St. Paul's, London: relics removed 1550, lost in the Great Fire of London
Saint Earconwald or Erkenwald[lower-alpha 1] (died 693) was a Saxon prince[1] and Bishop of London between 675 and 693.[2] He is the eponymous subject of one of the most important poems in the foundations of English literature[3] (thought to be by the Sir Gawain and the Green KnightPearl Poet). He was called Lundoniae maximum sanctus, 'the most holy figure of London',[4][5] and Lux Londonie, "the light of London".[6]Peter Ackroyd has said of him, "we may still name him as the patron saint of London, [his]... cult survived for over eight hundred years, before entering the temporary darkness of the last four centuries".[4]
In recent times he has been portrayed in novels and films, for example in the work of Bernard Cornwell.
The diocese of London was coterminous with the Kingdom of Essex, making the Bishop of London the Bishop of the East Saxons.[8]
Life
Earconwald teaching monks in a historiated initial from the Chertsey Breviary (c.1300)
Origins
Earconwald was of royal ancestry.[9]William Dugdale states that he was a prince, a son of the house of King Offa, King of the Essex or the East Saxons;[10]
Earconwald himself served as Abbot of Chertsey.[16] A charter states that in the late seventh century, he and Frithwald gave land in Streatham and Tooting Graveney to Chertsey Abbey; this grant was confirmed in the time of Athelstan in 933.[17]
A legend says that he often preached to the woodmen in the wild forests that lay to the north of London.[18]
A window in Wells Cathedral. Mostly original glass; the heads depict Pope Stephen, St Blaise, St Earconwald, and Pope Marcellus.
Bishop
In 675, Earconwald became Bishop of London, succeeding Bishop Wine.[19] He was the choice of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury.[16] It is also said that his selection as Bishop of London was at the insistence of King Sebbi.[20] An ancient epitaph says that Earconwald served as bishop of London for eleven years.[20]
He was granted the manor (landholding) of Fulham about the year 691 for himself and his successors as Bishop of London. The manor house was Fulham Palace. Nine centuries later, it was the summer residence of the Bishops of London.[21]
While bishop, he contributed to King Ine of Wessex's law code, and is mentioned specifically in the code as a contributor.[22] King Ine named Earconwald as an advisor on his laws[23] and called Earconwald "my bishop" in the preface to his laws.[20]
Current historical scholarship credits Earconwald with a major role in the evolution of Anglo-Saxon charters, and it is possible that he drafted the charter of Caedwalla to Farnham.[14]
When St Fursey (a Celtic cleric who did much to establish Christianity throughout the British Isles and particularly in East Anglia) died in 650 he was buried in a church built specially by Earconwald in Péronne which has claimed Fursey as patron ever since.[24]
Building works
The now lost Bishops Gate: a Roman gate in the walls of Roman London, repaired by St Earconwald and then named after him
Earconwald is said to have spent a good deal on the early building of St Paul's,and in later times he almost occupied the place of a traditionary founder; the veneration paid to him was second only to that which was rendered to St. Paul.[26]
Archbishop Matthew Parker, who had the most important records on Earconwald at the end of the Counter-Reformation when they may otherwise have been lost
Death and legacy
Earconwald died in 693[19] while on a visit to Barking Abbey. His remains were buried at a pilgrimage shrine in Old St Paul's Cathedral.
For a period immediately after the Norman Conquest, St Earconwald was marginalised in religious practice.[27] The Normans replaced most of the English eccelsiastical office holders, either immediately, or upon their death with the appointment of a Norman cleric as successor.[28]
The most important collection of early materials concerning Earconwald is the Miracula Sancti Erkenwaldi, preserved as a 12th-century manuscript in the Matthew Parker collection (Parker 161) at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.[29] The miracle in the poem is not in these materials, suggesting that the story post-dates this manuscript.
