February 21, 2008

• Nine Hundred Years and Counting

  We usually do our field trips on Tuesday, but since TGD had a meeting, we called a taxi, got to the train station, and headed to Norwich on Wednesday. 

  Hold your right hand out in front of you, palm facing you.  Imagine this is England. Your pinkie side touches Wales. Your fingernails are the border with Scotland. London is directly below your pointer and middle fingers, about two-thirds of the way down.  Cambridge is about a pinky-width north of London. About the first joint of your thumb where it curls around your hand is Norwich. (not that any of that really mattered)

  It was cold, much colder than it has been. But, that didn’t stop your intrepid Teacherperson from finding Norwich Cathedral!  It’s not as impressive with the vans in front.
  

  
  

  
  And the green net construction stuff didn’t help either.

  
  

  
  This 900 year-old building was begun in 1096 by a bunch of Normans who put the Saxons to work.  In general, what I gather from the history  is that there were a lot of fires and a lot of riots. It seems like the cathedral was always catching fire (two spires burned until they decided to build one of stone). It was shot up during the English Civil War (Cromwell lived nearby) and attacked by Henry VIII’s anti-Catholic goons. A spire was hit by a hurricane, the peasants revolted, and on and on. But, despite it all, the cathedral still stands, still has worship services, and still has the second-highest spire in all of England. (Only beaten by Salisbury Cathedral.)

  
  

  It was free to get in, although I paid 3 pounds to take pictures. We had the most wonderful guide who took us around and was such a good storyteller that I almost could picture the Battle of Agincourt!  He told us how the archers were like the machine guns of the day. They used six-foot longbows with 160 pounds of draw and could fire 10 arrows a minute. There were 7,000 English archers there, so the French had 70,000 arrows shot at them per minute. The Welsh archers would crawl  through the carnage and pull the arrows out of the dead so they could be reused. Sir Thomas Erpingham was in charge of the archers. His battle flag was sea birds surrounding a pure white shield because he was such a good and noble knight. He’s buried in the cathedral and even has a gate named after him. (This isn’t his gate, but it looks like it, except for the statue of Erpingham kneeling down which should be in it. This is the Ethelbert Gate named for Lucy and Ricky Ricardo’s neighbor, I bet. Oh, wait. That would be the Ethelmertz Gate.)

   
  

  
   
  Here’s a bit of detail from the corner to the right. There’s just something excessively nifty about dragons and knights and medieval things.

  

  The stained glass windows were pretty. They had all been shot out or destroyed in riots over the years, so they were Victorian glass, not medieval. Several windows featured knights.  This window was neat.  Notice the knight in the middle. Then, notice the “modern knights”–WW I and II soldiers on the sides.

  
  

  
  And, they had more traditional subjects for the windows.

  

  
  
  This is the Bishop’s Throne (I think!). Remember, to be a cathedral, one must have the bishop’s throne. Norwich has two cathedrals, one Anglican and one Roman Catholic.

  
  

  
  Our guide said to us, “If any of you can tell me what this bird is, I will give you an ice cream.”  We all stared hard, wanting that ice cream (or to be thought amazingly brilliant). Hunter and I guessed phoenix.  I forget what the others guessed.

  
  

  
  It turns out that this bird was supposed to be a pelican, obviously sculpted by someone who had never seen a pelican. He said that after the cross, the pelican was the most sacred Christian symbol in medieval times. People saw the pelican doing its thing (preening itself and regurgitating) and then feeding its young. They mistakenly thought that the bird was sucking blood from its own breast to feed its babies. They thought this was a nifty image of Christ and the church and communion, hence, the pelican.

  

  I saw these carvings like these in the walls of the cathedral and asked our guide about it.  He smiled. “Those are ancient graffiti. Naughty choir boys used to sit and carve them. But we learned how to take care of rabble like that. We’d ship them off to America!”

  
  

  
  Outside in the courtyard was the Jubilee Maze.  It was a circular maze of paved stones. The children had a wonderful time running around it and inventing games.

  
  

  I caught Little Miss in mid-jump. (Yes, the crazy things took their coats off.)

  
  

  

  Cool cross in the yard.

  

  One fascinating thing the cathedral had were about 1,000 bosses. A boss is a decorative bit which covers up where the pieces of wood in a ceiling come together. (Or, for you technical chaps: an ornamental, knoblike projection, as a carved keystone at the intersection of ogives.  A bunch of them were on the top of the ceiling of the main cathedral, soaring above our heads and impossible to see. (They were also impossible to see as the main nave was closed off for construction.)  But, a number of these bosses were on the underside of the porch ringing the courtyard. 
  

  
  

    

  They told all sorts of stories. I don’t know what they all were.  What’s you guess on this boss? Shamgar and his ox goad?  I don’t know.

  
  
  Hang on tight!

  

  And there were a number of Green Men bosses, too.  The church also had some Saxon pagan gods carved in it.  I didn’t get a shot of them.

  

  

  Our guide told us another story of “Sweet Vi.” Violet Morgan was the secretary to Bishop Pollock (in the early 1900s). She apparently was a bit more than a secretary, although some say she died of the flu before the bishop, a man 35 years her senior, could marry her.  When she died, the bishop had this statue made of her.  After the bishop died, the scandalized church folk chucked Violet into the garden.  It was only in the last few years that they brought Violet in from the cold.

  
  

  
  In front of Violet is a door, The Bishop’s Door.  Our guide said, “The bishop is the only one allowed to use this door to go in and out. And he is welcome to it. There is an unexploded bomb from WW II under the doorway.  It has been sinking in the sand for years and they can’t detonate it or get it out.”

  
  

  
  There is another famous Thomas in Norwich Cathedral, Sir Thomas Gooding. He was buried standing up so as to meet God on his feet on the Day of Judgement.  His epitaph, carved on his tomb, is one of the most famous in England, our guide said.

  
  

  
  

  “All you that do this place pass bye
  Remember death for you must dye.
  As you are now even so was I
  And as I am so shall you be.
  Thomas Gooding here do staye
  Wayting for God’s judgement daye.”

  
  

    
  

  Even the floor was gorgeous. It made me want to grab a pile of fabric and start quilting!
  

  
  

  
  

   
  

       

  And something we found for Poppy…

  
  

  
  
  The day continues with a visit to A Castle Called Norman…

   
  

  • 3:42 pm
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