Living History - Candlemas 1461

 

The other day I came upon a video made by a group of re-enactors as an experiment in living history and archaeology which was conducted over nine days, and set at the time of the feast of Candlemas in February 1460-61. This was, of course, a time of particular political and military turmoil and uncertainty in the life of the country.

It was held at a fifteenth century house that has been re-erected and conserved at the Weald & Downland Living Museum at Singleton near Chichester in Sussex and, as is explained in the video, followed rigorous procedures to sustain its accuracy and fidelity to what would have been fifteenth century norms.

There seems no reason to wait until Candlemas next year to share the video, which can be seen at How we lived 9 days and nights as a 15th Century English Household | Weald & Downland Living Museum

Celebrating the Nativity of St John the Baptist

Yesterday was the Feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist and the always very well informed and informative Catholic website The Pillar had an article about ways of celebrating the day. I have copied this below:

Traditional St John’s fire, Brittany. Public domain.

Across much of Europe, John the Baptist’s birth was celebrated customarily on St. John’s Eve — last night — the vigil ahead of the feast, on which bonfires were customarily lit on hilltops or in village squares, ostensibly to convey the brilliant light of the prophet, who proclaimed the illuminating Christ himself.

Some countries had customs in which men competed to jump across the bonfires and women danced, others had blessings of herbs, and many customs included countryside picnics, meant to evoke that John himself lived (and ate) outside, in the desert.

I don’t think the picnics featured locusts prominently, but honey was probably a factor, and special brewed honeyed beer shows up in the St. John’s customs of some countries.

Much of this is long past in secularized Europe — and again, it was customarily celebrated yesterday — but St. John’s birthday seems like a good enough time for a liturgically-motivated family or rectory trip to the backyard firepit, especially with a six pack of Honey Brown.

The New Liturgical Movement also had articles about the dat. Their three articles about different aspects of the celebration of this important day in the ecclesiastical calendar can be seen as complementary to each other whilst entirely distinct in what they consider.

The first looks at an early text from the Vigil Mass and at a series of early fourteenth century panel paintings, from the area of Pisa and Luca, and now in Berlin, narrating the story of the Saint’s birth. This can be seen at The Vigil of the Nativity of St John the Baptist

The origins and history of the liturgy of the vigil and of the feast itself, as well as traditional popular celebrations of the day, notably bonfires, are set out in Liturgical Notes on the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

The third is an entertaining account of a revived medieval game of football played in Florence, a city under the patronage of St John, on this day. This can be seen at Florence’s Crazy Soccer Game on the Feast of St John the Baptist

This is not dissimilar, given its particular Italian - or should I say Tuscan - characteristic - to similar rough and tumble survivals in England on religious feasts, such as the Epiphany Haney Hood, or the Shrovetide games at Ashbourne, Atherstone, and Alnwick, or that of the Corfe Marblers in Purbeck. My post Shrovetide celebrations from earlier  this year has links to other articles about these games and their history.

Medieval summers

The recent very hotspell - by British standards - has been a reminder not just of ‘global warming’ but of how we all live lives conditioned by the changing seasons and by the climate. That was in many ways all the more true for people in past centuries, with fewer devices to ameliorate the extremes of heat and cold.

This has to be set against longer term trends of  differences in average temperatures over centuries, and, with climate variation, the experience of extremes of hot and cold, of drought and deluge over individual years or over a decade. Medieval people saw dramatic climatic shifts that we do not - central Italian cities buried in snow for weeks on end  or the summer of 1540 when it was claimed it was possible to drive a wagon across the virtually dry riverbed of the Rhine…. 

Medievalists.net has an article that serves as an introduction to living, working in and surviving the warmth and the heat of medieval summers which can be seen at What Summer Was Like in the Middle Ages

A letter signed by Queen Mary and King Henry

The BBC News website reported on the sale at auction of a letter from 1565 signed by Queen Mary of Scots and her husband and consort King Henry - usually known today by his original title. as Lord Darnley, rather than by his regal title or as Duke of Albany. . 

The article also has a link to an older report about the conservation of another letter, from 1546, sent in the name of the four year old Queen of Scots. It is in the archives of the Dukes of Argyll.

The latest article can be viewed at Mary Queen of Scots letter sells for £15,000 at auction

Archaeology reveals cultural interfaces in first millennium Germany

Three recent reports about archaeological discoveries in what is now Germany and the Netherlands have indicated three quite separate examples of cultural overlap or interchange in what were, at the time, border regions. All very liminal if that is how you wish to address these themes.

