0:00

Hello and welcome to Talking Tudors, a fortnightly podcast about the ever-fascinating Tudor dynasty.

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My name is Natalie Gruniger and I'll be your host and guide on this journey

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through 16th century England. Are you ready to step through the veil of time into the dazzling and dangerous

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world of the Tudor court? Without further ado, it's time to talk Tudors.

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Music.

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Thanks for watching!

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Thanks for watching! Hello, everyone.

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Welcome back to another episode of Talking Tudors.

1:01

I'm your host, Natalie Gruninger. Thank you so much for joining me today.

1:05

Before we begin, I'd like to mention an online event that I'm hosting this weekend

1:09

called A Bookish Weekend with the Tudors.

1:12

Over the weekend of the 28th and 29th of September, we'll explore 16th century

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printing, books and manuscripts through a series of six lectures and one live

1:21

Zoom discussion Delivered by experts in this field.

1:25

Joining me are Joe Saunders, Dr. Owen Emerson, Kate McCaffrey, Dr.

1:29

Rebecca Quose-Moore, Professor Martine van Elk, and Dr. Vanessa Wilkie.

1:34

This is unmissable for lovers of books and Tudor history.

1:37

For details and to reserve your place, click on the link in the show notes or

1:40

just Google A Bookish Weekend with the Tudors.

1:43

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Check out all the products at talkingtudors.threadless.com. Now onto today's episode.

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I'm thrilled to welcome Dr. Amy Jeffs to the podcast to chat about her new book,

2:35

Saints, A New Legendary of Heroes, Humans and Magic.

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Dr Jeffs is an author, artist and medievalist. During her PhD in art history

2:44

at the University of Cambridge, she co-convened a project researching medieval

2:49

pilgrim souvenirs at the British Museum.

2:51

She then worked in the British Library's Department of Ancient,

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Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts. Now a Somerset-based author,

2:58

she illustrates her books. Storyland, A New Mythology of Britain was published in 2021.

3:04

It was a Sunday Times bestseller and a Waterstones Book of the Month,

3:08

as well as being shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year.

3:11

Wild Tales from Early Medieval Britain was published in 2022.

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Its audiobook, which included seven original songs co-written and performed

3:20

by Amy, was named Audiobook of the Week by The Guardian and The Times.

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Let's dive straight into our conversation. Welcome to Talking Tudors, Amy. How are you?

3:30

I'm really well. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

3:33

Maybe if we could just start with an introduction, you just telling us a little

3:37

bit about you and your background. Yes. So my name's Amy. I'm a medievalist by trade, art historian.

3:45

But I began my education, my higher education with early medieval and Northwestern

3:50

European languages and literature and also the production of manuscripts.

3:54

I was very interested in that. I did a very, very niche course,

3:58

University of Cambridge undergraduate course called Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic.

4:03

And so I did Old English Language and Literature, Old Norse Language and Literature,

4:07

and Medieval Latin, and...

4:10

Codicology and Palaeography so the history of book

4:13

making and for the whole manuscript period of

4:16

handmade books from their kind of genesis up to the printing

4:19

press really and this and script histories they're

4:22

looking at medieval script systems and different hierarchies of

4:25

script because they're very formalized and from in my

4:28

third year I jumped across to history of arts to

4:31

pursue a study of medieval art especially metal

4:35

work from the early medieval period and manuscript of illumination

4:38

and that's then you know I was still very much

4:41

in an early period at that point but for my master's I

4:44

moved into the Romanesque period with making a

4:46

meaning in medieval art at the Courtauld Institute of Art and

4:49

I ended up doing my dissertation on a about a 14th century

4:52

manuscript when I say on a 14th century manuscript it often sounds like

4:55

I've vandalized something in a public collection

4:58

I didn't write it on a manuscript and then

5:01

I continued studying that researching that manuscript along

5:05

with other 14th century English illuminated manuscripts for

5:08

my PhD and I was very interested in the contents

5:11

of these manuscripts obviously but they happen to be it's of origin myths of

5:15

Britain origin stories being in translation for a Norman Plantagenet sort of

5:22

elite or ruining classes often and sort of presenting a view of the deep history of Britain

5:29

that supported the imperial ambitions of the contemporary ruling classes.

5:34

And this remains relevant well into the Tudor period as well.

5:37

This was a mythic history, then perceived as history proper.

5:43

Giants and prophesying goddesses and Trojans that really connected Britain,

5:49

this puny little island at the edge of the known world with no good stories to its name.

5:55

But of course, it did have some, but not ones written down by it.

5:58

Apostles or classical authors connected this

6:02

this island to the center of the of the map the world

6:05

map as it was perceived then to the biblical and

6:08

classical heartlands and so this this story gave real kudos to it was known

6:13

as the brute the brute legend so anyway this is this is what what i got into

6:17

when i was working on my phd and i i was sort of suddenly aware of these stories

6:21

were really actually good stories in their own right exciting stories so i started

6:25

illustrating them with linocut illustrations.

6:28

And that turned into a series of articles for Country Life magazine,

6:32

which then on Britain's mythic topography, which then turned into a book proposal,

6:36

which became my first book, Storyland, a new mythology of Britain.

6:39

Then I did a smaller book called Wild Tales from Early Medieval Britain,

6:43

which went back to my early studies of the earlier

6:46

period and the kind of very mysterious Old English elegies

6:49

and Welsh and Glynian and very curious heavily narrative

6:53

objects like the whale's bone frank's casket and now

6:56

i have just received yesterday my box of

6:59

author copies of saints a new legendary of heroes humans and magic which is

7:04

really rooted i didn't actually mention while i was doing my phd this is actually

7:07

crucial to the current book i was working in the british museum on a research

7:12

project about medieval medieval pilgrim souvenirs and secular badges.

7:16

Badges, yes, not badgers, which is one of the constant issues people,

7:21

old school friends, would think I was digitising medieval badges.

7:24

But these amazing pilgrim souvenirs, especially often depicted saints who were

7:30

venerated at the time and moments from their legends.

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And many of them had been found in the foreshores of the Thames in the Victorian

7:38

period and collected for the British Museum. And so I became really fascinated by the idea of these little.

7:43

Very lowly lead alloy cues for narrative that were just in the mud of London

7:49

in their hundreds, in their thousands.

