History Book Review: The Medieval Scriptorium by Sara J. Charles

The book consists of seven chapters, not including the introduction and conclusion. The chapters are: 1. The Beginnings, 2. Monasticism and Manuscript Production in the West, 500-1050, 3. Locus Scribendi - The Place of Writing, 4. Material World: Parchment and Ink, 5. Illumination and Painting, 6. The Twelfth-Century Renaissance, and 7. The End of the Scriptorium. The book ends with a short glossary, references, further reading, and photo acknowledgements.

Each chapter starts with a fictional first person account of a worker detailing some aspect of manuscript creation. I’m not usually a fan of this kind of thing, but here it helped put me into the correct mindset that I was dealing with a different time and place, and to really let me experience that world for a moment.

The book provides a fantastic overview of how manuscripts changed over the centuries. The author mentions different fonts and decorative elements (various types of pen flourishes, illustration styles, etc). She goes into a lot of detail for how inks and parchment were made (and she’s tried making some herself, which she has documented on her Teaching Manuscripts website and blog). 

The book has a decent number of photos, but given the highly visible nature of the topic, there are more referenced than have been included, which you can look up on your own. Here’s where the ebook is an advantage, as I could cut and paste the references straight into my browser to see the manuscript being discussed. There were a lot of these, so I didn’t look them all up, only ones with elements I was interested in, or wanted the visual to understand the text better. Unfortunately, occasionally the manuscript wasn’t digitized, so unless wikipedia or an article brought up the specific image mentioned in the text, I was out of luck seeing it (ex: Lincoln Cathedral MS 147, fol. 15v. I found a single cropped image of another page on a Lincoln University article via google but not the one referenced). Often the author will give more than one reference though, so if one image isn’t searchable another one likely is.

The language is very clear, making this an enjoyable read. The breadth of information is wonderful. If you’re interested in manuscript production, medieval inks, and how manuscripts changed over time, this is a great resource.

History Book Review: Going to Church in Medieval England by Nicholas Orme

This is a book about worship and attendance of the medieval church in England. Specifically, the book focuses on parish worship, that is, worship for the populace in villages and towns (as opposed to monasteries and cathedrals, where worship was for their members). It consists of nine chapters: Origins and the Parish, The Staff of the Church, The Church Building, The Congregation, The Day and the Week, The Seasons and the Year, The Life Cycle, The Reformation and Reflections.

It is a very detailed study and can be a bit dry at times. The breadth of information however, is incredible. The author researched numerous primary sources to get a broad idea of how people really responded to the church’s demands (tithes/taxes, holy days, weekly worship). Some were pious, others rebellious.

Rather than a chronological overview, the book tackles a subject and shows how it changed over time. I personally found the two chapters on liturgy and how it worked from day to day and over the course of the year (chapters 5 and 6) the most fascinating. It’s really hard to get a firm understanding of how church practice occurred beyond reading primary sources (like the missal or breviary), so a book explaining now only how the services went, but also how they differed as they year progressed was very helpful. The book includes a lot of details about various ceremonies (baptism, marriages, etc) as well.

There are a decent number of colour illustrations throughout the book.

I learned so much from this book. From seemingly simple things like the difference between a rector and a vicar, to how much medieval practice survived the Reformation’s attempts at reform. If you’re interested in the Catholic church, how churches were run in the middle ages, or liturgy and religious practices in England, you really need to pick this up.

Video: How Healthy were Medieval People?

Found this interesting video by History Hit on health care in the middle ages. It goes over what the various forms of health practitioners were and what they would do to diagnose and treat your problem.

Medieval History Research Websites

My apologies for the lack of posts recently. I’ve been neck deep in putting together my next research trip and it’s taking all of my time. I’ve been reading (or skimming depending on time & interest) a bunch of history books. I’ve also been combing through all sorts of websites to find detailed information about the tourist sites I’ll be visiting.

Towards that end, it strikes me that some of the sites I’ve found might be of interest to others researching the middle ages or art history.

So, here are some of the sites I’ve used for putting together the information pages I make for my trips.

General information / Sites of a Singular Interest:

Internet Medieval Sourcebook by Fordham University
This site has a lot of internet based translations for primary sources. There's a remarkable amount of information here on a vast array of topics.

