Medieval News
Medieval hall discovered in barn
2 October 2006
BBC News Online
Experts are urging property owners in Wales to help them discover buildings with historical value to preserve the nation's heritage.
The call came after a couple from Hengoed in Denbighshire discovered one of their outbuildings was originally a 15th century medieval hall house.
Historians have dated the building using dendrochronology - the analysis of tree rings in timbers - to 1447.
Experts said the find was "extremely rare".
Anthony and Helen Rose bought their 21-acre smallholding near Ruthin in 2003.
Mr Rose said although they did not realise its true significance, the building was one of the things that had attracted them.
"We were told it was the original farmhouse, but it wasn't listed or anything... you could tell it was a substantial building, it was quite dramatic," he said.
The couple discovered the building's history when they had become concerned about the leaning trusses and called in a structural engineer, who had alerted a local architect.
Original features
Mr Rose said many original features of the hall house were still evident, including the remains of a window.
"The important part is the woodwork, the five crucks are still there. What is impressive are the size of crucks, they are very big, heavy substantial cruck trusses (a roof truss composed of two curved or angled pieces of timber).
"It's a great honour to have this on your doorstep.
"In time, maybe it would be nice to make it into a dwelling again, but keeping as much like it would have been in the 15th Century.
"We're just custodians. It's a big part of history, it's part of the culture, so it's got to be preserved."
National Trust archaeologist Emma Plunkett-Dillon said the find was "extremely rare" as hall houses were built by wealthy people, and at the time, Wales was a relatively poor country.
But she said it was not uncommon to find examples of domestic dwellings which were built slightly later in the 17th or early 18th Century.
Ms Plunkett-Dillon said one clue was if the doors or windows of a building had different alignments, which could signify an "interesting history".
"The other giveaway is interesting roof timbers. If you've got a roof built with large old beams... you might be looking at something that's much older, but the only guarantee is to get an expert in."
Judith Alfrey, from Cadw, the assembly government's historic environment service said: "It is a rare find... it's quite exciting really, it's pushing on our understanding of the development of architecture.
"Every new discovery is adding to the total stock of our knowledge, it really is a direct line to understanding of how people lived in the past," she added.
The hall is said to be one of the best examples in Wales.
Is this really the site of 1485 battle?
By Shirley Elsby
2 October 2006
Leicester Mercury
For decades, Bosworth Battlefield was thought to be the site which changed for ever the face of British history.
Now, archaeologists have admitted the battle which saw Henry VII triumph over Richard III probably did not take place there after all.
Half-way through a three-year study to find the real battlefield, experts say that all they have to show for their efforts are bits of horse tackle.
Senior archaeologist Richard Knox said that without more evidence, it seemed unlikely the field was the scene of the crucial battle which ended the Wars of the Roses.
He said: "The battle is only two days, or even one day, in 100 years in the 15th century.
"Lots of other things could have happened which could mean bits of horse harness could have fallen off.
"We have to be careful, but the big flag field has been pretty intensively looked at and we are not finding great evidence of a battle, so, personally, I think it is unlikely."
Bosworth Battlefield was first developed as a tourist attraction in 1974, the same year it was identified as the place where the historic battle took place.
Richard III's flag flies on Ambion Hill, signalling the scene of the main action - but visitors are now being told that is not where it happened.
Instead, the search continues for the real site within dozens of acres of surrounding countryside.
Mr Knox, Leicestershire County Council's assistant keeper of archaeology, now thinks the centre of the battle will be flat ground within the greater battlefield area.
This territory includes Stoke Golding, Dadlington, Sutton Cheney, Fenny Drayton, Witherley, Upton, Merevale and Mancetter.
Tourism bosses are now being forced to change the models and maps at the battlefield centre.
People walking the Battlefield Trail are no longer told that Richard's Field is where the clash took place,
Guide Eddie Smallwood said: "What we tell people at the moment is we don't know exactly where the battle was, but we know it was in this area and they are still walking on very special land where the King of England was in battle. I don't think it loses anything."
Historians have challenged the location since it was originally theorised by Leicestershire County Council archaeologist Danny Williams.
Last year, the Heritage Lottery Fund gave £1.3 million for a revitalisation project for the battlefield site which included the three-year study.
Specialists have been examining the site from ground and air, searching with metal detectors and sampling soil to find evidence of a marsh - a crucial feature of the battle. Medieval artefacts found include horse harness pendants, buckles and strap fittings, which may or may not be connected with the battle on August 22, 1485, that heralded the new Tudor dynasty.
Battlefield spokeswoman Joanne Preston said the public appreciated the county council's honesty in carrying out the study, rather than shying away from existing information being wrong.
"We have always delivered the information as the most accepted theory of the time," she said.
"That information is being challenged and that is how things develop and improve."
Going to sea with Stephen O'Shea: Bestselling author Stephen O'Shea likes to immerse himself in the past to look into the future but don't call him an accidental historian: 'Storyteller' works just fine for him, he tells James MacGowan
James MacGowan
1 October 2006
Ottawa Citizen
Stephen O'Shea may be a transplanted Canadian living in Rhode Island, but he likes to spend his time walking the distant battlefields of various feral and bloody medieval conflicts. In the late nineties, for instance, he trampled through southern France, a sojourn he turned into his highly readable, savagely enjoyable, The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars (2000). More recently, he spent time in various places around the Mediterranean, all in aid of his very absorbing new book, Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World.
O'Shea, who is 50, began his bookwriting career in 1996 with the publication of Back To The Front: An Accidental Historian Walks the Trenches of World War I. Battles, you might say, are in his blood: Both his grandparents fought in the First World War. Combine that with an insatiable desire to tell stories -- he thinks of himself no longer as an accidental historian, but as a storyteller -- and an ability to tell them well, and you have one of the more readable writers of history being published today. True, there is an awful lot going on in his latest book, with a myriad of names and places to be aware of, but thankfully he includes a glossary, maps and pictures. I caught up with O'Shea last week at his home in Providence.
Was this book born out of anger, from a desire to set the record straight about the relationship between Islam and Christianity that has been muddied since 9/11?
Not really. It was born before 9/11 and came out of the research I did for my last book. As I travelled around the Mediterranean, I became fascinated by the religious geography of the place. Why was one shore Muslim and another Christian? That fascinated me. And then, as I travelled around even more, I began to realize I had had a really one-sided view of Mediterranean culture.
How so?
Everyone has heard of Marco Polo, but nobody has heard of Ibn Battuta. We hear about the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs, but nothing of the Umayyads and the Ayyubids. So I wanted to know more about this area because we are all sort of heirs to Mediterranean culture. The Mediterranean is like a centre stage of civilization and we in the West have only heard about one of the players on the centre stage. We don't hear about Islam or Muslims at all.
Well, it was surprising to read that for 800 years Spain was an Islamic country.
Exactly. And that's three centuries longer than Christianity has been in the Americas. And that fact is part of Muslim historical memory. It's part of Jewish historical memory. But it's sort of the result of Christian chauvinism that we don't have an idea of Muslim Spain. It's sort of been blanked out of the history books even though it was one of the most splendid civilizations of the Middle Ages.
As is obvious from the title, the book takes place in and around the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. Some readers might wonder what this has to do with the here and now.
For one thing, it's the Medieval millennium that shaped the contours of the modern age. By the 16th century the geography of the Middle East had been more or less settled. Also, for better or worse, the subject of Islam and Christianity has been coming up a lot these days. Think of the Pope's recent controversial remarks. What precisely was his point in quoting a Byzantine emperor who was beset on all sides by Turks? Obviously, in that situation, this emperor, Manuel Paleologos II, would look very unkindly on Muslims. There are thousands of documents in the Vatican library the Pope could have chosen to site from, some of them more polemical, some of them far less, and some of them far more accurate in their assessment of Islam, yet he chose this one. Why? I also believe that you can't understand where you are unless you understand how you got there.
Explain that.
If someone misleadingly tells you what the past is, then they're also misleading you about your present. The Pope quotes someone saying Islam converts people by the sword, ergo Islam is a violent religion and is a violent religion today. The premise is wrong. Islam has almost never converted anybody by the sword. There are specific injunctions against that in the Koran. The Pope and President Bush, and others, have to make it clear that Islam, as abused by Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, is not Islam. It's something else. It's a political movement that has picked up whatever club was at hand.
There's so much misrepresentation about Islam and Christianity going on right now, whether it comes out of a cave in Bora Bora, the Vatican or a briefing room in the White House that it's become very important to set the record straight.
But you describe numerous bloody battles between Christians and Muslims in the book. Why not focus on the periods of Convivencia, when all was peace and harmony between the two?
You can't get away from the fact that there were tremendous battles. There were some Holy wars, but most of the battles were unholy: those involved may have picked up religion as a club, as I mention about bin Laden. Mostly they were motivated by the usual things: greed, need, imperial ambitions or megalomania. And the battles decided in many instances the religious geography of the Mediterranean and we can't wish them away. Also, there's the more cynical thing about which book are you going to pick up: the one about say, the Unitarian minister or the one about the Inquisitor.
Good point. So what do you want people to take away from this book?
