Memorial Day goes Gothic: the Washington Chapel

(This is technically a day late, but I started on it yesterday.)

Happy Memorial Day, medievalists. I have to confess that, despite being a former soldier, if I couldn't go to work today or go back to my university to do an errand, I would've forgotten Memorial Day even happened. This is probably the real reason why we have state-sanctioned holidays. 

Before I show you these photos I assembled (some from my own camera, but most from elsewhere on the Internet), I'll share with you something I learned from my southern history class last semester. Did you know that southerners didn't commonly celebrate the Fourth of July until after World War II? I didn't, and I'm from a centuries-long line of southerners. You see, it took two world wars, suffering and bonding with men from the North and the West in godforsaken trenches and foxholes, in order for us southerners to feel truly a part of this nation again. Before that, southerners observed Memorial Day. In those days, it was called Decoration Day because families would decorate the graves of loved ones who died for the ill-fated Confederacy. The tradition of honoring the fallen of the "lost cause" continued even after anyone who had personally known those soldiers had died. In every single county of the South, you'll see a monument of a young man in Confederate dress, perhaps looking away into the distance. What about these fallen soldiers was so potent, so powerful that it would cause 3rd and 4th generation southerners after the war to venerate men they had never known?

Because there is power in sacrifice. Whether the cause was actually righteous or not is irrelevant; the simple truth is that in the Civil War, as in most modern wars, those who died were chiefly the nation's youngest, ablest-bodied men. The monuments show young men looking away into a life they never had. Now imagine nearly a million men with entire lifespans, dreams, and ambitions ahead of them, all put into the meat grinder of politics at the behest of the wrinkled politicians who have already lived theirs, whose greatest discomfort is the sweat soaking their over-starched Victorian suits as they look over war briefs behind a desk. That, I believe, is the tragedy which made Decoration Day the surrogate national holiday of southerners for a century. Sadly, the situation is not much different today. You may have noticed the memorial pages on your favorite news websites: so-and-so killed in the line of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan sometime between 2001 and the present, age 20. 24. 19. Perhaps, as you read this, you realize you've lived twice or even three times longer. If it were up to me, I'd pass a constitutional amendment requiring the President and at least 10% of all the members of Congress at any given time to take to the field of battle in person, whenever a war must be waged. Since no president wants to spend his entire term in a bunker in some remote wasteland, fearful of a suicide bomber charging in at any given moment, wars would end a lot more quickly. Though that, of course, is a debate for another time. For now, let's look at a unique monument to soldiers from an even earlier war.

Upon the hills of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where General George Washington's troops spent the winter of 1777, there stands a chapel in his memory, as well as those of the soldiers who died in the Independence War. Now, you may be well aware that our "national architecture" usually consists of classical knockoffs designed to make America look like the Roman Republic reborn. Abraham Lincoln looks over the National Mall, enthroned like Jupiter in a Greek temple. Thomas Jefferson stands proudly in a new Pantheon. But you may have never seen our national history (or "civic religion" as it called it in my previous post) given the Gothic treatment until now.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Washington Memorial Chapel, built between 1903 and 1917, last year. For a building that was raised, brick by brick, in the 20th century (and completed in the middle of World War I, no less) it is a magnificent edifice. It defies the modern man who says "we have forgotten how to build great temples" or "there is no money to build these wasteful things". 

The chapel itself has a modest seating capacity (about 200) but is quite well-furnished. The photo below is from the back of the nave in HDR so you can see all the little details. For example, the coats of arms of all the states studded amidst the wooden ceiling.

This one is in natural lighting.

I believe all the flags are of the original 13 colonies, and the one on the right, furthest from the camera, is George Washington's coat of arms. (For those curious, that design has been used by Washington's family ever since his ancestor, William de Wessyngton, took possession of Washington Old Hall in Durham in the 12th century! It appears on a 15th century window in Selby Abbey here.) I also seem to recall a tour guide saying that a flag of each of the 50 states is placed upon the altar every week so that prayers are made for the people of that state. The remaining two weeks are given to the territories and the District of Columbia. If that's not right, it's because I mixed it up with what a tour guide said when I visited the National Cathedral in DC, or because I just made it up. Moving on...

The details on the woodwork behind the choir stalls are especially remarkable. The choir is guarded by statuettes of soldiers in the uniforms that would have been seen in Valley Forge. I can't tell what's written below them, under the coats of arms.

"Idols" of Washington:

The chapel also sports a monk-less cloister:

Though a national shrine, there are many memorials for the foreign generals who trained the colonials at Valley Forge or otherwise fought in the war. This floor seal names Casimir Pulaski, a Polish noble who saved Washington's life and commanded one of only a few cavalry regiments in the entire Continental Army. He was mortally wounded in the Battle of Savannah and is one of only seven people to have ever been awarded "honorary American citizenship". Similar seals exist beside this one for the Marquis de Lafayette, the Comte de Rochambeau, and Baron von Steuben, among others (in case anyone forgot that the American Revolution was an international endeavor).

Detail of a stained-glass window in the "Patriot Tower".

