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Meetings with Remarkable Forgeries (British History)
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Hatty
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Written probably in Africa, to judge by the script of one of the two hands though the other is manifestly trained in the Italian manner. African origin is supported by W. M. Green's brilliant hypothesis that the volume was produced at Hippo in the author's early episcopacy. This renders it one of the most precious in the entire CLA series.

Books from North Africa are claimed to be among the oldest surviving books

the development of book-production and writing among the earliest English speakers owed a huge debt to African book-making practices, scripts, and texts. .... Such objects include the oldest surviving book known to have been owned by English speakers: a manuscript that was made in Africa.

And they have a new world record -- the letters of Bishop Cyprian, except it isn't a book, it's just a few fragments

These fragments are all that survive of a book written in North Africa in the late fourth century. They preserve part of a collection of letters written by Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who was martyred in 258.

The provenance is speculative to put it kindly...

There is good evidence that this manuscript of Cyprian’s letters had reached Anglo-Saxon England by the eighth century. It is tempting to link the importation of this copy with the journey of Abbot Hadrian to Canterbury in 669. Described by Bede as vir natione Afir (‘a man of African birth’), Hadrian could have carried a book such as this from Rome for use in the school that he and Archbishop Theodore (668–690) established in Canterbury to train priests for the new English Church. The uncial script used in this manuscript is a precursor of the lettering used to write the earliest English charters and books.

...until the fragments are discovered stuffed into a twelfth-century manuscript
This book probably survived intact until the 12th century. At that point, these pages were cut out and reused (together with a page from an Old English Martyrology) as flyleaves for a theological manuscript.

If a "book" containing Cyprian's letters had survived intact, why would it be cut into small bits for waste paper? As archaeologists claim stone fragments 'prove' a building's Anglo-Saxon precedents, so manuscript experts can re-imagine fragments of parchment as a collection of letters.
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Mick Harper
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"Gloria, fetch some paper from the stationery cupboard, would you?"
"We've only got nine hundred year-old fragments left, I'm afraid. There's been a right call for the modern stuff. I blame the Normans."
"Oh, very well."
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Hatty
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An old twitter adversary, Caitlin Green, has opportunely highlighted the North African scenario

A great host of captives? A note on Vikings in Morocco and Africans in early medieval Ireland & Britain

The following short note is based on a narrative preserved in the eleventh-century Fragmentary Annals of Ireland that tells of a Viking raid on Morocco in the 860s. This raid is said to have led to the taking of 'a great host' of North African captives by the Vikings, who then carried them back to Ireland, where they reportedly remained a distinct group—'the black men'—for some considerable period of time after their arrival.

Always fragments, never an original manuscript. Anyway, I didn't know Morocco was a Viking target but checking out the source, the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, on the University of Cork's website it turns out to be the sole copy of a 'now lost' MS and is dated 1643

Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, s. xvii (AD 1643); scribe Dubhaltach Mac Fir Bhisigh; patron John Lynch. Mac Fir Bhisigh copied the text from a vellum MS, now lost, of Giolla na Naomh (alias Nehemias) Mac Aodhagáin, who may have died in 1443.

This vellum MS was in poor condition, partly disbound, and illegible in places when Mac Fir Bhisigh copied it. The surviving text contains annals for the years 573–628, 662–704, 716–35, 851–73, 906–14. It may ultimately derive, at least in part, from annals kept at the monastery of Clonenagh. These annals are not known to have survived in any other manuscript.

To be fair Dr. Green does mention that the annals are C17 but passes swiftly on from fact to folklore

First, the text only survives in five fragments transcribed in the seventeenth century and appears to have its origin in the eleventh century, perhaps being composed during the latter part of the reign of Donnchad of Osraige (r. 1003–39), who was a descendant of the chief hero of the Fragmentary Annals, Cerball mac Dúnlainge of Osraige (r. 842–88).

