Swithun
Major shrine | Winchester Cathedral. Parts survive in cathedral museum. Also modern replacement shrine. |
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Feast | 2 July (Norway) 15 July (England) |
Attributes | Bishop, holding a bridge, broken eggs at his feet |
Patronage | Hampshire; Winchester; Southwark; the weather |
Swithun (or Swithin;
Biography
St. Swithun was Bishop of Winchester from his consecration on 30 October 852 until his death on 2 July 863.[1] However, he is scarcely mentioned in any document of his own time. His death is entered in the Canterbury manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (MS F) under the year 861.[2] He is recorded as a witness to nine charters, the earliest of which (S 308) is dated 854.[3]
More than a hundred years later, when
In legend
The revival of Swithun's fame gave rise to a mass of legendary literature. The so-called Vita S. Swithuni of
Under Æthelwulf, Swithun was appointed bishop of Winchester, to which see he was consecrated by Archbishop Ceolnoth. In his new office he was known for his piety and his zeal in building new churches or restoring old ones. At his request Æthelwulf gave the tenth of his royal lands to the Church. Swithun made his diocesan journeys on foot; when he gave a banquet he invited the poor and not the rich. William of Malmesbury adds that, if Bishop Ealhstan of Sherborne was Æthelwulf's minister for temporal matters, Swithun was the minister for spiritual matters.[4]
Swithun's best-known miracle was his restoration on a bridge of a basket of eggs that workmen had maliciously broken. Of stories connected with Swithun the two most famous are those of the Winchester egg-woman and Queen Emma's ordeal. The former is to be found in the hagiography attributed to Goscelin, the latter in Thomas Rudborne's Historia major (15th century), a work which is also responsible for the story that Swithun accompanied Alfred on his visit to Rome in the 850s. He died on 2 July 862. On his deathbed Swithun begged that he should be buried outside the north wall of his cathedral where passers-by should pass over his grave and raindrops from the eaves drop upon it.[4]
Veneration
Swithun's
The shrine of Swithun at Winchester was supposedly a site of numerous miracles in the Middle Ages. Æthelwold of Winchester ordered that all monks were to stop whatever they were doing and head to the church to praise God every time that a miracle happened. A story exists that the monks at some point got so fed up with this, because they sometimes had to wake up and go to the church three or four times each night, that they decided to stop going. St. Swithun then appeared in a dream to someone (possibly two people) and warned them that if they stopped going to the church, then miracles would cease. This person (or persons) then warned the monks about the dream they had, and the monks then caved in and decided to go to the church each time a miracle happened again.[7]
Swithun is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 15 July.[8]
Patronage
Swithun is regarded as one of the saints to whom one should pray in the event of drought.[9]
Legacy
There are in excess of forty
Proverb
The name of Swithun is best known today for a British weather lore proverb, which says that if it rains on St. Swithun's day, 15 July, it will rain for forty days.
St. Swithun's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St. Swithun's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain nae mare
A Buckinghamshire variation has:
If on St. Swithun's day it really pours
You're better off to stay indoors
Swithun was initially buried out of doors, rather than in his cathedral, apparently at his own request. William of Malmesbury recorded that the bishop left instructions that his body should be buried outside the church, ubi et pedibus praetereuntium et stillicidiis ex alto rorantibus esset obnoxius [where it might be subject to the feet of passers-by and to the raindrops pouring from on high], which has been taken as indicating that the legend was already well known in the 12th century.
In 971 it was decided to move his body to a new indoor shrine, and one theory traces the origin of the legend to a heavy shower by which, on the day of the move, the saint marked his displeasure towards those who were removing his remains. This story, however, cannot be traced further back than the 17th or 18th century. Also, it is at variance with the 10th century writers, who all agreed that the move took place in accordance with the saint's desire expressed in a vision. James Raine suggested that the legend was derived from the tremendous downpour of rain that occurred, according to the Durham chroniclers, on St. Swithun's Day, 1315.
The most false that the prediction has been, according to the
See also
References
Notes
- ^ Keynes, "Archbishops and Bishops", p. 549
- ^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (MS F).
