Benjamin and the Printing Press

Recently I've been exchanging e-mails with an 8th-grader named Benjamin, who asked my help on his school project:

I am working on a National History Day project about the Gutenberg Printing Press’s effects on economics, education, and religion. National History Day is an annual competition with this year’s theme being “Revolution, Reaction and Reform in History.” The participants have a choice of different ways of representing their topic; I have chosen to create a website. In general, I am looking for responses that link back to the overall theme of “Revolution, Reaction and Reform in History.”

He then went on to ask various questions, some of which I can answer quite easily, but some of which many others out there in the blog-o-sphere have a great deal more expertise, so I thought I would post his questions, my responses, and invite others to add more in the comments section. Benjamin, there are many Professors Awesome out there, and I'm hoping many of them will chime in to make your website great!

Economic

1. What were the key economic advancements caused by the printing press?
2. Did the Gutenberg printing press put scribes/monks out of work, the same way the industrial revolution later did to other trades. Was this the beginning of
machine taking over man, so to speak?
3. For the following three questions, I am especially looking at the role of the
Author. Specifically, what were the jobs/ businesses…
a) lost due to the printing press? How did this affect the world?
b) created by the printing press? How did this affect the world?
c) enhanced by the printing press? How did this affect the
world?
4. How did the rise of newspapers affect Europe?

It's hard to really put a finger on the key economic advancements caused by the printing press -- obviously, there were so many, and an uncountable number of those created indirectly by rising literacy and education.

The printing press didn't exactly put monks or scribes out of work. Monks support their calling in a lot of different ways, so it isn't like the printing press put them out of business. In fact, even today at the Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert some monks still continue as scribes, though in a new technological medium. Also, you have to remember that the printing press is essentially only useful for mass production -- just think of all the things you handwrite every single day. I think it's more fair to say that the printing press transformed the job of the scribe.


Nor would I say that the printing press heralded the beginning of machine taking over for man -- far from it! In order to get something into print, we have to intervene in any number of ways, from editing, to setting type, etc. So, fewer people were needed to produce more books, right? But instead of that leading to fewer people working on producing books, this simply made books more affordable and drove up the demand for books. Don't believe me? Just think of all the people today whose main job it is to produce print texts today. According to the American Library Association, there are over 340,000 paid librarians and staffers in America alone. The Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us there there are more than a quarter of a million writers and editors in America alone. So, just in America alone, we have well over half a million people whose sole job is to produce and maintain texts -- once we add in the myriad other jobs (publishing, distributing, manufacturing presses, maintaining presses, etc), I'm pretty confident that the number in the US alone would run over a million. That means that across the world, MILLIONS of people find their primary occupation in producing and maintaining texts. The printing press didn't really put scribes out of work; it created a huge market for mass-produced texts.


Educational
1. Were there any key educational reforms by the printing press? I know that literacy rates sky rocketed, but what were the effects of that? Also, how did the printing press effect educational institutes, such as Universities?
2. Would you say the printing press was a/the major cause to the starting of the Renaissance? Why or why not? If not, what was its relationship to the Renaissance?
3. Was there a concept of intellectual property/ copyright before the printing press and how did it change?
4. How did the education of the lower class affect post-medieval life?
5. Where there any negative educational responses or reforms? If so, what were they?

Way back at the end of the 9th Century, King Alfred the Great pushed an ambitious universal literacy project, but even that project was only intended to foster universal literacy in aristocratic men. The printing press made books so affordable that literacy could expand out through the culture. Some of the ideas we take for granted (such as democracy) rely on a broad number of literate people.

Others might disagree with this, but I would suggest that the immediate effect of the printing press on universities was smaller than we might think. Universities continued for a long time to be centers of religious training, and so already had the financial backing of the Church to provide libraries. Some of the biggest costs of a university education (land, support for instructors, time off from money-making enterprises by students) weren't really affected by the printing press, so a university education continued to be the purview of the clergy and the upper class (or at least the upper-middle) until the 20th century. The idea that a university education should be available to everyone regardless of social class is a pretty recent one. That being said, like secondary education (high school), mass university education is only really possible because of the printing press.

When the Renaissance begins, and what it means, is really at the center of your question. A lot of medieval scholars (myself included) reject the term "Renaissance" since it means "re-birth," and seems to suggest that the intellectual life of Europe in the Middle Ages was dead. As I like to point out to my students, in the Middle Ages philosophy was a spectator sport, and a lot of the stifling uniformity of the Roman Empire disappeared allowing for greater innovation. Guys like me call the period after the Middle Ages the "Early Modern" period. Some people mark the beginning of the Italian Early Modern period as starting with the 14th century, before the printing press, but I really think the printing press is both the pinnacle of medieval technology, and the end of it. Certainly early modern literature begins with the printing press, because certain new genres (such as the novel) really only come into vogue because of the press.


Religious
1. How much did the Printing press affect the spread/start (of) the Reformation?
2. How badly was the church hurt/ changed by the Reformation?
3. Did the printing press have any other effects on Christianity? Did it change any other religions, or the concept of religion?


Although there were proto-Reformation forces around long before the printing press (such as the Lollards), it is hard for me to see how they could have had more than temporary success without the printing press. For example, the Lollard Bible was banned in 1407, but banning a book that has to be copied by hand is way easier than banning one that can be mass produced. As for how badly the Church was hurt, that's a touchy question. For example, the Catholic Encyclopedia says "Incalculable harm was thereby wrought from the religious standpoint," whereas Reformation Day is a religious holiday among many protestants, who obviously think it is a great thing. My own opinion* is that the Reformation is just another expression of tensions that have existed in the Church since Peter and Paul feuded, and as such both Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians are blessed by it since iron sharpens iron.

We're getting away from the issue of the printing press a bit, though. Naturally, the printing press has had other effects. The Bible is the bestselling book in history (this may be one of the reason the New York Times bestseller list does not include religious bookstores; otherwise, the number one book would never change). Recently, the Roman Catholic Church mades some changes in the Roman Missal -- detailed changes in wording that are only possible after the invention of the printing press.


General
1. What was the standard of medieval literature (prior to the Gutenberg printing press) in terms of length, quality, content, and messages conveyed and how did that change with the Gutenberg printing press?
2. I learned through my studies that the Black Death killed off so many people, that the remaining people had to come up with innovative ways of doing tasks like bookmaking, hence the printing press. Were there any other ways that the Black Death influenced the printing press?
3. I also learned that during the Black Death the Pope advocated self-flagellation that spread chaos and disease. The Pope later recanted his support for this, thus causing people to doubt the power of the Christian church, which helped to fuel the Reformation. Where there any other connections between the Black Death and the printing press?
4. Where there any disadvantages of a scribe/monk for making books other than the speed and cost of their writing?
5. Do you know of any other people knowledgeable about my topic who I could interview? Could I have their contact information?
6. Do you have any other materials (websites, book titles, databases, videos, photos, recordings, etc.) that you can recommend to me? In the website I am making on my printing press project I am hoping to incorporate the digital materials for all of the previously mentioned.

I've heard this argument before about the Black Death leading to the printing press, but I'm not sure what to make of it. Because so many monks died, the argument goes, there were fewer scribes, driving up the cost of books and leading to inventions such as the press. I'm skeptical of that argument, since the death of so many non-monks also would mean that there would be less demand for books as well. Of course, the Black Death did not kill people off evenly (it isn't like the Angel of Death lined everyone in Europe up and went "live, live, die, live, live, die, live, live, die..." like some morbid game of duck-duck-goose), so if I saw some research showing that a greater number of monks had died, I might buy it. Right now I'm not knowledgeable enough to say anything more than that I'm skeptical of these claims.

