Symbolism in Anglo-Saxon Art

by Carol McGrath

During the Anglo-Saxon era the interiors of churches would have glowed with colour, and the walls of the halls were painted with decorative scenes from the imagination telling stories of monsters and heroes like those in the poem Beowulf. Although nothing much is left of the wall paintings, we can discover evidence of their pictorial art in Bibles and Psalters. Monasteries gave religious artists the stability they needed to advance a native style in illuminated manuscripts which was to become the envy of Europe. Much beautiful work was produced by monks in their scriptoriums.

Outlines of Angels painted above this arch. Early English art above a Norman arch

This early beautiful illumination work is apparent in the Lindisfarne Gospels of the 7th century. These show a mixture of Byzantine influence and a very lively distinctive English style. The colours and the lines used are fabulous.

Illustration from the Lindisfarne Gospels

The golden age of early Anglo-Saxon art came with the period of King Alfred (871-970). There was a resurgence of learning in Wessex, and King Alfred himself translated tracts from the Bible into English. Illuminated texts that were contained beautiful, sophisticated illustrations alive with much symbolism. What follows is just an outline of a few of the symbols to be found in religious manuscripts..

• Man, Angel, lion, bull or calf. These feature in gospel books either alone or accompanying representations of the evangelists in human form. They emerge from the description of God's throne in the Apocalypse. Each gospel is associated with its related symbol.

John the Evangelist ( Lindesfarne Gospels)

The Trinity cannot be depicted as it is without form, so only through metaphors and symbols and analogies can the notion be represented. The symbols are often inclusive of the lamb and the dove. Since there are  many references to God's right hand in the Old Testament we have Dextera Dei to represent God. The lamb is a reference to Christ with origins in the notion of the Passover lamb in John the Baptist's words 'Look there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.' The Dove appeared at Christ's baptism in Matt iii.16. The Dove and lamb appear in symbolic images of the Trinity and in scenes such as the Cruxificion placed above the head of Christ to symbolise God's approval of Christ's sacrifice.


Evangelists are portrayed holding books just as St Peter holds keys. Martyred saints hold palm branches and Mary is shown holding the Christ child to indicate her role as mother of the saviour.

Anglo-Saxon psalter from 11thC

Angels are very significant in Anglo-Saxon paintings and sculpture. They are placed above canon tables in gospel books often with sceptres as a sign of Christ's royal status. They blow trumpets and hold scales in reference to the coming of judgement. Other motifs vary. For example in a crucifixion scene, Christ may be depicted wearing a diadem and the symbols of the sun and moon are occasionally placed above the arms of the cross to remind the viewer of the darkness that covered the earth at Christ's death and to remind us of the belief that the world mourned the death of its creator.

As a writer of fiction set in this period I find that looking closely at the art and embroidery from this period helps me to come closer to grasping the mind set of the characters in my novels. Equally, it is interesting to recognise how brilliant and talented our early medieval ancestors were when they produced such painstakingly beautiful works of art.

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Carol McGrath is the author of The Handfasted Wife, published by Accent Press, first in a trilogy, Daughters of Hastings. It can be purchased for all e readers and from Amazon UK and USA for kindle and as a paperback.  

Of hands, heads and other bits and pieces

by Anna Belfrage

It is said that when Francisco Franco lay dying back in 1975, he had the desiccated hand of St Teresa right beside him on his pillow. No doubt the dying dictator was hoping Spain’s patron saint would guide him all the way to heaven – personally I have serious doubts as to whether he qualifies.

Franco was by his own reckoning a most devout person, motivated not only by power but also by a need to defend the Catholic church when he took up arms against the Spanish Republic. As an aside, the Republic did go overboard on several occasions vis-à-vis the religious organisations, but that is totally unrelated to this post – as is Franco, apart from him clutching St Teresa’s hand when he died.

This post, you see, is about the hands, the finger joints, the bits and pieces of various saints and martyrs that have travelled the world, carried from one dusty monastery to the other in the hope of bringing with them some part of the saintliness that imbued their original owner.

The reliquary containing St Teresa's hand

In the case of St Teresa, this remarkable woman was an anomaly. First of all, she was of Jewish descent. Her father was a converso and had been forced to wear the sambenito robes at every church in Toledo for seven consecutive Fridays while being pelted with refuse and verbally abused for being a doubtful Christian – and there are A LOT of churches in Toledo. Secondly, she was a woman, at a time when the religious authorities were very negatively inclined to women who attempted to study and interpret scripture or even worse, claim to have spiritual visitations from Christ. Thirdly, while Teresa was a nun, she was also a very attractive nun, a woman who didn’t think twice about utilising her feminine wiles to get what she wanted.

And still, despite these obvious drawbacks – I mean, a woman saying she was talking to God? Come on! After all, Spain had San Juan de la Cruz doing the chatting with Jesus, and the country didn’t need one more direct line to God, did it? – Teresa was recognised already in her own lifetime as being something very, very special. She levitated, she was overcome by visions, and she wrote inspired books about all these her experiences, books that were viewed with much suspicion by the Inquisition – so much, in fact, that Teresa herself was hauled before the Inquisition two years before her death.

