St Germanus of Auxerre, Window in St Paul’s parish church, Morton, Lincolnshire, made by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris in 1914. Photo by Jenny of Jules & Jenny from Lincoln, UK (CC BY 2.0 Wikimedia Photo by Jenny of Jules & Jenny from Lincoln, UK)
St Germanus is the source of one of the few contemporary references to Britain in the 5th Century (the Dark Ages). One of his followers wrote his life story. The Saint, a Bishop in France, was sent to Britain because the Pelagian Heresy was endangering the Catholic version of Christianity. Pelagius was a highly educated British (or possibly Irish) priest who moved to Rome in the late 4th Century. He lived by a strict moral code, attacking Catholic laxity and opposing St Augustine of Hippo’s theory of Divine Grace. By contrast, Pelagius promoted human choice in salvation and denied the doctrine of original sin. Wikipedia tells us that he:
considered it an insult to God that humans could be born inherently sinful or biased towards sin, and Pelagius believed that the soul was created by God at conception, and therefore could not be imbued with sin as it was solely the product of God’s creative agency.
17th Century print of Pelagius
Germanus was sent to Britain, where he confronted Pelagian converts in a public debate which is thought to have taken place in a disused Roman amphitheatre. The author is not interested in Britain, per se, so does not tell us which town it was, but, it is mostly assumed to be St Albans, although London is possible.
In the stadium, the Saint and his acolytes confound the heretics and, so, convert the town’s people sitting watching the debate. St Germanus goes to a nearby shrine of St Alban to thank God, falls asleep in a hut, and is miraculously saved from a fire. He then comes across a man called a Tribune, and helps defeat a Saxon army in the ‘Alleluia’ victory. The importance of all this is that it, in about 429AD, gives us a few glimpses of Britain two decades after the Romans have left, and that Britain stayed in the Catholic fold.
The British Bishops were led in their heresy by someone called Agricola. The writer describes these bishops as ‘conspicuous for riches, brilliant in dress and surrounded by a fawning multitude’. The use of the title ‘Tribune’ in the story suggests Roman administrative titles are still in use 19 years after the date of the ‘formal’ end of Roman Britain, 410AD. The Alleluia victory over the Saxons also gives us an early date for Saxon presence in the country as an enemy.
St Albans is the favoured choice for the location of the event because, Bede tells us St Albans was born, martyred and commemorated in Verulamium, now called St Albans. Archaeology shows possible post Roman occupation of the town. And it has a famous Amphitheatre.
However, Gildas, who is writing 200 years or more before Bede, tells us St Alban was born in Verulamium but martyred in London, which makes sense as London was the late Roman Capital and more likely to be the site of a martyrdom. There is also a church dedicated to St Albans close to the Roman Amphitheatre, where Gildas tells us the execution took place. The Church cannot, unfortunately, be, archaeologically dated back to 429AD.
Bede’s account of the martyrdom of St Albans is also somewhat farcical, as God divides the waters of the River Ver for Alban to get to his martyrdom more quickly. The bridge was said to be full of people walking to witness Alban’s execution, and blocking Albans path to Heaven. But the Ver is but a piddle, and it would be easy to walk over without needing wellington boats, let along a miracle to get to the otherside. This story is much more impressive,in Gildas’ version who has the miraculous crossing over the River Thames.
Had Pelegius won and the Roman Church had a more optimistic view of the human spirit, would it have made any difference? It’s a big question, but maybe it would have left less room for pessimism and guilt?
What were the effects of original sin? …. it damaged our relationship with God. He seemed distant, we became mistrustful. We lost sanctifying grace. The weakening of the will, making us more prone to temptation. The darkening of the intellect. Increased vulnerability to sickness and disease. Spiritual death.
Germanus died in Ravenna.