One thing I'd like to point out abou the length and content issues of the printing press is that (as I previously mentioned) it opened up the possibility of affordable pleasure reading. Novels, for example, don't really exist before the printing press**, because who has the money for such a thing? Long texts tended to have their roots in oral recitation, but the rise of the printing press led to a fall in oral poetry (and I suspect also poetry in general). You can probably name dozens of living novelists off the top of your head, but how many living composers of epic poetry can you name? Every time an epic poem or saga suddenly appears on the bestseller lists, it is a new translation of a pre-modern poem, not an original composition.

Oh yes, and about the disadvantages to being a scribe -- as someone who has copied medieval manuscripts, I can tell you that it really makes your hand ache. I've done all sorts of hard farm work and come back from the job bloodied and bruised, and that doesn't happen when you're a scribe, but my hand locks up in a claw position after a few days of writing, and it hurts like the dickens. I doubt this led to the rise of the printing press, but since you asked about the disadvantages, I thought I'd throw that in there.

As for other people and websites, I'd like to throw that out to the blog-o-sphere. Many of my colleagues out there are much more knowledgeable than I am on one element of this or another, so I invite them in the comments below to suggest their own books, articles, and websites that might help you with your project.

Good luck!

*Full disclosure: I'm a non-denomination Christian who is currently a member of a PCA Presbyterian church.
** Some will argue that this-or-that early text is the first novel, but I don't really see anything pre-printing press that I think counts, and even if someone could find an example or two, these would be oddities.

Early Medieval Historian Needed

Any early medieval historians interested in giving a submission to Witan Publishing a look-see? If so, don't comment below -- e-mail me at rsnokes@WitanPublishing.com .

Team Bisclavret

In honor of Halloween, I present to you the story of Bisclavret, a werewolf tale by Marie de France from the 12th Century. While others are on Team Edward or Team Jacob, as a medievalist I'm on Team Bisclavret.

A Very Viking Halloween

Feel like terrorizing northern Europe this Halloween? Feel like settling strange new lands to the west? I know I do!

The copy on this website selling Viking Halloween costumes sounds like it was plucked from a middle school paper on the Vikings, and liberally sprinkled with the word "fierce."

For example:

They used Longboats which allowed them to cross open seas or sail up shallow rivers to expand their conquests. Known to be highly skilled sailors the Vikings used Longboats which had both sails and oars.

Uh huh. OK, aside from the redundancy and the terrible rhetoric, how is this supposed to make me want to buy a viking costume? It isn't like any of them come with sails and oars.

Maybe I'm supposed to think, "Hmmmm, I want to go as a seafaring barbarian for Halloween this year, but I cannot choose between one who prefers oars or one who prefers sails. Wait! Look at that! The vikings used both? You had me at 'longboats!'"

So, just remember, if you're not certain who to be for Halloween, "Dress up and be Cnut the Great who was possibly the greatest Viking King who has been nicknamed the Emperor of the North."

Talk Like an Early-Modern Sea-Going Outlaw Day

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.* It got me thinking about why there's no "International Talk Like a Knight Day" or some similar equivalent.

Our sense of what it means to "Talk Like a Pirate" comes from Robert Newton's performance of Long John Silver in Disney's 1950 version of Treasure Island. You can get a sense of it from these clips:



So, in the popular imagination, what do people in the Middle Ages talk like? Having attended enough SCA events and Ren Faires, I'm thinking it's supposed to be some approximation of Early Modern courtly speech, but is there some common origin like "pirate" talk that can be traced back to some Errol Flynn movie or something? Has anyone out there done any research on this?


*Or, "Arrr, it be International Talk Like a Pirate Day."

“Ovide moralisé” Translation Grant

At first I thought $210k was an absurd amount for a translation of an obscure* medieval text, but then when I realized it was 72,000 lines of poetry (!) I thought, daaaaang! That's about 25 times longer than the longest thing I've ever translated (Beowulf), and no doubt will be challenging as heck -- at least I had the benefit of a century of other people translating those pesky hapax legomena in Beowulf to help me out.

So, congratulations to Dr. Sarah-Jane Murray! I'm looking forward to reading that paperback when it comes out.


*To be fair, it may be obscure because it hasn't been translated.

New Edition of Beowulf

Here's the new edition of Beowulf I'd like to see.

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_105_23-situations-about-to-go-horribly-awry_p23/#18

Snorri the Muppet

You'll have to get to the end of this Cracked article for the medieval pay-off, but my favorite line:

Pretty much everything we know about Scandinavian paganism comes from the Eddas, two books compiled in the 13th century by a guy with the hilarious, Muppet-like name of Snorri Sturluson.

Farai Chansoneta Nueva

A translation and original verse can be found here. The opening:

I shall write a new little song
before it turns windy, cold and rainy:
let my mistress assay and test me
so she'll learn in which fashion I love her;
and certainly, come hell and high water,
she won't free me from her snares.

Cracked on Medieval Sieges

The 6 Craziest Sieges in History over at cracked starts out with a take on a medieval siege that sounds like the way people talk at Biblo's Saturday night at the Congress after the third pitcher of beer has been emptied. My favorite line:

So after two months of watching the tower get taller and the people inside it get fatter, the Vikings came up with a very Viking plan: fill the river with dead bodies so they could attack from every side.

K'zoo Friday

We were really, really busy at the Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo today. We had a lot of people who were just curious, a lot who wanted us to save their journals (which we will), and a lot who had monographs to pitch.

So, let me take this time to honor an early adopter of Witan Publishing, Larry Swain. Larry's book should be out in June (pending editing stuff), so he's on the cutting edge of academic publishing. He's got a really fine edition of Aelfric's Letter to Sigeweard we can't wait to make available.

Larry with the sign promoting his book. More promotions to come online!

Patricia Bracewell, "Royal Hostage"

We're doing brisk traffic here at the Witan Publishing book at Kalamazoo, and one of the nice things about being set in a central location is that I'm getting to meet everyone I know.

In addition to seeing old friends, I'm meeting new. I just met historical fiction author Patricia Bracewell, who is currently working on a book entitled Royal Hostage about Emma of Normandy.

Patricia Bracewell and me ... and some poor woman accidentally photobombing us.

Grrrr ... Amazon!

Amazon.com now has a new policy that you can't post books for free -- which really stinks because we intended to offer our sample book for free starting this week.

So, in the meantime, you can still buy "Old English and Samwise Gamgee's Genealogy" on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but it'll cost you a dollar. We're now going to try a work-around to allow the slightly more tech-savvy to download it for free on our website, but that's not quite available yet.

If you don't want to pay and don't want to wait, just come by our booth -- we'd be delighted to show it to you for free, without Amazon or B&N getting their cut.

Setting Up at K'zoo

Today I arrived at the Congress in Kalamazoo to set up the Witan Publishing booth. Now that I'm seeing in from the other side, I'm finding that the already helpful staff is really helpful for exhibitors. As usual it was great seeing Lisa Carnell, and Theresa Whitaker made sure everything was perfect.

I'm really hoping we're able to help a lot of people during this conference. Lots of journals are struggling financially, and we offer the ability to publish for free, distribute world-wide, and even make a little profit for the sponsoring organization. If I have my way, Witan will save a lot of scholarship that would find an audience if it only had an outlet.

Also, this is a great opportunity for all of you who have technical questions and want them answered to go straight to the source. Michael, our Tech-Sorcerer, and Nina, our Technical Editor Extraordinaire, will both be there to answer the questions I can't.

For those who worry that print culture may be entirely dead, fear not -- I for one plan to spend entirely too much money at the other publishers' booths.