Caitlin covers her back by warning the Fragmentary Annals are unreliable but seems to believe this is because they are based on 'earlier material', namely a(nother) lost chronicle, also unreliable

Second, the narrative preserved in the Fragmentary Annals not only probably dates from more than a century and a half after the events it purports to describe, but the FA moreover cannot be treated as a simple, reliable chronicle of events. Rather, it appears to be a composite text that derives from a number of pre-existing sources, including a derivative of the lost early to mid-tenth-century ‘Chronicle of Clonmacnoise’, a pseudo-historical narrative concerning the deeds of Cerball, and a handful of other sources including a Hiberno-Norse version of the legend of Ragnarr Loðbrók, with the African expedition believed to have its origins in the latter source.

https://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/09/a-great-host-of-captives.html

One problem with Caitlin's thesis is she references Muslim accounts of raids along the Moroccan coast by Majūs whom she equates with 'Vikings' despite Majus, a Persian word 'of uncertain origin', being a term for Zoroastrians ('magus' in English). She then goes on to discuss three burials (no longer a 'host') of African women, one of which is 'uncertain', as proof that the Viking raiders brought captives back from Morocco to Ireland. Unfortunately for Caitlin all three burials are located in England.
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Mick Harper
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It is bad enough when academic historians break their own rules-of-evidence, but now they appear to have reached the stage of trumpeting how ingeniously they break their own rules. Imagine a Kennedy Conspiracy theorist putting forward a 2015 document that had been copied from a 2011 document now lost which was itself (it is said, because it is now lost) fragmentary and illegible in places and (it has to be assumed) could only be based on an account made many years before but by people who lived many years after the events of 1963. Oh yes and there is no precedent, historically or contemporaneously, of any such event occurring before or since and which is in itself scarcely believable.

But at least the conspiracy theorist's chain of evidence has some theoretical chance of surviving from link to link. You try writing, copying and keeping the mildew out of an annal that records the events of the years 573–628, 662–704, 716–35, 851–73 and 906–14. Anything in them about the Kennedy's, Caitlin? They were Irish. Or so it is said, they are already a somewhat legendary dynasty.
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Mick Harper
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She's At It Again Digging for Britain BBC4

Alice Roberts: Our first dig takes us to the Cotswolds, an area with a rich seam of Anglo-Saxon archaeology, and the name itself is thought to relate to an Anglo-Saxon chieftain called Codd who controlled the high land or wolds, hence Coddswolds.

Actually, Alice, the A/S word for a 'wold' is 'wallop', hence Codswallop. They mostly found Roman stuff and anything that couldn't be identified as Roman must therefore have been Anglo-Saxon.

Alice Roberts: The Saxons converted to Christianity and they built the first monasteries in Britain. In Shaftesbury, Alfred the Great founded an abbey with a nunnery alongside it with his daughter, Aethelgifu, as abbess.

She forgot to mention they couldn't find it, only the usual late(r) medieval one. But we did get another for our list of Anglo-Saxon archaeology-destroyers. Step forward, Henry VIII.

Alice Roberts: Berkeley Anglo-Saxon monastery, eighth century .... since 2005 this project has delivered year after year...

But not the monastery.
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Hatty
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Mick Harper wrote:
Alice Roberts: Berkeley Anglo-Saxon monastery, eighth century .... since 2005 this project has delivered year after year...

But not the monastery.

I'd heard of Berkeley Castle but a Berkeley monastery was a new one on me. Rather damningly, Domesday Book records no provision for any nuns, in fact no church of any kind at Berkeley is recorded in it. This absence may have resulted from a strange foreshadowing of the monastery's sixteenth century fate

The monastery grew to become one of the richest in Gloucestershire before its suppression in the mid eleventh century.

