We don't know his exact birth date, but the feast of St Wulfstan (aka Wulstan) is celebrated on the 19th January, the anniversary of his death in 1095. Born 1008 - 1,000 years ago this year. Some anecdotes here.
"Happy," he said, "is the man who grows sick of the attractions of the world: pleasure of them passes in a moment of time: the tooth of conscience gnaws as long as a man lives."
Of course that presupposes the existence of a conscience - as we see from the preceding posts, that is not always to be relied upon.
The source of the above is William of Malmesbury's biography - available now in reprint from the Llanerch Press - purveyors of ancient texts. I see they're reprinting the adventures of Twm Shon Catti - a likely lad of ancient days whose legends George Borrow noted in "Wild Wales".
Wulfstan was also an early anti-slavery campaigner at a time (post-Conquest) where poor, starving or disposessed Saxons were being shipped from Bristol to the Viking cities of Ireland as slaves.
No comments:
Post a Comment