On Our Way to K'zoo 2011

The Witan team is on the move! It feels weird to be going to the Congress as an exhibitor rather than a presenter.

Here are two members of our team at a rest area in Tennessee. Only about 500 more miles to go! Look at the anticipation on Michael & Nina's faces!

Guide to K'zoo

Medievalists.net has posted a really handy guide to the International Congress on Medieval Studies. If you've never been, check out their stuff.

I'll be there, of course. This year Witan Publishing will have a booth, and the heads of our technical team are coming, so all those thorny techy questions you all want to know about how we make e-publishing work you can ask them.

Don't ask me the technical questions; I don't know. After I'm done with the academic side of editing, I assume they turn it into an actual e-pub book using the magic of leprechauns or something.

It's also a good chance to pitch your book idea to us, or sign up to be a peer reviewer, or just sign up to be on our mailing list. Or, if you don't want to do any of that, it's a good place to come arrange to eat with us at Bilbo's! A word to the wise: many an important deal in medieval studies has been made at Bilbo's -- and what better place?

Dragon*Con 2011 CfP

The CfP for the Comics and Popular Art Conference at Dragon*Con is up! For those who are interested in presenting your work before a popular audience, this is a great opportunity. The conference is a legit academic conference, but since it's housed within Dragon*Con, you can expect fans to show up at your session too. I should note that even though the first word is "Comics," we have lots of work that's not about comics -- in fact, I've never presented on comics there at all. Last year my work was on the depiction of the Norse gods in Stargate, and in the past I've presented on trolls & shape-changers in medieval lit, as well as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Submit your medieval-themed topics, present at an academic conference, then mingle with 40k+ fans!

Nokes Sighting Expected in Louisville

Want to punch me in the face, but live too far away to do it conveniently? Well, if you're in the Louisville KY area, you're in luck!

This Friday I'll be giving the keynote address at the Association of Humanities Academics meeting at the University of Louisville. My address will be entitled "Professor Awesome vs. the Nazis: Mythic Transference and Fanaticism." I'll be talking about my research into popular medievalism, the experiences of my semi-comic alter-ego "Professor Awesome, PhD" in those communities, and how I ran afoul of the Nazis. The first half will be blah blah theory blah blah set up, and the second half will be the anecdotes about my misadventures.

No, I won't just skip the academic part and get straight to the anecdotes. If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

Woruldhord Project Launched

Good news! The long-awaited Woruldhord Project (no relation to the Unlocked Wordhoard) was just launched.

It is with great pleasure that we would like to announce the launch of the Woruldhord collection, a set of free reusable resources to help with the teaching/study of Old English and the Anglo-Saxons. The project ran from July-October 2010, and asked academics, museums, and members of the public to submit - via a website - material that had to do with the period that they wouldn't mind sharing with others. The response was very impressive, and we assembled about 4,500 objects covering art, archaeology, history, language, literature, music, and modern day representations. The database actually holds over 16,500 files as some of the objects submitted were entire web sites.

Congratulations to Stuart Lee and the whole Woruldhord team!

Witan Publishing's Sample Book

A lot of the inquires we've gotten for Witan have been essentially "What are these e-pub books going to look like?" Now we have an answer for you.

Our sample "book," Old English and Samwise Gamgee's Genealogy: Eden and the Unfallen Hobbit is available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble for $1. If you don't have an e-reader but you want to see the book, you can download Kindle for PC (Amazon), Kindle for iPad (Amazon), Nook for PC (Barnes & Noble), Nook for iPad (Barnes & Noble), all sorts of apps to read it on your phone if you want.

In fact, the "book" itself is only about 15 pages long; it is truly designed to be a sample, which explains why something so short has a foreword almost as long as the main text, table of contents, dedication, etc. This sample was written, edited, and published by me, so it is the very definition of self-published, but fear not! Witan Publishing is not a vanity press; I have no plans to publish any more of my own work. We just needed something I wrote for the sample.

For those of you who buy it, please read the foreword, which is in my mind more important than the article itself. In the foreword I discuss the philosophy that led to the founding of Witan, and it will likely answer many of the questions people have regarding it.

Now that people have seen our sample, many have asked me if we would consider publishing new editions of 19th & early-20th century medieval scholarship that has fallen into public domain. Most of what is out there are so poorly-scanned and converted that they are basically unusable (for a good example of this, go look at the e-pub version of Albert S. Cook's A Concordance to Beowulf). Much of the remainder is more carefully converted, but doesn't really make use of the e-pub format, and so amounts to little more than a .pdf file.

The short answer is yes, but we don't have anything immediately in the pipeline. Since we would have to make major editorial interventions to make such texts work in the e-pub format (doing such things as converting footnotes to endnotes, etc.), we would also want an introduction by a new editor discussing the importance of the work, a new bibliography of the subsequent critical reception of the work, etc. In other words, we wouldn't simply want to slap up an old edition, we would want our new e-pub edition to be an homage to the work of our scholarly ancestors.

So, buy our sample book, read our sample book, and please give us feedback on it in the comments section below! We already see some things we'd like to improve on, but the feedback of interested readers is gold. Also, if you have something you'd like to see published, whether a work of your original scholarship or an edition of an older public domain work you'd like to see produced, please go to our Submit a Proposal page and, well, submit a proposal.

Also, don't forget to "like" Witan Publishing on Facebook, to keep up with our latest titles as they are produced, and Witan Publishing on Twitter as well.

Some of My Best Friends are Medievalists

I've spent the last three days writing personal e-mails to all my medievalist friends inviting them to submit a project to Witan (or get involved as a peer reviewer or booster), and I'm still only through the letter D.

If I've learned nothing else through this process, it's that I've got a lot of medievalist friends! It's a lot like sending out wedding invitations -- I just know I'm going to forget someone important, and since I'm using my e-mail, those who are Facebook friends but not in my e-mail contacts might slip through the cracks.

It's been heartening how many have replied with ideas for texts, but if you've already got a substantial amount written (at least one chapter or the equivalent), a personal e-mail to me isn't enough -- you're going to have to submit your proposal through our Submissions page, for reasons both bureaucratic (so our other editors get to see the proposal) and political (so hiring and tenure & promotion committees see it's all legit).

It's been exciting to see how many of you all are excited! There will be some bumps and snags at the beginning (for example, our submissions page stopped working for a few hours on the first day), but we're pushing the frontier of medieval scholarship. In five years time, I'd like to see this e-pub medium be the new normal for disseminating scholarship.

Witan Submissions Page Back Up

For those who e-mailed me to say, "Hey, I tried to submit to Witan, but it didn't work," the problem should be fixed now. Go ahead and submit your proposals.

Witan Publishing CfM

I know a lot of folks have been waiting for this -- Witan Publishing's Call for Manuscripts. We are now ready to start reviewing them! Also, we have published our sample book, "Old English and Samwise Gamgee's Genealogy: Eden and the Unfallen Hobbit," which should be available in Amazon and Barnes & Noble by tomorrow. You can be sure I'll post when that is available.

Witan Publishing welcomes submissions of scholarly work addressing medieval studies and medievalism. Because Witan produces high-quality double-blind peer-reviewed scholarship in e-publishing formats only, we are not bound by print market prices; therefore Witan especially welcomes conference proceedings, Festschrifts, and other edited collections. Although Witan will consider manuscripts of any length, we are particularly interested in monographs between 40-200 pages that are too long for journal articles, yet too short for print books.

Witan Publishing is dedicated to creating an e-publishing revolution in medieval scholarship by producing professional-grade peer-reviewed work, distributing it through all major online booksellers, and pricing it very affordably for the widest possible audience. To that end, we welcome journals that have found the print market financially untenable. Witan Publishing will produce your journal for free and distribute it extremely inexpensively through major online booksellers.

