Refurbishing the Wordhoard

With the help of my lovely and talented minion Nina, I've added a Twitter feed to the right that will cycle through the hashmark for #medieval. For the time being, I've also added #staffshoard (the official hashmark for the Staffordshire Hoard) to help us all keep up with the breaking news.

By the way, we've made a few other changes to the site. Let us know what you think!

Staffordshire Hoard Blog Round-Up

If, like me, you get frustrated by traditional media accounts of the Staffordshire Hoard, here is a round-up of blog posts, many (most? all?) of them by experts in medieval studies. I've omitted postings that are just, "have you heard?" and have instead focused on links pages and those with commentary.

Here are some with commentary:

• A Commonplace Book has two posts on the objects making up the Hoard.
• Gypsy Scholar has two posts on the phrase "redefining the Dark Ages."
• In the Middle questions scholarly reception of the Hoard, asks about the digital images, and considers/rejects a connection between Guthlac and the Hoard.
• Lingwe discusses the comparison of the Hoard to the One Ring.
• News for Medievalists has their original story, more news, and a story on the crowds coming to see it.
• Point of Know Return has a post on the Hoard and Psalm 67:2.
• Wormtalk and Slugspeak discusses the inscription as well.
• Gearwor has images, video, and some discussion.
• The Heptarchy Herald discusses dating.

Here are basically links pages:

• About.com
• Archaelogy in Europe
  History News Network
• News for Medievalists has video round-ups here and here.

Staffordshire Hoard Video Round-Up

Are you, like me, tired of only seeing still photos of the Staffordshire Hoard? Check out these videos on YouTube.

AP:


ITN News:


Another ITN News:


And still another ITN News:

Official Staffordshire Hoard Site

There's now an official Staffordshire Hoard website. They're also using the Twitter hashtag #staffshoard for archiving comments.

The site gets into some of the issues of value of the hoard that the international media elided in their "Metal Detectorist Finds Treasure" storyline. In response to the question, "How much is the Hoard worth," they respond sensibly:

Artistically and historically is impossible to price.
However a Treasure Valuation Committee consisting of independent experts, will recommend a valuation to the Secretary of State. The Committee will commission valuations from leading auction houses and experts in the antiquities trade.
This will be a very difficult task given the unprecedented nature of the Hoard.
The Hoard contains approximately 5kg of gold and 1.3kg of silver, giving it a 'scrap' value of over £100,000 (by contrast the Sutton Hoo find contained 1.6kg of precious metals).

Though I confess to finding a few things annoying here*, by-and-large the Portable Antiquities Scheme seems to have done a good job at using the latest social networking technologies to get the information out there quickly. In very short order they've used Flickr, Twitter, etc., and given the rest of the scholarly community a chance to get at least a preliminary glimpse.

Terry Herbert doesn't hurt the cause, either. You can imagine a situation in which the person discovering the Hoard would be a bit embarrassing, but he's quite articulate, and (so far, at least) doesn't appear to have let all this go to his head. At the end of one interview (embedded below), he says, "Stuff like this is still in the ground ... is there anything better than this to be found?" In those two sentences alone, he's managed to do more for the popular perception of medieval studies (and, I suppose, metal detectors) than I'll probably be able to accomplish in my entire career.



*Such as the line, "It will redefine the Dark Ages." Dark Ages? Did this quote come from a time-traveling scholar from 1909?

Anglo Saxon Gold Hoard Links

Here are some links about the new Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard:

• Guardian UK
• Flickr Photo Set
• United Press International
• Yahoo! News Canada
• BBC News
• Stafford UK
• Digital Digging - British Archaeology News
• CNN Europe
• Democratic Underground
• icStafford
• Times Live - South Africa

Huge Anglo-Saxon (non-word) Hoard!

Everybody's talking about the huge hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure found in Staffordshire. I was holding off to post a links page, but so many are talking about it, I might not be able to handle the wealth of chatter.

This BBC report is unintentionally hilarious:

Experts say the collection of 1,500 gold and silver pieces, which may date to the 7th Century, is unparalleled in size and worth "a seven figure sum".

Worth a seven figure sum, eh? How about "priceless," instead? It's rather like saying a lost child was found wandering the streets and "experts say his organs might fetch tens of thousands of dollars on the open market."

