WEEK 31--Lecture on the St Chad Gospels

I don't wish to imply that I've never been to a lecture before.  Heck, when I was an undergraduate, I went to several every term.  I'd sit there with my mate Sue, and we'd see who cracked first and wrote the note which said 'Lunch?'  This meant Norwegian mushrooms and vintage cider at one of Durham's pubs, with the knock-on effect of no afternoon lectures.  That's what happens when students are given grants.  They don't study. In these days of student loans it's completely different.  It really is.  Study, study, study, no pub.  Would my son lie to his mother?

Nor are you to think I'm just scrambling around again for something new to blog about.  I've chosen this for a reason.  I am addressing a syndrome which has no handy name, but which we all recognise.  The old 'living in Stratford and never going to the RSC' scenario.  You know what I mean.  Admit it, you only ever visit the Tower of London when you've got foreign guests, don't you?

Here in Lichfield we have a truly magnificent Gospel Book, which as I may have mentioned before, is OLDER THAN THE BOOK OF KELLS.  It's currently on display in the Chapter House alongside its mate, the Lichfield Angel (a Saxon carving, probably from St Chad's tomb chest), and the star items of the Staffordshire Hoard.  Sorry folks--the exhibition has sold out, but if you're quick, you can still catch it at Tamworth Castle (27th Aug--18th Sept).  I believe there are still free tickets left, but you do have to book.

Obviously, I've often seen the St Chad Gospels.  They still get paraded round the cathedral on High Days and holidays.   But I've never really taken the trouble to learn much about them.  Hence today's lecture.  It was delivered by Prof William F Endres, an expert from the University of Kentucky.  Last summer we had a team from Kentucky over here, digitising the Gospel book (i.e. taking lots of  images with very high-tech equipment).  Prof Endres was here to share some of their discoveries.

A long overdue scholarly book on the St Chad Gospels is being planned, which ought to scotch forever the idea that the St Chad Gospels originated in Wales.  And it is to this work you should turn in due course for a proper analysis.  But here are a couple of things which captured my imagination:  the first is the possibility that the scribes who wrote this exquisite text may have been women.  Another is that some of the ornamentation, which appears to be unique to the St Chad Gospel (a twisted rope motif) bears an uncanny resemblance to the filigree work on some of the Staffordshire Hoard items.  And finally, there are hints that the St Chad Gospel may have influenced the style of the Book of Kells.  (Than which it is, of course, OLDER.)

Dukan Update--Second Half of Consolidation Diet

Well, it still seems to be working.  Weight stable, within a few pounds either side of my target.  The Consolidation Phase, so vital because 'you are like a deep-sea diver coming up from the depths who has to do it in stages for safety's sake', lasts a set length of time: 5 days for each pound lost.  In my case 100 days.  I have reached the halfway point, and may now eat two celebration meals a week, instead of one, and two servings of starchy crap; while still faithfully maintaining 'the famous protein Thursday' and the 3tbsp of oatbran a day, without which Dukan is not Dukan.

In fact, I passed the magic 50 days on Wednesday without noticing.  If I'd known that yesterday, I would have eaten chocolate cake with my champagne.  The chancellor and I were celebrating the successful re-display of the Anglo-Saxon Lichfield angel and the Chad Gospel (older than the Book of Kells) in their posh new glass cases, ready for the Staffordshire Hoard Touring Exhibition next month.  It was a hair-raising day (from 8.30am till 6.30pm) in the chapter House, all captured on CCTV.  Never again will I make the mistake of thinking museum curators and conservators lead a dull bookish life.

But back to Dukan.  Hats off to the fellow.  Or 'Chappeau!' as I believe the French say.  I went for my usual 3mile run this morning, and I have to tell you, It's a whole lot easier to get round when you're not lugging the equivalent of 40 packs of butter.  Of course, the real test comes two years down the line.  I acknowledge there is still time for the whole Doodah Diet to go pear-shaped.  I use the term advisedly.

WEEK 7—Behind the Scenes at the Museum

Below: Pectoral cross and folded cross from the Staffordshire Hoard

This week’s new thing was a trip to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery’s conservation room. I tagged along with a group being shown part of the Staffordshire Hoard close up and personal. No, it’s not fair, is it? I only got to do this because I’m married to the canon chancellor of Lichfield Cathedral, who has been working with partner groups setting up the Mercian Trail, and organising the Hoard travelling exhibition this summer. It comes to the cathedral in August. (In mitigation, may I just say that I am obliged to attend a great many tedious functions because I’m married to the canon chancellor of Lichfield Cathedral. Plus this house is cold.)

