St. Martin was a Roman soldier, who turned into a Christian ascetic. Later he was adopted as a national saint for France, as well as a soldier of Christ. His final disguise, though, was as a popular saint

While St. Martin was busy competing with other national saints, he was also recruited as a prominent player in the Benedictine reform movement. Launched by Abbot Odo of Cluny in the 10th century, it set its mark on the coming millennium. In 903 the great Basilica at Tours had burned to the ground. Odo, who witnessed this event in his youth, relived the horror in the 940s, and used it as inspiration for a famous sermon, “de combustione”, in which Odo presented the fire as a divine reprobation prompted by the sinful life, the wasteful sloth, and especially their luxurious clothes and impure lifestyle, which characterised the monastic and ecclesial communities at Tours. Through this sermon, Odo peddled his Cluniac version of monastic reform to his listeners and readers claiming St Martin as its spearhead. In tune with this, Odo returned to Tours when he was dying.

Odo’s endeavour was without a doubt widely successful. Just as important, though, was the German Reform Movement, which originated in 933 at the Abbey of Gorze, near Trier. This Abbey was dedicated to yet another high-ranking Roman officer, Gorgonius of Rome, an early Christian martyr. The location of the Abbey of Gorze, near another famous Abbey at Tholey, dedicated to St. Maurice, and the less prominent Abbey of St. Martin at Trier, indicates that the frontier between East and West was peopled with competing soldier-saints, all ready to be enrolled in the project of civilising both rulers, religious institutions, and their dependant warriors, as well as enhancing the status and power of their respective realms. To this might be added St. George, who entered the Pantheon from the south (Greece and Italy).

St. Martin and his Cloak

St. Martin, though, succeeded where others failed in also becoming a particularly popular saint. It is likely this fame rested upon what seems for us to be the primary symbol of his life, the miracle of how St Martin shared his cloak with a beggar and discovered in his dream, it was Jesus, he had encountered.

Curiously enough, though, this vignette – called the Charity of St. Martin – had not been part of the visual repertoire until the 10th century. The scene is first found in the so-called Fuldaer Sakramentar from c. 997 – 1011 (Udine, Biblioteca Capitolare, Cod. 76 V – (Udine, Biblioteca Capitolare, Cod. 76 V).

Although St. Martin was widely venerated, traces of earlier paintings narrating events from his vita are sorely missing. It has been suggested that the painting in the manuscript from Fulda is a copy of a painting found on the walls of the Basilica in Tours, which burned down in 903, but this is just speculation. Until then, Martin would solely be rendered in the form of portraits or as bishop. A fine example is an ivory cover to a manuscript from c. 800 – 900, where the beggar is seen at the top, with a teaching bishop below (Berlin, destroyed in 1945). Notably, though, the sharing of the mantel is not featured. Rather, Martin is presented as a bishop engaged in teaching.

Was the story of the beggar suppressed until the 11th and 12th century because it did not fit with the propriety of a saintly bishop? Ælfric was an English Abbot (955 – 1010) and a prolific writer of all sorts of texts – hagiographies, homilies, biblical commentaries, and involved in promoting the English version of the Benedictine reform. In connection with his writings, he became extensively fascinated by St Martin of Tours, who ended up figuring in both his collection of Homilies and his Lives of Saints. In these writings he reused nearly everything, he might lay his hands on from Sulpicius’ early vita to the writings of Gregory of Tours. The interesting question is how he chose to present the holy man to his listeners. In what way did Ælfrics St Martin differ from that of the early biographers? First of all, it appears as if Ælfric chose to ignore Martin’s military career, obviously troubling for a man of the cloth bent on promoting a more civilised world than the very violent one, in which he was living. But also his asceticism and humility seem to have troubled Ælfric, finding it might subtract from his moral status as a bishop, proper. Nowhere is this as evident as in the story of St Martin sharing his tunic. Sulpicius writes that his fellow soldiers laughed at Martin because he was he was unsightly and only half clad. In Ælfric’s writings, however, the holy man is not the object of scorn, instead, the mutilated garment is the cause of their merriment. One might say that Ælfric’s Martin is a sanitised and dignified version. Decorum obviously had to be preserved in late 10th century Anglo-Saxon England. As such, the story of St. Martin and the pauper had to be cleaned up. Dignity, as well as charity, were both important virtues to pursue and preserve at the turn of the first millennium.

In this connection, we might study the illuminations from the Fuldaer Sakramentar (featured above). Careful study of this manuscript, have shown that it was produced at Fulda, but for the use at the bishopric at Hamburg-Bremen. This is probably the reason why the central vignettes – apart from those derived from the scriptures – show missionary events: The baptism and martyrdom of St Bonifatius, the martyrdom of St Paul and St Peter, the martyrdom of St Lawrence, All Saints, the gift of the half mantel to the beggar by St. Martin, and finally the martyrdom of St. Andrew. The choice of miniatures shows the manuscript was made for an episcopal sea overseeing a new missionary field, Scandinavia. Looking at the painting showing St. Martin we notice that what he is sharing is indeed his mantle (and not his tunic as Sulpicius writes). We also see that he does not share his warm hoses, nor his shoes. There are limits to Martin’s generosity, it seems.

A Generous Church

Why would the story of St. Martin sharing his cloak with the beggar suddenly begin to figure more prominently in the 10th and 11th centuries? We might speculate that the church needed the story for two reasons. One was to reaffirm its central role at a time when royal protection for the older religious institutions was harder to come by. To some extent, the religious landscape was shifting with new saints cropping up and others on the wane. To bolster its institutions, the church sought on the one hand to reform itself; on the other hand to position itself as the protector of ordinary people (beggars). Balancing between these considerations was not easy, but a carefully manicured St. Martin might be perfect for the role.

On the other hand, the balance could easily be tipped. An anecdote told of Henry II and Thomas Beckett, while the latter was still chancellor of England, recounts how the two were riding merrily along on one hard winter’s night. Encountering a beggar in the street, the King began to taunt Beckett, prompting him to give up his coat of scarlet cloth lined with grey pelts. “You shall have the credit of this charity”, said the King to the Chancellor, who fought to keep his precious and very valuable cloak. To the merriment and boisterous joy of the king’s men riding behind. No wonder, most late medieval depictions of St. Martin and the Beggar show a luxuriously clad noble sharing a shanty cloak with pitiful freezing beggar!

