The 150th anniversary of St Aloysius Church Oxford

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the opening of
the church of St Aloysius in Oxford. On that day in 1875 Bishop William Bernard Ullathorne of Birmingham celebrated a Pontifical Mass in the newly constructed Jesuit church in the presence of Cardinal Manning. This year on the eve of the anniversary the present Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham celebrated a Pontifical Mass in Latin in the Ordinary Form in the presence of Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe OP in the church, which since 1990 has served as the Oxford Oratory.

In attendance were other bishops, a mitred abbot, canons, groups of other religious, a professed Knifht of Malta, and past parish priests both from the diocese and the Oratory. Also present were the Lord Mayor of Oxford and the Vice Chancellor of the University, representives of othe churches in the city, and, of course, many of the regular congregation

The Mass can be seen online at 150th Anniversary of the Parish – Solemn Pontifical Mass 

The liturgy was elaborate and impressive as befits such an occasion and as befits the Oratorian tradition of the beauty of holiness. 

All the signs, and certainly the hopes, are that the next century and a half will continue the ministry of the building and the Oratorian community in Oxford in the way so splendidly shown at the weekend.

The reappearance of the Florentine Diamond

A fortnight ago there was the really amazing announcement by the Imperial House of Austria that, contrary to widespread belief, one of the Habsburg family treasures, the famous yellow diamond known as the Florentine, had not been lost or stolen, nor recut, but had survived thanks to the forethought first of Bl. Emperor Charles I who reclaimed it from public display

in 1918 and took it with him into exile, and then of his widow Empress Zita who took custody of it after his death in 1922. Having kept it, and other family jewels, including a bejewelled badge of the Order of the Golden Fleece, with her in exile in Spain and then Belgium, she took then in a cardboard suitcase to Canada at the beginning of the Second World War. There she left the small suitcase in a safe deposit box with a bank. When she retuned to Europe in 1953 the jewels remained in the Canadian bank. Two of her younger sons were the only individuals to whom she confided the whereabouts of the items, asking they remain hidden until after the centenary of the Emperor’s death. Now the sons of these two Archdukes, together with the head of the Habsburgs, Archduke Karl, have reclaimed the suitcase and revealed its contents.

Quite apart from the historic interest of the Florentine and the other jewels the story is an eloquent tribute to the Empress Zita as a devout Catholic widow, who mourned her husband for almost sixty seven years, always sombrely dressed in black, and guardian of not merely what was left as a tangible inheritance following the expropriation of their assets by the Austrian and other successor states after 1918, but of the traditions and heritage of the Habsburgs. A truly remarkable woman.

I first saw the story online in The Independent at 137-carat diamond missing since 1919 revealed from in Canadian bank

A friend sent me the link to the original account from the New York Times whose journalist accompanied the Archdukes, and which may be seen at The Florentine Diamond Resurfaces After 100 Years in Hiding

Art Net also had a report on the rediscovery which is available at The Hunt: The Mysterious Fate of the Florentine Diamond

Wikipedia has a history of the diamond at Florentine Diamond, which includes the two stories of its origin. They are arguably not irreconcilable, and the idea that the jewel once belonged to Charles the Bold is an attractive one, in that it was through the marriage of his daughter and heiress Mary to Maximilian of Austria that the Habsburgs secured their prominence in European affairs.

The Emperor Karl League of Prayers - the Gebetsliga - which is in itself well worth supporting, has an online article about the rediscovery at Habsburg Florentine Diamond Reemerges

The history of the jewel and of the carat system for weighing such stones is discussed in The Ancient Secret Behind the Carats of the Florentine Diamond 

A monument well worthy of conservation in Marlborough

I came upon an online report about work to conserve and enhance a remarkable historic monument in Marlboroughin Wiltshire. The Mound, as it is known, is just that, a mound of earth now in the grounds of Marlborough School. This, however, is no ordinary garden feature, but originated as a Neolithic feature second only in size to Silbury Hill as a man-made monument. Later tradition was to identify it as the grave of Merlin. Centuries later it was repurposed as the motte of the Norman castle in Marlborough. In the Norman and Angevin eras the castle was a favoured royal residence with its nearby hunting grounds in Savernake Forest.

The article can be read at Council gives go-ahead for demolition work at historic site

Wikipedia has an introduction to the history of the town at Marlborough, Wiltshire

Two early Christian mosaics from Turkey and Israel

A regular reader of this blog very kindly sent me the link to a Daily Mail online article about two mosaic floors which have been uncovered in Turkey and Israel.

