Born: Lucan, Latin
poet, 39 A.D., Cordova.
Died: Constantius,
Roman emperor, 361, Mopsucrene, Cilicia; Pope Leo the
Great, 461; James II, king of Aragon, 1327, Barcelona;
Thomas de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, killed in
France, 1428; Bishop Robert Lowth, biblical writer,
1787, Fulham,; Theophilus Lindsey, Unitarian divine,
1808; Dr. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, musical
composer, 1847, Leipsic.
Feast Day: St. Papoul
or Papulus, priest and martyr, 3rd century. St. Flour,
bishop and confessor, about 389. St. Rumald or Rumbald,
confessor, patron of Brackley and Buckingham. St. Wenefride or Winifred, virgin
and martyr, in Wales.
St. Hubert, bishop of Liege, confessor, 727. St.
Malachy, archbishop of Armagh, confessor, 1148.
ST.
RUMALD
They who have read Foxe's
Martyrology, will perhaps remember that several
Lollards who, to save their bodies from the stake,
renounced the 'new doctrine,' were nevertheless
required to walk to Buckingham, and present an
offering at the shrine of St. Rumald. Now this St.
Rumald, whose name is also written Rumbald, and
Grumbald, was a very remarkable saint. According to
Leland, who copies from a monkish life of him, he was
the son of the king of Northumbria by a Christian
daughter of Penda, king of Mercia. He was born at
Sutton, in Northamptonshire, but not far from the town
of Buckingham. Immediately he came into the world, he
exclaimed: 'I am a Christian! I am a Christian! I am a
Christian!' He then made a full and explicit
confession of his faith; desired to be forthwith
baptized; appointed his own godfathers; and chose his
own name. He next directed a certain large hollow
stone to be fetched for his font; and when some of his
father's servants attempted to obey his orders, but
found the stone far too heavy to be removed, the two
priests, whom he had appointed his godfathers, went
for it, and bore it to him with the greatest ease. He
was baptized by Bishop Widerin, assisted by a priest
named Eadwold, and immediately after the ceremony he
walked to a certain well near Brackley, which now
bears his name, and there preached for three
successive days; after which he made his will,
bequeathing his body after death to remain at Sutton
for one year, at Brackley for two years, and at
Buckingham ever after. This done, he instantly
expired.
After this three-days'
existence, the miraculous infant was buried at Sutton
by Eadwold the priest; the next year he was translated
by Bishop Widerin to Brackley; and the third year
after his death, his remains were carried to
Buckingham, and deposited in a shrine, in an aisle of
the church which after-wards bore his name. Shortly
before the year 1477, Richard Fowler, Esq., chancellor
to Edward IV., began to rebuild this aisle, but died
before its completion. In his will, therefore, he made
this bequest:
'Item, I wolle that the aforesaid Isle
of St. Rumwold, in the aforesaid church prebendal of
Bucks, where my body and other of my friends lyen
buried, the which isle is begonne of new to be made,
be fully made and performed up perfitely in all things
att my costs and charge; and in the same isle that
there be made of new a toumbe or shrine for the said
saint where the old is now standing, and that it be
made curiously with marble in length and breadth as
shall be thought by myn executors most convenient,
consideration had to the rome, and upon the same tombe
or shrine I will that there be sett a coffyn or a
chest curiously wrought and gilte, as it appertaynith
for to lay in the bones of the same saint, and this
also to be dean in all -things at my cost and charge.'
This extreme care for the
relics of the infant saint clearly spews that they
were held in high veneration at this period, and they
continued to be the object of pilgrimages till the
middle of the sixteenth century.
There was also a famous image
of St. Rumald at Bexley, in Kent. This statue or image
was very small and hollow, and light, so that a child
of seven years old might easily lift it, but, for some
reason or other, it occasionally appeared so heavy
that persons of great strength were unable to move it.
