Anne Boleyn and facial recognition technology

The quest to find a contemporary portrait of Anne Boleyn, as opposed to posthumous, later sixteenth century portraits has taken a new turn with the publication of new research which has used current facial recognition techniques on portraits of her daughter and other relatives to seek common features. This evidence has then been applied to the unidentified portraits amongst the Holbein drawings in the Royal Collection.

The result has been to suggest one drawing in particular as a possible portrait of the controversial Queen.

Some art historians are highly sceptical about the methodology as blending two different types of image. This is all outlined in a report on the BBC News website, which can be seen at Scientists believe they have found previously unknown sketch of Anne Boleyn. There is also a short video about the research which can be viewed at Computing: Is this actually what Anne Boleyn looked like?

 

I would not claim expertise to pronounce either way about the proposed identification, but I would hesitate to dismiss it out of hand. I do not think the drawing long labelled as being of Anne very convincing, and the one suggested as being her does perhaps look more likely but that may be a consequence of the fact that it more closely resembles the well-known but posthumous portraits. 

One might wonder, adapting Marlowe, looking at any of these images of Anne Boleyn if this was the face that launched a revolution and displaced almost a thousand years of faith.

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady in the Undercroft Canterbury Cathedral

The second destination on the Pilgrimage is the shrine of Our Lady in the Undercroft in Canterbury Cathedral.

Situated in the Western Crypt it lies in the oldest part of the present cathedral. It was a major place of pilgrimage in the medieval period and would doubtless have been visited by pilgrims such as those described by Chaucer in addition to their primary object the shrine of St Thomas Becket in the main part of the cathedral.

  

My post from last year, with links to my previous articles about this fascinating survival, and its modern restoration, can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Undercroft in Canterbury Cathedral

 

The Western Crypt and the Chapel of Our Lady in the Undercroft 

Image: Canterbury Cathedral 

May Our Lady in the Undercroft intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Arthurian Legends - Sir Percival, Sir Marrok and Merlin

Before the Pilgrimage leaves Glastonbury I will share three recent online articles that relate to the Arthurian legends Many places have claims to participate in that vast corpus of poetry and prose, but Glastonbury is one of the central players, where history, legend and literature interweave so signally.

The first relates to the story of Sir Percival and is from The Collector. The article seeks to link the twelfth and thirteenth century stories of Chrétian of Troyes, Robert Borron and Wolfram von Eschenbach to earlier or contemporary Welsh tales and to actually place Perceval/Peredur as a real historical figure in the sixth century. 

The illustrated article can be viewed at The Real Historical Background of Sir Percival's Arthurian Legends 

I do not claim sufficient expertise in Arthurian studies to give an author at I’ve comment but the pieces does appear to be coherent and considered. Percival is usually suggested, because the early stories come from there, to have come from Wales. This interpretation makes him come from the area around York. As a Yorkshireman myself the thought that Percival was, so to speak, a Yorkshire lad is intriguing.

Wikipedia has an account of the various strands of the story of Percival which can be accessed at Perceval

Sir Marrok is not one of the well-known Knights of the Round Table and gets only a tantalising mention by Malory. Socially he was disadvantaged, having been made into a werewolf by his wife, but then, these things happen ….

What is known of his story and later variants on it is outlined in a post from Historic Mysteries at Sir Marrok: The Werewolf at the Court of King Arthur 

The reputed grave, or place of entrapment, of Merlin, is claimed for several places. Atlas Obscura has a piece about a site in Brittany which has been associated with Arthurian stories since the middle ages and more particularly since the nineteenth century. The article can be seen at Merlin's Tomb

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Glastonbury

The Pilgrimage begins at Glastonbury and wends its way to Walsingham.

Glastonbury is a place of beginnings, many of them so shrouded in myth and mystery as to have become impenetrable, yet ever intriguing. As one distinguished historian wrote the Glastonbury legends may not be fact but their existence is a very great fact.

My post about Glastonbury as a centre of Marian, and related, devotion, from last year, together with links to previous posts from other years, about the abbey as a focus of prayer and history can be read at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Glastonbury

Glastonbury, its legends and history have fascinated me since I was a boy, and as a younger man I had the opportunity to stay at the adjoining Diocesan Retreat House in preparation for the Anglo-Catholic Pilgrimage each year from 1987 until 1993. I also stayed there for retreats or as a holiday base in those years, and have been on other occasions to the actual Pilgrimage. My annual week, or weeks, at Glastonbury enabled me to soak up the historic atmosphere and Christian - but hopefully not the non-Christian - spirituality of the town and abbey ruins nestling beneath the distinctive profile of the Tot with its legends and story of martyrdom in 1539. I came to sense and see just how extraordinary and exceptional this charming little market town really is as a source of so much art and literature, of myth and legend. It is a holy place, a graced place, where the time-space continuum wears this, where time becomes space.

