Christmas Every Day

1095 Death of a saintly bishop

The Norman Conquest of England which began in 1066 was supported by the papacy partly out of a desire to reform the English Church which was seen as backward and corrupt by the reform movement in Rome. All of the Anglo-Saxon bishops except one were replaced by continental clerics such as Lanfranc, the new Italian Archbishop of Canterbury. The single bishop left in place was Wulstan, aka Wulfstan, (1008-95) of Worcester. Robert Chambers explains why:

St. Wulstan was the last saint of the Anglo-Saxon Church, the link between the old English Church and hierarchy and the Norman. He was a monk, indeed, and an ascetic; still, his vocation lay not in the school or cloister, but among the people of the market-place and the village, and he rather dwelt on the great broad truths of the Gospel than followed them into their results. Though a thane’s son, a series of unexpected circumstances brought him into the religious profession, and he became prior of a monastery at Worcester. Born at Long Itchington, in Warwickshire, and educated at the monasteries of Evesham and Peterborough, the latter one of the richest houses and the most famous schools in England, he was thoughtful above his years, and voluntarily submitted to exercises and self-denials from which other children were excused. To Wulstan, the holy monk, the proud Earl Harold once went thirty miles out of his way, to make his confession to him, and beg his prayers. He was a man of kind yet blunt and homely speech, and delighted in his devotional duties; the common people looked upon him as their friend, and he used. to sit at the church door listening to complaints, redressing wrongs, helping those who were in trouble, and giving advice, spiritual and temporal.

Every Sunday and great festival he preached to the people: his words seemed to be the voice of thunder, and he drew together vast crowds, wherever he had to dedicate a church. As an example of his practical preaching, it is related that, in reproving the greediness which was a common fault of that day, Wulstan confessed that a savory roast goose which was preparing for his dinner, had once so taken up his thoughts, that he could not attend to the service he was performing, but that he had punished himself for it, and given up the use of meat in consequence.

At length, in 1062, two Roman cardinals came to Worcester, with Aldred the late bishop, now Archbishop of York; they spent the whole Lent at the Cathedral monastery, where Wulstan was prior, and they were so impressed with his austere and hardworking way of life, that partly by their recommendation, as well as the popular voice at Worcester, Wulstan was elected to the vacant bishopric. He heard of this with sorrow and vexation, declaring that he would rather lose his head than be made a bishop; but he yielded to the stern rebuke of an aged hermit, and received the pastoral staff from the hands of Edward the Confessor. The Normans, when they came, thought him, like his church, old-fashioned and homely; but they admired his unworldly and active life, which was not that of study and thoughtful retirement, but of ministering to the common people, supplying the deficiencies of the parochial clergy, and preaching. He rode on horse-back, with his retinue of clerks and monks, through his diocese, repeating the Psalter, the Litanies, and the office for the dead; his chamberlain always had a purse ready, and ‘no one ever begged of Wulstan in vain.’ In these progresses he came into personal contact with all his flock, high and low—with the rude crowds, beggars and serfs, craftsmen and labourers, as well as with priests and nobles. But everything gave way to his confirming children — from sunrise to sunset he would go without tasting food, blessing batch after hatch of the little ones.

Wulstan was a great church builder: he took care that on each of his own manors there should be a church, and he urged other lords to follow his example. He rebuilt the cathedral of his see, and restored the old ruined church of Westbury. When his new cathedral was ready for use, the old one built by St. Oswald was to be demolished; Wulstan stood in the churchyard looking on sadly and silently, but at last burst into tears at this destruction, as he said, of the work of saints, who knew not how to build fine churches, but knew how to sacrifice themselves to God, whatever roof might be over them.

It cannot be said of Wulstan that he was much of a respecter of persons. He had rebuked and warned the headstrong Harold, and he was not less bold before his more imperious successor. At a council in Winchester, he bluntly called upon William to restore to the see some lands which he had seized. He had to fight a stouter battle with Lanfranc, who, ambitious of deposing him for incapacity and ignorance, in a synod held before the king, called upon the bishop to deliver up his pastoral staff and ring; when, according to the legend, Wulstan drove the staff into the stone of the tomb of the Confessor, where it remained fast imbedded, notwithstanding the efforts of the Bishop of Rochester, Lanfranc, and the king himself, to remove it, which, however, Wulstan easily did, and thenceforth was reconciled to Lanfranc; and they subsequently cooperated in destroying a slave trade which had long been carried on by merchants of Bristol with Ireland.

