Sunday, 27 December 2015

Riddle me this - Solution

"Tom is 44. 

His age + 6 is equal to 5/4th of (age-4), or 5x(age-4)/4. Multiply out by 4 to get rid of that divisor, and 4 x age + 24 = 5x(age-4), or 5x age-20. Add the 20 to both sides, and 4 x age + 44 = 5 x age, or 44 = Tom's age."

Well done if you got this!

Notes
Dedopulos, T., The Medieval Puzzle Collection (London, Cartlon Books Limited: 2014) p. 134

Saturday, 26 December 2015

Riddle me this - Old Tom

Christmas was yesterday. If you missed this, I'll send help as you're obviously trapped down a well.

In the spirit of Christmas traditions, here's a puzzle for you today. Solution will be posted tomorrow!

"How old are your really Old Tom?"

"That would be telling, my dear. But maybe you can figure it out for yourself. In six years' time, I'll be one and a quarter times as old as I was four years ago."

So, how old is Tom?


Notes

Image: c. 1460, France, The Walters Art Museum, accession no. W.269

Dedopulos, T., The Medieval Puzzle Collection (London, Cartlon Books Limited: 2014) p. 77

Saturday, 19 December 2015

Ice skating

London is crrently full of ice skating rinks so I was curious as to when ice skating first became a leisure activity. 


Ice skating has been around for 1000s of years, evidenced by bone skates found my archaeologists. The earliest written account comes from Walter Fitzstephen, a late twelfth century monk at Canterbury and a chronicler in a passage concerning leisure activities details:

"In the winter holidays...when the vast lake, which waters the walls of the city towards the north, is hard frozen, the youth in great numbers got to divert themselves on the ice. 

Some, taking a small run, for an increment of velocity, place their feet at the proper distance, and are carried sliding sideways a great way; others will make a large cake of ice, and seating one of their companions upon it, they take hold of one another's hands and draw him along; when it sometimes happens, that moving swiftly on so slippery a plain they all fall down headlong. 

Other there are who are still more expert in these amusements on the ice, they place certain bones, the leg bones of some animal, under the soles of their feet, by tying them round their ankles, and then taking a pole shod with iron into their hands, they push themselves forward by striking it against the ice, and are carried along with a velocity equal to the flight of a bird, or a bolt discharged from a cross bow. 

Sometimes, two of them thus furnished, agree to start opposite one to another, at a great distance; the meet, elevate their poles, attack and strike each other, when one or both of them fall, and not without some bodily hurt; and even after their fall, they shall be carried a good distance from each other by the rapidity of the motion; and whatever part of your head comes upon the ice, it is sure to be laid bare to the scull [sic].

Very often the leg or the arm of the party that falls, if he chances to light upon them, is broken: but youth is an age ambitious of glory, fond and covetous of victory; and that in future time it may acquit itself boldly and valiantly in real engagements, it will run these hazards in sham ones."

The lake in this description is suggested to have been in the Moorfields area. As you can see, much of the medieval skating experience is still true today. Sore bottoms still abound!

Notes
Images:
Putting on boots: MS 551, Les miracles de la vierge, mis en vers par Gautier de Coincy, 13th century, f. 20 v. (view online)

Snowballs: detail from a fresco by Master Venceslao, Tower Aquila, Buonconsiglio Castle, Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy, 14th-15th century

Description of the City of London, Newly Translated from the Latin Original; with a Necessary Commentary. A Dissertation on the Author, ... is Prefixed: and  to the Whole is Subjoined, a Correct Edition of the Original, with the Various Readings, and Some Useful annotations. By an Antiquary, printed for B. White, translated by (London: Fleet Street, 1772) pp. 50-52

Saturday, 12 December 2015

The Oldest Christmas Carol?

Allegedly the earliest Christmas carol, usually dated to the thirteenth century:

Lordings, listen to our lay —
We have come from far away
    To seek Christmas;
In this mansion we are told
He his yearly feast doth hold;
    'Tis t-day!
May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love.

Lordings, I now tell you true,
Christmas bringeth unto you
    Only mirth;
His house he fills with many a dish
Of bread and meat and also fish,
    To grace the day.
May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love.