JSTOR
A free account gets you access too 100 free academic articles a month. I’ve found some really interesting articles on specific churches/chapels/architectural features (like Romanesque facades for specific churches). I've found that historical/religious sites are a lot more interesting when you have a deeper understanding of what you’re seeing.

The Dance of Death
I find dance of death murals fascinating, so this website was an interesting find. It has information and photographs of major dance of death murals in Europe.

National Geographic: Trajan’s Column
The site allows for an interactive, scrolling, examination of Trajan’s Column, a pillar that details the victory of the Romans over the Dacians (from the area now known as Romania).

Art History in France

The Rose Window
The amount of stained glass photos on this site is incredible. It’s got a lot of French and English churches, then a scattering of other European sites. The site provides location charts to locate the stained glass (not my favourite style, to be honest, I’d have preferred they use actual floor plans. I sometimes had trouble figuring out where a particular window was supposed to be, once compared with the floor plan). It generally has photos of full windows, and individual panes. Not all the churches have the full spectrum (it depends on whether the website owner’s been there & able to do the detailed photos). It’s still an incredible resource. They also explain what stories the glass represents, when it was made, what order to read the glass in (usually bottom to top but there are some exceptions), and whether the glass has been moved from a prior location.

Patrimoine
This site has a lot of good, detailed information on French churches. It goes over some history, major works of art, architectural features, etc.

Abelard
This was a nice starting page for researching French churches. It has floor plans, west facade images, and dimensions for a decent number of buildings.

Catholicism

The ORB: On-line Reference Book for Medieval Studies
One thing my university experience lacked, was practical experience in medieval liturgy. A lot of things became clear when I attended Mass for the first time (even though it wasn’t how mass was celebrated in the middle ages). Coming from a Protestant background, Catholic liturgy has been hard for me to figure out. Sites like this one have helped a lot with that.

Christian Iconography
This “guide to Christian iconography: images, symbols, and texts” is quite useful when trying to learn who various saints are and what their artistic attributes are. The imagery in specific churches is more understandable when you know the saint whose life is depicted and what the stories surrounding them are.

The Churches of Rome Wiki
The site has an astonishing amount of detailed information about churches in the city. Not just medieval ones. The opening hour info at the bottom is dated (several of the pages I used were last updated in 2017), so definitely get more current information if you want to visit. You can even look the churches up chronologically.

History Book Review: Ritual, Gender and Narrative in Late Medieval Italy: Fina Buzzacarini and the Baptistery of Padua by Anne Derbes

This is a deep dive into the pictorial program at the Baptistery of Padua, redone in the 1370s, and the woman who commissioned it, Fina Buzzacarini.

The book has 6 chapters plus an introduction and conclusion. The chapters are: 1. Fina Buzzacarini in Carrara Padua, 2. Baptistery as Mausoleum: Ambitions and Motivations, 3. Narrative, Ritual, Exegesis: The Genesis Cycle, 4. Narrative, Ritual, Exegesis: The New Testament Cycle. 5. Narrative, Ritual, Exegesis: The Apocalyptic Cycle, 6. Gender Matters: Maternity, Sexuality, and Visual Rhetoric.

The author provides a good amount of background information about baptisteries as they were used in medieval Italy, the city of Padua and its ruling family (of whom Fina was an important member), and how her struggle to birth a male heir, and its eventual accomplishment, are immortalized in the frescoes.

I learned so much from this book about how baptism was performed in the medieval Catholic church (including gestures & some phrases) and about how medieval artists and theologians interpreted scripture to relate to the current day (Biblical exegesis). I’d always assumed Biblical stories were appropriate to church institutions due to their holiness. It never occurred to me that each individual story could be applied to the sacrament of Baptism. The author pointed out so many interesting nuances, not only with the exegesis in general, but its application to this particular baptistery: Eve being pulled from Adam’s side, people putting their hands on heads the way the priest would to the catechumen, the importance of the white robes of purity, etc.

The book is richly and gorgeously illustrated. There are abundant photographs of the baptistery in question with a good number of supplementary images comparing certain stories with those in other baptisteries or churches.

Even if you’re not interested in the baptistery of Padua, this book contains of wealth of information on medieval thought. The amount of input Fina apparently had when deciding the program is also fascinating. So many of the stories and poses pertain to her specifically. She’s even included in several frescoes.

I highly recommend this book if you’re interested in medieval art, Italian art, or Christian history.

