“To Concordia,the Sixth Legion, Victorious, Loyal and Faithful and the Twentieth Legion [dedicates this].” Found at Roman Corbridge (Coriosopitum)
Concordia on the Day of Peace
Today, seems to be a day of peace for Gaza. Let’s hope it becomes a permanent state of concord. Concordia was the Roman goddess of conciliation and harmony. The 17th January is also the Day of Peace for the Goddesses Felicitas, and Pax. There are altars to Concordia in Britain at Corbridge and Carlisle on the Roman Frontier. The Gods of Roman Britain points out that the altars are found where there were:
‘detachments of troops from more than one Roman legion posted in the same place’.
Does this suggest that the soldiers needed to be reminded that they should not fight each other? The altar stone pictured above is dedicated to the VI Legion and the Twentieth. The Twentieth, called Valeria Victrix, was stationed in Deva – Chester. But there are stones such as the one above which shows a detachment (or vexillation) was sent to Hadrian’s Wall. For more on the stone and Corbridge see this site. The VIth Victrix legion served on Hadrian’s Wall and at Eboracum (York).
Ovid & Concordia
The Roman Poet, Ovid locates the Day of Peace on the 16th January. (Or does he? He writes about Concordia on the 16th but says: ‘Radiant One, the next day places you in your snow-white shrine’. The Goddess Book of Days puts her on the 17th. So, perhaps, I’m right placing her on the 17th, afterall?
The translator of Ovid’s almanac poem, the Fasti, A. S. Kline, explains that the Goddess Concordia:
‘symbolised the harmonious union of citizens. A temple was erected to her in 367BC (on the Capitol, near the temple of Juno Moneta) It was erected by Marcus Furius Camillus at the time when the plebeians won political equality. The Temple of Concord was restored by the Emperor Tiberius from his German spoils in AD10. This is how Ovid puts it:
The Fasti, by Ovid
Book I: January 16 Radiant one, the next day places you in your snow-white shrine, Near where lofty Moneta lifts her noble stairway: Concord, you will gaze on the Latin crowd’s prosperity, Now sacred hands have established you. Camillus, conqueror of the Etruscan people, Vowed your ancient temple and kept his vow. His reason was that the commoners had armed themselves, Seceding from the nobles, and Rome feared their power. This latest reason was a better one: revered Leader, Germany Offered up her dishevelled tresses, at your command: From that, you dedicated the spoils of a defeated race, And built a shrine to the goddess that you yourself worship. A goddess your mother honoured by her life, and by an altar, She alone worthy to share great Jupiter’s couch.
Book I: January 17 When this day is over, Phoebus, you will leave Capricorn, And take your course through the sign of the WaterBearer.
1752 – Today is also Twelfth Night Old style which is the date of the celebration of the last night of Christmas according to Julian Calendar which was replaced by the Gregorian in 1752. So Old Style time to Wassail the Orchard!
1773 – Captain Cook captained the first Ship (the Resolution) to cross the Antarctic Circle
Today is St Antony’s Day – father of Monasticism, curer of St Antony’s Fire, patron Saint of domestic animals, especially pigs. The runt of a litter is a ‘tantony pig’ and the smallest bell in a chime is a ‘tantony bell’. His symbols are pigs and bells.
First written in Jan 2023, revised and republished in Jan 2024,2025
This page is about the discovery of evidence for an Ice age Lunar Calendar. The alignment of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments shows that there was a calendar of the year in use. At Stonehenge, there are suggestions that the alignments to Midsummer and Midwinter Solstices stretch further back into the Mesolithic period. (For more about Stonehenge see my post)
But in 2023, evidence of a Palaeolithic Calendar was discovered by an ‘amateur’. Furniture maker Ben Bacon studied markings in cave paintings at Lascaux, Altamira and other caves.
Sketch of 23,000 year old cave painting, below the head of the animal are 4 dots which are thought to be lunar months of the mating season
He collaborated with Professors at UCL and Durham. They interpreted markings showing the use of an Ice age Lunar Calendar to mark the mating season of particular animals. A Y shaped mark he interpreted as meaning ‘giving birth’. The number of dots or dashes drawn by or in the outline of the creature coincided with their mating season. They determined this by studying the mating season of modern animals.
