EXPLORING HISTORY Seven Ages of Britain Introduction Seven Ages of Britain is a social and the thirteenth-century roadside cross cultural history of Britain, telling the erected in memory of Eleanor of story of the nation and its peoples Castile, queen of Edward I, or the through art and artefacts, precious classical statue of Charles II at the treasures and everyday objects. Royal Hospital Chelsea. Over the course of seven episodes, • Paintings that capture the spirit David Dimbleby journeys through of an era, like the medieval religious the nation’s past, from Iron Age devotion of the Wilton Diptych, the pre-history to the present day. This sumptuous portraits of the gentry is a history of British society told by Gainsborough in the eighteenth not through documents and written century, or the studies by Barbara records, but through the material Hepworth on the first years of the culture of each age – works of art, NHS. craft, and industry. David travels • Intricate creations of great around Britain and to locations craftsmen and women, like the • Triumphs of engineering, science overseas that have inspired British eleventh-century needlecraft of the and invention, like Henry VIII’s culture and where Britain’s political Bayeux Tapestry, the stained glass armour, the seventeenth-century and cultural influence have been windows of Canterbury Cathedral, Hooke Microscope (opposite), and most strongly felt. In a range of and the elegant furniture and cabinet- the amusement and wonder of magic locations, he admires, handles and making of Thomas Chippendale. lantern shows in the nineteenth interprets all kinds of art and artefacts • Sumptuous treasures of century. in order to tell the story of Britain. incalculable value, like the Anglo- • Examples of culture that reflect There are: Saxon shoulder clasps from the the best or worst of its society, like • Monumental sculptures, of triumph Sutton Hoo hoard, the fourteenth- the eighth-century Codex Amiatinus or commemoration, like the bust century English crown in Munich illuminated Bible, the plays of of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (pictured above right), and the Shakespeare, and the prints and excavated from the River Thames, Elizabethan Drake Jewel. paintings of Hogarth. 2 Exploring History Seven Ages of Britain • Buildings, architectural features • Who was the intended audience and interior spaces that illuminate how or recipient? Do we know anything people lived, were ruled, and shaped about how the artwork or object was their environment, like the Norman received or understood at the time? Tower of London, the Georgian • What is the broader cultural context elegance of Edinburgh’s New Town, of the image or artefact? Does it fit and Government House in imperial into a particular artistic genre or draw Calcutta. upon or reference particular visual • Objects that capture the lives of ‘language’? ordinary people at a moment in time, We may need to look upon the object like the shoes and combs brought with what has been called ‘the period up with the wreck of the Mary Rose, eye’ as well as our own, given that maternal souvenirs at the Foundlings’ the prevailing culture at the time Hospital, and the Austin 7, the when it was produced may mean that ‘people’s car’. people saw and interpreted images Art and artefacts are part of our slightly differently to how we might shared cultural heritage and have a in the twenty-first century. Previous story of their own to tell. For historians, societies had different aesthetic written or textual sources dominate criteria of artistic skill, of personal what we know about past societies. beauty and of good taste, but cultural They can include documents of and historical readings of an artwork record, the treaties, Acts of or an object can be more serious Parliament and official papers; than that. A good example is the contemporary narratives, works of porcelain teapot from the eighteenth scholarship, treatises and other texts; century from the artefacts featured in newspapers, pamphlets and this booklet. The tea-party decoration speeches; public and personal letters, probably struck its original owner diaries and memoirs. However, there just as a charming domestic scene are other kinds of evidence too, what whereas, as historians, we may pick historians would call ‘visual sources’ out the black pageboy figure as a or material culture, which are the reminder of the period’s slave trade. objects and artefacts of the past that Seven artefacts have been chosen we can see and (sometimes) touch. for this booklet, one from each of Visual sources can complement or the seven ‘ages’ of history covered confirm what we know about the past in the seven episodes of the from written sources, or sometimes television series. Each is a different they can tell us something quite type of visual source: a piece of different that we would not otherwise