From St Nicholas to Sir Christmas to Old Father Christmas to Santa Claus….

“….the beautiful, unspoiled Mediterranean town of Patara is the birthplace of the bearded gift-giver, who we look out for with such excitement on Christmas Eve. Or rather, the birthplace of the third century Christian saint whose life of kindness and miraculous do-goodery created a legend which has evolved down the centuries, and given us the…

St Nicholas and the commencement of the Christmas season….

It seems the Bible didn’t actually specify a birth date for Christ. The Church decided on various dates, and today we observe the event on 25th December, but many of us regard the season itself (as distinct from the birth date) as commencing on 6th December, the Feast of St Nicholas, who has now evolved…

SIR JAMES TYRELL – CHILD KILLER OR PROVIDER OF A SAFE HOUSE ?

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri sparkypus.com  15th century stained glass from  great east window St Nicholas Chapel, Gipping.  Did Elizabeth Wydeville gaze up at this very window if the family tradition is correct.    Photo thanks to Gerry Morris @ Flikr While there is much information on Sir James  Tyrell, c.1455-1502  available,  unfortunately some of…

But Father Christmas still comes around every year….!

This article  is from 2017, and tells that they may have found the last resting place of Father Christmas. BUT, Father Christmas still comes around every year, right? So he can’t have turned up the toes of his fur-lined boots. Therefore this St Nicholas chap is someone entirely different. Ask any child!

THE LOST FONT OF MARLBOROUGH CASTLE

Marlborough is a quaint little town in Wiltshire. It has a rather famous College (once attended by Kate Middleton) but no buildings dating much before Tudor times other than two heavily restored churches. However, it used to have a castle, and a rather important one too. The first castle was built by William the Conqueror…

Another clue to the mystery of the “Princes”?

On the left is Gipping Chapel in Suffolk, attached to the Tyrrell property of Gipping Hall. It is a tradition within the Tyrrell family that the “Princes”, the sons of Edward IV who were technically children, lived there during 1483-4 “with the permission of the mother” . To the right is St. Nicholas of Myra,…

Ancient Ratae, City on the Soar

In the second century BC, in a Britain still filled with wild boar, beaver, lynx, bears and wolves, a group of people settled  near to the River Soar. The descendants of Bronze Age peoples and Neolithic farmers, they built a series of huts on the east bank of the river, their settlement extending across some…

INSIDE THE MEDIEVAL MIND: THE WALL PAINTINGS OF NETHER WALLOP

In the small quaint Hampshire village of Nether Wallop, filming location for the BBC’s MISS MARPLE, stands St Andrew’s church, a medieval establishment built on Saxon foundations. From the exterior it looks rather ordinary (save for the strange funerary pyramid in its grounds!) but inside is a glory of wall-paintings dating from the Saxon era…