The Two Saint Bavo's of Haarlem

The other day, I spent the afternoon walking around the city of Haarlem.  It is one of Holland's most important cities, located near the coast.  You get to the central part of town by walking across little bridges over the Spaarne River and various canals.

The fifteenth-century church of Old St. Bavo's dominates the Grote Markt, or market square.  You can see its gilded tower high above the other buildings as you walk into town.  A large statue of Laurens Coster, who supposedly developed movable type earlier than Gutenberg, stands in front.  Not far away you can visit Corrie ten Boom's house in the upper stories of a jewelery shop.  She and her sister courageously hid Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland, and both were sent to a concentration camp as a result.

St. Bavo is an important patron saint in the Low Countries.  According to legend he was a wealthy aristocrat who decided to forsake his riches and devote himself to the solitary life of a hermit.  During the sixteenth century Haarlem's Calvinists destroyed the statues, stained glass, and paintings in St. Bavo's and converted the old cathedral into a Protestant church with whitewashed, image-less walls.

Rather than paintings of saints and angels inside, Old St. Bavo's has "word paintings"--wooden tablets with scriptures written in beautiful calligraphy.  It also has a magnificent organ, which is almost as grand as an altarpiece would have been!

Sometimes there are crowds of vendors in the Grote Markt square selling fruits and vegetables, flowers, clothing, and ... stroopwafels!  These wonderful Dutch treats are made on a kind of waffle iron with two wafer-like cookies sandwiched together with caramel.  It's hard to eat just one.  In fact, you often find yourself buying a pack of ten!

This is a view of other buildings lining the Grote Markt.

The streets in downtown Haarlem are really beautiful.  You feel like you are walking in a painting!

Another St. Bavo's stands on the outskirts of the city.  This is New St. Bavo's--the Catholic St. Bavo's.  It is the cathedral for Haarlem's Catholics, reconstructed nearly 400 years after the Calvinists raided the original St. Bavo's.

You can see its turquoise dome from far away--pretty spectacular against the bright blue sky.

Getting Ready to Start School in Leiden

I got back from England a few days ago, and yesterday I went to Leiden to get ready to start school at the University.  Leiden is a beautiful city built close to the Rijn River with numerous canals channeling the water under bridges, beside stately brick houses, and along cobblestone walkways.  The bright sunlight in this picture looks deceptively warm.  It was freezing!  I did not bring a hat or gloves, and I nearly froze to death  in the wind blowing off the canals.  By the time I got home my hands were so numb that it took several tries before I could even unlock the door!

Rembrandt van Rijn was born in Leiden--not far from the Rijn River.  Leiden was a refuge for Protestants from all over Europe, and the Pilgrims lived here for a time before returning to England and setting sail on the Mayflower.

The University was founded in 1574 by William the Silent after the people of Leiden triumphed over the Spanish army, which had been laying a deadly siege against the city.  The classrooms, faculty offices, and housing for students are scattered throughout Leiden.  This picture is of the Stadhuis, a government administration building downtown.

This beautiful building houses the performing arts.  It is just down the street from the Stadhuis.

The International Students Office is located in an old jail in the courtyard of St. Peter's Church.  The prison was refurbished long ago, but there are still bars on some of the windows!  The Reformation converted this large Gothic church into a Protestant sanctuary, but the city's coat of arms still bears the keys of St. Peter--a reminder of the old patron saint of Catholic Leiden.

But ...even in a Protestant city like Leiden, I can always still find the Catholic church!

Pilgrimage to Canterbury

"Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages …
And specially from every shires ende
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke."

 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

 I kept thinking about the prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales yesterday as I made a pilgrimage by train to the cathedral that once housed one of Europe's most celebrated shrines.  In 1170 St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was assassinated in his cathedral by soldiers of King Henry II.  People began venerating the martyred archbishop as a saint almost immediately after his death, and the Benedictine monks who cared for the cathedral reverently laid St. Thomas Becket in the crypt and carefully gathered up his blood that had spilled onto the floor.

Pilgrims began coming soon after, visiting the stone sarcophagus in the dark crypt and petitioning the archbishop to cure their diseases and intercede for them with God.  There were holes in the sarcophagus so that the pilgrims could touch the coffin enclosed within.  Unbelievably, one of the first pilgrims to the new shrine was King Henry II!  The king had ordered St. Thomas's murder--or at least passively endorsed it--because the archbishop opposed his initiative to appoint new English bishops without the pope's approval.  After the murder, the king came to Canterbury on his knees to do penance and to ask for St. Thomas's pardon.

St. Thomas Becket's cult spread throughout Europe, and for 350 years, hoards of pilgrims journeyed to Canterbury.  King Henry VIII destroyed the martyr's shrine as part of his break with the Roman Catholic Church, and today Canterbury is the mother church for the Anglican Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury acting as spiritual head for the Church of England, the American Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Church in Africa.

 My "pilgrimage" to Canterbury only took about two and a half hours on the train, and although I've been complaining about the price of the ticket, it really was nothing compared to the finances a medieval pilgrim would have needed for the journey!  This is the road through the city to the cathedral.

