Were you rude, mon petit sprout de Bruxelles? I really can't remember.

Nordy and Catty are a pair, aren't they? Very witty and jolly clever too - ils savent tres bien leurs oignons historiques. Whereas we lesser mortals can only google and hope...

I thought my reference to the Henry VIII state papers was *everso* impressive though.

Where's my nun with the umbrella gone?

Oh, she's back.

She's gone again. This is ridiculous.

Look in a car park.

Who Temp? The vanishing nun?

I wonder if Catigern holds up flash cards of little yellow people during lectures? That would be fun.

I'm dying to know what our Enormousnous's background is ... depsite being nerdily au fait with things computereal ... he also sees to know his onions history-wise, even to the point of being able to quote (and translate) obscure latin books and forgotten medeaival texts.

I remain suitably in awe ... as always.

Bugger it .... I've just done it again!
I press the wrong button and end up opening a new message box and quoting myself.
Pardon et désolé tout le monde!

I'm trying to work out Catty's college, ID.

He's beastly-horrid enough (or tries to be) for a Balliol man, but I suspect he's a Cornflake (Rewley House).

Then again, his "pansified Yorkist arse" remark would suggest Magdalen...

I'm the guy who holds up Catigern's flash cards of little yellow people during lectures. One learns a lot that way, well one needs to learn it to get the timing right. One mistimed yellow face and one risks a myriad miffs, you know!

Who said nuns all died peacefully in their sleep by the way? "Hack a Penguin" weekends were the 15th century equivalent of works outings, I have heard. It was considered a social necessity in fact - helped to keep their numbers down in the wild.

Mmmm,MM, in the background of the res. Enthroned Lofty I see a damn great big bank of computers. Knowing what to ask for, understanding it then using that knowledge, now that is where the skill is. On the other hand he might just know a lot. And on yet another hand how to get him into any sort of confessional might be interesting. B+ for effort, MM. No hands left. Regards, P.

Well I'm ex IC ... that's 'Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine' ... so there really wasn't that much room there for true, academic history-philes!

EDIT : re the Boss (and his miraculous workings) - I see something along the lines of all the little sprites and elves that assist Stephen Fry in QI ... always just one step ahead! No?

.

I see what Nordmann means

But they ain't going without a fight

They can easily find out if the skeleton was of a Nun by checking for virginity!!

OK, a new Res Historica day dawns; let us forget nuns, imagined slights and other such nonsense and return to our subject.

If we assume that the remains found in Leicester are indeed those of Richard III (and I'm sorry to be so obtuse, but it does seem a bit daft not to), and that we now have the bony evidence that Thomas More (see below) and Shakespeare and all the rest were telling the truth about this king's physical appearance, should we also assume that these commentators were correct about the man himself: that he was evil, calculating, ruthless - his moral character as "crooked as his carcass"?

But was that simply par for the course? Were the members of the nobility of England (and Scotland) during these years little more than a glorified bunch of Mafia thugs - men as crooked as they come? All that chivalry and being an honourable Knight of the Bath or Garter or Thistle stuff - was it all a complete and utter farce?

PS James III of Scotland, mentioned above, brother of the treacherous Albany, instituted the Scottish Order; he gave it the delightful name of "Order of the Burr or Thissil".

PPS Here's More's description of our man, from his History: "Richard, the third son, of whom we now entreat was in wit* and courage equal with either of them, in body and prowess far under then both: little of stature, ill featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard-favoured of visage, and such as is in states called warly*, in other men otherwise. He was malicious, wrathful, envious, and from afore his birth, ever forward.*"

*intelligence

* warlike

*perverse




The History of The Most Honourable Order of the Bath
The second highest order of chivalry in England the title of the Order is late medieval in origin; it arose from the ritual washing (inspired by the ritual of baptism), a symbol of spiritual purification, followed by a night of prayer and meditation before the Knights of the Bath attended mass...Medieval knights frequently carried out their vigil of fasting, prayer and purification in the Chapel Royal of St John the Evangelist in the Tower of London. There is an account of this ceremony in the reign of King Henry IV which remained until the time of King Charles II.

