Arcadia Discussion Zone

Consider: An antiquary by the name of Louis Douvrier devised the king’s emblem as a Sun darting its rays onto the earth with the words Nec Pluribus Impar – Not unequal for many - A curious phrase using a double negative. Throughout May Day [BELTANE] in 1664 and three years after the death of Cardinal Mazarin, Louis XIV, then 26 years old held a fête at Versailles for seven days. His attendees comprised of six hundred guests complete with their suites and all of their expenses were defrayed. All the entertainment was paid for out of the king’s coffers, nothing was wanting. Monuments were erected to Greek and Roman deities and according to Voltaire had “much magnificence in taste” and “was a marvel”. The proceedings began with a kind of tournament in which heralds-at-arms, pages and equerries carried devices and shields which had, written in gold, verses composed by Perigni and Benserade about persons of antiquity and of legends. They were “armed in the Greek fashion”. The king impersonated Ruggerio who, legend says, was imprisoned along with his Christian Knights by Alcina on her enchanted Isle and fell under her spell. Alcina was later to become a full opera by Frideric Handel. Molière’s actors played the parts in a procession and the central part in all the festivities. On the first day a Golden Chariot 18 ft high, 24ft long and 15ft wide led a parade and the actor La Grange played Apollo. A decrepit figure with wings and a scythe was portrayed by M Millet the coach driver which signified Time. At Apollo’s feet sat the Four Ages as described by Virgil; Bronze, Silver, Gold and Iron they were played by Mlle de Brie, M Hubert, Mlle Molière who played the Golden Age and M Du Croisy. The twelve hours of the day and the twelve signs of the Zodiac walked in double file alongside Apollo’s chariot followed by the knights of Ariosto’s epic, portrayed by the French nobility. At night the actor Lully dressed as Orpheus conducted a band of thirty four musicians, who played by candlelight a ballet for the Signs of the Zodiac and the Four Seasons. This latter group were mounted on different animals for the different seasons. Mlle du Parc rode a Spanish horse representing spring. Her husband riding an elephant represented summer. La Torillière representing autumn rode a camel and winter was represented by M Béjart who rode a bear. Molière himself played Pan.

One would at best feel that this openly pagan gathering would have been nothing more than a high spirited king’s court party, however Apollo played by La Grange gave a speech at this procession which revealed the King’s intention to lay claim to the Spanish crown as the lawful inheritance of his wife. As part of the Peace of the Pyrenees that ended the Franco-Spanish War five years earlier in 1659, Marie-Thérèsa of Austria had renounced her rights to the Spanish Crown even though she was the daughter of the king of Spain. In this speech of Apollo La Grange judged that the Queen was the legitimate owner of her mother’s possessions in the Spanish Netherlands, in which the right of dévolution existed. King Louis XIV subsequently backed up his claim with an invasion of the Spanish Netherlands and by doing this ultimately took the Spanish Crown back for his grandson. In other words the king used this gathering to proclaim his intentions of expanding the Bourbon power over Hapsburg Spain and its territories. It was in 1685 that Louis XIV took possession of the painting called Les Bergers d’Arcadie by Nicolas Poussin but kept it hidden away in Versailles.

Even after centuries of modernisation Paris still bears the distinct mark of Louis XIV who reigned for 72 years. The Louvre museum was once his palace and Louis XIV’s Minister of Arts, Jean-Baptiste Colbert saw the remodelling of the Louvre as a way to assert the monarch’s presence. A year after this at Versailles in 1665 the great architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini came back to Paris to complete a new façade for the east wing of the Louvre.

“Two contrary desires share my heart, glory to publish all that at the great day, and to jealously keep this treasure without ever saying anything. My whole life needs to hesitate and I awake in the same moment that I die….. By the celibacy which is imposed on them the priests are the best guards of treasures than one can conceive…..A priest, because it is concerned [with] Sky and Earth, must meditate on the relationships of astronomy with the geography…..With the difference in the phenomena which should be seen to believe, Cromleck of RLB [Rennes les Bains] is seen only when one believes in it, nothing is really proven there, not even the roulers or hones it posed which will appear readily to the whims of nature.”

