Episode 76: Pipe Dreams

Synopsis

If you’re one of those people who thinks about the Roman Empire a lot because aqueducts are really cool, you’re going to love this. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss the irrigation of the Chengdu Plain, the plumbing of Tenochtitlan, and water management at Machu Picchu. Then we round out our “the middle ages didn’t constantly smell awful” series with a discussion of the history of perfume.

Notes

1/ Various news articles about water pollution:
Cuyahoga River fires (yes, plural): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/

Chicago River story: https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2023/9/28/23895006/trump-tower-chicago-river-pollution-attorney-general-kwame-raoul

2/ John Snow proved that the Broad Street Pump was carrying disease in 1854: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7150208/

Germ theory of disease was actually first proposed in 1546 but not widely accepted in Europe until the end of the 1880s. THE 1880s!
For more on Girolamo Fracastoro see: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-physician-who-presaged-the-germ-theory-of-disease-nearly-500-years-ago/

3/ The Irrigation of the Chengdu Plain: the Dujiangyan irrigation system is a UNESCO heritage site! https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1001/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dujiangyan

4/ Tenochtitlan plumbing: the Chapultepec aqueduct! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapultepec_aqueduct

5/ The Incan plumbing:
An article from UW-Madison (Go Badgers!!): https://ancientengrtech.wisc.edu/machu-picchu/machu-picchu-water-management/

6/ For the record, although there were people in the area of Venice from around the 10th century BCE on, the dedication of the first church, symbolically recognized as the founding of the city, was 421 CE. (There was a Roman city there before, of course.) Tenochtitlan, on the other hand, was founded around 1325 CE (with, again, some wiggle room).

7/ The tallest building in Des Moines, IA, is 801 Grand, which is 45 storeys high. [Sorry Des Moines!!! You are awesome.]

8/ Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression, was published from 1977–2005. In vol. 12 (1996), they did publish an article entitled “Linguistic and Blasphemous Aspects of Bavarian Micturition and American Toilet Names” by the editor, Reinhold Aman. However, the journal is now offline.

He, uh. Really hated the Clintons.

9/ QI bits: I can’t find them. [I think you might need BBC iPlayer or a VPN or similar.–Jesse]

10/ The Ted Chiang short story is “Tower of Babylon,” which is collected in Stories of Your Life and Others. It’s really good!

11/ UW–Madison and building better potatoes: https://pasdept.wisc.edu/2019/10/07/new-potato-helps-farmers-weather-the-frost/

UW Machu Picchu project is part of UW-Madison’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Ancient Engineering Technologies project:
https://ancientengrtech.wisc.edu/machu-picchu/

12/ Pomander: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomander

13/ Wow, coming on hard with the perfume facts there, Em.

Recreating perfumes! https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/may-be-what-cleopatra-smelled-180972854/

An example of a glass perfume bottle (1st century CE): https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/239779

14/ National Theatre’s Antony and Cleopatra with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo is the best.
https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/antony-and-cleopatra/

Some photos Jesse took of old pipes on Knossos:

A spot in Knossos where two ancient pipes join.A pipe with a crack in it.

Episode 74: Bath House (in the Middle of the Street)

Summary

When Em was a kid, she was told that knights in shining armor didn’t bathe, that Elizabeth I had bathed only three times in her life, and various other assertions. But we know that soap is not a modern invention–the word itself comes from the Latin, and no less than Pliny the Elder discusses how to make it from tallow and ashes. So what constitutes bathing? Were people before the year 1900 CE just terribly smelly all the time? And what were bathrooms–and plumbing–like around the world? Join Em and Jesse for a far-ranging discussion of cleanliness, won’t you?

Notes

0/ Em’s new novel, Old Time Religion, can be ordered here. Dionysus in Wisconsin is here.

1/ This episode was apparently recorded in April of 2022. Amusingly, the novel I was working on is NOT either of the novels that have been published! It was TWO AND A HALF novels BEFORE Dionysus. 2022 was wild.

2/ William Alcott’s tract Thoughts on Bathing:
Catalog entry: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011604824
Full text!: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044014202691&seq=5

I think Em says 1939, she meant 1839.

3/ The most famous portrait of someone in a bath is, in my mind, The Death of Marat, by Jacques-Louis David, which is SOLIDLY 18th century. But there are others, from earlier.

(Also, who doesn’t love JLD? He’s amazing.)

4/ York Medieval interactive Viking attraction: https://www.jorvikvikingcentre.co.uk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorvik_Viking_Centre

5/ Nope, this is from a letter that Queen Elizabeth I wrote to George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, who is better known for being Lord Chamberlain and the patron of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (Shakespeare’s Company) after his father Henry, also Lord Chamberlain and patron of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, died. He was apparently having a great time at Bath, and the Queen wrote him: “[I] can not but wonder, considering the great number of pails of water that I hear have been poured upon you, that you are not rather drowned than otherwise. But I trust all shall be for your better means to health.” Here is a link to the letter. (Berkeley Castle Muniments Select Letter 8). The letter is also available in Katherine Duncan-Jones, ‘Elizabeth I and her “Good George” unpublished letters’, in P. Beal and G. Ioppolo (eds.), Elizabeth I and the Culture of Writing (British Library, 2007), 29–41.

6/ Monty Python scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi8vXOUi-eI

Dennis the peasant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng

7/ The process of making soap is called SAPONIFICATION. Sometimes this happens to bodies that get buried in certain environments. The word soap came to Latin (saponem) from a proto-Fresian dialect (I don’t think we have that word, just a reconstruction of it) and thence to many other languages, including savon (French), xa bong (Vietnamese), sebon (Welsh), soap (English), sabuu (Thai–I don’t know for sure it’s related but I’d be willing to place a bet)…

8/ Natron is hydrated sodium carbonate (https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history-technology/mummies-pigments-and-pretzels)

9/ Books for travelers Em alludes to:
H. M. L. S., A Few Words of Advice on Travelling and Its Requirements Addressed to Ladies with short vocabulary in French and German, London: Thomas Cook and Son, 1876 (2nd ed.) https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/CHgBAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
Anglo-Indian, Indian Outfits & Establishments: Practical Guide for Persons about to Reside in India: detailing the articles which should be taken out, and the requirements of home life and management there. London: L. Upcott Gill, 1882. https://archive.org/details/indianoutfitsest00angliala/page/n3/mode/2up
F. A. Steel and G. Gardiner, The Complete Indian Housekeeper & Cook: Giving the duties of mistress and servants, the general management of the house, and practical recipes for cooking in all its branches. London: William Heinemann, 1909. https://archive.org/details/b21528640/page/n7/mode/2up

10/ Polar plunge:
Wim Hof: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof

It’s madness if you ask me. [-Em]

11/ I Henry IV scene: I think this is II.i.15, which is actually about fleas not lice! Same idea though. 🙂 –Jesse

12/ A truly disturbing fact: most lice now have become impervious to the anti-lice shampoos we used to use when we were kids. [Oh god!! –Jesse]

13/ For example, Bolton Strid (or “the Strid”) is a small, fairly calm-appearing waterway that has claimed a lot of lives. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bolton-strid

14/ There’s a long section on bathing in Matrix, by Lauren Groff.

15/ Mr Darcy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBaspD6Aq9E

16/ Inca baths: https://www.archaeology.wiki/blog/2019/02/27/researchers-reveal-inca-bath-complex-structure/
https://www.livescience.com/64845-inca-ceremonial-baths-archaeology.html

17/ Em was being a bit flippant about how long Japan’s written history goes back. The earliest written work recounting Japanese history (in Classical Chinese) was the Tennok and the Kokki, written in 620 CE. Neither survives. The Kojiki was the oldest account of Japan’s history (or it’s semi-historical, anyway) that still survives, and it dates from the early 700s. The first work to unambiguously mention Japan was the Book of Han, which was a Chinese book dating from 111 CE that covers history from 206 BCE to 23 CE.

18/ I know WAY MORE about the history of the 1970s now. Anyway, in his excellent autobiography, On the Move, Oliver Sacks mentions going to a bathhouse with a friend in San Francisco in 1978. Uncharacteristically, he doesn’t say anything more about the bathhouse itself.

Another fun fact, here at UW the pool at the Red Gym was men-only and swimsuit-optional until 1973. NINETEEN SEVENTY-THREE. A group of female students who forced their way into the pool (nude) forced the university to reconsider their policy.

19/ Greece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXt0VCPKfQ4

20/ Brooklyn 99 is the best. REST IN POWER Captain Holt: Andre Braugher (1962–2023) (https://www.npr.org/2023/12/19/1220282449/remembering-andre-braugher-star-of-homicide-and-brooklyn-nine-nine)

21/ Shanxi province excavations: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5111981/Luxurious-2-300-year-old-imperial-bathrooms-China.html

22/ Editing this, it is once again winter and I [Em] would happily move into a sauna for the next five months if available.

Episode 73: I’m a Ramblin’ Man

Synopsis

Are you travelling for Thanksgiving? Believe it or not, “travel” as a thing is not a modern creation. In the middle ages, people visited many remote and far-flung places and brought back notes (and delicious noodles). Join Em and Jesse for travel talk, including Lord Elgin, Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo, Zheng He, Margery Kemp, and more.

Notes

0/ The actual postcard:
Colossal human-headed winged bull from the palace of Ashurnasirpal at Nimrud, Assyrian, c865 BCE.
I found it in a copy of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, by Oliver Sacks. I was definitely not reading that when the postcard arrived, so…I don’t know how it was saved.

1/ Anyway, in the UK a “subway” means a pedestrian tunnel under a street. (cough)

2/ Lord Elgin: Boo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bruce,_7th_Earl_of_Elgin

It’s actually weird that this one, with more complaining about the British Museum, is coming directly after our episode about the British Museum. We didn’t plan that. We just slag off the British Museum from time to time. [We do!–Jesse]

There is apparently some debate about the legality of Lord Elgin’s firman (a royal mandate allowing him to do the things he did).

He did all this in the early 1800s, and he had considerable trouble getting his booty back to the UK. Some pieces took upward of ten years to arrive. Also, Byron was horrified and wrote the following lines:

Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behoved
To guard those relics ne’er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatch’d thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!

No one better than Byron for a slam poem. [Much, much applause!–Jesse]

The marbles were purchased by the British gov’t in 1816 for 35,000 GBP. (Elgin had estimated their value at 75k, which is actually what he spent to bring them back to the UK, so he took a bath on the whole deal.) This would be approximately £2,795,511.37 (about 3.5 million USD) in today’s money, which is a lot but not an astronomical sum. [Welp, I’m glad he roasted!–Jesse]

4/ What the heck, let’s link to James Acaster again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY

5/ Also, quick shout out to the QI bit about the Parthenon, why not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdvD4Fhc_K8

6/ Netscape guy James Clark repatriates stuff: https://news.artnet.com/news/netscape-founder-returns-looted-cambodian-antiquities-2059851

For more on museums, see episode 72.

