Medieval Mondays: Christian Viking Runestone Uncovered in Medievalist's Yard

It's every medievalist's dream come true--to find a rare artifact from the Middle Ages in their own back yard.

That recently happened to Dr. Sarah Jane Gibbon, a specialist in early church history, when her father found this fragment of a runestone on her farm.

It helps, of course, that she lives in the Orkney Islands, one of the richest areas for archaeological finds in the United Kingdom, and that's saying a lot. These rugged islands off the north coast of Scotland were home to an advanced Neolithic culture that made some amazing tombs and stone circles. Much later in the Middle Ages, it was home to a colony of Vikings.

What's interesting about this runestone is that it's using Viking runes to express Latin words, in this case, “who art in heaven hallowed”, part of the Lord's Prayer. Thus this runestone dates to after the Vikings had converted to Christianity. No similar inscription has ever been uncovered in the Orkneys or the Shetland Islands further north.

I bet Dr. Gibbon and her dad will be looking down a lot more as they walk around the property.

Image courtesy The Orcadian.

Medieval Mondays: Archaeologists Discover Anglo-Saxon Cross

West Face, showing Christ trampling on the beasts and St. John as a falconer.

Last month archaeologists in Weardale, County Durham in northern England, discovered a portion of an Anglo-Saxon cross dating to the 8th century. This isn't a picture of it. This is the Bewcastle Cross, which dates to the same century or a bit earlier. The archaeologists in Weardale found only a worn fragment. Hit the link above to see a picture of this intriguing lump and read about the discovery.

While the Weardale cross is in a lab getting photographed, drawn, and studied, you can actually visit the Bewcastle Cross. It's located at St Cuthbert's church in Bewcastle, Cumbria, northern England. As you can see it's lost its crossbar, either through weathering or during the English Civil War when various hardcore Christian factions destroyed anything that smacked of "Popism".

One side is covered with figures and an inscription in Runic that reads, "This slender pillar Hwætred, Wæthgar, and Alwfwold set up in memory of Alefrid, a king and son of Oswy. Pray for them, their sins, their souls." Another Runic inscription reads, "In the first year (of the reign) of Egfrid, king of this kingdom [Northumbria]."

The other sides have elaborate designs and the earliest sundial in England. Jump the cut to see a picture. This cross, along with the Ruthwell Cross, are considered the two finest Anglo-Saxon crosses in existence.

Photos courtesy Tom Quinn (top) and Doug Sim (bottom).

Medieval Mondays: Saint Lucy with her eyes on a plate

Perhaps it's because I wasn't raised Catholic, but I still do a double take at some of the images of saints. Take Saint Lucy, for instance, who is commonly portrayed holding a pair of eyes on a plate, as you can see in this Spanish painting from the late 15th or early 16th century.

They're actually her eyes, despite the fact that in this picture she has a pair of perfectly good ones in her head. Hey, she's a saint, she can do that sort of thing.

Saint Lucy or Lucia was a Christian martyr who lived from 283-304 and was killed during the great persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Diocletian. Like many Christian martyrs, she was killed after refusing to make sacrifices to the Imperial cult.

She was said to have been killed by a sword, but a much later tradition grew up that she had her eyes gouged out first. In another story, she took out her own eyes because they were so pretty they were attracting unwanted attention for this woman who taken a vow of chastity. Today Saint Lucy is venerated as the protector of good sight.

Medieval Mondays: Why Did Leprosy Disappear from Europe?

They are one of the enduring images of the Middle Ages. With their horrible open wounds and missing fingers, lepers caused fear and revulsion wherever they went. In some places, they still do. While leprosy is hard to catch, the simple medicine of the time didn't know this and had no cure. A disease so horrible, people thought, must be contagious.

It was also considered a judgement from God. In some areas, lepers were forced to stand in an open grave as a priest declared them dead. They were forbidden from living in towns or cities and had to wear bells in order to warn people of their presence.

Leprosy was widespread, with up to one in 30 people affected in some areas. But by the 16th century it was disappearing. Why?

A recent archaeological research project set out to answer this question. A team of archaeologists and biologists exhumed the bones of medieval lepers and sequenced the DNA of five strains of the leprosy bacteria. They found no significant difference between medieval leprosy and the strains still found today in Asia. The disease hadn't become any less virulent, so why did it die out?

