Life in Narnia

A prayer for the refreshment of the spirit

We’re not going to talk about Ukraine today

I’m data gathering for the second instalment of The Situation. I’m hesitant for the exact reason you’d expect; I’m not sure I’m getting accurate information about what exactly is and isn’t happening, who is doing what, in Ukraine right now. I reiterate that I am no expert, but only have some training in looking things up and asking questions, then collating data to have it make some kind of sense within a particular framework. Back in the day, that’s all anyone ever expected of journalists and I still think it’s the only honest way to do that profession. It was when journalists started being looked upon as oracles of truth and creators of reality that things started falling apart.

Anyway, I’ve been finding out some interesting things *around* The Situation that might help us create a context that can begin to make sense of some of the questions, so I’ll be putting that together later this week. I wish I could do better, I wish I could actually give answers, but I’m afraid I can’t. But we can at least start to come toward a more solid understanding of why it’s happening, to help peer through the forest of our own culturally conditioned responses.

But for the moment, I’m going to step back a bit. Let’s take a few moments for refreshment of spirit and maybe remember some of the good things in the world that are worth fighting for.

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Note: Substack’s editor page is telling me that what with all the photos and videos, this post is “too long for email” - so if you’ve received it in your email inbox and want to see all of it, don’t forget to click the link and read the rest on the World of Hilarity main page. It’s some good stuff; you won’t be sorry.

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The Race of the Ring - Narni’s festa of San Giovenale

I thought you all would enjoy some of the photos and videos I’ve taken over the last couple of weeks here in Narni. We’ve been having our annual medieval festa for the two weeks surrounding the feast day of their patron saint, San Giovenale (Juvenal), the town’s first Christian bishop of the 4th century.

The cavalliere of Terziere Mezule in their black and white livery.

It culminates in the exciting “Corso all’Anello,” - the Race of the Ring - an equestrian competition in which contestants on horseback gallop around the track catching rings on the ends of their lances as they fly past. I was not only happy to have gone to the races, to sit in the bleachers and cheer, but to have the team of our Terziere, Mezule, win! 

One-of-a-kind race, which sees two riders opposing each other in the oval amphitheater of Campo de li Giochi (San Girolamo Stadium) in absolute precision to hit the 3 rings, which with an automatic mechanism releases the last ring to the rider late on the lap. A very large audience to support the 9 jousting knights "hired" by the 3 historical neighbourhoods in which the city is divided as in 1371, the year in which the texts of the town of Narnia are found and its history begins to praise. Terziere Mezule, located under the Rocca dell'Albornoz, Terziere Fraporta or De Mezzo and Terziere Santa Maria from the magnificent Cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Maria Impensole to juggle for the 50th Palio of modern history but above all to give credit to one of the magnificent cities built in archaic¹, Etruscan and Roman times. 

The Festa di San Giovenale

The two-week long festa is opened by a ceremony where the mayor rides through the town, preceded of course by appropriate fanfare and drums, making the announcement to all the people of the respective Terziere (“Tair-tzee-air-ay”). Each of the town’s three ancient divisions, maintain horse teams for the race, train riders and take care of the horses, make and maintain the costumes, instruments and all the trappings for parades and drum and trumpet teams.

Starting from the central piazza. The horse was a bit skittish of the crowd, and so were we of him.

A bite to eat at the forno, before carrying on.

At their first stop, a small piazza in front of a “forno” - a kind of restaurant that serves pizza and roast meats (it means “oven”), everyone gets a bite to eat and a drink of beer. Each Terziere maintains three “Hosterie” that put on large medieval style dinners every night of the festa.

Then it’s the slow march through the streets to the next two stops to do it all over again. The Piazza Garibaldi, then up the steep stair-streets to the last stop.

Two weeks of medieval events

One of the events of the festa is an all day medieval market. There’s a small subculture of people here - rather like our North American re-enactors - whose hobby is doing these traditional hand crafts and showing their work at the many medieval festa markets up and down the country every summer.

This guy makes violins as his day job,

and enjoys researching and recreating these beautiful medieval instruments.

If you look closely at the one on the far right, you’ll see it has a crank on the bottom. You turn it, and it turns a wheel mechanism that is set into the body of the sound box so that it contacts the strings. As you crank the handle the wheel, covered in a tire of leather and treated with rosin, plays the strings as would a violin bow. The mechanism is very similar to that of the hurdygurdy (which are also popular at the festas), only without the keyboard, which was a later development.