For more on Nick Fuentes and his theories on St Germanus, St Patrick and King Arthur click here:
The Ashwini kumaras twins, sons of the sun god Surya. Vedic gods representing the brightness of sunrise and sunset Wikipedia
The Divine Twins, aka the Dioscuri, were horsemen, patrons of calvary, athletes and sailors, one of many indo-european twin gods. Pollux is the son of Zeus and Leda (raped by Zeus in the guise of a swan). His twin brother has a different and mortal father, the King of Sparta to the same mother, Leda. So they are examples of heteropaternal superfecundation as Mary Poppins probably didn’t sing.
One is therefore immortal and the other isn’t. They had many adventures including sailing with Jason as Argonauts.
According to some version of the story Castor was mortally wounded, and Zeus gave Pollux the option of letting his brother die while Pollux could spend eternity on Mount Olympus. The alternative was to share his immortality with his brother. He did the good thing, and the twins spend half their year as the Constellation of Gemini and the rest, immortal, on Mount Olympus. Thus, they are the epitome of brotherly love.
Their sisters were no less than Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. They were also twins, Helen the divine daughter of Zeus and, Clytemnestra, mortal daughter of the King of Sparta.
It happened like this. The Swan was being pursued by an eagle, so Leda protected the Swan and took it to bed. On the same night she slept with her husband Tyndareus of Sparta. Two eggs were fertilised, each split in two to give two sets of twins.
Never mind the Brothers, what Sisters! Helen you know. But Clytemnestra? She was the wife of Agamemnon, the arrogant leader of the Greeks. On the way to retrieve Helen from Troy, the Greek Fleet was becalmed. So, on advice, Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter, Iphigenia, on the island of Aulis in exchange for a fair wind to Troy. (read Iphigenia at Aulis by Aeschylus, a great play which I studied in Classical Studies at University)
Meanwhile, Queen Clytemnestra, abandoned at home, broods on her husband’s heartless fillicide. She takes a lover. After 10 years of war, Agamemnon comes back, in triumph from the destruction of Troy, with his prize, the Trojan Princess, Cassandra. Strutting with arrogance, he demands Clytemnestra prepare him a bath, and, so she does, she gives him the hottest bath possible. With the help of her lover, she hacks Agamemnon to pieces with an axe.
Cassandra prophesizes that she too will be a victim. She has been gifted with the ability of accurate prophecy, albeit twinned with the inability to get anyone to believe her! She is also slaughtered.
I visit John Collier’s painting of Clytemnestra at the Guildhall regularly and am fascinated by her grim expression.
In the 18th/19th Century rich people were into ‘attitudes’. For example, Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton, would be invited to present an attitude in front of a dinner party of mostly male aristocrats. She would dress up in a flowing revealing unstructured classical gown and stand on a table presenting herself as: Helen or Andromache or any other classical beauty guests might fancy an eyeful of. She would assume an appropriate facial expression and posture for everyone’s pleasure.
Detail of Emma Hart modelling as Iphigenia by George Romney in ‘Cimon and Iphigenia’
Being Clytemnestra is difficult! I imagine Collier’s model being prompted to look both sad at the loss of the daughter; outraged at the arrogance of the husband; horror at the gore of the murder but overall to portray a grim satisfaction that the bastard got exactly what he deserved.
Lord Leighton had a famous model who was exceptionally skilled at adopting poses for his paintings. He determined to help her with an acting career. As part of the plan he helped improve her cockney accent, and it is said this inspired Bernard Shaw’s story Pygmalion which, in turn, inspired My Fair Lady and Eliza Doolittle.
Leighton’s model was Dorothy Dene. She became a famous actress, outstripping the fame of Ellen Terry and Lily Langtry. She modelled for the famous painting ‘Flaming June’ which sold 500,000 print copies in 1895. Lord Leighton went somewhat out of fashion and the original painting was purchased for £50 by the rather marvellously named Museo de Ponce, Puerto Rico where she still resides.
I have one of those half million prints on my bedroom wall.
