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BIRDS CALL, OARS SWEEP | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
DAVID DIMBLEBY: A cold winter's morning before daybreak | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
on the River Thames. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:24 | |
On a day like this, in 1834, | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
a lost treasure was to re-emerge. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:34 | |
A gang of workers were starting another day | 0:00:40 | 0:00:44 | |
on the banks of the Thames. | 0:00:44 | 0:00:46 | |
It was dirty, unappealing work. | 0:00:46 | 0:00:49 | |
Their job was to demolish the old London Bridge | 0:00:49 | 0:00:52 | |
and clearing away all this sludge and muck. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:55 | |
Filthy work at the best of times. | 0:00:55 | 0:00:58 | |
But on this particular day, | 0:01:00 | 0:01:02 | |
they made an astonishing discovery. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:06 | |
HE GRUNTS | 0:01:12 | 0:01:14 | |
What they had discovered, to their amazement, | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
was a bronze head of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, | 0:01:33 | 0:01:38 | |
part of a great statue of the emperor... | 0:01:38 | 0:01:41 | |
..all its fine detail beautifully preserved. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:48 | |
The hair, the eyebrows, the eyes, this great nose | 0:01:48 | 0:01:51 | |
and the chin, | 0:01:51 | 0:01:53 | |
part of a beautiful statue. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:56 | |
And this is where our story begins. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:02 | |
From the Roman occupation of 2,000 years ago | 0:02:06 | 0:02:10 | |
to our own day... | 0:02:10 | 0:02:12 | |
..the story of Britain is revealed through art. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:17 | |
These are the greatest treasures of our nation, | 0:02:20 | 0:02:24 | |
objects of beauty which give a glimpse into the British soul. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:30 | |
Many treasures will be familiar. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:35 | |
But others are hidden. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:38 | |
Some have even left our shores, | 0:02:42 | 0:02:45 | |
scattered to the four corners of the earth. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:49 | |
This is the story of the Seven Ages of Britain. | 0:02:54 | 0:03:00 | |
Rome. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:50 | |
The heart of the mighty empire that conquered nearly all Europe. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:55 | |
It was Rome that would bring order | 0:04:00 | 0:04:02 | |
to the barbarian chaos of the British Isles. | 0:04:02 | 0:04:05 | |
TRANSLATION FROM ITALIAN: | 0:04:25 | 0:04:28 | |
Fish and chips! | 0:04:42 | 0:04:44 | |
Bye! | 0:04:46 | 0:04:47 | |
The Romans first invaded Britain in 55 BC. | 0:05:07 | 0:05:12 | |
But it would be another 90 years | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
before there was a full-scale conquest, | 0:05:16 | 0:05:18 | |
under the Emperor Claudius. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:19 | |
Among all the glorious monuments in Rome | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
celebrating the great conquests of the Roman Empire, | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
there's only one trace left of the conquest of Britain. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:38 | |
And it's this tiny fragment | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
of a big inscription which was put up on a triumphal arch | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
to commemorate Claudius's taking the surrender of 11 British kings. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:49 | |
You can just see the word "Reges Brit". | 0:05:49 | 0:05:51 | |
And it cuts off there. 11 British kings. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:53 | |
And saying that he brought the barbarians from across the ocean - | 0:05:53 | 0:05:57 | |
that's the English Channel - | 0:05:57 | 0:05:59 | |
he brought the barbarians from across the ocean | 0:05:59 | 0:06:01 | |
under the authority of Rome. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
The Roman Empire was all about using power to impose order. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:15 | |
Nothing captures the Roman vision better than the Pantheon, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:25 | |
a temple to all the gods. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
This is the finest example of Roman art still standing in the city. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:39 | |
One of the reasons the Romans had such a huge impact on Britain | 0:06:55 | 0:07:00 | |
was that they, for the first time, gave us a sense of identity | 0:07:00 | 0:07:04 | |
by becoming part of the Roman Empire. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:05 | |
Every conquered territory had a female figure to represent it, | 0:07:05 | 0:07:09 | |
and we had Britannia for Britain. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
And the coins of the second century AD | 0:07:12 | 0:07:15 | |
had this portrait of Britannia on one side. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:18 | |
Some say she's in mourning after defeat at the hands of the Romans. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:23 | |
Some say she's at peace. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:25 | |
But there it is - the enduring image of Britannia, | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
which turns up, lo and behold, on our own 50 pence piece today. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
The Queen's head on one side | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
and, on the other, Britannia. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:36 | |
A rather different Britannia, this one. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
This is Britannia ruling the waves with her trident and her shield. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:42 | |
One early and almost forgotten sculpture of Britannia | 0:07:48 | 0:07:52 | |
can be found in what was once the eastern corner | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
of the Roman Empire. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:57 | |
In the first century AD, | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
