The Independent had recently an interesting article about a study of the well known Chertsey tiles depicting the exploits of King Richard I on the Third Crusade. Commissioned by King Henry III about 1250 for the royal palace at Westminster, and apparently also used at Winchester Castle, the design was also reused at Chertsey Abbey, whence come the surviving tile fragments.
A US academic has carried out a study of the surviving tiles and reconstructed the original layout with its celebration of what were believed to be King Richard’s successes against Saladin. This it is suggested ties in with attempts to engage the English nobility with the crusading ideal - which were to prove unsuccessful.
It is also a reminder of the cultured world created by King Henry III not only at Westminster but in all his residences, and which surrounded his successors until the loss of much of the residential part of the Westminster palace to fire in the early sixteenth century, and the further losses after the 1834 conflagration.
As it is from The Independent readers will have to forget ( or possibly forgive ) the tiresome woke spin on “medieval racism”, as well as describing a tiled floor as mosaic, in the otherwise interesting report.
The article can be seen at Revealed: London's long-lost medieval palace recreated after 500 years and it contains a link to a piece from the current exhibition of some of the tiles in Worcester Massachusetts
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