Friends in high places

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday afternoon to see in the list of new life peerage creations on the recommendation of the Leader of the Conservative party the name of Professor Nigel Biggar. 

I first met him in October1993 when as a fresher postgraduate student I went on my first Sunday to the college communion service at 9 am. There I met the chaplain the Rev. Dr Biggar and his wife and I was rapidly drawn into the life of Oriel chapel as a communicant and then as a Bible Clerk, and then Head Bible Clerk. Until Nigel left in 1999 Chapel was a very important part of my Oriel life. Although our churchmanship might have been rather different, we nonetheless were on very friendly terms. He was a very conscientious and popular Chaplain, with a ministry that extended far beyond the regular chapel goers - sports teams would want him to preside at their annual dinners because he was good fun and genuinely interested in the lives and hopes of students.

Since he has returned to Oxford in 2007 he has become well known for taking a decided stand on a number of controversial and important issues about academic freedom, freedom of speech and the validity of historical interpretation as well as about the Just War theory and the ethics of military action. This has not always made him popular in the academic community but he has stood his ground and received considerable acclaim for his constancy. He has set out these ideas in a very readable article in the Daily Telegraph which can be seen at It’s time to come off the fence: I’m a conservative

Although there are some points of detail with which I would venture to disagree with him, on all his fundamental points I would be essentially in agreement with him. When I first met him I think would have seen him as liberal, yet conservative in a non-political sense, which is very much what he describes himself as being at the time. Now we clearly share a veneration for the thought of Edmund Burke as the voice of post-1784, and certainly post-1789, conservatism, and indeed, Conservatism. In some ways I am more conservative or, if you like, traditionalist, yet we share much common ground.

I recall him speaking of his doctoral work on the moral life of individuals in the public and political world, and of his admiration for historical figures who witnessed at great personal cost to their understanding of the truth. In those respects he himself is a living witness to those traditions.

The Coronation of King Henry II and Queen Eleanor in 1154

Today is the 870th anniversary of the coronation at Westminster of King Henry II and his Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

King Henry II from the Gospels of his son-in-law Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony

Image: Wikipedia 

Wikipedia has a good and detailed biographical account of the King and his reign, which discusses, inter alia, his education, appearance and style of living and governance, at Henry II of England

The same site has a very good online account of Queen Eleanor’s long and remarkable life at

Eleanor of Aquitaine

She was Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, and nine years older than the twenty one year old.King. Her previous marriage to King Louis VII of France was annulled early in 1152 and eight weeks later she married the nineteen year old Henry, Having campaigned as a teenager in England he was already established as Duke of Normandy and the next year by treaty was recognised as heir to King Stephen. The rather unexpected death of the latter in October 1154 brought this determined and energetic couple to the English throne.

The coronation was carried out by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theobald of Bec.

The new King was crowned with one of the crowns that had belonged to his mother’s first husband the Emperor Henry V, and which she had brought to England as his widow. 

The outward ceremonial of kingship appears to have mattered little to King Henry. After a few recorded ‘crown-wearings’ on July 17th 1157, or at Easter the following year - authorities vary - he and Queen Eleanor laid their crowns on the altar of Worcester Cathedral or the shrine of St Willian and swore not to wear them again.

Little survives of the Westminster that saw that coronation day beyond some of the claustral buildings of the abbey and the shell of Westminster Hall, which was the work of King William II. In 1154 the new King and Queen moved on to celebrate their Christmas Court at Bermondsey Abbey across the Thames rather than at Westminster.

Together with their sons King Richard I and King John, King Henry and Queen Eleanor are well reported by contemporary chroniclers and writers, shaped by the literary models of their time, as well as in the emerging and continuing records of royal administration. As a result the Angevin monarchs emerge more vividly on the modern printed page than their later medieval descendants often do.

Walter Map, who was a member of the peripatetic Angevin court, recorded his impressions of life there - with maybe the emphasis of a skilled raconteur making the most of a good story on occasion - in De nugis curialum 

In it he writes of the King as follows:

He was slow in settling the business of subjects, whence it happened that many, before their affairs were settled, died or departed from him dejected and empty-handed under the compulsion of want. It was another of his faults that, whenever he was lounging, which happened rarely, he never allowed approach to him, in answer to the prayers of the good, but, remaining in inner chambers tightly closed, he was accessible to those only who seemed unworthy of such access. His third fault was that he was impatient of peace, and felt no qualm in harassing almost the half of Christendom. In these three was his sin; in regard to the rest he was strikingly good, and in all respects lovable, for no one ever surpassed him in gentleness and affability. 

Whenever he went forth, he was caught up by the crowd, carried from place to place and forced to go where he desired not; and, what is remarkable, he gave ear patiently to individuals, and even when assaulted, now by general cries, now by violent hauls and pushes, to none on this account did he bring disgrace or make it serve as a pretext for his anger. And when he was too sorely tried he held his peace and fled to spots of peace. He was never haughty or puffed up; he was sober and restrained and pious, loyal and far-seeing, generous and often victorious, and a doer of honour to the good.

