#Lockdown Pilgrimage - Mothering Sunday

No chance of going anywhere today! I  am socially isolating in advance of a small op' scheduled for tomorrow! So here I go - pilgrimaging on the internet! Sauntering ( Sainte terre ing)!

I had planned to go to Hautbois Church, drawn there by a host of wild daffodils and a church dedicated to Jesus' mum.


I was there at a similar time last year  - see Annunciation Pilgrimage.  But I wanted, more than anything, to pick up where I left off last Sunday, with that Roman brick in the wall of my mother church, St. John's; and to reflect on earlier generations of Mother Church. I am imagining the generations like so many Russian dolls one inside the other! We owe the life we live to them! 

Norfolk has no Roman or Post Roman church buildings, no great Constantinian brick built churches as in Trier and only the hint of their existence in the place names of villages.  Norfolk has two Eccles, a name derived from the British word eclesia meaning church.

Suffolk has one Roman church site at Wethill Farm, from where this lead font (in the British Museum) was recovered.  Fonts are a reminder, if one was needed,  that mothers give life, and Christians owe their new life to  baptism and being  nurtured in the faith by Mother Church. 


Copyright: British Museum

The Lincolnshire has several more Roman lead fonts.


If Norfolk has no Roman era church buildings, it does some archaeology that relates to personal devotion.  For example, a metal detectorist found this 5th Cenury silver ring in 2013.


Copyright :Portable Antiquities Scheme

From the 5th Century, the lettering reads "Antoni Vivas in Deo"  -  "Antonius, may you live in God." A baptism present for an adult convert, perhaps! The Antonius ring is one of several similar rings from 4th/5th Century,  known after an earlier find as Brancaster Type Rings. . The Brancaster ring shares the same, "Vivas in deo" inscription.  In normal times it  can be seen at the Castle Museum in Norwich.

Copyright :Norfolk Museum Service


For the time being we can only make guesses about Christian church buildings and organisational structures that supported Antonius and the couple from Brancaster.   As we can only make guesses about the Christian buildings and organisational structures that will support the Church in rural post-pandemic Norfolk. Yet the challenged they faced, is ours too!  

                How can we best "Live in God"?








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