Whatever the case, Teresa was obviously destined for great things after death, and no sooner had the poor woman expired, but people began squabbling over her remains. The nunnery where she died hastily buried the body, hoping to keep it. Down came Teresa’s confessor, ordered the grave opened, marvelled at her un-decayed flesh and… sliced off her left hand! (The one adorning Franco’s pillow, four centuries or so later)

The body was taken to Ávila, it was disinterred several times more as various parties squabbled over her final resting place, and at every such disinterment poor Teresa lost a part of her fantastically preserved remains. An arm ended up at the convent where she died, her jawbone and her right foot reside in Rome, part of her cheek is in Madrid, her heart is carefully preserved in a reliquary in Alba. There is a finger with a ring on it in Ávila, and other bodily parts now live in Brussels, México and Paris. Poor woman: come Resurrection, she will have a hard time collecting all her bits and pieces.

This is where it all becomes quite interesting. As per the Christian faith, the dead will rise again upon the Day of Resurrection; they will stand up intact from their graves and be returned to some sort of life. (Nowadays, Christian faiths don’t worry overmuch about an intact body – cremation is an accepted practise – but they definitely did back then!) I assume this only goes for the good ones, the ones deserving to live forever in Paradise, and reasonably this should include all the saints. Unfortunately, all the saints will have problems similar to St Teresa’s, namely that they won’t be able to locate all their parts – or even worse, they will locate too many parts.

Take Swithin of Winchester, for example. Now, this is a somewhat odd saint, as nothing really noteworthy was written about him until a century or so after his death, when he was chosen as patron saint of the new cathedral in Winchester. This brought about quite the Swithin revival, and suddenly this rather insignificant man was credited with miracles, with wisdom – and with saintliness. His bones were moved out of his original tomb to the new basilica, and people came from afar to pray at his tomb.

So far, Swithin had remained whole. His bodily remains were still rattling around in the same coffin, but this state of affairs was not to last. His head was sent off to Canterbury, an arm went to Peterborough, and bit by bit the poor man’s bones went on a reluctant walkabout.

Any church worth its name wanted a relic, something to entice the faithful to come and visit. In some cases, people went to great lengths to acquire such relics, like St Hugh of Lincoln, who reputedly bit off a piece of St Mary of Magdalene’s arm while visiting a convent in France. Sounds a bit too gruesome to be true, but undoubtedly this fascination with relics led to a rather brisk trade in them – and most of the finger bones, embalmed hearts, fragments of the True Cross, were forgeries.

In some cases, potential saints had their bodily parts separated from the rest of their bodies prior to death – or upon being executed. (After all, by severing someone’s head and hanging it on a pole for some years before dropping it to sink in the Thames, the authorities were symbolically ensuring that person would never make it through the Resurrection – denying the unfortunate the possibility of eternal life.)

Such a saint is St Oliver Plunkett, the last person to die as a Catholic martyr in England. Oliver Plunkett was the Archbishop of Armagh, an Irish Catholic who had the misfortune of being a contemporary with the extremely anti-Catholic fanatics that dominated English political life in the 1670’s.

England was unhappy with its Catholic queen, with its royal Catholic heir, James, Duke of York. Charles II’s brother had probably converted to Catholicism as early as 1669, but this change of faith only became public when the Test Act was introduced in 1673, whereupon any person wishing to hold office had to condemn certain practices within the Catholic Church as superstitious and idolatry. James refused, thereby making it known to all and sundry that he was no longer of the “right” faith.

To further add fuel to this infected fire, along came Titus Oates, a slimy character gifted with a very vivid imagination and a glib tongue. He “revealed” the infamous Popish plot whereby even the queen was accused of intending to murder her husband. It was all lies, but the lies were craftily constructed, and the people – Parliament especially – wanted to believe the Catholics were up to no good, and as a consequence more than twenty people lost their lives before Oates was revealed as being a perjurer.

As part of this Popish plot, Plunkett was accused of conspiring with the French, aiming to invade England. There was not a shred of evidence supporting this, but Plunkett was brought to England, placed on trial and convicted of treason – despite “everyone” knowing that he was innocent of anything but being Catholic.

He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in 1681, originally buried in two (?) tin boxes, but his remains were exhumed in 1683 and his head was sent off to Rome, most of his body was buried in England while bits and pieces ended up in France, the Americas, Germany and Australia. The head has since then been returned to Ireland, and is now displayed in St Peter’s Church, Drogheda. Just like St Teresa, poor Oliver will have to do quite some globetrotting to find himself…

Nowadays, the Vatican takes a negative stance on relics – and especially on the trade in relics. For those wannabe saints that are presently living out their lives amongst us, all those who work so hard at being good, at being charitable and doing good deeds, this means that they need not worry that they will be chopped up after death.

No, modern day saints will be buried whole, they will remain in the ground whole, and whatever shrines are built in their names will instead include real time footage of miracles and speeches, no doubt available for download if you have the right app. Sadly, I think the biggest problem in this world of ours is that there are too few of us who aspire to saintliness. After all, being good to others is so “last year” in a society that more and more embraces the simplified cult of “ME”.

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Anna Belfrage is the author of three published books, A Rip in the Veil , Like Chaff in the Wind and The Prodigal Son. The fourth book in The Graham Saga, A Newfound Land, will be published in the autumn of 2013. Set in seventeenth century Scotland and Virginia, the books tell the story of Matthew and Alex, two people who should never have met – not when she was born three hundred years after him. 

