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25/3/2016

Bertie's Bits 2

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The Anglo-Saxon Monk looks to the law of Ethelbert for some Easter reflection... and comes up with mutilation, adultery and hair-cutting.
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Tonsured monks in debate. The Arundel Psalter, British Library, MS Arundel 155 (Canterbury, 1012-1023), folio 10r. Image Public Domain. Click on image to go to source.
​Blessed readers,

​The most important Christian festival approaches: a time for reflection and, for all Anglo-Saxon folk, a time for confession.  Now I'm loath to acknowledge it, but my sources tell me that Easter in the twenty-first century is less about the Resurrection of our Lord and more about eating rabbits made of a confection that I only know about because I'm a time traveller.  Shame on you!  Though I wouldn't mind trying one of those Cadbury's Creme Eggs I've heard about – once my fasting is over, of course.

Well now, to the point at hand.  I won't say that Bertie's law code contains anything directly related to Easter but there are a number of rulings in there
– pretty much all of them in fact – that were you to contravene you would most certainly be obliged to seek out your confessor before Easter
Sunday
. 

So in the spirit of Christian love and, frankly, with a dispiriting awareness of your moral frailty, here are my top three crimes for Easter confession.  Well, being as I'm advocating honest confession, I should admit that they're actually just the first three random laws that caught my eye.  Well, I can't spend all day ruminating over your eternal salvation.  I have things to do!

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20/3/2016

Bertie's Bits

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Ethelbert of Kent was the first Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity.  The Anglo-Saxon Monk takes a look at life under Bertie's rule.
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EGO AETHELBERHTUS REX 'I KING ETHELBERT'. Detail from the Rochester Cathedral foundation charter in Textus Roffensis (c. 1023), fol. 119r. By permission of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral.
​Blessed readers,

​As you all know, I like to show respect for my ancestors.  So I thought I would begin a new series of posts on our Bertie, or, more precisely, on his laws.  A few ​bitas ​(Old English 'bits'), then, of insightful observation about life under the first Christian Anglo-Saxon king, whose law code was written down around the year 600.

​Ethelbert (Æthelberht, to all you with a scholarly bent) was, according to the Venerable Bede, the most powerful king in Britain when, in 597, Augustine and his forty fellow monks arrived from Rome to convert the English folk. 

King of Kent, he was also an overlord of a much wider area.  As Bede informs us: 'He was the third English king to hold sway over all the provinces south of the river Humber, but', Bede continues, 'the first to enter the kingdom of heaven'!  I look forward to meeting him one day.
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SCULPTURE OF ETHELBERT, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. Wikipedia Commons: By User:Saforrest - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6020180
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MAP SHOWING KINGDOMS OF ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND Wikimedia Commons: By Hel-hama (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), with modification showing the Humber.

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13/3/2016

One year on from asm.com

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Blessed readers of the Anglo-Saxon Monk's blog,

​On behalf of the ever so humble monk himself, who as you know constantly strives to repudiate worldly and vulgar ways, and as a consequence must be seen to refrain from all forms of boasting, I hereby declare that one year on from this site obtaining its .com domain, it has passed 25,000 unique visitors and hit more than 110,000 page views. 

​The monk and I are very grateful to each and every one of you who have kindly given up your time to read the blog and other pages.  Thank you particularly if you're one of the more than 2,000 folk who have signed up to the RSS feed.  You are quite mad.

​Chris Monk

 
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Dr Christopher Monk says thank you.

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2/3/2016

You Wouldn't Want to Be an Anglo-Saxon Peasant

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Blessed readers

'Hot off the printing press' is how you refer to it in your twenty-first-century world, or at least that's what I've been told.  Here in my alternate eleventh-century dimension, I have another four hundred years or more to wait for the printing press to be invented, and in the meantime I wear my fingers to the bone working the vellum.  But I never complain.

Complaining, however, seems to be the order of the day in this marvellous new book for all you blessed children out there: You Wouldn't Want to Be an Anglo-Saxon Peasant.  The book is written from the perspective of a young ceorl's son in seventh-century England.  So that's back-breaking work, a famine and murderous feuding, though I will just say that it's not complete gloom and doom; our young hero does make some wise, essentially Christian, choices to bring some respite to everyone's God-cherished soul. 

I do feel compelled to inform all my dear readers that the life of an Anglo-Saxon monk
would rival any peasant's in terms of real hardship.  You have no idea, blessed ones, how tough it is sticking to all the rules!  I will, by the way, be starting a new series of posts on the Benedictine Rule, which governed monastic life in late Anglo-Saxon England.  So much to look forward to!

Finally, in case you're wondering why I'm promoting this particular book, well I really have no choice.  My alter ego, Dr Chris Monk, worked as a consultant for the publishers, Salariya, and so I am, regrettably, obliged to promote almost everything with which he's involved.  He's quite the demigod, I'll have you know!

You can click on to the image above to go to the publisher's website or the button below to buy the book.  Please note, the book is not released in the USA until March 10, 2016.

buy the book (UK)

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    Welcome, blessed readers! This is the blog of the Medieval Monk, the alter ego of Dr Christopher Monk.

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