Sunday 19 February 1659/60

Annotations

• N Keith Wright on Wed 19 Feb 2003, 11:40pm

  No use to consult a Biblical Concordance for Ann or St. Anne. The Chambers guide to “Saints” by Alison Jones says that this “immensely popular figure … must certainly have existed,” but “Absolutely no historical details are known about the grandmother of Christ, not even a name.” A cult devoted to her was in evidence by the 6th century, based on the apocryphal 2nd-century “Infancy Gospel of James.”

  In old age, Anna [sic] laments her childlessness and her supposed widowhood; her husband Joachim is actually fasting 40 days in the desert. She prays to be given a child in old age, like Abraham and Sarah, and conceives Mary through the agency of the Lord—-a prefiguration of the Virgin Birth—-though luckily Joachim reappears, and acquiesces in this sign of heavenly favor.

  Whew! How Mr. Gunning cited the King James in support of any of this is a nice conundrum; this tale is not part of the standard Apocrypha. (The curious can find it in “The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version,” from HarperCollins.) That Gunning speaks eloquently against marrying two or three wives is droll, in light of …

• N Keith Wright on Wed 19 Feb 2003, 11:48pm

  Sorry, memory plays funny tricks. Let’s just say that Pepys seems to remember Gunning’s “Scriptural” advisory concerning serial matrimony.

• N David Quidnunc on Wed 19 Feb 2003, 11:52pm

  Anna in the Bible

  Latham & Matthews cite Luke 2:25 and following. They say she’s the holy woman, a widow, who received Jesus, an infant, at the Temple and who is traditionally thought to be Mary’s mother.

• N Peregrina on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 12:24am

  Mr. Mossum, whose sermon Sam thought too eloquent for the pulpit:
  In all probability Robert Mossom, author of several sermons preached at London and printed about the time of the Restoration, who was in 1666 made Bishop of Derry. In title page of his “Apology in behalf of the Sequestered Clergy (1660),he calls himself “Preacher of God’s word at St. Peter’s, Paul’s Wharf, London.”
  Source:Diary of Samuel Pepys,deciphered by Rev. J. Smith from the original MS, with notes by Richard Lord Braybrooke.(A 1924 edition published by J.M. Dent.)

• N steve h on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 01:21am

  remarriage and divorce

  This seemingly innocent subject was at the heart of dispute about the future of the Church of England. In 1643, John Milton wrote a radical tract addressed to Parliament and the Westminster Assembly of Divines. It was called “The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.” His argument was that the Church should no longer make a sacrament of matrimony and should allow for civil marriage and divorce, getting rid of the residues of Roman Catholic canon law. (Not surprisningly, Milton was interested in getting a divorce for himself after a hasty marriage to a Royalist family!)
  Other Puritans argued for wider latitude for divorce, but not so radically. Divorce in cases of adultery with the the right to remarriage was allowed for the innocent party. But it was not a civil matter.
  Of course, the C of E was founded in order to arrange a divorce. Not until 1857 was a civil divorce court established in England. And only in 2002, did the bishops vote to allow divorced people to marry in church! American 17th century Puritans allowed for divorce, but it was uncommon.

  Is the sermon perhaps a reaction to more freethinking Puritan views on divorce and the role of the church?

  Milton’s tract is available at:

  http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/ddd/book_1/

• N Keith Wright on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 02:28am

  Thanks, D.Q.! The exact verses about “Anna, a prophetess … of a great age” are Luke 2:36-38—-where it would have been pertinent to mention her being the mother of Mary, information not given there.

  The Chambers book continues: “There is a strong resemblance to the Old Testament story of Hannah and the birth of Samuel (1 Samuel 1), and the identity in Hebrew of ‘Anne’ and ‘Hannah’ (both meaning ‘grace’) suggests that this may be the source of the [mother of Mary] legend and not merely an illuminating parallel.”

  Not for the first time in making a point in a sermon, amplification assists an unforthcoming text.

• N M.Stolzenbach on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 02:47am

  Anna the Prophetess = St Anna, mother of the Virgin?

  This is fascinating - I had never heard of this identification anywhere else. And don’t think much of it.

  1) When Mary visits Elizabeth, also in the Gospel of Luke, it is carefully mentioned that Elizabeth was her cousin. But no word of any relationship to the widow Anna in the Temple.

  2) If the widow Anna in the Temple is 88 years old and was married for only seven years, as Luke 2:36 states, this would make Mary, as her child, far, far too old.

  I don’t want to argue with Mr Wright or his reference, but the general teaching of the Church is that Mary was conceived by her parents in the normal manner (except that they were aged and had been barren heretofore). The Orthodox Church even has a traditional icon of Joachim and Anna gently embracing, signifying this fact.

