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, 12 January 2026

A High Imperial theme

    
At the beginning of the year I said I had a number of articles in mind about Roman themes in terms of discoveries and conservation. 

It occurred to me that to try and group these together as a thread would help place them all in context, but that rather than combining them into one article which might be rather indigestible, a series of sequential posts on each individual item would be a better way of sharing them. 

So with that in mind we shall, as I explain below, return to Hadrian’s Wall, review various recent discoveries in this country, then look at other locations in the Empire and finally revisit a remarkable survival from Roman Egypt.

My last post on a topic related to the Romans was last month in Roman life on Hadrian’s Wall, and so we will pick up the thread on Hadrian’s Wall …


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