Day of Culture
“I warmly welcome the diligent zeal and sincerity with which you study the words of Holy Scripture and your eager desire to know something of the going and saying of men of the past” -Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People
As soon as the British Library’s exhibit Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms - Art, Word, War was announced I knew another trip to London was in order. Standing in line with Katya, Townie, and Tom, I was buzzing and twitching with anticipation. I could have started a friction fire between my feet and the carpeted hall leading towards the exhibit. The halls were filled with Gospels, full Bibles, poems, riddles, histories, biographies, legal documents, ecclesiastical rule books, maps, early versions of sheet music, treaties; centuries of history preserved in parchment and ink.
It was funny to see the range of perfection and flaws. Some parts would have immaculately drawn patterns; identical swirling creatures that formed greater images, every line flawless, and then you’d have texts where there were parts scribbled out, smudged or written over, some had sections of the pages that had been cut out all together. The images were often the most entertaining since beside the beautiful flowing lines of the script you’d have the most derpy looking people and animals.
They had a few artifacts to go along with the collection; a few pendants and pommels, the Fuller Brooch, a sword, and the Alfred Jewel. The jewel carries the inscription, "AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN", which means 'Alfred ordered me made'. I always find it interesting, since it gives a life and identity to an inanimate object.
Last year, when I was taking classes on Old English and Old Norse, someone asked me why I wanted to learn dead languages, and the answer is simple; I want to be able to talk to dead people. When you read someone’s literature, their stories and diaries and histories, you can see their reality, and very often they’re stumbling through the same things we are a thousand years later.
Walking through the exhibit was like re-living so many of my history and English classes, and my thesis project, since I got to stand before the actual manuscript copies of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy and the only copy of Beowulf. The survival of this beloved poem is still one of the things that astounds me the most. The pages are burnt and crinkled, written over a thousand years, some parts so illegible they can only be read under UV light, but the story survives and is the basis for a massive amount of scholarship and modern fantasy.
We got to the end and I was ready to go again for Round Two, but everyone else was starting to get hungry so we found a pub. I was still gob-smacked and almost in a lull, trying to grasp and appreciate everything I had just seen. I really want to start getting together my own scriptum, though I doubt my attempts at penmanship will be quite as impressive.
The next stop on our day of culture was the British Museum. I’ve been here a few times now, but I tend to focus on the Medieval European and Ancient Egyptian sections and then just scramble through the rest, so seeing it with other people let me explore more of the museum than I’ve seen before.
When you see the sheer level of craftsmanship on so many of the artifacts, I can’t help but think of the people who made them. Yes, we often know the name of the king or the important figure for whom it was made, who was wealthy enough to commission something or who’s image is ‘stamped on these lifeless things,’ but the person who formed them goes unnamed and forgotten.
So what’s more important to survive; your work or your name?
Thoroughly cultured out, we found another pub to have a drink. I finally got to play one of the pianos in St. Pancras station for a little bit, until we caught our train home.