Peterborough Cathedral (Part Three)

Text and illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia
unless otherwise annotated.

Henry VIII, after Hans Holbein the Younger, 

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.

King Henry VIII ordered the Dissolution of the Monasteries,

which ended the life of Peterborough Abbey 

and instigated the life of Peterborough Cathedral.

Monastic life

From the Mid-12th-Century monk, Hugh Candidus, we have a detailed record of the contents of the Abbey's reliquaries , which included two pieces of swaddling clothes which wrapped the baby Jesus, pieces of Jesus' manger, a part of the five loaves which fed the 5,000, a piece of the raiment of St Mary, a piece of Aaron's rod, and relics of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew - to whom the church is dedicated.

Most famous, however, was the supposed arm of St Oswald, which disappeared from its chapel, probably during the Reformation, despite a watch-tower having been built for monks to guard its reliquary, and various contact relics of Thomas Becket, brought from Canterbury in a special reliquary by its Prior, Benedict (who had witnessed Becket's assassination), when he was 'promoted' to Abbot of Peterborough.

All of these created an aura of great importance around what is today Peterborough Cathedral, making it at the zenith of its wealth, just before the Reformation, the sixth largest monastery in England in terms of income, with 120 monks and departments including an Almoner, an Infirmarian, a Sacristan and a Cellarer.

Signature of King Henry VIII.

Harbinger of doom for many Abbeys and Monasteries.

Tudor

In 1541, following Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries, the relics were lost, but the Church survived by not being sold off and, instead, being selected as the Cathedral of the new Diocese of Peterborough. This may have been related to the fact that Henry's former queen, Katherine of Aragon, had been buried there in 1536.

Her grave can still be seen and is nowadays honoured by visitors and often decorated with flowers and pomegranates (her symbol). It carries the legend "Katharine, Queen of England", a title she was denied at the time of her death.

In 1587, the body of Mary, Queen of Scots, was also buried here after her execution at nearby Fotheringhay Castle, but it was later removed to Westminster Abbey on the orders of her son, King James I of England.

Coat of Arms of King Henry VIII

Author: Sodacan

August 2010

From Wikimedia Commons

PART FOUR FOLLOWS

Peterborough Cathedral (Part Two)

Text and illustrations from Wikipedia -the free encyclopedia,
unless otherwise attributed.

The Nave.

Photo taken by Kev747, 

March 2007.

This newer Church had as its major focal point a substantial Western tower with a "Rhenish Helm" and was largely constructed of ashlar. Only a small section of the foundations of the Saxon Church remain beneath the South Transept, but there are several significant artefacts, including Saxon carvings such as the 'Hedda Stone', from the earlier building.

In 2008, Anglo-Saxon grave markers were reported to have been found by workmen repairing a wall in the cathedral precincts. The grave markers are said to date to the 11th-Century, and probably belonged to "townsfolk".

Norman and Mediaeval architectural evolution

Although damaged during the struggle between the Norman invaders and local folk-hero, Hereward the Wake, the Cathedral was repaired and continued to thrive until destroyed by an accidental fire in 1116. This event necessitated the building of a new Church in the Norman style, begun by Abbot John de Sais in 1118 (Old Style). By 1193, the building was completed to the Western end of the Nave, including the Central Tower and the decorated wooden ceiling of the Nave. The ceiling, completed between 1230 and 1250, still survives. It is unique in Britain and one of only four such ceilings in the whole of Europe. It has been over-painted twice, once in 1745, then in 1834, but still retains the character and style of the original. (The painted nave ceiling of Ely Cathedral, by contrast, is entirely a Victorian creation.)

Robert Grosseteste (Bishop of Lincoln) 

consecrated Peterborough Cathedral in 1238.

The Cathedral is largely built of Barnack limestone, from quarries on its own land, and it was paid annually for access to these quarries by the builders of Ely Cathedral and Ramsey Abbey in thousands of eels (e.g., 4,000 eels each year for Ramsey). Cathedral historians believe that part of the placing of the Church is due to the easy ability to transfer quarried stones by river, and then to the existing site, allowing it to grow without being relocated.

Then, after completing the Western Transept and adding the Great West Front Portico in 1237, the Mediaeval masons switched over to the new Gothic style. Apart from changes to the windows, the insertion of a porch to support the free-standing pillars of the portico and the addition of a ‘new’ building at the East end, around the beginning of the 16th-Century, the structure of the building remains essentially as it was on completion almost 800 years ago. The completed building was consecrated in 1238 by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, within whose diocese it then fell.

The trio of arches forming the Great West Front, the defining image of Peterborough Cathedral, is unrivalled in Mediaeval architecture. The line of spires behind it, topping an unprecedented four towers, evolved for more practical reasons. Chief amongst them was the wish to retain the earlier Norman towers, which became obsolete when the Gothic front was added. Instead of being demolished and replaced with new stretches of wall, these old towers were retained and embellished with cornices and other Gothic decor, while two new towers were added to create a continuous frontage.

