Mid-Term Break

Hi everyone, thanks for checking in. I'm taking a couple of weeks off from writing "News from London" because Angela is arriving tomorrow! We will spend a few days in London while I give my students their midterm exams, but after that we'll be heading to Northern England and Scotland! (Sorry for all the exclamation points, but I'm pretty excited.)

It's hard to believe the semester is already half over. There is still so much I want to do, and I have a million ideas for the blog. Please check back, I promise to post lots of pictures from our trip.

Cheers!

Cambridge

Hello, and welcome back to my blog! I hope that you have been enjoying my weekly updates. Writing them has been good for me. It forces me to sit down at the end of every week and think about my experiences and the best ways of sharing them with my family and friends. (And apparently some strangers as well, since I have been getting hits from places where I don't know anyone!) I listen to a weekly podcast called "Pop Culture Happy Hour." At the end of every episode, the four participants do a segment they call "What's Making Us Happy this Week." I've come to think of "News from London" as my own version of that segment.

What's really making me happy this week is that six days from today, my wife Angela will be joining me for a two-week visit! We have a great trip to Scotland planned, so you can look forward to pictures from that in the coming weeks. The other thing making me happy this week is a day trip that I took to Cambridge, a medieval town and home to the world-famous Cambridge University, founded in 1284. A little over five years ago I spent a month in Oxford and fell in love with it. Ever since then I have wanted to visit Cambridge so I could compare these two university towns. I fear that last week's post may have been too much of a history lesson for some of my readers, so I'll try to be more of a tour guide this week.

If you did a Google image search for Cambridge, what you would most likely get are pictures of King's College, one of the thirty-one independent colleges that make up the university. Its most striking feature is the gothic chapel begun by Henry VI in 1446. The War of the Roses slowed its construction and it wasn't completed until 1515 under Henry VIII. In a nation of beautiful historic churches, this one really stands out.

King's College Chapel from the main courtyard.

This picture of the pipe organ gives you some idea of the chapel's interior.  The design of the ceiling is called fan vaulting. 

Compared to Corpus Christi, King's college is a newcomer to Cambridge. Work on Corpus Christi College began in 1352. Standing in its inner court you can almost imagine that you are one of its medieval students.

The inner court at Corpus Christi College. Although it has been modified somewhat over the years, it retains a 14th century look.

For bragging rights on the accomplishments of its alumni, Trinity College is the winner. Its graduates include two kings, six prime ministers, and no fewer than 30 Nobel Prize winners! Isaac Newton was both a student and a professor here. There is still an apple tree outside the window of what used to be his office. It is said to be a descendent of the one that, according to legend, inspired his work on gravity.

The main gate of Trinity College. The statue is Henry VIII, who founded the college in 1546. He endowed it with land confiscated from the Catholic Church during the English Reformation. He once held a scepter, but it was taken by students as a prank. A window cleaner placed a broken chair leg in the scepter's place.

While I'm on the subject of Scientific discovery, this is the Old Cavendish Laboratory, where DNA was discovered. (They don't mess around with minor discoveries at Cambridge.)

The Cam river was once important for trade and transport. Now it adds to the beauty of the town. Many of the colleges have their "backs" along its banks.

Punting (pushing a flat-bottomed boat with a long pole) on the Cam is popular with students and tourists. It's a great way to see the "backs" of several of the colleges. This shot is behind King's College. 

A view of the Cam from the Magdalene Street Bridge in the center of town. 

After a morning of touring Cambridge and its colleges, I was ready to have lunch and a pint. As I do every time I visit someplace new, I had already found out where the best historic pubs in Cambridge are. I settled on The Eagle, a pub with 15th century roots that has an interesting recent history as well.

The Eagle Pub, Cambridge, getting busy for Saturday lunch.

The Eagle was a favorite of both the Royal Air Force and the US Army Air Corps during World War II. They left their mark on its ceiling. 

I'll finish this week with a couple more of my favorite shots.

One of the many narrow and picturesque lanes that make Cambridge such an interesting place, but can also make it difficult to navigate.

The King's College Chapel dominating the Cambridge skyline.

I had a great time in Cambridge, but I have to say, as a medieval university town, I like Oxford better. Cambridge is beautiful, but I think that the concentration of older buildings in the center of Oxford give it a more historic feel. It may just be that I was able to spend a month in Oxford and developed a real appreciation for it. I've been trying to convince the students in my Roman Britain class that we should spend a day in Oxford later in the semester. If that happens, I'll devote a post to it, so you can decide for yourself. Thanks for reading "News from London." Have a great week!

Cheers!

Roman Britain

When considering topics for this week's blog it occurred to me that I have said very little about my course on Roman Britain. Some of you are aware that I specialize in 20th century United States History, so you are probably wondering why I am teaching a class on the Ancient world. I admit it's a bit of a stretch for me, academically. In graduate school I did a minor field in Medieval Europe and became particularly interested in the influence of Rome on the regions they had conquered. More recently, in 2007 I participated in Missouri Southern's Summer at Oxford program. While I was there, I took a seminar on Roman Britain that I really enjoyed. Since then I have moved a pile of books and papers I brought home from one corner of my office to the other, always saying to myself "I'm not going to get rid of this because someday I will follow up on it." Well, the Missouri London Program finally gave me that chance! Now that I have justified myself to you, let me tell you a little bit about Roman Britain.