 

The Washington Chapel is such a charming, Gothic edifice that it's no wonder it's a popular wedding destination. I'd get married there myself if it weren't Episcopal and wouldn't require an Episcopal's bank account to rent out. But as an experiment on conforming Americana to a romantic medieval aesthetic, I give it high marks. And for the skeptics out there, please be aware that the Gothic royal chapels of Europe (such as Saint George's Chapel at Windsor Castle) are no less works of propaganda to boost the egos of their kingly patrons. By contrast, the Washington Chapel was built entirely by donations from private citizens. It was built upon the romanticism of the American citizenry; the same which allows fallen servicemen and women to be revered in this country more than any other in the world, and which raised up a thousand monuments in a post-war South. The phenomenon is not really so different from that which created so many saints by popular acclaim in the early medieval world, and that which built the great shrines of Santiago de Compostela and Thomas Becket from the offerings of pilgrims. With due respect to American canonized saints like John Neumann and Kateri Ketakwitha, they just don't occupy the same space in even a pious American Catholic's heart, much less an average American who has certainly never heard of them. For good or ill, our soldiers and generals are the closest thing we in the United States have to saints. And if the cult of the American warrior is not an example of modern medievalism, I don't know what is.

A good week for medievalism, and thoughts on education

I've been remiss in posting, dear friends, but the world still turns whether or not I issue forth a new article every week. This week is especially good for the medievally minded, and here's why:

1.) J.R.R. Tolkien published a new book. The mastermind behind middle-Earth is starting to rival Tupac in posthumous contributions; this time, it's The Fall of Arthur, an unfinished epic poem giving us Tolkien's spin on the matter of Britain. I've not yet read it myself, but from what I know, Tolkien has dispensed with the Grail and the courtly love traditions, opting instead to give his audience a raw, more "English" approach to the legend of King Arthur and his war against the Saxon invaders of the early Middle Ages. I have full faith that his style won't bear any resemblance to that abortion starring Clive Owen. However, buyer beware: the poem only occupies a small portion of the book. The bulk is filled by notes and essays written by his son Christopher on "The Poem in Arthurian Tradition" and other such subjects. You'll be disappointed if you were hoping to pick up a fully-fleshed, or even half-fleshed work.

2.) Sir Christopher Lee will release his next metal album tomorrow on his 91st birthday. Talk about a prolific career: Lee, who is old enough to have fought in World War II (and did), already holds the record for the biggest filmography of any major actor ever. Aside from reprising his role as Saruman in the Hobbit films, he can also boast of being the oldest metal performer of all time. Tomorrow will usher the arrival of Charlemagne: The Omens of Death, a sequel to Lee's previous album (Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross).

A music video from Lee's previous album:

3.) For those of you who are fans of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire saga, HBO's Game of Thrones next episode (the following Sunday, as there is no episode scheduled tonight) is titled "The Rains of Castamere". If you've read the books, then you already know what's about to happen. If you've only been following the TV series...... well, gird your loins. Winter is coming.

"And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that Lord of Castamere but now the rains weep o'er his hall with no one there to hear."

In other news, I've been dwelling a lot on what really matters to the average American, and how to gain their attention. I never expected this blog to go viral, but my goal from the beginning has been to reach a relatively broad audience. If I can't go beyond the tweed jacket and pipe smoking crowd, then I've failed. The trouble is that I often feel completely out of touch myself. In my column a couple months ago, I already outlined how Pope Francis and I seemingly exist on two different planets, despite being of the same religion. Not long ago, I had the unpleasant experience of feeling like a dinosaur in my mid-20's when I was substituting for a high school class and the given assignment was to watch The Empire Strikes Back. No one in any of the classes that day had ever seen a Star Wars movie before, not even a nerdy kid in the back of the room to play the exception to the rule. It makes sense now, but at the time, it took me a while to wrap my head around the idea that an entire generation could miss out on what I took for granted to be a staple of pop culture. 

Now, obviously there's nothing to gain from being able to distinguish the various kinds of TIE fighters or AT walkers, but I learned a valuable lesson that day: the things which I assumed were part of a commonly shared American culture don't actually exist. I routinely ask students what sorts of movies they watch or games they play, and find that despite the fact that I'm not much older than them, my interests and theirs rarely ever coincide. The same can probably be said for the entire faculty at innumerable inner-city schools across the nation. Google for accounts from inner-city public school teachers and you'll find the same story everywhere: white, middle-class do-gooder seeks to change the lives of disadvantaged kids in poor areas, then experiences severe culture shock on his first day when he realizes it was nothing like his own school. All of a sudden, yesterday's bickering over the effects of Harry Potter on our kids seems ludicrous when you come across a whole classroom of high schoolers who are incapable of reading any of those books, even if they wanted to (they probably don't). Worried about helicopter parents intruding into every aspect of their adult children's lives? Instead, be thankful they have the time and energy to bother in the first place. There are countless schools where parental involvement is almost nonexistent because the parents have to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet. The children who have been saddled by generational poverty go on to have more children, and the cycle perpetuates itself. And since lower-class families reproduce at a higher rate than the affluent middle classes, it doesn't take a genius to figure out who will be inheriting America in 20 or 30 years.

The above statement, to be clear, is not a preamble to a racist or eugenicist rant about the direction our nation is going. Nor does it precede a patented 7-step solution based on what the medievals would have done, because (as members of a subsistence economy) they wouldn't have done anything. Public education is an entirely modern construct which requires a modern solution, if it can be fixed at all. I'm merely raising a question: in 30 years, what will be the ties that bind our western, American culture? Certainly not the civic religion of the Founding Fathers, those ancient dead white men who owned slaves and whose descendants stole half of Mexico. (It's already a usual sight for entire classrooms to remain seated and gab through the Pledge of Allegiance. I don't know why schools still bother with it.) Nor will it be Christianity, which continues its endless fracturing and commercialization at the hands of hack preachers. Shakespeare? He's already been the bane of high school students for generations, but I've spoken to students who were seniors and never exposed to the Bard at all because it wasn't relevant to achieving acceptable standardized test scores. (I was amused when one student thought I was British because of the way I speak, though I assure you my dialect is your average newscaster American.) To those certain "conservatives" who think education is useless if it doesn't gear people toward being a cog in the industrial workforce, I hope you're happy. At any rate, despite the current over-saturation of liberal arts graduates, the future doesn't bode well for the humanities, much less medieval studies in particular. Ironic that as we lose sight of our past, we're bound to resemble the world as Saint Gregory of Tours saw it, when in describing 6th century Gaul in The History of the Franks he said,

