Here are listed the public guided walks and tours I have in my diary. I will be adding others all the time.
Tudor London – The City of Wolf Hall 11.30am 13th July 2025 To Book
Jane Austen’s London Anniversary Walk 3pm Sunday 13th July 25 To book
Roman London – Literary & Archaeology Walk 11.30 am Sat 2nd Aug 2025 To Book
Chaucer’s Medieval London Guided Walk 2:30pm Sat 2nd Aug 2025 To Book
Myths, Legends, Archaeology and the Origins of London 11.00am Sat 11th Aug 2025 to Book
The Archaeology of London Walk 6.30pm Fri 3rd October 2025 To Book
Chaucer’s Medieval London Guided Walk 11:30pm Sat 4th Oct 2025 Aldgate Underground To book
Jane Austen’s London Anniversary Walk 2.30pm Sat 4th Oct 25 To book
The Decline And Fall Of Roman London Walk 11.30pm Sat 8th Nov 25 Exit 2 St Pauls Underground Station To book
The Rebirth Of Saxon London Archaeology Walk 11.30am Sun 23rd Nov 2025 To Book
Charles I and the Civil War. Martyrdom Anniversary Walk Jan 30th 2026 To book
For a complete list of my guided walks for London Walks in 2025 look here
Moneywort June 20th
Moneywort
Moneywort flowers in June/July. It is, also known as Creeping Jenny, Wandering Jenny, Creeping Joan, or Wandering Sailor. All names alluding to its rapid trailing over the ground.
It’s also called Herb Tuppence or String of Sovereigns and variations. ‘Herbe 2 pence’ was the name given by William Turner in the earliest English scientific Herbal, 1551. Turner was very controversial because the apothecaries and physicians did not want ordinary people to know the virtues of plants. Or why else would anyone employ them? So restrictive practices was the name of the game for trained medical men. So Turner, by publishing these volumes, was doing something good for the public, and bad for his fellow professionals.
Its Latin name is Lysimachia nummularis (from the Latin for money nummulus). Mrs Grieve suggests that the two pence idea comes from the leaves which ‘look like rows of pennies, and the golden flowers which give the name String of Sovereigns.’
There was said to be ‘not a better wound-herb’, and that wounded serpents would wrap themselves around it. Hence, yet another name is Serpentaria. Also, it was thought to be good for stomachs, and against whooping cough.
It can be used both fresh or dried, but if to be dried, collect in June. It prospers in damp conditions and self-spreads.
William Turner & Ferrara
I have just come back from Ferrara. While there, we were given a tour of the Palazzo Paradiso and nearby buildings. These are town houses originally built for the Estes, the Dukes of Ferrara, in the 14th Century. In 1567, the Palazzo Paradiso was rented out to the University of Ferrara. Turner learnt his medicine in Italy in Ferrara and Bologna between 1540 and 1542. He was awarded his M.D. while in Italy. But, I’m not sure where the medical facility was in 1540. But I am not going to miss this opportunity to show some lovely medieval architecture, that Turner might well have seen. And an early modern Anatomy Theatre.
In the Tower of the building are kept the remains of Ludovico Ariosto, the great medieval Italian poet (1474 – 1533). He wrote the epic Orlando Furioso (1516).
Weather in June
Calm weather in June
Sets corn in tune.
When it is hottest in June, it will be coldest in the corresponding days in February.
(Weather Lore by Richard Inwards 1895)
To read my post on Coltsfoot and Smoking read my post here.
For more on Ferrara read my post on the Pallio.
First written in June 2023 and republished in 2024, and 2025
Death of Luca Pacioli the Father of Double Entry Bookkeeping June 19th 1517
Luca Pacioli was a mathematician, whose mathematical text book had a section on Venetian book-keeping. It was published in 1494 although double entry booking keeping was probably being used earlier. The accountancy is a 27-page section called “Particularis de computis et scriptus. It is part of the compendious ‘Summa de Arithmetica, Geometrica, Portiona et Proportionali’.
It is the source of modern double entry accounting, which spread from Venice as it was the printing capital of Southern Europe.
The key discovery, reported by Luca Pacioli, was that every transaction had to have an entry in both a debit and credit account. So if I lend you £10,000 then my account is debited by 10k and yours is credited by the same amount. Fra Luca (he was a Franciscan Friar) would have it that the accountant could not go to bed until the ledgers balanced. That is, that all the credits and balances in all the ledgers balance.
