Found near Cley Hill, Warminster, in 1987; it’s the only one of its kind in the collection. Consisting of rock crystal set in a beaded gold frame, with a gold central setting in a cruciform design holding a lapis lazuli bead. The saft would have been an ivory or wood pointer, used as aid for reading.
Aestels from this period are very rare. The word aestel derived from the late Latin hastella, “a thick stick,” diminutive of hasta “spear, shaft”. It was used, like a finger, to follow early handwritten manuscript texts when reading, in the same way that the Yad is used in the Jewish synagogue for reading the Torah. The most famous example is the Alfred Jewel in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
An aestel was useful as most texts in the Western world were handwritten and often difficult to read until the German Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, around 1436. However, Gutenberg was not the first to use a book-printing process. Woodblock printing dates back to the ninth century, Chinese and Korean bookmakers were printing with moveable metal type by the 14th century.
In the ninth century, King Alfred of Wessex (AD871-899) sent ornate aestels’ to all the dioceses in Wessex to accompany a handwritten translation, from Latin into Anglo Saxon (Old English), of Pope Gregory’s four volumes of instructional texts named Pastoral Care. These aestels became a symbol of Alfred the Great’s desire to encourage spiritual learning throughout his kingdom.
Alfred the Great was the king of Wessex from 871 to 899. Wessex covered most of southern England at the time the River Thames was its northern boundary. During Alfred’s lifetime, Wessex was one of the seven kingdoms in England, and he dreamt of uniting England into one kingdom. This was finally achieved by his grandson, Aethelstan, in the 930’s.
Alfred protected Wessex from Viking invaders, defeating them at the Battle of Edington in 878. He then built fortified towns, known as burhs, to defend Wessex from further attacks and built the first English navy.
Alfred promoted education, law, and the Church. He introduced a law code and employed literate bishops as judges and royal officials to enforce it. Alfred revived education in Wessex to increase literacy and recruited clerical scholars from Mercia, Wales, and abroad. A court school was established to educate the king’s children, nobles’ sons, and “intellectually promising boys of lesser birth”. He ordered a series of Latin works that he considered “most necessary for all men to know” to be translated into the vernacular so that the texts could be read and understood by anyone who was literate.
According to the preface to Alfred the Great’s translation, a copy of Pastoral Care arrived in England with Augustine of Canterbury who Gregory had sent to Kent in 597 AD. The preface also details how Alfred translated the text and the reason for his project.
It outlines what Pope Gregory believed should be the clergy’s personal, intellectual and moral standards. Some thought the instructions were unrealistic. Gregory wrote this shortly after becoming Pope, probably around 590 AD, he later revised it.
Copies of Pastoral Care were likely only given to bishops. Alfred’s aim was to help them better train and supervise priests. With the manuscript came one of Alfred’s commissioned aestels to help Bishop follow the text.
The asetel is a thing of beauty with a clear functional use within Alfred the Great’s infrastructure. Acquisition of the Warminster Jewel was made possible with the help of Wiltshire County Council, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the V&A Purchase Grant Fund, and the L. J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation.
Volunteer Wendy Warwick White at The Salisbury Museum said, “the Warminster jewel’s connection to the people of that time, their history, how the object was used is fascinating, and putting the object into that context helps bring it to life.”
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The great bustard has a dignified slow walk but tends to run when disturbed, rather than fly.
The hen-bird on display at The Salisbury Museum was one of the last great bustards to be eaten in the town!
