*Ø* Blogmanac October 13 | Feast day of St Edward the Confessor
(Born at Islip, England, c.1004, died at Westminster, 1066; canonised 1161.)
Edward was the son of Ethelred II, king of the English, and Emma, sister of Duke Richard II of Normandy, and he lived in that country from about his tenth year till he was recalled to England in 1041. In the following year he succeeded to the throne, and in 1045 married Edith, daughter of the ambitious and powerful Earl Godwin.
Edward's reign was outwardly peaceful and he was a peace-loving man; however, he had to contend with Godwin's opposition and other grave difficulties, and he did so with a determination that hardly supports the common picture of him as a tame and ineffectual ruler. His anonymous contemporary biographer gives a convincing portrait of him in his old age that has obscured the evidence concerning his middle life. After his death, movingly described by the biographer, a religious cultus of the king was slow in developing until after his actual canonisation.
The belief that Edward was a saint was supported by his general reputation for religious devotion and for generosity to the poor and infirm, by the relation of a number of miracles (he was the first sovereign reported to ‘touch for the King's Evil’, scrofula), and, too, by the assertion that he and his wife were so ascetic as always to have lived together as brother and sister.
Edward and Edith were certainly childless, but that this was due to lifelong voluntary abstinence is unlikely in the circumstances of their marriage and is not supported by adequate evidence.
St Edward was buried in the church of the abbey of Westminster, a small existing monastery which he had refounded and endowed with princely munificence; with one uncertain and obscure exception, he is the only English saint whose bodily remains still rest in their medieval shrine, which was set up in its present position behind the high altar in 1268.
He is called ‘the Confessor’, that is, one who bears witness to Christ by his life, to distinguish him from King Edward who followed. His emblem is a finger ring. When St Edward was dedicating a church to St John the Evangelist, a pilgrim came and asked alms in the saint's name, and St Edward gave him a ring from his finger. The pilgrim was none other than St John the Baptist. He revealed himself to two English pilgrims in the Holy Land, bidding them to take the ring to the king in his name, and ask him to prepare to leave this world. After this they fell asleep and awoke in Barham Downs, Kent, England. They took the ring to St Edward, on Christmas day.
On the vigil of Epiphany (January 5) Edward the Confessor died and was buried in Westminster Abbey, wearing the ring of John the Baptist.
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
The King's Evil
On January 9, 1683, Britain’s King Charles II issued orders for the future regulations of the ceremony of touching the King's Evil.
This was the name used then for scrofula (a tubercular infection of the throat lymph glands), a disease which from the time of King Clovis of France in 481 CE was believed to be curable by a touch of the monarch's hand. Shakespeare mentioned it in Macbeth. The famous English diarist, Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), recorded in his diary for April 10, 1661 that he saw the cure effected by the king.
In Cornwall, it was believed that the seventh son of a seventh son was able to touch-cure the disease. The seventh son of a seventh son was widely believed in the British Isles to have all kinds of powers.
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
The Marcou
In old France it was believed that if a seventh son was born into a family, and he had no sisters, he was called a marcou, and a fleur-de-lis was branded on him. If anyone with the King's Evil (scrofula) touched the tattoo, it was supposed that they would be healed.One particular marcou, a cooper (barrel-maker) named Foulon, set up a business in Orleans, and on Good Fridays the cure was supposed to be most efficacious. Hundreds of gullible people would gather, but eventually the police stopped the practice.
(Born at Islip, England, c.1004, died at Westminster, 1066; canonised 1161.)
Edward was the son of Ethelred II, king of the English, and Emma, sister of Duke Richard II of Normandy, and he lived in that country from about his tenth year till he was recalled to England in 1041. In the following year he succeeded to the throne, and in 1045 married Edith, daughter of the ambitious and powerful Earl Godwin.
Edward's reign was outwardly peaceful and he was a peace-loving man; however, he had to contend with Godwin's opposition and other grave difficulties, and he did so with a determination that hardly supports the common picture of him as a tame and ineffectual ruler. His anonymous contemporary biographer gives a convincing portrait of him in his old age that has obscured the evidence concerning his middle life. After his death, movingly described by the biographer, a religious cultus of the king was slow in developing until after his actual canonisation.
The belief that Edward was a saint was supported by his general reputation for religious devotion and for generosity to the poor and infirm, by the relation of a number of miracles (he was the first sovereign reported to ‘touch for the King's Evil’, scrofula), and, too, by the assertion that he and his wife were so ascetic as always to have lived together as brother and sister.
Edward and Edith were certainly childless, but that this was due to lifelong voluntary abstinence is unlikely in the circumstances of their marriage and is not supported by adequate evidence.
St Edward was buried in the church of the abbey of Westminster, a small existing monastery which he had refounded and endowed with princely munificence; with one uncertain and obscure exception, he is the only English saint whose bodily remains still rest in their medieval shrine, which was set up in its present position behind the high altar in 1268.
He is called ‘the Confessor’, that is, one who bears witness to Christ by his life, to distinguish him from King Edward who followed. His emblem is a finger ring. When St Edward was dedicating a church to St John the Evangelist, a pilgrim came and asked alms in the saint's name, and St Edward gave him a ring from his finger. The pilgrim was none other than St John the Baptist. He revealed himself to two English pilgrims in the Holy Land, bidding them to take the ring to the king in his name, and ask him to prepare to leave this world. After this they fell asleep and awoke in Barham Downs, Kent, England. They took the ring to St Edward, on Christmas day.
On the vigil of Epiphany (January 5) Edward the Confessor died and was buried in Westminster Abbey, wearing the ring of John the Baptist.
The King's Evil
On January 9, 1683, Britain’s King Charles II issued orders for the future regulations of the ceremony of touching the King's Evil.
This was the name used then for scrofula (a tubercular infection of the throat lymph glands), a disease which from the time of King Clovis of France in 481 CE was believed to be curable by a touch of the monarch's hand. Shakespeare mentioned it in Macbeth. The famous English diarist, Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), recorded in his diary for April 10, 1661 that he saw the cure effected by the king.
In Cornwall, it was believed that the seventh son of a seventh son was able to touch-cure the disease. The seventh son of a seventh son was widely believed in the British Isles to have all kinds of powers.
The Marcou
In old France it was believed that if a seventh son was born into a family, and he had no sisters, he was called a marcou, and a fleur-de-lis was branded on him. If anyone with the King's Evil (scrofula) touched the tattoo, it was supposed that they would be healed.One particular marcou, a cooper (barrel-maker) named Foulon, set up a business in Orleans, and on Good Fridays the cure was supposed to be most efficacious. Hundreds of gullible people would gather, but eventually the police stopped the practice.
Pip Wilson posted item above at 4:03 PM | Permalink
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home