The Écône Consecrations

If you were unable to watch live the SSPX episcopal consecrations which went ahead at Écône this morning, or want to see them again, or want to have a rare opportunity to see the traditional rite of elevating a priest into a bishop then the website ReturnToTradition seemingly full coverage with detailed commentary about the liturgy.

This can be watched at The SSPX Consecrates Bishops In Historic Act: Live Coverage

The consecrating bishop imposes his hands on the head of one of the candidates 

Image:ncronline.org

One of the new bishops is anointed with chrism 

Image:KTVN

The newly chrismated bishops at the Mass

Image:vanguardnhr.com

The newly consecrated bishops with the consecrating bishop Alfonso de Galatetta and the co-consecrator Bernard Fellay 

Image:fsspx.news

Feast of the Most Precious Blood

  

Today is, in the traditional calendar, the Feast of the Most Precious Blood, and also the feast of title of the mother church for the English Catholic community, Westminster Cathedral.

Although the feast originated in the fifteenth or sixteenth century in Spain and then spread to Italy - whence came in the eighteenth century the wonderful hymn translated as Glory be to Jesus - it was only in 1849 that Pope Pius IX, whilst in exile at Gaeta, extended it to the whole Church.

The website OnePeterFive has a history of the feast and the slight modifications to its date in the earlier twentieth century. This an be read at Forgotten Customs of the Precious Blood

Wikipedia also has an illustrated history of the observance, which is available online at  Feast_of_the_Most_Precious_Blood

Although removed from the General Calendar for the new Missal in 1969 it is still celebrated in the 1962 Missal and calendar by Traditional groups and by institutions under its patronage.

The Vatican and SSPX

With the SSPX announced episcopal consecrations due to take place in Écône tomorrow morning the standoff between the Holy See and the Society continues with statements such as the twenty eight page Profession of Faith from the Society last week, but no meetings - so far as we know - and seemingly no dialogue, unless it is one of the deaf, for all the popularity of that idea in the contemporary world.

There is a lot of comment and speculation on the internet about the situation, much heat but little light.

Readers, if they have not already searched this material,  will have found a lot of it verbose from US based commentators and opinion formers. You might agree with them but not with the style or delivery. 

However they may find some of the following of interest.

Ready to Harvest has a balanced account of the issue over the Latin liturgy, with some telling quotations from Pope Paul VI in the lead up to the introduction of the new Missal in 1969. The views he expresses suggest someone not happy with what he was doing, but having been told it would bring great benefits. Well, we now know how how successful it has been….

The video can be seen at What's the Big Deal with the Latin Mass?

 

An article from the National Catholic Register looks at the institutional significance of a rupture between the Church and the Society and draws especial attention to Pope Benedict XVI’s heroic attempts to resolve the issues. This can be read at This Is the Real Divide Between Rome and the SSPX

Similar themes are explored in an article from OnePeterFive which seeks a balanced discussion of the issues, not the outright hostility it rightly condemns. This can be seen at Clarifying Our Position on the SSPX

Veritatis Vox has a valuable interview with Bishop Athenasius Schneider about the issue in which the bishop sets out a clear understanding of the positions of both sides, as well as drawing out his established stance on the validity and legitimacy of the Traditional Latin Mass. Bishop Schneider’s calm, considered, prayerful manner should be an object lesson and guide to those engaged in this issue. 

The interview can be seen at The Core Question: Vatican II and the SSPX w/ Bishop Schneider

Life Site News has a report about Cardinal Müller’s intervention at the recent Consistory in which he said there was a need for a new Ecclesia Dei commission to draw people back into full communion. This can be read at Cardinal Müller calls for Vatican response to SSPX, new commission for those seeking ‘full communion’

There has been quite a bit about ‘partial communion’ and whether such a status exists, or can exist, within the Church

I also came upon a video from @MISUNDERSTOOP

in the form of a personal testimony by an American woman who came as an uninstructed Catholic to SSPX and, having become a member, can now look back on twenty eight years of week by week worship and clearly shows a real sense of belonging. It can be seen at My Experience with the SSPX

Today the always forceful Return To Tradition website has a commentary by its presenter Anthony Stine on the Pope’s letter dated yesterday to the head of SSPX. This video is robust in its argument and worth watching. It can be seen at BREAKING: VATICAN RESPONDS TO SSPX IN FINAL APPEAL TO BLOCK CONSECRATIONS

My own view, as I have stated in other posts is that I regret the failure to talk between the Vatican and SSPX. The failure must in that regard lie more with the Holy See, especially at a time when the Church in Germany seems to have gone haywire, and other European bishops are threatening to break canon law in respect of ordinations, or disciplining clergy of a traditionalist mindset. Yet there is no talk of sanctions against them.