1437 – Workmen discovered a giant Mallard which inaugurated ‘Mallard Day’ at All Souls, College, Oxford. It must have been remarkably big as they celebrated with an annual torchlit duck hunt on the nearby River Thames. It has been relegated to a once-a-century event. Now they only sing the song:
Griffin, Bustard, Turkey, Capon, Let other hungry mortals gape on, And on the bones their stomach fall hard, But let All Souls men have their Mallard. Oh! by the blood of King Edward. Oh! by the blood of King Edward. It was a whopping, whopping mallard.
Therefore, let us sing and dance a galliard, To the remembrance of the mallard. And as the mallard dives in pool, Let us dabble, dive and duck in bowl. Oh! by the blood of King Edward. Oh! by the blood of King Edward. It was a whopping, whopping mallard
Spinning—showing the distaff in the left hand and the spindle or rock in the right hand
I’m not sure what the Three Kings were doing on the day after Epiphany. But, the shepherds, if they were like medieval English farmworkers, would still be on holiday. They went back to work, traditionally, next Monday, which is Plough Monday. By contrast, the women, according to folk customs, went back to work St. Distaff’s Day, the day after Epiphany. In an ideal world, St Distaff’s Day is the Sunday after Epiphany (January 6th), and Plough Monday is the next day. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way. I am not sure the woman going back to work on the 7th January, would be happy with the men lounging about until Plough Monday,. This year on the 13th January.
A distaff is ‘a stick or spindle on to which wool or flax is wound for spinning’. Because of its importance in the medieval and early modern economy, it became a synecdoche for women. St Distaff is a ‘canonisation’ of this use of the word. So, a day to celebrate working women.
We know that medieval and early modern women were a vital part of the work force, despite the demands of childcare. Many women took on apprenticeships, even more continued their husband’s work after he died. Some professions like silk became a female speciality. Plus, London was full of female servants and nurses. Many women had several jobs. The exhibition at the British Library on Medieval Women. In Their Own Words, indicated that most of the sex workers had two or more other jobs. In the house, the wife was the mistress of a formidable range of technologies. Baking, Brewing, Cooking, Laundry, Gardening, Dairy, Medicine (including distillation), horticulture, spinning, sewing and embroidery. Even, aristocratic women did embroidery of the finest quality, and it often made an important financial contribution to the household.
St Distaff’s Day and Plough Monday
Robert Herrick (1591–1674), born in Cheapside, London, a Goldsmith, priest, Royalist and Poet wrote in ‘Hesperides’.
Partly work and partly play You must on St. Distaff’s Day: From the plough, soon free your team; Then come home and fother them; If the maids a-spinning go, Burn the flax and fire the tow. Bring in pails of water then, Let the maids bewash the men. Give St. Distaff all the right; Then bid Christmas sport good night, And next morrow every one To his own vocation.
Here he links the plough team with St Distaff’s Day. This implies that the ploughs would be out on the next day. So as St Distaff’s Day is not always on a Sunday, perhaps Plough Monday is not always on a Monday? He certainly suggests everyone goes back to work on the day after St Distaff’s Day.
Saints & Goddesses of the Distaff Side
In London, the Fraternity of St Anne and St Agnes met at the Church dedicated to the saints. It is by a corner of the Roman Wall on the junction of Gresham Street and Noble Street. St Agnes is the patron saint of young girls, abused women and Girl Scouts. St Anne is the mother of the mother of the Son of God. So, she represents the three generations of women: maidens, mothers, and grandmothers.
The Three Mother Goddesses (and someone else) “Limestone relief depicting four female figures sitting on a bench holding bread and fruit, a suckling baby, a dog and a basket of fruit’ the Museum of London
This trinity of women were worshipped by the Celts. Archaeologists discovered the sculpture above while investigating the Roman Wall a few hundred yards away at Blackfriars. Scholars believe it depicts the Celtic Three Mother Goddesses. The fourth person is a mystery, maybe the patron of a nearby temple. The relief sculpture was removed perhaps from a temple, or the temple was trashed at some point. Then the sculpture was used as rubble and became part of the defences of London.
The idea of triple goddesses is a common one. In Folklore and History they have been referred to as Maiden, Mother, and Crone, or even Maiden, Mother and Hag. They come in Roman, Greek, Celtic, Irish, and Germanic forms. Their names include the Norns, the Three Fates, the Weird Sisters, the Mórrígan and many more. The Three Fates, the Goddess Book of Days says, were celebrated during the Gamelia. This is the Greco/Roman January Festival to the marriage of Zeus and Juno. The Festival also gives its name to the Athenian month of January.
