The Reality of Friends and the Faking of Relics

Long time between drinks. Between everyone else having flu (mummy the nurse) and then me getting a mutated super strain that didn't care I had had the flu injection, and then life going to hell in a handbasket, there hasn't been much time for drawing or painting, or reflection.

Things have been crap. They will continue to be crap for some time, I suspect. But I have some sense of perspective on it now, whereas this morning it was overwhelming. This morning I felt like running away, or disappearing into the murk. I don't think my children understand that sometimes grownups feel like running away. Maybe it is better that they don't, maybe it wouldn't hurt them to know.  Thanks to two lovely friends, and a facebook friend from across the seas, I don't feel quite so overwhelmed. They didn't do anything particular (well, not true, one came bearing hessian bags and dark chocolate, and just patiently listened). They just were themselves, wonderful and warm and full of wisdom. I am lucky to know intelligent, caring people who don't care that I am weird and are patient with my self-doubt and moaning.

Back in 1992 my spouse and I visited England, Scotland and France. Spouse had a conference in France (service at the conference centre made Fawlty Towers look good, but that's another story). He and the other academics were in sessions so one of the other extraneous spouses hired a car with the idea of driving around finding places of interest, which was a bit tricky because we had different ideas of "interest". A lot of the time I was happy to wander off on my own and explore while they went looking for "stores". But we all agreed Chartres would be worth seeing.

Chartres Cathedral is insane. Beautiful, but insane. It has a labyrinth on the floor which is supposed to be "walked" on your knees, for penance. There were lots of people walking it. No one on their knees. It is quite a size. All the statues had had their heads removed in a state of religious fervour sometime in the past, some nutters taking a stand against idolatry (can't remember who at the moment, couldn't be bothered looking it up) - you see the same thing at Notre Dame and other places. Chartres also has a number of relics, including some of Mary Magdalene's hair (if you line up all her hair held by various religious bodies there is something like 20 miles of the stuff), and Mary the Virgin's birthing robe, which they know is hers because it is spotless.

Off on a tangent, because it is too much fun. England had a famous relic hunter, Hugh of Lincoln (later sainted and his body treated as a relic). He promoted himself as the go-to guy for relics. Churches and cathedrals often made offers to buy relics from each other because relics equalled pilgrims equalled cash. Sometimes swaps were done - "your saint relic is more appropriate to us, we have one more appropriate to you" - but usually money changed hands. Mostly it was no deal. And then Hugh would be called in. Hugh could broker deals where others couldn't, and he was willing to resort to other means if turned down. He prided himself on coming through with the goods, and became very wealthy as a result. As far as I have found, he didn't resort to fakery to fill orders (although I think most relics were fakes - the head of John the Baptist as a child comes to mind. And relic fakery was a lucrative business. Funnily enough, it was at the height of this that the Shroud of Turin suddenly turned up).

Hugh was commissioned to get the arm of Mary Magdalene from a church in Normandy for an abbey in England. There was clearly no deal to be done, so he asked if he could see the arm, to properly venerate it before he sadly departed. The monks agreed (more fool them), He asked to kiss it. They were suitably impressed by his piety and acquiesced, at which he promptly grabbed it, took an almighty bite and legged it with a piece in his mouth. He made his escape and returned to England triumphant, where he received a handsome payout for a job well done. The Normandy monks complained in writing, thereby verifying Hugh's version of events (1).

Back to Chartres. It is an amazing place. You drive along and the land is flat. We were there just before harvest, so the fields were full of wheat and barley. Green and golden heads waving in the breeze, stretching out around us. The day was very overcast, storm clouds gathering, but occasionally a shaft of sunlight would break through. And then from nowhere rises a building, majestic in the light. It stands alone in the fields, like a beacon. It is only as you approach the town that you realise why. The town of Chartres is built in a bowl, the Cathedral on a hill in the middle of that bowl. So it is on the same level as the surrounding fields and the town is hidden from view. It is an amazing thing and exceptionally beautiful.

I had forgotten to take my camera with me, which was a curse and a blessing. I would have liked to have had photos (I had a wonderful camera back then, in the distant days of film), but because it wasn't there I ended up really looking, really seeing, and my memories of that day are amongst the strongest of that trip. Doing a couple of sketches no doubt helped. Has our ability to instantly record robbed us of our ability to observe and to truly remember?

Anyway, I was feeling this morning like drawing cemeteries or blasted ruins, or wrecked ships. Instead I ended up thinking about Chartres rising from nowhere and glowing in the dark, like my wonderful friends who provided me with much-needed warmth and light today. I am still down, but I no longer feel like I am drowning. The quick drawing below is done from memory and my original sketches. And I am annoyed about the image. Digital reproduction is often problematic.

Chartres Cathedral, Megan Hitchens 2014, charcoal, white and red chalk, blue pencil on grey paper.

Choosing a song was hard. I was leaning towards "End Of Days" or "Downtrodden", Instead I have chosen a piece by Levon Menassian, the Armenian duduk maestro. This is, I think, amongst the most wonderful music on earth. Meloncholy, eery and heartbreakingly beautiful.

(1) This story is often recounted and there was plenty written about Hugh by his contemporaries and later. He seems to have had something of the Indiana Jones about him. I first came across this particular story at University when I was researching the medieval church. Christine Quigley writes a brief account in "The Corpse: A History", which is available online.