Bl. Richard Rolle

Today is Michaelmas, the feast of St Michael the Archangel.

it is also the day appointed by the Catholic Church for the commemoration of Bl. Richard Rolle, the Yorkshire mystic and writer who lived in the first half of the fourteenth century.

Bl. Richard Rolle

A fifteenth century manuscript illustration

Image: Wikipedia 

Born about 1300 in the North Riding he studied at Oxford, left without a degree and, returning to his home area adopted the life of a hermit. He created his habit, to her horror, out of two of his sister’s dresses. He may have studied in Paris before returning to his home county. The 1320s when this change of life appears to have occurred were turbulent in Yorkshire with continuing Scottish raids and the political upheaval of the Earl of Lancaster’s downfall in 1322.

Having apparently spent much of his time in Richmondshire, by the late 1340s he was living at the Cistercian nunnery at Hampole close to where the main roads linking Doncaster to Pontefract and to Wakefield diverged. This was in the area of Barnsdale, notorious for its lawless predation in travellers and locals.

It is not clear if he had been ordained and was acting as chaplain, which seems more likely or whether he simply lived alongside the convent.

Rolle died on Michaelmas in 1349, probably a victim of the Black Death. In the years that followed he began to be seen as a candidate for canonisation and material was collected for his cause. In this process his former penitent Margaret Kirby was active and she later joined the Hampole community. Although never formally canonised his tomb and later shrine of ‘St Richard of Hampole’ at the priory was apparently popular with pilgrims up to the 1530s.

Hampole itself appears to have been a stable community, which still had nineteen nuns at the dissolution in 1539.

Rolle had written extensively on spiritual life, responding to a growing market for such works in fourteenth century Yorkshire, and by the fifteenth century he would appear to have been the single most widely read author in English in the country.

By then other distinguished mystical writers, notably Walter Hilton, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, and Julian of Norwich, but also not a few others such as Nicholas Love and the autobiographical Margery Kempe, were bearing witness to a lively interest in mystical experience.

 

Wikipedia has a very good, academically grounded biography of Rolle, with a good bibliography, which can be accessed at Richard Rolle

What that account makes very clear indeed is that Rolle deserves to be better known and appreciated as a writer and figure in fourteenth century life than being the rather specialist subject of Middle English scholars. His life is remarkable and fascinating, a window into the world in which he lived and moved. It is well set out in Jonathan Hughes’ stimulating Pastors and Visionaries.

Late last year Rolle was in the headlines - well some at least - with news that a complete copy of his Latin text of probably his most popular work the Emendatio vitae had been identified in the library of Shrewsbury School.

 

There are online articles, all inevitably somewhat similar, but with their own insights, about the discovery from the Daily Telegraph at Medieval manuscript discovered in Shropshire school, from the BBC at 'Priceless' medieval Shrewsbury school text found to be unique, and from Medievalists.net at Medieval Discovery: Richard Rolle’s Original Emending of Life Survives in One Copy  

ZME has an article about the discovery at Scholars Found a Lost Medieval Masterpiece Sitting on a Shelf in a British School Library and Popular Science has one at Forgotten, priceless medieval book found in school library

May Bl. Richard Rolle pray for us

The Crown of St Wenceslas

Today is the feast day of St Wenceslas, the tenth century murdered Duke of Bohemia who subsequently became the patron of Bohemia and of the Bohemian monarchy, and gaining posthumous promotion to the status of King of that realm.

Six hundred years ago following the death of his father, the blind King John from the house of Luxembourg who had acquired the title by marriage his son, who later became the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV had a new crown made for his coronation as King of Bohemia. 

In 2020 I wrote about the Emperor’s devotion to St Wenceslas in St Wenceslas and the Emperor Charles IV

 

The Emperor Charles IV

In this painting he is depicted wearing the Imperial Crown 

Image: Wikipedia 

This crown he bequeathed to the kingdom as the Crown of St Wenceslas. It is now held in the custody of the cathedral of St Vitus in Prague, where it is held in a secret chamber off the Chapel of St Wenceslas in the south transept. It is only displayed publicly on significant national occasions.

The Crown of St Wenceslas 

Image: ferrebeekeeper

  

In a way similar to the Holy Crown of St Stephen in Hungary the crown became more than a symbol but rather the enduring embodiment of sovereignty and legitimacy. The Lands of the Crown of St Wenceslas became synonymous as a phrase with the territorial integrity of the realm.

The Kings of Bohemia were traditionally crowned with it in Prague Cathedral until the earlier nineteenth century. Sometimes these liturgies occurred during the lifetime of the new monarch’s father so as to ensure hereditary succession in a traditionally elective monarchy. The last Bohemian coronation took place in 1836 when the Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria was crowned as King Ferdinand V, following the death of his father the previous year.

