Annunciation

 March 25th is the Feast of the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, as described in St. Luke's gospel. It has always been a favourite subject with artists.

   There are certain conventions for the picture. It takes place in a cloister or loggia. Mary, wearing her traditional colours of blue, is often shown reading a book, which will be open at the prophecy of Isaiah, "Behold, a virgin will conceive". The archangel usually enters from the left; I don't know why. The picture often contains a lily, to symbolise Mary's purity, and a single shaft of light or a dove, to indicate the Holy Spirit.

   Many of these conventions are shown in this charming miniature by the Limbourg brothers.

The Bible gives us no information as to what time of year Jesus was born, but it seems right that the sacred God-child should be born at the winter sostice, in which case he would have been conceived at the spring equinox: hence this feast-day.

History: What happened in 535?

    In the year 535 A.D., during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, there occurred a major climatic event. For a whole year, the sun was described in different parts of the world as shining no brighter than the moon, there was frost in summer, snow in Mesopotamia, dust-storms and drought in China and widespread crop failures, resulting in many years of famine. Studies of tree rings in both Sweden and California have shown years of little or no growth around this time, and dust in Greenland ice-cores has included micro-organisms usually found in tropical seas. All this evidence points to a gigantic underwater volcanic eruption, probably in Indonesia (though some geologists have suggested in Iceland).

   This disaster was soon followed by a devastating outbreak of bubonic plague, possibly resulting from sudden climate change having caused the emigration of vast numbers of plague-bearing rhodents from the Central Asian steppe. At its peak in 542, tens of thousands were reported as perishing daily in Constantinople, with the final death-toll possibly as high as half a million.

   Prolonged drought in the years after the eruption would have been at least partly responsible for the appearance in Europe after 560 of the Avars, a nomadic Asiatic people, who settled in present-day Hungary and soon established a vast though short-lived empire covering much of central and eastern Europe. In 626 Avar armies appeared outside the walls of Constantinople itself, before they eventually withdrew. Meanwhile, pressure from the Avars forced Slavic tribes to migrate southwards into the Balkans and Greece, and drove the Lombards, a Germanic people, across the Alps into Italy, thus permanently changing the demographic map of Europe.

   Many historians see the onset of the "Dark Ages" in western Europe as dating from the mid-6th century, rather than from the end of the Roman Empire in the west in 476. 

The Emperor Justinian and his suite: a famous mosaic in the basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna.

Musings: Trumpian reasoning

 Donald Trump has accused Zelensky of Ukraine of trying to start World War 3. This is quite a reasonable statement, provided we accept that Britain started World War 2 by unnecessarily declaring war on Germany in September 1939 (much to Hitler's surprise, incidentally: he had not been expecting this) and then ensured vastly more deaths by rejecting Hitler's proposal for peace talks after the fall of France in 1940. 

   By the same reasoning, Belgium was largely responsible for World War 1, by insisting on resisting the German invasion of 1914. Without this unexpected Belgian resistance, which derailed the German military timetable, the Kaiser's armies would have taken Paris within a few weeks, and the war would have been over with minimal casualties.

  One must therefore presume that, according to Trumpian reasoning, the main responsibilty for high casualties and the danger of world war in the current conflict lies with Ukraine, for not instantly surrendering to the Russian attack.

  Trump also labelled Zelensky a "dictator" for postponing elections in Ukraine, and once again, there are parallels. In 1940, Hitler would, by Trumpian reasoning, have been perfectly justified in pointing out that Churchill was entirely without democratic credentials: he had never been elected Prime Minister by the British people, and that the general election due in 1940 had been postponed indefinitely. It did not take place till 1945: the longest period without an election since the 17th century; and when it was finally held, Churchill's government was overwhelmingly defeated! 

  I wonder whether Trump had these historical facts in his mind when making his accusations. What do you think?