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Megalithic Saints (British History)
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Mick Harper
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As promised, herewith the first part of a chapter on Megalithic saints. It is essentially the story of, as well as the evidence for, the survival of Megalithia in the post-Roman world, and its later culmination in the Norman era.
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Chapter Six: Megalithic Saints

Officially, the Megalithic system finished c 1500 BC because that is the date of the last amendments to Stonehenge. But, as we have seen, we can be reasonably certain that the principles of Megalithia continued after that date with the leylines being increasingly supplemented by actual continuous tracks and the stone-circle means of navigation being replaced by the Hermits, the servants of Hermes. We know this must have been the case in outline because pre-Roman Britain was sufficiently economically developed to be a main exporter of grain to Gaul and hence some means of non-literate long distance navigation must have been present.

We also know that the literate, not to say bureaucratic, Romans abolished the entire Megalithic System, not just by using specialised roads and roadsigns within Britain, but by replacing the Megalithic Atlantic sea-ways by the overland route to link Britain with the Mediterranean. The Druids, the principle operators of the Megalithic Sysem in the Iron Age, were very specifically and very deliberately driven out. So what happened when the Romans left and north-west Europe was once again plunged into widespread non-literacy?
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Hatty
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'Scuse me for interfering but this is not a beginning that would make the reader want to carry on reading the chapter. I vote for returning to the original wording.
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Mick Harper
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Well, I don't agree but here's the original.
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Chapter Six: Megalithic Saints

The obvious question for anyone delving into Britain's so-called Dark Ages, roughly six hundred years from 410 AD when the Romans left to the 1066 Norman Conquest, is how Megalithia survived the Anglo-Saxon occupation. The Megalithic system itself is supposed to have died out c 1500 BC (at least that is the date of the last amendments to Stonehenge) and certainly the Romans used a quite different system so it is more than a bit surprising to find 'Megalithic' saints being featured centuries later. But around 1100 AD there is a new inrush of Megalithic-related oddities--Cistercians, Green Men, Gothic cathedrals, Knights Templar, masons. Nothing can be construed about these goings-on from writing since the only extant records were commissioned by churchmen and are at the very least biased, of uncertain date and clearly not 'history' in the modern sense . Medieval saints' Lives often seem based on little more than stories of the old pagan gods, to the extent that it is doubtful many of them actually existed. One suspects these 'legends' are at least as old if not older than Greek myths, which themselves tend to be versions of stories from further afield, recycled via Greek traders and colonists.
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Hatty
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The British Academy also wants to investigate this period though for some reason architecture seems to have been omitted from the list of cultural achievements.

------

WHY WERE THE MIDDLE AGES 'THE DARK AGES'?
The Middle Ages as a Mirror for Modernity

Thursday, 17 March 2011
6.30pm -- 8.00pm, followed by a drinks reception
British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1

Graham Caie, Professor of English Language at University of Glasgow 'In Conversation' with Dr Chris Jones, University of St Andrews

Far from being the Dark or Middle Ages, the Medieval Period (c.500-1400 AD) was a vibrant and culturally exciting time that changed dramatically from the post-Roman world of Germanic migrations to the later romance culture in the Norman period and beyond. It was an age in which the majority of people were illiterate and so learned aurally and visually. For that reason, it is important to consider the paintings, frescoes, sculpture, drama and music in addition to the written legacy of the period. The issue remains, then, as to why this period was ever characterized as 'The Dark Ages', and a time of ignorance and barbarity.
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Mick Harper
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This is typical academic revisionism. They so can't stand the general population knowing what they know that they start pushing the opposite. The Dark Ages were fantastically dark. And that's all there is to it.
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Ishmael


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Mick Harper wrote:
Officially, the Megalithic system finished c 1500 BC because that is the date of the last amendments to Stonehenge. But, as we have seen, we can be reasonably certain that the principles of Megalithia continued after that date with the leylines being increasingly supplemented by actual continuous tracks and the stone-circle means of navigation being replaced by the Hermits, the servants of Hermes. We know this must have been the case in outline because pre-Roman Britain was sufficiently economically developed to be a main exporter of grain to Gaul and hence some means of non-literate long distance navigation must have been present.

