Monthly Round-up

Another months of exciting medievalness to round up.

A short article on the myth of chastity belts:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/medieval-chastity-belts-are-myth-180956341/?no-ist

Some pretty cool use of drones to discover new archaeological site in Ireland:
http://www.archaeology.org/news/3616-150819-ireland-drone-survey

A medieval word puzzle, what does the sword's inscription say?
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2015/08/help-us-decipher-this-inscription.html

Particularly on-topic this month, medieval asylum seekers:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-it-was-like-to-seek-asylum-in-medieval-england

Some medieval frivolity 'down under' with a medieval feast complete with menu:
http://www.goodfood.com.au/good-food/eat-out/canberras-amazing-onenightonly-medieval-good-food-feast-20150811-gimf7p.html

And finally, this month's image of choice: Paris, Bibl. de la Sorbonne, ms. 0121, f. 023

Beware psychotic bunnies wielding axes. For they are short, and will do great damage to shins. 
 

Faceplant.

Research has led me to the chronicle of Battle Abbey which can be best summed up as "We the monks of Battle Abbey <3 William the Conqueror". Included in this chronicle, is a detailed description of William's conquest of England complete with his ignominious arrival on the shores of England:

"Thus the duke, with an unparalleled army and attended by divine favour, set out upon his voyage. At length  he landed safely near the town called Pevensey….the army extensively  along an area of shore….some leaping joyously….to England….it happened that as the duke was disembarking, he fell on his face; his nose was wounded and some blood fell upon the shore; he first grasped the land with hands outstretched. At this many became very frightened, muttering about the meaning of this unlucky omen. But the duke’s steward, William fitz Osbern, a man of admirable probity and very clever, was present, and he quickly raised the drooping spirits of the falterers with a bold prophecy: ‘Men’, he said, ‘do not take this as unlucky; it is really an omen of success. See, he has claimed England, taking possession of it with both hands, and he has consecrated it as the inheritance of his own lineage by marking it with his own blood. By this presage of the divine plan he has effectively been given title to it.’"

William fitz Osbern. Possibly one of the earliest spin doctors.

Notes

'The chronicle of Battle Abbey', ed. by Eleanor Searle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), p. 35

Anger management

A lesson in anger management from twelfth century Peteborough:
Peterborough abbey burnt down for a second time in 1116 (the first time it had been burnt by raiding Danes)

"For, on the same day, the abbot [John de Seez, 1114-25] had cursed the monastery, for he had become very angry, and in wrath, he rashly commended it the devil. Moreover, in the morning, the brethren entered the refectory so as to set right the tables, and it displeased him; and he cursed them and immediately went out to the court at Castor. Again, a servant in the bakery, while he was lighting a fire and it would not burn quickly, said in anger “Come, devil, and blow on the fire', and at once the fire blazed, and it reached the roof, and ran through all the domestic offices to the town."

As a reminder of just how catastrophic fires were to churches, here is an image of a fire in 2000 that burnt the church of All Saints in Wet Dulwich.

Notes:

Image from All Saints, West Dulwich in 2000:
http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/churchfire/churchfire.htm

The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, a monk of Peterborough, (ed.) W. Mellows (London: Oxford University Press, 1949) p. 97, translated by T. Halliday, Select  Manuscripts  relating  to  the  Abbey  and  Cathedral  of  Peterborough: Transcriptions,  Translations,  and  Notes, (Unpublished,  held  at  Peterborough  HER  and  Cathedral Library, 2009-2010) Entry no. 3013