Print of Flaming June by Lord Leighton
Before we finish, do have a look at John Collier’s Wikipedia because he is the most ridiculously well-connected painter you can imagine! Related to half the Cabinet and married to TWO daughters of Darwin’s Bulldog T.H.Huxley (grandfather of Aldous Huxley).
For more on Flaming June see my blog post of 12 July 2024
European Twin Gods
It is suggested that twin male gods are a feature of Indo-European religions, and that the Twins are associated with horses/chariots and are responsible for moving the Sun and the Moon. Their use of a horse above the water means that they can rescue people lost at sea. St Elmo’s fire was said to be the way they manifested their divinity to sailors. Diodorus Siculus records that the Twins were Argonauts with Heracles, Telamon, and Orpheus. Further, he tells us in the fourth book of Bibliotheca historica, that the Celts who dwelt along the ocean worshipped the Dioscuroi “more than the other gods”.
Copy of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinca at the Collection Gallery, Royal Academy, UK (Copy made 1515-1520, and was in the Carthusian Monsatery at Pavia in the 17th Century before being brought to the RA in the 19th Century)
Whilst visiting Flaming June at the RA, it was nice to have another look at the Last Supper. What strikes me most is their sandals (and the beautifully pressed table cloth).
Detail of the RA copy of the Last Supper
Details that bring the past to life. The shoes would surely sell today, while the table cloth really destroys the common idea that the past was dirty and smelly. It wasn’t. People took pride in their appearance and surroundings. Just look at the ironing!
Here, by way of contrast, is a medieval shoe from the 14th Century from the Museum of London. And this is a link to the Museum of London’s collections of medieval shoes, most have been collected from excavations, and it is one of the best collections.
Philip Mould Galley,Bond Street.The home of painter Mary Beale
Yesterday, I was asked to do two Jane Austen’s London walks. The walk explores Mayfair, where her brother, Henry lived and had his Bank, and where Austen placed the central drama of Sense and Sensibility. I decided to use the time between the walks to look for a shopping mall which dates back to Jane Austen’s time, but I got diverted as I saw a sign for a free exhibition on Mary Beale in Pall Mall.
Mary Beale is that rare beast; a professional female artist of the 17th Century (1633-1699). So, I double-checked the ‘free entry’ notice because this was a posh West End private art gallery and the name Philip Mould was familiar. I went in and realised that this was something special. I returned to the entrance to ask the very friendly staff whether I could take photographs. ‘Yes, of course, they said.’ much to my surprise.
Mary Beale Exhibition sign.
Downstairs, the art of Mary Beale was beautifully displayed, and the exhibition had a very interesting story to tell, which was well-told, using excellent labels and a film narrated by Philip Mould. He was, as I thought, the co-presenter of ‘Fake or Fortune’ (with Fiona Bruce, newsreader and anchor of the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow). This is a BBC art programme which is in its 12th Series. The conceit of the show is that they investigate dubious paintings to find out whether they are genuine or not.
The film revealed that Philip Mould opened his Art Gallery here over a decade ago, but research has recently discovered that this is the very address where Mary Beale had her studio.
Scene shot of Philip Mould in the Mary Beale Exhibition in his short film shot in his Art Gallery.
Her career is not only remarkable in itself, but it was recorded in great detail by her husband. She was the bread winner. He was her partner, and in effect the studio manager. In correspondence, he describes her as his ‘dearest heart’.
Self-Portrait of Mary, with her husband and son
It was a family business and their children also worked as painting assistants, doing draperies and other background details. Her paintings gave them an income of around £200 a year, which is not riches but, by comparison, a labourer got about £30 a year.
She was associated with Sir Peter Lely, the Court painter who succeeded Van Dyke. Mary Beale made copies of many of his paintings. She also painted many pictures of her family.
Mary Beale’s painting after Sir Peter Lely’s portrait of Charles II
There are several excellent short films about Mary Beale on the Gallery’s web site, which is well worth a visit. The exhibition ends on the 19th July, but there is also, for you to see, Tate Britain’s exhibition ‘Now you see us’ which is the story of British female artists from the 1520’s to 1920.
