Lumiere - Durham

Durham has been hosting Lumiere the past 3 days which is an amazing light show which, judging by the crowds from last night, attracts a lot of people!

A group of us went down to see the sights and take some photos - mine are very amateur! The display involved illuminating the Cathedral every half an hour with projections telling the story of St. Cuthbert and his community coming to Durham. There were also amazing projections of medieval manuscripts including the Lindisfarne Gospels which I had been studying earlier that day...though dropping in that I knew that it was, I retrained myself from giving my friends the details.

By far the best feature was the 't-shirt lanterns' in the cathedral itself. There were more than a few whispers of Harry Potter between people looking up at the display...

In the cloisters was a fire garden which was extremely atmospheric and looked quite apocalyptic.

Out the back of the cathedral was a further fire garden where one could just walk between various object on fire - we couldn't quite work out how they'd got this past health and safety but we didn't see anyone on fire so it must have been safe enough!

Walking back down the Bailey we came across some floating wire men (and women!) which were really cleverly done. There was one little boy that shouted: "Daddy, it's spiderman!", looking at one of the figures flying through the air...I'm sure that was exactly the symbolism that the Lumiere production teams were going for...

It was a great evening followed by a very restrained coke back at the bar in college. I would definitely recommend Lumiere for anyone wanting to experience such an amazing medieval city at its best...

The Ada Gospels

For my special subject study this year I am studying the history of illuminated manuscripts - the recent exhibition that has opened in the British Library has loads of them on display...

http://www.bl.uk/royal

I have to admit that when I first looked at the possibility of studying medieval books for a year, it didn't really appeal when set alongside studying the intricacies of Stalinist thought, or the reign of Henry VIII. Yet, now that I've begun to appreciate how much these books tell us about the medieval world, I'm actually finding it all quite interesting...

Today, I presented my findings of the Ada Group of manuscripts which were produced in Charlemagne's court school up until he died. It is interesting to see how these manuscripts started off with quite a prominent insular influence (Irish and Anglo-Saxon art) and then moved on to a much more classical style with more sophisticated drawings and grander pictures.

Histories will often emphasise the desire of Charlemagne to make his reign like one of a Roman Emperor and the manuscripts and their art in this period shows the change over time and how this influence grew.

Here is a page from the Godescalc Gospel Lectionary - the first chronologically of this group, made c. 781-783:

The image is not yet very sophisticated and little attempt has been made to present 3D perspective in the picture. There is also a lot of insular interlace which shows the influence of insular art on the first books produced by this school.

A later manuscript in the Ada Group is the Harley Golden Gospels, thought to have been made c. 800. The images in this are much more sophisticated and classical with less of an insular influence.

The picture is quite classical and more sophisticated in the fact that the artist has made a serious attempt at introducing 3D perspectives into the picture. However, it is not completely sophisticated as can be seen by the foot stall that looks fairly out of perspective and the contours of his face are still quite 2D.

So it is interesting to look at not only how influences and styles changed, but also how artists grew and progressed in terms of depicting perspective.

What I find most interesting about studying history of this sort is that it makes a nice change from reading and interpreting texts - being able to look at a picture and make assumptions from it is in some ways more challenging but also makes a nice change!

Hopefully I'll be able to go to the exhibition at the British Library around Christmas and see some of them for myself!

Chivalry

After two hours of seminars and lectures of chivalry in Renaissance Europe this afternoon has been interesting but heavy (when Durham third year historians only have 4 hours a week, 2 hours in one afternoon seems quite a trial!).

While chivalry in our society today is something to be desired, in Renaissance Europe, and particularly beyond the Alps, it was central to defining how people lived. Chivalry developed into somewhat of a culture, for the aristocratic elite, but also for the lay people of Europe. My lecturer described it earlier as "The culture of the arms-bearing classes of Western Europe" which is an interesting concept; how something which we just view as a desirably theory today, could have been a central influence in the armies (and this term is used loosely) of the 15th century.

With the violent nature of 15th century Europe which was plagued by battles and defined by war, chivalry was inextricably bound up with notions of warfare. Courage is was a key element in being part of a chivalric order. These were organisations of knights such as the Order of the Golden Fleece, and the Order of the Garter established by Edward III England in 1348. Members could be dismissed from the order if they displayed cowardliness on the battlefields and participation in war continued to define the European nobleman.

What I found most interesting about the idea was that even though chivalry was bound up with ideas of warfare, religion equally remained as a central element to it. Chivalry was not simply a secular code of values, many of the orders above mentioned were built around the idea of religion. Much of the rituals surrounding these orders involved holding masses for the death of other members and the Order of the Golden Fleece had its own chapels.

So, the origins of chivalry, or at least when it became a key part of European culture in the 14th and 15th centuries, are very different to what we would class as an act of 'chivalry' today. Now we think of it as courting and of en behaving like gentlemen, yet in the middle ages it was something very much associated with the arms-bearers of Europe.

As with a lot of history that we study, it is important to try not to project our present notions and beliefs onto the period which we analyse, and instead to try to understand the nature of society at the time.

The point of it all...

Suddenly finding myself in third year of university without anything lined up for afterwards is a bit of a shock - I think most of us in my position are having spontaneous mini crises about life when it gets serious. The job market seems a bit of a minefield out there at the moment to say the least but I think I've got some idea of which direction I want to go in....

Since history has taken over my life a little bit in these last 3 years, it seems a good place to start! I've been inspired recently by Neil MacGregor's book, The History of the World in 100 Objects, and with any luck one day I will be able to do something like that. However, the question is: how to get from unemployed undergraduate to successful historian and writer? Well...I thought a blog about what I'm studying, what I think is interesting (and what seems just a bit dull), and what it is like being a 3rd year history student could be a way into it. So here we are!

I tried to start a blog like this in May - but it wasn't exactly a brilliant time with exams and revision making any of my spare time a mission to watch trashy television. Now, with a bit more time, and a bit more to talk about, I can hopefully produce something worth reading.

Let's see!