"With liberal culture on the wane, or rather perishing in the Gallic cities there were many deeds being done both good and evil: the heathen were raging fiercely; kings were growing more cruel; the church. attacked by heretics, was defended by Catholics; while the Christian faith was in general devoutly cherished, among some it was growing cold; the churches also were enriched by the faithful or plundered by traitors-and no grammarian skilled in the dialectic art could be found to describe these matters either in prose or verse; and many were lamenting and saying: 'Woe to our day, since the pursuit of letters has perished from among us and no one can be found among the people who can set forth the deeds of the present on the written page.'"

The Problem of Criminalizing Vice, Part I: America's War on Beer

Dear readers, I announced over a month ago that, on the occasion of the 79th anniversary on the end of Prohibition, I would write an article about its causes legacy. My original intent was to present some research involving alcohol consumption in the Middle Ages, but let's face it: if you're reading these words, you likely already know that the average medieval peasant drank a lot more alcohol than we do because it was safer than water. There's not much more to say about that, so allow me to tell you something you might not have known.

You might not have known that Prohibition was by no means the product of "backwards" religious extremists. On the contrary, the Volstead Act was entirely a product of the modern world. Certainly, evangelical Protestants championing the temperance movement were at the forefront of the war against booze. But their efforts would have amounted to nothing were it not for their alliance with social activist groups of every stripe in early 20th century American politics: no other cause could bring Protestant social reformers marching shoulder to shoulder with Catholics and Jews, whites with blacks, Democrats with Republicans, capitalists with communists, and Klansmen with suffragettes. Prohibition was a great experiment which pitted "the concerned" of every religious and political persuasion against the ignorant working class man who couldn't be trusted not to blow his paycheck at the bar rather than see to his wife and children. 

So what does this have to do with the Middle Ages? My "thesis" for this series, if you could call it that, is that the United States' grand experiment of alcohol Prohibition is a classic example of why criminalizing vice, merely because it is vice, is both anti-medieval and dangerous. Why does that matter? In short, because medievalism quite understandably attracts those who are sick of this world's rampant corruption, immorality, and lack of soul. They turn to the medieval ideals of kingship and order; a world where a man could be roasted alive for preaching a bad idea, and a rapist could be force-fed his own genitals. Surely, if Charlemagne were alive today, he would ban pot, Internet porn, condoms, and Muslim women from veiling in public.... right? Because as we all know, in a proper medieval Christian government, the king is God's lieutenant on earth, whose first responsibility is ensuring the salvation of his subjects' souls. Therefore, allowing any of his subjects to sin with impunity is to participate in sin itself.

A modified Charlemagne anti-sin bot: now with condom-zapping eye laser technology.

The truth of the matter is that only a modern American could dream up such a system. The average medieval king ruled over a decentralized government and had little power to control his subjects' personal lives, even if he wanted to. It certainly was a Christian king's responsibility to defend the Church, but they rarely had the luxury to play the idealist. Later on, we'll explore how the medieval world not only tolerated brothels, but rationalized their existence as necessary to prevent greater evils. For now, though, let's begin with more familiar ground and work backwards. Our story begins here in America with the causes that led to the noble cause of breaking our nation's addiction to Satan's brew: alcohol.

An Overview of America's War on Beer

Prohibition wasn't the brainchild of a few early 20th century politicians out to score some votes from the "moral majority" crowd. Rather, it was the climax of a movement over a century in the making. Dr. Benjamin Rush, the famed Philadelphian physician and founding father, was an early and oft-cited influence upon the temperance activists. He published an Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind in 1785, which diagnosed alcohol as a substance prone to inducing both madness and acts of moral evil upon those who consume it. He lists some effects in his introduction:

"I shall begin by briefly describing their prompt or immediate effects, in a fit of drunkenness.

This odious disease (for by that name it should be called) appears with more or less of the following symptoms, and most commonly in the order in which I shall enumerate them.

1. Unusual garrulity.
2. Unusual silence.
3. Captiousness, and a disposition to quarrel.
4. Uncommon good humor, and an insipid simpering, or laugh.
5. Profane swearing and cursing.
6. A disclosure of their own or other people's secrets.
7. A rude disposition to tell those persons in company, whom they know, their faults.
8. Certain immodest actions. I am sorry to say this sign of the first stage of drunkenness sometimes appears in women, who, when sober are uniformly remarkable for chaste and decent manners.
9. A clipping of words. 

10. Fighting; a black eye, or a swelled nose, often mark this grade of drunkenness.
11 . Certain extravagant acts which indicate a temporary fit of madness. These are singing, hallooing, roaring, imitating the noises of brute animals, jumping, tearing off clothes, dancing naked, breaking glasses and china, and dashing other articles of household furniture upon the ground or floor."

We can forgive Dr. Rush for the errors of 18th century medicine, but the damage was done: the so-called Age of Reason, which (like our own generation) so highly valued any study christened in the name of science or medical progress, rubber-stamped its seal of approval on Dr. Rush's Inquiry. Four years later, a temperance organization of 200 Connecticut farmers came into existence. Virginia saw theirs in 1800, and New York's in 1808. 

