Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday, 15 September 2025

A further video critique of “King and Conqueror”


After I last about this series and linked to the Welsh Viking’s well informed criticisms I came upon two from History Revealed which offers many of the same criticisms, and also addresses the matter of “colour blind” casting in a somewhat different way. The presenter sets out his basic case in an extremely short video which can be seen at Were there Black Anglo Saxons soldiers? 


His much fuller criticisms on that subject and many others can be seen at The BBC Tries to Recreate the Battle of Hastings | Fails Miserably! 

He does not draw attention to the fact that at King Edward’s coronation the Archbishop is wearing vestments of the fourteenth of fifteenth centuries, not the eleventh.

He likes the oath scene from 1064, but given that the Bayeux Tapeastry shows two caskets containing the relics why not show that scene instead of having a few bones on a cushion?


No comments: