Anthony of Padua was born Fernando de Boullion (Ferdinand Bulhom) in Lisbon, Portugal on August 15, 1195 to a wealthy and socially prominent family. His father, Martin de Boullion was a descendant of Godfrey de Bouillon, commander of the First Crusade. He worked as a revenue officer and was a knight of the court of King Alfonso II. His mother, Theresa Tavejra, was a descendant of Froila I, the fourth king of Asturia. The Pope had recognized Portugal as an independent nation for less than 20 years at the time of Anthony's birth. The crusaders were an important part of Portugal's early history and religious life was strongly encouraged. The king and queen built cathedrals and monasteries around the country, which would play an influential role in Anthony's later life.

 

Anthony was educated at the Cathedral School of Saint Mary near his home. His teachers suggested that he become a knight on the king's court, but his father objected. He argued that his son was not strong enough to become a knight and thought he was better suited to intellectual pursuits. He wanted Anthony to help him manage the family's estate and become a nobleman. To his father's dismay, Anthony decided to join the Canons Regular of St. Augustine at the age of 15. He entered St. Vincent's convent of Lisbon in 1210. During his first two years in the convent he was visited often by family and friends. Anthony felt that these visits distracted him from prayer and asked to be transferred to Holy Cross Monastery in Coimbra, then the capital of Portugal.

 

JOINED THE FRANSISCAN ORDER

 

Anthony spent eight years studying theology in Coimbra and was ordained a priest around 1219 or 1220. During this time he befriended several friars from the monastery at Olivares. These men belonged to the Friars Minor and followed Francis of Assisi. Francis had aspired to be a noble knight, but he gave up his dreams to follow Christ. He built an order of friars in Assisi, Italy around 1211 and traveled extensively, preaching to nonbelievers. According to Madeline Pecora Nugent in Saint Anthony, Words of Fire, Life of Light, "By simple preaching, austere lifestyle, and holy example, Francis and his followers were evangelizing the populace in fields, markets and public squares." His way of life was approved by Pope Innocent II around 1209 or 1210.

 

In 1220 the first Franciscan friars had been martyred. Five friars went to Morocco as chaplains to the sultan's soldiers. When they arrived and began preaching about Christ, the sultan was angered by what he had heard. He ordered them to stop preaching and leave Morocco several times, but the friars refused. In the end the sultan ordered that all five be tortured and killed. Their remains were taken to the Holy Cross Monastery in Coimbra where Anthony was living. He was so moved by their story and martyrdom that he decided to join the Friars Minor. He believed that it was his calling to become a martyr too. It was an unusual request to want to leave the Canons of Saint Augustine and his superiors at Holy Cross were reluctant to let him go. They found it hard to understand how the son of a nobleman would dedicate his life to poverty, even though this is exactly what Saint Francis did. Anthony was given permission to leave and he joined the Convent at Olivares. He was given the name Anthony after Saint Anthony of Egypt who founded the first Christian monasteries based upon the idea of renouncing the world for Christ.

 

Soon after joining the friars Anthony wanted to go to Morocco to continue the mission of the five martyred friars. He was granted permission and sailed to Morocco in December of 1220. Upon his arrival he fell seriously ill and had to return home. However, en route to Portugal, his ship was blown off course during a severe storm and Anthony landed in Sicily.

 

A NEW CALLING

 

Anthony recovered at a Franciscan monastery in Messina. It was there that he learned that a general meeting of friars was going to be held in Assisi on May 30, 1221. For a week, friars from across Europe gathered to pray together and to hear Saint Francis and Brother Elias, the new minister general of the order, speak. After the meeting, Anthony was assigned to a hermitage in Monte Paolo, near Forli, where he celebrated mass for the lay brethren.

 

Anthony lived a life of solitude until his gift for preaching was discovered by accident. He accompanied the Father Provincial to an ordination ceremony in Forli. The scheduled preacher did not arrive and no one volunteered to fill his role so the Father Provincial asked Anthony to speak about whatever came to his mind. He gave an incredible performance, demonstrating the depth of his knowledge of the scriptures and speaking eloquently and passionately. It was this chance opportunity that changed Anthony's calling.

 

When Saint Francis learned of Anthony's performance, he appointed him the first theology teacher of the friars and ordered him to travel throughout Italy preaching to the order. Saint Francis had reservations about educating the friars because he feared they would lose their humility. According to Nicolaus Dal-Gal in The Catholic Encyclopedia: Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint Francis sent a letter to Anthony stating: "It is my pleasure that thou teach theology to the brethren, provided, however that as the Rule prescribes, the spirit of prayer and devotion may not be extinguished."

 

PREACHER AND TEACHER

 

Anthony then traveled all over Italy and France preaching to the people as well as the friars. He attracted large crowds wherever he went. He was best known for his sermons against heresy, his attacks on the weakness of the secular clergy, and on the sins of society. Because of the passion with which he spoke, Anthony was called the "Hammer of the Heretics." He was well known for speaking to people directly about their sins, regardless of their social standing. In a famous story about Anthony, it is said that he was invited by the Archbishop Simon de Sully to preach at a synod in Bourges in 1225. In front of a large audience, Anthony denounced his host, the archbishop himself. His sermon was so powerful that the archbishop repented.

 

Anthony greatly shaped the development of Franciscan theology. For example, he is credited with introducing the teachings of Saint Augustine to the friars. He also spent a considerable amount of time with Thomas Gallo, the famous abbot of the Saint Andrew Monastery in Vercelli, discussing mystical theology. In 1223 Anthony founded a theology school for the friars, which eventually became the school of theology at the University of Bologna.

 

Anthony is the only early Franciscan preacher whose teachings have survived to this day. Only two sermons have been preserved - one for Sundays composed around 1228 and one for saints' feast days composed between 1230 and 1231. His speeches frequently included references to scripture that soon became an important practice in Franciscan preaching style. While these sermons are described as long and argumentative, some excerpts are straightforward and have been circulated for a lay crowd. An example taken from Saint Anthony of Padua Our Franciscan Friend is: "Jesus' place should always be in the center of every heart. From this center, as if from a sun, emanate rays of grace to each of us."

 

SAINTHOOD

 

When Francis of Assisi died on October 3, 1226, Anthony returned to Italy. He was then elected Minister Provincial of Romagna-Emilia. However, he resigned his position at the general meeting of Franciscans on May 30, 1230 so he could continue preaching. He returned to the convent in Padua that he had founded in 1227. The same year he was also given the opportunity to preach before Pope Gregory IX who was so moved by what he heard that he called Anthony the "Ark of the Covenant." Anthony also preached daily in Padua during Lent of 1231 and tens of thousands of people flocked to the city to hear him. He was preaching outside of Padua when he became ill. It was later discovered that he suffered from dropsy, where water is retained in the body tissues, but it is not known what caused this condition. Anthony knew that he was seriously ill and he asked to be taken back to Padua. However, he did not reach his final destination. Instead he died in Arcella on June 13, 1231 at Poor Clare monastery, at the age of 35. He was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on May 30, 1232 at the Cathedral of Spoleto. In 1946 Pope Pius XII named Anthony of Padua the "Doctor of the Church" for his knowledge of scripture and gift of preaching.

 

While Anthony is often called "the miracle worker," only one of the 56 miracles recorded for his canonization occurred during his lifetime. His fame came more from the impact of his preachings than from miraculous acts. In 1263 when his relics were moved to a church in Padua bearing his name, legend has it that his vault was opened and his body had decomposed except for his tongue, which was still intact.

 

Today Anthony, son of a nobleman and teacher of friars, is known as the patron saint of the illiterate and the poor, the finder of lost things, and the saint of small requests. Tuesday has become known as Saint Anthony's day because that was the day of his funeral procession in Padua. His feast day is celebrated on June 13. There are two images popularly associated with Saint Anthony. In one image he is holding the child Jesus on his arm. This is based on a story that young Jesus appeared to Anthony in 1231 as an apparition. The second image is of Saint Anthony holding a lily. There is a story that on his feast day in 1680 someone placed a cut lily in the hands of his statue at a church in Austria. Instead of dying the lily grew two new blooms the following year. The lily is a symbol of purity and innocence.

Famagusta is a city on the east coast of the de facto state Northern Cyprus. It is located east of Nicosia and possesses the deepest harbour of the island. During the Middle Ages (especially under the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice), Famagusta was the island's most important port city and a gateway to trade with the ports of the Levant, from where the Silk Road merchants carried their goods to Western Europe. The old walled city and parts of the modern city are de facto part of Northern Cyprus as the capital of the Gazimağusa District.

 

The city was known as Arsinoe or Arsinoë (Greek: Ἀρσινόη, Arsinóē) in antiquity, after Ptolemy II of Egypt's sister and wife Arsinoe II.

 

By the 3rd century, the city appears as Ammochostos (Greek: Ἀμμόχωστος or Αμμόχωστος, Ammókhōstos, "Hidden in Sand") in the Stadiasmus Maris Magni.[5] This name is still used in modern Greek with the pronunciation [aˈmːoxostos], while it developed into Latin Fama Augusta, French Famagouste, Italian Famagosta, and English Famagusta during the medieval period. Its informal modern Turkish name Mağusa (Turkish pronunciation: [maˈusa]) came from the same source. Since 1974, it has formally been known to Turkey and Northern Cyprus as Gazimağusa ([ɡaːzimaˈusa]), from the addition of the title gazi, meaning "veteran" or "one who has faught in a holy war".

 

In the early medieval period, the city was also known as New Justiniana (Greek: Νέα Ἰουστινιανία, Néa Ioustinianía) in appreciation for the patronage of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, whose wife Theodora was born there.

 

The old town of Famagusta has also been nicknamed "the City of 365 Churches" from the legend that, at its peak, it boasted a church for every day of the year.

 

The city was founded around 274 BC, after the serious damage to Salamis by an earthquake, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus and named "Arsinoe" after his sister.[6] Arsinoe was described as a "fishing town" by Strabo in his Geographica in the first century BC. In essence, Famagusta was the successor of the most famous and most important ancient city of Cyprus, Salamis. According to Greek mythology, Salamis was founded after the end of the Trojan War by Teucros, the son of Telamon and brother of Aedes, from the Greek island of Salamis.

 

The city experienced great prosperity much later, during the time of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. To honor the city, from which his wife Theodora came, Justinian enriched it with many buildings, while the inhabitants named it New Justiniania to express their gratitude. In AD 647, when the neighboring cities were destroyed by Arab raiding, the inhabitants of these cities moved to Famagusta, as a result of which the city's population increased significantly and the city experienced another boom.

 

Later, when Jerusalem was occupied by the Arabs, the Christian population fled to Famagusta, as a result of which the city became an important Christian center, but also one of the most important commercial centers in the eastern Mediterranean.

 

The turning point for Famagusta was 1192 with the onset of Lusignan rule. It was during this period that Famagusta developed as a fully-fledged town. It increased in importance to the Eastern Mediterranean due to its natural harbour and the walls that protected its inner town. Its population began to increase. This development accelerated in the 13th century as the town became a centre of commerce for both the East and West. An influx of Christian refugees fleeing the downfall of Acre (1291) in Palestine transformed it from a tiny village into one of the richest cities in Christendom.

 

In 1372 the port was seized by Genoa and in 1489 by Venice. This commercial activity turned Famagusta into a place where merchants and ship owners led lives of luxury. By the mid-14th century, Famagusta was said to have the richest citizens in the world. The belief that people's wealth could be measured by the churches they built inspired these merchants to have churches built in varying styles. These churches, which still exist, were the reason Famagusta came to be known as "the district of churches". The development of the town focused on the social lives of the wealthy people and was centred upon the Lusignan palace, the cathedral, the Square and the harbour.

 

In 1570–1571, Famagusta was the last stronghold in Venetian Cyprus to hold out against the Turks under Mustafa Pasha. It resisted a siege of thirteen months and a terrible bombardment, until at last the garrison surrendered. The Ottoman forces had lost 50,000 men, including Mustafa Pasha's son. Although the surrender terms had stipulated that the Venetian forces be allowed to return home, the Venetian commander, Marco Antonio Bragadin, was flayed alive, his lieutenant Tiepolo was hanged, and many other Christians were killed.

 

With the advent of the Ottoman rule, Latins lost their privileged status in Famagusta and were expelled from the city. Greek Cypriots natives were at first allowed to own and buy property in the city, but were banished from the walled city in 1573–74 and had to settle outside in the area that later developed into Varosha. Turkish families from Anatolia were resettled in the walled city but could not fill the buildings that previously hosted a population of 10,000. This caused a drastic decrease in the population of Famagusta. Merchants from Famagusta, who mostly consisted of Latins that had been expelled, resettled in Larnaca and as Larnaca flourished, Famagusta lost its importance as a trade centre. Over time, Varosha developed into a prosperous agricultural town thanks to its location away from the marshes, whilst the walled city remained dilapidated.

 

In the walled city, some buildings were repurposed to serve the interests of the Muslim population: the Cathedral of St. Nicholas was converted to a mosque (now known as Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque), a bazaar was developed, public baths, fountains and a theological school were built to accommodate the inhabitants' needs. Dead end streets, an Ottoman urban characteristic, was imported to the city and a communal spirit developed in which a small number of two-storey houses inhabited by the small upper class co-existed with the widespread one-storey houses.

 

With the British takeover, Famagusta regained its significance as a port and an economic centre and its development was specifically targeted in British plans. As soon as the British took over the island, a Famagusta Development Act was passed that aimed at the reconstruction and redevelopment of the city's streets and dilapidated buildings as well as better hygiene. The port was developed and expanded between 1903 and 1906 and Cyprus Government Railway, with its terminus in Famagusta, started construction in 1904. Whilst Larnaca continued to be used as the main port of the island for some time, after Famagusta's use as a military base in World War I trade significantly shifted to Famagusta. The city outside the walls grew at an accelerated rate, with development being centred around Varosha. Varosha became the administrative centre as the British moved their headquarters and residences there and tourism grew significantly in the last years of the British rule. Pottery and production of citrus and potatoes also significantly grew in the city outside the walls, whilst agriculture within the walled city declined to non-existence.

 

New residential areas were built to accommodate the increasing population towards the end of the British rule,[11] and by 1960, Famagusta was a modern port city extending far beyond Varosha and the walled city.

 

The British period saw a significant demographic shift in the city. In 1881, Christians constituted 60% of the city's population while Muslims were at 40%. By 1960, the Turkish Cypriot population had dropped to 17.5% of the overall population, while the Greek Cypriot population had risen to 70%. The city was also the site for one of the British internment camps for nearly 50,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust trying to emigrate to Palestine.

 

From independence in 1960 to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus of 1974, Famagusta developed toward the south west of Varosha as a well-known entertainment and tourist centre. The contribution of Famagusta to the country's economic activity by 1974 far exceeded its proportional dimensions within the country. Whilst its population was only about 7% of the total of the country, Famagusta by 1974 accounted for over 10% of the total industrial employment and production of Cyprus, concentrating mainly on light industry compatible with its activity as a tourist resort and turning out high-quality products ranging from food, beverages and tobacco to clothing, footwear, plastics, light machinery and transport equipment. It contributed 19.3% of the business units and employed 21.3% of the total number of persons engaged in commerce on the island. It acted as the main tourist destination of Cyprus, hosting 31.5% of the hotels and 45% of Cyprus' total bed capacity. Varosha acted as the main touristic and business quarters.

 

In this period, the urbanisation of Famagusta slowed down and the development of the rural areas accelerated. Therefore, economic growth was shared between the city of Famagusta and the district, which had a balanced agricultural economy, with citrus, potatoes, tobacco and wheat as main products. Famagusta maintained good communications with this hinterland. The city's port remained the island's main seaport and in 1961, it was expanded to double its capacity in order to accommodate the growing volume of exports and imports. The port handled 42.7% of Cypriot exports, 48.6% of imports and 49% of passenger traffic.

 

There has not been an official census since 1960 but the population of the town in 1974 was estimated to be around 39,000 not counting about 12,000–15,000 persons commuting daily from the surrounding villages and suburbs to work in Famagusta. The number of people staying in the city would swell to about 90,000–100,000 during the peak summer tourist period, with the influx of tourists from numerous European countries, mainly Britain, France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. The majority of the city population were Greek Cypriots (26,500), with 8,500 Turkish Cypriots and 4,000 people from other ethnic groups.

 

During the second phase of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 14 August 1974 the Mesaoria plain was overrun by Turkish tanks and Famagusta was bombed by Turkish aircraft. It took two days for the Turkish Army to occupy the city, prior to which Famagusta's entire Greek Cypriot population had fled into surrounding fields. As a result of Turkish airstrikes dozens of civilians died, including tourists.

 

Unlike other parts of the Turkish-controlled areas of Cyprus, the Varosha suburb of Famagusta was fenced off by the Turkish army immediately after being captured and remained fenced off until October 2020, when the TRNC reopened some streets to visitors. Some Greek Cypriots who had fled Varosha have been allowed to view the town and journalists have been allowed in.

 

UN Security Council resolution 550 (1984) considers any attempts to settle any part of Famagusta by people other than its inhabitants as inadmissible and calls for the transfer of this area to the administration of the UN. The UN's Security Council resolution 789 (1992) also urges that with a view to the implementation of resolution 550 (1984), the area at present under the control of the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus be extended to include Varosha.

 

Famagusta's historic city centre is surrounded by the fortifications of Famagusta, which have a roughly rectangular shape, built mainly by the Venetians in the 15th and 16th centuries, though some sections of the walls have been dated earlier times, as far as 1211.

 

Some important landmarks and visitor attractions in the old city are:

The Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque

The Othello Castle

Palazzo del Provveditore - the Venetian palace of the governor, built on the site of the former Lusignan royal palace

St. Francis' Church

Sinan Pasha Mosque

Church of St. George of the Greeks

Church of St. George of the Latins

Twin Churches

Nestorian Church (of St George the Exiler)

Namık Kemal Dungeon

Agios Ioannis Church

Venetian House

Akkule Masjid

Mustafa Pasha Mosque

Ganchvor monastery

 

In an October 2010 report titled Saving Our Vanishing Heritage, Global Heritage Fund listed Famagusta, a "maritime ancient city of crusader kings", among the 12 sites most "On the Verge" of irreparable loss and destruction, citing insufficient management and development pressures.

 

Famagusta is an important commercial hub of Northern Cyprus. The main economic activities in the city are tourism, education, construction and industrial production. It has a 115-acre free port, which is the most important seaport of Northern Cyprus for travel and commerce. The port is an important source of income and employment for the city, though its volume of trade is restricted by the embargo against Northern Cyprus. Its historical sites, including the walled city, Salamis, the Othello Castle and the St Barnabas Church, as well as the sandy beaches surrounding it make it a tourist attraction; efforts are also underway to make the city more attractive for international congresses. The Eastern Mediterranean University is also an important employer and supplies significant income and activity, as well as opportunities for the construction sector. The university also raises a qualified workforce that stimulates the city's industry and makes communications industry viable. The city has two industrial zones: the Large Industrial Zone and the Little Industrial Zone. The city is also home to a fishing port, but inadequate infrastructure of the port restricts the growth of this sector. The industry in the city has traditionally been concentrated on processing agricultural products.

 

Historically, the port was the primary source of income and employment for the city, especially right after 1974. However, it gradually lost some of its importance to the economy as the share of its employees in the population of Famagusta diminished due to various reasons. However, it still is the primary port for commerce in Northern Cyprus, with more than half of ships that came to Northern Cyprus in 2013 coming to Famagusta. It is the second most popular seaport for passengers, after Kyrenia, with around 20,000 passengers using the port in 2013.

 

The mayor-in-exile of Famagusta is Simos Ioannou. Süleyman Uluçay heads the Turkish Cypriot municipal administration of Famagusta, which remains legal as a communal-based body under the constitutional system of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Since 1974, Greek Cypriots submitted a number of proposals within the context of bicommunal discussions for the return of Varosha to UN administration, allowing the return of its previous inhabitants, requesting also the opening of Famagusta harbour for use by both communities. Varosha would have been returned to Greek Cypriot control as part of the 2004 Annan Plan but the plan had been rejected by a majority(3/4) of Greek Cypriot voters.

 

The walled city of Famagusta contains many unique buildings. Famagusta has a walled city popular with tourists.

 

Every year, the International Famagusta Art and Culture Festival is organized in Famagusta. Concerts, dance shows and theater plays take place during the festival.

 

A growth in tourism and the city's university have fueled the development of Famagusta's vibrant nightlife. Nightlife in the city is especially active on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights and in the hotter months of the year, starting from April. Larger hotels in the city have casinos that cater to their customers. Salamis Road is an area of Famagusta with a heavy concentration of bars frequented by students and locals.

 

Famagusta's Othello Castle is the setting for Shakespeare's play Othello. The city was also the setting for Victoria Hislop's 2015 novel The Sunrise, and Michael Paraskos's 2016 novel In Search of Sixpence. The city is the birthplace of the eponymous hero of the Renaissance proto-novel Fortunatus.

 

Famagusta was home to many Greek Cypriot sport teams that left the city because of the Turkish invasion and still bear their original names. Most notable football clubs originally from the city are Anorthosis Famagusta FC and Nea Salamis Famagusta FC, both of the Cypriot First Division, which are now based in Larnaca. Usually Anorthosis Famagusta fans are politically right wing where Nea Salamis fans are left wing.

 

Famagusta is represented by Mağusa Türk Gücü in the Turkish Cypriot First Division. Dr. Fazıl Küçük Stadium is the largest football stadium in Famagusta. Many Turkish Cypriot sport teams that left Southern Cyprus because of the Cypriot intercommunal violence are based in Famagusta.

 

Famagusta is represented by DAÜ Sports Club and Magem Sports Club in North Cyprus First Volleyball Division. Gazimağusa Türk Maarif Koleji represents Famagusta in the North Cyprus High School Volleyball League.

 

Famagusta has a modern volleyball stadium called the Mağusa Arena.

 

The Eastern Mediterranean University was founded in the city in 1979. The Istanbul Technical University founded a campus in the city in 2010.

 

The Cyprus College of Art was founded in Famagusta by the Cypriot artist Stass Paraskos in 1969, before moving to Paphos in 1972 after protests from local hoteliers that the presence of art students in the city was putting off holidaymakers.

 

Famagusta has three general hospitals. Gazimağusa Devlet Hastahanesi, a state hospital, is the biggest hospital in city. Gazimağusa Tıp Merkezi and Gazimağusa Yaşam Hastahanesi are private hospitals.

 

Personalities

Saint Barnabas, born and died in Salamis, Famagusta

Chris Achilleos, illustrator of the book versions on the BBC children's series Doctor Who

Beran Bertuğ, former Governor of Famagusta, first Cypriot woman to hold this position

Marios Constantinou, former international Cypriot football midfielder and current manager.

Eleftheria Eleftheriou, Cypriot singer.

Derviş Eroğlu, former President of Northern Cyprus

Alexis Galanos, 7th President of the House of Representatives and Famagusta mayor-in-exile (2006-2019) (Republic of Cyprus)

Xanthos Hadjisoteriou, Cypriot painter

Oz Karahan, political activist, President of the Union of Cypriots

Oktay Kayalp, former Turkish Cypriot Famagusta mayor (Northern Cyprus)

Harry Luke British diplomat

Angelos Misos, former international footballer

Costas Montis was an influential and prolific Greek Cypriot poet, novelist, and playwright born in Famagusta.

Hal Ozsan, actor (Dawson's Creek, Kyle XY)

Dimitris Papadakis, a Greek Cypriot politician, who served as a Member of the European Parliament.

Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, Persian religious leader, lived and died in exile in Famagusta

Touker Suleyman (born Türker Süleyman), British Turkish Cypriot fashion retail entrepreneur, investor and reality television personality.

Alexia Vassiliou, singer, left here as a refugee when the town was invaded.

George Vasiliou, former President of Cyprus

Vamik Volkan, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry

Derviş Zaim, film director

 

Famagusta is twinned with:

İzmir, Turkey (since 1974)

Corfu, Greece (since 1994)

Patras, Greece (since 1994)

Antalya, Turkey (since 1997)

Salamina (city), Greece (since 1998)

Struga, North Macedonia

Athens, Greece (since 2005)

Mersin, Turkey

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

St Pancras, Ipswich, Suffolk

 

Until its clearance in the post-war years, the area spreading eastwards of Ipswich town centre was a vast slum. The Rope Walk area was redeveloped and is now home to Suffolk New College and parts of the University. The housing in the Cox Lane area became a car park. I met a man a few years ago who always tries to park his car on the site of the house where he grew up.

 

Two grand red brick churches survive as islands. The Anglican St Michael is now a burnt out shell. It was declared redundant in the 1990s, and in truth it is hard to see how it can ever have been needed as more than a triumphalist gesture, with the parish church of St Helen only a hundred yards or so away. It was destroyed by fire in March 2011. Still standing tall is George Goldie's 1861 Catholic church of St Pancras. Seen from across the car park, the only clue that it was once tightly surrounded by poor people's houses is that there are no windows in the wall of the north aisle. As at Brighton's St Bartholomew, this great ship was designed to sail above roof tops.

 

St Pancras looks like a bit dropped off, and that is exactly what it is. Goldie's commission was for the huge, recently demolished School of Jesus and Mary on the campus of the Woodbridge Road church of St Mary, and this town centre church in the same style. St Pancras was intended to be the start of a church of cathedral scale, of which the surviving church was but the chancel. At the time, Ipswich was in the Diocese of Northampton. Today, it is in the Diocese of East Anglia, with a great stone Gothic cathedral at Norwich. But the Norwich cathedral, built as the church of St John the Baptist, and the equally grand Our Lady and the English Martyrs in Cambridge, were both begun a good thirty years after St Pancras. If it had ever been finished, St Pancras would have been one of the biggest red brick churches in England.

 

The north elevation is stark, that on the south side rather more comfy, with good modern glass in the south aisle windows. The most impressive view is from the west, where the vast rose window fills in what would have been the top of the chancel arch. Here, where the 1970s parish hall stands, would have been the crossing tower, with transepts either side. Looking further west, the nave would have stretched, and here is perhaps one of the reasons why St Pancras the great was never built. Immediately to the west of the church, across Cox lane, stands the fortress-like Christ Church. Although the present building post-dates St Pancras, there has been a Congregationalist church on the site for more than three hundred years, and the planned Catholic church would have stretched in front of it. Given the ecclesiastical politics of the late 19th century, one can't imagine them giving up the site very lightly.

 

The Catholic presence in Ipswich had been re-established in the 1790s, at the time of the French Revolution, by a refugee Priest, Louis Simon. He said Mass in the home of a rich local lady Margaret Wood, and then with her help established a mission church near the Woodbridge Road barracks. This church, St Anthony, formed the transepts of the building that still survives as the parish hall of the 1960 St Mary.

 

After the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England in 1850, which you can read about on the entry for St Mary, the plan was to create a town centre profile for the Church, and this was why Goldie was commissioned to build St Pancras. However, anti-Catholic feeling was rather stronger than it had been seventy years previously. On a night in November 1862, the protestant ministers of the town whipped up such a state of hysteria that angry mobs ran through Ipswich smashing windows of Catholic churches, homes and businesses.

 

Although the exterior of this building is rather severe, the inside is a delight, quite the loveliest Victorian interior in Ipswich. It doesn't have the gravitas of St Mary le Tower, or the mystery of St Bartholomew, but it is a cascade of red and white brick banding, cast-iron pillars and wall tiling. Along with the statues and the candles and the smell of incense, it is everything a 19th century town centre church should be.

 

The post-Vatican II re-ordering of the sanctuary has not destroyed its coherence (or, indeed, the traditionalist flavour of the liturgy here). Above the altar, Christ stands in majesty, flanked by the four evangelists. The tabernacle is set curiously off-centre to the south.

 

Exposed as St Pancras is in comparison with many town centre churches, it is always full of light, and this light takes on the resonances of some good glass. The west window was filled with a design depicting the descent of the Holy Spirit as recently as 2001, by the Danielle Hopkinson studio. As a point of interest, they also did the glass in my front door. This is unfortunately obscured by a massive organ (the west window, not my front door). Below the west gallery is the baptistery, one of Ipswich's busiest, and just some of the church's collection of devotional statues. In the south aisle are three sets of triple lancets. The older glass in the most easterly depicts St Thomas, St Andrew and St John. The splendid 1974 glass by John Lawson in the other two sets depicts St Martin de Porres and St Francis of Assisi.

 

Not many people live in the parish itself, but as the busiest town centre church in Ipswich St Pancras continues to have a major role to play. Its Masses attract people from far and wide, including many from the town's sizeable minority communities. Perhaps this is because it does have such a traditionalist flavour, but also perhaps because of the work of the tireless and charismatic Parish Priest, Father 'Sam' Leeder. 'He's been here for forty years, and is a familiar character in the town centre, wandering the streets and talking to local traders, as well as being the cornerstone of the town's scouts. Ipswich would be diminished without him.

Gateway Camp Verse

(Pin1) Ging1 Mahn4

Isaiah 62:10

 

What Dale instructed about going out of our way to treat the Mainland Chinese well resonated within me. To be sure, just as the Koreans have gone out of their way to bless me so I must step out to bless and to love my Mainland brethren.

 

After the first meeting, Ed and I wandered off campus and found inside a shopping mall a cha chaan teng where we had a late-night snack. And hardly had we tucked into our meals when in walked several dozen volunteers, all locals, who were overcome, it seemed, by the same munchies that infected Ed and me. It’s surprising how such a primal urge, at such a time, drives everyone to no less than the same, impossibly far location.

 

I thus far have met so many people that, had I not brought along my iPod, I would have already lost track of the multitudinous names flying around like fireflies at night, sparkling luminously one moment and then disappearing the next. And this is only the beginning: more and more people will arrive both today and tomorrow so I had better stay awake, alert, and writing.

 

I am working with a partner who really challenges me, and indeed that is why I chose to work with him. From the first words that came streaming out of his mouth, I knew he would be a special one, and as if to conifrm my conjecture, indeed, the more he spoke, the more confused I became. The challenge, I have realized after much ruminating, isn’t so much the pace of his speech as his choice of words, which fall outside a normal lexical range; that is, at least with me, when he talks, he doesn’t use familiar collocations to communicate; besides, he has an uncanny Tin Shui Wai accent; those, along with his amazing resistance to Chinglish, which impresses me, by the way, have made our communication tedious, since I am bombarded by peculiar lexical constructions that I generally never encounter in Cantonese conversation and must therefore stop our flow to clarify his speech. It’s too bad that he doesn’t speak English as I would love to hear how he structures ideas in my native language to determine whether or not this strange lexis has spilled over into his other modes of communication.

 

Regardless, in being with him, I have learned to be patient, and if I am truly to walk away from resentment, I must continue rather to engage him than to keep him at arm’s length. It helps us, then, that he is a congenial fellow, prone more to expressing love, much in the same way that I do by warmly grabbing a forearm or a shoulder, than to venting his frustration, which with me could certainly be great. He is verily a good guy, and so long as the Lord keeps him — I am sure Daddy will — Tin Shui Wai, that small patch of concrete moon colony, is in capable, faithful human hands.

 

Sau2 muhn6 je2

Mihng6 dihng6

Kyuhn4 lihk6

Lihk6 leuhng6

Chong3 yi3 adjective

Chong3 jouh6 verb

 

Romans 5:3-5

 

Not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

 

I cried this morning when I read these words, because they are true, and comfort my soul as water to a dry, parched land. However many times I’ve lamented this place and its people, I am still inextricably tied to this rock, per God’s will for my life; and God really is faithful in providing a way out not from this place but from these spiritual hindrances. These past few days, what with communication failures and fatigue setting in, I could have more easily give into my rationality, in defense of my weaknesses, than resisted this bait of satan. Thank God, hence, for the words which are like fuel for the refiner’s fire that burns up all my expectations, my pride and my flesh. I can survive, nay, rejoice, indeed, because of God, who, in me, day by day teaches me to suffer long with a smile.

 

This is what the gateway is all about, I believe: jumping head-first out of my comfort zone to confront the nations, for my brothers and sisters and I must face each other if we are to raise the banners together. Battling through enemy strongholds of mistrust ad resentment, we demolish carnal thoughts and dig deep in the Spirit for the unity that shall overcome as much language as culture; God, after all, is bigger, even, than the battlefield. In these ways can my brethren and I love each other as ourselves, as we shall be one in the Father, with audacious power and boldness laying hands on His kingdom which advances, in this kairos moment, over all of China, including, no doubt, Hong Kong. No longer will there be curses thrown upon the nations; but rather the river of life will flow through the city, and the leaves of the tree on each side of the river will be for the healing of the nations.

 

1) Welcoming the Father

2) Unifying the body

3) Partnering with the Chinese

4) Serving the city

5) Supporting the Chinese

 

Isaac and I have worked quite hard this morning, putting up signs all over campus, and as if to reward me for my assiduity, he offered to buy me a drink, an offer which I took up. Indeed, this man’s care and concern for others, genuine, doubtlessly, fills me with joy, for, to be sure, the joy of the lord is his strength. My friend is indefatigable, always encouraging and never slighting, no matter the circumstances, rain (that has happened a lot today) or shine. Praise God!

 

Much like my relationship with Isaac, my relationships with my other team members have improved considerably since, even, this morning’s briefing during which, the code-switching, happening too fast and too furiously for my comfort, vexed me so terribly that if Isaac had not put a generous arm around my shoulder immediately afterwards, I surely would have blown my top in frustration at the perplexing language option. Thankfully, my team and I settled our language arrangements: Isaac, Dorcas and I will intractably speak Cantonese to each other whereas my other group mates and I will use English with as little code-switching as possible; and I, along with Ed, no doubt, am satisfied. It’s best to avoid misunderstandings.

 

Lihng4 Mahn4 (soul)

Sihng4 jeung2

Muhng6 Seung2 (dreams)

 

The Lord’s mercies are new everyday. Just now, during the morning rally, by His Spirit, hundreds of brothers and sisters received a new anointing, to be spiritual mothers and fathers of a new generation so as to minister to the next. This outpouring of the Spirit was sudden, and so captivated me that when the call came to reap, I rushed to the front to ask my father for this anointing, and naturally, my life was transformed. In the same way, the pastor called up a new generation of spiritual children to receive the love, care and support of these new parents; and likewise, so many young men and women heeded this call that verily, the pit in front of the stage was soon awash in hugs and tears between generations that, once lost, were now found. Indeed, no sooner did these people embrace their father than Dad immediately swept them up in his strong arms and showered them with audacious encouragement and support. Praise God!

 

An Outburst

 

I was angry this morning during our team time. I temporarily lost my ability to be merciful and to live in God’s grace. When my team leader began to address me in English, yet again, I couldn’t help but berate him for doing so when Cantonese, I argued, would be a more economical medium of delivery. And then I compounded this already incendiary situation by ranting about the hypocrisy of Hong Kong being a gateway to China but not a gateway into its own neighborhoods teeming with Chinese people, 97% of whom, according to one of the pastors at this camp, do not know the Lord Jesus. Cantonese will matter, I posit, if anyone dares to take on the onerous mission in this vexing place.

 

To be sure, even my brother announced that language was a prohibitive barrier to closer relationships with these local people, and therefore, since he neither speaks Cantonese nor is going to give learning the language a go, he is relegated to the outer walls of the gates into Hong Kong.

 

In hindsight, I thought I cared enough about God’s purposes for me in Hong Kong, but I realize now that I still care a lot about myself, and resentment. Though I have prayed and declared boldly that God is bigger than language and culture, I know I don’t believe it; and that’s upsetting. For the time being, I don’t verily believe in my heart that I can have deeper, closer relationships with Chinese people without the benefit of language and culture, patterns of action.

 

OK. This is actually an opportune start for my spiritual parentship, for now I have an opportunity to put aside my very compelling arguments for the necessity of language and culture in deep and close relationships, these conclusions born out of my reason, and to step out in faith, to trust in the Lord who, I pray, will show me deep and close relationships sans language and culture, and with whom my deep and close relationship shall obviously be the key to this victory.

 

I’m thinking about events at this camp that heretofore demonstrated loving relationships without language and culture, and I recalled two acts: the first happened yesterday when I spontaneously joined a line of ushers to high-five and to cheer the audience as they flooded out of the auditorium, the morning rally having scarcely finished; and the second, this was my meeting Yao, a man from the Ivory Coast, whom I befriended in those first, fleeting, if not frantic moments before the opening rally on Friday evening. That encounter was immediate and sudden, neither words nor habits needed; Yao and I simply high-fived, hugged and sat beside each other; and wow, that was terrific companionship — praise God!

 

Finally, however hard my diatribe may have struck my team members’ hearts, my merciful group mates still forgave me, not only on an personal level, but also, as I had sought forgiveness on behalf of all foreigners who have ever cursed locals or stood passively outside the gateway, on a corporate level, thereby releasing countless non-Chinese people into the freedom of these Hong Kong people’s forgiveness; just as brothers and sisters had so recently been reconciled to each other in my church, so local and non-local people have received the others’ freedom of forgiveness; more than a homecoming, that, indeed, is a breakthrough.

 

In listening to this morning’s sermon, I hear such verses as I know God is speaking to me through His word. 2Corinthians 4:16-18, this scripture in particular carries a buoyant, hopeful currency in my heart. My spirit soaks in this divine revelation as a sponge soaks in water and thus becomes malleable, able to be formed and shaped according to its holder’s will: Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

 

Disagreeable

 

I don’t know why my brother and I undermine each others’ comments; why we no more know consensus than the deaf music. Our interactions have been especially abrasive recently since we have spent so much time together without the benefit of our other brother to act as a natural, vociferous buffer; and as a result we argue like pieces of sand paper being rubbed against flesh, which inevitably leads to significant soreness. I feel sore now.

 

I think back to my outburst this morning and can appreciate my role in this evening’s embarrassing outcome; I am certainly not without fault, for I choose these days not only to venture my opinions but to do so passionately, if not emotionally. People consequently who otherwise are phlegmatic at best are put in a discomfiting position by my impassioned pleas. Besides, I recall Interrupting my brother prolifically, which understandably would not make him a happy camper; just as a hyperactive child doesn’t know when to stop pestering his sibling, so I don’t know nowadays when to hold my tongue. Indeed, I would rather not respond at all to my brother, even after he has fired off his rejoinder, than to strike him down in mid-speech.

 

In view of this latest incident, I have resolved to take the former course of action. To be sure, I simply stopped our petty dispute about a stupid basketball game by, awkward as it was, taking out my book and perusing it as fixedly as my tattered mind would allow. I will try my best to stay away from my brother for a spell, to create physical and spiritual space between us, so hopefully, in this way at least one of us will be able to come to his senses about this matter; better yet, now would be an opportune time for our father in his mercy to reveal to us the fault lines in our flesh so that we could surrender these tremulous spots in our soul, crucifying them to the father for our healing and the redemption of our relationship. I will pray about this.

 

…Praise God. If I had not separated myself from my brother’s presence, I wouldn’t have been sitting at that bench at the exact moment when Isaac came over to me in a plaintive mood. Obviously upset, he had been so recently wronged, he lamented on the verge of tears. And at that, mercy swept over my countenance, for my brother felt as aggrieved as I did earlier; and this appointment, per God’s unfailing, obstinate love, had at last come for me, convicting me to be very, very agreeable, sympathetic and kind to my fellow long-suffering brother. In this instance, thank God, language did not matter so much as empathy, carrying each others’ burdens and thus fulfilling the rule of Christ. We prayed and blessed each other in Jesus’ name, and then boldly went forward into the rally.

 

I suspect the enemy has infiltrated our team what with my outbursts and Isaac’s failing out as evidence. My group mates and I must be more vigilant in prayer and in digging deep into the Father’s word if we are to overcome the spies in our camp that have planted incendiary devices in our mouths and in our hearts. We certainly need such encouragement as the Lord provides for the edification and encouragement of each other, even more so, in fact, in the face of adversity, despite our fatigue and other physical ills that befall us like a hail of arrows. In faith, I’m sure, faith will see us through; and per what the pastors exhorted at the rally, we will become as if the smooth stone in David’s sling, ready to fly into the air to crush the Goliath in this world.

 

Sihng4 jauh6 achievement

Ngwuih misunderstanding

Nggaai2 to misunderstand

Yuhn4 leuhng6 forgive

Gaan2syun2 chosen

 

The Security Guard

 

At the morning rally, a security guard left an indelible impression on my heart what with her showing of unconditional support and her proffering of words of encouragement, which like a waterfall fell in force and power over my friends and me. To my amazement, I first saw her out of the corner of my eye stepping out of her role as a security guard to pray as a spiritual parent to two spiritual children during the morning rally’s prayer time; there she was, clad in her blue uniform, laying hands on those weeping kids; finally, I had witnessed someone courageous enough to step out of that rule of law, her boundary in Hong Kong, to be bound to that which is ethereal, the rule of Christ to carry each others’ burdens. Later, as the audience passed through the exit, I had time to confirm her love for the Lord and at that, we broke into a torrent of encouragement and followed this with a flurry of picture-taking. Indeed, never have I stumbled upon such good will from a dragon security guard in HK so I am hopeful, therefore, that this is but the the start of a greater movement within that particular demon-worshipping core, that at this time, God is opening up the heavenly armory and placing his prayer warriors inside that particular stronghold in Hong Kong to demolish every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and placing in its stead a profusion of love, gentleness and kindness. I look forward to the day when wisdom, and not languid stares, shall emanate from all the people who man the facilities in these universities.

 

Reconciliation

 

This is special. No sooner had Isaac and I stepped into the auditorium than we heard the plaintive cry of the mainland Chinese on the stage forgiving the Hong Kong people for their trespasses against their brethren from the north. A flurry of hugs, replete with a few tears, ensued. That was, as Dale announced from the stage, a delicious moment. Jesus must have been breaking out the good champagne in heaven for a rousing celebration in view of this victory.

 

Sex Talk – Part One

 

The kids finally received the sex talk this morning; a fiery pastor delivered the message which was as much shocking as informative; and gasps and wincing abounded in the audience.

 

While I have recently heard the sex talk at the men’s retreat, and have furthermore by God’s grace been inoculated against this particular area of struggle, it was nonetheless refreshing to hear the news, as shocking and as sensational as it was. I am willing, in addition, to believe that some of the atrocious acts that the pastor referenced, such as gruesome abortions and bizarre sexual acts, are more prevalent than my reason will believe, because my scope is limited by experience, but as the Father witnesses everything, if the Spirit has convicted this man and has told him that the world is heading closer and closer into the mouth of Jezebel in this way, I accept this. In fact, believing this is important if I am to be a good spiritual parent who will not only protect but educate the new generation from the prowling enemy that lurks these days, even, in our computers.

 

Prayer

 

The Holy Spirit fell over me this morning during my group’s team time. He convicted me to pray in Cantonese for the first time, and so I did without fear, those Chinese words pouring out of me as if perfume from an alabaster jar. Praise God: he is good; and this was the moment I have been waiting for.

 

I think about what happened, and am amazed at the Father’s favor; despite my critiques against this culture, and in spite of my recent lamentations, the Lord, ever faithfully, provided a way out under which I could stand and by which I could be protected from the bait of Satan. Little did I know that the escape route would, in fact, ironically, direct me to the very thing that heretofore has stood as an obstruction, a spiritual roadblock, in my mind.

 

A missionary on the stage just spoke into my life when she said about her experience learning Putonghua in China: the difficult part was not learning the language but learning to love those people as Jesus loves them. This will always be my mission, no matter where I am.

 

Keuhng4 jong3

Lai1 hei2 (pull up)

 

In the afternoon, my team had a reconciliation meeting during which, in small groups, each team member at last was given an opportunity to share alternately their joys and struggles. At that time, though having staved off an open rebuke for several days, I could no longer hold back this challenge to my small group: to step out in faith to be a gateway to the nations; and second, per the morning’s message, to on their guard against the sexually explicit, insidious media. I laid out my argument with much cogency, and such a response as I saw fit knocked my group mates into a stupor, because they certainly didn’t have much to say afterwards.

 

Oscillate between…and…

Vacillate…

Equivocated

Prevaricate

 

Sex Talk – Part Two

 

1) Jesus came to show us the Father; John1:18

2) Grace First, Truth Second; John 1:24:25; 16-18

 

Pahn4 mohng6 (hope)

 

Do you believe that Jesus can heal you? Then lay hands.

 

Dale and I are men who have shared similar struggles. His testimony is riveting.

 

Suddenly, I realized that this rally is, in fact, a continuation of yesterday morning’s sex talk, because we ended the previous rally praying more against the shame of abortion than against personal sexual immorality. Notionally, what is being discussed will enable people to really experience the love of the Father such that to change permanently our behavior. So when we are tempted:

 

1) Call for help; Romans 10:13

2) Escape Plan; 1Corinthians 10:13

 

Remember not to stand and rebuke the enemy with your own strength; move physically from the situation.

 

3) Run Away; 2Timothy 2:22

4) Into the Father’s Arms; Hebrews 4:14

 

I like this talk. This might be the first time that these young people get straight sex talk from their leaders; and there is no better time than now for these young people to break through in this particular area of struggle, just as the young men of SP broke through these obstinate barriers during our men’s retreat.

 

5) Confess and be Healed; James 5:16

 

I hope these young people find faithful accountability brothers and sisters in this service.

 

6) Walk in Transparent Accountable Relationships; 1John 1:7

7) Resist the Enemy; James 4:7

el.godfootsteps.org/videos/one-who-holds-sovereignty-over...

Εισαγωγή

Αγίου Πνεύματος

Χριστιανικό μουσικό ντοκιμαντέρ | Αυτός που κυριαρχεί επί των πάντων | Μαρτυρεί την παντοδυναμία και την κυριαρχία του Δημιουργού (Greek Subtitles)

 

Στο απέραντο σύμπαν, όλα τα ουράνια σώματα κινούνται με ακρίβεια στην τροχιά τους. Κάτω από τον ουρανό, όλα τα βουνά, τα ποτάμια και οι λίμνες είναι οριοθετημένα και όλα τα πλάσματα ζουν και αναπαράγονται κατά τη διάρκεια των τεσσάρων εποχών σύμφωνα με τους νόμους της ζωής.... Τα πάντα έχουν σχεδιαστεί με τέτοια λεπτότητα — υπάρχει ο ΙσχυρόςΘεός που κυβερνά και οργανώνει τα πάντα; Από τότε που ερχόμαστε σε αυτόν τον κόσμο κλαίγοντας, παίζουμε διαφορετικούς ρόλους στη ζωή. Μεταβαίνουμε από τη γέννηση στο γήρας, στην ασθένεια, στον θάνατο, ζούμε μεταξύ χαράς και λύπης.... Από πού προέρχονται πράγματι οι άνθρωποι και πού πράγματι οδεύουμε; Ποιος κυβερνά τη μοίρα μας; Από την αρχαιότητα ως τη σύγχρονη εποχή, μεγάλα έθνη έχουν ακμάσει, δυναστείες έχουν έλθει και παρέλθει, και οι χώρες και οι λαοί έχουν προοδεύσει και χάθηκαν στον ρου της ιστορίας.... Όπως οι νόμοι της φύσης, έτσι και οι νόμοι της εξέλιξης της ανθρωπότητας περιέχουν άπειρα μυστήρια. Θα θέλατε να μάθετε τις απαντήσεις σε αυτά; Το ντοκιμαντέρ Αυτός που κυριαρχεί επί των πάντων θα σας καθοδηγήσει για να φτάσετε στη ρίζα τους, για να αποκαλύψετε όλα αυτά τα μυστήρια!

Αστραπή της Ανατολής, η Εκκλησία του Παντοδύναμου Θεού

 

Πηγή εικόνας: Εκκλησία του Παντοδύναμου Θεού

Όροι Χρήσης： el.godfootsteps.org/disclaimer.html

Prayer: Love the One Who is with You

by Judah Smith, from Jesus Is ____.

 

He loved us first.

 

The One You Love

 

In John 11, we find a moving story about three siblings: Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Most scholars believe Martha was the oldest sibling, Mary was the middle, and Lazarus was the little brother. Interestingly, Lazarus was never recorded as saying one word in Scripture. Apparently his big sisters said it all. Poor guy.

 

In this passage, Mary and Martha are in the heat of the moment. Their little brother’s life is on the line. The Bible puts it this way:

 

Now, a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore, the sisters sent to Him saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. — John 11:1-5

 

Besides His disciples, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were perhaps Jesus’s best friends. Jesus loved them deeply.

 

The fact that Jesus had friends at all might surprise a few people who think He floated around two feet off the ground and only had time for healing people and preaching. He was a normal-looking and normal-acting guy. Except He healed the sick, raised the dead, and never sinned. And He was God. Minor details.

 

In this story, Lazarus is hours from death. He is on the doorstep of death. And Mary and Martha, true to form, are speaking on Lazarus’s behalf. They need to get God’s attention. They have one shot at convincing Jesus to come. They need to come up with their best argument, their most airtight appeal. So they write Jesus a note. It has to be a good one — their brother’s life depends on it.

 

It’s the heat of the moment, and they aren’t thinking about being polite and courteous and wordy. What they really believe is about to be revealed. How are they going to appeal to Jesus? What will their plea be?

 

Now, if we were Lazarus’s siblings, a lot of us would have started out by listing all the good things Lazarus had done. We would have talked about how much he loved and admired Jesus and how he was a model citizen who didn’t deserve to die.

 

Not Mary and Martha. They knew what moved Jesus.

 

Lord, the one that You love is sick.

 

That was the realization that welled up from deep within their hearts. Jesus loved Lazarus. It wasn’t their love for Jesus, or Lazarus’s love, or his good deeds that moved Jesus. It was pointless to recite a laundry list of their brother’s achievements. That wasn’t what moved the heart of Jesus. It was His own love that motivated Him. It was His own desire to bless and heal and restore.

 

The story goes on to say that Jesus responded to Mary and Martha’s request and went to their home. But by the time He arrived, Lazarus had died. That didn’t bother Jesus — He knew it was going to happen. He simply raised Lazarus from the dead. It pays to have friends like that.

 

John, one of Jesus’s disciples, recorded this story. John understood the importance of Jesus’s love. Five times in his book, John calls himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He doesn’t even use his own name. He just flaunts that he was Jesus’s favorite.

 

Was he Jesus’s favorite? We don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, because he believed he was. And there is something strangely healthy about that perspective.

 

We are all God’s favorites.

 

Some might call John’s statements arrogant, but John didn’t care. Neither did God, apparently - it’s in His Book. John defined his identity through Jesus’s love. I find that fascinating. A few decades later, John wrote several letters that are also part of the Bible. The letters are manifestos of God’s love toward us. Here’s one example from 1 John 4:9-10:

 

God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love — not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

 

John figured something out by watching Jesus. It’s not about how much we love God. It’s about how much He loves us.

 

That little truth will change the way you think, the way you talk, and the way you pray. For too many of us, life is all about how much we can accomplish. It’s about our plans, our work, our merit, our achievements. That’s gratifying to the ego, but ultimately it’s a dead end. We find ourselves in situations we can’t get out of, in need of favors we don’t deserve. We lose our perspective very quickly when we make life all about us.

 

Mary and Martha were some of Jesus’s closest friends. John, according to scholars, was probably Jesus’s closest disciple. It seems the people nearest Jesus had an overwhelming awareness of His love for them. Maybe we should take a hint.

 

Let Me Count the Ways

 

The message Mary and Martha sent was a plea, a prayer. And notice the basis of their prayer: “the one You love.”

 

You can find out a lot about what you really believe when you listen to yourself pray, when you listen to what you say in the heat of the moment. How many times have I prayed prayers like this:

 

Oh, God, I need help. I’m faithful. I help people. I’m generous. I’m holy. I read my Bible. And I’m praying really, really loudly, with big words and Bible verses and lots of praise. So come, Lord, and help me with my need.

 

In other words, “Lord, based on what I’ve done, now please do...” We think that moves God. No, what moves God is His Son. What moves God is His love.

 

One of the most famous love poems of all time, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43, starts out: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

 

Don’t count the ways you love God; count the ways He loves you. Your love pales in comparison to His. So when you pray, pray like Mary and Martha: “Jesus, the one You love needs You.”

 

I was tired the other afternoon, for instance. Maybe not a big deal, but I had some things I had to accomplish that evening, and I really needed strength. So, I got alone for a few minutes, and I said, “Lord, the one You love is tired. Give me energy.”

 

It was such a refreshing, healthy way to pray. It was incredible. I started thinking, Whoa. That was crazy. That felt good.

 

He’s moved by His love. Remind Him of His love for you.

 

“Lord, the one You love is out $250 this month. I can’t pay the bills. But I’m Your favorite. I’m the one You love, so help me with my bills, Lord.”

 

That’s far better than trying to talk God into something based on our own works or our own merit.

 

Maybe you are thinking, I don’t really know Jesus. I’m a poor excuse for a follower of Jesus.

 

Nobody’s an outsider when we pray this way. It’s on the basis of His love, not ours. We have no idea how profound His love for us really is. No matter who you are, no matter what you need, try praying that prayer. And I pray that your heart erupts with an understanding and revelation of His amazing love for you.

 

“God, because I am the object of your obsession, because I’m the one You love, come now and take care of my needs.”

 

What is the focus of the Bible? Man loving God, or God loving man?

 

Many of us would answer automatically, “It’s about man loving God. It’s about humans leaving a sinful lifestyle and turning to God.” And even if we didn’t say it, we believe it - just look at how we pray and how we act.

 

We would be wrong.

 

All sixty-six books of the Bible, all forty-plus authors writing over the course of sixteen hundred years, point to the same thing: God’s love for humanity.

 

If you’re like me, you find yourself time and time again obsessing over your own inconsistencies and inadequacies, over your own love or lack of love for God. But if we spent more time in the Bible, we would discover that it is overwhelmingly about God’s love for us. In fact, God’s love created our love.

 

Here’s a crazy thought: God’s love is so extravagant and so inexplicable that He loved us before we were us. He loved us before we existed. He knew many of us would reject Him, hate Him, curse Him, rebel against Him. Yet He chose to love us. God loves us because He is love.

 

The message is clear in Scripture. The gospel is about God loving man, whether we reciprocate it or not. John, the “one Jesus loved,” spelled it out:

 

We love Him because He first loved us. - 1 John 4:19

 

The reason that we are even interested in God is that He is hot on our trails. We are His favorites, and He is passionately pursuing us. He doesn’t just love us like a friend, like an aunt or uncle, or even like a dad. His love is far more perfect than any earthly love.

 

Really, we won’t fully comprehend His love until we enter eternity with Him. And when we get to eternity, we will be undone. We will be overwhelmed and overcome and consumed with the enormity of His love.

 

Picture that the next time you pray, the next time you fail at something, the next time you are facing a tough situation — it will revolutionize everything.

 

Go ahead and try to describe the height of His love, the length of His love, the width of His love, the depth of His love. Our metaphors pale in comparison. We have marriages, we have children, we have adoptions, we have friends, but nothing compares to God’s love for us.

 

I’ve never met a person who exaggerated God’s love. Never. It’s impossible. He loved us first, He loves us best, and He will love us forever.

 

How does He love me?

 

I’ll spend the rest of my life counting the ways.

 

Excerpted from Jesus Is: Find A New Way To Be Human by Judah Smith, copyright Thomas Nelson.

The Postcard

 

A carte postale that was published by Lévy et Neurdein Réunis of 44, Rue Letellier, Paris. The card was posted in Lourdes on Tuesday the 22nd. September 1936 to:

 

Miss Woollett,

Agincourt Street,

Monmouth,

Wales.

 

The message on the divided back was as follows:

 

"Thinking of you.

Arm Casson."

 

Bernadette Soubirous

 

Bernadette Soubirous, who was born on the 7th. January 1844, also known as Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, was the firstborn daughter of a miller from Lourdes, in the département of Hautes-Pyrénées in France.

 

She is known for experiencing Marian apparitions of a "young lady" who asked for a chapel to be built at the nearby cave-grotto at Massabielle. These apparitions occurred between the 11th. February 1858 and the 16th. July 1858. The young lady appeared to her identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception."

 

After a canonical investigation, Soubirous's reports were eventually declared "worthy of belief" on the 18th. February 1862, and the Marian apparition became known as Our Lady of Lourdes.

 

Catholics believe that Soubirous’s body has remained internally incorrupt.

 

The Marian shrine at Lourdes (Midi-Pyrénées, from 2016 part of Occitanie) went on to become a major pilgrimage site, attracting over five million pilgrims of all denominations each year.

 

On the 8th. December 1933, Pope Pius XI, declared Soubirous a saint of the Catholic Church. Her feast day, initially specified as the 18th. February - the day Mary promised to make her happy, not in this life, but in the next - is now observed in most places on the date of her death, the 16th. April.

 

Bernadette Soubirous - The Early Years

 

Soubirous was the daughter of François Soubirous (1807–1871), a miller, and Louise (née Casteròt 1825–1866), a laundress.

 

She was the eldest of nine children. Soubirous was baptized at the local parish church, St.-Pierre, on the 9th. January 1844, her parents' wedding anniversary.

 

Her godmother was Bernarde Casterot, her mother's sister, a moderately wealthy widow who owned a tavern. Hard times had fallen on France, and the family lived in extreme poverty. Soubirous was a very sick child, and possibly due to this only measured 1.4 m (4 ft. 7in.) tall.

 

She contracted cholera as a toddler, and suffered severe asthma for the rest of her life. Soubirous attended the day school conducted by the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction from Nevers.

 

Contrary to a belief popularized by Hollywood films, Soubirous learned very little French, only studying French in school after the age of 13. She spoke the language of Occitan, which was spoken by the local population of the Pyrénées region at that time and to a residual degree today. At that time she could read and write very little due to her frequent illness.

 

Bernadette's Apparitions at Lourdes

 

By the time of the events at the grotto, the Soubirous family's financial and social status had declined to the point where they lived in a one-room basement, formerly used as a jail, called le cachot, "the dungeon", where they were housed for free by her mother's cousin, André Sajoux.

 

On the 11th. February 1858, Soubirous, then aged 14, was out gathering firewood with her sister Toinette and a friend near the grotto of Massabielle when she experienced her first vision.

 

While the other girls crossed the little stream in front of the grotto and walked on, Soubirous stayed behind, looking for a place to cross where she wouldn't get her stockings wet.

 

She finally sat down to take her shoes off in order to cross the water, and was lowering her stocking when she heard the sound of rushing wind, but nothing moved. A wild rose in a natural niche in the grotto, however, did move.

 

From the niche, or rather the dark alcove behind it, "came a dazzling light, and a white figure". This was the first of 18 visions of "a small young lady." Her sister and her friend stated that they had seen nothing.

 

On the 14th. February, after Sunday Mass, Soubirous, with her sister Marie and some other girls, returned to the grotto. Soubirous knelt down immediately, saying she saw the apparition again.

 

When one of the girls threw holy water at the niche and another threw a rock from above that shattered on the ground, the apparition disappeared. On her next visit, on the 18th. February, Soubirous said that "the vision" asked her to return to the grotto every day for a fortnight.

 

This period of almost daily visions came to be known as la Quinzaine Sacrée, "Holy Fortnight." Initially, Soubirous's parents, especially her mother, were embarrassed and tried to forbid her to go. The supposed apparition did not identify herself until the seventeenth vision.

 

Although the townspeople who believed she was telling the truth assumed she saw the Virgin Mary, Soubirous never claimed it to be Mary. She described the lady as wearing a white veil, a blue girdle and with a yellow rose on each foot - compatible with "a description of any statue of the Virgin in a village church".

 

Soubirous's story caused a sensation amongst the townspeople, who were divided in their opinions on whether or not she was telling the truth. Some believed her to have a mental illness and demanded she be put in an asylum.

 

The other contents of Soubirous's reported visions focused on the need for prayer and penance. On the 25th. February she explained that the vision had told her to engage in an act of penance:

 

"Drink of the water of the spring,

wash in it and to eat the herb that

grows there."

 

To everyone's surprise, the next day the grotto was no longer muddy, and clear water flowed.

 

On the 2nd. March, during the thirteenth of the alleged apparitions, Soubirous told her family that the lady said that:

 

"A chapel should be built

and a procession formed".

 

Soubirous's 16th. claimed vision, which she stated went on for over an hour, was on the 25th. March. According to her account, during that visitation, she again asked the woman for her name but the lady just smiled back. She repeated the question three more times, and finally heard the lady say, in Gascon Occitan:

 

"I am the Immaculate Conception."

 

Despite being rigorously interviewed by officials of both the Catholic Church and the French government, she stuck consistently to her story.

 

Consequences of Soubirous's Visions

 

After investigation, Catholic Church authorities confirmed the authenticity of the apparitions in 1862.

 

In the 160 years since Soubirous's visions, cures have been verified by the Lourdes Medical Bureau as "inexplicable" - after what the Catholic Church claims are "extremely rigorous scientific and medical examinations" that failed to find any other explanation.

 

The Lourdes Commission that examined Bernadette after the visions ran an intensive analysis on the water and found that, while it had a high mineral content, it contained nothing out of the ordinary that would account for the cures attributed to it.

 

Bernadette said that it was faith and prayer that cured the sick:

 

"One must have faith and pray; the

water will have no virtue without faith".

 

Soubirous's request to the local priest to build a chapel at the site of her visions eventually gave rise to a number of chapels and churches at Lourdes. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is now one of the major Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world.

 

One of the churches built at the site, the Basilica of St. Pius X, can accommodate 25,000 people, and was dedicated by the future Pope John XXIII when he was the Papal Nuncio to France.

 

Close to 5 million pilgrims from all over the world visit Lourdes (population of about 15,000) every year to pray and to drink the miraculous water, believing that they obtain from the Lord healing of the body and of the spirit.

 

Bernadette Soubirous - The Later Years

 

Disliking the attention she was attracting, Bernadette went to the hospice school run by the Sisters of Charity of Nevers where she had learned to read and write. Although she considered joining the Carmelites, her health precluded her entering any of the strict contemplative orders.

 

On the 29th. July 1866, with 42 other candidates, she took the religious habit of a postulant and joined the Sisters of Charity at their motherhouse at Nevers. The Mother Superior at the time gave her the name Marie-Bernarde.

 

Bernadette was devoted to Saint Bernard, her patron saint; she copied long texts related to him in notebooks and on bits of paper.

 

Soubirous spent the rest of her brief life at the motherhouse, working as an assistant in the infirmary and later as a sacristan, creating beautiful embroidery for altar cloths and vestments. Her contemporaries admired her humility and spirit of sacrifice. One day, asked about the apparitions, she replied:

 

"The Virgin used me as a broom to

remove the dust. When the work is

done, the broom is put behind the

door again."

 

Soubirous had followed the development of Lourdes as a pilgrimage shrine while she still lived at Lourdes, but was not present for the consecration of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception there in 1876.

 

The Death of Bernadette Soubiros

 

Unfortunately, Soubirous's childhood bout of cholera left her with severe, chronic asthma, and eventually she contracted tuberculosis. For several months prior to her death, she was unable to take an active part in convent life.

 

Bernadette eventually died in Nevers of her long-term illness at the age of 35 on the 16th. April 1879 while praying the holy rosary. On her deathbed, as she suffered from severe pain and in keeping with the Virgin Mary's admonition of "Penance, Penance, Penance," Bernadette proclaimed that:

 

"All this is good for Heaven!"

 

Her final words were:

 

"Blessed Mary, Mother

of God, Pray for me".

 

Soubirous's body was laid to rest in the Saint Gildard Convent in Nevers.

 

Sainthood

 

Soubirous was declared blessed on the 14th. June 1921 by Pope Pius XI. She was canonized by Pius XI on the 8th. December 1933.

 

The Three Exhumations

 

In the spring of 2015, the town of Lourdes lobbied for Soubirous's remains to be returned to Lourdes, a move opposed by the city of Nevers.

 

(a) The First Exhumation

 

Bishop Gauthey of Nevers and the Catholic Church exhumed the body of Soubirous on the 22nd. September 1909, in the presence of representatives appointed by the postulators of the cause, two doctors and a sister of the community.

 

They claimed that although the crucifix in her hand and her rosary had both oxidized, her body appeared incorrupt - preserved from decomposition. This was cited as one of the miracles to support her canonization. They washed and re-clothed her body before burial in a new double casket.

 

(b) The Second Exhumation

 

The church exhumed Bernadette's corpse a second time on the 3rd. April 1919, on the occasion of the approval of Bernadette's canonization. Dr. Comte, who examined the body noted:

 

"The body is practically mummified, covered

with patches of mildew, and quite a notable

layer of salts, which appear to be calcium salts.

The skin has disappeared in some places, but

it is still present on most parts of the body."

 

(c) The Third Exhumation

 

In 1925, the church exhumed the body for a third time. They took relics, which were sent to Rome. A precise imprint of the face was molded so that the firm of Pierre Imans in Paris could make a wax mask based on the imprints and on photographs.

 

This was a common practice for relics in France, as it was feared that the blackish tinge to the face and the sunken eyes and nose would be viewed as corruption by the public.

 

Imprints of the hands were also taken for the presentation of the body and for the making of wax casts. The remains were then placed in a gold and crystal reliquary in the Chapel of Saint Bernadette at the motherhouse in Nevers.

 

Three years later in 1928, Doctor Comte published a report on the exhumation of Soubirous in the second issue of the Bulletin de I'Association Medicale de Notre-Dame de Lourdes:

 

"I would have liked to open the left side of the thorax

to take the ribs as relics and then remove the heart

which I am certain must have survived. However, as

the trunk was slightly supported on the left arm, it

would have been rather difficult to try and get at the

heart without doing too much noticeable damage.

As the Mother Superior had expressed a desire for

the Saint's heart to be kept together with the whole

body, and as Monsignor the Bishop did not insist,

I gave up the idea of opening the left-hand side of

the thorax, and contented myself with removing the

two right ribs which were more accessible.

What struck me during this examination, of course,

was the state of perfect preservation of the skeleton,

the fibrous tissues of the muscles (still supple and firm),

of the ligaments, and of the skin, and above all the totally unexpected state of the liver after 46 years.

One would have thought that this organ, which is

basically soft and inclined to crumble, would have

decomposed very rapidly, or would have hardened to

a chalky consistency. Yet, when it was cut, it was soft

and almost normal in consistency. I pointed this out to

those present, remarking that this did not seem to be

a natural phenomenon."

 

Three Executions

 

So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?

 

Well, on the 22nd. September 1936, Uruguay broke off diplomatic relations with Spain because of reported executions of three sisters of a Uruguayan diplomat.

 

Hitler Youth

 

Also on that day, Benito Mussolini received Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach in Rome.

 

A special parade of visiting Hitler Youth was conducted in the Piazza Venezia.

"Blessed be He Who arranges everything

for our good! In possessing Him, we possess everything."

 

Carmelite Virgin and Martyr

 

BL. MARIA SAGRARIO of ST ALOYSIUS GONZAGA (Elvira Moragas Cantarero) was born in Lillo, Spain, on 8 January 1881, to Ricardo Moragas and Isabel Cantarero. She was the third child of four. In 1886 her father became the pharmaceutical purveyor to the royal household and the family moved to Madrid. She completed her studies with distinction and was one of the first women in Spain to obtain a degree in pharmacy.

 

After her father's death, her professional ability became evident. She also became aware of her religious vocation, but, on the advice of her spiritual director and at the insistence of her younger brother who still needed her help, she was obliged to postpone her plans.

 

In 1915 she was admitted as a postulant to the Carmel of St Anne and St Joseph in Madrid. On 21 December she began her novitiate and received the name Maria Sagrario of St Aloysius Gonzaga. She made her temporary profession on 24 December 1916 and her solemn profession on 6 January 1920.

 

In April 1927 she was elected prioress and used her mandate to serve the community. In 1930 she became novice mistress and frequently told her novices of her desire to be a martyr. She was elected prioress for the second time on 1 July 1936, two weeks before the Spanish Civil War broke out with a wave of religious persecution.

 

On 20 July the convent was attacked by a violent crowd. She provided for the safety of her sisters and took refuge with one of them at the home of that sister's parents, where she remained until her arrest, despite her brother's pleas that she move to his home. On 14 August the "soldiers" arrested her and the other sister.

 

Her serene attitude and total surrender to God's will is well-documented by her daughters' testimony. She was interrogated by the secret police and an effort was made to force her to reveal the whereabouts of the convent's valuables. She resisted the questioning in silence and refused to betray anyone.

 

On 15 August she was taken to the Pradera of San Isidro and shot. Given the increasing fame of her martyrdom, the process for her canonization was begun in 1962 and closed in 1965. On 8 April 1997 Pope John Paul II approved the decree establishing her martyrdom.

 

In her beatification ceremony in Rome on May 10, 1998, Blessed John Paul II said of her:

 

“Mother María Sagrario, a pharmacist in her youth and a Christian example for those who practice that noble profession, gave up everything to live for God alone in Christ Jesus (cf. Rom 6:11) in the Discalced Carmelite Monastery of St Anne and St Joseph in Madrid. There her commitment to the Lord matured, and she learned from him to serve and to sacrifice herself for her brothers and sisters. This how in the turbulent events of July 1936 she found the strength not to betray priests and friends of the community, facing death with integrity for her state as a Carmelite and to save others.”

 

Here is an excerpt from her writing:

 

“May Jesus reign always in my heart. The

Lord asks me to be humble, to weep over my

sins, to love Him much, to love my sisters

much, to mortify them in nothing, not to

mortify myself uselessly, to live recollected in

Him wanting nothing for myself, completely

surrendered to His divine will. In this vale of

tears, suffering will not be lacking and we

should be content to have something to offer to

our most beloved Jesus Who wanted so much to

suffer for love of us. The most direct way to

unite ourselves to God is that of the cross, so

we should always desire it. May the Lord not

permit that I be separated from His divine will.

 

Blessed be God Who gives us these ways

of offering ourselves up to His love! The day

will arrive when we will rejoice for having

suffered in this way. Meanwhile, let us be

generous, suffering everything, if not with

happiness, at least in close conformity to the

divine will of Him Who suffered so much out of

love for us. However great are our sufferings

they come nowhere near His. If you wish to be

perfect seek first of all to be quite humble in

thought, word, deed and desire, learn well what

this means and work tenaciously to carry it out.

Keep your gaze always on our most beloved

Jesus, asking Him in the depths of His heart

what He desires for you, and never deny Him

anything even if it means going strongly against

the grain for you.

 

Blessed be He Who arranges everything

for our good! In possessing Him, we possess

everything.”

 

Prayer:

O God,

Who by a spirit of prayer

and devotion to the Eucharist

prepared Blessed Maria Sagrario

to suffer martyrdom,

grant that we, through her example,

may freely spend our lives for You

by faithfully and constantly

fulfilling Your Will. Through our Lord

Jesus Christ Your Son, Who lives and reigns

with You and the Holy Spirit one God

for ever and ever.

 

Amen.

 

Blessed Maria Sagrario of Saint Aloysius,

pray for us

The answer from God’s word:

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“The work of the Holy Spirit changes from day to day, rising higher with each step; the revelation of tomorrow becomes even higher than today’s, step by step climbing ever higher. Such is the work by which God perfects man. If man cannot keep pace, then he may be forsaken at any time. If man does not have an obedient heart, then he cannot follow to the end. The old age has passed; now is a new age. And in a new age, new work must be done. Particularly in the final age where man will be perfected, God will perform new work ever more quickly. Therefore, without obedience in his heart, man will find it difficult to follow the footsteps of God. God abides not by the rules, nor does He treat any stage of His work as unchanging. Rather, the work done by God is ever newer and ever higher. His work becomes more and more practical with each step, more and more in line with the actual needs of man. Only after man experiences this kind of work can he attain the final transformation of his disposition. Man’s knowledge of life grows ever higher, therefore the work of God likewise becomes ever higher. Only in this way can man reach perfection and be fit for God’s use. On one hand, God works this way to counter and reverse the notions of man, while on the other, to lead man into a higher and more realistic state, into the highest realm of belief in God, so that in the end, the will of God is done. All those of a disobedient nature and with a heart of resistance shall be forsaken in this fast and powerful work; only those who have an obedient heart and are willing to be humbled will progress to the end of the road. In such work, all of you should learn how to submit and to put aside your notions. Every step should be taken with caution. If you are careless, you will surely become one of those loathed and rejected by the Holy Spirit and one who disrupts the work of God. Prior to undergoing this stage of work, man’s rules and laws of old were so innumerable that they got carried away, and as a result, they became conceited and forgot their place. These are all obstacles in the way of man accepting the new work of God and are hostile to man coming to know God. It is dangerous for man to have neither obedience in his heart nor a yearning for the truth. If you obey only the work and words that are simple, and are unable to accept any of a deeper intensity, then you are one who keeps to old ways and cannot keep pace with the work of the Holy Spirit. The work done by God differs across periods of time. If you show great obedience in one phase, yet in the next phase show less or none at all, then God shall desert you. If you keep pace with God as He ascends this step, then you must continue to keep pace when He ascends the next. Only such men are obedient to the Holy Spirit. Since you believe in God , you must remain constant in your obedience. You cannot simply obey when you please and disobey when you do not. Such manner of obedience is not approved by God. If you cannot keep pace with the new work I fellowship and continue to hold on to the former sayings, then how can there be growth in your life? In God's work, He supplies you through His word. When you obey and accept His word, then the Holy Spirit shall surely work in you. The Holy Spirit works exactly in the way I speak. Do as I have said, and the Holy Spirit will promptly work in you. I release a new light for you to see and bring you into the present light. When you walk into this light, the Holy Spirit will immediately work in you. Some may be recalcitrant and say, ‘I simply will not do as you say.’ Then I tell you that now this is the end of the road. You have withered away and have no more life. Therefore, in experiencing the transformation of your disposition, it is most crucial to keep pace with the present light.”

 

from “The Truly Obedient Shall Surely Be Gained by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

 

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“Now the most crucial thing is to follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance, to follow whatever God says and obey whatever God says. Man’s disposition cannot be transformed by man himself. He has to undergo the judgment, chastisement, painful refinement, dealing, discipline, or pruning of God’s word before he can obey God and be faithful to God and treat God without perfunctoriness and deceitfulness. It is through the refinement of God’s word that one can be transformed somewhat in his disposition. Only those who have undergone the disclosure, judgment, discipline, and dealing of God’s word do not dare to act willfully and are composed and steady. And most importantly, they are able to obey God’s present word and obey God’s work, and even if they do not fit their notions, they can drop their notions and obey intentionally. The transformation of disposition spoken of before mainly means that one can forsake himself, being able to let his flesh suffer, subdue his body, and get rid of his fleshly likes. That is a kind of transformation in disposition. Now everyone knows that the practical manifestation of transformation in disposition is that one obeys God’s present word and can have true knowledge of God’s new work, and thus remove his past notional knowledge of God and can truly know God and obey God. This is the true manifestation of transformation in disposition.”

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from “All Those Transformed in Disposition Are Ones Who Have Entered Into the Reality of God’s Word” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

  

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All Saints, Gazeley, Suffolk

 

All Saints at Gazeley, near Newmarket, was the first church that I visited after an international team of scientists conclusively proved that God did not exist. Thus begins the original article about Gazeley parish church that I wrote for the Suffolk Churches site, back in May 2003. At that stage, I had visited more than 600 Suffolk churches, and the site was moving towards a kind of completion. The entries were becoming longer and tending more towards the philosophical. The acquisition of a digital camera meant that I could already see I would need to do the whole lot again, but that would be in the future. For now, I had Norfolk in my sights, and there was an end-of-term feel to what I was writing about Suffolk. I am afraid that All Saints, Gazeley, took the full brunt of it.

 

The article generated a fair amount of correspondence, as you may imagine. It was discussed on BBC Radio Suffolk. I was questioned rather cautiously about it by someone in the Diocese.

 

The parish themselves took it rather well. To be honest, I had caught them at a low ebb, and they welcomed the publicity. I had also visited them immediately before a time of great change, when heads had fallen, but loins were about to be girded, and the Church of England was stirring itself again in that lovely village. One of the advantages of visiting every parish church in East Anglia is that you also get to see every parish, of course, and I soon fell in love with these sleepy, fat villages along the Cambridgeshire border. I would move there tomorrow, quite happily.

 

However, the article still makes the point I was originally trying to make, and the contrast between then and now shows this special place in a light it thoroughly deserves, for this is one of East Anglia's loveliest churches, and deserves all the visitors it can get. Anyway, I thought so then, and I certainly think so now.

 

Here is what I wrote in 2003: 'All Saints at Gazeley, near Newmarket, was the first church that I visited after an international team of scientists conclusively proved that God did not exist. I was intrigued to know how a wealthy, reasonably large Suffolk village would respond to this challenge. What would they do with their church? I had a theory. I suspected that the old church buildings would continue to find a community use. Small groups of people would still congregate on a Sunday mornings to sing comforting songs and feel good about each other. The churches would still be used by secular couples wanting a fancy wedding, and the local villagers would still want to be buried in the graveyard. But the building would no longer have a Christian use.

 

It was with some dismay, however, that I arrived in Gazeley to discover that the rot had already set in. The first sign of this was the way in which the large windows facing onto the road had holes the size of small rocks in them. This was disturbing, especially because the east window at Gazeley is one of the most remarkable Decorated windows in East Anglia. The head of the window consists of two elegant overlapping trefoils, but there is no head to the arch, the head itself having cusps. You can see it in the left hand column; Cautley thought it was unique.

 

I went and tried the door, but of course it was locked. Ever since the announcement of God's non-existence, heads have dropped in the Anglican community, and many of them no longer have the will to welcome strangers and visitors. I went next door to the Rectory. I knocked on the door, rang the bell. Nobody came. Perhaps the Rector had fled town. I had tried phoning several numbers I had taken from the Diocesan website, but nobody had answered. There were keyholders listed in the church porch, but no phone numbers. Gazeley is a fairly large village, and we didn't have a street map, but by driving around (sorry about the carbon monoxide, folks) we tracked some of the houses down. Several cars were on the driveways outside (as I said, this is a wealthy village) but nobody came to the door. Perhaps they had given up in despair. I felt Gazeley's strange torpor beginning to settle on me like snow.

 

We found the house where the last address was supposed to be. I went to the side door, and eventually someone answered. "Yes?" he was very curt, so I don't know who he was expecting. I, however, was a model of charm and good manners, and explained my mission to see inside Gazeley church, and that I understood he was a keyholder, a churchwarden in fact. His wife came to the kitchen door behind him, to see who it was. I could smell cooking, and I assumed that they were both about to eat, the time being 5pm on a Saturday.

 

"The church is locked", he said. I agreed that this was the case, and wondered if access was possible. "It was open earlier today, you should have come then", he observed. I concurred that it would have been better, but that we had been visiting other churches, and had only just arrived in Gazeley. He thought for a second. "I'll have to come with you." The man checked that the twenty minutes I had suggested would not deprive him of his tea, and walked with me up to the church. On the way, the man explained how he and his wife had spent the day preparing the church for the harvest festival. I made a mental note that this was another event that had survived the death of God, as would Christmas probably.

 

We walked across the wide open graveyard, and I looked up at the great ship of Gazeley church. There is no doubt which county you are in; here, the complete rebuilding of the nave with clerestory and aisles was at the start of the 16th century, and as at Blythburgh they didn't get around to rebuilding the tower before the Protestant Reformation intervened. The huge chancel had been built on the eve of the Black Death, and has similarities with the one at Mildenhall. Perhaps a rebuilding was planned, but it never happened. The tower was largely reconstructed in the 19th century.

 

To my surprise, he took us not to either south or north porch, but to the great west door. This led us beneath the tower and behind the organ, and we stepped into darkness. Daylight was fading, but here it must be always gloomy, among the broom cupboards and stacks of junk. The churchwarden found the light switches, and we walked around the organ into the body of the church.

 

Back in the days when God still existed, I had been to Gazeley church before. It had been a bright, cold February morning in 1999, and I was cycling from Newmarket to Ipswich. I'd arrived in Gazeley to find the church open, and had thought it lovely. There was a delicate balance between respect for the medieval and the demands of the modern liturgy. It felt at once a house of prayer and a spiritual touchstone to the long generations. However, the slight crimp in all this was that, at the time, the regular Sunday congregation of Gazeley church had been reduced to single figures. The same was true of neighbouring Kentford. The Rector may not have been to blame; he was very energetic in in his pastoral activities in the village, and people still turned up for the big occasions. But I wondered what effect all this had had, and asked the churchwarden.

 

He was very candid. He told me that they had had a terrible time of it. The electoral roll had fallen to just three people, and this is not a small village. Nobody wanted to come to church any more. He had lived in the village for years, and had seen all this happen. It was only in the last year or so that he felt the church had been turned around by the new Rector (the one I had suspected of leaving town). Now, there were more than twenty of them, and they felt like a proper community again, he said.

 

I found this interesting. The previous Rector had been a Forward in Faith-supporting Anglo-catholic, and such a tradition was not terribly popular with the suits at Diocesan House. The new Rector had moved the church back towards the mainstream.

 

I looked around the vast open nave. All Saints is one of the biggest churches in the west of the county, and it must take a good five hundred people to make it feel full. I tried to imagine what it must have been like here, just three in the congregation.

 

The warden and his wife had tried hard to decorate the church for the harvest festival, and it looked particularly lovely towards the east. The greenery on the tombchest and piscina was very well done. But inevitably the fruit and vegetables were sparse, and there was no disguising the general air of shabbiness and decay underneath the decoration. I felt a bit sorry for the churchwarden, for he had stuck with the place through thick and thin, and clearly loved it. The chancel and central eastern part of the nave were clean and tidy, but all around were the encroaching shadows, and here lurked the dust and dirt.

 

The higher you looked, the filthier it became. The clerestory windows were coated in grime, and the lower parts cloaked in decades of cobwebs. The medieval cross beams are still in place, but the Victorian roof above is leaky, and areas of damp showed above the high arcades. It seemed unlikely that all this could have happened in the short time since the Geneva declaration of 2007 announced all faith in a Supreme Being to be 'utterly null and void'. Mortlock had commented on the poor condition of the royal arms as long ago as 1988. Could it be that they were in this state when this building was still in use for Christian worship?

 

Having seen the stone holes in the windows, I was mightily relieved that the Victorians had reset the medieval glass up in the clerestory. This seems a curious thing to have done, since it defeats the purpose of a clerestory, but if they had not done so then we might have lost it. The glass matches the tracery in the north aisle windows, so that is probably where they came from. I had seen them on my previous visit, but could not remember where they were, and when I asked the keyholder he did not seem aware that the church had any medieval glass. Eventually I found it. There are angels, three Saints and some shields, most of which are heraldic but two show the instruments of the passion and the Holy Trinity. I would not be surprised to learn that some of the shields are 19th century, but the figures are all original late 15th or early 16th century. The Saints are an unidentified Bishop, the hacksaw-wielding St Faith and one of my favourites, St Apollonia. She it was who was invoked by medieval people against toothache.

 

It struck me as I gazed up that many parish churches had much less to lose than Gazeley. At one time, these places were vibrant hubs of spiritual communities, but now they would be left to wither and die. Some would become houses of course, but Gazeley's church is much too big. Some might be kept as examples of our redundant belief systems, but here at Gazeley there would be too much to tidy up and sort out. So All Saints at Gazeley must be considered merely as a treasure house. Here, then, is a guide to why it must survive the 2007 Geneva Declaration.

 

Firstly, the chancel. Here, the space created by the clearing of clutter makes it at once mysterious and beautiful. Above, the early 16th century waggon roof is Suffolk's best of its kind. Mortlock points out the little angels bearing scrolls, the wheat ears and the vine sprays, and the surviving traces of colour. The low side window on the south side still has its hinges, for here it was that updraught to the rood would have sent the candles flickering in the mystical church of the 14th century. On the south side of the sanctuary is an exquisitely carved arched recess, that doesn't appear to have ever had a door, and may have been a very rare purpose-built Easter sepulchre at the time of the 1330s rebuilding. Opposite is a huge and stunningly beautiful piscina, and beside it are sedilia that end in an arm rest carved in the shape of a beast. It is one of the most significant Decorated moments in Suffolk.

 

On the floor of the chancel there is a tiny, perfect chalice brass, one of only two surviving in Suffolk. The other is at Rendham. Not far away is the indent of another chalice brass - or perhaps it was for the same one, and the brass has been moved for some reason. There are two chalice indents at Westhall, but nowhere else in Suffolk. Chalice brasses were popular memorials for Priests in the 15th and early 16th centuries, and thus were fair game for reformers. Heigham memorials of the late 16th century are on the walls. Back in the south aisle there is a splendid tombchest in Purbeck marble. It has lost its brasses, but the indents show us where they were, as do other indents in the aisle floors. Some heraldic brass shields survive, and show that Heighams were buried here. Brass inscriptions survive in the nave and the chancel, dating from the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

 

Piled up and decrepit in the south west corner are some extraordinary 14th century benches with pierced tracery backs. Some of them appear to spell out words, Mortlock thought one might say Salaman Sayet. The block of benches to the north appear to have been made using sections of the 15th century rood loft. Further north, the early 17th century benches may appear crude, but were almost certainly the work of the village carpenter.

 

The 14th century font is a stunning example of the tracery pattern series that appeared in the decades before the Black Death. They may have been intended to spread ideas at that time of great artistic and intellectual flowering before it was so cruelly snatched away. The cover is 17th century.

 

The place is absolutely glorious, but few people seem to know about it, and fewer seem to care. If it had been clean, tidy and open, Simon Jenkins England's Thousand Best Churches would not have been able to resist it. Should the survival of such a treasure store depend upon the existence of God or the continued practice of the Christian faith? Or might there be other reasons to keep this extraordinary building in something like its present integrity? It needs thousands spent on it, hundreds of thousands, but is this something that we as a nation or culture should consider worth doing? Will it be sufficient to photograph it all and then let it fall, or do we need to rescue this building before it is too late?

 

Increasingly, it seemed to me that what the parish needed was not condemnation for the state the building was in, but encouragement to put it right. I pointed out several of the features outlined above, but I think the poor man was beginning to register quite what a task he had on his hands, so I fell quiet. I did reassure him that the building really was the responsibility of us all, and not just the Church of England; it was the heart and touchstone of the whole village, and not just of his faith community.

 

We'd been there for nearly an hour. I took pity, and offered to lock up and return the key to his house. He thought about it for a moment. I guessed he was weighing up whether or not he trusted us to make the church secure, but he just said "you don't need to bring the key back, it's a yale lock. Just let yourself out, and let the door close behind you." And he said goodbye and went home - rather more thoughtfully, I fear, than he had left it.

 

It was dark. I put out the lights, and stood for a moment in the wide gloom, in the infinite stillness. I listened to the sound of my own breathing. I knew this was the most endangered building I had visited so far on my travels. But I'm determined we won't lose it.'

 

And that was that. At the end of the original article, I had pointed out that the 2007 Geneva Declaration on the non-existence of God was, of course, entirely fictitious. This was partly to reassure the good people of Gazeley, but also to save confusing any excitable Dawkinsites. Gazeley church was, after all, still in use for Christian worship. I also pointed out that the rest of the article was completely true as things had stood in May 2003. However, over the next few months I received a number of e-mails from people in the parish telling me how the church was being taken to task, tidied up, cleaned out, and, even more important, made accessible. Coming back in May 2008 I was delighted to discover than both the south and north doors were now open, and I stepped out of the sunlight into an interior which positively shouted its welcome to pilgrims and strangers. Perhaps it helped that it was such a beautiful day, for the interior was full of light falling across ancient stone and woodwork. Everything shone with love and care. Quite frankly, it lifted the heart. Perhaps the most moving sight was of the brightly coloured children's table and chairs, which have been given pride of place at the east end of the south aisle, rather than being tucked away under the tower or behind the font. Having once almost lost its congregation altogether, the community at Gazeley now puts its children's corner in a prominent position, where everyone can see it.

 

The wide open space of the chancel was still one of the loveliest interiors I knew in Suffolk, but now it had something else, a feeling of hope. Great things had happened here. I mentioned it afterwards to a Catholic Priest friend of mine, and he said he hoped I knew I'd seen the power of the Holy Spirit at work. And perhaps that is so. Certainly, the energy and imagination of the people here have been fired by something. I wanted to find someone to ask about it, to find out how things stood now. But there was no one, and so the building spoke for them.

 

Back outside in the graveyard, the dog daisies clustered and waved their sun-kissed faces in the light breeze. The ancient building must have known many late-May days like this over the centuries, but think of all the changes that it has known inside! The general buffeting of the winds of history still leaves room for local squalls and lightning strikes. All Saints has known these, but for now a blessed calm reigns here. Long may it remain so.

Happy Advent....a new tribute to the Blessed Virgin Mary by Catholic expressionist artist Stephen B. Whatley.

 

Artist Stephen B. Whatley was born an Anglican and in the 1990s, he became attracted to the devotions within the Catholic Church – to which he converted in 2011.

 

He is happy that his work touches so many Christians, whether they be Catholics, Anglicans or Episcopalians.

 

Since 2000, he has been drawn to make statements of prayer and faith; often painting on specific anniversaries and Feast Days – with what he humbly calls a “divine push’, creating both works of hope and light.

 

The work of Stephen B. Whatley is in collections worldwide & public collections which own his work include the BBC, London Transport Museum, and The Royal Collection of HM King Charles III.

 

Catholic institutions that own the artist's paintings include The Carrollton School of The Sacred Heart, Miami, USA, The Institute of Marist Brothers, Canada, Newman University, Birmingham (UK), St Anthony Padua Catholic College, Sydney, Australia and Westminster Cathedral, London - which staged his 2013 exhibition, Paintings From Prayer.

 

In 2004, the artist was presented to Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh in recognition of his work.

 

The artist's series of 30 paintings, commissioned by the Tower of London in 2000, is a permanent exhibit outside Tower Hill Station, London ; reproduced throughout Tower Hill Pedestrian Underpass (outside Tower Hill Station) - the main portal entrance to the Tower of London.

 

Our Lady Star Of The Sea 2024 by Stephen B. Whatley

Oil on canvas

40 x 30in/102 x 76 cm

www.stephenbwhatley.com

I thought I had visited St Mary years ago. And indeed I had, or stood on the green in front of it, but didn't set foot inside.

 

This I didn't realise until Saturday when I was standing outside it looking at the row of cottages leading to the lych gate, I knew the scene was new to me.

 

The drizzle was still falling, so I could not linger in the churchyard, and scampered along the south side of the building, looking for the porch, but there wasn't one. Instead a simple door near to the chancel gave way when I turned the handle, after stepping over the void that acts as a drain for rainwater falling from the roof.

 

I tried hard to find the lightswitches, as in the gloom of the early afternoon, it was almost dark inside. Even when I found the switches in the south chapel, there seemed to be no power to them, so the church remained in half darkness.

 

What I did see, and was dazzled by, were tiles used to line the lower part of the chancel walls, like a mosaic, creating fantastic patterns.

 

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A mainly thirteenth century church restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott. There is a high window which originally shed light onto the Rood figures (see also Capel le Ferne). Some medieval glass survives in the heads of the windows in the chancel showing angels holding crowns. The west window was designed by Morris and Co in 1874 to commemorate a former Rector, whilst the south chapel has a set of continental glass brought here by the Beckingham family from their house in Essex. Above the nave arcade is a good set of murals including a figure of St Nicholas. The famous Elizabethan theologian Richard Hooker is commemorated in the chancel.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Bishopsbourne

 

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Bishopsbourne is another example of a parish church belonging to the church (the archbishop, in this case), which was totally rebuilt on a large(r) scale in the 13th century (cf. Chartham). The chancel, as rebuilt, was as wide as the nave, and there is no chancel arch (and probably never has been).

The nave and chancel both show at least two phases of work of about the mid to later 13th century, so it seems likely that a rebuilding programme was being carried on in stages during the 2nd half of the 13th century (no sign exists, above-ground, of the earlier church).

Perhaps the earliest visible work are the two pairs of two-light windows on either side of the chancel. They have geometrical tracery and all sit on an internal moulded string course (there is medieval glass at the top of all these windows). This string course rises up in the east wall, and has on it the five-light east window, within trefoiled lancets, which is perhaps slightly later in date. There is also a late 13th century piscina at the east end of the south wall (though with a 19th century back wall). Externally the N.E. and S.E. corners of the chancel have angle buttresses, but these are heavily restored. It is also just possible that there were further geometrical windows further west in the chancel, which were covered/removed when the 15th century additions were made.

In the nave, as John Newman has pointed out, the two slender arcades have slight differences (N. capitals more complex than the S. ones). Also that the nave abaci are undercut, while the chancel string course is not. Originally the south arcade was at least three bays long (ie. longer than the present nave), but on the north this is not so clear. The aisles themselves are very narrow, with shed roofs continuing the slope of the main nave roof (though this shape may only be 15th century when the aisles were remodelled). The only surviving feature of the 13th century in the outer aisle walls (again heavily restored externally in the 19th century) is the north doorway with its niche (called a stoup by some writers, but not necessarily one) immediately to the east. This doorway has slightly projecting pilasters on either side, and the whole was covered by a porch until 1837.

The second main phase of work took place in the later 15th century. First, the whole of the west end of the church was demolished and a new tower was constructed with diagonal buttresses. The tower is of three main stages with the top stage rendered. The whole of the south face is mostly rendered. As this was being built, short walls were erected from the eastern diagonal buttresses to the 13th century arcade (ie. leaving the western ends of the aisles outside). (This is perhaps due to a population decrease in the parish). New west walls (containing two light perpendicular square headed windows) to the shortened aisles were also built, and four new 2-light perpendicular windows were inserted into the outer aisle walls. Along the top of the inside of the aisles walls a new moulded timber stringcourse was made (the roofs were perhaps also remade, but they are hidden beneath plaster in the aisles, and the main nave roof was replaced in 1871). At the west end of the nave the new short north and south walls contain five 3-light windows with perpendicular tracery under a 2-centred arch in their heads. On the upper nave walls, above the arcade, are remains of some fine painted figures on a painted 'ashlar' background. These were perhaps painted after the 15th century rebuilding (a date of around 1462 for the rebuilding is perhaps suggested by the will of William Harte (see below). At the extreme west end of the nave are two areas (N. and S.) of in situ medieval floor tiles. It is just possible that they predate the tower building work. (They must continue eastwards under the pews). There is also a 15th cent. octagonal font bowl (on a 1975 base). The southern chapel (the Bourne Pew after the Reformation) with its diagonal buttresses and 3-light east window is also 15th century but it was very heavily restored in c. 1853 (date over new S. door). It has a separate roof (and plaster ceiling). The rectangular N. addition with a plinth is also 15th century and was perhaps built as a vestry. It had an external door and only a small door into the chancel until the rebuilding of 1865, when a massive new arch was put in to accommodate a new organ (earlier the organ was under the tower arch). At this time also a totally new pitched roof was built over the vestry, perhaps replacing a low pitched 15th century roof. There is a high up window on the north side above the pulpit, with some old glass in it.

A new boiler house was dug under the western half of the vestry (in the 1880s - date on radiator), and its N.W. corner was rebuilt, incorporating a fireplace and chimney. The cut through N. chancel wall (and foundation) can be seen in the boiler room below.

The door into the Rood loft is in the S.E. corner of the nave.

In 1871-2 a major restoration took place under Scott, when the boarded wagon roofs were put in (nave and chancel) and new pews were installed (and choir stalls). The c. 18th century pulpit was remodelled and has its larger tester removed. The west window contains 1874 Morris & Co glass with figures by Burne Jones. There is also much c. 1877 mosaic work on the lower chancel walls and a large Reredos. The chancel floor was also raised.

 

BUILDING MATERIALS (Incl. old plaster, paintings, glass, tiles, etc.):

The main building materials are flintwork with Rag and Caenstone quoins/jambs, etc. However much of this has been removed externally by the heavy 19th century restoration. The nave arcades are of Reigate stone. The 15th century tower has fine large quoins of Kent Rag (Hythe/Folkestone stone with boring mollusc holes), and a few reused pieces of Caen, Reigate and Roman brick.

The south chapel was "partly of brick" in 1846 (Glynne) but this has now gone in the Restoration. There is also some fine early post-medieval glass in the east window of this chapel.

 

(For medieval glass, wall paintings and floor tiles ,see above).

 

(Also 15th century choir stalls, see below). There are also the arms and Cardinals Cap of Cardinal Morton (hence 1494-1500) in the S.W. chancel window.

 

There are now 4 bells (2 J Hatch of 1618; Christopher Hodson 1685 and Robert Mot 1597). The later from St. Mary, Bredman, Canterbury was installed in 1975 (a cracked bell was 'discarded').

 

A late medieval brass (of John and Elizabeth Colwell) lies under the organ - another of 1617 (John Gibon) is under the choir stalls.

 

EXCEPTIONAL MONUMENTS IN CHURCH To Richard Hooker (1633) - originally on N chancel wall and moved to S chancel will c. 1865.

 

Also John Cockman (+1734) - also on N. chancel wall and moved to E. wall of N. aisle c. 1865 (when the organ was put under new vestry arch).

 

Also a fine Purbeck marble (14th century) grave slab under the N.E. corner of the tower.

 

There are also two fine 15th century (c. 1462) stall fronts in the chancel with carved panels and ends (and 'poppy heads'). The added Victorian choir stalls copy them.

 

CHURCHYARD AND ENVIRONS:

Shape: Rectangular

 

Condition: Good

 

Earthworks:

enclosing: drop on N. and W. sides (?Ha-Ha) into Bourne Park adjacent:

 

Building in churchyard or on boundary: Lychgate of 1911

 

HISTORICAL RECORD (where known):

Earliest ref. to church: Domesday Book

 

Evidence of pre-Norman status (DB, DM, TR etc.):

 

Late med. status: Rectory

 

Patron: The Archbishop

 

Other documentary sources: Test. Cant. (E. Kent 1907) 23 mentions 'one piece of that stone on which the Archangel Gabriel descended when he saluted the 'BVM' to the Image of the BVM of the church of Bourne. Towards the work of the Church of Bourne, of the stalls and other reparations, 4 marcs. Wm. Haute (1462). Also 'Beam, now before altar of B. Mary in the church' (1477) and Lights of St. Mary, St. Katherine and St. Nicholas (1484) and light of Holy Cross (1462) and 'The altar of St. Mary and St. Nicholas in the nave' (1476).

 

SURVIVAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL DEPOSITS:

Inside present church: Good - main nave and chancel floor raised in 19th century (earlier levels should be intact beneath (except where burials, etc.).

 

Outside present church: Drainage trench cut round outside of church.

 

Quinquennial inspection (date\architect): October 1987 David Martin

 

ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL ASSESSMENT:

The church and churchyard: A fine 13th and 15th century church, with an impressive collection of medieval wall paintings, stained glass, floor tiles and pew fronts inside. The 13th century architectural details of the chancel windows and nave arcade are very good. There are, no doubt, the remains of the earlier church beneath.

 

The wider context: One of a group of fine later 13th century rebuildings (cf. Hythe, Chartham, Adisham, etc.)

REFERENCES: Notes by FC Elliston Erwood, Arch. Cant. 62 (1949), 101-3 (+ plan) + S. R. Glynne Notes on the Churches of Kent (1877), 130-1 (He visited in 1846); Hasted IX (1800), 335-7; Newman BOE (N.E. and E Kent) (3rd ed. 1983) 144-5.

 

Guide book: by Miss Alice Castle (1931, rev. 1961, 1969, 1980) - no plan.

 

Plans & drawings: Early 19th century engraving of interior looking W. NW (before restoration).

 

DATES VISITED: 25th November 1991 REPORT BY: Tim Tatton-Brown

 

www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/01/03/BIS.htm

 

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BISHOPSBORNE

LIES the next parish eastward from Bridge, described before, in the hundred of that name. It is called in Domesday, Burnes, that is, borne, from the bourn or stream which rises in it, being the head of the river, called the Lesser Stour; and it had the name of Bishopsborne from its belonging to the archbishop, and to distinguish it from the several other parishes of the same name in this neighbourhood. There is but one borough in this parish, namely, that of Bourne.

 

THIS PARISH lies about five miles eastward from Canterbury, just beyond Bridge, about half a mile from the Dover road, and the entrance of Barham downs in the valley on the left hand, where the church and village, the parsonage, the mansion and grounds of Bourne place, and the seat of Charlton at the opposite boundary, with the high hills behind them, topped with woods, from a most pleasing and luxuriant prospect indeed. In this beautiful valley, in which the Lesser Stour rises, and through which the Nailbourne at times runs, is the village of Bourne-street, consisting of about fifteen houses, and near it the small seat of Ofwalds, belonging to Mr. Beckingham, and now inhabited by his brother the Rev. Mr. Beckingham, and near it the church and court-lodge. On the rise of the hill is the parsonage, an antient building modernized, and much improved by the present rector Dr. Fowell, and from its whiteness a conspicuous object to the road and Barham downs. About a mile distant eastward, in the vale, close to the foot of the hills, is Charlton, in a low and damp situation, especially when the nailbourne runs. On the opposite side of the church westward, stands the ornament of this parish, the noble mansion of Bourne-place, (for several years inhabited by Sir Horace Mann, bart. but now by William Harrison, esq.) with its paddocks, grounds, and plantations, reaching up to the downs, having the bourn, which is the source of the Lesser Stour, which rises here in the front of it, directing its course from hence to Bridge, and so on by Littleborne, Ickham and Wickham, till it joins the Greater Stour river. This valley from this source of the bourn upwards, is dry, except after great rains, or thaws of snow, when the springs of the Nailbourn occasionally over flow at Liminge and Elham, and directing their course through this parish descend into the head of the bourn, and blend their waters with it. From this valley southward the opposite hills rise pretty high to the woodland, called Gosley wood, belonging to Mr. Beckingham, of large extent, and over a poor, barren and stony country, with rough healthy ground interspersed among it, to the valley at the southern boundary of the parish, adjoining to Hardres; near which is the house of Bursted, in a lonely unfrequented situations, hardly known to any one.

 

THE MANOR OF BOURNE, otherwise Bishopsborne, was given by one Aldhun, a man of some eminence in Canterbury, from his office of præfect, or bailiff of that city, (qui in hac regali villa bujus civitatis prafectus suit), (fn. 1) to the monks of Christ-church there, towards the support of their refectory. After which, anno 811, the monks exchanged it, among other estates, with archbishop Wlfred, for the manor of Eastry, and it continued part of the possessions of the see of Canterbury, at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, in which it is thus entered, under the title of the archbishop's lands:

 

In Berham hundred, the archbishop himself holds Burnes in demesne. It was taxed for six sulings. The arable land is fifty carucates. In demesne there are five carucates, and sixty-four villeins, with fifty-three borderers having thirty carucates and an half. There is a church, and two mills of eight shillings and six pence, and twenty acres of meadow. Wood for the pannage of fifteen hogs. Of herbage twenty-seven pence. In its whole value, in the time of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, it was worth twenty pounds, now thirty pounds.

 

The manor of Bishopsborne appears by the above entry to have been at that time in the archbishop's own hands, and it probably continued so as long as it remained part of his revenues, which was till the 35th year of king Henry VIII. when archbishop Cranmer, by an act specially passed for the purpose, exchanged this manor with the park, grounds and soil of the archbishop in this parish, called Langham park, with Thomas Colepeper, sen. esq. of Bedgbury, who that year alienated it to Sir Anthony Aucher, of Otterden, who gave this manor, with the rest of his possessions in this parish, to his second son Edward. Since which it has continued in the same line of ownership as Bourne-place, as will be more particularly mentioned hereafter, down to Stephen Beckingham, esq. the present owner of it. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.

