Two days before the royal wedding, a medieval wedding story
When Katherine of Aragon made her entry into London, two days before her marriage to Prince Arthur, heir to the throne, she visited St Paul's and made an offering there at the shrine of St Erkenwald. It is a detail I was struck by in Giles Tremlett's splendid new biography of Henry VIII's eventual queen.
The wedding of Henry's doomed brother Arthur to Katherine took place on November 14, 1501, the saint's feast day, or rather the feast of the translation of his relics to their magnificent chapel in Old St Paul's. A chapel dedicated to St Erkenwald (and his sister St Ethelburga) remains at St Paul's, though you'd hardly know it, since Wren's chaste stonework is dominated by Holman Hunt's The Light of the World, a suitable enough painting for the Victorianised interior of the cathedral.
Erkenwald and Ethelburga are outlandish names to us (even more so in their Old English forms Earconwald and Æthelburh) and it is hard to realise the status they were accorded for eight and a half centuries of London life.
Erkenwald was appointed Bishop of London in 676 by the Asian Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore, who, like St Paul, was born in Tarsus, now in Turkey towards Syria. Ethelburga governed twin monasteries, for monks and nuns, at Barking in Essex. Only ruins of it remain, though churches have been built in Barking dedicated to St Erkenwald (1954) and St Ethelburga (1979), and the City church of All Hallows Barking takes its name from her foundation, even if it now usually seems to be called All Hallows by the Tower (which is where it stands) in an attempt to avoid confusion. It still has Saxon masonry in its crypt, and a Roman mosaic floor. We hardly realise the antiquity of the streets we walk.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
The wedding of Henry's doomed brother Arthur to Katherine took place on November 14, 1501, the saint's feast day, or rather the feast of the translation of his relics to their magnificent chapel in Old St Paul's. A chapel dedicated to St Erkenwald (and his sister St Ethelburga) remains at St Paul's, though you'd hardly know it, since Wren's chaste stonework is dominated by Holman Hunt's The Light of the World, a suitable enough painting for the Victorianised interior of the cathedral.
Erkenwald and Ethelburga are outlandish names to us (even more so in their Old English forms Earconwald and Æthelburh) and it is hard to realise the status they were accorded for eight and a half centuries of London life.
Erkenwald was appointed Bishop of London in 676 by the Asian Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore, who, like St Paul, was born in Tarsus, now in Turkey towards Syria. Ethelburga governed twin monasteries, for monks and nuns, at Barking in Essex. Only ruins of it remain, though churches have been built in Barking dedicated to St Erkenwald (1954) and St Ethelburga (1979), and the City church of All Hallows Barking takes its name from her foundation, even if it now usually seems to be called All Hallows by the Tower (which is where it stands) in an attempt to avoid confusion. It still has Saxon masonry in its crypt, and a Roman mosaic floor. We hardly realise the antiquity of the streets we walk.