Saxon Saturday: The Seafarer; Saxon Churches; and Anglo-Saxon England 🗡️

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Hello, hello. It's Saturday afternoon, 11 minutes past four, and I've got lots of books around me because I've decided Saxon Saturday is going to be a thing. I might do it for a few other days as well so that we start to remember what's going on on what particular days. So if you've got any ideas for what we can use the other days alliteratively for, then let me know. And I've got little scout stretched out to my left. She's very long now. There's a band that I'm very fond of called the long pigs. And long pigs was a name that was given to human beings. I don't know by whom and when, but and she looks like a long pig. She's all stretched out, her front paws ahead of her and her back paws behind her. And on Wednesday, Doggo gets her tumour removed from her paw, so I'm a little bit nervous about that. She won't like it. She's an old girl now, and being taken in and then being taken through is not what she'll want to do, but she'll get on with it. She doesn't complain, and it'll be great to have that removed. I just wish I knew how long she had had it there for, because that might give an indication of whether it's spread or not. So I'm surrounded by lots of books that refer to Saxon not just England, but Saxon Times, and I'm not going to talk today much, I think, because I just want to go from uh one lovely reading to another, but I just want to also give you an indication of what's coming up, because there's lots coming up. Tomorrow I'm going to Oxford and I'm going to take you to the beautiful cathedral of Christchurch for even the song. And I will just have a look to see if I'm allowed to record a little bit. I I think I'm always allowed to record a couple of minutes, but nothing beyond that. I'll take you round Tom Quad, the famous Tom Quad in Christchurch, and this is very well known to be to me because I used to visit my lovely sister there when she was at university and she she loved her time there at Christchurch. My nephew James also went there. Chips Channan went there, and I've always thought it's the most vibrant and lovely of all the Oxford colleges, but I suppose everyone thinks the one they've experienced is the most beautiful. But there is something really, really special about Tom Quad and also the cathedral. I think for once I might do a little bit of reading up about it, so that I can, when I'm sitting in the sermon for Evensong, not the sermon, but the service, I can look around and know what I'm looking at and enjoy it. Then after that, I'm interviewing on Monday in the evening Eleanor Parker, and she has written a couple of brilliant books, and one of them is about what happened to the leaders of the of England after the Battle of Hastings, and it was so good that I probably will reread it. But her other book, all about Anglo-Saxon England through the seasons, is so good because it not only teaches you about what Britain was like before the Norman Conquest, but also there's so much to enjoy etymologically, there's so much to enjoy if you're interested in nature. It really covers quite a lot of areas because there's so much dense information, so many beautiful nuggets of information. It's worth getting the book, but also the audiobooks, so that you can as you're driving or ironing or gardening or whatever you do when you listen to audiobooks, you can you can have the information coming to you, but also the to have the main to have the book as a real book is also fantastic because then you can mull over the paragraphs, you can look things up, you can try and learn them by heart. Um I mean this is all these are all the things that I do just to try and increase my my my knowledge with the handicap I've got as I get older and certainly with the menopause of of finding it difficult to retain information, but I sort of have to learn it rather than just read it. If I read it it won't go w it won't be learnt, whereas if I test myself when I'm reading it, I absorb the information. And that was lovely Sherbourne Abbey telling me that it's now quarter past four. Oop Wendy, and so I will get on with today's lovely readings. Oh, and then further on next week I'm taking you to Stratford upon Avon again on Thursday. I'm going to see The Tempest, and it's got Kenneth Branagh in it, and to my mind he's the greatest living actor at the moment, as well as David Tennant. I don't think there's anything between them. Maybe Michael Sheen up there as well, just behind them. Kenneth Branner, I saw, I've think I've said this before, I saw him live in 1985 when he was Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing. He was also in As You Like It, and I saw it it was the same RSE production team, and they did both plays in London, and I saw both. So he would have been very young then, and I was only 13, so maybe he was late twenties, and he was startlingly outstanding, and it was that play and his performance in it that made me truly appreciate the genius of Shakespeare. So I think sometimes that's what it takes. You need to see it live with some with with some actors who really can transport you and help you uh understand the genius of of Shakespeare or you know whatever playwright you're you're watching. Yeah, okay, I'm waffling waffling as I usually do. How are you and what are you up to? And where are you in the world? Do get in touch, do let me know, and thank you for people who have got in touch so far. I really enjoy receiving emails from you, and it's lovely to feel the connection across the entire globe, and isn't it amazing how modern technology enables us to do that, especially for people who are on their own. And I I've I've often thought that it's for the elderly who are living life alone, perhaps widowed or in a monastery, as I as I know, I've got a few people, or or just