E
Waterton, Pietas Mariana Britannica (1879), pp 155-220
WALSINGHAM, formerly GALSINGAHAM.
This was the most celebrated of all the English sanctuaries of our Blessed
Ladye; and so great was the veneration in which it was held, that it was
called the Holy Land of Walsingham. An old ballad says—As
ye came from the holy land Of Walsingham:
and
other instances occur. How applicable to this sanctuary were those words
of Tobias “Nations from afar shall come to thee, shall bring gifts,
and shall adore the Lord in thee, and shall esteem thy land as holy.”
Walsingham, or more correctly, Little Walsingham, is a parish, formerly
a market town, in the northern division of the hundred of Greenhoe, in
the county of Norfolk, twenty-eight miles north-west of Norwich, and one
hundred and fourteen from London. It is about eight miles from the sea,
and seven from Wells, the nearest port; but it is probable that most of
the pilgrims who came by sea would land at Lynn Episcopi, now Lynn Regis,
which is twenty-seven miles distant. Ships belonging to Lynn Episcopi
are often mentioned amongst the pilgrim-transports.
Two hundred feet due east from the east end of the priory church are two
wells, commonly called the “Wishing-wells,” but this appears
to be a comparatively late designation, and to which is attached a modern
superstition, that whoever drank of these waters might obtain what they
wished for while they drank.
In or about the year 1061, a little chapel, similar to the Holy House
at Nazareth, and dedicated to the Annunciation, was built here by Richeldis
or Recholdis,299 a widow, in consequence, as the tradition says, of an
injunction received in a vision from the Blessed Virgin Marye.
In the Pepysian Library there is an unique copy of an anonymous ballad,
printed by Robert Pynson, and which bears internal evidence of having
been composed about the year 1460. Its title runs thus—
Of
thys chappel see here the foundatyon,
Builded the yere of Christ’s incarnatyon
A thousande complete sixty and one,
The tyme of Saint Edwarde, Kinge of this region.
It relates
how “the noble wedowe,” some time Lady of the town of Walsingham,
Rychold de Faverches by name, was favoured by the Virgin Mother of God
with a view of the Holy House at Nazareth, and commissioned to build its
counterpart at Walsingham, upon a site thereafter to be indicated. It
relates very circumstantially the widow’s perplexity—
When
it was al formed, then had she great doubte
Where it should be sette, and in what manner place,
Inasmuch as tweyne places were foune out,
Tokened with meracles of our Laydie’s grace.
• • • • • •
The Wedowe thought it moste lykely of congruence
This house on the first soyle to build and arrere
Of thys who lyste to have experience;
A chappel of Saynt Lawrence standyth now there,
Faste by tweyne wellys, experience do thus lere
There she thought to have sette this chappel,
Which was begone by our Ladie’s counsel.
All night the Wedowe permayneing in this prayer,
Our Blessed Laydie with blessed minystrys,
Herself being here chief Artificer,
Arrered thys sayde house with angells handys,
And not only rered it, but sette it there it is,
That is tweyne hundrede foot and more in distaunce
From the first place fokes make remembraunce.
The tradition,
therefore, is, that Richeld, being in a state of doubt as to the exact
spot on which to erect the little chapel, but inclining to the site by
the two wells—“there she thought to have sette this chapel”—spent
the night in prayer, and that our Blessed Ladye, “herself being
here chief artificer,” reared it with the assistance of angels,
and then “sette it there it is.” This tradition fully explains
the extraordinary veneration in which the sanctuary of our Lady of Walsingham
was held. “Whatever uncertainty,” says Harrod, “may
still exist about the precise date of the chapel, there can be no doubt
as to its having been the great source of attraction which drew pilgrims
from all parts, and made the priory one of the richest in the world. Almost
from the foundation of the priory up to the dissolution there was one
unceasing movement of pilgrims to and from Walsingham. . . . The image
of the Blessed Virgin in the small chapel, ‘in all respects like
to the Santa Casa at Nazareth, where the Virgin was saluted by the Angel
Gabriel,’ was the original, and continued to the dissolution the
primary object of the pilgrims’ visit.”
Soon after the norman invasion, Geoffrey de Faveraches, as he is named,
the son of Richeldis, founded and endowed a priory of Austin Canons, to
whom he gave the above-named chapel. The charter of foundation is to this
effect:
“To
all, &c. Geoffrey de Faveraches, &c.
“Be it known to you that I have given and granted to Edwin, my clerk,
for the institution of a religious order which he will provide, and for
the health of my soul and the souls of my parents and friends, in perpetual
alms, the chapel which my mother founded in Walsingham, in honour of the
Ever Virgin Mary, together with the possession of the Church of All Hallows,
in the same vill, with all its appurtenances, &c.”
Geoffrey
went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but the date of his journey is not given.
Subsequently Gilbert, Earl of Clare, confirms to his clerics of Walsingham,
Ralph and Geoffrey, for the health of his soul and the souls of his parents,
in perpetual alms, the chapel which Richeldis, the mother of Geoffrey
de Faveraches, had founded in Walsingham, with all its appurtenances.
And a charter, of a later date, of Robert de Brucurt, addressed to William,
Bishop of Norwich, dated A.D. 1146-1174, makes known that he gives and
grants to God and St. Marye, and the canons of Walsingham, for the health
of his soul, &c., all the possessions which that church held on the
day when Geoffrey de Faveraches set out on his journey to Jerusalem. This
is the correct early history of Walsingham, and which some writers have
strangely confused; and there appears no reason to doubt that Richeld,
the mother of Geoffrey de Faveraches, was the original founder of the
celebrated chapel of our Ladye, and at the period usually assigned, A.D.
1061. The chain of evidence is satisfactory.
The chapel of our Blessed Lady stood lengthways, east and west, on the
north side of the church, which was built up to it, and communicated with
it by a door. This church was two hundred and forty-four feet in length
by seventy-eight in width, interior measurement. The priory adjoined the
church on the south side. About two hundred and thirty feet due north,
on a line drawn from the east end of the church, stood the “Knight’s
Gate,” leading into what is now called “Knight’s Street.”
This renowned sanctuary is generally spoken of as having been the counterpart
of the Holy House at Nazareth. Fortunately the dimensions of the Walsingham
chapel have been preserved by William of Worcester, and thus a .comparison
becomes possible. I propose, therefore, briefly to give such details of
the Holy House of Nazareth, now of Loreto, as bear upon the question,
using for my principal authority a most interesting work, entitled Loreto
and Nazareth, drawn up from the researches of many writers, and from his
own most careful investigations in both places, by the late lamented Father
of the Oratory of St. Philip, William Antony Hutchison. It is to be regretted
that this instructive book is not more known. It has lately been translated
into German.
The Holy House was miraculously translated by the angels from Nazareth,
and placed by them on the summit of a hill at Tersatto, a small town near
Fiume, about sixty miles south of Trieste, on the eastern side of the
Adriatic gulf, on the 6th of May, A.D. 1291. Three years later, on the
10th of September, it was again translated across the Adriatic, and placed
in a wood, about a mile from the sea-shore, and four miles from Recanati.
In August, 1295, it was transferred to the hill of the two brothers; finally,
in December of the same year, it was translated to its present position.
The wood where the Holy House rested was in a district called Lauretum,
either from the laurels that grew in abundance there, or because it belonged
to a rich lady of Recanati, called Laureta; and hence the appellation
of Domus Lauretana, or “House of Loreto,” which has ever since
remained attached to it.
“ Although,” says Father Hutchison, “the House now at
Loreto is identically the same as when it arrived there nearly six centuries
ago, yet some alterations have been made in it, of which we now proceed
to give an account. Soon after the House was finally settled in its present
site, the people of Recanati, seeing that it stood on the bare earth without
foundation, feared to allow its ancient walls to be exposed to the violence
of the wind and the rain. They determined, therefore, to surround the
Holy House with a thick brick wall, which should serve as a support and
protection to the ancient walls; but when it was finished, it was found
that the new wall had separated from the old walls in such a manner, that
a boy with a lighted candle in his hand could easily pass between the
two. This separation was commonly thought to be miraculous, and it was
believed that our Lady wished to show that she had no need of human assistance
to support the walls of her Holy House. Had the separation only taken
place here and there, there would be nothing astonishing, as it might
be thought to be merely the effect of a settlement of a new wall; but
from the account given, something more than this seems to have taken place,
as the new walls all round the building seem to have separated from the
old walls, and to a considerable distance. But whatever may have been
the reason, there was no doubt of the fact, for Riera, who died anno 1582,
says that in his day there were living many who had beheld this prodigy
with their own eyes; and amongst the rest, Rainerius Nerucci, the architect
of the Holy House.”
In the course of time the magnificent church, which contains the Holy
House under its dome, was erected. It seems to have been begun about the
year 1468 by Pope Paul the Second, and was greatly added to and beautified
by Clement the Seventh. This Pontiff determined to complete the incrustation
of the Holy House with marble, according to the plan decided on by Leo
the Tenth. Whilst the sculptors were preparing their work, Nerucci, the
architect, removed the brick wall, which, as has been said, was built
around the House. He then erected in its place a new wall, which was afterwards
clothed with marble. On this wall the present roof of the Holy House is
supported; for the Pope fearing lest the ancient roof, which was of wood,
might take fire some day through the quantity of lamps that were always
burning in the House, ordered a new roof of stone to be put in its place.
It has been ascertained on several occasions that the walls of the Holy
House have no foundations whatever.
The successive renewals of the pavement from time to time were rendered
necessary by the crowds of worshippers who frequented the Holy House.
Originally a pavement of tiles seems to have been laid down, either at
Tersatto or Loreto; but in the time of Sixtus the Fourth, this was replaced
by a pavement of marble, the pilgrims having carried off most of the tiles
of the ancient pavement as relics.
May not the bequest of William Haute, in 1462, of “one piece of
that stone on which the Archangel Gabriel descended when he saluted the
Blessed Virgin Marye” have been in reality, a bit of this ancient
pavement? It will be observed that this piece of stone is not spoken of
as being considered a relic, and, as such, exposed for public veneration,
hut the testator merely bequeaths it to be placed under the foot of the
image of our Ladye at Bourne.
The great alteration, however, which was made in the Holy House at this
time, was one which, though very convenient for the faithful, was such
a bold step, that only one possessed of the authority of Supreme Pontiff
could have ventured to order it. Up to the time of Clement the Seventh,
the Holy House had but one door, the ancient door, namely, on the north
side. This was found to be very inconvenient, and to cause much confusion
among the crowds who were striving to enter or to leave the House. Besides
this, the doorway in question existed in the times of the Holy Family.
It was, therefore, manifestly unseemly that so sacred a spot should be
the scene of those undignified struggles on the part of the people. The
Pope, therefore, determined to close up the ancient door, and to break
three new doorways in the walls of the House—two of them being respectively
in the north and south walls, towards the western extremities, and giving
to the people ample means of entry and egress; the third doorway is in
the south wall, and opens into the Sanctuary of the Holy House, behind
the altar. His Holiness accordingly gave orders that these doorways should
be made.
During the progress of these works, the small window in the west wall
was enlarged and brought nearly into the centre of the wall, instead of
being, as theretofore, nearer to the north than to the south wall. The
materials of the new doorways were used partly to block up the ancient
doorway, partly to enlarge the Sagro Cammino, and the remainder were buried
underneath the pavement. At the same time the altar, which formerly stood
against the middle of the south wall, was removed to its present position,
i.e., about twelve feet from the east end, it is about four feet six inches
long, with the top stone projecting, which is a dark black-looking slab,
apparently of marble. It is all enclosed within the present altar. Behind
the altar the Sagro Cammino, or Sacred Hearth, was considerably added
to and brought into its present form. Above this, the image of our Lady
of Loreto was placed, which had come in the Holy House when it arrived
at Tersatto. These works were commenced on the 10th November, 1531, and
were not finished till the 5th July, 1538.
