This is London with news from the 14th century.

We begin with a dispatch from Dr L Kip Wheeler of web.cn.edu ..

Throughout the whole of the thirteen hundreds more and more of the upper classes, the scholars, and the lawyers are speaking the Middle English tongue of their people rather than the Norman French tongue of their ancestors. 

The mystery plays are coming out of the churches and being performed by guilds. There are more actors, more spectacles, outdoor stages, and comic elements. So much is going on.

Now here are the headlines of the rest of the news.

1300

:: There’s a new king in Poland. He will be known as Wenceslas II.

:: In France, Guillaume de Machaut is born. Posterity will know him as a great poet and composer of music. [He lived until 1377.]

:: We hear of a new manuscript in the Old French language. The title is reported as The Travels of Marco Polo. We wait to hear further news.

1301

:: At Caernarfon Castle, Edward, the son of our King Edward, is created Prince of Wales. He is the first English prince to hold that title. 

1303

:: In France the squabble between King Philip IV and the Pope over the exercise of papal authority in French sovereign territory appears to be over. It is reported that Pope Boniface VIII has died as a result of injuries sustained during his recent abduction by a French emissary and his subsequent rescue by a squad of Italians from Anagni.

1304

:: In the Tuscan city of Arezzo a new poet has been born. He will go far. [Francesco Petracco lived until 1374.]

1305

:: There are reports of a major upset in the Papacy. Pope Clement V has moved his headquarters from Rome to Avignon. So begins the Babylonian Captivity. It will last for almost 70 years.

1306

:: The rebel identified as Robert the Bruce has been crowned King of Scotland in the place called Scone.

1307

:: In Scotland, our King Edward has died while on a punitive expedition against the rebel Robert the Bruce. 

:: He is succeeded by the Prince of Wales who becomes King Edward II and will rule for 20 years.

:: In Ravenna, the Florentine born Dante Alighieri has begun to compose his great poem La Divina Comedia, a task which will occupy him until his death in 1321.

1308

:: The Holy Roman Emperor Albert I has died and will be succeeded by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII. 

:: In the days of Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor ruled a great swathe of territory but that began to be fragmented as the inevitable result of the Franks having no custom of primogeniture. And even in the year 800, when Charlemagne was crowned in Rome on Christmas Day, it was Pope Leo III who placed the crown on the new Emperor’s head. It’s not going too far to suggest that, for much of the time since, the Pope, as the head of the Universal Church, and the Emperor, as the head of the senior temporal power, have been at loggerheads with each other. It can be a messy business involving military force on the one side and the weapon of supernatural sanctions on the other. Ah well! They do say God is on the side of the big battalions.

Stay tuned for our next bulletin at 1310.

francis cameron

oxford, 31 august 2014

from week two to week three

As I begin my journey from week 2 to week 3, I carry with me a backsack of ideas and unanswered questions. 

What prompted Dante to compose La Divina Comedia?

Was he writing for an intended readership? If so, who were they? And how would they get hold of copies of his manuscript?

I’ve approached Dante’s composition in the way I inherited from the teachers of musical history in my school and student days. For most of the time each composition was examined and dissected as an isolated artefact with scarce reference to context or comparison with other works. 

This is really not good enough. I must approach the Canterbury Tales in their place on the tapestry of their surroundings. In fact it would be a good idea to show the panorama of the whole of the 1300s from a London, English point of view.

I’m going to try to do this as though presenting headline news in the manner of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. I’ll do this a bit at a time and post each segment when it is ready.

francis cameron

oxford, 31 august 2014

la divina comedia

La Divina Comedia is the station for the second week of my pèlerinage into the thirteen hundreds of our time.

Last week I was in the territory of the ars nova, the New Art of those who notated musical settings for the Latin liturgy of their faith. I enjoyed transcribing from facsimiles of their manuscripts when I was an undergraduate in the Faculty of Music at Oxford. 

Now I am utterly transported into the dolce stil nuovo of the land and language of Tuscany. For me, this is where the Great Renaissance begins, though my schoolmasters spoke only of 1453 and a battle on the Golden Horn.

And so I come to La Divina. It is immense. A staggering achievement of one man. Dante Alighieri. Its ramifications, its intricate twists and turnings, its multitude of multicoloured characters, are far more than I can possible encompass outside of years of study. And so I move back until I can see the outline of the structures.