Why it was 'suppressed' and by whom isn't clear but anyway, after ten years of digging, the team found

a possible Anglo-Saxon (boundary) ditch

The reason for archaeologists' conviction that a monastery existed, despite being unable to locate it, rests on the evidence of two ninth-century charters, S 1187 (dated 824, on an 11th century manuscript) and S 218 (dated 883) of which, according to the invaluable Electronic Sawyer, two copies are held by the British Library, the original being lost

MSS:
1. Lost original
2. London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A. XIII, ff. 1-118, ff. 50r-51r (s. xi 1)
3. London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius C. IX, f. 129r (s. xvii; incomplete; from lost original)

In the Comments section two caught my eye

use of word 'bibliotheca' suggests spurious

authenticity and authority of date not yet properly established

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Mick Harper
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Give yourself an Alice-banned.
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Hatty
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The explanation for the absence of Berkeley's early monastery is vague but reassuringly authoritative

Though the evidence for Berkeley minster is sketchy, it follows the common pattern, an ancient community which fell into decay in the tenth century and was revived briefly, only to collapse completely in or soon after the reign of Cnut

'Sketchy' means non-existent. 'Common pattern' is the academic equivalent of Dark Ages which they're no longer allowed to say, but 'decay' is neutral enough to pass. It's apparently OK to write about an 'ancient' community but not give any reason(s) for its presumptive revival /subsequent collapse, neither of which has a direct bearing on the, as yet, undiscovered 'minster'. Still, it all sounds like they know what was going on.

But the problem of absent monasteries can't be always ascribed to decay/collapse so the standard explanation, i.e. the former abbey is under the castle and/or town, is still trotted out.

But we did get another for our list of Anglo-Saxon archaeology-destroyers. Step forward, Henry VIII.

Previous excavations can justifiably be blamed when nothing is found. So if an artefact turns up in a previously excavated site, it might be the first bunch of archaeos were useless or just that some objects inevitably get overlooked. What about 'a very rare Anglo-Saxon gold ring'?

The gold ring is believed to have been found as long ago as the eighteenth century and was first recorded in the castle's collections in 1860. In recent years it has only been shown in public once at an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1972.

'Believed to have been found' shows there is no provenance earlier than 1860. Why the V&A is so coy about displaying the ring isn't clear but it may be a sign of unease

The ring is an exceptional example of goldwork, with intricate filigree work, and four beasts heads with inlaid blue and yellow glass eyes. The quality of the craftsmanship places it as one of the finest pieces from the Anglo-Saxon period.

Professor Horton hasn't found a ninth-century monastery yet but is sure the ring dates to the 'early part of the ninth century' because of its unknown findspot!

“Our finds from the excavations now provide a firm context for the ring. They suggest that the monastery lay below the castle and town, and that the ring was mostly likely owned by an abbot or abbess of extremely high status,” Professor Horton explained.

“Unfortunately, the castle’s records do not include evidence as to where the ring was found but maybe one day we will be able to find the exact spot. Meanwhile, it is tangible evidence for the exceptional skill of Anglo-Saxon metalworkers and the wealth and prosperity of Berkeley during the early ninth century.”
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Mick Harper
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records do not include evidence as to where the ring was found but maybe one day we will be able to find the exact spot

"OK, everybody, be on the lookout for a ring-sized cavity in the ... er ... post-Roman layer."
"And some finger marks."
"Why so?"
"Well somebody dug it up in the eighteenth century, didn't they?"
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Mick Harper
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An interesting case of academic careful ignoral occurred the other day. Somebody ignoring themselves! As you may know by now, it is Hatty's and my contention that all the Irish saints are made up and used, among other things, to give spurious longevity to what are in fact quite late medieval monasteries.

On the continent, St Columba is the one most used but St Columbanus runs him a close second. (Church forgers are not very imaginative.) Accordingly celebrations of these saints are a fecund source of enjoyable argy-bargy with academic medievalists who tend to rely on the accounts of the doings of these fictional characters when writing their officially non-fictional accounts of the Dark Ages (what they call the Early Middle Ages). Consider this

On this day 615: Irish saint Columbanus died at the monastery at Bobbio in the Apennines of northern Italy, which he founded. His body has been preserved in the abbey church at Bobbio, and many miracles are said to have been wrought there through his intercession.

