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In my best fourteenth-century English

In my best fourteenth-century English

Last updated on: August 19, 2026 at 7:32 pm by Dan Peterson

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In my best fourteenth-century English 2026-08-19T19:32:48-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The banner for BYU Education Week 2026 (fair use, I hope)

My lecture today for the 2026 iteration of BYU Education Week focused on “Figures from the History of British Monasticism.” (My overall series title for the four lectures that I’m slated to deliver is ““After and Before the Apostles: Highlights from British Christian History Between Dispensations.”)

Today, I focused on the poet Caedmon, the historian who is known as “The Venerable Bede,” the “Holy Isle” of Lindisfarne and the magnificent Lindisfarne Gospels, St. Anselm of Canterbury (including his conflicts with William II [“Rufus”] and Henry I, but concentrating mostly on his “ontological argument’ for the existence of God in the Proslogion and on his logical argument in Cur Deus Homo for the necessity of the incarnation of God [which I briefly contrasted with the doctrine of theosis or human deification that was advanced by St. Athanasius and other eastern writers]), St. Thomas Becket, and Julian of Norwich.

A fun part for me, in connection with the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket, was reading to the audience the Prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in the nearest I could muster to its original Middle English pronunciation:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

In the world of spirits, Geoffrey Chaucer was probably doubled up with laughter.

Henry VIII, ca. 1539-1540, in a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

For tomorrow’s (Thursday’s) lecture, which is entitled “Stories from the English Reformation,” I intend to briefly discuss John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Henry VIII, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Catherine of Aragon, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Anne Boleyn, Sir Thomas More (aka St. Thomas More), Edward VI, Bloody Mary, the Oxford Martyrs (including Thomas Cranmer), and Elizabeth I (“the Great”).

A notice for the Interpreter Foundation conference on the Book of Moses, which was held in September 2020. (Image from Book of Mormon Central)

On the website of the Interpreter Foundation, where absolutely nothing ever changes, an article by Kent P. Jackson bearing the title “How We Got the Joseph Smith Translation, the Book of Moses, and Joseph Smith-Matthew” went up earlier today:

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses — Inspired Origins, Temple Contexts, and Literary Qualities Volumes I and II, edited by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, David R. Seely, John W. Welch, and Scott Gordon. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/ancient-threads-in-the-book-of-moses/.

“Selections from the Book of Moses and Joseph Smith—Matthew are excerpts from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Since 1851 they have been in the Pearl of Great Price, which since 1880 has been one of the scriptural books of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

The Logan Utah Temple was dedicated in 1884. (LDS Media Library image)

My attention was caught by this very recent article, written by Scot Facer Proctor for Meridian Magazine: “Our Ancestors Will Come to Us.” And, in turn, a commenter on the article alerted me to something called Thinning of the Veil, which I look forward to checking out:

Thinning of the Veil is a podcast by Tia Smith about how heaven communicates with us — personal revelation, dreams and visions, the ministering of angels, temple worship, and connection with loved ones on the other side of the veil. Each episode explores the doctrines, patterns, and real experiences of the thinning of the veil that comes as we engage in the gathering of Israel, so the heavens can be opened to you in greater degrees. Ranked in the top 2.5% of podcasts globally, with 140+ episodes featuring doctrinal deep-dives, classic BYU and general conference talks, interviews with scholars and everyday members, and firsthand accounts of miracles in temple and family history work. New video and audio episodes every Tuesday.

Alpenglow at Maroon Lake and the Maroon Bells in Colorado (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph). Unfortunately, the Maroon Bells didn’t make the *Babylon Bee’*s top-ten list.

Here are three news items from the ever-reliable Babylon Bee that you should know about:

At the end of July 2023, these women in eastern Kenya celebrate the delivery to their village of beehives that were provided by donors to the “Giving Machines” that are sponsored each Christmas season by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As part of my dogged effort to feed your righteous indignation at the evils done by theism and theists all around the world, I share the following, which (as you might expect) I’ve retrieved from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™: “Caring for Women and Children Global Consortia”

I also call attention to the looming threat posed by this conference, which will be convened on the campus of Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah, late next month: Religion and Human Flourishing Conference:

This unique conference, held on September 24 and 25 at the Hinckley Center at Brigham Young University, will bring together scholars, students, religious leaders, and the general public to learn about religion’s central role in human flourishing. Conference sessions will be run by expert researchers and will touch on a wide range of topics, including:
– The connection between religion and human flourishing
– Religion’s impact on mental, physical, and social health
– Religion’s influence on the family
– The state of religion in the United States

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