Winchester Pilgrimage
Jul. 16th, 2008 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aryanhwyYesterday I ended up sleeping straight through until noon and took that as a sign not to go into the office and lay low for the day. Thankfully today I'm feeling better.
Winchester Pilgrimage was everything I'd hope it would be. The event is held at the Hospital of Saint Cross, in Winchester, "England's oldest and most perfect almshouse". The hospital forms a square with the church one one side, rooms for the brothers who live there on another, with the ambulatory opposite, and the great hall and gate opposite the church. Outside of the square there are gardens and some other outlying buildings, and a couple of cemeteries. People camping in period tents put theirs up inside the square, those with non-period tents go into the outer fields where they can't be seen, and then there was sleeping space in the ambulatory for those without tents. I was amazed that there was a direct train from Leeds to Winchester, but there was and I got in around 2:30 and was picked up by the event steward on his way to the site. A couple others had also arrived early and we set up camps until a sudden and very strong rain shower drove everyone indoors. Friday evening Master Paul and his lady Anne provided us with a simple ploughman's meal, supplemented with fish & chips from down the road, some of the best fish & chips I've ever had (and at that point in the day breakfast was a long time ago and all I'd gotten for lunch was a muffin and a cup of tea at the train station, so I was starving). After dinner![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bend_gules put out the materials and showed anyone who was interested how to put together their own pilgrim's scrip. She had two types of canvas, new fresh beige canvas, and old white canvas with purple painted on it which had previously been a tent. Quite a lot of us decided that we wanted a scrip with a purple design on it. :) I was tickled at being able to make my own canvas bag; one of the benefits of going to conferences is collecting bags, and the best conferences are the ones that supply good sturdy canvas bags which are great for grocery shopping (somehow, it seems that the conferences I go to tend to have better bags than the ones that Joel goes to). But I had just been to TWO conferences and come away with NO bags (I felt rather gypped). So my travels to the UK were not wasted: I would come away with a bag (and one I'd made myself, which helps on the smugness factor). Later in the evening I marveled at looking around the hall and seeing virtually everyone bent over their canvas making a bag. (It's such a heart-warming sight seeing so many men sewing.) In that cozy environment we had our Chaucer reading; we took turns reading parts from the prologue. In high school, I'd always found the Middle English sufficiently opaque that I never enjoyed reading it. As an undergrad, I had a class on Chaucer, but it was one of those "because it fulfils a requirement" courses, and one which I really didn't enjoy that much. In my English lit before 1800 class our professor did read a portion of one of the tales aloud in class one day, and that was worthwhile because he had the Middle English pronunciation down. But other than that, it's a book that mostly sits on my shelf and never gets read. So I was amazed at how wonderful it was to hear the tales read aloud, sometimes in Middle English, sometimes modern, sometimes with the correct pronunciation, sometimes not. It was so funny! I wish we had had time to start reading one of the actual tales, when we finished the prologue.
Saturday we gathered in the morning to get the instructions for our pilgrimage. We'd all been given a 5 page handout on English saints, non-English saints, the 7 deadly sins, the corporal acts of mercy, and the virtues, on which we'd been warned we'd be stopped along the way of our pilgrimage and be quizzed. Groups of three or four set off every 10 minutes or so, along a footpath that snaked out from the entrace of the hospital and went about a mile and a half down to our destination, Winchester Cathedral, where the relics of Saint Swithin are buried. The route took us through Wolvesey castle, which was for two of the pilgrims from Lochac their first castle ever. I got some lovely photographs where you can see nothing but ruins and pilgrims.
We were duly stopped and quizzed at three different spots along the way, at each we were asked 6 points worth of questions and then had our answered totted up. I did fairly well, but when we got to the second station and we were asked to name one of the groups of people that Saint James was the patron of, I completely blanked! I couldn't think of anything and so lost half a point -- the only point or part thereof that I missed. Ooooh.....
