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Begins TuesdayÌý18 October 2005 , 3.00-3.30 p.m |
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Sue Cook and the team answer listeners' historical queries and celebrate the way in which we all 'make' history. |
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Series 12 |
ProgrammeÌý8
6 December 2005 |
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The Making of the Bayeux Tapestry
Jeremy Wall listens to the programme online from his home in the Philippines and has come across a new book, Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France? by George Beech, which claims that the Bayeux Tapestry was made in France and not in England as previously thought. He asked Making History to clarify this.
Making History consulted Dr Richard Rex at Queen's College Cambridge, who has recently translated what is probably the best scholarly account of the Bayeux Tapestry, by the late Lucien Musset, from French into English.
George Beech argues that the Bayeux Tapestry, long believed to have been made in England, came from the Loire valley in France, from the abbey of St Florent of Saumur. This is based on a number of different kinds of evidence, the most important of which is signs of a St Florent/Breton influence in the portrayal of the Breton campaign in the tapestry, about a tenth of the whole. Dr Rex dismisses this, preferring the consensus view that the tapestry was of English manufacture, probably the work of English needlewomen working in or near Canterbury. It is generally thought that it was probably commissioned by Bishop Odo as a gift for his cathedral at Bayeux, which he was just finishing rebuilding. As Odo was at that time Earl of Kent as well as Bishop of Bayeux, he is the obvious link man - and he is named more frequently on the tapestry than anyone other than William and Harold, the main characters. William the Conqueror himself attended the dedication ceremony of the rebuilt cathedral, and it seems likely that the tapestry might have been presented on that same occasion, as a compliment to him among other things.
George Beech, Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)
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The Painted Ceiling of Huntingfield Church, Suffolk
A listener from Suffolk happened upon a church in the village of Huntingfield near Halesworth, in the north of the county, which has a magnificent painted ceiling. The story goes that it was done by the vicar's wife in the 19th century - but could she have embellished an existing medieval remnant?
Making History discovered that the ceiling was painted by Mildred Holland, the wife of the rector William Holland. Holland was a follower of the Oxford Movement, a group of Anglican clergymen who were fearful of what they saw as the growing secularisation of the Church of England. They wanted a return to the more Catholic doctrines and practices of the early Church, when painted ceilings and walls would have been quite common. The ceiling, then, is not a medieval remnant like the ones at Ufford near Woodbridge or Metfield near Harleston.
Making History consulted Felicity Griffin of Huntingfield Church, Suffolk historian Dr John Blatchley, and Peter Austin from the Wall Paintings Workshop.Ìý
Useful links
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The Suffolk Churches Site (with photographs):
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(local website)
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Aberdeen Typhoid Outbreak 1964
Further information about this can be found at the following address:
Department of History, University of Aberdeen, Crombie Annexe, Meston Walk, King's College, Aberdeen AB24 3FX
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Vanessa has presentedÌýscience and current affairs programmes for ±«Óãtv, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for ±«Óãtv Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald.Ìý