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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I am not sure how this heartfelt missive ended up on this thread but all I've got to say is that twenty-six years (between 1953 and 1979) is a long time for a cause and an effect. Unless the Iranians are like the Bourbons: learn nothing, forget nothing.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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I was googling after reading Mick's "Purpose of AE" and came across this in the Church Times.
Archaeologists have identified what is believed to be the oldest surviving church in England. It is thought to be the first purpose-built place of Christian worship constructed in Anglo-Saxon England.
The new evidence strongly suggests that the church — the chapel of St Pancras, in Canterbury — was built and consecrated in about 600 by St Augustine, head of the 597 papal mission to Kent, and was subsequently used by him. |
Wow.
| New research, by Professor Ken Dark, of King’s College, London, pinpoints the exact place where Augustine officially re-established public Christian worship in what is now eastern and southern England, after a largely pagan interlude of up to 150 years. It was one of the most important events in the whole of English history. |
Gesonkas.
But we need a little evidence.
There now follows a long ortho historical interlude on the papal mission to Kent....before we start looking at evidence.
| Augustine, arrived in Kent in 597, the only official place of Christian worship appears to have been Queen Bertha’s tiny 20-square-metre private chapel. Its size meant that only about a dozen people could worship there. |
Not good, you could only get in 20 worshippers. Worse, it wasn't really christian.
It had probably been constructed in Roman times (perhaps as a funerary mausoleum, but almost certainly not as a church).
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So Augustine cracked on........"sorry Bertha, love the chapel, but we really need something bespoke"
| Augustine seems to have decided, perhaps almost immediately, to construct a much larger purpose-built church near to it. The archaeological evidence suggests that this new purpose-built structure was built in such a hurry that the architecture itself was relatively unsophisticated, and that speed was so important that they did not even install a proper floor (just beaten earth).That relatively primitive new-build edifice was nevertheless almost six times the size of the Queen’s private place of worship, and was the first Anglo-Saxon building in which normal Christian congregational worship could take place. |
It's the first English Anglo Saxon Church and it has survived, even if in ruinous form!
But, pray tell.... on what is all this based?
Before the new research, most modern scholarship had held that St Pancras had been constructed after the time of St Augustine, but Professor Dark’s reassessment of the archaeological data demonstrates that it was constructed between 597 and 609 (probably about 600).
The Professor’s new date for the church (the first to be based on a full examination of the archaeological evidence) is based on four main pieces of evidence: St Pancras’s substantially different alignment (in relation to the adjacent churches on the site); the unsophisticated nature of the building; the fact that it appears to have been built in a hurry; and the fact that it was abandoned (probably because it was replaced, in 609, by the much larger Church of St Peter and St Paul). |
Oh no. Oh no. It's based on, it's built on, it's not aligned with other buildings, built in a hurry, and abandoned.......err.....despite being built and consecrated by St Augustine. You would need to be an expert to work that one out.
File under, wonderful, whacky, wishful, thinking. Seek and you shall find.
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2022/23-september/news/uk/archaeologists-identify-first-english-church-built-by-st-augustine
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I bet they rename the Early Middle Ages 'the Dark Age' in his honour. How can an archaeologist say
| it was constructed between 597 and 609 (probably about 600) |
without being struck off for ultra vires? There isn't a structure ever built you could be so exact about archaeologically.
He was probably in the audience at King's when Forgeries was auctioned off to much merriment. (And scowls from me and Hatty--it's her old alma mater).
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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We haven't mentioned Beowulf lately and since this is the fons et origo of so much else, I thought I'd offer this choice little item that arrived from Academia.edu this morning
| Ever since the Nowell Codex began to attract serious interest, almost two hundred years ago, scholars have debated the antiquity of its fourth text, referred to since J. M. Kemble’s edition of 1833 as Beowulf. |
Not graced with much antiquity then.
| The question continues to engage Anglo-Saxonists because, as Roy Liuzza points out, it ‘foregrounds the most important questions of Old English poetry – creation and tradition, transmission and reception, context and the limits of interpretation’. |
It might do if only they would pay one tenth of one per cent of their engagement to its authenticity.
| Judging by the wealth of publications in the last thirty or so years we are now further away than ever before from reaching a consensus |
One of the more pungent examples of a red flag.
| save that the poem was composed at some time between the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons and the date of the manuscript. |
I suppose that's actually true.
| Scholars are divided over the significance of the manuscript for the dating of the composition of the poem: |
I bet that won't include any date outside the Anglo-Saxon period.
| while Michael Lapidge and Kevin Kiernan have used the manuscript to argue for eighth and eleventh century composition respectively |
Nope
| R. D. Fulk claims that the manuscript has nothing to tell us about the poem’s date. |
Yup.
| Considerable disagreement has surrounded the interpretation of Neil Ker’s system of dating Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, accepted as standard since the publication of his invaluable Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon in 1957. |
Not perhaps as invaluable as all that then.