A changed perspective. I want readers, when they think of Islam and Christianity, to have the idea of sibling rivalry, and the notion that these two religions are siblings with all that implies -- friction, affection and familiarity. Christianity and Islam have a shared heritage, there is no us and them. It's only us. That's the important thing. We have to get away from the idea of a clash of civilizations.
Lifting the lid on the liveries For centuries, the City of London's ancient livery companies have been piling up fortunes in secret. Now the Mercers has broken ranks and published its annual review. Andrew Murray-Watson reports
By Andrew Murray-Watson
1 October 2006
The Sunday Telegraph
They are some of the most powerful organisations in the City of London, controlling billions of pounds of assets. Their members dress up in medieval costumes at every opportunity and are loyal custodians of traditions and ceremonial practices laid down more than 600 years ago.
But the wealth and influence of the City of London's ancient livery companies are almost totally unknown to the uninitiated. Most operate from low-key guild halls in the Square Mile and their membership lists are often closely guarded secrets.
But earlier this month the Worshipful Company of Mercers, the foremost livery company, broke with tradition and published an annual review of its activities.
It makes startling reading. The accounts show that at the end of December 2005, the company had pounds 454.6m of assets under management, a rise of pounds 42m on the year before. Out of that total, pounds 315.6m was in property and other fixed assets, including an extensive residential portfolio in Covent Garden and the Royal Exchange complex, the grandest shopping arcade in the City.
The Mercers also had pounds 78.5m in quoted assets, up from pounds 66.5m in the previous year. If the Company were a quoted investment trust, it would rank as one of the largest in the UK.
The clerk at one of the oldest Companies, who asked to remain anonymous, says: "It is fair to say that people were fairly staggered by the scale of Mercers's assets when they were published.''
Although no figures exist, it is estimated that total assets held by the 107 Worshipful Companies could total pounds 2bn. Those involved with livery companies believe that the Cloth Workers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths and Leathersellers are the richest, although no one knows which has the most assets.
And Companies are full of distinguished names from the City. Lord George of St Tudy, the former governor of the Bank of England, and Sir Brian Pitman, the former chairman of Lloyds TSB, are both court members at the Worshipful Company of International Bankers.
The Mercers was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1394. A mercer by definition was a trader in fine fabrics, although the last time a mercer was admitted as an apprentice to the company was 1888.
Like other Worshipful Companies, the Mercers derives its 12th and 13th-century origins from a religious brotherhood that sprang up around a church or hospital.
These fraternities then became powerful trading guilds that often enjoyed monopolistic rights over a particular commodity, such as fish, while remaining true to their Christian origins by making provision for the poor or the sick.
From 1560 onwards a guild secured its livery status from the Court of Aldermen who had to be satisfied that "a number of men of good repute from some trade or mystery not already represented by an existing guild have joined together for a time sufficiently long to justify the belief that they will continue to hold together and are not likely to fall apart from lack of interest or support''.
Livery Companies are governed by a master, a number of wardens and a court of assistants, which elects the master and wardens. The chief executive officer of the company is known as the clerk.
And several modern phrases have their origins in the history of livery Companies. For example, the expression "at sixes and sevens'' comes from a medieval dispute over precedence in order of receiving livery status from the City of London between the Merchant Taylors and the Skinners. The 16th-century Lord Mayor of the day decided that the two would be ranked six and seven in alternate years as a way of resolving the argument.
And the expression "a baker's dozen'' to mean 13, originated in the days when the Bakers' guild strictly monitored the standard of bread.
From the time they were founded until the present day, livery companies have secured funding from rich benefactors, often in the form of property, and the complex interest on their assets over the space of 600 years has created some exceedingly wealthy organisations. The band of Worshipful Companies, which now number 107 in total, have a mandate to give proceeds from assets to charity.
In the year to August 2005, the Mercers gave away pounds 9m to charity, up from pounds 8.48m in the previous year. Of that total, pounds 4.51m was donated to educational charities, pounds 3.4m went to welfare causes, pounds 600,000 went to churches and other Christian organisations, while pounds 490,000 went to the arts.
The Mercers's charitable aims are shared by all other livery companies.
The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, for example, gave away on average pounds 1.75m per year over the past three years.
One of the newest Companies is the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. Although it is unable to call upon hundreds of years of accrued assets, the company still gave away pounds 750,000 in cash donations and donations-in-kind in the form of the time given up by its members on behalf of organisations, such as schools.
Michael Grant, clerk of the Company, says: "We are much more reliant on members to give their money, time and talent. We have to rely on a different way to contribute at a practical level.''
A few of the Worshipful Companies still have regulatory duties. The Fishmongers, for example, still monitor standards of hygiene at Billingsgate fish market while the Goldsmiths still check coins issued by the Royal Mint.
Meanwhile the Vintners and Dyers annually get decked out in ceremonial garb and take a row boat up the Thames to count the number of swans - a practice known as "swan-upping''.
The livery ccompanies also approve the preferred candidates to become Lord Mayor of London.
As livery companies are founded by royal charter, they are under no obligation to file any records at Companies House. They are only accountable to their membership and the ways in which they spend their millions is totally discretionary. The power of the Financial Services Authority, the City watchdog, does not extend to candle-lit Company dining halls.
But The Mercers's decision to publish a detailed breakdown of its activities is further evidence that the livery companies are adopting a more modern and transparent approach when it comes to their financial activity.
Keith Waters, clerk at the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, says: "The change is coming from the members themselves. Accountability is something we now all face in our working lives.''
He adds: "Simply put, what was acceptable before, is less acceptable now.''
And the livery movement is now more popular than ever. More Companies have been founded in the 20th century than in any other period in history. And in the short space of another 100 years or so, even the newly founded Worshipful Companies may be financial powerhouses in their own right.
Waters concludes: "The livery companies have been here for centuries. They are nothing less than part of the fabric which underpins the City of London.''
Mercers
As well as being the premier livery company in London, the Mercers is perhaps the richest with pounds 484m under management. It owns 70 residences in Covent Garden as well as the Royal Exchange complex in the heart of the City.
Giving away some pounds 9m a year, the Mercers supports 15 schools and offers sheltered housing for the elderly; the company is also a patron of a number of churches.
Information Technologists
The guild became the 100th livery company in 1992. Its coat of arms is mainly green and blue, representing video displays and electricity. The Company supports the Lilian Baylis school in London and offers its expertise to a number of institutions including hospitals and charitable organisations. Last year the company gave away more than pounds 250,000 to charities and its members donated the equivalent of another pounds 500,000-worth of their time.
Haberdashers
The Company is one of the oldest and best known, thanks to the numerous schools that bear its name. In the year to the end of June 2006 it awarded grants totalling pounds 800,000. More than half of the awards went to schools, a quarter to welfare bodies and 4 per cent each to Christian organisations and health providers. The company is also trustee of 34 almshouses in Monmouth, Newland and Newport through the William Jones and William Adams Foundations and is patron of eight Church of England livings.
Goldsmiths
The Company received its royal charter in 1327 and since 1300 has been testing the quality of gold and silver. Today it carries out its statutory functions through the operations of the Assay Office in London. These functions include the quaintly named Trial of the Pyx, the annual examination of coins made by the Royal Mint. Last year its charitable arm gave away a total of pounds 1.75m. Much of the money goes to schools and to supporting the art of goldsmithing.
Fishmongers
The Fishmongers' Company, at more than 700 years old, is one of the most ancient. Granted its first royal charter by Edward I in the 13th century and a monopoly to sell fish in London, the Fishmongers was wealthy enough by the end of that century to be required to supply the king with three ships. Today the Fishmongers provides financial support to the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, the Scottish Association for Marine Science and the Freshwater Biological Association. It also monitors hygiene standards at Billingsgate fish market.
History how good was king richard and how bad was king john? asks Helen Castor
By Helen Castor
1 October 2006
The Sunday Telegraph
King Richard, King John and the Wars of Conquest
BY FRANK MCLYNN
JONATHAN CAPE, pounds 20, 578 pp T pounds 18 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4115
They were the 'Devil's Brood': Henry, Richard, Geoffrey and John, the four sons of King Henry II and his formidable wife,
Eleanor of Aquitaine. Legend had it that this Angevin dynasty was descended from Melusine, daughter of Satan - a story which those who witnessed their venomous rages and vicious feuds found all too easy to believe.
The brothers had plenty to fight about. Their father ruled a new and unwieldy empire that ranged from the Scottish borders
to the Pyrenees. To England and Normandy - recovering from 20 years of civil war between Henry's mother Matilda and her
cousin Stephen - were added the county of Anjou, Henry's paternal inheritance, and his wife's great duchy of Aquitaine. The
king was determined to provide for all of his sons from among these disparate dominions. Much less clear, however, was the
question of who would inherit what. After years of violent rivalry, the claims of two sons, Henry and Geoffrey, ended
prematurely in death. Against the odds, the Angevin empire in its entirety passed first to Richard, in 1189, and then, 10
years later, to his youngest brother, John.
Even at a distance of 800 years, the story of these two kings is an enticing one for a biographer. Richard was their
extraordinary mother's favourite child; John their overbearing father's. Dazzled contemporaries called Richard the
'Lionheart' for his courage and prowess as a soldier, while John's epithet, 'Lackland' - originally an expression of
sympathy for the limited prospects of a younger son - became a damning reflection on his catastrophic military losses.
