Oops, again

Oops, I forgot again. It seems that the Lorsch Abbey, near Worms, is of an earlier date than the Anglo-Saxon leechdoms. This manuscript seems to come from the time of Charlemagne. And was probably influence by his drive to have a literate class of people with "knowledge" In any case, the Anglo Saxon leechdoms or leech books, may have been partially copied form that source, with other "stuff" inserted. But it was later

My bad,
Anne G

Maybe some medieval monks knew more about what works, fo treating certain ailments. . . . .

Gentle readers:

I haven't written much about medieval-themed stuff lately. There hasn't been much I wanted to write about, especially since much of it was about subjects that didn't directly involve anything in my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals. OTOH, today, I think I have. There is a site that claims medieval monks knew what they wee talking about, at least regarding remedies for some ailments or conditions. Maybe they were at least partially right. The site gives some fairly specific examples, and the authors claim they work. All I know, is this kind of knowledge was gathered at least as early as Anglo-Saxon leechdoms, writings of people who treated various ailments. Whether there leechdoms weree anything accurate, I can't say. But these medieval cures are later.

Make of this what you will,
Anne G

Current read

Gentle readers:

Before I get back to my take on various kinds of thrillers(it will be titled "intelligent and Unintelligent Thrillers, Part II or something similar, I would like to say a few words about the book I'm currently reading. It's by Kamran Pasha, and it's called Shadow of the Sword

It's the story of the Third Crusqade, seen from various "religious" points of view. Kamran Pashi, the author, is a Muslim, which, at least in writing fiction about the Crusades, is, to me, almost unheard of.Since this book features Saladin -- a hero to many Muslims, and Richard I("Lionheart"), a hero to many in the West, it may feel controversial to some readers, at least as far as I can tell. Richard I doesn't seem to come off very well, and Saladin comes off a lot better. Whether or not Mt. Pasha has done his research, it's harder for me to tell. I know something about the Crusades ear, and the effect it has had on all of us through the ages. He even compares the actions of the Crusaders at various points, to 9/11 and the various al-Qaidas and Talibans floating around the Muslim world today, and the damage they have done. In short, he doesn't think these sorts of actions are very good Christianity or Islam, or much of anything else. He also thinks the thre "Abrahamic" religions(Judaism, Christiahity, and Islam), have more in common, re their basic values of making the world a better4, not a worse place, and those who use vioulence in the name of "religious" faith, are violating their own faith, whatever it may be.

I'd like to say more, and I will, eventually, when I finished the book. At the moment, I don't feel I can do that. But I can say this: to me, so far, it looks very promising.
Anne G

Yet another book review, and medieval at that

Hoffman, Mary

Troubadour

Bloomsbury Press, 2009

291 pp.

ISBN978-1-599990-367-5

I came across Troubadour quite unexpectedly.  I was in the local library, as is my habit at certain times, to see what might be there that would make good, entertaining reading, I had never really paid much attention to Mary Hoffman, the author, though I have seen some of her work – Young Adult-type books set in a sort of “alternate” Renaissance Italy, based on some visits to Florence that she’d made earlier.  Troubadour looked interesting, but I didn’t pay much attention to it in the bookstore, either.

However, when I came across the book in the library, I did pay attention.  It’s not often you see a book aimed at “young adults” that the library staff feels adults might enjoy. And they were right; I enjoyed it very much. I knew next to nothing about the Cathars, or the “crusade” against them, mainly motivated, apparently, by the desire of the king of France to gain more control over southern France, and the desire of a number of his vassals(many of whom were semi-independent), to grab more land. The “crusade” itself was long and bloody, but the Cathars were finally crushed.

Judging by the way the book is put together, and considering the audience the book is aimed at, Ms. Hoffman does a very good job of pulling a complex time, place, and set of characters together, while not appearing to be preaching a “history lesson”.  Her principal focus is on a young girl of marriageable age, named Elinor.  Her parents, or at least her mother, are very worried about her seemingly wild ways, and her mother decides this can be cured by getting her married off to a much older man with children of his own.  Part of this reason has to do with the dark clouds on the political horizon, which eventually led to the so'-called “Albigensian” crusade, which resulted in terrible bloodshed against the “heretics” known as Cathars(though they themselves apparently never used this term calling themselves “Good People”). As the story develops, it becomes apparent that she and her family are in danger, because her father is a secret Cathar, and it also turns out that this is one of the reasons her parents are so anxious to get her married off.

However, Elinor has no intention of marrying the man chosen for her, although women in Southern France at this time had considerable freedoms of their own.  They could inherit property, and prospective husbands had to pay a bride price for them, rather than having property in the form of a dowry passed to them.  Furthermore, there were apparently some quite strong and competent women in this region at the time. Be this as it may, Elinor manages to run away, disguised as a boy, and joins a troupe of what Hoffman calls joglars, basically entertainers of both sexes.  She has a nice voice, and is allowed to sing some troubadour compositions(Troubabours composed the verses, and they were usually of higher rank than the entertaiiners; they didn’t have to sing). She is particularly interested in one troubadour called Bertran, who also turns out to be a secret Cathar, and because he has taken certain vows, can’t marry anyone, let alone the impressionable young Elinor.

