500-year-old manuscript a first for Wilfrid Laurier
Raveena Aulakh
1 April 2008
Waterloo Region Record
Wilfrid Laurier University has bought its first rare manuscript, a sheepskin hymnal made 500 years ago by monks and nuns in northern Italy. "It's complete and in excellent condition," Chris Nighman, a professor of medieval history and co-ordinator of the medieval studies program, said yesterday. "It has great teaching and research potential."
The university bought the handwritten manuscript, with an illuminated first page, from a Paris dealer for $12,000. The size of a thick paperback, it arrived in Waterloo two weeks ago and will be unveiled Thursday. The manuscript is made of ultrathin sheepskin and paper, with words in Latin and musical compositions by anonymous authors. "By monks and nuns, that's our best guess," Nighman said.
Laurier's archives have hundreds of rare books, but this is the first manuscript. The difference between the two is that books produced during the same period were created on printing presses, Nighman said.
He spotted the manuscript on the website of a dealer in rare books in mid-February. After verifying the quality and condition, he let the library take over the negotiations for the manuscript, which was initially priced at about $15,000. "I didn't expect it to be here so soon," Nighman said. "Sometimes, negotiations can take months and even longer."
The authenticity was proved by the book dealer, a French company similar to Sotheby's and Christie's. The manuscript had been part of a private collection in France. Nighman said the purchase was a great bargain for history and music students. Laurier's new fourth-year medieval studies seminar, The History of the Book, will get a finer understanding of manuscripts and how they were used. "They won't have to take field trips to Toronto to see what a manuscript looks like," Nighman said.
Sharon Brown, the university librarian, said music professor Alma Santosuosso, an expert in medieval music manuscripts, has identified several significant features. "She was really excited about it," said Brown, who is hoping to expand the collection.
Laurier will keep the manuscript in a special acid-free enclosure in the University Archives and Special Collections, where rare books are also kept. Temperature and humidity are controlled. Archives librarian Joan Mitchell said stable conditions are crucial. "Fluctuating humidity temperatures are these documents' worst enemies," she said.
This section also has its own security code and firefighting system. The manuscript is being unveiled at 4 p.m. on Thursday at University Library, where members of Laurier's Chapel Choir will bring some of the hymnal's songs to life.
Monday, April 07, 2008
University at Buffalo launches new Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology
UB CREATES INSTITUTE FOR EUROPEAN, MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY
2 April 2008
States News Service
The following information was released by the University at Buffalo - SUNY: The University at Buffalo will formally launch a new Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology (IEMA) on April 3 with an inaugural ceremony and the institute's first academic conference on April 4 and 5.
The institute for research and education in European and Mediterranean archaeology has been created in UB's College of Arts and Sciences in conjunction with the strategic strength in cultures and texts identified as part of the UB 2020 strategic plan designed to transform UB into a model 21st-century public university that will rise among the ranks of the nation's public research universities.
Theodore Pela, Ph.D., associate professor and chair in the Department of Classics and director of IEMA, says the institute aims to combine existing UB faculty expertise in the fields of anthropology, classics and visual studies with first-rate research facilities available at UB in disciplines such as geographic information systems, virtual reality and materials science.
This combined expertise, he says, produces a unique academic environment within which faculty members can conduct innovative research and undergraduate and graduate students can obtain cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary training.
The success of the IEMA will be tied to close collaboration between faculty members and students in the Department of Classics, who study the archaeology of ancient Greece and Rome, and those in the Department of Anthropology, who study the archaeology of prehistoric Europe.
"While these two groups normally operate as separate disciplines within the academic setting," Pela says, "the particular combination of personalities, research interests and programmatic organizations present at UB has opened the door for the integration of their efforts under the umbrella of this distinctive interdepartmental institute."
In addition to Pela, participating IEMA faculty members include the institute's assistant director, Peter Biehl, Donald Pollock, Sarunas Milisauskas, Tina Thurston and Ezra Zubrow, all of the Department of Anthropology; Bradley Ault, Stephen Dyson and Samuel Paley, of the Department of Classics; and Vance Watrous of the Department of Visual Studies.
They currently conduct research in several different countries in the European/Mediterranean region, including Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel, France, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Ireland and Iceland, and provide fieldwork opportunities for students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
IEMA has already established an agreement for the exchange of faculty and students with the Department of Archaeology at the University of Kiel, in Germany, and is in the process of negotiating a similar agreement with the MacDonald Institute of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.
"It is central to our mission to foster cutting-edge approaches to the archaeological investigation of specific cultures and so we have established an annual post-doctoral fellowship to bring a promising young archaeologist to the UB campus as visiting scholars," Pela says.
The fellow will be responsible for organizing an international conference on a current topic in the field that brings important figures in contemporary archaeology to UB. Participants will publish their contributions as a volume of conference proceedings and teach a graduate seminar on a theme relating to the conference topic to provide graduate students in the contributing departments a thorough grounding in that topic. The official launch of IEMA will begin with a formal inauguration 2-4 p.m. April 3 in the Screening Room in the Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.
At 4 p.m., a keynote address will be presented by Graeme Barker, Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University and director of that university's MacDonald Institute of Archaeology. Barker, a world-renowned authority on the prehistory of Europe and the Mediterranean, will speak to "Archaeology as History: Revolutions, Transformations, Events." In his talk he will address, among other things, the role that IEMA can serve within the broader context of European and Mediterranean archaeology. Following his address, there will be a reception in the Center for the Arts Atrium.
The first IEMA Postdoctoral Fellowship Conference "Toward an Eventful Archaeology: Approaches to Structural Change in the Archaeological Record," will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 4-5 in the Jacobs Executive Development Center, 672 Delaware Ave. The conference was organized by Douglas Bolender, Ph.D., the 2007-2008 IEMA postdoctoral fellow, a specialist in settlement archaeology and the archaeology of medieval Iceland. Bolender completed his doctorate at Northwestern University in 2006. It will feature presentations by 15 major figures in contemporary archaeological research from universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Iceland.
Their papers will address how archaeologists analyze archaeological remains to account for major changes in the structure of societies. The conference focus will be the theoretical perspectives articulated by the historian William Sewell in his influential book "The Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation."
The conference schedule and abstracts are online at http://www.iema.buffalo.edu/news_events/ .
The public is welcome at both the inauguration and the conference. A single registration fee of $5 for students and $10 for non-students will cover participation in both events. Payment can be made on site.
The 2008-09 IEMA post-doctoral fellow will be Sarah Ralph, who received her doctorate from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge in 2006 and is a specialist in forensic archaeology and the archaeology of northwestern Europe during the Iron Age. She will organize a conference titled "The Archaeology of Personal Violence in Late Iron-Age Europe," which will be held in Buffalo in April 2009.
2 April 2008
States News Service
The following information was released by the University at Buffalo - SUNY: The University at Buffalo will formally launch a new Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology (IEMA) on April 3 with an inaugural ceremony and the institute's first academic conference on April 4 and 5.
The institute for research and education in European and Mediterranean archaeology has been created in UB's College of Arts and Sciences in conjunction with the strategic strength in cultures and texts identified as part of the UB 2020 strategic plan designed to transform UB into a model 21st-century public university that will rise among the ranks of the nation's public research universities.
Theodore Pela, Ph.D., associate professor and chair in the Department of Classics and director of IEMA, says the institute aims to combine existing UB faculty expertise in the fields of anthropology, classics and visual studies with first-rate research facilities available at UB in disciplines such as geographic information systems, virtual reality and materials science.
This combined expertise, he says, produces a unique academic environment within which faculty members can conduct innovative research and undergraduate and graduate students can obtain cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary training.
The success of the IEMA will be tied to close collaboration between faculty members and students in the Department of Classics, who study the archaeology of ancient Greece and Rome, and those in the Department of Anthropology, who study the archaeology of prehistoric Europe.
"While these two groups normally operate as separate disciplines within the academic setting," Pela says, "the particular combination of personalities, research interests and programmatic organizations present at UB has opened the door for the integration of their efforts under the umbrella of this distinctive interdepartmental institute."
In addition to Pela, participating IEMA faculty members include the institute's assistant director, Peter Biehl, Donald Pollock, Sarunas Milisauskas, Tina Thurston and Ezra Zubrow, all of the Department of Anthropology; Bradley Ault, Stephen Dyson and Samuel Paley, of the Department of Classics; and Vance Watrous of the Department of Visual Studies.
They currently conduct research in several different countries in the European/Mediterranean region, including Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel, France, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Ireland and Iceland, and provide fieldwork opportunities for students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
IEMA has already established an agreement for the exchange of faculty and students with the Department of Archaeology at the University of Kiel, in Germany, and is in the process of negotiating a similar agreement with the MacDonald Institute of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.
"It is central to our mission to foster cutting-edge approaches to the archaeological investigation of specific cultures and so we have established an annual post-doctoral fellowship to bring a promising young archaeologist to the UB campus as visiting scholars," Pela says.
The fellow will be responsible for organizing an international conference on a current topic in the field that brings important figures in contemporary archaeology to UB. Participants will publish their contributions as a volume of conference proceedings and teach a graduate seminar on a theme relating to the conference topic to provide graduate students in the contributing departments a thorough grounding in that topic. The official launch of IEMA will begin with a formal inauguration 2-4 p.m. April 3 in the Screening Room in the Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.
At 4 p.m., a keynote address will be presented by Graeme Barker, Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University and director of that university's MacDonald Institute of Archaeology. Barker, a world-renowned authority on the prehistory of Europe and the Mediterranean, will speak to "Archaeology as History: Revolutions, Transformations, Events." In his talk he will address, among other things, the role that IEMA can serve within the broader context of European and Mediterranean archaeology. Following his address, there will be a reception in the Center for the Arts Atrium.
The first IEMA Postdoctoral Fellowship Conference "Toward an Eventful Archaeology: Approaches to Structural Change in the Archaeological Record," will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 4-5 in the Jacobs Executive Development Center, 672 Delaware Ave. The conference was organized by Douglas Bolender, Ph.D., the 2007-2008 IEMA postdoctoral fellow, a specialist in settlement archaeology and the archaeology of medieval Iceland. Bolender completed his doctorate at Northwestern University in 2006. It will feature presentations by 15 major figures in contemporary archaeological research from universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Iceland.