the city of Aphrodisias was famous for the brilliance of its artists. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:13 | |
The fine marble quarried nearby allowed sculptors | 0:08:24 | 0:08:28 | |
to capture the beauty of the human form. | 0:08:28 | 0:08:32 | |
This is a stupendous collection of sculptures, | 0:08:45 | 0:08:49 | |
all very lively, of Roman myths, of gods and goddesses. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:53 | |
But the one I've come to see is this one over here. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:56 | |
This is the story of how Rome conquered Britain | 0:08:56 | 0:09:01 | |
told here, hundreds of miles away from Britain, | 0:09:01 | 0:09:04 | |
as a way of demonstrating to everybody that Rome ruled us | 0:09:04 | 0:09:08 | |
and had defeated us. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:10 | |
This is the figure of Britannia. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
And we know it because it says over on the right there in Greek letters | 0:09:12 | 0:09:16 | |
"Bretannia". | 0:09:16 | 0:09:17 | |
And on this side, | 0:09:17 | 0:09:19 | |
"Tiberius Claudius Caesar" - the Emperor Claudius. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:24 | |
Britannia is shown in despair, perhaps pleading for her life, | 0:09:24 | 0:09:28 | |
knowing she's about to be slaughtered, | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
looking like a barbarian, her hair all straggling round, | 0:09:31 | 0:09:36 | |
her face looking miserable, bare-breasted. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:39 | |
He, on the other hand, the conqueror with his helmet, | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
his right hand raised. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:44 | |
There would have been a sword probably in the right hand. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:46 | |
His left hand pulling her hair back, | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
as though to cut her throat. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:51 | |
He's got his fist there on her hair, pulling it back. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
And, important, his knee resting on her thigh, | 0:09:54 | 0:09:58 | |
pinning her down to the ground. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:00 | |
She's the victim, either about to be raped or to be killed. | 0:10:00 | 0:10:03 | |
In any event, that is Britain, defeated by Rome. | 0:10:03 | 0:10:09 | |
So much for "Britons never, never shall be slaves." | 0:10:12 | 0:10:14 | |
This is how Britannia began - under the heel of the Roman Empire. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:20 | |
It's not immediately obvious what Britain - cold and wet - | 0:10:40 | 0:10:45 | |
had to offer Romans from the warm Mediterranean. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:49 | |
But one attraction was our buried treasure. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:53 | |
Where the Romans thought there was wealth to be found, | 0:11:02 | 0:11:05 | |
they plundered to the far limits of their empire. | 0:11:05 | 0:11:09 | |
This is Dolaucothi in West Wales, | 0:11:09 | 0:11:12 | |
and with that ingenuity and energy for which they were famous, | 0:11:12 | 0:11:16 | |
the Romans actually built here a seven-mile aqueduct, | 0:11:16 | 0:11:20 | |
right across these hills. | 0:11:20 | 0:11:22 | |
You can still just trace the line of it going into the woods there. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:26 | |
And over there, there was a huge cistern | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
that held up to 2,000,000 gallons of water. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:35 | |
And when it was full, they opened the gates, the water | 0:11:35 | 0:11:38 | |
flooded down into the valley, sweeping away trees and bushes | 0:11:38 | 0:11:43 | |
and all the earth, and uncovering what they were really looking for. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:47 | |
Quartz. Quartz, which contained gold. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:51 | |
Some of the old Roman mining tunnels remain deep under the hillside. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:19 | |
They're beautifully cut, these tunnels. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:27 | |
Very damp, dripping all the time with water. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
They had to get the water out so they didn't flood. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:33 | |
Slaves would have done the work, of course, not the Romans themselves. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:37 | |
And you can see here, they say, | 0:12:37 | 0:12:38 | |
the marks where they've cut the rock with chisels, chiselled it away - | 0:12:38 | 0:12:44 | |
there we are, the marks there - to open up the space. | 0:12:44 | 0:12:48 | |
Because what they were looking for were these seams of quartz, | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
here is one, this whiter rock there. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:54 | |
It runs up here, see, right the way up there, | 0:12:56 | 0:12:59 | |
and disappears up into the roof of the cave. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:03 | |
And the technique they used was very ingenious, very simple. | 0:13:03 | 0:13:08 | |
It was to build fires. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
And here, on this bit of rock here, they say these are the scorch marks | 0:13:11 | 0:13:15 | |
left by the fires that were built to extract the quartz. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:19 | |
They built fires until it was really hot | 0:13:19 | 0:13:21 | |
and then suddenly dashed water onto it, so that it burst, split open. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:26 | |
They could then take the quartz away. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:29 | |
Dangerous work. I wouldn't want to do it. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
A ton of good quality quartz produced under an ounce of gold. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:49 | |
But it was valuable, because of course gold doesn't deteriorate, | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
and the Romans wanted it to make coins and make jewellery. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
In fact, in the 1880s, | 0:13:57 | 0:13:59 | |
they found - this is a replica of it - | 0:13:59 | 0:14:01 | |
they found this very beautiful little brooch made from gold from here, | 0:14:01 | 0:14:06 | |
