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

Some of the hair of King Edward IV

Yesterday I wa writing about an attempt to reconstruct the voice of King Richard III and today it is the turn of his eldest brother King Edward IV and locks of his hair.

The BBC News website reported the sale of a lock of the King’a hair which had been removed when his grave at St George’s Chapel Windsor was opened in 1789. The skeleton was that of a man who was six feet three and a half inches tall, and some of whose hair survived. The original report about the royal remains submitted to the Society of Antiquaries can be read at Vetusta Monumenta: Plates 3.7-3.9: Vault and Body of Edward IV in St. George’s Chapel

The hair given to the Society can be seen online at Lock of hair of Edward IV - Society of Antiquaries of London

There is a summary of the elaborate funeral ceremonies in April 1483 at Death of King Edward IV

Coincidentally another mourning item from 1789 and also containing a lock of King Edward’s hair is shown by a jewellery retailer on their website at Mourning Brooch Fashioned from the Hair of King Edward IV

In all three examples the hair appears reddish-brown, which would definitely tie in with surviving examples from his grandson King Henry VIII and his great granddaughter Queen Elizabeth I. 

I have copied the BBC News article as follows:

Royal hair-loom

An unusual piece of royal history, in the form of a medieval monarch’s lock of hair inside a piece of jewellery, has been sold in Newbury, Berkshire, by auctioneers Dreweatts for £9,450.

The brooch, made circa 1789, features King Edward IV’s hair fashioned into a bow. Credit: Dreweatts

The strands of hair are from Edward IV (1442-1483), who was buried in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. His tomb was accidentally disturbed in the 18th Century and some of his hair found inside was put into commemorative mourning jewellery - the fashion at the time. It was a ring with diamonds that was later turned into a brooch. ‌ Edward IV was a central figure in the medieval power struggles between the Houses of York and Lancaster. The jewellery was made in March 1789, a few months before the French Revolution.

The Presentation of Our Lady in the Temple

Today is the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady in the Temple. The New Liturgical Movement has a typically well informed history of the development of the day in both West and East and of its celebration. This can be seen at Liturgical Notes on the Presentation of the Virgin Mary

As the NLM piece shows the Feasthas, in the West, has tended to go in and out of liturgical fashion. The article site, the fact that although it is recorded in England in the early eleventh century by the mid-sixteenth century it was relegated to the appendix of the Sarum Missal.

Similarly in Rome it was promoted by the Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV in the late fifteenth century, removed by the Dominican Pope Pius V in his 1570 reform, only to be restored in 1585 by Pope Sixtus V.

This hasno doubt been due to its origin in the Apocryphal Gospels of the second century.

Two charming Sienese paintings from the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries depicting the Presentation in the Samuel H. Kress collection in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, with their accompanying notes can be seen at The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple by Paolo di Giovanni Fei and at The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple by Andrea Di Bartolo

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  by Paolo Di Giovanni Fei and at The Presentation of the Virgin in the Templeby Andrea di Bartolo.

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The voice of King Richard III

There have been several media reports about a project to reconstruct the voice of King Richard iII. The result seemingly spoken by an avatar ( which manages to look very unlike both the initial reconstruction of the King’s head from his skull as found in Leicester and the recognised portraits ) has been on exhibition in York in recent days. The Guardian reports on it at Hi-tech recreation of Richard III’s voice has a Yorkshire accent 

I am sure the devotees of the King will be deeply moved by it as it has been in parts sponsored by the Richard III Society. The choice of a Yorkshire accent will also appeal to those who make so much of his time spent in the county and his apparent popularity there.

I cannot claim any expertise in matters of dialect and pronunciation and indeed in the way in which those have changed over the centuries. However listening to the re-created ‘voice’ I felt myself completely unmoved by it and indeed it seemed really rather implausible. 