It appears it was the victim of its own success. People have a genetic level of resistance to particular diseases. Those who were most susceptible died from it and didn't pass on their genes. Leprosy was one of the few grounds for divorce in medieval Europe. Only those individuals who had stronger resistance to leprosy remained, and thus the disease all but died out in Europe.

Medieval Mondays: St Catherine: the saint saved from the wheels

Hello again! As I mentioned before, I've been busy writing The Maze of Mist, my fantasy novel set in the same world as Roots Run Deep. Now that that's in edits, I can get back to blogging.

This fine alabaster carving from London's Victoria & Albert Museum was made in England in the 15th century. It shows angels releasing St Catherine from certain death on the spiked wheel, a particularly nasty form of medieval execution. According to legend the wheel shattered and the flying pieces killed her executioners and the people who had gathered around to watch.

Of course she ends up martyred when another group of executions behead her. This is a common element in saints' stories. The evildoers are punished, but since it's God's will that the saint be martyred, the saint eventually gets killed.

Small alabaster plaques like these were common in churches and private homes during this period. What's unusual with this image is that St. Catherine is shown half naked.

Medieval Mondays: Previous popes who have resigned, part two

Last week, I talked about the early popes who resigned, or at least are said to have resigned. The records are scarce for the early Papacy. In this second of my two-part post, we're on firmer ground in the Middle Ages.

The most colorful pope from the last post was Pope Benedict IX, who turned the Vatican into a giant block party and got bribed to resign in 1045. The guy who bribed him, who then became Pope Gregory VI, soon had to resign himself. While everyone appreciated his getting rid of Benedict, he had committed the sin of simony--paying for holy offices. So in 1046 he had to go.

For a time the Popes managed to keep their office until their death. There wasn't another resignation until Pope Celestine V in 1294. Celestine only spent five months on the throne of St. Peter before he decided the job wasn't for him, issued an edict saying it was OK for popes to resign, and left to live the life of a hermit.

His successor, Pope Boniface VIII, worried that he might change his mind and so he threw Celestine into prison, where the hermit-turned-pope-turned-hermit died ten months later. Celestine was later canonized and Boniface was lampooned by Dante in his Divine Comedy.

The next resignation came when Pope Gregory XII stepped down. This was a time of deep schism in the Church. Two rival popes had set themselves up at Avignon and Pisa. Both had considerable support. Kingdoms lined up to put their weight behind one pope or another. World War One looked like it would break out 500 years early.

The Church Council of Constance met in 1414 to avert disaster. Gregory and the pope from Pisa agreed to step down in 1415. The Avignon pope refused and was excommunicated. The Council then elected Pope Martin V.

From then on no pope has resigned, until this week.


Image of Pope (later Saint) Celestine courtesy Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Medieval Mondays: Previous Popes Who Have Resigned

Last week, Pope Benedict XVI stunned the Catholic world by announcing he would resign. The media were quick to note that this hasn't happened in centuries. Little information was given about other popes who resigned. Who were they, and why did they give up a position that's supposed to be ordained by God and last for life?

It's unclear who the first pope was who resigned. The records for the early popes are sparse and unreliable. It's said the first Pope to resign was Pontian, who served from 230-235. He was exiled and forced to work in a mine during the persecutions of the Roman Emperor Maximinus Thrax and is said to have resigned so a new man could serve as pope in Rome. Pontian died in exile.

Pope Marcellinus (296-304?) may have resigned during the persecutions of Diocletian. Some sources say that under pressure, he offered up sacrifices to the pagan gods and then resigned in disgrace. Other sources deny this. Pope Liberius (352-366) may also have resigned in order to clarify the succession with a rival who claimed the papacy, but this is also disputed. Another dubious claim says that Pope John XVIII (1004-1009) resigned in order to live as a monk.

We're on firmer ground with Pope Benedict IX. He became pope in 1032 and led a dissolute life, conducting orgies in the Vatican and bumping off political rivals. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia calls him a disgrace. He was kicked out of Rome in 1036 but had powerful political allies and soon returned. In 1044 he was kicked out again, but returned the next year. More pressure was put on him and in 1045 he was bribed to resign. Benedict decided he liked the power that came with the Papacy and clawed his way back the next year.