The Haunting Power of Whitby Abbey

by Nancy Bilyeau

I have a passion for abbey ruins. Part of the reason is that I am writing a thriller trilogy set during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and through my research I've discovered fascinating things about the world inhabited by my protagonist, a Dominican novice, in Dartford. But every ruin has a story to tell, and few are as enthralling as Whitby, in north Yorkshire.

THE FOUNDING: The first religious establishment on the site sprang up during Christianity's infancy in Britain. The founding abbess was Hilda (or Hild), a princess born in 614. She was the great-niece of King Edwin of Northumbria. After her father was poisoned in a court plot, she was brought up in the royal family, baptized by Paulinus, a  Roman missionary.

Inspired by her sister, who became a nun, Hilda chose a religious life and became an abbess. When she was about 40, Hilda became the abbess at Streoneshalh, named after a Roman tower (later known as Whitby). She created a double monastery of Celtic monks and nuns, who studied the scriptures and performed good works. Her wisdom was so respected that the first synod of 664 was held there.

St Hilda

It is said that given a choice between Celtic religious laws and those of Rome, the majority voted for Rome at the synod. The Celtic influence--and the female leadership--faded at Whitby and at other monasteries in the early medieval age.

Hilda died on November 17, 680. She was made a saint and her relics were transferred to Glastonbury by a king.

For centuries, visitors have sworn that they see Hilda when they visit the abbey. Lionel Charlton, in his 1779 History of Whitby, writes:

"At a particular time of the year, in the summer months, at ten or eleven in the forenoon, the sunbeams fall in the inside of the northern part of the choir; and 'tis then that the spectators who stand on the west side of Whitby churchyard, so as just to see the most northerly part of the abbey, imagine that they perceive in one of the highest windows there the resemblance of a woman, arrayed in a shroud. Though we are certain that it is only a reflection caused by the splendor of the sun's beams, yet it is commonly believed to be an appearance of Lady Hilda, in her shroud."

More happily it is said that when sea birds fly by the abbey, they dip their wings in honor of St. Hilda.


THE ORDER:  Hilda's monastery did not last--Viking raids in the late 9th century wiped out the monks and destroyed the structure. For 200 years the place by the sea was desolate.

A soldier serving William the Conqueror named Reinfrid became a monk and discovered the crumbling monastery. William de Percy, the first of the illustrious Northern noble family, gave Reinfrid the land and enough money to create a Benedictine order of monks.

This house of monks thrived  for almost 500 years. This was when the large buildings, church and cloister and library and so forth, were raised, the ruins of which can be seen today.

That way of life came to an end when Henry VIII broke with Rome and destroyed the monasteries. Whitby was surrendered to the will of the king in 1539. It was stripped of its valuables and abandoned.


THE INSPIRATION: Sir Walter Scott in one of his early epic poems, Marmion, tells a romantic story that lends a lingering eeriness to Whitby. With more than his usual looseness with the  facts, Scott conflated St. Hilda and the Benedictine monastery with the Celtic-tinged magic of the Isle of Lindisfarne, in a plot that is ostensibly about the battle of Flodden in 1513 but actually revolves around a lustful English lord.

Lord Marmion has a secret mistress at the "Abbey of St. Hilda", a "dishonest" nun named Constance living at "high Whitby's cloistered pile." After her lover abandons her, for her "broken vows" and "sordid soul," Constance is walled alive at the abbey:

"Yet well the luckless wretch might shriek, well might her paleness terror speak! For there were seen, in that dark wall, Two niches, narrow, deep, and tall; Who enters at such grisly door shall ne'er, I ween, find exit more...Two haggard monks stood motionless; Who, in holding high a blazing torch, Showed the grim entrance of the porch: Reflecting back the smoky beam, The dark-red walls and arches gleam. Hewn stones and cement were displayed, And building tools in order laid."

An illustration from Marmion

Grim indeed.

But Whitby was to find its greatest fame in fiction nearly a century later.

An Irish author and theatrical manager named Bram Stoker decided to set part of his 1897 novel, Dracula, in Whitby. Stoker, who had spent several holidays at the coastal town of Whitby, makes vivid atmospheric use of the abbey ruins, the churchyard, the many steps leading up to it as well as the train station and lighthouses. From the journal of future Dracula victim Mina Murray, who is staying with her friend Lucy Westenra nearby: "Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and is the scene in 'Marmion' where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows."

Bram Stoker 

In a key section of the book, the Demeter, a ship that had set sail from the Bulgarian port of Varna, drifted into the harbor of Whitby after a ferocious storm. "A strange schooner" it was, wrote Mina in her journal, "and lashed to the helm was a corpse, with a drooping head which swung horribly to and from with each motion of the ship. No other form could be seen on deck at all." No other crew were found in the boat, just its cargo: "a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould."

The next day, Mina writes:

"Early this morning a large dog, a half-bred mastiff belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead in the roadway opposite its master's yard. It had been fighting and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn away, and its belly was slit open as if with a savage claw." 

Of course, that was only the beginning...

HE PRESERVATION: During World War I, the abbey was damaged again. This time it was two German battlecruisers aiming for a signal post. They blasted away at the abbey for 10 minutes.

Whitby is now in the care of English Heritage, available for visits most of the year. To learn more, go to http://m.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/whitby-abbey/#

***

To read other parts of the series, go to:

Part One: Listening to Blackfriars
Part Two: Furness Abbey
Part Three: Thetford Priory
Part Four: Tintern Abbey

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of The Crown and The Chalice. The Crown was on the shortlist of the Crime Writers Association's Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award.