Peterborough Cathedral, from the South-East.

The Norman tower was rebuilt in the Decorated Gothic style in about 1350-1380 (its main beams and roof bosses survive) with two tiers of Romanesque windows combined into a single set of Gothic windows, with the turreted cap and pinnacles removed and replaced by battlements.

Between 1496 and 1508, the Presbytery roof was replaced and the 'New Building', a rectangular building built around the end of the Norman Eastern apse, with Perpendicular fan vaulting (probably designed by John Wastell, the architect of King's College Chapel, Cambridge and the Bell Harry Tower at Canterbury Cathedral), was added.

PART THREE FOLLOWS

Hildegard von Bingen- O vis aeternitatis

Hildegard von Bingen (Part Three)

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia, unless otherwise accredited.

"Universal Man" illumination 

from Hildegard's Liber Divinorum Operum, 1165

Hildegard's Vita was begun by Godfrey of Disibodenberg, under Hildegard's supervision. It was between November 1147 and February 1148, at the Synod in Trier, that Pope Eugenus heard about Hildegard’s writings. It was from this that she received Papal approval to document her visions as revelations from the Holy Spirit, giving her instant credibility.

Before Hildegard’s death, a problem arose with the clergy of Mainz. A man buried in Rupertsburg had died after excommunication from the Church. Therefore, the clergy wanted to remove his body from the sacred ground. Hildegard did not accept this idea, replying that it was a sin and that the man had been reconciled to the Church at the time of his death.

On 17 September 1179, when Hildegard died, her Sisters claimed they saw two streams of light appear in the skies and cross over the room where she was dying.

Hildegard's musical, literary, and scientific writings are housed primarily in two manuscripts: the Dendermonde manuscript and the Riesencodex. The Dendermonde manuscript was copied under Hildegard's supervision at Rupertsberg, while the Riesencodex was copied in the century after Hildegard's death.

A Facsimile of the"Riesencodex"

(Hs.2 of the Hessische Landesbibliothek, Wiesbaden, fol. 466-481v)

(see http://www.omifacsimiles.com/brochures/hild_w.html)

Attention in recent decades to women of the Mediaeval Church has led to a great deal of popular interest in Hildegard, particularly her music. In addition to the Ordo Virtutum, sixty-nine musical compositions, each with its own original poetic text, survive, and at least four other texts are known, though their musical notation has been lost.

This is one of the largest repertoires among Mediaeval composers. Hildegard also wrote nearly 400 letters to correspondents ranging from Popes to Emperors to abbots and abbesses; two volumes of material on natural medicine and cures; an invented language called the Lingua ignota; various minor works, including a Gospel commentary and two works of hagiography; and three great volumes of visionary theology: Scivias, Liber vitae meritorum ("Book of Life's Merits" or "Book of the Rewards of Life"), and Liber divinorum operum ("Book of Divine Works").

One of her better known works, Ordo Virtutum (Play of the Virtues), is a morality play. It is unsure when some of Hildegard’s compositions were composed, though the Ordo Virtutum is thought to have been composed as early as 1151. 

The morality play consists of monophonic melodies for the Anima (human Soul) and 16 Virtues. There is also one speaking part for the Devil. Scholars assert that the role of the Devil would have been played by Volmar, while Hildegard's nuns would have played the parts of Anima and the Virtues.

PART FOUR FOLLOWS

Peterborough Cathedral (Part One)

Text and illustrations from Wikipedia -the free encyclopedia,
unless otherwise attributed.

The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral

(Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew)

Photo taken March 2010 by NotFromUtrecht

Peterborough Cathedral, properly the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – also known as Saint Peter's Cathedral in the United Kingdom – is the seat of the Bishop of Peterborough, dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, whose statues look down from the three high gables of the famousWest Front.

Founded in the Anglo-Saxon period, the architecture is mainly Norman, following a re-building in the 

12th-Century. With Durham Cathedral and Ely Cathedral, it is one of the most important 12th-Century buildings in England to have remained largely intact, despite extensions and restoration.

Peterborough Cathedral is known for its imposing Early English Gothic West Front (façade) which, with its three enormous arches, is without architectural precedent and with no direct successor. The appearance is slightly asymmetrical, as one of the two towers that rise from behind the façade was never completed, but this is only visible from a distance, while the effect of the West Front upon entering the Cathedral Close is overwhelming.

Peterborough Cathedral - fan vaulting in the "new building".

Author: Steve Cadman from London, U.K. 

Taken July 2008.

(Wikimedia Commons) 

Anglo-Saxon origins

The original Church, known simply as "Medeshamstede", was founded in the reign of the Anglo-Saxon King Peada of the Middle Angles, in about 655 A.D., as one of the first centres of Christianity in Central England. The monastic settlement, with which the Church was associated, lasted at least until 870 A.D., when it was supposedly destroyed by Vikings.