  Here is the text of the apocryphal Gospel; you will see that Joachim and Anna are told that they will conceive, not that Anna has conceived miraculously in Joachim’s absence.

  http://www.icanect.net/~seraphim/protevan.htm

• N Pauline on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 03:11am

  “Anna, or Anne, St…” from 1906 Chambers’s Encyclopaedia
  “…according to tradition, wife of St. Joachim, and mother, after twenty years of barrenness, of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. The first to mention her is St. Epiphanius, in the 4th century; but toward the 8th, we find her all but universally held in honour. Her body is said to have been transferred from Palestine to Constantinople in 710; and since that time many churches have boasted of relics of her person, no less than three having equally good claims of having her head. She is the patron -saint of carpenters. Her festival falls on the 26th of July; with the Greeks, on the 9th of December. St Anne d’Auray, in Brittany, is a famous place of pilgrimage; and St Anne de Beaupre, near Quebec, is its counterpart in the New World.”

  And, Keith, your memory lapse is drollishly “nonspoiler.”

• N Fred Coleman on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 05:12am

  Steve H is welcome to believe that “the C of E was founded in order to arrange a divorce”. But to preface this glib and oversimplified statement with “of course”, gives one the impression that this is the accepted truth of the matter. This is not the place to refute such an opinion. Sufficient to say that there are many church historians and ecclesiastical scholars who would not agree with this origination of the Church of England.

• N Andy Thomas on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 08:35am

  Warm beer with herbs…nowadays in France you can get “Picon Bi

• N Keith P on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 10:38am

  And who might Haselrigge be - and why so afraid?

  First time annotater - but have been with you all the way since 1 January 1659/1660! Intriguing, educational,almost like living in a dual time-zone. Thanks for the website!

• N Keith P on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 11:26am

  Sorry! should have searched beforehand -Sir Arthur H. mentioned 13th and 19th January! Feasting with Sam.

  I now know he had something to do with the white slave trade, deporting prisoners to the new world -
  but where does the candle fit in? And who would carry it?

• N Mike Bursell on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 11:51am

  The practice of adding different herbs to beer was widespread until the 19th century, I believe. I know of at least one brewery (nice a local to me!) that makes a beer called “Umbel Ale”, which has a coriander base, and is a good curry accompaniment. My wife, who’s not a bitter drinker, also likes it on occasion - it’s very different to normal bitter. The brewery, for the interested, is Nethergate, in Clare (Suffolk). They also do some other great beers, including the powerful and award-winning porter “Old Growler”.

• N Roger Miller on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 12:56pm

  Haselrigge and the candle

  Haselrigge has good reason to be anxious. We’ve seen how men like Montagu are sufficiently flexible in their allegiances to adapt to the changing circumstances. This is not going to be possible for Haselrigge.

  The secluded members are meeting at night. Haselrigge understandably prefers to be in the shadows away from the candle where he will not attract the attention of people who, now that his power has gone, might seek to repay the brutality he has dealt out to others.

• N Glyn on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 01:20pm

  Meeting “between the secluded members and the members of the House” (with)Monck 2 days earlier.

  To recap, the secluded (or excluded) members were the majority of MPs who were expelled from Parliament many years earlier, leaving the more radical and republican MPs in control. Now Monck has brought them back; and the existing members are apprehensive that they’ll use their majority to persecute them. But they are instead reassuring them that they’ll only come back into Parliament simply to arrange for new national elections.

  After all, why not? They can afford to be magnaminous because they know that the tide of affairs is flowing their and the king’s way. Incidentally, how many years ago were the last elections?

• N Glyn on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 01:32pm

  Some of the streets have lighting but not many. So Pepys, Haselrigge etc. always took servants with lanterns or candles with them to light the way in front of them as they go through the dark winter streets. And it would have been very dark indeed: London in February; no street lighting; narrow streets; building with roofs jutting out a long way so hiding the stars and moon.

  Haselrigge is just scared that if someone sees him in the darkness, they’ll chuck a brick at him.

• N Alan on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 01:43pm

  Heating and blending ale and beer with herbs and fruit and even whipped with eggs (sometimes called a flip) was a common winter habit in both the UK and also North America before, say, 1850. Each house would base its popularity in part on special recipes.

• N Laura K on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 01:52pm

  St. Anne in art

  Many artists have depicted St. Anne as Mary’s mother and hint at an immaculate conception and virgin birth for Mary. Whether or not this is backed up by scripture, I have no idea (nor do I care, personally), but it was at least thought to be a biblical reference at various points in history.

