For #WhanthatAprilleday16, I made a video of myself reading The Ruin - An Anglo-Saxon Elegy https://youtu.be/KAKcXonFEWw.

Status Questionum

The writing process mystifies me. The past few months I've been struggling with chapter 1, hardly making any progress, and then yesterday I produced over 3000 words. It's great that I can do something like that in one day but I wish my productivity were more evenly distributed. It'd be less stressful.

So, I haven't posted anything here in over a week. The main reason for this I was busy on chapter 1 trying to finish it and send it off to my supervisors, which I did last night at 11pm. I don't have a meeting with my supervisors until 7 July, which is two weeks away. However, it was important to submit chapter 1 yesterday because it was a self-imposed deadline. I needed to meet that target to beat myself back into shape. So, success! I will spend the time between now and the next supervision meeting planning what to do next, which is revise chapter 3. I'll also go through the thesis and determine where I need to insert figures, illustrations, maps, etc. The first draft of my thesis was woefully lacking in this aspect. I'll also read over chapter 1 before the supervision meeting, but I'll wait a couple of days before doing that.

I also now have time to work on the paper I'm presenting at the International Medieval Congress. My paper is titled Saint Alban: An Orthodox Martyr for Britain. I can probably recycle bits of my thesis for this paper. In chapter two of my thesis, I argue that Germanus of Auxerre invented the cult of Alban as part of his efforts to combat Pelagianism in Britain. Germanus was following the example of Ambrose of Milan, who also used saints' cults to promote orthodoxy over Arianism. I need to review what I've written on this topic so far, and determine how to fit it into 20 minute paper. I also need to determine if a Powerpoint presentation is called for. I requested a projector, but I'm not sure if I'll need it. Pictures are good though. They help keep the audience awake. Anyway, that's enough for now. Back to work.

Michael Wood on Beowulf

Last night I watched the BBC programme Michael Wood on Beowulf. I found it entertaining and enjoyable and reasonably informative. It didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know, but for something aimed at the general public, it was good. It did use the medium of television quite well, presenting unique footage that made me gasp in delight, something that is difficult to accomplish with an academic article in print.

The programme switched between focusing on the plot of the poem itself and tracing the origins of the poem, which I found to be an interesting and successful approach. Throughout the episode, they would present clips of Julian Glover performing the poem in modern English, with occasional bits of Old English, for a group of re-enactors in a reconstructed Anglo-Saxon mead-hall. The audience in the mead-hall was enthralled, cheering in all the right places. Watching Julian's performance, I wished I could see it in person. Even so, watching it on television was compelling.

The segments in which Michael Wood traced the development of the poem were quite good too. This isn't surprising, since he is a bona fide Anglo-Saxon scholar as well as an experienced television presenter. He visited many sites important in Anglo-Saxon history. He began in East Anglia, where he claims the poem is likely to have been first composed, orally. Of course he went to Sutton Hoo, and presented a good summary of the ship burial and its significance, with obligatory shots of the treasure found in it, including a replica of the famous helmet. The debate over who was buried there was completely glossed over, with no acknowledgement of any debate whatsoever. Wood simply asked a local historian who was buried there and the reply was simply "It couldn't be anybody but Raedwald" without even discussing why the evidence points to him.

The Sutton Hoo segment also included archival footage of Basil Brown, the initial excavator of Sutton Hoo mound 1, talking about the excavation as well as actual footage of the excavation itself. I had no idea that such footage existed. The footage consisted of workmen in the trench with the outline of the ship clearly visible. They only showed a few seconds worth, but I was extremely delighted to see it, and wish they had shown more.

After the trip to Sutton Hoo, Wood went to the British Library to look at the manuscript itself. Now, watching someone on television look at a manuscript does not sound like something exciting, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I will probably never get to see the manuscript myself, so this might actually be the closest I ever come to it. Apparently, the manuscript has never actually been shown on television before. I'm not sure how Michael Wood managed to convince the British Library to let him do so, but I'm glad he did.

Other sites Wood visited include Jarrow, with Bede's World and the church of St. Peter and Paul, as well as Ruthwell and the Neolithic barrow known as Wayland's Smithy. These sites were visited in support of Wood's discussion about the tension between the pagan past and Christian present in the poem. I was surprised by how well this topic was handled and that it was even included in the programme at all. There was an entire segment about The Dream of the Rood, with lines from the poem (in modern English of course) spoken over footage of a tree in the woods. It doesn't sound compelling, but it worked.

