medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Not medieval, except in the sense of demonstrating the historical
elasticity of a truly catholic church -- I will hope that none of us
baulks at including newer technologies?
A Czech correspondent asks me a question I cannot answer -- what and
where is the earliest example of a memorial to fliers of aircraft? I
know of one post WW2 in Chester cathedral, to commemorate a local
squadron (note the fresh flowers which are still placed there, if you
will -- but post WW2 these things must be legion across not just
Britain, but also Europe: my Czech correspondent has a family connection
with this squadron, hence her interest), but I am stuffed for anything
earlier. Liverpool's Anglican cathedral has, for example, WW1 carvings
of the two services: army and navy, in appropriate WW1 uniforms, but the
memorial chapel's commemoration of fliers is an understandably later
add-on (note also the bishop's (Chavasse's, I think it is) chair of this
period (1914-1918), which has SS Hubert and Denis in relief).
Two questions then, and neither need be UK-based.
1. What early (this century) commemorations of fliers of aircraft do we
know of? If British, one would suppose as early as 1917/1918 if military
-- need these be military anyway?
2. How long does it take the church to acknowledge and, where
appropriate, to venerate new technologies (here I am happier in speaking
to medievalists, and throw this into the pot to escape accusations of
non-medievalism). The church has always included the modern, but how
quickly do we know that it has reacted (from historical examples) to new
technologies? How soon do we get iconographical representations of
printers? of steam engineers? ... of philosophers, after their original
thought has been accepted into a canon (this latter thought is probably
the most provocative -- ignore it if you wish, though I mean it in a
religious context rather than as, for example, a simple woodcut of a
printer with no apparent religious context).
Curiously, and no prizes other than thanks: it's the boys working with
bits of metal I'm really after!
Angus Graham, Oman
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