We were able to get a glimpse into the working life of Deborah Cane, the Collections Care and Conservation officer. Each week she has a new favourite Hoard item, as her painstaking work reveals yet more wonders of Anglo Saxon skill. You will see in the picture her tools laid out on her bench. One of them is a little device which holds a thorn. Thorns are the best thing for gently scraping mud off gold filigree, apparently. If you get over-enthusiastic, they break before they can scratch the surface. Thorns and water, that’s the way to do it. Not Cillit Bang. A former museum director in our group nearly passed out when I said that.

The detail on these pieces of battlefield bling is mind-boggling. One theory is that the Anglo Saxon goldsmiths were all myopic. Not much good with a bow and arrow, but they could knock you up a fancy sword pommel as soon as look at you. Some items in the Hoard are still a complete mystery. There are, for example, several tiny gold snakes, some of which have pins on the back. When Deborah put the snake under the microscope we were able to see the rather mournful expression on its face (see below). Perhaps it was based on the face of a goldsmith depressed by the thought that nobody else was shortsighted enough to admire all the detail.

The chancellor was particularly pleased to see the ecclesiastical items, which include a folded up cross (possibly the ornamentation from the cover of a Gospel Book) and a pectoral cross. He nominated these as the things he’d most like to slip in his pocket. I had my eye on the tiny seahorse. Monday was probably our best chance. When the Hoard comes to the cathedral it will be behind bullet-proof glass so thick it would take 5 minutes with a pick axe even to chip a small hole. Apparently, CCTV camera footage from other museums shows crooks hurling fire extinguishers at this type of glass, then reeling back as the extinguisher bounces off and deals them a glancing blow to the head. Talking of glancing blows to the head, the security measures in the cathedral will include our fearsome trio of vergers, armed with ceremonial staffs. You don't want to mess with the vergers, trust me.

Gold, gold, gold! It was an astonishing experience. (I'll create a distraction, darling, and you snatch the cross.) All this (and a lot more) was dug up in a field a couple of miles down the road, just off the old Roman road of Watling Street. Makes you want to buy a metal detector, doesn't it?

For more about the Staffordshire Hoard, go to www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/

For more about Lichfield Cathedral, go to www.lichfield-cathedral.org/

Close up of snake's head:

Snake brooch (?) and uncleaned brooch with four eagle heads:

Conservation and care tool kit:

The Top Secret Thing

Lichfield cathedral chapter house

You have been patient, thank you. I can now tell you the top secret thing. In fact, it turns out I could have told you ages ago, but I was not kept up to speed on the cathedral’s press releases.

The top secret new thing I did was to visit the site of an archaeological dig taking place in the cathedral chapter house. That’s not particularly top secret, of course, unless something exciting is discovered. In this case, human remains.

‘Three ancient burials have been unearthed at Lichfield Cathedral. It follows an archaeological investigation in the Chapter House by Cathedral Archaeologist Kevin Blockley. For the last 750 years, two of the skeletons have lain just below the floor of the Chapter House, which was originally built in the 1240s. The dig was in preparation for the Staffordshire Hoard Temporary Exhibition which is due to take place later this summer.’ (For a more complete description visit the BBC Stoke and Staffordshire website.)

The sensitivity here was the whole issue of ‘human remains’ and how they are to be treated. As I looked into the sandy trench that had been dug in the chapter house floor I was struck by the thought that it was more like looking at a fossil than a human being. Curiously unshocking. Dismembered corpse discovered under cathedral floor, yes. Bones, not really. After all, you could probably stick a spade in the grass anywhere round the cathedral and hit human remains.

‘Oh, look, a skeleton.’ That was about the size of it. We had a skeleton hanging in the biology lab at school. At least, I’ve always assumed it was a real one, rather than a plastic reproduction. It’s difficult to make any kind of personal connection with a skeleton, although we've all gotone, and indeed rely on it. Maybe this is all part of the sheer impossibility of imagining ourselves dead. The brain suggests some vague image of these bones sleeping under the cathedral floor, and being disturbed by the archeologist’s trowel. Oi! put that slab back. Some of us are trying to get some kip down here.

If you work in a hospital or a funeral parlour, or if you are clergy, then death is a familiar process. Dead bodies as well as bare bones are a just a fact. Of life, I was about to put. Of death, then. That’s where we’re all heading. It’s just that in our culture recently we’ve shunted it out of the home and allowed ourselves the luxury of not quite looking squarely in it.