  Laura K.

• N Mary on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 03:07pm

  Seventeenth Century street lighting

  According to Picard (op.cit.) it had been mandatory since the fourteenth century for householders in the city to hang out a candle or a lantern between the hours of dusk and nine o’clock during the winter months, but the rule seems to have been regularly ignored.

  Link-boys with torches were regularly employed to light the traveller’s way. In 1667 the Grand Duke of Tuscany commented favourably on London’s well-lit streets; one wonders whether the disruption brought about by the Great Fire inspired a recognition of the need for better lighting?

• N language hat on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 03:51pm

  “Picon”: thanks, Andy!
  This solves a mystery that’s been bothering me for years: in Andrei Bely’s (wonderful) novel Petersburg, a character is asked if he wants “picon” in his drink, and I couldn’t find it in either Russian or English dictionaries. Now I know!

  Here’s the OED entry for “purl”; I particularly like the alternate name “dog’s nose”:

  a Formerly, A liquor made by infusing wormwood or other bitter herbs in ale or beer. “Purl-royal”, a similar infusion of wormwood in wine.
  b Later, A mixture of hot beer with gin (also called “dog’s nose”), sometimes also with ginger and sugar: in repute as a morning draught.

  1659-60 Pepys Diary 19 Feb, To Mr. Harper’s to drink a draft of Purle. 1707 Mortimer Husb. (1721) II. 341 As grateful to the Stomach as the best Purl-Royal, or Wormwood Wine. 1712 Addison Spect. No. 317 Friday.. Twelve a-Clock… Drank a Glass of Purl to recover Appetite. 1764 Lloyd Fam. Epist., O Purl! all hail… Mum, Porter, Stingo, Mild and Stale. 1865 Dickens Mut. Fr. i. vi, For, it would seem that Purl must always be taken early. 1903 Licensed Traders’ Dict., Purl, hot beer with a glass of gin in it, re-christened ‘dog nose’ in later days.

• N Nix on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 04:01pm

  Actually, I believe the split between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon was technically an annulment rather than a divorce — Henry’s contention was that the marriage was invalid because she had previously been married to his brother, and that the supposed papal dispensation that permitted the marriage was illegal.

• N Glyn on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 04:25pm

  “…in commendation of widowhood, and not as we do to marry two or three wives or husbands, one after another”

  So he wasn’t preaching for or against divorce, but instead saying that if your husband dies then you should remain faithful to his memory and should not remarry. It’s true that there weren’t divorces for people in those days, but marriages probably didn’t last any longer then than they do now. Women died in childbirth: men and women died from disease. So most people would have married 2 or 3 times in their life: perhaps the preacher thought that this was somehow wrong.

• N Ali on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 04:33pm

  Actually, the immaculate conception refers to Mary’s conception, not Jesus’. She had to be free of original sin to be pure enough to carry Jesus. But *her* parents would have been able to get her started in the normal way.

• N Susanna on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 07:59pm

  The Long Parliament

  The Parliament that has now been called back was first elected in 1640. (It is known to historians as the “Long Parliament.”) The Rump was created after Col. Pride’s “purge” of its royalist members in December 1648, leaving only the hardcore revolutionaries (if I may use such a term), and paving the way for the execution of Charles I. Oliver Cromwell had later become disgusted with the Rump and sent it home. He also called elections for a couple of other parliaments in the 1650s, but he found those no more agreeable than the Rump, and sent them home as well. The Rump had reasserted itself after his death and the fall of his son, Richard.

• N M.Stolzenbach on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 08:31pm

  Laura K. wrote

  “Many artists have depicted St. Anne as Mary

• N Jim on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 09:44pm

  Interesting that Purl contained wormwood, the active ingredient in Absinthe. Wormwood is mildly hallucinogenic, due to the presence of the chemical thujone. Absinthe is illegal in the USA, but I have heard that it is legal in UK. More information on wormwood, including recipes from Pepys day:

  http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/w/wormwo37.html#worcom

• N Bob T on Thu 20 Feb 2003, 11:47pm

  Purl, which was Pepys” morning draft, started in the Middle Ages as a mixture of wormwood, gentian, calamus, horseradish, and other bitter herbs which had been soaked in ale for a couple of months. It’s purpose was more medicinal than nutritional. By Dickens time it had changed to hot ale, gin and spices.

• N Nigel Pond on Mon 19 May 2003, 06:08pm

  Re: The Immaculate Conception

  There has been a debate raging on this very subject on the letters page of The Times, for the past week or so (as at May 19th, 2003).