Richard's career looked relentlessly outward from his beloved homeland of Aquitaine, his crusading ambitions taking him via
Sicily and Cyprus to Acre, Ascalon and almost to the walls of Jerusalem. John's, on the other hand, spiralled inexorably
inwards: he lost Normandy to the resurgent French, and was forced to the brink of deposition in England by his rebellious
barons.
There should be an enthralling book in these intertwined lives. Sadly, however, this isn't it. Frank McLynn is an
impressively prolific author, but the speed with which this mass of challenging material has apparently been tackled has
left its mark on the style, structure and, occasionally, accuracy of the text. More than that, McLynn seems ill at ease as a
guide to the medieval world. Accounts of 'feudalism', law, structures of government and economic developments are confused and confusing, leaving us with an atomised narrative featuring a bewildering cast of kings, nobles and churchmen, but no deeper understanding of the causes, context or consequences of their actions.
Meanwhile, the anachronism and hindsight for which he berates fellow historians play a distracting part in his own writing -
often in the form of 'uncanny pre-echoes' of the subjects of his previous books, especially Napoleon, whom Richard here
'anticipates' throughout his career. There may well be illuminating parallels to be found between king and emperor; but
looking through the wrong end of the historical telescope makes it impossible to elucidate them.
Richard's reputation has had mixed fortunes over the centuries, from hero to zero and back again - his rehabilitation over
the last 30 years largely the result of an increasing realisation that a lack of interest in England did not necessarilymake a Bad King in 12th-century terms. The verdict on his brother (despite McLynn's valiant attempt to pick a fight by
caricaturing the 'new revisionism of "good King John'' ') has been much more consistent: John was not only a spectacularly
unlovely character, but a supremely unsuccessful ruler.
In one respect at least, however, we must give the most devilish of the Devil's Brood his due. So insistently is he damned
by chroniclers and historians alike that John leaps off the page in all his repellent glory. The historical Lionheart, by
contrast, remains resolutely two-dimensional - a frustrating, but perhaps fitting, judgement on a monarch whose mythical role in English culture is defined not only by his heroism, but his absence.
Books: Let's party like it's 1066
Tom Hodgkinson
1 October 2006
Independent On Sunday
HISTORY Forget the Victorian age, says Tom Hodgkinson: those in the medieval age had it sussed. They were never in debt - and were way ahead of us with their eco-friendly habits
BACK IN 1983, in an inter view with broadcaster Brian Walden, Mrs Thatcher caught the public imagination with her promotion of "Victorian values":
Walden: You've really outlined an approval of what I would call Victorian values. The sort of values, if you like, that helped to build the country throughout the 19th century. Now is that right?
Thatcher: Exactly. Very much so. Those were the values when our country became great, but not only did our country become great internationally, also so much advance was made in this country.
Now what did the Victorians value, exactly? Well, the 19th century was the era of hard work, exploitation, greed, chimney sweeps, 16-hour days, tall black hats, money-worship and strict discipline in the home. It was the era when the dark Satanic mills destroyed the cottage industry and lives began to be lived around the clock rather than by the seasons. It was the era of steam, coal and gas. It was the era that introduced the notion of the earth as a resource to be mined. It was the era of competitive living. It was the era of soul-deadening machinery. Anyone who doubts this has only to read Dickens.
These values motivated the Eighties and they are still the dominant ones today. Well, I for one am thoroughly fed up with Victorian values which is why in my new book, called How To Be Free, I propose instead a return to medieval values.
On first sight, this idea seems bonkers. Surely the medieval age was a time of bad diets, corrupt priests and abject serfdom? Well, no. This view is actually a calumnious caricature. When I started to write How To Be Free, I decided to read Mutual Aid by the great 19th-century anarchist Prince Petr Kropotkin, described by Oscar Wilde as one of the most cheerful men he had ever met. In Mutual Aid, published at the same time as Darwin's Origin of Species, Kropotkin argues that cooperation is an essential part of animal and human life and development. He also reminds us that it was in the medieval age when the great free city-states such as Florence were created. The medievals, he says, valued craftsmanship, cooperation and justice. Mutual Aid led me to read other books on medieval customs and culture, and what I found was a society that made a sustained and conscious attempt to live fairly and justly.
The two great influences on the development of medieval ethics were Christ's sermon on the mount and Aristotle's Ethics, which had come to Europe via Arab translations. From this material they developed an approach to life which was eco-friendly, neighbourly and based on cooperating rather than competing. So here, briefly, is an introduction to 10 important medieval values, all of which seem radical to us:
ANTI-CAPITALIST: Lending at interest, or usury, is at the basis of the capitalist system. And usury was quite specifically proscribed by medieval ethics. It was sinful, they said, to sell something that does not belong to you, which is time. It was also sinful to take advantage of someone else's misfortune by lending them money. Usurers were sometimes known to return all the money they had made on their deathbed, in an effort to ensure their salvation. Money was for spending, not for saving or lending.
ANTI-WORK: According to historian Jacques Le Goff, the medievals were opposed to hard work, because, he says, to put in long hours displayed a lack of faith in Providence. Theologically, medieval Catholicism was closer to an almost Taoist Oriental fatalism than today's Protestant culture. And hard work might give you an unfair advantage over your brothers.
ANTI-COMPETITIVE: Craftsmen organised themselves into a system of Guilds. Guild members mutually agreed to keep quality high and prices uncompetitive. They instituted the notion of a "just and fixed price" for their wares. Goods were produced in small groups. This practice guarded against today's problem which is giant companies producing a load of rubbish.
ECO-FRIENDLY: In the era before electricity, coal, gas or nuclear power, the medievals heated themselves from sustainable sources: ie, wood. They used water and wind power to grind corn. The UK was covered in eco-friendly windmills. All vegetable production was necessarily organic, and everyone "shopped local". There were no supermarkets or call centres or lorries or cars. No logos, either. And crucially, no plastic. Therefore there was no waste as everything was returned to to the earth.
SELF-SUFFICIENT: Even the meanest medieval peasant grew vegetables and herbs and kept pigs and chickens. And the giant yeoman class became very prosperous. Chaucer wrote of his Franklin: "It snowed in his house of mete and drynke."
HOSPITABLE: Just as indigenous people today would share their last crust with you, so the medievals emphasised the importance of good hospitality. The monasteries would take in wandering men and give them beer, bread and bacon, and indeed, the (later) problem of homeless, in the Elizabethan age, was a direct result of the destruction of the monasteries.
CHARITABLE: In the days before charity had become just another institutional mega-business, it really did begin at home. The importance of charity was constantly insisted upon and there were plenty of wandering beggars and other mendicants who were ready to receive your alms. There was no disgrace attached to poverty: in fact, it was a state to be celebrated, because the apostles were poor. We had the example of St Francis of Assisi who became voluntarily poor.
PARTY-LOVING: The medieval calendar was absolutely studded with feast days and festivals. Of course, we all celebrate Christmas now, but Christmas then was celebrated for 12 days, during which no one was allowed to work. Every three or four weeks there was some excuse for a party. May Day was for having sex and every three of four weeks there was a long break.
CHIVALROUS: It was the medieval knights and specifically the great Troubadours of Southern France who invented the custom of courtly love. Chivalry, respect and courtesy towards women was constantly insisted upon, and there were great female patrons of these poets, such as, for example, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Good manners were important.
NEIGHBOURLY: Christ had conceived of the world as a "brotherhood of man" and civility to your neighbour was paramount. This is because the medievals had a sense of collective responsibility: we are all in this together, so your well-being and my well-being are one and the same thing.
Medieval values were radical values. They were good values. And they were enj oyable values. We should embrace them.
To order a copy of Tom Hodgkinson's 'How To Be Free' (Hamish Hamilton £14.99) for £13.50 (free p&p), call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798 897
Archaeological excavations in Dome Cathedral uncover foundations of 13th century church
Mвrtiтр Vilemsons
28 September 2006
Latvian News Agency
RIGA, Sept 28 (LETA) - The recent archaeological excavations at Riga's Dome Cathedral may have uncovered the oldest remains of the Dome dating back to 1226, in the time of legate, or papal ambassador, Bishop Vilhelm of Modena.
"The discovered remains of the wall under the 15th pillar, that stretches in the westerly direction, allow us to think that prior to the current church building, there could have stood some other temporary church building," as Andris Celmins, the head of the archeological digs from "Arhitektoniskas izpetes grupa Ltd." (Architectonic Research Group, AIG), told reporters today.
The digging uncovered two significant construction elements. The first is a 30-centimeter wide socle of the 15th column, the second - the band-shaped foundation of the wall.
The archaeological excavations took place within the framework of the second round of a project researching the Dome Cathedral's foundations, as Ronalds Lusis, the head of the cathedral's restoration team, told LETA.
August 1 to September 1 this year, AIG, in collaboration with Riga History and Shipping Museum, researched two plots in the total area of 26 square meters at the Riga Dome.
The discovered materials, including human bones, were then studied by anthropologist Guntis Gerhards.