The use of the terms Hag and Crone for the third Goddess is rare now, but was common. It does a great disservice to the importance of the Grandmother figure. (Although the original meaning of the words were less pejorative. For example, Hag may have meant diviner, soothsayer.) The three phases of womanhood are equally as important to the continuation of the species. They provide love, support, and experience through the generations. Compare these three generations of supportive deities with Ouranos (Uranus), Cronus (Saturn) and Zeus (Jupiter). Saturn castrated and deposed his father, Uranus. Later, he tried to eat his son, Jupiter. But then, Jupiter is nobody’s idea of an ideal father. As one example, he eats his lover, Metis, to avoid her giving birth. (See my post on the birth of Athena.)
Recent work on human evolution has suggested that the role of the Grandmother is crucial to our species’ ability to live beyond the age of fertility. Because, in evolutionary terms, once an individual cannot procreate, their usefulness for the survival of the genes is finished. So what’s the point of putting resources into grandma’s survival? The theory is the Grandmother has such an impact on the survival of the next generation, that longevity. for the female, beyond fertility makes evolutionary sense.
There was a theory widely held that the original Deities, dating before the spread of farming, were mother goddesses. The idea is that the hunter-gather goddesses (perhaps like the Venus of Willendorf) were overthrown by the coming of farmers. These patriarchal societies worshipped the male gods, which destroyed the ancient Matriarchy. Jane Ellen Harrison proposed an ancient matriarchal civilization. Robert Graves wrote some interesting, but no longer thought to be very scientific studies, on the idea. Neopaganism has taken these ideas forward.
1845. Today is the anniversary of the breaking of the fabulous Portland Vase by a drunken visitor to the British Museum. It looks immaculate despite being smashed into myriad pieces, a wonder of the conservator’s art. To see the vase and read its story, go to the BM web site here:
In the orthodox church, дед Мороз (Ded Moroz= father of frost), accompanied by Cнегурочка (Snieguroshka= fairy of the snow) brings gifts on New year’s eve, (which is on January 7th). He travels with a horse drawn troika.
Saint Geneviève praying for the end of the rain. 19th Century by Alfred Gérente Notre-Dame de Paris.
St Genevieve of Nanterre (c. 419/422 AD – 502/512 AD) has her feast day today. Nanterre is an ancient settlement swallowed up by modern Paris. Genevieve was a most remarkable woman who met St Germanus of Auxerre on his way to Britain. Geneviève was only 7 when she met Germanus. He encouraged her piety. She became a consecrated virgin (someone who made vows of chastity to be a ‘bride of Christ’). Thereby living an aesthetic life of fasting and prayer. Miracles soon became associated with her, (including changing the weather) and the ‘usual’ medical miracles. After moving to Paris, she encouraged the women of the City to stay in the City for prayer and fasting to prevent the Huns capturing the City in 451. Attila and the Huns abandoned the siege.
St Genevieve saved the City on other occasions too, helped build two large Church projects, including St Dennis. In the medieval period, she became the Patron Saint of Paris. She is patron to: Paris, shepherds, winemakers, wax-chandlers, hatmakers; against eye complaints, fever, plagues, drought, and war.
St Germanus
St Germanus played a significant role in Genevieve’s life, protecting her from slander and attack. He is one of the most significant figures in post Roman studies in Britain. Accounts of his visits to Britain in the early 5th Century are among the very few descriptions of post-Roman life. He was sent to Britain to counter the Pelagian Heresy, which was endangering the Catholic version of Christianity.
Incidently, Nanterre has an interesting prehistory. The name in Celtic means ‘enduring sacred site’. A large cemetery has been found, which helps support the possibility that it is the original site of Paris. Julius Caesar attended an assembly with local Gallic leaders in the area. The topography of Nanterre fits as well for the location of the assembly as the island in the Seine (Île de la Cité) which is an alternative location.
This is an excerpt from Julius’s Caesar book. (It is photographed from my book- details below).
‘In Their Own Words – A Literary Companion To The Origins Of London‘ D A Horizons, Kevin Flude
To buy the Kindle (£2.40) or a paperback version (£5.99), click here.
First written in January 2023, revised and republished January 2024, and 2025
Here are listed the public guided walks and tours I have currently got in my diary. I will be adding others all the time.