Their papers will address how archaeologists analyze archaeological remains to account for major changes in the structure of societies. The conference focus will be the theoretical perspectives articulated by the historian William Sewell in his influential book "The Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation."
The conference schedule and abstracts are online at http://www.iema.buffalo.edu/news_events/ .
The public is welcome at both the inauguration and the conference. A single registration fee of $5 for students and $10 for non-students will cover participation in both events. Payment can be made on site.
The 2008-09 IEMA post-doctoral fellow will be Sarah Ralph, who received her doctorate from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge in 2006 and is a specialist in forensic archaeology and the archaeology of northwestern Europe during the Iron Age. She will organize a conference titled "The Archaeology of Personal Violence in Late Iron-Age Europe," which will be held in Buffalo in April 2009.
Archaeological work on an Anglo-Saxon settlement in East Anglia
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have meticulously built up a picture of ancient settlements in an...
4 April 2008
East Anglian Daily Times
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have meticulously built up a picture of ancient settlements in an isolated location near Aldeburgh. Their work follows two digs during which they discovered evidence of life in the Anglo-Saxon period at Barber's Point, which is on the banks of the River Alde opposite Iken. The digs were carried out in 2004 and 2006 by up to 50 volunteers with the help of the county council's archaeological service. The Local History Initiative gave £25,000 towards the work which was commissioned by the Aldeburgh and District Local History Society.
Richard Newman, a founder member of the society, had a long-held ambition to dig at Barber's Point and he is delighted with the success of the project. “It has been a fascinating time and a lot of people have had a lot of fun, enjoyed a taste of archaeology and developed a greater understanding of what was going on in these parts,” he said. “When we started we thought we would just find a fairly humble Roman site, possibly linked to salt making of which there are a number of sites on the River Alde. But by the second session it became obvious that it was considerably more.”
Mr Newman added: “I am constantly asked by members whether we are going back to the site. The trouble is that the county's archaeological department are now, having been somewhat off-hand about a mere Roman settlement, rather excited and think it could be linked to Iken monastery. Now they are saying that, instead of just two professional archaeologists on site, they need four or six and we will have to pay for them which will be rather expensive.”
The site is situated on a slight promontory on the northern bank of the River Alde where erosion of the river cliff originally revealed abundant deposits of pottery on the foreshore.
An excavation in 1907 confirmed Roman activity on the site - but Anglo-Saxon finds were not identified at that time. The latest excavations produced a total of 3,348 sherds of pottery ranging in date from the prehistoric to the medieval period. The majority of it was Roman. Also discovered were briquetage, fired clay, worked flint, animal bones and oyster shells.
The realisation in 2004 that there was a substantial Anglo-Saxon presence on the site led to further digs in 2006 to clarify the dating of the ditched enclosure systems and the possibility of timber structures. Parts of three possible rectangular timber buildings were found.
Jezz Meredith, the county council's project officer, said: “Although the original objectives of the 2004 excavation were concerned with elucidating an enigmatic Roman period site, the results have considerably exceeded expectations by establishing Barber's Point as a short-lived settlement of the time of the emergence of the East Anglian kingdom, and possibly part of the early monastic tradition of the 7th and 8th Centuries, exploiting the resources of a now isolated location.” An opportunity was also taken to undertake historical research at Decoy Farm, near Snape, where evidence was found of a Saxon cemetery.
4 April 2008
East Anglian Daily Times
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have meticulously built up a picture of ancient settlements in an isolated location near Aldeburgh. Their work follows two digs during which they discovered evidence of life in the Anglo-Saxon period at Barber's Point, which is on the banks of the River Alde opposite Iken. The digs were carried out in 2004 and 2006 by up to 50 volunteers with the help of the county council's archaeological service. The Local History Initiative gave £25,000 towards the work which was commissioned by the Aldeburgh and District Local History Society.
Richard Newman, a founder member of the society, had a long-held ambition to dig at Barber's Point and he is delighted with the success of the project. “It has been a fascinating time and a lot of people have had a lot of fun, enjoyed a taste of archaeology and developed a greater understanding of what was going on in these parts,” he said. “When we started we thought we would just find a fairly humble Roman site, possibly linked to salt making of which there are a number of sites on the River Alde. But by the second session it became obvious that it was considerably more.”
Mr Newman added: “I am constantly asked by members whether we are going back to the site. The trouble is that the county's archaeological department are now, having been somewhat off-hand about a mere Roman settlement, rather excited and think it could be linked to Iken monastery. Now they are saying that, instead of just two professional archaeologists on site, they need four or six and we will have to pay for them which will be rather expensive.”
The site is situated on a slight promontory on the northern bank of the River Alde where erosion of the river cliff originally revealed abundant deposits of pottery on the foreshore.
An excavation in 1907 confirmed Roman activity on the site - but Anglo-Saxon finds were not identified at that time. The latest excavations produced a total of 3,348 sherds of pottery ranging in date from the prehistoric to the medieval period. The majority of it was Roman. Also discovered were briquetage, fired clay, worked flint, animal bones and oyster shells.
The realisation in 2004 that there was a substantial Anglo-Saxon presence on the site led to further digs in 2006 to clarify the dating of the ditched enclosure systems and the possibility of timber structures. Parts of three possible rectangular timber buildings were found.
Jezz Meredith, the county council's project officer, said: “Although the original objectives of the 2004 excavation were concerned with elucidating an enigmatic Roman period site, the results have considerably exceeded expectations by establishing Barber's Point as a short-lived settlement of the time of the emergence of the East Anglian kingdom, and possibly part of the early monastic tradition of the 7th and 8th Centuries, exploiting the resources of a now isolated location.” An opportunity was also taken to undertake historical research at Decoy Farm, near Snape, where evidence was found of a Saxon cemetery.
Exhibit: Medieval Imagination at the State Library of Victoria, Australia
The way of the word illumed
Carmel Bird
5 April 2008
The Age
An exhibition of illuminated manuscripts extols the art of the handwritten book and provides a meditative insight into ancient lives, writes Carmel Bird.
WHEN YOU ENTER the doorway to this exhibition of medieval manuscripts at the State Library of Victoria, you are drawn in by the pinpoints of light, as into a dark and mysterious cave lined with black velvet. The treasures are in glass cases on plinths, and also hanging on the walls, framed under glass. Stencilled onto the walls in letters of gold, you read Latin words of wisdom, with their English translations. Such thoughts as: "God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes" and "how all things do change". To move through the exhibits, to gaze at the glowing detail of the pages, can be to experience a kind of meditation. Look up and read the words: "In hope I will rejoice."
The works, on loan from library collections in Cambridge, New Zealand and Australia, are divided into five categories: Illuminating the Word; Liturgy and Ritual; The Psalter and the Book of Hours; Science, Law Literature and History; and The Humanist Book. The original sources of the books are the libraries and monasteries of France, Italy, Spain, England, Byzantium, Germany and the Netherlands. Hundreds of years ago, hundreds of people, most of whom are unknown, worked for untold hundreds of hours to produce the texts, images and decorations and to construct the books that they formed.
A modern reminder of the fact that this exhibition is about books and in a library is a screen on which you can watch the almost miraculous restoration at the State Library of Victoria of an ancient book, from the ruin it was to the splendid object it has become. You can think about where books came from, why and how they were invented and made, and where they are going.
As you enter the exhibition, the first work you see originated in the early eighth century. It is from the Gospels of St Luke and St John. It is an entrancing page consisting of the Latin words meaning: "In the beginning was the Word". The colours here are subtle and earthy, the shapes rhythmic, as well as being composed of tall, vertical, decorated bands resembling ribbons. When you look carefully into the large semicircles you can see finely drawn birds elaborately interlaced. The book is open before you, and on the left-hand page, through the parchment, you see the dreamy, enchanting, faded image of the eagle of St John surrounded by plain, green crosses. You are at the beginning, and the book is open.
Many works displayed are single pages extracted from books, some of them quite large. But in one glass case there are 10 little books, personal prayer books. As you approach them they appear to be a flock of birds flying in formation, for they are resting on their spines, their pages open like wings. Then you look down into the bright, bright intricacies of the designs, the tiny lettering like the work of meticulous spiders, the colours glittering, the old gold leaf gleaming under the modern lights.
In another case, a 13th-century French Book of Hours belonging to Joffroy d'Aspremont and his wife Isabelle de Kievraing lies open. The right-hand page has a rich image of the Nativity encircled by the capital letter. The name of this artist is known; it was Nicolas. The decorations in the margins are particularly airy and engaging, being witty and whimsical. A jester with a long, pointy nose is ringing a bell, and his body is the elongated thrashing tail of a lizard, ending in a flourish of leaves. Isabelle and Joffroy kneel in enthusiastic prayer across the decorated lower margin of the text on the right-hand page. When you see the open book you can sense a connection between yourself and the couple who owned the book. There is something particularly vigorous and joyful about this open page, with even the ox and the ass seeming to talk to each other as they rest their heads on the edge of the manger. I had a feeling of intimacy and tenderness for Joffroy and Isabella, who had held this book in their hands and read from it often.
The sumptuous blues and greens and vermillions that a modern viewer of medieval manuscripts often expects to see can be found in many of the works. They are there in the 16th-century depiction of the Annunciation by the Flemish artist Simon Bening and his assistants. It is a miniature cut from a Book of Hours, as many of the individual works were. The angel in pale, silky blue brings the news of the birth of Jesus to Mary, dressed in lapis lazuli, as a radiant Holy Spirit flies in from above in a structure resembling the Eye of God. This large scene is superimposed on an atmospheric landscape in which a small version of Mary makes her journey along a winding pathway through tall trees, past shining water, towards the gateway of a medieval town. The angel walks behind her a couple of paces, carrying her effects in a black suitcase that resembles, to the modern eye, a nice little notebook computer.
The main picture, the focus of the page, tells the story of supernatural intervention; the landscape in the background tells the story of a long, long journey. The whole page marries the two modes, producing in the mind of the viewer a mood of meditation.
