Gorgeous Glass

I read in one of my history journals that five hand-painted stained glass masterpieces from sixteenth century Germany have been discovered in South Wales. The pieces in question were removed from Steinfeld Abbey near Cologne in 1803 during the French occupation of the district

The glass, which had previously been put into storage by the monks, was sold to a local dealer when the Abbey was secularised. From there it was sold to an expatriate German business man by the name of John Christopher Hamp, who was based in Norwich. Hamp sold them on to various wealthy clients, who either installed them in their own houses or donated them to local churches.

During the last century scholars discovered various panels in houses, chapels and churches in Hertfordshire, Cheshire, Norfolk and Bristol. In 1928 the Hertfordshire panels were bought by Ernest Cook, the grandson of the travel agent, who donated them to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where they remain to the present day.

The Welsh panels are the first fresh discoveries in twenty years. Although gratifying it still represents only a tiny fraction of the collection that is still missing, possibly broken up, or possibly close to where you live, somewhere in the manor houses and churches of England and Wales. Who knows what you are looking through? :-)

Daughters of Diana

I love hunting, I have since I rode to hounds for the fist time when I was twelve years old. I’ve also enjoyed a spot of rough shooting now and then, small game. It’s just a thrill; I offer no excuse or justification beyond that; I have absolutely no guilt or regrets. I like to think of myself as one of the daughters of Artemis, Diana, if you prefer, one of strigae, the wild women who followed the goddess in the hunt. But through the ages, at least until modern times, the practice of hunting has been seen as the preserve of men. It pleased me to read a nice corrective to this assumption, an article by Richard Almond entitled The Medieval Huntress in the latest issue of the BBC History Magazine.

Although hunting in the medieval period was universally popular among men, there is little or no mention of female hunters in the texts that have survived from the period. But taking a wider view, looking at illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, paintings, carvings, engravings and prints, women, women from all social classes, can be seen taking part in all sorts of sport. There, at one level, are the great ladies of court, pursuing deer on horseback or shooting driven game, while at the other level peasant women net birds, ferreted rabbits and even poach venison.

Most often these women are depicted alongside male companions but they can also been seen hunting or hawking on their own or with other women. In a miniature from The Romance of Alexander, held in the Bodleian Library, women are depicted hunting on foot. On the left two are shown hunting hart with dogs, one with a hunting horn, the other thrusting a cross-hilted spear into a beast caught by one of her hounds. One the right another two are shown hawking, one recalls her bird with the aid of a lure, while two further hawks swoop down on a duck.

Perhaps the greatest Renaissance huntress was Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henry II of France, who was portrayed as Diana herself, reclining on a hart with one of her favourite hounds in marble as The Diana of Anet. There are other depictions of her as the goddess in several portraits of the period.

Certeine wicked women following sathans prouocations being seduced by the illusions of diuels, beleeve and professe, that in the night times they ride abroad with Diana, the goddesse of the Pagans, or else with Herodias, with an innumerable multitude...

Great is Diana of the Ephesians; greater still is Diana of the huntress. :-)

Blood and Wind-a Voyage into Medieval Atheism

I read a really interesting article in the BBC History Magazine (January, 2009) while sipping my morning tea! It’s called Doomed or Disinterested?, written by one John H Arnold. It concerns the degree to which some people in the Middle-Ages developed an active scepticism towards the teachings of the church.

Now, I had always known that, throughout its history, their had been dissenters and apostates within the Catholic community, though I had assumed that in the high Middle Ages such people would be more likely to embrace one heresy or another rather than outright disbelief. But many did. We cannot be sure just how many but it was a concern to those who wrote on religious questions at the time.

The question of transubstantiation, the concern that the act of faith was not enough in itself among the laity, was particularly troublesome. William of Pagula wrote that priests should not rest on the theological dogma alone, but provided more practical reasons enabling them to persuade their parishioners. The bread, he says, is not experienced as flesh and blood so that it does not provoke “horror” in those receiving it; so that “pagans” do not ridicule Christians; and because people are “not accustomed to eating bleeding flesh.” Yes, he does!

Some of the ‘miracles’ of the day were, in point of fact, conceived to overcome practical doubts about the Eucharist. In one popular tale a woman receiving the sacrament from Pope Gregory the Great burst out laughing when he declared that it was the body of Christ. When asked why she is said to have replied, “Because I heard you say that the bread I made with my own hands is God’s body.” Immediately the bread changed into the shape of a finger and the woman recovered her faith! Precious, is it not?

I suppose these cases could be taken as an example of proto-Protestantism, a belief that communion is only a symbolic act. But there are also cases of outright and simple atheism or scepticism, right across Europe. Giordano of Pisa said of this, “There are many people today who do not believe that there is another life, or that things could be better than in this one." Another wrote of those ‘unbelievers’ who are unhappy when their loved ones died because they do not believe that they will ever see them again.

My favourite example of this common-sense scepticism is that of Guillemette Benet of Oracle in southern France, who lived in the late fourteenth century. She is reported to have told her neighbours on several occasions that the soul is nothing but blood or wind. She reached this conclusion for two reasons; first when she banged her nose and noted the subsequent bleeding; and second, when she observed the death of a friend’s child, noting only the exhalation of air at the end. From this she deduced there was no heaven and no hell; no afterlife at all.

Blood and Wind. I shall write a book with such a title one day; truly I shall.