Tea at Trianon: Irish Easter

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, April 1, 2024

Irish Easter

St. Columba

From The Easton Gazette:

The old Irish celebrated Easter on a different date from the continental Church for two centuries or more during what is known as the Dark Ages. This has fascinated me ever since I did a book report on the Synod of Whitby (664) in college. It was at Whitby that the conflict between the different customs of Celtic and Roman Christians in the British isles came to a head. Most of the north of Britain had been converted by the zealous Irish monks, led by Saint Colum Cille.
The Irish monks wore a tonsure different from the Roman monks; the Irish had their foreheads shaved from ear to ear, with long hair trailing down their back, while the Roman custom was to shave the crown of the head. The Irish claimed that their tonsure came from Saint John the Evangelist whereas the Romans claimed to have inherited their tonsure from Saint Peter. The tonsure, however, did not cause nearly as much problems as the date of Easter. From the beginning of Christianity the Church celebrated Easter at the same time the Jews observed Passover, on 14 Nisan, at the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. Following the Council of Nicaea in 325, the Roman church placed the equinox on March 21, while the Celtic churches insisted upon March 25 as the date of the Equinox. And so some years Easter in the two rites coincided but other years it did not. From The Freelance History Writer:

The Celts understood that the tradition they followed was that taught by the apostle John and they calculated Easter day as falling between 14 Nisan and 20 Nisan – i.e. When the 14 Nisan (the Passover) fell on a Sunday, they celebrated it on that day. But if it fell on the day after (on Monday) then the Easter celebration would fall on the following Sunday (20 Nisan), etc. The Rome loyalists claimed the authority of the apostle Peter, and calculated Easter Day as falling between 15 Nisan and 21 Nisan.

So when the date of 15 Nisan through to the 20 Nisan fell on a Sunday, and the full moon had fallen after March 25th, both Celtic and Roman Christians would celebrate Easter on the same day. It was when the Celts celebrated on 14 Nisan itself on Sunday that one main difference came, as the Rome loyalists then celebrated Easter a week later on 21 Nisan instead. This explains the situation described by the Venerable Bede: “Thus it is said to have happened in those times that Easter was twice kept in one year; and that when the king having ended the time of fasting, kept his Easter, the queen and her followers were still fasting, and celebrating Palm Sunday”. In that particular year 14 Nisan had fallen on a Sunday.