In the category of science is the 15th-century book open at a page showing "lunaria grass" with a brief script not in Latin, but in Catalan. The grass itself is fascinating enough, but the four formal upright diagrams of its habit of waxing and waning with the moon are particularly dramatic and striking. A man in a flowing slate-blue robe holds up the text, which explains how the plant's properties are related to the phases of the sun and moon. The colours generally are rusts and ochres and greys, the drawings neat and precise. Little, identical new moons and full moons stand alert on the branches, exerting a fascination on the viewer's eye. This alchemical text claims, on other pages, the curative powers of lunaria grass in cases of a range of illnesses. Such scientific texts as this stand in fruitful contrast to the manuscripts depicting religious stories. Finding both types displayed in the same space is a reminder of the scope of knowledge and thought in Europe in the centuries represented.
Something took me by surprise. I have always had a fascination with the 13th-century French poem the Romance of the Rose, and have several different modern copies of it in French and English. However, for some reason I had never really thought about seeing a piece of a 14th-century manuscript version, so it was a special delight to discover a page in the exhibition. There is some script and with it a picture of the lover dreaming among roses, while the story he is dreaming proceeds outside his dwelling, taking him outside himself, leading him on his adventure. This is neither science nor religion, this is a page of poetry and romance fluttering and glinting into view across the centuries.
I have listed just a few of the treasures. As a whole, and in its exquisite individual pieces, the Medieval Imagination will continue to whisper, sing and dance in the memories of its audience. It is a celebratory hymn to the book. It is unique in the world; it is enchanting.
Medieval Imagination is at the State Library of Victoria until June 15.
Rareshow for city treasure
By JOHN GIBB
2 April 2008
Otago Daily Times
THE Reed rare books collection at the Dunedin City Library has gained its greatest international publicity, with seven items prominently displayed in a major medieval art show in Melbourne.
"The Medieval Imagination", described by organisers as a "spectacular free exhibition" of medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts from England, Australia and New Zealand, opened at the State Library of Victoria last Friday. It runs until June 15.
The Alfred and Isabel Reed collection includes 10 bound medieval manuscripts and more than 50 manuscript fragments, which were gifted to the public library by Dunedin publisher, author and long-distance walker Alfred Hamish ("A.H.") Reed and other benefactors.
One portion of a book - from the late 9th century - held in the collection is the oldest fragment of a European book held in either Australia or New Zealand.
Dunedin Public Libraries rare books librarian Anthony Tedeschi said the Melbourne display could have "incredible implications" for the Reed collection, helping it to become better known overseas. "I hope it gives more international exposure to what we have here and puts Dunedin on the map [as a centre for learning and education]," he said.
Dr Christopher de Hamel, a University of Otago graduate and medieval manuscript specialist, was inspired by the illuminated medieval manuscripts he had first encountered at the city library while visiting as a 13-year-old attending Kings High School.
His growing interest was also encouraged and supported by Mr Reed and librarian Mary Ronnie. Mr Reed would have been "absolutely thrilled, absolutely blown away" to know that medieval items he had selected and acquired were being prominently displayed beside some of Europe's finest illuminated manuscripts in Melbourne, Dr de Hamel said.
Dr de Hamel, who is Donnelly Fellow Librarian at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, was in Melbourne last week, having contributed to the medieval show, including by writing parts of the accompanying catalogue. He has been visiting his parents in Dunedin over the past few days. The Reed collection is the second-largest collection of medieval books in New Zealand, behind only the Sir George Grey collection in Auckland.
Carmel Bird
5 April 2008
The Age
An exhibition of illuminated manuscripts extols the art of the handwritten book and provides a meditative insight into ancient lives, writes Carmel Bird.
WHEN YOU ENTER the doorway to this exhibition of medieval manuscripts at the State Library of Victoria, you are drawn in by the pinpoints of light, as into a dark and mysterious cave lined with black velvet. The treasures are in glass cases on plinths, and also hanging on the walls, framed under glass. Stencilled onto the walls in letters of gold, you read Latin words of wisdom, with their English translations. Such thoughts as: "God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes" and "how all things do change". To move through the exhibits, to gaze at the glowing detail of the pages, can be to experience a kind of meditation. Look up and read the words: "In hope I will rejoice."
The works, on loan from library collections in Cambridge, New Zealand and Australia, are divided into five categories: Illuminating the Word; Liturgy and Ritual; The Psalter and the Book of Hours; Science, Law Literature and History; and The Humanist Book. The original sources of the books are the libraries and monasteries of France, Italy, Spain, England, Byzantium, Germany and the Netherlands. Hundreds of years ago, hundreds of people, most of whom are unknown, worked for untold hundreds of hours to produce the texts, images and decorations and to construct the books that they formed.
A modern reminder of the fact that this exhibition is about books and in a library is a screen on which you can watch the almost miraculous restoration at the State Library of Victoria of an ancient book, from the ruin it was to the splendid object it has become. You can think about where books came from, why and how they were invented and made, and where they are going.
As you enter the exhibition, the first work you see originated in the early eighth century. It is from the Gospels of St Luke and St John. It is an entrancing page consisting of the Latin words meaning: "In the beginning was the Word". The colours here are subtle and earthy, the shapes rhythmic, as well as being composed of tall, vertical, decorated bands resembling ribbons. When you look carefully into the large semicircles you can see finely drawn birds elaborately interlaced. The book is open before you, and on the left-hand page, through the parchment, you see the dreamy, enchanting, faded image of the eagle of St John surrounded by plain, green crosses. You are at the beginning, and the book is open.
Many works displayed are single pages extracted from books, some of them quite large. But in one glass case there are 10 little books, personal prayer books. As you approach them they appear to be a flock of birds flying in formation, for they are resting on their spines, their pages open like wings. Then you look down into the bright, bright intricacies of the designs, the tiny lettering like the work of meticulous spiders, the colours glittering, the old gold leaf gleaming under the modern lights.
In another case, a 13th-century French Book of Hours belonging to Joffroy d'Aspremont and his wife Isabelle de Kievraing lies open. The right-hand page has a rich image of the Nativity encircled by the capital letter. The name of this artist is known; it was Nicolas. The decorations in the margins are particularly airy and engaging, being witty and whimsical. A jester with a long, pointy nose is ringing a bell, and his body is the elongated thrashing tail of a lizard, ending in a flourish of leaves. Isabelle and Joffroy kneel in enthusiastic prayer across the decorated lower margin of the text on the right-hand page. When you see the open book you can sense a connection between yourself and the couple who owned the book. There is something particularly vigorous and joyful about this open page, with even the ox and the ass seeming to talk to each other as they rest their heads on the edge of the manger. I had a feeling of intimacy and tenderness for Joffroy and Isabella, who had held this book in their hands and read from it often.
The sumptuous blues and greens and vermillions that a modern viewer of medieval manuscripts often expects to see can be found in many of the works. They are there in the 16th-century depiction of the Annunciation by the Flemish artist Simon Bening and his assistants. It is a miniature cut from a Book of Hours, as many of the individual works were. The angel in pale, silky blue brings the news of the birth of Jesus to Mary, dressed in lapis lazuli, as a radiant Holy Spirit flies in from above in a structure resembling the Eye of God. This large scene is superimposed on an atmospheric landscape in which a small version of Mary makes her journey along a winding pathway through tall trees, past shining water, towards the gateway of a medieval town. The angel walks behind her a couple of paces, carrying her effects in a black suitcase that resembles, to the modern eye, a nice little notebook computer.
The main picture, the focus of the page, tells the story of supernatural intervention; the landscape in the background tells the story of a long, long journey. The whole page marries the two modes, producing in the mind of the viewer a mood of meditation.
In the category of science is the 15th-century book open at a page showing "lunaria grass" with a brief script not in Latin, but in Catalan. The grass itself is fascinating enough, but the four formal upright diagrams of its habit of waxing and waning with the moon are particularly dramatic and striking. A man in a flowing slate-blue robe holds up the text, which explains how the plant's properties are related to the phases of the sun and moon. The colours generally are rusts and ochres and greys, the drawings neat and precise. Little, identical new moons and full moons stand alert on the branches, exerting a fascination on the viewer's eye. This alchemical text claims, on other pages, the curative powers of lunaria grass in cases of a range of illnesses. Such scientific texts as this stand in fruitful contrast to the manuscripts depicting religious stories. Finding both types displayed in the same space is a reminder of the scope of knowledge and thought in Europe in the centuries represented.
Something took me by surprise. I have always had a fascination with the 13th-century French poem the Romance of the Rose, and have several different modern copies of it in French and English. However, for some reason I had never really thought about seeing a piece of a 14th-century manuscript version, so it was a special delight to discover a page in the exhibition. There is some script and with it a picture of the lover dreaming among roses, while the story he is dreaming proceeds outside his dwelling, taking him outside himself, leading him on his adventure. This is neither science nor religion, this is a page of poetry and romance fluttering and glinting into view across the centuries.
I have listed just a few of the treasures. As a whole, and in its exquisite individual pieces, the Medieval Imagination will continue to whisper, sing and dance in the memories of its audience. It is a celebratory hymn to the book. It is unique in the world; it is enchanting.
Medieval Imagination is at the State Library of Victoria until June 15.
Rareshow for city treasure
By JOHN GIBB
2 April 2008
Otago Daily Times
THE Reed rare books collection at the Dunedin City Library has gained its greatest international publicity, with seven items prominently displayed in a major medieval art show in Melbourne.
"The Medieval Imagination", described by organisers as a "spectacular free exhibition" of medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts from England, Australia and New Zealand, opened at the State Library of Victoria last Friday. It runs until June 15.
The Alfred and Isabel Reed collection includes 10 bound medieval manuscripts and more than 50 manuscript fragments, which were gifted to the public library by Dunedin publisher, author and long-distance walker Alfred Hamish ("A.H.") Reed and other benefactors.
One portion of a book - from the late 9th century - held in the collection is the oldest fragment of a European book held in either Australia or New Zealand.
Dunedin Public Libraries rare books librarian Anthony Tedeschi said the Melbourne display could have "incredible implications" for the Reed collection, helping it to become better known overseas. "I hope it gives more international exposure to what we have here and puts Dunedin on the map [as a centre for learning and education]," he said.