And I do have to say, that England has the wickedest slugs I've ever seen. they're the length of my thumb and thicker around, and black. Suddenly, the part at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when a mother is chiding her son about inflating slugs with his father's wand seems a lot more menacing! No cute little silvery pink slugs for England, no indeed. Ylech.
After we returned from our pilgrimage a list field was set up for the fighters. As Saint Cross is open to the public, the event in the afternoon is part demo; people can come watch the fighting, and then there's usually a number of people sitting around working on hand crafts. I realized that it had been over three years, if not closer to four, since I had actually last seen SCA fighting, either heavy or light. It was remarkably pleasant to sit in the sun (which finally came out!) and watch and do nothing. Later in the afteroon, Brother James, the master of the hospital, gathered a few of us and gave us a tour, first of his flat (the brothers at the hospital are housed in arrangement very much like masters in Cambridge), then of the gardens behind the brother's quarters, including the herb gardens which contributed to our dinners that evening, and the 14th century plumbing channel -- thank goodness it past the kitchens BEFORE it reached the brothers quarters and became used as a sewer in days past! After that, he took us into the church, and showed us various things including the embroidered ceremonial robes (I can't remember now when they date from, but part of me wants to say 17th C), the hand-hammered solid gold chalice for communion, and the 450 year old graffiti carved into the choir benches. He also showed us the solid silver cross badge that he wears as master of the hospital, and which will be on his casket when he dies and then go on to the next master. All silver work since 1380 has a maker's mark on it; this piece of silver does not. Ergo, it was made before 1380. And he gets to wear it whenever he dresses up in full robes. Wow.
Dinner was also courtesy of Paul and Anne, and oh my goodness was that a fantastic meal. Extremely simple but full of extremely strong flavors. They had what was quite simply the best peas pottage that I have ever had. It was incredible, we all thought so. If they had made twice as much, it still would've been all eaten. There was cold roast beef with strong mustard, hard boiled eggs with mustard sauce and flowers, chicken with sops, cold cooked vinegard zucchini with something I couldn't identify but which was extremely good, chickpeas with lemon juice, lemon rind, and fresh pepper, three or four different desserts, and a few things I'm sure I'm forgetting. I got to have two medieval meals in one week, and both were done by consummate professionals. I feel very lucky.
Afterwards it was pleasant just sitting around and talking. At one point e got onto the subject of my dissertation research and I gave a short lecture on syllogistic reasoning for trinitarian topics, and was short of shocked to find I had an utterly rapt audience of about 5 people, they were hanging on my every work. It's very gratifying. :) I find it difficult to have casual and comfortable conversation with people I don't know, but I've never felt that with the group of friends I've made in Insula Draconis. I feel like I know more people in Insula Draconis than anywhere else in the kingdom; even though I'm not in the UK or Iceland, I feel much more like they are my group than Polderslot is. I really enjoy these people --jpgsawyer, bend_gules and her lord, Paul and Anne, their friends, they've all be so friendly and open and welcoming. I always look forward to an event more when I know that one of them will be there.
Sunday was mostly hang around and clean-up, and then Raphe took me back to the train station so I could wend my way back to Stansted. I'd just gotten on to the train and gotten settled when four more people trooped on laden with baggage --bend_gules, Robert, Asbiorn, and Logan. So we grabbed ourselves two tables in an adjacent compartment and had an enjoyable trip back to London, with Robert and bend_gules sharing with us some fantastic Spanish sausages that they'd recently acquired, and we all shared a couple of bottles of cider. The concept of being able to have alcohol on public trains is quite foreign to me. My first introduction to it had been on the train from Leeds to Winchester two days earlier, when two stops before I got off, a very drunk hen party (= bachelorette party) got on to the carriage I was in, and continued drinking heavily. I can't imagine ever being such an irritating nuisance in a public place, but that's just me.
We parted paths at London Waterloo and I continued my way to Stansted, managing not to die under the weight of all my books (oh, I didn't mention; after feast prizes for the people who'd gotten the most pilgrimage questions right were given out. At 17.5/18, I came in second, and came away with a complete Middle English edition of Chaucer. I have one back in the US, but none here and as I aluded to above, I'd like to try reading it again. But that was one more book to carry home...)