The earliest is an article from LBV and is about a grave discovered near Paderborn in Westphalia and which can be seen at The Tomb of a Germanic Mercenary Who Served in the Roman Legions and an Unusual Well with Glass and Organic Remains, Found in Germany

The second example is from Live Science and is about a child’s grave from about 670-680. The boy was only about eighteen months old  when he died, but his grave suggests he was from a wealthy and well-connected family. The article can be seen at Blue-eyed 'Ice Prince' toddler was buried with a sword and a piglet 1,350 years ago in Bavaria

A chance find of a well-preserved late tenth century sword in a river in the Netherlands, which at the time would be as much German as anything else, and is reported upon in an article in Arkeonews at Symbol of Eternal Loyalty Found on Rare Medieval Sword in the Netherlands - Arkeonews

 

All three discoveries show how the Germanic tribes were assimilating Roman, and later, Christian culture in frontier regions.

Five Medieval Manuscripts bought by the British Library

The British Library Medieval manuscript blog recently reported the acquisition as a result of significant financial donations, of five important medieval manuscripts from the collection at Longleat House by the Library.

The blog describes, and has fine illustrations from, each of the five volumes. Each one offers a range of insights into the religious and intellectual history of the high and later medieval centuries.

I will leave readers to peruse the blog post, and find out what the books contain. The piece, which promises future articles on each book, can be seen at Five outstanding manuscripts acquired for the nation

William Dobson self-portrait acquired jointly by the NPG and the Tate

The Art News website reported the other week that what is believed to be the earliest self-Portrait by  British painter, William Dobson, has been acquired in a major and significant joint venture by the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate Gallery. Not only has this secured the portrait for national collections but it recognises its importance as both a likeness and as a work by an often ignore but very important British artist.

Dobson, so to speak, picked up Van Dyck’s brushes when he died in 1641. At this time the country was sliding, seemingly inexorably, into civil war, and Dobson travelled with the Royalists to Oxford. It was there that most of his important commissions were painted at a studio in the High Street of the commanders and officers of the King’s army. I suspect that the initial period of the court being in Oxford were rather fun for those who established themselves in the city, but then it gradually turned to times of dearth and death, to hunger and fear as the Royalist cause floundered. Dobson himself died, in poverty and aged only 35 very soon after the surrender of Oxford in 1646.

Not only did he die tragically young but he is nowhere as famous as his works merit. Hopefully his self portrait will help to bring him the appreciation his work undoubtedly deserves 

The report about the acquisition of the portrait can be seen at Museums Jointly Acquire a $3.2 Million Painting by 'Britain's Rembrandt.' Who Was He?

Wikipedia has a life of Dobson with a good selection of his portrait works at William Dobson

Arms and the Man

I have previously posted on occasion about arms and armour in the mediaeval period and about the way in which men would don their armour before combat.

Recently I came upon a series of what appeared to be very good videos about this subject, and reflecting different periods of history. They are from Alex The History Guy and draw upon archaeological discoveries for the earlier instances and in the later ones from surviving armour and from effigies as well as written evidence. The cover aspects of earlier and late Anglo-Saxon equipment, and the gradual transition towards full plate armour in the fifteenth  century. 

They seem to me well worth sharing with my readers, and I also see that he has others on his site about military dress in later centuries.

The ones I have viewed can be seen, in chronological order, at:

How A Saxon Thegn Shall Be Armed

How A Saxon Huscarl Shall Be Armed

How A Mounted 13th Century Knight Shall Be Armed

How A Late 14th Century English Knight Shall Be Armed

How An Early 15th Century French Knight Shall Be Armed

How A Late 15th Century English Knight Shall Be Armed

Informative and with what appear to be very good reproductions of the historic clothing, the armour and of the weapons that were used.

Unraveling a medieval murder case

The Cambridge University Medieval Murder Maps project has been publicised in two online articles about revelations emerging from their research into a murder, a veritable ‘hit job’, in central London in 1337.

This is a case with everything - sex, violence, conspiracy, high society, scandal, brooding vengeance, clerical misbehaviour plus an historic setting - and m, were it not recorded in the Coroner’s Roll, is worthy of a work of historical detective fiction

The story, which moves between London, Wiltshire and Dorset, is an eye-opener to what people called, and could not, get away with in the fourteenth century, and to not a few aspects of that society.