7/ Famous travelers include:

Ibn Battuta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta

Marco Polo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo

Zheng He https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He

Margery Kemp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margery_Kempe

8/ Travel in the Roman empire: https://orbis.stanford.edu/

9/ The episode on graffiti was episode 69 (the part about the Vikings was right at the end—see note 20).

10/ The Rus’ come up a bit in Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road. I think there was a substantial Jewish population there at one point. But maybe I made that up.

11/ Venice lion

12/ Vikings in Vineland

Not to be confused with the Thomas Pynchon book of the same name.

13/ The Azores and mitochondrial mouse DNA!

14/ The Azores on medieval maps:

Medici or or Laurentian Atlas (Genoese cartographer)

Catalan Atlas (Majorcan Jewish Cartographer, Abraham Cresques)

Guillem Soler (Majorcan Cartographer)

15/ The Derbyshire man illumination in the Domesday book

16/ The Ipswich man

17/ Henry VIII’s warship’s crew

18/ Tang Dynasty murals

19/ John Hawkwood (1323–1394) was in episode 63 note 7 and episode 64 note 10.

20/ Xi Jing (1091–1153), a Chinese traveler who visited Korea in 1123. Here’s a translated edition of his account of his travels from University of Hawaii Press.

21/ Adam de la Halle

The May Day episode was episode 31.

Here is a whole site from Berkeley devoted to Ibn Battuta’s travels.

22/ Em ranted about Barthes’s essay (from Mythologies) in episode 3 note 3.

23/ The Anne Boleyn series with Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn

Bridgerton (series)

Episode 72: Does It Belong in a Museum?

Synopsis

We’ve all seen that scene in Indiana Jones where he’s clutching an artifact and shouting, “It belongs in a museum!” But nowadays in 2023, we tend to temper that idea–museums are fun, but who gets to hold a particular object, why, and for how long is a point of contention. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss one of the world’s oldest and largest museums, the British Museum. With a collection of over eight million objects, you know there’s some controversial stuff in there. We’ll also discuss other recent British Museum-related controversies, the illegal antiquities market, the differences between Lord Elgin and the city of Elgin, IL, and more.

Notes

1/ “Wake Up Thai People” Cold War map: https://transnationalhistory.net/doing/2020/04/12/a-tale-of-two-nations-the-creations-of-iran-and-thailand/

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2017/12/22/cold-war-maps-to-wake-up-southeast-asian-buddhists/

2/ Article about the Met’s “aggressive” collection policy.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/mar/20/new-york-metropolitan-museum-collection-artifacts-theft

https://www.icij.org/investigations/hidden-treasures/more-than-1000-artifacts-in-metropolitan-museum-of-art-catalog-linked-to-alleged-looting-and-trafficking-figures/

3/ I think “all art is counterfit” is a minor plot point of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier?

4/ Article about Met sending back Nepali statue: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/mar/20/new-york-metropolitan-museum-collection-artifacts-theft

5/ Article about illegal Cambodian statues at the Met: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/arts/cambodia-met-museum-looted-antiquities.html (not the one I remember seeing, but a much newer one)

6/ Article about illegal Gilgamesh tablets: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hobby-lobby-forfeits-rare-gilgamesh-tablet-smuggled-iraq-180978314/

7/ Article about guy sending back Cambodian statues: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/arts/design/james-clark-cambodian-antiquities.html

Also this: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/arts/design/lindemann-cambodia-khmer-statues-looting.html#:~:text=A%20family%20of%20billionaire%20art,American%20officials%20said%20on%20Tuesday.

8/ Elgin marbles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles

https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/parthenon-sculptures

Versus Elgin, IL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin,_Illinois There is an adorable Doctor Who-themed cafe there. [Yes! Blue Box Cafe is so good!–JN]

9/ Memes:

The British Museum after it’s been decolonized

The guy putting the leaning tower of Pisa in his backpack

10/ The acts:

British Museum Act 1963: Also https://observer.com/2023/02/the-uk-has-a-60-year-old-law-prohibiting-repatriation-of-art-is-that-about-to-change/

National Heritage Act of 1983

11/ Sarah / Saartje Baartman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Baartman

The Suzan-Lori Parks play Venus: https://www.amazon.com/Venus-Suzan-Lori-Parks/dp/1559361352

The Kim Kardashian photos were recreated in Paste magazine, by the photographer who originally took them (Jean-Paul Goude). The original model was Carolina Beaumont.

12/ Kara Walker’s Sugar Baby. We also discussed it in episode 10 (note 16 and 24), episode 17 (note 1), and episode 42 (note 7).

https://creativetime.org/projects/karawalker/

13/ Venus de Milo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo

See Lorenza Böttner’s Venus de Milo: http://lebastart.com/en/2018/11/lorenza-bottner-fall-flight/

14/ Favorite translation of the Odyssey: Fitzgerald, but I hear the new one by Emily Wilson is good. Favorite Gilgamesh is Stephen Mitchell, but Maria Headley is working on one and I am all a-twitter about it.

15/ Yilin Wang’s website: https://yilinwang.com/qiu-jin-british-museum/

Qiu Jin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiu_Jin

https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chinas-hidden-century/qiu-jin

16/ James Acaster’s Finders Keepers, Shut Up: https://youtu.be/x73PkUvArJY?si=5VrEBLpnKY0CqG1g

17/ Prince photo court case: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/the-supreme-court-ruling-lynn-goldsmith-andy-warhol-foundation-2304684

18/ Lichtenstein documentary: WHAAM! BLAM! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/whaam-blam-roy-lichtenstein-documentary-2268088

19/ Copyright case about AI: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/arts/design/copyright-ai-artwork.html

Episode 70: White After Labor Day

Synopsis

Just in time for Paris Fashion Week, join Em and Jesse for an exciting discussion of sumptuary laws and the medieval origins of prohibitions against wearing white, as well as a few digressions about John Waters films and Blackadder.

Notes

0/ Rainbow Space Magic Con: https://www.rainbowspacemagic.org/

1/ Serial Mom: (warning for violence) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnGHB-kI2ZM

2/ If you’re interested in the history of weddings, I suggest Carol Wallace’s All Dressed in White: The Irresistible Rise of the American Wedding, Penguin Books, 2004.

3/ Margery Kemp: see episodes 6, 7, 8, 9, 36, and 49. Jeez, it’s like we never STOP talking about her. We should call this the Margery Kemp Power Hour.

4/ Mary C. Erler, “Margery Kempe’s White Clothes.” Medium Aevum 62 (March 1993): 78-83.

Jesse Njus, “Margery Kemp and the Spectatorship of Medieval Drama,” Fifteenth Century Studies 38 (2013): 123–51.

5/ “Tide Pods: the universal currency” is a random thing my husband said in his sleep one time that will now forever live in my head. And, hopefully, yours.

6/ We talked about the plague in EPISODE TWO. Go check it out.

7/ To clarify, England was England in 1363—but it wasn’t the UK. Scotland didn’t join until later (after 1603 when James I took the throne, and then formally with the Act of Union in 1707).

8/ The rolls of Parliament: https://www.british-history.ac.uk (Unfortunately, I think library access is needed to log on–check your local library’s access!)

Edward III: October 1363: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/parliament-rolls-medieval/october-1363

Edward IV: April 1463: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/parliament-rolls-medieval/april-1463

Side note, remember that at this point, the king had some soldiers, but if he was fighting a war he’d call upon his lords (the dukes and earls and such) to bring men to fight. Armies were kind of a distributed thing. So he needed the country to have money so the wealthy could bring soldiers to come fight.

9/ Henry IV took the throne in 1399 and his son became Henry V in 1413. I am suddenly understanding the jokes about Henry V not speaking French very well in the play of that title in a different, more political light.

10/ Blackadder: Here is the clip where they talk about the robe: https://twitter.com/pitchblacksteed/status/1294974184183996416?lang=en

Here is another clip where the robe (and collars) are clearly visible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD2iYSKHHzo

11/ In 1363, 100 GBP would be about 76,777.23 GBP in 2023 dollars. Five hundred GBP is 383,886.16 GBP today. Straight inflation isn’t always a good way to track buying power, because the price of goods and services vary significantly over time (think about the price of college in the year 2000 vs the price of a pizza compared to the price of both now). But this calculation does give some sense of how much money 500 GBP a year was. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy has 10,000 pounds a year—about 800,000 pounds today, give or take. No wonder Mrs. Bennett loses her mind when he proposes.

Anyway, you can check out the calculator here: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

12/ Marginalia of shoes: https://www.tumblr.com/cuties-in-codices/727178156069552128/shoes-in-ehrenspiegel-des-hauses-%C3%B6sterreich?source=share (this is actually from 1555, but you see what I mean)

13/ The plays are (surprisingly, maybe), Henry VI, parts 1 (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/1henryvi/index.html), 2 (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/2henryvi/index.html), and 3 (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/3henryvi/index.html). There’s also an Edward IV in two parts by a chap named Thomas Heywood (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_IV_(play)).
[Edward IV also famously appears in Richard III.–JN]

14/ Ermine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoat

Sable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sable

15/ Wives and children of nobility are generally addressed as “lady” and “lord,” depending on rank and whether or not the father has any subsidiary titles. So in a household of the Duke of Buckingham, who has a family surname of Castleman and no subsidiary titles, the duke himself will be formally addressed as “Your Grace” when he goes somewhere for tea, or announced at the ball as “His Grace the Duke of Buckingham.” His wife will be “Her Grace the Duchess of Buckingham” on invitations and “Your Grace” when she goes to tea. The son will be “The Lord Charlie Castleman” on invitations and “Lord Charlie” at tea parties, and the duke’s daughter will be “The Lady Ariella Castleman” when announced at the ball and “Lady Ariella” at tea. If she marries a commoner or someone beneath her in rank (the son of a baronet, earl, viscount, or baron), she may choose to retain the title Lady Ariella. Interestingly, the daughters of dukes rank between the eldest son and the younger ones in terms of precedence.

FOR AN EXHAUSTIVE EXPLANATION OF THIS, SEE https://www.chinet.com/~laura/html/titles12.html.

16/ The stuffing of clothing/wearing of padding in order to attain the fashionable shape is something I kind of wish hadn’t gone away. It persisted all the way up until the 1920s, when women’s clothing suddenly abandoned the majority of the underpinnings that had been necessary (corset, bum roll, petticoats, hoops or cages, etc.). Now women are largely expected to change their bodies in order to attain a fashionable silhouette instead of the clothes doing it. Unfortunate.

17/ We discussed Mankind in episode 1(!!!) note 23.

18/ We discussed female silk workers in episode 33 (the notes for the episode include sources for more info on women silk workers).

19/ We talked about Judenhutte in episode 10 (notes 31 and 39), episode 25 (note 14), episode 41 (note 7), episode 45 (note 10), and episode 61 (note 2). Also see Sara Lipton, Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography, Metropolitan, 2014. Link.