The poem of St Erkenwald
Priorslee Hall, one of the Shropshire addresses occupied by Sir Humphrey Pitt from whom the only known copy of the poem 'Erkenwald' was recovered
Earconwald was the subject of the alliterative St Erkenwald Poem, written in the fourteenth century[30] by a poet from the Cheshire/Shropshire/Staffordshire area.[31] The text is thought to be the work of the Pearl Poet[32] whose identity is debated and uncertain. If it is true that it is within the set of this author's work, that would mean that text shares its author with:
Manuscript text in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
An illustration in the oldest copy of the same poem
The text and an illustration from the only surviving manuscript or that work: St Erkenwald may have provided inspiration for the same writer as for this text
The poem is significant in the way it deals with the spiritual welfare of people who could not hear the Christian message, and critics have compared it to the Beowulf poem in this regard.[33]
The poem has survived in only one manuscript, British Library MS Harley 2250.[34] The document was discovered in 1757 by Thomas Percy; the manuscript had been in the possession of Sir Humphrey Pitt of Balcony House, Shifnal, and Priorslee, Shropshire.[35] Other important ancient literary materials narrowly avoided being burnt as kindling by household staff in the circumstances in which Percy was discovering this important cultural survival.[36]
The poem has been linked thematically and in plot terms with the Legend of Trajan and the Miracle of St Gregory; that legend itself being referred to in the Divine Comedy by Dante (Purgatorio (x. 73-75) and Paradiso (xx 106-117)).[29]
Within pictorial art, the Berne tapestry (copied from paintings by Roger van der Wayden of the Brussels Town Hall in the mid-1400s, which were lost in the conflicts of the 1600s) and apparently repeated in the Cologne Town Hall in the High Medieval period, provides a visual expression of the themes.[29] The intention of this art was to remind judges to dispense impartial justice.
Feast day and translation day
Statue of Erkenwald at St Albans Cathedral
His feast day is 30 April, with successive translations (see below) being celebrated on 1 February, 13 May and 14 November.[9][37][38] He is a patron saint of London.[39]
Prior to the Reformation, the anniversaries of his death as well as his translation were observed at St Paul's as feasts of the first class, by an ordinance of Bishop Braybroke in 1386.[20]
The following Antiphon and Collect for the Feast of St Erkenwald is recorded:
"De Sancto Erkenwaldo Episcopo. Antipho: O decus insigne, nostrum pastorumque benigne, O lux Londonie, pater Erkenwalde beate, Quem super astra Deum gaudes spectare per eum, Aspice letantes tua gaudia nos celebrantes, Et tecum vite fac participes sine fine. V. Ora pro nobis beate Erkenwalde. R. Ut digni efficiamur. "Oratio. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, apud quem est continua semper Sanctorum festivitas Tuorum, presta, quesumus, ut qui memoriam beati Erkenwaldi pontificis agimus, ab hostium nostrorum eruamur nequitia: et ad eternorum nos provehi concedas premiorum beneficia. Per. Pater noster. Ave Ma"
(Concerning Saint Erkenwald the Bishop.
Antiphon: O distinguished God, our kind shepherd, O light of London, blessed father Erkenwald, Whom above the stars you rejoice to behold God through him, Look upon us celebrating your joys, and live with you without end.
