Detail from ‘The Creation and the Fall of Man’ by Mariotta Alberinelli 1513-14 showing Archangels helping in the creation of Eve from Adam’s Rib’
September 29th used to be St Michael’s Day, or Michaelmas. But in the 20th Century, the Catholic Church made it the day to celebrate the three chief Archangels and all Angels. Previously, September 29th was for St Michael, March 24th for St Gabriel, and October 24th for St Raphael.
It was an important day in the medieval civil calendar and was the date on which Oxford, Cambridge and the Legal system started their autumn terms. It is also the date the Lord Mayor of London is elected at Guildhall in the City of London.
About this time, the Michaelmas Daisy (an Aster) comes out in profusion. They have been out in my Father’s garden since August, but have only been flowering for a few weeks in my own garden. Here is an old rhyme:
“The Michaelmas daisies, among dead weeds, Bloom for St Michael’s valorous deeds …
The Angelic Host
Personally, I don’t understand what Archangels are doing in a monotheistic religion. They seem to be supernatural demigods which seems odd. The Book of Revelations is one of the most important sources, but they are scattered around the Bible. Perhaps the most famous is the visitation of Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, (see my post here)They are 15 Archangels:Adabiel, Azrael, Chamuel, Gabriel, Haniel, Jeremiel, Jophiel, Melatron, Michael, Raguel, Raphael, Raziel, Sandalphon, Uriel, and Zadkiel.
Melatron has to be my favourite, given his name which sounds like something from a kids superheros cartoon! He is made from the human Enoch and Keeper of the Book of Life so perhaps the most powerful of the Archangels. He is good for relationship, career, and parenting advice!
The Book of Enoch mentions 200 Fallen Angels including Satan, but Alphonso di Spina a 15th Century Monk calculated there were 133 million fallen angels, one third of the original Angelic Host.
What are Angels for? Something to give us hope that somewhere, somehow something might be looking out for us? As Sir Antony Gormley says of the Angel of the North ;“People are always asking, why an angel? The only response I can give is that no-one has ever seen one and we need to keep imagining them.”
Bayeux Tapestry, Harold with moustache swearing an oath, William with pudding basin haircut sitting down at left.
Harold II was scurrying south after almost annihilating the Viking army of Harold Hardrada, when he heard news that the Normans had landed at Pevensey. (see my post (battle-of-stamford-bridge-september-25th-1066)
William was an unlikely Duke because it is very rare for illegitimate children to take the title of their father. It was normally not even considered as an option. A legitimate cousin or uncle would be chosen instead. But he not only got the title and survived many rebellions, but was known as the William the Bastard
He came to England in 1051 to see his distant cousin Edward the Confessor, who was the son of the English King Aethelred the Redeless (the ill advised – more often called ‘the Unready) and Emma of Normandy. Edward, whose marriage to Edith of Wessex was not great, insofar as both made claims to be holy virgins. So, Edward had no children. He, according to William, offered him the throne.
Did he, though? Well, the Pope agreed he did. William claimed that Harold of England accepted William as heir, too. And not only that, Harold, he said, agreed under Holy Oath.
The Bayeaux Tapestry, shows Harold making an oath with his hands on holy relics. But British Historians believe it may never have happened. And if it did, then it was an inadmissable endorsement as it was not freely given, Harold had been detained on a visit in 1064. He was probably never going to get home unless he took the oath.
But the clincher for the English viewpoint is that Harold was the legitimate King because he was elected as was traditional by the Witanagemote, the King’s Council.
But was he really the legitimate claimaint? He had no English Royal blood in him, only a distant touch of Danish royalty on his mum’s side. It is true, that in England, the King’s Council or Witan elected Kings and often did not choose the first in line but preferred the best suited candidate be he brother, cousin or uncle. But Harold was only the brother of the King’s wife, no royal blood there.
However, Harold was so powerful that he would have prepared the ground for his election irrespective of whether this was the freely given choice of the Witan. His father, Earl Godwin, had been a disloyal and over mighty subject of King Edward, but had prepared the way for Harold to be virtual ruler of the country long before the King died.
So, even if the Witan’s endorsement clearly choose Harold there was plenty of scope for a contested succession.
In late September 1066 Harold was the English King who had already defeated the Norwegian claimant. Now, he was rushing to put to rest the Norman claim.
William Prepares for Conquest
William had begun by getting Pope Alexander II’s blessing for his claim to the English throne. He spent 10 months planning the invasion. He recruited adventurers from Normandy, France, Brittany, and Flanders. His allies collected boats for the invasion, while William had hundreds of new boats built, using thousands of carpenters, metalworkers, carters etc and cutting down a vast number of trees.