In the mid-10th-Century monastic revival (in which, Churches at Ely and Ramsey were also re-founded), a Benedictine Abbey was created and endowed in 966 A.D., principally by Athelwold, Bishop of Winchester, from what remained of the earlier Church, with "a Basilica [Church] there furbished with suitable structures of halls, and enriched with surrounding lands" and more extensive buildings which saw the Aisle built out to the West, with a second Tower added.

The original Central Tower was, however, retained. It was dedicated to St Peter, and came to be called a burgh, hence the town, surrounding the Abbey, was eventually named Peter-burgh. The community was further revived in 972 A.D. by Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.

PART TWO FOLLOWS

Hildegard von Bingen (Part Two)

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia, unless otherwise accredited.

Mutterschaft aus dem Geiste und dem Wasser

(Motherhood from the Spirit and the Water), 1165

In any case, Hildegard and Jutta were enclosed at Disibodenberg in the Palatinate Forest in what is now Germany. Jutta was also a visionary and thus attracted many followers who came to visit her at the enclosure. Hildegard also tells us that Jutta taught her to read and write, but that she was unlearned and therefore incapable of teaching Hildegard Biblical interpretation.

Hildegard and Jutta most likely prayed, meditated, read scriptures, such as the psalter, and did some sort of handiwork during the hours of the Divine Office. This also might have been a time when Hildegard learned how to play the ten-stringed psaltery. Volmar, a frequent visitor, may have taught Hildegard simple psalm notation. The time she studied music could also have been the beginning of the compositions she would later create.

Upon Jutta's death in 1136, Hildegard was unanimously elected as "magistra" of the community by her fellow nuns. Abbot Kuno of Disibodenberg also asked Hildegard to be Prioress, which would be under his authority. Hildegard, however, wanted more independence for herself and her nuns and asked Abbot Kuno to allow them to move to Rupertsberg. This was to be a move towards poverty, from a stone complex that was well established to a temporary dwelling place. 

When the abbot declined Hildegard's proposition, Hildegard went over his head and received the approval of Archbishop Henry I of Mainz. Abbot Kuno did not relent, however, until Hildegard was stricken by an illness that kept her paralyzed and unable to move from her bed, an event that she attributed to God's unhappiness at her not following his orders to move her nuns to Rupertsberg. 

Hildegard von Bingen's alphabet "Litterae ignotae"

It was only when the Abbot himself could not move Hildegard that he decided to grant the nuns their own monastery. Hildegard and about twenty nuns moved to the Saint Rupertsberg monastery in 1150, where Volmar served as provost, as well as Hildegard's confessor and scribe. In 1165, Hildegard founded a second monastery for her nuns at Eibingen.

Visions

Hildegard says that she first saw "The Shade of the Living Light" at the age of three, and by the age of five she began to understand that she was experiencing visions. She used the term 'visio' to this feature of her experience, and recognized that it was a gift that she could not explain to others. Hildegard explained that she saw all things in the light of God through the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.

She was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to Jutta, who, in turn, told Volmar, Hildegard's tutor and, later, secretary. Throughout her life, she continued to have many visions, and in 1141, at the age of 42, Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear." Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering and tribulations. In her first theological text, Scivias ("Know the Ways"), Hildegard describes her struggle within:

But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing.

While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. [...] And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, 'Cry out therefore, and write thus!'

PART THREE FOLLOWS

Commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel

Illustration taken from the Web-Site of the Transalpine Redemptorists

The following text is taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal for 16 July, The Commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel

Greater-Double

White Vestments

According to a pious tradition authorised by the Liturgy, on the day of Pentecost a number of men who walked in the footsteps of the holy prophets, Elias and Eliseus, and whom John the Baptist had prepared for the advent of Jesus, embraced the Christian faith, and erected the first Church to the Blessed Virgin on Mount Carmel, at the very spot where Elias had seen a cloud rise, a figure of the fecundity of the Mother of God (Lesson of Second Nocturn at Matins).

They were called: Brethren of Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel (Collect). These Religious came to Europe in the 13th-Century and, in 1245, Pope Innocent IV gave his approbation to their rule under the generalship of Simon Stock, an English Saint.

On 16 July 1251, Mary appeared to this fervent servant [Simon Stock] and placed in his hands the habit which was to be their distinctive sign. Pope Innocent IV blessed this habit and attached to it many privileges, not only for the members of the Order, but also for those who entered the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. By wearing the scapular, which is in smaller form than that of the Carmelite Fathers, they participate in all their merits and may hope to obtain through the Virgin a prompt delivery from Purgatory, if they have faithfully observed abstinence, chastity (according to their state), and said the Prayers prescribed by Pope John XXII, in the Sabbatine Bull, published on 3 March 1322.

The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, at first celebrated only in the Churches of the Order, was extended to all Christendom by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726.

From Hungary to Rome... on a motorbike to mark a religious anniversary

Beszélsz MAGYAR?