The winter feast of St. Martin had early on been considered a day of reckoning. November was the end of the agricultural season, when peasants would take stock of their animals, deciding how many might overwinter, and which had to bleed (the month was called “blood-month). This was the time of abundance and the time for calling in rents to be paid. Greedy hands of sheriffs, reeves, and priests demanded their due as well as the choice cuts. At the same time, though, this was also the time for paying servants in kind, distributing their allowance in the form of new shoes and clothes.

Martinmas was definitely a day of reckoning. But it was also an important feast day celebrated with gluttony all over Europe. With abundant meat, wine, and beer, this was arguably the party of the year, perhaps even more so than Christmas and Carnival. Regarding money laid out by accountants, it is possible to see that the feast around Martinmas was ocasionally three times as expensive as that of Christmas and Epiphany. As such, the feast varied from place to place. In England, the main fare was beef, while geese came to be symbolic elements wherever they played a role in the local agrarian economy. In Southern Europe, Martinmas heralded the tasting of the new wine or must. No wonder “ Martinsman” in a Dutch and German context came to mean a jovial drunkard.

What was served? Beef, mutton, calves feet, and pies filled with “numbles”, that is the innards of deers, one source from Southern England from 1492 tells us. From Germany we hear of a present of a goose as early as in 1171. Later songs from the 14th century also document this traditional fare.

SOURCES:

Der Ursprung des Martinsfestes
Von Carl Vlemen
In: Zeitschrift für Vereiens für Volskunde. (1918), pp. 1 – 14

Geiteilte Mantel, Ein Hauch von Fasching und ein neuer Martinskult. Die Verehrund des Martin in der Frühen Neuzeit.
Von Martin Scheutz.
In: Archiv für Kulturgeschichte (2016) Vol 98, 1  pp. 95 – 134

Medieval English “Martinmesse”: The Archaeology of a Forgotten Festival
By Martin W. Walsh
In: Folklore (2000) Vol 11, No 2, pp. 231 -254

Af Mortensgaasens Historie
By R. Paulli and Marius Kristensen
In: Danske Studier (1932) pp. 166 – 170

The Old English Lives of St. Martin of Tours. Edition and Study
By Andre Mertens.
Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2017

Beggar’s Saint but no Beggar: Martin of Tours in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints.
By Karin E. Olsen
In: Neophilologus (2004) Vol 88, pp. 461 – 475

 

 

 

 

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The “Martin” of the 7^th to 10^th centuries was not the ascetic bishop of the 5^th century. The leopard changed its spots and became a National Frankish saint and a budding Christian Knight

At the same time as Gregory positioned St. Martin as the spearhead for Tours as an important pilgrimage centre, he also made an effort to frame the holy man as the National Frankish Saint. Nowhere is this more evident than in Gregory’s retelling of the preparations, Clovis took before his war against the Visigoths in 507. According to Gregory, the Merovingian king passed through Tours on his way with his army towards Poitiers. At Tours, Clovis commanded his army to desist from pillaging the town and the countryside. “How might we gain a victory if the holy Martin is angered” are the words put into the royal mouth by the historian. Also, the king is reported to have sent messengers with gifts to all the churches dedicated to St Martin, thus supplicating him for signs of victory as well as divine assistance. After the victorious battle at Voully, Clovis is said to have donated part of the spoils to St Martin in Tours.

Of particular importance was the later veneration of the half mantel or cape of St Martin, said to have been kept as a relic at Tours. In the original vitae, we hear of a “tunica” or “chlamys”. Later Merovingian sources (c. 650 – 660), renamed the vestment a “capella”, while more than a hundred years later, in Carolingian times, the vestment was called a “capa”. Exactly when this relic was adopted as the treasured symbol of the Merovingian Kings’ divine approbation is not known. But the reverence attached to the relic can be dated at least to the mid 7thcentury. Thus the “Cappa” is mentioned in documents from 679 and 682 as part of the royal treasury. At this point, the piece of cloth had already been taken from Tours and brought to Paris, where it came to be kept safe in a special oratory, or “Cappella”. Soon after, however, the mantle may have fallen into the hands of Pippin of Herstal (635 – 714) father of Charles Martel (688 – 741) and Grimoald († 714), who is said to be its keeper in 709 (Capellanus). From here, the treasured piece of cloth came to gird the power base of the Carolingians. In connection with this should be noted the many churches dedicated to St Martin in the power base of the Carolingians: Utrecht, Cologne, Würzburg and elsewhere. Finally, it is significant that the Bavarian Duke Tassilo (741 – 796) had to swear allegiance to Pippin the Short (714 – 751) in 757 on St. Dionysius, Germanus and Martin. This event probably took place at St. Germain de Pres in Paris. Perhaps the mantel was kept there in its “Cappela”? Anyway, at this point, it was likely not the half mantel, but rather a cloth, which had been used to cover the tomb of the saint at his burial. As such, it was used as a standard carried in front of The Frankish Army and into battle.

Italy

In the same way, as Martin was enrolled as a Christian knight whenever heathens or Arians were fought, he was fitted with a similar disguise in Italy. Here, one of the first churches consecrated to St Martin was the Arian Basilica in Ravenna. Erected by the Ostrogoth King, Theoderic the Great as his palace church during the first part of the 6thcentury, the basilica was re-consecrated as Catholic in 561 under the name of St Martin in the Golden Heaven – Sanctus Martinus in Coeli Aureo. As the golden mosaics were perhaps covered up, the new name was a misnomer until Bishop Agnellus fifty years later had the two bands of virgins and martyrs made. The latter parade was led by St Martin, in a red cloak, perhaps signalling his “imperial” connection. Already at this point, he is a curious mixture of monk and soldier, if not a leader of men. The mosaic is the first visual rendition of St. Martin.

Anglo-Saxon England

At this point, the cult of St Martin was also being exported to England as part of the missionary efforts of Gregory the Great. One of the significant frontiers was Anglo-Saxon England, and it is no wonder, the very first church either renovated or built from new after the arrival of Queen Bertha of Kent c. 580, was consecrated to Martin. Bertha was a Frankish princess, who seems to have brought her favourite royal saint to the English shores of her new pagan home. Bede later claimed that St Martin’s was a derelict church from the late Roman period. Whether or not this was the case is uncertain. We do know, though, that the church was built with Roman bricks and a full section of the wall is Roman. It is not known whether the building was originally a church, a mausoleum, or something entirely different. Later, when St Augustine arrived in 597, the church was turned into his headquarter and renovated. It still stands and is designated as part of our UNESCO World Heritage.

