History

The First Iconoclasm

28 January 2014
Edoardo
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Categories: History

Individuals fall prey to illness, but the contagions that infect a civilisation are ideas. In the 8th and 9th centuries a Byzantine civilisation reeling before the onslaught of expansionist Islam was simultaneously torn apart by a controversy that might seem ridiculously abstruse from our vantage point: whether or not it was permissible to paint images of Christ and the saints. But to conclude that the Byzantines were wasting energy desperately needed for the defence of the empire is to make the mistake of judging them with the myopic gaze of the 21st century. Icons expressed the civilisational core of Byzantium, therefore their creation or destruction was vital to how New Rome saw itself.

Interior of an Orthodox church.
Interior of an Orthodox church.
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Emperors and Sultans

24 January 2014
Edoardo
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Categories: History

This article first appeared in the Time Out Guide to Istanbul a few years ago.

On the face of it, wielding absolute power as the emperor of the Byzantines or sultan of the Ottomans might seem like a good job. You got to be the main man in what was, for much of the time that both empires endured, the most magnificent city on earth. The Imperial reception rooms of the Byzantine Emperor had golden lions that roared and golden birds that sang. The Ottoman sultans were certainly not outdone in ostentation, although their displays could sometimes take rather charming turns, such as when Selim II wrote to an official in Aleppo: ‘I need about 50,000 bulbs for my royal gardens… I command you in no way to delay.’

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In the Pink on Yeavering Bell

9 January 2014
Edoardo
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Categories: Archaeology, Edwin, Geology, High King of Britain, History, Northumbria The Lost Kingdom, Photographs, The Northumbrian Thrones, Things You Never Knew

Yeavering Bell is an Iron-Age hillfort in Northumberland, one of the largest in the country. The tumbledown ramparts, still clearly visible in the photograph below, were originally 10 feet high and they enclose an area of  some 12 acres.

Yeavering Bell with ramparts clearly visible.
Yeavering Bell with ramparts clearly visible.

The hillfort looks over the site of Ad Gefrin, Edwin’s royal palace and the place where Paulinus baptised for thirty days in the River Glen at the bottom of the valley. Ad Gefrin is now a wind-swept field of grass, but it remains a hugely evocative place.

The field of Ad Gefrin, with Yeavering Bell in the background. 'Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair.'
The field of Ad Gefrin, with Yeavering Bell in the background. ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair.’

The rock that was used to build the ramparts of Yeavering Bell is a local andesite that, when first quarried, is bright pink, before lichens and weathering grey it. Where a stone has tumbled, revealing a previously hidden face, it’s possible to see just how Barbie-esque the fortifications would have been when first built.

The salmon pink of fresh andesite - once all the hills were laced with it.
The salmon pink of fresh andesite – once all the hills were laced with it.

There is, to my mind, something wonderful about the thought of these grim hills – almost all of them had hillforts on them – necklaced in salmon pink.

Unlikely London Clubs

5 January 2014
Edoardo
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Categories: History, Things You Never Knew

London is the most clubbable of cities, but the true heyday of societies and associations was the late-19th century. Then, alongside the clubs and societies that have continued through to the present, there were many others whose loss I mourn. They included the Surly Club, where men met to practice contradiction and foul language, as well as a Lying Club and a Mock Heroes Club, a No-Nose Club and a Farting Club. There was the sinister Man-Killing Club, which required members to have done what it titled itself, and the melancholic Club of Broken Shopkeepers, for bankrupts and failed businessmen. And, my favourite of all, the Humdrum Club, for men who ‘meet at a tavern, smoke their pipes & say nothing till midnight’.

Book review: Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies

20 October 2013
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review, History

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OK, I admit it, in the end I didn’t read all 848 pages. Some of the kingdoms were just too obscure, the characters too interchangeable, and the permutations too complicated (Burgundy, I’m thinking of you) to prevent my eyes glazing over. But where I did know something about the background history, Davies was downright brilliant. In particular, the chapter on Alt Clud, the Kingdom of the Rock, that endured upon the twin humped lump of granite overlooking Dumbarton for four centuries during the Early Medieval period was wonderful. It brought the old British kingdoms vividly to life, and was worth the price of the book (or at least the reservation charge at the library) on its own. So, particularly recommended for periods and places that you know a little about, and want to learn more about.