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.


Thursday, 25 June 2020

Omens in the heavens


The academic research website The Conversation has a short but interesting post today about the way medieval men linked the appearance of comets to visitations of disease, political upheaval and occasions of great moment. It can be read at Comets, omens and fear: understanding plague in the Middle Ages

One of the co-authors, Francis Leneghan, is a friend of mine, and some time reader of this blog.

At the end of the article are links to other postings which relate to the varied practical and political, spiritual and scientific response of people in the past to pandemics and to the world around them. They are very well worth looking at as well.

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