Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Muswell

The Pilgrimage now retraces its route and moves eastward from Islington to Muswell.

My first post about this site was written in 2020 in Our Lady of Muswell

The following year I wrote further about the link with King Malcolm IV in Our Lady of Muswell

Last year I added some more information and a link to a 1932 history of the Shrine. These features can be seen at Our Lady of Muswell

May Our Lady of Muswell pray for The King and all the Royal Family and for us all

The Second Council of Lyon 1274

It was on this day in 1274 that Pope Gregory X opened the Second Council of Lyon. According to Western numbering it is the fourteenth Ecumenical Council.

Wikipedia has a useful introduction to the Council at Second Council of Lyon

Some of its achievements were short lived, notably the attempt to heal the Schism of 1054 between East and West. The Couuncil of Florence thought it too had achieved Union in 1439 but it again proved short lived. For all the discussion of recent decades it appears no closer now.

War in eastern Europe and the Middle East was not resolved, and we know today how endemic such conflicts spread to be.

Purgatory was well defined at Lyon, but it is a doctrine still rejected by many Protestants.

Nonetheless much was achieved or presrnted as achievements. However, with the benefits of hindsight we can see that an era in the Catholic Church and the Papal Monarchy was closing. The pontificate of Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) was to see the achievements of the past two and a half centuries challenged and shaken. As the Wikipedia article points out at Lyon II national delegations were emerging within the Universal Church.

The lead-up to Lyon II and the Council witnessed the deaths of St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure. It also saw in its latter stages the confirmation of the election of a relatively unkown if ambitious Swiss-German noble as the first of his family to be King of the Romans. King Riudolf I of Habsburg and his successors acquitted themselves well in their newly acquired responsibilities.

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Willesden

To the west of Islington and its shrine was the perhaps better known one of Our Lady of Willesden. This has been successfully revived by both the Anglican and Catholic parishes.

My article from 2022 about the Shrine also has a link to an additional piece I compiled citing the work of Michael Carter, another researcher on the topic, about some of these smaller medieval rural places of devotion besides Willesden. This can be seen at More on the rural London shrines of Our Lady

As a result this post, very much in the spirit of the original itinerary compiled by Canon Stephenson, now makes a dash across the Thames to include the ‘lost’ shrine of Our Lady of Crooms Hill on the western side of Greeenwich Park. I describe it as ‘lost’ but near its site is the very handsome Catholic Church of Our Ladye Star of the Sea designed by Pugin’s pupil William Wardell. There is an account of the church with relevant links at Our Ladye Star of the Sea

Returning to Willesden there is an illustrated wq as account of the history of the medieval shrine and of both its modern replacements from Wikipedia at Our Lady of Willesden

There is another introduction to the tradition of pilgrimage there at Our Lady of Willesden: The Black Madonna

My 2021 post about the Shrine can be seen at Our Lady of Willesden

The Anglican shrine of Our Lady of Willesden with the 1972 statue.

Image: Wikipedia 

May Our Lady of Willesden and Our Lady of Croom’s Hill pray for The King and all the Royal Family and for us all.

Enrolling the Coronation

A year ago today it was the Coronation of Their Majesties The King and The Queen. 

In accordance with tradition going back to at least 1308 the official record of the day and ceremonies has now been compiled and last week it was presented to the royal couple by its creators and the National Archives.

The tradition of such rolls - they are sadly missing for the era 1429-1559 inclusive - is outlined in articles from the BBC News website at King's official Coronation scroll is first without animal skin and from the Daily Record at King Charles' cheeky six-word quip as he marks year since Coronation 

The 2023 Coronation Roll can be seen in its entirety at The Coronation Roll

The interactive version with film and interviews can be seen at Videos

The other day the Daily Mail had an article about criticisms of the ceremonial and liturgy from “insiders”. It can be seen at Eight reasons why moaning minnies call it the 'Cut Price Coronation'

The article begins on a slightly hostile note but then appears supportive of the criticisms made. Now the Daily Mail can call me a “Moaning Minnie” if it likes but I would agree with virtually all the points the article makes, and I could add quite a few more. Some innovations were very effective I happily concede, such as the Royal Ladies in their Chivalric mantles, and the presence of the St Augustine Gospels as well as the newly recreated Cros Gneith. I also appreciate the perceived need to adapt for aspects of the ceremony for a Monarch and Consort in their mid-seventies. That said I still think the comments in the article are valid, and I am heartened that “insiders” are making their views known for future Coronations.

