Some young knights on a quest. From The Saxon Cross:
ShareGlastonbury is a weird town. For two thousand years it has been the spiritual center of England. For a long time this was because Glastonbury Abbey was the largest and most powerful monastery on the island. But while the monastery has long lain in ruin, the town is still very much a spiritual center. The town is chockfull of New Age shops, druids, neo-pagans, witches and occultists. Something very real draws this sort of person to the town, and I think some of them are genuine seekers. Of course, they’re looking in all the wrong places, but the power they feel is real. Glastonbury is a Christian holy place and that power still pervades the ground.
First we walked the ruins of the great abbey. This island is littered with the ruin of the work of the Protestant Reformation and King Henry VIII. During King Henry’s dissolution of the monasteries the abbey fell into disrepair, and its last abbot was draw, quartered, and hanged on Glastonbury Tor in 1539. Glastonbury then ceased to be the center of Christianity in the isle, and the blood soaked into the ground has been crying out ever since. The ruins of the monastery are hauntingly beautiful. It is also the purported site of Arthur and Guinevere’s graves, although this is one legend that I think may have been fabricated in the Middle Ages. On the abbey grounds still live the last of the Holy Thorns, the sacred trees that bloom on Christmas Day, that are said to have been brought to the isle of Avalon by St. Joseph of Arimathea.
On our way up to the Tor we stopped to drink from the Chalice Well, also known as the Red Spring. There are two versions of the legend of this holy well. One claims that St. Joseph buried the Holy Grail inside the Tor, and from it sprang the well. The other claims that he buried two vials, one filled with Christ’s blood and the other with His tears, and from these sprang the Red and White Springs respectively, the White Spring being another holy well just across the street from the Chalice Well garden. Whatever the truth is, the water is full of iron and indeed tastes like blood. Inside the chalice well garden at the foot of the Tor we were met by another one of our companions, Jake, which seemed like a fitting and symbolic place to meet on a spiritual quest. Together we prayed and drank from the well, and then ascended the Tor together. As we began our ascent a rainbow broke out across the sky, crowning St. Michael’s Tower. (Read more.)
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Teresa Sampsonia Shirley an influential Iranian-Circassian noblewoman and cultural diplomat who traveled extensively across Europe with her husband, the English adventurer Sir Robert Shirley, acting as an ambassadress for the Safavid Shah Abbas the Great. Known for her "undaunted" spirit, even saving her husband's life on at least two occasions from assassination attempts by his Persian enemies and hostile Portuguese traders, Teresa became known as a amazon. During her youth she was converted by the Discalced Carmelite missionaries in Persia, adopting the name Teresa after the great reformer saint, whose relic she was later gifted by the saint's niece herself during her time in Spain. Indeed, once a widow, courtiers and grandees who were jealous of the Shirleys' high standing with the Shah spread rumors that Teresa had been born a Muslim and later converted to Christianity. Converting from Islam was a capital offense. She was eventually captured and interrogated. During this dangerous questioning, she was reportedly threatened with being "burnt alive" or "thrown from a tower" if she did not renounce her Christian faith. Such events lead to she fleeting to Istanbul and later to Rome where she settled in a house next to the Carmelite Santa Maria della Scala church. She lived a pious life there for over three decades, devoting her time to charity and religion under the protection and guidance of the Carmelite Fathers. Today, in the church of Santa Maria della Scala, her and her husband’s tomb can still be seen—the translation of Robert’s body from Persia to Rome serving as a final, poignant love token. Throughout her life, she navigated a staggering array of cultural worlds, meeting the father of the emperor who commissioned the Taj Mahal, as well as Anthony van Dyck, whose iconic portrait of her remains a symbol of East-West relations in the early modern age. A possible grounding introduction to her life may be found in :
- Chapter Title: Teresia Sampsonia Shirley (c.1589–1668).
Chapter Author(s): Emily Stevenson
Book Title: Lives in Transit in Early Modern England
Book Subtitle: Identity and Belonging
Book Editor(s): Nandini Das
Published by: Amsterdam University Press. (2022)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2fzkpnj.31
- Other Renaissances, Multiple Easts, and Eurasian Borderlands: Teresa
Sampsonia Sherley’s Journey from Persia to Poland, 1608–1611 115
Bernadette Andrea ( Pg.115 of "A companion to the global renaissance; literature and culture in the era of expansion, 1500-1700; second edition; edited by Jyotsna G.Sinh)
- Elizabethans errant; the strange fortunes of Sir Thomas Sherley and his three sons, as well in the Dutch Wars as in Muscovy, Morocco, Persia, Spain, and the Indies by Davies, David William ( available for free in the Internet archive)
Very interesting, thanks!
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