On the way back from the Gallery, I popped into the Royal Academy to renew an old acquaintance with ‘Flaming June’ by Lord Leighton, a copy of which hangs on my bedroom wall, and which is on one of its rare visits to the UK. There is also the statue of the Sluggard and it’s all free to view.
Flaming June by Lord LeightonThe Sluggard by Lord Leighton
It is days like this, that you realise what a wonderful thing it is to live in London. All this superb art, and all without laying out a penny (travelling on my free travel pass too!).
I wrote about Flaming June in a post you can read here.
Civitas Londinum is a bird’s-eye view of London first printed from woodblocks in about 1561
John Stow, author of the ‘Survey of London‘ first published in 1598, tells us that there were bonfires and street parties in the City throughout June and July on the Vigils of Festivals. The Vigil is the evening before a festival. A custom that might owe a little to the Celtic choice of dusk as the beginning of the new day.
Front cover of the Survey of London by John Stow
Stow does not give a list of the vigils thus celebrated and only mentions those of St John the Baptist and of St Paul and St Peter, (which fall later in June, when I will post about them). But I would guess it would include prominent Saints in the Catholic Calendar, and also Saints with London Churches or Chapels named after them. These might include: St Botolph, St Alban, St James, St Thomas, St Margaret, St Wilgerfortis, St. Mary Magdalen, St Bridget, St James, as well as Saints John, Peter, and Paul. I’m guessing that City wide celebration would be reserved for the most important Saints, and with local celebrations for the Saint on the local Church. I am assuming these celebrations were ended or much reduced after the Reformation.
Here is his introduction to the Vigil celebrations.
‘In the months of June and July, on the vigils of festival days, and on the same festival days in the evenings after the sun setting, there were usually made bonfires in the streets, every man bestowing wood or labour towards them; the wealthier sort also, before their doors near to the said bonfires, would set out tables on the vigils, furnished with sweet bread and good drink, and on the festival days with meats and drinks plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours and passengers also to sit and be merry with them in great familiarity, praising God for his benefits bestowed on them. These were called bonfires as well of good amity amongst neighbours that being before at controversy, were there, by the labour of others, reconciled, and made of bitter enemies loving friends; and also for the virtue that a great fire hath to purge the infection of the air. ‘
He goes on to describe a large scale City wide celebration, which is probably a description of the Midsummer festivities, which I will present on the 21st June.
John Stow is one of the most important sources for Tudor and Medieval London. He was a Londoner, buried in St Andrews Undershaft (see map above), who wrote up all he could glean about London. I use him all the time – for example, on my Wolf Hall Tudor London Walk, which I am doing tomorrow. Stow’s Survey of London can be accessed online, in full, here: or via the wonderful online Agas Map, from which the map above came from.
I’ve been taking groups around Britain from London to Edinburgh and have fallen behind on my postings.
So, I am going to post a few posts today to put them on my Almanac of the Past. They will be brief, and will be worked up for a re-publication in greater length next year.
Archaeological Discoveries at Elverton St. Westminster
Near the site of the medieval jousting arena in Westminster, London at Elverton St, archaeologists, nearly 30 years ago, excavated a Cemetery which contained the remains of horses. The University of Exeter has recently revealed the results of their analysis of the horses’ bones. The 15 animals studied were found to be above average in height, and marked by a life where they had been worked hard. Analysis of their teeth suggested they came from as far afield as Scandinavia, the Alps, Spain, and Italy.
Three of the animals are the largest found in England at the time. The findings suggest they might be from a Royal Stud farm, providing war, jousting or hunting animals for the elite.
The Hoover Building in Perivale NW London, photo Kevin Flude
I published this piece in April, but for some reason to do with the fact that I published the posts from my phone rather than my computer, no email was sent to subscribers.
So, here is a chance to see it.
