Medieval News and Such 3/2-3/8 2007

£2m Viking centre bid at Wirral

'Viking' gold ring finds new home


How Vikings Might Have Navigated on Cloudy Days

Medieval hoodie to join the ranks of Minster grotesques

A United Kingdom? Maybe

Church’s £54k heritage boost

Ancient guild hall marks 650th


3/2:
Saints:
St. Chad, bishop of Lichfield
Blessed Charles the Good, King, martyr Beheaded on 2 March 1127
St. Agnes of Prague, Poor Clare Franciscan
St. John Maron, First Patriarch of The Maronite Church

Birthday:
1316 Robert II of Scotland
1409 John II of Alençon, French soldier
1459 Adrian VI

Death:
672 St. Chad
986 Lothair, King of France
1127 Charles the Good
1316 Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert I of Scotland

Events:
274 Mani, prophet, founder of Manichaeism, dies in a Persian prison
462 Total Lunar eclipse
537 Siege of Rome by Goths (ends 12 March 538)
986 Louis V becomes King of France
1127 Murder of St. Charles the Good (the Dane)
1160 Excommunication of Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor
1296 Bull of Pope Boniface VIII "Clericis Laicos"
1316 Birth of King Robert II of Scotland
1458 George Podebrad elected King of Bohemia
1459 Pope Adrian VI
1484 Issuance of Letters Patent by King Richard III of England,
founding the English College of Arms
1492 Ferdinand V, King of Spain, banishes 800,000 Jews
1498 Vasco da Gama arrives in the Sultanate of Mozambique

3/3:
Saints:
St. Cunegundes, Holy Roman Empress
St. Winwaloc, Abbot and founder of Landevennec

Birthdays:
1455 King John II of Portugal (d. 1495)

Deaths:
1046 Sylvester III
1111 Bohemund I, Prince of Antioch
1239 Vladimir III Rurikovich, Grand Prince of Kiev
1459 Ausiàs March, Catalan poet

Events:
468 Simplicius I elected pope
1191 Philip II of France and his army leave Sicily
1431 Election of Pope Eugenius IV
1461 Edward IV takes possession of the English Crown
1497 All candidates for academic degrees at the Sorbonne required to
believe in the Immaculate Conception

3/4:
Saints:
St. Casimir of Poland
St. Peter of Pappacarbone

Birthday:
1133 Henry Plantagenet of Anjou, later to become Henry II, King of
England
1188 Blanche of Castile, wife of Louis VIII of France
1394 Prince Henry the Navigator, sponsor of Portuguese exploration.
1394 Don Pedro of Portugal; Henry the Navigator
1492 Francesco de Layolle, Italian composer

Death:
480 Saint Landry, Bishop of Seez
561 Pope Pelagius I
1172 Stephen III of Hungary
1193 al-Malik en Nasr Salah-ud-Din Yusuf ibn Yusuf (Saladin)at Damascus
1237 Joan of England, Queen Consort of Scotland, wife of Alexander I
1238 Yuri II, Grand Prince of Vladimir
1303 Daniel of Moscow, Russian Saint, Grand Prince of Muscovy
1484 Saint Casimir, Prince of Poland
1496 Sigismund of Austria

Events:
304 Martyrdom of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia.
852 Croatian Duke Trpimir I issued a statute, a document with the
first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources.
932 Translation of the relics of martyr Wenceslaus I, Duke of
Bohemia, Prince of the Czechs.
1152 Fredrick I "Barbarrossa" elected King of Germany
1194 Richard I of England and Queen Eleanor sail from Antwerp on the
"Trencheiner" for England
1215 King John of England makes an oath to the Pope as a crusader to
gain the support of Innocent III.
1222 Bretons defeat French
1238 The Battle of the Sit River was fought in the northern part of
the present-day Yaroslavl Oblast of Russia between the Mongol Hordes
of Batu Khan and the Russians under Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal
during the Mongol invasion of Russia.
1284 Statute of Rhuddlan
1275 Chinese astronomers observe a total eclipse of the sun.
1351 Ramathibodi becomes King of Siam.
1364 The Parliament of Scotland refuses to accept Edward III, King of
England, as King of Scots
1386 Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) was crowned King of Poland.
1461 Coronation of Edward IV, King of England; Wars of the Roses in
England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his Yorkist cousin,
who then becomes King Edward IV.
1492 King James IV of Scotland concludes an alliance with France
against England.
1493 Columbus returns to Lisbon, Portugal

3/5:
Saints:
St. Virgilius
St. Gerasimus, Abbot
St. Kieran of Saigher

Birthday:
1133 King Henry II of England
1324 David II, King of Scotland
1326 Louis I (the Great), king of Hungary & Poland

