xkcd does the Voynich Manuscript

Google Trends: FIGHT!

Google Trends can be a nice way to discover what people are really searching for. Or in my case, see which two words will win a search term battle. Yes, I am really that geeky.

Let's start easy, with Pirates vs Ninjas. Of course I knew who would win. Or are the Ninjas just keeping a reaaallly low profile?

Medieval vs Renaissance are nearly tied. No big surprise there.

Looks like Renaissance Fair vs Society for Creative Anachronism is a huge difference. But if you shorten it to SCA, then it goes the other way.

Normans beat Saxons. Understandable, as this also happened in real history. Maybe it's because of the Bayeux Tapestry? History IS written by the winners...

Maybe if Bruce Lee had lived he'd be the victor, but sadly, in this contest Chuck Norris wins.

What a fun way to have historical personages fight it out, like King Arthur vs Lancelot! Fancy an *impossible catfight? How about Joan of Arc vs Boudicca? Meeooww!

Try your own and post a comment if you like!

*Impossible in that they did not exist together in the same time period.

The image above is from the Holkham Bible, created in the 14th century. Published only a year ago, The Holkham Bible: A Facsimile is now available from Amazon. Man, I love the 21st century.

Rose and Chess

Just in time for Valentine's Day...two 13th century manuscripts are being reunited after a century apart! Makes my calligrapher's heart just flutter!

The University of Chicago has recently acquired Le Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose), a courtly romance. This enables them to reunite it with a manuscript from their collection, Le Jeu des échecs moralisé (The Moralized Game of Chess). This one is a treatise on medieval society that uses the game of chess as its framework. They originate from France circa 1365, and were bound together for over 500 years, and parted around 1907.

If you can't get to Chicago for the exhibition, the Rose and Chess site offers fully zoom-able, high resolution digital copies of each. And when I say 'zoom' I'm not kidding. Scary good detail.

More information in the form of a press release by Ascribe may be found here.

I think I'm in love....


Image credit: From left to right: “The Queen conversing with a Doctor.”
Reproduced from: Jacobus de Cessolis. Le Jeu des échecs moralisé. Anonymous compilation of translations by Jean Ferron and Jean de Vigny. France, ca. 1365. 13 illuminations by the Master of Saint Voult. University of Chicago MS 392;
“How Openness and Pity face Resistance to reprimand him for his cruelty” and “How Openness rebukes Fair Welcoming for having left the Lover alone for too long.”
Reproduced from: Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. Le Roman de la Rose. France, ca. 1365. 40 illuminations by the Master of Saint Voult. University of Chicago Library MS 1380.

The greatest digital manuscript site EVER

The British Library has gone and outdone itself. And every other digital manuscript website online, it seems. Turning the Pages is the greatest digital manuscript site I've ever seen!

If your computer meets the requirements (latest version of Shockwave, allow popups and high speed access) you will actually get the feeling that you are right there with the ancient tome that you are flipping through, page by page. And there are many, many the choose from: the personal notebook of Leonardo Da Vinci, The Lindisfarne Gospels, The Sherborne Missal, Mercators First Atlas of Europe, and so on...

The books take a while to load, but once ready, you can page through 'by hand', or use a slider bar or arrows to change pages. Paging by hand does take some practice, so use the arrows if you are having trouble.

The text button gives a description of the elements and text, but if you select the audio feature, it is narrated for you in a dignified English accent, of course. You'll need to click the audio button for each new page you turn. Use the magnify feature to check out all the amazing initials and illuminations while you learn about these great works of art, cartography and literature in a whole new way.

Medieval gallstone remedies

I've got a great RSS feed from Medieval Cookery waaaay down on the left column here on my site that I like to read through every now and then. Not that I'm really all that good of a cook, or that I would ever attempt some of the remedies, but some of this stuff is just fascinating.

Browsing the recent entry of The commonplace book of Countess Katherine Seymour Hertford (1567) showed a few interesting gallstone treatments:

A medycyn for the Stone

Tak the cromes of levyned brede
and frye theme wt butter and vyngne
then putt them into a bagge and then
aplye the same unto the naked belly
the sycke lying in his bed one his bake

So in my humble attempts to translate, take the tops (crowns?) of leavened bread, fry them in butter and vinegar, put into a bag (cloth I would assume) and apply to the belly while the patient is lying on his back. I wonder if the mixture should be hot or cold when applied?

Then there's this one:

horehonde
sampier
hawberries or
haw flowers
beane coddes
maidon leeke
puleol montaine
Aventes
Saxifrage
Ramsons.

A presyouse water to breake the Stone

Distel a pint of the water of
everie of these by them selves and
put to them a gallon and a pynt
of good malmesei / that the malmesei
mai be equall in quantitie wth
the other waters then put therto
two ounces of ginger beaten into
fyne powder and Dystill al together
in a limbecke and the firste stillinge
as longe as it will burne well in
a spone kepe it bi it selfe and the
Last by it selfe.

I recognize horehound, saxifrage and ginger but the rest of the ingredients baffle me. So I guess you distill the first list of ingredients together, but then you add a gallon and a pint of 'malmesei'. Now I'm not a certified linguist, but doesn't the the word 'mal' mean 'bad'? Maybe it means that it tastes bad. Anyway, two ounces of powdered ginger, ok, but what's a limbecke? A quick online search proves that translates to 'vessel'. Then distill. I think. The rest completely loses me. Something about burning it in a spoon. Was this medieval crack or something?

