King Oswy and the date of Easter

Oswy (or Oswiu) was the King of Bernicia (the part of England around the rivers Tyne and Wear) from 642 to 670. By the end of his reign Bernicia had expanded to include of all of what was then known as Northumbria, which covered most of northern England. He was acknowledged as the “Bretwalda” or chief among the Anglo-Saxon kings.

Oswy was a Christian, having been converted from Paganism by monks of the Celtic tradition who originated from the community of Iona off the western coast of Scotland.

After the death of his first wife, Oswy took as his new bride Eanfled, who was a princess from Kent. She came north accompanied by her own chaplain and other followers, these being from the Roman tradition based on the cathedral and monastery of Canterbury that had been founded by St Augustine.

This clash of the two traditions caused problems on a number of fronts, such as how monks should shave their heads – to half-way across the head, leaving the hair long at the back, or with a circular bald patch on the top of the head? The former was the Celtic tradition, and the latter was how Roman monks did it.

A more serious difficulty was over the date of Easter, because the Celts and Romans had different ways of calculating when it should be. It all had to do with whether the calculation was made according to the lunar cycle of 29.5 days, or the Julian calendar based on the 365.25 days of the orbit of Earth around the Sun. Because the two cycles were incompatible – 365.25 does not divide by 29.5! – the king and queen ended up celebrating Easter on different dates, with one keeping the Lenten fast while the other was benefitting from the fast being over.

Oswy called a conference to sort everything out and get the two sets of priests to agree on a single procedure for calculating the date, as well as settling the haircut problem and other matters. This was the Synod held at the Abbey of Whitby in 664. 

The debate got quite heated at times, with accusations of stupidity being hurled across the room from one set of priests to the other, but eventually King Oswy had to make a decision.

What it eventually boiled down to was St Peter. The Catholics from Rome always claimed that their Church was founded by Peter, and the Bible made clear that Jesus had given Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Oswy was concerned that contradicting St Peter would not be in his best interests, because Peter might not let him in to Heaven if he did so.

That settled it. Oswy agreed to be governed by the Pope in Rome and the Celtic monks and priests headed back to Iona. They reckoned that they would find a safe haven in Ireland, but when they got there they found that the Irish church had also accepted the Roman model.

Oswy later started on a pilgrimage to Rome but died on the journey, his body being brought back to Whitby for burial. Did St Peter unlock the gates of Heaven for him? Who knows!

© John Welford

Was Jesus a grandson of King Herod?

Could Jesus have been the grandson of King Herod, he of “Massacre of the Innocents” notoriety?

That theory is one of many interesting possibilities mooted in a book I have just been reading, “The Marian Conspiracy” by Graham Phillips (the book was first published in 2000).

The idea comes about through the author’s researches into non-Biblical sources concerning affairs in Judea at about the time of the birth of Jesus – which was almost certainly not in “1 AD”, for various reasons. 

Because these sources are completely independent of anything contained in the Old or New Testaments of the Bible, it is important to treat them without looking through the lenses of belief and faith that most religious people would regard as essential when discussing these matters. The typical reaction of such people is to reject anything that contradicts Biblical texts, simply because the books of the Bible are sacred scriptures and the “Word of God”. But sometimes it is worth considering alternative ideas with a completely unbiased mind, even if one still prefers one’s original viewpoint in the end.

The theory outlined by Graham Phillips is that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was nothing like the innocent peasant girl that the Gospels would have one believe. Instead, his theory is that Mary was the daughter of Matthias, a priest from Capernaum in Galilee who became chief priest of the temple in Jerusalem.

It is known from reliable historical sources that Herod’s son Antipater married a woman named Mariamne, who was the daughter of Matthias. Mariamne is a Greek form of the name Miriam (the Hebrew version) or Mary. That – of course – proves nothing, because Mary was a very common girl’s name. 

However, the story gets quite murky because of the question of who was to succeed Herod as King. A plot was hatched to incriminate Antipater in a plot to murder Herod, and he was executed as a result -  despite in all likelihood being entirely innocent. The role of Mariamne was also called into question, especially as she had a son who had a good claim to be the next “King of the Jews”. 

It is known that a purge of potential claimants to the throne took place, and it is possible that Mariamne and her son were victims of it. But what if they were not? This purge is almost certainly the origin of the Massacre of the Innocents story, but it was not as told in St Matthew’s gospel.

