More on the Episcopal ring from Norfolk and other finds

I recently posted about the discovery and forthcoming sale of a fine late twelfth or early thirteenth century episcopal ring found in Norfolk in my article A medieval episcopal ring found in a Norfolk field

The ring reappeared on the Internet earlier this week as it was due to be auctioned, along with other antiquities found by metal detectorists as is reported in Medieval Ring Worn by an English Bishop Leads a Jewelry Auction

The article also discusses another item of jewellery that is due to be auctioned with it. In this instance it is a mourning ring, one of a set commissioned by the seventeenth century Lord Chief Justice Rainsford of the King’s Bench for his sisters in law. My eye lit on this because many years ago I knew one of his descendants and arranged to include a visit to his memorial in a church near Northampton on a study tour I was organising. The lady concerned died a while ago but she would, I am sure, have been fascinated by this discovery,

The auction has now taken place and the episcopal ring sold for a little more than was anticipated. As I wrote beforehand hope it ends up in a museum or similar collection that enables the public, as well as researchers, to see it. The report on the sale can be seen from BBC News at Medieval ring found by Norfolk detectorist fetches £19k

King James I and VI

Today is the four hundredth anniversary of the death of King James I and VI.

In recent years, there seems to have been renewed interest in his life and reign both as King of Scots and as King of England, even if this is sometimes you somewhat sensational nature reflecting contemporary interests and enthusiasms. His reign in England at least is perhaps now  seen as more than an interval between however one views the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and however one views the reign of King Charles I.

Much of the interest of his life and reign is brought out in an article which turned up in my inbox this morning. It is by Ed West of The Wrong Side of History and offers a useful perspective on the King. His quotations are entertaining and insightful, although it is perhaps a pity that he did turn to any other contemporary historian than Peter Ackroyd. 

In his discussion of the monarch’s attempts to create a sense of a greater Britain I was sorry to see no mention of the proposal for him to take the title Emperor of Britain. As I understood it the emphasis on King James’ slovenly appearance derives from the memoir of one disgruntled courtier, but West suggests more sources. A number of his stories were new to me, including Queen Anne ( or Anna ) shooting the royal pet dog and King James’ views on women clergy. 

One event which is not mentioned which must have been profoundly upsetting to the Royal family was the death of Henry Prince of Wales. This occasioned much grief not only within his family but to the wider nation. It must remain one of the great.”what  ifs” of British history, and I sense that King Charles I lived the rest of his life thinking about what his more confident and out-going elder brother would have done. I posted about those ideas in 2012 in Henry Prince of Wales and in 2013 in The Lost Prince

The article on King James, which is well worth perusing, can be read at The First Briton

  

A new theory about the Sutton Hoo Helmet

The BBC News website has a report about the latest theory concerning the origin of the Sutton Hoo helmet. Hitherto this has been associated with eastern Sweden, but the discovery of a die-stamp on the island of Taasinge ( Tåsinge ) which lies just south of Funen in Denmark, may indicate that the helmet originated there. The article discusses the various possibilities based on the currently available evidence, and what it might signify about the political, cultural, and trading links between East Anglia, Denmark and Sweden in the seventh century. 

The illustrated article about the find can be seen at Sutton Hoo helmet may actually come from Denmark, archaeologist suggests

Wikipedia has an account of the island where the find was made at Tåsinge

Cluny

 

A while back I posted Cluny Re-envisioned about the great Burgundian monastic church.

Now I have found a longer and more detailed video account from Easy Documentary about the building of Cluny III that is exceptionally interesting.

It looks in particular at the technology involved and developed by the community at Cluny to create this spectacular, and innovative  monastic church.in the late eleventh and early twelfth century.

The video, which utilises digital imagery interspersed with interviews with academics can be seen at Cluny Abbey: Building the Largest Church of the Middle Age - Full Documentary

My visit in 2014 was one of most memorable of my life, my interest originating in the fact that my home town had a Cluniac priory founded in 1090. Alas there is even less above ground - there than there is at Cluny, but I could recognise a number of distinct similarities at Cluny and at Paray. This is indicative of Cluniac style and shared design - the monks there anticipated group branding. My post about that visit can be seen at Cluny

I have also posted about the great Abbots who established the monastery at The Holy Abbots of Cluny and about the destruction of the church in A crime against Humanity

Unfortunately in these older posts the photographs have not downloaded, but I think the text is still of sufficient interest without the illustrations.

Medieval vegetables we have lost

Whilst doing my online grocery shopping I was distracted by a video from Medieval Times Discovered about fifteen vegetables that have largely or entirely vanished from modern kitchen, but which were widely used in the medieval centuries. Some were valuable as supplements to diets in winter or times of famine. Most were valuable sources of minerals and made for healthy eating. I was aware of quite a few but it added to my knowledge of what was available. The comments do give examples of the continuing use of these vegetables in Europe, and another’s, such as dandelion leaves.

The video, with a slightly irritating jokey commentary which is a bit off-putting, can be seen at 15 Forgotten Vegetables Medieval Farmers Grew That NEED to Come Back

If you want to try them today I think you will have to get out and get gardening, unless you have a very specialised greengrocer, or live deep in the countryside with unmown grass verges. You would certainly be wasting your time enquiring in a supermarket…

Book review: The Paston family and their letters

Blood and Roses: The Paston family and the Wars of the Roses

Helen Castor   Faber and Faber 2005

An everyday story of fifteenth century folk

This is an excellent book which is eminently suitable for the student of the period or for those with a general interest in life in the fifteenth century, or even as an introduction to the uninitiated. I agree with other reviewers about its general readability and that it engages the reader in the story of the rise and tribulations of the Paston family.

