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Green Lane by Ian Scott Massie
Reduction Screen Print - Edition of 8
15" x 11" Mounted size - 10" x 7" Image size
Available: unframed @ £130
To shop, please click here
15" x 11" Mounted size - 10" x 7" Image size
Available: unframed @ £130
To shop, please click here
GRANTHAM
Grantham in Lincolnshire has a connection with a remarkable woman: Eleanor of Castille. She was the wife of Edward I and her story challenges several myths about the lives of high-born medieval women.
She married Edward as part of a deal to create English sovereignty over Gascony in modern-day France - not an uncommon kind of alliance in royal marriages. But their relationship seems to have been remarkably close. Edward, the "Hammer of the Scots”, spent much of his life waging war and Eleanor travelled everywhere with him, even on a crusade to Palestine. She was highly educated and a strong patron of the arts prompting the adoption of tapestries and carpets for interior furnishings. She was also in command of her own fortune and a successful businesswoman. At a time when producing books was virtually a monopoly of the monasteries she maintained the only royal scriptorium in Northern Europe, employing scribes and an illuminator to copy and produce books. She commissioned a number of new works including a guide to the nature and habits of angels and an Arthurian romance. She also played a mean game of chess.
Eleanor is remembered today by proxy, in the memorial crosses her husband created to mark the stages of her body’s journey from Lincoln, where she died in 1290. They originally stood at Lincoln, Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Hardingstone, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St Albans, Waltham, Westcheap and Charing Cross.
Only three survive, none in their entirety. The Grantham Cross stood for 351 years until, in the orgy of destruction that accompanied the English Civil War, it was broken up because of its royal connections.
Eleanor is also remarkable for having three funerals. Her viscera were interred at Lincoln Cathedral, her heart at Blackfriars and her body at Westminster Abbey.
She married Edward as part of a deal to create English sovereignty over Gascony in modern-day France - not an uncommon kind of alliance in royal marriages. But their relationship seems to have been remarkably close. Edward, the "Hammer of the Scots”, spent much of his life waging war and Eleanor travelled everywhere with him, even on a crusade to Palestine. She was highly educated and a strong patron of the arts prompting the adoption of tapestries and carpets for interior furnishings. She was also in command of her own fortune and a successful businesswoman. At a time when producing books was virtually a monopoly of the monasteries she maintained the only royal scriptorium in Northern Europe, employing scribes and an illuminator to copy and produce books. She commissioned a number of new works including a guide to the nature and habits of angels and an Arthurian romance. She also played a mean game of chess.
Eleanor is remembered today by proxy, in the memorial crosses her husband created to mark the stages of her body’s journey from Lincoln, where she died in 1290. They originally stood at Lincoln, Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Hardingstone, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St Albans, Waltham, Westcheap and Charing Cross.
Only three survive, none in their entirety. The Grantham Cross stood for 351 years until, in the orgy of destruction that accompanied the English Civil War, it was broken up because of its royal connections.
Eleanor is also remarkable for having three funerals. Her viscera were interred at Lincoln Cathedral, her heart at Blackfriars and her body at Westminster Abbey.
How it would look on your wall
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