Double entry bookkeeping has prevented numberless frauds, kept many businesses on the straight and narrow. But it is of course not proof against sophisticated fraud.
Assyrian Double Entry booking keeping?
The gypsum stone reliefs shown below on display in the British Museum show clerks recording booty plundered in the Assyrians’ wars. The soldiers are bringing goods in to be counted. In the first picture, the goods are severed skulls. In the second are a wide range of booty.
In every scene like this, there are two scribes writing notes on clay tablets with styli. They stand side by side. I presume their role is to make sure the other man doesn’t cheat, rather than to facilitate double entry book keeping as such. Assyrians paid their soldiers for each enemy soldier they killed, and the head was the proof. You will see a little pile of severed heads between the soldier and the scribes.
Italians, Accountancy and London.
The earliest work on double entry in England was by Oldcastle in 1543. There were a lot of Italian businessmen in Tudor London. Thomas Cromwell was friends, and indeed neighbours, with some. As a young man he was helped out by the head of one of the great Florentine Finance houses, Frescobaldi. They had branches in Bruges and London, and were major financiers to the Kings of England. Thomas More lived among the colony of Merchants from Lucca. The business centre of London before the building of the Royal Exchange was in Lombard St, where the Lombardian bankers hung out.
More on the British Museum in my post here
First Published on June 19th 2025
The Great Broadway Paint off
One of the joys of my Summer is revisiting places I know and love in my role as a Course Director for Road Scholar. I first came across the ‘en plein air’ in 2023. On Sunday, June 18th. I was in Broadway, once considered the most beautiful village in Britain. It was also the model for Riseholme in the wonderful Lucia books by E. F. Benson (made into a TV series by the BBC starring Prunella Scales, Geraldine McEwan and Nigel Hawthorne).
The day I visited, in 2025, was last Sunday, June 15th. I have added new photos and revised the texts.
How it Works
The artists register in the morning and have their paper or canvas stamped, or given a block of Maltese stone. This proves that they have done all the work on the day itself.
This year there were no sculptors. Instead, there were live models in the marquee being painted by portrait painters.
They take their blank canvases to create a work of art in the village. At 4pm or so, they are judged. At 5pm, the art works are exhibited and are on sale in the Marquee on the village green.
It’s always a delight walking around Broadway. Bun, but with an artist and easel every 50 yards or so even more enjoyable.
The Most Beautiful Village?
The appellation of most beautiful village, came in the late 19th Century. Broadway, once gained its wealth by selling wool. When that declined, the village became an important stop on the Toll Roads. It was on the stage coach route from Aberystwyth to Worcester, Oxford, and London. Fish Hill, nearly 1000 feet high, was an obstacle and coaches made a stop here to prepare or recover. Some coaches used up to 10 horses to get to the top. But with the arrival of Brunel’s Great Western Railway to the Cotswolds the village was nearly ruined. Half the village, the Broadway Museum says, moved away as their livelihood serving the coaching trade died.
But artists and writers, led by Americans Frances Millet and Edwin Abbey, turned Broadway into a much sort-after country retreat. Visitors included Oscar Wilde, J. M. Barrie, Singer-Sargeant, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Gabriel Dante Rossetti, American actress, Mary Anderson, Edward Elgar, E. F, Benson. Mark Twain visited for Millet’s marriage.
Gordon Russell & Henry T Ford
What made the visit particularly interesting was the story told by the volunteer at the Gordon Russell Museum in Broadway. This is the story as I understood it:
The Russells restored the Lygon Arms in Broadway using Arts And Crafts architects. They also restored antique furniture. The son, Gordon Russell, became a leading designer of modernist Furniture. He advertised to passengers on the Cunard Line in order to attract the attention of rich American visitors. One, Henry T Ford, was interested. He came to Broadway, staying at the Lygon arms. He was taken to nearby village Snowshill, where Ford bought a Cotswolds Farmhouse, complete with Blacksmith’s workshop. They were shipped stone by numbered stone to Brentford on the Thames. Then to the London Docks and across the Atlantic. Here. Ford set them up in a Museum in Michigan where they still are!
Research suggests it’s a little more complicated, in so far as Ford purchased his first Cottage before coming to Broadway. But it still leaves a delightful story about American ideas of Quintessential English village life. For pictures see my post here. And for another look at the story look at this web site here:
By the way, Frances Millet planned to return to the States on the Titanic. He was one of the 1500 who drowned. A letter he wrote while on the ship was posted, probably in France. It is on display in the Broadway Museum (2023).