The story was first drawn to my attention by a regular reader who forwarded to me the article from phys.org, which can be accessed at Medieval murder: Records suggest vengeful noblewoman had priest assassinated in 688-year-old cold case

Subsequently I saw a slightly shorter version on Medievalists. net, and that can be viewed at Medieval London Murder Solved: Priest Killed by Noblewoman’s Orders

A gold coin with Christian and Odin imagery from Anglo-Saxon Norfolk

The BBC News website often reports on archaeological discoveries made by metal detectors in Norfolk - in part, no doubt, due to the assiduity of my old friend Dr Adrian Marsden the numismatic expert with the Norfolk Historic Environment Service. On this occasion he has a very significant coin to bring to wider attention.

Dated to 640 to 660 the gold coin was probably struck as a commemorative or trophy piece at a time when the traditional religious system of the Anglo Saxons was existing alongside the newly introduced Christian faith. The coin reflects this as it appears to show Oden brandishing a Cross but also a pagan symbol of three intersecting triangles.

As a relic of the Conversion era this discovery is fascinating and adds to our knowledge of that time of profound transition and cultural accommodation. It is good to know that the coin will hopefully go to the collection at the Castle Museum in Norwich.

The article about it, which has some excellent photographs, can be seen at One of a kind 7th Century Anglo-Saxon coin found in Norfolk field

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Resistance to Cardinal Wolsey’s plan to suppress Bayham Abbey

The BBC News website reported on a search for descendants of the local community who were literally up in arms in 1525 in resistance to Cardinal Wolsey’s suppression of the Premonstratensian Bayham Abbey, which lies  in Kent, close to the border with Sussex.

Bayham was one of the monasteries Wolsey, as Papal Legate, sought to dissolve to provide the endowment for his new college foundations in the form of a school in his home town of Ipswich and Cardinal College in Oxford, which eventually evolved into Christ Church.

At Bayham the local community were not at all pleased with this prospect and managed to temporarily restore the displaced canons. In the longer run they were not successful.

There are still quite substantial remains of the principal claustral buildings which are in the care of English Heritage.

The article can be viewed at Search for descendants of 1525 Bayham Abbey rioters

Re-thatching a medieval tithe barn

The BBC News website has a story about the impressive restoration of the thatched barn at Upminste which dates from about 1450, being constructed using timber felled between 1420 and 1440. As a building it is a reminder of the scale of buildings which once stood in the countryside, and of the skilled use of natural materials to create them.

The illustrated article can be viewed at Medieval Upminster barn's thatched roof and repairs complete

Book Review: The Yorkists

The Brothers York: An English Tragedy

Thomas Penn 

Penguin  2020

Readable, Informative, Stimulating

This is a joint biography of King Edward IV -and his younger brothers George Duke of Clarence and King Richard III. Thomas Penn has produced a thank you pacy page turner, especially in the coverage of the years up to 1471 and Edward IV’s return to power. It is visually evocative but occasionally words run away with facts and accuracy. It has something of History as film script about it, or it reads rather like modern journalism - which grates at times, but makes for liveliness and immediacy. Penn’s strong visual sense conveys the reality of individuals and events. He has telling vignettes to carry his narrative forward - I shall never think of Henry Duke of Buckingham in quite the same way now I know he was using face cosmetics.

The illustrations are well chosen, and several were new to me - they are not just the old favourites reused yet again.

The book is an attempt to understand the personalities of the three brothers - which after more than five centuries is inevitably a bit challenging, but is based on serious books and research.

The attention paid to finance and banking, and to diplomatic intrigue is insightful and very helpful. It takes the reader behind the politics and faction that inevitably take centre stage in most accounts of these years.

It is I think better on the 1470s - thanks in part to the memoirs of Philippe de Commynes and the details he provides.

Penn concentrates on what is recorded rather than turning to speculation, notably with the questions around the fate of the Princes in the Tower.

It is useful for an introduction to the period or as a supplement to more traditional accounts and which injects pace and drama to a familiar story, and also stimulates reflection on these tumultuous years. 

Whether you see the York brothers as glamorous and heroic or as an appalling 

trio this is a book that will give you food for thought. How the reader understands the subtitle “An English Tragedy” will depend very much on how they construe that tragic quality - for the house of York, for their families, their victims or for the country.

Posted on Amazon  5.1.2023

( Slightly adapted )