The Coronation of King Ferdinand V in 1836 in Prague Cathedral 

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Following the 1867 Ausgleich creating the Dual Monarchy there was the possibility in 1871 of crowning the Emperor Francis Joseph as King of Bohemia, but the ideas was abandoned. This appears to have been due fears that this would lead to moves to create a Bohemian state separate from Austria in the lines of what had happened in Hungary, and rather like Irish Home Rule and the religious divide, led to fears amongst the German speaking communities of finding themselves under Czech rule.

Unfortunately the tradition was not revived by iris quite conceivable that had the Habsburg Empire had the opportunity to evolve along confederal lines there could have been the coronations of King Karel III, King Otto  I,  and now King Karel IV.

Wikipedia has a relatively short account and description of the crown at Crown of Saint Wenceslas

I have two older posts about the crown from 2010 and 2011 respectively which give more information, particularly about how the crown was originally displayed. The argument is that it was on a bust of St Wenceslas - a companion piece to that of Charlemagne now at Aachen which has the crown of the King of the Romans.

These can be accessed at The Crown of St Wenceslas and at The Crown of St Wenceslas

 

There is another, well illustrated account of the Crown at The Crown of Saint Wenceslas

May St Wenceslas pray for Bohemia and the lands of his Crown, and for us all

Rabbiting on

 

Recently I came upon a video about the medieval, and later, husbandry of rabbits for food and fur. These methods included the creation not just of warrens but actually creating suitably dry and cosy accommodation in artificial burrows, which still remain in those areas where they were necessary such as south west England and the Pennines. 
 

By contrast the sandy soils of the East Anglian Breckland were ideal for the rabbits to burrowing, and this area appears to have been very much the leading centre of the business right down to the 1940s.

A medieval rabbit warren

Image:St Neots Museum

The video, from Medieval Way, brings out the value of the trade in rabbits and its scale, and can be seen here

There is another, quite short, online account from Medievalists.net of the way the rabbit was so important in daily life at Medieval Rabbit Farming

The pillow mounds are also described by Amusing Planet at Medieval Rabbit Warrens

By the by I recall reading many years ago when the apparently tedious and sentimental Watership Down, which its author said was not about a Nuclear Winter or other apocalyptic event, but “It’s about Rabbits”,was all the rage, of a southern English butcher who put a notice in his shop window  as follows - You Read the Book, You Saw the Film, Now Eat the Rabbit.

Good advice.

The Battle of Stamford Bridge 960

Today is the 960th anniversary of the battle of Stamford  Bridge in 1066, and the defeat by King Harold II and his army of the Norwegian force led by King Harald Hardrada - King Harald III by modern reckoning - and the death of the Norwegian monarch in the fighting.

 

Wikipedia has an account of the battle at Battle of Stamford Bridge

 

It has a biography of the much travelled Norwegian king at Harald Hardrada

There is another recent online account of King Harald Hardrada from Ed West on Substack at The greatest Norwegian

King Harold Hardrada

Image Wikipedia 

King Harald’s body was eventually returned to Norway. The church in which he was buried in Trondheim was destroyed in the reformation era and  site is now a public park. Following the recovery of the remains of King Richard III there was some talk of  

undertaking a similar project in Trondheim, but that appears to have been abandoned.

King Harold II 

Image: English monarchs.co.uk

King Harold II and his use of the English fleet has recently been explored in an article which I cannot find at present but which argued the case that after the battle King Harold II sent his troops south by sea to conserve their strength for the impending conflict with Duke William. On this basis the English troops sailed from York or the Humber to the Thames estuary to save time and energy.

Stamford Bridge is not featured in the Bayeux Tapestry but it is, of course, there in the historical background to the events depicted.

Two fifteenth century rings from a field in North Yorkshire

Medievalists.net reported in the discovery of two 
fifteenth century rings from a field at West Harlsey in the central part of the North Riding of Yorkshire.

The two rings from West Harlsey

The one on the left has enamel decoration showing the Blood of Christ. The one on the right shade St Margaret and remains of white enamel on the shoulder

Image: Medievalists.net

What makes these two gold rings interesting is that they both have remnants of the original enamel decoration which had been applied to them.    

   

Gold rings from this period quite often survive in museum collections but I am not aware of examples with enamel decoration. If this was the case it might explain the rather angular nature of the patron saints on these rings, which might have relied on the enameller to add more subtlety. Burial the the earth may have destroyed the enamnel more often than not.