Morning Medieval Miscellany

This Wednesday morning:

• Hammered Out Bits has a post on Norse and Anglo-Saxon knives, with a video.
• The Heroic Age has a links page of medieval news this week.
• Magistra et Mater discusses Gregory of Tours and symbolic history. Muhlberger's Early History comments on it.
• Medieval Living discusses difficulty in constructing medieval wheels.
• The medieval word of the day is bailey.
• Point of Know Return discusses Lydgate's Troy Book.
• Podictionary discusses Excalibur (the word).
• Steven Till asks about the "Holy Grail in America" episode on the History Channel.
• About.com has a story about a medieval village discovered in Qatar.
• Here's a brief history of medieval classical music and a review of the game Trine, both h/t LaNiche Music's Twitter feed.

Finally, below is a VOA report on Pennsic, h/t A Commonplace Book. News for Medievalists has that and more video reports as well.

Morning Medieval Miscellany

For your Tuesday morning:

• Steven Till has the top 100 medieval castles.
• Medieval Material Culture Blog announces The Art of Illumination at the Met and Old Master Drawings at Penn State.
• The Medieval Club of New York has an upcoming lecture, "The Jaharis Gospel Lectionary: A Manuscript for Use in Hagia Sophia," and also posts the schedule of coming events.
• News for Medievalists has an article about a BBC radio episode about St. Thomas Aquinas.
• Mearcstapa has their 2010 Leeds submissions.
• The medieval word of the day is liege lord.
• Archaeology in Europe has a dozen new posts.

Morning Medieval Miscellany

The last few Miscellanies have not gone out because of student supplicants begging for mercy. Let's see how far I get today:

• Medieval Living has posts on medieval tiles and medieval kilns.
• The most recent medieval word of the day is fealty. Or fee simple, depending on the blog.
• About.com has news of a potential 10th-century Korean settlement found in Russia. Sorry, I have nothing to add -- I know nothing about the northern Korean kingdoms.
• Drout offers an announcement of his new recorded lecture, The Anglo-Saxon World.
• The Swain needs help compiling a list of important manuscripts and inscriptions from the early medieval period, 400-1100.
• Podictionary has a post on the connections between the word coroner and Robin Hood (sort of).
• News for Medievalists has several new articles, including one on how we almost ended up with King Arthur instead of Henry VIII.
• Old Norse News has a survey about learning Old Norse.
• Medievalism announces the publication of Eminent Chaucerians? Early Women Scholars and the History of Reading Chaucer, edited, ironically enough, by two men.
• Lingwe has a post on Lloyd Alexander.
• DARC has glass drinking vessels.
• Homilaria discusses early medieval monasticism for understanding Western patristics.
• Geoffrey Chaucer hath a new post about Quanje Weste.
• Getting Medieval discusses Jewish marriage and labor customs.
• Soon I'll be abandoning tea and Coke Zero for spellcasting sodas.
• Slouching Towards Extimacy discusses The Once and Future King.
• Fantasy fanatics take medieval make-believe to Bill Schupp park, h/t Steven Till.
• Mony Wylsum Way discusses a point of translation in a Latin chronicle.
• Medieval Club of New York posts their fall events.
• Dante blogging continues.
• You can see Viking silver in York.
• A proto-dragon! h/t Lost in Transcription.
• Medieval Ecclesiastical Art has some beautiful images of medieval pulpits.
• Muhlberger's Early History has a post on Geoffroi de Charny.
• Jonathan Jarrett has a glowing review of The Long Morning of Medieval Europe.
• Medieval Material Culture Blog has several new exhibitions around the world.
• In the Middle has a CfP for "Insular Identities and the Borders of Medieval Britain."
• Speaking of CfPs, The Heroic Age has a bunch too.
• Here's some video from a Viking fair.

Happy Birthday Medievalists.net!

Happy birthday to Medievalists.net, which is one year old today!

Becoming a Medievalist

I received the following e-mail this morning [with redactions lest the person not want to be indentified]:

Ever since I read the letters of J.R.R. Tolkien in jr. high I have had the desire to be a Medievalist at the University level. In January I will be starting my first semester at college. My question is what kinds of classes should I take in order to provide a good base to work towards becoming a medievalist? Of course I will need to take courses in English literature, but other than that I am not so sure. At the moment I am thinking of taking an introductory course in Latin. Any suggestions would be more than welcome.

I was thinking about transforming into Professor Awesome, PhD and offering up little nuggets of wisdom about not neglecting Western Civ, philosophy, and perhaps considering German (especially if he's interested in the philology side), but I'm wondering what the Wordhoarders would suggest, particularly thought how have pursued the academic track.

So, ymbsittendra, what would you all suggest?

