"The Bone Chests" by Cat Jarman

December 1642: the English Civil War between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians is raging. 

The Parliamentarians occupy the city of Winchester and storm into the city cathedral.

 

The cathedral had been a fixture in the city since 1079, replacing a church building known as the Old Minster first built in 648. The Old Minster had housed the bodies of many Anglo-Saxon ruler until they were removed, the bones placed in 10 chests in the then-new cathedral. 

 

The Parliamentarians weren’t fond of relics, statues of saints, and stained glass. After wrecking much inside the cathedral, the soldiers turned their attention to the chests, which monks had placed high above the floor in the hope that they would be out of reach. They weren’t. Six of the chests were destroyed outright and the bones scattered. The remaining four were emptied. What stopped the full destruction was the appearance of the local people determined to protect what was left. Not surprisingly, the soldiers decided they were finished for the day. 

 

The great stained-glass window was wrecked by the solders launching the emptied bones through the glass.

 

The Bone Chests: Unlocking the Secrets of the Anglo-Saxons tells the story of what happened to the chests and the bones they contained. The author, Cat Jarman, is editor of British Archaeology Magazine, and tells that story, and she does a lot more. The chests become the mirror she holds to the Anglo-Saxon age, with the era’s kings and queens, the battles with the Vikings, the battles among themselves, and the role of Christianity and great cathedrals like Winchester. 

 

It's a captivating tale. Jarman organizes the story by the bone chests themselves, the four surviving chests and the two replicas built after the Restoration of 1660. She details the considerable forensic and archaeological work undertaken in Winchester as well as other, connected places (including Madgeburg, Germany). She describes how the bones were gradually gathered up and but back in the boxes, often in a jumble. Hundreds of years later, scientists examined the bones in an effort to determine which bones might belong to which ruler. Along the way, she provides the history of each ruler and the times they lived in.

 

Cat Jarman

Jarman is a bioarchaeologist and field archaeologist specializing in the Viking Age and also the Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Her studies include the use of isotope analysis, carbon dating, and DNA analysis. She previously published River Kings: The Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads. Jarman received her Ph.D. degree in Archaeology from the University of Bristol. Her thesis involved a forensic analysis of Viking Age burials, including a mass grave of 300 individuals. 

 

The Bone Chests is a fascinating study, not only of the times and people who ruled but also how archaeologists have worked to determine the bones’ identities.

 

Top photograph: the great west window of Winchester Cathedral. The shattered glass from 1642 was collected and made into a mosaic. Image from Wikipedia. 

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Do We Owe Loyalty to Institutions? – David Deavel at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

The dangers of digital media – Samuel Walters at The Critic Magazine.

 

This Forgotten Valley – Brian Miller at A South Roane Agrarian. 

 

The First and Best Writing Advice I Ever Received – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

Poetry Prompt: O, Soul – Tweetspeak Poetry.

“Cometh the Hour” by Annie Whitehead

Blame it on Petrarch.

The Italian scholar (1304-1374) is credited with coining the phrase “Dark Ages” to describe the period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the early Renaissance. The idea of “dark” (backward and violent) contrasted with the “light” of his own day. The term was especially popular during the so-called Enlightenment (roughly the 17^th-18^th century) which gave us both great learning and the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution. It’s at least arguable which era was actually the darkest (and none of them may hold a candle to the death, destruction, and violence of the 20^th century). 

Historians today generally avoid using the term “Dark Ages,” but it persists in popular culture. In Britain, the period includes the departure of the Romans (about 400 A.D.), the Anglo-Saxon invasions, the Viking invasions, and the Norman Conquest, to about the time of Chaucer (14^th century). Some of the most familiar icons of British and English history were created during this period, including the Tower of London, the monumental castles, and the great church buildings like Westminster Abbey and the numerous cathedrals. 

It’s this era that historical fiction author and historian Annie Whitehead has focused upon for her books. Her novel To Be a Queen is set in the 870-918 A.D. timer period. Her history of Mercia is about one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that dominated England for a few hundred years. She writes with deep insight of the era and the people, making extensive use of both the original documents that exist and scholarly research. 

Based on that same kind of in-depth research, Cometh the Hour tells the story of four kingdoms in the seventh century A.D. – Mercia, Bernicia/Northumberland, Deira, and East Anglia. And while it is largely a story of kings and their struggles against each other and often their own siblings, it is also a story of the women, who often had to run kingdoms while their husbands were off fighting (and the husbands are often off fighting). The various kingdoms in this period (and there were more than these four) seemed to stay in almost constant warfare, with a few brief years of peace in between. 

England about 600 A.D.

