The German mystic visionary nun, Elisabeth of Schönau (above), died today in 1164. Over the previous 12 years she had experienced visions, which came to her at Mass on Sundays, or feast days of the Church. These included encounters with the Devil, experiences of being in heaven or at the foot of the cross, sight of an ‘extremely dark and horrible cloud’ which represented God’s anger with the world, and conversations with the saint whose feast day it happened to be. Elisabeth was famous in her own lifetime, and people great and small sought out her advice. She had no hesitation in dishing out prophetic threats or sacred scoldings to monks, priests, abbots and archbishops, fearlessly transgressing the normal gender roles of medieval society.
‘A certain small spark sent from the seat of great majesty, and a voice thundering in the heart of a small worm-person speaks. To Hillin, Archbishop of Trier. The one who was and is and is to come warns you. Rise up in the spirit of humility and fear of the Lord your God… Again the same Lord admonishes you, saying, “If you will not tell them what has been revealed to you and they die in their sins, you will bear the judgment of God.”’ Elisabeth of Schönau, letter to the Archbishop of Trier, translated by Anne L Clark
Just after sunset (Canterbury time, England) tonight in 1178, there was a violent explosion on the Moon, which was widely considered to herald untold calamity. The event was witnessed by five thunderstruck monks, who ran off to tell Gervase, the chronicler of Canterbury Abbey, who wrote it up in his ecclesiastical history. Some 800 years later, it was suggested that the monks had seen an asteroid striking the Moon to form the Giordano Bruno crater, which scattered debris 150 km across the Moon’s surface. That theory has been disputed, and it’s currently not known what the monks saw.
‘From the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the Moon which was below writhed, as it were in anxiety, and to put it in the words of those who reported it to me and saw it with their own eyes, the Moon throbbed like a wounded snake.’ Gervase of Canterbury, Chronicle
Rogier van der Weyden, the Netherlands painter of strikingly lifelike altarpieces and triptychs, died in Brussels today in 1464. His most famous painting, The Descent from the Cross, shows Christ being lowered to the ground after the crucifixion, while his mother Mary is in the same pose, after collapsing to the ground in grief. Its composition and emotional impact was widely admired and imitated by artists in the cnturies after Van der Weyden’s death.
It is the feast of St Marina the Monk, who probably lived in the 5th century in either Syria or Lebanon. Keen to join a monastery in her teens, she dressed in male clothes, shaved her head, and presented herself as Marinos the monk. After some years, at an inn on business for the monastery, she was accused of getting the innkeeper’s daughter pregnant. The abbot expelled Marina, and she lived as a beggar at the monastery gate, taking care of the baby when it was born, and still concealing her true identity. After 10 years, the abbot allowed her to return, but gave her the worst tasks to do. Then she died, and her great secret was revealed, to the lamentation of everyone who had mistreated her.
Image: RomkeHoekstra