Dante writes of Inferno Purgatorio Paradiso. This resonates. I turn my mind to his imagery.

Pergatorio is, as I was taught, where the souls of the Catholic departed go to be judged when they die. I understand what they are saying. Up to a point. With a different slant. And a different address. For my soul, my psyche, has its true home in this realm I know as Yesod and which is called by many other names. The Summerlands. On the Other Side. Heaven. I came into this world from Yesod. And to Yesod I shall return.

There are those of us who tell of the journey from Yesod to incarnation as a descent to the material world of Malkuth. The Kingdom. Dante’s Inferno. Hell. I’ve had something like that in mind since I was eight or nine years old. I rarely speak of it in those terms. When I do I am met with blank stares of incomprehension.

Even now, as I sit here making these words, my psyche is free to connect with Yesod and from there to connect with the higher planes of Netzach and Hod. The Power and the Glory. Dante’s Paradiso.

Inferno   Purgatorio   Paradiso

Malkuth   Yesod   Netzach & Hod

For thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, for ever and ever .. 

So mote it be.

francis cameron, oxford, 29 august 2014

my inner senses tell me

My inner senses tell me my notional Week for William of Occam is nearly over. It’s time to write the epilogue and ring down the curtain.

I have a feeling I’ve learned more about myself than I have about Occam. I’m certainly not the same person I was a week ago.

But enough of that! What of our William?

The village of Ockham, in the English county of Surrey, has a website which claims William as one of its sons : “the proponent of Occam’s razor. “ We don’t know his exact date of birth. The best we can say is 1287/1288. At this distance it’s not all that important.

When he was seven - or maybe it was fourteen - he was taken into the Ordo Fratrum Minorum - the Greyfriars, the Franciscans - to be educated at their London house. 

Round about the year 1318 he is in their Oxford house studying theology at the university ; and from there he returned to London.

He comes across to me as an outstanding thinker. The kind of man unwittingly burdened with colleagues of lesser ability. They who so readily feel inadequate in his company. These are they who deceitfully go about to undermine and discredit any who are the more able. They spread rumours. Suspicion.

And so it came about that, in 1323, William was called before the provincial chapter to explain himself. 

And matters did not stop there. He was remanded to the supreme ecclesiastical court : Avignon - where Pope John XXII luxuriated in the gothic splendour of the Palais des Papes. Our Franciscan faced serious charges of heresy.

I’ve come across John XXII before. He merits - if that’s the right word - no more than a line or two in the better studies of medieval music. His complaint has survived the centuries. He inveighed against the singers in the papal choir for their newfangled fashion of vocal hockets. Like hiccups.

Now, at that time, there were Franciscans in dispute with His Holiness. Saint Francis of blessed memory had preached the gospel message of holy poverty. Franciscans - individually and collectively - should own no property. They observed John XXII living in ostentatious splendour. No hint of poverty there. This was palpable heresy.

1328. Confrontation. Occam is commissioned to further investigate and report. He finds among John’s own writings clear evidence of recalcitrance. This is not simply heresy. It is stubborn heresy. Ergo : John has effectively abdicated. He is no longer Pope!

Oops ..  for the Franciscans this is a no-win situation. Time to pack up and go. Under cover of darkness. Time to seek shelter in the retinue of Ludwig of Bavaria, the Holy Roman Emperor.

William of Ockham remains in München for the rest of his life. He died in 1347.

I am amazed at the breadth and depth of his scholarship. The magnitude of his output. Why is he not given more space in the histories? Perhaps it is that, after expounding on Aquinas and the Summa, there is neither space nor incentive for more.

// and here I compose a sad cynical internote :: Thomas Aquinas belongs in the previous century. The 1200s. I have seen his tomb in Toulouse. In the Church of the Jacobins. He was of the Order of Preachers. The Dominicans. The domini canes. The Hounds of the Lord. The Black Friars. The Inquisition which wreaked such havoc in fair Languedoc. 

// I stood at the foot of Montségur and wept for the destruction of the Cathars. //

 .. maintenant, à nos moutons

I read on. I am familiar with some of this. I observe glowing embers of Greek origin. 

R. W. Jepson, M.A., Headmaster of Mercers’ School gave us 6th formers his one term, one period a week class on Clear Thinking. I’m glad he did. Syllogistic Logic comes up in computer programming. IF x AND IF y THEN z. But If x AND NOT y THEN NOT z. QED.

