Hedwig glass beaker

A History of the World in 100 Objects

BBC

History

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 June 2010

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

Neil MacGregor's world history as told through objects at the British Museum. This week he is looking at how objects moved around the medieval world in the context of war, trade and faith and the quite incredible degree of contact between Asia, Europe and Africa that existed around a thousand years ago. Today's object is a large glass beaker made at a time when Christians were warring with Muslims in the great crusades - a time, curiously enough, connected with a great flourishing of trade. This object was most likely made by Islamic glass workers but became associated with the miracles of a Christian saint, Hedwig. This glass container, or one of the few just like it, was what Hedwig famously used to turn water into wine! Neil describes the story of the Hedwig beaker with help from the economic historian David Abulafia and the historian of the Crusades Jonathan Riley-Smith. He also sees what happens when he pours water into this beautifully decorated vessel. Producer: Anthony Denselow

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of a history of the world in a hundred objects from BBC Radio 4.
0:10.0	For most English speakers the name Hedwig, if it means anything at all,
0:18.0	counters up the obliging owl that delivers messages to Harry Potter.
0:22.0	But if you come from Central Europe
0:24.3	and especially if you come from Poland, Hedvich means something quite different.
0:28.3	She's a royal saint who around 1200 became a national and religious symbol and who through the
0:34.0	through the centuries, has delivered not messages, but miracles.
0:38.1	The most famous of all the Hedwig miracles was that the water in her glass
0:42.1	turned regularly into wine.
0:44.0	And across Central Europe there is to this day
0:47.0	a small puzzling group of distinctive glass beakers
0:50.0	alleged to be the very glasses from which she drank the miraculous liquid. One of Hedwig's beakers is now in the British Museum,
1:12.8	and it takes us at once to the high religious politics of the Crusades,
1:16.6	the great age of Richard the Lionheart and Saladin,
1:19.4	and to the unexpected fact that the war between Christians and Muslims was accompanied by a great
1:24.7	flourishing of trade and recent research is now leading us to think that Hedwig's
1:30.0	beakers revered in Central Europe as evidence of a Christian miracle were most probably
1:35.2	made by Islamic glass workers in the Middle East.
1:38.9	Aika on the Palestinian coast became the chief terminus of the Azatics-Bites trade and
1:46.3	was an enormous revenue generator.
1:49.5	There were very vigorous attempts to resolve this paradox as it was that the Christians
1:56.0	seemed to be benefiting so much from their trade with the Muslim world while at
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