More relics from the battlefield at Culloden

Today is the 278th anniversary of the battle of Culloden in 1746. 

The battlefield near Inverness quite often makes the news, and often due to perceived threats to the integrity of the site as not all of it is owned and managed as a heritage asset. Fortunately there are resolute voices to speak out for its protection.

Small finds from the site also occur and The National recently reported on one, which might even be assignable to a known individual. Their  article can be seen at Archaeologists announce 'intriguing' finds at site of Battle of Culloden

Although as the article says it is ultimately unknowable if the shoe buckle really did belong to Cameron of Lochiel it is an intriguing idea. The idea that it might brings a more individual note to something as mundane as a broken buckle and a link to a family whose strong loyalty to the Stuart cause was a century old at Culloden, and whose current head was recently ennobled as a Life Peer and government minister in the Lords - his Jacobite peerage not withstanding.

 

Medieval elite horses in Westminster

Analysis of a substantial number of medieval equine skeletons found in what was clearly a recognised burial place for the animals in Westminster has indicated something of the range of horses that were available and that they came from a variety of breeds. It also suggests that it was very definitely a case of ‘different horses for different courses’ when it came to their use.

The site is on Elverton Street which lies close to the site of the medieval Palace of Westminster and may well therefore indicate the ownership of the animals. It is clear that some at least of the horses were definitely from the equine elite.

Of the more than seventy horses on the site teeth from fifteen were studied and at least seven shown to have come from Scandinavia or the western Alps. Some of the horses were dated to the period 1425-1517, but others could be earlier or later.

New Scientist has a article about the research at Medieval horses buried in London had far-flung origins

There is perhaps more detail from a historian’s point of view in an article about the cemetary from Medieval Histories at What warhorse would you shop for if you were a Medieval knight?

This article suggests a likely source for some of the horses being the Cistercian abbey stud at Esrum in north Zeeland in Denmark. This had a long tradition of breeding quality horses, and which still survives today as the Frederiksborger.

I wrote in 2022 about recent research into the size of English cavalry horses in the period 300 to 1650, and urged interested readers to look at the original report rather than the more journalistic digest. My post and the related links can be found at The size of English medieval warhorses

The taste of Roman wine

 

The Conversation has an article, based on one by the author in Antiquity which argues that, despite the non uncommon contemporary view that Roman wine was, by modern standards, distinctly inferior, the Romans did have a range of very palatable wines.

The secret appears to have lain in their method of fermentation with the wine developing in earthenware jars buried in the ground. This method has survived and still flourishes in

Georgia, producing wines that are still appreciated. Indeed there is apparently a revival of interest in them by modern practitioners in France and Italy.

The article, which reads at times like a wine tasting listing, can be seen at What did Roman wine taste like? Much better than previously thought, according to new research 

More on medieval spectacles

I recently posted Medieval spectacles about the development and availability of ocular aids to reading in the medieval and early modern periods and I have now chanced upon a blog post which adds to the evidence.

Once you get past the slightly jokey opening paragraphs there is a lot of interest in the article, including more about King Henry VIII’s myopia and an illustration of what may be the spectacles of King James II and VII. There is also the argument made that by the fifteenth century in Flanders at least there were shops in which one could purchase ready-made spectacles as some do in chemists today, or maybe one found the best set and then the optician adjusted the lenses with further grinding. That maybe was what was available at the shops referred to in the article linked to in my original article.

The online article can be seen at medieval glasses – The Pragmatic Costumer

A significant villa site in north Berkshire

Building work at Grove, just north of Wantage in what is historically north Berkshire, has revealed significant remains of a Roman villa. It appears to have been a prominent part of the landscape and the local economy, noticeably bigger than others in the vicinity. The discovery is outlined in an article on the BBC News website at 'Remarkable' Roman villa discovered at Grove housing site

The Mail Online website also reports on the excavations at 'Remarkable' Roman villa is discovered in Oxfordshire

A whole series of discoveries, ganging from individual finds to full scale excavations have done much in recent years to fill-in the map of Roman Britain and to raise many important new possibilities and options for understanding and interpreting that period.

A facelift for Anne of Cleves

The cleaning by the Louvre of their very well known Holbein portrait of Anne of Cleves has attracted quite a bit of attention on the Internet. The cleaning has transformed it by revealing a rich blue background and the red tones of the dress, whilst Anne herself has regained a more youthful and attractive appearance and completion. Commentators have also drawn attention to Holbein’s mastery of portraiture. Although it has been studied this very well known portrait has apparently not been cleaned or restored since at least 1793, and quite possibly not since it’s completion in 1539.