 

Basically a “coming of age” story set in a very turbulent time and place, the story focuses on what Elinor learns about herself and others, and her realization of who she is really meant to be.  This book is full of adventure, and there are some terrible and sad parts, but they are never overdone. Without entering a spoiler here, suffice it to say that the story does end happily for Elinor, though in the time period she is “on the road” and away from home, she matures into a very wise young woman. While this story may be a little “lightweight” for some adults who prefer more “serious” stuff, fans of historical fiction, of any age, should enjoy it.  I certainly did, and I’d like to see more in this vein out of Ms. Hoffman.

Anne G

Another fine novelist and blogger

This is the first of March,and I would like to make an announcement.  Which is to say, I’m adding another fine blog to my blog list.  It’s Sharon Kay Penman's blog.  She is a fine novelist who has written such works as The Devil’s Brood, her most recent work.  The other reason I’m adding it is, she writes fiction about medieval England.  Her works are mainly biographical fiction, which is not usually a genre or subgenre I read, but Ms. Penman is a definite exception, and I’ve enjoyed most of the things I’ve read from her.  I have certain disagreements with her about her style and approaches to certain things, but that’s not because I don’t consider her a good writer.  I do.  And besides, I haven’t blogged about any medieval stuff for a long time.  That needs to be rectified.  So thanks, Ms. Penman, for your blog.  I’ll be following it with great interest!

Anne G

A plethora of goodies on various subjects

There is an absolute plethora of bloggable subjects cluttering up various parts of my computer today, and I didn't even realize it!  I've been busy the past few days, mostly with more writing(have completed or revised two more chapters in the second book of my Great Medieval Science Fiction Trilogy With Neandertals), and haven't, lately, had much time to do any serious blogging. 

 

But never fear, there's plenty to blog about.  First, two stories from Julien Riel-Salvatore's fine blog, A Very Remote Period Indeed,  both on the presence of Neandertals in Poland north of the Carpathians, some 80,000 years ago.  Then there's an equally fascinating piece on preserving an 11th century bridge in England, with sugar, on Got Medieval.  And let us not forget My Beloved Wolves!  There are stories and updates on the Wolves of the High Arctic(in this case, Ellesmere Island -- if you don't exactly know where that is, you might want to search through Google Earth or an atlas).  Their travels are interesting.  All wolves' travels are interesting, for a variety of reasons.

 

Last but not least, I have my own thoughts about why only certain people are interested in medieval history and society, and why few readers of historical and other genres deal with "medieval" except as fantasy.  I will also have something to say about how this impacts my own history, and my writing. 

 

In any case, stay tuned.  I'll be blogging about some of this stuff, a little each day or so.  I'm not deserting anybody, though I haven't started 2010 with a huge number of blogs.  But that's another story to tell -- later.  Much later.

Anne G

Elizabeth Chadwick's Medieval Mondays

Today, Monday, December 7, 2009,  the author Elizabeth Chadwick has started a weekly feature on her blog, called Medieval Monday  Yes, it will be a weekly feature, if what she says is true.  The first one was absolutely fascinating; about a period when men in England grew their hair long, and the Church didn't like it, and what was done about it.  Or rather, what the men(at least some of them) did about it.  She also has another feature that looks very interesting -- the first and last sentence of whatever material she's been working on.  That might be an interesting read, too.  I certainly enjoyed it. And I"m looking forward to even more fascinating weekly tidbits.

Anne G

Anybody wanna buy a very old castle?

According to Medievalists.net, you can buy a 11th century castle in the old region of Gascony.  It looks nice on the outside, and has walls 3 feet thick, so it would probably be quite comfortable in the summer.  Unfortunately, it needs a lot of work, and doesn't seem to be too close to any major towns, though the countryside looks attractive, and the local town seems to get a lot of visitors during the summer, thanks to a local festival.  But still. . . .if you're interested in the Middle Ages at all, maybe buying this old castle would be worth your money -- if, in these economically stagnant times, you happen to have any.

Anne G

The "mindset" issue, from a slightly different point of view

I was going to post about that Anglo-Saxon hoard that was found a couple of weeks ago, and wasn't able to get around to it.  I was also going to say a little something -- since I follow paleoanthropology and prehistoric archaeology, though mainly with reference to Neandertals -- about the complete description of the ancestral Ardepithecus ramidus,  now know affectionately as "Ardi".  That kind of escaped me too, and besides, I don't have much to say about it, other than the description of this find, though the fossil's existence has been known for years -- was pretty awesome, in my opinion.

 

However, something happened last week which sent me off on a different angle, although it does relate, tangentially to the Anglo-Saxon hoard.  There is a woman I know, who has very strong opinions about just about everything.  She reads a lot, sometimes rather odd things, at least for her. We were conversing, and she happened to mention the discovery of Nero's revolving palace which he never used, apparently, because he got killed before he ever used it.  And no other Roman emperors used it, either, apparently.  I had seen media reports of it, but didn't react much, one way or another.  Greco-Roman stuff just doesn't appeal to me all that much.  However, I mentioned that I'd also read and heard about this Anglo-Saxon hoard of gold things and enameled-looking things.  I also mentioned that I thought they were quite beautiful and well-crafted. 

