Not so popular entertainment in Durham in 1433-4

I happened by chance today upon a report by the BBC News North East about a novel by Glen James Brown set in the Durham area in the early fifteenth century. As regular readers will recall I am not much of a fan or reader of historical fiction, and I must admit I am not entirely sure that I particularly feel drawn to the book under discussion from the comments from the author. Maybe I will give it a try. 

However, like him, I do respond to the fact, and it is a solitary fact, that in the accounts for the cathedral priory at Durham for 1433-34 there is a payment to a visiting entertainer. Known as Mother Naked - “ Modyr Nakett “ - he was a minstrel who received a mere 4d for his performance, the lowest such fee paid out by any bursar in the priory records.

The suggestion is that Mother Naked was a “Betty” , a female impersonator, perhaps originating with folk dance, and the precursor of Pantomime Dames, and not a few great comedians.  The suggestion is that his small fee indicated that his act was deemed inappropriate or even obscene. Perhaps it was that he just wasn’t very good. The vision of the Durham monks sitting down to watch a drag act in the 1430s is an intriguing one to say the least. 

Given the reaction of some modern Evangelicals to actors in drag appearing at children’s libraries it does make one wonder. But then one also hears stories of Catholic and AngloCatholic seminaries with rather rumbustuous end of year pantomimes, and with the tradition of  the use of “Names in Religion” in such places, so maybe it is more traditional than one might have thought.

It would be interesting to know how often minstrels were engaged to entertain the monks, and at what time of the year - the accounts run from November 11, Martinmas, each year.

Drama as entertainment was clearly not unknown in cathedral communities.  I recall seeing a reference to the residentiary canons of the cathedral in Lincoln, which had a vibrant tradition of religious drama, putting on a play to raise the mood in, I think, 1317, when famine, bad weather and political turmoil swirled around.

The BBC article can be viewed at Name from old Durham Cathedral record inspires new novel

The Feasts of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary

The New Liturgical Movement has an interesting article today about the two Feasts of the Seven Sorrows which appear, with different rankings over time, in the pre-1970 Calendar. The coincidence of today, September 15th, where the celebration was fixed by St Pius X, being a Sunday, and the third of the month, when it would have been observed from Pope Pius VII’s inclusion of it in the universal Calendar in 1814, obviously helped inspire the article.

The two feasts, one in Passiontide on the Friday of Passion Week, and one in September, arise from popular devotion In the first case this originated in the later medieval Rhineland, and spread across much of the continent. The second is a somewhat later fruit of the work of the Servite Order. Both represent the organic development of private devotion over time and place to become a part of the life of the whole Church. Often called the Compassion of Our Lady it is part of the religious culture that made carvings and paintings of the Pieta so much a part of late medieval spirituality and devotion.

The article gives a detailed account of the evolution of the two celebrations and of the Office for the two days. It can be seen at Liturgical Notes on the Feasts of the Seven Sorrows

The Princes in the Tower - a series of academic videos

The continuing fascination with the fate of the Princes in the Tower generates ever more commentary and theories. 

King Edward V and his brother Richard Duke of York and Norfolk, or, if you look at their legal status after late June 1483, the bastardised children of the adulterous, invalid, marriage of the late King Edward IV, and thus no longer Princes, disappeared that summer. No one has proof of whatever happened to them subsequently. In the absence of clear proof speculation has grown, and continued to grow. Today, for many, it boils down, with various caveats, to whether you think King Richard III was responsible directly or indirectly for their deaths, or whether you think he acted honourably as Lord Protector in removing two illegitimate interlopers, and that their fate was not his responsibility, or indeed that he quietly removed them to live out their lives elsewhere. Barring natural death or genuine accident it depends on whether you are a Ricardian or not.

I came upon another video on YouTube about an aspect of the case which led me to find it is part of an ongoing series of related videos made over the past year by a German historian. There are at present twenty of these videos, which vary in length but explore the minutiae of the disappearance, and focus in particular on the physical layout of the Tower of London. They are well researched and informative, raising points and questions I have not seen made elsewhere. The underlying argument is that King Richard III was indeed responsible for the deaths of his two nephews, and is hostile to the idea that they escaped and reappeared as Lambert Simnel or Perkin Warbeck - so you have been warned if you are a committed Ricardian. If not, or have an open mind on this not much cold case as one permanently on the back burner, simmering away for five and a half centuries, they are worth watching or certainly dipping into. Some are upwards of an hour long, others much shorter, but taken together form a very interesting resource. One even undertakes the risky business of enquiring as to what drives so many Ricardians and their dedication to exculpating the King. 