For more about Broadway, Gordon Russell and Word War 2 see my post here:
June 18th is also:
National Chocolate Ice Cream Day
First Published in June 18th 2023, Republished in June 2024, and revised in 2025
Molly Bloomsday June 16th
Molly Bloomsday & the Stream of Consciousness.
Molly Bloomsday is a new festival, an offshoot in Derry of the Dublin based Bloomsday. Both are celebrated on 16th June which is the day on which the great book Ulysses by James Joyce is set (16 June 1904). It was published in 1922.
Bloomsday is named after Leopold Bloom and is an international festival celebrating Ulysses. Molly Bloom is her husband who has a soliloquy at the beginning of the book. The Molly Bloomsday concentrates on Molly and women’s literature. The Dublin version is a literary festival as well with people dressing up as characters from the famous book, readings, plays etc..
The Bloomsday Book
Joyce thought Odysseus was the only all-round character in literature. Not a one dimensional hero, but a man with a complex character, not always making the good choice. He based Ulysses, loosely, on Homer’s plot. The main characters, Leopold and Molly Bloom were based on Odysseus and Penelope. Stephen Daedalus was Telemachus, their son. Daedalus is Joyce’s alter-ego.
What makes the book so great is that Joyce was, with Virginia Wolfe, one of the first great Modernist writers. They used stream of consciousness from the characters’ points of view from deep in their heads. This is how Joyce describes Ulysses according to Djuna Barnes:
“The pity is … the public will demand and find a moral in my book—or worse they may take it in some more serious way, and on the honour of a gentleman, there is not one single serious line in it. … In Ulysses I have recorded, simultaneously, what a man says, sees, thinks, and what such seeing, thinking, saying does, to what you Freudians call the subconscious.”
Ulysses and I
My copy of Ulysses is very well travelled. I very often take it on holiday. I start on Chapter 1, and at some point before the end of the holiday I am still on Chapter. I stop reading. I’ve got past the beginning of Chapter 2 once.
Don’t get me wrong, I am fully convinced it is a brilliant book. It’s my best friend’s favourite book. So one day I WILL READ IT!
Modernism & the Steam of consciousness
When I first published this piece I made a terrible typo and talked about the ‘steam of consciousness’. So I republished it immediately so not to embarass myself for too long. But, actually, I quite like the sound of a steam of consciousness. But what could it mean?
For a touch more modernism, see my post: boating-adventure-the-second-best-modernist-building-in-london/
First published on June 16th 2025
Smithfield & the Peasants’ Revolt June 15th 1381
On the 15th June, King Richard went to pray at Westminster Abbey before the climax of Smithfield & the Peasants’ Revolt. He prayed at the shrine of St Edward the Confessor. A King who knew all about the sins Kings are forced to commit to rule an unruly Kingdom and could intercede on the King’s behalf in Heaven
The Peasants’ met at Smithfield, or maybe they had camped out there overnight. It was a big field where the livestock market was held. And where people were executed. Most famously Scottish patriot, William Wallace, who was hanged, drawn and quartered here on 23 August 1305. It was also used for jousting, and one of the streets off Smithfield is called GiltSpur Street.
The King, Smithfield and the Peasants’ Revolt
The King had agreed to meet the Peasants again. We don’t know how that was organised. The King turned up supported by a group of men who included members of the City of London Corporation including the Lord Mayor, Fishmonger, William Walworth. They seem to have worn armour under their clothes. The King’s Party lined up in front of St Bartholomew’s the Great Priory.
The rebels were on the other side of the field, presumably armed with the weapons and armour they had plundered from the Tower of London. It is not clear exactly what happened, and the sources are prejudiced against the rebels.
The Rebels demands were: the abolition of all Lords except the King; all bishops except the Archbishop; all monasteries except the Friaries and the replacement of the false House of Commons, with the True House of Commons.
Wat Tyler rode towards the King’s party. Got off his pony, spat out the wine he had been drinking, and ‘Hailed, Brother’ slapping the King on the shoulder. This was not normal court etiquette.
One of the King’s party shouted at Tyler that he was a thief and a murderer. Tyler drew his sword, and William Walworth struck him down, mortally wounding him.
Commentators speculate that this might have been part of a plan. To arrive seemingly without armour, to provoke a crisis, and disrupt the rebels.
