Monthly Round-up

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Early Abingdon in Context: Monasticism, Wealth and Urban Growth in Late Anglo-Saxon England

On Thursday I went to the annual Lambrick held by the AAAHS (Abingdon Area Archaeological and Historical Society).

This year’s speaker was Professor John Blair speaking on “Early Abingdon in Context: Monasticism, Wealth and Urban Growth in Late Anglo-Saxon England”.

It was an interesting lecture as the origins of Anglo-Saxon monasteries are often tinged with a healthy dose of legend and it was refreshing to see someone concentrating their research on this area. 

He began by introducing seventh century Britain, reminding the audience of the period of change England was going through at this time i.e. the conversion to Christianity. From the fifth century onwards, after the Roman’s left, across Europe areas which maintained Roman styles of government easily transitioned to bishoprics. Areas where Roman influence quickly dissipated, reverted back to societies based on familial bonds for whom monasteries were a more acceptable form of Christianity, as a monastery is essentially a great big family. 

Staffordshire hoard

Accompanying this change, was a move towards ostentatious displays of wealth by the elite; the building of great halls and barrows for example as well as well as owning elaborate metalwork.

What Blair was arguing was that the ceremonial use of these halls for oath swearing, feasts and so on was actually the continuation of practices already established on these sites. The great halls were simply new arenas.

Sutton Hoo

Many of these great halls were in fact rebuilt many times, sometimes over a very short period of time such as Yeavering which was rebuilt three times within fifty years. Perhaps a great hall was tied to a particular leader and you destroyed it as you left, or perhaps the hall wasn’t what was important. It was the site of the hall, so you just built a brand spanking new one when you next wanted to use the site.

Many of these sites were home to Bronze Age barrows and then Anglo-Saxon halls before finally becoming the sites of monasteries. Blair argued that the ceremonial and ritual function that the barrows and halls exercised was continued with more permanence with the construction of a monastery. The monastery became the custodian almost of the site’s importance.

He then focussed his discussion back on Abingdon, beginning with Sutton Courtenay which lies a little to the south. Sutton Courtenay (Suð-tun) essentially means “south of something”, the something being Abingdon. Blair extrapolated from this that the great hall near Sutton and its significance as a place eventually moved to Abingdon.

Excavation on a large scale across Abingdon would reveal far more concerning its Anglo-Saxon phase and he made some comparisons with other minsters (Anglo-Saxon churches) to support his argument that they are built on what were already important ritual sites.

He then digressed to discussing the monastery itself, suggesting that Abingdon may have been amongst other monasteries at the time in having both male and female members with a female head. He argued that the great endowment of monasteries in the 7^th century was pretty much reversed by the 9^th century when the lords of England were feeling pinched financially and basically took back what they had given the monasteries. Yes, the Vikings were soon to come raid these monasteries and destroy them but Blair argued that they had already been substantially weakened already by their own benefactors!

His talk finished with an argument for the organised planning of buildings and streets using a grid system. The basic gist of his argument (I’ve put the citation for his article in the notes if you want to read more) was that the Roman had a fantastic method for plotting out grids over a large area. This was undertaken by agrimensores across the empire who wrote their techniques down in what sounded like the Roman version of “Land surveying for Dummies”. 

Much later, the Corby scriptorium in France starts making copies of these handbooks and the dissemination of Roman techniques across a non-Roman world began. This knowledge was disseminated through the church, and therefore, the monasteries. Where you get monasteries, you get grid planning, and vice versa. 

What was the overall point of grid planning? Well, good question. He made a convincing argument that Sutton Courtenay and Abingdon were planned on the same grid pattern but what was the point. The point, he suggested, was that it:

a) Helped layout monasteries which liked to be laid out in a specific way.
b) Allowed literate lords to essentially show off and use the latest and most up to date ways of planning their estates and measuring their land.

Overall a highly enjoyable lecture and has given me much to think about (and to read).


Notes
Sutton Hoo image - http://csis.pace.edu/grendel/projs4a/sutton.htm
John Blair image - http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/faculty/staff/profile/blair.html
Staffordshire hoard - http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/
Great Hall image - http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/assets/0608/0000/0314/100_4168.jpg
Agrimensores - http://lapulpera.blogspot.com/2013/03/k-el-protagonista-de-el-castillo.html

Abingdon Area Archaeological and Historical Society - http://aaahs.org.uk/

Blair, J., "Grid-planning in Anglo-Saxon Settlements: the Short Perch and the Four-Perch Module" in Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, 18 (2013) pp. 18-61

Summer is a coming! (Sumer is icumen in)

Things have been a little hectic this week (that'll teach me for going away) so in lieu of a post I had planned to write (coming soon!) I shall highlight a fun item from the British Library collections.

This is a page from an early/mid-thirteenth century song book (probably from Reading abbey) with lyrics written in middle English and featuring turns of phrases such as:

'The ewe bleats after the lamb

The cow lows after the calf.

The bullock stirs, the stag farts,

Merrily sing, Cuckoo!'

