Slate on Bagpipes at (Military) Funerals

Slate has an interesting article up on the use of bagpipes (specifically of the Highland variety) at military funerals, occasioned by the recent tragedy at Fort Hood.

According to the article, it isn't that pipes are particularly common at military funerals--they're common at funerals in general, sometimes just for aesthetic reasons, and sometimes because of a family connection to Scotland or Ireland.

It's also interesting to note that there isn't really anything particularly Scottish about bagpipes. As this list shows, bagpipes were a pretty common folk instrument throughout Europe and the Middle East, especially in the medieval period. In modern times, they've come to be associated with Scotland, and most of the older varieties have died out or been replaced by the Great Highland Pipes (best for sheer volume, and what most people in the US mean when they say "bagpipes") and the Irish uilleann pipes (best for range and precision).

Anyway, go and read the article--it's worth a look. And the Jacobites make a cameo! As if you haven't already heard enough of him here, here, here, and again, in a few days, when we get around to posting about Lindisfarne Castle.

British Airways Fare Sale

For those of you considering a visit to the UK: British Airways is currently running a fare sale for November 17, 2009 - March 28, 2010 (excluding December 21-23 2009) and March 29 - May 23, 2010. Fares to London from most of the major East Coast airports (DC, Philly, NY, Boston) cost around $600 round-trip. Car rental add-ons on the UK side are almost so cheap that they're free.

Edinburgh is about a 7-hour drive from London, but that drive takes you by Oxford, Stratford, Warwick, the Lake District, and part of Hadrian's Wall (or, on the Eastern route, York, Durham, Northumbrland, and a different part of Hadrian's Wall), so if done leisurely, over a day or two, the drive could be a real treat. Alternately, if you just want to get to Scotland ASAP, Megabus runs cheap (but long) buses to and from Edinburgh, the National Rail can find you train fares, and Easyjet runs cheap flights between London (Gatwick and Stanstead, I think) and Edinburgh.

If you're thinking about a trip to the UK, let us know!

Lindisfarne Priory

As mentioned in our last post, Nana and I went to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne last Saturday. Why "Holy Island," you ask?

Well, it turns out this tiny little tidal island off the coast of Northumberland was a major center of Christian civilization in northern Europe from about AD 650-800, and later (after about AD 1000) an imposing branch of the Bishopric of Durham.

To Lindisfarne we owe the spectacular Lindisfarne Gospels, which, besides being incredibly beautiful, are a unique example of the contemporary hybrid Anglo-Saxon-Celtic culture of North Britain. Here's a scan of the incipit (highly decorated opening page) of the Gospel of Matthew:

The Lindisfarne Gospels, along with the Book of Kells (Celtic, circa 800) and the Book of Durrow (Celtic, circa 700), is utterly invaluable to the study of Celtic Christianity, the unique, ascetic, mystical form of Catholicism that dominated the British Isles during the Middle Ages.

The Lindisfarne Gospels are also a key example of the insular script, which has been reborn (in modified form, of course) as graphic shorthand for anything vaguely Celtic. The following familiar font if based on the insular script--which is, oddly enough, a whole lot easier to read than later medieval scrips, such as blackletter.

Anyway, the Lindisfarne Gospels were actually produced by monks at Lindisfarne, as part of their regular devotional duties and, in some cases, as penance. Alas, the gospels are currently at the British Library in London, so visitors to Lindisfarne can't view them today.

But Lindisfarne Priory is famous for reasons other than the Gospels. It was founded by St. Aidan, an Irish monk from the abbey at Iona, a small island off the island of Mull in what is now western Scotland. (Ireland and western Scotland were, politically and culturally, hard to tell apart in those days, as we learned on our visit to the Isle of Skye.) Aidan isn't just the namesake of scores of American yuppie babies: he's largely responsible for converting the English (or, more accurately, the Anglo-Saxons) to Christianity.

Lindisfarne was also home to St. Cuthbert, whose cult was one of the major defining features of Celtic and later medieval Christianity, and who founded or was associated with most of the major medieval abbeys of southern Scotland and northern England. He also seems to have really loved his ducks, and even passed a law protecting them, which some claim was the first bird protection law in history.

 

All those guys did their work in the old Lindisfarne Priory, an austere wooden building after the Celtic Christian style, which was abandoned around AD 700 after incessant Viking raids.

The ruins of the "new" Lindisfarne Priory (dating from about AD 1000) are what visitors to Lindisfarne see today.  This building was constructed in the image of Durham Cathedral (which Nana and I had the pleasure of visiting a few years ago), as you can tell by the distinctive zigzag patterns (see below), which, along with the rounded (as opposed to pointed) arches, mark the building as a Norman-style church.