Although there is much about this account that is historically verifiable, there remains a huge credibility gap concerning the identification of Mariamne as the Biblical Mary. But could the latter have been a priest’s daughter from Galilee? 

There are various traditions concerning Mary’s parentage. One is that the claim for Jesus’s descent from King David came through his mother’s line, which would have given her considerable prestige – and therefore have made her a potential marriage partner for a royal prince. 

There is an early Church tradition that says that Mary was looked after by the high priest of the Jerusalem temple who placed her under the guardianship of a much older man, named Joseph. It is entirely possible that this tradition could be based on the story of Mariamne escaping from the wrath of Herod, thanks to her father the high priest, and possibly fleeing to Egypt with her young son.  

If Mariamne was indeed Mary, the mother of Jesus, then it all fits together. 

There is another very interesting twist to this theory, which is the attitude of Pontius Pilate to Jesus at his much later trial for blasphemy. Jesus was accused of claiming to be “King of the Jews”. The Jewish Sanhedrin were convinced that this would be enough to bring the condemnation of the Roman governor down upon him, but Pilate replied by saying “I see no fault in him at all”. As far as the Romans were concerned, the only true claimant to this title would be a surviving son of Herod’s son Antipater. Just suppose that Pilate knew full well that this was precisely what Jesus was? That would plainly have accounted for his refusal to condemn Jesus.

All very speculative – and completely unacceptable to convinced Christians – but fascinating nevertheless!

© John Welford

Joan of Leeds: a reluctant nun

Joan of Leeds was a young nun during the early 14th century at the Benedictine convent of St Clement, near York. However, it was her escape from the convent in 1318, and her subsequent un-nunlike behaviour, that caused the Archbishop of York, William Melton, to get extremely annoyed and seek to have her apprehended and returned to her previous life.

Joan was clearly highly spirited and extremely clever. It may be that she was one of the many young women at that time who were sent to a convent as a young girl because she could not be looked after at home. This could happen for a number of reasons, such as loss of parents or a sudden financial crisis. As the girl grew older and reached puberty she might well have regretted having taken vows of chastity and poverty and want to live a different sort of life. That certainly seems to have been what Joan of Leeds thought.

Joan had a cunning plan that could not have been carried out without the knowledge of some of her fellow nuns. She made an effigy of herself and faked her own death. With the effigy buried instead of her, she slipped away from the convent and travelled 30 miles to the town of Beverley where she discovered the joys that being an attractive young woman can bring.

We know her story thanks to the letter written by Archbishop Melton, who was clearly scandalized, to the Dean of Beverley. His account reads:

“Out of a malicious mind simulating a bodily illness, she pretended to be dead, not dreading for the health of her soul, and with the help of numerous of her accomplices, evildoers, with malice aforethought, crafted a dummy in the likeness of her body. She had no shame in procuring its burial in a sacred place.”

The Archbishop clearly had knowledge of what Joan had been doing with her new-found freedom:

“She perverted her path of life arrogantly to the way of carnal lust and away from poverty and obedience. Having broken her vows and discarded the religious habit, she now wanders at large to the notorious peril of her soul and to the scandal of her order.”

The assumption one has to draw is that Joan sought to get over her poverty by indulging in “carnal lust”.

There is no evidence that Joan was ever apprehended, so she may have found herself a rich husband in Beverley and managed to live a comfortable life that was much more to her liking than what had gone before.

For St Clement’s Convent, which was founded in 1130 and dissolved in 1536 along with many other religious houses during the reign of King Henry VIII, this was not the first whiff of scandal. Back in 1192 all the nuns had been excommunicated when they refused to be ruled by a new abbey, but the Pope overturned this ruling.

Joan may well have sought to follow the example of another nun, in 1301, who had also run away from the convent, but in that case the nun already had a lover and went to join him.

Much later in the 14th century Geoffrey Chaucer wrote – in his Canterbury Tales – about a Prioress who lived a life of luxury but within her convent. Joan was certainly not alone in finding the Benedictine rule not to her liking. Chaucer was clearly of the view that such dissatisfaction was prevalent and that Joan’s case might have been repeated many times over.

© John Welford