Ask a Medievalist

Synopsis In a first for Ask a Medievalist, Em sits down with Sebastian Nothwell to discuss his approach to writing historical/historical fantasy novels. In the process, they get into everything from Victorian steam power to the effects of the peasants revolt of 1381 on the chartists in the 1830s–50s. You can find Sebastian’s website at https://sebastiannothwell.com/. Notes 1/ British Newspaper Archive: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ The Dictionary of Victorian London is also a great place for info. It’s composed largely of clippings from newspapers and books of the time, arranged by topic: https://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm 2/ Victorian Steam Power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_power_during_the_Industrial_Revolution 3/ The UK shut down the coal plants in September 2024: https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/coal-phaseout-UK/index.html 4/ Buggery Act of 1533 was repealed by the Offenses Against the Person Act of 1837, which nevertheless maintained legal penalties against gay relationships; the last execution for the same was in 1835. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery_Act_1533 5/ “Blorbo” means favorite character. 6/ We’ve previously talked about the effects of the plague in episode 2. And we talked a little about the peasant’s revolt in episode 87. 7/ The Chartists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartism 8/ A few relevant novels: A Dream of John Ball: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/357 Wat Tyler, or the Rebellion of 1381: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951p007357378&seq=9 Ivanhoe: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/82 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14568 (but there are many, many translations if you look around; we also discussed this in episode 60.) 9/ The Eglinton Tournament: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eglinton_Tournament

Summary The Ramayana is not the oldest story in the world, but it’s definitely in the running. Composed starting in the 700s BCE, it has been carried to all corners of the earth and translated into many languages and cultures, traveling along several distinct lines of migration, yet it remains largely unknown in the west. In honor of Em’s new novel Troth, join Em and Jesse as they discuss the story and its translations. Notes 0/ You can get Em’s new novel here (https://books2read.com/u/mg68Xz)! Or scoop up a signed copy here (https://xanthippe42.itch.io/troth). 1/ Arsene Lupin was created by Maurice Leblanc in 1905, and The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar came out in 1910. According to my notes from the time, the actual thing I was confused by was the combination of the French “la tenure de veleurs” (a velvet wall hanging) that was adjacent to “le manteau de la cheminee” (a mantlepiece) becoming in English, “a velvet chimney-mantel,” which I don’t think is a thing. The book also contained the observation, “La justice obéit souvent à ces entraînements de conviction qui font qu’on oblige les événements à se plier à l’explication première qu’on en a donnée.” meaning “Justice [also law officers, I guess] often obeys the training of its beliefs that one obliges the events to bend to the first explanation that one gave.” Which seems to be still true. 2/ Being so long, the text is thought to have been composed over a long period. It is thought that the earliest parts were composed no earlier than about 750 BCE, and the later parts could have been written as recently as the 3rd century CE. 3/ Some non-academic sources of info about partition: Ms. Marvel (Disney+ show, episode 5), Dr. Who (Series 11, episode 6), Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. 4/ For more on the “300 Ramayanas” controversy, see “Censoring the Ramayana,” Vinay Dharwadker, PMLA 127.3 (May 2012), pp. 433–450. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2012.127.3.433 5/ Earliest manuscript: 6th century BCE (See this article.) Prior to its discovery in 2015, the earliest manuscript was assumed to be from the 4th century BCE, attributed to Valmiki (the putative author of the Ramayana). 6/ Valmiki: the traditional author of the Ramayana. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valmiki 7/ A summary of the story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana#Synopsis 8/ Shakuntala: episode 15 9/ The quote Dr. Jesse reads is from “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation” in The Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan (131–160). (Jesse is paraphrasing p. 134.) 10/ Silk Road, if you missed it, was episode 83 “Old Silk Road, Take Me Home.” 11/ Kannada is a Dravidian language spoken in southwestern India. 12/ The Chakri dynasty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakri_dynasty 13/ The Ramakien: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramakien 14/ The Ramayana of Valmiki: The Complete English Translation, edited and translated by Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman. Princeton Library of Asian Translations. Princeton University Press, 2021. 15/ The proto-Indo European root for “cat” is maybe *kat-, but the reason all the European words look similar is because they come from the Latin “cattus.” In fact, one etymology blog (https://www.etymologynerd.com/blog/cats-and-kittens) suggests that because the animal was traded a lot, it’s hard to get back beyond a certain point because everyone’s word was the same. Interestingly, the word “textile” (from the Latin “texere”) and the word “technology” (from Greek “tekhne”) both share the same PIE root: *teks-. 16/ Brief Gilgamesh digression: Utnapishtim is in the section of Gilgamesh where the big G is searching for the key to immortality after Enkidu dies, but the reasons why the flood (which he tells G about) actually happened are kind of opaque. Utnapishtim survived because one of the gods (Ea) leaked the plan to U and told him what to do.