To begin the submission progress, visit our proposal submissions page.

Medievalists.Net on Witan Publishing

Never let it be said that the folks at Medievalists.net don't work hard -- Peter started the interview after 11:30 at night. Methinks from now on he should be called "Scoop" Konieczny. Here's the first article on Witan Publishing.

Launch of Witan Publishing

Press Release

February 18, 2011
Witan Publishing launched a new service to the medieval academic community today, focusing on e-publishing peer-reviewed scholarship. Witan’s goal is not merely to be another academic publisher, but is instead something much more ambitious: to change the way scholarly research is produced, distributed, and received. This new service will benefit scholars the most, freeing their work from the old market restrictions, distributing scholarship more widely, and putting texts within the budgets of even struggling graduate students.

According to Dr. Richard Scott Nokes, Academic Editor for Witan, “If you look at what other academic publishers are doing in the e-publishing market, they are either putting poorly-scanned and unreadable work online, or they are selling more current scholarship at a very high price. Witan Publishing will offer high-quality peer reviewed professional work and extremely reasonable prices.”

“It is important for academics to embrace the new and ever-growing world of e-publishing,” says Nina McNamara, Technical Editor for Witan. “E-books already outsell paperback and hardcover books on major online retailers, like Amazon.com. Soon, students will replace their hardcover textbooks with e-books all together.”

The existing academic publishing world typically ignores the burgeoning electronic frontier of e-books. Seizing this opportunity, Witan Publishing produces electronic texts of the highest quality, viewable on nearly every platform available to consumers today.

Witan Publishing will be accepting submissions soon.

Firefly Arthuriana

A quick bleg -- has anyone written about Arthuriana in Firefly? I had a student ask me today about Arthurian allusions in Firefly, and I couldn't remember any off the mere 16-or-so episodes, but maybe others have written about it.

Now Where Will We Incarcerate Unruly Anglo-Saxons?

Lancaster Castle, a Norman structure built in the 1090s, has housed a prison for the last few centuries. Now, however, the prison is being closed in part because the age of the structure limits the ways it can be used.

This is one of those places of which we can say "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there."

"Medieval" Torture Devices

Even though the word "medieval" is used here, most of what is described is early Modern, but here's a guy who probably lives a half-hour from where I grew up and has a barn full of "medieval" torture devices.

Next time I'm up there I think I'll spend the money to visit Carder's Variety Land.

Starz Camelot Trailer

Here's a trailer for the new Camelot coming out on Starz. h/t Medievalists.net



Joseph Fiennes almost made me spew root beer from laughing.

Modern Illuminators

This is pretty interesting: A studio where artists are producing gold-leaf manuscripts on vellum. The Illumination Atelier website has even more information, including some more images and a series of YouTube videos showing the production of the works.

Hitchcock's Revenge

Just so that we understand there is nothing new under the sun, the other day thousands of birds fell from the sky in Arkansas -- and in 671, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, there was also a great mortality of birds.

If the pattern continues, perhaps we can see the events of 672 repeated this year. In that year, king Cenwahl died, so if I were actor Ken Wahl, I'd watch my step.

The "Ultimate Medieval Glossary"

The awesomely-named Serena Castleton sent me a link to Costume Supercenter's "Ultimate Medieval Glossary." I'm not really sure why it has such a glossary, since many of the terms have nothing to do with costuming.

Academic medievalists won't find anything new there, but it seems like a really great resource for popular medievalists. If you're sometimes confused by the terms you see thrown around, check it out and you might find it helpful.

Jeremy's Dragon Corner

Apparently there is something on G4 (a channel I don't get) called "Jeremy's Dragon Corner." Why wasn't I informed?!

Why Medieval?

I Suppose I Will Often Eat Beans at a BBQ...

When I think of Joan of Arc, the first thing I think of is "kidney beans."

I can't sense any irony in the description on the B&G Foods website, but I really wish I did:

Joan of Arc was an amazing woman – she lived and died for her beliefs. We think Joan would have been proud of the beans that bear her name.

Yes, that's what Joan d'Arc died for ... her pride in her beans.

And when it comes to Latin American and Creole cuisine, Joan of Arc is a real leader!

Yes, she really strove for leadership in Latin American and Creole cuisine. I mean, I'm all about medievalism, but it's got to at least have a fig leaf of relevance.

For Black Friday

For anyone wondering what to get me for Christmas this year, I recently heard that CastlePost in Kentucky is on sale for only $30 million.

Here's a photo gallery of what you'll be getting me.

An Invitation to SEMA from Professor Awesome, PhD

How About a Little Credit Here?

In working on one of my papers for SEMA, I ran across the book review for Wealtheow: Her Telling of Beowulf on Amazon.

It seemed familiar to me. Really, REALLY familiar. Who, I thought, had published these words that were attributed to "My Fox New York"?

Uh, well, ME. Here. Dudes, feel free to quote me if you want, but please attribute the quote properly.

Holy Pecans, Batman!

In the new website "$#!+ My Students Write" we are treated to this little gem about The Canterbury Tales:

“The narrator saw the Parson in an un-sarcastically holy pecan in the middle of the chaos in the church as he showed by stating…”

I plan to make this the thesis statement of the next scholarly paper I write.

Long-Delayed Professor Awesome Medieval Book Club to Shoot Soon

I keep promising, and promising, and promising the first series for the "Professor Awesome, PhD's Medieval Book Club," and 12-parter on Beowulf. Everything was on track, including two different musical bumpers and one in progress, so that all we had to do was shoot (this part is not as much work as it sounds) and edit -- and then I had to send my computer with all the editing software off to be repaired.

Tonight the computer returns, and we'll start trying to put together the standard opening credits sequence. If I get that done significantly before editing the first installment, I'll post it here for your enjoyment.

Geoffroi de Charny's Name

This is perhaps a dumb question, but why is Geoffroi de Charny called "Charny" rather than "Geoffroi" when we're just using one name? Most of the time, the "de" is more of a designation than part of the name, so we just use their proper name, such as in Christine de Pizan, who would normally just be called "Christine."* The case of Joan d'Arc is an odd one since "d'Arc" is actually her name -- she's from a town called Domremy, and as far as I know there isn't even a place called "Arc," so "Joan of Arc" is a misnomer.

But I notice that the practice is to call Geoffroi de Charny "Charny," and I also note that it's the way he signs his own book. So, does anyone out there know why he's called "Charny" rather than "Geoffroi"?



*Though this too is a little complicated, since she's from Venice, and "Pizan" is an inherited name indicating her family's origins in Pizzano.

How Fat Could You Get in the Middle Ages?

In a long-ranging discussion over beer starting from the five acceptable sexual positions according to Albertus Magnus, we got into why "a tergo"* was acceptable -- because a more natural sexual position might be prevented by such problems as extreme obesity.

When I protested that I couldn't imagine being so fat that a tergo was the only possible position, my colleagues brought up images of morbidly obese people who had to be hauled out of their apartments in cranes, etc. To this I responded that I didn't think it was possible for people to get that fat in the Middle Ages. Even if you could afford an unlimited amount of rich foods, you still had to walk everywhere to get around.

This leads me to wonder -- how fat could you get in the Middle Ages? I tried figuring out fat Louis the Fat was, but I can't find anyone who might have figured out how much he weighed. Does anyone know how fat folks like Thomas Aquinas, Henry VIII, and Loius the Fat actually got? Also, as a bonus question, were they too fat for anything in the sack besides a tergo?


*Doggy-style, for those in the peanut gallery.