7:51

I mean, there's a massive, there's over 730 in the British Museum,

7:54

secular and sacred iconographies, and similar numbers, if not more, in the Museum of London.

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And then we find them also appear in Bristol Harbour.

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They find the Purr Fleet in Kings Lynn, also in the old medieval sewers in Salisbury,

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and they've gone into the collection at Salisbury. Then they've got hundreds too and that these these stories i

8:14

just suddenly was really excited about these stories and being

8:17

able to read these images and so that sort of got me planted

8:20

the seed this i sowed the seed for this idea of writing a

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book about saints legends about this amazing storytelling culture

8:27

where the tales are not they're they're far

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more unruly and unofficial than maybe we assume

8:33

that many of their subject subjects are

8:36

um completely legendary not at all historical that

8:40

their structures and form have a lot of a lot

8:43

in common with fairy tale and folklore and that we

8:46

don't know these stories not because they aren't interesting

8:50

or intimately connected many of them you know have sort of spin-off stories

8:55

that connect them intimately to the british landscape or the northwestern european

8:59

landscape even though they well that these these stories were actively suppressed

9:03

in the protestant reformation and so we lost them as a result of a authoritarian regime,

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not because they aren't super cool.

9:11

And so I have chosen a number of stories, 30 or so stories for this book.

9:17

I've retold them as fiction. Going through the year January to December, according to the Saint's Feast Day.

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And then I've written a commentary that comes after each story,

9:27

sort of placing that saint in context, some of them on native,

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and some of them are kind of imported.

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But it also tells the story of the rise and fall of the medieval cult of saints,

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all the way up to the Protestant Reformation and the destruction of the shrines.

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And for me, it's just a really exciting story about the push and pull of popular

9:47

fervour versus the kind of orthodox theology,

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which is a changing thing throughout the history of the church,

9:54

but how the cult of saints didn't really sit easy for the whole period for which

9:59

the medieval cult of saints existed. So yeah, that's me and that's my work. And Saints is out on the 12th of September

10:06

and I'm really excited to have it finally and to take it around to bookshops

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and talk about it and meet people. Yeah, that sounds so exciting.

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And your work and your studies sound absolutely fascinating.

10:18

So I wanted to ask you, Amy, a little bit more about saints.

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So in case our listeners haven't really studied this area very much,

10:27

what role did they actually play in medieval Christian world?

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In the really early period where missionary work is still happening,

10:35

where people like Boniface, who is living in the 8th century, I believe,

10:40

he's going into places like Frisia, where

10:43

people aren't yet christian and those kinds

10:46

of missionaries found relics to

10:49

be very effective i mean the cult of saints was already in

10:52

motion at this point with after the persecution of the

10:55

christians under the romans there wasn't a formal canonization process

10:58

but there were heroic deaths that were

11:02

recognized by the christian communities within the roman empire and who and

11:08

those communities had begun venerating the tombs of those who had been killed

11:14

and who had refused to renounce their faith under torture or whatever else that

11:19

was precious placed on them. And so already there was a kind of cult of martyrs. And then this veneration

11:26

of bones, of their bones or bones of holy figures from the Bible,

11:30

enabled missionaries to kind of transport

11:33

body parts into unconverted territories.

11:37

And these were just a particularly effective way of, I guess,

11:41

a kind of a focal point or a religious object that inspired people's imaginations

11:47

and that relic veneration seemed to be an effective missionary tool.

11:51

And so there's an amazing letter from Pope Gregory the Great.

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In the 6th century to Bishop Meletus, the first bishop of London.

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He's an Italian man, probably. Pope Gregory the Great says, don't destroy the old temples.

12:06

Take out the furnishings and replace them with altars and relics of the saint.

12:12

And don't stop the people from sacrificing, from killing animals,

12:16

but stop them from sacrificing them to the old gods.

12:19

But you can keep killing animals on the dedication day of that saint or the

12:23

feast day of that saint. and you can eat the animal as part of the celebrations around that.

12:29

And so you see how relic veneration is not only a tool for conversion.

12:34

It also then becomes part of the way in which Christianity is assimilated into

12:38

the lives of people who hadn't been practicing Christianity for most of their lives.

12:42

And it sort of allows that integration to take place. And the idea of this person

12:47

who died on a particular day and it gives you particular days on which to celebrate and have festivities.

12:52

But by the later period they have become i mean

12:55

there's an interesting initially it's all about relics the veneration

12:58

of relics we zoom forward quite a few hundred years there's

13:02

then a shift from needing to visit a saint's relic relics in order to experience

13:07

that sanctity or to be touched by that sanctity to um the veneration of images

13:12

of the saints and actually the relics become less important and this is this

13:16

is a very crucial thing in the build-up to the reformation this line

13:20

between what is idolatry and the role of images in that.

13:24

People would have experienced saints, therefore, in the form of relics, in the form of images,

13:28

not only kind of panel paintings or conventional paintings as we think of them

13:32

on a separate board, but also narrative imagery painted onto the walls of churches

13:37

and into secular buildings as well.

13:40

And many other kinds of media, sort of the outsides of ecclesiastical buildings,

13:44

maybe also in manuscripts or on tiles, like slipware was a very popular form

13:52

of narrative imagery or medium for narrative imagery. And then they would have also had.

13:57

The legends, you know, some of them are because on a saint's feast day,

14:01

the churches would and in abbeys and things, they would read the saint's legend

14:05

and they might read it in some settings that might be read in Latin.

14:09

But also households by the later Middle Ages, when the laity were much more

14:13

literate than especially the higher echelons of society were able to read.

14:18

They might have collections of legends called legendaries, like the South English

14:21

Legendary, which are written in Middle English and would have been and are in,

14:26

you know, very readable verse.

14:29

Entertaining, very dramatic, really good kind of the original period drama for

14:34

a Sunday night for the family to consume.

14:37

And so I think it's what this book made me realise. And of course, yeah,

14:40

pilgrim souvenirs and badges and images like that, that saints

14:43

were everywhere in in medieval christian europe

14:46

this was just part of life it was part of

14:49

i mean i'm you know just the the oaths that people swore and

14:52

taking you say by saint martin would it

14:55

be it would just be everywhere constantly and and daily references and that

15:01

sort of things and i'll also say like the and then the taking the mick out of

15:05

it too because medieval christians had a really good sense of humor and so that

15:10

kind of inversion i talk about the difference between inversion and subversion in the book.