'The moving hereof,' says Fuller, 'was made the
conditions of women's chastity. Such who paid the
priest well, might easily remove it, whilst others
might tug at it to no purpose. For this was the
contrivance of the cheat�that it was fastened with a
pin of wood by an invisible stander behind. Now, when
such offered to take it who had been bountiful to the
priest before, they bare it away with ease, which was
impossible for their hands to remove who had been
close-fisted in their confessions. Thus it moved more
laughter than devotion, and many chaste virgins and
wives went away with blushing faces, leaving (without
cause) the suspicion of their wantonness in the eyes
of the beholders; whilst others came off with more
credit (because with more coin) though with less
chastity.' Fuller concludes the Legend of St. Rumald
with this remark:
'Reader, I partly guess by my own
temper how thine is affected with the reading hereof,
whose soul is much divided betwixt several actions at
once:�1. To frown at the impudency of the first
inventors of such improbable untruths.�2. To smile at
the simplicity of the believers of them.�3. To sigh at
that well-intended devotion abused with them. 4. To
thank God that we live in times of better and brighter
knowledge.'
A memorial of the saint is
still preserved at Buckingham in the names of Well
Street, and St. Ruonbald's Lane; and a well at
Brackley bears his name.
It is not unworthy of
observation, that Butler, in his Lives of the Saints,
gives but a brief account of Rumald; and though
acquainted with Leland's account of him, passes
lightly over the miraculous story, only saying: 'He
died very young on the 3rd of November, &c.
SPURS AND SPUR-MONEY
Among the privy-purse expenses
of Henry VII, in the year 1495, appears the following
item:
'To the children for the
king's spurs, 4s.' And between June 1530 and
September 1532, no less than three payments of 6s.
8d. are recorded as made by his successor's
paymaster 'to the Coristars of Wyndesor in rewarde
for the king's spurres.'
Apropos of these entries, Mr.
Markland quotes a note from Gifford's edition of
Ben Jonson, stating that from the
disturbance of divine
service in the cathedrals (more especially in St.
Paul's) by the jingling of the spurs of persons
walking in their precincts, a trifling fine was
imposed upon offenders in this way, called.
'spur-money,' the collection of which was left to the
beadles and singing boys. It seems to us that the
connection between the text and note is rather
doubtful�indeed, Mr. Markland himself says, 'it must
first be shown that it prevailed at so early a
period.' Nicholas supposed that in the above cases the
money was paid to redeem the royal spurs from the
choristers, who claimed them as their perquisites at
installations, or at the annual feast in honour of St.
George.
Spur-money, as a penalty to be
paid for wearing spurs in a cathedral, seems to have
been thoroughly established in the seventeenth
century. In the Gull's
Horn-Book, Decker, advising his
readers how they should behave in St. Paul's, says:
'Be sure your silver spurs clog your heels, and then
the boys will swarm about you like so many white
butterflies; when you in the open quire, shall draw
forth a perfumed embroidered purse�the glorious sight
of which will entice many countrymen from their
devotion to wondering �and quoit silver into the boy's
hands, that it may be heard above the first lesson,
although it be read in a voice as big as one of the
great organs.' That the custom was not confined to St.
Paul's, is proved by a passage in Ray's Second
Itinerary�' July 26, 1661.
We began our journey
northwards from Cambridge, and that day, passing
through Huntingdon and Stilton, we rode as far as
Peterborough, twenty-five miles. There I first heard
the cathedral service.
The choristers made us pay
money for coming into the quire with our spurs on.'