On occasion, indeed famously, King Henry could very publicly, lose his temper ( he did not have red hair for nothing ) as, most famously with “Will no -one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Another instance is recorded by John of Salisbury, although I am not alone in strongly suspecting that the King was channeling his anger to achieve the maximum effect:

I heard that when the king was at Caen and was vigorously debating the matter of the king of Scotland, he broke out in abusive language against Richard du Hommet for seeming to speak somewhat in the king of Scotland’s favor, calling him a manifest traitor. And the king, flying into his usual temper, flung his cap from his head, pulled off his belt, threw off his cloak and clothes, grabbed the silken coverlet off the couch, and sitting as it might be on a dungheap, started chewing pieces of straw.

The effigies of King Henry II and Queen Eleanor as they are now displayed at Fontevrault Abbey

Image: historicalragbag.com

A contemporary letter describing the death of Nelson

The Daily Telegraph reports on the sale of a letter written a few days after the battle of Trafalgar which describes the wounding and subsequent death of Lord Nelson. The author, who was on another Royal Navy vessel and not the Victory itself ascribes other last words to the Admiral than the famous “Kiss me Hardy”. 

The letter is being sold in New York, and it would be good to think it might return to a collection in this country.

The article can be viewed at Nelson’s last word were not ‘kiss me, Hardy’, letter claims

A monumental hangover?

A while ago I came across a photograph on Flickr an effigy in the church at Broughton, which is adjacent to Broughton Castle, near Banbury. The effigy is thought to be that of Sir Thomas Wykeham who died in 1470. His family had received the estate from their great relative and benefactor Bishop William Wykeham who had bought the estate in 1377. In 1451 it passed by inheritance to the Fiennes family, Lords Saye and Sele, who still own it. I am not sure how Sir Thomas fits into the family but I assume he was a cadet of the main line. From his collar of suns and roses he clearly identified as a Yorkist partisan in the events of those years.

What however is especially noteworthy is his facial expression. I do not recall actually noticing this on my only visit to the church, which has a very fine selection of tombs and significant remains of medieval painted decoration, but, judging from the photograph, Sir Thomas’ physiognomy is striking.

The Flickr photograph can be seen by copying and pasting https://pin.it/5UHk64S5Z

There is a slightly less forceful image here:

Image: dailyartmagazine.com

Later medieval alabaster effigies do quite frequently have rather protuberant eyes, but Sir Thomas appears to be in a league of his own. The half closed lids and clearly marked eye-balls enhance the frisson he creates.

Looking at him you wonder if he had thyroid problems, or was an ancestor of Boris Karloff, or if he simply had had one hell of a boosey night…..

The not so Poor Clares of Cologne

The always interesting British Library Medieval manuscript blog has continued its series on items included in their current Medieval Women exhibition with a particularly informative and attractive post about the surviving part of a liturgical manuscript from a house of Franciscan nuns in Cologne. These sisters belonged, as the article explains, to the group often known as Urbanists. They followed a mitigated version of the Franciscan rule which was granted to them by Pope Urban IV in the mid-thirteenth century. This attracted women from wealthy backgrounds and enabled them to retain some of their wealth rather than following the Franciscan model of a rule of absolute poverty. In the case of these Sisters from Cologne they put their inherited money into creating lavish liturgical manuscripts.

The beautifully illustrated blog post can be seen at An unknown leaf from the Poor Clares of Cologne

The Crown of Thorns returns to Notre-Dame

The BBC News website reports that the reliquary of the Crown of Thorns has been ceremonially returned to the cathedral of Notre-Dame following the rededication ceremonies last weekend. The short article can be seen at Notre-Dame: Crown of Thorns returns to cathedral after reopening

There is film of the exposition and veneration of the relic earlier this year in Paris at Sainte Couronne : l'ostension avant son retour à Notre-Dame

Wikipedia has an illustrated history of the Crown and the way in which individual thorns were detached and distributed in the past. It can be read at Crown of thorns

The Reliquary of the Crown of Thorns

Image: Wikipedia 

A portrait of Emperor Constantine XI is discovered

Mediaevalists.net reports the discovery and identification of a wall painting in a Greek monastery of the last reigning Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI. Although there are portraits of his predecessor. Emperor John VIII from the time of his visit to the Council of Ferrara-Florence, they has not hitherto been a  recognised portrait, as opposed to a conventionalised image, of the Emperor whose body was never adequately identified after the fighting on the dreadful occasion of the Fall of Constantinople on May 29th 1453. 

The discovery is a wall painting that shows western influences, rather than those of icons in its depiction of a Byzantine Emperor, and is in an area that he had ruled as Despot of Morea before his accession to the Imperial throne. It does suggest a family resemblance to his elder brother the Emperor John.