The account of the discovery and of the rings can be viewed at Medieval ‘Blood of Christ’ and St Margaret Rings Discovered in England

The remains of the fifteenth century castle in West Harlsey of the Strangeways family are described and illustrated by Wikipedia at Harlsey Castle

A fourteenth century ring from Suffolk

The ITV News website recently reported about an early to mid-fourteenth century seal ring that had been found by a metal detector in Suffolk. 

The ring which appears to have belonged to Countess Maud

Image: PA, ITV

The ring, with a griffin inscribed gemstone was suggested to have belonged to Maud, or Matilda, of Lancaster, the sister of Henry of Grosmont, first  Duke of Lancaster, and a great granddaughter of King Henry III. Born about 1310 she lived until 1377.

Maud married first the Earl of Ulster, and, after his murder, Sir Robert Ufford, from a prominent Suffolk family, and an important English administrator in the Lordship of Ireland. After his death she returned to England and entered the house of Augustinian Canonesses at Campsey in eastern Suffolk, which was the Ufford family monastery. Subsequently she became a Poor Clare at Bruisyard Abbey, which she was instrumental in establishing. 

Her daughter from her first marriage, Elizabeth de Burgh, married Lionel of Antwerp, son of King Edward III, and the first Duke of Clarence.

Wikipedia has a quite detailed biography of Maud at Maud of Lancaster, Countess of Ulster .

It also has an exceptionally detailed account of Campsey at Campsey Priory, and a shorter one of the Poor Clares’ foundation at Bruisyard which can be seen at Bruisyard Abbey

The ITV report can be seen at Medieval gold ring found in field could fetch £12,000    

The Belfast Telegraph  also reported on the discovery, doubtless be cause of the Countess’ links to the medieval Ulster earldom, at Medieval gold ring discovered on April Fool’s Day to be sold at auction

The Tallinn Cog

The website of The Daily Galaxy recently had an article about the later fourteenth century ship which was discovered during construction work in the Estonian capital, Tallinn. I think I have written before about this discovery, but this new article is a more comprehensive account than those previously available.

 

The timber from which the vessel was constructed was felled in two stages, in 1370-72, and in 1373-74. The article does not refer to any time for the wood to season. The sizeable ship, a cog, appears to have foundered quite early in its career in the harbour area of Tallinn, with tge discovery of personal effects suggesting that the crew abandoning ship in haste.

The illustrated article can be seen at Construction Workers Digging for a New Building Found a 24.5-Meter Medieval Ship Buried Beneath the Street for 650 Years

There is more about the dry compass in an article from a 2023 article from the magazine LBV which can be seen at Archaeologists Discover Oldest Dry Compass in Europe from Wreck of Medieval Ship in Estonia

 Tallinn 

The walled city has preserved much of its architectural heritage from the medieval period 

Image: traveler.ee

“Little gentlemen in black velvet” aiding Belgian archaeologists

Archeonews recently reported on an unusual source of assistance in an investigation of the area around Damme in West Flanders. In the medieval centuries the area had supported a number of substantial fortified houses which have completely disappeared above ground. Modern technology can indicate potential sites but this information can only go so far without excavating, which poses its own difficulties.

This where the “little gentlemen” come into the research. As they tunnel away they, of course, create mole hills.  Much beloved by gardeners wanting soil of a fine tilth, such field supplies can also, on sites such as this in Belgium, yield archaeological material which when analysed can indicate building materials and evidence of human occupation.

 

Mole doing his spring cleaning from

The Wind in the Willows

 

Image: cassus-vas.blogspot.com

 The article can be seen at 800-Year-Old Medieval Structure Discovered in Belgium with Help from Moles

For the uninitiated the version usually known today refers to a mole, the subject of the Jacobite toast to “the little gentleman in black velvet”, but other sources give “the little gentleman in the back velvet waistcoat” whose molehill caused the horse of King William III to stumble, the King to fall, break his collar bone, develop pneumonia, and die, in 1702.

 

Gives you paws, or claws, for thought.

He died with his boots on

I came upon an online post from X which linked to an article from Archaeo - Histories. The subject matter is about a skeleton discovered during the excavation of the Thames Tideway Tunnel. It probably dates from the late fifteenth century and is that of a man, probably in his early thirties, who met with what appears to have been an accidental death on the Thames foreshore. 

The remarkable thing is that significant portions of the long leather boots the man was wearing have survived in the mud. 

Modern anatomical archaeology reveals much about the man, his health, and his life. Further research in his remains should reveal where he grew up and other aspects of his life. It is not clear if he was a mariner or a landlubber, but his seemingly hard life is still revealed to a surprising extent, and that enriches our knowledge of life at the time. 