Video Games as Morality Plays

Here's an interesting article from The Escapist arguing that video games are the rough equivalent of medieval morality plays. What say you, oh MEMO people?

Lucky Amateur Medievalists

The last year has been a good one for amateur medievalists -- first the Staffordshire Hoard, and now this new find in Wales. OK, so it's not all gold and precious metals, but it's still invaluable.

I'm heading to my backyard to see if I can't make a major medieval archeological find in Troy, Alabama. Any chance those sprinkler lines I dug up were placed there by Charlemagne?

Mailbag 9-28-10

Professor Awesome answers the question: "Is Beowulf

Click here to download:

Mailbag092810_0001.wmv (64960 KB)

a Christian Poem?"

Hey! You Took Me Off Your Blogroll!

Yes, yes I did. In fact, I removed the whole thing.

As most of you Wordhoarders know, this site is all about community. Unfortunately, some changes have made it more and more difficult to keep the community "feel" to the page. First was the rise of the RSS feed, which made it so people viewed posts without necessarily entering the site. Then for boring technical reasons we had to remove the comment section from the front page, which gave the Wordhoard more of a "hey, this is my page, and you can comment if you want, but you're not all that important" feel.

Now Blogrolling is having script problems, and in response they're simply shutting down the service. Feh.

I may simply expand the existing links to include all the stuff that used to be on my blogroll, but let's face it folks, the blog as a medium is fading. Keep visiting here, but more and more of the action is going on over at Facebook (which, for all I know, may itself fade in another few years).

We'll keep surfing along as different technologies come available: Blogger, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. These changes will necessarily force the Wordhoard to evolve, but don't worry -- even though the blogroll came down, we're still about the medievalist community, no matter how you access us.

Professor Awesome Fanfare

I just heard the proposed fanfare for the upcoming "Professor Awesome, PhD" series of videos, I'm planning, and it is literally awesome (unlike Professor Awesome, who is, alas, but a character)!

Clayton Paramore, who set Caedmon's Hymn to music in both West Saxon and Modern English, is doing a delightfully over-the-top fanfare for the title sequence. I can't wait for you all to hear it!

Canterbury Tales Mini-Lecture

Decameron Mini-Lecture

How to Be Professor Awesome, PhD

A couple of years ago I had a conversation with another blogger (I think it was Jeff Sypeck, but memory fades), in which he related an earlier talk with other scholars about how they didn't know how to do the kind of public outreach I was doing. He said, as I recall, "It's not some big mystery; you just do it!"

The more I think about it, though, it's easy to do, but hard to do well. One of my goals has long been not just to do popular outreach myself, but to encourage others too. Eventually, I'd like to see a whole army of Professors Awesome out there interacting with popular medievalists.


So, to that end, I present to you a guide on how to be a Professor Awesome, PhD.


First, you might need an attitude adjustment. I think medieval scholars have a better attitude about this than most, but there's still some snobbiness. As one scholar said to me recently, "What a waste of time!" These folks like to present themselves as casting pearls before swine. Dude, don't be a jackass. You aren't all that important -- hence the pompous schtick in the double-title "Professor Awesome, PhD." I promise if you ever get to be sooooo important that your time shouldn't be wasted on the plebs who are interested in your scholarship, I'll let you know.


Learn who your audience is. Someone who comes off the street to a public lecture you're giving at your school, local library, book club, or some convention isn't going to be an idiot. They don't have a specialist's knowledge, but they're smart and want to know more. I think the average would be like a motivated sophomore in a survey course -- they are smart and eager, but don't yet have any background. Sometimes they have a bit of background, but it has faded since they left school.

Simplify, but don't condescend. Probably the hardest line to walk is how much to simplify things. Leave all your jargon back at the office. Never "interrogate" a subject, "consider" it. Talk about "world-views" rather than "paradigms." Assume they've heard of any canonical texts you're talking about, but they either haven't read them or read them so long ago that they can't remember it. One of my favorite ways to handle this is to call for a refresher, e.g. "I know most of us read at least part of The Canterbury Tales in school, but let me refresh your memories" -- then you can give lots of details without saying, "Hey, you're stupid, and I'm going to treat you that way."

Emphasize the fun stuff. Unlike your students, they don't have to be there, so sex it up a little. If I'm talking about The Saga of the Volsungs, I'll make a joke about french kissing a wolf. If I'm doing The Prose Edda, I'll point out the passage where Tolkien gets his dwarf names. If I'm talking about "The Dream of the Rood," I'll make comparisons between the depiction of Christ there and professional wrestlers. Remember all the fun stuff that drew YOU to medieval studies? Share that with your audience.

Involve the audience. If there's some kind of activity you can do, do it. For example, if I have to do The Decameron, I do my trauma exercise. At the very least, leave copious amounts of time for Q&A -- my general rule of thumb is to always have twice as much time for Q&A as I spend talking. They don't just want to hear, they want to be involved -- so let them.

Use any AV equipment at your disposal. Make PowerPoint presentations, but don't let them be bullet points. Instead, if you're talking about the Crusades, have an image of a crusader, or a map showing major battles of that particular crusade, or whatever. The role of AV here is similar to the role of the over-the-shoulder graphic on TV news -- meant more to illustrate than explain. Of course, if you must use a long quote (which I discourage), always put the text up so they can read along. There's no need to overload the audience with information; after all, there won't be a test later.

Above all, try to have fun. Just as dogs (supposedly) sense fear, audiences sense when you're not enjoying yourself. Bring the joy of medievalism to them!

Professor Awesome, PhD's Dragon*Con Adventure 2010, Episode IV

I'm having trouble distributing this through Posterous.com, so for the time being here's my last report from Dragon*Con.

Professor Awesome, PhD's Dragon*Con Adventure Sept. 4, 2010

Professor Awesome PhD meets a medieval Batman, interviews a maker of tiny medieval structures, and swills mead with a bunch of ne'er-do-wells.

Download now or watch on posterous

DragonCon090410_0001.wmv (57007 KB)

Dragon*Con Report Sept. 3, 2010

Dragon*Con 9-2-10 Report

A little belated, and with an ad at the beginning, here's my Dragon*Con report for Thursday.

Dragon*Con Videocast

I'm leaving for Dragon*Con this afternoon, and I hope to have semi-daily video reports on the popular medievalism there. I would have liked to have more from the academic conference, but most of the papers submitted were science fiction and comic book stuff; I think my own session is the only identifiably medievalist one.

One warning: It'll just be me, my shakycam, netbook, and whatever child/friend I can get to shoot for me. Editing will be minimal (if there's any at all), so these reports will be anything but polished. Still, better than nothing.

Oooh, Sinfjotli Burned Granmar! That's Just Cold.

One of my favorite scenes in The Saga of the Volsungs is one in which Sinfjotli and Granmar are exchanging insults, in a custom similar to "the dozens" in American culture. What I like best about it is that the insults aren't exactly insulting to us outside medieval Norse culture; they're just odd.

For example, Sinfjotli finally gets the best of Granmar with this beauty:

Do you remember when you were a mare, with the stallion Grani and I rode
you at full speed on Bravoll? Afterward you were the goatherd of the giant
Golnir.

I'm not sure how I would react if someone used this on me. I'd probably looked stunned for a moment, then say, "What? Your granny is a stallion and you rode her on the Bravo channel?"

As for saying I was a goatherd of the giant Golnir, I'd punch him in the face. I may be a goatherd, but I'm no goatherd for Golnir!

Beowulf Mini-Lecture

Just as a little test of things to come, here's my Beowulf mini-lecture I'm using for my online course.

