Click to enlarge this view of Norwich as seen from the east. (North is right and south is left)
I recently spent an inspiring Saturday morning on a history walk in Norwich's King street area. The guide was Alan Gidney of Norwich Central Baptist Church. We also had with us a guide who was going to tell us about the world famous St Julian of Norwich, an anchorite whose cell is attached to St Julian's church, a church within a stone's throw of King street's Dragon hall; the latter being our assembly point.
Alan linked King street with the Roman road running from the northgate of Caistor Roman town (
Venta Icenorum), a fortified settlement about four miles to the south of Norwich. On the 3D Norwich map at the top of this post (
Courtesy of Google) Caistor is off to the left. It is not known, said Alan, whether King street is on the line of the actual Roman road or whether it followed the line of Ber street, a street which runs roughly parallel to King street and is a little further up the Wensum valley side. Ber street and King street are both marked on my map. But in any case neither road has a good alignment with the road running from the north gate of Caistor Roman town, so presumably the road from Caistor had a kink in it at some point. Hazarding a guess: The Roman road from Caistor may have run along the east side of the River Yare until it arrived at a cross-roads near Trowse, whereupon a north west connection from the cross roads ran either to Ber Street or King street.
King Street, looking south. The front of Dragon hall can be seen in the centre distance.
The uncertainty about whether Ber street or King street is the original Roman road is expressed in the following passage taken from
this web site.
Although there is no substantial
evidence of a Roman town within Norwich city walls, Venta Icenorum - Caistor St
Edmund, just south of Norwich - was the focus for Roman settlement, selected
for its fertile soil and good communications.
The area of modern Norwich was
crossed by two major Roman roads suggesting that it was important, but not as a
settlement. Evidence suggests that Holmstrete Way ran east west (modern
Bishopsgate/St Benedicts) and a further Roman road ran north south along King
Street or and Ber Street and then up Oak Street.
So, Oak street is also thought to be on the line of the Roman road. On my map I have marked Oak Street and also Charing Cross. Charing Cross may have been the place where the road from Venta Icenorum crossed Holmstrete. If my map is anything to go by then Ber street has, apparently, a much better alignment with Oak Street and Charring cross than does King street. (However, Roman roads sometimes incorporated kinks in order to avoid difficult terrain, so this is no proof that Ber street is our Roman). King Street, on the other hand, has a reasonable alignment with Fye bridge (marked) to the north. In Saxon times Fye bridge was actually a ford and it therefore seems not an unreasonable conjecture that King street was, in fact, a Saxon deviation from the Roman road which made for the ford; presumably the well engineered Roman bridge that crossed the Wensum had long since decayed and fording the river was the cheapest Saxon alternative.
King street gets its name from the Saxon village of "Conesford" or "King's ford". Conesford was a village lying immediately to the south of the ford and was clustered around the point where King street was crossed by Holmestrete On the other side of the ford lay the fortified Saxon town of Norwik (From which we get "Norwich"). Magdalen Street (marked) ran down the centre of this town, a town with a ditch and bank rampart and probably topped by a wooden palisade; it was in effect the "New Caistor". As a fortified town Norwik had burgh status and was therefore permitted by the Saxon king to mint coins.
After the Norman conquest the centre of gravity of Norwich moved south, up and out of the Wensum valley toward the Ber Street ridge on which the Norman castle was built overlooking and dominating the Saxon villages in the Wensum valley. It may be at this point in history that King Street became the bustling inland "Port of Norwich", second only to the inland "Port of London". Although Norwich completely lost its second city status after the industrial revolution, I have early memories of it as a port for (small) sea going cargo ships, although today it is just a quay for Broad's pleasure boats.
St Julian's church is a short walk along St Julian's alley, an alley which intersects with King Street just outside the famous Dragon Hall. Dragon Hall was constructed in 1427 by the wealthy merchant Robert Toppes who made his money buying and selling with continental Europe. The feudal system introduced by the Normans had run about 300 years when St Julian was born in 1342 (She died sometime after 1416). But in the latter half of the fourteenth century the feudal order was under the hammer as history was in the process of making a transition. In consequence St Julian's life covers some significant times and dates. Viz:
* The Black death 1349 (England)
* The Peasant's revolt 1381
* The mid 14th century rise of John Wycliffe's Lollard's many of who were burnt at Lollard's pit a short way upstream at from Dragon hall. They were in effect pre-reformation reformers and were considered a danger by Roman Catholic authorities.
