New evidence helps form digital reconstruction of most important medieval shrine [Thomas a Becket]

EurekAlert! ^ | July 6, 2020 | Taylor & Francis Group

[SunkenCiv]

"Unfortunately," Dr John Jenkins, historical researcher on the reconstruction team, says, "there are no contemporary comparators for it; the closest are the shrine bases of St Edward the Confessor at Westminster and St Etheldreda at Ely, both of mid- to late-13th-century date.

"So, therefore, our CGI reconstruction uses all currently available evidence including eye-witness accounts; theories from past historians for potential usage of the shrine; date of construction; materials used; specific features; accessibility and location with the church; similar examples elsewhere; as well as those who created it; to reconstruct how the shrine could have looked."

Crucially, the team's design is the first to be based upon surviving fragments of the shrine discovered in and around Canterbury Cathedral since the nineteenth century.

Historians have debated whether these fragments came from the shrine. However, "the trefoil and stiff-leaf decoration on some of the fragments stylistically indicates a common origin, and they are very close in type and quality to the carved capitals of the Trinity Chapel," explains Dr Jenkins, from the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture, at the University of York, "within the cathedral this marble is only found in the Trinity Chapel, which surely indicates that these fragments come from St Thomas' shrine rather than any others."

The team's model is based upon how the shrine would have looked in 1408, a time when the cult at Canterbury was visited by up to 100,000 pilgrims a year. The reconstruction argues that the shrine was created much earlier, between 1180 and 1220, and would have likely taken more than thirty years to build and ornament.

[SunkenCiv]

This is a CGI reconstruction of Thomas Beckets shrine. Credit: John Jenkins

[SunkenCiv]

In before the flame festival starts.

[colorado tanker]

The shrine was beautiful if not stunning. Great job on the CGI.

The shrine was destroyed by order of Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The article attributes that to England becoming a Protestant country. I suppose the forfeiture of fabulous wealth to the Crown, i.e. Henry, was just a coincidence.

[SunkenCiv]

The wealth was just a little bonus. Politics is always and only about power.

[higgmeister]

From The Canterbury Tales:
General Prologue
lines 1-42: Introduction

Here bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunterbury

	Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
	And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
	Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5	Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
	Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
	The tendre croppes , and the yonge sonne
	Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
	And smale foweles maken melodye,
10	That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
	(So priketh he Nature in hir corages );
	Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
	And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
	To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
15	And specially from every shires ende
	Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
	The hooly blisful martir for to seke
	That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

[higgmeister]

Where credit is due:

http://www.librarius.com/canttran/genpro/genpro001-042.htm

[Governor Dinwiddie]

In the movie Becket, the shrine was depicted. That movie starring Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton shows King Henry II doing penance at the Becket's shrine. King Henry II was remorseful for sanctioning Becket's murder.
 

[MrChips]

Actually the shrine of our Lady of Walsingham in upper Norfolk was a much bigger and more visited shrine than even Thomas Becket’s.

[SunkenCiv]

The Millers Tale TBBT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_OgWZfP-qA
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/g_OgWZfP-qA/hqdefault.jpg

[wildbill]

So priketh he Nature in hir corages );

You can’t get by with pornography by cloaking it in Olde English, my friend. I’m always avidly watching for it.

Does that make me a dirty old man???

[higgmeister]

You can’t get by with pornography by cloaking it in Olde English, my friend. I’m always avidly watching for it.

Does that make me a dirty old man???

That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages );

He was talking about birds that sleep all the night with an open eye, and I accidently erased a letter when I edited my posting.

It's, "So priketh hem Nature in hir corages", which means "So Nature incites them(the small birds) in their hearts",

No porn at all.