THE P RTAL
May 2013 Page 13
Anglo-Saxon Saints for Huntingdon by Harry Schnitker
This month ’ s focus on an Ordinariate group is in a town with ostensibly few obvious Catholic connotations . Huntingdon is , after all , the birthplace of Oliver Cromwell , the man who believed Anglicanism was a deviation from proper Protestant observance .
The town is littered with references to the Great Puritan , whose fame rests as much on the prohibitions on any kind of fun in England , as on his massacres of Catholics in Scotland and Ireland .
history of the people at large
It is one of the hallmarks of the myopia of ‘ official ’ historiography in Britain that the iconic figures of the past overlay the much broader , and , in many ways , much more important history of the people at large . It also lacks depth : life starts with Henry VIII , and for many the Middle Ages are about Magna Carta and the Black Death , Oh ! and lest I forget , Richard III ( at least since recently ). That this is nonsense hardly requires emphasis .
strategic settlement on the River Ouse
Huntingdon had already been around for a whole millennium when Cromwell came onto the scene , and had been Catholic for most of that period . It was founded alongside the old Roman Ermine Street in around 650 A . D . and was at first known as Huntedune- Porte . It grew up as a strategic settlement on the River Ouse , but we know very little of its first few centuries . It is likely to have become Christian alongside the rest of East Anglia , and fell to the Vikings in 917 .
great prosperity
The Pagan conquest lasted but briefly , and in 921 Edward the Elder , son of the pious Alfred the Great , conquered the fortified settlement . A period of great prosperity followed , with market rights bestowed by Peterborough Abbey and a church founded in around the same period . This church was dedicated to The Blessed Virgin and All Martyrs . It was a simple , wooden structure , of which nothing now survives . Indeed , over this church , too , hangs Cromwell ’ s shadow , for he is buried in its successor .
All Martyrs
Once more we have international titulars here . Often in this series , I have tried to go beyond these and reach an indigenous saint , however tenuous the link . Not this time . Instead , I wish to focus on the second part of the dedication : All Martyrs . Now like all Churches , the Anglo-Saxons deeply revered the martyrs . This was par for the course , and had been so since the earliest days of the Church ; martyrdom began in the age of the Apostles .
martyred royalty
For the Anglo-Saxons this combined with a strongly-developed cult of martyred royalty . Often seen as political , these devotions to such kings as St Edmund of East Anglia were also an expression of the ties of suffering that united the Anglo-Saxon Church to the rest of Christendom . It was Pope Boniface IV who , in 609 , established the feast of All Martyrs , which was celebrated on 13 May .
Viking occupation
In 837 , so almost a century before the foundation of the church in Huntingdon , this was changed to All Saints and placed on 1 November by Pope Gregory IV . It is odd , therefore , that the Church in Huntingdon does not refer to All Saints . However , we have to recall that it was built after a period of trial for Christians during the Viking occupation .
deeply ‘ English ’ and deeply Catholic
In any case , the titulars of the church recall the international Mother of God , to whom the Anglo- Saxons were particularly devoted , and linked the local martyrs with those of the international Catholic Church . It was both deeply ‘ English ’ and deeply Catholic .