Although the area of the digging was rather small, the excavation works resulted in a relatively large number of found artifacts, including 11 coins. One of them, a 14th century bracteate, was discovered in the foundations of the Medieval wall, thus allowing historians to predate the ancient dolomite stone wall. Also discovered was a builder's iron chisel and a decorated fragment of a pilgrim's token.
In the second and third excavation plots, archeologists also uncovered an overall of 33 human burial remains, placed in eight layers.
Treasures looted by Rome 'are back in the Holy Land'
Dalya Alberge Arts Correspondent
25 September 2006
The Times
A COLLECTION of sacred artefacts looted by the Romans from the Temple of Jerusalem and long suspected of being hidden in the vaults of the Vatican are actually in the Holy Land, according to a British archaeologist.
Sean Kingsley, a specialist in the Holy Land, claims to have discovered what became of the collection, which is widely regarded as the greatest of biblical treasures and includes silver trumpets that would have heralded the Coming of the Messiah.
The trumpets, gold candelabra and the bejewelled Table of the Divine Presence were among pieces shipped to Rome after the looting in AD70 of the Temple, the most sacred building in the ancient Jewish faith.
After a decade of research into previously untapped ancient texts and archaeological sources, Dr Kingsley has reconstructed the treasure's route for the first time in 2,000 years to provide evidence that it left Rome in the 5th century.
He has discovered that it was taken to Carthage, Constantinople and Algeria before being hidden in the Judaean wilderness, beneath the Monastery of Theodosius.
Dr Kingsley said: "The treasure resonates fiercely across modern politics. Since the mid-1990s, a heated political wrangle has been simmering between the Vatican and Israel, which has accused the papacy of imprisoning the treasure.
"The Temple treasure remains a deadly political tool in the volatile Arab Israeli conflict centred on the Temple Mount (the site of the Jewish Temple and the Muslim Dome of the Rock).
"The treasure's final hiding place -in the modern West Bank...deep in Hamas territory -will rock world religions."
Emperor Vespasian ordered the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem after a Jewish revolt and Roman forces took about 50 tons of gold, silver and precious art to Rome.
The Arch of Titus, built a decade later, depicts Roman soldiers bearing the sacred spoils on their shoulders. The Jews were expelled from Jerusalem and dispersed throughout the world.
Between AD75 and the early 5th century, the treasure was on public display in the Temple of Peace in the Forum, in Rome.
The Vatican has told Dr Kingsley that there is no evidence in its archives that the treasure resided in Rome from the medieval period onwards.
He said: "One thing is for sure -it is not imprisoned deep in Vatican City. I am the first person to prove that the Temple treasures no longer languish in Rome."
Dr Kingsley's sources include Josephus, a 1st-century Jewish historian who sometimes exaggerated but is an authority on Roman and Jewish history. Dr Kingsley also found evidence in, among others, the works of Procopius, a court historian of the Emperor Justinian, who died in AD562, and from Theophanes Confessor (c760-817), a Christian monk from Constantinople.
In Chronographia, which spanned AD284 to 813, Theophanes recorded that Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, loaded the treasures that "Titus had brought to Rome after the capture of Jerusalem" on a boat to Carthage in Tunisia in AD455.
In the first holy crusade in AD533, the Byzantine Belisarius seized the treasure from a royal ship fleeing the Algerian harbour of Hippo Regius. It was then shipped to Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium.In the 7th century, Persians sacked Jerusalem, killing thousands of Christians, and dragging the Patriarch, Zacharias, to Persia. Dr Kingsley believes that his replacement, Modestus, spirited away the treasures to their final hiding place in AD614.
Dr Kingsley will reveal his findings in God's Gold: The Quest for the Lost Temple Treasure of Jerusalem, to be published by John Murray on October 5.
PROFESSOR TELLS TELEVISION AUDIENCE OF BATTLING KNIGHTS
Lynda Guydon Taylor
24 September 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
History Channel viewers regularly tune in for information about a name from the past, a distant place or a forgotten age. Part history and part entertainment, it generally adds up to solid information.
It's not often that a university can boast that the on-camera expert is one of its own. That was the case recently when California University of Pennsylvania assistant professor Paul Crawford appeared on the "Lost Worlds" segment about the Knights Templar.
Dr. Crawford, 45, who has a doctorate in medieval history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was formerly a professor of medieval and early modern history at Alma College in Alma, Mich. Before that, he lectured in ancient and medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
As the newly hired assistant professor of ancient and medieval history at CalU, he teaches Western civilization, the Renaissance, the Reformation and the craft of history or, as he describes it, "how to be a historian."
Dr. Crawford spent two days filming the Knights Templar segment, highlighting the religious order of fighting monks. It has aired several times since its initial July screening. Traveling to Syria for the program, he visited castles used by the knights in the two days of filming in mid-February. About five minutes wound up on screen.
The unique thing about him is that he is so interested in the crusades and the Knights Templar that he is able to draw students in, said Laura Tuennerman, chairwoman of the university's Department of History and Social Science.
CalU students love the History Channel, said Ms. Tuennerman, who participated in Mr. Crawford's selection. The university, which chose from a pool of 30 to 40 candidates, appreciated that he can talk about history to a public audience in addition to writing at a scholarly level.
"I think he has a real love for what he studies, and he gets that sense across to his students," she said.
Conveying his knowledge of the subject, Dr. Crawford said a French knight named Hugh founded the Knights Templar with two friends. Explaining the lack of surnames, Mr. Crawford said it depended on a person's station in life. At the time, an aristocrat was known through family connections and might have borne more than one name. On the other hand, common folk living in a town knew everyone else and a first name was enough.
In any event, it was Hugh who believed pilgrims traveling the dangerous Holy Land route from Jaffa, now part of Tel Aviv, to Jerusalem needed protection from criminals and bandits, and founded the Knights Templar.
So dangerous was the trek, Dr. Crawford said, that one pilgrim, Saewulf, is said to have advised, "Don't stop to dig a grave for your friend because it will turn out to be your own."
Along with protecting pilgrims, the knights became monks, taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The idea of fusing fighting and religion was novel at the time, monks being the cloistered group they are, Dr. Crawford said.
In what Dr. Crawford describes as a public relations maneuver, Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot of the Chistercian Order, negotiated official church approval for the knights. A mover and shaker of his time, one of the abbot's students became a pope.
About the same time the Knights Templar were doing their thing, another order, the Knights Hospitaller, began a hospice for injured pilgrims once they reached Jerusalem, Dr. Crawford said. Although the Knights Templar are extinct, the Hospitallers continue today as an order of the Catholic church and are called the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Both orders during the Middle Ages, Mr. Crawford said, became an essential part of the army of defense of the Christian Holy Land.
Although the existence of the Knights Templar is questioned from time to time, they received official religious sanction in 1129 until the order was dissolved in 1312 by Pope Clement V.
The Knights Templar were very disciplined soldiers who, when not battling on behalf of pilgrims, led a prayerful life. They were so disciplined that one secular noble, unable to defend his castle, relied on the knights for defense, Dr. Crawford said.
Although the knights built several castles, by 1291 they lost them because they either didn't have the manpower to maintain them or the support of the Christian West, he said.
While the public perception is that some crusaders got involved for the money, Dr. Crawford said, "the idea that the crusaders crusaded to get rich is almost always wrong."
The Knights Templar were an interesting lot, but Mr. Crawford finds one story particularly fascinating. It involved the battle of Acre, when the knights were driven out of the Holy Land. Apparently, an anonymous writer, an aide or secretary to the Master of Templars or of William of Beaujeau, recounted the battle in which his boss was mortally wounded.
William was especially vulnerable, according to the account, because he did not have time to dress in heavy armor. Fighting for hours, the master, at one point, raised his arm and was struck in the chest with a javelin and fatally wounded. The vivid account of the hard-fought battle would make a great movie, Dr. Crawford said.
Filming in Syria, where many of the finest crusader castles can be found, was an experience itself. During filming, Dr. Crawford was made aware by the crew that they were being followed by a Syrian secret policeman. There are not many Americans in the country and while some Syrians were friendly, others clearly were not, said Dr. Crawford, who does not speak Arabic.
"It was unnerving, but at the same time, it was such a privilege to be in a place with a history 5,000 years old," he said of Syria, where he spent an extra two days when filming concluded.
While in the country, he visited nine fortresses and castles, including two large, well-known ones, Krak des Chevaliers and Margat. Some of the finest crusader castles in the world can be found in Syria, he said.
"They're absolutely awesome. [It was] an amazing experience."
The Knights Templar marked Dr. Crawford's second History Channel experience. In November 2004, he appeared in another segment about the crusades.
"The more you do it, the easier it gets and the fewer takes you need."
Although it might look effortless on screen, Dr. Crawford said, there's an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes work.
"You're trying to tell the truth and do it in an interesting way and say it in away that your [historian] friends don't say, 'What did he say that for?' "
For more information about the period, check the-orb.net, an online reference for medieval studies to which Dr. Crawford contributes.
Lynda Guydon Taylor can be reached at ltaylor@post-gazette.com or 724-746-8813
2 October 2006
BBC News Online
Experts are urging property owners in Wales to help them discover buildings with historical value to preserve the nation's heritage.
The call came after a couple from Hengoed in Denbighshire discovered one of their outbuildings was originally a 15th century medieval hall house.