A teetotaler's certificate: because nothing in the Victorian era was official until you made a pledge on paper.

These early associations were motivated by the scientific community's diagnosis of alcohol as a poison, but it took a great awakening to supercharge the temperance movement into a formidable political force. The Second Great Awakening swept the country with a spirit of religious revival and moral reform, for which the temperance societies became a perfect vehicle to achieve their ends. Previously, temperance societies typically presented members with a pledge card holding two options: moderation in drink, or total abstinence. A member who signed on for T.A. (total abstinence) became known as a tee-totaler. But after the Great Awakening, moderation was increasingly viewed as a weak half-measure; and since Americans loathe half-measures, total abstinence became the only acceptable goal.

 

Thomas Welch made a fortune by changing the meaning of the Bible

See, in order for society as a whole to purge alcohol, the issue had to be freed from being the pet project of some health nuts (the equivalent of today's vegans or organic food advocates). It needed to be a matter of salvation or damnation. For the followers of these revival preachers, alcohol was not just poison: it was the devil's brew. Of course, reasons had to be manufactured to explain why Christ would turn water into wine for a party, or use wine to institute the Lord's Supper. It was convenient that around this time, Thomas Welch, a Methodist minister and dentist, found a way to mass-produce an unfermented, and therefore non-alcoholic "fruit of the vine": what we call grape juice. This feat of scientific engineering bizarrely enabled a very large part of Protestant America to substitute grape juice for wine in their services. Within a generation, their Biblical scholars claimed it was how Jesus did the Last Supper and the wedding at Cana all along.

The Civil War, as wars so often do, threw a wrench into the cogs of the temperance machine, but after the dust had settled, the prohibitionists returned with a vengeance. Kansas has the dubious distinction of being the first state in the Union to completely outlaw alcohol in its constitution (1881). Its chief enforcer: Carrie Nation, the mother-in-law from hell who barged into saloons and smashed their stock with her signature hatchet. Year by year, other states followed suit. North Dakota even entered the Union as a dry state. By the time Congress had passed the 18th Amendment, over half of all the states had already enacted statewide prohibition.

At the turn of the 20th century, both "science" and "religion" were firmly geared toward the prohibition of alcohol in America. It needed one final catalyst: social reform. The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening had already played their parts, but it was ultimately the Progressive Era that made prohibition a national mandate. The years between 1890 and 1930, emboldened by America's victory against Spain and the beginnings of empire, yearned for progress in every sector. It meant trustbusting Standard Oil and the robber barons of the old years. It meant destroying the old bosses and political machines of the past like Tammany Hall. It meant giving women the vote, and teaching eugenics to keep poor people from having too many children. And yes, it meant reforming the working man by destroying the alcohol industry. The working man had many enemies. The capitalist could afford to ban alcohol to keep his workers productive, while stockpiling alcohol before the beginning of enforcement for his own use. The communist could oppose alcohol because it was seen as a means for the capitalists to keep the proletariat down. The suffragette sought to destroy the saloon so that her husband would come home sooner with more money in his pocket. Her ally, the Klansman, targeted the saloon because it was a gathering place for Italians and Catholics. And yet, even many priests and bishops of the Catholic hierarchy were active members of the temperance movement.

America's entry into World War I provided the perfect excuse. In 1917, Congress passed the Food and Fuel Control Act, which banned the production of distilled spirits to conserve wheat for the war effort. The Conscription Act also forbade the sale of alcohol on or near military bases. Wartime necessity had conditioned the few last wet states and counties in the nation to total abstinence. Congress used the war to pass an amendment to ban the sale or manufacture of alcohol nationwide, pending its ratification by the states. By the time the needed majority from the state legislatures had come, the war was already over. On October 28, 1919, the Volstead Act was passed, providing the means to enforce Prohibition.

Stay tuned for the next issue, where we examine Prohibition's effects: organized crime, contempt for the law, and public enemies abound!

Coming soon

The past month has set a lot of distractions upon my way, but not to fear: I'm currently working on a piece about alcohol consumption in the Middle Ages and the causes of the temperance movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This will commemorate the recently past 79th anniversary of the Eighteenth Amendment's repeal, signaling the official end of Prohibition. It won't be entirely the sort of article you're expecting, though.

In the mean time, I can share with you a trinket I made for my girlfriend: a choker made from a Gothic fabric trim, with a griffin locket to hold sentimental portraiture. It was my attempt at applying the medieval arts to a popular Victorian fashion accessory, though I suppose a mind to practicality might be of use in future experiments. Some say the choker was born from the French Revolution, when women would wear red ribbons around their necks to show solidarity with those who lost their heads to the guillotine. The fashion continued well into the 1920's, among commoners and high-born alike, as a way to emphasize a graceful neck.

The priest hole: the pre-modern speakeasy

I went to see 007: Skyfall last night and was thoroughly impressed at its unabashedly traditionalist approach to the espionage genre. Skyfall commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Bond film franchise. This quick entry requires a couple of spoilers, so watch out:

The movie's name comes from Skyfall, the name of the Bond family estate in Scotland which is used for the final shootout. The bad guy is hunting down M, whom Bond sends down a "priest hole" when the going gets too tough for bullets; the implication is that if Bond himself isn't a Catholic, he is at least descended from a family of noble Catholic recusants: people who stubbornly held onto Catholicism after the Reformation. The priest hole isn't strictly a medieval phenomenon, but may be said to have preserved a vestige of medievalism in Reformation England, Scotland, and Ireland. In the reign of Elizabeth I, the Church of England became thoroughly Protestant and measures were placed against the practice of the old religion. Anyone in England caught celebrating or participating in Catholic rites was to lose all his property on the first offense, one year's imprisonment on the second, and life imprisonment on the third. The penalty for either converting to, or helping another convert to Catholicism, was death. Nonetheless, the Catholic faith persisted in certain circles. 