 

BOURNE-PLACE, formerly called the manor of Hautsbourne, is an eminent seat in this parish, for the manor has from unity of possession been for many years merged in the paramount manor of Bishopsborne. It was in very early times possessed by a family who took their name from it. Godric de Burnes is mentioned in the very beginning of the survey of Domesday, as the possessor of lands in it. John de Bourne had a grant of free-warren and other liberties for his lands in Bourne and Higham in the 16th year of king Edward I. He left an only daughter Helen, who carried this estate in marriage to John de Shelving, of Shelvingborne, whose grandson, of the same name, died anno 4 Edward III. at which time this manor had acquired from them the name of Shelvington. He left an only daughter and heir Benedicta, who carried it in marriage to Sir Edmund de Haut, of Petham, whose son Nicholas Haut gave to William, his youngest son, this estate of Bishopsborne, where he afterwards resided, and died in 1462, having been knight of the shire and sheriff of this county. From him it descended down to Sir William Haut, of Hautsborne, sheriff in the 16th and 29th year of king Henry VIII. whose son Edmund dying unmarried in his life-time, his two daughters, Elizabeth, married to Thomas Colepeper, esq. of Bedgbury, and Jane, to Sir Thomas Wyatt, of Allington-castle, became his coheirs, and on the division of their estates, this of Hautsborne was allotted to the former, and her hus band Thomas Colepeper, in her right, became possessed of it, and having acquired the manor of Bishopsborne by exchange from the archbishop, anno 35 Henry VIII. immediately afterwards passed away both that and Hautsborne to Sir Anthony Aucher, of Otterden, whose family derived their origin from Ealcher, or Aucher, the first earl of Kent, who had the title of duke likewise, from his being intrusted with the military power of the county. He is eminent in history for his bravery against the Danes, in the year 853. They first settled at Newenden, where more of the early account of them may be seen. He at his death gave them to his second son Edward, who afterwards resided here at Shelvington, alias Hautsborne, as it was then called, whose great-grandson Sir Anthony Aucher was created a baronet in 1666, and resided here. He left surviving two sons Anthony and Hewitt, and two daughters, Elizabeth, afterwards married to John Corbett, esq. of Salop, LL. D. and Hester, to the Rev. Ralph Blomer, D. D. prebendary of Canterbury. He died in 1692, and was succeeded by his eldest son, who dying under age and unmarried, Hewitt his brother succeeded him in title and estate, but he dying likewise unmarried about the year 1726, the title became extinct, but his estates devolved by his will to his elder sister Elizabeth, who entitled her husband Dr. Corbett afterwards to them, and he died possessed of the manor of Bishopsborne, with this seat, which seems then to have been usually called Bourneplace, in 1736, leaving his five daughters his coheirs, viz. Katherine, afterwards married to Stephen Beckingham, esq. Elizabeth, to the Rev. Thomas Denward; Frances, to Sir William Hardres, bart. Antonina, to Ignat. Geohegan, esq. and Margaret-Hannah-Roberta, to William Hougham, esq. of Canterbury, the four latter of whom, with their respective husbands, in 1752, jointed in the sale of their shares in this estate to Stephen Beckingham, esq. above-men tioned, who then became possessed of the whole of it. He married first the daughter of Mr. Cox, by whom he had the present Stephen beckingham, esq. who married Mary, daughter of the late John Sawbridge, esq. of Ollantigh, deceased, by whom he had an only daughter, who married John-George Montague, esq. eldest son of John, lord viscount Hinchingbrooke, since deceased. By his second wife Catherine, daughter of Dr. John Corbet, he had two daughters, Charlotte and Catherine, both married, one to Mr. Dillon and the other to Mr. Gregory; and a son John Charles, in holy orders, and now rector of Upper Hardres. They bear for their arms, Argent, a sess, crenelle, between three escallop shells, sable. He died in 1756, and his son Stephen Beckingham, esq. above-mentioned, now of Hampton-court, is the present owner of the manor of Bishopsborne, and the mansion of Bourneplace.

 

BURSTED is a manor, in the southern part of this parish, obscurely situated in an unfrequented valley, among the woods, next to Hardres. It is in antient deeds written Burghsted, and was formerly the property of a family of the same name, in which it remained till it was at length sold to one of the family of Denne, of Dennehill, in Kingston, and it continued so till Thomas Denne, esq. of that place, in Henry VIII.'s reign, gave it to his son William, whose grandson William, son of Vincent Denne, LL. D. died possessed of it in 1640, and from him it descended down to Mr. Thomas Denne, gent. of Monkton-court, in the Isle of Thanet, who died not many years since, and his widow Mrs. Elizabeth Denne, of Monktoncourt, is the present possessor of it.

 

CHARLTON is a seat, in the eastern part of this parish, which was formerly the estate of a family named Herring, in which it continued till William Herring, anno 3 James I. conveyed it to John Gibbon, gent. the third son of Thomas Gibbon, of Frid, in Bethers den, descended again from those of Rolvenden, and he resided here, and died possessed of it in 1617, as did his son William in 1632, whose heirs passed it away to Sir Anthony Aucher, bart. whose son Sir Hewitt Aucher, bart. in 1726, gave it by will to his sister Elizabeth, and she afterwards carried it in marriage to John Corbett, LL. D. of Salop, who died possessed of it in 1735, leaving his window surviving, after whose death in 1764 it came to her five daughters and coheirs, who, excepting Frances, married to Sir William Hardres, bart. joined with their husbands in the sale of their respective fifth parts of it in 1765, to Francis Hender Foote, clerk, who resided here. Mr. Foote was first a barrister-at-law, and then took orders. He married Catherine, third daughter of Robert Mann, esq. of Linton, by whom he had three sons, John, mentioned below, who is married and has issue; Robert, rector of Boughton Malherb, and vicar of Linton, who married Anne, daughter of Dobbins Yate, esq. of Gloucestershire, and Edward, in the royal navy; and three daughters, of whom two died unmarried, and Catherine, the second, married first Mr. Ross, and secondly Sir Robert Herries, banker, of London. Mr. Foote died possessed of them in 1773, leaving his wife Catherine surviving, who possessed them at her death in 1776, on which they descended to their eldest son John Foote, esq. of Charlton, who in 1784, purchased of the heirs of lady Hardres, deceased, the remaining fifth part, and so became possessed of the whole of it, of which he is the present owner, but Mr. Turner now resides in it.

 

Charities.

MRS. ELIZABETH CORBETT, window, executrix of Sir Hewit Aucher, bart. deceased, in 1749, made over to trustees, for the use and benefit of the poor, a tenement called Bonnetts, and half an acre of land adjoining, in this parish; now occupied by two poor persons, but if rented, of the annual value of 3l.

 

The poor constantly relieved are about eleven, casually seven.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge.

 

¶The church, which is dedicated to St. Mary, is a large building, consisting of three isles and three chancels, having a tower steeple at the west end, in which are four bells. This church is a large handsome building, but it is not kept so comely as it ought to be. In the chancel is a monument for Richard Hooker, rector of this parish, who died in 1600; on it is his bust, in his black gown and square cap. A monument for John Cockman, M. D. of Charlton. His widow lies in the vault by him, obt. 1739; arms, Argent, three cocks, gules, impaling Dyke. Memorial for Petronell, wife of Dr. John Fowell, the present rector, second daughter of William Chilwich, esq. of Devonshire, obt. 1766. She lies buried in a vault under the altar. A large stone, twelve feet long, supposed to be over the remains of Mr. Richard Hooker. A memorial on brass for John Gibbon, gent. of this parish, obt. 1617; arms, Gibbon, a lion rampant-guardant, between three escallops, impaling Hamon, of Acrise, quartering Cossington. Memorials for Mrs. Jane Gibbon, his wife, obt. 1625, and for William Gibbon, gent. obt. 1632. A memorial for William Gresham, obt. 1718. In one of the windows are the arms of the see of Canterbury impaling Warham. In the middle isle, in the south wall, above the capital of the pillar, opposite the pulpit, is a recess, in which once stood the image of the Virgin Mary, the patron saint of this church, to which William Hawte, esq. by will anno 1462, among the rest of his relics, gave a piece of the stone on which the archangel Gabriel descended, when he saluted her, for this image to rest its feet upon. On the pavement near this, seemingly over a vault, is a stone with an inscription in brass, for William, eldest son of Sir William Hawt. A memorial for Farnham Aldersey, gent. of this parish, only son of Farnham Aldersey, gent. of Maidstone, obt. 1733. Memorials for several of the Dennes, of this parish. In a window of the south isle, are the arms of Haut, impaling Argent, a lion rampant-guardant, azure. The south chancel is inclosed and made into a handsome pew for the family of Bourne-place, under which is a vault appropriated to them. The window of it eastward is a very handsome one, mostly of modern painted glass; the middle parts filled up with scripture history, and the surrounding compartments with the arms and different marriages impaled of the family of Beckingham. On each side of this window are two ranges of small octagon tablets of black marble, intended for the family of Aucher, and their marriages, but they were not continued. In the church-yard, on the south side, is a vault for the family of Foote, of Charlton, and a tomb for Mrs. Elizabeth Corbett, obt. 1764; arms, Corbett, which were Or, two ravens, sable, within a bordure, gules, bezantee. At the north-east corner of the church-porch are several tombs for the Dennes.

 

The church of Bishopsborne, with the chapel of Barham annexed, was antiently appendant to the manor, and continued so till the exchange made between the archbishop and Thomas Colepeper, in the 35th year of king Henry VIII. out of which the advowson of this rectory was excepted. Since which it has continued parcel of the possessions of the see of Canterbury to the present time, his grace the archbishop being the present patron of it.

 

This rectory, (including the chapel of Barham annexed to it) is valued in the king's books at 39l. 19s. 2d. and the yearly tenths at 3l. 19s. 11d. In 1588 here were communicants one hundred. In 1640 one hundred and forty-eight, and it was valued, with Barham, at two hundred and fifty pounds per annum.

 

Church of Bishopsborne with the Chapel of Barhan annexed.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol9/pp328-337

 

-----------------------------------------

 

Richard Hooker (March 1554 – 3 November 1600) was an English priest in the Church of England and an influential theologian.[2] He was one of the most important English theologians of the sixteenth century.[3] His defence of the role of redeemed reason informed the theology of the seventeenth century Caroline Divines and later provided many members of the Church of England with a theological method which combined the claims of revelation, reason and tradition.[3] Scholars disagree regarding Hooker's relationship with what would later be called "Anglicanism" and the Reformed theological tradition. Traditionally, he has been regarded as the originator of the Anglican via media between Protestantism and Catholicism.[4]:1 However, a growing number of scholars have argued that he should be considered as being in the mainstream Reformed theology of his time and that he only sought to oppose the extremists (Puritans), rather than moving the Church of England away from Protestantism.

 

This sermon from 1585 was one of those that triggered Travers attack and appeal to the Privy Council. Travers accused Hooker of preaching doctrine favourable to the Church of Rome when in fact he had just described their differences emphasising that Rome attributed to works "a power of satisfying God for sin;..." For Hooker, works were a necessary expression of thanksgiving for unmerited justification by a merciful God.[11] Hooker defended his belief in the doctrine of Justification by faith, but argued that even those who did not understand or accept this could be saved by God.

 

Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie is Hooker's best-known work, with the first four books being published in 1594. The fifth was published in 1597, while the final three were published posthumously,[2] and indeed may not all be his own work. Structurally, the work is a carefully worked out reply to the general principles of Puritanism as found in The Admonition and Thomas Cartwright's follow-up writings, more specifically:

 

Scripture alone is the rule that should govern all human conduct;

Scripture prescribes an unalterable form of Church government;

The English Church is corrupted by Roman Catholic orders, rites, etc.;

The law is corrupt in not allowing lay elders;

'There ought not to be in the Church Bishops'.[12]

Of the Lawes has been characterised as "probably the first great work of philosophy and theology to be written in English."[13] The book is far more than a negative rebuttal of the puritan claims: it is (here McAdoo quotes John S. Marshall) 'a continuous and coherent whole presenting a philosophy and theology congenial to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and the traditional aspects of the Elizabethan Settlement."[14]

 

Quoting C. S. Lewis,[15] Stephen Neill underlines its positive side in the following terms: Hitherto, in England, "controversy had involved only tactics; Hooker added strategy. Long before the close fighting in Book III begins, the puritan position has been rendered desperate by the great flanking movements in Books I and II. . . . Thus the refutation of the enemy comes in the end to seem a very small thing, a by-product."[16]

 

It is a massive work that deals mainly with the proper governance of the churches ("polity"). The Puritans advocated the demotion of clergy and ecclesiasticism. Hooker attempted to work out which methods of organising churches are best.[2] What was at stake behind the theology was the position of the Queen Elizabeth I as the Supreme Governor of the Church. If doctrine were not to be settled by authorities, and if Martin Luther's argument for the priesthood of all believers were to be followed to its extreme with government by the Elect, then having the monarch as the governor of the church was intolerable. On the other side, if the monarch were appointed by God to be the governor of the church, then local parishes going their own ways on doctrine were similarly intolerable.

 

In political philosophy, Hooker is best remembered for his account of law and the origins of government in Book One of the Politie. Drawing heavily on the legal thought of Thomas Aquinas, Hooker distinguishes seven forms of law: eternal law ("that which God hath eternally purposed himself in all his works to observe"), celestial law (God's law for the angels), nature's law (that part of God's eternal law that governs natural objects), the law of reason (dictates of Right Reason that normatively govern human conduct), human positive law (rules made by human lawmakers for the ordering of a civil society), divine law (rules laid down by God that can only be known by special revelation), and ecclesiastical law (rules for the governance of a church). Like Aristotle, whom he frequently quotes, Hooker believes that humans are naturally inclined to live in society. Governments, he claims, are based on both this natural social instinct and on the express or implied consent of the governed.

 

The Laws is remembered not only for its stature as a monumental work of Anglican thought, but also for its influence in the development of theology, political theory, and English prose.

 

Hooker worked largely from Thomas Aquinas, but he adapted scholastic thought in a latitudinarian manner. He argued that church organisation, like political organisation, is one of the "things indifferent" to God. He wrote that minor doctrinal issues were not issues that damned or saved the soul, but rather frameworks surrounding the moral and religious life of the believer. He contended there were good monarchies and bad ones, good democracies and bad ones, and good church hierarchies and bad ones: what mattered was the piety of the people. At the same time, Hooker argued that authority was commanded by the Bible and by the traditions of the early church, but authority was something that had to be based on piety and reason rather than automatic investiture. This was because authority had to be obeyed even if it were wrong and needed to be remedied by right reason and the Holy Spirit. Notably, Hooker affirmed that the power and propriety of bishops need not be in every case absolute.

 

King James I is quoted by Izaak Walton, Hooker's biographer, as saying, "I observe there is in Mr. Hooker no affected language; but a grave, comprehensive, clear manifestation of reason, and that backed with the authority of the Scriptures, the fathers and schoolmen, and with all law both sacred and civil."[17] Hooker's emphasis on Scripture, reason, and tradition considerably influenced the development of Anglicanism, as well as many political philosophers, including John Locke.[2] Locke quotes Hooker numerous times in the Second Treatise of Civil Government and was greatly influenced by Hooker's natural-law ethics and his staunch defence of human reason. As Frederick Copleston notes, Hooker's moderation and civil style of argument were remarkable in the religious atmosphere of his time.[18] In the Church of England he is celebrated with a Lesser Festival on 3 November and the same day is also observed in the Calendars of other parts of the Anglican Communion.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hooker

Lucy House, Kesgrave, Ipswich

 

Work by Margaret Agnes Rope and Margaret Edith Rope is on display in the offices of the Rope charitable trust, adjacent to Holy Family and St Michael church, for which there is an entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

There are ages of faith which leave their traces in splendour and beauty, as acts of piety and memory. East Anglia is full of silent witnesses to tides which have ebbed and flowed. Receding, they leave us in their wake great works from the passing ages, little Norman churches which seem to speak a language we can no longer understand but which haunts us still, the decorated beauty of the 14th Century at odds with the horrors of its pestilence and loss, the perpendicular triumph of the 15th Century church before its near-destruction in the subsequent Reformation and Commonwealth, the protestant flowering of chapels and meeting houses in almost all rural communities, and most obvious of all for us today the triumphalism of the Victorian revival.

 

But even as tides recede, piety and memory survive, most often in quiet acts and intimate details. The catholic church of Holy Family and St Michael at Kesgrave is one of their great 20th Century treasure houses.

 

At the time of the 1851 census of religious worship, Kesgrave was home to just 86 people, 79 of whom attended morning service that day, giving this parish the highest percentage attendance of any in Suffolk. However, they met half a mile up the road at the Anglican parish church of All Saints, and the current site of Holy Family was then far out in the fields. In any case, it is unlikely that any of the non-attenders was a Catholic. Today, Kesgrave is a sprawling eastern suburb of Ipswich, home to about 10,000 people. It extends along the A12 corridor all the way to Martlesham, which in turn will take you pretty much all the way to Woodbridge without seeing much more than a field or two between the houses.

 

Holy Family was erected in the 1930s, and serves as a chapel of ease within the parish of Ipswich St Mary. However, it is still in private ownership, the responsibility of the Rope family, who, along with the Jolly family into which they married, owned much of the land in Kesgrave that was later built on.

 

The growth of Kesgrave has been so rapid and so extensive in these last forty years that radical expansions were required at both this church and at All Saints, as well as to the next parish church along in the suburbs at Rushmere St Andrew. All of these projects are interesting, although externally Holy Family is less dramatic than its neighbours. It sits neatly in its trim little churchyard, red-brick and towerless, a harmonious little building if rather a curious shape, of which more in a moment. Beside it, the underpass and roundabout gives it a decidedly urban air. But this is a church of outstanding interest, as we shall see.

 

It was good to come back to Kesgrave. As a member of St Mary's parish I generally attended mass at the parish's other church, a couple of miles into town, but I had been here a number of times over the years, either to mass or just to wander around and sit for a while. These days, you generally approach the church from around the back, where you'll find a sprawling car park typical of a modern Catholic church. To the west of the church are Lucy House and Philip House, newly built for the work of the Rope family charities. Between the car park and the church there there is a tiny, formal graveyard, with crosses remembering members of the Rope and Jolly families.

 

Access to the church is usually through a west door these days, but if you are fortunate enough to enter through the original porch on the north side you will have a foretaste of what is to come, for to left and right are stunning jewel-like and detailed windows depicting St Margaret and St Theresa on one side and St Catherine and the Immaculate Conception on the other. Beside them, a plaque reveals that the church was built to the memory of Michael Rope, who was killed in the R101 airship disaster of 1930.

 

Blue Peter-watching boys like me, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, were enthralled by airships. They were one of those exciting inventions of a not-so-distant past which were, in a real sense, futuristic, a part of the 1930s modernist project that imagined and predicted the way we live now. And they were just so big. But they were doomed, because the hydrogen which gave them their buoyancy was explosive.

 

As a child, I was fascinated by the R101 airship and its disaster, especially because of that familiar photograph of its wrecked and burnt-out fuselage sprawled in the woods on a northern French hillside. It is still a haunting photograph today. The crash of the R101 put an end to airship development in the UK for more than half a century.

 

Of course, this is all ancient history now, but in the year 2001 I had the excellent fortune to be shown around Holy Family by Michael Rope's widow, Mrs Lucy Doreen Rope, née Jolly, who was still alive, and then in her nineties. She was responsible for the building of this church as a memorial to her husband. We paused in the porch so that I could admire the windows. "Do you like them?" Mrs Rope asked me. "Of course, my sister-in-law made them."

 

Her sister-in-law, of course, was Margaret Agnes Rope, who in the first half of the twentieth century was one of the finest of the Arts and Craft Movement stained glass designers. She studied at Birmingham, and then worked at the Glass House in Fulham with her cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, whose work is also here. But their work can be found in churches and cathedrals all over the world. What Mrs Rope did not tell me, and what I found out later, is that these two windows in the porch were made for her and her husband Michael as a wedding present.

 

Doreen Jolly and Michael Rope were married in 1929. Within a year, he was dead. Mrs Rope was just 23 years old.

 

The original church from the 1930s is the part that you step into. You enter to the bizarre sight of a model of the R101 airship suspended from the roof. The nave altar and tabernacle ahead are in the original sanctuary, and you are facing the liturgical east (actually south) of the original building, and what an intimate space this must have been before the church was extended. Red brick outlines the entrance to the sanctuary, and here are the three windows made by Margaret Rope for the original church. The first is the three-light sanctuary window, depicting the Blessed Virgin and child flanked by St Joseph and St Michael. Two doves sit on a nest beneath Mary's feet, while a quizzical sparrow looks on. St Michael has the face of Michael Rope. The inscription beneath reads Pray for Michael Rope who gave up his soul to God in the wreck of His Majesty's Airship R101, Beauvais, October 5th 1930.

 

Next, a lancet in the right-hand side of the sanctuary contains glass depicting St Dominic, with a dog running beneath his feet and the inscription Laudare, Benedicere, Praedicare, ('to praise, to bless, to preach'). The third window is in the west wall of the church (in its day, the right hand side of the nave), depicting St Thomas More and St John Fisher, although at the time the window was made they had not yet been canonised. The inscription beneath records that the window was the gift of a local couple in thankfulness for their conversion to the faith for which the Blessed Martyrs Thomas More and John Fisher gave their lives. A rose bush springs from in front of the martyrs' feet.

 

By the 1950s, Holy Family was no longer large enough for the community it served, and it was greatly expanded to the east to the designs of the archtect Henry Munro Cautley. Cautley was a bluff Anglican of the old school, the retired former diocesan architect of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, but he would have enjoyed designing a church for such an intimate faith community, and in fact it was his last major project before he died in 1959. The original sanctuary was retained as a blessed sacrament chapel, and the church was turned ninety degrees to face east for the first time. The north and south sides of the new church received three-light Tudor windows in the style most beloved by Cautley, as seen also at his Ipswich County Library in Northgate Street, and the former Fosters (now Lloyds) Bank in central Cambridge.

 

Although the Rope family had farmed at Blaxhall near Wickham Market for generations, Margaret Rope herself was not from Suffolk at all, and nor was she at first a Catholic. She was born in Shrewsbury in 1882, the daughter of Henry Rope, a surgeon at Shrewsbury Infirmary, and a son of the Blaxhall Rope family. The largest collection of Margaret Rope's glass is in Shrewsbury Cathedral. When Margaret was 17, her father died. The family were received into the Catholic church shortly afterwards. A plaque was placed in the entrance to Shrewsbury Infirmary to remember her father. When the hospital was demolished in the 1990s, the plaque was moved to here, and now sits in the north aisle of the 1950s church. In her early days in London Margaret Rope designed and made the large east window at Blaxhall church as a memorial to her grandparents. It features her younger brother Michael, and is believed to be the only window that she ever signed.

 

In her early forties, Margaret Rope took holy orders and entered the Carmelite Convent at nearby Woodbridge, but continued to produce her stained glass work until the community moved to Quidenham in Norfolk, when poor health and the distances involved proved insurmountable. She died there in 1953, and so she never saw the expanded church. Her cartoons, the designs for her windows, are placed on the walls around Holy Family. Some are for windows in churches in Scotland and Wales, one for a window in the English College in Rome. Among them are the roundels for within the enclosure of Tyburn Convent in London. "They had to remove the windows there during the War", said Mrs Rope. "Of course, with me, you have to ask which war!"

 

Turning to the east, we see the new sanctuary with its high altar, completed in 1993 as part of a further reordering and expansion, which gave a large galilee porch, kitchen and toilets to the north side of the church. The window above the new sanctuary has three lights, and the two outer windows were made by Margaret Rope for the chapel of East Bergholt convent to the south of Ipswich. They remember the Vaughan family, into which Margaret Rope's sister had married, and in particular one member, a sister in the convent, to celebrate her 25 year jubilee.

 

The convent later became Old Hall, a famous commune. They depict the prophet Isaiah and King David.

 

The central light between them is controversial. Produced in the 1990s and depicting the risen Christ, it really isn't very good, and provides the one jarring note in the church. It is rather unfortunate that it is in such a prominent position. It is not just the quality of the design that is the problem. It lets in too much light in comparison with the two flanking lights. "The glass in my sister-in-law's windows is half an inch thick", Mrs Rope told me. "In the workshop at Fulham they had a man who came in specially to cut it for them". The glass in the modern light is simply too thin.

 

Despite the 1990s extension, and as so often in modern urban Catholic churches, Holy Family is already not really big enough, although it is hard to see that there could ever be another expansion. We walked along Munro Cautley's south aisle, and at that time the stations of the cross were simple wooden crosses. However, about three months after my conversation with Mrs Rope, the World Trade Centre in New York was attacked and destroyed, and among the three thousand people killed were two local Kesgrave brothers who were commemorated with a new set of stations in cast metal.

 

Here also is a 1956 memorial window by Margaret Rope's cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, to Mrs Rope's mother Alice Jolly, depicting the remains of the shrine at Walsingham and the Jolly family at prayer before it. Another MEA Rope window is across the church in the galilee, a Second World War memorial window, originally on the east side of the first church before Cautley's extension. It depicts three of the English Martyrs, Blessed Anne Lynne, Blessed Robert Southwell and Blessed John Robinson, as well as the shipwreck of Blessed John Nutter off of Dunwich, with All Saints church on the cliffs above.

 

The galilee is designed for families with young children to play a full part in mass, and is separated from the church by a glass screen. At the top of the screen is a small panel by Margaret Rope which is of particular interest because it depicts her and her family participating in the Easter vigil, presumably in Shrewsbury Cathedral. This is hard to photograph because it is on an internal window between two rooms.

 

A recent addition to the Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope windows here is directly opposite, newly installed on the south side of the nave. It was donated by her great-nephew. It depicts a nativity scene, the Holy Family in the stable at Bethlehem, an angel appearing to shepherds on the snowy hills beyond. It is perhaps her loveliest window in the church.

 

Finally, back across the church. Here, beside the brass memorial to Margaret Rope, is a window depicting the Blessed Virgin and child, members of the Rope family in the Candlemas procession beneath. The inscription reminds us to pray for the soul of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God, mistress of novices and stained glass artist, Monastery of the Magnificat of the Mother of God, Quidenham, Norfolk, entered Carmel 14th September 1923, died 6th December 1953. Sister Margaret of the Mother of God was, of course, Margaret Rope herself. She was buried in the convent at Quidenham, a Shrewsbury exile at rest in the East Anglian soil of her forebears. The design is hers, and the window was made by her cousin Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope.

 

Back in 2001, we were talking about the changing Church, and I asked Mrs Rope what she thought about the recently introduced practice of transferring Holy Days on to the nearest Sunday, so that the teaching of them was not lost. Mrs Rope approved, a lady clearly not stuck in the past. She had a passion for ensuring that the Faith could be shared with children. As we have seen, her church is designed so that young families can take a full part in the Mass. But she was sympathetic to the distractions of the modern age. "The world is so exciting for children these days", she said. "I think it must be difficult to bring them up with a sense of the presence of God." She smiled. "Mind you, my son is 70 now! And I do admire young girls today. They have such spirit!"

 

She left me to potter about in her wonderful treasure house. As I did so, I thought of medieval churches I have visited, which were similarly donated by the Mrs Ropes of their day, perhaps even for husbands who had died young. They not only sought to memorialise their loved ones, but to consecrate a space for prayer, that masses might be said for the souls of the dead. This was the Catholic way, a Christian duty. Before the Reformation, this was true in every parish in England. It remained true here at Kesgrave.

 

And finally, back outside to the small graveyard. Side by side are two crosses. One remembers Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, artist, 1891-1988. The other remembers Lucy Doreen Rope, founder of this church, 1907-2003.

  

Lucy House, Kesgrave, Ipswich

 

Work by Margaret Agnes Rope and Margaret Edith Rope is on display in the offices of the Rope charitable trust, adjacent to Holy Family and St Michael church, for which there is an entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

There are ages of faith which leave their traces in splendour and beauty, as acts of piety and memory. East Anglia is full of silent witnesses to tides which have ebbed and flowed. Receding, they leave us in their wake great works from the passing ages, little Norman churches which seem to speak a language we can no longer understand but which haunts us still, the decorated beauty of the 14th Century at odds with the horrors of its pestilence and loss, the perpendicular triumph of the 15th Century church before its near-destruction in the subsequent Reformation and Commonwealth, the protestant flowering of chapels and meeting houses in almost all rural communities, and most obvious of all for us today the triumphalism of the Victorian revival.

 

But even as tides recede, piety and memory survive, most often in quiet acts and intimate details. The catholic church of Holy Family and St Michael at Kesgrave is one of their great 20th Century treasure houses.

 

At the time of the 1851 census of religious worship, Kesgrave was home to just 86 people, 79 of whom attended morning service that day, giving this parish the highest percentage attendance of any in Suffolk. However, they met half a mile up the road at the Anglican parish church of All Saints, and the current site of Holy Family was then far out in the fields. In any case, it is unlikely that any of the non-attenders was a Catholic. Today, Kesgrave is a sprawling eastern suburb of Ipswich, home to about 10,000 people. It extends along the A12 corridor all the way to Martlesham, which in turn will take you pretty much all the way to Woodbridge without seeing much more than a field or two between the houses.

 

Holy Family was erected in the 1930s, and serves as a chapel of ease within the parish of Ipswich St Mary. However, it is still in private ownership, the responsibility of the Rope family, who, along with the Jolly family into which they married, owned much of the land in Kesgrave that was later built on.

 

The growth of Kesgrave has been so rapid and so extensive in these last forty years that radical expansions were required at both this church and at All Saints, as well as to the next parish church along in the suburbs at Rushmere St Andrew. All of these projects are interesting, although externally Holy Family is less dramatic than its neighbours. It sits neatly in its trim little churchyard, red-brick and towerless, a harmonious little building if rather a curious shape, of which more in a moment. Beside it, the underpass and roundabout gives it a decidedly urban air. But this is a church of outstanding interest, as we shall see.

 

It was good to come back to Kesgrave. As a member of St Mary's parish I generally attended mass at the parish's other church, a couple of miles into town, but I had been here a number of times over the years, either to mass or just to wander around and sit for a while. These days, you generally approach the church from around the back, where you'll find a sprawling car park typical of a modern Catholic church. To the west of the church are Lucy House and Philip House, newly built for the work of the Rope family charities. Between the car park and the church there there is a tiny, formal graveyard, with crosses remembering members of the Rope and Jolly families.

 

Access to the church is usually through a west door these days, but if you are fortunate enough to enter through the original porch on the north side you will have a foretaste of what is to come, for to left and right are stunning jewel-like and detailed windows depicting St Margaret and St Theresa on one side and St Catherine and the Immaculate Conception on the other. Beside them, a plaque reveals that the church was built to the memory of Michael Rope, who was killed in the R101 airship disaster of 1930.

 

Blue Peter-watching boys like me, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, were enthralled by airships. They were one of those exciting inventions of a not-so-distant past which were, in a real sense, futuristic, a part of the 1930s modernist project that imagined and predicted the way we live now. And they were just so big. But they were doomed, because the hydrogen which gave them their buoyancy was explosive.

 

As a child, I was fascinated by the R101 airship and its disaster, especially because of that familiar photograph of its wrecked and burnt-out fuselage sprawled in the woods on a northern French hillside. It is still a haunting photograph today. The crash of the R101 put an end to airship development in the UK for more than half a century.

 

Of course, this is all ancient history now, but in the year 2001 I had the excellent fortune to be shown around Holy Family by Michael Rope's widow, Mrs Lucy Doreen Rope, née Jolly, who was still alive, and then in her nineties. She was responsible for the building of this church as a memorial to her husband. We paused in the porch so that I could admire the windows. "Do you like them?" Mrs Rope asked me. "Of course, my sister-in-law made them."

 

Her sister-in-law, of course, was Margaret Agnes Rope, who in the first half of the twentieth century was one of the finest of the Arts and Craft Movement stained glass designers. She studied at Birmingham, and then worked at the Glass House in Fulham with her cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, whose work is also here. But their work can be found in churches and cathedrals all over the world. What Mrs Rope did not tell me, and what I found out later, is that these two windows in the porch were made for her and her husband Michael as a wedding present.

 

Doreen Jolly and Michael Rope were married in 1929. Within a year, he was dead. Mrs Rope was just 23 years old.

 

The original church from the 1930s is the part that you step into. You enter to the bizarre sight of a model of the R101 airship suspended from the roof. The nave altar and tabernacle ahead are in the original sanctuary, and you are facing the liturgical east (actually south) of the original building, and what an intimate space this must have been before the church was extended. Red brick outlines the entrance to the sanctuary, and here are the three windows made by Margaret Rope for the original church. The first is the three-light sanctuary window, depicting the Blessed Virgin and child flanked by St Joseph and St Michael. Two doves sit on a nest beneath Mary's feet, while a quizzical sparrow looks on. St Michael has the face of Michael Rope. The inscription beneath reads Pray for Michael Rope who gave up his soul to God in the wreck of His Majesty's Airship R101, Beauvais, October 5th 1930.

 

Next, a lancet in the right-hand side of the sanctuary contains glass depicting St Dominic, with a dog running beneath his feet and the inscription Laudare, Benedicere, Praedicare, ('to praise, to bless, to preach'). The third window is in the west wall of the church (in its day, the right hand side of the nave), depicting St Thomas More and St John Fisher, although at the time the window was made they had not yet been canonised. The inscription beneath records that the window was the gift of a local couple in thankfulness for their conversion to the faith for which the Blessed Martyrs Thomas More and John Fisher gave their lives. A rose bush springs from in front of the martyrs' feet.

 

By the 1950s, Holy Family was no longer large enough for the community it served, and it was greatly expanded to the east to the designs of the archtect Henry Munro Cautley. Cautley was a bluff Anglican of the old school, the retired former diocesan architect of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, but he would have enjoyed designing a church for such an intimate faith community, and in fact it was his last major project before he died in 1959. The original sanctuary was retained as a blessed sacrament chapel, and the church was turned ninety degrees to face east for the first time. The north and south sides of the new church received three-light Tudor windows in the style most beloved by Cautley, as seen also at his Ipswich County Library in Northgate Street, and the former Fosters (now Lloyds) Bank in central Cambridge.

 

Although the Rope family had farmed at Blaxhall near Wickham Market for generations, Margaret Rope herself was not from Suffolk at all, and nor was she at first a Catholic. She was born in Shrewsbury in 1882, the daughter of Henry Rope, a surgeon at Shrewsbury Infirmary, and a son of the Blaxhall Rope family. The largest collection of Margaret Rope's glass is in Shrewsbury Cathedral. When Margaret was 17, her father died. The family were received into the Catholic church shortly afterwards. A plaque was placed in the entrance to Shrewsbury Infirmary to remember her father. When the hospital was demolished in the 1990s, the plaque was moved to here, and now sits in the north aisle of the 1950s church. In her early days in London Margaret Rope designed and made the large east window at Blaxhall church as a memorial to her grandparents. It features her younger brother Michael, and is believed to be the only window that she ever signed.

 

In her early forties, Margaret Rope took holy orders and entered the Carmelite Convent at nearby Woodbridge, but continued to produce her stained glass work until the community moved to Quidenham in Norfolk, when poor health and the distances involved proved insurmountable. She died there in 1953, and so she never saw the expanded church. Her cartoons, the designs for her windows, are placed on the walls around Holy Family. Some are for windows in churches in Scotland and Wales, one for a window in the English College in Rome. Among them are the roundels for within the enclosure of Tyburn Convent in London. "They had to remove the windows there during the War", said Mrs Rope. "Of course, with me, you have to ask which war!"

 

Turning to the east, we see the new sanctuary with its high altar, completed in 1993 as part of a further reordering and expansion, which gave a large galilee porch, kitchen and toilets to the north side of the church. The window above the new sanctuary has three lights, and the two outer windows were made by Margaret Rope for the chapel of East Bergholt convent to the south of Ipswich. They remember the Vaughan family, into which Margaret Rope's sister had married, and in particular one member, a sister in the convent, to celebrate her 25 year jubilee.

 

The convent later became Old Hall, a famous commune. They depict the prophet Isaiah and King David.

 

The central light between them is controversial. Produced in the 1990s and depicting the risen Christ, it really isn't very good, and provides the one jarring note in the church. It is rather unfortunate that it is in such a prominent position. It is not just the quality of the design that is the problem. It lets in too much light in comparison with the two flanking lights. "The glass in my sister-in-law's windows is half an inch thick", Mrs Rope told me. "In the workshop at Fulham they had a man who came in specially to cut it for them". The glass in the modern light is simply too thin.

 

Despite the 1990s extension, and as so often in modern urban Catholic churches, Holy Family is already not really big enough, although it is hard to see that there could ever be another expansion. We walked along Munro Cautley's south aisle, and at that time the stations of the cross were simple wooden crosses. However, about three months after my conversation with Mrs Rope, the World Trade Centre in New York was attacked and destroyed, and among the three thousand people killed were two local Kesgrave brothers who were commemorated with a new set of stations in cast metal.

 

Here also is a 1956 memorial window by Margaret Rope's cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, to Mrs Rope's mother Alice Jolly, depicting the remains of the shrine at Walsingham and the Jolly family at prayer before it. Another MEA Rope window is across the church in the galilee, a Second World War memorial window, originally on the east side of the first church before Cautley's extension. It depicts three of the English Martyrs, Blessed Anne Lynne, Blessed Robert Southwell and Blessed John Robinson, as well as the shipwreck of Blessed John Nutter off of Dunwich, with All Saints church on the cliffs above.

 

The galilee is designed for families with young children to play a full part in mass, and is separated from the church by a glass screen. At the top of the screen is a small panel by Margaret Rope which is of particular interest because it depicts her and her family participating in the Easter vigil, presumably in Shrewsbury Cathedral. This is hard to photograph because it is on an internal window between two rooms.

 

A recent addition to the Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope windows here is directly opposite, newly installed on the south side of the nave. It was donated by her great-nephew. It depicts a nativity scene, the Holy Family in the stable at Bethlehem, an angel appearing to shepherds on the snowy hills beyond. It is perhaps her loveliest window in the church.

 

Finally, back across the church. Here, beside the brass memorial to Margaret Rope, is a window depicting the Blessed Virgin and child, members of the Rope family in the Candlemas procession beneath. The inscription reminds us to pray for the soul of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God, mistress of novices and stained glass artist, Monastery of the Magnificat of the Mother of God, Quidenham, Norfolk, entered Carmel 14th September 1923, died 6th December 1953. Sister Margaret of the Mother of God was, of course, Margaret Rope herself. She was buried in the convent at Quidenham, a Shrewsbury exile at rest in the East Anglian soil of her forebears. The design is hers, and the window was made by her cousin Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope.

 

Back in 2001, we were talking about the changing Church, and I asked Mrs Rope what she thought about the recently introduced practice of transferring Holy Days on to the nearest Sunday, so that the teaching of them was not lost. Mrs Rope approved, a lady clearly not stuck in the past. She had a passion for ensuring that the Faith could be shared with children. As we have seen, her church is designed so that young families can take a full part in the Mass. But she was sympathetic to the distractions of the modern age. "The world is so exciting for children these days", she said. "I think it must be difficult to bring them up with a sense of the presence of God." She smiled. "Mind you, my son is 70 now! And I do admire young girls today. They have such spirit!"

 

She left me to potter about in her wonderful treasure house. As I did so, I thought of medieval churches I have visited, which were similarly donated by the Mrs Ropes of their day, perhaps even for husbands who had died young. They not only sought to memorialise their loved ones, but to consecrate a space for prayer, that masses might be said for the souls of the dead. This was the Catholic way, a Christian duty. Before the Reformation, this was true in every parish in England. It remained true here at Kesgrave.

 

And finally, back outside to the small graveyard. Side by side are two crosses. One remembers Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, artist, 1891-1988. The other remembers Lucy Doreen Rope, founder of this church, 1907-2003.

  

Palingenesis (/ˌpælɪnˈdʒɛnəsɪs/; also palingenesia) is a concept of rebirth or re-creation, used in various contexts in philosophy, theology, politics, and biology. Its meaning stems from Greek palin, meaning again, and genesis, meaning birth. "What is palingenesis?"

 

Answer: The term palingenesis has two common uses relevant to the Bible. One usage relates to evolutionary biology; the other is a theological term. Both usages are connected to the word’s Greek roots. The combination of the terms genesis, meaning “origin” or “birth”; and palin, meaning “again,” defines the term palingenesis as “a rebirth, new beginning, or repetition.”

 

At one point in history, the term palingenesis was used in biology as part of the theory of evolution. Also known as recapitulation or embryological parallelism, the theory of palingenesis taught that embryos passed through their prior evolutionary stages prior to birth. In other words, a developing fetus would look like the animals it had evolved from, in order, as it grew. A human fetus, according to palingenesis, progressed through the stages of fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, and mammal before arriving at a fully formed human being.

 

A major driver behind the popularity of palingenesis or recapitulation theory was the work of Ernst Haeckel. He produced drawings of various creatures in their embryonic form. The problem was that he deliberately over-emphasized the similarities between different animals. As a result, many biology students were taught palingenesis using a visual representation of embryos that was itself misleading. Recapitulation theory eventually fell out of favor and is no longer considered a valid theory by the general scientific community. Unfortunately, in no small part due to widespread use of Haeckel’s drawings, it is a lingering myth.

 

In the spiritual or cultural sense, palingenesis refers to a rebirth or renewal. The term is very broad, so it can be applied to both resurrection within Christianity or reincarnation in faiths such as Hinduism. At times, the term is also used in reference to a personal or cultural revival. Any restarting, re-forming, or re-invention of a once-lost or dead practice could also be considered a type of palingenesis. From a political standpoint, palingenesis refers to the idea of a culture rising from the ashes of history, making this a popular concept with revolutionaries and dictators.

 

The most direct biblical references to palingenesis are in passages such as John 3, where Jesus indicates that only those who are “born again” can see heaven. First Peter 1:3 says, “In [God’s] great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (see also verse 23). The theme of renewal, a core aspect of palingenesis, is also found in verses like Titus 3:5, which speaks of regeneration and renewal. The same idea is found in 1 Corinthians 6:11 and Revelation 7:14.

  

In biology, it is another word for recapitulation—the largely discredited hypothesis which talks of the phase in the development of an organism in which its form and structure pass through the changes undergone in the evolution of the species. In political theory, it is a central component of Roger Griffin's analysis of Fascism as a fundamentally modernist ideology.[1] In theology, the word may refer to reincarnation or to Christian spiritual rebirth symbolized by baptism.

  

Contents

1Philosophy and theology

2Politics and history

3Science

4Notes

5References

Philosophy and theology[edit]

The word palingenesis or rather palingenesia (Ancient Greek: παλιγγενεσία) may be traced back to the Stoics,[2][3][4][5] who used the term for the continual re-creation of the universe. Similarly Philo spoke of Noah and his sons as leaders of a renovation or rebirth of the earth, Plutarch of the transmigration of souls, and Cicero of his own return from exile.

 

In the Gospel of Matthew[6] Jesus is quoted in Greek (although his historical utterance would most likely have been in Aramaic) using the word "παλιγγενεσία" (palingenesia) to describe the Last Judgment foreshadowing the event of the regeneration of a new world. Palingenesia is thus as much the result of, or reason for, the Last Judgement as it is directly the Judgement itself.

 

In philosophy it denotes in its broadest sense the theory (e.g. of the Pythagoreans) that the human soul does not die with the body but is born again in new incarnations. It is thus the equivalent of metempsychosis. The term has a narrower and more specific use in the system of Schopenhauer, who applied it to his doctrine that the will does not die but manifests itself afresh in new individuals. He thus repudiates the primitive metempsychosis doctrine which maintains the reincarnation of the particular soul.

 

Robert Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1628), writes, "The Pythagoreans defend metempsychosis and palingenesia, that souls go from one body to another."

 

The 17th century English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne in his Religio Medici (1643) declared a belief in palingenesis, stating,

 

A plant or vegetable consumed to ashes, to a contemplative and school Philosopher seems utterly destroyed, and the form to have taken his leave for ever: But to a sensible Artist the forms are not perished, but withdrawn into their incombustible part, where they lie secure from the action of that devouring element. This is made good by experience, which can from the ashes of a plant revive the plant, and from its cinders recall it into its stalk and leaves again.'[7]

 

Palingenesis is the subject of the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges's last ever short story, The Rose of Paracelsus (1983)

 

Politics and history[edit]

In Antiquities of the Jews (11.3.9) Josephus used the term palingenesis for the national restoration of the Jews in their homeland after the Babylonian exile. The term is commonly used in Modern Greek to refer to the rebirth of the Greek nation after the Greek Revolution. British political theorist Roger Griffin has coined the term palingenetic ultranationalism as a core tenet of fascism, stressing the notion of fascism as an ideology of rebirth of a state or empire in the image of that which came before it – its ancestral political underpinnings. Examples of this are Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Under Benito Mussolini, Italy purported to establish an empire as the second incarnation of the Roman Empire, while Adolf Hitler's regime was seen[by whom?] as being the third palingenetic incarnation of the German "Reich" - beginning first with the Holy Roman Empire ("First Reich"), followed by Bismarck's German Empire ("Second Reich") and then Nazi Germany ("Third Reich").

 

Moreover, Griffin's work on palingenesis in fascism analysed the pre-war Fin De Siecle Western society. In doing so he built on Frank Kermode's work The Sense of an Ending which sought to understand the belief in the death of society at the end of the century.[8] As part of this death and rebirth Fascism sought to target what it perceived as degenerative elements of society, notably decadence, materialism, rationalism and enlightenment ideology. Out of this death society would regenerate by returning to a more spiritual and emotional state, with the role of the individual core. This built on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, Gustave Le Bon and Henri Bergson's work on the relationship between the mass and the individual with the individual's actions necessary to achieving a state of regeneration.[citation needed]

 

Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet expressed his post-coup project in government as a national rebirth inspired in Diego Portales, a figure of the early republic:[9]

 

“...[democracy] will be born again purified from the vices and bad habits that ended up destroying our institutions... ...we are inspired in the Portalian spirit which has fused together the nation...”

— Augusto Pinochet, 11 October 1973.

Science[edit]

In modern biology (e.g. Haeckel and Fritz Müller), palingenesis has been used for the exact reproduction of ancestral features by inheritance, as opposed to kenogenesis, in which the inherited characteristics are modified by environment.

 

It was also applied to the quite different process supposed by Karl Beurlen to be the mechanism for his orthogenetic theory of evolution.[10]

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palingenesis

(Theme music plays)

Mysterious by Tom Aldrich

freemusicarchive.org/music/tom-aldrich/underscore/mysteri...

 

Soul Sleuths intro, voice over plays over intro montage of explorations.

 

Paranormal. Supernatural. Otherworldly. Mysterious.

Unexplained.

There are those who shrug off these words.

There are those who find these words irresistible.

If you are watching, you are among the latter. You are people with inquisitive minds, adventurous hearts, and courageous souls.

Together, we will explore places that some say are inhabited by restless spirits, demons, or creatures of unknown origin.

Our team of believers and skeptics seek to unite science and mysticism

in our quest to produce empirical evidence that some things may exist on

the boundaries of what we regard as reality.

Welcome to Soul Sleuths, where "investigation is just the beginning."

 

PART ONE

 

(dissolves to Soul set where Nica and Hammer sit on white throw cloth-covered armchairs)

 

Hammer: I'm actually looking forward to this trip.

 

Nica: You are?

 

Hammer: It's a gold mine. What's not to love?

 

Nica: Shootouts, hangings, robberies, murder, and madness. (Hammer nods enthusiastically) Tonight, we will dig into the dark history, and try to determine if the Manes of Murder Mine are real.

 

Hammer: Mah-naze? What does that mean?

 

Nica: It's Latin. It's what the ancient Romans called the spirit or shade of a dead person.

 

Hammer: What have the ancient Romans got to do with this mine?

 

Nica: (smiles, and a voiceover accompanies images) In 1853, two brothers, Samuel and Caleb Wiccheberg were panning for ore samples in a series of California rivers, creeks, and streams, when they found some interesting traces. Following the small stream into a series of caves, they discovered a quartz vein containing gold. They purchased the land, announced their discovery, and that mine eventually produced about 200,000 ounces of gold, and 100,000 ounces of silver. By itself, the gold would be worth about 300 million dollars. A tiny town of mostly miners and their families sprang up near the mine, and it was dubbed, Wiccheberg.

 

Hammer: (back in studio) Obviously,

 

Nica: Obviously.

 

Hammer: Now I'm thinking of everything I could do with 300 mil.

 

Nica: A lot.

 

Hammer: I'm bringing a pickax.

 

Nica: (snort/laughs) You can't -- Somebody still owns that mine. You can't just go digging around in there.

 

Hammer: Then why go?

 

Nica: For the ghosts, remember?

 

Hammer: (sighs) Sure. Ghosts. (Nica shakes her head and chuckles) I'm still bringing a pickax. (Nica snort/laughs)

 

Cut to EXT-DUSK-WICCHEBERG

 

Nica, Hammer, Philly, and Edi are wandering around in front of dilapidated partial structures.

 

Hammer: There's never much left of these places, is there?

 

Nica: The gold ran out in the late 1880s, and so did the miners.

 

Philly: They abandoned it all, leaving it open to the elements. Collapse is inevitable, as Nature reclaims the land. (everyone does a slow turn on Philly)

 

Nica: I told you not to read, Call Of the Wild before we came here.

 

Philly: I didn't. (pause) I watched the movie. (everyone makes disparaging comments, jibes, waves a hand at him, turns away) What? The Disney version, so I wouldn't freak out.

 

Edi: Disney shouldn't make you so morbid, dude.

 

Philly: You don't actually pay attention to those movies, do you?

 

Nica: As you can imagine, gold and silver brings out the worst in the people who chase it, and Wiccheberg was rife with thievery, gunfights, and drunken brawls. Knowing they needed to protect their mine, the brothers hired a small group of outlaws called The Deadeyed Diablos.

 

Hammer: Tell me you have a small penis without telling me you have a small penis. (everyone laughs)

 

Rebus: (voice from behind the camera) I have a feeling that didn't work out well.

 

Nica: Yes, and no. The Diablos probably contributed as much to the crime as they deterred it, but the number of gunfights, thefts, and drunken brawls did decrease.

 

Edi: I guess that's good.

 

Nica: Hangings basically took their place, as far as contributing to deaths.

 

Edi: I guess that's less good.

 

Nica: The Diablos were, at best, vigilantes, so it was safe to say that some innocent people might have gone to the Hanging Rock along with the guilty.

 

Philly: Hanging Rock?

 

Nica: (nods and points, camera follows to where she's pointing, where a massive boulder is poised on a rise over the mine and town, silhouetted against the setting sun) There's a path up the rise, behind the boulder. A ring was set into the boulder, a rope tied to it, and the accused would be pushed off the top of the boulder (her finger points slowly down, the camera following), and they would fall the 20 feet, to just in front of the mine opening, their necks snapping.

 

Hammer: I guess that's a pretty quick way to go.

 

Nica: There are stories that sometimes their heads would pop off.

 

Edi: What?

 

Nica: And sometimes the rope would be a little too long and their feet would hit the ground, breaking their ankles and legs first.

 

Edi: Holy crap.

 

Nica: Sometimes that slowed their descent enough that their necks didn't break, so they'd hang there, feet, ankles, and legs shattered, choking to death.

 

Hammer: So, not an exact science.

 

Nica: Not so much. Like I said, The Diablos weren't good people.

 

Philly: Doesn't say much for the people who hired them, either.

 

Nica: You don't know the half of it. (switches to voiceover images of vintage photographs of the brothers, and other things she talks about) For some people, a lot of gold isn't enough, they need to have all of the gold. Samuel and Caleb were those people. They were paranoid, turning one of the caves in the mine into their living quarters, so they could be on constant guard over their gold, and watch each other's every move.

 

Rebus: (vo) That's healthy.

 

Edi: (vo) They lived in the mine?

 

Nica: (vo) According to local stories, yes.

 

Edi: (vo) But, where would they ... you know? Did they have a bathroom in there? (people laugh)

 

Hammer: (vo) It was the 1800s. They didn't have much in the way of indoor plumbing.

 

Philly: (vo) Probably had another cave with a latrine.

 

Hammer: (vo) Or just squatted over a bucket. (everyone makes grossed out sounds while she laughs)

 

Nica: (as the scene returns to live recording) That's one of the few remaining buildings that still has a portion of it standing. (points, camera follows the point to a decrepit building) It was the pony stable.

 

Edi: Ponies!

 

Philly: Don't tell her about ponies, Nic. It's not gonna have a happy ending.

 

Edi: Why? What happened to the ponies?

 

Nica: Donkeys were commonly used to pull mining carts, but the brothers came from a coal town, and they used pit ponies. The brothers preferred them to donkeys.

 

Edi: Poor ponies and donkeys, working in mines.

 

Nica: At least the ponies got to get out of the mines, daily. Samuel and Caleb eventually stopped coming out, altogether.

 

AllExceptNica: Samuel and Caleb eventually stopped coming out.

 

Nica: All of you suck. (they all chuckle) The brothers fought constantly, each was sure the other was hoarding gold in a secret cache, and one day, Samuel died in a suspicious mining accident. Supposedly, a rock dislodged from the roof of one of the tunnels, striking him on the head, killing him.

 

Hammer: Which could happen.

 

Nica: True. Before the 1920s, miners wore soft caps made of cloth or canvas, with a leather brim, and lamp bracket to hold their lights. Cloth versus rock, rock wins.

 

Rebus: (voice from direction of camera) Could a rock fall far enough from the ceiling of a mine tunnel, to get enough velocity going to kill you?

 

Nica: A dentist in town kept a journal of the goings-on, and most stories are based on his, and other people's diaries, and the dentist mentioned that there was suspicion that Caleb killed Samuel, but there weren't any witnesses. And since the Diablos worked for Caleb, not even one of their kangaroo courts was held.

 

Edi: Oo! They had kangaroos, too? (Philly puts an arm around her shoulders and leads her away to the ruins of the stable, chatting quietly)

 

Nica: Some say, Samuel's ghost had its revenge, because about a month after Samuel's "accident," an earthquake triggered a collapse, trapping, and probably killing, Caleb, and a few Diablos who were meeting with him that night.

 

Hammer: Probably?

 

Nica: The rear portion of the mine was too unstable after that. It's been closed ever since.

 

Hammer: So, those people could have survived, been trapped, and no one went in to save them?

 

Nica: Well, the general feeling in the town was that Caleb was a murderer, and no one was fond of the Diablos.

 

Hammer: Rough justice back in the day.

 

Nica: (chuckles) Don't bash your brother's head in with a rock.

 

Rebus: (voice from direction of camera) Allegedly.

 

Nica: Allegedly. (looks around) We'll be setting up camp, here, and going into the mine.

 

Rebus: (voice from direction of camera) Is that safe?

 

Hammer: We've got hardhats, and the portion we'll be entering is short, and well-maintained.

 

Rebus: (voice from direction of camera) According to--?

 

Nica: According to the current owner. (claps her hands together) Let's get set up before we lose all the daylight.

 

Nica: Bailey

Hammer: Arc

Edi: Teddi

Philly: Seth

Rebus: Erebus

And so to the weekend again. And what might be the last orchid-free weekend until well into June or even August.

 

So, enjoy the churches while you can.

 

Saturday, and not much really planned. We get up at half six with it fully light outside. The cloud and drizzle had not arrived, instead it was pretty clear and sunny.

 

No time for thinking about going out to take shots, as we had hunter-gathering to do.

 

In fact, we didn't need much, just the usual stuff to keep us going. That and the car was running on fumes. So we will that up first, and then into Tesco and round and round we go, fully the trolley up. It being Mother's Day on Saturday, we were having Jen round on Sunday, we were to have steak, so I get mushrooms.

 

And once back, we have breakfast then go to Preston for the actual steak, three ribeyes, all cut from the same stip. Jools had gone to look at the garden centre for ideas as we're going to dig up the raspberries, so just wondering what to put in their place.

 

By then the rain had come, and so we dashed back to the car, and on the way home called in at two churches.

 

First off was Goodnestone, just the other side of Wingham.

 

Its a fine estate church, covered in wonderfully knapped bricks, giving it an East Anglian feel. Before we went in, we sheltered under a tree to much on a sausage roll I had bought at the butcher, that done, we go to the church, which is open.

 

I have been here quite recently, five years back, and in truth no much glass to record, but I do my best, leave a fiver of the weekly collection and we drove over the fields to Eastry.

 

St Mary is an impressive church, with carved and decorated west face of the Norman tower, at its base an odd lean-to porch has been created, leading into the church, which does have interest other than the 35 painted medallions high in the Chancel Arch, once the backdrop to the Rood.

 

I snap them with the big lens, and the windows too. A warden points out what looks like a very much older painted window high among the roof timbers in the east wall of the Chancel.

 

I get a shot, which is good enough, but even with a 400mm lens, is some crop.

 

I finish up and we go home, taking it carefully along nearly flooded roads.

 

Being a Saturday, there is football, though nothing much of interest until three when Norwich kick off against Stoke: could they kick it on a wet Saturday afternoon in the Potteries?

 

No. No, they couldn't.

 

Ended 0-0, City second best, barely laid a glove on the Stoke goal.

 

And then spots galore: Ireland v England in the egg-chasing, Citeh v Burnley in the Cup and Chelsea v Everton in the league, all live on various TV channels.

 

I watch the first half of the rugby, then switch over when England were reduced to 14, so did enjoy the lad Haarland score another hat-trick in a 6-0 demolition.

 

And that was that, another day over with.....

 

---------------------------------------------

 

Set away from the main street but on one of the earliest sites in the village, flint-built Eastry church has an over restored appearance externally but this gives way to a noteworthy interior. Built in the early thirteenth century by its patrons, Christ Church Canterbury, it was always designed to be a statement of both faith and power. The nave has a clerestory above round piers whilst the east nave wall has a pair of quatrefoils pierced through into the chancel. However this feature pales into insignificance when one sees what stands between them - a square panel containing 35 round paintings in medallions. There are four deigns including the Lily for Our Lady; a dove; Lion; Griffin. They would have formed a backdrop to the Rood which would have been supported on a beam the corbels of which survive below the paintings. On the centre pier of the south aisle is a very rare feature - a beautifully inscribed perpetual calendar or `Dominical Circle` to help find the Dominical letter of the year. Dating from the fourteenth century it divides the calendar into a sequence of 28 years. The reredos is an alabaster structure dating from the Edwardian period - a rather out of place object in a church of this form, but a good piece of work in its own right. On the west wall is a good early 19th century Royal Arms with hatchments on either side and there are many good monuments both ledger slabs and hanging tablets. Of the latter the finest commemorates John Harvey who died in 1794. It shows his ship the Brunswick fighting with all guns blazing with the French ship the Vengeur. John Bacon carved the Elder this detailed piece of work.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Eastry

 

------------------------------------------

 

Above the Chancel Arch, enclosed within a rectangular frame, are rows of seven "medallion" wall paintings; the lower group was discovered in 1857 and the rest in 1903. They remained in a rather dilapidated state until the Canterbury Cathedral Wall Paintings Department brought them back to life.

 

The medallions are evidently of the 13th Century, having been painted while the mortar was still wet. Each medallion contains one of four motifs:

 

The trefoil flower, pictured left, is perhaps a symbol of the Blessed Virgin Mary to whom the church is dedicated; or symbolic of Christ.

 

The lion; symbolic of the Resurrection

  

Doves, either singly, or in pairs, represent the Holy Spirit

  

The Griffin represents evil, over which victory is won by the power of the Resurrection and the courage of the Christian.

 

www.ewbchurches.org.uk/eastrychurchhistory.htm

 

----------------------------------------------------

 

EASTRY,

THE next parish north-eastward from Knolton is Eastry. At the time of taking the survey of Domesday, it was of such considerable account, that it not only gave name, as it does at present, to the hundred, but to the greatest part of the lath in which it stands, now called the lath of St. Augustine. There are two boroughs in this parish, viz. the borough of Hardenden, which is within the upper half hundred of Downhamford, and comprehends the districts of Hardenden, Selson and Skrinkling, and the borough of Eastry, the borsholder of which is chosen at Eastry-court, and comprehends all the rest of the parish, excepting so much of it as lies within that part of the borough of Felderland, which is within this parish.

 

THE PARISH OF EASTRY, a healthy and not unpleasant situation, is about two miles and an half from north to south, but it is much narrower the other way, at the broadest extent of which it is not more than a mile and an half. The village of Eastry is situated on a pleasing eminence, almost in the centre of the parish, exhiblting a picturesque appearance from many points of view. The principal street in it is called Eastrystreet; from it branch off Mill street, Church-street and Brook-street. In Mill street is a spacious handsome edisice lately erected there, as a house of industry, for the poor of the several united parishes of Eastry, Norborne, Betshanger, Tilmanstone, Waldershare, Coldred, Lydden, Shebbertswell, Swynfield, Wootton, Denton, Chillenden and Knolton. In Churchstreet, on the east side, stands the church, with the court-lodge and parsonage adjoining the church-yard; in this street is likewise the vicarage. In Brook-street, is a neat modern house, the residence of Wm. Boteler, esq. and another belonging to Mr. Thomas Rammell, who resides in it. Mention will be found hereafter, under the description of the borough of Hernden, in this parish, of the descent and arms of the Botelers resident there for many generations. Thomas Boteler, who died possessed of that estate in 1651, left three sons, the youngest of whom, Richard, was of Brook-street, and died in 1682; whose great-grandson, W. Boteler, esq. is now of Brook-street; a gentleman to whom the editor is much indebted for his communications and assistance, towards the description of this hundred, and its adjoining neighbourhood. He has been twice married; first to Sarah, daughter and coheir of Thomas Fuller, esq. of Statenborough, by whom he has one son, William Fuller, now a fellow of St. Peter's college, Cambridge: secondly, to Mary, eldest daughter of John Harvey, esq. of Sandwich and Hernden, late captain of the royal navy, by whom he has five sons and three daughters. He bears for his arms, Argent, on three escutcheons, sable, three covered cups, or; which coat was granted to his ancestor, Richard Boteler, esq. of Hernden, by Cooke, clar. in 1589. Mr. Boteler, of Eastry, is the last surviving male of the family, both of Hernden and Brook-street. Eastry-street, comprizing the neighbourhood of the above mentioned branches, may be said to contain about sixty-four houses.

 

At the south-east boundary of this parish lies the hamlet of Updown, adjoining to Ham and Betshanger, in the former of which parishes some account of it has been already given. At the southern bounds, adjoining to Tilmanstone, lies the hamlet of Westone, formerly called Wendestone. On the western side lies the borough of Hernden, which although in this parish, is yet within the hundred of Downhamford and manor of Adisham; in the southern part of it is Shrinkling, or Shingleton, as it is now called, and the hamlet of Hernden. At the northern part of this borough lie the hamlets and estates of Selson, Wells, and Gore. Towards the northern boundary of the parish, in the road to Sandwich, is the hamlet of Statenborough, and at a small distance from it is that part of the borough of Felderland, or Fenderland, as it is usually called, within this parish, in which, adjoining the road which branches off to Word, is a small seat, now the property and residence of Mrs. Dare, widow of Wm. Dare, esq. who resides in it. (fn. 1)

 

Round the village the lands are for a little distance, and on towards Statenborough, inclosed with hedges and trees, but the rest of the parish is in general an open uninclosed country of arable land, like the neighbouring ones before described; the soil of it towards the north is most fertile, in the other parts it is rather thin, being much inclined to chalk, except in the bottoms, where it is much of a stiff clay, for this parish is a continued inequality of hill and dale; notwithstanding the above, there is a great deal of good fertile land in the parish, which meets on an average rent at fifteen shillings an acre. There is no wood in it. The parish contains about two thousand six hundred and fifty acres; the yearly rents of it are assessed to the poor at 2679l.

 

At the south end of the village is a large pond, called Butsole; and adjoining to it on the east side, a field, belonging to Brook-street estate, called the Butts; from whence it is conjectured that Butts were formerly erected in it, for the practice of archery among the inhabitants.

 

A fair is held here for cattle, pedlary, and toys, on October the 2d, (formerly on St. Matthew's day, September the 21st) yearly.

 

IN 1792, MR. BOTELER, of Brook-street, discovered, on digging a cellar in the garden of a cottage, situated eastward of the highway leading from Eastrycross to Butsole, an antient burying ground, used as such in the latter time of the Roman empire in Britain, most probably by the inhabitants of this parish, and the places contiguous to it. He caused several graves to be opened, and found with the skeletons, fibulæ, beads, knives,umbones of shields, &c. and in one a glass vessel. From other skeletons, which have been dug up in the gardens nearer the cross, it is imagined, that they extended on the same side the road up to the cross, the ground of which is now pretty much covered with houses; the heaps of earth, or barrows, which formerly remained over them, have long since been levelled, by the great length of time and the labour of the husbandman; the graves were very thick, in rows parallel to each other, in a direction from east to west.

 

St. Ivo's well, mentioned by Nierembergius, in Historia de Miraculis Natureæ, lib. ii. cap. 33; which I noticed in my folio edition as not being able to find any tradition of in this parish, I have since found was at a place that formerly went by the name of Estre, and afterwards by that of Plassiz, near St. Ives, in Huntingdonshire. See Gales Scriptores, xv. vol. i. p.p. 271, 512.

 

This place gave birth to Henry de Eastry, who was first a monk, and then prior of Christ-church, in Canterbury; who, for his learning as well as his worthy acts, became an ornament, not only to the society he presided over, but to his country in general. He continued prior thirty-seven years, and died, far advanced in life, in 1222.

 

THIS PLACE, in the time of the Saxons, appears to have been part of the royal domains, accordingly Simon of Durham, monk and precentor of that church, in his history, stiles it villa regalis, quæ vulgari dicitur Easterige pronuncione, (the royal ville, or manor, which in the vulgar pronunciation was called Easterige), which shews the antient pre-eminence and rank of this place, for these villæ regales, or regiæ, as Bede calls them, of the Saxons, were usually placed upon or near the spot, where in former ages the Roman stations had been before; and its giving name both to the lath and hundred in which it is situated corroborates the superior consequence it was then held in. Egbert, king of Kent, was in possession of it about the year 670, at which time his two cousins, Ethelred and Ethelbright, sons of his father's elder brother Ermenfrid, who had been entrusted to his care by their uncle, the father of Egbert, were, as writers say, murdered in his palace here by his order, at the persuasion of one Thunnor, a slattering courtier, lest they should disturb him in the possession of the crown. After which Thunnor buried them in the king's hall here, under the cloth of estate, from whence, as antient tradition reports, their bodies were afterwards removed to a small chapel belonging to the palace, and buried there under the altar at the east end of it, and afterwards again with much pomp to the church of Ramsey abbey. To expiate the king's guilt, according to the custom of those times, he gave to Domneva, called also Ermenburga, their sister, a sufficient quantity of land in the isle of Thanet, on which she might found a monastery.

 

How long it continued among the royal domains, I have not found; but before the termination of the Saxon heptarchy, THE MANOR OF EASTRY was become part of the possessions of the see of Canterbury, and it remained so till the year 811, when archbishop Wilfred exchanged it with his convent of Christchurch for their manor of Bourne, since from the archbishop's possession of it called Bishopsbourne. After which, in the year 979 king Ægelred, usually called Ethelred, increased the church's estates here, by giving to it the lands of his inheritance in Estrea, (fn. 2) free from all secular service and siscal tribute, except the repelling of invasions and the repairing of bridges and castles, usually stiled the trinoda necessitas; (fn. 3) and in the possession of the prior and convent bove-mentioned, this manor continued at the taking of the survey of Domesday, being entered in it under the general title of Terra Monachorum Archiepi; that is, the land of the monks of the archbishop, as follows:

 

In the lath of Estrei in Estrei hundred, the archbishop himself holds Estrei. It was taxed at Seven sulings. The arable land is . . . . In demesne there are three carucates and seventy two villeins, with twenty-two borderers, having twenty-four carucates. There is one mill and a half of thirty shillings, and three salt pits of four shillings, and eighteen acres of meadow. Wood for the pannage of ten hogs.

 

After which, this manor continued in the possession of the priory, and in the 10th year of king Edward II. the prior obtained a grant of free-warren in all his demesne lands in it, among others; about which time it was valued at 65l. 3s. after which king Henry VI. in his 28th year, confirmed the above liberty, and granted to it a market, to be held at Eastry weekly on a Tuesday, and a fair yearly, on the day of St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist; in which state it continued till the dissolution of the priory in the 31st year of king Henry VIII. when it came in to the king's hands, where it did not remain long, for he settled it, among other premises, in the 33d year of his reign, on his new created dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions it continues at this time. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.

 

The manerial rights, profits of courts, royalties, &c. the dean and chapter retain in their own hands; but the demesne lands of the manor, with the courtlodge, which is a large antient mansion, situated adjoining to the church-yard, have been from time to time demised on a benesicial lease. The house is large, partly antient and partly modern, having at different times undergone great alterations. In the south wall are the letters T. A. N. in flint, in large capitals, being the initials of Thomas and Anne Nevinson. Mr. Isaac Bargrave, father of the present lessee, new fronted the house, and the latter in 1786 put the whole in complete repair, in doing which, he pulled down a considerable part of the antient building, consisting of stone walls of great strength and thickness, bringing to view some gothic arched door ways of stone, which proved the house to have been of such construction formerly, and to have been a very antient building. The chapel, mentioned before, is at the east end of the house. The east window, consisting of three compartments, is still visible, though the spaces are filled up, it having for many years been converted into a kitchen, and before the last alteration by Mr. Bargrave the whole of it was entire.

 

At this mansion, then in the hands of the prior and convent of Christ-church, archbishop Thomas Becket, after his stight from Northampton in the year 1164, concealed himself for eight days, and then, on Nov. 10, embarked at Sandwich for France. (fn. 4)

 

The present lessee is Isaac Bargrave, esq. who resides at the court-lodge, whose ancestors have been lessees of this estate for many years past.

 

THE NEVINSONS, as lessees, resided at the courtlodge of Eastry for many years. They were originally of Brigend, in Wetherell, in Cumberland. They bore for their arms, Argent, a chevron, between three eagles displayed, azure. Many of them lie buried in Eastry church. (fn. 5)

 

THE FAMILY of Bargrave, alias Bargar, was originally of Bridge, and afterwards of the adjoining parish of Patrixbourne; where John Bargrave, eldest son of Robert, built the seat of Bifrons, and resided at it, of whom notice has already been taken in vol. ix. of this history, p. 280. Isaac Bargrave, the sixth son of Robert above-mentioned, and younger brother of John, who built Bifrons, was ancestor of the Bargraves, of Eastry; he was S. T. P. and dean of Canterbury, a man of strict honour and high principles of loyalty, for which he suffered the most cruel treatment. He died in 1642, having married in 1618 Elizabeth, daughter of John Dering, esq. of Egerton, by Elizabeth, sister of Edward lord Wotton, the son of John Dering, esq. of Surrenden, by Margaret Brent. Their descendant, Isaac Bargrave, esq. now living, was an eminent solicitor in London, from which he has retired for some years, and now resides at Eastry-court, of which he is the present lessee. He married Sarah, eldest daughter of George Lynch, M. D. of Canterbury, who died at Herne in 1787, S.P. They bear for their arms, Or, on a pale gules, a sword, the blade argent, pomelled, or, on a chief vert three bezants.

 

SHRINKLING, alias SHINGLETON, the former of which is its original name, though now quite lost, is a small manor at the south-west boundary of this pa Kent, anno 1619. rish, adjoining to Nonington. It is within the borough of Heronden, or Hardonden, as it is now called, and as such, is within the upper half hundred of Downhamford. This manor had antiently owners of the same name; one of whom, Sir William de Scrinkling, held it in king Edward I.'s reign, and was succeeded by Sir Walter de Scrinkling his son, who held it by knight's service of Hamo de Crevequer, (fn. 6) and in this name it continued in the 20th year of king Edward III.

 

Soon after which it appears to have been alienated to William Langley, of Knolton, from which name it passed in like manner as Knolton to the Peytons and the Narboroughs, and thence by marriage to Sir Thomas D'Aeth, whose grandson Sir Narborough D'Aeth, bart. now of Knolton, is at present entitled to it.

 

There was a chapel belonging to this manor, the ruins of which are still visible in the wood near it, which was esteemed as a chapel of ease to the mother church of Eastry, and was appropriated with it by archbishop Richard, Becket's immediate successor, to the almory of the priory of Christ-church; but the chapel itself seems to have become desolate many years before the dissolution of the priory, most probably soon after the family of Shrinkling became extinct; the Langleys, who resided at the adjoining manor of Knolton, having no occasion for the use of it. The chapel stood in Shingleton wood, near the south east corner; the foundations of it have been traced, though level with the surface, and not easily discovered. There is now on this estate only one house, built within memory, before which there was only a solitary barn, and no remains of the antient mansion of it.

 

HERONDEN, alias HARDENDEN, now usually called HERONDEN, is a district in this parish, situated about a mile northward from Shingleton, within the borough of its own name, the whole of which is within the upper half hundred of Downhamford. It was once esteemed as a manor, though it has not had even the name of one for many years past, the manor of Adisham claiming over it. The mansion of it was antiently the residence of a family of the same name, who bore for their arms, Argent, a heron with one talon erect, gaping for breath, sable. These arms are on a shield, which is far from modern, in Maidstone church, being quarterly, Heronden as above, with sable, three escallop shells, two and one, argent; and in a window of Lincoln's Inn chapel is a coat of arms of a modern date, being that of Anthony Heronden, esq. Argent, a heron, azure, between three escallops, sable. One of this family of Heronden lies buried in this church, and in the time of Robert Glover, Somerset herald, his portrait and coat of arms, in brass, were remaining on his tombstone. The coat of arms is still extant in very old rolls and registers in the Heralds office, where the family is stiled Heronden, of Heronden, in Eastry; nor is the name less antient, as appears by deeds which commence from the reign of Henry III. which relate to this estate and name; but after this family had remained possessed of this estate for so many years it at last descended down in king Richard II.'s reign, to Sir William Heronden, from whom it passed most probably either by gift or sale, to one of the family of Boteler, or Butler, then resident in this neighbourhood, descended from those of this name, formerly seated at Butler's sleet, in Ash, whose ancestor Thomas Pincerna, or le Boteler, held that manor in king John's reign, whence his successors assumed the name of Butler, alias Boteler, or as they were frequently written Botiller, and bore for their arms, One or more covered cups, differently placed and blazoned. In this family the estate descended to John Boteler, who lived in the time of king Henry VI. and resided at Sandwich, of which town he was several times mayor, and one of the burgesses in two parliaments of that reign; he lies buried in St. Peter's church there. His son Richard, who was also of Sandwich, had a grant of arms in 1470, anno 11th Edward IV. by Thomas Holme, norroy, viz. Gyronny of six, argent and sable, a covered cup, or, between three talbots heads, erased and counterchanged of the field, collared, gules, garnished of the third. His great-grandson Henry Boteler rebuilt the mansion of Heronden, to which he removed in 1572, being the last of his family who resided at Sandwich. He had the above grant of arms confirmed to him, and died in 1580, being buried in Eastry church. Richard Boteler, of Heronden, his eldest son by his first wife, resided at this seat, and in 1589 obtained a grant from Robert Cook, clarencieux, of a new coat of arms, viz. Argent, on three escutcheons, sable, three convered cups, or. Ten years after which, intending as it should seem, to shew himself a descendant of the family of this name, seated at Graveney, but then extinct, he obtained in 1599 a grant of their arms from William Dethic, garter, and William Camden, clarencieux, to him and his brother William, viz. Quarterly, first and fourth, sable, three covered cups, or, within a bordure, argent; second and third, Argent, a fess, chequy, argent and gules, in chief three cross-croslets of the last, as appears (continues the grant) on a gravestone in Graveney church. He died in 1600, and was buried in Eastry church, leaving issue among other children Jonathan and Thomas. (fn. 7) Jonathan Boteler, the eldest son, of Hernden, died unmarried possessed of it in 1626, upon which it came to his next surviving brother Thomas Boteler, of Rowling, who upon that removed to Hernden, and soon afterwards alienated that part of it, since called THE MIDDLE FARM, to Mr. Henry Pannell, from whom soon afterwards, but how I know not, it came into the family of Reynolds; from which name it was about fifty years since alienated to John Dekewer, esq. of Hackney, who dying in 1762, devised it to his nephew John Dekewer, esq. of Hackney, the present possessor of it.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sandwich.

 

The church, which is exempted from the archdeacon, is dedicated to St. Mary; it is a large handsome building, consisting of a nave and two side isles, a chancel at the east end, remarkably long, and a square tower, which is very large, at the west end, in which are five very unmusical bells. The church is well kept and neatly paved, and exhibits a noble appearance, to which the many handsome monuments in it contribute much. The arch over the west door is circular, but no other parts of the church has any shew of great antiquity. In the chancel are monuments for the Paramors and the Fullers, of Statenborough, arms of the latter, Argent, three bars, and a canton, gules. A monument for several of the Bargrave family. An elegant pyramidial one, on which is a bust and emblematical sculpture for John Broadley, gent. many years surgeon at Dover, obt. 1784. Several gravestones, with brasses, for the Nevinsons. A gravestone for Joshua Paramour, gent. buried 1650. Underneath this chancel are two vaults, for the families of Paramour and Bargrave. In the nave, a monument for Anne, daughter of Solomon Harvey, gent. of this parish, ob. 1751; arms, Argent, on a chevron, between three lions gambs, sable, armed gules, three crescents, or; another for William Dare, esq. late of Fenderland, in this parish, obt. 1770; arms, Gules, a chevron vaire, between three crescents, argent, impaling argent, on a cross, sable, four lions passant, quardant of the field, for Read.—Against the wall an inscription in Latin, for the Drue Astley Cressemer, A. M. forty-eight years vicar of this parish, obt. 1746; he presented the communion plate to this church and Worth, and left a sum of money to be laid out in ornamenting this church, at which time the antient stalls, which were in the chancel, were taken away, and the chancel was ceiled, and the church otherwise beautified; arms, Argent, on a bend engrailed, sable, three cross-croslets, fitchee, or. A monument for several of the Botelers, of this parish; arms, Boteler, argent, on three escutcheons, sable, three covered cups, or, impaling Morrice. Against a pillar, a tablet and inscription, shewing that in a vault lieth Catherine, wife of John Springett, citizen and apothecary of London. He died in 1770; arms, Springett, per fess, argent and gules, a fess wavy, between three crescents, counterchanged, impaling Harvey. On the opposite pillar another, for the Rev. Richard Harvey, fourteen years vicar of this parish, obt. 1772. A monument for Richard Kelly, of Eastry, obt. 1768; arms, Two lions rampant, supporting a castle. Against the wall, an elegant sculptured monument, in alto relievo, for Sarah, wise of William Boteler, a daughter of Thomas Fuller, esq. late of Statenborough, obt. 1777, æt. 29; she died in childbed, leaving one son, William Fuller Boteler; arms at bottom, Boteler, as above, an escutcheon of pretence, Fuller, quartering Paramor. An elegant pyramidal marble and tablet for Robert Bargrave, of this parish, obt. 1779, for Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Sir Francis Leigh, of Hawley; and for Robert Bargrave, their only son, proctor in Doctors Commons, obt. 1774, whose sole surviving daughter Rebecca married James Wyborne, of Sholdon; arms, Bargrave, with a mullet, impaling Leigh. In the cross isle, near the chancel called the Boteler's isle, are several memorials for the Botelers. Adjoining to these, are three other gravestones, all of which have been inlaid, but the brasses are gone; they were for the same family, and on one of them was lately remaining the antient arms of Boteler, Girony of six pieces, &c. impaling ermine of three spots. Under the church are vaults, for the families of Springett, Harvey, Dare, and Bargrave. In the church-yard, on the north side of the church, are several altar tombs for the Paramors; and on the south side are several others for the Harveys, of this parish, and for Fawlkner, Rammell, and Fuller. There are also vaults for the families of Fuller, Rammell, and Petman.

 

There were formerly painted in the windows of this church, these arms, Girony of six, sable and argent, a covered cup, or, between three talbots heads, erased and counter changed of the field, collared, gules; for Boteler, of Heronden, impaling Boteler, of Graveny, Sable, three covered cups, or, within a bordure, argent; Boteler, of Heronden, as above, quartering three spots, ermine; the coat of Theobald, with quarterings. Several of the Frynnes, or as they were afterwards called, Friends, who lived at Waltham in this parish in king Henry VII.'s reign, lie buried in this church.

 

In the will of William Andrewe, of this parish, anno 1507, mention is made of our Ladie chapel, in the church-yard of the church of Estrie.

 

The eighteen stalls which were till lately in the chancel of the church, were for the use of the monks of the priory of Christ church, owners both of the manor and appropriation, when they came to pass any time at this place, as they frequently did, as well for a country retirement as to manage their concerns here; and for any other ecclesiastics, who might be present at divine service here, all such, in those times, sitting in the chancels of churches distinct from the laity.

 

The church of Eastry, with the chapels of Skrinkling and Worth annexed, was antiently appendant to the manor of Eastry, and was appropriated by archbishop Richard (successor to archbishop Becket) in the reign of king Henry II. to the almonry of the priory of Christ-church, but it did not continue long so, for archbishop Baldwin, (archbishop Richard's immediate successor), having quarrelled with the monks, on account of his intended college at Hackington, took this appropriation from them, and thus it remained as a rectory, at the archbishop's disposal, till the 39th year of king Edward III.'s reign, (fn. 10) when archbishop Simon Islip, with the king's licence, restored, united and annexed it again to the priory; but it appears, that in return for this grant, the archbishop had made over to him, by way of exchange, the advowsons of the churches of St. Dunstan, St. Pancrase, and All Saints in Bread-street, in London, all three belonging to the priory. After which, that is anno 8 Richard II. 1384, this church was valued among the revenues of the almonry of Christ-church, at the yearly value of 53l. 6s. 8d. and it continued afterwards in the same state in the possession of the monks, who managed it for the use of the almonry, during which time prior William Sellyng, who came to that office in Edward IV.'s reign, among other improvements on several estates belonging to his church, built a new dormitory at this parsonage for the monks resorting hither.

 

On the dissolution of the priory of Christ-church, in the 31st year of king Henry VIII.'s reign, this appropriation, with the advowson of the vicarage of the church of Eastry, was surrendered into the king's hands, where it staid but a small time, for he granted it in his 33d year, by his dotation charter, to his new founded dean and chapter of Canterbury, who are the present owners of this appropriation; but the advowson of the vicarage, notwithstanding it was granted with the appropriation, to the dean and chapter as above-mentioned, appears not long afterwards to have become parcel of the possessions of the see of Canterbury, where it continues at this time, his grace the archbishop being the present patron of it.

 

This parsonage is entitled to the great tithes of this parish and of Worth; there belong to it of glebe land in Eastry, Tilmanstone, and Worth, in all sixtynine acres.

 

THERE IS A SMALL MANOR belonging to it, called THE MANOR OF THE AMBRY, OR ALMONRY OF CHRIST-CHURCH, the quit-rents of which are very inconsiderable.

 

The parsonage-house is large and antient; in the old parlour window is a shield of arms, being those of Partheriche, impaling quarterly Line and Hamerton. The parsonage is of the annual rent of about 700l. The countess dowager of Guildford became entitled to the lease of this parsonage, by the will of her husband the earl of Guildford, and since her death the interest of it is become vested in her younger children.

 

As to the origin of a vicarage in this church, though there was one endowed in it by archbishop Peckham, in the 20th year of king Edward I. anno 1291, whilst this church continued in the archbishop's hands, yet I do not find that there was a vicar instituted in it, but that it remained as a rectory, till near three years after it had been restored to the priory of Christchurch, when, in the 42d year of king Edward III. a vicar was instituted in it, between whom and the prior and chapter of Canterbury, there was a composition concerning his portion, which he should have as an endowment of this vicarage; which composition was confirmed by archbishop Simon Langham that year; and next year there was an agreement entered into between the eleemosinary of Christ-church and the vicar, concerning the manse of this vicarage.

 

The vicarage of Eastry, with the chapel of Worth annexed, is valued in the king's books at 19l. 12s. 1d. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 19s. 2½d. In 1588 it was valued at sixty pounds. Communicants three hundred and thirty-five. In 1640 here were the like number of communicants, and it was valued at one hundred pounds.

 

The antient pension of 5l. 6s. 8d. formerly paid by the priory, is still paid to the vicar by the dean and chapter, and also an augmentation of 14l. 13s. 4d. yearly, by the lessee of the parsonage, by a convenant in his lease.

 

The vicarage-house is built close to the farm-yard of the parsonage; the land allotted to it is very trifling, not even sufficient for a tolerable garden; the foundations of the house are antient, and probably part of the original building when the vicarage was endowed in 1367.

 

¶There were two awards made in 1549 and 1550, on a controversy between the vicar of Eastry and the mayor, &c. of Sandwich, whether the scite of St. Bartholomew's hospital, near Sandwich, within that port and liberty, was subject to the payment of tithes to the vicar, as being within his parish. Both awards adjudged the legality of a payment, as due to the vicar; but the former award adjudged that the scite of the hospital was not, and the latter, that it was within the bounds of this parish. (fn. 12)

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol10/pp98-121

Holy Family and St Michael, Kesgrave, Ipswich, Suffolk

 

A new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

There are ages of faith which leave their traces in splendour and beauty, as acts of piety and memory. East Anglia is full of silent witnesses to tides which have ebbed and flowed. Receding, they leave us in their wake great works from the passing ages, little Norman churches which seem to speak a language we can no longer understand but which haunts us still, the decorated beauty of the 14th Century at odds with the horrors of its pestilence and loss, the perpendicular triumph of the 15th Century church before its near-destruction in the subsequent Reformation and Commonwealth, the protestant flowering of chapels and meeting houses in almost all rural communities, and most obvious of all for us today the triumphalism of the Victorian revival.

 

But even as tides recede, piety and memory survive, most often in quiet acts and intimate details. The catholic church of Holy Family and St Michael at Kesgrave is one of their great 20th Century treasure houses.

 

At the time of the 1851 census of religious worship, Kesgrave was home to just 86 people, 79 of whom attended morning service that day, giving this parish the highest percentage attendance of any in Suffolk. However, they met half a mile up the road at the Anglican parish church of All Saints, and the current site of Holy Family was then far out in the fields. In any case, it is unlikely that any of the non-attenders was a Catholic. Today, Kesgrave is a sprawling eastern suburb of Ipswich, home to about 10,000 people. It extends along the A12 corridor all the way to Martlesham, which in turn will take you pretty much all the way to Woodbridge without seeing much more than a field or two between the houses.

 

Holy Family was erected in the 1930s, and serves as a chapel of ease within the parish of Ipswich St Mary. However, it is still in private ownership, the responsibility of the Rope family, who, along with the Jolly family into which they married, owned much of the land in Kesgrave that was later built on.

 

The growth of Kesgrave has been so rapid and so extensive in these last forty years that radical expansions were required at both this church and at All Saints, as well as to the next parish church along in the suburbs at Rushmere St Andrew. All of these projects are interesting, although externally Holy Family is less dramatic than its neighbours. It sits neatly in its trim little churchyard, red-brick and towerless, a harmonious little building if rather a curious shape, of which more in a moment. Beside it, the underpass and roundabout gives it a decidedly urban air. But this is a church of outstanding interest, as we shall see.

 

It was good to come back to Kesgrave. As a member of St Mary's parish I generally attended mass at the parish's other church, a couple of miles into town, but I had been here a number of times over the years, either to mass or just to wander around and sit for a while. These days, you generally approach the church from around the back, where you'll find a sprawling car park typical of a modern Catholic church. To the west of the church are Lucy House and Philip House, newly built for the work of the Rope family charities. Between the car park and the church there there is a tiny, formal graveyard, with crosses remembering members of the Rope and Jolly families.

 

Access to the church is usually through a west door these days, but if you are fortunate enough to enter through the original porch on the north side you will have a foretaste of what is to come, for to left and right are stunning jewel-like and detailed windows depicting St Margaret and St Theresa on one side and St Catherine and the Immaculate Conception on the other. Beside them, a plaque reveals that the church was built to the memory of Michael Rope, who was killed in the R101 airship disaster of 1930.

 

Blue Peter-watching boys like me, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, were enthralled by airships. They were one of those exciting inventions of a not-so-distant past which were, in a real sense, futuristic, a part of the 1930s modernist project that imagined and predicted the way we live now. And they were just so big. But they were doomed, because the hydrogen which gave them their buoyancy was explosive.

 

As a child, I was fascinated by the R101 airship and its disaster, especially because of that familiar photograph of its wrecked and burnt-out fuselage sprawled in the woods on a northern French hillside. It is still a haunting photograph today. The crash of the R101 put an end to airship development in the UK for more than half a century.

 

Of course, this is all ancient history now, but in the year 2001 I had the excellent fortune to be shown around Holy Family by Michael Rope's widow, Mrs Lucy Doreen Rope, née Jolly, who was still alive, and then in her nineties. She was responsible for the building of this church as a memorial to her husband. We paused in the porch so that I could admire the windows. "Do you like them?" Mrs Rope asked me. "Of course, my sister-in-law made them."

 

Her sister-in-law, of course, was Margaret Agnes Rope, who in the first half of the twentieth century was one of the finest of the Arts and Craft Movement stained glass designers. She studied at Birmingham, and then worked at the Glass House in Fulham with her cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, whose work is also here. But their work can be found in churches and cathedrals all over the world. What Mrs Rope did not tell me, and what I found out later, is that these two windows in the porch were made for her and her husband Michael as a wedding present.

 

Doreen Jolly and Michael Rope were married in 1929. Within a year, he was dead. Mrs Rope was just 23 years old.

 

The original church from the 1930s is the part that you step into. You enter to the bizarre sight of a model of the R101 airship suspended from the roof. The nave altar and tabernacle ahead are in the original sanctuary, and you are facing the liturgical east (actually south) of the original building, and what an intimate space this must have been before the church was extended. Red brick outlines the entrance to the sanctuary, and here are the three windows made by Margaret Rope for the original church. The first is the three-light sanctuary window, depicting the Blessed Virgin and child flanked by St Joseph and St Michael. Two doves sit on a nest beneath Mary's feet, while a quizzical sparrow looks on. St Michael has the face of Michael Rope. The inscription beneath reads Pray for Michael Rope who gave up his soul to God in the wreck of His Majesty's Airship R101, Beauvais, October 5th 1930.

 

Next, a lancet in the right-hand side of the sanctuary contains glass depicting St Dominic, with a dog running beneath his feet and the inscription Laudare, Benedicere, Praedicare, ('to praise, to bless, to preach'). The third window is in the west wall of the church (in its day, the right hand side of the nave), depicting St Thomas More and St John Fisher, although at the time the window was made they had not yet been canonised. The inscription beneath records that the window was the gift of a local couple in thankfulness for their conversion to the faith for which the Blessed Martyrs Thomas More and John Fisher gave their lives. A rose bush springs from in front of the martyrs' feet.

 

By the 1950s, Holy Family was no longer large enough for the community it served, and it was greatly expanded to the east to the designs of the archtect Henry Munro Cautley. Cautley was a bluff Anglican of the old school, the retired former diocesan architect of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, but he would have enjoyed designing a church for such an intimate faith community, and in fact it was his last major project before he died in 1959. The original sanctuary was retained as a blessed sacrament chapel, and the church was turned ninety degrees to face east for the first time. The north and south sides of the new church received three-light Tudor windows in the style most beloved by Cautley, as seen also at his Ipswich County Library in Northgate Street, and the former Fosters (now Lloyds) Bank in central Cambridge.

 

Although the Rope family had farmed at Blaxhall near Wickham Market for generations, Margaret Rope herself was not from Suffolk at all, and nor was she at first a Catholic. She was born in Shrewsbury in 1882, the daughter of Henry Rope, a surgeon at Shrewsbury Infirmary, and a son of the Blaxhall Rope family. The largest collection of Margaret Rope's glass is in Shrewsbury Cathedral. When Margaret was 17, her father died. The family were received into the Catholic church shortly afterwards. A plaque was placed in the entrance to Shrewsbury Infirmary to remember her father. When the hospital was demolished in the 1990s, the plaque was moved to here, and now sits in the north aisle of the 1950s church. In her early days in London Margaret Rope designed and made the large east window at Blaxhall church as a memorial to her grandparents. It features her younger brother Michael, and is believed to be the only window that she ever signed.

 

In her early forties, Margaret Rope took holy orders and entered the Carmelite Convent at nearby Woodbridge, but continued to produce her stained glass work until the community moved to Quidenham in Norfolk, when poor health and the distances involved proved insurmountable. She died there in 1953, and so she never saw the expanded church. Her cartoons, the designs for her windows, are placed on the walls around Holy Family. Some are for windows in churches in Scotland and Wales, one for a window in the English College in Rome. Among them are the roundels for within the enclosure of Tyburn Convent in London. "They had to remove the windows there during the War", said Mrs Rope. "Of course, with me, you have to ask which war!"

 

Turning to the east, we see the new sanctuary with its high altar, completed in 1993 as part of a further reordering and expansion, which gave a large galilee porch, kitchen and toilets to the north side of the church. The window above the new sanctuary has three lights, and the two outer windows were made by Margaret Rope for the chapel of East Bergholt convent to the south of Ipswich. They remember the Vaughan family, into which Margaret Rope's sister had married, and in particular one member, a sister in the convent, to celebrate her 25 year jubilee.

 

The convent later became Old Hall, a famous commune. They depict the prophet Isaiah and King David.

 

The central light between them is controversial. Produced in the 1990s and depicting the risen Christ, it really isn't very good, and provides the one jarring note in the church. It is rather unfortunate that it is in such a prominent position. It is not just the quality of the design that is the problem. It lets in too much light in comparison with the two flanking lights. "The glass in my sister-in-law's windows is half an inch thick", Mrs Rope told me. "In the workshop at Fulham they had a man who came in specially to cut it for them". The glass in the modern light is simply too thin.

 

Despite the 1990s extension, and as so often in modern urban Catholic churches, Holy Family is already not really big enough, although it is hard to see that there could ever be another expansion. We walked along Munro Cautley's south aisle, and at that time the stations of the cross were simple wooden crosses. However, about three months after my conversation with Mrs Rope, the World Trade Centre in New York was attacked and destroyed, and among the three thousand people killed were two local Kesgrave brothers who were commemorated with a new set of stations in cast metal.

 

Here also is a 1956 memorial window by Margaret Rope's cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, to Mrs Rope's mother Alice Jolly, depicting the remains of the shrine at Walsingham and the Jolly family at prayer before it. Another MEA Rope window is across the church in the galilee, a Second World War memorial window, originally on the east side of the first church before Cautley's extension. It depicts three of the English Martyrs, Blessed Anne Lynne, Blessed Robert Southwell and Blessed John Robinson, as well as the shipwreck of Blessed John Nutter off of Dunwich, with All Saints church on the cliffs above.

 

The galilee is designed for families with young children to play a full part in mass, and is separated from the church by a glass screen. At the top of the screen is a small panel by Margaret Rope which is of particular interest because it depicts her and her family participating in the Easter vigil, presumably in Shrewsbury Cathedral. This is hard to photograph because it is on an internal window between two rooms.

 

A recent addition to the Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope windows here is directly opposite, newly installed on the south side of the nave. It was donated by her great-nephew. It depicts a nativity scene, the Holy Family in the stable at Bethlehem, an angel appearing to shepherds on the snowy hills beyond. It is perhaps her loveliest window in the church.

 

Finally, back across the church. Here, beside the brass memorial to Margaret Rope, is a window depicting the Blessed Virgin and child, members of the Rope family in the Candlemas procession beneath. The inscription reminds us to pray for the soul of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God, mistress of novices and stained glass artist, Monastery of the Magnificat of the Mother of God, Quidenham, Norfolk, entered Carmel 14th September 1923, died 6th December 1953. Sister Margaret of the Mother of God was, of course, Margaret Rope herself. She was buried in the convent at Quidenham, a Shrewsbury exile at rest in the East Anglian soil of her forebears. The design is hers, and the window was made by her cousin Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope.

 

Back in 2001, we were talking about the changing Church, and I asked Mrs Rope what she thought about the recently introduced practice of transferring Holy Days on to the nearest Sunday, so that the teaching of them was not lost. Mrs Rope approved, a lady clearly not stuck in the past. She had a passion for ensuring that the Faith could be shared with children. As we have seen, her church is designed so that young families can take a full part in the Mass. But she was sympathetic to the distractions of the modern age. "The world is so exciting for children these days", she said. "I think it must be difficult to bring them up with a sense of the presence of God." She smiled. "Mind you, my son is 70 now! And I do admire young girls today. They have such spirit!"

 

She left me to potter about in her wonderful treasure house. As I did so, I thought of medieval churches I have visited, which were similarly donated by the Mrs Ropes of their day, perhaps even for husbands who had died young. They not only sought to memorialise their loved ones, but to consecrate a space for prayer, that masses might be said for the souls of the dead. This was the Catholic way, a Christian duty. Before the Reformation, this was true in every parish in England. It remained true here at Kesgrave.

 

And finally, back outside to the small graveyard. Side by side are two crosses. One remembers Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, artist, 1891-1988. The other remembers Lucy Doreen Rope, founder of this church, 1907-2003.

Canbulat Tomb and Museum

Famagusta, North Cyprus

Canbulat tomb, Famagusta, North Cyprus

 

In the southeast corner of the Famagusta walls is the Canbulat Bastion. (The Venetians called it the Arsenal) and is named after Canbulat (sometimes spelt Djanboulat) who was the Bey (provincial governor) of Kilis in Turkey.

 

When the decision was taken to conquer Cyprus, Canbulat joined the invading forces. Because he played a key role in the siege of Nicosia, he was promoted to become the commander of the right wing of the Ottoman army to the south of the walled city of Famagusta. It was from here that the Ottomans bombarded the town, and why most damage to the taller buildings within the walls is on the southeast side.

 

Initially, the Ottomans tried to dig under the walls, but the Venetians blasted the tunnels, causing their collapse. It is also said that the Venetians placed sharp blades on a turning wheel at the entrance to the bastion to ensure that any attack there would lead the attacker to be cut to pieces.

 

The Canbulat Museum

Legend has it, that in order to stop the wheel and allow the Ottomans through the castle entrance, Canbulat rode his horse into the wheel. During this event, Canbulat's head was cut off, but undaunted, he picked his head up, mounted his horse, and continued to fight for the next three days with his head under his arm. This motivated the Ottomans to continue the fight and take the castle. Historians believe that what actually went in to the rotating wheel and stopped it, were simply, bales of wool. The date of his actual death is unknown, but there is documentary evidence that he was still alive in March 1572

 

Canbulat's tomb was placed in the passageway of the bastion, the name of which was changed from Arsenal to Canbulat in his honour. Supposedly a fig tree grew up alongside his tomb, the fruits of which promoted fertility in any woman who ate them. As a place of pilgrimage for Turks, this tomb ranks second in Cyprus only to the shrine of Hala Sultan Tekke at Larnaca.

 

The bastion containing his tomb was opened as a museum in 1968, and has recently been refurbished, re-opening in 2008. In the new museum, as well as the tomb of Canbulat, you will find items relating to the Ottoman times in Cyprus.

 

Famagusta is a city on the east coast of the de facto state Northern Cyprus. It is located east of Nicosia and possesses the deepest harbour of the island. During the Middle Ages (especially under the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice), Famagusta was the island's most important port city and a gateway to trade with the ports of the Levant, from where the Silk Road merchants carried their goods to Western Europe. The old walled city and parts of the modern city are de facto part of Northern Cyprus as the capital of the Gazimağusa District.

 

The city was known as Arsinoe or Arsinoë (Greek: Ἀρσινόη, Arsinóē) in antiquity, after Ptolemy II of Egypt's sister and wife Arsinoe II.

 

By the 3rd century, the city appears as Ammochostos (Greek: Ἀμμόχωστος or Αμμόχωστος, Ammókhōstos, "Hidden in Sand") in the Stadiasmus Maris Magni.[5] This name is still used in modern Greek with the pronunciation [aˈmːoxostos], while it developed into Latin Fama Augusta, French Famagouste, Italian Famagosta, and English Famagusta during the medieval period. Its informal modern Turkish name Mağusa (Turkish pronunciation: [maˈusa]) came from the same source. Since 1974, it has formally been known to Turkey and Northern Cyprus as Gazimağusa ([ɡaːzimaˈusa]), from the addition of the title gazi, meaning "veteran" or "one who has faught in a holy war".

 

In the early medieval period, the city was also known as New Justiniana (Greek: Νέα Ἰουστινιανία, Néa Ioustinianía) in appreciation for the patronage of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, whose wife Theodora was born there.

 

The old town of Famagusta has also been nicknamed "the City of 365 Churches" from the legend that, at its peak, it boasted a church for every day of the year.

 

The city was founded around 274 BC, after the serious damage to Salamis by an earthquake, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus and named "Arsinoe" after his sister.[6] Arsinoe was described as a "fishing town" by Strabo in his Geographica in the first century BC. In essence, Famagusta was the successor of the most famous and most important ancient city of Cyprus, Salamis. According to Greek mythology, Salamis was founded after the end of the Trojan War by Teucros, the son of Telamon and brother of Aedes, from the Greek island of Salamis.

 

The city experienced great prosperity much later, during the time of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. To honor the city, from which his wife Theodora came, Justinian enriched it with many buildings, while the inhabitants named it New Justiniania to express their gratitude. In AD 647, when the neighboring cities were destroyed by Arab raiding, the inhabitants of these cities moved to Famagusta, as a result of which the city's population increased significantly and the city experienced another boom.

 

Later, when Jerusalem was occupied by the Arabs, the Christian population fled to Famagusta, as a result of which the city became an important Christian center, but also one of the most important commercial centers in the eastern Mediterranean.

 

The turning point for Famagusta was 1192 with the onset of Lusignan rule. It was during this period that Famagusta developed as a fully-fledged town. It increased in importance to the Eastern Mediterranean due to its natural harbour and the walls that protected its inner town. Its population began to increase. This development accelerated in the 13th century as the town became a centre of commerce for both the East and West. An influx of Christian refugees fleeing the downfall of Acre (1291) in Palestine transformed it from a tiny village into one of the richest cities in Christendom.

 

In 1372 the port was seized by Genoa and in 1489 by Venice. This commercial activity turned Famagusta into a place where merchants and ship owners led lives of luxury. By the mid-14th century, Famagusta was said to have the richest citizens in the world. The belief that people's wealth could be measured by the churches they built inspired these merchants to have churches built in varying styles. These churches, which still exist, were the reason Famagusta came to be known as "the district of churches". The development of the town focused on the social lives of the wealthy people and was centred upon the Lusignan palace, the cathedral, the Square and the harbour.

 

In 1570–1571, Famagusta was the last stronghold in Venetian Cyprus to hold out against the Turks under Mustafa Pasha. It resisted a siege of thirteen months and a terrible bombardment, until at last the garrison surrendered. The Ottoman forces had lost 50,000 men, including Mustafa Pasha's son. Although the surrender terms had stipulated that the Venetian forces be allowed to return home, the Venetian commander, Marco Antonio Bragadin, was flayed alive, his lieutenant Tiepolo was hanged, and many other Christians were killed.

 

With the advent of the Ottoman rule, Latins lost their privileged status in Famagusta and were expelled from the city. Greek Cypriots natives were at first allowed to own and buy property in the city, but were banished from the walled city in 1573–74 and had to settle outside in the area that later developed into Varosha. Turkish families from Anatolia were resettled in the walled city but could not fill the buildings that previously hosted a population of 10,000. This caused a drastic decrease in the population of Famagusta. Merchants from Famagusta, who mostly consisted of Latins that had been expelled, resettled in Larnaca and as Larnaca flourished, Famagusta lost its importance as a trade centre. Over time, Varosha developed into a prosperous agricultural town thanks to its location away from the marshes, whilst the walled city remained dilapidated.

 

In the walled city, some buildings were repurposed to serve the interests of the Muslim population: the Cathedral of St. Nicholas was converted to a mosque (now known as Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque), a bazaar was developed, public baths, fountains and a theological school were built to accommodate the inhabitants' needs. Dead end streets, an Ottoman urban characteristic, was imported to the city and a communal spirit developed in which a small number of two-storey houses inhabited by the small upper class co-existed with the widespread one-storey houses.