The building wasn't just a place of worship, however: priories in those days were also centers for commerce and government. The Lindisfarne Priory has very large outer square, which served as a market in good times and as a safe haven from enemies in bad.

And the monks who inhabited Lindisfarne weren't quite like the monks of today: they were the general white-collar bureaucrats of their day, and in fact it's from "cleric," the same root as "clergy," that we get the modern "clerk." They weren't even remarkably religious for their time--in a time when many people were very religious, they were distinguished more by their education than their faith.

Hence two of the most important rooms in any good priory were the

 

and the

 

Not to mention the bakery. The Priory was an outpost, a safe-haven, and in a pinch it needed to provide every necessity--ale included.

Of course, having a magnificent stone building on a stunningly beautiful little island couldn't hurt.

Anyway, as you can see, Lindisfarne really captured our imaginations (and we haven't even talked about the castle yet!), and if you ever have the chance to visit, I'm sure it would capture yours. Do yourself a favor, and if you do visit, spring for admission to the excellent little priory museum.

Coming soon: Lindisfarne Castle; the Causeway; and SHEEP!

Justin and Nana Drink Weird Stuff for Your Entertainment: Mead

Yesterday, Nana and I celebrated Halloween with a day trip to Lindisfarne, aka the Holy Island, just south of the English border. We have more posts coming on the history, the sights, etc. (it was an action-packed day), but first things first: the booze.

Lindisfarne, like many popular tourist spots in North Britain, does its best to capitalize on its dual Norse-Celtic roots, and what better way to celebrate than by selling mead, which by some accounts is the world's oldest alcoholic drink.

"Mead" can refer to any of a range of alcoholic drinks made with yeast and honey, everything from a kind of very mild honey beer to a strong honey wine. The drink features prominently in many northern European legends, most notably Beowulf, wherein people are always draining their mead-horns and tussling in the mead-hall. (Etymology dork moment: some have argued that the modern English "meet" shares a root with the word "mead.")

Anyway, some meads are spiced, some peppered, most sweet, and despite their Northern European associations, they come from all over the world. The one we tried was from England, of the sweet variety, and tasted something like a very sweet white wine or a very light port wine, with (surprise, surprise) a hint of honey thrown in.

Very pleasant, which owing to the mead horror stories you sometimes hear (that is, if you're the kind of person who knows people who drink mead . . . which I guess you are now, if you've read this post . . .) was not what I'd expected.

Keeping Current

City latitude and current temperature, from northernmost to southernmost.

55º57' N Edinburgh, Scotland. Currently 59º Fahrenheit
55º45' N Moscow, Russia. Currently 28º Fahrenheit
55º43' N Copenhagen, Denmark Currently 48º Fahrenheit
55º10' N Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada. Currently 30º Fahrenheit

Edinburgh, the northernmost city, is by far the warmest. What gives?

Two factors are at work here. The two warmest cities on the list are Edinburgh and Copenhagen. Both of these cities benefit from their proximity to the ocean. Water, as I repeatedly attempted to convince my students over the last two years, has a moderating effect on temperature. Water tends to retain its temperature much longer than land. A coastal city will have a cooler spring even as days become longer and more light warms the land, because air off the ocean will always blow in cool. In the fall, however, that same ocean soaked up sun heat all summer and takes much longer to cool down. Consequently, ocean air will warm the city well after the days shorten. Moscow and Grande Prairie, being very far inland, do not have any water temperatures to mitigate their response to the shorter fall days.

The other factor is the North Atlantic Current (what, you thought the title came from the current temperature? It does! Badum-CHING!) If you don't like the Wikipedia link, you can check out an old New York Times article here - assuming, of course, that you believe that the New York Times is more reliable than Wikipedia.

The current is an extension of the Gulf Stream, warmed in the Caribbean, which then travels up the east coast of the USA. It carries that tropical heat across the Atlantic, although I assume it loses heat as it travels, and cities further West/closer to the US would get more benefit. This would explain why Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, is a balmy 52º Fahrenheit right now in spite of being located at 64°08′N, ten full degrees north of Edinburgh (Fairbanks, Alaska, at a similar latitude, is 21). Some scientists worry through complicated methods involving global warming, the polar ice caps, convection, and ocean salinity, the North Atlantic Current is in danger of shutting down. Others think this is hogwash ("hogwash" is a technical scientific term). We all must hope it is, as the end of the current would spell catastrophic consequences for climate and population the British Isles*, and then where would we get our costume dramas?

And that's today's science lesson. Hope you all enjoyed it!

*also the rest of Europe, but that spoiled the pacing of the joke.