Quote :

Were the members of the nobility of England (and Scotland) during these years little more than a glorified bunch of Mafia thugs - men as crooked as they come? All that chivalry and being an honourable Knight of the Bath or Garter or Thistle stuff - was it all a complete and utter farce?

Well, the answer to that lies in the Albany story. Give Edward IV and Albany a New Jersey accent, substitute "rival territory" for "Scotland" and the rest falls immediately and seamlessly into a Sopranos plotline. Becoming a made man, and especially originating from within a rival family, will involve making your bones - and in Albany's case the godfather of the Plantagenet mob demanded lots of bones. But of course if the newly made man was to succeed in his task then it would be under supervision of the don's most trusted capos. Gloucester, as the don's brother was capo de capo, so in fact he would be less likely to have directly supervised this associate's clips - his job for the don would have been to make sure that whatever way it panned out his borgata earned the points from the venture. If it went well then they had landed a wiseguy and regular take from the other borgata's pockets. If it didn't go well (and it didn't as it turned out) then the capo de capo's job was to make sure they could stay close enough for the shakedown of the man who they had failed to make. Berwick, for example, was ideal.

A capo de capo inflating his role in this hit later when making a move to be don himself is of course also a classic mafia plotline in itself. And, when in the final episode, the new don is cut down by - of all things - a cugine, and that cugine rises to don himself as a result, then this makes for a thrilling last reel and a great set-up for series two (if no one has already made something called "The Tudors" - have they?). Of course a big part of any new don's responsibilities is to talk up the machismo of the one he rubbed out, as well of course apportion blame for discord and subsequent housekeeping (the princes) on the ex-don while he's at it.

Mamma mia! What a family! as Toni might have remarked ...

This will infuriate Minette, but perhaps it has to be considered.

Should we rename the "Napoleon Complex" the "Richard III Complex"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_complex

The fish paragraph is interesting. Was Richard a bellicose, nasty, little swordfish type, determined to take over the pond?

Just a thought.

PS Crossed posts - will send fishy thoughts anyway.

EDIT: Thinking again, didn't Monday's programme say that the remains in the car park suggested a person of around 5'8"? That's surely quite tall for a medieval man, if rather runtish for a Plantagenet. Edward IV and Clarence were over 6' tall, I believe, as was Henry VIII. Mary, Queen of Scots and husband Darnley, both of whom had Plantagenet/Tudor genes, also towered over their contemporaries: Mary was almost 6', surely a remarkable height for a woman back then. Mary would have made a good supermodel before she piled on all the weight during her captivity. How these giants must have impressed the hoi polloi, especially when kitted out in their splendid battle togs.

You should get in on this, nordmann - seriously, with a decent, intelligent script (and decent actors, no pretty Irish boys) it could be a great series.


http://www.tv.com/news/richard-armitage-plans-prequel-to-the-tudors-22728/

Quote :

5'8"? That's surely quite tall for a medieval man

I don't believe so. An archaeological analysis of skeletons from Towton published in the Economist 1n 2010 suggested male average height in the 15th century was a mere 4cm smaller than today. There seems to have been in fact a shrinkage in average height since then before a subsequent increase to today's standard.

nordmann wrote:

Quote :

5'8"? That's surely quite tall for a medieval man

I don't believe so. An archaeological analysis of skeletons from Towton published in the Economist 1n 2010 suggested male average height in the 15th century was a mere 4cm smaller than today. There seems to have been in fact a shrinkage in average height since then before a subsequent increase to today's standard.

"

That's interesting. But 5'8" isn't that small, even today: Richard would be able to look down on Tom Cruise (5'7"), even if he had to look up to Johnny Depp (5'10"). You could do a sketch with Richard (like the one the Two Ronnies did with John Cleese) flanked by Edward IV and Albany. Do we know how tall Albany (or James III) was?

But it's amazing what you find when you google a silly question. I found this crazy theory about Richard that was apparently published in that respected organ, the Lancet, twenty years ago:



Richard III Was Dwarf, Doctor Says


LONDON - King Richard III was a dwarf, according to a medical diagnosis that has outraged defenders of the monarch.