How old are the remains? We'd need to carbon date them to be sure. But here's an idea floated by the canon chancellor in the cathedral press release (which I was eventually shown): 'We are very excited about the prospect of exhibiting iconic items from the Staffordshire Hoard in the summer. It is an intriguing possibility that these beautiful pieces of gold and garnet Saxon jewellery will be displayed only feet above what we now know may have been a place of Saxon burial.'

Welcome to my world

Welcome to the weird world of Anglicanism. In particular, welcome to Lichfield Cathedral Close.

I’ve probably picked the wrong moment to launch this blog. This is cathedral summertime. The choir is on holiday, the Lichfield Festival has just finished, everything has gone quiet. Apart from the cathedral clock, which still chimes every quarter, day and night. In our first week here I must have heard every last ding-dong, and was sure I’d never get used to it. But you do, of course. Now if I’m away from home I feel adrift when I wake in the night—where am I? what time is it?

So, the choral year has ended. It will begin again in September, roughly following the English academic year. The church year, however, operates on a different calendar—from Advent Sunday (at the end of November) to Last Sunday before Advent. How many calendars do I inhabit these days? The tax year, the calendar year, the choral year, the church year, the academic year. Calendar overload. Maybe this is why I sometimes feel adrift in the decades as well.

Lichfield is in Staffordshire. That’s ‘North’ to Londoners, ‘South’ to Geordies, and ‘bang in the middle of the country’ to anyone looking at a map. People tend not to have heard of Lichfield. It floats around, gets located in Leicestershire or Norwich. In former centuries Staffordshire was part of the old Kingdom of Mercia, and is currently best known as Land of the Staffordshire Hoard (or the Lichfield Loot as we prefer to call it round here). The Dean was all for having the entire cathedral floor up to see what we could find. We discovered an Anglo-Saxon stone angel under the nave a few years back, possibly part of St Chad’s tomb chest. The angel is displayed int he cathedral chapter house, alongside the Chad Gospel. This is an illuminated Anglo-Saxon manuscript, older than the Book of Kells. (How can people not have heard of Lichfield?)

This blog is my unofficial take on the Close. Here’s how it was today: I went out on my usual run this morning, more slowly that usual, after Saturday’s Lichfield Cathedral Dash (more on this in my next posting). Big lorries had drawn up on the paved area at the West front ready to cart off sound equipment and staging after the Festival. The wine tent was being dismantled. Putting up the wine tent is an ancient Lichfield rain-making ceremony. It ensures that the entire ten days of the Festival will be wash-out. Somebody seems to have cocked up this year, tangled some guy ropes, maybe—there were a couple of dry days.

As I rounded the fenced-off East end, dust from the masons’ site drifted like smoke. I could hear hammering and the whine of stone cutting machinery. Blocks of different sized pinkish sandstone lay in piles waiting to be crafted. The Lady Chapel, currently bristling with scaffolding, is shrink-wrapped in white plastic while essential renovation work goes on.

I headed off the Close along Reeve Lane towards Stowe Pool. New broods of ducklings bobbed among the lily pads, and baby coots screeched. On the far side of the pool stands St Chad's church, with St Chad's Well. St Chad himself used to walk this route. It was humid and bright and windy. Sunlight came blinding off the ripples. I plodded on, past Minster Pool (which used to be the Bishop’s fish pond in days of yore), then headed into Beacon Park, (undergoing renovation as well), and from there, back onto the Close via the road entrance. This is a three mile route. My husband, who has GPS on his iPhone, informs me that it's only 2.9 miles, actually. Normal people refer to this as 'a three mile run', however.

In medieval times the Close was heavily fortified. There would have been a gatehouse where cars now drive in and out. At the bottom of our garden lies the old dry moat, where Cromwell’s soldiers tried to break in when the cathedral was under siege in the Civil War. The cathedral with its three spires stands on an island of grass. A road loops round, like a running track, and buildings from different eras line the sides of the Close.

When I reached our house I sat on the wall in the hot sun, face a glamorous shade of tomato, feeling that life was good. Running defrags the mind. So does brisk walking. Worries are a cloud of gnats. If you keep moving they can't settle on you. There is also something important about sticking to the same route. I have run and walked those three miles alone and in company, in all weathers, in all frames of mind. This consoles me, somehow. I feel echoes of the same thing in the round of the church year, in going week after week to choral evensong. It accumulates associations and resonances. There is also that sense of being part of something bigger than yourself, of walking in pathways carved out by generations of feet, paths that will still be there when we are long gone.

For more about the Lichfield Cathedral, visit http://lichfield-cathedral.org/

To get a feel of the city of Lichfield, visit http://thelichfieldblog.co.uk/