The Christian Church in These Islands before the Coming of Augustine: Three Lectures Delivered at St. Paul's in January 1894 — John Shaqi
The Christian Church in These Islands before the Coming of Augustine: Three Lectures Delivered at St. Paul's in January 1894Browne, G. F. (George Forrest)
History
The Christian Church in These Islands before the Coming of Augustine: Three Lectures Delivered at St. Paul's in January 1894
Browne, G. F. (George Forrest)
Great Britain -- Church history -- To 449
The ancient drawing to which I am referring was made after 1325, when St.
Ethelbert was added to the Apostles Peter and Paul and St. Augustine in
the dedication of the high altar. It was copied for Sir William Dugdale's
purposes in 1652, at which time it had passed into the safe hands of one
of the Cambridge Colleges, Trinity Hall. The altar is shewn as deeply
recessed into a structural reredos. A large number of shrines are shewn,
ranged in semi-circles behind the reredos. On either side of the altar
there is a door, as in our reredos at St. Paul's. They are marked "north
door" and "south door," "to the bodies of the saints." On the shrines,
shewn in the apse to which these doors lead, are written the names of
those whose relics they contained, and the roll of names is illustrious.
In the centre, at the extreme east, is Augustine, with Laurentius and
Mellitus north and south of him: then, on the north, Justus, Deusdedit,
Mildred, Nothelm, and Lambert; on the south, Honorius, Theodore, Abbat
Hadrian, Berhtwald, and Tatwin. Besides these shrines in the apse, behind
the reredos, there is shewn immediately above the altar itself a
prominent shrine, marked Scs. Ethelbertus, the relics of the first
Christian king. Then, behind that, a number of books--manuscripts, of
course--with a Latin description stating that they are "books sent by
Gregory to Augustine"--one or two of which are still in existence. Above
these, on either side of a great vesica enclosing a representation of our
Lord, are two shrines, one marked "Relics," the other, which stands on the
side of greater honour, is marked Scs. Letald(us). Thus the Canterbury
monks at St. Augustine's, the great treasure-house of early Canterbury
saints, put in the places of highest honour the relics of Bertha's husband
and of Bertha's Gallican bishop. It is a pleasant thought in these days of
ecclesiastical jealousies--and when were there days, before Christ or
since, without ecclesiastical jealousies?--it is a very pleasant thought
that the successors of Augustine paid such honour to Augustine's Gallican
precursor, whose work they might almost have been expected, considering
the temper of the times, to be inclined to ignore. The shrine with
Luidhard's relics no doubt represents the golden chest in which--as we
know--they used to carry his relics round Canterbury on Rogation Days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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