I think a great opportunity was lost when SSPX did not accept the reconciliation moves made by Pope Benedict XVI. The reason seems to have been mistrust of the Vatican. With hindsight the woeful papacy of Pope Francis with Traditiones Custodes may well have proved them right.

Barring any last minute changes we must assume that the consecrations will go ahead, and then we must see how the Vatican  responds. To draw an analogy from a forthcoming anniversary will the first North American Pope end up playing the role of Lord North?

Since I wrote the article above the website Rorate Cæli has published, as a friend has now shared with me, a very dignified response from the Superior General of SSPX, Fr Pagliarani, in the form of a letter to the Pope. It can be read at SSPX Superior General Responds to Pope's Appeal

Let us pray, at this eleventh hour, for an amicable resolution of this seeming impasse.

Images:Wikipedia 

Reconstruction of a medieval male skeleton from Stirling Castle

I came across on YouTube a video from the History Cold Case UK series which was looking at a male skeleton discovered in Stirling Castle during excavations as part of the ongoing restoration of the buildings. The Dundee based team led by Prof. Sue Black who carried out the research on the skeleton have great expertise in facial and body reconstruction both in respect of contemporary crime and violence and regarding historic remains from archaeological sites.

The skeleton was dated to the fourteenth century and the man had apparently been between 25 and 40 when he died. His death may well have been the result of an arrow, whose head was found near his body. 

What made this particular investigation interesting was that it revealed not only much about the active life the man had led, but eventually came to a potential identification in the records from the time, and giving him a name.  

The reconstruction of the knight’s head.

In the absence of any evidence no attempt has been made to indicate his hairstyle. The scar from a possible axe blow has however been included 

Image: Heritage World

The video can be seen at Who Is the Knight with an Axe Scar on His Head? | History Cold Case UK

There are articles about the investigation from 

The History Blog at Stirling Castle knight identified and reconstructed from the BBC News website at Stirling Castle knight revealed as English nobleman and from Heritage World at Experts reveal the face of Stirling’s medieval knight after 650 years

Other episodes from the series, can also be found on YouTube

Real Tennis

With Wimbledon upon us there is a topical video about
the original form of tennis, which begat lawn tennis in the mid-nineteenth century as a simplified form for genteel amusement, which has turned up on the internet.

Made by Historic Royal Palaces in the Real Tennis court at Hampton Court it explains something of its more complicated rules and regulations. It also looks at what gentleman players would have worn. 

 

The short video can be viewed at Henry VIII's Tennis Court at Hampton Court Palace

We know that the game was being played in and around court circles by the 1460s, but the Hampton Court example is the earliest example to survive.

The exterior of the Real Tennis Court at Hampton Court

Image: Wikipedia 

Oxford has in Merton Street a court that is still in use as well as the shell of another, now holding a lecture theatre and student accommodation, in Oriel. That seems to date from about 1570, and was apparently played in by King Charles I and Prince Rupert during their time in the city in the Civil War.

One of the very last students to play the game there was the future King Edward VII, then at Christ Church, in 1860, just before it was converted into a music hall. It was while visiting the theatre that William Morris, working on the Oxford Union murals was smitten with the barmaid, and went on to marry her.

Restoring Salford Cathedral

As a consequence no doubt of a searching made the other day the algorithm delivered to my inbox a video about the recent restoration of both the fabric and significant features of the original decorative scheme in Salford Cathedral.

 

Salford Cathedral  

 

Image: Tripadvisor

 

Wikipedia has an illustrated history of the building at Salford_Cathedral 

The video can be seen at Salford Cathedral: A Glory Renewed and Restored  

I have only ever seen the cathedral from a distance but it is clearly a fine mid-nineteenth century essay in the eastern English fourteenth century school, copying significant features from Howden, Selby, and Newark. This may reflect the interests and visits of its Sheffield based architect.

Manchester might not immediately come to mind as good cathedral visiting territory yet in Manchester Cathedral it has a wonderful fifteenth century collegiate church elevated to cathedral rank in 1847, the year before what became in 1852 the cathedral in Salford was completed in one of the heartlands of residual Catholicism.

Queen Elizabeth I in Australia

There is an article in the Financial Review about the acquisition by the Art Gallery of South Australia of a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I and datable to 1565.

In recent years more attention has been paid to the Portrait painted of the young Queen in the 1560s and the message they sought to convey. Apart from the Coronation portrait, which survives as a 1590s copy, they are usually relatively small and show her soberly dressed, if not entirely in black, with discreet jewellery and holding a prayer book. From the middle years of her reign in the 1570s the images become larger, the Queen is elaborately and fashionably dressed and coiffured and bedecked in jewels. As the reign continued the images became larger, ever more sumptuous and bejewelled, ever more a living icon.

The painting now in Australia is rather old-fashioned in its framing as it is reminiscent of those of the Yorkist kings. Maybe it was intended as an addition to a series in that style. 