Winchester Pilgrimage was everything I'd hope it would be. The event is held at the Hospital of Saint Cross, in Winchester, "England's oldest and most perfect almshouse". The hospital forms a square with the church one one side, rooms for the brothers who live there on another, with the ambulatory opposite, and the great hall and gate opposite the church. Outside of the square there are gardens and some other outlying buildings, and a couple of cemeteries. People camping in period tents put theirs up inside the square, those with non-period tents go into the outer fields where they can't be seen, and then there was sleeping space in the ambulatory for those without tents. I was amazed that there was a direct train from Leeds to Winchester, but there was and I got in around 2:30 and was picked up by the event steward on his way to the site. A couple others had also arrived early and we set up camps until a sudden and very strong rain shower drove everyone indoors. Friday evening Master Paul and his lady Anne provided us with a simple ploughman's meal, supplemented with fish & chips from down the road, some of the best fish & chips I've ever had (and at that point in the day breakfast was a long time ago and all I'd gotten for lunch was a muffin and a cup of tea at the train station, so I was starving). After dinner
bend_gules put out the materials and showed anyone who was interested how to put together their own pilgrim's scrip. She had two types of canvas, new fresh beige canvas, and old white canvas with purple painted on it which had previously been a tent. Quite a lot of us decided that we wanted a scrip with a purple design on it. :) I was tickled at being able to make my own canvas bag; one of the benefits of going to conferences is collecting bags, and the best conferences are the ones that supply good sturdy canvas bags which are great for grocery shopping (somehow, it seems that the conferences I go to tend to have better bags than the ones that Joel goes to). But I had just been to TWO conferences and come away with NO bags (I felt rather gypped). So my travels to the UK were not wasted: I would come away with a bag (and one I'd made myself, which helps on the smugness factor). Later in the evening I marveled at looking around the hall and seeing virtually everyone bent over their canvas making a bag. (It's such a heart-warming sight seeing so many men sewing.) In that cozy environment we had our Chaucer reading; we took turns reading parts from the prologue. In high school, I'd always found the Middle English sufficiently opaque that I never enjoyed reading it. As an undergrad, I had a class on Chaucer, but it was one of those "because it fulfils a requirement" courses, and one which I really didn't enjoy that much. In my English lit before 1800 class our professor did read a portion of one of the tales aloud in class one day, and that was worthwhile because he had the Middle English pronunciation down. But other than that, it's a book that mostly sits on my shelf and never gets read. So I was amazed at how wonderful it was to hear the tales read aloud, sometimes in Middle English, sometimes modern, sometimes with the correct pronunciation, sometimes not. It was so funny! I wish we had had time to start reading one of the actual tales, when we finished the prologue.Saturday we gathered in the morning to get the instructions for our pilgrimage. We'd all been given a 5 page handout on English saints, non-English saints, the 7 deadly sins, the corporal acts of mercy, and the virtues, on which we'd been warned we'd be stopped along the way of our pilgrimage and be quizzed. Groups of three or four set off every 10 minutes or so, along a footpath that snaked out from the entrace of the hospital and went about a mile and a half down to our destination, Winchester Cathedral, where the relics of Saint Swithin are buried. The route took us through Wolvesey castle, which was for two of the pilgrims from Lochac their first castle ever. I got some lovely photographs where you can see nothing but ruins and pilgrims.
We were duly stopped and quizzed at three different spots along the way, at each we were asked 6 points worth of questions and then had our answered totted up. I did fairly well, but when we got to the second station and we were asked to name one of the groups of people that Saint James was the patron of, I completely blanked! I couldn't think of anything and so lost half a point -- the only point or part thereof that I missed. Ooooh.....
And I do have to say, that England has the wickedest slugs I've ever seen. they're the length of my thumb and thicker around, and black. Suddenly, the part at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when a mother is chiding her son about inflating slugs with his father's wand seems a lot more menacing! No cute little silvery pink slugs for England, no indeed. Ylech.