Summing up, therefore, the following data are obtained:
1. The Holy House of Nazareth had but one door, which was nearly in the
centre of the north wall, and one window which was in the west wall, and
nearer to the north than to the south wall. Father Hutchison is inclined
to believe that formerly there was a second doorway where the Sagro Cammino
now stands.
2. The altar stood against the south wall. It is not stated where the
image of our Ladye was placed.
3. These arrangements were all changed, the alterations made by order
of Clement the Seventh, when the altar was placed about twelve feet from
the east end, and the image of our Ladye in the enlarged niche called
the Sagro Cammino.
The dimensions of the Holy House, internal measurement, are, length 31
ft. 35?. in., breadth 13 ft. Now to return to the Walsingham sanctuary,
the little chapel of the Annunciation “arrerd with angells handys,”
which formed the glory of Walsingham in its most palmy days, and which
is described as being similar to the Holy House of Nazareth. It is certainly
curious and interesting to notice how a miraculous translation is also
associated with its early history, nearly two hundred and thirty years
before the actual translation of the Holy House itself from Nazareth to
Tersatto in 1291.
The earliest details extant about this renowned sanctuary are those given
by William Botoner, generally known as William of Worcester. He was born
at Bristol, c. 1415, and was educated at Oxford, mainly at the expense
of Sir John Fastolf, of Caistor in Norfolk, whose squire he afterwards
became. His Itinerary is preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge, and was published by Nasmyth in 1778. He was at Walsingham,
probably, in 1479.
It appears that, like the Holy House of Loreto, the chapel of the Annunciation
at Walsingham—which I shall call, in the words of William of Worcester,
the Capella Beatae Mariae—was covered in by an outer building, but
I have found no record of the date when this outer covering was erected.
William of Worcester calls it the novum opus, or new work; but this term
is applied both to new buildings, and to buildings pulled down and rebuilt,
therefore his words only prove that at the time of his visit, a new building,
which enclosed the Capella, had recently been erected. These are the measurements
which he has recorded: Longitudo novi operis de Walsingham continet in
toto 16 virgas; latitudo continet infra aream 10 virgas, or 48 by 30 feet.
Longitudo capelle Beate Marie continet 7 virgas 30 pollices; latitudo
continet 4 virgas 10 pollices, or 23 ft. 6 in. by 12 ft. 10 in. Thus there
was ample space for pilgrims to circulate between the walls of the capella
and those of the novum opus.
Erasmus, who was at Walsingham in May, 1511, describes the Ladye chapel
by templum, and as not completed, within which was the sanctuary of our
Ladye, which he variously calls the intimum sacellum, sacellum angustum,
and conclave divae Virginis. Therefore the templum inabsolutum angustum,
and the conclave divae Virginis or sacellum angustum of Erasmus are, respectively,
the novum opus and the Capella Beatae Mariae of William of Worcester.
The description of the position of the Ladye chapel which Erasmus gives,
is confirmed by some excavations made at Walsingham not many years ago.
It adjoined the priory church on the north side. Erasmus, speaking of
the templum inabsolutum, says “Our Ladye does not dwell here for
the building is not yet finished;” and then, like a Dutchman, he
feelingly adds “the place is very draughty on all sides; the windows
are open, and the doors are open, and not far off is the ocean, the father
of winds” —Locus est undique perflabilis patentibus portis,
patentibus fenestris, et in propinquo est oceanus, ventorum pater. “
’Tis a hard case,” says Menedemus, “where then does
our Ladye dwell?” Ogygius, i.e. Erasmus, replies “Within that
building, which I have said was unfinished, there is a small chapel ligneo
tabulatu confectum, which admits by a narrow little door, on either side,
those who come to salute our Ladye; the light is feeble, in fact, scarcely
any, excepting from the wax-candles. A most delightful fragrance gladdens
one’s nose”—in eo templo quod inabsolutum dixi, est
sacellum angustum, ligneo tabulatum constructum, ad utrumque latus per
angustum ostiolum admittens salutatores. Lumen est exigum; nec fere nisi
ex cereis; fragrat odor naribus gratissimus. It is, indeed, an agreeable
surprise to learn that anything was pleasing to this jesting and conceited
ex-Augustinian canon.
I accept his statements for the simple reason that he had no object to
gain, no whim to gratify, by being otherwise than correct in them. In
regard of the patentes portae, it is most probable that the capella had
no doors, a measure, which the convenience for the constant influx of
pilgrims into the little chapel, would suggest; and it is extremely likely
that the doors in the north wall of the novum opus and in the twelve foot
passage from the church though the south wall were also kept open during
the day for the same reason. Erasmus had announced his intended visit
to Walsingham in a letter to Andrew Ammonio, dated Cambridge, 8th May,
1511. Now it so happens, that just about this time, the windows of the
novum opus were being glazed at the expense of the king. In the royal
payments of the third and fourth years of Henry the Eighth, there are
two entries as follows:
1-8 June, 1511, part payment for glazing our Ladye’s chapel at Walsingham,
20l.
November (no date), 1512, Bernard Flour, for glazing our Ladye’s
chapel at Walsingham, 23l. 11s. 4d.
These fully explain how the windows happened to be open when Erasmus was
at Walsingham, and confirm his account.
Several years ago the Rev. James Lee Warner, cousin to the present proprietor
of Walsingham, made some excavations, and laid bare the foundations of
the ladye chapel. He has given a very interesting account of his discoveries,
accompanied by plans, in the journal of the Royal Archaeological Institute.
I have read and studied it with great pleasure, and it has afforded me
valuable assistance. To use his words: “The measurements of this
building coincide so exactly with the dimensions of the novum opus, as
already quoted from William of Worcester, that not a shadow of a doubt
can exist as to their identity.” From the plans which Mr. Lee Warner
has prepared, the walls of the novum opus were of considerable thickness.
There were three doors, one in the north, and one in the south wall, opposite
to each other, and no doubt facing the two doors of the sacellum angustum,
which Erasmus mentions: they were nearly in the centre of the two walls.
The third door, and apparently of smaller dimensions, was in the west
end, and not in the centre, but nearer to the south wall. The pavement
of the novum opus was about 2ft. 6in. above the level of that of the church,
from which the entrance was up three steps. In the plan of the ruins of
Walsingham made by Mr. Lee Warner, the east wall of the novum opus is
represented as of an extraordinary thickness, it being almost twice that
of the other walls, and consequently about 24 feet wide.
And now two questions arise: 1. William of Worcester describes the width
of the novum opus as being ten yards: latitudo continet infra aream 10
virgas. What is to be understood by infra aream?
Mr. Lee Warner, in the interesting article, to which I have already alluded,
says: “The area (whatever it was) seems to have been identical with
the platform of solid masonry which forms the eastern end of the opus
novum. The expression infra aream may imply that it was elevated, but
why William of Worcester excluded it from his internal measurement of
the chapel, of which it formed the most honourable part, is not quite
so apparent.” But, in a letter to me on this subject, he says “Upon
subsequent reflexion, I believe that the great thickness of the east wall
was apparent, not real; and that it was in fact only a portion of wall
lying flat, having been partially undermined, and so fallen but roots
of trees presented a difficulty in exploration. Are you cognizant of a
remark of Matt. Paris? who, describing the solemnity, A. D. 1247, in the
confessor’s chapel, says: “Rex advocavit eum, et praecepit
residere in gradu, qui erat medius inter sedile suum et aream. P. 980,
4to ed. 1551.”
This exploration has removed one difficulty, for I had been at a loss
to account for the extraordinary apparent thickness of the east wall of
the novum opus, viz. about 24ft. There can be no doubt that area, as used
by William of Worcester, refers to the floor of the capella, which must
have been above the level of the pavement of the opus novum. Moreover,
in all probability, a step ran round the outside of the capella, whether
level or not, with its floor, as is the case at Loreto and Einsiedeln;
and this step and floor, together, formed the area of William of Worcester.
I think that infra aream is to be taken as applying equally to longitudo
and latitudo. Unfortunately, the ruins afford no assistance. If the pavement
of the novum opus had been spared, it would have supplied valuable evidence
for a solution of the question; but Mr. Lee Warner informs me that “the
pavement of the capella was so thoroughly upturned by Thomas Cromwell
and his agents, that not only wood, but stone, had for the most part vanished.”
And this leads to the second question.
2. Was the area of William of Worcester the ligneus tabulatus of Erasmus?
In eo templo, says he, quod inabsolutum dixi, est sacellum angustum, ligneo
tabulatu constructum, &c. How is the expression ligneo tabulatu constructum
to be construed? Weever renders it, “a small chapell, but all of
wood;” Gough Nichols, “a small chapel made of boards;”
and Mr. Lee Warner speaks of it as the “wooden sacellum,”
but the reading which he quotes is, ligneo tabulate constructum. The text
which I have used is that of Vander Aa’s edition of 1703; and I
have examined five other editions of the Colloquia, all of which give
ligneo tabulatu. Facciolati does not mention the word; Ducange gives only
one meaning, pavimentum—“a floor.”
It seems to be the general impression that the capella of Walsingham was
built of wood, but I have found no authority for it, unless these words
of Erasmus have given rise to it. The real solution of the difficulty
lies in the sense in which Erasmus used them. But what is to be understood
by these lines of the anonymous ballad of the year 1460, which I have
already quoted?
When
it was al formed, then had she great doute
Where it should be sette.
Do they
refer to the completion of the building materials, and as being ready
for the builders; or will they warrant the inference that the little chapel
was built of wood, and fitted together, and put up, prior to its being
finally erected?
The sanctuary of our Ladye, the Capella Beatae Mariae of William of Worcester,
the Conclave Divae Virginis of Erasmus, is very briefly described by him.
“When you look in you would say that it is the abode of the saints,
so brilliantly does it shine on all sides with gems, gold, and silver.”
What light there was was afforded by the numerous wax candles, therefore
the inference is that it had no windows. But where did the altar stand,
and where was the celebrated image of our Blessed Ladye placed? All that
is known on this point is from _Erasmus, who laconically remarks that
“our Ladye stood in the dark at the right side of the altar”—illa
stabat in tenebris ad dextram altaris; and one of the canons was in constant
attendance—adstat altari canonicus quidam—to receive and take
care of the offerings of the pilgrims. As to the actual situation of the
altar nothing is known. Judging from the position of the doors of the
opus novum, which must have corresponded with those of the capella, it
is most probable that the altar stood at the east end, and the image of
our Ladye in the south-east angle.
The celebrated image of our Ladye was of wood. Erasmus describes it as
“a little image, remarkable neither for size, material, or execution”—imaguncula,
nec magnitudine nec materia nec opere praecellens; and this is the only
description extant, so far as I can ascertain, of Our Ladye of Walsingham.
Whether it was a standing or a seated image is a question which must remain
unanswered. The seal of Walsingham represents our Ladye as seated, but
I do not think that it can be received as evidence of the image of our
Ladye. I may add, that the image of our Ladye of Loreto is standing, and
about three feet in height.
On comparing the measurements of the capella of Walsingham with those
of the Holy House of Loreto, it will be seen that they do not correspond.
The dimensions of Loreto are—length, 31ft. 3 ? in.; breadth, 13
ft. 4½ in. Of Walsingham—length, 23 ft. 6 in.; breadth, 12
ft. 10 in. Loreto is built of the limestone of Nazareth; there is no record
of what material the capella of Walsingham was built, for ligneo tabulatu
constructum cannot be construed as “built of wood.” Both were
enclosed by an outer building. Presuming the door in the north wall of
the novum opus to have been opposite to the door of the capella, the position
of this latter one would have corresponded with that of Loreto before
the alterations commenced by Clement the Seventh in 1331. The altar at
Loreto formerly stood against the north wall nothing is known of the position
of the altar of the capella except that the image of our Ladye was on
its right. And was the image itself of English workmanship, or was it
a copy of our Ladye of Nazareth, and brought from the Holy Land by Geoffrey
de Faveraches, the son of the founder?