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Islington

The next three Pilgrimage stations are on the low hills to the north of London. The first is just outside the medieval city, the shrine of Our Lady of the Oak at Islington. This appears to have been a wayside shrine in the churchyard by one of the principal routes in and out of medieval London. It remained an object of devotion until its destruction by burning alongside other such, more famous, statues at Chelsea in 1538.

My post about it from 2021, which also  includes links to two recent articles about contemporary ideas to restore or recreate it, can be seen at Our Lady of Islington 

May Our Lady of Islington pray for The King and all the Royal Family, and for us all.

Fr John Hunwicke RIP

Although it was not altogether unexpected the news last week of the death of Fr John Hunwicke still shocked and greatly saddened me.

I first became aware of him, before I went to Oxford, through the Ordo published by the Church Union which set out clearly and in great detail a wide series of options for saying the Daily Office for those of an Anglo-Catholic persuasion. Fr Hunwicke edited this each year and enquiries were to be sent to him at that citadel of Anglo-Catholic formation, Lancing College.

Some years later when I was a daily attender at Pusey House I met Fr Hunwicke who was there on a study visit. Now I could put a face and an identity to the name. Here was a man of great erudition and one who was also entertaining, with not a little of engaging English eccentricity. This acquaintance deepened and I saw why he was appreciated as a teacher and guide.

At that time he and his wife were living in retirement in north-west Devon and I distinctly recall thinking during the vacancy at St Thomas’ where I was Churchwarden that Fr Hunwicke was just the sort of parish priest the church needed, but alas, he was retired. A few months later, after my reception at the Oratory, I was delighted to be told that Fr Hunwicke was returning to active ministry as Vicar of St Thomas’. I went to his induction, when he graciously cited my history of the church and said in front of the Bishop of Oxford and the congregation that the floor having been paid for in part by John Henry Newman ( still then an Agnglican in the early 1840s) that if “we stand on a floor laid by John Henry Newman we shall not go far wrong.”

It was at St Thomas’ that he was persuaded to start his blog and its wide readership is testimony to his breadth of knowledge and skill in presenting ideas - in part no doubt the legacy of teaching Classics at Lancing. His anniversary of Ordination liturgy at St Thomas’ was one of those services you simply had to have been at, “a simple prayer book service in a little back street church“ using the ‘62 service book ( guess which ), a celebration of his faithful ministry but also of a vision, a very Oxford vision, of what the Ecclesia Anglicana might be.

With the advent of the Ordinariate wand his wife were received at the Oxford Oratory in a service I attended and I was present when he was finally ordained as a priest in full communion with the Holy See. For a man of such clear Anglo-Papalist sympathies and one who felt so keenly a sense of communion with late medieval and sixteenth century English Catholics that raised scruples with him, but ordained he was. As I said as I knelt for his First Blessing outside the Oratory that evening “ Not before time!”.

As Dr Shaw of the LMS has demonstrated in his obituary the succeeding years saw an active and lively ministry as tutor, scholar and blogger based in Oxford.

I am very grateful for having known him and shall miss not just our conversations when we met but also the fact of knowing someone who would know the answer, or a possible answer, to so many obscure, but always, fascinating questions. I can see him seeking out a new ministry in the afterlife as chaplain to his great hero the fourteenth century Bishop John de Grandison of Exeter.

May he rest in peace.

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Grace by the Pillar in St Paul’s

The Pilgrimage now moves from Westminster along The Strand to St Paul’s Cathedral. Within were several statues and chapels in honour of Our Lady which Waterton, drawing upon Dugdale, documents. The one which appears to have been the principal object of pilgrims, and of their offerings was the statue in the nave by the second pillar west of the crossing on the south side. 

Waterton’s account can be seen on pp 68-70 of his work, and details the ceremonies associated with the statue and the management of its revenues. My previous articles about it can be seen, beginning in 2021 with Our Lady of Grace by the Pillar in St Paul’s, from 2022 at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Grace by the Pillar in St Pauls, and from last year at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Grace by the Pillar in St Paul’s

May Our Lady of Grace by the Pillar pray for The King and all the Royal Family and for us all

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady at the North Door and Our Lady of Pew in Westminster Abbey

 

The Pilgrimage now moves to Westminster Abbey and Palace to three medieval shrines of Our Lady. The modern Pilgrim can also go along to Westminster Cathedral to see the renewed shrine there with a medieval English alabaster statue of the Virgin and Child as well as seeing a copy of that in the Abbey’s restored chapel of Our Lady of Pew. 

