667
Edmund, King of the East Angles, is given a stark choice by the Viking warrior who has ravaged his realm.
Some four years after the Great Heathen Army of the Vikings landed in 865, Hingwar ravaged the Kingdom of the East Angles with indiscriminate bloodshed. He then sent a messenger to their lord, King Edmund, in his now silent Hall, bearing an ultimatum: to live and be Hingwar’s vassal, or to die. What follows is said to be the story as told by an eyewitness.
Picture: From the Passion of St Edmund, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted March 31 2020
668
Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf reminds us that God’s gifts to men are many and varied, and nobody ever gets them all.
‘Now there are diversities of gifts,’ St Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12, ‘but the same Spirit.’ Cynewulf (possibly the eighth-century bishop Cynewulf of Lindisfarne) confirms that the gifts given by God to mankind are many and different, and also explains why it is that no one should expect to be good at everything.
Picture: From the Utrecht Psalter, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted March 29 2020
669
Archdeacon and diplomat Peter of Blois was a frequent guest at the laden tables of King Henry II, but he had little appetite for the fare on offer.
Hollywood has made us familiar with the image of medieval kings at table with their nobles, the tables groaning under the weight of platters of venison and flagons of wine, and everyone rejoicing in plenty. What Hollywood does not tell us, but Henry II’s courtier Peter of Blois (?1130-?1211) does, is that most of it was well past its sell-by date.
Picture: From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted March 27 2020
670
Back in the eleventh century English refugees founded New York, but it wasn’t in North America.
After the Norman Conquest in 1066, a group of English noblemen sold their estates and set sail for anywhere not ruled by Normans. Their wanderings took them to Constantinople (or Micklegarth), at that time beset by another overbearing Norman, Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, and the Seljuk Turks.
Picture: By Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted March 25 2020
671
In Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire, a man from Kent founded a glittering church for English refugees.
Goscelin of Canterbury was a Flemish monk who settled in England during the 1060s. He preserved many records of the English just in time to save them from obliteration by the Normans, who overran the country’s highest offices following the Conquest of 1066. As he tells us, however, not everyone could bear to stay and watch.
Picture: © Niels Elgaard Larsen, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 generic.. Source.
Posted March 24 2020
672
Orderic Vitalis regrets the passing of a society far more refined and advanced than that which supplanted it.
Many have portrayed the Norman Invasion of 1066 as a welcome injection of Continental sophistication into a rustic England, but that was not the opinion of Orderic Vitalis (1075-?1143) somewhat nearer to the action. He was inclined to acquit William himself, but regarded his French lieutenants as barbarians unworthy of the civilisation they had ruined.
Picture: © Harrie Gielen, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted March 19 2020