Creative History

  If you lived in England during the 11th century then the world around you was full of mysterious omens and ominous portents.  God was not some far distant and hands-off deity, but rather, He interacted with you and with everyone you knew in a very hands-on sort of way that directly impacted your daily life and the entire world in your midst. In the year 989 at the dawn of the second millenium--when the world around you was already in the midst of a messianic apocalyptic fervor--a young boy of no more than six, or seven years of age, sighted a strange shooting star in the skies over London.  It was so bright; so large and so startling that the boy, and probably everyone else in England who saw what would become known centuries later as Halley’s Comet, at that time, remembered what they saw for the rest of their lives. That young boy’s name was Elmer.  In his adult life he would go on to become a Benedictine monk and would be known to history in medieval annals a...

From time immemorial the site at Clonmacnoise in central Ireland on the banks of the storied River Shannon has been considered a mystical and spiritual place.  Clonmacnoise, literally translates from ancient Gaelic as, “Meadow of the Sons of Nois” , named in honor of the offspring of a mythical figure in the  Pagan lore of prehistoric Ireland. In the year 544 missionary Saint Ciarian founded a Catholic Monastery at the site of Clonmacnoise.  Today, Saint Ciarian, along with the much more well known Saint Patrick and Saint Columbia is considered to be one of the “Twelve Apostles of Ireland and Scotland”, those church fathers who first brought Christianity to the British Isles. During his lifetime in the sixth century Saint Ciarian was renowned for his love of learning, knowledge of scripture and his vast collection of manuscripts.  Due largely to Saint Ciarian’s reputation as an intellectual and bibliophile, within a few decades of its founding, the Monastery at C...

  At one time, during the epoch in European history that is known today as the High Middle Ages, perhaps sometime between the year 1000 and 1100, the city of Klagenfurt which is located in present day southern Austria, was founded in the marshy wetlands and along the muddy banks of the River Glan.  The city was established by a wealthy and high-born Duke, and was protected by a veritable army of brave and heavily armed knights.   But, there was one problem with the founding of Klagenfurt.  The city was being threatened by a vicious, fire-breathing winged dragon.  The dragon, at least according to legend, prevented any outsiders from crossing the River Glan to enter the city and constantly ravaged the homes and properties of the townspeople with devastating floods. Klagenfurt is definitely an historic city, whose picturesque architecture, even today, gives the town a medieval feel.  The city itself  is not far, less than fifty miles in fact, fr...

  December 29, 1170 Canterbury Cathedral. Four heavily armed and armored knights dismount their horses outside the large oak and iron reinforced doors that lead into the heart of the church. They burst inside with swords drawn and shout, “Where is Thomas Becket, traitor to King and country?” The man named Thomas Becket who the four knights are so zealously seeking is the Archbishop of Canterbury Cathedral.  He is just over fifty years of age and he is a devout and holy monk whose piety and patriotism, up until that very moment at least, have always been without question.  In the years immediately following his death, Pope Alexander III will canonize Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury Cathedral and make him a Saint and a Martyr.  He will go on to be one of the most widely revered and adored Saints in all of Europe during the High Middle Ages--but all of that remains, for the time being anyway, in the not too distant future. For now, four heavily armed knights are ...

  It is the year 1474 in Basel, Switzerland. Basel is a city that lies along the banks of the Rhine River near the Swiss border with both France and Germany.  It is a picturesque and cosmopolitan city that today is famous for its many art museums.  For centuries Basel has been considered one of the cultural capitals of Europe. However, on this day in August of 1474, the city of Basel is about to be the site of an execution witnessed by a large, blood thirsty and fearful crowd of rural peasants and urban townspeople alike.   They have come to see an accused witch burned alive at the stake. The execution is conducted with, “great solemnity as would have been observed in the consigning of a heretic to the flames.”  (Evans 1906)   Only days before, at the trial of the condemned, the prosecutor in Basel had asserted that, “it was not a case of (the defendant) making a compact with the devil, but that Satan had actually entered into them.” The pub...