Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall

Today is the anniversary of the death in 1559 of the eighty five year old Cuthbert Tunstall, formerly Bishop of London and then of Durham. One of the great survivors of the age the Wikipedia biography of him can be found at Cuthbert Tunstall

The reason I am writing about him is that a few weeks ago a friend shared with me a short video which combines photographs and modern cartoon imagery to tell the story of Bishop Tunstall’s life and which has been produced under the aegis of Durham University. It can be viewed at Tunstall and The Tudors: The Calculating Bishop

At times it may be too ‘busy’ but it does include some interesting things about his life and times, including a view of his chapel in Durham Castle. There are also several portraits of the Bishop included in it, and I suspect these are not very well known.

Queen Mary I and Cardinal Pole

Today is the 465th anniversary of the deaths of both Queen Mary I and of her third cousin Cardinal Pole.

When I was writing the other week about the Cardinal I checked the Wikipedia account of his life and found it now includes a portrait of him by Perino del Vaga dated to 1539. The young Cardinal is depicted in conversation with Pope Paul III.

Image: Wikipedia 

I had not seen the portrait reproduced previously and it shows a figure quite distinct from the well known images of the Cardinal with a patriarchal flowing beard which became ever more common amongst Popes and.members of the Sacred College in these decades.

What is especially striking is Pole’s close facial resemblance to his second cousin King Henry VIII.

The fate of the Princes in The Tower

The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail both have stories which trail a programme on Channel 4 at 8pm tomorrow about the fate of the Princes in the The Tower. It is apparently co-presented by Philippa Langley who was instrumental in locating the skeleton of King Richard III in Leicester. Given her strongly Ricardian sympathies it is not surprising that the programme argues that the former King Edward V and his younger brother Richard Duke of York and Norfolk were not killed by their uncle but escaped and were in fact the individuals known to history as Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck. Continental archival sources are claimed to favour such an explanation.

I must admit I am sceptical about such a thesis for quite a number of reasons but I will aim to watch and see what I make of the case as presented. I will aim to comment next week.

The two illustrated newspaper summaries can be accessed at Historian who found Richard III under car park claims Princes in the Tower escaped from the Daily Telegraph and at Princes in the Tower may have ESCAPED prison instead of being killed from the Daily Mail

Technical problems

Apologies to regular readers for not posting recently but my computer technology has been ‘playing up’ - my mobile phone is terminally ill and in intensive care, and has received the Last Rites. Hopefully next week things will be easier. I shall attempt to add a few notes to the blog in the meantime.

Facial reconstructions

I have on several occasions linked on this blog to reports of facial reconstructions from archaeological investigations or other research. Some results, depending to a great extent on the methodology used, are better than others, or more credible as an actual human being. Live Science has now drawn some of these lines of thought together in an article about methods and also showing how new research is refining techniques and adding to verisimilitude by using extracted DNA to indicate probable hair and eye colour. Facial reconstructions as we know them are therefore to be seen in many cases at least as being ‘work in progress’ rather than a completed project. 

The article can be read at Facial reconstructions help the past come alive. But are they accurate?

Sixteenth century silver ewer and basin to go on display

A rare surviving example of a late sixteenth century London made silver ewer and basin for hand washing before eating has been accepted in lieu of inheritance tax from the Earl of Dalhousie and will go on display at the National Museum in Edinburgh. 

Few pieces of this type have survived and this set, known as the Panmure from the first Lord Pamure who acquired it in the early nineteenth century, it appears to be a fine example of these items which would have graced royal and noble households. It is dated to 1586 or 1587 and is believed to be the work of the Dutch immigrant Harnan Copleman. It is of high quality in its design and detail. Changes in fashion and the impact of the Civil War meant that most were melted down. Because we rarely see such items we forget they once existed. I remember seeing some thirty odd years ago at one of the great London auction houses an exhibition of such grand and impressive tableware in silver gilt that dated from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that had been sold by King Charles I and had come into the collection of the Tsars of Muscovy and survives in the Kremlin. These were very dramatic pieces in the tradition of the slightly later Exeter Salt in the Crown Jewels, with heraldic lions in silver gilt as flagons and other grandiose pieces.

The ewer and basin are illustrated and discussed in an online article from stv.tv which can be seen from stv.tv at Rare silver 16th century basin and ewer to go on display at National Museum

The Daily Record has a very similar, if not identical, article at Rare 16th century basin and ewer to go on display at National Museum of Scotland

The Melun Diptych

Recently I have come across two online articles about research into a detail in the Melun Diptych which dates from the early 1450s. The painting was commissioned by Étienne Chevallier, secretary and subsequently Treasurer to King Charles VII, in memory of his wife who died in 1452, and painted by Jean Fouquet. There  is a biographical note on Wikipedia about the former at Étienne Chevalier and a much longer illustrated article about the artist and his work at Jean Fouquet

The two panels were sold in 1775 to fund renovations to the church in Melun to which it had belonged and the two panels are now in galleries in Berlin and Antwerp.

The diptych is described in a Wikipedia article at Melun Diptych

The model for the figure of the Virgin Mary is usually identified as having been King Charles VII’s mistress Agnès Sorel, who had died in 1450. She had been the first maîtresse-en-titre of a French king, and there is a Wikipedia account of her life at Agnès Sorel

Surroging the Virgin and Child are Seraphim and Cherubim, the two highest orders of Angels.The Seraphim are shown in red as the are burning with the love of God. The next rank of Angels are the Cherubim who contemplate Him with ice-cold logic.

The new research concentrates on the stone which St Stephen has as his emblem of martyrdom on the book in his left hand. The argument is that this is not just any rock but a prehistoric stone axe head. The articles can be seen at What's That Oddly Shaped Stone in a 15th-Century Painting? from Hyperallegenic, and at This 15th-Century Painting Might Actually Depict a Prehistoric Tool, New Research Suggests

from Artnet

The church for which the diptych was originally commissioned is discussed briefly at Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame, Melun

Forts on the Eastern Frontier of the Roman Empire

Declassified aerial spy photographs from the 1970s and 1980s have been used by researchers to pinpoint lost - and often remote - Roman forts on what was once the eastern frontier zone of the Roman Empire in the borderlands of Syria, Iraq and Turkey according to an article in Antiquity as reported by the Daily Telegraph.

The forts are from the mid-second century up to 305 and the abdication of Diocletian, and are just short of 400 in number. Their distribution suggests not a limes like Hadrian’s Wall or the Rhine frontier but defence in depth, and, presumably, over time. As the article points out this was an important area for trade routes and contact as well as border conflict, so not one single pattern but a network over time and territory. 

Many are remote and isolated, and sadly vulnerable to modern development. The politics and turmoil of the region does not help their protection, still less their study by archaeologists. It is a tragic irony that such sites come to the notice of scholars and now together with modern pressures upon them.

The Daily Telegraph article, which has a selection of striking examples of the photographs, can be seen at Declassified images from Cold War satellites reveal hundreds of lost Roman forts

Live Science has a similar account of the evidence from these photographs and of what can be deduced from them at all Cold War satellite images reveal nearly 400 Roman forts in the Middle East

The Independent also reports on the project with different photographs and maps and additional commentary at Nearly 400 hidden Roman forts uncovered from Cold War-era images