The age of Constantine the Great can reasonably be seen as the watershed between the old Roman Empire and the new Byzantine Empire. Such a division is, to some degree, artificial, dependent on historians’ need to break the past up into comprehensible chunks: many elements of ancient civilization survived for centuries into the [...]
Archive for March, 2008
15 Mar
Sutton Hoo
In the 7th century AD, a King – it was surely no less – received a magnificent burial at Sutton Hoo, in East Anglia. A ship was hauled up from the river, a burial chamber was erected in the middle of it, and a stupendous collection of magnificent objects – gold and silver brooches [...]
9 Mar
L’Abbaye de Fontenay
Short history:
1118. The abbey was founded by Saint Bernard in a small marshy valley a few kilometers from Montbard (Burgundy).
1130. The monks settled down on the actual Fontenay site, at the intersection of two combes.
1139. Ebrard, the Bishop of Norwich, came to Fontenay to flee the persecution he was under in England. His fortune financed [...]