Not a Review: From Age to Age by Edward Foley

This isn't a proper review because I only had time to read select chapters of interest.

When I did my degree in medieval studies I learned about languages, manuscripts, church architecture, drama, literature and philosophy. It shocks me now that not one professor suggested learning about Catholicism and how the church's liturgy affected architecture, etc. The first inkling I had that I'd missed something massively important was during my graduation mass (the first time I attended mass), and so many things suddenly clicked. Recently I've been trying to plug that gap in my knowledge and came across From Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist.

The book has an introduction followed by 7 chapters: 

1. Emerging Christianity: The First Century

2. The Domestic Church: 100-313

3. The Rise of the Roman Church: 313-750

4. Frankish Domination: 750-1073

5. The Prelude to Reform: 1073-1517

6. Revolt, Reform and Rigidity: 1517-1903

7. The Return to Change: 1903 and Beyond

The book concludes with a glossary and bibliography.

Within each chapter the author subdivides the information into categories for architecture, music, books, and vessels for administering the Eucharist.

The book explained terms I've seen for years without properly understanding them (for specific books and liturgical vessels in particular), as well as giving some indications as to how the space in a church was used over time (the development of the choir, the slow exclusion of the congregation from singing/participating).

If you don't know the difference between a missal and a breviary, or what a pyx is, this is an easy to read primer that covers the whole of Catholicism. It doesn't go into a lot of detail, but it gives a good foundation.

The Christian Topography of Cosmas - 2 reviews

I first learned about Cosmas Indicopleustes, a 6th century monk who developed a unique Christian centered theory of the shape of the world (that it’s flat and rectangular with a rounded ceiling above which is found heaven), a few years ago when I was researching Ethiopia. One of Cosmas’s chapters deals with an inscription on a stone throne found in Adulis, the main port city of the Axumite Empire (centered around what is now the Ethiopian province of Tigray & Eritrea). Ethiopia is mentioned several other times in the text. I was also surprised to discover that book 11 focuses on India, with descriptions of some animals found there, including the unicorn! I’ve finally had time to read the book as well as a commentary volume about it.

The Christian Topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk by Cosmas Indicopleustes
Translated and edited by J. W. McCrindle
multiple public domain copies of the book are available at Archive.org

The Christian Toopography of Cosmas started off as a treatise in 5 books, explaining how the Christian view of the world should line up with Biblical scripture, and that the world is therefore not spherical as the Greeks teach, but is in fact rectangular at the base with a rounded vaulted heaven. The heavens are split into 2 by the firmament, above which were the waters that caused the flood, and where Christians will dwell after the resurrection. As time passed and criticisms arose against Cosmas’ arguments, he added subsequent books until there were 12 in all, though not all the manuscript copies that survive from the middle ages contain all 12.

Top image: the world as seen from above with Paradise to the East, and an ocean circumnavigating the land. Below left: a side view of the Earth with the vault of heaven above. Below right: showing how the sun is blocked by the massive mountain, explaining day and night cycles. 

It’s a fascinating book with a fair number of illustrations: some decorative, showing the different prophets etc, and some schematic, helping to explain the cosmography being described.

McCrindle’s translation is very readable, and clear. He includes copious explanatory notes, which help the reader better understand what Cosmas is teaching. In the appendix are a series of line drawings representing many of the illustrations from the manuscripts (three are depicted above).

Knowing that the Ptolemaic theory that the earth was the centre of the universe, surrounded by concentric rings of the sun, moon, planets, and stars, was wrong, it was interesting seeing Cosmas’ scientifically accurate criticisms against it. And as someone who once believed the Bible uncritically, I can understand his desire to make the connection that the tabernacle commanded by God was meant as a template for the creation - following the medieval belief that as things are above, or in the spiritual realm, so they are patterned below, on earth.

It was fascinating getting into the head of someone from the 6th century, seeing how they interpreted scripture and viewed the world. Even if their view was wrong. I also loved learning that the shape of churches, with vaulted ceilings (barrel vaults originally), and rounded apses, was meant to pattern this idea of the heavens over earth. I’d seen it in person in cathedrals and churches, but never heard the reasoning behind it (Kominko’s book referenced some articles I want to look up that expands of the background of this idea).

The World of Kosmas by Maja Kominko.