The City’s part in the events in Smithfield is fascinating. City Merchants were not generally fighting men, but they seem to be the active group the King could rely on. Interestingly, there is no evidence that the Rebels attacked the Guildhall and destroyed the legal records. They attacked most important legal institutions in London, in the days before Smithfield. So why no attack on the Guildhall?
This surely must be because the Guildhall was protected by a competent military force. And it seems these are the same people who took on and defeated Wat Tyler.
In Smithfield, the Rebels didn’t know what to do. Is it possible the King’s party shielded the murder of Tyler behind a screen of people? So they didn’t know what happened and therefore didn’t know what to do?
For surely this was a moment of true danger. The Rebels would have had hundreds if not thousands in Smithfield, some at least well armed. Some must have been archers who would have been deadly. This is not that long after the Battles of Crecy and Poitiers, where the flower of the French Nobility was killed by the English Archers. Archers were normally rank and file soldiers, exactly the class of people supporting the Rebellion. Tyler was taken to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he died of his wounds.
In the moment of crisis, the King is said to have ridden forward on his horse and told the Rebels:
‘I will be your leader.’
And then he led them, like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, to their destruction.
He led them out of Smithfield into the field surrounding and told them they had their Charters so it was time to go home. And mostly they did.
To be continued.
To read my post mile-end-the-peasants-revolt-june-14th-1381/
Also on this day June 15th Magna Carta was signed in 1215
First Published on 15th June 2025
Mile End & the Peasants’ Revolt, June 14th 1381
To recap. On June 14th the 1381 Rebels have control of London. They are destroying any repository of legal records they can find. People are walking the streets dispensing street justice. Foreigners who speak Flemish are being beheaded. Enemies of the people are being dragged out of sanctuary and beheaded. Properties of the leaders of the government are being ransacked and burnt.
The King is in the Tower with his advisors, fearful that the Rebels will breach the defences. I would love to be a fly on the wall of that conversation. You would think it would go something like.
‘Sire. Your safety is paramount. We will leave the castle and draw off the rebels so you can go to a place of greater safety.’
What happened is astonishing. The Royal plan was to send the 14-year-old King Richard out to draw off the rebels so that the hated Chancellor of England, Archbishop Sudbury and the Treasurer of England, Robert Hales could slip away unseen! Putting the young boy king in the direct line of fire!
There are two explanations. Hales and Sudbury were arrant cowards. Or the King was very confident of his safety and despite his youth made his advisors accept his command. This was an age where young princes took adult responsibilities early.
The King left the Tower on horse back, accompanied by two half-brothers and his mother (and others). Their reception was hostile. We have eyewitness accounts of angry rebels pulling at the King’s bridle and that of one of his attendants from the City government. The King sent his mum and brothers back to the Tower as it was too dangerous. We can only assume the King sent them back sure that the peasants did not blame him for the mess the country was in.
He went to Mile End. His clerks set up tables and began writing charters freeing the peasants from feudal duties and turning their tenure into monetary rents.
As each village received its charter, many of the villagers went home. Back at home they sometimes attacked the people who had been manipulating the legal system, believing the King had given them permission to punish the guilty.
Whether the king believed in the justness of their claim or was just placating them to gain time, we do not know. But some historians believe that the young King was sympathetic to some of their claims, until older counsel made him change his mind.
Not all the rebels followed the King to Mile End, nor went home when their charters were sealed. It is thought Wat Tyler and thousands of rebels stayed at the Tower.
They saw the Archbishop of Canterbury trying to escape. They forced their way into the Tower. Here they jumped up and down on the Queen Mother’s bed, stole armour and weapons. Then dragged Hales, Sudbury, a Franciscan Friar (William Appleton, John of Gaunt’s physician), and John Legge, a royal sergeant to the scaffold at Tower Hill and beheaded them. Their heads were put on poles and paraded around town.
When the King left Mile End he couldn’t go to the Tower so he went to Baynards Castle, near Blackfriars. We also know that, the King’s cousin, Henry Bolingbroke was in the Tower. He was the son of the hated John of Gaunt. Years later, when he was King, he acknowledged the fact that a Londoner had been instrumental in saving his life in the Tower on the 14th of June, 1381. The man was fighting charges of stealing gold from the ransacking of Gaunt’s Savoy Palace. He was given a pardon.
That night rebels remained in London, and the king’s cause had been considerably weakened.
