier’s martyrdom serves to bear witness to this, and to honour their sacrifice. Indeed, the Oxford Martyrs died defending the Catholic Faith which had been brought to this island by missionaries sent by Pope St Gregory the Great himself. In 597, St Augustine had come to England and the succeeding centuries had witnessed the establishment and flourishing of Christian civilisation in these lands. So from the beginning this Christian culture in Britain had, as the exhibition catalogue observed, “an umbilical link between England and Rome that persisted until the Reformation.”   

St Frideswide is very much a part of that first flourishing of the Faith in Anglo-Saxon England. She was a princess of Wessex in the kingdom of Mercia, and her name is probably pronounced Frithuswith (rather than Frideswide), and she was born c.650. Like quite few other royal women of her age, she became abbess of a monastery she had founded with her parents’ help in Oxford, on the site that is now called Christ Church Cathedral. This suggests to me the close links between the Church and the political rulers of the time. But after the death of her parents, King Aethelbald of Mercia sought to marry her, disregarding her vow of celbacy. When she refused, he tried to abduct her so she fled to Bampton and then to Binsey. Aethelbald is thwarted when he is struck blind by God so he gives up. But a well springs up in Binsey, and people go to Frithuswith for prayers and healing, and she later returns to Oxford to her monastery where she was buried after her death on this day in 727. Later on, in the 1440s, some 200 years after the Dominicans first arrived in Oxford, St Frideswide is declared patron saint of Oxford, and the friars in Oxford back then would have celebrated the first solemn feast days of St Frideswide in the rite that is being used here today. 

St Frideswide’s relics are still somewhere in Christ Church Cathedral but they had been scattered after the Reformation and so they’re not possible to locate, but we do well to visit the location of her medieval shrine, and to seek her intercession as countless other Catholics have done before us.

For we have much need of the help and example of the saints to inspire us and to fortify us as we seek to build the kingdom of God in our times and in these lands. And so we too need now to take up the weapons of our spiritual War and contend with the powers who seek to pursue us and silence us. Thus we need to pray and to fast and to struggle against the political powers who want to ban us from even praying silently. We need also to proclaim the Word faithfully and confidently, to seek Truth in places like the University, and in this Dominican House of Studies, Blackfriars, and to joyfully preach the Word and prudently refute error. And finally we also need in our time to pay attention to Art, that is to say, to Beauty which draws souls to Christ – beauty in the Liturgy, beauty in the sacred arts, and above all, beauty in lives of holiness and Christian friendship. 

It seems to me that one beautiful gift from Our Lady sums up war, word, and art and this is the Holy Rosary. Pray it daily, as Our Lady begs us to do, and know that it is the most powerful weapon for banishing the darkness. These are dark ages, indeed, but the light of our one true Faith shines brightly whenever the Rosary is prayed. So, in the words of  one of Oxford’s most well-known residents, J.R.R. Tolkien, “May [this] be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out”.

[anastpaul]

Saint of the Day – 19 October – Saint Frideswide (c665-c735) Virgin, Abbess, Founder of the St Mary’s Convent, Miracle-worker The Convent is now Christ Church College, University of Oxford and the Convent Church became Oxford Cathedral. Born in c665 in the upper Thames region of England and died on 19 October 735 of natural causes at her little hermitage at Binsey. Patronage – of the City of Oxford, England and of the University of Oxford. Also known as – Fredeswida, Fredeswinda, Frévisse, Friday, Frideswida, Frideswith, Friðuswiþ, Fris, Fritheswithe, Frithuswith, Fridesvida. The Roman Martyrology reads today: “At Oxford, in England, St Frideswide, Virgin.”

(via Saint of the Day – 19 October – Saint Frideswide (c665-c735) Virgin – AnaStpaul)

[silvestromedia]

SAINTS OCTOBER 19

St. Laura, Roman Catholic and Martyr. She was martyred by Muslims who took her captive and scalded her to death by placing her in a vat of boiling lead. She is one of the Martyrs of Córdoba. Feast Day Oct. 19.