The following was gleaned from ROME REPORTS.

From Hungary to Rome... on a motorbike to mark a religious anniversary

Solemn High Masses for the Feast of Our Lady Of Mount Carmel

This information has been provided by the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny.
Their Blog can be found at http://sthughofcluny.org/

For our American readers, please be aware that the following Churches in Newark, New Jersey, and Stamford, Connecticut, and New York, have scheduled Traditional Masses, to observe the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, on Sunday, 15 July 2012, Monday, 16 July 2012, and also Saturday, 21 July 2012.

Monday, 16 July 2012, at 7:30 p.m.

SOLEMN HIGH MASS FOR THE FEAST OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL

Gregorian Chant with music by Victoria and Morales.

Light refreshments to follow in Parish Meeting Room

Church of Saint Gabriel, 914 Newfield Avenue, Stamford, Connecticut.



Sunday, 15 July 2012, and Monday, 16 July 2012, both at 12 noon

Solemn High Masses with Procession through the streets of the neighborhood with Italian Marching band.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, 259 Oliver Street, Newark, NJ 07105.



Saturday, 21 July 2012, at 11 a.m.

Solemn High Mass at the Altar of the Pontifically Crowned Madonna.

Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 449 East 115th Street, New York, New York.

Cluny Abbey (Part Three)

Coat of Arms of Cluny Abbey: 

"Gules, two keys in saltire, the wards upwards and outwards, or. Overall, a sword in pale, argent".

Text is from Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia.

The Cluny library was one of the richest and most important in France and Europe. It was a storehouse of numerous very valuable manuscripts. During the religious conflicts of 1562, the Huguenots sacked the abbey, destroying or dispersing many of the manuscripts. Of those that were left, some were burned in 1790 by a rioting mob related to the excesses of the French Revolution. Others still were stored away in the Cluny town hall.

The French Government worked to relocate such treasures, including those that ended up in private hands. They are now held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France at Paris. The British Museum holds some sixty or so charters originating from Cluny.

• Herman I, Margrave of Baden
• Philip I, Duke of Burgundy
• Pope Gelasius II
• 
  

The Consecration of Cluny III by Pope Urban II, 12th century (Bibliothèque Nationale de France).

In the fragmented and localized Europe of the 10th and 11th centuries, the Cluniac network extended its reforming influence far. Free of lay and episcopal interference, responsible only to the papacy, which was in a state of weakness and disorder with rival popes supported by competing nobles, Cluniac spirit was felt revitalizing the Norman church, reorganizing the royal French monastery at Fleury and inspiring St Dunstan in England. There were no official English Cluniac priories until that of Lewes in Sussex, founded by the Anglo-Norman earl William de Warenne c 1077. The best-preserved Cluniac houses in England are Castle Acre Priory, Norfolk, and Much Wenlock Priory, Shropshire. It is thought that there were only three Cluniac nunneries in England, one of them being Delapré Abbey at Northampton.

Until the reign of Henry VI, all Cluniac houses in England were French, governed by French priors and directly controlled from Cluny. Henry's act of raising the English priories to independent abbeys was a political gesture, a mark of England's nascent national consciousness.

The early Cluniac establishments had offered refuges from a disordered world but by the late 11th century, Cluniac piety permeated society. This is the period that achieved the final Christianization of the heartland of Europe.

Pope Callixtus II was elected at the papal election, 1119, at Cluny.

Well-born and educated Cluniac priors worked eagerly with local royal and aristocratic patrons of their houses, filled responsible positions in their chanceries and were appointed to bishoprics. Cluny spread the custom of veneration of the king as patron and support of the Church, and in turn the conduct of 11th-century kings, and their spiritual outlook, appeared to undergo a change. In England, Edward the Confessor was later canonized. In Germany, the penetration of Cluniac ideals was effected in concert with Henry III of the Salian dynasty, who had married a daughter of the duke of Aquitaine. Henry was infused with a sense of his sacramental role as a delegate of Christ in the temporal sphere. He had a spiritual and intellectual grounding for his leadership of the German church, which culminated in the pontificate of his kinsman, Pope Leo IX. The new pious outlook of lay leaders enabled the enforcement of the Truce of God movement to curb aristocratic violence.

Within his order, the Abbot of Cluny was free to assign any monk to any house; he created a fluid structure around a central authority that was to become a feature of the royal chanceries of England and of France, and of the bureaucracy of the great independent dukes, such as that of Burgundy. Cluny's highly centralized hierarchy was a training ground for Catholic prelates: four monks of Cluny became popes: Gregory VII, Urban II, Paschal II and Urban V.

An orderly succession of able and educated abbots, drawn from the highest aristocratic circles, led Cluny, and three were canonized: Saints Odo of Cluny, the second abbot (died 942); Hugh of Cluny, the sixth abbot (died 1109); and Odilo, the fifth abbot (died 1049). Odilo continued to reform other monasteries, but as Abbot of Cluny, he also exercised tighter control of the order's far-flung priories.


