Joseph of Arimathea and the Glastonbury Thorn

“And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England’s mountains green?” queried the poet William Blake (1757-1827). And Did Those Feet is now the title of a new film argues that as a boy Jesus visited southwest England in the company of his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, a tin merchant.

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Blake found inspiration for his poem in ancient – and perhaps not-so-ancient – folklore, religious legends and perhaps his own desire to mythologize. Certainly Joseph of Arimathea is mentioned in all four Gospels. It was he who donated his own prepared tomb for the burial of Jesus following the crucifixion after requesting the body from Pilate. Perhaps as early as the 2nd century, stories began to circulate connecting him with the early spread of the new religion. By the late 12th century Joseph of Arimathea had become connected with Arthurian legends and said to be the first keeper of the Holy Grail. Even more remarkably, he founded Christianity in Britain before it had become established in Rome. Specifically, following the crucifixion, he was said to have left Palestine with 12 followers. Brought by the winds to southwest Britain, they on the south shore of the Bristol Channel close to Glastonbury Tor in modern Somerset. Joseph’s attempts to convert the local population were scorned until, wearying, he lay down to sleep, plunging his staff into the ground beside him. Miraculously it immediately took root, sprouting leaves and flowers. Suitably impressed, the hoi polloi accepted Christianity en masse. Not to their king who, however, granted the Christian crew the land whereon the new tree flourished. There they built a church of wattle, Britain’s first, later to the site of a famed Glastonbury Abbey. There also flourished the tree that had arisen from his staff, an unusual form of the Hawthorn or Quickthorn, Crataegus monogyna, once so commonly used for farm hedges in southern England, also known as Whitethorn or May. But Joseph of Arimathea’s became known as the Glastonbury Thorn, now botanically identified as C. m. cv. ‘Biflora.’ Strangely, the nearest native species of this small tree come from the Near East and North Africa. The Glastonbury Thorn is also very different in its blooming habit from the common native. The latter comes into flower about mid-spring, hence the alternate name of Mayflower. But C. m. cv. ‘Biflora’ begs to be different frustrating gardeners. Nearby Thornhayes Nursery, in Devon notes that it: “Flowers twice in a year, once at Christmas and once normally.” Further east in the county of Suffolk The nursery Botanica remarks: “Regardless of its mystical connections manages to come into leaf very early in the season and occasionally flowering in midwinter.” Stranger still, hawthorn is of the same botanical family is the apple. Glastonbury Tor is a prominent hill overlooking the Isle of Avalon rising from former fenland and surrounded on three sides by the River Brue. ‘Tor’ is Celtic for a conical hill. In the Celtic tradition, the apple tree flourishes in paradise (in Welsh lore 'Avalon,' Ynys Avallach, or 'Apple-land’: Place of Apples, or in the other words, an apple orchard. According to Geoffrey Ashe in his, "The Discovery of King Arthur," (1985): “In a poem which he [Geoffrey of Monmouth] wrote later, The Life of Merlin, he speaks of Avalon as a paradisal ‘island of apples’ over western waters, where Arthur was nursed by the enchantress Morgen.” At this point it only needs to be added that Somerset is famed for the conversion of apples into an alcoholic cider that can catch the unwary by surprise. And in local folklore, the Apple-Tree Man of Somerset is the spirit of the oldest tree in the orchard. However the Glastonbury Thorn arrived in Britain, both its association and flowering time, around Christmas, old style (early January) attracted the devout. Arthur and Guinevere were buried there. No less than five saints were said to have stopped over at the increasingly famous abbey: Patrick, Dunstan, Benedict, David and Bridget. St. Dunstan appears to have been one for bending an elbow, at least we must believe from the writings of Sir William Beach Thomas. About the 17, 18 and 19 May, there is danger of the devil blighting apple-trees with frost. This is the result of a bargain with St. Dunstan, who was a great grower of corn at Glastonbury, wanted to sell his beer, and so sold his soul to the devil to ensure a shortage of cider. Little wonder crowds flocked to Glastonbury! Rich and mighty became Glastonbury Abbey, something that never bodes well for the future. Ever-short of funds and none to enamoured with the Catholic Church, Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries across the Scepter’d Isle. Much to Henry’s wrath, Glastonbury held out to 1539. In retribution, he had the unfortunate abbot hung on the top of the Tor, flanked by two of his monks. Taken down before quite dead, the unfortunate cleric than had his bowels removed before being hacked into quarters. Through all this, the Glastonbury Thorn continued to thrive although now divided into two trunks. Alas, with Puritans commencing to stalk the land, its days were numbered. In Queen Elizabeth’s reign, a single trunk was hewed through despite its notoriously hard wood. Indeed a chip is said to have flown out and put out the would-be woodsman’s eye while another severely injured his leg. The following century, a Roundhead cut down the remaining trunk as an act of “pure devotion.” Fortunately earlier, during the reign of James I, it had become fashionable to grow hawthorns in aristocratic gardens. This probably saved the Glastonbury Thorn from extinction in Britain. It is to this day offered for sale by English nurseries. And Crataegus monogyna cv. ‘Biflora’ continues to flower at least in southwestern England around Christmas each year, so supporting the belief of some that it supplied the Crown of Thorns Jesus was crucified with, flowering at the same time as his birth. And in the Glastonbury Abbey grounds can be found several such trees.

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