The World of Kosmas focuses primarily on the illustrations in the manuscripts, where they were originally placed in the text, and exterior works that might have influenced their design. There’s a chapter on Kosmas’ background before going into each chapter where miniatures are found (books 2, 4, 5, and then a summary of 6-9). The book has a lot of supplementary illustrations and a full set of miniatures from the three manuscripts of the Christian Topography the author is referencing, at the back. The book does not mention books 10 to 12 of the manuscript.

I found Kominko’s book of great value in giving some wider explanations for each section, putting the treatise in its cultural context, where a discussion of what various groups believed was helpful. She also explained what Cosmos got wrong for those whose astronomy and math skills might not be up to the task of parsing Kosmas’ proofs.

If you don’t have the time or desire to read the full treatise, Kominko summarizes each book for you (and each section of book 5). She thus provides an excellent overview of the book in addition to her commentary on the illustrations.

If you’re interested in astronomy, learning how some medieval Christians saw the world, medieval thoughts about the Bible, astronomy, etc. then Cosmas/Kosmas is an interesting author to read.

Book Review: The Crusades: A History of Armed Pilgrimage and Holy War by Geoffrey Hindley

Pros: excellent overview, covers all the crusades, good supplementary material

Cons: superficial coverage can leave gaps in knowledge

This is a short but comprehensive record of the crusades, from what led up to the calling of the first crusade, to how modern nations have looked back on them. In addition to dealing with each crusade and what happened between them, the book also has an excellent chronology, a few maps, and appendices of the various popes and secular rulers of some of the principle nations involved. There are 14 chapters, with an additional introduction explaining what the crusades were and an epilogue. While there are scant details of each crusade, the author is careful to note the various horrors each side perpetuated and how each side was impacted by the crusades (so you get some idea of how Jews, heretics, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Catholic Christians, etc. reacted. The one group that got very little input were the Eastern European pagans, who are mentioned in later chapters but there isn’t much information about how they reacted to the crusades beyond what battles they were involved in).

There isn’t much detail for each crusade, the length of the book necessarily forcing the author to cover each one briefly, but the author does an excellent job of covering the basics and more. In some cases it’s easy to skip over some of the more horrible aspects, as they could get a single line - like the fact that some crusaders resorted to cannibalism to survive the first crusade. Having said that, I was impressed by how much information was crammed in. The book provides an excellent overview of the crusades as a whole after which you can easily pick up a book on a specific crusade/period to get more in depth information, knowing the broad strokes of the movement.

If you’re interested in the crusades and want a book that covers it all, this is a good one.

Book Review: Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages by Jeffrey Burton Russell

Pros: quite thorough in some areas, decent number of images, very interesting subject matter

Cons: fair amount of repetition, some sections could have been fleshed out more

This is the third book in Russell’s history of the devil, following The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity and Satan: The Early Christian Tradition. (Click the titles to read my reviews of them.) It examines the development of the history and figure of the devil during the middle ages, considering issues like when and why he fell, what he looks like, what his powers are, his role in the fall of mankind and its subsequent salvation by Christ, and whether God is ultimately responsible for the devil's actions. 

The book has 11 chapters: The Life of Lucifer; The Devil in Byzantium; The Muslim Devil; Folklore; Early Medieval Diabology; Lucifer in Early Medieval Art & Literature; The Devil and the Scholars; Lucifer in High Medieval Art & Literature; Lucifer on the Stage; Nominialists, Mystics, & Witches; and The Existence of the Devil. The book also has an essay on the sources used, a bibliography and an index.

Due to the nature of the topic and how people and institutions wrote either building on the past or opposing the writings of others (writings that were deemed heretical), there’s a fair amount of repetition. It’s really interesting seeing the slow development of ideas. The book focuses mainly on the timeline of the fall of the devil & the evil angels (at the time of creation, sometime later) and the image and powers of the devil.

I’d have liked longer chapters on the Muslim devil and Byzantium as I don’t know as much about those areas of belief and his examination of them was very superficial.

The book includes a decent number of black and white photographs to help visualize the subject matter.

The section on witches was interesting as it focused on how preachers kept the fire and brimstone ideas of the devil alive even as theological discourse around evil was slowly letting ideas of the devil fade in importance.

The book pointed out a lot of interesting information about how Christian thinkers in the middle ages approached ideas of evil, the devil and God’s omnipotence. Despite the level of repetition, it’s a fascinating book.

