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Inventing History : forgery: a great British tradition (British History)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Who was Osbert of Clare? Just asking ....

Osbert of Clare (died in or after 1158) was a monk, elected prior of Westminster Abbey and briefly abbot. He was a prolific writer of letters, a hagiographer and a forger of charters.


I don't want to reinvent a trail. Has anybody else looked at Osbern, Osbert whilst looking at Charter forgeries?
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Mick Harper
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This sounds faintly familiar and completely bogus but other than that... it may be something to do with the Becket cult and the need to rewrite Canterbury history. Or the anti-Becket government in London needing to rewrite Canterbury history. Or Normans v Angevins. Tudors v Rome for that matter. Or completely genuine, mustn't forget that. This bit intrigued me

Dunstan was skilled in "making a picture and forming letters", as were other clergy of his age who reached senior rank

because it makes no sense. Scribes and illustrators were (are) very low down the pecking order at any time in history. "Ooh, that's a nice cursive capital, you can be Archbishop of York."
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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It's feast day for St Boniface coming up on 5th June. I cannot remember what ME had to say, so googled, and then cofused myself somewhat, as I was suddenly looking at an image of Thomas Becket being murdered by knights.

Only it wasn't. It was St Boniface

The Benedictines are a funny old lot. They have a thing about the letter B

Don't believe me?

Benet Biscop, was one of the first founders of Benedictine monasticism in England. He changed his name from Witizia in honour of Benedict, but there is more........

Anglo Saxon England is famous for two other busy bees. the cloistered Venerable Bede (673-735), and the energetic missionary martyr monk, St Boniface (c.675-754). We use Anno Domini as did they, well, that is if they actually existed....

You will notice Benedict, Bene, Boni and Bede

You might also notice that Bede and Boniface are two sides of the same coin.

Bede passed almost the whole of his life within a monastery, and became the model of monastic stability and learning.
Bede wrote:

‘amid the observance of monastic discipline and the daily charge of singing in the church, my delight has always been in learning, teaching and writing.’


Bede as we know is origin of English History, the ‘gens anglorum’, he records how we the Anglish became unified in belief of Christ. He is always there in his scriptorium hunched over a manuscript.....He represents the dedicated recording function within the small confined (cloistered) safe space.

Boniface, on the other side of the coin, is the preaching, missionary monk. He is the origin model of an Anglo Saxon missionary sent out to convert the heathen. He travels widely in dangerous foreign pagan spaces. He will become a matyr killed by pagan knights. The saint holds a Gospel Book in self-defence, the pagan sword pierces the pages, he dies.

Bit like Thomas Becket no?

These Bede Boniface stories are circular, in time and space. One monk records, one acts. The B either works as a functional mnemonic or, whoops, leads you to a false trail.

Two monks, similar dates, opposite sides of same coin?
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Mick Harper
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This is, as you say, remarkable. Or nothing at all. We could do with more.

Bede can be disposed of by the simple expedient of pointing out there is no archaeological evidence of a Dark Age anything at Jarrow and there must be if there was. Biscop is dealt with somewhere, Hatty will know. The Benedictines are best summed up by this (lengthy, I'm afraid) passage from RevHist

----------------

Just what the Benedictines were looking for. Medieval pilgrims were tourists in all but name and the tourist industry has the same imperatives whichever century it is operating in. Brand recognition being the main one, and there was no bigger name in the medieval pilgrim trade than the Benedictines. After visiting the Benedictine monastery at Llantwit Major, pilgrims could kill two birds with one stone by taking in the Benedictine monastery at Caldey as part of the package

Samson later sought a greater austerity than his school provided, and so moved to Llantwit’s daughter house, the island monastery of Caldey off the coast of Dafyd (Pembrokeshire), where he became abbot after the death of Pyr. Samson abstained from alcohol – unlike Pyr, who was killed when he fell down a well while drunk.

Two birds, one stoned. After this double-header, pilgrims looking for a more ambitious challenge might consider the ‘Samson on Tour’ Tour, as set out in the Benedictine brochure

As a cenobitic and later an eremitic monk, he travelled from Caldey to Ireland, where he is said to have founded or revived a monastery. Later he travelled to Cornwall (where he founded a community in either South Hill or Golant), then the Scilly Isles (where the island of Samson is named after him), Guernsey where he is the Patron Saint and Brittany, where he founded the monastery of Dol. He was buried with his cousin Magloire in the cathedral of Dol.

