Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Friday 26 April 2013

Imperial memorabilia



A silver lock of Austrian emperor Franz Joseph's hair has sold for almost £9,000 at auction in Vienna.
A lock of Emperor Francis Joseph I of Austria's hair 
  
Image: ALEXANDER KLEIN/AFP/Getty Images/Daily Telegraph

Today's Daily Telegraph has a report about an auction sale in Vienna at which a lock of hair of the Emperor Francis Joseph sold for the equivalent of £8,900, and other mementos of the Emperor, such as a pair of cuff-links, were also snapped up, as indeed was a ring linked to the Corsican Ogre. The report can be seen here.


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