The article about the painting can be seen at Portrait of the Last Byzantine Emperor Discovered

The Wikipedia account, already updated with the portrait, of the of life and legend of the Emperor can be seen at Constantine XI Palaiologos

Medieval French Society

Several of my recent posts have touched upon the subject of medieval France and today my eye was caught by a short article about the work of a Norwegian-based historian who specialises in French medieval history. In particular she is interested in the position of women in French society at the time. Although the article is quite short, it is a good summary of her thinking and an indicator of emerging trends in our understanding of medieval French life. Her linkage of French institutions of power and the public life of women is valuable and for all the discussion which concentrate on things like the Salic Law women at all levels did play a prominent part in the life of the country.

Long after the formidable Merovingian Queens great heiresses such as those cited in the article, and others like Eleanor of Aquitaine, Jeanne of Champagne-Navarre, Mahaut of Artois, Mary of Burgundy, and Anne of Brittany as well as royal consorts like Blanche of Castile, Yolanda of Aragon and Claude of France were prominent and often decisive makers of history. Their significance in France is arguably greater than in neighbouring realms, and was accepted in a way that the Empress Matilda was not to be in England. I would agree with the argument that women were influential at all levels of society, if less well recorded. At that lower level Marie de France in the twelfth century and Christine de Pisan in the fifteenth century were, by being mould-breaking literary figures, women who did ensure their subsequent fame. From the peasantry Jeanne d’Arc may well have been unique and certainly unprecedented in her achievement, but she was an immensely significant figure in the history of France. Like Marguerite Porrete more than a century earlier she went to the stake, but contemporaries attempts to obliterate them failed. If you like your historical fiction tough and menacing then Maurice Druon’s Accursed Kings are replete with women with agency…Queen Isabella’s career in England, like Queen Margaret of Anjou later on, may well reflect their French heritage.

The article is from Medievalists.net and can be seen at French women had more power in the Middle Ages than after the Revolution

Tales from the medieval Oxford and London Coroner’s Rolls

I was aware that the medieval Coroners’ Rolls for Oxford had been used by Trevor Aston as part of his study of the medieval University, and the results of his research can be found in Past and Present.

I remember reading it and, by analysing to and by whom violence was proffered, and where and when, it was clear that venturing out alone at night was definitely not advisable, especially if you were a student. I have come across at least one Oxford student, future bishop, Thomas Polton, was to be involved in a fight that resulted in the death of another student. The incident did little harm to his career, which took him to the deanery of York, the sees of Hereford, Chichester and Worcester, and the Councils of Constance, Pavia-Siena and Basle. The article argues that the safest members of the Oxford community were the respectable wives of the town tradesmen, who stayed home of an evening.

However I came upon a new presentation of some of this material in a video from Medieval Madness. This uses examples from the records from round about 1300 which deal with street crime, with domestic violence and with mishaps. In their rather laconic way the rolls reveal many incidental details of daily life as well as specific human tragedies. To anyone who knows Oxford these are all the more interesting as the roadways and some of the actual buildings still survive.

The video - the title suggests a surfeit of clickbait - can be seen at These Mysterious Medieval Murders Will Leave You Scratching Your Head...

The makers of the video have produced a similar one based on the evidence from the same period for London. Due to the way the city has been rebuilt and rede developed over the centuries the instance of given seem likely less immediate but they record an often violent world. Despite the somewhat curious pronunciation of place names by the narrating computer the stories are striking. That video can be seen at 5 Pretty Mysterious Medieval London Murders…

An important source for Scottish history goes to St Andrews

A few days ago, I posted about two surviving letters that can be linked directly to Sir William Wallace the Scottish patriot leader. Today the Internet turned up an article from The Scotsman about the acquisition by the library of Saint Andrews University of an early sixteenth century manuscript account of the events of the uprising in 1297. It is bound up with a copy of the slightly later work of John Major or Mair’s History of Greater Britain printed in Paris in 1521. There is more about Major in the interesting Wikipedia article about him at John Major (philosopher)

The manuscript portion contains unique references to details of the events that led to the war in 1297. 

Even in recent years, the book has travelled from Northern Ireland to Norway and then back to this country and to a permanent home at St Andrews. It is a reminder that such archival material can still re-emerge and add to our knowledge of the past.

The illustrated article about the volume and its significance can be seen at Manuscript shedding new light on William Wallace and Wars of Independence made public for first time

Pope Adrian IV

The last few days have been the 870th anniversary of the election on December 4th, enthronement on December 5th, and the coronation on December 7th of Pope Adrian IV, who as everybody knows the only Englishman to have been elevated to the Chair of St Peter. 

Born Nicholas Breakspear in Hertfordshire he had conducted an important Legatine mission to reorganise the Church in Scandinavia before his relatively brief but active pontificate until his death in 1159. It was a time of conflict with the new Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, Barbarossa, with the King of Sicily and enmeshed in the political and cultural entanglements of the medieval Italian peninsula.