The anonymous ballad, written about the year 1460, records that a chapel
dedicated to St. Lawrence stood by the two wells, on the spot where Richeld
originally intended to have erected the chapel of our Ladye. Erasmus describes
this chapel as being “full of wonders;” and adds, that the
wells were covered by a wooden shed, which, as the guide informed him,
was brought thither suddenly, in the winter season, from a long distance.
Evidently he was indistinct in his recollections, and confounded the tradition
of the chapel of our Ladye with the shed. He ridicules its pretended antiquity,
and remarks that it bore no signs of old age; moreover, that when he expressed
his doubts on this point, his guide, while seeming to assent to what he
said, pointed out an old bear’s skin attached to the rafters of
the shed, and seemed amazed that he had not noticed this evident proof
of antiquity! Erasmus gives a very plausible account of what passed in
conversation between himself and his guide, yet he himself did not understand
a word of English, for he mentions, in another part of the Dialogue, that
he had to avail himself of the services of young Robert Aldrich as an
interpreter. No doubt the lively Cantab and the East Anglian guide must
have been poking fun at the Dutchman; indeed Erasmus seems to hint as
much in another part, when he says that he was afraid to place entire
confidence in Aldrich. It does not matter how this bear’s skin came
thither; it may have been hung up by a pilgrim as a curiosity and an offering,
just as Erasmus hung up his Greek ode in the Ladye chapel.
The latest account of the wells is by John Henry Parker, C.B., D.C.L.,
in 1847: “The holy wells are quite plain, round, and uncovered,
and on one side of them is a square bath; on the other side a small early
English doorway.”
The story of the Knight, and of the Knight’s Gate, which opened
into Knight Street, is given by Blomefield on the authority of an old
MS.; but it is to be regretted that he did not add where this MS. was
preserved. This is what he relates:
“Near the entrance into the close of the priory, on the north, was
a very low and narrow wicket door ‘not past an elne hye,’
and three quarters in breadth; and a certain Norfolk knight, Sir Raaf
Boutebourt, armed cap-a-pie, and on horseback, being in days of old (1314)
pursued by a cruel enemy, and in the utmost danger of being taken, made
full spede for this gate, and invoking this Lady for his deliverance,
he immediately found himself and his horse within the close and sanctuary
of the priory, in a safe asylum, and so fooled his enemy.” Erasmus
says that a brass plate representing Sir Ralph was nailed to the gate.
The name of the “Knight Street” is the sole local evidence
now remaining of Sir Ralph Boutebourt’s escape.
The principal road by which pilgrims arrived at Walsingham passed by Newmarket,
Brandon, and Fakenham; it is still known by the names of the Palmers’
Way, and Walsingham Green Way, and it may be traced pretty accurately
along the principal part of its course for nearly sixty miles through
the diocese. The pilgrims who came from the north crossed the Wash near
Long Sutton, and went through Lynn, most probably taking the way which
passed by the priories of Flitcham, Rudham or Roodham, and Cokesford.
Another great road used by passengers on pilgrimage to Our Ladye of Walsingham
led from the east, through Norwich and Attlebridge, by Bec Hospital, where
gratuitous accommodation for thirteen poor pilgrims was provided every
night; this was also sometimes called the Walsingham Way. At Hilburgh,
South-acre, Westacre, Lynn, Priors—Thorns, Stanhoe, Caston, and
many other places, were chapels in which the pilgrims offered up their
prayers as they passed on to Our Ladye of Walsingham. The Galaxy, or Milky
Way, was also called the “Walsingham Way,” as pointing to
that angle, and it retained this name to the days of Blomefield, who mentions
that he had heard old people use it.”
The prosperity of the little town of Walsingham was dependant upon the
crowds of pilgrims, who flocked thither from all parts, and consequently
inns and hostelries predominated. This feature will have been noticed
by those who have been at Einsiedeln, and other celebrated places of pilgrimage,
where the sanctuary alone is the object of attraction.
On entering Walsingham from the south, close to the walls of the priory
stood “le Beere,” formerly “le Dowe.” Then in
the Friday marketplace were the “White Horse,” and “Crownyd
Lyon;” in the adjoining street the “ Mane and Sterr,”
the “ Cokk,” the “Sarassyns Hede,” the “Swan
and the Bull,” which had appropriated part of the buildings of the
“Angel now wasted;” and then the “Ram” offers
hospitality. In Stonegate, there were the “Chekker,” and the
“Bolt and Toun.” In North Town-end there were the “White
Hart” and the “ Madynhede;” by the Prior’s water-mill
the “Gryffon” and the “Bell;” in Church Street
the “Crane,” and by the churchyard, the “George.”
And there were, no doubt, many more.
Some of the inn-holders of Walsingham seem to have considered the pilgrims
as fair objects to be “fleeced,” and fleeced them accordingly.
It is surmised that this extortion led to the conflagration of four of
the hostelries in 1431. John Amundesham relates that “in this year,
after Easter, there was a great fire in Walsingham Parva, which consumed
four of the inns in that town; by whom, or through what cause, this misfortune
happened, no mortal knew, except that it might be from revenge for the
excessive and unjust extortionate charges, which the persons living in
those inns had exacted from the pilgrims for their victuals.”
The Kings of England, and their subjects of every class, loved to go on
pilgrimage to this sanctuary.
Heremytes on an heape with hoked staves
Wenten to Walsyngham
so wrote John Longland, in his Vision of Piers Plouhman, A. D. 1362. And
many foreigners came from abroad. In the Witten Bouc, a pilgrimage from
Ghent “T’ons Vrauwe to Walsinghe,” is put down at four
livres.”
Henry the Third is the first English King who is recorded as a pilgrim
to Walsingham. This was in the twenty-sixth year of his reign--1248.
Edward the First was twice there. “It was known,” says Walsingham,
“ ‘that he did abide under the protection of the God of heaven.’
For once, while he was a young man, he chanced to be playing at chess
with a knight in a vaulted chamber, when suddenly, and without any occasion,
he rose, and went away; when, lo! an immense stone, which would have crushed
him if he had remained, fell on the very spot where he had been sitting.
On account of this miracle, he very heartily honoured Our Blessed Ladye
of Walsingham, to whose favour he attributed his escape- from this danger.”’
In 1296, at Candlemas, he again went on pilgrimage to his Protectress
in dangers and adversity, Our Ladye of Walsingham, where his procurators,
Hugh le Dispenser, and Walter de Beauchamp, steward of his household,
at his command, and in his presence (it not being the usage for him anyways
to swear in his own person) did swear en la chapelle de Notre Dame à
Walsingham, for him and his heirs, Kings of England, and in his name,
according to the power given them (which he acknowledged) that they should
perform and fulfil all matters and things contained in the instrument
of alliance between him and the Earl of Flanders. Nous que de usage avoms,
qui nous en propre Persone ne jurromy, reconissoms que le dit Monsieur
Hue et Monsieur Wautier nous Procurers et lour donans poer e mandement,
&c. par le tesmoign de cestes presentes Lettres. Dated at Walsingham,
le jour de la Chandeleur, in the year of grace, 1296, and of our reign
the twenty-fifth.
Edward the Second was a pilgrim to Walsingham in 1315; and in 1332, Isabella
of France, whilst residing at Castle Rising, made a pilgrimage to Walsingham;
and in the municipal records of Lynn there is an entry of 20s. for bread
sent to Isabella, Queen Dowager, when she came from Walsingham.
In 1361, Edward the Third went to Walsingham; and in this year he granted
out of his treasury the sum of 9l., as a gift, to John, Duke of Brittany,
for his expenses in going on pilgrimage to Walsingham. In the same year
he also gave leave of absence from London, for a month, on account of
his health, to his nephew, the Duke of Anjou, to visit Our Ladye of Walsingham
and St. Thomas of Canterbury. And three years later, Edward the Third
sent Letters, dated the 20th of February, to the Warders of the Marches
towards Scotland, directing them to give safe conduct to David de Bruys,
King of Scotland, who was to be accompanied by twenty knights, then intending
pilgrimage to Walsingham. Was he the King of Scotland to whom Norden alludes
as being cured by the water of the well of Our Ladye of Muswell?
In 1427, on the morrow of Saints Gervase and Protase, Queen Johanna, widow
of Henry the Fourth, visited St. Alban’s, on her way from Walsingham,
Norwich, and St. Edmund’s Bury, to Langley, and was received in
solemn procession by the monks, arrayed in white copes.”
Writing from Oxnead, on Saturday, the 28th of September, 1443, to John
Paston, Mrs. Margaret “I have behested to go on pilgrimage to Walsingham
and to St. Leonard’s for you; by my troth, I had never so heavy
a season as I had it from the time that I wist of your sickness, till
I wist of your amending.”
Sometime in 1457-1458, the Duke of Norfolk was on pilgrimage at Walsingham;
for Sir John Fastolfe, in a letter to John Paston, his cousin, dated Caistor,
the 18th of November, year not given, but before 1459, says “My
Lord of Norfolk, is removed from Framlingham on foot to go to Walsingham,
and daily I wait that he would come hither.”
In 1469 Edward the Fourth and his Queen were at Walsingham. James Hawte,
writing to Sir John Paston on Whitsun Monday, the 22nd May, 1469, says
. . . “and as for the King, as I understand, he departyt to Walsingham
upon Friday come seven-night, and the Queen also, if God send her hele.”
Two years later, the Duke of Norfolk was again on pilgrimage at Walsingham.
On the 13th or 14th of September, 1471, Sir John Paston writes to Mrs.
Margaret Paston, or her son, Sir John Paston, in haste, and says: “
I heard yesterday that a Worsted man of Norfolk that sold worsteds at
Winchester said that my Lord of Norfolk and my Lady were on pilgrimage
at our Ladye on foot; and so they went to Caistor.”
In the same year William Ponte bequeaths “to any of those who will
pilgrimage for me to Blessed Marye of Walsingham” vis. viiid. And
in 1472 our Ladye of Walsingham is one of the sanctuaries to which William
Ecopp, Rector of Heslerton, desires that a pilgrim or pilgrims shall be
sent immediately after his burial, and to offer there ivd. In 1478 the
Duke of Buckingham was on pilgrimage at Walsingham.
On the insurrection of the nobles in favour of Lambert Simnel, in 1487,
Henry the Seventh made a pilgrimage to our Ladye of Walsingham, and there
offering up his vows and prayers, implored her assistance in delivering
him from his enemies. After the battle of Stoke, when the rebels were
overthrown, in gratitude for the success which had attended his arms,
that monarch sent his banner to be offered at the shrine of our Ladye
of Walsingham, as a monument of the victory which he had gained by her
assistance.” The last royal pilgrims to our Ladye of Walsingham
were Henry the Eighth and Queen Catherine.
In the Privy Purse expenses of Henry the Eighth, 19-26 January, 1511,
there is an entry. of an offering at our Ladye of Walsingham of1l. 3s.
4d. In all probability this offering was made by the King in person, as
he was then on a visit to Sir Robert Cotton. The King started from East
Barsham Hall on his pilgrimage to Walsingham, and Spelman says that he
walked barefoot, and offered a valuable necklace to our Ladye.
