Something over the internet like Lindybeige and Skallagrim did in Lindy's latest video about salt I mean. The ocean would be a problem for making a video face to face ahaha
+Twodogs Bob I'd propose we put a task force together to head over there and kidnap him: bring him back and force him to make videos with Messrs. Easton and Capwell. But I've a suspicion he may be a bit of a handful.
It's amazing to think of how important ritual is to human society, in death and beyond. I'm glad to see you don't limit yourself to discussing arms and armor (as fascinating as those things are).
As a kid in the 1950s, church effigies of this type really lit my fascination with the Mediaeval World, I remember being horrified to see vandalised examples with noses smashed or embellishments chiselled away. Funerary effigies have always been a must-see when exploring somewhere I’ve not previously visited.
Matt, this is one of your very best videos to date -- congratulations! I think enlarging the historical and social aperture around the arms and armour topic is hugely valuable, and moves it beyond what can be a narrow, pedantic topic into something of broad human relevance. Well done to you both -- and Dr. Capwell's book is terrific!
"They've been taken for granted,[...], we get used to seeing them" - look at them British boyz flaunting their effigy privilege! Not everybody has awesome s**t like that lying around in their churches...
+TheFilthyCasual maybe not abseolutley everywhere, but surely most inland European countries have a fair amount of historical architecture and folk law etc to keep a man entertained of a weekend .
William Stanway I agree, but in most cases you actively have to go look for it, and most people don't encounter it so often that they become used to seeing it... My original comment was mainly just a joke about how often the word "privileged" is thrown around on the internet, but seriously, for every person who passes daily near the Tower of London or Notre Dame de Paris or Moscow's Kremlin etc., etc., there are hundreds that might not encounter such things their entire lives unless they purposefully try to visit them... Sure, most citizens of Florence might be immune to her charms, but most people in Europe at large aren't that "privileged".
You can say that, yes. Rituals, ideals, customs, culture, routine, and fellowship has always been important to humanity. People ignorantly bash on religion for simply being "superstition". It's not about the superstition.
well, if you believe in eternal life, there is nothing different between praying to help the living than praying for the dead. only lifists would say otherwise. ;-) the difference of course an insincere or not thoroughly thought out "like" won't work.
Having personal meaning doesn't mean it's not a superstition. This effigy exemplifies the typical belief in souls and the idea that certain rituals could affect them, their ultimate destiny, and/or change the worshipers' god's mind. Rituals and transitional rites are important to people even when they have no superstitious content, and often religions include them in their dogma. This happened with e.g. marriage and Christianity.
What an amazing series(by that I mean all of your Wallace collection/Tobias Capwell videos)! Absolutely stellar! I am really surprised at how few views these videos have compared to the quality and amount of credible historical information they contain. I believe you should reupload some of them or make a new video directing new subscribers to the series. I have been digging through your videos for over an year and this is the first time I am coming across most of these. Legendary stuff! Cheers Matt and Tobias!
That was the most informative video I have watched on this subject. It needs to continue...for accurate history's sake! I know you two are super busy already, having met you both a few times, but please, please keep going along this road.
Where I live the oldest buildings that exist are maybe 140 years old. Cemeteries might have graves starting in the mid to late 1800s. There is some ancient Native American rock art but it's not easily accessible. As lover of European history I wish I had access to these places. I love that this channel gets me there virtually though.
Why do you need a fantasy character to compare this man to though? It would make more sense to say that Selmy is "basically a fantasy version of this man".
35 years ago . My Masters in Advanced Analytical Chemistry (University of Bristol) . I analysed samples from medieval brasses across the centuries and the country . Confirmed the inflection point when the monumental brasses changed to gun metal, thanks to King Henry VIII
Without getting into a religious debate, the church would have likely looked and be experienced very differently before the Reformation and later Cromwell in a riot of colour, paintings on the walls telling stories with drama; patterns on the pillars and angels and saints staring down, rood screens, incense, mystery and the speckle of stained glass in shadows. A place where the rites and creeds were not repeated in the vernacular, a place where holiness may be somewhat different from today. How would the effigy be experienced in this environment? Perhaps with more awe and wonder in the swirl and juxtaposition of the supernatural and the familiar?