Episode 66: Medievally Bootylicious (obscenity part 2)

Synopsis

Are butts the most medieval of body parts? From the Wild Man to Chaucer to good old Michelangelo, let’s pontificate about the posterior.

Do you need more of a pitch than that?

Notes

0/ Preorder Em’s book: a little obscene, only a few butts.

1/ Warning for…talking about butts, I guess.

2/ The Wild Man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_man

3/ York Minster Cathedral: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Minster

The monkey burial: Window n25 (bottom of left window–the bier is covered in green cloth and there is a monkey who has grabbed hold and is hanging off of it). Here is a close up of the detail.

The legend of the mocker(s) who attempt to stop the Virgin’s funeral procession was well known in medieval Europe, although the name Fergus seems to be specific to York. See the notes at the bottom of the linked page for the lost York Play.

Here is a depiction in medieval art with a summary of the legend: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RYV

Here is the an article by Stephen J. Shoemaker ” ‘Let Us Go and Burn Her Body’: The Image of the Jews in the Early Dormition Traditions” in Church History 68.4 (Dec. 1999), 775–823. Shoemaker also wrote a book The Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption

4/ Gargoyles and grotesques: Michael Camille Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art.

5/ Michael Camille “Dr Witkowski’s Anus: French Doctors, German Homosexuals and the Obscene in Medieval Church Art,” in Medieval Obscenities (ed Nicola F. McDonald), 17–38. (We discuss a number of images from this essay, including 2.2.)

6/ Borges Cathedral: http://en.posztukiwania.pl/2017/09/26/details-from-behind/

7/ Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_(Leonardo)

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel pettiness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNeHaAmjkIQ

8/ Barbara Newman quote: “[F]or us, the secular is the normative, unmarked default category, while the sacred is the marked, asymmetrical Other. In the Middle Ages it was the reverse” (viii). Barbara Newman, Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013).

9/ Marginalia butt faces (just as examples!)

10/ Episode 23, note 9

11/ Henry Medwall, c.1461–1501?

A play: Fulgens and Lucrece B: “Nay, we shall nede no horse ne Mule/ but let us just [joust] at fart pryke in cule”(p. 328, lns. 1164–65). (Presumably they are trussed up around poles and brooms that serve as the spear.) I’ve cited page and line from Medieval Drama: An Anthology edited by Greg Walker.

Peter Meredith, ” ‘Fart Pryke in Cule’ and Cock-Fighting” Middle English Theater, vol. 6 (1984), 30–39.

12/ Dante, canto 21 (line 139)

Butt trumpet illustrations

13/ Roman de la Rose (Wikipedia)

See our previous episode, note 11, for more on female illuminator Jeanne de Montbaston who illuminated a manuscript of the Roman de la Rose (and for links to examples of her “obscene” work on this manuscript, BNF25526).

Alastair Minnis “From Coilles to Bel Chose: Discourses of Obscenity in Jean de Meun and Chaucer,” Medieval Obscenities (ed. Nicola F. McDonald), 156–178.

14/ The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

15/ Miller’s Prologue and Tale

Episode 63: The Knight in Tarnished Armor

Summary

Early on, a friend of the podcast asked if we were going to cover chivalry. Because really, when you think of the Middle Ages, this is it, right? Knights in very shiny armor on beautiful horses charging into battle, swords drawn! Knights getting scarves from their ladies! Knights holding vigils and praying in front of the holy grail.  Today, three years later, Em and Jesse are finally going to get down to brass tacks on the topic. Who wrote the book on chivalry and what did it say? Did people ever really behave like this, or was it an unreachable ideal? And, of course, Chaucer forever. Join us, won’t you?

Notes

1/ Colin Firth rescuing a woman from a nondescript office job…Bridget Jones?? [Lol!]

2/ Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Huntsman

3/ England Before 1066: see episodes 53, 54, and 56.

4/ Maurice Keen Chivalry

Richard Kaeuper Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

5/ Crusades: We haven’t really covered these yet! We should do that. But we discuss the infamous Albigensian Crusade in Episode 48 (see note 27).

6/ Macbeth “unseam’d him from the nave to the chops, / And fix’d his head upon our battlements” (I.ii.22–23)

Henry V The opening of IV.vii discusses the slaughter of the boys watching the supplies.

7/ John Hawkwood (1323–1394) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkwood

Terry Jones, Chaucer’s Knight.

8/ Andrzej Tadeusz Bonaventura Bciuszko. Sorry. https://www.nps.gov/thko/learn/historyculture/kosciuszkobio.htm

9/ Baron von Steuben (1730–1794)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_von_Steuben

10/ Known to every Illinois schoolchild, Kasimir Pulaski (1745–1779).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski

11/ Hundred Years War (1337–1453) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War

Battle of Crecy (1346) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crécy

Battle of Agincourt (1415) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt

12/ Sir Geoffrey Luttrell being helped by his wife and daughter-in-law (image from the Luttrell Psalter, mid-14th-century British Library MS Additional 42130 folio 202v)

13/ Chrétien de Troyes (flourished 1160–1191)

Perceval

14/ Against the King’s Peace: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_(law)

15/ The Three Estates (those who pray [clergy], those who work [peasants], those who fight [knights/nobility]) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estates_of_the_realm

16/ Étienne de Fougères (d. 1178) writes a Livre des Manières about knights and chivalry. French wikipedia site: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Étienne_de_Fougères

17/ Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_of_Clairvaux

18/ Ordene de chevalerie anonymous Old French poem c1220.

The poem is about Prince Hugh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_II_of_Saint-Omer

19/ Saladin (1137–1193) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin

20/ Quote from the Ordene de chevalerie is from Keen’s Chivalry p. 7

21/ Please instead insert King Charles into this joke.

22/ Carpet considerations.

Episode 62: Tapestries Not by Carole King

Summary

The other day, I asked a friend, “Hey, what do normal people put on their walls?” The answer…is tapestries. Cold, stony castle? Tapestries. Small, plain cathedral? Tapestries. A house of some sort? Probably also tapestries. In this episode, Em and Dr. Jesse talk over how tapestries are made, famous tapestries from around the world, and the use of color in Medieval society. Join us!

Notes

1/ For more on textiles, see episode 33 (on women artisans) and episode 54 note 15 (on the Bayeux Tapestry).

2/ Rather than getting caught up on horizontal vs vertical terminology, just keep in mind that the warp is what goes on the loom and the weft is the part you weave with.

3/ Tang Dynasty (618–907CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty

Zhu Kerou (fl.12th century). See her famous “Butterfly and Camellia” silk tapestry here: https://thenewhistoria.org/schema/zhu-kerou/

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

5/ The medieval Andes! Huari tapestry images from a museum exhibition.
Huari / Wari: fl. 500/600–1000 CE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wari_culture

6/ Greek painting of sculptures is called polychromy.
https://youtu.be/86PD8o6xe_4
The MET in NYC has recently decided to get on board with this and now has an exhibit about polychromy (which they’re touting like it’s a new discovery 🙄).

7/ Check out the Bayeux Tapestry close up! https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry

8/ The Barnes Museum in Philadelphia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Foundation (discusses the legal challenges and controversy of the museum’s move)

9/ The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the Musée de Cluny (see episode 29, note 24 and episode 30, note 21).

10/ The hunting of the unicorn tapestries at The Cloisters in NYC.

11/ Raphael (1483–1520): not just a ninja turtle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael

12/ Pieter van Aelst (c.1495–c.1560). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_van_Aelst_III

13/ Mathilda episodes: episode 58 (Long Live the Queen)

14/ Episodes on England before 1066: episodes 53 (England Before the Norman Invasion) and 54 (More England, More Normans).

15/ The Bayeux Tapestry links:
https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry

16/ Beowulf episode here: episode 56

17/ Em’s newsletter.

Episode 61: Snowpeople

Summary

It’s wintertime in the Northern hemisphere! Snow is, of course, eternal, but did you ever wonder how far back the tradition of making snowpeople goes? Jesse did. Join us as we trace the history of snowpeople in Europe/the UK as far back as we can.

Notes

1/ Marginal illustration in a Book of Hours from c1380 (Ms KA36, fol. 78 verso, Brussels) now in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek
Actual picture: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Koninklijke_Bibliotheek_Book_of_Hours_snowman_illustration.jpg

2/ For more on the Judenhut or Judenhutte see episode 45, note 10, episode 10, notes 31 and 39; episode 25, note 14; and episode 41, note 7. Also see Sara Lipton, Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography, Metropolitan, 2014. Link.

3/ Mary Dillwyn is incredibly important to early photography. Here is her awesome c1853 snowman photo. Also here (museum collection).

4/ Tournai 1422–23 snow figures! See the articles in note 5 for more.

5/ Arras 1434–35: the Danse Macabre Snowmen

See Sophie Oosterwijk‘s ‘The snows of yesteryear’: the medieval Danse Macabre snowmen of Arras (Atrecht) (First published in French as ‘Les bonhommes de neige d’Arras (Atrecht)’, Bulletin de liaison de l’association Danses macabres d’Europe, 46 (2013), 4–6, 2013.)

6/ The Miracle of 1511! Wikipedia article here. Atlas Obscura article here.

See Herman Pleij, “Urban Elites in Search of a Culture: The Brussels Snow Festival of 1511” in Vol. 21, No. 3, New Historicisms, New Histories, and Others (Spring, 1990), pp. 629–647.

7/ Brussels poet Jan Smeken wrote a ballad about the snowmen. See the articles in note 6 for more!

8/ Fun fact: one time I (Em) walked through the red light district in Brussels with my mother.

9/ Manneken Pis. A very famous statue!

Jeanneke Pis. A less famous statue.

10/ “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?” is from “Ballade des dames du temps jadis” by François Villon (c.1431–after 1463)

“Ou sont les Neigedens d’antan?” is also a joke from <i>Catch-22</i>, which has a character named “Snowden.”

11/ Switzerland’s exploding snowman

Episode 60: The Green Knight

Synopsis

Once upon a time there was a guy named Gawain, and someone made a movie about him! And he got to be played by Dev Patel, which is pretty great when you get down to it. And then we covered it! In which Em reveals that she watches way too much historical costuming YouTube, Jesse gives a coherent literary critique, and then we talk about cinematography and death. Oh, there’s a bunch about the actual Arthurian legends, too. And if you listen to the end, you can hear a short clip of Em singing. (Is that an inducement? Hmm.)

Notes

1/ To be fair, a lot of the podcasts I’ve listened to are about horror movies, so I’m never going to actually watch them. Shout out to Random Number Generator Horror Podcast Number 9.

2/ The Green Knight a 2021 film written (adapted?) and directed by David Lowery based on the late-14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The film stars Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sean Harris, and more. It was released theatrically by A24.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Knight_(film)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9243804/

3/ Geoffrey of Monmouth (flourishes in the first half of the 12th century) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_of_Monmouth

A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth edited by Joshua Byron Smith and Georgia Henley https://brill.com/display/title/39588 (Published by Brill, so get it via ILL from your local library.)

