MJC-Associates

24/07/2024

There are still a very few places left for the medieval graffiti tours at Bodiam castle this weekend.
Built in the late fourteenth century, Bodiam is probably one of the most iconic medieval castles in England. It is certainly one of the most photogenic. And etched in to the walls is a hidden history - graffiti from the medieval to the relatively recent - all of which sheds new light on the history and changing fortunes of this magnificent building. Booking is essential.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/sussex/bodiam-castle/events/d816050b-f10d-4bb6-851f-e933548bae6a

21/07/2024

A brief but interesting visit to the Chateau du Pailly a couple of days ago. Interesting to see a site in the midst of restoration and conservation. When they removed a lot of the later and badly degraded plaster they discovered beneath a series of utterly stunning late C16th wall paintings. All had sadly been keyed to help the later plaster adhere to the surface.

27/06/2024

Always interesting to run in to something or someone familiar in an unexpected place. These are two early C13th carved capitals from two different churches. They are geographically very close indeed, and the churches both share the same patron at that time these were carved. They also rather clearly shared the same medieval master mason. He was really rather good at carving, but less successful with some of the other basic architecture. In both churches the arcades are a mess. The measurements are all over the place. He foreshortened arches to even things up, raised pier bases, lowered mouldings, etc. Measuring things clearly wasn’t a strong point. However, the man could carve. Really carve. Early English work at its best.
A little weirdly, up until now nobody has really linked the two churches, or seen the connection. Partly I suspect because the sit in different counties, but also partly because one of them is the most dreary church to look at from the outside. It just shouts ‘dull’. If this church was a paint chart it would be ‘shades of beige’. To the extent that an avid church crawler, who lived in the next village for many years, never bothered going inside.

23/06/2024

Walter was a very bad boy…
A Latin inscription from the wall of the chancel of a church in Hertfordshire. The Latin is pretty clear – for a change – but it still isn’t completely straightforward. The transcription is ‘Walter (con) Ba iii dedit annuatin sub pena excomunicatus majore’. It roughly translates as ‘Walter is to give annually 3 (somethings) under penalty of great excommunication’.
So who was Walter, and what did the poor bu**er do? The short answer is we have no idea. But it must have been pretty serious, and a moral or religious offence rather than a civil one. The parish priest would have been able to hand out the average penance to a member of his flock, but certainly couldn’t inflict excommunication without the authority of the church courts. So poor Walter had found himself dragged before the church court – and was clearly found guilty of something moderately serious for such a threat to be imposed. Reading the church court accounts from the county of Essex it is pretty clear it could have covered a multitude of ‘sins’. We are in ‘bu**ering the Bursar’, or ‘Kicking Bishop Brennan up the a**e’ territory here. So just let your imaginations run wild…
Worth thinking here a little about the author and the intended audience of this inscription too. It is etched into the jamb of the priest’s door in the chancel, and it is written in clerical Latin, and contains a number of contractions and abbreviations. So Walter himself and the other members of the congregation probably weren’t the intended audience, as it was in a language they most probably couldn’t read, in a form they couldn’t read, and in a place they rarely had access to. So it is ‘likely’ that the author was the parish clerk or parish priest, and that the inscription was a note of record. Walter was a bad boy. Walter had been tried, had been found guilty, and had been punished – and his sentence was ‘set in stone’ forevermore.
(and thanks to Dr Francis Young, Vicky Fletcher, and Deacon Paul Raynes for second opinions on the transcription)

22/06/2024

We all occasionally have one of those days…
I came across this inscription in a Hertfordshire church that was full of Latin inscriptions. I got quite excited, knowing that one of the parish priests had been called ‘Snowe’, and could make out the same word in the inscription. Could this relate to the parish priest? So I spent several minutes looking at it, trying to puzzle out the Latin…
It was only then that I realised that the inscription was in English, had nothing to do with the parish priest, and was in fact a weather report! ‘1614 A greate snowe fell’.
And it really was a great snow. The brevity of the inscription belies the fact that it relates to one of the most extreme weather events to have taken place in the British isles in the last half millennia.
The accounts of the deadly weather of that winter appear in the written records of numerous parishes across Britain, from Scotland and North Yorkshire, down to Norfolk and Bedfordshire, and have already been the subject of several academic studies. According to the contemporary accounts it began snowing across the country in mid-January of 1614/15, with snowfall and frost continuing for many weeks. The snow is recorded as being nearly a metre deep in flat areas, and many times deeper where the strong winds had caused it to drift. Even in the usually temperate county of Norfolk, the parish registers of Beeston-next-Mileham record that ‘people could not pass from towne to towne nor in the same towne from one streets unto another’. It remained on the ground without any sign of a thaw until March, and many people died, as did their livestock. The weather was so extreme that, in common with other catastrophic events, the people of the village felt the need to leave a record of it inscribed into the very walls of their church.

19/06/2024

As part of the National Trust's celebration I am heading back to Bodiam Castle (the most 'castley' of castles) to leave a couple of medieval graffiti tours on the 27th and 28th of July. These are ticket only tours, so booking is essential.
The castle has an absolutely fantastic collection of graffiti and mason's marks, stretching from the Middle Ages to the modern day, that give totally new insights into how the building was used and regarded throughout history.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/sussex/bodiam-castle/events/d816050b-f10d-4bb6-851f-e933548bae6a

17/06/2024

If you happen to be in the Bristol area this September 6th and 7th I'm hosting a talk and workshop on medieval graffiti at St Mary Redcliffe church. Worth coming along to just to look at the church itself, which is almost cathedral like. A testament to the wealth of this important trading city during the later Middle Ages.

Discover the mysterious world of medieval church graffiti with a special talk and workshop

15/06/2024

Really looking forward to this next Saturday.
For those who don't know, David Yaxley was a very talented artist, as well as a well known local historian, researcher, and author. He and his late wife Susan were responsible for creating a small independent publishing house - The Larks Press - which published some really important works of local and regional history. David was a regular sight at conferences and history events across Norfolk and Suffolk, and always a true gentleman. A fantastic collection of subjects. Art, buildings, and church archaeology- all in one place!

30/05/2024

St Leonard’s church in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, has some of the finest medieval graffiti found anywhere in the UK – and that really is saying something for Hertfordshire, which boasts sites such as Ashwell and Anstey (and other places beginning with ‘A’). On Saturday 8th June I will be giving a free lecture in St Leonard’s church as part of the Flamstead Arts Festival, and as the culmination of a heritage project that feels like it began centuries ago. We began before Covid, and the church has since been transformed, and our understanding of the building and the graffiti has been transformed along with the fabric.
There will also be arts and crafts demonstrations, including traditional building techniques, and if you are REALLY unlucky – Morris Dancers. The festival goes on all weekend.
https://www.flamsteadheritage.org/flamstead-arts-festival/

11/04/2024

The next specialist tour of the medieval graffiti of Norwich cathedral will take place on May 4th at 10.15am. Meeting in the hostry. Cost is £5 a tacket, plus a small booking fee.
Tickets are available here - https://cathedral.org.uk/events/specialist-tour-the-graffiti-of-norwich-cathedral-may-2024/
Following the tragic loss of Jess Macdonald back in January, I am temporarily taking over as the tour guide. You have been warned...