Historians have dated the building using dendrochronology - the analysis of tree rings in timbers - to 1447.
Experts said the find was "extremely rare".
Anthony and Helen Rose bought their 21-acre smallholding near Ruthin in 2003.
Mr Rose said although they did not realise its true significance, the building was one of the things that had attracted them.
"We were told it was the original farmhouse, but it wasn't listed or anything... you could tell it was a substantial building, it was quite dramatic," he said.
The couple discovered the building's history when they had become concerned about the leaning trusses and called in a structural engineer, who had alerted a local architect.
Original features
Mr Rose said many original features of the hall house were still evident, including the remains of a window.
"The important part is the woodwork, the five crucks are still there. What is impressive are the size of crucks, they are very big, heavy substantial cruck trusses (a roof truss composed of two curved or angled pieces of timber).
"It's a great honour to have this on your doorstep.
"In time, maybe it would be nice to make it into a dwelling again, but keeping as much like it would have been in the 15th Century.
"We're just custodians. It's a big part of history, it's part of the culture, so it's got to be preserved."
National Trust archaeologist Emma Plunkett-Dillon said the find was "extremely rare" as hall houses were built by wealthy people, and at the time, Wales was a relatively poor country.
But she said it was not uncommon to find examples of domestic dwellings which were built slightly later in the 17th or early 18th Century.
Ms Plunkett-Dillon said one clue was if the doors or windows of a building had different alignments, which could signify an "interesting history".
"The other giveaway is interesting roof timbers. If you've got a roof built with large old beams... you might be looking at something that's much older, but the only guarantee is to get an expert in."
Judith Alfrey, from Cadw, the assembly government's historic environment service said: "It is a rare find... it's quite exciting really, it's pushing on our understanding of the development of architecture.
"Every new discovery is adding to the total stock of our knowledge, it really is a direct line to understanding of how people lived in the past," she added.
The hall is said to be one of the best examples in Wales.
Is this really the site of 1485 battle?
By Shirley Elsby
2 October 2006
Leicester Mercury
For decades, Bosworth Battlefield was thought to be the site which changed for ever the face of British history.
Now, archaeologists have admitted the battle which saw Henry VII triumph over Richard III probably did not take place there after all.
Half-way through a three-year study to find the real battlefield, experts say that all they have to show for their efforts are bits of horse tackle.
Senior archaeologist Richard Knox said that without more evidence, it seemed unlikely the field was the scene of the crucial battle which ended the Wars of the Roses.
He said: "The battle is only two days, or even one day, in 100 years in the 15th century.
"Lots of other things could have happened which could mean bits of horse harness could have fallen off.
"We have to be careful, but the big flag field has been pretty intensively looked at and we are not finding great evidence of a battle, so, personally, I think it is unlikely."
Bosworth Battlefield was first developed as a tourist attraction in 1974, the same year it was identified as the place where the historic battle took place.
Richard III's flag flies on Ambion Hill, signalling the scene of the main action - but visitors are now being told that is not where it happened.
Instead, the search continues for the real site within dozens of acres of surrounding countryside.
Mr Knox, Leicestershire County Council's assistant keeper of archaeology, now thinks the centre of the battle will be flat ground within the greater battlefield area.
This territory includes Stoke Golding, Dadlington, Sutton Cheney, Fenny Drayton, Witherley, Upton, Merevale and Mancetter.
Tourism bosses are now being forced to change the models and maps at the battlefield centre.
People walking the Battlefield Trail are no longer told that Richard's Field is where the clash took place,
Guide Eddie Smallwood said: "What we tell people at the moment is we don't know exactly where the battle was, but we know it was in this area and they are still walking on very special land where the King of England was in battle. I don't think it loses anything."
Historians have challenged the location since it was originally theorised by Leicestershire County Council archaeologist Danny Williams.
Last year, the Heritage Lottery Fund gave £1.3 million for a revitalisation project for the battlefield site which included the three-year study.
Specialists have been examining the site from ground and air, searching with metal detectors and sampling soil to find evidence of a marsh - a crucial feature of the battle. Medieval artefacts found include horse harness pendants, buckles and strap fittings, which may or may not be connected with the battle on August 22, 1485, that heralded the new Tudor dynasty.
Battlefield spokeswoman Joanne Preston said the public appreciated the county council's honesty in carrying out the study, rather than shying away from existing information being wrong.
"We have always delivered the information as the most accepted theory of the time," she said.
"That information is being challenged and that is how things develop and improve."
Going to sea with Stephen O'Shea: Bestselling author Stephen O'Shea likes to immerse himself in the past to look into the future but don't call him an accidental historian: 'Storyteller' works just fine for him, he tells James MacGowan
James MacGowan
1 October 2006
Ottawa Citizen
Stephen O'Shea may be a transplanted Canadian living in Rhode Island, but he likes to spend his time walking the distant battlefields of various feral and bloody medieval conflicts. In the late nineties, for instance, he trampled through southern France, a sojourn he turned into his highly readable, savagely enjoyable, The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars (2000). More recently, he spent time in various places around the Mediterranean, all in aid of his very absorbing new book, Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World.
O'Shea, who is 50, began his bookwriting career in 1996 with the publication of Back To The Front: An Accidental Historian Walks the Trenches of World War I. Battles, you might say, are in his blood: Both his grandparents fought in the First World War. Combine that with an insatiable desire to tell stories -- he thinks of himself no longer as an accidental historian, but as a storyteller -- and an ability to tell them well, and you have one of the more readable writers of history being published today. True, there is an awful lot going on in his latest book, with a myriad of names and places to be aware of, but thankfully he includes a glossary, maps and pictures. I caught up with O'Shea last week at his home in Providence.
Was this book born out of anger, from a desire to set the record straight about the relationship between Islam and Christianity that has been muddied since 9/11?
Not really. It was born before 9/11 and came out of the research I did for my last book. As I travelled around the Mediterranean, I became fascinated by the religious geography of the place. Why was one shore Muslim and another Christian? That fascinated me. And then, as I travelled around even more, I began to realize I had had a really one-sided view of Mediterranean culture.
How so?
Everyone has heard of Marco Polo, but nobody has heard of Ibn Battuta. We hear about the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs, but nothing of the Umayyads and the Ayyubids. So I wanted to know more about this area because we are all sort of heirs to Mediterranean culture. The Mediterranean is like a centre stage of civilization and we in the West have only heard about one of the players on the centre stage. We don't hear about Islam or Muslims at all.
Well, it was surprising to read that for 800 years Spain was an Islamic country.
Exactly. And that's three centuries longer than Christianity has been in the Americas. And that fact is part of Muslim historical memory. It's part of Jewish historical memory. But it's sort of the result of Christian chauvinism that we don't have an idea of Muslim Spain. It's sort of been blanked out of the history books even though it was one of the most splendid civilizations of the Middle Ages.
As is obvious from the title, the book takes place in and around the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. Some readers might wonder what this has to do with the here and now.
For one thing, it's the Medieval millennium that shaped the contours of the modern age. By the 16th century the geography of the Middle East had been more or less settled. Also, for better or worse, the subject of Islam and Christianity has been coming up a lot these days. Think of the Pope's recent controversial remarks. What precisely was his point in quoting a Byzantine emperor who was beset on all sides by Turks? Obviously, in that situation, this emperor, Manuel Paleologos II, would look very unkindly on Muslims. There are thousands of documents in the Vatican library the Pope could have chosen to site from, some of them more polemical, some of them far less, and some of them far more accurate in their assessment of Islam, yet he chose this one. Why? I also believe that you can't understand where you are unless you understand how you got there.
Explain that.
If someone misleadingly tells you what the past is, then they're also misleading you about your present. The Pope quotes someone saying Islam converts people by the sword, ergo Islam is a violent religion and is a violent religion today. The premise is wrong. Islam has almost never converted anybody by the sword. There are specific injunctions against that in the Koran. The Pope and President Bush, and others, have to make it clear that Islam, as abused by Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, is not Islam. It's something else. It's a political movement that has picked up whatever club was at hand.
There's so much misrepresentation about Islam and Christianity going on right now, whether it comes out of a cave in Bora Bora, the Vatican or a briefing room in the White House that it's become very important to set the record straight.
But you describe numerous bloody battles between Christians and Muslims in the book. Why not focus on the periods of Convivencia, when all was peace and harmony between the two?
You can't get away from the fact that there were tremendous battles. There were some Holy wars, but most of the battles were unholy: those involved may have picked up religion as a club, as I mention about bin Laden. Mostly they were motivated by the usual things: greed, need, imperial ambitions or megalomania. And the battles decided in many instances the religious geography of the Mediterranean and we can't wish them away. Also, there's the more cynical thing about which book are you going to pick up: the one about say, the Unitarian minister or the one about the Inquisitor.
Good point. So what do you want people to take away from this book?
A changed perspective. I want readers, when they think of Islam and Christianity, to have the idea of sibling rivalry, and the notion that these two religions are siblings with all that implies -- friction, affection and familiarity. Christianity and Islam have a shared heritage, there is no us and them. It's only us. That's the important thing. We have to get away from the idea of a clash of civilizations.
