Call For The Retiurn Of The Chronicles Of Mannn

[%age]

"The what?" I hear.

 

The guardian of our interests and the searcher of truth and exposer of corruptions on this Island, Isle of Man Newspapers, is running a campaign to have these thingys retruned to us.

 

Link to IoM Today

 

I would say that when/if the Isle of Man demonstrates it is well capable of running its own affairs, then I would say this is a good move.

[Gladys]

So they should be returned to the Island, but so should the Elgin marbles be returned to Greece.

[lisner]

It is quite a serious subject isn't it.

 

It somehow doesn't sit well with the current breaking news that Tim Crookall MHK is to join the next round of the IoMToday orchestrated MHK Idol. IoMToday

 

I keep having visions of young newspaper reporters giggling and laughing and wondering what 'News' they can come up with today. Or maybe they are earnest and sincere in their production of this stuff?

 

Maybe I should just lighten up a little

 

 

[VinnieK]

I believe that they are probably best off staying with the British Library: they have the best facilities to preserve the Chronicles in the long term, and I suspect that the actual contents of the Chronicles of Mann are primarily of interest to scholars in Scandinavian studies who will have better access to them at the British Library. As a document recording the history of the Island, I doubt that the Chronicles are of much interest (since the Isle of Man's position has never really been that important in the tapestry of World History), and so it is as a document of medieval Scandinavian methods of settlement and governance in the British Isles that they are most valuable. As such the best place for them is in the archives of the British Library, along with similar historical documents, where they can be of the greatest use.

 

Here the Chronicles of Mann are little more than a trinket symbolizing ancient Manx identity, elsewhere they can actually still be a useful historical artefact.

[richmond-st]

I would agree with that VinnieK.

 

I see from today's newspaper that a whole chunk of newsprint has been given over to this news item and the paper has probably got a few more sales out of it. I think it is one of those stories that waits in the background to save the newspaper in its week of need.

 

Still, it has brought the Chronicles into the public consciousness again.

[spermann]

can we not take a photocopy before handing them back?

 

Nah, lets go green and keep them here where they belong. People in England have never heard of the Isle of Man anyway, unless they subscribe to MCN.

[Grianane]

I visited the British Museum about 4 years ago. I was stunned by the amount of artifacts gathered in the museum and more so by the fact that the vast majority of them were taken from their country of origin.

 

There’s comparatively little British History there – unless of course you consider the displays to represent a selection of holiday gifts collected by our victoria forefathers.

 

Perhaps we shoud ask the BM to give them back to the Island on condition that their left in the BM on permanent loan. There more likely to be seen there than here.

 

Experience of the Manx Museeum and Public Records Office is that there's more hidden away than ever seen.

[RC-Drift.com]

Saw the CoM a couple of days ago in the MM - a pity they're only on loan

[Frances]

all museums have more in storeage than on display, the V&A probably has more British artifacts on display tho with the trendy 10sec attention span displays many interesting items (I'm thinking especially of Science Museum) are not on display any longer - I guess Phil Gawne is aware that the chronicles are classified as animal product (skins of young goat) and thus probably fall under his F&M regs (everything else does).

[%age]

Isle of Man: Please can we have our chronicles thing you removed from us?

 

United Kingdom: Yes, when you give us all the taxes you removed from us.

 

 

can we not take a photocopy before handing them back?

 

From the Manx Museum and I daresay other bookshops, for £12 you can buy a book of the copies of the Chronicles of Mann complete with translation.

[John Wright]

I think there is an interesting debate to be had here, much wider than

at present.

 

That the Chronicles of Mann are of importance is without question, they

have a significance for the Island, for the British Islands and for Europe

 

They have a significance for Christianity and in particular the monastic

community and the particular order they were compiled by from Rushen up

to its father house.

 

They also have an artistic, literary and historic interest

 

That makes them different from the Calf or Elgin marbles, in many ways,

they were a history, privately written and owned by a monastic order.

They never belonged to the state or were state symbols or part of state

buildings or apparatus.

 

In the days of the writing of the Chronicles and at the time of dissolution of the monasteries states were not geographic areas but allegiances to a particular leader.

 

These are Norse Manx kingdom documents, ulimate fealty Denmark or Scandinavia, or documenst belonging to a particular orde, either from France or under the rule of the Archbishop of Trondheim

 

They were expropriated in 1540's or 1550's, not clear really on what authority or what their

history is after that. At that time the state was the Stanleys. There was no Reformation Legislation in IOM

 

What gives the IOM, as a modern day mini state, any more right to have

these documents than that they be returned to the monastic order from

whence they came and from which they were expropriated, or that they go

to Trondheim or Knowsley.

 

I think it brings us to the question what and who is manx and how far

back do you have to go, and how tenuous does the link have to be. The

Chronicles are clearly different to the Calf, always Manx, always

physically there, just owned for a while by the english NT.

 

The Elgin marbles were sold and bought and then conserved, but they are

Greek, in essence. They would not exist now but for Elgin and the

British Museum.

 

Just what do we have a right to keep, ask to have back or returned? (

and that is rhetorical as well, but also relates to all the art work

brought back from Grand Tours and from the whole colonial experience including most of the BM and National Gallery etc)

 

I for one would rather, at present, not entrust it to MNH, we would

never get to see it, it would be in a safe in the stack, not allowed

light of day or artificial light for fear of damage. I don't think it

would be such an attraction as the book of Kells in Dublin and I

certainly don't want to waste more money on a purpose built centre for

the few who might travel to wander around in lost in the gloom to peer

at it.

 

Regular visits, availability in London, a recognition of the fact it

represents a shared, not exclusively Manx, heritage.Exhibitions to put it into conrtext, things MNH could never mount

 

Just a view to consider