Hautvillers

Hautvillers is a commune in northeastern France. In 650 the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter (in French it was the Abbaye Saint-Pierre d'Hautvillers) was established; it remained active until the French Revolution in 1789.

It was founded by St. Nivard, the Bishop of Reims, when a dove indicated where it was to be established. The abbey was devoted to the Rule of St. Benedict and of St. Columbanus, whose monastery practices in Ireland were in some cases even more strict than Benedict's.

The Abbey was known for its illuminated manuscripts. The very vibrantly illustrated Ebbo Gospels came from this Abbey. A well-known book of psalms known as the Utrecht Psalter (discovered in the Netherlands in the Utrecht University Library in 1858) is illustrated in a similar style to the Ebbo Gospels, and so might have come from here as well.

In 841, a priest from Reims stole from Rome the bodily relics of St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine and finder of the True Cross. Pilgrimages to see the relics helped bring donations to the Abbey, allowing it to purchase more property. (After the French Revolution, the relics were transported to Paris; they went to the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre in 1819.)

One of the uses of more land was, of course, to provide the Abbey with its own food and drink. Vineyards were always a good idea. One of the monks at Hautviller disliked using white grapes, because of their tendency to enter "refermentation." Refermentation happened after the wine was bottled: in the warmer weather, remaining yeast would "wake up" and start producing carbon dioxide again. Enough and you have sparkling wine; too much and you have exploding bottles. This monk laid down some rules for the best wines and best sparkling wines, such as blends of grapes from multiple vineyards (before pressing, not after they were already wine). His name was Dom Perignon. He did not develop the brand now known as "Dom Perignon," but it was named for him. The myth that Perignon invented champagne was created by a later monk, Dom Groussard, who made up many stories about the Abbey to garner fame.

Next: whether it came from Hautvillers or not, the Utrecht Psalter is worth a look.

St. Æthelwold

Æthelwold was born about 910CE to a wealthy Winchester family. He served at the court of King Æthelstan (reigned 924-939), learning as much as he can and yearning toward a religious life. He and his friend Dunstan were ordained about 939 by the Bishop of Winchester, St. Alphege. Æthelwold and Dunstan went to the monastery in Glastonbury in Somerset about 940, where Dunstan was made abbot

At this time, Danish incursions into England had sacked and destroyed many monasteries. Monastic life in England was at a low point. Dunstan, who like Æthelwold was later made a saint, adopted the Rule of St. Benedict (mentioned a few times) for the Glastonbury monastery, and led the revival of monasticism in England. Dunstan, Æthelwold, and Oswald of Worcester and York would be called the "Three English Holy Hierarchs" for their work in reviving English Orthodox monasticism.

Æthelwold wanted to go to Cluny in France to experience their version of monasticism, but Dunstan and then-King Edred did not want to lose him, and they sent him to Abingdon-on-Thames to run the derelict monastery there. The patron saint of the place was St. Helena, because legend had it that she built a church there.

Abingdon became a strong monastic community. Æthelwold brought singers from Corbie in France to teach Gregorian chant, which was not common at the time in England.

When Æthelwold became Bishop of Winchester in 963, the priests were illiterate, lazy, guilty of drunkenness and gluttony; they were not good at the services, and most were married men. Æthelwold expelled the married men, tightened up discipline, and brought in monks from Abingdon as the nucleus of a new "monastery/cathedral" institution.

I'll say a little more about him tomorrow, including about the miracles attributed to him.

The True Cross—Found!

Empress Helena of Constantinople went to Palestine from 326-328CE to find Christian relics, consistent with her recent conversion to Christianity. Among other acts, she tore down a temple built by Emperor Hadrian in the 130s. Excavating under it, she found three wooden crosses.

As excited as she may have been to find three crosses, Helena wanted absolute proof of their authenticity. She tested the crosses by having a dying woman brought to the site, having her touch the crosses. Touching the first two produced no change in her condition, but touching the third cross resulted in a sudden recovery. This provided Helena the proof she wanted, and she declared the third cross the True Cross, used to crucify Jesus Christ.

On the site was built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a version of which exists today.

This story of the dying woman comes down to us from a monk Rufinus (344-411CE), who was a translator of Greek Christian writings into Latin. He tacks this story onto his translation of an Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius. Strictly speaking, there is no contemporary account of this. Eusebius, who died in 339CE and was therefore a contemporary of Helena, wrote a Life of Constantine (Helena's emperor son) in which he mentions the destruction of Hadrian's temple and the construction of the church on the site, but does not mention anything about the finding of the True Cross.

Nevertheless, many later records purporting to be accurate histories of the finding tell variations of the above story. Relics of the True Cross were spread all over Christendom, and even inspired a well-known Old English poem. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

The True Cross

 The "True Cross" refers to the cross upon which Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. Although it would have been of ordinary wood, Classical and Medieval and Renaissance legends decided it had to be something more than that.