Me and K'zoo 2010

A few people have asked me privately, and it's true -- I may not be going to K'zoo in 2010. There are a variety of personal forces causing me to drift in that direction, but perhaps the most important professional reason is that for the first time in forever I have no particular piece of research I want to present. I've got research, I'm just not jonesing to take it to K'zoo.

I'm not saying I won't go for sure, but I haven't sent in any paper proposals to sessions, so it's looking unlikely. Don't worry; I've not entered into a post-tenure sloth period.

Morning Medieval Miscellany

For your Tuesday:

• Medievalists.net has an interview with Ian Mortimer about his book The Time-Travellers Guide to Medieval England.
• The Medieval Word of the Day is wall-walk.
• Canterbury Cathedral is being repaired with duct tape, which I think is supposed to outrage us, but instead makes me think of the incredible utility of duct tape. h/t Steven Till.
• News for Medievalists has an article on artifacts found at Brechin Cathedral and one on Scottish castles for sale.
• Mearcstapa has a CfP for Leeds 2010, "Exploring the Monstrous."
• DARC has images from Viking Hill at Bonfield.
• The Heroic Age has almost 20 new CfPs and other announcements.
• Medieval Material Culture discusses three exhibits: a Cardiff exhibit on the Welsh view of the Crusades, more on the Nuremberg Mahzor, and a Vienna exhibit on Charles the Bold.
• A Johns Hopkins student killed an intruder with a samurai sword.
• George and the Dragon is, to my knowledge, Patrick Swayze's only medievalist role.

An Oldie But a Goodie

This collection of accidentally-funny statements by students pops up every so often. I've heard people say that they think it's all made up, but none of those people work in academe. I'm confident it's all absolutely true.

My personal favorite: "Victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks." I'm feeling lazy ... insert your own juvenile joke below.

Morning Medieval Miscellany

An extremely truncated Miscellany this morning. I was having serious problems with my RSS Reader, and so I cleared everything out of it -- which means if you posted anything of import over the last week, I've probably not read it. If you want to direct my attention to something you've written, please feel free to drop me an e-mail. So, all we have for now:

• About a dozen new posts on The Heroic Age, with lots of CfPs.
• A 14th-century Hebrew manuscript, the Nuremberg Mahzor, is going on display for the first time.
• Here's a medieval English chicken recipe, for Chykens in Hocchee.

That's it! It would be wonderful if someone were to swing by my house and cook me up some of that chicken.

Web for Medieval Source-Based Textual Scholarship

An e-mail about all the new resources at the Web for Medieval Source-Based Textual Scholarship page came across MEDTEXTL, and I went and looked at the page again. It's sweeeeeeet. Even if you're not a scholar, you'll want to go to the page and look at all the links to actual manuscript images.

Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?

This is only barely medievalist, but Season 3 of "The Guild" is cracking me up so much I felt like posting it.

Review of Dante's Inferno (2007)

The film Dante's Inferno (2007) is a very interesting project. Shot with little paper puppets and placed in a more modern, gritty urban landscape, the film manages to capture some of what Dante was doing in his original. Though it takes a while to catch its rhythm, the film eventually develops as a dark comedy with wry social commentary, and the occasional history lesson to offer context to some of Dante's original denizens of Hell.

At first I found the paper puppets a little off-putting (and a friend of mine found it unwatchable because of them), but eventually I came to appreciate the medium, and even enjoy a few of the little tricks they would do that emphasized the silly 2-D puppets shot on 3-D miniature sets (such as having a reaction painted on the reverse side of the puppet, and simply turning the puppet around to change how it looks). It also allows it to continue to be a dark comedy. If the Inferno were to be shot as an ultra-modern CGI FX fest, it would run the risk of either being unbearably gory or having to pull too many punches. The puppets allowed a dark depiction of Hell that's not going to put you in therapy. To get a sense of the look of the film, watch the embedded trailer below.

The structure was a little awkward. The film rushes through the first 6 levels of Hell in the first half hour, then meanders about the last 3 levels for an hour. As a result, the first third of the movie isn't nearly as funny and insightful as the last two-thirds, and I'd have wished for a more evenly paced journey.

I found some of the political cheap shots off-putting, and there's a strong anti-Catholic sentiment. The underlying political idea (though it is inconsistent) seems to be that Republicans are politically evil, and Democrats are personally evil. At first it seemed to me that rather than scoring cheap and vapid political points, it would have been better to assign one party to be the Guelphs and one the Ghibellines to bring it in line with the poem. Upon further consideration, though, I wonder if it isn't appropriate to have these political cheap shots, since it strikes me as likely that Dante's audience might have felt that he was being unfair, but we are simply too far removed from the situation to have that sense.

