Cathedrals on Nova

The PBS science program Nova airs a program on the great cathedrals on Wednesday October 5 at 9 pm. I'll be wrapping up a class, but I'll catch it as soon as possible.

Speaking of history on PBS, Ken Burns' new documentary on Prohibition starts tonight. Not medieval, but I'm looking forward to it.

Science and the Middle Ages

James Hannam has written The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. In an interview at the Daily Caller, he explains his thesis, that scientific advancement was a continual effort throughout the Middle Ages, and that the notion of the medievals being ignorant and anti-science was an invention of writers in early modern Europe.

Forme of Cury Documentary

I just ran across this documentary about Richard II's The Forme of Cury on YouTube, courtesy of the ever helpful SCA Today website. It is apparently part of a series starring Clarissa Dickson Wright, more famous perhaps for being half of the Two Fat Ladies cooking show partnership. I actually have never seen any of it, but I have one of their cookbooks and have made a lot of use of it. This documentary is quite good... the pickiest authenticity nut might have some acerbic comments here and there, but I particularly enjoyed the swing music during the costumed medieval cooking scenes and the sight of stuck up young Richard watching protests on television and switching them off in a huff!

Wright is respectful and informative about the recipes and altogether fun to listen to and watch; she serves three dishes from the cookbook to a panel of medievalists and others at the end and they're obviously having a great time. I've cooked two out of the three dishes myself, and am anxious to try the Roast Goose with Sauce Madame.

The French Renaissance in Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago will host "Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France" beginning in February. There is a fine article about a larger version of the exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris in the October 16 2010 edition of The Economist. The article can be found at this link. You can go here to see the page for the exhibit. The Economist says the Paris exhibit was disappointingly unfocused, but the Chicago version "promises to be more sharply focused. Not coincidentally, it will be about half the size."

While looking around the Art Institute's website, I also noted that their permanent collection of arms and armor, which is apparently not ordinarily on full display, is getting an airing in an exhibition of its own, details here.

New Site for Battle of Bosworth Field

Local authorities in England believe they've found evidence pinning down the location of the 1485 Battle of Bosworth Field, in which King Richard III lost his life, passing the crown to Henry Tudor. The story is here.

The site of the battle has long been disputed, so this isn't a huge surprise. But they mention only one piece of evidence... a silver boar badge. I assume they have more than that, and we'll find out more in due course. My colleague Lord Breac just sent me the link, so I haven't checked to see what else has been revealed about this.

Cannon at Crecy?

Did artillery make its first tentative appearance in European military history at the storied Battle of Crecy in 1346? Maybe.

Manuscript How-To Site

The invaluable SCA Today provided a link to this very interesting and useful site.

The Middle Ages Through Philosophy

Ryan Sayre Patrico reviews The Legend of the Middle Ages; Philosophical Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism and Islam in this article at National Review Online.

The Little Pleasures of Teaching

1. Sometimes the powers that be let you teach European History I.
2. Sometimes when you assign the students to bring little tidbits of historical info to class, one of them plays a Renaissance tune on his guitar for his assignment.

I have a very good job.

Medieval Flask

The very interesting blog A Commonplace Book recently pointed to this wonderful item at Billy and Charlies: a medieval flask. Can't tell you how long I've been waiting for a good reproduction of this item. I have a handsome modern flask from Royal Holland Pewter that is functionally the same, but I will have to order this soon.

Manuscript of Forme of Cury

The University of Manchester's John Rylands University Library is digitising and making available on the Internet images of the pages of 40 important books, including the Forme of Cury, the 14th century cookbook compiled by the cooks of Richard II's royal household. (Thanks to pals Skalla-Geirmundr and Breac, both of whom forwarded the Middlebridge post and link to the Guardian.)

New Medieval Glass Options

Historic Enterprises has added new options for medieval glass tableware at their site. They carry several pieces from Le Verre Historique, a Belgian producer, but note that they can now provide anything from the producer's website. Ordering from overseas is often complex and expensive (and there is a language barrier in this instance, as there not infrequently is), so having Historic Enterprises do the importing is a valuable service.