To be continued. See also my post peasants-revolt-june-13th-1381/
First published in 2025.
.
Peasants’ Revolt June 13th, 1381
The day began with the King and advisors sheltering in the Tower of London, as the rebels approached London. The King took 4 or 5 ships to Greenwich, to attend a parley with the rebels. The men of Kent descended from Blackheath on the South Side and those from Essex came to the River on the North side. The King’s advisors told him it was too dangerous to meet the rebels. So, he retreated to the Tower of London.
The Kentish rebels marched on Soutwark, opening the Marshelsea prison, and targeting properties in Southwark to ransack. They persuaded the Warden of London Bridge to let down the drawbridge and the rebels poured into the City of London. Outside the Aldgate (the home of Geoffrey Chaucer and his wife) rebels from Essex clamoured to be let into the City of London. Allies from inside the Walls, helped persuade the Warden of the Gate, William Tonge, to open it.
The rebels attacked and burnt St Johns of Jerusalem, the Knights’ Hospitalers monastery in Clerkenwell. The prior was Robert Hales, the Treasurer of England and on the list of people the rebels wanted executed for his part in imposing the Poll Tax; and running a system which used the law to keep the working class in subjection. The Fleet and Newgate Prison were attacked and prisoners released.
Prisons were a particular target because following the huge death rate in the Black Death of 1348, workers were legally required to work at pay rates predating the plague. With the shortage of labour, wages had gone up, and the ruling classes were using the legal system to stop workers benefitting from the shortage of labour. Punishment could include branding and imprisonment. This was still continuing 40 years after the Black Death!
Chaucer is an example of how the law was being used oppressively. He was accused of kidnapping a cook, Cecily Chaumpagne, from her rightful employer. It turns out that she was jointly accused with the poet of breaking the Statue of Labourers. So a cook and her new employer could be taken to the law for simply changing jobs. The ‘Peasants’ (who included not only agricultural workers, but also artisans, and even gentlemen) freed prisoners from unfair imprisonment. (see my post on this episode here)
On the 13th, the rebels also attacked the Temple, burning legal records, and attacked the magnificent Savoy Palace. This was the home of the Duke of Lancaster, the formidable John Of Gaunt, the real ruler of the country. Richard II was his nephew, and was 14 at the time. So the rebels did not blame him for the problems of the Government.
The problems included setbacks in the 100 Year War with France, as the gains of Edward III were progressively lost. In order to retrieve the situation, a series of taxes, particularly poll taxes, were levied. The rich paid the same as the poor. But the revolt only broke out when the Government realised that the 1381 tax was not bringing in so much money as the previous taxes. It became clear that a large number of tax payers had disappeared since the last tax. Commissioners were set out into Essex to find the arrears. They were attacked by the people, and the Revolt began.
John of Gaunt was in Scotland, and the King had no body of troops to impose order. in the evening with fires burning all around London, Rebels gathered outside the Tower of London. The King and his advisors were trapped inside. Rochester Castle had previously fallen to the Peasants, and so a plan was made to lure the rebels away, and allow the hated Robert Hales, and the Chancellor of England Archbishop Sudbury of Canterbury to escape.
What would the morning bring?
To be continued.
First published, in haste, on June 13th 2025
Queen Æthelflæd & the Creation of England June 12th, 918
On 12th June 918, Myrcna hlædige, “Lady of the Mercians”, daughter of Alfred the Great, husband of Æthelred, Duke of Mercia died. Queen Æthelflæd is one of those extraordinary women who, in a world prejudiced against women played a significant role in politics, ruled her country with a strong, wise hand. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle says:
‘918 This year, Æthelflæd lady of the Mercians, with the help of God, before Laminas, conquered the town called Derby, with all that thereto belonged; and there were also slain four of her thanes, that were most dear to her, within the gates.
But very shortly after they had become so, she died at Tamworth, twelve days before midsummer, the eighth year of her having rule and right lordship over the Mercians; and her body lies at Gloucester, within the east porch of St. Peter’s church.’
https://origin-rh.web.fordham.edu/halsall/source/911anglosaxonchronical-aethelflaed.asp
Her dad, Alfred found a way to defeat the Vikings. One of his key decisions was to consolidate an alliance with the Middle Anglian Kingdom of Mercia. Somehow, Æthelred, leader of the Mercians was persuaded to give up his claim to be the King. In exchange, he was married to Æthelflæd, Alfred’s daughter, and took the title of Duke of Mercia. But under the over-kingship of Alfred’s West Saxon Kingdom of Wessex. Alfred renamed his Kingdom to ‘the Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’. This helped the Mercians (and other former independent Kingdoms) to feel they had been liberated from the Danes. And not conquered by the West Saxons. When Æthelred died, Æthelflæd continued to rule Mercia under the Kingship of her brother, Edward.
