Boar's Head
Ruth Meyers
Seabury-Western
January 31, 2008
Several years ago, some old photographs appeared in the display cases outside
the library. In one, a neatly lettered tag placed underneath a bishop
identified him as “Charles Palmerston Anderson – his photograph.” We
know that Charles Palmerston Anderson – his body – lies here
beneath our altar. Tonight we commemorate Charles Palmerston Anderson – his
legacy.
We worship in the Charles Palmerston Anderson Chapel of St. John the Divine,
a tribute to Anderson’s leadership as the fourth Bishop of Chicago. A
Canadian by birth, Anderson was elected Bishop Coadjutor of Chicago in 1900,
at the age of 34, and five years later, he became diocesan bishop. Known
for his commitment to ecumenism, he understood the church to be “an agent
of change and challenge in contemporary society.” To him, according
to one of his contemporaries, “the love of God meant the doing away with
poverty and ugliness and social injustice and reconciling the warring industrial
groups and national groups.”1 Under
Anderson’s leadership as Bishop of Chicago, a number of social-service
agencies were founded, agencies that continue to this day to engage in significant
ministry in the diocese.
Anderson is important in our seminary history because of his pivotal role in
the move of Western Theological Seminary from Chicago’s West Side to our
current campus in Evanston. He did not live long enough, however, to see
the merger of Western with Seabury Divinity School. In November 1929, Anderson
was elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. He had served for
just one month when he died of a heart attack on January 30, 1930.
Anderson’s legacy is part of the heritage we celebrate tonight. We
also celebrate our roots in the Church of England. The Boar’s Head
festival is reputed to originate in late medieval England. “Legend
has it that in the middle of the fourteenth century a student at Queen’s
College, Oxford, England, was studying a book of Aristotle while walking through
the forest on his way to Christmas Mass. Suddenly, he was confronted by
an angry wild boar. Having no other weapon, the resourceful Oxonian rammed his
metal-bound philosophy book down the throat of the charging animal, whereupon
the brute choked to death.”2 One
version of the legend reports that as he shoved the volume into the boar’s
mouth, the scholar shouted “Graecum est,” loosely translated, “it’s
Greek to me.”3 This
resourceful scholar, not one to waste the opportunity for a good meal, arranged
for the boar’s head to be dressed and garnished, then carried in procession
into the dining room.
I cannot attest to the veracity of this tale. Personally, I think it’s
all just an excuse to have a mid-winter party. However, I assure you that
boar’s head festivals are well documented in England, beginning as early
as the twelfth century. It was common for the boar’s head to be carried
in procession, accompanied by trumpet fanfare. By the nineteenth century,
at least seven boar’s head carols were sufficiently well known to be published
in a collection edited by William Henry Husk. So as we process with our
faux boar’s head tonight, we will participate in a venerable tradition
that connects us to our forebears in England.
Moreover, our use of the 1549 communion service reminds us of our roots in the
Church of England. Though some of the texts may sound familiar, especially
to those who are accustomed to Rite I, the different order of service and tongue-twisting
language may tempt us to shove our ordos into the boar’s mouth, shouting “Graecum
est!” Remember as you experience this liturgy that our forebears
in England, including that scholar who encountered the boar in the forest on
Christmas day, would have grown up with the mass in Latin, and with the introduction
of the 1549 book, they would have heard the words of the liturgy in English for
the first time ever. For us, the liturgy feels non-participatory; for them,
the use of the vernacular, a language understood by the people, would have commended
their full attention. Certainly, those who developed the prayer book desired
that the people’s hearts, spirits, and minds would thereby be edified,
as the Preface to the 1549 book states.
As we celebrate our heritage, we do more than look back, nostalgically or otherwise. We
also challenge or transform that heritage as we receive it in our contemporary
context. If you look carefully at the rubrics, you will find several places
that use a feminine pronoun in reference to the priest. I assure you, this
is not authentic to the 1549 text. If we look around us in the chapel,
we can see readily that we do not represent a sixteenth-century English congregation. Members
of this congregation have their roots in many different places and contexts. For
you, a connection to sixteenth-century England is a choice made by becoming part
of the Episcopal Church rather than the result of your genealogy. Our heritage
as the Episcopal Church in the twenty-first century is in fact many heritages
and histories, encompassing the native peoples of this continent and representatives
of many tribes and languages and peoples and nations.
If we look more closely at the particulars of tonight’s celebration, we
can see evidence of the tradition, not as a static entity representing the past,
but as a dynamic, living process. One history of the boar’s head
reports that the ceremony came to colonial America through a French Huguenot
family who had learned of the custom while in exile in England.4 It’s
not a purely English custom.
Turning to Charles Palmerston Anderson, we receive the legacy of a church leader
who challenged the church of his day, recognizing that the city of Chicago was
no longer a predominantly middle-class Protestant city but was now home to recent
immigrants and working-class populations, many of whom were unchurched. Anderson
worked vigorously – not always achieving the results he wanted – to
develop stronger diocesan structures that would meet the needs of the modern
city.
Our particular heritages – as a seminary and as the Episcopal Church – are
rooted in the heritage of the Gospel. With the students, faculty, and staff
who have gone before use, with our forebears in the Church of England, we follow
Christ, the good shepherd. Tonight, as we commemorate Charles Palmerston
Anderson and enjoy the festivities of our Boar’s Head celebration, let
us rejoice in the richness of our heritage. As we recognize the complexity
of these heritages, let us also be open to transformation as we embody the Gospel
in our world today.