The boats were ready by 12 August near Caen on the River Dives. They set sail, but contrary winds blew them into Saint Valery-sur-Seine. Winds in the summer are usually blowing south on that coast, and William had a long, frustrating wait for a north wind.
Meanwhile, Harold was waiting with his army and a 400 ship navy at his manor of Bosham, near Chichester, on the South Coast. Then he heard about the Norwegian invasion of the North. He probably hoped it was getting too late in the year for William to risk invasion. So, Harold decided, on September 18th, to go North with his army, which was the more immediate risk to his throne.
Map of the the progress of William;s fleet. Opinion suggests landing was on 28th September 1066
On September 27th, the north winds blew, the Normans embarked, and on the 28th of September William and his boat, given as a present to him by his wife, found themselves alone in the Channel off the English coast.
After an anxious wait, the rest of the fleet was spotted sailing towards William. They landed at Pevensey. Built a castle at Hastings and proceeded to ravage the land of Harold’s homeland. Harold had by now destroyed the Norwegian threat at Stamford Bridge on 25th September. He heard William had landed and rushed towards London
List of plays performed in February 1596 by the Admiral’s Men
‘Crack me this Nut’ was performed by the Admiral’s Men at the Rose Theatre in Southwark, London. One of the dates it was performed was on September 25th 1595. As you can see, above, it was also performed on February 7th 1596. You can find the other dates it was performed, and the income generated in this blog from Henslowe’s papers. In fact, the play was performed 16 times in all, then sold by Edward Alleyn. Sadly, no one knows what it was about. It might relate to the sense of our phrase ‘a tough nut to crack.’
The list of February dates for the Admiral’s Men is from my dossier for my Shakespeare’s London walks. I’m not entirely sure of the book I photocopied it from, but it derives from the wonderful archive of Philip Henslowe and his leading actor, Edward Alleyn. Henslowe’s records were stored in a locked trunk for 260 years.
2023 marked the completion of the project to bring this archive to the public. And here is the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation project. As well as digitising the Archive, elements that had been separated from the original archive have been brought back, so the greatest archive of information on the Shakespearean theatre is now unified and available. It is an immense benefit for the Shakespeare industry.
I searched the archive for ‘Crack me this nut’ but their search engine searches for anything that mentions ANY of the words, and as the word ‘this’ is in virtually everything in the archive, the search is effectively useless. Putting ‘Crack me this nut’ in quotes does not help. I have emailed them!
A subscriber sent me another link which has various speculations, and the following entry.
Master Ponsonby. Entred for his copie vnder the hands of the Wardens A booke Intitled The Paragon of pleasaunt histories . . . vjd Or this Nutt was neuer Cracked Contayninge a Discourse of a nobl[e] kinge and his Three sonnes (S.R.1, 3.57 / Fol. 7)
I often use this list of plays performed in February 1596 in the walks and lectures I give on Shakespeare. It shows you how hard-working Shakespeare’s contemporaries were. The actors’ companies were essentially small repertory companies. This list shows that the Admiral’s Men performed 14 different plays, on 23 days, if I count correctly, in the short month of February. This is in a winter month. Now, the guides at the rebuilt Globe tell you the Shakespearian Playhouses were used in the Summer. No! This was deep winter and 23 performances in an outdoor theatre in February! Imagine what a modern actor would think of that work load.
A badly photocopied page of the archive.
First published on February 7th 2023, and revised and republished on September 25th 2024, and 2025
Following the Viking victory at the Battle of Fulford Bridge, York, on September 20th the Viking army camped at Stamford Bridge.This was on the River Derwent. Here they intended to rest and celebrate the defeat of the English Earls of Mercia and Northumbria. They were unaware that King Harold I of England had left London for the north on September 18th. (See my post on the Battle of Fulford Bridge here.)
Five days later, on September 25th, Harold’s army surprised the Vikings by marching towards the bridge over the Derwent. It is said that Harold’s army marched 185 miles from London in 4 days which is a scarcely believable 46 miles a day. But if they left on 18th and battle was 25th that’s as much as 7 days. This still means 26 miles a day which is still very quick for an army carrying weapons and armour. So no wonder the Vikings were surprised!
According to tradition, a large Viking held the English army as he blocked the narrow wooden bridge across the river. No one could defeat him. But an enterprising English soldier found a boat, floated under the bridge and killed the Viking by pushing his spear through the bridge timbers, killing the Viking.
