Very Brief Histories Event

April 12, 2019 authise authise

The Very Brief History series is a collection of short, accessible introductions on histories, legacies, and movements that have shaped the world written by industry experts. Our event on Saturday features four speakers uncovering the lives of Thomas More, Immanuel Kant, Byzantine Christianity, and Julian of Norwich.

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The Event:

Saturday, 13 April 2019
10:00 – 16:00
Southwark Cathedral
London Bridge
SE1 9DA
£12.50 – £15

Get your tickets!

We will start the day at 10:05 with John Guy speaking on Thomas More, considering the life and legacy More left behind and why he continues to fascinate us today. Here’s a preview of the introduction to More’s life from Guy’s book:

The boy who would grow up to write Utopia and afterwards defy Henry VIII over his break with the papacy was born in Milk Street, off Cheapside near St Paul’s in London, probably on Friday, 6 February 1478. Named Thomas after Thomas Becket, the twelfth-century archbishop of Canterbury who had been bludgeoned to death in his cathedral by armed knights during vespers for opposing King Henry II, he was the second child and eldest son of John More, then a barrister, later a judge. His mother was Agnes Graunger, a London merchant’s daughter.

John More yearned for his son to be a lawyer like himself. He sent Thomas to learn the rudiments of English and Latin grammar at St Anthony’s School in Threadneedle Street, a short distance from Cheapside, and then found him a place at Lambeth Palace on the opposite bank of the Thames as a page in the household of Cardinal Morton, King Henry VII’s trusted councillor, archbishop of Canterbury and lord chancellor. One of the age’s most influential movers and shakers, Morton also held the post of chancellor of Oxford University, where Thomas More went to study when just 14 or 15. John More agreed to this, but insisted that his son should not stay for longer than a couple of years.

For all his bonhomie and love of practical jokes, the elder More was a man of steel. Around 1494 when his son was 16, he ordered him back to London. After two years studying at New Inn off the Strand, Thomas was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in Holborn, where he embarked on the rigorous course of readings, lectures and moots that would prepare him for his legal career.

Next will be Anthony Kenny at 11:15am explaining Immanuel Kant’s influence on the Enlightenment as one of the most influential Western philosophers of all time. We’re happy to share this preview from Kenny’s book:

Throughout his life, Kant believed in the existence of a personal God who was the wise governor of the universe, and he thought it necessary that everyone should share the same belief. He changed his mind over time, however, as to the best way of reaching and supporting that belief. He also varied in his attitude to the proofs of God’s existence that had been offered by previous philosophers. In his earliest venture in this area, The Only Possible Argument in Support of the Existence of God, he offers what appears to be a proof of the divine existence. He does not claim that it is a demonstration, by which he seems to mean a proof presented in syllogistic form and involving the rigorous definition of terms. Undoubtedly, though, he felt that his work prepared the way for such a demonstrative proof. But he warns us that the task involves a venture into the depths of metaphysics – ‘a dark ocean without coasts and without lighthouses’ (WM, 111).

Kant divides would-be proofs of God’s existence into two classes: those that start from experience of the actual world, and those that start from concepts of the merely possible. He names the former ‘cosmological arguments’ and the latter ‘ontological arguments’. The best-known cosmological arguments – though Kant does not mention them – are St Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways. The best-known ontological argument is Descartes’ claim that since God contains all perfections, and existence is a perfection, God must exist. Kant devotes much energy to exposing the weakness of this proof.

After lunch is Byzantine Christianity at 1:25pm with Dame Averil Cameron exploring key elements surrounding the enduring relevance of a spirituality derived from church fathers. Here’s a little preview from Cameron’s book:

‘Byzantium’ and ‘the Byzantine empire’ generally refer to the empire ruled from Constantinople (modern Istanbul) and lasting from the dedication of the city by the Emperor Constantine in ad 330 until its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. But there are some problems here. First, the term ‘Byzantium’ is modern and was not used by the Byzantines themselves (they called themselves Romans). Second, Constantinople was captured by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and came under Latin rule until 1261, when the exiled Byzantines regained the city and re-established themselves there. Third, although Byzantium was indeed an empire for most of its history and ruled extensive territory, its size varied greatly at different periods. From its height after the wars of the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century, it lost much of its territory in the east as a result of the Arab conquests but recovered and grew again in the tenth to twelfth centuries. After the capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, it was reduced to several small enclaves or statelets ruled by various members and branches of the imperial family. The Byzantines from Nicaea recovered the city in 1261 but the territory ruled from Constantinople in its final phase was tiny compared with the empire’s former glory.

For 150 years after its foundation, Constantinople was the seat of government of the eastern part of the Roman empire, and there were also Roman emperors ruling in the west. But the language of culture and administration in the east was Greek rather than Latin, and the gradual divergence of the eastern and western churches soon became apparent.

This book will leave these caveats aside and understand Byzantium and Byzantine as referring to the whole long period from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries.

We will end the day with Dr Janina Ramirez and Julian of Norwich, a woman who over 600 years ago wrote what is now considered one of the greatest works of literature in English. Enjoy this excerpt:

Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love is as unique for what it is not as for what it is. It is classed as a mystical text, since it focuses on a set of individual visions and explores a personal understanding of divine matters. Yet it is unlike other mystical texts of the time in many ways because it speaks to ‘all fellow Christians’ rather than one reader. Julian’s femininity brings a new twist to the themes handled by Hilton, Rolle and the Cloud-author, in particular with regard to God’s unconditional love as mother. Unlike other fourteenth-century religious texts, Julian’s is not founded on scholasticism or theological texts, it is not biblical in focus, and there is no mention of the multitude of biblical characters, from Adam and Eve to the Apostles. It is not instructional and gives no direct guidance on how Christians should live their lives. It is not like other vernacular literature, such as Chaucer or Langland, in that it has no cast apart from Julian herself, God, Mary and Christ. It is not poetry, yet it is poetic. It is from the fourteenth century, and yet it seems timeless.

It is the work of one remarkable woman who has contemplated a set of personal visions within a single room for decades. The idea of being walled up in one room for the rest of our lives – more than two decades in Julian’s case – may sound like a living hell. That men and women throughout the medieval period chose this life chimes with our modern notions of the time as backwards, superstitious and ignorant. However, the life of an anchoress was something middle-aged women like Julian could embrace. If she were a widow or unmarried, there were four options she could choose from: marry again, become a celibate laywoman, enter a convent or become an anchorite. Julian chose the latter.

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Get our Very Brief Histories, now on sale 3 for the price of 2!

The full collection of Very Brief Histories includes:

Jesus by Helen Bond
Thomas Aquinas by Brian Davies
Florence Nightingale by Lynn McDonald
The Enlightenment by Anthony Kenny
William Tyndale by Melvyn Bragg
Thomas More by John Guy
The Reformation in England by Alec Ryrie
Johann Sebastian Bach by Andrew Grant
Paul by John M.G. Barclay
Julian of Norwich by Janina Ramirez
Immanuel Kant by Anthony Kenny

Check out our giveaway on Twitter, @SPCK, for your chance to win a stack of Very Brief History books! We can’t wait to see you at the event tomorrow!