The Chalice was released in paperback on Feb 13th in the United Kingdom.

To learn more, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

Kenilworth Castle

by Katherine Ashe

Kenilworth, the name rings with the romance of Tudor England, with images of the great feast and water festival staged by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, for Queen Elizabeth I.

But of course the castle’s history begins long before that. Perhaps in those pre-history times when a castle was a hill or mound, for just such a mound is enclosed within the masonry of the great tower. A favorite retreat of John of Gaunt and Richard III, its courtyard filled in late medieval and renaissance times with elaborate buildings whose stone filigree now reaches roofless to the sky.

And before that, it was the most secure castle in England, withstanding siege, in 1265-6, for eighteen months until the defenders surrendered to what seemed at the time generous terms.

The castle was never taken. So formidable was it that, lest it be used by the royalists, Cromwell had its walls destroyed and its massive tower packed with dynamite. Three walls of the tower still stand, mighty looking even in their dissolution.

It was Simon de Montfort who turned the neglected royal holding into an impregnable fortress. In his autobiography (Montfort Archive, Bibliotheque Nationale.) he complains that the property, as given to him in 1238, was in severe disrepair and cost him much just to make it habitable. By the following summer, having offended King Henry III, Montfort had fled to France and Palestine.

King Henry III found he rather fancied the place and continued the repairs. His accounts record his cutting a large window to give view of the Mere, repainting of chapel and furnishing it with two seats decorated with the royal arms. A pretty boat was added to the Mere, the lake formed by the dammed stream surrounding the castle on three sides. (The fourth side has a channel, completing the waterworks, and the defenses.)

Returned to royal favor, in 1244 Montfort again received Kenilworth. He was married to the king’s sister and was Earl of Leicester, so the gift was no more out of the ordinary than Henry’s bestowing numerous other royal properties upon his relatives.

By 1258 Montfort was one of six baronial leaders demanding a revolutionary reorganization of the government to offset King Henry’s disastrous incompetence. Henry had pledged the Crown of England to the Pope, if he failed to pay in coin for a papal army to seize Sicily for his son Edmund. Henry failed to pay and the Pope was about to claim England as a papal fief, much as he’d claimed Sicily and offered its Crown to Henry.

The meeting the barons summoned to Oxford, a meeting of all England’s lords and high clergy, supposedly was to raise the needed funds. Instead it produced the Provisions of Oxford, the template for Parliament and modern elective government. The lords and clergymen refused to raise a special tax for Sicily, instead demanding that all properties given from the royal holdings be returned to the Crown. Montfort was first to respond, and volunteered Kenilworth. And the castle became again a royal holding. Which is not to say the Montfort family vacated. They did not.

Simon de Montfort was the foremost military strategist in England. When the royalist faction managed to organize themselves and bring an army against the reformers, it was Montfort who was the leader of the baronial side. To provide a refuge, prepared for the worst should the royalists prevail, Montfort used the tax monies raised by the new Parliament to develop Kenilworth along the lines of the crusader castles he had seen in Palestine: castles impregnable, and defendable by just a few knights.

Kenilworth’s bailey wall -- fronting the Mere and separating the tower, its chapel, cook and laundry buildings and immediate gardens from the barns, stables, orchards and paddocks the occupied the rest of the island -- was strengthened. The causeway that crossed the Mere was walled, with barbicans at either end, the furthest one reinforced to protect the sluice that kept the Mere from draining to a little stream trickling through a meadow (as it is today.) And the entire island, bounded by the Mere and channel, was walled and studded with towers.

The decorative banquet halls and ranges made in later times have been destroyed by pilferers, weathering and time. The fortress walls that the Earl Montfort created merited demolition by Cromwell. But three walls of the tower stands to this day, grand with their soaring arches and massive red masonry.

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Katherine Ashe is the author of the acclaimed four volume Montfort series on the life of Simon de Montfort, the founder of England's Parliament in 1258. Montfort is available in soft cover and Kindle e-book format from Amazon. Her animal population, formerly including horses, sheep, goats, geese, peacocks, and of course dogs, in now reduced to just three dogs, three cats and two Koi.

A Delicious Sense of History at The Lord Leycester Hospital

by Anne O'Brien

Anyone of an historical turn of mind visiting Warwick will automatically make Warwick Castle their first port of call. It is without doubt a marvelous site. But for me, the Lord Leycester Hospital should take priority as a unique historical and architectural gem.

The name hospital is used in its ancient sense of 'a charitable institution for the housing and maintenance of the needy, infirm or aged.' It was established by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in 1571, as a retirement home for old soldiers disabled in the service of Elizabeth I. It takes the name Leycester from the original spelling of Leicester's name in his will.

But the building has a continuous, well-documented history from a much earlier date. The original chapel of St James the Great was built in 1123 over the West gate into Warwick, but most of what we see today is from the fifteenth century when the United Guilds of Warwick moved to the site and the whole was rebuilt under the patronage of the Earls of Warwick. After Leicester's death without a direct heir, it became the property of Sir Philip Sidney, the celebrated poet and soldier. His descendants have been patrons of the Hospital until the present day.