because it's got a slightly pinkish colour that distinguishes Welsh gold. | 0:14:06 | 0:14:11 | |
All that effort, those hundreds of people working, just to produce this. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:20 | |
Over the centuries, | 0:14:41 | 0:14:43 | |
hundreds of treasures from Roman Britain have been uncovered. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:47 | |
And the best have ended up here. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:49 | |
Sometimes, it's quite by chance that things are discovered that | 0:15:20 | 0:15:22 | |
give us an idea of what life was like under the Romans. | 0:15:22 | 0:15:25 | |
This great collection of silver was | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
found by a farmer during the Second World War ploughing his field. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:32 | |
He literally struck a piece of silver and discovered all this. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
He took it back to his farmhouse, | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
and it's said he even used to eat his Christmas dinner off it. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:41 | |
It wasn't until just after the war that he finally revealed | 0:15:41 | 0:15:45 | |
he had it and it came here to the British Museum. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
And this is the great centrepiece of it all, the Oceanus Dish, | 0:15:48 | 0:15:52 | |
a wonderful celebration of life and pleasure and enjoyment and music. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:59 | |
At the heart of it, Oceanus, the god of the oceans, | 0:16:00 | 0:16:03 | |
with his dolphins in his hair and a beard made of seaweed | 0:16:03 | 0:16:07 | |
and various figures around of a seafaring kind. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:11 | |
But the real party begins beyond. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:14 | |
This was obviously used for celebration. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:16 | |
All the way round, figures dancing. There is Pan. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
With his pipes. Wicked Pan. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:24 | |
And over here, Hercules, you can see him with his club. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:28 | |
And everywhere there are swirling, dancing men and women really having | 0:16:28 | 0:16:33 | |
a ball, celebrating and drinking and dancing, and beautifully done, these | 0:16:33 | 0:16:40 | |
swirling clothes, up on their toes, men with their hands in the air. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:46 | |
Full of life and vitality and vivacity. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:49 | |
This is absolutely singing with life. | 0:16:55 | 0:17:00 | |
The Romans changed the face of England. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:25 | |
They introduced a way of life imported from Italy. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:38 | |
Luxurious villas decorated with beautiful mosaics. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:45 | |
Nothing's left of the walls or the ceiling of the villa, | 0:17:49 | 0:17:53 | |
but that doesn't matter | 0:17:53 | 0:17:55 | |
because what really counts here at Bignor are the floors - | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
made 1,700 years ago, tiny pieces of stone put together. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:03 | |
And they are by far the best mosaics in Britain | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
and, according to experts, among the most magnificent in the Roman world. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:10 | |
This scene is of gladiators fighting or practising fighting | 0:18:33 | 0:18:39 | |
with an umpire or a teacher. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:41 | |
And they could've seen the real thing at the Roman city of Chichester. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:45 | |
And if you look here, there's one gladiator | 0:18:45 | 0:18:47 | |
who has the trident and the dagger, | 0:18:47 | 0:18:51 | |
and the other with a sword and a shield. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:54 | |
And the reason it's so fine | 0:18:54 | 0:18:56 | |
is because the actual pieces of mosaic are tiny. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
They're made either of stone or of clay or of glass. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:05 | |
And the frieze is supporting this most beautiful Venus. | 0:19:05 | 0:19:10 | |
Wonderful, subtle colours. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
A lovely piece of work. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
It's interesting that this villa wasn't lived in by Romans. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:26 | |
It was lived in by British people, British farmers. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:30 | |
Rich, of course - | 0:19:30 | 0:19:31 | |
prosperous people aping the habits of the conqueror. | 0:19:31 | 0:19:35 | |
And they got all the advantages. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:37 | |
They got central heating. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:39 | |
They got baths. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:40 | |
But, I mean, who on earth would live | 0:19:40 | 0:19:42 | |
in an Italian villa in the British climate? | 0:19:42 | 0:19:45 | |
Nobody does these days. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:46 | |
There is one rather interesting concession to the British weather | 0:19:46 | 0:19:50 | |
and that's this mosaic of winter. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:53 | |
You can tell it's winter | 0:19:53 | 0:19:55 | |
because of the leafless branch of the tree there. | 0:19:55 | 0:19:58 | |
And the figure is wearing - and this is what's curious - | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
what's called "birrus Britannicus", | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
a special kind of British-made cloak of heavy, oiled wool | 0:20:04 | 0:20:10 | |
which at this time had become so popular | 0:20:10 | 0:20:13 | |
it was sold all over the Roman Empire. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:15 | |
And the Emperor actually put a fixed price on it | 0:20:15 | 0:20:18 | |
and charged tax on it. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:20 | |
Well, you wouldn't want to go out in a British winter, would you, | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