Priest hole in the cupboard of Harvington Hall, Worcestershire

Among the noble families which maintained the old religion, they converted their castles and country houses to easily hide priests, vestments, chalices, and other religious items in the event that a "pursuivant", or priest-hunter, would come to search the house. These "priest holes" had to be especially secure, as searches were known to have lasted as long as two weeks. Priest-hunters would sometimes conscript carpenters or masons to inspect the house for any weaknesses in the walls or woodwork. There are, indeed, cases of priests having died of starvation inside these holes while the pursuivants tore the house apart. 

The most famous designer of priest holes was Saint Nicholas Owen, a Jesuit lay brother. He was most likely a carpenter and spent thirty years building priest holes around England. It's said that Owen engineered the escape of another Jesuit, the priest John Gerard, from the Tower of London in 1597. Owen was eventually tortured to death in 1606 in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, but he never revealed a single priest hole he constructed. Some of his priest holes may remain undiscovered even to this day.

The Modern Medievalist goes to Boston

If you've been wondering why your favorite medieval maniac hasn't been posting any gems recently, it's because I've been spending the past few days visiting my girlfriend in the Boston area. This was the first time I've ever been to the city, and in fact, the furthest north I've ever been along the east coast. But fear not: not even romance will stop me from charting the course of the medieval revival wherever it may be found! I sadly didn't have time to eat at the Medieval Manor, but I had many other ballad-worthy adventures. I decided not to post until after America's greatest religious feast/popularity contest had passed; now that it has, we can resume being medievalists!

Salem: Bewitched into Mediocrity 

My trip first brought us to Salem*, whose name is infamous for the witch trials of 1692. I spotted an old Gothic Revival church which had suffered major burning damage during the 1950's or so, and was since converted into the "Salem Witch Museum". The architecture suckered me into going in. After having paid the exorbitant entrance fee, we entered and were subjected to a show with papier-mache mannequins and absurdly cheesy voiceover narration, though it was at least quite educational. If the tour had stopped there, I might have lived with it. The second portion took us to a hallway with more mannequins and voiceovers: the first was of an early medieval midwife, trying to convince me that millions (not hundreds or even thousands, but millions) of her pagan sisters had been executed by the big bad Church during that mythical era known as "the Burning Times™" because they hated and feared women. (Ironically, many of my trad Catholic friends are all about home-births, midwives, and homeopathic medicine.) The last set was a pair of modern-day Wiccans in "ceremonial dress" seemingly cobbled together from the Pyramid Collection, with a spiel about them continuing the much nicer old faith of pre-Christian times while being peaceful, neighborly, and absolutely not meriting a place on a government watchlist.

And before one of you dear readers rushes furiously to the comment box to call me a bigot, I should say here that my dating history consists, by sheer coincidence, pretty much entirely of pagans or ex-pagans. I know the score. I'm simply stressing the fact that this museum hits its customers on the head repeatedly with pseudo-history about the Middle Ages straight out of a Wicca pamphlet. In truth, Wicca doesn't even have anything to do with any of this. Everyone who was hanged or died in prison during the witchmania of 1692 was a Christian, including one minister.

*I later discovered that the witch trials didn't even actually take place in the modern town of Salem. They occurred in a nearby town now called Danvers. They changed their name to that from Salem Village because they were so embarrassed by their association to witchmania.

Statue of Roger Conant, founder of Salem. I have to admit, the sculptor made this Puritan look like a boss.

Peacefield: a Presidential estate

The next day, we traveled to the home of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, second and sixth Presidents of these States United. Adams named his property "Peacefield" in memory of his role in negotiating the 1783 Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolutionary War. The firmly Enlightened character of the Founding Fathers and the classical style of the house will make my visit here seem like a strange departure from medievalist interests, but the most remarkable building on the grounds is actually Gothic: the Stone Library. When Quincy died, he willed that a library be built to house his massive collection of 14,000 books in 12 or so languages. It was to be fashioned of stone and stand apart from the house, so it would be less susceptible to the danger of fire. When I visited, I saw obscure tomes in Greek and Hebrew, and shelves that were two books deep. Quincy (having been an ambassador to Russia, Prussia, and the Netherlands) spoke many languages. He even supposedly studied a dialect of Polynesian, not because he was required to do so for any diplomatic mission, but merely because he felt like it.

From the NPS: "There are more than twelve languages represented and includes a range of subjects from astronomy, literature, horticulture, natural history and theatre, including many significant and unique books such as: John Adams’ copy of George Washington’s Farewell Address, the Bible inscribed with a note of gratitude from the Mendi people to John Quincy; and a Bible Concordance dating to 1521."

The portrait we stood before while hearing that story.

When I was in the Adam house proper, the tour guide gave an amusing anecdote about Quincy's wife, Louisa Johnson, as we stood before her portrait. It started in December 1814, when the couple and their son lived in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Quincy was away in Paris, and sent word to his family that he was going to be transferred to another diplomatic post. This required Louisa to pack up all their belongings and travel all the way from Russia to France in the middle of winter, following the trail left by Napoleon after his failed invasion. Bodies still littered the battlefields, and the Adams were forced to cross icy water on a sledded carriage and lodge in the most dubious places. When they reached the border of France itself, most of Louisa's servants fled for fear of being drafted into the army. Napoleonic troops stopped her carriage, which was clearly of Russian make, and were about to arrest or execute Louisa as an invader. She circumvented this by starting a rumor that she was Napoleon's sister in disguise, and gave weight to this by the fact that she could speak French perfectly. The soldiers, not willing to risk the chance that she really was the Emperor's sister incognito, let her make her way into Paris without any further harassment.