Another old writer complains that the boys neglect
their duties to run about after spur-money. Modern
choristers are not so bad as that, but they look
sharply after their rights. Some few years ago, a
visitor to Hereford Cathedral declined to satisfy the
demands of the boys, who thereupon seized his hat, and
decamped with it. The indignant despiser of old
customs, instead of redeeming his property, laid a
complaint before the bench; but the magistrates
astonished him by dismissing the case on the grounds
that the choristers were justified in keeping the hat
as a lien for the payment of the customary fine. There
was one way of escaping the tax, the spur-wearer being
held exempt if the youngest chorister present failed
to repeat his gamut correctly upon being challenged to
do so. This curious saving clause is set forth
officially in a notice issued by the dean of the
chapel-royal in 1622:
'If any knight or other
person entitled to wear spurs, enter the chapel in
that guise, he shall pay to the quiristers the
accustomed fine; but if he command the youngest
quirister to repeat his gamut, and he fail in the so
doing, the said knight or other shall not pay the
fine.'
By enforcing this rule, the
Iron Duke once baffled, the young assailants of his
purse. When a similar claim was made against the Duke
of Cumberland (afterwards king of Hanover) in
Westminster Abbey, he ingeniously evaded it by
insisting that he was privileged to wear his spurs in
the place in which he had been invested with them.
On the belfry-wall of All
Saints Church, Hastings, hangs a rhymed notice,
declaring the belfry free to 'all those that civil
be,' with a proviso:
'If you ring in spur or hat,
Sixpence you pay be sure of that.'
The debtors of Lancaster jail
demand largess of any visitor wearing spurs within the
castle-walls, and the doorkeeper of the Edinburgh
Court of Session is privileged to demand five
shillings from any one appearing in that court so
accoutred.
Lord Colchester records in his
diary (1776), that having inadvertently gone into the
House of Commons booted and spurred, he was called to
order by an old member for assuming a privilege only
accorded to county members. This parliamentary rule is
noticed by Sir James Lawrence in his
Nobility of the
British Gentry.
'Though the knights condescended to
sit under the same roof with the citizens and
burgesses, they were summoned to appear gladio cincti,
and they always maintained the dignity of the
equestrian order. The most trifling distinction
suffices to destroy the idea of equality, and the
distinction of the spur is still observed. The
military members appear no longer in armour, but they
alone may wear spurs as a mark of knighthood. The
citizen or burgess, who, after a morning-ride, should
inadvertently approach the chamber with his spurs on,
is stopped by the usher, and must return to divest
himself of this mark of knighthood. And to this
humiliation any gentleman of the first quality, any
Irish peer, nay, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
himself, who, whatever might be his authority or
dignity elsewhere, should sit in the House in the
humble character of citizen or burgess, must submit.'
The first spur worn was merely
a sharp goad, afterwards improved by bending the shank
to suit the ankle. In the reign of Henry III, the
rowelled spur made its first appearance; the rowel was
gradually lengthened till it reached its maximum of
seven inches and a half, in the time of Henry VI. Then
came a change of fashion, and only spurs with close
star-shaped rowels were in favour. At this time Ripon,
in Yorkshire, was especially famous for the
manufacture of spurs: 'As true steel as Ripon
rowels,' became a proverbial expression. It was said
that Ripon rowels would strike through a shilling, and
rather break than bend. When James I passed through
the town in 1617, he was presented with a pair of
spurs valued at five pounds. The knights of old, proud
of their spurs, were not content with simple steel.
Brass and silver were pressed into service, and spurs
were chased, gilt, decorated with jewels, and adorned
with such mottoes as
'A true knight am I,
Anger me and try.'
Lady-equestrians adopted spurs
at a very early period;
Chaucer's wife of Bath is
described by him as having:
'on her feet a pair of
spurs sharp.'
The fops of Shakespeare's day,
delighted to hear their spurs jingle as they strutted
through the streets:
If they have a tatling spur
and bear,
Heads light as the gay feathers which they wear,
Think themselves are the only gentlemen.'
So, fastidious Brisk in Every
Man oat of his Humour, praises his horse as 'a fiery
little slave, he runs like a� Oh, excellent,
excellent!�with the very sound of the spur!' And when
an explanation of the latter phrase is demanded,
replies: 'Oh, it's your only humour now extant, sir�a
good jingle, a good jingle.'