* The Canterbury tales 1387 - 1400
* The rise of the middle classes: e.g. Robert Toppes 1400-1467 who built Dragon hall in 1427
It is a reasonable conjecture that all the dates I have listed after 1349 have their roots in the effects of the Black Death, the plague which resulted in a 40% reduction in the population and consequently left many feudal agricultural strips unfarmed. Peasant tenants moved into the fallow land and started to make a profit and eventually bought cheap land to farm; they became the land owners often referred to as yeoman farmers, eventually to become contiguous with the gentry. They were the beginnings of the up and coming middle classes who in due course became rich and influential. English social mobility had arrived. An example are the Paston family who even moved into Caister Castle on the coast north of Gt.Yarmouth (not to be confused with Caistor Roman Town). Ever since those times the rich middle classes have had a tendency to ape the English aristocracy if they could.
The power of the feudal aristocracy whose wealth lay in their unquestioned ownership of farm land (the source of medieval wealth) was weakened by the Black death. The Black death lead to a lack of peasants to till the land and this in turn made land a buyer's market. But the feudal aristocracy continued to rule as if nothing had happened. The peasantry and early middle classes weren't wearing it and revolted. But this revolt was premature; the aristocracy were still very powerful and it took at least another three centuries before, in stages, the middle classes successfully took their place in the corridors of power. In the meantime the middle classes put their heads down and got on with the business of making money, Robert Toppes being an example.
Another connected factor in the peasants revolt may have been a subtle change in social ethos after the Black death. Evidence of this might be apparent in the Canterbury tales where it is clear that Chaucer was pondering carefully the meaning of social class. After all, the Black death was no respecter of persons; it was proof that all humanity was equal under God, although it should have been noticed that this equality was implicit in scripture from day one. Just before his execution in 1649 Charles I declared his belief in the royal blood line's divine right to rule. Charles I's execution is therefore symbolic of the death of the concept of an aristocracy with a God given right to sovereignty.
The entrance to Julian's cell.: A Norman arch. It therefore pre-dates St Julian by at least 200 years. Her original cell probably did not include this entrance. She may have been bricked in with openings left for communication, food, hygiene and other basic needs.
Into this mix comes the mystic St Julian. Today King street comes over as a sleepy residential area but our guide told us that in St Julian's day it would been a busy inland port area with people coming and going. Our guide also hinted that St Julian may have chosen this area because she felt that it was where she was most needed. After all, ports don't have a reputation for being particularly moral. Moreover, if the Canterbury tales are anything to go by we can imagine that street level culture here was pretty raw! (as it always has been I suppose!) So St Julian had her work cut out! Unlike the Lollards, however, St Julian didn't see herself as challenging the Roman Catholic church; a church that was in actual fact in much need of reform and challenge. But St Julian's theology was not entirely in keeping with that church. One of her doctrinal novelties was her stress on the motherly feminine aspect of God and Christ, a role reserved in Catholic thought for the Virgin Mary. But St Julian didn't go out of her way to rock the boat and in those days she was still a relatively small fish and could be safely be ignored. As for the Lollard's, at first the secular authorities tolerated and even protected them, but when they became linked to the peasant's revolt they lost this protection and many were burnt at the stake. Like the peasant's revolt the Lollard movement was premature; times were not yet ripe for a big change.
Standing in St Julian's cell for me was reminiscent of
my visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Old Jerusalem. In both locations little or nothing remains of their original aspect making it difficult to make an imaginative connection with the past. Moreover, in my particular case picking up holy vibes is simply not one of my strengths. This fairly plain, clean, smooth, minimalist white washed cell was not going introduce me to a meditative mindfulness; not that much else has a chance of doing that either! A commemorative board just outside the cell says "
In this holy place we can almost hear St Julian saying...so & so." Well, I didn't hear her! None of this is to say, however, that many people don't meet with God in the midst of contemplative silence.