15:14

They take the mick out of it, not to undermine the saints or the cult of saints,

15:18

but to undermine gullible pilgrims or the silliness of some aspects of the cult

15:24

of saints, because it does verge on the ridiculous quite a lot.

15:27

And I think there was a consciousness of that. So it's just everywhere.

15:30

And in terms of how these cults of saints spread, was it mainly through these

15:34

relics being transported or moved, or were there other ways that people found out about this?

15:39

Well, I think the power of the stories is a big part of it. So

15:42

you've got your you know the relics of saint cuthbert at

15:46

durham cathedral but you've also you know within 50

15:49

years of death of his death 50 or so years of his

15:51

death you've got the venerable bead writing the first life of cuthbert or the

15:55

first surviving one where it describes his nightly immersions in the sea and

16:00

his prayer in the in this freezing cold water off from away from his hermitage

16:05

on infarn island and then getting out of the sea and then standing there just

16:08

to dry in the in the wind and the

16:10

otters coming out of the sea and winding themselves around his ankles to dry his feet.

16:15

And that these stories are the intangible dimension to the surviving built heritage

16:21

that we have or the artefacts like Cuthbert's coffin or like Durham Cathedral.

16:25

Durham itself wouldn't be there in this form if it weren't for the cult of St. Cuthbert.

16:30

But it really is all about, to my mind, the power of the story of the hermit that.

16:37

Is so desperate for his solitude that he, when he's at the end of his life,

16:42

offered the chance to become the Bishop of Hexham, the honour.

16:45

He says, oh, he really doesn't want to go that far inland.

16:48

He's living out on this island beyond Lindisfarne on a little hermitage surrounded

16:52

by sea birds and marine animals.

16:56

And he says, I'll swap if I suppose I should do my duty, but I'll become Bishop

17:00

of Lindisfarne and the current Bishop of Lindisfarne,

17:03

he can go and be the bishop of hexham and so he does that for a

17:06

couple of years but eventually just goes back to his hermitage can't

17:09

can't bear to be away and within a year he's he's died

17:12

out in his hermitage that compounded with

17:14

the otters and it's just a very

17:17

moving moving story of of holiness and and dedication to hard life to ascesis

17:24

that kind of exercise and prayer and all of that i think it's that's really

17:28

what is powering the monks their devotion to cuthbert and they're taking making

17:32

his relics away from the Viking incursions to Chester-le-Street,

17:36

where they rest for a while, and then on to Durham and the foundation of the cult there.

17:41

Then his coffin was opened at least twice, and they find various objects in

17:47

there, like a gospel book that's now in the British Library, the Gospel of St John.

17:51

From his early medieval product,

17:55

the earliest surviving intact western binding not

17:58

that it was then but it is now yeah it's just i

18:01

i think i think it's their stories i think it's the

18:03

power of the stories that and that's also comes across in the pilgrim souvenirs

18:06

the the way in which they just like trigger one

18:09

like if you want thomas beckett ones i often show there are many many different

18:13

iconographies for thomas beckett pilgrim souvenirs and one shows him returning

18:17

from exile on his horse just before it all kicks off again and henry's knights

18:21

come in to attack him in the cathedral and and you can just imagine people saying

18:26

oh that's that bit in the story or that's you know I think these these were familiar.

18:29

And so, Amy, could you tell us a little bit about who the most popular saints

18:33

were in the 15th and 16th centuries?

18:36

I know lots of the Tudor queens, for example, associated themselves with certain

18:40

saints, usually named saints. But yeah, that would be wonderful if you could tell us a bit about that.

18:45

For sure. So one thing I find, actually, I'm going to find this in the book

18:48

because it's right next to me, and then I'll definitely get it right.

18:51

Because there was a very popular group of saints, 11,000 saints led by Ursula.

18:58

Stela stela was said to have been a british princess

19:01

who was christian but she was betrothed

19:04

to a pagan prince and she said i'll marry him if you let me if i'm

19:07

allowed to go on pilgrimage to rome and take 11

19:10

noble women and each of them take i'm gonna get my

19:13

maths really confused here there you go there's a

19:16

thousand they just take a thousand or something servants anyway

19:20

it ends up with 11 000 of them that's the main that's the

19:23

that's the answer to the complex song i'm trying

19:25

and she they do this pilgrimage to rome and

19:28

they accrue even more people more followers till

19:31

there's 26 000 of them according to the golden legend which is a

19:34

really popular compendium of saints legends that circulated in

19:37

europe from the 13th century and and north africa i

19:40

should say not just europe then they come they come back from their

19:43

pilgrimage and they stop at cologne and cologne is invaded by the

19:45

huns and they all receive martyrdom except for one

19:49

cordiala who hides in one of their boats but then

19:51

comes out the next morning and is like sorry i hid

19:54

and then she gets martyred too and so their.

19:57

Feast days are the 20th of october for 10 999

20:01

of them and then cordula feast days on

20:04

the 21st of october because he hid but they

20:07

they were very popular but then it was said that obviously there was tons and

20:11

tons of relics for the 11 000 virgins but it was said that if an imposter relic

20:15

got in it would be miraculously ejected and reliquary busts of these very pious

20:21

late medieval noble women were all over the courts of Europe and the monasteries.

20:26

One thing I found very interesting in relation to Tudor dynasty is regarding

20:32

Catherine of Aragon and her arrival.

20:36

I'm just going to read a paragraph or two, if that's all right. Yes, please do.

20:40

In November of 1501, England welcomed a Spanish princess called Catherine of

20:45

Aragon. When her ship had docked at Southampton, she had been accompanied by

20:49

11 English women of the upper nobility, all dressed alike, along with a larger

20:54

company of knights' wives. They were intended to make Catherine look like Ursula with her 11,000 virgins.

20:59

On London Bridge, they met another Saint Ursula tableau.

21:03

Catherine then processed through the streets of London to her betrothed,

21:06

Prince Arthur Tudor, the brother of the future King Henry VIII.

21:09

Thus, embodied by Catherine and Arthur, the legendary British princess would

21:13

marry the legendary British warlord. Pageantry elevated both figures and made one into an honorary Briton.

21:18

The pageantry surrounding Catherine's arrival in England shows yet again how

21:22

saints' legends could help convey politically important ideas.