History Book Review: The Book of Sainte Foy Translated by Pamela Sheingorn

This is a translation of the various works associated with Sainte Foy (Sancta Fidis/Saint Faith) written in the 11th & 12th centuries for the Monastery of St Foy at Conques, in the Rouergue region of Southern France. These consist of the Passion of St Foy, four books of miracles performed by St Foy plus some miracles that appear in singular manuscripts but not in others, the Translation of Sainte Foy (ie, the movement of her body/bones from Agen where she was martyred to Conques), and the Song of Sainte Foy (translated by Robert L. A. Clark).

The introduction, while short, gives a historical overview of the foundation of Conques and why they needed a saint’s body as well as the politics and social conditions during which these works were written. It helps the reader put the stories into the proper context. Especially important here is the distinction that early Christian theologians made “…between the veneration that the saints deserved as channels through which God’s grace could flow to humankind and the adoration reserved for God alone…” (p. 3). Without understanding that miracles were believed to be performed by God’s power through the saints, the miracles performed by St Foy look like idol worship, similar to what the Roman pagans practiced.

The translations are all in clear, readable English. There are profuse notes regarding translation and content that are worth referring to often. The stories are varied and quite entertaining. The author of the first two books of stories is an erudite cleric who occasionally devolves into diatribes about how people should have more belief in the stories he’s telling.

While some of the miracles seem to have physical explanations (the translator points some of these out) others do not, and must be taken on faith (pun intended). So much of religion is based on believing without proof, and books like these must have given comfort to those with disabilities and illnesses that they too were deserving of a cure.

The book uses a lot more classical (ie pagan) allusions than I expected. After reading this I read Writing Faith by Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, which goes into great detail what we can discern about the authorship and writings of the miracle stories. They point out that classical allusions were a way of proving one’s erudition. They also point out that the stories follow many tropes and cannot therefore be taken at face value as being informative of life at the time.

It’s an interesting work.

Book Review: The Jew, the Cathedral, & the Medieval City: Synagoga and Ecclesia in the13th Century by Nina Rowe

Pros: lots of black and white photographs, several maps, detailed explanations, enough historical background to fit the works into their setting

Cons:

The book is separated into two parts, the first being the historical background of Jews in medieval European society, specifically how Christian writers addressed their continuing presence and necessity while condemning them for not accepting Christianity. This section also goes over some of the Jewish writings of the time, how their interpretations of the Talmud changed and their polemics regarding Christians. Finally this section examines the development of female personifications in the ancient world into Christian personifications of Church (Ecclesia) and Synagogue (Synagoga). Part two consists of the three case studies on Reims, Bamberg, and Strasbourg. These are the first 3 cities to include life sized sculptures of Church and Synagogue on their cathedral portals.

The first section of the book is informative and lays good groundwork fo the rest of the book and anyone interested in jewish-Christian relations in the middle ages. While other authors shy away from mentioning Jewish polemics and how certain Jewish practices could be seen as mocking Christianity (whether or not that was the intent) sheds important light on the complexities of the period. Jews were not passive victims, nor did their own scholarship lag into the Christian portrayal of preserving scripture for the Christians to use. Their society was vibrant, educated, and engaged with the times.

The case studies are highly detailed with a lot of excellent black and white photographs illustrating the author’s points. If you’re not interested in the minutiae of what sculpture specific workshops were responsible for or how the smile of an angle on one cathedral is similar to that of another, the chapters are still useful for the historical data regarding how Christians utilized the spaces (for example, the portals with these statues tended to be where ecclesiastical judgements were made and punishments meted out). I also appreciated learning how the Jews fit into the city better, how close they lived to the cathedrals and how this would have affected them.

If you’re interested in Jewish-Christian relations, life in the middle ages, or cathedrals and medieval art, this is an excellent book.

Book Review: Building the Great Cathedrals by Francois Icher

Translated by Anthony Zielonka

Pros: lots of large illustrations and photographs, goes over the entire process, easy to read

Cons: some extraneous information, refutes bad information by first teaching it to the reader

The book consists of six chapters: The Age of the Cathedrals; Patronage, Financing, and the Workshop Committee; The Architect; Before Reaching the Cathedral Construction-site; The Cathedral Construction-site; and The Memory of the Builders. I was hoping for a more in depth explanation of how cathedrals are built, from beginning to end. This turned out to be a very basic primer of the process. Turns out that’s all I really needed. There are over 200 colour photos, making this is a luscious book. It’s oversized so the photos are also quite large. There’s a good mix with a lot of building images and photos from various cathedrals.