Burghs
Together, they developed Alfred’s strategy of consolidating control by the creation of Burghs or Boroughs. These were defended townships, often reusing Roman Walls, but also putting walls around new towns. Or new walls around old towns.
Vikings were good at battle, not so good at sustaining long sieges. The burghs not only provided defence in depth, but also helped the economy with the revival of towns. These provided industrial and retail opportunities. Among the Boroughs created or restored were Tamworth, Warwick and Stafford. But, perhaps more important, was the reuse of Chester, as a strategic centre. Just as it had been for the Romans, Chester was crucial to controlling Wales, the Midlands and the North. During Queen Æthelflæd’s time the defences were extended to the River Dee.
Defensive Circuit of Wallingford – essentially an earthen rampart. An Alfredian Burgh defending a ford across the River Thames. Photo: K Flude
Æthelflæd’s Legacy
In 917 invasions by three Viking armies failed as Æthelflæd sent an army which captured the crucial town of Derby and the territory around it. The town was one of the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw, together with Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford. Derby was the first to fall to the English; she lost “four of her thegns who were dear to her” in the battle
Queen Æthelflæd was “renowned as a competent war-leader”. The victory at Derby led to the East Anglian Danes submitting to Edward. And York, controlled by Vikings, offered to pledge their loyalty to Æthelflæd but she died on 12 June 918.
(Last two paragraphs based heavily on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelfl%C3%A6d
This fusion of Saxon and Anglian Kingdoms was the basis of the hugely successful and long-lived Kingdom of England. Athelstan, grandson of King Alfred, having defeated Northumbria. renamed the Kingdom, England. This Kingdom survived until it was absorbed into the United Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. Or you could say it survives to the present day.
For more on Saxon England read my post of the Venerable Bede.
First Published on 12th June 2025.
St Columba (St Colmcille) Day June 9th
St Columba, or Colmcille is one of the most important saints for the early transmission of Christianity. He was born in 521 and said to be a descendant of the possibly legendary Irish King Niall of the Nine Hostages. (The Hostages were a token of Niall’s power over Ireland as they came from the five provinces of Ireland. These are Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, Munster, and Meath. The other four hostages represented Scotland, the Saxons, the Britons, and the Franks.)
St. Columba was sent at an early age to be brought up as a Monk, and went on to set up Monasteries in Ireland at Derry and Durrow. In 563, he left Ireland, possibly because he got involved in a dispute that had a deadly outcome. He went into exile to Scotland and set up the famous Monastery on the island of Iona, Inner Hebrides. This is off the coast of what would one day be called Scotland. At the time, it was under the control of the Kingdom of Dál Riata, which was, Gaelic, nominally Christian, and controlled parts of Ulster and Western Scotland.
From Iona, Columba led the conversion of the Picts to Christianity. The Picts were Britons, speaking a different dialect of Celtic than the Gaels of Ireland and Dál Riata. Their name is said to have been given by the Romans and meant Painted Men. A shared religion, which St Columba brought from Ireland, helped towards the eventual union of the Gaels, the Picts and other British groups into the Kingdom of Alba. Alba is the Gaelic name for Scotland – meaning white, and from which we also get Albion. Alba became Scotland, which is derived from the Roman word for the area which in Latin was “Scotia”. Iona became the traditional burial place of early Scottish Kings such as Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findlaích). These Kings were crowned at Scone and buried in Iona. Alba was also able to take territory from the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria, namely, the Scots-speaking areas South of the Firth of Forth. (Scots being a dialect of English). There were also Norse settlers in the Ireland so Scotland was made of a coalition of Gaelic, Brittonic, Norse and English speakers.
St Columba and the Loch Ness Monster
Much of the events of this part of Columba’s life are recorded by St. Adamnan in The Life of Saint Columba. This was written in the 7th Century, much of which is apocryphal. One notable story tells how he came across a group of pagan Picts who were mourning a child killed by a monster in the River Ness. St Columba revived the child. He then sent one of the Brothers to swim across the Loch to fetch a boat. The “water beast” pursued the Monk and was about to attack him when St Columba told the monster to stop. So it did, retreating to the depths of Loch Ness. Thus began the legend of the Loch Ness monster.