Whether or not Holbein flattered Anne in his portrait remains unclear - all the other evidence we have suggests he was a supremely skilled and faithful portrait painter. The miniature which used to be identified as Catherine Howard is now suggested, on the basis of the age of the sitter and the jewels she is wearing,  to be actually of Anne of Cleves. I am inclined to accept that reassignment and in that she looks less attractive, if not slightly truculent. If that miniature was painted as her situation changed from being Queen Consort to the King’s adoptive sister, but as she calculated the not inconsiderable deal she had bargained for herself, then it too may reflect something of this clearly formidable north German Ducal highness.

The Smithsonian Magazine has an article about the restoration by the Louvre at See the Portrait That Made Henry VIII Fall in Love With Anne of Cleves, Newly Restored to Its Former Glory

The On the Tudor Trail website has an account which looks in more detail at the painting and the details of Anne’s costume and jewellery by her biographer Heather R. Darsie and which can be seen at Restoration of Anna of Cleves Holbein Portrait

Bosun’s whistles

 

The history of the bosun’s whistle and its distinctive shrill ear piercing sound is recounted in an article in the Daily Telegraph by Graeme Lawson, a researcher into the history and archaeology of sound and of music. In it he focuses in particular on the four examples of bosun’s whistles found on the Mary Rose when the ship was excavated and conserved. He also indicated how the whistles with distinctive notes could serve as a means of on-board communication in the days of sail amidst the noise of the sea, of hoisting sails and other routine maritime tasks, as well, presumably, of armed combat. From some of his quotations it could also have been a source of off-duty recreation.

The article can be seen at The Mary Rose, the Royal Navy and the mystery of the silver whistles

New evidence for the origins of Crowland Abbey

The website of Ancient Origins has a report of excavations at Anchor Church Field which lies to the east of the evocative remains of the medieval abbey at Crowland ( Croyland ) in south Lincolnshire. The abbey was the shrine of the Mercian warrior prince turned hermit St Guthlac who died in 714. An important early life written by one Felix in the period 730-40 survives of the Saint and it is an important source not just for the life of Guthlac but for the conditions in the Fens in that period. The already tonsured Guthlac was seeking a remote place of solitude:

“ There is in the midland regions of Britain a most terrible fen of immense size, which begins at the banks of the river Gronta [now the Cam] not far from the little fort which is called Gronte [Cambridge]; now in fens, now in flashes, sometimes in black oozes swirling with mist, but also with many islands and groves, and interrupted by the braiding of meandering streams … up to the sea … … When [Guthlac] was questioning the nearest inhabitants as to their experience of this solitude … a certain … Tatwine declared that he knew another island in the more remote and hidden parts of this desert (heremi); many had tried to live there but had rejected it because of the unknown monsters of the desert and the divers kinds of terrors. Guthlac, the man of blessed memory, heard this and besought his informant to show him the place. … It is called Crugland [‘Barrowland’, now Crowland], an island sited in the middle of the fen … no settler had been able to dwell there before … because of the fantastic demons living there. Here Guthlac, the man of God … began to dwell alone among the shady groves of the solitude … He loved the remoteness of the place which God had given him… . There was in the said island a barrow … which greedy visitors to the solitude had dug and excavated in order to find treasure there; in the side of this there appeared to be a kind of tank; in which Guthlac … began to live, building a shanty over it.”

From Felix’s Life of St Guthlac cited by Oliver Rackham in History of the Countryside.

Recent excavations have revealed in Anchor Church Field the foundations of what appears to have been a substantial medieval hermitage ( ‘anchor’ ) and place of pilgrimage but that underlying this are the remains of not only a Bronze Age barrow but also a large henge. The theory now being advanced is that the 26 year old St Guthlac and the two servants he brought with him reoccupied the area of the long abandoned henge, possibly also along with his sister St Pega - who is commemorated at nearby Peakirk.

This is a very interesting addition to our understanding of Crowland both in terms of the time of St Guthlac and also his subsequent commemoration. It is in some ways reminiscent of the relationship between the abbey at Glastonbury and St Michael’s chapel on the Tor and with the Holy Thorn on Wearyall Hill, or that of Lichfield Cathedral and St Chad’s church, inked by St Chad’s Pool.

The illustrated article from Ancient Origins with links, can be seen at Saint Guthlac’s Realm: Massive Stone Age Henge Discovered in Lincolnshire

There is another, in some ways more detailed, account from Newsweek which can be read at Archaeologists discover massive prehistoric henge in 'rare' find

 

I realise I ought to remedy a failing on my part and read the complete text of Felix’s Life of St Guthlac rather than just sharing in the better known citations from the work.