Jane Austen’s London Anniversary Walk 2.30 pm Saturday 25th Jan25 To book Jane Austen’s ‘A Picture of London in 1809 Virtual Walk Mon 7.30 27th Jan25 To book Charles I and the Civil War. Martyrdom Anniversary Walk Booking details to follow The Civil War, Restoration and the Great Fire of London Virtual Tour 7:30pm Thurs 30th Jan25To book Roman London – Literary & Archaeology Walk 11.30 am Sat Feb 9th 2025 To Book Jane Austen’s London Anniversary Walk 2.30 pm Sunday 9th February 25 To book A Virtual Tour of Jane Austen’s Bath 7.30pm 10th February 2025 To book Roman London – Literary & Archaeology Walk To book Jane Austen’s London Anniversary Walk 2.30 pm Saturday 8th March 25 To book Jane Austen’s London Anniversary Walk 11.30 pm Sunday 6th April 25 To book Chaucer’s Medieval London Guided Walk Sun 2:30pm 6 April 2025 to Book Chaucer’s London To Canterbury Virtual Pilgrimage 7.30pm Friday 18th April 25 To book Roman London – Literary & Archaeology Walk 2.30 am Sat May 4th 2025 To book For a complete list of my guided walks for London Walks in 2025 look here
Monday 1st January 2025 7.00 pm On this Virtual Walk we look at how London has celebrated the New Year over the past 2000 years.
The New Year has been a time of review, renewal, and anticipation of the future from time immemorial. The Ancient Britons saw the Solstice as a symbol of a promise of renewal as the Sun was reborn. As the weather turns to bleak mid winter, a festival or reflection and renewal cheers everyone up. This idea of renewal was followed by the Romans, and presided over by a two headed God called Janus who looked both backwards and forwards. Dickens Christmas Carol was based on redemption and his second great Christmas Book ‘The Chimes’ on the renewal that the New Year encouraged.
We look at London’s past to see where and how the New Year was celebrated. We also explore the different New Years we use and their associated Calendars – the Pagan year, the Christian year, the Roman year, the Jewish year, the Financial year, the Academic year and we reveal how these began. We look at folk traditions, Medieval Christmas Festivals, Boy Bishops, Distaff Sunday and Plough Monday, and other Winter Festival and New Year London traditions and folklore.
At the end, we use ancient methods to divine what is in store for us in 2023.
The virtual walk finds interesting and historic places in the City of London to link to our stories of Past New Year’s Days. We begin, virtually, at the Barbican Underground and continue to the Museum of London, the Roman Fort; Noble Street, Goldsmiths Hall, Foster Lane, St Pauls, Doctors Commons, St. Nicholas Colechurch and on towards the River Thames.
St Stephens, Walbrook. This view of the Church is not normally visible. The brown brick area to the right is much ‘cruder’ than the left. Christopher Wren was saving money by not ‘finishing off’ parts that were not visible from the public thoroughfare. Photo by the Author in 2008
On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me: 2 Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
Feast Day of St Stephens
Sorry, this post is out of order. But I typed the date in wrong so you didn’t get it on Boxing Day.
It is the Feast day of St Stephen. He was the first Christian Martyr and was stoned to death not long after Jesus’ apotheosis. He was a deacon in the early Church, brought before the Sanhedrin for blasphemy. At the trial, he made a long speech outraging the audience. St Paul was in the audience (aka Saul).
Stephen attacked the importance of the Temple to Judaism, making parallels with idolatry. Perhaps, I wonder, this explains why there are so few early Christian Churches identified in the archaeological record? Were they consciously avoiding large Temple Basilican structures to differentiate themselves from pagan religions?
Wrens & Presents
The 26th is the day when Wrens could be hunted. Read my post about Robins and Wrens and their seasonal importance here. Also, the day, people gave presents (Boxes) to servants and working people. Other days for presents included St Nicholas’s Day (December 6th), Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and Twelfth Night.
St Stephens Walbrook
Wren’s most beautiful Parish Church is dedicated to St Stephen. It is one of the first Parish Churches to have a dome. It also has a splendid Altar designed by Henry Moore. I took a Swedish Choir around the City of London on a guided walk. St Stephen’s was open, and, once inside, they just fancied the acoustics. So, they sang. I recorded. Listen below:
In 1858,James Ewing Richie wrote about ‘Boxing Night’ in ‘The Night Side of London’. I’ve mixed it up with another source. So here is a list of the people who might come knocking at the door for their traditional Boxing Day Box.