"The combination of slow growth and short stature, preceded by a difficult breech birth . . . and intimations of physical weakness and sexual impotence . . . suggest idiopathic pituitary dwarfism," Dr. Jacob Van der Werff ten Bosch said in an editorial published today in the medical journal Lancet.

Balderdash, say Richard's partisans.

"Everyone knows Shakespeare's Richard III, but not everyone knows the historical evidence," said Jack Leslau, a biographer of the king. "There are various medical theories that all work on the assumption that he was some sort of monster with a physical deformity."

The Lancet editorial was timed for the anniversary of Richard's death in battle Aug. 22, 1485, at Bosworth Field - where, as Shakespeare had it, the monarch offered "my kingdom for a horse!"

Van der Werff ten Bosch, a former professor of medicine, says there is no reason to take offense. "As a doctor I would not think it's ridiculing a king to call him a dwarf. It's simply a medical diagnosis," he said.





/i]

This wasn't a joke - here's the Lancet reference:

http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PII0140-6736(91)90551-Y/fulltext

Wasn't 5'8 what his height was calculated to have been without taking account of his spine being twisted? His height with the vertebrae laid out normally? If that's correct, and I can't recall exactly, he would have been considerably shorter from crown to toe standing upright, if you see what I mean.

That was also my understanding from the first documentary ferval, I don't know if they enlarged (no pun intended!) on his size and stature in the second doc though.

BBC History site confirms 5'8", but says he would have appeared shorter.

This is an interesting article. All the humpty jokes may seem amusing, but here's the reality of life for a scoliosis sufferer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/richard-scoliosis-me-twisted-spines


Still, looking at what's left of the poor Plantagenet king, I find it hard to
view that ancient, twisted snake of vertebrae without a shiver of empathic pain.
Our bones are everything, the very core of us. They carry us through life – far
more viscerally individual than those other pumping organs we can scarcely
visualise. And because they (literally) create the shape and poise of us, even
long-dead ones seem to contain clues of the living people we once were.

I know enough about living with scoliosis to understand that a curve like his
would have informed and warped every moment of the day. He would have woken
stiff and skewed, only to have to negotiate his way through a day of disability
and paralysing spasm. Poor man. It touches me deeply to see his deformity – his
and mine – lying there visible and exposed and still somehow pungent, when
everything else has been rinsed by time and decay.

This, from the comments after the article, is interesting. I wonder if armour *would* have acted as a kind of back brace?

But he was still rock hard. Cutting folks down at Bosworth, leading charges,
getting in the thick of the fight.
How did he manage all that with such a buggered up
back?

Plate armour must have helped him considerably: it was
custom-made to fit, and would be like a back-brace.

But he was clearly a remarkably physically courageous young man.

Off his horse (his horse, his kingdom for etc) he would have had a considerable advantage over any opponent in one-on-one combat. All he needed to do was let his adversary take a good look at him, and then stick him before he had a chance to recover from the laughing fit.

I've been reading an article today in Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi Journal about Dr King's reticence to publish her DNA analysis. The concensus seems to be that after five months she must have more than 30 pairs of MtDNA markers (the ones used to indicate the lovely "match" chart at the press conference) - and a figure of 15,000 markers seems to be the one that her fellow biologists agree would help assuage the doubters. Also the "triangulation" of DNA samples which depends on the anonymous donor has been generally dismissed as irrelevant anyway, even were the donor to be named. If moreover, as also has been said, the skeleton's MtDNA is type J then it seems that even the 15,000 markers might be insufficient to prove anything - that type includes about a third of the British population.

The article does conclude with a mention of the preponderance of other apparent circumstantial evidence that points to the skeleton being that of Richard III but still carries a caveat that we are awaiting the team's peers in the field of archaeology to assess the implications of having conducted the research and drawn conclusions backwards in many instances in this case (declaring the context to be the choir of Greyfriars for example based on the presence of an important skeleton, rather than the other way round).

It also carries a rather worrying footnote to the effect that Dr King has concluded her analysis of the DNA at the point where it was deemed sufficient for inclusion in the February 4th press conference and that therefore there cannot be any publication of material fit for peer review. The Akademi is trying, it says, to get an explanation for this but as yet has received no reply from the University of Leicester, something else it finds strange.

