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The Lindisfarne Gospels
This lecture considers the extraordinary artistic ability of Bishop Eadfrith who is thought to have made the Gospels single-handedly around the year 700. It also discusses why the Lindisfarne Gospels were made. The book is much more than a copy of the sacred text...
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A Child’s Life in the Middle Ages
Where are the children in Medieval art? So often they are missing and it’s sometimes assumed that because of the high infant mortality rates, parents deliberately didn’t bond with their children. Nothing could be further from the truth, children were cherished, cosseted and spoilt...
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The Signs of the Times
How to read the signs and symbols within Medieval art, some more easy to detect than others. This lectures considers art of the period c.1100 – c.1500 and guides the audience through where it might be found and the forms it might take as well as what it meant to the...
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The First Prize
It seems that many peoples over many centuries have wanted to live in and claim England as their own. Why? For some incoming settlers, England can’t have been the most obvious choice as richer pickings might have been had by heading southwards or eastwards...
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Charlemagne, Conqueror and Cultured King
The extraordinary life and reign of Charlemagne, the first Carolingian Emperor: he ruled for over 40 years, steadily increasing his vast territories. His character was a sometimes uneasy combination of muscular Christianity...
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The Politeness of Princes
Punctuality being the politeness of princes, this lecture examines the reality of manners and etiquette in later the Medieval period. A far cry from the popular image of appalling table manners, Medieval dining was a minefield of do’s and don’ts...
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The Hazards of the Journey:
Pilgrimage and Travel
What possessed people to trudge hundreds of miles, often in appalling conditions and sometimes perishing on the way? This lecture considers this question and also how there was a shift from spiritual wandering in...
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The Bayeux Tapestry
There is far more to be discovered about the Bayeux Tapestry than could ever be covered in one lecture. Who made it, where and why are the most frequently asked questions – although they might also be seen as less important beside the information the tapestry itself...
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The Topsy-Turvy World of Misericords
This lecture takes the audience on a tour of some of the extraordinary images that exist in over 700 churches in England. The art form was in vogue mainly from C13th – C15th and rarely includes religious images despite...
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The Green Man
More correctly called ‘foliate heads’, there was a proliferation of Green Man images around the year 1400. The lecture discusses how the image may have evolved from pagan and Classical times and..
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The Luttrell Psalter
One of the greatest joys of our heritage must be the Luttrell Psalter. It was made in the early part of the C14th, commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell who owned considerable estates in Lincolnshire...
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The Ship Burial at Sutton Hoo
The extraordinarily rich hoard found at Sutton Hoo dates to the early C7th and tells us a great deal about the wealth of the country at the time, inter-action with other cultures and status within Anglo-Saxon society...
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The Benedictional of St Æthelwold
This fabulously illustrated document made in the 970s in the Winchester School of decoration, reveals much about the relationship between Æthelwold (Bishop of Winchester) and the young king Edgar...
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The Vikings
The Vikings almost need no introduction. An image is instantly conjured up of ferocious fighting men, rampaging through our green and pleasant land, plundering, wrecking and desecrating. This is not untrue by any means, but the lecture seeks to find out if...
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The Venerable Bede and the Times
in which he Lived
The world in which Bede lived was geographically confined to the north east of England, but it’s sometimes hard to believe that he didn’t travel himself. His ability to amass information and interpret it accurately has...
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Sharpening the Arches
The two great styles of architecture, Romanesque and Gothic, remain in our cathedrals and churches today. Very often side by side, and different from each other, nonetheless they sit well together, complementing each other’s strengths and fragilities...
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Lighting the Subject:
Illuminated Manuscripts
An introduction to illuminated manuscripts of both pre- and post-Conquest periods. This considers briefly how they were made and planned and the difficulties faced by the scribes, some of whom complained bitterly in...
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Book of Kells
This extraordinary manuscript dates to about the year 800 and is almost certain to have been written on the remote Scottish island of Iona. Some say it has the most sublime beauty. Others, such as Umberto Ecco, describe it as a ‘product of cold-blooded hallucination’...
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The Second or Third Coming?
When we think of the history of the Church in the British Isles, it’s natural to focus on the most famous events and people: the murder of Thomas Becket, the building of our great cathedrals, Henry VIII and the Reformation and so on. Not much attention is paid to the early struggles...
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Antonello da Messina
Without any doubt Antonello da Messina stands out as the greatest renaissance artist Sicily produced. Although he travelled to the mainland and up to Venice, most of his professional life was spent in his home city of Messina producing works of exquisite beauty.
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Icons
They have been called spectacles to help you see right into heaven and they have caused one of the greatest theological debates, lasting over a century. They have caused grown men to convert to Christianity and others to fling them furiously into the flames.
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The Cathars
Amongst all the sometimes crazy heresies of the C12th and C13th, the Cathars stand out as the most significant, not least because they were the only heresy to be formally crusaded against by the Church and it was they who were the subjects of the first Inquisition.
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The Rus
Better known as the Vikings who gave their name to Russia and mainly originating from Sweden, they expanded eastwards, tearing their hot talons down to Novgorod and Kiev and with their insatiable eyes always on the ultimate trading prize: Constantinople.
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Monsters
You don’t have to go into many churches right across Europe, or look at many manuscripts made at any time during the Middle Ages to notice fabulous monsters, mythical beasts and grotesques rampaging through the carvings and pages.
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Life of Scribes in the Middle Ages
The glories of the manuscripts are one thing. The men (and women) who made them are another. Who was wielding the quills in the thousand years before the Reformation and how much do we know about them as individuals?
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