Cagots

I'd never heard of them, but apparently the Cagots were an oppressed people of southern France and northern Spain. This article describes them, and notes some other vanishing European peoples. Fascinating subject. (Via SCA Today.)

New Acquisitions

Well, if I didn't get to go to Pennsic, I did some satisfying medieval shopping here at home.

The Flint area is not well supplied with used bookstores. There are two Jellybean stores; together with a third in Owosso, a locally-owned chain. The one to the south of town concentrates on mass media stuff; I can't recall ever finding anything on the Middle Ages other than things that get assigned in history classes. Not complaining, they are the place to go for used music, mystery and science fiction paperbacks, DVDs, that sort of thing. The one closer to the center of town is more interesting, although the management have a sometimes exalted notion of how to price some of their collectibles. They get people to pay it, I guess. They have easily the most extensive collection of used books of a more serious type than anywhere this side of one of the university towns in Michigan, but it is a curiously neglected side room; the main action with paperbacks, records and so forth is in the main room. I don't think there's ever been another customer in the side room on the rare occasions I go in - about once a year or less. Awkwardly, the clerk decides on a price at the counter for these books, after performing a brief check on the Internet. ABEbooks.com, I'm guessing? They don't say. I've actually gotten some good deals, once a spectacular deal, so they're not being unreasonable on price; I just wonder if they realize how discouraging a browsing experience this mysterious method induces. If they just marked the prices in the books, I'd go in more often.

At any rate, on a rare visit this week, I found two books on Western martial arts. Sydney Anglo's authoritative The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe. I've checked it out from academic libraries, and it seemed well worth having. Author John Clement claims it is the most important work on the subject in a century; while my interests tend more to the political and strategic levels, particularly about the Hundred Years War, I'm willing to agree with Clement, as far as I can tell. The second book was the Codex Wallerstein, a 15th century fighting manual with reproductions of the illustrations and translations of the text into several languages. Want to know how to rob a peasant by making him think you've slit his throat, but without actually doing so? No problem, the Codex Wallerstein explains the method. I'm hoping I don't have occasion to use that one, myself. But it's good to know these things, right?

Both volumes were in hardcover, in good shape with a little shelf wear, and I certainly wanted them both. The clerk wanted $40 for each, and I left them there. At the very least, I wanted to make sure I couldn't do better on the Internet. But $40 was about right, I found, and after giving it some thought, I realized I would just regret it if I didn't go back for them. Both books are out of print; I didn't go to Pennsic and spend lots of money there; I haven't been keeping up with the literature on my hobby for years now; so the next day I went back and bought both.

So that was fun, but I had already been thinking this week about a Saturday visit to John K. King Books in Detroit (check out the YouTube videos at the link). I tried to persuade Skalla-Geirmundr to go with me, but he was busy being responsible or something. John K. King is the biggest bookseller in Michigan, advertising 900,000 books. It is a spectacular experience, quite like visiting an academic library but being able to buy the books (well, an academic library with a somewhat haphazard collection, but still...). Five or six floors of an old factory building right downtown on W. Lafayette, just what you'd want a big city used bookstore to be. I knew from experience that they have excellent sections on history, cooking and art, just to note some of my interests. Strangely enough, I haven't been there in about ten years, although my infrequent visits always produced wonderful results back in the 90s. It's not really that much fun, getting to that spot in downtown Detroit all the way from Flint. No, it's not a safety issue, downtown Detroit is perfectly fine with me. It's the traffic, construction and accident backups. I've driven in a lot of big cities, but Detroit's the only one I really try to avoid - things are never going smoothly, the way they do on the average visit to Chicago. Half the place is always torn up for construction, because Michigan can't be bothered to build the roads to proper tolerances to begin with; we'd rather repair them every other other year. I mean, Washington DC is less annoying, even with very much heavier traffic and much more aggressive drivers.

Sure enough, I 75 was backed up, so I found myself on a tedious crawl on surface streets to M 10, the Lodge Freeway. That went quickly, thankfully.