The more recent discovery is at the castle in Urfa, known at times in the past as Edessa, and the reputed birthplace of Abraham. Dated to the years 460-495 it refers to both the military commander and to the local bishop, senior priest and deacon. Those latter might suggest it was the cathedral. The integration of civil and ecclesiastical authorities is an indicator of the establishment of the administrative structures of Byzantium.

The themes in the design suggest a sense of the harmony of the created order and of Scriptural revelation that accords with later writers in the patristic and medieval centuries.

As with the references to the ecclesiastical hierarchy of this specific community these all point to an established community of worshippers, standing in an established tradition which we would recognise today.

The second mosaic featured in the article was found a few years ago under the prison in Megiddo in Israel and is dated to 230. This specifically describes Jesus as God, and is apparently the first archaeological find to do so. The very elaborate design includes the names of members of the congregation - or maybe the ‘house church’ - of the building from which it survives. Like the Urfa floor it refers to a Roman officer, in this case specifically described as the man who commissioned it. 

The online article is interesting reading, despite its somewhat melodramatic title, and can be seen at Mysterious ancient Christian mosaic reveals lost biblical secrets

Evolution and transformation in latex Roman Germany

Two recent archaeological investigations in Germany have yielded interesting information about the changes in society from the later fifth century onwards that led to the emergence of the early medieval post-Roman culture that succeeded it.

The first was at Delbrück Bentfeld near Paderborn in Westphalia and which yielded what appears to include the site of a cremation of a man who may well have served as a Roman mercenary with accoutrements from the Imperial army. The funds are outlined and discussed in an LBV article 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 site is at Bad Füssing, near Passau on the border of modern Germany and Austria in the Inn valley.

The discoveries are again related to funeral practices in a site which appears to have been used for a considerable length of time. 

The article about it from Heritage Daily can be accessed at Burials offer new insights into splendor and conflict in early medieval Bavaria

These two excavations, from distant and different regions, do suggest cultural fluidity and interchange along and across the borderlands of the Empire and Germania in these centuries.

An eighth century gold medallion from Norfolk

The discovery of an apparently eighth century Anglo-Saxon gold pendant near Swaffham in Norfolk is not only further evidence of the rich deposit of early items in the fields of the county but is also an indication of a significant cultural transition in the East Anglian kingdom. 

The pendant has motifs similar to coins, but no regnal or other inscriptions. The theory is that it was lost, and is not a burial item, as by the date it is assigned Christian burial practices were increasingly normative.  As a result the inclusion of grave goods largely disappeared, and so, in consequence, the information they can give about social conditions and ideas at the time of the interment.

The find is reported by the BBC News website at  Swaffham detectorist finds rare early 8th Century gold pendant

Conserving pillboxes from WWI

Yesterday, on Remembrance Sunday, the Sunday Telegraph had an interesting and informative article about work in Norfolk to preserve surviving pillboxes near North Walsham in Norfolk which were erected to resist a possible, indeed anticipated, German invasion during the Great War. 

As the article explains such an invasion plan did not exist, but the fear of it, fuelled by the popular war-scare fiction of the early 1900s, was for a time genuine, and considerable. Some of the contemporary quotations cited in the article are revealing.

Conserving these miniature blockhouses is certainly a worthwhile project and a way of appreciating how local communities and individuals reacted to the War and its potential impact on rural Norfolk.

The article can be read at How fear of a German invasion swept Britain in the First World War

As a personal addendum my mother and her sister-in-law both recalled going out with their family and neighbours at night to watch the Zeppelin which passed over Pontefract in, I think, 1917, and dropped its bombs harmlessly in the Park - where the racecourse is - and my mother also recalled going the next day with her brother, who was four ears older, to view the craters. Why they went out to watch the potential air-raid was not clear, as there was shelter provision used on other occasions nearby.

A Portuguese ship from 1533 Discovered in Namibia

The Indian Defence Review reports in an online article about the discovery in Namibia of the Portuguese carrack the Bom Jesus, and much of its cargo, which was lost in 1533 whilst on route to India.

What makes this discovery unusual for maritime archaeological work is that the vessel is now inland, having been carried there as sand dunes have moved inland over the intervening centuries.

The arid conditions have helped preserve materials which would have disintegrated in wet conditions, and its isolation has also contributed to its cargo of precious materials surviving. 

The article says that the plan is to create a museum in the nearest to house the remains of the vessel and its contents. This would doubtless encourage tourism and bring in investment and revenue.

The article can be viewed at 500-Year-Old Treasure Ship Found in Namib Desert With Gold, Ivory and Priceless Global Artifacts

An Iron Age gold coin from Germany

His garden maintenance has an online account of the discovery of a gold quarter-stater from near Leipzig that is dated to the fourth century BC.

The article sets out to firmly place the discovery in its historical and cultural context. The coin may be more in the way of a tribute offering rather than something used in monetary exchanges. 