21:25

But Arthur would die young and she would marry his brother, the future King

21:28

Henry VIII. It starts to change his mind about how politically useful saints legends are.

21:33

I thought that was amazing how there's also like the thing that we can easily

21:37

forget is these live performances inspired by saints legends and the political function of them.

21:42

And it took a long time after the main events of the Reformation for the mystery

21:48

plays to be suppressed because this was such a popular civic event across England and Britain at large,

21:55

where guilds would come together and stage different parts of liturgical dramas and saints' legends.

22:02

There's a really amazing reclamation poem by a reformer.

22:06

It gives an insight as well into what a late medieval town centre might have

22:11

looked like on a piece like the Corpus Christi when it was very popular to put on plays.

22:15

So this is Thomas Naugeg, The Popish Kingdom, written in 1570.

22:19

Christ's passion here derided is with sundry masks and plays,

22:22

fair Ursula with maidens all doth pass amid the

22:25

ways and valiant George with spear thou killest the

22:28

dreadful dragon here the devil's house is drawn about

22:31

wherein there doth appear a wondrous sort of damned sprites with foul and fearful

22:36

look great Christopher doth wade and pass with Christ amid the brook Sebastian

22:40

full of feathered shafts the dint of dart doth feel there walketh Catherine

22:44

with her sword in hand and cruel wheel the chalice and the singing cake with Barbara is led and

22:50

sundry are the pageants played in worship of this bread.

22:52

So I think we've got Catherine there, we've got Saint Christopher,

22:55

he's a super popular one. And there's over 130 surviving war paintings of Saint Christopher in parish

23:01

churches in England and Wales that show gigantic, I mean, I think he's in a

23:06

really slightly corny way, the original BFG, that appeal of giants who are up

23:12

Everywhere else, giants are mean and scary and threatening.

23:16

But Christopher, he begins the story, his name is Reprobatus,

23:20

reprobate or scoundrel. But he ends up carrying the Christ child across the river.

23:25

And despite the increasing weight of the Christ child to the point that it's

23:29

as heavy as the whole world, he manages to get across and put the child safely down on the other side.

23:35

At which point the child reveals himself as Christ and says,

23:38

And you did carry the weight of the world because that's what I bore when I died for humankind.

23:43

And this is often depicted. This is this moment with the child on his shoulders and the rising water.

23:49

And he's always huge. This is the moment he's becoming the official friendly giant.

23:53

And you go into church and it's really amazing. He's often right in front of

23:57

the south door as you come in, sort of on the opposite wall.

23:59

So it's the first thing you see, this enormous giant just becoming the goody

24:03

that he's going to be. But there was sometimes an accompanied with an inscription

24:06

that translates very roughly as, if you look on Christopher today, you will not die.

24:13

And so there was this belief in his like talismanic power.

24:16

St. Catherine, I think is such an intriguing saint. She was very, very popular.

24:20

The ones with the really dramatic and distinctive martyrdoms seem to become

24:24

especially popular in the late Middle Ages.

24:26

She is a philosopher and she vanquishes all the philosophers in the Roman Empire

24:31

with her rhetoric and her ability to argue and her wisdom.

24:36

I think one thing that I was quite interested in in the writing of this book

24:39

was whether she was a kind of feminist icon, because that's where our minds

24:42

go, I think, straight away is, oh, you know, how intriguing.

24:45

One of the most popular saints was a young girl who is really,

24:48

really well educated and really brilliant. And you think then,

24:52

okay, so we know she was a very popular saint for women.

24:56

Is that because they are seeing her as a role model? And I think the answer is probably not.

25:01

This is a time in which I think one of the things we assume about saints,

25:05

especially if anyone listening is a practicing Catholic, and I was raised Catholic,

25:09

saints are presented as role models. But this isn't the case in the Middle Ages.

25:14

Their particular brand of virtus

25:16

or strength or power is a tool with which they're going to protect you.

25:21

And it raises them closer to the Holy Ear, the ear of God, so that they can

25:25

plead on your behalf to God.

25:28

And so I don't think that young women were kneeling in front of me somewhere,

25:32

probably, but leaning in front of Catherine. In general, and thinking, I too should be a great philosopher.

25:38

What they were probably thinking was, she's really good at arguing.

25:42

And like, I've done some stuff. And like, I really want to go to heaven.

25:46

And so I'm going to get Catherine on side, because with her amazing skills of

25:51

argumentation, she's going to advocate for me at the divine court.

25:55

And there's actually a story in Saints in which a very, very unfortunate pilgrim to the Shrine of St.

26:00

James has, I'm not going to say what he's done but it's absolutely awful

26:03

he's done a terrible thing to himself and um and he

26:06

ends up actually dying of his injuries and he gets

26:09

taken by devils to they get taken to hell but then he gets redirected by saint

26:15

james to a kind of heavenly version of the saint of the basilica of saint peter's

26:19

in rome and saint james because this guy's a faithful pilgrim saint james then

26:24

does this like full-on argues in the tribunal that's at the tribunal of of heaven argues for Gerald,

26:29

this poor pilgrim, to be released from the devils.

26:32

And he argues to the Virgin Mary, and she's sitting there kind of enthroned, listening.

26:36

And so it's just a really, I think, really excellent and interesting insight

26:40

into this, like the secondary world building of the afterlife in the medieval

26:44

Catholic imagination or Christian imagination.

26:47

And so, yeah, I can imagine people kneeling in front of a rude screen with an

26:51

image of St. Catherine or St. Barbara or St. Agnes, but especially St. Catherine, because she's really good

26:55

at arguing and imagining her pleading on their behalf.

26:58

Oh, I did want to talk about Mary. I think she's a really important one because,

27:02

I mean, she is like the most, probably the most popular saint.

27:06

Devotion to Mary in late medieval England and early modern England is through the roof.

27:10

And something I was really interested in is the story of her.

27:15

It's from the Apostle Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. And it says that she's riding

27:20

to Bethlehem and she sees a date palm covered in dates.