Richie’s advice was to tie up your knocker to avoid paying these people:
The Chimney sweep. Then varlets playing French Horns pretending to be the Waits – {The Waits were licensed musical beggars}
Then came the Turncock, who switched the water supply to your side of the street on alternative days. Followed by the Postman, the Dustman; the Road Waterer in summer, and the Road Scrapper in Winter. After this, the real Waits turned up for a musical turn. Then the Lamplighter, the Grocer’s Boy and the Butcher’s Boy.
I imagine the Knocker-upper also got a Box. My grandmother told me about the knocker-upper in Old Street in the early Twentieth Century. He would tap on the window with his long stick to wake up those people without a reliable clock.
Google search image of the ‘knocker-upper’, the lady at top left worked in Limehouse and is using a pea-shooter.
Richie records that he had to give a tip to 6 people who wished him a Happy Christmas on his way to work. The tip he gave was half a crown each. He thought his wife would be lucky to get away with a shilling per person for the trade men listed above. Strange that he gave more than twice as much to random strangers than his wife gave to people who served them all year. Perhaps this reflects his belief that the size of his tip reflected his position in society. It is all curmudgeonly. This is probably because he believed it would be spent on drink, leading to the miseries of drunkenness.
The Drunkards Children by Cruikshank 1848. Cruikshank was a famous illustrator from a dynasty of visual satirists and one of Dickens illustrators. The story shows the effect of alcoholism on a family. It ends with the suicide from London Bridge of the mother.
First Published on Dec 26th 2022, Republished December 2023, 2024
The Solstice and the East Pediment of the Parthenon
British Museum Shop, reproductions of Hestia and Selene’s Horse from the Parthenon Marbles
At the Summer Solstice, I took a group to the British Museum and, a few days later, to Stonehenge, and managed to ‘integrate’ the two into a solstice narrative. At the BM, over years of trying to explain the sculptures, I have been building in my mind an interpretation of the Pediment that gives, I hope, an original insight into the possible intentions of the sculptors. I don’t know how ‘true’ it is, but I do think it gives an insight into metaphor and symbolism in great works of art. Bear in mind that there is a lot of uncertainty about some of the attributions, and, that the male and female virtues that I am talking about are traditional ones, not necessarily how we would express it in the modern world.
At the left of the above photography, you see the horses that take Helios chariot into the sky to bring up the sun to light the world every day. Most sun deities are male, and the Sun gives light and life to the world, without it this earth is an inert block of ice cold stone. The next statue is casually laying back and looking fit, relaxed and not looking as if he is in that position because of the impossible triangular Pediment space he inhabits. He is the epitome of male strength, usually identified with Hercules but other people have other ideas and a young Dionysus is another suggestion. Whoever he is he represents male beauty and strength. So this end of the pediment represents the Sun and male virtues. This is the East Pediment of the Parthenon which is orientated to the rising sun, a little north of east.
Next are Demeter, the goddess of fertility, the goddess of the earth. Placed here to remind us that the Sun needs the Earth to create life and sustenance. It reminds us that the universe is not male, the male only works in conjunction with the female. Demeter is cuddling her daughter Persephone, the Goddess of Hades. She reminds us that life is a cycle of death and life. Plants die, turn into soil and create the conditions for future life.
Next is Hebe, daughter of Zeus and Hera, wife of Heracles (Hercules). She is the cupbearer to the Gods and gives them the ambrosia that keeps them forever young. She is the Goddess of Immortality, a reminder that the universe is eternal.
Next to Hebe is a void where there was the central statue of the east pediment depicting the Birth of Athena (according to Pausanias who wrote a guide in the 2nd Century BC to the Temple). Athena was born from the head of her father Zeus- a virgin birth. Athena therefore is, in some ways, the greatest of the Olympians, as she has the virtues of her female sex and the virtues of her father’s masculinity (and, dear Gods, hopefully not the massive ‘Me Too’ vices of her father). She is therefore, wise, nurturing, just, intuitive, decisive, a leader; an ideal combination of male and female.
Zeus (sitting) Hephastus to right (looking back with Axe) Athena just visible above Zeus’s head
So Zeus eats Athena’s mum, Metis, who is pregnant with her. Sometime later he has a cracking headache. Hephaestus, the disabled artificer God hits Zeus over the head to clear the headache. Zeus gives birth to a fully formed Athena from the split in his head. She was known as Athena Parthenos, Athena the Virgin. Her name is originally Athene but it got changed to Athena in 500 BC.