They can be found from the first in the series, by clicking on the information link, at The Princes In The Tower Without DNA: A Historian's Project Idea To Find New Evidence - And A Theory

The Observant Franciscans of Greenwich

Just over 490 years ago in August 1534 King Henry VIII finally lost patience with the community of Observant Franciscans who lived adjacent to his palace at Greenwich, and on August 11th closed the monastery. This was because of their steadfast opposition to his attempts to get his marriage to Queen Katherine annulled. Although it is not as well documented as the fate of the London Carthusians in 1537 the fate of the community was in some cases direct physical martyrdom, and in other cases a lingering death from neglect after they were exiled to other Franciscan Conventual houses. At least 31 out of a national membership of 140 are recorded as having died directly or indirectly in the following years, not counting others who were actually executed or disappeared, so there probably more than forty martyrs.

The Observants were recognised as a distinct order by the Church in 1415. King Edward IV was showing interest in the Order in 1471 and in 1480 set in motion the foundation at Greenwich.  Early in his reign in December 1485 King Henry VII confirmed the foundation for a Warden and at least twelve members. The proximity of the house to the palace was even closer than that arrangement at Sheen - now Richmond - as rebuilt by King Henry V with the nearby Carthusian priory, or the relationship at Westminster between abbey and palace. Indeed the Sheen relationship has been likened to that of the Escorial, and the Greenwich layout does very much demonstrate the intimate link between the monarch and the monastic community. Late medieval monarchs and aristocrats across Europe showed a predilection for austere or reformed communities such as the Carthusians and Observants to pray for them both in life and in death, and to act as exemplars of reform in their territories. 

King Henry VII and his family were closely involved with the building of the church at Greenwich and, in particular, the design of the east window in or about 1500, as is set out on the BL Medieval manuscripts blog at Inventing a royal past

Queen Katherine was known to join the friars for the midnight office when in residence at the palace, and in her will in 1536 requested burial in an Observant church. The Greenwich friary church was the setting, as the VCH account shows, for the baptisms of royal children, including probably the future King Henry VIII, and certainly the future Queen Mary I in 1516 and of the future Queen Elizabeth I in 1533.

Other foundations followed at Canterbury, Richmond, Southampton, Newcastle upon Tyne and Newark. From 1517 the Observant friars took over the Province of England when the other Franciscans organised themselves separately as Conventuals.

The Victoria County History of Kent vol II has a good account of the history of the house at Friaries: The observant friars of Greenwich

There is a good account, which places the community within wider Franciscan history, from the contemporary order of Franciscans of Great Britain and Ireland at Our Heritage

There is more about the fate of the community in the article to which the previous article linked from the Immaculate Heart of Mary’s Hermitage here

 

The individual fates of members of the community in detention at other, Conventual, Franciscan houses, presumably from ill treatment and neglect, can be read on the Anne Boleyn Files at 11 August 1534 - The Expulsion of the Friars Observant

The King installed a conventual Franciscan community in 1534, but that was dissolved four years later in 1538. In 1555 Queen Mary I restored the Observants to the house under a surviving member of the old community, Cardinal William Peto. In 1556 the church was the setting for the consecration of Cardinal Pole to the episcopal state to become Archbishop of Canterbury. The house was suppressed again in 1559 and the surviving members went into exile.