St. Theofrid, Roman Catholic Priest and Martyr. He was killed by Muslim raiders who had crossed into southern France. Feastday October 19

St. Philip Howard, 1595 A.D. One of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Philip was the earl of Arundel and Surrey and, although a Catholic, led a religiously apathetic life until his personal conversion, after which he was a zealous Catholic in the midst of Elizabethan England. Arrested by authorities, he was placed in the Tower of London in 1585 and condemned to death in 1589. The sentence was never carried out, and Philip languished in the Tower until his death at the age of thirty eight. Beatified in 1929, he was included among the English martyrs canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI.

STS. JOHN DE BRÉBEUF AND ISAAC JOGUES, PRIESTS AND COMPANIONS, JESUITS, https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/10/19/sts--john-de-brebeuf-and-isaac-jogues--priests-and-companions--j.html

St. Eadnot, 1016 A.D. Bishop of Dorchester, England, who was a champion of St. Oswald of York. He is listed as a martyr in some records, having been slain in an invasion by the Danes.

St. Frideswide, 735 A.D. Benedictine hermitess and nun, the daughter of Prince Didan of the Upper Thames region of England. She is sometimes called Fredeswinda. When Prince Algar of a neighboring kingdom asked for her hand in marriage, Frideswide fled to Thomwry Wood in Birnsey, where she became a hermitess. She founded the St. Mary’s Convent in Oxford and is patroness of the University of that City. Her relics are extant. In liturgical art she is depicted as Benedictine, sometimes with an ox for companion.

Bl. Agnes de Jesus Galand, Roman Catholic Dominican Nun.

ST. PAUL OF THE CROSS, PRIEST, FOUNDER OF THE PASSIONISTS

CANADIAN MARTYRS -

[religious-extremist]

Yesterday (September 27) was the commemoration of St. Sigebehrt, King of East Anglia, who established the nucleus of Cambridge University sometime in the 7th century (mid-600s), which was a monastic school at its core and later on became the university that it is today.

On the 19th of October, St. Frideswide (or St. Frithuswith) is commemorated. She’s a nun from the 7th century, daughter of King Didan of Eynsham, and she established the monastery which later on became Oxford University.

Why don’t more people talk about the origins of these great institutions? To deny these facts is erasure of the Christian heritage of modern society. It is thanks to the Christian faith that humanity has advanced this far.

"The human being is an animal who has received the vocation to become God."

+ St. Basil of Caesarea

[traveltash]

St Frideswide

While visiting the cathedral, I noticed this stone of rememberance. My friend talked about Frideswide with such familiarity as though everyone knew who Frideswide was. I didn’t even know what gender Fideswide was! Having also encountered St Frideswide church near Osney Island in Oxford, I decided it was high time I did some research. I quickly learned she was a (single!) woman who had run away…

[artist-edward-burne-jones]

The Legend of St. Frideswide, 1859, Edward Burne-Jones

Medium: oil

[bluesman56]

Christ Church by Tony Via Flickr: Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford is unique in combining a college chapel and a cathedral in one foundation. Originally the Priory of St Frideswide, the building was extended and incorporated into the structure of the Cardinal's College shortly before its refounding as Christ Church in 1546, since when it has functioned as the cathedral of the Diocese of Oxford. The Oxford Martyrs were tried for heresy in 1555 and subsequently burnt at the stake, on what is now Broad Street, for their religious beliefs and teachings. The three martyrs were the bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, and the archbishop Thomas Cranmer. The Martyrs' Memorial stands nearby, round the corner to the north on St Giles'.

[birdsthatsingaftermidnight]

Monarch #7

Who: Æthelred II (Old English: Æþelræd) Also Known As:  Æthelred the Unready (his epithet does not derive from the modern word "unready", but rather from the Old English unræd meaning "poorly advised"; it is a pun on his name, which means "well-advised") Where: England Succeeded: His brother, Edward Reigned: 978-1013 and again from 1014-1016 Born: c.966 Died: 23rd April, 1016 (aged around 50), London Buried: Old St Paul’s Cathedral, London (lost) Consorts/Children: First married Ælfgifu of York, sometime in the mid-980s, and she was definitely dead by 1002.  With Æthelred she had at least nine children, possibly ten.  Second, he married Emma of Normandy in 1002, with whom he had three children.

Æthelred Facts! Æthelred’s (combined) reign of 37 years was the longest of any Anglo-Saxon king of England, and was only surpassed in the 13th century by Henry III.  

