Go Back   Ancestry Aid Genealogy and Family History Forum » Counties & History » History Board
Register Login AA Calendar NEW! Groups Mark Forums Read

Thread: Bible Dicing

Bible Dicing Reverend Dr. Robert Wilde, 1615-1679 Robert Wilde must have been familiar with Oliver Cromwell as both maintained .......


Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 11-05-2008, 02:00 PM   #1 (permalink)
Super Member
 
petal's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Horncastle, Lincolnshire
Posts: 8,514
Member Assistance Level 1 Heart Of Gold Posting - Level 1 Posting - Level 2 Posting - Level 3 
Total Awards: 5
Default Bible Dicing

Bible Dicing

Reverend Dr. Robert Wilde, 1615-1679

Robert Wilde must have been familiar with Oliver Cromwell as both maintained extreme Puritan views. In addition to the accomplishment of a Doctorate in Divinity Robert seemed to have been a poet of some note;


Sonnet ~ To the Mocking-Bird
Winged mimic of the woods! thou motley fool!
Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe?
Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule
Pursue thy fellows still with jest and jibe:
Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe;
Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school;
To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe,
Arch-mocker and mad abbot of misrule!


The 17th century language seems a little odd today but it is not for his poetry that Robert Wilde is remembered.
It is recorded in verse (anon) that Robert died from asthma but it was also recorded in his Will the bequest of a sum of money to provide a dozen Bibles, six for the boys and six for the girls, each year to be cast for by dice on the Communion table. It was Dr Wilde’s intention to show that the word was in the Bible and not in the pomp and circumstance that went on within some branches of the Church at that time.
Even today, gambling in Church is not something that occurs very often and time has varied Robert Wilde’s intent, only so much as they don’t throw the dice on the communion table anymore but every Whitsun the “Dicing for Bibles” still takes place in St Ives.
Whitsun is another name for Pentecost and that happens fifty days after Easter, hence 'Pentecost' which means 'fifty'. As Easter moves around the calendar so does Whitsun following Easter seven weeks later, and this is when Bible Dicing occurs

(AKA Mary)

How beautiful it is to do nothing and rest afterwards...
petal is offline   Reply With Quote Top
Advertisement
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools


Advertisement

This is a Genealogy site.