 

With the British takeover, Famagusta regained its significance as a port and an economic centre and its development was specifically targeted in British plans. As soon as the British took over the island, a Famagusta Development Act was passed that aimed at the reconstruction and redevelopment of the city's streets and dilapidated buildings as well as better hygiene. The port was developed and expanded between 1903 and 1906 and Cyprus Government Railway, with its terminus in Famagusta, started construction in 1904. Whilst Larnaca continued to be used as the main port of the island for some time, after Famagusta's use as a military base in World War I trade significantly shifted to Famagusta. The city outside the walls grew at an accelerated rate, with development being centred around Varosha. Varosha became the administrative centre as the British moved their headquarters and residences there and tourism grew significantly in the last years of the British rule. Pottery and production of citrus and potatoes also significantly grew in the city outside the walls, whilst agriculture within the walled city declined to non-existence.

 

New residential areas were built to accommodate the increasing population towards the end of the British rule,[11] and by 1960, Famagusta was a modern port city extending far beyond Varosha and the walled city.

 

The British period saw a significant demographic shift in the city. In 1881, Christians constituted 60% of the city's population while Muslims were at 40%. By 1960, the Turkish Cypriot population had dropped to 17.5% of the overall population, while the Greek Cypriot population had risen to 70%. The city was also the site for one of the British internment camps for nearly 50,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust trying to emigrate to Palestine.

 

From independence in 1960 to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus of 1974, Famagusta developed toward the south west of Varosha as a well-known entertainment and tourist centre. The contribution of Famagusta to the country's economic activity by 1974 far exceeded its proportional dimensions within the country. Whilst its population was only about 7% of the total of the country, Famagusta by 1974 accounted for over 10% of the total industrial employment and production of Cyprus, concentrating mainly on light industry compatible with its activity as a tourist resort and turning out high-quality products ranging from food, beverages and tobacco to clothing, footwear, plastics, light machinery and transport equipment. It contributed 19.3% of the business units and employed 21.3% of the total number of persons engaged in commerce on the island. It acted as the main tourist destination of Cyprus, hosting 31.5% of the hotels and 45% of Cyprus' total bed capacity. Varosha acted as the main touristic and business quarters.

 

In this period, the urbanisation of Famagusta slowed down and the development of the rural areas accelerated. Therefore, economic growth was shared between the city of Famagusta and the district, which had a balanced agricultural economy, with citrus, potatoes, tobacco and wheat as main products. Famagusta maintained good communications with this hinterland. The city's port remained the island's main seaport and in 1961, it was expanded to double its capacity in order to accommodate the growing volume of exports and imports. The port handled 42.7% of Cypriot exports, 48.6% of imports and 49% of passenger traffic.

 

There has not been an official census since 1960 but the population of the town in 1974 was estimated to be around 39,000 not counting about 12,000–15,000 persons commuting daily from the surrounding villages and suburbs to work in Famagusta. The number of people staying in the city would swell to about 90,000–100,000 during the peak summer tourist period, with the influx of tourists from numerous European countries, mainly Britain, France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. The majority of the city population were Greek Cypriots (26,500), with 8,500 Turkish Cypriots and 4,000 people from other ethnic groups.

 

During the second phase of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 14 August 1974 the Mesaoria plain was overrun by Turkish tanks and Famagusta was bombed by Turkish aircraft. It took two days for the Turkish Army to occupy the city, prior to which Famagusta's entire Greek Cypriot population had fled into surrounding fields. As a result of Turkish airstrikes dozens of civilians died, including tourists.

 

Unlike other parts of the Turkish-controlled areas of Cyprus, the Varosha suburb of Famagusta was fenced off by the Turkish army immediately after being captured and remained fenced off until October 2020, when the TRNC reopened some streets to visitors. Some Greek Cypriots who had fled Varosha have been allowed to view the town and journalists have been allowed in.

 

UN Security Council resolution 550 (1984) considers any attempts to settle any part of Famagusta by people other than its inhabitants as inadmissible and calls for the transfer of this area to the administration of the UN. The UN's Security Council resolution 789 (1992) also urges that with a view to the implementation of resolution 550 (1984), the area at present under the control of the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus be extended to include Varosha.

 

Famagusta's historic city centre is surrounded by the fortifications of Famagusta, which have a roughly rectangular shape, built mainly by the Venetians in the 15th and 16th centuries, though some sections of the walls have been dated earlier times, as far as 1211.

 

Some important landmarks and visitor attractions in the old city are:

The Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque

The Othello Castle

Palazzo del Provveditore - the Venetian palace of the governor, built on the site of the former Lusignan royal palace

St. Francis' Church

Sinan Pasha Mosque

Church of St. George of the Greeks

Church of St. George of the Latins

Twin Churches

Nestorian Church (of St George the Exiler)

Namık Kemal Dungeon

Agios Ioannis Church

Venetian House

Akkule Masjid

Mustafa Pasha Mosque

Ganchvor monastery

 

In an October 2010 report titled Saving Our Vanishing Heritage, Global Heritage Fund listed Famagusta, a "maritime ancient city of crusader kings", among the 12 sites most "On the Verge" of irreparable loss and destruction, citing insufficient management and development pressures.

 

Famagusta is an important commercial hub of Northern Cyprus. The main economic activities in the city are tourism, education, construction and industrial production. It has a 115-acre free port, which is the most important seaport of Northern Cyprus for travel and commerce. The port is an important source of income and employment for the city, though its volume of trade is restricted by the embargo against Northern Cyprus. Its historical sites, including the walled city, Salamis, the Othello Castle and the St Barnabas Church, as well as the sandy beaches surrounding it make it a tourist attraction; efforts are also underway to make the city more attractive for international congresses. The Eastern Mediterranean University is also an important employer and supplies significant income and activity, as well as opportunities for the construction sector. The university also raises a qualified workforce that stimulates the city's industry and makes communications industry viable. The city has two industrial zones: the Large Industrial Zone and the Little Industrial Zone. The city is also home to a fishing port, but inadequate infrastructure of the port restricts the growth of this sector. The industry in the city has traditionally been concentrated on processing agricultural products.

 

Historically, the port was the primary source of income and employment for the city, especially right after 1974. However, it gradually lost some of its importance to the economy as the share of its employees in the population of Famagusta diminished due to various reasons. However, it still is the primary port for commerce in Northern Cyprus, with more than half of ships that came to Northern Cyprus in 2013 coming to Famagusta. It is the second most popular seaport for passengers, after Kyrenia, with around 20,000 passengers using the port in 2013.

 

The mayor-in-exile of Famagusta is Simos Ioannou. Süleyman Uluçay heads the Turkish Cypriot municipal administration of Famagusta, which remains legal as a communal-based body under the constitutional system of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Since 1974, Greek Cypriots submitted a number of proposals within the context of bicommunal discussions for the return of Varosha to UN administration, allowing the return of its previous inhabitants, requesting also the opening of Famagusta harbour for use by both communities. Varosha would have been returned to Greek Cypriot control as part of the 2004 Annan Plan but the plan had been rejected by a majority(3/4) of Greek Cypriot voters.

 

The walled city of Famagusta contains many unique buildings. Famagusta has a walled city popular with tourists.

 

Every year, the International Famagusta Art and Culture Festival is organized in Famagusta. Concerts, dance shows and theater plays take place during the festival.

 

A growth in tourism and the city's university have fueled the development of Famagusta's vibrant nightlife. Nightlife in the city is especially active on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights and in the hotter months of the year, starting from April. Larger hotels in the city have casinos that cater to their customers. Salamis Road is an area of Famagusta with a heavy concentration of bars frequented by students and locals.

 

Famagusta's Othello Castle is the setting for Shakespeare's play Othello. The city was also the setting for Victoria Hislop's 2015 novel The Sunrise, and Michael Paraskos's 2016 novel In Search of Sixpence. The city is the birthplace of the eponymous hero of the Renaissance proto-novel Fortunatus.

 

Famagusta was home to many Greek Cypriot sport teams that left the city because of the Turkish invasion and still bear their original names. Most notable football clubs originally from the city are Anorthosis Famagusta FC and Nea Salamis Famagusta FC, both of the Cypriot First Division, which are now based in Larnaca. Usually Anorthosis Famagusta fans are politically right wing where Nea Salamis fans are left wing.

 

Famagusta is represented by Mağusa Türk Gücü in the Turkish Cypriot First Division. Dr. Fazıl Küçük Stadium is the largest football stadium in Famagusta. Many Turkish Cypriot sport teams that left Southern Cyprus because of the Cypriot intercommunal violence are based in Famagusta.

 

Famagusta is represented by DAÜ Sports Club and Magem Sports Club in North Cyprus First Volleyball Division. Gazimağusa Türk Maarif Koleji represents Famagusta in the North Cyprus High School Volleyball League.

 

Famagusta has a modern volleyball stadium called the Mağusa Arena.

 

The Eastern Mediterranean University was founded in the city in 1979. The Istanbul Technical University founded a campus in the city in 2010.

 

The Cyprus College of Art was founded in Famagusta by the Cypriot artist Stass Paraskos in 1969, before moving to Paphos in 1972 after protests from local hoteliers that the presence of art students in the city was putting off holidaymakers.

 

Famagusta has three general hospitals. Gazimağusa Devlet Hastahanesi, a state hospital, is the biggest hospital in city. Gazimağusa Tıp Merkezi and Gazimağusa Yaşam Hastahanesi are private hospitals.

 

Personalities

Saint Barnabas, born and died in Salamis, Famagusta

Chris Achilleos, illustrator of the book versions on the BBC children's series Doctor Who

Beran Bertuğ, former Governor of Famagusta, first Cypriot woman to hold this position

Marios Constantinou, former international Cypriot football midfielder and current manager.

Eleftheria Eleftheriou, Cypriot singer.

Derviş Eroğlu, former President of Northern Cyprus

Alexis Galanos, 7th President of the House of Representatives and Famagusta mayor-in-exile (2006-2019) (Republic of Cyprus)

Xanthos Hadjisoteriou, Cypriot painter

Oz Karahan, political activist, President of the Union of Cypriots

Oktay Kayalp, former Turkish Cypriot Famagusta mayor (Northern Cyprus)

Harry Luke British diplomat

Angelos Misos, former international footballer

Costas Montis was an influential and prolific Greek Cypriot poet, novelist, and playwright born in Famagusta.

Hal Ozsan, actor (Dawson's Creek, Kyle XY)

Dimitris Papadakis, a Greek Cypriot politician, who served as a Member of the European Parliament.

Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, Persian religious leader, lived and died in exile in Famagusta

Touker Suleyman (born Türker Süleyman), British Turkish Cypriot fashion retail entrepreneur, investor and reality television personality.

Alexia Vassiliou, singer, left here as a refugee when the town was invaded.

George Vasiliou, former President of Cyprus

Vamik Volkan, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry

Derviş Zaim, film director

 

Famagusta is twinned with:

İzmir, Turkey (since 1974)

Corfu, Greece (since 1994)

Patras, Greece (since 1994)

Antalya, Turkey (since 1997)

Salamina (city), Greece (since 1998)

Struga, North Macedonia

Athens, Greece (since 2005)

Mersin, Turkey

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

And so to the weekend again. And what might be the last orchid-free weekend until well into June or even August.

 

So, enjoy the churches while you can.

 

Saturday, and not much really planned. We get up at half six with it fully light outside. The cloud and drizzle had not arrived, instead it was pretty clear and sunny.

 

No time for thinking about going out to take shots, as we had hunter-gathering to do.

 

In fact, we didn't need much, just the usual stuff to keep us going. That and the car was running on fumes. So we will that up first, and then into Tesco and round and round we go, fully the trolley up. It being Mother's Day on Saturday, we were having Jen round on Sunday, we were to have steak, so I get mushrooms.

 

And once back, we have breakfast then go to Preston for the actual steak, three ribeyes, all cut from the same stip. Jools had gone to look at the garden centre for ideas as we're going to dig up the raspberries, so just wondering what to put in their place.

 

By then the rain had come, and so we dashed back to the car, and on the way home called in at two churches.

 

First off was Goodnestone, just the other side of Wingham.

 

Its a fine estate church, covered in wonderfully knapped bricks, giving it an East Anglian feel. Before we went in, we sheltered under a tree to much on a sausage roll I had bought at the butcher, that done, we go to the church, which is open.

 

I have been here quite recently, five years back, and in truth no much glass to record, but I do my best, leave a fiver of the weekly collection and we drove over the fields to Eastry.

 

St Mary is an impressive church, with carved and decorated west face of the Norman tower, at its base an odd lean-to porch has been created, leading into the church, which does have interest other than the 35 painted medallions high in the Chancel Arch, once the backdrop to the Rood.

 

I snap them with the big lens, and the windows too. A warden points out what looks like a very much older painted window high among the roof timbers in the east wall of the Chancel.

 

I get a shot, which is good enough, but even with a 400mm lens, is some crop.

 

I finish up and we go home, taking it carefully along nearly flooded roads.

 

Being a Saturday, there is football, though nothing much of interest until three when Norwich kick off against Stoke: could they kick it on a wet Saturday afternoon in the Potteries?

 

No. No, they couldn't.

 

Ended 0-0, City second best, barely laid a glove on the Stoke goal.

 

And then spots galore: Ireland v England in the egg-chasing, Citeh v Burnley in the Cup and Chelsea v Everton in the league, all live on various TV channels.

 

I watch the first half of the rugby, then switch over when England were reduced to 14, so did enjoy the lad Haarland score another hat-trick in a 6-0 demolition.

 

And that was that, another day over with.....

 

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Set away from the main street but on one of the earliest sites in the village, flint-built Eastry church has an over restored appearance externally but this gives way to a noteworthy interior. Built in the early thirteenth century by its patrons, Christ Church Canterbury, it was always designed to be a statement of both faith and power. The nave has a clerestory above round piers whilst the east nave wall has a pair of quatrefoils pierced through into the chancel. However this feature pales into insignificance when one sees what stands between them - a square panel containing 35 round paintings in medallions. There are four deigns including the Lily for Our Lady; a dove; Lion; Griffin. They would have formed a backdrop to the Rood which would have been supported on a beam the corbels of which survive below the paintings. On the centre pier of the south aisle is a very rare feature - a beautifully inscribed perpetual calendar or `Dominical Circle` to help find the Dominical letter of the year. Dating from the fourteenth century it divides the calendar into a sequence of 28 years. The reredos is an alabaster structure dating from the Edwardian period - a rather out of place object in a church of this form, but a good piece of work in its own right. On the west wall is a good early 19th century Royal Arms with hatchments on either side and there are many good monuments both ledger slabs and hanging tablets. Of the latter the finest commemorates John Harvey who died in 1794. It shows his ship the Brunswick fighting with all guns blazing with the French ship the Vengeur. John Bacon carved the Elder this detailed piece of work.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Eastry

 

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Above the Chancel Arch, enclosed within a rectangular frame, are rows of seven "medallion" wall paintings; the lower group was discovered in 1857 and the rest in 1903. They remained in a rather dilapidated state until the Canterbury Cathedral Wall Paintings Department brought them back to life.

 

The medallions are evidently of the 13th Century, having been painted while the mortar was still wet. Each medallion contains one of four motifs:

 

The trefoil flower, pictured left, is perhaps a symbol of the Blessed Virgin Mary to whom the church is dedicated; or symbolic of Christ.

 

The lion; symbolic of the Resurrection

  

Doves, either singly, or in pairs, represent the Holy Spirit

  

The Griffin represents evil, over which victory is won by the power of the Resurrection and the courage of the Christian.

 

www.ewbchurches.org.uk/eastrychurchhistory.htm

 

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EASTRY,

THE next parish north-eastward from Knolton is Eastry. At the time of taking the survey of Domesday, it was of such considerable account, that it not only gave name, as it does at present, to the hundred, but to the greatest part of the lath in which it stands, now called the lath of St. Augustine. There are two boroughs in this parish, viz. the borough of Hardenden, which is within the upper half hundred of Downhamford, and comprehends the districts of Hardenden, Selson and Skrinkling, and the borough of Eastry, the borsholder of which is chosen at Eastry-court, and comprehends all the rest of the parish, excepting so much of it as lies within that part of the borough of Felderland, which is within this parish.

 

THE PARISH OF EASTRY, a healthy and not unpleasant situation, is about two miles and an half from north to south, but it is much narrower the other way, at the broadest extent of which it is not more than a mile and an half. The village of Eastry is situated on a pleasing eminence, almost in the centre of the parish, exhiblting a picturesque appearance from many points of view. The principal street in it is called Eastrystreet; from it branch off Mill street, Church-street and Brook-street. In Mill street is a spacious handsome edisice lately erected there, as a house of industry, for the poor of the several united parishes of Eastry, Norborne, Betshanger, Tilmanstone, Waldershare, Coldred, Lydden, Shebbertswell, Swynfield, Wootton, Denton, Chillenden and Knolton. In Churchstreet, on the east side, stands the church, with the court-lodge and parsonage adjoining the church-yard; in this street is likewise the vicarage. In Brook-street, is a neat modern house, the residence of Wm. Boteler, esq. and another belonging to Mr. Thomas Rammell, who resides in it. Mention will be found hereafter, under the description of the borough of Hernden, in this parish, of the descent and arms of the Botelers resident there for many generations. Thomas Boteler, who died possessed of that estate in 1651, left three sons, the youngest of whom, Richard, was of Brook-street, and died in 1682; whose great-grandson, W. Boteler, esq. is now of Brook-street; a gentleman to whom the editor is much indebted for his communications and assistance, towards the description of this hundred, and its adjoining neighbourhood. He has been twice married; first to Sarah, daughter and coheir of Thomas Fuller, esq. of Statenborough, by whom he has one son, William Fuller, now a fellow of St. Peter's college, Cambridge: secondly, to Mary, eldest daughter of John Harvey, esq. of Sandwich and Hernden, late captain of the royal navy, by whom he has five sons and three daughters. He bears for his arms, Argent, on three escutcheons, sable, three covered cups, or; which coat was granted to his ancestor, Richard Boteler, esq. of Hernden, by Cooke, clar. in 1589. Mr. Boteler, of Eastry, is the last surviving male of the family, both of Hernden and Brook-street. Eastry-street, comprizing the neighbourhood of the above mentioned branches, may be said to contain about sixty-four houses.

 

At the south-east boundary of this parish lies the hamlet of Updown, adjoining to Ham and Betshanger, in the former of which parishes some account of it has been already given. At the southern bounds, adjoining to Tilmanstone, lies the hamlet of Westone, formerly called Wendestone. On the western side lies the borough of Hernden, which although in this parish, is yet within the hundred of Downhamford and manor of Adisham; in the southern part of it is Shrinkling, or Shingleton, as it is now called, and the hamlet of Hernden. At the northern part of this borough lie the hamlets and estates of Selson, Wells, and Gore. Towards the northern boundary of the parish, in the road to Sandwich, is the hamlet of Statenborough, and at a small distance from it is that part of the borough of Felderland, or Fenderland, as it is usually called, within this parish, in which, adjoining the road which branches off to Word, is a small seat, now the property and residence of Mrs. Dare, widow of Wm. Dare, esq. who resides in it. (fn. 1)

 

Round the village the lands are for a little distance, and on towards Statenborough, inclosed with hedges and trees, but the rest of the parish is in general an open uninclosed country of arable land, like the neighbouring ones before described; the soil of it towards the north is most fertile, in the other parts it is rather thin, being much inclined to chalk, except in the bottoms, where it is much of a stiff clay, for this parish is a continued inequality of hill and dale; notwithstanding the above, there is a great deal of good fertile land in the parish, which meets on an average rent at fifteen shillings an acre. There is no wood in it. The parish contains about two thousand six hundred and fifty acres; the yearly rents of it are assessed to the poor at 2679l.

 

At the south end of the village is a large pond, called Butsole; and adjoining to it on the east side, a field, belonging to Brook-street estate, called the Butts; from whence it is conjectured that Butts were formerly erected in it, for the practice of archery among the inhabitants.

 

A fair is held here for cattle, pedlary, and toys, on October the 2d, (formerly on St. Matthew's day, September the 21st) yearly.

 

IN 1792, MR. BOTELER, of Brook-street, discovered, on digging a cellar in the garden of a cottage, situated eastward of the highway leading from Eastrycross to Butsole, an antient burying ground, used as such in the latter time of the Roman empire in Britain, most probably by the inhabitants of this parish, and the places contiguous to it. He caused several graves to be opened, and found with the skeletons, fibulæ, beads, knives,umbones of shields, &c. and in one a glass vessel. From other skeletons, which have been dug up in the gardens nearer the cross, it is imagined, that they extended on the same side the road up to the cross, the ground of which is now pretty much covered with houses; the heaps of earth, or barrows, which formerly remained over them, have long since been levelled, by the great length of time and the labour of the husbandman; the graves were very thick, in rows parallel to each other, in a direction from east to west.

 

St. Ivo's well, mentioned by Nierembergius, in Historia de Miraculis Natureæ, lib. ii. cap. 33; which I noticed in my folio edition as not being able to find any tradition of in this parish, I have since found was at a place that formerly went by the name of Estre, and afterwards by that of Plassiz, near St. Ives, in Huntingdonshire. See Gales Scriptores, xv. vol. i. p.p. 271, 512.

 

This place gave birth to Henry de Eastry, who was first a monk, and then prior of Christ-church, in Canterbury; who, for his learning as well as his worthy acts, became an ornament, not only to the society he presided over, but to his country in general. He continued prior thirty-seven years, and died, far advanced in life, in 1222.

 

THIS PLACE, in the time of the Saxons, appears to have been part of the royal domains, accordingly Simon of Durham, monk and precentor of that church, in his history, stiles it villa regalis, quæ vulgari dicitur Easterige pronuncione, (the royal ville, or manor, which in the vulgar pronunciation was called Easterige), which shews the antient pre-eminence and rank of this place, for these villæ regales, or regiæ, as Bede calls them, of the Saxons, were usually placed upon or near the spot, where in former ages the Roman stations had been before; and its giving name both to the lath and hundred in which it is situated corroborates the superior consequence it was then held in. Egbert, king of Kent, was in possession of it about the year 670, at which time his two cousins, Ethelred and Ethelbright, sons of his father's elder brother Ermenfrid, who had been entrusted to his care by their uncle, the father of Egbert, were, as writers say, murdered in his palace here by his order, at the persuasion of one Thunnor, a slattering courtier, lest they should disturb him in the possession of the crown. After which Thunnor buried them in the king's hall here, under the cloth of estate, from whence, as antient tradition reports, their bodies were afterwards removed to a small chapel belonging to the palace, and buried there under the altar at the east end of it, and afterwards again with much pomp to the church of Ramsey abbey. To expiate the king's guilt, according to the custom of those times, he gave to Domneva, called also Ermenburga, their sister, a sufficient quantity of land in the isle of Thanet, on which she might found a monastery.

 

How long it continued among the royal domains, I have not found; but before the termination of the Saxon heptarchy, THE MANOR OF EASTRY was become part of the possessions of the see of Canterbury, and it remained so till the year 811, when archbishop Wilfred exchanged it with his convent of Christchurch for their manor of Bourne, since from the archbishop's possession of it called Bishopsbourne. After which, in the year 979 king Ægelred, usually called Ethelred, increased the church's estates here, by giving to it the lands of his inheritance in Estrea, (fn. 2) free from all secular service and siscal tribute, except the repelling of invasions and the repairing of bridges and castles, usually stiled the trinoda necessitas; (fn. 3) and in the possession of the prior and convent bove-mentioned, this manor continued at the taking of the survey of Domesday, being entered in it under the general title of Terra Monachorum Archiepi; that is, the land of the monks of the archbishop, as follows:

 

In the lath of Estrei in Estrei hundred, the archbishop himself holds Estrei. It was taxed at Seven sulings. The arable land is . . . . In demesne there are three carucates and seventy two villeins, with twenty-two borderers, having twenty-four carucates. There is one mill and a half of thirty shillings, and three salt pits of four shillings, and eighteen acres of meadow. Wood for the pannage of ten hogs.

 

After which, this manor continued in the possession of the priory, and in the 10th year of king Edward II. the prior obtained a grant of free-warren in all his demesne lands in it, among others; about which time it was valued at 65l. 3s. after which king Henry VI. in his 28th year, confirmed the above liberty, and granted to it a market, to be held at Eastry weekly on a Tuesday, and a fair yearly, on the day of St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist; in which state it continued till the dissolution of the priory in the 31st year of king Henry VIII. when it came in to the king's hands, where it did not remain long, for he settled it, among other premises, in the 33d year of his reign, on his new created dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions it continues at this time. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.

 

The manerial rights, profits of courts, royalties, &c. the dean and chapter retain in their own hands; but the demesne lands of the manor, with the courtlodge, which is a large antient mansion, situated adjoining to the church-yard, have been from time to time demised on a benesicial lease. The house is large, partly antient and partly modern, having at different times undergone great alterations. In the south wall are the letters T. A. N. in flint, in large capitals, being the initials of Thomas and Anne Nevinson. Mr. Isaac Bargrave, father of the present lessee, new fronted the house, and the latter in 1786 put the whole in complete repair, in doing which, he pulled down a considerable part of the antient building, consisting of stone walls of great strength and thickness, bringing to view some gothic arched door ways of stone, which proved the house to have been of such construction formerly, and to have been a very antient building. The chapel, mentioned before, is at the east end of the house. The east window, consisting of three compartments, is still visible, though the spaces are filled up, it having for many years been converted into a kitchen, and before the last alteration by Mr. Bargrave the whole of it was entire.

 

At this mansion, then in the hands of the prior and convent of Christ-church, archbishop Thomas Becket, after his stight from Northampton in the year 1164, concealed himself for eight days, and then, on Nov. 10, embarked at Sandwich for France. (fn. 4)

 

The present lessee is Isaac Bargrave, esq. who resides at the court-lodge, whose ancestors have been lessees of this estate for many years past.

 

THE NEVINSONS, as lessees, resided at the courtlodge of Eastry for many years. They were originally of Brigend, in Wetherell, in Cumberland. They bore for their arms, Argent, a chevron, between three eagles displayed, azure. Many of them lie buried in Eastry church. (fn. 5)

 

THE FAMILY of Bargrave, alias Bargar, was originally of Bridge, and afterwards of the adjoining parish of Patrixbourne; where John Bargrave, eldest son of Robert, built the seat of Bifrons, and resided at it, of whom notice has already been taken in vol. ix. of this history, p. 280. Isaac Bargrave, the sixth son of Robert above-mentioned, and younger brother of John, who built Bifrons, was ancestor of the Bargraves, of Eastry; he was S. T. P. and dean of Canterbury, a man of strict honour and high principles of loyalty, for which he suffered the most cruel treatment. He died in 1642, having married in 1618 Elizabeth, daughter of John Dering, esq. of Egerton, by Elizabeth, sister of Edward lord Wotton, the son of John Dering, esq. of Surrenden, by Margaret Brent. Their descendant, Isaac Bargrave, esq. now living, was an eminent solicitor in London, from which he has retired for some years, and now resides at Eastry-court, of which he is the present lessee. He married Sarah, eldest daughter of George Lynch, M. D. of Canterbury, who died at Herne in 1787, S.P. They bear for their arms, Or, on a pale gules, a sword, the blade argent, pomelled, or, on a chief vert three bezants.

 

SHRINKLING, alias SHINGLETON, the former of which is its original name, though now quite lost, is a small manor at the south-west boundary of this pa Kent, anno 1619. rish, adjoining to Nonington. It is within the borough of Heronden, or Hardonden, as it is now called, and as such, is within the upper half hundred of Downhamford. This manor had antiently owners of the same name; one of whom, Sir William de Scrinkling, held it in king Edward I.'s reign, and was succeeded by Sir Walter de Scrinkling his son, who held it by knight's service of Hamo de Crevequer, (fn. 6) and in this name it continued in the 20th year of king Edward III.

 

Soon after which it appears to have been alienated to William Langley, of Knolton, from which name it passed in like manner as Knolton to the Peytons and the Narboroughs, and thence by marriage to Sir Thomas D'Aeth, whose grandson Sir Narborough D'Aeth, bart. now of Knolton, is at present entitled to it.

 

There was a chapel belonging to this manor, the ruins of which are still visible in the wood near it, which was esteemed as a chapel of ease to the mother church of Eastry, and was appropriated with it by archbishop Richard, Becket's immediate successor, to the almory of the priory of Christ-church; but the chapel itself seems to have become desolate many years before the dissolution of the priory, most probably soon after the family of Shrinkling became extinct; the Langleys, who resided at the adjoining manor of Knolton, having no occasion for the use of it. The chapel stood in Shingleton wood, near the south east corner; the foundations of it have been traced, though level with the surface, and not easily discovered. There is now on this estate only one house, built within memory, before which there was only a solitary barn, and no remains of the antient mansion of it.

 

HERONDEN, alias HARDENDEN, now usually called HERONDEN, is a district in this parish, situated about a mile northward from Shingleton, within the borough of its own name, the whole of which is within the upper half hundred of Downhamford. It was once esteemed as a manor, though it has not had even the name of one for many years past, the manor of Adisham claiming over it. The mansion of it was antiently the residence of a family of the same name, who bore for their arms, Argent, a heron with one talon erect, gaping for breath, sable. These arms are on a shield, which is far from modern, in Maidstone church, being quarterly, Heronden as above, with sable, three escallop shells, two and one, argent; and in a window of Lincoln's Inn chapel is a coat of arms of a modern date, being that of Anthony Heronden, esq. Argent, a heron, azure, between three escallops, sable. One of this family of Heronden lies buried in this church, and in the time of Robert Glover, Somerset herald, his portrait and coat of arms, in brass, were remaining on his tombstone. The coat of arms is still extant in very old rolls and registers in the Heralds office, where the family is stiled Heronden, of Heronden, in Eastry; nor is the name less antient, as appears by deeds which commence from the reign of Henry III. which relate to this estate and name; but after this family had remained possessed of this estate for so many years it at last descended down in king Richard II.'s reign, to Sir William Heronden, from whom it passed most probably either by gift or sale, to one of the family of Boteler, or Butler, then resident in this neighbourhood, descended from those of this name, formerly seated at Butler's sleet, in Ash, whose ancestor Thomas Pincerna, or le Boteler, held that manor in king John's reign, whence his successors assumed the name of Butler, alias Boteler, or as they were frequently written Botiller, and bore for their arms, One or more covered cups, differently placed and blazoned. In this family the estate descended to John Boteler, who lived in the time of king Henry VI. and resided at Sandwich, of which town he was several times mayor, and one of the burgesses in two parliaments of that reign; he lies buried in St. Peter's church there. His son Richard, who was also of Sandwich, had a grant of arms in 1470, anno 11th Edward IV. by Thomas Holme, norroy, viz. Gyronny of six, argent and sable, a covered cup, or, between three talbots heads, erased and counterchanged of the field, collared, gules, garnished of the third. His great-grandson Henry Boteler rebuilt the mansion of Heronden, to which he removed in 1572, being the last of his family who resided at Sandwich. He had the above grant of arms confirmed to him, and died in 1580, being buried in Eastry church. Richard Boteler, of Heronden, his eldest son by his first wife, resided at this seat, and in 1589 obtained a grant from Robert Cook, clarencieux, of a new coat of arms, viz. Argent, on three escutcheons, sable, three convered cups, or. Ten years after which, intending as it should seem, to shew himself a descendant of the family of this name, seated at Graveney, but then extinct, he obtained in 1599 a grant of their arms from William Dethic, garter, and William Camden, clarencieux, to him and his brother William, viz. Quarterly, first and fourth, sable, three covered cups, or, within a bordure, argent; second and third, Argent, a fess, chequy, argent and gules, in chief three cross-croslets of the last, as appears (continues the grant) on a gravestone in Graveney church. He died in 1600, and was buried in Eastry church, leaving issue among other children Jonathan and Thomas. (fn. 7) Jonathan Boteler, the eldest son, of Hernden, died unmarried possessed of it in 1626, upon which it came to his next surviving brother Thomas Boteler, of Rowling, who upon that removed to Hernden, and soon afterwards alienated that part of it, since called THE MIDDLE FARM, to Mr. Henry Pannell, from whom soon afterwards, but how I know not, it came into the family of Reynolds; from which name it was about fifty years since alienated to John Dekewer, esq. of Hackney, who dying in 1762, devised it to his nephew John Dekewer, esq. of Hackney, the present possessor of it.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sandwich.

 

The church, which is exempted from the archdeacon, is dedicated to St. Mary; it is a large handsome building, consisting of a nave and two side isles, a chancel at the east end, remarkably long, and a square tower, which is very large, at the west end, in which are five very unmusical bells. The church is well kept and neatly paved, and exhibits a noble appearance, to which the many handsome monuments in it contribute much. The arch over the west door is circular, but no other parts of the church has any shew of great antiquity. In the chancel are monuments for the Paramors and the Fullers, of Statenborough, arms of the latter, Argent, three bars, and a canton, gules. A monument for several of the Bargrave family. An elegant pyramidial one, on which is a bust and emblematical sculpture for John Broadley, gent. many years surgeon at Dover, obt. 1784. Several gravestones, with brasses, for the Nevinsons. A gravestone for Joshua Paramour, gent. buried 1650. Underneath this chancel are two vaults, for the families of Paramour and Bargrave. In the nave, a monument for Anne, daughter of Solomon Harvey, gent. of this parish, ob. 1751; arms, Argent, on a chevron, between three lions gambs, sable, armed gules, three crescents, or; another for William Dare, esq. late of Fenderland, in this parish, obt. 1770; arms, Gules, a chevron vaire, between three crescents, argent, impaling argent, on a cross, sable, four lions passant, quardant of the field, for Read.—Against the wall an inscription in Latin, for the Drue Astley Cressemer, A. M. forty-eight years vicar of this parish, obt. 1746; he presented the communion plate to this church and Worth, and left a sum of money to be laid out in ornamenting this church, at which time the antient stalls, which were in the chancel, were taken away, and the chancel was ceiled, and the church otherwise beautified; arms, Argent, on a bend engrailed, sable, three cross-croslets, fitchee, or. A monument for several of the Botelers, of this parish; arms, Boteler, argent, on three escutcheons, sable, three covered cups, or, impaling Morrice. Against a pillar, a tablet and inscription, shewing that in a vault lieth Catherine, wife of John Springett, citizen and apothecary of London. He died in 1770; arms, Springett, per fess, argent and gules, a fess wavy, between three crescents, counterchanged, impaling Harvey. On the opposite pillar another, for the Rev. Richard Harvey, fourteen years vicar of this parish, obt. 1772. A monument for Richard Kelly, of Eastry, obt. 1768; arms, Two lions rampant, supporting a castle. Against the wall, an elegant sculptured monument, in alto relievo, for Sarah, wise of William Boteler, a daughter of Thomas Fuller, esq. late of Statenborough, obt. 1777, æt. 29; she died in childbed, leaving one son, William Fuller Boteler; arms at bottom, Boteler, as above, an escutcheon of pretence, Fuller, quartering Paramor. An elegant pyramidal marble and tablet for Robert Bargrave, of this parish, obt. 1779, for Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Sir Francis Leigh, of Hawley; and for Robert Bargrave, their only son, proctor in Doctors Commons, obt. 1774, whose sole surviving daughter Rebecca married James Wyborne, of Sholdon; arms, Bargrave, with a mullet, impaling Leigh. In the cross isle, near the chancel called the Boteler's isle, are several memorials for the Botelers. Adjoining to these, are three other gravestones, all of which have been inlaid, but the brasses are gone; they were for the same family, and on one of them was lately remaining the antient arms of Boteler, Girony of six pieces, &c. impaling ermine of three spots. Under the church are vaults, for the families of Springett, Harvey, Dare, and Bargrave. In the church-yard, on the north side of the church, are several altar tombs for the Paramors; and on the south side are several others for the Harveys, of this parish, and for Fawlkner, Rammell, and Fuller. There are also vaults for the families of Fuller, Rammell, and Petman.

 

There were formerly painted in the windows of this church, these arms, Girony of six, sable and argent, a covered cup, or, between three talbots heads, erased and counter changed of the field, collared, gules; for Boteler, of Heronden, impaling Boteler, of Graveny, Sable, three covered cups, or, within a bordure, argent; Boteler, of Heronden, as above, quartering three spots, ermine; the coat of Theobald, with quarterings. Several of the Frynnes, or as they were afterwards called, Friends, who lived at Waltham in this parish in king Henry VII.'s reign, lie buried in this church.

 

In the will of William Andrewe, of this parish, anno 1507, mention is made of our Ladie chapel, in the church-yard of the church of Estrie.

 

The eighteen stalls which were till lately in the chancel of the church, were for the use of the monks of the priory of Christ church, owners both of the manor and appropriation, when they came to pass any time at this place, as they frequently did, as well for a country retirement as to manage their concerns here; and for any other ecclesiastics, who might be present at divine service here, all such, in those times, sitting in the chancels of churches distinct from the laity.

 

The church of Eastry, with the chapels of Skrinkling and Worth annexed, was antiently appendant to the manor of Eastry, and was appropriated by archbishop Richard (successor to archbishop Becket) in the reign of king Henry II. to the almonry of the priory of Christ-church, but it did not continue long so, for archbishop Baldwin, (archbishop Richard's immediate successor), having quarrelled with the monks, on account of his intended college at Hackington, took this appropriation from them, and thus it remained as a rectory, at the archbishop's disposal, till the 39th year of king Edward III.'s reign, (fn. 10) when archbishop Simon Islip, with the king's licence, restored, united and annexed it again to the priory; but it appears, that in return for this grant, the archbishop had made over to him, by way of exchange, the advowsons of the churches of St. Dunstan, St. Pancrase, and All Saints in Bread-street, in London, all three belonging to the priory. After which, that is anno 8 Richard II. 1384, this church was valued among the revenues of the almonry of Christ-church, at the yearly value of 53l. 6s. 8d. and it continued afterwards in the same state in the possession of the monks, who managed it for the use of the almonry, during which time prior William Sellyng, who came to that office in Edward IV.'s reign, among other improvements on several estates belonging to his church, built a new dormitory at this parsonage for the monks resorting hither.

 

On the dissolution of the priory of Christ-church, in the 31st year of king Henry VIII.'s reign, this appropriation, with the advowson of the vicarage of the church of Eastry, was surrendered into the king's hands, where it staid but a small time, for he granted it in his 33d year, by his dotation charter, to his new founded dean and chapter of Canterbury, who are the present owners of this appropriation; but the advowson of the vicarage, notwithstanding it was granted with the appropriation, to the dean and chapter as above-mentioned, appears not long afterwards to have become parcel of the possessions of the see of Canterbury, where it continues at this time, his grace the archbishop being the present patron of it.

 

This parsonage is entitled to the great tithes of this parish and of Worth; there belong to it of glebe land in Eastry, Tilmanstone, and Worth, in all sixtynine acres.

 

THERE IS A SMALL MANOR belonging to it, called THE MANOR OF THE AMBRY, OR ALMONRY OF CHRIST-CHURCH, the quit-rents of which are very inconsiderable.

 

The parsonage-house is large and antient; in the old parlour window is a shield of arms, being those of Partheriche, impaling quarterly Line and Hamerton. The parsonage is of the annual rent of about 700l. The countess dowager of Guildford became entitled to the lease of this parsonage, by the will of her husband the earl of Guildford, and since her death the interest of it is become vested in her younger children.

 

As to the origin of a vicarage in this church, though there was one endowed in it by archbishop Peckham, in the 20th year of king Edward I. anno 1291, whilst this church continued in the archbishop's hands, yet I do not find that there was a vicar instituted in it, but that it remained as a rectory, till near three years after it had been restored to the priory of Christchurch, when, in the 42d year of king Edward III. a vicar was instituted in it, between whom and the prior and chapter of Canterbury, there was a composition concerning his portion, which he should have as an endowment of this vicarage; which composition was confirmed by archbishop Simon Langham that year; and next year there was an agreement entered into between the eleemosinary of Christ-church and the vicar, concerning the manse of this vicarage.

 

The vicarage of Eastry, with the chapel of Worth annexed, is valued in the king's books at 19l. 12s. 1d. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 19s. 2½d. In 1588 it was valued at sixty pounds. Communicants three hundred and thirty-five. In 1640 here were the like number of communicants, and it was valued at one hundred pounds.

 

The antient pension of 5l. 6s. 8d. formerly paid by the priory, is still paid to the vicar by the dean and chapter, and also an augmentation of 14l. 13s. 4d. yearly, by the lessee of the parsonage, by a convenant in his lease.

 

The vicarage-house is built close to the farm-yard of the parsonage; the land allotted to it is very trifling, not even sufficient for a tolerable garden; the foundations of the house are antient, and probably part of the original building when the vicarage was endowed in 1367.

 

¶There were two awards made in 1549 and 1550, on a controversy between the vicar of Eastry and the mayor, &c. of Sandwich, whether the scite of St. Bartholomew's hospital, near Sandwich, within that port and liberty, was subject to the payment of tithes to the vicar, as being within his parish. Both awards adjudged the legality of a payment, as due to the vicar; but the former award adjudged that the scite of the hospital was not, and the latter, that it was within the bounds of this parish. (fn. 12)

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol10/pp98-121

Namık Kemal Dungeon (Turkish: Namık Kemal Zindanı) is a historical building in Famagusta, Cyprus, known for being the abode of influential Turkish writer Namık Kemal between 1873 and 1876.

 

The site of the building was originally part of the Palazzo del Provveditore (Venetian Palace), the building as it currently stands was built during the Ottoman era. The building has two floors, with its lower floor carrying displaying pre-Ottoman architecture and its upper floor being distinctly Ottoman in style. Archaeologist Tuncer Bağışkan has identified the pre-Ottoman style as Lusignan. The building is in an L-shape and whilst the lower floor is made of ashlar, the upper floor was built using the Baghdadi technique.

 

On 5 April 1873, when Namık Kemal's play Vatan Yahut Silistre was played in the Gedik Pasha Theater in Constantinople, he was seen as a potential revolutionary and a threat by Sultan Abdülaziz and exiled to Cyprus. At first, he was imprisoned in a small cell in the lower floor.

 

Afterward, with the permission of Veyis Pasha, the mutasarrıf of Cyprus, he was transferred to the room at the upper floor. When Abdülaziz was dethroned, Namık Kemal was pardoned by Murad V on 3 June 1876 and returned to Constantinople on 29 June 1876. Kemal penned his plays Gülnihal and Akif Bey in the dungeon.

 

Kemal wrote extensively on Famagusta, giving an extremely negative view of the city, and described his initial small cell as too dark and a place unsuitable for living.

 

The dungeon was reportedly used by the British authorities during the First World War.

 

At the beginning of 1993, the Department of Antiquities of Northern Cyprus started work on the restoration of the dungeon and appropriate arrangements to allow its use as a museum. In six months, the work was complete and the dungeon was opened as a museum. The museum contains many belongings of Kemal and documents relating to him.

 

Famagusta is a city on the east coast of the de facto state Northern Cyprus. It is located east of Nicosia and possesses the deepest harbour of the island. During the Middle Ages (especially under the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice), Famagusta was the island's most important port city and a gateway to trade with the ports of the Levant, from where the Silk Road merchants carried their goods to Western Europe. The old walled city and parts of the modern city are de facto part of Northern Cyprus as the capital of the Gazimağusa District.

 

The city was known as Arsinoe or Arsinoë (Greek: Ἀρσινόη, Arsinóē) in antiquity, after Ptolemy II of Egypt's sister and wife Arsinoe II.

 

By the 3rd century, the city appears as Ammochostos (Greek: Ἀμμόχωστος or Αμμόχωστος, Ammókhōstos, "Hidden in Sand") in the Stadiasmus Maris Magni.[5] This name is still used in modern Greek with the pronunciation [aˈmːoxostos], while it developed into Latin Fama Augusta, French Famagouste, Italian Famagosta, and English Famagusta during the medieval period. Its informal modern Turkish name Mağusa (Turkish pronunciation: [maˈusa]) came from the same source. Since 1974, it has formally been known to Turkey and Northern Cyprus as Gazimağusa ([ɡaːzimaˈusa]), from the addition of the title gazi, meaning "veteran" or "one who has faught in a holy war".

 

In the early medieval period, the city was also known as New Justiniana (Greek: Νέα Ἰουστινιανία, Néa Ioustinianía) in appreciation for the patronage of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, whose wife Theodora was born there.

 

The old town of Famagusta has also been nicknamed "the City of 365 Churches" from the legend that, at its peak, it boasted a church for every day of the year.

 

The city was founded around 274 BC, after the serious damage to Salamis by an earthquake, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus and named "Arsinoe" after his sister.[6] Arsinoe was described as a "fishing town" by Strabo in his Geographica in the first century BC. In essence, Famagusta was the successor of the most famous and most important ancient city of Cyprus, Salamis. According to Greek mythology, Salamis was founded after the end of the Trojan War by Teucros, the son of Telamon and brother of Aedes, from the Greek island of Salamis.

 

The city experienced great prosperity much later, during the time of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. To honor the city, from which his wife Theodora came, Justinian enriched it with many buildings, while the inhabitants named it New Justiniania to express their gratitude. In AD 647, when the neighboring cities were destroyed by Arab raiding, the inhabitants of these cities moved to Famagusta, as a result of which the city's population increased significantly and the city experienced another boom.

 

Later, when Jerusalem was occupied by the Arabs, the Christian population fled to Famagusta, as a result of which the city became an important Christian center, but also one of the most important commercial centers in the eastern Mediterranean.

 

The turning point for Famagusta was 1192 with the onset of Lusignan rule. It was during this period that Famagusta developed as a fully-fledged town. It increased in importance to the Eastern Mediterranean due to its natural harbour and the walls that protected its inner town. Its population began to increase. This development accelerated in the 13th century as the town became a centre of commerce for both the East and West. An influx of Christian refugees fleeing the downfall of Acre (1291) in Palestine transformed it from a tiny village into one of the richest cities in Christendom.

 

In 1372 the port was seized by Genoa and in 1489 by Venice. This commercial activity turned Famagusta into a place where merchants and ship owners led lives of luxury. By the mid-14th century, Famagusta was said to have the richest citizens in the world. The belief that people's wealth could be measured by the churches they built inspired these merchants to have churches built in varying styles. These churches, which still exist, were the reason Famagusta came to be known as "the district of churches". The development of the town focused on the social lives of the wealthy people and was centred upon the Lusignan palace, the cathedral, the Square and the harbour.

 

In 1570–1571, Famagusta was the last stronghold in Venetian Cyprus to hold out against the Turks under Mustafa Pasha. It resisted a siege of thirteen months and a terrible bombardment, until at last the garrison surrendered. The Ottoman forces had lost 50,000 men, including Mustafa Pasha's son. Although the surrender terms had stipulated that the Venetian forces be allowed to return home, the Venetian commander, Marco Antonio Bragadin, was flayed alive, his lieutenant Tiepolo was hanged, and many other Christians were killed.

 

With the advent of the Ottoman rule, Latins lost their privileged status in Famagusta and were expelled from the city. Greek Cypriots natives were at first allowed to own and buy property in the city, but were banished from the walled city in 1573–74 and had to settle outside in the area that later developed into Varosha. Turkish families from Anatolia were resettled in the walled city but could not fill the buildings that previously hosted a population of 10,000. This caused a drastic decrease in the population of Famagusta. Merchants from Famagusta, who mostly consisted of Latins that had been expelled, resettled in Larnaca and as Larnaca flourished, Famagusta lost its importance as a trade centre. Over time, Varosha developed into a prosperous agricultural town thanks to its location away from the marshes, whilst the walled city remained dilapidated.

 

In the walled city, some buildings were repurposed to serve the interests of the Muslim population: the Cathedral of St. Nicholas was converted to a mosque (now known as Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque), a bazaar was developed, public baths, fountains and a theological school were built to accommodate the inhabitants' needs. Dead end streets, an Ottoman urban characteristic, was imported to the city and a communal spirit developed in which a small number of two-storey houses inhabited by the small upper class co-existed with the widespread one-storey houses.

 

With the British takeover, Famagusta regained its significance as a port and an economic centre and its development was specifically targeted in British plans. As soon as the British took over the island, a Famagusta Development Act was passed that aimed at the reconstruction and redevelopment of the city's streets and dilapidated buildings as well as better hygiene. The port was developed and expanded between 1903 and 1906 and Cyprus Government Railway, with its terminus in Famagusta, started construction in 1904. Whilst Larnaca continued to be used as the main port of the island for some time, after Famagusta's use as a military base in World War I trade significantly shifted to Famagusta. The city outside the walls grew at an accelerated rate, with development being centred around Varosha. Varosha became the administrative centre as the British moved their headquarters and residences there and tourism grew significantly in the last years of the British rule. Pottery and production of citrus and potatoes also significantly grew in the city outside the walls, whilst agriculture within the walled city declined to non-existence.

 

New residential areas were built to accommodate the increasing population towards the end of the British rule,[11] and by 1960, Famagusta was a modern port city extending far beyond Varosha and the walled city.

 

The British period saw a significant demographic shift in the city. In 1881, Christians constituted 60% of the city's population while Muslims were at 40%. By 1960, the Turkish Cypriot population had dropped to 17.5% of the overall population, while the Greek Cypriot population had risen to 70%. The city was also the site for one of the British internment camps for nearly 50,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust trying to emigrate to Palestine.

 

From independence in 1960 to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus of 1974, Famagusta developed toward the south west of Varosha as a well-known entertainment and tourist centre. The contribution of Famagusta to the country's economic activity by 1974 far exceeded its proportional dimensions within the country. Whilst its population was only about 7% of the total of the country, Famagusta by 1974 accounted for over 10% of the total industrial employment and production of Cyprus, concentrating mainly on light industry compatible with its activity as a tourist resort and turning out high-quality products ranging from food, beverages and tobacco to clothing, footwear, plastics, light machinery and transport equipment. It contributed 19.3% of the business units and employed 21.3% of the total number of persons engaged in commerce on the island. It acted as the main tourist destination of Cyprus, hosting 31.5% of the hotels and 45% of Cyprus' total bed capacity. Varosha acted as the main touristic and business quarters.

 

In this period, the urbanisation of Famagusta slowed down and the development of the rural areas accelerated. Therefore, economic growth was shared between the city of Famagusta and the district, which had a balanced agricultural economy, with citrus, potatoes, tobacco and wheat as main products. Famagusta maintained good communications with this hinterland. The city's port remained the island's main seaport and in 1961, it was expanded to double its capacity in order to accommodate the growing volume of exports and imports. The port handled 42.7% of Cypriot exports, 48.6% of imports and 49% of passenger traffic.

 

There has not been an official census since 1960 but the population of the town in 1974 was estimated to be around 39,000 not counting about 12,000–15,000 persons commuting daily from the surrounding villages and suburbs to work in Famagusta. The number of people staying in the city would swell to about 90,000–100,000 during the peak summer tourist period, with the influx of tourists from numerous European countries, mainly Britain, France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. The majority of the city population were Greek Cypriots (26,500), with 8,500 Turkish Cypriots and 4,000 people from other ethnic groups.

 

During the second phase of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 14 August 1974 the Mesaoria plain was overrun by Turkish tanks and Famagusta was bombed by Turkish aircraft. It took two days for the Turkish Army to occupy the city, prior to which Famagusta's entire Greek Cypriot population had fled into surrounding fields. As a result of Turkish airstrikes dozens of civilians died, including tourists.

 

Unlike other parts of the Turkish-controlled areas of Cyprus, the Varosha suburb of Famagusta was fenced off by the Turkish army immediately after being captured and remained fenced off until October 2020, when the TRNC reopened some streets to visitors. Some Greek Cypriots who had fled Varosha have been allowed to view the town and journalists have been allowed in.

 

UN Security Council resolution 550 (1984) considers any attempts to settle any part of Famagusta by people other than its inhabitants as inadmissible and calls for the transfer of this area to the administration of the UN. The UN's Security Council resolution 789 (1992) also urges that with a view to the implementation of resolution 550 (1984), the area at present under the control of the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus be extended to include Varosha.

 

Famagusta's historic city centre is surrounded by the fortifications of Famagusta, which have a roughly rectangular shape, built mainly by the Venetians in the 15th and 16th centuries, though some sections of the walls have been dated earlier times, as far as 1211.

 

Some important landmarks and visitor attractions in the old city are:

The Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque

The Othello Castle

Palazzo del Provveditore - the Venetian palace of the governor, built on the site of the former Lusignan royal palace

St. Francis' Church

Sinan Pasha Mosque

Church of St. George of the Greeks

Church of St. George of the Latins

Twin Churches

Nestorian Church (of St George the Exiler)

Namık Kemal Dungeon

Agios Ioannis Church

Venetian House

Akkule Masjid

Mustafa Pasha Mosque

Ganchvor monastery

 

In an October 2010 report titled Saving Our Vanishing Heritage, Global Heritage Fund listed Famagusta, a "maritime ancient city of crusader kings", among the 12 sites most "On the Verge" of irreparable loss and destruction, citing insufficient management and development pressures.

 

Famagusta is an important commercial hub of Northern Cyprus. The main economic activities in the city are tourism, education, construction and industrial production. It has a 115-acre free port, which is the most important seaport of Northern Cyprus for travel and commerce. The port is an important source of income and employment for the city, though its volume of trade is restricted by the embargo against Northern Cyprus. Its historical sites, including the walled city, Salamis, the Othello Castle and the St Barnabas Church, as well as the sandy beaches surrounding it make it a tourist attraction; efforts are also underway to make the city more attractive for international congresses. The Eastern Mediterranean University is also an important employer and supplies significant income and activity, as well as opportunities for the construction sector. The university also raises a qualified workforce that stimulates the city's industry and makes communications industry viable. The city has two industrial zones: the Large Industrial Zone and the Little Industrial Zone. The city is also home to a fishing port, but inadequate infrastructure of the port restricts the growth of this sector. The industry in the city has traditionally been concentrated on processing agricultural products.

 

Historically, the port was the primary source of income and employment for the city, especially right after 1974. However, it gradually lost some of its importance to the economy as the share of its employees in the population of Famagusta diminished due to various reasons. However, it still is the primary port for commerce in Northern Cyprus, with more than half of ships that came to Northern Cyprus in 2013 coming to Famagusta. It is the second most popular seaport for passengers, after Kyrenia, with around 20,000 passengers using the port in 2013.

 

The mayor-in-exile of Famagusta is Simos Ioannou. Süleyman Uluçay heads the Turkish Cypriot municipal administration of Famagusta, which remains legal as a communal-based body under the constitutional system of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Since 1974, Greek Cypriots submitted a number of proposals within the context of bicommunal discussions for the return of Varosha to UN administration, allowing the return of its previous inhabitants, requesting also the opening of Famagusta harbour for use by both communities. Varosha would have been returned to Greek Cypriot control as part of the 2004 Annan Plan but the plan had been rejected by a majority(3/4) of Greek Cypriot voters.

 

The walled city of Famagusta contains many unique buildings. Famagusta has a walled city popular with tourists.

 

Every year, the International Famagusta Art and Culture Festival is organized in Famagusta. Concerts, dance shows and theater plays take place during the festival.

 

A growth in tourism and the city's university have fueled the development of Famagusta's vibrant nightlife. Nightlife in the city is especially active on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights and in the hotter months of the year, starting from April. Larger hotels in the city have casinos that cater to their customers. Salamis Road is an area of Famagusta with a heavy concentration of bars frequented by students and locals.

 

Famagusta's Othello Castle is the setting for Shakespeare's play Othello. The city was also the setting for Victoria Hislop's 2015 novel The Sunrise, and Michael Paraskos's 2016 novel In Search of Sixpence. The city is the birthplace of the eponymous hero of the Renaissance proto-novel Fortunatus.

 

Famagusta was home to many Greek Cypriot sport teams that left the city because of the Turkish invasion and still bear their original names. Most notable football clubs originally from the city are Anorthosis Famagusta FC and Nea Salamis Famagusta FC, both of the Cypriot First Division, which are now based in Larnaca. Usually Anorthosis Famagusta fans are politically right wing where Nea Salamis fans are left wing.

 

Famagusta is represented by Mağusa Türk Gücü in the Turkish Cypriot First Division. Dr. Fazıl Küçük Stadium is the largest football stadium in Famagusta. Many Turkish Cypriot sport teams that left Southern Cyprus because of the Cypriot intercommunal violence are based in Famagusta.

 

Famagusta is represented by DAÜ Sports Club and Magem Sports Club in North Cyprus First Volleyball Division. Gazimağusa Türk Maarif Koleji represents Famagusta in the North Cyprus High School Volleyball League.

 

Famagusta has a modern volleyball stadium called the Mağusa Arena.

 

The Eastern Mediterranean University was founded in the city in 1979. The Istanbul Technical University founded a campus in the city in 2010.

 

The Cyprus College of Art was founded in Famagusta by the Cypriot artist Stass Paraskos in 1969, before moving to Paphos in 1972 after protests from local hoteliers that the presence of art students in the city was putting off holidaymakers.

 

Famagusta has three general hospitals. Gazimağusa Devlet Hastahanesi, a state hospital, is the biggest hospital in city. Gazimağusa Tıp Merkezi and Gazimağusa Yaşam Hastahanesi are private hospitals.

 

Personalities

Saint Barnabas, born and died in Salamis, Famagusta

Chris Achilleos, illustrator of the book versions on the BBC children's series Doctor Who

Beran Bertuğ, former Governor of Famagusta, first Cypriot woman to hold this position

Marios Constantinou, former international Cypriot football midfielder and current manager.

Eleftheria Eleftheriou, Cypriot singer.

Derviş Eroğlu, former President of Northern Cyprus

Alexis Galanos, 7th President of the House of Representatives and Famagusta mayor-in-exile (2006-2019) (Republic of Cyprus)

Xanthos Hadjisoteriou, Cypriot painter

Oz Karahan, political activist, President of the Union of Cypriots

Oktay Kayalp, former Turkish Cypriot Famagusta mayor (Northern Cyprus)

Harry Luke British diplomat

Angelos Misos, former international footballer

Costas Montis was an influential and prolific Greek Cypriot poet, novelist, and playwright born in Famagusta.

Hal Ozsan, actor (Dawson's Creek, Kyle XY)

Dimitris Papadakis, a Greek Cypriot politician, who served as a Member of the European Parliament.

Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, Persian religious leader, lived and died in exile in Famagusta

Touker Suleyman (born Türker Süleyman), British Turkish Cypriot fashion retail entrepreneur, investor and reality television personality.

Alexia Vassiliou, singer, left here as a refugee when the town was invaded.

George Vasiliou, former President of Cyprus

Vamik Volkan, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry

Derviş Zaim, film director

 

Famagusta is twinned with:

İzmir, Turkey (since 1974)

Corfu, Greece (since 1994)

Patras, Greece (since 1994)

Antalya, Turkey (since 1997)

Salamina (city), Greece (since 1998)

Struga, North Macedonia

Athens, Greece (since 2005)

Mersin, Turkey

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

Much of what we know of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne appears to be legendary, but every legend must start with a grain of truth. If the stories are any indicator, he must have been a devout man who inspired those around him deeply, despite (and possibly also because) of his love of solitude. Today, a modern statue of St. Cuthbert stands as a green-grey sentinel of the local priory ruins. His lips are pursed beneath his aquiline nose, his hands folded in contemplation, and his unseeing eyes watch over the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, which he once called home. It isn’t difficult to imagine why Cuthbert’s predecessors, Saint Aidan and his fellow monks, were apt to set up a monastery here. Beyond the practicalities of a fresh water source and green pasture, the isolation of the tides that make Lindisfarne an island twice a day and the sound of breaking waves, and spectacular sunsets all speak to the divinity of the Creator. And standing where Cuthbert stood, it isn’t so difficult to imagine him either – no longer just a figment of stone, but a living, breathing being separated from us only by time.

 

Shepherd, Soldier, Prior, Saint

 

Saint Cuthbert, the shepherd

Cuthbert, like many saints, is a man of legend, and the details of his birth are no exception. While historical record, or lack thereof, accounts for the discrepancy in dates (634 or 635), it is most likely legend which gives us the story of a royal heritage (Cuthbert is often rumoured to be the son of an Irish king). Just like the biblical King David, Cuthbert helped keep sheep when he was a boy. This task no doubt suited young Cuthbert well, for he was a compassionate soul, showing kindness to humans and animals alike. A foreshadowing of things to come, whenever Cuthbert would tear his gaze away from his sheep, the Melrose monastery was there on the horizon. Like King David, Cuthbert was set apart to accomplish great things. The sign came, not through an anointing of oil, but supposedly, through a dazzling vision in the night. The vision took place in August of 651. The significance of the date may be lost on us now, but it was a bustling time for the Scottish Borders and Northern England – pagan hostilities, the storming of a castle, the murder of a king, and the death of a beloved missionary monk. The monk’s name was Aidan. He was also the founder of the monastery in Lindisfarne and credited with restoring Christianity to Northumbria. His death was a reflection of his life: he passed away in the night leaning on the wall of the local church. It was news of this monk, even more than rumours of war, that would shake Cuthbert to his core. Back in Melrose, Cuthbert was keeping watch over his flock by night – the same night of Aidan’s death. Then suddenly, as recorded by the venerable Bede, a long stream of light illuminated the night, interrupting Cuthbert’s diligent prayers and startling the sheep. Cuthbert watched intently as a heavenly host appeared, descending to the earth to gather up another spirit into their midst. This spirit – whoever it was – was remarkably bright, and the angels escorted them to their heavenly home, leaving behind only the light of the winking stars. Needless to say, Cuthbert was flabbergasted. However, the matter became clear to him the next morning when he learned of Aidan’s death; he believed he had watched Aidan’s soul being taken to heaven. It was at that moment he knew the monastery was no longer to be a shadow on the horizon but his home.

 

Saint Cuthbert, the soldier

 

Unfortunately, the rumours of war became reality, sweeping Cuthbert away from his calling for a time as he served in the military. His precise actions in the Northumbrian army are unknown, but it is believed he took part in its battles against Mercia, Northumbria’s pagan enemy and bitter rival. Surviving even a single battle of the era was a feat in and of itself. The warfare was constant and fraught with bloodshed, frantic with swinging swords and frightening in its utter brutality. For the shepherd boy who preferred offering prayers up to God, it must have been a grim prospect to offer up pagan souls upon a sword’s edge instead. Perhaps even more disturbing to Cuthbert would have been the numerous reports of slaughtered monks, the people he so desperately wished to join. It is little wonder the Bede said of him that “he preferred the monastery to the world.”

 

Saint Cuthbert the monk

 

After the war, Cuthbert was finally able to join the monastic life he felt called to, and he journeyed several days to reach Melrose. It was winter, and one can imagine flakes of snow sticking to his cloak, snuggly wrapped about his shoulders. He was riding down a long stretch of road with no inhabitants; he and his horse were the only living things wandering the cold land that day. He had no more food with him, and there was no house where he could beg for shelter. Cuthbert looked to the distance and saw a dilapidated shepherd’s hut. As Cuthbert sheltered there for the night, one must wonder if he thought back to his own shepherding days, which must have seemed a lifetime ago, an impossible peace, after the experience of war. As Cuthbert settled in for some much-needed rest, he said his prayers, then took a handful of straw from the thatched roof to feed his horse, his own belly empty and grumbling. Legend states that out of the straw a cloth bundle fell to his feet containing freshly baked bread and meat. Cuthbert gave thanks to the Lord for His miraculous provision, then he is said to have split the loaf of bread with his horse, rather than feeding it stale straw. Bellies full and hearts warmed, Cuthbert and his horse braved the wintery weather once more and reached their destination: Melrose monastery. As Cuthbert rode up to the monastery, it is said a monk at the door cried, “Behold! A servant of the Lord!” He spoke truly, for Cuthbert went above and beyond the duties that were laid out before him – in prayer, study, and labour. You can almost hear Bede chuckle when he says of Cuthbert, “he fairly outdid them all!” For Cuthbert there was no contest though; he was not trying to outdo anyone, he was just being himself. He has been described as affable, pleasant, and incredibly meek when prompted into divulging his miraculous experiences.

 

Saint Cuthbert, the prior

 

In 662 Cuthbert was made prior at Melrose after a bout of plague had killed the previous prior. It must have been a bittersweet experience for Cuthbert; he would have been hurting with grief from the death of a friend, yet taking a flock under his wing and getting to call them his very own. During this time of hardship, Cuthbert, too, became sick. Just like surviving a battle, surviving plague could very well be counted a miracle, as 80 percent who contracted it would die within eight days. As soon as Cuthbert recovered, he went out into the countryside, helping other plague victims. The elevation in rank from monk to prior had increased not his pride but his servant’s spirit. Cuthbert continuously followed Christ’s command to go and preach to the world. For years he travelled from village to village, serving the people and preaching God’s Word; he even travelled into the destitute, mountain villages which could easily have been neglected. Not only did Cuthbert travel to such places, but he would live among the people for weeks, even a month at a time, demonstrating the love of Christ through his actions, just as much as he did through his words. That Cuthbert did not discriminate between rich or poor when giving aid or guidance further endeared him to those who knew him. While Cuthbert was at Melrose, however, there was strife in the larger church community. For as long as anyone could remember, Northumbria had followed the practices of the Celtic Church, but then the king married a woman of the Roman Church. The two churches appeared to be compatible, but ended up having some key differences. The Celtic Church favoured autonomy, had a different dating of Easter, and different liturgies; these things were seen as especially problematic by the Roman Church. A council was formed to sort the matter out, and ultimately the Roman Church won out. Cuthbert, previously a Celtic, must have agreed with the change, because he was asked to introduce the new practices at Lindisfarne. He was seen as a good fit for the task because of his strong leadership, lovingly showing the way by word and example. Cuthbert accepted the task, and became the prior at Lindisfarne monastery in 670. Interestingly, the soul Cuthbert had seen ascend into heaven was intertwined with this next step in his journey as well, because Aidan had been the first bishop of Lindisfarne, perhaps starting his tenure there around the very time Cuthbert was born. This fact could not have been lost on Cuthbert, and might have eased him in his decision to leave his beloved Melrose. Perhaps he felt it was a renewal of that dazzling sign he had received years previously when he was a mere shepherd boy. At Lindisfarne, Cuthbert was pitted against his most difficult challenge yet. He sought to teach the monks there the Roman customs, but was taunted in return. The ancient customs were not to given up that easily. However, Cuthbert was a patient man, and according to Bede, never lost his temper with his querulous monks. Through perseverance, he managed to convert them to the newly popular doctrines and practices. Like at Melrose, Cuthbert did not confine himself to the walls of Lindisfarne monastery, but went on evangelizing, continuing his sacred mission work. It was reported that Cuthbert also performed miracles like the Apostles of old, including healings, exorcisms, and averting disasters through prayer. He became known as the “Wonder Worker of Britain.” Cuthbert kept himself so busy he rarely slept, rest only coming in the form of irregular naps. Even this he loathed to do, and he encouraged his monks to wake him so he could then “do or think of something useful!”

 

Saint Cuthbert, the hermit

 

However, six years of nonstop work took their toll on Cuthbert (as they would on any man), and he began to desire a life of solitude and peaceful contemplation. Perhaps he found himself longing for those halcyon days where he prayed surrounded not by walls but by nature, with silent sheep rather than student-monks for company. He accomplished this dream by moving to Inner Farne, a remote and deserted island not too far from Lindisfarne. Although he planned on a life of solitude, the hospitable Cuthbert could not help but build both a home for himself, as well as a second, larger home for any guests that may venture out to his island. (And venture they did). The stones Cuthbert used for his structures were too large for any one man to lift, so it has been recorded as another miracle – he must have been helped by angels in the construction. Though some traversed the sea to commune with Cuthbert, and were never turned away by him, the waves kept many at bay. Thus, his main company, once again, was of the animal variety but also of miraculous nature. Bede records the repentance of a crow who stole straw from the thatched roof of Cuthbert’s guesthouse. Once Cuthbert had rebuked the black bird in the name of the Lord, the crow bowed its head, flew off, and returned with a piece of pig’s lard which Cuthbert and his guests could use to shine their shoes. One particularly sweet legend asserts that sea otters would come sit upon Cuthbert’s feet, keeping the man of God warm in freezing weather. Cuthbert not only received help from wildlife, but also offered protection to wildlife himself. He gathered a flock, not of sheep or of monks, but of eider ducks, giving them sanctuary on his little island and making him the first wildlife conservationist! It is a pleasant picture, to imagine Cuthbert surrounded by his animal friends during his prayers and praises to their Creator. Today the eider duck, with its yellow beak, black and white plumage, and expressive eyes is affectionately called “Cuddy’s duck” in recognition of its protector. (The population today is vast and far from the “endangered” spectrum!) Cuthbert must have felt at home and at peace on his island, engaged in prayer and in stewardship of God’s creation. However, after a decade of this retirement, he was called upon to be the bishop of Lindisfarne. Cuthbert was reluctant but after much persuasion agreed – though it is said he made the agreement whilst shedding tears. As he had done all of his life, Cuthbert undertook the new calling with fervour, preaching and travelling extensively. Though he was a bishop, he continued to live as a monk in dress and diet. Like his elevation from monk to prior, his elevation to bishop did nothing to damage his humble heart. He gave food to the hungry and poor, and cared for those who were oppressed, always preaching repentance and forgiveness. He remained bishop for only two years before being granted permission to return to his retirement, where he was likely the happiest he had ever been with nature and God. Sadly, within months of his return to Inner Farne, Cuthbert became ill and knew he was dying. A priest friend stayed with Cuthbert, and said he spent his last day “in the expectation of future happiness,” and later that evening went home to be with his Lord and Saviour.Saint Cuthbert's Body Discovered

 

Sainthood

 

After his death on 20 March 687, Cuthbert was buried at Lindisfarne monastery. His monks, who had before been so problematic, were now overjoyed to have his bones there, for it comforted them to think that, in a way, Cuthbert was still with them. His legacy of piety and miracles lived on, and he was eventually venerated as a saint. Today he is often considered to be the favourite saint of England. Inspired by Cuthbert, the famous Lindisfarne Gospels were copied. They are beautifully and intricately illuminated copies of the Four Gospels made by the bishop of Lindisfarne “for God and St. Cuthbert.” Cuthbert’s body, exhumed eleven years after his death, was discovered to be undecayed, encouraging many pilgrimages to be made to see the body, in the hope of receiving healing and forgiveness. During Viking raids, the body of Cuthbert was taken to Durham Cathedral for safekeeping, which is the place where his remains lie peacefully interred today, beneath a humble gravestone that would have been to Cuthbert’s liking. It reads only: Cuthbertus.

 

Lindisfarne, also called Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important centre of Celtic Christianity under Saints Aidan of Lindisfarne, Cuthbert, Eadfrith of Lindisfarne and Eadberht of Lindisfarne. After the Viking invasions and the Norman conquest of England, a priory was re-established. A small castle was built on the island in 1550.

 

The north-east of England was largely not settled by Roman civilians apart from the Tyne valley and Hadrian's Wall. The area had been little affected during the centuries of nominal Roman occupation. The countryside had been subject to raids from both Scots and Picts and was "not one to attract early Germanic settlement". The Anglian King Ida (reigned from 547) started the sea-borne settlement of the coast, establishing an urbis regia (meaning "royal settlement") at Bamburgh across the bay from Lindisfarne. The conquest was not straightforward, however. The Historia Brittonum recounts how, in the 6th century, Urien, prince of Rheged, with a coalition of North Brittonic kingdoms, besieged Angles led by Theodric of Bernicia on the island for three days and nights, until internal power struggles led to the Britons' defeat.

 

The monastery of Lindisfarne was founded around 634 by Irish monk Saint Aidan, who had been sent from Iona off the west coast of Scotland to Northumbria at the request of King Oswald. The priory was founded before the end of 634 and Aidan remained there until his death in 651. The priory remained the only seat of a bishopric in Northumbria for nearly thirty years. Finan (bishop 651–661) built a timber church "suitable for a bishop's seat". St Bede, however, was critical of the fact that the church was not built of stone but only of hewn oak thatched with reeds. A later bishop, Eadbert, removed the thatch and covered both walls and roof in lead. An abbot, who could be the bishop, was elected by the brethren and led the community. Bede comments on this:

 

And let no one be surprised that, though we have said above that in this island of Lindisfarne, small as it is, there is found the seat of a bishop, now we say also that it is the home of an abbot and monks; for it actually is so. For one and the same dwelling-place of the servants of God holds both; and indeed all are monks. Aidan, who was the first bishop of this place, was a monk and always lived according to monastic rule together with all his followers. Hence all the bishops of that place up to the present time exercise their episcopal functions in such a way that the abbot, who they themselves have chosen by the advice of the brethren, rules the monastery; and all the priests, deacons, singers and readers and other ecclesiastical grades, together with the bishop himself, keep the monastic rule in all things.

 

Lindisfarne became the base for Christian evangelism in the North of England, and also sent a successful mission to Mercia. Monks from the Irish community of Iona settled on the island. Northumbria's patron saint, Saint Cuthbert, was a monk and later abbot of the monastery, and his miracles and life are recorded by the Venerable Bede. Cuthbert later became Bishop of Lindisfarne. An anonymous life of Cuthbert written at Lindisfarne is the oldest extant piece of English historical writing. From its reference to "Aldfrith, who now reigns peacefully", it is considered to date to between 685 and 704. Cuthbert was buried here, his remains later translated to Durham Cathedral (along with the relics of Saint Eadfrith of Lindisfarne). Eadberht of Lindisfarne, the next bishop (and later saint), was buried in the place from which Cuthbert's body was exhumed earlier the same year.

 

Cuthbert's body was carried with the monks, eventually settling in Chester-le-Street before a final move to Durham. The saint's shrine was the major pilgrimage centre for much of the region until its despoliation by Henry VIII's commissioners in 1539 or 1540. The grave was preserved, however, and when opened in 1827 yielded a number of artefacts dating back to Lindisfarne. The innermost of three coffins was of incised wood, the only decorated wood to survive from the period. It shows Jesus surrounded by the Four Evangelists. Within the coffin was a pectoral cross measuring 6.4 centimetres (2.5 in) across, made of gold and mounted with garnets and intricate designs; a comb, made of elephant ivory, was also found, an item that would have been exceedingly rare and expensive in Northern England, as well as an embossed, silver-covered travelling altar, all of which were contemporary with the original burial on the island. The most impressive find within the coffins was a gospel (known as the St Cuthbert Gospel or Stonyhurst Gospel from its association with Stonyhurst College): the manuscript, a relatively early and likely original one, was bound with embossed leather. When the body was placed in the shrine in 1104, other items were removed: a paten, scissors and a chalice of gold and onyx.

 

Following Finian's death, Colman became Bishop of Lindisfarne. Up to this point the Northumbrian (and latterly Mercian) churches had looked to Lindisfarne as the mother church. There were significant liturgical and theological differences with the fledgling Roman party based at Canterbury. According to Stenton: "There is no trace of any intercourse between these bishops [the Mercians] and the see of Canterbury". The Synod of Whitby in 663 changed this, as allegiance switched southwards to Canterbury and then to Rome. Colman departed his see for Iona, and Lindisfarne no longer held its previous importance.

 

In 735, the northern ecclesiastical province of England was established, with the archbishopric at York. There were only three bishops under York: Hexham, Lindisfarne and Whithorn, whereas Canterbury had the 12 envisaged by St Augustine. The Diocese of York roughly encompassed the counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire. Hexham covered County Durham and the southern part of Northumberland up to the River Coquet, and eastwards into the Pennines. Whithorn covered most of Dumfries and Galloway region west of Dumfries itself. The remainder, Cumbria, northern Northumbria, Lothian and much of the Kingdom of Strathclyde formed the diocese of Lindisfarne.

 

In 737, Saint Ceolwulf of Northumbria abdicated as King of Northumbria and entered the priory at Lindisfarne. He died in 764 and was buried alongside Cuthbert. In 830, his body was moved to Norham-upon-Tweed, and later his head was translated to Durham Cathedral.

 

Lindisfarne Gospels

Main article: Lindisfarne Gospels

At some point in the early 8th century the illuminated manuscript known as the Lindisfarne Gospels, an illustrated Latin copy of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, was made, probably at Lindisfarne. The artist was possibly Eadfrith, who later became Bishop of Lindisfarne. It is also speculated that a team of illuminators and calligraphers (monks of Lindisfarne Priory) worked on the text, but if so, their identities are unknown. Some time in the second half of the 10th century, a monk named Aldred added an Anglo-Saxon (Old English) gloss to the Latin text, producing the earliest surviving Old English copies of the Gospels. Aldred attributed the original to Eadfrith (bishop 698–721). The Gospels were written with a good hand, but it is the illustrations, done in an insular style containing a fusion of Celtic, Germanic and Roman elements, that are considered to be of the most value. According to Aldred, Eadfrith's successor Æthelwald was responsible for pressing and binding the book, before it was covered with a fine metal case made by a hermit known as Billfrith. The Lindisfarne Gospels now reside in the British Library in London, a location which has caused some controversy amongst some Northumbrians. In 1971, professor Suzanne Kaufman of Rockford, Illinois presented a facsimile copy of the Gospels to the clergy of the island.

 

In 793, a Viking raid on Lindisfarne caused much consternation throughout the Christian west, and is now often taken as the beginning of the Viking Age. There had been some other Viking raids, but according to English Heritage this one was particularly significant, because "it attacked the sacred heart of the Northumbrian kingdom, desecrating 'the very place where the Christian religion began in our nation'". The D and E versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle record:

 

Her wæron reðe forebecna cumene ofer Norðhymbra land, ⁊ þæt folc earmlic bregdon, þæt wæron ormete þodenas ⁊ ligrescas, ⁊ fyrenne dracan wæron gesewene on þam lifte fleogende. Þam tacnum sona fyligde mycel hunger, ⁊ litel æfter þam, þæs ilcan geares on .vi. Idus Ianuarii, earmlice hæþenra manna hergunc adilegode Godes cyrican in Lindisfarnaee þurh hreaflac ⁊ mansliht.

 

("In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of the Northumbrians, and the wretched people shook; there were excessive whirlwinds, lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and a little after those, that same year on 6th ides of January, the ravaging of wretched heathen men destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne.")

 

The generally accepted date for the Viking raid on Lindisfarne is 8 June; Michael Swanton writes: "vi id Ianr, presumably [is] an error for vi id Iun (8 June) which is the date given by the Annals of Lindisfarne (p. 505), when better sailing weather would favour coastal raids."

 

Alcuin, a Northumbrian scholar in Charlemagne's court at the time, wrote: "Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race ... The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets."

 

During the attack many of the monks were killed, or captured and enslaved. As the English population became more settled, they seemed to have turned their back on the sea. Many monasteries were established on islands, peninsulas, river mouths and cliffs, as isolated communities were less susceptible to interference and the politics of the heartland. These preliminary raids, despite their brutal nature, were not followed up. The main body of the raiders passed north around Scotland. The 9th century invasions came not from Norway, but from the Danes from around the entrance to the Baltic. The first Danish raids into England were in the Isle of Sheppey, Kent during 835 and from there their influence spread north. During this period religious art continued to flourish on Lindisfarne, and the Liber Vitae of Durham began in the priory. By 866, the Danes were in York, and in 873 the army was moving into Northumberland. With the collapse of the Northumbrian kingdom, the monks of Lindisfarne fled the island in 875 taking with them St Cuthbert's bones (which are now buried at the cathedral in Durham), who during his life had been prior and bishop of Lindisfarne; his body was buried on the island in the year 698.

 

Prior to the 9th century, Lindisfarne Priory had, in common with other such establishments, held large tracts of land which were managed directly or leased to farmers with a life interest only. Following the Danish occupation, land was increasingly owned by individuals, and could be bought, sold and inherited. Following the Battle of Corbridge in 914 Ragnald seized the land giving some to his followers Scula and Onlafbal.

 

William of St Calais, the first Norman Bishop of Durham, endowed his new Benedictine monastery at Durham with land and property in Northumberland, including Holy Island and much of the surrounding mainland. Durham Priory re-established a monastic house on the island in 1093, as a cell of Durham, administered from Norham. The standing remains date from this time (whereas the site of the original priory is now occupied by the parish church).

 

Monastic records from the 14th to the 16th century provide evidence of an already well-established fishing economy on the island. Both line fishing and net fishing were practised, inshore in shallow waters and in the deep water offshore, using a variety of vessels: contemporary accounts differentiate between small 'cobles' and larger 'boats', as well as singling out certain specialised vessels (such as a 'herynger', sold for £2 in 1404). As well as supplying food for the monastic community, the island's fisheries (together with those of nearby Farne) provided the mother house at Durham with fish, on a regular (sometimes weekly) basis. Fish caught included cod, haddock, herring, salmon, porpoise and mullet, among others. Shellfish of various types were also fished for, with lobster nets and oyster dredges being mentioned in the accounts. Fish surplus to the needs of the monastery was traded, but subject to a tithe. There is also evidence that the monks operated a lime kiln on the island.

 

In 1462, during the Wars of the Roses, Margaret of Anjou made an abortive attempt to seize the Northumbrian castles. Following a storm at sea 400 troops had to seek shelter on Holy Island, where they surrendered to the Yorkists.

 

The Benedictine monastery continued until its suppression in 1536 under Henry VIII, after which the buildings surrounding the church were used as a naval storehouse. In 1613 ownership of the island (and other land in the area formerly pertaining to Durham Priory) was transferred to the Crown.

 

An early scholarly description of the priory was compiled by Dr Henry George Charles Clarke (presumed son of Admiral Sir Erasmus Gower) in 1838 during his term as president of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club. Dr Clarke surmised that this Norman priory was unique in that the centre aisle had a vault of stone. Of the six arches, Dr Clarke stated "as if the architect had not previously calculated the space to be occupied by his arcade. The effect here has been to produce a horse-shoe instead of a semicircular arch, from its being of the same height, but lesser span, than the others. This arch is very rare, even in Norman buildings". The Lindisfarne Priory (ruin) is a grade I listed building, List Entry Number 1042304. Other parts of the priory are a Scheduled ancient monument, List Entry Number 1011650. The latter are described as "the site of the pre-Conquest monastery of Lindisfarne and the Benedictine cell of Durham Cathedral that succeeded it in the 11th century".

 

Recent work by archeologists was continuing in 2019, for the fourth year. Artifacts recovered included a rare board game piece, copper-alloy rings and Anglo-Saxon coins from both Northumbria and Wessex. The discovery of a cemetery led to finding commemorative markers "unique to the 8th and 9th centuries". The group also found evidence of an early medieval building, "which seems to have been constructed on top of an even earlier industrial oven" which was used to make copper or glass.

 

Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.

 

The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county is a unitary authority area. The county historically included the parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne.

 

The west of Northumberland contains part of the Cheviot Hills and North Pennines, while to the east the land becomes flatter before reaching the coast. The Cheviot (815 m (2,674 ft)), after which the range of hills is named, is the county's highest point. The county contains the source of the River North Tyne and much of the South Tyne; near Hexham they combine to form the Tyne, which exits into Tyne and Wear shortly downstream. The other major rivers in Northumberland are, from south to north, the Blyth, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck and Tweed, the last of which forms part of the Scottish border. The county contains Northumberland National Park and two national landscapes: the Northumberland Coast and part of the North Pennines.

 

Much of the county's history has been defined by its position on a border. In the Roman era most of the county lay north of Hadrian's Wall, and the region was contested between England and Scotland into the Early Modern era, leading to the construction of many castles, peel towers and bastle houses, and the early modern fortifications at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Northumberland is also associated with Celtic Christianity, particularly the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the Industrial Revolution the area had significant coal mining, shipbuilding, and armaments industries.

 

Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'. Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.

 

As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.

 

When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.

 

The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.

 

Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.

 

The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.

 

The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.

 

Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.

 

Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.

 

After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.

 

In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.

 

When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.

 

Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.

 

In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.

 

Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.

 

The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.

 

The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.

 

The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.

 

The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

 

A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.

 

The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.

 

Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.

 

In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.

 

During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.

 

The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.

 

From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill. This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.

 

Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.

 

In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.

 

Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.

 

After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.

 

Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry spread rapidly along the Tyne. Tanning, both of leather and of nets, was largely practised in the 13th century, and the salmon fisheries in the Tyne were famous in the reign of Henry I.

 

John Smeaton designed the Coldstream Bridge and a bridge at Hexham.

Stephenson's Rocket

Invention of the steam turbine by Charles Algernon Parsons

 

Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement.

 

The county has an area of 5,013 km2 (1,936 sq mi) and a population of 320,274, making it the least-densely populated county in England. The south-east contains the largest towns: Blyth (37,339), Cramlington (27,683), Ashington (27,670), and Morpeth (14,304), which is the administrative centre. The remainder of the county is rural, and the largest towns are Berwick-upon-Tweed (12,043) in the far north and Hexham (13,097) in the west. For local government purposes the county is a unitary authority area. The county historically included the parts of Tyne and Wear north of the River Tyne.

 

The west of Northumberland contains part of the Cheviot Hills and North Pennines, while to the east the land becomes flatter before reaching the coast. The Cheviot (815 m (2,674 ft)), after which the range of hills is named, is the county's highest point. The county contains the source of the River North Tyne and much of the South Tyne; near Hexham they combine to form the Tyne, which exits into Tyne and Wear shortly downstream. The other major rivers in Northumberland are, from south to north, the Blyth, Coquet, Aln, Wansbeck and Tweed, the last of which forms part of the Scottish border. The county contains Northumberland National Park and two national landscapes: the Northumberland Coast and part of the North Pennines.

 

Much of the county's history has been defined by its position on a border. In the Roman era most of the county lay north of Hadrian's Wall, and the region was contested between England and Scotland into the Early Modern era, leading to the construction of many castles, peel towers and bastle houses, and the early modern fortifications at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Northumberland is also associated with Celtic Christianity, particularly the tidal island of Lindisfarne. During the Industrial Revolution the area had significant coal mining, shipbuilding, and armaments industries.

 

Northumberland, England's northernmost county, is a land where Roman occupiers once guarded a walled frontier, Anglian invaders fought with Celtic natives, and Norman lords built castles to suppress rebellion and defend a contested border with Scotland. The present-day county is a vestige of an independent kingdom that once stretched from Edinburgh to the Humber, hence its name, meaning literally 'north of the Humber'. Reflecting its tumultuous past, Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England, and the greatest number of recognised battle sites. Once an economically important region that supplied much of the coal that powered the industrial revolution, Northumberland is now a primarily rural county with a small and gradually shrinking population.

 

As attested by many instances of rock art, the Northumberland region has a rich prehistory. Archeologists have studied a Mesolithic structure at Howick, which dates to 7500 BC and was identified as Britain's oldest house until it lost this title in 2010 when the discovery of the even older Star Carr house in North Yorkshire was announced, which dates to 8770 BC. They have also found tools, ornaments, building structures and cairns dating to the bronze and iron ages, when the area was occupied by Brythonic Celtic peoples who had migrated from continental Europe, most likely the Votadini whose territory stretched from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth to Northumberland. It is not clear where the boundary between the Votadini and the other large tribe, the Brigantes, was, although it probably frequently shifted as a result of wars and as smaller tribes and communities changed allegiances. Unlike neighbouring tribes, Votadini farms were surrounded by large walls, banks and ditches and the people made offerings of fine metal objects, but never wore massive armlets. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Hill and Traprain Law, the latter two now in Scotland), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain. The hillforts may have been used for over a thousand years by this time as places of refuge and as places for meetings for political and religious ceremonies. Duddo Five Stones in North Northumberland and the Goatstones near Hadrian's Wall are stone circles dating from the Bronze Age.

 

When Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed Roman governor of Britain in 78 AD, most of northern Britain was still controlled by native British tribes. During his governorship Agricola extended Roman control north of Eboracum (York) and into what is now Scotland. Roman settlements, garrisons and roads were established throughout the Northumberland region.

 

The northern frontier of the Roman occupation fluctuated between Pons Aelius (now Newcastle) and the Forth. Hadrian's Wall was completed by about 130 AD, to define and defend the northern boundary of Roman Britain. By 142, the Romans had completed the Antonine Wall, a more northerly defensive border lying between the Forth and Clyde. However, by 164 they abandoned the Antonine Wall to consolidate defences at Hadrian's Wall.

 

Two important Roman roads in the region were the Stanegate and Dere Street, the latter extending through the Cheviot Hills to locations well north of the Tweed. Located at the intersection of these two roads, Coria (Corbridge), a Roman supply-base, was the most northerly large town in the Roman Empire. The Roman forts of Vercovicium (Housesteads) on Hadrian's Wall, and Vindolanda (Chesterholm) built to guard the Stanegate, had extensive civil settlements surrounding them.

 

The Celtic peoples living in the region between the Tyne and the Forth were known to the Romans as the Votadini. When not under direct Roman rule, they functioned as a friendly client kingdom, a somewhat porous buffer against the more warlike Picts to the north.

 

The gradual Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century led to a poorly documented age of conflict and chaos as different peoples contested territories in northern Britain.

 

Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vidolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that based on their difference from gladiator gloves warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum.

 

Conquests by Anglian invaders led to the establishment of the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia. The first Anglian settlement was effected in 547 by Ida, who, accompanied by his six sons, pushed through the narrow strip of territory between the Cheviots and the sea, and set up a fortress at Bamburgh, which became the royal seat of the Bernician kings. About the end of the 6th century Bernicia was first united with the rival kingdom of Deira under the rule of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, and the district between the Humber and the Forth became known as the kingdom of Northumbria.

 

After Æthelfrith was killed in battle around 616, Edwin of Deira became king of Northumbria. Æthelfrith's son Oswald fled northwest to the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata where he was converted to Christianity by the monks of Iona. Meanwhile, Paulinus, the first bishop of York, converted King Edwin to Roman Christianity and began an extensive program of conversion and baptism. By his time the kingdom must have reached the west coast, as Edwin is said to have conquered the islands of Anglesey and Man. Under Edwin the Northumbrian kingdom became the chief power in Britain. However, when Cadwallon ap Cadfan defeated Edwin at Hatfield Chase in 633, Northumbria was divided into the former kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira and Christianity suffered a temporary decline.

 

In 634, Oswald defeated Cadwallon ap Cadfan at the Battle of Heavenfield, resulting in the re-unification of Northumbria. Oswald re-established Christianity in the kingdom and assigned a bishopric at Hexham, where Wilfrid erected a famous early English church. Reunification was followed by a period of Northumbrian expansion into Pictish territory and growing dominance over the Celtic kingdoms of Dál Riata and Strathclyde to the west. Northumbrian encroachments were abruptly curtailed in 685, when Ecgfrith suffered complete defeat by a Pictish force at the Battle of Nechtansmere.

 

When Saint Aidan came at the request of Oswald to preach to the Northumbrians he chose the island of Lindisfarne as the site of his church and monastery, and made it the head of the diocese which he founded in 635. For some years the see continued in peace, numbering among its bishops Saint Cuthbert, but in 793 Vikings landed on the island and burnt the settlement, killing many of the monks. The survivors, however, rebuilt the church and continued to live there until 883, when, through fear of a second invasion of the Danes, they fled inland, taking with them the body of Cuthbert and other holy relics.

 

Against this background, the monasteries of Northumbria developed some remarkably influential cultural products. Cædmon, a monk at Whitby Abbey, authored one of the earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry some time before 680. The Lindisfarne Gospels, an early example of insular art, is attributed to Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721. Stenton (1971, p. 191) describes the book as follows.

 

In mere script it is no more than an admirable example of a noble style, and the figure drawing of its illustrations, though probably based on classical models, has more than a touch of naïveté. Its unique importance is due to the beauty and astonishing intricacy of its decoration. The nature of its ornament connects it very closely with a group of Irish manuscripts of which the Book of Kells is the most famous.

 

Bede's writing, at the Northumbrian monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow, gained him a reputation as the most learned scholar of his age. His work is notable for both its breadth (encompassing history, theology, science and literature) and quality, exemplified by the rigorous use of citation. Bede's most famous work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as a highly influential early model of historical scholarship.

 

The kingdom of Northumbria ceased to exist in 927, when it was incorporated into England as an earldom by Athelstan, the first king of a united England[citation needed].. In 937, Athelstan's victory over a combined Norse-Celtic force in the battle of Brunanburh secured England's control of its northern territory.

 

The Scottish king Indulf captured Edinburgh in 954, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards. Malcolm II was finally successful, when, in 1018, he annihilated the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf the earl of Northumbria ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth Lothian, consisting of the former region of Northumbria between the Forth and the Tweed, remained in possession of the Scottish kings.

 

The term Northumberland was first recorded in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relating to a rebellion against Tostig Godwinson.

 

The vigorous resistance of Northumbria to William the Conqueror was punished by ruthless harrying, mostly south of the River Tees. As recounted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

 

A.D. 1068. This year King William gave Earl Robert the earldom over Northumberland; but the landsmen attacked him in the town of Durham, and slew him, and nine hundred men with him. Soon afterwards Edgar Etheling came with all the Northumbrians to York; and the townsmen made a treaty with him: but King William came from the South unawares on them with a large army, and put them to flight, and slew on the spot those who could not escape; which were many hundred men; and plundered the town. St. Peter's minster he made a profanation, and all other places also he despoiled and trampled upon; and the ethelling went back again to Scotland.

 

The Normans rebuilt the Anglian monasteries of Lindisfarne, Hexham and Tynemouth, and founded Norman abbeys at Newminster (1139), Alnwick (1147), Brinkburn (1180), Hulne, and Blanchland. Castles were built at Newcastle (1080), Alnwick (1096), Bamburgh (1131), Harbottle (1157), Prudhoe (1172), Warkworth (1205), Chillingham, Ford (1287), Dunstanburgh (1313), Morpeth, Langley (1350), Wark on Tweed and Norham (1121), the latter an enclave of the palatine bishops of Durham.

 

Northumberland county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county, as rendered by Odard the sheriff, is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131.

 

In 1237, Scotland renounced claims to Northumberland county in the Treaty of York.

 

During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the county of Northumberland was the district between the Tees and the Tweed, and had within it several scattered liberties subject to other powers: Durham, Sadberge, Bedlingtonshire, and Norhamshire belonging to the bishop of Durham; Hexhamshire to the archbishop of York; Tynedale to the king of Scotland; Emildon to the earl of Lancaster; and Redesdale to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus. These franchises were exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. Over time, some were incorporated within the county: Tynedale in 1495; Hexhamshire in 1572; and Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.

 

The county court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. Under the same statute the sheriffs of Northumberland, who had been in the habit of appropriating the issues of the county to their private use, were required thereafter to deliver in their accounts to the Exchequer in the same manner as the sheriffs of other counties.

 

From the Norman Conquest until the union of England and Scotland under James I and VI, Northumberland was the scene of perpetual inroads and devastations by the Scots. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David I of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign. In 1174, during his invasion of Northumbria, William I of Scotland, also known as William the Lion, was captured by a party of about four hundred mounted knights, led by Ranulf de Glanvill. This incident became known as the Battle of Alnwick. In 1295, Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by king Robert Bruce. And so dire was the Scottish threat in 1382, that by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates to protect the border. In 1388, Henry Percy was taken prisoner and 1500 of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn, immortalised in the ballad of Chevy Chase.

 

Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh were garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the Yorkist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm.

 

In September 1513, King James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden on Branxton Moor.

 

Roman Catholic support in Northumberland for Mary, Queen of Scots, led to the Rising of the North in 1569.

 

After uniting the English and Scottish thrones, James VI and I sharply curbed the lawlessness of the border reivers and brought relative peace to the region. There were Church of Scotland congregations in Northumberland in the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

During the Civil War of the 17th century, Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles I was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie.

 

Many of the chief Northumberland families were ruined in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The mineral resources of the area appear to have been exploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland, and some coal ornaments found at Angerton have been attributed to the 7th century. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster Abbey a road for the conveyance of sea coal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and Newcastle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I to Hugh de Puiset creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned. A salt pan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of the inhabitants of North and South Shields. In the reign of Elizabeth I, glass factories were set up at Newcastle by foreign refugees, and the industry

Phew, it has been a struggle, but these are the final 5 uploads from St Sepulchre: a glorious church, a church of delights if you will.

 

Next up, St Dunstan in the West, the photos of which have not come out well, so I will have to return, but so it goes, so it goes.

 

With the rain falling harder, it was a bit of a route march to Holborn and my next church, the stunning St Sepulchre, which was also open.

 

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St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, also known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holborn), is an Anglican church in the City of London. It is located on Holborn Viaduct, almost opposite the Old Bailey. In medieval times it stood just outside ("without") the now-demolished old city wall, near the Newgate. It has been a living of St John's College, Oxford, since 1622.

 

The original Saxon church on the site was dedicated to St Edmund the King and Martyr. During the Crusades in the 12th century the church was renamed St Edmund and the Holy Sepulchre, in reference to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The name eventually became contracted to St Sepulchre.

 

The church is today the largest parish church in the City. It was completely rebuilt in the 15th century but was gutted by the Great Fire of London in 1666,[1] which left only the outer walls, the tower and the porch standing[2] -. Modified in the 18th century, the church underwent extensive restoration in 1878. It narrowly avoided destruction in the Second World War, although the 18th-century watch-house in its churchyard (erected to deter grave-robbers) was completely destroyed and had to be rebuilt.

 

The interior of the church is a wide, roomy space with a coffered ceiling[3] installed in 1834. The Vicars' old residence has recently been renovated into a modern living quarter.

 

During the reign of Mary I in 1555, St Sepulchre's vicar, John Rogers, was burned as a heretic.

 

St Sepulchre is named in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons as the "bells of Old Bailey". Traditionally, the great bell would be rung to mark the execution of a prisoner at the nearby gallows at Newgate. The clerk of St Sepulchre's was also responsible for ringing a handbell outside the condemned man's cell in Newgate Prison to inform him of his impending execution. This handbell, known as the Execution Bell, now resides in a glass case to the south of the nave.

 

The church has been the official musicians' church for many years and is associated with many famous musicians. Its north aisle (formerly a chapel dedicated to Stephen Harding) is dedicated as the Musicians' Chapel, with four windows commemorating John Ireland, the singer Dame Nellie Melba, Walter Carroll and the conductor Sir Henry Wood respectively.[4] Wood, who "at the age of fourteen, learned to play the organ" at this church [1] and later became its organist, also has his ashes buried in this church.

 

The south aisle of the church holds the regimental chapel of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), and its gardens are a memorial garden to that regiment.[5] The west end of the north aisle has various memorials connected with the City of London Rifles (the 6th Battalion London Regiment). The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Sepulchre-without-Newgate

 

The Early History of St. Sepulchre's—Its Destruction in 1666—The Exterior and Interior—The Early Popularity of the Church—Interments here—Roger Ascham, the Author of the "Schoolmaster"—Captain John Smith, and his Romantic Adventures—Saved by an Indian Girl— St. Sepulchre's Churchyard—Accommodation for a Murderess—The Martyr Rogers—An Odd Circumstance—Good Company for the Dead—A Leap from the Tower—A Warning Bell and a Last Admonition—Nosegays for the Condemned—The Route to the Gallows-tree— The Deeds of the Charitable—The "Saracen's Head"—Description by Dickens—Giltspur Street—Giltspur Street Compter—A Disreputable Condition—Pie Corner—Hosier Lane—A Spurious Relic—The Conduit on Snow Hill—A Ladies' Charity School—Turnagain Lane—Poor Betty!—A Schoolmistress Censured—Skinner Street—Unpropitious Fortune—William Godwin—An Original Married Life.

 

Many interesting associations—Principally, however, connected with the annals of crime and the execution of the laws of England—belong to the Church of St. Sepulchre, or St. 'Pulchre. This sacred edifice—anciently known as St. Sepulchre's in the Bailey, or by Chamberlain Gate (now Newgate)—stands at the eastern end of the slight acclivity of Snow Hill, and between Smithfield and the Old Bailey. The genuine materials for its early history are scanty enough. It was probably founded about the commencement of the twelfth century, but of the exact date and circumstances of its origin there is no record whatever. Its name is derived from the Holy Sepulchre of our Saviour at Jerusalem, to the memory of which it was first dedicated.

 

The earliest authentic notice of the church, according to Maitland, is of the year 1178, at which date it was given by Roger, Bishop of Sarum, to the Prior and Canons of St. Bartholomew. These held the right of advowson until the dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII., and from that time until 1610 it remained in the hands of the Crown. James I., however, then granted "the rectory and its appurtenances, with the advowson of the vicarage," to Francis Phillips and others. The next stage in its history is that the rectory was purchased by the parishioners, to be held in fee-farm of the Crown, and the advowson was obtained by the President and Fellows of St. John the Baptist College, at Oxford.

 

The church was rebuilt about the middle of the fifteenth century, when one of the Popham family, who had been Chancellor of Normandy and Treasurer of the King's Household, with distinguished liberality erected a handsome chapel on the south side of the choir, and the very beautiful porch still remaining at the south-west corner of the building. "His image," Stow says, "fair graven in stone, was fixed over the said porch."

 

The dreadful fire of 1666 almost destroyed St. Sepulchre's, but the parishioners set energetically to work, and it was "rebuilt and beautified both within and without." The general reparation was under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, and nothing but the walls of the old building, and these not entirely, were suffered to remain. The work was done rapidly, and the whole was completed within four years.

 

"The tower," says Mr. Godwin, "retained its original aspect, and the body of the church, after its restoration, presented a series of windows between buttresses, with pointed heads filled with tracery, crowned by a string-course and battlements. In this form it remained till the year 1790, when it appears the whole fabric was found to be in a state of great decay, and it was resolved to repair it throughout. Accordingly the walls of the church were cased with Portland stone, and all the windows were taken out and replaced by others with plain semi-circular heads, as now seen—certainly agreeing but badly with the tower and porch of the building, but according with the then prevailing spirit of economy. The battlements, too, were taken down, and a plain stone parapet was substituted, so that at this time (with the exception of the roof, which was wagon-headed, and presented on the outside an unsightly swell, visible above the parapet) the church assumed its present appearance." The ungainly roof was removed, and an entirely new one erected, about 1836.

 

At each corner of the tower—"one of the most ancient," says the author of "Londinium Redivivum," "in the outline of the circuit of London" —there are spires, and on the spires there are weathercocks. These have been made use of by Howell to point a moral: "Unreasonable people," says he, "are as hard to reconcile as the vanes of St. Sepulchre's tower, which never look all four upon one point of the heavens." Nothing can be said with certainty as to the date of the tower, but it is not without the bounds of probability that it formed part of the original building. The belfry is reached by a small winding staircase in the south-west angle, and a similar staircase in an opposite angle leads to the summit. The spires at the corners, and some of the tower windows, have very recently undergone several alterations, which have added much to the picturesqueness and beauty of the church.

 

The chief entrance to St. Sepulchre's is by a porch of singular beauty, projecting from the south side of the tower, at the western end of the church. The groining of the ceiling of this porch, it has been pointed out, takes an almost unique form; the ribs are carved in bold relief, and the bosses at the intersections represent angels' heads, shields, roses, &c., in great variety.

 

Coming now to the interior of the church, we find it divided into three aisles, by two ranges of Tuscan columns. The aisles are of unequal widths, that in the centre being the widest, that to the south the narrowest. Semi-circular arches connect the columns on either side, springing directly from their capitals, without the interposition of an entablature, and support a large dental cornice, extending round the church. The ceiling of the middle aisle is divided into seven compartments, by horizontal bands, the middle compartment being formed into a small dome.

 

The aisles have groined ceilings, ornamented at the angles with doves, &c., and beneath every division of the groining are small windows, to admit light to the galleries. Over each of the aisles there is a gallery, very clumsily introduced, which dates from the time when the church was built by Wren, and extends the whole length, excepting at the chancel. The front of the gallery, which is of oak, is described by Mr. Godwin as carved into scrolls, branches, &c., in the centre panel, on either side, with the initials "C. R.," enriched with carvings of laurel, which have, however, he says, "but little merit."

 

At the east end of the church there are three semicircular-headed windows. Beneath the centre one is a large Corinthian altar-piece of oak, displaying columns, entablatures, &c., elaborately carved and gilded.

 

The length of the church, exclusive of the ambulatory, is said to be 126 feet, the breadth 68 feet, and the height of the tower 140 feet.

 

A singularly ugly sounding-board, extending over the preacher, used to stand at the back of the pulpit, at the east end of the church. It was in the shape of a large parabolic reflector, about twelve feet in diameter, and was composed of ribs of mahogany.