What makes owning a narrow boat so wonderful, apart from enjoying living amidst nature, is the accidental discovery of undreamt of wonders. Last week, I moved my narrow boat from Westbourne Park, on the Grand Union Canal, to Perivale. A 3-hour boat trip of less than 10 miles to a frankly uninspiring suburb. But, as so often, mooring in an uninspiring place uncovered surprises that transform the mundane to the delightful.
Paddington branch of the Grand Union Canal heading west from Westbourne Park. Photo Harriet Salisbury
We set off on a beautifully sunny April morning to move the boat the requisite distance to satisfy licence terms. Rain at 12 prompted a premature end to the trip. We trudged to Perivale Underground Station, bemoaning our failure to get to Southall, to enjoy a Dosa In London’s Little India.
The road to Perivale is dull suburbia. But we stopped at a library boasting a cafe, which turned out to be a really nice bit of early 20th Century library architecture, with a cheerful volunteer explaining they were keeping the library from closure due to council cost-cutting.
Perivale Library photo Kevin Flude
They had made the library really cosy with sofas and comfortably sitting areas. Sadly, the promised Café was not open.
Perivale Library. Interior. Photo Kevin Flude
The volunteer pointed us in the direction of a sandwich at the Tesco in the Hoover Building. I had no idea this icon of Modernism was a short walk away, so we jumped at the chance to see, at close range, one of my favourite London buildings.
The Hoover Building (photo K Flude)
I regularly point it out to the groups I take to Oxford. But I have never seen it up close nor standing still. Not only is the building a fabulous cream and green, but it has a backstory of interest to London’s history. As road transport began to remake the geography of London in the early 20th Century, factories in Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lambeth, and other Inner London Boroughs closed, and new factories were constructed on the roads out of London, mostly manufacturing consumer goods. Park Royal, Greenford, Slough and Staines were among the areas to develop as consumerism powered the 20th Century with the production of irons, kettles, hairdryers, radios, washing machines, vacuum cleaners and suchlike delights for the workers and families. The fields around were turned into rows of semi-detached houses to mortgage to the workers.
What made this trip even more special was that one of the original buildings has become a Hotel, in which we discovered a massive Indian Restaurant. There, we found it full of about 500 people eating a fast-breaking Eid dinner. £26 to eat as much as you can, all self-service, with scores of chefs serving their delicious tureens of Asian food. Such a great cultural experience, and rather better than the tasteless Tesco sandwich we were expecting.
If I’m passing the factory on a tour, I tend to read to my group Sir John Betjeman’s patronising poem ‘Slough’ which is about the horror of the new consumer society. ‘Slough’ is wonderful to read and, yet, also, awful, not just the Oxbridge author looking down his long privileged nose at the lower classes but going to the extreme of suggesting Slough would be better off bombed to smithereens.
Guernica was bombed on 26th April 1937 and ‘Slough appeared’ in a Betjeman collection called ‘Continual Dew’ in the same year (I havent located a reference with the actual date of publication). Bad taste in the extreme, hardly mitigated by the fact that it was originally written in 1928 and was about trading estates in general rather than Slough in particular. Still, despite all it is still one of my favourite poems for the insight it gives to attitudes of the British class system.
So, here it is.
Slough
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now, There isn’t grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens Those air-conditioned, bright canteens, Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans, Tinned minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the mess they call a town- A house for ninety-seven down And once a week a half a crown For twenty years.
And get that man with double chin Who’ll always cheat and always win, Who washes his repulsive skin In women’s tears:
And smash his desk of polished oak And smash his hands so used to stroke And stop his boring dirty joke And make him yell.
But spare the bald young clerks who add The profits of the stinking cad; It’s not their fault that they are mad, They’ve tasted Hell.
It’s not their fault they do not know The birdsong from the radio, It’s not their fault they often go To Maidenhead
And talk of sport and makes of cars In various bogus-Tudor bars And daren’t look up and see the stars But belch instead.