The letters themselves, with their immediacy and mix of legal matters and contemporary politics together with affairs of the heart, family bickering and requests for shopping, make their writers come alive. This book integrates that material into a narrative in which the Pastons and those they interacted with really step out from the page as people one can understand and visualise as being as human and complex, as vulnerable and as hopeful as ourselves. The intervening five and a half centuries slip away and we feel ourselves to be observers in the Paston household in Norwich, their manor houses, the contested castle at Caistor or in London, at court or in court, or at Calais. Although not unique the Paston letters are unsurpassed as a collection and they remind us of how theirs was a literate as well as a litigious society, and make us regret more such family papers do not survive.

One slight criticism that could be made is that the account of the historical background at times moves a little too briskly and the fates of some who were involved in the Paston’s property disputes are not recorded. Thus the executions of the Earl of Oxford and Sir Thomas Tuddenham in 1462 and Sir Philip Wentworth in 1464 whilst not recorded in the letters cannot have passed the family by without some degree of interest.

This is a book that is human and humane, and by no means lacking in the humour of daily existence.

Posted on Amazon  28.3.23

A new book in the Bodleian

I spent a considerable part of this morning and afternoon attending an online symposium at the Bodleian Library. It was devoted to a book the Library has recently acquired. Now there is nothing unusual in that - as Bodley’s Librarian pointed out in his opening remarks the Library takes in something like a thousand books every day. This one however is exceptional.

An illuminated manuscript French translation of the New Testament produced to the highest standards of the day in the Parisian ateliers during the last quarter of the thirteenth century it was acquired before 1350 by the future King Jean II, who inscribed his name in it as a sign of ownership. It may have come to England as a result of the King’s captivity after the battle of Poitiers in 1356, or, perhaps more probably, with his granddaughter Queen Joan of Navarre, who married King Henry IV in 1403. The application of ultra-violet light has revealed the erased names of later English owners - Thomas, later Duke of Clarence, his stepson Edmund Beaufort, Count of Mortain and later Duke of Somerset, who then gave it to his stepfather’s youngest brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Duke Humphrey - or Humfrey - was, of course, a seminal figure in the development of what became the Bodleian Library, and a significant patron of learning and literature both established Latin and French texts and the latest Italian Humanist versions. The volume appears to have disappeared after Duke.Humfrey’s death in 1447 before reappearing in the eighteenth century. Thanks to a government ban on its export it has now been acquired and given a permanent home in the library its last royal owner so clearly supported and valued.

The symposium offered a series of fascinating talks about the book, which is on show in the Weston Library, and, as of today,  also available in digitised form online at Bodleian Library MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1

The full Bodleian catalogue entry with the various recovered inscriptions can be seen at MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1 - Medieval Manuscripts

The Bodleian website illustrates two of the miniatures and lists the impressive array of contributors to the symposium at From Jean le Bon to Good Duke Humfrey

The book itself and the symposium provide and provided a fascinating insight into the cultivated literary tastes and patronage of princes either side of the Channel between the last years of St Louis and the mid-fifteenth century.

Wikipedia has an illustrated biography of the Duke at Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester

 

Humphrey Duke of Gloucester

Fifteenth century portrait by an unknown artist Library of St Vaast, Arras

Image: Britannica

 

Conflict at Amesbury Priory

 

A short article on the Medievalists.net recounts the troubles that beset the communal life of the nuns of Amesbury in Wiltshire at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It can be read at The Kidnapping Scandal at Amesbury Priory

Despite its slightly sensationalist style, reminiscent of Coulton the story is intriguing and the article sent me to the detailed Wikipedia account of the history of the foundation at Amesbury Abbey. It also sent me to the comprehensive history in the Victoria County History of Wiltshire vol iii (1956) which can be seen at Houses of Benedictine nuns: Abbey, later priory, of Amesbury

These give more detail about the disturbing events at the monastery in these years and of the troubled times of the Prioress, Sibyl Montague. It is necessary to read all three accounts to begin to assemble a clear picture of the events that are described. That said they all seem to miss out the political context of the events at the time of the Epiphany Rising of 1399-1400 - also also possibly in respect of the calendar regarding Archbishop Arundel who did not return from exile until midsummer 1399.

 

Putting the evidence together it appears as if the former Prior took advantage of the situation when the Prioress had inevitably lost the support of her brother John, third Earl of Salisbury, and closely identified with King Richard II, with his execution at Cirencester in the wake of the failed Epiphany uprising. A high profile monastic house for either men or women was closely enmeshed in the political and social world of its day.

Amesbury, claimed by Malory in the Morte d’Arthur as the place of retirement of Queen Guinevere, enjoyed a high profile as a house of the Fontevrault sisterhood and as the home chosen by, or for, various female members of the Royal house. This gave the monastery prestige, and these ladies appear to have retained their own high status within the convent and Order. A woman of aristocratic birth like Sibyl Montague would doubtless fit in well in such a community. The whole story of the abbey and the later priory is fascinating, and worthy of a full history on its own.

The only evidence above ground today of Amesbury Priory is the parish church. Wikipedia has an account of the building at Church of St Mary and St Melor, Amesbury and the VCH article also discusses the original status of the building. It is certainly not a typical rural parish church, as I realised when I visited it many years ago. On the basis of the physical evidence and the record evidence as well as the observations of antiquarians it looks as if it was the church for the original community of nuns and then after 1177 was assigned to the community of priests and for the use of the parish, and that a new nuns church and claustral buildings were erected to the north, close to the successor country house known as Amesbury Abbey.