According to the 13th Century Icelandic historian, Snorri Sturlson, the fight began only after a rider approached the Viking Army. He offered Harold’s Brother, Tostig back his Earldom if he would withdraw from the fight. Tostig asked what would be in it for his ally, the King of Norway? The reply was ‘Seven feet of English ground, as he is taller than other men’. The offer was refused. It was said that the rider was King Harold himself.
Once over the Bridge, the English found the Vikings had formed a defensive formation. However, they had left their armour behind at their boats. The battle lasted all day but ended with the slaughter of most of the Vikings. King Harold Hardrada, one of the greatest warriors of his age and Tostig were both killed. The extent of the slaughter is shown by the fact that of the 300 boats of the Viking army, only 24 returned to Norway.
A boat of the period, derived from the Bayeaux Tapestry
A stunning victory for Harold I. But, the English had suffered terrible losses at the battle of Fulford. Harold had also left the South Coast unguarded And three days later, on September 28th, William, Duke of Normandy landed with his army at Pevensey. 256 miles south.
So, it may be a surprise that the Autumn is the time of plenty. I think, townies like me, would assume spring or summer. But in Autumn, not only is the Harvest in, but nuts and fruits are ripening and ready to pick. As we go deeper into Autumn, the livestock is culled to a level that can be sustained through the harsh winter. And so a lot of meat is also available. Truly a time of ‘mellow fruitfulness’.
A Surfeit of Autumn Peaches or Lamphreys
Anything with the word ‘surfeit’ in it must begin with the wonderful comic history of Britain called:1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, Comprising All the Parts You Can Remember, Including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates
Here we find that King Henry I died of a ‘surfeit’ of lamphreys’, which he indulged in against his Doctors’ advice. This was in November,. While his Great Grandson, King John:
‘finally demonstrated his utter incompetence by losing the Crown and all his clothes in the wash and then dying of a surfeit of peaches and no cider; thus his awful reign came to an end.’
He is a fine example of a ‘Bad King’. He died on the night of October 18th — 19th. So another King to leave this mortal coil by the means of an autumnal surfeit. Other accounts say his ale was poisoned or the surfeit was of plums. But he did have dysentery shortly before he died.
If you haven’t already it got it you probably, at this point, need to buy my book ‘Divorced, Beheaded, Died’. This is the best selling book about the Kings and Queens of England, told in bite sized chunks. It is always on sale at the British Museum.
‘No surfeit so evil as the surfeit of eating naughty bread’
Andrew Boorde in ‘Dietary of Health’ 1547 says that Wheat Bread makes you fat, particularly when made from new wheat. He says’Evil Bakers’ will add half of Barley. This is no good, nor is bread made from beans or peas. He continues:
‘hot bread is unwholesome to any man, for it doth lie in the stomach like a sponge: yet the smell of new bread is comfortable to the head and the heart. Old or stale bread doth dry up the blood or natural moisture in man, and doth engender ill humours; and is evil and tardy of digestion: wherefore is no surfeit so evil as a surfeit of eating naughty bread.‘
Lavendar Caps
Now is the time to protect your head with Lavendar as winter approaches, or so says William Turner’s Herbal of 1568:
‘I judge that the flowers of lavender, quilted into a cap and daily worn, are good for all diseases of the head, that come of a cold cause, and that they comfort the brain very well, namely if it have any distemperature that cometh of moistness.‘
If you remember, I wrote about Turner’s medical education in Ferrara in Italy in June. You can read it here.
Apples and Pears & No Cider
The fate of King John (above) shows the danger of running out of cider. But the apple trees are now groaning with Apples and Pears. So production can begin. I have been at my Father’s House picking up all the pears that drop every night. We have been cutting them up and putting them in the freezer, making purée and crumbles. Also, giving them to anyone who enters the house. But still not able to keep up with the Pears! Lots of Apples too, infact a bumper crop, many more than in any previous year. Earlier there was a host of plums from which I made my very first plum jam. I am looking forward to making a batch of Quince Jam, for the third year running.
Storing a Surfeit of Apples
Picking up windfall is problematic, as it was thought they would soften and bruise much easier than those picked from the trees. They would also contaminate other apples if laid with them. So it is best to pick apples before they are completely ripe. Then you can use Gervase Markham’s apple storage advice, which I wrote about in January and you can see here:
But:
A Surfeit of unripe fruit is a danger:
Green fruits make sickness to abound Use good advice to keep thee sound Give not thy lusts what they do crave Lest thou unawares step in to thy grave.
