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Showing posts from July, 2020

Pandemics as a Disrupter

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Christine de Pizan. British Library . Harley 4431, f.259v. The writing is on the wall! Thanks to the Graffito writer of Acle. His words  record the Plague that ran rampant through the population of Norfolk in the 14th Century - The Black Death.  To get its meaning your Latin would need to be better than mine . Helpfully, Simon Knott provides a translation on his  Norfolk Churches website:  Oh lamentable death, how many dost thou cast into the pit! Anon the infants fade away, and of the aged death makes an end. Now these, now those, thou ravagest, O death on every side; Those that wear horns or veils, fate spareth not. Therefore, while in the world the brute beast plague rages hour by hour, With prayer and with remembrance deplore death's deadliness. The fashionable and literate lady in the illustration wears a horned veiled head dress.   The Black Death was one of those great disrupters  that mark the watersheds of history. Not so much causing change,  but a catalyst accelerating

High Places Maps and Photos

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I am interested in Norfolk's high places. Many of them marked by heritage churches. St. Peter's Belaugh is on my home turf . Since working on the Walsingham Way   - plotting an off road pilgrim route from the east coast through Norwich to Walsingham, - I keep finding more.  Most recently, I have been at Swanton Morley.  All Saints Church is set on a spur overlooking the river below.  Pictures of churches tend to focus on the building  rather than its place in the landscape.   Maps don't always help,  Ordinance Survey contours don't always do justices to a sites unique setting. LIDAR maps can sometimes be better!   Photos seem to give the best sense of the topography.  Towards that end, I am hoping others will join me to produce a collection of churches in high places. I would be interested to know how much interest there might be in this.   Where a collection could best be gathered is a moot question.  Flickr or a Facebook group, perhaps?  I have started to gathe