Pilgrimages were big business

Should you chose to go diving in your local river you might be as lucky as Gary Bankhead.

But take care, for river diving can be dangerous. I remember my parents warning me away from the edge of the riverbank at Durham because, many years earlier, they had witnessed a young man fall in and become trapped in the tree roots that stretch out under the surface of the water. Gary is a highly qualified diver as well as an archaeologist. 

He has recovered many small metal objects from various periods of history by searching the riverbed downstream of the twelfth century Elvet Bridge in Durham City ~ altogether 13,000 of them, probably “the largest collection of late- and post-medieval finds in the North of England: a unique regional/national resource.”

The location, so close to Durham Cathedral, is important. The Department of Archaeology in Durham University have adopted the site as a research project known as the Durham River Wear Assemblage (DRWA). Archaeology students and specialists work together to record and research the objects.

During the late medieval period, pilgrims would very likely have crossed Elvet Bridge on their way to St Cuthbert’s shrine in the apse beyond the high altar in Durham Cathedral. There is also the story of the bridge being so crowded with pedlars stalls that the Prince Bishop's sargeant ended up throwing stalls into the river when owners refused to move them.

Check pictures of some of the finds here: https://twitter.com/DiveIntoDurham

Pilgrimage was big business in medieval times. People travelled huge distances to and from sites like Durham Cathedral and Compostela in Spain. They needed taverns, food, and beds as they walked or, if they were lucky, rode. Every school child who has ever read Canterbury Tales will recall how Chaucer satirised the sale of religious relics sold to pilgrims.

Badges, crafted from lead alloys, were worn as proof of having completed a pilgrimage. One such 'souvenir' was recovered from the River Wear in 2011: a lead alloy cross with flared arms which had either been thrown or had fallen into the river.

Church Services and odd facts

Whenever I  think of church services it is usually when I'm writing, and usually  in a time period not my own. In a word, the services are not familiar to me as they would be for my characters. Until clocks were invented for the masses, folk told the time by listening to the ringing of church bells for services that went on throughout the day and night. They would recognise the position of the sun in the sky and how close to sunset and sunrise the day might be much better than we do today. I suspect our ancestors had a very good sense of time, far better than ours now we rely in clocks so much. 

 Prime, sometimes called Lauds, is the first service of the day after sunrise, the first hour, around 6am. This is followed at regular intervals by Terce, the third hour, Sext, the sixth hour, None, the ninth hour,Vespers and Compline, Compline being at 7pm in the winter and 8pm in the summer. No doubt monks went to bed after Compline because they had to rise and attend Matins, sometimes called Vigils,  two hours after midnight.  Once that was over they might manage another three hours sleep before rising for Prime.

The population of the UK was very low back then. In 1066  the history folk say England had between 2-3 million people, Ireland  under a million, Scotland and Wales  little more than half a million. The plague years knocked those numbers back quite considerably during the 1300s and into the 1400s and it was some time before the population made up those numbers and then began to grow.