It has been speculated that the consecration of the church to S. Martin reflected not just aspirations of a homesick princess, but an early local tradition of the veneration of St Martin in Celtic Ireland and Britain. Bede mentions the erection of a church at Whithorn built in 397 to commemorate St Martin. Other early St Martin’s churches can be found in Cornwall, in Somerset, and even more intriguing, at Brampton, where it was built within the confines of a former Roman fort on the Wall of Hadrian. Other evidence is the eight wells dedicated to St Martin. A later gazetteer from 1914 counts 173 dedications to St Martin, although most of some of these are arguably much later.

Especially noteworthy are the vernacular translations of his life, which date to the 10thcentury. In these, the figure of St Martin was fashioned not only as an exemplary missionary, monk, and bishop, in which role he was aligned with the Benedictine revival but also as a man willing to take the fight to its absolute end. Thus he was inferred to have acted as inspiration for two Anglo-Saxon kings, Sigeberht and St Edmund, who both – according to Bede respectively Ælfric – chose to lay down their weapons, while confronting their enemies.

Norman England and Scandinavia

After the invasion in 1066, St Martin experienced a revival. Perhaps, to use him in their personal endeavours to “reimagine” the Duchy of Normandy as on par with a proper kingdom, the military saint became especially revered by the Normans. Did they perhaps play with the idea of confiscating the National French Saint? We know that while churches consecrated to St Martin were old and scarce in Anglo-Saxon England, they were liberally spread over Northern France and might be counted in the hundreds. Germane to this, the so-called Battle Abbey, founded by William after the conquest in 1066 was named “Sancto Martino de Bello” (St Martin of the War). Legend has it that the Abbey was either built as penance for William’s conquest, or as gratitude for his victory. According to the Chronicon de Bello, William swore on the battle-ground to found an Abbey, where monks might “dwell together for the salvation of all, but especially those who should fall in the battle”. It is further told that a monk, who was a former member of the ducal retinue but now professed at Marmoutier, claimed the new abbey for the French national saint. Another church named after the saint and under the purview of the new king was St Martin’s Le Grand in London, which William favoured with donations in 1068. The church may have dated to the 7thcentury. In 1056 it was, however, rebuilt. This particular church was responsible for sounding the curfew bell signalling the closing of the gates of the city.

The affinity between the Normans and St Martin may have reached further. When Emma of Normandy died in 1052, she was not buried next to her husband, Cnut, but rather in St Martin’s in Winchester. Further, according to a legend told by the Danish historian Sven Aggesen in his Brevis Historia Regum Dacie from c. 1186, King Cnut the Great c. 1020 claimed the relics of the Saint at Tours and forcefully transported them to Rouen. Generally believed to be a myth, it is nevertheless remarkable that the Cathedral in Lund, the first of which was built during his reign, was later said to possess relics of St Martin. It is likely this story was swirling around the court of Valdemar I, where Sven seems to have been part of the “Thinglied” (the royal retinue). As a descendant of one of Cnut’s men, he may also have heard the story in his childhood.

There might be a small kernel of truth in the story. In Scandinavia, St Martin was apparently one of the saints introduced as part of the first missionary effort in the 11thcentury. Apart from the documented relics, the saint was listed in the earliest calendar from Lund. Another indication is a small early wooden church believed to have been built beneath the stone church of St Marten (or Maarten) from c. 1100. This places the wooden church (documented through burials) in the first half of the 11thcentury at a time when Lund was the metropolis of Cnut the Great and his descendants. From the same period, a Swedish fragment of a missal is preserved witnessing to a vibrant cult of St Martin further east.

Germany

After the civil war in the 9thcentury between the grandsons of Charlemagne, Martin had to compete on quite another level with yet a contender to the saintly royal pantheon, St Maurice d’Agaune († 290). He was the leader of a legendary Theban legion stationed in the foothills of the Alps at Agaune in. The legionaries were Christians, who defied the Roman Emperor by taking a stand against his orders to persecute their fellow men. St Maurice was early on adopted as the national saint by the Burgundians, whose kingdom the Franks conquered in 532 at the Battle of Vézeronce. Despite this, the Burgundian kingdom continued to resurface during the next centuries. These events secured the continued significance of the Abbey at Augune and its two royal saints St Maurice and Sigismund († 524). After the division in 843 of the Frankish kingdom into three parts, the strip between the realm of Charles the Bald and Louis the German fell to Lothar and his son. This led to a continued series of wars between the two remaining grandsons and their heirs until Rudolf I succeeded in being crowned as king of Burgundy in 888 at St Maurice d’Agaune. During the 10thcentury, the Saxon rulers of Germany succeeded in incorporating the Burgundian kingdom into their sphere of interest. Doubtless, this was confirmed through the adoption of the St. Maurice as the national saint of Germany. Especially, Otto the Great (912 – 973) showed a disproportionate interest in marketing this saint as “German”. In 937, Otto founded a Benedictine Abbey in Magdeburg, dedicated to St. Mauritius, who received substantial relics from Augune in 960. His first wife, Edgitha, was buried there, not far from the later Cathedral of which construction began in 955. At least since 965, Mauritius was appointed the personal patron of the emperor and his family. Afterwards, Mauritius was the official German saint entrusted with keeping the Holy Roman Empire safe. The explanation is not complicated to identify. Since the Early Middle Ages, St Mauritius was the guardian of the pass at Great Saint Bernhard. Thus he was also the guardian of the western passage through the Alps to Italy and the key to holding the imperial crown.

Although it was only later the Holy Lance was (falsely) identified as having been in the keep of St Mauritius in his lifetime, it is significant that this imperial insignia was to be joined so manifestly together with the national saint of the German Empire. While the French and Anglo-Saxon kept St Martin close by, the Germans adopted a competitive saint, St Mauritius as the Miles Christi, par excellence.

FEATURED PHOTO:

Pendant from the Canterbury Hoard © British Museum

SOURCES:

The History of the Franks
By Gregory of Tours
Penguin 1974.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soldiers of Christ: Saints and Saint’s Lives from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages
By Thomas F. X. Noble and Thomas Head
Penn State Press 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helden und Heilige. Kulturelle und literarische Integrationsfiguren des europäischen Mittelalters.
Ed. by Andreas Hammer, Stephanie Seidl, Jan-Dirk Müller and Peter Strohschneider
Heidelberg, Winter Verlag 2011

 

 

 

The post The European Fame of St Martin of Tours – from National Saint to Christian Knight appeared first on Medieval Histories.