27:23

And she asks Joseph to pick some for her. and he said he's

27:26

a bit recalcitrant and said let the one that got you pregnant

27:29

pick the dates something along those lines and uh and

27:32

the tree recognizing that she's got the child

27:35

of god in her womb bows down so that

27:38

she can pick her fill of dates and this was um reframed

27:42

for a english audience with a

27:44

cherry tree instead of a date palm and it appears in the end town

27:47

plays and and joseph is particularly kind of

27:50

let the one that got you pregnant pick the cherries this is wild

27:53

work like I don't want to do that I don't want to go up a cherry tree

27:56

and the other thing that is that it's because it's seasonal that it's

27:59

the idea that the cherries have set in midwinter and

28:02

so it is like a miraculous unseasonal fruit so then

28:05

and then Mary's able to gather her fill and I've got a whole chapter on cherries

28:08

I've become really obsessed with the symbolism of cherries in late medieval

28:11

England but there's an amazing panel late medieval panel painting in Battle

28:16

Hall now it was from a Dominican priory convent I think and the underpainting

28:22

it shows several saints all in a row, these iconic super saints. In the middle is the Virgin.

28:28

It was recently conserved very thoroughly. In the underdrawing,

28:32

they found that the Virgin was going to be holding a lily, but in the painting,

28:37

it was changed to a sprig of wild cherry.

28:39

With little cherries on it so yeah i won't go

28:42

into the whole cherry thing because i'm really really into the 15th century

28:45

cherry thing and if the reformation hadn't happened maybe we'd all still be obsessed

28:48

with cherries as a symbol of abundance and life's riches

28:51

like life's free riches i think that's what they come to symbolize and

28:54

the virgin i think there's a fantastic story that

28:58

kind of gives an insight into into maybe ordinary people's devotion

29:01

it's in the the chap book

29:05

or the commonplace book i mean of what's he

29:07

called robert rains i think his name is and he it's full

29:10

of sort of everyday like accounts and things but he's

29:13

also put in like stories that he thinks are interesting or valuable

29:17

and he tells a story of a man who was completely besotted

29:20

with the virgin like he'd gone to he'd gone to school he'd had

29:23

an education but all he could remember was the hail mary the

29:26

prayer and he would just say it all the time he was so devoted to

29:29

her that when he died a lily grew

29:32

on his grave and every leaf was inscribed

29:36

ave maria and and the villagers are like

29:38

a bit freaked out by this and so they decide to dig down to

29:42

find where this lily's growing from and they dig deeper and deeper and deeper

29:45

until they actually reach his corpse and it's growing the root is in his mouth

29:50

it's so weird and amazing there's this story of this like got this corpse of

29:55

the lily root in his mouth because he said that ave maria prayer so much in his life.

30:00

I don't think that's obviously a real true story. But the bit about it,

30:03

I feel like it comes from, oh, it could be a true story.

30:05

I won't go so far as to make that claim.

30:08

But the bit that I think you can see glimmers of social history and is this

30:13

idea of people just latching onto a prayer or latching onto a saint.

30:17

And that bit, surely, it's meant to be believable that there's people like that

30:22

who are just always talking about the Virgin.

30:26

There's another story that I read tell in the book about St.

30:29

Martin, about a farmer who's always praying by St. Martin.

30:32

And then St. Martin appears to him and grants him four wishes,

30:35

like a kind of saintly genie. And it all goes horribly downhill. I'll leave that as a cliffhanger.

30:42

Oh, I love them. They're such amazing stories, aren't they? They really do tell

30:45

us a lot about the time and the people. So on that note, what do these saints offer us in terms of insights into the medieval mind?

30:55

Did you come up with any kind of, can you make any generalizations about that?

30:59

Yeah, well, I think sometimes when you study political history or you study history from,

31:04

I don't know you sometimes you sometimes come across this kind

31:07

of like oh well they lost so many children they were

31:10

used to it or or weren't they hilarious like

31:13

like holy grail kind of monty python representations of a bit absurd people

31:18

and it's like they are like there is hilarity because there's hilarity whichever

31:22

in all humans and it you know it carries on whatever period you're looking at

31:26

but I think one thing I found really touching was like reading I don't I didn't

31:31

include Henry VI in the end, but I read various miracles to do with Henry VI.

31:36

He was a popular cult, never canonized. But there were many,

31:40

many reports of him saving children.

31:43

And so people would, this was by the later period, people generally made pilgrimage

31:46

in thanks for a miracle that had already happened rather than going to receive a miracle.

31:51

And so lots of the miracles reported at the shrine of Henry VI were to do with

31:55

accidents that had happened before. And how he had then appeared or intervened or rescued.

32:01

And many of them are an amazing catalogue of childhood accidents, everyday accidents,

32:06

things like a little girl getting tangled up in a leather strap that was hanging

32:10

from a door and sort of being asphyxiated by it, but then coming round when

32:15

her mother prayed to Henry VI. Or a child falling into a mill race and drowning, but then appearing to come

32:22

back to life once they had been pulled out and on the bank and various saints

32:25

had been invoked, but then they invoked Henry VI and then the child sort of resuscitates.

32:29

But what you get portrayed in these stories is the grief of the parents and

32:33

the terror and that moment of panic that you can't even look at too closely,

32:39

actually, but it's real and it's not, oh, well, we've got 14 more.

32:43

Yeah, exactly. So that's the genuine desire to find protection,

32:51

to find talismans, to find safety to have some

32:54

agency and i'm not and there's

32:57

also i think something i was interested in was the was the line between magic

33:00

and uh magical incantation or

33:03

sort of religious magic and prayer in

33:07

a more straightforward sense i think prayer theologically speaking

33:10

and i might be corrected on this but it's it's an offering

33:13

up it's a a relinquishment of

33:16

control the saying you know please don't let this happen but

33:19

i i can't impact on this i just

33:22

have to offer it up to something bigger than me or please could this

33:25

happen you know but whereas the idea that you

33:28

say certain words you perform certain actions and

33:32

if you do it right it will affect a change

33:35

a supernatural change that's something that anthropologically as i understand

33:39

it is perceived more as a religion as a magical practice and so it's that perception

33:43

of of what kind of agency you have in relation to your actions and so I think

33:48

I was I one of the things I found really interesting exploring this book is

33:51

that is at an anthropological level a lot of what.

33:55

Medieval pilgrims and christians at various levels

33:58

within medieval society is practicing is probably

34:01

more like religious magic and charms and i

34:04

found the colorfulness and the imagination and the symbolism and the objects

34:10

and words that's associated with this kind of practice really just brilliant

34:14

and and i think it's it gets seized by reformers and and turned into and slurred with

34:21

the word paganism, which I think lives on in our perception of medieval Christianity.