The post can be seen at Archaeo - Histories (@archeohistories)

 

The Thames below the Tower of London in the sixteenth century.

This was the probable area in which the man spent much of his life. A nineteenth century engraving based on Antony van de Wyngaerde’s drawing of London in the 1540s

Image: Wikisource

The changing coastline at Cromer

A regular reader of this blog recently, and very kindly, sent me the link to an article in the Daily Mail about a significant underwater archaeological survey at Cromer on the north Norfolk coast. 

Cromer from the present beach

Image: The Guardian

Cromer today sits on low cliffs above the beach with Georgian houses clustered around its fine late medieval parish church, together with Edwardian features such as an elegant pier from its time as a genteel resort.

However, as  the article explains, the coastline has retreated significantly in historic time, and the underwater survey has revealed remains of what was once the northern extension of the town. This was Shipden which was clearly flourishing in the time of the Domesday Survey but which gradually declined in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. A major storm in January 1362 may have hastened its disappearance, although in 1390 there seem to have been moves to stabilise the coast.

The eastern coast of England from Flamborough Head to the Solent has witnessed significant coastal erosion over the centuries, and it is a continuous process. News reports quite frequently cover this, notably these days at the north-eastern tip of Norfolk. 

Soft clays and winter tidal surges have eroded the coastline, but also created new features such as Sunk Island on the north shore of the Humber, Orford Ness and Dungeness. Islands which appear to have still existed off the Lincolnshire coast in the early thirteenth century were subsequently washed away, but the Isle of Thanet has become physically attached to Kent. 

  

Numerous Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk villages have been lost to the sea, most notably Dunwich, and half of Aldeburgh, in Suffolk.

I think that at Dunwich similar surveys have picked up street patterns and church sites.

The article about the investigation can be read at Diver explores lost British town under sea that vanished 700 years ago

The work is also reported upon I find by Heritage Daily   at Divers investigate submerged medieval town lost beneath the North Sea

The St Etheldreda panels

The other day I attended online a lunchtime lecture at the Society of Antiquaries about the recent work to stabilise the St Etheldreda panels which are amongst the Society’s treasures.    

 

    

The St Etheldreda Panels 

Image: Instagram

Painted about 1455 for the shrine of St Etheldreda in Ely Cathedral the two panels are a virtually unique survival of such works from before the waves of iconoclasm of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

These panels survived because someone in Ely used them as cupboard doors until an antiquarian discovered them in the late eighteenth century. He acquired them and eventually bequeathed them to the Society of Antiquaries in the early nineteenth century. 

Since then they have had several restorations. This latest project was designed to make them secure to travel to display in Norwich in an exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre. The work did not involve a full cleaning and restoration, but as the speakers explain in the presentation, the panels are now in a fit state for that if it is decided upon at a future date.

The set of talks about the paintings and the project can be viewed online at https://www.youtube.com/live/4e0draY5JDk?si=ZNpF3CImknPsMVFm

King Henry V 640

The current consensus amongst historians of the period is that the future King Henry V was born at 11.22 on the morning of September 16th 1386 at Monmouth Castle. This, therefore, is the 640th anniversary of a birth that was to be far more momentous than his parents could have realised at the time. 

King Henry V

Image:Wikimedia

His father, Henry Earl of Derby, was nineteen and the son and heir of John, Duke of Lancaster, the eldest surviving son of King Edward III. The baby’s mother, Mary, was sixteen or seventeen, and the co-heiress of the last de Bohun Earl of Hereford, Essex and Northampton.

The newborn was thus part of the extended family of King Edward III, and potentially in the line of succession if King Richard II and Queen Anne were to be childless - as indeed they were to be. King Richard occasionally hinted or indicated who his successor in such an eventuality might be but never formally. Amongst the most likely candidates was Duke John, were he to return from Iberia, and then his son Henry, now with an heir, but nothing was formalised. Nevertheless his prospective wealth as Duke of Lancaster together with the de Bohun inheritance and his Plantagenet blood meant that the new baby was destined, if he survived infancy and childhood, for a place in the elite, at the very centre of national life.

Henry and Mary were a well educated, devout couple who enjoyed music and books. Henry was also becoming an established jouster and on the verge of becoming an active political figure safeguarding his family interests in the increasingly fraught circumstances of his cousin King Richard II’s rule whilst his father Duke John was embarking on an attempt to win the throne of Castile and Leon for himself and Henry’s stepmother.

