Went to a lovely concert today

of mediaeval music presented by Musick's Company - the Center for Old World Music in the New World 'Medieval Chivalry: Tales of Knights and Courtly Love'. I was happy because I could read much of the Middle French and Middle German lyrics.

Really???

What Is Your Medieval Profession? (Created By Greg Summers on March 20, 2014)

The Court Jester

You are very energetic and funny, you love to make other people laugh and feel goofy. You entertain people at a very dark, medieval time, and for that they are grateful. Your heart leads your life, and you just enjoy the ride. 'Tis most splendid!

Came across this fun piece on Facebook

Thanks to Bill Hart for sharing...as someone who spent years studying ancient and mediaeval history, I am highly amused.

Every student's favourite

from the Carmina Burana.



Here's another version, with several views of various (unrelated) manuscripts:



For the Latin and translation, you may click on this Carmina Burana website. Many of the rest of the songs are there as well.

For more on the Goliards read:

Books
The Wandering Scholars, by Hellen Waddell, a classic
Wine, Women, and Song by John Addington Symonds
The Goliard Poets: Medieval Songs and Satires in New Verse Translations by George F. Whicher (a treasure I found in a used bookstore in Louisville)

Websites
Wikipedia, Goliard
Goliards by Melissa Snell at About.com.

What can I say? I was trained as a mediaevalist and I'm a Latin Geek. :)

How to create a beautiful illuminated manuscript

The video is on ArtBabble. Thanks to Maria Popova for the link--it made my mediaeval geekiness come out (I studied a lot of mediaeval history in grad school and used to be part of the Society for Creative Anachronism, so although I knew the steps, it still was nice to watch. It's very clear and entertaining).

Oh, this is wonderful!

Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources project nears completion

A huge number of students ranging from linguists to those studying coins and family ancestry are benefiting from a 100 year project to compile the world’s most comprehensive dictionary of Medieval Latin.

Work started on the unique Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources 50 years ago but experts began collecting material early in the 20th century.

Now the initiative is nearing completion and Professor Tobias Reinhardt, Corpus Christi Professor of the Latin Language and Literature at Oxford University is responsible for seeing it through.

And it will be available online, with the target date of 2014. Yay! It will include words of late Antiquity up through the 16th century. This is truly a remarkable resource.

Reinhardt is quoted as saying, 'People will be able to search for words online when they have an internet connection, using their iPhones and of course laptops. As a medieval Latin dictionary it is the leading publication in its field.'

I am so excited. This would have made my life in grad school ever so much easier.

Thanks to Bill for sharing this on Facebook with me in mind. I get the feed from this blog, but I've been so busy (tonight, for example, I went over to my friends' house and fixed the computer and phone service) that I haven't caught up on my feeds.

And for those with some pocket change, a mediaeval Italian village

For sale: entire medieval Italian village for £485,000

But for anyone tired of Britain's crippling property prices and inclement weather, £485,000 will buy the historic village of Valle Piola, which is surrounded by wild and mountainous terrain in the heart of one of the country's biggest national parks.

I guess I'll add that to something I might do if I won the lottery. Apparently Italy is littered with abandoned villages that could use some fixing up. :)

A happy accident leads to the uncovering of mediaeval paintings in a Welsh church

Via Medieval News: ‘Mind-blowing’ medieval art is unveiled in church

People tend to think of courtly love in the Middle Ages, and not the fact that many women worked to support their families

Women workers could be found on the medieval construction site, study finds

According to a recently published study, women could be found working on construction sites, if only occasionally, including in specialized roles such as carpenters and masons. The research is found in the article, “Appropriate to Her Sex?” Women’s Participation on the Construction Site in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” by Shelley E. Roff.

Huh...that would be a major rethinking if they're right

Could Anthrax Have Caused The Black Death?

Most historians accept that the Black Death was, indeed, bubonic plague. But anthrax matches the symptoms and matches the spreading pattern more closely, others argue. Read the article and see what you think.

Putting a face on history

Face of Stirling Castle warrior reconstructed

A reconstruction has revealed the face of a medieval knight whose skeleton was discovered at Stirling Castle.

Experts are now attempting to discover the identity of the warrior, who is likely to have been killed in the 13th or 14th Century.

The skeleton is one of 10 excavated from the site of a lost royal chapel at the castle. The skeleton of a woman was found near the knight.

Face of a Medieval Knight revealed

Last year Historic Scotland released details about this individual, noting that while he was only in his mid-20s he appears to have suffered several serious wounds in earlier fights. He may have been living for some time with a large arrowhead in his chest. Bone re-growth around a dent in the front of the skull suggest he had recovered from a severe blow, possibly from an axe. The fatal wound, however, occurred when something, possibly a sword, sliced through his nose and jaw.

New evidence about this man, and a woman who was found buried nearby, will be revealed on the BBC program History Cold Case. A team led by Professor Sue Black, a world-renowned forensic anthropologist from Dundee University, wanted to find out how, why and when the man and woman met their violent ends. The programme website promises to show how the "forensic trail leads to a unique and extraordinary 600 year old document and the team is shocked to discover the skeleton's likely identity."

It is unknown if the man was Scottish, English, or French, as Stirling Castle changed hands back and forth. They hope to find out, though, and the information they already have is quite interesting:

Dead men can tell remarkable tales

Medieval African discovered in England

A BBC documentary will be revealing that a medieval African lived in England in the thirteenth century and was buried in a friary in Ipswich. This is the earliest evidence that an African was living in the country since the Roman period.

The programme, History Cold Case, will be broadcasting its premiere episode on Thursday night on BBC 2. It follows a team of experts from the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee as they analyze a skeletons from history.

The male skeleton they discovered has been carbon dated to the period 1190-1300, and from examinations of the skull, teeth and thigh bone, it was determined that the man originally came from Tunisia.

Okay, I studied mediaeval history extensively and this one

took me a little while to navigate (I knew the big points, but things like where death ships landed in Norway threw me, or at which eastern city along the trade routes did invaders lob infected corpses before breaking the siege--and I never could keep my popes straight, which is why I have an encyclopaedia of them).

So what do you know about the Black Death? Try out The Diabolical Black Death Quiz, which doesn't go forward until you get the question right.

You could help solve a mediaeval mystery

This is 15th Century English, but what does it say?


Do you like puzzles? Challenges? Then you may want to try your hand at this inscription. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Salisbury Cathedral is asking medievalists for help in deciphering a mysterious inscription hidden behind a monument for hundreds of years.

The inscription, painted in black gothic letters, is thought to be one of the earliest written in English in any church in Britain, but it is so faded that it is unreadable.

The letters were painted on a thin layer of limewash that was partially scraped off before the monument to Sir Henry Hyde, a Royalist martyr executed during the Civil War, was erected in the early 1660s. In places, all that is left is a dark stain on the stonework where the paint leached through.