 

"Yeah, it's pretty militaristic, isn't it?" she replied.  Here I must mention two things:  First, this lady knows nothing about medieval times, particularly not the Anglo-Saxon period of England.  And the hoard did   contain a lot of sword hilts.  But my first thought was "militaristic?"  Huh?  I wouldn't have described it this way.   To be fair, this woman not only is very vocal in her opinions about things, she has a rather narrow concept of what she considers acceptable -- in modern terms.  And this brings me to the whole problem of mindsets, once again.   For this woman is projecting her own ideas about acceptable norms, in modern times, onto (a) a society she knows absolutely nothing about and (b) onto people who probably had absolutely no concept at all of "militarism".  And it is in modern projections like these, that the "mindset" problem arises.   When you're writing or dealing artistically with some past society, even if what you're writing isn't strict "historical novel" material, you have to accept  that people in this past, whatever it is, often accepted things that people today tend to find unacceptable.  This is true, even when we speak of the recent past.

 

I can give two examples here:  I grew up at a time when it was widely accepted by a great many people, that certain "minorities" didn't, for example, have the right to live in, or even visit, certain areas.  When I was a child, you rarely, if ever, saw people of African descent visiting the local zoo.  In that community, it just wasn't done.  And this was in "liberal" Seattle.  But a lot of people accepted this as  natural or normal.  Many people, both male and female, accepted the idea that women "shouldn't work"; they should just stay home, be housewives, and have a bunch of kids.  There are still people who believe this, but they are, nowadays, a distinct, though sometimes vocal, minority.  And times have changed, at least to some degree, for the better; women work in all kinds of jobs that would have been inconceivable for them in the 1950's and early 1960's.  Most of us, in the Western world, are glad these things have changed for the people who were the objects of such thinking.  But the point is, these two examples suggest a fairly common mindset at the time(though there were others, as well). 

 

Similarly, in Anglo-Saxon times, I am pretty sure that an "anti-militarist" mindset, even among churchmen and women, would have been quite inconceivable.  It was not so much that their militaries wanted to fight; just as today, it was better to avoid wars if you could. Besides, a local king or lord had to have fighting men, partly to protect him, and partly to keep whatever enemies he might have, away from the population.  This was necessary for two reasons:  in most parts of the medieval world, at least until fairly late, government pretty much consisted of whatever the king or local lord could manage to enforce.  If he was weak, people would tend to go their own way.  And strength often demanded armies or fighting men willing to stand behind the king or local lord -- and willing to fight. 

 

Certainly what any local population got out of this might be said to be debatable.  If some war did break out, clashing forces might burn everything in their path, but the path might well be local and narrow.  Some populations might even have felt protected, knowing the king or local lord had a competent fighting force at his command. 

 

Which just goes to show:  yes, various mindsets do differ from era to era, but they change.  And in any given period, there is not just one "mindset", there are a lot of them. Still, this doesn't give me, the writer, a license to project modern views about war and fighting onto people living in Anglo-Saxon(or any other) times.  Fortunately, the woman I began my essay with, doesn't write anything but reports about her specialty, and it's not medieval history or paleoanthropology. And perhaps equally fortunately, I know something about these times, and know that people thought somewhat differently about things, than we do today. But then, I'm writing a Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece, and she's not.  Fortunately.

Anne G

Woo-hoo! Some good library news for a change!

Some  good news has come out of the library rubble of woes lately.  Yesterday, when browsing one of my local branches, I found a copy of Elizabeth Chadwick's The Greatest Knight, her recent biographical fiction about William Marshal.  It's not that new, I guess, but it was recently reissued -- in the US -- in paperback, and our local system obtained a copy.  This, after I won the same paperback version, by writing a reply to a blog about it.  Haven't gotten around to reading it though.  So many books, so little time.  Anyway, it's not all gloom and doom there.

Anne G

A book review, this time. . . .

Szechtman, Joan

a novel about Richard III in This Time

Bassett Books LLc

Milford CT

343 PP.

ISBN 113: 978-0-9824493-0-1

 

At one time, I got very, very interested in fifteenth century England, the Wars of the Roses in general, and Richard III in particular.  I even considered writing something about that misunderstood monarch, but first, Sharon Kay Penman beat me to it, and second, even before she beat me to it, I couldn't figure out how to write about him.  However, knowing something about the period was, in a circuitous way, an influence on my own writing career, such as it has been.  I didn't end up writing about Richard III, but as I've said elsewhere, earlier, I always wanted to write a novel set in medieval England.  Just knowing others had done this, helped propel me toward that goal, though I am writing about an entirely different period, and my work is quite frankly what I call "romantic science fiction."  I can't think of anything else to call it.

 

Having said all this, I would like to introduce Joan Szechtman's This Time to the reading public.  It is, in my opinion, an extraordinary book.  She claims it isn't "really" science fiction, but I know my science fiction/s-f-/sci-fi well enough to know that this novel fits quite comfortably into that genre.  It isn't so common nowadays, to write about someone from a past era, who somehow stumbles into the present, and I've never heard of anybody before Ms. Szechtman who has tackled Richard III in this way.  But she has done  an excellent job, which is one reason I think this is a very promising first novel, which is often not the case. 

 

Her premise is that by means of a sort of time machine that acts very quickly, Richard is brought back from his last battle at Bosworth Field, still alive, and someone else's body is substituted for his.  Thus, 500 years of legend making begins.  He finds himself in, of all places, Portland, Oregon. 

 

The bulk of the story(and this confirms my opinion that the book is a kind of science fiction), concerns his adjustment to "modern times".  Without going into detail(I don't want to give too much away), I found the manner of his adjustments both very human and very touching, and at the same time, very funny, both from his point of view, and from the point of view of those who are trying to help him adjust.  This was one of the strongest parts of the book, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about how he goes about adjusting. 

