February 2012
74 posts
Byland Abbey
Yesterday I went on a field trip with the Institute for Medieval Studies (of which I am kind of a member) here at the university. We visited St Mary’s Church at Lastingham, which was at one point an abbey but is now a parish church, and then Rievaulx and Byland abbeys, which are both Cistercian ruins. These pictures are from Lastingham. (Family: The names of the places we went are links if you feel inclined to click them.) Also, the University of Sheffield has some really thorough information about Cistercian abbeys in Yorkshire here. These pictures are from Byland Abbey.
If my attention wandered at Rievaulx, it was nothing to Byland. The sky was really pretty, I was still super cold, and I get distracted when I’m taking pictures. But pretty much everybody was distracted by this point: the guides talked to us for about 15 minutes and then just let us all wander around. This is the end of this trip, y’all! I don’t have any more cool factoids for you today. I have to go study for my Latin test, anyway. And eat lunch. Yum.
Rievaulx Abbey
Yesterday I went on a field trip with the Institute for Medieval Studies (of which I am kind of a member) here at the university. We visited St Mary’s Church at Lastingham, which was at one point an abbey but is now a parish church, and then Rievaulx and Byland abbeys, which are both Cistercian ruins. These pictures are from Lastingham. (Family: The names of the places we went are links if you feel inclined to click them.) Also, the University of Sheffield has some really thorough information about Cistercian abbeys in Yorkshire here. These pictures are from Rievaulx.
Learning!
With Mark, our Latin clinic tutor, and his fiancée, Sarah, also a PhD student here.
I take full responsibility for the fact that I paid almost no attention to our expert guides at Rievaulx, but I blame it on my inner monologue, which was just going SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE at a really high volume the whole time we were there. But! I can tell you a few things about Rievaulx because we studied it in my Monasticism class last semester. Rievaulx was the first Cistercian abbey in England (and was one of the earlier Cistercian abbeys overall). Cistercians always use twelve monks to found new monasteries, and Bernard of Clairvaux sent the founders of Rievaulx from his abbey in 1132. The abbey is so named because it lies on the River Rye, which is apparently prone to pretty intense flooding. A few years ago it flooded and destroyed the Visitor Centre at Rievaulx. The Cistercians figured out the river’s game and never built on that spot, but apparently English Heritage was less wise. There are live chickens at the Visitor Centre, in case you’re into chickens. Riveaulx and Byland were both abandoned in the wake of the Reformation in England (you know, because England pretty much outlawed Catholicism and all the monasteries here were run by Catholics).
St Mary's Church, Lastingham
Yesterday I went on a field trip with the Institute for Medieval Studies (of which I am kind of a member) here at the university. We visited St Mary’s Church at Lastingham, which was at one point an abbey but is now a parish church, and then Rievaulx and Byland abbeys, which are both Cistercian ruins. These pictures are from Lastingham. (Family: The names of the places we went are links if you feel inclined to click them.) Also, the University of Sheffield has some really thorough information about Cistercian abbeys in Yorkshire here. These pictures are from Lastingham.
Professor Richard Morris from the University of Huddersfield used to work here at the University of Leeds. He is talking about the cross head on the floor in front of everyone. The part you can see in the crypt would have been the horizontal part of the cross. The whole thing would have stood 24ft (8m) high.
I don’t think the crypt is usually open to visitors, although there were several candles burning when we got down there.
Norman column.
The church from the outside.
You can’t really tell from these pictures, but it was SUPER COLD and by the time we were done hearing from all our experts I thought my toes were about to fall off (admittedly I didn’t dress warmly enough, but I was not the only one who was complaining). The vicar kindly invited us to the vicarage for coffee and biscuits, even though that meant about 30 people all tramping into his house at the same time. He was quite nice about it, though, and it warmed us all up.
A lesson in architecture
Yesterday I went on a field trip with the Institute for Medieval Studies (of which I am kind of a member) here at the university. We visited St Mary’s Church at Lastingham, which was at one point an abbey but is now a parish church, and then Rievaulx and Byland abbeys, which are both Cistercian ruins. These pictures are from Lastingham. (Family: The names of the places we went are links if you feel inclined to click them.) Also, the University of Sheffield has some really thorough information about Cistercian abbeys in Yorkshire here. These pictures are from Lastingham.
Check out the apse of this church, the apse being the round bit, and yes I did look it up on Wikipedia just to make sure that’s the correct term for it. It looks pretty old, right? Here is a nice close up of those little figures lining the top of the apse.
Classic Norman/Romanesque figures, right? WRONG! If you look more closely at the close-up picture, you will notice that the stone changes form just a couple rows below the figures. You may also notice that the stone around the windows on the apse is different from the stone surrounding it. This is because of those Pesky Victorians, who thought, “Let’s make this old, time-worn church look like what we think it should have looked like seven hundred years ago!” So they borrowed a few themes and motifs, slapped them on to quite a lot of medieval English churches, and fooled us all.
For example, the little dude second from the right of the non-rounded part of the apse, who’s balancing on his elbows, is actually an edited Victorian version of a Romanesque figure (I think it’s Romanesque; I could be lying, and if I’m wrong do correct me). But this figure would actually have been a sexy dancing lady: thoroughly provocative and not even a little bit acceptable to delicate Victorian sensibilities. So the architect, John Loughborough Pearson, just cut it off and made it look extra weird. Also, the fourth one from the right looks like Popeye. Just saying.
So now, when you are visiting English churches, check the architecture to see if it’s really as old as you think.
Ok hi I’m listening to super ethereal music and editing pictures of ruined abbeys THIS IS AWESOME. I just felt the need to write it down.
“So too, when a manuscript enjoins its reader to write the words ‘pax + pix + abyra + syth + samasic’ on a hazelwood, hit a woman on the head three times with the stick, then kiss her at once to obtain her ‘love’, we are probably safe in assuming that the love in question is a matter of immediate sexual passion, not ‘esteem enlivened by desire.’”
—From “Erotic magic in medieval Europe,” by Richard Kieckhefer, an article I had to read for my class tomorrow. It goes on to say that this particular bit of magic was probably written “in jest,” which actually just made me really happy because it means people in the middle ages cracked jokes.
What we do in the evenings
- Me: "OMG so much non-concentrating going on in here"
- Jana: "Uhhhh I'm making a hot guy collage to use as a background on my laptop"
- Me: "And if I didn't have my laptop on my lap right now I'd have fallen off my bed from laughing so hard"
- Jana: "Seeeeeeee we both are accomplishing nothing"
- Me: "I'd say you're being pretty productive"
25 Extremely Upsetting Reactions to Chris Brown at the Grammys →
buzzfeed.com
Domestic violence is never okay. If you’re angry at someone, don’t hit them. And don’t excuse anyone who does.
I’m watching Zambia play Côte D’Ivoire with Noma and Ndoliwe. The Zambia goalie is epic.
