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Episode 41: I’ll Get You, My Pretty

Summary

It’s spooky season! Witches have been around–and feared–since the Middle Ages. We discuss their history, unexpected ties to Judaism, and their little (or large and wolfy) dogs, too.

Annotations

1/ See also: Wyrd Sisters, by Terry Pratchett. Book 1 of the collected Sandman (I think they get summoned in issue 2) by Neil Gaiman.

2/ Sourcery, by Terry Pratchett.

For more on the inquisition, et al, see episode 9, starting at note 18.

3/ The witch of Endor: 1 Samuel 28.

4/ Morgan Le Fay. We talk more about Merlin, Morgause, et al in a future episode.

5/ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, now a major motion picture (and future episode, stay tuned).

6/ In Terry Pratchett, the witches’ roles are typically given as “the maiden, the mother, and the other one.”

7/ For more on the Jewish hat (Judenhutte), see episode 10, note 39.

For more on the robes, see episode 25, note 19 on the Lucerne Passion Play and its director, Renward Cysat.

8/ Sara Lipton, Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography.

9/ Episode 29 is our episode on dogs, and episode 30 is our episode on cats.

10/ For more on the iconography of Jewish women, see Sara Lipton, “Where Are the Gothic Jewish Women? On the Non-Iconography of the Jewess in the Cantigas de Santa Maria,” Jewish History, vol. 22, no. 1/2, The Elka Klein Memorial Volume (2008), pp. 139–177.

Also see episode 25, note 15.

11/34:40: C.f. Henry IV, pt. 1:

Falstaff: Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a
thief.
Prince: No, thou shalt.
Falstaff: Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I’ll be a brave
judge.
Prince: Thou judgest false already. I mean thou shalt
have the hanging of the thieves, and so become a
rare hangman.
Falstaff: Well, Hal, well, and in some sort it jumps
with my humor as well as waiting in the court, I
can tell you.
Prince: For obtaining of suits?
Falstaff: Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman
hath no lean wardrobe.

12/ Witches of Subeshi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies

13/ For more on a lot of the following information, see Davidson and Canino “Wolves, Witches, and Werewolves: Lycanthropy and Witchcraft from 1423 to 1700,” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 2.4 (8) (1990), pp. 47–73.

Also Charles Zika, The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Europe.

Richard Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials: Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300–1500.

14/ 42:30: James I–Lore did a good podcast on this–see episode 138 (Foresight).

Dr Who episode “The Witchfinders.”

15/ The early modern sources I’ve mentioned include:
Flagellum Maleficorum by Petrus Mamoris (roughly 1462).
De Lamiis et Phitonicis mulieribus by Ulrich Molitor (published in 1489).
The vastly more famous Malleus Maleficarum by Heinrich Kramer (1486).

16/ The 1460 sermon preached by Pierre le Broussart is discussed in Zika 61–63. The images are also in Zika.

17/ 1:09:xx Witches in films seemed to be a major thing in the 80s and early 90s, coinciding with the working 80s boss bitch and the mommy wars…

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Episode 40: To Be Played at Maximum Volume

Summary

You may have heard someone say that music is in their bones, but is it really? Answer: Yes! (If you are a Neanderthal, anyway.) In fact, the earliest instrument we have found, dating from 50-60,000 years ago, is a flute made from the bone of a cave bear. In this episode, we’ll discuss instruments from the last ice age through to the 12th century CE, including the lute, the lyre, the dutar, the sitar, and the hurdy-gurdy!

Annotations

(Note: the title is a reference to something written on the sleeve of David Bowie’s seminal album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Don’t actually play this at maximum volume.)

1/ For what it’s worth, here is a video of a cat playing a theremin. And what the heck, here is a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on the theremin. [WUT. –Jesse]

2/ Bone Flute full recording. Check it out–the video includes a demonstration of how the bone in question was restored.

3/ The Double Flute (Aulos) full recording. The guy playing the flutes (Barnaby Brown) gives an interesting history of the instrument in the full version.

“You know those guitars that are, like, double guitars?”

Aulos! Here’s the Wikipedia page with some nice pictures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aulos and here’s an image of a tiny statue/figurine at Delphi (with straps arounds his cheeks for support): https://www.worldhistory.org/uploads/images/1021.jpg?v=1615882502
https://www.worldhistory.org/image/1021/bronze-aulos-player-figurine/

4/ Here’s the Homeric Hymn to Hermes that describes him inventing the lyre. It’s in the second and third paragraphs–it’s the first thing he does after being born.

Lyre of Ur, built and played by Luc Vanlaere. Check it out, the lyre is quite a beautiful object. The harpist is a Belgian, living in Bruges, who has his own “free entry” theater in which he gives free (donation-supported) shows three times a day, five days a week. Here he is written up on VisitBruges.be (he doesn’t seem to have a website).

If you are interested in modern Western composers who use halftones (formally: semitones), check out Igor Stravinsky or Arnold Schoenberg. Also, this wikipedia page has an explanation of temperament and Pythagorian tuning, among other things, and might be helpful if we have confused you.

5/ Sirens were like angry bird-women. They sang to Odysseus.