Pope Adrian IV, from a late twelfth century manuscript. 

Image: The History Press

Wikipedia offers a biography of considerable length and detail - their articles are definitely improving in their depth and coverage - which can be seen at Pope Adrian IV

His most recent biographer has an introductory essay from his book at Breakspear: More cannons than canon

His tomb in the Vatican is described and illustrated in The Tomb of Hadrian IV - Vatican Grottoes

The verdict of historians appears to be on the whole favourable to him as Pope and as an administrator. For all the issues that confronted him he avoided the schisms in the Papacy of the earlier and later twelfth century, and some have seen him as anticipating the pontificate of Pope Innocent III.

As a son of Hertfordshire he is remembered as a great benefactor of St Albans Abbey. The modern grave of his father, who in late life became a monk there, can be seen under the central tower of what is now the cathedral.

His longest lasting legacy in the British Isles is, of course, the bull Laudabiliter which invited King Henry II to involve himself in Ireland. It was not until 1171, and after Strongbow had secured a foothold in Ireland, that the King followed up the bull with action and leading troops across the Irish Sea.

The text of Laudabiliter can be read in translation at The Avalon Project : The Bull of Pope Adrian IV Empowering Henry II to Conquer Ireland. A.D. 1155

An article which gives additional context can be seen at The controversial pope who gave the King of England permission to invade Ireland

A nineteenth century portrait of Pope Adrian IV

Image: Wikipedia 

A thirteenth century Imperial link to Westminster Abbey

  

Westminster Abbey never seems to cease to yield up new treasures from its archives and stores. The Daily Telegraph reports the discovery that a silk seal bag for a 1267 charter in the archives at the Abbey is made of fabric identical with that used in 1225 to wrap the bones of the Emperor Charlemagne in his shrine at Aachen.

The fabric appears to have been woven either in al-Andalus in Spain or possibly in Syria. This is not just an indicator of the range of trading links, interesting as they are, but more immediately of a link between the English royal abbey and the German cult centre of the first Holy Roman Emperor. That it was a very special fabric is indicated by the fact that it was woven in the twelfth century and already old when used in both thirteenth century Germany and England.

The report can be read at Westminster Abbey has silk bag made from same material in Charlemagne’s burial shroud

That King Henry III might want to associate his promotion of the cult of St Edward the Confessor with that of the canonised Carolingian Emperor is not that surprising. 

What the article does not speculate upon is how the fabric actually arrived in England. Two possibilities occur to me. In 1235 King Henry’s sister Isabella, and with whom he had a close brotherly bond, married the Emperor Frederick II and travelled to Germany. It is possible that the fabric came to England in a gift exchange then or before the Empress’ death in 1241. 

A second possibility is that the fabric came after 1257 when the younger brother of the English King, Richard Earl of Cornwall, was elected as King of the Romans and crowned at Aachen. Although Richard was never able to establish his undisputed rule over all his German territories, he retained the title until his death in 1272.

Wikipedia has biographies of King Henry’s siblings at Isabella of England  and at Richard, King of the Romans

Cluny Re-envisioned

The other day the Internet presented me with a video which reconstructs Cluny III, the great eleventh century church that was the ultimate expression of the great Burgundian abbey. It was, of course, largely destroyed following the suppression of the Abbey during the French Revolution. If the creation of the great church at Cluny represent one of the apogees of French life and culture, then its destruction represents the nadir that was the Revolution.

The video uses excellent graphics and AI to present the awesome scale and grandeur of what was the largest church in Western Christendom until the rebuilding of Saint Peter’s in Rome in the sixteenth century. Watching it you feel that all that is now needed is the willpower to rebuild the Abbey as an act of reparation.

The video can be seen at Reconstitution de la maior ecclesia de Cluny, la plus grande église du Moyen-âge

Coming as I do from a town that had a Cluniac priory I have always been intrigued by the Cluniacs as a community and as a liturgical and cultural influence. In 2014 I had the good fortune, indeed privilege, of visiting Cluny. If the scale of its destruction appals, then the beauty of what remains confirms not just the wickedness of its demolition, but also the holiness of its creation.

Sir William Wallace - two letters

When I wrote my recent post about King Philip IV of France I was not aware but a letter he wrote or authorised was about to go on show, albeit only for five hours, in Edinburgh last weekend. 

One of only two surviving documents which appear to have a direct connection with the Scottish leader it is a letter of recommendation from King Philip in late 1300 to his representatives in Rome requesting their aid for Wallace on a proposed visit to the Papal seat. It seems likely that this was one of the documents that was found on Wallace when he was captured and hence its survival in the records of the English crown. The National Archives had lent it to the Scottish equivalent in Edinburgh to mark Saint Andrew’s Day.