When she arrived, Quincy said the equivalent of, "what took you so long?" Louisa related the whole story, which Quincy then transmitted in a letter to his mother, the former First Lady Abigail. Abigail had always given her daughter-in-law a hard time for being a foreigner; as an Englishwoman, Louisa was the only First Lady ever born outside of the US. But after reading of her harrowing adventure through Europe, she gained respect and the two ladies got along ever since.

The Old House at Peacefield.

Massive leaves along the side of the house.

 The theme from the John Adams miniseries by HBO was playing in my head constantly through this portion of the trip. So, so good.

Holy Cross Cathedral

The Archbishop of Boston's seat is downtown at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, which coincidentally is also home to one of the city's traditional Latin Mass communities. I don't think I've missed attending a Requiem Mass on All Souls Day in my entire history as a Catholic, and this year was not going to be an exception. It was already nightfall, and trying to find parking was a nightmare. I wandered through several tightly-packed residential streets lined with townhouses and apartments with shops below, reminiscent of major European capitals. I was so keen on attending this Requiem Mass that I risked leaving the rental car in a resident-only spot, and rushed inside. The Mass was celebrated in the lower church; effectively a well-furnished basement. At first I was worried that this was to be yet another Latin Mass community that was forced underground (literally), doomed to have nothing but low Masses in aeternum. But no, I was pleasantly surprised to see a full-sized men's Gregorian schola beginning the proper Introit as the priest and his servers approached the altar.

This photo was from All Saints (which I did not attend), but it gives you an idea of what the sanctuary looks like. Note the fantastic wooden screen, though the style of the rails seem out of place.

The Mass was sparsely attended, which is not a surprise given that it's not a holy day of obligation. What was surprising is that most of those who did show up looked to be in their 20's or early 30's. I later deduced that they were probably part Juventutem's Boston chapter, but it was nonetheless the first time I had attended a Latin Mass that wasn't predominantly either old folks or families with squalling kids in a very long time (not that that's bad; I'm just saying). Further, despite the few warm bodies filling the pews, the schola, called Schola Amicorum, sang all of the Proper chants of the Requiem Mass in full. The celebrating priest also gave an inspiring homily about the need to offer Mass and prayer for the dead which had me thinking about it long after the liturgy was over. The congregation seemed pretty timid about singing the Ordinary of the Mass, but the music for the Kyrie, Sanctus, etc. were printed and distributed to everyone, so I went ahead and sung them as loudly as I would if I were in the schola at home. Soon enough, a lot of people were singing more loudly, too. After the Mass, I approached a couple of the schola chanters randomly, asked about the community, and finally asked if I could sing with them the following Sunday. To sing with a random schola on an out-of-town trip has been on my "bucket list" for a while, and they enthusiastically welcomed me aboard even though I was a complete stranger.

This was from Good Friday, with what I presume is some of the schola members chanting the parts of the Passion according to Saint John.

The following Sunday, I met up with them before Mass to practice the Proper chants for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost. We practiced in the crypt, which contained the remains of several bishops and archbishops of Boston. I'm sure such a sight would have felt eerie and occultic to a hardcore Protestant. At Mass, we sang the full Propers including verses for the Communion antiphon, as well as two hymns from Vespers. What was especially awesome was that the noon Angelus was also chanted. The priest who celebrated this particular Mass was new to the old rite, and there were some liturgical... anomalies (like chanting the Last Gospel), but the day was still quite uplifting. The schola invited me to sing with them again whenever I might be in Boston again, and I intend to do so. They truly had an embarrassment of riches, musically speaking. Not counting myself, there were, I think, 8 chanters and, taking a wild guess, maybe 60 people in the pews. That's a far higher ratio of chanters to congregation than any other Latin Mass community I know of.

The only sour point of the day was that afterward, my girlfriend told me that some old lady approached her in her pew before Mass to tell her she was dressed "immodestly" and needed to put her jacket on. You can already picture the old bat, I'm sure, with multiple rosaries hanging all over her person. I was probably already in cassock and surplice not more than a few feet away. If I had known about that, I would've probably made a scene. I'll never fully understand why women at church are so damn nosy. The older they are, the more license they take in butting into one's business.

A word on the cathedral's architecture: I hadn't actually seen the upper church until after Sunday's Mass. I took an elevator from the basement, which opened up somewhere in the north transept. I have to say that the upper church of Holy Cross is perhaps the most epic Catholic church interior I've ever seen in America, and I don't say that overused e-word lightly. The National Basilica in DC is an oppressive pile of Tetris blocks by comparison. The Little Flower Basilica in San Antonio is an oversized wedding cake with gold frosting and lumps of whipped cream sculptures all over. Saint Mary Cathedral in Austin may be Gothic, but is a mere country parish when compared to the scale of Holy Cross. I was pleased to read that its architect, Patrick Keely, was a determined Gothicist: he built something like 16 cathedrals and 600 parish churches over the course of his career, making him probably the busiest architect in 19th century America. His father was even a student of Augustus Welby Pugin's.

The current layout is currently spoiled by an abundance of carpeting and a mess of unnecessary chairs about the chancel. I need not say anything about the altars, of course.