| In this paper I hope to clarify some of the issues surrounding Ker’s dating system, and in particular his dating of the Beowulf manuscript |
Yes, but it's not what really interests you, is it?
| before discussing some related questions concerning the literary, historical and political context of the poem’s copying and composition. |
That could be tricky without having nailed down the date but we wish you well. All of you.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Pennant Melangell Churchyard Cross
There are several interesting archaeological features in the Coflein database for this Welsh church: a preaching mound associated with the cult of St Germanus; a 14th century churchyard cross; and the church itself, originally founded in the 7th or 8th century to serve a community of nuns. The church still retains St Melangell's shrine. The Megalithic Portal |
They may be archaeological, they may be in the official database, but that doesn't stop the following being fakes
1. The cult of St Germanus
2. The 14th century cross
3. The church being founded in the 7th or 8th century
4. The community of nuns
5. St Melangell's shrine.
| The octagonal cross shaft is 1.4m high and believed to be 14th century, mounted on a step and topped by a sundial. |
Not sure about the sundial but Welsh ones in churchyards get short shrift in RevHist.
| The Journal of Antiquities includes an entry for this church - see their page for St Melangell’s Church, Pennant Melangell, Powys, Wales, which includes a photograph, a drawing, deatails of the artefacts within the church, local legends and a list of reference sources for more information. |
St Melangell gets a bit of a write-up in The Megalithic Empire. Yes, it was that long ago. Or not very long ago. It all depends how you look at these things.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Yes, it's finally coming home after being (rather mysteriously) delayed by COVID. It will be at the British Museum from September 2026 until July 2027 so get your placards out and join the demo we'll be organising. But already the English guns are coming out.
| Ancient origins wrote: | | The Bayeux Tapestry Tells the Norman Victors' Story - Here's the English Version |
One nice para in their account goes like this:
| Monks at Peterborough Abbey continued making year-by-year additions to their monumental Chronicle of English history (often called the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), written in monasteries across England since the time of King Alfred the Great. |
It's fascinating to consider the logistics of this operation. Every year, the local archivist gets out his Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in order to write up the events of the past year, in virtually identical words to all the other archivists in all the other monasteries. And using last year's ink by the look of it.
Who was responsible for the master entry and then sending copies to all approved copyists, and doing it for three hundred years, has not been recorded. A crying shame. But you can't have everything.
Full story here: https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/norman-conquest-english-perspective-00102807
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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According to the article, Vita Ædwardi Regis (Life of King Edward) is a 'contemporary account' but, surprisingly for such a pivotal figure of English history, there is only one copy of the manuscript, in Harley MS 526, which according to the British Library has a date range of some five centuries
Access to Harley MS 526 seems to be strictly regulated
| Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript |
It's not on the shelves but is accorded a 'legal status'
Not Public Record(s)
Provenance: 17th century
Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary: he inscribed 'Edit' per Henricum Canisium in Antiquis Lectionibus: sed vetustissimum hoc exemplar et optimi usus' (f. 27v). His number 5 is on f. 1; his number 43 is on f. 28r; signature is on f. 67*r; and his title page is f. 58.
Sir Simonds D’Ewes (d. 1722), 3rd baronet and grandson of the former: inherited and later sold the D’Ewes library to Robert Harley on 4 October 1705 for £450 (see Watson, Library (1966)).
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts.
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d.1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library. |
Any provenance emanating from the library of Sir Simonds d'Ewes should be cause for alarm
| Simonds d'Ewes is perhaps best known for his work as an antiquarian, and particularly for his transcriptions of important historical documents, originals of which do not survive today | |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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That's a lot to go on a placard. I don't think even the British Library would give 'late 9th - 14th century' for a biography of someone who lived in the eleventh century. Though I'm somewhat heartened by them admitting there is some doubt that it may not have been written between 1065 and 1067 for someone who died in 1065.
| Ancient Origins wrote: | | The Life of King Edward (Vita Ædwardi Regis), was written between 1065 and 1067 and so takes us through the Norman Conquest in real time. |
Actually that raises some problems for the biographer over and above having to rush it out while there was still plenty of interest in the old boy on the part of the reading public.
| The Life was commissioned for the wife and widow of King Edward the Confessor, Edith, who was also the sister of his successor King Harold II. |
"Now you be nice about both of them."
"Don't you worry, ma'am, I'm a professional hagiographer."
| It was written in Latin, probably by a Flemish monk. |
"Can you give me some details, ma'am. I'm afraid I've never heard of these characters. Edward's your husband, right? Harry's your brother and William's the villain."
| It’s a clever piece of political spin, setting out to bolster Edward’s reputation – including his posthumous standing as an emerging new saint. |
"I understand you're writing the Life of the late king. There's been a bit of a development. If I were you I'd go a bit easy on William and downplay the Harold angle. Might be safer to concentrate on Good King Edward. I think they may be going for full canonisation."
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