First of all, Yorkshire accents very considerably over quite small distances, and reflect influences coming from neighbouring areas and also legacies from the distant past.  Thus the East Riding accent preserves both dialect words and pronunciation that reflects Danish heritage of the area. The dialect of the Tees Valley as much that of the north east as it is of the county of Broad Acres.

Secondly, English pronunciation has evolved significantly since the fifteenth century. Whilst this is recognised in this recreation, it does not seem to match up very well with reconstructions of the language of Chaucer or of the late sixteenth century language as used and understood by Shakespeare ( mention him not to the Richard III enthusiasts ) and his contemporaries.

Thirdly, although King Richard spent a number of years in Yorkshire we do not know what the voice patterns of his parents’ household were, he was born in Northamptonshire, which might give him an East Midlands tone, then spent some time in his early years on the Welsh borders at Ludlow, as well apparently in Warwick’s household in Yorkshire or elsewhere. By the end of the 1460s he was then in and around London, as well having a second exile in Flanders, before he moved to make Yorkshire his primary residence. By that time it is likely that his accent would have already been largely formed. If he did actually speak with a northern accent it might well have reinforced. alongside his northern followers, the point emphasised by Charles Ross in his biography of him, that he was an outsider to the London and southern political elite. Caxton’s point about the mutual incomprehension of a Yorkshireman and a Kentish woman is an indicator of how accent and dialect marked individuals out. 

Fourthly, and here I speak ( pun intended ) from personal experience, it is perfectly possible to live in Yorkshire for much longer than the total life of King Richard and to have only slight elements of a Yorkshire accent - mainly in the enunciation of vowels.

Fifthly although we know modern ‘received pronunciation’ is largely a product of the 1920s following the establishment of the BBC radio service, and that before then prominent public figures spoke with accents that might seem surprising today. The surviving recording of Gladstone shows elements of his Scottish ancestry as well as his Liverpudlian birthplace. I have read that Lord Curzon the “ most superior person”, Oxford educated, Viceroy of India and political heavyweight always spoke with a noticeable Derbyshire accent. To what extent the leading figures of fifteenth century England spoke with a distinctive accent is not clear, if knowable. In the sixteenth century that is evidence for the fact that King Henry VIII had a rather high-pitched voice and Queen Elizabeth I recorded by one French ambassador in her native years as speaking with the aristocratic drawl that uses long m-drawn out vowel sounds as in paar maa fwaa for par ma foi. 

Maybe King Richard III did speak like the reconstruction, but I am far from convinced.

Sculptured stones from Old Sarum emerge in Salisbury

The BBC News website recently reported the discovery during repair work on the medieval walls of the Close at Salisbury Cathedral of carved stones which had been reused from the previous cathedral at Old Sarum. The proposal is to display these in the cathedral stonemason’s yard. 

The article can be read at Workers at Salisbury Cathedral find stones from Old Sarum site

It is long been known that the previous cathedral was dismantled and its masonry reused to create its successor on the new site on the banks of the Avon. English Heritage

list individual items in the collection at the present cathedral and also indicates which parts of it are believed to have been built with masonry brought down from Old Sarum on their website at Sources for Old Sarum

Such reuse of masonry was not unique to Salisbury.  At York the eastern crypt built in the fourteenth century reused material from the twelfth century choir of Archbishop Roger on the same site. In Winchester garden walls in the cathedral close have yielded a substantial number of pieces of sculpture from the late mediaeval High Altar screen. At some point in the middle of the sixteenth century these high-quality sculptures were removed from their niches, sawn up, and reused as blocks for mundane walling. These surviving portions of the figures can now be seen in the gallery of cathedral treasures displayed in the South Transept. I have linked to information about this in my 2020 post Our Lady of Winchester

The most recent archaeological investigation of parts of the Close at Salisbury by Wessex Archaeology can be seen in their report here

This helps provide the context for the reused stonework and for other lost features. It  concentrates on investigative work on the site of the fifteenth century chantry chapel of Bishop Beauchamp and of the thirteenth century freestanding bell tower. These were both very regrettably demolished at the end of the eighteenth century by the architect Wyatt. The Wessex Archaeology report quotes Pugin’s scathing judgment on Wyatt -‘ the Destroyer…. this monster of architectural depravity…. this pest of cathedral architecture .. ‘  I wrote about his catalogue of destruction at the cathedral between 1788 and 1792 in a piece in 2011 entitled Vandalism at Salisbury Cathedral - I still, by the way, think the belfry tower and its wooden superstructure should be recreated.