I set out the complexities of these various places of devotion in my 2021 article Our Lady of Westminster

In that I also cite the work of my friend the late Fr Mark Elvins OFM Cap. about the central place of the chapel of Our Lady of Pew in the story of King Richard II and his vow to make England the Dowry of Mary in 1381. 

My 2023 version can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Westminster

Edmund Waterton gives reference to both statues in the Abbey. He quotes an inventory which lists the gold cope for the statue at the North Door. He also discusses the origin of the term Pew to describe the chapel and statue in both the abbey and the chapel of both the abbey and the royal chapel in the palace. Waterton inclinded to the view that the term Pew was a term to describe a Pièta, and it is clear from his work that such statues were by non means infrequent in later medieval England. The other explanation is that the chapels both in the Abbey and the Palace were places designed for private devotion by the King and his companions.

 

Edmund Waterton gives many examples from records of financial offerings to Our Lady of Pew by Kings, Queens, and courtiers.

May Our Lady at the North Door and Our Lady of Pew at Westminster pray for The King and all the Royal Family and for us all.

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Red Ark in York Minster

The third station on the Pilgrimage is made at the second Metropolitical cathedral of the realm, York Minster. 

Looking at Waterton’s compilation it is not clear why the itinerary as created in 1960 chose the statue of Our Lady of the Red Ark in the Minster when in fact there were so many devotional images of Our Lady in the cathedral. Like Canterbury York Minster had a chapel on her honour in the Undercroft created to support the High Altar and Shrine of St William reusing fabric from the Norman cathedral. That was restored in the early twentieth century with a damaged twelfth century relief of the Virgin and Child discovered in 1829 during restoration work in the east wall of the principal Lady Chapel beneath the east window. To the right of the High Altar was an elaborate decorated statue of the Virgin. Both the  north and south choir aisles had their own statues of her, as well as one over the Treasury and the one by the Red Ark. 

My account of that particular statue, and links to two others, can be found at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Red Ark in York Minster

At Beverley Minster there was a similar arrangement with a statue of the Virgin by their donation Ark which was also painted red. That should no doubt be added to the itinerary.

May Our Lady of the Red Ark in York Minster pray for The King and all the Royal Family and for us all

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Undercroft in Canterbury Cathedral

The second shrine on the Pilgrimage is that of Our Lady of the Undercroft in Canterbury Cathedral.   

General view of the Chapel of Our Lady in the Undercroft

My post about it from last year can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Undercroft in Canterbury Cathedral

Edmund Waterton notes on the screeens the presence of coats of arms of members of the nobility from the time of King Henry VI. Presumably they visited the shrine on the way to or from Calais in the latter stages of the French war. He also cites offerings by Queen Elizabeth of York in 1502, and by her son King Henry VIII, who offered 6/8 in both 1514 on the Tournai campaign and 1520 on the Field of Cloth of Gold visit. 

In the 1520s Erasmus described the shrine as follows: 

From the shrine of St Thomas, we returned to the crypt. Here the Virgin Mother has an abode, but somewhat dark, inclosed within a double screen of iron, for fear of thieves, for indeed I never saw a thing more laden with riches. When lamps were brought we beheld more than a royal spectacle, which in beauty far surpassed that of Walsingham. This is only shown to men of high rank or great friends. 

 

Waterton p 9, quoting Erasmus Peregrinatio religionis ergo

  

The screen work of the chapel dated to circa 1370

chapel has a beautiful quality of tranquility and although much damaged retains much of its original decoration. Because it is not on the main tourist route in the cathedral it has, as a Catholic priest and I were discussing a few weeks ago, a profound spiritual impact and one feels close to those who created and adorned it.

   

The modern statue by Mother Concordia Scott OSB

Images: Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society 

May Our Lady of the Undercroft pray for The King and all the Royal Family and for us all.

The Legend of St Philip the Apostle

 

Today is the traditional date for the Feast of SS Philip and James. This was moved in what became both OF and EF usage following a set of very twentieth century political manoeuvres in respect of the Calendar. Much to be deplored.

The New Liturgical Movement has an interesting article about the Gospel and Acts narratives in respect of St Philip, and of the later legends about him. It also considers how these were selected for devotion according to later centuries assessment of their veracity or indeed probability. Such calculations also extended, as the article shows, to his depiction in art.