The display is reported upon by BBCNews online in two linked articles at Rare William Wallace letter to go on show and at William Wallace letter goes on show for five hours only

A Guardian article about the letter in connection with a previous display of it in 2018 

can be seen at Letter from 1300 in support of Scottish hero William Wallace goes on display

The other surviving document linked directly to Wallace is what is now referred to as the Lübeck Letter. This, together with one to Hamburg, which was destroyed in the Second Workd War, was sent by Wallace and his colleague Sir Andrew Murray as Guardians of Scotland to these leading cities of the Hanseatic League following the battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 to announce that Scottish ports were again open for trade.

The letter with its seal and Wallace’s counter seal can be seen at Wars of Independence - William Wallace and the Lübeck letter, 1297

The texts of both letters can be seen in a 2012 post from The History Blog at Two William Wallace letters return to Scotland

The survival of both these documents is in many ways remarkable, defying the onslaught of time and chance.

The view from Corfe Castle

The ruins of Corfe Castle in the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, rising up on a hill above the village of the same name, are some of the most familiar and most photographed monument their type in the country. The latest conservation work by the.National Trust and English Heritage is not only helping safeguard them for the future but is also meant that it is possible over the next year or so for visitors to ascend to rhe upper levels of the dominating keep, known as the King’s Tower, and to appreciate the view that would have been seen by King Henry I or King John amongst others.

The temporary viewing platform and some thing of the history of this great royal stronghold and grim prison, later held by Lady Margaret Beaufort, Sir Christopher Hatton and the Bankes family is reported upon by the Daily Telegraph at How you can visit Henry I’s castle ‘penthouse’ for first time since English Civil War and by the BBC News website at Corfe Castle's King's Tower opens for first time since 1646

The latest on the Princes in the Tower

The adage about some stories simply running and running is undoubtedly true about the fate of the Princes in theTower.  For more than five centuries, with varying degrees of intensity, it has been a part of the consciousness of the English speaking world. Over the past century that interest has multiplied resulting in new research and insights, and also in an often heated and passionate debate between the various factions about who was to blame for whatever happened. That debate has become at times in recent years acrimonious and fraught in ways the generate heat but but a little light.

The latest development from the academic side is reported upon in today’s edition of the Daily Telegraph. This apparently shows a link in the form of a gold chain between King Edward V and Sir James Tyrell, the man often claimed to have murdered him and his brother. The research is being published and tomorrow night, Tuesday December 3rd, on Channel 5 at 9pm there is a documentary about the research. This does appear to be another instance of evidence hiding in plain sight amongst the documentary evidence. It may help to convince or reinforce the views of those who think that Tyrrell did indeed murder the two boys. It will also no doubt be explain very differently by those who are determined at every point to acquit King Richard III of any part in the death of his nephews. We should perhaps be prepared for some lively exchanges.

The Daily Telegraph article can be seen at The ‘smoking gun’ evidence that could finally prove Princes in the Tower were murdered

National Reconciliation 1554

Today is the 470th anniversary of the formal reconciliation of England to the Catholic Church in 1554. This was effected when the Papal Legate, Cardinal Reginald Pole, formally absolved the country from schism in the presence of the monarchs, King Philip and Queen Mary and the assembled Lords and Commons. 

King Philip and Queen Mary

A 1557 window in Sintjanskerke in Gouda in The Netherlands

Image: Once I was Clever Boy

For the Queen in particular, this must have been an occasion of profound joy, the culmination of an extraordinary and extended annual mirabilis since she heard of her half-brother’s death in the July of the previous year. In the intervening months she had gained the throne and been crowned, negotiated her marriage to the now King Philip, seen off Wyatt’s rebellion, married the most eligible man in Europe, believed herself to be expecting an heir, and had finally undone her father’s break with Rome, and potentially all that had flowed from it. 

There were doubtless a considerable variety of opinions amongst the great and the good as they knelt to receive the Legate’s blessing, but the majority appear to have accepted it.

Cardinal Reginald Pole

Image: Wikipedia 

Cardinal Pole must also have had mixed emotions at what he was facilitating as he may well have reflected on the loss of his immediate family and other relatives in 1538-41, and on the task that now confronted him. To see how seriously he set about restoring and reviving the Catholic faith of England I do recommend reading Eamonn Duffy’s Fires of Faith.

One man who was there did articulate his feelings. That was the Bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner, the officiant at the Queen’s Coronation and wedding, and Lord Chancellor. 

Bishop Stephen Gardiner

Image: Shakespeareandhistory.com

Having survived the upheavals.of the Henrician and Edwardian reformations he had found a new serenity it would seem in the restoration of the Church. He requested, and received, the privilege of preaching at Paul’s Cross on the Sunday following the reconciliation. Contemporaries considered that his greatest sermon. Acknowledging the national apostasy, including his own, Gardiner stressed in ringing terms the fidelity of just two people, the Queen and the Cardinal. It is extensively quoted in my friend Glyn Redworth’s wonderful biography of Gardiner In Defence of the Church Catholic. It is a book I heartily recommend. Not only is it good history well written, but it was a key element in my conversion to full Catholicism

twenty or so years ago.

