In her book The Parthenon Enigma, author Joan Breton Connelly resolves a good deal of my ignorance.

One of the remarkable things about ignorance, perhaps the most remarkable thing, is that you don’t realize just how much you’ve got. To become informed, that uncomfortable, often embarrassing, realization is necessary.

The crux of Connelly’s argument is an explanation for the frieze which once ran around the upper wall of the Parthenon’s cella — until the English absconded with it. [BTW: The Greeks want it back.] Many interpretations of the frieze have been proffered, several so contradictory you’d think they’d cancel one another out, but none of them especially satisfying.

I probably bought the book because its publication caused so much consternation in the academic community — no bad thing in art history, science, or any academic discipline, for that matter. So I began reading in the middle, to encounter the substance of her argument, and then went back to the beginning and plowed my way through to the end. Not being an exceptionally good reader, I’m at it again. And, who knows, Dr Connelly may not have seen the last of me.

This isn’t the sort of book you casually recommend to friends, though I may change my mind. After all, she changed mine.

In one of the bracketing chapters, she contextualizes the Parthenon as the center, the focus, of what it meant to be an Athenian (Athenonai), relating the Acropolis to the four Panhellenic sacred sites¹ — Olympus, Delphi, Isthmia, and Nemea — where there is a coïncidence of four necessary, mutually-contributory aspects, no one of which can be considered apart from the others: a hero’s tomb, a temple, a festival built around those two, and a foundational myth. Even the Acropolis at Athens makes considerably more sense within this framework, though it is not one of the sites sacred in that same way. And so, in relieving me of a little of the ignorance I’ve borne these may years, I inevitably wonder what all this could mean for Agincourt.

Is there somewhere in the broad-brush panoramic view of Agincourt a place where physical elements coincide with social ritual, and reflect, through intent, coïncidence, or accident, some aspect of the community’s founding myth? Let me ponder this and get back to you.²

¹ The “festival” at each site consisted of athletic games dedicated to the deity associated there: Olympic Games to honor Zeus; Pithian Games at Delphi to honor Apollo; Isthmian Games to honor Poseidon; and Nemean Games to honor Zeus

² My gut reaction? Yes. The cemetery chapel at Saint Ahab’s, where there is indeed a coïncidence:

• A TEMPLE: The former Saint Ahab’s church, which had been used as a temporary place of worship at Grou, before a final relocation as the cemetery’s chapel
• A HERO’S TOMB: When Fr Manning’s body was discovered during construction of Christ the King, is was ceremoniously reburied beneath the chapel floorboards, the very chapel the priest had built ninety years before
• A FESTIVAL: Each subsequent funeral conducted there reminds the community of, not only one of its earlier and most energetic and innovative citizens, but also…
• A FOUNDING MYTH: A reminder of the tolerance for difference (of person, point-of-view, or principle) that has been an aspect of the community since its founding — despite recent expressions to the contrary.

With regard to Agincourt, the second definition applies. There are certainly places where my handling of the place has been rough and tumble. But the interesting aspect of the project is this: “history” can be “corrected”, as is the case with the Linn & Smith shoe repair shop in an as-yet-undiscovered location.

This delightful image has no identifying information, no postmark, not even the name of the photographer (since this is a “real photo” card, it may have been reproduced in very limited supply). The shop is obviously situated on what urbanologists would call a “gore corner”, an acute-angled street intersection, which you’d think would narrow the field. Well, not yet. But in the meantime, while I search for information, I’m also salivating at the prospect of adapting it for Agincourt. This is just too handsome, both as a building and as a photographic image, to let it get away.

Until today, I’d never thought of myself as a cobbler.

David Ignatius’ editorial in today’s Washington Post offers his insight to the absence of civil discourse today and posits a solution. It began the morning Jerry Falwell saw a newspaper headline announcing the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade. At that moment, for Falwell, at least, the goal of Evangelical Christianity was no longer the saving of souls; it had become the amassing of power. There may be other ways to explain the teflon presidency, but this satisfies me, as a convicted binarist. [I don’t think that’s a word.] I’m an Either-Or kind of guy. Sometimes Neither-Nor. But never Both–And.