The Cathedral in 1966 for a Catholic Youth Organization event. I'm going to assume all those shakos mean there were a lot of marching band members in attendance back then.

Some details of the exterior.

Three cardinals' galeros (galeri?) hanging over the high altar. According to tradition, when these hats finally fall apart, the cardinal's soul is released from purgatory.

A foray into downtown Boston

My girlfriend and I dined at Goody Glover's Irish Pub in the North End, the oldest residential area of the city. The pub was named after Ann "Goody" Glover, who in 1688 was the last woman to be hanged as a witch in Boston. It's too bad she's so unknown, as her story is quite interesting. Glover was born in Ireland as a Catholic, then sold to slavery in Barbados by Oliver Cromwell. Her husband was killed there for refusing to renounce Catholicism. At some point, Glover came to Boston and served as a housekeeper to John Goodwin. His children fell ill, and the Puritan minister, Cotton Mather, blamed it on witchcraft. He called her "a scandalous old Irishwoman, very poor, a Roman Catholick and obstinate in idolatry". She was hanged, and is known as the first Catholic martyr in Boston. Needless to say, her death didn't cure the Goodwin children of their malady.

She looks wistfully, opposite me at the pub.

After that, we had gelato in the Italian district. On the way back to the car, we saw the ritziest laundromat ever, where you can have your laundry done and folded for you for cheaper than some public, self-service laundromats elsewhere.

The USS Constitution: Old Ironsides

My girlfriend had to go back to school, but before I returned to the airport for home, I made one last tourist stop to see the famous USS Constitution. Constructed in 1794 under President Washington's administration, the Constitution is the world's oldest naval vessel still afloat. It's still considered an active warship of the U.S. Navy with a crew of 60. On ceremonial occasions, they wear uniforms according to the regulations of 1813, when during the War of 1812, the Constitution was immortalized for having defeated five of the "invincible" British Navy's warships.

Yes, it still sails under its own power!

In truth, I didn't get to board the ship itself as it was closed to visitors for the winter season. But I did get to stand at the dock outside it and explore the nearby Constitution Museum. Most of the exhibits told me things I already knew. One thing I did not know was that in 1849, when the Constitution was docked in Gaeta, Pope Pius IX toured it for three hours along with King Frederick II of the Two Sicilies. The event was legally the first time a pope had ever set foot on American territory.

Commander Matthew J. Bonner, 72nd commanding officer of the USS Constitution.

And finally, an image of yours truly taking in the sights at Salem.

And I thought fall was only invented by Yankees to imagine some variety in their seasons.

The Sarum High Mass: Mass of the Faithful

The previous articles in this series:

-The Use of Sarum: A Brief History, and Why It Matters
-The Sarum Low Mass: Mass of the Catechumens
-The Sarum Low Mass: Mass of the Faithful
-The Sarum High Mass: Mass of the Catechumens

At last, we come to the Sarum's summit: the Eucharistic sacrifice as seen in high Mass. This last comparison is short, though, because the rubrics for the Mass of the Faithful concern mostly the celebrant himself, and there are few differences between high and low Mass for him from the Offertory onward. The deacon and subdeacon, who may be said to be the "stars" of the Mass of the Catechumens, now step aside to humbly assist the priest as he fulfills his vocation upon the high altar.

The Offertory

As in the Mass of Trent, the Offertory begins after the celebrant says Dominus vobiscum, then Oremus. I said before that in a parish Mass, the Sarum rubrics place the bidding prayers "after the Gospel or Offertory". I placed my account of them after the Gospel, or after the Creed when the Creed is said. "After the Offertory" is a very awkward place for bidding prayers, but on closer thought, I offer the possibility that the rubric means after the Oremus. The reason? Because this was the place where the oratio fidelium, the prayers of the faithful, were made in Rome prior to the reforms of Pope Gregory the Great. This, at least, is the argument made by the Rev. Father Adrian Fortescue which can be found in the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on 'Liturgy of the Mass':

'The "Oremus" said just before the Offertory is the fragment of quite another thing, the old prayers of the faithful, of which we still have a specimen in the series of collects on Good Friday.'

And:

'At Rome the prayers of the faithful after the expulsion of the catechumens and the Intercession at the end of the Canon have gone. Both no doubt were considered superfluous since there is a series of petitions of the same nature in the Canon. But both have left traces. We still say Oremus before the Offertory, where the prayers of the faithful once stood, and still have these prayers on Good Friday in the collects. And the "Hanc Igitur" is a fragment of the Intercession.'

It may have been the case, then, that Sarum preserved this ordering, or at least the option of it.

Now, as the celebrant reads the Offertory sentence privately, the choir sings it. There are some days (ferial days in Advent and from Septuagesima to Easter) in which the Offertory has a verse and response, like in the Tridentine's Requiem Offertory or in the Offertoriale Triplex. However, the rubrics state these are not to be said outside of these days. (I see no reason why the verses can't be sung by the choir ad libitum to cover additional time, however, if they can be found in the Offertoriale or elsewhere.)

The usual position of the ministers when the celebrant reads from the middle, though I'm unsure about the northward-facing acolyte there.

The deacon presents the chalice and the paten with the Host to be consecrated to the celebrant, "kissing his hand each time". As in low Mass, the celebrant offers the Host and chalice at the same time with the prayer Suscipe, sancta Trinitas. After placing the gifts properly upon the altar, he receives the thurible from the deacon and censes the gifts "thrice, making the sign of the cross over it; then thrice round and on either side: then thrice between himself and the Altar". While doing so, he recites the prayer:

Dirigatur, Domine, ad te oratio mea, sicut incensum in conspectu tuo.