In labour-saving homes, with care Their wives frizz out peroxide hair And dry it in synthetic air And paint their nails.
Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough To get it ready for the plough. The cabbages are coming now; The earth exhales.
850 new factories were built in Slough before the outbreak of world war two, and the Trading Estate was first seen here. And yes, they are bleak, and Slough is even now, not the most exciting or architecturally sophisticated of towns. But to imagine bombing a town in a time when there was a real fear of mass destruction from the air?
I particularly object to the line about tinned food because I was brought up on tinned beans, peas, steak and kidney pudding, pineapple chunks, peaches, and rhubarb. And exactly what is wrong with a hair-dryer?
Before I read Slough, I recount an experience I had years ago with an American group who suddenly started laughing for no reason. I enquired, and they pointed to a huge advertising hoarding with a poster about the Electrolux Vacuum Cleaner. Its location near the Hoover building, I imagine might have been deliberate, but what made the Americans laugh was the slogan:
‘Nothing sucks like an Electrolux’
To a British person, the slogan works in a positive sense and we appreciate the wit. For the Americans, it made them all laugh with shock as to why anyone would pay to say their vacuum cleaner was complete pants.
Oh, and second best? Well, the best Modernist Building in London is the Daily Express Building, Fleet Street.
Strangely, very little to do with Mothers! Mothering Sunday is the 4th Sunday in Lent and is a day in which we are enjoined to visit our Mother Churches. It, therefore, became a day when people made processions to their Churches. Servants and workers could go to their home parishes, and not only go to the Mother Church but also to say hello to their mothers.
It was called Mothering Sunday when I was little but since then has morphed into the Americanism that is Mother’s Day.
‘Rejoice ye with Jerusalem; and be ye glad for her, all ye that delight in her: exult and sing for joy with her, all ye that in sadness mourn for her; that ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations.‘
Jerusalem is personified, here, as the Mother. Further associations with motherhood came from the Gospel for the day which is John 6:1–14, the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, which led to associations with the bounty of Mother Earth.
In the medieval period visits to the Mother Church seem to have become fiercely competitive. The Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste decreed:
‘In each and every church you should strictly prohibit one parish from fighting with another over whose banners should come first in processions at the time of the annual visitation and veneration of the mother church. […] Those who dishonour their spiritual mother should not at all escape punishment, when those who dishonour their fleshly mothers are, in accordance with God’s law, cursed and punished with death.‘
(Letter 22.7 – Wikipedia)
Simnel Cake
It was also the Sunday in the fasting period of Lent in which the restrictions were relaxed, so you could eat what is called Simnel Cake.
I’ll to thee a Simnel bring ‘Gainst thou goest a-Mothering So that, when she blesseth thee Half that blessing thou’lt give me.
The Simnel cake is a fine flour light fruit cake (Latin simila, fine flour), with layers of marzipan in it. It often has 11 balls of marzipan on the top, representing the 11 (not Judas) apostles. The cake is first boiled for two hours and then baked.
Now, I know 95% of my American readers hate fruit cake, but believe me when I tell you – you are completely wrong! Its delicious, and here is the BBC’s recipe for you to try:
I have just come back from my very first Leap Year Walk, which I gave tonight for London Walks. It was one of a series of my walks, which are about the year through London’s History. So far, I have done, a New Year Walk, an Imbolc Walk (1 February, St Brigid’s Day), a Spring Equinox Walk, a May Day Walk, a Summer Solstice Walk, an Autumn Equinox Walk, a Halloween Walk, and a Winter Solstice Walk. All, at their core, have the subject of the year, how it is arranged, and celebrated in different cultures and different times in London.
I hoped to get this post done, today, but on arrival at home my burglar alarm was ringing, so had to get an emergency electrician out to pacify my neighbours, and tracking down the fault meant turning my house upside down. I rushed it out, with many bad proof reading errors and ommissions, And have now, on the dawn of a new month, and a new Season, updated it. Probably, knowing me, it still has a far few errors! Now, I am rushing to look after my Grandson!