After the victory of Flodden Field, Queen Katherine went on pilgrimage
to our Ladye of Walsingham in fulfilment of her vow, and on the 16th September
she announced her intention of doing so to the King:
“. . . And with this I make an ende, prayng God to send you home
shortly, for without this noo joye here can be accomplisshed; and for
the same I pray, and now goo to our Ladye at Walsingham that I promised
soo long agoo to see.
At Woborne the xvj. day of Septembre.
In her will Katherine of Aragon says
“Itm, that some personage go to our Ladye of Walsingham in pilgrimage,
and in going by the way, dole xx. nobles.
Three years previously Erasmus had been to Walsingham, and he describes
his visit in the colloquy entitled, Peregrinatio religionis ergo,70 a
name it by no means deserves. There was an old saying in regard of Philo
the Jew: aut Philo Platonizat, aut Plato Philonizat, and of Erasmus it
has been said: aut Erasmus Lutherizat, aut Luther Erasmizat As a writer
he is well described as damnatus in plerisque, suspectus in multis, caute
legendus in omnibus. It is notorious that Erasmus loved to exaggerate
the vices of his age, and to cast all possible ridicule upon the practices
of that Holy Faith, of which, nevertheless, he was only too glad to continue
an unworthy member. His pen is never more fruitful of sarcasm than when
treating of ecclesiastics and religious men. Did he judge of them by himself?
He has drawn his own character with the hand of an artist. Ut ingenue,
quod verum est, fatear, says he, sum naturâ propensior ad jocos
quam fortasse deceat, et linguae liberioris quam nonnunquam expediat.
Sir Thomas More discovered the venom latent in Erasmus before they had
been together an hour. Christopher Cresacre More, third in descent from
Sir Thomas, our mutual great ancestor, writes as follows:
“But of all strangers Erasmus challenged vnto himself his love most
especially, which had long continued by mutuall letters expressing great
affection, and increased so much that he tooke a iournie of purpose into
England to see and enioy his personall acquaintance and more intire familiaritie;
at which time it is reported how that he, who conducted him in his passage,
procured that Sir THOMAS MORE and he should first meete togeather in London
at the Lo: Mayor’s table, neither of them knowing each other. And
in the dinner time, they chanced to fall into argument, Erasmus still
endeauouring to defende the worser parte; but he was so sharpely sett
vpon and opposed by Sir THOMAS MORE, that perceauing that he was now to
argue with a readier Witt then euer he had before mett withall, he broke
forth into these wordes not without some choler Aut tu es Morus aut nullus;
whereto Sir THOMAS readily replied Aut tu es Erasmus, aut diabolus; because
at that time he was strangely disguised, and had sought to defende impious
propositions; for although he was a singular Humanist, and one that could
vtter his minde in a most eloquent phrase, yet had he alwaies a delight
to scoffe at religious matters, and finde fault with all sortes of clergie
men. He tooke a felicitie to sett out sundrie Commentaries vpon the Father’s
workes, censuring them at his pleasure, for which cause he is tearmed
Errans mus, because he wandreth here and there in other men’s haruests;
yea, in his writings he is sayd to haue hatched manie of those eggs of
heresie, which the apostate fryar Luther had before layde; not that he
is to be accounted an heretike, for he would neuer be obstinate in anie
of his opinions, yet would he irreligiously glaunce at all antiquitie
and finde manie faultes with the present state of the Church. When he
was in England Sir THOMAS MORE vsed him most courteously, doing manie
offices of a dear friend for him, as well by his word as his purse; whereby
he bound Erasmus so straytely vnto him, that he euer spoke and wrote vpon
all occasions most highly in his praise; but Sir THOMAS in successe of
time grew lesse affectionate vnto him, by reason he saw him still fraught
with much vanitie and vnconstancie in respect of religion; as when Tindall
obiecteth vnto Sir Thomas that his darling Erasmus had translated the
word Church into Congregation, and Priest into Elder, even as himself
had donne, Sir THOMAS answered thereto, yf my darling Erasmus hath translated
those places with the like wicked intent that Tindall hath donne, he shall
be no more my darling, but the Divell’s darling. Finally, long after,
having found in Erasmus’s workes manie thinges necessarily to be
am?ded, he counselled him as his friend in some latter booke to imitate
the example of S. Augustin, who did sett out a booke of Retractations,
to correct in his writing what he had vnaduisedly written in the heat
of youth; but he that was farre different from S. Augustin in humilitie,
would neuer follow his counsell; and therefore he is censured by the Church
for a busie fellow: manie of his bookes are condemned, and his opinions
accounted erroneous, though he alwaies lived a Catholike Priest; and hath
written most sharpely against all those new Gospellers who then beganne
to appeare in the world; and in a letter to John Fabius, Bishopp of Vienna,
he sayth that he hateth these seditious opinions, with the which at this
day the world is miserably shaken; neither doth he dissemble, saith he,
being so addicted to pietie, that if he incline to any parte of the ballance,
he will bende rather to superstition than to impietie ; by which speach
he seemeth in doubtfull words to taxe the Church with superstition and
the new Apostolicall bretheren with impietie.” Such was the man
who went on pilgrimage religionis ergo to Walsingham.
In 1509 Erasmus came to reside at Cambridge. It should be borne in mind,
that every one who was able made a pilgrimage in person to our Ladye of
Walsingham, and many sent their yearly offerings; indeed, Camden says
that those who were able and did not go thither were considered as impious,
and Erasmus mentions the annual offerings. A pilgrimage, therefore, to
Walsingham was the to. pre,pon—the “correct thing;”
and Erasmus was nothing loath; he, as a time-server, would do as others
did. They went in a spirit of devotion. He saw that a visit to Walsingham
would enable him to gratify his inordinate pride, to perpetrate an unseemly
joke in the hallowed sanctuary itself of our Ladye, and to make a display
of his fancied superior acquirements in letters, at the expense of many
distinguished University men and the excellent Augustinian Canons of Walsingham,
who bore a very high reputation for culture. Moreover, it would give him
a character for piety and a consequent better position at Cambridge. Otherwise,
one is at a loss to understand why this ex-Augustinian Canon, who so much
disapproved of pilgrimages, or, as he endeavours to explain it, the abuse
of pilgrimages, should, in accordance with a practice, which he lost no
opportunity of condemning, have gone himself on a pilgrimage to Walsingham.
No doubt Erasmus felt that a pilgrimage, undertaken by Erasmus, could
under no circumstances be considered as an abuse, but rather, that it
ought to be regarded as a model of what a pilgrimage religionis ergo should
be. To judge, however, from his own description, it is about the greatest
abuse of a pilgrimage on record.
Those who go on pilgrimage usually prepare themselves by some extra act
of piety, or mortification, and by approaching the Holy Sacraments and
receiving the blessing of Holy Church. Erasmus did not do in like manner.
He composed an ode, in Greek Iambics, to our Ladye, in which there is
more than one allusion to himself, but no mention of, nor prayer for,
the success of the Church, which was the ostensible motive of his visit
to Walsingham. Having incubated these verses, he wished their appearance
to be noised abroad, and so cackled accordingly. The Times was as yet
in the womb of time ; consequently, he could not advertise his movements,
or announce that, on such a day, Erasmus would go to Walsingham for the
purpose of hanging up a Greek ode, so that his friends and the public
might attend to witness the performance; but he did the next best thing,
which was, to write from Cambridge on the 8th of May, 1511, to his friend
Andrew Arnmonio, telling him “that he has made a vow for the success
of the Church; will go to see our Lady of Walsingham, and hang up a votive
Greek ode there: and enjoins him, if he should go thither, to enquire
for it.” Ego, mi Andrea, pro felici serum ecclesiasticarum statu
votum suscepi. Jam scio religionem probas. Visam Virginem Walsagamicam,
atque illic Graecum carmen votivum suspendam. Id si quando te illo contuleris,
require.
Provided that the Greek ode was hung up, and that some one of position,
like Ammonio, would enquire for it, and so draw attention to it, the success
of the Church, might, for all that Erasmus cared, have gone to the four
winds.
This is the ode, with its title; and from what Erasmus says, it is evident
that the lines were written together, and without a break. I reproduce
them strictly in accordance with his own words, viz., in capitals or uncial
letters. “The title,” says he, descriptus erat verbis ac literis
Romanis, sed majusculis. Grecci versus erant descripti Graecis majusculis,
quae prima specie videntur referre majusculas Latinas. This was the pith
of the joke.
Hail!
Jesu’s Virgin Mother ever blest!
Alone of Women Mother eke and Maid!
Others to thee their several offerings make:
This one brings gold, that silver, while a third
Bears to thy shrine his gift of costly gems
For these each craves his boon—one strength of limb;
One wealth; one, through his spouse’s fruitfulness
The hope a father’s pleasing name to bear:
One Nestor’s eld would equal. I, poor bard,
Rich in goodwill, but poor in all beside,
Bring thee my verse—nought have I else to bring—
And beg, in quital of this worthless gift,
That greatest meed—a heart that feareth God,
And free for aye from sin’s foul tyranny
Erasmus his vow.
This euché is characteristic of the writer. Neither a Greek ode,
nor a Latin ode, nor a Dutch ode was required; a sincere devotion to our
Blessed Ladye would have suggested, that whatever he wrote, should have
been in the vernacular, for the edification of the majority of the pilgrims;
and any of his Cambridge friends would gladly have put his words into
elegant English for him. But no! This would not have suited his purpose.
His ideas were not those of our Ladye’s liegemen. Erasmus wished
it to be known that he, Erasmus, the great Greek scholar, as he fancied
himself, from down among the Dutchmen, had been to see Walsingham, and
suspended a Greek ode there.
Erasmus wrote much against the Catholic practice of making rich offerings
at the different sanctuaries of our Ladye, and consequently in his ode
he says to her that “others present valuable gifts, and expect favours
in return from her, such as to attain the age of Nestor,”—a
curious petition to make in a prayer—“ but that he, a poor
poet penes g’hómos —penniless—and rich in good
will alone, can only offer her some verses.” But, then, they were
Greek lines, and by Erasmus! and therefore, in his own estimation, priceless
beyond gold and silver and precious stones. I imagine that, in penes g’hómos,
there is an allusion to his hackneyed grievance about the vigilance of
the English custom-house officers. By the laws of the realm, no one was
allowed to carry out of the kingdom more than six angels in coin; all
above that sum was seized; and consequently, as he was leaving Dover,
in 1499, after his first visit to England, the officers took from him
all the money he possessed beyond that amount, 20l more or less. It is
gratifying to learn from him that our custom-house officers were so vigilant,
and, that as loyal Englishmen, they did their duty with their usual impartiality,
even although Erasmus was the victim, and heedless of the risk they ran
of being denounced by him to posterity in a Greek ode.
Erasmus gives, also, the prayer which he recited in the sanctuary of our
Ladye, and which bears the marks of having been carefully prepared for
the occasion. Pilgrims, as a rule, do not publish the prayers which they
make at various sanctuaries.
“O alone of all women, Mother and Virgin, Mother most happy, Virgin
most pure, now we, impure as we are, come to see thee (visimus) who art
all pure; we salute thee; we worship thee as how we may with our humble
offerings; may thy Son grant us, that, imitating thy most holy manners,
we also, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, may deserve spiritually to conceive
the Lord Jesus in our inmost soul (intimis animi visceribus), and once
conceived, never to lose Him. Amen.”
In the colloquy Erasmus says he made two journeys to Walsingham, which
seems very improbable; and there is a strong presumption that what he
relates of the second visit is the fruit of his own imagination. The colloquy
is divided into two parts, dinner intervening.