 

Tradition claims that the baby Henry was born in a room over the gatehouse of the castle at Monmouth. I am a little skeptical about this, as it seems an unlikely place for a confinement - which took a long time in the medieval age for a woman of noble status - and that surviving rooms in ruins with historic associations to births and deaths are often later attributions.

The baby was probably baptised in the nearby parish church on the day of his birth or very soon after.

Monmouth as shown by John Speed in 1611

The castle and parish church are centre right, the famous bridge gate over the Monnow at the left

Image: etsy.com

Henry and Mary were an uxorious couple and young Henry was to be followed by three more sons and two daughters before Mary died in childbirth in 1394 aged twenty four. Her widower, despite fathering one illegitimate son, did not remarry until 1403.

Henry of Derby was an absent father for a number of years, attending the Saint-Ingelvert jousts on the border south of Calais and then being on crusade with the Teutonic Knights in 1390, and again in 1392 before crossing central Europe to Venice and going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and returning in 1393. When he arrived at Peterborough Derby had a variety of souvenirs from his travels to show his family, including an ostrich and a hunting cheetah given to him by the King of Cyprus. His own father Duke John was also absent in 1394-5 in Gascony.

The baby probably spent his earliest years with his mother at the home at which she and Derby based themselves at Peterborough. Early in life he was assigned a nurse, Joan Waring, to whom he gave an annuity of £20 for life in 1415. 

 

As he grew he spent time with his formidable maternal grandmother, who lived on to 1419, at her residence of Castle Bytham, of which only substantial earthworks remain, in south-west Lincolnshire. Here he may have had a governess called Mary Hervy.

 

Castle Bytham

Image: picturesofengland.com

There is an account of the castle and its water defences, which misnames the Countess, at Bytham Castle | History & Visiting Information

He also stayed with his paternal grandfather, following his return from Spain in 1389, at Lancastrian castles such as Leicester and Kenilworth. The latter was to become a favourite residence of the future King, where recuperated after his injury at Shrewsbury, and where he was to create a private retreat at the further end of the lake.

A reconstruction of Kenilworth Castle circa 1420

The private retreat built by Kung Henry V can be seen at the top of the image 

Image: English Heritage 

The precise time of the birth was doubtless recorded so that horoscopes could be cast, but if they were one wonders if they predicted the future as it turned out with young Henry becoming Prince of Wales and heir to the throne in 1399, facing the rising of Owain Glyndŵr which, significantly started on Henry’s birthday in 1400, miraculously surviving the battle of Shrewsbury, succeeding his father as monarch, leading and winning the Agincourt campaign, invading France again two years later, conquering Normandy, negotiating the Treaty of Troyes in 1420 and being recognised as Regent and Heir of France, or that he would die just short of his thirty sixth birthday.

King Henry V

Image: Wikipedia 

Investigating Archbishop Hubert Walter’s vestments

Research into medieval silk items from English sources has includes an examination of the remaining material from the dalmatic which formed a part of the vestments in which the body of Archbishop Hubert Walter was apparelled for his burial at Canterbury Cathedral in 1205. The items were discovered when his tomb was opened in 1890.

The investigation is reported upon in a recent account on the medievalists.net website. It can be accessed at Gold Found in Medieval Archbishop’s Silk Garment at Canterbury Cathedral

In 2019 the fabric used in the dalmatic was copied to make the fabric for twelve new copes for use in the cathedral.

There is more about the other vestments from the grave from the Textile Research Centre at Leiden at Vestments of Hubert Walter (1205)

The mitre and episcopal slippers found in the tomb of Archbishop Hubert Walter. The silk uppers of the slippers are decorated with garnets and have amber silk soles.

Image: text-leiden.nl

 

One of the Archbishop’s buskins

Image: Church Times

The mitre from the tomb

Image:praytellblog.com

In addition his crosier and chalice and paten were also in the tomb, and an be seen on display in the cathedral.

The paten from the Archbishop’s tomb

Image: Wikipedia 

Wikipedia has a biography which appears to be cognisant of the latest scholarly opinion of this highly accomplished and influential administrator at Hubert Walter

I was surprised when reading it to discover that Hubert Walter, whom I had always envisioned as an elder statesman, was apparently only about forty five when he died.

 

The tomb of Archbishop Hubert Walter in Canterbury Cathedral

Image:x.com

Medieval external paintings on a German church

Medievalists.net has an interesting report on a conservation project at the Friedenskirke, formerly St Nicholas, in Frankfurt on Oder, which is now on the border with Poland.