Now here's one that might just work:

A Drinke to clense the gall & lykewise the lyver & the Splene

Take Docke roote the reddest you can gett
washe them & Bruise them and so put them
into Ale wth a Sponefull of Annys seede
ffennell roote and one Parcelye roote : pycke
out the pythe of them and so lett yt woorcke
wth new east and when yt is stale Drincke
yt evening and morning one draught &
sometymes in the daye when you have lyss to
drincke

Dock root is a mild laxative. Anise seeds and fennel would sure improve the flavor, but would also have a calming effect on an irritated stomach. Parsley is still used today as a gallstone treatment by herbalists and nutritionists. So I should find red dock root, wash and bruise them, put them in ale (hey, that's never a bad ingredient!) with a spoonful of anise seeds, a fennel root and a parsley root. Ummm. Pick out the pith of them? Then let it work with the yeast (from the ale I assume) and when it is stale drink it morning and night. Drink also during the day if you haven't drunk much else. I think this results in a slightly licorice flavored stale beer. Mmmm...medieval medicine.

The rest of this manuscript (sadly it IS only text - I'd love to see the original pages) has remedies for everything to warts, pimples, bloody flux, and the ever-present medieval malady 'evils in the head.'

Had I lived in this time period, I'm guessing that one would have been forced upon me quite a lot. No, I probably would have been uppity enough to get burned at the stake or something. That'll cure you of ALL your ills right quick!

Friday the 13th is supposed to be UN-lucky, right?

Well, it's been a whole week since I've had any time to write anything. October is always busy. With MORE birthdays this month than any other month it seems, I'm spending far too much free time wrapping, shopping for, or making gifts.

At least the thing that makes me most crazy, the sewing, is nearly done. You can all come out now. Really.

The ironic thing is that me, with my 50 or more costumes, have no idea what to wear for Halloween. I certainly don't want to sew myself anything. But, for SCA'ers, it is considered 'gauche' to wear any of your event garb as a Halloween costume.

Sure, everyone else thinks it's really cool, but deep down you know that it's just your stinky old fighting tabard.

Anyway, in the last week, there have been many newsworthy items that I shall now attempt to put in some sort of order for your perusal.


Watch the 1066 Battle of Hastings Live! This weekend, Saturday the 14th and Sunday the 15th of October, you can watch live online as around 3000 reenactors portray Normans and Saxons to reconstruct the events of a day that changed England forever. To watch, visit the web site both days between 1400 and 1700 Greenwich Time zone (which translates to 7am to 10 am Mountain time zone) and there will be a video link. RealPlayer is required to view the video.


Calligraphy and Illumination fans should be very happy with the internet lately. It seems like every week another searchable high resolution manuscript hits the 'net. The latest one I've seen is called "The Murthly Hours" and it dates from the 1280's. As the site mentions:

The Murthly Hours is an early example of the book of hours, a new kind of prayer book for the laity that made its appearance in France, England and the Low Countries in the thirteenth century. At this time books of hours were written for wealthy laypeople, more often than not women, as in the case of the Murthly Hours. In the thirteenth century such books were still a novelty and a comparative rarity, and examples show a great variety in content and decoration.

The images are amazing. Lots of gold leaf!! Almost makes me want to get back into illumination. Yeah, which I would do with my copious amounts of free time. Right.


Estrella War is coming! I'm excited that I'll be able to go, but the site photos have already depressed me. "Home of Country Thunder?" Yeeeee--haaawww! I'm gonna bring mah banjo! Really, let's just pray this site is not going to be as bad as Schnepf Farms was.What am I worried about, though? I hardly ever leave Darbuka anyway. Save yourself from the horrors of Troll and Pre-Register for Estrella War! Do it by Halloween and save yourself $5 each!


Speaking of out of Kingdom events, it seems that there were some failed negotiations at last Pennsic. In this photo, uploaded to Yahoo Photos by honeybeelanegone, King Bela must have wondered; what IS the going rate for a bevvy of traditional Outlands dancers?

Strangely, while researching the word "bevvy" (because I like funny words) I came across this site called Fun with Words: Collective Nouns. Here you'll find an amazing list of animals and the words used to describe them in groups. Everyone's heard of a 'murder of crows.' Well, scrolling down the list for 'bevvy', I found that bevvy applies to deer!! So, the good 'honeybeelanegone' was RIGHT when he or she referred to Outlands dancers as deer. IF you don't get the joke, just take a look at the Outlands Kingdom device.

Of course 'bevvy' also applies to doves, otter, quail, and swans, so I guess that blows that joke.


I guess I'll finish up by finally getting back to the title of this post. I work with several people who I swear are mired in the Dark Ages. They seriously believe that Friday the 13th is nothing but bad luck.

Well, I can attest to the fact that good things DO happen on this most reviled of days.

I GOT TICKETS FOR TENACIOUS D at the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver.

November 22nd. A concert of epic proportions. The countdown has begun!!

Michael of Rhodes

Now this is what should be done for all historical persons - make a great website detailing their accomplishments.

From the Michael of Rhodes website:
In 1401 a young man named Michael of Rhodes joined the Venetian navy as a lowly galley oarsman. Over the next four decades, he sailed on more than 40 voyages and took part in five major sea battles, rising through the ranks to become a trusted galley commander.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for manuscripts....