Wulstan outlived William and Lanfranc. He passed his last Lent with more than usual solemnity, on his last Maundy washing the feet and clothes of the poor, bestowing alms and ministering the cup of ‘charity;’ then supplying them, as they sat at his table, with shoes and victuals; and finally reconciling penitents, and washing the feet of his brethren of the convent. On Easter-day, he again feasted with the poor.

At Whitsuntide following, being taken ill, he prepared for death, but he lingered till the first day of the new year, when he finally took to his bed. He was laid so as to have a view of the altar of a chapel, and thus he followed the psalms which were sung. On the 19th of January 1095, at midnight, he died in the eighty-seventh year of his age, and the thirty-third of his episcopate. Contrary to the usual custom, the body was laid out, arranged in the episcopal vestments and crosier, before the high altar, that the people of Worcester might look once more on their good bishop. His stone coffin is, to this day, shewn in the presbytery of the cathedral, the crypt and early Norman portions of which are the work of Wnlstan.

If your interest in Wulstan has not been exhausted, I direct you to the splendid A Clerk of Oxford site where you will find more on the saint: https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2015/01/st-wulfstan-of-worcester-sole-survivor.html

The festival of St. Peter’s Chair, was once annually celebrated at Rome on this day, but was removed from the General Calendar by Pope Paul VI – only dissident anti-Vatican II Catholics keep the feast now. Lady Morgan in her 1821 book of travels, Italy, described the festivities as they occurred in the 19^th century.

The splendidly dressed troops that line the nave of the cathedral, the variety and richness of vestments which clothe the various church and lay dignitaries, abbots, priests, canons, prelates, cardinals, doctors, dragoons, senators, and grenadiers, which march. in procession, complete, as they proceed up the vast space of this wondrous temple, a spectacle nowhere to be equalled within the pale of European civilization. In the midst of swords and crosiers, of halberds and crucifixes, surrounded by banners, and bending under the glittering tiara of threefold power, appears the aged, feeble, and worn-out pope, borne aloft on men’s shoulders, in a chair of crimson and gold, and environed by slaves, (for such they look,) who waft, from plumes of ostrich feathers mounted on ivory wands, a cooling gale, to refresh his exhausted frame, too frail for the weight of such honours. All fall prostrate, as he passes up the church to a small choir and throne, temporarily erected beneath the chair of St. Peter. A solemn service is then performed, hosannas arise, and royal votarists and diplomatic devotees parade the church, with guards of honour and running footmen, while English gentlemen and ladies mob and scramble, and crowd and bribe, and fight their way to the best places they can obtain.

At the extremity of the great nave behind the altar, and mounted upon a tribune designed or ornamented by Michael Angelo [it was actually Bernini], stands a sort of throne, composed of precious materials, and supported by four gigantic figures. A glory of seraphim, with groups of angels, sheds a brilliant light upon its splendours. This throne enshrines the real, plain, worm-eaten, wooden chair, on which St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, is said to have pontificated; more precious than all the bronze, gold, and gems, with which it is hidden, not only from impious, but from holy eyes, and which once only, in the flight of ages, was profaned by mortal inspection.

The throne itself, underneath all that zany baroque decoration, is said to have been given to Pope John VIII in 875; when it was inspected in the 1970s scientists pronounced it to be no older than the sixth century. This is how the chair looked when photographed by itself in 1867.

1556

Accession of Philip II of Spain.

“I will not be the king of heretics”, proclaimed Philip Habsburg (1527-98), in his time King of Spain, Portugal, England and Ireland (briefly), the Netherlands, southern Italy, North and South America, trading ports in Africa, India and East Asia and the Philippine Islands. Ruler of a vastly wealthy empire, he spent his country into bankruptcy trying to exterminate Protestantism in Europe and drive Muslim navies out of the Mediterranean.

Born the son of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor who confronted Martin Luther, Philip was raised in Spain as a devoted Catholic. He was highly intelligent, cautious and suspicious, growing to manhood during the European religious wars when he did his utmost to confront Protestantism in all his realms and among his neighbours as well. After his first marriage to a Portuguese princess ended in her death, Philip was persuaded in 1554 to marry a cousin, Mary I of England, despite her being a decade older than he. The marriage produced no children, engendered a good deal of anti-Spanish sentiment and cost England its last remaining continental possession, Calais. When Mary died in 1558 Philip’s authority in England ended; his courtship of Mary’s sister Elizabeth was deftly avoided by the new queen.