The pressure on him proved too great, however, and he was driven out of the Lateran Palace by irate German troops. In 1049 he was excommunicated. His tomb in Grottaferrata Abbey, Italy, is shown in this Wikimedia Commons image.

Tune in next week to learn about the other Popes who have resigned!

Religious intolerance during the Reformation

As I mentioned in my post about Muslim depictions of Muhammad, the use of images in the rivalry between religions is nothing new. This image is from the Reformation, when Europe was being torn apart between traditional Catholics and those who wanted to reform the Church. This led to the foundation of several Protestant sects, and several wars and revolutions that killed hundreds of thousands.

This Protestant engraving shows devils shitting out monks and priests. Yes, it's pretty offensive. It just goes to show that the wars over faith have been going on a long time.

Muslim depictions of Muhammad

By now everyone has heard of the controversy over the film Innocence of Muslims, which has caused outrage in the Muslim world for its negative portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad. There has also been a backlash over cartoons of Muhammad in various satirical magazines.

One thing that's forgotten in this debate is that some parts of the Muslim world have a long-standing tradition of depicting Muhammad. The belief that it is wrong to portray living things, especially Muhammad, is not universal in the Muslim world and never has been.

Above is a modern religious card from Iran, where the Shia majority has a centuries-old tradition of human portraiture. The next image shows a similar card from Turkey, produced by the Alevi sect. Both are in the University of Bergen collection, which has an interesting article on Muslim depictions of Muhammad.

While those who have created images of humans and especially Muhammad have always been in the minority in the Muslim world, they have been around since the early days of the religion. This is something to remember in the ongoing debate.

This image shows a young Muhammad meeting the monk Bahira. It's from the Jami' al-Tavarikh ("The Universal History" or "Compendium of Chronicles") written by Rashid Al-Din and illustrated in Tabriz, Iran, c.1315.

This image shows Muhammad at the Ka'ba in Mecca, and was made in Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire in 1595. Note that Muhammad's face is veiled in this one. In some images, he's not shown as a human figure at all, but rather with various symbols such as a pillar of fire. This is in the collection of Bilkent University in Turkey, which has a whole page of such images.

I am not showing these images to offend Muslims, merely to point out that Islam is not a monolithic, unchanging faith, and that the protestors are ignoring their own history. Of course, they're also offended by the negative portrayal of Muhammad. I've watched Innocence of Muslims and it's a mindless baiting of an entire religion. Muslims have every right to be offended by it and peacefully protest. Part of living in a free society is that you get offended sometimes.

Christianity reached Vikings earlier than previously thought

A new excavation is pushing back the date for the introduction of Christianity among the Vikings.

Archaeologists working at Ribe Cathedral in Denmark have found Christian burials from the mid ninth century in the graveyard. They all faced east and had no grave goods in keeping with Christian tradition. Viking burials almost always included grave goods and generally did not face east.

Traditional history says that the Vikings in the area were converted after King Harold Blutooth was baptized in 963. On his famous Jellinge Runestone, shown here, the king boasted that he "made the Danes Christians”. Some historians have contended that he was only making official a slow process of conversion that had started long before. These graves seem to confirm that, and bring up the question of whether there's the foundations of an older church underneath the cathedral at Ribe.

Sorry for my recent silence, but I've been busyworking on the latest book in the Timeless Empire series. I've even put a word counter on the sidebar to keep me motivated! Book One, Hard Winter, is already available, and Book Two, At the Gates, is being prepared for publication. It should be availabe in the next two weeks.

Photo courtesy Sven Rosborn.

Medieval Mondays: What we stand to lose in Timbuktu

If you follow the international news, you've probably heard there's a civil war in Mali. The northern half of the country has broken away and formed the nation of Azawad.

This new nation is itself having a civil war, with part of the territory run by Tuareg tribesmen seeking a homeland, and part run by militant Islamists who want to create a hardline religious state. Many of them are mercenaries who fought for Gaddafi in the Libyan civil war and fled to Mali loaded with weapons and equipment.