Almost a medieval version of Old MacDonald.

At the bottom of the page in red are instructions on how the sung is to be sung which according to the modern commentary, the song is "intended to be sung in a round, requiring four singers to sing the same melody, one after the other, each starting when the previous singer reaches the red cross on the first line. While this is happening, two lower voices repeat the words 'sing cuccu'."

Interestingly, while the song is in Middle English, the instructions are in Latin along with the red lyrics. The lyrics in black are in Middle English. We can speculate to our heart's delight as to why this song had both Latin and middle English lyrics, but this is the earliest known English example.

You can listen to the song here:

Notes
MS, BL Harley 978 f.12v

http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item100326.html

Prague

Last weekend I enjoyed a lovely long weekend in the beautiful city of Prague in the Czech Republic. Now, the most famous medieval monument in the city is the Charles Bridge:

BUT, I’m planning to attend a conference in June that will discuss bridges in general and meet the author of a PhD on the bridge (Jana Gajdošová) so I’m going to save a post on that for later. 

In the meantime, I would like to whole heartedly recommend Prague as a city break. Do take your walking shoes as there’s a lot of walking but the food is delicious, the beer is cheap (try the Czech wines too!), and the architecture is superb. 

In lieu of the bridge, I’m going to talk about the fabulous clock that graces the tower in the old town square (N.B. There’s a restaurant called Café U Týna on the other side of the square that serves brilliant schnitzel).

Fourteenth century Prague had become a cultural centre following the reign of Emperor Charles IV and in 1347 its university was founded. This led to an influx of intellectuals and ideas to the Czech Republic and in 1410, this clock was created using the cutting edge science and craftsmanship of the day by Mikuláš of Kadaň and Jan Šindel. 

Now, as you may observe, this is not a normal clock. This is because, it does not tell normal time. 

The ‘clock’s’ dial, is essentially a mechanical astrolabe (an astrological instrument). The ring with Roman numerals tells modern time (no minute hand) and is indicated by the golden hand. 

The ring with Arabic numerals tells Bohemian time, which is/was calculated according to the hours between sunrise and sunset. Very useful back when the working day was determined by available daylight. 

The curved lines cutting across the clock (with the spaces coloured in orange and gradiated blues) mark the unevenness of the daylight throughout the year. The number 24 on the outer ring (the Bohemian one) indicates sunset and moves throughout the year. 

 HOW COOL IS THAT.

So from the photo I took, you can see that it was around 1pm and that sunset was going to happen after 7pm. 

The dial in the centre with the zodiac signs on it tells you the movement of the sun, stars and moon throughout the year and the relevant zodiac sign. 

I’m going to be perfectly honest and say that my maths and astronomy isn’t up for explaining how that part of the clock is used in detail. It was very important when you were trying to forecast fortunes however (this was the cutting edge of science) or calculate calendars for the year ahead.

A fabulous clock I hope you’ll all agree and an interesting object though which to glimpse medieval science. Here’s a poem written on the clock to relax your brains now. 

“The Prague Astronomical Clock”

By Jonathan Fink

Inside, it must resemble a great churning mouth,

the three co-axial wheels, all with nearly 400 cogs.

Ignore the trinkets and pawns, the puppet apostles

that march but on the hour, the tiny skeleton

striking the chimes. They all are additions,

centuries late, to pacify travellers on the Royal Way.

For six hundred years it has marshalled the stars,

the revolutions of the sun and moon, the minuscule

placement of zodiacal signs.

The maker's intent, the chronicles claim, was to "publish" the paths

of celestial bodies and meter the universe to discernible

time. According to legend, he laboured for years,

forging every pin and cog. So when the clock was

first unveiled and the hands moved like conductors'

batons, the city fathers searched out the maker

and carried him to the centre square. At once,

he must have thought it grand -the streets spilling

crowds. Then the politicians closed around him

and the leanest produced a curling blade. The legend

claims their motivation as pride, never wanting another

clock built. And when they were done, each departed

his way, leaving the maker blinded behind. One version

of the story asserts that the maker found his way

to the clock, and throwing the switches only he knew,

swung open the dial and inserted his hand. Like a magician

producing a coin from the dark, he removed the smallest

discernible part. So was a modest reciprocity served:

the clock hands stayed, the ticking stopped. Yet a realist

would decry the story's most obvious flaw, that after

6oo years the clock still works, the sun and moon pass

on the painted sky. More likely than the fable's neat turn

is that the maker crawled his way back to his home,

or died at once in the square from the blade. In truth,

he was probably never blinded at all, going on

to celebrity, honour and gain. With due respect

to the unknowable past, only the justice of legend

remains. So hail to the clock, precision's grand shrine,

and hail to its lies, the peddlers of fame. After 6oo years

they both persist, a feat, in itself, deserving of praise.

Notes

Clock diagram:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_astronomical_clock#/media/File:Schema_Orloj_en.png

Fink, J. “The Prague Astronomical Clock”, Poetry, vol. 182, No. 5 (Aug., 2003), pp. 252-253