So, the reason there is a leap year, is that the Sun and the Moon have different cycles, which cannot be easily aligned. And secondly, the solar year is not a fixed number, it is not 365 days, but 365 days and a bit.
Originally though, probably, most cultures lived their lives with time keeping controlled by time markers from their everyday environment, days and nights, the waning and waxing of the moon, the seasons, and the changes in the rising and setting of the Sun. Budding nature would have provided other markers as to when to sow, to harvest, to prune, to slaughter, to worship and marry.
The months were given by the cycle of the Moon, which also gave us tides and menstrual cycles. The months were given names, which were often associated with the weather. The trouble was that the Solar year did not align with the Moon, soon the months would get out of kilter with the seasons. So over time, the society would find it was winter in June, or summer in December. (which is OK if you live in Australia).
Society dealt with this in a number of ways. It could be ignored, why shouldn’t it be cold in June, why should June always be in Summer? Another way was to add in extra days, or months, every so often to make sure June remained in the Summer. This is what Egypt, the early Romans and the Celts did. They kept their months aligned to the actual movements of the Moon, and aligned their Solar Year with it by the addition of extra days or a month or two. or a combination of both.
I reported on this in my post on the Terminalia for February 23rd. As I wrote:
Terminus was an old ancient God who was the God of the boundary, the border, the edge, the liminal God. February was the last month of the original Roman year, but the rulers of Rome added an intercalary month every so often, called Mercedonius in an attempt to keep the Solar year in tune with the seasons. And when the intercalary month was added, the last five days of February were given to Mercedonius and the resulting leap year was either 377 or 378 days long.. So, in those years, the 23rd of February was the Terminus of the year. (For more on Terminalia look at my post for February 23rd on Terminalia-god-of-the-boundary)
Now, as the Roman Republic became more sophisticated, the intercalary months were added at the direction of the Pontiffs, supposedly every two and sometimes every three years. But the Pontiffs were often swayed by political advantage, and by the time of Julius Caesar the seasons had got wildly out of sync with the calendar year. The Dictator, therefore, instituted ‘the Year of Confusion’ which was over 400 days long and brought in the Julian Calendar which realigned the calendar back in line with the seasons.
Caesar spent time with Egyptian Astronomers, trying to understand their solution to the problem. They identified that the year was not 365 days long but 356.25 days, so JC ‘fixed’the issue with a leap day every four years. Based on the almost correct calculation of a solar year being 365.25 days. The new calendar was inaugurated on the Kalends of Januarius 709 AUC, or as we would call it I January 45 BC. It became, in time, something the Romans were very proud of – rationalising, measuring, time itself. Romans counted their dates from the time their City was founded by Romulus in what we call 753 BC or 753 BCE. So, 45 BCE in our reckoning is 709 ab urbe condita (AUC ‘from the founding of the City) as the Romans saw it.
I prefer not to use BCE because it seems ‘dishonest’ to me. The idea of AD BC was made up based on a guess as to when Jesus was born. Changing BC to BCE may rid the date of an explicit Christian identification but masks the fact that there is no such thing as the ‘Common Era. What the Common Era is, is the idea made up in the Late Roman period guessing when Jesus was born/ So I think call a spade a spade, even if it’s a broken meaningless spade that is not fit for purpose, either replace it with something rational, or real or call it what it is.
The interesting thing is that Caesar put the leap year in on the 24th February. Why? Because February, being the month of death, was the end of the year. March 25th was originally the beginning of the Roman year (Caesar moved it to January 1st). Why March 25th? Because it was the Spring Equinox. If you look at my post for March 25th you will find out it is the date of the creation of Humanity, the Birthday of Adam, the conception of Jesus, and until 1752, the day the year number changed in Britain.