The face is unmistakable, the clothing expensive and detailed. but still relatively restrained. The image is one that conveys something of the uncertainties of the first decade of the reign when the succession, the possible marriage negotiation, the religious settlement and the international situation were still all to play for.

The article should be accessible at Australia-first painting is nearly 500 years old

Unfortunately I cannot find an online image of the work that will download. So much for the typical art gallery attitude to making their collections available to the world beyond their doors.

Too darn hot

As the temperature breaks the record that goes all the way back to yesterday a friend shared with me a note he had received.via X:

Not saying it’s hot on the London Underground today. but I’ve just seen Virgil leading Dante down the steps at Baker Street tube station. They’ll be taking the Circle Line.

Dante and Virgil at the Gates of Hell

by William Blake

Image: niceartgallery.com

Investigating Medieval Sicilians

A study of the genetic make-up of the medieval population of Sicily is reported upon by Phys.org

The evidence across something like a millennium indicates a complex pattern of migration and also mixing of ethnic groupings. This complements and confirms the historic and cultural evidence of the island being at the cultural crossroads of the Mediterranean for centuries.

The article can be read at Sicily remained a medieval melting pot despite major political and religious upheavals, ancient DNA reveals

I would disagree with the final comments in the article that Sicily became part of the Holy Roman Empire. More accurately it came under the rule of the Holy Roman Emperor as King of Sicily from 1194 to 1250, but not part of the Empire as such. The formal territory of the Empire extended as far south as the Papal States, or could be seen to include them, but no further south. 

The arms of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 

1816-1861

 

Image: Wikimedia

The complexity of the armorial bearings reflects the complex history of the two kingdoms and the engagement of many dynasties with their governance from the high middle ages onwards.

Today there is still a tendency, perhaps a strong one, to see Sicily as the European back-of-beyond, poor, corrupt, run by the mafia, nestling under a volcano - nice for the occasional holiday but not somewhere to spend a long time.

This is in part a consequence of the unification of Italy, when the north asset-stripped the south and stationed troops for decades in the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to keep it compliant. It might have been a useful stepping stone in 1943 for the Allies, but the post 1945 division of Europe rendered it once more a run-down region dreaming dreams of its past as it decayed and was a dubious political fiefdom in the post 1946 Italian state.

 In the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries however it was vibrant society, linking Western Europe to the Byzantine Empire, and to the Crusader states in the Holy Land, with strong ties to Spain and the North African coast. The art and architecture of these centuries is amazing and it was a wealthy society. There is little wonder that it was the especial jewel in the crown of the Emperor Frederick II, and coveted by other monarchs in the decades and centuries following his death.

I do recommend the works of John Julius Norwich “The Normans in the South” and “The Kingdom in the Sun”, David Abulafia’s “Emperor Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor”, and for the later centuries Harold Acton’s two very detailed volumes on “The Bourbons of Naples 1734-1825” and “The Last Bourbons of Naples 1825-1861” and Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa’s “The Leopard”.

The Kingdoms of Naples and of Sicily in 1794

Image: Geographicus Rare Antique Maps

A Tapestry returns to Oxburgh Hall

It is always satisfying when an historic item returns to its home after a long interval. The BBC News website recently reported the return to Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk of a tapestry from the house which was sold more than a century ago. 

The tapestry depicts a scene from the story of Esther, which appears to have been a popular subject in the sixteenth century with patrons and artists.

The illustrated report can be viewed at Lost Tudor tapestry returned home to Oxburgh Hall after 100 years

Nuns and Bankers

The Conversation has an interesting online article about the role played in late medieval Vienna by women religious as fining bodies for annuities and other financial loans. I had heard the author speak to an online seminar and was pleased to have a written summary of her research. I do not know how widespread this practice was but it was clearly part of Viennese economic and social life.

The article can be seen at Before banks, nuns lent money: how convents helped power medieval Vienna’s economy

Feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist

Today is the Feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist

He is one of only three figures in the New Testament - the others being Our Lord and Our Lady - to have a feast to celebrate their birthday. His death is commemorated separately at the end of August.

Most depictions of the Great Forerunner show him as a solitary figure in the wilderness or concentrate on his martyrdom. This illumination showing his birth is unusual amongst his iconography.

The Birth of St John the Baptist

Silvestro dei Gherarducci

1370-71

Image: Walker Art Gallery Liverpool

A tempera painting on vellum showing the letter D, taken from an illuminated choirbook at a Camaldolese monastery in Florence. The letter is decorated on three corners with floral motifs. The image set within the letter is of the birth of St. John the Baptist. The Virgin Mary is holding the infant on the front left, wearing a blue cloak over red dress. In the background, his mother Elizabeth, Mary's cousin, is still in bed being attended by a nun, while his father Zechariah seated on the front right who has been speechless since he was told of the birth by the Archangel Gabriel, writes "His name is John."

