Category Archives: History and related subjects

Items that relate to history or places that are of historical interest that I visit…

Every picture tells its story

1. Brushes With Reality

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The Kansas Twister – Kim Davis; the Pope & Same-sex Marriage
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 Why the truth is often stranger than fiction…   There is sometimes more to a story than meets the eye. In history context is always king and in that spirit I offer up this review of recent events. Pope Francis … Continue reading

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Game of thrones III – a rough Guide to the Wars of the roses
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Game of thrones III – Lancaster bombs and York’s son rises: Some events no sooner have passed than they are bound with a tissue of myth. It is part of our cultural response to certain events – the assassination of JFK … Continue reading

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Provocative – Hilary and the Wolf –

The Tudors & Wolf Hall – or who’s afraid of Hilary Mantel’s wolf? Below a Rood Screen – in Brittany – these were also typical of northern European church interiors before the Reformation – before the art, the stained glass … Continue reading

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Manifest Destiny Reshuffles in the shadow of Bastille Day

The cuckold’s Horns or those of a Dilemma? Political parties are like gay bachelors – always looking for a partner who will take their promises as good and smile when they break them. In most of the Western democracies the … Continue reading

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Ember days from my 18th century French Antiphonal
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Ember Days – Times for quiet reflection and for solace the so called “ember days” were observed as days of fast and abstinence four times each year…. .”Fasting days and Emberings be, Lent, Whitsun, Holyrood, and Lucie.”  Thus being kept … Continue reading

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Whitsuntide – second day…..
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Veni, Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium, et tui amoris in eis ignem accende: qui per diversitatem linguarum cunctarum, gentes in unitatem fidei congregasti, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. The Pentecost Dome of the Basilica of Saint Mark in Venice. Come, Holy … Continue reading

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Part II. What really happened in Holy Week?

Part II: reaching that point beyond belief….. The Background: The events of that first Holy Week fall into three broad sections in the surviving narratives; the betrayal and Last Supper; the arrest, and trials; the execution, (royal) burial and finally … Continue reading

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Where there’s a Will or the Shakespeare who dun-nit
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Where there’s a Will or who really wrote Shakespeare? St George’s Day in 1616 was an historic day. On the feast of England’s patron saint in Stratford-upon-Avon one of its (and England’s) most notable sons died. William Shakespeare passed from … Continue reading

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Flos de radice – a lovely little Advent carol from Germany (15th Century)
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As a consequence of the New Liturgical movement newsletter I came across this lovely little carol I’d never heard of before. It has that peculiar innocence that is so evocative of the medieval mind. It quite catches the mood of … Continue reading

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