This forum was closed on October 1st, 2010. However, the archives are open to the public and filled with vast amounts of good reading and information for you to enjoy. If you wish to meet some Wardrobians, please visit the Into the Wardrobe Facebook group.

Feast of St. Mary Magdalene

The man. The myth.

Feast of St. Mary Magdalene

Postby Guest » July 22nd, 2004, 2:46 pm

On 22nd July every year the Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of Mary Magdalene, the woman from whom seven evil spirits were driven out and to whom Our Lord appeared first after His resurrection.

As I'm sure everyone is aware (but just in case you aren't), she is also the patronness of the two Oxbridge colleges for whom C. S. L. worked for. To mark her feast, I thought I would pin up a little information about her colleges (from their own websites) and some thoughts of Lewis when he went from Oxford Mags to Cambridge:

Magdalen, Oxford.
Magdalen College was founded originally as Magdalen Hall half-way up the High Street in Oxford in 1448. The founder, William of Waynflete, was Bishop of Winchester and had already had a hand in the foundation of schools (he had also been Provost of Eton) in which new educational ideas of the Renaissance era as well as new methods of teaching were tried out. For example, he introduced the teaching of Latin in the English language, and later pioneered the teaching of Greek. Waynflete was greatly influenced by Renaissance ideas about education and as his ambitions grew he managed to acquire a large tract of land beyond the walls of Oxford on which to build an entirely new College, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen. He obtained permission from Henry VI to take over the buildings and lands of an ancient and decaying Hospital, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, where he established Magdalen College and its associated Hall and School. Centuries later, the Hall become incorporated into Hertford College and Magdalen College School flourishes to this day, two hundred yards from its original site. Both the School and the College adopted and retain the arms of Waynflete as their own.
Magdalen was among the first colleges in Oxford to teach science. It established in the 17th century its connection with the Physic Garden on the south side of Magdalen Bridge, which is today the Oxford Botanic Garden. In the 1990s Magdalen continued this pioneering tradition in science by establishing the Oxford Science Park which it manages in collaboration with the Prudential...


Magdalene, Cambridge
There has been a continuous tradition of academic study on the site of Magdalene College for more than 550 years. In 1428 Abbot Lytlington of Crowland Abbey near Peterborough was licensed by Letters Patent of King Henry VI to acquire the site, so that a hostel could be established in Cambridge for Benedictine student-monks. Aiming to put themselves at a distance from the temptations of town, the Benedictines were attracted by having their "Monks' Hostel" north of the river. They chose a location which had been inhabited in prehistoric times (an Iron Age settlement of circular houses had been located close by, on the only hill in the area) and by the Romans (under the fellows' garden, a paved road, rubbish pits and coins have been found).

The Benedictine monks began fine new buildings early in the 1470s. John de Wisbech, Abbot of Crowland, planned First Court and completed the Chapel . The Benedictines were responsible only for the communal buildings of their monastic colleges, and so individual abbeys were invited to provide their own student chambers here. Four local Benedictine abbeys - Crowland, Ely, Ramsey and Walden - each built a staircase (of two storeys), three of them in the south range. As a result of patronage by the family of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, the name of the institution was changed from Monks' Hostel to Buckingham College (the change is known to have occurred between 1472 and 1483). It was not long before students who were not monks were admitted. Such lay students would have paid rent to the host abbey whose rooms they occupied. The College suffered an early misfortune when the Duke of Buckingham was executed for treason in 1483.
Thomas Cranmer, later Archbishop of Canterbury was appointed a lecturer at Magdalene in 1515...


Lewis, Letter to Sr. Penelope, CSMV 30th July 54

... I have been made Professor of "Medieval & Renaissance English" at Cambridge: the scope of the chair (a new one) suts me exactly. But it won't be as big a chance as you might think. I shall still live at Oxford in the Vac. and on many week ends in term. My address will be Magdalene, so I remain under the same Patroness. This is nice because it saves "Admin" re-adjustments in Heaven: also I can't help feeling that the dear lady now understands my constitution better than a stranger would...

S. Maria Magdalena- ora pro nobis

Malcolm
Guest
 

Re: Feast of St. Mary Magdalene

Postby a_hnau » August 9th, 2004, 7:45 pm

Thanks for this - this last is one of my favourite Lewis remarks - I think it is very revealing of his character and the, how do I put it, comfortableness he had with his faith - he could say such tongue-in-cheek things without even having the slightest thought in his head that this was "flippancy" (hence he was immune to one of Screwtape's favourites, "eventually getting your patient to speak about everything as though the joke has already been made" - I'm reminded of a line from the Simpsons, the episode where Homer joins a freak show - a grunged-up member of the audience says something like "Wow, that's really great" - his friend says "Are you being, like, ironic, dude?" Reply: "I don't really know anymore" - Screwtape must have been chuckling maliciously to himself...)
Urendi Maleldil
User avatar
a_hnau
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 204
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England


Return to C. S. Lewis

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered members and 18 guests

cron