This morning, we set out on our next-to-last-and most busy field trip of our time in Cambridge. Although we visited three sites that seem quite disparate on first glance, they are really quite closely connected to each other. Our first stop was Ely Cathedral, which was built by the Normans on the site of an Anglo-Saxon monastery; next, we ate lunch in Bury St. Edmunds, once home of a magnificent Benedictine abbey that was rebuilt by the Normans as at Ely. Finally, we left cities behind to visit the Anglo-Saxon burial ground at Sutton Hoo, which has yielded perhaps the greatest find of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever. Thus, once one delves deeper into the history surrounding Ely Cathedral, Bury St. Edmunds, and Sutton Hoo, the connections between them become apparent, as all three sites were affected in some way by the Norman Conquest and the great changes that occurred in Norman England.
Ely lies not too far away from Cambridge; apparently, on a very clear day, Cambridge can actually be seen from the roof of Ely Cathedral. As it was somewhat cloudy this morning, we were denied that experience, but we were able to see the change in the countryside as we drove northeast from Cambridge to Ely. Once upon a time, Ely was an island in the middle of the fens, which were marshy, swampy areas; indeed, the name Ely means “isle of eels.” When most of the fens were drained in the seventeenth century, the land left behind was flat and incredibly fertile, explaining both the amount of agriculture in the area and the view from horizon to horizon. For this reason, Ely Cathedral is sometimes called “the ship of the fens,” as it is visible for miles around. Indeed, when I traveled to York a few weeks ago, I could see Ely Cathedral from the train for quite a while. Speaking of York, if I were to compare Ely Cathedral to York Minister, the other large English cathedral I have seen on this trip, I would have to say that, while Ely is large and grand, it is not as massive or magnificent as York Minster. It might be because York Minster is the first spectacular cathedral I have ever seen, but I feel as though no other church can compare to it, not even one such as Ely.
As with every church I have seen in England, Ely Cathedral has Gothic elements; however, much of the architecture of the nave is Romanesque (or Norman). In the nave, the arches are round, not pointed, and the stained glass windows are smaller than those typically found in Gothic churches. The cathedral is different than other Romanesque churches I have seen, such as Dom St. Kilian in Würzburg, though, as the rounded arches are quite elaborate in places. Some of the arches even have columns in the middle of them, making the cathedral feel more decorated and ornamented than Romanesque churches usually are, in my opinion. As one proceeds up the nave to the central tower, called the octagon tower due to its unusual shape, the architectural style changes to Gothic. In the octagon tower, the arches are pointed, the windows are larger, and the ceiling is incredibly intricate; this change in styles came about after the original Norman central tower collapsed in 1322, possibly due to the cathedral shifting as the Lady Chapel was constructed. When the central tower was rebuilt as the octagon tower, it was done in the current Gothic style. Another Gothic part of Ely Cathedral is the Lady Chapel, which was begun in 1321; unlike the octagon tower, constructed in a more traditional Gothic style, the Lady Chapel is decorated Gothic, with highly elaborate fan vaulting. From an engineering point of view, the most amazing feature of the Lady Chapel is the fact that no central columns are required to hold it up. Somehow the fan vaults and the walls come together to support the ceiling of a very large chapel.
Beyond the unusual octagon tower (more about that in a bit), the most interesting feature of Ely Cathedral is the fact that Brithnoth, the Ealdorman of Essex from The Battle of Maldon is buried there. This seems at first to be a bit of an anomaly, for Ely is in Cambridgeshire, not Essex; indeed, in 991, it likely would have taken quite a while to travel from Essex to Ely. Therefore, why bury a great Ealdorman of Essex in Ely? The answer is that Brithnoth was a patron of Ely Cathedral and the monastery there, and was rewarded for his patronage after death with internment in a chantry chapel inside the cathedral. Now, I promise that is really all about Brithnoth, after yesterday’s rather long discussion of him! If this was the second most interesting part of Ely, the best feature of our tour of the cathedral had to be being able to climb up inside the octagon tower and onto the roof. The view from the roof of the cathedral was amazing, as I was able to see the town of Ely and the flat fields (the former fens) in the distance; furthermore, we were able go inside the tower, among the support beams, some of which are original. If those beams were made from trees cut down in the 1300s, it is very possible that I was standing next to former trees that had been growing at the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, which is an amazing thought. When we were actually inside the tower, our guide opened up a few of the decorative panels, allowing us to look the one hundred plus feet down into the nave and transepts below. It was a beautiful view and very interesting to see the cathedral from an entirely different angle; however, all I have to say about the distance down is that the octagon tower is not for those with vertigo. Claustrophobics should stay away, as well, since we climbed up some very, very tight circular staircases and through some very small doorways. Personally, I am not normally claustrophobic, but I developed a case in the middle of one of the staircases! (If anyone is wondering, I did get down: I’m not writing this from Ely Cathedral.)