design craftsmanship (the Bayeux know. Tapestry), an architectural feature One of the most important elements of (the Beauchamp Chapel and tomb), studying history is to learn how to a woodcut illustration (the frontispiece read and interpret the materials of the of Henry VIII’s Great Bible), a luxury past, understanding them on their item of domestic technology (the own terms, the social or historical Mostyn Clock), an everyday object context that gave rise to their creation, (porcelain teapot), a painting (the and the cultural values at the time Ochterlony portrait), and popular they were produced. For a visual culture (British cinema). Each source, an artwork or artefact, we historical artefact, in fact everything need to ask the same sorts of produced by people in earlier questions that we ask about written centuries, is a record of its society. • Artworks depicting Britons sources: As such, art, artefacts and material through the eyes of others, like the • Who produced it, in what culture have great value to historians Roman Britannia frieze in Turkey, circumstances, and why? as evidence of the past, and also the nineteenth-century Rajasthan have plenty to tell us about our frescoes, and the West African • When was it created, and how ancestors and how we have become statuette of the Queen-Empress much do we know about the historical the society we are now. Victoria. period or people it depicts? Exploring History Seven Ages of Britain 3 The Bayeux Tapestry (1066) The Bayeux Tapestry has been described as one of the most important pieces of medieval art Medieval art of events surrounding the Norman romantic belief that it was stitched Conquest of England in the year 1066 personally by Matilda of Flanders, It is not a woven design, so it is and, hence, is an historical source of wife of William the Conqueror, and not technically a tapestry as is great value. her ladies-in-waiting. However most understood today, but is in fact an historians now believe that the Not as clear, however, is the embroidery, stitched in at least eight Tapestry was made in England on viewpoint and provenance of the colours of yarn on eight separate the instructions of Odo, half-brother Tapestry. Records confirm that it has pieces of linen, joined together to of William, and who was made been at Bayeux in France certainly make a 70 metre (231 feet) long wall- Archbishop of Canterbury after the since the late fifteenth century, but hanging. The mere survival of the Conquest. Anglo-Saxon needlecraft its origins and ownership prior to that Tapestry since the eleventh century is was much prized in early medieval date are not certain. In older French remarkable enough to make it worthy Europe, while a number of Anglicised histories, it was sometimes called of study. However, the Tapestry is oddities in the Latin commentary ‘la Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde’ more than simply decorative: it is suggest an English commission. Odo (Queen Matilda’s Tapestry), in the an extraordinary pictorial narrative was also Bishop of Bayeux, which x w v u Edward’s death This section is a perfect example of the u King Edward’s bedchamber: x Westminster, the Abbey of St complexity of the Tapestry as an historical portraying a scene like this is surprising, Peter’s, built by King Edward. The Abbey source. Despite appearances, it does perhaps, for a Norman source, since it is still being finished (note the workman not just function like a cartoon strip or depicts Harold positively, but that depends fixing the weather-cock) and God’s storyboard, moving in a linear fashion, how we interpret the king’s words. Is hand descends from the Heavens (right) scene by scene. The story here flows he naming Harold as his successor, or to bless the burial, in premonition of from right to left, from Edward’s deathbed entrusting the kingdom to him temporarily Edward’s canonisation in 1161. testimony to his funeral process to the as a guardian until his ‘real’ heir, William, . location of his tomb at Westminster arrives? Abbey. One of the Anglo-Saxon chronicles records that on 4 January 1066, the day v Edward’s body is blessed and before his death, Edward took Harold’s prepared in downstairs chamber. hand and said, ‘I commend this woman [Queen Edith, Harold’s sister] and all the w The escort of bearers, including two kingdom to your protection’. small boys tolling bells, carry the elaborate jewelled bier to Westminster on 6 January. 4 Exploring History Seven Ages of Britain would explain why the Tapestry A valued artefact The Bayeux Tapestry is an ended up in the town, and why he astonishing artefact of its period, and several of his known followers As well as providing a unique but also an invaluable narrative to appear prominently in the tableaux. narrative of the Norman Conquest, add to the many accounts of the the Bayeux Tapestry gives the viewer Norman Conquest.