Surviving in a heatwave

As we swelter and shelter from the current temperatures  here in the UK and across western Europe I came upon a video from Medieval Way which looks at how people managed to keep themselves and their food supplies cool in past centuries. 

It is normally thought the earlier middle ages were warmer and followed from about 1300 by the beginnings of the ‘Little Ice Age’ which deepened into the seventeenth century before working itself out in the early nineteenth century. That does not mean that exceptionally hot summers, such as that of 1540, or hot spells, did not occur.

I am no scientist but even I can understand and recall these pre air-conditioning features of daily life. I can still recall, after seventy years, the coolness of the cellar, and indeed the hall,  in my grandmother’s mid-Victorian house, the sun-blinds over traditional large shop windows, photographs of Edwardian country houses bedecked in similar blinds - their casings still survive at the Oxford Union’s building, the curious earth ware device to keep the extra pint of milk in cold water before refrigerators became normal, the slightly sinister looking meat safe with its fine mesh….

Most of those are much more recent than the medieval centuries but the sense of a cool interior even in really hot weather when entering a centuries old building with thick walls, be it a cottage or a church, is both palpable and so refreshing.  

 

The video can be watched at Medieval Peasant Knew Something About Cooling We Forgot

Queen Elizabeth I in amber

Artnet has a report about the forthcoming auction of an amber heart-shaped pendant enclosing a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. 

The pendant with its portrait of Queen Elizabeth I

Image: Artnet News

The item is little known and its creation has only now been studies. Dated to after 1592 because of the datable portrait, it appears to have been made in Königsberg, the centre of the amber-working craft. There seems no indication of who commissioned it or how and when it travelled to this country.

It does, however, suggest the importance of trading and cultural links between England and the relatively new Duchy of Prussia in these years. Trade with the Baltic was important until the events of the twentieth century from the east coast and ports as far west as Devon.

The illustrated article can accessed at Rediscovered Amber Portrait of Elizabeth I Heads to Auction

I also learned from it that magnifying glasses were invented in Königsberg - if anyone had asked me I would have thought renaissance Italy. One lives and learns.

The Major Oak

 

The recent announcement that the great survivor the Major Oak has died is sad news. Located near the village of Edwinstowe in north-western Nottinghamshire this venerable tree was very much a symbol of what remains of the ancient woodland that made up much of Sherwood Forest in the medieval centuries. 

 

The Major Oak

Image: Wikimedia

The Major Oak also had a place in the relatively modern legendary history of Robin Hood. That there probably was an outlaw of skill and cunning - or maybe a series - called or known as Robin Hood seems very likely. It was Sir Walter Scott in “Ivanhoe” who located him in the 1190s. The most recent research places him in the early thirteenth century, and more significantly, not in Sherwood in Nottinghamshire but north of Doncaster in Barnsdale along the Great North Road towards Ferrybridge. Barnsdale was not a royal forest in the legal sense but simply a wooded area along the magnesian limestone ridge which runs northward from the river Don. 

By the fourteenth century Robin Hood was leading protagonist in popular ballads, where avenged individual wrongs, not those of society. It was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries he became more generally the robber of the rich to give to the poor, and so could become the demotic hero of cinema.

How the Sheriff of Nottingham was drawn into the narrative ms is not clear, but one can reasonably imagine that a lawless group based in Barnsdale would not lose much sleep over heading south and crossing the county boundary into Nottinghamshire for variety or to through the forces of law and order off their trail.

  

Robin Hood has attracted a considerable amount of scholarship from academics in the past half-century or so. The book I always recommend is “Robin Hood” by J.C.Holt, which is careful and scholarly, very readable and well illustrated.

I regret on my various visits to Nottinghamshire over many years that I never bot to see the Major Oak. However its d ace dents will live on. Like the famous Cowthorpe Oak in Yorkshire time has, sadly, finally caught up with this landmark.

Wikipedia has a history of the tree at Major_Oak

and of its wider setting at Sherwood_Forest

 

The BBC News website has an article about its history and its place in the cultural life of Nottinghamshire which can be read at The 'Robin Hood' tree: The history and enduring appeal of the Major Oak

The Daily Telegraph has two articles about the way well-intentioned, if misguided, attempts to sustain it may well have hastened or contributed to its ultimate demise, They can be seen at Robin Hood’s 1,200-year-old oak tree in Sherwood Forest ‘killed by sightseers’ and at A century of noble (and misguided) measures that killed the Robin Hood oak

Entering into the world of Bruegel

The Fake History Hunter has an insightful post on Substack about Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Farmers - or the Peasants - Dance dated to 1567 and now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. 

The Farmers Dance - De boerensdans

Image: Wikipedia 

The author explores the picture and the figures shown within it not just for its own sake but, as the title of his site indicates, to show how the ‘fake history’ of so many depictions in cinema, television and AI imagery imagines life in the past. Whilst sixteenth century people did not have the domestic equipment and conveniences that we take for granted it does not mean they lived their lives in unremitting dirt and squalor, drudgery and misery, clad in ragged grey or black. 