First, for those of you who weren't aware that there was a Roman Britain, a very short introduction: In 55 and 54 BC Julius Caesar made two expeditions to what the Romans called Britannia, establishing it as a Roman outpost. Then in 43 AD, Emperor Claudius invaded, completing his conquest of southern and eastern Britain by 47. Eventually, Rome controlled the entire island with the exception of the far north, what is now Scotland. To make a long story short (I know, I'm already losing some of you) Rome then ruled Britain until 409, when its control over the island ended amidst the collapse of the western Roman Empire. So, Roman Britain lasted for about 464 years!

If you didn't know any of that, don't feel bad. While looking at Roman artifacts in the British Museum, I overheard a woman with an English accent say to her friend "I thought the Romans were only here for a couple of years!"

London, or Londinium, founded in about 50 AD, was the capital of Roman Britain.

Here's an artist's rendering of Londinium in the fourth century based on archeological evidence.

Here's the Roman city wall superimposed on a map of modern London. Notice that London Bridge is in roughly the same location as a bridge the Romans built  nearly 2000 years ago.

Unfortunately, most of London's Roman wall is now gone, but there are a few places where you can still see it.

Here are some of my students in front of a section of the Roman wall that once surrounded London.

Over the years, modern buildings were built against the Roman wall. Unfortunately, many of these buildings were destroyed by German bombs during World War II. In this section of the wall you can see the bricks from a warehouse that once adjoined it.

This section of wall was part of Cripplegate Fort on the northwest corner of Londinium. (You can see it on the map above.) 

One of the most compelling stories from Roman Britain is the story of Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni. When Boudicca's father died, he left half of his kingdom to his children and the other half to the Emperor. He thought this would protect his kingdom from his enemies. Instead, Roman soldiers came to claim the Emperor's inheritance. In 60 or 61 AD, Boudicca led a revolt that caught the Romans off guard. Her forces sacked Rome and did quite a bit of damage before being crushed.

A statue of Boudicca near the Westminster Bridge in London. (Almost all of the pictures I use are ones I took myself, but I have not yet taken one of this statue, so I found one online.)

As a 20th century historian, I am used to dealing with written documents. I'll never forget the first trip I made to the Eisenhower Presidential Library while writing my dissertation. The guide to the collections said that the library had 25 million pages of documents! I quickly realized that the biggest problem I faced was the impossibility of examining all the evidence. Historians of the ancient world have the opposite problem. The evidence is comparatively thin, and most of it consists of artifacts rather than documents. I used to joke with my friends who were studying Ancient history that they would have to write their dissertations based on a couple of pieces of broken pottery!

The written documents that do exist from Roman Britain are primarily in stone, gravestones and other monuments. That's what makes the one below so interesting. It is actual hand writing on a wooden surface. It is part of a collection discovered in 1973 in Vindolanda, which is in northern England. It is now in the British Museum. Most of the collection consists of "official" documents, ones related to the government, military, or trade. This one, however, is different. Here's what it says:

"Claudia Severa to her Lepidina, greetings. On 11 September, sister, for the day of the celebration of my birthday, I give you a warm invitation to make sure you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival, if you are present. Give my greetings to your Cerialis [Lepidina's husband]. My Aelius [Claudia's husband] and my little son send him their greetings. I shall expect you sister, my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper and hail."

It's a birthday party invitation! If you aren't a historian this might not seem like a big deal, but I can just imagine how excited they must have been when they found this.

A 1st century birthday party invitation. It is part of a collection of the oldest handwriting from Britain in existence. It may be the oldest handwriting by a woman in Latin.

Although I am partial to written documents, artifacts can tell us a lot (besides being more fun to look at). The ones below demonstrate the spread of Christianity in Britain. I took the first picture in Bath. It is a 1st century bronze head from a statue of Silus-Minerva. In Roman mythology, Minerva was the daughter of Jupiter. In Britain she was conflated with Silus, the local goddess of wisdom. I took the second picture in the British Museum. It is a 4th century mosaic tile floor from a villa in Dorset. The Greek letters chi and rho (X and P, corresponding to C and R) indicate that the figure depicts Christ.

1st century bronze head of Silas-Minerva.

4th century tile mosaic floor. One of the earliest existing depictions of Christ. 

I'll finish this week with an artifact that demonstrates what an amazing city London is for historians. They pulled this bronze head of Emperor Hadrian out of the Thames river in 1834. It's from a 2nd century statue that was probably put up to commemorate Hadrian's visit to Britain in 122. How would you like to snag that with your fishing line?!

The bronze head from a 2nd century statue of Emperor Hadrian. (Also not my photo. I've seen it at the Museum of London but it is behind glass, making it hard to photograph.)

Thanks for reading my blog! If you're enjoying it, please take a minute and leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you! Cheers!