Between about 1350 and 1450 people in England ceased to think of themselves as being Norman or Saxon, and became English. Up until the Hundred Years War which ended in 1453 the ruling class were speaking Norman French, but when the French became the enemy, they started speaking Middle English.
Joan of Arc had been called to put on armour and fight with the French, bringing them victory against the English especially at the siege of Orleans. The English put her on trial and had her burned at the stake in 1431. The all-time heroine of the French had been dispatched by the English in France.
Joan of Arc was a mystic who had visions. In England there were also mystics who spoke to the people who visited them in English and wrote up their visions in English. The mystic Mother Julian was born the same year as Geoffrey Chaucer, just as the Black Death struck England.
Mystics Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
The 14th century was a time of change, turmoil and plague that brought the sudden death of a large percentage of the population. People reached out to God in the insecurity of their lives –the mystic Mother Julian was someone who offered comfort.
Mother Julian of Norwich born in 1343 was an anchorite. She lived in a tiny room attached to a church in the busy trading city of Norwich. Julian or Juliana was a mystic immersed in prayer. The cell in which she was confined was attached to St Julian’s Church in Norwich, but this Juliana was a different saint, not herself.
The cell had a window into the church from which she could witness Mass and another window where she received callers. The callers were many as Norwich was the second largest city in England with a population of about 25 000, and the church was in the commercial district close to quays on the River Wensum.
Norwich was struck down by the Black Death in 1348 to 1350 when Julian was a child; the Peasants’ Revolt took place in 1381; and the Lollards who wanted to reform the church were being suppressed. In Norwich the Lollards were burnt at the stake at Lollard’s Pit, a place outside the city.
People went to Mother Julian in great numbers for spiritual advice and wise council. She repeated to her visitors the words Jesus had spoken to her: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Mother Julian wrote Revelations of Divine Love. It is the earliest work by a woman in England. It was written in Middle English. She wrote it shortly after receiving visions of the Passion of Christ in 1373 and then later wrote a longer version in 1410.
Mother Julian was visited by the visionary Margery Kempe. Margery Kempe (1373-1438) was another mystic from Norfolk. She wrote The Book of Margery Kempe in Middle English in the 1420s. She was the first woman to write an autobiography of her life. In amongst the record of her domestic duties, she wrote about her trials. Margery Kempe was accused of Lollardy (Protestantism) and tried for heresy multiple times. She denied it and they failed to convict her.
Pilgrimage and Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400)
Another survivor of the Black Death, born in 1343, was Geoffrey Chaucer. He also adopted the vernacular to express himself.
Chaucer is famous for writing The Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury Tales became well-known as it was the first book to be printed in England in 1478 by the printer William Caxton.
Geoffrey Chaucer came from the upwardly mobile family of a tavern keeper – purveyor of wines – vintner to the royal household. His father got him a job as a page to a countess, and in this way he entered the royal court. Chaucer became Clerk of the King’s Works and later Comptroller of Customs for the port of London.
While some consulted mystics, others departed on pilgrimage in search of answers and of blessings. To be fair, the only way a serf could get a holiday was by going on pilgrimage to a shrine far away. People of all economic levels went on pilgrimage. The destination could be Walsingham or Canterbury, or even Jerusalem in the Holy Land.
The idea was that you went by boat, on horseback or by foot making the sacrifice of the journey, and then God would reward you with granting the thing you hoped to obtain. The Pope granted indulgences for the visiting of certain shrines – that is to say a pass to get into heaven at the end of life’s journey. You did have to contribute financially and enter the shrine walking on your knees, but many thought it worth it.
Chaucer revealed the less than holy side to pilgrimage. In Canterbury Tales Chaucer, without being critical, recounted the story of what happened when the pilgrims entered a tavern to stay the night. They all gathered round to tell their stories of adventure, of courtly love and of bawdy misdemeanours.
Many believed in an idealized version of religious reality. Chaucer was a realist, and some say a Lollard. His satirical writing about friars, priests and other Catholic church officials revealed quite an irregular situation.
When everyone was writing in Anglo-Norman French or Latin, Chaucer wrote in Middle English. Thomas Hoccleve declared him “the firste fyndere of our fair language.”