And now to modern times: The St Julian controversy
St Julian's teaching. Traditional reformists will hate it. Needless to say after a quick search on the Web I found....!
In reformation England St Julian's writings were rescued and hidden; she was after all a Roman Catholic Saint. But her writings eventually resurfaced and became popular in the West, perhaps on the back of a resurgent Romanticism. However, traditional "
logos" based protestant believers who strongly identify with the reformation will find her writings at best wanting and at worst heretical. For example the following typifies a heavily reformist reaction to St Julian:
.....nowhere in Scripture are we
taught “the Trinity is our Mother,” or that Jesus—the unique Son of God—is our
“true Mother,” and we’re certainly not taught, “All shall be well.” The late
Dr. Walter Martin, a very well-respected evangelical apologist, was correct
when he said: The vast majority of mankind; will not make it [to salvation],
because they simply will not repent. And if you don’t think these people are
lost; then why in the world are you even bothering to call yourself a
Christian. Study mysticism, as I have, and you’ll see a common thread of
universalism within it.
In closing this subject, for now,
Julian of Norwich falls right in lock-step with classic mysticism of all
stripes with its panentheism (all in God), pelagianism (true self, which is
sinless), “a spark of the divine” where, in contradistinction to Scripture, God
already dwells within all of mankind and concluding with Julian’s belief in a
universal salvation.
(See http://apprising.org/2010/05/09/setting-the-record-straight-on-julian-of-norwich/)
With their tendency toward an unimaginative and stark factualism fundamentalists are often found arguing over metaphors that they interpret literally. It is certainly true that some metaphors are better than others, but if you are a literalist what should be a discussion on merit and appropriateness becomes a black vs. white battle of truth vs. falsehood, a fight between good and evil, thus releasing huge passions, emotions and acrimony. As they diligently search the Bible for "theological algorithms" which provide exact rules giving unambiguous guidance about belief and practice, it is no surprise that a book which often uses language connotationally should cause fundamentalists to fall out with one another very acrimoniously over issues which should be treated as a question of nuances of meaning. An example of such a fall-out is the council of Chalceden (451), a council attempting to settle the contention between Nestorius and Cyril over the nature of the Trinity. It represents a timeless theological fracas caused by inflexible literalist thought. Prime suspect as to the root of the cognitive dissonance at Chalceden is the concept of "hypostasis" or "substance", terms which are clearly metaphors derived from the material world and applied literally and uncritically to the Godhead. It is no surprise that the black vs white fundamentalist mind will instinctively recoil from the sometimes woolly & sloppy language used by the Christian mystic.
One can repent, believe in the Lord Jesus and receive the gift of adoption from the Father and yet in my experience what chiefly characterises fundamentalist believers is that in practice they understand "repentance" in terms of affiliating oneself to their culture's specific rendition of Christianity; all other contrary Christian cultures are likely regarded as simply unrepentant.
Close approximations to the Gospel can be found among Jehovah's Witnesses and yet one knows that they too are likely to consider anyone who does not connect with their holy remnant as unrepentant and therefore non-christian, no matter how emphatic one is about receiving the Gospel. For one quickly finds that in the eyes of fundamentalist Christians of all types (and this includes JWs), salvation is practically conditional upon the acceptance of their subculture as exclusive. Keeping fundamentalists at arm's length (A policy I actually advocate) is, to the fundamentalist mind, tantamount to a ticket to hell; see
here,
here and
here. Expressions of the acceptance of the Gospel outside their culture are all but worthless to them. But having said that I can no more defend fundamentalist reformers than I can Christian mystics
who err on the side of gnosticism and like their strict reformist siblings also regard those beyond their "enlightened" culture as of an inferior spirituality.
Footnote:
*As has become so apparent in my Creation researches evangelical Protestants are very tempted by a dualist world view, a view where God's creative power is instinctively distinguished over and against the profane "hypostasis" of matter; shades of gnosticism haunt many dark corners of Christian culture. And yet it is the sovereign transcendent God who has created the cosmic miracle of space & time and whose omnipresent immanence sustains it and continues to create.