Revelation 12:1
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

"On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed" (Codex Justinianus lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; trans. in Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, p. 380, note 1).

Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as "Voltaire", was only a callous teen-ager by the time Louis XIV died.

Circle 1 centred on Esperaza. Contains the churches of les Sauzils, St Ferriol, Granes and Coustaussa.
2 miles 1586 yards 2 foot 5 inches.
Circle 2 Containing Laval church, Bezu church, Esperaza and Coustaussa churches on the circumference.
2 miles 1670 yards 10½ inches
Circle 3 centred on Coustaussa church, with the track ways at Combe Loubiere and Esperaza church on the circumference.
2 miles 1580 yards 1 foot 7¼inches
Circle 4 Containing Bugarach church, St Just church, Coustaussa church, Serres church and Rennes le Chateau.
2 miles 1588 yards 9½ inches
Circle 5 Containing Terroles church, Castillou church and again Coustaussa church.
2 miles 1589 yards 1 foot

“In the Aude, the peasants rather believe in the malignant spirit, the fairies and the underground geniuses than with the Virgin and the Angels”

."My dear Roseline, who died on 6 August 1967, the Feast of the Transfiguration, while leaving the Zero Meridian by car." (p. 108)

Roscoe, like your articles about the sun allignments, I read before of your articles of soulane "sun lane" as you explained.

A few months ago I visited Slane in Ireland, the place according to the legends where Dagobert II was hiding on the Hill of Slane.
Isn't it strange that also this place is well known about his"135-mile equinox alignment" and this has everything to do with the sun and star allingments......

"Patrick's Journey from Inbher Colpa to Slane as his "equinox journey". It is tied in with Neolithic cosmology. In the Neolithic, the sun at Spring Equinox was above the giant man figure of Orion - the huge light bearer of the sky.
At autumn equinox, the sun was housed in Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer. Looking in the direction of Slane at the time of Autumn Equinox in the Neolithic, one would have been looking towards another giant man of the sky, Ophiuchus, grappling with the snake."
(Note....I compared this with "Dagobert is said to have grown into a man 'at the Monastery of Slane', and attended the court of the High King of Tara.")

Recently, we've discovered just how astonishing the architects of ancient alignment were.

At the moment of the above sunset, we were looking in the direction of Slane and also Croagh Patrick, following a sacred pathway to the stars."

The source and more about Slane and the allignments......http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/slane/index.html......sun allignments.......http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/slane/saint-patrick-equinox-journey.html

You're talking that some people have rebuild such allignments in France, but in the RLC area is it possible that the "place names" and the spots they used are very ancient?

And talking about Mucho in the other topic, the painting from villa Bethanie "spirit of spring" couldn't that be a picture of "Beltane"?

According to Wilfrid's later biographer, Stephen of Ripon, Wilfred left Biscop's company at Lyon, where Wilfrid stayed under the patronage of Annemund, the archbishop. Stephen says that Annemund wanted to marry Wilfrid to the archbishop's niece, and to make Wilfrid the governor of a Frankish province, but that Wilfrid refused and continued on his journey to Rome. There he learned the Roman method of calculating the date of Easter, and studied the Roman practice of relic collecting. After an audience with the pope, Wilfrid returned to Lyon

It was the discrepancy between the Iona and Roman calculations of Easter which caused the Synod of Whitby to be held, St Wilfrid giving the case for the Roman method. An important figure in the convocation of the synod was Alchfrith, Oswiu’s son and sub-king in Deira. In the early 660s, he expelled Ionan monks from the monastery of Ripon and gave it to Wilfrid, Alchfrith’s position in the royal house, together with his promotion of Wilfrid, who ensure that he would be the spokesperson for the Roman position at the synod. Wilfrid’s advocation of the Roman Easter has been called, “a triumphant push against an open door”, since most of the Irish had already accepted the Roman Easter and for this reason Iona “was already in danger of being pushed to one side by its Irish rivals”

Yes My research is now taking me to Ireland and to Brittany. Dagobert IIs first wife was Matilda, a Celtic Princess who died in 670 giving birth to their third daughter. They were introduced by St Wilfrid of Lindisfarne.

