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Thousands of Rare Artifacts Discovered Beneath Tudor Manor’s Attic Floorboards
Smithsonian Magazine ^ | 8/17/20 | Nora McGreevy

Posted on 08/18/2020 6:37:36 PM PDT by marshmallow

Among the finds are manuscripts possibly used to perform illegal Catholic masses, silk fragments and handwritten music

While most of England was on lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic, archaeologist Matt Champion was working solo at Oxburgh Hall, a moated Tudor mansion in Norfolk.

As part of the site’s £6 million (roughly $7.8 million USD) roof restoration project, workers had lifted the floorboards in the estate’s attic for the first time in centuries. Probing the recesses beneath the boards with gloved fingertips, Champion expected to find dirt, coins, bits of newspapers and detritus that had fallen through the cracks. Instead, he discovered a veritable treasure trove of more than 2,000 items dating as far back as the 15th century.

The cache is one of the most remarkable “underfloor” archaeological finds ever made at a National Trust property, the British heritage organization says in a statement. Together, the objects offer a rich social history of the manor’s former residents.

Among the discoveries are the nests of two long-gone rats that built their homes out of scraps of Tudor and Georgian silks, wools, leather, velvet, satin and embroidered fabrics, reports Mark Bridge for the Times.

The critters also repurposed roughly 450-year-old fragments of handwritten music and parts of a book. A builder recently found the rest of the volume—a relatively intact 1568 copy of Catholic martyr John Fisher’s The Kynge’s Psalmes—in a hole in the attic.

Another worker discovered a rare item in the rubble underneath one of the attic’s eaves. Per the statement, the team collaborated with James Freeman, a medieval manuscripts specialist at Cambridge University Library, to identify the 600-year-old parchment fragment, still glimmering with gold leaf and bright blue ink, as part of the Latin Vulgate’s Psalm 39.

(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; History
KEYWORDS: anneboleyn; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; henryviii; mattchampion; middleages; norfolk; oxburghhall; renaissance; romancatholicism; tudors
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To: marshmallow

How exciting.


21 posted on 08/18/2020 8:22:03 PM PDT by Bigg Red (WWG1WGA)
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To: marshmallow

Decades ago, I worked in the attic of my (then) house, built in 1911. I found a Portland Journal (Oregon) newspaper from the early 1940s. There was an editorial about the Nazi’s threat to bomb Britain. The paper’s writer dismissed the threat by saying it would be too evil, and that there was goodness in every man that would prevent Goering from bombing Britain.


22 posted on 08/18/2020 8:23:14 PM PDT by aimhigh (THIS is His commandment . . . . 1 John 3:23)
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To: marshmallow

Makes you wonder how many other treasures are lying under attic floors in other manors across the country.


23 posted on 08/18/2020 8:32:36 PM PDT by mass55th ("Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway." ~~ John Wayne)
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To: Arcadian Empire; marshmallow
Might I suggest a little enhancement makes for a little bit easier viewing...

Oxburgh-Hall-2-a

24 posted on 08/18/2020 8:39:47 PM PDT by ADemocratNoMore (The Fourth Estate is now the Fifth Column)
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To: marshmallow
Four days later on January 29 1536 Catherine of Aragon was buried in Peterborough Cathedral. People still place pomegranates on her tomb. Catherine’s mourners included Lady Bedingfield (the wife of Sir Edmund Bedingfield –

1536- the year of three queens

Catherine of Aragon wsa Henry VIII's first and only legitmate wife.

25 posted on 08/18/2020 8:46:24 PM PDT by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome.)
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To: Arcadian Empire; SunkenCiv

That’s some shack.


26 posted on 08/18/2020 8:54:16 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: mass55th

“Makes you wonder how many other treasures are lying under attic floors in other manors across the country.”

Years ago I was interesting in metal detecting and was reading and learning on various websites.

I recall one guy telling the story of how one of his detecting buddies quit doing that, and would explore abandoned houses instead. But would still meet up with his detecting buddies at the bar to swap stories.

One day the guy came in and had one beer and bought a round for his buddies. Then told them that he was done with searching the old houses.

He sold his home that he had had forever and they never saw him again. His buddies like to think that he had found suitcases stuffed full of $100 bills and went to the Bahamas!


27 posted on 08/18/2020 8:59:38 PM PDT by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant. Never Fearful!)
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To: Arcadian Empire

#5. Looks like “Lego Mansion”. Dig the tower on the left. (Sorry for the word “dig” but I was an archaeologist at one time. As the nuns used to say, “Old habits die hard”).

Looks likes it wants to eat you.


28 posted on 08/18/2020 9:00:00 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: BenLurkin
Must be a b**** to dust though.

29 posted on 08/18/2020 9:16:03 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: pbear8
per Wikipedia The hall is well known for its priest hole...The room is reached via a trapdoor, which when closed blends in with the tiled floor. Unlike many similar priest holes, the one at Oxburgh is open to visitors.
apparently, the house also boasts a resident ghost.
30 posted on 08/19/2020 12:12:06 AM PDT by Mr Radical (In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act)
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To: marshmallow

Was there a Ford Tudor in the garage?


31 posted on 08/19/2020 12:51:01 AM PDT by Fresh Wind (China kills over 750,000 and the sheeple sleep. Cops kill one person, and cities burn.)
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To: marshmallow
This mansion was in the Catholic country in Elizabethan times. A good book about how sophisticated and relentless the agents of Walsingham were in crushing the ‘English Mission’ is detailed in God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England by Jessie Childs.
32 posted on 08/19/2020 3:12:39 AM PDT by robowombat (Orthodox)
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To: pbear8

“Where’s the priest hole?”

Around back.

L


33 posted on 08/19/2020 4:33:13 AM PDT by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
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To: aimhigh
It was Portland afterall. Is this your version of the Babylon Bee? 🙂
34 posted on 08/19/2020 6:10:35 AM PDT by madison10
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To: PghBaldy
Glad there was never a convertible version, because, uh, punchline redacted.

35 posted on 08/19/2020 6:59:34 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Mr Radical

Thanks!


36 posted on 08/19/2020 7:16:05 AM PDT by pbear8 (the Lord is my light and my salvation)
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To: 21twelve

Thanks for sharing. That’s a great story, and I hope his friend did find a fortune, and lived happily ever after.


37 posted on 08/19/2020 7:24:48 AM PDT by mass55th ("Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway." ~~ John Wayne)
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To: madison10
It was Portland afterall. Is this your version of the Babylon Bee?

Nope. It was a real editorial.

38 posted on 08/19/2020 8:10:23 AM PDT by aimhigh (THIS is His commandment . . . . 1 John 3:23)
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To: aimhigh

Amazing!


39 posted on 08/19/2020 8:18:39 AM PDT by madison10
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