St. Swithin

I mentioned yesterday that the Winchester Bible was made at the Priory of St. Swithin in Winchester, and I thought it would be interesting to know more about this early medieval saint...of which we know very little, to be fair.

Like Henry of Blois (who likely commissioned the Winchester Bible), Swithin (or Swithun) was an early bishop of Winchester. We know hardly anything contemporary about his life. He was probably born c.800 in Wessex, and one of the first public mentions of him is when he was consecrated a bishop on 30 October 852. His name is recorded as witness to nine charters, the earliest in 854. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions his death in the year 861.

It is only much later that his name was attached to the restored church at Winchester that had been dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. The place was being rebuilt by Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester (904 - 984), who maybe wanted to promote veneration of local saints over biblical ones. He was aided in this by Dunstan (909 - 988). Swithin's remains were moved to Winchester on 15 July 971 (15 July is his feast day in England), and that's when things got interesting.

Suddenly this obscure bishop had a prominent place in London, and people reported miracles attributed to him. The sick were healed, the blind could see. His shrine became a major pilgrimage site. Æthelwold decreed that the monks should all drop what they were doing at any time a miracle was announced and come to the shrine to worship. Supposedly this took place so frequently, even at night when the monks were in their beds, that they became too frustrated and stopped coming. Swithin then appeared in a dream to one or more of the monks, telling them that the miracles would stop if the monks did not deliver their praise. The story was spread, and the monks decided that they had to continue as before, no matter the time of day or night.

It was much later that other stories (with no known contemporary source) were told. He is often depicted as standing over eggs, because when some workmen maliciously broke the eggs of an old woman, Swithin found the eggs and made them whole.

There is another bit of lore ascribed to him:

St Swithun's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St Swithun's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain nae mare

If it rains on 15 July, rain will persist for 40 days more. Buckinghamshire has simplified this:

If on St Swithun's day it really pours
You're better off to stay indoors

Swithin has made a mark on popular culture. Jane Austen's last poem had Saint Swithin antagonizing race runners in Winchester. St. Swithin's Day is referred to in the TV show Sopranos and in an episode of The Simpsons.

So what about the men who "brought Swithin back" to prominence, Æthelwold and Dunstan? Let's take a look at them next

The Largest Bible Ever Made

Because Henry of Blois was Bishop of Winchester, the richest cathedral in England, and because he was known to be a patron of the arts and a donor of many valuable items to Winchester, it is assumed that it was he who ordered the creation of what is called the Winchester Bible. It was made by monks at the Winchester priory of St. Swithin.

The Winchester Bible is an enormous book (see the illustration with hands for scale) of 936 pages whose parchment was made from the hides of approximately 250 calves. The leaves are 23" by 16", making it the largest hand-made Bible. Its size demanded that it be made in two volumes, but it was re-bound in 1820 into three volumes, then again in the 21st century by the Bodleian Library in Oxford into four volumes for easier handling during research.

It contains the entire Vulgate (Old and New Testaments), two versions of Psalms, and the Apocrypha (several books that did not get included in the official Bible due to their doubtful origin and relevance). Perhaps because the book was so large and the materials so expensive, space was saved by starting each book of the Bible immediately following the ending of the previous book, not getting its own starting page as chapters usually do. Space was also saved by the use of many abbreviations and shorter spellings of words.

Many projects of this size and complexity would employ multiple scribes for different sections, and it is possible to detect the different "hand" of different scribes. The style of penmanship of the Winchester, however, is so consistent that the conclusion is that it was the work of a single scribe. If that is the case, it would have taken about four years to write the text.

Although all the text is complete, the illustrations are not. Many illustrations are mere sketches missing their color, or incompletely colored. The illustrations show the work of several different artists. A 20th-century medievalist examined the manuscript and found consistencies among certain illustrations that he claims allowed him to identify the artists. He referred to them as the Master of the Leaping Figures, the Master of the Apocrypha Drawings, the Master of the Genesis Initial, the Master of the Amalekite, the Master of the Morgan Leaf, and the Master of the Gothic Majesty. Some of these employed styles that show Byzantine influence.

