medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I was in St. Alban's a few years ago. The shrine has been reinstalled,
& the watching chamber (for a monk to keep an eye on the shrine) is a
rarity.
Tom Izbicki
Thomas Izbicki
Research Services Librarian
and Gifts-in-Kind Officer
Eisenhower Library
Johns Hopkins
Baltimore, MD 21218
(410)516-7173
fax (410)516-8399
>>> Jon Cannon <[log in to unmask]> 9/6/2006 6:14 PM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
culture
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
culture
Of course, Ely also claimed St Alban, having been given his relics for
safekeeping from the Danes, and having presaged the story below by
giving back some other person's bones. The question wasn;t resolved
until the early c14, when none other than Alan of Walsingham of future
Octagon fame helped open the casket for Edward II's inspection.
Whatever
the king saw convinced him that it was St Alban's, rather than Ely,
that
had the real relics. But then, he always *was* a good judge of
character.
I've sometimes wondered what impact it had on that fenland cathedral
priory to be caught with a fake saint. The scale of building works
there
over ensuing decades goes much further than a simple response to a
fallen tower: one element in 'the mix' might be a certain
looking-to-laurels, saint-wise: the laurels in this case being
Etheldreda shaped, of course.
As for St Albans, the latter part of Brenda Cook's story - about the
recent return of a bone from Koln - is absolutely fascinating. Because
St Alban's shrine, even more than St Whyte's, has enjoyed something of
a
rebirth of recent years - since it was 'restored' with HLF money, in
fact. A couple of years ago I spent several hours in that
extraordinary
feretory - surely the most evocative in England - and watched people
of
all faiths and none coming and going, paying their respects. One woman
sat and wept; a teenage couple worked their way through all the
photocopied prayers, one by one. A verger told me he gets through
100,000 candles a year there. I'm sure this was before the return fo
the
blessed bone. It struck me forcefully that this very modern,
'spiritual'
without being 'religious' response to the shrine was doubly ironic as
it
was simply a shrine *base* that is exciting interest. . not any more,
it
seems!
By the way, do you think there might be a connection between the Abbot
and his school in the Lady Chapel, and the fact that the shrine base
itself was walled up between the two? But I think the dates don't fit:
said wall was built when the ambulatory/retroquire (I'll take either,
guv) became a right-of-way, a decade or two after the school was set
up?
Jon
-----Original Message-----
From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious
culture [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ms
Brenda
M. Cook
Sent: 06 September 2006 22:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [M-R] Burial places of English saints
But does anyone know of any other English medieval saints whose
relics
are still known to lie in the church where they were held, or even on
the site of a medieval shrine in that church? Answers to this question
-
or indeed other stories of the fate of such relics, welcomed.
There is a body of opinion - mainly in St Albans itself - which
believes
that the (surviving) bones of Albanus, the British (not English as
frequently said) proto-martyr were smuggled out of England and put in
a
Shrine in St Panteleon's church in Cologne. This shrine, which already
had some bits of St Albans bones dating from the marriage of
Theophanou
and Otto. (Emperor Otto I or II ?) She had as part of her dowery the
bits of Alban which St Germanus was given when he came over to give
Pelagius a set down. The bones in the Shrine at St P. were examined
recently when the Shrine was moved from the Treasury into the body of
the church. Those who examined the bones within were very interested
to
find the skull had a thin gold circlet round its temples,
corresponding
to what King Offa is supposed to have done to the head of St Alban
when
he (Offa) founded the Benedictine Monastery in what is now St Albans,
England.
(I am doing this from memory so have not checked on the dates, but
King
Offa is definitely later than St Germanus by several hundred years.)
The implication of this is that at the Reformation, the monks of St
Albans, seeing what was happening to the other Religious Houses, took
steps to preserve their greatest treasure - Albans' bones - by sending
them to the one place in all Christendom where there was an existing
cult of St A. In this way Henry VIII would not have discovered what
was
going on. (The last Abbot of St A recycled himself as the first
grammar
school headmaster, taking over the redundant Lady Chapel to be his
class
room - he was not the stuff of martyrs but that doesn't mean he was
not
a devotee of St A.) and the reformers presumably flung on the dunghill
the bones of some anonymous monk from the graveyard who had a few
brief
weeks of glory ...
A few years ago, a bone from the Shrine to St A. at St Pantaleon was
given to the (Anglican) Cathedral at St Albans (which is of course the
old Benedictine Abbey Church and still called The Abbey by the locals,
not the Cathedral - tho that is what is now is.) As a gift it had a
mixed reception. Some of the Church of England clergy were charmed and
delighted with the gift and its cementing of friendship between the
two
churches. Some of the more - shall we say "of the rigorously reformed
tradition" ?- were embarrassed if not actually scandalised. The
ceremonial arrival of the Bone - I think a shoulder blade - was the
occasion of some ecclesiastical high jinks and a great deal of jollity
and reunions between members of the two comgregations who had made
friends on previous occasions. The Bone was placed in a casket and put
on the top of the restored Shrine of Saint Alban underneath the new
crimson canopy. This occupies a prime position just behind the High
Altar.
We said afterwards - I was there - that Saint Alban had come home. Not
that he had ever really left. Like Durham, St Albans is very much a
place where there is a strong sense of Our Local Boy being around,
bones
or not.
This is a bit vague and impressionistic but I no longer live in St
Albans [ :-( ] and the appropriate notes and guidebooks are in a box
in
the attic .......
BMC
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