See also episode 29, note 14 for images of sirens as funeral monuments, holding tortoise shell lyres. Here are the images again:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Funerary_statue_of_a_Siren_at_the_National_Archaeological_Museum_of_Athens_on_7_May_2018.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Funerary_statue_of_a_Siren._4th_cent._B.C.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Siren.jpg
(The Siren in the final image also holds a “plectrum,” used to pluck the lyre.)

6/ Michael Levy plays the lyre. He is playing an original composition called “Mount Olympus.” You can check out his full album of lyre music here.

Michael Levy plays the first written melody.

“Der Holle Rache” is the Queen of the Night’s famous aria. Here’s an excellent version.

7/ The ektara, played by Mrighanavi.

More on the ektara.

8/ Dutar, performed by Alimjan. This is a traditional Uyghur song.

“The left side of China.” Also known as the West side. I don’t know, guys, I’m going to blame this one on being left handed? Maybe? Weirdly (or not weirdly, I dunno), in the video above, Alimjan is sitting next to a table full of Uyghur food, including the delicious bread that I remember from the last time I visited Beijing over a decade ago.

I would love to put a link to a Uyghur-supporting charity, but I can’t find any that seem well rated. Amnesty International might be a good choice.

“Krazy kiya re” played on the zitar (guitar/sitar) by Niladri Kumar. You should definitely go look at this video–the instrument itself is just incredible. And right around the 2:14 mark, dude turns into the Indian Slash.

9/ Shamisen, played by Sumie Kaneko.

See episode 16, note 7 for more shamisen discussion and videos.

10/ Oud, played by Osama Badawe.

The Ood are a race of weird aliens in Doctor Who. Unrelated. [Yay. –Jesse]

11/ Lute, played by Paul O’Dette.

For more on Alfonso’s Cantigas (and his ferret), see episode 29, note 22.

For the image discussed, see:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cantiga_120_baldosa.jpg

Here’s a large black and white version of the image: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cantigas/images/12.gif

12/ Hurdy gurdy, played by Matthais Loibner.

13/ Epigonian, played by Lina Palera.

14/ Psaltery, played by Tessey Ueno.

15/ Bowed psaltery, played by James Jones.

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Episode 39: Où est la bibliothèque?

Summary

What was the one weird habit of the Ptolemys that librarians hated? What trick did early indexers use for organizing collections? And what major library lost some really important documents–and tried to keep it a secret? From Alexandria to the Medieval monastery, let’s talk about the evolution of libraries over the course of a thousand years.

(Title source.)

Annotations

Lionel Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World, https://www.amazon.com/Libraries-Ancient-World-Lionel-Casson/dp/0300097212

Special Issue: The Medieval Library, French Studies 70.2 (April 2016).

1/ How was papyrus made? We only sort of know: https://apps.lib.umich.edu/papyrus-collection/how-ancient-papyrus-was-made
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/papy/hd_papy.htm
https://sites.dartmouth.edu/ancientbooks/2016/05/23/67/

2/ Indeed, Plato discusses wax tablets in the context of memory in Theaetetus.

3/ Library of Alexandria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria

4/ Zenodotus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenodotus

5/ Em is talking about the Hinman Collator!

6/ Callimachus of Cyrene and his Pinakes (lists or tables): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callimachus

7/ [36:xx] Just to be clear, people who read Chinese/Thai/other unspaced languages as their native languages don’t read aloud to know where the breaks between words are–that’s a technique for us second language learners. I can’t make any specific statements about the evolution of silent reading in those cultures. –Em

Paul Saenger, “Silent Reading: Its Impact on Late Medieval Script and Society,” Viator 13 (1982): 367–414.

Paul Saenger, Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading, https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=683

8/ British Library. Here are the British Library manuscript collections, and here are the specifics about the Cotton collection.

9/ [46:xx] “Caesar was assassinated about two weeks ago.” Apparently we recorded this just after the Ides of March (the 15th). Wow.

10/ [49:xx] Just to be clear, a codex is what we think of as a book. It’s typical to only really hear the word “codex” when talking about Mayan Codices (like the Dresden Codex–obviously the place has nothing to do with the Mayans and everything to do with where the book is held). But a codex just means a book.

Codex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex (mentions Martial’s praise of the codex)

11/ [52:xx] To be fair, Jews still write the Torah and Megillot on scrolls, but we also have the Talmud, which is written as a codex bound up together with its commentaries (actually, surrounded by them). So Jews didn’t totally miss the boat when it comes to the new technology.

12/ This commentary from English doctor Martin Lister is described in John O’Brien, “Epilogue: Medieval Libraries in the Sixteenth Century: A Dream of Order and Knowledge,” French Studies 70.2 (April 2016): 228–238; 228.

13/ Cambridge University Library lost two of Darwin’s notebooks in November 2000: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55044129 #embarrassing

14/ “Medieval libraries are studied as collections of books, but much less frequently as collections of ideas” (159). In Luke Sunderland, “Introduction: medieval libraries, history of the book, and literature,” French Studies 70.2 (April 2016): 159–170.

15/ [1:13:xx] Spoiler alert for Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, published in 1983.

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