By entering into the scene of rustic enjoyment on a saint’s day the author opens up the mid-sixteenth century world for his readers, and shows us a world that is both familiar and unfamiliar.

The article can be read at Art review: ‘De boerendans’ (the farmer’s or peasant’s dance), Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1567.

Eilmer the “Flying Monk” back in the news

Wilmer, the eleventh century monk of Malmesbury Abbey, usually known as the ‘Flying Monk’, is back in the news. However this time it is not for his aeronautical experiment but rather his astronomical observations.

I have posted about him before. My 2010 article, which includes a number of online links, can be accessed at The Flying Monk

Earlier this year research based on what is recorded of his actions and observations by the great twelfth century chronicler based at the abbey, William of Malmesbury argued that Eilmer had anticipated Edmund Halley* six centuries later in forecasting the 76 year return  of what we know as Halley’s Comet. 

This argument is summarised and set out in an article published last January in Phys.org which can be read at Halley's Comet wrongly named: 11th-century English monk predates British astronomer

However Medievalists.net now has an article based on one on that old stalwart Notes and Queries which suggests that Eilmer had not seen Halley’s Comet twice, but another comet early in the eleventh century. If he was younger than has hitherto thought then his famous flight would have taken place a few years later than has been thought.

This new interpretation, with a link to the new argument, can be read at When Did a Medieval Monk First Try to Fly? New Study Reopens the Debate

Whichever is right is probably unknowable with absolute certainty, but what surely emerges from the story of Eilmer is that eleventh century English Benedictines had serious scientific and astronomical interests, and anticipated experimental science.

* Pronounced ”Hawley”, not “Hallé”

 

King Ludwig II of Bavaria

140 years ago today, on the evening of June 13th 1886, the body of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and that of one of his doctors were found floating close to the shore in the waters of Lake Starnberg. Four days earlier the Bavarian government had ruled that the King was unfit to rule and appointed his uncle, Prince Luitpold as Prince Regent. Thus ended the reign since 1864 and the life of the Wittelsbach ruler who was only in his forty-first year.

King Ludwig II

A photograph from 1865 of the young monarch

Image: neuschwanstein.de

To most people he is “Mad King Ludwig”, the patron of Wagner and builder of fantasy palaces and castles in Bavaria. His dramatic death has, of course, fuelled conspiracy theories about both his diagnosis and his death.

Today, with greater knowledge of mental health and of personality disorders, there is doubt as to whether he was “mad”, even if clearly not average in his makeup. The point that in the nineteenth century and indeed the twentieth that being eccentric was the prerogative of the affluent and being mad the curse of the poor is not entirely irrelevant here.

King Ludwig’s enthusiasm for the music of Wagner - and indeed without his patronage much of the later works of the Bayreuth Opera House might not exist - and his enthusiasm for spending his own money, and what he was given or could borrow, but not that of the state on his amazing building projects was in one sense excessive. In another it was brilliant, and ensured his enduring fame. Supporting Wagner and creating and planning his palaces was wonderful, not mad if by that word is meant anything less that highly cultured and visionary.

King Ludwig II at the time of his accession in 1864.

He is wearing the riband of the senior Bavarian Order, that of St Hubert

Image: neuschwanstein.de

As a monarch whose actual realm was being drawn into the new German Empire with the concomitant constraints his cult of King Louis XIV and of medieval, and oriental, concepts of monarchical rule may well have been a reaction against his own times. Nonetheless he appears to have dutifully conducted his business as a constitutional monarch, even if he was largely absent from Munich. So too did Queen Victoria at Balmoral or Osborne rather than London.

The King in the middle years of his reign

Image:thefamousbirthdays.com

The good Wikipedia biography sets out the evidence well, with links to recent articles about the circumstances of his death through the footnotes as well as their links to other articles on their website.

The biography can be read at Ludwig_II_of_Bavaria

There is a short illustrated biography in English with some telling quotations from the website of Neuschwanstein which can be accessed at Bayerische Schlösserverwaltung | Neuschwanstein Castle | King Ludwig II

I think the King’s cousin, the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who knew him better than most, was right in her assessment that he was not mad but an eccentric who sought to live in a world of dreams.

King Ludwig II as Grand Master of the Order of Knights of St George 

The painting was completed in 1887 the year after his death

Image:Wikimedia

The man who sought to be an enigma as be became more reclusive lost the elegant good looks that that had impressed many, including Wagner, at his accession and in his later years appears heavier, almost ponderous whilst still in his mid to later thirties. Maybe the never-ending pursuit of his vision of himself and his kingship, of high art and culture was at the same time literally weighing him down and making him prematurely middle aged and depressive. 