QED. And that reminds me. Yes, reminds me. Old Age is replete with memories. A year in the 1930s. Possibly 1936. Mr Moulden’s class in St Mary’s (Church of England) Elementary School. Geometry lessons. And a textbook which began with the statement : a point has position but no area. It was Euclid. It was axiomatic! Something ‘given’ with which there is no questioning. 

Ockham had his axioms. For him, God was axiomatic. Though he might not have put it quite like that. God is the great ‘given’. With which there is no questioning. It’s a deep held comforting belief. 

I feel the vortices of my mind whirring around. Explore the whole of my past experience as I can, there are questions which remain stubbornly unformulate. I cannot, at this distance of space and time, tune in to the mind of the 14th century. Here am I. 86 years old and living on the edge of mainland Europe. I do not doubt the axiomaticity of Ockham’s God. I cannot explain, to my own satisfaction, the processes by which he reached that premise. 

Oh, yes! Glowing embers of Greek origin. This is not what we were taught at school. Not at all an attribute of the ‘Dark’ Ages. Yet here they are. Present. Well studied. Well understood. It was not until 1977 when I rode the train tracks of Western Europe that I really began to appreciate the multicultural ambience of Norman Vikings in the Mediterranean. The scholars of Toledo - Muslim Jew and Christian - patiently, together, transcribing, transmitting, jewels of learning from one culture, one generation, to the next.  

My story now is ended. My time is up. There is so much more of ‘presence’ in the writings of our William that fascinates me. But I’m too old to begin a doctoral study. Besides, I want to move on.

// Coming next week. Twice nightly and with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday. Direct from The Roadside at Ravenna. Waiting for Beatrice. Dante Alighieri. La Divina Commedia. In a deeply moving verse translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

francis cameron, oxford, 27 august 2014

discovering lord lytton's wicca

Towards the mid 1970s, when I was enjoying post graduate studies in anthropology at the University of Sydney, we had to read about witchcraft. There was E E Evans-Pritchard’s seminal work on Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (of course!) plus the three intriguing books from Margaret Murray.  

Then, in the King’s Cross Village of central Sydney, I came across the Craftsman Bookshop. Such a real frisson. This was where I bought a copy of the 1971 first edition of Stewart Farrar’s What Witches Do. It’s now in its 4th edition with additional material from the Alexandrian archive – but without the photographs, some of which had included skyclad covenors.

December 1999 saw the publication of Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon  which introduced me to Gerald Gardner and the events which led to his going public after witchcraft ceased to be illegal in 1951. Hutton’s Triumph filled in many of the gaps in my knowledge and prompted me to set out on my own researches. 

In chapter 13 of Bracelin’s 1960 biography Gerald Gardner: Witch, I read these words :

“ ... he was stripped naked and brought into a place “properly prepared” to undergo his initiation.

“It was halfway through when the word Wica was first mentioned: “and then I knew that that which I had thought burnt out hundreds of years ago still survived”.”

Now I was fascinated by how the word ‘Wicca’ came into modern use. (Gardner had spelt it with one ‘c’ : ‘Wica’. But then his spelling did tend to the idiosyncratic.) It was easy to discover that when our AngloSaxon forebears wrote about a male witch, in their Old English tongue they spelt the word ‘wicca’. A female witch was a ‘wicce’. Both words were pronounced much as we pronounce the word ‘witch’ today, save that there were two syllables with the stress on the first. So ‘witch-cha(h) and ‘witch-che(r). So far, so good. Could it be that one of the initiates in that 1930s coven had studied English Language and Literature at one of the older universities where undergraduates were expected to read Old English texts in the original? And was ‘wicca’ (now pronounced as ‘wikka’) a safe word for use in the outside world when ‘witch’ would have attracted the wrong kind of attention? We are unlikely ever to know.

But now! Here’s something I came across when I was looking for something else! It dates from the first half of the 1860s.

“It is on that second day of May, 1052, that my story opens, at the House of Hilda, the reputed Morthwyrtha ... “

“Hilda, who, despite all laws and canons, was still believed to practise the dismal art of the Wicca and Morthwyrtha (the witch and worshipper of the dead).”

These two snippets come from the first chapter of Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings, written by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron [lived 1803 to 1873]. A very interesting man who assures us his ‘romance’ has a foundation of good solid research. 