Lordings, through our army's band
They say — who spends with open hand
    Free and fast,
And oft regals his many friends —
God gives him double what he spends
    To grace the day.
May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love.


Lordings, wicked men eschew,
In them never shall you view
    Aught that's good;
Cowards are the rable rout,
Kick and beat the grumblers out,
    To grace the day.
May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love.


To English ale and Gascon wine,
And French, doth Christmas much incline —
    And Anjou's, too;
He makes his neighbour freely drink
So that in sleep his head doth sink
    Often by day.
May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love.


Lords, by Christmas and the host
Of this mansion hear my toast —
    Drink it well —
Each must drain his cup of wine,
And I the first will toss off mine:
    Thus I advise.
Here then I bid you all Wassail,
Cursed be he who will not say, Drinkhail.
May joy come from God above,
To all those who Christmas love.

Wassail translates as "your health", and drinkhail as "drink health". Both terms are Anglo-Saxon in origin and really deserve to make their way back into common usuage.

The original manuscript that contained this carol has been missing since 7th June 1879, but remains listed in the British Library's catalogue as Royal MS 16 E VIII. It was found in the midst of a miscellany alongside other documents such as a "short description of England" and "phases of the moon proper for any business". 

EDIT:
This video worked up until this blog post went live which is rather typical. You can find a performed version of this song however if you search for the group "Joglaresa".



Notes 

Transcription (in Anglo-Norman) can be found in Douce, F. Illustrations of Shakespeare, and of Ancient Manners: With Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakespeare; on the Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris Dance, Volume 2 (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807) p. 215


Rickert, E. Ancient English Chirstmas Carols: 1400-1700 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914) pp. 134-5

Saturday, 5 December 2015

A word on databases



As part of my doctoral work I have needed to create a database.

This did not go well. 


I suspect part of the problem is that I am not a terribly logically minded individual, and after attending a two-day course aimed at students from all backgrounds run by my university and a week of staring at a computer screen I had made little tangible progress.

So, like any good procrastinator, I decided to leave it and pick it up when I felt like I had more time. 

…fast forward 3 years…

What I thought I would do today was share was the gems of three years of avoiding not being able to write a database.  
  
1. Don’t use MS Word.

If I had used MS Excel my life would have been a lot easier. I didn’t completely abandon the project, I did gather the data for the database, but if I’d gathered it in Excel I would have saved myself a lot of time later when I actually had a database to work with.

2. A ) Go find someone who has worked with databases.
    B ) If they’re a historian, doubly go find them

This is the more important of my two lessons. I was slightly in denial about actually having to create a database and hoped that my Word doc. would see me through (feel free to chuckle derisively at this point). I had the good fortune to be put in contact however with a fellow researcher who had spent 4 years working with a database who very kindly took pity on me and knocked me one together.

3. Find a course aimed at historians, not a general one.

Not everyone database-challenged may have the luck I had however, and my helper/saviour/colleague recommended this course run by the IHR:

The course I attended was excellent, but I struggled to convert what I’d been taught into something I could use with my historical data. A simple google quickly brings up the IHR course, along with many others. 

They’re not hard to find, but if you don’t look for them – you don’t know they’re there!

Free handbook on designing historical databases:

How to, historical database tutorial:


Notes
A big thank you to Sam Gibbs who put me right on databases:

Saturday, 28 November 2015

Monthly Round-up

A November true to form, cold and windy. What did the internet bless us with this month?

A new geeky twitter account for you, Archbishop Walter de Grey. "Archbishop of York and former chancellor to King John. 800 years behind the times. Per manum"
https://twitter.com/AbpGray?lang=en

A guide to medieval sources from the Bodleian:
http://www.medievalhistories.com/guide-to-medieval-sources/

Some PhD writing tips (bit niche, but what can I say - I'm biased at the moment)
http://amberdavis.nl/tag/write-a-phd-almost-painlessly/

Book on medieval swear words (why wouldn't you be interested?)
http://www.medievalists.net/2013/11/08/by-gods-bones-medieval-swear-words/?utm_content=buffer48719&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Medieval Christmas market, 11-13th December, King's Lynn:
www.kingslynnchristmas.co.uk

Letter written on birchbark:
http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/birchbark-message-reveals-story-of-medieval-traveler-151106
  


And finally, look how happy the skeleton on the far right looks?
De Lisle Psalter, England, BL MS Arundel MS 83 II, f. 127 r.
 

