Post by UKarchaeology on Nov 27, 2015 14:52:54 GMT
Interesting article I found...
Illustration: Ellie Foreman-Peck
"Every faith spawns its fables and myths. The trick is to puncture them"
-Simon Jenkins
The truth is out and in the headlines. Back in 1184 the monks of Glastonbury fabricated an edifice of myth about their monastery’s past for pecuniary gain. No, Christ did not come with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, to “walk on England’s green and pleasant land”. No, Joseph never brought the holy grail to the Somerset Levels. No, the churchyard thornbush was not his staff, let alone the crown of thorns. And no, the burial pit is not that of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. It was all made up by canny monks with a Disneyland fixation.
We might wonder how many academics does it take to disprove a load of cock-and-bull. The answer is 31, if they come from the Reading University archaeology department. And they probably got a grant for it. I am tempted to accuse them of cruelty to hippies and new age nutters. Everyone “knows” the holy grail was taken from Glastonbury to Strata Florida after the dissolution, and then hidden in Nanteos Mansion outside Aberystwyth. It was seen there by Wagner when composing Parsifal. It now resides in a Hereford bank vault. A facsimile of the chewed and broken cup sits on my desk. Very holy it is too. Any more nonsense from Reading and I shall sue.
That scholars need to go to such lengths to disprove myths speaks volumes about the potency and longevity of such legends. I know Catholics who were shocked to read of the monks of Glastonbury. What dismayed them was not so much the shattering of an endearing fable, as the evidence that the 12th-century church was capable of such cynicism, that sanctity might always have been the quick route to cash.
The 1180s brought the establishment of Thomas Becket’s shrine after his murder at Canterbury, and an explosion of pilgrimage sites in abbeys and cathedrals across England. There was St Cuthbert at Durham, St Hugh at Lincoln, St Etheldreda at Ely, St Wulfstan at Worcester and St Swithun (he of the rain) at Winchester. Poor Wells tried to find a saint for decades, but used dud lobbyists in Rome for their various candidates.
Shrines were astonishingly lucrative. There was no nonsense about free entry, and pilgrims were milked at every altar. Rochester was so desperate for a new east end, it fixed a few miracles on a murdered pilgrim and had him canonised as St William. The cash rolled in. St Cantilupe of Hereford was drawing 9,000 visitors a year, and building a new transept. Salisbury cathedral was built on a shameless sale of indulgences “for the remission of sins”. The hypocrisy of the church was equalled only by the gullibility of the rich.
Dr Johnson asserted that no man is so innocently occupied as when engaged in making money. I am sure that applies to monks. But the result was not just a mass tourist migration on a par with today’s Glastonbury shrine to music. Millions trusted the church and believed these myths for centuries. They drove men beyond belief, to wars, feuds, misery and slaughter.
Full story: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/26/faith-fables-myths-puncture-christians
Illustration: Ellie Foreman-Peck
"Every faith spawns its fables and myths. The trick is to puncture them"
-Simon Jenkins
The truth is out and in the headlines. Back in 1184 the monks of Glastonbury fabricated an edifice of myth about their monastery’s past for pecuniary gain. No, Christ did not come with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, to “walk on England’s green and pleasant land”. No, Joseph never brought the holy grail to the Somerset Levels. No, the churchyard thornbush was not his staff, let alone the crown of thorns. And no, the burial pit is not that of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. It was all made up by canny monks with a Disneyland fixation.
We might wonder how many academics does it take to disprove a load of cock-and-bull. The answer is 31, if they come from the Reading University archaeology department. And they probably got a grant for it. I am tempted to accuse them of cruelty to hippies and new age nutters. Everyone “knows” the holy grail was taken from Glastonbury to Strata Florida after the dissolution, and then hidden in Nanteos Mansion outside Aberystwyth. It was seen there by Wagner when composing Parsifal. It now resides in a Hereford bank vault. A facsimile of the chewed and broken cup sits on my desk. Very holy it is too. Any more nonsense from Reading and I shall sue.
That scholars need to go to such lengths to disprove myths speaks volumes about the potency and longevity of such legends. I know Catholics who were shocked to read of the monks of Glastonbury. What dismayed them was not so much the shattering of an endearing fable, as the evidence that the 12th-century church was capable of such cynicism, that sanctity might always have been the quick route to cash.
The 1180s brought the establishment of Thomas Becket’s shrine after his murder at Canterbury, and an explosion of pilgrimage sites in abbeys and cathedrals across England. There was St Cuthbert at Durham, St Hugh at Lincoln, St Etheldreda at Ely, St Wulfstan at Worcester and St Swithun (he of the rain) at Winchester. Poor Wells tried to find a saint for decades, but used dud lobbyists in Rome for their various candidates.
Shrines were astonishingly lucrative. There was no nonsense about free entry, and pilgrims were milked at every altar. Rochester was so desperate for a new east end, it fixed a few miracles on a murdered pilgrim and had him canonised as St William. The cash rolled in. St Cantilupe of Hereford was drawing 9,000 visitors a year, and building a new transept. Salisbury cathedral was built on a shameless sale of indulgences “for the remission of sins”. The hypocrisy of the church was equalled only by the gullibility of the rich.
Dr Johnson asserted that no man is so innocently occupied as when engaged in making money. I am sure that applies to monks. But the result was not just a mass tourist migration on a par with today’s Glastonbury shrine to music. Millions trusted the church and believed these myths for centuries. They drove men beyond belief, to wars, feuds, misery and slaughter.
Full story: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/26/faith-fables-myths-puncture-christians