I am not being flippant when I suggest that the missing feet may have been cut off to get at the armoured footwear of the time.... or does that sound ridiculous? If anything, it is the missing feet that somehow makes me more confident that the broad opinion of its being Rd III may be correct.

However, I see no reason why the findings may not be questioned..... when a dear friend died recently - a Reuters war correspondent and who later lectured on this subject, an old student journalist sending sympathy for the demise of his mentor observed that he really couldn't begin to believe the sad news until he had - to quote the dead man - received that information from at least two independent sources.

The "findings" must first be shown to have been found - that is the crux of the scientific doubts expressed in this case. No one is suggesting that the specific deduction is erroneous, but many are stating that the method used to deduce it is at odds with standard procedure in these matters.

In the press conference and since it has been the official line of the team involved that the combination of circumstantial evidence places their deduction "beyond reasonable doubt". Yet they have had the resources and the time to ensure that at least two of those avenues of analysis - the archaeology and the DNA examination - would independently ensure that any of these subsequent doubts expressed would be demonstrably unreasonable. The fact that they themselves cannot rely on either and must insist that the combination applies indicates that the methodology they applied in each case was not up to standard. What we are reading in academic journals is the first rumble of serious doubt and unless the team responds with a fuller account of their analysis those doubts could well become a valid objection to such hard "findings" having been announced at all.

It is a shame this case has been, from the outset, so tied up with commercial interests. It clouds the issue of authenticity, and there is no sign that this cloud will be lifted soon.

Is that how they worked out that they had found the choir Nordmann? Heavens, I didn't realise that. It is just a bit unprofessional.

As much as I want to hear other academic opinions, as I'm hardly qualified to point out discrepencies or conclusions (valid or otherwise) myself, I'm rather afraid that any questioning of methods used and conclusions deducted will be too little too late at this stage.

Too many people have already decided that it is Richard because they want it to be Richard, so that will be that. At least for a long time, there is too much money invested, there will be egg on too many faces and too many careers discredited for it to be otherwise. Or, at least, until those concerned are dead and buried themselves anyway.

ID, the second programme is here now, see what you think.

Forgive me, but is it true that historians just love a good bitch? All this stuff (as above) leaves your ordinary person terribly confused and dismayed. Then a darker emotion sets in. Whom should we trust? Whom should we believe? No one, absolutely no one, it would seem. You all have a pole-axe of one sort or another to grind.

I forget who it was who first used the collective noun phrase “a malice of historians”. Think of David Starkey and Geoffrey Elton mud-wrestling over Thomas Cromwell, and you can see how apt it is.

And mud-wrestling and malice go back a long way with academic types. Didn't Plutarch have a good old go at Herodotus's conclusions in his "Of the Malice of Herodotus"? Rigour of debate? Malignity? Bitchiness? Plutarch himself called it "honourable frankness".


PS But what the heck, life goes on. Time for a cup of 1706.

Leicester University/City Council - the team that brought you (and still brings you) The Battle Of Bosworth Field Heritage Site, five miles from where it actually turned out to be.

I'm not sure that a lot of people "didn't want it to be the skeleton of Richard III". The scepticism directed against the find concerns the nature of its discovery as well as the verification procedure employed. Both merit scrutiny. If one examines this event (and it was very much an "event") coldly and accepts that whether it is Richard or not our historical knowledge concerning the man or the history in which he participated has not been advanced a jot, then the motivations of all those concerned - and I mean all, from Ricardian enthusiast to city councillor - play each their role in all this to an extent often far exceeding that of the humble archaeologist. Any documentation of this find (much like when a ten year old arrives home one day with a £100 note and claims to have "just found it") must include the entire process in detail, as well of course those of the university resources when they were applied to its verification as genuine.

Sequere pecuniam.

Mmm, I had written a sentence in my comment along the lines of any questioning of the process of the finds were being dismissed as sour grapes. But I deleted it thinking that those here wouldn't resort to that old chestnut, and will accept any question as valid in the light of better understanding. It appears not.

Personally, my mind will remain open until I hear all sides of the argument, isn't unbiased history, or as unbiased as possible, what we are all striving for?

