This book absolutely blew my mind. It is a didactic manual written for medieval scholars by a monk on the topic of memory. Medieval scholars lived inThis book absolutely blew my mind. It is a didactic manual written for medieval scholars by a monk on the topic of memory. Medieval scholars lived in a still heavily oral culture that placed more rigorous demands on the human memory than does our written culture. They created elaborate pneumonic devices, structures really, in order to access vast amounts of material that they would read, but which they could not write down and take with them (writing materials were costly, and just because a monk could read did not necessarily mean he could write). With the help of manuals like this, monks were trained to transform their memories into, for lack of a better metaphor, rolodexes, catalogued and organized for prompt and thorough recall. The author describes one pneumonic structure where the scholar should commit to memory a room in which every item in the room is associated with a specific passage from a specific book. As the scholar reads more passages and commits them to memory, he creates more objects to place in this room with which the given passages are associated. The dilligent scholar could recall not just an entire book from beginning to end (like we might recite a poem or even the alphabet), but would be able to access any single passage from a book, regardless of its order in the book, by mentally "picking up" the appropriate object he as associated with the desired passage. For less spatially-, more mathematically-minded scholars, the author suggests imagining a grid, indexed with numbers, where the numbers coincide with specific passages. Either way, the result is the same - a whole culture of scholars who's memories put ours, with our heavy reliance on the written word, to shame. Entire libraries existed in the minds of these men and I have trouble remembering my mother's phone number. Astounding. ...more
I found this book inspirational, as a cookbook and as a work of history.
First, for the cookbook: Cooking all over the world has, historically, been aI found this book inspirational, as a cookbook and as a work of history.
First, for the cookbook: Cooking all over the world has, historically, been a trade learned through apprenticeship and practice, rarely through books. As such, cookbooks as well as individual recipes appear only scarcely in most cultures until well after the beginning of the 19th century…not true of Islamic cultures. The Islamic world from Baghdad to Córdoba began creating cookbooks as early as the 10th century A.D. Recipes comprise the entire second half of Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World. First comes a selection that Lilia Zaouali drew directly from medieval sources. Next comes a number of modern Middle Eastern recipes which echo the medieval ones in ingredients and preparation. A number of characteristics about medieval Islamic cookery spring immediately to the fore. It was a meat-heavy cuisine, even referring to vegetarian dishes as "counterfeit", though a number of the recipes seem quite adaptable to a vegetarian diet with minimal alterations or substitutions. Also, the palette of flavors used to create most dishes provides intriguing contrast to the herb-laden western arsenal (oregano, thyme, rosemary, etc.). Most of the dishes in this book rely on spice - cumin, coriander, cinnamon, peppers - rather than herb and on a sweet/sour base rather than a savory one. Almost every dish calls for vinegar and most for honey or some other sweetener. I could not wait to finish this book simply so I could rush to my kitchen and begin experimenting. And delicious recipes comprise only one aspect of this lovely volume.
Next, on to the history: In the first half of Zaouali's book, she offers an overview of Islamic culinary traditions and a brief discussion of the specific books she used in compiling her volume. Medieval Islamic nobility placed great value on fine cuisine. It put me in mind of Elizabethan England where so many noblemen wrote verse. In Baghdad, nobles may have turned out some poetry as well, but they also cooked. And they cooked feasts so lavish with dishes so intricate and heavily spiced that they began recording some of these wonders. Additionally, writers interested in medicine often included recipes for dishes deemed especially healthful. Even with this relative wealth of historical documentation and sources, re-enlivening something as intangible as thousand-year-old flavor proves formidable. These centuries-old recipes rely on assumed common knowledge that, in the 21st century, is no longer common. For example, one often reads the phrase, "the usual amount" for a measurement or is advised to cook something for the "normal amount of time". "[U]sual" and "normal" in the context of a medieval recipe have lost their meaning for a modern reader (or cook). As with so much in history, even with this treasure trove of sources, our final recourse to reconstructing medieval cookery from Andalusia, across the Maghreb and into Persia, remains firmly with the imagination. ...more
I made it about 270 pages through this 400+-page book before calling it quits, and I experienced a bit of guilt at dropping out when I did. I like thiI made it about 270 pages through this 400+-page book before calling it quits, and I experienced a bit of guilt at dropping out when I did. I like this book. Published some 50 years ago, Amy Kelly's history is beautifully written, well-researched and extremely detailed. What made me put it down is not, as avid readers of history may assume, related to its age. For less-than-avid readers of history I'll here point out the modern historiographical conceit to which I refer - as so much else in today's world, in the discipline of history, newer is considered better.