St Andrew’s Day was enjoined as an annual commemoration of the reconciliation, but that must have last been observed in 1558, only a fortnight after the deaths of Queen Mary and Cardinal Pole on the same day.

The 1554 reconciliation is definitely one of the great ‘might have beens’ of English history. 

King Philip IV of France

Today is the 710th anniversary of the death at Fontainebleau of King Philip IV of France in 1314. This was but the last in a series of dramatic events which marked out that year, and all of which involved the French King, his family, and his rule.

The effigy of King Philip IV from his tomb in the abbey basilica of St Denis

 

Image: Wikipedia 

In the early part of the year the suppression of the Order of the Templars, instigated by King Philip, had culminated in the burning at the stake in Paris of the last Grand Master. Shortly afterwards Pope Clement V, the first of the line of what became the Avignon Papacy, and who had been pressured by King Philip over the Templars to dissolve the Order, died. The ensuing vacancy lasted two and a quarter years. Next the French royal house had been shaken to their dynastic foundations by the affair of the Tour de Nesle, and the disgrace of the King’s daughters-in-law. In June his son-in-law King Edward II suffered the catastrophic defeat of Bannockburn. In November King Philip, aged 46, appears to have suffered a stroke whilst hunting and died shortly afterwards on this day.

If you want to read a vivid and entertaining account of these events then you should turn to the novels of Maurice Druon or to watch the ORTF adaptatuon from 1972-3 ( not the 2005 remake ) of Les Rois Maudits. 

That was just after I had studied this period as an undergraduate and since then there have been important contributions to the academic literature on the period. Much of this can be found reflected and referenced through the relevant Wikipedia articles. Their biography of the King can be seen at Philip IV of France Other relevant ones are those of Pope Clement V, of Guillaume de Nogaret, of Enguerrand de Marigny and the article on the Tour de Nesle affair

Tough Facts About Philip IV, The Iron King is a slightly more pacy, and racy, account of the reign with some interesting illustrations, and some that can be ignored.

Philip IV, the Counterfeiter King - The Tontine Coffee-House looks at the debasement of the French currency in the middle years of the reign.

Few Kings of France have rivalled King Philip IV in their impact as rulers. In his reign France occupied a position that in many ways it was not to do again until the reign of King Louis XIV.

In his expansion of Royal authority, his move against not just the Templars but against the Papacy itself in the person of Pope Boniface VIII, the transfer of the institution from Rome to Avignon being a consequence, and with the prestige the French monarchy enjoyed, he can be seen as a very significant figure. 

In his clash with the Papacy he can be seen to prefigure King Henry VIII in England, or, in the modern history of France, the tension between Church and State. As State-builder he and his ministers point to future development across the whole of Europe and indeed the modern world. In his debasement of the currency he also resembles his English descendent. He was a ruler who seemingly made up his own rules and enforced them on his subjects and neighbours.

Handsome and inscrutable he was an enigma to his contemporaries, and he remains enigmatic to historians and commentators today. A great king, a great state builder, but in many ways unsuccessful both within and beyond France, the powerful ruler whose achievements were often enduring, but which sometimes proved to be a house of cards. Personally devout yet implacable and unscrupulous in his dealings with the Church as a public figure. 

Thus his reign can also be presented as the origin of what was to become the Hundred Years War, and all that was to inflict upon France. His financial and political cynicism can be seen as entering the bloodstream of French political life. The decline of France in the early decades of Valois rule after 1328 can be seen as a consequence of events that had happened in the reign of King Philip IV, however contrary that course of events was to what were his intentions.

By coincidence in Paris today, the cathedral of Notre Dame has been opened up following its restoration. after the fire in 2019. I will say that looking at the pictures of the interior it looks infinitely superior to the rather dismal and dreary aspect it presented when I visited in 1992. The cathedral would have been well known to King Philip who lived nearby in the ancient Royal Palace, now better known as the Conciergerie, and it was in Notre Dame that in 1302 the first meeting of the Estates General was held. This was convoked by the King to strengthen the kings position in his dispute with Pope Boniface VIII. 

Another link between the King and the cathedral was an equestrian statue of him in the choir. This appears to have been an ex voto given after his Flanders campaign in 1304. This alas does not survive, having been destroyed during a drastic makeover of the cathedral in 1772. Although not as old as the Rider of Augsburg - who may well be the Emperor Frederick II - this was one of the first equestrian statues created in medieval Europe.

Given the delicate, indeed curious, relationship of Church and State since 1905 the visit to the cathedral today and on the occasion of its formal liturgical reopening next weekend by M.Macron has involved not a little discreet negotiation. This can be seen as one of the continuing legacies of the reign of King Philip the Fair.