Dr Christopher de Hamel, a University of Otago graduate and medieval manuscript specialist, was inspired by the illuminated medieval manuscripts he had first encountered at the city library while visiting as a 13-year-old attending Kings High School.
His growing interest was also encouraged and supported by Mr Reed and librarian Mary Ronnie. Mr Reed would have been "absolutely thrilled, absolutely blown away" to know that medieval items he had selected and acquired were being prominently displayed beside some of Europe's finest illuminated manuscripts in Melbourne, Dr de Hamel said.
Dr de Hamel, who is Donnelly Fellow Librarian at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, was in Melbourne last week, having contributed to the medieval show, including by writing parts of the accompanying catalogue. He has been visiting his parents in Dunedin over the past few days. The Reed collection is the second-largest collection of medieval books in New Zealand, behind only the Sir George Grey collection in Auckland.
Medieval Technology and Culture class at the University of Southern Indiana
CULTURE OF CATAPULTING; MEDIEVAL LAUNCHERS
MARK WILSON
2 April 2008
The Evansville Courier
While other students may have spent Tuesday morning in classrooms, the 10 seniors in Jason Hardgrave's Medieval Technology and Culture class at the University of Southern Indiana were outside proving that studying history doesn't have to be boring.
The students hauled scaled-down, working replicas of medieval catapults onto the soggy practice field at USI's Broadway Recreational Complex to test them out. Divided into three teams, each had designed and built a catapult capable of hurling tennis balls. On the field, they competed both for distance and accuracy. "It's not just fun and games .. well, mostly," Hardgrave said, after an hour of soggy competition
The students based their designs on historical manuscripts and documents, built them using only natural materials - no metal screws, nylon ropes or bungee cords. Next week, they will complete the assignment by submitting their plans and designs and written evaluations. "It's hard to build a catapult," student Chris Herron said.
Students on two of the teams based their catapults on older designs called mangonels and onagers that used the tension of twisted ropes to store the energy used to propel the tennis balls. But Jordan Shoulders, Kevin Rutherford and Kenny Gamblin based theirs on a design called a trebuchet that used a system of counterweights, even making the brick-sized weights themselves using concrete.
Depending on their size, trebuchets could throw objects the size of small cars, Hardgrave said. "These actually took down walls. The counterweights on some of them could weigh up to three tons," he said.
The massive siege engines gained popularity during the Third Crusade, when they were needed to smash the stone walls of Middle Eastern fortresses, Hardgrave said. Crusaders often named them, similar to the way bombers and large artillery pieces were named in the 20th century. Some real catapult names were "Bad Neighbor" and "God's Own Catapult." "They were the artillery pieces of the day," Hardgrave said.
True to its historical reputation, the catapult based on the trebuchet design threw the farthest, more than 41 feet. "We have actually been through several models and this is what we ended up with," Shoulders said.
The catapults are only one of the projects the students are undertaking for the class. For their midterm, they made soap, Hardgrave said, and their final will be to measure buildings on campus using ancient astronomical "computers" called astrolabes. "The technology is a lot more complicated than people think. The amount of time and effort it took to think something like this up is amazing," student Deanne Engler said. "There was a lot more technology in the Middle Ages than people give them credit for."
MARK WILSON
2 April 2008
The Evansville Courier
While other students may have spent Tuesday morning in classrooms, the 10 seniors in Jason Hardgrave's Medieval Technology and Culture class at the University of Southern Indiana were outside proving that studying history doesn't have to be boring.
The students hauled scaled-down, working replicas of medieval catapults onto the soggy practice field at USI's Broadway Recreational Complex to test them out. Divided into three teams, each had designed and built a catapult capable of hurling tennis balls. On the field, they competed both for distance and accuracy. "It's not just fun and games .. well, mostly," Hardgrave said, after an hour of soggy competition
The students based their designs on historical manuscripts and documents, built them using only natural materials - no metal screws, nylon ropes or bungee cords. Next week, they will complete the assignment by submitting their plans and designs and written evaluations. "It's hard to build a catapult," student Chris Herron said.
Students on two of the teams based their catapults on older designs called mangonels and onagers that used the tension of twisted ropes to store the energy used to propel the tennis balls. But Jordan Shoulders, Kevin Rutherford and Kenny Gamblin based theirs on a design called a trebuchet that used a system of counterweights, even making the brick-sized weights themselves using concrete.
Depending on their size, trebuchets could throw objects the size of small cars, Hardgrave said. "These actually took down walls. The counterweights on some of them could weigh up to three tons," he said.
The massive siege engines gained popularity during the Third Crusade, when they were needed to smash the stone walls of Middle Eastern fortresses, Hardgrave said. Crusaders often named them, similar to the way bombers and large artillery pieces were named in the 20th century. Some real catapult names were "Bad Neighbor" and "God's Own Catapult." "They were the artillery pieces of the day," Hardgrave said.
True to its historical reputation, the catapult based on the trebuchet design threw the farthest, more than 41 feet. "We have actually been through several models and this is what we ended up with," Shoulders said.
The catapults are only one of the projects the students are undertaking for the class. For their midterm, they made soap, Hardgrave said, and their final will be to measure buildings on campus using ancient astronomical "computers" called astrolabes. "The technology is a lot more complicated than people think. The amount of time and effort it took to think something like this up is amazing," student Deanne Engler said. "There was a lot more technology in the Middle Ages than people give them credit for."
Street names with links to middle ages
Street names with links to middle ages
245 words
3 April 2008
Leicester Mercury
The origin of local street names is always of interest, especially when the names imply something unusual. Su Barlow, who now lives in Fareham in Hampshire, has written to me, saying: "Being a real "wooly back", having lived in the dead centre of Leicester for the first 50 years of my life and now living in Hampshire, it makes me wonder why Holy Bones and Friars' Causeway are so called. I would love to know."
Thanks to JD Bennett's invaluable book, The Street Names of Leicester, I can tell Su that Holy Bones (a short road that runs behind St Nicholas Church) was "so-called from the early 15th century, probably because it led to the churchyard of St Nicholas. The animal bones found here in the 18th century probably came from the butchers' shambles in St. Nicholas Street. Part was Jewry Wall Street before 1968, and another part has been merged with Vaughan Way." Friars' Causeway (off Great Central Street), "probably existed as early as 1373. A Dominican Friary near here was dissolved in 1538".
Colin Ellis, in his History of Leicester, writes: "Some names commemorating vanished medieval buildings are worth noting. Grey Friars and Friar Lane are on or near the site of the Franciscan Friary... Friars' Causeway (medieval) and Blackfriars Street (modern), commemorate another community, the Dominican or Black Friars sometimes called the Friar Preachers whose house stood not far from Great Central Station."
245 words
3 April 2008
Leicester Mercury
The origin of local street names is always of interest, especially when the names imply something unusual. Su Barlow, who now lives in Fareham in Hampshire, has written to me, saying: "Being a real "wooly back", having lived in the dead centre of Leicester for the first 50 years of my life and now living in Hampshire, it makes me wonder why Holy Bones and Friars' Causeway are so called. I would love to know."
Thanks to JD Bennett's invaluable book, The Street Names of Leicester, I can tell Su that Holy Bones (a short road that runs behind St Nicholas Church) was "so-called from the early 15th century, probably because it led to the churchyard of St Nicholas. The animal bones found here in the 18th century probably came from the butchers' shambles in St. Nicholas Street. Part was Jewry Wall Street before 1968, and another part has been merged with Vaughan Way." Friars' Causeway (off Great Central Street), "probably existed as early as 1373. A Dominican Friary near here was dissolved in 1538".
Colin Ellis, in his History of Leicester, writes: "Some names commemorating vanished medieval buildings are worth noting. Grey Friars and Friar Lane are on or near the site of the Franciscan Friary... Friars' Causeway (medieval) and Blackfriars Street (modern), commemorate another community, the Dominican or Black Friars sometimes called the Friar Preachers whose house stood not far from Great Central Station."
Being an actor in a medieval fair
13TH-CENTURY MAN As he approaches 40, a medieval fair actor gains a new perspective on the middle ages
BILL HUTCHINSON
5 April 2008
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
There is a way to fall off a horse without killing yourself, according to Dean Bowden, who has made something of a career of it: "Just relax and let yourself go." The same might be said of surviving life as an actor in a small town, which Bowden, 39 this month, has also managed to do without serious injury.
Acting is a tough life anywhere and definitely no picnic in Sarasota. "You do what you have to do," says Bowden, who is appearing this weekend as the Sheriff of Nottingham at the Sarasota Medieval Fair.
The money is OK, mostly because he is also choreographing the human chess match, a mainstay of most medieval fairs, but Bowden is keeping a better paying gig on hold.
The Sarasota fair is special to him because this is where his career started, 24 years ago, playing the king's knight's pawn in the human chess game at the old Sarasota Medieval Fair on the grounds of the Ringling Museum of Art.
The local fair has had a rocky couple of years since the museum booted the event in 2001, in part because it had become so popular that the crowds were endangering the grounds. In its new location at the Sarasota County Fairgrounds, the annual event is starting to make a comeback, Bowden says. Some veterans from the Ringling days are starting to participate again.
This makes for a more pleasant reunion than the recent gathering of his Manatee High class of 1987, where he noted a prevalence of pot bellies and thinning hair. "I kept thinking, oh man, do I look that old?" remembers Bowden, whose own hair is thick, curly and nearly shoulder length, at the moment dyed an unfortunate jet black for his role as the sheriff.
Bowden remains remarkably youthful, a fact that he attributes in part to good genes -- his parents are alive and flourishing in Bradenton -- but also to his unabated passion for his line of work. From the Sheriff of Nottingham to the tortured soul known as "The Elephant Man," (Manatee Players, 2005) every role Bowden plays gets his full investment, he says. Last year at Florida Studio Theatre he got to play an Irish terrorist who gets killed and has his body chopped into pieces, "which I loved."
Being the low-rung "local actor" among a predominantly out-of- town company, Bowden was selected to be covered in plaster to make the body cast needed to simulate the chopping into pieces of several other members of the company.
Something went wrong with the "release," actor-speak for the gel that is supposed to keep plaster from adhering to flesh. "Worst three hours of my entire life," Bowden says.