Up-Coming Nokes Sightings

Over the next couple of weeks, Wordhoarders will have several opportunities to see me at public venues:

• As many have already discovered, I've been setting up mini-lectures for my online World Lit class at http://unlockedwordhoard.blip.tv/. Those aren't really part of the outreach I plan to do with "Professor Awesome, PhD's Medieval Book Club," but I'll probably host them on the Blip.tv site. At the moment, most are not on medieval topics, but I'll post my Beowulf mini-lecture Monday or Tuesday. When we do the Medieval Book Club our first topic will also be Beowulf, but those will be a series of 10-or-so posts over as many weeks. I'll re-announce those when I post them.
  
• I'll be appearing next week at the academic conference within the Dragon*Con convention. That's one of the places where it's hardest to keep my regular academic self and my Prof. Awesome alter-ego separate. One place I will definitely be appearing as Dr. Richard Scott Nokes is the "Mythology and Stargate" session on Saturday at 4PM in the Marriot A706, where I'll be talking about Norse mythology and the Stargate franchise. As many people have asked me since, no, I will not have an autograph-signing session (it just feels so weird to me when people ask for my autograph), but if you ask me for one, I'd be happy to sign as either myself or Professor Awesome.
  
• I'll be appearing on the Strait Talks radio program on Sunday the 29th at 6:30 PM EST. Though it's a show based out of Philly, I think you can listen to it streaming live from the website. Since the show appears to be a lot about voting, economic, and political issues, I'm not sure yet what medieval stuff they want to talk about, but hey, I'm game.
  
• I'll also be appearing in my classes, but you've got to pay tuition for that. And suffer the indignity of my lectures.

Chaucer-Themed Cruise

In the film Tenure (the 2009 comedy, not the 2007 film of the same title), the department chair is telling her colleagues of the "Chaucer-themed Caribbean cruise" she went on.

Just as I was thinking, "Aw, cool!" they had to go and spoil it. As the scene fades out, she's heard to say, "And of course the captain spoke absolutely flawless Old English..."

*sigh*

Add to that disappointment that I immediately went online to see if there were such a thing as a Chaucer-themed Caribbean cruise, but I found none. Now, an Old English-themed cruise would be pretty exciting, what with the potential for Viking issues.

Saturday Night Special: The Flutists

Saturday Night Special: The Flutists

Some people think the medieval is dorky. These people are the cause of that belief.

RIP: Bernard Knox

This is classical, not medieval, but I devoured all of Bernard Knox's writings I could lay hands on when I was a freshman. For some reason, I got it into my head to read every extant ancient Greek play (or at least every one in our library), and though I didn't finish, I got a lot farther than you might think. I read a lot of Bernard Knox.

I was pretty amazed to find he had been in the OSS (predecessor to the CIA). How many people can have a story as cool as this one in his obituary?

The O.S.S. later sent him into northern Italy for an equally dangerous mission with the Italian underground, and it was there that he rekindled his passion for the classics. Holed up in an abandoned villa, he discovered a bound copy of Virgil and opened it to a section of the first Georgic that begins, “Here right and wrong are reversed; so many wars in the world, so many faces of evil.”

Really, who could be more awesome than that?

Medieval Car & Boat Rally

Usually I'm pretty good and picking up what the medievalist metaphor is in pop culture emanations, but I'm bumfuzzled by the 15th National Car and Boat Rally in Cardiff. Is it just that the Medieval Melee happened to be going on at the same time, or is there some kind of connection I'm missing?

It seems like a great opportunity to show off some reconstructed medieval boats, but if that's happening, it's not in the article.

Fireheart!

Chowder spoofs about everything in the fantasy genre from the 80s.

Staffordshire Hoard Origins

I was talking about the Staffordshire Hoard in class yesterday, when the subject of its origins came up. I had previously heard two, opposing theories:

1. That the hoard had been stripped from the losers' weapons by the winners. This seems pretty plausible, until you ask the question -- wait, the winners lost a huge hoard of gold and silver and didn't go back to find it? Surely the hoard would have been too heavy and bulky for just one guy to carry, so several guys lost it?
2. That the hoard had been stripped from the losers' weapons and buried for safekeeping by the losers themselves, but everyone who knew where it was died in the battle. Again, plausible, but I'm trying to imagine a scenario in which you're in the middle of a battle, losing, then take a time-out to strip your weapon and bury the appointments.

After class, though, I realized that I heard these two theories in the fall -- in other words, shortly after the Hoard's discovery. These weren't fully-developed ideas; they were probably just barely beyond the point of speculation, whipped up on the fly.

Now that a year has passed and specialists have had time to examine and discuss the Hoard a bit more carefully, has some sort of consensus been reached as to the Hoard's origins? Have either of the above explanations been further developed, or has some third explanation perhaps emerged?

The Frozen Edda

I couldn't find my copy of the Prose Edda. I looked everywhere for it. Finally, I gave up and opened the refrigerator to get a drink -- and there it was cooling in the fridge.

Snorri Sturluson, still chillin'.

Why I Won't Sign

Fashionable medieval scholars have of late seized on an issue to use as a shibboleth, to distinguish us from them, culminating in the boycott of the Medieval Academy of America. The Medieval Academy is the oldest and most venerable organization of medieval scholars in North America. In 2011, the MAA is scheduled to hold its annual conference at Arizona State University.

A couple of months ago, scholars began to call for the MAA to reconsider meeting in Arizona, in order to protest Arizona Immigration Law SB1070, particularly provisions that allowed police to check the immigration status of people stopped during the enforcement of other laws (such as, for example, a traffic violation). The Obama Administration sued the State of Arizona, and a federal judged blocked the more controversial elements of the law. As of this writing, it seems likely that the case will eventually wind up in the Supreme Court.

Over the last month-and-a-half, about 170 people signed an open letter to the MAA condemning the law as “racist and inhumane” and calling for its repeal, and urging the MAA to consider meeting elsewhere or cancelling the meeting [Full disclosure: I consider myself a friend of many of the signatories]. Earlier this month, the MAA met and decided to go forth with the meeting, though promised to “ensure that the program of the meeting reflects and relates to similar issues at stake in medieval society, including such topics as race, ethnicity, immigration, tolerance, treatment of minority groups, protest against governmental policies judged unjust, and standards of judicial and legislative morality.”

The decision and letter provoked outrage, and calls to boycott not just Arizona or the 2011 conference, but the Medieval Academy altogether. Blogs and listservs have be inflamed with accusations that the MAA is complicit in transforming Arizona into a fascist police state, and (in a stunning about-face) that it’s to be expected anyway since the MAA is just a bunch of old white male fuddy-duddies who don’t like women and minorities.

At first, I ignored the controversy. These sorts of eruptions are an unfortunate part of scholarly life, and generally fade away on their own as one group postures for itself, easily assured of their own piety and the ethical degeneracy of others. Every so often, however, the great Academic Beast is aroused by these eruptions, swallowing the unwary into its maw. I fear the Beast is on a rampage now, and all that remains is to either capitulate or resist. I choose resistance.

I did not sign the letter calling for the boycott of Arizona, nor will I sign similar future letters. I will not boycott the Medieval Academy of America, though I have no plans to go to their 2011 conference (a decision based entirely on my limited travel budget).

Why won’t I sign? Why won’t I boycott?

One of the most important writings in my intellectual development as a young man was Václav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless. Published in 1985, it calls for citizens to live in truth – and Havel wrote it as man who had just gotten out of prison, living under an actual authoritarian government. When he published it, he wasn’t posturing or being hyperbolic; his very life was at stake.