Thanks ferval, I had a look yesterday and couldn't find it. Will watch it now.

Edit. No can't watch it now, uploader has made it unavailable outside the UK. Oh well, shall wait a while longer.

nordmann wrote:

Leicester University/City Council - the team that brought you (and still brings you) The Battle Of Bosworth Field Heritage Site, five miles from where it actually turned out to be.

You've missed my point.

Historians were involved in locating the site. They told us it was there. We believed them. They were (apparently) wrong. So should we take everything you history experts tell us with a pinch of salt?

nordmann wrote:

Sequere pecuniam.

Is it always money, nordmann? Always? I suppose it is.

No, I get your point, Temp. And it was a respected archaeologist who also promoted Piltdown Man, we don't believe for financial gain on his own part.

If archaeologists or historians exhibit sour grapes towards their colleagues involved in this "dig" then I can well understand them. Or for that matter anyone who in the past has had to spend years researching, publishing and gaining peer acceptance for a DNA analysis employed in the service of supporting a specific and radical proposal. The grapes are sour precisely because this team have apparently been given the luxury of extreme shortcuts in both respects, deviations from normal academic standards that would - if they were adopted generally - debase and corrupt our collective knowledge accrued from such methods over many years.

But given this leeway by whom is the question? Administrative processes have been employed here which are aberrational. They also must be made transparent (as they say these days) and if not, then the reason why they are not must be ascertained by other means.

The Piltdown Man is now studied by sociologists as a fine example of the toxic product which can result when public acceptance as fact is engineered by interested parties to be the final say in establishing that fact academically. We now know that the motives behind that engineering were a mixture of administrative incompetency, over-deference to opinion from specific sources on class grounds and deference to authority in general, and some good old-fashioned profiteering thrown in for good measure. It is a complex interaction. We are still sorting these motives out in that case. With Richard III's alleged skeleton these background activities are recent and presumably accessible. In light of previous hoaxes which gained rapid academic approval for a bogus genuineness there should actually be a compunction - self-enforced or externally so if necessary - to place these processes in the public domain if only to allay suspicion. This has not been done. The grossly inadequate scientific evidences being placed in that domain simply aggravate and expose this deficiency further.

There is a motive much nobler than "sour grapes" behind highlighting this deficiency. A respect for the truth is one that I would point to immediately. A respect for established academic procedure designed to elicit such truth is also one. The personalities involved are of no real importance here. It is the combination of unacademic processes that played a huge role here which is of paramount importance and is being noticeably ignored in both the presentation of the find and most of the ensuing analysis, supportive as well as critical, which has thus far taken place in that public domain.

As a member of the public I just thought I'd like to point that out.

ferval wrote:

No, nothing. In fact there was little that was new but it did explain a little about the siting of the trenches and the layout of the building.

Agreed. It was almost not worth showing.

That said - the matrilineal genealogy of Michael Ibsen was interesting. It included no fewer than 7 Barbaras in a row - i.e. great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter etc. All named Barbara. Is that a record?

Folk may be interested to read this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/04/richard-third-skeleton-confirmed-leicester


The title of the Guardian article is Richard III's scarred skeleton becomes a battleground for academics.


The Catherine Fletcher (University of Sheffield) blog which has caused much comment (it's referred to in the article) is here:


http://www.historymatters.group.shef.ac.uk/richard-iiidead-kings-queens-history/


And Priscilla may be interested in this, also from the Guardian piece. Don't know if there is general agreement on this explanation for the missing feet:


The feet were missing, probably chopped off when a Victorian outhouse was built
on the site of the long-lost Greyfriars church, missing the main skeleton by
inches.


My favourite comment from the many I have read has to be this one. It was posted in the discussion after the "Battlefield" article:


@tokaido - Uneducated! How very dare you! I've read Philippa Gregory and Allison
Weir!

Thanks for the links Temp, sometimes the comments can be more entertaining than articles!

But the reader's comments in the second link are exactly what I was talking about above. What is a very reasonable and thoughtful piece, asking valid questions is shouted down as griping because it interferes with a 'good story'. Heaven forbid.

