The Reconstruction of Berwick Castle

And the Battle of Melrose.

The alleged stone of Destiny used to crown Scottish Kings was also stolen from Scone by the English and taken to London. Douglas under duress swore allegiance to King Edward to escape imprisonment, but later in 1297 he joined William Wallace in rebellion against the English invaders.  In retaliation his own castle of Douglas in Lanarkshire was stormed by Edward's lackie Robert Bruce (later King Robert I 1306-1329) with Douglas's wife and children, including a young man called James (later Bruce's "Good Sir James" Douglas) taken hostage and handed over to Edward's wrath. Douglas for the sake of his family surrendered and was taken to York castle in chains where he died of ill-treatment in 1302. (Read entire post.)

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Horses of the Camargue

They are called the "horse of the sea."

The Camargue horse is also known as “the horse of the sea” due to its native environment of France’s Rhone delta.  Its origins are generally unknown, but it is thought to be one of the oldest breeds of horses in the world. For hundreds or even thousands of years, these horses have lived wild in the Camargue wetlands.

Adult Camargue horses appear white but are considered gray, meaning that they have black skin underlying a white hair coat. As foals, their coat is black or dark brown, but as they mature their coat becomes increasingly intermingled with white hairs. They are relatively small horses, usually 13.1–14.3 hands at the withers (4 ½-5 feet tall at the shoulder), yet they have the strength to carry an adult rider. They have a short neck, deep chest, compact body, strong limbs and a full mane and tail. Their hooves are tough and wide, well acclimated to the marshy terrain. (Read entire post.)

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Tooth Enamel and Well-Being

Health in a medieval village.

Accentuated striae (AS) are developmental defects in tooth enamel that form during periods of physiological stress, and have been used in skeletal studies to measure stress and health levels in past populations. However, the assumption that the presence of AS necessarily indicates poor health has not been sufficiently tested. This project builds on past research by investigating the relationship between AS and age at death, since the presence of more AS in younger individuals (those with a higher risk of dying) would support the relationship between AS and poor health. Analytical improvements for testing this relationship include a focus on individuals as the unit of analysis and the use of survival analysis, which corrects for some skeletal sample biases and allows for both juveniles and adults to be included. “Weak” and “strong” AS in permanent teeth from 85 medieval Danish skeletons (ages at death: 0-30 years) are identified in digital images of tooth thin sections and developed into individual defect chronologies using daily and long-period increments in enamel. Chronologies span the period from birth until death or canine crown completion, whichever occurs first. Survival analysis is used to test the relationship of AS in different periods of childhood to the risk of dying at subsequent ages. Weak AS occurring before age seven predict a lower risk of dying after age seven while strong AS show the opposite pattern. (Read entire article.)

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Lent in Old England

From English Historical Fiction Authors:

The thing we most often associate with Lent is fasting, or the giving up of something we enjoy. Rules of fasting for the forty days of Lent were very strict prior to the Middle Ages. One meal a day, no flesh or fish, no eggs, butter or cheese.

In England, Lent was a season when fruit and vegetables were scarce (no supermarkets!) so the fast must have been more of a deprivation than it was in later years.

As time went by, these laws were relaxed so that by the Middle Ages fish made a return to the fast, and by the fifteenth century, milk products had been re-introduced so that effectively Lent had come to mean meals without meat, and most Lenten meals were fish and vegetables. (Read entire post.)

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Happiness as Ethics

The problem with making happiness the goal in life.

The most glaring example of this unsound ethical thinking is the pervasive belief in moral relativism, the idea that each person ought to act in keeping with his own moral code, that what is right for one person isn't necessarily right for another person, and that each person has a moral obligation to be tolerant and not pass judgment on alternative moral viewpoints. This is probably very familiar to you as I describe it because it is the most commonly expressed position in the market place today. The view is expressed in more popular terms as, "You have your moral truth; I have mine;" or "Don't push your morality on me;" or the even more vacuous, "You can't legislate morality." The biblical description of this type of ethic is described in the book of Judges where "every man did what was right in his own eyes." That's the depth of most people's ethical beliefs nowadays, at least that's what they hold.

This, by the way, is why much of the discussion of ethical issues in the market place today centers on the concept of rights. Have you noticed that? When we talk about ethical issues in the news, the discussion is not about morality, it's about rights. "I have a right to choose; I have a right to experience my sexuality in any way I desire; I have a right to amass as much wealth as I can; I have a right to get a divorce if I choose."

Choose is little bit of a confusing statement, if I can give you an aside here. Choose is a relational term, it needs something else to relate to it. There is no such thing, technically, as a right to choose. It's like saying something is to the left of. Well something can only be to the left of something that you identify. Being to the left of doesn't just hang out in space there by itself. In the same way, choice doesn't just hang out there in space by itself. We don't have right to choose...anything. We only have a right to choose particular things. So the discussion about choice has always got to be about that thing that choice is in relationship to. Do I have a right to blow up a building if I don't like their prices. Of course not. Do I have a right to choose a pen rather than a pencil? Yes I do. So the right to choose is not autonomous, it's not an absolute right. It always depends on the object that's in question. (Read entire post.)

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Habemus Papam!

May God bless and protect Our Holy Father Pope Francis! This is a happy day! Te Deum laudamus!

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Papal Shoes

From decade to decade, from century to century.

It looks as though Pope John XIII (1881-1963) might have gotten a lot of use from these liturgical slippers, perhaps during the Second Ecumenical Council. They would have been laced with ribbons that had tassels at each end. (Read entire post.)

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Interview with Charles Coulombe

Here is an excellent interview with author Charles Coulombe about the Pope Emeritus and the conclave.

The Church is stagnant in Western Europe and North America (areas which, demographically-speaking, are dying out in general) and these dying zones are precisely the areas from which come the cries for “women’s reproductive rights” and the “groups of nuns.” (The latter, incidentally, are inevitably members of similarly dying orders—the only orders of nuns that seem to attract recruits these days are those who hew a more orthodox line.) For an institution which must think in terms of centuries—and even if questions of “immutable” dogma were not involved—it would make little sense to tie one’s future to the views of a declining, one might almost say failed, portion of the Church.

From that perspective, it is not a question of being “forward thinking” or holding on to “old fashioned values,” but of surviving into the future (to say nothing of remaining true to oneself). Certainly the Cardinals (and anyone else knowledgeable about modern dating norms in Europe and America!) who have read Paul VI’s encyclical “Humanae Vitae” will see that his predictions in 1968 about the probable future if artificial contraception became generally accepted, shall find Church teaching on this point prophetic rather than retrograde—even if it makes uncomfortable reading. (Read entire interview.)

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Prophecy and the Tudors

From author Nancy Bilyeau: 

In legitimizing a mystical prophecy, Henry VII was unleashing a certain kind of power that would reach across the entire 16th century. Rebels against various Tudor regimes would repeatedly use their own prophecies to rally support. They effectively co-opted Henry VII's modus operandi, down to the symbolic banners. A frustrated Henry VIII sought to ban prophecy from his kingdom after he was nearly engulfed by seers, witches, and necromancers spouting predictions, many of them derived, allegedly, from Merlin and yet coded and obscure, open to many interpretations. (Read entire post.)

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