The major characters in the story are all historical figures. Because the story and the interaction between the characters is complex, Whitehead includes a helpful royal genealogy for each of the four kingdoms and a list of the major characters. She’s telling four primary stories; how they merge, diverge, interweave, and sometimes abruptly end are what make the genealogies and character lists so helpful.

And what stories she tells! Princesses used as political pawns, revenge for the deaths of fathers and sons, double-dealing and treachery, and the occasionally real love story all make for an absorbing read. This is also the period during which Christianity was making major inroads among the various Anglo-Saxon tribes, and Whitehead tells that story, too. Favorite characters are Penda, king of Mercia, and his wife Derwenna. Penda resists Christianity to the very end, even though he doesn’t oppose his subjects hearing and accepting the message, but he behaves as more of a Christian king than most of his believing peers in the other kingdoms.

Of particular note are the battle scenes. This author knows how to write a vivid, realistic battle scene. She does it so well that you find yourself ducking to miss the swing of a sword or an ax. 

Annie Whitehead

Whitehead, a member of the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Writers Association. She has published three novels set in Mercia: To Be a Queen (2013); Alvar the Kingmaker (2016); and Cometh the Hour (2017). Her non-fiction work, Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, was published in 2018. Her books have won a number of prizes and recognitions, and she is a frequent contributor to anthologies on English history and a lecturer. She blogs at Casting Light upon the Shadow and Time Traveler.

Cometh the Hour is fiction, yes, but it is fiction that provides a factually based understanding of what actually happened during this period of English history. By the story’s end, you’ll come out with a deeper understanding of the times and a deeper appreciation for just how well Whitehead told her story. These ages won’t remain dark while we still have such great storytellers.

Related: 

To Be a Queen by Annie Whitehead.

Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom by Annie Whitehead.

Top illustration: A stained glass window in Worcester Cathedral depicting the death of Penda at the Battle of Winwaed is 655 A.D., via Wikimedia Commons. Map of England in 600 also via Wikimedia Commons.

"Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War"

I have a thing for exhibition catalogs. It drives my wife crazy, especially if the exhibition is in another country or city and we’re flying back home. All those books to pack! But I’ll usually buy the book that accompanies an exhibition, especially if it’s something I’ve really enjoyed. Or, I’ll buy the book for an exhibition I haven’t seen but would really like to see, like the current Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibitionat the British Library in London.

The book for the exhibition, Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, is a big one. It’s edited by Claire Breay, head of Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts at the British Library, and Joanna Story, professor of Early Medieval History at the University of Leicester. It includes an introduction and five essays, followed by almost 300 catalog pages tracking the 11 sections of the exhibition.

The essays cover the relationships between Anglo-Saxon England the continent; language, learning, and literature; interactions with Ireland; the emergence of a kingdom of England; and conquests and continuities. The essay authors are all experts in their fields and provide an overall summary of the Anglo-Saxon period.

The catalog section includes origins, or where the Anglo-Saxons came from; the kingdoms that were established and how Christianity gained a position among them; the kingdom of Mercia and its neighbors; the rise of the West Saxons; the emergence of England; language and literature; natural science; reforming the kingdom and the church; music; art; and the conquests of the 11^thcentury (the Norman Conquest of 1066 was only the last of several). 

Authors of the period provided some of the best-known works of literature in what eventually developed as the English language. The Venerable Bede finished his Ecclesiastical History of the English People in 731 A.D., and an unknown author created the epic poem Beowulf about a century later. The exhibition manuscripts are few; some 90 percent of the surviving Old English poetry are included (some six documents). But its writings and poetry like these that drove the development of Old English well into the time of Chaucer and influenced Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible. 

At least two themes of special note emerge from the essays and catalog descriptions. 

First, while some still refer to this period as the “Dark Ages,” they were anything but that. There were repeated warfare and invasions, and the Vikings helped keep things upended for the last 200 years of Anglo-Saxon history (William the Conqueror and his Normans were themselves descended from Vikings). But a rich literary life was maintained at various palace courts and especially the monasteries; this was the great period of illustrated manuscripts.

Second, the influence of religion was enormous, and likely because it provided some stability in an unstable time. The Roman Catholic Church was the church universal in Anglo-Saxon England, and while kingdoms emerged and disappeared, and Danes and Norsemen and others were always available for sacking and conquest, the church not only lasted but thrived.

Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms is a big, beautiful book, rather lavishly illustrated, displaying important artifacts and manuscripts from a formative period for British history and the English language.

Related: 

Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom by Annie Whitehead.

1066: What Fates Impose – a novel by G.K. Holloway.

Glass Island – a novel by Gareth Griffith.

Top illustration: A feasting scene from the Bayeux Tapestry. Bottom illustration: the Domesday Book, the earliest surviving public record in Britain.