Wood also visited Seamus Heaney and talked about his recent translation of the poem. They described how the poem still has resonance and relevance to us today. Finally, Wood went to Malmesbury, which he believes to be the most likely location for the production of the manuscript. He did a good job arguing his case, describing the other texts found in the manuscript and pointing to the fact that no other place in England had a greater number of Latin texts translated into Old English. The entire issue of dating the poem was completely avoided, except for the statement that the manuscript itself was written around the year 1000.

All things considered, I really enjoyed watching the show. There were no real cringe-worthy moments. I always like seeing sites I've visited in historical documentaries. I would recommend it to any Anglo-Saxonist. If I had a copy of it on DVD, or there was one in my university library, I would include it on the reading list of the modules I teach.

Driving through Kashmir

This morning on the way to campus I listened to one of the songs I use to motivate myself, Led Zeppelin's Kashmir. It's good for that purpose because it reminds me of the days when I was younger, and was just getting interested in the things that would lead to an academic career. I discovered Led Zeppelin for myself when I was about 14 or 15, when my brother-in-law introduced me to their music. This was just after the first boxed set was released. Until then my favourite bands were Guns N' Roses and Metallica. I had heard Led Zeppelin songs on the radio before then, like Black Dog and Immigrant Song and Stairway to Heaven, but never sat down and listened to their albums. Once I did, they instantly became my favourite rock & roll band and have been ever since.

Their music captured so many of my interests like no other band has. At that age I was just beginning to explore the mythology and folk tales of Europe, from the classical myths of Greece to the Norse myths, Arthurian legends and the folk tales of Britain. I was reading Tolkien, Geoffrey Ashe, and Kevin Crossley-Holland.[1] Led Zeppelin seemed to be interested in the same things. Their songs are mythic, epic, blues, rock, heavy metal and folk. Their lyrics reference Tolkien, the Icelandic sagas, British prehistory and barbarian migrations. When I look back at the books I was reading at that time, I can see that it was the beginning of a quest that I can trace directly through my academic career to my current research. And listening to Led Zeppelin always reminds me of the excitement and enthusiasm I had (and still have) for the pursuit of knowledge and joy of intellectual discovery.

One song in particular inspires such nostalgia more than any other, the one mentioned in the title of this blog post, Kashmir. It has always been my favourite Led Zeppelin song. It is their most mythic, most epic tune. And the opening lines sum up for me everything I aspire to:

Oh let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dreams.
I am the traveler of all time and space, to be where I have been.
Sit with elders of a gentler race, this world has seldom seen.
Talk of days for which they sit and wait, when all will be revealed.

The line "I am the traveler of all time and space, to be where I have been", resonates with me especially. I see it as a metaphor for the path of an historian/archaeologist, which is reinforced two lines later, "when all will be revealed." Of course, it is impossible to know everything, but it is something to strive for. Or maybe the path to that place consists of contemplating dust.

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[1] Geoffrey Ashe, The Quest for Arthur's Britain (New York: Praeger, 1968), Kevin Crossley-Holland, British Folk Tales (New York: Orchard Books, 1987), Kevin Crossley-Holland, Folk-tales of the British Isles, Pantheon fairy tale & folklore library (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988).

From Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England

I chased down the reference to dustsceáwung in Mitchell and Robinson's A Guide to Old English. I should have remembered that it was in the introduction to the poem The Ruin, my favourite elegy and one of my favourite poems full stop. Anyway, I can't put it any better than Mitchell and Robinson, so I'll just quote them here:

'Where are those who lived before us?' In every age and culture people have raised this haunting question, especially when prompted to such thoughts by an ancient ruin or some other relic of the past. In both their poetry and their prose the Anglo-Saxons were very given to reflection on former civilizations and the people who built them, so much so that their language had a word for such meditation: dūstscēawung 'contemplation of the dust'. This theme occurs often as an incidental motif in the longer works (e.g. The Wanderer ll. 73-110 and Beowulf ll. 2255-66), but The Ruin is an entire poem devoted to the depiction of an ancient ghost town and to the thoughts which the scene evokes.

The Ruin and dustsceáwung are actually quite appropriate for what I intended to discuss in my last post but will introduce here, the transition from Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England, or at least writing about the research on it.