Other "foreign influence" comes from the use of the very expensive ultramarine color that could only come from lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. The management clearly spared no expense.

I mentioned the source as the priory of St. Swithin at Winchester. Let's jump back in time a little to learn about Swithun.

Wulfstan the Cantor

Of the countless people who lived in the Middle Ages and accomplished things—writing, building, etc.—a very few are remembered by name. One of them is Wulfstan, known as Wulfstan of Winchester or Wulfstan the Cantor.

A cantor sings liturgical music. The monk Wulfstan was a cantor of the Old Minster in Winchester, who became a precentor. A precentor is responsible for composing liturgical music himself, training the choir, and leading the choir or congregation in the music, singing solo lines to which they respond. He was a poet as well as a musician, and wrote a biography of St. Æthelwold, who was probably his mentor. He wrote several works, making him one of the most prolific Latin authors pre-Norman Conquest.

A 15th century commentary refers four times to a "Wulstan" and his work on musical theory, De tonorum harmonia ("On the harmony of tones"). It is likely that this reference is to Wulfstan; unfortunately, this work of Wulfstan's no longer exists. It would be the only known work on music written by an Anglo-Saxon. He is also responsible for the longest (3386 lines) Anglo-Latin poem extant, the Narratio metrica de S. Swithuno (A metrical narrative of St. Swithin).

The work for which he is best know, however, is the Vita S. Æthelwoldi (The life of St. Æthelwold), the principal source of information on St. Æthelwold, about whom I think we should talk next.

Winchester Cathedral Begins

One of the largest cathedrals in England—in fact, one of the longest Gothic cathedrals in Europe—Winchester has been through many changes. The original building (on a site just north of the present cathedral) was founded in 642 and over time came to hold the remains of several Saxon kings.

The very long nave of Winchester

William the Conqueror, wishing to show the strength of his Norman regime after 1066 (or wishing to placate God for any sins William might have committed) began a building campaign, replacing several Saxon churches all over England with great Gothic edifices.

He also needed men to guide the dioceses connected to the new structures. For Winchester, that would be his cousin and personal chaplain, Walkelin, who was consecrated bishop in 1070 for the express purpose of running Winchester. This nepotism benefited Walkelin, who was able to "pay it forward": he made his brother Simeon the prior of Winchester, putting him in charge of the monastery that had started in 971. He later helped Simeon become Abbot of Ely. Walkelin also later advanced his nephew Gerard to become Archbishop of York.

To build the new cathedral would take materials, and since all natural resources in England belonged to the king, it was up to the king to allocate them as he saw fit. William gave Walkelin access to Hempage Wood in Hampshire, granting him as much wood for timbers and scaffolding as carpenters could produce in four days and nights. Walkelin took no chances: he assembled an army of carpenters sufficient to cut down the entirety of Hempage.

The next time William passed through Hampshire, he was at first stunned to see no Hempage Wood, then enraged when he realized what had happened. He summoned Walkelin, who dressed himself in his poorest outfit and knelt at the king's feet, offering to give up his position if only the king and he could remain friends. William relented, saying "I was as much too liberal in my grant as you were too greedy in availing yourself of it."*

The new Winchester was completed in 1093, and a grand and joyous procession of monks carried the relics of saints (especially of St. Swithin, former bishop of Winchester and patron saint of the old church) from the old building to the new.

Under William Rufus, Walkelin supposedly refused to send the king a large sum he was requesting, because Walkelin knew he could not raise the sum with taxing (and oppressing) the poor in his diocese. Instead, the bishop prayed to be delivered from the difficulty he was in. Ten days later he died, on 3 January 1098.

*Annales de Wintonia [Annals of Winton], entry for 1086.