Cluny and the Gregorian reforms

A plan of the Abbey

Cluny was not known for its severity or asceticism, but the abbots of Cluny supported the revival of the papacy and the reforms of Pope Gregory VII. The Cluniac establishment found itself closely identified with the Papacy. In the early 12th century, the order lost momentum under poor government. It was subsequently revitalized under Abbot Peter the Venerable (died 1156), who brought lax priories back into line and returned to stricter discipline. Cluny reached its apogee of power and influence under Peter, as its monks became bishops, legates, and cardinals throughout France and the Holy Roman Empire. But by the time Peter died, newer and more austere orders such as the Cistercians were generating the next wave of ecclesiastical reform.

Outside monastic structures, the rise of English and French nationalism created a climate unfavourable to the existence of monasteries autocratically ruled by a head residing in Burgundy. The Papal Schism of 1378 to 1409 further divided loyalties: France recognizing a Pope at Avignon and England one at Rome, interfered with the relations between Cluny and its dependent houses. Under the strain, some English houses, such as Lenton Priory, Nottingham, were naturalized (Lenton in 1392) and no longer regarded as alien priories, weakening the Cluniac structure.

By the time of the French Revolution, the monks were so thoroughly identified with the Ancien Régime that the order was suppressed in France in 1790 and the monastery at Cluny almost totally demolished in 1810. Later, it was sold and used as a quarry until 1823. Today, little more than one of the original eight towers remains of the whole monastery.

Pope Gregory VII was once a monk at Cluny

Modern excavations of the Abbey began in 1927 under the direction of Kenneth John Conant, American architectural historian of Harvard University, and continued (although not continuously) until 1950.

Decline and destruction of the buildings.

Starting from the 12th century, Cluny had serious financial problems, caused mainly by the construction of the third abbey. Charity given to the poor increased the expenditure. The influence of the abbey weakened gradually as other religious orders rose (Cistercians in the 12th, then Mendicants in the 13th century). Bad management of the grounds and unwillingness of the subsidiary companies to pay the annual taxable quota helped to lessen Cluny's revenue. Cluny raised loans and ended up being involved in debt to its creditors, who were merchants of Cluny or Jews of Mâcon.

The conflicts with the priories multiplied and the authority of the pope became heavier. To the 14th-Century, the Pope frequently named the abbots. The crises at the end of the Middle Ages and the wars of religion in the 16th-Century weakened the abbey a little more. The monks lived in luxury and there were not more than about 60 monks in the middle of the 15th-Century. With the Concordat of Bologna in 1516, overseen by Antoine Duprat, the king gained the power to appoint the abbot of Cluny.

The years following the French Revolution were fatal to all the monastic buildings and its church. In 1793, its  archives were burned and the church was delivered to plundering. The abbey estate was sold in 1798 for 2,140,000 francs. Until 1813, the abbey was used as a stone quarry to build houses in the town.

Today, there remain only the buildings built under the Old Mode as well as a small portion of Cluny III. Only the Southern Transept and its Bell-Tower still exist. The remaining structure represents less than 10% of the floor area of Cluny III, which was the largest Church of Christendom, until the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, five centuries later.

In 1928, the site was excavated and recognized by the American archaeologist Kenneth J. Conant with the backing of the Medieval Academy of America.


THIS CONCLUDES THE ARTICLE ON CLUNY ABBEY

Hildegard von Bingen (Part One)

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia,

unless otherwise accredited.

Illumination from the Liber Scivias showing Hildegard receiving a vision

and dictating to her scribe and secretary

Saint Hildegard of Bingen, O.S.B. (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis) (1098 A.D. – 17 September 1179 A.D.), also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play.

She wrote theological, botanical and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, and poems, while supervising brilliant miniature Illuminations.

On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the liturgical cult of Saint Hildegard to the universal Church, in a process known as "equivalent canonization". On 27 May 2012, the Pope announced that, on 7 October 2012, he will declare Saint Hildegard to be the 35th Doctor of the Church.

Eibingen Abbey was founded by Hildegard von Bingen in 1165.

Eibingen Abbey (in German, "Abtei St. Hildegard", full name, Benedictine Abbey of St. Hildegard) is a community of Benedictine nuns in Eibingen, near Rüdesheim, in Hesse, Germany.

The original community was founded in 1165 by Hildegard von Bingen. It was dissolved at the beginning of the 19th-Century during the secularisation of this part of Germany.

The present community was established by Charles, 6th Prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg in 1904 and re-settled from St. Gabriel's Abbey, Bertholdstein. The nunnery belongs to the Beuronese Congregation within the Benedictine Confederation.

In 1941, the nuns were expelled by the Nazis; they were not able to return until 1945.

In 1988, the sisters founded Marienrode Priory at Hildesheim, which became independent of Eibingen in 1998.