The Golden Legend by Jacob de Voragine has several different origin stories for the wood of the Cross. In one, the Cross was made from the wood of three trees which grew from three seeds that had been planted by Seth in the mouth of his father's, Adam's, corpse. Seth had taken the seeds from the "Tree of Mercy" (which is not part of the Biblical story).

Another version related by Voragine explains that the wood came from a cutting from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, also planted by Seth on Adam's grave.

From either of these origins, an elaborate provenance was created to get the wood from Eden to Golgotha. The wood was made into the rod of Moses, which was planted by King David in Jerusalem, from which grew a tree that enabled Solomon to carve a beam for his temple. Eventually, the tree was cut down for wood that was used to build a bridge used by the Queen of Sheba to visit Solomon. The Queen had a vision that a piece of wood from the bridge would lead to the replacing of God's covenant with the Jews (this would be Jesus and his message). Solomon, thinking this a tragedy, had the wood buried. It was exhumed years later and some was used to make the True Cross.

How did it come to be discovered after the crucifixion? For that, we must talk about a remarkable woman, the Empress Helena of Constantinople, which we will do next.

The Tomb of the Three

The Shrine of the Three Kings

The Three Kings, or Magi, appear suddenly in the Gospel of Matthew and just as quickly disappear. That paucity of information on them did not, however, prevent Christendom from tracking them down and making relics out of them.

It is supposed that they were so moved by their experience in the Gospel that they converted to Christianity, either on their own when they returned to their home country or later in life when they first encountered one of the Apostles.

Marco Polo tells us that he was shown their tomb:

In Persia is the city of Saba, from which the Three Magi set out and in this city they are buried, in three very large and beautiful monuments, side by side. And above them there is a square building, beautifully kept. The bodies are still entire, with hair and beard remaining.

This must be untrue, however, since clearly they have relics that were kept originally in Constantinople, where they (along with countless other relics) were gathered by the Empress (later Saint) Helena. They were then offered to Bishop Eustorgius I of Milan by Constantine. It is the biography of Eustorgius that tells their history.

They stayed in Milan until Barbarossa took them and gave them to the Archbishop of Cologne, who built Cologne Cathedral to house their golden reliquary. The foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral was laid on 15 August, 1248.

The True Cross

Relic of True Cross at Cortona, near Florence

Yesterday's post told of Empress (later Saint) Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, and her finding of the True Cross. According to the historian Socrates Scholasticus (c.380-??), when she came to the place on which Christ had been crucified, she objected to the presence of a Temple of Venus on the spot and ordered it destroyed, and even the earth on which it stood removed. The following excavation revealed three crosses and a loose titulus (the slab on which had been written Christ's titles, in Greek, Latin and Hebrew).

She gave the Cross to the heads of Jerusalem to preserve. Cyril of Jerusalem (c.313-386) records, in his lectures on the Crucifixion, that a relic of the True Cross can be found in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre (completed in 335 CE) as early as the 340s. We learn more about how the Cross is treated from the account of a nun named Egeria; her Itinerario Egeriæ (Itinerary of Egeria) tells how the silver reliquary is brought out and the piece of the Cross is held firmly in the two hands of the bishop; people com forward and bow to kiss he wood while deacons stand guard. The numerous deacon-guards were necessary because someone once bit off a piece of the wood to take away.

Fragments of the Cross were distributed among the worthy. Cyril of Jerusalem as able to say "The whole earth is full of the relics of the cross of Christ." Small fragments in gold reliquaries could be worn as protection. A piece was sent to Pope Leo I (c.391-461), one supposedly to King Alfred the Great of England in 883 (recorded in  the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). Fragments were captured in battle and held for ransom, or remained in pagan hands until re-captured.

So many fragments existed, spread across Europe and the Middle East, that John Calvin (1509-1564) wrote:

In some places there are large fragments, as at the Holy Chapel in Paris, at Poitiers, and at Rome, where a good-sized crucifix is said to have been made of it. In brief, if all the pieces that could be found were collected together, they would make a big ship-load. Yet the Gospel testifies that a single man was able to carry it.

St. Helena also found nails with the Cross. She sent two to her son so that one could be inserted into his helmet and protect him in battle, and one likewise could be inserted into the bridle of his horse for more protection. One (of these?) nails made its way to Theodelinda and thence to the Iron Crown of Lombardy.

Debates over the number of nails used at the Crucifixion* (3 or 4?) have gone on for centuries, but are perhaps moot, since besides the Iron Crown o Lombardy, nails from the True Cross can be found in the treasuries of both the Cathedral of Trier and Colle di Val d'Elsa near Siena, built into bridles at both the Cathedral of Carpentras and Milan, in the Holy Lance of German royal regalia in Vienna, and in Santa Croce in Rome. But then, you would need a lot of nails to hold together all that wood mentioned by Calvin.