He came to the throne aged 12, after his mother may or may not have had his older half-brother, Edward, murdered.  It’s pretty much accepted that he was far too young to have been involved.  

This is the moment that the Danish started being seriously problematic.  After decades of more-or-less peace, the Danish raids restarted in 980 and how.  After the Battle of Maldon in 991,  Æthelred paid tribute to the Danish king called Danegeld, intended to bribe him into going the heck away.  

This didn’t work.  So, in 1002, Æthelred ordered the massacre of Danish settlers in what became known as the St Brice’s Day massacre.   Supposed amongst the killed is Gunhilde, the sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, the King of Denmark.   Æthelred justified the massacre in a royal charter of 1004, explaining the need to rebuild Saint Frideswide’s church[1].

Gunhilde may or may not have died then, but it was given as a justification of Sweyn’s invasion of England in 1013 (maybe it took nine years for him to build up both an army and a really good snit over it).   Æthelred ran away to Normandy, and Sweyn Forkbeard ruled for a few months before dying.   Æthelred then came back and ruled until he died, two years later. 

Æthelred has been credited with the formation of a local investigative body made up of twelve thegns who were charged with publishing the names of any notorious or wicked men in their respective districts. Because the members of these bodies were under solemn oath to act in accordance with the law and their own good consciences, they have been seen by some legal historians as the prototype for the English grand jury. Æthelred makes provision for such a body in a law code he enacted at Wantage in 997, which states:

that there shall be an assembly in every wapentake,[n 4] and in that assembly shall go forth the twelve eldest thegns and the reeve along with them, and let them swear on holy relics, which shall be placed in their hands, that they will never knowingly accuse an innocent man nor conceal a guilty man. And thereafter let them seize those notorious [lit. "charge-laden"] men, who have business with the reeve, and let each of them give a security of 6 half-marks, half of which shall go to the lord of that district, and half to the wapentake.[3]

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is incredibly critical of Æthelred, but was written in retrospect and could be seen as to be judging his policies and actions with the foregone conclusion that he was always doomed to lose to the Danish.  There have been some arguments in favour of Æthelred made, and indeed recent assessments have cautiously come down in favour of him.   "Æthelred's misfortune as a ruler was owed not so much to any supposed defects of his imagined character, as to a combination of circumstances which anyone would have found difficult to control.”[4]

Ælfgifu of York Facts! We think she was born in the 970s and died before 1002, when Æthelred remarried.   She might have been the daughter of Thored, the Earl of southern Northumbria.   The problem here is that what we know of her comes from sources written in the 1080s and afterwards.  The first (from Sulcard of Winchester) describes her as being “of very noble English stock” but declines to name her.  William of Malmesbury, writing in the 12th century has nothing to say of her at all, whilst in the 1150s, Ailred of Rievaulx notes her as the daughter of Thored and mother of Edmund, but again does not name her.  Even though he was writing so late, he was the seneschal at the court of the Scottish king David I, whose mother Margerat was the great-granddaugther of Ælfgifu and his information may have come to him through genuine sources.   And that is pretty much all we know about her, apart from the names of her children.  Even her date of birth and the date of her marriage is supposed based on what we know about her sons.  Of her daughters we have very little information, even some of their names are vague, and there is one who is posited, unnamed, and cannot be confirmed. 

Æthelstan Ætheling (died 1014)

Ecgberht Ætheling (died c. 1005)[40]

Edmund Ironside (King of England, died 1016)

Eadred Ætheling (died before 1013)

Eadwig Ætheling (executed by Cnut 1017)

Edgar Ætheling (died c. 1008)

Eadgyth or Edith (married Eadric Streona) v

Wulfhild? (married Ulfcytel Snillingr)

Abbess of Wherwell Abbey?

Emma of Normandy Facts! As queen of England, Emma wasn’t allowed to be called Emma.  She was Ælfgifu in official royal documents. 

She was the daughter of Duke Richard I of Normandy and his wife, Gunnor (also called Gunnora).  

Her first marriage, to Ælthelred, was made in order to keep relations between Normandy and England cordial.  Things had been going downhill after Richard II of Normandy, Emma’s brother, welcomed Danish Vikings to the dukedom and gave them sanctuary, violating a treaty between Æthelred and Richard I, wherein the duke had sworn not to aid the enemies of England after he too had been giving the Danes assistance.  

