Foreskin of Christ

[zotz]

The Wikipedia's featured article of the day describes the foreskin(s) of Christ, revered as relics in churches until surprisingly recently. gingiber and everild should probably note the St Catherine reference under the "Holy Prepuce" link, although everild almost certainly knows about that connection already.

Last night I went out to see three bands in Teviot. gingber and anonymous_seth got in touch and suggested it as they'd heard something by one of them. Being in a Stunted Union, they had to be signed in by a life member when we got there, and strangely they then didn't charge us, although we'd been told that they would. Oh well.

The place was full of freshers, all born around the time we'd started Uni and looking remarkably Eighties. They'd have fitten in in my freshers' week, actually. The bands were . . . good overall. It was an Island records package, so Lara found some promo CDs, one of which I'm listening to now. The first, Dogs, sounded oddly familiar for a while, and then I realised that they sounded quite like The Replacements, which is no bad thing in my book. Worth seeing, especially for nowt. The second was Cherryfalls, who were competent but not remarkable. They probably appeal to fans of Keane and Coldplay, and will go far. The third, which L&S were familiar with, was Chikinki.

Now, they were slightly odd. the singer reminded me a bit of the singer from some other more famous band, but I can't remember who. He was a bit gawky, and had an odd retro feel. I think in another context he'd have quite annoyed me, but he fitted in well as he was. The band had an odd range of kit - one guitarist (Fender Jag, except for a song at the end where he dug out something very odd that looked like a crossbreed between an SG and a Firebird. In metallic purple. Nevla needs one, clearly), two keyboard players with a pile of eighties analogue synths and a drummer with half an acoustic and half a pad kit. It all worked very well, actually. They sounded big and bold, and not quite like anything I've heard. All the old synths gave them quite a retro sound, but I'm fairly sure nobody I've ever heard was doing anything like that at the time. Interesting.

Comments

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

Sounds good. I got the SLF tickets, btw.

[zotz]

Excellent.

[reddragdiva]

My contribution was the caption on the picture of Saturn ;-) Getting that one up to Main Page status was one of those special tasks one must pursue.

[zotz]

Absolutely. Life isn't complete without snippets like that. So to speak.

[steer.livejournal.com]

If all the fragments of the true cross were gathered together it's well known that you could build a bridge of some unspecified dimensions.

What would you build from all the true foreskins of Christ?

I would go with a trampolene -- or the largest rubber band ball in the world.

[reddragdiva]

"A wallet?!"
"But if you rub it a bit, it turns into a briefcase!"

[steer.livejournal.com]

Actually, I bet you could make a great "shaped to purpose" condom holder.

[zotz]

If all the fragments of the true cross were gathered together it's well known that you could build a bridge of some unspecified dimensions.

I think the original quote was "a battleship", but IIRC it's poetic rather than accurate. There are quite a lot of alleged fragments, but they're all very small. I don't think they even add up to the estimated volume of a cross, in fact. Obviously analysis would probably show that they were all European rather than Middle-eastern species, but what sort of killjoy would care about that?

[steer.livejournal.com]

Obviously analysis would probably show that they were all European rather than Middle-eastern species

Tush -- you have no appreciation of the truly miraculous.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

The cnyic and the romantic on me would love it to be both miraculous and true. Most things are empirically not, however.

[countess-sophia.livejournal.com]

Holy foreskins were pretty popular: in the middle ages 15 churches and abbeys claimed to have Christ's foreskin, including Reading Abbey. By 1907, when German Dominican A. V. Muller studied the matter, there were only 13 left: the Lateran, Charroux, Antwerp, Paris, Bruges, Boulogne, Besancon, Nancy, Metz, Le Puy, Conques, Hildesheim and Calcata. The Calcata example went missing in 1983 - burglars pinched it - so we are now down to 12.

The Reading foreskin was considered one of the most valuable possessions of the abbey, and was the object of many pilgrimages. Henry VIII confiscated the foreskin along with the other treasures of the abbey in 1539, after which it vanishes from history. Presumably it's in a drawer up at the palace.

Soph

[zotz]

With all this erudite historical discussion going on, I'm amazed that people an seriously claim that LJ is a waste of work time.

Thank you. That Jesus was certainly a well-endowed fellow.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Didn't he feed it to one of the hounds?

[countess-sophia.livejournal.com]

He might have done - I can certainly imagine him doing that - but as far as I know it's not recorded after it appears in the treasure lists of the dissolution commissioners (which also include my absolute favourite relic, Our Lady's Hairbrush). The dogs would undoubtedly have preferred some of the cartloads of holy bones that Henry ended up with.

Soph

[gingiber.livejournal.com]

Yes they were fun weren't they.

I facny popping along to se them again in octber, even if we do have to pay this time ;)

Cheers again for signing us in. Maybe sometime soon I will finally get my life membership, only 11 years since I graduated after all - yikes.

[everild.livejournal.com]

I've been out all day so rather a belated response - yes I did know about the St Catherine mystical marriage stuff, but I enjoyed reading the whole piece anyway as it's a very interesting case study in changing attitudes towards relic veneration. I feel the need to point out (somewhat defensively) that there were medieval people who were just as sceptical about the volume of true cross fragments etc as we are :-)