Iain Hollingshead reviews Rome's Lost Empire, BBC One's one-off documentary in which Dan Snow uses satellite technology to identify the lost cities, amphitheatres and forts of ancient Rome.
Just when you thought television had had its fill of Ancient Rome, along come two more BBC documentaries. On BBC Four, Simon Sebag Montefiore has started a three-part series exploring the central role of religion in the city. While on BBC One yesterday, Dan Snow’s Rome’s Lost Empire harnessed satellite technology to understand more about Roman military might.
Snow’s adventures certainly lived up to their mainstream billing. In tandem with Dr Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist from Alabama State university who’d recently discovered thousands of sites in Egypt using satellite imagery, they set off to repeat her success with Roman remains
In Illuminations: The Private Lives of the Medieval Kings BBC Four will tell the story of the Medieval monarchy as preserved through stunning illuminated manuscripts from the British Library’s Royal Manuscripts collection which contains some of the most priceless documents in the country’s history. Some of these manuscripts were commissioned by the Medieval Kings to burnish their legacies. Others were captured as war booty, and handed down from one dynasty to the next. Together they make up a fascinating record of the role of the king and the role of the country as it became a major power at the heart of Europe. This new 3×60 series presented by renowned art historian Dr Janina Ramirez, and produced by Oxford Film and Television will explore the extraordinary art and culture of the period.
Many important illuminated Royal manuscripts will be captured on film for the first time as part of the BBC’s ongoing collaboration with the British Library and in conjunction with the Library’s latest exhibition, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (www.bl.uk/royal). Dr Ramirez will decode and contextualise the manuscripts and in doing so will bring the monarchy of the Middle Ages back to life with the help of Library experts and series consultant Dr Scot McKendrick, Head of History and Classics at the British Library and lead curator of the exhibition. Many of these treasures have not been seen for hundreds of years so their secrets are fresh to the modern eye.
Being Vicar of Halifax must be exhausting, but tomorrow’s episode of Songs of Praise has re-charged the batteries of the hugely energetic holder of that post, Hilary Barber. “The BBC lit the church with arcs of light, and for the first time I had a proper sense of it as a 16th and 17th century church,” he says.
The Minster’s own lighting system is out-of-date and deeply unflattering. To update it and to reveal the place in its proper glory, Rev Barber and his team launched an appeal, A Million for the Minster, and appointed an architect. An appearance on TV can do that fund-raising push no harm at all.
Who’d be the Vicar of Halifax? It must be one of the most daunting jobs in the Church of England. To start with, it’s a Crown appointment, so the phone call comes from Downing Street. Then there’s the sheer size of the parish – for a long time it was the third largest in the country, stretching over a hundred miles.
The secrets of the Great East window at York Minster are to be explored in a BBC television documentary. The window, at 78ft (24m) in height, is the UK's largest medieval stained-glass window.
The 311 individual panels reveal a Christian history of the world, as told in the Bible, from Creation to the Last Judgement.
Often referred to as Britain's Sistine Chapel, the window was created between 1405 and 1408 by John Thornton. It is one of the earliest pieces of art by a named artist in England.
Beginning on November 11th, the British Library will be hosting a new exhibition entitled Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination. It is the Library’s first major exhibition to bring together the its Royal collection, a treasure trove of illuminated manuscripts collected by the kings and queens of England between the 9th and 16th centuries.
Curated by Dr Scot McKendrick, Head of History and Classical Studies, British Library; Professor John Lowden, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, and Dr Kathleen Doyle, Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts, British Library, the exhibition features stunning manuscripts that are among the most outstanding examples of royal decorative and figurative painting from this era surviving in Britain today, their colours often as vibrant as when they were first painted.
However, the manuscripts do much more than declare the artistry of their makers; the luxurious objects unlock the secrets of the private lives and public personae of the royals throughout the Middle Ages and provide the most vivid surviving source for understanding royal identity. As well as providing clear instruction on appropriate regal behaviour they also give a direct insight into royal moral codes and religious belief and shed light on the politics of the day.
Evidence of a brutal massacre of Vikings in Oxford 1100 years ago has been uncovered by archaeologists. At least 35 skeletons, all males aged 16 to 25 were discovered in 2008 at St John's College, Oxford.
Analysis of wound marks on the bones now suggests they had been subjected to violence. Archaeologists analysing the find believe it dates from 1002 AD when King Ethelred the Unready ordered a massacre of all Danes (Vikings) in England.