He has suffered physically for his art more than most actors. Roughly nine months a year he plays a jousting knight named Sir Tristan in a touring group that works the renaissance fair circuit across the country.
Unlike the Sheriff of Nottingham, Sir Tristan is a good guy, which better suits Bowden's blue-eyed good cheer. But the role requires that he vanquish bad guys six hours a day two days a week, plus rehearsals. "Basically, I'm sitting on top of a 2,000-pound animal, wearing a hundred pounds of armor, carrying a long stick that throws you off balance, riding as fast as I can straight for another guy wearing armor and carrying a stick. What can I say, it's a living."
Playing Sir Tristan pays him $500 a week, which is as much as he makes anywhere doing anything. It is steady, long-term work, unlike the parts he can pick up at local theaters, and it provides a per diem so he has few expenses on the road. But the job has its shortcomings, not the least of them that he spends the tours living in a tent with half a dozen other knights (they have to stay near their horses) while his wife remains in Sarasota with her job as a Delta ticket agent.
He reads a lot while he is on the road -- science fiction and history, his two off-stage passions -- and this trip he is taking the family dog with him for company (a rescued greyhound named Uther, after King Arthur's father). Bowden and his wife talk on the phone every day, and because of the free travel benefits she gets from working for the airline they manage to get together every couple of weeks. "But it gets hard," he says, "probably more so the older I get."
Underneath his current coating of Just for Men, there is gray in his hair and his beard. Occasionally it occurs to Bowden that life, too, tends to break down into three acts. He would like be a father, but that means he would have to be able to anchor himself to one place. On the other hand, he would like to try living and working in New York or Los Angeles, a dream that he just has not had, as he puts it, "the gumption" to pursue, at least not yet. "But never say never." Actors seldom do.
The Sarasota Medieval Fair runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and Sunday at the Sarasota Fairgrounds, 3000 Ringling Blvd. Admission is $6.95-$16.95, free for children under 12. For more information call (888) 303-3247 or go to the Web site sarasotamedievalfair.com.
BILL HUTCHINSON
5 April 2008
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
There is a way to fall off a horse without killing yourself, according to Dean Bowden, who has made something of a career of it: "Just relax and let yourself go." The same might be said of surviving life as an actor in a small town, which Bowden, 39 this month, has also managed to do without serious injury.
Acting is a tough life anywhere and definitely no picnic in Sarasota. "You do what you have to do," says Bowden, who is appearing this weekend as the Sheriff of Nottingham at the Sarasota Medieval Fair.
The money is OK, mostly because he is also choreographing the human chess match, a mainstay of most medieval fairs, but Bowden is keeping a better paying gig on hold.
The Sarasota fair is special to him because this is where his career started, 24 years ago, playing the king's knight's pawn in the human chess game at the old Sarasota Medieval Fair on the grounds of the Ringling Museum of Art.
The local fair has had a rocky couple of years since the museum booted the event in 2001, in part because it had become so popular that the crowds were endangering the grounds. In its new location at the Sarasota County Fairgrounds, the annual event is starting to make a comeback, Bowden says. Some veterans from the Ringling days are starting to participate again.
This makes for a more pleasant reunion than the recent gathering of his Manatee High class of 1987, where he noted a prevalence of pot bellies and thinning hair. "I kept thinking, oh man, do I look that old?" remembers Bowden, whose own hair is thick, curly and nearly shoulder length, at the moment dyed an unfortunate jet black for his role as the sheriff.
Bowden remains remarkably youthful, a fact that he attributes in part to good genes -- his parents are alive and flourishing in Bradenton -- but also to his unabated passion for his line of work. From the Sheriff of Nottingham to the tortured soul known as "The Elephant Man," (Manatee Players, 2005) every role Bowden plays gets his full investment, he says. Last year at Florida Studio Theatre he got to play an Irish terrorist who gets killed and has his body chopped into pieces, "which I loved."
Being the low-rung "local actor" among a predominantly out-of- town company, Bowden was selected to be covered in plaster to make the body cast needed to simulate the chopping into pieces of several other members of the company.
Something went wrong with the "release," actor-speak for the gel that is supposed to keep plaster from adhering to flesh. "Worst three hours of my entire life," Bowden says.
He has suffered physically for his art more than most actors. Roughly nine months a year he plays a jousting knight named Sir Tristan in a touring group that works the renaissance fair circuit across the country.
Unlike the Sheriff of Nottingham, Sir Tristan is a good guy, which better suits Bowden's blue-eyed good cheer. But the role requires that he vanquish bad guys six hours a day two days a week, plus rehearsals. "Basically, I'm sitting on top of a 2,000-pound animal, wearing a hundred pounds of armor, carrying a long stick that throws you off balance, riding as fast as I can straight for another guy wearing armor and carrying a stick. What can I say, it's a living."
Playing Sir Tristan pays him $500 a week, which is as much as he makes anywhere doing anything. It is steady, long-term work, unlike the parts he can pick up at local theaters, and it provides a per diem so he has few expenses on the road. But the job has its shortcomings, not the least of them that he spends the tours living in a tent with half a dozen other knights (they have to stay near their horses) while his wife remains in Sarasota with her job as a Delta ticket agent.
He reads a lot while he is on the road -- science fiction and history, his two off-stage passions -- and this trip he is taking the family dog with him for company (a rescued greyhound named Uther, after King Arthur's father). Bowden and his wife talk on the phone every day, and because of the free travel benefits she gets from working for the airline they manage to get together every couple of weeks. "But it gets hard," he says, "probably more so the older I get."
Underneath his current coating of Just for Men, there is gray in his hair and his beard. Occasionally it occurs to Bowden that life, too, tends to break down into three acts. He would like be a father, but that means he would have to be able to anchor himself to one place. On the other hand, he would like to try living and working in New York or Los Angeles, a dream that he just has not had, as he puts it, "the gumption" to pursue, at least not yet. "But never say never." Actors seldom do.
The Sarasota Medieval Fair runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and Sunday at the Sarasota Fairgrounds, 3000 Ringling Blvd. Admission is $6.95-$16.95, free for children under 12. For more information call (888) 303-3247 or go to the Web site sarasotamedievalfair.com.
32nd annual Medieval Fair at Reaves Park, Oklahoma
Medieval Fair brings the fun of the Dark Ages to Norman
By George Lang
6 April 2008
The Daily Oklahoman
Knights and jesters, maidens and minstrels stage their own Norman conquest this weekend, partying like it's 1066 during the 32nd annual Medieval Fair at Reaves Park. The Medieval Fair is the fourth-largest event in Oklahoma, attracting more than 300,000 revelers who come to see the work of 200 artists, enjoy pre-Renaissance food and thrill to the spectacle of jousting, traditional dance and swordplay on the human chess board.
Throughout the fair, musicians focusing on classic folk songs of the Middle Ages will perform, including the Texas-based early music ensemble Istanpitta, which performs songs from the eighth through the 15th centuries on lute, recorder, bagpipes, percussion and vocals. Other performers appearing at the fair's six stages include The Merry Sisters, Arabesque, Harmless T. Jester, Brother Donald the Storyteller, Queen's Gambit, Emerald Flame, Redland Rogues, Norman Singers and The Bilge Pumps. Norman's Arthurian Order of Avalon stages jousting tournaments at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. daily, while human chess games begin at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Medieval weddings will take place at 2 and 4 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
University of Oklahoma Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts students will perform as part of a new addition to the fair at 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the park's Unicorn Stage. The event features vocal and instrumental music from the Elizabethan age and from composers of the court of King Henry VII. There also will be combat demonstrations and a medieval dance performance choreographed by Austin Hartel.
The OU Chorale, Collegium and Brass Quintet present "Music of Baroque Venice and Contemporary America" at 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Gothic Hall in Catlett Music Center at the University of Oklahoma. Admission to the concerts is $8 for general admission and $5 for students.
Throughout the fair, experts and artisans will demonstrate brass rubbing, blacksmithing, chainmail making, soap making, woodworking, and armor-making. Meanwhile, the fair's Royal Court will greet visitors while other street characters such as the Feather Man, the King's Toy, King Arthur, and traveling minstrels stroll the grounds. Demonstrations and activities will be presented by the Society for Creative Anachronism, the University of Central Oklahoma Medieval Society, St. Gregory's University and the School of Stage Combat.
Visitors can show their enthusiasm for early times by participating in a medieval costume contest at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Camelot Stage. Others can simply eat their way through the ages thanks to food vendors serving smoked turkey legs, fruit and chicken salad crepes, Scottish baked goods, gyros, Indian tacos, funnel cakes, strudel, cinnamon roasted almonds, roasted corn and burritos. Free parking is available on the east side of Lloyd Noble Center on Jenkins Avenue, one block south of Reaves Park.
By George Lang
6 April 2008
The Daily Oklahoman
Knights and jesters, maidens and minstrels stage their own Norman conquest this weekend, partying like it's 1066 during the 32nd annual Medieval Fair at Reaves Park. The Medieval Fair is the fourth-largest event in Oklahoma, attracting more than 300,000 revelers who come to see the work of 200 artists, enjoy pre-Renaissance food and thrill to the spectacle of jousting, traditional dance and swordplay on the human chess board.
Throughout the fair, musicians focusing on classic folk songs of the Middle Ages will perform, including the Texas-based early music ensemble Istanpitta, which performs songs from the eighth through the 15th centuries on lute, recorder, bagpipes, percussion and vocals. Other performers appearing at the fair's six stages include The Merry Sisters, Arabesque, Harmless T. Jester, Brother Donald the Storyteller, Queen's Gambit, Emerald Flame, Redland Rogues, Norman Singers and The Bilge Pumps. Norman's Arthurian Order of Avalon stages jousting tournaments at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. daily, while human chess games begin at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Medieval weddings will take place at 2 and 4 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
University of Oklahoma Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts students will perform as part of a new addition to the fair at 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the park's Unicorn Stage. The event features vocal and instrumental music from the Elizabethan age and from composers of the court of King Henry VII. There also will be combat demonstrations and a medieval dance performance choreographed by Austin Hartel.