 

I also think Ms. Szechtman has extrapolated a lot from what is known of the real Richard, both in terms of his history, and his actual personality, and created a credible story from these extrapolations.  This shines through quite well, though some readers may feel he adjusts to his new environment awfully quickly, for someone who has been brought forward 500 years.  Just one example:  how would Richard III, or anyone else from the fifteenth century, deal with the continual bombardment of information available to people living now, through the media and the Internet?  I don't know.  But Ms. Szechtman has him handling this change  almost effortlessly, within a few weeks or months.  This is not meant as a criticism, though some readers might find this difficult to swallow.

 

That said, Joan Szechtman has written a fascinating book, and she plans two more on Richard's adventures and adjustments, to follow in 2010 and 2011.  I am looking forward to these.  I also think anyone interested in historical figures, science fiction and/or historical fiction, will find this a very good read, regardless of whatever they think about Richard III. 

 

Finally, to further encourage readers, I invite you to read an excerpt from This Time. When I read it, it had me hooked.  And I preordered the novel.  I'm glad I did.

Anne G

Michelle Cameron's new book, "The Fruit of Her Hands"

Toda, I'm doing something a little different. Michelle Cameron, author of the recently published  The Fruit of Her Hands, is going on a blog tour.  I am one of the people she has chosen for her blog tour, and I really feel quite privileged to have been chosen.  Here, I will simply introduce her.  The Fruit of Her Hands is about one of her ancestors, a Jewish woman living in 13th century France, where she witness a mob burning all the copies of the Torah and Talmud the mob can get their hands on.  She has secretly studied these books, with her father, a rabbi or scholar in the Jewish community of 13th century Paris.  This is about her life, and what she had to do to preserve her people's knowledge, and her own integrity.  Though I haven't yet had a chance to read the book, it sounds very exciting.  So I will, in a subsequent(very subsequent) post, start asking her some questions about the book and how she came to write it, in preparation for this blog tour, which she will presumably be answering.  As I say, I feel very privileged

 

Thank you, Michelle Cameron,

Anne G

Medieval mindsets? Maybe, or maybe not

Browsing around, I saw a rather interesting over at medievalists.net.  The site itself has a lot of interesting material about medieval Europe(and for that matter, medieval elsewhere, too.  In any case, the news was that  one Caroline Dunn has won an award for research she did, showing  that abduction of some medieval wives wasn't necessarily abduction. 

 

Now why might this be important?  Well, like I've kind of complained in other posts and elsewhere, there seems to be an idea that there was "a" medieval mindset which, somehow everybody shared.  Okay, maybe a lot of people did share a "medieval mindset", but such a "mindset" varied from time to time and place to place.  It's true that medieval marriages were supposed to last Till Death Do Us Part.  It's also true that couples, especially the female half,and especially in higher-status circles, didn't have a whole lot of choice about who they ended up with.  It's also true that, in many cases(especially when royalty wasn't involved; they certainly didn't have a whole lot of choice, obviously), weren't usually monsters; like parents today, they tended to want the best that could be managed, for their children, and most of them probably did the best they could, for a variety of reasons, to make sure that any proposed marriage actually worked out, one way or another.  And, often, they did work out, one way and another.  The woman had her interests looked after, in the sense that she was probably at least assured of some financial security, if nothing else, the man had somebody who was trained to run his household, and provide it with the necessary offspring to pass whatever there might have been to pass on.  So, one "mindset" probably was, just to make the best of whatever situation you found yourself in.

 

But sometimes, apparently, good intentions weren't enough.  And here's where Caroline Dunn comes in.  She suggested that a number of supposed abductions of wives were either some sort of prearrangements in which a woman ended up with somebody she really wanted to end up with(though maybe accused of something or other), or perhaps, arrangements made by a woman(and a man, naturally), to run off or elope.  IN the time period she's working with, there weren't anything like divorce courts, lawyers,  people who try to mediate "what's best for the children" etc., and the options for a woman who found herself in an unpleasant marriage, or found herself facing one,  were decidedly limited.  For that matter, so were the options of men, but not so limited as those of women.  So what was a couple to do, if they really wanted to be together, but were bound to other ties?  Run off!  What else could they do.  Of course, to "save" the woman's reputation, even partially, in a case like this, it had to look like the woman had just been unexpectedly dragged off.  But the point is here, at least in medieval England, women didn't necessarily just passively accept whatever fate brought them.  Some of them strove to change it.  The only way, probably that was available to them.  But they took it, when they thought it necessary, at least according to Caroline Dunn. 

 

Which suggests to me that the idea of "a" mindset in a historical period, isn't everything.  It's just one thing.

Anne G

I don't know a good title for this blog. . . . .

I  really don't.  I didn't even know I was going to blog it.  But Liam Guilar, a  poet with his own blog, Lady Godiva and Me(I've read the poems), wants to know if any good films have been made of any medieval epics.  I sure can't think of any.  He mentions two films made from Beowulf, which he reviews here, unfavorably.  He didn't, except in passing, mention The Thirteenth Warrior, which I saw a few years back, and it was good fun, I guess, and rather vaguely based on Beowulf, but more so on Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead.  This was written before Crichton went bat---- about environmentalists, and when I read it last, it was mainly for the "Neandertal" connection.  I read Beowulf a lot longer ago than that, in  a college course devoted to the study of epic literature, from Gilgamesh onward.  I should mention here that Guilar didn't like these two Beowulf films.  I never saw them, but those who did, would agree with him, from what I've heard.  Well, that's Hollywood for you. 