Lifting the lid on the liveries For centuries, the City of London's ancient livery companies have been piling up fortunes in secret. Now the Mercers has broken ranks and published its annual review. Andrew Murray-Watson reports
By Andrew Murray-Watson
1 October 2006
The Sunday Telegraph
They are some of the most powerful organisations in the City of London, controlling billions of pounds of assets. Their members dress up in medieval costumes at every opportunity and are loyal custodians of traditions and ceremonial practices laid down more than 600 years ago.
But the wealth and influence of the City of London's ancient livery companies are almost totally unknown to the uninitiated. Most operate from low-key guild halls in the Square Mile and their membership lists are often closely guarded secrets.
But earlier this month the Worshipful Company of Mercers, the foremost livery company, broke with tradition and published an annual review of its activities.
It makes startling reading. The accounts show that at the end of December 2005, the company had pounds 454.6m of assets under management, a rise of pounds 42m on the year before. Out of that total, pounds 315.6m was in property and other fixed assets, including an extensive residential portfolio in Covent Garden and the Royal Exchange complex, the grandest shopping arcade in the City.
The Mercers also had pounds 78.5m in quoted assets, up from pounds 66.5m in the previous year. If the Company were a quoted investment trust, it would rank as one of the largest in the UK.
The clerk at one of the oldest Companies, who asked to remain anonymous, says: "It is fair to say that people were fairly staggered by the scale of Mercers's assets when they were published.''
Although no figures exist, it is estimated that total assets held by the 107 Worshipful Companies could total pounds 2bn. Those involved with livery companies believe that the Cloth Workers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths and Leathersellers are the richest, although no one knows which has the most assets.
And Companies are full of distinguished names from the City. Lord George of St Tudy, the former governor of the Bank of England, and Sir Brian Pitman, the former chairman of Lloyds TSB, are both court members at the Worshipful Company of International Bankers.
The Mercers was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1394. A mercer by definition was a trader in fine fabrics, although the last time a mercer was admitted as an apprentice to the company was 1888.
Like other Worshipful Companies, the Mercers derives its 12th and 13th-century origins from a religious brotherhood that sprang up around a church or hospital.
These fraternities then became powerful trading guilds that often enjoyed monopolistic rights over a particular commodity, such as fish, while remaining true to their Christian origins by making provision for the poor or the sick.
From 1560 onwards a guild secured its livery status from the Court of Aldermen who had to be satisfied that "a number of men of good repute from some trade or mystery not already represented by an existing guild have joined together for a time sufficiently long to justify the belief that they will continue to hold together and are not likely to fall apart from lack of interest or support''.
Livery Companies are governed by a master, a number of wardens and a court of assistants, which elects the master and wardens. The chief executive officer of the company is known as the clerk.
And several modern phrases have their origins in the history of livery Companies. For example, the expression "at sixes and sevens'' comes from a medieval dispute over precedence in order of receiving livery status from the City of London between the Merchant Taylors and the Skinners. The 16th-century Lord Mayor of the day decided that the two would be ranked six and seven in alternate years as a way of resolving the argument.
And the expression "a baker's dozen'' to mean 13, originated in the days when the Bakers' guild strictly monitored the standard of bread.
From the time they were founded until the present day, livery companies have secured funding from rich benefactors, often in the form of property, and the complex interest on their assets over the space of 600 years has created some exceedingly wealthy organisations. The band of Worshipful Companies, which now number 107 in total, have a mandate to give proceeds from assets to charity.
In the year to August 2005, the Mercers gave away pounds 9m to charity, up from pounds 8.48m in the previous year. Of that total, pounds 4.51m was donated to educational charities, pounds 3.4m went to welfare causes, pounds 600,000 went to churches and other Christian organisations, while pounds 490,000 went to the arts.
The Mercers's charitable aims are shared by all other livery companies.
The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, for example, gave away on average pounds 1.75m per year over the past three years.
One of the newest Companies is the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. Although it is unable to call upon hundreds of years of accrued assets, the company still gave away pounds 750,000 in cash donations and donations-in-kind in the form of the time given up by its members on behalf of organisations, such as schools.
Michael Grant, clerk of the Company, says: "We are much more reliant on members to give their money, time and talent. We have to rely on a different way to contribute at a practical level.''
A few of the Worshipful Companies still have regulatory duties. The Fishmongers, for example, still monitor standards of hygiene at Billingsgate fish market while the Goldsmiths still check coins issued by the Royal Mint.
Meanwhile the Vintners and Dyers annually get decked out in ceremonial garb and take a row boat up the Thames to count the number of swans - a practice known as "swan-upping''.
The livery ccompanies also approve the preferred candidates to become Lord Mayor of London.
As livery companies are founded by royal charter, they are under no obligation to file any records at Companies House. They are only accountable to their membership and the ways in which they spend their millions is totally discretionary. The power of the Financial Services Authority, the City watchdog, does not extend to candle-lit Company dining halls.
But The Mercers's decision to publish a detailed breakdown of its activities is further evidence that the livery companies are adopting a more modern and transparent approach when it comes to their financial activity.
Keith Waters, clerk at the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, says: "The change is coming from the members themselves. Accountability is something we now all face in our working lives.''
He adds: "Simply put, what was acceptable before, is less acceptable now.''
And the livery movement is now more popular than ever. More Companies have been founded in the 20th century than in any other period in history. And in the short space of another 100 years or so, even the newly founded Worshipful Companies may be financial powerhouses in their own right.
Waters concludes: "The livery companies have been here for centuries. They are nothing less than part of the fabric which underpins the City of London.''
Mercers
As well as being the premier livery company in London, the Mercers is perhaps the richest with pounds 484m under management. It owns 70 residences in Covent Garden as well as the Royal Exchange complex in the heart of the City.
Giving away some pounds 9m a year, the Mercers supports 15 schools and offers sheltered housing for the elderly; the company is also a patron of a number of churches.
Information Technologists
The guild became the 100th livery company in 1992. Its coat of arms is mainly green and blue, representing video displays and electricity. The Company supports the Lilian Baylis school in London and offers its expertise to a number of institutions including hospitals and charitable organisations. Last year the company gave away more than pounds 250,000 to charities and its members donated the equivalent of another pounds 500,000-worth of their time.
Haberdashers
The Company is one of the oldest and best known, thanks to the numerous schools that bear its name. In the year to the end of June 2006 it awarded grants totalling pounds 800,000. More than half of the awards went to schools, a quarter to welfare bodies and 4 per cent each to Christian organisations and health providers. The company is also trustee of 34 almshouses in Monmouth, Newland and Newport through the William Jones and William Adams Foundations and is patron of eight Church of England livings.
Goldsmiths
The Company received its royal charter in 1327 and since 1300 has been testing the quality of gold and silver. Today it carries out its statutory functions through the operations of the Assay Office in London. These functions include the quaintly named Trial of the Pyx, the annual examination of coins made by the Royal Mint. Last year its charitable arm gave away a total of pounds 1.75m. Much of the money goes to schools and to supporting the art of goldsmithing.
Fishmongers
The Fishmongers' Company, at more than 700 years old, is one of the most ancient. Granted its first royal charter by Edward I in the 13th century and a monopoly to sell fish in London, the Fishmongers was wealthy enough by the end of that century to be required to supply the king with three ships. Today the Fishmongers provides financial support to the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, the Scottish Association for Marine Science and the Freshwater Biological Association. It also monitors hygiene standards at Billingsgate fish market.
History how good was king richard and how bad was king john? asks Helen Castor
By Helen Castor
1 October 2006
The Sunday Telegraph
King Richard, King John and the Wars of Conquest
BY FRANK MCLYNN
JONATHAN CAPE, pounds 20, 578 pp T pounds 18 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4115
They were the 'Devil's Brood': Henry, Richard, Geoffrey and John, the four sons of King Henry II and his formidable wife,
Eleanor of Aquitaine. Legend had it that this Angevin dynasty was descended from Melusine, daughter of Satan - a story which those who witnessed their venomous rages and vicious feuds found all too easy to believe.
The brothers had plenty to fight about. Their father ruled a new and unwieldy empire that ranged from the Scottish borders
to the Pyrenees. To England and Normandy - recovering from 20 years of civil war between Henry's mother Matilda and her
cousin Stephen - were added the county of Anjou, Henry's paternal inheritance, and his wife's great duchy of Aquitaine. The
king was determined to provide for all of his sons from among these disparate dominions. Much less clear, however, was the
question of who would inherit what. After years of violent rivalry, the claims of two sons, Henry and Geoffrey, ended
prematurely in death. Against the odds, the Angevin empire in its entirety passed first to Richard, in 1189, and then, 10
years later, to his youngest brother, John.
Even at a distance of 800 years, the story of these two kings is an enticing one for a biographer. Richard was their
extraordinary mother's favourite child; John their overbearing father's. Dazzled contemporaries called Richard the
'Lionheart' for his courage and prowess as a soldier, while John's epithet, 'Lackland' - originally an expression of
sympathy for the limited prospects of a younger son - became a damning reflection on his catastrophic military losses.
Richard's career looked relentlessly outward from his beloved homeland of Aquitaine, his crusading ambitions taking him via
Sicily and Cyprus to Acre, Ascalon and almost to the walls of Jerusalem. John's, on the other hand, spiralled inexorably
inwards: he lost Normandy to the resurgent French, and was forced to the brink of deposition in England by his rebellious
barons.