The emphasis here is on French cathedrals and guilds, branching out briefly to touch on other places. I found it a bit annoying how the author kept refuting beliefs. Yes, it’s important to correct misconceptions but I’d prefer that be done by simply explaining the correct answer rather than taking up room to teach the bad information first. I also found the short chapter on whether a modern French confraternity descends from the medieval guilds unnecessary.

The last chapter includes information on a sketchbook that survives from the middle ages which reproduces many cathedral design elements. That was fantastic. I also appreciated the translations of some of the guild regulations for stonecutters.

This is a basic guide to the construction of cathedrals - from start to finish - whose illustrations really make it worth the price.

History Review: Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography by Sara Lipton

After the introduction there are seven chapters: Mirror of the Fathers: The Birth of a Jewish Iconography, ca. 1015-1100, Blinding Light and Blinkered Witness, ca. 1100-1160, Jewish Eyes: Loveless Looking and the Unlovely Christ, ca. 1160-1220, All the World’s a Picture: Jews and the Mirror of Society, ca. 1220-1300, The Jew’s Face: Flesh, Sight, and Sovereignty, ca. 1230-1350, Where are the Jewish Women?, and The Jew in the Crowd: Surveillance and Civic Vision, ca 1350-1500.

The first few chapters the author would posit an idea and then later refute it, making a mess of my attempts to note take the book. I found the later chapters much more straightforward. The chapters are all subdivided into smaller subjects that wrap around the issue so you get a feel for the times and places being discussed in addition to the main question of how Jews were depicted in art during the middle ages.

She alternates between generalized statements and specific examples but constantly reminds the reader that there is no singular interpretation - that anti-semitic images existed along side images showing Jews witnessing ancient prophets and detailing important Old Testament stories in positive ways. The slow evolution of images from merely illustrating stories to hook nosed, cap wearing personifications of evil is a sad reflection of their society as a whole, made even sadder by the fact that you can see a lot of similar beliefs/accusations against Jews and other minority groups cropping up in society today.

The book contains a good amount of black and white photographs of the artworks discussed as well as a central section with colour photos.

It’s an interesting and complex topic and the author does a good job of breaking it down into smaller, easy to understand pieces.

Book Review: Towards a Global Middle Ages Edited by Bryan C. Keene

Pros: essays on a wide range of places and periods

Cons: dense prose, some essays a challenge to read

The book begins with a prologue followed by an introduction. The introduction starts with highly academic prose in its explanation of why it’s important to broaden the field of medieval studies into a global discussion, acknowledging that the field has centred heavily on Europe and ignored the many points of contact (via trade, religion, war, etc.) with nations outside Europe. The editor points out that the world has always been global, and at a time when nationalists and white supremacists are turning history into polemics on segregation it’s past time medievalists broadened their studies to show how interconnected peoples of the past truly were. He then gives short descriptions about manuscript traditions throughout the world during this period.

This is followed by a quick time line of the items mentioned in the essays to follow. The book is separated into four parts, each with an introductory essay: Glimpsing a Global Middle Ages (5 essays and 1 case study), The Intermediality of “the book”: Bound, Rolled, and Folded Textual Objects (3 essays and 2 case studies), Identity: Finding One’s Place in the Medieval World (3 essays and 3 case studies), and Itineraries from the Atlantic to the Pacific: Travel, Circulation, and Exchange (3 essays and 3 case studies). The book ends with an Epilogue that goes over the importance of museums in creating collections and exhibitions that foster a more global outlook.

This is a book for academics. While the case studies are accessible to a wider audience, most of the essays are not. I struggled through several of them due to dense prose. Having said that, the struggle was worth it as I learned quite a lot about the challenges of including certain areas of the world in a medieval discourse (like how most artifacts containing writing as well as wooden carvings in tropical climates have decomposed, making it difficult to study pre-modern eras). I loved that the essays spoke of wildly different areas including Ethiopia, China, India, and Mexico.

