Morning Medieval Miscellany

Enjoy!

• Steven Till discusses the legal battle over Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
• News for Medievalists has an update, including an article about Wikipedia's refusal to remove images of Muhammad.
• Heavenfield's Person of the Week is Cynefrith, Abbot of Gilling. The question is asked there: why did he leave Wearmouth-Jarrow for Ireland? The answer is obvious: he heard Shamrock Shakes were available year-round there.
• Geoffrey Chaucer (the one who hath a blog) laments the passing of Sir William, aka "Ulrich von Liechtenstein"
• Dr. Virago tells us why she teaches medieval literature.
• Medieval Material Culture Blog gives us an article with this opening line: "The tiny Channel Island of Sark will meet on Thursday to discuss plans to bring Europe’s last feudal state in line with western democracies." Um, perhaps I'm missing something here, but if they've been voting on this issue, in what way are they feudal? Is it only the Chief Pleas who are meeting together to vote on this?
• Jonathan Jarrett has a post about the motives of Crusaders, and the rights/responsibilities of historians when they moralize about the past.

Morning Medieval Miscellany

I'm finally coming up for air after about two weeks of breakneck writing, leaving the number of medieval blogposts in my reader in the hundreds ... so I'll just link for a while until I get sick of linking. My apologies in advance to any medievalists out there whose fine posts are skipped by your exhausted Wordhoard host.

• Jonathan Jarrett has a really interesting post on feudalism that is too complicated to describe in a single sentence. Just read it.
• Caught in the Snide has a post on Aelfric and Wordsworth.
• This isn't really medieval, but as I'm a regular guest on Geekerati, I think I should mention that they're putting out a call for writers in various aspects of geek culture.
• Got Medieval has now moved to www.GotMedieval.com ... sort of. It's really just a redirect, but Carl would like us to update links accordingly.
• Speaking of Got Medieval, as part of his Google penance, he's discussing pope names in his usually LLCoolCarl style.
• Heavenfield has posts on St. Bridget of Kildare, the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, and Osfrith son of Eadwine, whom I've apparently read about a bazillion time in Bede's Ecclesiastical History but have no memory of.
• The Weird Medieval Animal this week is the chimera.
• JJ Cohen has a post about whether "The Prioress's Tale" can bring Jews & Christians together, referring to this Prioress's Tale Chamber Opera. Eileen Joy is none too happy in the comments.
• Medieval Material Culture has posts on a book about the big Gough Map in the Bodleian Library, and archeologists who think they might know the location of the palace of the first king of Scotland ... who, as it turns out, is nothing like Forrest Whitaker.
• News for Medievalists had a big update, including a bit more on the Gough Map, as well as a bit on Islamic medieval science.
• Dr. Virago sticks up for the churches in Norwich.
• Steven Till has a bunch of links to medieval history resources online.
• The Swain points out that the 2008 Medieval Congress program is up.
• The Punch Die laments that Richard the Lionhearted has, along with Winston Churchill and Charles Dickens, fallen into legend.
• A Commonplace Book wonders how sharp the edges were on tournament swords.