So I'm struggling with chapter 1 of my thesis at the moment. I don't have a separate introduction so in this chapter I need to explain the aims of my thesis, list the research questions I am pursuing, summarise the current state of research on my topic, describe how my particular research impacts it, and explain how I'm going to do it. Sounds easy, doesn't it? The problem is that the state of research I have to summarise concerns the end of Roman Britain, and by association, the end of the Roman Empire. I don't think there's another topic in historical research that has undergone as much research as these topics. The catch is, I'm not really interested in the end of Roman Britain or the end of the Roman Empire. Well I am actually, and I have a lot to say about them, but they are not the main subject of my research. However, the interpretation of the general issues impacts my research, and vice versa. What I need to do is explain that the prevalent historiographical interpretation of Britain after the Roman period assumed that Christianity was abandoned or nearly disappeared. And thus, no one considered the idea of researching saints' cults in Britain, because they assumed there would have been none. I find it difficult though because the end of Roman Britain is a package deal. Not only do you get the Romans leaving Britain, but you also get the Anglo-Saxon invasion, the destruction and ruin of towns and the abandonment of Christianity. You can't talk about one without referring to these others.

I don't subscribe to this particular interpretation of a sudden and dramatic end to Roman Britain. I don't think it fell faster and harder than other western provinces in the Roman Empire. Nor do I think that the Anglo-Saxon invasion caused Britain to be isolated from the continent. There a lot of reasons why this particular view emerged, and although this view has been questioned and challenged for some time it still persists. In challenging it myself, I feel a little like Don Quixote, charging at windmills. Or am I just gazing at dust.

Introductory

So this is the inaugural post for my blog dedicated to medieval studies, Late Antiquity, archaeology and other academic pursuits. I registered for the account and selected the title a long time ago, but I didn't think I had anything to say about medieval studies in a blog post until now. I have another blog, in which I discuss things that are not related to medieval studies; other interests of mine and my mundane observations about life, the universe and everything. It's called Unsubstantial Pageant. I haven't posted anything in that blog in a while. I also have a LiveJournal account, which has been updated more recently. Both of these blogs consist mainly of links to web sites and articles that I find interesting and/or entertaining. I haven't actually written much in either of these. I haven't written much of anything in general lately, including my thesis. I decided to finally start posting to this blog in an attempt to get into the habit of writing on a regular basis because I've had a difficult time lately trying to write and edit my thesis. Writing blog posts doesn't entail as much pressure and anxiety as writing a thesis, but it still flexes the same muscles in the brain, and the hands. Neil Gaiman described his blog entries as a warm-up exercise for 'real writing', which is more or less how I'm approaching this blog, with my thesis as the 'real writing'.

I suppose I should introduce myself and my area of interest. I am a PhD student in a medieval studies programme. I will refrain from being more specific at the moment because I'm not sure about the university rules regarding blogging, and anonymity might be useful if I decide to rant about my particular university or department (although if you follow the links above you could probably figure out more specific information about who I am and where I am based). My thesis is titled Saint Alban and the Cult of Saints in Late Antique Britain. My research is interdisciplinary and incorporates archaeological evidence and historical texts, with occasional forays into linguistics, mostly toponymy. I actually submitted my thesis at the end of last September, and my viva voce
was just before Christmas last year. The result was a referral, which basically means that the examiners found my research to be original and important, but the thesis itself required some substantial revision. So I've basically been granted an extension to revise it. I have now just over a year left to do so.

In addition to my PhD research, I have also studied various aspects of the medieval period in Britain, including Anglo-Saxon culture (history, literature, language and archaeology), and pilgrimage in later medieval England. I have also studied British prehistory. My background is predominantly archaeological but I have ventured into history and literature. I have taught on modules in world archaeology, history of western civilization, medieval British literature, and Anglo-Saxon culture.

The title of this blog captures all these interests. I first encountered the term dust-sceáwung in Bruce Mitchell and Fred Robinson's A Guide to Old English, 5th ed., where it is presented as a possible Anglo-Saxon word for archaeology (I don't have a copy to hand so I can't provide a specific reference). It literally means 'contemplation of dust', as described in the Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.

I think it is an accurate description for what archaeologists and historians do, and thus an appropriate title for my blog. Besides Unlocked Wordhoard, is already taken.

This introductory post turned out to be longer than I expected. So I will discuss what I intended to explore here in another post. Watch this space.