Retro Centre and Samuel pepys

Retro Centre and Samuel Pepys

I always enjoy visiting St Albans. Yesterday I visited a treasure house of items from times past at a Retro Centre, which I will visit again, and I shall attend the Retro Fair next weekend.

The Retro Centre is divided into sections where different sellers arrange their wares. China, glass, curios, soft furnishings, clothes and a treasure house of books.

As I went round I yearned to own a country cottage with oak beams which I could decorate with colourful china, lace edged throws, embroidered tablecloths, traycloths, framed tapestries and embroidered or tapestry cushions. Having admired, picked up and put down various items I found the book section after I rummaged through clothes and admired costume jewellery.

This is the year when I’m supposed to be saving money but I couldn’t resist three books by one of my favourite historians, Arthur Bryant, Samuel Pepys The Man in The Making, Samuel Pepys The Years of Peril and Samuel Pepys The Saviour of The Navy.

I have collected a number of Arthur Bryant’s books and always enjoy his style. Samuel Pepys, The Man in the Making begins: - “North of Cambridge lie the Fens. The sea from which they arose laps at their northern boundaries, and north and east great rivers lazily wind across them, drawing black cattle to drink among the sedges at their brink. This land would be one of silence were it not for the innumerable company of larks, of bittern, coot and moorhen, of sedge warblers and reed sparrow, which ever provides it with a faint and not discordant music. In summer it is still, as the monk William of Huntingdon remembered it, a land of clouds and orchards and golden corn. Yet it is so only by right of battle waged ceaselessly by its invading armies of water. Whenever civilization has receded – when Roman legion fell back or monastery bell was silenced-the waters have taken back their own. Salt tides have swept in with winter gales through forsaken walls, and the rivers have flowed out, cold and remorseless, over the fields and houses of man.

“.…On this land came the Pepys’s. For centuries they had grazed and ploughed, haggled at markets over country wares and peered at the Fen skies…”

Although Samuel Pepys was first published in 1933 it has not dated and is full of fascinating information, and I the preface very interesting.

“…Samuel Pepys was the creator of three remarkable, and still surviving things. The first, in the order of their making, was his Diary. The second was the civil administration of the Admiralty-the rule –and order that still give permanence to the material form, fighting traditions and transmitted knowledge of the Royal Navy. …Lord Barham testified that there was not a department of the Admiralty that was not governed by he rules Samuel Pepys had laid down in the 17th century. It was Pepys who made the scabbard for the sword that Nelson, and the heirs of Nelson used.

“Pepys third creative achievement sprang from the second. He has bee described as the father of the Civil Service. Here, too, his orders hold. The rules he laid down and the administrative principles he elucidated have become part of the continuing life of his country…”

I am writing a light-hearted novel set in the Restoration period when Charles Second came to England after his exile which followed his father’s execution. I always try to ensure that my novels are as well-researched as possible and Arthur Bryant’s trilogy about Pepys will be invaluable.



Forthcoming release. Tangled Love 27.01.2012 Muse It Up Publisher.
www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

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St Albans Cathedral Abbey

The only Englishman, who has ever been Pope,was Nicholas Breakspeare. He was born near St Albans in Kings Langley. His father became a monk in the abbey but Nicholas was considered too uneducated to enter the monastery although he had attended the abbery school.

Presumably disappointed by not being accepted at St Albans, Nicholas went to France and became a novice at St Rufus in Avignon where he later became prior.

Nicholas was noticed by Pope Eugenius III and subsequently became a cardinal. In 1154 Nicholas became Pope Adrian IV.

Modern day visitors to the abbey can see a statue of Nicholas aka Adrian stands on the ornately carved screen of the High Altar.

Although the abbey had rejected the young Nicholas, he favoured it and freed the abbey from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Lincoln by granting the Abbot of St Albans permission to wear the mitre. This gave him precedence in the Benedictine hierarchy.

To this day the Cathedral Abbey of St Albans continues to flourish and is a vibrant part of the community.

Mathew Paris and St Albans Abbey

During St Albans Abbey’s greatest days, the monastery was a centre of learning. One of the most famous historians from the scriptorium was Mathew Paris, who wrote the Chronica Majora in Latin from 1235 until he died in 1259. He began with the story of creation and concluded it with the news of the day.
Written in Latin, the Chronica Majora, starts with the creation story and ends with what, for Matthew, was the present day. St Alban's guest facilities and strategic position, one day's ride from London, made it a popular venue for the many visitors who brought much of the news and information which Brother Matthew recorded and illustrated. His drawings depicted subjects as varied as heraldic shields, Bible stories, famous battles in the crusades and the fantastic – for example, sea monsters.
Amongst other literature, Mathew wrote Gesta Abbatum – the Deeds of Abbots – which records life in a Benedictine house. Although he is loyal his own monastery, his comments are honest. He writes favourably and unfavourably about his abbot’s behaviour and decisions, and mentions favours and slights to St Albans.
By 1235 St Albans Abbey was a large self-contained community near to London. It received many visitors and the stable block contained stalls for 200 horses. There were a 100 monks or more and 300 or more lay helpers. The abbey’s prestige increased in the mediaeval era. 20 monasteries depended on it and acknowledged its authority. The abbots were – in modern day parlance – ‘rushed off their feet’ administering estates and intricate financial matters, attending parliament and entertaining royalty.
Mathew

St Alban's Cathedral

Yesterday, I again visited St Albans Cathedral, this time with a friend.

Alban, the first English martyr, was beheaded for his Christian faith by the Romans on the hillside where the Cathedral now stands. According to legend the executioners’ eyes fell out when he struck off Alban’s head. The claim that miraculous healing took place at the site of his martyrdom spread and after 325, when Christianity was permissible, pilgrims gathered there.

In 429 St Germanus of Auxerre visited the area which is the modern day town of St Albans. He discovered Alban’s grave, a place where Christians have worshipped from then until the present day.

The first church, part of a Benedictine Abbey, was south of the present cathedral.

In the 8th century, the honourable Bede mentioned: the beautiful church worthy of Alban’s martyrdom where frequent miracles of healing took place.’ The monastic church he referred to was built on the command of Saxon King Offa whose wife converted him to Christianity.

Offa had successfully petitioned the Pope to canonise Alban. Afterwards the abbey and the settlement around it became known as St. Albans.

The Cathedral and Abbey Church of Saint Alban

Yesterday my daughter and I visited the Cathedral Abbey Church of St Alban.

St Alban lived in the Roman city of Verulimium. His life was transformed by a Christian priest who he sheltered from persecution. When St Alban professed his faith before a judge he was flogged but still refused to deny his Christian faith and was sentenced to death.

"St Alban was brought out of the town across the river and up a hill to the site of execution where his head was cut off. Legend tells us that on the hill-top a spring of water miraculously appeared to give the martyr a drink. Also moved by his witness the original executioner refused to carry out the deed, and that after his replacement had killed Alban, the executioners eyes chopped out. This account is based on that of the Venerable Bede."

The children enjoyed their visit and the picnic in the beautiful grounds at the rear of the abbey.

When I visit Westminster Abbey, it fills me with awe but St Albans gave me a sense of welcome as though the ancient building had opened its arms to me.

I will vist the Cathedral again, go on the guided tour, spend time in the library and make notes.