In the 6^thcentury, Martin of Tours was recruited to bolster the fame and position of his successors as a prestigious miracle-worker.

At first, Martin was solely venerated inside the charmed circle of Sulpicius and his friends at Primuliacum, a villa in Aquitaine, which Sulpicius had turned into a monastery. To him and his friends, St Martin was the ascetic par excellence, who had been able to square this ideal with his role as both an ideal bishop and an active missionary taking his faith to the pagi in the countryside. Nowhere is this more evident, but in the characterisation of St Martin, which dignitaries voiced, when Martin was presented as a bishop-in-spe. We hear that they were “impiously offering resistance, asserting forsooth that Martin’s person was contemptible, that he was unworthy of the episcopate, that he was a man despicable in countenance, that his clothing was mean, and his hair disgusting.” (Vita of St. Martin by Sulpicus Severus, chapter 9).

Celtic Fringe

Notwithstanding, Martin was not easy to keep within bounds. Soon after his death, he must have been exported to the British Isles. We know that Christianity was well established in the British Isles in the 5th century as witnessed by the early Irish history as well as the writings of Bede. While St Patrick may have been the Irish saint par excellence, it is nevertheless remarkable that also St Martin was celebrated as a Celtic saint as early as the 6th century. An important witness is the Book of Armagh (Dublin, Trinity College MS 52, which included not only several texts relating to St Patrick, but also the vita of St Martin by Sulpicius. St Martin was celebrated not only at Armagh but also at Bangor.

More significant, though, veneration for the saint can be found in the letters of Columbanus and his vita by Jonas of Bobbio. Arguably, these Celtic Saints found in St. Martin a ready exemplar for their particular kind of ascetic monasticism and missionary work. Later, in the 8th century, St. Martin was even proclaimed to have been the uncle of St Patrick, while Ninian was his pupil. In this Celtic context, St Martin kept his “original” profile as Ascetic Bishop, while being re-exported to the continent by Columbanus and his friends.

Merovingian France

In 6th century Merovingian France, this “Martin” was nevertheless becoming more controversial. Now, Martin was obliged to make his career as a saint in a entirely different world. No longer, the Christian church was paving its way inside a classical Roman landscape. In 418, the Arian Visigoths set up headquarters in Toulouse, while the Burgundians in 443 settled in the Savoy region. Later in the 470s, the Franks gradually took over Northern France. Had another champion not taken Martin up, he might very well have suffered the same fate as other saints from the 4th century, obscurity turning into slow oblivion.

However, fist St. Brise and later Perpetuus, Bishop of Tours in the later 5th century, adopted Martin and established him as the protective saint of the city. By venerating his relics and not least setting the date of his funeral at Tours as the feast day, they presented this rather insignificant town with a critical anode. Primary feast day became the 11th of November, the day of his translation and burial at Tours. However, the fourth of July was also marked out in the calendar celebrating the day of his election to a bishop. In general, his feast was celebrated as duplex (highly graded).

St Brice and especially Perpetuus provided the first liturgical identity of St. Martin. Furthermore, Perpetuus enlarged the burial monument (built by St. Brice) into a proper church, which might cater for pilgrims. Finally, he commissioned the poet, Paulinus of Périgueux, to sanitise and versify the prose vita of Sulpicius.

Later, in the second half of the 6th century, his fame was further kindled through the poetry of Venantius Fortunatus and the prose-writings of Gregory of Tours. Best known for his history of France, the latter also published a series of four books filled with miracles wrought at the grave of St Martin. More importantly, though, Gregory was responsible for transferring some of Martin’s relics to other bishoprics – among those Cambrai, Avranches, Saintes, and Bordeaux, thus forging new Martinian cults.

Close readings of his writings inform us that Gregory was deeply involved in promoting Martin as both a local and a global saint. His promotional pitches in the form of sharing out the relics as well as composing the collections of miracle stories helped to achieve this goal. St. Martin was no longer just an admirable man. He had become an influential broker in a world, which had come to adopt relics and miracles as important modes of re-orientation.

SOURCE:

Liber de passione et virtutibus sancti Iuliani martyris und Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi,
in: Raymond Van Dam (ed.), Saints and their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul, Princeton 1993, 153-317.

 

 

 

 

 

 

READ MORE

The First Two Centuries of Saint Martin of Tours
By Allan Scott McKinley
In: Early Medieval Europe 2006. Vol 14, No 2, pp 173 – 200.

Les réseaux martiniens en Irlande Médievale.
By Jean-Michel Picard.
In: Annales de Bretagne et de Pays de l’Ouest 2012, p. 41 – 54.

Martin von Tours.
By Martin Heinzelmann.
In: Germanische Alterumskunde Online: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol 19 (2001)

Les abbayes martiniennes
Ed. by Bruno Judic and Christine Bousquet-Labouérie
Annales de Bretagne et de Pays de l’Ouest, 2012, Vol 119, No 3

 

 

 

The post Martin of Tours in the 6th century – from Ascetic Saint to Local Miracle Worker appeared first on Medieval Histories.

by Mary Jo McConahay

In pre-Columbian times, Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park was a verdant space reserved for the rest and recreation of Aztec rulers. Today it is a fifteen-hundred-acre oasis in the middle of the largest Spanish-speaking city in the world. In the park stands a castle where six “Boy Heroes” fell, military cadets defending a hill against U.S. troops in 1847 during the Mexican-American War.

Ironically, another monument stands nearby, this one commemorating a Mexican air unit that flew under U.S. command in World War II. The Mexican Air Force Squadron 201, nicknamed the “Aztec Eagles” by its members, consisted of three hundred pilots and crew trained in the United States who made bombing runs over Luzon and Formosa in 1945 and ferried aircraft from Papua New Guinea to Pacific theater airfields for Allies fighting Japan. Eight of the Aztec Eagles were killed in the line of duty.

But don’t expect to find the monument to the World War II fliers by asking directions from Mexicans enjoying the park.

“There is a Metro station named for them, I know that,” said one person I asked, the first to show a spark of recognition about the squad.

I approached two indigenous-looking men before a giant ahuehuete, a Montezuma cypress. They said they had been praying at the tree, a species sacred to native people. We stood no more than a hundred feet from the flying Aztecs’ monument, a massive stepped semicircle standing at least a story high, but they said they had not heard of the squadron. “We do not concern ourselves with war,” said one, Tenoch, who identified himself as a Nahuatl priest.

