Bigging up the North

And if you need to know more, the Angevin Empire extended from the Pyrenees in Spain to Ireland, including all of England and half of France during the 12th and 13th Centuries.

You learn something every day, don’t you?

“Plantagenets didn’t call themselves Plantagenets, so we decided to use a term that very few people have heard of to challenge them a little and they feel they’ve gone away with a new word,” says Natalie McCaul, curator of archaeology at the museum in the centre of York.

The exhibition itself proudly proclaims that “in medieval England, the North was ruled from York”. It follows on from the exhibition marking that it was 800 years since York was granted a charter.

McCaul says they wanted to do something that demonstrated York was a powerful and influential place. “In bigging ourselves up, we’ve never been backward in coming forward,”

she adds. “Actually, it leads off in quite a nice way from what York 800 did which was to celebrate the city. But we only touched on the city before 1212 in a really small way, whereas here in the new exhibition what we’ve done is go back to the beginning and say, how did it even get to that position?

“We’ve gone right back to the 5th and 6th Centuries to cover 1,000 years of a place that is an economic, religious, political, military, strategic capital at one time or another. Sometimes all of those things at the same time.”

The organisers have opted for a chronological approach, which they haven’t done for a while. Recent exhibitions have been thematic or explored different ideas. They’ve tried to make things clearer for visitors, who can be confused by, say, the term ‘medieval’, and broken it down into easy, understandable chunks.

This covers around 1,000 years of history, starting with the Anglians – just after the Romans left – and moving through Viking, Norman, Angevin, House of York, Tudor and Rediscovered.

The objects on display are a mix of the old, the new and the unseen. They include some of the museum’s most prized objects, such as the Cawood Sword, the Escrick Ring and the Middleham Jewel. Other artefacts are rarely on display.

“It’s always difficult for the curator to decide what to put out,” says McCaul. “People in York have their favourite objects. We need to make sure the Middleham Jewel is out on display because everyone wants to see it, so there are certain things we couldn’t do an exhibition without. Those things are givens.”

There was a determination to tell the stories without too many exhibits. Display cases don’t have a lot of objects in them. “We’ve gone for the real treasures, the interesting and exciting things that tell the story from each period. We’ve reined ourselves in and gone for things that actually mean something, but all linked back to the Capital of the North idea.”

Anglian urns, for instance, haven’t been on show for a long time. Some of the stonework from the Anglian and Viking periods hasn’t been seen for 30 years, and some has never been on public display.

New technology has been employed to ensure as many people as possible are engaged by the exhibition which features the first, and only, colour recognition video-activated system in a museum in the country. Visitors pick up a bookmark and place it on a sensor to start the opening film. There are two different colours, with one animated film geared towards a children’s audience, while the other film is for adults.

There are more interactive elements to the exhibition than previously, including fantasy jousting. This resulted from a competition for young people to come up with ideas for the museum. Two students from York University won with their idea for a virtual joust.

“That was a great idea, but making it possible gave us a bit of a headache,” says Mc- Caul. “In the end we came up with a really good product and it proved very popular over half-term with everybody in the family, adults as much as children.”

The Escrick ring

THE sapphire ring, found near York, was acquired by The Yorkshire Museum for £35,000. The ring which measures around 2.5cm across, is intricately made of gold, prestige glass and a large sapphire. This is only the second known use of a sapphire in jewellery found in the country, the first being a 5th Century Roman example. The ring was probably worn by someone of very high status, such as a king, queen or chief. But from which period remains unclear.

The wear on the ring suggests that it could have been a brooch first, which was later made into a ring. The use of a sapphire would have been common for kings in the medieval period, but experts say the gold beading suggests the Viking period (tenth to 11th Centuries). However the use of gold and red glass is more typical of the seventh to ninth centuries Anglican style, or even as early as the fifth or sixth centuries, as experts concluded at a workshop at the Yorkshire Museum earlier this month. Natalie McCaul, curator of archaeology at the Yorkshire Museum who owns the ring, says: 

"What the workshop has shown is that this sapphire ring is even more special than we had previously thought. Nothing like it has been found in this country from the 5th or 6th Century.”

The ring was found by metal detectorist Michael Greenhorn, from York, in 2009.

The Gilling Sword

THIS sword, first spotted by a nineyear- old boy playing in a stream, is one of the finest Anglian weapons to be found in England. Garry Fridd was later awarded a Blue Peter badge for his amazing discovery in April 1976. He was playing next to Gilling Beck, Gilling West, near Richmond, in North Yorkshire, when he noticed a piece of metal close to the stream's edge. The two-edged iron sword he found dates from the 9th century. The sword's handle is decorated with silver which has a combination of geometric and plant designs.

The Middleham Jewl

THIS outstanding example of medieval craftsmanship was found near Middleham Castle in North Yorkshire, the childhood home of Richard III. The diamond-shaped gold pendant is adorned with a large sapphire. It is intricately engraved, on the front with an image of the Holy Trinity and on the back with the Nativity. It would clearly have been valued it for its religious significance and the pendant may well have held a religious relic within it.

The inscriptions around the edge are in both Latin and Hebrew and the words are related to childbirth, suggesting that the jewel may have been made for a woman. Its owner may also have valued it for its magical properties, such as the engraved word “ananizapta”, which was thought to protect against epilepsy. It is sometimes speculated that the Jewel belonged to Richard's mother. Certainly, only a hugely wealthy and powerful individual could have commissioned such an object – wealth was concentrated in the hands of the very few. The owner must have been noble and may well have been royal.