St Columba died in 597AD. Iona continued to prosper and in, 634 sent St Aidan from Iona to found the Monastery at Lindisfarne. The island is on the Eastern coast of Britain in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria. This Kingdom of the North Angles, was one of the most powerful at the time and Lindisfarne was instrumental in its conversion. The tradition of evangelism took hold in the British Isles, and it was from here that much of the German-speaking world was converted to Christianity.
This is St Columba’s legacy.
Northumbria’s Contribution to the development of Christianity
There is a developing understanding among scholars that this Irish inspired form of Christianity, fused with the Anglo-Saxon Northumbria took a leading role in ritual, art, scholarship in the Roman Catholic world. Just stop and think about that sentence for a moment. The northern parts of an out of the way set of islands off the edge of Europe took a leading role in the development of Western Christianity. This was highlighted in a recent exhibition of Anglo-Saxon art at the British Library.
A look at the Lindisfarne Gospel and the Book of Kells showcases the amazing art of this period. For a real treat, look through this scrollable virtual copy of the Lindisfarne Gospel. (Currently this is unavailable, I suspect since the BL was hacked. So instead, here is a slightly breathless online introductory video of the Gospel.)
The Book itself has been missing from the displays of the British Library for a couple of years, but was on display in Northumberland in 2022. I’m not sure whether it is yet back on display at the British Library. I think not. You can see the Book of Kells at Trinity College, Dublin or look at their online offering here: Not quite as joyous an experience as the online Lindisfarne but beautiful enough.
Lindisfarne evangeliarium, tapijtbladzijde op f26v, Matteüsevangelie
Click here to read my post on Scone and the emergence of Alba.
Here is a virtual tour of Iona
Here is a 360-degree panoramic photo tour of Lindisfarne Abbey
First Published in 2023, revised, 2024 and improved 2025
Whitsun
Today, June 8th, is Whitsun or Pentecost. 50 days after the Crucifixion. Celebrated on the 7th Sunday after Easter. The Day the Holy Ghost descends on the disciples. According to one of my teachers, it gave the disciples the power of expression and turned them from bereft disciples to self-confident Apostles. They could now begin to spread the Christian message.
Giotto’s painting shows the Apostles with their halos in the chamber. There are 12 of them, St Matthias having replaced the dead, Judas. The Holy Spirit is represented by the little dove in the centre of the Ceiling. The narrative is carried by the two men in the foreground leaning towards each other. We imagine them saying something like ‘What’s all this about! Galilean nonentities, lost their guru and yet, confident, speaking authoritatively to all and sundry and they can all understand them?‘
Giotto was a forerunner of the Renaissance. According to the great Giorgio Vasari (30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) who wrote about the advances in painting achieved by Italian artists:
‘that very obligation which the craftsmen of painting owe to nature, who serves continually
as model to those who are ever wresting the good from her best and most beautiful features and striving to counterfeit and to imitate her, should be owed, in my belief, to Giotto, painter of Florence, for the reason that, after the methods of good paintings and their outlines had lain buried for so many years under the ruins of the wars, he alone, although born among inept craftsmen, by the gift of God revived that art, which had come to a grievous pass, and brought it to such a form as could be called good.‘
The miracle was that this boy, a poor shepherd with no training in art was able to show nature its true face.
‘One day [the artist] Cimabue, going on business from Florence to Vespignano, found Giotto, while his sheep were feeding, drawing a sheep from nature upon a smooth and solid rock with a pointed stone, having never learnt from anyone but nature.’
One of the points Vasari is making is that the Byzantine Art had lost the use of perspective, something the Romans knew. Paintings had become cartoon like spaces had no solidarity, groups of people stood on shoulders. If you look at the painting above you will the room the Apostles are in has the beginnings of a realistic space, the rafters slope down to a vanishing point. The Apostles are ranged convincingly around the space. Their faces are rounded and realistic. They are separated from the outside world by a dividing wall. And two dudes at the front are convincingly on the ground, rather than hovering in mid air (though I might have cropped the photo too closely!)
It would be over one hundred years before photo realistic portraits and realistic perspective paintings were rediscovered but Giotto showed the way.
For more on Giotto see my post here:
And on Italian art and perspective my post here
First published on June 8th 2025