During the Danish invasion by Sweyn Forkbeard, Emma and her children were sent to Normandy, where Æthelred soon followed, but they all came back after Sweyn died.   

Little is written of Emma during this time but she’s going to come up again later, because she didn’t stay a dowager queen for too much longer.  She married Cnut in 1017.

She had three children with Æthelred:

Edward the Confessor c. 1003 – 5 January 1066

Goda of England c.1004 – c.1049

Alfred the Noble c. 1005–1036

[1] "For it is fully agreed that to all dwelling in this country it will be well known that, since a decree was sent out by me with the counsel of my leading men and magnates, to the effect that all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination, and thus this decree was to be put into effect even as far as death, those Danes who dwelt in the afore-mentioned town, striving to escape death, entered this sanctuary of Christ, having broken by force the doors and bolts, and resolved to make refuge and defence for themselves therein against the people of the town and the suburbs; but when all the people in pursuit strove, forced by necessity, to drive them out, and could not, they set fire to the planks and burnt, as it seems, this church with its ornaments and its books. Afterwards, with God's aid, it was renewed by me." 

[2]Wormald, Patrick (1978), "Aethelred the lawmaker", in David Hill (ed.), Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, British Archaeological Reports - British Series 59, pp. 47–80

[3]Liebermann, Felix (1903). Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen: in der Ursprache mit Uebersetzung und Erläuterungen. Volume 1. Halle a.S.: Max Niemeyer.

[4]Keynes, Simon (1986). "A Tale of Two Kings: Alfred the Great and Æthelred the Unready". Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. Fifth Series 36. 36: 195–217

[bluebellravenbooks]

Next in Literary Locations: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, an Oxford mathematician better known under his pen name Lewis Carroll.

Carroll spent most of his life in the Christ Church College of Oxford, first as a student, then as a lecturer in mathematics, and later in various roles including even the Sub-Librarian of the Christ Church Library.

Christ Church is famous for its - no, not exactly a church, most Oxford colleges have their own Chapels; Christ Church chapel is famous because it is, at the same time, a Cathedral. It stands on what is believed to be the historic site of the nunnery founded by St Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford.

You may recognise the staircase on the first picture from a certain well-known film about a certain young wizard...

Christ Church: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Pictures by @bluebellraven

- Christ Church College, Oxford

[thebritishmonarchycouk]

On This Day In History . 9/10 November 1518 . Katharine of Aragon gave birth to a daughter . ◼ In February 1518, Katharine had announced her sixth pregnancy. In March, she visited Merton College, Oxford and also made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Frideswide, asking for a healthy son. . ◼ On 10 November 1518 she gave birth to a daughter, but the child was weak & lived either only a few hours or at most a week. . 👑 Katharine was pregnant six times altogether over a period of nine years. . ◼ On 31 January 1510 she gave birth prematurely to a stillborn girl. . ◼ In May 1510, four months after the loss of her first child, Katharine announced her second pregnancy. A son, Henry, Duke of Cornwall, was born on 1 January 1511. In his honour, guns were fired from the Tower of London & the city bells were rung, beacons were lit & free wine was distributed to all the population. On 22 February 1511, after only 52 days of life, the young prince died suddenly. It was said that he died of an intestinal complaint. . ◼ On 30 June 1513, Katharine was left as regent in England when Henry VIII went to fight in France. In November 1513, she went into labour prematurely & gave birth to a son, the second Henry, Duke of Cornwall. The child died shortly after birth & was buried in Westminster Abbey. . ◼ On 8 January 1515, she gave birth to a stillborn boy. . ◼ On 18 February 1516, Katharine delivered a healthy girl at 4 a.m. at Greenwich Palace, Kent. She was named Mary & christened three days later (21 February) with great ceremony at the Church of Observant Friars. Despite his evident disappointment, Henry VIII said that if it were a girl this time then surely boys would follow. . ◼ And as mentioned above, On 10 November 1518 she gave birth to a daughter, but the child was weak & lived either only a few hours or at most a week. . . . (at London, United Kingdom) https://www.instagram.com/p/CHZq9mjjOVX/?igshid=14pyxutaou37z

[zack4x4]

Priory of Beaumont le Roger.

