Thursday, August 25th – The rest of Day Ten – Niort to Matha, or should I say Saint Jean d’Angely?
Reasonably early start from Niort, shown above, with usual challenges in getting prepared to leave town already published and no more than usual problems actually keeping together whilst getting out of town, before beginning the ride to the tiny town of Matha , whose Wiki entrance is the smallest stub I have ever read, and whose Chateau looks to be amongst the least prepossessing I have seen – somewhere in size between what used to be my old school Kings High school sixth-form common-room in the Eastgate of Warwick and only one of the Towers of Vincigliata. In fact, I suspect that the Castle’s origins were the same as those of Warwick – part of the old City Wall?
The Chateau of Marta
Warwick’s Eastgate – now available as a luxury holiday rental!
Matha does however, have a famous Saint , St John of Matha, famous enough to be featured, with his broken chains in hand and a stags head with the red and blue cross between its antlers, on The Charles Bridge in Prague,
Why he is called St John of Matha is difficult to determine. As far as I can see little is known of his life except that he was born to noble parents at Faucon-de-Barcelonnette, on the borders of Provence on June 23, 1169 ( ie the other side of France!)
He was baptized John, in honour of St. John the Baptist. He studied theology at the University of Paris and was ordained a priest at the age of 32 in December 1192. During his first Mass in January 1193, he had a vision of Christ holding two chained captives, one a Moor and the other a Christian (NB this was the time of the Crusades) captive who carried a staff with a red and blue cross.
This red and blue Cross , became his key attribute, together with broken chains on his hands or feet, a purse , captives shown near him, and sometimes with his mitre at his feet.
After the Mass, John decided to devote himself to the task of ransoming Christian captives from the Moors. But true to the tradition of his namesake The Baptist he took to living it rough in a great wood near Gandelu, in the diocese of Meux. Here together with another Hermit, St Felix of Valois, he spent his time in prayer, and mortification before initiating his life’s work of providing succour to captive Christian slaves.
On December 17, 1198, he obtained the preliminary approval of Pope Innocent III for a new order dedicated in honour of the Blessed Trinity for the redemption of Christian captives. This order was fully approved in 1209. The Order of the Most Holy Trinity’s first monastery was established at Cerfroid (just north of Paris) and the second at Rome at the church of San Tommaso in Formis. Christian slaves were first rescued by the Order in 1201. In 1202 and 1210 John travelled to Tunisia himself and brought back countless Christian slaves.
Before his death, Trinitarian tradition says he met St. Francis of Assisi and introduced Francis to the Frangipani family, one of the benefactors of the Franciscan order.
St. John of Matha died on December 17, 1213 in the house of St. Thomas In Formis on the Caelian Hill in Rome.
Whilst Matha is the end of the cycle the nearest hotel meeting husband approval appears to be in Saint Jean D’Angely – about 16k back across country!
We went to Matha to see the Church – predictably it was closed – so we didn’t even find a relic , or whatever might explain the connection ( perhaps there is another Matha, more relevant?), so we just packed up the bicycle into the back of the car and pushed on to St Jean d’Angely for a good meal and a somewhat troubled sleep in our Restaurant Hotel near the Hotel de Ville in the town centre.