- ^ Lapidge, Cult of St Swithun, p. 4
- ^ a b c Webster, Douglas Raymund. "St. Swithin." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 20 May 2013
- ^ Lapidge, Cult of St Swithun, p. 69
- ^ Butler, Alban. The Lives of the Saints, Vol. VII, 1866
- ^ Studies in the Early History of Shaftesbury Abbey, Dorset County Council, 1999
- ^ "The Calendar". The Church of England. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
- ^ "McLeod, Jaime. "Today is St. Swithin's Day", Farmers' Almanac, 15 July 2011". Archived from the original on 9 November 2017. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
- ^ St. Swithin's, Walcot, Bath
- ^ St. Swithun's, Worcester Archived 7 July 2013 at archive.today
- ^ "Самсон Сеногной".
- ^ The Times, Follow St Swithin: book a British break
- ^ "St. Swithun's Day". Weather Online. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ^ Norris and Ross McWhirter. Guinness Book of records (1973 ed.). p. 76.
Bibliography
- Andrew Godsell "Saint Swithin and the Rain" in "Legends of British History" (2008).
- Keynes, Simon (2014). "Appendix II: Archbishops and Bishops 597–1066". In Lapidge, Michael; Blair, John; Keynes, Simon; Scragg, Donald (eds.). The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England (Second ed.). Chichester, UK: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-470-65632-7.
- ISBN 0-19-813183-6.
- Ælfric of Eynsham (1881). . Ælfric's Lives of Saints. London, Pub. for the Early English text society, by N. Trübner & co.
Further reading
- Aelfric, and Geoffrey Ivor Needham. Lives of Three English Saints. N.Y.: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966. Series: Methuen's old English library. 119 pages. OCLC: 422028061.
- Blakely, Ruth Margaret. St. Swithun of Winchester: An Investigation into the Literature Relating to His Life, Legends and Cult. Thesis (FLA) -- Library Association 1981, n.d. OCLC: 557018780.
- Bussby, Frederick. Saint Swithun: Patron Saint of Winchester. Winchester: Friends of Winchester Cathedral, 1971. OCLC: 7477761.
- Davidson, George, and John Faed. Legend of St. Swithin: A Rhyme for Rainy Weather. London: Hamilton, Adams, 1861. OCLC: 16140471.
- Deshman, Robert, "Saint Swithun in Early Medieval Art," in Idem, Eye and Mind: Collected Essays in Anglo-Saxon and Early Medieval Art Edited by Adam Cohen (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2010) (Publications of the Richard Rawlinson Center).
- Fridegodus, A. Campbell, Eddius Stephanus, Wulfstan, and Lamfridus. Frithegodi monachi Breviloquium vitae Beati Wilfredi, et Wulfstani cantoris Narratio metrica de Sancto Swithuno. Turici: In Aedibus Thesauri Mundi, 1950. 183 pages. Notes: Fridegodus' work is a versification of the Vita Sancti Wilfredi I, usually attributed to Eddi. Wulfstan's work is a versification of Lamfridus' Miracula Sancti Swithuni. OCLC: 62612752.
- Swithun, and John Earle. Facsimile of Some Leaves in Saxon Handwriting on St. Swithun, Copied by Photozincography, with Literal Translation and Notes. 1861. 20 pages. OCLC: 863315099.
- Wolstanus Wintonensis, Michael Huber, and Lamfridus. S. Swithinus, miracula metrica, I. Text; beitrag zur altenglischen geschichte und literatur. Landshut: J. Thomann'sche buch-u. kunstdruckerei, 1905. 105 pages. Notes: Programm—Humanistisches Gymnasium Metten. A versification of Lantfred's work. OCLC: 669193.
- Yorke, Barbara (1984). "The Bishops of Winchester, the Kings of Wessex and the Development of Winchester in the Ninth and Early Tenth Centuries". Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society. 40: 61–70.
- Yorke, Barbara. "Swithun [St Swithun] (d. 863)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004.
External links
- Swithhun 5 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
- Guardian netnotes on St. Swithin's Day
- BBC "Landward" feature on St. Swithin's Day