How else to credibly explain Mitch McConnell or Lindsay Graham, among others, about to swear on the book they  profess to hold above all others that they will seek justice, despite their baser instincts. Both have prejudged the Senate trial a sham whose decision has already been written and merely awaits its moment of publication — as if it hadn’t already been. Which for me poses the question, How can they call themselves Christians?  Their every action suggests otherwise. Every community is peopled with those bearing Christian witness, while ignoring the testimony of scripture, which outlines in great and, as far as I can tell, abundant clarity the message articulated by Jesus while he was with us, leaving aside the matter of where he may have gone and whether he might return. I can distinguish the message from the messenger and accept its merit without assigning the label of “Truth”.

If, as seems apparent today, it’s possible to claim the label of “Christian”, yet act contrary to those beliefs I was taught as a child — which substantially “took”, I think — then it must also be true that there are those among us who act like Christians without actually intending to, because they either deny the label or have not yet heard its “good news”.

The question, “So what of Agincourt?” might be left unanswered. “Agincourt? So what?” Or I might newly entertain notions of Christianity as both label and practice and their four possible combinations, as they walk the streets of my fictional place and interact with all the zeal that we are capable.

By the way, the original title for this entry used the word “act”, which on reflection implies theater, playing a role, rather than behaving, which is what I had intended.

“Οὐ καταισχυνῶ τὰ ὅπλα τὰ ἱερὰ, οὐδ’ ἐγκαταλείψω τὸν παραστάτην ὅτῳ ἂν στοιχήσω· ἀμυνῶ δὲ καὶ ὑπὲρ ἱερῶν καὶ ὁσίων καὶ μόνος καὶ μετὰ πολλῶν. καὶ τὴν πατρίδα οὐκ ἐλάσσω παραδώσω, πλείω δὲ καὶ ἀρείω ὅσης ἂν παραδέξωμαι. καὶ εὐηκοήσω τῶν ἀεὶ κραινόντων ἐμφρόνως καὶ τοῖς θεσμοῖς τοῖς ἰδρυμένοις πείσομαι καὶ οὕστινας ἂν ἄλλους τὸ πλῆθος ἰδρύσηται ὁμοφρόνως·καὶ ἂν τις ἀναιρῇ τοὺς θεσμοὺς ἢ μὴ πείθηται οὐκ ἐπιτρέψω, ἀμυνῶ δὲ καὶ μόνος καὶ μετὰ πολλῶν. καὶ ἱερὰ τὰ πάτρια τιμήσω. ἵστορες τούτων Ἄγλαυρος, Ἐνυάλιος, Ἄρης, Ζεύς, Θαλλώ, Αὐξώ, Ἡγεμόνη.” — The Ephebic Oath as preserved by Stobaeus

Learning the Pledge of Allegiance was probably my introduction to civic notions of “patriotism”, though that word had not yet become part of my vocabulary. Within a year or two, though, when we got our first television, I distinctly recall news coverage of the hearings by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The senator had made unsubstantiated claims of the army and the government itself being riddled with Communists. And I also recall watching (kinescopes rather than live coverage, I suppose) the now famous exchange between attorney Joseph Welch and the senator: “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

At age nine I didn’t know what to make of that. In hindsight I should have been more concerned about the Boys Club leader Verle B***** who was quietly accused of molestation. Perhaps I wasn’t his type. But neither did I comprehend what Communism was nor why we had to root it out. Though we eventually studied small-C communism in civics class — when did those disappear from school curricula, by the way? — any awareness of Patriotism was learned by osmosis, I guess.

During the 1960s (my coming of age) “love of country” was a hotly contested issue and remains so today, as we find remarkably different and often contradictory ways of expression. How do you suppose Archers (the name for anyone from Agincourt; it’s a history thing) are divided on the topic? They are, after all, in the center of the 7th Congressional District, Steve King’s turf.

All this came to mind when I chanced upon something called the Ephebic Oath, taken by young Athenian men at about the age of eighteen as a step in achieving citizenship. I found a wonderful (and mercifully brief) explication, not only its role in that process, but also contrasting it with our own time and practice; contrasting the positions between civic oaths and those for military service was especially interesting. Your Ancient Greek is probably as rusty as mine, so here is an English translation:

Alexander McAdie, The Ephebic Oath and Other Essays (San Francisco / 1903)