The true miracle is that this building has survived at all. When the Great Fire of Warwick swept through the town in 1694, it wrought havoc with the medieval timber framed buildings. Today it is easy to follow its route. The buildings approaching the Hospital along High Street are constructed in stone and brick, showing the path of destruction of the fire driven by a strong southwesterly wind. Miraculously the fire stopped just before it reached the Hospital.

Today the The Lord Leycester's Hospital is open to visitors and is a delight, a visual feast, but there are some aspects that particularly draw the eye and the imagination. There is no electric lighting in the beautiful chapel. Every weekday morning (except Mondays) the Brethren who still live in the Hospital gather there for prayers in exactly the same wording as laid down by Robert Dudley in 1571. Such a breath of history! Because there was some renovation in the 19th Century, there is also a lovely window by the pre-Raphaelite artist, William Morris, who also designed the altar hangings.

The Great Hall is superb, dating from 1383. Particularly fine is the beamed roof. What a superb place to hold a wedding reception, a concert or a dance. Any opportunity to spend time in this room with such a sense of history would be perfect ...

The Guildhall was for me the star of the show, built in 1450 by Richard Neville, the 'Kingmaker' Earl of Warwick, as a private chamber for the Guilds to meet and carry out business. There are mementos here of the visit of James I to the room, but it is the Warwick connection that is so strong. The structure of the room is magnificent, and so is the original table around which the Guild members sat. And you can actually sit at it and touch it ...

Entering the Courtyard is striking. The gallery that faces the doorway is decorated with shields depicting the devices of families associated with the Hospital over the past 450 years, including of course the bear and ragged staff. It is an opportunity simply to stand and stare.

And then if sustenance is needed, a visit to the Brethren's Kitchen is a must. This is where the Brethren ate together until 1966 when the Hospital was provided with self-contained flats. Now it caters for the exhausted visitor. The oak cupboard from Kenilworth is said to have once belonged to Elizabeth I, and there is a framed piece of embroidery by Amy Robsart, the first ill-fated wife of Robert Dudley, to admire as you drink a cup of tea.

What a splendid place it is. What a sad loss it would have been if the 1694 Fire had continued to sweep through Warwick. Whatever you do in Warwick, make time for The Lord Leycester's Hospital.  I defy you to be disappointed!

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Anne O'Brien is the author of The Virgin Widow, Queen Defiant, The King's Concubine and The Forbidden Queen.
www.anneobrienbooks.com

Grinling Gibbons : 'The Michelangelo of Wood'

by Grace Elliot

"There is no instance of a man before Gibbons who gave wood the loose and air lightness of flowers, and chained together the various productions of the elements with free disorder natural to each species." ~ Horace Walpole.

In early August I was fortunate enough to be invited to preview the new ‘Line of Kings’ exhibition at the Tower of London. Amongst the exhibits are a number of wonderful wooden horses. These were carved in the late 17^th century as props on which to display the armour of kings. At the preview, two historians debated in excited tones which of the carved horses had been created by Grinling Gibbons. Their reverential voices and the way their faces came alive, made me curious to discover just who Grinling Gibbons was.

This horse is the one suspected to be
Grinling Gibbons' creation
The Line of Kings, Tower of London

Grinling Gibbons (1648 – 1720/1) has been described as ‘the Michelangelo of wood’. He was the son of English parents living in Holland and as a young man trained as a stonemason in Amsterdam.

Attracted by the promise of work rebuilding London after the Great Fire, Gibbons sailed for England in 1667. He worked successfully for several years but his big break came in 1671 when John Evelyn found him carving a copy in wood of Tintoretto’s, ‘Crucifixion’.

“I saw the young man at his carving, by the light of a candle. I saw him to be engaged on a carved representation of Tintoretto’s ‘Crucifixion’, which he had in a frame of his own making.” ~ John Evelyn.

Evelyn was so impressed by what he saw that he told a colleague, the architect Sir Christopher Wren. In turn, Evelyn and Wren arranged for their new prodigy to be introduced at the court of Charles II. The quality of his work delighted and amazed. Gibbons's skill was to bring lightness and grace to the cherubs, flowers and fruit he carved in lime wood. Such was his ability that he created a lace-cravat out of lime wood– the detail of which I feel sure you will agree is absolutely stunning.

A lace cravat - carved out of lime
by Grinling Gibbons

Over his career Grinling Gibbons was commissioned to work on royal residences such as Windsor Castle, Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace. His carved panels of cherubs and ripe fruit were symbolic of the wealth and prosperity that the monarch brought to the country. (He had a trademark pea-pod which he incorporated into panels of fruit and flowers; if the peapod was open it meant he had been paid for his work, if closed, he hadn’t!) Indeed, his carvings in the royal apartments impressed King William III so much that in 1693 he appointed Gibbons as master carver to the crown.

More of Gibbons work.
The cherubs and fruits symbolised England's prosperity and fertility.

Gibbons also worked widely for Wren, on projects such as the choir stalls and organ case at St Paul’s Cathedral. The cultural significance of his carvings was such that during World War II, it was removed from St Paul’s and stored in a place of safety. Sadly, more harm than good was done when the pieces were replaced in the 1950’s. Clumsy restoration with iron nails led to the panels splitting when the nails rusted – thankfully, recent restoration techniques have undone a lot of this damage.

