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- Exeter Cathedral: A Portrait in Decorated Gothic
- Explorers, Pirates and Armada Men: Elizabeth’s Seadogs
- The Haytor Granite Tramway and the Templers of Stover
- From Maiden Castle to Drogo: Castles in the South West landscape
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 THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY
The Bayeux Tapestry, “one of the most enchanting pieces of narrative art in existence” (Talbot Rice) is a unique and magnificent survival from a time when wall-hangings of all kinds were common among the wealthy and powerful. Like a Viking Saga, it narrates the heroic tale of William’s invasion and battle at Hastings in graphic detail, real energy and on a grand scale.
Embroidered in eight coloured wools on bleached linen, it makes a continuous strip of 230 feet 10¼ inches long and 19¾ inches high. The style and quality of the needlework place it, by general consent, as English – a product of a long tradition of high quality needlework known throughout Europe as Opus Anglicanum.
The aim of the lecture is twofold: firstly, to demonstrate the artistic achievement of a magnificent work of art and secondly, to place it in the context of its time – who created it? How and where was it created? Who commissioned it and why?
A PHOTOGRAPHIC ODYSSEY : SHACKLETON'S ENDURANCE EXPEDITION CAPTURED ON CAMERA
Ernest Shackleton is one of the great figures of Antarctic exploration. On his third expedition in 1914, Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, was trapped and eventually crushed in the pack ice. After camping for five months on the ice, Shackleton’s men rowed to the remote Elephant Island. From there, Shackleton sailed for help to South Georgia over 800 miles away. Over three months later he returned to rescue the crew of the Endurance.
Frank Hurley, one of the great photographers of the 20th century, was the expedition’s official photographer – a pioneer in the emerging world of photojournalism. His photographs are a visual narrative of an epic journey which capture with great artistry new and amazing landscapes within which a remarkable human drama is played out.
The aim of the lecture is to capture Hurley’s achievements as a photographer of the Antarctic in the first flush of human contact when it was still essentially terra incognita.
"TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY" : ROMANESQUE ART IN ENGLISH MANUSCRIPTS
Broadly spanning the tenth to the twelfth centuries, the Romanesque style, despite a mixture of influences, was the first style that belonged wholly to the West after the dominance of Greece and Rome. Symptomatic of Europe growing in power, stability and confidence, it has the flavour, in Gombrich’s memorable phrase of the Church Militant as opposed to the later Gothic period of the Church Triumphant.
In England, the most extensive expression of Romanesque art leaps from the pages of illuminated manuscripts.
The aim of this lecture is to briefly place Romanesque illumination in its historical and cultural context and then survey some of the most impressive examples of this style from Psalters (e.g. St Albans and Winchester) to the Great Bibles of Bury, Dover, Lambeth and Winchester.
THE SACRED AND PROFANE IN ENGLISH GOTHIC MANUSCRIPT ILLUMINATION
An arresting feature of medieval art and culture is the juxtaposing in its stone carving and other forms of artistic expression of sacred and profane images.
The great age of English Gothic manuscript illumination from 1200 to 1500 demonstrates this characteristic in a host of manuscripts, as both production and ownership of illuminated manuscripts ranged widely beyond the monastery walls. Like roof bosses high above cathedral naves which escaped the iconoclasm of the Reformation, illuminated manuscripts provide direct contact with one of the great expressions of medieval English art.
The aim of this lecture is to explore the nature and scale of this artistic achievement. It will make reference to more specifically religious books such as Apocalypses (e.g. Trinity) and Missals (e.g. Sherborne) but will concentrate chiefly on the private devotional books of the Psalter (e.g. Ormsby, De Lisle, Tickhill, Luttrell and Macclesfield) and the Books of Hours (e.g. Warwick, Bedford).
'A MOUND OF TREASURES FROM FAR COUNTRIES WAS FETCHED ABOARD HER' : THE STORY OF THE SUTTON HOO SHIP BURIAL
Discovered on the eve of the Second World War, Sutton Hoo is the most famous archaeological excavation in the British Isles - the British equivalent of Tutankhamen.
In the early seventh century a great ship was dragged ashore from the River Deben in Suffolk. It became the burial place of a powerful Anglo-Saxon warlord who was indeed buried with a mound of treasures from all over the known world. Fine weaponry, gold coins and exquisitely crafted jewellery revealed levels of sophistication in the culture of early Anglo-Saxon England which were a revelation.
The aim of the lecture is to briefly summarise the dramatic circumstances of the discovery and then examine the finds in turn, partly to appreciate them in their own right and partly to explore what insights they offer and what questions they pose about their world.
VISION AND SONG IN THE LIFE OF HILDEGARD OF BINGEN. 'THE HARMONY OF CELESTIAL REVELATIONS'
“Listen : there was once a King sitting on his throne. Around him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory,………. Then it pleased the King to raise a small feather from the ground and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air blew it along. Thus am I .. ‘A feather on the breath of God’.”
One of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages, Hildegard of Bingen led a long and very active life as Abbess of her own abbey near Bingen in Germany. She was also a visionary, poet, musician, naturalist, healer and theologian whose writings were prolific, wide-ranging and powerful.
After a brief summary of her life, this lecture will focus on a selection of Hildegard’s visions and music - two areas of her artistic output which resonate powerfully, if a little surprisingly, with our modern world.
WELSH CASTLES OF EDWARD I - THE ARCHITECTURE OF IMPERIAL AMBITION
Edward I’s castles in North Wales represent the high point of medieval castle building in Britain – it remains the biggest programme of its kind in the whole history of the English crown and was carried out by the most powerful ruler in Latin Christendom with, at least initially, no concern for expense.
The programme lasted more than 25 years but concentrated in three main stages corresponding to Edward’s campaigns of 1277, 1282-3, 1294-5. Led by Edward’s brilliant architect, James of St. George, ‘Master of the King’s Works in Wales’, a vast army of workmen from every shire from Northumberland to Sussex demonstrated Edward’s ability to mobilise the resources of his whole kingdom.
The lecture will concentrate on the royal castles of Rhuddlan, Flint, Conway, Harlech, Caernarfon and Beaumaris. It aims to demonstrate the sheer scale of this achievement with particular reference to the military, political and aesthetic features the castles incorporate.
Nelson: Britannia’s God of War
- Scott and Amundsen: The Race to the Pole
- Tudor Portraits: Keeping History in the Family
- A Window on a World: English Medieval Manuscript Illumination
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