*Ø* Blogmanac | May 25 | St Urban’s (confusing) Day celebrations, Germany
Feast day of St Urban, pope and martyr (Common avens, Geum urbanum, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint)
Today is the Feast day of St Urban (Pope Urban II). Born in Rome, Italy, Urban died there on May 23, 230 and was buried two days later, and the church made that his day of commemoration rather than the usual day of death or martyrdom. Son of Pontianus, he was elected pope c. 222.
Due to a common confusion with the bishop, St Urban of Langres, who is the patron saint of winegrowers, in Europe (especially around Burgundy) today is a weather prognostication.
If the sun shines clearly on St Urban’s Day,
Good vines will grow
according to an old saying;
But if there’s rain, it will damage the vines,
Therefore Urban must soon bathe in water.
A statue of the saint (which St Urban is as unclear to your almanackist as it has been to the practitioners for centuries) decked in grapes was carried through the streets in South Tyrol on St Urban’s day. In Franconia depending whether he has sent good weather or bad, the statue was either sprinkled with wine or splashed with water and dirt.
In many parts of Germany, it was a custom to drag the images of St Paul and St Urban to the river, if there was bad weather on their festival (St Paul’s feast day is January 25).
Saint Urban is portrayed in art after his beheading, with the papal tiara near him. Otherwise, he may be depicted during his beheading as idols fall from a column; he might also be shown being whipped at the stake or else seated in a landscape as a young man (Saint Valerian) kneels before him and a priest holds a book. Sometimes he is a pope with a bunch of grapes (confused with the other guy who is usually portrayed as a bishop with a bunch of grapes or a vine in the image). Sometimes Bishop Urban may be shown with a book with a wine vessel on it or grapes on a missal as he holds the papal triple cross (owing to confusion with the first guy. The second guy is the patron of Burgundian vine-growers, gardeners, and coopers. He is invoked against blight, frost, storm, and faintness. If you’re not confused, read again.
Visit St Urban’s Tower
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
1184 On St Urban’s Day, a great fire utterly destroyed the abbey church at Glastonbury and the Old Church of St. Mary's, which had stood adjacent to it. Glastonbury, according to tradition, was visited by Joseph of Arimathea and possibly also by Joseph’s nephew, Jesus Christ. It is also closely associated with King Arthur and is supposedly the same place as Arthur’s “mystic Isle of Avalon”.
What groans, what tears, what beatings of the breast were yielded by spectators, can be imagined only by those who have suffered similar affliction. The confusion of relics, treasures in silver and gold, silks, books and other ecclesiastical ornaments might justly provoke grief. More vehement was the woe of the monks mindful of their earlier happiness, seeing that in all adversity bygone joy is the saddest part of misfortune.
Adam of Domerham, writing a century after the fire that destroyed Glastonbury Abbey; Hearne, T, Adam de Domerham: Historia de rebus glastoniensibus, Oxford, 1727, p 344
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American transcendentalist author, born on May 25, 1803, Self-Reliance
Feast day of St Urban, pope and martyr (Common avens, Geum urbanum, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint)
Today is the Feast day of St Urban (Pope Urban II). Born in Rome, Italy, Urban died there on May 23, 230 and was buried two days later, and the church made that his day of commemoration rather than the usual day of death or martyrdom. Son of Pontianus, he was elected pope c. 222.
Due to a common confusion with the bishop, St Urban of Langres, who is the patron saint of winegrowers, in Europe (especially around Burgundy) today is a weather prognostication.
If the sun shines clearly on St Urban’s Day,
Good vines will grow
according to an old saying;
But if there’s rain, it will damage the vines,
Therefore Urban must soon bathe in water.
A statue of the saint (which St Urban is as unclear to your almanackist as it has been to the practitioners for centuries) decked in grapes was carried through the streets in South Tyrol on St Urban’s day. In Franconia depending whether he has sent good weather or bad, the statue was either sprinkled with wine or splashed with water and dirt.
In many parts of Germany, it was a custom to drag the images of St Paul and St Urban to the river, if there was bad weather on their festival (St Paul’s feast day is January 25).
Saint Urban is portrayed in art after his beheading, with the papal tiara near him. Otherwise, he may be depicted during his beheading as idols fall from a column; he might also be shown being whipped at the stake or else seated in a landscape as a young man (Saint Valerian) kneels before him and a priest holds a book. Sometimes he is a pope with a bunch of grapes (confused with the other guy who is usually portrayed as a bishop with a bunch of grapes or a vine in the image). Sometimes Bishop Urban may be shown with a book with a wine vessel on it or grapes on a missal as he holds the papal triple cross (owing to confusion with the first guy. The second guy is the patron of Burgundian vine-growers, gardeners, and coopers. He is invoked against blight, frost, storm, and faintness. If you’re not confused, read again.
Visit St Urban’s Tower
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
1184 On St Urban’s Day, a great fire utterly destroyed the abbey church at Glastonbury and the Old Church of St. Mary's, which had stood adjacent to it. Glastonbury, according to tradition, was visited by Joseph of Arimathea and possibly also by Joseph’s nephew, Jesus Christ. It is also closely associated with King Arthur and is supposedly the same place as Arthur’s “mystic Isle of Avalon”.
What groans, what tears, what beatings of the breast were yielded by spectators, can be imagined only by those who have suffered similar affliction. The confusion of relics, treasures in silver and gold, silks, books and other ecclesiastical ornaments might justly provoke grief. More vehement was the woe of the monks mindful of their earlier happiness, seeing that in all adversity bygone joy is the saddest part of misfortune.
Adam of Domerham, writing a century after the fire that destroyed Glastonbury Abbey; Hearne, T, Adam de Domerham: Historia de rebus glastoniensibus, Oxford, 1727, p 344
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American transcendentalist author, born on May 25, 1803, Self-Reliance
Pip Wilson posted item above at 2:24 PM | Permalink
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home