{"id":146540,"date":"2026-07-15T07:29:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=146540"},"modified":"2026-07-15T06:15:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:15:41","slug":"eleanor-parker-some-extracts-from-an-anglo-saxon-homily-on-st-swithuns-life-and-miracles-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=146540","title":{"rendered":"(Eleanor Parker) Some extracts from an Anglo-Saxon homily on St Swithun\u2019s life and miracles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today is St Swithun\u2019s Day, when the weather-gods obey the saint of Winchester \u2013 \u2018St Swithun\u2019s day if thou dost rain \/ For forty days it will remain\u2019, and all that. So let\u2019s look at a few extracts from an Old English homily for St Swithun\u2019s Day, written by \u00c6lfric<\/a> in the last decade of the tenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c6lfric had a personal connection to Swithun\u2019s story, and in this homily he adds in one or two comments to remind us of it. Swithun was an obscure ninth-century Bishop of Winchester whose fame is almost entirely the work of \u00c6thelwold, his successor at Winchester more than a century later. Winchester was the royal city of Wessex but it was surprisingly short on saints, so \u00c6thelwold did his best to elevate some of his predecessors to that status, including Swithun and St Birinus<\/a> (a better-attested saint, though his popularity never caught on as Swithun\u2019s did). On 15 July 971, \u00c6thelwold had Swithun\u2019s remains translated to a new shrine inside the Old Minster, Winchester. \u00c6lfric, who was educated at Winchester under \u00c6thelwold and had a great respect for his bishop, would have witnessed much of this, and by the time he wrote about it, around 25 years later, he had come to see \u00c6thelwold\u2019s time \u2013 his own youth \u2013 as a kind of golden age for the English church, when the king and holy bishops worked together and religion and peace flourished in the land. By the 990s, with the Vikings suddenly once more a pressing threat, this seemed to him like a bright but vanished world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>

It's the feast of St Swithun, 9th-century Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester. Since the Middle Ages, his day has been linked to weather-lore: it's said that in mid-July weather patterns shift, and if it rains on St Swithun's Day it will rain for 40 days.https:\/\/t.co\/FfgcvohJU2<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/ALo8iNupoY<\/a><\/p>— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) July 15, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>