Several of the case studies mentioned a lot of interesting details and I finished the book with the intention of looking up several of the manuscripts mentioned (the end notes give web addresses if they’ve been digitized).

The standouts for me were the case study: “Traveling Medicine: Medieval Ethiopian Amulet Scrolls and Practitioners’ Handbooks” by Eyob Derillo and the essay by Sylvie Merian, “Reproducing the Resurrection: From European Prints to Armenian Manuscripts”, which both dealt with topics I find fascinating.

The globalization of medieval studies is important and it’s great seeing a collection that brings researchers from different disciplines together. This is a challenging book to read, but worth the effort you put in.

Physiologus: A Medieval Book of Nature Lore Translated by Michael Curley

Pros: excellent introduction, full translation, lots of end notes

Cons: some quotes left untranslated

Translated in 1979 and reissued in 2009, this was the first full English translation of the Greek manuscript, Physiologus. The manuscript took stories of animals and gave them Christian allegorical meanings. These stories were used in later bestiary collections and by encyclopedists - with and without their allegories - greatly influencing the medieval mind.

The book begins with an introduction that gives background on the Physiologus and the questions surrounding when it was written and who it was written by. It is then followed by translations of the 51 chapters, most of which deal with animals though there are also a few plants and stones.

The information in the introduction is fantastic and really helps you place the Physiologus in history while not being too academic and dry. My only complain here - and also with the notes at the back of the volume - is that neither Greek nor Latin quotations are translated for those who can’t read them.

The manuscript itself is rather dry. More time is given to the moral than to describing the animal. If you’re unfamiliar with these types of works, you’ll be confused by a lot of the ‘natural’ behaviours described. Very little of this is true animal behaviours. Consider them more morality tales like Aesop’s fables rather than a treatise on natural history. However, remember that as many of the animals described were not native to the lands where the tales became popular, they did influence beliefs in mythological creatures and many in the past believed the stories depicted actual animal behaviours.

The book includes black and white woodcut images from the 1587 G. Ponce de Leon edition of the book. I had expected there to be an image per chapter but there were only 21 images in total and a few of the listings had more than one image (the serpent has a series of 4 images).

If you’re interested in medieval thought and art, the bestiary by way of the Physiologus was hugely influential. This book is a glimpse into the medieval mind, both with regards to how they saw the natural world and how they believed the natural and spiritual worlds overlapped.

Book Review: Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World Edited by Elizabeth Morrison with Larisa Grollemond

Pros: lots of gorgeous full colour illustrations, essays on a variety of topics, thorough discussion on the evolution of bestiaries

Cons: some of the essays are dense

This is the guide that accompanies the exhibition “Book of Beasts” at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The exhibit runs from May 14th to August 18th.

The book is divided into three parts. Part one is an introduction plus images and text for the 15 best known bestiary animals. Part two: Exploring the Bestiary is subdivided into The Bestiary in form and function (consisting of 6 essays and the first 28 catalogue listings) and The Bestiary Reimagined (two essays and 5 listings). Part three: Beyond the Bestiary is again subdivided, with catalogue listings after each essay. It’s sections are: Church and Court (3 essays) and Bestiaries and Natural History (4 essays). The epilogue is followed by the final catalogue listings and four appendices.

I found the first few essays of part 2 boring due to their dry and somewhat dense prose. There’s a fair amount of repetition in that most of these essays opened with similar background paragraphs on Bestiaries and their origins in the Greek book Physiologus. For me, the most interesting essay of this section was “Accommodating Antlers, Making Room for Hedgehogs, and Other Problems of Page Design in the Medieval Bestiary”. It was interesting learning how scribes and illustrators may have been working from different manuscripts and so their work didn’t always line up.

The later essays were much more interesting, both in style an content. There’s less minutiae about the manuscripts making them more accessible and I enjoyed learning new things about how bestiaries influenced other forms of art like maps and sculptures. I also appreciated that there were separate essays on Jewish and Muslim uses of animals in manuscripts. Those essays all felt too short, given the amount of information being discussed.

I liked that there are occasional ‘notes to the reader’ explaining some of the terms so that even those who haven’t studied manuscripts can understand the more scholarly language used. The notes for catalogue listings generally mentioned if a manuscript has been fully or partially digitized and is available online for further study. Unfortunately these notes are in such small text I’m afraid some readers will miss this information.