Hestia, Dione, Aphrodite, Horse of Selene’s chariot
To Athene’s left is Hestia (Vesta for the Romans). Her name means “hearth, fireplace, altar” and she is the goddess of the domestic sphere, of the comforts of home, of a warm fire enjoyed by a loving family.
The next set are two beautifully draped women languidly leaning on each other, and these are Dione, with her daughter Aphrodite – the Goddess of Love. Dione is the daughter of Gaia and Uranus daughter of earth and sky. So, here, counterpoised to Hercules, are epitomes of women. Women of power, creation, and love.
Finally, we have the exhausted horse of Selene. Her chariot takes the moon into the sky, positioned opposite to Helios and the Sun. Selene is the Moon goddess, and the Moon is beautiful, powerful as it gives us the tides and fundamental to the life of humans as she presides over the menstrual cycle. Compared to the movements of the Sun which any fool can work out, and which are relentless (symbolising Justice) the movements of the Moon are mysterious to most of us. So Selene is beautiful, powerful, creative and the Goddess of Intuition.
So, if you put it all together, the East Pediment of the Parthenon shows that the world is a union of the male and the female, balanced between the two with Zeus and Athene in the middle, with Athene holding the main part because she, in her person, represents both the male and the female.
Of course, we know that the Athenian society was a patriarchal one with women mostly kept in the domestic sphere. But here, at least, women were given an equal billing in the organisation of the Cosmos.
Sculptures from the east pediment of the Parthenon
I must end by warning the reader that this is only my interpretation. I am not a scholar of Ancient Greece. I have come to my own conclusion based on spending a lot of time looking at the marbles, doing Solstice Virtual Tours, and mostly informed by the labels in the gallery, with of course, some reading including Mary Beard’s book entitled ‘Parthenon’ and the BM’s guidebook. In particular, I have not incorporated into my ‘story’ the sculptures that were in the gaps that do not survive or only in fragments scattered throughout the Museum world. Mary Beard was cleverer than I, not reaching conclusions on the basis that we don’t know. But what we do know is that in the centre is Zeus and Athene and at the edges are the chariots of the Sun and the Moon. And so fitting to celebrate the Solstice.
So, yesterday, you, being someone worried about your eyes, might have sought out an altar dedicated to St Lucy, the patron saint of eye health. (see December 13th’s Post on St Lucy) Although you may be disappointed that there has been no miraculous cure, you might have been encouraged to do something about it. So that’s what this post is about.
Cataract operations have been carried out since 800 BC using a method called ‘couching’.
This was a last resort when the cataract was opaque and the patients nearly blind. It would mean they would need very thick lenses to see well again but, crude as it seems, it worked. But the operation, without anaesthetics must have been a considerable ordeal, and the recovery (still required today for those suffering from a displaced retina) means that the patient has to lie on their back for a week with supports on either side of the head to prevent movement. Of course, there was also a serious risk of infection, so prophylactic visits to a chapel of St Lucy would be called for.
The modern system was established in the 1940s and offers a great solution in 15 minutes surgery. Currently, the NHS has been having trouble dealing with all the cases required, (6% of surgery is for cataract operations. Before COVID-19, there was some talk about cataracts being, in practice, not readily available on the NHS. The waiting time is supposed to be 18 weeks but, for example, at NHS Chesterfield Royal Hospital the waiting time approaches almost 10 months. But waiting times vary from 10 weeks to over a year.
Pink Eye
The Perpetual Calendar of Folklore by Charles Kightly has dug up some other folk cures of interest.
For the redness of eyes, or bloodshot. Take red wine, rosewater, and women’s milk, and mingle all these together: and put a piece of wheaten bread leavened, as much as will cover the eye, and lay it in the mixture. When you go to bed, lay the bread upon your eyes calmer and it will help them.
Fairfax Household book, 17th/ 18th century.
There are many household books still, existing, which show that much of medical practice was carried out in the home, and that men and women, more often women, actively not only collected useful recipes and cures, but also tested them out and improved them.
As a matter of curiosity, there is a significant document found at the Roman Fort of Vindolanda which lists the troops of the Cohort in occupation, which notes that of the garrison of 750, 474 are absent with 276 in the fort of which 38 are sick, 10 with ‘pink eye’, probably conjunctivitis
Prevention is better than cure
Things hurtful to the eyes. Garlic, onions, radish, drunkenness, lechery, sweet wines, salt meats, coleworts, dust, smoke, and reading presently after supper.