A good morning’s work had now been done; the hammer and nails and
ladder had been procured, the Greek ode hung up, and the prayer to our
Ladye repeated. Erasmus, exhausted with acting the part of a pilgrim religionis
ergo, and with his labours, went off to dinner, doubtless at the principal
hostelry, for although audax omnia perpeti, he would scarcely have had
the impudence to intrude himself upon the hospitality of the Canons his
former brethren, when he had secretly resolved, in his mind, to make them
the subject of his own coarse sarcasm. It is to be hoped that the landlord
had not degenerated from the reputation which his predecessors enjoyed
during the previous century, as John Amundesham has related; and that
he received the conceited Dutchman as an illustrious stranger, and fashioned
his little bill accordingly.
What follows, Erasmus professes to relate as having occurred on his second
visit to Walsingham. After dinner he returned to the priory-church ; the
ostensible motive was to enquire for the history of an object which, he
says, was shown there as a relic of our Blessed Ladye’s milk. After
indulging in his usual language, he casually remarks that he was just
about to leave the church, when “up come some of the mystagogi,
who cast side looks at us, point at us with their fingers, run up to us,
retire, come back again, nod to us, and seem as if they would like to
say ‘How d’ye do?’ to us, if they had the courage.”
Erasmus, according to his own account, was pleasant, and looked benignantly
on them and smiled—soberly, of course; he had enjoyed his little
dinner, and was not suffering from a surfeit of Norfolk pippins. He was
in a high good humour. “At length one comes up and asks me my name.
I give it. Am I, then, he, who two years previously had nailed up a votive
inscription written in Hebrew? The very man, said I,” thus telling
a lie, of which he convicts himself in the next lines. “Do you,
then, write Hebrew?” enquires Menedemus. “Oh, dear, no!”
replies Ogygius, i.e. Erasmus, “but these ‘muffs’ call
everything Hebrew which they don’t understand.”
Presently the Sub-Prior appears; and, like a true English gentleman, he
courteously greets the visitor to Walsingham. “He told me,”
says the vulgar Dutchman, “how many persons have laboriously exerted
themselves, quantopere sudatum est a multis, to read those verses; how
many spectacles had been wiped to no purpose. Whenever any aged doctor
in theology or in the law had arrived, he was taken to the tablet; one
said the letters were Arabic, another that they were no letters at all;
finally one was found who could read the title! This was written in Roman
words and letters, but in uncials. The verses were written in Greek uncials,
which, at first sight, appear to resemble Roman ones. On being requested,
I gave the meaning of the verses in Latin, construing them word for word.”
This is the key to the real purport of the carmen votium, and the main,
if not the sole, motive of his visit to Walsingham, under the cloak of
a pilgrim religionis ergo. As Achilles said to Ulysses—
It
was intended as a display of his fancied superior learning, and Walsingham
was selected as being the most frequented spot in all England, as indeed
Erasmus mentions, and often visited by foreign pilgrims. On this hitherto
unchallenged evidence of his, many writers have not hesitated to hold
up the worthy Augustinian Canons of Walsingham to scorn for their excessive
ignorance, and to base upon it a wholesale conclusion that the other religious
houses of England were in no better condition; a conclusion which it is
impossible to draw from what Erasmus has written. I will admit that Greek
was not so generally taught then as it now is; but no one will venture
to affirm that Greek was absolutely unknown at Oxford and at Cambridge.
Therefore, what amount of belief is to be given to Erasmus’s sweeping
charge against the aged doctors in theology and in the law, many of whom
were University men? for the charge is quite as heavy against them as
against the Canons of Walsingham. Certain it is that the Augustinians
understood Latin, if the evidence of Erasmus is received, for he says:
“ On being requested, I gave the meaning of the verses in Latin,
construing them word for word.” But it may be suggested that young
Robert Aldrich was at hand, and may have acted as interpreter of the Latin.
Possibly; but all that Erasmus says of his capabilities is, that he was
well skilled in German. Another most essential point has been overlooked,
because the real bearing of the Roman uncial letters is not understood.
At the time when Erasmus hung up his ode, Roman letters were scarcely,
if at all, known in England. They would have been a novelty at Walsingham,
as elsewhere, for all the printing in the land was in black letter, and
therefore it would be no proof of ignorance to be unacquainted with Roman
uncials. Not very long ago, in the sale of Mr. Bragge’s splendid
collection of illuminated manuscripts, a breviary which had belonged to
the last Prior of Walsingham, Richard Vowell, and contained a fair amount
of pretty flower pattern, was sold for 126l. The ode of Erasmus would
not have fetched as many farthings. In all likelihood this breviary had
been written and illuminated in the scriptorium of the Priory. Yet there
are now many educated men who would be utterly unable to read one line
of it, and to whom a column of black letter, printed with contractions,
would be so much “Hebrew.” It would be very unfair for palaeographists
and antiquaries to charge them with ignorance on that account ; nevertheless,
this is the reasoning of Erasmus. And this being said, I gladly take leave
of Erasmus and of Erasmus his ode.
The following letter from the Lord High Admiral of England to his sovereign
would have rather astonished my Lords of the Admiralty of the present
day. A captain of the fleet, being in great danger of losing his ship,
invoked our Ladye of Walsingham, and made a vow, if she would preserve
him, never to eat flesh nor fish until he had been on pilgrimage to her.
The Lord High Admiral gives him leave of absence to fulfil his vow ; and
this is the letter from Sir Edward Howard to his sovereign, dated April
17, 1513
“ Sir,—(I have) taken all Master Arthur’s folks and
bestowe them in the arme, wher (I am deficient by) reson of deth, by casualte
and other-ways. And, Sir, (I have given him liber)te to go hoome ; for,
Sir, when he was in extreme danger . . . from hym he called upon Our Ladye
of Walsingham for help and com(fort, and made) a vow that, an’ it
pleased God and her to deliver him out of the pe(ril, he wde vol)ner eet
fleshe nor fyche tyl he had seen heer. Sir, I a(ssure you) he was in mervelous
danger, for it was ‘- merveil that the shipp bey(ng with) al her
sayls strikyns full but a rok with her starn that she “br(ake) not
in peces at the furst stroke.” And adds, his absence will be a
great loss to them. Recommends him highly to the King. Hopes he will give
him comfortable words for his bravery.
The last pilgrimage to Walsingham which I shall notice is that of Cardinal
Wolsey, in August, 1517. Writing in that month to Henry the Eighth he
says that he is anxious to see his Grace and know of his good estate,
but has been so vexed with the sweat, he dare not yet come to his presence.
Proposes to start for Walsingham on Monday next, and from thence to Our
Ladye of Grace, in fulfilment of his vow, which may correct the weakness
of his stomach.
On the 30th of August the Venetian Ambassador, Sebastian Giustiniani,
writes to the Council of Ten saying that he had sent his secretary to
Wolsey several times for an audience: could never get one: so at last,
as Wolsey is going on a pilgrimage to fulfil a vow at a shrine some hundred
miles hence, resolved at any rate to speak to him. Found him with a troubled
countenance and bent brow. Told him of the Turkish news, which he said
he had heard already. Perceiving that he said nothing at all to me on
this or any other topic, I then offered to accompany his right reverend
lordship on his journey with an honourable train, at my own cost; but
without appearing flattered even by this proposal, he said he had no need
of any additional company beyond his own retinue, which was both honourable
and numerous. He has been ill of late; and really his appearance, in addition
to his mental perturbation, indicates this, although the profuse perspiration
endured by him has not quite carried off his wrath.
Thirteen days later—i.e., September 12— Guistiniani writes
to the Doge that a French ambassador has arrived from the Emperor, a man
of no account, apparently only to borrow money. He has not yet had an
audience of the King, who keeps aloof at Windsor to avoid the sickness,
or of Wolsey, who has gone to Walsingham.
On his return from his pilgrimage, Wolsey writes to Sir R. Wingfield,
saying he has been so vexed with fever since his return from Walsingham,
that he has been obliged to detain Wingfeld’s servant Bysshop, &c.
This letter has no date.
A document in the Public Record Office contains a declaration of the expenses
of the household of Thomas, Cardinal of York, for three years, ending
December 4, tenth Henry the Eighth. The expenses for the ninth year, including
the journey to Walsingham, come to 2,616l. 5s. 2¾d.Offerings,
bequests, &c., to Our Ladye of Walsingham.
It is greatly
to be regretted that the “Annals of the chapel of Walsingham,”
from which Capgrave quotes, have perished. They appear to have been a
register of the principal offerings and donations to our Ladye. Roger
Ascham, who visited Cologne in 1550, makes this observation: “The
three Kings be not so rich, I believe, as was the Ladye of Walsingham.
Erasmus speaks of the votive statues of gold, and of silver gilt, which
were shown to him; and says that a day would not suffice to describe the
world of admirable things which he saw there, and which were kept under
the altar of our Ladye, from whence they were brought out for him to see.”
Consequently, some idea may be formed of the riches of the sanctuary of
Our Ladye of Walsingham.
By an entry in the Wardrobe book of the 28th of Edward the First, it appears
that the King was accustomed to make a yearly offering to our Ladye: “
On the 15th of May of this year, i.e. 1300, he offered to the image of
our Ladye in the chapel of Walsingham a clasp of gold of the value of
eight marcs; and on the same day the Queen offered to our Ladye, by the
hands of John de But, a clasp of the value of six and a half marcs.”
Of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, who died at Leicester, on the 13th of May,
1361, Capgrave says:
“In the annals of the chapel at Walsingham it is mentioned that
this Henry gave to our Blessed Ladye a vase with handles, on which he
expended almost four hundred marcs. In the same annals it is also written
that the father of this Henry, who was Earl of Lancaster, and not Duke,
offered to our Ladye an Angelical Salutation with precious stones—salutationem
angelicam cum lapidibus pretiosis—the value of which several persons
esteemed at four hundred marcs.”
This is one of the many instances of the difficulty which the archaeologist
has to determine what is to be understood by Salutatio Angelica. It has
been suggested that this offering consisted of a valuable pair of beads;
but I have never found any instance of a pair of beads being described
by Salutatio Angelica; moreover, it is cum lapidibus, and not de lapidibus.
Hence it is most probable that this was a tablet with a representation
of the Annunciation, and adorned with precious stones. Six years later,
in 1367, Sir Thomas de Uvedale left to the chapel of Our Ladye of Walsingham
a tablet of silver, gilt, with the Salutation of the Blessed Virgin, together
with a painted image.
Sums of money for offerings and candles are frequently recorded.
Thus in the accounts of Elizabeth of York:
“March 26, 1502:
“ Offering to Our Ladye of Walsingham, vis. viiid.” 92
In many cases these were not casual, but annual, offerings; and frequently
made more than once during the year. Thus in the Northumberland Household
Book of 1512:
“Item. My Lorde usith to send afor Michaelmas for his Lordschips
offerynge to Our Lady of Walsyngeham iiij d.”
“Item. My Lorde usith and accustumyth to send yerely for the Upholdynge
of the Light of Wax which his Lordschip fyndith birnynge yerly befor Our
Lady of Walsyngham, contenynge xi. lb. of Wax in it after vii. ob. for
the fyndynge of every lb. redy wrought. By a Covenaunt maid with the Channon
by great for the hole yere for the fyndinge of the said Light byrnning,
vis. viiid.”
The Earl also remunerated the services of the canon for keeping his light
burning during service time throughout the year.
“Item. My Lord usith and accustomith to syende yerely to the Channon
that kepith the Light before Our Ladye of Walsingham for his reward for
the hole yere for kepynge of the said Light, Lightynge of it at all service-tymes
daily throwout the yere, xiid.”
In the accounts of the Duke of Buckingham on the 18th of May, 1519, the
following entry occurs:
“To Russell, for my offering to Our Ladye of Walsingham, 6s. 8d.”