Bobbio is a special interest of ours since it is a forgery factory ("the Durham of the south") and this claim led to some Applied Epistemological objections (from you-know-who) whereupon...
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Mick Harper
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Hatty's interlocutor made the following apparent statements of fact in the course of twenty-or-so exchanges

It [Columbanus' body] would have been interred originally and then translated to its current shrine as was extremely common for most saints.

He was interred elsewhere. Then translated to his tomb here [the present abbey church at Bobbio]

The remains are contained in sealed caskets. Then reinterred at translation into a new shrine/tomb etc.

His body was buried at Bobbio, in the crypt of the Abbey church underneath the high altar, where his relics still rest, in the tomb.

Hatty had been driving the respected lecturer in early medieval studies from pillar to post pointing out all sorts of implausibilities in this account, but with one bound, the poor soul was free

I was actually talking about the tomb and church. Nothing about Columbanus as a person.
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Mick Harper
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Hatty recently gave what for to Emma Wells, a minor but televisually-endorsed medievalist, but we had to admire her because, almost alone among Hatty's adversaries, she hadn't banned her. Now she has. It all started with this and Hatty's polite request for further and better particulars

Emma: Today is the feast day of St Lucy, whose name means 'light'. She was born in 283AD in Syracuse, Sicily, + killed in 303AD during Roman persecution under Emperor Diocletian. Because her name was associated w/ light, was patron of sight + depicted carrying her eyes in various ways.

Hatty: Could you share your source(s)? The earliest written reference to St Lucy appears to be 'The Golden Legend' published in 1483 by Caxton.

You could almost hear the “Oh no, it’s her again” but to Emma's credit she was going to give Hatty one more chance to see the light

Emma: De Voragine’s Legenda aurea, compiled in c1265, is main derivation (Caxton was its Eng translator). C14 fragmentary pictorial evidence from Italy provides new depiction of Lucy w/ plate holding her eyes thus assumed that a legend recounting her self-blinding evolved at same time
.
A lovely example of slick side-stepping. Hatty is pointing out there is no evidence for the existence of a third century Lucy; Emma thinks it enough to show that a thirteenth century source meets the spec; Hatty will now point out it does no such thing but, as I keep reminding her not to, she will insist on a nasty sign-off

The 'Legenda aurea' was produced a millennium after St Lucy is supposed to have lived. Hardly a contemporaneous record! Is a legend written a thousand years later treated as history by historians?

And gets her comeuppance

Emma: Train to be one + you’ll discover entire process. Any scholar must work w/ evidence they have, make a critical analysis of the documentary accounts + deduce by rigorous comparison w/ other evidence, what are likely conclusions. All evidence is critiqued. That’s being a historian.

Or does she...?
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Mick Harper
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Hatty: The Legenda aurea is late C14, produced for Jeanne de Bourgogne (b. c. 1293, d. 1349). You're probably aware that Lucy's history has "been lost". It seems historians have uncritically accepted this legend 'of unknown origin and uncertain date' regardless of lack of evidence.

In my view, Hatty is making the mistake of going down Emma's rabbit hole but let's see who wins the cat-fight anyway

Emma: It is late C13. It was then translated c.1333-1348 by Jean de Vignay as Legende doree, originally for Jeanne de Bourgogne. Historians are very much aware of what is lost and not.

Oh that they were. But they are not aware that what is not lost has mainly been ‘found’ in order to be served up to them. Emma rounds this off with a fine example of airy dismissal

See Wisch’s work though if you’ve unraveled all of this yourself, by all means cite your own work.

Hatty sticks to her guns which, though Emma hasn’t noticed because of her obsession with who is the expert round here, are much bigger than her own. This often happens because the expert is an expert in the field, Hatty has made herself an expert on the subject in hand. It is the internet that has made AE possible.