 

At the west end of the church there is a large organ, said to be the oldest and one of the finest in London. It was built in 1677, and has been greatly enlarged. Its reed-stops (hautboy, clarinet, &c.) are supposed to be unrivalled. In Newcourt's time the church was taken notice of as "remarkable for possessing an exceedingly fine organ, and the playing is thought so beautiful, that large congregations are attracted, though some of the parishioners object to the mode of performing divine service."

 

On the north side of the church, Mr. Godwin mentions, is a large apartment known as "St. Stephen's Chapel." This building evidently formed a somewhat important part of the old church, and was probably appropriated to the votaries of the saint whose name it bears.

 

Between the exterior and the interior of the church there is little harmony. "For example," says Mr. Godwin, "the columns which form the south aisle face, in some instances, the centre of the large windows which occur in the external wall of the church, and in others the centre of the piers, indifferently." This discordance may likely enough have arisen from the fact that when the church was rebuilt, or rather restored, after the Great Fire, the works were done without much attention from Sir Christopher Wren.

 

St. Sepulchre's appears to have enjoyed considerable popularity from the earliest period of its history, if one is to judge from the various sums left by well-disposed persons for the support of certain fraternities founded in the church—namely, those of St. Katherine, St. Michael, St. Anne, and Our Lady—and by others, for the maintenance of chantry priests to celebrate masses at stated intervals for the good of their souls. One of the fraternities just named—that of St. Katherine— originated, according to Stow, in the devotion of some poor persons in the parish, and was in honour of the conception of the Virgin Mary. They met in the church on the day of the Conception, and there had the mass of the day, and offered to the same, and provided a certain chaplain daily to celebrate divine service, and to set up wax lights before the image belonging to the fraternity, on all festival days.

 

The most famous of all who have been interred in St. Sepulchre's is Roger Ascham, the author of the "Schoolmaster," and the instructor of Queen Elizabeth in Greek and Latin. This learned old worthy was born in 1515, near Northallerton, in Yorkshire. He was educated at Cambridge University, and in time rose to be the university orator, being notably zealous in promoting what was then a novelty in England—the study of the Greek language. To divert himself after the fatigue of severe study, he used to devote himself to archery. This drew down upon him the censure of the all-work-and-no-play school; and in defence of himself, Ascham, in 1545, published "Toxophilus," a treatise on his favourite sport. This book is even yet well worthy of perusal, for its enthusiasm, and for its curious descriptions of the personal appearance and manners of the principal persons whom the author had seen and conversed with. Henry VIII. rewarded him with a pension of £10 per annum, a considerable sum in those days. In 1548, Ascham, on the death of William Grindall, who had been his pupil, was appointed instructor in the learned languages to Lady Elizabeth, afterwards the good Queen Bess. At the end of two years he had some dispute with, or took a disgust at, Lady Elizabeth's attendants, resigned his situation, and returned to his college. Soon after this he was employed as secretary to the English ambassador at the court of Charles V. of Germany, and remained abroad till the death of Edward VI. During his absence he had been appointed Latin secretary to King Edward. Strangely enough, though Queen Mary and her ministers were Papists, and Ascham a Protestant, he was retained in his office of Latin secretary, his pension was increased to £20, and he was allowed to retain his fellowship and his situation as university orator. In 1554 he married a lady of good family, by whom he had a considerable fortune, and of whom, in writing to a friend, he gives, as might perhaps be expected, an excellent character. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth, in 1558, she not only required his services as Latin secretary, but as her instructor in Greek, and he resided at Court during the remainder of his life. He died in consequence of his endeavours to complete a Latin poem which he intended to present to the queen on the New Year's Day of 1569. He breathed his last two days before 1568 ran out, and was interred, according to his own directions, in the most private manner, in St. Sepulchre's Church, his funeral sermon being preached by Dr. Andrew Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's. He was universally lamented; and even the queen herself not only showed great concern, but was pleased to say that she would rather have lost ten thousand pounds than her tutor Ascham, which, from that somewhat closehanded sovereign, was truly an expression of high regard.

 

Ascham, like most men, had his little weaknesses. He had too great a propensity to dice and cock-fighting. Bishop Nicholson would try to convince us that this is an unfounded calumny, but, as it is mentioned by Camden, and other contemporary writers, it seems impossible to deny it. He died, from all accounts, in indifferent circumstances. "Whether," says Dr. Johnson, referring to this, "Ascham was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any country; and among us it may justly call for that reverence which all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and kindle among them the light of literature." His most valuable work, "The Schoolmaster," was published by his widow. The nature of this celebrated performance may be gathered from the title: "The Schoolmaster; or a plain and perfite way of teaching children to understand, write, and speak the Latin tongue. … And commodious also for all such as have forgot the Latin tongue, and would by themselves, without a schoolmaster, in short time, and with small pains, recover a sufficient habilitie to understand, write, and speak Latin: by Roger Ascham, ann. 1570. At London, printed by John Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate," a printer, by the way, already mentioned by us a few chapters back (see page 208), as having printed several noted works of the sixteenth century.

 

Dr. Johnson remarks that the instruction recommended in "The Schoolmaster" is perhaps the best ever given for the study of languages.

 

Here also lies buried Captain John Smith, a conspicuous soldier of fortune, whose romantic adventures and daring exploits have rarely been surpassed. He died on the 21st of June, 1631. This valiant captain was born at Willoughby, in the county of Lincoln, and helped by his doings to enliven the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. He had a share in the wars of Hungary in 1602, and in three single combats overcame three Turks, and cut off their heads. For this, and other equally brave deeds, Sigismund, Duke of Transylvania, gave him his picture set in gold, with a pension of three hundred ducats; and allowed him to bear three Turks' heads proper as his shield of arms. He afterwards went to America, where he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Indians. He escaped from them, however, at last, and resumed his brilliant career by hazarding his life in naval engagements with pirates and Spanish men-of-war. The most important act of his life was the share he had in civilising the natives of New England, and reducing that province to obedience to Great Britain. In connection with his tomb in St. Sepulchre's, he is mentioned by Stow, in his "Survey," as "some time Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New England."

 

Certainly the most interesting events of his chequered career were his capture by the Indians, and the saving of his life by the Indian girl Pocahontas, a story of adventure that charms as often as it is told. Bancroft, the historian of the United States, relates how, during the early settlement of Virginia, Smith left the infant colony on an exploring expedition, and not only ascended the river Chickahominy, but struck into the interior. His companions disobeyed his instructions, and being surprised by the Indians, were put to death. Smith preserved his own life by calmness and self-possession. Displaying a pocket-compass, he amused the savages by an explanation of its power, and increased their admiration of his superior genius by imparting to them some vague conceptions of the form of the earth, and the nature of the planetary system. To the Indians, who retained him as their prisoner, his captivity was a more strange event than anything of which the traditions of their tribes preserved the memory. He was allowed to send a letter to the fort at Jamestown, and the savage wonder was increased, for he seemed by some magic to endow the paper with the gift of intelligence. It was evident that their captive was a being of a high order, and then the question arose, Was his nature beneficent, or was he to be dreaded as a dangerous enemy? Their minds were bewildered, and the decision of his fate was referred to the chief Powhatan, and before Powhatan Smith was brought. "The fears of the feeble aborigines," says Bancroft, "were about to prevail, and his immediate death, already repeatedly threatened and repeatedly delayed, would have been inevitable, but for the timely intercession of Pocahontas, a girl twelve years old, the daughter of Powhatan, whose confiding fondness Smith had easily won, and who firmly clung to his neck, as his head was bowed down to receive the stroke of the tomahawks. His fearlessness, and her entreaties, persuaded the council to spare the agreeable stranger, who could make hatchets for her father, and rattles and strings of beads for herself, the favourite child. The barbarians, whose decision had long been held in suspense by the mysterious awe which Smith had inspired, now resolved to receive him as a friend, and to make him a partner of their councils. They tempted him to join their bands, and lend assistance in an attack upon the white men at Jamestown; and when his decision of character succeeded in changing the current of their thoughts, they dismissed him with mutual promises of friendship and benevolence. Thus the captivity of Smith did itself become a benefit to the colony; for he had not only observed with care the country between the James and the Potomac, and had gained some knowledge of the language and manners of the natives, but he now established a peaceful intercourse between the English and the tribes of Powhatan."

 

On the monument erected to Smith in St. Sepulchre's Church, the following quaint lines were formerly inscribed:—

 

"Here lies one conquered that hath conquered kings,

Subdued large territories, and done things

Which to the world impossible would seem,

But that the truth is held in more esteem.

Shall I report his former service done,

In honour of his God, and Christendom?

How that he did divide, from pagans three,

Their heads and lives, types of his chivalry?—

For which great service, in that climate done,

Brave Sigismundus, King of Hungarion,

Did give him, as a coat of arms, to wear

These conquered heads, got by his sword and spear.

Or shall I tell of his adventures since

Done in Virginia, that large continent?

How that he subdued kings unto his yoke,

And made those heathens flee, as wind doth smoke;

And made their land, being so large a station,

An habitation for our Christian nation,

Where God is glorified, their wants supplied;

Which else for necessaries, must have died.

But what avails his conquests, now he lies

Interred in earth, a prey to worms and flies?

Oh! may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep,

Until the Keeper, that all souls doth keep,

Return to judgment; and that after thence

With angels he may have his recompense."

 

Sir Robert Peake, the engraver, also found a last resting-place here. He is known as the master of William Faithorne—the famous English engraver of the seventeenth century—and governor of Basing House for the king during the Civil War under Charles I. He died in 1667. Here also was interred the body of Dr. Bell, grandfather of the originator of a well-known system of education.

 

"The churchyard of St. Sepulchre's," we learn from Maitland, "at one time extended so far into the street on the south side of the church, as to render the passage-way dangerously narrow. In 1760 the churchyard was, in consequence, levelled, and thrown open to the public. But this led to much inconvenience, and it was re-enclosed in 1802."

 

Sarah Malcolm, the murderess, was buried in the churchyard of St. Sepulchre's in 1733. This coldhearted and keen-eyed monster in human form has had her story told by us already. The parishioners seem, on this occasion, to have had no such scruples as had been exhibited by their predecessors a hundred and fifty years previous at the burial of Awfield, a traitor. We shall see presently that in those more remote days they were desirous of having at least respectable company for their deceased relatives and friends in the churchyard.

 

"For a long period," says Mr. Godwin (1838), "the church was surrounded by low mean buildings, by which its general appearance was hidden; but these having been cleared away, and the neighbourhood made considerably more open, St. Sepulchre's now forms a somewhat pleasing object, notwithstanding that the tower and a part of the porch are so entirely dissimilar in style to the remainder of the building." And since Godwin's writing the surroundings of the church have been so improved that perhaps few buildings in the metropolis stand more prominently before the public eye.

 

In the glorious roll of martyrs who have suffered at the stake for their religious principles, a vicar of St. Sepulchre's, the Reverend John Rogers, occupies a conspicuous place. He was the first who was burned in the reign of the Bloody Mary. This eminent person had at one time been chaplain to the English merchants at Antwerp, and while residing in that city had aided Tindal and Coverdale in their great work of translating the Bible. He married a German lady of good position, by whom he had a large family, and was enabled, by means of her relations, to reside in peace and safety in Germany. It appeared to be his duty, however, to return to England, and there publicly profess and advocate his religious convictions, even at the risk of death. He crossed the sea; he took his place in the pulpit at St. Paul's Cross; he preached a fearless and animated sermon, reminding his astonished audience of the pure and wholesome doctrine which had been promulgated from that pulpit in the days of the good King Edward, and solemnly warning them against the pestilent idolatry and superstition of these new times. It was his last sermon. He was apprehended, tried, condemned, and burned at Smithfield. We described, when speaking of Smithfield, the manner in which he met his fate.

 

Connected with the martyrdom of Rogers an odd circumstance is quoted in the "Churches of London." It is stated that when the bishops had resolved to put to death Joan Bocher, a friend came to Rogers and earnestly entreated his influence that the poor woman's life might be spared, and other means taken to prevent the spread of her heterodox doctrines. Rogers, however, contended that she should be executed; and his friend then begged him to choose some other kind of death, which should be more agreeable to the gentleness and mercy prescribed in the gospel. "No," replied Rogers, "burning alive is not a cruel death, but easy enough." His friend hearing these words, expressive of so little regard for the sufferings of a fellow-creature, answered him with great vehemence, at the same time striking Rogers' hand, "Well, it may perhaps so happen that you yourself shall have your hands full of this mild burning." There is no record of Rogers among the papers belonging to St. Sepulchre's, but this may easily be accounted for by the fact that at the Great Fire of 1666 nearly all the registers and archives were destroyed.

 

A noteworthy incident in the history of St. Sepulchre's was connected with the execution, in 1585, of Awfield, for "sparcinge abrood certen lewed, sedicious, and traytorous bookes." "When he was executed," says Fleetwood, the Recorder, in a letter to Lord Burleigh, July 7th of that year, "his body was brought unto St. Pulcher's to be buryed, but the parishioners would not suffer a traytor's corpse to be laid in the earth where their parents, wives, children, kindred, masters, and old neighbours did rest; and so his carcass was returned to the burial-ground near Tyburn, and there I leave it."

 

Another event in the history of the church is a tale of suicide. On the 10th of April, 1600, a man named William Dorrington threw himself from the roof of the tower, leaving there a prayer for forgiveness.

 

We come now to speak of the connection of St. Sepulchre's with the neighbouring prison of Newgate. Being the nearest church to the prison, that connection naturally was intimate. Its clock served to give the time to the hangman when there was an execution in the Old Bailey, and many a poor wretch's last moments must it have regulated.

 

On the right-hand side of the altar a board with a list of charitable donations and gifts used to contain the following item:—"1605. Mr. Robert Dowe gave, for ringing the greatest bell in this church on the day the condemned prisoners are executed, and for other services, for ever, concerning such condemned prisoners, for which services the sexton is paid £16s. 8d.—£50.

 

It was formerly the practice for the clerk or bellman of St. Sepulchre's to go under Newgate, on the night preceding the execution of a criminal, ring his bell, and repeat the following wholesome advice:—

 

"All you that in the condemned hold do lie,

Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die;

Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near

That you before the Almighty must appear;

Examine well yourselves, in time repent,

That you may not to eternal flames be sent.

And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,

The Lord above have mercy on your souls.

Past twelve o'clock!"

 

This practice is explained by a passage in Munday's edition of Stow, in which it is told that a Mr. John Dowe, citizen and merchant taylor of London, gave £50 to the parish church of St. Sepulchre's, under the following conditions:—After the several sessions of London, on the night before the execution of such as were condemned to death, the clerk of the church was to go in the night-time, and also early in the morning, to the window of the prison in which they were lying. He was there to ring "certain tolls with a hand-bell" appointed for the purpose, and was afterwards, in a most Christian manner, to put them in mind of their present condition and approaching end, and to exhort them to be prepared, as they ought to be, to die. When they were in the cart, and brought before the walls of the church, the clerk was to stand there ready with the same bell, and, after certain tolls, rehearse a prayer, desiring all the people there present to pray for the unfortunate criminals. The beadle, also, of Merchant Taylors' Hall was allowed an "honest stipend" to see that this ceremony was regularly performed.

 

The affecting admonition—"affectingly good," Pennant calls it—addressed to the prisoners in Newgate, on the night before execution, ran as follows:—

 

"You prisoners that are within,

Who, for wickedness and sin,

 

after many mercies shown you, are now appointed to die to-morrow in the forenoon; give ear and understand that, to-morrow morning, the greatest bell of St. Sepulchre's shall toll for you, in form and manner of a passing-bell, as used to be tolled for those that are at the point of death; to the end that all godly people, hearing that bell, and knowing it is for your going to your deaths, may be stirred up heartily to pray to God to bestow his grace and mercy upon you, whilst you live. I beseech you, for Jesus Christ's sake, to keep this night in watching and prayer, to the salvation of your own souls while there is yet time and place for mercy; as knowing to-morrow you must appear before the judgment-seat of your Creator, there to give an account of all things done in this life, and to suffer eternal torments for your sins committed against Him, unless, upon your hearty and unfeigned repentance, you find mercy through the merits, death, and passion of your only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return to Him."

 

And the following was the admonition to condemned criminals, as they were passing by St. Sepulchre's Church wall to execution:—" All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll.

 

"You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears; ask mercy of the Lord, for the salvation of your own souls, through the [merits, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return unto Him.

 

"Lord have mercy upon you;

Christ have mercy upon you.

Lord have mercy upon you;

Christ have mercy upon you."

 

The charitable Mr. Dowe, who took such interest in the last moments of the occupants of the condemned cell, was buried in the church of St. Botolph, Aldgate.

 

Another curious custom observed at St. Sepulchre's was the presentation of a nosegay to every criminal on his way to execution at Tyburn. No doubt the practice had its origin in some kindly feeling for the poor unfortunates who were so soon to bid farewell to all the beauties of earth. One of the last who received a nosegay from the steps of St. Sepulchre's was "Sixteen-string Jack," alias John Rann, who was hanged, in 1774, for robbing the Rev. Dr. Bell of his watch and eighteen pence in money, in Gunnersbury Lane, on the road to Brentford. Sixteen-string Jack wore the flowers in his button-hole as he rode dolefully to the gallows. This was witnessed by John Thomas Smith, who thus describes the scene in his admirable anecdotebook, "Nollekens and his Times:"—" I remember well, when I was in my eighth year, Mr. Nollekens calling at my father's house, in Great Portland Street, and taking us to Oxford Street, to see the notorious Jack Rann, commonly called Sixteenstring Jack, go to Tyburn to be hanged. … The criminal was dressed in a pea-green coat, with an immense nosegay in the button-hole, which had been presented to him at St. Sepulchre's steps; and his nankeen small-clothes, we were told, were tied at each knee with sixteen strings. After he had passed, and Mr. Nollekens was leading me home by the hand, I recollect his stooping down to me and observing, in a low tone of voice, 'Tom, now, my little man, if my father-in-law, Mr. Justice Welch, had been high constable, we could have walked by the side of the cart all the way to Tyburn.'"

 

When criminals were conveyed from Newgate to Tyburn, the cart passed up Giltspur Street, and through Smithfield, to Cow Lane. Skinner Street had not then been built, and the Crooked Lane which turned down by St. Sepulchre's, as well as Ozier Lane, did not afford sufficient width to admit of the cavalcade passing by either of them, with convenience, to Holborn Hill, or "the Heavy Hill," as it used to be called. The procession seems at no time to have had much of the solemn element about it. "The heroes of the day were often," says a popular writer, "on good terms with the mob, and jokes were exchanged between the men who were going to be hanged and the men who deserved to be."

 

"On St. Paul's Day," says Mr. Timbs (1868), "service is performed in St. Sepulchre's, in accordance with the will of Mr. Paul Jervis, who, in 1717, devised certain land in trust that a sermon should be preached in the church upon every Paul's Day upon the excellence of the liturgy o the Church of England; the preacher to receive 40s. for such sermon. Various sums are also bequeathed to the curate, the clerk, the treasurer, and masters of the parochial schools. To the poor of the parish he bequeathed 20s. a-piece to ten of the poorest householders within that part of the parish of St. Sepulchre commonly called Smithfield quarter, £4 to the treasurer of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and 6s. 8d. yearly to the clerk, who shall attend to receive the same. The residue of the yearly rents and profits is to be distributed unto and amongst such poor people of the parish of St. Sepulchre's, London, who shall attend the service and sermon. At the close of the service the vestry-clerk reads aloud an extract from the will, and then proceeds to the distribution of the money. In the evening the vicar, churchwardens, and common councilmen of the precinct dine together."

 

In 1749, a Mr. Drinkwater made a praiseworthy bequest. He left the parish of St. Sepulchre £500 to be lent in sums of £25 to industrious young tradesmen. No interest was to be charged, and the money was to be lent for four years.

 

Next to St. Sepulchre's, on Snow Hill, used to stand the famous old inn of the "Saracen's Head." It was only swept away within the last few years by the ruthless army of City improvers: a view of it in course of demolition was given on page 439. It was one of the oldest of the London inns which bore the "Saracen's Head" for a sign. One of Dick Tarlton's jests makes mention of the "Saracen's Head" without Newgate, and Stow, describing this neighbourhood, speaks particularly of "a fair large inn for receipt of travellers" that "hath to sign the 'Saracen's Head.'" The courtyard had, to the last, many of the characteristics of an old English inn; there were galleries all round leading to the bedrooms, and a spacious gateway through which the dusty mail-coaches used to rumble, the tired passengers creeping forth "thanking their stars in having escaped the highwaymen and the holes and sloughs of the road." Into that courtyard how many have come on their first arrival in London with hearts beating high with hope, some of whom have risen to be aldermen and sit in state as lord mayor, whilst others have gone the way of the idle apprentice and come to a sad end at Tyburn! It was at this inn that Nicholas Nickleby and his uncle waited upon the Yorkshire schoolmaster Squeers, of Dotheboys Hall. Mr. Dickens describes the tavern as it existed in the last days of mail-coaching, when it was a most important place for arrivals and departures in London:—

 

"Next to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield also, and the Compter and the bustle and noise of the City, and just on that particular part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastwards seriously think of falling down on purpose, and where horses in hackney cabriolets going westwards not unfrequently fall by accident, is the coach-yard of the 'Saracen's Head' inn, its portals guarded by two Saracen's heads and shoulders, which it was once the pride and glory of the choice spirits of this metropolis to pull down at night, but which have for some time remained in undisturbed tranquillity, possibly because this species of humour is now confined to St. James's parish, where doorknockers are preferred as being more portable, and bell-wires esteemed as convenient tooth-picks. Whether this be the reason or not, there they are, frowning upon you from each side of the gateway; and the inn itself, garnished with another Saracen's head, frowns upon you from the top of the yard; while from the door of the hind-boot of all the red coaches that are standing therein, there glares a small Saracen's head with a twin expression to the large Saracen's head below, so that the general appearance of the pile is of the Saracenic order."

 

To explain the use of the Saracen's head as an inn sign various reasons have been given. "When our countrymen," says Selden, "came home from fighting with the Saracens and were beaten by them, they pictured them with huge, big, terrible faces (as you still see the 'Saracen's Head' is), when in truth they were like other men. But this they did to save their own credit." Or the sign may have been adopted by those who had visited the Holy Land either as pilgrims or to fight the Saracens. Others, again, hold that it was first set up in compliment to the mother of Thomas à Becket, who was the daughter of a Saracen. However this may be, it is certain that the use of the sign in former days was very general.

 

Running past the east end of St. Sepulchre's, from Newgate into West Smithfield, is Giltspur Street, anciently called Knightriders Street. This interesting thoroughfare derives its name from the knights with their gilt spurs having been accustomed to ride this way to the jousts and tournaments which in days of old were held in Smithfield.

 

In this street was Giltspur Street Compter, a debtors' prison and house of correction appertaining to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. It stood over against St. Sepulchre's Church, and was removed hither from the east side of Wood Street, Cheapside, in 1791. At the time of its removal it was used as a place of imprisonment for debtors, but the yearly increasing demands upon the contracted space caused that department to be given up, and City debtors were sent to Whitecross Street. The architect was Dance, to whom we are also indebted for the grim pile of Newgate. The Compter was a dirty and appropriately convictlooking edifice. It was pulled down in 1855. Mr. Hepworth Dixon gave an interesting account of this City House of Correction, not long before its demolition, in his "London Prisons" (1850). "Entering," he says, "at the door facing St. Sepulchre's, the visitor suddenly finds himself in a low dark passage, leading into the offices of the gaol, and branching off into other passages, darker, closer, more replete with noxious smells, than even those of Newgate. This is the fitting prelude to what follows. The prison, it must be noticed, is divided into two principal divisions, the House of Correction and the Compter. The front in Giltspur Street, and the side nearest to Newgate Street, is called the Compter. In its wards are placed detenues of various kinds—remands, committals from the police-courts, and generally persons waiting for trial, and consequently still unconvicted. The other department, the House of Correction, occupies the back portion of the premises, abutting on Christ's Hospital. Curious it is to consider how thin a wall divides these widely-separate worlds! And sorrowful it is to think what a difference of destiny awaits the children—destiny inexorable, though often unearned in either case—who, on the one side of it or the other, receive an eleemosynary education! The collegian and the criminal! Who shall say how much mere accident— circumstances over which the child has little power —determines to a life of usefulness or mischief? From the yards of Giltspur Street prison almost the only objects visible, outside of the gaol itself, are the towers of Christ's Hospital; the only sounds audible, the shouts of the scholars at their play. The balls of the hospital boys often fall within the yards of the prison. Whether these sights and sounds ever cause the criminal to pause and reflect upon the courses of his life, we will not say, but the stranger visiting the place will be very apt to think for him. …

 

"In the department of the prison called the House of Correction, minor offenders within the City of London are imprisoned. No transports are sent hither, nor is any person whose sentence is above three years in length." This able writer then goes on to tell of the many crying evils connected with the institution—the want of air, the over-crowded state of the rooms, the absence of proper cellular accommodation, and the vicious intercourse carried on amongst the prisoners. The entire gaol, when he wrote, only contained thirty-six separate sleeping-rooms. Now by the highest prison calculation—and this, be it noted, proceeds on the assumption that three persons can sleep in small, miserable, unventilated cells, which are built for only one, and are too confined for that, being only about one-half the size of the model cell for one at Pentonville—it was only capable of accommodating 203 prisoners, yet by the returns issued at Michaelmas, 1850, it contained 246!

 

A large section of the prison used to be devoted to female delinquents, but lately it was almost entirely given up to male offenders.

 

"The House of Correction, and the Compter portion of the establishment," says Mr. Dixon, "are kept quite distinct, but it would be difficult to award the palm of empire in their respective facilities for demoralisation. We think the Compter rather the worse of the two. You are shown into a room, about the size of an apartment in an ordinary dwelling-house, which will be found crowded with from thirty to forty persons, young and old, and in their ordinary costume; the low thief in his filth and rags, and the member of the swell-mob with his bright buttons, flash finery, and false jewels. Here you notice the boy who has just been guilty of his first offence, and committed for trial, learning with a greedy mind a thousand criminal arts, and listening with the precocious instinct of guilty passions to stories and conversations the most depraved and disgusting. You regard him with a mixture of pity and loathing, for he knows that the eyes of his peers are upon him, and he stares at you with a familiar impudence, and exhibits a devil-may-care countenance, such as is only to be met with in the juvenile offender. Here, too, may be seen the young clerk, taken up on suspicion—perhaps innocent—who avoids you with a shy look of pain and uneasiness: what a hell must this prison be to him! How frightful it is to think of a person really untainted with crime, compelled to herd for ten or twenty days with these abandoned wretches!

 

"On the other, the House of Correction side of the gaol, similar rooms will be found, full of prisoners communicating with each other, laughing and shouting without hindrance. All this is so little in accordance with existing notions of prison discipline, that one is continually fancying these disgraceful scenes cannot be in the capital of England, and in the year of grace 1850. Very few of the prisoners attend school or receive any instruction; neither is any kind of employment afforded them, except oakum-picking, and the still more disgusting labour of the treadmill. When at work, an officer is in attendance to prevent disorderly conduct; but his presence is of no avail as a protection to the less depraved. Conversation still goes on; and every facility is afforded for making acquaintances, and for mutual contamination."

 

After having long been branded by intelligent inspectors as a disgrace to the metropolis, Giltspur Street Compter was condemned, closed in 1854, and subsequently taken down.

 

Nearly opposite what used to be the site of the Compter, and adjoining Cock Lane, is the spot called Pie Corner, near which terminated the Great Fire of 1666. The fire commenced at Pudding Lane, it will be remembered, so it was singularly appropriate that it should terminate at Pie Corner. Under the date of 4th September, 1666, Pepys, in his "Diary," records that "W. Hewer this day went to see how his mother did, and comes home late, telling us how he hath been forced to remove her to Islington, her house in Pye Corner being burned; so that the fire is got so far that way." The figure of a fat naked boy stands over a public house at the corner of the lane; it used to have the following warning inscription attached:— "This boy is in memory put up of the late fire of London, occasioned by the sin of gluttony, 1666." According to Stow, Pie Corner derived its name from the sign of a well-frequented hostelry, which anciently stood on the spot. Strype makes honourable mention of Pie Corner, as "noted chiefly for cooks' shops and pigs dressed there during Bartholomew Fair." Our old writers have many references—and not all, by the way, in the best taste—to its cookstalls and dressed pork. Shadwell, for instance, in the Woman Captain (1680) speaks of "meat dressed at Pie Corner by greasy scullions;" and Ben Jonson writes in the Alchemist (1612)—

 

"I shall put you in mind, sir, at Pie Corner,

Taking your meal of steam in from cooks' stalls."

 

And in "The Great Boobee" ("Roxburgh Ballads"):

 

"Next day I through Pie Corner passed;

The roast meat on the stall

Invited me to take a taste;

My money was but small."

 

But Pie Corner seems to have been noted for more than eatables. A ballad from Tom D'Urfey's "Pills to Purge Melancholy," describing Bartholomew Fair, eleven years before the Fire of London, says:—

 

"At Pie-Corner end, mark well my good friend,

'Tis a very fine dirty place;

Where there's more arrows and bows. …

Than was handled at Chivy Chase."

 

We have already given a view of Pie Corner in our chapter on Smithfield, page 361.

 

Hosier Lane, running from Cow Lane to Smithfield, and almost parallel to Cock Lane, is described by "R. B.," in Strype, as a place not over-well built or inhabited. The houses were all old timber erections. Some of these—those standing at the south corner of the lane—were in the beginning of this century depicted by Mr. J. T. Smith, in his "Ancient Topography of London." He describes them as probably of the reign of James I. The rooms were small, with low, unornamented ceilings; the timber, oak, profusely used; the gables were plain, and the walls lath and plaster. They were taken down in 1809.

 

In the corner house, in Mr. Smith's time, there was a barber whose name was Catchpole; at least, so it was written over the door. He was rather an odd fellow, and possessed, according to his own account, a famous relic of antiquity. He would gravely show his customers a short-bladed instrument, as the identical dagger with which Walworth killed Wat Tyler.

 

Hosier Lane, like Pie Corner, used to be a great resort during the time of Bartholomew Fair, "all the houses," it is said in Strype, "generally being made public for tippling."

 

We return now from our excursion to the north of St. Sepulchre's, and continue our rambles to the west, and before speaking of what is, let us refer to what has been.

 

Turnagain Lane is not far from this. "Near unto this Seacoal Lane," remarks Stow, "in the turning towards Holborn Conduit, is Turnagain Lane, or rather, as in a record of the 5th of Edward III., Windagain Lane, for that it goeth down west to Fleet Dyke, from whence men must turn again the same way they came, but there it stopped." There used to be a proverb, "He must take him a house in Turnagain Lane."

 

A conduit formerly stood on Snow Hill, a little below the church. It is described as a building with four equal sides, ornamented with four columns and pediment, surmounted by a pyramid, on which stood a lamb—a rebus on the name of Lamb, from whose conduit in Red Lion Street the water came. There had been a conduit there, however, before Lamb's day, which was towards the close of the sixteenth century.

 

At No. 37, King Street, Snow Hill, there used to be a ladies' charity school, which was established in 1702, and remained in the parish 145 years. Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale were subscribers to this school, and Johnson drew from it his story of Betty Broom, in "The Idler." The world of domestic service, in Betty's days, seems to have been pretty much as now. Betty was a poor girl, bred in the country at a charity-school, maintained by the contributions of wealthy neighbours. The patronesses visited the school from time to time, to see how the pupils got on, and everything went well, till "at last, the chief of the subscribers having passed a winter in London, came down full of an opinion new and strange to the whole country. She held it little less than criminal to teach poor girls to read and write. They who are born to poverty, she said, are born to ignorance, and will work the harder the less they know. She told her friends that London was in confusion by the insolence of servants; that scarcely a girl could be got for all-work, since education had made such numbers of fine ladies, that nobody would now accept a lower title than that of a waiting-maid, or something that might qualify her to wear laced shoes and long ruffles, and to sit at work in the parlour window. But she was resolved, for her part, to spoil no more girls. Those who were to live by their hands should neither read nor write out of her pocket. The world was bad enough already, and she would have no part in making it worse.

 

"She was for a long time warmly opposed; but she persevered in her notions, and withdrew her subscription. Few listen, without a desire of conviction, to those who advise them to spare their money. Her example and her arguments gained ground daily; and in less than a year the whole parish was convinced that the nation would be ruined if the children of the poor were taught to read and write." So the school was dissolved, and Betty with the rest was turned adrift into the wide and cold world; and her adventures there any one may read in "The Idler" for himself.

 

There is an entry in the school minutes of 1763, to the effect that the ladies of the committee censured the schoolmistress for listening to the story of the Cock Lane ghost, and "desired her to keep her belief in the article to herself."

 

Skinner Street—now one of the names of the past—which ran by the south side of St. Sepulchre's, and formed the connecting link between Newgate Street and Holborn, received its name from Alderman Skinner, through whose exertions, about 1802, it was principally built. The following account of Skinner Street is from the picturesque pen of Mr. William Harvey ("Aleph"), whose long familiarity with the places he describes renders doubly valuable his many contributions to the history of London scenes and people:—"As a building speculation," he says, writing in 1863, "it was a failure. When the buildings were ready for occupation, tall and substantial as they really were, the high rents frightened intending shopkeepers. Tenants were not to be had; and in order to get over the money difficulty, a lottery, sanctioned by Parliament, was commenced. Lotteries were then common tricks of finance, and nobody wondered at the new venture; but even the most desperate fortune-hunters were slow to invest their capital, and the tickets hung sadly on hand. The day for the drawing was postponed several times, and when it came, there was little or no excitement on the subject, and whoever rejoiced in becoming a house-owner on such easy terms, the original projectors and builders were understood to have suffered considerably. The winners found the property in a very unfinished condition. Few of the dwellings were habitable, and as funds were often wanting, a majority of the houses remained empty, and the shops unopened. After two or three years things began to improve; the vast many-storeyed house which then covered the site of Commercial Place was converted into a warehousing depôt; a capital house opposite the 'Saracen's Head' was taken by a hosier of the name of Theobald, who, opening his shop with the determination of selling the best hosiery, and nothing else, was able to convince the citizens that his hose was first-rate, and, desiring only a living profit, succeeded, after thirty years of unwearied industry, in accumulating a large fortune. Theobald was possessed of literary tastes, and at the sale of Sir Walter Scott's manuscripts was a liberal purchaser. He also collected a library of exceedingly choice books, and when aristocratic customers purchased stockings of him, was soon able to interest them in matters of far higher interest…

 

"The most remarkable shop—but it was on the left-hand side, at a corner house—was that established for the sale of children's books. It boasted an immense extent of window-front, extending from the entrance into Snow Hill, and towards Fleet Market. Many a time have I lingered with loving eyes over those fascinating story-books, so rich in gaily-coloured prints; such careful editions of the marvellous old histories, 'Puss in Boots,' 'Cock Robin,' 'Cinderella,' and the like. Fortunately the front was kept low, so as exactly to suit the capacity of a childish admirer. . . . . But Skinner Street did not prosper much, and never could compete with even the dullest portions of Holborn. I have spoken of some reputable shops; but you know the proverb, 'One swallow will not make a summer,' and it was a declining neighbourhood almost before it could be called new. In 1810 the commercial depôt, which had been erected at a cost of £25,000, and was the chief prize in the lottery, was destroyed by fire, never to be rebuilt—a heavy blow and discouragement to Skinner Street, from which it never rallied. Perhaps the periodical hanging-days exercised an unfavourable influence, collecting, as they frequently did, all the thieves and vagabonds of London. I never sympathised with Pepys or Charles Fox in their passion for public executions, and made it a point to avoid those ghastly sights; but early of a Monday morning, when I had just reached the end of Giltspur Street, a miserable wretch had just been turned off from the platform of the debtors' door, and I was made the unwilling witness of his last struggles. That scene haunted me for months, and I often used to ask myself, 'Who that could help it would live in Skinner Street?' The next unpropitious event in these parts was the unexpected closing of the child's library. What could it mean? Such a well-to-do establishment shut up? Yes, the whole army of shutters looked blankly on the inquirer, and forbade even a single glance at 'Sinbad' or 'Robinson Crusoe.' It would soon be re-opened, we naturally thought; but the shutters never came down again. The whole house was deserted; not even a messenger in bankruptcy, or an ancient Charley, was found to regard the playful double knocks of the neighbouring juveniles. Gradually the glass of all the windows got broken in, a heavy cloud of black dust, solidifying into inches thick, gathered on sills and doors and brickwork, till the whole frontage grew as gloomy as Giant Despair's Castle. Not long after, the adjoining houses shared the same fate, and they remained from year to year without the slightest sign of life—absolute scarecrows, darkening with their uncomfortable shadows the busy streets. Within half a mile, in Stamford Street, Blackfriars, there are (1863) seven houses in a similar predicament— window-glass demolished, doors cracked from top to bottom, spiders' webs hanging from every projecting sill or parapet. What can it mean? The loss in the article of rents alone must be over £1,000 annually. If the real owners are at feud with imaginary owners, surely the property might be rendered valuable, and the proceeds invested. Even the lawyers can derive no profit from such hopeless abandonment. I am told the whole mischief arose out of a Chancery suit. Can it be the famous 'Jarndyce v. Jarndyce' case? And have all the heirs starved each other out? If so, what hinders our lady the Queen from taking possession? Any change would be an improvement, for these dead houses make the streets they cumber as dispiriting and comfortless as graveyards. Busy fancy will sometimes people them, and fill the dreary rooms with strange guests. Do the victims of guilt congregate in these dark dens? Do wretches 'unfriended by the world or the world's law,' seek refuge in these deserted nooks, mourning in the silence of despair over their former lives, and anticipating the future in unappeasable agony? Such things have been—the silence and desolation of these doomed dwellings make them the more suitable for such tenants."

 

A street is nothing without a mystery, so a mystery let these old tumble-down houses remain, whilst we go on to tell that, in front of No. 58, the sailor Cashman was hung in 1817, as we have already mentioned, for plundering a gunsmith's shop there. William Godwin, the author of "Caleb Williams," kept a bookseller's shop for several years in Skinner Street, at No. 41, and published school-books in the name of Edward Baldwin. On the wall there was a stone carving of Æsop reciting one of his fables to children.

 

The most noteworthy event of the life of Godwin was his marriage with the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, authoress of a "Vindication of the Rights of Women," whose congenial mind, in politics and morals, he ardently admired. Godwin's account of the way in which they got on together is worth reading:—"Ours," he writes, "was not an idle happiness, a paradise of selfish and transitory pleasures. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to mention, that influenced by ideas I had long entertained, I engaged an apartment about twenty doors from our house, in the Polygon, Somers Town, which I designed for the purpose of my study and literary occupations. Trifles, however, will be interesting to some readers, when they relate to the last period of the life of such a person as Mary. I will add, therefore, that we were both of us of opinion, that it was possible for two persons to be too uniformly in each other's society. Influenced by that opinion, it was my practice to repair to the apartment I have mentioned as soon as I rose, and frequently not to make my appearance in the Polygon till the hour of dinner. We agreed in condemning the notion, prevalent in many situations in life, that a man and his wife cannot visit in mixed society but in company with each other, and we rather sought occasions of deviating from than of complying with this rule. By this means, though, for the most part, we spent the latter half of each day in one another's society, yet we were in no danger of satiety. We seemed to combine, in a considerable degree, the novelty and lively sensation of a visit with the more delicious and heartfelt pleasure of a domestic life."

 

This philosophic union, to Godwin's inexpressible affliction, did not last more than eighteen months, at the end of which time Mrs. Godwin died, leaving an only daughter, who in the course of time became the second wife of the poet Shelley, and was the author of the wild and extraordinary tale of "Frankenstein."

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45116

I was asked a few weeks back, if I fancied meeting up with friends, Simon and Cam for a few bears and a crawl round Ipswich.

 

Seemed a great idea, but checking Network Rain this week, I found that there were replacement buses out of Liverpool Street to Whitham and out of Cambridge. The first added an hour to the trip to Ipswich, the second, 90 minutes.

 

Jools said she would enjoy a trip out and a walk around Manningtree, so we could go in the car, I would drive up, she would drive back, and we would both have some exercise and I would meet friends.

 

Perfect.

 

Although we had planned to go to Tesco first, in the end we had breakfast and set off at half seven, eager to get some miles under our belts before traffic really built at Dartford.

 

Up the A2 in bright sunshine, it was a great day for travel, but also I thought it might have been good for checking out orchid woods back home. But a change is always good, and it has been nearly 9 years since Simon invited me for a tour round historic Ipswich, showing there was almost as much history there than in Norwich to the north.

 

Into Essex before nine, and arriving in Ipswich before ten, we decided to find somewhere for breakfast first before going our separate ways.

 

A large breakfast later, we split up, and I went to wander north to St Margaret's church, which I had been into on that trip 9 years back, but my shots not so good.

 

I found many interesting places in-between the modern buildings and urban sprawl, timber framed houses, Tudor brick and much more beside.

 

Sadly, St Margaret was locked. I could see the notice on the porch door, so I didn't go up to see what it said.

 

I wandered back, found St Mary le Tower open, so went in and took over a hundred shots, soaking in the fine Victorian glass and carved bench ends, even if they were 19th century and not older.

 

In the south chapel, a group were talking quietly, so I tried not to disturb them, only realising how loud the shutter on the camera was.

 

The font took my eye first, as it is a well preserved one from the 15th century. Though these are common in East Anglia, not so in deepest Kent, so I snapped it from all directions, recording each mark of the carver's tools.

 

The clocked ticked round to midday, and so I made my way to the quayside where I was to meet my friends.

 

Simon lives in Ipswich, but Cam and David had come down on the train from the Fine City. We met at the Briarbank Brewery Tap where I had a couple of mocha porters, which were very nice indeed.

 

From there we went to the Dove where we had two more beers as well as lunch.

 

And finally a walk to The Spread Eagle for one final beer before I walked back to Portman Road to meet Jools at the car.

 

Jools drove us back to the A12, and pointed the car south. As we drove, dusk fell and rain began to fall. Not very pleasant. But at least traffic was light, so in an hour we were on the M25 and twenty minutes later over the river and back in Kent.

 

Rain fell steadily as we cruised down the M20, past the familiar landmarks until we were back in Dover. Where we had to make a pit stop at M and S, as we needed supplies, and something for supper.

 

Not sure that garlic bread and wine counts as a meal, but did for us, so at half nine, we climbed the hill to bed.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

Ipswich is the county town of Suffolk, and is also probably the longest continuously occupied town in England. Here on the River Gipping, in the south of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia, a number of 7th Century industrial villages grew together, and since then Ipswich has always been an industrial and commercial town, processing the produce of the land round about, and exporting it up the River Orwell to other parts of England and the continent. It was wealthy in the late medieval period, but it suffered from being cut off from its European markets by the outfall from the Reformation. A strongly puritan town in the 17th Century, a quiet backwater in the 18th Century, it was not until the Industrial Revolution that it rose to commercial prominence again, with heavy industry producing agricultural machinery, vehicles and other ironwork. It would continue to be important industrially until the 1980s, but then most of the factories closed, and the town has not yet recovered.

The townscape is punctuated by church towers and spires, for Ipswich has twelve surviving medieval churches. Remarkably, six of them are still in use, and of these St Mary le Tower is the biggest and most prominent. Its spire rises sixty metres above the rooftops, making it the second tallest building in the town after the Mill apartment block on the Waterfront. There was a church here in 1200, when the Borough of Ipswich came into being in the churchyard by the declaration of the granting of a charter. The medieval church had a spire until it came down in the hurricane of 1661. When the Diocese of Norwich oversaw the restoration of the church in the mid-19th Century the decision was taken for a complete rebuild in stone on the same site. It is almost entirely the work of diocesan surveyor Richard Phipson, who worked on it over a period of twenty years in the 1850s and 1860s, including replacing the spire, and so this is East Anglia's urban Victorian church par excellence. The rebuilding was bankrolled by the wealthy local Bacon banking family. It is a large church, built more or less on the plan of its predecessor, full of the spirit of its age. One could no more imagine Ipswich without the Tower than without the Orwell Bridge.

 

The length of the church splits the churchyard into two quite separate parts, the south side a public space, the walled north side atmospheric and secretive. The large cross to the south-west of the tower is not a war memorial. It remembers John Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia, murdered by some of his flock in the 1870s. Treated as a martyr by the press of the day, Patteson appears to have had no local connection, but the Pattesons had intermarried with the Cobbolds, an important local family, and Patteson Road by Ipswich docks also remembers him. There never was a north door, and the west doors are beautiful and liturgically correct but perhaps not useful, since they are below street level and the path merely leads round to the south, allowing processions but no access from Tower Street. The flushwork is exuberant, and makes you think that being a flint-knapper must have been a good living in the 1860s. As with the medieval predecessor, the entrance is through the tower which forms a porch on the south side, in common with about thirty other East Anglian churches. Until the 1860s there was a further castellated porch on the south side of the tower, something in the style of the Hadleigh Deanery tower, but this was removed. You can see it in as photograph at the top of this page. And looking at this photograph, it is hard not to think that Phipson retained at least part of the lower stage of the tower.

 

There is a small statue of the church's patron saint in the niche above the entrance, by the sculptor Richard Pfeiffer. Away to the east, the same sculptor produced St John the Evangelist and St Mary of Magdala on the end of the chancel, and there is more of his work inside. You step into the tower porch under vaulting. A small door in the north-east corner leads up into the ringing chamber and beyond that the belfry, with a ring of twelve bells. The south doorway into the church has stops representing the Annunciation, with the angel to the west, and Mary at her prayer desk to the east. As part of a Millennium project this doorway was painted and gilded. It leads through into the south aisle, beyond which the wide nave seems to swallow all sound, a powerful transition from the outside. Polished wood and tile gleam under coloured light from large windows filled with 19th Century glass. At one time the walls were stencilled, but this was removed in the 1960s. The former church was dark and serious inside, as a drawing in the north aisle shows, so it must have made quite a contrast when the townspeople first entered their new church.

 

The font by the doorway is the first of a number of significant survivals from the old church. It's one of the 15th Century East Anglian series of which several hundred survive, all slightly different. It is in good condition, and you can't help thinking that this is ironically because Ipswich was a town which embraced protestantism whole-heartedly after the Reformation, and it is likely that the font was plastered over in the mid-16th Century to make it plain and simple. The lions around the pillar stand on human heads, and there are more heads beneath the bowl. The next survival that comes into view is the pair of 15th Century benches at the west end of the nave. The bench ends are clerics holding books, and above them memorable finials depicting two lions, a dragon and what might be a cat or a dog.

  

The box pews were removed as part of Phipson's restoration and replaced with high quality benches. The front row are the Borough Corporation seats, a mace rest and a sword rest in front of them. The carvings on the ends of the benches are seahorses, the creatures that hold the shield on the Ipswich Borough arms, and on the finials in front are lions holding ships, the crest of the Borough. As you might expect in Ipswich these are by Henry Ringham, whose church carving was always of a high quality, and is perhaps best known at Woolpit and Combs. His workshop on St John's Road employed fifty people at the time of the 1861 census, but by the following year he was bankrupt, and so the work here is likely some of the last that he produced. He died in 1866, and Ringham Road in East Ipswich remembers him.

 

Moving into the chancel, the other major survival is a collection of late 15th and early 16th Century brasses. Altogether there are ten large figures, but in fact some of them represent the same person more than once. The most memorable is probably that of Alys Baldry, who died in 1507. She lies between her two husbands. The first, Robert Wimbill, is on the right. He died in about 1477. He was a notary, and his ink pot and pen case hang from his belt. Her second husband, Thomas Baldry, is on the left. He died in 1525. He was a merchant, and his merchant mark is set beneath his feet next to Alys's five daughters and four sons.

 

Alys Baldry, Robert Wimbill and Thomas Baldry are all depicted in further brasses here. The best of these is that to Robert. It was commissioned by his will in the 1470s. He lies on his own with a Latin inscription which translates as 'My hope lies in my heart. Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on me.' His ink pot and pen case hang from his belt again, and between his feet are a skull and scattered bones, an early memento mori. Thomas Baldry's own brass memorial shows him lying between his two wives, Alys who we have already met, and his second wife Christian. The other group of three figures depicts Thomas Drayll, a merchant, with his wives Margaret and Agnes. Thomas died in 1512. The arms of the Cinque Ports are set above him, and a large merchant mark is beneath his feet. Several inscriptions are missing, and we know that when the iconoclast William Dowsing visited the church on 29th Janary 1644 he ordered the removal of six brass inscriptions with Ora pro nobis ('pray for us') and Ora pro animabus ('pray for our souls'), and Cujus animae propitietur deus ('on whose soul may God have mercy') and pray for the soul in English.

 

The spectacular sanctuary with its imposing reredos, piscina and sedilia was clearly designed for shadowy, incense-led worship. A lush Arts and Crafts crucifixion surmounts the altar. East Anglian saints flank the walls. James Bettley, revising the Buildings of England volume for East Suffolk, records that it was the work of Somers, Clarke & Micklethwaite in the 1880s. The chancel is only lit from the east window, emphasising the focus from the rest of the church. The set of twelve apostles and twelve angels on the choir stalls are also by Pfeiffer. You can see his signature on the back of St Luke's icon of the Blessed Virgin. This sanctuary is the ultimate expression of late 19th Century Tractarianism in Suffolk. Back in the nave, the early 18th Century pulpit speaks of a different liturgical age, when this church was a preaching house rather than a sacramental space. James Bettley credits its carving to James Hubbard, and notes its similarity to that in the Unitarian Meeting House a few hundred yards off. The 19th Century screen that stood in the chancel arch and separated these two liturgical ages was moved to the east end of the north aisle as an organ screen some time in the 20th Century.

 

Another screen separates off the Lady Chapel from the south aisle and the chancel. The chapel is a pleasing period piece, furnished sentimentally. The reredos, by Arthur Wallace in 1907, depicts the Supper at Emmaus flanked by Moses and Elijah in an echo of the Transfiguration. The early 20th Century paintings on the south wall are lovely, especially the infant Christ as he plays at the feet of St Joseph. But the overwhelming atmosphere of this church comes from its extensive range of 19th Century glass, the largest collection in Suffolk. It provides a catalogue of some of the major 19th Century workshops over a fairly short period, from the 1850s to the 1880s. Much of it is by Clayton & Bell, who probably received the commission for east and west windows and south aisle as part of Phipson's rebuilding contract. Other major workshops include those of William Wailes, the O'Connors and Lavers, Barraud & Westlake. A small amount of 1840s glass in the north aisle was reset here from the previous church. There are photographs of the glass at the bottom of this page.

 

As was common in major 19th Century restorations, the memorials that once flanked the walls were collected together and reset at the west end of the nave. At St Mary le Tower this was a major task, for there are a lot of them. The most famous is that to William Smart, MP for Ipswich in the late 16th Century. It is painted on boards. His inscription is a long acrostic, and he kneels at the bottom opposite his wife. between them is a panoramic view of the Ipswich townscape as it was in 1599, the year that he died, a remarkable snapshot of the past. Other memorials include those of the 17th Century when Ipswich was the heartland of firebrand protestant East Anglia. Matthew Lawrence, who died in 1653, was the publike preacher of this towne. There are more memorials in the north chancel aisle, now divided up as vestries. The best of these is to John and Elizabeth Robinson. He died in 1666. They kneel at their prayer desks, and below them are their children Thomas, John, Mary and Elizabeth, who all predeceased their mother. Also here are memorials to a number of the Cobbold family, who were not only important locally but even provided ministers for this church.

 

There are more Cobbold memorials in the nave, including one in glass at the west end of the north aisle. It is dedicated to Lucy Chevallier Cobbold, and depicts her with her daughter at the Presentation in the Temple. The Cobbold family embraced Tractarianism wholeheartedly, being largely responsible for the building of St Bartholomew near their home at Holywells Park. They probably had an influence over the Bacon family, whose wealth went towards the rebuilding, and whose symbol of a boar can be seen in the floor tiles. A good set of Stuart royal arms hangs above the west doorway.

 

I can't imagine what the 17th Century parishioners would make of this church if they could come back and see it now. Trevor Cooper, in his edition of The Journals of William Dowsing, recalls that the atmosphere in the town was so strongly puritan that in the 1630s the churchwardens were excommunicated for refusing to carry out the sacramentalist reforms of Archbishop Laud. The reforms demanded that the altar be returned to the chancel and railed in, but this was considered idolatrous by the parishioners. When the visitation commissioners of the Bishop of Norwich came to the church in April 1636 to see if the commands had been carried out, the churchwardens refused to give up the keys... verbally assaulting them and and confronting them with 'musketts charged, swords, staves and other weapons'.

 

Frank Grace, in his 'Schismaticall and Factious Humours': Opposition in Ipswich to Laudian Church Government, records a number of other incidents both here and in other Ipswich churches in the late 1630s, including an attack on 'a conformable minister' (that is to say one faithful to the Bishop) by a mob as well as a stranger who was invited by the town bailiffs to preach a very factious and seditious sermon in Tower church to a large congregation against the authority of the incumbent, who no doubt was held at bay while the ranting went on. As with all the Ipswich churches, the iconoclast William Dowsing was welcomed with open arms by the churchwardens here on his visit of January 1644. Looking around at Phipson's sacramental glory, it is hard to imagine now.

  

Simon Knott, December 2022

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/stmaryletower.htm

Quick Facts:

Foundation stone laid: Wednesday 10 February 1862

Building Details: A stone foundation. with a brick structure 8.8m by 5.8m (29 by 19 feet).

total cost: £265. Which can only be approximated from 1901 £ until today, which gives a figure of $45,651.02

 

The Yass Courier (NSW : 1857 - 1929) | Sat 8 Feb | 1862 | Page 2 | LOCAL AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.

 

NEW WESLEYAN CHAPEL, MUNDANOON.

 

Last Thursday was the day chosen for the interesting ceremony of laying the foundation stone of a new Wesleyan chapel at Mundoonan. The attendance of spectators numbered nearly one hundred persons, and comprised visitors from Gunning, Jerrawa, Yass, and the district around Mundoonan. The Rev. Mr. Gaud, of Yass, and the Rev. Mr. Skews, of Gunning, were also present. Mundoonan has for several years been occupied as a preaching station by the Wesley an body, and so many as ten or twelve years ago, Mr. Thomas Brown, of Jerrawa, regularly visited the locality for the purpose of conducting divine service. The Rev. Mr. Schofield, the late Rev. Mr. Hurst, Mr. Gale (now of Queanbeyan), the Rev. Mr. Creed, and the present respected minister at Yass (Mr. Gaud.) have each statedly preached at Mundoonan, and the ceremony of Thursday was one of the first steps towards replacing the present slab building by a substantial brick and stone edifice. The site of the church is

on an acre of ground, given for the purpose by Mr. Robert Wiggins, of Spruce-mount, and is in close proximity to that gentleman's dwelling. The building will have a stone foundation, the remainder being constructed of brick; it will measure nineteen feet by twenty-nine feet. The contract price for the erection of the

chapel is, we believe, about £265, the greater portion of which sum, we are informed, has already been subscribed. The fitting-up of the interior will have to

be completed at a cost over that stated. The contractor for the building is Mr. W. Kinnear, of Yass, and it is expected that the chapel will be ready for occupation within the next three months.

 

About two o'clock the spectators gathered around the site of the new chapel, and the hymn, "Great is the Lord," &c., having been sung, the Rev. Mr. Gaud read the xxix. chap. I. Chronicles. The Rev. Mr. Skews then offered up a fervent prayer to the Almighty to bless the proceedings of that day, and to grant that the place of worship about to be erected might be the means of saving many souls.

 

The Rev. Mr. Gaud intimated that it had been decided that the foundation stone should be laid by their old friend, Mr. Thomas Brown, of Jerrawa, who had kindly consented to do so.

 

By some oversight, although there was a cavity in the stone for containing the usual documents, none had been prepared, and consequently the space was filled up

with mortar.

 

Mr. Thomas Brown expressed his sense of the honour conferred upon him. His desire had been that one of their friends resident at Mundoonan should have laid the foundation stone. He trusted God would be pleased to permit him to see the building completed ; and it afforded him great satisfaction to be privileged to lay

the foundation stone of the first substantial building for church purposes in that locality. He was also thankful that the efforts made to procure a suitable

Wesleyan chapel at Mundoonan were about to be consummated by the erection of a suitable building. Mr. Brown then cast off his coat, remarking that "when a man was going to work, he should always take his coat off." (Laughter.) Having spread the mortar, and adjusted the stone, Mr. Brown said — "I lay the foundation stone of this Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." He then, examining his work minutely, turned towards the spectators, and remarked — "I think that will do very well; what do you think?" (Laughter.) As a good deal of delay had occurred before the proceedings commenced, and as several other opportunites would be afforded him in the course of the day, he would not occupy their time, by making any further remarks.

 

The Rev. Mr. Gaud premised by stating that his address would be as brief as possible, for reasons similar to those stated by the previous speaker. The circumstance which had brought them together was a solemn and sacred one; and it was with no common degree of pleasure that he had witnessed the laying of the foundation stone of a new Wesleyan chapel at Mundoonan — a building intended for the worship of Almighty God. The satisfaction he felt was different from that with which he should witness the laying of the foundation-stone of a building to be devoted to sciemce and learning — of a hall of commerce, or any similar structure, valuable as such erections are in every Christian country. The foundation stone laid that day was that of a building to be devoted to higher and far more important purposes, and was one of those ceremonies in which every Christian heart rejoiced. There might be some present who knew but very little of the plans, objects, and principles of Wesleyan Methodism. It was not intended that anything of a new or novel character should be preached or inculcated in the chapel when completed; if he thought .there was anytliing new in their religion he would have nothing to do with it, as he held there was nothing new in religion. There might be many things that were new discovered in science or art, hut these were man's inventions, and, consequently, were open to new liglit being thrown upon them by man; but their religion must be like its divine author — "the same to-day, yesterday, and for ever." It was this religion they desired to spread. At the

commencement of Wesleyan Methodism, about 140 years ago, this true and acceptable religion was but little known in their fatherland — the spirit of Christianity was, at that time, very low and very languid. Concurrent history proved that Great Britain, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, was in a very awful state as respected religion. And Mr. Wesley, Mr. Whitfield, and their associates saw this, and their love of Christ constrained them to go out and seek to save the perishing souls of men. The reverend gentleman briefly narrated some of the difficulties encountered by the founders of Methodism, ad the benefits the system was calculated to confer, and concluded by invoking the blessing of the Almighty on the work in which they had been engaged that day.

 

About three o'clock all those persons who had attended the preceding ceremony, sat down to an excellent and most abundant luncheon, which was provided by residents of the district, and was creditable to their hospitality.

 

At half-past four a public meeting was held, at which addresses were delivered by several gentlemen present; and, at a later -hour in the evening, a tea meeting

took place. The collections, throughout the day in aid of the building fund amounted, to over £24.

 

Image Description from historic lecture booklet: "When the Temple was built, the summit of Mount Moriah was found not large enough for the building and its courts. The architects adopted the plan of building out the platform and resting it upon great walls reared up form the side of the mountain. we can descend by a series of steps into theses wast substructures which are underneath the open court south of the Dome of the Rock. There are thirteen of these great vaults, including an area of 273 feet from east to wast, and nearly 300 feet from north to south. They are called "Solomon's Stables" from a tradition of their use in ancient times. On the lower courses of the pillars a smooth band or drafting may be noticed. This is characteristic of very ancient work, and may indicate that the foundations of these structures were laid by the Tyrian builders of Solomon's Temple. As we look upward to these arched roofs. let us remember that above them is the platform of the Temple area."

 

Original Collection: Visual Instruction Department Lantern Slides

 

Item Number: P217:set 013 031

 

You can find this image by searching for the item number by clicking here.

 

Want more? You can find more digital resources online.

 

We're happy for you to share this digital image within the spirit of The Commons; however, certain restrictions on high quality reproductions of the original physical version may apply. To read more about what “no known restrictions” means, please visit the Special Collections & Archives website, or contact staff at the OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center for details.

 

St Peter and St Paul, East Harling, Norfolk

 

XV: Assumption of the Blessed Virgin: Mary is assumed bodily into heaven (15th Century).

  

With its aisles, clerestory, porch and chancel, St Peter and St Paul is a textbook example of its century, although there are a number of curiosities that add even more interest. The vestry on the north side of the chancel, for example, which was once a shrine chapel, retains its image niche on its eastern face. And there are more image niches, these with elaborate foliage pedestals, in the buttresses of the tower; everything is topped off by a lead and timber fleche which was apparently the model for the one at St Peter Mancroft in Norwich, a church which has several features in common with this one.

 

The tower is a delight, the buttressing and pinnacles exactly in proportion to make it appear to rise like a fairy castle from the ground. The south porch, by contrast, is, despite its flushwork, rather austere, a result of its rebuilding early in the 19th century before the ecclesiological movement took hold. All in all, this is as good as 15th century rebuilding gets, the money coming thanks to Anne Harling having no less than three husbands who all wanted to spend as little time in purgatory as possible.

 

You step down into a wide space which, on a dull day, can be rather gloomy. Although inevitably heavily restored by the Victorians, St Peter and St Paul does not have that depressingly anonymous urban feel you so often find in churches of this size. This is partly because the beautiful parclose screen in the south aisle partitions off so much space, creating a sense of rooms within rooms, altering the way your eyes are inevitably drawn to the east. The rood screen must have been vast here; its dado survives at the west end, a deeply traceried affair with its features presented in carving rather than painting.

 

When the rood screen was in its proper place, to move from the nave into the chancel must have been like stepping from darkness into light. This is because of the feature that makes East Harling famous, the vast east window with its 15th century glass. After St Peter Mancroft it is the best collection in Norfolk. Unusually, the provenance of the glass is fairly well-documented: we can be fairly certain that it came from this church originally. Still present after the Reformation, it was removed by the Harling family to the Hall in the early 17th century. They may have been Laudians wanting to preserve it from the intentions of the puritans, or merely thought it would look nice in their dining hall; whatever, we know that shortly before Francis Blomefield visited here in the 1730s it was returned to the church and set in its present configuration.

 

In 1939, when war threatened, it was removed again, being reset just before Cautley visited in the early 1950s. There are parts of at least three sequences here, two of which were almost certainly in the east window originally, and one which almost certainly wasn't.

 

Essentially, the window contains two rosary sequences; the Joyful Mysteries of the Blessed Virgin, which include the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Assumption, and the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Blessed Virgin, which include the Crucifixion and the Deposition. However, this is open to interpretation, as we shall see. There is also the figure of St Mary Magdalene, which may once have been associated with a nave altar, and would have been located in a window there.

 

The five lights contain four rows of panels, making twenty altogether.

 

Top row:

I. Annunciation: Mary at her prayer desk. Gabriel, crowned and haloed, with a sceptre of lilies, kneels in supplication.

II. Visitation: Elizabeth, hooded to show her age, places her hand on Mary's pregnant belly.

III. Nativity: Two midwives look on. The infant in the manger is rayed; a horned cow gazes in awe.

IV. Adoration of the Shepherds: One holds a lamb, one plays pipes. A third appears to offer a fleece.

V. Adoration of the Magi: Two of the wise men gauge each others' reactions as the third offers his gift.

 

Second row:

VI: collection of fragments.

VII: Presentation in the Temple: Joseph carries the doves, Mary offers the child to Simeon. Anna is not shown.

VIII: The Finding in the Temple: Head covered, Mary bursts in among the men to find her son teaching.

IX: The Wedding at Canaa: Christ, seated at the top table, blesses a chicken and a ham. Mary directs the servant.

X: collection of fragments.

 

Third row:

XI: Mary of Magdala: Mary holds her long hair ready to anoint Christ's feet. Probably not from this window originally.

XII: The Betrayal at Gethsemane: Judas kisses Christ; Peter cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant.

XIII: Crucifixion: Mary swoons in John's arms.

XIV: Deposition from the cross: The pieta. Tears spring from Mary's eyes.

XV: Assumption of the Blessed Virgin: Mary is assumed bodily into heaven.

 

Bottom row:

XVI: Donor: Probably Robert Wingfield, second husband of Anne Harling.

XVII: Resurrection: Christ steps fully clothed from the tomb. Unusually, the soldiers are awake.

XVIII: Ascension of Christ: Mary, surrounded by disciples, watches as her son ascends to heaven.

XIX: Descent of the Holy Spirit: Mary, surrounded by disciples, receives the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

XX: Donor: Probably William Chamberlain, first husband of Anne Harling.

 

Nowadays, we tend to think of the rosary as consisting of three sequences of five mysteries each, but in the late middle ages things were much more flexible, and rosary sequences often consisted of seven mysteries. The Glorious Mysteries sequence, of which the Assumption is now a part, is a later development, and the two adorations shown here are subsumed into a single mystery. There are a couple of images here that don't quite fit; the Wedding at Canaa is obviously a Marian text, and yet is not traditionally a rosary subject. Similarly the Betrayal, the only one of the images not to feature Mary. I wonder if what we have here are parts of two separate sequences, a Marian sequence of mysteries (I-V, VII-IX, XV), and a Passion sequence (XII-XIV, XVII-XIX). They are both clearly the work of the same workshop, and Mary is always shown with the same face and dress, but this would not preclude them from being two sequences.

 

Why were they here at all? We need to get away from thinking of such things as a 'poor man's bible', the need for which was superseded at the Reformation. These were devotional objects, designed to be used as meditations while praying and saying the rosary. They were created in the 15th century, a time when the mind of the Church was fiercely concentrated on asserting orthodox Catholic doctrine in the face of local superstitions and abuses. As such, they were anathema to the reformers, and were later elsewhere destroyed for being superstitious, not for being superfluous. An 18th century antiquarian mind, ignorant of the nature of Catholic devotion, might easily mix the two sequences into historical order, and possibly misunderstand the Assumption (obviously, as Mary reappears two images on at the Ascension, it is out of order). I wonder what they thought it was?

 

A couple of other things about the east window that you shouldn't miss. Firstly, everywhere you look there are tiny baskets - Mortlock calls them 'frails', and tells us that they were simple rush baskets used by workmen to carry tools. Also, though not in such profusion, there are bodices. These symbols are repeated elsewhere in the church in stone on tombs, and as such must be symbols of the Harling family.

 

Another symbol is high up on the north side, a red squirrel. Curiously, this also appears in the painting A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling by Hans Holbein, now thought to be a portrait of Anne Lovell - the squirrel is a symbol of the Lovell family, who took over the local manor here from the Harlings in the 16th century, and the starling represents Ea- well, you guess.

 

In July 2006, Chris Harrison and I came across

some more glass from East Harling in the Norfolk County Archaeologist Service archive at Gressenhall. It was probably removed from the church for safety in 1939, and then not replaced, possibly ending up at the museum of church art in Norwich at St Peter Hungate, disappearing into storage when that closed in 1993. It depicts a Bishop and Christ seated in Majesty, and the lozenges in between carry the telltale frails and bodices familiar from other glass within the church.

 

Within the screen is a large chapel, containing two major tombs. One is in alabaster, an early 17th century memorial to Sir Thomas and Lady Alice Lovell (remember the squirrel?) who died in 1604. The piece is good - too good, its 1950s restoration gives it a Festival of Britain air. Their symbols lie at their feet - his a magnificent peacock, hers a gruesome Saracen scalp held aloft.

 

The other appears to be a composite. It lies to the east, and the two effigies are clearly not from this tomb; they simply don't fit. They are supposed to be Robert Harling, died Paris in 1435, and his wife Dame Joan. Neither are buried here - she is at Rushford near Thetford, he is in some corner of a foreign field that is forever French schoolchildren on picnics excitedly tugging old thighbones from the soil - but in any case it is the trimmings of the tomb rather than the effigies that are most of interest, including a pelican in her piety and one that is almost a lily crucifix.

 

On the north side of the chancel is a fine tomb with brass inlays - the brasses now gone. Not as magnificent as either of the two previously mentioned, it is actually the most significant, as this is where you'll find Anne Harling, wife of the serial rebuilders of this church. Look out for those flails again.

 

What more? 17th century Lovells (remember the squirrel) have in-yer-face memorials either side of the sanctuary - that to the north curiously with no inscription. There are hatchments, remains of a wallpainting that are too indistinct to interpret (but may be seven works of mercy), a good set of royal arms, medieval heads, curious 19th century bench ends of a lion and a wild man, heraldic misericords, a Dec font - well, come and see for yourself. You know you want to.

The word werewolf is thought to derive from Old English wer (or were)— pronounced variously as /ˈwɛər, ˈwɪər, ˈwɜr/— and wulf. The first part, wer, translates as "man" (in the specific sense of male human, not the race of humanity generally). It has cognates in several Germanic languages including Gothic wair, Old High German wer, and Old Norse verr, as well as in other Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit 'vira', Latin vir, Irish fear, Lithuanian vyras, and Welsh gŵr, which have the same meaning. The second half, wulf, is the ancestor of modern English "wolf"; in some cases it also had the general meaning "beast."

 

An alternative etymology derives the first part from Old English weri (to wear); the full form in this case would be glossed as wearer of wolf skin. Related to this interpretation is Old Norse ulfhednar, which denoted lupine equivalents of the berserker, said to wear a bearskin in battle.

  

Facsimile of the first seven lines of the 14th century English translation of the 12th century French manuscript The Romance of William of PalerneYet other sources derive the word from warg-wolf, where warg (or later werg and wero) is cognate with Old Norse vargr, meaning "rogue," "outlaw," or, euphemistically, "wolf".[1] A Vargulf was the kind of wolf that slaughtered many members of a flock or herd but ate little of the kill. This was a serious problem for herders, who had to somehow destroy the rogue wolf before it destroyed the entire flock or herd. The term Warg was used in Old English for this kind of wolf. Possibly related is the fact that, in Norse society, an outlaw (who could be murdered with no legal repercussions and was forbidden to receive aid) was typically called vargr, or "wolf."

 

Other terms

The term lycanthropy, a synonym, comes from Ancient Greek lykánthropos (λυκάνθρωπος): λύκος, lýkos ("wolf") + άνθρωπος, ánthrōpos ("human").[2] A compound of which "lyc-" derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *wlkwo-, meaning "wolf", formally denotes the "wolf - man" transformation. Lycanthropy is but one form of therianthropy, the ability to metamorphose into animals in general. The term therianthrope literally means "beast-man." The word has also been linked to the original werewolf of classical mythology, Lycaon, a king of Arcadia who, according to Ovid's Metamorphoses, was turned into a ravenous wolf in retribution for attempting to serve his own son to visiting Zeus in an attempt to disprove the god's divinity.

 

There is also a mental illness called lycanthropy in which a patient believes he or she is, or has transformed into, an animal and behaves accordingly. This is sometimes referred to as clinical lycanthropy to distinguish it from its use in legends. Despite its origin as a term for man-wolf transformations only, lycanthropy is used in this sense for animals of any type. This broader meaning is often used in modern fictional references, such as in roleplaying game culture.

 

Another ancient term for shapeshifting between any animal forms is versipellis, from which the English words turnskin and turncoat are derived.[3] This Latin word is similar in meaning as words used for werewolves and other shapeshifters in Russian (oboroten) and Old Norse (hamrammr).

 

The French name for a werewolf, sometimes used in English, is loup-garou (pronounced /lugaˈru/), from the Latin noun lupus meaning wolf.[4] The second element is thought to be from Old French garoul meaning "werewolf." This in turn is most likely from Frankish *wer-wulf meaning "man-wolf."[5]

 

Folk beliefs

Description and common attributes

Werewolves were said to bear physical tell-tale traits in European folklore. These included the meeting of both eyebrows at the bridge of the nose, curved fingernails, low set ears and a swinging stride. One method of identifying a werewolf in its human form was to cut the flesh of the accused, under the pretense that fur would be seen within the wound. A Russian superstition recalls a werewolf can be recognised by bristles under the tongue.[6] The appearance of a werewolf in its animal form varies from culture to culture, though they are most commonly portrayed as being indistinguishable from ordinary wolves save for the fact that they have no tail (a trait thought characteristic of witches in animal form), and that they retain human eyes and voice. After returning to their human forms, werewolves are usually documented as becoming weak, debilitated and undergoing painful nervous depression.[6] Many historical werewolves were written to have suffered severe melancholia and manic depression, being bitterly conscious of their crimes.[6] One universally reviled trait in medieval Europe was the werewolf's habit of devouring recently buried corpses, a trait which is documented extensively, particularly in the Annales Medico-psychologiques in the 19th century.[6] Fennoscandian werewolves were usually old women who possessed poison coated claws and had the ability to paralyse cattle and children with their gaze.[6] Serbian vulkodlaks traditionally had the habit of congregating annually in the winter months, where they would strip off their wolf skins and hang them from trees. They would then get a hold of another vulkodlaks skin and burn it, releasing the vulkodlak from whom the skin came from its curse.[6] The Haitian jé-rouges typically try to trick mothers into giving away their children voluntarily by waking them at night and asking their permission to take their child, to which the disoriented mother may either reply yes or no.[6]

 

Becoming a werewolf

Various methods for becoming a werewolf have been reported, one of the simplest being the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of wolfskin, probably as a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin (which also is frequently described).[7] In other cases, the body is rubbed with a magic salve.[7] To drink rainwater out of the footprint of the animal in question or to drink from certain enchanted streams were also considered effectual modes of accomplishing metamorphosis.[8] The 16th century Swedish writer Olaus Magnus says that the Livonian werewolves were initiated by draining a cup of specially prepared beer and repeating a set formula. Ralston in his Songs of the Russian People gives the form of incantation still familiar in Russia.

 

In Italy, France and Germany, it was said that a man could turn into a werewolf if he, on a certain Wednesday or Friday, slept outside on a summer night with the full moon shining directly on his face.[6]

 

In other cases, the transformation was supposedly accomplished by Satanic allegiance for the most loathsome ends, often for the sake of sating a craving for human flesh. "The werewolves", writes Richard Verstegan (Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1628),

 

are certayne sorcerers, who having annoynted their bodies with an ointment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certayne inchaunted girdle, does not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they wear the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in worrying and killing, and most of humane creatures.

 

Such were the views about lycanthropy current throughout the continent of Europe when Verstegan wrote.

 

The phenomenon of repercussion, the power of animal metamorphosis, or of sending out a familiar, real or spiritual, as a messenger, and the supernormal powers conferred by association with such a familiar, are also attributed to the magician, male and female, all the world over; and witch superstitions are closely parallel to, if not identical with, lycanthropic beliefs, the occasional involuntary character of lycanthropy being almost the sole distinguishing feature. In another direction the phenomenon of repercussion is asserted to manifest itself in connection with the bush-soul of the West African and the nagual of Central America; but though there is no line of demarcation to be drawn on logical grounds, the assumed power of the magician and the intimate association of the bush-soul or the nagual with a human being are not termed lycanthropy. Nevertheless it will be well to touch on both these beliefs here.

 

The curse of lycanthropy was also considered by some scholars as being a divine punishment. Werewolf literature shows many examples of God or saints allegedly cursing those who invoked their wrath with werewolfism. Those who were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church were also said to become werewolves.[6]

 

The power of transforming others into wild beasts was attributed not only to malignant sorcerers, but to Christian saints as well. Omnes angeli, boni et Mali, ex virtute naturali habent potestatem transmutandi corpora nostra ("All angels, good and bad have the power of transmutating our bodies") was the dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Patrick was said to have transformed the Welsh king Vereticus into a wolf; Natalis supposedly cursed an illustrious Irish family whose members were each doomed to be a wolf for seven years. In other tales the divine agency is even more direct, while in Russia, again, men supposedly became werewolves when incurring the wrath of the Devil.

 

A notable exception to the association of Lycanthropy and the Devil, comes from a rare and lesser known account of an 80-year-old man named Thiess. In 1692, in Jurgenburg, Livonia, Thiess testified under oath that he and other werewolves were the Hounds of God.[9] He claimed they were warriors who went down into hell to do battle with witches and demons. Their efforts ensured that the Devil and his minions did not carry off the grain from local failed crops down to hell. Thiess was steadfast in his assertions, claiming that werewolves in Germany and Russia also did battle with the devil's minions in their own versions of hell, and insisted that when werewolves died, their souls were welcomed into heaven as reward for their service. Thiess was ultimately sentenced to ten lashes for Idolatry and superstitious belief.

 

A distinction is often made between voluntary and involuntary werewolves. The former are generally thought to have made a pact, usually with the Devil, and morph into werewolves at night to indulge in nefarious acts. Involuntary werewolves, on the other hand, are werewolves by an accident of birth or health. In some cultures, individuals born during a new moon or suffering from epilepsy were considered likely to be werewolves.

 

Becoming a werewolf simply by being bitten by another werewolf as a form of contagion is common in modern horror fiction, but this kind of transmission is rare in legend, unlike the case in vampirism.[6]

 

Even if the denotation of lycanthropy is limited to the wolf-metamorphosis of living human beings, the beliefs classed together under this head are far from uniform, and the term is somewhat capriciously applied. The transformation may be temporary or permanent; the were-animal may be the man himself metamorphosed; may be his double whose activity leaves the real man to all appearance unchanged; may be his soul, which goes forth seeking whom it may devour, leaving its body in a state of trance; or it may be no more than the messenger of the human being, a real animal or a familiar spirit, whose intimate connection with its owner is shown by the fact that any injury to it is believed, by a phenomenon known as repercussion, to cause a corresponding injury to the human being.

 

Vulnerabilities

Most modern fiction describes werewolves as vulnerable to silver weapons and highly resistant to other attacks. This feature does not appear in stories about werewolves before the 19th century. (The claim that the Beast of Gévaudan, an 18th century wolf or wolf-like creature, was shot by a silver bullet appears to have been introduced by novelists retelling the story from 1935 onwards and not in earlier versions.[10])

 

Unlike vampires, they are not generally thought to be harmed by religious artifacts such as crucifixes and holy water. In many countries, rye and mistletoe were considered effective safeguards against werewolf attacks.[citation needed] Mountain ash is also considered effective, with one Belgian superstition stating that no house was safe unless under the shade of a mountain ash.[6] In some legends, werewolves have an aversion to wolfsbane.[citation needed]

 

Remedies

Various methods have existed for removing the werewolf form. In antiquity, the Ancient Greeks and Romans believed in the power of exhaustion in curing people of lycanthropy. The victim would be subjected to long periods of physical activity in the hope of being purged of the malady. This practice stemmed from the fact that many alleged werewolves would be left feeling weak and debilitated after committing depredations.[6]

 

In medieval Europe, traditionally, there are three methods one can use to cure a victim of werewolfism; medicinally (usually via the use of wolfsbane), surgically or by exorcism. However, many of the cures advocated by medieval medical practitioners proved fatal to the patients. A Sicilian belief of Arabic origin holds that a werewolf can be cured of its ailment by striking it on the forehead or scalp with a knife. Another belief from the same culture involves the piercing of the werewolf's hands with nails. Sometimes, less extreme methods were used. In the German lowland of Schleswig-Holstein, a werewolf could be cured if one were to simply address it three times by its Christian name, while one Danish belief holds that simply scolding a werewolf will cure it.[6] Conversion to Christianity is also a common method of removing werewolfism in the medieval period. A devotion to St. Hubert has also been cited as both cure for and protection from lycanthropes.

 

Classical literature

 

Zeus turning Lycaon into a wolf, engraving by Hendrik Goltzius.Herodotus in his Histories[11] wrote that the Neuri, a tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia, were transformed into wolves once every nine years. These rituals were apparently meant to symbolise earthly regeneration and rebirth. Virgil was also familiar with human beings transforming into wolves.[12]

 

In Greek mythology, the story of Lycaon provides one of the earliest examples of a werewolf legend. According to one version, Lycaon was transformed into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh; one of those who were present at periodical sacrifice on Mount Lycæon was said to suffer a similar fate.

 

In Metamorphoses, the Roman poet Ovid vividly described stories of men who roamed the woods of Arcadia in the form of wolves.[13]

 

The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, relates two tales of lycanthropy. Quoting Euanthes,[14] he mentions a man who hung his clothes on an ash tree and swam across an Arcadian lake, transforming him into a wolf. On the condition that he attacked no human being for nine years, he would be free to swim back across the lake to resume human form. Pliny also quotes Agriopas regarding a tale of a man who was turned into a wolf after tasting the entrails of a human child.

 

In the Latin work of prose, the Satyricon, written about 60 C.E. by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, one of the characters, Niceros, tells a story at a banquet about a friend who turned into a wolf (chs. 61-62). He describes the incident as follows, "When I look for my buddy I see he'd stripped and piled his clothes by the roadside...He pees in a circle round his clothes and then, just like that, turns into a wolf!...after he turned into a wolf he started howling and then ran off into the woods."[15]

 

European cultures

Many European countries and cultures influenced by them have stories of werewolves, including Albania (oik), Armenia (mardagayl) France (loup-garou), Greece (lycanthropos), Spain (hombre lobo), Argentina (lobizón), Mexico (hombre lobo and nahual), Bulgaria (върколак - varkolak), Turkey (kurtadam), Czech Republic/Slovakia (vlkodlak), Serbia/Montenegro/Bosnia (vukodlak, вукодлак), Belarus (vaukalak, ваўкалак), Russia (vourdalak, оборотень), Ukraine (vovkulak(a), vurdalak(a), vovkun, перевертень), Croatia (vukodlak), Poland (wilkołak), Romania (vârcolac, priculici), Macedonia (vrkolak), Slovenia (volkodlak), Scotland (werewolf, wulver), England (werewolf), Ireland (faoladh or conriocht), Wales (bleidd-ddyn), Germany (Werwolf), the Netherlands (weerwolf), Denmark/Sweden/Norway (Varulv), Norway/Iceland (kveld-ulf, varúlfur), Galicia (lobishome), Portugal/Brazil (lobisomem), Lithuania (vilkolakis and vilkatlakis), Latvia (vilkatis and vilkacis), Andorra/Catalonia (home llop), Hungary (Vérfarkas and Farkasember), Estonia (libahunt), Finland (ihmissusi and vironsusi), and Italy (lupo mannaro). In northern Europe, there are also tales about people changing into animals including bears, as well as wolves.

  

A German woodcut from 1722Werewolves in European tradition were mostly evil men who terrorized people in the form of wolves on command of the Devil, though there were rare narratives of people being transformed involuntarily. In the 10 century, they were given the binomial name of melancholia canina and in the 14th century, daemonium lupum.[6] In Marie de France's poem Bisclavret (c. 1200), the nobleman Bizuneh, for reasons not described in the lai, had to transform into a wolf every week. When his treacherous wife stole his clothing needed to restore his human form, he escaped the king's wolf hunt by imploring the king for mercy and accompanied the king thereafter. His behaviour at court was so much gentler than when his wife and her new husband appeared at court, that his hateful attack on the couple was deemed justly motivated, and the truth was revealed. Other tales of this sort include German fairy tales, Märchen, in which several aristocrats temporarily transform into beasts. See Snow White and Rose Red, where the tame bear is really a bewitched prince, and The Golden Bird where the talking fox is also a man.

 

Werewolf folklore is rare in England, possibly because wolves had been eradicated by authorities in the Anglo-Saxon period.[16]

 

Harald I of Norway is known to have had a body of Úlfhednar (wolf coated), which are mentioned in Vatnsdœla saga, Haraldskvæði, and the Völsunga saga resemble some werewolf legends. The Úlfhednar were fighters similar to the berserkers, though they dressed in wolf hides rather than those of bears and were reputed to channel the spirits of these animals to enhance effectiveness in battle.[6] These warriors were resistant to pain and killed viciously in battle, much like wild animals. Ulfhednar and berserkers are closely associated with the Norse god Odin.

 

In Latvian folklore, a vilkacis was someone who transformed into a wolf-like monster, which could be benevolent at times.[citation needed] Another collection of stories concern the skin-walkers. The vilkacis and skin-walkers probably have a common origin in Proto-Indo-European society, where a class of young unwed warriors were apparently associated with wolves[citation needed].

 

In other hand, in the Hungarian folklore, the concept of werewolf goes back to the Middle Ages. The werewolves used to live specially in the region of Transdanubia, and it was thought that the ability to change into a wolf it was obtained in the infant age, after the suffering of abuse by the parents or by a curse. At the age of seven the boy leaves the house and goes hunting by night and can change to person or wolf whenever he wants. The curse can also be obtained when in the adulthood the person passed three times through an arch made of a Birch with the help of a wild rose's spine.

 

The werewolves were known to exterminate all kind of farm animals, especially sheep. The transformation usually occurred in the Winter solstice, Easter and full moon. Later in the XVII and XVIII century, the trials in Hungary not only were conduced against witches, but against werewolves too, and many records exist creating connections between both kinds. Also the vampires and werewolves are closely related in Hungary, being both feared in the antiquity.[17]

 

According to the first dictionary of modern Serbian language (published by Vuk Stefanović-Karadžić in 1818) vukodlak / вукодлак (werewolf) and vampir / вампир (vampire) are synonyms, meaning a man who returns from his grave for purposes of fornicating with his widow. The dictionary states this to be a common folk tale.

 

Common amongst the Kashubs of what is now northern Poland, and the Serbs and Slovenes, was the belief that if a child was born with hair, a birthmark or a caul on their head, they were supposed to possess shape-shifting abilities. Though capable of turning into any animal they wished, it was commonly believed that such people preferred to turn into a wolf.[18]

 

According to Armenian lore, there are women who, in consequence of deadly sins, are condemned to spend seven years in wolf form.[19] In a typical account, a condemned woman is visited by a wolfskin-toting spirit, who orders her to wear the skin, which causes her to acquire frightful cravings for human flesh soon after. With her better nature overcome, the she-wolf devours each of her own children, then her relatives' children in order of relationship, and finally the children of strangers. She wanders only at night, with doors and locks springing open at her approach. When morning arrives, she reverts to human form and removes her wolfskin. The transformation is generally said to be involuntary, but there are alternate versions involving voluntary metamorphosis, where the women can transform at will.

 

The 11th Century Belarusian Prince Usiaslau of Polatsk was considered to have been a Werewolf, capable of moving at superhuman speeds, as recounted in The Tale of Igor's Campaign: "Vseslav the prince judged men; as prince, he ruled towns; but at night he prowled in the guise of a wolf. From Kiev, prowling, he reached, before the cocks crew, Tmutorokan. The path of Great Sun, as a wolf, prowling, he crossed. For him in Polotsk they rang for matins early at St. Sophia the bells; but he heard the ringing in Kiev."

 

There were numerous reports of werewolf attacks – and consequent court trials – in sixteenth century France. In some of the cases there was clear evidence against the accused of murder and cannibalism, but none of association with wolves; in other cases people have been terrified by such creatures, such as that of Gilles Garnier in Dole in 1573, there was clear evidence against some wolf but none against the accused[citation needed]. The loup-garou eventually ceased to be regarded as a dangerous heretic and reverted to the pre-Christian notion of a "man-wolf-fiend." The lubins or lupins were usually female and shy in contrast to the aggressive loups-garous.[citation needed]

 

Some French werewolf lore is associated with documented events. The Beast of Gévaudan terrorized the general area of the former province of Gévaudan, now called Lozère, in south-central France. From the years 1764 to 1767, an unknown entity killed upwards of 80 men, women, and children.[citation needed] The creature was described as a giant wolf by the sole survivor of the attacks, which ceased after several wolves were killed in the area.

 

At the beginning of the seventeenth century witchcraft was prosecuted by James I of England, who regarded "warwoolfes" as victims of delusion induced by "a natural superabundance of melancholic."[20]

 

American cultures

Main article: Skin-walker

During the Norse colonization of the Americas, it is thought by Woodward that the Vikings brought with them their beliefs in werewolves, which would manifest themselves in the folklore of some Native American tribes.[6]

 

The Naskapis believed that the caribou afterlife is guarded by giant wolves which kill careless hunters venturing too near. The Navajo people feared witches in wolf's clothing called "Mai-cob".[21]

 

When the European colonization of the Americas occurred, the pioneers brought their own werewolf folklore with them and were later influenced by the lore of their neighbouring colonies and those of the Natives. Belief in the loup-garou present in Canada, the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan[22] and upstate New York, originates from French folklore influenced by Native American stories on the Wendigo. In Mexico, there is a belief in a creature called the nahual, which traditionally limits itself to stealing cheese and raping women rather than murder. In Haiti, there is a superstition that werewolf spirits known locally as Jé-rouge (red eyes) can possess the bodies of unwitting persons and nightly transform them into cannibalistic lupine creatures.[6]

 

Origins of werewolf beliefs

Many authors have speculated that werewolf and vampire legends may have been used to explain serial killings in less rational ages. This theory is given credence by the tendency of some modern serial killers to indulge in practices commonly associated with werewolves, such as cannibalism, mutilation, and cyclic attacks. The idea is well explored in Sabine Baring-Gould's work The Book of Werewolves.

 

Until the 20th century, wolf attacks on humans were an occasional, but widespread feature of life in Europe.[23] Some scholars have suggested that it was inevitable that wolves, being the most feared predators in Europe, were projected into the folklore of evil shapeshifters. This is said to be corroborated by the fact that areas devoid of wolves typically use different kinds of predator to fill the niche; werehyenas in Africa, weretigers in India,[6] as well as werepumas ("runa uturunco")[24][25] and werejaguars ("yaguaraté-abá" or "tigre-capiango")[26][27] of southern South America.

 

In his Man into Wolf (1948), anthropologist Robert Eisler drew attention to the fact that many Indo-European tribal names and some modern European surnames mean "wolf" or "wolf-men". This is argued by Eisler to indicate that the European transition from fruit gathering to predatory hunting was a conscious process, simultaneously accompanied by an emotional upheaval still remembered in humanity's subconscious, which in turn became reflected in the later medieval superstition of werewolves.[28]

  

Werewolf, by Lucas Cranach der Ältere, 1512Some modern researchers have tried to explain the reports of werewolf behaviour with recognised medical conditions. Dr Lee Illis of Guy's Hospital in London wrote a paper in 1963 entitled On Porphyria and the Aetiology of Werewolves, in which he argues that historical accounts on werewolves could have in fact been referring to victims of congenital porphyria, stating how the symptoms of photosensitivity, reddish teeth and psychosis could have been grounds for accusing a sufferer of being a werewolf[29]. This is however argued against by Woodward, who points out how mythological werewolves were almost invariably portrayed as resembling true wolves, and that their human forms were rarely physically conspicuous as porphyria victims.[6] Others have pointed out the possibility of historical werewolves having been sufferers of hypertrichosis, a hereditary condition manifesting itself in excessive hair growth. However, Woodward dismissed the possibility, as the rarity of the disease ruled it out from happening on a large scale, as werewolf cases were in medieval Europe.[6] People suffering from Downs Syndrome have been suggested by some scholars to have been possible originators of werewolf myths.[21] Woodward suggested rabies as the origin of werewolf beliefs, claiming remarkable similarities between the symptoms of that disease and some of the legends. Woodward focused on the idea that being bitten by a werewolf could result in the victim turning into one, which suggested the idea of a transmittable disease like rabies.[6] However, the idea that lycanthropy could be transmitted in this way is not part of the original myths and legends and only appears in relatively recent beliefs.

 

Vampiric connections

In Medieval Europe, the corpses of some people executed as werewolves were cremated rather than buried in order to prevent them from being resurrected as vampires.[6] Before the end of the 19th century, the Greeks believed that the corpses of werewolves, if not destroyed, would return to life as vampires in the form of wolves or hyenas which prowled battlefields, drinking the blood of dying soldiers. In the same vein, in some rural areas of Germany, Poland and Northern France, it was once believed that people who died in mortal sin came back to life as blood-drinking wolves. This differs from conventional werewolfery, where the creature is a living being rather than an undead apparition. These vampiric werewolves would return to their human corpse form at daylight. They were dealt with by decapitation with a spade and exorcism by the parish priest. The head would then be thrown into a stream, where the weight of its sins were thought to weigh it down. Sometimes, the same methods used to dispose of ordinary vampires would be used.[6] The vampire was also linked to the werewolf in East European countries, particularly Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovakia. In Serbia, the werewolf and vampire are known collectively as one creature; Vulkodlak.[6] In Hungarian and Balkan mythology, many werewolves were said to be vampiric witches who became wolves in order to suck the blood of men born under the full moon in order to preserve their health. In their human form, these werewolves were said to have pale, sunken faces, hollow eyes, swollen lips and flabby arms.[6] The Haitian jé-rouges differ from traditional European werewolves by their habit of actively trying to spread their lycanthropic condition to others, much like vampires.[6]

 

In fiction

Main article: Werewolf fiction

The first feature film to use an anthropomorphic werewolf was Werewolf of London in 1935. The main werewolf of this film is a dapper London scientist who retains some of his style and most of his human features after his transformation,[30] as lead actor Henry Hull was unwilling to spend long hours being made up by makeup artist Jack Pierce.[31] Universal Studios drew on a Balkan tale of a plant associated with lycanthropy as there was no literary work to draw upon, unlike the case with vampires. There is no reference to silver nor other aspects of werewolf lore such as cannibalism.[32]

 

However, he lacks warmth, and it is left to the tragic character Talbot played by Lon Chaney, Jr. in 1941's The Wolf Man to capture the public imagination. With Pierce's makeup more elaborate this time,[33] this catapulted the werewolf into public consciousness.[30] Sympathetic portrayals are few but notable; the comedic but tortured protagonist David Naughton in An American Werewolf In London,[34] and a less anguished and more confident and charismatic Jack Nicholson in the 1994 film Wolf.[35] Rachel Hawthorne's Dark Guardian novels examine a secret society of werewolves who live peacefully alongside normal humans, are able to initiate the change at will to protect their kind, and generally retain control of themselves when transformed.[36] Other werewolves are decidedly more willful and malevolent, such as those in the novel The Howling and its subsequent sequels and film adaptations.

 

The form a werewolf assumes was generally anthropomorphic in early films such as The Wolf Man and Werewolf of London, but larger and powerful wolf in many later films.[37]

 

The transmogrification process is often portrayed as painful in film and literature within the horror genre. The resulting wolf is typically cunning but merciless and prone to killing and eating people without compunction, regardless of the moral character of its human counterpart.

 

Werewolves are often depicted as immune to damage caused by ordinary weapons, being vulnerable only to silver objects, such as a silver-tipped cane, bullet or blade; this attribute was first adopted cinematically in The Wolf Man.[33] This negative reaction to silver is sometimes so strong that the mere touch of the metal on a werewolf's skin will cause burns. Current-day werewolf fiction almost exclusively involves lycanthropy being either a hereditary condition or being transmitted like an infectious disease by the bite of another werewolf. In some fiction, the power of the werewolf extends to human form, such as invulnerability, super-human speed and strength and falling on their feet from high falls. Also aggressiveness and animalistic urges may be harder to control (hunger, sexual harassment). Usually in these cases the abilities are diminished in human form. In other fictions it can even be cured by medicine men or even antidotes.

 

Fantastic literature sometimes includes the painful element to the change, but often does not. For example, J. K. Rowling maintains the painful transition between forms while Charles de Lint, Terry Pratchett, Fritz Leiber, and myriad others reach back to the non-painful medieval literary sources. Poul Anderson in Operation Chaos presents a modernised American werewolf, in complete control of himself and free of the traditional taints, while in Three Hearts and Three Lions appears a far more traditional (though not unsympathetic) female werewolf.

 

The 1961 Hammer film The Curse of the Werewolf, adapted from the 1933 novel The Werewolf of Paris by American author Guy Endore, in 1961 draws on traditional legends of a child born on Christmas Eve being cursed.[38]

 

The Quran (English pronunciation: /kɔrˈɑːn/ kor-AHN , Arabic: القرآن‎ al-qur'ān, IPA: [qurˈʔaːn], literally meaning "the recitation", also romanised Qur'an or Koran) is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God (Arabic: الله‎, Allah). Its scriptural status among a world-spanning religious community, and its major place within world literature generally, has led to a great deal of secondary literature on the Quran. Quranic chapters are called suras and verses are called ayahs.

 

Muslims believe that the Quran was verbally revealed by God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel (Jibril), gradually over a period of approximately 23 years, beginning on 22 December 609 CE, when Muhammad was 40, and concluding in 632 CE, the year of his death. Muslims regard the Quran as the most important miracle of Muhammad, a proof of his prophethood, and the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with the messages revealed to Adam and ended with Muhammad. They consider the Quran to be the only revealed book that has been protected by God from distortion or corruption.

 

According to the traditional narrative, several companions of Muhammad served as scribes and were responsible for writing down the revelations. Shortly after Muhammad's death, the Quran was compiled by his companions who wrote down and memorized parts of it. These codices had differences that motivated the Caliph Uthman to establish a standard version now known as Uthman's codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran we have today. However, the existence of variant readings, with mostly minor and some significant variations, and the early unvocalized Arabic script mean the relationship between Uthman's codex to both the text of today's Quran and to the revelations of Muhammad's time is still unclear.

 

The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. It summarizes some, dwells at length on others and, in some cases, presents alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance. It sometimes offers detailed accounts of specific historical events, and it often emphasizes the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence. The Quran is used along with the hadith to interpret sharia law. During prayers, the Quran is recited only in Arabic.

 

Someone who has memorized the entire Quran is called a hafiz. Some Muslims read Quranic ayahs (verses) with elocution, which is often called tajwīd. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims typically complete the recitation of the whole Quran during tarawih prayers. In order to extrapolate the meaning of a particular Quranic verse, most Muslims rely on the tafsir.

 

ETYMOLOGY & MEANING

The word qurʼān appears about 70 times in the Quran itself, assuming various meanings. It is a verbal noun (maṣdar) of the Arabic verb qaraʼa (قرأ), meaning "he read" or "he recited". The Syriac equivalent is (ܩܪܝܢܐ) qeryānā, which refers to "scripture reading" or "lesson". While some Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, the majority of Muslim authorities hold the origin of the word is qaraʼa itself. Regardless, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammad's lifetime. An important meaning of the word is the "act of reciting", as reflected in an early Quranic passage: "It is for Us to collect it and to recite it (qurʼānahu)."

 

In other verses, the word refers to "an individual passage recited [by Muhammad]". Its liturgical context is seen in a number of passages, for example: "So when al-qurʼān is recited, listen to it and keep silent." The word may also assume the meaning of a codified scripture when mentioned with other scriptures such as the Torah and Gospel.

 

The term also has closely related synonyms that are employed throughout the Quran. Each synonym possesses its own distinct meaning, but its use may converge with that of qurʼān in certain contexts. Such terms include kitāb (book); āyah (sign); and sūrah (scripture). The latter two terms also denote units of revelation. In the large majority of contexts, usually with a definite article (al-), the word is referred to as the "revelation" (waḥy), that which has been "sent down" (tanzīl) at intervals. Other related words are: dhikr (remembrance), used to refer to the Quran in the sense of a reminder and warning, and ḥikmah (wisdom), sometimes referring to the revelation or part of it.

 

The Quran describes itself as "the discernment or the criterion between truth and falsehood" (al-furqān), "the mother book" (umm al-kitāb), "the guide" (huda), "the wisdom" (hikmah), "the remembrance" (dhikr) and "the revelation" (tanzīl; something sent down, signifying the descent of an object from a higher place to lower place). Another term is al-kitāb (the book), though it is also used in the Arabic language for other scriptures, such as the Torah and the Gospels. The adjective of "Quran" has multiple transliterations including "quranic," "koranic" and "qur'anic," or capitalised as "Qur'anic," "Koranic" and "Quranic." The term muṣḥaf ('written work') is often used to refer to particular Quranic manuscripts but is also used in the Quran to identify earlier revealed books. Other transliterations of "Quran" include "al-Coran", "Coran", "Kuran" and "al-Qurʼan".

 

HISTORY

PROPHETIC ERA

Islamic tradition relates that Muhammad received his first revelation in the Cave of Hira during one of his isolated retreats to the mountains. Thereafter, he received revelations over a period of 23 years. According to hadith and Muslim history, after Muhammad emigrated to Medina and formed an independent Muslim community, he ordered many of his companions to recite the Quran and to learn and teach the laws, which were revealed daily. It is related that some of the Quraish who were taken prisoners at the battle of Badr regained their freedom after they had taught some of the Muslims the simple writing of the time. Thus a group of Muslims gradually became literate. As it was initially spoken, the Quran was recorded on tablets, bones, and the wide, flat ends of date palm fronds. Most suras were in use amongst early Muslims since they are mentioned in numerous sayings by both Sunni and Shia sources, relating Muhammad's use of the Quran as a call to Islam, the making of prayer and the manner of recitation. However, the Quran did not exist in book form at the time of Muhammad's death in 632 CE. There is agreement among scholars that Muhammad himself did not write down the revelation.

 

Sahih al-Bukhari narrates Muhammad describing the revelations as, "Sometimes it is (revealed) like the ringing of a bell" and Aisha reported, "I saw the Prophet being inspired Divinely on a very cold day and noticed the sweat dropping from his forehead (as the Inspiration was over)." Muhammad's first revelation, according to the Quran, was accompanied with a vision. The agent of revelation is mentioned as the "one mighty in power", the one who "grew clear to view when he was on the uppermost horizon. Then he drew nigh and came down till he was (distant) two bows' length or even nearer." The Islamic studies scholar Welch states in the Encyclopaedia of Islam that he believes the graphic descriptions of Muhammad's condition at these moments may be regarded as genuine, because he was severely disturbed after these revelations. According to Welch, these seizures would have been seen by those around him as convincing evidence for the superhuman origin of Muhammad's inspirations. However, Muhammad's critics accused him of being a possessed man, a soothsayer or a magician since his experiences were similar to those claimed by such figures well known in ancient Arabia. Welch additionally states that it remains uncertain whether these experiences occurred before or after Muhammad's initial claim of prophethood. The Quran describes Muhammad as "ummi", which is traditionally interpreted as "illiterate," but the meaning is rather more complex. The medieval commentators such as Al-Tabari maintained that the term induced two meanings: first, the inability to read or write in general; second, the inexperience or ignorance of the previous books or scriptures (but they gave priority to the first meaning). Besides, Muhammad's illiteracy was taken as a sign of the genuineness of his prophethood. For example, according to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, if Muhammad had mastered writing and reading he possibly would have been suspected of having studied the books of the ancestors. Some scholars such as Watt prefer the second meaning.

 

COMPILATION

Based on earlier transmitted reports, in the year 632 CE, after Muhammad died and a number of his companions who knew the Quran by heart were killed in a battle by Musaylimah, the first caliph Abu Bakr (d. 634CE) decided to collect the book in one volume so that it could be preserved. Zayd ibn Thabit (d. 655CE) was the person to collect the Quran since "he used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Apostle". Thus, a group of scribes, most importantly Zayd, collected the verses and produced a hand-written manuscript of the complete book. The manuscript according to Zayd remained with Abu Bakr until he died. Zayd's reaction to the task and the difficulties in collecting the Quranic material from parchments, palm-leaf stalks, thin stones and from men who knew it by heart is recorded in earlier narratives. After Abu Bakr, Hafsa bint Umar, Muhammad's widow, was entrusted with the manuscript. In about 650 CE, the third Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656CE) began noticing slight differences in pronunciation of the Quran as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian peninsula into Persia, the Levant, and North Africa. In order to preserve the sanctity of the text, he ordered a committee headed by Zayd to use Abu Bakr's copy and prepare a standard copy of the Quran. Thus, within 20 years of Muhammad's death, the Quran was committed to written form. That text became the model from which copies were made and promulgated throughout the urban centers of the Muslim world, and other versions are believed to have been destroyed. The present form of the Quran text is accepted by Muslim scholars to be the original version compiled by Abu Bakr.

 

According to Shia and some Sunni scholars, Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661CE) compiled a complete version of the Quran shortly after Muhammad's death. The order of this text differed from that gathered later during Uthman's era in that this version had been collected in chronological order. Despite this, he made no objection against the standardized Quran and accepted the Quran in circulation. Other personal copies of the Quran might have existed including Ibn Mas'ud's and Ubayy ibn Kab's codex, none of which exist today.

 

The Quran most likely existed in scattered written form during Muhammad's lifetime. Several sources indicate that during Muhammad's lifetime a large number of his companions had memorized the revelations. Early commentaries and Islamic historical sources support the above-mentioned understanding of the Quran's early development. The Quran in its present form is generally considered by academic scholars to record the words spoken by Muhammad because the search for variants has not yielded any differences of great significance. Although most variant readings of the text of the Quran have ceased to be transmitted, some still are. There has been no critical text produced on which a scholarly reconstruction of the Quranic text could be based. Historically, controversy over the Quran's content has rarely become an issue, although debates continue on the subject.

