Hi, y’all! I’m still alive, I promise. I know I’ve been neglecting Tumblr recently, but the Long Yorkshire Summer has just come to an end; that, along with my schedule over the last couple weeks, has prevented me from posting frequently. Summer was nice, and now we’re back to cold and rain (just in time for Jubilee weekend and this week’s fun English vacation), and then I had parties to throw, old friends to show around, and another visit to Knaresborough.
The party won’t be documented on Tumblr because, while I hear it was quite nice, I put so much effort into throwing it that I had to peace out early for Migraine Treatment, AKA meds and sleep. But! More importantly than fancy parties, I had an old old friend come visit this week! I have known Sarah since the beginning of second grade and her family still lives a block and a half down the street from my/my mom’s house. She came in on Wednesday evening and we had a nice dinner with too-spicy chickpea tacos courtesy of yours truly.
But anyway, Thursday, we went to York and toured around and did some highly entertaining things, like getting rained on for several hours and going to the Richard III Museum in Monk Bar. That website makes it look super sophisticated and informative, but it’s way cheesier/better than that. It looks like a third grade history class project exploded on the inside of this medieval gate. So amazing. We also went to tea at Betty’s and Evensong at York Minster. The Evensong was the highlight of the day, and possibly a Top Five highlight of my year in England. It was one of those experiences where time stops. The choir was all male, and the minster was so quiet and empty, and the sun came out toward the end of the service. It was really beautiful.
Friday we had an exciting tour of the Royal Armouries, guided by Marina. I am not super into military history or weaponry, but I was really glad to get to see it all with an expert such as Marina, who is writing her dissertation on horse saddles - we got to learn a lot about the objects in the collection that isn’t presented on the museum’s little placards. For example, a lot of the trends in armor followed trends in fashion - some later armor that sort of sticks out in a point on the belly is actually a reflection of Elizabethan fashion and the billowy shirts that were popular at the time. So that was super cool.
All the pictures in this post are from York - remember, you can always see more pictures on Flickr (start with that one and click “Next”), and also you can click on these pictures to enlarge them and see captions.
9:47 am • 3 June 2012
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.
7:23 am • 26 February 2012
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!
Kendall, Lucy, Peeejjj AKA Posh John
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).
7:15 am • 26 February 2012
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.
6:56 am • 26 February 2012
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.
6:42 am • 26 February 2012
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.
I like to call this, MY LIFE IS AWESOME. Those are Roman artifacts, and I got to touch them. While standing in a Norman crypt. Dudes. I was in a room that’s just shy of 1,000 years old. Think about it.
6:24 am • 26 February 2012
Natalie and I took an evening constitutional in the snow a few minutes ago. (You can click on the pictures to see the full-size versions.)
2:44 pm • 4 February 2012
London Day Trip
Natalie and I decided to take a day trip to London yesterday, so we could explore without having to deal with too many other tourists. We had a pretty short list of activities, although we could definitely have used more time. We arrived at St Pancras at a little after 10am.
Then we headed straight to the Tower of London.
The weather yesterday was not the best, but at least it wasn’t actually raining.
One fun thing about cities like London is the contrasting architecture.
That face is just magnificent, amirite?
Our next stop was Westminster Abbey. They don’t let you take pictures inside the church, so I just have a few from the cloisters there.
We didn’t have much time in the Abbey anyway, because we had an appointment for tea at Harrods!
At the top of the Egyptian Escalator
Bye bye, Harrods!
As usual, these and more are on
Flickr, in a set. Start with
this one and click “newer.”
9:10 am • 19 January 2012
Today I am using REAL PICTURES, taken with a non-iPhone camera, to make up for my relative absence since I got back to Leeds (if you read between the lines, what I’m actually saying is that I left the house for something other than running).
9:50 am • 13 January 2012
grand canyon sunset on Flickr.
I wanted to do a photo retrospective of my 2011, but why demean this picture by putting it next to other ones?
8:57 am • 2 January 2012