without a birrus Britannicus on. You'd be very stupid. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:28 | |
At the start of the 5th century, | 0:20:53 | 0:20:55 | |
the Roman Empire began to disintegrate. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:58 | |
Britain found herself undefended, open to attack. | 0:21:02 | 0:21:07 | |
And attacks came quickly, | 0:21:07 | 0:21:11 | |
not just by one people, | 0:21:11 | 0:21:13 | |
but by many. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:15 | |
"Hwaet! | 0:21:28 | 0:21:30 | |
"We Gardena in geardagum, | 0:21:30 | 0:21:32 | |
"peodcyninga, prym gefrunon, hu oa aepelingas ellen fremedon." | 0:21:32 | 0:21:37 | |
I'm trying to speak Anglo-Saxon. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:39 | |
It was the language spoken 1,500 years ago here in England | 0:21:39 | 0:21:44 | |
and it forms the basis of the English we speak today. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:47 | |
And those lines are taken | 0:21:47 | 0:21:49 | |
from one of the great Anglo-Saxon poems, Beowulf - | 0:21:49 | 0:21:52 | |
not a love story, but a story of great warriors and battles, | 0:21:52 | 0:21:57 | |
the kind of tale you'd tell round a blazing fire | 0:21:57 | 0:22:00 | |
in the great hall on a dark night. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:02 | |
Anglo-Saxon tales are often set | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
in the sort of frozen wastes of the wintry north, | 0:22:05 | 0:22:08 | |
because it was from Denmark and Germany | 0:22:08 | 0:22:11 | |
that these new invaders came. | 0:22:11 | 0:22:14 | |
The Anglo-Saxons were the next powerful influence on our country | 0:22:17 | 0:22:21 | |
after the Romans. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:23 | |
They gave us our language, | 0:22:23 | 0:22:25 | |
and a kind of stubbornness of attitude, perhaps, | 0:22:25 | 0:22:29 | |
which still forms part of our national character today. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:32 | |
In the 6th century, | 0:22:55 | 0:22:56 | |
the River Deben was the heartland of a powerful Anglo-Saxon king. | 0:22:56 | 0:23:01 | |
On his death, the fields of Sutton Hoo above the river | 0:23:08 | 0:23:13 | |
were turned into his royal burial ground. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:17 | |
This is a beautiful spot, | 0:23:31 | 0:23:33 | |
this golden heathland under this great East Anglian sky. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:37 | |
But you need to use a bit of imagination to bring it alive. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
We're up above the River Deben here, | 0:23:40 | 0:23:43 | |
that highway of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom. | 0:23:43 | 0:23:46 | |
And it was up here that they dragged a boat from the river, | 0:23:46 | 0:23:50 | |
laid the king to rest | 0:23:50 | 0:23:52 | |
surrounded by his household goods and precious jewels, | 0:23:52 | 0:23:56 | |
everything that he'd need in the afterlife. | 0:23:56 | 0:23:58 | |
What a great place to bury a king. | 0:24:05 | 0:24:07 | |
In 1938, work began excavating the burial ground. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:27 | |
The finds were astonishing. | 0:24:29 | 0:24:31 | |
-Look at that. -Beautiful, isn't it? | 0:24:31 | 0:24:34 | |
Extraordinary. | 0:24:34 | 0:24:36 | |
'Molly Bevan's family owned the land | 0:24:37 | 0:24:40 | |
'and she was here during the dig. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:42 | |
'Even at 102, she remembers it well.' | 0:24:42 | 0:24:46 | |
It was absolutely amazing. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:50 | |
You couldn't believe it, because it looked so huge. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:55 | |
There were quite a lot of people, I don't know how many, | 0:24:58 | 0:25:01 | |
I couldn't tell you now, | 0:25:01 | 0:25:03 | |
digging or brushing. In fact, | 0:25:03 | 0:25:07 | |
I saw one fellow with a toothbrush doing something. | 0:25:07 | 0:25:10 | |
I used to spend most of the day there | 0:25:13 | 0:25:17 | |
just being amazed to see what they would find next. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:22 | |
DAVID: It looks rather crumpled there, doesn't it? | 0:25:30 | 0:25:33 | |
It does, yes. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:34 | |
Did everything come up rather crumpled and dirty? | 0:25:34 | 0:25:38 | |
Everything came up with mud all over it. | 0:25:38 | 0:25:40 | |
So you never saw real gold? | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
No, I never saw it until I went to the British Museum. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:46 | |
-Did they look good? -They looked all right! | 0:25:46 | 0:25:50 | |
-It's tantalising, seeing it like this. -It is. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:01 | |
It's a funny business, because this is all happening | 0:26:01 | 0:26:04 | |
just as we were about to go to war, wasn't it? | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
Yes, it was 1939, and war was talked of all the time. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:13 | |
This is the king's helmet, | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
which has become the most powerful symbol of the Anglo-Saxon era. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:55 | |
It's very, very fine and subtle | 0:26:55 | 0:26:58 | |
because the nose and the eyebrows are actually a bird. | 0:26:58 | 0:27:04 | |
The eyebrows are the wings. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:08 | |
The tail of the bird makes this very neat little moustache, | 0:27:08 | 0:27:12 | |
and if you look underneath, | 0:27:12 | 0:27:14 | |
there are two holes, two nostrils, | 0:27:14 | 0:27:16 | |
so the person wearing it could actually breathe. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:19 | |
The bird's head is here, | 0:27:19 | 0:27:21 | |
and he's facing this dragon, | 0:27:21 | 0:27:24 | |
which makes the crest of the helmet, with these wonderful teeth. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:28 | |
For my money, though, these are really, really beautiful. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:35 | |
They're so fine, delicate, intricate. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:39 | |
This is a shoulder clasp. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
It had a pin that went through the middle. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
So that would be on one side of a cloak, that on the other. | 0:27:45 | 0:27:49 | |
