heathenhistory.co.uk

I don’t propose to rewrite all this post. However, there were  a number of links which really are worth a look, and it would be a great shame if they were lost forever from the site. All are from the BBC.

1. This link is an audioslide show. It describes how the house from where Wifred Owen wrote his last letter home in 1918 has been turned into a place of reflection and a celebration of his work.

2. This article reflects upon the incredible work of Brian Stevens. He visited the Cenotaph earlier this century, and asked some of the surviving veterans if he could take their photograph. The results support the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Obviously, these people fought in the Second World War. However, in the 1990s, Steve Pyke did something very similar for First World War veterans.

3. This link shows a map and explains where the 3,740 British troops who have died since the end of the Second World War in 1945 died.

4. Finally, this magazine post really is worth a look. It inverts how we look at the losses of the two world wars. Incredible though it might seem, there are only fourteen settlements of village size or larger that did not lose someone in either war. Arthur Mee called them “the thankful villages”.

Mr Kydd.

You may have noticed that the site was down for fours days last week, and that the November posts (including the excellent Remembrance stuff) has now gone.

No real harm done – I will repost these in the holidays.

Mr Kydd.

In recent years there has been considerable historical discussion about the exact location of Bosworth field. It now seems that there is similar uncertainty about the location of the Battle of Hastings. This report from the BBC explains the uncertainty, and asks if it matters.

There is a link here to the earlier report on the Black Death. It is tempting to see the History of the Middle Ages as done (and dull ?). Nothing could be further from the truth. For me the very term is unhelpful. It is a huge 400 year period, which should not be generalised. Moreover, our understanding of it is still evolving.

An excellent BBC news report here on the he UK mainland’s first fully intact Viking boat burial site. It has been uncovered at  Ardnamurchan, is thought to be more than 1,000 years old.  Artefacts buried alongside the Viking in his boat suggest he was a high-ranking warrior. Archaeologist Dr Hannah Cobb said the “artefacts and preservation make this one of the most important Norse graves ever excavated in Britain”.

There are some excellent close up images of the finds in the Daily Mail report here .

In recent years there has been considerable speculation about the Black Death. In particular, some historians have argued that it was not actually Bubonic plague at all. A good introduction to this can be found in the Scott / Duncan book The Return of the Black Death . Other theories have even suggested that it might have been an early form of HIV. In this context, this article from today’s Telegraph shows again the growing importance of scientific methodology to the study of History.

If only I had paid more attention in Biology…

Mr Kydd.

There are many things I liked about Patrick Collinson.  I always viewed him as a proper historian who was greatly underestimated, not least becasue of his association with Sir John Neale. He did in fact have an original mind, and for me an attractive writing style. If you want a well organised orthodox view of Elizabethan parliaments, you could do a lot worse than read his 1967 text “The Elizabethan Puritan Movement.” You don’t have to agree with it to appreciate it.  There is an appropriate obituary from the Daily Telegraph here .