 

In 1972, in a mosque in the city of Sana'a, Yemen, manuscripts were discovered that were later proved to be the most ancient Quranic text known to exist. The Sana'a manuscripts contain palimpsests, a manuscript page from which the text has been washed off to make the parchment reusable again - a practice which was common in ancient times due to scarcity of writing material. However, the faint washed-off underlying text (scriptio inferior) is still barely visible and believed to be "pre-Uthmanic" Quranic content, while the text written on top (scriptio superior) is believed to belong to Uthmanic time. Studies using radiocarbon dating indicate that the parchments are dated to the period before 671 AD with a 99 percent probability.

 

SIGNIFICANCE IN ISLAM

WORSHIP

Muslims believe the Quran to be the book of divine guidance revealed from God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a period of 23 years and view the Quran as God's final revelation to humanity. They also believe that the Quran has solutions to all the problems of humanity irrespective of how complex they may be and in what age they occur.

 

Revelation in Islamic and Quranic concept means the act of God addressing an individual, conveying a message for a greater number of recipients. The process by which the divine message comes to the heart of a messenger of God is tanzil (to send down) or nuzūl (to come down). As the Quran says, "With the truth we (God) have sent it down and with the truth it has come down."

 

The Quran frequently asserts in its text that it is divinely ordained. Some verses in the Quran seem to imply that even those who do not speak Arabic would understand the Quran if it were recited to them. The Quran refers to a written pre-text, "the preserved tablet", that records God's speech even before it was sent down.

 

The issue of whether the Quran is eternal or created became a theological debate (Quran's createdness) in the ninth century. Mu'tazilas, an Islamic school of theology based on reason and rational thought, held that the Quran was created while the most widespread varieties of Muslim theologians considered the Quran to be co-eternal with God and therefore uncreated. Sufi philosophers view the question as artificial or wrongly framed.

 

Muslims believe that the present wording of the Quran corresponds to that revealed to Muhammad, and according to their interpretation of Quran 15:9, it is protected from corruption ("Indeed, it is We who sent down the Quran and indeed, We will be its guardian."). Muslims consider the Quran to be a guide, a sign of the prophethood of Muhammad and the truth of the religion. They argue it is not possible for a human to produce a book like the Quran, as the Quran itself maintains.

 

Muslims commemorate annually the beginning of Quran's revelation on the Night of Destiny (Laylat al-Qadr), during the last 10 days of Ramadan, the month during which they fast from sunrise until sunset.

 

The first sura of the Quran is repeated in daily prayers and in other occasions. This sura, which consists of seven verses, is the most often recited sura of the Quran:

 

"All praise belongs to God, Lord of the Universe, the Beneficent, the Merciful and Master of the Day of Judgment, You alone We do worship and from You alone we do seek assistance, guide us to the right path, the path of those to whom You have granted blessings, those who are neither subject to Your anger nor have gone astray."

 

Respect for the written text of the Quran is an important element of religious faith by many Muslims, and the Quran is treated with reverence. Based on tradition and a literal interpretation of Quran 56:79 ("none shall touch but those who are clean"), some Muslims believe that they must perform a ritual cleansing with water before touching a copy of the Quran, although this view is not universal. Worn-out copies of the Quran are wrapped in a cloth and stored indefinitely in a safe place, buried in a mosque or a Muslim cemetery, or burned and the ashes buried or scattered over water.

 

In Islam, most intellectual disciplines, including Islamic theology, philosophy, mysticism and Jurisprudence, have been concerned with the Quran or have their foundation in its teachings. Muslims believe that the preaching or reading of the Quran is rewarded with divine rewards variously called ajr, thawab or hasanat.

 

IN ISLAMIC ART

The Quran also inspired Islamic arts and specifically the so-called Quranic arts of calligraphy and illumination.[1] The Quran is never decorated with figurative images, but many Qurans have been highly decorated with decorative patterns in the margins of the page, or between the lines or at the start of suras. Islamic verses appear in many other media, on buildings and on objects of all sizes, such as mosque lamps, metal work, pottery and single pages of calligraphy for muraqqas or albums.

 

INIMITABILITY

Inimitability of the Quran (or "I'jaz") is the belief that no human speech can match the Quran in its content and form. The Quran is considered an inimitable miracle by Muslims, effective until the Day of Resurrection - and, thereby, the central proof granted to Muhammad in authentication of his prophetic status. The concept of inimitability originates in the Quran where in five different verses opponents are challenged to produce something like the Quran: "If men and sprites banded together to produce the like of this Quran they would never produce its like not though they backed one another."[61] So the suggestion is that if there are doubts concerning the divine authorship of the Quran, come forward and create something like it. From the ninth century, numerous works appeared which studied the Quran and examined its style and content. Medieval Muslim scholars including al-Jurjani (d. 1078CE) and al-Baqillani (d. 1013CE) have written treatises on the subject, discussed its various aspects, and used linguistic approaches to study the Quran. Others argue that the Quran contains noble ideas, has inner meanings, maintained its freshness through the ages and has caused great transformations in individual level and in the history. Some scholars state that the Quran contains scientific information that agrees with modern science. The doctrine of miraculousness of the Quran is further emphasized by Muhammad's illiteracy since the unlettered prophet could not have been suspected of composing the Quran.

 

TEXT & ARRANGEMENT

The Quran consists of 114 chapters of varying lengths, each known as a sura. Suras are classified as Meccan or Medinan, depending on whether the verses were revealed before or after the migration of Muhammad to the city of Medina. However, a sura classified as Medinan may contain Meccan verses in it and vice versa. Sura titles are derived from a name or quality discussed in the text, or from the first letters or words of the surah. Suras are arranged roughly in order of decreasing size. The sura arrangement is thus not connected to the sequence of revelation. Each sura except the ninth starts with the Bismillah (بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم) an Arabic phrase meaning 'In the name of God.' There are, however, still 114 occurrences of the Bismillah in the Quran, due to its presence in Quran 27:30 as the opening of Solomon's letter to the Queen of Sheba.

 

Each sura consists of several verses, known as ayat, which originally means a 'sign' or 'evidence' sent by God. The number of verses differs from sura to sura. An individual verse may be just a few letters or several lines. The total number of verses in the Quran is 6236, however, the number varies if the bismillahs are counted separately.

 

In addition to and independent of the division into suras, there are various ways of dividing the Quran into parts of approximately equal length for convenience in reading. The 30 juz' (plural ajzāʼ) can be used to read through the entire Quran in a month. Some of these parts are known by names - which are the first few words by which the juzʼ starts. A juz' is sometimes further divided into two ḥizb (plural aḥzāb), and each hizb subdivided into four rubʻ al-ahzab. The Quran is also divided into seven approximately equal parts, manzil (plural manāzil), for it to be recited in a week.

 

Muqatta'at, or the Quranic initials, are 14 different letter combinations of 14 Arabic letters that appear in the beginning of 29 suras of the Quran. The meanings of these initials remain unclear.

 

According to one estimate the Quran consists of 77,430 words, 18,994 unique words, 12,183 stems, 3,382 lemmas and 1,685 roots.

 

CONTENTS

The Quranic content is concerned with the basic beliefs of Islam which include the existence of God and the resurrection. Narratives of the early prophets, ethical and legal subjects, historical events of Muhammad's time, charity and prayer also appear in the Quran. The Quranic verses contain general exhortations regarding right and wrong and the historical events are related to outline general moral lessons. Verses pertaining to natural phenomena have been interpreted by Muslims as an indication of the authenticity of the Quranic message.

 

MONOTHEISM

The central theme of the Quran is monotheism. God is depicted as living, eternal, omniscient and omnipotent (see, e.g., Quran 2:20, 2:29, 2:255). God's omnipotence appears above all in his power to create. He is the creator of everything, of the heavens and the earth and what is between them (see, e.g., Quran 13:16, 50:38, etc.). All human beings are equal in their utter dependence upon God, and their well-being depends upon their acknowledging that fact and living accordingly.

 

The Quran uses cosmological and contingency arguments in various verses without referring to the terms to prove the existence of God. Therefore, the universe is originated and needs an originator, and whatever exists must have a sufficient cause for its existence. Besides, the design of the universe, is frequently referred to as a point of contemplation: "It is He who has created seven heavens in harmony. You cannot see any fault in God's creation; then look again: Can you see any flaw?"

 

ESCHATOLOGY

The doctrine of the last day and eschatology (the final fate of the universe) may be reckoned as the second great doctrine of the Quran. It is estimated that around a full one-third of the Quran is eschatological, dealing with the afterlife in the next world and with the day of judgment at the end of time. There is a reference of the afterlife on most pages of the Quran and the belief in the afterlife is often referred to in conjunction with belief in God as in the common expression: "Believe in God and the last day". A number of suras such as 44, 56, 75, 78, 81 and 101 are directly related to the afterlife and its preparations. Some of the suras indicate the closeness of the event and warn people to be prepared for the imminent day. For instance, the first verses of Sura 22, which deal with the mighty earthquake and the situations of people on that day, represent this style of divine address: "O People! Be respectful to your Lord. The earthquake of the Hour is a mighty thing."

 

The Quran is often vivid in its depiction of what will happen at the end time. Watt describes the Quranic view of End Time:

 

"The climax of history, when the present world comes to an end, is referred to in various ways. It is 'the Day of Judgment,' 'the Last Day,' 'the Day of Resurrection,' or simply 'the Hour.' Less frequently it is 'the Day of Distinction' (when the good are separated from the evil), 'the Day of the Gathering' (of men to the presence of God) or 'the Day of the Meeting' (of men with God). The Hour comes suddenly. It is heralded by a shout, by a thunderclap, or by the blast of a trumpet. A cosmic upheaval then takes place. The mountains dissolve into dust, the seas boil up, the sun is darkened, the stars fall and the sky is rolled up. God appears as Judge, but his presence is hinted at rather than described. [...] The central interest, of course, is in the gathering of all mankind before the Judge. Human beings of all ages, restored to life, join the throng. To the scoffing objection of the unbelievers that former generations had been dead a long time and were now dust and mouldering bones, the reply is that God is nevertheless able to restore them to life."

 

The Quran does not assert a natural immortality of the human soul, since man's existence is dependent on the will of God: when he wills, he causes man to die; and when he wills, he raises him to life again in a bodily resurrection.[68]

 

PROPHETS

According to the Quran, God communicated with man and made his will known through signs and revelations. Prophets, or 'Messengers of God', received revelations and delivered them to humanity. The message has been identical and for all humankind. "Nothing is said to you that was not said to the messengers before you, that your lord has at his Command forgiveness as well as a most Grievous Penalty." The revelation does not come directly from God to the prophets. Angels acting as God's messengers deliver the divine revelation to them. This comes out in Quran 42:51, in which it is stated: "It is not for any mortal that God should speak to them, except by revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal by his permission whatsoever He will."

 

ETHICO-RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS

Belief is the center of the sphere of positive moral properties in the Quran. A number of scholars have tried to determine the semantic contents of the words meaning 'belief' and 'believer' in the Quran [70] The Ethico-legal concepts and exhortations dealing with righteous conduct are linked to a profound awareness of God, thereby emphasizing the importance of faith, accountability and the belief in each human's ultimate encounter with God. People are invited to perform acts of charity, especially for the needy. Believers who "spend of their wealth by night and by day, in secret and in public" are promised that they "shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve" It also affirms family life by legislating on matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance. A number of practices such as usury and gambling are prohibited. The Quran is one of the fundamental sources of the Islamic law, or sharia. Some formal religious practices receive significant attention in the Quran including the formal prayers and fasting in the month of Ramadan. As for the manner in which the prayer is to be conducted, the Quran refers to prostration. The term used for charity, Zakat, actually means purification. Charity, according to the Quran, is a means of self-purification.

 

LITERARY STYLE

The Quran's message is conveyed with various literary structures and devices. In the original Arabic, the suras and verses employ phonetic and thematic structures that assist the audience's efforts to recall the message of the text. Muslims[who?] assert (according to the Quran itself) that the Quranic content and style is inimitable.

 

The language of the Quran has been described as "rhymed prose" as it partakes of both poetry and prose, however, this description runs the risk of compromising the rhythmic quality of Quranic language, which is certainly more poetic in some parts and more prose-like in others. Rhyme, while found throughout the Quran, is conspicuous in many of the earlier Meccan suras, in which relatively short verses throw the rhyming words into prominence. The effectiveness of such a form is evident for instance in Sura 81, and there can be no doubt that these passages impressed the conscience of the hearers. Frequently a change of rhyme from one set of verses to another signals a change in the subject of discussion. Later sections also preserve this form but the style is more expository.

 

The Quranic text seems to have no beginning, middle, or end, its nonlinear structure being akin to a web or net. The textual arrangement is sometimes considered to have lack of continuity, absence of any chronological or thematic order and presence of repetition. Michael Sells, citing the work of the critic Norman O. Brown, acknowledges Brown's observation that the seeming disorganization of Quranic literary expression – its scattered or fragmented mode of composition in Sells's phrase – is in fact a literary device capable of delivering profound effects as if the intensity of the prophetic message were shattering the vehicle of human language in which it was being communicated. Sells also addresses the much-discussed repetitiveness of the Quran, seeing this, too, as a literary device.

 

A text is self-referential when it speaks about itself and makes reference to itself. According to Stefan Wild the Quran demonstrates this meta-textuality by explaining, classifying, interpreting and justifying the words to be transmitted. Self-referentiality is evident in those passages when the Quran refers to itself as revelation (tanzil), remembrance (dhikr), news (naba'), criterion (furqan) in a self-designating manner (explicitly asserting its Divinity, "And this is a blessed Remembrance that We have sent down; so are you now denying it?"), or in the frequent appearance of the 'Say' tags, when Muhammad is commanded to speak (e.g. "Say: 'God's guidance is the true guidance' ", "Say: 'Would you then dispute with us concerning God?' "). According to Wild the Quran is highly self-referential. The feature is more evident in early Meccan suras.

 

INTERPRETATION

The Quran has sparked a huge body of commentary and explication (tafsīr), aimed at explaining the "meanings of the Quranic verses, clarifying their import and finding out their significance".

 

Tafsir is one of the earliest academic activities of Muslims. According to the Quran, Muhammad was the first person who described the meanings of verses for early Muslims. Other early exegetes included a few Companions of Muhammad, like ʻAli ibn Abi Talib, ʻAbdullah ibn Abbas, ʻAbdullah ibn Umar and Ubayy ibn Kaʻb. Exegesis in those days was confined to the explanation of literary aspects of the verse, the background of its revelation and, occasionally, interpretation of one verse with the help of the other. If the verse was about a historical event, then sometimes a few traditions (hadith) of Muhammad were narrated to make its meaning clear.

 

Because the Quran is spoken in classical Arabic, many of the later converts to Islam (mostly non-Arabs) did not always understand the Quranic Arabic, they did not catch allusions that were clear to early Muslims fluent in Arabic and they were concerned with reconciling apparent conflict of themes in the Quran. Commentators erudite in Arabic explained the allusions, and perhaps most importantly, explained which Quranic verses had been revealed early in Muhammad's prophetic career, as being appropriate to the very earliest Muslim community, and which had been revealed later, canceling out or "abrogating" (nāsikh) the earlier text (mansūkh). Other scholars, however, maintain that no abrogation has taken place in the Quran. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has published a 10-volume Urdu commentary on the Quran, with the name Tafseer e Kabir.

 

ESOTERIC INTERPRETATION

Esoteric or Sufi interpretation attempts to unveil the inner meanings of the Quran. Sufism moves beyond the apparent (zahir) point of the verses and instead relates Quranic verses to the inner or esoteric (batin) and metaphysical dimensions of consciousness and existence. According to Sands, esoteric interpretations are more suggestive than declarative, they are 'allusions' (isharat) rather than explanations (tafsir). They indicate possibilities as much as they demonstrate the insights of each writer.

 

Sufi interpretation, according to Annabel Keeler, also exemplifies the use of the theme of love, as for instance can seen in Qushayri's interpretation of the Quran. Quran 7:143 says:

 

"when Moses came at the time we appointed, and his Lord spoke to him, he said, 'My Lord, show yourself to me! Let me see you!' He said, 'you shall not see me but look at that mountain, if it remains standing firm you will see me.' When his Lord revealed Himself to the mountain, He made it crumble. Moses fell down unconscious. When he recovered, he said, 'Glory be to you! I repent to you! I am the first to believe!'"

 

Moses, in 7:143, comes the way of those who are in love, he asks for a vision but his desire is denied, he is made to suffer by being commanded to look at other than the Beloved while the mountain is able to see God. The mountain crumbles and Moses faints at the sight of God's manifestation upon the mountain. In Qushayri's words, Moses came like thousands of men who traveled great distances, and there was nothing left to Moses of Moses. In that state of annihilation from himself, Moses was granted the unveiling of the realities. From the Sufi point of view, God is the always the beloved and the wayfarer's longing and suffering lead to realization of the truths.[90]

 

Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei says that according to the popular explanation among the later exegetes, ta'wil indicates the particular meaning a verse is directed towards. The meaning of revelation (tanzil), as opposed to ta'wil, is clear in its accordance to the obvious meaning of the words as they were revealed. But this explanation has become so widespread that, at present, it has become the primary meaning of ta'wil, which originally meant "to return" or "the returning place". In Tabatabaei's view, what has been rightly called ta'wil, or hermeneutic interpretation of the Quran, is not concerned simply with the denotation of words. Rather, it is concerned with certain truths and realities that transcend the comprehension of the common run of men; yet it is from these truths and realities that the principles of doctrine and the practical injunctions of the Quran issue forth. Interpretation is not the meaning of the verse - rather it transpires through that meaning, in a special sort of transpiration. There is a spiritual reality - which is the main objective of ordaining a law, or the basic aim in describing a divine attribute - and then there is an actual significance that a Quranic story refers to.

 

According to Shia beliefs, those who are firmly rooted in knowledge like Muhammad and the imams know the secrets of the Quran. According to Tabatabaei, the statement "none knows its interpretation except God" remains valid, without any opposing or qualifying clause. Therefore, so far as this verse is concerned, the knowledge of the Quran's interpretation is reserved for God. But Tabatabaei uses other verses and concludes that those who are purified by God know the interpretation of the Quran to a certain extent.

 

According to Tabatabaei, there are acceptable and unacceptable esoteric interpretations. Acceptable ta'wil refers to the meaning of a verse beyond its literal meaning; rather the implicit meaning, which ultimately is known only to God and can't be comprehended directly through human thought alone. The verses in question here refer to the human qualities of coming, going, sitting, satisfaction, anger and sorrow, which are apparently attributed to God. Unacceptable ta'wil is where one "transfers" the apparent meaning of a verse to a different meaning by means of a proof; this method is not without obvious inconsistencies. Although this unacceptable ta'wil has gained considerable acceptance, it is incorrect and cannot be applied to the Quranic verses. The correct interpretation is that reality a verse refers to. It is found in all verses, the decisive and the ambiguous alike; it is not a sort of a meaning of the word; it is a fact that is too sublime for words. God has dressed them with words to bring them a bit nearer to our minds; in this respect they are like proverbs that are used to create a picture in the mind, and thus help the hearer to clearly grasp the intended idea.

 

HISTORY OF SUFI COMMENTARIES

One of the notable authors of esoteric interpretation prior to the 12th century is Sulami (d. 1021 CE) without whose work the majority of very early Sufi commentaries would not have been preserved. Sulami's major commentary is a book named haqaiq al-tafsir ("Truths of Exegesis") which is a compilation of commentaries of earlier Sufis. From the 11th century onwards several other works appear, including commentaries by Qushayri (d. 1074), Daylami (d. 1193), Shirazi (d. 1209) and Suhrawardi (d. 1234). These works include material from Sulami's books plus the author's contributions. Many works are written in Persian such as the works of Maybudi (d. 1135) kash al-asrar ("the unveiling of the secrets"). Rumi (d. 1273) wrote a vast amount of mystical poetry in his book Mathnawi. Rumi makes heavy use of the Quran in his poetry, a feature that is sometimes omitted in translations of Rumi's work. A large number of Quranic passages can be found in Mathnawi, which some consider a kind of Sufi interpretation of the Quran. Rumi's book is not exceptional for containing citations from and elaboration on the Quran, however, Rumi does mention Quran more frequently. Simnani (d. 1336) wrote two influential works of esoteric exegesis on the Quran. He reconciled notions of God's manifestation through and in the physical world with the sentiments of Sunni Islam. Comprehensive Sufi commentaries appears in the 18th century such as the work of Ismail Hakki Bursevi (d. 1725). His work ruh al-Bayan (the Spirit of Elucidation) is a voluminous exegesis. Written in Arabic, it combines the author's own ideas with those of his predecessors (notably Ibn Arabi and Ghazali), all woven together in Hafiz, a Persian poetry form.

 

LEVELS OF MEANING

Unlike the Salafis and Zahiri, Shias and Sufis as well as some other Muslim philosophers believe the meaning of the Quran is not restricted to the literal aspect. For them, it is an essential idea that the Quran also has inward aspects. Henry Corbin narrates a hadith that goes back to Muhammad:

 

"The Quran possesses an external appearance and a hidden depth, an exoteric meaning and an esoteric meaning. This esoteric meaning in turn conceals an esoteric meaning (this depth possesses a depth, after the image of the celestial Spheres, which are enclosed within each other). So it goes on for seven esoteric meanings (seven depths of hidden depth)."

 

According to this view, it has also become evident that the inner meaning of the Quran does not eradicate or invalidate its outward meaning. Rather, it is like the soul, which gives life to the body. Corbin considers the Quran to play a part in Islamic philosophy, because gnosiology itself goes hand in hand with prophetology.

 

Commentaries dealing with the zahir (outward aspects) of the text are called tafsir, and hermeneutic and esoteric commentaries dealing with the batin are called ta'wil ("interpretation" or "explanation"), which involves taking the text back to its beginning. Commentators with an esoteric slant believe that the ultimate meaning of the Quran is known only to God. In contrast, Quranic literalism, followed by Salafis and Zahiris, is the belief that the Quran should only be taken at its apparent meaning.

 

TRANSLATIONS

Translation of the Quran has always been a problematic and difficult issue. Many argue that the Quranic text cannot be reproduced in another language or form. Furthermore, an Arabic word may have a range of meanings depending on the context, making an accurate translation even more difficult.

 

Nevertheless, the Quran has been translated into most African, Asian and European languages. The first translator of the Quran was Salman the Persian, who translated surat al-Fatiha into Persian during the seventh century. Another translation of the Quran was completed in 884 CE in Alwar (Sindh, India now Pakistan) by the orders of Abdullah bin Umar bin Abdul Aziz on the request of the Hindu Raja Mehruk.

 

The first fully attested complete translations of the Quran were done between the 10th and 12th centuries in Persian language. The Samanid king, Mansur I (961-976), ordered a group of scholars from Khorasan to translate the Tafsir al-Tabari, originally in Arabic, into Persian. Later in the 11th century, one of the students of Abu Mansur Abdullah al-Ansari wrote a complete tafsir of the Quran in Persian. In the 12th century, Najm al-Din Abu Hafs al-Nasafi translated the Quran into Persian. The manuscripts of all three books have survived and have been published several times.

 

Islamic tradition also holds that translations were made for Emperor Negus of Abyssinia and Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, as both received letters by Muhammad containing verses from the Quran. In early centuries, the permissibility of translations was not an issue, but whether one could use translations in prayer.

 

In 1936, translations in 102 languages were known. In 2010, the Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review reported that the Quran was presented in 112 languages at the 18th International Quran Exhibition in Tehran.

   

The Museum of the Moon was still supposed to be on. Or, to be more accurate, I had not checked that it was still on, but would be a good excuse to return to Rochester for the first time in over a decade.

 

Last time here I took seven or so shots, I was hoping to improve on that.

 

But, as I was to find, the Moon moved out on Wednesday, so there was just the cathedral to look at and record, and I pretty much had the cathedral to myself.

 

There was a service in the chancel, so that and the Quire were out of bounds for a while, but once over I was given the nod I could go in.

 

How do you describe a cathedral? Especially one as grand and old as Rochester?

 

From the west, the cathedral doesn't look too big, but there is a viewing place from the High Street that shows the cathedral to be a large and complicated building.

 

Inside the nave is huge, with the organ towering over the altar. Through the doorway into the quire and the sanctuary beyond, and all the while, above the white vaulted ceiling reached from the high walls and columns.

 

All around the walls are memorials to the great and good of Kent, some tombs too. The step leading from the aisles to the sanctuary are worn down by the millions of feet that have climbed them over the centuries.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

The church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rochester in the Church of England and the seat (cathedra) of the Bishop of Rochester, the second oldest bishopric in England after that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The edifice is a Grade I listed building (number 1086423)

 

The Rochester diocese was founded by Justus, one of the missionaries who accompanied Augustine of Canterbury to convert the pagan southern English to Christianity in the early 7th century. As the first Bishop of Rochester, Justus was granted permission by King Æthelberht of Kent to establish a church dedicated to Andrew the Apostle (like the monastery at Rome where Augustine and Justus had set out for England) on the site of the present cathedral, which was made the seat of a bishopric. The cathedral was to be served by a college of secular priests and was endowed with land near the city called Priestfields.[3][a][b]

 

Under the Roman system, a bishop was required to establish a school for the training of priests.[4] To provide the upper parts for music in the services a choir school was required.[5] Together these formed the genesis of the cathedral school which today is represented by the King's School, Rochester. The quality of chorister training was praised by Bede.

 

The original cathedral was 42 feet (13 m) high and 28 feet (8.5 m) wide. The apse is marked in the current cathedral on the floor and setts outside show the line of the walls. Credit for the construction of the building goes to King Æthelberht rather than St Justus. Bede describes St Paulinus' burial as "in the sanctuary of the Blessed Apostle Andrew which Æthelberht founded likewise he built the city of Rochester."[c][7]

 

Æthelberht died in 617 and his successor, Eadbald of Kent, was not a Christian. Justus fled to Francia and remained there for a year before he was recalled by the king.[8]

 

In 644 Ithamar, the first English-born bishop, was consecrated at the cathedral.[d] Ithamar consecrated Deusdedit as the first Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury on 26 March 655.[9]

 

The cathedral suffered much from the ravaging of Kent by King Æthelred of Mercia in 676. So great was the damage that Putta retired from the diocese and his appointed successor, Cwichelm, gave up the see "because of its poverty".[10]

 

In 762, the local overlord, Sigerd, granted land to the bishop, as did his successor Egbert.[e][11] The charter is notable as it is confirmed by Offa of Mercia as overlord of the local kingdom.

 

Following the invasion of 1066, William the Conqueror granted the cathedral and its estates to his half-brother, Odo of Bayeux. Odo misappropriated the resources and reduced the cathedral to near-destitution. The building itself was ancient and decayed. During the episcopate of Siward (1058–1075) it was served by four or five canons "living in squalor and poverty".[12] One of the canons became vicar of Chatham and raised sufficient money to make a gift to the cathedral for the soul and burial of his

 

Gundulf's church

 

Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, amongst others, brought Odo to account at the trial of Penenden Heath c. 1072. Following Odo's final fall, Gundulf was appointed as the first Norman bishop of Rochester in 1077. The cathedral and its lands were restored to the bishop.

 

Gundulf's first undertaking in the construction of the new cathedral seems to have been the construction of the tower which today bears his name. In about 1080 he began construction of a new cathedral to replace Justus' church. He was a talented architect who probably played a major part in the design or the works he commissioned. The original cathedral had a presbytery of six bays with aisles of the same length. The four easternmost bays stood over an undercroft which forms part of the present crypt. To the east was a small projection, probably for the silver shrine of Paulinus which was translated there from the old cathedral.[f] The transepts were 120 feet long, but only 14 feet wide. With such narrow transepts it is thought that the eastern arches of the nave abuted the quire arch.[14] To the south another tower (of which nothing visible remains) was built. There was no crossing tower.[15] The nave was not completed at first. Apparently designed to be nine bays long, most of the south side but only five bays to the north were completed by Gundulf. The quire was required by the priory and the south wall formed part of its buildings. It has been speculated that Gundulf simply left the citizens to complete the parochial part of the building.[16] Gundulf did not stop with the fabric, he also replaced the secular chaplains with Benedictine monks, obtained several royal grants of land and proved a great benefactor to his cathedral city.

 

In 1078 Gudulf founded St Bartholomew's Hospital just outside the city of Rochester. The Priory of St Andrew contributed daily and weekly provisions to the hospital which also received the offerings from the two altars of St James and of St Giles.[17]

 

During the episcopates of Ernulf (1115–1124) and John (I) (1125–1137) the cathedral was completed. The quire was rearranged, the nave partly rebuilt, Gundulf's nave piers were cased and the west end built. Ernulf is also credited with building the refectory, dormitory and chapter house, only portions of which remain. Finally John translated the body of Ithamar from the old Saxon cathedral to the new Norman one, the whole being dedicated in 1130 (or possibly 1133) by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by 13 bishops in the presence of Henry I, but the occasion was marred by a great fire which nearly destroyed the whole city and damaged the new cathedral. It was badly damaged by fires again in 1137 and 1179. One or other of these fires was sufficiently severe to badly damage or destroy the eastern arm and the transepts. Ernulf's monastic buildings were also damaged.

 

Probably from about 1190, Gilbert de Glanville (bishop 1185–1214) commenced the rebuilding of the east end and the replacement on the monastic buildings. The north quire transept may have been sufficiently advanced to allow the burial of St William of Perth in 1201, alternatively the coffin may have lain in the north quire aisle until the transept was ready. It was then looted in 1215 by the forces of King John during siege of Rochester Castle. Edmund de Hadenham recounts that there was not a pyx left "in which the body of the Lord might rest upon the altar".[14] However, by 1227, the quire was again in use when the monks made their solemn entry into it. The cathedral was rededicated in 1240 by Richard Wendene (also known as Richard de Wendover) who had been translated from Bangor.[14][18]

 

The shrines of Ss Paulinus and William of Perth, along with the relics of St Ithamar, drew pilgrims to the cathedral. Their offerings were so great that both the work mentioned above and the ensuing work could be funded.

 

Unlike the abbeys of the period (which were led by an abbot) the monastic cathedrals were priories ruled over by a prior with further support from the bishop.[19] Rochester and Carlisle (the other impoverished see) were unusual in securing the promotion of a number of monks to be bishop. Seven bishops of Rochester were originally regular monks between 1215 and the Dissolution.[20] A consequence of the monastic attachment was a lack of patronage at the bishop's disposal. By the early 16th century only 4% of the bishop's patronage came from non-parochial sources.[21] The bishop was therefore chronically limited in funds to spend on the non-monastic part of the cathedral.

 

The next phase of the development was begun by Richard de Eastgate, the sacrist. The two eastern bays of the nave were cleared and the four large piers to support the tower were built. The north nave transept was then constructed. The work was nearly completed by Thomas de Mepeham who became sacrist in 1255. Not long after the south transept was completed and the two bays of the nave nearest the crossing rebuilt to their current form. The intention seems to have been to rebuild the whole nave, but probably lack of funds saved the late Norman work.

 

The cathedral was desecrated in 1264 by the troops of Simon de Montfort, during sieges of the city and castle. It is recorded that armed knights rode into the church and dragged away some refugees. Gold and silver were stolen and documents destroyed. Some of the monastic buildings were turned into stables.[22] Just over a year later De Montfort fell at the Battle of Evesham to the forces of Edward I. Later, in 1300, Edward passed through Rochester on his way to Canterbury and is recorded as having given seven shillings (35p) at the shrine of St William, and the same again the following day. During his return he again visited the cathedral and gave a further seven shillings at each of the shrines of Ss Paulinus and Ithamar.

 

The new century saw the completion of the new Decorated work with the original Norman architecture. The rebuilding of the nave being finally abandoned. Around 1320 the south transept was altered to accommodate the altar of the Virgin Mary.

 

There appears to have been a rood screen thrown between the two western piers of the crossing. A rood loft may have surmounted it.[23] Against this screen was placed the altar of St Nicholas, the parochial altar of the city. The citizens demanded the right of entrance by day or night to what was after all their altar. There were also crowds of strangers passing through the city. The friction broke out as a riot in 1327 after which the strong stone screens and doors which wall off the eastern end of the church from the nave were built.[24] The priory itself was walled off from the town at this period. An oratory was established in angulo navis ("in the corner of the nave") for the reserved sacrament; it is not clear which corner was being referred to, but Dr Palmer[25] argues that the buttress against the north-west tower pier is the most likely setting. He notes the arch filled in with rubble on the aisle side; and on nave side there is a scar line with lower quality stonework below. The buttress is about 4 feet (1.2 m) thick, enough for an oratory. Palmer notes that provision for reservation of consecrated hosts was often made to the north of the altar which would be the case here.

 

The central tower was at last raised by Hamo de Hythe in 1343, thus essentially completing the cathedral. Bells were placed in the central tower (see Bells section below). The chapter room doorway was constructed at around this time. The Black Death struck England in 1347–49. From then on there were probably considerably more than twenty monks in the priory.

 

The modern paintwork of the quire walls is modelled on artwork from the Middle Ages. Gilbert Scott found remains of painting behind the wooden stalls during his restoration work in the 1870s. The painting is therefore part original and part authentic. The alternate lions and fleurs-de-lis reflect Edward III's victories, and assumed sovereignty over the French. In 1356 the Black Prince had defeated John II of France at Poitiers and took him prisoner. On 2 July 1360 John passed through Rochester on his way home and made an offering of 60 crowns (£15) at the Church of St Andrew.[27]

 

The Oratory provided for the citizens of Rochester did not settle the differences between the monks and the city. The eventual solution was the construction of St Nicholas' Church by the north side of the cathedral. A doorway was knocked through the western end of the north aisle (since walled up) to allow processions to pass along the north aisle of the cathedral before leaving by the west door.[27][28]

 

In the mid-15th century the clerestory and vaulting of the north quire aisle was completed and new Perpendicular Period windows inserted into the nave aisles. Possible preparatory work for this is indicated in 1410–11 by the Bridge Wardens of Rochester who recorded a gift of lead from the Lord Prior. The lead was sold on for 41 shillings.[g][29] In 1470 the great west window at the cathedral was completed and finally, in around 1490, what is now the Lady Chapel was built.[27] Rochester Cathedral, although one of England's smaller cathedrals, thus demonstrates all styles of Romanesque and Gothic architecture.[30]

 

In 1504 John Fisher was appointed Bishop of Rochester. Although Rochester was by then an impoverished see, Fisher elected to remain as bishop for the remainder of his life. He had been tutor to the young Prince Henry and on the prince's accession as Henry VIII, Fisher remained his staunch supporter and mentor. He figured in the anti-Lutheran policies of Henry right up until the divorce issue and split from Rome in the early 1530s. Fisher remained true to Rome and for his defence of the Pope was elevated as a cardinal in May 1535. Henry was angered by these moves and, on 22 June 1535, Cardinal Fisher was beheaded on Tower Green.

 

Henry VIII visited Rochester on 1 January 1540 when he met Ann of Cleves for the first time and was "greatly disappointed".[31] Whether connected or not, the old Priory of St Andrew was dissolved by royal command later in the year, one of the last monasteries to be dissolved.

 

The west front is dominated by the central perpendicular great west window. Above the window the dripstone terminates in a small carved head at each side. The line of the nave roof is delineated by a string course above which rises the crenelated parapet. Below the window is a blind arcade interrupted by the top of the Great West Door. Some of the niches in the arcade are filled with statuary. Below the arcade the door is flanked with Norman recesses. The door itself is of Norman work with concentric patterned arches. The semicircular tympanum depicts Christ sitting in glory in the centre, with Saints Justus and Ethelbert flanking him on either side of the doorway. Supporting the saints are angels and surrounding them are the symbols of the Four Evangelists: Ss Matthew (a winged man), Mark (a lion), Luke (an ox) and John (an eagle).[52] On the lintel below are the Twelve Apostles and on the shafts supporting it King Soloman and the Queen of Sheba.[53] Within the Great West Door there is a glass porch which allows the doors themselves to be kept open throughout the day.

 

Either side of the nave end rises a tower which forms the junction of the front and the nave walls. The towers are decorated with blind arcading and are carried up a further two stories above the roof and surmounted with pyramidal spires. The aisle ends are Norman. Each has a large round headed arch containing a window and in the northern recess is a small door. Above each arch is plain wall surmounted by a blind arcade, string course at the roof line and plain parapet. The flanking towers are Norman in the lower part with the style being maintained in the later work. Above the plain bases there are four stories of blind arcading topped with an octagonal spire.[54]

 

The outside of the nave and its aisles is undistinguished, apart from the walled up north-west door which allowed access from the cathedral to the adjacent St Nicholas' Church.[28] The north transept is reached from the High Street via Black Boy Alley, a medieval pilgrimage route. The decoration is Early English, but reworked by Gilbert Scott. Scott rebuilt the gable ends to the original high pitch from the lower one adopted at the start of the 19th century. The gable itself is set back from the main wall behind a parapet with walkway. He also restored the pilgrim entrance and opened up the blind arcade in the northern end of the west wall.[55]

 

To the east of the north transept is the Sextry Gate. It dates from Edward III's reign and has wooden domestic premises above. The area beyond was originally enclosed, but is now open to the High Street through the memorial garden and gates. Beyond the Sextry Gate is the entrance to Gundulf's Tower, used as a private back door to the cathedral.

 

The north quire transept and east end are all executed in Early English style, the lower windows light the crypt which is earlier. Adjoining the east end of the cathedral is the east end of the Chapter Room which is in the same style. The exact form of the east end is more modern than it appears, being largely due to the work of Scott in the 19th century. Scott raised the gable ends to the original high pitch, but for lack of funds the roofs have not been raised; writing in 1897 Palmer noted: "they still require roofs of corresponding pitch, a need both great and conspicuous".[56]

 

On the south side of the cathedral the nave reaches the main transept and beyond a modern porch. The aisle between the transepts is itself a buttress to the older wall behind and supported by a flying buttress. The unusual position of this wall is best explained when considering the interior, below. The southern wall of the presbytery is hidden by the chapter room, an 18th-century structure.

 

he western part of the nave is substantially as Gundulf designed it. According to George H. Palmer (who substantially follows St John Hope) "Rochester and Peterborough possess probably the best examples of the Norman nave in the country".[60] The main arcade is topped by a string course below a triforium. The triforium is Norman with a further string course above. The clerestory above is of perpendicular style. From the capitals pilasters rise to the first string course but appear to have been removed from the triforium stage. Originally they might have supported the roof timbers, or even been the springing of a vault.[61]

 

The easternmost bay of the triforium appears to be Norman, but is the work of 14th-century masons. The final bay of the nave is Decorated in style and leads to the tower piers. Of note is the north pier which possibly contains the Oratory Chapel mentioned above.[62]

 

The aisles are plain with flat pilasters. The eastern two bays are Decorated with springing for vaulting. Whether the vault was ever constructed is unknown, the present wooden roof extends the full length of the aisles.

 

The crossing is bounded to the east by the quire screen with the organ above. This is of 19th-century work and shows figures associated with the early cathedral. Above the crossing is the central tower, housing the bells and above that the spire. The ceiling of the crossing is notable for the four Green Men carved on the bosses. Visible from the ground is the outline of the trapdoor through which bells can be raised and lowered when required. The floor is stepped up to the pulpitum and gives access to the quire through the organ screen.

 

The north transept is from 1235 in Early English style. The Victorian insertion of windows has been mentioned above in the external description. Dominating the transept is the baptistery fresco. The fresco by Russian artist Sergei Fyodorov is displayed on the eastern wall. It is located within an arched recess. The recess may have been a former site of the altar of St Nicholas from the time of its construction in 1235 until it was moved to the screen before the pulpitum in 1322. A will suggests that "an altar of Jesu" also stood here at some point, an altar of some sort must have existed as evidenced by the piscina to the right of the recess.[64] The vaulting is unusual in being octpartite, a development of the more common sexpartite. The Pilgrim Door is now the main visitor entrance and is level for disabled access.

 

he original Lady Chapel was formed in the south transept by screening it off from the crossing. The altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary was housed in the eastern arch of the transept. There are traces of painting both on the east wall and under the arch. The painting delineates the location of the mediaeval north screen of the Lady Chapel. Around 1490 this chapel was extended westwards by piercing the western wall with a large arch and building the chapel's nave against the existing south aisle of cathedral. From within the Lady Chapel the upper parts of two smaller clerestory windows may be seen above the chapel's chancel arch. Subsequently, a screen was placed under the arch and the modern Lady Chapel formed in the 1490 extension.

 

The south transept is of early Decorated style. The eastern wall of it is a single wide arch at the arcade level. There are two doorways in the arch, neither of which is used, the northern one being hidden by the memorial to Dr William Franklin. The south wall starts plain but part way up is a notable monument to Richard Watts, a "coloured bust, with long gray beard".[65] According to Palmer there used to be a brass plaque to Charles Dickens below this but only the outline exists, the plaque having been moved to the east wall of the quire transept.[66] The west wall is filled by the large arch mentioned above with the screen below dividing it from the present Lady Chapel.

 

The Lady Chapel as it now exists is of Decorated style with three lights along southern wall and two in the west wall. The style is a light and airy counterpart to the stolid Norman work of the nave. The altar has been placed against the southern wall resulting in a chapel where the congregation wraps around the altar. The window stained glass is modern and tells the gospel story.

 

The first, easternmost, window has the Annunciation in the upper light: Gabriel speaking to Mary (both crowned) with the Holy Spirit as a dove descending. The lower light shows the Nativity with the Holy Family, three angels and shepherds. The next window shows St Elizabeth in the upper light surrounded by stars and the sun in splendour device. The lower light shows the Adoration of the Magi with Mary enthroned with the Infant. The final window of the south wall has St Mary Magdelene with her ointment surrounded by Tudor roses and fleurs-de-lis in the upper light with the lower light showing the Presentation in the Temple. The west wall continues with St. Margaret of Scotland in the upper light surrounded by fouled anchor and thistle roundels. The reference is to the original dedication of the cathedral as the Priory of St Andrew. The lower light shows the Crucifixion with Mary and St Peter. The final window is unusual, the upper light is divided in three and shows King Arthur with the royal arms flanked by St George on the left and St Michael on the right. The lower light shows the Ascension: two disciples to the left, three women with unguents to the right and three bare crosses top right.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester_Cathedral

The Museum of the Moon was still supposed to be on. Or, to be more accurate, I had not checked that it was still on, but would be a good excuse to return to Rochester for the first time in over a decade.

 

Last time here I took seven or so shots, I was hoping to improve on that.

 

But, as I was to find, the Moon moved out on Wednesday, so there was just the cathedral to look at and record, and I pretty much had the cathedral to myself.

 

There was a service in the chancel, so that and the Quire were out of bounds for a while, but once over I was given the nod I could go in.

 

How do you describe a cathedral? Especially one as grand and old as Rochester?

 

From the west, the cathedral doesn't look too big, but there is a viewing place from the High Street that shows the cathedral to be a large and complicated building.

 

Inside the nave is huge, with the organ towering over the altar. Through the doorway into the quire and the sanctuary beyond, and all the while, above the white vaulted ceiling reached from the high walls and columns.

 

All around the walls are memorials to the great and good of Kent, some tombs too. The step leading from the aisles to the sanctuary are worn down by the millions of feet that have climbed them over the centuries.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

The church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rochester in the Church of England and the seat (cathedra) of the Bishop of Rochester, the second oldest bishopric in England after that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The edifice is a Grade I listed building (number 1086423)

 

The Rochester diocese was founded by Justus, one of the missionaries who accompanied Augustine of Canterbury to convert the pagan southern English to Christianity in the early 7th century. As the first Bishop of Rochester, Justus was granted permission by King Æthelberht of Kent to establish a church dedicated to Andrew the Apostle (like the monastery at Rome where Augustine and Justus had set out for England) on the site of the present cathedral, which was made the seat of a bishopric. The cathedral was to be served by a college of secular priests and was endowed with land near the city called Priestfields.[3][a][b]

 

Under the Roman system, a bishop was required to establish a school for the training of priests.[4] To provide the upper parts for music in the services a choir school was required.[5] Together these formed the genesis of the cathedral school which today is represented by the King's School, Rochester. The quality of chorister training was praised by Bede.

 

The original cathedral was 42 feet (13 m) high and 28 feet (8.5 m) wide. The apse is marked in the current cathedral on the floor and setts outside show the line of the walls. Credit for the construction of the building goes to King Æthelberht rather than St Justus. Bede describes St Paulinus' burial as "in the sanctuary of the Blessed Apostle Andrew which Æthelberht founded likewise he built the city of Rochester."[c][7]

 

Æthelberht died in 617 and his successor, Eadbald of Kent, was not a Christian. Justus fled to Francia and remained there for a year before he was recalled by the king.[8]

 

In 644 Ithamar, the first English-born bishop, was consecrated at the cathedral.[d] Ithamar consecrated Deusdedit as the first Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury on 26 March 655.[9]

 

The cathedral suffered much from the ravaging of Kent by King Æthelred of Mercia in 676. So great was the damage that Putta retired from the diocese and his appointed successor, Cwichelm, gave up the see "because of its poverty".[10]

 

In 762, the local overlord, Sigerd, granted land to the bishop, as did his successor Egbert.[e][11] The charter is notable as it is confirmed by Offa of Mercia as overlord of the local kingdom.

 

Following the invasion of 1066, William the Conqueror granted the cathedral and its estates to his half-brother, Odo of Bayeux. Odo misappropriated the resources and reduced the cathedral to near-destitution. The building itself was ancient and decayed. During the episcopate of Siward (1058–1075) it was served by four or five canons "living in squalor and poverty".[12] One of the canons became vicar of Chatham and raised sufficient money to make a gift to the cathedral for the soul and burial of his

 

Gundulf's church

 

Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, amongst others, brought Odo to account at the trial of Penenden Heath c. 1072. Following Odo's final fall, Gundulf was appointed as the first Norman bishop of Rochester in 1077. The cathedral and its lands were restored to the bishop.

 

Gundulf's first undertaking in the construction of the new cathedral seems to have been the construction of the tower which today bears his name. In about 1080 he began construction of a new cathedral to replace Justus' church. He was a talented architect who probably played a major part in the design or the works he commissioned. The original cathedral had a presbytery of six bays with aisles of the same length. The four easternmost bays stood over an undercroft which forms part of the present crypt. To the east was a small projection, probably for the silver shrine of Paulinus which was translated there from the old cathedral.[f] The transepts were 120 feet long, but only 14 feet wide. With such narrow transepts it is thought that the eastern arches of the nave abuted the quire arch.[14] To the south another tower (of which nothing visible remains) was built. There was no crossing tower.[15] The nave was not completed at first. Apparently designed to be nine bays long, most of the south side but only five bays to the north were completed by Gundulf. The quire was required by the priory and the south wall formed part of its buildings. It has been speculated that Gundulf simply left the citizens to complete the parochial part of the building.[16] Gundulf did not stop with the fabric, he also replaced the secular chaplains with Benedictine monks, obtained several royal grants of land and proved a great benefactor to his cathedral city.

 

In 1078 Gudulf founded St Bartholomew's Hospital just outside the city of Rochester. The Priory of St Andrew contributed daily and weekly provisions to the hospital which also received the offerings from the two altars of St James and of St Giles.[17]

 

During the episcopates of Ernulf (1115–1124) and John (I) (1125–1137) the cathedral was completed. The quire was rearranged, the nave partly rebuilt, Gundulf's nave piers were cased and the west end built. Ernulf is also credited with building the refectory, dormitory and chapter house, only portions of which remain. Finally John translated the body of Ithamar from the old Saxon cathedral to the new Norman one, the whole being dedicated in 1130 (or possibly 1133) by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by 13 bishops in the presence of Henry I, but the occasion was marred by a great fire which nearly destroyed the whole city and damaged the new cathedral. It was badly damaged by fires again in 1137 and 1179. One or other of these fires was sufficiently severe to badly damage or destroy the eastern arm and the transepts. Ernulf's monastic buildings were also damaged.

 

Probably from about 1190, Gilbert de Glanville (bishop 1185–1214) commenced the rebuilding of the east end and the replacement on the monastic buildings. The north quire transept may have been sufficiently advanced to allow the burial of St William of Perth in 1201, alternatively the coffin may have lain in the north quire aisle until the transept was ready. It was then looted in 1215 by the forces of King John during siege of Rochester Castle. Edmund de Hadenham recounts that there was not a pyx left "in which the body of the Lord might rest upon the altar".[14] However, by 1227, the quire was again in use when the monks made their solemn entry into it. The cathedral was rededicated in 1240 by Richard Wendene (also known as Richard de Wendover) who had been translated from Bangor.[14][18]

 

The shrines of Ss Paulinus and William of Perth, along with the relics of St Ithamar, drew pilgrims to the cathedral. Their offerings were so great that both the work mentioned above and the ensuing work could be funded.

 

Unlike the abbeys of the period (which were led by an abbot) the monastic cathedrals were priories ruled over by a prior with further support from the bishop.[19] Rochester and Carlisle (the other impoverished see) were unusual in securing the promotion of a number of monks to be bishop. Seven bishops of Rochester were originally regular monks between 1215 and the Dissolution.[20] A consequence of the monastic attachment was a lack of patronage at the bishop's disposal. By the early 16th century only 4% of the bishop's patronage came from non-parochial sources.[21] The bishop was therefore chronically limited in funds to spend on the non-monastic part of the cathedral.

 

The next phase of the development was begun by Richard de Eastgate, the sacrist. The two eastern bays of the nave were cleared and the four large piers to support the tower were built. The north nave transept was then constructed. The work was nearly completed by Thomas de Mepeham who became sacrist in 1255. Not long after the south transept was completed and the two bays of the nave nearest the crossing rebuilt to their current form. The intention seems to have been to rebuild the whole nave, but probably lack of funds saved the late Norman work.

 

The cathedral was desecrated in 1264 by the troops of Simon de Montfort, during sieges of the city and castle. It is recorded that armed knights rode into the church and dragged away some refugees. Gold and silver were stolen and documents destroyed. Some of the monastic buildings were turned into stables.[22] Just over a year later De Montfort fell at the Battle of Evesham to the forces of Edward I. Later, in 1300, Edward passed through Rochester on his way to Canterbury and is recorded as having given seven shillings (35p) at the shrine of St William, and the same again the following day. During his return he again visited the cathedral and gave a further seven shillings at each of the shrines of Ss Paulinus and Ithamar.

 

The new century saw the completion of the new Decorated work with the original Norman architecture. The rebuilding of the nave being finally abandoned. Around 1320 the south transept was altered to accommodate the altar of the Virgin Mary.

 

There appears to have been a rood screen thrown between the two western piers of the crossing. A rood loft may have surmounted it.[23] Against this screen was placed the altar of St Nicholas, the parochial altar of the city. The citizens demanded the right of entrance by day or night to what was after all their altar. There were also crowds of strangers passing through the city. The friction broke out as a riot in 1327 after which the strong stone screens and doors which wall off the eastern end of the church from the nave were built.[24] The priory itself was walled off from the town at this period. An oratory was established in angulo navis ("in the corner of the nave") for the reserved sacrament; it is not clear which corner was being referred to, but Dr Palmer[25] argues that the buttress against the north-west tower pier is the most likely setting. He notes the arch filled in with rubble on the aisle side; and on nave side there is a scar line with lower quality stonework below. The buttress is about 4 feet (1.2 m) thick, enough for an oratory. Palmer notes that provision for reservation of consecrated hosts was often made to the north of the altar which would be the case here.

 

The central tower was at last raised by Hamo de Hythe in 1343, thus essentially completing the cathedral. Bells were placed in the central tower (see Bells section below). The chapter room doorway was constructed at around this time. The Black Death struck England in 1347–49. From then on there were probably considerably more than twenty monks in the priory.

 

The modern paintwork of the quire walls is modelled on artwork from the Middle Ages. Gilbert Scott found remains of painting behind the wooden stalls during his restoration work in the 1870s. The painting is therefore part original and part authentic. The alternate lions and fleurs-de-lis reflect Edward III's victories, and assumed sovereignty over the French. In 1356 the Black Prince had defeated John II of France at Poitiers and took him prisoner. On 2 July 1360 John passed through Rochester on his way home and made an offering of 60 crowns (£15) at the Church of St Andrew.[27]

 

The Oratory provided for the citizens of Rochester did not settle the differences between the monks and the city. The eventual solution was the construction of St Nicholas' Church by the north side of the cathedral. A doorway was knocked through the western end of the north aisle (since walled up) to allow processions to pass along the north aisle of the cathedral before leaving by the west door.[27][28]

 

In the mid-15th century the clerestory and vaulting of the north quire aisle was completed and new Perpendicular Period windows inserted into the nave aisles. Possible preparatory work for this is indicated in 1410–11 by the Bridge Wardens of Rochester who recorded a gift of lead from the Lord Prior. The lead was sold on for 41 shillings.[g][29] In 1470 the great west window at the cathedral was completed and finally, in around 1490, what is now the Lady Chapel was built.[27] Rochester Cathedral, although one of England's smaller cathedrals, thus demonstrates all styles of Romanesque and Gothic architecture.[30]

 

In 1504 John Fisher was appointed Bishop of Rochester. Although Rochester was by then an impoverished see, Fisher elected to remain as bishop for the remainder of his life. He had been tutor to the young Prince Henry and on the prince's accession as Henry VIII, Fisher remained his staunch supporter and mentor. He figured in the anti-Lutheran policies of Henry right up until the divorce issue and split from Rome in the early 1530s. Fisher remained true to Rome and for his defence of the Pope was elevated as a cardinal in May 1535. Henry was angered by these moves and, on 22 June 1535, Cardinal Fisher was beheaded on Tower Green.

 

Henry VIII visited Rochester on 1 January 1540 when he met Ann of Cleves for the first time and was "greatly disappointed".[31] Whether connected or not, the old Priory of St Andrew was dissolved by royal command later in the year, one of the last monasteries to be dissolved.

 

The west front is dominated by the central perpendicular great west window. Above the window the dripstone terminates in a small carved head at each side. The line of the nave roof is delineated by a string course above which rises the crenelated parapet. Below the window is a blind arcade interrupted by the top of the Great West Door. Some of the niches in the arcade are filled with statuary. Below the arcade the door is flanked with Norman recesses. The door itself is of Norman work with concentric patterned arches. The semicircular tympanum depicts Christ sitting in glory in the centre, with Saints Justus and Ethelbert flanking him on either side of the doorway. Supporting the saints are angels and surrounding them are the symbols of the Four Evangelists: Ss Matthew (a winged man), Mark (a lion), Luke (an ox) and John (an eagle).[52] On the lintel below are the Twelve Apostles and on the shafts supporting it King Soloman and the Queen of Sheba.[53] Within the Great West Door there is a glass porch which allows the doors themselves to be kept open throughout the day.

 

Either side of the nave end rises a tower which forms the junction of the front and the nave walls. The towers are decorated with blind arcading and are carried up a further two stories above the roof and surmounted with pyramidal spires. The aisle ends are Norman. Each has a large round headed arch containing a window and in the northern recess is a small door. Above each arch is plain wall surmounted by a blind arcade, string course at the roof line and plain parapet. The flanking towers are Norman in the lower part with the style being maintained in the later work. Above the plain bases there are four stories of blind arcading topped with an octagonal spire.[54]

 

The outside of the nave and its aisles is undistinguished, apart from the walled up north-west door which allowed access from the cathedral to the adjacent St Nicholas' Church.[28] The north transept is reached from the High Street via Black Boy Alley, a medieval pilgrimage route. The decoration is Early English, but reworked by Gilbert Scott. Scott rebuilt the gable ends to the original high pitch from the lower one adopted at the start of the 19th century. The gable itself is set back from the main wall behind a parapet with walkway. He also restored the pilgrim entrance and opened up the blind arcade in the northern end of the west wall.[55]

 

To the east of the north transept is the Sextry Gate. It dates from Edward III's reign and has wooden domestic premises above. The area beyond was originally enclosed, but is now open to the High Street through the memorial garden and gates. Beyond the Sextry Gate is the entrance to Gundulf's Tower, used as a private back door to the cathedral.

 

The north quire transept and east end are all executed in Early English style, the lower windows light the crypt which is earlier. Adjoining the east end of the cathedral is the east end of the Chapter Room which is in the same style. The exact form of the east end is more modern than it appears, being largely due to the work of Scott in the 19th century. Scott raised the gable ends to the original high pitch, but for lack of funds the roofs have not been raised; writing in 1897 Palmer noted: "they still require roofs of corresponding pitch, a need both great and conspicuous".[56]

 

On the south side of the cathedral the nave reaches the main transept and beyond a modern porch. The aisle between the transepts is itself a buttress to the older wall behind and supported by a flying buttress. The unusual position of this wall is best explained when considering the interior, below. The southern wall of the presbytery is hidden by the chapter room, an 18th-century structure.

 

he western part of the nave is substantially as Gundulf designed it. According to George H. Palmer (who substantially follows St John Hope) "Rochester and Peterborough possess probably the best examples of the Norman nave in the country".[60] The main arcade is topped by a string course below a triforium. The triforium is Norman with a further string course above. The clerestory above is of perpendicular style. From the capitals pilasters rise to the first string course but appear to have been removed from the triforium stage. Originally they might have supported the roof timbers, or even been the springing of a vault.[61]

 

The easternmost bay of the triforium appears to be Norman, but is the work of 14th-century masons. The final bay of the nave is Decorated in style and leads to the tower piers. Of note is the north pier which possibly contains the Oratory Chapel mentioned above.[62]

 

The aisles are plain with flat pilasters. The eastern two bays are Decorated with springing for vaulting. Whether the vault was ever constructed is unknown, the present wooden roof extends the full length of the aisles.

 

The crossing is bounded to the east by the quire screen with the organ above. This is of 19th-century work and shows figures associated with the early cathedral. Above the crossing is the central tower, housing the bells and above that the spire. The ceiling of the crossing is notable for the four Green Men carved on the bosses. Visible from the ground is the outline of the trapdoor through which bells can be raised and lowered when required. The floor is stepped up to the pulpitum and gives access to the quire through the organ screen.

 

The north transept is from 1235 in Early English style. The Victorian insertion of windows has been mentioned above in the external description. Dominating the transept is the baptistery fresco. The fresco by Russian artist Sergei Fyodorov is displayed on the eastern wall. It is located within an arched recess. The recess may have been a former site of the altar of St Nicholas from the time of its construction in 1235 until it was moved to the screen before the pulpitum in 1322. A will suggests that "an altar of Jesu" also stood here at some point, an altar of some sort must have existed as evidenced by the piscina to the right of the recess.[64] The vaulting is unusual in being octpartite, a development of the more common sexpartite. The Pilgrim Door is now the main visitor entrance and is level for disabled access.

 

he original Lady Chapel was formed in the south transept by screening it off from the crossing. The altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary was housed in the eastern arch of the transept. There are traces of painting both on the east wall and under the arch. The painting delineates the location of the mediaeval north screen of the Lady Chapel. Around 1490 this chapel was extended westwards by piercing the western wall with a large arch and building the chapel's nave against the existing south aisle of cathedral. From within the Lady Chapel the upper parts of two smaller clerestory windows may be seen above the chapel's chancel arch. Subsequently, a screen was placed under the arch and the modern Lady Chapel formed in the 1490 extension.

 

The south transept is of early Decorated style. The eastern wall of it is a single wide arch at the arcade level. There are two doorways in the arch, neither of which is used, the northern one being hidden by the memorial to Dr William Franklin. The south wall starts plain but part way up is a notable monument to Richard Watts, a "coloured bust, with long gray beard".[65] According to Palmer there used to be a brass plaque to Charles Dickens below this but only the outline exists, the plaque having been moved to the east wall of the quire transept.[66] The west wall is filled by the large arch mentioned above with the screen below dividing it from the present Lady Chapel.

 

The Lady Chapel as it now exists is of Decorated style with three lights along southern wall and two in the west wall. The style is a light and airy counterpart to the stolid Norman work of the nave. The altar has been placed against the southern wall resulting in a chapel where the congregation wraps around the altar. The window stained glass is modern and tells the gospel story.

 

The first, easternmost, window has the Annunciation in the upper light: Gabriel speaking to Mary (both crowned) with the Holy Spirit as a dove descending. The lower light shows the Nativity with the Holy Family, three angels and shepherds. The next window shows St Elizabeth in the upper light surrounded by stars and the sun in splendour device. The lower light shows the Adoration of the Magi with Mary enthroned with the Infant. The final window of the south wall has St Mary Magdelene with her ointment surrounded by Tudor roses and fleurs-de-lis in the upper light with the lower light showing the Presentation in the Temple. The west wall continues with St. Margaret of Scotland in the upper light surrounded by fouled anchor and thistle roundels. The reference is to the original dedication of the cathedral as the Priory of St Andrew. The lower light shows the Crucifixion with Mary and St Peter. The final window is unusual, the upper light is divided in three and shows King Arthur with the royal arms flanked by St George on the left and St Michael on the right. The lower light shows the Ascension: two disciples to the left, three women with unguents to the right and three bare crosses top right.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester_Cathedral

Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhārtha Gautama, Shakyamuni, or simply the Buddha, was a sage on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in northeastern India sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE.

 

The word Buddha means "awakened one" or "the enlightened one". "Buddha" is also used as a title for the first awakened being in a Yuga era. In most Buddhist traditions, Siddhartha Gautama is regarded as the Supreme Buddha (Pali sammāsambuddha, Sanskrit samyaksaṃbuddha) of the present age. Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region. He later taught throughout regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala.

 

Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later.

 

CONTENTS

HISTORICAL SIDDHARTA GAUTAMA

Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most accept that he lived, taught and founded a monastic order during the Mahajanapada era during the reign of Bimbisara, the ruler of the Magadha empire, and died during the early years of the reign of Ajasattu, who was the successor of Bimbisara, thus making him a younger contemporary of Mahavira, the Jain tirthankara. Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddha's lifetime coincided with the flourishing of other influential śramaṇa schools of thoughts like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jainism, and Ajñana. It was also the age of influential thinkers like Mahavira, Pūraṇa Kassapa , Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesakambalī, Pakudha Kaccāyana, and Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, whose viewpoints the Buddha most certainly must have been acquainted with and influenced by. Indeed, Sariputta and Moggallāna, two of the foremost disciples of the Buddha, were formerly the foremost disciples of Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, the skeptic. There is also evidence to suggest that the two masters, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, were indeed historical figures and they most probably taught Buddha two different forms of meditative techniques. While the general sequence of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" is widely accepted, there is less consensus on the veracity of many details contained in traditional biographies.

 

The times of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain. Most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE. More recently his death is dated later, between 411 and 400 BCE, while at a symposium on this question held in 1988, the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet been accepted by all historians.

 

The evidence of the early texts suggests that Siddhārtha Gautama was born into the Shakya clan, a community that was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the northeastern Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE. It was either a small republic, in which case his father was an elected chieftain, or an oligarchy, in which case his father was an oligarch. According to the Buddhist tradition, Gautama was born in Lumbini, nowadays in modern-day Nepal, and raised in the Shakya capital of Kapilavastu, which may have been in either present day Tilaurakot, Nepal or Piprahwa, India. He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, and died in Kushinagar.

 

No written records about Gautama have been found from his lifetime or some centuries thereafter. One Edict of Asoka, who reigned from circa 269 BCE to 232 BCE, commemorates the Emperor's pilgrimage to the Buddha's birthplace in Lumbini. Another one of his edicts mentions several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era and which may be the precursors of the Pāli Canon. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, reported to have been found in or around Haḍḍa near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan and now preserved in the British Library. They are written in the Gāndhārī language using the Kharosthi script on twenty-seven birch bark manuscripts and date from the first century BCE to the third century CE.

 

TRADITIONAL BIOGRAPHIES

BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES

The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different, and sometimes conflicting, traditional biographies. These include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā. Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa, and dating around the beginning of the 2nd century CE. The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE. The Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE. The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive, and is entitled the Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra, and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE. The Nidānakathā is from the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka and was composed in the 5th century by Buddhaghoṣa.

 

From canonical sources, the Jataka tales, the Mahapadana Sutta (DN 14), and the Achariyabhuta Sutta (MN 123) which include selective accounts that may be older, but are not full biographies. The Jātakas retell previous lives of Gautama as a bodhisattva, and the first collection of these can be dated among the earliest Buddhist texts. The Mahāpadāna Sutta and Achariyabhuta Sutta both recount miraculous events surrounding Gautama's birth, such as the bodhisattva's descent from the Tuṣita Heaven into his mother's womb.

 

NATURE OF TRADITIONAL DEPICTIONS

In the earliest Buddhists texts, the nikāyas and āgamas, the Buddha is not depicted as possessing omniscience (sabbaññu) nor is he depicted as being an eternal transcendent (lokottara) being. According to Bhikkhu Analayo, ideas of the Buddha's omniscience (along with an increasing tendency to deify him and his biography) are found only later, in the Mahayana sutras and later Pali commentaries or texts such as the Mahāvastu. In the Sandaka Sutta, the Buddha's disciple Ananda outlines an argument against the claims of teachers who say they are all knowing while in the Tevijjavacchagotta Sutta the Buddha himself states that he has never made a claim to being omniscient, instead he claimed to have the "higher knowledges" (abhijñā). The earliest biographical material from the Pali Nikayas focuses on the Buddha's life as a śramaṇa, his search for enlightenment under various teachers such as Alara Kalama and his forty five year career as a teacher.

 

Traditional biographies of Gautama generally include numerous miracles, omens, and supernatural events. The character of the Buddha in these traditional biographies is often that of a fully transcendent (Skt. lokottara) and perfected being who is unencumbered by the mundane world. In the Mahāvastu, over the course of many lives, Gautama is said to have developed supra-mundane abilities including: a painless birth conceived without intercourse; no need for sleep, food, medicine, or bathing, although engaging in such "in conformity with the world"; omniscience, and the ability to "suppress karma". Nevertheless, some of the more ordinary details of his life have been gathered from these traditional sources. In modern times there has been an attempt to form a secular understanding of Siddhārtha Gautama's life by omitting the traditional supernatural elements of his early biographies.

 

Andrew Skilton writes that the Buddha was never historically regarded by Buddhist traditions as being merely human:

It is important to stress that, despite modern Theravada teachings to the contrary (often a sop to skeptical Western pupils), he was never seen as being merely human. For instance, he is often described as having the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks or signs of a mahāpuruṣa, "superman"; the Buddha himself denied that he was either a man or a god; and in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta he states that he could live for an aeon were he asked to do so.The ancient Indians were generally unconcerned with chronologies, being more focused on philosophy. Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing a clearer picture of what Gautama may have taught than of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the Jain scriptures, and make the Buddha's time the earliest period in Indian history for which significant accounts exist. British author Karen Armstrong writes that although there is very little information that can be considered historically sound, we can be reasonably confident that Siddhārtha Gautama did exist as a historical figure. Michael Carrithers goes a bit further by stating that the most general outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true.

 

BIOGRAPHY

CONCEPTION AND BIRTH

The Buddhist tradition regards Lumbini, in present-day Nepal to be the birthplace of the Buddha. He grew up in Kapilavastu. The exact site of ancient Kapilavastu is unknown. It may have been either Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh, present-day India, or Tilaurakot, present-day Nepal. Both places belonged to the Sakya territory, and are located only 15 miles apart from each other.

 

Gautama was born as a Kshatriya, the son of Śuddhodana, "an elected chief of the Shakya clan", whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha's lifetime. Gautama was the family name. His mother, Maya (Māyādevī), Suddhodana's wife, was a Koliyan princess. Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side, and ten months later Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilvastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, her son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree.

 

The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Theravada countries as Vesak. Buddha's Birthday is called Buddha Purnima in Nepal and India as he is believed to have been born on a full moon day. Various sources hold that the Buddha's mother died at his birth, a few days or seven days later. The infant was given the name Siddhartha (Pāli: Siddhattha), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During the birth celebrations, the hermit seer Asita journeyed from his mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a great king (chakravartin) or a great sadhu. By traditional account, this occurred after Siddhartha placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the birthmarks. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invited eight Brahmin scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man. Kondañña, the youngest, and later to be the first arhat other than the Buddha, was reputed to be the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Buddha.

 

While later tradition and legend characterized Śuddhodana as a hereditary monarch, the descendant of the Suryavansha (Solar dynasty) of Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka), many scholars think that Śuddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy.

 

Early texts suggest that Gautama was not familiar with the dominant religious teachings of his time until he left on his religious quest, which is said to have been motivated by existential concern for the human condition. The state of the Shakya clan was not a monarchy, and seems to have been structured either as an oligarchy, or as a form of republic. The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of the śramanic Jain and Buddhist sanghas, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism.

 

EARLY LIFE AND MARRIAGE

Siddhartha was brought up by his mother's younger sister, Maha Pajapati. By tradition, he is said to have been destined by birth to the life of a prince, and had three palaces (for seasonal occupation) built for him. Although more recent scholarship doubts this status, his father, said to be King Śuddhodana, wishing for his son to be a great king, is said to have shielded him from religious teachings and from knowledge of human suffering.

 

When he reached the age of 16, his father reputedly arranged his marriage to a cousin of the same age named Yaśodharā (Pāli: Yasodharā). According to the traditional account, she gave birth to a son, named Rāhula. Siddhartha is said to have spent 29 years as a prince in Kapilavastu. Although his father ensured that Siddhartha was provided with everything he could want or need, Buddhist scriptures say that the future Buddha felt that material wealth was not life's ultimate goal.

 

RENUNCIATION AND ASCETIC LIFE

At the age of 29, the popular biography continues, Siddhartha left his palace to meet his subjects. Despite his father's efforts to hide from him the sick, aged and suffering, Siddhartha was said to have seen an old man. When his charioteer Channa explained to him that all people grew old, the prince went on further trips beyond the palace. On these he encountered a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic. These depressed him, and he initially strove to overcome aging, sickness, and death by living the life of an ascetic.

 

Accompanied by Channa and riding his horse Kanthaka, Gautama quit his palace for the life of a mendicant. It's said that, "the horse's hooves were muffled by the gods" to prevent guards from knowing of his departure.

 

Gautama initially went to Rajagaha and began his ascetic life by begging for alms in the street. After King Bimbisara's men recognised Siddhartha and the king learned of his quest, Bimbisara offered Siddhartha the throne. Siddhartha rejected the offer, but promised to visit his kingdom of Magadha first, upon attaining enlightenment.

 

He left Rajagaha and practised under two hermit teachers of yogic meditation. After mastering the teachings of Alara Kalama (Skr. Ārāḍa Kālāma), he was asked by Kalama to succeed him. However, Gautama felt unsatisfied by the practice, and moved on to become a student of yoga with Udaka Ramaputta (Skr. Udraka Rāmaputra). With him he achieved high levels of meditative consciousness, and was again asked to succeed his teacher. But, once more, he was not satisfied, and again moved on.

 

Siddhartha and a group of five companions led by Kaundinya are then said to have set out to take their austerities even further. They tried to find enlightenment through deprivation of worldly goods, including food, practising self-mortification. After nearly starving himself to death by restricting his food intake to around a leaf or nut per day, he collapsed in a river while bathing and almost drowned. Siddhartha was rescued by a village girl named Sujata and she gave him some payasam (a pudding made from milk and jaggery) after which Siddhartha got back some energy. Siddhartha began to reconsider his path. Then, he remembered a moment in childhood in which he had been watching his father start the season's ploughing. He attained a concentrated and focused state that was blissful and refreshing, the jhāna.

 

AWAKENING

According to the early Buddhist texts, after realizing that meditative dhyana was the right path to awakening, but that extreme asceticism didn't work, Gautama discovered what Buddhists call the Middle Way - a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification, or the Noble Eightfold Path, as was identified and described by the Buddha in his first discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. In a famous incident, after becoming starved and weakened, he is said to have accepted milk and rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata. Such was his emaciated appearance that she wrongly believed him to be a spirit that had granted her a wish.

 

Following this incident, Gautama was famously seated under a pipal tree - now known as the Bodhi tree - in Bodh Gaya, India, when he vowed never to arise until he had found the truth. Kaundinya and four other companions, believing that he had abandoned his search and become undisciplined, left. After a reputed 49 days of meditation, at the age of 35, he is said to have attained Enlightenment. According to some traditions, this occurred in approximately the fifth lunar month, while, according to others, it was in the twelfth month. From that time, Gautama was known to his followers as the Buddha or "Awakened One" ("Buddha" is also sometimes translated as "The Enlightened One").

 

According to Buddhism, at the time of his awakening he realized complete insight into the cause of suffering, and the steps necessary to eliminate it. These discoveries became known as the "Four Noble Truths", which are at the heart of Buddhist teaching. Through mastery of these truths, a state of supreme liberation, or Nirvana, is believed to be possible for any being. The Buddha described Nirvāna as the perfect peace of a mind that's free from ignorance, greed, hatred and other afflictive states, or "defilements" (kilesas). Nirvana is also regarded as the "end of the world", in that no personal identity or boundaries of the mind remain. In such a state, a being is said to possess the Ten Characteristics, belonging to every Buddha.

 

According to a story in the Āyācana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya VI.1) - a scripture found in the Pāli and other canons - immediately after his awakening, the Buddha debated whether or not he should teach the Dharma to others. He was concerned that humans were so overpowered by ignorance, greed and hatred that they could never recognise the path, which is subtle, deep and hard to grasp. However, in the story, Brahmā Sahampati convinced him, arguing that at least some will understand it. The Buddha relented, and agreed to teach.

 

FORMATION OF THE SANGHA

After his awakening, the Buddha met Taphussa and Bhallika — two merchant brothers from the city of Balkh in what is currently Afghanistan - who became his first lay disciples. It is said that each was given hairs from his head, which are now claimed to be enshrined as relics in the Shwe Dagon Temple in Rangoon, Burma. The Buddha intended to visit Asita, and his former teachers, Alara Kalama and Udaka Ramaputta, to explain his findings, but they had already died.

 

He then travelled to the Deer Park near Varanasi (Benares) in northern India, where he set in motion what Buddhists call the Wheel of Dharma by delivering his first sermon to the five companions with whom he had sought enlightenment. Together with him, they formed the first saṅgha: the company of Buddhist monks.

 

All five become arahants, and within the first two months, with the conversion of Yasa and fifty four of his friends, the number of such arahants is said to have grown to 60. The conversion of three brothers named Kassapa followed, with their reputed 200, 300 and 500 disciples, respectively. This swelled the sangha to more than 1,000.

 

TRAVELS AND TEACHING

For the remaining 45 years of his life, the Buddha is said to have traveled in the Gangetic Plain, in what is now Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and southern Nepal, teaching a diverse range of people: from nobles to servants, murderers such as Angulimala, and cannibals such as Alavaka. Although the Buddha's language remains unknown, it's likely that he taught in one or more of a variety of closely related Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, of which Pali may be a standardization.

 

The sangha traveled through the subcontinent, expounding the dharma. This continued throughout the year, except during the four months of the Vāsanā rainy season when ascetics of all religions rarely traveled. One reason was that it was more difficult to do so without causing harm to animal life. At this time of year, the sangha would retreat to monasteries, public parks or forests, where people would come to them.

 

The first vassana was spent at Varanasi when the sangha was formed. After this, the Buddha kept a promise to travel to Rajagaha, capital of Magadha, to visit King Bimbisara. During this visit, Sariputta and Maudgalyayana were converted by Assaji, one of the first five disciples, after which they were to become the Buddha's two foremost followers. The Buddha spent the next three seasons at Veluvana Bamboo Grove monastery in Rajagaha, capital of Magadha.

 

Upon hearing of his son's awakening, Suddhodana sent, over a period, ten delegations to ask him to return to Kapilavastu. On the first nine occasions, the delegates failed to deliver the message, and instead joined the sangha to become arahants. The tenth delegation, led by Kaludayi, a childhood friend of Gautama's (who also became an arahant), however, delivered the message.

 

Now two years after his awakening, the Buddha agreed to return, and made a two-month journey by foot to Kapilavastu, teaching the dharma as he went. At his return, the royal palace prepared a midday meal, but the sangha was making an alms round in Kapilavastu. Hearing this, Suddhodana approached his son, the Buddha, saying:

 

"Ours is the warrior lineage of Mahamassata, and not a single warrior has gone seeking alms."

 

The Buddha is said to have replied:

 

"That is not the custom of your royal lineage. But it is the custom of my Buddha lineage. Several thousands of Buddhas have gone by seeking alms."

 

Buddhist texts say that Suddhodana invited the sangha into the palace for the meal, followed by a dharma talk. After this he is said to have become a sotapanna. During the visit, many members of the royal family joined the sangha. The Buddha's cousins Ananda and Anuruddha became two of his five chief disciples. At the age of seven, his son Rahula also joined, and became one of his ten chief disciples. His half-brother Nanda also joined and became an arahant.

 

Of the Buddha's disciples, Sariputta, Maudgalyayana, Mahakasyapa, Ananda and Anuruddha are believed to have been the five closest to him. His ten foremost disciples were reputedly completed by the quintet of Upali, Subhoti, Rahula, Mahakaccana and Punna.

 

In the fifth vassana, the Buddha was staying at Mahavana near Vesali when he heard news of the impending death of his father. He is said to have gone to Suddhodana and taught the dharma, after which his father became an arahant.The king's death and cremation was to inspire the creation of an order of nuns. Buddhist texts record that the Buddha was reluctant to ordain women. His foster mother Maha Pajapati, for example, approached him, asking to join the sangha, but he refused. Maha Pajapati, however, was so intent on the path of awakening that she led a group of royal Sakyan and Koliyan ladies, which followed the sangha on a long journey to Rajagaha. In time, after Ananda championed their cause, the Buddha is said to have reconsidered and, five years after the formation of the sangha, agreed to the ordination of women as nuns. He reasoned that males and females had an equal capacity for awakening. But he gave women additional rules (Vinaya) to follow.

 

MAHAPARINIRVANA

According to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Pali canon, at the age of 80, the Buddha announced that he would soon reach Parinirvana, or the final deathless state, and abandon his earthly body. After this, the Buddha ate his last meal, which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith named Cunda. Falling violently ill, Buddha instructed his attendant Ānanda to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at his place had nothing to do with his passing and that his meal would be a source of the greatest merit as it provided the last meal for a Buddha. Mettanando and Von Hinüber argue that the Buddha died of mesenteric infarction, a symptom of old age, rather than food poisoning. The precise contents of the Buddha's final meal are not clear, due to variant scriptural traditions and ambiguity over the translation of certain significant terms; the Theravada tradition generally believes that the Buddha was offered some kind of pork, while the Mahayana tradition believes that the Buddha consumed some sort of truffle or other mushroom. These may reflect the different traditional views on Buddhist vegetarianism and the precepts for monks and nuns.

 

Waley suggests that Theravadin's would take suukaramaddava (the contents of the Buddha's last meal), which can translate as pig-soft, to mean soft flesh of a pig. However, he also states that pig-soft could mean "pig's soft-food", that is, after Neumann, a soft food favoured by pigs, assumed to be a truffle. He argues (also after Neumann) that as Pali Buddhism was developed in an area remote to the Buddha's death, the existence of other plants with suukara- (pig) as part of their names and that "(p)lant names tend to be local and dialectical" could easily indicate that suukaramaddava was a type of plant whose local name was unknown to those in the Pali regions. Specifically, local writers knew more about their flora than Theravadin commentator Buddhaghosa who lived hundreds of years and kilometres remote in time and space from the events described. Unaware of an alternate meaning and with no Theravadin prohibition against eating animal flesh, Theravadins would not have questioned the Buddha eating meat and interpreted the term accordingly.

 

Ananda protested the Buddha's decision to enter Parinirvana in the abandoned jungles of Kuśināra (present-day Kushinagar, India) of the Malla kingdom. The Buddha, however, is said to have reminded Ananda how Kushinara was a land once ruled by a righteous wheel-turning king that resounded with joy:

 

44. Kusavati, Ananda, resounded unceasingly day and night with ten sounds - the trumpeting of elephants, the neighing of horses, the rattling of chariots, the beating of drums and tabours, music and song, cheers, the clapping of hands, and cries of "Eat, drink, and be merry!"

 

The Buddha then asked all the attendant Bhikkhus to clarify any doubts or questions they had. They had none. According to Buddhist scriptures, he then finally entered Parinirvana. The Buddha's final words are reported to have been: "All composite things (Saṅkhāra) are perishable. Strive for your own liberation with diligence" (Pali: 'vayadhammā saṅkhārā appamādena sampādethā'). His body was cremated and the relics were placed in monuments or stupas, some of which are believed to have survived until the present. For example, The Temple of the Tooth or "Dalada Maligawa" in Sri Lanka is the place where what some believe to be the relic of the right tooth of Buddha is kept at present.

 

According to the Pāli historical chronicles of Sri Lanka, the Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa, the coronation of Emperor Aśoka (Pāli: Asoka) is 218 years after the death of the Buddha. According to two textual records in Chinese (十八部論 and 部執異論), the coronation of Emperor Aśoka is 116 years after the death of the Buddha. Therefore, the time of Buddha's passing is either 486 BCE according to Theravāda record or 383 BCE according to Mahayana record. However, the actual date traditionally accepted as the date of the Buddha's death in Theravāda countries is 544 or 545 BCE, because the reign of Emperor Aśoka was traditionally reckoned to be about 60 years earlier than current estimates. In Burmese Buddhist tradition, the date of the Buddha's death is 13 May 544 BCE. whereas in Thai tradition it is 11 March 545 BCE.

 

At his death, the Buddha is famously believed to have told his disciples to follow no leader. Mahakasyapa was chosen by the sangha to be the chairman of the First Buddhist Council, with the two chief disciples Maudgalyayana and Sariputta having died before the Buddha.

 

While in the Buddha's days he was addressed by the very respected titles Buddha, Shākyamuni, Shākyasimha, Bhante and Bho, he was known after his parinirvana as Arihant, Bhagavā/Bhagavat/Bhagwān, Mahāvira, Jina/Jinendra, Sāstr, Sugata, and most popularly in scriptures as Tathāgata.

 

BUDDHA AND VEDAS

Buddha's teachings deny the authority of the Vedas and consequently [at least atheistic] Buddhism is generally viewed as a nāstika school (heterodox, literally "It is not so") from the perspective of orthodox Hinduism.

 

RELICS

After his death, Buddha's cremation relics were divided amongst 8 royal families and his disciples; centuries later they would be enshrined by King Ashoka into 84,000 stupas. Many supernatural legends surround the history of alleged relics as they accompanied the spread of Buddhism and gave legitimacy to rulers.

 

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

An extensive and colorful physical description of the Buddha has been laid down in scriptures. A kshatriya by birth, he had military training in his upbringing, and by Shakyan tradition was required to pass tests to demonstrate his worthiness as a warrior in order to marry. He had a strong enough body to be noticed by one of the kings and was asked to join his army as a general. He is also believed by Buddhists to have "the 32 Signs of the Great Man".

 

The Brahmin Sonadanda described him as "handsome, good-looking, and pleasing to the eye, with a most beautiful complexion. He has a godlike form and countenance, he is by no means unattractive." (D, I:115)

 

"It is wonderful, truly marvellous, how serene is the good Gotama's appearance, how clear and radiant his complexion, just as the golden jujube in autumn is clear and radiant, just as a palm-tree fruit just loosened from the stalk is clear and radiant, just as an adornment of red gold wrought in a crucible by a skilled goldsmith, deftly beaten and laid on a yellow-cloth shines, blazes and glitters, even so, the good Gotama's senses are calmed, his complexion is clear and radiant." (A, I:181)

 

A disciple named Vakkali, who later became an arahant, was so obsessed by the Buddha's physical presence that the Buddha is said to have felt impelled to tell him to desist, and to have reminded him that he should know the Buddha through the Dhamma and not through physical appearances.

 

Although there are no extant representations of the Buddha in human form until around the 1st century CE (see Buddhist art), descriptions of the physical characteristics of fully enlightened buddhas are attributed to the Buddha in the Digha Nikaya's Lakkhaṇa Sutta (D, I:142). In addition, the Buddha's physical appearance is described by Yasodhara to their son Rahula upon the Buddha's first post-Enlightenment return to his former princely palace in the non-canonical Pali devotional hymn, Narasīha Gāthā ("The Lion of Men").

 

Among the 32 main characteristics it is mentioned that Buddha has blue eyes.

 

NINE VIRTUES

Recollection of nine virtues attributed to the Buddha is a common Buddhist meditation and devotional practice called Buddhānusmṛti. The nine virtues are also among the 40 Buddhist meditation subjects. The nine virtues of the Buddha appear throughout the Tipitaka, and include:

 

- Buddho – Awakened

- Sammasambuddho – Perfectly self-awakened

- Vijja-carana-sampano – Endowed with higher knowledge and ideal conduct.

- Sugato – Well-gone or Well-spoken.

- Lokavidu – Wise in the knowledge of the many worlds.

- Anuttaro Purisa-damma-sarathi – Unexcelled trainer of untrained people.

- Satthadeva-Manussanam – Teacher of gods and humans.

- Bhagavathi – The Blessed one

- Araham – Worthy of homage. An Arahant is "one with taints destroyed, who has lived the holy life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached the true goal, destroyed the fetters of being, and is completely liberated through final knowledge."

 

TEACHINGS

TRACING THE OLDEST TEACHINGS

Information of the oldest teachings may be obtained by analysis of the oldest texts. One method to obtain information on the oldest core of Buddhism is to compare the oldest extant versions of the Theravadin Pali Canon and other texts. The reliability of these sources, and the possibility to draw out a core of oldest teachings, is a matter of dispute. According to Vetter, inconsistencies remain, and other methods must be applied to resolve those inconsistencies.

 

According to Schmithausen, three positions held by scholars of Buddhism can be distinguished:

 

"Stress on the fundamental homogeneity and substantial authenticity of at least a considerable part of the Nikayic materials;"

"Scepticism with regard to the possibility of retrieving the doctrine of earliest Buddhism;"

"Cautious optimism in this respect."

 

DHYANA AND INSIGHT

A core problem in the study of early Buddhism is the relation between dhyana and insight. Schmithausen, in his often-cited article On some Aspects of Descriptions or Theories of 'Liberating Insight' and 'Enlightenment' in Early Buddhism notes that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the Rupa Jhanas, is a later addition to texts such as Majjhima Nikaya 36

 

CORE TEACHINGS

According to Tilmann Vetter, the core of earliest Buddhism is the practice of dhyāna. Bronkhorst agrees that dhyana was a Buddhist invention, whereas Norman notes that "the Buddha's way to release [...] was by means of meditative practices." Discriminating insight into transiency as a separate path to liberation was a later development.

 

According to the Mahāsaccakasutta, from the fourth jhana the Buddha gained bodhi. Yet, it is not clear what he was awakened to. "Liberating insight" is a later addition to this text, and reflects a later development and understanding in early Buddhism. The mentioning of the four truths as constituting "liberating insight" introduces a logical problem, since the four truths depict a linear path of practice, the knowledge of which is in itself not depicted as being liberating:

 

[T]hey do not teach that one is released by knowing the four noble truths, but by practicing the fourth noble truth, the eightfold path, which culminates in right samadhi.

 

Although "Nibbāna" (Sanskrit: Nirvāna) is the common term for the desired goal of this practice, many other terms can be found throughout the Nikayas, which are not specified.

 

According to Vetter, the description of the Buddhist path may initially have been as simple as the term "the middle way". In time, this short description was elaborated, resulting in the description of the eightfold path.

 

According to both Bronkhorst and Anderson, the four truths became a substitution for prajna, or "liberating insight", in the suttas in those texts where "liberating insight" was preceded by the four jhanas. According to Bronkhorst, the four truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism, and did not serve in earliest Buddhism as a description of "liberating insight". Gotama's teachings may have been personal, "adjusted to the need of each person."

 

The three marks of existence may reflect Upanishadic or other influences. K.R. Norman supposes that these terms were already in use at the Buddha's time, and were familiar to his listeners.

 

The Brahma-vihara was in origin probably a brahmanic term; but its usage may have been common to the Sramana traditions.

  

LATER DEVELOPMENTS

In time, "liberating insight" became an essential feature of the Buddhist tradition. The following teachings, which are commonly seen as essential to Buddhism, are later formulations which form part of the explanatory framework of this "liberating insight":

 

- The Four Noble Truths: that suffering is an ingrained part of existence; that the origin of suffering is craving for sensuality, acquisition of identity, and fear of annihilation; that suffering can be ended; and that following the Noble Eightfold Path is the means to accomplish this;

- The Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration;

- Dependent origination: the mind creates suffering as a natural product of a complex process.

 

OTHER RELIGIONS

Some Hindus regard Gautama as the 9th avatar of Vishnu. The Buddha is also regarded as a prophet by the Ahmadiyya Muslims and a Manifestation of God in the Bahá'í Faith. Some early Chinese Taoist-Buddhists thought the Buddha to be a reincarnation of Lao Tzu.

 

The Christian Saint Josaphat is based on the Buddha. The name comes from the Sanskrit Bodhisattva via Arabic Būdhasaf and Georgian Iodasaph. The only story in which St. Josaphat appears, Barlaam and Josaphat, is based on the life of the Buddha. Josaphat was included in earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology (feast day 27 November) — though not in the Roman Missal — and in the Eastern Orthodox Church liturgical calendar (26 August).

 

Disciples of the Cao Đài religion worship the Buddha as a major religious teacher. His image can be found in both their Holy See and on the home altar. He is revealed during communication with Divine Beings as son of their Supreme Being (God the Father) together with other major religious teachers and founders like Jesus, Laozi, and Confucius.

 

In the ancient Gnostic sect of Manichaeism the Buddha is listed among the prophets who preached the word of God before Mani.

 

WIKIPEDIA

I was asked a few weeks back, if I fancied meeting up with friends, Simon and Cam for a few bears and a crawl round Ipswich.

 

Seemed a great idea, but checking Network Rain this week, I found that there were replacement buses out of Liverpool Street to Whitham and out of Cambridge. The first added an hour to the trip to Ipswich, the second, 90 minutes.

 

Jools said she would enjoy a trip out and a walk around Manningtree, so we could go in the car, I would drive up, she would drive back, and we would both have some exercise and I would meet friends.

 

Perfect.

 

Although we had planned to go to Tesco first, in the end we had breakfast and set off at half seven, eager to get some miles under our belts before traffic really built at Dartford.

 

Up the A2 in bright sunshine, it was a great day for travel, but also I thought it might have been good for checking out orchid woods back home. But a change is always good, and it has been nearly 9 years since Simon invited me for a tour round historic Ipswich, showing there was almost as much history there than in Norwich to the north.

 

Into Essex before nine, and arriving in Ipswich before ten, we decided to find somewhere for breakfast first before going our separate ways.

 

A large breakfast later, we split up, and I went to wander north to St Margaret's church, which I had been into on that trip 9 years back, but my shots not so good.

 

I found many interesting places in-between the modern buildings and urban sprawl, timber framed houses, Tudor brick and much more beside.

 

Sadly, St Margaret was locked. I could see the notice on the porch door, so I didn't go up to see what it said.

 

I wandered back, found St Mary le Tower open, so went in and took over a hundred shots, soaking in the fine Victorian glass and carved bench ends, even if they were 19th century and not older.

 

In the south chapel, a group were talking quietly, so I tried not to disturb them, only realising how loud the shutter on the camera was.

 

The font took my eye first, as it is a well preserved one from the 15th century. Though these are common in East Anglia, not so in deepest Kent, so I snapped it from all directions, recording each mark of the carver's tools.

 

The clocked ticked round to midday, and so I made my way to the quayside where I was to meet my friends.

 

Simon lives in Ipswich, but Cam and David had come down on the train from the Fine City. We met at the Briarbank Brewery Tap where I had a couple of mocha porters, which were very nice indeed.

 

From there we went to the Dove where we had two more beers as well as lunch.

 

And finally a walk to The Spread Eagle for one final beer before I walked back to Portman Road to meet Jools at the car.

 

Jools drove us back to the A12, and pointed the car south. As we drove, dusk fell and rain began to fall. Not very pleasant. But at least traffic was light, so in an hour we were on the M25 and twenty minutes later over the river and back in Kent.

 

Rain fell steadily as we cruised down the M20, past the familiar landmarks until we were back in Dover. Where we had to make a pit stop at M and S, as we needed supplies, and something for supper.

 

Not sure that garlic bread and wine counts as a meal, but did for us, so at half nine, we climbed the hill to bed.

 

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Ipswich is the county town of Suffolk, and is also probably the longest continuously occupied town in England. Here on the River Gipping, in the south of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia, a number of 7th Century industrial villages grew together, and since then Ipswich has always been an industrial and commercial town, processing the produce of the land round about, and exporting it up the River Orwell to other parts of England and the continent. It was wealthy in the late medieval period, but it suffered from being cut off from its European markets by the outfall from the Reformation. A strongly puritan town in the 17th Century, a quiet backwater in the 18th Century, it was not until the Industrial Revolution that it rose to commercial prominence again, with heavy industry producing agricultural machinery, vehicles and other ironwork. It would continue to be important industrially until the 1980s, but then most of the factories closed, and the town has not yet recovered.

The townscape is punctuated by church towers and spires, for Ipswich has twelve surviving medieval churches. Remarkably, six of them are still in use, and of these St Mary le Tower is the biggest and most prominent. Its spire rises sixty metres above the rooftops, making it the second tallest building in the town after the Mill apartment block on the Waterfront. There was a church here in 1200, when the Borough of Ipswich came into being in the churchyard by the declaration of the granting of a charter. The medieval church had a spire until it came down in the hurricane of 1661. When the Diocese of Norwich oversaw the restoration of the church in the mid-19th Century the decision was taken for a complete rebuild in stone on the same site. It is almost entirely the work of diocesan surveyor Richard Phipson, who worked on it over a period of twenty years in the 1850s and 1860s, including replacing the spire, and so this is East Anglia's urban Victorian church par excellence. The rebuilding was bankrolled by the wealthy local Bacon banking family. It is a large church, built more or less on the plan of its predecessor, full of the spirit of its age. One could no more imagine Ipswich without the Tower than without the Orwell Bridge.

 

The length of the church splits the churchyard into two quite separate parts, the south side a public space, the walled north side atmospheric and secretive. The large cross to the south-west of the tower is not a war memorial. It remembers John Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia, murdered by some of his flock in the 1870s. Treated as a martyr by the press of the day, Patteson appears to have had no local connection, but the Pattesons had intermarried with the Cobbolds, an important local family, and Patteson Road by Ipswich docks also remembers him. There never was a north door, and the west doors are beautiful and liturgically correct but perhaps not useful, since they are below street level and the path merely leads round to the south, allowing processions but no access from Tower Street. The flushwork is exuberant, and makes you think that being a flint-knapper must have been a good living in the 1860s. As with the medieval predecessor, the entrance is through the tower which forms a porch on the south side, in common with about thirty other East Anglian churches. Until the 1860s there was a further castellated porch on the south side of the tower, something in the style of the Hadleigh Deanery tower, but this was removed. You can see it in as photograph at the top of this page. And looking at this photograph, it is hard not to think that Phipson retained at least part of the lower stage of the tower.

 

There is a small statue of the church's patron saint in the niche above the entrance, by the sculptor Richard Pfeiffer. Away to the east, the same sculptor produced St John the Evangelist and St Mary of Magdala on the end of the chancel, and there is more of his work inside. You step into the tower porch under vaulting. A small door in the north-east corner leads up into the ringing chamber and beyond that the belfry, with a ring of twelve bells. The south doorway into the church has stops representing the Annunciation, with the angel to the west, and Mary at her prayer desk to the east. As part of a Millennium project this doorway was painted and gilded. It leads through into the south aisle, beyond which the wide nave seems to swallow all sound, a powerful transition from the outside. Polished wood and tile gleam under coloured light from large windows filled with 19th Century glass. At one time the walls were stencilled, but this was removed in the 1960s. The former church was dark and serious inside, as a drawing in the north aisle shows, so it must have made quite a contrast when the townspeople first entered their new church.

 

The font by the doorway is the first of a number of significant survivals from the old church. It's one of the 15th Century East Anglian series of which several hundred survive, all slightly different. It is in good condition, and you can't help thinking that this is ironically because Ipswich was a town which embraced protestantism whole-heartedly after the Reformation, and it is likely that the font was plastered over in the mid-16th Century to make it plain and simple. The lions around the pillar stand on human heads, and there are more heads beneath the bowl. The next survival that comes into view is the pair of 15th Century benches at the west end of the nave. The bench ends are clerics holding books, and above them memorable finials depicting two lions, a dragon and what might be a cat or a dog.

  

The box pews were removed as part of Phipson's restoration and replaced with high quality benches. The front row are the Borough Corporation seats, a mace rest and a sword rest in front of them. The carvings on the ends of the benches are seahorses, the creatures that hold the shield on the Ipswich Borough arms, and on the finials in front are lions holding ships, the crest of the Borough. As you might expect in Ipswich these are by Henry Ringham, whose church carving was always of a high quality, and is perhaps best known at Woolpit and Combs. His workshop on St John's Road employed fifty people at the time of the 1861 census, but by the following year he was bankrupt, and so the work here is likely some of the last that he produced. He died in 1866, and Ringham Road in East Ipswich remembers him.

 

Moving into the chancel, the other major survival is a collection of late 15th and early 16th Century brasses. Altogether there are ten large figures, but in fact some of them represent the same person more than once. The most memorable is probably that of Alys Baldry, who died in 1507. She lies between her two husbands. The first, Robert Wimbill, is on the right. He died in about 1477. He was a notary, and his ink pot and pen case hang from his belt. Her second husband, Thomas Baldry, is on the left. He died in 1525. He was a merchant, and his merchant mark is set beneath his feet next to Alys's five daughters and four sons.

 

Alys Baldry, Robert Wimbill and Thomas Baldry are all depicted in further brasses here. The best of these is that to Robert. It was commissioned by his will in the 1470s. He lies on his own with a Latin inscription which translates as 'My hope lies in my heart. Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on me.' His ink pot and pen case hang from his belt again, and between his feet are a skull and scattered bones, an early memento mori. Thomas Baldry's own brass memorial shows him lying between his two wives, Alys who we have already met, and his second wife Christian. The other group of three figures depicts Thomas Drayll, a merchant, with his wives Margaret and Agnes. Thomas died in 1512. The arms of the Cinque Ports are set above him, and a large merchant mark is beneath his feet. Several inscriptions are missing, and we know that when the iconoclast William Dowsing visited the church on 29th Janary 1644 he ordered the removal of six brass inscriptions with Ora pro nobis ('pray for us') and Ora pro animabus ('pray for our souls'), and Cujus animae propitietur deus ('on whose soul may God have mercy') and pray for the soul in English.

 

The spectacular sanctuary with its imposing reredos, piscina and sedilia was clearly designed for shadowy, incense-led worship. A lush Arts and Crafts crucifixion surmounts the altar. East Anglian saints flank the walls. James Bettley, revising the Buildings of England volume for East Suffolk, records that it was the work of Somers, Clarke & Micklethwaite in the 1880s. The chancel is only lit from the east window, emphasising the focus from the rest of the church. The set of twelve apostles and twelve angels on the choir stalls are also by Pfeiffer. You can see his signature on the back of St Luke's icon of the Blessed Virgin. This sanctuary is the ultimate expression of late 19th Century Tractarianism in Suffolk. Back in the nave, the early 18th Century pulpit speaks of a different liturgical age, when this church was a preaching house rather than a sacramental space. James Bettley credits its carving to James Hubbard, and notes its similarity to that in the Unitarian Meeting House a few hundred yards off. The 19th Century screen that stood in the chancel arch and separated these two liturgical ages was moved to the east end of the north aisle as an organ screen some time in the 20th Century.

 

Another screen separates off the Lady Chapel from the south aisle and the chancel. The chapel is a pleasing period piece, furnished sentimentally. The reredos, by Arthur Wallace in 1907, depicts the Supper at Emmaus flanked by Moses and Elijah in an echo of the Transfiguration. The early 20th Century paintings on the south wall are lovely, especially the infant Christ as he plays at the feet of St Joseph. But the overwhelming atmosphere of this church comes from its extensive range of 19th Century glass, the largest collection in Suffolk. It provides a catalogue of some of the major 19th Century workshops over a fairly short period, from the 1850s to the 1880s. Much of it is by Clayton & Bell, who probably received the commission for east and west windows and south aisle as part of Phipson's rebuilding contract. Other major workshops include those of William Wailes, the O'Connors and Lavers, Barraud & Westlake. A small amount of 1840s glass in the north aisle was reset here from the previous church. There are photographs of the glass at the bottom of this page.

 

As was common in major 19th Century restorations, the memorials that once flanked the walls were collected together and reset at the west end of the nave. At St Mary le Tower this was a major task, for there are a lot of them. The most famous is that to William Smart, MP for Ipswich in the late 16th Century. It is painted on boards. His inscription is a long acrostic, and he kneels at the bottom opposite his wife. between them is a panoramic view of the Ipswich townscape as it was in 1599, the year that he died, a remarkable snapshot of the past. Other memorials include those of the 17th Century when Ipswich was the heartland of firebrand protestant East Anglia. Matthew Lawrence, who died in 1653, was the publike preacher of this towne. There are more memorials in the north chancel aisle, now divided up as vestries. The best of these is to John and Elizabeth Robinson. He died in 1666. They kneel at their prayer desks, and below them are their children Thomas, John, Mary and Elizabeth, who all predeceased their mother. Also here are memorials to a number of the Cobbold family, who were not only important locally but even provided ministers for this church.

 

There are more Cobbold memorials in the nave, including one in glass at the west end of the north aisle. It is dedicated to Lucy Chevallier Cobbold, and depicts her with her daughter at the Presentation in the Temple. The Cobbold family embraced Tractarianism wholeheartedly, being largely responsible for the building of St Bartholomew near their home at Holywells Park. They probably had an influence over the Bacon family, whose wealth went towards the rebuilding, and whose symbol of a boar can be seen in the floor tiles. A good set of Stuart royal arms hangs above the west doorway.

 

I can't imagine what the 17th Century parishioners would make of this church if they could come back and see it now. Trevor Cooper, in his edition of The Journals of William Dowsing, recalls that the atmosphere in the town was so strongly puritan that in the 1630s the churchwardens were excommunicated for refusing to carry out the sacramentalist reforms of Archbishop Laud. The reforms demanded that the altar be returned to the chancel and railed in, but this was considered idolatrous by the parishioners. When the visitation commissioners of the Bishop of Norwich came to the church in April 1636 to see if the commands had been carried out, the churchwardens refused to give up the keys... verbally assaulting them and and confronting them with 'musketts charged, swords, staves and other weapons'.

 

Frank Grace, in his 'Schismaticall and Factious Humours': Opposition in Ipswich to Laudian Church Government, records a number of other incidents both here and in other Ipswich churches in the late 1630s, including an attack on 'a conformable minister' (that is to say one faithful to the Bishop) by a mob as well as a stranger who was invited by the town bailiffs to preach a very factious and seditious sermon in Tower church to a large congregation against the authority of the incumbent, who no doubt was held at bay while the ranting went on. As with all the Ipswich churches, the iconoclast William Dowsing was welcomed with open arms by the churchwardens here on his visit of January 1644. Looking around at Phipson's sacramental glory, it is hard to imagine now.

  

Simon Knott, December 2022

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/stmaryletower.htm

When I last visited exactly a year ago the pump was painted green rather than black is it is now.

 

St. Colmcille's Well is located on Well Road off Swords Main Street but I could not find any notice or sign at the site indicating that it is a ‘Holy Well’.

  

It is claimed that St. Colmcille founded the Holy Well on the Well Road in Swords as well as many others throughout the island of Ireland. Local legend has it that the saint took a giant leap from the nearby Round Tower and landed at the spot where the holy well is. This of course is folklore and nobody actually believes the tale but that's what the children of Swords were told growing up in the 50's and 60's. However, it is almost certain that the well existed long before Christianity arrived in Ireland.