Some will remember from elsewhere that I bought three sheets of hand made paper from Mario, who lives in Fabriano a famous paper-making town in Marche, who also makes hand made sheep skin vellum.

Streets of the old town decked out in their Terziere colours.

The three nights leading up to the race, the riders are blessed in ceremonies in the patronal church of each Terziere.

This was Mezule’s blessing on Friday night in the little church of Santa Margherita, close to where I live. These events are taken very seriously; it isn’t what we’d call LARPing. These young men are the riders, the cavallieri (knights), who will represent their town in the competition on Sunday. Santa Margherita is a real church, the convent chapel of a former Benedictine nuns’ monastery, and that is a real priest, Don Sergio, Narni’s parish priest, blessing them. In essence, they are consecrated as knights of the town in this ceremony based on the ancient medieval blessing of knights.

After the ceremony the knights and their sponsors process through the streets in our Terziere.

You can spot the lances carried by the young riders who have just been blessed.

The procession winds up the mountain toward the castle on the stone stair-streets, and back down.

Race day!

On Saturday night there is the “corteo” - court - in the main piazza where the Terziere are officially introduced.

Terziere Mezule, where I live, is the upper city, the area built last, starting in the 13th century as the town expanded. The heraldic badge is a black tower on a white field.

People come from all over the country to feast and see the pageants. It’s about the only time Narni centro storico is at all a busy place.

Of course, the race itself is also opened by processions and demonstrations.

It’s a bit like going to a baseball game, only with horses and lances.

Mezule’s ring, carried in procession

At the end of the day…

Mezule won! And there was quite a lot of rejoicing.

We were pretty pooped after a whole afternoon in the stands, cheering and shouting, so instead of slogging back up the hill we popped into one of the local restaurants and had some roast rabbit for dinner.

Just as we were getting to the dolce, the closing processions marched past.

We inquired of Massimo, our local grocer and expert on all things Narnian, and he said, “Oh sure, it’s easy if you live here. If you want to get involved, you just show up and they’ll find you something to do.”

MOAR Narnia!

Looking down from the end of our street onto the old city and the Nera river valley.

Ancient stone work in the Romanesque church of Santa Maria Impensole.

A “new” capital for an older Imperial-era column - 12th century Romanesque or Cluniac carvings

Originally a Benedictine church of the 12th century, built on top of an 8th century church, and under that a Roman temple of Bacchus. It’s so far my favourite church in town. It’s not used for Mass, as far as I can tell, at least not regularly and the Sacrament is not reposed there. But it is still regarded as a “sacred space” and it’s a favourite place to retreat to for a few moments of quiet and reflection, to light a candle and say a prayer or just have a little think.

The Lion of Narnia greets you at the door. The stone carvings are about a thousand years old.

On the walk home from the shops:

Wisteria season; the whole town smells of flowers from April onwards. On the left are some of the houses built into the city wall, overlooking the Nera Valley. At the base of the wall the land slopes down very steeply into the Nera gorge, a couple of hundred meters below. But immediately in front of these houses are little strips of gardens, lovingly tended and very beautiful. They are probably very ancient.

Easter Sunday at the Emperor’s bridge:

The Bridge of Augustus. Built by Caesar Augustus this remains the largest Imperial Roman bridge in the world. It was used for a thousand years until it collapsed in an earthquake in the 11th century. That largest fragment that is still standing is about 40 feet.

The remains are large enough that they just ran the modern railway tunnel right through one of the arches.

My friend and I decided to go have a picnic in the park by the river, in the shadow of the old bridge, after Mass on Easter Sunday.

Everywhere you go the wildflowers are amazing. These little wild irises are a type I’ve never seen before anywhere.

And masses of wisteria everywhere…

Narni’s back gate. It’s built into the “new” walls, of the 14th century, built on top of the Roman walls along the Via Flaminia.

Domestic kitty-bliss, sleeping in the sunny spot.

It’s all just a reminder that Real Life carries on.

Try not to worry too much.

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1. Noteworthy for North American readers: no one really has any idea how old Narni really is. Its aqueduct was only expanded and improved upon by the civil engineers of the Roman Republic (before the Empire) after the town was conquered in the 2nd century BC. Narni was already ancient at that time.