The big monument to the Aztec Eagles and the little excitement their name arouses is a contrast that symbolizes Mexico’s split attitude toward participation in the war. Both Washington and Mexico City knew some military participation was necessary to ensure that Mexico would have a seat at the table in the new postwar world order. But for historical reasons, supporting Washington was not a popular cause among the Mexi can people. The United States was the Big Brother to the north who had taken away a large chunk of Mexican territory and threw a long shadow over the country.

Toward the war’s end, however, Mexican president Manuel Ávila Camacho found a way to support the Allies militarily with a pretext that played upon Mexican pride. In May 1942, two Mexican tankers supplying oil to the United States had been sunk by U-boats, one on the way to New York, the other returning from Pennsylvania. Mexico declared war on the Axis. In 1944, President Ávila Camacho sent the aerial fighter squadron to fight with the Allies and “to clean the national honor” for Mexico’s sunken ships.

As they trained in Texas and Idaho, the Aztec Eagles sometimes faced discrimination.

“The Americans looked down on us at least a little bit,” Captain Reynaldo Gallardo recalled in 2003 in an interview for a San Diego, California, newspaper. “They didn’t say so, but I noticed it. We made up our minds that we wouldn’t say anything, but instead would show these people what we had.”

On a combined U.S.-Mexican sortie in the Philippines, Gallardo, attached to the 58th U.S. Fighter Group, completed his mission of strafing a line of Japanese troops and vehicles. As he pulled up, he “got a little crazy” and maneuvered his plane into a celebratory roll, a move that earned him a scolding over the intercom as a “crazy Mexican.” Gallardo found this offensive and blindly challenged the offender. On the ground, he saw that the American was “three times as big and four times as heavy,” wearing a big grin on his face. They fought anyway, fortunately for Gallardo a mere tussle, but the Mexican’s spunk earned him respect among the pilots. The gladiators became fast friends, breaking the ice between the Mexican and American airmen.

After the war, the Aztec Eagles were welcomed back home with a grand parade in Mexico City before being promptly shuttled into the background of the national landscape. The Mexicans received new fighter aircraft and other war matériel through the U.S. Lend-Lease program that aided U.S. allies. But the image of a fighting partnership with Washington did not fit the Mexican profile of independence from the United States. Ávila Camacho’s successor, Miguel Alemán Valdés, turned his back on much of what his predecessor had done—and besides, no one in the ruling party wanted to entertain the prospect of war heroes competing with its handpicked, old-boy network candidates for political offices. The flying veterans faded into history, despite some ceremonial appearances over the years.

Mexico City’s American Legion post in a charming old house in the leafy Condessa district is one of the few places the fliers are remembered. The post is a comfortable relic of another time, with a bar that opens at 2:00 p.m., a used bookstore, and memorabilia adorning the walls, including a photo of poet Alan Seeger—uncle of American folk singer Pete Seeger—who died at the Battle of the Somme in World War I. A secretary named Margarita dug out photos of the handsome young men of the Aztec Eagles for me. In some they posed with the propeller aircraft they flew, Thunderbolt single-seat fighters. In the past, Margarita said, the post hosted celebrations on Veterans Day—11/11 at 11:00 a.m.—“for those who came back alive.” On Memorial Day, the Aztec Eagles joined American Legionnaires and U.S. Marines from the embassy at a cemetery to honor the dead. Mostly, however, the fliers were forgotten warriors in a country where the man on the street had little interest in the Second World War—even though Mexico had played an important part in supplying manpower to replace U.S. agricultural workers gone to fight, and providing oil and other natural resources.

“We fought in defense of sovereignty and independence of the nation,” said former sergeant Héctor Tello Pineda of Xalapa, Veracruz, in a televised interview before his death in 2017. Tello, who entered the Mexican forces at age twenty, said the experience “shaped” him for the rest of his life.

“We did our duty as soldiers, and we did it with valor and discipline for the liberty of Mexico,” he said. “For the whole world. Because in reality, it was a world war. That’s what it was called.”

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Born in Chicago, MARY JO MCCONAHAY is an award-winning reporter who covered the wars in Central America and economics in the Middle East. She has traveled in seventy countries and has been fascinated by the history of World War II since childhood, when she listened to the stories of her father, a veteran U.S. Navy officer. A graduate of the University of California in Berkeley, she covers Latin America as an independent journalist. Her previous books include Maya Road and Ricochet. She lives in San Francisco.

The post The Aztec Eagles of WWII: Mexican Air Force Squadron 201 appeared first on The History Reader.

Among medieval historians, Laxton in Nottinghamshire is famous. As the last Open Field Village it offers a unique showcase of what England once looked like.

Laxton with its open fields and its heritage is quite unique. Once, England was littered with villages like it, but now only Laxton in Nottinghamshire is the only one remaining feudal estate is up for sale. For £7 mill a new proprietor can become lord of the manor including owner of 17 working farms, ten cottages, the Dovecote Inn and a title. Moreover, he or she can become responsible for the last remaining bit of English countryside still farmed as it has since the 13^thcentury.

Laxton is mentioned in Domesday (1086) as home to 35 households including a manor, which in 1066 was held by Toki, son of Auti. With 22 villagers, 7 small holders, five slaves and one female slave, we may presume approximately 125 – 150 people lived in the village farming the land with the help of seven plough teams, one of which belonged to the lord. In 1086, however, Walter had taken over, with a tenant-in-chief Geoffrey Alselin. The latter was responsible for overseeing 21 villages in the triangle between Nottingham, Lincoln, and Chesterfield. Mainly, they had been taken over from Toki. At this time, no parish church is mentioned. Whether or not the settlement constituted a village at this point or rather was composed of dispersed farmsteads is possible, if not probable.

It seems likely, the church was first founded a hundred years later during the reign of Henry I. Later, after 1258, this building was extended by the Everingham family, who also used it for the family burials. The church holds the effigy of Robert Everingham † 1287, who made Laxton his principal home. Effigies may also be seen of Adam de Everingham 1280 – 1336 with his two wives,Clarice and Margery, and his son, Adam de Everingham the Younger, who fought at Cressy and died in 1371.

