Jarrow Hall, Anglo Saxon village and Bede Museum ~ November 2017 ~ Part 1

Posted in Adventures, Anglo~Saxon, Fuji, fujiXT1, History, medieval, museum, photography, uncategorisedTagged , , , , , , , ,

The History Bit

Known as The Venerable Bede,(AD 673-735,) Bede was an author, scholar, skilled linguist and translator who also composed works on astronomical timekeeping and the motions of the sun, Earth and Moon. He was widely regarded as the ‘father of English history’ as his most famous work, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People is one of the most important original references on Anglo-Saxon history. This work also played a key role in the development of an English national identity. He was an English monk who lived at the Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Wearmouth-Jarrow, a double monastery at Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, England. and the Bede museum  tells the story of Bede and his time, from the beginnings of the Anglo-Saxon period through Bede’s life, death and extraordinary legacy.

Sophie and I wanted to go somewhere nearby, and as the museum had recently been reopened after a year of being shut down for lack of funds, this is where we went.

When we arrived the chap at reception asked us if we’d come to hear the lecture on that day, we hadn’t known there was one but said yes anyway and went in to see what it was all about. It was a fascinating talk by the Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of York and director of the Sutton Hoo Research Project Professor Martin Carver, and his talk was on the Anglo Saxon buriel site at Sutton Hoo. He was really interesting and humorous with it. Afterwards we had lunch at the cafe and then went around the Bede Museum itself.

The Venerable Bede

 

The museum takes you through the times that Bede lived in

One of the statues by a timeline display showing Bede’s vision of English origins.

 

6th-century inhumation grave from Norton, Cleveland,

 

replica of anglo Saxon helmet

 

replica of the Codex Amiatinus, the earliest surviving manuscript of the nearly complete Bible in the Latin Vulgate. Three versions were originally produced in the double monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow in around 700AD, and it is believed Bede had a personal involvement in their creation.  Commissioned by Ceolfrid in 692  the double monastery raised 2000 head of cattle to produce the vellum pages of these huge, beautifully illuminated manuscripts. Two versions have been lost and the only survivor, from which the Jarrow Hall copy and only one other have been made, now resides in the Laurentian Library in Florence.

 

The Franks Casket is a small Anglo-Saxon whale’s bone chest from the early 8th century, The casket is densely decorated with knife-cut narrative scenes in flat two-dimensional low-relief and with inscriptions mostly in Anglo-Saxon runes. Generally reckoned to be of Northumbrian origin, it is of unique importance for the insight it gives into early Anglo-Saxon art and culture. Both identifying the images and interpreting the runic inscriptions has generated a considerable amount of scholarship. The imagery is very diverse in its subject matter and derivations, and includes a single Christian image, the Adoration of the Magi, along with images derived from Roman history (Emperor Titus) and Roman mythology (Romulus and Remus), as well as a depiction of at least one legend indigenous to the Germanic peoples: that of Weyland the Smith. It has also been suggested that there may be an episode from the Sigurd legend, an otherwise lost episode from the life of Weyland’s brother Egil, a Homeric legend involving Achilles, and perhaps even an allusion to the legendary founding of England by Hengist and Horsa. The inscriptions “display a deliberate linguistic and alphabetic virtuosity; though they are mostly written in Old English and in runes, they shift into Latin and the Roman alphabet; then back into runes while still writing Latin”. Some are written upside down or back to front. This is a replica, the original being in the British Museum.

 

There are several pieces of medieval stonework on display

This is a fragment of cross arm and cross head dating from the first half of the 8th century.

 

as well as stained glass from the same time period.

Next time we’ll visit the Anglo Saxon farm and village, so stay tooned!

48 thoughts on “Jarrow Hall, Anglo Saxon village and Bede Museum ~ November 2017 ~ Part 1”

  3. If there is one thing that I liked at school, it was history lessons. And that’s where my love for visiting museums still comes from I guess. It always amazes me that (well at least for me that is) there are still people in history that I have never heard of. This being one of them. This was a really interesting post, that I really enjoyed reading. Glad you had such a great day, and as always the pictures are awesome 😀

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  5. Absolutely fascinating history. The details of the objects as well as the books and bits of info – to be able to see it, something 1300 years old, is amazing to me (where anything more than 50 years old is antique!).

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  6. It’s amazing that that little bone casket has survived. I know very little about the Anglo-Saxons, but I’ve just finished a book set in the fifth century and I’m reading another set in the seventh. The impression I’m getting is that they mainly liked killing people, but they did, of course, produce many beautiful works of art.

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    1. I find it all fascinating, how England came about during this time, from being so tribal and from many ‘kingdoms’. Between the Romans leaving and the Norman conquest there was so much upheaval. I imagine the little people just wanted to farm and survive, but with the invasions from the angles, the seaxe, the Danes and other Norsemen they had a hard time.

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        1. Well if you ever fancy it Bernard Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles are absolutely the best place to start, here’s a clip from a review by Neil Walsh- “Cornwell paints us a gruesomely vivid picture of what life must have been like in the 5th to 6th centuries. We are shown a Britain divided by Britons and Saxons, with Rome’s shadow fading rapidly, and a Britain divided by pagans and Christians, with the ghosts of Rome’s mystery cults (Mithras, Isis, and hints of others) still haunting the landscape. He gives us the terrible brutality of battle, glorifying it only as much as the story demands. He gives us the hardships of daily life, with its joys and its sorrows, its laughter and its pains, petty annoyances and cruel vengeance.”

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  8. Wonderful post…at the risk of seeming repetitive…your shots are amazing!particularly for museum shots…so close and amazing detail. Were the pieces behind glass?Love this area of history too. I was an extra in Vikings on the Anglo Saxon set…mind you that was a couple of centuries later, but it was still wonderful to be in that world.

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    1. Thanks Clare. What movie was it or TV prog? I would love to be an extra in that time frame. Looking forward to Britannia coming to the TV soon. Yes all behind glass, good thing or some nutter would steal them 😊

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      1. It was so brilliant..the set was amazing. I did five or six days..or more. It was like being there in those times. We all got treated like stars and fed cake and had our hair fixed constantly 😀 I couldve lived there forever. I am in season 4 but I havent watched it yet. I dont think I am visible much though!

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  9. Pingback: Jarrow Hall, Anglo Saxon village ~ Part 2 – fragglerocking~across the universe
  13. Pingback: St.Pauls Church and Monastery~ November 2017 – fragglerocking~across the universe
  17. Pingback: Tynemouth Castle & Priory ~ November 2019 – fraggle

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