One of the real surprises of the literary tour for me was to learn that the local pronunciation of the ‘Cestrian’ is ‘Sestrian’. Lucian calls the locals ‘Cestrenses’. My wonderful Welsh Latin teacher, the inimitable DBE, so hammered into my mind that Latin [c] is always hard, that I had never considered the possibility that it would be pronounced anything other than ‘Cestrian’. Nonetheless, the OED gives the pronunciation ‘Sestrian’. During the launch of the website in the Grosvenor Museum, we had a very interesting question which again picked up my pronunciation and suggested that the word is pronounced ‘Sestrian’ on analogy with places like Leicester and Worcester. The second element in these place names is Old English ‘ceaster’ which would have been pronounced with a ‘ch’, hence ‘cheaster’ (and whence the modern name ‘Chester’). We don’t know a great deal about medieval Latin pronunctiation, but it seems likely ‘Cestrenses’ was actually pronounced ‘Chestrenses’… Please do comment if you know why it’s pronounced ‘Sestrian’!

I’d like to close by thanking Sue Hughes of the Grosvenor Museum for all her work in organising the day and making it such a success, as well as all the Cestrians / Sestians / Chestrians who turned out and showed such enthusiasm for our project. Thank you!

The medieval city tour in progress

I’m now back in Swansea after a fantastic weekend in Chester for the Mapping Medieval Chester Festival, organised in partnership with the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. It was a wonderful event, with activities across the city, all inspired by our project research. Our project team enjoyed taking part in various aspects of the day, and meeting local people from Chester and the surrounding area, many of whom had their own particular knowledge of the city and its history to share with us.

Saturday’s Festival included a wide variety of activities and events: displays and special interactive exhibitions at the Grosvenor Museum, Living History at St John’s Church, medieval tours of the cathedral and special access to the medieval Water Tower, a literary tour of the city based on medieval texts, calligraphy workshops for adults and children, a presentation on the project website and opportunities to look at local history resources in the library. We’re hugely grateful to the Grosvenor Museum (and Sue Hughes especially) for organising the whole day, and to St John’s Church, Chester Cathedral, Chester Library and the Chester Archives for hosting and contributing to events. Please read on for a report on the day and some photos…

Mark reads some Lucian in the medieval marketplace

For the Mapping Medieval Chester project team, our day began with the ‘Literary Tour’ of Chester. We led a group of over 20 people through the centre of the city, stopping to read excerpts from the medieval texts edited as part of our research project. It was great to experience the texts in the locations which they described: for example, Lucian’s account of the marketplace at the centre of the city, Bradshaw’s story of Werburgh’s intervention against attackers at the Northgate, and (outside a local pub), a slightly less flattering Welsh perspective on Chester beer… Helen very bravely read Lewys Glyn Cothi’s ‘Satire on the Men of Chester’ – a rather defamatory and pretty colourful piece – but I’m pleased to say there was no retaliation from the locals! My favourite moment of the tours was up on the wall above the Northgate, when, in response to a request, Mark read a section of the Lucian in the original language. Several other walkers passed our group – all looking very impressed. We must have looked like the most learned tour group in Chester – hearing all about the city in medieval Latin…! It was such a pleasure to talk to the visitors in our tour group, who contributed to some very lively discussion about the textual sources and our knowledge of the medieval city.

Helen bravely reads the 'Satire on the Men of Chester'

 After the literary tours, we headed to St John’s Church to see meet the ‘medieval pilgrims’ who were busy talking to visitors there. Rev David Chesters had made a super model of the medieval reliquary which supposedly housed part of the true cross (an important feature in the Welsh poems), which was in pride of place on the altar. As we left, a couple of visitors were trying their best to get a noise out of Tom’s medieval bagpipes…

Helen, Mark and Catherine meet medieval pilgrims at St John's

Back at the Grosvenor Museum, all of us (Helen, Mark, Keith and Catherine, introduced by Liz Royles, the Keeper of Early History) joined together to give a presentation in the lecture theatre on the project digital resources and the research which led to them. We had a great audience of nearly fifty people, and our talk was followed by a really interesting question and answer session. Again, many people present clearly had a lot of expertise of their own, as well as those who were discovering medieval Chester for the first time. Several people remarked on how under-represented and under-sold the medieval heritage of Chester is, in comparison with all the emphasis on its Roman history. We definitely agree, and hope that we’ll be able to do more in the future to promote the amazingly rich medieval heritage of the city.

Presentation at the Grosvenor Museum: Mark, Helen, Keith and Catherine

 Before leaving for an end-of-project meeting, our team stopped by the museum galleries, where there was a great ‘hands on’ exhibition of medieval artefacts, as well as some wonderful documents loaned by the Chester Archives (with experts on hand to explain them). The gallery was really bustling and everyone, like us, was clearly enjoying the opportunity to handle original medieval objects.

Project displays at the Grosvenor Museum

Today, looking at our Mapping Medieval Chester group on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/groups/1204980@N21/) I can see that some of Saturday’s visitors have already uploaded their photos of medieval sites in Chester today. They’re fantastic and just what we hoped for. Our project focuses on subjective ‘mappings’ – and these photos show really well how every perspective on the city is different and reflects our own interests and experiences. Please do add your own!

The medieval literary tour team on the walls at Northgate

More photos of the Festival will be arriving later this week, from the professional photographer booked by the museum. I’ll post some more images here then. We’re delighted that so many people were involved in the event, and we had a great time. Thanks again to everyone who was involved.

Come and join us and discover more about Chester in the medieval period! You can come along to a calligraphy workshop and learn to write Gothic script, meet medieval pilgrims at St John’s Church, take a medieval-focused tour of the cathedral, explore the medieval Water Tower, join a literary tour of the city with project researchers – and much more! Some activities require booking in advance.

You can find further information about the day here. We hope to see you there!