Havel writes of a shopkeeper:

The manager of a fruit and vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the World, Unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals? [….] If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached from not having the proper “decoration” in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively tranquil life “in harmony with society,” as they say. (“The Power of the Powerless” in Without Force or Lies: Voices from the Revolution of Central Europe in 1989-90, San Francisco, Mercury House, 1990. 48-49)

Replace the shopkeeper with an academic, and you have the situation in which we find ourselves. It isn’t that the shopkeeper is necessarily against the workers uniting – that’s beside the point. No one imagines the workers of the world will suddenly see that sign among the vegetables and say to themselves, “You know what? Now that I’ve seen that sign, I think I’ll throw off the shackles of capitalism,” any more than anyone imagines that the citizens of Arizona will hear of the dozens of medievalists clamoring for a boycott of their state and say to themselves, “You know what? Now that I know these medieval scholars are unhappy, I think I’ll vote for completely open borders.”

Rather than being about altering the situation, these initiatives are about capitulation. As Havel translates the sign, “I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace.” (Havel 49). Canny graduate students and untenured scholars know this message, and know that their future success relies in part on the zeal with which they proclaim it.

Not that anyone will ever tell them they must place such a sign (or sign such a letter). Indeed, such an explicit command would be counter-productive. In such a case,

The greengrocer would be embarrassed and ashamed to put such an unequivocal statement of his own degradation in the shop window, and quite naturally so, for he is a human being and thus has a sense of his own dignity. To overcome this complication, his expression of loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at least on its textual surface, indicates a level of disinterested conviction. It must allow the greengrocer to say, “What’s wrong with the workers of the world uniting?” Thus the sign helps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power. It hides the behind the façade of something high. And that something is ideology.

Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. (Havel 49-50)

And such we have here. I’m sure that in their hearts, some really do feel passionately, but medievalists happily go off to conferences in other states and countries that have objectionable laws. I myself narrowly missed being caught up in a police raid for illegal immigrants in a country where I was (legally) working, yet I have since attended conferences there several times. No, the point is not to change the Arizona law – no one is so pathetic to think that such an impotent boycott is going to cause any legal change – the point is to get others to acquiesce, to coerce others into acknowledging the scholars supposed ethical and moral superiority.

Havel tells us, from personal experience, that if the greengrocer begins to live within the truth, “the bill is not long in coming” (Havel 62). I’m sure I’ll be paying the bill for this – but I should acknowledge that the risk to me as a tenured professor is small compared to what Havel experienced. Some will no doubt openly hurl hateful accusations at me, probably accusing me of being racist, classist, or sexist (the three favorite accusations of academics). Others will just mutter darkly. Articles that would have once passed peer review may be rejected on vague grounds. Invitations that might have been offered to contribute to a conference or book will be withheld. I’ll lose some Facebook friends, and will probably have my website delinked.

But for me, this is a tiny price to pay for opposing the Academic Beast. Graduate students and junior faculty could find themselves devoured. To these I would say, live and speak according to your conscience, but know what happens to the greengrocer in the story. Tread carefully, and avoid the trap of believing that this medieval scholars’ debate has anything to do with immigration. In the future, when you see other similar issues, understand what is really being demanded of you.

Medieval Miscellany

• Got Medieval is now available on Twitter.
• Henchminion's got photos from Ottawa Medieval Camping Weekend.
• The Naked Philologist on women heroes in Arthurian literature, and whether talk might sometimes just be talk.

An "Old English Accent"

In this article about people auditioning for the Sarasota Medieval Fair, we're told of one of the castmates:

"I'm going to do everything correctly with your daughter, at least twice," he declared in a broken, old English accent.

Uh, I'm guessing they just mean "fake English accent" -- what would be an "old English" accent? And how could that accent be "broken?"

There's a photo gallery of the auditions here, and if you want to see a REAL Old English accent, there's one below.

Still Here

Sorry for the delay -- I've started working the video blogging, but a series of unrelated technical problems have kept me from posting. It's coming, really!

Sims Medieval

We can expect Sims Medieval at the end of next year. Apparently it'll be like the SCA for very lazy people who don't want to get up out of their desk chair.

Given my daughter's love the The Sims, I suspect we'll own this game when the time comes. I wonder if the armor rusts when a knight wets himself because his player won't let him go to the toilet?

Danger: Pothead Medievalism Ahead

Uh, despite the fact that this has James Franco, I doubt I'll be rushing out to see the film Your Highness next year. I'm guessing with the title and the reference to "wizard's weed" in the synopsis, this film plans to do for the Middle Ages what Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers did for the French Revolution.

So, basically this takes all the stoner jokes about hobbit pipeweed and extend them into feature-length.

Humidity and Bald Eagles

First, in this article about the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period, do the findings about moisture mean that, in Europe during the MWP, people first began saying, "Yeah, it's hot, but it's a dry heat"?

Second, exactly what role did the North American bald eagle play in the Middle Ages on the Isle of Wight? Seriously, like why did they have the eagle there at all? It seems rather like having llamas or kangaroos.

Ruins of Medieval Church Found in Switzerland

According to this article, the Swiss have found the remains of a medieval church under the town of Moutier. The article has no estimate as to the century, but there has been a monastery there since the middle of the Seventh Century.

As of today, no medieval churches have been unearthed in Troy, Alabama -- but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Pennsic 2010 Meet-Ups

I won't be there, but anyone interested in doing a meet-up at Pennsic this year can sound off on our Pennsic 2010 Meet-Ups Facebook discussion thread.

Woruldhord Project

Most of you out there already know about this from the days of the Wordhoard's hiatus, but Stuart Lee has an exciting project called the "Woruldhord Project" (no relation to the Unlocked Wordhoard, which is a shame because Lee and his work are both really groovy). Right now, The Woruldhord is just open for submissions, but lots of our Wordhoarders probably have things to submit. They are looking for:

Members of the public, of academia, of special interest groups are asked to submit via an online web site any images, documents, audio, video they have of material they would be happy to share with the rest of the world to further the study of Old English and the Anglo-Saxons.

We would welcome images of buildings, sites, artefacts; teaching handouts or presentations; audio of readings or interviews; video clips of crafts, sites; and so on. In fact anything that you feel would benefit teachers, researchers, and interested parties who wish to learn more about the Anglo-Saxons.

Oxford University will collect the material together and then make everything submitted freely available on the web for educational purposes to a worldwide audience.

Go forth and submit!

Recreating the Seneschal of Hainault's Challenge

Anyone going to Pennsic this year and interested in recreating the single combats resulting from the Seneschal of Hainault's Challenge, contact Will Mclean at A Commonplace Book.

Medievalist Gun Rack

I just realized that instead of having a gun rack in my car, I had three different swords in the back over the weekend. While I could claim I'm prepared for the zombie apocalypse, it probably signifies some weird sort of medievalist redneck.

Killing Your Friends and Father for Fun & Profit

I've been reading Usama ibn Munqidh's Book of Contemplation lately. Ibn Munqidh was an aristocrat who lived in 12th-century Syria, and his Book of Contemplation is about fate, and is mostly illustrated with events from his own life. It's also of interest because we get to see a bit of the Crusades from the Muslim side.

One event in the book has gotten me thinking about the problems of understanding other cultures -- not just other ethnic cultures, other religious cultures, or cultures separated from us by the long centuries of time, but also differences in social class.