4/ Prophecies of Merlin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophetiae_Merlini

5/ The “later work” Em mentions is the Prose Merlin.

The Middle English Prose Merlin was written in the mid-15th-century, just before Malory wrote his super famous version, making the Prose Merlin the earliest (extant) prose Arthur story. It’s largely based on French sources, including the Old French Vulgate Cycle (which is written in prose) and Robert de Boron’s Old French poem Merlin (of which only fragments remain). https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/conlee-prose-merlin-introduction

Robert de Boron flourished in the large-12th century and early 13th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_de_Boron
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(Robert_de_Boron_poem)

The Old French prose source is from the early 13th century and is known as the Vulgate Cycle (or the “The Pseudo-Map Cycle” and the “Lancelot-Grail Cycle”). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelot-Grail

6/ The Lady of the Lake is a fascinating character. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_of_the_Lake

7/ Marie de France (flourished 1160 to 1215). See episode 19 note 13 and episode 29 note 26.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_de_France

8/ Chrétien de Troyes (flourished second half of 12th century)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrétien_de_Troyes

9/ Thomas Malory (c1400–c1470) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Malory
Le Morte d’Arthur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Morte_d%27Arthur was completed c1470 and **published** by William Caxton in 1485! Caxton’s published version was the earliest extant version of Malory’s work until 1934, when a manuscript was discovered at Winchester College. That manuscript is now in the British Library and is the earliest (and only) manuscript of Malory’s work. It’s known as BL Add MS 59678 or the WInchester Manuscript. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/thomas-malorys-le-morte-darthur

10/ It sounds like we’re making this stuff about Cotton up, but it is true.
We also talked about Cotton in episode 39 note 8 and episode 56 note 2. Here is more info on the Cotton collection: https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/cotton-manuscripts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_library

11/ Gawain characters: This got confusing! Jesse talks about Morgause (Queen of Orkney), and then switches to Morgan (and then back to Morgause). Basically, both women have always been ambiguous, but Morgause is maybe seen worse in the modern era than she was in the Middle Ages!
* Morgan le Fay: sister of Morgause and others https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_le_Fay
* Gawain: our hero(?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gawain
* Mordred: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordred
* Morgause: Queen of Orkney (wife of King Lot), mother of Gawain and Mordred https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgause

Here’s the poem in translation! https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/weston-sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight

Here’s the original: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Gawain?rgn=main;view=fulltext (divided into Passus I, II, III, IV)

12/ Christian virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance (the cardinal virtues), and faith, hope, and charity (theological virtues).

13/ In retrospect, I think some of these characters have names in the credits, although not mostly mentioned in the movie.

14/ St. Winifred 7th century Welsh martyr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Winifred

15/ Em’s newsletter can be found by clicking here. The song in the background is George Harrison’s “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.” His version is better, go here and listen to it.

Episode 59: The Real MedEELval Times

Synopsis

Famous eels:
1/ “Those are the shrieking eels. You don’t believe me? Just wait. They always grow louder when they’re about to feed on human flesh.” (Name that movie.)
2/ Mark Oliver Everett
3/ Medieval eel rents!

The medieval church, famously, had a lot of restrictions on what people could eat and when—during Lent, on Fridays, and other fast days as well. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss some of the ways people got around these laws, including…eels! Medieval people LOVED eels. You could pay your rent in them. You could eat them. You could…well, that might be a list of all the things you could do with eels, but they were certainly beloved. So let’s talk about this little-known but apparently delicious delicacy.

Notes

1/ For reference, the referenced 3-year-old is now 5. We are a little behind.

2/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/science/moray-eels-eat-land.html

Side note: I don’t think anyone knows how eels have sex.

3/ https://www.facebook.com/sheddaquarium

4/ Moray eels: actually 200 species in 15 genera. The one I describe is the green eel, which grows up to 8.2 feet in length.

5/ Episodes that involve heretics: 8 (hell and damnation), 9 (heretics and saints), 48 (Meet the Cathars), 49 (Where’s Waldensians?). Arguably also 47 (Gnosticism).

6/ https://twitter.com/greenleejw

He got written up in Time, too: https://time.com/5886487/eels-history-conservation/

Link to Eel Rent Website (with map): https://historiacartarum.org/eel-rents-project/english-eel-rents-10th-17th-centuries/
Map alone: https://cornell.carto.com/u/jwgreenlee/builder/31e4bb99-f02b-431a-a4e2-aa83a043e53a/embed

7/ The smell of dried squid, and—especially—the smell of nuoc mam being made are things I will never forget.

To be fair, they weren’t selling squid by the stick—they just had them attached to sticks to bike them around.

8/ Henry I died of a surfeit of lampreys. I heard this on QI and therefore it is true, forever and ever amen.

9/ Surprise! Our episode on Mathildas came out two weeks ago—episode 58! And yet we apparently taped this two years ago. What planning!

10/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle_goose I guess it’s a thing.

11/ Eel ships 2019: https://www.hermitagemoorings.com/2020/02/20/eel-barge-korneliske-ykes-ii-visit-2019/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV-_rLOvLI8

The only good reason to have water inside your ship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvwTv1t_Mss

12/ “They are Brexiting right now.” Jesse, how many PMs have they been through since we recorded this? At least three, not including May. [And a head of lettuce! I think I said this when Boris Johnson was having so much trouble “finishing” Brexit.–JN]

13/ Here is the Surprised Eel Historian’s Twitter thread on the maps: https://twitter.com/greenleejw/status/1421144699897790471

The mapmakers:
Pieter van den Keere (1571–c. 1646) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_van_den_Keere
John Norden (c.1547–1625) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Norden
Norden’s map of London (1593): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Norden#/media/File:London_-_John_Norden’s_map_of_1593.jpg
The Visscher Panorama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visscher_panorama created by Claes Visscher (1586–1652) c1600 and first published in 1618 in Amsterdam.

Pieter van den Keere engraved John Norden’s map of London (1593). Visscher was Dutch, and it’s possible he never visited London. His map might be based on others, including Norden’s, since Norden’s engraver (van den Keere) was Visscher’s publisher’s brother-in-law. Repeat: Pieter van den Keere was Visscher’s publisher’s brother-in-law. Interestingly the publisher had been to London (it could potentially be his work?). The publisher is Jodocus Hondius (1563–1612).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodocus_Hondius

14/ Turnips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-L4hFWVxU
And yet more turnips (poor video quality, sorry): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD2iYSKHHzo

Episode 55: In the Summertime, When the Weather is Medieval

Summary

Summertime, and the living is Medieval. But really, what was summer like in the Middle Ages? We talk about the Medieval Climate Anomaly, the (not at all Medieval) Little Ice Age, the volcano on Santorini, Medieval vacation tendencies, the Tres Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry, and the Olympics.  Also, Firesign Theatre references! Brief content warning: if you have really bad climate change anxiety, parts of this discussion might bother you.

Annotations

1/ Person 1: We’re going to Greece!
Person 2: And swim the English Channel?
Person 1: No, to Ancient Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sang and stroked the wine-dark sea in the temple by the water wah dee doo dah.

It’s from “The Further Adventures of Nick Danger,” which is an old Firesign theatre routine. Please listen to it so I won’t be the only one who has ever heard this. (Also, at least one comment under that video quotes this line, so maybe it’s very memorable?)

2/ The Medieval Climate Anomaly or the Medieval Warm Period. This was followed by the Little Ice Age we discuss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

The year without a summer (1816): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

Santorini (Thera!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini Jesse learned a lot about volcanoes this summer!

The Pixar video is Lava. If you don’t have Disney+, you can still listen to the song (with stills from the video) here: https://youtu.be/uh4dTLJ9q9o

3/ Worst Year Ever: Radiolab nominated 536 CE.

4/ The Whakaari eruption was in 2019. I was close.

5/ I believe “the season” has shifted slightly since the Regency Era. It used to start in November and run approximately until June. Today, it starts in March and runs through to August. (I’m not totally sure on this—attempts to figure it out in order to nitpick a scene in a novel set in the Regency produced many contradictory answers—for example, new debutants were presented at court at a ball commemorating Queen Mary’s birthday, which was held in late April; this would be very late in the year if you were starting your season in November.

Jesse: The modern season must be due to air conditioning (and—prior to 2020—the lack of plague)—people don’t have to go off to their country estates in the summer.

6/ This is the bit everyone has to memorize:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

If you haven’t already memorized it, get cracking. It’s time.

April is the cruelest month.

If you need me, I’ll be at Señor Tadpole’s having a margarita made in my mouth.” Yes kids, it’s from Arrested Development.

7/ Never get involved in a land war in Asia! Said by many people, but most famously by Wallace Shawn in The Princess Bride: https://youtu.be/9mTlnrXFAXE

8/ Some hydrocarbons gel below 40 degrees F. But modern diesel engines have methods for starting in the cold.

9/ The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry by the Limbourg Brothers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_Duc_de_Berry (Check out and click on all the images in the gallery in the middle of the page.)

A harrow! Check out the October illustration from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry by the Limbourg Brothers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_Duc_de_Berry#/media/File:Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_octobre.jpg

10/ Strigil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigil

11/ Trotula: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotula

Camphor has a lot of uses, including decongestant and topical analgesic. It’s also mildly toxic. The chemical used in sunscreen is a camphor derivative called enzacamene. It may have some endocrine-disrupting properties.

12/ Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore. Oh man, Walt.
Medieval swimming! August in the Très Riches Heures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_Duc_de_Berry#/media/File:Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_aout.jpg

13/ Hawks! On a plane: https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-prince-80-hawks-on-plane-photo-2017-1?amp

If you have HBO, check out Real Sports from April 2022: https://www.hbo.com/real-sports-with-bryant-gumbel/season-28/4-real-sports-with-bryant-gumbel-april-2022

14/ The fire in Wisconsin in 1871 that coincided with the great Chicago fire was the Peshtigo Fire. It killed about 1,200 people and caused about $169 million in damages. [Wow! This would have been major news if Chicago hadn’t had a fire.–Jesse]

The subway fire I’m discussing is the King’s Cross Fire in London in 1987: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Cross_fire The effect discovered was named the trench effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_effect

15/ Forest fires in Spain: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378112700003236

16/ Fire in England summer 2022: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11034901/Soot-covered-villagers-cowered-medieval-church-amid-Wennington-wildfire-hottest-day-UK.html

17/ Ironically, as I edit this, the high today was 73 degrees, and the US Congress just passed a major piece of climate legislation. So it’s not all bad. [Yay!–Jesse] (That said, it’s still humid AF here, even at 73. Yech.)

Episode: 54: More England, More Normans

Synopsis

Part two of the run up to the arrival of Queen Matilda and that other guy…what was his name…William the Conqueror. Yeah. Him. Includes Danelaw, Danegeld, surprising connections to Hamlet, an explanation of whether Aethelred the Unready was really unready, and of course a discussion of Eric the Viking!