living alone out of choice, whatever the reason, but but to have a connection with other people across the world is is a wonderful thing. So let's get started. I'm gonna start with a few sentences because that's all that's all legally I'm allowed to do from Sir Simon Jenkins' brilliant book, a short history of British Architecture from Stonehenge to the Shard, but I'm not actually going to refer to the architecture, I'm gonna go to chapter two and read a couple of sentences. What happened in the former province of Britannia, present day England and Wales over the course of the fifth century remains obscure. England was once thought to have suffered a series of quasi genocidal invasions from North Germany which destroyed or drove westwards an indigenous Celtic people and their language across the British mainland. This thesis was based on one sixth century source, a Welsh monk named Gildas, fiercely hostile to what he saw as a bloodthirsty newcomers from eastern parts. He became the source for all subsequent chroniclers, including the venerable Bede in the eighth century. There is no other literary or archaeological evidence of such an existential trauma, and it is now generally discredited, notably in the emergence of the English by the historian Susan Usthusen. England clearly suffered raids as it had long done from Scotland and across the North Sea, but none that constituted a systematic invasion, nor was there evidence of military disruption or tribal uprising, of massacres, looting or ethnic flight. DNA archaeology indicates some inflow of German stock fleeing post Roman turbulence in northern Europe, and we also know that many former Roman colonies, such as Colchester, had long been settled with German veterans. The last sentence now what appears to be the case is that England and Wales reverted to an Iron Age lifestyle as experienced before the Romans arrived, where a town and villa dwelling aristocracy went into decline, they were supplanted by tribal chiefs and migratory warlords. We know that many magistrates remained in post, probably protected by armed bands or militias, but Roman roads, basilicas and amphitheatres fell into disuse with no imperial authority to maintain and ever need them. The sense must have been of an era departed. There we go. So thank you very much to Sir Simon Jenkins. That's a very succinct summary of what happened, and we're now going to turn to book on Saxon and Norman churches English Churches Explained by Chair Trevor York. I've read from this before, but I'm just going to read a little bit about Saxon churches. So within the book, Trevor York shows a picture of Stowe Church in Lincolnshire and says the following This outstanding example of a large late Saxon cruciform church dwarfs the tiny village around it. Its size and dominant position occluses that it was once an important minster. These early principal churches were mainly established in the seventh Mr Kat's trying to get on my lap. You can't, I've got all these books, darling. I'll give you a cuddle from the side. These early principal churches were mainly established in the seventh and eighth centuries near important centres of the day, and acted as a missionary base from which priests or monks could go out and preach to other communities within a territory. The creation of parishes from the tenth century broke down this system. I'm having a battle with Mr. Cat. He's he's basically got onto my lap. Their presence is also still recorded in place names like Kidaminster or wherever there became a cathedral as at York Minster. And this is a really, if you don't know about this, it's a really important and very simple thing to learn that helps an awful lot, that the parish system, as old as it was, really started in the in the centuries just before the Norman Conquest. Before that, as as it's as Trevor York says, there were minsters and the the clergy within them, it was their job to go out and and Christianise pagans. They were doing the work really of roving missionaries, like, you know, people like Aidan and Cuthbert and and all the people we know about. And you can imagine it must have been it must have been tough times, and I suppose some of the churches would have had would have had maybe defensive elements because in some territories the people around would have been hostile perhaps. You know, it's difficult obviously for us to know at know at this time because information is so scant. And I think it's what makes this era so interesting. Uh I mean so m so many people s see it as a sort of a mystical time, the the dark ages and and the time of King Arthur. And and I find it fascinating, but I find it more fascinating because it's the beginning of Christianity and it's the it's the development of it from a very monk from its very monkish beginnings to then in the United Kingdom the development of parishes and then after that the impact of the Normans and then the papal the power was supreme and that and that from then on that it was it was all about that. Whereas this particular time, what's so fascinating about it is that it was very personality dread, personality led, and people like Cuthbert or Patrick or Aidan, they could have huge influence at a time when all the rules were being made up and put into place, as we've seen with the letters from lovely Pope Gregory to Augustine, which I keep saying we'll go back to and and we will. One of the most wonderful sentences that comes out of the Anglo Saxon Times was by King Alfred, which uh and King Alfred along with Elizabeth I, I think I've said this before, is my favourite of all kings, because he was so extraordinary and rated education and literacy so highly, and that had a hu as I was saying a minute ago about impact, that had such a huge impact on our country at that time. So he said, in terms of this is at the beginning of his code of laws, judge thou very