Hatty: There are 1,000+ extant copies of the Legenda aurea, all dated later than "late C13", but De Voragine's original MS has gone walkabout. This no doubt explains why "De Voragine's sources have not been identified and thoroughly investigated" by historians who say he used 'dozens'.

Emma: About a thousand copies of the original Latin text alone survive. Manuscripts were copied. Nothing new there. Not even sure what your issue is here.

This is careful ignoral on the grand scale but only made possible because Hatty has made the elementary error of not hammering home that it is the gap between 300 AD and 1200 AD that needs filling, not the gaps post 1200 AD. She continues in this (I think) side show

Hatty: None of these copies are De Voragine's Latin original, assuming it exists. It is advisable to check out the extant manuscripts' provenances. All that can be said is that in the C15 the Legenda was a phenomenal albeit short-lived success, then unread until republished in the C19.

Allowing Emma to remind her whose rabbit hole they're in

Emma: And from where did you derive all of this information? Historians’ scholarship—none of which you seem to think can be relied upon.

Hatty: Not from historians' scholarship. Manuscript details are accessible in clerical listings. History has to derive from primary as opposed to secondary, even tertiary, sources.

Emma: And how have those been made available to you? And from where did the quotation you used earlier derive? The work of historians.

And the ban came clanging down.
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Hatty
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Yes, it was an illuminating exchange while it lasted. There isn't much investigative scholarship around. For instance, the Legenda aurea is attributed to Jacobus de Voragine but nothing is known about him, apart from his presumed authorship of edifying works. The only source of information is from Voragine himself!

...it was the overwhelming medieval success of the Legenda aurea which contributed most to the modern perception of Voragine as a saintly figure, appropriately leading to his beatification by Pope Pius VII in 1816.

Voragine appears to be almost unknown before the nineteenth century and nothing is known of his sources, very remiss in my view considering the missing 1,000+ years between the 'life' of St Lucy and the publication of the Legenda aurea . His name didn't even feature on the frontispiece

The Legenda aurea was translated into English twice: the anonymous prose version of 1438, the Gilte Legende, and Caxton's Golden Legend of 1483.

Voragine [c. 1230 - 1298 or 1299] is said to have been Archbishop of Genoa so presumably there is a record of his tenure but nothing exists of his purported writings

The Legenda aurea is a lengthy work of almost encyclopaedic proportions. It is divided into 182 chapters of varying lengths, most of which describe the lives and miracles of the saints. ... The Legenda aurea has never been properly edited, although several modern editions have been attempted, and as a result, Voragine's sources have not been identified and thoroughly investigated.

So modern historians resorted to 'oral transmission', though claiming oral transmission is robust enough to survive a millennium+ seems a rather desperate assumption.

The French translator Roze, writing in 1902, claimed to locate over 100 different sources, and certainly Voragine appears to have gathered material from dozens of texts, which he usually cites in the body of the Legenda aurea ...he evidently consciously borrowed much of his material verbatim
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Hatty
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Not only is Voragine's original Latin manuscript missing, no original manuscript of the translation from Latin to French exists either

The Bibliothèque nationale of France has a manuscript of the Légende dorée translated by Jean de Vignay

Publication date : 1401-1500. Provenance: Bibliothèque nationale de France (!)

De Vignay, credited as the French translator, is said to have translated ‘at least eleven works from Latin into French’ but, once again, the only source of information about him is himself

Almost the only known details of his life are to be found in several manuscripts of his works

There were six or more translations of the Legenda aurea produced in France but Jean de Vignay is the only named translator. This is perhaps due to his translation being dedicated to the queen of France – at least according to his ‘translator’s preface’

Vignay appears here to be referring to Voragine's Latin original, implying that his translation derives from a prestigious source. ...manuscripts of this text carried the same air of respectability and as a consequence were highly desirable, which would account for the numbers extant.
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