Quite by chance, or by the sensitivity of the algorithm, as I finished this blog I saw an article from today in The Independent about fundraising to purchase a thirteenth century Bible written and illuminated in his Salisbury workshop by a recognised artist, the Sarum Master, and to house it ib the cathedral library. The volume is one of just six identified works by the artist. The illustrated article, which includes a donation link, can be seen at Sarum Master Bible campaign receives £10,000 donation

Remembering the battle of Varna in 1444

Every year this point in November with Remembrance Day and the anniversary of the 1918 Armistice focuses the thoughts of most of us on the casualties of the two World Wars of the twentieth  century, and of subsequent campaigns involving the armed forces of the Crown.

Not a little of that reflection is about the pity and the horror of war and its consequences in personal and social terms. Beyond that, it may lead to thought about the place of war not only in the history of the last century and a quarter, and in the present, but also throughout history, and in all places. Wars may well be justified, or they may be completely illegitimate, and their consequences are wide and far-reaching. Not only are troops and civilians killed and maimed, with all the attendant consequences, and maps redrawn and territories lost or gained, and we tell ourselves not just that we won, or lost, but that the right cause won, or lost. War is Original Sin and the fallen nature of humanity made manifest in all its variety and contradictions - nobility, bravery, gallantry, cruelty, savagery, misery all enmeshed and blended together. I am not a pacifist, war is sometimes, regrettably, necessary, and the best way to peace is by strong defence and vigilance, but let us make no mistake - war is terrible and terrifying.

It is with those thoughts in mind that I look now not at events since 1914 - many still raw and still difficult to process - but to an anniversary that falls today from the period in which I tend to have a particular interest. 580 years ago today the battle of Varna was fought between a central European Christian coalition and the Ottomans on the shore of the Black Sea in Bulgaria. The catastrophic defeat of the Christian forces helped shift the political parameters of the Balkans and beyond for centuries to come. Reading something about it is not just to look at distant events but in fact at ones with a continuing legacy, and in the fates of individuals find something we can empathise with.

Wikipedia sets the scene with Crusade of Varna and an account of the conflict in Battle of Varna

It also has biographies of the two commanders who did not survive the day - the Polish and Hungarian king Władysław III of Poland and Cardinal Julian Cesarini - and of one who did - in John Hunyadi

War and the consequences of war do not end when the fighting stops.

Anglo-Saxon culture and the Silk Road

I have quite often written about evidence for the interrelated patterns of trade and cultural contact that bound Anglo-Saxon England not only to Europe but the Near East and indeed to territories beyond. 

This is brought out splendidly in a beautifully illustrated and informative article from Current Archaeology and available on The Past website. It is based around the current British Museum exhibition Silk Road which has  drawn together a spectacular array of exhibits from across the British Isles and across the world. The article also draws on the most recent research and paint an impressive picture of remarkable cultural interaction in the period. The idea of Anglo-Saxon mercenaries returning to England with the latest fashion ideas for military man from Byzantium Is both visually and also mentally stimulating. The striking thought that the cloisonné work with garnets that we associate with Sutton Hoo is part of a shared tradition that extended as far east as Korea is fascinating, but also perfectly credible once the evidence is presented. 

The article can been at From Samarkand to Sutton Hoo: Exploring the impact of the Silk Roads on early medieval Britain and Ireland