Certainly, histories published in the last 5-10 years employ the newest theories and, as such, have found fruitful alternatives to the antiquated "Great Men" treatment of history. History has moved into post-modern waters swimming with anthropological theory, microhistory, post-colonial theory and so forth. Traditional reliance on unproblematized narrative has passed out of vogue in most current schools of historical thought. Modern methodologies pose ontological and epistemological questions to the very project of researching and writing history. They explore the nature of language, ways of generating meaning, and modes of expression. Such methods, as different as they are from each other, share a mistrust of traditional (read: old) linear narrative. That said, older historiography still has a corner on something these theory-laden new methodologies achieve only unevenly - readability.
At the time of Kelly's writing history was still, as it had been for centuries, the matter of a well-crafted narrative backed up by sound research. Period. And a well-crafted narrative backed up by sound research is what Amy Kelly provides. Notwithstanding the epistemological problems inherent in narrative, I must admit a strong affection and even preference for it. And Kelly creates compelling narrative history - she pays actual attention to her narrative voice and literary style, she provides end notes instead of footnotes that interrupt the flow of reading, she attempts to keep her reader aesthetically as well as intellectually engaged. She does not, however, offer much of what her title promises - Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Naturally, to discuss Eleanor of Aquitaine one must also discuss those "Four Kings", the men whose fortunes were so tied to her own, through amity or enmity (or both, as seems to have been standard in Eleanor's relationships). And perhaps my familiarity with newer histories led me to expect something an historian from 50 years ago could not possibly provide - what the actual woman's life would have looked like, day-in and day-out, how she must have understood her own role vis-à-vis Louis or Henry or her sons, the forces that crafted her own ambitions, which were considerable. Instead, Kelly roots her narrative firmly in the male gaze - i.e., when Henry imprisons Eleanor for 16 years, the narrative does not explore Eleanor's experience of these years, but instead, for chapters on end, follows Henry, as though it were a work solely about him. I should not, I suppose, expect an historian of Kelly's era to fix her lens too firmly on Eleanor who, as a woman, would not have been considered overly important to the history of European nation-building, the primary focus of traditional history. Shifting that focus is the work of later historians who turned their attention from "Great Men" to other groups of people, less mentioned and more difficult to get at. I confess, though, to expecting Kelly's titular figure to play a central role in her own history, if not in traditional History with a capital H. In defense of this expectation - of all medieval women Eleanor of Aquitaine has few rivals for the era's most powerful, influential and commented-upon woman. Surely, even in the 1950s, she merited a work of history all her own. Even Eleanor's contemporaries paid her that sort of attention. ...more
In The Viennese, Paul Hofmann presents the biography of a very old city through its many incarnations. The book spans the two thousand-some years fromIn The Viennese, Paul Hofmann presents the biography of a very old city through its many incarnations. The book spans the two thousand-some years from Vienna's beginnings as a Roman camp to Kurt Waldheim's presidency in the 1980s. In tracing the history of Vienna and, at times, the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire in relation to its capital city, Hofmann focuses on the city's residents. He seeks throughout to elucidate the nature and character specific to the Viennese and, while their city has changed overtime, he finds a continuity in the temperament of the people.