Annotations

1/ We have obviously linked to this clip before, but whatever. It brings much joy: What have the Romans ever done for us?

2/ Graham Chapman is Arthur, King of the Britons! https://youtu.be/ITJFfUptaGo Also here (with the political discussion!): https://youtu.be/KN9c2TAWMlg

3/ Patrick Stewart as Claudius. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCrq7UhVUK0 (this is not the scene Em describes, but it’s good.)

4/ It was illegal to marry your brother’s widow in England until quite recently. This was ecclesiastical law, then codified in civil law when the British decided they needed a civil marriage system in 1835 (see the Marriage Act of 1835). It became legal in 1907 with the passage of the Marriage to a Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill, and in 1921 the Deceased Brother’s Widow’s Marriage Act. Notwithstanding, it happened. People either got married abroad or no one challenged the marriage (they were considered “voidable” rather than “void”). Among others, Jane Austen’s brother married his dead wife’s sister.

THE MORE YOU KNOW.

Hamlet: “He that hath killed my king and whored my mother,/Popped in between th’ election and my hopes” (V.ii). Interestingly, in I.ii, Claudius says that the nobles also agreed that he should marry his sister-in-law This is the part I quote:

“Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we (as ’twere with a defeated joy,
With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole)
Taken to wife. Nor have we herein barred
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.”

5/ The pope didn’t want to piss off Aragon: not the guy from Lord of the Rings. There was a country called Aragon. [Now it’s part of Spain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragon ]

6/ Danelaw! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danelaw

7/ Battle of Edington (878 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Edington
Offa (king of Mercia, d.796 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offa_of_Mercia
Alfred the Great (starts as king of Wessex; c.848/849–899 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great

Alfred’s main kids are Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians (c. 870–918 CE) and Edward the Elder (c. 874–924 CE)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æthelflæd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Elder

Eric the Viking (actually Eric Bloodaxe, died 954 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Bloodaxe

(There’s a line in Angels in America where the Rabbi reads a list of grandchildren of a Jewish woman who died: “…beloved grandmother of Max, Mark, Louis, Lisa, Maria…uh…Leslie, Angela, Doris, Luke and Eric. (Looks more closely at paper) Eric? This is a Jewish name? (Shrugs) Eric.” It’s page 16. Anyway.)

Aethelred the Unready (c966–1016 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æthelred_the_Unready

8/ Battle of Maldon, 991 CE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Maldon

9/ Danegeld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danegeld

10/ Sweyn/Sven Forkbeard (963–1014 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweyn_Forkbeard
Son of HARALD BLUETOOTH (d. c. 985/86 CE). Who is THAT GUY. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Bluetooth

11/ Cnut the Great!! (d. 1035)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut

12/ Edward the Confessor (c.1003–1066) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Confessor

Before you @ us about St Edmund being another king of England who was canonized–-St Edmund (d869 CE) was King of East Anglia, not England. 🙂 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_the_Martyr

Edward the Martyr might count (962–978 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Martyr

13/ Harold Godwinson (c.1022–1066 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Godwinson

William the Conqueror/Bastard (c.1028–1087 CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror

14/ “Thou never shalt hear herald any more.” It’s from Henry V (IV.iii).

15/ Check out the Bayeux Tapestry close up! https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry

16/ Beowulf! Trans. Maria Headley https://www.amazon.com/Beowulf-Translation-Maria-Dahvana-Headley/dp/0374110034

For a performance, check out Beowulf: The Epic in Performance–Benjamin Bagby, voice and medieval harp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WcIK_8f7oQ

Episode 52: Heut’ kommt die Jesse zu Oberammergau

Synopsis

What do you get when you combine Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and the Passion of Christ? I don’t know, but it’s been going on for 390 years at this point. In this episode, Em and Jesse discuss what Jesse did on her summer vacation (or part of it): a trip to see the passion play in Oberammergau. With digressions on the 1972 Olympics, the film Munich, Nazis, and Bernd das Brot.

The official website and some fun articles about the play:
Oberammergau’s official history with the history of the play: https://www.passionsspiele-oberammergau.de/en/play/history

At the bottom of this page, you can click through a lot of the tableaux (hover over the left or right side of the pictures): https://www.passionsspiele-oberammergau.de/en/play/play

A good article about the play: https://religionnews.com/2022/05/09/oberammergau-passion-play-enters-a-new-era/

Notes

1/ The 1972 Olympics

Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner. (trailer). You can see some of the stuff Jesse discusses—people watching the stuff on the TV. They also show them discussing the telephone bomb.

Tony Kushner is a playwright most famous for Angels in America.

2/ For more on the PLAGUE, see ep. 2.

For more on passion plays, see episode 1 (note 23), episode 25 (note 19), episode 17 (note 6). Probably a bunch of other episodes, too.

For more on Passover and Easter, see episodes 3 and 4.

3/ Quick, somebody write a gothic novel where no one died at all since they made the vow, and now 400 years later they still have the same cast…

4/ Orlando Theme Park (deceased), the Holy Land Experience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Land_Experience

5/ In one of the great moments of This American Life, Ira Glass took a U of Chicago Medievalist to Medieval Times (a restaurant—it’s in Schaumburg, not Rosemont, don’t @ me): https://www.thisamericanlife.org/38/simulated-worlds/act-three-7

6/ The story of Papa Hemingway liberating Shakespeare & Co. can be found in the book Shakespeare and Company, by Sylvia Beach.

7/ I can’t find the scene of Aziraphale and Crowley discussing the crucifixion on YouTube, but it’s the opening of episode 3. It’s still on Amazon. Do yourself a favor and check it out if you haven’t seen it.

The full Douglas Adams quote, from the very beginning of So Long and Thanks for All the Fish:

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

David F*cking Bowie, guys. Did I say before that Barthes would have a lot to say about that haircut they’ve stuck on Mr. Bowie? Oh my god. That haircut. (Okay, we did this rant in episode 3, note 18.)

8/ Who betrayed the Franks?

9/ Menorah is a generic term for a candelabra that holds seven to nine candles. The menorah specifically for Hanukkah is a Hanukkiah.

10/ Okay, so the story of “Al Capone”: in about 2003, Jesse and Em went on a trip to Italy. Jesse speaks Italian, Em speaks…French. So as they took trains around the country, they’d meet people, and Em would listen to Jesse have conversations with them, but they’d try to speak in English once they realized Em couldn’t really participate. Which meant a lot of this:

Italian couple: Where are you from?
Jesse: Chicago.
Italians: Oh.. Al Capone!

Or occasionally, when Jesse mentioned she was born in Detroit:
Italian couple: Oh! Eminem!

I think the fact that they knew about Eminem is why I didn’t connect it to being specifically about Al being Italian-American until just now.

11/ Apologies to all German speakers for my pronunciation of your language.

One version of the song.

The accent here is very different from some of the other versions, which is interesting. Since the channel is “Naturpark Ammergauer Alpen,” I assume this is the accent of the region.

Actual lyrics:
Heut’ kommt der Hans zu mir,
freut sich die Lies.
Ob er aber über Oberammergau,
oder aber über Unterammergau,
oder aber überhaupt nicht kommt,
das is net g’wiss.

Here is an introduction to Bernd das Brot. Willkommen auf der KiKa Lounge. [Apparently he’s a loaf of pullman bread. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_das_Brot –Jesse]

Episode 51: The Relic (not the 1997 Creature Feature set in the Field Museum in Chicago)

Summary

Ever see an Indiana Jones movie?

For more on relic theft, see Patrick J. Geary’s Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages.

Annotations and Corrections

1/ The episode where we talked about St. Nicholas was episode 23 (a Christmas episode). The oil is kind of said to be myrrh, but it’s not… but it is a weird thing.

For more on this phenomenon (not reserved for St Nicholas—there are other saints who are myroblytes), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myroblyte_saint

2/ Great fictional versions of the Grail lore: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and I will add the short story “Chivalry” by Neil Gaiman.

3/ The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov. I recommend the Diana Burgin and Katerine Tiernan O’Connor translation (1996), but apparently there have been some more recent ones that are also good.

4/ There are a lot of places with magical springs; I think I was thinking of Lourdes. You can apparently buy Lourdes water online for $6.99 and have it shipped directly to your house.

5/ We talked about the eucharist in episode…a lot of them. [The search engine on the website will find them all!–Jesse]

6/ It’s good to be the king. [Thank you Mel Brooks!–Jesse]

7/ From Maria Headley’s translation of Beowulf (since I have become her acolyte), lines 26–51 (with a few omitted here because typing them is tedious):

Scyld was iron until the end. When he died,
his warriors executed his final orders.
They swaddled their king of rings and did just
as the Dane had demanded, back when mind
and meter could merge in his mouth.
They bore him to the harbor, and into the bosom
of a ship, that father they’d followed, that man
they’d adored.
[…]
They laid him by the mast, packed tight in his treasure-trove,
bright swords, war-weeds, his lap holding a hoard
of flood-tithes, each fare-coin placed by a loyal man.
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
His shroud shone, ringed in runes, sun-stitched.
I’ve never heard of any ship so heavy, nor corpse
so rich.
[…]
No man knows,
not me, not you, who hauled Scyld’s hoard to shore,
but the poor are plentiful, and somebody got lucky.

8/ Some of the Greek heroes mentioned:

Herakles, aka Hercules: you know him, there was a Disney movie about him.

Asclepius: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepius You know that medical symbol that looks like a caduceus but only has one snake? That’s the rod of Asclepius. That’s this guy. Son of Apollo + someone. [His mom’s identity–or even if he has a mom–is dependent on the myth.–Jesse]

Orestes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orestes son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, brother of Electra. Eventually kills his mother and her boyfriend, Aegisthus. [And gets chased by the Furies!–Jesse]

Pelops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelops king of Pisa (in myth); his father was Tantalus, who you might also remember from Greek myth.

9/ Oedipus at Colonus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_at_Colonus

10/ The Oedipus Rex song, by Tom Lehrer.

11/ In what is arguably the best scene in any bible ever, Elisha summons the bears in 2 Kings 2:23–24. The story of a guy who touched him rising from the grave is 2 Kings 13:20–21.

12/ The big black cube is the kaaba, which means “cube.” It’s a building. You can go inside it, although it’s kept closed during hajj. (I mean, maybe you can if you’re Muslim. They don’t allow non-Muslims in Mecca.)

The connection with Abraham is that he and Ishmael repaired it. [Isaac is the favored son of Judaism and Christianity, and Ishmael is the favored son in Islam.–Jesse ]

Topkapi Palace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topkap%C4%B1_Palace (Scroll down to the Privy Chamber for the sacred relics.)