Dagobert's first and only wife was a fellow Frank, Mathilda of Metz, who he didn't marry until his return to Austrasia in 676. He'd been a tonsured monk at Slane.

TCP

Dagobert's first and only wife was a fellow Frank, Mathilda of Metz, who he didn't marry until his return to Austrasia in 676. He'd been a tonsured monk at Slane.

Have you documentary evidence for:

1) The marriage?
2) That Dagobert was a tonsured monk at Slane?

I was under the impression that she was an Anglo-Saxon duchess that he married while in exile.

Dagobert's first and only wife was a fellow Frank, Mathilda of Metz, who he didn't marry until his return to Austrasia in 676. He'd been a tonsured monk at Slane.

TCP

Dagobert's first and only wife was a fellow Frank, Mathilda of Metz, who he didn't marry until his return to Austrasia in 676. He'd been a tonsured monk at Slane.

Have you documentary evidence for:

1) The marriage?
2) That Dagobert was a tonsured monk at Slane?

Nope, nobody does, outside of Stephanus' Life of St. Wilfrid, which was written ex post-facto and probably not 100% reliable. I know that Ian Wood and Jean-Michel Picard (the latter especially) are critical of Stephanus' hagiography and Picard doubts that Wilfrid had much if anything to do with Dagobert's return.

TCP

It seems that circa, 1900 to 1500 B.C., the south of France was a major centre for trepanation (Sudhoff, 1929; Stewart). Examples of this practice have also been reported from many regions of Neolithic Europe, and in particular, Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, USSR, the Balkans have revealed quite a large number of skulls. In Europe trepanned skulls became rare after the Neolithic era, partly because in the later Bronze age and La Tène period the dead were mostly cremated (Regnault, 1936). Nevertheless a few examples are available from France (Guiard), Scandinavia (Piggott), Germany (Brunn, Breitinger), Czechoslovakia (Matiegka), Hungary (Bartucz), Rumania (Russu and Bologa), Bulgaria (Boev), USSR (Bobin) and other countries.

From Ireland several interesting examples are available. A trepanned skull of a thirteen-year-old child, probably early Christian, was recovered from Collierstown in Co. Meath (Martin, 1935). Two further trepanations each of late Mediaeval date, one from Ballinlough (Co. Laois) and the other from Maganey Lower (Co. Kildare), were found during recent excavations. A fourth specimen was discovered in a stone-lined grave at the Abbey of Nendrum on Mahee Island in Strangford Lough (Martin). The abbey was destroyed in 974 A.D. by fire. It is highly likely that in those days "major surgery" was performed in monastic institutions (Fleetwood, 1951). Legend has it that Cennfaeladh, whose skull was fractured by a blow from a sword during the battle of Moyrath in Co. Down (637 A.D. ), was operated upon by St. Bricin, the Abbot of Tuaim Drecain, an accomplished surgeon and scholar (Fleetwood).

In Ireland?

The hagiographies of Dagobert's purported daughters St. Irmine of Oehren and St. Adela of Pfalzel put Mathilda's origins in England (rather than Ireland) and the marriage pre-676 to account for their ages. However it is unlikely that either was a daughter of Dagobert II or Mathilde.

TCP

Right, the Saintes thing is undoubtedly an embellishment after the fact, but the hagiography of Wilfrid, written almost contemporaneously with Dagobert and Wilfrid, has no apparent reason to even mention Dagobert (who after all was pretty insignificant at the time) if he and Wilfrid weren't actually acquainted and it says he married her in Britain - their acquaintance, to me, raises questions about whether Dagobert was in fact in Ireland (or at least if he stayed there until his return to the mainland), or if he was rather in Britain, in their monastery system.