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13.03.2026 17:41
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My latest piece is a meditation on the priesthood and spiritual warfare inspired by a phrase from Malory's "Morte D'Arthur" -- "the armour of the Lord" in reference to clerical vestments.
Chrysologus' words are simply golden, folks. Pick up some of his sermons and check him out!
Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that as we are bathed in the new light of Thine Incarnate Word, that which shines by faith in our minds may blaze out likewise in our actions; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. -Gregorian Sacramentary, in W Bright, Ancient Collects and Other Prayers, 14-15
"... in the lower world, to which you are hurrying. [Eccl. 9:10] Since we do not know the time of our coming death, and we cannot work after death, it remains for us to seize the time granted us before death.” (Gregory the Great, Hom. 20, close)
“Since the hours and their moments are running away, see to it, dearly beloved, that they are filled with what will earn the wages of a good work. Listen to what Solomon in his wisdom says: Do vigorously everything your hand can do, because there will be no work or plan or wisdom or knowledge..."
“For against the darkness of ignorance the Lord is a ‘Light;’ against weakness ‘Salvation,’ whilst He both shews what ought to be desired for the doing it, and supplies the powers, that what He shews may be fulfilled.” (Gregory, Moralia p. 457 in big PDF at Lectionary Central)
Today is the feast of Pope St. Gregory the Great! I spoke a little about him to an ecumenical "Lenten lunch" on how his life and teaching helps us walk as children of light (see Eph 4), drawing on the Moralia, the Dialogues, the Gospel Homilies and his own biography. Here are some highlights:
Get ready to study the real days of high adventure with me!
Folly is not valor. -Chrétien de Troyes, Erec et Enide
There is a tendency to see ancient, medieval, folkloric things fr France, Britain, Ireland, declare it "Celtic", and mix it all together, adding material culture from Iron Age Germany or Caesar's description of Gauls as interpretative lenses for it. I resist this.
If you want more mystical readings of medieval romance, sign up for my course "King Arthur and the Baptism of the European Imagination" today! davenanthall.com/course/king-...
In this way, the romances and lays of the High Middle Ages suddenly come into contact most assuredly with St. Bernard, the great Cistercian Father, but also stray into the conceptual world of Boethius and Dionysius the Areopagite. The fire of love burns hot for the divinity.
And so as we consider the eros between knight and lady, between one human lover and another, we find that the movement of all the universe, driven by the power of love, is masked beneath the lovers' gaze.
From here, we stumble into the world of Myrrha Lot-Borodine, the Russian medievalist exile in Paris, who saw in Lancelot's arc in The Quest of the Holy Grail a typology for the soul's ascent from earthly pleasure to the delight in God - under Cistercian influence.
If Francis and the Fraticelli can be jongleurs de Dieu, then I see no reason why Marie de France or Chretien de Troyes cannot be moved in the other direction, and draw religious elements into their lays and romances.
Given that the same people who celebrated adulterous courtly love were also expected by society to turn at Mass at least once a year and to be shriven by a priest, I think the world of secular and religious sentiment was porous. Early friars certainly took up popular verse!
Ages ago, it struck me that part of the appeal of the poetry of the troubadours was how it latched onto the language and imagery of penitential lamentation and tears and transferred it from a religious setting to that of one's beloved.
What matters is that Arthuriana is Christian in that the lit was written by professing Christians about characters who are Christians, and many Christian themes run through the romances -- not always consciously, which is part of the fun.
Register for my class: davenanthall.com/course/king-...
...that something was not religious. However, that's not the same as being "pagan" which is a word in most people's vocabulary that means something is in direct religious opposition to Christianity and Judaism, usually with a polytheistic religious vision.
The Grail gains its explicitly religious symbolism later in life, and becomes a narrative vehicle for Transubstantiation and the miracle of the mass, but this does not mean that its prior existence was somehow "pagan". Medieval Europeans would not accept that kind of thing, but they might admit...
... Arthur is a grand, Christian warleader who defeats paynims, I mean, pagans in battle.
Further to this, the Grail is not some secret, lurking pagan symbol hiding in Christian literature. It starts as a piece of fiction, a magical platter that produces feasts, in the late c12th...
...easily align with what we today would consider "religion." A folktale can be told by and originate among Christians and not be "Christian" in a religious way. Furthermore, from a basic historical perspective, these stories emerge as told by Christians, and at the earliest stratum of story...
Someone once claimed that Arthuriana was "pagan", not "Christian" originally, citing some of the (to us) weirdness in the Mabinogion, or how the Grail was not originally Christ's cup. I find this definition of "Christian" and "pagan" troubling. Folklore and legend do not...
My copy of the complete Dionysius the Areopagite has come. I'll have more to say on St Denys later, but for now know this: I bought it to help prepare lectures for the King Arthur course.
Don't forget to register for my upcoming course with Davenant Hall, King Arthur and the Baptism of the European Imagination!
I make no apologies for how bad I am at this.
I'm a priest!
"The priestly office ... is as far superior to a kingdom as apirit is to flesh" -Chrysostom, On the Priesthood 3.1
(I am being priested tomorrow, God willing.)