fairly. Do not judge one judgment for the rich and another for the poor, nor one for the one more dear and another for the one more hateful. A man can think on this one sentence alone, that he judges each one rightly, he has no need of other law books. Let him bethink him that he judged to no man what he would not that he judged to him if he were giving the judgment of him. And I'll just say that last sentence one more time because it's very similar to uh the you know what comes out of the Bible as to loving other people, loving your neighbour as much as you you wish to be loved yourself, so let him bethink him that he judged to no man what he would not that he judged to him if he were giving the judgment of him. Good old Alfred. Canute also produced wonderful laws, and those uh but I mean I don't think he quite counts as as a Saxon, so we'll come to him another time. I'm now going to read some of the more sort of excellent examples of the laws of Whitred, who was king of the people of Kent in the Saxon times. Before I read them, I'll just tell you a little bit about uh Whittred. Okay, so he was King of Kent and he issued his law code in six nine five AD. It's one of the early surviving Anglo Saxon law codes after those of kings like Ethelbert of Kent and Ena of Wessex, or Ina. Whitred's laws are especially notable for strong protection of the church, penalties against pagan practices, and evidence of Kent recovering after periods of instability, of conflict. The code survives in the manuscript manuscript known as the Textus or Offences. And I'm struggling to read a little bit because I've got a big Bengal cat on my lap. Hello, Mr Cat. Do you want to purr into the microphone? He's had a sniff, but he's not interested. He he is he does follow me around and he's had a bit of a tough time. I mean he doesn't sit on my lap much now because you can't really get to me, can you, darling? 'Cause there's always a puppy around. But the because we've got so many people in the house at the moment, the puppy's kind of busy with other people, so Mr Kat saw his opportunity and I'm sitting in the garden and he thought, Hmm, mummy, I can sit on mummy's lap while she's got all these books about her. So that's what's happening. I've also lit a candle even though it's uh daylight and sunny and I'm having such a lovely day. Our hawthorn tree is having its best year ever, and it's come out in I mean I I said to husband, look, are you sure it's hawthorn? Because it's come out in the most beautiful pink blossom, a sort of rich, thick, dark pink, and he insists it it is, so I thought Hawthorne was always cream or white, so it looks beautiful, and our yew tree is growing and looking lovely, and it's a really good day. It's a good day to be alive. So the first law that had huge implications for centuries, the church is to be free from taxation. The second law, the king is to be prayed for, and they are to honour him of their own free will without compulsion. And our monarch is still prayed for in church services, especially the more traditional ones, but it's wonderful that it says that people are free to honour him without compulsion. I think if there's one word that would sum up the character of England and English history and I you you know perhaps Britain, but let's for now just say the English. I would use the word liberty. So the only other example I'll give is foreigners, if they will not regular leg regularise their marriages, are to depart from the land with their goods and their sins. And although of course you know we don't approve now of such sanction, still, you know, you're you're allowed to you're not going to be killed, you're not going to be flogged, you're not going to be fined even. You're y you have to leave the land, but you're allowed to take your goods with you. So I just think that's, you know, for the times, extremely lenient. Christianity, right from the beginning, showed leniency towards pa paganism. And I know a lot of people don't agree with that, so you know, these are these are just my humble simple unacademic views. And now another sentence from Trevor York in his book English Churches explained Saxon churches. Part of the success of the early missionaries is likely to have been due to their adoption of existing pagan religious sites, and many early churches were built alongside holy wells, ancient stones, burial mounds, and Roman remains. They were usually simple rectangular structures, mostly built from timber and have long since gone. Those which survive are the ones built in stone. These relied upon the bulk of their walls for stability, and the thickness was exposed at the windows which were typically small, with many splayed on both sides, so the shutter or material used to close them off was in the centre, as glass was rare. The main body had a distinctive, tall, narrow form, most with a smaller chancel built onto the east end, and a few larger churches having transeps to the sides and a tower, where the wall had to be supported above a window, doorway, or the opening between the nave and chancel, a simple round arch was used, typically narrow with tall sides. The roof above would have been steeply pitched and most likely thatched. And now we turn to my book, which is well beyond copyright, which is wonderful, by Cook and Tinker, translations from old English poetry, and it was published at the beginning of the nineteenth century. two Secular Lyrics The Seafarer Date and Author unknown. The German scholar Riga suggested that the poem was a dialogue between an old mariner and a young man who longed to go to sea, the parts being thus distributed, and then he sets out the parts which we'll I will move over. All right, and what else does it say? Egbert, no Ebert, on the other hand, believes the whole a monologue by a single hand. The earlier part reminds one of Tennyson's Ulysses Colon My Purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all western stars until I die. I can sing of myself a true song of my voyages telling how oft through laborious days, through the wearisome hours I have suffered, have borne tribulations, explored in my ship, mid the terrible rolling of waves, habitations of sorrow. Benumbed by the cold, oft the comfortless night watch hath held me at the prow of my craft as it is tossed about under the cliffs. My feet were imprisoned with frost, were fettered with ice chains, yet hotly were wailing the querulous sighs round my heart, and hugging. Hunger within me, sea wearied, made haboc of courage. This he, whose lot happily chances on land, doth not know, nor how I, on the ice cold sea, passed the winter in exile, in wretchedness robbed of my kinsmen, with icicles hung, the hail flew in showers about me, and there I heard only the roar of the sea, ice cold waves and the song of the swan. For pastime the gannet's cry served me, the kitty wakes chatter, for laughter of men, and for mead drink the call of the sea muse, when storms on the rocky cliffs beat, then the terns, icy feathered, made answer, full oft the sea eagle forebodingly screamed, The eagle with pinions wave wet, there none of my kinsmen might gladden my desolate soul. Of this little he knows who possesses the pleasures of life, who has felt in the city some hardship, some trifling adversity, proud and wine flushed, how weary I oft had to tarry upon the seaway, the shadows of the night became darker, it snowed from the north, the world was enchained by the frost, hail fell upon the earth, 'twas the coldest of grain, yet the thoughts of my heart now are throbbing to test the high streams, the salt waves in tumultuous play, desire in my heart ever urges my spirit to wander, to seek out the home of the stranger in lands far off. There is no one that dwells upon earth so exalted in mind, so large in his bounty, nor yet of such vigorous youth, nor so daring in deeds, nor to whom his liege lord is so kind, but that he always has a longing, a seafaring passion for what the Lord God shall bestow, be it honour or death. No heart for the harp has he, nor for acceptance of treasure, no pleasure has he in a wife, no delight in the world, nor in aught save the roll of the billows, but always a longing, a yearning uneasiness hastens him on to the sea. The woodlands are captured by blossoms, the hamlets grow fair, broad meadows are beautiful, earth again bursts into life, and all stir the heart of the wanderer eager to journey. So he meditates going afar on the pathway of tides. The cuckoo, moreover, gives warning with sorrowful note, summer's harbinger sings and forebodes to the heart bitter sorrow. The nobleman comprehends not the luxurious man, what some must endure, whose travel the farthest in exile. Now my spirit uneasily turns in the heart's narrow chamber, now wanders forth over the tide, o'er the home of the whale to the ends of the earth, and comes back to me eager and greedy. The lone wanderer screams and resistlessly drives my soul onward over the whale path, over the tracts of the sea. The delights of the Lord are far dearer to me than this dead, fleeting life upon earth, for I cannot believe that earth's riches for ever endure. Each one of three things ere its time comes, is always uncertain. Violence, age and disease wrench the soul away, doomed to depart. This is praise from the living, from those who speak afterwards. This the best fame after death, that ere he departed he laboured and wrought daring deeds. Gainst the malice of fiends and the devil, so men shall extol him, his praise among angels shall live ever, world without end, his the blessing of life everlasting, and joy mid the hosts. The days have departed, all pomps of Earth's kingdom have vanished. There now are no kings, no emperors now, no gold givers, as of yore, when they wrought in their midst the most glorious deeds, and lived in the lordliest power. This glory has fallen, delights have all vanished away, the weak ones remain, and these govern the world, obtaining their pleasure with effort. Power has declined, Earth's glory grows aged and seer, like every man now in the world, old age overtakes him, his countenance loses its colour, grey haired he laments, he has seen his old friends, sons of princes consigned to the earth. This garment of flesh has no power when the spirit escapes to drink in the sweet nor to taste of the bitter. It then has no power to stretch forth the hands or to think with the mind, though the grave should be covered with gold by the nearest of kin, be buried along with the dead in masses of treasure, still that will not go with them. Gold can be no substitute, be for the fear of the Lord, to the soul which is laden with sin, which aforetime so long as it lived, kept that treasure concealed. Great is the fear of the Lord, the earth trembles before it. He established the unmovable earth, the world and the heavens. Foolish is he who stands not in awe of the Lord. Unexpectedly death comes upon him, but happy is he who lives humble in mind, to him cometh honour from heaven. God doth establish the soul that believes in his might. One should check a strong will, and should govern it firmly, be true unto men, and be clean in his manner of life. Fate, God the creator, is stronger than any man's will. Come, let us reflect where our home is, consider the way by which we go thither, then let us each strive to press forward to joy everlasting, where life has its source in God's love, where is heavenly hope? Then to him who is holy be thanks because he hath honored us, thanks to the ruler of heaven, the Lord everlasting throughout all the ages. Amen. And we'll leave Saxon Saturday as that for today. I hope you enjoyed it and see you tomorrow for Sunday when we read Villette, we read Trollope, and we catch up on Samuel Peeps. Goodbye for now.