The Glastonbury Thorn in Vernacular Christianity and Popular Tradition
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.33523Keywords:
Glastonbury, sacred tree, Arthurian legend, pilgrimage, vernacular Christianity, folkloreAbstract
This article considers the most famous English sacred tree, the Glastonbury Thorn, which has a special place in vernacular Christianity and popular folklore. It was part of the pilgrimage site at Glastonbury during the Middle Ages and after the Reformation, Puritan soldiers chopped it down during the Civil War (1642-1651). However, elaborate folklore concerning the Thorn developed between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. according to these tales, Jesus came to Britain with his mother's uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, who planted the Glastonbury Thorn. The Thorn is considered miraculous, as it flowers twice yearly, with the second flowering in winter at Christmas. It also plays multiple roles in England's past and present. For example, all Christian traditions that assert that Jesus walked on soil other than that of the Middle East are engaged in the sacralization of territory, the transformation of the periphery into the center. English tales that claim Jesus visited Somerset and Cornwall bestow upon England the status of a 'Holy Land'. Further, the Thorn is part of the web of connections linking Glastonbury with the English Crown. This article considers the symbolism of the Glastonbury Thorn and assembleshistorical accounts, folklore, and popular cultural practices to investigate its historical importance and its contemporary significance.
References
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———. 2014. ‘Power Play: Ritual Rivalry and Targeted Tradition in Glastonbury’, Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 19: 26-37. Doi: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67298.
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———. 2016. ‘Medieval Pilgrims and Modern Tourists: Walsingham (England) and Meryem Ana (Turkey)’, Fieldwork in Religion 11.2: 217-34. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1558/?rn.33424.
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Hutton, Ronald. 2006 [2003]. Witches, Druids and King Arthur (London and New York: Hambledon Continuum).
Ivakhiv, Adrian J. 2001. Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).
Karkov, Catherine E., Sarah Larratt Keefer, and Karen Louise Jolly. 2006. The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press).
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Skeat, Walter W. 1871. Joseph of Arimathie: Otherwise Called the Romance of the Seint Graal or Holy Grail (London: N. Trübner & Co.).
Stankiewicz, Mary Ann. 1992. ‘From the Aesthetic Movement to the Arts and Crafts Movement’, Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research 33.3: 165-73. Doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/1320898.
Stout, Adam. 2008 [2007]. The Thorn and the Waters: Miraculous Glastonbury in the Eighteenth Century (Frome: Green & Pleasant Publishing).
———. 2012. ‘Grounding Faith at Glastonbury: Episodes in the Early History of Alternative Archaeology’, Numen 59.2: 249-69. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/156852712X630806.
Sullivan, Lawrence E. 1987. ‘Axis Mundi’, in Mircea Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan): 20-21.
Sullivan, Richard E. 1994. ‘The Carolingian Missionary and the Pagan’, in Richard E. Sullivan, Christian Missionary Activity in the Early Middle Ages (Aldershot: Variorum): 705-40.
Toke, Leslie. 2017 [1909]. ‘St. Dunstan’, The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 5 (New York: Robert Appleton Company). Online: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05199a.htm.
Walsham, Alexandra. 2004. ‘The Holy Thorn of Glastonbury: The Evolution of a Legend in Post-Reformation England’, Parergon 21.2: 1-25. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1353/pgn.2004.0022.
———. 2011. The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243556.001.0001.
Watkin, Aelred. 2001. ‘The Glastonbury Legends’, in James P. Carley (ed.), Glastonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer): 13-27.
Westwood, Jennifer. 1985. Albion: A Guide to Legendary Britain (London: Harper Collins).
Aston, Margaret. 1996. ‘Puritans and Iconoclasm, 1560–1660’, in Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales (eds.), The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700 (New York: St Martin’s Press): 92-121. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24437-9_4.
Barber, Chris, and David Pykitt. 1997. Journey to Avalon: The Final Discovery of King Arthur (York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser Inc.).
Bartlett, Robert. 1999. ‘Re?ections on Paganism and Christianity in Medieval Europe’, Proceedings of the British Academy 101: 55-76.
Benham, Patrick. 1993. The Avalonians (Glastonbury: Gothic Image Publications).
Bloch, Maurice. 1998. ‘Why Trees, Too, Are Good to Think With: Towards an Anthropology of the Meaning of Life’, in Laura Rival (ed.), The Social Life of Trees: Anthropological Perspective on Tree Symbolism (Oxford and New York: Berg): 39-56.
Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. 1985. Sacred Waters: Holy Wells and Water Lore in Britain and Ireland (London: Granada).
Bowman, Marion. 1993. ‘Drawn to Glastonbury’, in Ian Reader and Tony Walter (eds.), Pilgrimage in Popular Culture (London: Macmillan): 29-62. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12637-8_2.
———. 2004. ‘Procession and Possession in Glastonbury: Continuity, Change, and the Manipulation of Tradition’, Folklore 115.3: 273-85. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587042000284266.
———. 2005. ‘Ancient Avalon, New Jerusalem, Heart Chakra of Planet Earth: The Local and the Global in Glastonbury’, Numen 52.2: 157-90. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/1568527054024722.
———. 2006. ‘The Holy Thorn Ceremony: Revival, Rivalry and Civil Religion in Glastonbury’, Folklore 117.2: 123-40. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00155870600707805.
———. 2008. ‘Going with the Flow: Contemporary Pilgrimage in Glastonbury’, in Peter Jan Margry (ed.), Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: New Itineraries into the Sacred (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press): 241-80.