He’s probably better known for The Last Days of Pompeii, 1834, (which I read from my father’s rather handsome copy sometime in the 1930s). 

Lord Lytton is probably less well known generally for his tenuous links with Rosicrucianism. For example, the introduction to his 1842 novel Zanoni tells how in his younger days he felt the desire to make himself acquainted with the true origins and tenets of the singular sect known by the name of Rosicrucians. 

He must have had a certain reputation for that particular strand of occultism. In 1867, when Robert Wentworth Little founded the English Rosicrucian Society, he appointed Bulwer-Lytton as Grand Patron – apparently without consulting him beforehand.

I recall Gerald Gardner’s reported discovery of The First Rosicrucian Theatre in England while he was exploring his new neighbourhood after the move to Highcliffe. So perhaps – but only ‘perhaps’ – there was a link there leading back to Lord Lytton’s awareness of the Wicca.

It would be poetic to describe my abiding interest as a quest. Curiosity is a better word. I now know that the name Wicca, in close association with the word witch, appeared in print in the 1860s. I have a feeling there are loose threads here just waiting to be picked up and woven. Perhaps more strands of the web will clamour for attention one day - when I am looking for something else.

francis cameron, oxford, 26 august 2014

it was the january of 1938

It was the January of 1938. I was just ten years old. 

We lived in the London borough of St Marylebone.

On Mondays through Fridays I was a boy at Mercers’ School in the City.

On Saturdays I was a Junior Exhibitioner at the Royal Academy of Music.

On Sunday mornings and evenings I played the harmonium for the services of a Spiritualist Church in the front room on the first floor of a building along the Harrow Road. Sometimes we stayed for the after circle where I began to develop a certain measure of psychic sensibility.

This opening up of psychic sensitivity, coupled with substantial convincing experiences of the soul’s continued existence between one physical incarnation and the next, has been an important part of my perception ever since (except for the years immediately after I chose to convert to the Roman Catholic Church, when I put aside all indulgence in such ‘sinful’ activities, and devoted myself to leading the life of a Good Catholic).

I was moving toward my mid-40s and living in Sydney, Australia, when a far-reaching sequence of events in my professional life released me from the bonds of the itinerary I was following and showed me where to pick up the trail again on the far side of Catholicism and Imperialism.

I was free. Free to live my own life. Free to think my own thoughts. Free to return to a personal exploration of planes of perception beyond the physical.

And so it has gone on. At varying speeds and with varying levels of insight and understanding. Of late I am finding levels of perception beyond the surface meanings of words on the page. Symbols on display catch my eye with their immediate depictions. Then the mind comes into play. My inner eyes open. The doors of perception stand wide. A deeper meaning is revealed. And, beyond that, further insights.

And so it goes on .. and on .. per omnia saecula saeculorum ..

francis cameron, oxford, 26 august 2014

come again, sweet love

You will know, dear reader, how it was, with no visible twinges of regret, I fled the noxious purlieus of the 4th century and, sweeping through a thousand years with scarce a hint of dust on the  skirts of my cloak, I alighted onto the languorous embrace of the beguiling youth and moyen age of the 14th century.

Alas and alack, dear reader. Plus de la même chose. The squabble continues but now the canvas is both larger and more intimate. Then it was the headstrong Bishop of Mediolanum in the red corner and the Imperator, the Supreme Commander, of the lands stretching from the rising of the sun until the going down of the same, in the blue. And the Bishop - we know him now under the cultae of Saint Ambrose of Milan - stretched forth his hand, called on the overwhelming force of his supernatural powers. And the Imperator, the Supreme Commander, Theodosius, the last to rule the whole shooting match from the Bosphoros to Land´s End, lay prostrate and grovelling at the holy man´s feet. Game. Set. And match. The progenitor of many more to come. With additional subtly complications.

So I sit in the best seat in the house, waiting for the curtain to go up and the play to begin. The scene is set. A stately room in the papal palace. Waiting in the wings is His Holiness himself. John, the 22nd of that name. Still in his dressing room - a closet in München - is the Holy Roman Emperor. He comes on after the interval. And, eagerly awaiting his grand entrance, is the King of France. (Is there going to be a threesome? Tut! Hush! Behave yourself!)

