Llantwit Major: A Fifth Century University

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E. Stock, 1893 - Education, Ancient - 125 pages
 

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Page 75 - Druids, for so they call their wi2ards, esteem nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree on which it grows, provided only that the tree is an oak.
Page 75 - After due preparations have been made for a sacrifice and a feast under the tree, they hail it as the universal healer and bring to the spot two white bulls, whose horns have never been bound before. A priest clad in a white robe climbs the tree and with a golden sickle cuts the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloth. Then they sacrifice the victims, praying that God may make his own gift to prosper with those upon whom he has bestowed it. They believe that a potion prepared from mistletoe will...
Page 117 - Three lengths of a barleycorn is an inch; three inches in the palm breadth, three palm breadths in the foot ; four feet in the short yoke, and eight in the field yoke, and twelve in the lateral yoke, and sixteen in the long yoke, and a rod, equal in length to that long yoke, in the hand of the driver, with the middle spike of that long yoke in the other hand of the driver, and as far as he can reach with that rod, stretching out his arm, are the two skirts of the erw, that is to say, the breadth...
Page 63 - They were so called because they went as guests to the houses of the noble, the plebeian, the native and the stranger, without accepting either fee or reward, or victuals or drink ; but what they did was to teach the faith in Christ to every one without pay or thanks. Besides which, they gave to the poor and needy, gifts of their gold and silver, their raiment and provisions.
Page 105 - Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ...
Page 60 - Monasteries were built every where ; many congregations of the faithful of various orders were collected to celebrate with fervent devotion the sacrifice of Christ. But to all of them, Father David, as if placed on a lofty eminence, was a mirror and a pattern of life.
Page 28 - ... that they were much more afraid of swearing falsely by them than by the gospels, because, from some hidden and miraculous power with which they were gifted, and the vengeance of the saint to whom they were particularly pleasing, their despisers and transgressors are severely punished.
Page 106 - Virgil by heart : and one day, while walking with his friend and companion, the famous historian Gildas, with his Virgil under his arm, the abbot began to weep at the thought that the poet, whom he loved so much, might be even then perhaps in hell. At the moment when Gildas reprimanded him severely for that
Page 49 - To the words the monk did speak, For a heavy wheat-ear dangled From the Robin's polished beak. Then the brothers, as he dropped it, Picked it up and careful sowed ; And abundantly in autumn. Reaped the harvest where they strewed. Do you mark the waving glory O'er the Breton hill-slopes flung ? All that wealth from Robin Redbreast's Little ear of wheat has sprung.
Page 47 - Burgundy. wu;ch the beasts of the forest themselves feared to 68o- enter, that the Burgundian priest Sequanus addressed this prayer to God : " Lord, who hast made heaven and earth, who hearest the prayers of him who comes to thee, from whom everything good proceeds, and without whom all the efforts of human weakness are vain, if thou ordainest me to establish myself in this solitude, make it known to me, and lead to a good issue the beginning which thou hast already granted to my devotion.

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