*There is even a special term, triclavianism, for the belief that only three nails were used.

St. Helena

Yesterday's post mentioned a nail from Christ's cross that had been possessed by the Emperor Constantine (c.272-337), the first Christian Emperor of the Byzantine Empire. We are told he had been given the nail by his mother, Helena.

Flavia Julia Helena (246-330) was born in Drepanum in Asia Minor (re-named "Helenopolis" after her death by Constantine). There is a tradition in England that says she came from Colchester, a town that nowadays has schools named for her and a road named for Constantine, but since Colchester was Rome's capital city in Britain at the time, perhaps this tradition has a more mundane and municipal explanation.* Much has been made of Constantine's conversion to Christianity and his decree that it become the official religion of the Roman Empire, but his mother did something that would help to bring focus on the new religion.

How she first came into the Roman picture isn't clear. One story tells that Constantine's father, Constantius, met her in Asia Minor while stationed there on behalf of the Emperor Aurelian. Constantius met a woman wearing a silver bracelet identical to one he was wearing, and took it as a divine sign that they should be together. Some contemporary historians call her Constantius' wife, some his concubine (but those were rivals of Constantius who were trying to de-legitimize Constantine). St. Jerome (c.347-420), with perhaps an attempt at some sort of fairness rather than a historian's lens, refers to her as both.

She had a checkered career, taking part in many acts that may have been politically convenient but would not now be considered proper Christian behavior. She also had a reputation, however, for acts of charity to the poor, and for worshiping in humble attire. Her greatest contribution to Christianity came when Constantine gave her unlimited resources to find relics connected with the new religion. She set out for the Holy Land. Eusebius of Cæsarea (c.263-339) credits her with establishing the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (commemorating Christ's birthplace), the Church of the Mount of Olives (commemorating Christ's ascension into heaven), and she may have been responsible for a church in Egypt that commemorates the burning bush of Moses.

According to legend, she began an excavation...somewhere...and lo and behold, unearthed three crosses. The story of the Crucifixion immediately sprang to mind, but she wanted empirical (pun intended) evidence. With the help of Bishop Macarius, each of the three crosses was brought into contact with a local woman who was deathly ill. Contact with the first two produced no effect, but contact with the third caused the woman's health to return immediately. They realized that they had located the True Cross on which Christ had been crucified. (The illustration is a 1380 painting by Agnolo Gaddi.)

The true era and business of holy relics could now begin...and did it ever!

*This is from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniæ [History of the Kings of Britain], and makes Helena the daughter of Coel of Colchester, the "old King Cole" of nursery rhyme fame.

The Iron Crown of Lombardy

The Eastern Emperor Justinian's (482-565 CE) attempt to conquer the Western Empire left it bruised and open to invasion. The Lombard Kingdom was established by Germanic tribes who flowed into the Italian peninsula after its population and political infrastructure was devastated by attacks from Byzantine forces. Between Lombards and Byzantines, Italy was carved into a series of ever-shifting boundaries for the next few centuries.

One of the early rulers of the Lombards married a Bavarian princess named Theodelinda (c.570-628). Because of actions she took that helped stamp out Arianism in Italy, she received some notable religious gifts. One of her gifts was a nail, purported to be from the True Cross and originally in the possession of Emperor Constantine (272-337), who received it from his mother, St. Helena (246-330).

The Iron Crown of Lombardy (see the inner ring?)

What does one do with an iron nail that is a relic of Christ? Turn it into an accessory!

The nail was beaten into a 1-centimeter thin band. Around this band was built a gold crown. It has six sections and is the size of a large arm ring. Historical documents suggest that it used to be larger, but a couple sections were lost and the remainder were re-positioned into the current smaller circle. Some, however, believe it was always this size and meant to be worn on the very top of the head or meant to be part of a larger ensemble. (A lot depends on the size of the original nail, which we cannot know.)

Although we believe the iron nail (the crucial antecedent to the Iron Crown) was brought to the Lombards by Theodelinda in the early 7th century, the Crown itself is believed to have been made in the 8th or early 9th century. DailyMedieval's research has found references to Carolingians taking up the Iron Crown (the "forgotten" King Carloman in 781 and Lothair in 829).

Religious authorities argued over the centuries over the validity of the nail. The Crown was alternately declared a "relic" of Christ or a fake. In 1715 the Congregation of Rites in Rome (which supervises the liturgy and sacraments) allowed that the Crown could be displayed in public as an object of veneration without committing to the authenticity of the "nail."

The Iron Crown of Lombardy is kept at the Cathedral of Monza outside of Milan. Authorities at the Cathedral point out that, despite the centuries of exposure, the inner iron ring shows no rust. A 1985 examination determined that magnets are not attracted to the "iron" ring. More research is needed.