let me know if you need dates still for a particular month and I can send you my full set. I have more dates than I have articles, so could send you those?

Old Calendars
This week someone bought a 2021 calendar. This makes me wonder whether other members want to buy old calendars. We can sell them for £3 plus postage which is £3.20 in the UK at the moment. Jenny Ashby has some 2021 and 2020 calendars and I have some 2019 calendars.
2022 Calendars
Now I shall start working on the 2022 calendar. I am keen to receive suitable images with no copyright issues that we can tie to particular months. If I have more than one suitable image for a month I can use an image in a later year. If you have a very good image that is not tied to a particular month then it can be used on the cover.

Continuing my series of posts from the Companions' Facebook page, here is the most popular post from the past week commemorating the Viking attack on Paris in 845 AD.


In March 845 AD Ragnar allegedly led a Viking fleet into France raiding up the Seine, attacking Rouen.

On 29th March, Easter Sunday that year, they arrived at Paris with a fleet of longships and plundered the city. It was early in the raiding season and the attack was not expected. However, the Franks drew up defences on both banks of the river. This was of little concern to Ragnar, who attacked the smaller of the two forces, defeated it and took 111 prisoners. These unfortunates he hanged on an island in the Seine in full view of the second force on the other bank.

Despite the Danes being miles from the sea, and therefore perhaps more than usually vulnerable, the Franks were unable to defend the city. Charles the Bald paid the Danish to leave, handing over more than 2,500 kg of gold and silver. This was the first of 13 payments by the French to the Danes. On their way back the Danes pillaged several coastal sites including the Abbey of St Bertin.

Charles was heavily criticised for this payment but in practice he was facing conflict with his brothers over control of the remains of the wider Carolingian Empire, along with rebellion in the provinces and disaffected nobles. Paying off the Danes gave him space to deal with his other challenges, and in fact the agreement held for 6 years.

During the siege of Paris many of the Danes had died of plague which only subsided following a fast which they undertook on the advice of a Christian prisoner. Prayers to the Norse gods had previously proved ineffective. 

In the same year, a fleet of longships sailed up the Elbe and ravaged Hamburg in an attack which destroyed the town, including its church, school and library. A Viking fleet was also present in Moorish Spain; 150 ships had been ravaging in the Garonne and then appeared in northern Spain off the coast of the kingdom of Asturias. They were driven off and after a couple of weeks enter the Guadalquivir and attacked and took Seville. However Abd al-Rahman II was a far more effective deterrent than Charles and the Vikings were soon overcome. It was said that the Moors took so many captives that the city gallows were not sufficient and the palm trees “bore strange fruit”. However, the Moors also wanted to redeem the captives taken by the Vikings so some diplomacy was called for and Abd al-Rahman sent an embassy to their king (it is unclear if this was the Danish or Norwegian king) and it appears trading links were established.

https://www.facebook.com/yorkshiregesithas

Here is a link to a recent talk that might be of interest:

Dr Caroline Goodson (King’s) hosts Dr Sam Lucy (Newnham), who is a world-recognised expert in Anglo-Saxon archaeology and cemeteries in particular, to learn more about what we know about Cambridge after the Roman period and why cemetery archaeology in particular is such a critical source of new evidence.

The discovery last summer at Barton Road in Newnham of a burial ground dating from the early Anglo-Saxon period (5th to 7th centuries) is prompting new research into old questions about life and death in a key period of the history of Britain.

https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/digitalweek/living-and-dying-in-cambridge-after-rome

Continuing my series of posts from the Companions' Facebook page, here is the most popular post from the past week taking a look at the Cuddesdon Bowl. Hopefully gesithas are aware of the appearance of this beautiful blue glass bowl, but the post about it is copied below.

A close second was a discussion about how mutually intelligible Old English and Old Norse was, and I can recommend a recent YouTube video on that very topic here:
https://youtu.be/DKzJEIUSWtc

But back to that bowl!

This may be a surprise – but glass was not completely uncommon in Anglo-Saxon England. In fact remnants of vessels are found in cremations often enough to suggest it was relatively widespread in use and not reserved only for the highest status burials. While glass vessels may well have been made in England it is entirely possible they were made from imported glass tesserae produced on the Continent, for example at Ravenna in Italy or Ribe in Denmark. Glass was used to make beakers and beads for jewellery as well as for glazing high status windows, such as the Monkwearmouth monastery. Well-known vessels have been found at Sutton Hoo and Prittlewell.

Today we are taking a look at the deeply wonderful Cuddesdon Bowl, and early 7th century artefact found in Oxfordshire in 1878, but believed to have been made in Kent. It was found in a high status grave and then used as a flower vase until 1971.

The dark blue colour comes from copper oxide or cobalt which was added to the molten glass. Around the upper part of the bowl is a thin applied trail of glass, arranged in ten tight spirals. The lower part of the bowl is decorated with thirteen vertical loops. These trails were formed by applying molten glass to the outer surface.

It is thought the bowl was actually a drinking vessel. It was found along with another blue glass bowl and a bronze bucket, typically thought to supply the owner with sustenance in the afterlife.

Coloured glass was available in a wide range of colours through addition of particular additives, although the process was complex and sometimes unpredictable. Most surprisingly perhaps, clear glass was harder to make than coloured glass. This is because iron impurities were difficult to circumvent. These impurities tended to result in a blue-green colour, and could only be removed by the use of decolourants such as antimony or manganese; an olive green was also often found and probably a result of impurities int eh glass. Meanwhile, red glass could be produced by adding copper-rich material to the molten glass;  amber colouring through iron additives mixed in a very low oxygen environment; yellow  glass was produced by adding tin oxides; purple through manganese in higher quantities than when used as a decolourant.

As glass rarely survives in more than fragments, we can appreciate this vessel. It’s an absolute beauty, so sit back and enjoy the view

[I am including the link to the Ashmolean page too so you can enjoy it]
https://britisharchaeology.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/highlights/cuddesdon-bowl.html


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