I wrote previously on the vision for Nehemiah & Blake. It is time to move that vision forward. When Henry VIII dissolved all the monasteries in England, he ended an entire way of life, not only for the monks, but for the communities that were gathered around those abbeys and monasteries. In terms of land, much of the confiscated land went into the hands of favoured nobles who brought about a much more commercially-focussed land tenancy. In terms of writing, the dissolution forced the scribes out onto the street, who then had to fend for themselves by hiring out their services. The professional writer was in the process of being born, a process that led to Shakespeare. Without the dissolution of the monasteries, Shakespeare is perhaps unthinkable.
A twofold consequence of the dissolution of the monasteries is that it 1) began to put to rest the art of manuscript production, and 2) ended a particular tradition of spiritual writing. This tradition is bound up in the nature of producing manuscripts. Yet it is also explicitly tied to the medium of the monastery. Caedmon, England’s great mystical writers, the Venerable Bede, and the many unknown scribes who produced England’s illuminated manuscripts, all of them were “produced” by the monastery model. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, he ended that tradition.
The vision of Nehemiah & Blake is to resurrect that tradition in the context of contemporary England. The vision is not to slavishly try reproduce that model, but rather to discover it, probe it, question it, understand it and seek to find an equitable way in which the conditions that produced this kind of writing in England then can be transposed to the present to reproduce a similar kind of writing today for Nehemiah & Blake to publish. But the vision is larger than that. It wishes also to replicate for communities in England today, the benefits that the monasteries and abbeys provided for their communities.
Nehemiah & Blake has only the smallest inclination of what these conditions might be and might have been, but future blog posts will go towards exploring this topic. Any suggestions, insights or comments on this would be greatly appreciated.