Ranger’s Almanack 1627
If you do succumb, you need a medicine of nettle-seeds and honey.
A Surfeit of Filberts
As a caution to persons at this season, when nuts are so very abundant, we state that the sudden death of Mr Nunn of Cley, Norfolk is generally attributed to eating a great quantity of filberts and drinking pork wine therewith.’
York Current, September 1794
I do hope you have found this post fruitful and not too nutty. Please consult a doctor if you are having head or brain issues. The Lavender in your Peaky Blinders Cap may not do the trick
Acknowledgement
Again, I am very dependent on fruity tales from Charles Kightly’s A Perpetual Almanac of Folklore. It is worth buying as it also has many pretty pictures.
Autumn Equinox in Haggerston Park.Photo by K Flude.
Autumn Equinox.
This is the second day of the year when the sun rises due east and sets due west. When the day and night are of equal length. It is the beginning of the astronomical autumn. It is determined by the 23.5-degree tilt of the Earth’s rotation in relation to the orbit around the Sun.
In the Jewish Calendar, and the French Revolutionary Calendars it marks the new year. Many cultures preferred spring. But autumn is the end of harvest, when seeds are sown and the food stores are full of food. Similarly, the Celts started their new year at Halloween, half way between the equinox and the solstice.
For more about autumn, look at my post here. For my post on the Spring Equinox, see here. For the Celtic New Year see this post here and for the French Revolutionary Calendar, my post is here.
Rosh Hashanah, September 22nd to 25th.
Rosh Hashanah is the New Year in Judaism. There are other new years in the Jewish calendar. But this is for the Civil Year and to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Adam.
The biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah. One of the High Holy Days, as specified by Leviticus 23:23–25. Like most New Years it is a time to reflect on life and put in place changes. It is after all a celebration of the beginning of the world.
Here is an excellent BBC web site which will tell you more.
In the City of London, St Matthew’s Day was the day that they elected Governors to Christ’s Hospital, it was followed by a service at Christchurch attended by Aldermen, Sheriffs, the Lord Mayor and a procession of the children attending the school.
Dissolution of the Monasteries
Christ’s Hospital was founded in 1552 by a settlement arranged by Edward VI after the Reformation. The abolition of the Monasteries by Henry VIII caused a huge problem for the City of London, with the destruction of education and social services managed by monks and nuns. Henry VIII had already re-established St Bartholomew’s to look after the Poor Sick in the City. To complete the post dissolution, Edward IV established three Royal Hospitals to sort out additional problems. Bridewell Hospital became an orphanage and place of correction for wayward women. St Thomas Hospital for the homeless and poor sick of South London. Christ’s Hospital was to provide schooling. The school was originally near Newgate and Christchurch Church, which was originally the Choir of the Greyfriars Church.
The school was set up in 1552 and was for boys and girls. The Mathematical School was added in the late 17th Century to provide navigation skills for sailors.
Flogging the boys
In 1815, a shocking event took place. An MP named Sir Eyre Coote entered the Mathematical school. He shooed the younger boys away but paid the older ones to participate in mutual flogging. He was discovered by the school nurse doing up his breeches. George Cruikshank, a vaunted caricaturist, created a cartoon of the occasion, and it is extraordinary how it was treated far from seriously.
Cruikshank Cartoon
The blue-coated boys of Christ’s Hospital, eventually moved to Hertford but are now in Horsham. They maintain their City affiliation and still come to the City on or around St Matthews Day and take part in the Lord Mayor’s Show. The school is a public school, but has a large percentage of its students funded by bursaries. In 2016 former pupils opened up about historic sexual abuse leading to the prosecution of 6 teachers of Christchurch.
Also on St Matthews Day, the historic Bush Hotel in Farnham distributed bread to the poor. This began in 1660 a local benefactor bequeathed one pound annually to pay for the bread.
Sketch from a photo of a Saxon Shield Wall of the type that might have been used at the Battle of Fulford
In 1066 England’s destiny was at stake, would the new King, Harold Godwinson, maintain the rule of an English King over England? Or would William of Normandy impose an alien French dynasty? But there was a third possible future Harold Hardrada of Norway re-establishing King Cnut’s Scandinavian control of England?
The fighting began, on September 20th, after the Norwegian King, accompanied by Harold Godwinson’s own brother, Tostig Godwinson, sailed up the Humber with 300 ships, disembarked and matched towards York.
In response, the Army of the North, led by the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, left York to confront the invaders. They marched the mile and a half to Fulford, which is on the banks of the Ouse. They, apparently, did not know that on the 18th of September, King Harold of England had left London with the Army of the South to take on Hardrada. If the Earls had waited, the combined English Army had a good chance of destroying the Norwegian threat.
