Swithun

Did You Know?

• Swithun is recorded as a witness to nine charters, the earliest dated 854.
• His death is entered in the Canterbury manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 861.
• More than a hundred years after his death, Dunstan and Æthelwold adopted Swithun as patron of the restored church at Winchester.

In legend

The revival of Swithun's fame produced a mass of legendary literature. Later details of his life come from a late eleventh-century hagiography ascribed to Goscelin of St Bertin's, though Michael Lapidge describes that work as pure fiction and notes the attribution to Goscelin is false. According to that hagiography, Swithun was born in the reign of Egbert of Wessex and ordained priest by Helmstan, bishop of Winchester. His fame reached the king, who made him tutor of his son Æthelwulf. Under Æthelwulf, Swithun became bishop of Winchester, consecrated by Archbishop Ceolnoth. He was known for piety and zeal in building churches, and at his request Æthelwulf gave a tenth of royal lands to the Church. Swithun made diocesan journeys on foot and invited the poor to his banquets. William of Malmesbury added that Swithun was the minister for spiritual matters. His best-known miracle was restoring a basket of eggs broken by workmen on a bridge. Two famous stories are those of the Winchester egg-woman and Queen Emma's ordeal. He died on 2 July 862, and on his deathbed asked to be buried outside the north wall of his cathedral, where passers-by would walk over his grave and raindrops from the eaves would fall upon it.

Veneration

Swithun's feast day in England is 15 July, in Norway and formerly in medieval Wales on 2 July, and he is listed on 2 July in the Roman Martyrology. His body was moved from its grave to an indoor shrine in the Old Minster at Winchester in 971. His body was later probably split among smaller shrines; his head was taken to Canterbury Cathedral, and Peterborough Abbey had an arm. His main shrine was transferred into the new Norman cathedral at Winchester in 1093, placed on a feretory platform above and behind the high altar. The retrochoir was built in the early 13th century to accommodate pilgrims visiting his shrine and the holy hole beneath him. The shrine was moved into the retrochoir in 1476 and demolished in 1538 during the English Reformation; a modern representation now stands on the site. The shrine was supposedly a site of numerous miracles. Æthelwold of Winchester ordered monks to stop whatever they were doing and go to the church to praise God each time a miracle happened. The monks eventually grew tired of this and stopped going; Swithun then appeared in a dream to someone, warning that if they stopped, miracles would cease. The monks then resumed the practice.

Legacy

Over forty churches are dedicated to St Swithun, found throughout southern England, especially in Hampshire. An example is St Swithun's, Headbourne Worthy, north of Winchester, surrounded on three sides by a brook. Other dedications include churches at Walcot, Lincoln, Worcester, Cheswardine, Shropshire, and Stavanger Cathedral in western Norway. He is commemorated at St Swithin's Lane in the City of London, St Swithun's School for girls in Winchester, and St Swithun's quadrangle in Magdalen College, Oxford. In Stavanger, several schools and institutions are named St. Svithun.

Proverb

The name of Swithun is best known for a British weather lore proverb: if it rains on St Swithun's day, 15 July, it will rain for forty days. A Buckinghamshire variation exists. Swithun was initially buried outdoors at his own request; William of Malmesbury recorded that the bishop left instructions that his body be buried outside the church, subject to the feet of passers-by and raindrops from on high, indicating the legend was known in the 12th century. In 971 his body was moved to an indoor shrine; one theory traces the legend to a heavy shower on the day of the move, marking the saint's displeasure, but this story cannot be traced further back than the 17th or 18th century and contradicts 10th-century writers who said the move was according to the saint's desire. James Raine suggested the legend derived from a downpour on St Swithun's Day 1315. John Earle suggested a pagan or prehistoric day of augury. In France, St Medard, Urban of Langres, and St Gervase and St Protais have similar weather influence; in Flanders, St Godelieve; in Germany, the Seven Sleepers' Day; in Russia, Sampson the Hospitable. There is a scientific basis: around mid-July the jet stream settles into a pattern that holds fairly steady until late August. The Guinness Book of Records notes that in 1924, 13.5 hours of sunshine in London were followed by 30 of the next 40 days being wet, and in 1913 a 15-hour rainstorm was followed by 30 dry days out of 40.