Pilgrims who make it as far as the Benedictine monastery at Dol can take advantage of another two-for-one

Saint-Magloire Abbey in Léhon was founded in the 9th century by the King of Brittany. Burned by the Normans, the abbey was rebuilt in the 12th century

by the Benedictines. On their way home English pilgrims can round off their Samson Grand Tour with an overnight stay at this royally-endorsed Benedictine monastery

The Anglo-Saxon King Athelstan (r. 924–939) obtained several relics of Samson, including an arm and a crozier, which he deposited at his monastery at Milton Abbas in Dorset.

And all thanks to Samson and Llantwit Major.
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Ishmael


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Mick Harper wrote:
This is, as you say, remarkable. Or nothing at all. We could do with more.


I've got a parcel full of these.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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We could do with more.


Just as you ask.

Bede in his scriptorium= Jerome in his study

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/336229

It is the instantly recognisable image of the scholastic monk.

Before and after we had something called the library.

https://www.history.com/news/8-impressive-ancient-libraries
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Mick Harper
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Bede in his scriptorium= Jerome in his study
It is the instantly recognisable image of the scholastic monk.


That's why we used this image for the front cover


Before and after we had something called the library.

One day we gonna have to get to grips with these 'libraries'. They all go up in smoke (o.n.o.) but a few items always get saved from the fiery furnace so they can pop up later in 'the sources' or in 'the auction house'. It's not so much that I have a rooted objection to ancient libraries -- manuscripts are both useful and expensive, so making a collection of them is only to be expected -- just the value-added aspect.
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Wile E. Coyote


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The scholastic monk only exists in safe Christian spaces, you simply could not have a monk attending a library in antiquity, and selecting an Ovid.
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Mick Harper
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Oh yes you would. He'd put it straight on the fire.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Mick Harper wrote:
Oh yes you would. He'd put it straight on the fire.


There is no need to. The Ovid book exists in a distinct non Christian space. It is not an existential threat.

The books you need to burn are the dangerous books that claim to be Christian, but are false readings. That is why it is so important to "create" and "record" the correct Bible, charters and so on. I don't see any need to burn the rest, why would an ancient monk see an Ovid that most people can't read as a threat?
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Mick Harper
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I see what you mean. Like Soviet libraries allowing Galsworthy but not Trotsky.

Orthodoxy says that when the Christians took over the Empire they made short work of classical books and temples. But I suppose they were direct competitors at the time. Even so, Christians did not go out of their way to preserve Classical works. That was, says ortho, down to Muslims in Spain and elsewhere. Until the Renaissance when, despite the Church being in a positive frenzy about the danger of all new/old knowledge, Classical tomes came bursting out of the woodwork from all directions.

"Look, there's a Vitruvius. After it!"
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
I see what you mean. Like Soviet libraries allowing Galsworthy but not Trotsky.

Orthodoxy says that that when the Christians took over the Empire they made short work of classical books and temples. But I suppose they were direct competitors at the time.


Yes, if the Christians hadn't managed to battle through a couple of centuries of persecutions, crucifixions and so on, to offer a bit of competition on the state religion front, then the Romans (and the rest of the empire) might have been stuck with polytheism/paganism and the "olde" Romans "ab urbe condita" dating system.
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Hatty
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The provenance of works by various 'Classical' authors nearly always ends, or begins, with some pope or other having commissioned it. Or a bishop. Lower down the literary scale it's a similar trajectory with many saints' lives.

Most of those works are said by historians to have 'come down to us' via (no longer extant) libraries of yore, presented as a bridge between Latin and Greek culture and later generations of (educated) folk.
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Wile E. Coyote


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In my view (I am on my own), Augustus, son of a god (Ceasor), creator of the Pax Romana = St Augustine, worshipper of the Christ (son of God) who died for us so that we could later have Peace on Earth.

They existed however in distinct spaces not times, so you have an ortho imaginary later Dark Age (thank you, Augustine) or mythic Golden early classic age (thank you, Augustus).

Two sides, one coin. In Wiley's view, the Roman bit of, say London, Augusta, exists at the same time as Lundenwic. That is why it's across the bridge rather than over the top of the ortho Roman stuff, and you have Saxons deciding not to use the enclosed walls before much later realising it was a good idea to defend against Wic/Vik (sic) raids.

We only think of the dark age bit as later as change occurs first in the dark industrial trading bits, before the timeless countryside stuff catches up. Cities and Ports first.

It seems obvious to me that it happened like this. Can't prove it though.
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Mick Harper
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It seems obvious to me that it happened like this. Can't prove it though.

So how does your brain account for this? I am perfectly aware that familiarity seems like proof -- that's the way all human brains operate -- but when it's you that is solely responsible it would seem to be a different mechanism. I'm not aware of anything I believe that I arrived at under my own steam not being proveable. Even if the standard of proof may be a little on the down side.
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