To the City of London last night for a very British evening – the annual church service of the Worshipful Company of Upholders , 650 years old this year, in a City church a few yards from the Bank of England, followed by a tradition-filled, and most excellent, dinner at the Hall of the Armourers’ Company.
The Upholders Company was originally for upholsterers, though its membership is now more varied. But it still provides bursaries for student upholsterers, supports some retired upholsterers in their declining years, and helps other charities.
The Armourers' Hall laid for dinner. Photo:Iceman Photography
For the evening, the only illumination is candlelight – the three branch candlesticks on the tables and real candelabra hanging from the ornate glass roof. Each candle has one of those intriguing glass cups to hold the wax, which slides down as the candle burns.
A very old friend of ours, a Past Master and Father of the Company, died recently at the splendid age of 92, and he was especially remembered at the choral evensong, which was why we were invited – we are not Upholders ourselves.
The memorial took the form of as thrilling and soaring a performance of Allegri’s Misereri mei as I have ever heard, during which we were invited to remember Alan’s life.
The vicar gave a most unusual sermon, lambasting the Archbishop of Canterbury for recently extolling the virtues of the King James’ Bible because it is the 400th anniversary of its first publication “while he and the hierarchy of the Anglican Church have been doing their utmost to replace it with ‘modern, relevant’ translations for the last 30 years.”
He described how, when he took over the church in 1998, there was no King James’ on the premises, so he asked nearby St. Paul’s if he could borrow one. “Of course,” they told him, ” we don’t use it – unless the Roayl family is here. We don’t use it for ordinary people.” So he took a long loan from the cathedral and now – he thundered – “it is where it belongs, on the lectern.”
He then went on to compare and contrast quotations from the KJB with those from modern versions, getting some laughs in the process from a congregation mainly brought up, like him, on the KJB.
He was later to give a very unorthodox Grace before the dinner that had the diners in fits – rather like the Australian “2,4,6,8; bog in, don’t wait” – but later led the singing for the very traditional Grace that closed the evening.
After a reception with mulled wine, we went to the table and stood, clapping in a slow rhythm as the Company’s senior members and leading guests processed to the top table led by the very solemn Beadle with his long staff and robes. He was much engaged during the evening with his gavel, introducing various speakers.
Dinner? A perfect baked white stilton souflé, a very generous pavé of tender Wagyu beed (like Kobe beef but raised outside Japan), and panatone pudding. Though the dinner was provided by the Armourer’s chefs, the wines were from the cellars of the Upholders. Coffee and a fine Armagnac to round it off. As good a dinner as I’ve had in a long time.
Then the Loving Cup was passed around. This is a very old ceremony of City of London Guilds. “The custom is said to have originated in the precaution to keep the right, or ‘dagger’ hand, employed so that the person who drinks may be assured of no treachery, such as that practiced by Elfrida on the unsuspecting King Edward the Martyr, who was slain while drinking at Corfe Castle. This is why the Loving Cup has a cover” which is lifted by the person not drinking. Once the person has drunk, wiped the edge of the large silver vessel with the cloth attached, and handed it to his neighbour, he or she turns her back on the neighbour, now engaged in the ritual, to protect their back from attack.
The cup is filled with spiced wine, immemorially termed ‘Sack’. (There is a long history of the tradition here.)
Then came the Toasts. The Queen – we sang the National Anthem – various members of the Royal Family -we listened to the Anthem again, played by the pianist who had accompanied dinner – and The Lord Mayor and The City of London Corporation. All had been invoked in prayers earlier at the service.
The Master of the Company spoke, again remembering our friend and noting how he was the driving force behind the presentation of a silver model of the submarine HMS Upholder to a current Royal Navy submarine. The Upholders adopted the original submarine Upholder during World War II.
Then the guest spoke, the imposing figure of Dom Felix Stephens OSB, the Master of St. Benet’s Hall in Oxford. He associated the Rule of St.Benedict with running modern businesses, and names of the CEOs of major companies were very familiar to him, as co-chairman of an annual event at an Oxford business school. One gets to meet unusual people on these occasions.
He initially turned to the vicar and said with a grin that one of the new Bibles that he had been criticing “was written by one of my brother Benedictines” before confessing that he rather favoured the King James’ version himself …
The evening was rounded off with a “Stirrup Cup”, another round of coffee and Armagnac in a reception room lined with cases of armour, one suit from 1600 with fine chasing and intricate articulation which had belonged to Queen Elizabeth I’s Champion, and portraits from the same era.
It gave me a chance to talk with Dom Felix and learn his further thoughts on translation of the Bible, in which I have some interest.
At the entrance to the Hall, by the way, was an example of the latest in Army body armour. This is not just an historical Company.
And so carriages were called for, and a very British evening ended.
I have to admit I’m a sucker for High Church (in small doses). There are a very few places to find it in Chicago.
My mother also prefers KJV, but there are some very good reasons for pursuing other translations, for instance, the discovery of documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls, and our ever-changing language – there are some 300 words in the KJV whose meanings have changed since 1611. This is all detailed in the introduction to the RSV. If I want to read for meaning, I read the TNIV (even though I am no biblical literalist), but for the sheer poetry of the words, its the RSV. I suspect those resonances people have with different translations goes back to their confirmation days or even earlier.
It is curious that discussions about Bible translations have been passed to the Anglican Church while in the Roman Catholic Church is no longer a subject that matters too much. During the Reformation and the Counter Reformation was a key issue for the church of Rome, as you know.
Now translations must still being approved by Rome but I think there is nothing like the “cult” of the King James’ Bible.
Of course I understand that there’s a love for its style and literature value, and not theological problems like in 16th and 17th Century. But it’s curious anyway.
Julia: After I told him the story of the sermon, a friend of mine here spoke to me passionately for 10 minutes non-stop on how the Curia had over many years interfered with translations into English from Latin of other parts of the Roman Catholic liturgy, with contradictory rulings coming from people who did not have English as their first language.
He then said to me : “Don’t get me started on this …!” It is clearly a vexed question here – he was previously a member of the liturgical commission of the church for England.
Aha, I see, thank you.
Even-though, it looks curious to me that this translation subject still being an issue nowadays among the Anglicans, while is not even remembered (I’m exaggerating) among Catholics. Perhaps the Bible is less read among us.
I think the issue is “live” among Anglicans because of the way the KJV is deeply embedded in the English language – an enormous number of phrases from it entered and stay in the language today. You learn them from childhood, and depending on your upbringing, may or may not realise they come from the KJV. To many older Anglicans it is a very emotive matter.
I feel comfortable on the relatively rare occasions when I hear KJV read, uneasy with modern versions which just don’t “feel and sound right”.
It may be that translations in other languages have not impressed themselves into the language in questions as deeply, for whatever reason.
Until now I haven’t realized the most obvious reason of this difference: Catholics or the Vatican didn’t permit complete translations of the Bible until the middle of the 20th Century.
I’ve never thought of this, but now I found that the first complete Spanish version of the Bible is from 1944!!
This is a lot like our dining room.
Actually, I think our whole house, roof and all, would fit in half of this room.
Glad to see you keep the old traditions for dining …