Another contemplated offering to Our Ladye of Walsingham is now recorded,
unique of its kind, and which was even more curious than the donation
to Our Ladye of Loreto made by a a king—I think of Saxony—and
which I saw displayed in one of the cases in the Treasury of Loreto, when
I was on pilgrimage there in 1857, in the suite of the Sovereign Pontiff
Pius the Ninth. It consisted of his Majesty’s wedding suit, coat,
vest, and nether garments.
On the 15th of May, 1515, Sir R. Wingfeld, English Ambassador to the Emperor,
writes to Henry the Eighth for some place, the name of which is decayed
in the original, and describes a great dance of fresh and fair bourgeoises
maydens ordered by the Emperor to be held at . . . (Malines?) on Sunday
the 13th of May, at which the ambassadors were also present, excepting
the Pope’s nuncio.
“Some of the women,” says he, “ were marvellous fair,
well fed, and clean washen, in such wise that, an I were young as my beard
is white, your Grace might think by the manner of my writing that the
sight of them touched me nearer than it did, and the rather because I
deem that fair bodies, gentlewomen and others, take but small pleasure
to see white hairs, which I have gotten in the cold snowy mountains, which
have the power to make all hares and partridges that abide amongst them
white, where my beard (which I have promised to bear to Our Ladye of Walsingham,
an God give me life) is wax so white, that whilst I shall wear it I need
none other mean to cause women rejoice little in my company.”
Two years later Sir Robert writes to the King for permission to resign
his functions in order that he might go to Walsingham to make an offering
of his beard to our Ladye. The letter is dated Malines, May 3, 1517. In
it Sir Robert says, that on the 16th of this month he will have served
seven years as ambassador to the Emperor, having the pilgrim’s fortune
to change many lodgings, and find few friends. Begs the King will have
his poverty in remembrance, and give him licence to lay down his office,
that he may visit Our Ladye of Walsingham, “where by the leave of
God I would gladly leave my beard, which is now of so strange a color
that I need none other arms or herald to show what favour I am worthy,
or am like to have from henceforth amongst ladies and gentlewomen.”
Whether Sir R. Wingfeld ever carried his wish into execution I know not.
He appears to have returned to England shortly after the date of this
last letter.
In the Privy Expenses of Henry the Eighth an entry occurs on the 14th
of May, 1532:
“ Paied to Maister Garneys for the King’s offering to Oure
Ladye of Walsingham, viis. vid.”
This is the last offering which I have found of Henry the Eighth.
Many bequests are contained in the wills of our forefathers.
In 1347, John, eighth and last Earl of Surrey, by his will dated June
24, devised to the chapel of Our Ladye of Walsingham a jewel which he
describes as his family eagle, and the rings arranged in the form of a
constellation about it; at least, so I read the bequest: Mon Egle dez
saune les anels qe sount mys par constellation.
In 1381, William de Ufford, Earl of Sussex, says in his will:
“I will that a picture of a horse and a man, armed with my arms,
be made in silver, and offered to the altar of Our Ladye of Walsingham.”
This “picture” was evidently an image.
Isabel, Countess of Warwick, in her will dated December 1, 1439, says:
“I will that my tablet, with the image of our Ladye having a glass
for it, be offered unto our Ladye of Walsingham; as also my gown of green
alyz cloth of gold with wide sleeves; and a tabernacle of silver, like
in the timber to that over our Ladye of Caversham.” She had made
a valuable bequest to Our Ladye of Caversham.
In 1453, John, Lord Scrope of Masham, by his testament dated March 18,
wills: “Yat ye house of Walsingham have x. marcs for forgeten avowes
and beheestes by me made to our Ladye yer.”
In 1474, Dame Elizabeth Andrews wills that one of her two rings with the
diamonds should be sent to our Ladye of Walsingham.
Antony Widvile, Earl Rivers, whose will, dated June 23, evinces great
devotion to our Ladye, says in it:
“My trapper of blakk of gold I geve to Our Ladye of Walsingham.”
Henry the Seventh offered a figure of himself, kneeling, made of silver
and gilt, to Our Ladye of Walsingham, to whom on the 25th of February,
1505-6, Katherine, widow of Sir John Hastings, bequeathed her velvet gown.
Pilgrims to Walsingham generally made an offering or donation of a small
piece of money at the shrine of our Ladye, a practice which stirred up
the choler of Erasmus, who, nevertheless, took care to record that he,
too, made his offering of a few pence.
In the chapel of our Lady was a chauntry priest for the souls of King
Edward the First and King Edward the Second, and of Sir John Ovidale,
Knight ; and an annual distribution of 12s. 6d. to twenty-five poor persons
in Bedingham for their souls. There was another chaplain to pray for the
souls of John Marshall and Alice his wife. The stipends of these priests
were 5l. 6s. 8d. each in 1534.
In the King’s book of payments, 1—10th Henry the Eighth, there
is an entry on the 1st of July for—
“William Halys, King’s priest, singing before Our Ladye at
Walsingham, half a year’s wages , 100s.”
Same for the King’s candle there, 46s. 8d.
Again in November, 1515:
Sir Richard Warde, singing before our Ladye at Walsingham, half a year’s
wages, 100s.
The King’s candle, 46s. 8d.’
Hence it would appear that the King kept a candle constantly burning at
Walsingham.
Sir Bartholomew Burghersh, K.G., and one of the original knights of the
order, who died on the 5th of April, 1369, by his will dated on the previous
day, desired to be buried in our Ladye’s chapel. “I desire,”
says he, “my body to be buried in the chapel at Walsingham before
the image of the Blessed Virgin, and thither to be carried with all speed,
having one taper at the head, and another at the feet, where it rests
the first night. And also I will that a dirige shall be there said, and
in the morning a Mass, whereat a noble shall be offered for my soul: that
two torches be carried along, one on one side and the other on the other
side, which are to be lighted at passing through every town, and then
given to that church wherein it shall rest at night.”
Erasmus
mentions an object which he says was shown at Walsingham as a relic of
the Milk of our Blessed Ladye, but most of his comments are too impious
to quote. It was enclosed in crystal, and stood on the right side of the
high altar of the Priory church, and he describes it as “dried up,
looking like pulverized chalk mixed with the white of an egg “---
concretum est: dicas cretam tritam, alboque ovi temperatum. On the occasion
of his visit it was brought down from the altar by one of the canons to
Erasmus, who, kneeling, recited the following prayer, which he mentions
that he had already prepared before-hand: “O Virgin Mother, who
with thy maiden breasts has deserved to give milk to the Lord of heaven
and earth, thy Son Jesus; we wish that being purified by His Blood, we
also may advance to that happy infancy of dovelike simplicity, which knowing
nought of malice, fraud, or deceit, eagerly desires the milk of the precepts
of the Gospel, until it attains the perfect man, to the stature of the
fulness of Christ, Whose happy company thou enjoyest for ever, with the
Father and the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
After his dinner, as I have already said, he revisited the church, his
avowed object being to examine the history or authentication of this relic.
Young Aldrich was with him; a circumstance which is adverse to his alleged
second visit, for it does not appear that Aldrich accompanied Erasmus
on what he describes as his first visit to Walsingham, since he speaks
of meeting the young Cantab on that occasion as if by chance.
“Dinner over,” says Erasmus, “we returned to the church,
. . . an eagerness to see the tablet” —i.e., the history of
the relic—“to which the mystagogus had referred me attracted
me. After some considerable search we found it, but fixed so high that
not every one’s eyes could read it. Mine eyes are such that I cannot
be called lynx-eyed, nor altogether dim-sighted. Wherefore, whilst Aldrich
read it, I casually followed him with my eyes, not sufficiently trusting
him in a matter of such weight.”
This is, in a few words, the history which Erasmus relates as purporting
to be contained in the tablet:
“One William, born in Paris, had a great love of collecting relics;
and after visiting many churches and monasteries and countries in quest
of them, he at last arrived at Constantinople, where his brother was bishop—hujus
frater illic tunc agebat episcopum. Being about to return home, his brother
told him of a certain virgin consecrated to God who possessed some of
the milk of our Blessed Ladye, and he succeeded in obtaining half of what
she had. On his journey homewards, he was taken ill, and feeling his end
approaching, he summoned his most intimate companion of his travels, a
Frenchman, and told him to convey the relic to the altar of our Ladye
in the Church of Notre Dame in Paris. Shortly afterwards the friend was
seized with a mortal illness, and confided the relic to an English comrade,
desiring him to fulfil the commission which he himself had been unable
to execute. The Englishman did as he was requested, and delivered the
relic to the canons of Notre Dame in Paris, from whom he obtained the
half of it, which he brought to England, and finally conveyed to Walsingham,
‘being,’ as Erasmus adds, ‘called thither by the inspiration
of the Holy Ghost.’”
Says Menedemus: “Certainly this account is charmingly consistent.”
Ogygius, i.e., Erasmus: “Yes ; lest any doubt might remain, there
were appended to it the names of the suffragan bishops, who to those who
visit this milk, and make some little offering, grant as much pardon as
their faculties admit of. Another proof of pious sincerity was added;
the milk of the Blessed Virgin which was shown in many places was sufficiently
to be venerated, but this relic was far more venerable than the others,
because whilst they had been scraped from stones, this one had flowed
from the very breasts of our Ladye.”
Menedemus: “How is this proved?”
Ogygius: “ Oh, the maiden of Constantinople, who had given the milk,
mentioned it.”
Menedemus: “ And she, perhaps, had been informed by St. Bernard!”
Ogygius: “Most probably.”
Menedemus: “Whose good fortune it was to taste the milk from the
same breast which was sucked by the Infant Jesus. . . . But how can that
be called the milk of the Blessed Virgin which did not flow from her breasts?”
“Ogygius: “It flowed as the other did, but being received
by a stone on which she chanced to sit, it dried up, and then, by the
will of God, it was thus multiplied.”
Menedemus: “Exactly so.”
Now here Erasmus contradicts the statement which he has just previously
made—viz., “that the other relics of the milk had been scraped
from stones, but that this one flowed from the very breast of our Ladye;”
yet here he says that this one fell on a stone as well.” Stripped,
however, of its specious and Erasmian clothing, the real nature of the
relic is quite apparent from what Erasmus says in the person of Ogygius.
It is most improbable that the tale, which Erasmus relates, was ever written
on the tablet on the wall at Walsingham; and the historical assertions
are utterly incorrect.
1. The maiden of Constantinople heard the history of the relic from St.
Bernard. He lived from A.D. 1091 to 1159, and was never at Constantinople.
Anyhow this gives a date.
2. William was a Frenchman. Paris was his birthplace, and he was on his
way homewards to Paris when he died. The date of his death is not recorded;
but as he received the relic from the maiden of Constantinople who had
seen St. Bernard, it must, at the latest, have occurred before A.D. 1200.
Now the brother of William, equally a Frenchman, was Bishop—i.e.,
Patriarch of Constantinople; but the Patriarchs of Constantinople were
all Greeks. Consequently the brother of William is a myth, and therefore
William himself and the maiden of Constantinople are nowhere. The Latin
Patriarchs of Constantinople only commenced in the year 1204; and they
were six in number, and not one of them was a Frenchman: (1) Thomas Morosini,
a Venetian ; (2) 1215, Gervase, also called Eberard, a Tuscan; (3) 1221,
Matthew, Bishop of Jessol, in the Duchy of Venice; (4) 1227, Simon, Archbishop
of Tyre, whose nationality is unknown ; (5) 1234, Nicholas of Piacenza,
Bishop of Spoleto ; and (6) 1253, Pantaleo Giustiniani, a Venetian, who
returned to Italy after the taking of Constantinople by the Greeks in
1261.
Moreover, in the lists of the relics belonging to the Church of Notre
Dame which are given in the Chartulary, no mention is made of the milk
of our Ladye. But Ferreol Locri says that there was a relic of our Ladye’s
milk both in the cathedral and in the royal chapel.
