Boyd Tonkin at the Independent thought that the recent paperback edition of Summer of Blood was a ’swift and thrilling close-up history of the Peasants’ Revolt’. You can read his generous review here.
March 24th, 2010
Supersize my Last Supper
A rather entertaining piece here from the Times, reporting on an article in the International Journal of Obesity. Apparently, artists’ representations of the fare on offer at the Last Supper have been getting steadily bigger since the later Middle Ages.
March 18th, 2010
Churchilliana
Winston Churchill
Here’s a link to my lead review from this week’s Spectator. I discuss three recent books about Sir Winston Churchill, attempting to get to grips with his views on Empire (’I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire’) and race (’I hate people with slit eyes and pig-tails’), as well as his attitudes towards standing up (best avoided) and his mother’s predilection for ‘dinner or tea or sex’ with members of the royal family.
Enjoy.
March 17th, 2010
Robin Hood trailer 2
Looks very much like the Ridley-Russell Robin has reverted to Hollywood form…. Still, roll on May 14.
March 17th, 2010
Joust! Joust! Joust!
An online skirmish over article attribution on Medievalists.net is examined here. It’s an argument over the protocol, courtesy and ethics of blogging, rather than a row about history, but it’s worth reading, if only to see an academic use the word ‘ridonkulousness’ (second par).
Source: (as seems only fair): Inside Higher Ed
March 10th, 2010
The Bayeux Tapestry - have it your way
Here’s fun. Why not pimp the Bayeux Tapestry? Proper nerd fun. You can reinvent history by dragging and dropping soldiers, kings, beast, buildings and boats into the most unlikely combinations, adding text to move your story along etc etc. I made a loose six-frame mashup riffing on William the Bastard’s invasion of England in 1066, Lemuel Gulliver’s visit to the Houyhnhnms, and this morning’s breakfast. It was quite fun. I can’t get the Gallery to work at the moment or I’d post a screengrab. But go, see this masterpiece of the Internet age for yourself…
Hat-tip: Geeks are Sexy
March 7th, 2010
Summer of Blood paperback reviews
Two little plugs for the paperback edition of Summer of Blood, released this week, have appeared in The Telegraph and The Times.
March 5th, 2010
Lux Aeterna Project
I had the pleasure last night of attending the first concert presented by the Lux Aeterna Project at King’s College Chapel in London. It was a showcase for some rather beautiful contemporary classical music, both well known and original. The medieval link? There’s not one, really, although the opening rendition of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis’ had obvious roots in the sixteenth century. Still not very medieval, but wonderful all the same, and I heartily implore you to check out the Lux Aeterna web site, here.
February 26th, 2010
'Back From The Brink' by Peter Snowdon
February 25th, 2010
Delaroche at the National Gallery
On Tuesday morning I went along to the press viewing for the Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey exhibition at the National Gallery, which opened yesterday.
It’s a decent exhibition, although one can see why Delaroche was out of fashion for so long. His sentimental, even mawkish renderings of great moments from Tudor and Stuart history manage to be both gruesome and twee, often at the same stroke.
The exhibition centres around his portrayal of the execution of Lady Jane Grey. Much wailing from the ladies-in-waiting; compare and contrast with the ambivalence of the axeman, who stands impassive, as though it were not an act of human cruelty he were about to commit, but a pre-determined act demanded by a higher power. Delaroche has layed on the pathos in spades by having a blindfolded Lady Jane grope helplessly for the block - you have both weepy sentimentality and a sort of grotesque historical determinism in the same canvas.
This is the model for most of the major works on show. The Princes in the Tower tremble before their murderer (represented only by a shadow under the door) while a pathetic little toy-dog yaps bravely but pointlessly at impending doom. Cromwell lifts the lid of a coffin to peer at the ashen face of Charles I’s corpse; everything about him is blood-red, to the point that it looks as though his very boots are brimming over with blood. There is a holiness to the dead King’s visage, but it hardly lights up the canvas - this is a painting literally coated in gore and cruelty.
Delaroche was, of course, a product of the French Revolution, so had seen his fair share of gore; this also contributed no doubt to the depressing inevitability of death in his major works. He is not a subtle painter, nor are his paintings especially demanding. Still, the exhibition is pretty well lit and certainly worth half an hour if you are loitering in Trafalgar Square. But as for Delaroche as the purpose of a day out? There’s not much to separate it from a quick squizz around The London Dungeon.
