User:Nortonius/Sandbox/MedeshamstedeSandbox
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[edit] Medeshamstede sandbox
[edit] Things to include
- Importance to Mercia: Chad moved see to Lichfield from Repton
- About art: Hedda Stone, Breedon, Castor, Fletton
'St Margaret, Fletton, Cambridgeshire'. CRSBI. Retrieved on May 16 2008.
'The Lichfield Angel'. Lichfield Cathedral. Retrieved on May 17 2008. (about shrine made by Hedda for Chad: stunning quality sculpture!)
- Actually for Peterborough: poss mention that Cnut signed a treaty w. Edmund Ironside at Olney, a Peterborough estate since late 10th c.
[edit] A structural plan:
- Move idea of "important Mercian monastery" to first sentence, and expand for summary
[edit] A royal foundation
Done, pretty much.
[edit] Religious and political motives for the foundation
[edit] Religious
7th century evangelisation; shortage of priests; building on Christianisation of Gyrwe
[edit] Political
Fluctuating Mercian boundaries. "Homes for surplus royal daughters", etc.
[edit] Monastic colonies
Done, pretty much.
[edit] A cultural centre
Sculpture.
[edit] Later Anglo-Saxon history
[edit] Destroyed by Danes?
[edit] Tenth century refoundation
[edit] Physical remains and archaeology
The most visible remnant of sculptural and architectural activity at Medeshamstede is the sculpture now known as the Hedda Stone, dated by Rosemary Cramp to the late 8th or early 9th century, and kept on show at Peterborough Cathedral.[1] Remnants of Anglo-Saxon buildings on the site of Medeshamstede have been identified in modern times, though it is not clear that any are remains of the original church.[citation needed] These include foundations under the crossing and south transept of the Cathedral.
Early buildings on the site incorporated materials (or "spolia") removed from nearby Roman sites, such as the former town of Durobrivae, or possibly the very large villa at Castor.[2] Such spolia have also been identified in the foundations of later Anglo-Saxon structures on the site. Five hundred years after the event, Hugh Candidus wrote that when work on the church commenced, Sexwulf "laid as its foundations some great stones, so mighty that eight yoke of oxen could scarcely draw any of them", and claimed that Sexwulf and his colleagues were "striving to build no commonplace structure, but a second Rome, or a daughter of Rome in England".[3] This is reminiscent of Wilfrid's actions at Hexham.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Cramp, R., A century of Anglo-Saxon sculpture, Graham, 1977, p. 192. This date is subject to discussion: see Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain and Ireland, "St Margaret, Fletton, Cambridgeshire". CRSBI. Retrieved May 24 2008. The attribution to Hedda is a modern, antiquarian development, presumably based on a 12th century text known as the "Relatio Heddæ Abbatis" ("Story of Abbot Hedda"): Mellows, W.T. (ed.), The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus a Monk of Peterborough, Oxford University Press, 1949, pp. 159-61. It is of extremely limited historical value, but was clearly a source used by Hugh Candidus, and is first found in a 12th century manuscript created at Peterborough called the "Liber Niger" ("Black Book": Society of Antiquaries of London, manuscript no.60, see e.g. Willetts, P.J., Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Society of Antiquaries of London , Boydell, Brewer, 2000).
- ^ British Archaeology Issue 60, August 2001, 'Old ruins, new world'. For the villa at Castor, see 'A Guide to the Church of St. Kyneburgha. Castor Church. Retrieved on May 25 2008.
- ^ Mellows, William Thomas (ed. & trans.), The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, Peterborough Natural History, Scientific and Archæological Society, 1941, p. 2. At 8 oxen to the yoke, Hugh Candidus intended 64 oxen.
