The planets are aligning. In 2024, 19th May is both Whitsun and the commemoration of St Dunstan. This is 973 all over again. And it takes place in Bath, the ancient city in which I was educated.
I find it exciting and enthralling, but I have some explaining to do. So let’s back up.
What is Whitsun?
The short answer is: Pentecost.
Okay, and what is Pentecost?
Pentecost is a moveable feast, taking place 50 days after Passover. It has been celebrated since Moses wrote down the words of Leviticus 23. In fact, this “Festival of Weeks” was, in some ways, a celebration of the giving of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. This festival is also a time of thanksgiving for the harvest of barley and wheat.
For the Christian Church, the ancient festival of Pentecost took on a new meaning. Jesus celebrated the Passover the night he was betrayed. He is the lamb who was slain, his blood shed to set God’s people free. He was crucified and rose again. Forty days later, he ascended into heaven. (See last week’s entry).
But let us note what Jesus said before he went up on his way to the right hand of the Father:
“Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit… But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. (Acts 1:4-5, 8-9)
Note the talk of Baptism, water and the Spirit. Fifty days after Passover, at Pentecost, the Spirit came with wind and flame, connecting this moment with all kinds of other passages in Scripture. The point is this: Christ may be reigning in Heaven, but he now dwells in the hearts of his people by his Spirit. The curtain temple was torn in two. The LORD is no longer there. And in AD70, the edifice will be torn down completely. Pentecost marks the beginning of a new era in which we live: the Age of The Spirit.
Whence Whitsun?
Whitsun is another word for Pentecost. It is short for ‘White Sunday’, referring to the white clothes you wear after being baptised. Pentecost was a great day to be baptised since Jesus’s words above connected the pouring out of the Holy Spirit to baptism. This was particularly the case when the gospel spread across England during Saxon times.
According to Eleanor Parker in Winters in the World:
This link with baptism was already established early in the Anglo-Saxon church: Bede records that the baby girl he calls ‘the first of the Northumbrian race to be baptized’, Eanflaed, daughter of king Edwin of Northumbria and his wife Aethelburh, was baptized at Pentecost in 626. (p168)
By the late medieval period, everyone was baptised as a baby, normally with days, if not hours, of being born. Nonetheless, ‘White Sunday’ remained an extremely important day in the Christian calendar, and the life of the nation. William the Conqueror may have been crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day in 1066. His wife, Matilda (not that Matilda) was crowned queen on Whitsun 1068, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, using the word ‘Whitsun’ for the first time in England.
The Planets Align
There was precedent for a coronation on Whitsun, taking us to Bath in 973 where Edgar was crowned King of England (despite having been king since 959). Parker says that Bath was chosen for its Roman ruins, conferring “some Roman imperial glamour on Edgar and his ‘island dwellers’, the English.” (p169) Bath was also known as ‘Akemancester’. The ‘Ake’ comes from the ‘Aquae Sulis’, the waters of the goddess Sul. And the ‘cester’ denotes that it was a Roman camp.
And who crowned and anointed Edgar King of England? St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury. We remember him on 19th May, which is the date of Pentecost this year.
Dunstan was canonised in 1029, quite soon after he died in 988. Not bad for a boy from Baltonsborough in Somerset who was accused of witchcraft and thrown into a cesspool. But that’s one for another time.
In the meantime, we can enjoy remembering Whitsun 973 when St Dunstan crowned Edgar King of England. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records it thus:
Here was Edgar, of Angles lord,
with courtly pomp hallow'd to king
at Akemancester, the ancient city;
whose modern sons, dwelling therein,
have named her Bath.
Much bliss was there by all enjoyed
on that happy day,
named Pentecost by men below.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle goes on to refer to the timing of the coronation being almost exactly 1000 years after the birth of Christ, minus the years of Edgar’s age.
So let us wind forward a thousand years.
A Thousand Years is But a Day to a Tory Government
Whitsun remained an extremely important festival for centuries afterwards. It was a time of feasting, selling ale for church funds and ‘Whit walks’.
But in 1971, almost exactly 1000 years after Edgar’s coronation, a Conservative government saw through The Banking and Financial Dealings Act. This fixed the moveable ‘Whitsun’ bank holiday to the last weekend of May. This permanently decoupled it from Pentecost and Passover, festivals that dated back to the time of Moses. Whitsun is now the ‘Spring Bank Holiday’. An ancient Christian festival been replaced by references to finance and money lending. How modern.
Fifty years on from 1971, we have a society that is increasingly aware that it lacks any kind of meaningful spirituality. We are hungry for the old ways and rhythms.
It has become traditional to wear red on Whitsun, to recall the flames of Pentecost. We may also add some white, to remind us that we can be washed, renewed and reborn – not just individually but as a nation.
And here’s a recommendation to the Conservatives that literally no-one is asking for but surely won’t make any difference to their electoral performance: bring back Whitsun.
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