September has come around and already the Oxford skies are grey, the parched grass is finally getting the rain it needs, and across the country children started back at school this week. There are still a few weeks until university students begin, and in preparation for the academic year I have put together a list of the five saints whose intercession I seek most in my studies. They have been a great source of help and comfort to me over the years: I hope they might be the same for you!
1) Our Lady Seat of Wisdom
Unsurprisingly, given that I named my blog for her, Mary is a great inspiration to me. The title of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom (Sedes Sapientiae in Latin) became widespread in the Middle Ages and popularised through the Litany of Loreto, but it has its antecedents in the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament. She is named Seat of Wisdom because the Wisdom of God, Christ, dwelt within her. She would have embraced the Child Jesus, carried Him, and sat Him in her lap. Mary had a loving and profound relationship with Wisdom, and so it makes sense to call on her aid when we need it in our work.
Our Lady of Leuven, photo by Mattana, CC-BY-SA-3.0
This sculpture of Sedes Sapientiae, also known as Our Lady of Leuven, dates from 1442, and was carved by Nicholaas de Bruyne and is still venerated by students at the Catholic University of Leuven. It is fairly representative of the iconography of Sedes Sapientiae, depicting Our Lady sitting on a throne, with Jesus sitting on her lap, His right hand raised. In the Marian poetry I look at as part of my DPhil, references to Mary as the throne of Wisdom sometimes turn up, making her a particularly appropriate patron of my work! In one poem from the Amiens puy, she is called 'Siege au grand maistre administrant science' (Seat of the great Master teaching wisdom), and in another, for which the accompanying illumination is below 'Soubz l'eternel recteur sage regente' (The wise regent below the eternal rector). I am sure that without the Seat of Wisdom guiding my research, I would not have arrived at where I am today.
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2. St Anne
The mother of Mary, St Anne is often depicted with a book and is the patron saint of educators, making her a particularly good saint to pray to for postgraduate research students who are often teaching on top of spending their days pouring over books: I wrote a little about St Anne and her association with books in this blog post here. I was not specifically named after St Anne, and it is only in the last few years that I have particularly grown in devotion to her: I spent my undergraduate year abroad in Vienna living with a lovely family who celebrated their name days, which inspired me to develop my relationship with my own patron saint. She is known as the patron of unmarried women, and definitely listened to my prayers when it came to finding a husband! I later received a place and funding for my DPhil at St Anne's College and so also began praying to her about my work. You can find an interesting article on the naming of the college on the library's website, which suggests that although the name was slightly arbitrary, she was, according to Eleanor Plumer 'a Saint with whom we may be proud to be connected'.
St Anne reading with Mary and Jesus from Bodleian MS Liturg 401 f3v and my own reading in the St Anne's library
3. St Thomas Aquinas
No list of saints for students would be complete without mention of the Angelic Doctor, St Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth century Dominican responsible for the Summa Theologica and known as one of the greatest intellects of the Middle Ages. He was a formidable philosopher and theologian, but one who was nonetheless humble, recognising the insignificance of his written work before the greatness of God: after receiving a revelation from God, he proclaimed 'All I have written appears to be so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me'. Thomas Aquinas, as a saint who dedicated his life to prayer and study is a wonderful example for students at all levels, and I use his Prayer before Study almost every day before I begin my work. I wrote it out at the beginning of my notebook and try to use it as the starting point for my research. The pleas for 'keenness of mind, capacity to remember, skill in learning, subtlety to interpret and eloquence in speech' cover all that I need in my daily work.