The Lollards were initially led by John Wycliffe who was thrown out of Oxford University in 1381 for heresy. The Lollards as proto-protestants wished to reform the Catholic Church. The views of the Lollards were written in Middle English as Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards and pinned to the doors of Westminster Hall in 1395. The views sound very modern, although the language is very ancient. Lollards were suppressed as they led uprisings against authorities and were deemed heretics.
Patron Saints of Guilds
Medieval towns had skilled craftsmen grouped into trades that were regulated by guilds. The guilds offered apprenticeships of seven years to young men by working for a master craftsman member of the guild.
Guilds had headquarters where a priest was employed to say masses for guild members in a consecrated room with an alter. The burial of guild members and masses for their souls were taken care of by the priest.
Each guild chose a patron saint. The patron saints of guilds reflected the skills, trade or social role of the guild. For example, the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp was the guild of painters, artists and sculptors. Saint Luke was chosen because John of Damascus had said that the Evangelist Luke had painted a portrait of the Virgin Mary. (The Gospel of Luke paints a picture of Mary using words not paint!). The Guild of St Luke had a showroom and a market stall where members could display and sell their paintings.
The servants guild had Martha as their patron because she busied herself with serving Jesus food when he went to visit Bethany with his disciples. This is mentioned in John’s Gospel chapter 12:2.
The perfume sellers had Mary Magdalene as their patron as she is thought to have been the woman who brought perfume to pour on Jesus’ feet and wipe it with her hair. John 12:3 recounts how Mary took a pint of pure Nard for this purpose and the house was filled with fragrance of the perfume. However, this Mary mentioned in John chapter 12, was the sister of Martha and Lazarus of Bethany and not Mary Magdalene who came from Magdala, a fishing town on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Mary Magdalene was Mary of Magdala – the clue was in the name, but confusion still reigned.
Mary Magdalene, ‘La Madeleine’, had a huge following; having been a prostitute, so it is thought, who became a disciple of Jesus. Her relics were much sort after in France.
The wine-makers had Saint Vincent for the sole reason that vintner (wine merchant) begins with V and Vincent begins with V.
The choice of patron saint had a large part of randomness in it, although there was supposed to be a link between their story in a gospel and the skills or merchandise of the guild.
But how would it work asking for the intercession of a saint who was someone else in life? Would you get crossed wires at the exchange? ‘You are through to Mary of Bethany, no Mary Magdalene represents the women on the other side of the street.’
Patron saints served more as emblems to identify the guild than anything else. Guilds joined parades around the city on certain civic occasions holding up embroidered emblems and images of their patron saint to represent their trade.
Cult of Saints in Villages
The cult of a local saint in a village or a town was often associated with a well where people obtained drinking water. Previous pagan beliefs had linked springs to sprites that inhabited these places. Pagan beliefs and practices were Christianized. In Buxton, for example, the thermal spring in The Crescent had been associated with the goddess Arnemesia, but with the coming of Christianity it became St Anne’s Well.
Local devotions at wells were performed to obtain healing from the saint and with the healing properties of the water. Ritual prayers were recited and procedures followed to obtain healing.
When printing became available elaborate mythologies of extraordinary miracles in the lives of saints were circulated in Catholic countries, while the Bible was printed in Protestant countries. The cult of saints played a large part in popular religion all through the Middle Ages and well beyond the Middle Ages. People of the modern age dubbed it superstition.
Saint Brigid, saint or goddess?
It is unclear whether some of the very early saints were real people or not. It is not known whether Saint Brigid was an actual person. She is said to have lived from 451 to 525 AD. The legend is that she was the daughter of a pagan Irish clan chief and an enslaved Christian woman. She was fostered by a Druid and became a consecrated virgin. She then became a Christian and the founding abbess of the Abbey of Kildare and a convent for nuns.
The feast day of St Brigid is on the 1st February. This day used to be called Imbolc and was the pagan festival of the beginning of spring. It has been suggested that the Druid of the legend was the chief Druid at the temple of the goddess Brigid. When this pagan site became a Christian monastery the goddess Brigid was commuted into the holy virgin Saint Brigid.
Whatever the truth about her legend, Brigid of Kildare is one of the three patron saints of Ireland, alongside St Patrick and St Columba.
Merry and True 