Highlights of the week

Haven't written in a bit, so here are some odds and ends of thoughts and happenings from this week. Here's a summary if you don't want to read the whole thing: it's cold out, royal couples didn't use to have much privacy on their honeymoons, Constantine is an interesting guy, always wear your velcro ankle strap, the Bodleian Library is pretty, and we saw Portland in a movie.

First of all, it is really cold here! I'm not sure it got much above freezing today. Our pond outside froze over last night and there was a layer of frost on most of the ground all day. I got out of my seminar night after 5, when it was completely dark and boy it was cold. Here's a photo I took on my way home tonight - it's a bad picture, but the sidewalk is all white and sparkly. It was very pretty in the streetlights and it felt like Christmastime!

Our seminar tonight was on John Foxe (of Book of Martyrs fame) and a Scotsman named Gilbert Burnet, both of whom wrote a history of the Reformation in England, but with different approaches and 100 years apart. It was one of the less interesting sessions so far, but still not boring. A highlight was the following quote from Burnet's The History of the Reformation, Book II: "...it was then taken for granted that Prince Arthur had consummated the marriage, which was also proved by good witnesses."

I am enjoying these seminars, but I'll be glad when next term I can just think about history, and not think about how to think about history. Next week is my turn to present again, this time on a modern English historian I've never heard of, Lord Acton. There are only two weeks left in the term - amazing! I took some photos tonight, a couple of Keble College, where we had our seminar again, and one of some of my classmates.




These are three out of the five other people in my program. They are all English; the absent other two are American. From left is Dominic, who is about my age and is studying to be a priest in the Church of England and maybe a professor too. He's cool and laid back and has a lovely, posh accent. Catching me taking the picture is Sam, who seems very young (21 or so?) and is studying the history of Pentecostalism. On the right is Cathy, who is from Yorkshire and is a high-powered lawyer in London. She is getting a part-time PhD in Reformation history just for fun (seriously).

So that was today, now I'll back it up to last weekend. On Sunday we saw the movie Elizabethtown, the beginning of which was set in Oregon. There was a brief scene of the Portland skyline and it was so friendly for us to see the bridges and Union Station. The movie itself was very enjoyable, and I had my sweet popcorn and Pepsi Max, naturally, and David had his Maltesers (better than Whoppers, he says), and it was a fun time.

On Monday, the lecture on Constantine was one of the best yet - there were slides! They were of Roman coins and monuments that had to do with how much Constantine was Christian and how much he was still pagan. Interesting stuff. In general, it appears he definitely saw himself as a Christian convert and he mostly acted like one (for an emperor), but also he seems to have never entirely abandoned his previous deity, Sol Invictus (the Invincible Sun). The sun god still appeared on a coin or two along with the emperor, and although he now favored Christianity, the old pagan religions were still tolerated and his inscriptions tend to refer to "the divinity" in a way that would please everyone.

After class I went to the Bodleian Library (I still can't believe I get to go in there!) and took some pictures of it, as it was a nice sunny day. I also snuck a picture inside the Upper Reading Room. Since it was sneaky, I couldn't use flash and it's not a great picture, but it's what most of the main Bodleian building looks like on the inside. Note the mural border around the top of the walls - it's really neat and is made up of portraits of emininent people.

Bodleian library towers:
Bodleian main entrance:
"The divinity school" - very pretty, not sure what it's used for now:
The Upper Reading Room:

The room I was in was the English history section, and behind me were big, beautiful books containing records from Parliament sessions all the way back to the 1600s. Incredible. I attempted to find the Early Christianity section, which does apparently exist, but never succeeded.

On Tuesday, I rode my bike to the lecture on Christian Doctrine Before Nicea, and had a bit of trouble riding it home. I forgot to put on my reflective yellow velcro ankle strap, which everyone wears around here, for good reason. I managed to cross the street (to the left side, of course) and go a few yards before the ankle of my jeans caught in the gears. In the process of disentangling myself, my tire rubbed up against the curb. Before I could come to a complete stop I lost my balance and toppled over gently onto the sidewalk. Not very graceful, and my poor jeans have a big tear along the ankle seam, but no harm done otherwise to bike or person, aside from one small bruise. Oy vey. Sometimes I feel like Gwyneth Paltrow over here, sometimes I just feel like Bridget Jones.