The allusion of St. Bernard refers to an old legend, that on one occasion
our Blessed Ladye, with her Divine Son in her arms, appeared to him, and
fed him with some drops of her milk. I have several engravings of the
seventeenth century which represent the apparition. The Bollandists discuss
the various accounts of it, and the opinions given by different writers,
and sum up in favour of those who treat it as a legend. The relic at Walsingham
must have been brought from the East, possibly from Constantinople, by
some English pilgrim.
Robert Du Mont, describing the battle of Ascalon, in the year 1124, and
the advance of the little Christian army, says that the princes marched
at the head, the patriarch bore the Cross of Christ as a standard, Pontius,
Abbot of Cluny, carried the Lance which had pierced the side of of our
Lord, and the Bishop of Bethlehem bore the milk of the Blessed Virgin
Marye in a pyx. And in the year 1243, St. Louis of France sent to the
Chapter of Toledo, by the hands, and at the request of the Archbishop
of that city, some precious particles of the relics which he had received
from the imperial treasury at Constantinople—viz., of the wood of
the Cross of our Lord, of the milk of the glorious Virgin Marye, &c.
Mariana gives the letter of St. Louis to the Chapter of Toledo; it is
dated Estampes, in the month of May of the year above named.
Guibert, who was Abbot of Saint Marye of Nogent-sur-Seine for twenty years,
and died A.D. 1124, mentions that some of our Ladye's milk was preserved
in a dove made of crystal at Laon; but he maintains that our Ladye never
forced any of her milk from her breast to be kept for future veneration,
since that would have been quite inconsistent with her humility. D'Achery,
who published the works of Guibert in 1651, commenting on this passage,
says he hears and reads that other relics of our Ladye's milk are venerated
in France and elsewhere; and therefore he is in perplexity of mind which
side to take. The Bollandists noticed the perplexity of D'Achery, and
Father Cuperus admits that he is similarly perplexed, because if he adopts
the opinion of Guibert, he is at variance with Italians, Spaniards, French,
and Belgians, who in different churches claim this as one of their most
precious relics. He then refers to the letter of St. Louis given by Mariana,
and remarks:
“If I at once believe evidences of this kind, so remote from the
days of our Ladye, I shall appear over credulous to severe critics of
history, and as multiplying continual miracles without necessity. But
I had rather appear over credulous than over censorious. Although I dare
not pass a certain judgment as to the veracity of such like relics, still
I am far away, and I wish to be far away, from the impious Calvin and
the supercilious Erasmus of Rotterdam, who wantonly reject the tradition
of all those churches; and whom, on that account, John Ferrand of our
Society deservedly censures in his dissertation on Relics. Indeed, I freely
admit with Ferrand, that Almighty God could have preserved that milk from
corruption for so many centuries, but I am anxious to learn from evidence,
most ancient and trustworthy, whether He ever really did so, and wished
this continual miracle to exist in so many places. For it is necessary
that this evidence should be proportioned to the prodigy, so that undoubted
historical faith may be given to it. Therefore I form no positive opinion
on the truth of this matter; and here I derive great satisfaction from
the opinion of Pope Innocent the Third—A.D. 1198 —1216, who,
speaking of certain relics of our Lord, concludes as follows: ‘.
. . Nevertheless, it is better to commit all to God rather than to define
anything rashly.’ This opinion of the Pope, which I have given in
capital letters, I desire to apply to the present subject. In the meantime,
let other churches rejoice in so precious a treasure of the milk of the
Blessed Virgin if each of them can confirm what they possess by solid
documents proportionate to so great antiquity.”
The significance of this well-expressed opinion of the Bollandists is
manifest, and solves the difficulty. But now two very important questions
arise: (1) Was the object called the milk of our Blessed Ladye shown in
good faith as such; or (2) was the term “milk of our Ladye”
a conventional one, and applied to an object, the real nature of which
was well known and understood?
1. Considering the careful supervision exercised by the bishops, and that
no relic can be exposed publicly for veneration unless sealed with an
authorized seal, and duly authenticated, it seems in the highest degree
improbable that “our Ladye's Milk” was ever shown as being
really such. The suppression of the devotion to the Holy Blood of Windesnack
in Brandenburg, to which there was a great pilgrimage for many years,
proves the vigilance of the Church in regard of relics not wholly satisfactory.
No one in his senses would ever dream of exhibiting a flask of white Rhine
wine as “milk,” and much less as “our Ladye’s
milk;” “ or a bottle of red wine as the “ tears”
of Christ our Lord ; yet the well-known Liebefraumilch, which is commonly
called “Maiden’s milk,” means literally “our dear
Ladye’s milk;” and every visitor to Vesuvius remembers the
Lachryma Christi wine. In both these instances the names are purely conventional,
and known to be such.
2. There can be no doubt that the term “Milk of our Ladye”
as applied to objects shown as such is a purely conventional name.
Between two and three hundred paces southeast from the Basilica on the
eastern side of the hill on which Bethlehem stands, there is a grotto
venerated alike by Christians and Mussulmans and commonly called the Crypta
Lactea and Grotte du Lait. The Arabs call it Meharet es-Sitti, the Grotto
of our Ladye. It belongs to the Franciscans, who go there every Saturday
to celebrate Mass, and to sing the Litanies of our Blessed Ladye.
There are many traditions as to the origin of its name; indeed Mislin
says that every one has his own version; but they are all unanimous on
one and the main point, which is that our Ladye spilt some drops of her
milk in this grotto. Hence its name: and this is the reason why the earth
brought from it is called the Milk of our Blessed Ladye.
Some say that our Ladye often retired to this grotto; others that she
reposed one night in it on her way to Egypt; others, again, that being
alarmed by the threats of Herod, her milk suddenly dried up, and that
she retired to this cave, believing she would be in greater security there
than elsewhere. Finding herself unable to nourish her Divine Son, she
made her prayer to the Almighty, and forthwith her milk returned in such
abundance that a few drops fell upon the ground. Hence why the rock is
said to derive its peculiar property, when pulverized and mixed in water,
and then imbibed, of preventing those who nurse from suffering of a diminution
of their milk.
This is no modern belief; on the contrary, it appears to be very ancient.
In 1598, John Cotwyck, of Utrecht, a Doctor Utriusque Juris, embarked
at Venice on his way to Syria and the Holy Land. He evidently brought
back some of the earth called our Ladye’s Milk from the Grotto of
the Milk, because he says that he had seen the effects of it amongst his
own people, and thus learned that the opinion of the Orientals was not
without foundation. Then there is the evidence of the Commissary Apostolic
and Guardian of the Holy Sepulchre, Father Francis Quaresma or Quaresmi,
who bears witness to similar results; so does a Canon of St. Paul’s
at Saint Denis, in 1652; and also Surius, a few years later; while Father
Michael Nau, of the Society of Jesus, says-
“Je n’ assure pas que cette terre sert beaucoup dans les autres
maladies, mais pour ce qui est de rendre le lait aux femmes qui l’ont
perdu, et d’en faire venir à celles qui en ont peu c’est
une chose si certaine et si infallible que les infidèles mêmes
en ont fait mille fois l’experience.”
Mislin and Guerin, who are the latest writers, and Quaresma, Father Nau,
and the Canon of Saint Paul’s, all mention that there is a continual
resort to this grotto by the women of the neighbourhood, Christians, Arabs,
Mussulmans, and Jewesses, who pray in it. According to Mislin the earth
is like chalk, very white, and easily reducible to powder, and it is then
made into little cakes which are sent all over the country, and which
pilgrims carry away with them as objects of devotion or curiosity. This
is a custom which dates very far back, and so great is the demand for
“our Ladye’s Milk,” that the grotto, which originally
was small, has now become greatly enlarged; a fact which Quaresma mentions
as well.
There is a slight discrepancy in the description of the earth excavated
from the grotto. Quaresma says it is reddish, but that when powdered in
a mortar and reduced to powder and then well washed and sifted and exposed
to the sun it becomes as white as milk—lacti simillima evadit. The
Canon of St. Paul’s observes that by this process it is made blanche
comme le laict. Mislin describes the earth as chalky, very friable, and
easily reduced to powder. Guerin says that it consists of a sort of calcareous
tufa, like chalk, and very friable, and easily scraped from the grotto.
Like all the other writers, he bears testimony to the great antiquity
of the custom of carrying away portions of this earth known as our Ladye’s
Milk.
Mislin also notices a circumstance which I have not seen mentioned by
others. He says that sometimes in damp weather a liquid substance exudes
from the sides of the cave, which is called the Milk of our Ladye, instead
of the milk of the grotto of our Ladye.
The precise manner in which the Milk of our Ladye at Walsingham, as described
by Erasmus, coincides with the account which these writers give of what
is called our Ladye’s Milk in Palestine leaves no doubt that it
was a portion of the scrapings from the Crypta Lactea of Bethlehem. In
1854 Canon Bourassée, of Tours, the learned editor of the Summa
Aurea, was commissioned by the Cardinal Archbishop of that city to open
a silver shrine, and identify the relics which it contained. Amongst the
contents he found a fragment of stone, resembling marble, and of the colour
of snow; it was folded up in a piece of vellum, on which was written De
lacte Beate Virginis.
This seems to be the real history and signification of what is called
“Our Ladye’s Milk;” hence it is easy to account for
the quantity of it, which has been brought at various times into Europe.
Indeed, considering the veneration which is attached to pieces of earth,
or stone, or wood brought away from any of the holy places connected with
the Life, Passion, and Death of Christ our Lord, it is most natural that
the Crypta Lactea, so intimately associated by tradition with the Infancy
of our Lord and His Blessed Mother, should have come in for a share of
that veneration. Relics of this description are mentioned at an early
period; thus St. Augustine speaks of earth brought from the Holy Sepulchre
and of the veneration in which it was held. Neither Venerable Bede, nor
St. Adamnan, Abbot of Hy, mention the Crypta Lactea; but Hardouin, Bishop
of Le Mans in the time of Clovis the Second, received some of the “Milk
of our Ladye” from a pilgrim who had returned from the Holy Land.
Several of these relics from the Holy Land were found enclosed in lead,
in the head of the ancient image of our Ladye of Thetford.
Erasmus puts into the mouth of Menedemus some expressions about the quantity
of our Ladye’s Milk which was said to exist, and which I will not
quote; but they seem to have been introduced in order to give himself,
in the character of Ogygius, the opportunity of saying as follows:
“So they say of the Cross of our Lord which is shown publicly and
privately in so many places, that, if all the fragments were collected
together, they would appear to form a fair cargo for a merchant ship,
and yet our Lord bore His whole Cross.” This latter assertion is
quite at variance with the Gospels, for our Lord never carried His Cross,
in the sense of balanced on His shoulder and wholly raised from the ground.
The third part of the Homily against the Peril of Idolatry says that,
“if all the pieces thereof were gathered together, the greatest
ship in England would scarcely bear them.”
Calvin, I believe, generally has the credit of being the originator of
this stupendous lie which has been so sedulously propagated by his followers
and by heretics of all persuasions, and to which implicit faith is given
by very many in these days. Now this colloquy of the Peregrinatio, in
its present form, appears to have been printed, at the latest, in 1524,
at which time Calvin was only fifteen years of age, he having been inflicted
upon the world at Noyon, in Picardy, on the 10th July, 1509. Consequently,
he would seem only to have adopted the fable, which, in common fairness,
must be attributed to the fertile and mischievous brain of Erasmus.
