Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Wednesday, 5 February 2025

Discoveries from the Rhenish frontier of the Roman Empire


Three recent archaeological discoveries in Germany, Luxembourg, and Denmark have highlighted a number of aspects of life in the territories along the border of the Roman Empire in its later years.

The first is from Peterhagen, which lies on the Weser in north-eastern Westphalia, and is very much an elite item - a very small gold padlock of a distinctively Roman type. It is dated to the third or fourth century. The discovery was made by a metal detector.


The second discovery is a hoard of 141 gold solidi in near mint condition which was excavated by archaeologists at a Roman site near Holzthum in northern Luxembourg. The couns were initially found by metal detectors and as the number of items increased it was clear a full excavation was required. The coins were minted by a succession of Emperors between 364 and 408.

There is a report about the discovery from the Greek Reporter website at Ancient Roman Gold Treasure Discovered in Luxemburg

Wikipedia has an entry about the coins with appropriate links at Holzthum Hoard.

The third discovery is not gold but less glamorous items, but nevertheless of great interest. They are some fragments of late Roman armour which had been placed, probably as a ritual offering, in a pagan burial in what is now southern Denmark.

Heritage Daily has a report about the discoveries from the site at Roman helmet discovered in Denmark

.Whilst not directly linked these three discoveries do offer a number of insights into life in the north-west of the Roman Empire as, unconsciously, it moved into a state of decline without realising what was actually happening. Not a sudden or dramatic decline and fall but a gradual transformation.


Monday, 3 February 2025

St Bede on Candlemas


Following on from my post yesterday for Candlemas I see that Christopher Howse wrote about the feast on its eve in his regular Saturday column Sacred Mysteries in the Daily Telegraph

In it, as he so often does, he links the celebration of the feast to its place in the history of the Church. In particular he highlights the writings of St Bede and the great age of Northumbrian Christianity in the seventh and eighth centuries. Thus he links the universally applicable theology of the only British Doctor of the Church, St Bede, to a surviving codex in the form of a spectacular and expensive copy of the Bible made in that Northumbrian monastic world and sent as a gift to the Pope. That in turn is an indicator of the fact that the Christians of Northumbria were very conscious of, and loyal to, their Catholic heritage.



Sunday, 2 February 2025

Candlemas - Oriel and the English Oratory


Today is the Feast of Candlemas, the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is also the ceremonial conclusion to Christmastide and its imagery of light in midwinter.

Over the years that I have been writing this blog, I have posted nearly every year about Candlemas, about its traditions and depiction over the centuries and also about two special, personal links to the day based on my life in Oxford.

Candlemas is the annual feast of my college Oriel, as it falls only a few days after the anniversary of the establishment of the college or House of Blessed Mary the Virgin in Oxford by King Edward II in January 1326, and is the first feast of Our Lady to occur after that date. This year marks the 699th anniversary of the foundation and next year will see the celebration of the septuacentenary. 

The other link is that today is the 177th anniversary of the establishment of the Oratorians in England by St John Henry Newman in 1848. Not only did he place his new foundation under the patronage of Our Lady but it is surely a conscious homage to his time as a Fellow of Oriel and that was attracted him to the Oratorian pattern of life was it similarity to the Senior Common Room in the college.

So today is an especially good one upon which to pray for Oriel and for the English Oratorians.

Rather than attempt to re-write previous pieces I will give links to my previous posts for this day.

They can be seen at Candlemasfrom 2011, Candlemasfrom 2012, Candlemasfrom 2013, Candlemas Day and Celebrating Candlemas from 2014, CandlemasCandlemas at the Oxford Oratory, and Medieval Images of Candlemas from 2015, Candlemas, from 2016, The Ceremonies of Candlemas from 2021, Candlemas from 2022, Candlemas from 2023, and, with continuing originality, Candlemas from last year.


I regret that in some of the older posts the images will no longer display, due, I assume to copyright reasons, but readers should be able to find the images online from the titles. There are still a fine selection of images of the Presentation and Purification which repay careful study.


May I wish a joyful Candlemas to all my readers and fraternal good wishes to my fellow Orielenses and Oratorians.



Thursday, 30 January 2025

The Royal Martyr


Today is the anniversary of the regicide of King Charles I in 1649.

King Charles I NPG 4836





















A devotional image of the Royal Martyr from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century and now in the National Portrait Gallery
Image: NPG

Last year I posted about a number of links to sites concerning the cult and commemoration of the Royal Martyr and it seems appropriate to link to that again. The links can be seen by going to King Charles the Martyr


An additional example of a relic is linked to in another post from last year at Charles I King and Martyr



Wednesday, 29 January 2025

Heligoland


If you are someone to whom the name of Heligoland merely recalls the Shipping Forecast - it is indicativecof a certain kind of desperation when you listen to that as a landlubber - then a new video from The History Chap is quite an eye opener.