Hofmann describes a cultivated populace that takes pride in its city's cultural heritage, but that also overindulges in self-pity. He presents a dualistic picture of an inconsistent mentalité -- the same Viennese who like their desserts laden mit Schlag (with whipped cream) and their self-image tempered with Schmäh*, also boast an exceedingly high rate of suicide. In fact, as an expatriate Viennese, Hofmann's depiction of his people portrays the very same polarity of emotion of which he accuses the Viennese. And justly so. This same city that nourished the creative output of Beethoven, Klimt and Freud, embraced the destructive fervor of Nazi anti-Semitism with disturbing alacrity. If the city itself has spawned such a wide and conflicting array of human experience, reactions to those experiences must vary as widely, and seem sometimes as inconsistent.
In addition to his exploration of this duality among the Viennese, Hofmann engages in another project; unexpressed, but to which his entire discussion pertains. Namely, through his depiction of the overall character of the Viennese, Hofmann studies by implication the dynamic of the relationship between a city and its inhabitants. The fact that Hofmann never explicitly problematizes the relationship between an urban space and urban dwellers is frustrating given that his subject takes for granted the nature of this non-transparent relationship. Nevertheless, for a reader open to doing so, The Viennese offers great substance in terms of which to consider this sticky relationship.
Between cities and their inhabitants circulates strange energy. It is causally ambiguous energy. Relationally unspecific. That is to say, though humans build cities, do we really create them? Do they not also create us? Obviously human hands construct a given city but, as the saying goes, Rome was not built in a day. Building a city is not like building, say, a house. You don't collect your materials, assemble them and then, ta-da. Done. You have a city. You're never really done with a city. It will always change, whether to grow, shrink, decay, revive. Vienna, as the capital of a former world empire that is now a small republic, well represents the possible changing fortunes of an urban center and the chaos such changes can wreak in a population's psychology. Cities, like people, are never static, but morph constantly.
Cities, though manmade, bear closer resemblance to living organisms than they do to inanimate objects. A city's complexity rivals that of organic life and, similar to the internet or the economy perhaps, what began as a human creation soon outgrows specific human control. The city starts to live on its own, adopt characteristics that do not necessarily belong to any single builder or dweller of the city, but which the city imparts to its human element. And yet humans comprise a primary component of a city. They are not separate from the city, but part of it, in it, of it. Without humans, a city is a corpse. They are the actors on a stage and yet the city is not the stage, but the play itself. And who can tell what ways the play dictates the performance of the actors and the actors inform the content of the play? Hofmann treats Vienna and the Viennese this way -- as two intermingled components of one reality, each acting upon the other and, in a sense, comprising the other.
The Medieval Underworld explores social mores of the Middle Ages, their reflection in medieval law, and the groups of people who came into conflict wiThe Medieval Underworld explores social mores of the Middle Ages, their reflection in medieval law, and the groups of people who came into conflict with these mores. Packed with anecdotes, but skimpy on footnotes, this book seems solidly researched but suffers for dearth of analysis. Andrew McCall tells his reader lurid, interesting, ghastly and sometimes humorous stories involving thieves, bandits, prostitutes, heretics and any assortment of other denizens of the medieval "underworld". He describes the medieval legal view of such characters and their activities. He reconstructs medieval authority's view of social deviants. But he scarcely addresses the deviant experience itself.
Certainly, writing social history "from below" proves intensely difficult for a time period when those "below" were seldom written about and, even more rarely, wrote themselves. Nevertheless, historical methodology since the 1950s has proven exceedingly clever in seeking ways to study the lives of the lower classes, minorities and other ignored groups. McCall has not employed these methods. This fact does not impugn his scholarship, but rather reflects my disappointed expectations. Published in 1979, I rather anticipated The Medieval Underworld would grapple with the experiences of the economically weak, the politically powerless and the socially maligned. Instead it speaks to the experience of the authorities in relation to these groups. McCall situates deviants of all sorts within the framework of legal and moral thought of the day -- a useful project perhaps, but not a fresh or fascinating one, even in 1979.