The nuns work in the vineyard and in the craft workshops, besides undertaking the traditional duties of hospitality. They can be heard (but not seen) singing their regular services.

The Abbey is a Rhine Gorge World Heritage Site. The Church has been used for concerts of the Rheingau Musik Festival, such as a "Bach Trompeten Gala" with Edgar Krapp, organ.



Hildegard's date of birth is uncertain. It has been concluded that she may have been born in the year 1098. Hildegard was raised in a family of free nobles. She was her parents' tenth child, sickly from birth. In her Vita, Hildegard explains that from a very young age she had experienced visions.

Monastic life

Perhaps due to Hildegard's visions, or as a method of political positioning, Hildegard's parents, Hildebert and Mechthilde, offered her as an oblate to the Church. The date of Hildegard's "Enclosure in the Church" is contentious. Her Vita tells us she was enclosed with an older nun, Jutta, at the age of eight. However, Jutta's enclosure date is known to be in 1112, at which time Hildegard would have been fourteen. Some scholars speculate that Hildegard was placed in the care of Jutta, the daughter of Count Stephan II of Sponheim, at the age of eight, before the two women were enclosed together six years later. There is no written record of the twenty-four years of Hildegard's life that she was in the convent together with Jutta. It is possible that Hildegard could have been a chantress and a worker in the herbarium and infirmarium.

PART TWO FOLLOWS

Cluny Abbey (Part Two)

Coat of Arms of Cluny Abbey:
"Gules, two keys in saltire, the wards upwards and outwards, or. Overall, a sword in pale, argent".

Text is from Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia.


Partly due to the Order's opulence, the Cluniac nunneries were not seen as being particularly cost-effective. The Order did not have interest in founding many new houses for women.

The customs of Cluny represented a shift from the earlier ideal of a Benedictine monastery as an agriculturally self-sufficient unit. This was similar to the contemporary villa of the more Romanised parts of Europe and the manor of the more feudal parts, in which each member did physical labour as well as offering prayer.

In 817 A.D., Saint Benedict of Aniane, the "second Benedict", developed monastic constitutions at the urging of Louis the Pious to govern all the Carolingian monasteries. He acknowledged that the Black Monks no longer supported themselves by physical labour. Cluny's agreement to offer perpetual prayer (laus perennis, literally "perpetual praise"), meant that it had increased a specialisation in roles.

As perhaps the wealthiest monastic house of the Western world, Cluny hired managers and workers to do the labor of monks in other orders. The monks devoted themselves to almost constant prayer, thus elevating their position into a profession. Despite the monastic ideal of a frugal life, the abbey in Cluny commissioned candelabras of solid silver and gold chalices made with precious gems for use at the abbey Masses. Instead of being limited to the traditional fare of broth and porridge, the monks ate very well, enjoying roasted chickens (a luxury in France then) and wines from their vineyards and cheeses made by their employees. The monks wore the finest linen habits and silk vestments at Mass. Artifacts exemplifying the wealth of Cluny Abbey are today on display at the Musée de Cluny in Paris.

Cluniac Houses in Britain

All of the English and Scottish Cluniac houses which were larger than cells were known as priories, symbolising their subordination to Cluny. Cluny's influence spread into the British Isles in the eleventh century, first at Lewes, and then elsewhere. The head of their order was the Abbot at Cluny. All English and Scottish Cluniacs were bound to cross to France to Cluny to consult or be consulted unless the Abbot chose to come to Britain, which he did five times in the 13th century, and only twice in the 14th.

At Cluny, the central activity was the liturgy; it was extensive and beautifully presented in inspiring surroundings, reflecting the new personally-felt wave of piety of the 11th century. Monastic intercession was believed indispensable to achieving a state of grace, and lay rulers competed to be remembered in Cluny's endless prayers; this inspired the endowments in land and benefices that made other arts possible.

The fast-growing community at Cluny required buildings on a large scale. The examples at Cluny profoundly affected architectural practice in Western Europe from the tenth through the twelfth centuries. The three successive churches are conventionally called Cluny I, II and III. In building the third and final church at Cluny, the monastery constructed what was the largest building in Europe before the 16th century, when St. Peter's in Rome was rebuilt. The construction of Cluny II, ca. 955-981, begun after the destructive Hungarian raids of 953, led the tendency for Burgundian churches to be stone-vaulted.





                     Cluny III, reconstruction.


The building campaign was financed by the annual census established by Ferdinand I of León, ruler of a united León-Castile, some time between 1053 and 1065. (Alfonso VI re-established it in 1077, and confirmed it in 1090.) Ferdinand fixed the sum at 1,000 golden aurei, an amount which Alfonso VI doubled in 1090. This was the biggest annuity that the Order ever received from king or layman, and it was never surpassed. Henry I of England's annual grant from 1131 of 100 marks of silver, not gold, seemed little by comparison. The Alfonsine census enabled Abbot Hugh (who died in 1109) to undertake construction of the huge third abbey church. When payments in the Islamic gold coin later lapsed, the Cluniac order suffered a financial crisis that crippled them during the abbacies of Pons of Melgueil (1109 – 1125) and Peter the Venerable (1122 – 1156). The Spanish wealth donated to Cluny publicized the rise of the Spanish Christians, and drew central Spain for the first time into the larger European orbit.


