This Union: The Ghost Kingdoms of England

This is an excellent series on BBC4 about the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that eventually evolved to fill the vacuum left by departure of the Roman legions. In the first episode, Ian Hislop visits East Anglia, particularly Colchester, Ipswich and Sutton Hoo, viewing some coins with Philip Wise and hearing about the Wuffingas, apparently descended from a…

The heraldic glass of East Anglia….

I always find heraldic glass both fascinating and beautiful, wherever it is. If you go here you’ll be able to access a paper about the heraldic glass of East Anglia, where Alston Court in Nayland has a wonderful display of Tudor glass. The shields displayed aren’t exclusively Tudor, of course, but apply to ancient families…

The Prince of Aldi–the Prittlewell Saxon Tomb

In 2003, a Saxon burial in an intact burial chamber was unearthed between an Aldi shop  and a pub in Southend. Clearly an important person, almost certainly royalty, the items in the grave  make it the earliest Christian royal burial in England. Now, 16 years on, with conservation and studies complete, many of the items…

The three saints of 6th July….

6th July is a day of three saints, St Godelva (d. 1070), St Sexburga of Ely (679-700) and St Merryn of Andresey. I have only previously heard of St Sexberga. Were they all celebrated on this day in medieval churches? (The above illustration is merely an example of an early church – the building depicted is…

Developments at Sutton Hoo

This East Anglian Daily Times article reveals that Sutton Hoo, almost certainly the burial of Raedwald, the Wuffing King of East Anglia who was Richard III’s collateral ancestor, will be the subject of its first major dig for nearly thirty years. A new viewing tower (left) will be installed during the process, between May 29th…

Anyone for tennis?

There is an issue with Edmund the Martyr, King of East Anglia, who was shot and beheaded by Vikings, today in 869. He isn’t England’s patron saint, although he is far more English than St. George, who is thought to have originated in modern-day Turkey or Syria. However, unlike St. Edward the Confessor, whose brother-in-law…

A most unpleasant surprise

Peter Cole was a tanner from Ipswich, although his year of birth is generally unknown. He found himself tried in Norwich for heresy and executed there, presumably in the Castle moat (below), which must have been something of a shock as it was 1587 and the heresy laws had been repealed again almost thirty years…

A pastoral tale

This article investigates why, as the Mediaeval Warm Period drew to a close, Britain (and particularly England) developed differently to many nations of Southern Europe. Sandbrook mentions two major cultural factors: the tradition of salting bacon because ham could not be dry-cured and the evolution of the wool trade through the systematic elimination of the…

Witchcraft (3): Matthew Hopkins

If the witchcraft trials at North Berwick in the 1590s and later in England, of which Pendle in 1610 is an example, happened because James VI/I fervently believed in witchcraft, as shown by the three characters in Macbeth, it can be argued that the subsequent decline in such cases came because judges and Charles I…

Beowulf and Sutton Hoo -Sources for a lost world

Originally posted on Giaconda's Blog:
“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” ~ Philip Pullman I was recently asked to visit my daughter’s class and talk to them about archaeology and what we can find out about past cultures from the physical remains that are left behind.…