In 1555 Charles V retired and divided his holdings between his brother Ferdinand and Philip. Ferdinand received the Holy Roman Empire and promptly agreed to a religious truce with German Protestants; Philip received the rest of Charles’s lands and vowed to wipe out Protestantism wherever he found it. This resulted in expensive wars in France where he sided with the Catholic League against the Valois kings, against England ( a war fought largely at sea), and against the Dutch Calvinist rebels and their German supporters. In the Mediterranean Philip’s navies battled Islamic pirate lords along the Barbary coast and their Turkish masters, Suleiman the Magnificent and his successors.

Philip failed to halt Protestantism in either England, against which he launched three great armadas, or the Netherlands where war raged for 80 years. He was a proponent of state-sponsored assassination and offered bounties for the death of his heretic enemies. His policy in France was not a total failure; though the Catholic League was defeated, the Protestant victor Henry of Navarre felt obliged to convert to Catholicism. Philip’s war on Islam was as unrelenting. At home he forced the descendants of Moorish converts to leave Spain, rendering the country purer in religion but poorer economically. In the Mediterranean, he lost some North African holdings but contributed to significant Turkish losses at Malta (1565) and Lepanto (1571). All this was accomplished at enormous financial cost to Spain which began a century of decline after Philip’s death.

1700

The death of a Canadian saint.

The colony of New France was in a perilous state in the middle of the seventeenth century. A number of private corporations had failed to establish a secure position in the St Lawrence valley; few colonists were attracted to the harsh landscape; infant mortality was high; and attacks by native tribes discouraged settlement. To this tenuous toehold came Frenchwoman Marguerite Bourgeoys in 1653.

Marguerite had been recruited to the colony by Paul Chomedey de Maissoneuve, the Governor of Ville-Marie (later Montreal) who brought her, 15 girls searching for husbands, and 100 settler-soldiers to hold the little fort. It was Marguerite’s job to care for the marriageable women, find suitable mates for them and instruct children. A cloistered community of nuns was unsuitable for the situation so Marguerite developed a community of secular sisters, a dangerous innovation in the eyes of some church leaders. She built the town’s first church, set up a school in a stable and recruited women to form the Congregation Notre-Dame which would teach the children of colonists and natives across the colony. She journeyed to France several times on recruitment missions and efforts to keep her community from being forced to accept a lifestyle of seclusion. Marguerite was successful in all these efforts and when she died in 1700 she had the reputation of a saint. She was officially canonized in 1982 by Pope John Paul II.

St Lucian’s Day

It’s about time we honoured another obscure saint. Today it is St. Lucian, surnamed of Antioch, born at Samosata, in Syria. He lost his parents whilst very young; and being come to the possession of his estate, which was very considerable, he distributed all among the poor. He became a great proficient in rhetoric and philosophy, and applied himself to the study of the holy scriptures under one Macarius at Edessa. Convinced of the obligation annexed to the character of priesthood, which was that of devoting himself entirely to the service of God and the good of his neighbour, he did not content himself with inculcating the practice of virtue both by word and example; he also undertook to purge the scriptures, that is, both the Old and New Testament, from the several faults that had crept into them, either by reason of the inaccuracy of transcribers, or the malice of heretics. Some are of opinion, that as to the Old Testament, he only revised it, by comparing different editions of the Septuagint: others contend, that he corrected it upon the Hebrew text, being well versed in that language. Certain, however, it is that St. Lucian’s edition of the scriptures was much esteemed, and was of great use to St. Jerome.

St. Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, says, that Lucian remained some years separated from the Catholic communion at Antioch, under three successive bishops, namely, Domnus, Timeus, and Cyril. If it was for too much favouring Paul of Samosata, condemned at Antioch in the year 269, he must have been deceived, for want of a sufficient penetration into the impiety of that dissembling heretic. It is certain, at least, that he died in the Catholic communion; which also appears from a fragment of a letter written by him to the church of Antioch, and still extant in the Alexandrian Chronicle. Though a priest of Antioch, we find him at Nicomedia, in the year 303, when Dioclesian first published his edicts against the Christians. He there suffered a long imprisonment for a the faith; for the Paschal Chronicle quotes these words from a letter which he wrote out of his dungeon to Antioch: “All the martyrs salute you. I inform you that the pope Anthimus (bishop of Nicomedia) has finished his course of martyrdom.’ This happened in 303. Yet Eusebius informs us, that St. Lucian did not arrive himself at the crown of martyrdom till after the death of St. Peter of Alexandria, in 311, so that he seems to have continued nine years in prison.