The writer also suggests, from the wonderfully long German name of such tiny cup shaped gold coins - or maybe tokens would be an equally good term - an interesting explanation of the folklore notion that one could find a crock of gold at the end of a rainbow.

 

The article can be seen at Exceptional discovery: in Germany, a 2,200-year-old gold coin reveals a forgotten myth and unseen exchanges

The living and the dead of Medieval Edinburgh

  

I chanced upon a BBC News article which led me to other online sites which report on discoveries made in studying more than a hundred skeletons found in 1981 in excavations within St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh

Edinburgh 900 was been a celebration marking the novocentenary of the charter in 1124 from King David I founding the burgh and his establishment of St Giles as its mother church.

The official video about the project and the facial reconstruction of five of the individuals can be seen at 

🔎 Edinburghs first burghers

 

The BBC News article which first alerted me to the whole project, and which concentrates on a male teenager who died from the plague in the mid-fourteenth century, can be seen at First scientific evidence of Black Death in Edinburgh found on skeleton

The scientific skills involved in such work continue to advance and are very impressive indeed.

Writing this it strikes me that this is a very suitable subject for All Souls and November Dead Lists as we recall those who were here before us, and that their residual mortal remains can still reveal that they were once flesh and blood, as well as bones, like us.

Identifying the site of the battle of the Granicus

Researchers in Anatolia believe they can pinpoint the actual site of the battle of the Granicus, fought in 334BC, and the first of Alexander the Great’s victories over the Persian Empire.

The Grabicus is a river which flows north-west into the Sea of Marmora. Whilst the general location of the battle is well known, these latest investigations by analysing the descriptions of the battle and the terrain, as well as archaeological evidence of burials have led to a much more precise identification.

Their conclusions are set out in an article on Biography.com, and which can be viewed at A Stunning New Discovery May Rewrite the Legend of Alexander the Great

Wikipedia has a very detailed account of the battle and a discussion of the sources at Battle of the Granicus

and there is additional information about the geography of the site at Biga Çayı

A hoard of gold coins from the Dissolution era

The ZME Science and BBC News websites have reports about a significant hoard of gold coins found during lockdown in a garden at Milford on Sea in Hampshire. The total of 70 gold coins date from the early years of King Henry VI in the 1420s, include others issued under King Edward IV and King Henry VII, but the majority are from the reign of King Henry VIII, ending in 1535-7. Their face value is £26.5.5 and a halfpenny. Designated the New Forest Hoard, in the basis of the last date for minting they appear to have been buried about the time of the dissolution of the monasteries - and that is suggested by the ZME article as the reason for their concealment. I am not sure that monasteries such as Christchurch Priory - or for that  matter the nearby Beaulieu Abbey - would have necessarily held such quantities of cash, and I would be inclined to see this as family rather than institutional wealth. 

It occurs to me than another possible reason for burying a sizeable sum in gold might have been the threat of a French raid in the area in 1544-45, best remembered today for the loss of the Mary Rose. 

In addition by that time the government was debasing the silver currency and these gold coins may have been buried as a safeguard against the consequent inflation.

The coins have now been sold in smaller lots at auction.  Personally I think it is to be regretted that the hoard could not be kept together, although I assume it has all been catalogued and that can be cited by researchers.

The ZME article can be seen at A Couple Doing Gardening in England Found a Massive Trove of Henry VIII Gold Coins Likely Hid By a Church

The BBC News reports can be seen at Hampshire couple find Tudor coins worth £230k while gardening and at New Forest hoard of 70 coins dug up in lockdown fetch over £380k

A possible relic of the Gunpowder Plot

Yesterday was the anniversary of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot and its failed attempt to blow up the King, Lords and Commons at the State Opening.

 

The BBC News website had a tropical story with a report about a gold ring found by a metal detector close to the Warwickshire birthplace of the leader of the Plot, Robert Catesby. The house was later occupied by another of the conspirators, John Wright. Wright and his brother Christopher had been at school with Guy Fawkes in York, and were killed in November 8th alongside Catesby at Holbeche House in Staffordshire in the immediate aftermath of the discovery of Fawkes and the gunpowder at Westminster. 

On the inside of the ring is an inscription about being a friend in deed that could well be linked to the Plot, if “deed” is taken to mean the act of blowing up Parliament.

The ring is due to be auctioned next month. One would hope it goes to a public collection where it can be displayed.

The online article can be viewed at Gunpowder Plot 'leader's ring' found in Lapworth to go to auction

Wikipedia has biographies of Catesby and the Wright brothers at Robert Catesby and at John and Christopher Wright

Unearthing Hadrian’s Wall west of Carlisle

Archaeologists in Cumberland have opened up at Drumburgh the foundations of part of the continuation of Hadrian’s Wall west of Carlisle along the southern shore of the Solway Firth. 