Political turmoil is nothing new in France. It does strike me some of the issues that are confronting the country at the moment do strike interesting parallels with the events of seven and more centuries ago. Just as King Philip debased the currency because of debt so the present French government faces a very uncertain future over its budget and over dealing with its debt obligations. The regional issues and tension between different parts of the national community that has surfaced in recent years are in many ways resonant of both the profound regional loyalties of mediaeval France and something that at times can look like a peasant revolt. France in 1314 and France in 2024 had and has a grand vision of itself as a leading nation as a centre of intellectual and cultural life and as a power in the world. At the same time, both times were and are fraught with uncertainty, both within and without, as to the future.

Plus ça change……as the French might very well say.

Keeping the medieval scriptorium tidy

Before moving on from the blog Medieval Books, if only temporarily, and indeed with the additional and topical theme of purchasing presents for oneself of others, I would like to share another pair of related posts from it about largely forgotten feature of the studies of mediaeval scholars and scribes.

The first is about the evidence from illuminations of book carousels which would enable a scholar to consult several books at once while sitting at his desk. This would suggest that these were by no means uncommon devices in the later mediaeval period. They would still be useful today, unless the computer screen has taken over completely.

The article can be seen at Medieval Book Carousels

The second item is about the work of scribes and copyists and how they did so using not only a carousel but other aids. It also shows that the folding and portable box writing desk, which one instinctively associates with the nineteenth century, was already in existence by the mid-twelfth century on the evidence of a sculpture on the west front of Chartres Cathedral.

That article can be viewed at Medieval Desktops

Medieval advertising

By chance today I came across the excellent blog Medieval Books which is the work of Erik Kwakkel in The Netherlands - but, don’t worry, the blog is in English. It is a very useful resource for those questions you either cannot find an answer to, or indeed to those that you did not even know existed.

Two of his posts linked in with something I referred to the other day - the ubiquity of advertising in the modern world. There is no difficulty entering into the advertising culture of the last century and a half, but before that it becomes less certain. Was it just a matter of knowing the tradesmen in your own town, outside of which you rarely travelled or traded?  Did you rely on word of mouth? Maybe finding something you needed was a desperate search in a strange town or city? What if it was something you did not know you needed or that someone wanted to sell to you?

Part of the answer to those questions is provided for the later medieval period by this blog. It points to an economic fact of life - that the product and the advertisement go hand in hand. 

Thus in 1477 the earliest surviving advertisement in English was produced by William Caxton to advertise his book the Ordinale ad usum Sarum or Sarum Pie. It is not a cookery book, but a manual for clergy as to the celebration of Mass. Along with the book was a small, discreet, advertisement, probably intended to be fastened to church doors to attract the attention of potential purchasers. Two of these scraps of paper have survived, one in the Bodleian and one in the John Rylands. 

The blog article about Caxton’s advertisement can be seen at The Oldest Surviving Printed Advertisement in English (London, 1477)

The Pepys Library at Magdalen in Cambridge has a treasure trove of similar ephemera from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries collected by Samuel Pepys and which he donated under strict conditions to the college. It is a major source of early printed material, in many instances unique examples.

We know that before printing was established in the country in fifteenth century London, and doubtless other towns as well political poems and squibs were posted up, the texts of some of which often survive. This can be seen as indicating a culture of information and political discussion in handwritten and then in printed material.

Kwakkel has a second piece about medieval posters which begins with the surviving fragments of exempla produced by scribes and illuminators to advertise their craftsmanship. Major cities and academic centres may well have had such items on show in churches or centres where scholars gathered.

That article can be seen at Medieval Posters

The rebuilding of Potsdam

I came upon a video from The Aesthetic City about the history, and more especially the destruction and then the recent, and continuing, rebuilding of Potsdam.

The video likens the city to Versailles, but I think it could also be seen in many ways as the Prussian equivalent of Windsor, or of other continental royal sites as Drottningholm or Aranjuez.

This is the type of film, and more importantly the type of project, that, as I have written before, I find deeply emotional. Videos about the work to rebuild the north-west tower of St Denis, about the restoration of Wentworth Woodhouse, or the rebuilding of the Frauenkirke in Dresden and of the Royal Schloss in Berlin bring a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat. So to did this. All are a triumph of counter-culturalism. Destroyig Potsdam so very late in the war in April 1945 surely served no military purpose and the actions of the DDR seeking to eradicate the history of Prussia was an early example of “woke”. To such forces of blind destruction undone is miraculous to me, and is, I hope, to all right thinking people.

The video also seeks to draw general lessons about how to create the right cultural climate in which to achieve such remarkable results that can be applied in other historic towns and cities. The same principles can be used in new developments such as Poundbury.

Amongst the interviews I especially liked the lady who as a local resident had been a leading voice and campaigner to get the rebuilding underway and then carried forward. We need more ladies like that in every country.