The work looked at a series of external paintings on what was the eastern gable of the nave and dating to the early fourteenth century, but which were covered up by the taller choir constructed about 1370. Protected by the newer roof they have survived when other similar works elsewhere have been lost. Where there are similar survivals it is hoped that the information gleaned at Frankfurt on Oder can inform similar conservation efforts.

The Friedenkirke-St Nicholas

The higher roof of the choir is clearly visible

Image:HörMat Frankfurt!

  

The illustrated article can be accessed at Lost Medieval Paintings Recreated After 650 Years - Medievalists.net

The church has had a very eventful history and today is externally very much a reconstruction from the Wilhelmine era.

 

There are short, illustrated, accounts at Stadtmarketing Frankfurt (Oder), at Friedenskirche Frankfurt (Frankfurt (Oder)), at Friedenskirche Frankfurt (Frankfurt (Oder))  and at Friedenskirche, Frankfurt (Oder) - Europäische Route der Backsteingotik

Wikipedia has an account, in German, at Friedenskirche (Church of Peace), formerly St. Nicolas Church/Reformed Church Friedenskirche (Frankfurt (Oder))

Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Today is the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. In the Catholic tradition this absorbed the other feast, that of the Invention of the Holy Cross - Invention meaning discovery - which was celebrated on May 3rd infer Pope John XXIII. In the East these two observances are supplemented by a number of other feasts and customs, as is well set out in the Wikipedia article Feast of the Cross

There is a shorter introduction at What Is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross?

 

I wrote in 2015 about the feast and linked to some late medieval English depictions in stained glass of the story of the True Cross. Photographed by the late Gordon Plumb these windows at Tattershall and Ashton-under-Lyne are wonderful survivals from the last years of the fifteenth and early years of the sixteenth centuries. That article can be seen at The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

In 2019 the New Liturgical Movement had a good account of the late fourteenth century frescoes dated to 1385-7 by Agnolo Gaddi on the legend of the True Cross on the side walls of the sanctuary of the great Franciscan church of Santa Croce in Florence. This can be accessed at The Legend of the True Cross, by Agnolo Gaddi

 

The sanctuary of Santa Croce 

The Gaddi frescoes are on the flanking north and south walls*

Image: Wikipedia 

*pity about the forward altar

As the author points out these were in part a source and inspiration for the more famous, if sadly damaged, series from 1447-66 by Piero della Francesca for the Franciscan church in Arezzo. These are technically superior to those by Gaddi. I posted about the Arezzo frescoes in The Legend of the True Cross

Santa Croce is one of the great churches of late medieval and Renaissance Florence and Wikipedia has a good account at Santa Croce, Florence

On a more parochial and domestic level Fr William Rock recently had an article on the FSSP website about the traditional forms of blessings for crucifixes in the home and those set up in churchyards or precincts. This can be read at Blessings of Crosses and Crucifixes 

Hail Holy Cross, our help and our hope!

Binnenhof renovation reveals sixteenth century roof pre-fabrication

An insight into construction techniques from the later medieval era has been gained from restoration work at the Binnenhof in The Hague.

The ongoing restoration of the historic complex which houses the Dutch parliament and government offices included the spire over the Torentje - or Little Tower - which was rebuilt by the Emperor Charles V in 1547 with the addition of the spire. The tower now houses the office of the Prime Minister.

When the timbers of the roof were examined Roman numerals were found cut into the timber, indicating the structure had been built elsewhere, the parts numbered, then dismantled and taken to the new tower and reassembled.

The Torentje

Image:tripadvisor.co.uk

The website of Dutch News has an account of the discovery with further details at Roof of PM’s office is original 16th-century flat-plack

The fact that this timber roof was created in this ways leads one to wonder how frequently this method was employed for timber framed church spires or for church and hall roofs in the medieval period.

Re-creating Norman design at Norwich Castle

I have posted previously about the imaginative scheme to re-create early twelfth century interiors in the keep of Norwich Castle. 

 

The Keep of Norwich Castle

Image:tripadvisor.co.uk

This has been accomplished as a part of a major renovation of the twelfth century structure as restored from being the county gaol as a museum which opened in 1894. The collection of artefacts from Norwich and Norfolk is one of the best for medieval items in the country, as well as having material from more recent centuries.

The royal bedchamber at Norwich Castle

Image: norwichcastle.norfolk.gov.uk

In the quest to recreate interiors fit for King Henry I and his court the team conducting the renovation had to rediscover skills and craftsmen that are now uncommon or well-nigh lost.

The making and colouring of the doors is covered in a video here

Making the door furniture in iron and tinning it can be seen here

 

The painting of the walls and architectural features is shown here

Creating reconstructions of the furniture is shown here

With the current exhibition of the Bayeux Tapestry in London the work done at Norwich gives an added insight into the cultural context of such a textile - and, as can be seen in the photograph above, an embroidery of similar scale and design has been re-created for the royal bedchamber at Norwich.