Portrait of Grinling Gibbons

And now I begin to understand the excitement of those historians at the
Tower of London. A carved horse would have been something of a departure for Grinling Gibbons…and a fine example of the flexibility of his amazing talent. Not only that, but to stand so close to an object that Gibbons would have smoothed and chiselled with his own hand, makes the great man seem so much closer…

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Visit Grace's blog: Fall in Love with History
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Grace Elliot -
Grace leads a double life as a veterinarian by day and author of historical romance by night. Grace lives near London and is housekeeping staff to five cats, two teenage sons, one bearded dragon and a husband (not necessarily listed in order of importance.)
Grace's lastest release, Verity's Lie, is out now! Click the book cover for a link.



Now available.

When History Gets in the Way of a Good Story

by Michael Reynolds

Those of us who make things up for a living understand the significance of meticulous research in our novels. This is especially true with historical fiction.

But does history get in the way of telling a good story? All of the time. The best way to get a historical novelist to tell a horror story is to ask them how historical facts and datelines got in the way of their perfect plot.

Yet, as fiction writers we know our primary role is as storytellers. So it becomes critical for us to develop some tricks of the trade in order to keep our novels page-turning and on plot.

This is particularly true with theme.

Case in point. When I approached the idea of writing Flight of the Earls, an epic saga of Irish immigration in the 1840’s I knew I was treading into dangerous waters. I wanted to make the setting during the Great Irish Potato Famine, one of the most significant historical time periods in Irish (and British) history.

But, I did not want the novel to devolve into political or religious commentary. This was an almost impossible task when writing about a historical event which was rife with conflict between the English and Irish as well as the Protestants and Catholics. Although those are worthy conversations between well-meaning historians and theologians, I did not want these topics to alienate most of my readers and to completely wash out the intended thematic purposes of the novels.

Historical novelists approach this challenge all of the time. We choose a time period because of its inherent dramatic setting and dynamic tension, but we must manage these external factors closely in order to preserve the arcs of our stories.

Here are three writing approaches that can be used to accomplish this.

The Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Strategy

One of my favorite movies is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, from the play by Tom Stoppard. This is a quirky, sparsely-viewed comedy which parodies one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, Hamlet. The uniqueness of the play/film is that it tells the story primarily through the eyes of two of the most minor characters in the Bard’s play.

This same approach can be used by authors. For instance, if your lead character is Winston Churchill in the early 1940’s, you are going to have a difficult time with it not being swallowed up by World War II themes.

However; if you shift your lead character to a young man from India who happened to immigrate to England at the onset of the war, then this can take on a much different path.

The Monet Approach

Claude Monet, among others, introduced French impressionistic painting with the idea that blurred detailing can actually provide a powerful and succinct image. Photographers use this technique as well by adjusting the aperture on their lens. They can draw the viewer’s attention close-up or far away in a picture with a simple twist of their hands.

I used this technique in Flight of the Earls as one of my prevalent themes was the preeminence of hope during the bleakest of situations. I didn’t want this message diluted or confused by Catholic versus Protestant diversions. I solved this by having my lead characters begin the story as Catholic (as they would have been in Western Ireland at the time) but not devout in their practices. That allowed me to blur the details. As their storyline advanced, the focus grew around their faith journey and not their denominational choice.

The Character Pigeon

Another technique that can be used is what I would term a “Character Pigeon”. The idea behind this is that you use a minor character (or characters) to carry the weight of the prevalent, but non-centric theme. That way you’re not ignoring it, but you’re freeing your lead characters to swim in the main waters of your story.

For instance, a World War II-era novel could have a minor character such as a retired, senile general who could be infatuated with the news of the day’s events. Or in the case of my story, I used minor characters that were strongly Catholic, Protestant, Irish and English. That allowed me to be accurate to the time, while keeping my leads out of the fray.

Unless a historical novelist is intending to take the central, stereotyped theme of the time period straight on (and this is done well all of the time), there is oftentimes more historical accuracy in keeping these events and cultural pressures in the background. Even during the most difficult times in our history, people found a way to press forward with their day-to-day lives. The dramatic tension between the quest for humanity during inhumane times, is what often makes for great fiction.

What about you? What ideas and techniques do you have when approaching this challenge?

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Michael K. Reynolds is the author of the Heirs of Ireland Series, historical novels based on Irish emigration to America during the 19th Century. His critically heralded debut novel, Flight of the Earls, about the Great Irish Potato Famine released January of this year. In Golden Splendor, which highlights the San Francisco Gold Rush just launched and the Civil War-themed Songs of the Shenandoah concludes the series in January, 2014.

Michael’s Website

Flight of the Earls
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In Golden Splendor
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Songs of the Shenandoah
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Captain George William Manby, Regency Era Author and Inventor

by Regina Jeffers

Captain George Manby was born 28 November 1765 in Denver, Norfolk. He passed in Great Yarmouth on 18 November 1854. Manby attended school at Downham Market. Later in life, he claimed to have become a friend of Horatio Nelson while at Downham, but Nelson had long been gone from the school before Manby started. At age 17, Manby volunteered to fight in the American War of Independence, but he was not accepted for service because of his youth and his small frame. As an alternative, he entered the Royal Military Academy in Woolrich before joining the Cambridgeshire Militia. His exemplary service led him to the rank of captain.