 

He then asks if the Irish Tain  cycle, or the Song o9 Roland(another epic I read in that epics course), have ever been made into films. I don't think so.  Fortunately.  If what the film industry has done to Beowulf is any indication, they should stay away, stay away, stay away from medieval epics!  Because the film makers butcher them!  I'm not eve sure either of these epics would  work very well for modern tastes, except for that core of (mostly male) moviegoers who like lots of action, blood, and gore.  And as far as the Song of Roland goes, there would be additional problems that I don't think any film maker would be prepared to handle.  The first lines of that epic have the "infidels"(actually Muslims who inhabited Spain at the time), worshiping statues of the Prophet Muhammad, as well as statues of the Greek god Apollo, neither of which any good Muslim would be caught dead doing.  And modern Muslims would, I think, be awfully quick to point this out, while "opposite numbers" would then start screaming "PC!  PC! PC!"

 

Other "medieval-themed" films are what might be called "good fun", but they're not epics.  The various versions of the Arthurian cycle come to mind, as do the innumerable versions of the Robin Hood legends, but I don't think this is what Guilar had in mind here.  The Robin Hood films tend to reflect modern social problems of one sort and another, though they all draw on the same basic legends.  But a real medieval epic?  As I said, I don't know.  Any more than I know what to title this bloog.

Anne G

The medieval year, one version, or maybe many

The blog Got Medieval -- which often has very interesting tidbits about one medieval subject or another, posted a very interesting blog yesterday.  It's called Welcome to July.  The blog informs us that in July, peasants usually had to bind the ripened grain they grew into sheaves.  In July.  Now I don't doubt that medieval peasants did a lot of "scything and sheaving" in July.  The grain had to be laid out to dry so it could be stacked and then made into sheaves.  Usually, the weather was warm enough and dry enough so that this could be done relatively easily, barring the odd rainy day or so.  If that happened, the grain might rot and people might end up hallucinating all sorts of things, due to ergot poisoning(yes, this happened). The other thing that is important to understand about medieval agricultural economy is that June and July were months of relative "scarcity", though in the earlier medieval period, especially from about 900-1300 AD/CE -- In the so-called "Medieval Warm Period", this wasn't too severe a problem anywhere.  Medieval people had other problems at the time, but I won't go into those at the moment.  IN any case, or at least in some cases, the way the months were named in various places, tended to reflect either the kind of activity that was going on at the time, or the weather and climatic conditions.  In some places, the months were not named January, February, March, etc., but something else.

 

Here is a list of "modernized" Old English months.  From the descriptions, the reader can see what people in England, at least, did at any given time of the year

 

January  -- Wolf Month(guess why?)  I've seen paintings of Romanian villages surrounded by wolves in winter,  so it's not just the medieval English that worried about such things

February -- Kale Month  Kale is a very hardy dark green vegetable.  A lot of "foodies" eat kale today, in January and February, when few other green vegetables will grow, even in a relatively "mild" climate like the Pacific Northwest.  It's supposed to be rich in all kinds of things that are "good for you".

March --  Lent Month, and that's where English-speakers get the liturgical season of Lent, since the days are beginning to lengthen.

April  -- Easter Month(and I'll leave to your imagination what liturgical season that has morphed into in the English-speaking world).  There's more to it than that, but again, I won't go into it at this moment.

May  -- Mead Month, probably because flowers really started blooming and bees started producing honey, an important ingredient in the alcoholic drink, mead,which was probably an important source of income for at least some people

June -- Hay Month.  This is when the "scything" or "haying" of grain began, and the weather was probably (mostly) good enough to lay it out for later stacking into sheaves.

July -- Summer Month.  Well, that's pretty obvious.  July is a summer month.  And that's when the "sheaving of grain is in full swing, according to Got Medieval.

August --  "Ern" Month.  I'm not sure what this means, but it was a busy month for medieval peasants, because the grain harvest was probably going on in full swing.

September -- Harvest Month.  Again, this is pretty obvious. This is when agricultural produce was harvested in earnest, and the agricultural season could be assessed as to its relative success.  Other produce was probably also harvested, and preparations made for the coming winter and leaner spring season.  This was also the season of "harvest festivals".  In modern times,it tends to also be the season of things like county and regional fairs.

October  -- Wine Month.  If the modern reader thinks this Old English name for the month is peculiar, think again of the Medieval Warm Period.  In England, wine grapes were grown as far north as the property of Ely Abbey.  Once it cooled off(the Little Ice Age), neither Ely Abbey, nor any other place in England, could grow wine grapes.  Now, I'm told, people are growing wine grapes in parts of England today.  Thank you, global warming(I guess)!

November -- Wind Month.  That's pretty obvious, too.  At least from a "Pacific Northwest" point of view.  It can get pretty blastingly windy in November and December, and we've had some rather awful storms in that month, coming out of the Bering Sea.  Of course blastingly windy winter weather didn't come from the Bering Straits to England, then or now, but  winter winds did, and awful wind and rain storms were noted in certain years, by monastic chroniclers.