PART THREE FOLLOWS

Cluny Abbey (Part One)

Coat of Arms of Cluny Abbey: 

"Gules, two keys in saltire, the wards upwards and outwards, or. Overall, a sword in pale, argent".

Text is from Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia.

Cluny Abbey (or Cluni, or Clugny, French pronunciation: [klyˈni]) is a Benedictine monastery in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France. It was built in the Romanesque style, with three churches built in succession from the 10th to the early 12th centuries.

Cluny was founded by William I, Duke of Aquitaine in 910. He nominated Berno as the first Abbot of Cluny, subject only to Pope Sergius III. The Abbey was notable for its stricter adherence to the Rule of St. Benedict and the place where the Benedictine Order was formed, whereby Cluny became acknowledged as the leader of western monasticism. The establishment of the Benedictine order was a keystone to the stability of European society that was achieved in the 11th century. In 1790 during the French Revolution, the abbey was sacked and mostly destroyed. Only a small part of the original remains.

Dating around 1334, the abbots of Cluny had a townhouse in Paris known as the Hôtel de Cluny, what is now a public museum since 1833. Apart from the name, it no longer possesses anything originally connected with Cluny.

In 910, William I, Duke of Aquitaine "the Pious", and Count of Auvergne, founded the Benedictine abbey of Cluny on a modest scale, as the mother house of the Congregation of Cluny. In donating his hunting preserve in the forests of Burgundy, William released the Cluny abbey from all future obligation to him and his family other than prayer. Contemporary patrons normally retained a proprietary interest and expected to install their kinsmen as abbots. William appears to have made this arrangement with Berno, the first abbot, to free the new monastery from such secular entanglements and initiate the Cluniac Reforms. The abbots of Cluny were statesmen on the international stage and the monastery of Cluny was considered the grandest, most prestigious and best-endowed monastic institution in Europe. The height of Cluniac influence was from the second half of the 10th century through the early 12th. The first female members were admitted to the order during the eleventh century.

The monastery of Cluny differed in three ways from other Benedictine houses and confederations:

• organizational structure;
• prohibition on holding land by feudal service; and
• execution of the liturgy as its main form of work.

While most Benedictine monasteries remained autonomous and associated with each other only informally, Cluny created a large, federated order in which the administrators of subsidiary houses served as deputies of  the abbot of Cluny and answered to him. The Cluniac houses, being directly under the supervision of the abbot of Cluny, the autocrat of the Order, were styled priories, not abbeys. The priors, or chiefs of priories, met at Cluny once a year to deal with administrative issues and to make reports. Many other Benedictine houses, even those of earlier formation, came to regard Cluny as their guide. When in 1016 Pope Benedict VIII decreed that the privileges of Cluny be extended to subordinate houses, there was further incentive for Benedictine communities to insinuate themselves in the Cluniac order.


PART TWO FOLLOWS

Cluny Abbey in Virtual Reality

Rheims Cathedral (Part Four)

Non-Italic Text and Photos from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia,
unless otherwise accredited.

Rheims Cathedral façade

Photo taken April 2011 by Traveler100

In 2011, the city of Reims celebrated the cathedral's 800th anniversary. The celebrations ran from 6 May to 23 October. Concerts, street performances, exhibitions, conferences, and a series of evening light shows highlighted the Cathedral and its 800th anniversary. In addition, six new stained glass windows, designed by Imi Knoebel, a German artist, were inaugurated on 25 June, 2011. The six windows cover an area of 128m² and are positioned on both sides of the Chagall windows in the apse of the cathedral.

Rheims Cathedral interior.

From Wikimedia Commons.

Photo: Josep Renalias

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Reims (Latin: Archidioecesis Remensis) is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Erected as a diocese around 250 A.D., by St. Sixtus, the diocese was elevated to an archdiocese around 750 A.D. The archbishop received the title "primate of Gallia Belgica" in 1089.

In 1023, Archbishop Ebles acquired the Countship of Reims, making him a prince-bishop; it became a duchy and a peerage between 1060 and 1170.

Gallery of the kings on Rheims Cathedral.

The archdiocese comprises the arrondissement of Reims and the département of Ardennes, while the province comprises the région of Champagne-Ardenne. The suffragan dioceses within Reims are Amiens, Beauvais-Noyon-Senlis, Châlons, Langres, Soissons–Laon–Saint-Quentin, and Troyes. The Archepiscopal See is located in the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims, where the Kings of France were traditionally crowned.

The current archbishop is Thierry Romain Camille Jordan, who was appointed in 1999.

Rheims Cathedral Triforium.