In the Norman times, the village came to hold a Norman Castle with a small, strongly defended motte and inner bailey covering c. 1.5 ha. To the south was an outer bailey, somewhat larger, and abutting the northern hall lane of the village. The village itself was a typical “row village”, with farms built on long regulated plots to the north and south of the main road, and with the village church and green at the transection of the westerly and southerly roads. It is likely the east row is the earliest part of the village.

This castle was not the caput of the estate of Geoffrey Alselin. However in the 12^thcentury, his daughter married Robert de Caux, who was appointed keeper of the Nottingham forest. During his lordship, the castle was constructed to furnish the household of a privileged royal servant. In 1204, a hall is documented. Ten years ago, archaeologists undertook a detailed topographic survey of the castle site and concluded that this hall had probably stood in the outer bailey along with a dovecote, built c. 1213 – 14. The Motte stands c. 10 m high and is surrounded by a ditch. Later a manor house was built in the 16^thcentury, turning the medieval castle into a ruin pilfered for building materials. The grounds surrounding the motte were laid out as a garden with fish-ponds.

It is likely, the regulated village dates from the late 12^thcentury. On the other hand, the regulation may also herald from the reign of John, into whose royal hands, the castle eventually passed. It has been proposed that Laxton at this time may have played a role as a small town with a market. Witness to its affluence at this time is the £100, which the village men paid to King John to prevent his sheriff to burn down the village. Soon after, in the 1230s, the lords of Lexton lost their status as Keepers of the Royal Forests, and the village fell back into slow degradation.

This continued in the 14^thcentury when the lowering of rents indicates the village was severely hit by the Black Death and the following migration into the larger cities. After this, the village slowly froze in time. In 1438, it was passed on the family Ross and remained in their costudy for the next 200 years, until it was acquired by the Earls of Kingston in 1618.

During the next centuries numerous owners kept the place going until 1952, when the 6^thearl of Manvers sold Laxton to the government on the condition the open-field system should be maintained. Until then, fragmented ownership had obstructed enclosure.

Today, the village is pretty much farmed in the same way as may be seen in a map from 1635, kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.  It comprises 1,845 acres, including 525 acres unenclosed open fields. The farming is organised according to the decisions made by the Laxton Court Leet, the ancient manorial court, which meet twice yearly to deal with business.

Laxton is located quite near the Sherwood Forest and barely 7 miles from Edwinstowe, where the man behind the legend of Robin Hood, Robert Godbed, probably originated.

SOURCE

The Laxton Estate
By Carter Jonas
The Crown Estate 2018

SEE MORE

 

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by Bradley W. Hart

Over the past century, Ford has become one of the most iconic American brands, from its line of pickup trucks to the Mustang. The company’s first car, the Model T, broke ground and helped create the modern automotive industry. Yet what few people know today is that the company’s founder, Henry Ford, not only held deeply prejudiced personal views but also became one of Hitler’s key American friends in the years before the war. To its credit, the Ford Motor Company has made some efforts to come to terms with this troubling history, but there is still more work to be done. As we’ll see, Ford’s views were more than just a private matter—they translated into real-world action that had a major effect on Germany’s military preparedness before World War II. Certainly, Ford was far from the only American businessman who was enticed by Nazi Germany. His rival—General Motors—had a German division of its own and manufactured aircraft parts for the Luftwaffe.

As I discuss in my book Hitler’s American Friends, some of its executives held views that went beyond pure business interests and bordered on Nazi sympathies. Yet Ford’s story is unique not just because he did extensive business in the Third Reich, but because of the influence he held over Hitler’s other American friends in the United States. This industrial leader was far more than just a mere businessman—he was also an American icon who, like his friend Charles Lindbergh who we’ll discuss in the final part of this miniseries, would become practically obsessed with Hitler and Nazism.

Ford was born on a farm in 1863. After pursuing a career in engineering, he founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 and introduced the revolutionary Model T five years later. Ford’s manufacturing genius was beyond question — by introducing innovations such as the assembly line and standardized parts, he was able to vastly speed up production of his vehicles and drive down prices. Ford scandalized business opinion by voluntarily paying his workers a whopping $5 per day in 1914, which was more than double their previous wages. At the same time, Ford used his own workers as a market for his vehicles and encouraged them to buy Model Ts for themselves. It worked, and just 10 years after the Model T was released, it accounted for half the cars in the United States. It goes without saying that Ford became a very, very wealthy man, arguably the most famous industrialist in the country.

The Führer once indicated his desire to help ‘Heinrich Ford’ become ‘the leader of the growing Fascist movement in America.’

Despite his industrial genius, though, Ford had a less attractive streak as well. He opposed U.S. entry in World War I, and later adopted the view that the war had been caused by an international plot by Jewish bankers. Conspiracy theories have always been a key component of anti-Semitism, and once one begins to believe one theory, they tend to believe more and more. Anti-Semitic slurs became common in Ford’s conversations, and in the early 1920s he owned a newspaper called the Dearborn Independent that he changed into a viciously anti-Semitic mouthpiece. He began personally distributing huge numbers of the infamous anti-Semitic tract The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. A few years later he was eventually forced to apologize to the country’s Jewish community after losing a libel suit, but it seems that his own views were unchanged. By the mid 1930s Ford was blaming “financiers and money lenders” for both the New Deal and the prospect of another world war. One of his many admirers was Hitler himself, and according to one account the Führer once indicated his desire to help “Heinrich Ford” become “the leader of the growing Fascist movement in America.”

As I mentioned, Ford’s views were not just a private matter—they influenced company policy too. Back in the 1920s, Ford and GE had been competing to buy the German carmaker Opel, which both saw as a great way to enter the German market. GE won the bid and bought Opel, and in return Ford opened an auto plant in the German city of Cologne. This proved to be a lucrative move, and by the start of the war Ford’s interests in Germany were estimated to be worth around $8.5 million.

Continue reading Hitler’s American Friends: Henry Ford and Nazism on the Unknown History channel at Quick and Dirty Tips. Or listen to the full episode below.

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by Tasha Alexander

…let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings;

How some have been deposed; some slain in war,

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;

Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;

All murder’d…

—William Shakespeare, Richard II

When we think about the kings—and queens—of England, we generally consider the triumphs and failures of their reigns, the elegant palaces in which they lived, and the scandals of their courts. For monarchy to work, both the ruler and his or her subjects have to believe there is something that sets the royals apart from everyone else. Take the concept of divine right, for example, in which God grants the king his power, making the monarch subject to no human authority. The definition of aristocracy in the Oxford English Dictionary reminds us that nobles are supposed to be the best citizens, above everyone else. And the king sits at the top of the aristocracy. So it’s easy to see why many people are programmed to think these individuals are somehow better than the rest of us.