The surprise discovery of the skeletons was made by Thames Valley Archaeological Services under the quadrangle at St John's College at the University of Oxford, before building work started on the site.
BBC History Magazine, a leading monthly periodical on all things history, features an article about the Crusades and Christian-Muslim medieval interaction. “Traders and Crusaders”, by Thomas Asbridge of Queen Mary University of London, examines how relations between Europe and the Islamic Middle East “were about more than war and hatred.”
The article focuses on the trade relationships that developed between Muslim and Christian merchants, with Italian city-states such as Genoa and Venice establishing networks to bring in goods from Middle Eastern cities like Aleppo and Damascus. Asbridge writes, “these shared interests produced interdependency and promoted carefully regulated contact, even at times of heightened political and military conflict. In the end – even in the midst of holy war – trade was too important to be disrupted.”
For some, it’s about fine wines, penthouses, exclusive clubs and designer clothes. For others, it can be as simple as settling down for the afternoon with a good book. Now a two-part BBC miniseries, presented by Cambridge University academic Dr Michael Scott, is to reveal how the ambiguous meaning of luxury is the very thing that has defined our often-troubled relationship with it throughout history – and thwarted multiple attempts to stamp it out.
Starting on Monday (June 27), as part of BBC Four’s Luxury season, Guilty Pleasures; Luxury In Ancient Greece And The Medieval World aims to trace the way in which human attitudes towards symbols of wealth, power and indulgence developed, from Ancient Athens to the time of the Black Death.
The BBC will be airing a show examining Iceland’s medieval history this week. The Viking Sagas will first be see on Tuesday, May 10th, and is one of a number of programs being shown this week related to Iceland and its culture.
Television viewers in the United Kingdom will have the chance to watch two new history programmes that feature medieval England. The BBC will start airing a new six-part series, Churches: How to Read Them, on September 1st on BBC Four. Presented by author Richard Taylor, it will examine how imagery, symbols and architecture of English parish churches have inspired, moved and enraged people down the centuries.
Churches: How to Read Them is about understanding just what we see in a British church – how the different styles of churches throughout the country reflect changing ideas of God, salvation, living and dying. Visiting some of England’s finest parish churches, Richard’s journey will be full of stories and contemporary accounts, touched with his insight, humour and sense of wonder at what he sees and interprets.
The BBC is to provide viewers with a definitive look at a seminal period of history, the resonances of which can still be felt today, in a season focusing on the Normans across BBC Two, BBC Four and BBC Learning. Leading the season will be The Normans, a three-part series on BBC Two that will examine the extraordinary expansion and unchecked ambition of this warrior race between the 10th and 13th centuries. The first part airs on Wednesday 4 August at 9pm.
Presented by Professor Robert Bartlett, the series will bring the history of the Normans to life by uncovering the personal stories of shadowy figures like Tancred of Hauteville, best remembered as a poor 11th-century Norman lord who fathered no less than 12 sons, two of whom left their homeland and risked their lives to become great rulers in the Mediterranean and Middle East.
The June issue of BBC History Magazine contains three features which have a Medieval focus. It begins with the article ‘King John and the French invasion of England’, written by Sean McGlynn, author of Blood Cries Afar: The Forgotten Invasion of England 1216. McGlynn tells the story of how King John fared in the Baron’s Revolt at the end of his reign, and asks whether he did his subjects a favour by taking his bow at an opportune time.
Next, with Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood now on the big screen with Russell Crowe as the legendary hero, Hugh Doherty's article ‘The Real Robin Hoods’ looks at the judicial process of outlawry in medieval England and examines what it really meant to be declared an outlaw.
Finally, Mark Glancy reviews three previous Robin Hood films, including Kevin Costner's version in Prince of Thieves, and offers his own views on their performance and historical accuracy. This article, Robin Hood: Three Films, is available online at the BBC History Magazine website.
Robert Attar, Features Editor of BBC History Magazine, commented “Medieval history is very popular among our readers, judging by our postbag and the success of issues with Medieval themed covers. We’ve been fortunate to have some of the leading Medievalists write for us in recent months on subjects as diverse as Robin Hood, Richard III, Agincourt and the Norman Conquest.”
An archaeological dig covering over six kilometres of land in England has come up with discoveries from the medieval, Roman and Bronze age eras. The work is now being filmed by the BBC for a documentary Digging for Britain, which will be broadcast in August.
