It is the feast of St Fursey, a 7th century missionary who came to England from Ireland soon after the year 630, and set up a monastery at Yarmouth. He was famous for his trance-like visions of the afterlife, which were collected and widely read during the Middle Ages.
‘When he had been lifted up on high, he was ordered by the angels that conducted him to look back upon the world. Upon which, casting his eyes downward, he saw, as it were, a dark and obscure valley underneath him. He also saw four fires in the air, not far distant from each other. Then asking the angels, what fires those were? he was told, they were the fires which would kindle and consume the world.’ Venerable Bede, on the visions of St Fursey
Edward Gibbon died today in 1794. His mammoth work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, blamed Christianity for the fall of the empire, and attacked the church for its violence and intolerance. The book was banned in some European countries, and attacked for its disrespectful tone, but has had a profound influence (for example on the writings of Winston Churchill) since it was published.
Image: Roger Green