The Norwegians and Tostig had, perhaps 7,500 troops, and the English Earls Edwin and Morcar who were brothers had an ‘immense’ army.
The Norwegians were lined up at Fulford, with their left flank protected by the Ouse, their front protected by a ditch and having the benefit of the higher ground. The English drove the Norwegians back but Hardrada responded by pushing forward his left flank where he had his best warriors and enfolded the English who eventually broke. As the English retreated, they suffered terrible casualties, so many that the Norwegians could walk dry-shod over the marshy ground.
Google Satelite view of the Battle of Fulford battle field. The stream/ditch the Viking lined up behind can be seen running East West just to the South of the road above the label Fulford Village Hall.
The jubilant Norwegians arranged the surrender of York without sacking it. It probably escaped because Tostig had come to England to reclaim the Earldom of Northumbria. It would be a bad start to slaughter the citizens of his capital city! Possibly they also wanted to get back to protect their boats. They matched to Stamford Bridge, to celebrate, rest and recover.
Things looked grim for the continuation of English rule over England,with Hardrada victorious in the North; a defeated Northern Army and the Normans with a huge invasion fleet ready to invade the South.
What I really admire are people who, through their sheer brain power, can change our views of the world. The first example that comes to mind is Newton’s insight that if the universe were infinite, the night sky would not be dark as everywhere there would be tiny pinpricks of starlight. So, we don’t live in a infinite universe. Another one is Einstein’s thought experiment that proves that time is relative. But see below for a description of that. But, now to John Goodricke and the Variable Star. (for Newton and the Maypole see my post here).
Goodricke
Last year in York, near the Minster, I saw the blue sign above. I thought, what on earth are ‘variable stars’? Behind me, I heard two women say something like. ‘Here it is,”variable stars”‘. I turned around and asked them what was a variable star?
‘Donno’ they said, ‘we’ve ‘just doing this escape room walk around York.’ They showed me a booklet they had received on the internet,. This is what I would call a treasure trail. Sadly, they showed no interest in finding out what a variable star is!
Aristotle and ancient philosophers held that the universe was unchanging and eternal. The first breach in that theory was the identification in 1638 of star Omicron Ceti. Johannes Holwarda discovered that the star pulsed on an 11-month cycle. This and the discovery, of supernovae (first observed in 1572), proved that the ‘The starry sky was not eternally invariable’. But there was, as yet, no explanation for the phenomena.
John Goodricke was educated at Thomas Braidwood‘s Academy, school for deaf pupils in Edinburgh, and Warrington Academy. He returned to live with his parents, who rented an apartment at the Treasurer’s Hall. This is near the Minister in York. He used a friend’s personal observatory to look for variable stars. He found two of the first 10, and was the first to propose a solution. This was that two stars orbited each other causing eclipses between them and the observer. Thus creating a variation in the light emitted. To be able to extrapolate from a simple observation, and provide an explanation which necessitates a complete rethink about the nature of the universe seems, to me, to be awesome.
Einstein’s Thought Experiment
Back to Einstein, his thought experiment was something like this:
A train is travelling through a station. There is an observer on the train towards the front, another on the platform as the train goes through. There are two simultaneous lighting strikes at either end of the train. The observer on the platform sees the strikes as simultaneous. Why? Because she is in the middle between the two lighting strikes and light travels at the same speed. The observer on the train who is near the front of the train will see the lighting strike at the front of the train before the light from the strike at the back of the train can reach him. It has further to go.
This means that time is not a constant, it is relative to the observer. And yet, we think of time as a constant, something that remorselessly ticks forward and which we cannot alter. But it isn’t.
On September 15th 1940 Ray Holmes, World War 2 RAF Pilot, flying a Hurricane, took on three Luftwaffe Bombers over Central London. He shot one down, chased another off and engaged the third which seemed to be heading for Buckingham Palace.
Between the 8th and 13th of September 1940, the Palace had been hit 5 times. The London Blitz had only ‘begun’ on September 7th though the first raid on the City of London was on the 25th August on Fore Street.
Holmes, by now had ran out of bullets, but deliberately targeted the fin of the Dornier Bomber, and crashed into it causing the bomber to crash down into Victoria Station. Holmes’ Hurricane, spiralled down out of control, but he was able to bail out and landed in a dustbin, much to the bemusement of the locals. Holmes died aged 90 in 2005.
This post is heavily based on the story below, where it is told in full detail.
