August 24 Feast of St. Bartholomew AKA Bartlemas AKA Wayzgoose
One thing is certain: Catholic or not, if you are a writer, book artist, printer, paper maker, or book lover, St. Bartholomew’s Day is a propitious day for you.
Image: Statue of St. Bartholomew at St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome, the Mother Church of the Roman Catholic Church. He is holding his flayed skin and the flaying knife, symbols of his martyrdom.
Before I tell you about the connection between today’s Saint Bartholomew, the Apostle, and all crafts and professions related to the making and reading of books, here’s some information about his life. Bartholomew was a native of Cana in Galilee, and a doctor of the law. Bartholomew (Bar-Tomai, or son of Tomai) is a surname. The synoptic Gospels always call the saint by his given name Nathanael because to avoid confusion with the apostle Matthew because their names mean essentially the same thing, gift of God.
After Jesus called Saint Philip, Philip brought his friend Nathanael to meet the Lord. In the following verses from the first Chapter of the Gospel of St. John (Douay Rheims edition), we learn (or are reminded) that Saint Nathanael is the apostle who famously said, “Can anything of good come from Nazareth?”
Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith to him: We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth.
And Nathanael said to him: Can any thing of good come from Nazareth? Philip saith to him: Come and see.
Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him: and he saith of him: Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.
Nathanael saith to him: Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered, and said to him: Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.
Nathanael answered him, and said: Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel.
Jesus answered, and said to him: Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, thou believest: greater things than these shalt thou see.
And he saith to him: Amen, amen I say to you, you shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.
Think of just how unusual was that interchange between Saint Bartholomew and Jesus. Jesus praised Nathanael uniquely as “an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.” Also unique was how Nathanael immediately professed his faith in Jesus as “the Son of God and King of Israel,” as soon as he heard Jesus tell him He had seen him supernaturally beforehand when he was standing under a fig tree. Nathanael made this prophetic statement at the beginning of Christ’s public ministry, long before Saint Peter made his famous profession of faith towards the end of Jesus’ life, as recorded in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Chapter 16:
15 Jesus saith to them [the Apostles]: But whom do you say that I am?
16 Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.
17And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven.
Saint Bartholomew was given his revelation from God the Father about Jesus after learning about only one miracle!
After Our Lord’s Ascension, our guileless and prophetic Saint Bartholomew spread the Gospel in India. In the third century, a copy of the Gospel of Saint Matthew was found in India by Saint Pantænus, taken there, according to tradition, by Saint Bartholomew. Saint John Chrysostom wrote that Nathanael also preached in Asia Minor and suffered there with Saint Philip, but not mortally. Nathanael then went to Armenia, where, according to the most common tradition about his death, he was skinned alive and beheaded for the Catholic Faith. His relics are now in the church of San Bartolomeo all'Isola (St. Bartholomew on the little island) on the Tiber River in Rome.
Image: The relics of St. Bartholomew, Apostle, in San Bartolomeo all'Isola (Rome) are kept in a classical era red porphyry marble basin (spoila) from the Baths of Caracalla
Bartlemas AKA Wayzgoose
Bartlemas means St. Bartholomew’s Mass, and it is another name for St. Bartholomew’s Feast Day. Because St. Bartholomew was skinned alive, by a gruesome sort of association he is a patron saint of butchers, tanners, leather workers, and bookbinders (who often bind books with leather). His feast day became important also to papermakers and printers, whose crafts are related to bookbinding. And he is a patron saint of journalists too.
In the middle of the 17th century, British printers began to celebrate the waning of summer and the coming of autumn with a feast on Bartlemas and coined the word Wayzgoose for the feast. Etymologists have found no explanation for the term. The OED suggests Wayzgoose is an alternation of some other slang word used by printers and it was not at all related to singular or plural geese.
For papermakers, the connection goes back to the days before glass windows. Waxed paper was used to keep out bad weather, and Bartlemas was the day on which windows were papered in preparation for winter.
Because Bartlemas falls eight weeks past the summer solstice, sunlight is waning, and the days are growing darker. Along with the papering of the windows at Bartlemas, it was then necessary to begin to light the print shop with lanterns and candles because there was no longer enough sunlight coming through the windows for their work. Randall Holme, in 1688, gave this description of the Bartlemas Wayzgoose: “It is customary for all journeymen to make every year, new paper windows about Bartholomew-tide, at which time the master printer makes them a feast called a Wayzgoose, to which is invited the corrector, founder, smith, ink-maker, &c. who all open their purses and give to the workmen to spend in the tavern or ale-house after the feast. From which time they begin to work by candle light.”
The above information is from A Cooked-Goose Chase, or the Murky History of Wayzgoose by Oxford Etymologist Anatoly Liberman and BOOK OF DAYS from convivio bookworks. If you google the term, you’ll see many printer-related celebrations and references to Wayzgoose are still common.
Book of Days also included this additional interesting tidbit, about how today may be celebrated also as the 569th anniversary of the first Gutenberg Bible.
"Finally, here’s another bit of Bartlemas Wayzgoose lore that I love, something I’ve mentioned before, but still have not been able to find further information on. Be that as it may, it was on August 27, 2010, that the Jerusalem Post reported that Johannes Gutenberg’s 42-Line Bible, the first book printed from moveable type, was completed on St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1454. Some claim, too, that that first printed book explains why printing has a history of being called the Black Art. They say that Johannes Fust, Gutenberg’s business partner, sold several of the printed bibles in France without explaining how they were made. When it was discovered that the books were identical copies of each other, Fust was accused of witchcraft and was briefly imprisoned for that crime. . . .
"One thing is certain: if you are a book artist or if you are a book enthusiast, St. Bartholomew’s Day is a very auspicious day for you."
Image: Gutenberg Bible (ca. 1455). Latin Vulgate. Vellum. At the New York Public Library. Bought by James Lenox, an American philanthropist and book collector in 1847, it was the first copy to be acquired by a United States citizen.
Image: "Saint Bartholomew holding the knife of his martyrdom and his flayed skin," by Michelangelo. Sistine Chapel. The face of the skin is Michelangelo's.
From Father James G: I enjoy your articles. . . .
Today, St. Bartolemew 's feast is also the. Beginning of St. Teresa's reform. On August 24 1562 she founded San Jose monastery in Avila
Ten years later is the infamous massacre of St Bartolemew in Paris
From SusanW: This is just brilliant!