The other strange thing about the new leap day was that it was not called February 25th. It was not given a number. Rather, February 24th was two days long. This continued in Britain until the date February 29th started appearing in calendars in the 15th Century, although the legendary Lawyer, Edward Coke (1552 – 1634), refers to the two days of February 24th, but the two day 24th was completely replaced by February 29th in the 16th Century.
One slight complication to the story of February 29th was that February 29th did exist before the Julian reforms. When February was not interrupted by the intercalary month, as described above, it was 29 days long. Julius Caesar made the months alternate 30 and 31 except for February which was 29 days long. When the Senate gave Julius the honour of having the 7th Month named after him, things were OK, but then Augustus wanted the same thing. The Senate duly gave him the next month, which became known as August, but it only had 30 days. This could not be allowed! So they made it up to 31 and stole the 29th from February and made February only 28 days long. This change also meant that there were now three 31 days months in a row, so they reduced September from 31 to 30, boosted October to 31, reduced November to 30 and boosted December to 31,
Hence, we can no longer remember Caesar rational allotment of days in the month, and we need to hum to ourselves:
Thirty days have September April, June, and November February has twenty-eight alone. All the rest have thirty-one. Excepting leap year – that’s the time When February’s days are twenty-nine.
But Caesar had not solved the problem of the shifting year, he had just minimised it. By the Council of Nicea in the early 4th Century (and not yet called AD!) the small error had changed the date of the Spring Equinox, from March 25th to March 21st. So, when Constantine convened the Council to bang the heads together of the Church leaders to unify their religion, particularly in regard to the date of Easter, and whether Jesus was equal to God. They fudged the complex issue of the date of Christ’s death, and used March 21st as the foundation of their calculation on the moon-based festival of Easter (more of which at Easter!)
It wasn’t until the 16th Century that Pope Gregory, solved the problem of the inaccuracy of Caesar’s solution. They resynced the days to the seasons by removing days from the Calendar. And they stopped the drift by fine-tuning the leap year system, by not having a leap year in those centurial years which were not divisible by 400. So 2000 was a leap year, but 2100 is not. This allowed the systems to align correctly to this day. (although there is of course a little more to it than this). But for that level of detail, you will love ‘The Calendar’ by David Ewing Duncan, or just look it up on Wikipedia or wait for me to compile various references to the Gregorian Calendar into a unified post on the subject.
Of course, Britain refused to join a Catholic innovation for nearly 200 years but, religious prejudice at last gave way to reason, when we adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1752. In the process we lost 11 days, much to the horror of the London mob, who rioted against their loss.
Archaeology discoveries. The Image is a sketch of the ‘Facial Reconstruction, Impossible Factual/BBC’
Interesting Archaeology discoveries.
The following discoveries were reported in Salon IFA the newsletter of the Society of Antiquaries of London in Salon: Issue 526 7 February 2024, which you can see here:
Pliny the Elder’s Villa found near Vesuvius?
The 1st Century seafront villa, with views of the Bay of Naples and of Mount Vesuvius, has been excavated at the town of Bacoli, which was the port of Misenum. Pliny commanded the fleet as ‘Praefectus classis Misenensis’. Pliny tried to rescue his friends and family, ignoring warnings saying ‘Fortune favours the brave’, ‘Audentes Fortuna luvat’. It didn’t and he died, at Stabiae, by toxic fumes. Read more about the villa here:
Face Reconstructed for a Victim of Roman Crucifixion
A male skeleton found, 4 years ago, in a Roman cemetery in Fenstaton in Cambridgeshire was found with a 2-inch nail through his heel bone. BBC 4 has made a documentary about the recent reconstruction of the man’s face by, as Salon reports it:
‘US forensic artist Joe Mullins, of George Mason University, Virginia. He usually works with law enforcement agencies, reconstructing the faces of modern-day crime victims. ‘
To follow the details, read more here, or watch the BBC documentary, ‘The Cambridgeshire Crucifixion’, which can be viewed on BBC iPlayer.