Recent excavations in Carlisle have revealed significant evidence about life in the Roman city - arguably the last such community at this extremity of the Empire, and the equivalent of an outlier in the Nile Valley or the upper Euphrates. 

Revealing something of this westernmost section of the Wall is interesting as I think, from my visits there in past years, that although the line of the wall has been ascertained there is nothing visible above ground of the Roman structure until Carlisle itself is reached. 

The archaeological work is reported upon in an article from the BBC News website and it can be seen at Hadrian's Wall section discovered in Drumburgh dig

There is more about the location of the Wall at this point and about the post-Roman history of its remains from Wikipedia at Drumburgh

Tannhäuser

As someone who greatly appreciates the soaring and stimulating music as well as the mix of myth and legend in their plots of Wagner’s operas I was interested to read an online article from the LBV magazine about the basis, such as it can be ascertained,  for the legend of the thirteenth century figure of Tannhäuser.
 

The piece can be read at The Enigma of Tannhäuser, the 13th-Century German Poet Who Found the Venusberg

The Wikipedia entry about him is quite short but it can be read in conjunction with the other article at Tannhäuser

Then sit back and find a recording or video of what is one of Wagner’s early masterpieces…

All Souls Day

Today is All Souls Day, transferred because All Saints Day fell on Saturday and was advanced to yesterday and subsumed the normal Sunday observance.

I was able today to follow two Extraordinary Form Masses with absolutions at the cataphalque. The first was at lunchtime from the FSSP Shrine in Warrington and celebrated with chant, and the second, earlier this evening, a full Solemn Requiem from the Oxford Oratory.

Praying for the Departed is a very important part of the Catholic Faith and something I do by remembering a fairly long list of people at every Mass I attend. Apart from specific anniversaries this time of year is a good one at which to catch up on remembrance of the of the dead.

Being a historian in addition to deceased family and friends - and as I get older that list inevitably gets longer - and the general intention of all the faithful departed, I also include individuals of whom I know, but I have never ever met in the flesh because they died many years or indeed centuries ago. As Purgatory is outside the constraints of time as we know it this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. The Church teaches that those in Purgatory, whilst unable to pray for themselves, can pray for their companions in that state of being, and for those here on earth who pray for them. I do have a sense that some of those I have prayed for have, or may have, prayed for me also. Prayers for those who have finished their time in Purgatory are not wasted as they can be applied through the Treasury of Merits to others still in purgation.

For the souls in Purgatory I pray, not merely for their repose, but also for them in the hour of their death, as quite a number of them suffered violent, unpleasant and terrible deaths. This seems possible, because of the atemporality of the Divine - to God all things are eternally present. Whom I pray for I will keep in pectore, but it does enable me to do something for those who accompany me as an historian.

Rest eternal grant unto them O Lord and let light perpetual shine upon them.

St John Henry Newman, Doctor of the Church

This morning the Pope formally declared in a Mass for All Saints Day, and at the close of the Jubilee for Catholic Education, that St John Henry Newman is the thirty eighth Doctor of the Church and has been also designated as the co-patron of Catholic Education alongside St Thomas Aquinas.

These further honours for St John Henry have followed swiftly upon his beatification and canonisation. They indicate that his significance and role does indeed extend to the Universal Church, the “one true fold of  the Redeemer” into which he was received at Littlemore in 1845. He is not just a saint for the English or the English-speaking world, but for the whole Catholic community across the globe. 

I first became aware of Newman as a schoolboy and as I grew into an Anglo-Catholic before going to Oxford to one of the two colleges of which he was a member. Through my time at Oriel and at first Pusey House and then also at St Thomas’ he seemed somehow to accompany me. Eventually, rather like him, I came to see that I was called into the unity that is Catholicism, and was received at the Oxford Oratory. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend his beatification in Birmingham in 2010, and to have also visited his room and library at the Birmingham Oratory and the new shrine for him there on several occasions

From what I have read of his vast output as theologian, apologist, historian, novelist and letter writer I can sense his profundity, but also his lightness of touch as a pastor and counsellor, and his great wisdom. I should read more of his works and revisit some of his most famous works - and would urge others to do so.

A friend shared with me yesterday an excellent video made just over a decade ago by Fr Nicholas Schofield and Fr Marcus Holden about St John Henry. It is informative and balanced, and filmed in many of the places that Newman one would have known. It also includes interviews with people I knew in Oxford and who bring expertise and insight into recounting his life.

The video can be seen at Lead Kindly Light: The Life and Message of John Henry Newman (1801-1890)