Pagan carving from an Irish bog

Live Science has a report about the discovery in a peat bog in Roscommon of a very late pagan idol or statue that appears to only just pre-date St Patrick’s conversion of Ireland. I suppose, given its date they could even overlap as such processes take time.

The eight foot high oak figure had been deliberately cut in two and committed, presumably in a ritual way, to the bog, which was clearly a place of devotion for the people of the area. It appears likely that it was associated with a local centre of traditional lordship.

The report can be read at 8-foot-tall pagan idol unearthed in Irish bog

Shoe size for Sr Buonarroti

Live Science has an article about a pair of shoes and one slipper that are traditionally believed to have belonged to Michelangelo. Researchers have now investigated what they might reveal about his height. If they are correct he was not tall even, I imagine, by sixteenth century standards. 

I will say am always wary of statements about average height in past centuries. When presented as if the rise in human height was or is expedential ( as it does seem to have been in the twentieth century ) then everyone would have been the size of a garden gnome at some point within historic time…..  Many factors came into play in terms of health in infancy and childhood, nutrition, living conditions, social background and such like. There is evidence to suggest the process may have seen a decline at certain stages, such as the earlier phases of the Industrial Revolution. At the time of the American Revolution the average rebel colonial was taller than the British troops they faced. A few years later in France it has been suggested that the aristos were a head taller than the peasantry before the guillotine reduced the height of not a few…

That all said the notion of a five foot two Michelangelo Buonarroti snarling at his patrons and rivals does perhaps make sense. A vertically challenged genius might well have the edginess that was part of his makeup.

The article can be read at Artistic giant Michelangelo was actually quite short

Afghanistan and its Monarchy

The recent events in Afghanistan have clearly revealed the failings in western policy as to the governance of that unfortunate country over the last twenty years. One of those failings, indeed a crucial one, was and is, in my opinion, the failure to restore the monarchy. A friend who has a similar set of views to myself has sent me the following article from The Critic about that failure. It can be read at thecritic.co.uk/could-monarchy-have-saved-afghanistan/?

Having written and posted this article I subsequently came across an online opinion piece article from The Independent which is not only a scorching indictment of current US policy but also discusses the failure to restore King Zahir Shah. It can be read at Afghans are paying the price for the hatred and regrets of one man

In defence of Latin Lections at Mass

Rorate Caeli has an excellent article by Peter Kwasniewski which sets out the wide range of reasons for retaining the use of Latin for the lections at Mass in the usus antiquior or TLM. 

It is a slight revision of an article he wrote some years ago, but now reissued with the added urgency necessitated by the threat to traditional usage posed by Traditionis Custodes. However the article, as one might indeed expect from so articulate and informed a commentator as Dr Kwasniewski, has much more to it than just a defence of Latin for the lections but touches on many other aspects of the mystical integrity of the Mass, linking believers across time and space in a metaphysical quest for the things of God.

The article, which I do recommend, can be read at In Defense of Preserving Readings in Latin

St Giles

Today is the feast day of St Giles. Here in Oxford that means the countdown to St Giles Fair, which is held on the Monday and Tuesday following the Sunday after St Giles Day, has begun.

My own link with St Giles is lifelong as I was baptised in the church dedicated to him in my home town of Pontefract and it was there that for several years I served as Parish Clerk. In those years I was able to supports efforts by the then Vicar to encourage awareness of St Giles as our patron and I gave some images of him - framed copies of two panels by the ‘Master of St Giles’ of about 1500 from a regrettably now-dismantled and dispersed reredos and also of a fourteenth century stained glass figure of the saint in the choir clerestory at Wells.

The Mass of St Giles

Image: Wikimedia

The painting by the Master of St Giles of the Mass of St Giles, now in the National Gallery, is described and discussed on the Web Gallery of Art at The Mass of St Gilles by MASTER of Saint Gilles

Looking on the Internet today I came across a piece about him on the V&A blog which reproduces several medieval images and, despite an occasionally clunky style, gives an outline of the story of the saint. It can be seen at St. Giles • V&A Blog

There is a quite lengthy account of his life, legend and veneration from Wikipedia at Saint Giles

St Giles Pray for us

An Orwellian vision of the Church

Rorate Caeli has another trenchant article about Traditionis Custodes and what it signifies. It is by Fr Michael Fiedrowicz, an scknowledged German expert on the liturgy who is a Professor at the University of Trier.

The article, which I urge my readers to look at and to read, can be found at Dr. Michael Fiedrowicz on Traditionis Custodes: “Frighteningly reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984”

La Tonacella Per Novizi

The Liturgical Arts Journal has a very interesting piece about the Franciscans of La Verna in Tuscany and their use of the distinctive Tonacella Per Novizi, which is that just the orphreys of the tunicle are worn by the novices of the Order at High Mass, rather than a complete tunicle. The Lyons Rite has a similar tradition.

I think I posted about this some years ago and linked to a post on the New Liturgical Movement but the photographs are I think clearer in this new post. It can be seen at Liturgical Curiosities: The Franciscan Tonacella Per Novizi at La Verna and the Orfroi of the Rite of Lyon

There is another example of a tonacells in the succeeding article on the site about the very splendid Pentecost vestments at La Verna which date from 1574. That article can be viewed at The 1574 Pentecost Vestments of the Franciscan Shrine of La Verna

Looking at the photographs the flames of the Holy Spirit embroidered on the vestments are very similar in style to this on the robes of the Order of the Holy Ghost in France. This was founded just four years later by King Henry III. Whilst there is doubtless no direct connection it does indicate a shared tradition of how to depict the flames of the Holy Spirit at the time.

A twelfth century hauberk from Ireland

The Epoch Times has a story in its online edition which ties in very nicely with my recent post Arms and armour videos VI: A Twelfth Century Knight

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The article reports on the remarkable discovery of a complete twelfth century mail hauberk in Longford which had survived because it had been preserved by the peat in which it was discovered. Although it might pre-date the Normans in Ireland it seems likely that it dates from the years after 1172 when they arrived in Longford. It is now in the care of the National Museum of Ireland.

The illustrated article can be read at 800-year-old medieval chain mail vest from Norman period discovered in Longford Ireland