[The following is a transcript of a letter found in the papers of L

Albion Revisited

A series of articles on Ancient British Christianity

No.12. Was the Blessed Virgin Mary buried at Glastonbury?

A reply to Peter Fitz-John,

The Rev. Lionel Smithett Lewis, M.A.

Vicar of Glastonbury.

[The following is a transcript of a hand-written letter found in the papers of L.S.Lewis, and addressed to the Editor of an undisclosed magazine, at “Ave. H.B. Avondale Road, South Croydon, Surrey.”]

Peter Fitz-John (a nom-de-plume?) shocked at my suggestion of the possibility of the Blessed Virgin’s burial here, attacks the whole Glastonbury Tradition. He forgets that Glastonbury was called “the Mother of Saints”, “the second Rome”, and “the holiest erthe in England,” that Archbishhop Ussher in his “Antiquities of British Churches” devotes the whole of his 2^nd chapter to her. He forgets also that not only was precedence given to British Bishops at the 4 mediaeval Church Councils of Pisa, Constance, Basle, and Sienna because Christ’s religion was brought here “immediately after the Passion of Christ,” but that on the same ground English Ambassadors claimed precedence from Henry IV till Charles I and Oliver Cromwell.

In a brief reply I can only deal with a few statements. Walking in the footsteps of others he boldly denies that the story of St Joseph at Glastonbury was ever heard of before the 13^th century. This is pure nonsense. He claims the interpolation of the whole of the first chapter of Malmsebury’s “Antiquity of Glastonbury”. What evidence can he give? We know that Wm of Malmsebury after writing his 2 first books on the “Acts of the Kings”, and the “Acts of the Bishops” in 1125, was invited to dwell in Glastonbury Abbey and write its history in 1129. In the first edition of the Acts of the Kings he ascribes the foundation of Glastonbury Church to the Eleutherian Mission in the time of Good King Lucius about 163. He had lived at Glastonbury, heard its traditions, and used its wonderful library. The whole of the 1^st chapter of his history of Glastonbury is devoted to the Arimathean Mission. When in 1135 he wrote a second edition of his Acts of the Kings, he incorporated whole passages from his Glastonbury History, all the things some people blandly call later interpolations. They should produce proofs. Ours is the natural explanation of the later correction.

But if Malmsebury had never written about Glastonbury at all, there is evidence long before the 12^th century that St Joseph came to Glastonbury and died there. In spite of the destructions of the Saxon and Danish invasions, and civil wars, there are records that our tradition is true. Melchinus, (Maelgwyn of Llandaff) uncle of Saint David, writing about A.D. 540 tells that St Joseph lies with his two cruets containing the blood and sweat of our Lord “next to the southern corner of the House of Prayer over the adorable Virgin,” the very passage which awakens the query as to whether she is buried there. The celebrated antiquary John Leland records that he saw the book of Melchinus in Glastonbury’s great library, evidently their great treasure, in 1534, 5 years before the Dissolution. Freculphus Bishop of Lisieux in France, A.D. 825 – 851, says (Book 2 Chapter 4) that St Philip preached the gospel in France; Wm of Malmsebury in his History of Glastonbury (chapter 1, the so-called interpolated chapter) writes, “to spread Christ’s work he (St Philip) chose twelve men among his disciples and sent them into Britain . . . after he had most devoutly spread his right hand over each. Their leader it is said, was Philip’s dearest friend, Joseph of Arimathea, who buried the Lord.” It may interest Peter Fitz-John to know that the Catalogue of Glastonbury’s Library A.D. 1284 shows that this book of Freculphus was in it and that practically certainly Wm of Malmsebury saw it in 1129. This testimony of a French Bishop is all the more valuable as the whole of the Rhone Valley is full of the bishoprics and shrines of the companions of St Joseph who landed with him at Marseilles. Isidore the learned Archbishop of Seville A.D. 600 – 636, tells the same tale about St Philip. And he is corroborated earlier by Epiphanius Bp of Salamis, (A.D. 315 – 407), and Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mayence in France (A.D. 776 – 856) tells the journey of St Joseph and his companions to Marseilles, giving elaborate accounts of the shrines of the bishoprics founded by the latter, and that St Joseph passed on. He can be traced from Caesarea to Marseilles and then to Morlaix, a port in Brittany. I may add that Cardinal Baronius, greatest of all Vatican Librarians, strongly upholds the Arimathean Tradition, basing it on two books then in the Vatican Library, one a MS history of Britain, the other a Life of St Mary Magdalene.

Peter Fitz-John joins his faith to Dr Armitage Robinson’s unfortunate book on Glastonbury. The Press upheld my answer to it. Dr Robinson was a great and learned scholar, who did much research. On that ground many people at once accepted his book as a piece of research. It was nothing of the sort. People do not know Archbishop Ussher’s chapter on Glastonbury. It is in Latin. All Dr Robinson’s statements and quotations are Ussher’s. His deductions are his own. Ussher only collects evidence.

Before I close I must answer 2 points. Peter Fitz-John assumes that to be a Catholic you must believe in the Assumption. Does he not know that Epiphanius (A.D. 315 – 407) denounced the story as “foolish and strange and a device and deceit of the Devil” (Haer. 89) The saintly Pope Gelasius condemned the book “De transite Virginis Mariae” as heretical (A.D. 494) Mr Fitz-John also attributes belief in the Glastonbury story to anti-papal prejudice. Is not this a trifle prejudiced? Were Polydore Vergil, Capgrave the great Augustinian, Robert Parsons the Jesuit, Cardinal Baronius and indeed all the great Prelates at the aforesaid Church Councils anti-papal? He should think again, and what about Richard Pynson who in 1516 told of the healings at St Joseph’s shrine, and wrote, “Now hear how Joseph came into England. But at that time it was called Brytayne. Then 15 year with our Lady, as I understand, Joseph still to serve her he was fayne and so after her assumpsyon, the book telleth plain, with St Philip he went into France, Philip bad them go to Britayne fortunate,” words which corroborate the fuller order of events given by Ussher, and the Magna Tabula Glastonia.