There should be an enthralling book in these intertwined lives. Sadly, however, this isn't it. Frank McLynn is an
impressively prolific author, but the speed with which this mass of challenging material has apparently been tackled has
left its mark on the style, structure and, occasionally, accuracy of the text. More than that, McLynn seems ill at ease as a
guide to the medieval world. Accounts of 'feudalism', law, structures of government and economic developments are confused and confusing, leaving us with an atomised narrative featuring a bewildering cast of kings, nobles and churchmen, but no deeper understanding of the causes, context or consequences of their actions.
Meanwhile, the anachronism and hindsight for which he berates fellow historians play a distracting part in his own writing -
often in the form of 'uncanny pre-echoes' of the subjects of his previous books, especially Napoleon, whom Richard here
'anticipates' throughout his career. There may well be illuminating parallels to be found between king and emperor; but
looking through the wrong end of the historical telescope makes it impossible to elucidate them.
Richard's reputation has had mixed fortunes over the centuries, from hero to zero and back again - his rehabilitation over
the last 30 years largely the result of an increasing realisation that a lack of interest in England did not necessarilymake a Bad King in 12th-century terms. The verdict on his brother (despite McLynn's valiant attempt to pick a fight by
caricaturing the 'new revisionism of "good King John'' ') has been much more consistent: John was not only a spectacularly
unlovely character, but a supremely unsuccessful ruler.
In one respect at least, however, we must give the most devilish of the Devil's Brood his due. So insistently is he damned
by chroniclers and historians alike that John leaps off the page in all his repellent glory. The historical Lionheart, by
contrast, remains resolutely two-dimensional - a frustrating, but perhaps fitting, judgement on a monarch whose mythical role in English culture is defined not only by his heroism, but his absence.
Books: Let's party like it's 1066
Tom Hodgkinson
1 October 2006
Independent On Sunday
HISTORY Forget the Victorian age, says Tom Hodgkinson: those in the medieval age had it sussed. They were never in debt - and were way ahead of us with their eco-friendly habits
BACK IN 1983, in an inter view with broadcaster Brian Walden, Mrs Thatcher caught the public imagination with her promotion of "Victorian values":
Walden: You've really outlined an approval of what I would call Victorian values. The sort of values, if you like, that helped to build the country throughout the 19th century. Now is that right?
Thatcher: Exactly. Very much so. Those were the values when our country became great, but not only did our country become great internationally, also so much advance was made in this country.
Now what did the Victorians value, exactly? Well, the 19th century was the era of hard work, exploitation, greed, chimney sweeps, 16-hour days, tall black hats, money-worship and strict discipline in the home. It was the era when the dark Satanic mills destroyed the cottage industry and lives began to be lived around the clock rather than by the seasons. It was the era of steam, coal and gas. It was the era that introduced the notion of the earth as a resource to be mined. It was the era of competitive living. It was the era of soul-deadening machinery. Anyone who doubts this has only to read Dickens.
These values motivated the Eighties and they are still the dominant ones today. Well, I for one am thoroughly fed up with Victorian values which is why in my new book, called How To Be Free, I propose instead a return to medieval values.
On first sight, this idea seems bonkers. Surely the medieval age was a time of bad diets, corrupt priests and abject serfdom? Well, no. This view is actually a calumnious caricature. When I started to write How To Be Free, I decided to read Mutual Aid by the great 19th-century anarchist Prince Petr Kropotkin, described by Oscar Wilde as one of the most cheerful men he had ever met. In Mutual Aid, published at the same time as Darwin's Origin of Species, Kropotkin argues that cooperation is an essential part of animal and human life and development. He also reminds us that it was in the medieval age when the great free city-states such as Florence were created. The medievals, he says, valued craftsmanship, cooperation and justice. Mutual Aid led me to read other books on medieval customs and culture, and what I found was a society that made a sustained and conscious attempt to live fairly and justly.
The two great influences on the development of medieval ethics were Christ's sermon on the mount and Aristotle's Ethics, which had come to Europe via Arab translations. From this material they developed an approach to life which was eco-friendly, neighbourly and based on cooperating rather than competing. So here, briefly, is an introduction to 10 important medieval values, all of which seem radical to us:
ANTI-CAPITALIST: Lending at interest, or usury, is at the basis of the capitalist system. And usury was quite specifically proscribed by medieval ethics. It was sinful, they said, to sell something that does not belong to you, which is time. It was also sinful to take advantage of someone else's misfortune by lending them money. Usurers were sometimes known to return all the money they had made on their deathbed, in an effort to ensure their salvation. Money was for spending, not for saving or lending.
ANTI-WORK: According to historian Jacques Le Goff, the medievals were opposed to hard work, because, he says, to put in long hours displayed a lack of faith in Providence. Theologically, medieval Catholicism was closer to an almost Taoist Oriental fatalism than today's Protestant culture. And hard work might give you an unfair advantage over your brothers.
ANTI-COMPETITIVE: Craftsmen organised themselves into a system of Guilds. Guild members mutually agreed to keep quality high and prices uncompetitive. They instituted the notion of a "just and fixed price" for their wares. Goods were produced in small groups. This practice guarded against today's problem which is giant companies producing a load of rubbish.
ECO-FRIENDLY: In the era before electricity, coal, gas or nuclear power, the medievals heated themselves from sustainable sources: ie, wood. They used water and wind power to grind corn. The UK was covered in eco-friendly windmills. All vegetable production was necessarily organic, and everyone "shopped local". There were no supermarkets or call centres or lorries or cars. No logos, either. And crucially, no plastic. Therefore there was no waste as everything was returned to to the earth.
SELF-SUFFICIENT: Even the meanest medieval peasant grew vegetables and herbs and kept pigs and chickens. And the giant yeoman class became very prosperous. Chaucer wrote of his Franklin: "It snowed in his house of mete and drynke."
HOSPITABLE: Just as indigenous people today would share their last crust with you, so the medievals emphasised the importance of good hospitality. The monasteries would take in wandering men and give them beer, bread and bacon, and indeed, the (later) problem of homeless, in the Elizabethan age, was a direct result of the destruction of the monasteries.
CHARITABLE: In the days before charity had become just another institutional mega-business, it really did begin at home. The importance of charity was constantly insisted upon and there were plenty of wandering beggars and other mendicants who were ready to receive your alms. There was no disgrace attached to poverty: in fact, it was a state to be celebrated, because the apostles were poor. We had the example of St Francis of Assisi who became voluntarily poor.
PARTY-LOVING: The medieval calendar was absolutely studded with feast days and festivals. Of course, we all celebrate Christmas now, but Christmas then was celebrated for 12 days, during which no one was allowed to work. Every three or four weeks there was some excuse for a party. May Day was for having sex and every three of four weeks there was a long break.
CHIVALROUS: It was the medieval knights and specifically the great Troubadours of Southern France who invented the custom of courtly love. Chivalry, respect and courtesy towards women was constantly insisted upon, and there were great female patrons of these poets, such as, for example, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Good manners were important.
NEIGHBOURLY: Christ had conceived of the world as a "brotherhood of man" and civility to your neighbour was paramount. This is because the medievals had a sense of collective responsibility: we are all in this together, so your well-being and my well-being are one and the same thing.
Medieval values were radical values. They were good values. And they were enj oyable values. We should embrace them.
To order a copy of Tom Hodgkinson's 'How To Be Free' (Hamish Hamilton £14.99) for £13.50 (free p&p), call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798 897
Archaeological excavations in Dome Cathedral uncover foundations of 13th century church
Mвrtiтр Vilemsons
28 September 2006
Latvian News Agency
RIGA, Sept 28 (LETA) - The recent archaeological excavations at Riga's Dome Cathedral may have uncovered the oldest remains of the Dome dating back to 1226, in the time of legate, or papal ambassador, Bishop Vilhelm of Modena.
"The discovered remains of the wall under the 15th pillar, that stretches in the westerly direction, allow us to think that prior to the current church building, there could have stood some other temporary church building," as Andris Celmins, the head of the archeological digs from "Arhitektoniskas izpetes grupa Ltd." (Architectonic Research Group, AIG), told reporters today.
The digging uncovered two significant construction elements. The first is a 30-centimeter wide socle of the 15th column, the second - the band-shaped foundation of the wall.
The archaeological excavations took place within the framework of the second round of a project researching the Dome Cathedral's foundations, as Ronalds Lusis, the head of the cathedral's restoration team, told LETA.
August 1 to September 1 this year, AIG, in collaboration with Riga History and Shipping Museum, researched two plots in the total area of 26 square meters at the Riga Dome.
The discovered materials, including human bones, were then studied by anthropologist Guntis Gerhards.
Although the area of the digging was rather small, the excavation works resulted in a relatively large number of found artifacts, including 11 coins. One of them, a 14th century bracteate, was discovered in the foundations of the Medieval wall, thus allowing historians to predate the ancient dolomite stone wall. Also discovered was a builder's iron chisel and a decorated fragment of a pilgrim's token.
In the second and third excavation plots, archeologists also uncovered an overall of 33 human burial remains, placed in eight layers.
