It was busier than I'm used to at the BL, which made the first two rooms a bit of a challenge to get around, but after that the crowd spread out a bit and it was easier to see things - regardless of how busy it is allow a good 2 hours to look around (if there are a lot of people it will take that long, if you get a quieter day you'll want to spend that long looking at things).
I spent a bit of time studying Anglo Saxon art at university - it was my least favourite module because everything seemed so uncertain and far away, since then I've found rather more enthusiasm, and some really good stuff has been dug up (I'm thinking specifically of the Staffordshire hoard, although it's not the only significant find).
Because this is the British Library though the emphasis is on the written word, and before today I hadn't appreciated how much had survived. Anglo Saxon buildings especially are thin on the ground - Leicester (for example) has Roman remains, and traces of Norman architecture but finding anything in between is hard, the evidence of these people is most commonly found in place names. Seeing so many books and documents was a revelation.
Partly that's because everything is hand written which gives these things a particular sense of life, mostly it's the sheer breadth and depth of what's on display. Religious books, law books, herbals, histories, letters, wills, surveys, riddles, epic poems, and more. I've seen quite a few of these things individually, but the scale of this exhibition is something else - it puts the objects back in the context of a society rather than seeing them as incredible, rare, individual treasures.
Looking at everything together it's so much easier to understand how people travelled, exchanged ideas, how kingdoms rose and fell, how important the great monasteries where - all of it. And now I'm going to retire to bed with the exhibition catalogue which was too big for the very small table I had on the train, and which I'm very much looking forward to having a good look at.
This sounds wonderful. I'd been meaning to go =- thank you for the reminder!
ReplyDeleteGo, it's tremendous, 24 hours later I'm still so excited by it, and the sheer volume of things they had.
DeleteIt sounds like a marvellous experience; it is, sometimes, very difficult to get a grip on a nation but this might work wonders.
ReplyDeleteOr nations even - one thing I hadn't quite understood where both the distinct divisions within the British land mass, especially in the early part of the period, or the close links with other countries, especially through the church. The big thing for me though was just seeing so much stuff together, rather than odd bits like Bede, or Beowulf.
DeleteWe really enjoyed it - all the exhibitions we have been to at the BL have been really well thought out (I have been to some that don't have any story and just seem to be a collection of pretty/interesting things that happen to be vaguely connected). I was surprised at how busy it was- on a weekday in November too. Who knew the Anglo-Saxons were so popular? (Nearly as busy as Harry Potter and the History of Magic).
ReplyDeleteIs the catalogue as good as the exhibition? I didn't buy it at the time, but keep thinking about it.
I wasn't going to buy it when I went in, but didn't think twice about getting it when I came out. not everything is in it, but enough to help me remember the scale of the exhibition. So far it's been worth it just for the pictures, but I will read through it as well at some point. It feels like £25 well spent.
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