Catalogue images are all reproduced in colour and there was a good variety. I loved seeing the evolution of the genre and how the stories were reinterpreted in later works. I was surprised that some of the images were duplicated though. A page would be used to illustrate an essay and than that same page would be one of the images used to illustrated the catalogue listing for that manuscript. Given the fact that each manuscript only got one or two images, I would have expected different pages to be used each time in order to maximize the number of different images shown.

If you’re new to bestiaries this is an excellent primer, though you’ll have to work a bit to understand some of the terms. For those with some knowledge, it will increase it and suggest other works to examine. If you’re well versed in the subject the later essays don’t go far enough to suggest new avenues of study, though the earlier ones do an excellent job of showing what scholarship has been done and what still needs examination.

This looks like an excellent exhibit and I wish I could attend and see all of these manuscripts and artworks in person.

Book Review: Ethiopian Painting in the Late Middle Ages and During the Gondar Dynasty by Jules Leroy

Translated by Claire Pace

Pros: one of the first books to cover the subject, gorgeous reproductions of the paintings discussed 

Cons: at times dismissive of the skill/style

Published in 1967, this is one of the first books to cover Ethiopian painting in the late middle ages and during the Gondar Dynasty. As such, it’s immensely important in bringing examples of this artwork to the attention of the outside world (though Ethiopian history and art still hasn’t gained much Western interest).  

The book consists of two chapters followed by the plates and explanations. Chapter one deals with the generalities of Ethiopian art and architecture for the period. Chapter two deals with specific paintings, the history of Gondar, and outside influences on Ethiopian art and how those influences were modified to reflect Ethiopian traditions.

The bibliography at the back shows just how limited sources on this topic were (and still are). 

While the author admired some aspects of Ethiopian art - enough to write a book on the subject - it’s also clear that he considered other aspects beneath those of Western and Asian artists. On page 24 for example, he writes, “Many Ethiopian paintings of the 15th and 16th Centuries reveal a similar character to that of the Irish miniatures, though with less talent and less subtlety.” Comments like this abound, where he compares the Ethiopian paintings to those of other nations and finds them wanting. 

The book is excellent for pointing out details those unfamiliar with Ethiopian life and Christian tradition might otherwise miss. For example, in images of the Flight into Egypt, a maid is seen accompanying the holy couple. Sometimes she’s carrying the Christ child, others she has a container of injera (flat bread) on her head. 

I found the discourse on how European, Byzantine and Indian art at times influenced that of Ethiopia. It shows that ideas travelled around the world, despite how insular modern audience believe nations were in the past.

While it’s not a perfect book, it is an important one and has some gorgeous artwork. It is out of print, but you may find a university or museum library that has a copy you can read.

Video: Children of the Middle Ages

A lot of fantasy novels seem to ignore children, despite the fact that there would have been a lot of them. With high infant mortality rates (you have several children in the hopes that a few make it to adulthood) and limited birth control methods, families tended to be on the large side.

This documentary shows some of the evidence left behind by children and how historians read between the lines to find out what life was like for them, from the games they played to the work they did.

Video: Clarissa and the King's Cookbook

This is a video about the time of King Richard II of England and the cookbook he commissioned, The Forme of Cury. It features Clarissa Dickson Wright (one of the Two Fat Ladies). If you're interested in the history of food or medieval food and food preparation, it's quite interesting. I love the reconstructed kitchen scenes, where the chef sits on a raised chair and manages what goes on in the kitchen. I didn't know that's how a large kitchen was run, so it was cool to see. Meanwhile, a scribe sits in a vestibule copying out what the chef says, as the head chef himself was likely illiterate. They make a few recipes - using medieval techniques - and then have several historians/food critics try it and comment about it.

Video: The Complete Bayeux Tapestry

Lindybeige has put together a video showing the Bayeux Tapestry in its entirety, along with commentary of what's going on, pointing out several oddities of the embroidery work, and animating some of the characters. It's great fun, especially given the size of the work and how difficult it is to see it (especially in its entirety).

I had the privilege of seeing the tapestry in Bayeux 10+ years ago while touring France. It's currently housed in a custom built display room, with the tapestry behind glass. Entry includes an audio guide, but you can't pause, so it forces you to either rush through the experience so you can follow the story or ignore the story and really appreciate the work. I decided to do the latter, so I loved watching this.