His life is one of initial outward promise, inner demons, circumstances he could not control, and the pursuit of artistic visions that never fulfilled his craving for more of the wonders he had helped create. A lonely life, and a sad story, a tragic story, and one that does not deserve the epithet “mad”. Nevertheless his legacy in the buildings he commissioned and the incredible music he supported is one that endures and enriches us all. Visionary would be not just much gentler, but also a far more accurate summary.

Please pray for the repose of the soul 

of King Ludwig II

Medieval cooking ingredients

I came upon an interest post on Substack from The Fake History Hunter which sets out to show the wide variety of foods available to medieval people before the introduction of modern staples from the New World. The list includes some items that definitely belong to the world of the social elite, but it is nonetheless very impressive and given that society was not as rigidly differentiated as popular presentations might suggest would allow, one way or another, for considerable or occasional variety.

The post can be read at Food & ingredients available in Medieval Europe before contact with the Americas

Reading through the list of foodstuffs I felt I wanted the much lamented and irreplaceable Two Fat Ladies to roar into view on their motorcycle and sidecar and set to creating an extravagantly inviting feast.

Discoveries from ‘The Gribshunden’

Yesterday I attended online a most interesting set of lunchtime lectures at the Society of Antiquaries about the ongoing archaeological investigation of ‘The Gribshunden’. This was the flagship and floating command centre of King Hans of Denmark which sank off the coast of what is now southern Sweden, but was then still part of the Danish kingdom whilst sailing to an important meeting with the Swedish nobility at Kalmar in 1495. The King was hoping to reinvigorate the 1397 Union of the crowns of Denmark, Norway together with that of Sweden proclaimed at Kalmar in that year.  

A reconstruction of the Gribshunden at sea 

Image: Wikidata

The ships appears to have sunk in relatively shallow water following a possible explosion - it was heavily armed - but the waters of the Baltic are favourable to preserving rather than devouring ship timbers, as most notably with the Vasa in Stockholm harbour.

 

I have posted before about the Gribshunden in A fifteenth century King’s flagship.

I also wrote in Late fifteenth century Scandinavian Court cuisine and in More on the spices from the Gribshunden about the spices which had survived in the remains of the ship, and what they indicate about the life of the King and his courtiers

and the place of the Danish court in the international trade of the time.

There are two accessible, very detailed articles about the ship from the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology at The Danish Griffin: The Wreck of an Early Modern Royal Carvel from 1495 and from the Society for Combat Archaeology at Gribshunden: Significance and Preliminary Investigations

The Society of Antiquaries lectures are wide-ranging in their subject matter and free to watch online via their website and they also have recordings of previous lectures available. Yesterday’s set of talks by four experts working on different aspects of the project demonstrated the rich variety of discoveries already made from excavations of only a small portion of the ship. The vessel was about four-fifths the size of the Mary Rose but has already revealed comparable finds. Its potential, as is explained, is very considerable not just in terms of the development of ship building but also about life at the time and the links to the wider European culture of the end of the fifteenth century as well as to trading links on the other side of the world.

The lectures, which are only an hour in total but well illus, can be accessed at  https://www.youtube.com/live/UJtId-NdG1E?si=plZkOuZsfOT5gac-

A reconstruction technical drawing of the Gribshunden by Mats Vänehem

 Image: Wikinedia

Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales

Today is the 650th anniversary of the death of Edward, Prince of Wales in 1376. He was a week short of his forty sixth birthday, the national hero laid low by almost a decade of illness. His death was the passing also of the mid-century era of English military success in France and of a particular culture of chivalric behaviour. 

The effigy of Edward Prince of Wales on his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral

Image: berkhampstedcastle.org.uk

Popularly known as the Black Prince since the sixteenth century for reasons which are far from clear, he was in his lifetime and in the following years seen as an outstanding exemplar of medieval chivalric culture. Later centuries also subscribed to that view, but in recent decades his reputation been discussed by historians and popular writers. There have been a number of biographies, and debate over his actions in 1370 at the sack of Limoges became something of an academic battleground. That debates perhaps revealed more about misconceptions amongst some people today about the past than it did about the past itself. The current consensus appears more favourable to him.

The effigy of Edward Prince of Wales in Canterbury Cathedral

Image: World History Encyclopaedia 

Despite his public role as military leader and victor in notable battles, notably Crecy, Poitiers and Najera, his decade of rulership in Aquitaine, and the near contemporary accounts by the Chandos Herald and Jean Froissart, less emerges about him as a personality than his younger brothers, John, Edmund and Thomas. The superb effigy at Canterbury commemorates the public Prince but reveals little of the man, and that seems true of so much of his life. He appears to have been devout, with a particular devotion to the Trinity, which may well suggest an interest in theology akin to that of his nephew, the future King Henry IV. Very appropriately he died on Trinity Sunday. Having requested burial in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Undercroft at Canterbury it was deemed more appropriate to bury him above that chapel in the vicinity of the shrine of St Thomas in the Trinity Chapel. 