The cloister adjoining the north side of the cathedral was once home to Benedictine monks who would have walked through its vaulted corridors on their way to the sanctuary to sing the divine office and daily mass.

Huge stone piers in the "Perpendicular Gothic" style extend up into the shadows of the nave.

Ascending a flight of stairs from the nave floor, you come to a richly carved stone choir screen, and through the central doorway you see the choir, sanctuary, and high altar.

 This contemporary altarpiece marks the spot where St. Thomas Becket was murdered, in the first transept on the northern side of the cathedral.  It was very moving to recall the story of the martyrdom in the very spot where it took place.

St. Thomas Becket had entered through this door, followed by the monks coming from the cloister.  They were on their way into the church to assist at the service.  As the archbishop climbed the stairs towards the altar, Henry II's soldiers entered through the door behind the monks.  St. Thomas turned around to face them and walked back down the stairs.  They drew their swords and killed him.

In 1220, Canterbury constructed a beautiful new shrine to enclose St. Thomas's body, and the archbishop's remains were relocated to Trinity Chapel, right behind the high altar.  Nothing remains of the shrine, but today a single candle burns hauntingly on the spot where it once stood.  Behind Trinity Chapel is yet another chapel, called the "Corona."  In this space, pilgrims venerated a fragment of St. Thomas Becket's skull--the "corona"--which had been struck from his head by a blow from one of Henry II's soldiers.

To reach Trinity Chapel, I climbed the "Pilgrims' Stairs," the same flight of steps that countless diseased and crippled people have hobbled up over the centuries.  From so many thousands of feet and crutches going up and down them, the stones are dramatically warped and deeply worn.

Trinity Chapel is lined with thirteenth-century stained glass depicting the miracles wrought by St. Thomas Becket for the pilgrims who came to his tomb.  You can walk up very close to the windows and see the details painted onto the glass.

In this scene, attendants prepare "Becket Water" by mixing a few drops of St. Thomas's blood into water.  This will then be given to the sick woman on the left to drink in the hope that it will cure her.

After a wonderful afternoon in one of the most historic cathedrals in Europe, I concluded the day by hearing the Canterbury Cathedral choir sing Evensong.  From my seat I could just see the candle on St. Thomas Becket's grave glowing in the darkness.  The magnificent organ blaring through the sanctuary was Anglican music at its finest.  And the reverent a cappella singing of the choir brought to mind the unending cycle of sung prayers and masses that have echoed from the walls of Trinity Chapel during the medieval centuries when St. Thomas Becket continued  to preside over the cathedral from the gilded shrine of his tomb.

London on the Vigil for the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

Yesterday I rode the train into London for the outrageous price of twenty-one pounds (that's over $30) for just 50 minutes both ways!  If you can dodge around all the construction work at King's Cross, you get this magnificent view of the facade of St. Pancras Train Station, next door.

Mid morning on Trafalgar Square with a glimpse of Big Ben towering over the bustling streets crowded with pedestrians, compact European cars, and British double-decker buses.

I spent three and a half hours in the National Gallery.  It has a stupendous collection of paintings ranging from poignant medieval crucifixions backed in gold leaf to Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers.  My primary object of pilgrimage in the National Gallery, however, was the two Jan van Eyck paintings--a self portrait and the artist's renowned Arnolfini portrait.  Van Eyck had painstakingly painted inscriptions on the frames of the paintings so that it looked like the elaborate fifteenth-century script was carved into the wood rather than brushed on in paint.  The illusion was unbelievable.

View of the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields through the massive columns on the National Gallery porch.

 I only had a little over an hour at the Victoria and Albert Museum, but it was enough time to be overwhelmed by the rich collections that I suppose once belonged to Queen Victoria, "Empress of India."  Can you imagine a collection of nineteenth-century snuff boxes covered in diamonds tinted pink and yellow?  That's the kind of thing that causes rebellions against the aristocracy!  The medieval collection had carved altarpieces, faded ecclesiastical vestments, and illuminated manuscripts.

Renaissance stained glass panel of the crucifixion from northern Europe in the Victoria and Albert Museum.  Although I like to see art in its original context it is nice to be able to get close to the windows and see the brilliant colors in the artificially constant light of museum.  I hadn't realized how much stained glass buckles over time.  The surfaces of some of these windows are quite bumpy.

At 5:00 pm I went to St. Paul's Cathedral for Evensong.  What a blessing that it happened to be the Vigil for the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul!  Appropriately, the cathedral that bears the name of the Apostle to the Gentiles celebrated the occasion with grandeur.  Christopher Wren's spacious white interior glittered with its nineteenth-century mosaics as the choristers from London's Catholic Cathedral of Westminster processed into the choir stalls as guest performers.  Vespers was almost entirely in Latin, and one of the priests wore a golden cope (a long ecclesiastical cape), and he swung censer to bless the altar and the congregation with incense.  There is no more beautiful way to appreciate the architecture and images of a church than to observe it while sacred music is reverberating off its walls.

The "Empress of India" stands regally before the cathedral.  The building was particularly majestic lit up at night, and yet I still found myself humming--almost irreverently--the words, "Early each day to the steps of St. Paul's, the little old bird-woman comes ... feed the birds, tuppence a bag!"

