The Past is a Foreign Country

Apparently there was an age, far off in a previous millennium, when the Christian church in Britain stored up earthly treasures for itself and assiduously buried its talents whenever the privilege of martyrdom approached. The Galloway hoard, discovered a decade ago in Scotland and featuring a rock crystal jar bearing the boast of an evidently rather materialistic bishop, has now yielded up signs of a yet more archaic and uncivilised practice. From a runic inscription on a silver arm-ring, which was found alongside others bearing personal names, it seems that the holders of at least some of the hoard's spectacular wealth claimed to be mere guardians of communal property, rather than rich and privileged magnates in their own right. That persons of blatant and ostentatious privilege could abscond with vast quantities of treasure and still claim to be acting in the interests of "the community" speaks eloquently about the barbarity of the times.