This too I found extremely interesting:

http://xenotopia.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/tyranny-peer-review-and-the-telling-of-stories/

Academic peer-review has become a tyranny of which the famously tyrannical Richard III could only have dreamed. Nothing an academic does, in any discipline, on any subject is deemed ‘true’ or can be published until it has been subject to the scrutiny of her or his ‘peers’ – three or more respected figures in the same or related fields who are qualified to verify that the claims being made stack up. As any academic will tell you that has been through this system, the ideal of collaborative, collegiate self-regulation is a long way from the reality of the process. Not only is it becoming increasingly difficult for many journals to manage the process effectively (cf. Stuart Elden’sfirst-hand account of this from a couple of years ago), there are many problems with it in practice. Reviewers hide behind the anonymity still afforded them by many journals to block work they don’t like. Some reviewers use peer-review as an opportunity to lambast anything that even remotely disagrees with their world-view. Still others do the opposite – they actively encourage dodgy articles that cite their work (indeed many demand revisions that will result in more citations) because citations matter to the evidence of academic impact. Journals themselves abuse the system. I know of (but will not specify) many instances where journal editors ‘bend’ the process to secure articles they want to adorn their pages. In one instance a few years ago, a prominent Professor responded to the suggestion that his work might be peer-reviewed with a two-word response – ‘What’s refereeing?’. Taking the hint, the editors carried out what might generously be called ‘internal review’ (i.e. one of them suggested a few minor changes) and the article was published. Elsewhere I have seen instances of articles effectively ‘commissioned’ by editors, ‘peer-reviewed’ in less than 24 hours and published within days.

Any comments on this? Is it cynical nonsense? The writer is an academic from the University of Leicester, so should the response be, "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"

Although I'm definitely no expert, I don't see it as cynical nonsense Temp. He seems to be genuinely pointing out the faults in the peer review system, and examples of when biases (for whatever reasons) enter the process.

But the author also doesn't suggest a better alternative, and until there is one, peer reviews are still the best way we have to keep a lid on dodgy research entering the public arena and being accepted as fact.

What do you think of Angus Cameron's comments on Mary Beard's twitterings, ID?


Even before my brief encounter with the man himself, the events around his (probable, possible, very likely, confirmed (delete according to preference)) rediscovery were giving pause for thought about the way in which academia functions. So I’m not just jumping on the Richard III bandwagon (well, just a bit), but there is a serious point to it.
This was highlighted less by Leicester University's response to the discovery than by the bitter and bitchy responses from other academics. Most prominently, and in a frankly astonishing exercise in hypocrisy, classicist Mary Beard took to both Twitter and blog to gripe about Leicester ‘over-promoting’ itself. Why hypocritical? This is a media-savvy and highly media active academic taking to Twitter (a tool designed exclusively for self-promotion) to moan about the promotional bent of contemporary academia. She then followed it up with a long blog entry trying to justify her earlier tweets, ending up with a rather lame ‘steady on a bit’ message to universities. Beard, like a number of other ‘churlish’ commentators also made the possibly more important point, that Leicester’s results have yet to be subject to peer-review and, therefore, are not in the ‘proper’ academic sense, confirmed.


But it's his comments about the events surrounding the Richard discovery "giving pause for thought about the way in which academia functions" which I've been fretting about since I read his article yesterday. Mary Beard was right to mention the peer-review process of course, but can we trust it? Can we trust anything? More and more these days it seems not.

Minette has raged about such things for years. I hope she will return and comment on this, Catigern too. He's someone in the thick of it after all. Because it is so important - truth and academic integrity and all that.

This thread is nearly top of the list now, over 8,000 views - catching up with the Shakespeare thread!

Peer review is not the same as literary review or film review, though to read some academic journals these days it would appear that in some fields this distinction is ignored even by academics - especially the ones who Cameron terms "self-promoting". At its core as a validation tool is the presumption that those who contribute are operating with similar expertise, similar or better access to resources, and an understanding of the initial proposition to the extent that it can be constructively criticised, verified (or even debunked). The important thing is that a process of analysis is brought to bear on the data submitted in the proposition.