  

The Prince kneels in prayer before the Holy Trinity 

Image: mediastorehouse.com

His private life with at least two illegitimate sons born marriage is probably typical of his age. After talk when he was a small child of marrying him to the daughter of King Philip VI of France marriage to Margaret of Brabant was being actively discussed in the years 1339-45 but nothing came of it. As it was he married late, and initially secretly, to his relative Joan “the Fair Maid” of Kent, acquiring thereby a family of stepchildren. It is, perhaps, more than somewhat reminiscent of the marriage just over a century later of King Edward IV to Elizabeth Woodville. Joan’s sons the Hollands were again not altogether dissimilar to the Woodvilles and Greys.     

Joan, Princess of Wales

Image: A Royal Heraldry 

That Edward and Joan’s marriage was a love match seems clear, but their elder son died as a child and the future hopes of the couple and the dynasty were centred henceforth on the younger son, the future King Richard II.

 

The Prince at prayer from the remains of the painted decoration of St Stephen’s Chapel Westminster 

Image: luminarium.org

The Prince at prayer with his ostrich feather badge on the wall behind.

Image:mediastorehouse.com

The fact that he was eight years older than his next brother to reach adulthood Lionel, ten years older than John and twelve years older than Edmund, let alone twenty five years older than his youngest brother Thomas, born when Edward was himself already a father, must have affected the dynamics of the family and the way it worked as part of King Edward III’s system of governance. 

King Edward III creates his son the Prince of Wales as Prince of Aquitaine in 1362

Image: luminarium.org 

The Prince’s last years were overshadowed by illness, by the gradual loss of the military initiative and territory to the French, and the decline of his father King Edward III. His difficulties in Aquitaine reflected not only the significant financial consequences of his Castilian campaign - where he was given what is now his eponymous ruby - but also the long-standing traditions of local autonomy on the parts of the Gascon lords and which could be easily exploited by the French crown. In that respect he faced the type of problems that had confronted Richard Coeur de Lion almost two centuries earlier.The Gascons might well love a ruler based in London over one closer at hand in Paris, but an energetic Duke or Prince based in Bordeaux was too close for comfort.

The Oribce’s signet ring found at Montpensier in Auvergne in 1866.

Image: Wikipedia 

In his last months the Prince appears to have been seen by those opposing his father’s ministers as their supporter, but his participation is unclear. Family bonds still bound the Plantagenets closely, even if there was always the potential for differing views and policies between the monarch and his team, and those of the heir and his entourage. That had been present in the 1269s and was to be in the early fifteenth century, and, of course, a principal factor in politics from the seventeenth century onwards. It is a seemingly inevitable part of any dynastic system. For Edward his tragedy was that he was dying in the spring of 1376 and was never able to show how he might have ruled as a putative King Edward IV.

 

Later generations, and apparently, some contemporaries imagined a new reign would have brought new or reinvigorated policies, and see a divide between him and his next surviving brother, John, Duke of Lancaster. The evidence of Edward’s rule in Aquitaine suggests he would have been tough rather than merely amenable as king, and his knight and apparently close friend Sir Simon Burley was to be a major influence the young King Richard II and a principal object of the Appellant’s vengeance in 1388. A Whiggish view of the Prince does not work.    

 

His military triumphs and relatively early death loomed to a greater or lesser extent over the reign of his son, with the inevitable speculation as to what might have been. In that he was like his great-nephew King Henry V in the reign of his son. Victories like Poitiers and Agincourt opened up possibilities for both men which they were never able to achieve before death claimed them, and which their sons and their advisors could never fulfill.

The Prince’s great helm and shield from his achievements set over his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral 

Image: World History Encyclopaedia 

 

The arms in full heraldic display 

Image: A Royal Heraldry- Wikipedia 

The replicas of the Prince’s achievements 

Image: trc-leiden.nl

There is an article with additional information about the Prince’s surcoat at Jupon of the Black Prince

There is a video from a BBC series from 2018 about creating a faithful reproduction of the surcoat using the same fabrics as the original which can be seen at https://share.google/2kORvchUKkHyE3Teq

Wikipedia has a quite detailed biography which gives a good narrative of his life, considerable detail and discussion of chivalric culture, as well as a good bibliography but whose interpretation at times unfortunately relies on old-fashioned views from the old DNB entry. The illustrated article can be seen at Edward_the_Black_Prince

   

There is another quite detailed biography from Luminarium which can be accessed at Edward, the Black Prince of Wales (1330-1376)

I have previously shared articles about conservation and research work on the funeral achievements and the tomb at Canterbury. LiveScience has a 2021 article on the work on the effigy which can be seen at Tomb effigy of the 'Black Prince' was likely medieval propaganda to bolster his son's failing rule

I am not sure I fully agree with the argument about the intention of the tomb commission but the article is worth perusing.  