Today nothing survives above ground of the once very important royal palace of the Tudors at Greenwich and confronted by the undoubted splendours of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century buildings on the site not easy to imagine. Excavations in recent years have added to our knowledge and understanding of the Tilt Yard and the location of the armouries - which took over the friary church in the 1540s. There is an excellent modern reconstruction painting of the palace complex, together with the sixteenth century drawings of the buildings, including the friary, by Antony van der Wyngaerde on the Blackheath and Greenwich History Blog at History of Greenwich Palace and The Old Royal Naval College

How a thirteenth century knight was armed and armoured

I happened upon a recent video post from Lindybeige in which he discusses with a fellow re-enactor ar the 2023 Battle of Evesham event the arms and armour used in the thirteenth century. In terms of body armour, as their discussion indicates, this was an ‘age of transition’ from mail to plate armour, and this is reflected in the equipment that is being worn. The video has a slightly quirky beginning explaining the presenter’s misadventure at Evesham railway station, which left him with just this one video of the weekend. All things considered I think he did well to salvage what he did. The video can be seen at A 13th Century Knight's Kit

I have not managed to attend the Evesham battle re-creation but it looks appealing from the general shots in the video. It is an annual event, held, I believe, on the weekend closest to the anniversary of the 1265 battle which was fought ( in a thunderstorm ) on August 4th of that year. 

Bl. Agnellus of Pisa and the Oxford Franciscans 1224-2024

Today is the feast of Bl. Agnellus of Pisa, who was sent eight centuries ago to establish the Franciscans in Oxford. This octocentenary of the arrival of the Greyfriars in England is being marked by a series of celebratory events which began at Dover and Canterbury last Sunday. They conclude with a High Mass in the Dominican church in Oxford at 4pm on September 21st.

Bl. Agnellus dies in 1236 and his remains were preserved in the friary church until its destruction in the sixteenth century. It is possible they are still there. One suggestion is that they are in a garden adjacent to the site. Another, made by the late Fr Jerome Bertram, Cong. Orat.,who helped excavate the friary in the 1970s, is that they are under the fish counter in the Sainsbury's which now occupies part of the site…

I have posted about Bl. Agnellus in 2010 at Bl. Agnellus of Pisa, in 2011 at Bl Agnellus of Pisa, and in 2015 at Bl Agnellus of Pisa

I have posted more about the medieval Greyfriars house in Oxford in 2012 in Medieval Franciscans in Oxford and, slightly more generally along with the other friaries of the town and University, in a 2015 post Out and about Oxford with Friars

The Franciscan Capuchins established a new community at the church of St Edmund and St Frideswide together with an academic Hall of the University - now sadly closed - in 1928. The Capuchins are one of the later reformed Franciscan communities established in 1525. The return of the Conventual Franciscans, the successors of the medieval friars, to Oxford occurred in 2014 and that is is covered in Greyfriars return to Oxford

May St Francis, Bl.Agnellus, and all the Franciscan saints and beati pray for the Franciscan community and for us all.

The Templars and their pet

Military men and religious communities have a tradition of having animal pets.

Regimental mascots are a familiar sight, ranging from an Irish wolfhound, to Welsh mountain goats and to Shetland ponies, complete with an appropriate ceremonial uniform and attendant NCO. Labradors have long been associated with officers of the RAF

Chaucer’s prioress of course had her pet dog, much, no doubt, to the horror of the nunnery’s episcopal Visitor.

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Oratorians, because of the tradition of St Philip having a cat, are keen to have their community provided with a pet cat. Pushkin, at the Birmingham Oratory became an international celebrity when he was stroked by Pope Benedict on his visit. Oxford used to have Buskin as its resident mouser as well as the Rubrics - a pair of goldfish in an outside pool who were so named because they were small, red, and largely ignored.

Medievalists.net takes us in a recent post to an interesting combination with the Knights Templar in Acre before it fell in 1291. As a community of military men organised as a religious community it is perhaps no surprise that they would have a pet, but the choice is, shall we say, distinctive. A crocodile. Yes, a crocodile - admittedly one that had been de-toothed. It could perhaps give you a nasty suck. One wonders if being appointed keeper of the Crocodile was the Templar equivalent of being assigned the short straw….

The article can be seen at Did the Knights Templar Keep a Pet Crocodile? A Medieval Mystery Unveiled

The windows of Notre Dame Paris

One might well think that M.Macron the “President of the French Republic” had more than enough on his metaphorical plate at the moment with the constitutional mess he has managed to land the Fifth Republic in with his snap election. With political cannon to the right of him, and political cannon to the left of him, all trained on him as he potentially rides into the valley of political death, you would think he would avoid making any more enemies. 