As part of his marriage in 1793, Manby inherited his wife's family estates, but they separated in 1801 following a domestic dispute. Mrs. Manby's lover shot George when he caught the pair together. Afterwards,  he moved to Bristol. While there, he published several books: The History and Antiquities of St David's (1801), Sketches of the History and Natural Beauties of Clifton (1802), and A Guide from Clifton to the Counties of Monmouth, Glamorgan, etc. (1802).

Manby came to the attention of Charles Yorke, then Secretary of War, after publishing a pamphlet, An Englishman's Reflexions on the Author of the Present Disturbances, in 1803. The pamphlet discussed Napoleon's plans to invade England. Yorke was so impressed that he appointed Manby as Barrack-Master at Great Yarmouth.

Manby's life changed when he witnessed the Snipe run aground 60 yards off Great Yarmouth during the storm. On that fateful day (18 February 1807), 214 people drowned, including French prisoners of war, women, and children. Manby took the tragedy quite personally; he began to experiment with mortars, eventually developing his Manby Mortar. The Manby Mortar fired a shot with a line attached from the shore to a wrecked ship.

For many years, it was used by the Waterguard (a division of the H M Customs and Excise) and by H M Coastguard. This device was later developed into the breeches bouy (a round emergency personal flotation device with a leg harness attached). The breeches bouy could be deployed from either ship to ship or ship to shore and allowed single person evacuations. People in lifebuoys could pull themselves across the water and reach the shore. In 1808, Manby himself used his Mortar to rescue sailors from a ship sinking 150 yards from Yarmouth's shore. The Manby mortar fired a thin rope from shore into the rigging of a ship in distress. Officially adopted in 1814, the government set up a series of mortar stations along the coast. By the time of Manby's death in 1854, 1000 persons had been rescued from stranded ships by means of his invention.

Manby also built an "unsinkable" lifeboat. Unfortunately, because his Manby mortar threatened the livelihood of those who depended upon the loot of wrecked ships, during his first test run, the seamen rocked the boat forth and back, until it eventually turned over. Ironically, Manby had to be rescued from his "unsinkable" ship.

In 1813, Manby came up with the idea of a portable pressurized fire extinguisher. It was a copper vessel filled with 3 gallons of pearl ash (potassium carbonate) water solution contained with compressed air. The liquid was jettisoned through a narrow tube, which could be aimed toward a fire. This first fire extinguisher was called the "Exincteur." He also came up with a device intended to save people who had fallen through ice ponds and lakes, as well as a mechanism for safely catching people who jumped from burning buildings.

In 1821, Manby sailed to Greenland with William Scoresby. Scoresby was known for his study of meteorology and the natural history of the polar regions. Manby had hoped to test a new type of harpoon for whaling (based on the same principles as his Manby mortar). Again, Manby knew disappointment. The device was sabotaged by the whalers. He did, however, publish an account of the journey. It was entitled Journal of a Voyage to Greenland and contained observations on the flora and fauna of the Artic regions, as well as the practice of whale hunting.

Manby was the first to advocate a national fire brigade and is considered by many to be a true founder of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. In recognition of his many accomplishments, Manby was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1831.

Later in life, Manby became obsessed with Nelson. He even turned his house into a Nelson museum, filled with memorabilia, while he lived in the basement. In 1851, Manby published his memoir, A Summary of Services Rendered to the State, in Saving the Lives of Its Sailors from Shipwreck. 

The Arms and Armour of Robin Hood

by Steven A. McKay

Picture this:

You’re a well-to-do medieval clergyman quietly making your way from Doncaster to Pontefract, minding your own business, rubbing your hands in glee at the thought of all the money your brothel in Nottingham is making you. Suddenly, almost like magic, from the trees around you half a dozen heavily armed men appear.

Outlaws!

It’s a familiar image. One we’ve seen in countless TV shows and movies. How realistic are the celluloid depictions though? What would you actually see if you were suddenly stopped by the “real” Robin Hood? What were his clothes like? His armour, if he wore any? His weapons?

In the movies he’s normally depicted as a dapper, dashing gentleman with an easy smile, but what was the reality like? Was Robin Hood scary?

The clothes a medieval outlaw such as Robin wore would have been green and brown – not the bright, gay, freshly-laundered shades seen in the 1950’s movies, but more natural, earthy, downright dirty hues. Which is why you didn’t notice such large men concealed amongst the foliage until it was too late. Leather boots, simple hose and woolen tunic, possibly a hood and, of course, armour.

In a full-scale pitched battle, soldiers, if they could afford it, would have worn chain or plate-mail, but hiding out in Barnsdale Forest, trying to stay one step ahead of the law, heavy armour was completely inappropriate -- you try running away from the sheriff or swinging from a tree onto the back of a horse wearing a suit of 20 kg plate-mail! Instead, Robin and his men would have worn a lighter and much cheaper gambeson, which was like a long linen vest or cuirass, padded, and with plates of material – metal, cloth or maybe horse hair – riveted underneath to offer basic protection while still allowing freedom of movement.

The outlaw might have carried a basic steel sword in a wood and leather sheath, and a dagger. Some might have favoured the oaken quarterstaff which, in Little John’s case, could have been over 9ft long!

There was no quiver to carry their arrows as these weren’t developed until much later. Instead, the missiles – perhaps as many as eighteen of them – would have simply been stuck in the outlaw’s belt, ready to be drawn and fired quickly.

Gloves and leather bracers would have protected their hands and wrists when using the bow.

