Genevive Bujold As Anne Boleyn (Anne Of The Thousand Days, 1969)

Geneviève Bujold as Anne Boleyn (Anne of the Thousand Days, 1969)

Zeugma Mosaic of Icarus and Daedalus, Roman period, Turkey

I know you're a Charles II fan, so I'm asking if you've been to the Boscobel house? I would like to go there someday as I love visiting historic homes and stuff where famous people and historical figures have lived.

Yes, I've been to Boscobel! I took some pics:

This is the ancestor of the oak tree that Charles II hid in when he was trying to avoid the Roundheads:

Here's one of the priest-holes that Charles hid in. He was over 6ft and this priest-hole is tiny and not very tall so he had to stoop for about 48 hours:

And this mound in the garden is from the 17th century. A mound in the garden was a French idea; you can sit on top of it and observe your beautiful garden. Charles II actually sat on this mound on his second day hiding in Boscobel, and he read love poetry whilst the Penderell brothers kept watch:

I did some sketching for the first time in nearly a year and to the surprise of no one it’s Anne Boleyn

As for the ordinary people, during the middle ages and during the Renaissance, the masses rarely entered a church, and their private worship was directed toward an array of spirits and supernatural agencies, only some of them recognizably Christian. Alexander Murray's assessment of medieval Italian religious life is typical: 'substantial sections of thirteenth-century society hardly attended church at all.' [The Dominican prior Humbert of Romans] frankly acknowledged that the masses 'rarely go to church, and [when they do attend] rarely to sermons; so they know little of what pertains to their salvation.' Finally, Humbert admitted that the regular clergy were so involved in gambling, pleasure, and 'worse things' that they too 'scarcely come to church'. In similar terms, Blessed Giordano of Rivalto reported that, upon arriving in Florence to preach, he suggested to a local woman that she take her daughter to church at least on feast days, only to be informed that 'It is not the custom' (Murray 1972: 92-94).

Secularization, R.I.P.  (Section: The Myth of Past Piety), Rodney Stark (1999)