Death:
475 St. Gerasimus, who drew a thorn from the paw of a lion

Events:
363 Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90,000 to
attack the Sassanid Empire, in a campaign which will bring about his
own death.
1046 Naser Khosrow begins the seven-year Middle Eastern journey which
he will later describe in his book Safarnama.
1179 3rd Lateran Council (11th ecumenical council) opens in Rome
1380 Construction begins on St.Mary's College, Oxford, England
1432 Treaty of Rennes between France and Brittany
1496 England's Henry VII commissions John & Sebastian Cabot to
discover new lands

3/6:
Saints:
St. Chrodegang, bishop of Metz
Blessed Jolenta of Poland
St. Colette of Corbi

Birthday:
1340 John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster
1405 John II, King of Castile
1459 Jacob Fugger, German banker
1475 Michelangelo Buonarotti, sculptor and reluctant painter
1483 Francesco Guicciardini, Italian statesman and historian
1495 Luigi Alamanni, Italian poet

Death:
766 St. Chrodegang
1252 Saint Rose of Viterbo, Italian saint
1447 St. Colette; Nicholas V elected Pope
1490 Ivan the Young, Ruler of Tver

Events:
203 Martyrdom of Sts. Perpetua and Felicity
1079 Omar Khayyám completes the Iranian calendar.
1204 Phillip Augustus of France captures Chateau Galliard
1428 Joan of Arc arrives at the Chateau de Chinon
1447 Election of Pope Nicholas V
1454 Thirteen Years' War: Delegates of the Prussian Confederation
pledged allegiance to Casimir IV of Poland, and the Polish king agreed
to help in their struggle for independence from the Teutonic Knights.
Casimir IV takes parts of Prussia into Poland
1480 Treaty of Alcacovas gives the Canary Islands to Spain



3/7:
Saints:
Our Lady of Nazaré (Nazareth), Patron of Portugal Instituted 14th century
Perpetua and Felicity

Birthday:
189 Publius Septimius Geta, Roman Emperor
1481 Baldassare Peruzzi, Italian architect and painter


Death:
161 Antonius Pius, Emperor of Rome
308 Saint Eubulus, Christian martyr
851 Nominoe, Duke of Brittany
1111 Bohemond I of Tarente
1226 William de Longespee, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, English military leader
1274 St. Thomas Aquinas
1307 Edward I, King of England

Events:
161 Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius dies and is succeeded by
co-Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, an unprecedented
political arrangement in the Roman Empire.
321 Roman Emperor Constantine I decrees that the dies Solis Invicti
(sun-day) is the day of rest in the Empire.
851 Death of the King of Brittany Nominoë in Vendome.
1080 Excommunication of Henry IV, King of Germany
1138 Conrad III again chosen King of Germany
1190 Jews are massacred by rioters, Stamford-fair, England
1229 Frederick II, excommunicate, crowns himself King of Jerusalem
1277 Condemnation of 219 philosophical and theological theses by
Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris.



3/8:
Saints:
St. Ogmund, bishop of Holar

Birthday:
1286 John III, Duke of Brittany
1495 St. John of God


Death:
648 St. Felix of Dunwich
690 St. Julian of Toledo
1126 Urraca of Castile
1144 Pope Celestine II
1202 Sverre of Norway
1223 Wincenty Kadłubek, Polish chronicler

Events:
1198 Election of Phillip, King of Germany


Words of the Week:

faggot-this word has an interesting history before the 20th century transforms it into new meanings. Originally an Italian word faggotto, or fangotto, and diminutive of the Vulgar Latin *facus, from Classical Latin fascis, a bundle of wood. It first appears in English as "bundle of wood" and was probably borrowed directly from Old French fagot, as intermediary between the Italian and English. It isn't until the 16th century that we have some interesting uses: first to refer to the punishment of heretics, fire and faggot a common reference to the burning of hereitcs; recanted heretics in England wore "the faggot", an embroidered emblem on their arm to signify their status. Late in the century the term also comes to refer negatively to a woman, particularly an old, unpleasent women possibly from the fact that old, poor, women could often be seen about a town or village gathering faggots as a way to earn enough income to keep going. This latter meaning survived into modern English at least in England. The first application to men comes about 1700 where it refers to men who have been quickly hired to make up the numbers of the roll in a regiment, hence a "dummy". The term used to apply to homosexual males stems from WWI and first appears in print in 1914. It could possibly stem from the negative application to women, thus a homosexual male is a "faggot", an unpleasent woman and the Yiddish faygele may help reinforce the association of faggot/fag with the homosexual male. That's a long way from a bundle of sticks in the Cursor Mundi!

Quote of the Week:

For in all adversity of fortune the worst sort of misery is to have been happy. Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy

Random Site of the Week:

Classical Art in the Middle Ages

Medieval TV:

After The Dark Ages aired last week kicking THC's "Barbarians Week", etc, there doesn't appear to be much medieval TV for the week. But I did uncover this:

Mar 13 Travel Channel Passport to Europe with Sandra Brown will air a program on Reykjavik, Iceland and talk some about its foundation and Viking past.