April 01, 2025
GLASTONBURY THORN
In Loudon’s Arboretum Britannicum, the Glastonbury Thorn is mentioned as the Cratægus Oxyacantha præcox. This variety of the Hawthorn blossoms during the Winter, and was for many years believed religiously to blow on Christmas-day. The Abbey of Glastonbury, in Somersetshire, which is now a ruin, and of whose origin only vague memorials exist, was said by the monks to have been the residence of Joseph of Arimathea. The high ground on which the old abbey was erected used in early days to be called the Isle of Avalon. The Thorn-tree stood on an eminence to the south-west of the town of Glastonbury, where a nunnery, dedicated to St. Peter, was in after times erected. The eminence is called Weary-all Hill; and the same monkish legend which accounts for the name of the hill, states also the origin of the Thorn. It seems that when Joseph of Arimathea, to whom the original conversion of this country is attributed, arrived at this spot with his companions, they were weary with their journey, and sat down. St. Joseph then stuck his stick in the ground, when, although it was a dry Hawthorn staff, it took root and grew, and thenceforth commemorated the birth of Christ in the manner above mentioned. This rendered its blossoms of so much value in all Christian nations, that the Bristol merchants exported them as things of price to foreign lands. It had two trunks or bodies until the time of Queen Elizabeth, when a Puritan cut down one of them, but left the other, which was about the size of an ordinary man. This desecration of the tree brought condign punishment upon the over-zealous Puritan, for, according to James Howell, a writer of the period, “some of the prickles flew into his eye, and made him monocular.” The reputation which the Glastonbury Thorn still retained, notwithstanding the change of religion, may be estimated by the fact that King James and his Queen, and other persons of distinction, gave large sums for small cuttings from the original tree. Until the time of Charles I., it was customary to carry a branch of the Thorn in procession at Christmas time; but during the civil war, in that reign, what remained of the tree was cut down; plants from its branches are, however, still in existence, for a vintner of the place secured a slip, and planted it in his garden, where it duly flowered on the 25th December. When the new style was introduced in 1752, the alteration (which consisted of omitting eleven days) seems to have been very generally disliked by the mass of the people. The use which was made of the Glastonbury Thorn to prove the impropriety of the change is not a little curious. The alteration in the Christmas Day, which was held that year and since on a day which would have been January 5th, was particularly obnoxious, not only as disturbing old associations, but as making an arbitrary change from what was considered the true anniversary of the birth of Christ. In several places, where real or supposed slips from the Glastonbury Thorn existed, the testimony of the plant against the change was anxiously sought on the first Christmas Day under the new style. As the special distinction of the Thorn arose from its supposed connection with the great event commemorated on that day, it was argued that it must indicate the true anniversary, and that its evidence would be conclusive on the subject. The event of one of these references (at Quainton, in Buckinghamshire) is thus recorded in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for 1753:—“Above 2000 people came here this night (December 24th, 1752, N.S., being the first Christmas Eve under the new calendar), with lanthorns and candles, to view a Thorn-tree which grows in this neighbourhood, and which was remembered (this year only) to be a slip from the Glastonbury Thorn; that it always budded on the 24th, was full-blown the next day, and went off at night. But the people, finding no appearance of a bud, it was agreed that December 25th n.s. could not be the right Christmas Day, and accordingly they refused going to Church, or treating their friends as usual. At length the affair became so serious, that the ministers of the neighbouring villages, in order to appease the people, thought it prudent to give notice that the old Christmas Day should be kept holy as usual.” The slips of the Thorn seem to have been everywhere unanimous in this opposition to the new style. There still exist at Glastonbury, within the precincts of the ruins of the Abbey, two distinct trees, which, doubtless, sprang from the Thorn of Joseph of Arimathea, and which continue to blossom during the winter months.