V. Pray for us blessed Erkenwald.
R. That we may become worthy.
Prayer. Almighty and everlasting God, with whom is the continual festival of Thy Saints, grant, we beseech, that we who commemorate the blessed high priest Erkenwald, may be delivered from the wickedness of our enemies: and grant us to advance to the eternal blessings of the first. Through [Jesus Christ]. Our Father. Ave Maria)[6]
Shrine of St Erkenwald, relics removed 1550, lost as a monument in the Great Fire of London
It is said that on the death of St Erkenwald, there was a struggle between the canons of St. Paul's and the monks of Chertsey as to who should bury him, during which the people of London brought his body to St. Paul's. The people of London, bringing the body to the city, are supposed to have said:
"We are like strong and vigorous men who will... undermine and overturn cities heavily fortified with men and weapons before we give up the servant of God, our protector... we ourselves intend that such a glorious city and congregation shall be strengthened and honoured by such a patron."[4]
On the journey to London with the body, the River Lee is said to have parted to make way for the dead saint.[18]
After a great fire in 1087 (one of several Erkenwald's relics are said to have survived)[clarification needed] the relics were put in a silver shrine.[4] This shrine was put in a new, vast crypt, specially built to hold the "valuable remains of St. Erkenwald" in the wider new building which was built to replace the lost St. Paul's by Bishop Maurice.[18] The body was transferred to a shrine in the cathedral in 1140.[42] In 1314, Bishop Gilbert de Segrave laid the first stone of a new shrine to which the relics of St. Erkenwald were translated twelve years later.[43]
By accounts,[clarification needed] the relics were sealed in a leaden casket fashioned in the form of "a gabled house or church".[4] By the time his relics were placed behind the high altar of St Paul's they were supposed to have been with the couch in which he was carried in his declining years, fragments of which were associated with miracles.[4] In the time of Bede, it was recorded that miracles were effected by this couch.[44]
It is recorded that the servants of the church could only move the relics of St Erkenwald "clandestinely at night" because to do otherwise would have created hysteria among the crowds.[4]
The Curfew Tower of Barking Abbey. This was one of the three gateways to Barking Abbey, founded in 666 by Erkenwald, later Bishop of London.
The shrine was constantly enriched by canons and by the merchants of London, well into the 15th century, and miracles were reported at the site of the shrine into the 16th century.[44] The citizens of London took special pride in the magnificent shrine, and had a special devotion to St Erkenwald.[20]
Amongst the Ashmole manuscripts in the Bodleian Library is the following entry in Ashmole's own hand that concerns work on the shrine in 1448:
"Pondus Cancelli ferrei ante Altare Sancti Erkenwaldi facti Ao Dni. 1448 per manus Stephani Clampard, fabri, sumptibus Decani et Capituli elevati ibidem vi. die Junii anno predicto, 3438 lb. precii cujuslibet lb. cum ferra 4d. Summa 641. 2s.[Suspect this is 64 l. 2.s, ie £64/2/0, but the sums still don't work.]
Expens. in ferro 3438 lb. precio cujuslibet vs. Summa 8 li. 16 s. 8 d.
Item in vasos ferri ixc precio ut supra. Summa xlv s.
Item in Stannum ad dealban. Summa viij. li.
(The weight of the iron chancel in front of the Altar of St. Erkenwald made AD 1448 by the hands of Stephen Clampard, carpenter, at the expense of the Dean and Chapter raised there on 6 June of the aforesaid year, 3438 lb. the price of each lb. with iron 4d. Total 641. 2s.
"successful lawyers of London…on nomination as serjeants of law, would walk in procession to St Paul’s in order to venerate the physical presence of the saint."[46]
Catherine of Aragon made an offering at St Erkenwald's shrine as an act of diplomacy ahead of her first marriage into the House of Tudor.