It would hold the two parts of a cloak together. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:51 | |
This is made of blue glass | 0:27:51 | 0:27:55 | |
and garnets that were probably imported | 0:27:55 | 0:27:58 | |
from Afghanistan or India. | 0:27:58 | 0:28:00 | |
Not only that, the gold is actually itself cut in a kind of crisscross, | 0:28:00 | 0:28:06 | |
so you get this pattern showing through the garnets. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:09 | |
And then there's this. This is a belt buckle. | 0:28:11 | 0:28:14 | |
Very simple - you can see the buckle-end here | 0:28:14 | 0:28:17 | |
and an intricate abstract pattern. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:21 | |
When you look very closely, | 0:28:21 | 0:28:23 | |
you can see serpents writhing within it. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
Anglo-Saxons were very keen on their animals, | 0:28:29 | 0:28:31 | |
and, my goodness, there are animals on this. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
Now, this is the top of a purse. It was a leather purse. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:38 | |
And here there's a figure of a man, | 0:28:38 | 0:28:41 | |
and he's fending off two wolves. | 0:28:41 | 0:28:44 | |
All three of them look as if they could've been made 100 years ago. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:50 | |
They're in such perfect condition. | 0:28:50 | 0:28:52 | |
BIRDS CHIRP | 0:29:06 | 0:29:09 | |
In the year 563, Christianity arrived in Britain. | 0:29:24 | 0:29:29 | |
The new faith, which had briefly flourished under the Romans, | 0:29:36 | 0:29:41 | |
would transform art. | 0:29:41 | 0:29:43 | |
Pick it up there on the starboard side. | 0:29:43 | 0:29:45 | |
OK, keep it together there, folks. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:48 | |
St Columba, an Irish monk, | 0:29:48 | 0:29:51 | |
sailed across the Irish Sea with 12 disciples | 0:29:51 | 0:29:55 | |
in a boat made from animal skins. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:58 | |
OK, keep it together there, folks. | 0:29:58 | 0:30:00 | |
We've got a wind against us. | 0:30:00 | 0:30:02 | |
Today, Captain Ivor and his crew make that trip in homage to Columba. | 0:30:02 | 0:30:08 | |
How long would it have taken him, that journey across from Ireland? | 0:30:13 | 0:30:17 | |
Well, it's 100 miles, so, rowing and stopping, | 0:30:17 | 0:30:21 | |
you would be looking at three or four days, given good weather. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:24 | |
At the time, was it a very daring passage to make? | 0:30:26 | 0:30:29 | |
Was there a lot of traffic between Ireland and Scotland? | 0:30:29 | 0:30:32 | |
There would have been a lot of traffic. | 0:30:32 | 0:30:34 | |
The sea to a lot of people nowadays would be a forbidding place, | 0:30:34 | 0:30:37 | |
but in those times, it was a highway. | 0:30:37 | 0:30:40 | |
It was more dangerous to travel inland because, well, certainly | 0:30:42 | 0:30:47 | |
in Ireland, the thick wooded areas, and I suppose bandits etc. | 0:30:47 | 0:30:52 | |
So the highway was the seaway. | 0:30:52 | 0:30:54 | |
And are you religious people, or do you do it for fun? | 0:30:54 | 0:30:58 | |
Some of us would be religious people. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:00 | |
We still do it for fun, even though we're religious! | 0:31:00 | 0:31:04 | |
St Columba and his monks chose to settle here, | 0:31:10 | 0:31:13 | |
on the island of Iona. | 0:31:13 | 0:31:15 | |
Thank you very much indeed. That was wonderful. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:20 | |
Goodbye. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:23 | |
St Columba was such a powerful inspiration | 0:31:32 | 0:31:34 | |
that Christianity spread from here across Scotland | 0:31:34 | 0:31:37 | |
and into Northern England. | 0:31:37 | 0:31:39 | |
And wherever it went, | 0:31:39 | 0:31:41 | |
it's left behind this powerful symbol of the stone cross. | 0:31:41 | 0:31:45 | |
This one is from the 8th century. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:47 | |
Now, new religions often build on the old. | 0:31:47 | 0:31:51 | |
And some say that this circle, which is typical of the Celtic cross, | 0:31:51 | 0:31:55 | |
actually is sending a message out about the power of the sun, | 0:31:55 | 0:31:59 | |
an old pagan message. | 0:31:59 | 0:32:01 | |
Round the front... | 0:32:03 | 0:32:04 | |
It's very, very faded, this. It's rather difficult to see. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:08 | |
But then, it is very, very old. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:09 | |
In the top there, the Virgin and child. | 0:32:09 | 0:32:14 | |
Below that, what's said to be David playing a harp | 0:32:19 | 0:32:23 | |
and another figure playing a flute. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
Four more figures that nobody knows what they are. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:29 | |
And then more decoration down here. | 0:32:29 | 0:32:31 | |
But what's really moving, striking, about crosses like this | 0:32:33 | 0:32:38 | |
is that they were a focal point for the new religion. | 0:32:38 | 0:32:41 | |
They stood often in wild places | 0:32:41 | 0:32:43 | |
where there were no churches, no monasteries, | 0:32:43 | 0:32:46 | |
just this cross, standing as a place | 0:32:46 | 0:32:50 | |
to pray, to worship, | 0:32:50 | 0:32:53 | |
maybe to have sermons read. | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
But wherever they went, they stood as symbols of the new religion. | 0:32:56 | 0:33:01 | |
As Columba's monks, preaching conversion, headed south, | 0:33:20 | 0:33:25 | |
St Augustine arrived in England and worked his way north. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:30 | |
The two missions met in Northumbria, | 0:33:38 | 0:33:41 | |
which would become a centre of monastic learning | 0:33:41 | 0:33:45 | |
renowned throughout Europe. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:47 | |
Nowadays, we think of monasteries as places to retreat from the world. | 0:33:54 | 0:33:58 | |
But in the 7th century, monasteries were the world. | 0:33:58 | 0:34:02 | |
They were rich and powerful, | 0:34:02 | 0:34:03 | |
they had a lot of land, they had political influence. | 0:34:03 | 0:34:07 | |
They admittedly looked after the poor and were places to pray, | 0:34:07 | 0:34:10 | |
but they were also centres of knowledge. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:13 | |
They had libraries, books. | 0:34:13 | 0:34:16 | |
This one, Wearmouth-Jarrow, was among the most famous. | 0:34:16 | 0:34:20 | |