Sound the trumpets! Let battle commence! Bring on the glittering cast of thousands. The conclaves of cardinals splendiferous with opulence. Intellects of Franciscans with their Rule of Holy Poverty. And then, the last brilliant, Goeterdämerung of the Templars. Don´t forget the Templars. Never forget the Templars .. ..

You know, this really could make compulsive, primetime, Sunday evening viewing. On one of the better channels. Of course.

francis cameron, oxford, 24 august 2014

why do I keep going back?

why do I keep going back to the middle ages? it’s something to do with mercers’ school in the 1930s and early ‘40s. a preRaphaelite medievalism with knights in shining armour mounted on snowy white steeds galloping off on a quest to find the holy grail and to rescue fair maidens in distress. By no means the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. but then it was a time and a western world of delusion. when I invented not so much as a better mousetrap, no one was going to come calling even though I lived in a log cabin in the depths of a forest. and the great and glorious british empire on which the sun never set was not the great omnipotent deliverer of enlightenment to the “poor ignorant natives” in the far corners of the globe. even when we’re broke we like to pretend. let’s go out and buy a couple of aircraft carriers. on tick ..

then there were medieval studies at the university of sydney where I was invited in to make up the numbers and possibly go forward to the establishment of a faculty. that was a good start to an area of history I’d not previously explored. pity that the department of classical studies insisted we begin our history in 1476 and not a day before. only in my silver years did I begin to sort out why so much happened as it did and how the bishop checkmated the imperial king .. .. but, please, let’s not go back now to the 4th century. it behaves like an incubus

and my 1977 half sabbatical when I went off to europe to its libraries and monasteries in search of the earliest manuscripts of latin liturgical chant and also of contextual artefacts in the towns villages and countryside. the joys of a eurail pass and the beautiful intercontinental trains which could begin in Barcelona and end as a morning commuter in Oslo in good time to be let in before the official opening time to see the viking ships and discover it was not all rape and pillage. they had musical instruments, for odin’s sake ..

francis cameron

oxford 23 august 2014

It’s the time of year when I see the practice nurse for the first stage of my six-monthly checkup. It’s a little early this year. I generally go rather nearer the Autumn Equinox. But there are times later on when my kalendar promises to be fuller but not hectic. 

So, yesterday I went. Ten past ten in the morning. And fasting. And I did so want that blessed cup of tea when the alarm woke me at ten to eight. So I deferred until after the appointment. Then to Zappi’s for a latte and a pain au chocolate.

Time, I thought, to get organised. Get away from the interminable 4th century. And do something differnt. Something new.

Thinking of something new reminded me of Ars Nova, a treatise concerning new possibilities for composing music, written by Philip de Vitry in the 14th century. I prefer to think of the 14th century as the 1300s. The 13 hundreds are also identifiable as the trecento. I decide to focus on the trecento until the Winter Solstice. Be content with what I can achieve in that period. And then do something else.

I begin to sketch a time line. Books immediately to hand suggest inclusions. Then I find myself myself looking at William “The Razor” of Occam. Born, perhaps, in the village of Ockham (Oak Hamlet) in late 1287 or early 1288. Died, without a doubt, in Munich on the night of 9/10 april 1347. 

It’s more than 30 years since I last looked at anything about Occam. There was something on the open shelves of the Radcliffe Camera and passing references, a sentence or two, elsewhere in my reading. Computers? Ha! Who now remembers the Sinclair ZX81? Google? What Google? The World Wide Web? Oh boy!. Get real!

At this year of grace,  researching for leads, is so much easier. Our William was a Franciscan who studied at Merton College. Merton College is metaphorically a few steps away in the centre of Oxford. 

Then he went to Avignon. I remember an evening between trains in Avignon. I went looking for the pont. Sur le pont d’Avignon. Found, instead, the Palace of the Popes. This was the Avignon Papacy in real life. Like a stage set. And in that palace in Avignon there once was a Pope John XXII, well known for his two lines in the standard histories of music for his diatribe against modern composers and the damnable choirmen who sang hockets like hiccups. 

This is going to be fun. The Franciscan and the Pope were at loggerheads. Some say they accused each other of heresy. The friar was excommunicated and did a midnight flit to Munich. Where he stayed for the rest of his mortal life. 

Well worth a visit. As they say in the Michelin Guides.

francis cameron

oxford, 23 august 2014