Treasures looted by Rome 'are back in the Holy Land'
Dalya Alberge Arts Correspondent
25 September 2006
The Times
A COLLECTION of sacred artefacts looted by the Romans from the Temple of Jerusalem and long suspected of being hidden in the vaults of the Vatican are actually in the Holy Land, according to a British archaeologist.
Sean Kingsley, a specialist in the Holy Land, claims to have discovered what became of the collection, which is widely regarded as the greatest of biblical treasures and includes silver trumpets that would have heralded the Coming of the Messiah.
The trumpets, gold candelabra and the bejewelled Table of the Divine Presence were among pieces shipped to Rome after the looting in AD70 of the Temple, the most sacred building in the ancient Jewish faith.
After a decade of research into previously untapped ancient texts and archaeological sources, Dr Kingsley has reconstructed the treasure's route for the first time in 2,000 years to provide evidence that it left Rome in the 5th century.
He has discovered that it was taken to Carthage, Constantinople and Algeria before being hidden in the Judaean wilderness, beneath the Monastery of Theodosius.
Dr Kingsley said: "The treasure resonates fiercely across modern politics. Since the mid-1990s, a heated political wrangle has been simmering between the Vatican and Israel, which has accused the papacy of imprisoning the treasure.
"The Temple treasure remains a deadly political tool in the volatile Arab Israeli conflict centred on the Temple Mount (the site of the Jewish Temple and the Muslim Dome of the Rock).
"The treasure's final hiding place -in the modern West Bank...deep in Hamas territory -will rock world religions."
Emperor Vespasian ordered the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem after a Jewish revolt and Roman forces took about 50 tons of gold, silver and precious art to Rome.
The Arch of Titus, built a decade later, depicts Roman soldiers bearing the sacred spoils on their shoulders. The Jews were expelled from Jerusalem and dispersed throughout the world.
Between AD75 and the early 5th century, the treasure was on public display in the Temple of Peace in the Forum, in Rome.
The Vatican has told Dr Kingsley that there is no evidence in its archives that the treasure resided in Rome from the medieval period onwards.
He said: "One thing is for sure -it is not imprisoned deep in Vatican City. I am the first person to prove that the Temple treasures no longer languish in Rome."
Dr Kingsley's sources include Josephus, a 1st-century Jewish historian who sometimes exaggerated but is an authority on Roman and Jewish history. Dr Kingsley also found evidence in, among others, the works of Procopius, a court historian of the Emperor Justinian, who died in AD562, and from Theophanes Confessor (c760-817), a Christian monk from Constantinople.
In Chronographia, which spanned AD284 to 813, Theophanes recorded that Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, loaded the treasures that "Titus had brought to Rome after the capture of Jerusalem" on a boat to Carthage in Tunisia in AD455.
In the first holy crusade in AD533, the Byzantine Belisarius seized the treasure from a royal ship fleeing the Algerian harbour of Hippo Regius. It was then shipped to Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium.In the 7th century, Persians sacked Jerusalem, killing thousands of Christians, and dragging the Patriarch, Zacharias, to Persia. Dr Kingsley believes that his replacement, Modestus, spirited away the treasures to their final hiding place in AD614.
Dr Kingsley will reveal his findings in God's Gold: The Quest for the Lost Temple Treasure of Jerusalem, to be published by John Murray on October 5.
PROFESSOR TELLS TELEVISION AUDIENCE OF BATTLING KNIGHTS
Lynda Guydon Taylor
24 September 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
History Channel viewers regularly tune in for information about a name from the past, a distant place or a forgotten age. Part history and part entertainment, it generally adds up to solid information.
It's not often that a university can boast that the on-camera expert is one of its own. That was the case recently when California University of Pennsylvania assistant professor Paul Crawford appeared on the "Lost Worlds" segment about the Knights Templar.
Dr. Crawford, 45, who has a doctorate in medieval history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was formerly a professor of medieval and early modern history at Alma College in Alma, Mich. Before that, he lectured in ancient and medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
As the newly hired assistant professor of ancient and medieval history at CalU, he teaches Western civilization, the Renaissance, the Reformation and the craft of history or, as he describes it, "how to be a historian."
Dr. Crawford spent two days filming the Knights Templar segment, highlighting the religious order of fighting monks. It has aired several times since its initial July screening. Traveling to Syria for the program, he visited castles used by the knights in the two days of filming in mid-February. About five minutes wound up on screen.
The unique thing about him is that he is so interested in the crusades and the Knights Templar that he is able to draw students in, said Laura Tuennerman, chairwoman of the university's Department of History and Social Science.
CalU students love the History Channel, said Ms. Tuennerman, who participated in Mr. Crawford's selection. The university, which chose from a pool of 30 to 40 candidates, appreciated that he can talk about history to a public audience in addition to writing at a scholarly level.
"I think he has a real love for what he studies, and he gets that sense across to his students," she said.
Conveying his knowledge of the subject, Dr. Crawford said a French knight named Hugh founded the Knights Templar with two friends. Explaining the lack of surnames, Mr. Crawford said it depended on a person's station in life. At the time, an aristocrat was known through family connections and might have borne more than one name. On the other hand, common folk living in a town knew everyone else and a first name was enough.
In any event, it was Hugh who believed pilgrims traveling the dangerous Holy Land route from Jaffa, now part of Tel Aviv, to Jerusalem needed protection from criminals and bandits, and founded the Knights Templar.
So dangerous was the trek, Dr. Crawford said, that one pilgrim, Saewulf, is said to have advised, "Don't stop to dig a grave for your friend because it will turn out to be your own."
Along with protecting pilgrims, the knights became monks, taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The idea of fusing fighting and religion was novel at the time, monks being the cloistered group they are, Dr. Crawford said.
In what Dr. Crawford describes as a public relations maneuver, Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot of the Chistercian Order, negotiated official church approval for the knights. A mover and shaker of his time, one of the abbot's students became a pope.
About the same time the Knights Templar were doing their thing, another order, the Knights Hospitaller, began a hospice for injured pilgrims once they reached Jerusalem, Dr. Crawford said. Although the Knights Templar are extinct, the Hospitallers continue today as an order of the Catholic church and are called the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Both orders during the Middle Ages, Mr. Crawford said, became an essential part of the army of defense of the Christian Holy Land.
Although the existence of the Knights Templar is questioned from time to time, they received official religious sanction in 1129 until the order was dissolved in 1312 by Pope Clement V.
The Knights Templar were very disciplined soldiers who, when not battling on behalf of pilgrims, led a prayerful life. They were so disciplined that one secular noble, unable to defend his castle, relied on the knights for defense, Dr. Crawford said.
Although the knights built several castles, by 1291 they lost them because they either didn't have the manpower to maintain them or the support of the Christian West, he said.
While the public perception is that some crusaders got involved for the money, Dr. Crawford said, "the idea that the crusaders crusaded to get rich is almost always wrong."
The Knights Templar were an interesting lot, but Mr. Crawford finds one story particularly fascinating. It involved the battle of Acre, when the knights were driven out of the Holy Land. Apparently, an anonymous writer, an aide or secretary to the Master of Templars or of William of Beaujeau, recounted the battle in which his boss was mortally wounded.
William was especially vulnerable, according to the account, because he did not have time to dress in heavy armor. Fighting for hours, the master, at one point, raised his arm and was struck in the chest with a javelin and fatally wounded. The vivid account of the hard-fought battle would make a great movie, Dr. Crawford said.
Filming in Syria, where many of the finest crusader castles can be found, was an experience itself. During filming, Dr. Crawford was made aware by the crew that they were being followed by a Syrian secret policeman. There are not many Americans in the country and while some Syrians were friendly, others clearly were not, said Dr. Crawford, who does not speak Arabic.
"It was unnerving, but at the same time, it was such a privilege to be in a place with a history 5,000 years old," he said of Syria, where he spent an extra two days when filming concluded.
While in the country, he visited nine fortresses and castles, including two large, well-known ones, Krak des Chevaliers and Margat. Some of the finest crusader castles in the world can be found in Syria, he said.
"They're absolutely awesome. [It was] an amazing experience."
The Knights Templar marked Dr. Crawford's second History Channel experience. In November 2004, he appeared in another segment about the crusades.
"The more you do it, the easier it gets and the fewer takes you need."
Although it might look effortless on screen, Dr. Crawford said, there's an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes work.
"You're trying to tell the truth and do it in an interesting way and say it in away that your [historian] friends don't say, 'What did he say that for?' "
For more information about the period, check the-orb.net, an online reference for medieval studies to which Dr. Crawford contributes.
Lynda Guydon Taylor can be reached at ltaylor@post-gazette.com or 724-746-8813
posted by Peter Konieczny | 4:57 PM
1 Comments:
It's a bit dishonest to claim Spain was an islamic country for 800 years. First of all, there was no Spain anymore than there was a Germany or Italy. That had to wait until Ferdinand and Isabela united the existing kingdoms. The reconquista began almost as soon as Tariq ibn Ziyad had established islamic hegemony throughout most of the inerian peninsula. It did, however take slightly under 800 years to fully sweep islamic rulers from power but the process had begun by 718 and by 1212 Granada was the only province to remain under islamic sway until 1492 when it fell to the united spanish kingdom.
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