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30/5/2015

Just how many sons did Noah have?

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Genealogy of the West Saxon Kings, highlighted text: 'This Scef was Noah's son and he was born inside the ark.' From Textus Roffensis (Rochester, c.1122-3), fol. 104r, detail. Image of full page below. The copyright of these images belongs to the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral. These images are reproduced here by permission of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral.
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Everyone knows Noah had three sons, surely?  Well, not according to Anglo-Saxon royal genealogists.  The Anglo-Saxon Monk investigates...

Now, blessed readers, I do hope you've been keeping up with your Old Testament history.  I hear some dreadful tales about folk not knowing their Malachi from their Melchizedek, but I'm quite sure that can't possibly be you, can it?

Well, never mind, no one is going to call your spiritual competency into question for not knowing what I have to tell you here about Noah, that great patriarch of ark-building and Flood-surviving fame.

Noah, of course, was one of the key figures of faith in the Old Testament for Anglo-Saxon Christians.  And perhaps it is no surprise that his status as God's obedient servant was exploited by royal genealogists.  

And they did just that, manipulating the biblical story to bolster the credentials of the Wessex kings, and in doing so asserting that Noah was engaged in a little more than just animal husbandry whilst on the ark.

So allow me, beloved, to bring you up to speed with the story of Noah and the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogists.


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27/5/2015

Giving a paper at the home of the Vikings

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PictureTurning the pages of Textus Roffensis. Image by Christopher Monk ©2014 with permission of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral.
That unstoppable gad-about, Dr Chris Monk, is off on his travels again, only this time it's closer to home, and not the marvellous world of Buenos Aires. 

On Saturday June 20th he will venture into the capital of nine and tenth-century Viking culture, York city – I'm sorry, blessed readers, I cannot quite bring myself to utter its Viking name.

He will be speaking at the conference, 'Researching and Representing the Early Medieval: the 2015 Richard Hall Symposium'. 

The program has papers on: the Lindisfarne monastery; a Vendel-period helmet in Grobin; Scandinavian female dress in Grobin; Manx Vikings; the boat grave of Scar, Orkney; representations of Merovingian queens in 19th-century France; and early medieval ships and ideas of nation.  

Dr Monk's paper is entitled 'Textus Roffensis: Turn the Pages of this Hidden Treasure', in which he discusses the work being done at Rochester Cathedral to make this important twelfth-century manuscript accessible to the public.  (You can read an update of the project here.)

If this all sounds very worthy, beloved, and you're not too afraid to wander into the deviant region of the Danelaw, then you can find out more about the conference at the
JORVIK website.

Dammit! 



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22/5/2015

Bayeux Tapestry Pics from the Zoo

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Harold skilfully masters his falcon ... and almost masters his moustache.

As promised: a few visual highlights from Kalamazoo's world premiere of 'The Bayeux Tapestry: The Stitches Speak'

Any monk, but especially an Anglo-Saxon one, must keep his word; so please enjoy the pictures below from the world premiere of Daisy Black's 'The Bayeux Tapestry: The Stitches Speak', which was performed as a rehearsed reading last Saturday at the 50th annual International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA. 

If you missed my review (may the Lord forgive you), you can catch up with it
here.

All images courtesy of William the Bastard, aka Patricia Bracewell.

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Eminent scholars lie dead on the field of Hastings.
The play employed the dramatic device of two embroiderers interacting with the scenes of the Bayeux Tapestry as they finish embroidering its text.  Here, Master Embroiderer, Gale Owen-Crocker (left) and Apprentice Embroiderer, Daisy Black (the writer and director of the play, right) assess the final battle scene.  A bloody mess, by all accounts.    

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19/5/2015

The stitches spoke!

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The Bayeux Tapestry: the opening scene where Edward and Harold speak. 'By Image on web site of Ulrich Harsh. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.' Click on image to go to the source.

The Anglo-Saxon Monk ruminates over the success of the 'world premiere' of Daisy Black's dramatisation of the Bayeux Tapestry.

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'The play was inspired by the work of scholars on the relationship between the familiar narrative in the central frame of the Bayeux Tapestry and the figures in the borders.'
Daisy Black, writer and director

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Bayeux Tapestry. Border figures interact with figures in the main register, as with this naked man who mirrors the gesture of the cleric. 'By Image on web site of Ulrich Harsh. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.' Click on image to go to source.

Well, what an anticlimax! 

No, I don’t mean the wonderful performance last Saturday of 'The Bayeux Tapestry: The Stitches Speak' by Daisy Black’s ensemble at the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan. 

No, blessed readers, that was, to borrow from the lexis of the locals, awesome.  


Rather, I’m referring to the complete indifference manifest by my brothers on my arrival back from my unsanctioned adventures abroad. 

Not a whiff of wonderment, not even a sniff of envy.  I was at least expecting to hear that the bishop had got wind of my escapades and was planning to publicly denounce me.  Well, I guess it’s for the best.  But what a lot of dreary monks I hang out with, blessed ones.


But to the performance! 

Well, I must begin by patting Daisy Black on her sore back (it twice served as the footstool for King Edward).  She is a veritable 
Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, I can tell you! 

And I have managed, blessed ones, to find room within my Christian heart to forgive her casting me as Guy, the campy, cowardly Count of Ponthieu, and thus can now state with absolute succinctness (yes, I can do succinct) that it was truly inspiring!


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6/5/2015

Dancing, Anglo-Saxon style

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Shaking one's booty, Anglo-Saxon style. Detail from the Harley Psalter. PUBLIC DOMAIN: see details below.

Obscene tumbling or a symbol of joy?  The Anglo-Saxon Monk stumbles onto the dance floor of early medieval England to find the answer...

My alter ego and earnest gallivant, Dr Chris Monk, has been describing to me the distinctive delights of Buenos Aires, foremost of which, he reliably informs me, is the Argentine Tango, a dance rooted in nineteenth-century nostalgia and, quite frankly, dripping with debauchery (for which see his postcard below).
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Psalm 41:5 'The voice of joy and the noise of feasting'. The Harley Psalter. British Library, Harley 603 (Canterbury, first half of 11th century), fol. 24v. This image is PUBLIC DOMAIN. Please click on it to go to the source.
Not one to deny any soul a well-rounded education, and in desperate need of a tenuous link, I will put aside my propensity for monastic modesty and explore with you, blessed readers, the brief history of dance in Anglo-Saxon England...

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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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