4. St Hildegard of Bingen
Also known as the Sybil of the Rhine, St Hildegard was a 12th Century polymath, whose writing ranged from philosophy and mysticism to botany and medicine. A Benedictine Abbess, she is also well known as a composer. As a medieval woman writer, she is a natural saint for me to look to as a women in medieval studies, and as an erudite Doctor of the Church, a good patron for all students. However, my devotion to St Hildegard began long before I became a medievalist, and it was reading about her, in a roundabout way, that inspired me as a small child to want to come to Oxford! I was impressed by her story in my book of saints as a child, and was also excited to find her in my book about composers, being one of the very few women in it. My saints book mentioned that a manuscript of hers was in Oxford, and, not quite knowing what manuscripts were, I thought that if I wanted to read her work one day, then I would have to read this manuscript in Oxford. The idea of modern editions did not occur to me, and the book suggested this was the only Hildegard manuscript in the UK, so to Oxford I would have to go! I think St Hildegard must have been watching over me, since when I applied to Oxford as a sixth former, I went up for interviews at Worcester College, but already had a note when I arrived saying Somerville wanted to interview me: I had not applied there myself, nor had I yet had my first set of interviews. I had much more interesting and pleasant interviews at Somerville (I cried during one of the interviews at Worcester!) and went on to get a place there, where my German tutor was Professor Almut Suerbaum, who it turned out had studied and written about Hildegard. Indeed, if you want to learn more about Hildegard's life and works, I would recommend you listen to this episode of In Our Time to which she contributed. It was through my tutor and undergraduate degree at Somerville that I became interested in medieval studies, and eventually Marian lyric, and I am now privileged to be supervised by Almut for my DPhil, so it seems that St Hildegard set me on my path and helped me get to where I am now.
Aside from a presentation for the Medieval Graduate German Research Seminar on the reception of Hildegard, I have not really studied her very much and so have not had a real excuse to request to consult the manuscript that intrigued me first as a young child. I no longer have the book of saints, but I assume that it is this manuscript from the Merton library to which it referred. It is digitised, so I can look at it online, but I shall have to see if I can manage to see it in the flesh while I am still at Oxford!
5. St Joseph of Cupertino
Thankfully I do not have to sit too many exams now that my undergraduate days are over, but St Joseph of Cupertino had to listen to a lot of prayers from me when I was studying for my finals! St Joseph, the only one of these saints who the medievals would not have known, was a devout young man born in 1603 who experienced visions and greatly desired to join the Franciscans. However, with little education, they rejected him. Eventually, he impressed them so much with his piety and asceticism that he was permitted to join but he struggled with the academic elements of preparation for ordination. Indeed, it is thought now that he had learning disabilities. There was only one passage of the Bible on which he was able to comment, Luke 11:27, and providentially, this was the verse the bishop picked at random for him in his oral exam. Thus, St Joseph of Cupertino is the patron saint of those taking exams, with students asking him to intercede that they may only be asking about subjects in which they feel confident.
O Great St Joseph of Cupertino, who while on earth did obtain from God the grace only to be examined on propositions that you know, obtain for me that same grace that I may succeed in the examinations for which I am now preparing.
I sometimes feel a little sorry for St Joseph, who must be besieged by requests for intercession during exam season, often by those who have done very little work: asking for his prayers is not an alternative to revision! But it has always been satisfying when I have had exam questions that have let me flourish and use my learning in interesting ways.
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These five saints are those who have helped me most, and to whom I would commend all students, but there are many others who have helped to in my academic work. As a long-time member of the Newman Society, I have often prayed to St John Henry Newman, an Oxford saint and impressive intellect. Honorable mentions also go to St Expeditus, patron saint of procrastination (we've all been there...); St Dymphna, who as patron saint of those suffering from mental illness is, I imagine, often invoked by graduate students, who sadly have very high rates of depression and anxiety; St Francis de Sales, patron of students and writers, and St Catherine of Alexandria, another patron saint of students. One saint whom I would like to know better is St Edith Stein, who seems like the ideal saint for a woman in academia. Marie Daouda has written an excellent article in First Things on the question of the feminine intellectual vocation which draws heavily on Edith Stein's thoughts.
I am very thankful for the intercession of all these saints! Their prayers have brought me very far in my research and I would recommend all students get to know these saints, grow in devotion to them and ask for their prayers. Doctoral work would be far too hard to do on my own: it is only thanks to the grace of God that I am now in the final stretch, and I'm sure it is the result of the intercession of these saints helping me to grow in the virtues and wisdom I need for my academic work. Recognising that we do not need to do our academic work all on our own and that we have friends in heaven to help us is consoling when research feels overwhelming! I hope you can find inspiration and consolation through these saints too.
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