December -- Midwinter Month.  Again, pretty obvious.  December is the month winter begins, according to various calendars. Again, interestingly,in modern times,  meteorologists calculate a "meteorological winter" from December 1st. Which makes sense for much of the US, and probably much of Europe, as well.  Although I did read, some years back, in a book called -- get this -- Weather for Dummies -- that the Pacific Northwest has neither winter,nor summer, according to meteorological calculations.  There's no "winter", in most of Texas, either.  But summer starts on or about April 15.  I know this is true, because I lived it.   That, at least, was one problem people in medieval England didn't have to cope with!

Anne G

A hearty welcome to a fellow blogger

A wonderful author not many have heard of, Helen Hollick, has entered the blogosphere. Her blog, Helen Hollick -- Historical Fiction and Adventure History has recently started, and not only am I introducing her here, but I am adding her to my Honorable Blogroll.  She is currently writing a series set in the Golden Age of Piracy, about pirates, naturally, but she has also written an Arthurian trilogy and is working on the third book of a trilogy set near "my" period(late Anglo-Saxon/early Anglo-Norman). Welcome!  I hope Ms. Hollick doesn't mind too much being sandwiched in between my thoughts on the writing process, Neandertals, and wolves, though!

Anne G

Flabbergasted

There's been a recent discussion going on at the Historical Novel Society e-mail list,which I frequent.  For anyone interested,it's at the Historical Novel Society e-mail list  The discussion started out with an observation that the famous archbishop Thomas Becket was found to be wearing a hair shirt and crawling with lice when he was murdered.  There was a general reaction of "eeeewwww", at least until someone knowledgeable about the period explained that some ecclesiastics of that period found it perfectly acceptable to engage in "self-mortification" ,the better, it was thought, to sanctify themselves.  Not everyone did this.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Most people, contrary to one of the most persistent myths about the Middle Ages, at least attempted to keep themselves somewhat clean, even if this consisted mostly of washing their hands and faces with some regularity.  Alexander of Neckham noted, at about the same period, that there were a lot of bath houses in London, which should tell the astute investigator something about how people felt about these things. 

 

However, the following day, I came across another discussion, on the site of a romance reader's, and author's site that I have frequented from time to time. It was part of a  blog post called Where Have All the Medievals Gone?  The! blog itself was unexceptional; apparently a lot of publishers just didn't think "medieval romances" sold very well-- at least in the US. What flabbergasted me was the responses to the post. A lot of the responders -- romance readers every one -- apparently couldn't get past the idea that people in the Middle Ages "never or rarely bathed"!  They all admitted that they had "cleanliness" issues, but romances, after all, are basically a kind of fantasy, and the readers regularly suspend disbelief as they read them.  So why can't they suspend disbelief here? 

 

Well, for one thing, this "cleanliness fetish" seems to be a peculiarly American attitude, e.g., "cleanliness is next to Godliness", and probably goes back to (some of our) Puritan ancestors.  Now there's nothing wrong with keeping oneself reasonably well-groomed and cleaned up.  This is one reason why, I suspect, that Alexander Neckham, who was more or less contemporary with Thomas Becket, wrote that there were a lot of bath houses in the London of his day.  It's also obvious that the readers who have "eeewwww" reactions to "medieval romances", simply don't know this. And, to be absolutely fair,I should note two things:  first, many of the responders also said that they liked medieval-themed romances, and many of them listed books, like Anya Seton's classic Katherine which, while not strictly romances, are certainly medieval-themed. Second,to be fair, I don't bother with "medieval themed" romances any more, either.  Why?  Because the authors of these romances(as well as many authors of historical romances set in other periods),simply do not pay any attention to the actual way people of whatever time period they're writing about, actually acted and thought.  One dead giveaway, in my opinion, is the use of "out of period" names, usually the kind that would be found in some contemporary "baby name" book or the like, especially for the female characters.  Thus, too many of these fictional "medieval" heroines have names like "Tamora" or "Candace",which don't fit the period.  And while the men have "masculine sounding" names, they're not medieval by any stretch of the imagination.  Just this past Monday, I picked up a paperback whose title and author I can't remember,whose hero character had the given name "Wulfson".  This was supposed to be taking place in Anglo-Saxon times, and you'd better believe that no English male of that time and place would have had the given name Wulfson! He might be referred  to as something like Edmund Wulfson, if his father happened to be named Wulf(except that's not how men in those times were named), but a given name??  Ugh.  As far as I'm concerned, if the names are "out of period" just about everything else will be wrong, too. And I won't waste my money on anything like that.  But that's another story.

 