The article can be seen at The Legend of St Philip the Apostle

I posted in 2011 about excavations at the reputed site of his ministry and martyrdom at Hieropolis in Tomb of St Philip the Apostle and in 2012 about what is believed to be a a substantial relic of his scull at Limassol in Cyprus in St Philip the Apostle

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Glastonbury

The Pilgrimage begins at Glastonbury, that unique cradle of so many English traditions.

The amended post introducing the Glastonbury devotion to Our Lady can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Glastonbury

The statue in the Lady Chapel was claimed - time, circumstance and the catastrophic fire of 1184 notwithstanding - to be the work of St Joseph of Arimathea himself. According to Pynson’s ballad of 1520,

There Joseph lyved with other hermyttes twelfe

That were the chyfe of all the companye,

But Joseph was the chefe hym-selfe;

There led they an holy life and gostely.

Tyll, at the last, Jhesu the mighty,

He sent to Joseph thaungell gabryell,

Which bad hym, as the writing doth specify,

Of our Lady’s Assumpcyon to bylde a chapell

 So Joseph dyd as the aungell hym bad,

And wrought there an ymage of our Lady; 

For to serue her gret devocion he had,

And that same ymage is yet at Glastenbury,

In the same churche; there ye may it se

For it was the fyrst, as I vnderstande

That ever was sene in this countre;

For Joseph it made with his own hande 

From Life of Joseph of Arimathea EETS xliv,43

Waterton, 280

Pynson was, of course, the man who preserved in another ballad the story of the foundation of the Walsingham shrine.

It was at about this time that the chapel of St Joseph was created beneath the twelfth century rebuilding of the “Old Church” or Lady Chapel, and that the penultimate Abbot, Richard Bere added a chapel of Our Lady of Loretto to the north transept. He had visited Loretto whilst in Italy and clearly sought to provide more for pilgrims to his abbey. It’s unusual position is indicative of the way the original house now at Loretto has only three walls in front of a cave. Nothing remains above ground of the Abbot’s chapel but its site is marked out in the turf.

Model of Glastonbury Abbey on the eve of the dissolution in 1539.

The Lady Chapel is to the right, and the Loretto Chapel in the centre foreground extending west of the north transept.

Image: citydesert.wordpress.com

May Our Lady of Glastonbury pray for The King and all the Royal Family and for us all

May Marian Pilgrimage

In 2020 to celebrate the rededication of England as the Dowry of Our Lady I took up an idea of Fr Hunwicke from his blog. This was, in the circumstances of lockdown, to have an online virtual Pilgrimage to medieval Marian shrines in England, visiting one each day in May. 

 

Fr Hunwicke derived this from a booklet outline such a series of virtual shrine visits produced at Walsingham about 1960. This in turn drew on the great scholarly endeavours of Fr.T.E.Bridgett in Dowry of Our Lady (1875) and of Edmund Waterton in Pietas Mariana Britannica (1879). These remainly largely unchallenged as resources for the serious study of medieval English Marian piety. Both are available online, as well as physical reprints of Waterton, and probably also of Bridgett. I will post separately about Edmund Waterton, a man local to my home area and the however many times great nephew of ‘my’ Bishop Richard Fleming.

These books cover the whole range of Marian devotion and this Pilgrimage only scratches the surface. I have basically followed the original route of the Walsingham booklet, adding in a few serious omissions, but not changing its idiosyncratic route from Glastonbury to Walsingham with its curious spurts across country - it is not one to attempt by public transport or by private!

The route takes in well known places for pilgrims and more local sites, but not what may be termed recorded parish devotion to a well-loved and honoured statue in a particular parish or monastic church. These are often recorded as the recipients of bequests in late medieval wills. To include all of these would mean barely leaving one’s home county. 

My original notes have been supplemented with additional notes each year as this Pilgrimage has become an established annual feature of this blog. Last year I focussed in particular on the royal links of many of these shrines to mark the Coronation and suggested that an intention of the Pilgrimage should be The King and The Queen. This year, given the health issues facing His Majesty and the Princess of Wales, I suggest that praying for the King and all the Royal Family should be one intention as well as any private ones we wish to make.

I have thought of including Welsh, Scottish and Irish shrines, using Bridgett and Waterton as a beginning, but to do that will require a separate Pilgrimage, hopefully for Assumptiontide in August.