34:26

But now I think most people think paganism is quite cool, or that idea is quite

34:29

cool. So we've no longer got that reformer like, ugh, not pagan.

34:34

But I think we still overstate it. To give an example, there's St.

34:37

Christopher, you know, look at my face and you won't die today. That's a good example.

34:41

Another one is, well, maybe this is a bit more of a blurry one,

34:45

but there's a really, really one of my favourite, favourite pilgrim souvenirs

34:49

was from the Shrine of Thomas Beckett.

34:52

And it's one at the British Museum. And it's in the form of a little hollow

34:55

cast peacock. It's all crumpled now. And it's got a cylindrical, hollow cylindrical base, which probably was designed

35:02

for it to be stuck onto the top of a pilgrim's staff.

35:06

And the peacock is kind of in the round, three-dimensional, and its tail is held up and is open.

35:11

And it's got a little hook on its chest, probably for suspending a Canterbury

35:16

bell, because this was another very popular kind of pilgrim souvenir from Canterbury

35:19

was a little tiny bell made of tin.

35:21

And the peacock has also got Thomas Beckett standing on its back with his hand raised in blessing.

35:27

I think it's a really cool little collection of talismans. So you've got the bell.

35:33

Bells ringing in many cultures, not just medieval Christian cultures,

35:38

is a way of warding off evil spirits or thunderstorms. Bells in church towers

35:42

rung during thunderstorms and and that kind of thing.

35:45

And the eyes of the peacock looking out at the road is kind of the idea of the many watching eyes.

35:52

The peacock itself is a herald of danger, along with cockerels and other birds

35:56

like that that cry out at danger. And then the saint with his hand raised in blessing, also looking forward.

36:02

When you had this on your staff with its little jingly bell,

36:05

and you had the staff ahead of you on the road, all of those eyes and the saint's

36:09

hand and the the bell and the crying bird are all ahead of you as you walk home from Canterbury.

36:16

I think it's the most camp and wonderful object.

36:19

And it's got some similar, there are some other ones that maybe don't have the saints.

36:24

They're just a cockerel or similar kind of meanings, I think.

36:28

So I think you get from that the way in which there's an earnestness to the

36:32

quest for protection and for having some kind of control over the vicissitudes of life, but also a joy.

36:40

And a kind of creative humor and an aesthetic delight in creating those forms

36:46

of protection that I think is also very human and very relatable.

36:50

Yeah, it really is. And given how integral saints were and everything that you've

36:55

spoken about, and the fact that they were everywhere, as you say,

36:58

you know, I'm thinking of jewels that have the Catherine wheel and things that

37:01

people wore and all that kind of thing. What impact then does the Reformation have on saints, the cult of saints and on the people as well?

37:10

Yes, I mean, so one of the things that's a big deal in the Reformation is whether

37:14

images are being worshipped as images, whether it's idolatrous or not.

37:19

And there's these stories of iconoclasts sticking pins in images to see if they bleed.

37:25

And it's not just an idea that there's something theoretically wrong with worshipping

37:30

an image, but that the act of idolatry creates a space for a devil to move in.

37:34

I think that is an interesting revelation from writing this book,

37:38

is that idolatry creates a diabolical vacuum.

37:41

It's not just about the holiness no longer being there.

37:44

And this is something that crops up throughout the book, is the presence of

37:49

demons, the threat of demons. So people like Thomas More and Erasmus Desiderius, who are not...

37:56

I mean, Thomas More is obviously, he's out and out Catholic,

37:59

doesn't want reform. form desiderius erasmus is a bit more he's he's not a reformer

38:04

but he's a bit more kind of middle of the road but he they they're kind of they're

38:07

saying oh come on what's the harm you know,

38:09

There's a shrine in Picardy where Valerie, she's said to cure people of genital illnesses.

38:16

And so there's just loads of wax willies hanging all around the shrine.

38:20

Sorry to use a really silly word. It's kind of, it's alliterative.

38:24

So I had to. And vulvas hanging all around the saint's shrine.

38:28

And Thomas More, he kind of writes about it quite satirically.

38:31

But he's also like, eh, you know. There's also a ring at the shrine that men

38:35

can put their gear through, as it's called in the text.

38:38

To uh and then it gets prayed over if they've

38:41

got issues so and this is this is laughed at

38:44

in by the text but it's also then how they said like

38:47

oh come on what's what's wrong with that whereas reformers

38:51

are saying it's dangerous it makes space for the

38:53

devil and i think what's quite interesting

38:56

what i find is like an interesting question as a sort of cliffhanger at the

39:00

end of the book is and there's lots more i'm not this isn't a big spoiler or

39:04

anything but but just what taking away all of that colour and all of that protection

39:09

and all of those symbols and ideas and stories, but not taking the devil away.

39:15

This is something many other scholars have asked.

39:20

What does that leave people with to protect themselves?

39:23

And it's interesting. My other half is a carpenter and a conservation carpenter.

39:29

And a lot of the buildings that he works in have those daisy wheels and the

39:33

apotropaic symbols scratched above fireplaces, but they only really appear from

39:38

the post-Reformation period, in the post-Reformation period.

39:41

And so there's this kind of like, I won this interesting scrabbling for new

39:46

permissible means to protect yourself, and maybe there aren't any.

39:49

And so that's, I think, an impact of this suppression.

39:52

Another one is the loss of all of these stories that I think we...

39:57

Tend now to associate saints legends because there's

40:00

still because the catholic faith lives on and because saint the cult

40:03

of saints lives on in um countries that or within

40:05

catholic communities and catholic countries maybe we think that

40:09

that in the secular west or in the

40:12

anglican west or in whatever form of wherever you live or whatever you believe

40:17

that these there is no we have no claim to these stories but actually many of

40:22

the saints that i i discussed in in my book are no no longer perceived as legitimate

40:29

saints by the Catholic Church, that you can celebrate their feast days, but they're all legend,

40:33

they've got no historical basis, St. Christopher being one of them.