Saturday, 21 November 2015

Pilgrim Badges, a short introduction



A spotlight on pilgrim souvenirs today. Much like today, the medieval pilgrim picked up items to remind them of a journey undertaken. This tradition is most famously seen through the scallop shells worn by pilgrims who had visited the shrine of St James at Compostela and the shell later became a general emblem of pilgrims. 

Beyond shells, small images depicting the saint may be cast (usually in cheap lead) and then worn with a pin or fastened onto clothing. In addition to pins, shrines also branched out into ampullae which were essentially small metal flasks which may be filled with oil or water. 

Pilgrim “souvenirs” first appeared after the death of Thomas Becket in 1170. Miracles involving his blood soon followed and the cult of miracles around his body began. 

Thomas’s relics ended up across Europe in reliquaries but the less wealthy also wanted them so the Canterbury metalworkers responded by moulding portable containers decorated with images and inscriptions.
Ampullae were produced at Canterbury during the 12th-13th c. and were adopted elsewhere. They proved particularly popular with sites linked with water such as the Benedictine Abbey at Vendôme with its “Holy tear of Christ” and the sanctuary at Boulogne-sur-mer which had a statue of the Virgin Mary which appeared from the sea in an unmanned boat. 

The primary difference between these two forms of souvenir is that badges are items that have come into contact with the holy place of pilgrimage, while ampullae contained physical material from the place and therefore a fraction of its (for want of a better word) “power”.

A little bit of show and tell now, here is a pilgrim badge I happened to get my paws on. This is a 14th century medieval pilgrim badge, decorated with the head of John the Baptist within a raised border of relief rings and dots. Fastenings for pin fixing on reverse. Found near Grantham in Lincolnshire.

Similar examples can be found near Kings Lynn (top, 14th century, P.A.S.: NMS-E40D22), Bury St Edmunds (middle left, 14th century, Kunera: 15299),  London (middle right, 14th Century, Kunera: 10001), near Middelburg (bottom left, 15th century, Kunera: 16458) and Thérouanne (bottom right, 16th century,  Kunera: 10821). 



The cult of St John the Baptist began in the 13th century when Walon de Sarton whilst on crusade claimed a portion of John’s skull during the sack of Constantinople in 1204. The relic was gifted to the bishop of Amiens in 1206 and placed in the cathedral where it was exhibited on a silver dish, later embellished with gems and replaced by a gold dish.

The iconography of these items allows us to not only determine where an item is likely to have originated (Amiens), but also the destinations of pilgrims after they left the shrine; revealing pan-European routes of communication. With this item for example, its stylistically similar counterparts show that pilgrims from Amiens were travelling/returning to the Netherlands and Eastern England. 

A small piece of information, but one that feeds into a bigger picture of how the medieval world was communicating. 

I wonder what our discarded and lost items would say about us today?

Notes

Thanks are due to Lloyd de Beer, a colleague from the BAA who helped me in identifying the badge in the first place.

Image: A dog dressed as a pilgrim, BL Royal 10 E IV, f. 57v

Anderson, W.” Blessing the fields? A study of late-medieval ampullae from England and Wales”, Medieval Archaeology (2010), vol. 54, pp. 1-14 

Garcia, M. “Medieval Medicine, Magic, and Water: The dilemma of deliberate deposition of pilgrim signs”, Peregrinations (2005), vol. 1, issue 3

Kunera database:

PAS (Portable Antiquities Scheme):

Saturday, 14 November 2015

Martinmas


So, along with Remembrance Day, the 11th of November is also the feast day of St Martin.

In medieval England, St Martin’s day, or Martinmas, was the day in which welcome was officially welcomed in and marked the end of the harvest in many areas. 

The first two weeks of November were traditionally a time for slaughtering livestock for winter and tasting the wine made in the summer. Indeed, when a prize cow was killed at this time, the cow was called the “Martlemas” and there are references to such an ox in Henry IV Part 2, scene II.

 
Along with beef, this festival is associated with pork products which in Yorkshire, were referred to rather charmingly as “pig cheer”. 