The video can be seen at They Rebuilt Germany's Versailles And It's GLORIOUS

Another review of the ‘Silk Roads’ Exhibition

Recently I linked to an online account of the current British Museum exhibition ‘Silk Roads’

and the way in which it illustrates the diffusion of cultural forms in the centuries between the end of the Western Roman Empire and the turn of the millennium in 1000. 

I have now happened upon the review of the exhibition in the art magazine Apollo which makes some similar observations. It also indicates the abundance and richness of the items on display at the British Museum until next February. This definitely looks to be an exhibition to see if one has the opportunity.

The review article can be seen at The art of crossing continents

A medieval stocking filler for the man or woman who has everything?

Christmas shopping looms and as we are being deluged with online promotions for ‘Black Friday’ ( a decidedly un-English concept in my opinion ) and it occurs to me a  recently publicised late-medieval archeological find from near Kings Lynn in Norfolk may have once been, for all we know, a medieval stocking filler or ‘New Year Gift’ for a man or woman who had everything - well almost.

It is an ear scoop and nail cleaner which has been dated to the second half of the fourteenth century. Such items for personal grooming are known from other discoveries and survivals, but are equally the type of thing that gets lost in daily life, and forgotten in the popular memory.

The BBC News report about the find can be seen at Earwax scoop find in Norfolk gives insight into medieval hygiene

Given where it was found one wonders if it was once the property of a pilgrim to Walsingham or the Holy Rood of Bromholm, or of someone who knew Margery Kempe in what was then Bishop’s Lynn, or maybe somebody who knew the Pastons, or a present from them to Sir John Fastolf, or lost by an English soldier sailing from Lynn and going to fight with the Teutonic Knights against the pagan Lithuanians, or by someone accompanying King Henry IV’s daughter on her way to be Queen of Denmark, Sweden and Norway ……..almost certainly none of these possibilities given the probabilities of daily living, but a reminder that people had such things.

Gladiators of Britain

Gladiators are in the news at the moment. This is no doubt due to the release of Gladiator II which appears to have had a far from favourable response from many film critics and a similarly unfavourable one from many experts in Roman history. 

Perhaps coincidentally, or perhaps not knowing how commercially minded the national collections have become, the British Museum is publicising a major travelling exhibition for next year entitled Gladiators of Britain. This opens in January at Dorchester in the splendid Dorset County Museum before moving onto Northampton, then to Chester, and finally to Carlisle before it closes in early 2026. The British Museum website about the exhibition can be seen at Gladiators of Britain

There is an introductory video with the discussion of some of the principal exhibits which can be seen at 🔎 british museum gladiators in britain video

One of the objects featured in the video is a small bone figure of a gladiator which was found in Colchester in the nineteenth century. This was a knife handle and a similar piece has also been in the news. This was found in the river Tyne near Corbridge which had a Roman fort as part of the Hadrian’s Wall’s system of defence. It is made of copper alloy and features are left-handed secutor and will be on display from next year at the Roman site in Corbridge. 

There are a number of online accounts of it and its context from English Heritage at Rare Roman gladiator knife handle discovered at Hadrian's Wall, from the BBC News website at Roman gladiator knife handle found in River Tyne at Corbridge, from The Guardian at Gladiator Figurine That Once Adorned a Roman Knife Goes on View, from Artnet News at Gladiator Figurine That Once Adorned a Roman Knife Goes on View and from The History Blog at Gladiator knife handle found near Hadrian’s Wall

That last article also refers to an item that is not from the British Museum collection that will be part of the travelling exhibition is the Colchester Vase, an earthenware vessel that had been used as a cremation urn discovered in the town by early archaeologists and which features scenes are gladiatorial combat, including the names of the competitors. Colchester City Council has a piece about it which can be seen at Historic Colchester Vase goes on tour with the British Museum

Wikipedia describes and illustrates the Vase at Colchester Vase

 Artnet News has a similarly detailed account at A Roman-Era Vase, Once Considered a Cremation Vessel, Turns Out to Be an Early Form of Sports Memorabilia for a Gladiator Fan 

I see that also getting onto the gladiatorial bandwagon the BBC iplayer service has made their series Colosseum available again. The first episode covers the background and training of gladiators, highlighting in particular the memorable combat of Priscus and Verus at the opening Games in the Colosseum that were organised by the Emperor Titus. The academics who are interviewed stress the fact that such Games were a gift to the citizens of Rome by the Emperor who expected their appreciation in return. In that sense they they seem very similar to a modern Olympic Games, rather than the original celebrations at Olympia. The investment of state funds in such events and the head-to-head rivalries of leading athletes look horribly similar.

I have seen some comments which were not entirely in agreement with all of the detail of what is depicted but it looks to be worth looking at, and more accurate than the new blockbuster - no riding of rhinoceros’for example . It is available to subscribers at

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0fwgsmw