Essays of a Catholic by Hilaire Belloc

Author:Hilaire Belloc [Belloc, Hilaire]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 2015-05-10T04:00:00+00:00

“You bore the weight of all the wears of the world

When that you bore my weakness, Christopher.”

Now in contrast with this main use of Legend as an example and illuminant (of which the Legend of St. Christopher is an excellent example) let us consider another use it has—the retention, incorporated with lovely story, of fact that would otherwise be lost—the use of Legend as a witness to history.

In this sort I know of none more misunderstood or more valuable than the Legend of Glastonbury; and as it may be almost wholly unhistorical and is still generally thought to be so, it is of special value as an illustration.

I pass by Glastonbury once a year at least; and often more than once in the same year. Every time I see that famous hill I marvel at the way in which England is now cut off from her living past.

Glastonbury ought to be one of the half dozen most famous places in Europe. It was one of the half dozen most famous places for certainly a thousand years and probably for thirteen or fourteen hundred years. It is now a place in which certain tourists, not many of them, come and gape at ruins; but it means nothing more to England at large. A handful of the educated classes know what it means, but England as a whole no longer remembers.

What should we say if Italy dealt thus with the steep hill of Cassino, or France with the rock of St. Michael, or the Spaniards with Santiago? What should we say if Rheims meant no more to the French than Glastonbury does to the English?

Yet Glastonbury meant much more than any of these. It meant much more even than Santiago. It was the premier shrine of all the west. It counted as an apostolic thing founded within a few years of the Crucifixion.

Of course the story is legendary, but most Legends have history behind them and, take it by and large, there is more history in Legend by far than fantasy. Especially is this true of legends of very high antiquity.

The legend is this. St. Joseph of Arimathea, that rich man who was wise enough to pay for the entombment of Our Lord, came here with companions bringing with him relics of the Last Supper, especially the chalice; and he here founded a shrine which has since endured.

I am sure I appear absurd when I say that I believe this legend to contain historical truth. There grew up accretions which are probably no more than beautiful stories and not historically true. Some of these marvelous or unlikely things may well be true; for it is always a safe rule in history to lean strongly on the side of tradition, but at any rate one may or must admit that in most legend there is this element of fantasy.

But I see nothing impossible or even improbable in these stories of wanderings during the Apostolic age. People who sneer at the stories and think they are showing an “historical mind” are doing the very reverse.

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