We also know that the literate, not to say bureaucratic, Romans abolished the entire Megalithic System, not just by using specialised roads and roadsigns within Britain, but by replacing the Megalithic Atlantic sea-ways by the overland route to link Britain with the Mediterranean. The Druids, the principle operators of the Megalithic Sysem in the Iron Age, were very specifically and very deliberately driven out. So what happened when the Romans left and north-west Europe was once again plunged into widespread non-literacy?


I don't know any of this.
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Ishmael


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Mick Harper wrote:
This is typical academic revisionism. They so can't stand the general population knowing what they know that they start pushing the opposite. The Dark Ages were fantastically dark. And that's all there is to it.


It just goes to show you can find academics at any given time spouting some shit or other. There's no relationship between the shit and the facts.
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Mick Harper
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No, no, Ishmael, you are quite wrong. There is always a relationship between the shit and the facts. Take the Dark Ages. It is beyond doubt that 400 to 1000 AD is in various respects a lot worse than what came before and what came after. Which means you can do one of two things:
1. Emphasise how much worse it was (the old paradigm)
2. Downplay how much worse it was (the new paradigm).

Every time you read a book or watch a telly programme the academic will say in tones of urgent shock-and-awe, "You all thought the Dark Ages were awful...well, I am here to tell you the amazing fact that they weren't as bad as you thought." The dauntless jackanapes will not mention that this has been the official line now for fifty years and that therefore there isn't anbody in the land who is awed or shocked by the news.

What the listener/reader does do (ordinary people being nearly as stupid as academics) is feel really pleased because... hey, he knew this already whereas the rest of the population is still in the Dark Ages about the Dark Ages.
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Mick Harper
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I don't know any of this.

Then you weren't paying attention to those chapters sent to you last year. But never mind....I want you all to just get swept along by the sheer brio of it all and you surely will when you read about the saints that Hatty has been digging up. They will convert you to Megalithic Christianity.
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Ishmael


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Mick Harper wrote:
Then you weren't paying attention to those chapters sent to you last year. But never mind....I want you all to just get swept along by the sheer brio of it all and you surely will when you read about the saints that Hatty has been digging up. They will convert you to Megalithic Christianity.


No. What I mean is that the things you say we "know", we do not know. When examined, much of that knowledge completely evaporates.

I read the chapters you sent and loved them.
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Ishmael


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Mick Harper wrote:
Which means you can do one of two things:
1. Emphasise how much worse it was (the old paradigm)
2. Downplay how much worse it was (the new paradigm).


Or notice it is an anomaly and proceed to eliminate it.
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Ishmael


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What the listener/reader does do (ordinary people being nearly as stupid as academics) is feel really pleased because... hey, he knew this already whereas the rest of the population is still in the Dark Ages about the Dark Ages.


So very true.
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Hatty
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Not much incentive to sign up for the advertised talk then, it seemed opportune at the time. Equally opportune is the government's latest wheeze to move the May 1st holiday to October to 'boost the economy' as I'm about to do a paragraph on festivals pointing out why socialism hijacked May 1st.

So much for the Big Society. As one MP/historian put it, May Day is associated with "collective belonging".
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Mick Harper
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No. What I mean is that the things you say we "know", we do not know. When examined, much of that knowledge completely evaporates.

Yes, sorry, an editorial infelicity. What I meant was that "we", the readers of the book by dint of the previous chapters, know all this. When writing a radically revisionist book (as opposed to an academically 'revisionist' book) one is constantly using arguments that may or may not have already been conveyed to the reader.

Some of the time one is compelled to use the academic device of authorial authority to thrust the story along without constant recourse to clumsy devices such "as we shall see in Chapter Seven..."

Or notice it is an anomaly and proceed to eliminate it.

Well, you are always more radical than I am. As with left-wing ideologues (and perhaps right wing ones, let us know) there is always the temptation to suppose that being holier-than-thou is the same as being better-than-thou.
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Mick Harper
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Although I am the world's second ranking expert on the True Significance of Mayday, I welcome the change to October. Even as an unemployed drone I got fed up with the constant Bank Holidays between Easter and Whitsun.
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