Cambridge Colleges and Churches

After Church this morning, we visited several of Cambridge's colleges and chapels.  In many of the churches the organists and choristers were practicing for Evensong  and so we got to look at stained glass and Gothic vaults while listening to beautiful music.  This is the window above the altar in the church of Great St. Mary's.

The parish of St. Edward and the English Martyrs is an unassuming church tucked into an alleyway near King's College.  This sanctuary, however, was the "cradle of the English Reformation."  The first public sermon with overtly Protestant leanings was preached here during Midnight Mass in the early sixteenth century.  The original pulpit still exists, and the avid reformer, Hugh Latimer, delivered controversial homilies here before he was burned at the stake by the Catholic Queen Mary.

More glowing, technicolor-green grass in the courtyard of Corpus Christi College.  The chapel in the background had sixteenth-century stained glass from Germany, and the organ was blaring a Bach fugue that nearly shook the walls.  It was spectacular!

Pembroke College reminds me of an English manor house.  The courtyards lead into gardens with hidden passageways and overgrown vines.  Walking through these colleges is like being in a dream--each time you duck through the wooden doors with iron locks leading into the grounds it feels like you've gone back in time.

The Fitzwilliam Museum has a nice collection of paintings with an imposing Roman temple facade and an elaborate entryway inside with a huge staircase, domed ceiling, and multi-colored marbles.  After the museum we went to Evensong (the Anglican evening prayer) at Trinity College.  We were a few minutes late, and we had to wait for the opening prayers to be completed before entering.  I slipped in right after the "amen" with my sister following close behind.  I couldn't see any good seats in the candle-lit choir stalls, and so I kept walking up to a higher level of stalls.  My sister followed, and we sat down on red velvet upholstery under the carved wood backing just as the choir began to sing.  My sister turned to me with a look of horror on her face.  "We're sitting in the fellows' seats, and we're not supposed to be here."  I looked around, and sure enough there were a lot of distinguished looking professors in "Harry Potter" robes.  "And," my sister added, with even more fear in her voice, "you're sitting right next to the Master of the College!"  The Master is an elderly, knighted dignitary who was in his own box, adjoining the pew we were on.  I was afraid, too, but fortunately the Master did not summon the guards to drag us away to the tower for execution.  Instead he smiled, and then turned his attention back to the service.  Phew!  Evensong was beautiful.

The Isle of Ely

We went to the Isle of Ely today.  It is no longer an island, but once it was completely surrounded by marshes.  Ely gets its name from the eels lurking in the muddy water encircling the town, and according to legend some of these creatures are former monks, transformed into eels by St. Dunstan for disobedience!

St. Ethelreda founded an abbey in the seventh century that eventually became the magnificent cathedral that towers over the city.  Her tomb was once the object of many pilgrimages to Ely, but the Reformation destroyed it, and today there is just a plaque on the floor where her shrine once stood.

Although it was freezing cold outside, I am still amazed at how bright green the grass is.  The cemetery lawn was especially bright against the stone of the cathedral.  There was a little market nearby where we browsed for samples of food--we got some good ones, too!  Inside the cathedral it was a little warmer, but you could still see your breath.

Heavy Romanesque nave arcade with a gallery and small clere story windows.  Essentially all of the original glass and many of the sculptures have been destroyed or beheaded by iconoclasts.  Oliver Cromwell lived across the street, though, so what would you expect?

It was very dark when we entered the cathedral, but pretty soon the midday sun started pouring in through the windows and illuminated the choir.

Colored light from the nineteenth-century stained glass windows cast purple and red shadows on the walls.

The side aisles were lined with tombs of bishops and abbots.

The High Altar was spectacular--intricately carved with scenes from the final week in the life of Christ with an elaborate Gothic framework surrounding it.  It was carved in the Victorian period with inlaid mosaic tiles like the great churches in Rome.

Impressive lancet windows behind the High Altar, backing the modern shrine to St. Ethelreda.

After returning to Cambridge, we went on a beautiful walk through the muddy countryside to Grantchester, a rural village whose famous teashop was patronized by Virginia Woolf. We almost had to turn back after walking a good thirty minutes of the way because there was a large group of cows eating grass in front of the gate we had to go through.  One of my sister's friends tried to get by, and a cow started butting him with its head.  It lifted him clear off the ground.  We all watched in panic--worried that our friend might be mauled to death by a docile milk cow and also worried that it might cause a stampede and crush us all into the mud!  My sister's friend got the cow under control by hitting its nose--remember that tip if ever you are attacked by a milk cow--and we continued on our way.

Before going to a candle-lit Epiphany carol service in St. John's College chapel, we had an English cream tea.  I was very happy to eat two large scones, a generous dish of clotted cream, blackberry and raspberry jam, and a mug of hot chocolate (the hot chocolate is the Mormon version of cream tea).  My sister tells me that almost no one can finish both scones, and it is practically unheard of to eat your whole portion of clotted cream.  Ha!  What is wrong with these poor folks of little appetite?