When Catherine of Aragon made her entry into London, two days before her marriage to Prince Arthur, heir to the throne, she visited St Paul's[47] and made an offering there at the shrine of St Erkenwald.[48] The couple were married on St Erkenwald's Day, with the date likely selected to be in alignment with the saint's day.[49]
The St Paul's shrine had the relics removed during the Reformation; the empty shrine survived until the Great Fire of London.[50] In late 1549, at the height of the iconoclasm of the Reformation, Sir Rowland Hill altered the route of his Lord Mayor's day procession and said a de profundis at the tomb of Erkenwald.[51]
There are differing accounts of what happened to his relics, with suggestions the relics were plundered[52] or incinerated,[53] or that he was reburied in St Paul's Cathedral at the east end of the choir,[20] or that they might have been "hidden to be recovered later".[54]
One commentary on the location of his relics summarises the understanding of this point as follows:
"his relics were either destroyed or hidden in a secure place by the faithful from the bloodthirsty iconoclasts. There is a modern speculation that the relics... may still rest at the east end of the present Cathedral choir next to the east altar. Perhaps one day... will reveal the fate of this holy man’s bodily remains."[55]
One commentator has observed that "destruction of this major shrine, located behind the high altar, severed the last connection between St Paul’s and its Saxon predecessor ... (the precise whereabouts have yet to be discovered)."[56]
The burials of both Earconwald and Sebbi quickly became the focus of saints’ cults and pilgrimages. This local mania for miracles and relics has been described as the first evidence that Londoners were becoming enthusiastic about Christianity and that newly returned religion had found its footing in the area.[citation needed]
Erkenwald's grave was a popular place of pilgrimage[citation needed] up to the reformation.[57]
After the Great Fire of London, Christopher Wren made archaeological investigations into the ruins to St Paul's Cathedral looking for the Saxon building Erkenwald had had built.[18]
Cross in Battersea Park, erected to mark the year 2000. It stands on the site of a manor granted by King Caedwalla to St Erkenwald which is believed to have been the home of St Ethelburga.St Erkenwald's Church
St Erkenwald has also been commemorated in the following ways:
in the Chapel of St. Erkenwald and St. Ethelburga at St Paul's Cathedral
with a cross in Battersea Park erected in the year 2000, which was placed on the site of a manor granted to St Erkenwald by King Ceadwalla, believed to the site of the home of St Æthelburg[61]
The British children's writer Abi Elphinstone chose "Erkenwald" as the name of a mythical kingdom in her 2021 book Sky Song.[71]
Miracles
A 2000 stone plaque in London honouring St Erkenwald
There are 19 miracles associated with Erkenwald:[27]
a boy, who took refuge from his angry school master at the tomb of St Erkenwald, received a message he had not known until then
a man punished with sudden death for scorning the feast day of the saint
concerning a prisoner who was set free
how, amid the great burning of the city and church the pall on his tomb survived unharmed
concerning the building of a more splendid church in London, and concerning the mobility impaired person, who after journeying to many tombs of famous saints throughout the world, obtained healing from St Erkenwald
concerning the man who prevented his wife from honouring the saint, his punishment, and the restoration of his health in accordance with the saint's instructions
how he demonstrated, with the wonderful largesse of his merciful acts, that he was pleased with the honour being shown to him
concerning the blind girl whose sight was speedily restored
concerning the death of the drunken buffoon who got inside the shrine of St Erkenwald when it was under construction
concerning the doctor, healed of deadly sickness
concerning the blind woman who received her sight
concerning the man who was cured of his fever by the saint, who visited him in person
how one of the saint's painters (from when his body was in the crypt) violated his festival, was punished, the saint himself appertaining to him and declaring the reason for the punishment
concerning the deformed nun who was visited by St Ethelburga and St Erkenwald and made whole and undeformed
concerning the deaf girl whose hearing was restored
Other miracles associated with an invisible wheel and growing a construction beam are recorded.[72]
Pearl and St. Erkenwald: Some Evidence for Authorship C. J. Peterson The Review of English Studies. New Series, Vol. 25, No. 97 (Feb., 1974), pp.49–53
BROWETT, R. (2017). Touching the Holy: The Rise of Contact Relics in Medieval England. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 68(3), 493–509. doi:10.1017/S0022046916001494
E. Gordon Whatley, 'The Saint of London: The Life and Miracles of St. Erkenwald'. 1989, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies.
Mary Boyle, 'Converting Corpses: The Religious Other in the Munich Oswald and St Erkenwald'. Merton College, Oxford University
OLD ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL By WILLIAM BENHAM, D.D., F.S.A.
Hagiography into Art: A Study of "St. Erkenwald", T. McAlindon. Studies in Philology. Vol. 67, No. 4 (Oct., 1970), pp.472–494.