The Archaeology of the East Kent Access Road project is a survey being done in preparation for a new road being built on the Isle of Thanet on the eastern coast of England. The road runs close to the mouth of the Wantsum Sea Channel, an important route that was a gateway for ancient peoples into Kent used by ships until medieval times.
The finds include twelve Bronze Age ring ditches (the remains of burial mounds) dating back over 3,500 years, Iron Age enclosures and a village which lasted into Roman times at Ebbsfleet.
There are also areas of Roman settlements, their fields and track ways, Roman and Saxon cemeteries, Saxon buildings, and a large Saxon enclosure with huge quantities of shellfish, evidence of the preparation of a feast or processing later provisions.
More recent finds include the remains of trenches excavated to defend Manston airfield during the Second World War.
Kent County Council principal archaeological officer Simon Mason, said, “Thanet was the gateway to England in ancient times and it’s no surprise that this dig has unearthed so many valuable remains. What is impressive is the story it tells us about how people were living here.”
Oxford Wessex Archaeology, a joint venture of Oxford Archaeology and Wessex Archaeology, is carrying out the research, which will be completed in mid-summer.
Local people are being invited to get involved with the big dig. Volunteers can work alongside professional archaeologists during a community excavation from 10 May until 4 June, and school visits are being arranged. Archaeologists are also available to talk to schools, societies and local organisations.
A BBC documentary will be revealing that a medieval African lived in England in the thirteenth century and was buried in a friary in Ipswich. This is the earliest evidence that an African was living in the country since the Roman period.
The programme, History Cold Case, will be broadcasting its premiere episode on Thursday night on BBC 2. It follows a team of experts from the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee as they analyze a skeletons from history.
The male skeleton they discovered has been carbon dated to the period 1190-1300, and from examinations of the skull, teeth and thigh bone, it was determined that the man originally came from Tunisia.
It has been suggested that the person may have been captured during the crusades. His body was buried in a Carmelite priory known as the Ipswich Whitefriars. The monastic house stood near the centre of the medieval town of Ipswich, the county of Suffolk. The Priory was founded around the years 1278-79 and lasted until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s. Nothing above ground remains of the site but the priory's cemetery has been explored by archaeologists.
The discovery of the man in the priory's cemetery suggests that the African man was a Christian by the time he died, and that he was not just a servant or slave. "He would have had to been of some note to be buried in the friary," said Xanthe Mallett, one of the members of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification who is part of the show.
According to programme notes for History Cold Case, the show will reveal a facial reconstruction and "discover the tragic truth about how he died."
According to the Times, three people identified in tax records as black Africans lived in England in the fifteenth century.
Earlier this year it was revealed that the remains of an African woman living in the city of York during the 4th century AD. Click here to read the article Africans in Roman York?
David Dimbleby charts a landmark history of Britain's greatest art and artefacts over 2,000 years, in Seven Ages Of Britain. The seven-part series of 60-minute programmes, shot in HD, begins at 9.00pm on Sunday 31 January 2010.
Produced in partnership with The Open University, Seven Ages of Britain looks at our extraordinary past through the Arts - both as treasures that have often played a decisive part in events and as marvels of their age.
From painted images and monuments of stone and gold to religious relics, weapons of war, instruments of science and works of art; often they are artefacts of great beauty and craftsmanship, but sometimes they are simple, everyday things which have a powerful story to tell.
Over the seven one hour programmes, David roams far and wide - including Italy, Germany, Turkey, India and America - tracking down astonishing artefacts that both encapsulate events or originate from the UK, and yet ended up leaving our shores.
Jay Hunt Controller of BBC One said: "The Seven Ages of Britain is a hugely ambitious arts series for BBC One. David brings the subject matter alive with journalistic endeavour and a twinkle in his eye."
In Britain or abroad, The Seven Ages of Britain is a journey revealing treasures of great beauty and craftsmanship that tell us who we were and are, and pay testament to the great events that formed our nation.
David Dimbleby added: "Seven Ages of Britain has proved an exhilarating quest. The television camera offers a spectacular view of some of our most precious national treasures. It allows us to see them in ways beyond the reach of the human eye as we tell the story of our country’s history over two thousand years through the art we have created in good times and bad."