The Medieval Underworld provides, then, a useful overview of the ways medieval authority sought to curtail the personal and social freedoms of Europeans and of the extent to which a crime was punished or permitted. It does not, however, bring the reader much closer to understanding what life felt like for an individual who challenged that authority, whose choices or very natures were excluded from medieval societal norms. It only peripherally hints at the circumstances of life that would lead a great many people to, for instance, take up prostitution or worship with an heretical sect. Those people remain largely voiceless in The Medieval Underworld, as obscure in its pages as they seem to have been in the Middle Ages. ...more
Entire literary journals are dedicated to the works of Chaucer, so it's hard to know how to say anything worthwhile about his most famous book. I'll sEntire literary journals are dedicated to the works of Chaucer, so it's hard to know how to say anything worthwhile about his most famous book. I'll settle for making some simple observations about a couple of the facets of the work I personally enjoyed: its form and authorial voice.
The Tales' format, famously modeled on Boccaccio's Decameron, has a frame narrative into which the discrete tales fit. Instead of plague-fleers, Chaucer's storytellers are a motley crew of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury Cathedral. With no authoritative original manuscript, The Tales have been transmitted down to us through various sources and compiled in various ways. Certain individual tales are unfinished, and the work as a whole seems incomplete as tales for a return journey back from Canterbury are intimated, but never told. But the benefit of the disjointed nature of these diverse stories, and the loose, basic construction of the frame means one doesn't feel too keenly the undone-ness.
This format allowed Chaucer to include tales that vary broadly as to source material, convention and style. He includes bawdy, hilarious stories (e.g., of course, The Wife of Bath's Tale), preachy and ponderous prose selections (e.g., The Parson's Tale), satiric cautionary tales (e.g., The Summoner's Tale), adventurous romances (e.g., The Knight's Tale), and so forth. The variety alone is highly entertaining and, for those interested in 14th-century daily life, social structures, et al., incidentally informative.
But for this reader the most interesting thing about the book is the slippery frame narrator, the ultimate teller of all the tales: a fictive Chaucer who is on the pilgrimage and relaying the journey as well as all of the stories. He even tells his own tales - first in poetry, Sir Thopas, which is humorously cut short for its terribleness, and then The Tale of Melibee, a dour moralizing tale in prose that reads more as a collection of aphorisms, quotes and bons mots than an actual story.
Fictively reproducing himself in his own pages, in addition to the multiplicity of in-frame narrative voices, destabilizes the narration and disallows any easy reading of what it is the real Chaucer may have believed, which attitudes on display he may have supported or decried. It's charming and so unexpectedly "meta" to hear a character of real Chaucer's tell fictive Chaucer:
"By God...to put it in a word, Your awful rhyming isn't worth a turd!"
I've been struck of late how "post-modern" so much pre-modern literature can seem. When you aren't busy worrying about what is fiction and non-fiction - as we moderns tend to - the implications of authorial voice and narrativity perhaps seem obvious, and you don't have to create entire modes of linguistic and historical criticism (Hayden White, Jacques Derrida, I'm looking at you) to arrive at conclusions a writer 700 years ago arrived at quite naturally.
Having a slippery narrator, not being able to peg what is "true" and "untrue" with regards to what your author is thinking/feeling v. saying, is an incredibly fertile creative ground to tread upon. Introducing a series of stories, many with external sources, mimicking well-established literary conventions, placed in the mouths of fictional characters who represent a multiplicity of class, gender and social critiques and who include a novelistic version of yourself...it's simply a great way to explore tensions, irresolutions and contradictions, to convey complex commentary and, if the need should arise, to disavow it.
People who study this stuff for a living will be able to tell me how off base this observation is. I have only a well-informed amateur's knowledge of medieval literary tropes, habits of authorship and post-modern criticism. And it seems to me some scholar somewhere has surely written a dissertation upon Chaucer's authorial voice and post-modern thought.
Hopefully this person could also tell me where I can find the following: A modern English translation of The Canterbury Tales as good as Raffel's, with facing-page Middle English text, and relatively extensive footnotes/annotation. That I would like to read....more
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