Helen J. Nicholson's Blog, page 11
April 16, 2014
Transcription!
My two colleagues have reported back with their initial transcriptions of records of Templar estates in Northumberland and in Essex. Now I need to find the time to check them through! But we are moving ahead on the project.
April 11, 2014
Countdown to the ‘Templars lands’ workshop at the University of Hull, Sat. 26 April
Only two weeks now until the ‘Templar lands and economy’ workshop at the University of Hull on Saturday 26 April! There will be papers by Julia Beeden, Norah Carlin, Mike Jefferson, Helen Fenwick, Patrick Flynn, John Walker and myself. The conference takes place at Blaydes House, Maritime Historical Studies Centre, University of Hull, and its purpose is to discuss the state of knowledge on the Templars’ estates and to consider the nature of the available sources and how to develop research in this area. The day’s programme is attached here: Hull Templar lands Workshop Programme 26 April 2014
April 3, 2014
Blofeld’s cat — no, Cathar cat
British Library Harley MS 1526 fol. 13
Last week I travelled to Princeton University to take part in a conference on ‘The Capetian Century, 1214 to 1314′. The papers were excellent. One in particular caught my attention: Cecilia Gaposchkin ofDartmouth College spoke on ’Kingship and Crusade in the First Four Moralized Bibles’, and illustrated her exposition with wonderful images from the moralized Bibles produced for the young King Louis IX of France and his mother Blanche. As the Bibles were intended to educate Louis on his duties as king, the moral lessons of the Old and New Testaments were reworked to make them relevant to his time and position. So the enemies of the true faith included Cathars, bearded and hooded, in their long robes. And, as in the example above, some of the Cathars carried cats, to underline their identity as Cathars — as they were rumoured to worship cats.
Puzzlingly, the cats were white. Shouldn’t they be black? we wondered. But, back in Cardiff, the grad students quickly put me right on that one. The Cathar in the picture is stroking his cat like a 13th-century Blofeld, threatening King Louis IX with a Cathar plot to achieve world domination!
For more information on the manuscript above, see: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8525&CollID=8&NStart=1526
March 24, 2014
New TV documentary on the Templars
Last autumn I travelled up to Temple Church in London to be interviewed by Mathieu Pradinaud of Gédéon programmes about the Templars.
Mathieu Pradinaud has now sent me the link to his documentary “La vérité sur les Templiers”, which will be aired by the History Channel on Friday 28 March at 20.40hrs (8.40pm): http://www.histoire.fr/histoire/programmes/programmes-inedits-histoire/0,,8377342-VU5WX0lEIDQ5Ng==,00-la-verite-sur-les-templiers-.html He writes that the film has been selected for the 12th festival du film d’archéologie d’Amiens in April 2014 and for the 25th Festival international de Rovereto in Italy in October 2014. It will also be aired on the following TV channels: France 3, France 3 Ile de France, TV5 et TV5 Monde.
March 5, 2014
Memorial plaque for Jacques de Molay on the Pont Neuf, Paris
Site of Jacques de Molay’s death: an island in the River Seine, Paris.
18 March 2014 is the 700th anniversary of the burning of Brother Jacques de Molay, last grand master of the Templars. I understand that many Templar-fans will be converging on Paris for the occasion, although I’m not planning to join them.
February 22, 2014
Academics with too much time on their hands?
One of the blog feeds I have inadvertently picked up told me I should read a blog by an eminent lady Professor of Physics on ‘What does it take to get to the top?’ for women. Only women, of course, can’t get to the top in Academia (some readers of this blog will know this isn’t true). Anyway, here’s the blog post: http://occamstypewriter.org/athenedonald/2014/02/20/what-does-it-take-to-get-to-the-top/
The blog is called ‘Occam’s Typewriter’. That’s William of Ockham, of course: scientists use the medieval spelling of his name. But I digress… I’m particularly struck by the vast amount of blogging that this Professor does. Does she have no marking to do, no colleagues to care for, no classes to teach, no papers to write, no meetings to attend? Surely she does. So does she write much more quickly than I do? However does she get time for so much blogging?
Perhaps she’d like to do some marking for my department? It’s not her specialist subject, of course, but surely a brilliant blogger can do anything?
February 18, 2014
Richard III in a car park — since 1962
The Wikipedia page on ‘The Exhumation of Richard III’ points out that back in 1986 David Baldwin, a University lecturer, suggested that the body of King Richard III was buried in the Greyfriars area of Leicester. Of course this suggestion wasn’t followed up until August 2012.
However, a friend points out that Mrs Audrey Strange published an article in The Ricardian (the journal of the Richard III society) in 1975 which argued that Richard III had been buried in Greyfriars church and that his body was under the Council car park.
In fact, Audrey Strange wrote to the Leicester Museums service on the subject in 1962, suggesting that the car park be excavated. The Keeper of Antiquities declined to dig up the car park and invited her to get involved in other archaeological digs around the county. Regrettably, Mrs Strange’s original letter doesn’t appear to survive, but her family still has the reply — attached to this blog (I’ve redacted Mrs Strange’s address).
Interesting that it took fifty years for Mrs Strange’s suggestion to be acted upon. Regrettably she didn’t live to see it. Her daughter is also an historian, and is currently doing some transcription of Templar estate documents for me.
January 24, 2014
Transcription, transcription
Two friends, both medieval historians, are currently doing some sample transcriptions for me; one has part of one of the Essex records, and the other has Northumberland. The plan is to see whether it’s feasible to do this on a voluntary basis, with a group of us donating our time and expertise to getting the job done.
January 17, 2014
The Templars in Herefordshire
My transcriptions of the accounts of the Templars’ estates in Herefordshire are now on Wattpad , including a translation of part of the record. However, the final part of the accounts was initially blocked by Wattpad on the basis it’s copyright material. According to the National Archives website, it isn’t restricted material (see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/our-services/crown-copyright.htm ). The National Archives website states: ”You may quote or transcribe from Crown copyright documents freely and without formal permission. However you must give the document reference number and acknowledge The National Archives as custodian of the document” — which I have done. For the National Archives Open Government Licence, see: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/
Wattpad have now sorted out the problem, but just to make sure I’ve attached the problematic document to this post: Herefordshire accounts in TNA E358_19 and put it on to Academia.edu.
January 14, 2014
Knights Templars estates funding bid: latest
The sad news is that my application for funding for this project has been rejected. So that at least some of the work can be made generally available, I’m putting the draft transcriptions I’ve done so far on to Wattpad, where anyone can look at them. They are the records for Llanmadoc (South Wales); Temple on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall; Temple Meads in Bristol; Castle Mills at York and Temple Sowerby (Westmorland, now in Cumbria).