Priory of Beaumont le Roger.

El curioso Priorato de Beaumont le Roger. La primera Trinity Church fue fundada por Roger de Beaumont a finales del siglo XI; entonces era un colegiado atendido por canónigos ingleses de St. Frideswide de Oxford. Cedido en 1142 a la poderosa abadía de Bec-Hellouin, se convirtió en un priorato donde vivían una docena de monjes. La Guerra de los Cien Años marcó el inicio de la decadencia del…

[silvestromedia]

SAINTS OCTOBER 19 "There is only one tragedy in this life, not to have been a saint."- Leon Bloy

St. Laura, Roman Catholic and Martyr. She was martyred by Muslims who took her captive and scalded her to death by placing her in a vat of boiling lead. She is one of the Martyrs of Córdoba. Feast Day Oct. 19.

St. Theofrid, Roman Catholic Priest and Martyr. He was killed by Muslim raiders who had crossed into southern France. Feastday October 19

St. Philip Howard, 1595 A.D. One of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Philip was the earl of Arundel and Surrey and, although a Catholic, led a religiously apathetic life until his personal conversion, after which he was a zealous Catholic in the midst of Elizabethan England. Arrested by authorities, he was placed in the Tower of London in 1585 and condemned to death in 1589. The sentence was never carried out, and Philip languished in the Tower until his death at the age of thirty eight. Beatified in 1929, he was included among the English martyrs canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI.

STS. JOHN DE BRÉBEUF AND ISAAC JOGUES, PRIESTS AND COMPANIONS, JESUITS, Six French Jesuit priests, a Jesuit lay brother, and a layman who sought to bring the Gospel to the indigenous tribes of New France became the seed of the Church in North America. All were martyred. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/10/19/sts--john-de-brebeuf-and-isaac-jogues--priests-and-companions--j.html

St. Eadnot, 1016 A.D. Bishop of Dorchester, England, who was a champion of St. Oswald of York. He is listed as a martyr in some records, having been slain in an invasion by the Danes.

St. Frideswide, 735 A.D. Benedictine hermitess and nun, the daughter of Prince Didan of the Upper Thames region of England. She is sometimes called Fredeswinda. When Prince Algar of a neighboring kingdom asked for her hand in marriage, Frideswide fled to Thomwry Wood in Birnsey, where she became a hermitess. She founded the St. Mary’s Convent in Oxford and is patroness of the University of that City. Her relics are extant. In liturgical art she is depicted as Benedictine, sometimes with an ox for companion.

Bl. Agnes de Jesus Galand, Roman Catholic Dominican Nun.

ST. PAUL OF THE CROSS, PRIEST, FOUNDER OF THE PASSIONISTS

CANADIAN MARTYRS -

[hell-yeahfilm]

THE DEADLIEST SIN

Guest lost his fortune and knighthood to an accusation of treason when he chose to stand with the Duke of Lancaster after having sworn fealty to 10-year-old King Richard. He escaped with his life but was forced to reinvent himself as the Tracker of London, a medieval private eye with a specialty in holy relics. Now that Lancaster is dead and his exiled son, Henry Bolingbroke, has returned to England, Guest’s thoughts constantly turn to him, but first he has several murders to solve. St. Frideswide is a priory whose modest numbers have been recently reduced by one natural death and two murders. The prioress, refusing to involve the civil authorities, hires Guest, who’s just realized that the murders have been staged to mimic some of the seven deadly sins when another victim dies almost before his eyes. The very short list of suspects includes the one-armed caretaker and the priest Father Holbrok. Limited in what he and Jack Tucker, his devoted longtime apprentice, can accomplish, Guest sends for Philippa Walcote, the woman he loves, who’s married to another man, and her son, whose looks identify him as Guest’s. Beneath the priory’s calm surface they discover a seething mass of jealousy and deceit that will eventually lead to a killer. But it’s the arrival of Henry that changes Guest’s life forever.

from Kirkus Reviews https://ift.tt/3otzAch

[tindomielthings]

St Frideswide’s Church in the Snow, Oxford, by Robert Mealing on robertmealing.com

[artist-edward-burne-jones]

The Legend of St. Frideswide, 1859, Edward Burne-Jones

Medium: oil