Being a bit vainglorious

The Clever Boy is a reasonably modest chap but does occasionally like to blow his own trumpet. 

The latest edition of the Latin Mass Society’s magazine Mass of Ages includes a review I was asked to write of an excellent new book on the history on Christian monasticism both in the Orthodox East and the Catholic West down to the sixteenth century. The book is The Monastic World : A 1,200 Year History by Andrew Jotischky and published by Yale UP. The review can be seen in hard copy available from any decent Catholic church or online. As you will see I am very positive about what is a ground breaking book.

Mass of Ages is a handsomely produced magazine covering many aspects of traditional Catholic life and practice. I was interested to read, coincidentally, in this latest copy inter alia a tribute to the late Geoffrey Ashe, whose research and writing on the origins of the Arthurian legends led to a serious and continuing reappraisal of that subject by historians and archaeologists. I once had the privilege of meeting him after a talk he gave whilst I was on a retreat at Glastonbury and was able to thank him for the influence his books had had in my own life and studies, as well as hearing him speak on another occasion in Oxford.

King Henry VI and his nurse

Last November I wrote The Coronation of King Henry VI in 1429  about the 595th anniversary of that event at Westminster. In addition to the clergy and the peers, and the other great men of the realm we can I imagine be reasonably certain that amongst those thronging the abbey and palace that day was the young monarch’s former nurse, Joan Astley.  

Many royal servants in the medieval period are often no more than a name, and sometimes they are bereft of even that. However we do know a little more about the life of Joan Astley who was nurse in the 1420s to the infant king, and who would have moved on to other duties by then. She has however left some evidence of her existence in the public records, and these have been made more visible in the British Library exhibition Medieval Women In Their Own Words. The royal nursery was a substantial, and obviously female, unit and Joan herself well-connected within the Lancastrian establishment. In 1424 she petitioned for a salary increase. Not only was this granted but it was made a life-grant. The young King was clearly well cared for and grew up to be physically healthy, whatever the debates about his mental health after 1453. Joan’s later years were lived at in a house with a garden at Smithfield and in 1446 she was a co-founder of a chantry and fraternity at St Bartholomew’s priory. She appears to have lived until some date after 1463, which suggests she achieved a good age for the time. One wonders what she thought in those last years when the King she had nurtured was forced from his throne and into exile. She is probably interred at St Bartholomew’s.

The article about her life can be read at Requesting a raise: the petition of Joan Astley

More details about the Galloway Hoard

As so often happens when one writes about an archaeological discovery and link to online report about it a day or two later there appears a more detailed report which one is also keen to share. 

The other day I posted about work on a runic inscription found on one of the pieces in the Galloway Hoard in The latest insight into the Galloway Hoard. I have now found a more detailed account of this latest research on the website of Popular Mechanics. It is well worth looking at and indicates with its various instances of items that were named as the property of individuals that this was a more literate society that one might initially have imagined. Much of this will doubtless remain hypothetical but named personal items of adornment suggests a degree of sophistication.

The article can be seen at Experts Just Decoded a Big Mystery Surrounding a Famous Viking Treasure

A medieval gemstone seal from Norfolk

I recently posted about a medieval seal ring with a Roman gemstone cameo that had been found at Fishlake near Doncaster and had been purchased for the city museum collection. That post can be seen at A thirteenth century ring from Fishlake in Yorkshire

I now see that a seal not dissimilar in appearance has been found near Kings Lynn and has been acquired for the Norfolk Museums service. Like so many such objects It was found by a metal detectorist. Dated to the period 1250-1350 the pendant seal is again a red gemstone  carved with the image of an elephant and castle and set in a gold frame with an inscription.

The report can be seen at King's Lynn elephant and castle seal find joins museum collection

As with the Fishlake ring such seals are a reminder of the striking items that at least some mediaeval people wore, and the need and desire to have a distinctive seal to authenticate letters and documents. Whatever the literacy of the individual owner they required such seals to authenticate items sent or issued in their name.