In honour of the occasion, I thought I’d share a recipe of fifteenth century recipe for beef stew:

“Beef y-Stywyd. Take fayre beef of þe rybbys of þe fore quarterys, an smyte in fayre pecys, an wasche þe beef in-to a fayre potte; þan take þe water þat þe beef was soþin yn, an strayne it þorw a straynowr, an sethe þe same water and beef in a potte, an let hem boyle to-gederys; þan take canel, clowes, maces, graynys of parise, quibibes, and oynons y-mynced, perceli, an sawge, an caste þer-to, an let hem boyle to-gederys; an þan take a lof of brede, an stepe it with brothe an venegre, an þan draw it þorw a straynoure, and let it be stylle; an whan it is nere y-now, caste þe lycour þer-to, but nowt to moche, an þan let boyle onys, an cast safroun þer-to a quantyte; þan take salt an venegre, and cast þer-to, an loke þat it be poynaunt y-now, & serue forth.


Stewed Beef. Take fair beef of the ribs of the fore quarters, and smite in fair pieces, and wash the beef into a fair pot; then take the water that the beef was washed in, and strain it through a strainer, and boil the same water and beef in a pot, and let them boil together; then take cinnamon, cloves, mace, grains of paradise, cubebs, and minced onions, parsley, and sage, and cast there-to, and let it boil together; then take a loaf of bread, an steep it with broth and vinegar, and then draw it through a strainer, and let it be still; and when it is nearly done, add the liquid there-to, but not to much, and then let boil once, and add saffron there-to a quantity; then take salt and vinegar, and add there-to, and look that it taste poynaunt enough, & serve forth.”

Follow the link in the notes for a recipe you can actually try!


Notes

Modern recipe courtesy of:

Austin, T., Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS 55. (London, N. Trübner & Co.: 1888)

Saturday, 7 November 2015

Guest blog - Saint Guinefort,The Holy Greyhound



I have the pleasure of introducing a blog written by a colleague of mine Katie Philips who works on the patronage and perceptions of leprosy in thirteenth-century England and France.

In the course of my research into French leper-houses, which were mostly founded during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, I have been surprised by the range of saints to whom these were dedicated.

Probably the most surprising saint, however, was Saint Guinefort. Guinefort was a French greyhound, who was first recorded in the thirteenth century. Having saved a child’s life, a cult developed around Guinefort, and he became recognised as a patron of sick children.




It is unlikely that the dog’s name was actually Guinefort; apparently the word guigner is a patois word in France which can mean ‘to wag’, and fort translates as ‘strongly’, so whatever his real name, he was obviously a very happy hound. The name may also come from the Greek name Christopher – who, confusingly, is sometimes depicted with a dog’s head in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

I was particularly curious about the leper-house I had found with the same name, as it was located around 300 miles away from Guinefort’s native town, and I wondered if such a cult would have spread that far, but it appears there was a human Saint Guinefort too. Although not recorded until much later, he is believed to have lived during the fourth century. An Irishman who travelled to Milan, he was persecuted for preaching, and sentenced to execution.

But his executors, instead of beheading him, decided to fill him with arrows so that he ‘resembled a hedgehog’. He didn’t die – he dragged himself to Pavia, where numerous blind persons, invalids and lepers were reputed to have been healed.

This parallels the persecution of Saint Sebastian, and both developed reputations as protectors against the plague, along with Saint Roch and Saint Anthony (who is also associated with ergotism, but that’s another story).


Saint Roch showing off his plague spot
British Library, MS Egerton 2125, f.209v

Evidently the reports of the human Guinefort healing leprosy would have made him an attractive protector and intercessor saint for the poor lepers, and this is probably the reason the name was chosen. A hospital dedication, like a church dedication, would have to be confirmed with a consecration service to a recognised saint, and the dog was unfortunately not officially canonised by the papacy.

But we’d obviously all prefer to believe that Saint Guinefort the Holy Greyhound was uppermost in the patrons’ minds when they chose the name.


Notes

More on Katie: https://reading.academia.edu/KatiePhillips
 
Étienne de Bourbon, De Superstitione, Internet Medieval Source Book, [URL:  http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/guinefort.asp]

Jean-Claude Schmitt, The Holy Greyhound (trans. Martin Thom), (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press) 1983.