Excellent video, thank you for sharing. Interesting to watch discussions that adds context to the practice of HEMA and opens a window into past times; so different yet strangely so similar to today. Fascinating, and done with such knowledge and enthusiasm. May be the videos will open more avenues for study such as shared and unknown material from viewers, RU-vid is likely to reach a wider audience than a published book? Perhaps a video like this can be accompanied with other videos: the effigy > symbolism and iconography > the sword > the armour > the social life and status of the knight in society > role and status of women. Perhaps the mindset of the Medieval person informs and enriches the practice of HEMA? Hoping there will be more!
Great video. It always looks a bit strange when you both don't have a fixed target you're "talking at" though. Towards the end when you're just talking at each other it looks fine, I wish you did that throughout the video.
By the way, we Catholics still believe and practice intercessory prayer. From Rosaries to Masses for the death. Don't know if other Christian Churches do too.
@ 11:36 when Matt fully regrets asking "Why is he in armor?" Dr. Capwell- uhh bekos he's a ball swingin' king bodyguardin' land ownin' Agincourt battlin' goddamn badass whose grave we're still talking about hundreds of years later... sorry who were YOU again? Uh, mr eastin wassit'?
He doesn't have time unfortunately - Toby is the curator of arms and armour at the Wallace Collection (museum) in London and also jousts competitively. He is also always working on several books.
Was the guy embalmed like royalty and high nobility? I always found it curious how those guys had their entrails buried in one spot, their body in the next and their heart somewhere else. Was this a common practice or was it only reserved for the creme de la creme of medieval society?
This is an interesting documentary, but a bit misleading as to the burial places of the remains. The corpses of those whose tomb is featured here were, no doubt, ( as cited in the written evidence), buried in the churchyard. In many cases, however, the remains were placed in a vault or sometimes a grave, directly below the tomb chest. This is certainly the case as regards the royal tombs in Westminster Abbey, some of which were opened in the nineteenth century. The bodies of Elizabeth and Mary, for example, which occupy the same tomb, rest in a vault beneath the tomb chest which bears their effigies.
Dr. Capwell makes a very clear factual error at 5:40 in the video. On the contrary, medieval Christians believed that most people went straight to hell when they died, rather than the majority of souls being eligible to enter purgatory. Also at 6:20 he states that purgatory is a sort of void where a soul exists in a state of intense boredom. This is also incorrect, since the medieval Christian belief was that souls suffered greatly in purgatory, and that the pains suffered there are similar to those of the fires of hell, the difference being that purgatory is temporary and not eternal.
you know Matt. Tobias dedicated a large chunk of his life to the study of this. You gotta wonder... how much time did he waste simply traveling? We already have the technology to create 3d images of sculptures with greater detail than a human eye could make out. When will we get a 3d, high definition database of historical artefacts?
Huh, and I always thought they were buried underneath their effigies. I thought that was the case with a lot of the tombs in Westminster Abbey (Henry III, for example).
Almost like Egyptian region. Your soul in the afterlife is eternity connected to the world of the living. (Likenesses of one Egyptian queen where removed from art in several tombs of others to erase her from existence)
great Video! one big Question Comes to my mind: 23:48: how can you argue that the effigy-carver had certain parts of the armour not available as an example and therefore made "Fantasy parts" like shoulders or helmets? the majority of 14th and also 15th century armour didn't survive, especially English armour almost didn't survive at all (compared to Italian or German examples). So I think this is very risky to say "this shoulder in this shape here is Fantasy"...
Are effigies a particularly British Ilses phenomenon? I have never seen anything like them here (Sweden, granted I don't visit many churches) And if so, is it the same for this particular belief i.e. that the prayers of the living can affect the movement from purgatory to heaven and/or if this process can be aided by some object acting like a magnifying lense if you will? Are there effigies in say France, Germany or Italy?
Det finns en del här i Sverige också och syftet är detsamma. Här har du Birger Jarl tex: 4.bp.blogspot.com/-WKryizjve18/T1DBcohb9mI/AAAAAAAAADk/0ueuSA0GI5Y/s1600/Birger+jarls+grav.jpg
lol. That's a ghoulash if I ever heard one. It was mostly American but several of the words were pronounced anything but the way an American would say them. Great guy though. Wish I had that life experience.