Abraham’s pot: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/abrahams-pot-is-displayed-at-topkapi-palace-on-july-03-2018-news-photo/991960532

Joseph’s Turban: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/josephs-turban-amongst-sacred-trusts-is-displayed-at-news-photo/991960876

Muhammad’s swords and bow: https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/prophet-muhammads-swords-and-bow-are-displayed-in-their-news-photo/991960842

13/ Muhammed lived 570–632. Solidly early medieval.

14/ The Wailing Wall, also known as the Western Wall, is a wall in Jerusalem that was once a retaining wall for the Second Jewish Temple. We’ve sort of alluded to before (in…discussions of Jesus, actually) that Jews used to have a big temple where all the ritual stuff went down, and after the Romans expelled all the Jews from that general area (the diaspora) and destroyed the temple (70 CE, not 76 like Em suggests), Judaism evolved into the rabbinical religion we know today. But Jews like to go back there and…cry, I guess. Also, the wall is known in Arabic as al-Buraq, after the legend that this is where Muhammed tied his winged steed before he ascended to heaven.

Interesting how Judaism and Islam are incredibly tied together in these two stories. [In SO MANY STORIES. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are three siblings who have trouble getting along and really wonder which one dad loves more.–Jesse]

15/ We talked about Angkor Wat in episode 14. We talked about Perugia in episode 1!

16/ Śarīra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Aar%C4%ABra The term “sarira” is a generic one for Buddhist relics, but you can see photos of the pearl-like objects Jesse mentions on this page.

17/ The monk was named Thich Quang Duc, and he self-immolated on June 11, 1963, at what is now the corner of Nguyen Dinh Chieu St. and Cach Mang Thang Tam St. (Be warned that if you go to that wikipedia page, there is a picture of the self-immolation, and you might find it disturbing. I mean, it’s also on the Rage Against the Machine album, I guess. You should also find it disturbing that the US was propping up a regime so bad that someone did this as a form of protest. OKAY.)

That page also has a photo of a memorial for TQD, but it is very different from what was there when I was living in VN in 2006–2007ish, when there was really quite a small stupa that you could easily go past without noticing it.

18/ We’ve talked about St. Catherine of Siena in episode 6, note 37.

I don’t know anything about those particular bodies, but I think that “incorrupt,” for saints, doesn’t always mean “incorrupt.” Check out this video Caitlin Doughty of Ask a Mortician made on the topic. (They’re talking about the modern guidelines, which date from 1734! I ALSO don’t know if old bodies got reassessed when the new guidelines were issued!

19/ We discussed Jesus’ foreskin in episode 6, if I recall correctly. It’s not in the notes, but I think it’s in the episode. Is this the weirdest note I’ve written to date? Hmm.

20/ The Veronica (vera icon) is parodied by Forrest Gump: https://youtu.be/tOHr85z9k64

[I can’t believe Jesse said that “Veronica” is derived from “Bernice” and just strolled on past that. They both mean “bringer of victory,” but I’m not sure what the other connection is.–Em]

21/ I guess I should note that Dr. Katie, friend of the pod (well, friend of Jesse’s anyway) was/is not just a pathologist but a medical examiner. The difference is that a pathologist can look at the mole your doctor just lopped off and tell you if you have cancer, and a medical examiner can tell you if you were murdered. If you meet anyone who is a medical examiner, be sure to invite them to parties—they have excellent stories.

Episode #48: Meet the Cathars

Synopsis

So, say you like what Christianity has to offer generally. That Jesus kid seems like he has a good head on his shoulders. But theologically, you have a problem. Maybe you’re a Gnostic and think they’re wrong about the spiritual vs physical world. Maybe you think more women should be allowed to participate in services. Maybe you think that whole trinity thing is a little weird. Maybe you just want to make the Church really angry and get killed in a crusade. But it’s still before Martin Luther, so what do you do? Welcome, traveler, to the world of proto-Protestant heresies. From the Ante-Nicene period during which things were still getting figured out to the Cathars, join us for a conversation about proto-Protestants and their heresies, with bountiful references to Life of Brian.

Annotations

1/ See episode 47 for more on Gnosticism and Manichaeism. Also, by dualism, we mean specifically the (initially) Gnostic belief that there’s a spiritual world that is the “real” world, and also a physical world that is kind of a mistake. There are other kinds of dualism. [Hi Descartes!!–Jesse]

2/ Em references Imagined Communities, by Benedict Anderson: take a drink.

3/ Liminal: being between two different states, often because of a societal ritual.

Communitas: the community found during a state-change ritual. [Thank you Victor Turner!–Jesse]

4/ Bart Ehrman texts:
Lost Christianities
Lost Scriptures
Forgery and Misforgery
Misquoting Jesus

5/ Ante-Nicene period (Christianity before 325 CE): the time before the Council of Nicea. People were figuring things out.

Actual filmic representation: “Blessed are they who convert their neighbors thusly, for they shall inhibit their girth. And to them only shall be given…”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deDlab6vFgg

The Judean People’s Front: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0BpfwazhUA

6/ Jesus chasing the moneylenders out of the temple: Matthew 21:12–17, Mark 11:15–19, Luke 19:45–48 AND last but definitely not least, the more dramatic retelling with whips and table-flipping, John 2:13–16.

Also, Jesus yelling at the Pharisees: Luke 11:37–54, Matthew 23:1–39. Also Godspell “Alas for you”: https://youtu.be/oeBy1Ee8LCg

7/ Destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple

For more on Yom Kippur recapitulating the Temple ceremonies, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur#Temple_service

8/ Sacraments, for those curious: baptism, communion, confirmation, penance, marriage, last rights, and taking holy orders. I suppose most Catholics can only ever do six out of seven. But if you want to read about a guy who gets to do all seven, read Priestdaddy, by Patricia Lockwood. Also, read it because it’s amazing.

9/ As you might surmise, Christian churches that reject the position that the Christian god is a trinity are called…nontrinitarian. Some of the groups you may have heard of that hold this belief include Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, and members of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship (a sub-group of Unitarian Universalists, who are not themselves Christian but instead the religious equivalent of a hug and a cup of tea while listening to NPR). For more, check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontrinitarianism

10/ The Council of Nicea, 325 CE, in Turkey: remember this, it’s one of those big ones that comes up a lot.

11/ Ignatius of Antioch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Antioch

Lotta stuff happened in Antioch. Well, maybe that’s like saying a lot of stuff happens in New York or London.

12/ Nag Hammadi Library. See also episode 47 (note 6).

13/ For those wondering, the seven Unitarian principles are: the inherent worth of every person; justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth; a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; the right of conscience and the use of democratic process within their congregations and society; the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Em: I love Unitarianism as a religion. It just… doesn’t have quite as easy a time explaining itself as, e.g., “There is no G-d but G-d and Muhammed is his messenger,” which I have to admit is extremely pithy.

14/ Council of Ephasus, 431 CE. Exit the Assyrian Church.

Council of Calcedon, 451 CE. Exit the Oriental Orthodox Churches.

Miaphysitism: Jesus has one nature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miaphysitism

Great schism: 1054 CE.

More on schisms! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schism#Christianity
Nice branch graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schism#/media/File:Christianity_Branches.svg

15/ For more on icons, see episode 10 on Icons and Iconography!

16/ Did we talk about priests getting married at some point? I swear we did but I don’t remember which episode. (I think it’s come up on the side, but never as a focus.–Jesse)

17/ RI Moore, Formation of a Persecuting Society

18/ Interestingly, though the ritual may work regardless of the vehicle, since we recorded this the Vatican announced that the ritual does not work if the priest makes a mistake with the wording: they ruled that all the baptisms performed over 16 years by an Arizona priest who said “we” instead of “I” were invalid. [Yes, the ritual works regardless of the ritual, but only if the ritual is exactly right! Hmmmm.—Jesse]

19/ Specifically I think the Bishop of Winchester (London) owned a brothel there (in an area called the Liberty of the Clink). See also episode 24, note 10 (and associated part of the episode). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_of_the_Clink

20/ Malcolm Lambert, Medieval heresy

Bogomilism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomilism

Bogomil (the priest): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomil_(priest)

The Cathars! See also episode 30. (Alan of Lille: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_de_Lille)

Se Malcolm Barber, The Cathars

21/ Katherine Jansen, The Making of the Magdalen

22/ Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153). (Eberwin of Steinfeld writes Bernard about the burning of Cathars in Cologne in 1143.)

23/ The transmigration of souls: met-him-pike-hoses (a major theme in Ulysses). Sorry, metempsychosis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metempsychosis). AKA a form of reincarnation–the movement of souls to a new body after death. For complicated reasons (not worth belaboring in a footnote), this is different from the Buddhist idea of reincarnation. The term and idea in this case both arose in Ancient Greece.

24/ Raymond VI of Toulouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_VI,_Count_of_Toulouse

25/ The Dominicans–see episode 30.

26/ The Third Lateran Council (1179)

27/ Abbot of Citeaux (the primary Cistercian monastery) Arnaud Amalric: “Kill them all, and God will know His own.” (1209, but written about in 1224 by the Cistercian Caesarius of Heisterbach.)

28/ From this point on (about 1:15:xx), Jesse’s audio gets a little wonky. I did my best, guys. Sorry.

Episode 46: The Well-Tempered Podcast

Synopsis

After an unexpected late-season hiatus, we’re back with an episode on musical forms! We’ve got the earliest hymns, the maddest madrigals, tuning and temperament, at least three different types of chant, and a song so recursive it will summon Douglas Hofstadter if you play it into a mirror in a dark room.

Annotations

1/ If you don’t remember everything we talked about, refer to episodes 40 and 43.

2/ Hurrian Hymn (see episode 43 note 19) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrian_songs
https://youtu.be/Tx6v0t5I5SM (performed by Michael Levy)

3/ The Delphic Oracle, aka the Pythia.

4/ Hymns to Apollo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphic_Hymns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws7xUHt_W4o (performed by Michael Levy)

Hermes was mentioned in episode 40, note 4.

5/ They’re both lyres, but they’re tuned differently.

6/ Pythagorean tuning  was not the only ancient Greek tuning! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_system_of_ancient_Greece

7/ Plainsong 
Monophony
Neume

8/ Gregorian chant.

We talked about Pope Gregory in episode 2.

Ambrose Bierce: author of The Devil’s Dictionary.

Saint Ambrose of Milan
Ambrosian chant

9/ The last castrato was Alessandro Moreschi, and he died in 1922.

10/ Gallican chant excerpt performed by Sequentia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S08SIkWldSU
From Paris, BNF, ms. lat. 776, 11th century https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84546727/f301.item

11/ For more on the Ordo/Hildegard, see episode 6, notes 17 and 23.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1sJ91rS0o0 At 3:38 you can see “Felix Anima” in red letters at the top left of the second page. This means that Anima–the everyperson character of the play, the Soul–is supposed to sing “happily.” Stage directions!

For Jesse’s rant, see episode 15, I think.

12/ Adam de la Halle: see episode 31 note 13.