It was here that one of Britain's greatest treasures was created - | 0:34:26 | 0:34:30 | |
the work of many monks over many years, | 0:34:30 | 0:34:34 | |
an object lost from English history, | 0:34:34 | 0:34:37 | |
because no sooner was it completed | 0:34:37 | 0:34:39 | |
than it was sent away from these shores. | 0:34:39 | 0:34:42 | |
BELLS RING IN DISTANCE | 0:34:50 | 0:34:52 | |
OPERATIC ARIA PLAYS | 0:35:00 | 0:35:02 | |
In AD 716, | 0:35:16 | 0:35:19 | |
the abbot of Wearmouth-Jarrow started on a journey to Italy | 0:35:19 | 0:35:23 | |
to deliver in person | 0:35:23 | 0:35:24 | |
a gift to the Pope in Rome. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
But the abbot died en route. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:31 | |
And today his gift is one of the most precious objects | 0:35:31 | 0:35:35 | |
in Renaissance Florence. | 0:35:35 | 0:35:37 | |
THEY SPEAK ITALIAN | 0:35:45 | 0:35:47 | |
This is the oldest complete Bible in the world. | 0:36:21 | 0:36:25 | |
And it was made in England by the monks of Wearmouth-Jarrow. | 0:36:25 | 0:36:30 | |
The cover's new. The thing is huge, almost a foot deep. | 0:36:30 | 0:36:35 | |
It weighs 75 pounds. | 0:36:35 | 0:36:38 | |
And if I can open it... | 0:36:38 | 0:36:40 | |
..this beautiful text in columns, | 0:36:45 | 0:36:49 | |
one, two...four columns. | 0:36:49 | 0:36:50 | |
Written on skin. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:52 | |
500 sheep to make this Bible. | 0:36:52 | 0:36:55 | |
And here, diagrams showing how the whole Bible is laid out, | 0:36:55 | 0:37:00 | |
the pattern they've used. | 0:37:00 | 0:37:01 | |
And then, at the very front, | 0:37:04 | 0:37:06 | |
this beautiful... | 0:37:06 | 0:37:09 | |
If I can turn it very delicately... | 0:37:09 | 0:37:11 | |
This beautiful illuminated painting | 0:37:11 | 0:37:14 | |
of a scribe sitting in his study, | 0:37:14 | 0:37:18 | |
writing the Bible... | 0:37:18 | 0:37:21 | |
..with books behind him, with his inkwell there... | 0:37:23 | 0:37:26 | |
..with a knife for making corrections. | 0:37:28 | 0:37:30 | |
And the whole thing is most wonderfully painted. | 0:37:30 | 0:37:33 | |
The colours are alive still. | 0:37:33 | 0:37:36 | |
The pink of the books, | 0:37:36 | 0:37:37 | |
the deep mahogany colour of the library cupboard, the shelves there. | 0:37:37 | 0:37:42 | |
His robe in a red, with green. | 0:37:44 | 0:37:48 | |
The gold of the halo. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:50 | |
All done by craftsmen in Northumberland. | 0:37:50 | 0:37:54 | |
700 or so pages later, | 0:37:57 | 0:38:00 | |
you come towards the end of the Old Testament | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
and arrive at the New Testament, and, once again... | 0:38:04 | 0:38:09 | |
..this beautiful page, illuminated, of Christ in majesty, | 0:38:11 | 0:38:16 | |
with two angels, | 0:38:16 | 0:38:19 | |
and with the evangelists - Matthew, Mark, with the lion, Luke and John. | 0:38:19 | 0:38:26 | |
And the whole thing is singing, coming out of the page, | 0:38:28 | 0:38:32 | |
as though it was freshly done yesterday. | 0:38:32 | 0:38:35 | |
The lovely turquoise, the darker blue inside, the pattern around. | 0:38:35 | 0:38:40 | |
The extraordinary thing is that, for centuries, | 0:38:40 | 0:38:43 | |
they thought this work was done by Italian artists, that it | 0:38:43 | 0:38:47 | |
was inconceivable it could have been done by English artists. | 0:38:47 | 0:38:50 | |
But the experts are all now agreed that this is indeed English work. | 0:38:50 | 0:38:56 | |
This is a fine example of Britain being part of Europe, | 0:38:56 | 0:39:02 | |
part of the culture of Europe, | 0:39:02 | 0:39:04 | |
1,300 years ago. | 0:39:04 | 0:39:06 | |
The British Isles was emerging | 0:39:43 | 0:39:46 | |
as a cultural force in its own right. | 0:39:46 | 0:39:48 | |
But at the end of the 8th century, it all came under threat. | 0:39:48 | 0:39:54 | |
Nordic invaders - the Vikings - | 0:40:01 | 0:40:04 | |
sailed across the North Sea to plunder Britain's riches. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:09 | |
The Vikings spread out across a terrified land, | 0:40:25 | 0:40:28 | |
raping, pillaging, burning as they went. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:31 | |
The monks of Iona all murdered. | 0:40:32 | 0:40:34 | |
The kings of Northumberland and East Anglia captured | 0:40:34 | 0:40:38 | |
and their lungs ripped from their living bodies. | 0:40:38 | 0:40:41 | |
The King of Mercia so terrified he fled. | 0:40:41 | 0:40:44 | |
Only the kingdom of Wessex, | 0:40:44 | 0:40:46 | |
which stretched from here in Oxford right down to the West Country, | 0:40:46 | 0:40:50 | |
was still just about safe. | 0:40:50 | 0:40:52 | |
At this moment, a new prince came to the throne. | 0:40:52 | 0:40:55 | |
His name was Alfred of Wessex, Alfred the Great. | 0:40:57 | 0:41:02 | |
Inside the Ashmolean Museum, | 0:41:11 | 0:41:13 | |
there's a tiny treasure that reveals Alfred's brilliance as a leader | 0:41:13 | 0:41:18 | |
and the loyalty he inspired. | 0:41:18 | 0:41:21 | |
This beautiful object is the Alfred Jewel. | 0:41:28 | 0:41:33 | |
It's the most exquisite object. | 0:41:36 | 0:41:38 | |
It's in the shape of a beast at the front here, | 0:41:40 | 0:41:42 | |
and then this lozenge shape which has got crystal on the top. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:46 | |
And inside, the figure of a sort of man holding two flowers, | 0:41:46 | 0:41:53 | |
symbolising sight - | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
clarity of vision, if you like. | 0:41:56 | 0:41:59 | |
And the beast symbolising the dangers that face Britain. | 0:41:59 | 0:42:04 | |
And round it, the words, "Alfred ordered me to be made." | 0:42:04 | 0:42:11 | |
Now, what on earth would he have done that for? | 0:42:11 | 0:42:14 | |
The answer is that these, it's thought, | 0:42:14 | 0:42:17 | |
were given to people in his kingdom | 0:42:17 | 0:42:20 | |
as tokens of loyalty, | 0:42:20 | 0:42:23 | |
of their loyalty to him and his to them, | 0:42:23 | 0:42:27 | |
to try and restore a kind of balance and order | 0:42:27 | 0:42:30 | |
against the marauding Vikings. | 0:42:30 | 0:42:32 | |
As an object, it could've just been a jewel given as a token and kept. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:36 | |
Some say it could've had a stick coming out of here | 0:42:36 | 0:42:40 | |
and be used as a pointer for reading books. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:42 | |
Whatever the use of the jewel, it's clearly a sign | 0:42:44 | 0:42:47 | |
