[HN Gopher] A bejeweled prayer book has been identified as belon...
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A bejeweled prayer book has been identified as belonging to Thomas
Cromwell
Author : pepys
Score : 64 points
Date : 2023-06-22 19:49 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (news.artnet.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.artnet.com)
| civilitty wrote:
| Man that rendering of Hans Holbein the Younger's portrait of
| Thomas Cromwell is god-awful.
|
| I saw it in person as a kid in the Frick Collection in NY hanging
| opposite Holbein's portrait of Thomas More and they completely
| changed how I looked at art. In person the portraits look
| downright photorealistic and when you get close to them, the
| detail is staggering, down to the stubble on More's face.
|
| The photo in TFA looks nothing like I remember it. I wouldn't be
| surprised if RGB were inadequate in representing the colors,
| especially with proper museum lighting.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Holbein was a master, head and shoulders above most of his
| contemporaries. Kunstmuseum Basel has the largest collection of
| his paintings and it's on my bucket list.
| sedatk wrote:
| I read it as Bejeweled Player Book first, and got confused.
| n1b0m wrote:
| He was one interesting dude. He could speak Italian which was a
| really exceptional thing to do. England is on the edge of Europe,
| quite provincial, not in great power. To go to Italy was to put
| yourself right in the centre of European culture. Especially
| Florence, where Cromwell ended up, was the epicentre of
| civilisation and culture.
|
| So he learned Italian and came back to England in his twenties;
| extremely well educated, not just speaking Italian but a bit of
| German a bit of Spanish, fluent French and also reading Latin,
| which was crucial at that period. But Italian ended up being his
| passport into the eventual public life.
| Jarwain wrote:
| What would the modern day's equivalent of Florence be?
| detourdog wrote:
| The internet it has eliminated the notion of location.
| goodbyesf wrote:
| I think you are way overestimating 1600s florence and
| underestimating 1600s england.
|
| > England is on the edge of Europe, quite provincial, not in
| great power.
|
| We are talking 1600s england, not 600s england. During
| Cromwell's time, england was easily a major european power
| settling colonies in the new world. Far more powerful and far
| more important that italian city-states like florence.
|
| > To go to Italy was to put yourself right in the centre of
| European culture
|
| By the time cromwell was born, the italian renaissance was a
| distant memory. Shakespeare was the one advancing european
| culture, not dante.
|
| > Especially Florence, where Cromwell ended up, was the
| epicentre of civilisation and culture.
|
| No. The epicenter of civilization and culture moved west and
| north of florence by cromwell's time. Spain, France,
| Netherlands, England, etc were the new drivers of european
| civilization. Not florence, not italy.
|
| > not just speaking Italian but a bit of German a bit of
| Spanish, fluent French and also reading Latin,
|
| Pretty much what most educated europeans could do.
| vondur wrote:
| Thomas Cromwell was active in English high politics during
| the 1530's to 1540's. I believe England was just beginning to
| become a European power at that time. Maybe you are thinking
| of Oliver Cromwell?
| codeulike wrote:
| The way Wolf Hall tells the story, he also learned about
| bookkeeping/banking in Italy which combined with his (later?)
| legal training let him run rings around the other powerful
| public figures of the time.
|
| Wolf Hall is worth reading for many reasons but one of the
| interesting/unusual aspects of the novel is that its kindof
| answering 'what would happen if a smart fairly ruthless person
| with fairly modern legal/administative/finance skills was sent
| back in time 500 years'
| seanhunter wrote:
| That's the origin of the famous quote where Thomas More said of
| Cromwell that he was so clever and resourceful that if you
| locked him in prison and came back a few weeks later he'd be
| living like a king and all his jailers would owe him money.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| the English Wikipedia article is not shy about some of those
| "Italian" influences ! He was eventually executed for political
| reasons, as the article says.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Everything that I know about Thomas Cromwell, I know from
| Hilary Mantel's excellent book _Wolf Hall_ , and from the
| sequels.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| And the TV show.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| I haven't seen those, not sure how well they could capture
| the books.
| nwatson wrote:
| Wolf Hall is about the best TV I've seen ...