At length he was brought before the governor, or, as the acts intimate, the emperor himself, for the words which Eusebius uses, may imply either. On his trial, he presented to the judge an excellent apology for the Christian faith. Being remanded to prison, an order was given that no food should be allowed him; but, when almost dead with hunger, dainty meats that had been offered to idols, were set before him, which he would not touch. It was not in itself unlawful to eat of such meats, as St. Paul teaches, except where it would give scandal to the weak, or when it was exacted as an action of idolatrous superstition, as was the case here. Being brought a second time before the tribunal, he would give no other answer to all the questions put to him, but this: “I am a Christian.” He repeated the same whilst on the rack, and he finished his glorious course in prison, either by famine, or according to St. Chrysostom, by the sword. His acts relate many of his miracles, with other, particulars; as that, when bound and chained down on his back in prison, he consecrated the divine mysteries upon his own breast, and communicated the faithful that were present: this we also read in Philostorgius, the Arian historian. St. Lucian suffered at Nicomedia, where Maximinus II. resided.

Epiphany

From the Greek epiphania, or manifestation. Celebrated in both Eastern and Western churches on January 6, Epiphany marks a number of important appearances or manifestations: the arrival of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, the miracle at Cana and the Feeding of the 5000.

Its first appearance seems to have been in the second century A.D. among the Basilidean heretics of Alexandria who believed that Jesus did not become divine until his baptism which they claim had taken place on January 6. Though this idea of a late-acquired divinity was rejected by orthodox Christianity, some churches seem to have used the date to celebrate Christ’s earthly birth — an epiphany of a different kind. When in the fourth century Rome adopted December 25 as the day to celebrate the Nativity the Western churches’ Epiphany emphasis shifted to focus on the Magi while in the East stress was placed on the baptism. The period between these two important holy dates became known as the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Epiphany became an official holiday in the Eastern Roman Empire, marked by a ban on chariot racing and attending games in the arena and by ceremonies of blessing the waters. At these ceremonies the emperor would drink the waters three times to the cry of “The emperor drinks!” The blessing of the waters takes place even today in Orthodox denominations. A priest will bless a body of water, either inside, or by a lake, river or sea and the faithful take it home where it will be used to sprinkle on houses, barns and fields to ensure prosperity for the coming year. In some places the priest will throw a cross into the water and divers will race to be the one to recover it.

In the West, Epiphany was a day to celebrate the visitation of the Magi or the Three Kings as they became known. Religious services honouring the Magi gradually turned into dramas held outside of the church such as The Play of Herod. As returning Crusaders in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries brought back stories of the fabulous east, fascination with the Magi grew — cities held processions honouring the Kings and carols retelling their journeys were sung. (The remnants of these customs are the Star Boys and their January pilgrimages from door to door.) Epiphany came to be a time all across Europe for popular celebrations marked by eating a cake and gift-giving.

The custom of the King’s Cake, Twelfth Night Cake, Dreikönigskuchen, gâteau des rois, etc., can be traced back to the thirteenth century. A bean or a pea or a coin was baked into the cake and the lucky finder was named king or queen of the party and could direct others to do his bidding for the evening. Though the tradition lingers in much of Europe (as well as French America) the custom in England was displaced to December 25 where it became the Christmas cake. In medieval France it was customary to put a piece of the cake aside for the poor or to collect money from the rich for their share of the cake and use the money for a charity.

Because the Christmas season ends in many parts of the world on January 6, Twelfth Night became a time of raucous celebration, associated with masking, mumming, drinking and social inversion. This misrule may have been a carry-over to some extent from the riotousness of the pagan Kalends. In Byzantium for example church councils had to legislate against the dancing and transvestism that went on in early January. During the reign of Michael III (842-67) the emperor and his court went so far as to use the occasion to mock the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Mass itself. Mock coronations and consecrations become common in medieval Europe with clerical hijinks, cross-dressing, noise and laughter the order of the day on Twelfth Night.