———. 2014. ‘Power Play: Ritual Rivalry and Targeted Tradition in Glastonbury’, Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 19: 26-37. Doi: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67298.
Brown, Theo. 1946. ‘St Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury’, Folklore 57.2: 75-79. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.1946.9717814.
Carr-Gomm, Philip. 2008. Sacred Places: Sites of Spiritual Pilgrimage from Stonehenge to Santiago de Compostela (London: Quercus).
Costen, Michael. 1992. The Origins of Somerset (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press).
Croft, Robin, Trevor Hartland, and Heather Skinner. 2008. ‘And Did Those Feet? Getting Medieval England “On Message”’, Journal of Communication Management 12.4: 294-304. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/13632540810919765.
Cunningham, Jack. 2009. ‘“A Young Man’s Brow and an Old Man’s Beard’: The Rise and Fall of Joseph of Arimathea in English Reformation Thought’, Theology CXII.868: 251-59. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0040571X0911200403.
Cusack, Carole M. 1998. Conversion among the Germanic Peoples (London: Cassell).
———. 2011. The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing).
———. 2013. ‘Scotland’s Sacred Tree: The Fortingall Yew’, Sydney Society for Scottish History Journal 14: 107-21.
———. 2016. ‘Medieval Pilgrims and Modern Tourists: Walsingham (England) and Meryem Ana (Turkey)’, Fieldwork in Religion 11.2: 217-34. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1558/?rn.33424.
Digance, Justine, and Carole M. Cusack. 2002. ‘Glastonbury: A Tourist Town for All Seasons’, in Graham Dann (ed.), The Tourist as a Metaphor of the Social World (Wallingford, UK: CABI International): 263-80. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1079/9780851996066.0263.
Elstob, Lynne, and Anne Howes. 1987. The Glastonbury Festivals (Glastonbury: Gothic Image Publications).
Hall, D.J. 1965. English Medieval Pilgrimage (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).
Hannigan, Des. 2006 [2004]. Eccentric Britain (London: New Holland Publishers).
Hayman, Richard. 2014. Holy Grail and Holy Thorn: Glastonbury in the English Imagination (Stroud, UK: Fonthill Media).
Hedges, Paul. 2014. ‘Remembering and the Creation of Sacred Place’, Implicit Religion 17.3: 297-320. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.v17i3.297.
Houlbrook, Ceri. 2015. ‘The Penny’s Dropped: Renegotiating the Contemporary Coin Deposit’, Journal of Material Culture 20.2: 173-89. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183515577120.
Hutton, Ronald. 2006 [2003]. Witches, Druids and King Arthur (London and New York: Hambledon Continuum).
Ivakhiv, Adrian J. 2001. Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).
Karkov, Catherine E., Sarah Larratt Keefer, and Karen Louise Jolly. 2006. The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press).
Marino, John B. 2004. The Grail Legend in Modern Literature (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer).
Morris, Richard. 1991. ‘Baptismal Places 600–800’, in Ian Wood and Niels Lund (eds.), People and Places in Northern Europe 500–1600: Essays in Honour of Peter Hayes Sawyer (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press): 15-24.
Mullen, Peter. 1998. Shrines of Our Lady: A Guide to Fifty of the World’s Most Famous Marian Shrines (London: Piatkus).
Rahtz, Philip. 1993. English Heritage Book of Glastonbury (London: B.T. Batsford).
Ralegh Radford, C.A. (with John McIlwain). 1995 [1992]. Glastonbury Abbey: The Isle of Avalon (UK: Pitkin Pictorials).
Reid, Christopher. 2000. ‘Sacramental Time: John Jackson, Christopher Smart, and the Reform of the Calendar’, The Eighteenth Century 41:3: 205-24.
Skeat, Walter W. 1871. Joseph of Arimathie: Otherwise Called the Romance of the Seint Graal or Holy Grail (London: N. Trübner & Co.).
Stankiewicz, Mary Ann. 1992. ‘From the Aesthetic Movement to the Arts and Crafts Movement’, Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research 33.3: 165-73. Doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/1320898.
Stout, Adam. 2008 [2007]. The Thorn and the Waters: Miraculous Glastonbury in the Eighteenth Century (Frome: Green & Pleasant Publishing).
———. 2012. ‘Grounding Faith at Glastonbury: Episodes in the Early History of Alternative Archaeology’, Numen 59.2: 249-69. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/156852712X630806.
Sullivan, Lawrence E. 1987. ‘Axis Mundi’, in Mircea Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan): 20-21.
Sullivan, Richard E. 1994. ‘The Carolingian Missionary and the Pagan’, in Richard E. Sullivan, Christian Missionary Activity in the Early Middle Ages (Aldershot: Variorum): 705-40.
Toke, Leslie. 2017 [1909]. ‘St. Dunstan’, The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 5 (New York: Robert Appleton Company). Online: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05199a.htm.
Walsham, Alexandra. 2004. ‘The Holy Thorn of Glastonbury: The Evolution of a Legend in Post-Reformation England’, Parergon 21.2: 1-25. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1353/pgn.2004.0022.
———. 2011. The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243556.001.0001.
Watkin, Aelred. 2001. ‘The Glastonbury Legends’, in James P. Carley (ed.), Glastonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer): 13-27.
Westwood, Jennifer. 1985. Albion: A Guide to Legendary Britain (London: Harper Collins).
Published
2018-10-30
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Cusack, C. M. (2018). The Glastonbury Thorn in Vernacular Christianity and Popular Tradition. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 12(3), 307-326. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.33523