However according to The Art Newspaper M. Le President of this avowedly secular state, so keen to separate State from Church, has inserted himself once more into the discussion around the restoration of Notre Dame de Paris. M. Macron has backed a proposal to replace the undamaged grisaille glass in medieval style installed by Viollet le Duc with works by modern artists…. This idea has not been well received. Anyone who has seen the Chagall window at Chichester will appreciate why. Consciously modern stained glass in a medieval building rarely works in such a setting, however skilled the modern artist.

The story is set out in the TAN article at Row over Notre-Dame’s stained glass re-ignites

More reflections on ‘Dominus Vobiscum’

Last month I wrote about, and linking to, an article on the New Liturgical Movement website about the use in the liturgy of the ‘Dominus Vobiscum’. My post can be seen at Dominus Vobiscum

The NLM has now followed this up with a lengthy quotation about the phrase from Durandus’ Rationale divinorum officiorum, which was compiled before 1286. As Gregory DiPippo says in his introduction to the article Durandus’ Rationale is the liturgical equivalent of the Summa Theolcogica. This additional commentary can be read at Durandus on the “Dominus Vobiscum”

Cardinal Müller speaking forcefully about the Synod

The Canadian based website LifeSiteNews reports on an interview given by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former Prefect of the CDF, about the soon to resume Synod on Synodality. His Eminence is forceful and forthright in his comments, which make his position clear. The article can be seen at Cardinal Müller suggests ‘anti-Catholic forces’ pushing pro-abortion Agenda 2030 in the Synod

The Wikipedia article about the Cardinal gives a wide ranging selection of his robust views on ecclesial matters in the current climate of the Church. I doubt I am the only one to find them reassuring. The article can be seen at Gerhard Ludwig Müller

Recruitment and composition in armies of the Wars of the Roses

The other evening I watched on YouTube two very interesting videos from Matt Easton of Scholagladiatora. He is a well known and respected re-enactor who also teaches a variety of historic combat techniques and is a prolific creator of informative videos on such matters.

The two I saw were about how armies were recruited in the time of the Wars of the Roses, and about the age of those who engaged in battle. He illustrated this latter topic with evidence from the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. As Matt himself pointed out this was a somewhat unscientific sampling, but it was nonetheless interesting and credible.The conclusion could be summed up as being that the professional soldier of the fifteenth century was not that much different in age from the professional soldier of today. Of course the men sampled were the equivalent of the officers of later military formations. The rank and file, as in modern conflicts, would be likely to be younger. Elite commanders, such as the Yorkists Duke of Gloucester at eighteen and King Edward IV’s stepson Thomas Grey at sixteen, or the Lancastrian Edward Prince of Wales at seventeen, might be younger, but their military command was because of their social rank.This does appear consistent with the evidence from the grave pit at Towton where some men had clearly had years of military experience before their fatal encounter that snowy Palm Sunday in 1461.

The two videos can be seen at How were Medieval Armies & Soldiers Recruited? and at How OLD were Medieval Knights & Soldiers in Battle? The Battle of Tewkesbury (1471)

The olfactory sense of History

The  Daily Telegraph has a quite lengthy and scholarly article by the standards of even the contemporary ‘quality’ press which originates with the latest film about King Henry VIII. The fact that whilst filming the set was sprayed with a scent designed to simulate the odours which it was thought would have accompanied the aging monarch with his infected leg ulcers and associated sickroom smells is the starting point for an examination of how sixteenth century people and their predecessors accommodated such odours. It can be read at what is actually a slightly misleadingly entitled article at Yes, Henry VIII really was that disgusting

The article challenges both the idea that everything in the period was rank and gross - a point I have made here on the blog quite a few times - and that covering malodorous airs with pleasing ones was standard practice. It also looks at the fact that people did wash regularly, and change their clothes, so as to avoid giving offence. The fear of bad air as a carrier or vector of disease was well established as health advice. As the article shows King Henry had bathrooms at his palaces, as had his predecessors for at least two centuries. Earlier still King John liked to have a warm bath each day when travelling. What was possible for the monarch might indeed not be available to many, but the use of half casks from the wine trade as baths is frequently shown in illuminated manuscripts or referred to quite far down the social scale. The fact that people did try to make themselves pleasant and presentable is clear, as in the numerous Books of Courtesy to which I alluded recently in discussing Daniel of Beccles’ poem the Book of the Civilised Man.of advice to young men from about 1200.in How to get on in Society in Angevin England

Keeping yourself clean was a way of keeping your clothes clean, and that when the range of most people’s wardrobes was far less than that of today. Ordinary fabrics ran the risk of colour loss with much washing, and washing was not practicable for luxury fabrics. 

