510-year-old church in Newfoundland may be New World’s oldest Christian site
By ANIMonday, September 7, 2009
OTTAWA - In a new project, a team of archeologists is planning to search for the remains of a 510-year-old church on the western shore of Conception Bay, Newfoundland, which may be the oldest Christian site in the New World.
According to a report in the National Post, the project is aimed at adding to a string of recent discoveries about explorer John Cabot’s history-making voyages to Canada in the late 15th century.
The recent emergence of new evidence about Cabot’s voyages, including potentially “revolutionary” findings by the late British historian Alwyn Ruddock, has renewed interest in England’s earliest New World ventures during the reign of King Henry VII.
Canwest News Service recently revealed a researcher’s discovery of a 1499 letter in which Henry VII himself describes a previously unknown expedition to Canada headed by William Weston, a Bristol merchant who is finally emerging - five centuries after his death - as a key backer of Cabot’s quest to establish an English foothold in North America.
The king’s letter also contained the earliest known use of the phrase “new founde land” to describe Canada’s easternmost province, which Cabot is believed to have reached in June 1497 - the first European landfall in North America since the age of the Vikings.
Bizarrely, the recent spate of revelations from the dawning days of Canadian history follows Prof. Ruddock’s order - carried out by the executors of her will after she died in 2005 — that her unpublished research be destroyed.
But, through a project headed by University of Bristol historian Evan Jones, Prof. Pope and other scholars are combing through a small collection of Prof. Ruddock documents that survived destruction and may point the way to fresh discoveries - including the suspected Catholic mission at Carbonear.
In the outline for a book she never completed, Prof. Ruddock claimed to have found documents detailing the establishment of a church at Carbonear.
Historians generally believe Cabot perished during the voyage, and little was accomplished by any of the ships involved in the expedition.
But Prof. Ruddock’s sketchy references to a New World church built as early as 1498 has electrified Prof. Jones and other researchers.
“If she were correct, this would be the first European Christian settlement in North America, with the church Prof. Ruddock mentions being the first built on the continent,” said Jones. (ANI)
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September 8, 2009: 7:29 am
This article assumes that this Church would be the oldest Christian Church or settlement in North America. I highly doubt this to be true. While the Vikings were visiting Newfoundland, they were nearing the end of a transition from being pagan to Christian. Many historians believe that it is very likely that Newfoundland Vikings were Christians, at least in part, and carried out Christian rituals in Newfoundland about 500 years before Cabot. As a result, there is a replica Viking Christian Church built in at the L’Anse-aux-Meadows site. There are also legends that say Saint Brendan, an Irish Monk famous for sailing the North Atlantic, with a group of fellow monks discovered Newfoundland about 500 years before the Vikings. While evidence is scare, evidence of the Vikings was scare for centuries. In the 1970s an adventurer sailed from Ireland to Newfoundland using tools available in about 500. How long they stayed is in question. There are other claims to the discovery of Newfoundland made by other Christians. These include explorers from Wales, Portugal, Spain, France (the Basque), Scotland, and England (other than Cabot). These claims range from the 1100s to 1400s. All of these would have been Christian. I guess if any of the others actually made it to Newfoundland, Cabot just had the best “Public Relations and Media Campaign” of them all. The article also rules out Christopher Columbus who was a Christian and discovered North America 5 years before John Cabot. I guess that one of the legs of the article is how the words “settlement” or “Church” are defined. I understand that the (Christian) Vikings and post-Cabot “settlers” did not winter in Newfoundland. Therefore, if Saint Brendan, or any of the others actually arrived, stayed a little while, they could be called Christian settlers in Christians settlements with Christian Churches. The other leg of the article is how the word “Christian” is defined. If any of the explorers before John Cabot converted any of the local native population, they should be considered Christians and factored into the above statement. Since explorers did their jobs for God, King, and Self, it is highly likely they engage in some missionary activity, even if only informally and unorganized. I should note that in this sense the words “Christian” and “Catholic” are interchangeable. The Catholic Church was established by Jesus Christ Himself about 2000 years ago. The only Christian Church to exist prior to some Protestants choosing to make their own rules and churches was the Catholic Church. The exception being the Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe stated as a branch of Catholicism in 1054, but this does not apply to the Western Europe explorers. The Protestant Deformation did not happen until after North America was discovered. But, I still applaud this academic team for “digging” into the Catholic history of Newfoundland. This work is greatly needed. Perhaps the article’s questionable claim was made by journalists with poor fact checking skills resulting in a mere thesis being stated as absolute fact. |
Patrick