The OU Chorale, Collegium and Brass Quintet present "Music of Baroque Venice and Contemporary America" at 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Gothic Hall in Catlett Music Center at the University of Oklahoma. Admission to the concerts is $8 for general admission and $5 for students.
Throughout the fair, experts and artisans will demonstrate brass rubbing, blacksmithing, chainmail making, soap making, woodworking, and armor-making. Meanwhile, the fair's Royal Court will greet visitors while other street characters such as the Feather Man, the King's Toy, King Arthur, and traveling minstrels stroll the grounds. Demonstrations and activities will be presented by the Society for Creative Anachronism, the University of Central Oklahoma Medieval Society, St. Gregory's University and the School of Stage Combat.
Visitors can show their enthusiasm for early times by participating in a medieval costume contest at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Camelot Stage. Others can simply eat their way through the ages thanks to food vendors serving smoked turkey legs, fruit and chicken salad crepes, Scottish baked goods, gyros, Indian tacos, funnel cakes, strudel, cinnamon roasted almonds, roasted corn and burritos. Free parking is available on the east side of Lloyd Noble Center on Jenkins Avenue, one block south of Reaves Park.
Review of Vendetta: High Art and Low Cunning at the Birth of the Renaissance, by Hugh Bicheno
HISTORY SAUL DAVID ON A TALE OF RIVALRY AND BACK-STABBING IN MEDIEVAL ITALY
By Saul David
6 April 2008
The Sunday Telegraph
Vendetta: High Art and Low Cunning at the Birth of the Renaissance
BY HUGH BICHENO
WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON, pounds 25, 290 pp
T pounds 23 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4115
The period of 'highly creative destruction' that prepared the ground for the Renaissance in Italy is sometimes known as the Age of the Condottieri, after the rapacious soldiers of fortune who dominated Italian warfare from the 13th to the 15th centuries.
In Vendetta Hugh Bicheno concentrates on the 200-year-old feud between two of the most prominent Condottieri clans, the Montefeltro and the Malatesta, promising a story of 'unbridled lust, treachery and murder' with 'an extraordinary cast of characters who fought, poisoned, betrayed and cheated their way from the late Middle Ages into the modern era'. Seemingly convinced, the publishers have produced a lavish book with colour plates and countless maps, diagrams and family trees. But therein lies the problem. So broad is the period covered, so scanty the first-hand sources that help to provide colour and context, that Bicheno is forced to pad out the narrative with a veritable Who's Who of medieval Italian politics and warfare. The sheer number of people and places in the text is at times overwhelming.
The book touches on several interesting themes - such as the way a minor local rivalry was turned into an all-consuming feud by the far greater struggle for supremacy between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor in the 13th century - but it only really comes to life when it relates the climax of the vendetta between Federico III Montefeltro and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, respectively Lords of Urbino and Rimini.
Historians have generally been kinder to Federico, the ultimate victor, portraying him as the 'virtuous and honourable exception to the Condottieri rule', while Sigismondo has been cast in the role of pantomime villain, a psychopath with a not entirely undeserved reputation for wild savagery. But neither image is, according to Bicheno, entirely fair. In reality Federico became lord of Urbino by killing his brother and 'achieved eminence more by the exercise of treacherous furbizia [cunning] than by military skill'; whereas Sigismondo was 'among the foremost field commanders of his time, his presence worth a thousand men in battle', and a man who married his mistress for love 'at a time when his circumstances urgently demanded a dynastic wedding, accompanied by a large dowry'.
Interestingly, the only time the traditional roles were reversed was in the early 20th century when, during the rise of Fascism, Sigismondo was held up as an exemplar of the 'new man' who 'combined action and learning, the arts of war and of peace, for whom state building was a work of art'. The first biography of Mussolini, for example, explicitly identifies the Fascist leader as heir to the Malatesta tradition. Yet Bicheno prefers the parallel to our own 'Iron Lady'. He writes: 'Sigismondo inherited a domain in apparently terminal economic crisis ... One of his first measures on becoming lord of Rimini
and Fano, aged 15, was to abolish all restrictions on the purchase of property ... He understood how reduced levels of taxation can increase state revenues by encouraging greater economic dynamism.'
The practical cause of the pair's mutual loathing was the Federico's desire to acquire a coastal outlet by conquering Malatesta land. But the enmity between the clans went much deeper, and would only end with Federico's decisive defeat of Sigismondo in 1462. Thereafter the Montefeltro ruled supreme, with Federico involved in the failed plot to kill Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence in 1477. Yet the writing had been on the wall for the Condottieri since the Peace of Lodi in 1454 - which largely ended the endemic cycle of Italian warfare - and within a couple of generations even the Montefeltro had been eclipsed.
So ruthless and pragmatic were the Condottierri - constantly switching sides and stabbing, quite literally, each other in the back - that it becomes extremely difficult to follow who was fighting
with whom. 'We may take it,' explains Bicheno, 'that any time A seemed to be allied with B against C, A and C were also conspiring against B, while C and B were plotting against A. None of the parties was ever happy to see an ally triumph totally over a rival because today's ally could, and probably would, become tomorrow's foe. This was, of course, a self-fulfilling prophecy.'
The premise for this book is eye-catching, and it is easy to see why it was published. But a racy outline is one thing, a finished manuscript quite another, and this one is simply too ponderous, unfocused and lacking in narrative drive to grab the reader's attention for more than a few pages at a time. The bizarre final chapter - a tourist guide to the Romagna borderlands and its fortifications - sums up the book's self-indulgent tone.
By Saul David
6 April 2008
The Sunday Telegraph
Vendetta: High Art and Low Cunning at the Birth of the Renaissance
BY HUGH BICHENO
WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON, pounds 25, 290 pp
T pounds 23 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4115
The period of 'highly creative destruction' that prepared the ground for the Renaissance in Italy is sometimes known as the Age of the Condottieri, after the rapacious soldiers of fortune who dominated Italian warfare from the 13th to the 15th centuries.
In Vendetta Hugh Bicheno concentrates on the 200-year-old feud between two of the most prominent Condottieri clans, the Montefeltro and the Malatesta, promising a story of 'unbridled lust, treachery and murder' with 'an extraordinary cast of characters who fought, poisoned, betrayed and cheated their way from the late Middle Ages into the modern era'. Seemingly convinced, the publishers have produced a lavish book with colour plates and countless maps, diagrams and family trees. But therein lies the problem. So broad is the period covered, so scanty the first-hand sources that help to provide colour and context, that Bicheno is forced to pad out the narrative with a veritable Who's Who of medieval Italian politics and warfare. The sheer number of people and places in the text is at times overwhelming.
The book touches on several interesting themes - such as the way a minor local rivalry was turned into an all-consuming feud by the far greater struggle for supremacy between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor in the 13th century - but it only really comes to life when it relates the climax of the vendetta between Federico III Montefeltro and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, respectively Lords of Urbino and Rimini.
Historians have generally been kinder to Federico, the ultimate victor, portraying him as the 'virtuous and honourable exception to the Condottieri rule', while Sigismondo has been cast in the role of pantomime villain, a psychopath with a not entirely undeserved reputation for wild savagery. But neither image is, according to Bicheno, entirely fair. In reality Federico became lord of Urbino by killing his brother and 'achieved eminence more by the exercise of treacherous furbizia [cunning] than by military skill'; whereas Sigismondo was 'among the foremost field commanders of his time, his presence worth a thousand men in battle', and a man who married his mistress for love 'at a time when his circumstances urgently demanded a dynastic wedding, accompanied by a large dowry'.
Interestingly, the only time the traditional roles were reversed was in the early 20th century when, during the rise of Fascism, Sigismondo was held up as an exemplar of the 'new man' who 'combined action and learning, the arts of war and of peace, for whom state building was a work of art'. The first biography of Mussolini, for example, explicitly identifies the Fascist leader as heir to the Malatesta tradition. Yet Bicheno prefers the parallel to our own 'Iron Lady'. He writes: 'Sigismondo inherited a domain in apparently terminal economic crisis ... One of his first measures on becoming lord of Rimini
and Fano, aged 15, was to abolish all restrictions on the purchase of property ... He understood how reduced levels of taxation can increase state revenues by encouraging greater economic dynamism.'
The practical cause of the pair's mutual loathing was the Federico's desire to acquire a coastal outlet by conquering Malatesta land. But the enmity between the clans went much deeper, and would only end with Federico's decisive defeat of Sigismondo in 1462. Thereafter the Montefeltro ruled supreme, with Federico involved in the failed plot to kill Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence in 1477. Yet the writing had been on the wall for the Condottieri since the Peace of Lodi in 1454 - which largely ended the endemic cycle of Italian warfare - and within a couple of generations even the Montefeltro had been eclipsed.
So ruthless and pragmatic were the Condottierri - constantly switching sides and stabbing, quite literally, each other in the back - that it becomes extremely difficult to follow who was fighting
with whom. 'We may take it,' explains Bicheno, 'that any time A seemed to be allied with B against C, A and C were also conspiring against B, while C and B were plotting against A. None of the parties was ever happy to see an ally triumph totally over a rival because today's ally could, and probably would, become tomorrow's foe. This was, of course, a self-fulfilling prophecy.'
The premise for this book is eye-catching, and it is easy to see why it was published. But a racy outline is one thing, a finished manuscript quite another, and this one is simply too ponderous, unfocused and lacking in narrative drive to grab the reader's attention for more than a few pages at a time. The bizarre final chapter - a tourist guide to the Romagna borderlands and its fortifications - sums up the book's self-indulgent tone.
Archaeological investigation in Quorn
Digging for history in Quorn's park
by Helen Nicholls
4 April 2008
Loughborough Echo
A TEAM of archaeologists are looking to unearth some buried history in Quorn village park. As the village prepares to bid for Lottery funding to improve the facilities in Stafford Orchard Park, the archaeologists, from AS&C Ltd, have been digging deep into the park grounds.
As part of the bid process, and to satisfy planning requirements, an archaeological investigation must be carried out to discover whether any archaeology is present and, if there is, to work out the best means of preserving it when redevelopment of the park begins.
Project manager Alastair Hancock carried out the geophysical survey and has identified where the most likely sites of interest are. Trial trenches will be constructed if further investigation proves fruitful followed by a community dig, where a small number of villagers will be invited to take part under the supervision of the archaeologists.
