On this blog, I write about some of the most important aspects of Christian spirituality in early medieval England. The feast of Easter. The healing of the sick. Confession. Expressing one’s deepest yearnings to God in prayer. And now: cheese. I’ve written before about Ælfric of Eynsham, abbot and homilist, and also the author of…
Category: Portiforium of St Wulstan
The Feast of St Michael (and his cute little dragons)
Today is the Feast of St Michael. While other saints might be a martyr, a confessor or a virgin, Michael is the chief of the angels. He appears four times in the Bible, but is best remembered for his part in a brief but exciting twist in the Book of Revelation (or Apocalypse): Et factum…
Gentle deaths and softening hearts: an Old English confession
The main focus of my academic work is on private prayer in eleventh-century English religious institutions, and at least three-quarters of the prayers that I look at are in Latin. However, people did pray in their native language, and a number of prayers in Old English survive: some of these are known to be translations…
Prayer – from God’s point of view
So far, in this blog, I have written a lot about Anglo-Saxon prayer, which is the main focus of my research; and, in particular, how monks and nuns thought about their prayers. But one issue that I have never yet addressed is: what is God supposed to be thinking, all this time? What is prayer…
For the Wynn 