Nef de la cathédrale de Reims, montrant la galerie du triforium.

From Wikimedia Commons.

Photo: March 2007. Taken by 

Vassil.

Reims, located in the North-East of France, hosted several Councils or Synods in the Roman Catholic Church. These Councils did not universally represent the Church and are not counted among the official Ecumenical Councils.

The first Synod, said to have been held at Reims by Archbishop Sonnatius, between 624 A.D.-630 A.D., is probably identical with that held at Clichy (Clippiacum) in 626 A.D. or 627 A.D.

In 813 A.D., Archbishop Wulfar presided at a Synod of Reform (Werminghoff in "Mon. Germ. Hist.: Concilia aevi Carol. I", I, Hanover, 1904, 253 sq.).

A Council, usually called the Synod of St-Basle, was convoked at Reims by King Hugues Capet, assisted by Gerbert of Aurillac, later Pope Sylvester II, to consider the case of Arnulf, Archbishop of Reims, illegitimate son of the late King Lothair.

Arnulf (Archbishop of Reims) at the Council of Reims in 991 A.D.

Arnulf was accused of conspiring with his uncle, Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine, against Hugues Capet. He was duly deposed by the Council, and Gerbert appointed in his place. This was done without the approval of Pope John XV, who refused to accept either Arnulf's removal or Gerbert's appointment. The matter dragged on until 995 A.D., when Arnulf was restored, and was only completely resolved by Pope Gregory V in 997.

Exterior view of the Chevet of Rheims Cathedral

From Wikimedia Commons.

Photo taken May 2009 by Marie51.

Held by Pope Leo IX, the Council of Rheims in 1049 A.D. inquired into Simony. Hugo of Breteuil, Bishop of Langres, fled the proceedings, and was deposed. According to Eamon Duffy: "In one week, Leo IX had asserted papal authority as it had never been asserted before".

The Council also excommunicated Geoffrey Martel, for the imprisonment of Gervase, Bishop of Le Mans.

On 3 October 1054, a Rheims Council had a dogmatic declaration about the primacy of the Roman Pontiff as Successor of Peter: "declaratum est quod solus Romanae sedis pontifex universalis Ecclesiae Primas esset et Apostolicus".

THIS CONCLUDES THE ARTICLE ON RHEIMS CATHEDRAL

Feast of The Sacred Heart of Jesus (Part Three)

Italic Text taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal or, where indicated,
      Abbot Gueranger's "The Liturgical Year".

Non-Italic Text and Images taken from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia,
      unless otherwise accredited.

[This Feast was held on Friday, 15 June 2012 - Editor].

Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi.
Double of the First Class with Privileged Octave of the Third Order.
White Vestments.

Pope Leo XIII wrote the encyclical, "Annum Sacrum", on the consecration of the entire world to The Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was delivered in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome on 25 May 1899.

Coming after the Feasts of Christ, this Feast completes them, concentrating them in one object, which is materially Jesus' Heart of flesh, and formally the unbounded charity symbolised by this Heart. This Solemnity, therefore, does not relate to a particular mystery of the Saviour's life, but embraces them all; indeed, the devotion to The Sacred Heart celebrates all the favours we have received from Divine Charity during the year (Collect), and all the marvellous things that Jesus has done for us (Introit, Tract, Alleluia).

It is the Feast of the love of God for men, a love which has made Jesus come down on Earth for all by His Incarnation (Epistle), which has raised Him on the Cross for the Redemption of all and which brings Him down every day on our altars by Transubstantiation, in order to make us benefit by the merits of His death on Calvary.

Blessed Mary of The Divine Heart (1863 - 1899).

Born Maria Droste zu Vischering, she was a German Roman Catholic nun, who was best known for influencing Pope Leo XIII's consecration of the world to The Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Pope Leo XII called this consecration "the greatest act of my pontificate".

These three mysteries, which manifest to us the Divine Charity in a more special way, sum up the spirit of the Feast of The Sacred Heart. It is "His love which forced Him to put on a mortal body" (Hymn at Matins). It is His love which willed that The Sacred Heart should be pierced on the Cross (Gospel and Communion), in order that from the wound should flow a spring  (Preface) we might draw from joyfully (versicle at Second Vespers), whose water cleanses us from our sins in Baptism and whose blood nourishes our Souls in the Eucharist.

And, as the Eucharist is the continuation of the Incarnation and the sacrifice of Calvary, Jesus asked that the Feast should be placed immediately after the Octave of Corpus Christi.

As these manifestations of Christ's love only show the more the ingratitude of men who only answer by coldness and indifference (Offertory), this Solemnity has a character of reparation (Collect) demanded of us by the wounded Heart of Jesus and by His immolation in the Crib, on the Cross and on the Altar.

Let us learn from the Heart of Jesus, whose gentle and humble love turns no-one away, and in it we shall find rest for our Souls (Alleluia).

THIS CONCLUDES THIS ARTICLE