After we returned from our pilgrimage a list field was set up for the fighters. As Saint Cross is open to the public, the event in the afternoon is part demo; people can come watch the fighting, and then there's usually a number of people sitting around working on hand crafts. I realized that it had been over three years, if not closer to four, since I had actually last seen SCA fighting, either heavy or light. It was remarkably pleasant to sit in the sun (which finally came out!) and watch and do nothing. Later in the afteroon, Brother James, the master of the hospital, gathered a few of us and gave us a tour, first of his flat (the brothers at the hospital are housed in arrangement very much like masters in Cambridge), then of the gardens behind the brother's quarters, including the herb gardens which contributed to our dinners that evening, and the 14th century plumbing channel -- thank goodness it past the kitchens BEFORE it reached the brothers quarters and became used as a sewer in days past! After that, he took us into the church, and showed us various things including the embroidered ceremonial robes (I can't remember now when they date from, but part of me wants to say 17th C), the hand-hammered solid gold chalice for communion, and the 450 year old graffiti carved into the choir benches. He also showed us the solid silver cross badge that he wears as master of the hospital, and which will be on his casket when he dies and then go on to the next master. All silver work since 1380 has a maker's mark on it; this piece of silver does not. Ergo, it was made before 1380. And he gets to wear it whenever he dresses up in full robes. Wow.
Dinner was also courtesy of Paul and Anne, and oh my goodness was that a fantastic meal. Extremely simple but full of extremely strong flavors. They had what was quite simply the best peas pottage that I have ever had. It was incredible, we all thought so. If they had made twice as much, it still would've been all eaten. There was cold roast beef with strong mustard, hard boiled eggs with mustard sauce and flowers, chicken with sops, cold cooked vinegard zucchini with something I couldn't identify but which was extremely good, chickpeas with lemon juice, lemon rind, and fresh pepper, three or four different desserts, and a few things I'm sure I'm forgetting. I got to have two medieval meals in one week, and both were done by consummate professionals. I feel very lucky.
Afterwards it was pleasant just sitting around and talking. At one point e got onto the subject of my dissertation research and I gave a short lecture on syllogistic reasoning for trinitarian topics, and was short of shocked to find I had an utterly rapt audience of about 5 people, they were hanging on my every work. It's very gratifying. :) I find it difficult to have casual and comfortable conversation with people I don't know, but I've never felt that with the group of friends I've made in Insula Draconis. I feel like I know more people in Insula Draconis than anywhere else in the kingdom; even though I'm not in the UK or Iceland, I feel much more like they are my group than Polderslot is. I really enjoy these people --
jpgsawyer, bend_gules and her lord, Paul and Anne, their friends, they've all be so friendly and open and welcoming. I always look forward to an event more when I know that one of them will be there.Sunday was mostly hang around and clean-up, and then Raphe took me back to the train station so I could wend my way back to Stansted. I'd just gotten on to the train and gotten settled when four more people trooped on laden with baggage --
bend_gules, Robert, Asbiorn, and Logan. So we grabbed ourselves two tables in an adjacent compartment and had an enjoyable trip back to London, with Robert and bend_gules sharing with us some fantastic Spanish sausages that they'd recently acquired, and we all shared a couple of bottles of cider. The concept of being able to have alcohol on public trains is quite foreign to me. My first introduction to it had been on the train from Leeds to Winchester two days earlier, when two stops before I got off, a very drunk hen party (= bachelorette party) got on to the carriage I was in, and continued drinking heavily. I can't imagine ever being such an irritating nuisance in a public place, but that's just me.We parted paths at London Waterloo and I continued my way to Stansted, managing not to die under the weight of all my books (oh, I didn't mention; after feast prizes for the people who'd gotten the most pilgrimage questions right were given out. At 17.5/18, I came in second, and came away with a complete Middle English edition of Chaucer. I have one back in the US, but none here and as I aluded to above, I'd like to try reading it again. But that was one more book to carry home...)