Dr Rachel Gibbons, Academic Consultant for The Open University, commented: “Seven Ages of Britain is our social and cultural history, telling the story of the nation and its peoples through art and artefacts, through the precious treasures and the everyday objects created in Britain. Each of these objects and artefacts is evidence of the society in which it was produced. They all have value to historians for what they can tell us about our ancestors and how we, as a society, have become who we are now.”
The first two programmes focus on the Middle Ages:
Programme 1: Age Of Conquest (AD 43-1066) - For a thousand years, from Emperor Claudius to William the Conqueror, the British Isles were defined by invasion, each successive wave bringing something new to the mix. The Romans brought figurative art, the Anglo-Saxons epic poetry, the Normans monumental architecture. David Dimbleby travels throughout Britain and beyond – to France, Italy and Turkey – in search of the greatest creations of the age.
Programme includes: bronze bust of Hadrian (British Museum); fragment of triumphal arch commemorating Claudius' conquest of Britain (Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome); Roman coin of Britannia (Pantheon, Rome); frieze of Britannia under the heel of Emperor Claudius (Aphrodisias, Turkey); Roman gold brooch (Dolaucothi Gold Mine, Wales); Oceanus Dish (British Museum); Roman mosaic work (Bignor Roman Villa); Beowulf; Sutton Hoo treasure (Sutton Hoo and British Museum); Celtic Cross (Iona); Jarrow Monastery; Codex Amiatinus (Laurentian Library, Florence); Alfred Jewel (Ashmolean Museum); Alfred's translation of Pastoral Care (Bodleian Library); Caen Castle and the Abbaye-aux-Hommes (Normandy); Bayeux Tapestry (Normandy); the Tower of London.
Programme 2: Age Of Worship (1170-1400) - In the Middle Ages, Britain was caught in a power struggle between the Crown and the Church. The two were reconciled in the code of chivalry which ordered devotion to one's king as well as God: a story revealed in the fabulous objects left in Britain's cathedrals and castles, or safeguarded in museums. David Dimbleby also re-assesses the reign of Richard II, arguing that under his rule England experienced a superb cultural renaissance, and travels to Munich in search of Britain's only preserved medieval crown.
Programme includes: Mappa Mundi (Hereford Cathedral); Thomas Becket pilgrim badges (Museum of London); Becket Miracle Windows (Canterbury Cathedral); the Coventry Doom (Holy Trinity, Coventry); the Bury Bible (Parker Library, Cambridge); Arthur's Round Table (Winchester Great Hall); effigies of Templar Knights (Temple Church); Eleanor Cross (Geddington); Edward III sword (Windsor Castle); Garter stall plates (St George's Chapel, Windsor); tomb of Black Prince (Canterbury Cathedral); Anne of Bohemia's Crown (the Schatzkammer, Munich); Westminster Hall; Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; frontispiece of Chaucer's Troilus And Cressida (Parker Library, Cambridge); the Wilton Diptych (National Gallery).
The BBC Radio series In Our Time has kicked off a new season with an episode to the famous medieval philosopher St Thomas Aquinas. The program was first broadcast on September 18th, and can now be listened to as a podcast from the BBC Radio website.
Hosted by Melvyn Bragg, In Our Time is a discussion programme that examines the "history of ideas". The series covers many different subjects from history, religion, philosophy, the arts or science, one of which is explored in each programme with the help of three experts on the subject.
For the episode on Aquinas, Bragg has brought in Martin Palmer, Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture; John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews; and Annabel Brett, Lecturer in History at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, to be the three experts.
In his newsletter promoting the show, Bragg noted, "I surprised myself by challenging Martin Palmer so early on in the programme about one of his biographical “facts” on the young Thomas Aquinas. But the idea that for two years his parents brought him a beautiful woman a day, in order to break his spirit and keep him a celibate Benedictine instead of allowing him to go off and become a celibate Dominican, seemed to me to be at the wrong, ie: barmy, unbelievable end of the Myths of Great Figures spectrum."
Besides talking about Aquinas' quirky personality and his obesity, the episode focuses on his importance to medieval philosophy and how his ideas continue to have influence over the Roman Catholic Church as well as on the western world's views of human rights and modern law.
On Medievalists.net, we have posted a complete list of In Our Time programmesthat focus on the Middle Ages, which includes episodes on Genghis Khan, the Black Death and Geoffrey Chaucer.
. McGlynn tells the story of how King John fared in the Baron’s Revolt at the end of his reign, and asks whether he did his subjects a favour by taking his bow at an opportune time. 
