Category Archives: Material Culture

And Now I Know How Joan of Arc Felt

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Interesting story from the Art Newspaper:

France and Britain prepare for battle over Joan of Arc’s ring

Jewel sold in UK for £300,000 last month has left the country—but did it have an export licence?

A dispute may be about to blow up between France and Britain over a ring that once belonged to the Medieval French heroine, Joan of Arc.

The ring sold for nearly £300,000 at the London/Harwich-based TimeLine Auctions last month, but questions have arisen over the legality of its export. If no licence was granted, the British authorities are likely to ask for it to be returned.

Gaëtan Favreau, a spokesman for the Puy du Fou theme park, which acquired the piece of jewellery, tells The Art Newspaper that “the ring is now in France”. He has “touched” the ring and says it “probably has an export licence”. Favreau says there was no attempt to hide the fact that the ring is now in France (invitations to a ceremony to unveil the ring have been issued) and that he believes the ring was there legally.

However, the official guidance states that for items which may be of national importance (including those closely connected with the UK’s history) the time taken to issue a licence “will normally be 28 working days”. A licence is required for antique items, such as the ring, if they are worth over £39,219 and have been in the country for at least 50 years.

The ring came up for sale at TimeLine Auctions on 26 February, with an estimate of £10,000-£14,000. Competition was fierce, and it sold for £297,600 (with buyer’s premium). The buyer was the Puy du Fou Espérance Foundation, which supports a historical theme park near Nantes, in western France. Puy du Fou attracts around 1.5 million visitors a year.

The silver-gilt ring was made in France in around 1400 and was given to Joan of Arc by her parents as a devotional object for her first communion. Joan of Arc inspired the French side in the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. At the age of 19 she was tried by a pro-English bishop and burned at the stake in 1431. The ring had been seized from her in prison and taken across the Channel as war booty.

The ring was acquired by Cardinal Henry Beaufort, who was present at the trial and execution. It then descended through the Cavendish-Bentinck family (the Dukes of Portland) and remained with them for nearly five centuries. In 1914, Lady Ottoline Morrell (née Cavendish-Bentinck) gave it to her lover, the artist Augustus John, who wore the ring for years. He later sold the ring and it then went to Frederick Oates (the keeper of the London Museum and of the King’s Armouries), James Hasson (an art historian and author of a romanticised account of the ring, The Banquet of the Immortals) and Cyril Bunt (a library employee at the Victoria and Albert Museum). Bunt’s son Robert, who lives in Essex, sold the ring at TimeLine Auctions.

This means that the ring has been in the UK for nearly 600 years, way over the 50-year-period for which an export licence is required. TimeLine’s managing director, Brett Hammond, tells us: “We handed over the ring to the buyer’s solicitors in London on 3 March. We also gave them a letter, which they signed for, advising them that the ring would need a UK export licence.” Obtaining the licence is the responsibility of the exporter, not the auction house.

If it turns out that the ring has gone to France without an export licence, the UK authorities are likely to demand its return. To export it would then mean going through the normal procedure. If an export licence was subsequently deferred, a UK buyer would have an opportunity to match the price.

It sounds to me like they got away with it. Of course, the fact that it wasn’t acquired by a proper museum, either in England or in France, is somewhat disconcerting, but Puy du Fou sounds like an interesting home for it. But note that the “acquisition has been welcomed by the Far Right in France. Marine le Pen, leader of the Front National, has thanked Philippe de Villiers, the founder of the theme park, for bringing it back to French soil.” Oh dear – maybe they’d better give it back after all!

Henry V’s Chapel

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I’d love to see this:

Henry V ‘secret’ chapel opened for Agincourt anniversary

Westminster Abbey is opening Henry’s V’s chapel – rarely seen by the public – for guided tours to mark the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt.

The chapel was built within the shrine of Edward the Confessor.

Henry V ordered the chapel’s construction so prayers could be said for his soul after he died.

Tours of the chapel, located at the east end of the abbey, will be led by the Dean of Westminster on the eve of the battle’s anniversary on 24 October.

 

Medieval Coconuts

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I was pleased to read this article by my friend Kathleen Kennedy, on The Mary Sue:

Coconuts in Medieval England Weren’t as Rare as Monty Python and the Holy Grail Made You Think

Allow us to get medieval on you.

Forty years old this year, the coconut sketch in Monty Python and the Holy Grail may be one of the most iconic opening scenes in film history. The pillar of chivalry, Arthur, King of the Britons, appears riding an imaginary horse like a child on a playground. His faithful servant, Patsy, accompanies him, banging two coconut halves together to make the sound of the horse’s hooves. Arthur and Patsy are very, very serious about their quest. They are the only ones who are.

The whole scene concentrates on those coconuts. The put-upon straight-man of the film, Arthur, gamely tries to explain the existence of coconuts in medieval England (“they could have been carried”). The grail remains all but forgotten as the guards on the castle walls uproariously tear down his explanations. (“Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?”)

The coconut sketch unpacks the work of comedy. Comedy points out what can’t be commented on, the unspoken, and even the unspeakable. The Emperor’s nakedness is eternally comedic. Monty Python’s coconuts are horses, except that they absolutely are not horses, but coconuts. Worse, they’re coconuts, but coconuts cannot exist in Arthur’s medieval England.

These impossible coconut-horses literally echo throughout the movie, and so does the sketch, as before he is forced to examine a witch, Sir Bedevere attempts to fly a coconut-laden swallow. Audiences are left in stitches and thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of coconuts existing in medieval England.

Except medieval England was lousy with coconuts. No, really, and Monty Python may well have known it.

They’re Oxbridge men, after all, and several Oxford and Cambridge colleges still preserve coconuts given to them in the fifteenth century. Here’s a fifteenth-century coconut cup that came to Oxford more recently. While parts of it were added more recently, the original elements are medieval. This is the only medieval English coconut cup currently displayed online, and it shows how the shell was strapped into a goblet form using a harness of silver or gold. The English continued to make coconut cups after the medieval period—in the sixteenth century, seventeenth century, and beyond. They were numerous enough that by the fifteenth century, individual households might boast several coconut cups. One humble esquire highlighted the prestige of these cups when he willed his coconut cup to his heir in tail male, just like the Bennett estate in Pride and Prejudice or the Crawley estate in Downton Abbey.

More at the link.