 

Often unmarked on maps and undistinguished by archaeological features, holy wells are a uniquely vulnerable category of ancient site. They continue to be lost to farming, drainage work, development or neglect. A recent instance is the desecration of St Bridget’s Well at Rosepark, Balrothery (County Dublin, Ireland), destroyed by building work in 2003 despite being a protected monument.

 

A holy well or sacred spring is a spring or other small body of water revered either in a Pagan or Christian context, often both. Holy wells were frequently pagan sacred sites that later became Christianised. The term 'holy well' is commonly employed to refer to any water source of limited size (i.e. not a lake or river, but including pools and natural springs and seeps), which has some significance in the folklore of the area where it is located, whether in the form of a particular name, an associated legend, the attribution of healing qualities to the water through the numinous presence of its guardian spirit or Christian saint, or a ceremony or ritual centred on the well site.

 

In Christian legend, the water is often said to have been made to flow by the action of a saint, a familiar theme especially in the hagiography of Celtic saints.

And so to the weekend again. And what might be the last orchid-free weekend until well into June or even August.

 

So, enjoy the churches while you can.

 

Saturday, and not much really planned. We get up at half six with it fully light outside. The cloud and drizzle had not arrived, instead it was pretty clear and sunny.

 

No time for thinking about going out to take shots, as we had hunter-gathering to do.

 

In fact, we didn't need much, just the usual stuff to keep us going. That and the car was running on fumes. So we will that up first, and then into Tesco and round and round we go, fully the trolley up. It being Mother's Day on Saturday, we were having Jen round on Sunday, we were to have steak, so I get mushrooms.

 

And once back, we have breakfast then go to Preston for the actual steak, three ribeyes, all cut from the same stip. Jools had gone to look at the garden centre for ideas as we're going to dig up the raspberries, so just wondering what to put in their place.

 

By then the rain had come, and so we dashed back to the car, and on the way home called in at two churches.

 

First off was Goodnestone, just the other side of Wingham.

 

Its a fine estate church, covered in wonderfully knapped bricks, giving it an East Anglian feel. Before we went in, we sheltered under a tree to much on a sausage roll I had bought at the butcher, that done, we go to the church, which is open.

 

I have been here quite recently, five years back, and in truth no much glass to record, but I do my best, leave a fiver of the weekly collection and we drove over the fields to Eastry.

 

St Mary is an impressive church, with carved and decorated west face of the Norman tower, at its base an odd lean-to porch has been created, leading into the church, which does have interest other than the 35 painted medallions high in the Chancel Arch, once the backdrop to the Rood.

 

I snap them with the big lens, and the windows too. A warden points out what looks like a very much older painted window high among the roof timbers in the east wall of the Chancel.

 

I get a shot, which is good enough, but even with a 400mm lens, is some crop.

 

I finish up and we go home, taking it carefully along nearly flooded roads.

 

Being a Saturday, there is football, though nothing much of interest until three when Norwich kick off against Stoke: could they kick it on a wet Saturday afternoon in the Potteries?

 

No. No, they couldn't.

 

Ended 0-0, City second best, barely laid a glove on the Stoke goal.

 

And then spots galore: Ireland v England in the egg-chasing, Citeh v Burnley in the Cup and Chelsea v Everton in the league, all live on various TV channels.

 

I watch the first half of the rugby, then switch over when England were reduced to 14, so did enjoy the lad Haarland score another hat-trick in a 6-0 demolition.

 

And that was that, another day over with.....

 

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Set away from the main street but on one of the earliest sites in the village, flint-built Eastry church has an over restored appearance externally but this gives way to a noteworthy interior. Built in the early thirteenth century by its patrons, Christ Church Canterbury, it was always designed to be a statement of both faith and power. The nave has a clerestory above round piers whilst the east nave wall has a pair of quatrefoils pierced through into the chancel. However this feature pales into insignificance when one sees what stands between them - a square panel containing 35 round paintings in medallions. There are four deigns including the Lily for Our Lady; a dove; Lion; Griffin. They would have formed a backdrop to the Rood which would have been supported on a beam the corbels of which survive below the paintings. On the centre pier of the south aisle is a very rare feature - a beautifully inscribed perpetual calendar or `Dominical Circle` to help find the Dominical letter of the year. Dating from the fourteenth century it divides the calendar into a sequence of 28 years. The reredos is an alabaster structure dating from the Edwardian period - a rather out of place object in a church of this form, but a good piece of work in its own right. On the west wall is a good early 19th century Royal Arms with hatchments on either side and there are many good monuments both ledger slabs and hanging tablets. Of the latter the finest commemorates John Harvey who died in 1794. It shows his ship the Brunswick fighting with all guns blazing with the French ship the Vengeur. John Bacon carved the Elder this detailed piece of work.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Eastry

 

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Above the Chancel Arch, enclosed within a rectangular frame, are rows of seven "medallion" wall paintings; the lower group was discovered in 1857 and the rest in 1903. They remained in a rather dilapidated state until the Canterbury Cathedral Wall Paintings Department brought them back to life.

 

The medallions are evidently of the 13th Century, having been painted while the mortar was still wet. Each medallion contains one of four motifs:

 

The trefoil flower, pictured left, is perhaps a symbol of the Blessed Virgin Mary to whom the church is dedicated; or symbolic of Christ.

 

The lion; symbolic of the Resurrection

  

Doves, either singly, or in pairs, represent the Holy Spirit

  

The Griffin represents evil, over which victory is won by the power of the Resurrection and the courage of the Christian.

 

www.ewbchurches.org.uk/eastrychurchhistory.htm

 

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EASTRY,

THE next parish north-eastward from Knolton is Eastry. At the time of taking the survey of Domesday, it was of such considerable account, that it not only gave name, as it does at present, to the hundred, but to the greatest part of the lath in which it stands, now called the lath of St. Augustine. There are two boroughs in this parish, viz. the borough of Hardenden, which is within the upper half hundred of Downhamford, and comprehends the districts of Hardenden, Selson and Skrinkling, and the borough of Eastry, the borsholder of which is chosen at Eastry-court, and comprehends all the rest of the parish, excepting so much of it as lies within that part of the borough of Felderland, which is within this parish.

 

THE PARISH OF EASTRY, a healthy and not unpleasant situation, is about two miles and an half from north to south, but it is much narrower the other way, at the broadest extent of which it is not more than a mile and an half. The village of Eastry is situated on a pleasing eminence, almost in the centre of the parish, exhiblting a picturesque appearance from many points of view. The principal street in it is called Eastrystreet; from it branch off Mill street, Church-street and Brook-street. In Mill street is a spacious handsome edisice lately erected there, as a house of industry, for the poor of the several united parishes of Eastry, Norborne, Betshanger, Tilmanstone, Waldershare, Coldred, Lydden, Shebbertswell, Swynfield, Wootton, Denton, Chillenden and Knolton. In Churchstreet, on the east side, stands the church, with the court-lodge and parsonage adjoining the church-yard; in this street is likewise the vicarage. In Brook-street, is a neat modern house, the residence of Wm. Boteler, esq. and another belonging to Mr. Thomas Rammell, who resides in it. Mention will be found hereafter, under the description of the borough of Hernden, in this parish, of the descent and arms of the Botelers resident there for many generations. Thomas Boteler, who died possessed of that estate in 1651, left three sons, the youngest of whom, Richard, was of Brook-street, and died in 1682; whose great-grandson, W. Boteler, esq. is now of Brook-street; a gentleman to whom the editor is much indebted for his communications and assistance, towards the description of this hundred, and its adjoining neighbourhood. He has been twice married; first to Sarah, daughter and coheir of Thomas Fuller, esq. of Statenborough, by whom he has one son, William Fuller, now a fellow of St. Peter's college, Cambridge: secondly, to Mary, eldest daughter of John Harvey, esq. of Sandwich and Hernden, late captain of the royal navy, by whom he has five sons and three daughters. He bears for his arms, Argent, on three escutcheons, sable, three covered cups, or; which coat was granted to his ancestor, Richard Boteler, esq. of Hernden, by Cooke, clar. in 1589. Mr. Boteler, of Eastry, is the last surviving male of the family, both of Hernden and Brook-street. Eastry-street, comprizing the neighbourhood of the above mentioned branches, may be said to contain about sixty-four houses.

 

At the south-east boundary of this parish lies the hamlet of Updown, adjoining to Ham and Betshanger, in the former of which parishes some account of it has been already given. At the southern bounds, adjoining to Tilmanstone, lies the hamlet of Westone, formerly called Wendestone. On the western side lies the borough of Hernden, which although in this parish, is yet within the hundred of Downhamford and manor of Adisham; in the southern part of it is Shrinkling, or Shingleton, as it is now called, and the hamlet of Hernden. At the northern part of this borough lie the hamlets and estates of Selson, Wells, and Gore. Towards the northern boundary of the parish, in the road to Sandwich, is the hamlet of Statenborough, and at a small distance from it is that part of the borough of Felderland, or Fenderland, as it is usually called, within this parish, in which, adjoining the road which branches off to Word, is a small seat, now the property and residence of Mrs. Dare, widow of Wm. Dare, esq. who resides in it. (fn. 1)

 

Round the village the lands are for a little distance, and on towards Statenborough, inclosed with hedges and trees, but the rest of the parish is in general an open uninclosed country of arable land, like the neighbouring ones before described; the soil of it towards the north is most fertile, in the other parts it is rather thin, being much inclined to chalk, except in the bottoms, where it is much of a stiff clay, for this parish is a continued inequality of hill and dale; notwithstanding the above, there is a great deal of good fertile land in the parish, which meets on an average rent at fifteen shillings an acre. There is no wood in it. The parish contains about two thousand six hundred and fifty acres; the yearly rents of it are assessed to the poor at 2679l.

 

At the south end of the village is a large pond, called Butsole; and adjoining to it on the east side, a field, belonging to Brook-street estate, called the Butts; from whence it is conjectured that Butts were formerly erected in it, for the practice of archery among the inhabitants.

 

A fair is held here for cattle, pedlary, and toys, on October the 2d, (formerly on St. Matthew's day, September the 21st) yearly.

 

IN 1792, MR. BOTELER, of Brook-street, discovered, on digging a cellar in the garden of a cottage, situated eastward of the highway leading from Eastrycross to Butsole, an antient burying ground, used as such in the latter time of the Roman empire in Britain, most probably by the inhabitants of this parish, and the places contiguous to it. He caused several graves to be opened, and found with the skeletons, fibulæ, beads, knives,umbones of shields, &c. and in one a glass vessel. From other skeletons, which have been dug up in the gardens nearer the cross, it is imagined, that they extended on the same side the road up to the cross, the ground of which is now pretty much covered with houses; the heaps of earth, or barrows, which formerly remained over them, have long since been levelled, by the great length of time and the labour of the husbandman; the graves were very thick, in rows parallel to each other, in a direction from east to west.

 

St. Ivo's well, mentioned by Nierembergius, in Historia de Miraculis Natureæ, lib. ii. cap. 33; which I noticed in my folio edition as not being able to find any tradition of in this parish, I have since found was at a place that formerly went by the name of Estre, and afterwards by that of Plassiz, near St. Ives, in Huntingdonshire. See Gales Scriptores, xv. vol. i. p.p. 271, 512.

 

This place gave birth to Henry de Eastry, who was first a monk, and then prior of Christ-church, in Canterbury; who, for his learning as well as his worthy acts, became an ornament, not only to the society he presided over, but to his country in general. He continued prior thirty-seven years, and died, far advanced in life, in 1222.

 

THIS PLACE, in the time of the Saxons, appears to have been part of the royal domains, accordingly Simon of Durham, monk and precentor of that church, in his history, stiles it villa regalis, quæ vulgari dicitur Easterige pronuncione, (the royal ville, or manor, which in the vulgar pronunciation was called Easterige), which shews the antient pre-eminence and rank of this place, for these villæ regales, or regiæ, as Bede calls them, of the Saxons, were usually placed upon or near the spot, where in former ages the Roman stations had been before; and its giving name both to the lath and hundred in which it is situated corroborates the superior consequence it was then held in. Egbert, king of Kent, was in possession of it about the year 670, at which time his two cousins, Ethelred and Ethelbright, sons of his father's elder brother Ermenfrid, who had been entrusted to his care by their uncle, the father of Egbert, were, as writers say, murdered in his palace here by his order, at the persuasion of one Thunnor, a slattering courtier, lest they should disturb him in the possession of the crown. After which Thunnor buried them in the king's hall here, under the cloth of estate, from whence, as antient tradition reports, their bodies were afterwards removed to a small chapel belonging to the palace, and buried there under the altar at the east end of it, and afterwards again with much pomp to the church of Ramsey abbey. To expiate the king's guilt, according to the custom of those times, he gave to Domneva, called also Ermenburga, their sister, a sufficient quantity of land in the isle of Thanet, on which she might found a monastery.

 

How long it continued among the royal domains, I have not found; but before the termination of the Saxon heptarchy, THE MANOR OF EASTRY was become part of the possessions of the see of Canterbury, and it remained so till the year 811, when archbishop Wilfred exchanged it with his convent of Christchurch for their manor of Bourne, since from the archbishop's possession of it called Bishopsbourne. After which, in the year 979 king Ægelred, usually called Ethelred, increased the church's estates here, by giving to it the lands of his inheritance in Estrea, (fn. 2) free from all secular service and siscal tribute, except the repelling of invasions and the repairing of bridges and castles, usually stiled the trinoda necessitas; (fn. 3) and in the possession of the prior and convent bove-mentioned, this manor continued at the taking of the survey of Domesday, being entered in it under the general title of Terra Monachorum Archiepi; that is, the land of the monks of the archbishop, as follows:

 

In the lath of Estrei in Estrei hundred, the archbishop himself holds Estrei. It was taxed at Seven sulings. The arable land is . . . . In demesne there are three carucates and seventy two villeins, with twenty-two borderers, having twenty-four carucates. There is one mill and a half of thirty shillings, and three salt pits of four shillings, and eighteen acres of meadow. Wood for the pannage of ten hogs.

 

After which, this manor continued in the possession of the priory, and in the 10th year of king Edward II. the prior obtained a grant of free-warren in all his demesne lands in it, among others; about which time it was valued at 65l. 3s. after which king Henry VI. in his 28th year, confirmed the above liberty, and granted to it a market, to be held at Eastry weekly on a Tuesday, and a fair yearly, on the day of St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist; in which state it continued till the dissolution of the priory in the 31st year of king Henry VIII. when it came in to the king's hands, where it did not remain long, for he settled it, among other premises, in the 33d year of his reign, on his new created dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions it continues at this time. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.

 

The manerial rights, profits of courts, royalties, &c. the dean and chapter retain in their own hands; but the demesne lands of the manor, with the courtlodge, which is a large antient mansion, situated adjoining to the church-yard, have been from time to time demised on a benesicial lease. The house is large, partly antient and partly modern, having at different times undergone great alterations. In the south wall are the letters T. A. N. in flint, in large capitals, being the initials of Thomas and Anne Nevinson. Mr. Isaac Bargrave, father of the present lessee, new fronted the house, and the latter in 1786 put the whole in complete repair, in doing which, he pulled down a considerable part of the antient building, consisting of stone walls of great strength and thickness, bringing to view some gothic arched door ways of stone, which proved the house to have been of such construction formerly, and to have been a very antient building. The chapel, mentioned before, is at the east end of the house. The east window, consisting of three compartments, is still visible, though the spaces are filled up, it having for many years been converted into a kitchen, and before the last alteration by Mr. Bargrave the whole of it was entire.

 

At this mansion, then in the hands of the prior and convent of Christ-church, archbishop Thomas Becket, after his stight from Northampton in the year 1164, concealed himself for eight days, and then, on Nov. 10, embarked at Sandwich for France. (fn. 4)

 

The present lessee is Isaac Bargrave, esq. who resides at the court-lodge, whose ancestors have been lessees of this estate for many years past.

 

THE NEVINSONS, as lessees, resided at the courtlodge of Eastry for many years. They were originally of Brigend, in Wetherell, in Cumberland. They bore for their arms, Argent, a chevron, between three eagles displayed, azure. Many of them lie buried in Eastry church. (fn. 5)

 

THE FAMILY of Bargrave, alias Bargar, was originally of Bridge, and afterwards of the adjoining parish of Patrixbourne; where John Bargrave, eldest son of Robert, built the seat of Bifrons, and resided at it, of whom notice has already been taken in vol. ix. of this history, p. 280. Isaac Bargrave, the sixth son of Robert above-mentioned, and younger brother of John, who built Bifrons, was ancestor of the Bargraves, of Eastry; he was S. T. P. and dean of Canterbury, a man of strict honour and high principles of loyalty, for which he suffered the most cruel treatment. He died in 1642, having married in 1618 Elizabeth, daughter of John Dering, esq. of Egerton, by Elizabeth, sister of Edward lord Wotton, the son of John Dering, esq. of Surrenden, by Margaret Brent. Their descendant, Isaac Bargrave, esq. now living, was an eminent solicitor in London, from which he has retired for some years, and now resides at Eastry-court, of which he is the present lessee. He married Sarah, eldest daughter of George Lynch, M. D. of Canterbury, who died at Herne in 1787, S.P. They bear for their arms, Or, on a pale gules, a sword, the blade argent, pomelled, or, on a chief vert three bezants.

 

SHRINKLING, alias SHINGLETON, the former of which is its original name, though now quite lost, is a small manor at the south-west boundary of this pa Kent, anno 1619. rish, adjoining to Nonington. It is within the borough of Heronden, or Hardonden, as it is now called, and as such, is within the upper half hundred of Downhamford. This manor had antiently owners of the same name; one of whom, Sir William de Scrinkling, held it in king Edward I.'s reign, and was succeeded by Sir Walter de Scrinkling his son, who held it by knight's service of Hamo de Crevequer, (fn. 6) and in this name it continued in the 20th year of king Edward III.

 

Soon after which it appears to have been alienated to William Langley, of Knolton, from which name it passed in like manner as Knolton to the Peytons and the Narboroughs, and thence by marriage to Sir Thomas D'Aeth, whose grandson Sir Narborough D'Aeth, bart. now of Knolton, is at present entitled to it.

 

There was a chapel belonging to this manor, the ruins of which are still visible in the wood near it, which was esteemed as a chapel of ease to the mother church of Eastry, and was appropriated with it by archbishop Richard, Becket's immediate successor, to the almory of the priory of Christ-church; but the chapel itself seems to have become desolate many years before the dissolution of the priory, most probably soon after the family of Shrinkling became extinct; the Langleys, who resided at the adjoining manor of Knolton, having no occasion for the use of it. The chapel stood in Shingleton wood, near the south east corner; the foundations of it have been traced, though level with the surface, and not easily discovered. There is now on this estate only one house, built within memory, before which there was only a solitary barn, and no remains of the antient mansion of it.

 

HERONDEN, alias HARDENDEN, now usually called HERONDEN, is a district in this parish, situated about a mile northward from Shingleton, within the borough of its own name, the whole of which is within the upper half hundred of Downhamford. It was once esteemed as a manor, though it has not had even the name of one for many years past, the manor of Adisham claiming over it. The mansion of it was antiently the residence of a family of the same name, who bore for their arms, Argent, a heron with one talon erect, gaping for breath, sable. These arms are on a shield, which is far from modern, in Maidstone church, being quarterly, Heronden as above, with sable, three escallop shells, two and one, argent; and in a window of Lincoln's Inn chapel is a coat of arms of a modern date, being that of Anthony Heronden, esq. Argent, a heron, azure, between three escallops, sable. One of this family of Heronden lies buried in this church, and in the time of Robert Glover, Somerset herald, his portrait and coat of arms, in brass, were remaining on his tombstone. The coat of arms is still extant in very old rolls and registers in the Heralds office, where the family is stiled Heronden, of Heronden, in Eastry; nor is the name less antient, as appears by deeds which commence from the reign of Henry III. which relate to this estate and name; but after this family had remained possessed of this estate for so many years it at last descended down in king Richard II.'s reign, to Sir William Heronden, from whom it passed most probably either by gift or sale, to one of the family of Boteler, or Butler, then resident in this neighbourhood, descended from those of this name, formerly seated at Butler's sleet, in Ash, whose ancestor Thomas Pincerna, or le Boteler, held that manor in king John's reign, whence his successors assumed the name of Butler, alias Boteler, or as they were frequently written Botiller, and bore for their arms, One or more covered cups, differently placed and blazoned. In this family the estate descended to John Boteler, who lived in the time of king Henry VI. and resided at Sandwich, of which town he was several times mayor, and one of the burgesses in two parliaments of that reign; he lies buried in St. Peter's church there. His son Richard, who was also of Sandwich, had a grant of arms in 1470, anno 11th Edward IV. by Thomas Holme, norroy, viz. Gyronny of six, argent and sable, a covered cup, or, between three talbots heads, erased and counterchanged of the field, collared, gules, garnished of the third. His great-grandson Henry Boteler rebuilt the mansion of Heronden, to which he removed in 1572, being the last of his family who resided at Sandwich. He had the above grant of arms confirmed to him, and died in 1580, being buried in Eastry church. Richard Boteler, of Heronden, his eldest son by his first wife, resided at this seat, and in 1589 obtained a grant from Robert Cook, clarencieux, of a new coat of arms, viz. Argent, on three escutcheons, sable, three convered cups, or. Ten years after which, intending as it should seem, to shew himself a descendant of the family of this name, seated at Graveney, but then extinct, he obtained in 1599 a grant of their arms from William Dethic, garter, and William Camden, clarencieux, to him and his brother William, viz. Quarterly, first and fourth, sable, three covered cups, or, within a bordure, argent; second and third, Argent, a fess, chequy, argent and gules, in chief three cross-croslets of the last, as appears (continues the grant) on a gravestone in Graveney church. He died in 1600, and was buried in Eastry church, leaving issue among other children Jonathan and Thomas. (fn. 7) Jonathan Boteler, the eldest son, of Hernden, died unmarried possessed of it in 1626, upon which it came to his next surviving brother Thomas Boteler, of Rowling, who upon that removed to Hernden, and soon afterwards alienated that part of it, since called THE MIDDLE FARM, to Mr. Henry Pannell, from whom soon afterwards, but how I know not, it came into the family of Reynolds; from which name it was about fifty years since alienated to John Dekewer, esq. of Hackney, who dying in 1762, devised it to his nephew John Dekewer, esq. of Hackney, the present possessor of it.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sandwich.

 

The church, which is exempted from the archdeacon, is dedicated to St. Mary; it is a large handsome building, consisting of a nave and two side isles, a chancel at the east end, remarkably long, and a square tower, which is very large, at the west end, in which are five very unmusical bells. The church is well kept and neatly paved, and exhibits a noble appearance, to which the many handsome monuments in it contribute much. The arch over the west door is circular, but no other parts of the church has any shew of great antiquity. In the chancel are monuments for the Paramors and the Fullers, of Statenborough, arms of the latter, Argent, three bars, and a canton, gules. A monument for several of the Bargrave family. An elegant pyramidial one, on which is a bust and emblematical sculpture for John Broadley, gent. many years surgeon at Dover, obt. 1784. Several gravestones, with brasses, for the Nevinsons. A gravestone for Joshua Paramour, gent. buried 1650. Underneath this chancel are two vaults, for the families of Paramour and Bargrave. In the nave, a monument for Anne, daughter of Solomon Harvey, gent. of this parish, ob. 1751; arms, Argent, on a chevron, between three lions gambs, sable, armed gules, three crescents, or; another for William Dare, esq. late of Fenderland, in this parish, obt. 1770; arms, Gules, a chevron vaire, between three crescents, argent, impaling argent, on a cross, sable, four lions passant, quardant of the field, for Read.—Against the wall an inscription in Latin, for the Drue Astley Cressemer, A. M. forty-eight years vicar of this parish, obt. 1746; he presented the communion plate to this church and Worth, and left a sum of money to be laid out in ornamenting this church, at which time the antient stalls, which were in the chancel, were taken away, and the chancel was ceiled, and the church otherwise beautified; arms, Argent, on a bend engrailed, sable, three cross-croslets, fitchee, or. A monument for several of the Botelers, of this parish; arms, Boteler, argent, on three escutcheons, sable, three covered cups, or, impaling Morrice. Against a pillar, a tablet and inscription, shewing that in a vault lieth Catherine, wife of John Springett, citizen and apothecary of London. He died in 1770; arms, Springett, per fess, argent and gules, a fess wavy, between three crescents, counterchanged, impaling Harvey. On the opposite pillar another, for the Rev. Richard Harvey, fourteen years vicar of this parish, obt. 1772. A monument for Richard Kelly, of Eastry, obt. 1768; arms, Two lions rampant, supporting a castle. Against the wall, an elegant sculptured monument, in alto relievo, for Sarah, wise of William Boteler, a daughter of Thomas Fuller, esq. late of Statenborough, obt. 1777, æt. 29; she died in childbed, leaving one son, William Fuller Boteler; arms at bottom, Boteler, as above, an escutcheon of pretence, Fuller, quartering Paramor. An elegant pyramidal marble and tablet for Robert Bargrave, of this parish, obt. 1779, for Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Sir Francis Leigh, of Hawley; and for Robert Bargrave, their only son, proctor in Doctors Commons, obt. 1774, whose sole surviving daughter Rebecca married James Wyborne, of Sholdon; arms, Bargrave, with a mullet, impaling Leigh. In the cross isle, near the chancel called the Boteler's isle, are several memorials for the Botelers. Adjoining to these, are three other gravestones, all of which have been inlaid, but the brasses are gone; they were for the same family, and on one of them was lately remaining the antient arms of Boteler, Girony of six pieces, &c. impaling ermine of three spots. Under the church are vaults, for the families of Springett, Harvey, Dare, and Bargrave. In the church-yard, on the north side of the church, are several altar tombs for the Paramors; and on the south side are several others for the Harveys, of this parish, and for Fawlkner, Rammell, and Fuller. There are also vaults for the families of Fuller, Rammell, and Petman.

 

There were formerly painted in the windows of this church, these arms, Girony of six, sable and argent, a covered cup, or, between three talbots heads, erased and counter changed of the field, collared, gules; for Boteler, of Heronden, impaling Boteler, of Graveny, Sable, three covered cups, or, within a bordure, argent; Boteler, of Heronden, as above, quartering three spots, ermine; the coat of Theobald, with quarterings. Several of the Frynnes, or as they were afterwards called, Friends, who lived at Waltham in this parish in king Henry VII.'s reign, lie buried in this church.

 

In the will of William Andrewe, of this parish, anno 1507, mention is made of our Ladie chapel, in the church-yard of the church of Estrie.

 

The eighteen stalls which were till lately in the chancel of the church, were for the use of the monks of the priory of Christ church, owners both of the manor and appropriation, when they came to pass any time at this place, as they frequently did, as well for a country retirement as to manage their concerns here; and for any other ecclesiastics, who might be present at divine service here, all such, in those times, sitting in the chancels of churches distinct from the laity.

 

The church of Eastry, with the chapels of Skrinkling and Worth annexed, was antiently appendant to the manor of Eastry, and was appropriated by archbishop Richard (successor to archbishop Becket) in the reign of king Henry II. to the almonry of the priory of Christ-church, but it did not continue long so, for archbishop Baldwin, (archbishop Richard's immediate successor), having quarrelled with the monks, on account of his intended college at Hackington, took this appropriation from them, and thus it remained as a rectory, at the archbishop's disposal, till the 39th year of king Edward III.'s reign, (fn. 10) when archbishop Simon Islip, with the king's licence, restored, united and annexed it again to the priory; but it appears, that in return for this grant, the archbishop had made over to him, by way of exchange, the advowsons of the churches of St. Dunstan, St. Pancrase, and All Saints in Bread-street, in London, all three belonging to the priory. After which, that is anno 8 Richard II. 1384, this church was valued among the revenues of the almonry of Christ-church, at the yearly value of 53l. 6s. 8d. and it continued afterwards in the same state in the possession of the monks, who managed it for the use of the almonry, during which time prior William Sellyng, who came to that office in Edward IV.'s reign, among other improvements on several estates belonging to his church, built a new dormitory at this parsonage for the monks resorting hither.

 

On the dissolution of the priory of Christ-church, in the 31st year of king Henry VIII.'s reign, this appropriation, with the advowson of the vicarage of the church of Eastry, was surrendered into the king's hands, where it staid but a small time, for he granted it in his 33d year, by his dotation charter, to his new founded dean and chapter of Canterbury, who are the present owners of this appropriation; but the advowson of the vicarage, notwithstanding it was granted with the appropriation, to the dean and chapter as above-mentioned, appears not long afterwards to have become parcel of the possessions of the see of Canterbury, where it continues at this time, his grace the archbishop being the present patron of it.

 

This parsonage is entitled to the great tithes of this parish and of Worth; there belong to it of glebe land in Eastry, Tilmanstone, and Worth, in all sixtynine acres.

 

THERE IS A SMALL MANOR belonging to it, called THE MANOR OF THE AMBRY, OR ALMONRY OF CHRIST-CHURCH, the quit-rents of which are very inconsiderable.

 

The parsonage-house is large and antient; in the old parlour window is a shield of arms, being those of Partheriche, impaling quarterly Line and Hamerton. The parsonage is of the annual rent of about 700l. The countess dowager of Guildford became entitled to the lease of this parsonage, by the will of her husband the earl of Guildford, and since her death the interest of it is become vested in her younger children.

 

As to the origin of a vicarage in this church, though there was one endowed in it by archbishop Peckham, in the 20th year of king Edward I. anno 1291, whilst this church continued in the archbishop's hands, yet I do not find that there was a vicar instituted in it, but that it remained as a rectory, till near three years after it had been restored to the priory of Christchurch, when, in the 42d year of king Edward III. a vicar was instituted in it, between whom and the prior and chapter of Canterbury, there was a composition concerning his portion, which he should have as an endowment of this vicarage; which composition was confirmed by archbishop Simon Langham that year; and next year there was an agreement entered into between the eleemosinary of Christ-church and the vicar, concerning the manse of this vicarage.

 

The vicarage of Eastry, with the chapel of Worth annexed, is valued in the king's books at 19l. 12s. 1d. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 19s. 2½d. In 1588 it was valued at sixty pounds. Communicants three hundred and thirty-five. In 1640 here were the like number of communicants, and it was valued at one hundred pounds.

 

The antient pension of 5l. 6s. 8d. formerly paid by the priory, is still paid to the vicar by the dean and chapter, and also an augmentation of 14l. 13s. 4d. yearly, by the lessee of the parsonage, by a convenant in his lease.

 

The vicarage-house is built close to the farm-yard of the parsonage; the land allotted to it is very trifling, not even sufficient for a tolerable garden; the foundations of the house are antient, and probably part of the original building when the vicarage was endowed in 1367.

 

¶There were two awards made in 1549 and 1550, on a controversy between the vicar of Eastry and the mayor, &c. of Sandwich, whether the scite of St. Bartholomew's hospital, near Sandwich, within that port and liberty, was subject to the payment of tithes to the vicar, as being within his parish. Both awards adjudged the legality of a payment, as due to the vicar; but the former award adjudged that the scite of the hospital was not, and the latter, that it was within the bounds of this parish. (fn. 12)

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol10/pp98-121

Saints and Sinner Chapter Four…The Books

Sai Baba Raining Books

Julia loaded the three kids into the Jeep and drove to Burlington after New Years to visit her mom Joan who was staying with her son Donny, his wife Debbie and their two children, Robert and Andrew. They were gone for three days. It was during this time that it started, the books that is. CBC radio was playing at all times on the little radio in the garage shop. That shop was located in a fresh garage that looked more like a half a barn. It had concrete floors and would have been my pride and joy. It was a good place to store things and I was that kind of person that had some stuff to store, bikes, and snow blowers, axes and chainsaws. Importantly this shop had a window facing the house across the gravel driveway. To keep it warm in the winter all we had was an electric space heater, a wood stove would have been better but our expenses were such that we could not put one in. In fact our expenses were becoming a concern, as I had not done any work in well over six months and the bank account was showing signs of stress.

It was a Sunday morning in early January 1996 when the CBC show Quill and Quire aired an interview with Paul William Roberts who had published a book titled Empire of the Soul Some Journeys in India. The writer was a buoyant man who spoke eloquently and enthusiastically about his travels in India in the early 1970s and then again in the early to mid 90s, part of the book was to illustrate how things were rapidly changing in India in those two periods, growth and economic development. But the part of his talk that more interested me was in the early part of the book when he was on the bus and a rather large woman sat her immense butt down between him and a smallish man smoking a beedie. She wasn’t long in letting out a fart then she pulled from her clothing a kerosene single burner stove which she pumped up and lit and continued to pull out ingredients like chapattis and vegetables and a packet of chicken curry spice to make a hot lunch as the bus rambled towards Bangalore. Paul was able to contribute plantains to the meal, he was quite happy to share in the food along with the beedie smoking man. Besides the odd things happening on the bus, Paul described the smells in the areas near Bombay as being putrid and all encompassing, unescapable, combined with a heat that began as soon as the sun came over the horizon.

At the time he had just graduated from Oxford University where he hung out with an eclectic crowd of people including professors who experimented with LSD and a rock star who had recommended he go to India to sample the life at an ashram in Southern India where a Godman lived and held court twice daily, his name Sathya Sai Baba. Besides being able to produce Vibhuti (ash) at will this Godman was also inclined to produce such things as gold rings and medallions and other sundry things from time to time in front of numerous people. It was said he had plucked oranges off a pear tree more than once, and not unlike Jesus he had turned water into gasoline a few times when the car they were travelling in had run out of gas. Sai Baba was the star of the show in Puttaparthi, his ashram known as Prasanthi Nilayam was a few miles from town. An entire village had grown around his abode where one could on any given day expect from a few hundred to a few thousand devotees gathered to receive his darshan in the morning and then again in the afternoon.

At these darshans Sai would walk among the groups barefoot, women sitting at the left and men on the right. He was a tiny man with a hairdo similar to Jimmy Hendrix’s Afro. Dressed in an ochre frock they say he exuded and air of majesty as he walked among those who were flocking to him, not just people from India but others from around the world and many of those were people of privilege and with privilege comes money. He could be seen circling his hand as he walked and he would pause in front of someone and tilt his hand towards them releasing a bit of freshly conjured vibhuti and then marking their foreheads with some of the sacred ash that just appeared from nowhere. After going through those gathered he would pick out a person or two or three to have a private meeting with him in his quarters. This was the greatest of things for devotees to be invited to his quarters for a private chat. Paul was not at first successful in being granted an interview in fact in later writings he stated it was several months before he entered the Swamis quarters. When he did meet Sai the two got along quite well. Sai, it seems produced a sacred oil that he rubbed on Paul’s genitals to perform a type of sacred rite the likes of which I am not aware of in other religious organizations. One may surmise that a sexual act took place though the author actually was not up front about exactly where the ointment was placed in the first edition of the book Empire of the Soul. If any act of a sexual nature did take place it was not discussed, but what was discussed was the fact that Sai stripped Paul to his very core revealing to him that there were many habits he needed to change in order to achieve a fuller existence. Paul, genius that he was left the meeting in a swirl of happiness that lasted for many days, unlike any he had ever experienced, even while high on acid.

After some months at the ashram he left to discover other holy people in India, Ramana Maharshi and Mother Theresa are two for which he traveled to their ashrams. Maharshi had been dead for over twenty years, no matter he found his presence at his former home or nearby it, pretending to be an ascetic begging for alms at an empty market stall where the ascetic asked him to repeat his name nine times, Yogi Ramsuratkumar, which he did. That Yogi swatted a fly on a wooden table where they were sitting, blood and guts spilled out, a wing was broken, Paul picked it up and looked at the now dead creature carefully. The Yogi asked him to set it in the puddle of guts, he did, after a brief moment the Yogi picked it up putting it in his palm and breathed into his palm then opened his hand and a fully healed fly walked a few centimetres before unfolding its wings then flew off. The author was not as kind to Mother Theresa whom he thought was a parasite towards the people of India. Yet I remind myself that the Pope saw fit to make her a Saint.

The interview on the radio lasted a good half hour, I was pumped up to hear it, more pumped up after hearing it. For someone who had been on a total news block out for over six months this radio program was gold. The following Monday I drove into Peterborough and the Trent Books store where I found a copy of the book Empire of the Soul, probably a first edition. Needless to say I ripped through the book in less than a week. Afterwards I began to look for other books about Sai Baba and found there to be many that I could purchase at the Omega Centre in Toronto. Most of the books about Sai had been written by English speaking devotees. One which I enjoyed very much is called Man of Miracles by the author Howard Murphet. Within its pages one can quickly see that the writer is a devotee as I don’t believe there is any negative words about Sai in the sparse few hundred pages. Murphet retold some stories about Sai in earlier days, in the sixties and discussed some minor miracles attributed to him at this time. What my general feelings about Sai were continued to expand as I read quite a few books all by adoring fans of his. Early on I felt that the followers that I had access to via books were somewhat well off and I could sense as well that many of them were also interested in the occult arts as now and then the mention of séances and other such occult affiliated gatherings were spoke of. At the time I think I could sense that there was a pull to understanding the complex divinity that Sai was the master of though I never completely comprehended the abilities of him nor his devotees.

One night at the Nogies Creek property called Winged Spirits Retreat in the summer after a few special things happened via my Sai studies, I awoke in the middle of the night to see an apparition of a group of three ghosts, under a maize like sheet who were hovering over myself and Julia as we slept. I saw them, recognized them for what they were, nudged my wife who woke up and also saw them, we stayed quiet, I remember whispering to her, “they won’t hurt us, they are interested to see how it is that these recent minor book miracles have taken place!” that scared them off, or better said when they knew that we were speaking about them, they just sort of floated and exited, but they didn’t just disappear, they took the stairway down from the loft area all three of them under one silk like shroud, and they were gone. The next morning I remember saying to Julia over coffee that they were investigating me because I had coined the phrase, ‘Sai Baba is able to use the words in a book to channel to people, Literary Channeling.’ And that is what had taken place a few times. To call these ‘manipulations of physics’ takes away from the mystique and connotation of the term minor miracles which rolls off the tongue with a better verve than the other term. I remain confused as to what exact term to use to categorize some of the unusual events that took place in a short, say, three month period of time, set off, I believe by the words in Paul William Roberts book Empire of the Soul.

By now well read on the events taking place and having taken place to a degree at the Ashram in Puttaparthi where for some decades crowds of various sizes had attended daily darshans with Sai Baba. In 1995 the scene at Puttaparthi had changed from one of a quiet, shall we say spiritual haven to one more akin to a religious Walt Disney world. The numbers of people coming to see the Man of Miracles had grown, an entire industry had evolved around Sai Baba, and well, lets face it that industry was very good for the region. And it is well documented that many of the improvements that took place in the formerly impoverished area were paid for by donations to Sai and the Sai Trust which was established to corral the funds into the proper program for their use. The sums are said to have been in the many millions, even in the billions as it was reported that when Sai died in 2012 that there were gold bars exceeding four Billion dollars U.S. in his rooms at Prasanthi Nilyam. Julia and I never personally provided any of these funds as we have always it seems been able to just get by and never really had excessive amounts of cash to donate. From time to time I wonder how I would have responded to a representative of Sai asking me to fill a Horn of Plenty the way the Self Realization Fellowship had done in the summer of 1995.

But before the spirits visited dressed like ghosts I had made a trip to Toronto to speak with the owner of a popular Toronto nightspot called XRays located on Queen Street a trendy part of town, now part of what is known as the Entertainment District. The purpose for the trip was to meet with Richard Kruk the on paper operator of the bar/club, my introduction was by a long time friend of mine and Richards, John Kalcevich aka The Count. Count knew Richard from when he operated a bar over near Johns store Pasquale Brothers on King Street several blocks of east of Yonge Street. Pasquale Brothers in case you do not know is the premier Italian food importer of Toronto, serving many fine gourmet restaurants in the area and a steady walk in clientele. Richards bar at the time was called Crooks, quite appropriate as he was an X Toronto police officer. Its location was beside a very popular and successful eatery called Pappillon that specialized in crepes. I do recall attending Crooks once and seeing a big white and chrome Harley Davidson motorcycle hogging (get the pun) the entranceway to the smallish bar. My mind is vague but I do think the club was closed and the decision was made to lease the premises on Queen Street and start fresh. Dan Akroyd was one of the silent partners in this new venture. That was to be my function, become a partner of sorts in XRays as I had some liquid cash on hand at the time as well as years of bar experience from my youth up to the seventies at the Queensbury Arms and later the Beverly Hills a club run by the Jewish Mafia if there is such a thing.

I had seen John a few times in that spring, using his place on Elvina Gardens as a pit stop when I would be in town at meetings, probably also on work assignments for the NHL, not the NHL you are thinking of but our NHL, the National Hash League. Sometimes I would just pop into Johns new house near Mount Pleasant and Eglinton to talk about books and music while I waited for the traffic leaving Toronto to thin out a bit. Such a pity that a city of this size, the biggest or tied for the biggest in Canada along with Montreal was then and still is unable to move traffic east or west at days end and to a degree in the morning rush hours. Anyways John was one of the first beneficiaries of the Paul William Roberts book Empire of the Soul. I may have given up to five copies away as I was quite enamoured with the book, in particular the mention, introduction so to speak to Sathya Sai Baba in the early pages. John knew many cool folks in the city, one of them was the travel writer at the time for the Globe and Mail newspaper, John mentioned the Roberts book to this man Jeremy Ferguson and this was interesting and perhaps the start of the ‘synchronistic’ events that were beginning to fall into place. Jeremy happened to be going to the authors home in Toronto for a meal, I don’t know why but I thought it was in the Beaches area, in any case that sounds better than the east end. John asked if I would like his copy of the book signed for me and I said, “no, I will bring my copy in as I am back in town in a few days and get mine signed.” So I brought the book in for John and that following weekend Paul Roberts lavishly signed the book that we still have and I am told enjoyed the audience that his writing was producing, Paul invited me to call him which I, being a fairly shy person and the type of work I was involved in our NHL, shunned the invitation, which, today I regret immensely.

Back at XRays my anxiety about meeting Richard was tempered by my gift of half a dozen hand rolled joints of fine quality herbal smoking goods. We took a quick look around the bar and the kitchen area on the main floor, what can I say, a bar is a bar is a bar. Anyways on the second floor of the building there was a live venue area where some pretty hip gigs took place, ‘A’ bands the likes of Grievous Angels, Dave Bidini and his mates in the Rheostatics played the room on a regular basis, there were many other popular bands at the time, Toronto being a very competitive music market. We had a friend in the music business Gary Kendall the bass player for Downchild Blues band who also booked the Silver Dollar Room on Spadina Avenue near College. When we got to the third floor where Richard had his apartment he fired up one of the joints and he told me that the Rolling Stones had been up in his pad the previous week while rehearsing for their Voodoo Lounge gig in town, he showed me photos of some of them up there, he made it a point to say, “Keith Richards sat in that same chair last week” I was impressed, but at the same time I was wary that I had the family dollars with me and no matter how much I was impressed I had to take this very seriously. I had been almost hustled a few years earlier by a guy who was buying a bar in Hamilton and who was also looking for an investor. That never happened as the situation was taking place too far away from my location of Tweed at the time. In any case the guy was too sharp, if you know what I mean.

One after another I watched Richard fire up all them joints, they didn’t seem to effect him very much. We talked and got around to his recent trip to California on a train with his friend Dan Akroyd, from time to time Richard moonlighted as Dans security detail. It was interesting, don’t ask me why they took a train instead of flying. Richard showed me photos taken from the back of the train as it exited a mountainous area. While they were in Los Angeles Richard and Dan were invited to take part in a gathering of people who were sharing their energies to move the spirit of Maureen Starkey to another level in the Astral heavens. They were doing this by prayer and meditation. In attendance was a well known spiritual person by the name of Phyllis Krystal who had written several books, call them self help books if you like, books that a lay person could read to help them deal with traumas in their life. Phyllis is a well respected healer, I believe the term they use to describe her work is psychotherapist. Besides her there were others present whose names I don’t remember other than this one guy whom I had not heard of before Isaac Tigrett of whom I knew little. Maureen Starkey ex wife of Ringo Starr had died of leukemia, they were no longer living together as she had married Isaac Tigrett. Later I was to find out that both Phyllis and Isaac were big devotees of Sathya Sai Baba, but when I went to Toronto that day, their names were strangers to me as were their religious affiliations. At some point Richard gave me a book that Isaac Tigrett had signed, To Richard from Isaac Tigrett, there was the date and there was a nicely drawn OM on the page along with a sun drawing around the OM. The book was one that Phyllis Crystal had recently published and it was called Cutting the Ties that Bind. I quickly glanced at it and saw that it was a serious book about dealing with instances and occasions in ones life when traumatic events had taken place that are unhealthy for the psyche of the individual. I put the book in my leather case along with a couple of T shirts I bought off of Richard that were promoting Isaac Tigretts new venture, The House of Blues, a theme based club not unlike his former clubs The Hardrock Café of which he was co founder. At the Toronto Hardrock Café I had failed to notice a prominent part of the exterior signage, it read Love All Serve All which I would later find out was a catch phrase used at the Sai Baba ashram. As it was, I had other fish to fry in Toronto and left my meeting with Richard on uncertain terms as he did not specifically spell out my role in the club if there was to be one, we never got around to the meat and potatoes of a business conversation, I was coming back in a week when we would talk again.

The fish to fry was an opportunity to act as ‘muscle’ for a man an investor who had been swindled by another sharpie of a bit more than half a million dollars. I was brought in for a conversation to discuss how that man could be coerced into repaying his debt. Nothing came of it, they thought a simple punch out after a hockey game at the Double Rinks arenas was sufficient, I suggested something else, some psychological push that might let the thief know what he risked if he did not pay. It didn’t go anywhere, but I enjoyed dining at their expense at a famous Toronto eatery called Freds Not Here. I stopped in to see Gary at the Silver Rail where we guffawed, sharing with him the expansion plans of the House of Blues in the market he worked.

I got out of dodge before the dreaded Don Valley parking lot started which happens daily around two thirty in the afternoons. I had to stop at a shop in Bethany Ontario between Lindsay and Peterborough where I was having a leather watchstrap made with the symbol OM on it in two places, on either side of where the watch sat. The operators of the shop are skilled leather artisans, making a watch band would be the lower end of their skill set as Paul and Beverly Williams the owners make pieces in excess of five and ten thousand dollars. Still, any commission is a bonus, I was allowed to participate in the design of the piece and I was excited to see it in completion. I had brought the specs in a few weeks earlier and realized I wanted to change the style to include the OMs. Paul was in the shop when I got there I did not see his wife Bev who I had had a very interesting conversation with two weeks prior when dropping the specs off. She and I talked about a number of various matters including a trip she had had to Machu Pichu some years earlier in which she had a type of spiritual experience. We just seemed to hit if off for a half hour or so in a New Age kind of way. Bev went into the attic and showed me a box of her treasures which included animal teeth and small animal skulls and piece of wood with gnawing on them that were similar to the pieces of wood I was coming across at the retreat as I made the meditation paths, I called the gnawing a language. It seems I had come across a kindred spirit. Paul was in the Boston area at a conference, was it of leather craftspeople, well, anyways some type of gathering. I would guess our spiritual training at the retreat was attracting people who also were seeking truth as I left for home which was straight north of Bethany via Ski Hill Road then up road sixteen past Dunford to below Bobcaygeon and a right turn to Nogies Creek and our retreat. On this second trip I remember there being a thick fog, as thick as a fog can be, something that I had never seen before, it was dangerous to drive, I had to lower my speed to next to nothing, I was relieved to get to their shop, it was odd, I had felt I could have driven into another world as my senses had been deprived of that usual inner chatter one has when driving, silenced so to speak, like in meditation.

The watchband was finished and it was wonderful, we took the Seiko time piece off the spare band and installed it into the new bracelet which was designed to close with a snap device and a piece of Velcro. There is this feeling when you put on a bracelet that is made of thick leather, like that of a warrior from ancient times. Paul was there and we yakked a bit and then I asked for Bev who was not present, he called for her as she was working in her studio in the other end of the centuries old studio/home. She sat down and was a bit flat, not at all like our previous encounter, in any case I brought up that I had been in Toronto at a club for an interview, that’s all no details on any of the people that Richard had been discussing or his ventures. I brought up if either of them believed in reincarnation and I don’t know why. That word for some reason sparked Beverly who like I said was being quiet compared to our first visit. She went to the basement of the home and came upstairs with two books. One of the books was a big thick thing with small writing and a title akin to The Black Madonna, actually a subject I was not familiar with. The other book was thinner, a trade paperback light sky blue in colour with a picture of Jesus sitting in a yoga position on the cover, the title was The Jesus Mystery of Lost Years and Unknown Travels, the authors were Janet and Richard Bock. I skimmed through its pages discovering some chapter titles the likes of which were presented in a way to promote the idea that Jesus had left his home in Galilee around the age of sixteen or so and travelled extensively through mother India learning skills from various gurus over a period of time. I was fascinated and I borrowed the book and left with my new watchband.

Back at the ranch, and it was a ranch style place, except we had no horses, I told Julia of my journey, the beginning the middle and the end and I showed her the book that Bev had loaned me. I opened it up as we went into our meditation room and to my surprise the formal introduction to the book was written by Sai Baba. I was, of course aware that here was another incidence of words playing a role in the unveiling of the Sai Baba story. I hadn’t put much credence into the book that Richard had given me as I didn’t know much about Isaac Tigrett, we never discussed, Richard and I that is whether Isaac had any religious affiliations, nor did we discuss the religious affiliations of Phyllis Krystal. Things were happening.

It was around this time that it became clear to me that these ‘synchronistic’ acts were indeed being manifested by a higher power, whom Julia and I thought had to be Sai Baba himself as he was known to be capable of such things. There was and is today over thirty five years later some confusion as to the purpose of these presentations. I can say that I was thrilled to be on the receiving end of the Love that was coming our way, and I would describe the Love as being similar to the Love my father gave to me from time to time in life, it was a strong Love a Love that was boundless, and maybe that was it, just that, the sharing of Love, saying to someone I Love you, that is all you need to be concerned about. So far we had the Introduction to Sai Baba via George Harrison in the book Dark Horse that resulted in our introduction to the swami Paramahansa Yoganda and while students of Paramahnsa Youganda we were open enough to hear about the book by Paul William Roberts, then the mysterious book signing of his wonderful story Empire of the Soul Some Journeys in India through our friend John Kalcevich, The Count who also introduced me to Richard Kruk of XRays a friend, John also was responsible for the book signing via a writer Jeremy Ferguson who wrote for The Globe and Mail, a travel writer who was having a meal at the author Paul William Roberts house, then we have the ‘CLASH’ of energies as I suspect it was when my Sai dripping persona ran into a signed copy of serious Baba devotee Phyllis Krystal’s book Cutting the Ties that Bind signed by maybe the most relevant devotee that Sai Baba has in North America, Isaac Tigrett who just happened to have sold his shops The Hardrock Café for one hundred and eight million dollars of which half was his which he cut a cheque to the Sai Baba Trust for his share of the sale, a whopping fifty four million dollars! Unbelievable! The last for now but not least this lovely women Beverly Williams going into the basement of her studio/home and giving me a copy of a book with the introduction written by Sai Baba..Yes, you have my attention. Somewhat pleased with all of this spiritual activity, I was still unable to understand why the books were coming to me, through me, I supposed my job was to promote Sai Baba and I did so with many whom I was working with at the time in the hash trade and social friends. Remember we were trying to get off the ground with our idea of meditation paths. as a purpose for the retreat, a way to earn some income as our resources were low.

 

Holy Family and St Michael, Kesgrave, Ipswich, Suffolk

 

A new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

There are ages of faith which leave their traces in splendour and beauty, as acts of piety and memory. East Anglia is full of silent witnesses to tides which have ebbed and flowed. Receding, they leave us in their wake great works from the passing ages, little Norman churches which seem to speak a language we can no longer understand but which haunts us still, the decorated beauty of the 14th Century at odds with the horrors of its pestilence and loss, the perpendicular triumph of the 15th Century church before its near-destruction in the subsequent Reformation and Commonwealth, the protestant flowering of chapels and meeting houses in almost all rural communities, and most obvious of all for us today the triumphalism of the Victorian revival.

 

But even as tides recede, piety and memory survive, most often in quiet acts and intimate details. The catholic church of Holy Family and St Michael at Kesgrave is one of their great 20th Century treasure houses.

 

At the time of the 1851 census of religious worship, Kesgrave was home to just 86 people, 79 of whom attended morning service that day, giving this parish the highest percentage attendance of any in Suffolk. However, they met half a mile up the road at the Anglican parish church of All Saints, and the current site of Holy Family was then far out in the fields. In any case, it is unlikely that any of the non-attenders was a Catholic. Today, Kesgrave is a sprawling eastern suburb of Ipswich, home to about 10,000 people. It extends along the A12 corridor all the way to Martlesham, which in turn will take you pretty much all the way to Woodbridge without seeing much more than a field or two between the houses.

 

Holy Family was erected in the 1930s, and serves as a chapel of ease within the parish of Ipswich St Mary. However, it is still in private ownership, the responsibility of the Rope family, who, along with the Jolly family into which they married, owned much of the land in Kesgrave that was later built on.

 

The growth of Kesgrave has been so rapid and so extensive in these last forty years that radical expansions were required at both this church and at All Saints, as well as to the next parish church along in the suburbs at Rushmere St Andrew. All of these projects are interesting, although externally Holy Family is less dramatic than its neighbours. It sits neatly in its trim little churchyard, red-brick and towerless, a harmonious little building if rather a curious shape, of which more in a moment. Beside it, the underpass and roundabout gives it a decidedly urban air. But this is a church of outstanding interest, as we shall see.

 

It was good to come back to Kesgrave. As a member of St Mary's parish I generally attended mass at the parish's other church, a couple of miles into town, but I had been here a number of times over the years, either to mass or just to wander around and sit for a while. These days, you generally approach the church from around the back, where you'll find a sprawling car park typical of a modern Catholic church. To the west of the church are Lucy House and Philip House, newly built for the work of the Rope family charities. Between the car park and the church there there is a tiny, formal graveyard, with crosses remembering members of the Rope and Jolly families.

 

Access to the church is usually through a west door these days, but if you are fortunate enough to enter through the original porch on the north side you will have a foretaste of what is to come, for to left and right are stunning jewel-like and detailed windows depicting St Margaret and St Theresa on one side and St Catherine and the Immaculate Conception on the other. Beside them, a plaque reveals that the church was built to the memory of Michael Rope, who was killed in the R101 airship disaster of 1930.

 

Blue Peter-watching boys like me, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, were enthralled by airships. They were one of those exciting inventions of a not-so-distant past which were, in a real sense, futuristic, a part of the 1930s modernist project that imagined and predicted the way we live now. And they were just so big. But they were doomed, because the hydrogen which gave them their buoyancy was explosive.

 

As a child, I was fascinated by the R101 airship and its disaster, especially because of that familiar photograph of its wrecked and burnt-out fuselage sprawled in the woods on a northern French hillside. It is still a haunting photograph today. The crash of the R101 put an end to airship development in the UK for more than half a century.

 

Of course, this is all ancient history now, but in the year 2001 I had the excellent fortune to be shown around Holy Family by Michael Rope's widow, Mrs Lucy Doreen Rope, née Jolly, who was still alive, and then in her nineties. She was responsible for the building of this church as a memorial to her husband. We paused in the porch so that I could admire the windows. "Do you like them?" Mrs Rope asked me. "Of course, my sister-in-law made them."

 

Her sister-in-law, of course, was Margaret Agnes Rope, who in the first half of the twentieth century was one of the finest of the Arts and Craft Movement stained glass designers. She studied at Birmingham, and then worked at the Glass House in Fulham with her cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, whose work is also here. But their work can be found in churches and cathedrals all over the world. What Mrs Rope did not tell me, and what I found out later, is that these two windows in the porch were made for her and her husband Michael as a wedding present.

 

Doreen Jolly and Michael Rope were married in 1929. Within a year, he was dead. Mrs Rope was just 23 years old.

 

The original church from the 1930s is the part that you step into. You enter to the bizarre sight of a model of the R101 airship suspended from the roof. The nave altar and tabernacle ahead are in the original sanctuary, and you are facing the liturgical east (actually south) of the original building, and what an intimate space this must have been before the church was extended. Red brick outlines the entrance to the sanctuary, and here are the three windows made by Margaret Rope for the original church. The first is the three-light sanctuary window, depicting the Blessed Virgin and child flanked by St Joseph and St Michael. Two doves sit on a nest beneath Mary's feet, while a quizzical sparrow looks on. St Michael has the face of Michael Rope. The inscription beneath reads Pray for Michael Rope who gave up his soul to God in the wreck of His Majesty's Airship R101, Beauvais, October 5th 1930.

 

Next, a lancet in the right-hand side of the sanctuary contains glass depicting St Dominic, with a dog running beneath his feet and the inscription Laudare, Benedicere, Praedicare, ('to praise, to bless, to preach'). The third window is in the west wall of the church (in its day, the right hand side of the nave), depicting St Thomas More and St John Fisher, although at the time the window was made they had not yet been canonised. The inscription beneath records that the window was the gift of a local couple in thankfulness for their conversion to the faith for which the Blessed Martyrs Thomas More and John Fisher gave their lives. A rose bush springs from in front of the martyrs' feet.

 

By the 1950s, Holy Family was no longer large enough for the community it served, and it was greatly expanded to the east to the designs of the archtect Henry Munro Cautley. Cautley was a bluff Anglican of the old school, the retired former diocesan architect of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, but he would have enjoyed designing a church for such an intimate faith community, and in fact it was his last major project before he died in 1959. The original sanctuary was retained as a blessed sacrament chapel, and the church was turned ninety degrees to face east for the first time. The north and south sides of the new church received three-light Tudor windows in the style most beloved by Cautley, as seen also at his Ipswich County Library in Northgate Street, and the former Fosters (now Lloyds) Bank in central Cambridge.

 

Although the Rope family had farmed at Blaxhall near Wickham Market for generations, Margaret Rope herself was not from Suffolk at all, and nor was she at first a Catholic. She was born in Shrewsbury in 1882, the daughter of Henry Rope, a surgeon at Shrewsbury Infirmary, and a son of the Blaxhall Rope family. The largest collection of Margaret Rope's glass is in Shrewsbury Cathedral. When Margaret was 17, her father died. The family were received into the Catholic church shortly afterwards. A plaque was placed in the entrance to Shrewsbury Infirmary to remember her father. When the hospital was demolished in the 1990s, the plaque was moved to here, and now sits in the north aisle of the 1950s church. In her early days in London Margaret Rope designed and made the large east window at Blaxhall church as a memorial to her grandparents. It features her younger brother Michael, and is believed to be the only window that she ever signed.

 

In her early forties, Margaret Rope took holy orders and entered the Carmelite Convent at nearby Woodbridge, but continued to produce her stained glass work until the community moved to Quidenham in Norfolk, when poor health and the distances involved proved insurmountable. She died there in 1953, and so she never saw the expanded church. Her cartoons, the designs for her windows, are placed on the walls around Holy Family. Some are for windows in churches in Scotland and Wales, one for a window in the English College in Rome. Among them are the roundels for within the enclosure of Tyburn Convent in London. "They had to remove the windows there during the War", said Mrs Rope. "Of course, with me, you have to ask which war!"

 

Turning to the east, we see the new sanctuary with its high altar, completed in 1993 as part of a further reordering and expansion, which gave a large galilee porch, kitchen and toilets to the north side of the church. The window above the new sanctuary has three lights, and the two outer windows were made by Margaret Rope for the chapel of East Bergholt convent to the south of Ipswich. They remember the Vaughan family, into which Margaret Rope's sister had married, and in particular one member, a sister in the convent, to celebrate her 25 year jubilee.

 

The convent later became Old Hall, a famous commune. They depict the prophet Isaiah and King David.

 

The central light between them is controversial. Produced in the 1990s and depicting the risen Christ, it really isn't very good, and provides the one jarring note in the church. It is rather unfortunate that it is in such a prominent position. It is not just the quality of the design that is the problem. It lets in too much light in comparison with the two flanking lights. "The glass in my sister-in-law's windows is half an inch thick", Mrs Rope told me. "In the workshop at Fulham they had a man who came in specially to cut it for them". The glass in the modern light is simply too thin.

 

Despite the 1990s extension, and as so often in modern urban Catholic churches, Holy Family is already not really big enough, although it is hard to see that there could ever be another expansion. We walked along Munro Cautley's south aisle, and at that time the stations of the cross were simple wooden crosses. However, about three months after my conversation with Mrs Rope, the World Trade Centre in New York was attacked and destroyed, and among the three thousand people killed were two local Kesgrave brothers who were commemorated with a new set of stations in cast metal.

 

Here also is a 1956 memorial window by Margaret Rope's cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, to Mrs Rope's mother Alice Jolly, depicting the remains of the shrine at Walsingham and the Jolly family at prayer before it. Another MEA Rope window is across the church in the galilee, a Second World War memorial window, originally on the east side of the first church before Cautley's extension. It depicts three of the English Martyrs, Blessed Anne Lynne, Blessed Robert Southwell and Blessed John Robinson, as well as the shipwreck of Blessed John Nutter off of Dunwich, with All Saints church on the cliffs above.

 

The galilee is designed for families with young children to play a full part in mass, and is separated from the church by a glass screen. At the top of the screen is a small panel by Margaret Rope which is of particular interest because it depicts her and her family participating in the Easter vigil, presumably in Shrewsbury Cathedral. This is hard to photograph because it is on an internal window between two rooms.

 

A recent addition to the Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope windows here is directly opposite, newly installed on the south side of the nave. It was donated by her great-nephew. It depicts a nativity scene, the Holy Family in the stable at Bethlehem, an angel appearing to shepherds on the snowy hills beyond. It is perhaps her loveliest window in the church.

 

Finally, back across the church. Here, beside the brass memorial to Margaret Rope, is a window depicting the Blessed Virgin and child, members of the Rope family in the Candlemas procession beneath. The inscription reminds us to pray for the soul of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God, mistress of novices and stained glass artist, Monastery of the Magnificat of the Mother of God, Quidenham, Norfolk, entered Carmel 14th September 1923, died 6th December 1953. Sister Margaret of the Mother of God was, of course, Margaret Rope herself. She was buried in the convent at Quidenham, a Shrewsbury exile at rest in the East Anglian soil of her forebears. The design is hers, and the window was made by her cousin Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope.

 

Back in 2001, we were talking about the changing Church, and I asked Mrs Rope what she thought about the recently introduced practice of transferring Holy Days on to the nearest Sunday, so that the teaching of them was not lost. Mrs Rope approved, a lady clearly not stuck in the past. She had a passion for ensuring that the Faith could be shared with children. As we have seen, her church is designed so that young families can take a full part in the Mass. But she was sympathetic to the distractions of the modern age. "The world is so exciting for children these days", she said. "I think it must be difficult to bring them up with a sense of the presence of God." She smiled. "Mind you, my son is 70 now! And I do admire young girls today. They have such spirit!"

 

She left me to potter about in her wonderful treasure house. As I did so, I thought of medieval churches I have visited, which were similarly donated by the Mrs Ropes of their day, perhaps even for husbands who had died young. They not only sought to memorialise their loved ones, but to consecrate a space for prayer, that masses might be said for the souls of the dead. This was the Catholic way, a Christian duty. Before the Reformation, this was true in every parish in England. It remained true here at Kesgrave.

 

And finally, back outside to the small graveyard. Side by side are two crosses. One remembers Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, artist, 1891-1988. The other remembers Lucy Doreen Rope, founder of this church, 1907-2003.

Gateway Camp Verse

(Pin1) Ging1 Mahn4

Isaiah 62:10

 

What Dale instructed about going out of our way to treat the Mainland Chinese well resonated within me. To be sure, just as the Koreans have gone out of their way to bless me so I must step out to bless and to love my Mainland brethren.

 

After the first meeting, Ed and I wandered off campus and found inside a shopping mall a cha chaan teng where we had a late-night snack. And hardly had we tucked into our meals when in walked several dozen volunteers, all locals, who were overcome, it seemed, by the same munchies that infected Ed and me. It’s surprising how such a primal urge, at such a time, drives everyone to no less than the same, impossibly far location.

 

I thus far have met so many people that, had I not brought along my iPod, I would have already lost track of the multitudinous names flying around like fireflies at night, sparkling luminously one moment and then disappearing the next. And this is only the beginning: more and more people will arrive both today and tomorrow so I had better stay awake, alert, and writing.

 

I am working with a partner who really challenges me, and indeed that is why I chose to work with him. From the first words that came streaming out of his mouth, I knew he would be a special one, and as if to conifrm my conjecture, indeed, the more he spoke, the more confused I became. The challenge, I have realized after much ruminating, isn’t so much the pace of his speech as his choice of words, which fall outside a normal lexical range; that is, at least with me, when he talks, he doesn’t use familiar collocations to communicate; besides, he has an uncanny Tin Shui Wai accent; those, along with his amazing resistance to Chinglish, which impresses me, by the way, have made our communication tedious, since I am bombarded by peculiar lexical constructions that I generally never encounter in Cantonese conversation and must therefore stop our flow to clarify his speech. It’s too bad that he doesn’t speak English as I would love to hear how he structures ideas in my native language to determine whether or not this strange lexis has spilled over into his other modes of communication.

 

Regardless, in being with him, I have learned to be patient, and if I am truly to walk away from resentment, I must continue rather to engage him than to keep him at arm’s length. It helps us, then, that he is a congenial fellow, prone more to expressing love, much in the same way that I do by warmly grabbing a forearm or a shoulder, than to venting his frustration, which with me could certainly be great. He is verily a good guy, and so long as the Lord keeps him — I am sure Daddy will — Tin Shui Wai, that small patch of concrete moon colony, is in capable, faithful human hands.

 

Sau2 muhn6 je2

Mihng6 dihng6

Kyuhn4 lihk6

Lihk6 leuhng6

Chong3 yi3 adjective

Chong3 jouh6 verb

 

Romans 5:3-5

 

Not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

 

I cried this morning when I read these words, because they are true, and comfort my soul as water to a dry, parched land. However many times I’ve lamented this place and its people, I am still inextricably tied to this rock, per God’s will for my life; and God really is faithful in providing a way out not from this place but from these spiritual hindrances. These past few days, what with communication failures and fatigue setting in, I could have more easily give into my rationality, in defense of my weaknesses, than resisted this bait of satan. Thank God, hence, for the words which are like fuel for the refiner’s fire that burns up all my expectations, my pride and my flesh. I can survive, nay, rejoice, indeed, because of God, who, in me, day by day teaches me to suffer long with a smile.

 

This is what the gateway is all about, I believe: jumping head-first out of my comfort zone to confront the nations, for my brothers and sisters and I must face each other if we are to raise the banners together. Battling through enemy strongholds of mistrust ad resentment, we demolish carnal thoughts and dig deep in the Spirit for the unity that shall overcome as much language as culture; God, after all, is bigger, even, than the battlefield. In these ways can my brethren and I love each other as ourselves, as we shall be one in the Father, with audacious power and boldness laying hands on His kingdom which advances, in this kairos moment, over all of China, including, no doubt, Hong Kong. No longer will there be curses thrown upon the nations; but rather the river of life will flow through the city, and the leaves of the tree on each side of the river will be for the healing of the nations.

 

1) Welcoming the Father

2) Unifying the body

3) Partnering with the Chinese

4) Serving the city

5) Supporting the Chinese

 

Isaac and I have worked quite hard this morning, putting up signs all over campus, and as if to reward me for my assiduity, he offered to buy me a drink, an offer which I took up. Indeed, this man’s care and concern for others, genuine, doubtlessly, fills me with joy, for, to be sure, the joy of the lord is his strength. My friend is indefatigable, always encouraging and never slighting, no matter the circumstances, rain (that has happened a lot today) or shine. Praise God!

 

Much like my relationship with Isaac, my relationships with my other team members have improved considerably since, even, this morning’s briefing during which, the code-switching, happening too fast and too furiously for my comfort, vexed me so terribly that if Isaac had not put a generous arm around my shoulder immediately afterwards, I surely would have blown my top in frustration at the perplexing language option. Thankfully, my team and I settled our language arrangements: Isaac, Dorcas and I will intractably speak Cantonese to each other whereas my other group mates and I will use English with as little code-switching as possible; and I, along with Ed, no doubt, am satisfied. It’s best to avoid misunderstandings.

 

Lihng4 Mahn4 (soul)

Sihng4 jeung2

Muhng6 Seung2 (dreams)

 

The Lord’s mercies are new everyday. Just now, during the morning rally, by His Spirit, hundreds of brothers and sisters received a new anointing, to be spiritual mothers and fathers of a new generation so as to minister to the next. This outpouring of the Spirit was sudden, and so captivated me that when the call came to reap, I rushed to the front to ask my father for this anointing, and naturally, my life was transformed. In the same way, the pastor called up a new generation of spiritual children to receive the love, care and support of these new parents; and likewise, so many young men and women heeded this call that verily, the pit in front of the stage was soon awash in hugs and tears between generations that, once lost, were now found. Indeed, no sooner did these people embrace their father than Dad immediately swept them up in his strong arms and showered them with audacious encouragement and support. Praise God!

 

An Outburst

 

I was angry this morning during our team time. I temporarily lost my ability to be merciful and to live in God’s grace. When my team leader began to address me in English, yet again, I couldn’t help but berate him for doing so when Cantonese, I argued, would be a more economical medium of delivery. And then I compounded this already incendiary situation by ranting about the hypocrisy of Hong Kong being a gateway to China but not a gateway into its own neighborhoods teeming with Chinese people, 97% of whom, according to one of the pastors at this camp, do not know the Lord Jesus. Cantonese will matter, I posit, if anyone dares to take on the onerous mission in this vexing place.

 

To be sure, even my brother announced that language was a prohibitive barrier to closer relationships with these local people, and therefore, since he neither speaks Cantonese nor is going to give learning the language a go, he is relegated to the outer walls of the gates into Hong Kong.

 

In hindsight, I thought I cared enough about God’s purposes for me in Hong Kong, but I realize now that I still care a lot about myself, and resentment. Though I have prayed and declared boldly that God is bigger than language and culture, I know I don’t believe it; and that’s upsetting. For the time being, I don’t verily believe in my heart that I can have deeper, closer relationships with Chinese people without the benefit of language and culture, patterns of action.

 

OK. This is actually an opportune start for my spiritual parentship, for now I have an opportunity to put aside my very compelling arguments for the necessity of language and culture in deep and close relationships, these conclusions born out of my reason, and to step out in faith, to trust in the Lord who, I pray, will show me deep and close relationships sans language and culture, and with whom my deep and close relationship shall obviously be the key to this victory.

 

I’m thinking about events at this camp that heretofore demonstrated loving relationships without language and culture, and I recalled two acts: the first happened yesterday when I spontaneously joined a line of ushers to high-five and to cheer the audience as they flooded out of the auditorium, the morning rally having scarcely finished; and the second, this was my meeting Yao, a man from the Ivory Coast, whom I befriended in those first, fleeting, if not frantic moments before the opening rally on Friday evening. That encounter was immediate and sudden, neither words nor habits needed; Yao and I simply high-fived, hugged and sat beside each other; and wow, that was terrific companionship — praise God!

 

Finally, however hard my diatribe may have struck my team members’ hearts, my merciful group mates still forgave me, not only on an personal level, but also, as I had sought forgiveness on behalf of all foreigners who have ever cursed locals or stood passively outside the gateway, on a corporate level, thereby releasing countless non-Chinese people into the freedom of these Hong Kong people’s forgiveness; just as brothers and sisters had so recently been reconciled to each other in my church, so local and non-local people have received the others’ freedom of forgiveness; more than a homecoming, that, indeed, is a breakthrough.

 

In listening to this morning’s sermon, I hear such verses as I know God is speaking to me through His word. 2Corinthians 4:16-18, this scripture in particular carries a buoyant, hopeful currency in my heart. My spirit soaks in this divine revelation as a sponge soaks in water and thus becomes malleable, able to be formed and shaped according to its holder’s will: Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

 

Disagreeable

 

I don’t know why my brother and I undermine each others’ comments; why we no more know consensus than the deaf music. Our interactions have been especially abrasive recently since we have spent so much time together without the benefit of our other brother to act as a natural, vociferous buffer; and as a result we argue like pieces of sand paper being rubbed against flesh, which inevitably leads to significant soreness. I feel sore now.

 

I think back to my outburst this morning and can appreciate my role in this evening’s embarrassing outcome; I am certainly not without fault, for I choose these days not only to venture my opinions but to do so passionately, if not emotionally. People consequently who otherwise are phlegmatic at best are put in a discomfiting position by my impassioned pleas. Besides, I recall Interrupting my brother prolifically, which understandably would not make him a happy camper; just as a hyperactive child doesn’t know when to stop pestering his sibling, so I don’t know nowadays when to hold my tongue. Indeed, I would rather not respond at all to my brother, even after he has fired off his rejoinder, than to strike him down in mid-speech.

 

In view of this latest incident, I have resolved to take the former course of action. To be sure, I simply stopped our petty dispute about a stupid basketball game by, awkward as it was, taking out my book and perusing it as fixedly as my tattered mind would allow. I will try my best to stay away from my brother for a spell, to create physical and spiritual space between us, so hopefully, in this way at least one of us will be able to come to his senses about this matter; better yet, now would be an opportune time for our father in his mercy to reveal to us the fault lines in our flesh so that we could surrender these tremulous spots in our soul, crucifying them to the father for our healing and the redemption of our relationship. I will pray about this.

 

…Praise God. If I had not separated myself from my brother’s presence, I wouldn’t have been sitting at that bench at the exact moment when Isaac came over to me in a plaintive mood. Obviously upset, he had been so recently wronged, he lamented on the verge of tears. And at that, mercy swept over my countenance, for my brother felt as aggrieved as I did earlier; and this appointment, per God’s unfailing, obstinate love, had at last come for me, convicting me to be very, very agreeable, sympathetic and kind to my fellow long-suffering brother. In this instance, thank God, language did not matter so much as empathy, carrying each others’ burdens and thus fulfilling the rule of Christ. We prayed and blessed each other in Jesus’ name, and then boldly went forward into the rally.

 

I suspect the enemy has infiltrated our team what with my outbursts and Isaac’s failing out as evidence. My group mates and I must be more vigilant in prayer and in digging deep into the Father’s word if we are to overcome the spies in our camp that have planted incendiary devices in our mouths and in our hearts. We certainly need such encouragement as the Lord provides for the edification and encouragement of each other, even more so, in fact, in the face of adversity, despite our fatigue and other physical ills that befall us like a hail of arrows. In faith, I’m sure, faith will see us through; and per what the pastors exhorted at the rally, we will become as if the smooth stone in David’s sling, ready to fly into the air to crush the Goliath in this world.

 

Sihng4 jauh6 achievement

Ngwuih misunderstanding

Nggaai2 to misunderstand

Yuhn4 leuhng6 forgive

Gaan2syun2 chosen

 

The Security Guard

 

At the morning rally, a security guard left an indelible impression on my heart what with her showing of unconditional support and her proffering of words of encouragement, which like a waterfall fell in force and power over my friends and me. To my amazement, I first saw her out of the corner of my eye stepping out of her role as a security guard to pray as a spiritual parent to two spiritual children during the morning rally’s prayer time; there she was, clad in her blue uniform, laying hands on those weeping kids; finally, I had witnessed someone courageous enough to step out of that rule of law, her boundary in Hong Kong, to be bound to that which is ethereal, the rule of Christ to carry each others’ burdens. Later, as the audience passed through the exit, I had time to confirm her love for the Lord and at that, we broke into a torrent of encouragement and followed this with a flurry of picture-taking. Indeed, never have I stumbled upon such good will from a dragon security guard in HK so I am hopeful, therefore, that this is but the the start of a greater movement within that particular demon-worshipping core, that at this time, God is opening up the heavenly armory and placing his prayer warriors inside that particular stronghold in Hong Kong to demolish every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and placing in its stead a profusion of love, gentleness and kindness. I look forward to the day when wisdom, and not languid stares, shall emanate from all the people who man the facilities in these universities.

 

Reconciliation

 

This is special. No sooner had Isaac and I stepped into the auditorium than we heard the plaintive cry of the mainland Chinese on the stage forgiving the Hong Kong people for their trespasses against their brethren from the north. A flurry of hugs, replete with a few tears, ensued. That was, as Dale announced from the stage, a delicious moment. Jesus must have been breaking out the good champagne in heaven for a rousing celebration in view of this victory.

 

Sex Talk – Part One

 

The kids finally received the sex talk this morning; a fiery pastor delivered the message which was as much shocking as informative; and gasps and wincing abounded in the audience.

 

While I have recently heard the sex talk at the men’s retreat, and have furthermore by God’s grace been inoculated against this particular area of struggle, it was nonetheless refreshing to hear the news, as shocking and as sensational as it was. I am willing, in addition, to believe that some of the atrocious acts that the pastor referenced, such as gruesome abortions and bizarre sexual acts, are more prevalent than my reason will believe, because my scope is limited by experience, but as the Father witnesses everything, if the Spirit has convicted this man and has told him that the world is heading closer and closer into the mouth of Jezebel in this way, I accept this. In fact, believing this is important if I am to be a good spiritual parent who will not only protect but educate the new generation from the prowling enemy that lurks these days, even, in our computers.

 

Prayer

 

The Holy Spirit fell over me this morning during my group’s team time. He convicted me to pray in Cantonese for the first time, and so I did without fear, those Chinese words pouring out of me as if perfume from an alabaster jar. Praise God: he is good; and this was the moment I have been waiting for.

 

I think about what happened, and am amazed at the Father’s favor; despite my critiques against this culture, and in spite of my recent lamentations, the Lord, ever faithfully, provided a way out under which I could stand and by which I could be protected from the bait of Satan. Little did I know that the escape route would, in fact, ironically, direct me to the very thing that heretofore has stood as an obstruction, a spiritual roadblock, in my mind.

 

A missionary on the stage just spoke into my life when she said about her experience learning Putonghua in China: the difficult part was not learning the language but learning to love those people as Jesus loves them. This will always be my mission, no matter where I am.

 

Keuhng4 jong3

Lai1 hei2 (pull up)

 

In the afternoon, my team had a reconciliation meeting during which, in small groups, each team member at last was given an opportunity to share alternately their joys and struggles. At that time, though having staved off an open rebuke for several days, I could no longer hold back this challenge to my small group: to step out in faith to be a gateway to the nations; and second, per the morning’s message, to on their guard against the sexually explicit, insidious media. I laid out my argument with much cogency, and such a response as I saw fit knocked my group mates into a stupor, because they certainly didn’t have much to say afterwards.

 

Oscillate between…and…

Vacillate…

Equivocated

Prevaricate

 

Sex Talk – Part Two

 

1) Jesus came to show us the Father; John1:18

2) Grace First, Truth Second; John 1:24:25; 16-18

 

Pahn4 mohng6 (hope)

 

Do you believe that Jesus can heal you? Then lay hands.

 

Dale and I are men who have shared similar struggles. His testimony is riveting.

 

Suddenly, I realized that this rally is, in fact, a continuation of yesterday morning’s sex talk, because we ended the previous rally praying more against the shame of abortion than against personal sexual immorality. Notionally, what is being discussed will enable people to really experience the love of the Father such that to change permanently our behavior. So when we are tempted:

 

1) Call for help; Romans 10:13

2) Escape Plan; 1Corinthians 10:13

 

Remember not to stand and rebuke the enemy with your own strength; move physically from the situation.

 

3) Run Away; 2Timothy 2:22

4) Into the Father’s Arms; Hebrews 4:14

 

I like this talk. This might be the first time that these young people get straight sex talk from their leaders; and there is no better time than now for these young people to break through in this particular area of struggle, just as the young men of SP broke through these obstinate barriers during our men’s retreat.

 

5) Confess and be Healed; James 5:16

 

I hope these young people find faithful accountability brothers and sisters in this service.

 

6) Walk in Transparent Accountable Relationships; 1John 1:7

7) Resist the Enemy; James 4:7

The Hymn of God's Word "Those Who Accept the New Work Are Blessed" | Gospel Music

 

Blessed are all those who are able to obey the actual utterances of the Holy Spirit. No matter how they used to be, or how the Holy Spirit, how the Holy Spirit used to work within them, those who've gained the latest work are the most blessed ones. Today, those who can't follow the latest work will be eliminated. God wants those who can accept the new light, and those who accept and know His latest work.

 

II

 

Why must you be a chaste virgin? A chaste virgin can seek the work of the Holy Spirit; she can take in the new things, and give up the old notions, and obey God's work today, obey God's work today. These people, who accept the newest work of today, were ordained by God before the world, and are the most blessed ones. You hear the voice of God , and behold the appearance of Him. So, in all times and generations, and throughout heaven and earth, none have been more blessed than you, this group of people.

 

from "Know the Newest Work of God and Follow the Footsteps of God" in The Word Appears in the Flesh

 

Terms of Use

  

Famagusta is a city on the east coast of the de facto state Northern Cyprus. It is located east of Nicosia and possesses the deepest harbour of the island. During the Middle Ages (especially under the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice), Famagusta was the island's most important port city and a gateway to trade with the ports of the Levant, from where the Silk Road merchants carried their goods to Western Europe. The old walled city and parts of the modern city are de facto part of Northern Cyprus as the capital of the Gazimağusa District.

 

The city was known as Arsinoe or Arsinoë (Greek: Ἀρσινόη, Arsinóē) in antiquity, after Ptolemy II of Egypt's sister and wife Arsinoe II.

 

By the 3rd century, the city appears as Ammochostos (Greek: Ἀμμόχωστος or Αμμόχωστος, Ammókhōstos, "Hidden in Sand") in the Stadiasmus Maris Magni.[5] This name is still used in modern Greek with the pronunciation [aˈmːoxostos], while it developed into Latin Fama Augusta, French Famagouste, Italian Famagosta, and English Famagusta during the medieval period. Its informal modern Turkish name Mağusa (Turkish pronunciation: [maˈusa]) came from the same source. Since 1974, it has formally been known to Turkey and Northern Cyprus as Gazimağusa ([ɡaːzimaˈusa]), from the addition of the title gazi, meaning "veteran" or "one who has faught in a holy war".

 

In the early medieval period, the city was also known as New Justiniana (Greek: Νέα Ἰουστινιανία, Néa Ioustinianía) in appreciation for the patronage of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, whose wife Theodora was born there.

 

The old town of Famagusta has also been nicknamed "the City of 365 Churches" from the legend that, at its peak, it boasted a church for every day of the year.

 

The city was founded around 274 BC, after the serious damage to Salamis by an earthquake, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus and named "Arsinoe" after his sister.[6] Arsinoe was described as a "fishing town" by Strabo in his Geographica in the first century BC. In essence, Famagusta was the successor of the most famous and most important ancient city of Cyprus, Salamis. According to Greek mythology, Salamis was founded after the end of the Trojan War by Teucros, the son of Telamon and brother of Aedes, from the Greek island of Salamis.

 

The city experienced great prosperity much later, during the time of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. To honor the city, from which his wife Theodora came, Justinian enriched it with many buildings, while the inhabitants named it New Justiniania to express their gratitude. In AD 647, when the neighboring cities were destroyed by Arab raiding, the inhabitants of these cities moved to Famagusta, as a result of which the city's population increased significantly and the city experienced another boom.

 

Later, when Jerusalem was occupied by the Arabs, the Christian population fled to Famagusta, as a result of which the city became an important Christian center, but also one of the most important commercial centers in the eastern Mediterranean.

 

The turning point for Famagusta was 1192 with the onset of Lusignan rule. It was during this period that Famagusta developed as a fully-fledged town. It increased in importance to the Eastern Mediterranean due to its natural harbour and the walls that protected its inner town. Its population began to increase. This development accelerated in the 13th century as the town became a centre of commerce for both the East and West. An influx of Christian refugees fleeing the downfall of Acre (1291) in Palestine transformed it from a tiny village into one of the richest cities in Christendom.

 

In 1372 the port was seized by Genoa and in 1489 by Venice. This commercial activity turned Famagusta into a place where merchants and ship owners led lives of luxury. By the mid-14th century, Famagusta was said to have the richest citizens in the world. The belief that people's wealth could be measured by the churches they built inspired these merchants to have churches built in varying styles. These churches, which still exist, were the reason Famagusta came to be known as "the district of churches". The development of the town focused on the social lives of the wealthy people and was centred upon the Lusignan palace, the cathedral, the Square and the harbour.

 

In 1570–1571, Famagusta was the last stronghold in Venetian Cyprus to hold out against the Turks under Mustafa Pasha. It resisted a siege of thirteen months and a terrible bombardment, until at last the garrison surrendered. The Ottoman forces had lost 50,000 men, including Mustafa Pasha's son. Although the surrender terms had stipulated that the Venetian forces be allowed to return home, the Venetian commander, Marco Antonio Bragadin, was flayed alive, his lieutenant Tiepolo was hanged, and many other Christians were killed.

 

With the advent of the Ottoman rule, Latins lost their privileged status in Famagusta and were expelled from the city. Greek Cypriots natives were at first allowed to own and buy property in the city, but were banished from the walled city in 1573–74 and had to settle outside in the area that later developed into Varosha. Turkish families from Anatolia were resettled in the walled city but could not fill the buildings that previously hosted a population of 10,000. This caused a drastic decrease in the population of Famagusta. Merchants from Famagusta, who mostly consisted of Latins that had been expelled, resettled in Larnaca and as Larnaca flourished, Famagusta lost its importance as a trade centre. Over time, Varosha developed into a prosperous agricultural town thanks to its location away from the marshes, whilst the walled city remained dilapidated.

 

In the walled city, some buildings were repurposed to serve the interests of the Muslim population: the Cathedral of St. Nicholas was converted to a mosque (now known as Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque), a bazaar was developed, public baths, fountains and a theological school were built to accommodate the inhabitants' needs. Dead end streets, an Ottoman urban characteristic, was imported to the city and a communal spirit developed in which a small number of two-storey houses inhabited by the small upper class co-existed with the widespread one-storey houses.

 

With the British takeover, Famagusta regained its significance as a port and an economic centre and its development was specifically targeted in British plans. As soon as the British took over the island, a Famagusta Development Act was passed that aimed at the reconstruction and redevelopment of the city's streets and dilapidated buildings as well as better hygiene. The port was developed and expanded between 1903 and 1906 and Cyprus Government Railway, with its terminus in Famagusta, started construction in 1904. Whilst Larnaca continued to be used as the main port of the island for some time, after Famagusta's use as a military base in World War I trade significantly shifted to Famagusta. The city outside the walls grew at an accelerated rate, with development being centred around Varosha. Varosha became the administrative centre as the British moved their headquarters and residences there and tourism grew significantly in the last years of the British rule. Pottery and production of citrus and potatoes also significantly grew in the city outside the walls, whilst agriculture within the walled city declined to non-existence.

 

New residential areas were built to accommodate the increasing population towards the end of the British rule,[11] and by 1960, Famagusta was a modern port city extending far beyond Varosha and the walled city.

 

The British period saw a significant demographic shift in the city. In 1881, Christians constituted 60% of the city's population while Muslims were at 40%. By 1960, the Turkish Cypriot population had dropped to 17.5% of the overall population, while the Greek Cypriot population had risen to 70%. The city was also the site for one of the British internment camps for nearly 50,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust trying to emigrate to Palestine.

 

From independence in 1960 to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus of 1974, Famagusta developed toward the south west of Varosha as a well-known entertainment and tourist centre. The contribution of Famagusta to the country's economic activity by 1974 far exceeded its proportional dimensions within the country. Whilst its population was only about 7% of the total of the country, Famagusta by 1974 accounted for over 10% of the total industrial employment and production of Cyprus, concentrating mainly on light industry compatible with its activity as a tourist resort and turning out high-quality products ranging from food, beverages and tobacco to clothing, footwear, plastics, light machinery and transport equipment. It contributed 19.3% of the business units and employed 21.3% of the total number of persons engaged in commerce on the island. It acted as the main tourist destination of Cyprus, hosting 31.5% of the hotels and 45% of Cyprus' total bed capacity. Varosha acted as the main touristic and business quarters.

 

In this period, the urbanisation of Famagusta slowed down and the development of the rural areas accelerated. Therefore, economic growth was shared between the city of Famagusta and the district, which had a balanced agricultural economy, with citrus, potatoes, tobacco and wheat as main products. Famagusta maintained good communications with this hinterland. The city's port remained the island's main seaport and in 1961, it was expanded to double its capacity in order to accommodate the growing volume of exports and imports. The port handled 42.7% of Cypriot exports, 48.6% of imports and 49% of passenger traffic.

 

There has not been an official census since 1960 but the population of the town in 1974 was estimated to be around 39,000 not counting about 12,000–15,000 persons commuting daily from the surrounding villages and suburbs to work in Famagusta. The number of people staying in the city would swell to about 90,000–100,000 during the peak summer tourist period, with the influx of tourists from numerous European countries, mainly Britain, France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. The majority of the city population were Greek Cypriots (26,500), with 8,500 Turkish Cypriots and 4,000 people from other ethnic groups.

 

During the second phase of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 14 August 1974 the Mesaoria plain was overrun by Turkish tanks and Famagusta was bombed by Turkish aircraft. It took two days for the Turkish Army to occupy the city, prior to which Famagusta's entire Greek Cypriot population had fled into surrounding fields. As a result of Turkish airstrikes dozens of civilians died, including tourists.

 

Unlike other parts of the Turkish-controlled areas of Cyprus, the Varosha suburb of Famagusta was fenced off by the Turkish army immediately after being captured and remained fenced off until October 2020, when the TRNC reopened some streets to visitors. Some Greek Cypriots who had fled Varosha have been allowed to view the town and journalists have been allowed in.

 

UN Security Council resolution 550 (1984) considers any attempts to settle any part of Famagusta by people other than its inhabitants as inadmissible and calls for the transfer of this area to the administration of the UN. The UN's Security Council resolution 789 (1992) also urges that with a view to the implementation of resolution 550 (1984), the area at present under the control of the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus be extended to include Varosha.

 

Famagusta's historic city centre is surrounded by the fortifications of Famagusta, which have a roughly rectangular shape, built mainly by the Venetians in the 15th and 16th centuries, though some sections of the walls have been dated earlier times, as far as 1211.

 

Some important landmarks and visitor attractions in the old city are:

The Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque

The Othello Castle

Palazzo del Provveditore - the Venetian palace of the governor, built on the site of the former Lusignan royal palace

St. Francis' Church

Sinan Pasha Mosque

Church of St. George of the Greeks

Church of St. George of the Latins

Twin Churches

Nestorian Church (of St George the Exiler)

Namık Kemal Dungeon

Agios Ioannis Church

Venetian House

Akkule Masjid

Mustafa Pasha Mosque

Ganchvor monastery

 

In an October 2010 report titled Saving Our Vanishing Heritage, Global Heritage Fund listed Famagusta, a "maritime ancient city of crusader kings", among the 12 sites most "On the Verge" of irreparable loss and destruction, citing insufficient management and development pressures.

 

Famagusta is an important commercial hub of Northern Cyprus. The main economic activities in the city are tourism, education, construction and industrial production. It has a 115-acre free port, which is the most important seaport of Northern Cyprus for travel and commerce. The port is an important source of income and employment for the city, though its volume of trade is restricted by the embargo against Northern Cyprus. Its historical sites, including the walled city, Salamis, the Othello Castle and the St Barnabas Church, as well as the sandy beaches surrounding it make it a tourist attraction; efforts are also underway to make the city more attractive for international congresses. The Eastern Mediterranean University is also an important employer and supplies significant income and activity, as well as opportunities for the construction sector. The university also raises a qualified workforce that stimulates the city's industry and makes communications industry viable. The city has two industrial zones: the Large Industrial Zone and the Little Industrial Zone. The city is also home to a fishing port, but inadequate infrastructure of the port restricts the growth of this sector. The industry in the city has traditionally been concentrated on processing agricultural products.

 

Historically, the port was the primary source of income and employment for the city, especially right after 1974. However, it gradually lost some of its importance to the economy as the share of its employees in the population of Famagusta diminished due to various reasons. However, it still is the primary port for commerce in Northern Cyprus, with more than half of ships that came to Northern Cyprus in 2013 coming to Famagusta. It is the second most popular seaport for passengers, after Kyrenia, with around 20,000 passengers using the port in 2013.

 

The mayor-in-exile of Famagusta is Simos Ioannou. Süleyman Uluçay heads the Turkish Cypriot municipal administration of Famagusta, which remains legal as a communal-based body under the constitutional system of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Since 1974, Greek Cypriots submitted a number of proposals within the context of bicommunal discussions for the return of Varosha to UN administration, allowing the return of its previous inhabitants, requesting also the opening of Famagusta harbour for use by both communities. Varosha would have been returned to Greek Cypriot control as part of the 2004 Annan Plan but the plan had been rejected by a majority(3/4) of Greek Cypriot voters.

 

The walled city of Famagusta contains many unique buildings. Famagusta has a walled city popular with tourists.

 

Every year, the International Famagusta Art and Culture Festival is organized in Famagusta. Concerts, dance shows and theater plays take place during the festival.

 

A growth in tourism and the city's university have fueled the development of Famagusta's vibrant nightlife. Nightlife in the city is especially active on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights and in the hotter months of the year, starting from April. Larger hotels in the city have casinos that cater to their customers. Salamis Road is an area of Famagusta with a heavy concentration of bars frequented by students and locals.

 

Famagusta's Othello Castle is the setting for Shakespeare's play Othello. The city was also the setting for Victoria Hislop's 2015 novel The Sunrise, and Michael Paraskos's 2016 novel In Search of Sixpence. The city is the birthplace of the eponymous hero of the Renaissance proto-novel Fortunatus.

 

Famagusta was home to many Greek Cypriot sport teams that left the city because of the Turkish invasion and still bear their original names. Most notable football clubs originally from the city are Anorthosis Famagusta FC and Nea Salamis Famagusta FC, both of the Cypriot First Division, which are now based in Larnaca. Usually Anorthosis Famagusta fans are politically right wing where Nea Salamis fans are left wing.

 

Famagusta is represented by Mağusa Türk Gücü in the Turkish Cypriot First Division. Dr. Fazıl Küçük Stadium is the largest football stadium in Famagusta. Many Turkish Cypriot sport teams that left Southern Cyprus because of the Cypriot intercommunal violence are based in Famagusta.

 

Famagusta is represented by DAÜ Sports Club and Magem Sports Club in North Cyprus First Volleyball Division. Gazimağusa Türk Maarif Koleji represents Famagusta in the North Cyprus High School Volleyball League.

 

Famagusta has a modern volleyball stadium called the Mağusa Arena.

 

The Eastern Mediterranean University was founded in the city in 1979. The Istanbul Technical University founded a campus in the city in 2010.

 

The Cyprus College of Art was founded in Famagusta by the Cypriot artist Stass Paraskos in 1969, before moving to Paphos in 1972 after protests from local hoteliers that the presence of art students in the city was putting off holidaymakers.

 

Famagusta has three general hospitals. Gazimağusa Devlet Hastahanesi, a state hospital, is the biggest hospital in city. Gazimağusa Tıp Merkezi and Gazimağusa Yaşam Hastahanesi are private hospitals.

 

Personalities

Saint Barnabas, born and died in Salamis, Famagusta

Chris Achilleos, illustrator of the book versions on the BBC children's series Doctor Who

Beran Bertuğ, former Governor of Famagusta, first Cypriot woman to hold this position

Marios Constantinou, former international Cypriot football midfielder and current manager.

Eleftheria Eleftheriou, Cypriot singer.

Derviş Eroğlu, former President of Northern Cyprus

Alexis Galanos, 7th President of the House of Representatives and Famagusta mayor-in-exile (2006-2019) (Republic of Cyprus)

Xanthos Hadjisoteriou, Cypriot painter

Oz Karahan, political activist, President of the Union of Cypriots

Oktay Kayalp, former Turkish Cypriot Famagusta mayor (Northern Cyprus)

Harry Luke British diplomat

Angelos Misos, former international footballer

Costas Montis was an influential and prolific Greek Cypriot poet, novelist, and playwright born in Famagusta.

Hal Ozsan, actor (Dawson's Creek, Kyle XY)

Dimitris Papadakis, a Greek Cypriot politician, who served as a Member of the European Parliament.

Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, Persian religious leader, lived and died in exile in Famagusta

Touker Suleyman (born Türker Süleyman), British Turkish Cypriot fashion retail entrepreneur, investor and reality television personality.

Alexia Vassiliou, singer, left here as a refugee when the town was invaded.

George Vasiliou, former President of Cyprus

Vamik Volkan, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry

Derviş Zaim, film director

 

Famagusta is twinned with:

İzmir, Turkey (since 1974)

Corfu, Greece (since 1994)

Patras, Greece (since 1994)

Antalya, Turkey (since 1997)

Salamina (city), Greece (since 1998)

Struga, North Macedonia

Athens, Greece (since 2005)

Mersin, Turkey

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

God's Utterance "God's Work, God's Disposition, and God Himself III" (Part Two)

 

www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/gods-work-gods-dispositio...

 

God's words in this video are from the book "Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh".

 

The content of this video:

 

1. (Matt 12:1) At that time Jesus

 

2. (Matt 12:6-8) But I say to you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.

 

youtu.be/m29LzdxUmIs?t=5m33s

 

Eastern Lightning, The Church of Almighty God was created because of the appearance and work of Almighty God, the second coming of the Lord Jesus, Christ of the last days. It is made up of all those who accept Almighty God's work in the last days and are conquered and saved by His words. It was entirely founded by Almighty God personally and is led by Him as the Shepherd. It was definitely not created by a person. Christ is the truth

 

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All Saints, Gazeley, Suffolk.

 

There was never any doubt I would go to Rob's funeral. Rob was born just two weeks before me, and in our many meetings, we found we had so much in common.

 

A drive to Ipswich should be something like only two and a half hours, but with the Dartford Crossing that could balloon to four or more.

 

My choice was to leave early, soon after Jools left for work, or wait to near nine once rush hour was over. If I was up early, I'd leave early, I said.

 

Which is what happened.

 

So, after coffee and Jools leaving, I loaded my camera stuff in the car, not bothering to program in a destination, as I knew the route to Suffolk so well.

 

Checking the internet I found the M2 was closed, so that meant taking the M20, which I like as it runs beside HS2, although over the years, vegetation growth now hides most of it, and with Eurostar cutting services due to Brexit, you're lucky to see a train on the line now.

 

I had a phone loaded with podcasts, so time flew by, even if travelling through the endless roadworks at 50mph seemed to take forever.

 

Dartford was jammed. But we inched forward, until as the bridge came in sight, traffic moved smoothly, and I followed the traffic down into the east bore of the tunnel.

 

Another glorious morning for travel, the sun shone from a clear blue sky, even if traffic was heavy, but I had time, so not pressing on like I usually do, making the drive a pleasant one.

 

Up through Essex, where most other traffic turned off at Stanstead, then up to the A11 junction, with it being not yet nine, I had several hours to fill before the ceremony.

 

I stopped at Cambridge services for breakfast, then programmed the first church in: Gazeley, which is just in Suffolk on the border with Cambridgeshire.

 

I took the next junction off, took two further turnings brought be to the village, which is divided by one of the widest village streets I have ever seen.

 

It was five past nine: would the church be open?

 

I parked on the opposite side of the road, grabbed my bag and camera, limped over, passing a warden putting new notices in the parish notice board. We exchange good mornings, and I walk to the porch.

 

The inner door was unlocked, and the heavy door swung after turning the metal ring handle.

 

I had made a list of four churches from Simon's list of the top 60 Suffolk churches, picking those on or near my route to Ipswich and which piqued my interest.

 

Here, it was the reset mediaeval glass.

 

Needless to say, I had the church to myself, the centuries hanging heavy inside as sunlight flooded in filling the Chancel with warm golden light.

 

Windows had several devotional dials carved in the surrounding stone, and a huge and "stunningly beautiful piscina, and beside it are sedilia that end in an arm rest carved in the shape of a beast" which caught my eye.

 

A display in the Chancel was of the decoration of the wooden roof above where panels contained carved beasts, some actual and some mythical.

 

I photographed them all.

 

----------------------------------------------------

 

All Saints is a large, remarkably good church in one of the sleepy, fat villages along the Cambridgeshire border, the sort of place you cycle through and imagine wistfully that you've won the lottery and could move there. The wide churchyard on both sides is a perfect setting for the church, which rises to heaven out of a perpendicular splendour of aisles, clerestories and battlements. The tower was complete by the 1470s when money was being left for a bell. The earlier chancel steadies the ship, anchoring it to earth quietly, although the tall east window has its spectacular moment too. And you step into a deliciously well-kept interior, full of interest.

One of the most significant medieval survivals here is not easily noticed. This is the range of 15th Century glass, which was reset by the Victorians high in the clerestory. This seems a curious thing to have done, since it defeats the purpose of a clerestory, but if they had not done so then we might have lost it. The glass matches the tracery in the north aisle windows, so that is probably where they came from. There are angels, three Saints and some shields, most of which are heraldic but two show the instruments of the passion and the Holy Trinity. I would not be surprised to learn that some of the shields are 19th century, but the figures are all original late 15th or early 16th century. The Saints are an unidentified Bishop, the hacksaw-wielding St Faith and one of my favourites, St Apollonia. She it was who was invoked by medieval people against toothache.

 

Waling from the nave up into the chancel, the space created by the clearing of clutter makes it at once mysterious and beautiful. Above, the early 16th century waggon roof is Suffolk's best of its kind. Mortlock points out the little angels bearing scrolls, the wheat ears and the vine sprays, and the surviving traces of colour. The low side window on the south side still has its hinges, for here it was that updraught to the rood would have sent the candles flickering in the mystical church of the 14th century. On the south side of the sanctuary is an exquisitely carved arched recess, that doesn't appear to have ever had a door, and may have been a very rare purpose-built Easter sepulchre at the time of the 1330s rebuilding. Opposite is a huge and stunningly beautiful piscina, and beside it are sedilia that end in an arm rest carved in the shape of a beast. It is one of the most significant Decorated moments in Suffolk.

 

On the floor of the chancel there is a tiny, perfect chalice brass, one of only two surviving in Suffolk. The other is at Rendham. Not far away is the indent of another chalice brass - or perhaps it was for the same one, and the brass has been moved for some reason. There are two chalice indents at Westhall, but nowhere else in Suffolk. Chalice brasses were popular memorials for Priests in the 15th and early 16th centuries, and thus were fair game for reformers. Heigham memorials of the late 16th century are on the walls. Back in the south aisle there is a splendid tombchest in Purbeck marble. It has lost its brasses, but the indents show us where they were, as do other indents in the aisle floors. Some heraldic brass shields survive, and show that Heighams were buried here. Brass inscriptions survive in the nave and the chancel, dating from the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

 

The 14th century font is a good example of the tracery pattern series that appeared in the decades before the Black Death. They may have been intended to spread ideas at that time of great artistic and intellectual flowering before it was so cruelly snatched away. The cover is 17th Century. At this end of the nave are two good ranges of medieval benches, one, rare in East Anglia, is a group of 14th Century benches with pierced tracery backs. Some of them appear to spell out words, and Mortlock thought one might say Salaman Sayet. The block of benches to the north appears to be 15th Century or possibly early 16th Century. Further north, the early 17th Century benches are simpler, even cruder, and were likely the work of the village carpenter.

 

All rather lovely then. And yet, it hasn't always been that way. All Saints at Gazeley, near Newmarket, was the first church that I visited after an international team of scientists conclusively proved that God did not exist began the first page for this church that I wrote in 2003, in a satirical mood after finding the church locked and at a very low ebb. At a time when congregations were generally falling, I'd been thinking about the future of medieval churches beyond a time when they would have people to use them in the traditional way. I wondered if the buildings might find new uses, or could adapt themselves to changing patterns and emphases in Christianity, or even changing spiritual needs of their parishes. Even if science could somehow prove that God did not exist, I suggested, there were parishes which would rise to the challenge and reinvent themselves, as churches have always done over the two millennia of Christianity. Coming to Gazeley I felt that here was a church which felt as if it had been abandoned. And yet, it seemed to me a church of such significance, such historical and spiritual importance, that its loss would be a disaster. If it had been clean, tidy and open at the time he was visiting, Simon Jenkins England's Thousand Best Churches would not have been able to resist it. Should the survival of such a treasure store depend upon the existence of God or the continued practice of the Christian faith? Or might there be other reasons to keep this extraordinary building in something like its present integrity?