Coun Kathryn Paterson, from Quorn Parish Council, said: "It doesn't look like we'll be calling in Time Team but there are a few interesting blobs that have turned up, and consultation has started with county archaeologists to look into trenching. Basically that means digging to see what the objects are. There should be some interesting looking bits and pieces but we might not be uncovering a medieval settlement."
The scheme is part of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Big Lottery Fund's £160million 'Parks for People' initiative aiming to improve the local environment. If successful Quorn Parish Council could receive a grant of £645,000 which will go towards the regeneration of Stafford Park to include a sensory garden and information about the history and archaeology of the park for visitors to learn from.
by Helen Nicholls
4 April 2008
Loughborough Echo
A TEAM of archaeologists are looking to unearth some buried history in Quorn village park. As the village prepares to bid for Lottery funding to improve the facilities in Stafford Orchard Park, the archaeologists, from AS&C Ltd, have been digging deep into the park grounds.
As part of the bid process, and to satisfy planning requirements, an archaeological investigation must be carried out to discover whether any archaeology is present and, if there is, to work out the best means of preserving it when redevelopment of the park begins.
Project manager Alastair Hancock carried out the geophysical survey and has identified where the most likely sites of interest are. Trial trenches will be constructed if further investigation proves fruitful followed by a community dig, where a small number of villagers will be invited to take part under the supervision of the archaeologists.
Coun Kathryn Paterson, from Quorn Parish Council, said: "It doesn't look like we'll be calling in Time Team but there are a few interesting blobs that have turned up, and consultation has started with county archaeologists to look into trenching. Basically that means digging to see what the objects are. There should be some interesting looking bits and pieces but we might not be uncovering a medieval settlement."
The scheme is part of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Big Lottery Fund's £160million 'Parks for People' initiative aiming to improve the local environment. If successful Quorn Parish Council could receive a grant of £645,000 which will go towards the regeneration of Stafford Park to include a sensory garden and information about the history and archaeology of the park for visitors to learn from.
Preserving Famagusta
Divided Cypriots unite to preserve ancient Famagusta
Michael Theodoulou
3 April 2008
The Christian Science Monitor
In its pulsating 14th-century heyday, this walled port was the region's richest city. Home to rich merchants and bejewelled courtesans, Famagusta's streets and markets echoed with Greek, Arabic, French, Hebrew - even Tamil and Norse.
The fabled setting for Shakespeare's Othello, it was also the seat for Jerusalem's exiled French Crusader kings. Later ruled by Italians and then conquered by the Ottomans, it testifies to a storied past. Within a few blocks stand a French Gothic cathedral, an Italian Renaissance palace, a Byzantine church, and an Ottoman madrassah-turned-restaurant.
"You have 2,000 years of historical architecture within reaching range. It's astonishing," says Allan Langdale, a Canadian art historian who recently made a documentary about Famagusta's beauty and plight.
Now, in a rare bicommunal project, the city's estranged Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities are uniting to preserve the ancient walled city's architectural treasures. So far, such efforts have been frozen by the politics of a divided Cyprus and a lack of funding.
Supporters hope the cooperative nature of the project will help overcome political hurdles, opening legal channels for foreign funding. In turn, they say, the project could boost reunification efforts for Cyprus by building confidence. In a symbolic step toward reunification, the crossing point on Nicosia's Ledra Street was to be opened Thursday.
"The people of Famagusta, Greek and Turkish Cypriots ... should join forces not only to save the past, but to build a future in a reunited Cyprus and Famagusta," Alexis Ghalanos, representative of Famagusta's displaced Greek Cypriot community, said at a meeting that launched the project in December.
"The value Famagusta holds for world heritage is greater than all those things that have separated us for so long," he added. "I sincerely hope that this [initiative] can prove a steppingstone to the opening of the city to Europe and to Cyprus as a whole."
Oktay Kayalp, Famagusta's Turkish Cypriot representative, agreed that a common front is needed to help the city that he sees as a historic bridge between East and West, Christianity and Islam.
The political atmosphere was transformed following February polls, when Greek Cypriots rejected their hard-line president and voted in moderate President Demetris Christofias. For the first time in decades, both sides have conciliatory leaders determined to restart peace talks that collapsed four years ago.
Famagusta lies on the internationally unrecognized, Turkish- controlled northern half of the island, which foreign experts say lacks money and expertise to preserve the monuments. Greek Cypriots, who head the island's internationally recognized government, generally frown at unsanctioned intervention in antiquities in northern Cyprus, which they do not have access to. For more than three decades, none of Famagusta's 45,000 former Greek Cypriot residents have enjoyed access to their homes in new Famagusta, a fenced-off ghost town known as Varosha.
Cyprus has been split along ethnic lines since 1974, when Turkey invaded the north in response to a Greek Cypriot coup engineered by the military junta then ruling Greece. Some 180,000 Greek Cypriots and 50,000 Turkish Cypriots were displaced.
The UN and world heritage groups are enthusiastic about preserving Famagusta's history. "It's a very important city to Western European history," says Costa Carras, a vice president of Europa Nostra, a Pan-European heritage foundation. "It will be an absolutely wonderful project for the EU and the EU ideal, because it will show culture can help bring people together."
Europa Nostra is chairing a conference April 4 in Paris at which Greek and Turkish representatives of Famagusta will address European parliamentarians and UNESCO officials about the need to preserve Famagusta's endangered architectural heritage. "The Stones of Famagusta," Mr. Langdale's film, will be screened. Eighteen international academics will then hold a two-day scientific workshop on the walled city. This event, supported by Mr. Ghalanos and Mr. Kayalp, will have a touch of historical romance thanks to the presence of a French descendant of the dynasty that ruled Cyprus during Famagusta's peak: the resplendently named Prince Philippe Roux de Lusignan.
Famagusta was a minor port until the First Crusade was launched in 1095 to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control. Just 100 miles from the Syrian coast, it gained strategic importance. Its preeminence was sealed in 1291, when the Crusaders lost Acre, their last Holy Land outpost. Christian refugees, merchants, and traders from the region flocked to Famagusta, transforming it into a key emporium for trade between Europe and the East.
The island was ruled by the Lusignans, an eccentric dynasty of French Crusader nobles, for three turbulent centuries until the Venetians took control in 1489. In 1571, after a 10-month siege, the 200,000-strong Ottoman Army captured Famagusta, expelling its Greek Cypriot inhabitants, who have never since lived within the old walled city. Ottoman rule ended in the late 19th century when Britain took over.
Langdale says there is no finer Medieval and Renaissance walled city, with the possible exception of Dubrovnik, Croatia. In "Journey Into Cyprus," the celebrated travel writer, Colin Thubron, enthused: "Nothing could be stranger for a lover of architecture than to walk through so many Medieval ages together."
Famagusta's honey-colored Venetian-era stone walls, nearly two miles long, are still intact, ranking among the world's finest examples of Renaissance military architecture. But no serious conservation has been done since independence in 1960. Some of the 150,000 cannonballs fired by the Ottomans at and over the Venetian- era stone ramparts remain visibly embedded in church walls. War was followed by centuries of neglect and weathering. The French Gothic cathedral of St. Nicholas, which Ottomans turned into a mosque, shows signs of erosion.
There is "real structural concern [for many of the city's monuments]," Langdale says. Chunks of floriated stonework, carved in medieval times, lie scattered around churches, while empty cans and pigeon droppings litter once-magnificent buildings.
Langdale points out a fragment of stone tracery that tumbled from a half-ruined 14th-century Carmelite Church since he last visited it only two months ago. "The neglect is amazing," he says.
Michael Theodoulou
3 April 2008
The Christian Science Monitor
In its pulsating 14th-century heyday, this walled port was the region's richest city. Home to rich merchants and bejewelled courtesans, Famagusta's streets and markets echoed with Greek, Arabic, French, Hebrew - even Tamil and Norse.
The fabled setting for Shakespeare's Othello, it was also the seat for Jerusalem's exiled French Crusader kings. Later ruled by Italians and then conquered by the Ottomans, it testifies to a storied past. Within a few blocks stand a French Gothic cathedral, an Italian Renaissance palace, a Byzantine church, and an Ottoman madrassah-turned-restaurant.
"You have 2,000 years of historical architecture within reaching range. It's astonishing," says Allan Langdale, a Canadian art historian who recently made a documentary about Famagusta's beauty and plight.
Now, in a rare bicommunal project, the city's estranged Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities are uniting to preserve the ancient walled city's architectural treasures. So far, such efforts have been frozen by the politics of a divided Cyprus and a lack of funding.
Supporters hope the cooperative nature of the project will help overcome political hurdles, opening legal channels for foreign funding. In turn, they say, the project could boost reunification efforts for Cyprus by building confidence. In a symbolic step toward reunification, the crossing point on Nicosia's Ledra Street was to be opened Thursday.
"The people of Famagusta, Greek and Turkish Cypriots ... should join forces not only to save the past, but to build a future in a reunited Cyprus and Famagusta," Alexis Ghalanos, representative of Famagusta's displaced Greek Cypriot community, said at a meeting that launched the project in December.
"The value Famagusta holds for world heritage is greater than all those things that have separated us for so long," he added. "I sincerely hope that this [initiative] can prove a steppingstone to the opening of the city to Europe and to Cyprus as a whole."
Oktay Kayalp, Famagusta's Turkish Cypriot representative, agreed that a common front is needed to help the city that he sees as a historic bridge between East and West, Christianity and Islam.
The political atmosphere was transformed following February polls, when Greek Cypriots rejected their hard-line president and voted in moderate President Demetris Christofias. For the first time in decades, both sides have conciliatory leaders determined to restart peace talks that collapsed four years ago.
Famagusta lies on the internationally unrecognized, Turkish- controlled northern half of the island, which foreign experts say lacks money and expertise to preserve the monuments. Greek Cypriots, who head the island's internationally recognized government, generally frown at unsanctioned intervention in antiquities in northern Cyprus, which they do not have access to. For more than three decades, none of Famagusta's 45,000 former Greek Cypriot residents have enjoyed access to their homes in new Famagusta, a fenced-off ghost town known as Varosha.