One last potential problem with the contemporary references is that they might be too contemporary. I suspect if I asked my students who Lee Atwater and F. Lee Bailey are, they would neither know nor care. Atwater particularly has been dead nearly 20 years now, and the O.J. Simpson trial (how most people would know Bailey) was even longer ago. Doing rear-guard action on such minor culture war battles all these decades later only makes the film feel dated in a way that historical references of greater magnitude (like Pope John XII or John Wilkes Booth) do not.

Morning Medieval Miscellany

It'll take me a long time to clear out this backlog, so let's get started!

• Start with Carnivalesque LIII.
• A Corner of Tenth-Century Medieval Europe has a CfP for "Problems and Possibilities in Early Medieval Diplomatic."
• Dante blogging continues. I know of at least one student who's reading along and wowing his professor with his insight.
• Got Medieval has In Search of Robin Hood, the September feast day calendar, and a knight on a hobby horse.
• Gypsy Scholar has a post on the problem of free will in medieval philosophy.
• Hammered Out Bits has a neat post on the Norse system of measures for exchange.
• Heavenfield muses about religious conversion as a form of translation.
• The Heroic Age has more than a dozen CfPs and such.
• Heroic Dreams has some updates on The Hobbit film.
• DARC has some images from their Norse camp, sans modern stuff.
• In the Middle announces the inaugural issue of The Glossator, and has a CfP on "Romance Temporalities."
• Here's a newish blog: Medieval Living. Update feeds and blogrolls!

Well, there's much more, but Google Reader just started acting up, so more later.

Dragon*Con 2009 Post-Mortem, Me as Professor Awesome

Dragon*Con this year was unfortunately short for me. I arrived much later than expected Friday night (around 11PM), and then had to leave shortly after lunch on Sunday. Even though it was short, it was still a good time, and we got to do some medieval literary geekery.

Let's start with the medieval lit geekery. The other scholar in my session didn't make it, so I was the star of a one-man show. The session was well-attended; I counted just as I started, and there were forty people at that point, and more than a dozen people came as the session went on, filling the room completely. Prof. Matt Brown did an excellent job of promoting the academic track at the convention. The Q&A session went on for about 45 minutes, which is unbelievably amazing for the session on a Saturday night when the drinking has begun.


The star of this year's Dragon*Con was, without a doubt, Adam Savage of Mythbusters. He was going around in a costume that obscured his face, and so was offering hints through Twitter as to who he was. Everywhere I went, I heard the same conversation: "Do you think that guy over there is Adam? What about that guy over there? Oooh, that guy has a lot of silver buttons ... wasn't that a clue?" Great PR!


On the (sort of) medievalist side, Felicia Day of The Guild and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was the woman everyone wanted to see. For the moment, she's the queen of fandom geekery. Myself, I wouldn't consider The Guild medievalist, but there's an argument to be made for it. Steve from Blue's Clues told one of my minions she looked like Felicia Day, and I have a good friend who's in love with her (Felicia Day, not my minion), so I got an extra dose of the lovely and funny Ms. Day.



I was happy to see Dragon*Con was a lot more family-friendly this year. In past years, I've seen a lot of topless women in public area. This year I saw only one topless woman. I didn't see any concerted effort to keep the Con cleaner, but it was. Perhaps next year I'll take my kids.

One other thing about the Con is that I'm giving up correcting people about Professor Awesome, Ph.D. I invented Prof. Awesome to be an evil alter-ego, the kind of professor whose favorite subjects upon which to pontificate are those he knows nothing about. In Professor Awesome, PhD I've been able to poke fun of the excesses of my profession.



Before Dragon*Con, though, I started to get e-mails and Facebook messages addressing me as "Professor Awesome, PhD."* When I correct people, they seem to get confused and not understand how Prof. Awesome, PhD could both be me and not be me. So, I give up. I'll be Professor Awesome, PhD, and just find some other way to poke fun at my profession.



Finally, I met lots of interesting people at the Con, and regret not being able to stay longer. One of the more interesting people I met was Allegra Torres who is working her way through college as -- get this -- a chainmail model. Yes, an English major chainmail model. Sorry guys, she's already got a boyfriend.

Allegra Torres. Image is a bit blurry, but you get the idea.