The article makes the point that urban streets were often dirty in the period, but that was not for want of civic ordinances against nuisances left or dumped in the streets by traders and householders, and people were apparently quite vociferous in complaining such matters.

Modern bathing facilities are just that, modern. You do not have to look far back to see a society with far more limited resources. They may not have had power-showers seventy odd years ago, but it does not mean that people did not try their best with the resources available to be clean and to present themselves well. That applies for much earlier periods, and survivals of personal grooming tools, and not just combs, bears this out back to the Anglo-Saxon period.

We might well be shaken were we to encounter the aromas of the past, but we should remember their absence from our lives is a very modern thing.

More academic folly

The recent decision by the University of Nottingham to re-name some Masters courses to exclude the phrase ‘Anglo-Saxon’ was reported by the Daily Telegraph at University cancels Anglo-Saxon ‘to decolonise’ the curriculum

This appears to be another instance of the actions of a certain type of modern academic who, either influenced, or indeed inflamed, by their own ‘political correctness’ or, maybe worse, those who are too frightened to resist the current zeitgeist in such matters, changing things for the sake of conciliating tiny but regrettably vocal groups who go around seeing matters to offend them everywhere.

A previous discussion of this topic of contention had produced in May an excellent response in the same newspaper by Prof. David Abulafia which can be seen at ‘Anglo-Saxon’ isn’t racist. It’s a source of English pride. There is more about the matter at Cambridge journal ‘pandering to mad Americans’ by ditching Anglo-Saxon from title arising from CUP changing a journal title.

This nonsense about not calling the Anglo-Saxons ‘Anglo-Saxons’ comes indeed from the US. I first encountered it a few years ago at a meeting in Oxford when a loquacious but strangely inarticulate female US student mystified the rest of us by going on at length about the term. Amongst the most bewildered by this was a specialist in Anglo-Saxon from one of the leading colleges, who valiantly tried to point out that ‘Anglo-Saxon’ referred to the history, literature, indeed art, created by Anglo-Saxons in the period between the end of Roman Britain and the Norman Conquest. Nothing less, but also nothing more. 

I have no intellectual or historical problem about using terms such as Early Medieval or Early England/English or even Early Medieval Britain  - which does comprehend the Romano-British, the Vikings, and, as they emerge and engage one with another, the Welsh, the Scots, and the Picts - as a time reverence or categorisation. That can be useful and indeed neutral phraseology, and broaden historical as well as geographical horizons. 

That said there is no good reason whatsoever to abandon such a very long-established term as ‘Anglo-Saxon’. If  certain Generation Z US students do not understand it that it is their problem, not mine. They need to get over it. I not going to be told I cannot refer to Anglo-Saxon things as ‘Anglo-Saxon’ because someone who is following a silly fad in the US might be offended. Are we expected to change the titles of the works of Clapham, Stenton, Campbell and innumerable others to satisfy such nonsense? Perhaps we should censor Bede when he refers to Angles, Saxons and Jutes? Was he being ‘racist’ when he so denominated them?

It really tempts one to respond in choice Anglo-Saxon……

Camping out on campaign with King Henry VIII

In March the British Library Medieval manuscripts blog had an interesting article about a Cottonian manuscript which depicts the layout for King Henry VIII’s mobile military court when he was on campaign. It can be seen at Henry VIII’s pastry tent

It is not clear if this illustrates the King’s French invasion of 1513 or his later one in 1544. In many ways it probably resembles the layout on his grandfather King Edward IV’s anticlimactic expedition of 1475. The tents as depicted resemble in many cases others shown in manuscripts of the same period which depict tents with richly decorated colourful exteriors and of a similar structure. It was not just for military campaigns that Kings and their couriers occupied tented accommodation. From the contemporary account of Niclas von Popplau it is clear that King Richard III was in staying an impressive tent when visiting York, staying in the Minster Close, in the early autumn of 1483. That may well have been taken over from the late King Edward.  In 1541 King Henry VIII and Queen Catherine and their entourage occupied tents set up in the grounds of the recently suppressed abbey of St Mary in the city. Tents were clearly an important element in the accommodation for the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520, although on that occasion King Henry and his Queen occupied a temporary residence constructed from timber and canvas designed to look like a permanent structure. 