of considerable political nous on Alfred's part, | 0:42:47 | 0:42:50 | |
because this was a token of his loyalty to you | 0:42:50 | 0:42:54 | |
if you were prepared to give loyalty back to him. | 0:42:54 | 0:42:58 | |
Under Alfred's leadership, the Viking threat was contained. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:13 | |
But peace could only be preserved | 0:43:17 | 0:43:19 | |
if people were willing to learn from the past. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:22 | |
Alfred may have saved his kingdom, | 0:43:26 | 0:43:28 | |
but he was in despair about the sorry state into which it had fallen. | 0:43:28 | 0:43:32 | |
He was particularly worried | 0:43:32 | 0:43:33 | |
that learning had gone into complete decline. | 0:43:33 | 0:43:36 | |
He said in the old days people used to read Latin, | 0:43:36 | 0:43:38 | |
they could understand the important books | 0:43:38 | 0:43:40 | |
that, in his words, it was needful for people to know, | 0:43:40 | 0:43:43 | |
and he was determined to do something about it. | 0:43:43 | 0:43:46 | |
And he took radical action. | 0:43:46 | 0:43:48 | |
We know all this because of this book. | 0:43:48 | 0:43:51 | |
This is the oldest book in the English language | 0:43:53 | 0:43:57 | |
and it's a translation by Alfred himself | 0:43:57 | 0:44:01 | |
of a book written by Pope Gregory called Pastoral Care. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:06 | |
It's written in Old English | 0:44:09 | 0:44:11 | |
and, actually, it's incomprehensible, except to the expert. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:17 | |
I can't read even a word of it. | 0:44:17 | 0:44:20 | |
It's a sort of tract about leadership. | 0:44:22 | 0:44:25 | |
It explains how, if you're a leader, you should behave, | 0:44:25 | 0:44:28 | |
how you should deal with problems, how you shouldn't become arrogant, | 0:44:28 | 0:44:32 | |
how you should be humble - all those sort of things. | 0:44:32 | 0:44:34 | |
He was very worried that people in the past had had wisdom | 0:44:36 | 0:44:40 | |
and somehow it had got lost. | 0:44:40 | 0:44:42 | |
He starts it, if I can just turn - I have to be very careful here - | 0:44:44 | 0:44:48 | |
to this front page. | 0:44:48 | 0:44:50 | |
He starts with this introduction, | 0:44:50 | 0:44:52 | |
and what he's saying is, "I want this distributed to all the bishops | 0:44:52 | 0:44:57 | |
"and I want it read to the people. | 0:44:57 | 0:45:00 | |
"I want people to learn and understand." | 0:45:00 | 0:45:04 | |
SEAGULLS SQUAWK | 0:45:10 | 0:45:12 | |
HORN BLOWS | 0:45:12 | 0:45:15 | |
'Alfred's peace was not to last. | 0:45:26 | 0:45:29 | |
'England was to be conquered one last time.' | 0:45:29 | 0:45:33 | |
Normandy was the domain of a powerful duke, | 0:45:46 | 0:45:50 | |
William the Bastard, | 0:45:50 | 0:45:52 | |
known to us today as William the Conqueror. | 0:45:52 | 0:45:56 | |
1066 is one of the easier dates to remember in British history - | 0:46:07 | 0:46:11 | |
William the Conqueror's invasion of England. | 0:46:11 | 0:46:14 | |
But what kind of man was it | 0:46:14 | 0:46:16 | |
who undertook such an extraordinary enterprise? | 0:46:16 | 0:46:19 | |
He wasn't like Alfred the Great - | 0:46:19 | 0:46:21 | |
he wasn't interested in literature and fine jewellery. | 0:46:21 | 0:46:24 | |
No, his passion is defined by something quite different. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:27 | |
By this. | 0:46:27 | 0:46:29 | |
Stone. | 0:46:29 | 0:46:31 | |
And not just any old stone, | 0:46:31 | 0:46:33 | |
but the very special stone that comes from his home town of Caen. | 0:46:33 | 0:46:38 | |
When the young William became Duke of Normandy, | 0:46:46 | 0:46:49 | |
he set about rebuilding Caen. | 0:46:49 | 0:46:52 | |
He built a vast castle. | 0:46:59 | 0:47:01 | |
And he built churches and abbeys... | 0:47:06 | 0:47:09 | |
..all with the easy-to-cut, cream-coloured stone of Caen. | 0:47:10 | 0:47:15 | |
But the most impressive of William's buildings | 0:47:27 | 0:47:30 | |
is the Abbaye aux Hommes - the Abbey for Men. | 0:47:30 | 0:47:33 | |
The style of this building is called Romanesque - | 0:47:41 | 0:47:44 | |
literally, like the architecture of ancient Rome, | 0:47:44 | 0:47:47 | |
with its great monumental pillars, the arches on the top. | 0:47:47 | 0:47:52 | |
What William was using it for was to say, "In all its magnificence, | 0:47:52 | 0:47:56 | |
"it shows I have taken charge of Normandy, built here a great state." | 0:47:56 | 0:48:01 | |
In the summer of the fateful year of 1066, | 0:48:04 | 0:48:08 | |
this abbey had been consecrated, an abbot appointed here, freeing | 0:48:08 | 0:48:13 | |
William to focus on what was to be the boldest enterprise of his reign. | 0:48:13 | 0:48:18 | |
Perhaps we in England were a little bit distracted | 0:48:18 | 0:48:21 | |
by attacks from across the North Sea to fully understand | 0:48:21 | 0:48:24 | |
the meaning of buildings like this. | 0:48:24 | 0:48:26 | |
If we had, we'd have had some inkling of what was about to hit us. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:31 | |
This is the Bayeux tapestry. | 0:48:45 | 0:48:48 | |
It was commissioned to celebrate William's conquest of England. | 0:48:48 | 0:48:53 | |
And it begins with the events that led up to it. | 0:48:53 | 0:48:57 | |
The death of Edward the Confessor, King of England, | 0:48:57 | 0:49:01 | |
and the succession of a new king, Harold. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:04 | |
It's magical to be taken back 1,000 years | 0:49:09 | 0:49:12 | |
in this dark chamber, | 0:49:12 | 0:49:15 | |
to see history spelt out for you. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:18 | |
70 metres long, right down to the end, right round and the back, | 0:49:18 | 0:49:23 | |
and the story very vividly told. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:26 | |
But at the same time, along the friezes, top and bottom, | 0:49:27 | 0:49:30 | |
wonderfully vivid pictures, | 0:49:30 | 0:49:32 | |
some of them of Aesop's fables, some of little stories, | 0:49:32 | 0:49:35 | |
some nobody knows what they are. | 0:49:35 | 0:49:38 | |
Little details of farming life here - | 0:49:38 | 0:49:41 | |
ploughing, sowing | 0:49:41 | 0:49:44 | |
and a man killing birds with a sling. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:46 | |
It's not strictly speaking a tapestry. | 0:49:46 | 0:49:49 | |
It's actually needlework, sewn with wool onto linen. | 0:49:49 | 0:49:55 | |
I suppose the story that we know best | 0:50:00 | 0:50:02 | |
begins with the death of Edward the Confessor | 0:50:02 | 0:50:06 | |
and his burial in Westminster Abbey. | 0:50:06 | 0:50:09 | |