 

The effigy and tomb of the Prince at Canterbury 

Image: A Royal Heraldry - churchmonunentssociety.org

Pray for the repose of the soul of Edward Prince of Wales and of Aquitaine

 

Understanding medieval marginalia

I am sure we are all familiar with the illuminated marginalia in medieval manuscripts, especially those from the thirteenth century onwards. The bizarre world they create of knights fighting giant snails of rabbits, doing the comeuppance to a whole of a variety of opponents, grotesque creatures that are strangely deformed, to a variety of risqué subjects are a delight, and frequently used in book illustrations, on postcards from great library bookshops and so on. The Internet disseminates them far and wide.

We are amused, and quite probably bemused by them, not being sure what their meaning is, and perhaps being inclined to dismiss them as ‘doodles’.

Substack has an interesting piece which starting from the ‘doodle’ idea sets out to demolish that really implausible idea and to show that the marginal illuminations do relate to the text within the margins - and that is an important point - and should be understood as a commentary or aide memoire for the reader.  

The article from Weird Medieval Guys makes a good case for taking the humour of these illustrations seriously, and thereby enriching our understanding of what we are looking at.

The illustrated article is well worth reading and can be accessed at How to interpret medieval marginalia 101

The Vatican and SSPX - scholarship seeking resolution

The always scholarly and informed website Rorate Cæli has two new articles which are both important contributions to the debate about the proposed episcopal consecrations for SSPX.

The first looks at the modern, post 1870, understanding of Papal authority. In doing so it draws upon a range of historical material. I was particularly interested to see the writings of Augustinus Triumphus (1243-1328) cited. I recall reading Michael Wilks book about his very advanced theories of Papal power in Oriel library during one Long Vacation. That his ideas can be seen underlying contemporary concerns is, to put it mildly, interesting.

The article can be read at "The Performative Contradiction of the Society of St. Pius X" - Guest Article by Vigilius

The second article is by Bishop Athanasius Schneider and sets out to examine the fundamental issues in respect of the reception of the ideas of the avowedly “non-dogmatic” Second Vatican Council. The bishop makes a series of excellent points with clarity and coherence. He displays a wide and generous understanding of the history of the Church. He is clearly anxious to see a peaceful resolution of this matter in the interests of the whole Church. That must be commendable.

Bishop Schneider’s article can be read at "TRUTH: The Core Question Regarding the SSPX" - by Bishop Athanasius Schneider 

More reflections on the Vatican and SSPX

 

Corpus Christi, with its emphasis on the liturgical Presence of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord seems a not inappropriate day on which to reflect further on the tension between the Vatican and the SSPX over the intention of the Society to consecrate four new bishops without Papal mandate on July 1st.

I wrote about this issue last month in a post which can be seen at The Vatican vs SSPX  

It is a subject about which I continue to pray.

Since then a number of online features have caught my eye and I think them worth sharing.

 

For those not aux fait with the background there is a suitably neutral account from ReadyToHarvest about the conflict going back to the years immediately after Vatican II ended and which can be seen at Will SSPX Schism? What's Going On?

Shortly after my post I came across links to an open letter to the Pipe from Bishop Athanasius Schneider which the faithful could also sign expressing the hope that the Holy See would approve of the consecrations to avoid further rupture. This can be accessed at Bishop Schneider backs urgent appeal asking Pope Leo XIV to support SSPX consecrations

I signed the letter.

Subsequently I came upon a lengthy article on Substack which was a commentary on the letter. It is by a monk of Le Barroux and has some important references to history and canon law in respect of Papal powers. It can be read at We Do Not Save the Faith Against the Pope

 

The very well-informed website The Pillar had further thoughts on what might happen on July 2nd if neither side backs down - and there is nothing so far to suggest either will. That article, written by a leading member of a team who are well versed in canon law, can be found 

at Excommunication communication: What if the SSPX does a schism?

I have never attended an SSPX Mass other than watching a handful online during Covid. A friend, who does have contact with members of SSPX, opined that whereas in 1988 excommunication or the threat of it was a sobering thing today, as a legacy of the actions of Pope Francis, it is seen as no threat and enhances the resolve of the Society.

It would be difficult for either side to step back. For SSPX it would be a negation if so much, if not indeed all rhey have professed. For the Vatican, which clearly includes in the College of Cardinals very considerable disparity on the liturgy, the most obvious point of difference, and for the Pope, only a year into his pontificate, to give way in the point would be severely disabling.

 

That is to look at the clash in political terms. During the lead up to last year’s conclave several commentators but not perhaps enough - lamented the way in which the life of the Church was being presented in terms of secular, entrenched, adversarial,party politics. Maybe we must pray that this matter is not just resolved in charity but in a Christian charity that is worthy of the Body of Christ.