In fact, they’re just as human—and flawed—as everyone else, something that is driven home by many of their deaths.

Queen Victoria’s death at Osborne House in 1901 conforms to the stereotype of a noble death: she succumbed to illness after a long and celebrated reign, surrounded by family, mourned by her empire. But not all of her compatriots went so gently into that good night.

In 1135, William II overindulged during a raucous evening, after which he slept poorly, tormented by bad dreams. The next morning, probably suffering from a profoundly human hangover and still troubled by the memories of his nightmares, he was less than enthusiastic about his plan to hunt that day. But hunt he did. Unfortunately for him, the only other member of his party, aiming his crossbow at a stag, hit the king instead. The Chronica Maiora tells us: The shaft flew, and glancing off a tree pierced the King full in the heart, so that he instantly dropped dead.

A dreadful accident. Or was it?

First of all, two parties had gone out hunting. The king’s consisted only of himself and Walter Tyrrel, a skilled archer. After William fell, Tyrrel fled, leaving the royal body in the New Forest. Tyrrel joined a crusade—guilty conscience?—and locals found William’s remains. Conveniently, William’s brother Henry, keen to see himself one the throne, was with the other, larger party, and he lost no time in getting to Winchester, where, the next day, he was proclaimed king. The timing was more than a little convenient, as the other potential claimant, his older brother Robert, was away from England on crusade. Strong, popular, and, as the eldest son in the family, Robert would have proven a formidable opponent for the crown. Had William died when both his brothers were in England, Henry might never have been king.

Poor William, so unloved, was quietly buried in Winchester, his courtiers not bothering to attend the funeral.

It all worked out well for Henry. At least that’s how it seemed.

Henry I ruled for 35 years and had a reputation for cruelty. Perhaps it was a bit of divine justice that after gorging on lampreys—against his doctors’ advice—he fell suddenly and fatally ill. Regardless, his death could never be held up as dignified, let alone noble and courageous. Like the rest of us, he was human, and let his appetite get the better of him.

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TASHA ALEXANDER, the daughter of two philosophy professors, studied English Literature and Medieval History at the University of Notre Dame. She and her husband, novelist Andrew Grant, live on a ranch in southeastern Wyoming. She is the author of the long-running Lady Emily Series as well as the novel Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

The post The Death of Kings appeared first on The History Reader.

Since the Ice receded for more than 10.000 years, the landscape north of Halmsad in Sweden has changed from a cold Steppe to an ancient forest. New research traces the different phases and explains how the forest at Almeberget looks much like it did at the beginning of the vendel period, c. 500

Swedish Forests. The Reconstruction of past forest dynamics over the last 13,500 years in SW Sweden
By Gene E. Hannon, Karen Halsall, Chiara Molinari, and Richard H. W Bradshaw
In: The Holocene. 10.08.2018

Sweden is known for its forests. Sometimes impenetrable, at other times full of glittering lakes, and always scattered throughout with surfacing bedrock and littered with granite boulders. We tend to think of them as ancient. Recent studies of the sediments in a lake northeast of Halmstad in a national reserve called Almeberget, however, demonstrate that forests and landscapes have histories. It also tells us about how the landscape changed in the late Iron Age on the cusp of the Vendel period. (c. 500)

After the ice receded for more than 13.500 years ago, the landscape was a cold steppe covered by herbs and shrubs. Covered with juniper, buckthorn, crowberries, heather, grass, and various herbs, it slowly transformed into a less open landscape filled with conifer, birch, aspen, and willow. With Holocene warming (c. 9600 – 4000 BC), the landscape changed character. While firs were still predominant, the landscape gradually came to be characterised by a deciduous element of first elms and alder. Later oak, ash, and lime became part of the coverage, as did rowan, and buckthorn. At the end of the Neolithic age hornbeams entered the scene. It was not until the Bronze Age (c. 1800-500 BC) that the beech appeared on the scene, decreasing the role of hazel.

Finally, during the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages (500 BC – AD 1100) the landscape changed once more. Now beech became prevalent, while other deciduous trees slowly receded. At the same time, spruces became more common. After AD 1100, beeches came to dominate. As they do today, together with spruces planted in the 19^thcentury.

Throughout prehistory, wild fires – started by lightening – were recurrent phenomena. Called ‘taigas’ they occurred every 100 years and charcoal would set its mark on the pollen diagrams. Vastly interesting, however, is the fact that they would peak during the late Neolithic period and the early Bronze Age, to peter out at the end of the Roman Iron Age, when climate once more became cooler, wetter, and more turbulent – and less prone to be ignited by lightening. And a probable shift from slash-and-burn or fire cultivation to more permanently fertilized field agriculture.

What we see is the evidence of the combination of wild fires as well as the later widespread introduction of slash and burn agriculture in the Bronze Age, leaving the landscape constantly open for regeneration. When cooling of the weather as well as shifting demographic pressure entered the equation – at the end of the Iron Age and the beginning of the Migration and Vendel Periods c. 400 – 500, beeches would gradually take over. They were simply able to better get a foothold leading to the present characteristic coverage at Almeberget.

What does this tell us in terms of the landscape in this remote corner of Europe. In fact, it informs us is that the landscape – as we may encounter it at the centre of Almeberget today – shows us a type of forest cover not much different from that which peasants from c. AD 500 were accustomed to at the northernmost border between the temperate vegetation zone and the southern Swedish highlands.

The post The History of Forests in Southwestern Sweden appeared first on Medieval Histories.

Norse World is a new database is a digital resource which will make it easier for researchers to study perceptions of the surrounding world in medieval Scandinavian literature

The new tool is a database aimed at researchers in fields such as language history and philology, comparative literature, manuscript studies and digital humanities. It will be freely available to both researchers and the public.

Spatial humanities and cognitive mapping are growing fields within digital humanities, but the study of spatial thinking in medieval Scandinavia and its development as an area of research are hampered by a lack of information on place names and other spatial references in literary texts.

Scandinavian medieval literature is a mine of information on how foreign lands were visualised in the Middle Ages: What places were written about and where? Are some places more popular in certain text types or at certain times? How do place names link different texts? Is there a shared concept of spatiality? How is space gendered?