Heathens and Saints: St. Erkenwald in Its Legendary Context, Gordon Whatley. Speculum Vol. 61, No. 2 (Apr., 1986), pp.330–363
"New Werke": St. Erkenwald, St. Albans, and the medieval sense of the past. Monica Otta.
Saint Erkenwald: Bishop and London archaeologist, John Clark. Published 1980
Citations
↑ "St. Erkenwald". St. Erkenwald Lodge 2808. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
1 2 Whatley, E. Gordon, ed. (1 January 1989). The Saint of London: The Life and Miracles of St.Erkenwald - Text and Translation: v. 58. Binghamton, NY: State University of New York at Binghamton, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies. ISBN978-0-86698-042-5.
↑ Thomas, Hugh M. (2003). The English and the Normans. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp.202–208. ISBN978-0-19-925123-0.
1 2 3 4 5 Gollancz, Sir Israel (1923). Selected Early English Poems IV St Erkenwald. Oxford University Press.
Ælfheah, more commonly known today as Alphege, was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester, later Archbishop of Canterbury. He became an anchorite before being elected abbot of Bath Abbey. His reputation for piety and sanctity led to his promotion to the episcopate and, eventually, to his becoming archbishop. Ælfheah furthered the cult of Dunstan and also encouraged learning. He was captured by Viking raiders in 1011 during the siege of Canterbury and killed by them the following year after refusing to allow himself to be ransomed. Ælfheah was canonised as a saint in 1078. Thomas Becket, a later Archbishop of Canterbury, prayed to Ælfheah just before his murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.
Augustine of Canterbury was a Christian monk who became the first archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English”.
Laurence was the second Archbishop of Canterbury, serving from about 604 to 619. He was a member of the Gregorian mission sent from Italy to England to Christianise the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism, although the date of his arrival is disputed. He was consecrated archbishop by his predecessor, Augustine of Canterbury, during Augustine's lifetime, to ensure continuity in the office. While archbishop, he attempted unsuccessfully to resolve differences with the native British bishops by corresponding with them about points of dispute. Laurence faced a crisis following the death of King Æthelberht of Kent, when the king's successor abandoned Christianity; he eventually reconverted. Laurence was revered as a saint after his death in 619.
Mellitus was the first bishop of London in the Saxon period, the third Archbishop of Canterbury, and a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism to Christianity. He arrived in 601 AD with a group of clergy sent to augment the mission, and was consecrated as Bishop of London in 604. Mellitus was the recipient of a famous letter from Pope Gregory I known as the Epistola ad Mellitum, preserved in a later work by the medieval chronicler Bede, which suggested the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons be undertaken gradually, integrating pagan rituals and customs. In 610, Mellitus returned to Italy to attend a council of bishops, and returned to England bearing papal letters to some of the missionaries.
Cuthbert of Lindisfarne was a saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Northumbria, today in northern England and southern Scotland. Both during his life and after his death, he became a popular medieval saint of Northern England, with a cult centred on his tomb at Durham Cathedral. Cuthbert is regarded as the patron saint of Northumbria. His feast days are 20 March and 4 September.
St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London. Its dedication in honour of Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. The present structure, which was completed in 1710, is a Grade I listed building that was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. The cathedral's reconstruction was part of a major rebuilding programme initiated in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London. The earlier Gothic cathedral, largely destroyed in the Great Fire, was a central focus for medieval and early modern London, including Paul's walk and St Paul's Churchyard, being the site of St Paul's Cross.
Edmund the Martyr was king of East Anglia from about 855 until his death.
Swithun was an Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester and subsequently patron saint of Winchester Cathedral. His historical importance as bishop is overshadowed by his reputation for posthumous miracle-working. According to tradition, if it rains on Saint Swithun's bridge (Winchester) on his feast day it will continue for forty days.