I have so often met with references to this fable, and moreover, I have
so often heard it asserted in reply, and often in perfect good faith,
that the multiplication of the wood of the True Cross was miraculous,
that I feel I shall do a good service to the cause of truth if I give
a brief statement of the real facts. Indeed, as Erasmus commences his
attack on the True Cross in his Peregrinatio to Walsingham, it is fitting
that he should receive his refutation under the protection of our Ladye
of Walsingham, the Blissful Queen of Heaven, whose Dower it is England’s
glory still to be; a title which, by the way, England has never lost,
notwithstanding that recently, and for the first time, an attempt has
been made to rob her of it.
A few years ago a learned French gentleman, M. Rohault de Fleury, applied
himself to a careful study and critical examination of the relics of the
various Instruments of the Passion of our Lord, but more especially of
the Holy Cross and the Crown of Thorns. He received every facility for
carrying out his object. He commenced his investigations by submitting
portions of four well authenticated pieces—those of the Holy Cross
of Jerusalem in Rome, of the Cathedral of Pisa, of the Cathedral of Florence,
and of Notre Dame in Paris—to a microscopical examination, in his
presence, by two learned men of undoubted reputation, M. Decaisne, Member
of the Institute, and Signor Peter Savi, Professor in the University of
Pisa. The result of this examination proved that the wood of the True
Cross was of the genus fir. The specific gravity of the various conifers
differs: Scotch fir, 0·56 ; pinus abies, 0·46 ; pinus epicea,
0·52 ; yellow pine, 0·66. M. de Fleury has selected 0·56
as the mean, and for his standard, and on these figures he has based his
calculations.
Now it has been established by Paucton, that a porter can carry a weight
of 90 kilogrammes, or 198 lbs., a distance of 5 kilometres, or 31 miles,
in one hour; and a carrier of coals, who often rests, can bear 115 kilogrammes,
or 253 lbs.; but Laisne and Charles Duffin give lesser weights.
The late M. Duprez, who was an able practitioner, considered that a strong
carpenter can carry a dècistére of wood—equal to about
100 kilogrammes, or 222 lbs.—a distance of 40 to 50 metres at most;
that is to say, by walking for two minutes, and then resting for three;
and that he could continue in this way for an hour. Under these conditions,
it would have taken an hour to pass along the Via Dolorosa. Now the weight
of the Cross was such that our Lord was unable to support it all the while,
and required the assistance of Simon the Cyrenean.
If, therefore, the weight of 100 kilogrammes be taken as a maximum, it
should be considered that our Lord was terribly weakened by His sufferings,
and that His executioners were rapidly exhausting His remaining strength;
consequently, the weight of the Cross might be estimated at three-fourths,
or 75 kilogrammes. As the Cross was not balanced on the shoulder, but
trailed on the ground, the diminution of weight may, in consequence, be
taken at 25 kilogrammes; therefore, on this calculation, the full weight
of the Cross may be estimated at 100 kilogrammes, or 222 lbs.
Now, from these figures it is easy to calculate the bulk of the Cross,
by dividing the weight by the density of the fir, 0·56, which gives
578,000,000 of cube millimetres.
Having obtained these results, M. Rohault de Fleury began to examine the
size and bulk of all the known authentic relics of the Holy Cross; and
in nearly every instance he has given plans of the various pieces; and
in his calculations he leaves a margin, so that he is invariably, if anything,
over the mark. He wrote for plans and details on all sides; and after
this exhaustive inquiry, his investigations have succeeded in making up
the volume of all the known relics of the Holy Cross only to 3,941,975
cube millimetres—say, in round numbers, 4,000,000. Now, allowing
a very large margin for relics of the Holy Cross which may be in private
hands, or may not have come to the notice of M. Rohault de Fleury—say,
multiply the quantity known by 10—this quantity, which must convince
the most sceptical only amounts to 40,000,000, or less than one-fourth
of the bulk; and there is a deficit of 538,000,000 millimetres still to
be accounted for!
I am aware that the Commissioners, who were employed in the suppression
of the Monasteries in England, reported that at Bury St. Edmunds there
were “peeces of the Holie Crosse able to make a hole crosse of;”
but this is one of the usual official lies of the period, and does not
deserve even a contemptuous notice. To this particular one I have merely
referred, because some writers, either from malice or ignorance, seem
to consider it valuable evidence.
Sometimes small pieces of the Holy Cross were mounted in a wooden cross
of larger size, into which a small cavity had been scooped out to receive
the relic. A cross of this description, and presented by the Prince of
Bosnia, is now preserved in the Treasury of St. Mark’s at Venice,
and is figured by M. Rohault de Fleury. These outer crosses in reality
served as reliquaries.
In 1534 the Canons of Walsingham acknowledged the Royal Supremacy. I have
not ascertained whether the whole of the Community signed the deed, but
the names of twenty-two, including the Prior and Sub-Prior, are affixed
to it. The document is in Latin, and commences thus:
Quum ea sit non solum Christianae religionis et pietatis ratio, sed nostre
etiam obediencie regula, Domino Regi nostro Henrico ejus nominis octavo,
cui uni et soli post Christum Jesum servatorem nostrum debemus universa,
non modo omnimodam in Christo et eandem sinceram, integram, perpetuamque
animi devotionem, fidem et observanciam, honorem, cultum, reverenciam
prestemus, sed etiam de eadem fide et observancia nostra rationem quotiescunque
postulabitur reddamus et palam omnibus (si res postulat) libentissime
testemur ;
Let all to whom the present writing may come know that we, the Prior and
Community of the Priory of Walsingham, in the diocese of Norwich, with
one mouth and voice, and with the unanimous consent and assent of all,
by this deed, given under our common seal in our chapter-house, do, for
ourselves and our successors, all and each, for ever, declare, attest,
and faithfully promise and undertake, that we, the said Prior and Community
and our successors, all and each, will ever render an entire, inviolate,
sincere, and perpetual fidelity, submission, and reverence to the lord
our King, Henry the Eighth, and to Queen Anne, his Consort, and to the
issue of him by the said Anne lawfully begotten, as well as to be begot;
and that we will make known, preach, and counsel the same to the people
whenever an opportunity or an occasion shall be given.
Item, that we hold as confirmed and ratified, and will always and for
ever hold, that the afore-said Henry our King is the Head of the Anglican
Church.
Item, that the Bishop of Rome, who in his Bulls usurps the name of Pope
and arrogates to himself the sovereignty of Chief Bishop, has not any
greater jurisdiction conferred on him by God than any other extern Bishop.
Item, that none of us, in any holy discourse to be held in private or
in public, shall call the said Bishop of Rome by the name of Pope or Chief
Bishop, but by the name of the Bishop of Rome, or of the Roman Church;
and that none of us shall pray for him as Pope, but as Bishop of Rome.
Item, that we will adhere to the said lord the King alone, and to his
successors, and will maintain his laws and decrees, renouncing for ever
the laws, decrees, and canons of the Bishop of Rome which shall be contrary
to the Divine Law and Holy Scripture.
Item, that not one of all of us shall, in any sermon, public or private,
attempt to misconstrue any passage taken from Holy Scripture into a foreign
sense ; but each shall preach, in a catholic and orthodox manner, Christ
and His words and actions, simply, openly, sincerely, and to the form
(normam) and rule of the Holy Scriptures, and of the truly catholic and
orthodox doctors.
Item, that each of us, in his accustomed prayers and supplications, shall
recommend to God and the prayers of the people, first of all the King
as Supreme Head of the Anglican Church, then Queen Anne with her offspring,
and then, lastly, the Archbishops of Canterbury and of York, with the
other orders of clergy as shall seem fit.
Item, that we all and each aforesaid, Prior, Community, and our successors,
firmly bind ourselves by the pledge of our conscience and our oath; and
that we will faithfully and for ever observe all and each of the promises
aforesaid. In testimony whereof we have affixed our common seal to this
our writing, and, each with his own hand, have subscribed our names. Given
in our chapter-house, the 18th day of the month of September, the year
of the Lord one thousand five hundred and thirty-four.152
per me RICARD VOWEL, Priorem.
per me WILLELMUM RASE.
per me EDMUNDUM WARHAM, Subpriorem.
per me JOHANNEM CLENCHWARDTON.
per me NICHOLAUM MYLEHAM.
per me ROBERTUM SALL’.
per me ROBERTUM WYLSEY.
per me WILLELMUM CASTELLACRE.
per me SIMONEM OVY.
per me JOHANNEM HARLOW.
per me JOHANNEM LAWINXLEY.
per me RICARDUM GARNETT.
per me JOHANNEM CLARK.
per me JOHANNEM AWSTYNE.
per me JOHANNEM MATHYE.
per me THOMAM PAWLUM.
per me EDWARDUM MARSTONE.
per me JOHANNEM BYRCHAM.
per me JOHANNEM HADLAY.
per me THOMAM HOLTE.
per me THOMAM WALSYNGHAM.
per me UMFREDUM LONDON.
(L. S.)
Amongst
the Harleian MSS. are preserved some Articles of Enquiry which were to
guide the Commissioners in their unholy proceedings. The three first have
an especial eye to the plunder.
1. In primis, whether there be any inventarie allweys permanent in the
house betwene the priour and the brethern of this house, as welle of alle
the juelles, reliques, and ornamentes of the churche and chapel, as of
alle the plate and other moveable goodes of this house? Et si sic exhibeatur.
2. Item, yf there be no suche inventarie, whether there be any boke made
therof, and of the guyfte of the juelles that have bene geven to our Ladye?
Et si sic producatur.
3. Item, whether any of the said juelles, ornamentes, plate, or goodes
hathe bene alienated, solde, or pledged at any tyme heretofore? And yf
there were, what they were, to whome they were solde, for how moche, whan,
and for what cause?
4. Item, what reliques be in this house that be or hath bene most in th’
estimation of the people, and what venue was estemed of the people to
be in theym?
5. Item, what probation or argument have they to sheave that the same
are trewe reliques?
6. Item, in howe many places of this house were the said reliques shewed,
and whiche were in which; and whether the kepers of the same did not bring
about tables to men for their offering, as though they would exacte money
of theym or make theym ashamed except they did offer?
7. Item, for what cause were the said reliques shewed in divers [and]
sundrye places more than alltogether in one place?
8. Item, what bathe th’ offring made to our Ladye and to the said
reliques bene worth a yere whan it hathe bene most? what commonly? and
what the laste yere?
9. Item, yf the said reliques be nowe layde aside, howe long ago, and
for what cause they were so?
10. Item, what is the greatest miracle and moste undoubted whiche is said
to have bene doon by our Ladye here, or by any of the said reliques? and
what prouffe they have of the facte or of the narration thereof?
11. Item, whether thane (yf the facte be welle proued) the case might
not happene by some naturalle meane not contrarie to reasone or possibilitie
of nature?
12. Item, yf that be proved also, whether the same mighte not procede
of the immediate helpe of God? and why the successe of that case shulde
be imputed to our Ladye and yet that to the image of our Ladye in this
house more than another?
13. Item, whether the miracle were wonte to be declared in pulpite heretofore,
and for what cause they were soe? a Whitesonne Monday the faire tyme they
were wonte to be opened?
14. Item, what is the sayng of the buylding of our Lady Chappelle, and
the firste invention of thimage of our Lady there? what of the house where
the bere skynne is, and of the knyght; and what of the other wonders that
be here, and what proves be therof?
15. Item, whether they knowe not that mene shulde not be lighte of credite
to miracles, unlesse they be manifestly and invinciblie proved?
16. Item, whether our Lady hathe doone so many miracles nowe of late as
it was said she did whane there was more offring made unto her?
17. Item, what prouffe were they wonte to take of the miracles that the
pilgremes did reporte shulde be made by our Lady? and whether they bileved
the parties owne reporte therin, or toke witnes, and howe they toke the
deposicions of the same?
18. Item, whether our Ladye’s milke be liquide or no? and yf it
be interrogetur ut infra.
19. Item, who was Sextene upon |