Good for the eyes. fennel, celandine, eyebright, vervain, roses, cloves and cold water.
Whites Almanack 1627
Looking through Samuel Pepys’s eye
You will note, above, that it was considered bad for the eyes to read in low light. It is a myth and not true. Samuel Pepys was continually worried about his reading and writing habits ruining his eyesight. This is an extract from the poignant last entry in his famous diary:
And thus ends all that I doubt I should ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my journal, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand; and therefore, whatever comes of it, I must forbear: and therefore resolve from this time forward to have it kept by my people in long-hand. I must be consented to sit down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know; or, if they be anything, which cannot be much now my amores are past and my eyes hindering me almost all other pleasures. I must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to add, here and there, a note in shorthand with my own hand.
Samuel Pepys Diary, May 31st
The sad thing is that Pepys had another 38 years before he went blind, and what glorious diary entries have we missed because of his false fears of the effect of eye strain.
St Lucy
There are only two churches in the UK dedicated to St Lucy or St Lucia. One run by the National Trust in Upton Magna, Shropshire, but there must have been a few chapels in Cathedrals and Abbeys dedicated to her.
The Venerable Bede tells us that King Lucius converted to Christianity in around 180AD. He says that the King asked Pope Eleutherius to send teachers to instruct him. The Venerable Bede (died 735 AD) got this from the Liber Pontificalis of c 590. There is also a tradition that St Peter’s Cornhill in London was set up by King Lucius, and that St Peter’s is the oldest Church in London.
13th Pope
What to make of this? Bede is considered to be a reliable historian and got his information, in this case, from the Vatican. But the tradition has been written off as a legend. Indeed, there are questions to be answered, but there is, arguably, more to it than a legend but, unfortunately, not enough to make it an established fact.
Not the least of the questions to ask about the veracity of this legend is: ‘What does it mean to be called the King of Britain in the middle of the Roman occupation?’
As to the early origin of St Peters, archaeologists dismissed the tradition as St Peter’s is built over the Roman Forum and so how can it have been the site of a Christian Church?
St. Peter’s seen from Cornhill in a rarely seen view as there is normally a building in the way. (Author’s copyright)
But the balance of possibilities, arguably, changed in the 1980s, when archaeologists led by Gustav Milne showed that the Basilica of the Forum was pulled down in about 300AD. So from being practically an impossibility, there is now a possibility that this became the site of a Roman Church. We know London sent at least one Bishop to Constantine the Great’s Council of Arles in 314AD, so a Christian community in London must have predated this time. There must have been Churches. And a site, here, at the prestigious centre of the Capital of Londinium, makes a lot of sense. There are, in fact, three Churches on the site of the Roman Forum: St Peters, St Michael and St Edmund the Martyr.
In AD306, Constantine was acclaimed Emperor on the death of his Father, Constantius Chlorus whose wife was Helena, a Christian. He and his mother were in York when his father died. He was recognised as Caesar, (but not Augustus) by Emperor Galerius and ruled the province for a while before moving to Trier, then Rome, where he accepted the Christian God’s help in becoming the ruler of Rome (after the Battle of Milvian Bridge). This might give a context for the demolition of the Basilica and its replacement by a Church. There is, however, no archaeological evidence for St Peters being Roman in origin other than the demolition of the Basilica and the legends, and nor is there any evidence of the Basilica being turned into a Church as early as the 2nd Century.
Where does that leave King Lucius? There are well attested Christian traditions that Britain was an early convert to Christianity. (The following quotes are from my book ‘In Their Own Words – A Literary Companion To The Origins Of London‘ D A Horizons, 2009 by Kevin Flude and available here.)
‘In Their Own Words – A Literary Companion To The Origins Of London‘ D A Horizons, 2009
So, an early date for an active Christian community is likely. A Church, replacing the Basilica, is plausible, particularly, after Constantine the Great probably passed through London on his way to seize the Roman Empire. But such an early date as the late 2nd Century? And could anyone, claim to be the ‘King of Britain’ at this date?
We do know that King Togidubnus was called Great King of Britain in a Roman Temple inscription in Chichester in the First Century.
Altar Dedication, Chichester
To Neptune and Minerva, for the welfare of the Divine House by the authority of Tiberius Claudius Togidubnus, Great King of Britain, the Guild of Smiths and those therein gave this Temple from their resources, Pudens, son of Pudentinus, presenting the site.