I knew something of the history of this British North Sea - or perhaps I should call it the German Ocean as it was often then termed - which was administered from 1814 until 1890 when it was ceded to the German Empirein return for Zanzibar and parts of Kenya and Uganda.

In many ways I regret this exchange. Heligoland could well have continued to develop into something like the Channel Islands or Gibraltar, combining local and British identities in an engaging cultural synthesis.

What was new to me was its role as a refuge for German liberal exiles, and of the writing there of at least one famous set of verses. In that respect it is similar to Victor Hugo’s exile in first Jersey and then Guernsey.



Identifying the Bosham home of King Harold II


GBNews reported yesterday the findings of an archaeological investigation at Bosham, on the shore of Chichester Harbour in West Sussex, which appears to have revealed conclusively the site of the house occupied for in the mid-eleventh century by Earl Harold Godwinson. According to the BayeuxTapestry, which depicts and names the house at Bosham, this was where the Earl spent time before his fateful journey to Normandy and his meeting with Duke William II. That resulted in his oath to support the claim of the Duke to succeed King Edward the Confessor as English monarch.

The identification of a late Anglo-Saxon aristocratic house would be very unusual in itself, but the fact that belonged to a figure as important as the future King Harold II makes this an extremely significant discovery indeed.


That is a press release from Newcastle University, the base for some of the academics who, together with others from Exeter, carried out the research, which adds more specific detail to the account at Archaeologists find ‘lost’ site depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry

Wikipedia has an account of Bosham, and the significant Anglo-Saxon work in the church at Bosham


Sunday, 26 January 2025

More on French Royalism


Coat of Arms of the Bourbon Restoration (1815-30).svg

Image: Wikipedia 

I have posted twice in recent days about commemorations in France of King Louis XVI, and of course once ventures onto the Internet the algorithm starts finding related videos.

Here then are a few more, starting with a Requiem Mass celebrated in Grenoble, which can be seen at Messe de requiem pour Louis XVI - Mardi 21 Janvier 2025 - Collégiale Saint André de Grenoble

The Count of Paris - King Jean IV - is shown attending a Mass at Saint-Germain l'Auxerroiswhich was the parish church for a couple of centuries for the Louvre, and he is briefly interviewed by the presenter, at Je vais à l’Hommage au roi Louis XVI et j'interview le comte de Paris ! 


There is an interview with the then Prince Jean from 2018, before the death of his father, which  can be seen at Interview Prince Jean d'Orléans, Comte de Paris - Complément d'Enquête


Finally there is his equivalent of a reigning monarch Christmas or New Year broadcast on which can be seen at Voeux de Noël 2024 | PRINCE JEAN D'ORLEANS, COMTE DE PARIS

Vive Le Roi !

Sta Maria Novella in Florence


Recently I came upon a video about the great Dominican church of Sta Maria Novella in Florence. It can be seen at Santa Maria Novella - Florence - Churches and Museums - Virtual Walk 

The Wikipedia account of the church is detailed and can be seen at Santa Maria Novella

Despite its Renaissance facade the building is late medieval Florentine gothic. Inside it is  decorated with many works by major artists of the early generations of later fourteenth and fifteenth century Florence. 

It was at this time that Sta Maria Novella was of great importance not just as the Dominican church in so important a centre as Florence, but as the administrative centre of the Catholic Church. From 1418-20 the newly elected Pope Martin V resided in a hastily constructed palace attached the north east of the church. This was a lengthy pause on his journey to Rome. This Papal building now serves as the provincial police academy. 

One of the people who either lived with the Pope or must have frequented the palace was Richard Fleming, who had been appointed as a Chamberlain to the new Pope immediately upon his election in 1417 at Constance. It was doubtless here that in 1420 Pope Martin “with wonderful piety”, as Fleming was to recall it later when he wrote his own epitaph, consecrated as a bishop on his appointment to the diocese of Lincoln. 

Amongst the paintings in the church is the famous fresco by Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze which is sometimes termed The Triumph of the Church but is more accurately The Allegory of the Active and Triumpthant Church and o the Dominican Order. This was painted in 1365-7. It must have been seen by Richard Fleming when he was in residence at Sta Maria Novella.

In addition to the figures mentioned in the main Wikipedia article it includes in the foreground a young man wearing the Garter of a Knight of the Order, and thought to be the earliest representation of the insignia. Given the date of the work the most likely candidate must be Lionel of Antwerp, first Duke of Clarence, who married a Visconti and died soon after in Italy in 1368.

Regular readers of this blog will recognise that part of the painting forms the masthead at the beginning.


Image:  Wikipedia