At its heart.are the remains of the abbey. One can be awed, as at Cluny, by the horrific scale of destruction, but then realise, and marvel, that from the fragments of stonework that survive most of the monastic church could be accurately recreated. 

The one portion that survives more or less completely save for vault and roof is the Lady Chapel at the western extremity

This, with its distinctive angle turrets, was built after the devastating fire of 1184 and stands on the site of the Old Church of Glastonbury. This was the venerable timber church built, it was claimed, by Joseph of Arimathea in honour of Our Lady. A later version of the legend had the structure actually created by Our Lord on a visit with Joseph of Arimathea whilst engaged in the tin trade before His public ministry. That version is, as far as I can tell, a post-reformation reworking to enhance the case for English exceptionalism. Just to the south of the chapel is the cemetery site where the monks found at this time of rebuilding what they believed, or claimed, to be the remains of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere.

The chapel as rebuilt after 1184 is, unlike the main monastic church with its early Gothic style, consciously  more old-fashioned in a confident earlier twelfth century Romanesque and rich with carved decoration. In places, even today, remains of the painted decoration can be found on the sculpture of the doorways.  

The Lady Chapel at Glastonbury Abbey

Image: Britain Express

May Our Lady of Glastonbury intercede for us and our intentions,

Jesu mercy, Mary pray  

A Marian Pilgrimage in May

Tomorrow is May Day and the beginning of Mary’s Month.

As I have done since 2020 I am going to post the itinerary day by day of a virtual Pilgrimage around the Marian shrines of medieval England, together with something of their  history.

Rather than write out again the background to this pilgrim journey I will link to my introduction to last year’s peregrination, which can be seen at May Marian Pilgrimage

I am also reposting the equivalent article from the previous year which gives more about the origins of this convoluted route and the historical evidence behind it. That can be seen at May Marian Pilgrimage

The daily posts will include the consolidated posts and links as I published them last year, together with any additional facts or reflections, plus one new addition to the itinerary. 

As I write each year I always intend to rewrite the posts, but never seem to find the time to consolidate them. However their existing discursive style is very much how I speak when with friends, so you will get a flavour of my own verbal presentation as we ramble in spirit through the landscape and along the roads of later medieval England. Whether we are like Chaucer’s fellow pilgrims to Canterbury in their variety and idiosyncrasy I will leave to readers to decide.

May Our Lady accompany us on this journey and ever assist us with her prayers. 

Jesu mercy Mary pray

How many people did you need to build a medieval cathedral?

The answer to the question I posed in the title of this post is, according to the author of a recent article on Medievalists.net, not what you might expect.

The evidence comes from the civic records of the city of Girona in Catalonia, and relates to the building in the fifteenth century of the nave of the cathedral. This was in itself a radical departure in its design from the choir and ambulatory erected at an earlier date.

The article can be read at How Many Workers Built a Medieval Cathedral?

Identifying the Picts

Questions such as “Who were the Picts?” and “What happened to the Picts?” have dominated the historiography of early Scotland for certainly decades, and in many ways, for centuries. As a result the Picts have been left in a historical Highland mist, a group who intrigue, but continued to elude us.

Recent sequencing of some Pictish DNA does appear to have answered these questions. This research is presented in a short video from The Helix Report which can be seen here 

There is more about this new view of the Picts and their true place in the history of Scotland in another video, from Origin Decoder which can be seen here

Anne Boleyn sat here?

I continue to be surprised by the number of people - mainly women I think - who have a sentimental fascination with Anne Boleyn. Whilst not on a par with the extremes of Ricardian enthusiasts it is somewhere in the same part of the field.

Personally I am more inclined to see her as one of, if not the, most evil women in English history. 

The current exhibition about her at Hever Castle includes a substantial chair which appears to have been made for her in the years she was at the French Court and before she returned to England. If it really did belong to her then it is a rare survival and link to her.

Artnet reports on the chair and what can be deduced about its history in an illustrated article which can be seen at Was This Anne Boleyn's Seat? Rare 500-Year-Old Chair Linked to the Tudor Queen