St. Swithun: His True History
So little is really known of this good Saint, that it is tedious to wade through a mass of more or less probable conjecture.
The facts of St. Swithun’s life seem to be that he was born near Winchester about the year 800—that he became a monk, and afterwards prior of the old abbey of that city, and was chosen by King Ecgberht the Bretwalda to be tutor of his son Æthelwulf, heir to the throne of Wessex. From 852 to 863, when he died, Swithun was Bishop of Winchester. He distinguished himself as an architect by building a bridge of stone and a tower to his cathedral, and as a Minister of State both to Æthelwulf and his successor, Æthelbald. In 971, more than a century after his death, he was exhumed, and “translated” and beatified by his successor, the famous Bishop Æthelwold, in the time of Archbishop St. Dunstan. Ridiculing, with Godwin De Præsulibus, the idea taken up by Lord Campbell, that Swithun was Æthelwulf’s “Chancellor,” in the modern sense of the word, Mr. Earle (formerly Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford) claims for him the credit of having had a great share in the administration of that King’s policy, and especially in the education of his youngest son, the Great Alfred. Indeed, he surmises that Swithun was Alfred’s companion in his journey to Rome in 853, though the Saxon Chronicle says nothing about it. And he also argues that Æthelwulf’s much-debated dedication of the tenth of his land as tithes to religious purposes, in the year 855 (when the Northmen first wintered in England), was due to Swithun’s advice. “This was,” he says, “the culminating point of Swithun’s policy.” Equally baseless is the hypothesis that Swithun was the “intermediary,” the “prudent counsellor and successful diplomat” who averted civil war when Æthelwulf returned from his pilgrimage to Rome, bringing with him as wife the Frankish Princess Judith. It is more certain, we think, that Swithun’s name continued to be held in affectionate reverence among the people; and this probably led to his beatification by popular consent. The formal process of canonization had not yet been introduced.
—Saturday Review.
Mr. Earle discusses the legend which connects St. Swithun with forty days of rain, and decides that it is wholly without foundation. Mr. Howard, the meteorologist, many years since, by his observations, gave a sort of currency to this notion; but it has since received its quietus in the following facts, from the Greenwich observations for 20 years:—It appears that St. Swithun’s day was wet in 1841, and there were 23 rainy days up to the 24th of August; 1845, 26 rainy days; 1851, 13 rainy days; 1853, 18 rainy days; 1854, 16 rainy days; and in 1856, 14 rainy days. In 1842 and following years St. Swithun’s day was dry, and the result was, in 1842, 12 rainy days; in 1843, 22 rainy days; 1844, 20 rainy days; 1846, 21 rainy days; 1847, 17 rainy days; 1848, 31 rainy days; 1849, 20 rainy days; 1850, 17 rainy days; 1852, 19 rainy days; 1855, 18 rainy days; 1857, 14 rainy days; 1858, 14 rainy days; 1859, 13 rainy days; and in 1860, 29 rainy days. These figures show the superstition to be founded on a fallacy, as the average of 20 years proves rain to have fallen upon the largest number of days when St. Swithun’s day was dry.
No event, or natural phenomenon which could be construed into such, is alluded to by any of the various authors who wrote histories of St. Swithun. On the contrary, the weather seems to have been most propitious during his translation. How then did the popular notion about St. Swithun’s Day arise? Most probably, as Mr. Earle remarks, it was derived from primeval pagan belief regarding the meteorologically prophetic character of some day about the same period of the year as St. Swithun’s. Such adaptations, it is well known, were frequent on the supplanting throughout Europe of heathenism by Christianity. In confirmation of this view it is to be observed, that in various countries of the European continent, the same belief prevails, though differences exist as to the period of the particular day in question. Thus, in France, St. Médard’s Day, (June 8,) and the Day of St. Gervais and Protais, (June 19,) have a similar character ascribed to them. In Belgium they have a rainy saint, named St. Godeliève; whilst in Germany, among others, a character of this description is ascribed to the day of the Seven Sleepers.