Let me prayer, O Lord, be set forth in Thy sight as the incense.

He then returns the thurible to the deacon, who, if the Creed has been said, censes him. The subdeacon brings the celebrant "the Text" to kiss, but I'm not sure what text is being referred to here; perhaps the Missal. While the celebrant steps to the right of the altar to wash his hands as at low Mass, the deacon is incensing the left of the altar "and the relics in order". The rubrics don't specify if the deacon ever censes the altar's right.

One of the acolytes is tasked with incensing the choir, differing with the practice of Trent which has the deacon do so. The order prescribed is for the acolyte to first cense the rulers, then the dean, then those on the "upper grade" of his stall on the north side. Then he censes the precentor and the upper grade on the south side. He then goes back and forth to cense the middle and lower grades of the stalls in what must have been a lengthy ritual. The subdeacon, meanwhile, follows the acolyte and presents the Text for each member of the choir to kiss after they've been censed. If the Creed has not been said, then the incensing of anything but the gifts upon the altar is omitted.

After the handwashing, the celebrant returns to the middle of the altar and continues as he would at low Mass, while his ministers assume their places behind him. As in Trent, he sings per omnia saecula saeculorum aloud at the end of the Secret and continues with the Preface.

The Canon

During the versicles of the Preface, the deacon gives the paten and humeral veil to the subdeacon, who holds the paten with the veil until the Lord's Prayer. At the Sanctus, if there are rulers, the rubrics instruct the choir to exit their stalls at the ringing of the bell and stand outside the first stalls in the center of the quire. They do not kneel, except on ferial days.

There are no instructions throughout the Canon which differ from low Mass, except that after the consecration, the cerofers assist the deacon with washing his hands, and toward the end, at per ipsum et cum ipso, "let the Deacon stand at the right of the Priest, having first washed his hands, and assist him in raising the corporals; and as he retires let him kiss the Altar and the right shoulder of the Priest."

As at low Mass, the priest extends his arms in a cross after the consecration of the wine.

From the Lord's Prayer to Communion

As the celebrant begins the Lord's Prayer with Præceptis salutaribus moniti, the deacon takes the paten from the subdeacon and stands to the celebrant's right, holding the paten uncovered with both hands, arms extended out. At Libera nos, the deacon hands the paten to the celebrant, kissing his hand. The celebrant makes a curious gesture here which I neglected to mention in the low Mass article. Taking the paten from the deacon, he kisses it, then holds it over his left, then his right eye before signing himself with it.

At the Kiss of Peace, the deacon receives the peace from the celebrant and gives it to the subdeacon. The deacon also gives it to the rulers of the choir, who then give it to their respective sides.

As with low Mass, there are no instructions in the Missals for the people's Communion. I've done a bit more research into this subject, and it seems that there are no surviving rubrics for administering Communion to the people in any book whatsoever; largely because by the end of the Middle Ages, it seems the common practice was for the laity to receive Communion only a few times a year, and in those cases, usually outside of Mass.

The Rev. Seán Finnegan, who was involved with the Sarum Candlemas liturgy at Oxford in 1997, wrote of their difficulties in handling precisely how to approach the people's Communion "accurately". I'll quote from his series of posts on this:

"This was one part of the ceremony where we really had to wing it. We had gleaned that the confiteor was said before Communion, because there is a record of one king of England saying it on his own before his coronation. So we gave the Sarum Confiteor to the Deacon to recite, as in the Roman Use. There was a lot of agonizing about whether we should have Ecce Agnus Dei and Domine non sum dignus, but we could find no evidence for either (which is not the same as it never existing) so in the end, though we printed it in the booklets, we omitted it in the ceremony, probably correctly, I think. The formula for Communion we had, from the order for the visitation of the sick: Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat corpus tuum et animam tuam in vitam æternam, it goes. We knew that there was the custom of the 'houselling cloth' —the long cloth you can see being used — in many places, and that unconsecrated wine was given after the host to cleanse the mouth. We had no formula for administering that, so the acolyte simply presented a chalice with the wine, saying nothing."

The houseling cloth, which is held under the communicant's chin to prevent dropping the Host, is still used at some Tridentine Masses I've attended in the past. Father Finnegan also mentions the interesting custom of administering unconsecrated wine to "wash down" the Eucharist. This may have been a remnant of the late medieval Church's transitional period, when it withdrew Communion via the Chalice from the people. Perhaps unconsecrated wine was still administered as a matter of habit. Other reasons given were that it made swallowing the Host easier, and that it prevented anyone from spitting out any small particle of the Host later on.

Illustration of Communion from the Coronation Book of King Charles V of France, c.1365. (I believe the Tridentine form doesn't allow a bishop to distribute Communion with the mitre on.)

From the ablutions to the end of Mass

At the ablutions, the rubrics have the subdeacon pour the water and wine into the chalice (a few sources contradict and have the deacon here). At the third and last ablution, all sources have the deacon pour the water. The subdeacon ministers to the celebrant in washing his hands, while the deacon folds up the corporals, places them in the burse, the burse over the chalice, and gives them to the acolyte (wearing the humeral veil), who returns them to the credence or shelf.

The subdeacon assisting with the ablutions.

All else follows as in the Mass of Trent, but after the dismissal, the Mass is truly ended. As with low Mass, there is no final blessing, and the Last Gospel is recited privately by the celebrant on his way back to the sacristy. (The medieval priest may have recited it at the altar, though, if he were in one of those churches that had no sacristy to speak of.) The choir remain in their places and proceed with None, or the appropriate Divine Hour, immediately after Deo gratias.