40:36

And many of them are so, or others, that the sort of local dimension to their

40:41

legend is irrelevant or something. So what I'm hoping to achieve with this book is to invite people to see saints' legends,

40:48

wherever they've come from, as part of their own heritage and the heritage of

40:52

storytelling, storytelling or human storytelling and related to and part of

40:57

the same world as folklore and fairy tale and myth.

41:00

Well, thank you. I think you've given us so much food for thought and you've

41:03

certainly inspired me to become more familiar with these legends and stories.

41:07

So I appreciate it. There's one more thing that we do on Talking Tudors at the

41:11

end, and that is what I call 10 to go.

41:13

So these are just 10 little questions to get to know you a little bit better.

41:16

Up that's all right so the first one is

41:19

do you have a favorite historic site that you like

41:22

to visit when I grew up I grew up in Worcestershire I

41:25

was raised Catholic my mom's side of the family Anglican on my dad's side of

41:28

the family and we'd alternate churches and the Anglican church that we went

41:31

to was Saint Mary's and Great Whitcomb Little Whitcomb even and it's a 12th

41:37

century church with later additions in a big valley because that's what Whitcomb means wide valley.

41:43

And and it's got a little stream running past it

41:46

and it's a gorgeous little English country church

41:50

and on the side of the hill Cooper's Hill

41:53

that overlooks that part of the valley there's the

41:55

remains of a Roman villa called Whitcombe Roman villa and

41:59

I mean I just have like I just have fond memories of it

42:01

anyway because it was where I grew up and so I remember cycling up

42:05

towards the Roman villa on a really lovely summer's day

42:08

and I was wearing a summer's dress on the day that the there was a

42:11

Roman reenactment happening and all of these

42:14

local men were um were marching up

42:16

the hill behind me and they were heckling in like the sweetest way like come

42:21

on boys like you know and it was really fun so I have just happy associations

42:26

with that they were there in their flannels and and armor and the villa itself

42:30

just the the way it looks out of I I just imagine it had baths,

42:35

it has a bit of a mosaic, and it was abandoned, I think, in the 4th century, as many were.

42:42

And I imagine that St Mary's is built on a site of an earlier, probably a church.

42:49

Early medieval church early in the 12th century and then

42:51

probably before that you know if we take meletus the letter meletus

42:54

got from gregory the great so been maybe a

42:58

reflection of what was happening across the country then maybe

43:01

there was a roman temple place of worship down by

43:04

that little stream you know it kind of makes sense that the you

43:07

can see the church from the villa and maybe they

43:10

when the roman people were there the romano-british

43:13

occupants of that villa were there they were looking

43:16

down at some kind of structure for their their worship

43:19

i like i really like getting an insight

43:22

into networks and connections and a sense of

43:25

a continuum of the past and i think the historical

43:28

sites that inspire the most inspire me the

43:31

most are the ones where you can you can join the dots in that

43:33

way there's also the cool thing about that villa and

43:37

i don't know if this is completely ahistorical and somebody an expert in

43:39

snails can let me know but there's a about three

43:43

miles further around that the escarpment of

43:45

hills there there's a colony of roman snails of escargot snails

43:49

like the really big ones and they're protected there and

43:52

i don't know whether because it's

43:55

the romans ate snails right so i don't know whether the romans brought those

43:59

snails and in typical snail fashion they've only managed to go about two miles

44:04

from the villa in 2 000 years and now they're like oh this will do so anyway

44:09

i it's those those links there's also So around the villa, walnut trees growing.

44:14

And I believe that walnuts were a favourite food of the Romans.

44:18

I don't think the trees are 2,000 years old, but what if?

44:21

What if they are the great, great, great, great, great grandchildren of walnuts

44:26

brought by that Roman community?

44:29

So anyway, I just, I like those. That's an amazing place.

44:32

Little Whitcomb and the Roman villa and the Church of St. Mary's and the snails and the walnut trees.

44:37

Oh, I love it. I love all of that, all those layers of history.

44:40

So I can see so many wonderful books behind you.

44:44

So what is the last book or maybe one that you're currently reading?

44:48

So last book that you read or one that you're currently reading?

44:50

I just read The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.

44:54

I was just really, a friend said, oh, we should read that.

44:57

And I was like, yeah, I never even thought about that. I kind of,

45:00

I think I associate the kind of stuff around Mary Magdalene a bit too much with

45:05

much more recent Holy Grail speculation type thing. And so I was like,

45:09

oh, I don't know how hysterical that is. But then I actually realized it is a papyrus. It's preserved on ancient papyrus

45:17

scrolls. And there's a translation by somebody whose name I've forgotten, Karen.

45:23

We'll have to put it up at the end of the podcast. But she's a Harvard professor

45:27

and she writes about, she gives a sort of early Christian setting for this time

45:31

when the Gospels hadn't yet been chosen for the official Bible,

45:36

when it's all still in discussion, when how much of Judaic scripture ended up in the Bible was still a subject

45:43

of debate and the politics around that at the time.

45:47

And how Christianity inherited a lot of Greco-Roman thought and philosophy,

45:53

especially Neoplatonism. And the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, it's amazing.

45:58

She's standing there after the resurrection and the disciples are all in confusion.

46:04

And I think it's Andrew who says to her, you were closest disciple to Christ.

46:10

Could you tell us, does he tell you anything to explain what's going on?

46:14

And so she then stands there and sort of gives a speech about

46:17

this in this this private conversation she had with

46:20

christ and she explains it and it uses very different kind of

46:22

language from what we're used to in the gospels and

46:26

it's much more platonic much more gnostic it's

46:29

much more about a kind of genderless god and

46:33

so fascinating so fascinating she's and

46:36

she kind of says is and it's also quite just comforting to read now

46:38

she says don't listen to people who say look that way

46:41

or look this way she says you've got it within you and it's

46:44

you know it's a really inspiring and quite surprising read yeah I love that

46:49

actually here's a little tidbit so Jane Seymour associated herself with Mary

46:53

Magdalene because she didn't have a name saint poor Jane so she she went for

46:57

Mary Magdalene so there you go my confirmation name was Mary Magdalene.

47:03

Yeah and the golden legend story for Mary Magdalene is absolutely fantastic

47:07

I don't include her in Saints. But I would really urge readers to get a copy of Jacobus de Varagine's Golden

47:14

Legend and read the Mary Magdalene chapter because it's super kind of horrifying and interesting.