“Any research aiming to uncover what pre-modern Scandinavians understood about places abroad requires as a minimum an index of foreign place names in Swedish and Danish literature from the Middle Ages. Yet, to-date no such index exists. With the release of Norse World, an important tool is being made available for the first time that makes research on the perception of the world among pre-modern Swedes and Danes possible for the first time,” says Alexandra Petrulevich, Researcher at the Department of Scandinavian Languages, Uppsala University.

The new tool consists of three main components: a bespoke MySQL database, Norse World – an interactive map, and an independent back-end application that enables access to the database when users search the map resource. All three components use open-source code which enables them to be built into larger infrastructure clusters. The tool is both a scientific and technical first with no equivalent in what has previously been done in philology and linguistics.

The digital resource Norse World is a result of the infrastructure project The Norse perception of the world / Fornnordisk omvärldsuppfattning financed by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (2017–2020).

SOURCE:

New database for medieval literature launched
Press Release

Read more

• Fornnordisk omvärldsuppfattning
• Norse World

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Ribe was the earliest emporium in Early Medieval Denmark. At the cusp of the Viking Age, the town played a significant role. But when was it founded? By whom? And for what reason? Renewed excavations this summer brings us closer to an answer.

Since 1970, archaeologists have excavated in Ribe, a small town situated in Southern Denmark, approximately five kilometres west of the Wadden Sea. The modern town is traversed by the River Ribe, which used to meander into the west coast estuary. Nowadays it is regulated and runs an orderly course. Until the 20th century, the town was in the grip of tidal waters, occasionally causing severe flooding. To the east, the landscape is dominated by boggy wetlands, while sandy plains reach north and south. Thus, Ribe is situated at the logical western crossroad reaching from north to south. Today, at the banks of the river we find a small quay. In the same way, the earliest town must have boasted of a harbour, albeit its precise location has so far evaded the archaeologists.

The archaeological remains of Ribe are exceptionally well-preserved. Ribe, however, is unique, because the modern town more or less covers the earlier settlements. This poses a challenge since excavations have to take place whenever a current building project calls for “rescue archaeology”. Accordingly, excavations since 1970 have yielded a breath-taking amount of artefacts and knowledge. Nevertheless, the basic knowledge about the history of the town has so far eluded the archaeologists. One reason is that even though Ribe is famous for its well-preserved stratigraphy, the older excavations had no access to the modern techniques, which allow for exact mapping of the thin cultural layers.

Northern Emporium

In 2017, the Carlsberg Foundation made it possible to carry out a systematic excavation of a plot inside the oldest Ribe. The overall aim has been to answer several questions: How did Ribe emerge? Were the earliest activities seasonal? And if so, at what point did Ribe become a permanent settlement, that is a proper town? Was the earliest Ribe characterised by high-density housing as a new evaluation of the old excavations indicate? Who were the earliest citizens? Seasonal visitors or local merchants and craftsmen? Might historical events be detected in the development and changes, which the town underwent? And finally: for how long did Ribe survive as a vibrant emporium?

Using state-of-the-art techniques like laser-scanning, 3D-visualisation, geochemical element analysis, micromorphology, and dynamic, electronic methods as well as other high-definition techniques, the archaeologists are currently processing vast amounts of data. As yet, no firm conclusions have been published. What we do know so far is that the first traces of activities at Ribe can be dated to c. 700, but also that the area was inhabited no later than the 720’s with people wintering in substantial houses plying their trade and crafts. This suggests a more or less resident population at a time when history and archaeology tell us a mighty potentate or king was otherwise busy digging a deep channel across Samsø, the Kanhave channel, as well as rebuilding the wall at Dannevirke. Dendrochronologically dated to respectively 726 and 737, these defensive projects must have involved the deployment of a significant workforce. As Ribe from day one, also seems to have been minting scaettas, its status as an important emporium may likely date from the same period and historical context.

Thousands of Objects

Reaching more than three metres down, the archaeologists have so far uncovered the remains of buildings covering more than 70 M2 and housing bead makers, bronze smiths, and shoemakers. However, not only remains of their workshops have been revealed, but also – uniquely – some of their more personal objects, like combs and caskets with Runic inscriptions, a fragment of a musical instrument, a lyre, and pieces of textiles. In one of the layers from c.800, three amulets were found featuring Christian crosses. As the pendants were found in a smithy together with the moulds, the find suggests that a mass production catering for a local Christian community took place at Ribe at least 50 years before the vita of St. Ansgar tells us the first church was built in town. The new find fits perfectly with the Christian burials excavated at a cemetery surrounding the later Cathedral on the southern side of the river. Isotopic analyses of the dead persons have shown that the people buried there grew up locally.

These and a multitude of other finds from the latest excavation are, however, still undergoing conservation, while the rethinking of how to fit the new results into the old has not even begun. Slowly, the contours of a vibrant early emporium from the very early period of the history of Denmark will undoubtedly surface

All very tantalising…

SOURCE:

Northern Emporium
Northern Emporium: The Archaeology of Network Urbanism in Ribe

Northern Emporium at Facebook
The Ribe Excavations

Thousands of objects discovered in Scandinavia’s first Viking city
By Søren M. Sindbæk
In Phys. Org 13.09.2018

READ MORE

Ribe: emporia and town in the 8^thand 9^thcentury.
By Claus Feveile
In: From one Sea to Another. Ed. by Saoro Gelichi and Richard Hodges.
Series: Scisam 3, Brepols 2012, pp. 111 – 122

Tidligkristne begravelser ved Ribe Domkirke – Ansgars kirkegård?
I: Arkæologi I Slesvig/Archäologie in Schleswig
Vol 13: 2010, pp. 147 – 164

Vikingegravplads I Ribe afslører arkæologisk mysterium
By Charlotte Price Persson
Videnskab.dk 12.06.2016

Semper Ardens forskningsprojekt gør sjældent Runefund i Ribe
Af Jane Benarroch
Carlsbergfondet 2018

VISIT

Ribe Viking Centre

The purpose of Ribe Viking Center is to communicate Ribe’s Viking Age history by bringing it to life in the reconstructed environments. Alongside the presentation, theories are tested and developed through experimental archaeology; not just as regards the reconstruction of buildings, garments, tools and equipment but also in relation to the sociological side of history: How did communal life take shape under the physical conditions and surroundings of the past.

Museet Ribes Vikinger

The Museum, ‘Ribes Vikinger’, reveals Ribe’s history from the Viking period and Middle Ages to the year 1700 in the very spot where the very first town was built c. 720

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