Investigating and restoring the tomb of the Emperor Otto the Great

The Medieval Histories website has had two recent articles about the archaeological investigation and conservation of the tomb of the Emperor Otto I - the Great - in Magdeburg Cathedral. 

The seal of the Emperor Otto I

Image: Wikipedia 

The work has meant that the bones of the Emperor, who died in 973, could be studied and preserved for the future and his tomb chest, which is apparently from the time immediately after his death, has been stabilised and rebuilt.

The Emperor, whose first wife was a member of the House of Wessex as the daughter of King Edward the Elder, revived in 962 the dormant position of Holy Roman Emperor after its time of abeyance under the later Carolingians. Not only did he link the Imperial title to the kingship of Germany, which survived until 1806, but he is in many ways the creator of the medieval Empire, based on the precedent of Charlemagne. His descendants, referred to as the Ottonians, held the Imperial title until 1024.

Wikipedia has a biography of him at Otto the Great

The articles about the tomb and the skeleton can be seen at The Restoration of the Tomb and Reburial of Otto the Great and at Did Otto the Great Die from a Stroke?

The present thirteenth to early sixteenth century cathedral is described in considerable detail by Wikipedia at Magdeburg Cathedral

  

There is more about the history and building of the cathedral, and also information about the examination in recent years of the bones of Otto’s beloved first Queen, Eadgyth of England, which are also buried in the cathedral, at Magdeburg Cathedral

The Emperor’s death at Whitsuntide coincided, quite coincidentally, with the coronation that same Whit Sunday at Bath of King Edgar, who was Eadgyth’s nephew, and was followed fourteen years later by the elevation of the Capetians to the French throne - momentous years in the development of medieval national monarchies.

The Funeral of King Harald V

 

Yesterday witnessed the funeral in Oslo of King Harald V of Norway. I was able to watch the NRK coverage of the day through the BBC.

The full video from The Royal Family Channel can be seen at 🔎 king harald funeral or from the BBC at Funeral held for Norway's King Harald V in Oslo 

The cortège passes in front of the King and Royal Family

Image: The Royal Watcher

It was an extremely dignified and impressive occasion, with thousands lining the streets along which the procession passed from the Royal Palace to the Cathedral and then to the Akershus fortress for the commital ceremony.

The number of members of other royal houses who attended as well as other elected heads of state and leaders of governments was a tribute to the respect and affection in which the late King was held by many nations, as well as by the inter-related royal houses of Europe, and others from further afield.

Two things struck me from a British standpoint. The first is the strange convention at British monarchs do not attend the funerals of their fellow sovereigns. Before the mid nineteenth century this would have been rarely feasible for any ruler, but the advent of steam power made travel quicker and easier. I am given to understand that the ‘convention’ that British monarchs do not attend was invented by Lord Palmerston, who also disliked Queen Victoria travelling to France on a state visit in case the ‘Citizen King’ gained access to her diplomatic correspondence. Queen Victoria was less likely to attend funerals, but her funeral and that of her son and successor brought four and eight reigning kings to London and Windsor to join the new British monarch in burying their predecessor. The interwar and post war period offered less occasion for change, but when the late Queen did attend the funeral of King Baudouin of The Belgians in 1993 I thought this, in my view, rather outmoded tradition had gone by the way. However yesterday the King was represented by the Prince of Wales, and the ‘convention’ was one more invoked.

The second thought was that the calm and precise Norwegian ceremonial, which does perhaps in part derive from British precedent given the fact that the first ruler of an independent Norway in 1905, King Haakon VII, was married to the youngest daughter of King Edward VII, was reminiscent of the funeral of the late Queen in 2022. This gives the lie to the oft-repeated complacent comment by so-called ‘royal experts’ and ‘royal commentators’ that “no-one does ceremonial for such occasions as we do in Britain”.

Norway yesterday showed their tradition at its best. Other monarchies also have state ceremonies to rival those of the UK. Swedish, Spanish, and Dutch ceremonial is just as impressive when deployed on the appropriate occasions. Those who describe the Dutch monarch as “bicycling” should look at film of the opening of the States General or, even more remarkable, the funerals of their former Queens.

Looking at film of the Norwegian royal funerals of 1954, 1957, and 1991 it was clear that the form and ceremony was identical. There is clearly a well established culture of maintaining the correct ceremonial tradition in the Norwegian royal household and in the military.