Togidubnos seems to have been placed in control of a large part of Southern England, centred around Chichester, after the invasion of 43AD. He is thought to have been the successor to Verica, who was exiled and called on the Romans to restore his throne. Tactitus says that Togidubnos remained loyal down ‘to our own times’ that is to the 70s AD. So he presumably held the line for the Romans against the Boudiccan revolt in 60AD. The Romans had used Verica’s fall as their excuse for invasion, and so an honorific of Great King to him and his successors makes sense. It is assumed that after Togidubnos’s death after 80AD, the title lapsed. But it might have stayed with the family as an empty honour? Furthermore, we know that Britain had a lot of Kings and Queens before the Roman period, and, as the Romans never conquered the whole of Britain, there were British Kings all the way through the period of Roman control, at least beyond Hadrian’s Wall.
So, it is possible there was someone in Britain who had, or made, a claim to be ‘King’ whether ‘a’ or ‘the’ or merely descended from one, we don’t know. And that that someone, perhaps converted to Christianity, possibly in the time of Pope Eleutherius.
It has been suggested that Lucius of Britain was confused with Lucius of Edessa, but this is not very convincing.
The link to London and St Peters, need not be a contemporary one, it might be two traditions that are linked together at a later period. But, of course, there is a faint possibility that the Basilica shrine room, above which St Peter’s is built, was converted for Christian use at the earlier time necessary to make sense of the King Lucius story.
King Lucius may not be a proper saint, but he has a feast day because of his connections to Chur in Switzerland, which saw him enter the Roman Martyrology. David Knight proposes that the tradition of the martyrdom of Lucius in Chur comes from the transplanting of rebellious Brigantes to the Raetia frontier in the 2nd Century AD, bringing with them the story of Lucius and that, possibly, at the end of the King’s life he travelled to join the exiles in Switzerland where he met his unknown end. If true, this would base the story of Lucius in the North rather than London.
For further reading, see ‘King Lucius of Britain’ by David J Knight.
John Stow in the 16th Century records the tradition, which comes with a list of early British Bishops of London, which are recorded in Jocelin of Furness ‘Book of British Bishops’. This book is discussed by Helen Birkett ‘Plausible Fictions: John Stow, Jocelin of Furness and the Book of British Bishops’. In Downham C (ed) /Medieval Furness: Texts and Contexts/, Stamford: Paul Watkins, 2013.
Her analysis concludes that the book is a ’12th-century confection in support of moving the archbishopric from Canterbury ‘back’ to London.’ (This information was included in a comment to the original post by John Clark, Emeritus Curator of the Museum of London.)
To sum up. We can’t bring King Lucius out of legend, nor link him with St Peters Cornhill, but the site of St Peters is a plausible, though unproven, location for a Roman Church from the 4th Century onwards. It also makes sense of the choice of the Saxons, to name their Church St Pauls. St Peter is more common as a dedication for important Churches and perhaps they chose St Paul as they knew of the ruins of St Peters the old Cathedral.
Archaeologists have also tentatively identified a masonry building in Pepys Street on Tower Hill as the Episcopal Church of late Roman London. The foundations suggest a large aisled building. Its identification as a Cathedral springs from multiplying the found foundations symmetrically by a factor of four and comparing the result to Santa Tecla in Milan. The discovery of Marble and window glass doesn’t sit so well with the alternative suggestion that it is a granary. But, to my mind, it’s not very convincing, although Dominic Perring in his recent book ”London in the Roman World’ makes the most of the case for it being a Cathedral.
On This Day
1660 – Margaret Hughes became the first woman (we know about) to act on the English Stage. She played Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello. It was staged in a converted tennis court called the Vere Street Theatre, which was in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In 1660 Charles II was restored to the throne, and had got used to watching female actors perform while he was in exile in France. So when he returned, he licensed two theatre managers, Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant to run theatre. Davenant claimed to be the natural son of William Shakespeare, suggesting that Shakespeare stayed in his parents’ Inn, the Crown, in Cornmarket, Oxford on his way home to Stratford-upon-Avon.
First Published on December 3rd, 2022. Revised in December, 2023, and 2024
![“To Concordia,¹ the Sixth Legion, Victorious, Loyal and Faithful and the Twentieth Legion [dedicates this].” found at Roman Corbridge (Coriosopitum)](https://www.chr.org.uk/anddidthosefeet/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/To-Concordia¹-the-Sixth-Legion-Victorious-Loyal-and-Faithful-and-the-Twentieth-Legion-dedicates-this..png)