I had originally meant to get there early and spend all day visiting each floor, but my local medievalist extravagance suggested a more disciplined approach. The cooking section for cocktail books and medieval cookery; the medieval and English and French history sections; the military section for medieval items were my targets. So I never made it above the 2nd floor, but I had one of the more productive bookstore visits I've ever had. I found (pertinent to the topic of this blog, anyway):

Food and Feast in Tudor England by Alison Sims.
Art, Culture and Cuisine; Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy by Phyllis Pray Bober.

I'd read both but didn't own them. Both are beautiful hardcovers with dustcovers, both were very attractively priced, much better than I could've done on eBay or Amazon.

The Medieval Soldier; 15th Century Campaign Life Recreated in Colour Photographs by Gerry Embleton and John Howe.
Crecy 1346; Anatomy of a Battle by Henri de Wailly.

The price for these two I can only describe as derisory. $18 for the pair. Both are immaculate; the Embleton and Howe book looks brand new and still bears a sticker for $65 on the back cover. I had never even seen the book outside of libraries, and had little hope of finding it for a reasonable price. I'm unfamiliar with the Crecy 1346 book, although I've read a good deal of more recent books on the topic, so I'm not sure about it, but it looks good. I don't know if it was written in English by the author, all of whose other books I can find are clearly French language texts, or if it is translated, but the translator is not named. We'll see. By the way, there are several books on the Battle of Crecy with almost identical titles; this one was published in 1987. I'm hoping for a strong French point of view, as most books on the topic are written from an English perspective.

On another occasion, comments on other good bookstores in Michigan.

Jousting as a Sport

The Wall Street Journal has a front page story today on the revival of jousting as a genuine competitive sport, which they describe as "A far cry from the mock re-enactments at Renaissance fairs..." The story profiles Belgian jouster Fred Piraux, who seems to have quite the attitude. There is video at the link.

The Weekly Standard on the Medieval Congress

The conservative magazine the Weekly Standard has a brilliant article by medievalist Charlotte Allen on Western Michigan University's annual Medieval Congress. I particularly enjoyed her merciless remarks on the dreary post modernism that has infected much medievalism.

1381 The Peel Affinity

I have been eyeing this prospective book, which was due to be published in February, for some time. Remembering to check on it last week, I found that while Amazon has a page for the book, it doesn't have any copies. Windrose Armoury had six copies, though with a breathtaking amount for shipping, so I anted up. The volume arrived today.

The Peel Affinity does not disappoint. From a physical point of view, it is nicely bound with a handsome dust cover, a silk ribbon and slick paper with color photos on almost every page. The introduction says:

The book is divided into three sections. The first is a brief introduction to the world in which our characters live. In the central part, we take you through a year in the life of our fictional English knight and the people around him. The last part presents a more generalized view of campaign life and war as they might be experienced by our characters. Throughout you will find sidebars highlighting important aspects of medieval English life which affect the lives of our characters.

The book is provided by a historical recreation group called La Belle Compagnie, and depicts the band's impression of a late 14th century knightly family, that of Sir Geoffrey Peel. The photos are gorgeous, in places stunning (some interior room scenes at spots like pp. 40-1, for example). I haven't had time to read the book, but at a glance the text seems quite serious and accurate.

I'll have more comments later, after I've had more time with the book, but I'm delighted with the purchase.

Update: Oops, I missed the link to buy on this page, too.

Mead Makes a Comeback

Slate Magazine discusses the phenomenon here. The SCA is named-checked, but alas, not favorably.

Nuremberg Tournament Book

Amazon emails me (because I bought Prof. Muhlberger's Deeds of Arms) that the Nuremberg Tournament Book is available at this link. No pictures and little detail, but the book apparently has reproductions of some or all of the original manuscript illustrations plus modern commentary. The Metropolitian Museum of Art (which owns the manuscript) has a little detail and an illo here.

The Peel Affinity

1381: The Peel Affinity is about to be published in February 2008. I'm not sure what it will cost, but it looks interesting.