After finishing our tour of the cathedral, we boarded the bus again for the relatively short ride to Bury St. Edmunds, in the county of Suffolk (a new one for me). Though we spent only around an hour there, I was very impressed with Bury St. Edmunds. It was a pretty, cute town; if I am to be completely honest, Bury is how I imagined Cambridge would be, with wider streets and more colorful buildings. When we arrived in town, we went first to the remains of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey, a large Benedictine monastery that was unfortunately destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. Today all that remains are ruins, though they are ruins with much history in them. Bury St. Edmunds Abbey was a very wealthy, very powerful monastery, controlling the town and large areas of land in Suffolk, due to its prominent position on the pilgrimage route. The abbey held the remains of St. Edmund the Martyr, a ninth-century King of East Anglia killed by Vikings after refusing to renounce Christianity; over time, the cult of St. Edmund grew, adding greatly to the position of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey.
Beyond Edmund the Martyr’s burial there, Bury St. Edmunds Abbey is also famous as the place where, in 1214, a group of English barons gathered to begin drafting a document of complaints against King John. Upon the altar of St. Edmund, these barons swore that they would obtain ratification of their document from the king; as can probably be guessed, this document would become the Magna Carta, viewed by many as the beginning of the establishment of constitutional law in England. Recently, my interest in English royal history has expanded from the Tudors to include the Plantagenets, and reading of both serious histories and historical fiction enabled me to recognize many of the names of those barons who met at Bury St. Edmunds in November 1214. When I read about Bury St. Edmunds before going there, I learned that Isabella of France, wife of Edward II, and her son, the future Edward III, also stayed at the abbey in 1327 on their way to London, where Isabella would depose her husband. Additionally, Henry VI stayed there for several months in 1433, and his uncle Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, died suddenly at the abbey in 1447. As can be imagined, it was absolutely wonderful to be in a place with so much royal history; I only wish I could have seen the abbey before it was destroyed.
After seeing the abbey ruins, we took a quick look at St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, which was a very pretty, clean church. From the condition of the stone, it was obvious that the church had been recently remodeled. I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to explore the church, so the part that stood out to me the most were the two World War I memorials on either side of the nave, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of war. Each involved many poppies, which were arranged to appear as though they were growing out of the trenches; furthermore, the memorial that I looked closely at had an excerpt from the poem “In Flanders Fields” handwritten on the pages of an open book. It was a very interesting memorial, especially since it was really the first time I had seen the anniversary of World War I beginning mentioned here in England; I was expecting to see many more commemorations than I have so far. From St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, the group split apart to have lunch, after which I reluctantly left Bury St. Edmunds before seeing as much of the town as I would have liked.
Our final stop of the day was another relatively short bus ride away at Sutton Hoo, the site of sixth and seventh century Anglo-Saxon burial mounds. Looking back on Sutton Hoo, I am not sure what I was expecting to see there, but it was obviously not what I encountered. After reading about the site, I got the impression that the River Deben was much closer to the site than it was in reality, as it was just barely visible off in the distance. I think I imagined that the mounds would be right alongside the river, visible to travelers on the water, rather than significantly inland. The actual site at Sutton Hoo was literally just a field with burial mounds, some of which are still visible, and some of which have eroded or been destroyed over time. Additionally, archaeological work at the site has stopped, which made it hard for me to comprehend that people, animals, treasure, and even a ship were buried inside the mounds. In that sense, Sutton Hoo is very different from another mainly archaeological site: Jamestown Island, in Virginia. There, excavation on the site of the James Fort is ongoing, and the archaeologists have marked the outline of the palisade and several buildings, allowing visitors to get a feel for the site and what it would have looked like in the years following 1607. However, after seeing Sutton Hoo, I feel as though I do not have a firm sense of how the Anglo-Saxons would have used the site, and how they would have viewed the area.
Because of these difficulties, the best part of the visit to Sutton Hoo for me was the interpretive center, which focused on kingship in Anglo-Saxon culture. This topic is quite interesting to me to begin with, and was fresh in my mind after studying The Battle of Maldon the day before, so I greatly enjoyed the interpretive center, especially the many quotes from Beowulf interspersed with the history. I think many people read Beowulf and see it just as an epic poem telling of a fantastical world, without realizing that it has much insight into Anglo-Saxon culture. The first time I read Beowulf I was guilty of just that and did not find it interesting at all; however, the second time I read the poem, in an English class at the University of Tennessee, I understood how important it truly is. Indeed, this second reading of Beowulf is what jump-started my interest in the Anglo-Saxons, even before coming on this trip to Cambridge. Though there are many comparisons between details in Beowulf and conclusions drawn from the archaeological work at Sutton Hoo, the most significant for me is the matter of the helmet found inside the ship burial. As I mentioned in an earlier post when we went to the British Museum and saw the Sutton Hoo treasures displayed there, the most magnificent find at Sutton Hoo was a ship burial, likely of a king. Among the treasures buried with the man was an elaborate helmet, which is similar to those found in southern Sweden; taken together with the ship burial itself, something more common in Sweden, these are direct comparisons to the world of Beowulf. Therefore, while Beowulf itself is fictional, there is distinct evidence that the world described in it was real, many, many years ago.
From Sutton Hoo, we came back to Cambridge, and I relaxed for the rest of the night after a long day of touring. And now, after a much longer post than I originally intended, I will finally stop writing!
Making the Past Present 