In this case the data - while it may have sounded the bizz at a press conference - has not been forthcoming, at least not at the level and in detail enough to allow proper peer review. Not yet anyway - and the apparent news that Dr Turi King did not even get the opportunity to complete her own research and analysis of the DNA content of the project does not hove well for any future opportunity to be so reviewed either.

Cameron seems to suggest at one point that since the peer review system is prone to abuse then it may as well be bypassed altogether. This of course appears to put the kybosh on any worthwhile validation of this case's data just as it does any definitive rejection of it. In other words the publication and management of data emanating from this project is left at the mercy of other administrative agencies - such as TV production teams, etc. This is lamentable, and in academic terms, tantamount to criminal.

In the meantime of course there is no shortage of people opining on the meagre data that has been made available. This however is not "peer review", even if it comes from fellow academics. This is hot air.

The academics who are demanding a higher standard of data and accessibility from the Leicester team so that peer review is possible are the ones who are actually trying to save the credibility of this whole charade masquerading as academic research. It is they who are now being dismissed as curmudgeons and begrudgers.

The whole thing stinks.

I gather there is no accepted validation of data in this subject; if archaeology is defined a science then there surely must be. Apologies for interrupting the flow but just wondered if this is what there should be a round robin shout about. It would soften accusations of professional jealousy - inevitable, I guess but understandable. Knowledge should be tested and shared not claimed.

Priscilla wrote:

Knowledge should be tested and shared...

And rejoiced over.

But how's that for a bit of childish naivety?

I'm sorry, folks, but 'tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart.

Quote :

I gather there is no accepted validation of data in this subject

The problem with this case is that there is as yet not enough data to validate, or even to acknowledge as a candidate for validation. The messages coming from Leicester are mixed - on the one hand there is promised a proper research paper while on the other hand team members are privately reporting that their individual strands of research contributing to this paper have already been curtailed or stopped. I could speculate as to why this has happened, and Channel 4 / tourism would feature high in my speculation. But that's the point. The processes employed to fund, manage and bring this project to fruition have not been documented publicly so it would be just that - speculation. And in the meantime it is becoming increasingly likely that the public acceptance of the press conference statement as kosher is going to be the final word when it comes to whatever validation will ever be applied here. This, as you can imagine, is an ominous development for future high-profile archaeology, and especially archaeology which commands considerable public interest and enthusiasm. Both of these can be translated into revenue for interested parties, and not all those parties are interested in archaeology.

And I am ever childishly naive - even when the sun shines. Have I ruined our day or something.....? Rejoice. Now that's an interesting word. I think it was the word 'joy' used by missionaries who were otherwise great people to work with that put me further apart from religion. Test the knowledge, share it and move on is more my style.

It's my childish naivety - and enthusiasm - I was referring to, not anyone else's.

"The whole thing stinks," says nordmann and he's right.

I am unutterably depressed.

Move on indeed.

Temperance wrote:

What do you think of Angus Cameron's comments on Mary Beard's twitterings, ID? This thread is nearly top of the list now, over 8,000 views - catching up with the Shakespeare thread!

I don't read the twitterings and twatterings on that site Temp, so didn't see Mary Beard's contributions, but I did read her blog on RIII and found it to be a well thought out piece, her reasonings sound and nothing at all like A Cameron's description of her comments. Ferval has posted the link to the blog in question further up the thread somewhere Temp.

His comment is slightly nasty though, seems to me that in his rush to finger point he has fallen into exactly the same trap of those he is supposedly accusing. But then, academics do enjoy a good bun fight and often behave as if they have never left the class room. Well, I don't suppose they have really. It certainly makes for great entertainment for those of us in gallery.

To be entirely fair, even though it grates, I think what bu**ered up the whole thing was - to the astonishment of the archaeologists, they found that skeleton. I would surmise that the contracts with Philippa's mob and the Cheannel 4 crew committing the department to publicising the dig were signed in the full expectation that they would have a well funded opportunity to explore the layout of the church buildings and might uncover some interesting medieval burials but never HIM. A normal Time Team type exercise as it were with somewhat inflated but not very interesting claims that the rest of the discipline wouldn't be too bothered about and some promotion for the university. I'll bet they nearly cra**ed themselves when the twisty spine appeared.
Oops! Be careful what you wish for........