So, with virtual Palmer scrip and staff in hand let us set off for Glastonbury…

Rural fraud on the Isle of Wight in the 1260s

The third of these articles about farming life  from Medievalists.net looks at the potential for fraud by a farm manager as described by Robert Carpenter in his formulary written in the 1260s.

Like all fraud these schemes require a degree of planning and on occasion co-conspirators. It is not clear if these are examples the author has come across or whether he is admitting to having committed them himself. Their relatively small scale and necessarily ‘hands-on’ nature are a reminder that this was a world where much of life was inevitably local, and low cunning could thereby make a return for its practioner. After all the sheep cannot testify in the manor court…

The article can be read at The secrets of defrauding your medieval lord

 

Farm life near Durham in the later middle ages

The second piece on the Medievalists.net website about gaming life is taken from a 2010 paper by Prof. Richard Britnell which draws on the accounts in the period 1370-1409 of a farm called Houghall just outside Durham. This was not a manor but appears to have been a stock breeding centre owned by the cathedral priory, and one that depended upon hired labour. Their names are often recorded and the fluctuations in employment on short contracts and the flexibility of the labour market p afford a more close-up glimpse of rural life at the time.

The article can be seen at Employment on a Northern English Farm, 1370-1409

 

How to be a Good Shepherd in the middle ages

Medievalists.net has had three recent posts about aspects of medieval farming practice which give insights into the life of the past yet who offer scenes that are still familiar.

The first is a guide to being a good shepherd dictated by Jean de Brie, who came from the area around Paris, in 1379 and had spent his working career herding livestock.

The article, with quotations from the original text, can be seen at How to be a Shepherd in the Middle Ages

The grave of Cerdic

 

The Mail Online reports about the apparent identification near Andover of the burial mound of Cerdic, the founder of the royal house of Wessex and a key ancestor of the Royal Family. 

The identification was made by a researcher who walked the boundaries of an estate as recorded in 900 at the very beginning of the tenth century and which named the mound as being Cerdic’s barrow. 

Assuming the tenth century memory of the fifth century event was accurate - and it seems reasonable to believe that it would have been, then this is an important addition to our knowledge of the formation of Wessex around an initial territory in 495 or thereabouts, although some modern interpretations put it a generation or so later.

 

Little is recorded about Cerdic but one thing that is of great interest, and that is his name. The founder of the West Saxon Kingdom, of Wessex, did not have a Germanic name, but a British one. The suggestion is that he was from one of the post-Roman British ruling families who recruited some Saxon followers and created his own principality centred on Southampton Water and its hinterland. The people who made Wessex may have been not so much the West Saxons as the Gewissae, meaning confederates. Furthermore for the succeeding generations of Cerdic’s descendants until the late seventh century and the accession of King Ine in 688 regnal names began with a C rather than the Æ which dominated thereafter until 1066.

This would tie in with increasing archaeological evidence for co-existence between Britons and Germanic groups in this period as well as literary references.

The Daily Mail article can be seen at Burial site of first King of Wessex is in Hampshire field, author says

There is also a video on YouTube about the identification of the site at The First King of WESSEX - We Found him!!

The book about Cerdic and the identification of his barrow is being published just now.

Treasures from the household of Queen Henrietta Maria

By chance I came upon a Mail Online article from 2016 about a significant discovery made by divers off the Dutch island of Texel in 2014. These were, it appears, items from a vessel in the fleet of twelve which had taken Queen Henrietta Maria and part of her household to the United Provinces in 1642 on a visit to sell jewels to fund the Royalist cause in the impending Civil War. The vessel was wrecked but mud into which it sank preserved in excellent condition many of the ship’s contents.

Amongst the items which have been preserved  in the mud are a court dress thought to have belonged to Jane, Countess of Roxburghe, an embroidered walket, the binding of a Bible with the Royal Arms and a piece of plate with a figurine. 

The well illustrated article can be seen at Rags found in the sea belonged to a member of Charles I's household

Healthy exercise in the middle ages

I would not, could not, claim to be a practioner of ‘keep fit’ exercises, and my friends could also testify to that fact, but by chance I came upon an interesting video online about how medieval men, especially those from a military background, trained and kept fit over and beyond the normal activities of daily life such as riding and hunting. 

The video can be watched at How did Knights & Men Work Out in the Renaissance? Newly Discovered Dumbbell & Barbell Exercises

Marshal Boucicaut’s displays of athleticism in armour are recreated with splendid vigour in the video Can You Move in Armour?

