Tonypandy and St. Denis

King Richard III

Recently I discovered the books of early 20th century, British, mystery writer Josephine Tey. In her Daughter of Time, the temporarily bed-ridden and bored Inspector Grant becomes fascinated with the character of King Richard III. Was he the monstrous villain who had his nephews murdered so he could rule England secure? Grant has doubts (based on his detective intuition), but his nurses, hospital visitors, Shakespeare and history books,  all paint Richard as a very black character indeed.  In his quest to uncover the true Richard, Grant introduces the idea of tonypandy.  Tonypandy stands for falsehoods written as history and believed as gospel truth for generations. Usually it stems from an historical event that is blown out of proportion to make it more exciting or glorious, but most often for use as propaganda. The name tonypandy comes from a place in South Wales where government troops were accused of shooting down striking Welsh miners. However, no shots were fired and no blood was shed in the riots that involved more local police action than troops. Yet a sensational, fictional account, believed as history, was written of the incident to rally the strikers and garner support for their cause.

Boston Massacre

We can think of many instances of tonypandy: The Boston Massacre, where British troops over-reacted to mob harassment and killed three colonists, mortally wounded two and injured six -- numbers not normally associated with a "massacre"; George Washington's cherry tree-chopping incident, which was fabricated by his biographer to illustrate the first president's honesty; the German sinking of the Lusitania -- the ship was actually carrying arms to the Allies, so it was a valid target by the standards of warfare accepted at the time. How many Catholics erroneously believe that the carol The Twelve Days of Christmas was written with a hidden meaning to convey Catholic doctrine surrep-titiously? This last I found especially difficult to believe, since it is harder for me to remember how many maids are milking or lords leaping than the number of sacraments or natures in Christ.

It turns out, the history of the Church and the lives of the saints are not free from tonypandy either, as I found when reading about today's saint -- St. Denis of Paris, bishop and martyr.

It started in the year 827, when Byzantine Emperor Michael II sent as a gift to the Emperor of the West, Louis the Pious (the son of Charlemagne), copies of writings ascribed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite (first century bishop of Athens and martyr). They arrived in Paris and by coincidence were taken to the Abbey of Saint-Denis on the feast of St. Denis (the Frenchified name of Dionysius). The Abbott Hilduin translated the writings into Latin. A few years later, Emperor Louis asked Hilduin to write a life of St. Denis of Paris, and the work produced had all Christendom believing for 900 years that St. Dionysius/Denis of Paris, St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and the Philosopher Psuedo-Dionysius (another historical mix-up) were one and the same person. Whether it was an honest mistake, sloppy historical research, over-zealous piety, or a desire to please the Emperor with an entertaining biography when there was not much material to draw from, no one knows. The writing of history was also not a refined science in the early Middle Ages, and legends were considered an acceptable part of history. The Abbott fabricated a fantastic life for St. Denis, which included (after his leaving Athens) visiting Jerusalem to visit with the Blessed Mother and Ephesus to visit with St. John the Apostle; then making his way to Rome and eventually to Paris. After his beheading, Hilduin's St. Denis (with his severed head in his hands) walks from his place of execution to the place where the Abbey of St. Denis now stands and is there buried, surrounded by singing angels. Hence the tradition of picturing Denis with his head in his hands and invoking his aid for headaches.

What is definitely known about St. Denis is not much -- he was born in Italy, and he and six other bishops were sent by Pope Fabian into Gaul about the year 250. The Roman Emperor Decius' persecution of Christians had spread even to the Roman provinces, and the once thriving Church in Gaul had suffered greatly, bringing a halt to evangelization. St. Denis and his companions -- the priest St. Rusticus and the deacon St. Eleutherius -- made their way to the area of Paris and settled on an island in the River Seine. Their fearless preaching of the Gospel resulted in many conversions, which aroused the anger of the local pagan priests. They persuaded the Roman governor to arrest and imprison St. Denis and his companions about the year 275. After much torture, the three holy men were beheaded and their bodies thrown into the Seine. Christians rescued their martyred bodies and gave them an honorable burial. A small chapel was built over their graves, around which grew the Abbey of Saint-Denis. There we leave St. Denis -- quietly, but fervently revered -- until 500 years later when he becomes the subject of tonypandy or overzealous hagiography. Eventually things were sorted out by theologians, historians, and academics, and we arrived at the true, although less colorful, life of St. Denis.  It seems to me, the life of a missionary and martyr does not need any embellishment. 

Beheading of St. Denis & His Companions