Westminster Abbey here with the hand of God blessing it. | 0:50:09 | 0:50:14 | |
And here, Harold receiving the crown, with his orb and his sceptre. | 0:50:15 | 0:50:21 | |
People looking on. | 0:50:21 | 0:50:23 | |
And then spies come across and explain to William in Normandy | 0:50:23 | 0:50:27 | |
what's happened in England - that Harold has seized the crown. | 0:50:27 | 0:50:31 | |
And here he orders ships to be built for an invasion, | 0:50:31 | 0:50:34 | |
so the first thing, to cut down the trees | 0:50:34 | 0:50:37 | |
and start building the ships. | 0:50:37 | 0:50:39 | |
Putting aboard suits of chain mail, needing two men to carry them. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:47 | |
And spears, arrows. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:50 | |
And the last stage is to get the horses on board these longships. | 0:50:51 | 0:50:57 | |
Very tricky, and they don't look particularly happy. | 0:50:57 | 0:51:00 | |
The boats set sail, they cross over to Pevensey... | 0:51:01 | 0:51:05 | |
..land safely at Pevensey, go ashore, | 0:51:07 | 0:51:09 | |
and then the real task begins. | 0:51:09 | 0:51:11 | |
But first the army has to be fed. | 0:51:11 | 0:51:14 | |
There's a tureen there being boiled, | 0:51:14 | 0:51:17 | |
they're sort of chicken kebabs, they look like, | 0:51:17 | 0:51:20 | |
and here, William feasting with his men. | 0:51:20 | 0:51:24 | |
And then they're preparing for war. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:27 | |
They build a castle of wood at Hastings. | 0:51:27 | 0:51:30 | |
William's followers set light to some of the Anglo-Saxon houses. | 0:51:30 | 0:51:34 | |
A woman leading her child away from her burning house. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:38 | |
And then battle commences - quite slowly to start with, | 0:51:38 | 0:51:43 | |
with the cavalry charging against Harold's forces. | 0:51:43 | 0:51:46 | |
Heads chopped off, hands chopped off, | 0:51:50 | 0:51:52 | |
and the battle rages all day long. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:55 | |
In the confusion of the battle, | 0:52:04 | 0:52:07 | |
as swords and axes clang against shields, | 0:52:07 | 0:52:09 | |
a dangerous rumour sweeps William's army that he has been killed. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:14 | |
So what does he do? | 0:52:14 | 0:52:16 | |
He turns round in his saddle, lifts his helmet off | 0:52:16 | 0:52:20 | |
and shows himself to his troops, | 0:52:20 | 0:52:24 | |
and the battle goes on. | 0:52:24 | 0:52:26 | |
And then we come to the famous design of Harold with the arrow in his eye. | 0:52:34 | 0:52:40 | |
Nobody quite knows whether that is what happened. | 0:52:42 | 0:52:44 | |
And here, slaughtered. | 0:52:44 | 0:52:46 | |
I've seen this many times. Every time I see it, I have to say, | 0:52:51 | 0:52:55 | |
it just brings the whole story of William's invasion of England alive. | 0:52:55 | 0:53:00 | |
You really feel here... Because this was done by people | 0:53:00 | 0:53:02 | |
living only a few years after the event, | 0:53:02 | 0:53:05 | |
you really feel the power and the passion that went into it. | 0:53:05 | 0:53:09 | |
It's a completely magical work of art. | 0:53:09 | 0:53:14 | |
'It used to be thought that the Bayeux Tapestry was | 0:53:34 | 0:53:36 | |
'made by craftsmen from Normandy. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:39 | |
'But it is now generally accepted that it was | 0:53:39 | 0:53:42 | |
'made by nuns in Canterbury, working on the orders of their new masters.' | 0:53:42 | 0:53:48 | |
HE SPEAKS FRENCH | 0:53:48 | 0:53:50 | |
Ah, non! | 0:53:53 | 0:53:55 | |
Merci. Au revoir, merci. | 0:54:26 | 0:54:29 | |
William's rule would transform England. | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
The customs and habits of Normandy swept away the Anglo-Saxon past. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:53 | |
French would become the language of power and influence. | 0:54:55 | 0:54:59 | |
And to stamp his authority from the first, | 0:55:01 | 0:55:04 | |
William began building, | 0:55:04 | 0:55:06 | |
just as he had in Normandy. | 0:55:06 | 0:55:09 | |
The White Tower in London, one of our most famous buildings. | 0:55:24 | 0:55:29 | |
It's come to symbolise Britain and Britishness, | 0:55:29 | 0:55:33 | |
but it began life as nothing of the sort. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:36 | |
This was a symbol of Norman conquest, | 0:55:36 | 0:55:38 | |
an astonishing building on a scale that hadn't been seen | 0:55:38 | 0:55:42 | |
since the Roman conquest 1,000 years before. | 0:55:42 | 0:55:45 | |
The message - | 0:55:45 | 0:55:48 | |
"Here we are. Here we stay. Resistance is futile." | 0:55:48 | 0:55:53 | |
This is William's chapel at the heart of the tower. | 0:56:16 | 0:56:18 | |
It's more like a prison keep than a church. | 0:56:18 | 0:56:21 | |
But the interesting thing is the stone it's built of, | 0:56:23 | 0:56:27 | |
which is used right through the tower, this white stone, | 0:56:27 | 0:56:30 | |
easily carved, good for making these tops to the columns... | 0:56:30 | 0:56:36 | |
This is William's favourite stone, brought from Caen in Normandy. | 0:56:38 | 0:56:43 | |
It's not enough just to accept | 0:56:44 | 0:56:46 | |
Norman nobility, Norman clergy, the French language - | 0:56:46 | 0:56:51 | |
William was insisting we accepted his buildings too, | 0:56:51 | 0:56:55 | |
and even the very materials they were made of. | 0:56:55 | 0:56:59 | |
It's not much fun being conquered, and for Anglo-Saxon England, | 0:57:08 | 0:57:12 | |
the effect of the Norman conquest was devastating. | 0:57:12 | 0:57:14 | |
It was the end of life as they knew it. It wasn't just having | 0:57:14 | 0:57:17 | |
to give up all their land, learn a different language, | 0:57:17 | 0:57:20 | |
adopt a different style. | 0:57:20 | 0:57:21 | |
It was that everything that went before was treated as inferior, | 0:57:21 | 0:57:25 | |
and we know now that that wasn't true. | 0:57:25 | 0:57:28 | |
We've seen a thousand years of treasures, | 0:57:28 | 0:57:31 | |
everything from helmets and shields | 0:57:31 | 0:57:33 | |
to jewels and illuminated manuscripts, | 0:57:33 | 0:57:35 | |
a time of ingenuity and originality and imagination - | 0:57:35 | 0:57:41 | |
an era to celebrate. | 0:57:41 | 0:57:44 | |
In the next age - knights in shining armour. | 0:57:54 | 0:57:58 | |
Saints and miracles. | 0:57:59 | 0:58:02 | |
Royal splendour. | 0:58:04 | 0:58:07 | |
It's the age of worship. | 0:58:09 | 0:58:11 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:31 | 0:58:34 |