{"id":7738,"date":"2020-01-17T14:18:46","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T14:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/?p=7738"},"modified":"2020-01-17T14:18:49","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T14:18:49","slug":"linking-canterbury-and-lyminge-through-anglo-saxon-saints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/linking-canterbury-and-lyminge-through-anglo-saxon-saints\/","title":{"rendered":"Linking Canterbury and Lyminge through Anglo-Saxon saints"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As well as mentioning a couple of events that are due to happen over the next couple of weeks, I shall be reporting on Robert Baldwin\u2019s talk this week, with a brief note about the earlier Gender and Medieval Studies conference in Swansea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Robert discusses the Anglo-Saxon chancel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To begin with the new items, next week will be the\nfirst meeting of the Kent History Postgraduates group and to confirm Dean Irwin\nwill be giving us his presentation from a conference in Jerusalem over\nChristmas, while after that we will explore the late medieval Gough Map,\nconcentrating on Kent. Then the week after Dean is again busy on Monday 27\nJanuary as one of the organisers of events at Canterbury Cathedral to mark\nHolocaust Memorial Day. As he says, this commemoration is particularly\nsignificant in 2020 because the 27 January will be the 75th<\/sup> Anniversary\nof the Liberation of Auschwitz. The theme this year is \u201cStanding Together\u201d, and\nthe organisers are seeking to draw as many people as possible from a range of\ndifferent communities to mark this important event. Among the activities that\nwill take place is a presentation by Sixth Formers from Simon Langton about\ntheir work for Holocaust Memorial Day, a guided walk around \u2018Jewish Canterbury\u2019\nand an exhibition in the Cathedral Archives, both of the latter involving Dean,\nto be followed by Choral Evensong of Remembrance and Prayer \u2013 \u201cStanding\nTogether\u201d. If you are interested in attending and want a programme, please\ncontact the Cathedral Archives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later that week on Wednesday 29 January, the first group of CCCU postgraduates from the Taught Masters programmes in Medieval & Early Modern Studies and Modern History will graduate in Canterbury Cathedral. As some of you may remember students from both cohorts were involved in putting on a small exhibition on aspects of Canterbury\u2019s history last summer: https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/celebrating-canterbury-history-exhibition-by-cccu-masters-students\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A fantastic find from the Lyminge excavation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As\nI reported recently Lawrence Lyle MBE died last month and having attended his\nfuneral in Canterbury Cathedral this week, a moving and beautifully-crafted service\nthat included a detailed and well-judged tribute by Professor Paul Bennett (CAT\nand CCCU), we at the Centre think it would be wholly appropriate to initiate a\npostgraduate history prize in his name. Consequently, the postgraduate student\nwith the highest dissertation mark across the two cohorts of students will be\nawarded the Lawrence Lyle Memorial Postgraduate Prize. I am waiting to hear who\nwill receive the first of these prizes and hope to bring you a photo of him\/her\nat graduation in a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now to turn to other matters, I thought I would begin by reporting very briefly on the Gender and Medieval Studies conference in Swansea. These annual, itinerant conferences engage with wide-ranging themes and this year it was \u2018Gender, Science and the \u2018Natural\u2019 World\u2019. Among the various strands was one on \u2018monsters, hybrids and the supernatural\u2019 that Dr Diane Heath contributed to using her work on medieval perceptions surrounding the oyster. Diane will be speaking on the same topic again in the final History Research seminar at CCCU later this term. Thus today, I\u2019ll just say that she was exploring the medieval idea of the \u2018wandering womb\u2019, a medical condition that people believed in from classical times until the early modern period, in relation to the oyster and to Marian symbolism. Others at the conference similarly examined ideas about the \u2018wandering womb\u2019, including Lucy Allen\u2019s discussion on the crystal as the \u2018unnatural womb\u2019 of the Virgin Mary and Vicki Blud\u2019s thoughts on werewolves in late medieval romances as wandering wombs. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the ‘pearls of wisdom’ [photo: Diane Heath]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Diane did not confine her\npresentation to the actual session, and she was joined afterwards by many of\nthe conference delegates to make \u2018pearls of wisdom\u2019 using oyster shells, an\nactivity we have used on several occasions as part of the Medieval Pageant in\nCanterbury and at the \u2018Young Medievalist\u2019 days during the Medieval Faversham\nexhibition to name but a few. And, as Diane can report, making these is as much\nfun for adults as it is for primary school children!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last night was the first lecture this term organised jointly by the Centre and FCAT and a very full lecture theatre of students, staff, Friends and members of the public were treated to a fascinating discussion by Robert Baldwin about the Lyminge community archaeological project \u2018Pathways to the Past \u2013 Exploring the Legacy of Ethelburga\u2019. The idea behind the project was to test the results and conclusions drawn by the antiquarian, amateur archaeologist and former rector Canon Robert Jenkins, who had spent much of his incumbency at the church between 1854 and 1896 digging around the church and presenting his findings on what he believed was an early, large (with 3 eastern apses) Anglo-Saxon church. As well as re-investigating the archaeological excavations, the project is seeking to offer better access to the war memorial in the cemetery extension and provide disabled access to the church by making the main entrance the north porch rather than the main previously used south porch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The site of the royal hall complex at Lyminge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Robert Baldwin is running the\nproject and last summer, as readers of the blog may remember, there was a\nreport about a group visit to the dig where we heard from Rob and Gabor Thomas\n(University of Reading) https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/kentish-saints-using-archaeology-texts-and-material-culture\/<\/a>  . Gabor has been working in Lyminge for over a\ndecade, having found a great mid-Anglo-Saxon royal hall complex in Tayne Field,\nas well as evidence of the slightly later monastic complex nearby, both of\nwhich are close to the village centre and not far from the church. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canon Jenkins had been keen to find the tomb of St Ethelburga that he believed must be there and having uncovered \u2018her\u2019 church, he was keen to display the ruins he had discovered, and the site was not back-filled and proper paths made until 1929. Consequently, as well as the post-1929 paths, Rob and his team had to remove other materials Canon Jenkins had installed to display the ruins, including his use of Portland cement and Victorian brickwork deploying Roman bricks presumably found by Jenkins\u2019 workmen on site. Unpicking this Anglo-Saxon and Victorian jigsaw has been challenging for Gabor, Rob and the team but they now think they have a much better understanding of the size and layout of the original church, the quality of the stone work, and the likelihood that the masons were from Frankia where such sophisticated construction skills were still known in the mid 7th<\/sup> century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding the building materials, probably the two most important features are the high-quality, very fine mortar used in the earliest parts at the east end, for example. This was made from crushed Roman brick and Rob is hoping that, if the project can raise the necessary money, this can be tested to provide the team with a date (the mortar contains organic matter in the form of sea shells). Even though flint is the major building stone, the excavation team found two column fragments of Marquise stone, which means it is conceivable that the church was not dissimilar to that at Reculver. Two columns from the now lost Anglo-Saxon Reculver church are in the undercroft at Canterbury Cathedral if you want to see what Rob was talking about. Furthermore, even though all the masonry found in the excavation relates to the foundations rather than the church\u2019s superstructure, the site presumably becoming a builders yard considering the Norman church is right next to it, Rob thinks it is possible that the reuse of Roman materials in the mortar meant that the early church builders had employed the Roman ruins at Portus Lemanis as their stone quarry. Such reuse and then further reuse are fascinating and, of course, did not stop with the Anglo-Saxons and Normans, the monastic establishments in the 16th<\/sup> century equally becoming quarries following the dissolution of the monasteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Canon Jenkins’ ideas about Lyminge church<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As you can imagine, Rob\u2019s\ndiscussion of this re-excavation of Jenkin\u2019s dig and his interpretation was fascinating,\nnot least because in addition to the church, and the likely archiepiscopal\nresidence in the war memorial area, there is the possibility that the team may\nhave found the position of a royal burial in a potential north porticus. Now,\nof course, it could have been that of St Ethelburga, but she is not the only\nroyal female Anglo-Saxon saint associated with Lyminge. Whether documentary\nrecords will help here is still difficult to know. However, there is a\nmanuscript in Hereford Cathedral Library detailing the miracles of St Edburga\nwho was abbess at Minster-in-Thanet, but whose relics were said to have been\ntaken to Lyminge and later moved again to Canterbury. Having looked at this a\nbit from the Canterbury end, I\u2019ll just add this: S. Sweetinburgh, \u2018Anglo-Saxon\nsaints and a Norman archbishop: \u201cImaginative Memory\u201d and institutional identity\nat St Gregory\u2019s Priory, Canterbury\u2019, in The Regular Canons in the Medieval\nBritish Isles<\/em>, ed. J. Burton and K. Stober (Turnhout, 2011).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rob had obviously sparked his\naudience\u2019s interest and he answered a whole barrage of questions after the lecture.\nIndeed, there were still people wanting to talk to him afterwards and if this\nhas sparked your interest too, this is the project\u2019s web site: https:\/\/geopaethas.com\/<\/a>  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As well as mentioning a couple of events that are due to happen over the next couple of weeks, I shall be reporting on Robert Baldwin\u2019s talk this week, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6665,"featured_media":7741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,6021,2374,822,1001,977,818,5762,982,1162,986,1029,817],"tags":[7458,7457,381,317,1105,7342,3678,4762,2438,1481,1477,1157,4041,4845,7470,7486,7069,3549,7469,7482,845,3950,4497,7466,1322,6325,213,7449,861,7445,6946,7474,4598,7473,7453,5101,2878,7462,7478],"class_list":["post-7738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic","category-anglo-saxon","category-archaeology","category-blog-posts","category-canterbury","category-conference","category-events","category-heritage","category-kent","category-lecture","category-local-and-regional-history","category-middle-ages","category-news","tag-anglo-saxon-saints","tag-canon-jenkins","tag-canterbury-archaeological-trust","tag-canterbury-cathedral","tag-canterbury-cathedral-archives-and-library","tag-canterbury-cathedral-crypt","tag-cat","tag-dean-irwin","tag-dr-diane-heath","tag-fcat","tag-friends-of-canterbury-archaeological-trust","tag-gabor-thomas","tag-gender-and-medieval-studies","tag-gough-map","tag-hereford-cathedral-library","tag-holocaust-memorial-day","tag-kent-history-postgraduates","tag-lawrence-lyle","tag-lawrence-lyle-memorial-prize","tag-lucy-allen","tag-lyminge","tag-medieval-and-early-modern-studies","tag-medieval-faversham","tag-medieval-oysters","tag-medieval-pageant","tag-minster-in-thanet","tag-normans","tag-pathways-to-the-past","tag-paul-bennett","tag-portus-lemanis","tag-reculver","tag-robert-baldwin","tag-simon-langton-boys-school","tag-st-edburga","tag-st-ethelburga","tag-st-gregorys-priory","tag-university-of-reading","tag-university-of-swansea","tag-vicki-blud"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"Sheila Sweetinburgh","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/445\/2020\/01\/DSC09812.jpg","postExcerpt":"As well as mentioning a couple of events that are due to happen over the next couple of weeks, I shall be reporting on Robert Baldwin\u2019s talk this week, with […]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7757,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7738\/revisions\/7757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}