To what extent a tented court was set up at each stop on such journeys is not clear as various royal or duchy castles such Nottingham and Pontefract were utilised as stopping places. Maybe the tented accommodation was set up for a major halt on such journeys, although, as with a military campaign, the total numbers involved would have been considerable with the retinues attendant on the monarch, his secretariat, his nobles and gentry, and their servants. Billeting the court on a small town would have been a major logistical issue, when the population might literally overnight. Tents would obviate that if the necessary arrangements could be made to send them on ahead whilst the monarch and courtiers perhaps had an opportunity for hunting and the use of proffered or commandeered lodgings before the next principal halt.

Operating a military campaign, especially on enemy territory, might well mean there was less concern about causing offence when occupying accommodation in towns. Nevertheless whatever the circumstances the time involved in setting up and then dismantling and moving forward must have been a considerable concern when doing forward planning, let alone when it had to be actually done, resources packed, carts loaded, animals harnessed, people marshalled, and routes scouted. A royal progress in peacetime might have less urgency but would in its own way be equally stressful.

The Cottonian MS also shows specifically military preparations in progress in relation at a distance from the royal accommodation with not only swords but artillery as a feature, food preparation to feed the army and the tents for the services and officers who supported the troops. When the King went forth to war, or on a peaceful domestic or diplomatic progress, a sizeable part of his kingdom went with him.

Seeking Merlin in the Scottish Borders

Both the Scottish newspaper The National and the Ancient Origins website have reports about an excavation at Drumelzier, which lies south-west of Peebles in the Scottish Borders. The archaeological work was to investigate a site which was a reoccupation of a much earlier hill fort, and which was later replaced by a medieval castle.

The report from The National can be seen at  Archaeologists uncover 'dark' new evidence of Merlin legend in Scotland and that from Ancient Origins at Archaeological Finds Support Local Folklore of Merlin’s Grave

The time of the reoccupation was that shadowy, but not by any means completely ‘Dark Age’ between the Romano-British and the Anglo-Saxon. That fact surely makes the site analogous to South Cadbury - Camelot - in Somerset. If South Cadbury is associated with the Arthurian legend of Camelot, then Drumelzier and its neighbourhood is associated with stories of Merlin. The Wikipedia entry about the village gives a good introduction and can be seen at Drumelzier

I first became aware of the association of Merlin with the Scottish Borders many years ago whilst reading Count Nikolai Tolstoy’s The Quest for Merlin. Hitherto I had, I think,  associated Merlin only with Wales and Cornwall, not Scotland.

The medieval legend of Merlin’s life is elegantly summarised and splendidly illustrated on the always interesting BL Medieval manuscripts blog at Merlin the magician: from devil’s son to King Arthur’s trusted advisor

The way in which legends have been transmitted over time inevitably results in the stories becoming garbled or confused, yet the fact that they have persisted and can now be related to archaeological evidence does suggest a substratum at least of truth. In one way the element of mystery continues to add to their appeal. How much more we can learn about a time that is obscure and which has left fragments of evidence, we do not yet know. However the search for knowledge of the origins of these stories, be they truth, or the truthes that are myth, engages us and draws us on. - and that, of course, is very much the message of so much of the Arthurian legends.

Recreating the ‘Mora’

Earlier this year I noted in a post that there is a French project to build a replica of King William I’s flagship, the ‘Mora’ , in his Conquest fleet from 1066 and to sail it to London to mark the millenary of his birth in 2027. My article with the link to the original story in the Daily Telegraph can be seen at Progress on recreating two historic ships

I found subsequently a more detailed account of the ship and the reconstruction plan in a 2022 Guardian article which can be seen at French team to build replica of William the Conqueror’s warship

The work on the new vessel is now advancing in a building site at Honfleur. This was was reported by The Connexion in French team build faithful replica of William the Conqueror’s warship

The article explains that the construction site can be visited to see eleventh century techniques faithfully followed and to learn more about the events of 1066. According to the article the current plan is to have the ship in the water in 2027, and actually crossing the Channel in 2030. 