Durham Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham, is a Church of England cathedral in the city of Durham, England. The cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Durham and is the mother church of the diocese of Durham. It also contains the shrines of the Anglo-Saxon saints Cuthbert and Bede. There are daily Church of England services at the cathedral, and it received 727,367 visitors in 2019. It is a grade I listed building and forms part of the Durham Castle and Cathedral World Heritage Site.
Frithuswith, commonly Frideswide, was an English princess and abbess. She is credited as the foundress of a monastery later incorporated into Christ Church, Oxford. She was the daughter of a sub-king of a Mercia named Dida of Eynsham whose lands occupied western Oxfordshire and the upper reaches of the River Thames.
Osmund, Count of Sées, was a Norman noble and clergyman. Following the Norman conquest of England, he served as Lord Chancellor and as the second bishop of Salisbury, or Old Sarum.
Richard of Chichester, also known as Richard de Wych, is a saint who was Bishop of Chichester.
St Erkenwald is a fourteenth-century alliterative poem in Middle English, perhaps composed in the late 1380s or early 1390s. It has sometimes been attributed, owing to the Cheshire/Shropshire/Staffordshire Dialect in which it is written, to the Pearl poet who probably wrote the poems Pearl, Patience, Cleanness, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Saint Pantaleon, counted in Western Christianity as among the Fourteen Holy Helpers of the Late Middle Ages, and in Eastern Christianity as one of the Holy Unmercenary Healers, was a martyr of Nicomedia in Bithynia during the Diocletianic Persecution of 305 AD.
Ithamar was the first bishop in England to be Saxon-born rather than consecrated by the Irish or from among Augustine's Roman missionaries. He was also the first Saxon bishop of Rochester.
Chertsey Abbey, dedicated to St Peter, was a Benedictine monastery located at Chertsey in the English county of Surrey.
Old St Paul's Cathedral was the cathedral of the City of London that, until the Great Fire of 1666, stood on the site of the present St Paul's Cathedral. Built from 1087 to 1314 and dedicated to Saint Paul, this building was perhaps the fourth such church at this site on Ludgate Hill, going back to the 7th century.
Saint Æthelburh or Ethelburga, founder and first Abbess of the double monastery of Barking, was the sister of Earconwald, Bishop of London.
Osburh was a Saint in Coventry, probably Anglo-Saxon but see below. Nothing about her life has survived to the present day. Her mortal remains were enshrined at Coventry. Close to the Forest of Arden, Coventry was at that time a tiny settlement.
Durham, also known as De situ Dunelmi, Carmen de situ Dunelmi or De situ Dunelmi et de sanctorum reliquiis quae ibidem continentur carmen compositum, is an anonymous late Old English short poem about the English city of Durham and its relics, which might commemorate the translation of Cuthbert's relics to Durham Cathedral in 1104. Known from the late 12th-century manuscript, Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 1. 27, Durham has been described both as "the last extant poem written in traditional alliterative Old English metrical verse" and as being placed "so conveniently on the customary divide between Old and Middle English that the line can be drawn right down the middle of the poem." Scholars have dated the poem either to the twelfth century or to some point in the second half of the eleventh century.
References
Andrew, Malcolm. "The Saint of London: The Life and Miracles of St. Erkenwald." Notes and Queries, vol. 41, no. 4, Dec. 1994, pp.541+.
Farmer, David Hugh (2004). Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Fifthed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-860949-0.
Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third reviseded.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-56350-X.
Kirby, D. P. (2000). The Earliest English Kings. New York: Routledge. ISBN0-415-24211-8.
Thornbury, Walter (1887). Old and New London. Volume 1. London: Cassell.
Walsh, Michael J. (2007). A New Dictionary of Saints: East and West. London: Burns & Oats. ISBN978-0-86012-438-2.
Yorke, Barbara (2003). Martin Carver (ed.). The Adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon Royal Courts to Christianity. The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe AD 300–1300. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. pp.244–257. ISBN1-84383-125-2.
Yorke, Barbara (2006). The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain c. 600–800. London: Pearson/Longman. ISBN0-582-77292-3.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