*Interestingly enough, the only person to ask for my autograph at the Con did not come to my session, and when I asked if he wanted me to sign it with my real name or as "Prof. Awesome, PhD," he didn't seem to have heard of my alter-ego. One lovely young woman asked for a copy of my paper, which is a much more academic thing to do. I don't mind signing autographs; it just seems weird for a professor.

Back from Dragon*Con

Caring for my elderly dog brought me back from Dragon*Con early -- I'll probably be able to post a report on it tomorrow. A little preview of what's to come:

• I give up. I've fully embraced the idea of being Professor Awesome, Ph.D.
• "Chainmail Model" is an actual job description.
• I'm now searching for a +5 Helm of Sexterity.
• Meat. I like meat.
• One game of Munchkin can lead to immediate addiction.
• It's official -- everyone hates Twilight. Everyone. If you like it, you are not a part of everyone. You're essentially a non-entity. So there.
• Even an übergeek like me finds children endlessly quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail obnoxious.
• I now sympathize with The Monarch having to deal with minion incompetence.
• The only thing that can draw a crowd at Dragon*Con during the drinking hour on a weekend is the promise of hot girl-on-bear action.
• Waxing: Felicia Day, Adam Savage, Steampunk, Anthony Daniels
• Waning: Leia steel bikinis, Boba Fett, public nudity

Dragon*Con 2009

I'll be at Dragon*Con this year, though I've been getting so many messages referring to me as my evil alter-ego (Professor Awesome, PhD), that it might be more appropriate to say that Professor Awesome, PhD will be at Dragon*Con this year presenting under my name.

My session:

D*C Comics and Popular Arts Conference Session #2: The Historical Roots of SF & Fantasy Sat 08:30 pm Location: Greenbriar - Hyatt (80 min)

Scholarly presentations on the historical roots of SF and fantasy. Richard Scott Nokes (Troy University) explores the medieval roots of human hybrids---characters such as elves, trolls, and cyborgs that play an important role in SF and fantasy---challenging the notion that such characters arise from distinctively contemporary hopes and anxieties bout the posthuman. Luis Arata (Quinnipiac University) discusses Somnium, a SF/fantasy novel by 17th Century astronomer Johannes Kepler, in which Kepler develops and defends in narrative form elements of Copernican physics that he would later discover through formal mathematics.

I've been telling folks it's an 8:30 AM session, but now I see it's 8:30 PM! Huzzah!

If you'd like to meet me and can't make it to my session, I'll try to keep things updated on my Twitter feed. I won't have a laptop during the conference, so e-mailing me is probably not a good way to contact me.

Also, for those who have asked, I will sign autographs (but I won't have an "autograph signing session" -- what am I, William Shatner?), and no, I don't charge for autographs -- but you have to promise not to forge my signature and steal my identity.

Žižek on Medieval Torture

Via First Things, I found this little quote from an NYT opinion piece entitled "Knight of the Living Dead":

Are we aware that the last time such things [public discussion of torture] were part of public discourse was back in the late Middle Ages, when torture was still a public spectacle, an honorable way to test a captured enemy who might gain the admiration of the crowd if he bore the pain with dignity?

Of course, Žižek has never been one to let the facts get in the way, but come on -- even he should know torture is as much (and perhaps even moreso) a modern phenomenon as a medieval one. I guess in this case it's because the modern torture has mostly been carried out by those Žižek likes.

WikiGrendel

This is interesting -- Wikipedia has a page entitled "List of Artistic Depictions of Grendel." Yet Professor Awesome, PhD still has no Wikipedia entry.

Uncomfortable Medieval Plot Summaries

I can't properly attribute this because of the semi-anonymous nature of the place I got it from but here are "Uncomfortable Plot Summaries." Those of medievalist relevance:

• BEOWULF: Colonists hire assassin to drive natives from land.
• CONAN THE BARBARIAN: Petty thief murders religious leader.
• LABYRINTH: Girl is negligent baby-sitter. [and I would also add is the jailbait love interest of David Bowie]
• LORD OF THE RINGS: Midget destroys stolen property.
• MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL: British comedy troupe inadvertently creates language lab for nerds.
• ROBIN HOOD: Disgruntled veteran protests taxes. [Actually, I'm very comfortable with this plot summary]
• SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS: Layabout stepdaughter shacks up with seven miners.

On the non-medieval front, this reminds me of that horrible film, The American President, in which the President sleeps with a lobbyist and changes policy in exchange for her affections -- and we're supposed to applaud him for it. A film that could only be loved by an audience that is both politically and ethically ignorant.