Wikipedia has an account of the surprising amount that is known of the vessel at Mora (ship)

The History Jar has a short article, from 2016, which tries to strike a humorous note, about the ship at Matilda’s ship – the Mora but which much more importantly includes a link to the essay on The Freelance History Writer from 2014 about the meaning and possible significance of the name, which is referenced in the Wikipedia account. Although one might think that perhaps not all of the possibilities considered were in Duchess Matilda’s mind when she commissioned this handsome, and clearly, from its decoration, very special gift for Duke William they do indicate the range of references and concepts that hovered around the planning of the invasion.

We can I think be certain that the Duchess did not brake a bottle of champagne over the prow of her gift, because champagne had not been invented in 1066, but the ‘Mora’ is, I suppose, the first sea going vessel known to have associated from its very beginning with a royal lady.

I assume that this project is not a deeply plotted and belated response and attempt to undo Brexit with an invasion by M.Macron. Maybe ardent Brexiteers will be gathering when the new ‘Mora’ sets sail to repel invaders….

Further insights into the Galloway Hoard

Ten years after its discovery the Galloway Hoard continues to reveal more about itself. The latest discovery to be presented is that the lidded vessel that was found wrapped in cloth is now assigned an Iranian origin. This points to trading links stretching half way across what was then the known world, bringing a piece of silverware with Zoroastrian imagery to become part of a hoard of Christian artefacts buried in south west Scotland. Given its size and shape, its being made of precious metal and having the cloth covering all makes me wonder if, whatever its origins, it had been used in England or Scotland as a ciborium in a monastery or large church. 

The BBC News report about it and about its impending display in a new British Museum exhibition can be seen at Viking-age treasure came to Scotland from West Asia

Other recent reports from the same channel about the cleaning, conservation and understanding of the items which comprise the hoard can be seen at Galloway Viking-age treasure hoard begins national tour, at Galloway Viking hoard secrets 'unwrapped' by £1m research, and at Viking-age treasure hoard comes home to Galloway

The whole hoard is a remarkable insight into the later ninth or tenth centuries as well as being a remarkable survival. It is described, along with an account of its discovery and the possible circumstances of its burial, in a detailed Wikipedia article at Galloway Hoard

Charles Waterton and Walton Hall

The BBC News website reported back in March that the park at Walton Hall, on the southern outskirts of Wakefield, has been added to the Historic Englands list of protected parks and gardens. The article can be read at 'World's first nature reserve' joins heritage list

Walton Hall was the ancestral home of the pioneering naturalist and proto - environmentalist Charles Waterton, and who created at Walton “the Worlld’s first nature reserve”. After his death in 1865 was inherited by his son and heir Edmund. Edmund Waterton was a significant antiquarian who accompanied us on the recent Marian Pilgrimage. Unfortunately his commitment to such studies led to his financial difficulties which resulted in bankruptcy and the sale of the hall and estate in 1876. Wikipedia has a history of the property at Walton Hall, West Yorkshire  and has biographies of father and son at Charles Waterton and at Edmund Waterton. That biographical account of Charles and his innovative ideas, as well as his idiosyncrasies, shows the range of his interests and something of his legacy.

The Watertons were a recusant family and descended from Robert Waterton, who died in 1425, and was not only a leading figure in the administration of the Duchy of Lancaster, but, by his second marriage, brother-in-law to a certain Bishop Richard Fleming of Lincoln, “my bishop” , and the original Clever Boy.