 

In the first decade of the 21st Century, Gazeley church went on a tremendous journey, from being moribund to being the wonderful church you can visit today. If you want to read the slightly adapted 2006 entry for Gazeley, recounting this journey, you can do so here. Coming back here today always fills me with optimism for what can be achieved. On one occasion I mentioned my experiences of Gazeley church to a Catholic Priest friend of mine, and he said he hoped I knew I'd seen the power of the Holy Spirit at work. And perhaps that is so. Certainly, the energy and imagination of the people here have been fired by something. On that occasion I had wanted to find someone to ask about it, to find out how things stood now. But there was no one, and so the building spoke for them.

 

Back outside in the graveyard, the dog daisies clustered and waved their sun-kissed faces in the light breeze. The ancient building must have known many late-May days like this over the centuries, but think of all the changes that it has known inside! The general buffeting of the winds of history still leaves room for local squalls and lightning strikes. All Saints has known these, but for now a blessed calm reigns here. Long may it remain so.

 

Simon Knott, June 2019

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/gazeley.htm

Inspired by C.S. Lewis on Hope, Desire and Longing

 

Lam 3:25 (NIV) The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him.

  

"Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise.

    

"We do not want to merely "see" beauty--though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.

    

"At present we are on the outside... the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the pleasures we see. But all the pages of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get "in"... We will put on glory... that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch.

    

"The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.' A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

    

"If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only... to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, echo, or mirage.

    

"I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to the other country and to help others do the same."

    

Hope: What We Are Promised By God But Don't Yet Have

    

Rom 8:24-25 (NIV) For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

    

1 Tim 4:10 (LB) We work hard and suffer much in order that people will believe... for our hope is in the living God who died for all, and particularly for those who have accepted his salvation.

    

The Hope of Being a"Son", God's "Family" and "Household", and "Heirs"

    

Gal 3:26-29 (Phi) For now that you have faith in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God. All of you who were baptized "into" Christ have put on the family likeness of Christ. Gone is the distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female--you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, you are true heirs of his promise.

    

1 Jn 5:1 (Phi) Everyone who really believes that Jesus is the Christ is himself one of God's family...

    

Rom 8:28-31 (Phi) Moreover we know that to those who love God, who are called according to his plan, everything that happens fits into a pattern for good. For God, in his foreknowledge, chose them to bear the family likeness of his Son, that he might be the eldest of a family of many brothers. He chose them long ago; when the time came he called them, he made them righteous in his sight and then lifted them to the splendor of life as his own sons. In face of all this, what is there left to say? If God is for us, who can be against us?

    

Eph 2:19-22 (Phi) So you are no longer outsiders or aliens, but fellow-citizens with every other Christian--you belong now to the household of God. Firmly beneath you is the foundation, God's messengers and prophets, the corner-stone being Christ Jesus himself. In him each separate piece of the building, properly fitting into its neighbor, grows together into a temple consecrated to the Lord. You are all part of this building in which God himself lives by his Spirit.

    

Heb 3:6 (TEB) Christ is faithful as the Son in charge of God's House. We are his house, if we keep our courage and our confidence in what we hope for.

    

Hope In The Presence Of The Holy Spirit Within Us

    

Gal 4:6 (TEB) To show that you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who cries, "Father my Father."

    

Rom 8:14-17 (Phi) All who follow the leading of God's Spirit are God's own sons. Nor are you meant to relapse into the old slavish attitude of fear--you have been adopted into the very family circle of God and you can say with a full heart, "Father, my Father". The Spirit himself endorses our inward conviction that we really are the children of God. Think what that means. If we are his children then we are God's heirs, and all that Christ inherits will belong to all of us as well! Yes, if we share in his sufferings we shall certainly share in his glory.

    

Hope In God's Discipline

    

Heb 12:5-8 (Jer) And have you forgotten that encouraging text in which you are addressed as sons: "My son, when the Lord corrects you, do not treat it lightly; but do not get discouraged when he reprimands you. For the Lord trains the ones that he loves and he punishes all those that he acknowledges as his sons." Suffering is part of your training. God is treating you as his sons. Has there ever been a son whose father did not train him? If you were not getting this training, as all of you are, then you would not be sons but bastards.

    

Heb 12:9-13 (Jer) Besides, we have all had our human fathers who punished us, and we respected them for it; we ought to be even more willing to submit to our spiritual Father, to be given life. Our human fathers were thinking of this short life when they punished us, and could only do what they thought best; but he does it all for our own good, so that we may share his holiness. Of course, any punishment is most painful at the time, and far from pleasant; but later, in those on whom it has been used, it bears fruit in peace and goodness. So hold up your limp arms and steady your trembling knees and smooth out the path you tread; then the injured limb will not be wrenched, it will grow strong again.

    

False Hope

    

Satan's attack on hope has been to deceive us into thinking that God will "endorse" our own dreams, passions, and desires if we hold onto them dearly and have enough "faith". Scripture, however, commands us to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Christ in dying to self. We are to hope in His will, His word, His life, and not our own. Self-indulgent "hope" is "on shifting sand" and is really no hope at all--but mere delusion, rebellion, and disobedience.

    

Our only real hope is Christ, and Him crucified. Everything in the universe will soon melt away, including all of our vain and false "hopes". Everything we think so important now--gone! All of our hopes will then be shown for what they were. We will then be face to face with Him who bought us with such a great price and commanded us to follow. God will welcome us home as sons, or treat us as objects of wrath. Is this our greatest hope, or our worst nightmare?

    

Hope In Future Glory (or Splendor), Even If We Must Suffer Now!

    

1 Pet 4:13-14 (Jer) If you can have some share in the sufferings of Christ, be glad, because you will enjoy a much greater gladness when his glory is revealed. It is a blessing for you when they insult you for bearing the name of Christ, because it means that you have the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God resting on you.

    

Dan 12:1-3 (NIV) ...There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people--everyone whose name is found written in the book--will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.

    

Gal 5:5 (NEB) For to us, our hope of attaining that righteousness which we eagerly await is the work of the Spirit through faith.

    

Rom 5:1-5 (TEB) Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He has brought us, by faith, into this experience of God's grace, in which we now live. We rejoice, then, in the hope we have of sharing God's glory! And we also rejoice in troubles, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance brings God's approval, and his approval creates hope. This hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God's gift to us.

    

Rom 8:18-21 (Phi) In my opinion whatever we may have to go through now is less than nothing compared with the magnificent future God has in store for us. The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. The world of creation cannot as yet see reality, not because it chooses to be blind, but because in God's purpose it has been so limited--yet it has been given hope. And the hope is that in the end the whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God!

    

1 Pet 3:15 (Phi) ...Be ready at any time to give a quiet and reverent answer to any man who wants a reason for the hope that you have within you.

    

We Should Not Give Up, But Persevere and Hope In God

    

Rom 15:4 (Jer) And indeed everything that was written long ago in the scriptures was meant to teach us something about hope; from the examples scripture gives of how people who did not give up were helped by God.

    

Gal 6:9 (NIV) Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

    

Rom 12:12 (TEB) Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles, and pray at all times.

    

2 Thes 2:16-17 (Phi) May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father (who has loved us and given us un-ending encouragement and unfailing hope by his grace) inspire you with courage and confidence in every good thing you say or do.

    

The Hope Of Radiating His Glory

    

2 Cor 3:10-13,18 (Phi) And while it is true that the former glory has been eclipsed by the latter, we do well to remember that it is eclipsed because the present and permanent is so much more glorious than the old and transient. With this hope in our hearts we are quite frank and open in our ministry. We are not like Moses, who veiled his face... But all of us who are Christians have no veils on our faces, but reflect like mirrors the glory of the Lord. We are transformed in ever-increasing splendor into his own image, and this is the work of the Lord who is the Spirit.

    

Col 1:27 (Phi) They are those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the wonder and splendor of this secret plan for the nations. And the secret is simply this: Christ IN YOU! Yes, Christ IN YOU bringing with him the hope of all the glorious things to come.

    

Rom 15:13 (Phi) May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in your faith, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, your whole life and outlook may be radiant with hope.

    

Hope In The End Of The Age

    

Titus 2:13 (NIV) while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ.

    

Col 3:4 (Jer) But when Christ is revealed--and he is your life--you too will be revealed in all your glory with him.

    

1 Jn 3:1-3 (Phi) Consider the incredible love that the Father has shown us in allowing us to be called "children of God"--and that is not just what we are called, but what we ARE... This explains why the world will no more recognize us than it recognized Christ... Here and now, my dear friends, we ARE God's children. We don't know what we shall become in the future. We only know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is! Everyone who has at heart a hope like that keeps himself pure, as Christ is pure.

    

Hope In The Power That Resurrected Christ

    

Eph 1:18-20 (Phi) And this is my prayer... that you may receive that inner illumination of the spirit which will make you realize how great is the hope to which he is calling you--the magnificence and splendor of the inheritance promised to Christians--and how tremendous is the power available to us who believe in God. That power is the same divine energy which was demonstrated in Christ when he raised him from the dead...

    

1 Pet 1:3-4 (Phi) Thank God... that in his great mercy we have been born again into a life full of hope, through Christ's rising from the dead! You can now hope for a perfect inheritance beyond the power of change and decay, reserved in Heaven for you.

    

Job 13:15 (NIV) Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him...

    

Phil 3:10,13-14 (Jer) All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection... All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come; I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upward to receive in Christ Jesus.

    

Hope In The Glory Of Heaven

    

Heb 6:18-19 (Phi) That by ...God, who cannot lie, we who are refugees from this dying world might have a powerful source of strength, and might grasp the hope that he holds out to us. This hope we hold as an utterly reliable anchor for our souls...

    

Rom 8:22-23 (Phi) It is plain to anyone with eyes to see that at the present time all created life groans in a sort of universal travail. And it is plain, too, that we who have a foretaste of the Spirit are in a state of painful tension, while we wait for that redemption of our bodies which will mean that we have realized our full sonship in him.

    

2 Cor 5:4-5 (Phi) ...We want our transitory life to be absorbed into the life that is eternal. Now the power that has planned this experience for us is God, and he has given us the Spirit as a guarantee of its truth. This makes us confident, whatever happens.

    

2 Cor 4:16-18 (Phi) This is the reason why we never lose heart. The outward man does indeed suffer wear and tear, but every day the inward man receives fresh strength. These little troubles (which are really so transitory) are winning for us a permanent, glorious and solid reward out of all proportion to our pain. For we are looking all the time not at the visible things but at the invisible. The visible things are transitory: it is the invisible things that are really permanent.

    

Col 1:5 (Phi) We know that you are showing these qualities because you have grasped the hope reserved for you in Heaven--that hope which first became yours when you heard the message of truth.

    

Heb 11:1 (NIV) Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

    

1 Pet 1:8 (Phi) At present you trust him without being able to see him, and even now he brings you a joy that words cannot express and which has in it a hint of the glories of Heaven.

    

C.S. Lewis on The Weight Of Glory

    

"It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, of burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.

    

"It is a serious thing... to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you could see it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

    

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

    

"All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations."

  

Design & Art Direction: Sthe55,

Credit: StockEx Photos

   

Aberystwyth University is a public research university in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding member institution of the former federal University of Wales. The university has over 8,000 students studying across three academic faculties and 17 departments.

 

Founded in 1872 as University College Wales, Aberystwyth, it became a founder member of the University of Wales in 1894, and changed its name to the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. In the mid-1990s, the university again changed its name to become the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. On 1 September 2007, the University of Wales ceased to be a federal university and Aberystwyth University became independent again.

 

In 2019, it became the first university to be named "University of the year for teaching quality" by The Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide for two consecutive years. It is the first university in the world to be awarded Plastic Free University status (for single-use plastic items).

 

In the middle of the 19th century, eminent Welsh people were advocating the establishment of a university in the principality. One of these, Thomas Nicholas, whose book, Middle and High Class Schools, and University Education for Wales (1863), is said to have "exerted great influence on educated Welshmen".

 

Funded through public and private subscriptions, and with five regional committees (London, Manchester, Liverpool, North and South Wales) guaranteeing funds for the first three years' running costs, the university opened in October 1872 with 26 students. Thomas Charles Edwards was the principal. In October 1875, chapels in Wales raised the next tranche of funds from over 70,000 contributors. Until 1893, when the college joined the University of Wales as a founder member, students applying to Aberystwyth sat the University of London's entrance exams. Women were admitted in 1884.

 

In 1885, a fire damaged what is now known as the Old College, Aberystwyth, and in 1897 the first 14 acres of what became the main Penglais campus were purchased. Incorporated by Royal Charter in 1893, the university installed the Prince of Wales as chancellor in 1896, the same year it awarded an honorary degree to the British prime minister, William Gladstone.

 

The university's coat of arms dates from the 1880s. The shield features two red dragons to symbolise Wales, and an open book to symbolise learning. The crest, an eagle or phoenix above a flaming tower, may signify the college's rebirth after the 1885 fire. The motto is Nid Byd, Byd Heb Wybodaeth (a world without knowledge is no world at all).

 

In the early 1900s, the university added courses that included law, applied mathematics, pure mathematics and botany. The Department for International Politics, which Aberystwyth says is the oldest such department in the world, was founded in 1919. By 1977, the university's staff included eight Fellows of the Royal Society, such as Gwendolen Rees, the first Welsh woman to be elected an FRS.

 

The Department of Sports and Exercise Science was established in 2000. Joint honours psychology degrees were introduced in September 2007, and single honours psychology in 2009.

 

The chancellor of the university is The Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who took up the position in January 2018. The visitor of the university is an appointment made by the Privy Council, under the Royal Charter of the university. Since July 2014, the holder of this office is Mr Justice Sir Roderick Evans KC.

 

In 2011, the university appointed a new vice chancellor under whom the academic departments were restructured as larger subject-themed institutes.

 

In 2022, the university celebrated its 150th anniversar,y being established in 1872 (known at the time as The University College of Wales).

 

Aberystwyth is a university and seaside town as well as a community in Ceredigion, Wales. Located in the historic county of Cardiganshire, Aberystwyth means "the mouth of the Ystwyth". Aberystwyth University has been a major educational location in Wales since the establishment of University College Wales in 1872.

 

The town is situated on Cardigan Bay on the west coast of Wales, near the confluence of the River Ystwyth and Afon Rheidol. Following the reconstruction of the harbour, the Ystwyth skirts the town. The Rheidol passes through the town.

 

The seafront, with a pier, stretches from Constitution Hill at the north end of the Promenade to the harbour at the south. The beach is divided by the castle. The town is divided into five areas: Aberystwyth Town; Llanbadarn Fawr; Waunfawr; Llanbadarn; Trefechan; and the most populous, Penparcau.

 

In 2011 the population of the town was 13,040. This rises to nearly 19,000 for the larger conurbation of Aberystwyth and Llanbadarn Fawr.

  

Aberystwyth Bay from a 1748 survey by Lewis Morris (1701–1765)

The distance to Swansea is 55 miles (89 km); to Shrewsbury 60 miles (97 km); to Wrexham 63 miles (101 km); to Cardiff 76 miles (122 km); and to London 180 miles (290 km).

 

Aberystwyth is a university town and tourist destination, and forms a cultural link between North Wales and South Wales. Constitution Hill, scaled by the Aberystwyth Cliff Railway, gives access to panoramic views and to other attractions at the summit, including a camera obscura. Scenic Mid Wales landscape within easy reach of the town includes the wilderness of the Cambrian Mountains, whose valleys contain forests and meadows which have changed little in centuries. A convenient way to access the interior is by the preserved narrow-gauge Vale of Rheidol Railway.

 

Although the town is relatively modern, there are a number of historic buildings, including the remains of the castle and the Old College of Aberystwyth University nearby. The Old College was originally built and opened in 1865 as a hotel, but after the owner's bankruptcy the shell of the building was sold to the university in 1867.

 

The new university campus overlooks Aberystwyth from Penglais Hill to the east of the town centre. The station, a terminus of the main railway, was built in 1924 in the typical style of the period, mainly in a mix of Gothic, Classical Revival, and Victorian architecture.

 

The town is the unofficial capital of Mid Wales, and several institutions have regional or national offices there. Public bodies located in the town include the National Library of Wales, which incorporates the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, one of six British regional film archives. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales maintains and curates the National Monuments Record of Wales (NMRW), providing the public with information about the built heritage of Wales. Aberystwyth is also the home to the national offices of UCAC and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society), and the site of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, the Welsh Books Council and the offices of the standard historical dictionary of Welsh, Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru. A purpose built Welsh Government office and an adjoining office of Ceredigion County Council are also located in the town.

 

At the 2001 census, the population of the town was 15,935. This reduced to 13,040 at the 2011 census. Including neighbouring Llanbadarn Fawr, the population was 16,420, and the greater Aberystwyth conurbation having a population of 18,749 in 2011

 

Aberystwyth experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfb) similar to almost all of the United Kingdom. This is particularly pronounced due to its west coast location facing the Irish Sea. Air undergoes little land moderation and so temperatures closely reflect the sea temperature when winds are coming from the predominant onshore (westerly) direction. The nearest Met Office weather station is Gogerddan, 3 miles to the northeast, and at a similar elevation.

 

The absolute maximum temperature is 34.6 °C (94.3 °F), set during July 2006. This is also the July record maximum for all of Wales, suggesting that the area's low lying situation, aided by a possible föhn effect when winds are offshore can act to achieve high temperatures on occasion. Typically the warmest day will average 28.0 °C (82.4 °F) and 5.6 days will achieve a maximum of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or above.

 

The absolute minimum temperature is −13.5 °C (7.7 °F), set in January 2010. Typically 39.8 days will register an air frost.

 

Rainfall averages 1,112 mm (44 in) a year, with over 1mm recorded on 161 days. All averages refer to the 1981–2010 period.

 

There is evidence that during the Mesolithic Age the area of Tan-y-Bwlch at the foot of Pen Dinas (Penparcau) was used as a flint knapping floor for hunter-gatherers making weapons from flint that was deposited as the ice retreated.

 

The remains of a Celtic fortress on Pen Dinas (or more correctly 'Dinas Maelor'), a hill in Penparcau overlooking Aberystwyth, indicates that the site was inhabited before 700 BC. On a hill south of the present town, across the River Ystwyth, are the remains of a medieval ringfort believed to be the castle from which Princess Nest was abducted. This rare survival is now on private land and can only be accessed by arrangement.

 

The recorded history of Aberystwyth may be said to date from the building of a fortress in 1109 by Gilbert Fitz Richard (grandfather of Richard de Clare, known as Strongbow, the Cambro-Norman lord notable for his leading role in the Norman invasion of Ireland). Gilbert Fitz Richard was granted lands and the lordship of Cardigan by Henry I, including Cardigan Castle. The fortress built in Aberystwyth was located about a mile and a half south of today's town, on a hill over the south bank of the Ystwyth River, thus giving the settlement of Aberystwyth its name. The location is now known as Tan-Y-Castell.

 

Aberystwyth was usually under the control of the princes of Deheubarth, but its position close to the border with Gwynedd and Powys left it vulnerable to attacks from the leaders of those polities. The town was attacked by Gwenwynwyn ab Owain in 1197, an assault in which Maelgwn ap Rhys was captured. Llywelyn the Great attacked and seized the town in late 1208, building a castle there before withdrawing.

 

Edward I replaced Strongbow's castle in 1277, after its destruction by the Welsh. His castle was, however, built in a different location, at the current Castle Hill, the high point of the town. Between the years 1404 and 1408 Aberystwyth Castle was in the hands of Owain Glyndŵr but finally surrendered to Prince Harry (the future King Henry V of England). Shortly after this, the town was incorporated under the title of Ville de Lampadarn (the ancient name of the place being Llanbadarn Gaerog or the fortified Llanbadarn, to distinguish it from Llanbadarn Fawr, the village one mile (1.6 km) inland. It is thus styled in a Royal charter granted by Henry VIII but, by Elizabeth I's time, the town was invariably named Aberystwyth in all documents.

 

From 1639 to 1642, silver coins were minted at Aberystwyth Castle on behalf of the Royal Mint, using silver from local mines. £10,500 in currency was produced, equivalent to 2.5 million silver pennies.

 

In 1649, Parliamentarian troops razed the castle, although portions of three towers still exist. In 1988, an excavation within the castle area revealed a complete male skeleton, deliberately buried. Though skeletons rarely survive in Wales' acidic soil, this skeleton was probably preserved by the addition of lime from the collapsed building. Affectionately known as "Charlie" and now housed in the Ceredigion Museum in the town, he probably dates from the English Civil War period, and is likely to have died during the Parliamentarian siege. His image is featured in one of nine mosaics created to adorn the castle's walls.

 

The development of Aberystwyth's Port contributed to the town’s economic development during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Port improvements were carried out in both 1780 and 1836, with a new Customs House constructed in 1828. Rural industries and craftsmen were also an important part of life in this country town. The local trade directory for 1830 shows that there were in Aberystwyth: Twenty boot makers, eight bakers, two corn millers, eleven carpenters and joiners, one cooper, seven tailors, two dressmakers, two straw hat makers, two hat makers, three curriers, four saddlers, two tinsmiths, six maltsters, two skinners, four tanners, eight stonemasons, one brewer, four lime burners, three shipwrights, three wheelwrights, five cabinet makers, one nail maker, one rope maker and one sail maker.

 

The Cambrian Railways line from Machynlleth reached Aberystwyth in 1864, closely followed by rail links to Carmarthen, which resulted in the construction of the town's impressive station. The Cambrian line opened on Good Friday 1869, the same day that the new 292 metres (958 ft) Royal Pier (designed by Eugenius Birch) opened, attracting 7,000 visitors.

 

The railway's arrival gave rise to something of a Victorian tourist boom, with Aberystwyth becoming a significant holiday destination for working and middle class families from South Wales in particular. The town was once even billed as the "Biarritz of Wales". During this time, a number of hotels and fine townhouses were built including the Queens Hotel, later renamed Swyddfa'r Sir (County Office) when used as offices by the town council, and most recently used as the external scenes of the police station in the television show Hinterland. One of the largest of these hotels, "The Castle Hotel", was never completed as a hotel but, following bankruptcy, was sold cheaply to the Welsh National University Committee, a group of people dedicated to the creation of a Welsh University. The University College of Wales (later to become Aberystwyth University) was founded in 1872 in this building.

 

Aberystwyth was a contributory parliamentary borough until the Third Reform Act, which merged its representation into that of the county in 1885.

 

In 1895, various businessmen who had been behind the Aberystwyth New Harbour Company formed the Aberystwyth Improvement Company (AIC) to take over the works of the defunct Bourne Engineering & Electrical. In 1896, the AIC completed three projects: the new landside pavilion for the Royal Pier; built the Cambria Hotel (later the United Theological College) and formed Constitution Hill Ltd, to develop a Victorian theme park. Chief engineer George Croydon Marks designed all the AIC developments, including the United Kingdom's second longest funicular railway, which takes passengers up a 50% gradient to a park and camera obscura.

 

Aberystwyth hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1865, 1916, 1952 and 1992.

 

On the night of Friday, 14 January 1938, a storm with estimated wind speeds of up to 90 mph (140 km/h) struck the town. Most of the promenade was destroyed, along with 200 feet (60 m) of the pier. Many properties on the seafront were damaged, with every property from the King's Hall north affected; those on Victoria Terrace suffered the greatest damage. Work commenced on a protective coffer dam which continued into 1940, with total costs of construction coming to £70,000 (equivalent to £2.5 million today).

 

Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society) held their historic first protest on Trefechan Bridge in Aberystwyth, on 2 February 1963. The first independent Welsh Evangelical Church was established in Aberystwyth (see Evangelical Movement of Wales).

 

On 1 March 2005, Aberystwyth was granted Fairtrade Town status.

 

In March 2009 mayor Sue Jones-Davies, who had played the role of Judith Iscariot in the film Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), organised a charity screening of the film. Principal actors Terry Jones and Michael Palin also attended. There is a popular, but incorrect, urban myth that the town had banned the film (as some authorities did) when it was first released.

 

During the aftermath storms from Cyclone Dirk on Friday 3 January 2014, the town was one of the worst hit in Wales. Properties on the adjoining promenade were then evacuated for the next five days, including 250 students from the University. Ceredigion Council appealed to the Welsh Assembly Government for funds, whilst Natural Resources Wales undertook surveys and emergency preventative measures.

 

North Parade, Aberystwyth was reported to be the most expensive street in Wales in 2018, based on property prices.

 

Penglais Nature Park (Welsh: Parc Natur Penglais) is a woodland overlooking the town. The park was created in 1995 from a disused quarry and surrounding woodland that had formerly been part of the Richardes family estate. In spring a carpet of bluebells bloom, in common with the many other bluebell woods.

 

The park covers 27 acres (11 ha). It was the first Nature reserve to open in Ceredigion and is the only UNESCO Man and Biosphere urban reserve in Wales.

 

Aberystwyth's local government administration has a two-tier structure consisting of two separate councils. As local government is a devolved matter in Wales, the legislation for both Councils is a responsibility of the Senedd.

 

Aberystwyth Town Council is the first tier of local government, which is the closest to the general public; there are 19 elected town councillors from five wards. The last elections were held in 2022. The council is responsible for cycle paths, public footpaths, CCTV, public Wi-Fi, bus shelters, parks, gardens (including the castle grounds and the skateboard park) and allotments. The council is a statutory body which is consulted regarding planning decisions in the town area and makes recommendations to the planning authority, Ceredigion County Council. The Town Council is also involved in leisure, tourism, business (through providing more than half of Menter Aberystwyth's funding in grants), licence applications, wellbeing and environmental health, recycling and refuse collection.

 

A borough council existed in Aberystwyth from 1832 and the Aberystwyth School Board was established in 1870.

 

Ceredigion County Council is another statutory body incorporated by Act of Parliament. It is the second tier of local government in the area and is a unitary authority with a wide range of powers and responsibility. The Council deals with roads (except trunk roads), street lighting, some highways, social services, children and family care, schools and public libraries. Aberystwyth elects six of the 42 councillors in five separate wards (Bronglais, Central, North and Rheidol wards elect one councillor each while Penparcau ward elects two).

 

Aberystwyth has five Senedd members, one of whom (Elin Jones) was elected as a constituency MS for Ceredigion, and four who are elected on the regional list for Mid and West Wales.

 

The town is in the Ceredigion constituency for elections to the House of Commons. Since June 2017, Aberystwyth's MP has been Plaid Cymru's Ben Lake.

 

The first ever public library in Aberystwyth was opened in Compton House, Pier Street on 13 October 1874. In 1882 the library was moved to the Assembly Rooms which were leased to the council for 21 years. The lease expired in 1903 and the library returned to Pier Street, this time to the Old Banking Library at the corner with Eastgate Street, although this was short lived. A Carnegie library was built in Aberystwyth in 1905, with a grant of £3,000. Located in Corporation Street, it was designed by the architect Walter Payton of Birmingham, who was one of 48 who entered the competition to design the building. It was formally opened on 20 April 1906 by Mrs Vaughan Davies, wife of the local MP. The town library moved to Aberystwyth Town Hall, now known as Canolfan Alun R. Edwards, following the building's refurbishment in 2012.

 

The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, is the national legal deposit library of Wales. Established in 1907, it is a Welsh Government sponsored body. According to Cyril Evans, the library's centenary events co-ordinator, "The library is considered to be one of the world's greatest libraries, and its international reputation is certainly something that all Welsh men and women are intensely ... proud of". Welsh is the main medium of communication within the organisation; it aims to deliver all public services in Welsh and English.

 

Aberystwyth Arts Centre is one of the largest and busiest arts centres in Wales. It encompasses a 312-seat theatre, 900-seat concert hall, 125-seat cinema, and has accompanied studio, galleries, plus public spaces which include cafes and a bar. Arad Goch is an Arts Council funded community theatre and art gallery based in the town. The premises holds a theatre, gallery, several art studios and meeting rooms, and a darkroom.

 

The town has three works by the Italian sculptor Mario Rutelli; the War Memorial on the promenade, the Tabernacle Chapel Memorial on Powell Street, and the statue of Edward VIII as Prince of Wales in the Old College. All are Grade II listed structures. Rutelli’s connection with the town came through Thomas Jenkins of Aberystwyth, who ran a shipping business. Jenkins was a frequent visitor to Italy where he admired Rutelli’s work. Jo Darke, in her work, The Monument Guide to England and Wales: A National Portrait in Bronze and Stone, describes Rutelli’s war memorial as “striking and rare” and suggests that the life-size statue of Edward VIII is the only recorded example.

 

Aberystwyth has a live music scene which has produced bands and artists such as: The Crocketts; The Hot Puppies; Murry the Hump; and The Lowland Hundred. The University Music Centre promotes a varied programme for instrumentalists, singers and listeners from the university and the wider community. The University chamber choir, The Elizabethan Madrigal Singers, have been singing in the town since 1950 and continue to hold a number of concerts throughout the year. Aberystwyth gives its name to a well known hymn tune composed by Joseph Parry.

 

Aberystwyth RFC is the local rugby union club and acts as a feeder club to professional side Scarlets. It was formed in 1947 and for the 2017/18 season played in the WRU Division One West. Aberystwyth Town F.C. is a semi-professional football club that was formed in 1884. The team currently compete in the Cymru Premier, Wales' top division. The town also has a cricket club which plays in local leagues, an athletics club (founded 1955), and boxing club in Penparcau. The town's golf course opened in 1911.

 

Ceredigion, the county in which Aberystwyth is located, is one of the four most Welsh-speaking counties in Wales and remained majority Welsh speaking until the 2011 census. Since the town's growth as a seaside resort in the Victorian era, it has been more anglicised than its hinterland and the rest of the county in general. The university has also attracted many English-speaking students from England, non-Welsh speaking parts of Wales and elsewhere. The 1891 census recorded that, of the 6635 inhabitants who completed the language section, 3482 (52.5%) were bilingual, 1751 (26.4%) were Welsh monoglots, and 1402 people (21.1%) were returned as English monoglots. Ceredigion (then named Cardiganshire) as a whole was 95.2% Welsh-speaking and 74.5% monoglot Welsh. Although the town remained majority Welsh-speaking for many more decades, English had already replaced Welsh in certain domains, such as entertainment and tourism. By 1961, only 50.0% of the town's population could speak Welsh, compared to 79.5% for Cardiganshire as a whole; by 1971, these numbers had fallen to 44.9% and 67.6% respectively. The 2001 census reported that, in the seven wards of Aberystwyth, 39% of the residents self-identified as able to speak or read or write Welsh. This is lower than Ceredigion as a whole (54%) but higher than Wales overall (19%).

 

Aberystwyth parish church is St Michael's and All Angels, located in Laura Place. The parish was a Rectoral Benefice until 2019, incorporating the Anglican churches of Holy Trinity, Santes Fair (services in Welsh) and Saint Anne's, Penparcau. The Rectoral Benefice has now been converted to a local ministry area (LMA). The church was built between 1886 and 1890, replacing an earlier church. It was designed in a Gothic Revival style and is a Grade II listed building.

 

In addition to the Anglican churches, there are many existing and former Welsh Calvinistic Methodist chapels that have these days merged into Saint David's (United Reformed) and Capel y Morfa (Welsh language services). A former Calvinistic Methodist Sunday school house, Ysgoldy Tanycae, is now the meeting place of the Elim Pentecostal church. Meanwhile there is a Wesleyan Methodist church, Saint Paul's Methodist Centre, located in Bath Street. An Independent Baptist church is located in Alfred Place. In 2021, amid some controversy, Aberystwyth's Catholic church, Saint Winefride's, was closed and the congregation relocated to a new-build church located in Penparcau.

 

There are a number of other smaller congregations, and many former churches that have now been converted to alternative use, such as the Academy bar.

 

Aberystwyth has two comprehensive schools serving the town and a wide rural area: Ysgol Gyfun Gymunedol Penweddig and Ysgol Penglais School. Ysgol Gyfun Gymunedol Penweddig uses Welsh as the primary language of tuition; Ysgol Penglais School teaches in English and in Welsh as a subject.

 

There are currently three primary schools within the town limits, which are: Plascrug, Saint Padarns (Roman Catholic) and Ysgol Gymraeg. Ysgol Gymraeg was the first designated Welsh medium school in Wales, originally established as a private school in 1939 by Sir Ifan ab Owen Edwards as Ysgol Gymraeg yr Urdd.

 

Aberystwyth is home to Aberystwyth University (Welsh: Prifysgol Aberystwyth) whose predecessor, University College Wales, was founded in 1872 and renamed the 'University of Wales, Aberystwyth' in the mid-1990s. Prior to the college's establishment, Wales had very limited academic-degree capability through St David's College, Lampeter (founded in 1822, now the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David).

 

As well as having two cinemas and a golf course, the town's attractions include:

The Aberystwyth Cliff Railway, a funicular railway

A Victorian camera obscura at the top of Constitution Hill.

The Vale of Rheidol steam railway (Aberystwyth to Devil's Bridge)

Aberystwyth Arts Centre.

The Parc Penglais nature reserve

The Ystwyth Trail cycle path

National Library of Wales

Park Avenue. Football stadium home to Aberystwyth Town F.C.

The all organic dairy unit of Rachel's Organic is based in Glan yr Afon, and is the largest private sector employer in Aberystwyth.

 

The Cambrian News newspaper came to Aberystwyth from Bala in 1870, after it was purchased by Sir John Gibson. Printed in Oswestry, in May 1880 the paper integrated operations in a former Malthouse in Mill Street. Owned by the Read family from 1926, in 1993 printing was contracted out, enabling the move of editorial staff to the current open-plan offices on Llanbadarn Fawr Science Park. On the death of Henry Read, the paper was purchased in 1999 by Sir Ray Tindle, whose company owns more than 200 weekly newspapers in Britain. Now printed in tabloid format, Cambrian News is the second-largest weekly-print circulation newspaper in Wales, with 24,000 copies in six regional editorial versions, read by 60,000 weekly readers. The circulation area of mid, west and north Wales covers 3,000 square miles (7,800 km2).

 

Since the TV series Hinterland has been filmed in and around Aberystwyth, the area is being promoted as an opportunity for tourists to visit filming locations; many are well publicised.

 

Aberystwyth railway station is situated in the town centre and is the terminus of the scenic Cambrian Line. Transport for Wales Rail operate a mostly hourly service (with some two-hour intervals) to Shrewsbury via Machynlleth and Mid Wales, with nearly all trains continuing to Birmingham International. Connecting services from Dovey Junction provide a link to Gwynedd's west coast as far as Pwllheli, along the Cambrian Coast Line. There is no longer a southbound connection: the Carmarthen–Aberystwyth line was closed in 1965 as part of the Beeching cuts.

 

Aberystwyth station is also the terminus of the Vale of Rheidol Railway, a steam-operated narrow gauge heritage railway. Constructed between 1901 and 1902, it was intended to ship mineral cargo, primarily lead, from Devil's Bridge down to Aberystwyth for trans-shipment. By the time it was finished, lead mining was in a deep downturn and—thanks to the Aberystwyth Improvement Company—the railway came to rely largely on the tourist industry, opening for passengers in December 1902. It still remains open for the summer season, with a journey of 12 miles (19 km).

 

In 1896, the Aberystwyth Improvement Company formed Constitution Hill Ltd which, under the direction of chief engineer George Croydon Marks, developed the United Kingdom's second longest funicular railway, the Aberystwyth Cliff Railway, which takes passengers up a 50% gradient.

 

A TrawsCymru T1 service on the A4120 in Aberystwyth

Aberystwyth is a hub for the TrawsCymru bus network, with four routes serving the town:

 

T1 - hourly service to Carmarthen (connects with T1S to Swansea, Monday-Saturday) via Aberaeron and Lampeter - with one service a day (Monday-Saturday) extended to Cardiff

T1C - daily express coach service to Cardiff, via Aberaeron, Carmarthen (connects with T1S to Swansea, Monday-Saturday), Swansea (Sunday & Bank Holidays only), Port Talbot Parkway and Bridgend

T2 - every 1–2 hours to Bangor via Machynlleth, Dolgellau (connects with T3 to Barmouth and Wrexham), Porthmadog and Caernarfon

T5 - hourly service to Haverfordwest via Aberaeron, New Quay, Cardigan and Fishguard

(TrawsCymru services run less-frequently on Sundays.)

 

There is a daily National Express coach, service 409 to London via Birmingham, along with local bus services within the town and into the surrounding area.

 

The A44 and A487 meet with much traffic between North Wales and South West Wales passing through the town. The A4120 links the A44 and A487 between Llanbadarn Fawr and Penparcau, allowing through traffic to bypass the town centre.

 

The B4574 mountain road linking the town to Rhayader is described by the AA as one of the ten most scenic drives in the world.

 

The port of Aberystwyth, although it is small and relatively inconsequential today, used to be an important Atlantic Ocean entryway. It was used to ship locally, to Ireland and as a transatlantic departure point. Commercially, the once important Cardiganshire lead mines exported from this location.

 

The importance of maritime trade in the 19th century is reflected in the fact that a lifeboat has been based at Aberystwyth since 1843, when a 27 ft (8.2 m) boat powered by six oars was funded by public subscription and placed under the control of the harbourmaster. The RNLI took over the service in 1861 and established Aberystwyth Lifeboat Station which celebrated 150 years in 2011. The station uses the Atlantic 85-class inshore lifeboat Spirit of Friendship.

 

The Owl Service by Alan Garner, a well-known and -loved multi-award-winning classic published 1967, is set in north Wales and has two of its core characters —Gwyn and his mam (mother) Nancy— recently arrived from Aberystwyth for 3 weeks' work, with Nancy repeatedly threatening to return there immediately. They and the Welsh locals refer to it as "Aber"; the English characters use its full name.

Aberystwyth (albeit an alternative universe version) is the setting for the cult Louie Knight series by Malcolm Pryce, which transfers Chandleresque "noir" stories and dialogue to this small seaside town. This alternative reality features many landmarks of Aberystwyth, such as the University and the National Library of Wales, but the social situation is radically altered to more closely resemble the pulp/noir stereotypical "Dirty Town" that the narrative plays off. Most of the humour in the books is derived from the almost seamless juxtaposition of the real Aberystwyth and the fictional, noir Aberystwyth. Various aspects of Welsh culture are reflections of what you might expect to see in reality, but with a pulp twist – for example, prostitutes wear Welsh stovepipe hats.

Stripping Penguins Bare, the book 2 of Michael Carson's Benson Trilogy of comic novels, is set in the town and university in the 1960s.

The local writer Niall Griffiths has set many of his novels here and reflects local slang, settings, and even individuals. Grits and Sheepshagger are set wholly in Aberystwyth, which also features prominently in his other novels such as Kelly and Victor and Stump. He portrays a more gritty side of Aberystwyth.

‘Cofiwch Aberystwyth’ by science fiction writer Val Nolan, is a near-future post-apocalyptic novelette about three young urban explorers visiting Aberystwyth years after a nuclear disaster on the west coast of Wales. It was originally published in Interzone (magazine) and later anthologised in Best of British Science Fiction 2020. The title references the Cofiwch Dryweryn graffiti outside nearby Llanrhystyd, Ceredigion.

 

Television

Y Gwyll (2013–2016), a Welsh-language television programme, and the English-language version Hinterland , broadcast on S4C, BBC One Wales, BBC Four, and syndicated around the world, is set in Aberystwyth. It is filmed in and around the town, often in rural locations.

 

Film

Y Llyfrgell (2017) is an award-winning Welsh language film set in and around the National Library, which was filmed on location in 2016. The 2009 book on which it was based was released in English in 2022.

 

The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Town of Aberystwyth.

Individuals

1912 – Sir John Williams

1912 – David Davies

1912 – Stuart Rendel

1922 – David Lloyd George

1923 – Lewis Pugh Evans

1923 – Matthew Vaughan-Davies

1923 – Sir Herbert Lewis

1928 – Stanley Baldwin

1936 – Sir David Charles Roberts

1936 – Ernest Vaughan

1951 – Winston Churchill

1956 – Sir David James

2011 – Fritz Pratschke

2015 – Jean Guezennec

 

Military Units

1955 – The Welsh Guards

 

Twinning

Arklow in Wicklow, Republic of Ireland Ireland

Kronberg im Taunus in Hesse Hesse, Germany Germany

Saint-Brieuc in Brittany Brittany, France France

Esquel in Patagonia, Argentina Argentina

This Nestorian Church officially known as the Church of St. George the Exiler, lies within the walls of the old town of Famagusta.

 

St. George of the Greeks, not to be confused with the similarly named St. George of the Latins, is the second largest church in Famagusta, and during the middle ages it served as the Cathedral for the Greek Orthodox community. It was built in the 12th century, to the west of a much earlier church dedicated to St. George and around a similar time the grand building of the Latin St. Nicholas Cathedral was initiated.

 

The build is thought to be financed by East Syrian Nestorian merchants, the Lakhas brothers, who were known for their immense wealth. The architecture and decorations of the building were reminiscent of the Southern French and Italian Gothic churches of the time and may have been influenced by King Peter I’s visit to Avignon in 1363. This version of the church’s history represents the virtual consensus of scholars of medieval Famagusta – however its architecture is also reminiscent of the 12th–13th century Crusader architecture in Palestine and Syria.

 

The Orthodox Cathedral

 

When the French Catholic Lusignans took rule of the island in 1191, they inherited an island that was predominately eastern Orthodox, and they immediately reduced the power of the church. In doing so, the southeast corner of Famagusta became a compact Greek quarter, and a conglomeration of several churches came about, most still inherent today and within close proximity of one another.

 

Although there was a perfectly serviceable cathedral church, namely the small Byzantine St. Simeon Church, the Orthodox community wanted a place of worship that rivalled its neighbouring counterparts. They built the much greater church with a wide central nave, two side aisles and huge columns that held up the nave vaulting.

 

Gothic elements were also added to the church’s north side to create a hybrid form of architecture that makes this 14th century Byzantine figure somewhat rare amongst Mediterranean churches, let alone those found in North Cyprus. The central nave also featured chapels on both sides, leading to a cross nave, all with rounded apses.

 

St. George of the Greeks became theOrthodox cathedral of Famagusta and was dedicated to St. Epiphanius Bishop of Salamis, who had gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy. It is believed the saint’s remains were formerly buried at the adjacent St. Simeon before his body was hauled off to the former Eastern Roman Empire capital of Constantinople, by Emperor Leo in the 9th century.

 

Unfortunately however, the structure was too large, with insufficient buttressing and a roof that was just too heavy, and years of modifications and renovations followed. The pillars throughout the nave were expanded to take more weight and the roof was inserted with large upturned terracotta pots to spread the load.

 

The church was not in existence long enough to find out if the revised compositions were sustainable. Taking the brunt of the Ottomans, evidence of which is still very evident in the remaining walls, the main of the build stood for a little over a hundred years.

 

Siege of Famagusta

 

After the capture of the city, the church was converted into a stable for camels, with worship here only being permitted once a year, during the feast of St. George the Exiler.

 

The Ottoman siege in 1571 left its marks on the structure and visitors today can still see cannon ball marks on the top of the church – look closely enough and you will also see some of the cannonballs still embedded in the walls. Consequently, little remains of its vaulted roof.

 

It is believed that during this era the apse was used as a shooting gallery, and there is much evidence in the form of bullet holes to be seen. By the 18th century, the walled city of Famagusta was more or less abandoned, with only a handful of residents living near to the desolate churches. Sailors from the nearby port would disembark and come into the city, sometimes sketching drawings of their ships into the plaster of these derelict churches. Some of these etchings can be seen at the western end of the St. George Greek church.

 

A passing glance and you will miss them though, a careful inspection of the wall is required.

 

British Era

 

In 1905, the British administration handed the church to the Greek Cypriots, who used it as their parish. By the 1930’s, many frescoes that were previously observed had disappeared, and between 1937 and 1939, Greek Cypriots undertook excavations and repaired some parts of the build.

 

Present Ruins

 

The church is still nevertheless home to numerous frescoes dated to the 14th and 15th centuries, depicting the life of Christ. Unlike Byzantine Orthodox churches, the frescoes in the Nestorian Church were not part of a unified design, and many were painted in differing periods by various artists. Visitors can still make out the faint outlines of once-rich frescos upon the interior stone walls.

 

The apse on the other hand may have had a unified design, but this is impossible to ascertain given the level of damage.

 

The church walls are made of ashlarand the structure has three naves and three apses. All three naves have entrances to their west. Originally, the church was built with a single nave and a protruding apse – the other two naves and two minor apses were added at a later date.

 

Some fragments of wall paintings still cling to the walls of the eastern apse and pieces of pottery jars sit within ceiling, which were thought to improve the church acoustics.

 

During the pre-Ottoman modifications, collars were added to support the overweight, and visitors will notice the remains of the iron clamps that were used to hold the blocks together.

 

A drawing of the church from the 18th century shows a dome on the church, not unlike the one on the nearby St. Nikolas Church, an octagonal drum with the dome sat on top. Even with the extra support added to the pillars, eventually the dome has fallen to inexistence.

 

Along the walls of the church, you can see several arched niches. These alcoves were the tombs of the patrons of the church. The sarcophagus was at ground level, while the brackets you can see would have held a stone slab, probably with an effigy of the deceased carved on it. It is believed that these niches were built after the walls, and their construction further weakened the roof support.

 

Excavations on this site have also unearthed coloured glass, most likely from the old church windows.

 

The only church in Famagusta that still has a bell, the Church of St. George of the Greeks is one of the best-preserved ones from the medieval times albeit the damage incurred and yet another impressive ruin to add to your visit list with much to discover.

 

Famagusta is a city on the east coast of the de facto state Northern Cyprus. It is located east of Nicosia and possesses the deepest harbour of the island. During the Middle Ages (especially under the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice), Famagusta was the island's most important port city and a gateway to trade with the ports of the Levant, from where the Silk Road merchants carried their goods to Western Europe. The old walled city and parts of the modern city are de facto part of Northern Cyprus as the capital of the Gazimağusa District.

 

The city was known as Arsinoe or Arsinoë (Greek: Ἀρσινόη, Arsinóē) in antiquity, after Ptolemy II of Egypt's sister and wife Arsinoe II.

 

By the 3rd century, the city appears as Ammochostos (Greek: Ἀμμόχωστος or Αμμόχωστος, Ammókhōstos, "Hidden in Sand") in the Stadiasmus Maris Magni.[5] This name is still used in modern Greek with the pronunciation [aˈmːoxostos], while it developed into Latin Fama Augusta, French Famagouste, Italian Famagosta, and English Famagusta during the medieval period. Its informal modern Turkish name Mağusa (Turkish pronunciation: [maˈusa]) came from the same source. Since 1974, it has formally been known to Turkey and Northern Cyprus as Gazimağusa ([ɡaːzimaˈusa]), from the addition of the title gazi, meaning "veteran" or "one who has faught in a holy war".

 

In the early medieval period, the city was also known as New Justiniana (Greek: Νέα Ἰουστινιανία, Néa Ioustinianía) in appreciation for the patronage of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, whose wife Theodora was born there.

 

The old town of Famagusta has also been nicknamed "the City of 365 Churches" from the legend that, at its peak, it boasted a church for every day of the year.

 

The city was founded around 274 BC, after the serious damage to Salamis by an earthquake, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus and named "Arsinoe" after his sister.[6] Arsinoe was described as a "fishing town" by Strabo in his Geographica in the first century BC. In essence, Famagusta was the successor of the most famous and most important ancient city of Cyprus, Salamis. According to Greek mythology, Salamis was founded after the end of the Trojan War by Teucros, the son of Telamon and brother of Aedes, from the Greek island of Salamis.

 

The city experienced great prosperity much later, during the time of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. To honor the city, from which his wife Theodora came, Justinian enriched it with many buildings, while the inhabitants named it New Justiniania to express their gratitude. In AD 647, when the neighboring cities were destroyed by Arab raiding, the inhabitants of these cities moved to Famagusta, as a result of which the city's population increased significantly and the city experienced another boom.

 

Later, when Jerusalem was occupied by the Arabs, the Christian population fled to Famagusta, as a result of which the city became an important Christian center, but also one of the most important commercial centers in the eastern Mediterranean.

 

The turning point for Famagusta was 1192 with the onset of Lusignan rule. It was during this period that Famagusta developed as a fully-fledged town. It increased in importance to the Eastern Mediterranean due to its natural harbour and the walls that protected its inner town. Its population began to increase. This development accelerated in the 13th century as the town became a centre of commerce for both the East and West. An influx of Christian refugees fleeing the downfall of Acre (1291) in Palestine transformed it from a tiny village into one of the richest cities in Christendom.

 

In 1372 the port was seized by Genoa and in 1489 by Venice. This commercial activity turned Famagusta into a place where merchants and ship owners led lives of luxury. By the mid-14th century, Famagusta was said to have the richest citizens in the world. The belief that people's wealth could be measured by the churches they built inspired these merchants to have churches built in varying styles. These churches, which still exist, were the reason Famagusta came to be known as "the district of churches". The development of the town focused on the social lives of the wealthy people and was centred upon the Lusignan palace, the cathedral, the Square and the harbour.

 

In 1570–1571, Famagusta was the last stronghold in Venetian Cyprus to hold out against the Turks under Mustafa Pasha. It resisted a siege of thirteen months and a terrible bombardment, until at last the garrison surrendered. The Ottoman forces had lost 50,000 men, including Mustafa Pasha's son. Although the surrender terms had stipulated that the Venetian forces be allowed to return home, the Venetian commander, Marco Antonio Bragadin, was flayed alive, his lieutenant Tiepolo was hanged, and many other Christians were killed.

 

With the advent of the Ottoman rule, Latins lost their privileged status in Famagusta and were expelled from the city. Greek Cypriots natives were at first allowed to own and buy property in the city, but were banished from the walled city in 1573–74 and had to settle outside in the area that later developed into Varosha. Turkish families from Anatolia were resettled in the walled city but could not fill the buildings that previously hosted a population of 10,000. This caused a drastic decrease in the population of Famagusta. Merchants from Famagusta, who mostly consisted of Latins that had been expelled, resettled in Larnaca and as Larnaca flourished, Famagusta lost its importance as a trade centre. Over time, Varosha developed into a prosperous agricultural town thanks to its location away from the marshes, whilst the walled city remained dilapidated.

 

In the walled city, some buildings were repurposed to serve the interests of the Muslim population: the Cathedral of St. Nicholas was converted to a mosque (now known as Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque), a bazaar was developed, public baths, fountains and a theological school were built to accommodate the inhabitants' needs. Dead end streets, an Ottoman urban characteristic, was imported to the city and a communal spirit developed in which a small number of two-storey houses inhabited by the small upper class co-existed with the widespread one-storey houses.

 

With the British takeover, Famagusta regained its significance as a port and an economic centre and its development was specifically targeted in British plans. As soon as the British took over the island, a Famagusta Development Act was passed that aimed at the reconstruction and redevelopment of the city's streets and dilapidated buildings as well as better hygiene. The port was developed and expanded between 1903 and 1906 and Cyprus Government Railway, with its terminus in Famagusta, started construction in 1904. Whilst Larnaca continued to be used as the main port of the island for some time, after Famagusta's use as a military base in World War I trade significantly shifted to Famagusta. The city outside the walls grew at an accelerated rate, with development being centred around Varosha. Varosha became the administrative centre as the British moved their headquarters and residences there and tourism grew significantly in the last years of the British rule. Pottery and production of citrus and potatoes also significantly grew in the city outside the walls, whilst agriculture within the walled city declined to non-existence.

 

New residential areas were built to accommodate the increasing population towards the end of the British rule,[11] and by 1960, Famagusta was a modern port city extending far beyond Varosha and the walled city.

 

The British period saw a significant demographic shift in the city. In 1881, Christians constituted 60% of the city's population while Muslims were at 40%. By 1960, the Turkish Cypriot population had dropped to 17.5% of the overall population, while the Greek Cypriot population had risen to 70%. The city was also the site for one of the British internment camps for nearly 50,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust trying to emigrate to Palestine.

 

From independence in 1960 to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus of 1974, Famagusta developed toward the south west of Varosha as a well-known entertainment and tourist centre. The contribution of Famagusta to the country's economic activity by 1974 far exceeded its proportional dimensions within the country. Whilst its population was only about 7% of the total of the country, Famagusta by 1974 accounted for over 10% of the total industrial employment and production of Cyprus, concentrating mainly on light industry compatible with its activity as a tourist resort and turning out high-quality products ranging from food, beverages and tobacco to clothing, footwear, plastics, light machinery and transport equipment. It contributed 19.3% of the business units and employed 21.3% of the total number of persons engaged in commerce on the island. It acted as the main tourist destination of Cyprus, hosting 31.5% of the hotels and 45% of Cyprus' total bed capacity. Varosha acted as the main touristic and business quarters.

 

In this period, the urbanisation of Famagusta slowed down and the development of the rural areas accelerated. Therefore, economic growth was shared between the city of Famagusta and the district, which had a balanced agricultural economy, with citrus, potatoes, tobacco and wheat as main products. Famagusta maintained good communications with this hinterland. The city's port remained the island's main seaport and in 1961, it was expanded to double its capacity in order to accommodate the growing volume of exports and imports. The port handled 42.7% of Cypriot exports, 48.6% of imports and 49% of passenger traffic.

 

There has not been an official census since 1960 but the population of the town in 1974 was estimated to be around 39,000 not counting about 12,000–15,000 persons commuting daily from the surrounding villages and suburbs to work in Famagusta. The number of people staying in the city would swell to about 90,000–100,000 during the peak summer tourist period, with the influx of tourists from numerous European countries, mainly Britain, France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. The majority of the city population were Greek Cypriots (26,500), with 8,500 Turkish Cypriots and 4,000 people from other ethnic groups.

 

During the second phase of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 14 August 1974 the Mesaoria plain was overrun by Turkish tanks and Famagusta was bombed by Turkish aircraft. It took two days for the Turkish Army to occupy the city, prior to which Famagusta's entire Greek Cypriot population had fled into surrounding fields. As a result of Turkish airstrikes dozens of civilians died, including tourists.

 

Unlike other parts of the Turkish-controlled areas of Cyprus, the Varosha suburb of Famagusta was fenced off by the Turkish army immediately after being captured and remained fenced off until October 2020, when the TRNC reopened some streets to visitors. Some Greek Cypriots who had fled Varosha have been allowed to view the town and journalists have been allowed in.

 

UN Security Council resolution 550 (1984) considers any attempts to settle any part of Famagusta by people other than its inhabitants as inadmissible and calls for the transfer of this area to the administration of the UN. The UN's Security Council resolution 789 (1992) also urges that with a view to the implementation of resolution 550 (1984), the area at present under the control of the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus be extended to include Varosha.

 

Famagusta's historic city centre is surrounded by the fortifications of Famagusta, which have a roughly rectangular shape, built mainly by the Venetians in the 15th and 16th centuries, though some sections of the walls have been dated earlier times, as far as 1211.

 

Some important landmarks and visitor attractions in the old city are:

The Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque

The Othello Castle

Palazzo del Provveditore - the Venetian palace of the governor, built on the site of the former Lusignan royal palace

St. Francis' Church

Sinan Pasha Mosque

Church of St. George of the Greeks

Church of St. George of the Latins

Twin Churches

Nestorian Church (of St George the Exiler)

Namık Kemal Dungeon

Agios Ioannis Church

Venetian House

Akkule Masjid

Mustafa Pasha Mosque

Ganchvor monastery

 

In an October 2010 report titled Saving Our Vanishing Heritage, Global Heritage Fund listed Famagusta, a "maritime ancient city of crusader kings", among the 12 sites most "On the Verge" of irreparable loss and destruction, citing insufficient management and development pressures.

 

Famagusta is an important commercial hub of Northern Cyprus. The main economic activities in the city are tourism, education, construction and industrial production. It has a 115-acre free port, which is the most important seaport of Northern Cyprus for travel and commerce. The port is an important source of income and employment for the city, though its volume of trade is restricted by the embargo against Northern Cyprus. Its historical sites, including the walled city, Salamis, the Othello Castle and the St Barnabas Church, as well as the sandy beaches surrounding it make it a tourist attraction; efforts are also underway to make the city more attractive for international congresses. The Eastern Mediterranean University is also an important employer and supplies significant income and activity, as well as opportunities for the construction sector. The university also raises a qualified workforce that stimulates the city's industry and makes communications industry viable. The city has two industrial zones: the Large Industrial Zone and the Little Industrial Zone. The city is also home to a fishing port, but inadequate infrastructure of the port restricts the growth of this sector. The industry in the city has traditionally been concentrated on processing agricultural products.

 

Historically, the port was the primary source of income and employment for the city, especially right after 1974. However, it gradually lost some of its importance to the economy as the share of its employees in the population of Famagusta diminished due to various reasons. However, it still is the primary port for commerce in Northern Cyprus, with more than half of ships that came to Northern Cyprus in 2013 coming to Famagusta. It is the second most popular seaport for passengers, after Kyrenia, with around 20,000 passengers using the port in 2013.

 

The mayor-in-exile of Famagusta is Simos Ioannou. Süleyman Uluçay heads the Turkish Cypriot municipal administration of Famagusta, which remains legal as a communal-based body under the constitutional system of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Since 1974, Greek Cypriots submitted a number of proposals within the context of bicommunal discussions for the return of Varosha to UN administration, allowing the return of its previous inhabitants, requesting also the opening of Famagusta harbour for use by both communities. Varosha would have been returned to Greek Cypriot control as part of the 2004 Annan Plan but the plan had been rejected by a majority(3/4) of Greek Cypriot voters.

 

The walled city of Famagusta contains many unique buildings. Famagusta has a walled city popular with tourists.

 

Every year, the International Famagusta Art and Culture Festival is organized in Famagusta. Concerts, dance shows and theater plays take place during the festival.

 

A growth in tourism and the city's university have fueled the development of Famagusta's vibrant nightlife. Nightlife in the city is especially active on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights and in the hotter months of the year, starting from April. Larger hotels in the city have casinos that cater to their customers. Salamis Road is an area of Famagusta with a heavy concentration of bars frequented by students and locals.

 

Famagusta's Othello Castle is the setting for Shakespeare's play Othello. The city was also the setting for Victoria Hislop's 2015 novel The Sunrise, and Michael Paraskos's 2016 novel In Search of Sixpence. The city is the birthplace of the eponymous hero of the Renaissance proto-novel Fortunatus.

 

Famagusta was home to many Greek Cypriot sport teams that left the city because of the Turkish invasion and still bear their original names. Most notable football clubs originally from the city are Anorthosis Famagusta FC and Nea Salamis Famagusta FC, both of the Cypriot First Division, which are now based in Larnaca. Usually Anorthosis Famagusta fans are politically right wing where Nea Salamis fans are left wing.

 

Famagusta is represented by Mağusa Türk Gücü in the Turkish Cypriot First Division. Dr. Fazıl Küçük Stadium is the largest football stadium in Famagusta. Many Turkish Cypriot sport teams that left Southern Cyprus because of the Cypriot intercommunal violence are based in Famagusta.

 

Famagusta is represented by DAÜ Sports Club and Magem Sports Club in North Cyprus First Volleyball Division. Gazimağusa Türk Maarif Koleji represents Famagusta in the North Cyprus High School Volleyball League.

 

Famagusta has a modern volleyball stadium called the Mağusa Arena.

 

The Eastern Mediterranean University was founded in the city in 1979. The Istanbul Technical University founded a campus in the city in 2010.

 

The Cyprus College of Art was founded in Famagusta by the Cypriot artist Stass Paraskos in 1969, before moving to Paphos in 1972 after protests from local hoteliers that the presence of art students in the city was putting off holidaymakers.

 

Famagusta has three general hospitals. Gazimağusa Devlet Hastahanesi, a state hospital, is the biggest hospital in city. Gazimağusa Tıp Merkezi and Gazimağusa Yaşam Hastahanesi are private hospitals.

 

Personalities

Saint Barnabas, born and died in Salamis, Famagusta

Chris Achilleos, illustrator of the book versions on the BBC children's series Doctor Who

Beran Bertuğ, former Governor of Famagusta, first Cypriot woman to hold this position

Marios Constantinou, former international Cypriot football midfielder and current manager.

Eleftheria Eleftheriou, Cypriot singer.

Derviş Eroğlu, former President of Northern Cyprus

Alexis Galanos, 7th President of the House of Representatives and Famagusta mayor-in-exile (2006-2019) (Republic of Cyprus)

Xanthos Hadjisoteriou, Cypriot painter

Oz Karahan, political activist, President of the Union of Cypriots

Oktay Kayalp, former Turkish Cypriot Famagusta mayor (Northern Cyprus)

Harry Luke British diplomat

Angelos Misos, former international footballer

Costas Montis was an influential and prolific Greek Cypriot poet, novelist, and playwright born in Famagusta.

Hal Ozsan, actor (Dawson's Creek, Kyle XY)

Dimitris Papadakis, a Greek Cypriot politician, who served as a Member of the European Parliament.

Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, Persian religious leader, lived and died in exile in Famagusta

Touker Suleyman (born Türker Süleyman), British Turkish Cypriot fashion retail entrepreneur, investor and reality television personality.

Alexia Vassiliou, singer, left here as a refugee when the town was invaded.

George Vasiliou, former President of Cyprus

Vamik Volkan, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry

Derviş Zaim, film director

 

Famagusta is twinned with:

İzmir, Turkey (since 1974)

Corfu, Greece (since 1994)

Patras, Greece (since 1994)

Antalya, Turkey (since 1997)

Salamina (city), Greece (since 1998)

Struga, North Macedonia

Athens, Greece (since 2005)

Mersin, Turkey

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

WHAT CAN I SAY, THAT GODS NOT ALREADY SAID IN MANY WAYS ALL THROUGHOUT SCRIPTURE? LIFE IS ALL ABOUT A RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST THE RIGHTEOUS "ONE".

 

This is the simplicity of the gospel message. That if you place real faith in what God is declaring here, you can be saved and receive eternal LIFE in Jesus Christ.

 

This isn't complicated folks, though Satan and his religious institutions identified by their various names, and denominations would have you to believe it is, it's isn't!

 

Notice if you will, verse 22 of chapter 9. "without the shedding of blood there is NO FORGIVENESS OF SINS. So people claiming to be Christians, yet having NO FAITH in Jesus shed blood are what God calls, UNBELIEVERS and are still in their sins, LOST and without God in this world. Our constant asking God to forgive us of our sins is an INSULT to GOD and absolute proof of our unbelief in HIM.! NO, He is NOT going to die again, because it makes us feel GOOD to ask. You either have placed Faith in the FACT YOU'VE BEEN FORGIVEN, OR YOU ARE LOST, AND WILL REMAIN DEAD FOREVER. See real FAITH in the REAL JESUS, say's "THANK YOU" for the FORGIVENESS WE'VE BEEN GIVEN BECAUSE OF YOUR SACRIFICE FOR US, AND YOUR INDWELLING HOLY SPIRIT!

 

So you have to ask yourself, are you a believer or an unbeliever in what Jesus HAS accomplished for us in his death, burial and RESURRECTED LIFE?

 

What did Jesus say was the work of God? And I quote.

 

Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to "BELIEVE" IN THE "ONE" HE HAS SENT." (John 6:29)

 

Because, " And without FAITH IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE GOD, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

 

Now tell me, just how complicated is this? Believe and receive everlasting LIFE in Jesus Christ. or remain spiritually dead separated from GOD. Life is all about Jesus and what HE DID, not what you or I are doing in the energy of our flesh! So what say you?

 

Want to learn more about who YOU ARE in the New Covenant?

  

------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------

 

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!

 

10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)

 

Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!

 

For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️

 

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A couple of weeks back, we met a couple in a pub in Canterbury, and they had been out exploring the city and said they were disappointed by the cathedral.

 

Not enough labels they said.

 

That not withstanding, I thought it had been some time since I last had been, so decided to revisit, see the pillars of Reculver church in the crypt and take the big lens for some detail shots.

 

We arrived just after ten, so the cathedral was pretty free of other guests, just a few guides waiting for groups and couples to guide.

 

I went round with the 50mm first, before concentrating on the medieval glass which is mostly on the south side.

 

But as you will see, the lens picked up so much more.

 

Thing is, there is always someone interesting to talk to, or wants to talk to you. As I went around, I spoke with about three guides about the project and things I have seen in the churches of the county, and the wonderful people I have met. And that continued in the cathedral.

 

I have time to look at the tombs in the Trinity Chapel, and see that Henry IV and his wife are in a tomb there, rather than ay Westminster Abbey. So I photograph them, and the Black Prince on the southern side of the chapel, along with the Bishops and Archbishops between.

 

Round to the transept and a chance to change lenses, and put on the 140-400mm for some detailed shots.

 

I go round the cathedral again.

 

Initially at some of the memorials on the walls and the canopy of the pulpit, but it is the windows that are calling.

 

At least it was a bright, sunny day outside, which meant light was good in the cathedral with most shots coming out fine with no camera shake.

 

As I edit the shots I am stunned at the details of windows so high up they mostly seem like blocks of colour.

 

And so far, I have only just started to edit these shots.

 

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St Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, arrived on the coast of Kent as a missionary to England in 597AD. He came from Rome, sent by Pope Gregory the Great. It is said that Gregory had been struck by the beauty of Angle slaves he saw for sale in the city market and despatched Augustine and some monks to convert them to Christianity. Augustine was given a church at Canterbury (St Martin’s, after St Martin of Tours, still standing today) by the local King, Ethelbert whose Queen, Bertha, a French Princess, was already a Christian.This building had been a place of worship during the Roman occupation of Britain and is the oldest church in England still in use. Augustine had been consecrated a bishop in France and was later made an archbishop by the Pope. He established his seat within the Roman city walls (the word cathedral is derived from the the Latin word for a chair ‘cathedra’, which is itself taken from the Greek ‘kathedra’ meaning seat.) and built the first cathedral there, becoming the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Since that time, there has been a community around the Cathedral offering daily prayer to God; this community is arguably the oldest organisation in the English speaking world. The present Archbishop, The Most Revd Justin Welby, is 105th in the line of succession from Augustine. Until the 10th century, the Cathedral community lived as the household of the Archbishop. During the 10th century, it became a formal community of Benedictine monks, which continued until the monastery was dissolved by King Henry VIII in 1540. Augustine’s original building lies beneath the floor of the Nave – it was extensively rebuilt and enlarged by the Saxons, and the Cathedral was rebuilt completely by the Normans in 1070 following a major fire. There have been many additions to the building over the last nine hundred years, but parts of the Quire and some of the windows and their stained glass date from the 12th century. By 1077, Archbishop Lanfranc had rebuilt it as a Norman church, described as “nearly perfect”. A staircase and parts of the North Wall – in the area of the North West transept also called the Martyrdom – remain from that building.

 

Canterbury’s role as one of the world’s most important pilgrimage centres in Europe is inextricably linked to the murder of its most famous Archbishop, Thomas Becket, in 1170. When, after a long lasting dispute, King Henry II is said to have exclaimed “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”, four knights set off for Canterbury and murdered Thomas in his own cathedral. A sword stroke was so violent that it sliced the crown off his skull and shattered the blade’s tip on the pavement. The murder took place in what is now known as The Martyrdom. When shortly afterwards, miracles were said to take place, Canterbury became one of Europe’s most important pilgrimage centres.

 

The work of the Cathedral as a monastery came to an end in 1540, when the monastery was closed on the orders of King Henry VIII. Its role as a place of prayer continued – as it does to this day. Once the monastery had been suppressed, responsibility for the services and upkeep was given to a group of clergy known as the Chapter of Canterbury. Today, the Cathedral is still governed by the Dean and four Canons, together (in recent years) with four lay people and the Archdeacon of Ashford. During the Civil War of the 1640s, the Cathedral suffered damage at the hands of the Puritans; much of the medieval stained glass was smashed and horses were stabled in the Nave. After the Restoration in 1660, several years were spent in repairing the building. In the early 19th Century, the North West tower was found to be dangerous, and, although it dated from Lanfranc’s time, it was demolished in the early 1830s and replaced by a copy of the South West tower, thus giving a symmetrical appearance to the west end of the Cathedral. During the Second World War, the Precincts were heavily damaged by enemy action and the Cathedral’s Library was destroyed. Thankfully, the Cathedral itself was not seriously harmed, due to the bravery of the team of fire watchers, who patrolled the roofs and dealt with the incendiary bombs dropped by enemy bombers. Today, the Cathedral stands as a place where prayer to God has been offered daily for over 1,400 years; nearly 2,000 Services are held each year, as well as countless private prayers from individuals. The Cathedral offers a warm welcome to all visitors – its aim is to show people Jesus, which we do through the splendour of the building as well as the beauty of the worship.

 

www.canterbury-cathedral.org/heritage/history/cathedral-h...

 

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History of the cathedral

THE ORIGIN of a Christian church on the scite of the present cathedral, is supposed to have taken place as early as the Roman empire in Britain, for the use of the antient faithful and believing soldiers of their garrison here; and that Augustine found such a one standing here, adjoining to king Ethelbert's palace, which was included in the king's gift to him.

 

This supposition is founded on the records of the priory of Christ-church, (fn. 1) concurring with the common opinion of almost all our historians, who tell us of a church in Canterbury, which Augustine found standing in the east part of the city, which he had of king Ethelbert's gift, which after his consecration at Arles, in France, he commended by special dedication to the patronage of our blessed Saviour. (fn. 2)

 

According to others, the foundations only of an old church formerly built by the believing Romans, were left here, on which Augustine erected that, which he afterwards dedicated to out Saviour; (fn. 3) and indeed it is not probable that king Ethelbert should have suffered the unsightly ruins of a Christian church, which, being a Pagan, must have been very obnoxious to him, so close to his palace, and supposing these ruins had been here, would he not have suffered them to be repaired, rather than have obliged his Christian queen to travel daily to such a distance as St. Martin's church, or St. Pancrace's chapel, for the performance of her devotions.

 

Some indeed have conjectured that the church found by St. Augustine, in the east part of the city, was that of St.Martin, truly so situated; and urge in favor of it, that there have not been at any time any remains of British or Roman bricks discovered scattered in or about this church of our Saviour, those infallible, as Mr. Somner stiles them, signs of antiquity, and so generally found in buildings, which have been erected on, or close to the spot where more antient ones have stood. But to proceed, king Ethelbert's donation to Augustine was made in the year 596, who immediately afterwards went over to France, and was consecrated a bishop at Arles, and after his return, as soon as he had sufficiently finished a church here, whether built out of ruins or anew, it matters not, he exercised his episcopal function in the dedication of it, says the register of Christ-church, to the honor of Christ our Saviour; whence it afterwards obtained the name of Christ-church. (fn. 4)

 

From the time of Augustine for the space of upwards of three hundred years, there is not found in any printed or manuscript chronicle, the least mention of the fabric of this church, so that it is probable nothing befell it worthy of being recorded; however it should be mentioned, that during that period the revenues of it were much increased, for in the leiger books of it there are registered more than fifty donations of manors, lands, &c. so large and bountiful, as became the munificence of kings and nobles to confer. (fn. 5)

 

It is supposed, especially as we find no mention made of any thing to the contrary, that the fabric of this church for two hundred years after Augustine's time, met with no considerable molestations; but afterwards, the frequent invasions of the Danes involved both the civil and ecclesiastical state of this country in continual troubles and dangers; in the confusion of which, this church appears to have run into a state of decay; for when Odo was promoted to the archbishopric, in the year 938, the roof of it was in a ruinous condition; age had impaired it, and neglect had made it extremely dangerous; the walls of it were of an uneven height, according as it had been more or less decayed, and the roof of the church seemed ready to fall down on the heads of those underneath. All this the archbishop undertook to repair, and then covered the whole church with lead; to finish which, it took three years, as Osbern tells us, in the life of Odo; (fn. 6) and further, that there was not to be found a church of so large a size, capable of containing so great a multitude of people, and thus, perhaps, it continued without any material change happening to it, till the year 1011; a dismal and fatal year to this church and city; a time of unspeakable confusion and calamities; for in the month of September that year, the Danes, after a siege of twenty days, entered this city by force, burnt the houses, made a lamentable slaughter of the inhabitants, rifled this church, and then set it on fire, insomuch, that the lead with which archbishop Odo had covered it, being melted, ran down on those who were underneath. The sull story of this calamity is given by Osbern, in the life of archbishop Odo, an abridgement of which the reader will find below. (fn. 7)

 

The church now lay in ruins, without a roof, the bare walls only standing, and in this desolate condition it remained as long as the fury of the Danes prevailed, who after they had burnt the church, carried away archbishop Alphage with them, kept him in prison seven months, and then put him to death, in the year 1012, the year after which Living, or Livingus, succeeded him as archbishop, though it was rather in his calamities than in his seat of dignity, for he too was chained up by the Danes in a loathsome dungeon for seven months, before he was set free, but he so sensibly felt the deplorable state of this country, which he foresaw was every day growing worse and worse, that by a voluntary exile, he withdrew himself out of the nation, to find some solitary retirement, where he might bewail those desolations of his country, to which he was not able to bring any relief, but by his continual prayers. (fn. 8) He just outlived this storm, returned into England, and before he died saw peace and quientness restored to this land by king Canute, who gaining to himself the sole sovereignty over the nation, made it his first business to repair the injuries which had been done to the churches and monasteries in this kingdom, by his father's and his own wars. (fn. 9)

 

As for this church, archbishop Ægelnoth, who presided over it from the year 1020 to the year 1038, began and finished the repair, or rather the rebuilding of it, assisted in it by the royal munificence of the king, (fn. 10) who in 1023 presented his crown of gold to this church, and restored to it the port of Sandwich, with its liberties. (fn. 11) Notwithstanding this, in less than forty years afterwards, when Lanfranc soon after the Norman conquest came to the see, he found this church reduced almost to nothing by fire, and dilapidations; for Eadmer says, it had been consumed by a third conflagration, prior to the year of his advancement to it, in which fire almost all the antient records of the privileges of it had perished. (fn. 12)

 

The same writer has given us a description of this old church, as it was before Lanfranc came to the see; by which we learn, that at the east end there was an altar adjoining to the wall of the church, of rough unhewn stone, cemented with mortar, erected by archbishop Odo, for a repository of the body of Wilfrid, archbishop of York, which Odo had translated from Rippon hither, giving it here the highest place; at a convenient distance from this, westward, there was another altar, dedicated to Christ our Saviour, at which divine service was daily celebrated. In this altar was inclosed the head of St. Swithin, with many other relics, which archbishop Alphage brought with him from Winchester. Passing from this altar westward, many steps led down to the choir and nave, which were both even, or upon the same level. At the bottom of the steps, there was a passage into the undercroft, under all the east part of the church. (fn. 13) At the east end of which, was an altar, in which was inclosed, according to old tradition, the head of St. Furseus. From hence by a winding passage, at the west end of it, was the tomb of St. Dunstan, (fn. 14) but separated from the undercroft by a strong stone wall; over the tomb was erected a monument, pyramid wife, and at the head of it an altar, (fn. 15) for the mattin service. Between these steps, or passage into the undercroft and the nave, was the choir, (fn. 16) which was separated from the nave by a fair and decent partition, to keep off the crowds of people that usually were in the body of the church, so that the singing of the chanters in the choir might not be disturbed. About the middle of the length of the nave, were two towers or steeples, built without the walls; one on the south, and the other on the north side. In the former was the altar of St. Gregory, where was an entrance into the church by the south door, and where law controversies and pleas concerning secular matters were exercised. (fn. 17) In the latter, or north tower, was a passage for the monks into the church, from the monastery; here were the cloysters, where the novices were instructed in their religious rules and offices, and where the monks conversed together. In this tower was the altar of St. Martin. At the west end of the church was a chapel, dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary, to which there was an ascent by steps, and at the east end of it an altar, dedicated to her, in which was inclosed the head of St. Astroburta the Virgin; and at the western part of it was the archbishop's pontifical chair, made of large stones, compacted together with mortar; a fair piece of work, and placed at a convenient distance from the altar, close to the wall of the church. (fn. 18)

 

To return now to archbishop Lanfranc, who was sent for from Normandy in 1073, being the fourth year of the Conqueror's reign, to fill this see, a time, when a man of a noble spirit, equal to the laborious task he was to undertake, was wanting especially for this church; and that he was such, the several great works which were performed by him, were incontestable proofs, as well as of his great and generous mind. At the first sight of the ruinous condition of this church, says the historian, the archbishop was struck with astonishment, and almost despaired of seeing that and the monastery re edified; but his care and perseverance raised both in all its parts anew, and that in a novel and more magnificent kind and form of structure, than had been hardly in any place before made use of in this kingdom, which made it a precedent and pattern to succeeding structures of this kind; (fn. 19) and new monasteries and churches were built after the example of it; for it should be observed, that before the coming of the Normans most of the churches and monasteries in this kingdom were of wood; (all the monasteries in my realm, says king Edgar, in his charter to the abbey of Malmesbury, dated anno 974, to the outward sight are nothing but worm-eaten and rotten timber and boards) but after the Norman conquest, such timber fabrics grew out of use, and gave place to stone buildings raised upon arches; a form of structure introduced into general use by that nation, and in these parts surnished with stone from Caen, in Normandy. (fn. 20) After this fashion archbishop Lanfranc rebuilt the whole church from the foundation, with the palace and monastery, the wall which encompassed the court, and all the offices belonging to the monastery within the wall, finishing the whole nearly within the compass of seven years; (fn. 21) besides which, he furnished the church with ornaments and rich vestments; after which, the whole being perfected, he altered the name of it, by a dedication of it to the Holy Trinity; whereas, before it was called the church of our Saviour, or Christ-church, and from the above time it bore (as by Domesday book appears) the name of the church of the Holy Trinity; this new church being built on the same spot on which the antient one stood, though on a far different model.

 

After Lanfranc's death, archbishop Anselm succeeded in the year 1093, to the see of Canterbury, and must be esteemed a principal benefactor to this church; for though his time was perplexed with a continued series of troubles, of which both banishment and poverty made no small part, which in a great measure prevented him from bestowing that cost on his church, which he would otherwise have done, yet it was through his patronage and protection, and through his care and persuasions, that the fabric of it, begun and perfected by his predecessor, became enlarged and rose to still greater splendor. (fn. 22)

 

In order to carry this forward, upon the vacancy of the priory, he constituted Ernulph and Conrad, the first in 1104, the latter in 1108, priors of this church; to whose care, being men of generous and noble minds, and of singular skill in these matters, he, during his troubles, not only committed the management of this work, but of all his other concerns during his absence.

 

Probably archbishop Anselm, on being recalled from banishment on king Henry's accession to the throne, had pulled down that part of the church built by Lanfranc, from the great tower in the middle of it to the east end, intending to rebuild it upon a still larger and more magnificent plan; when being borne down by the king's displeasure, he intrusted prior Ernulph with the work, who raised up the building with such splendor, says Malmesbury, that the like was not to be seen in all England; (fn. 23) but the short time Ernulph continued in this office did not permit him to see his undertaking finished. (fn. 24) This was left to his successor Conrad, who, as the obituary of Christ church informs us, by his great industry, magnificently perfected the choir, which his predecessor had left unfinished, (fn. 25) adorning it with curious pictures, and enriching it with many precious ornaments. (fn. 26)

 

This great undertaking was not entirely compleated at the death of archbishop Anselm, which happened in 1109, anno 9 Henry I. nor indeed for the space of five years afterwards, during which the see of Canterbury continued vacant; when being finished, in honour of its builder, and on account of its more than ordinary beauty, it gained the name of the glorious choir of Conrad. (fn. 27)

 

After the see of Canterbury had continued thus vacant for five years, Ralph, or as some call him, Rodulph, bishop of Rochester, was translated to it in the year 1114, at whose coming to it, the church was dedicated anew to the Holy Trinity, the name which had been before given to it by Lanfranc. (fn. 28) The only particular description we have of this church when thus finished, is from Gervas, the monk of this monastery, and that proves imperfect, as to the choir of Lanfranc, which had been taken down soon after his death; (fn. 29) the following is his account of the nave, or western part of it below the choir, being that which had been erected by archbishop Lanfranc, as has been before mentioned. From him we learn, that the west end, where the chapel of the Virgin Mary stood before, was now adorned with two stately towers, on the top of which were gilded pinnacles. The nave or body was supported by eight pair of pillars. At the east end of the nave, on the north side, was an oratory, dedicated in honor to the blessed Virgin, in lieu, I suppose, of the chapel, that had in the former church been dedicated to her at the west end. Between the nave and the choir there was built a great tower or steeple, as it were in the centre of the whole fabric; (fn. 30) under this tower was erected the altar of the Holy Cross; over a partition, which separated this tower from the nave, a beam was laid across from one side to the other of the church; upon the middle of this beam was fixed a great cross, between the images of the Virgin Mary and St. John, and between two cherubims. The pinnacle on the top of this tower, was a gilded cherub, and hence it was called the angel steeple; a name it is frequently called by at this day. (fn. 31)

 

This great tower had on each side a cross isle, called the north and south wings, which were uniform, of the same model and dimensions; each of them had a strong pillar in the middle for a support to the roof, and each of them had two doors or passages, by which an entrance was open to the east parts of the church. At one of these doors there was a descent by a few steps into the undercroft; at the other, there was an ascent by many steps into the upper parts of the church, that is, the choir, and the isles on each side of it. Near every one of these doors or passages, an altar was erected; at the upper door in the south wing, there was an altar in honour of All Saints; and at the lower door there was one of St. Michael; and before this altar on the south side was buried archbishop Fleologild; and on the north side, the holy Virgin Siburgis, whom St. Dunstan highly admired for her sanctity. In the north isle, by the upper door, was the altar of St. Blaze; and by the lower door, that of St. Benedict. In this wing had been interred four archbishops, Adelm and Ceolnoth, behind the altar, and Egelnoth and Wlfelm before it. At the entrance into this wing, Rodulph and his successor William Corboil, both archbishops, were buried. (fn. 32)

 

Hence, he continues, we go up by some steps into the great tower, and before us there is a door and steps leading down into the south wing, and on the right hand a pair of folding doors, with stairs going down into the nave of the church; but without turning to any of these, let us ascend eastward, till by several more steps we come to the west end of Conrad's choir; being now at the entrance of the choir, Gervas tells us, that he neither saw the choir built by Lanfranc, nor found it described by any one; that Eadmer had made mention of it, without giving any account of it, as he had done of the old church, the reason of which appears to be, that Lanfranc's choir did not long survive its founder, being pulled down as before-mentioned, by archbishop Anselm; so that it could not stand more than twenty years; therefore the want of a particular description of it will appear no great defect in the history of this church, especially as the deficiency is here supplied by Gervas's full relation of the new choir of Conrad, built instead of it; of which, whoever desires to know the whole architecture and model observed in the fabric, the order, number, height and form of the pillars and windows, may know the whole of it from him. The roof of it, he tells us, (fn. 33) was beautified with curious paintings representing heaven; (fn. 34) in several respects it was agreeable to the present choir, the stalls were large and framed of carved wood. In the middle of it, there hung a gilded crown, on which were placed four and twenty tapers of wax. From the choir an ascent of three steps led to the presbiterium, or place for the presbiters; here, he says, it would be proper to stop a little and take notice of the high altar, which was dedicated to the name of CHRIST. It was placed between two other altars, the one of St. Dunstan, the other of St. Alphage; at the east corners of the high altar were fixed two pillars of wood, beautified with silver and gold; upon these pillars was placed a beam, adorned with gold, which reached across the church, upon it there were placed the glory, (fn. 35) the images of St. Dunstan and St. Alphage, and seven chests or coffers overlaid with gold, full of the relics of many saints. Between those pillars was a cross gilded all over, and upon the upper beam of the cross were set sixty bright crystals.

 

Beyond this, by an ascent of eight steps towards the east, behind the altar, was the archiepiscopal throne, which Gervas calls the patriarchal chair, made of one stone; in this chair, according to the custom of the church, the archbishop used to sit, upon principal festivals, in his pontifical ornaments, whilst the solemn offices of religion were celebrated, until the consecration of the host, when he came down to the high altar, and there performed the solemnity of consecration. Still further, eastward, behind the patriarchal chair, (fn. 36) was a chapel in the front of the whole church, in which was an altar, dedicated to the Holy Trinity; behind which were laid the bones of two archbishops, Odo of Canterbury, and Wilfrid of York; by this chapel on the south side near the wall of the church, was laid the body of archbishop Lanfranc, and on the north side, the body of archbishop Theobald. Here it is to be observed, that under the whole east part of the church, from the angel steeple, there was an undercrost or crypt, (fn. 37) in which were several altars, chapels and sepulchres; under the chapel of the Trinity before-mentioned, were two altars, on the south side, the altar of St. Augustine, the apostle of the English nation, by which archbishop Athelred was interred. On the north side was the altar of St. John Baptist, by which was laid the body of archbishop Eadsin; under the high altar was the chapel and altar of the blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the whole undercroft was dedicated.

 

To return now, he continues, to the place where the bresbyterium and choir meet, where on each side there was a cross isle (as was to be seen in his time) which might be called the upper south and north wings; on the east side of each of these wings were two half circular recesses or nooks in the wall, arched over after the form of porticoes. Each of them had an altar, and there was the like number of altars under them in the crost. In the north wing, the north portico had the altar of St. Martin, by which were interred the bodies of two archbishops, Wlfred on the right, and Living on the left hand; under it in the croft, was the altar of St. Mary Magdalen. The other portico in this wing, had the altar of St. Stephen, and by it were buried two archbishops, Athelard on the left hand, and Cuthbert on the right; in the croft under it, was the altar of St. Nicholas. In the south wing, the north portico had the altar of St. John the Evangelist, and by it the bodies of Æthelgar and Aluric, archbishops, were laid. In the croft under it was the altar of St. Paulinus, by which the body of archbishop Siricius was interred. In the south portico was the altar of St. Gregory, by which were laid the corps of the two archbishops Bregwin and Plegmund. In the croft under it was the altar of St. Owen, archbishop of Roan, and underneath in the croft, not far from it the altar of St. Catherine.

 

Passing from these cross isles eastward there were two towers, one on the north, the other on the south side of the church. In the tower on the north side was the altar of St. Andrew, which gave name to the tower; under it, in the croft, was the altar of the Holy Innocents; the tower on the south side had the altar of St. Peter and St. Paul, behind which the body of St. Anselm was interred, which afterwards gave name both to the altar and tower (fn. 38) (now called St. Anselm's). The wings or isles on each side of the choir had nothing in particular to be taken notice of.— Thus far Gervas, from whose description we in particular learn, where several of the bodies of the old archbishops were deposited, and probably the ashes of some of them remain in the same places to this day.

 

As this building, deservedly called the glorious choir of Conrad, was a magnificent work, so the undertaking of it at that time will appear almost beyond example, especially when the several circumstances of it are considered; but that it was carried forward at the archbishop's cost, exceeds all belief. It was in the discouraging reign of king William Rufus, a prince notorious in the records of history, for all manner of sacrilegious rapine, that archbishop Anselm was promoted to this see; when he found the lands and revenues of this church so miserably wasted and spoiled, that there was hardly enough left for his bare subsistence; who, in the first years that he sat in the archiepiscopal chair, struggled with poverty, wants and continual vexations through the king's displeasure, (fn. 39) and whose three next years were spent in banishment, during all which time he borrowed money for his present maintenance; who being called home by king Henry I. at his coming to the crown, laboured to pay the debts he had contracted during the time of his banishment, and instead of enjoying that tranquility and ease he hoped for, was, within two years afterwards, again sent into banishment upon a fresh displeasure conceived against him by the king, who then seized upon all the revenues of the archbishopric, (fn. 40) which he retained in his own hands for no less than four years.

 

Under these hard circumstances, it would have been surprizing indeed, that the archbishop should have been able to carry on so great a work, and yet we are told it, as a truth, by the testimonies of history; but this must surely be understood with the interpretation of his having been the patron, protector and encourager, rather than the builder of this work, which he entrusted to the care and management of the priors Ernulph and Conrad, and sanctioned their employing, as Lanfranc had done before, the revenues and stock of the church to this use. (fn. 41)

 

In this state as above-mentioned, without any thing material happening to it, this church continued till about the year 1130, anno 30 Henry I. when it seems to have suffered some damage by a fire; (fn. 42) but how much, there is no record left to inform us; however it could not be of any great account, for it was sufficiently repaired, and that mostly at the cost of archbishop Corboil, who then sat in the chair of this see, (fn. 43) before the 4th of May that year, on which day, being Rogation Sunday, the bishops performed the dedication of it with great splendor and magnificence, such, says Gervas, col. 1664, as had not been heard of since the dedication of the temple of Solomon; the king, the queen, David, king of Scots, all the archbishops, and the nobility of both kingdoms being present at it, when this church's former name was restored again, being henceforward commonly called Christ-church. (fn. 44)

 

Among the manuscripts of Trinity college library, in Cambridge, in a very curious triple psalter of St. Jerome, in Latin, written by the monk Eadwyn, whose picture is at the beginning of it, is a plan or drawing made by him, being an attempt towards a representation of this church and monastery, as they stood between the years 1130 and 1174; which makes it probable, that he was one of the monks of it, and the more so, as the drawing has not any kind of relation to the plalter or sacred hymns contained in the manuscript.

 

His plan, if so it may be called, for it is neither such, nor an upright, nor a prospect, and yet something of all together; but notwithstanding this rudeness of the draftsman, it shews very plain that it was intended for this church and priory, and gives us a very clear knowledge, more than we have been able to learn from any description we have besides, of what both were at the above period of time. (fn. 45)

 

Forty-four years after this dedication, on the 5th of September, anno 1174, being the 20th year of king Henry II.'s reign, a fire happened, which consumed great part of this stately edifice, namely, the whole choir, from the angel steeple to the east end of the church, together with the prior's lodgings, the chapel of the Virgin Mary, the infirmary, and some other offices belonging to the monastery; but the angel steeple, the lower cross isles, and the nave appear to have received no material injury from the flames. (fn. 46) The narrative of this accident is told by Gervas, the monk of Canterbury, so often quoted before, who was an eye witness of this calamity, as follows:

 

Three small houses in the city near the old gate of the monastery took fire by accident, a strong south wind carried the flakes of fire to the top of the church, and lodged them between the joints of the lead, driving them to the timbers under it; this kindled a fire there, which was not discerned till the melted lead gave a free passage for the flames to appear above the church, and the wind gaining by this means a further power of increasing them, drove them inwardly, insomuch that the danger became immediately past all possibility of relief. The timber of the roof being all of it on fire, fell down into the choir, where the stalls of the manks, made of large pieces of carved wood, afforded plenty of fuel to the flames, and great part of the stone work, through the vehement heat of the fire, was so weakened, as to be brought to irreparable ruin, and besides the fabric itself, the many rich ornaments in the church were devoured by the flames.

 

The choir being thus laid in ashes, the monks removed from amidst the ruins, the bodies of the two saints, whom they called patrons of the church, the archbishops Dunstan and Alphage, and deposited them by the altar of the great cross, in the nave of the church; (fn. 47) and from this time they celebrated the daily religious offices in the oratory of the blessed Virgin Mary in the nave, and continued to do so for more than five years, when the choir being re edified, they returned to it again. (fn. 48)

 

Upon this destruction of the church, the prior and convent, without any delay, consulted on the most speedy and effectual method of rebuilding it, resolving to finish it in such a manner, as should surpass all the former choirs of it, as well in beauty as size and magnificence. To effect this, they sent for the most skilful architects that could be found either in France or England. These surveyed the walls and pillars, which remained standing, but they found great part of them so weakened by the fire, that they could no ways be built upon with any safety; and it was accordingly resolved, that such of them should be taken down; a whole year was spent in doing this, and in providing materials for the new building, for which they sent abroad for the best stone that could be procured; Gervas has given a large account, (fn. 49) how far this work advanced year by year; what methods and rules of architecture were observed, and other particulars relating to the rebuilding of this church; all which the curious reader may consult at his leisure; it will be sufficient to observe here, that the new building was larger in height and length, and more beautiful in every respect, than the choir of Conrad; for the roof was considerably advanced above what it was before, and was arched over with stone; whereas before it was composed of timber and boards. The capitals of the pillars were now beautified with different sculptures of carvework; whereas, they were before plain, and six pillars more were added than there were before. The former choir had but one triforium, or inner gallery, but now there were two made round it, and one in each side isle and three in the cross isles; before, there were no marble pillars, but such were now added to it in abundance. In forwarding this great work, the monks had spent eight years, when they could proceed no further for want of money; but a fresh supply coming in from the offerings at St. Thomas's tomb, so much more than was necessary for perfecting the repair they were engaged in, as encouraged them to set about a more grand design, which was to pull down the eastern extremity of the church, with the small chapel of the Holy Trinity adjoining to it, and to erect upon a stately undercroft, a most magnificent one instead of it, equally lofty with the roof of the church, and making a part of it, which the former one did not, except by a door into it; but this new chapel, which was dedicated likewise to the Holy Trinity, was not finished till some time after the rest of the church; at the east end of this chapel another handsome one, though small, was afterwards erected at the extremity of the whole building, since called Becket's crown, on purpose for an altar and the reception of some part of his relics; (fn. 50) further mention of which will be made hereafter.

 

The eastern parts of this church, as Mr. Gostling observes, have the appearance of much greater antiquity than what is generally allowed to them; and indeed if we examine the outside walls and the cross wings on each side of the choir, it will appear, that the whole of them was not rebuilt at the time the choir was, and that great part of them was suffered to remain, though altered, added to, and adapted as far as could be, to the new building erected at that time; the traces of several circular windows and other openings, which were then stopped up, removed, or altered, still appearing on the walls both of the isles and the cross wings, through the white-wash with which they are covered; and on the south side of the south isle, the vaulting of the roof as well as the triforium, which could not be contrived so as to be adjusted to the places of the upper windows, plainly shew it. To which may be added, that the base or foot of one of the westernmost large pillars of the choir on the north side, is strengthened with a strong iron band round it, by which it should seem to have been one of those pillars which had been weakened by the fire, but was judged of sufficient firmness, with this precaution, to remain for the use of the new fabric.

 

The outside of this part of the church is a corroborating proof of what has been mentioned above, as well in the method, as in the ornaments of the building.— The outside of it towards the south, from St. Michael's chapel eastward, is adorned with a range of small pillars, about six inches diameter, and about three feet high, some with santastic shasts and capitals, others with plain ones; these support little arches, which intersect each other; and this chain or girdle of pillars is continued round the small tower, the eastern cross isle and the chapel of St. Anselm, to the buildings added in honour of the Holy Trinity, and St. Thomas Becket, where they leave off. The casing of St. Michael's chapel has none of them, but the chapel of the Virgin Mary, answering to it on the north side of the church, not being fitted to the wall, shews some of them behind it; which seems as if they had been continued before, quite round the eastern parts of the church.

 

These pillars, which rise from about the level of the pavement, within the walls above them, are remarkably plain and bare of ornaments; but the tower above mentioned and its opposite, as soon as they rise clear of the building, are enriched with stories of this colonade, one above another, up to the platform from whence their spires rise; and the remains of the two larger towers eastward, called St. Anselm's, and that answering to it on the north side of the church, called St. Andrew's are decorated much after the same manner, as high as they remain at present.

 

At the time of the before-mentioned fire, which so fatally destroyed the upper part of this church, the undercrost, with the vaulting over it, seems to have remained entire, and unhurt by it.

 

The vaulting of the undercrost, on which the floor of the choir and eastern parts of the church is raised, is supported by pillars, whose capitals are as various and fantastical as those of the smaller ones described before, and so are their shafts, some being round, others canted, twisted, or carved, so that hardly any two of them are alike, except such as are quite plain.

 

These, I suppose, may be concluded to be of the same age, and if buildings in the same stile may be conjectured to be so from thence, the antiquity of this part of the church may be judged, though historians have left us in the dark in relation to it.

 

In Leland's Collectanea, there is an account and description of a vault under the chancel of the antient church of St. Peter, in Oxford, called Grymbald's crypt, being allowed by all, to have been built by him; (fn. 51) Grymbald was one of those great and accomplished men, whom king Alfred invited into England about the year 885, to assist him in restoring Christianity, learning and the liberal arts. (fn. 52) Those who compare the vaults or undercrost of the church of Canterbury, with the description and prints given of Grymbald's crypt, (fn. 53) will easily perceive, that two buildings could hardly have been erected more strongly resembling each other, except that this at Canterbury is larger, and more pro fusely decorated with variety of fancied ornaments, the shafts of several of the pillars here being twisted, or otherwise varied, and many of the captials exactly in the same grotesque taste as those in Grymbald's crypt. (fn. 54) Hence it may be supposed, that those whom archbishop Lanfranc employed as architects and designers of his building at Canterbury, took their model of it, at least of this part of it, from that crypt, and this undercrost now remaining is the same, as was originally built by him, as far eastward, as to that part which begins under the chapel of the Holy Trinity, where it appears to be of a later date, erected at the same time as the chapel. The part built by Lanfranc continues at this time as firm and entire, as it was at the very building of it, though upwards of seven hundred years old. (fn. 55)

 

But to return to the new building; though the church was not compleatly finished till the end of the year 1184, yet it was so far advanced towards it, that, in 1180, on April 19, being Easter eve, (fn. 56) the archbishop, prior and monks entered the new choir, with a solemn procession, singing Te Deum, for their happy return to it. Three days before which they had privately, by night, carried the bodies of St. Dunstan and St. Alphage to the places prepared for them near the high altar. The body likewise of queen Edive (which after the fire had been removed from the north cross isle, where it lay before, under a stately gilded shrine) to the altar of the great cross, was taken up, carried into the vestry, and thence to the altar of St. Martin, where it was placed under the coffin of archbishop Livinge. In the month of July following the altar of the Holy Trinity was demolished, and the bodies of those archbishops, which had been laid in that part of the church, were removed to other places. Odo's body was laid under St. Dunstan's and Wilfrid's under St. Alphage's; Lanfranc's was deposited nigh the altar of St. Martin, and Theobald's at that of the blessed Virgin, in the nave of the church, (fn. 57) under a marble tomb; and soon afterwards the two archbishops, on the right and left hand of archbishop Becket in the undercrost, were taken up and placed under the altar of St. Mary there. (fn. 58)

 

After a warning so terrible, as had lately been given, it seemed most necessary to provide against the danger of fire for the time to come; the flames, which had so lately destroyed a considerable part of the church and monastery, were caused by some small houses, which had taken fire at a small distance from the church.— There still remained some other houses near it, which belonged to the abbot and convent of St. Augustine; for these the monks of Christ-church created, by an exchange, which could not be effected till the king interposed, and by his royal authority, in a manner, compelled the abbot and convent to a composition for this purpose, which was dated in the year 1177, that was three years after the late fire of this church. (fn. 59)

 

These houses were immediately pulled down, and it proved a providential and an effectual means of preserving the church from the like calamity; for in the year 1180, on May 22, this new choir, being not then compleated, though it had been used the month be fore, as has been already mentioned, there happened a fire in the city, which burnt down many houses, and the flames bent their course towards the church, which was again in great danger; but the houses near it being taken away, the fire was stopped, and the church escaped being burnt again. (fn. 60)

 

Although there is no mention of a new dedication of the church at this time, yet the change made in the name of it has been thought by some to imply a formal solemnity of this kind, as it appears to have been from henceforth usually called the church of St. Thomas the Martyr, and to have continued so for above 350 years afterwards.

 

New names to churches, it is true. have been usually attended by formal consecrations of them; and had there been any such solemnity here, undoubtedly the same would not have passed by unnoticed by every historian, the circumstance of it must have been notorious, and the magnificence equal at least to the other dedications of this church, which have been constantly mentioned by them; but here was no need of any such ceremony, for although the general voice then burst forth to honour this church with the name of St. Thomas, the universal object of praise and adoration, then stiled the glorious martyr, yet it reached no further, for the name it had received at the former dedication, notwithstanding this common appellation of it, still remained in reality, and it still retained invariably in all records and writings, the name of Christ church only, as appears by many such remaining among the archives of the dean and chapter; and though on the seal of this church, which was changed about this time; the counter side of it had a representation of Becket's martyrdom, yet on the front of it was continued that of the church, and round it an inscription with the former name of Christ church; which seal remained in force till the dissolution of the priory.

 

It may not be improper to mention here some transactions, worthy of observation, relating to this favorite saint, which passed from the time of his being murdered, to that of his translation to the splendid shrine prepared for his relics.

 

Archbishop Thomas Becket was barbarously murdered in this church on Dec. 29, 1170, being the 16th year of king Henry II. and his body was privately buried towards the east end of the undercrost. The monks tell us, that about the Easter following, miracles began to be wrought by him, first at his tomb, then in the undercrost, and in every part of the whole fabric of the church; afterwards throughout England, and lastly, throughout the rest of the world. (fn. 61) The same of these miracles procured him the honour of a formal canonization from pope Alexander III. whose bull for that purpose is dated March 13, in the year 1172. (fn. 62) This declaration of the pope was soon known in all places, and the reports of his miracles were every where sounded abroad. (fn. 63)

 

Hereupon crowds of zealots, led on by a phrenzy of devotion, hastened to kneel at his tomb. In 1177, Philip, earl of Flanders, came hither for that purpose, when king Henry met and had a conference with him at Canterbury. (fn. 64) In June 1178, king Henry returning from Normandy, visited the sepulchre of this new saint; and in July following, William, archbishop of Rhemes, came from France, with a large retinue, to perform his vows to St. Thomas of Canterbury, where the king met him and received him honourably. In the year 1179, Lewis, king of France, came into England; before which neither he nor any of his predecessors had ever set foot in this kingdom. (fn. 65) He landed at Dover, where king Henry waited his arrival, and on August 23, the two kings came to Canterbury, with a great train of nobility of both nations, and were received with due honour and great joy, by the archbishop, with his com-provincial bishops, and the prior and the whole convent. (fn. 66)

 

King Lewis came in the manner and habit of a pilgrim, and was conducted to the tomb of St. Thomas by a solemn procession; he there offered his cup of gold and a royal precious stone, (fn. 67) and gave the convent a yearly rent for ever, of a hundred muids of wine, to be paid by himself and his successors; which grant was confirmed by his royal charter, under his seal, and delivered next day to the convent; (fn. 68) after he had staid here two, (fn. 69) or as others say, three days, (fn. 70) during which the oblations of gold and silver made were so great, that the relation of them almost exceeded credibility. (fn. 71) In 1181, king Henry, in his return from Normandy, again paid his devotions at this tomb. These visits were the early fruits of the adoration of the new sainted martyr, and these royal examples of kings and great persons were followed by multitudes, who crowded to present with full hands their oblations at his tomb.— Hence the convent was enabled to carry forward the building of the new choir, and they applied all this vast income to the fabric of the church, as the present case instantly required, for which they had the leave and consent of the archbishop, confirmed by the bulls of several succeeding popes. (fn. 72)

 

¶From the liberal oblations of these royal and noble personages at the tomb of St. Thomas, the expences of rebuilding the choir appear to have been in a great measure supplied, nor did their devotion and offerings to the new saint, after it was compleated, any ways abate, but, on the contrary, they daily increased; for in the year 1184, Philip, archbishop of Cologne, and Philip, earl of Flanders, came together to pay their vows at this tomb, and were met here by king Henry, who gave them an invitation to London. (fn. 73) In 1194, John, archbishop of Lions; in the year afterwards, John, archbishop of York; and in the year 1199, king John, performed their devotions at the foot of this tomb. (fn. 74) King Richard I. likewise, on his release from captivity in Germany, landing on the 30th of March at Sandwich, proceeded from thence, as an humble stranger on foot, towards Canterbury, to return his grateful thanks to God and St. Thomas for his release. (fn. 75) All these by name, with many nobles and multitudes of others, of all sorts and descriptions, visited the saint with humble adoration and rich oblations, whilst his body lay in the undercrost. In the mean time the chapel and altar at the upper part of the east end of the church, which had been formerly consecrated to the Holy Trinity, were demolished, and again prepared with great splendor, for the reception of this saint, who being now placed there, implanted his name not only on the chapel and altar, but on the whole church, which was from thenceforth known only by that of the church of St. Thomas the martyr.