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Hall_(TV_series)
|
| "I, Claudius" and "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul"
| are in the same league.
| seanhunter wrote:
| They are surprisingly excellent (and I say that as
| someone who loves the books and usually hates
| adaptations) not least because the cast (in particular
| Mark Rylance) are fantastic.
|
| As an aside, for anyone who gets the chance to see Mark
| Rylance in theatre in particular I would say take it if
| you possibly can. I've seen him a few times and he has
| been absolutely staggeringly good every time.
| pklausler wrote:
| It is regrettable that Mantel did not survive to see this
| artifact.
| valarauko wrote:
| My recollection of the books is a bit rusty, but I think he
| also spoke Welsh (his brother-in-law's family was Welsh) and
| maybe Dutch as well? The Netherlands were the main market for
| English wool, and were the nursery of early English
| Protestantism (like Cromwell himself).
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| In the books that is correct. In actual history, I do not
| know.
| [deleted]
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| This is cromulent.
| frereubu wrote:
| There's a reasonable amount of confusion in the comments between
| Thomas and Oliver Cromwell.
|
| Thomas Cromwell (1485 - 1540), who this article is about, was a
| relatively cosmopolitan man and chief minister to Henry VIII
| before being beheaded.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cromwell
|
| Oliver Cromwell (1599 - 1658) was a puritan Christian anti-
| monarchist who had Charles I executed after the English Civil War
| and ruled as Lord Protector afterwards.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell
|
| (I am not a historian and encourage you to read the Wikipedia
| articles rather than relying on my very brief summaries!)
| crisismeerkat wrote:
| Oliver Cromwell was also beheaded, posthumously.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell%27s_head
| ubermonkey wrote:
| This is a great place to note how stellar WOLF HALL and its
| sequels are. They make his life really accessible, even if it is
| a fictionalized account of real events.
| billfruit wrote:
| I think Wolf Hall is rather over rated. It sort of projects
| quite a bit of modern sensibilities into people living in those
| times. It is also very sparse, in the sense it doesn't catch
| very much of the mannerisms of speech etc or even the physical
| details, flavour of of the times of things.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Counteranecdote: I'm pretty sensitive to anachronisms in
| historical depictions, and thought _Wolf Hall_ was pretty
| darned good about situating itself in what felt like a
| reasonable facsimile of the 16th century. I mean, we can 't
| know what people thought, or how. But, I don't recall any red
| flags offhand.
| rcktmrtn wrote:
| Of course it's worth mentioning that he's also depicted
| prominently in "A Man for all Seasons" of which "Wolf Hall" was
| created as a foil.
| autoexec wrote:
| Funny since the God he prayed to would have told him to pry those
| fancy jewels out, sell them, and give the money to the poor.
| nsajko wrote:
| How to become an authority on gods?
| autoexec wrote:
| Well, I'm certainly no theologian, I just grew up in a
| christian household and according to scripture Jesus was
| neither shy or subtle about his views on wealth and greed. He
| returned to it again and again and again. It was clearly a
| pretty big deal to the guy.
|
| A jewel encrusted prayer book is basically "Tell me you're a
| hypocrite without telling me you're a hypocrite"
| bloomingeek wrote:
| This is a terrible question, one doesn't become an authority
| about gods. One reads about the so called actions/demands of
| gods. Maybe you were being sarcastic?
| swayvil wrote:
| 1) locate gods.
|
| 2) observe them intensely.
| mjfl wrote:
| the Puritans agreed with you, a century or so later.
| neaden wrote:
| I mean, if we're talking about the things Cromwell did wrong in
| life I'd put this pretty far down the list below all the mass
| murder.
| ajtulloch wrote:
| You're probably thinking of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell and not
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cromwell.
| swayvil wrote:
| Maybe it was a gift from a close friend.
|
| Can't be gouging up the gift. The friend would get upset.
|
| Maybe a powerful friend. A patron.
