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 18 March 2015

DNA and History


The BBC website has an interesting report about the latest research into who we are as a people in Great Britain and what our DNA tells us about our history. It confirms what modern historians have tended to say in recent years about the population shifts and invasions - or not - of the first millennium AD. It also points to stability and continuity of county and regional communities over the centuries, facts which are of interest in themselves and which may help explainlocal differences in attitudes over the sweep of national history.

The report,with a striking map, can be seen at DNA study: Celts not a single group.



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