The Blog

At the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch were Elizabeth I’s Protestant allies against Europe’s Catholic states and the cruel Inquisition. This made trade with South America and the Far East, where Spanish and Portuguese merchants were already established, a matter of bitter and bloody rivalry.

Will Adams

An Elizabethan mariner reaches Japan under terrible hardships, only to find himself under sentence of death at the hands of his fellow Europeans.

St John Damascene was one of the Eastern churches’ greatest hymnographers, and like his English contemporary St Bede skilled not only in poetry but also in music and the sciences. This hymn draws on his extensive Biblical learning to reflect on dying and living with Christ for Holy Saturday, Easter Eve.

When in the Name of Jesus’ Cross

A hymn for Holy Saturday by the eighth-century Syrian hymnographer St John Damascene.

‘The Dream of the Rood’ is an Anglo-Saxon poem, possibly composed by the 8th century bishop Cynewulf of Lindisfarne, in the Kingdom of Northumbria. The poet imagines what the Cross of Christ might say of that momentous Friday, when he who hung the earth upon the waters hung upon the cross.

High Beneath Heaven’s Roof

The Cross of Christ speaks, and tells of the amazing transformation from sign of shame to sign of redemption.