Crumbs from the Table

The indigenous population of what we call France were the Gauls, a Celtic people with their own Celtic language, Gaulish (of which there are approx. 800 extant written texts). Gaulish would have sounded something like modern-day Welsh.  When Roman rule expanded to include Gaul in 50 BC, it brought with it the Latin language, which co-existed with Gaulish for several centuries until Vulgar Latin finally prevailed; Gaulish died out by the 500s.  Vulgar Latin was Latin as spoken by the people. The Latin spoken in France evolved over time and due to exposure to the influence of other languages.  Around the year 500, tribes who had previously settled lands to the north of Gaul, the Franks, took control of what had been Roman Gaul. Their ruler was Clovis (466-511), who converted to Christianity and was crowned King of the Franks by the Christian church. The language of the Franks was Frankish, a Germanic language.  Under Frankish rule, in areas with existing Gallo-Rom...

The French people trace their roots back to a tribe called the Franks who, as the Roman Empire waned, lived on its northern frontier around the area of what would now be called Belgium/western Germany. From the early 400s they made incursions from the north into the Roman Gaul; the local population, under Roman rule, were a Celtic people called the Gauls. Meanwhile, the Frankish language was a Germanic language (like modern-day English and German).  The Franks did not have a single leader. Clovis, one of the Frankish leaders at the end of the 400s, married a Christian wife called Clothilde whose background was from another Germanic people, the Burgundians (based in what would now be southern France). Facing defeat in battle against the Alamans (yet another Germanic tribe) in 496, Clovis called on the Christian God. Sometime between 498 and 508 he was then baptised, and recognised as King of the Franks. Thus began the Merovingian dynasty that lasted for over 200 years. Clovis and hi...

We have just returned from a holiday in France, where we were staying in the village of Avernes, about 40 minutes from Paris. Avernes is in the département of Val d'Oise in the region of Ile-de-France (the region around Paris). At first glance, Avernes is just a quiet village - ideal for a quiet family holiday. As we went exploring, however, we discovered some fascinating things. For one thing, carved into the stonework of the ancient church were the words, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité". It turned out that during the period of "Dechristianisation" in 1793-4, the church was taken over to be a "Temple of Reason". Even more fascinating was a non-descript little historical notice on a wall. It turned out that from 1563 to 1685, there was a Reformed church in the village. This was destroyed literally days after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685; this was when the rights of Protestant Christians were rescinded. I have not been able to find out m...

Saint George, the patron saint of England, was an historical figure, although many things ascribed to him are not historical.  George of Lydda was born into a noble family in an area called Cappadocia (now Turkey), which at the time was populated by Greek speaking citizens of the Roman Empire. George was born around 280. His mother appears to have come from Diospolis/Lydda (now known as Lod, near Tel Aviv), the place where he was later to die. When his father died, George and his mother moved back to the town of her birth.  George was a soldier in the Roman army at the time of Emperor Diocletian. When the protracted persecution of Christians unleashed by Diocletian began to be directed at Christians in the army, George was martryred by decapitation at Lydda in the year 303.  George's death was said to have inspired Empress Alexandra of Rome (d. 314) to become Christian.  The later stories of dragon-slaying are not historical and do not appear in early hagiographies (...

 When you look through old photos of Bury, the town where I live in Greater Manchester, a recurring scene is the "Whit Walks". The pictures show crowds of people, young and old, processing with banners. In Bury, a muster point for these walks was the old Union Square which was demolished to make way in the late 1960s for what later became the Millgate shopping centre.  The origin of the Whit Walks was the Sunday school movement, which was started in 1781 by Robert Raikes in Gloucester. The first Sunday school in Manchester dates to 1784. The Whit Walks commemorate the anniversary of this movement, which provided basic education on a Sunday for children who were forced to work the other six days of the week. Dr Elmer Towns who wrote an early Raikes biography says “the early Sunday School basically aimed at teaching reading and writing with the Bible as a text book”. Many if not all churches locally ran a Sunday school teaching dozens of children every week; even our little chu...

In 663 a church council was held at Whitby in the kingdom of Northumbria to determine which customs should prevail in the nascent church in what is now England: the Irish or the Roman? The spokesperson for the Roman side was a young priest called Wilfrid, who had been brought up in Irish monasticism, but then travelled to Rome and elsewhere to further his education.  When challenged on their traditions (eg the date of Easter, and also the form of monastic tonsure), the Irish side, represented by bishop Colman, objected: "Are we to believe that our most revered Father Columba and his successors, acted contrary to the Holy Scriptures when they followed these customs?" Listen to how Wilfrid responds both graciously but also firmly:  " Concerning your Father Columba and his followers, whose sanctity you say you imitate, and whose rule and precepts confirmed by signs from Heaven you say that you follow, I might answer, then when many, in the day of judgement, shall say to our...

At my first church, St Paul's Brussels, and the churches where I served for 15 years in Russia, Communion was celebrated with proper wine, as was the custom in the Old Testament, and is the custom in Judaism.  I cannot remember when I first participated in Communion and it was grape juice. It came as a bit of surprise. The taste is much more watery, and the experience likewise. As I will argue below, almost inevitably the change in the element (from wine to grape juice) changes what is communicated.  I do understand that many brothers and sisters in our churches have a history with problem drinking and risk a relapse if Communion were celebrated with alcoholic wine. Some American missionaries I encountered in Russia actually considered it an issue of conscience NOT to celebrate communion with wine.  My Protestant/evangelical instinct on these things is to go back to the Bible. What was used to celebrate the Passover and later Communion?  Clearly, the "fruit of the vi...