Those extra helpings at gargantuan, and misunderstood, medieval feasts could pile on the pounds and inches, with the result that one’s suit of armour didn’t fit, especially in the era of plate armour - and were there to be trouble of a kind only too frequent in the period, the ensuing problem could indeed be a matter of life and death ….

Keep slim and keep your armour on could be the meme of the elite.

King Edward II

 

Writing about the origins of Oriel yesterday put me in mind of the fact that today is the 740th anniversary of his birth in the temporary royal accommodation at Caernarvon in 1284.

The fourth son of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor he was the only one to reach adulthood - his elder brothers John, Henry, and Alphonso all died as children, Alphonso when Edward was only four months old. The forty eight year difference in their ages may have contributed to the not always harmonious relationship he had with his father.

King Edward II

Tomb effigy in Gloucester Cathedral

Image: Flickr

The tomb at Gloucester has parallels with the effigies at St Denis of his in-laws and in the tomb design with that of Pope John XXII at Avignon. He and his family and his Court were part of a complex European cultural and political network. 

The effigy at Gloucester is striking as a portrait despite the damage and disrespect of intervening centuries. The King’s appearance is discussed at Appearance of Edward II

For well over a century his reign has attracted the scholarly attention of academic historians, from Stubbs to Tout and his circle, to Clarke and McKisack, Maddicott and Fryde, and Haines to mention but a few. If one wants to examine the reign it is well chronicled by contemporary writers and clerks, and analysed as are few others by modern historians.

It was a reign that began with tension and uncertainty, and quickly had unstable violent politics, rebellion, catastrophic defeat in Scotland, the famine of 1315-17, further rebellion and vigorous retribution, an oppressive policy towards anyone perceived as an opponent, war in Gascony and finally the collapse of the King’s marriage and position as he was dethroned by his wife. That troubled marriage was, of course, by processes unforeseen at the time it was contracted to lead to the Hundred Years’ War evolving out of border disputes into full blown war over the French throne. The actual contract and its chance survival is discussed at The marriage contract of Edward II, 1303

Yet for all this there was still an artistic flowering in the reign such as Bishop Stapledon’s rebuilding of Exeter cathedral and the central tower of Lincoln cathedral, and not to forget individual resiliance - the canons of Lincoln cathedral putting on plays to cheer themselves up in adverse times.

The King’s responsibility for this chaotic situation is not inconsiderable, yet the questions remain. Was it because he was weak, dependent on favourites, a man who invited the contempt of his nobles? Or was it that he had inherited a system at stretch from his assertive father who had already antagonised many of the leading men and who were waiting for an untried and uncertain ruler?  Or again was the King simply trying to pursue his father’s methods when times had changed, and he failed to accept that, seeking to maintain the rights he had inherited?

Equally was his Queen Isabella wronged by her marriage, a victim who eventually fought back, or was she always the ‘She Wolf of France’ biding her time, brooding on her humiliation as wife, mother, Queen and daughter of France? Indeed was the marriage always unhappy - the surviving evidence is mixed?

Today his reign continues to attract scholarly debate - most recently the argument that he was not murdered in 1327 but escaped, lived under Church protection and met up with his son King Edward III and his young family a decade after his deposition. This argument advanced by Ian Mortimer is impressive but almost seven centuries of belief in a violent death are hard to overcome. It is a question on which I remain something of an agnostic or a ‘don’t know’.

I do however know I owe him a debt of gratitude for founding Oriel - even if it is the one enduring success of his troubled reign and life.

Anticipating Oriel

In January 2026 Oriel - my college - will celebrate its 700th anniversary, the fifth oldest college in Oxford and the oldest continuous royal foundation in either Oxford or Cambridge.

However in order to be founded in 1326 there had to be some preparation and that began just seven centuries ago. In April 1324 - different secondary sources I consulted today give the 20th, 24th, and the 28th, and the text of the Patent Rolls was not available - King Edward II granted a licence to acquire property in mortmain to Adam de Brome, a Suffolk born Chancery clerk and inter alia rector of St Mary’s in the High to found a college in Oxford. Adam was essentially what today would be termed a civil servant, and who had been in royal service since at least 1297. In recent years he appears to have been based in Oxford and intended to found a small college for higher studies. His inspiration may well have been Merton, whose statutes he simply copied for his ultimate creation. 