To commemorate the visit of the Magi who brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus, Epiphany became the day for giving gifts, especially to children. In the Spanish-speaking world the eve of the day of Los Tres Rejes Magos is when the three wise men pass through on their way to Bethlehem and leave presents for kids who, in turn, leave out snacks for the kings and their camels. In Spain their Majesties and their attendants can be seen processing through the city streets on January 5 in great splendour. In Italy the night of January 5 sees the visit of the Befana (the name itself is a corruption of Epiphania), an old lady who refused to spare time from her housekeeping to accompnay the Three Kings on their journey. She soon repented of her decision and tried to join the Magi but has never succeeded to this day. She therefore visits each home in search of the Christ Child and leaves presents for the little ones that she finds sleeping there.

In parts of the Middle East there is a charming story about this night and another gift-bringer. On the Night of Destiny, when the Magi first journeyed to Bethlehem the palm trees bent down to show them the way — as they have done, says legend, every January 5 since. Once a mule was tied to a tree on such a night and when the trees sprang back to their ordinary posture the beast was whipped high into the branches. To mark this miracle the Mule was made the gift-bringer in Lebanon where doors are left open for him to bring in the presents and where hay and water are set out to refresh him.

Epiphany is also the time for houses to be blessed for the coming year. A priest will recite a prayer, sprinkle the house with holy water and cense the home and barn. The initials of the Magi and the number of the year are chalked on the door frame as in “20 K+M+B 15”. Even the chalk can be first consecrated with a Ceremonial Blessing of the Chalk.

Just as Epiphany serves as a time for houses to be blessed and evil forces expelled from them, so is January 6 the date for driving demons out of the whole town. In parts of Switzerland boys go about on Twelfth Night to make noise with horns and whips to drive away nasty wood spirits.  In the eastern Alps, the Berchtenlaufen ceremony sees 200-300 boys with masks, cowbells, whips and weapons shoot up the sky and make and make as much noise as possible.  In Eschenloe  in Upper Bavaria, three women with bags over their heads go house to house carrying a chain, a rake and a broom. They knock on doors with the chain, scrape the ground with the rake and sweep with the broom, all to clear away evil.

In England it has been the custom since the Middle Ages for the reigning king or queen to imitate the giving of gifts which the Magi brought. On January 6 during the Epiphany service in the Chapel Royal at Saint James’s Palace two Gentleman Ushers, acting on behalf on the monarch, bring forth silken bags containing gold, frankincense and myrrh. The gold is in the form of twenty-five gold sovereigns which, after the service, is changed into ordinary currency and donated to the poor. This presentation used to be carried out by the ruler himself until the madness of King George III prevented his participation; since then servants have carried out the custom by proxy.

December 29 is the saint’s day of the English martyr Thomas Becket, murdered in 1170 at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral by knights of King Henry II. In the Middle Ages a legend grew up about the parentage of the saint, a legend that was credible enough even in the 19th century when Charles Dickens recounted it in his A Child’s History of England.

Once upon a time, a worthy merchant of London, named Gilbert À Becket, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and was taken prisoner by a Saracen lord. This lord, who treated him kindly and not like a slave, had one fair daughter, who fell in love with the merchant; and who told him that she wanted to become a Christian, and was willing to marry him if they could fly to a Christian country. The merchant returned her love, until he found an opportunity to escape, when he did not trouble himself about the Saracen lady, but escaped with his servant Richard, who had been taken prisoner along with him, and arrived in England and forgot her. The Saracen lady, who was more loving than the merchant, left her father’s house in disguise to follow him, and made her way, under many hardships, to the sea-shore. The merchant had taught her only two English words (for I suppose he must have learnt the Saracen tongue himself, and made love in that language), of which London was one, and his own name, Gilbert, the other. She went among the ships, saying, “London! London!” over and over again, until the sailors understood that she wanted to find an English vessel that would carry her there; so they showed her such a ship, and she paid for her passage with some of her jewels, and sailed away. Well! The merchant was sitting in his counting-house in London one day, when he heard a great noise in the street; and presently Richard came running in from the warehouse, with his eyes wide open and his breath almost gone, saying, “Master, master, here is the Saracen lady!” The merchant thought Richard was mad; but Richard said, “No, master! As I live, the Saracen lady is going up and down the city, calling Gilbert! Gilbert!” Then, he took the merchant by the sleeve, and pointed out of the window ; and there they saw her among the gables and water-spouts of the dark, dirty street, in her foreign dress, so forlorn, surrounded by a wondering crowd, and passing slowly along, calling “Gilbert, Gilbert!” When the merchant saw her, and thought of the tenderness she had shown him in his captivity, and of her constancy, his heart was moved, and he ran down into the street; and she saw him coming, and with a great cry fainted in his arms. They were married without loss of time, and Richard (who was an excellent man) danced with joy the whole day of the wedding; and they all lived happy ever afterwards.  