|
| Gotta keep the gift nice to stay in good graces.
|
| Maybe it was part of his costume. Something to wag and fondle
| at aristocratic gatherings.
|
| Appearances are important.
| tines wrote:
| Yeah, I don't envision Jesus having a jewel-encrusted anything.
| southwesterly wrote:
| "That's the cup of a carpenter."
| nulbyte wrote:
| I don't think it's so cut and dry. A woman once washed his
| feet with expensive perfume. He then derided the man who
| scolded her for not selling it and giving the money to the
| poor.
| autoexec wrote:
| The disciples were upset by the waste because Jesus had a
| pretty clear and consistent message on wealth. Jesus didn't
| tell them they were wrong about his message either, seems
| like he just didn't like that they were being dicks to the
| woman, didn't want her turned into a villain, and he went
| out of his way to say she would be remembered for her
| actions which were directly serving him.
|
| > While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the
| Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very
| expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was
| reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they
| were indignant. "Why this waste?" they asked. "This perfume
| could have been sold at a high price and the money given to
| the poor." Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you
| bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me.
| The poor you will always have with you, but you will not
| always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body,
| she did it to prepare me for burial. Truly I tell you,
| wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what
| she has done will also be told, in memory of her."
|
| Hearing the story as a kid though, I kind of suspected it
| was really just Jesus saying: "I'm literally about to die
| for you assholes ffs, can you guys lay off for 5 minutes
| and just let me have this one nice thing!"
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| I've heard a few sermons that said the effect of the
| perfume might have lasted until his crucifixion, and
| might literally have been the one pleasant part of his
| execution and death. The other part, if you read the
| scriptures closely, Jesus generally treated the
| individual as a person first, and a problem (win) second,
| so the disciples being dicks to her wasn't something he'd
| be cool with. And he tended not to correct the individual
| in a group setting.
| sorokod wrote:
| Perhaps your confidence in what god would have told a 14th
| century practicing christian is misplaced?
| codeulike wrote:
| Not an expert but my reading of the article is that the Book of
| Hours/Hardouyn Hours was a Catholic prayer book in Latin and
| Thomas Cromwell was a secret sortof proto-Protestant who had
| illegal copies of the english translated Tyndale Bible hidden
| at his home. So the jewel encrusted latin prayer book might
| have been a cover story of a sort. As in, I don't think the
| prayer book in the famous painting reflected his actual
| (hidden, illegal) religous beliefs.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Brendan Behan had a few things to say about Cromwell's legacy,
| including this classy piece of doggerel
|
| "Don't speak of your Protestant minister, Nor of his church
| without meaning or faith, For the foundation stone of his temple
| Was the bollocks of Henry VIII"
| olddustytrail wrote:
| I believe he was making a mischievous translation of a Gaelic
| text. So I think it's worth mentioning that, although I'm not
| too familiar with Irish Gaelic, in Scottish Gaelic the word
| "clach" means "stone" but is also the common word for
| "testicle".
|
| If it's the same in Irish it may be a bit of bilingual punnery.
| cafard wrote:
| Behan may have been talking about Oliver Cromwell, who I think
| figured much larger as an object of execration among the Irish.
| But, hey, my surname looks Dutch, so don't ask me.
|
| My recollection of _Borstal Boy_ was that the doggerel you
| quote was an ad-hoc translation from Irish.
| gilleain wrote:
| Given the reference to Henry VIII's bollocks, it is certainly
| Thomas, not Oliver.
|
| Thomas Cromwell oversaw the founding of the Anglican Church,
| partly to satisfy Henry's need for a legitimate male heir.
| cafard wrote:
| Ah, but I don't think the rhymes Behan translated had
| anything in particular do with either Cromwell, save
| (remotely) by way of TC's agency in the new church.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| For an interesting read, check out Cromwell's letter to Henry
| VIII from the Tower of London while he was awaiting execution:
|
| https://carolineangus.com/thomas-cromwells-letters/thomas-cr...
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(page generated 2023-06-23 23:00 UTC)