I have speculated in previous posts about fines from this part of Norfolk about weather they could have been owned by pilgrims to Walsingham or by people engaged in the important trading networks that flow through Kings Lynn and along the roads and waterways of East Anglia in the mediaeval centuries. That we will never know unless a document bearing the seal impression where to be found which might indicate its owner and something of their life. Even so it is one more link to the past and it is good to see that it will be available to public view in the museum. 

Arma Christi roll discovered in York

The BBC News website has a report about the discovery in the collections of Bar Convent in York of a later fifteenth century copy on a roll of the devotional poem about the Instruments of the Passion, the Arma Christi. This particular roll appears to have been intended for group recitation rather than just private meditation. 

Devotion to the Instruments of the Passion, and indeed to the physical sufferings of Christ developed over time and grew particularly in the later medieval period as can be seen from a Wikipedia article at Arma Christi

The poem is available with a commentary as can be seen from this online flier from Routledge at The Arma Christi in Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture: With a Critical Edition of 'O Vernicle'

In York itself in the Minster evidence for the devotion can be seen in one of the carved shields in the spandrels of the arches of the Lady Chapel. 

The illustrated article about the chance discovery at York can be seen at 

Rare medieval rolled manuscript found in York Bar Convent archive

For those who do not know the extraordinary history of Bar Convent there is an introduction on Wikipedia at Bar Convent

Septuagesima

Septuagesima has arrived, the ‘A-word’ is buried until Holy Saturday, the violet vestments and hangings are back in use - and I must say I was most impressed when watching the traditional rite Mass this morning from St Mary’s Shrine in Warrington by the really beautiful violet and gold cope worn by the celebrant for the Asperges. The lead-up to Lent and Easter has begun. 

Last year I wrote an article for the blog drawing together the links to my surprisingly large number of posts about this season of the Church year. These cover both specific liturgical actions and also the case for a time of preparation for our Lenten abstinence. The article with all these links can be seen at Burying the ‘A word’ and Septuagesima

May I wish a spiritually rewarding gesima season to you all.

The latest insight into the Galloway Hoard

The continuing investigation of the Galloway Hoard of silver from the Viking era has now yields a tentative reading of a runic inscription which may help to explain the nature of the hoard as that of a single community rather than just an individual or family’s accumulated loot, or if so, then as loot accumulated by a community, with a shared sense of identity, of some type.

The research can be read in a summary from The Independent at Owner of Viking Age ‘Galloway Hoard’ of silver and gold finally found

Dresden eighty years on

I recently posted a link through an online article about the rebuilding of Potsdam and how moving a story it is. On the eightieth anniversary of the bombing raids on Dresden it seems appropriate to say something, not least about the ongoing resurrection of the historic city centre of the “Florence of the Elbe”

Wikipedia has what is clearly intended to be a balanced account of the raids of February 13th-15th 1945 and the subsequent smaller raids. It looks at the events and the interpretations offered over the subsequent decades and can be read at Bombing of Dresden

The Duke of Kent, patron of the Dresden Trust, and representing The King, was present in the city for the anniversary and spoke of the work of reconciliation, something to which he has long given his support.

The Daily Telegraph has an article to mark the anniversary and which outlines the delights of the rebuilt city and its surroundings such as the royal palace at Moritzburg Castle

The article can be seen at How Germany’s most beautiful city was miraculously rebuilt

I have a slight reservation about one point it makes: just because the Germans did terrible things to other historic and beautiful cities such as Warsaw does not to my mind, excuse us from doing the same to similar cities such as Dresden and the difference in the scale of destruction makes the bombing of Coventry - terrible as that was - a rather shallow and overworked parallel to invoke.

Ed West has two really excellent articles about the Dresden that was lost and indeed the threats to it had it survived, and about the rebuilding of the city in recent years. They are very well worth reading and can be seen at  The beautiful rebirth of Dresden (1)

and at The beautiful rebirth of Dresden (2)

Quite a few years ago now I visited a small exhibition in the historic University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford about the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche and the British gift of the new orb and cross to crown the dome as a sign of reconciliation. Viewing the photographs of the church before and since 1945 I found myself virtually in tears, tears that people could destroy such beauty, and tears that it was being re-born.