To get back to the subject, it seems to me that this peculiarly American attitude is partly predicated on the idea that things that aren't somehow "American-related" just aren't very important, interesting, or worthy of notice. It's not just that the readers who won't read "medieval-themed" romances are projecting their own quite modern -- and culture-specific attitudes onto a period they probably know about only through the medium of Hollywood -- but it extends much farther:  few of these "medieval" romances get published, because they are too far out of the "range" of many readers'  ability to conceive.  Romance readers, on the whole, tend to like the familiar and the predictable,and while people from the Middle Ages are recognizable in their quirks, their "context" often is not.  And romance readers(as a whole), don't like "alien".  There does seem to be an exception made for "paranormal" romances in which vampires, werewolves, witches,etc. appear in modern contexts, but the reader knows this is fantasy, yet the setting and the "mores" are probably reasonably familiar(you don't have to try to understand "alien" mindsets, among other things).  A lot of this distaste for medieval-themed romance also seems to stem from what I call a "Hollywoodized" version of medieval times that a lot of people seem to have in their heads. While I, personally, enjoy the "larger than life" quality inherent in certain historical personages of the time,  I don't have any illusions that they would have exactly thought, or had the same attitudes toward, a whole range of things.  Including the "cleanliness" idea. It seems, again via the knowledgeable author, that many people in that era made an effort to bathe and wash, because doing so was a sign of "good breeding".  And given the difficulty of getting together enough hot water to bathe with, it is easy to see why this kind of thinking existed, though there is evidence that even peasants tried to keep themselves as clean as they could, given their circumstances. But as some other posters in the Historical Novel Society list pointed out, part of these "insular" attitudes may be a function of faulty educational systems as well. Combined with the apparently "conventional" socialization,and "conventional" attitudes that many of these romance readers seem to have -- but again, I must emphasize, not all of them -- there seems to be little interest in exploring a world that is somewhat, but not completely "alien". 

 

Of course, I'm "prejudiced" here.  I was not brought up "conventionally", and for a female of my time, I had somewhat "unusual" tastes.  Practically from the "get-go" I liked science fiction, though I liked historical stuff, too.  Thanks to Anya Seton's Katherine, which I devoured as a teenager, I wanted, then and there, to write something set in medieval England.  And, also apparently unlike most romance readers, I haven't led a "conventional" life.  But that's another story.  The point is, I think, that to read anything "different", or perhaps anything at all,one must be "open"  to new vistas. And if some romance reader can't get past the fact that they didn't have hot and cold running water, and scented soaps, and toothpaste and dental floss, in the year 1150, then, in my opinion, they are not doing themselves any favor, in the romance, or any other genre.

Anne G

Hard-line writing "purity"

The most recent manifestation of the debate between "accuracy purists" and those who cry "story first" has wound down a bit, with people on both sides of this issue in various forums, tending to take rather "hardline" positions on both sides. I might not have much more to add to this debate, except that one writer said she spotted anachronisms at the age of 10, in the writing of an author that was well-known when I was about 10!  While I knew of some of these anachronistic things at that age(I don't recall reading anything by that particular author at the age of 10, though), it would never have occurred to me to write the guy and complain about it. Times were different then, I suppose.  But this issue raises some interesting questions in my mind.

 

The most important thing is, it may all boil down to the author's own experiences informing his or her work in certain ways. For example, I've been reading all of Bernard Cornwell's "Uhtred" series, to date, and quite enjoy them.  And he is known for " fact-checking" the periods he writes about. The "Uhtred" series takes place at the time of King Alfred, and concerns, in part, the Danish invasions of England, and their consequences. He gets the "politics" and the social milieu of the time right, I think, at least within reason.  In this sense, no one can fault him for his accuracy.  He doesn't get anything obvious, wrong.  Yet I've learned some things about Cornwell that suggest he has views of certain things are colored by his own experiences.  For example,his portrait of King Alfred can only be described as "unpleasant". He describes that monarch as being pinched and  "killjoy pious". He also describes King Alfred as rather "sickly", hardly the brave leader that repelled the Danes!  And he is very hostile to "organized religion":  his hero, Uhtred, is unrepentantly "pagan", and he describes all Christians as tending to be unpleasant of temperament in various ways, and themselves extremely hostile to "pagans". 

 

But before we get into Cornwell's possible perceptions., let's look at King Alfred for a moment.  Historically, Alfred did manage to hold the England of that time together under one rule, no easy feat at a time when there were strong regional forces that could have divided it, and frequently threatened to do so. He also did hold the "Danes"(mostly Danish, but "other" Scandinavians as well) off of the England of his time, by winning battles. We also know that he was originally destined for the Church,and he retained this faith when he became king. On the other hand, he also encouraged literacy at a time when very few people, including those in the highest classes of society, could read or write.  And all of this strikes me as being quite sensible, not "killjoy pious".  We also know that he suffered from some unnamed malady that put him "out of commission" at times, but when he was well, he apparently was a smart politician and strategist. Not at all like the almost "wimpy" Cornwell portrait. So, in a broad sense, Cornwell's portrait is accurate.  It doesn't do any violence to the facts.  It doesn't get dates out of order. It doesn't put historical  personages in the wrong place, or give  them attitudes they wouldn't have had at the time.  And again, I must emphasize that I've enjoyed reading his books(including this series so far).  And yet. . . .

 

Bernard's birth family name was not Cornwell, but Oughtred, which could derive as descent from the historical Uhtred around whom he weaves this story.  He obviously likes to think so, though in my opinion, at the distance from that time to this, it's probably a bit of a stretch. But he was adopted at a very young age by a family which belonged to a very unpleasant-sounding Christian sect called The Peculiar People,which he apparently came to loathe as he grew older. Given their "peculiar" theology, it's not hard to understand why he might think "Christianity sucks" as they say, though there is more than one possible response to that kind of situation,one of which might be, for example, to find a more tolerant religious "home".  Many people have done this.  And, for the record, my perspective on this comes from having been exposed to far more flexible brands of Christianity than these "Peculiar People"  This is why Uhtred  is "happy pagan" constantly in conflict with "nasty Christianity".  Is this an accurate portrayal?  Well, maybe. Or maybe not.  We also know that the Christian missionaries who went all over Europe trying to convert "the people" sometimes met with a lot of hostility, but this was frequently for "political" reasons:  rulers didn't want to give up their own paganism, or feared losing their power.  In general, Christian missionaries in the early Middle Ages(later times were quite different), tended to think that they could "educate" people into accepting the Church and Christianity, and pagans weren't particularly hostile to Christians, unless there were other factors involved. 