The website Scandinavian Royalty has a video of the

Norwegian royal family greeting their guests from other royal houses at the Royal Palace following the funeral. This is rather unusual to see members of these families behind the scenes, as well as being entertaining and illuminating in its ‘body language’ and can be viewed at Scandinavian Royalty

At the time of the King’s death I linked to a very interesting post from The Antiquary about the burials of Kings of Norway in the medieval era and also about the creation after 1938 of the funeral chapel at Akershus. It can be accessed at The Antiquary

The Nativity of the Virgin Mary

Today is the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady.

The Nativity of Our Lady

Giotto

Image:Wikipedia 

OnePeter5 has an article about the history of the feast and various customs traditionally associated with it. Most of these relate to the agricultural calendar of farming communities, and the fact that this day in early September was a convenient marker within the annual round.

The article can be read at Forgotten Customs of Our Lady’s Nativity

The Nativity of the Virgin

Andrea di Bartolo 

A Sienese artist active from 1389 until his death in 1428. This work, part of a larger composition, is dated to 1400-1405

National Gallery of Art, Washington 

Image: nga.gov

Both of these paintings, like others of the same subject, include vignettes of late medieval domestic life from the society which commissioned and created them - in this case central Italy.

 May Our Lady,

together with St Anne and St Joachim,

pray for us

Oriel visits the Vatican

Yesterday, the Pope received in audience in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican a delegation of members of Oriel College, led by the Provost, Lord Mendoza.

The Pope and the Provost

Image: oriel.ox.ac.uk 

The occasion was to mark two significant events. The first is that this year Oriel - the House of  Blessed Mary to Virgin in Oxford, to give its full name - is celebrating its seven hundredth anniversary of foundation by King Edward II in 1326. In July it welcomed that monarch’s 21x great grandson in the person of King Charles III who is the Visitor of the College, and there have been a variety of celebrations throughout the year.

The second event is closely bound up with the history of Oriel, and the man who is its most famous Fellow, St John Henry Newman, the Pope proclaimed a Doctor of the Church and co-patron of Education last year.

St John Henry Newman as a Fellow of Oriel 

1822-1845

Image: Venerable English College

In his address to his visitors the Pope urged Oriel to rediscover the Catholic roots of the foundation, and to follow St John Henry in pursuing truth courageously and to see education as the formation of the whole person.

The Oriel College website reports on the visit with quotations from the Provost’s address at Provost leads delegation to meet Pope at Vatican

Vatican News has more of the Pope’s address 

at Pope to Oxford’s Oriel College: Seek truth, promote integral anthropology

His Holiness’ points are good and apposite, and will in my opinion, hopefully fall on fertile ground. My experience of Oriel was that those three factors were there and perhaps more so than in some, maybe many, other colleges in Oxford. Let us hope Papal encouragement will lead to positive growth in these matters.

May Our Lady continue to pray for Her House in Oxford and all Orielenses

Floreat Oriel!

The Battle of Worcester 1651

Today is the 375th anniversary of the battle of Worcester in 1651, and the city and reenactment groups are holding a series of events to commemorate the anniversary.

Worcester Cathedral from the site of Fort Royal with the modern memorial to the battle in the foreground 

Image: tripadvisor.co.uk

Wikipedia has an account of the battle at Battle of Worcester. Although it gives a good narrative of the events the references indicate that its sources are in many cases about a century old and it is perhaps in need of some revision.

The Fugitive King has a similar narrative, but presented with a more modern slant and far more illustrations. It can be accessed at The Battle of Worcester

Wikipedia has a biography of the most prominent Royalist fatality from the battle, the second Duke of Hamilton, which includes the text of his farewell letter to his wife written from the Commandery in the city, a building which still survives. The article can be seen at 

 William Hamilton, 2nd Duke of Hamilton. His grave is marked by a plaque in the choir of the cathedral.

  

Following the battle King Charles II fled, very much as his great nephew Prince Charles Edward did after Culloden almost a century later. Ensuring the survival of the claimant was of paramount concern to safeguard their cause.

King Charles II in armour

Probably painted shortly after his flight to France in October 1651

Image: app.fta.art

Following a circuitous route, and many close shaves, the King finally sailed to France from Shoreham in Sussex on October 15th.

Wikipedia has a good, illustrated, account at Escape of Charles II and also a biography of the King’s most famous helper in his escape at Jane Lane, Lady Fisher

The museum at Shaftesbury in Dorset has an account of the King’s journey which can be accessed at Escape or Die 1651 - Charles II the Most Wanted Man - Gold Hill Museum

King Charles II

Miniature by David des Granges from the time of the King’s accession 

Image: wikiart