  

On July 7, anno 1220, the remains of St. Thomas were translated from his tomb to his new shrine, with the greatest solemnity and rejoicings. Pandulph, the pope's legate, the archbishops of Canterbury and Rheims, and many bishops and abbots, carried the coffin on their shoulders, and placed it on the new shrine, and the king graced these solemnities with his royal presence. (fn. 76) The archbishop of Canterbury provided forage along all the road, between London and Canterbury, for the horses of all such as should come to them, and he caused several pipes and conduits to run with wine in different parts of the city. This, with the other expences arising during the time, was so great, that he left a debt on the see, which archbishop Boniface, his fourth successor in it, was hardly enabled to discharge.

 

¶The saint being now placed in his new repository, became the vain object of adoration to the deluded people, and afterwards numbers of licences were granted to strangers by the king, to visit this shrine. (fn. 77) The titles of glorious, of saint and martyr, were among those given to him; (fn. 78) such veneration had all people for his relics, that the religious of several cathedral churches and monasteries, used all their endeavours to obtain some of them, and thought themselves happy and rich in the possession of the smallest portion of them. (fn. 79) Besides this, there were erected and dedicated to his honour, many churches, chapels, altars and hospitals in different places, both in this kingdom and abroad. (fn. 80) Thus this saint, even whilst he lay in his obscure tomb in the undercroft, brought such large and constant supplies of money, as enabled the monks to finish this beautiful choir, and the eastern parts of the church; and when he was translated to the most exalted and honourable place in it, a still larger abundance of gain filled their coffers, which continued as a plentiful supply to them, from year to year, to the time of the reformation, and the final abolition of the priory itself.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol11/pp306-383

The church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rochester in the Church of England and the seat (cathedra) of the Bishop of Rochester, the second oldest bishopric in England after that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The edifice is a Grade I listed building (number 1086423)

 

The Rochester diocese was founded by Justus, one of the missionaries who accompanied Augustine of Canterbury to convert the pagan southern English to Christianity in the early 7th century. As the first Bishop of Rochester, Justus was granted permission by King Æthelberht of Kent to establish a church dedicated to Andrew the Apostle (like the monastery at Rome where Augustine and Justus had set out for England) on the site of the present cathedral, which was made the seat of a bishopric. The cathedral was to be served by a college of secular priests and was endowed with land near the city called Priestfields.[3][a][b]

 

Under the Roman system, a bishop was required to establish a school for the training of priests.[4] To provide the upper parts for music in the services a choir school was required.[5] Together these formed the genesis of the cathedral school which today is represented by the King's School, Rochester. The quality of chorister training was praised by Bede.

 

The original cathedral was 42 feet (13 m) high and 28 feet (8.5 m) wide. The apse is marked in the current cathedral on the floor and setts outside show the line of the walls. Credit for the construction of the building goes to King Æthelberht rather than St Justus. Bede describes St Paulinus' burial as "in the sanctuary of the Blessed Apostle Andrew which Æthelberht founded likewise he built the city of Rochester."[c][7]

 

Æthelberht died in 617 and his successor, Eadbald of Kent, was not a Christian. Justus fled to Francia and remained there for a year before he was recalled by the king.[8]

 

In 644 Ithamar, the first English-born bishop, was consecrated at the cathedral.[d] Ithamar consecrated Deusdedit as the first Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury on 26 March 655.[9]

 

The cathedral suffered much from the ravaging of Kent by King Æthelred of Mercia in 676. So great was the damage that Putta retired from the diocese and his appointed successor, Cwichelm, gave up the see "because of its poverty".[10]

 

In 762, the local overlord, Sigerd, granted land to the bishop, as did his successor Egbert.[e][11] The charter is notable as it is confirmed by Offa of Mercia as overlord of the local kingdom.

 

Following the invasion of 1066, William the Conqueror granted the cathedral and its estates to his half-brother, Odo of Bayeux. Odo misappropriated the resources and reduced the cathedral to near-destitution. The building itself was ancient and decayed. During the episcopate of Siward (1058–1075) it was served by four or five canons "living in squalor and poverty".[12] One of the canons became vicar of Chatham and raised sufficient money to make a gift to the cathedral for the soul and burial of his

 

Gundulf's church

 

Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, amongst others, brought Odo to account at the trial of Penenden Heath c. 1072. Following Odo's final fall, Gundulf was appointed as the first Norman bishop of Rochester in 1077. The cathedral and its lands were restored to the bishop.

 

Gundulf's first undertaking in the construction of the new cathedral seems to have been the construction of the tower which today bears his name. In about 1080 he began construction of a new cathedral to replace Justus' church. He was a talented architect who probably played a major part in the design or the works he commissioned. The original cathedral had a presbytery of six bays with aisles of the same length. The four easternmost bays stood over an undercroft which forms part of the present crypt. To the east was a small projection, probably for the silver shrine of Paulinus which was translated there from the old cathedral.[f] The transepts were 120 feet long, but only 14 feet wide. With such narrow transepts it is thought that the eastern arches of the nave abuted the quire arch.[14] To the south another tower (of which nothing visible remains) was built. There was no crossing tower.[15] The nave was not completed at first. Apparently designed to be nine bays long, most of the south side but only five bays to the north were completed by Gundulf. The quire was required by the priory and the south wall formed part of its buildings. It has been speculated that Gundulf simply left the citizens to complete the parochial part of the building.[16] Gundulf did not stop with the fabric, he also replaced the secular chaplains with Benedictine monks, obtained several royal grants of land and proved a great benefactor to his cathedral city.

 

In 1078 Gudulf founded St Bartholomew's Hospital just outside the city of Rochester. The Priory of St Andrew contributed daily and weekly provisions to the hospital which also received the offerings from the two altars of St James and of St Giles.[17]

 

During the episcopates of Ernulf (1115–1124) and John (I) (1125–1137) the cathedral was completed. The quire was rearranged, the nave partly rebuilt, Gundulf's nave piers were cased and the west end built. Ernulf is also credited with building the refectory, dormitory and chapter house, only portions of which remain. Finally John translated the body of Ithamar from the old Saxon cathedral to the new Norman one, the whole being dedicated in 1130 (or possibly 1133) by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by 13 bishops in the presence of Henry I, but the occasion was marred by a great fire which nearly destroyed the whole city and damaged the new cathedral. It was badly damaged by fires again in 1137 and 1179. One or other of these fires was sufficiently severe to badly damage or destroy the eastern arm and the transepts. Ernulf's monastic buildings were also damaged.

 

Probably from about 1190, Gilbert de Glanville (bishop 1185–1214) commenced the rebuilding of the east end and the replacement on the monastic buildings. The north quire transept may have been sufficiently advanced to allow the burial of St William of Perth in 1201, alternatively the coffin may have lain in the north quire aisle until the transept was ready. It was then looted in 1215 by the forces of King John during siege of Rochester Castle. Edmund de Hadenham recounts that there was not a pyx left "in which the body of the Lord might rest upon the altar".[14] However, by 1227, the quire was again in use when the monks made their solemn entry into it. The cathedral was rededicated in 1240 by Richard Wendene (also known as Richard de Wendover) who had been translated from Bangor.[14][18]

 

The shrines of Ss Paulinus and William of Perth, along with the relics of St Ithamar, drew pilgrims to the cathedral. Their offerings were so great that both the work mentioned above and the ensuing work could be funded.

 

Unlike the abbeys of the period (which were led by an abbot) the monastic cathedrals were priories ruled over by a prior with further support from the bishop.[19] Rochester and Carlisle (the other impoverished see) were unusual in securing the promotion of a number of monks to be bishop. Seven bishops of Rochester were originally regular monks between 1215 and the Dissolution.[20] A consequence of the monastic attachment was a lack of patronage at the bishop's disposal. By the early 16th century only 4% of the bishop's patronage came from non-parochial sources.[21] The bishop was therefore chronically limited in funds to spend on the non-monastic part of the cathedral.

 

The next phase of the development was begun by Richard de Eastgate, the sacrist. The two eastern bays of the nave were cleared and the four large piers to support the tower were built. The north nave transept was then constructed. The work was nearly completed by Thomas de Mepeham who became sacrist in 1255. Not long after the south transept was completed and the two bays of the nave nearest the crossing rebuilt to their current form. The intention seems to have been to rebuild the whole nave, but probably lack of funds saved the late Norman work.

 

The cathedral was desecrated in 1264 by the troops of Simon de Montfort, during sieges of the city and castle. It is recorded that armed knights rode into the church and dragged away some refugees. Gold and silver were stolen and documents destroyed. Some of the monastic buildings were turned into stables.[22] Just over a year later De Montfort fell at the Battle of Evesham to the forces of Edward I. Later, in 1300, Edward passed through Rochester on his way to Canterbury and is recorded as having given seven shillings (35p) at the shrine of St William, and the same again the following day. During his return he again visited the cathedral and gave a further seven shillings at each of the shrines of Ss Paulinus and Ithamar.

 

The new century saw the completion of the new Decorated work with the original Norman architecture. The rebuilding of the nave being finally abandoned. Around 1320 the south transept was altered to accommodate the altar of the Virgin Mary.

 

There appears to have been a rood screen thrown between the two western piers of the crossing. A rood loft may have surmounted it.[23] Against this screen was placed the altar of St Nicholas, the parochial altar of the city. The citizens demanded the right of entrance by day or night to what was after all their altar. There were also crowds of strangers passing through the city. The friction broke out as a riot in 1327 after which the strong stone screens and doors which wall off the eastern end of the church from the nave were built.[24] The priory itself was walled off from the town at this period. An oratory was established in angulo navis ("in the corner of the nave") for the reserved sacrament; it is not clear which corner was being referred to, but Dr Palmer[25] argues that the buttress against the north-west tower pier is the most likely setting. He notes the arch filled in with rubble on the aisle side; and on nave side there is a scar line with lower quality stonework below. The buttress is about 4 feet (1.2 m) thick, enough for an oratory. Palmer notes that provision for reservation of consecrated hosts was often made to the north of the altar which would be the case here.

 

The central tower was at last raised by Hamo de Hythe in 1343, thus essentially completing the cathedral. Bells were placed in the central tower (see Bells section below). The chapter room doorway was constructed at around this time. The Black Death struck England in 1347–49. From then on there were probably considerably more than twenty monks in the priory.

 

The modern paintwork of the quire walls is modelled on artwork from the Middle Ages. Gilbert Scott found remains of painting behind the wooden stalls during his restoration work in the 1870s. The painting is therefore part original and part authentic. The alternate lions and fleurs-de-lis reflect Edward III's victories, and assumed sovereignty over the French. In 1356 the Black Prince had defeated John II of France at Poitiers and took him prisoner. On 2 July 1360 John passed through Rochester on his way home and made an offering of 60 crowns (£15) at the Church of St Andrew.[27]

 

The Oratory provided for the citizens of Rochester did not settle the differences between the monks and the city. The eventual solution was the construction of St Nicholas' Church by the north side of the cathedral. A doorway was knocked through the western end of the north aisle (since walled up) to allow processions to pass along the north aisle of the cathedral before leaving by the west door.[27][28]

 

In the mid-15th century the clerestory and vaulting of the north quire aisle was completed and new Perpendicular Period windows inserted into the nave aisles. Possible preparatory work for this is indicated in 1410–11 by the Bridge Wardens of Rochester who recorded a gift of lead from the Lord Prior. The lead was sold on for 41 shillings.[g][29] In 1470 the great west window at the cathedral was completed and finally, in around 1490, what is now the Lady Chapel was built.[27] Rochester Cathedral, although one of England's smaller cathedrals, thus demonstrates all styles of Romanesque and Gothic architecture.[30]

 

In 1504 John Fisher was appointed Bishop of Rochester. Although Rochester was by then an impoverished see, Fisher elected to remain as bishop for the remainder of his life. He had been tutor to the young Prince Henry and on the prince's accession as Henry VIII, Fisher remained his staunch supporter and mentor. He figured in the anti-Lutheran policies of Henry right up until the divorce issue and split from Rome in the early 1530s. Fisher remained true to Rome and for his defence of the Pope was elevated as a cardinal in May 1535. Henry was angered by these moves and, on 22 June 1535, Cardinal Fisher was beheaded on Tower Green.

 

Henry VIII visited Rochester on 1 January 1540 when he met Ann of Cleves for the first time and was "greatly disappointed".[31] Whether connected or not, the old Priory of St Andrew was dissolved by royal command later in the year, one of the last monasteries to be dissolved.

 

The west front is dominated by the central perpendicular great west window. Above the window the dripstone terminates in a small carved head at each side. The line of the nave roof is delineated by a string course above which rises the crenelated parapet. Below the window is a blind arcade interrupted by the top of the Great West Door. Some of the niches in the arcade are filled with statuary. Below the arcade the door is flanked with Norman recesses. The door itself is of Norman work with concentric patterned arches. The semicircular tympanum depicts Christ sitting in glory in the centre, with Saints Justus and Ethelbert flanking him on either side of the doorway. Supporting the saints are angels and surrounding them are the symbols of the Four Evangelists: Ss Matthew (a winged man), Mark (a lion), Luke (an ox) and John (an eagle).[52] On the lintel below are the Twelve Apostles and on the shafts supporting it King Soloman and the Queen of Sheba.[53] Within the Great West Door there is a glass porch which allows the doors themselves to be kept open throughout the day.

 

Either side of the nave end rises a tower which forms the junction of the front and the nave walls. The towers are decorated with blind arcading and are carried up a further two stories above the roof and surmounted with pyramidal spires. The aisle ends are Norman. Each has a large round headed arch containing a window and in the northern recess is a small door. Above each arch is plain wall surmounted by a blind arcade, string course at the roof line and plain parapet. The flanking towers are Norman in the lower part with the style being maintained in the later work. Above the plain bases there are four stories of blind arcading topped with an octagonal spire.[54]

 

The outside of the nave and its aisles is undistinguished, apart from the walled up north-west door which allowed access from the cathedral to the adjacent St Nicholas' Church.[28] The north transept is reached from the High Street via Black Boy Alley, a medieval pilgrimage route. The decoration is Early English, but reworked by Gilbert Scott. Scott rebuilt the gable ends to the original high pitch from the lower one adopted at the start of the 19th century. The gable itself is set back from the main wall behind a parapet with walkway. He also restored the pilgrim entrance and opened up the blind arcade in the northern end of the west wall.[55]

 

To the east of the north transept is the Sextry Gate. It dates from Edward III's reign and has wooden domestic premises above. The area beyond was originally enclosed, but is now open to the High Street through the memorial garden and gates. Beyond the Sextry Gate is the entrance to Gundulf's Tower, used as a private back door to the cathedral.

 

The north quire transept and east end are all executed in Early English style, the lower windows light the crypt which is earlier. Adjoining the east end of the cathedral is the east end of the Chapter Room which is in the same style. The exact form of the east end is more modern than it appears, being largely due to the work of Scott in the 19th century. Scott raised the gable ends to the original high pitch, but for lack of funds the roofs have not been raised; writing in 1897 Palmer noted: "they still require roofs of corresponding pitch, a need both great and conspicuous".[56]

 

On the south side of the cathedral the nave reaches the main transept and beyond a modern porch. The aisle between the transepts is itself a buttress to the older wall behind and supported by a flying buttress. The unusual position of this wall is best explained when considering the interior, below. The southern wall of the presbytery is hidden by the chapter room, an 18th-century structure.

 

he western part of the nave is substantially as Gundulf designed it. According to George H. Palmer (who substantially follows St John Hope) "Rochester and Peterborough possess probably the best examples of the Norman nave in the country".[60] The main arcade is topped by a string course below a triforium. The triforium is Norman with a further string course above. The clerestory above is of perpendicular style. From the capitals pilasters rise to the first string course but appear to have been removed from the triforium stage. Originally they might have supported the roof timbers, or even been the springing of a vault.[61]

 

The easternmost bay of the triforium appears to be Norman, but is the work of 14th-century masons. The final bay of the nave is Decorated in style and leads to the tower piers. Of note is the north pier which possibly contains the Oratory Chapel mentioned above.[62]

 

The aisles are plain with flat pilasters. The eastern two bays are Decorated with springing for vaulting. Whether the vault was ever constructed is unknown, the present wooden roof extends the full length of the aisles.

 

The crossing is bounded to the east by the quire screen with the organ above. This is of 19th-century work and shows figures associated with the early cathedral. Above the crossing is the central tower, housing the bells and above that the spire. The ceiling of the crossing is notable for the four Green Men carved on the bosses. Visible from the ground is the outline of the trapdoor through which bells can be raised and lowered when required. The floor is stepped up to the pulpitum and gives access to the quire through the organ screen.

 

The north transept is from 1235 in Early English style. The Victorian insertion of windows has been mentioned above in the external description. Dominating the transept is the baptistery fresco. The fresco by Russian artist Sergei Fyodorov is displayed on the eastern wall. It is located within an arched recess. The recess may have been a former site of the altar of St Nicholas from the time of its construction in 1235 until it was moved to the screen before the pulpitum in 1322. A will suggests that "an altar of Jesu" also stood here at some point, an altar of some sort must have existed as evidenced by the piscina to the right of the recess.[64] The vaulting is unusual in being octpartite, a development of the more common sexpartite. The Pilgrim Door is now the main visitor entrance and is level for disabled access.

 

he original Lady Chapel was formed in the south transept by screening it off from the crossing. The altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary was housed in the eastern arch of the transept. There are traces of painting both on the east wall and under the arch. The painting delineates the location of the mediaeval north screen of the Lady Chapel. Around 1490 this chapel was extended westwards by piercing the western wall with a large arch and building the chapel's nave against the existing south aisle of cathedral. From within the Lady Chapel the upper parts of two smaller clerestory windows may be seen above the chapel's chancel arch. Subsequently, a screen was placed under the arch and the modern Lady Chapel formed in the 1490 extension.

 

The south transept is of early Decorated style. The eastern wall of it is a single wide arch at the arcade level. There are two doorways in the arch, neither of which is used, the northern one being hidden by the memorial to Dr William Franklin. The south wall starts plain but part way up is a notable monument to Richard Watts, a "coloured bust, with long gray beard".[65] According to Palmer there used to be a brass plaque to Charles Dickens below this but only the outline exists, the plaque having been moved to the east wall of the quire transept.[66] The west wall is filled by the large arch mentioned above with the screen below dividing it from the present Lady Chapel.

 

The Lady Chapel as it now exists is of Decorated style with three lights along southern wall and two in the west wall. The style is a light and airy counterpart to the stolid Norman work of the nave. The altar has been placed against the southern wall resulting in a chapel where the congregation wraps around the altar. The window stained glass is modern and tells the gospel story.

 

The first, easternmost, window has the Annunciation in the upper light: Gabriel speaking to Mary (both crowned) with the Holy Spirit as a dove descending. The lower light shows the Nativity with the Holy Family, three angels and shepherds. The next window shows St Elizabeth in the upper light surrounded by stars and the sun in splendour device. The lower light shows the Adoration of the Magi with Mary enthroned with the Infant. The final window of the south wall has St Mary Magdelene with her ointment surrounded by Tudor roses and fleurs-de-lis in the upper light with the lower light showing the Presentation in the Temple. The west wall continues with St. Margaret of Scotland in the upper light surrounded by fouled anchor and thistle roundels. The reference is to the original dedication of the cathedral as the Priory of St Andrew. The lower light shows the Crucifixion with Mary and St Peter. The final window is unusual, the upper light is divided in three and shows King Arthur with the royal arms flanked by St George on the left and St Michael on the right. The lower light shows the Ascension: two disciples to the left, three women with unguents to the right and three bare crosses top right.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester_Cathedral

A couple of weeks back, we met a couple in a pub in Canterbury, and they had been out exploring the city and said they were disappointed by the cathedral.

 

Not enough labels they said.

 

That not withstanding, I thought it had been some time since I last had been, so decided to revisit, see the pillars of Reculver church in the crypt and take the big lens for some detail shots.

 

We arrived just after ten, so the cathedral was pretty free of other guests, just a few guides waiting for groups and couples to guide.

 

I went round with the 50mm first, before concentrating on the medieval glass which is mostly on the south side.

 

But as you will see, the lens picked up so much more.

 

Thing is, there is always someone interesting to talk to, or wants to talk to you. As I went around, I spoke with about three guides about the project and things I have seen in the churches of the county, and the wonderful people I have met. And that continued in the cathedral.

 

I have time to look at the tombs in the Trinity Chapel, and see that Henry IV and his wife are in a tomb there, rather than ay Westminster Abbey. So I photograph them, and the Black Prince on the southern side of the chapel, along with the Bishops and Archbishops between.

 

Round to the transept and a chance to change lenses, and put on the 140-400mm for some detailed shots.

 

I go round the cathedral again.

 

Initially at some of the memorials on the walls and the canopy of the pulpit, but it is the windows that are calling.

 

At least it was a bright, sunny day outside, which meant light was good in the cathedral with most shots coming out fine with no camera shake.

 

As I edit the shots I am stunned at the details of windows so high up they mostly seem like blocks of colour.

 

And so far, I have only just started to edit these shots.

 

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St Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, arrived on the coast of Kent as a missionary to England in 597AD. He came from Rome, sent by Pope Gregory the Great. It is said that Gregory had been struck by the beauty of Angle slaves he saw for sale in the city market and despatched Augustine and some monks to convert them to Christianity. Augustine was given a church at Canterbury (St Martin’s, after St Martin of Tours, still standing today) by the local King, Ethelbert whose Queen, Bertha, a French Princess, was already a Christian.This building had been a place of worship during the Roman occupation of Britain and is the oldest church in England still in use. Augustine had been consecrated a bishop in France and was later made an archbishop by the Pope. He established his seat within the Roman city walls (the word cathedral is derived from the the Latin word for a chair ‘cathedra’, which is itself taken from the Greek ‘kathedra’ meaning seat.) and built the first cathedral there, becoming the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Since that time, there has been a community around the Cathedral offering daily prayer to God; this community is arguably the oldest organisation in the English speaking world. The present Archbishop, The Most Revd Justin Welby, is 105th in the line of succession from Augustine. Until the 10th century, the Cathedral community lived as the household of the Archbishop. During the 10th century, it became a formal community of Benedictine monks, which continued until the monastery was dissolved by King Henry VIII in 1540. Augustine’s original building lies beneath the floor of the Nave – it was extensively rebuilt and enlarged by the Saxons, and the Cathedral was rebuilt completely by the Normans in 1070 following a major fire. There have been many additions to the building over the last nine hundred years, but parts of the Quire and some of the windows and their stained glass date from the 12th century. By 1077, Archbishop Lanfranc had rebuilt it as a Norman church, described as “nearly perfect”. A staircase and parts of the North Wall – in the area of the North West transept also called the Martyrdom – remain from that building.

 

Canterbury’s role as one of the world’s most important pilgrimage centres in Europe is inextricably linked to the murder of its most famous Archbishop, Thomas Becket, in 1170. When, after a long lasting dispute, King Henry II is said to have exclaimed “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”, four knights set off for Canterbury and murdered Thomas in his own cathedral. A sword stroke was so violent that it sliced the crown off his skull and shattered the blade’s tip on the pavement. The murder took place in what is now known as The Martyrdom. When shortly afterwards, miracles were said to take place, Canterbury became one of Europe’s most important pilgrimage centres.

 

The work of the Cathedral as a monastery came to an end in 1540, when the monastery was closed on the orders of King Henry VIII. Its role as a place of prayer continued – as it does to this day. Once the monastery had been suppressed, responsibility for the services and upkeep was given to a group of clergy known as the Chapter of Canterbury. Today, the Cathedral is still governed by the Dean and four Canons, together (in recent years) with four lay people and the Archdeacon of Ashford. During the Civil War of the 1640s, the Cathedral suffered damage at the hands of the Puritans; much of the medieval stained glass was smashed and horses were stabled in the Nave. After the Restoration in 1660, several years were spent in repairing the building. In the early 19th Century, the North West tower was found to be dangerous, and, although it dated from Lanfranc’s time, it was demolished in the early 1830s and replaced by a copy of the South West tower, thus giving a symmetrical appearance to the west end of the Cathedral. During the Second World War, the Precincts were heavily damaged by enemy action and the Cathedral’s Library was destroyed. Thankfully, the Cathedral itself was not seriously harmed, due to the bravery of the team of fire watchers, who patrolled the roofs and dealt with the incendiary bombs dropped by enemy bombers. Today, the Cathedral stands as a place where prayer to God has been offered daily for over 1,400 years; nearly 2,000 Services are held each year, as well as countless private prayers from individuals. The Cathedral offers a warm welcome to all visitors – its aim is to show people Jesus, which we do through the splendour of the building as well as the beauty of the worship.

 

www.canterbury-cathedral.org/heritage/history/cathedral-h...

 

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History of the cathedral

THE ORIGIN of a Christian church on the scite of the present cathedral, is supposed to have taken place as early as the Roman empire in Britain, for the use of the antient faithful and believing soldiers of their garrison here; and that Augustine found such a one standing here, adjoining to king Ethelbert's palace, which was included in the king's gift to him.

 

This supposition is founded on the records of the priory of Christ-church, (fn. 1) concurring with the common opinion of almost all our historians, who tell us of a church in Canterbury, which Augustine found standing in the east part of the city, which he had of king Ethelbert's gift, which after his consecration at Arles, in France, he commended by special dedication to the patronage of our blessed Saviour. (fn. 2)

 

According to others, the foundations only of an old church formerly built by the believing Romans, were left here, on which Augustine erected that, which he afterwards dedicated to out Saviour; (fn. 3) and indeed it is not probable that king Ethelbert should have suffered the unsightly ruins of a Christian church, which, being a Pagan, must have been very obnoxious to him, so close to his palace, and supposing these ruins had been here, would he not have suffered them to be repaired, rather than have obliged his Christian queen to travel daily to such a distance as St. Martin's church, or St. Pancrace's chapel, for the performance of her devotions.

 

Some indeed have conjectured that the church found by St. Augustine, in the east part of the city, was that of St.Martin, truly so situated; and urge in favor of it, that there have not been at any time any remains of British or Roman bricks discovered scattered in or about this church of our Saviour, those infallible, as Mr. Somner stiles them, signs of antiquity, and so generally found in buildings, which have been erected on, or close to the spot where more antient ones have stood. But to proceed, king Ethelbert's donation to Augustine was made in the year 596, who immediately afterwards went over to France, and was consecrated a bishop at Arles, and after his return, as soon as he had sufficiently finished a church here, whether built out of ruins or anew, it matters not, he exercised his episcopal function in the dedication of it, says the register of Christ-church, to the honor of Christ our Saviour; whence it afterwards obtained the name of Christ-church. (fn. 4)

 

From the time of Augustine for the space of upwards of three hundred years, there is not found in any printed or manuscript chronicle, the least mention of the fabric of this church, so that it is probable nothing befell it worthy of being recorded; however it should be mentioned, that during that period the revenues of it were much increased, for in the leiger books of it there are registered more than fifty donations of manors, lands, &c. so large and bountiful, as became the munificence of kings and nobles to confer. (fn. 5)

 

It is supposed, especially as we find no mention made of any thing to the contrary, that the fabric of this church for two hundred years after Augustine's time, met with no considerable molestations; but afterwards, the frequent invasions of the Danes involved both the civil and ecclesiastical state of this country in continual troubles and dangers; in the confusion of which, this church appears to have run into a state of decay; for when Odo was promoted to the archbishopric, in the year 938, the roof of it was in a ruinous condition; age had impaired it, and neglect had made it extremely dangerous; the walls of it were of an uneven height, according as it had been more or less decayed, and the roof of the church seemed ready to fall down on the heads of those underneath. All this the archbishop undertook to repair, and then covered the whole church with lead; to finish which, it took three years, as Osbern tells us, in the life of Odo; (fn. 6) and further, that there was not to be found a church of so large a size, capable of containing so great a multitude of people, and thus, perhaps, it continued without any material change happening to it, till the year 1011; a dismal and fatal year to this church and city; a time of unspeakable confusion and calamities; for in the month of September that year, the Danes, after a siege of twenty days, entered this city by force, burnt the houses, made a lamentable slaughter of the inhabitants, rifled this church, and then set it on fire, insomuch, that the lead with which archbishop Odo had covered it, being melted, ran down on those who were underneath. The sull story of this calamity is given by Osbern, in the life of archbishop Odo, an abridgement of which the reader will find below. (fn. 7)

 

The church now lay in ruins, without a roof, the bare walls only standing, and in this desolate condition it remained as long as the fury of the Danes prevailed, who after they had burnt the church, carried away archbishop Alphage with them, kept him in prison seven months, and then put him to death, in the year 1012, the year after which Living, or Livingus, succeeded him as archbishop, though it was rather in his calamities than in his seat of dignity, for he too was chained up by the Danes in a loathsome dungeon for seven months, before he was set free, but he so sensibly felt the deplorable state of this country, which he foresaw was every day growing worse and worse, that by a voluntary exile, he withdrew himself out of the nation, to find some solitary retirement, where he might bewail those desolations of his country, to which he was not able to bring any relief, but by his continual prayers. (fn. 8) He just outlived this storm, returned into England, and before he died saw peace and quientness restored to this land by king Canute, who gaining to himself the sole sovereignty over the nation, made it his first business to repair the injuries which had been done to the churches and monasteries in this kingdom, by his father's and his own wars. (fn. 9)

 

As for this church, archbishop Ægelnoth, who presided over it from the year 1020 to the year 1038, began and finished the repair, or rather the rebuilding of it, assisted in it by the royal munificence of the king, (fn. 10) who in 1023 presented his crown of gold to this church, and restored to it the port of Sandwich, with its liberties. (fn. 11) Notwithstanding this, in less than forty years afterwards, when Lanfranc soon after the Norman conquest came to the see, he found this church reduced almost to nothing by fire, and dilapidations; for Eadmer says, it had been consumed by a third conflagration, prior to the year of his advancement to it, in which fire almost all the antient records of the privileges of it had perished. (fn. 12)

 

The same writer has given us a description of this old church, as it was before Lanfranc came to the see; by which we learn, that at the east end there was an altar adjoining to the wall of the church, of rough unhewn stone, cemented with mortar, erected by archbishop Odo, for a repository of the body of Wilfrid, archbishop of York, which Odo had translated from Rippon hither, giving it here the highest place; at a convenient distance from this, westward, there was another altar, dedicated to Christ our Saviour, at which divine service was daily celebrated. In this altar was inclosed the head of St. Swithin, with many other relics, which archbishop Alphage brought with him from Winchester. Passing from this altar westward, many steps led down to the choir and nave, which were both even, or upon the same level. At the bottom of the steps, there was a passage into the undercroft, under all the east part of the church. (fn. 13) At the east end of which, was an altar, in which was inclosed, according to old tradition, the head of St. Furseus. From hence by a winding passage, at the west end of it, was the tomb of St. Dunstan, (fn. 14) but separated from the undercroft by a strong stone wall; over the tomb was erected a monument, pyramid wife, and at the head of it an altar, (fn. 15) for the mattin service. Between these steps, or passage into the undercroft and the nave, was the choir, (fn. 16) which was separated from the nave by a fair and decent partition, to keep off the crowds of people that usually were in the body of the church, so that the singing of the chanters in the choir might not be disturbed. About the middle of the length of the nave, were two towers or steeples, built without the walls; one on the south, and the other on the north side. In the former was the altar of St. Gregory, where was an entrance into the church by the south door, and where law controversies and pleas concerning secular matters were exercised. (fn. 17) In the latter, or north tower, was a passage for the monks into the church, from the monastery; here were the cloysters, where the novices were instructed in their religious rules and offices, and where the monks conversed together. In this tower was the altar of St. Martin. At the west end of the church was a chapel, dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary, to which there was an ascent by steps, and at the east end of it an altar, dedicated to her, in which was inclosed the head of St. Astroburta the Virgin; and at the western part of it was the archbishop's pontifical chair, made of large stones, compacted together with mortar; a fair piece of work, and placed at a convenient distance from the altar, close to the wall of the church. (fn. 18)

 

To return now to archbishop Lanfranc, who was sent for from Normandy in 1073, being the fourth year of the Conqueror's reign, to fill this see, a time, when a man of a noble spirit, equal to the laborious task he was to undertake, was wanting especially for this church; and that he was such, the several great works which were performed by him, were incontestable proofs, as well as of his great and generous mind. At the first sight of the ruinous condition of this church, says the historian, the archbishop was struck with astonishment, and almost despaired of seeing that and the monastery re edified; but his care and perseverance raised both in all its parts anew, and that in a novel and more magnificent kind and form of structure, than had been hardly in any place before made use of in this kingdom, which made it a precedent and pattern to succeeding structures of this kind; (fn. 19) and new monasteries and churches were built after the example of it; for it should be observed, that before the coming of the Normans most of the churches and monasteries in this kingdom were of wood; (all the monasteries in my realm, says king Edgar, in his charter to the abbey of Malmesbury, dated anno 974, to the outward sight are nothing but worm-eaten and rotten timber and boards) but after the Norman conquest, such timber fabrics grew out of use, and gave place to stone buildings raised upon arches; a form of structure introduced into general use by that nation, and in these parts surnished with stone from Caen, in Normandy. (fn. 20) After this fashion archbishop Lanfranc rebuilt the whole church from the foundation, with the palace and monastery, the wall which encompassed the court, and all the offices belonging to the monastery within the wall, finishing the whole nearly within the compass of seven years; (fn. 21) besides which, he furnished the church with ornaments and rich vestments; after which, the whole being perfected, he altered the name of it, by a dedication of it to the Holy Trinity; whereas, before it was called the church of our Saviour, or Christ-church, and from the above time it bore (as by Domesday book appears) the name of the church of the Holy Trinity; this new church being built on the same spot on which the antient one stood, though on a far different model.

 

After Lanfranc's death, archbishop Anselm succeeded in the year 1093, to the see of Canterbury, and must be esteemed a principal benefactor to this church; for though his time was perplexed with a continued series of troubles, of which both banishment and poverty made no small part, which in a great measure prevented him from bestowing that cost on his church, which he would otherwise have done, yet it was through his patronage and protection, and through his care and persuasions, that the fabric of it, begun and perfected by his predecessor, became enlarged and rose to still greater splendor. (fn. 22)

 

In order to carry this forward, upon the vacancy of the priory, he constituted Ernulph and Conrad, the first in 1104, the latter in 1108, priors of this church; to whose care, being men of generous and noble minds, and of singular skill in these matters, he, during his troubles, not only committed the management of this work, but of all his other concerns during his absence.

 

Probably archbishop Anselm, on being recalled from banishment on king Henry's accession to the throne, had pulled down that part of the church built by Lanfranc, from the great tower in the middle of it to the east end, intending to rebuild it upon a still larger and more magnificent plan; when being borne down by the king's displeasure, he intrusted prior Ernulph with the work, who raised up the building with such splendor, says Malmesbury, that the like was not to be seen in all England; (fn. 23) but the short time Ernulph continued in this office did not permit him to see his undertaking finished. (fn. 24) This was left to his successor Conrad, who, as the obituary of Christ church informs us, by his great industry, magnificently perfected the choir, which his predecessor had left unfinished, (fn. 25) adorning it with curious pictures, and enriching it with many precious ornaments. (fn. 26)

 

This great undertaking was not entirely compleated at the death of archbishop Anselm, which happened in 1109, anno 9 Henry I. nor indeed for the space of five years afterwards, during which the see of Canterbury continued vacant; when being finished, in honour of its builder, and on account of its more than ordinary beauty, it gained the name of the glorious choir of Conrad. (fn. 27)

 

After the see of Canterbury had continued thus vacant for five years, Ralph, or as some call him, Rodulph, bishop of Rochester, was translated to it in the year 1114, at whose coming to it, the church was dedicated anew to the Holy Trinity, the name which had been before given to it by Lanfranc. (fn. 28) The only particular description we have of this church when thus finished, is from Gervas, the monk of this monastery, and that proves imperfect, as to the choir of Lanfranc, which had been taken down soon after his death; (fn. 29) the following is his account of the nave, or western part of it below the choir, being that which had been erected by archbishop Lanfranc, as has been before mentioned. From him we learn, that the west end, where the chapel of the Virgin Mary stood before, was now adorned with two stately towers, on the top of which were gilded pinnacles. The nave or body was supported by eight pair of pillars. At the east end of the nave, on the north side, was an oratory, dedicated in honor to the blessed Virgin, in lieu, I suppose, of the chapel, that had in the former church been dedicated to her at the west end. Between the nave and the choir there was built a great tower or steeple, as it were in the centre of the whole fabric; (fn. 30) under this tower was erected the altar of the Holy Cross; over a partition, which separated this tower from the nave, a beam was laid across from one side to the other of the church; upon the middle of this beam was fixed a great cross, between the images of the Virgin Mary and St. John, and between two cherubims. The pinnacle on the top of this tower, was a gilded cherub, and hence it was called the angel steeple; a name it is frequently called by at this day. (fn. 31)

 

This great tower had on each side a cross isle, called the north and south wings, which were uniform, of the same model and dimensions; each of them had a strong pillar in the middle for a support to the roof, and each of them had two doors or passages, by which an entrance was open to the east parts of the church. At one of these doors there was a descent by a few steps into the undercroft; at the other, there was an ascent by many steps into the upper parts of the church, that is, the choir, and the isles on each side of it. Near every one of these doors or passages, an altar was erected; at the upper door in the south wing, there was an altar in honour of All Saints; and at the lower door there was one of St. Michael; and before this altar on the south side was buried archbishop Fleologild; and on the north side, the holy Virgin Siburgis, whom St. Dunstan highly admired for her sanctity. In the north isle, by the upper door, was the altar of St. Blaze; and by the lower door, that of St. Benedict. In this wing had been interred four archbishops, Adelm and Ceolnoth, behind the altar, and Egelnoth and Wlfelm before it. At the entrance into this wing, Rodulph and his successor William Corboil, both archbishops, were buried. (fn. 32)

 

Hence, he continues, we go up by some steps into the great tower, and before us there is a door and steps leading down into the south wing, and on the right hand a pair of folding doors, with stairs going down into the nave of the church; but without turning to any of these, let us ascend eastward, till by several more steps we come to the west end of Conrad's choir; being now at the entrance of the choir, Gervas tells us, that he neither saw the choir built by Lanfranc, nor found it described by any one; that Eadmer had made mention of it, without giving any account of it, as he had done of the old church, the reason of which appears to be, that Lanfranc's choir did not long survive its founder, being pulled down as before-mentioned, by archbishop Anselm; so that it could not stand more than twenty years; therefore the want of a particular description of it will appear no great defect in the history of this church, especially as the deficiency is here supplied by Gervas's full relation of the new choir of Conrad, built instead of it; of which, whoever desires to know the whole architecture and model observed in the fabric, the order, number, height and form of the pillars and windows, may know the whole of it from him. The roof of it, he tells us, (fn. 33) was beautified with curious paintings representing heaven; (fn. 34) in several respects it was agreeable to the present choir, the stalls were large and framed of carved wood. In the middle of it, there hung a gilded crown, on which were placed four and twenty tapers of wax. From the choir an ascent of three steps led to the presbiterium, or place for the presbiters; here, he says, it would be proper to stop a little and take notice of the high altar, which was dedicated to the name of CHRIST. It was placed between two other altars, the one of St. Dunstan, the other of St. Alphage; at the east corners of the high altar were fixed two pillars of wood, beautified with silver and gold; upon these pillars was placed a beam, adorned with gold, which reached across the church, upon it there were placed the glory, (fn. 35) the images of St. Dunstan and St. Alphage, and seven chests or coffers overlaid with gold, full of the relics of many saints. Between those pillars was a cross gilded all over, and upon the upper beam of the cross were set sixty bright crystals.

 

Beyond this, by an ascent of eight steps towards the east, behind the altar, was the archiepiscopal throne, which Gervas calls the patriarchal chair, made of one stone; in this chair, according to the custom of the church, the archbishop used to sit, upon principal festivals, in his pontifical ornaments, whilst the solemn offices of religion were celebrated, until the consecration of the host, when he came down to the high altar, and there performed the solemnity of consecration. Still further, eastward, behind the patriarchal chair, (fn. 36) was a chapel in the front of the whole church, in which was an altar, dedicated to the Holy Trinity; behind which were laid the bones of two archbishops, Odo of Canterbury, and Wilfrid of York; by this chapel on the south side near the wall of the church, was laid the body of archbishop Lanfranc, and on the north side, the body of archbishop Theobald. Here it is to be observed, that under the whole east part of the church, from the angel steeple, there was an undercrost or crypt, (fn. 37) in which were several altars, chapels and sepulchres; under the chapel of the Trinity before-mentioned, were two altars, on the south side, the altar of St. Augustine, the apostle of the English nation, by which archbishop Athelred was interred. On the north side was the altar of St. John Baptist, by which was laid the body of archbishop Eadsin; under the high altar was the chapel and altar of the blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the whole undercroft was dedicated.

 

To return now, he continues, to the place where the bresbyterium and choir meet, where on each side there was a cross isle (as was to be seen in his time) which might be called the upper south and north wings; on the east side of each of these wings were two half circular recesses or nooks in the wall, arched over after the form of porticoes. Each of them had an altar, and there was the like number of altars under them in the crost. In the north wing, the north portico had the altar of St. Martin, by which were interred the bodies of two archbishops, Wlfred on the right, and Living on the left hand; under it in the croft, was the altar of St. Mary Magdalen. The other portico in this wing, had the altar of St. Stephen, and by it were buried two archbishops, Athelard on the left hand, and Cuthbert on the right; in the croft under it, was the altar of St. Nicholas. In the south wing, the north portico had the altar of St. John the Evangelist, and by it the bodies of Æthelgar and Aluric, archbishops, were laid. In the croft under it was the altar of St. Paulinus, by which the body of archbishop Siricius was interred. In the south portico was the altar of St. Gregory, by which were laid the corps of the two archbishops Bregwin and Plegmund. In the croft under it was the altar of St. Owen, archbishop of Roan, and underneath in the croft, not far from it the altar of St. Catherine.

 

Passing from these cross isles eastward there were two towers, one on the north, the other on the south side of the church. In the tower on the north side was the altar of St. Andrew, which gave name to the tower; under it, in the croft, was the altar of the Holy Innocents; the tower on the south side had the altar of St. Peter and St. Paul, behind which the body of St. Anselm was interred, which afterwards gave name both to the altar and tower (fn. 38) (now called St. Anselm's). The wings or isles on each side of the choir had nothing in particular to be taken notice of.— Thus far Gervas, from whose description we in particular learn, where several of the bodies of the old archbishops were deposited, and probably the ashes of some of them remain in the same places to this day.

 

As this building, deservedly called the glorious choir of Conrad, was a magnificent work, so the undertaking of it at that time will appear almost beyond example, especially when the several circumstances of it are considered; but that it was carried forward at the archbishop's cost, exceeds all belief. It was in the discouraging reign of king William Rufus, a prince notorious in the records of history, for all manner of sacrilegious rapine, that archbishop Anselm was promoted to this see; when he found the lands and revenues of this church so miserably wasted and spoiled, that there was hardly enough left for his bare subsistence; who, in the first years that he sat in the archiepiscopal chair, struggled with poverty, wants and continual vexations through the king's displeasure, (fn. 39) and whose three next years were spent in banishment, during all which time he borrowed money for his present maintenance; who being called home by king Henry I. at his coming to the crown, laboured to pay the debts he had contracted during the time of his banishment, and instead of enjoying that tranquility and ease he hoped for, was, within two years afterwards, again sent into banishment upon a fresh displeasure conceived against him by the king, who then seized upon all the revenues of the archbishopric, (fn. 40) which he retained in his own hands for no less than four years.

 

Under these hard circumstances, it would have been surprizing indeed, that the archbishop should have been able to carry on so great a work, and yet we are told it, as a truth, by the testimonies of history; but this must surely be understood with the interpretation of his having been the patron, protector and encourager, rather than the builder of this work, which he entrusted to the care and management of the priors Ernulph and Conrad, and sanctioned their employing, as Lanfranc had done before, the revenues and stock of the church to this use. (fn. 41)

 

In this state as above-mentioned, without any thing material happening to it, this church continued till about the year 1130, anno 30 Henry I. when it seems to have suffered some damage by a fire; (fn. 42) but how much, there is no record left to inform us; however it could not be of any great account, for it was sufficiently repaired, and that mostly at the cost of archbishop Corboil, who then sat in the chair of this see, (fn. 43) before the 4th of May that year, on which day, being Rogation Sunday, the bishops performed the dedication of it with great splendor and magnificence, such, says Gervas, col. 1664, as had not been heard of since the dedication of the temple of Solomon; the king, the queen, David, king of Scots, all the archbishops, and the nobility of both kingdoms being present at it, when this church's former name was restored again, being henceforward commonly called Christ-church. (fn. 44)

 

Among the manuscripts of Trinity college library, in Cambridge, in a very curious triple psalter of St. Jerome, in Latin, written by the monk Eadwyn, whose picture is at the beginning of it, is a plan or drawing made by him, being an attempt towards a representation of this church and monastery, as they stood between the years 1130 and 1174; which makes it probable, that he was one of the monks of it, and the more so, as the drawing has not any kind of relation to the plalter or sacred hymns contained in the manuscript.

 

His plan, if so it may be called, for it is neither such, nor an upright, nor a prospect, and yet something of all together; but notwithstanding this rudeness of the draftsman, it shews very plain that it was intended for this church and priory, and gives us a very clear knowledge, more than we have been able to learn from any description we have besides, of what both were at the above period of time. (fn. 45)

 

Forty-four years after this dedication, on the 5th of September, anno 1174, being the 20th year of king Henry II.'s reign, a fire happened, which consumed great part of this stately edifice, namely, the whole choir, from the angel steeple to the east end of the church, together with the prior's lodgings, the chapel of the Virgin Mary, the infirmary, and some other offices belonging to the monastery; but the angel steeple, the lower cross isles, and the nave appear to have received no material injury from the flames. (fn. 46) The narrative of this accident is told by Gervas, the monk of Canterbury, so often quoted before, who was an eye witness of this calamity, as follows:

 

Three small houses in the city near the old gate of the monastery took fire by accident, a strong south wind carried the flakes of fire to the top of the church, and lodged them between the joints of the lead, driving them to the timbers under it; this kindled a fire there, which was not discerned till the melted lead gave a free passage for the flames to appear above the church, and the wind gaining by this means a further power of increasing them, drove them inwardly, insomuch that the danger became immediately past all possibility of relief. The timber of the roof being all of it on fire, fell down into the choir, where the stalls of the manks, made of large pieces of carved wood, afforded plenty of fuel to the flames, and great part of the stone work, through the vehement heat of the fire, was so weakened, as to be brought to irreparable ruin, and besides the fabric itself, the many rich ornaments in the church were devoured by the flames.

 

The choir being thus laid in ashes, the monks removed from amidst the ruins, the bodies of the two saints, whom they called patrons of the church, the archbishops Dunstan and Alphage, and deposited them by the altar of the great cross, in the nave of the church; (fn. 47) and from this time they celebrated the daily religious offices in the oratory of the blessed Virgin Mary in the nave, and continued to do so for more than five years, when the choir being re edified, they returned to it again. (fn. 48)

 

Upon this destruction of the church, the prior and convent, without any delay, consulted on the most speedy and effectual method of rebuilding it, resolving to finish it in such a manner, as should surpass all the former choirs of it, as well in beauty as size and magnificence. To effect this, they sent for the most skilful architects that could be found either in France or England. These surveyed the walls and pillars, which remained standing, but they found great part of them so weakened by the fire, that they could no ways be built upon with any safety; and it was accordingly resolved, that such of them should be taken down; a whole year was spent in doing this, and in providing materials for the new building, for which they sent abroad for the best stone that could be procured; Gervas has given a large account, (fn. 49) how far this work advanced year by year; what methods and rules of architecture were observed, and other particulars relating to the rebuilding of this church; all which the curious reader may consult at his leisure; it will be sufficient to observe here, that the new building was larger in height and length, and more beautiful in every respect, than the choir of Conrad; for the roof was considerably advanced above what it was before, and was arched over with stone; whereas before it was composed of timber and boards. The capitals of the pillars were now beautified with different sculptures of carvework; whereas, they were before plain, and six pillars more were added than there were before. The former choir had but one triforium, or inner gallery, but now there were two made round it, and one in each side isle and three in the cross isles; before, there were no marble pillars, but such were now added to it in abundance. In forwarding this great work, the monks had spent eight years, when they could proceed no further for want of money; but a fresh supply coming in from the offerings at St. Thomas's tomb, so much more than was necessary for perfecting the repair they were engaged in, as encouraged them to set about a more grand design, which was to pull down the eastern extremity of the church, with the small chapel of the Holy Trinity adjoining to it, and to erect upon a stately undercroft, a most magnificent one instead of it, equally lofty with the roof of the church, and making a part of it, which the former one did not, except by a door into it; but this new chapel, which was dedicated likewise to the Holy Trinity, was not finished till some time after the rest of the church; at the east end of this chapel another handsome one, though small, was afterwards erected at the extremity of the whole building, since called Becket's crown, on purpose for an altar and the reception of some part of his relics; (fn. 50) further mention of which will be made hereafter.

 

The eastern parts of this church, as Mr. Gostling observes, have the appearance of much greater antiquity than what is generally allowed to them; and indeed if we examine the outside walls and the cross wings on each side of the choir, it will appear, that the whole of them was not rebuilt at the time the choir was, and that great part of them was suffered to remain, though altered, added to, and adapted as far as could be, to the new building erected at that time; the traces of several circular windows and other openings, which were then stopped up, removed, or altered, still appearing on the walls both of the isles and the cross wings, through the white-wash with which they are covered; and on the south side of the south isle, the vaulting of the roof as well as the triforium, which could not be contrived so as to be adjusted to the places of the upper windows, plainly shew it. To which may be added, that the base or foot of one of the westernmost large pillars of the choir on the north side, is strengthened with a strong iron band round it, by which it should seem to have been one of those pillars which had been weakened by the fire, but was judged of sufficient firmness, with this precaution, to remain for the use of the new fabric.

 

The outside of this part of the church is a corroborating proof of what has been mentioned above, as well in the method, as in the ornaments of the building.— The outside of it towards the south, from St. Michael's chapel eastward, is adorned with a range of small pillars, about six inches diameter, and about three feet high, some with santastic shasts and capitals, others with plain ones; these support little arches, which intersect each other; and this chain or girdle of pillars is continued round the small tower, the eastern cross isle and the chapel of St. Anselm, to the buildings added in honour of the Holy Trinity, and St. Thomas Becket, where they leave off. The casing of St. Michael's chapel has none of them, but the chapel of the Virgin Mary, answering to it on the north side of the church, not being fitted to the wall, shews some of them behind it; which seems as if they had been continued before, quite round the eastern parts of the church.

 

These pillars, which rise from about the level of the pavement, within the walls above them, are remarkably plain and bare of ornaments; but the tower above mentioned and its opposite, as soon as they rise clear of the building, are enriched with stories of this colonade, one above another, up to the platform from whence their spires rise; and the remains of the two larger towers eastward, called St. Anselm's, and that answering to it on the north side of the church, called St. Andrew's are decorated much after the same manner, as high as they remain at present.

 

At the time of the before-mentioned fire, which so fatally destroyed the upper part of this church, the undercrost, with the vaulting over it, seems to have remained entire, and unhurt by it.

 

The vaulting of the undercrost, on which the floor of the choir and eastern parts of the church is raised, is supported by pillars, whose capitals are as various and fantastical as those of the smaller ones described before, and so are their shafts, some being round, others canted, twisted, or carved, so that hardly any two of them are alike, except such as are quite plain.

 

These, I suppose, may be concluded to be of the same age, and if buildings in the same stile may be conjectured to be so from thence, the antiquity of this part of the church may be judged, though historians have left us in the dark in relation to it.

 

In Leland's Collectanea, there is an account and description of a vault under the chancel of the antient church of St. Peter, in Oxford, called Grymbald's crypt, being allowed by all, to have been built by him; (fn. 51) Grymbald was one of those great and accomplished men, whom king Alfred invited into England about the year 885, to assist him in restoring Christianity, learning and the liberal arts. (fn. 52) Those who compare the vaults or undercrost of the church of Canterbury, with the description and prints given of Grymbald's crypt, (fn. 53) will easily perceive, that two buildings could hardly have been erected more strongly resembling each other, except that this at Canterbury is larger, and more pro fusely decorated with variety of fancied ornaments, the shafts of several of the pillars here being twisted, or otherwise varied, and many of the captials exactly in the same grotesque taste as those in Grymbald's crypt. (fn. 54) Hence it may be supposed, that those whom archbishop Lanfranc employed as architects and designers of his building at Canterbury, took their model of it, at least of this part of it, from that crypt, and this undercrost now remaining is the same, as was originally built by him, as far eastward, as to that part which begins under the chapel of the Holy Trinity, where it appears to be of a later date, erected at the same time as the chapel. The part built by Lanfranc continues at this time as firm and entire, as it was at the very building of it, though upwards of seven hundred years old. (fn. 55)

 

But to return to the new building; though the church was not compleatly finished till the end of the year 1184, yet it was so far advanced towards it, that, in 1180, on April 19, being Easter eve, (fn. 56) the archbishop, prior and monks entered the new choir, with a solemn procession, singing Te Deum, for their happy return to it. Three days before which they had privately, by night, carried the bodies of St. Dunstan and St. Alphage to the places prepared for them near the high altar. The body likewise of queen Edive (which after the fire had been removed from the north cross isle, where it lay before, under a stately gilded shrine) to the altar of the great cross, was taken up, carried into the vestry, and thence to the altar of St. Martin, where it was placed under the coffin of archbishop Livinge. In the month of July following the altar of the Holy Trinity was demolished, and the bodies of those archbishops, which had been laid in that part of the church, were removed to other places. Odo's body was laid under St. Dunstan's and Wilfrid's under St. Alphage's; Lanfranc's was deposited nigh the altar of St. Martin, and Theobald's at that of the blessed Virgin, in the nave of the church, (fn. 57) under a marble tomb; and soon afterwards the two archbishops, on the right and left hand of archbishop Becket in the undercrost, were taken up and placed under the altar of St. Mary there. (fn. 58)

 

After a warning so terrible, as had lately been given, it seemed most necessary to provide against the danger of fire for the time to come; the flames, which had so lately destroyed a considerable part of the church and monastery, were caused by some small houses, which had taken fire at a small distance from the church.— There still remained some other houses near it, which belonged to the abbot and convent of St. Augustine; for these the monks of Christ-church created, by an exchange, which could not be effected till the king interposed, and by his royal authority, in a manner, compelled the abbot and convent to a composition for this purpose, which was dated in the year 1177, that was three years after the late fire of this church. (fn. 59)

 

These houses were immediately pulled down, and it proved a providential and an effectual means of preserving the church from the like calamity; for in the year 1180, on May 22, this new choir, being not then compleated, though it had been used the month be fore, as has been already mentioned, there happened a fire in the city, which burnt down many houses, and the flames bent their course towards the church, which was again in great danger; but the houses near it being taken away, the fire was stopped, and the church escaped being burnt again. (fn. 60)

 

Although there is no mention of a new dedication of the church at this time, yet the change made in the name of it has been thought by some to imply a formal solemnity of this kind, as it appears to have been from henceforth usually called the church of St. Thomas the Martyr, and to have continued so for above 350 years afterwards.

 

New names to churches, it is true. have been usually attended by formal consecrations of them; and had there been any such solemnity here, undoubtedly the same would not have passed by unnoticed by every historian, the circumstance of it must have been notorious, and the magnificence equal at least to the other dedications of this church, which have been constantly mentioned by them; but here was no need of any such ceremony, for although the general voice then burst forth to honour this church with the name of St. Thomas, the universal object of praise and adoration, then stiled the glorious martyr, yet it reached no further, for the name it had received at the former dedication, notwithstanding this common appellation of it, still remained in reality, and it still retained invariably in all records and writings, the name of Christ church only, as appears by many such remaining among the archives of the dean and chapter; and though on the seal of this church, which was changed about this time; the counter side of it had a representation of Becket's martyrdom, yet on the front of it was continued that of the church, and round it an inscription with the former name of Christ church; which seal remained in force till the dissolution of the priory.

 

It may not be improper to mention here some transactions, worthy of observation, relating to this favorite saint, which passed from the time of his being murdered, to that of his translation to the splendid shrine prepared for his relics.

 

Archbishop Thomas Becket was barbarously murdered in this church on Dec. 29, 1170, being the 16th year of king Henry II. and his body was privately buried towards the east end of the undercrost. The monks tell us, that about the Easter following, miracles began to be wrought by him, first at his tomb, then in the undercrost, and in every part of the whole fabric of the church; afterwards throughout England, and lastly, throughout the rest of the world. (fn. 61) The same of these miracles procured him the honour of a formal canonization from pope Alexander III. whose bull for that purpose is dated March 13, in the year 1172. (fn. 62) This declaration of the pope was soon known in all places, and the reports of his miracles were every where sounded abroad. (fn. 63)

 

Hereupon crowds of zealots, led on by a phrenzy of devotion, hastened to kneel at his tomb. In 1177, Philip, earl of Flanders, came hither for that purpose, when king Henry met and had a conference with him at Canterbury. (fn. 64) In June 1178, king Henry returning from Normandy, visited the sepulchre of this new saint; and in July following, William, archbishop of Rhemes, came from France, with a large retinue, to perform his vows to St. Thomas of Canterbury, where the king met him and received him honourably. In the year 1179, Lewis, king of France, came into England; before which neither he nor any of his predecessors had ever set foot in this kingdom. (fn. 65) He landed at Dover, where king Henry waited his arrival, and on August 23, the two kings came to Canterbury, with a great train of nobility of both nations, and were received with due honour and great joy, by the archbishop, with his com-provincial bishops, and the prior and the whole convent. (fn. 66)

 

King Lewis came in the manner and habit of a pilgrim, and was conducted to the tomb of St. Thomas by a solemn procession; he there offered his cup of gold and a royal precious stone, (fn. 67) and gave the convent a yearly rent for ever, of a hundred muids of wine, to be paid by himself and his successors; which grant was confirmed by his royal charter, under his seal, and delivered next day to the convent; (fn. 68) after he had staid here two, (fn. 69) or as others say, three days, (fn. 70) during which the oblations of gold and silver made were so great, that the relation of them almost exceeded credibility. (fn. 71) In 1181, king Henry, in his return from Normandy, again paid his devotions at this tomb. These visits were the early fruits of the adoration of the new sainted martyr, and these royal examples of kings and great persons were followed by multitudes, who crowded to present with full hands their oblations at his tomb.— Hence the convent was enabled to carry forward the building of the new choir, and they applied all this vast income to the fabric of the church, as the present case instantly required, for which they had the leave and consent of the archbishop, confirmed by the bulls of several succeeding popes. (fn. 72)

 

¶From the liberal oblations of these royal and noble personages at the tomb of St. Thomas, the expences of rebuilding the choir appear to have been in a great measure supplied, nor did their devotion and offerings to the new saint, after it was compleated, any ways abate, but, on the contrary, they daily increased; for in the year 1184, Philip, archbishop of Cologne, and Philip, earl of Flanders, came together to pay their vows at this tomb, and were met here by king Henry, who gave them an invitation to London. (fn. 73) In 1194, John, archbishop of Lions; in the year afterwards, John, archbishop of York; and in the year 1199, king John, performed their devotions at the foot of this tomb. (fn. 74) King Richard I. likewise, on his release from captivity in Germany, landing on the 30th of March at Sandwich, proceeded from thence, as an humble stranger on foot, towards Canterbury, to return his grateful thanks to God and St. Thomas for his release. (fn. 75) All these by name, with many nobles and multitudes of others, of all sorts and descriptions, visited the saint with humble adoration and rich oblations, whilst his body lay in the undercrost. In the mean time the chapel and altar at the upper part of the east end of the church, which had been formerly consecrated to the Holy Trinity, were demolished, and again prepared with great splendor, for the reception of this saint, who being now placed there, implanted his name not only on the chapel and altar, but on the whole church, which was from thenceforth known only by that of the church of St. Thomas the martyr.

  

On July 7, anno 1220, the remains of St. Thomas were translated from his tomb to his new shrine, with the greatest solemnity and rejoicings. Pandulph, the pope's legate, the archbishops of Canterbury and Rheims, and many bishops and abbots, carried the coffin on their shoulders, and placed it on the new shrine, and the king graced these solemnities with his royal presence. (fn. 76) The archbishop of Canterbury provided forage along all the road, between London and Canterbury, for the horses of all such as should come to them, and he caused several pipes and conduits to run with wine in different parts of the city. This, with the other expences arising during the time, was so great, that he left a debt on the see, which archbishop Boniface, his fourth successor in it, was hardly enabled to discharge.

 

¶The saint being now placed in his new repository, became the vain object of adoration to the deluded people, and afterwards numbers of licences were granted to strangers by the king, to visit this shrine. (fn. 77) The titles of glorious, of saint and martyr, were among those given to him; (fn. 78) such veneration had all people for his relics, that the religious of several cathedral churches and monasteries, used all their endeavours to obtain some of them, and thought themselves happy and rich in the possession of the smallest portion of them. (fn. 79) Besides this, there were erected and dedicated to his honour, many churches, chapels, altars and hospitals in different places, both in this kingdom and abroad. (fn. 80) Thus this saint, even whilst he lay in his obscure tomb in the undercroft, brought such large and constant supplies of money, as enabled the monks to finish this beautiful choir, and the eastern parts of the church; and when he was translated to the most exalted and honourable place in it, a still larger abundance of gain filled their coffers, which continued as a plentiful supply to them, from year to year, to the time of the reformation, and the final abolition of the priory itself.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol11/pp306-383

A couple of weeks back, we met a couple in a pub in Canterbury, and they had been out exploring the city and said they were disappointed by the cathedral.

 

Not enough labels they said.

 

That not withstanding, I thought it had been some time since I last had been, so decided to revisit, see the pillars of Reculver church in the crypt and take the big lens for some detail shots.

 

We arrived just after ten, so the cathedral was pretty free of other guests, just a few guides waiting for groups and couples to guide.

 

I went round with the 50mm first, before concentrating on the medieval glass which is mostly on the south side.

 

But as you will see, the lens picked up so much more.

 

Thing is, there is always someone interesting to talk to, or wants to talk to you. As I went around, I spoke with about three guides about the project and things I have seen in the churches of the county, and the wonderful people I have met. And that continued in the cathedral.

 

I have time to look at the tombs in the Trinity Chapel, and see that Henry IV and his wife are in a tomb there, rather than ay Westminster Abbey. So I photograph them, and the Black Prince on the southern side of the chapel, along with the Bishops and Archbishops between.

 

Round to the transept and a chance to change lenses, and put on the 140-400mm for some detailed shots.

 

I go round the cathedral again.

 

Initially at some of the memorials on the walls and the canopy of the pulpit, but it is the windows that are calling.

 

At least it was a bright, sunny day outside, which meant light was good in the cathedral with most shots coming out fine with no camera shake.

 

As I edit the shots I am stunned at the details of windows so high up they mostly seem like blocks of colour.

 

And so far, I have only just started to edit these shots.

 

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St Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, arrived on the coast of Kent as a missionary to England in 597AD. He came from Rome, sent by Pope Gregory the Great. It is said that Gregory had been struck by the beauty of Angle slaves he saw for sale in the city market and despatched Augustine and some monks to convert them to Christianity. Augustine was given a church at Canterbury (St Martin’s, after St Martin of Tours, still standing today) by the local King, Ethelbert whose Queen, Bertha, a French Princess, was already a Christian.This building had been a place of worship during the Roman occupation of Britain and is the oldest church in England still in use. Augustine had been consecrated a bishop in France and was later made an archbishop by the Pope. He established his seat within the Roman city walls (the word cathedral is derived from the the Latin word for a chair ‘cathedra’, which is itself taken from the Greek ‘kathedra’ meaning seat.) and built the first cathedral there, becoming the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Since that time, there has been a community around the Cathedral offering daily prayer to God; this community is arguably the oldest organisation in the English speaking world. The present Archbishop, The Most Revd Justin Welby, is 105th in the line of succession from Augustine. Until the 10th century, the Cathedral community lived as the household of the Archbishop. During the 10th century, it became a formal community of Benedictine monks, which continued until the monastery was dissolved by King Henry VIII in 1540. Augustine’s original building lies beneath the floor of the Nave – it was extensively rebuilt and enlarged by the Saxons, and the Cathedral was rebuilt completely by the Normans in 1070 following a major fire. There have been many additions to the building over the last nine hundred years, but parts of the Quire and some of the windows and their stained glass date from the 12th century. By 1077, Archbishop Lanfranc had rebuilt it as a Norman church, described as “nearly perfect”. A staircase and parts of the North Wall – in the area of the North West transept also called the Martyrdom – remain from that building.

 

Canterbury’s role as one of the world’s most important pilgrimage centres in Europe is inextricably linked to the murder of its most famous Archbishop, Thomas Becket, in 1170. When, after a long lasting dispute, King Henry II is said to have exclaimed “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”, four knights set off for Canterbury and murdered Thomas in his own cathedral. A sword stroke was so violent that it sliced the crown off his skull and shattered the blade’s tip on the pavement. The murder took place in what is now known as The Martyrdom. When shortly afterwards, miracles were said to take place, Canterbury became one of Europe’s most important pilgrimage centres.

 

The work of the Cathedral as a monastery came to an end in 1540, when the monastery was closed on the orders of King Henry VIII. Its role as a place of prayer continued – as it does to this day. Once the monastery had been suppressed, responsibility for the services and upkeep was given to a group of clergy known as the Chapter of Canterbury. Today, the Cathedral is still governed by the Dean and four Canons, together (in recent years) with four lay people and the Archdeacon of Ashford. During the Civil War of the 1640s, the Cathedral suffered damage at the hands of the Puritans; much of the medieval stained glass was smashed and horses were stabled in the Nave. After the Restoration in 1660, several years were spent in repairing the building. In the early 19th Century, the North West tower was found to be dangerous, and, although it dated from Lanfranc’s time, it was demolished in the early 1830s and replaced by a copy of the South West tower, thus giving a symmetrical appearance to the west end of the Cathedral. During the Second World War, the Precincts were heavily damaged by enemy action and the Cathedral’s Library was destroyed. Thankfully, the Cathedral itself was not seriously harmed, due to the bravery of the team of fire watchers, who patrolled the roofs and dealt with the incendiary bombs dropped by enemy bombers. Today, the Cathedral stands as a place where prayer to God has been offered daily for over 1,400 years; nearly 2,000 Services are held each year, as well as countless private prayers from individuals. The Cathedral offers a warm welcome to all visitors – its aim is to show people Jesus, which we do through the splendour of the building as well as the beauty of the worship.

 

www.canterbury-cathedral.org/heritage/history/cathedral-h...

 

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History of the cathedral

THE ORIGIN of a Christian church on the scite of the present cathedral, is supposed to have taken place as early as the Roman empire in Britain, for the use of the antient faithful and believing soldiers of their garrison here; and that Augustine found such a one standing here, adjoining to king Ethelbert's palace, which was included in the king's gift to him.

 

This supposition is founded on the records of the priory of Christ-church, (fn. 1) concurring with the common opinion of almost all our historians, who tell us of a church in Canterbury, which Augustine found standing in the east part of the city, which he had of king Ethelbert's gift, which after his consecration at Arles, in France, he commended by special dedication to the patronage of our blessed Saviour. (fn. 2)

 

According to others, the foundations only of an old church formerly built by the believing Romans, were left here, on which Augustine erected that, which he afterwards dedicated to out Saviour; (fn. 3) and indeed it is not probable that king Ethelbert should have suffered the unsightly ruins of a Christian church, which, being a Pagan, must have been very obnoxious to him, so close to his palace, and supposing these ruins had been here, would he not have suffered them to be repaired, rather than have obliged his Christian queen to travel daily to such a distance as St. Martin's church, or St. Pancrace's chapel, for the performance of her devotions.

 

Some indeed have conjectured that the church found by St. Augustine, in the east part of the city, was that of St.Martin, truly so situated; and urge in favor of it, that there have not been at any time any remains of British or Roman bricks discovered scattered in or about this church of our Saviour, those infallible, as Mr. Somner stiles them, signs of antiquity, and so generally found in buildings, which have been erected on, or close to the spot where more antient ones have stood. But to proceed, king Ethelbert's donation to Augustine was made in the year 596, who immediately afterwards went over to France, and was consecrated a bishop at Arles, and after his return, as soon as he had sufficiently finished a church here, whether built out of ruins or anew, it matters not, he exercised his episcopal function in the dedication of it, says the register of Christ-church, to the honor of Christ our Saviour; whence it afterwards obtained the name of Christ-church. (fn. 4)

 

From the time of Augustine for the space of upwards of three hundred years, there is not found in any printed or manuscript chronicle, the least mention of the fabric of this church, so that it is probable nothing befell it worthy of being recorded; however it should be mentioned, that during that period the revenues of it were much increased, for in the leiger books of it there are registered more than fifty donations of manors, lands, &c. so large and bountiful, as became the munificence of kings and nobles to confer. (fn. 5)

 

It is supposed, especially as we find no mention made of any thing to the contrary, that the fabric of this church for two hundred years after Augustine's time, met with no considerable molestations; but afterwards, the frequent invasions of the Danes involved both the civil and ecclesiastical state of this country in continual troubles and dangers; in the confusion of which, this church appears to have run into a state of decay; for when Odo was promoted to the archbishopric, in the year 938, the roof of it was in a ruinous condition; age had impaired it, and neglect had made it extremely dangerous; the walls of it were of an uneven height, according as it had been more or less decayed, and the roof of the church seemed ready to fall down on the heads of those underneath. All this the archbishop undertook to repair, and then covered the whole church with lead; to finish which, it took three years, as Osbern tells us, in the life of Odo; (fn. 6) and further, that there was not to be found a church of so large a size, capable of containing so great a multitude of people, and thus, perhaps, it continued without any material change happening to it, till the year 1011; a dismal and fatal year to this church and city; a time of unspeakable confusion and calamities; for in the month of September that year, the Danes, after a siege of twenty days, entered this city by force, burnt the houses, made a lamentable slaughter of the inhabitants, rifled this church, and then set it on fire, insomuch, that the lead with which archbishop Odo had covered it, being melted, ran down on those who were underneath. The sull story of this calamity is given by Osbern, in the life of archbishop Odo, an abridgement of which the reader will find below. (fn. 7)

 

The church now lay in ruins, without a roof, the bare walls only standing, and in this desolate condition it remained as long as the fury of the Danes prevailed, who after they had burnt the church, carried away archbishop Alphage with them, kept him in prison seven months, and then put him to death, in the year 1012, the year after which Living, or Livingus, succeeded him as archbishop, though it was rather in his calamities than in his seat of dignity, for he too was chained up by the Danes in a loathsome dungeon for seven months, before he was set free, but he so sensibly felt the deplorable state of this country, which he foresaw was every day growing worse and worse, that by a voluntary exile, he withdrew himself out of the nation, to find some solitary retirement, where he might bewail those desolations of his country, to which he was not able to bring any relief, but by his continual prayers. (fn. 8) He just outlived this storm, returned into England, and before he died saw peace and quientness restored to this land by king Canute, who gaining to himself the sole sovereignty over the nation, made it his first business to repair the injuries which had been done to the churches and monasteries in this kingdom, by his father's and his own wars. (fn. 9)

 

As for this church, archbishop Ægelnoth, who presided over it from the year 1020 to the year 1038, began and finished the repair, or rather the rebuilding of it, assisted in it by the royal munificence of the king, (fn. 10) who in 1023 presented his crown of gold to this church, and restored to it the port of Sandwich, with its liberties. (fn. 11) Notwithstanding this, in less than forty years afterwards, when Lanfranc soon after the Norman conquest came to the see, he found this church reduced almost to nothing by fire, and dilapidations; for Eadmer says, it had been consumed by a third conflagration, prior to the year of his advancement to it, in which fire almost all the antient records of the privileges of it had perished. (fn. 12)

 

The same writer has given us a description of this old church, as it was before Lanfranc came to the see; by which we learn, that at the east end there was an altar adjoining to the wall of the church, of rough unhewn stone, cemented with mortar, erected by archbishop Odo, for a repository of the body of Wilfrid, archbishop of York, which Odo had translated from Rippon hither, giving it here the highest place; at a convenient distance from this, westward, there was another altar, dedicated to Christ our Saviour, at which divine service was daily celebrated. In this altar was inclosed the head of St. Swithin, with many other relics, which archbishop Alphage brought with him from Winchester. Passing from this altar westward, many steps led down to the choir and nave, which were both even, or upon the same level. At the bottom of the steps, there was a passage into the undercroft, under all the east part of the church. (fn. 13) At the east end of which, was an altar, in which was inclosed, according to old tradition, the head of St. Furseus. From hence by a winding passage, at the west end of it, was the tomb of St. Dunstan, (fn. 14) but separated from the undercroft by a strong stone wall; over the tomb was erected a monument, pyramid wife, and at the head of it an altar, (fn. 15) for the mattin service. Between these steps, or passage into the undercroft and the nave, was the choir, (fn. 16) which was separated from the nave by a fair and decent partition, to keep off the crowds of people that usually were in the body of the church, so that the singing of the chanters in the choir might not be disturbed. About the middle of the length of the nave, were two towers or steeples, built without the walls; one on the south, and the other on the north side. In the former was the altar of St. Gregory, where was an entrance into the church by the south door, and where law controversies and pleas concerning secular matters were exercised. (fn. 17) In the latter, or north tower, was a passage for the monks into the church, from the monastery; here were the cloysters, where the novices were instructed in their religious rules and offices, and where the monks conversed together. In this tower was the altar of St. Martin. At the west end of the church was a chapel, dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary, to which there was an ascent by steps, and at the east end of it an altar, dedicated to her, in which was inclosed the head of St. Astroburta the Virgin; and at the western part of it was the archbishop's pontifical chair, made of large stones, compacted together with mortar; a fair piece of work, and placed at a convenient distance from the altar, close to the wall of the church. (fn. 18)

 

To return now to archbishop Lanfranc, who was sent for from Normandy in 1073, being the fourth year of the Conqueror's reign, to fill this see, a time, when a man of a noble spirit, equal to the laborious task he was to undertake, was wanting especially for this church; and that he was such, the several great works which were performed by him, were incontestable proofs, as well as of his great and generous mind. At the first sight of the ruinous condition of this church, says the historian, the archbishop was struck with astonishment, and almost despaired of seeing that and the monastery re edified; but his care and perseverance raised both in all its parts anew, and that in a novel and more magnificent kind and form of structure, than had been hardly in any place before made use of in this kingdom, which made it a precedent and pattern to succeeding structures of this kind; (fn. 19) and new monasteries and churches were built after the example of it; for it should be observed, that before the coming of the Normans most of the churches and monasteries in this kingdom were of wood; (all the monasteries in my realm, says king Edgar, in his charter to the abbey of Malmesbury, dated anno 974, to the outward sight are nothing but worm-eaten and rotten timber and boards) but after the Norman conquest, such timber fabrics grew out of use, and gave place to stone buildings raised upon arches; a form of structure introduced into general use by that nation, and in these parts surnished with stone from Caen, in Normandy. (fn. 20) After this fashion archbishop Lanfranc rebuilt the whole church from the foundation, with the palace and monastery, the wall which encompassed the court, and all the offices belonging to the monastery within the wall, finishing the whole nearly within the compass of seven years; (fn. 21) besides which, he furnished the church with ornaments and rich vestments; after which, the whole being perfected, he altered the name of it, by a dedication of it to the Holy Trinity; whereas, before it was called the church of our Saviour, or Christ-church, and from the above time it bore (as by Domesday book appears) the name of the church of the Holy Trinity; this new church being built on the same spot on which the antient one stood, though on a far different model.

 

After Lanfranc's death, archbishop Anselm succeeded in the year 1093, to the see of Canterbury, and must be esteemed a principal benefactor to this church; for though his time was perplexed with a continued series of troubles, of which both banishment and poverty made no small part, which in a great measure prevented him from bestowing that cost on his church, which he would otherwise have done, yet it was through his patronage and protection, and through his care and persuasions, that the fabric of it, begun and perfected by his predecessor, became enlarged and rose to still greater splendor. (fn. 22)

 

In order to carry this forward, upon the vacancy of the priory, he constituted Ernulph and Conrad, the first in 1104, the latter in 1108, priors of this church; to whose care, being men of generous and noble minds, and of singular skill in these matters, he, during his troubles, not only committed the management of this work, but of all his other concerns during his absence.

 

Probably archbishop Anselm, on being recalled from banishment on king Henry's accession to the throne, had pulled down that part of the church built by Lanfranc, from the great tower in the middle of it to the east end, intending to rebuild it upon a still larger and more magnificent plan; when being borne down by the king's displeasure, he intrusted prior Ernulph with the work, who raised up the building with such splendor, says Malmesbury, that the like was not to be seen in all England; (fn. 23) but the short time Ernulph continued in this office did not permit him to see his undertaking finished. (fn. 24) This was left to his successor Conrad, who, as the obituary of Christ church informs us, by his great industry, magnificently perfected the choir, which his predecessor had left unfinished, (fn. 25) adorning it with curious pictures, and enriching it with many precious ornaments. (fn. 26)

 

This great undertaking was not entirely compleated at the death of archbishop Anselm, which happened in 1109, anno 9 Henry I. nor indeed for the space of five years afterwards, during which the see of Canterbury continued vacant; when being finished, in honour of its builder, and on account of its more than ordinary beauty, it gained the name of the glorious choir of Conrad. (fn. 27)

 

After the see of Canterbury had continued thus vacant for five years, Ralph, or as some call him, Rodulph, bishop of Rochester, was translated to it in the year 1114, at whose coming to it, the church was dedicated anew to the Holy Trinity, the name which had been before given to it by Lanfranc. (fn. 28) The only particular description we have of this church when thus finished, is from Gervas, the monk of this monastery, and that proves imperfect, as to the choir of Lanfranc, which had been taken down soon after his death; (fn. 29) the following is his account of the nave, or western part of it below the choir, being that which had been erected by archbishop Lanfranc, as has been before mentioned. From him we learn, that the west end, where the chapel of the Virgin Mary stood before, was now adorned with two stately towers, on the top of which were gilded pinnacles. The nave or body was supported by eight pair of pillars. At the east end of the nave, on the north side, was an oratory, dedicated in honor to the blessed Virgin, in lieu, I suppose, of the chapel, that had in the former church been dedicated to her at the west end. Between the nave and the choir there was built a great tower or steeple, as it were in the centre of the whole fabric; (fn. 30) under this tower was erected the altar of the Holy Cross; over a partition, which separated this tower from the nave, a beam was laid across from one side to the other of the church; upon the middle of this beam was fixed a great cross, between the images of the Virgin Mary and St. John, and between two cherubims. The pinnacle on the top of this tower, was a gilded cherub, and hence it was called the angel steeple; a name it is frequently called by at this day. (fn. 31)

 

This great tower had on each side a cross isle, called the north and south wings, which were uniform, of the same model and dimensions; each of them had a strong pillar in the middle for a support to the roof, and each of them had two doors or passages, by which an entrance was open to the east parts of the church. At one of these doors there was a descent by a few steps into the undercroft; at the other, there was an ascent by many steps into the upper parts of the church, that is, the choir, and the isles on each side of it. Near every one of these doors or passages, an altar was erected; at the upper door in the south wing, there was an altar in honour of All Saints; and at the lower door there was one of St. Michael; and before this altar on the south side was buried archbishop Fleologild; and on the north side, the holy Virgin Siburgis, whom St. Dunstan highly admired for her sanctity. In the north isle, by the upper door, was the altar of St. Blaze; and by the lower door, that of St. Benedict. In this wing had been interred four archbishops, Adelm and Ceolnoth, behind the altar, and Egelnoth and Wlfelm before it. At the entrance into this wing, Rodulph and his successor William Corboil, both archbishops, were buried. (fn. 32)

 

Hence, he continues, we go up by some steps into the great tower, and before us there is a door and steps leading down into the south wing, and on the right hand a pair of folding doors, with stairs going down into the nave of the church; but without turning to any of these, let us ascend eastward, till by several more steps we come to the west end of Conrad's choir; being now at the entrance of the choir, Gervas tells us, that he neither saw the choir built by Lanfranc, nor found it described by any one; that Eadmer had made mention of it, without giving any account of it, as he had done of the old church, the reason of which appears to be, that Lanfranc's choir did not long survive its founder, being pulled down as before-mentioned, by archbishop Anselm; so that it could not stand more than twenty years; therefore the want of a particular description of it will appear no great defect in the history of this church, especially as the deficiency is here supplied by Gervas's full relation of the new choir of Conrad, built instead of it; of which, whoever desires to know the whole architecture and model observed in the fabric, the order, number, height and form of the pillars and windows, may know the whole of it from him. The roof of it, he tells us, (fn. 33) was beautified with curious paintings representing heaven; (fn. 34) in several respects it was agreeable to the present choir, the stalls were large and framed of carved wood. In the middle of it, there hung a gilded crown, on which were placed four and twenty tapers of wax. From the choir an ascent of three steps led to the presbiterium, or place for the presbiters; here, he says, it would be proper to stop a little and take notice of the high altar, which was dedicated to the name of CHRIST. It was placed between two other altars, the one of St. Dunstan, the other of St. Alphage; at the east corners of the high altar were fixed two pillars of wood, beautified with silver and gold; upon these pillars was placed a beam, adorned with gold, which reached across the church, upon it there were placed the glory, (fn. 35) the images of St. Dunstan and St. Alphage, and seven chests or coffers overlaid with gold, full of the relics of many saints. Between those pillars was a cross gilded all over, and upon the upper beam of the cross were set sixty bright crystals.

 

Beyond this, by an ascent of eight steps towards the east, behind the altar, was the archiepiscopal throne, which Gervas calls the patriarchal chair, made of one stone; in this chair, according to the custom of the church, the archbishop used to sit, upon principal festivals, in his pontifical ornaments, whilst the solemn offices of religion were celebrated, until the consecration of the host, when he came down to the high altar, and there performed the solemnity of consecration. Still further, eastward, behind the patriarchal chair, (fn. 36) was a chapel in the front of the whole church, in which was an altar, dedicated to the Holy Trinity; behind which were laid the bones of two archbishops, Odo of Canterbury, and Wilfrid of York; by this chapel on the south side near the wall of the church, was laid the body of archbishop Lanfranc, and on the north side, the body of archbishop Theobald. Here it is to be observed, that under the whole east part of the church, from the angel steeple, there was an undercrost or crypt, (fn. 37) in which were several altars, chapels and sepulchres; under the chapel of the Trinity before-mentioned, were two altars, on the south side, the altar of St. Augustine, the apostle of the English nation, by which archbishop Athelred was interred. On the north side was the altar of St. John Baptist, by which was laid the body of archbishop Eadsin; under the high altar was the chapel and altar of the blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the whole undercroft was dedicated.

 

To return now, he continues, to the place where the bresbyterium and choir meet, where on each side there was a cross isle (as was to be seen in his time) which might be called the upper south and north wings; on the east side of each of these wings were two half circular recesses or nooks in the wall, arched over after the form of porticoes. Each of them had an altar, and there was the like number of altars under them in the crost. In the north wing, the north portico had the altar of St. Martin, by which were interred the bodies of two archbishops, Wlfred on the right, and Living on the left hand; under it in the croft, was the altar of St. Mary Magdalen. The other portico in this wing, had the altar of St. Stephen, and by it were buried two archbishops, Athelard on the left hand, and Cuthbert on the right; in the croft under it, was the altar of St. Nicholas. In the south wing, the north portico had the altar of St. John the Evangelist, and by it the bodies of Æthelgar and Aluric, archbishops, were laid. In the croft under it was the altar of St. Paulinus, by which the body of archbishop Siricius was interred. In the south portico was the altar of St. Gregory, by which were laid the corps of the two archbishops Bregwin and Plegmund. In the croft under it was the altar of St. Owen, archbishop of Roan, and underneath in the croft, not far from it the altar of St. Catherine.

 

Passing from these cross isles eastward there were two towers, one on the north, the other on the south side of the church. In the tower on the north side was the altar of St. Andrew, which gave name to the tower; under it, in the croft, was the altar of the Holy Innocents; the tower on the south side had the altar of St. Peter and St. Paul, behind which the body of St. Anselm was interred, which afterwards gave name both to the altar and tower (fn. 38) (now called St. Anselm's). The wings or isles on each side of the choir had nothing in particular to be taken notice of.— Thus far Gervas, from whose description we in particular learn, where several of the bodies of the old archbishops were deposited, and probably the ashes of some of them remain in the same places to this day.

 

As this building, deservedly called the glorious choir of Conrad, was a magnificent work, so the undertaking of it at that time will appear almost beyond example, especially when the several circumstances of it are considered; but that it was carried forward at the archbishop's cost, exceeds all belief. It was in the discouraging reign of king William Rufus, a prince notorious in the records of history, for all manner of sacrilegious rapine, that archbishop Anselm was promoted to this see; when he found the lands and revenues of this church so miserably wasted and spoiled, that there was hardly enough left for his bare subsistence; who, in the first years that he sat in the archiepiscopal chair, struggled with poverty, wants and continual vexations through the king's displeasure, (fn. 39) and whose three next years were spent in banishment, during all which time he borrowed money for his present maintenance; who being called home by king Henry I. at his coming to the crown, laboured to pay the debts he had contracted during the time of his banishment, and instead of enjoying that tranquility and ease he hoped for, was, within two years afterwards, again sent into banishment upon a fresh displeasure conceived against him by the king, who then seized upon all the revenues of the archbishopric, (fn. 40) which he retained in his own hands for no less than four years.

 

Under these hard circumstances, it would have been surprizing indeed, that the archbishop should have been able to carry on so great a work, and yet we are told it, as a truth, by the testimonies of history; but this must surely be understood with the interpretation of his having been the patron, protector and encourager, rather than the builder of this work, which he entrusted to the care and management of the priors Ernulph and Conrad, and sanctioned their employing, as Lanfranc had done before, the revenues and stock of the church to this use. (fn. 41)

 

In this state as above-mentioned, without any thing material happening to it, this church continued till about the year 1130, anno 30 Henry I. when it seems to have suffered some damage by a fire; (fn. 42) but how much, there is no record left to inform us; however it could not be of any great account, for it was sufficiently repaired, and that mostly at the cost of archbishop Corboil, who then sat in the chair of this see, (fn. 43) before the 4th of May that year, on which day, being Rogation Sunday, the bishops performed the dedication of it with great splendor and magnificence, such, says Gervas, col. 1664, as had not been heard of since the dedication of the temple of Solomon; the king, the queen, David, king of Scots, all the archbishops, and the nobility of both kingdoms being present at it, when this church's former name was restored again, being henceforward commonly called Christ-church. (fn. 44)

 

Among the manuscripts of Trinity college library, in Cambridge, in a very curious triple psalter of St. Jerome, in Latin, written by the monk Eadwyn, whose picture is at the beginning of it, is a plan or drawing made by him, being an attempt towards a representation of this church and monastery, as they stood between the years 1130 and 1174; which makes it probable, that he was one of the monks of it, and the more so, as the drawing has not any kind of relation to the plalter or sacred hymns contained in the manuscript.

 

His plan, if so it may be called, for it is neither such, nor an upright, nor a prospect, and yet something of all together; but notwithstanding this rudeness of the draftsman, it shews very plain that it was intended for this church and priory, and gives us a very clear knowledge, more than we have been able to learn from any description we have besides, of what both were at the above period of time. (fn. 45)

 

Forty-four years after this dedication, on the 5th of September, anno 1174, being the 20th year of king Henry II.'s reign, a fire happened, which consumed great part of this stately edifice, namely, the whole choir, from the angel steeple to the east end of the church, together with the prior's lodgings, the chapel of the Virgin Mary, the infirmary, and some other offices belonging to the monastery; but the angel steeple, the lower cross isles, and the nave appear to have received no material injury from the flames. (fn. 46) The narrative of this accident is told by Gervas, the monk of Canterbury, so often quoted before, who was an eye witness of this calamity, as follows:

 

Three small houses in the city near the old gate of the monastery took fire by accident, a strong south wind carried the flakes of fire to the top of the church, and lodged them between the joints of the lead, driving them to the timbers under it; this kindled a fire there, which was not discerned till the melted lead gave a free passage for the flames to appear above the church, and the wind gaining by this means a further power of increasing them, drove them inwardly, insomuch that the danger became immediately past all possibility of relief. The timber of the roof being all of it on fire, fell down into the choir, where the stalls of the manks, made of large pieces of carved wood, afforded plenty of fuel to the flames, and great part of the stone work, through the vehement heat of the fire, was so weakened, as to be brought to irreparable ruin, and besides the fabric itself, the many rich ornaments in the church were devoured by the flames.

 

The choir being thus laid in ashes, the monks removed from amidst the ruins, the bodies of the two saints, whom they called patrons of the church, the archbishops Dunstan and Alphage, and deposited them by the altar of the great cross, in the nave of the church; (fn. 47) and from this time they celebrated the daily religious offices in the oratory of the blessed Virgin Mary in the nave, and continued to do so for more than five years, when the choir being re edified, they returned to it again. (fn. 48)

 

Upon this destruction of the church, the prior and convent, without any delay, consulted on the most speedy and effectual method of rebuilding it, resolving to finish it in such a manner, as should surpass all the former choirs of it, as well in beauty as size and magnificence. To effect this, they sent for the most skilful architects that could be found either in France or England. These surveyed the walls and pillars, which remained standing, but they found great part of them so weakened by the fire, that they could no ways be built upon with any safety; and it was accordingly resolved, that such of them should be taken down; a whole year was spent in doing this, and in providing materials for the new building, for which they sent abroad for the best stone that could be procured; Gervas has given a large account, (fn. 49) how far this work advanced year by year; what methods and rules of architecture were observed, and other particulars relating to the rebuilding of this church; all which the curious reader may consult at his leisure; it will be sufficient to observe here, that the new building was larger in height and length, and more beautiful in every respect, than the choir of Conrad; for the roof was considerably advanced above what it was before, and was arched over with stone; whereas before it was composed of timber and boards. The capitals of the pillars were now beautified with different sculptures of carvework; whereas, they were before plain, and six pillars more were added than there were before. The former choir had but one triforium, or inner gallery, but now there were two made round it, and one in each side isle and three in the cross isles; before, there were no marble pillars, but such were now added to it in abundance. In forwarding this great work, the monks had spent eight years, when they could proceed no further for want of money; but a fresh supply coming in from the offerings at St. Thomas's tomb, so much more than was necessary for perfecting the repair they were engaged in, as encouraged them to set about a more grand design, which was to pull down the eastern extremity of the church, with the small chapel of the Holy Trinity adjoining to it, and to erect upon a stately undercroft, a most magnificent one instead of it, equally lofty with the roof of the church, and making a part of it, which the former one did not, except by a door into it; but this new chapel, which was dedicated likewise to the Holy Trinity, was not finished till some time after the rest of the church; at the east end of this chapel another handsome one, though small, was afterwards erected at the extremity of the whole building, since called Becket's crown, on purpose for an altar and the reception of some part of his relics; (fn. 50) further mention of which will be made hereafter.

 

The eastern parts of this church, as Mr. Gostling observes, have the appearance of much greater antiquity than what is generally allowed to them; and indeed if we examine the outside walls and the cross wings on each side of the choir, it will appear, that the whole of them was not rebuilt at the time the choir was, and that great part of them was suffered to remain, though altered, added to, and adapted as far as could be, to the new building erected at that time; the traces of several circular windows and other openings, which were then stopped up, removed, or altered, still appearing on the walls both of the isles and the cross wings, through the white-wash with which they are covered; and on the south side of the south isle, the vaulting of the roof as well as the triforium, which could not be contrived so as to be adjusted to the places of the upper windows, plainly shew it. To which may be added, that the base or foot of one of the westernmost large pillars of the choir on the north side, is strengthened with a strong iron band round it, by which it should seem to have been one of those pillars which had been weakened by the fire, but was judged of sufficient firmness, with this precaution, to remain for the use of the new fabric.

 

The outside of this part of the church is a corroborating proof of what has been mentioned above, as well in the method, as in the ornaments of the building.— The outside of it towards the south, from St. Michael's chapel eastward, is adorned with a range of small pillars, about six inches diameter, and about three feet high, some with santastic shasts and capitals, others with plain ones; these support little arches, which intersect each other; and this chain or girdle of pillars is continued round the small tower, the eastern cross isle and the chapel of St. Anselm, to the buildings added in honour of the Holy Trinity, and St. Thomas Becket, where they leave off. The casing of St. Michael's chapel has none of them, but the chapel of the Virgin Mary, answering to it on the north side of the church, not being fitted to the wall, shews some of them behind it; which seems as if they had been continued before, quite round the eastern parts of the church.

 

These pillars, which rise from about the level of the pavement, within the walls above them, are remarkably plain and bare of ornaments; but the tower above mentioned and its opposite, as soon as they rise clear of the building, are enriched with stories of this colonade, one above another, up to the platform from whence their spires rise; and the remains of the two larger towers eastward, called St. Anselm's, and that answering to it on the north side of the church, called St. Andrew's are decorated much after the same manner, as high as they remain at present.

 

At the time of the before-mentioned fire, which so fatally destroyed the upper part of this church, the undercrost, with the vaulting over it, seems to have remained entire, and unhurt by it.

 

The vaulting of the undercrost, on which the floor of the choir and eastern parts of the church is raised, is supported by pillars, whose capitals are as various and fantastical as those of the smaller ones described before, and so are their shafts, some being round, others canted, twisted, or carved, so that hardly any two of them are alike, except such as are quite plain.

 

These, I suppose, may be concluded to be of the same age, and if buildings in the same stile may be conjectured to be so from thence, the antiquity of this part of the church may be judged, though historians have left us in the dark in relation to it.

 

In Leland's Collectanea, there is an account and description of a vault under the chancel of the antient church of St. Peter, in Oxford, called Grymbald's crypt, being allowed by all, to have been built by him; (fn. 51) Grymbald was one of those great and accomplished men, whom king Alfred invited into England about the year 885, to assist him in restoring Christianity, learning and the liberal arts. (fn. 52) Those who compare the vaults or undercrost of the church of Canterbury, with the description and prints given of Grymbald's crypt, (fn. 53) will easily perceive, that two buildings could hardly have been erected more strongly resembling each other, except that this at Canterbury is larger, and more pro fusely decorated with variety of fancied ornaments, the shafts of several of the pillars here being twisted, or otherwise varied, and many of the captials exactly in the same grotesque taste as those in Grymbald's crypt. (fn. 54) Hence it may be supposed, that those whom archbishop Lanfranc employed as architects and designers of his building at Canterbury, took their model of it, at least of this part of it, from that crypt, and this undercrost now remaining is the same, as was originally built by him, as far eastward, as to that part which begins under the chapel of the Holy Trinity, where it appears to be of a later date, erected at the same time as the chapel. The part built by Lanfranc continues at this time as firm and entire, as it was at the very building of it, though upwards of seven hundred years old. (fn. 55)

 

But to return to the new building; though the church was not compleatly finished till the end of the year 1184, yet it was so far advanced towards it, that, in 1180, on April 19, being Easter eve, (fn. 56) the archbishop, prior and monks entered the new choir, with a solemn procession, singing Te Deum, for their happy return to it. Three days before which they had privately, by night, carried the bodies of St. Dunstan and St. Alphage to the places prepared for them near the high altar. The body likewise of queen Edive (which after the fire had been removed from the north cross isle, where it lay before, under a stately gilded shrine) to the altar of the great cross, was taken up, carried into the vestry, and thence to the altar of St. Martin, where it was placed under the coffin of archbishop Livinge. In the month of July following the altar of the Holy Trinity was demolished, and the bodies of those archbishops, which had been laid in that part of the church, were removed to other places. Odo's body was laid under St. Dunstan's and Wilfrid's under St. Alphage's; Lanfranc's was deposited nigh the altar of St. Martin, and Theobald's at that of the blessed Virgin, in the nave of the church, (fn. 57) under a marble tomb; and soon afterwards the two archbishops, on the right and left hand of archbishop Becket in the undercrost, were taken up and placed under the altar of St. Mary there. (fn. 58)

 

After a warning so terrible, as had lately been given, it seemed most necessary to provide against the danger of fire for the time to come; the flames, which had so lately destroyed a considerable part of the church and monastery, were caused by some small houses, which had taken fire at a small distance from the church.— There still remained some other houses near it, which belonged to the abbot and convent of St. Augustine; for these the monks of Christ-church created, by an exchange, which could not be effected till the king interposed, and by his royal authority, in a manner, compelled the abbot and convent to a composition for this purpose, which was dated in the year 1177, that was three years after the late fire of this church. (fn. 59)

 

These houses were immediately pulled down, and it proved a providential and an effectual means of preserving the church from the like calamity; for in the year 1180, on May 22, this new choir, being not then compleated, though it had been used the month be fore, as has been already mentioned, there happened a fire in the city, which burnt down many houses, and the flames bent their course towards the church, which was again in great danger; but the houses near it being taken away, the fire was stopped, and the church escaped being burnt again. (fn. 60)

 

Although there is no mention of a new dedication of the church at this time, yet the change made in the name of it has been thought by some to imply a formal solemnity of this kind, as it appears to have been from henceforth usually called the church of St. Thomas the Martyr, and to have continued so for above 350 years afterwards.

 

New names to churches, it is true. have been usually attended by formal consecrations of them; and had there been any such solemnity here, undoubtedly the same would not have passed by unnoticed by every historian, the circumstance of it must have been notorious, and the magnificence equal at least to the other dedications of this church, which have been constantly mentioned by them; but here was no need of any such ceremony, for although the general voice then burst forth to honour this church with the name of St. Thomas, the universal object of praise and adoration, then stiled the glorious martyr, yet it reached no further, for the name it had received at the former dedication, notwithstanding this common appellation of it, still remained in reality, and it still retained invariably in all records and writings, the name of Christ church only, as appears by many such remaining among the archives of the dean and chapter; and though on the seal of this church, which was changed about this time; the counter side of it had a representation of Becket's martyrdom, yet on the front of it was continued that of the church, and round it an inscription with the former name of Christ church; which seal remained in force till the dissolution of the priory.

 

It may not be improper to mention here some transactions, worthy of observation, relating to this favorite saint, which passed from the time of his being murdered, to that of his translation to the splendid shrine prepared for his relics.

 

Archbishop Thomas Becket was barbarously murdered in this church on Dec. 29, 1170, being the 16th year of king Henry II. and his body was privately buried towards the east end of the undercrost. The monks tell us, that about the Easter following, miracles began to be wrought by him, first at his tomb, then in the undercrost, and in every part of the whole fabric of the church; afterwards throughout England, and lastly, throughout the rest of the world. (fn. 61) The same of these miracles procured him the honour of a formal canonization from pope Alexander III. whose bull for that purpose is dated March 13, in the year 1172. (fn. 62) This declaration of the pope was soon known in all places, and the reports of his miracles were every where sounded abroad. (fn. 63)

 

Hereupon crowds of zealots, led on by a phrenzy of devotion, hastened to kneel at his tomb. In 1177, Philip, earl of Flanders, came hither for that purpose, when king Henry met and had a conference with him at Canterbury. (fn. 64) In June 1178, king Henry returning from Normandy, visited the sepulchre of this new saint; and in July following, William, archbishop of Rhemes, came from France, with a large retinue, to perform his vows to St. Thomas of Canterbury, where the king met him and received him honourably. In the year 1179, Lewis, king of France, came into England; before which neither he nor any of his predecessors had ever set foot in this kingdom. (fn. 65) He landed at Dover, where king Henry waited his arrival, and on August 23, the two kings came to Canterbury, with a great train of nobility of both nations, and were received with due honour and great joy, by the archbishop, with his com-provincial bishops, and the prior and the whole convent. (fn. 66)

 

King Lewis came in the manner and habit of a pilgrim, and was conducted to the tomb of St. Thomas by a solemn procession; he there offered his cup of gold and a royal precious stone, (fn. 67) and gave the convent a yearly rent for ever, of a hundred muids of wine, to be paid by himself and his successors; which grant was confirmed by his royal charter, under his seal, and delivered next day to the convent; (fn. 68) after he had staid here two, (fn. 69) or as others say, three days, (fn. 70) during which the oblations of gold and silver made were so great, that the relation of them almost exceeded credibility. (fn. 71) In 1181, king Henry, in his return from Normandy, again paid his devotions at this tomb. These visits were the early fruits of the adoration of the new sainted martyr, and these royal examples of kings and great persons were followed by multitudes, who crowded to present with full hands their oblations at his tomb.— Hence the convent was enabled to carry forward the building of the new choir, and they applied all this vast income to the fabric of the church, as the present case instantly required, for which they had the leave and consent of the archbishop, confirmed by the bulls of several succeeding popes. (fn. 72)

 

¶From the liberal oblations of these royal and noble personages at the tomb of St. Thomas, the expences of rebuilding the choir appear to have been in a great measure supplied, nor did their devotion and offerings to the new saint, after it was compleated, any ways abate, but, on the contrary, they daily increased; for in the year 1184, Philip, archbishop of Cologne, and Philip, earl of Flanders, came together to pay their vows at this tomb, and were met here by king Henry, who gave them an invitation to London. (fn. 73) In 1194, John, archbishop of Lions; in the year afterwards, John, archbishop of York; and in the year 1199, king John, performed their devotions at the foot of this tomb. (fn. 74) King Richard I. likewise, on his release from captivity in Germany, landing on the 30th of March at Sandwich, proceeded from thence, as an humble stranger on foot, towards Canterbury, to return his grateful thanks to God and St. Thomas for his release. (fn. 75) All these by name, with many nobles and multitudes of others, of all sorts and descriptions, visited the saint with humble adoration and rich oblations, whilst his body lay in the undercrost. In the mean time the chapel and altar at the upper part of the east end of the church, which had been formerly consecrated to the Holy Trinity, were demolished, and again prepared with great splendor, for the reception of this saint, who being now placed there, implanted his name not only on the chapel and altar, but on the whole church, which was from thenceforth known only by that of the church of St. Thomas the martyr.

  

On July 7, anno 1220, the remains of St. Thomas were translated from his tomb to his new shrine, with the greatest solemnity and rejoicings. Pandulph, the pope's legate, the archbishops of Canterbury and Rheims, and many bishops and abbots, carried the coffin on their shoulders, and placed it on the new shrine, and the king graced these solemnities with his royal presence. (fn. 76) The archbishop of Canterbury provided forage along all the road, between London and Canterbury, for the horses of all such as should come to them, and he caused several pipes and conduits to run with wine in different parts of the city. This, with the other expences arising during the time, was so great, that he left a debt on the see, which archbishop Boniface, his fourth successor in it, was hardly enabled to discharge.

 

¶The saint being now placed in his new repository, became the vain object of adoration to the deluded people, and afterwards numbers of licences were granted to strangers by the king, to visit this shrine. (fn. 77) The titles of glorious, of saint and martyr, were among those given to him; (fn. 78) such veneration had all people for his relics, that the religious of several cathedral churches and monasteries, used all their endeavours to obtain some of them, and thought themselves happy and rich in the possession of the smallest portion of them. (fn. 79) Besides this, there were erected and dedicated to his honour, many churches, chapels, altars and hospitals in different places, both in this kingdom and abroad. (fn. 80) Thus this saint, even whilst he lay in his obscure tomb in the undercroft, brought such large and constant supplies of money, as enabled the monks to finish this beautiful choir, and the eastern parts of the church; and when he was translated to the most exalted and honourable place in it, a still larger abundance of gain filled their coffers, which continued as a plentiful supply to them, from year to year, to the time of the reformation, and the final abolition of the priory itself.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol11/pp306-383