47:21

That sounds amazing and what about um an ideal

47:24

sunday morning for you what does that look like oh

47:27

well i currently have a three-year-old and

47:30

a one-year-old i would really like to sleep till six if that's all right till

47:36

at least 6 a.m would be really nice and then probably walk a walk out on somewhere

47:43

where there are absolutely no words quite enough words in my life no writing okay Okay, great.

47:48

And do you have a new skill that you would like to learn?

47:52

Oh, dear. I'd really like to learn gymnastics.

47:55

People never teach it to seven-year-olds.

47:58

You could do it. You could do some lessons.

48:01

I don't need a private gymnastics tutor.

48:05

I took my daughter to a place that is a gymnastics centre near here.

48:10

And I went up to these like these young girls that

48:13

were kind of manning the door not like teenage girls clearly gymnasts

48:16

at the place and I was like do you do lessons for adults and they were like

48:19

no sorry never mind and now

48:24

in terms of inspiration what inspires

48:27

you or how do you find inspiration if you're feeling a

48:29

little bit uninspired start writing something

48:33

because quite often it gets interesting I I

48:36

find I don't know I've sort of hit a seam of

48:38

inspiration with is medieval up like primary sources

48:42

and chronicles and and later stuff you know

48:44

as well and and I right now I can rely on

48:47

that like if I've got my head into a place

48:50

like I find and I hope that listeners will

48:53

identify with this and I just don't sound like a psychopath but I I find um

48:56

looking after children challenging you know I find I

49:00

love it and I feel blessed but there's also a

49:02

lot of stew time like stewing time in your own head and

49:06

if you tell them what's going on in your your head they really don't care and

49:09

so you don't bother with that and little things can

49:12

grow and you can also just you know when one of them's watching something other

49:15

ones are asleep you just sort of oh what shall I do for two minutes oh I'll

49:18

go on social media and and I think you can sort of sort of going back to the

49:21

gospel of Mary Magdalene you can sort of find yourself looking this way looking

49:25

that way getting swept up in in superficial things and nothing.

49:30

Like sorts that out for me more than being alone

49:33

for an hour and writing something

49:37

just writing a version of something that's why i

49:40

quite like the retelling thing because a lot of these old stories

49:43

don't explain their characters motivations and so

49:46

just it's like a it's like doing a crossword yeah so you

49:49

can kind of take take the the map of the plot that the

49:52

text gives you and kind of try and make sense of it try and make it beautiful

49:56

as well or to kind of like how would you pen that you know if it's a poem how

50:01

would you turn it into prose and retain its kind of aura of mystery that's something

50:05

I just it takes me out of my own head and I find profoundly inspiring.

50:09

Yeah that's the key isn't it get out of our minds for

50:13

a little while our thoughts so as

50:15

a child what did you want to be when you grew

50:18

up a butcher I just had this idea that

50:21

I would be a complete femme fatale I thought I was going

50:24

to be I thought I was going to be six foot tall and I

50:27

was going to I can remember imagining myself in fishnets and

50:30

red stilettos because that's what I thought sexy

50:33

women wore and I can remember imagining sitting at a bar having like a cocktail

50:39

and somebody coming over and being like so what do you do and me being like

50:43

butcher and I just thought that would be really really alluring I love that

50:51

I've never had that response before there's never

50:53

been butcher so that's the first time for everything and

50:56

what about a country that maybe you haven't

50:59

seen that you would like to travel to i would love

51:02

oh does it have to be real no no

51:06

let's go with the not real one i like that i'd quite like to go to like the

51:10

earthly paradise that saint brendan finds on his voyage although on that there's

51:15

a really funny okay so there's a i think actually it's even on the hereford

51:19

mapper mundi there is a an island off the coast of west West Africa called St.

51:24

Brendan's Isle. And it's put that it's kind of in the place of the Canary Islands.

51:27

So maybe I've actually already been, went on a cruise ship there once.

51:31

But, you know, it's like somewhere where rain never falls, but only bubbles up from the ground.

51:36

And the trees are always fruiting and there's like iridescent panthers.

51:41

And but the cool thing is like there's a depiction of St. Brendan's Isle on the first ever globe.

51:48

I talk about it in this book. And what I find really funny. So I'm quarter Austrian

51:52

and in Austria we don't call potatoes Kartoffeln as Germans.

51:56

People from Germany who speak German do call them Erdapfel, so earth apples.

52:00

But this this map this first ever globe depiction of the earth was made in i

52:06

think the late 14th century i want to say and it was known as the air doubtful

52:10

globe but it was before potatoes,

52:13

had come to europe so they didn't realize that

52:16

they had given it and it just means earth apple they called it the earth apple

52:20

globe because it looked like an apple but they unwittingly made it really funny

52:24

for the rest of human history because then quite soon the potato Tato arrived

52:29

and really took the rug out under the seriousness of their beautiful robe.

52:35

Yeah, St. Brendan's Isle. Brendan's Isle, wonderful. Love it.

52:38

And very last thing, I ask all my guests for a takeaway.

52:41

Normally it's a Tudor takeaway, but I'm more than happy for this to be a saint

52:45

takeaway or a story takeaway. And it's something for our listeners to go off and explore after the episode.

52:50

So sometimes people give websites or books to read or songs to listen to.

52:54

So do you have a takeaway for us? Go and visit your nearest St. Christopher.

52:59

Look on his face. I bet no one's ever more than a few miles away from a St.

53:03

Christopher, especially closed in England and Wales.

53:06

Absolutely. I'm going to be on the lookout now for St. Christopher everywhere.

53:10

Amy, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today.

53:13

Your book sounds absolutely fascinating and I cannot wait to read all those

53:16

amazing stories. So thank you so much.

53:18

Thank you so much. It was utter joy. Thank you. Loved it. Well,

53:22

that brings us to the end of this episode of Talking Tudors.

53:26

Thank you so much for joining us. I absolutely love to hear from listeners. So if you have any comments or suggestions

53:32

or just want to say hi, please get in touch with me via my website,

53:36

www.onthetudortrail.com, where you'll also find show notes for today's episode.

53:42

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53:46

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53:49

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53:53

where you can interact with other Tudor history lovers and hear all the behind-the-scenes news.

53:58

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54:04

It's time now for us to re-enter the modern world. As always,

54:08

I look forward to talking Tudors with you again very soon.

54:11

Music.