Charles Waterton is now, quite rightly, no longer just seen as the eccentric Squire of Walton Hall but as a pioneer and indeed as a visionary in natural history and environmental matters and as an explorer whose books influenced later generations, including Darwin and Wallace. True, there was an eccentric side to him, but it is often engaging, such as in sleeping with his foot outside his tent in South America in the hope that a vampire bat would bite him, a hope in which he was to be disappointed, or as when he built new pig sties at Walton and included window openings so his pigs could enjoy the view…

Charles Waterton in 1824

National Portrait Gallery

Image: Wikipedia 

Quite apart from his significant scientific contribution to learning and popular understanding of the natural world when I skimmed Brian Edginton’s biography of Charles Waterton I recall being impressed by its account of the recusant culture of Walton. Charles was born in 1782, in the lifetime of the Young Pretender, and when the hint of Catholic Emancipation was a glimmer of an idea that could trigger the Gordon Riots in 1780. One reason that may have sent Charles to manage family estates in British Guiana was that as a Catholic there was no public role for him in Britain. He had returned to Walton by the time of Catholic Emancipation in 1829, and was to see the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850. For last fifteen years of his life there was Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. He and his son were products of that hidden scholarly world of the old Catholic gentry which remained discreet in its life long after 1829.

The preservation of Walton is important not just to the local environment of Wakefield but to the wider, much wider, environment that fascinated Charles Waterton.

St Giles

Were today not a Sunday, unless it is the patronal feast of a particular church and hence a local solemnity, today would be the feast or commemoration of St Giles.

Because of my baptism in the church dedicated to him in Pontefract, and many years of worshiping and working there, St Giles occupies a prominent place in my personal calendar of Saints. He has also appeared frequently on this day on this blog.

Looking on the internet I came upon an article from the V&A Blog..Although its occasionally flippant style rather grates with me I think it worth sharing, not least for its illustrations of items from the V&A collection. I do not think I have linked to it beforehand. The article can be viewed at St. Giles • V&A Blog

My previous posts about his life and legend, and to devotion to St Giles, can be accessed, with quite a collection of images of this saint who was very popular with medieval people, starting from 2010 with  St Giles by Thomas of Coloswar

In 2012 I wrote St Giles and his shrine

2014.had St Giles in art and devotion and 2015 has St Giles

After an interval I returned to the subject with in 2021 St Giles and in 2022 St Giles

 

In 2023 I concentrated on his burial place with St Giles and his shrine church.

In respect of other churches under his patronage I wrote in 2013 about my baptismal church in St Giles in Pontefract and in 2020 about St Giles in Edinburgh

May St Giles pray for us all

How to get on in Society in Angevin England

Medievalists. net has an interesting piece about the Book of the Civilised Man by Daniel of Beccles. This is linked to the publication of a new translation of the text.

Dated to about 1200 this 3000 line poem is the first ( or first to survive ) of what later centuries were to know by the later middle ages as Books of Courtesy. The suggestion is that Daniel, of whom very little is known as an individual, was writing in response to the changing society of the twelfth century. This may be true, but the significant shift and emergence of “new men”  had happened a century or so earlier, as indeed had the “rise of the individual”, if that argument is accepted. So Daniel, who is apparently citing the norms he had seen in the court of King Henry II, but says in his conclusion that “Old King Henry first gave to the uncourtly the teaching written in this book”. I am inclined to see that as referring to King Henry I, whose reign did, in the view of Sir Richard Southern, see the rise of the “new men”. So I think Daniel would not been writing to deal not to deal with a whole generation but with those who were individually new to polite society- or indeed Society - and restating the obvious and accepted for an ever more complex social world.

The article from Medievalist. net is illustrated with a selection of quotations, which challenge both the behaviour of the original readership, and the modern mindset that sees everything medieval as scruffy and dirt. It can be seen at Medieval Life Hacks: Hygiene and Manners from the 12th Century

Wikipedia has an article about the poem at Book of the Civilized Man

This article has a useful bibliography to help place the text in its historical context. It also brings out in its quotations from the text of the poem what today might be termed the distinctly robust ideas of the author, who would also certainly fall foul of modern attitudes to perceived mysogyny, and his text denounced no doubt as a “hate crime’

That apart what really is hateful and uncivilised is that the publishers of the new translation are asking £135 for a 198 page book. Even more shocking this is not one of the uber expensive Benelux firms but Routledge here in the UK. So how are the ‘untrained boy-clerks’ , or their modern equivalents, that Daniel of Beccles wrote for to afford that?