Professional historians who don’t like to leave a good story alone have pooh-poohed the legend, but what do they know?  The triptych above shows the Saracen maid’s baptism and marriage and her rocking the cradle of the infant Thomas.

The Feast of St Nicholas

At one time, Nicholas was, aside from the Virgin Mary, the most powerful of saints, prayed to for aid by Christians of all sorts and the patron of hundreds of churches from Iceland to Turkey. After the Protestant Reformation he fell on hard times; in the twentieth century he fell even lower at the hands of Pope Paul VI. But thanks to a love of Christmas his reputation is arising once more.

Legend says that Nicholas was born into a rich family living in what is now Turkey in the days of the late Roman empire. He became a priest and then a bishop of Myra in southern Asia Minor. Nicholas is said to have been at the 325 Council of Nicaea, which was held to determine whether Christ was truly divine, and where he supposedly struck Arius, the arch-heretic, a blow to the head. He developed a reputation for charity and miracle working which, after his death, led him to be venerated all across Europe. In one incident he was able to fly and rescue a sinking boat, leading him to be the patron saint of sailors; in another he resurrected three young scholars who had been pickled in a cask by a cannibal innkeeper, making him the patron saint of students, barrel makers and pickle makers; in another he dropped off gifts of money secretly at night to a poor family, saving the daughters from lives of prostitution, thus becoming the patron of maidens, marriage and a magical gift bringer to children.

By the year 1200 stories had spread of his giving gifts to children on the eve of his feast day, December 6. For 300 years he came by night on his white horse and left treats in the shoes of good children (and threatening bad or lazy kids with a good beating.) In the 1500s the cult of saints was abolished in Protestant lands and Nicholas was replaced in much of Europe as Christmas Gift-bringer by the Christ Child. However his legend was taken to North America by Dutch settlers where tales of good Sinterklaas lingered in the public imagination. Early in the 1800s New York poets, writers and illustrators reimagined him as “Santa Claus”, the figure who took the world of Christmas giving by storm, becoming a global superstar in the twentieth century.

Lately, however, Santa Claus has been subject to a campaign of resistance in those countries where he displaced traditional gift givers. In Spain, supporters of the Three Kings want the Magi returned to centre stage while in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, societies for the restoration of the legend of St Nicholas have placed the old fellow back in the hearts of children.

1697 Dedication of the new St Paul’s Cathedral.

There has been a cathedral church dedicated to St Paul in London ever since the 600s. As fire and the ravages of time brought these buildings down there was always a desire to see them rebuilt. The fourth cathedral to occupy the present spot was begun after fire destroyed the third version in 1087. This was a massive stone structure that was completed only in 1314, in the Gothic style. This meant flying buttresses supporting tall walls filled with stained glass windows, pointed arches, imaginative decoration and a towering spire, 490 feet high. In 1561, shortly after the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign and the restoration of Protestantism, a lightning strike destroyed the spire. The building remained a centre of London life where far more than religious services were carried on. Critics complained that people would use “the south alley for usury and popery, the north for sorcery, and the horse fair in the midst for all kinds of bargains, meetings, brawlings, murders, conspiracies, and the font for ordinary payments of money.” Little wonder that one of the cathedral’s paid staff was the “dog-whipper” whose job it was to control the noise of animals in the church.

In the seventeenth century John Donne was the Dean of the cathedral and preached there often (go here for a virtual reconstruction of his Gunpowder Day sermon of 1622: http://vpcp.chass.ncsu.edu ). After the Puritans won the English Civil War the building was used as a barracks and stable. Its final disgrace came in 1666 when the Great Fire of London destroyed the timber-arched edifice. A new structure was started under the supervision of Christopher Wren. The first stone was laid in 1675 and the building was declared open for use on this day in 1697 but it took another 14 years before it was completed.

Wren’s building was massive with a dome that dominated the eastern prospect of London before the rash of grotesque skyscrapers marred the view in the late twentieth century.