 

That clearly isn't Cornwell's view.  And I've run across any number of people who would agree, more or less, with Cornwell, citing "incidents" of one kind or another.  These "incidents" are true, but this kind of behavior isn't confined to Christianity, or indeed any other religious tradition.  It isn't even confined to "religion".  You see it,even today, in "ideologies".  One doesn't have to go back very far -- only 50 or 60 years, to see what nonreligious "ideologies", rigidly followed, have done to people in various places. It's not pretty.  In other words, people in power may use "religion" or "ideology" to push their own agendas,and have done so throughout history.

 

None of this really resolves the "accuracy" v. "story" issue.  It won't, because in historical fiction, both are important, and as I said in a previous post,both are important when you're writing this kind of fiction. Depending on what you're writing, one may get slightly more emphasized over the other, but both must  be there if the story is to be credible and readable.  I can't, therefore, say that Bernard Cornwell's perceptions of King Alfred are any more or less "accurate" than any other writer's, but in his "perception context" they are credible, and it's a tribute to his skill as a writer that people like me, who have other perspectives, can find them credible in a way, even if they reject some of them. And, in closing,it's also wise to remember that not every reader(very few, in the case of Anglo-Saxon England) is going to be very concerned with the history anyway.  They will just want a "good read".  Which, I think, is all any writer can do.

Anne G

The language loons get loonier?

The Got Medieval blog -- a not infrequently very informative blog on all things medieval -- has further thoughts on the whole "oldest English words"  story that has been making the rounds of the Web lately.  This was the story I wrote about yesterday .  And it apparently hasn't gotten any better.  It's gotten loonier and more hilarious.  One can just imagine, for example, some medieval gentleman striding into Tully's(a local coffee venue I like much better than Starbuck's) in swishing chain mail and trying to order "something"!  The help there would probably stare uncomprehendingly, especially if he was a medieval gentleman that didn't know any English, old or modern(yeah, there were plenty of those!).  As for the help, they'd probably think he was some street crazy.  Yeah we have some of those, and yeah, some of them "dress up" though I've never seen one in chain mail!  Even if he did manage to order coffee, he probably wouldn't have any idea what it was, and even if he understood it was something to drink, the chances are, he wouldn't like it, and probably he would try to trash the place with his trusty sword or mace or whatever(Hollywood would love that, I'm sure!). 

 

But it gets loonier, because there is a related story about the oldest word.  Not just the oldest English word.  The oldest word!. Got Medieval conjures up a visit to some cave family in their humble cave, with the "medieval" and the "time traveler" attempting to communicate.  Or maybe the cavepeople try to travel forward in time, to Tully's, and they are presented with coffee and try to drink some.  It doesn't exactly conjure up the Geico caveman, does it?  And whether or not they had words that in any way, shape, or form, were related to any modern words, English or otherwise, is, despite the efforts of the scientific gentlemen, completely unknown.  Still, I see a sitcom in there somewhere. . . .

Anne G

Medieval linguistics -- or something!

An article from the BBC has been making the rounds of several websites and blogs in the last few days. This article claims to have identified the oldest words in English.  Now I'm no expert on these things, but I do know that from the point in time the good linguistic scientists started from, there has been a lot of change in English.  Furthermore, some of this actually started entering the language before that point -- e.g. over 1000 years ago.  Which, I might add, gets us into the period of time I'm writing about.  Which is why I'm blogging about it!

 

In any case, these people have been criticized in various venues, including this one.  Their objections are quite reasonable, and suggest that the people who did this study, didn't think things through before they started talking to the BBC.  While it's true that there are certain "core words" in English, and many other languages as well, that a time traveler might pick up on, e.g. "mother", "father", "sister", "brother", words for numbers, and some others.  it's also true that many of these core words or their recognizable equivalents exist(and probably always have) in other "Indo-European" languages(English is an Indo-European language, as are French, Italian, Russian, Persian, and a number of others).  These words can probably be traced back a lot farther than Old English.  Second, a lot of sounds have changed in the last 1000 years; so have things like sentence structure(modern English doesn't really have case endings any more; Old English did), and the sounds were probably more like modern German than present-day English.  In other words, our time travelers would have had a hard time making out much of anything anybody said, let alone carrying on a conversation(unless they read Beowulf in Old English, or the equivalent).  There are people who study such things,  but these people aren't inclined to make "predictions" like this.  No, the people who did this study consider themselves hard scientists, but they seem quite ignorant and clueless as to why and how English has changed in the last 1000 years, and when they add French into the mix(they do), it's doubtful to me that any modern French speaker would be any better off trying to converse in Old French with somebody 1000 years ago.  The vocabulary and sentence structure in French hasn't changed as much, but the way a lot of words are pronounced , and vowel-shifting, sure has! 

 

Bottom line:  It's no wonder a lot of people don't understand science, and come out against it, when they should be for it.  These guys are a good example of why.  And they should go back to their labs, study a bit more, and not try to make statements about things they obviously don't know anything about.

Anne G