We're told by UiM that "Al-Zafir [a caliph] now concocted a plan with Nasr [an amir of the same age, and son of the vizier 'Abbas], convincing him that, in Nasr killed his father, he would appoint him to the vizierate in his place." Later UiM hears about the plot, and warns Nasr that to kill his own father would leave him damned come the Day of Judgment. "He [Nasr] later acquainted his father ['Abbas] with the whole affair. So the latter behaved kindly towards him, won him over -- and plotted with him to murder al-Zafir. Al-Zafir and Nasr were the same age, and they used to go out together at night in disguise. So Nasr invited the caliph over to his house [....] As soon as the caliph was all settled in the sitting room, Nasr's men rushed out at him and killed him." (Paul M. Cobb's translation, Penguin edition).

Here's my problem with this -- I have trouble conceiving of this social situation arising at all. When I look at the family life of, say, Henry II, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but this is even more difficult to understand.

I try to imagine fictionalizing the dialogue, and can't come up with anything that would sound even remotely believable to modern audiences. Let's say two friends are out on the town -- how do you get around to "Hey, let's kill your dad!" And then, even assuming you're down with that, later telling your father about it, who says, "Hey, let's kill your friend!" It can't be true that all Syrian aristocrats were sociopaths, but the matter-of-fact way ibn Munqidh writes about it, and the number of people involved in the subsequent bloodbath makes it seem that way. Somehow this situation was a natural outgrowth of world they lived in.

Wordhoarder Reviews

One of the new features of the Unlocked Wordhoard will be "Wordhoarder Reviews," found on the discussion tab of the Facebook page. Though I'll still be the only one posting material to the Wordhoard blog, the Facebook page will encourage more community interaction.

Wordhoarder Reviews is a feature in which I invite people to give their own movie reviews on the discussion board. While sites like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb often provide both professional and amateur reviews, the online medievalist community can offer well-considered and often expert opinions on medievalist popular culture.

Our first Wordhoarder Review is of Valhalla Rising. If you've seen it, go to the Facebook discussion boards and tell us what you think!

FaceHoard

As some of you know, the Wordhoard has been in hibernation as I worked out various problems, particularly the connection with new social networking sites and some other conceptual issues. I'd become worried that the Wordhoard's identity as a meeting place between the popular and the scholarly was no longer tenable, that blogs were becoming an outdated medium.

So, today I'm beginning a process that will likely take some weeks: the re-emergence of the Wordhoard, more closely intertwined with new ways of accessing information online. Most of the content will be of the sort you've grown used to, some old features will wither away (RIP: Morning Medieval Miscellanies), and I plan to develop some new features.

I invite you to "Like" the Wordhoard on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and generally just beam medievalism directly into your brains in whatever ways are technologically possible. For now, the wall on the Facebook page is wide-open for your own posts and commentary on all things medieval, and I'll keep it as open as possible unless spammers, trolls, and other Grendel-kin become a problem.

Dragon*Con CfP

Call for Participation / Call for Abstracts

Institute for Comics Studies
Comic Book Convention Conference Series

DRAGON*CON 3rd ANNUAL COMICS & POPULAR ARTS CONFERENCE

Atlanta, Georgia September 3-6, 2010

The Institute for Comic Studies and Dragon*Con present their third annual academic conference for the studies of comics and the popular arts. The conference will take place at Dragon*Con, the largest multi- media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the US. For more info on Dragon*Con, visit http://dragoncon.org/

Please submit a proposal abstract for a 15/20-minute presentation that engages in substantial scholarly examinations of comic books, manga, graphic novels, anime, science/speculative fiction, fantasy, or other parts of popular culture. A broad range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives is being sought, including literary and art criticism, philosophy, linguistics, history, and communication. Proposals may range from discussions of the nature of the comics medium, analyses of particular works and authors, discussions of the visual language of comics, comics pedagogy, cross-cultural and cross-medium comparisons, and more.

This year, we're especially interested in proposals dealing with anime and manga, though we're open to any topics relevant to the study of comics and the popular arts.

This conference at Dragon*Con represents the Institute for Comics Studies' mission to promote the study, understanding, and cultural legitimacy of comics and to support the discussion and dissemination of this study and understanding via public venues.

100 to 200 word proposals due: May 30, 2010

Please submit your proposals at: http://www.hsu.edu/form.aspx?ekfrm=40054

More information at: http://www.utdallas.edu/~mattbrown/DragonCon.html

Send any questions to: thehangedman@gmail.com Participants must register for the convention. Information can be found here: http://dragoncon.org/members.php#DC_Memb

Prospective participants are encouraged to submit a guest application in advance at the following address: http://dragoncon.org/dc_guest_app.php

Acceptance to the academic conference is no guarantee of "guest" status at the convention (and indeed, it is very unlikely).

Matt Brown
Dragon*Con Academics Chair
thehangedman@gmail.com
www.instituteforcomicsstudies.org

Friday Child Sacrifice

Today I Stumbledupon this page of odd facts, at it includes this little gem:

The Anglo-Saxons believed Friday to be such an unlucky day that they ritually slaughtered any child unfortunate enough to be born on that day.

I've never even heard such a claim before. Does anyone know where it comes from?

The Ubiquity of Dante's Inferno and Breasts

In the run-up to the release of the new Dante's Inferno game, even before the marketing campaign hit high-gear, I noticed that the pop culture medieval flavor of the month had moved from Beowulf to Dante's Inferno. The culmination of this phenomenon occured earlier this week, when a student showed me his 19th-century edition of The Inferno, and within three minutes of that I ran into two other non-English majors reading Dante for fun. Of course, in the case of the two non-English majors, each was inspired by the game; one said, "my friends said I'd enjoy it more if I read the book first," and the other had already played the game and said, "the book is really different."

For more on the differences and the ubiquity of Beatrice's breasts, see Got Medieval's review of the game.

As a scholarly graybeard, I'm supposed to be immune to mass market commercialization of a classic of medieval literature in console game format, but I have to confess I'm so completely swept into it that I'm actually considering buying a console system just so I can play the game. I mean, look at this trailer:



I mean, how can I resist diving into Hell after Beatrice (and her breasts) to battle demons?

Beware of D&D LARPers!

Beware! If your colleague plays D&D, and even acts that crap out*, she'll probably open fire at a faculty meeting. Me, I have a shield in my office and a chainmail bowtie, so I'd no doubt survive, except in the unlikely event that she would roll a natural 20.

Really, now. I could understand if she had pulled a blade, or if she were addicted to Call of Duty or some game with a gun, this might, might be relevant. Good job, Boston Herald.


* I'm assuming the "acted that crap out" means she did LARPs, or Live Action Role-Playing.

On Chaucer and Valentine's Day

Friend of the Wordhoard K.A. Laity has a piece about Chaucer and Valentine's Day.

An Idea

As I complained in the comments of a previous post, aside from things like joining Facebook groups and online petitions, there's little pressure those of us can bring to bear outside the UK to save paleography at King's College London.

One thing we can do, however, is create a visual image. If enough of us make images like this, it just might have an effect.

Paleography at King's College London Petition

There's a petition to save paleography at King's College London here. I'm going to sign it, but I would especially urge us to encourage our colleagues in the UK to sign it. I suspect their voices will get more attention than mine.

A Passive-Aggressive Post for Google Reader

Dear Google Reader,

Please stop re-marking all my read posts as "unread" so that I have hundreds and hundreds of old posts to wade through every day, making it impossible for me to keep up on the news. Weeks of dealing with this stupidity has left me out of all the latest happenings.

For example, I just found out today about the threat to the King's College London Paleography Chair, something the rest of the medievalist world has apparently known about for a while. In fact, I just joined the "Save the King's London Paleography Chair" Facebook group about two minutes ago.

I love you Google Reader, but sometimes I don't know if you requite my feelings.

XOXOXO
Scott

RIP: Bruce Mitchell

Word has gone out that Bruce Mitchell has passed away. I have no further information at this time, but I believe he was in his 90s.