Cyprus has been split along ethnic lines since 1974, when Turkey invaded the north in response to a Greek Cypriot coup engineered by the military junta then ruling Greece. Some 180,000 Greek Cypriots and 50,000 Turkish Cypriots were displaced.
The UN and world heritage groups are enthusiastic about preserving Famagusta's history. "It's a very important city to Western European history," says Costa Carras, a vice president of Europa Nostra, a Pan-European heritage foundation. "It will be an absolutely wonderful project for the EU and the EU ideal, because it will show culture can help bring people together."
Europa Nostra is chairing a conference April 4 in Paris at which Greek and Turkish representatives of Famagusta will address European parliamentarians and UNESCO officials about the need to preserve Famagusta's endangered architectural heritage. "The Stones of Famagusta," Mr. Langdale's film, will be screened. Eighteen international academics will then hold a two-day scientific workshop on the walled city. This event, supported by Mr. Ghalanos and Mr. Kayalp, will have a touch of historical romance thanks to the presence of a French descendant of the dynasty that ruled Cyprus during Famagusta's peak: the resplendently named Prince Philippe Roux de Lusignan.
Famagusta was a minor port until the First Crusade was launched in 1095 to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control. Just 100 miles from the Syrian coast, it gained strategic importance. Its preeminence was sealed in 1291, when the Crusaders lost Acre, their last Holy Land outpost. Christian refugees, merchants, and traders from the region flocked to Famagusta, transforming it into a key emporium for trade between Europe and the East.
The island was ruled by the Lusignans, an eccentric dynasty of French Crusader nobles, for three turbulent centuries until the Venetians took control in 1489. In 1571, after a 10-month siege, the 200,000-strong Ottoman Army captured Famagusta, expelling its Greek Cypriot inhabitants, who have never since lived within the old walled city. Ottoman rule ended in the late 19th century when Britain took over.
Langdale says there is no finer Medieval and Renaissance walled city, with the possible exception of Dubrovnik, Croatia. In "Journey Into Cyprus," the celebrated travel writer, Colin Thubron, enthused: "Nothing could be stranger for a lover of architecture than to walk through so many Medieval ages together."
Famagusta's honey-colored Venetian-era stone walls, nearly two miles long, are still intact, ranking among the world's finest examples of Renaissance military architecture. But no serious conservation has been done since independence in 1960. Some of the 150,000 cannonballs fired by the Ottomans at and over the Venetian- era stone ramparts remain visibly embedded in church walls. War was followed by centuries of neglect and weathering. The French Gothic cathedral of St. Nicholas, which Ottomans turned into a mosque, shows signs of erosion.
There is "real structural concern [for many of the city's monuments]," Langdale says. Chunks of floriated stonework, carved in medieval times, lie scattered around churches, while empty cans and pigeon droppings litter once-magnificent buildings.
Langdale points out a fragment of stone tracery that tumbled from a half-ruined 14th-century Carmelite Church since he last visited it only two months ago. "The neglect is amazing," he says.
The Sicilian Vespers, by Sir Steven Runciman
The bloody clash that shaped Europe
by A.N. Wilson
7 April 2008
The Daily Telegraph
The Sicilian Vespers is a phrase which refers to a bloody incident which took place on Easter Monday, 1282. At the Church of the Holy Spirit, half a mile to the south-east of Palermo, French officials mingled with the crowds to join in the festivities as the bells rang for evening prayer. The French were "overfamiliar'' with some of the Sicilian women. Scuffles broke out. Daggers were drawn. Soon there were cries in the Sicilian dialect of "Death to the Frenchmen ("Moranu li Franchiski!'') By nightfall, 2,000 French people in Palermo were dead, and the uprising spread to the other Sicilian towns. The outbreaks were not spontaneous: they had been planned by the enemies of the French - notably the Emperor in Constantinople and the King of Aragon. The long dominance of the island by Charles of Anjou was over.Charles, the most powerful figure in the Mediterranean, had been on the point of invading Constantinople. Egged on by a succession of French, or Francophile, Popes, he had hoped not merely to regain Byzantium for the West, but also to subjugate the Eastern Orthodox Church to the authority of the Papacy. With the Sicilian Vespers, there died any possibility of a universal Papacy dominating Christendom. The foundations had been laid for the phenomena that shaped modern Europe - the development of nation states, and, ultimately, of Protestantism.
It is 50 years since Sir Steven Runciman's masterly book The Sicilian Vespers was published by the Cambridge University Press. It is one of those timeless works of history which is also a great work of literature. Within less than 300 pages, he tells the whole complicated story of 13th century Mediterranean history - the struggles of the Hohenstaufen dynasty to maintain their power as Holy Roman Emperors after the death of Frederick II; the growth of the power of Aragon; the political machinations by the Popes; the doggedness of the Byzantine emperor Michael Paleologus. There is a supporting cast of dozens - it is a wonder that Runciman has made them all so vivid and yet the reader feel no muddle as his tale unfolds. The story is about a single incident that fundamentally altered the whole course of European history. Yet out of all the details of rivalry between Guelf and Ghibelline, between French and German, between Angevin and Byzantine, there emerges an image as crystalline as a painting by Van Eyck. At the centre of it all is the chilly, unamiable figure of Charles of Anjou himself (brother of St Louis IX).
Runciman wrote with wonderful eloquence, but he never overwrote. His narrative flows uncluttered by needless reference notes - there are some, but they nearly all refer to primary sources. His is the supreme example of a well-stocked mind not needing to show off all its wares. Nor does he impede the central story by tedious allusion to secondary sources, and what Professor X thinks of Professor Y's views of Professor Z. Instead, with a gentle, slightly mournful, multilingual guide, we are back in the Middle Ages themselves. He refers to Ottokar II of Bohemia or Pope Innocent IV as if he had known them personally, which, in a way, he had.
As a background to much of the story is the extraordinary tale of Sicily itself, colonised first by Greeks, then by Byzantines, then by Muslims, then by the Normans. Sicily was a genuinely multiethnic and multicultural society. Those who criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury recently for suggesting that there could exist parallel legal systems should read of the Sicilian model, where Muslim courts existed side by side with Christian ones. Everything worked well. It was when the French attempted to impose a monolithic structure on the fluid Sicilians that trouble started.
The bloodiness is recounted with Homeric sorrow, but not without humour. This historical masterpiece ends with the charming story of King Henry IV of France boasting in the 16th century to the Spanish ambassador that he could subdue the Spanish in Italy should the King of Spain try his patience too far. "I will breakfast in Milan, and I will dine in Rome,'' he crowed. To which the ambassador replied: "Then Your Majesty will doubtless be in Sicily in time for Vespers.''
by A.N. Wilson
7 April 2008
The Daily Telegraph
The Sicilian Vespers is a phrase which refers to a bloody incident which took place on Easter Monday, 1282. At the Church of the Holy Spirit, half a mile to the south-east of Palermo, French officials mingled with the crowds to join in the festivities as the bells rang for evening prayer. The French were "overfamiliar'' with some of the Sicilian women. Scuffles broke out. Daggers were drawn. Soon there were cries in the Sicilian dialect of "Death to the Frenchmen ("Moranu li Franchiski!'') By nightfall, 2,000 French people in Palermo were dead, and the uprising spread to the other Sicilian towns. The outbreaks were not spontaneous: they had been planned by the enemies of the French - notably the Emperor in Constantinople and the King of Aragon. The long dominance of the island by Charles of Anjou was over.Charles, the most powerful figure in the Mediterranean, had been on the point of invading Constantinople. Egged on by a succession of French, or Francophile, Popes, he had hoped not merely to regain Byzantium for the West, but also to subjugate the Eastern Orthodox Church to the authority of the Papacy. With the Sicilian Vespers, there died any possibility of a universal Papacy dominating Christendom. The foundations had been laid for the phenomena that shaped modern Europe - the development of nation states, and, ultimately, of Protestantism.
It is 50 years since Sir Steven Runciman's masterly book The Sicilian Vespers was published by the Cambridge University Press. It is one of those timeless works of history which is also a great work of literature. Within less than 300 pages, he tells the whole complicated story of 13th century Mediterranean history - the struggles of the Hohenstaufen dynasty to maintain their power as Holy Roman Emperors after the death of Frederick II; the growth of the power of Aragon; the political machinations by the Popes; the doggedness of the Byzantine emperor Michael Paleologus. There is a supporting cast of dozens - it is a wonder that Runciman has made them all so vivid and yet the reader feel no muddle as his tale unfolds. The story is about a single incident that fundamentally altered the whole course of European history. Yet out of all the details of rivalry between Guelf and Ghibelline, between French and German, between Angevin and Byzantine, there emerges an image as crystalline as a painting by Van Eyck. At the centre of it all is the chilly, unamiable figure of Charles of Anjou himself (brother of St Louis IX).
Runciman wrote with wonderful eloquence, but he never overwrote. His narrative flows uncluttered by needless reference notes - there are some, but they nearly all refer to primary sources. His is the supreme example of a well-stocked mind not needing to show off all its wares. Nor does he impede the central story by tedious allusion to secondary sources, and what Professor X thinks of Professor Y's views of Professor Z. Instead, with a gentle, slightly mournful, multilingual guide, we are back in the Middle Ages themselves. He refers to Ottokar II of Bohemia or Pope Innocent IV as if he had known them personally, which, in a way, he had.
As a background to much of the story is the extraordinary tale of Sicily itself, colonised first by Greeks, then by Byzantines, then by Muslims, then by the Normans. Sicily was a genuinely multiethnic and multicultural society. Those who criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury recently for suggesting that there could exist parallel legal systems should read of the Sicilian model, where Muslim courts existed side by side with Christian ones. Everything worked well. It was when the French attempted to impose a monolithic structure on the fluid Sicilians that trouble started.
The bloodiness is recounted with Homeric sorrow, but not without humour. This historical masterpiece ends with the charming story of King Henry IV of France boasting in the 16th century to the Spanish ambassador that he could subdue the Spanish in Italy should the King of Spain try his patience too far. "I will breakfast in Milan, and I will dine in Rome,'' he crowed. To which the ambassador replied: "Then Your Majesty will doubtless be in Sicily in time for Vespers.''
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