With his licence he proceeded to bu the quite recently built Tackley’s Inn on the High, and which still houses Oriel students, Perilous Hall on Horsemonger Street, now Broad Street, but then, in part, the town ditch, and as a source of income the advowson of the church at Aberford in the West Riding - which is still an Oriel living.

His college consisted of a Rector ( like Exeter founded in 1314 ) and ten Fellows. With the new house of studies established and under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin, after some twenty or so months, on January 1st 1325-6 Adam transferred his college to King Edward who three weeks later refounded it in his own name, gave the advowson of St Mary’s and its rectory which became St Mary Hall, and appointed Adam de Brome as the new head of house as first Provost. So began the House of Blessed Mary the Virgin in Oxford. Not until 1329 did the King’s cousin Master James of Spain, give to the new college the house called the Oriel, by which name the foundation came to be known. That, however, is another story.

So as Oriel begins in earnest its plans to celebrate seven centuries of study and learning, one can recall those first beginnings just as King Edward’s governance began to disintegrate, and say with heart and voice “Floreat Oriel”

Donatello’s St George

Today, being St George’s feast day, I fulfilled a long term wish and bought online a small copy of Donatello’s statue of the saint. It is usually dated to 1416-17 and is now in the Bargello in Florence: a modern copy occupies the original niche on the Orsanmichele.

Above and below: St. George, marble, by Donatello, 1415-1417, 2.14 m height (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence). As one of 14 sculptures commissioned by the guilds of Florence to decorate the external niches of the Orsanmichele church (see also Donatello’s statue of St. Mark, above), the statue of St. George was commissioned by the guild of the armorers and sword makers (the Arte dei Corazzai e Spadai). During the several St. George’s feast days throughout the year, the guild placed intricate metal adornments including a sword, helmet, and belt on the statue creating a spectacular contrast of metal against marble. St. George was the patron saint of the armorer’s guild.

Images and text from https://arsartisticadventureofmankind.wordpress.com/tag/donatellos-st-george/

MM

MmMmm

MSt George by DonatelMBargello FloreImage: uen.pressbooks.pub

"in the head of this saint the beauty of youth, courage and valour in arms, and a terrible ardour. Life itself seems to be stirring vigorously within the stone." 

                     Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574)

There are numerous online articles about the statue, of which the following, whilst telling much the same story, do make individual comments that refine one’s appreciation of the work:

Saint George (Donatello) from Wikipedia, Saint George, Donatello’s St. George, St George by DONATELLO and St George and the Dragon by DONATELLO from WebGallery of Art, Saint George and Donatello, Saint George by Donatello, Donatello, St. George by Donatello and Monumental Art: Donatello’s St George from Oxford’s own Cherwell

Some of these accounts are better than others in placing the creation of the statue in its historical context in Florence, but it is worth reflecting on what was happening in 1416-17. The Italian peninsula was beset, as usual, by factional and regional, and also international rivalries hovering in the background. The Council of Constance was in session and slowly finding its way to resolving the Great Schism of 1378, in western Europe King Henry V was the victor of Agincourt in 1415 and preparing to invade France again in 1417. In Portugal his cousins had captured Ceuta in Africa in 1415 and one of them, Dom Henry the Navigator, was going to become the sponsor of the exploration of the west coast of Africa and the Atlantic. In central Europe the various realms were digesting the meaning of the Hussite revolt and of the Polish victory over the Teutonic Knights at Grunwald/Tannenberg in 1410, and to the south tge Turks were advancing against what little remained of Byzantium, the Balkan principalities and Catholic Hungary.

It was a time of uncertainty, of promise, of ambition, of conflict, a time to be born and a time to die. The vitality and turmoil of the age was captured in the art, the art reflects back all the emotions, the hopes and fears, the strengths and vulnerabilities of contemporaries. 

How little the world has really changed, for all that has changed, be it for good or ill.

St George Pray for us

Sourcing silver for Anglo-Saxon coinage

 

The Mail Online and some other sources reported recently on an interesting and important piece of research published in Antiquity about the sources for silver used to make coins in England in the period 660-820. This divides supplies clearly between two sources and consequently into two periods, with the change happening around 750. Before that date the silver appears to come from Byzantine sources in table and similar ware. After the mid-eighth century the silver was being mind western France. That more or less coincides with the accession of King Offa of Mercia in 757 and his documented trading relationship with the Carolingians in succeeding decades.