13/ Polyphony

Early three-voice motet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro2JTnfmjzA
Same YouTube clip for all:
1. O Maria, maris stella (single-texted three-voice motet) (0:00)
2. O Maria virgo, O Maria, maris stella (double motet) (1:01)
3. Quand je parti (two-voice motet) (2:15)
4. En nom Dieu – Quand voi – Eius in oriente (double motet) (3:45)
5. Trop sovent – Brunete – In seculum (double motet) (4:52) The Hilliard Ensemble

14/ Music of the Middle Ages: An Anthology for Performance and Study, by David Wilson. https://www.amazon.com/Music-Middle-Ages-Anthology-Performance/dp/9382661026

15/ Formes fixes
ballade, rondeau, and virelai.

16/ Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300–1377)

17/ Machaut’s Rondeau “My End Is My Beginning” (“Mon fin est mon commencement”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcfPr4IN2MM (performed by Performed by: Charles Daniels, Angus Smith, & Don Greig and transcribed and animated by Jordan Alexander Key)

So meta that Douglas Hofstater something something.

18/ Machaut – Virelai: “Douce dame jolie” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kM5qJi2v3c
From Cantata Profana’s show “Ancient Groove Music” live at the HERE Arts Center, NYC June 2017.

19/ Machaut – Ballade “Dame, ne regardes pas” (from BNF ff 1584)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyGhW9JKOz8
Performed by LIBER: Ensemble for Early Music (formerly Liber unUsualis)

20/ Trecento Madrigal
Francesco Landini, “Musica Son Già Furon Ciascun Vuol” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNcfZSBF9ow
Performance by: Gothic Voices on “A Laurel for Landini” and transcription by Jordan Alexander Key

21/ Madrigal by Jacopo da Bologna “Fenice fu”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8EikqtlB_w

22/ Claudio Monteverde (1567–1643)
Monteverdi – Madrigals, Book 8 “Hor che’l ciel e la terra” (Les Cris de Paris, Geoffroy Jourdain)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3F_q2PWXo

23/ John Dowland (1563–1626)
“Fine Knack for Ladies” (performed by the King’s Singers) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEXw7tk4F28

And the Sting one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_from_the_Labyrinth

24/ Hildegard von Blingen is a bardcore musician. Example. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ_jwWjf8u5mdtac71Be8QA

Bardcore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardcore

Episode 45: Fool Me Twice

Summary

More on the Feast of Fools and the Kalends, with some digressions about Roman Emperor Claudius and labyrinths.

Annotations

For most of the Feast of Fools and Herod info from this episode, see Max Harris, Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Folly-History-Feast-Fools/dp/0801479495

1/ The Kalends (or calends, hence calendar :)) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calends

2/ Episode 18, note 1 on syncretism.

3/ For medieval mummers or ‘guisers’ (possibly depicting a Kalends celebration) see Bodleian manuscript 264, p. 21v: click here. The actual text is from The Romance of Alexander and dates from around 1340.

4/ Meg Twycross and Sarah Carpenter, Masks and Masking in Medieval and Early Tudor England https://www.amazon.com/Masking-Medieval-England-Studies-Performance-dp-1138257850/dp/1138257850/

5/ Episode 18, note 10 includes the Bodleian MS linked above in note 3. It’s a great image, and we’ve talked about it a lot!

6/ Do we need to note that slates are like tiny blackboards? And that blackboards are things teachers traditionally present their lessons on using chalk?

7/ I’m (Em) definitely taking a mulligan this year and starting my new year at Tết (this year it’s Feb 1st).

8/ Sandy Koufax, famous Jewish baseball player. For more on Jewish baseball players, see https://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/Jewish_baseball_players.shtml (Also, this is a reference to this scene from the greatest film ever made, The Big Lebowski. Warning, contains swearing.)

9/ Twelfth Night (the holiday not the play!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night_(holiday)

Epiphany (when the magi–aka the three wise men–visit Jesus) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)

King Cake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_cake

10/ For more on the Jewish hat (judenhut) and its connection to the magi (and possibly witches and wizards), see episode 10, notes 31 and 39; episode 25, note 14; and episode 41, note 7. This info and theory is from Sara Lipton, Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography, Metropolitan, 2014. Link.

11/ Slaughter (or Massacre) of the Innocents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Innocents

About Robert Graves’s amazing novel I, Claudius. It’s historical fiction covering the time period from Julius Cesar’s assassination to Claudius’s assention to the throne (about 44 BCE to 41 CE). There’s apparently also a substantial biography of Herod in the sequel, Claudius the God.

12/ Hamlet III.ii https://myshakespeare.com/hamlet/act-3-scene-2-popup-note-index-item-termagant-and-herod

Hamlet:

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as
many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier had
spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with
your hand, thus, but use all gently. For in the very torrent,
tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion,
you acquire and beget a temperance that may give
it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a
robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to
tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,
who for the most part are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I could have such a
fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods
Herod. Pray you avoid it.

13/ Max Harris, Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Folly-History-Feast-Fools/dp/0801479495

14/ Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Princes_in_Amber It is a  men-with-swords-and-magic fantasy novel with a somewhat noirish twist? You should definitely not expect any female characters. But it’s fun.

If you are interested in what the heck Em was talking about when she tried to explain the labyrinth dance, here is the place to look, although they suggest the ball is actually made of leather, not wool. Labyrinths were a big feature in medieval cathedrals.

15/ For more on Palmesel donkeys (used to recreate Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem on what becomes Palm Sunday), see episode 3, note 10.

16/ For more on Balaam and his donkey, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balaam

For the actual story, see Numbers 22:21–39 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%2022%3A21-39&version=NIV

Episode 44: Upside Down and Inside Out

Summary

Christmas, a season for overeating, arguing with your parents about politics, and…wearing masks? Join Em and Jesse as they talk about topsy turvy Medieval holidays like the Feast of Fools! Also we talk a little about the Purge film/TV franchise, Rabelais, and Foucault. Sorry to the two people who follow us who are not excited about poststructuralism.

Annotations

1/ It was actually episode 42.

For liminality, see episode 18 note 8 (and episode 19 note 7, which sends you to episode 18 note 8).

2/ The tradition of throwing candy originates in a tradition called an “aufruf” (pronounced “oof roof”)–right before a groom (or in non-Orthodox temples, a couple) got married, they would get called up to read from the Torah–this is typically done at the Shabbat before the wedding. Afterward people in the congregation throw candy at him/them. I don’t know exactly how we started doing this for bnai mitzvot in our temple, except that it happened at some point in the two and a half years between my bat mitzvah and my brother’s bar mitzvah.

3/ The Purge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purge (it’s actually five films, a two-season TV series, and a plan for more films.)

4/ Mikhail Bakhtin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakhtin
See Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World for his theories of the carnivalesque and grotesque. https://www.amazon.com/Rabelais-His-World-Mikhail-Bakhtin/dp/0253203414/

5/ François Rabelais (born between 1483 and 1494; died 1553): episode 39 (on libraries). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_Rabelais

6/ For more on Foucault’s idea of power/knowledge, see literally everything he ever wrote, and especially Discipline and Punish and the book Power / Knowledge (which was not *by* Foucault but collects a lot of stuff he said).

7/ Photo of trussed up skeletons from Halloween

Inflatable spiders and trussed up skeletons.

8/ The Three Living and the Three Dead: see episode 2(!), the image at the top of the notes and note 35.

I am too depressed to footnote Jesse’s predictions about the VA elections. (Jesse: Glenn Youngkin-R won.)

9/ Foucault’s power structure idea is laid out pretty plainly around page 90 of A History of Human Sexuality, vol. 1.

10/ Actually, it was episode 10, on icons and iconography. See note 4. They’ve been dismantling the pedestal of the Lee statue, and they found a time capsule that they just opened. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/22/us/virginia-lee-time-capsule-open-trnd/index.html
Here’s the statue coming down: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/08/1035004639/virginia-ready-to-remove-massive-robert-e-lee-statue-following-a-year-of-lawsuit

11/ Max Harris, Sacred Folly: A New History of the Feast of Fools https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Folly-History-Feast-Fools/dp/0801479495

12/ We talked about Jean Gerson (and usually Joan of Arc) in episode 6 notes 25, 27, and 33 and also episode 8 note 9 and episode 9 note 23.

13/ Meg Twycross and Sarah Carpenter Masks and Masking in Medieval and Early Tudor England https://www.amazon.com/Masking-Medieval-England-Studies-Performance-dp-1138257850/dp/1138257850/

14/ For more on St Francis and Christmas, see episode 23 note 7.

15/ A headdress/mask/helmet from Yorkshire, British Isles c8000 BCE housed in the British Museum. Made of antler (the skull and antlers of a red deer stag): https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1953-0208-1

16/ Buffy, season 2 episode 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_(Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer)

17/ We ARE in the late-post-Middle Ages!

Episode 43: Our Bagpipes Go to Eleven

Summary

More on music! (Shoutout to episode 40/music part 1, which came out a while ago now.) We talk about dulcimers and gitterns, viols and tabors, Jew’s harps and gamelans, and Jesse’s favorite–the bagpipe. Also tuning, temperament, aaaand a little Monty Python.

Annotations

1/ The Early Instrument Database at Case Western Reserve University, Ross Duffin.

2/ Dulcimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulcimer

AKA “A damsel with a dulcimer in a vision once I saw”: I think the lyre just feels more like a post-Raphielite instrument.

Ditzy Dulcimer.

Dulcimer, lyre, and lute, the Ferrara Ensemble directed by Crawford Young playing an excerpt from “Fortuna Desperata.” (See website for full citation.)

3/ Gittern

Gittern with harp, Ferrara Ensemble playing an excerpt from “Chanconeta Tedescha” (see website for full citation).

Workshop medieval gittern https://youtu.be/eA4CtdXnWWs

4/ Viola de gamba

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viol

A quick google suggests that $10k might be on the cheap side for a contrabassoon. Possibly because most of the ones that are made are professional quality.

5/ Jew’s Harp / Jaw Harp / Mouth Harp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew%27s_harp

Doctor Who Theme Song. Fun fact: Although it sounds like a theremin, the Doctor Who theme song was actually produced by recording a single plucked string and then cutting the tape up, putting it back together in weird ways, playing it faster or slower, etc.–a technique known as musique concrète. Considering that it was done in 1963, this was considered pretty innovative. (Also, belated happy Doctor Who day to everyone–it’s November 23, right around the time I am editing this.)

6/ Tabor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabor_(instrument)

Brave Sir Robin clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZwuTo7zKM8 (sorry about the lack of pixels, apparently every Monty Python clip was uploaded to the internet around 2006). (Contains a timbril.)