And what about that bow? Well, the type Robin Hood would have used, in my opinion, would have been a longbow. In most versions of the legend, usually set around the end of the 12th century, longbows were not widely used in England, but, by the time of my own novel – the 14th century – they were quite common.

The longbow would have been roughly the same height as the man wielding it, made from yew with a hemp string. It was utterly lethal in the hands of a trained archer, offering much more power and range than previous designs.

Capable of firing up to twenty arrows in a single minute, you can imagine what even half a dozen robbers, concealed in the bushes and armed with these weapons could do to an unsuspecting party of travelers…

Firing such a powerful bow even once, never mind multiple times, took an enormous amount of physical strength though. Boys usually began training with the longbow from the age of seven, but often they were even younger. By the time they were adults, these men had developed hugely muscled shoulders and arms – particularly the left arm which took most of the strain. You don’t see that in the movies – Russell Crowe or Errol Flynn roaming around the Greenwood with one arm like Popeye’s and the other like Olive Oyl’s!

So…you’re a medieval clergyman, suddenly surrounded by these hugely muscled violent criminals, some carrying 9 ft quarterstaffs and some aiming bows as big as themselves at your face...What do you think?

Was Robin Hood scary?

SOURCES:
http://www.benjaminrose.com/post/mobility-in-medieval-plate-armor/
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/smallarms/p/englongbow.htm
http://backswording.webplus.net/page16.html
http://www.longbow-archers.com/longbow.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Training

Phillips, Graham and Keatman, Martin - Robin Hood, The Man Behind The Myth, Michael O’Mara Books, 1995

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Steven A. McKay was born in Scotland in 1977. He is married with a daughter, Freya, and is currently working on the sequel to Wolf's Head.

Steven's Website

ENGLAND 1321 AD:

Wolf’s Head brings the brutality, injustice and intensity of life in medieval England vividly to life, and marks the beginning of a thrilling new historical fiction series in the style of Bernard Cornwell and Simon Scarrow.

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A Masque, A Mask, and a Mystery

by Sandra Byrd

Although she bore no child, Queen Elizabeth I mid-wived a number of bright achievements during her reign which persist to this day, among them a settled religious faith, a healthy national commerce, and a nursing of the fine arts, specifically, the development of theater. London still has one of the finest, if not the premiere, theater districts in the world. But in truth, the English love of drama began much earlier than the 16th century.

Palace Theater, London

Theater—A  Crash Course by Rob Graham states: "During the 12th century, nonliturgical vernacular plays based on biblical stories were performed at festivals, such as Christmas. These were called the Mystery Cycles (the 'mystery' was redemption...). Local lads from the crafts guilds and companies performed those 'passions' on rough wagons in procession through the streets or on fixed circular stages."

Early Chester Mystery Play

These plays, staged locally, were mostly enjoyed by the lower classes. The upper class enjoyed theater, too, especially when they put it on themselves. To plays based solely upon Scripture, courtiers added topics such as Greek and Roman gods, comedy, tragedy, and life as they (and their countrymen) knew it.

Henry VIII was well known as a person who loved to sponsor and act in masques and disguisings. He preferred, of course, to play the valiant knight, or sometimes, what else? the sun itself!



Later in the sixteenth century, plays, playwrights, and performers came into their own and the love of theater spread. The Age of Shakespeare by Frank Kermode, shares that poets and playwrights depended on aristocratic patrons for support. Many of the most highly titled men in Elizabeth's court sponsored their own troupe, known by the sponsor’s name. For example, The Earl of Leicester's Men were sponsored by the queen's favorite, and later, The Queen's Men were sponsored by Her Majesty herself.

When the queen finally sponsored her own troupe, the cloudy reputation of players and playwrights finally lifted. The Lord Chamberlain's Men were sponsored by Baron Hunsdon, Queen Elizabeth's cousin by Mary Boleyn. William Shakespeare wrote many of his plays for the troupe sponsored by The Lord Chamberlain, including Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth. Others were writing and performing too. Kermode tells us that, "between 1558 and 1642 there were about three thousand (plays), of which six hundred and fifty have survived."

Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon

Shakespeare was not only a playwright, he sometimes acted in secondary roles and later, when partnerships began to sponsor performances for financial gains, he was an investor. He was among those who received a grant of arms and a great deal of money for his talents. Some of his better known colleagues and competition weren't so lucky. Christopher Marlow was stabbed to death at 29; Ben Johnson was often in jail and ended up with a branded thumb.  Plays were also used for political purposes, even against the queen who allowed them to flourish.

Sir Henry Lee

Historian Simon Schama tells us that the traitorous Earl of Essex sponsored a special production of "Richard II - which deals with the murder of an incompetent king ... to gee up his supporters against Elizabeth..."

Elizabeth herself approved a play written by Sir Henry Lee, The Hermit's Tale, which celebrated a woman who chose her father's dukedom and duty over her own love. She used the tale, masterfully, to signal to her courtiers and her people that she would always put her true husband, England, first.

Then, and now, drama allows us to explore our lives, our problems, our hopes and dreams, and our loves and losses. In fact, we, too, are players, for as William Shakespeare wrote, "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and entrances and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages."   

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Please visit Sandra Byrd's website, here, to learn more about the Ladies in Waiting series, and her blog, here, for Elizabethan themed giveaways!