The Mail article can be seen at Unravelling the mystery of England's Dark Age coins

There is a similar account from the BBC News website at Anglo-Saxon silver coin source mystery solved

Medievalists.net has a rather more detailed summary of the research and it can be read at Early medieval money mystery solved

This is an interesting piece of research not just in what it reveals but also in its combination of numismatics with archaeology, documentary sources and understanding of economic history both in theory as to money supply and in the reality of trade over long distances, together with modern scientific methods of analysis. As a result we have what appears to be a cogent and coherent argument that elegantly links together all the available evidence.

Still looking for King John’s treasure

When The Queen went on Maundy Thursday to Worcester Cathedral to distribute the Royal Maundy on behalf of The King I assume that the Bishop and Chapter pointed out that the first monarch known to have distributed the Maundy in this country, in the year 1212, was King John, whose tomb lies before the high altar.

King John has had a ‘bad press’ and despite the efforts of serious historians to challenge the prevailing popular narrative, he is usually remembered as, in Seller and Yeatman’s classic system, a “Bad King”. Shakespeare’s distinctly idiosyncratic retelling of the reign - no mention of Magna Carta, but a lot of trouble caused by the Pope for the Elizabethan audience - cannot make King John a hero king nor a martyr king. He is a Lear with bathos, not pathos.

Historically his reign is a series of melodramatic crises and losses - the loss of Normandy and Anjou, the loss of his nephew Arthur, the loss of the clash with Pope Innocent III over the appointment of Stephen Langton, the loss of the confidence of a substantial part of the political nation leading to Magna Carta, and the loss of his treasure in the Wash just before his death in 1216. 

King John – detail from his funerary effigy in Worcester Cathedral. 

Image: copyright the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral.

He does manage nevertheless to still look a little smug and not a little truculent in his effigy, which is often dated to about 1225, a man bowed perhaps, but not broken, as indeed one of his biographers, R.V.Turner, sees him.  

I will admit to having a somewhat more favourable view of King John than the traditional one, if only because we have the same Christian name. Undoubtedly John did do a number of unattractive, cruel and malicious things, but as some of his biographers have seen he did things with flair and panache. He is the entertaining villain who the audience secretly cheers on. He was also unlucky - unlucky in the resolve of his opponents and also just plain unlucky as with the collapse of his grand strategy in 1214 to recover his lost lands in France, or the loss of his treasure in 1216.

 

There is something about the loss of the baggage train from Lincolnshire Live at The lost treasure in Lincolnshire missing for 100s of years 

In respect of the treasure I wrote the other year about a claim that the site of King John’s treasure had been identified. That story goes back to a metal detectorist’s theories as set out in 2017 by the BBC at The lost jewels of Bad King John. 

Nothing seems to have come from that so far but according to Yahoo News a new line of research has been triggered by plans to erect yet another proposed solar farm. The article can be read at Excavation looks to solve mystery of King John's lost treasure after 800 years 

There is more about the prospect in an article from the Eastern Daily Press at Could new Norfolk search solve 800-year-old riddle of King John's lost treasure?

The borderlands of Lincolnshire and Norfolk where the Wellstream once flowed have changed very much over eight centuries and locating where the opening of the Wellstream into the Wash was is one thing, but whither the currents may have carried the contents of the baggage train is another matter. Various villages and towns strung out along the Old Sea Bank road are suggested for the site of the disaster.

The Newark Advertiser - which has an interest in the story because King John died at the castle in the town only days after the loss of his treasure - reports and speculates on the possibilities of finding the lost treasure at ‘One in a million chance’ of finding King John’s treasure with new search to get under way

The Daily Telegraph in 2022 reported on research that explains the scale of the incoming tide which swamped the baggage train, and includes a useful map. This can be seen at How King John really lost the Crown Jewels... according to an astronomer

Returning to Worcester, to whose Anglo-Saxon saints Oswald and Wulfstan the far from noticeably pious King had a strong devotion, the Cathedral Library and Archive blog has an interesting account of the King’s last Christmas spent at the cathedral priory in 1214. Both the cathedral and city were still recovering from a serious fire in 1202. Even as his authority crumbled this was still planned as a major event. It also describes some of the items which may have been swallowed by the Wellstream less than two years later and illustrates a fragment of the King’s shroud at Christmas 1214: King John at Worcester

The blog also writes about the King’s devotion to SS Oswald and Wulfstan in 1218 –Rededicating the Cathedral to Saints Wulfstan and Oswald