Church of St. Mary the Virgin (interior)
Annotations
The interior of the Anglo-Saxon (late 8th-early 9th century) church of St. Mary the Virgin, Deerhurst, Gloucestershire.
The interior of the Anglo-Saxon (late 8th-early 9th century) church of St. Mary the Virgin, Deerhurst, Gloucestershire.
This object, found in the early 7th-century Sutton Hoo ship burial, is thought to be either a whetstone or a sceptre, perhaps similar to the thuuf mentioned at the end of HE 2.16. Colgrave-Mynors notes: "An object found at Sutton Hoo in the burial ship ... is supposed by some to be a royal standard of some kind ... Bede probably got the word tufa from Vegetius [Dē Re Militārī 3.5]. The Old English word thuf (tuft of feathers or foliage) with which he equated it, suggests that the standard was bushy or covered with foliage..." (p. 192, n. 3).
See:
"Whetstone from the Sutton Hoo ship burial." British Museum.
"Whetstone or Sceptre?" Medieval Histories (7 November 2013). Web.
This Anglo-Saxon warrior's helmet was discovered in the Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939, which is considered by some historians to have been the tomb of Rædwald, king of the East Anglians, who died c. 624.
The Priory of St. Mary the Virgin in Deerhurst was founded sometime before 804, and was an important foundation in the kingdom of the Hwicce. One of Deerhurst's monks, St. Alphege, became the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was martyred by the Danes in 1012.
This photograph of the interior of the surviving church shows the high Anglo-Saxon double windows in the church tower. The arched windows and lower arches in the nave are of a later date; like most medieval churches, it ws altered and renovated numerous times over the centuries. The church contains several Anglo-Saxon carvings, and the best-preserved Anglo-Saxon baptismal font in England. It also contains later medieval stained glass and brasses.
Reference:
Friends of Deerhurst Church. "A Brief History of Deerhurst and Its Churches."