Unfortunately, the Islamists' area of control includes Timbuktu, the fabled trading center near the River Niger and the edge of the Sahara. From the 12th century AD it was a center of learning with a large university, a flourishing book trade, and many resident scientists. It was the center of a tolerant brand of Sufi Islam that sought to learn from the world, not change it.

The fundamentalists, who called themselves Ansar Dine, have decided the many medieval shrines of Muslim saints are against Islam and are systematically destroying them. If that's not bad enough, the city is home to hundreds of thousands of medieval manuscripts, many of which have not been copied. If Ansar Dine decides these need to be burned, priceless documents of the past like this early astronomical treatise will disappear forever.

As usual with militant religious groups, Ansar Dine isn't exactly holy. UNICEF says they are forcing children to serve as soldiers and sex slaves. Why is it that religious control always ends up being about hurting kids? So far, world leaders have done nothing but wring their hands and say tsk tsk. Timbuktu doesn't have any oil, so like Syria, the people and their past will be decimated before anything is done.

BBC has a good slideshow of Timbuktu's endangered treasures here.


Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Medieval Mondays: Gay marriage in Medieval Europe?

Gay marriage is in the news again, this time as a political football for the upcoming U.S. presidential election. It's been a political football for quite some time and in the 1980s the debate even resounded through the hallowed halls of academia.

In the book The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe, gay Catholic historian named John Boswell proposed that the Church, far from considering homosexuality a sin, actually allowed same-sex unions. In a ritual called adelphopoiesis, literally "making a brother", two men would be joined in a spiritual bond. There would be a religious ceremony, the trading of gifts, a kiss, and a big feast with their friends. Boswell does not claim this was gay marriage, rather a same-sex union that was probably chaste.

Needless to say, this caused a firestorm of controversy both within academia and in the general population. While many of Boswell's detractors were simply having knee-jerk reactions, several leading historians criticized his methodology and convincingly argued that he stretched his interpretations too far.

Whatever the truth behind Boswell's claims, the fact of the matter was that there were gay people in the Middle Ages, and it would make sense that a lot of them would join the clergy. It was one of the only jobs in a traditional society that kept you from getting married. Everyone else was expected to marry and have children. Imagine a gay man faced with the requirement to perform on his wedding night. If he didn't, he'd be held up to public mockery and suspicion and would have given his wife one of the only grounds for annulment that existed at that time. Far better to take a job that put you in a big building with lots of other men! The Church also offered job security and took care of you when you were old, a better deal than most medieval workers got.

Now before anyone freaks out in the comments section, I'm not saying that all or even most priests and monks are gay. It stands to reason, though, that the Church was ironically one of the only refuges for gay people to avoid sleeping with the opposite sex and living a lie. It may be that the ritual of adelphopoiesis was a way to bond two men in a lifelong relationship that was superficially religious in nature, while everyone in the monastery was giving the pair a sly wink, knowing what was really going on.


Photo of saints Serge and Bacchus, who Boswell claims were a couple, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Will the world end this year? We've been asking this question a long time

It's a new year, and we're once again getting the traditional media hoopla about the end of the world. This time it's the Mayan calendar saying that 2012 will be THE END. Didn't the Mayans predict this for a previous year? I can't remember and life's too short to look it up.

The human race loves the idea of the Apocalypse. Every few years some cult predicts the End Times or some ancient inscription is wheeled out before the public to prove that we really don't need to pay our credit card bills.

One of the biggest years for the end of the world was the year 1000 AD. Coming as it did in the Middle Ages, when the Church had a tight grip on society's imagination, and having a nice round number, it seemed like a good time for the world to end. Crowds of people gathered in churches and villages to pray for salvation. Priests raked in donations. Everyone wanted to repent, or get drunk. I bet a lot of babies were born nine months after New Year's Eve.

The world didn't end then, and it won't end now. So don't worry. Read some zombie novels if it makes you feel better. Or try some more optimistic fiction like what I write. Either way, don't worry. And pay off your credit card bills.

This photo shows a medieval Orthodox Apocalypse painting from the Osogovo Monastery, in the Republic of Macedonia. it was taken by Edal Anton Lefterov.