The Ephebic Oath

“I will not bring dishonour on my sacred arms nor will I abandon my comrade wherever I shall be stationed. I will defend the rights of gods and men and will not leave my country smaller, when I die, but greater and better, so far as I am able by myself and with the help of all. I will respect the rulers of the time duly and the existing ordinances duly and all others which may be established in the future. Furthermore, if anyone seeks to destroy the ordinances I will oppose him so far as I am able by myself and with the help of all. I will honor the cults of my fathers. Witnesses to this shall be the gods Agraulus, Hestia, Enyo, Enyalius, Ares, Athena the Warrior, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone, Heracles, and the boundaries of my native land, wheat, barley, vines, olive-trees, fig-trees…“

Information accumulates in strange and wondrous ways. While searching for an image which had once illustrated the children’s stories of Robert Louis Stevenson (for his poem “The Land of Counterpane”) I stumbled upon the name of his illustrator: Myrtle Sheldon [1893-1939], about whom I had been ignorant. That’s the nice thing about ignorance: it can be fixed. Indeed, it invites “repair”.

Ms Sheldon’s talent will appear on the masthead for at least a few days. But I’m certain others of her drawings will come to light and become embedded in the story.

PS [13.08.2022]: Another website, the African-American Registry, includes Myrtle Sheldon but offers different dates (1886-1941) and an alternate birthplace, NYC. Trying to sort this out.

The Angevin Empire extended from the Pyrenees to Ireland. During the 12th and 13th centuries it was ruled by the Plantagenet dynasty of England (Henry II, Richard I, John and others) though some of its more interesting construction is found in western France, especially the town of Angers.

Structures from this place and time weren’t part of my undergraduate architectural history education — sorry Fred and Bill, I guess you had bigger fish to fry — so as I studied one of the church designs of William Halsey Wood (Mount Pleasant Baptist in Newark, no longer with us and a project in another context) and couldn’t quite put my finger on the signature masonry patterns of its tower, the Chateau d’Angers emerged from the undergraduate fog.

What I’m calling “Angevin masonry” is exemplified by the bastions at Angers but it can also be found some distance northeast in the Pays du Caux near the English Channel; I’m thinking particularly about the Manoir d’Auffay near the village of Oherville, where even more diverse kinds of masonry were used in even more aggressive patterns. There is no suggestion that Halsey Wood may have traveled to the continent but that surely doesn’t eliminate the possibility that he had seen examples of this distinctive constructive type published in books.

All of this falls in the category of “the way things work”, just me thinking out loud as the design of Fennimore county’s courthouse coalesces in my imagination. But even before I’ve had a chance to adapt these examples and apply them to Halsey Wood’s scheme for Agincourt, you can see where this is going. I hope.

Until well after the First World War, Agincourt’s motive power was the horse. I rode a horse once. Once was enough.

Horses are dignified creatures, majestic even, intelligent helpmates, partners in the advance of civilization. From the Gates of Thermopylae (the “hot gates”) to the Golden ones, humankind has depended upon the horse in the battlefield of war and plowing peacetime fields of grain.

My great-grandfather Peter Markiewicz was a teamster in Lemont, Illinois. His occupation kept its name long after horses were no longer involved. Moving things about town, back and forth from the Illinois Central depot at the foot of State Street across town and into the hinterlands, Peter hauled personal goods and the town’s early industrial output in his wagons.¹ Somewhere I’ve seen a posed photograph of him and a young co-worker seated on a large wagon hitched to two two enormous draft horses, possibly for advertising purposes; I’ll bet the horses had names. It’s good to know I come from that kind of stock. Could it also be the source of my admiration for the quiet strength of horses like his? And so it is that Agincourt has had its counterparts, its share of those sinewed bodies — some with two legs, some with four.

A real photo postcard view of Allen & Son has been my inspiration for Agincourt’s livery, Equus & Co., situated in the 100 block of SW Second Street. With improved photoshop skills, I may be able to alter that signage and convince you such a place once existed.

In reality (a word I use sparingly), Allen & Son once stood in San Bernardino, California and was the subject of a 1949 feature article in that city’s newspaper. The value of that article is the outline of its business history, the transition from horse to auto, the introduction of automotive repair, other adaptations to the new reality.

A better print of this will tell me more and help to flesh out a plausible parallel.

Oh, and The History Quill website may help me present the contributions of horses with greater authenticity.

¹ Peter had a brief public career as commissioner of highways for Lemont in 1905. You can read about it here. Roads were something more than a passing interest for him, obviously.