7/ Gamelan

Em makes reference to the unification of Indonesia. The short version of the story here is that much like China, India, and French Indochina, Indonesia was once a bunch of independent kingdoms/sultanates/what-have-yous. Like India and French Indochina, it was forced to think of itself as one place rather than a large island archipelago (actually, the largest, with over 17,000 islands!) by colonial interests, in this case the Dutch and the Dutch East India Company (see also episode 11, note 30 for passing mention of them). Some of these, uh, sedimented countries stayed together after the colonials pulled out (e.g., Indonesia), some fell apart (e.g., French Indochina), and some stayed mostly together but with a few notable pieces leaving the main (e.g., India).

8/ Xylophone

The xylophone is also mentioned in nearly every alphabet book for children because English has so few words that start with X (or at least such words that have been deemed appropriate for children).

Technically, I (Em) played the broken vibraphone in the marching band–when a vibraphone is broken or unplugged, it turns into a xylophone, I think.

Balafon

9/ The organ! This is Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565: https://youtu.be/Nnuq9PXbywA

Link to Nancy Kito: https://twitter.com/EnsLeonarda/status/1241870110874308608?s=20

Video of someone hitting “transpose” at the wrong moment: https://www.classicfm.com/composers/handel/messiah-organ-fail/

10/ Jesse’s favorite: The Medieval Bagpipe

Hurryken Productions

More bagpipes!

Here are some images of medieval bagpipes (and sound from a modern recreation) from the Case Western site: https://caslabs.case.edu/medren/medieval-instruments/bagpipe-medieval/

[Bagpipes are double reed instruments, like the bassoon and the oboe (also the heckelphone and the sarrusophone). Of these, obviously the bassoon is the best. As a former bassoonist, I wish I could say this was the first time that I’ve had a conversation where I cast scorn and/or aspersions on the bagpipe, but it is not.–Em]

11/ Horns

Carnyx: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnyx
Carnyx, performed by Abraham Cupeiro.

Cow horn

The SNL skit! Jesse teaches this in class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrpQVSVa2QI

12/ Oud and lute song from the Cantigas de Santa Maria (written in medieval Galician-Portuguese language during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile (1221–84) and often attributed to him). Here are images from a manuscript of the Cantigas (and scroll down to hear the duet from the episode): https://thedutchluthier.wordpress.com/2016/07/08/cantigas-de-santa-maria/

Oud and lute, performed by Sequentia.

For more on Alfonso X, who wrote a song about a ferret he owned as a pet and really loved, see episode 29, note 22.

13/ Sequentia is an awesome group and has done a lot of work on Hildegard’s music: https://www.sequentia.org/projects/hildegard.html

We’ve discussed Hildegard in episodes 5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 26, 29, 30, and 32. She’s important. (Wow, I need to index her better.–Em)

14/ Medieval Dances (performed by Ensemble Chominciamento di Gioia http://www.futurestyle.org/classic/archives-classic/c/chominciamento-di-gioia.htm )

15/ Tuning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_tuning

16/ Temperament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_temperament

17/ Quarter tone scale from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_tone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_tone_system

18/ Ross Duffin How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)
https://www.amazon.com/Equal-Temperament-Ruined-Harmony-Should/dp/0393334201

19/ Hurrian Hymn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrian_songs
https://youtu.be/Tx6v0t5I5SM (performed by Michael Levy)

20/ Bach Prelude in three temperaments: https://youtu.be/kRui9apjWAY (performed by John Moraitis on the spinet)

Spinet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinet

Episode 42: Candy Is Dandy

Summary

Do you want some candy, little girl? Of course you do, it’s delicious. But what was candy a thousand years ago? Turns out at least some of it was kind of similar to what we get today.

Annotations

Some book recommendations:

Steven Epstein, An Economic and Social History of Later Medieval Europe, 1000–1500.

Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.

If you are downloading this podcast on 11/16/21, you can get a free copy of a journal with two of Em’s weird speculative fiction poem-things here. For the week following 11/16, it will be on sale for under $4 CDN (so like $3 freedom bucks) for a week. Please consider downloading (and if you do, leave a review)!

1/ John Mirk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mirk
Mirk’s Festial or Liber Festivalis (The quote about getting souls out of purgatory is in the middle of page 270):
https://archive.org/details/mirksfestialcoll01mirkuoft/page/270/mode/2up

17:30 I (Em) actually didn’t know there was a tie between how many people say kaddish for you and how fast you get into heaven–there is another tradition that you don’t say kaddish for someone after a year except on the anniversary of their death, because to do so suggests that you think they’re in hell. Meaning that if you sin so much that you go to hell and one year’s worth of kaddish doesn’t get you out, it’s going to take a while, I guess.

2/ 21:xx: French toast, or pain perdu. Looking this up isn’t too easy, but a number of websites claim that bread in “pain perdu” is lost because they are using stale bread (bread that is lost, i.e. dead) and bringing it back to life. The name in English is occasionally suggested to have come from a guy named Joseph French (so similar to German chocolate cake).

3/ Apicius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apicius

The recipe is: “Aliter dulcia: siligineos rasos frangis, et buccellas maiores facies. in lacte infundis, frigis, ex [in] oleo, mel superfundis et inferes.” For the recipe, scroll down to the number 302 (the number is in parenthesis in the left margin): https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16439/pg16439-images.html#bk7

4/ “Sweetbread is something else.” For those who didn’t watch Silence of the Lambs as children, sweetbreads are the thymus and pancreas.

The pudding is from British Library manuscript Harley 279 (c1430). Here is a blog that includes a transcription: https://coquinaria.nl/en/strawberye/

5/ The Middle Ages also used almond milk. And yet not mentioned in Dante’s Inferno. . . [Yes, more on this will be upcoming in a future episode!–Jesse]

6/ In VN, this drink is called nuoc mia and it is much better than Gatorade when you’re out and about on a hot day.

7/ Kara Walker’s “A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant”:  https://creativetime.org/projects/karawalker/

8/ Robbie McCauley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_McCauley and a brief excerpt of Sugar https://vimeo.com/131050638

9/ Ama Ata Aidoo (b1942) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ama_Ata_Aidoo

Aidoo’s play Anowa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anowa

10/ This recipe is from British Library MS Harley 2378. Here is the recipe “To Clarifie Sugar”: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=harley_ms_2378_f155r
Here is the recipe I read, “To Make Penydes” (begins at the bottom of folio 157v): http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=harley_ms_2378_f157v

11/ Here is an article about child labor and the chocolate industry.
The decision (see here, from June 2021)is a little different than Em represented it–basically, six adult survivors of child trafficking/slave labor were denied the opportunity to sue Nestle USA and Cargill under a law called the Alien Torte Statute based on the fact that they didn’t establish that the companies made major operational decisions in the US. In the words of the great philosopher Dan Le Sac, “Thou shalt not buy Nestle products.”

12/ Here is a fun article on the history of licorice: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7125727/

The OED’s etymology for licorice helpfully tells us that the “Greek γλυκύρριζα (latinized glycyrrhiza by Pliny), < γλυκύς sweet + ῥίζα root.”

13/ Ann Reardon using marshmallow! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkjUBcjlaz4

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…

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.

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.

Episode 38: Take a Look, It’s in a Book (or a scroll, or a tablet, or…)

Summary

“When I was in library school, we never discussed outright conquest as a method of collection development.” In which we discuss books (and other recordkeeping methods), the growth of reading in conjunction with the consolidation of manuscripts, and also Em is a nerd about classification systems.

Sources

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. Stanford University Press link.

Lambros Malafouris How Things Shape the Mind: A Theory of Material Engagement. MIT Press link.

Lionel Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World. Amazon link.

Annotations

1/ The “map of a cat” story was in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman. He has come up before on this podcast too–see episode 2, note 24.

2/ Melvil Dui’s issues could probably fill a three-volume series. Book 1: the problems with the Dewey Decimal System. Book 2: Spelling. Book 3: Sexism. Yanno.

Besides Dewey, other common classification systems are Library of Congress Classification (my favorite, despite its faults), Universal Decimal Classification, and Colon Classification (used a lot in India). I believe there may have once been a system called Cutter Classification, which is now only, or largely, extant in “Cutter numbers,” which are the numbers that get put after your classification number to shift it over on the shelf and make it unique while still keeping it in the category you need. Chinese and Russian libraries have their own systems. –Em

Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things begins with this famous passage:

This book first arose out of a passage in Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought–our thought, the thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography–breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other. This passage quotes a ‘certain Chinese encyclopedia’ in which it is written that ‘animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies’. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the very thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that.

3/ “More than twelve.” LOL there’s about 28, or 30 if you count the Wisconsin Historical Society archives and UW’s archives and records management. [Wow, awesome!–JN]

4/ Virtual unfolding! Here is the scientific article by J. Dambrogio et al explaining the process: “Unlocking history through automated virtual unfolding of sealed documents imaged by X-ray microtomography.” and here is an article with a simpler explanation of the scientific paper above: https://www.npr.org/2021/03/02/972607811/reading-a-letter-thats-been-sealed-for-more-than-300-years-without-opening-it — this was recently published when we recorded this episode.

And here is an article about scanning fragile papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum, where a private library of 2,000 scrolls was buried by Mt Vesuvius. (Pompeii wasn’t the only town buried!) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/buried-ash-vesuvius-scrolls-are-being-read-new-xray-technique-180969358/

In episode 32, note 6 we discussed the use of modern technology to read palimpsests. Here’s a fun article on students doing this for a project: https://www.rit.edu/news/rit-students-discover-hidden-15th-century-text-medieval-manuscripts

5/ For general info on Nippur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippur

6/ Ebla tablets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebla_tablets

7/ Hattusa (see the section on the royal archives): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattusa

Em: Nowadays, a colophon refers to a page at the end of a work that gives information on the typeface the work is printed in.

8/ Tiglath-Pileser I (reigned c.1115 to 1077 B.C.E.): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiglath-Pileser_I

9/ Ashurbanipal (reigned c. 668 BCE–631 BCE); his library: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Ashurbanipal

10/42:xx The Enuma Elis, we have mentioned before, is the Babylonian creation epic on which the Torah’s creation story may have been partially based. See episode 4, note 3 for more!

11/ Provenance is very important to scholars (and it theoretically ensures that nothing was stolen). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provenance

12/ 53ish: My (Em’s) librarian mind is a little blown by the curses. All the libraries I’ve ever worked in used something called tattle tape. Curses seem much better.

Jesse: It might be time for them to start trying some curses! These are mostly in Casson, pages 10–13.

13/ All hail banned books week! List of banned books: https://bannedbooksweek.org/banned-books-week-2021-books-unite-us/

And Tango Makes Three has frequently been banned: https://bannedbooksweek.org/banned-spotlight-and-tango-makes-three/
Here is its Amazon site: https://www.amazon.com/Tango-Makes-Three-Classic-Board/dp/1481446959

14/ I do want to give a shout out to Handel’s Alexander’s Feast, although I’m not sure that this is what Alexander had in mind.
Here’s the Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/album/3Q7efFg6OJ5ePGnLlTAvgg?si=aUw7XuLcTcSzU0ICCLvErg&dl_branch=1

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%27s_Feast_(Handel)