Norfolk Pilgrim

 Sometimes, doing pilgrimage professionally gets one's nose too close to the grindstone. Paying close attention to routes, history, accessibility and a host of other things it is easy to lose focus. Busy! Busy! I was in danger of losing it last month.  Then Wasingham. A welcome. Cups of tea and pieces of cake.  "Pilgrimage is all about connecting ." said Mgr. John Armitage  to delegates visiting as  part of last month's Interreg Green Pilgrimage Conference. He had it in a nutshell! Good to connect with you Fr. John! Green Pilgrimage has to be as much about connecting with landscapes and the natural world; as with making contact with to the past  on well trodden paths to pilgrim places.  For a pilgrim, making such  connections can never be ends in themselves, they are ways to connect with  deeper reality.  Describe  deeper reality as you will  - the spiritual, one's higher power, God, or gods.  Deeper reality ...

Prof Susan Oosthuizen's Emergence of the English redirected my attention to Prof Tom Williamson's interesting view of the North Sea and its waterways published in East Anglia and Its North Sea World . In relation to the Conversion of the English, not only do I have to accept the likelihood of the continuation of  Christianity in East Anglia in the post-Roman era, for example, at Norfolk's two places named Eccles; but also the ongoing links with Europe once the Church had rooted itself in Anglo-Saxon society, St.Felix came to East Anglia from in 630 or thereabouts, with King Sigeberht who had been in exile in Merovingian lands. The next generations of church leaders gave us Botolph, who had his monastic formation at Faramoutier (not far from Paris), where Saethryth (sister of Withburga of Dereham and Elthelburga of Ely) was abbess. Hilda of Whitby's sister, Hereswith, who had married into the East Anglian royal family, became abbess of Chelles; a house which was ...

The standard story is of  rape and pillage as in Marie de France - Life of St.Audrey    Felix built first a church at Soham. th en a church at Reedham where people worshipped God. But the pagan Danes, w ho despised God and his laws, r obbed it and destroyed it and took away the servants of God……. Felix had lovingly baptised King Anna and his people and caused the whole region to be born again through baptism. A different story is told in  John Lydgate's Life of St Edmund and Fremund   and perhaps the church Felix had founded just fell into disuse and disrepair. Read about it here  and in Eleanor Parker's excellent Dragon Lords. According to Lydgate  Lothbrok and Edmund were mates until something went wrong! They used to go hunting together as here in British Library   Harley 2278   f. 42  Whatever, Lydgate's tale does reflect Norfolk's pre  Norman Conquest  confident Anglo-Norse society. Reedham ...

St.Bridget of Sweden pic by JMC4 Church Explorer The Norwich Benedictine monk, subsequently Cardinal, Adam Easton promoted the cult of St. Bridget. Some have suggested that Adam was Mother Julian's Spiritual Director and have noted similarities between St. Bridget and Mother Julian. The Passion of Christ was central to both - both were visionaries, both  were writers. The Carmelite friar and friend of Margery Kemp, Alan of Lynn , also promoted St. Bridget. Veneration of St. Bridget and other female saints  was popular in the 15th C. The screen at Horsham St.Faith's   has a quiver full! The picture opposite is a panel from the screen. For further reading - Benedictines in the Middle Ages on-line -  https://sites.google.com/site/cardinaladameaston/home