Synopsis One time, Em got drunk and started texting Jesse about the bronze age collapse. This is the result. Notes 1/ Em studied abroad in Tianjin, China. It was very educational. I learned that black vinegar is good for your health, that there are mushrooms called ear mushrooms (wood ear, but I only recognized one character), and that I can explain that my stretched earlobes didn’t hurt in several languages. Also, some beer has a relatively low amount of alcohol in it, and if you put it in the freezer, it will freeze and the bottles will shatter. (Perhaps I should say I learned that my classmates didn’t know this.) 2/ Books about how the Church was awesome and saved civilization: How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahil. 3/ Spoiler: They finished the restoration of Notre Dame in time for the Olympics. (Unusually for us, we recorded this in July 2024—before Biden dropped out of the race, as you can maybe tell from the tenor of some of the commentary.) 4/ To be honest, if the fall of Rome was a simple story, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire wouldn’t be six volumes long, right? 5/ Ramses II: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II 6/ The Battle of the Delta article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Delta 7/ The Sea Peoples are a famous…myth? Explanation by modern historians of something they didn’t understand? Both of these things? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples 8/ Mycenaean Greece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenaean_Greece. We talked about the Mycenaeans in episode 68 note 9 Minoans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization We talked about the Minoans in Episode 2 note 9, episode 68 note 9, and episode 75 notes 12–14. Cyclades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycladic_culture We only talked about Cycladic Culture briefly in episode 2 note 9, but we have an upcoming episode on Cycladic art! 9/ We just talked about the Ever Given and the rights of truckers in episode 84 notes 1 and 3! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given (What a weird coincidence!) Also, see John Oliver talk about trucks and waiting! (Start at the 5 minute mark.) 10/ Actually, to the point about “a hundred years ago, if it rained too much, maybe they just didn’t have corn”–a hundred years ago, corn was actually such a major part of the American diet that pellagra was considered an epidemic! This is because corn does not contain vitamin B3 (niacin), and people in poor, rural areas and institutions ate a largely corn-based diet, since it was cheap compared to other things. It was in about 1926 that Dr. Joseph Goldberger established that adding brewer’s yeast to these diets would prevent pellagra. (Interestingly, the nixtamalization of maize, a traditional process that involves soaking the grain in limewater, introduces niacin!) 10/ Linear A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A Cypro-Minoan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypro-Minoan_syllabary

Synopsis The Silk Road spanned four thousand years and lasted for centuries–it’s hard to think of anything comparable in scale. From the second century BCE until the mid-15th century, jade, silk, tea, horses, the plague, and more flowed across the Eurasian continent. Join Em and Jesse as they talk about it–and also about Route 66, the origin of the word “tea,” Mongolian horses, and other questionably relevant things. Notes 1/ Route 66 celebrates its centennial in 2026! https://www.route66-centennial.com/ The google doodle was April 30, 2022: https://doodles.google/doodle/celebrating-route-66/ It recognized the day in 1926 that the designation “U.S. 66” was proposed for the route. 2/ Tom Robbins did write a book called Another Roadside Attraction, but the family of clowns was in Villa Incognito. I refuse to link to those books on Wikipedia. You cannot read a summary of a Tom Robbins novel; they must be experienced. 3/ The Green Book: https://www.loc.gov/item/2016298176/ It was inspired by The Jewish Vacation Guide, a book published in 1917 that did a similar thing—list places where road-tripping Jews would be welcome. The LOC site suggests that after the Civil Rights act of 1964 passed, the kinds of discrimination the book helped people avoid stopped happening and so the guide stopped being published. But I’ve talked to Jews who went on motorcycle road trips across the country and stopped at various establishments in the south in the late 70s and felt they were, in modern parlance, extremely sus, vibes are off, etc. So, like, sundown towns maybe went away but the people’s attitudes did not change as quickly. 4/ It was Turkmenistan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9QYu8LtH2E The mention of Azerbaijan on Last Week Tonight. 5/ Bongbong Marcos was elected in 2022. We taped this one a while ago. 6/ Podcast episode on textiles: Episode 33 (on women artisans and textiles), Episode 54 note 15 (on the Bayeux Tapestry), and Episode 62 on tapestries. 7/ Mongolian horses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_horse They live outdoors in temps that get down to -40 degrees. There are more horses than people in Mongolia right now. In trying to source the cheese-making story, I have learned that horse’s milk cannot be made into cheese, because the lactose level is too high! So it’s probably not cheese that was made that way, but fermented mare’s milk—airag—which needs to be churned while it’s fermenting. 8/ Famously, people call it “chai” if it arrived in their country by land (for example, India, most of peninsular SE Asia, Russia, Japan) and “tea” if it arrived by boat (e.g., England and all of their colonies). Both of these words come ultimately from the Chinese “tu”, which became “cha” in Mandarin but “ta” and “te” in Min, a group of Chinese languages spoken in Fujian province and Taiwan (among other areas—there are over 70 million speakers! And you’ve never heard of it!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_tea has a nice table with different words in different languages if you’re interested in the linguistics here. 9/ The thing Em says about a Mayan god of zero appears to be incorrect. However, linguistically, in at least one Mayan dialect, yesterday and tomorrow are always expressed as “day minus one” and “day plus one” respectively—today is always zero. (https://baas.aas.org/pub/2021n1i336p03/release/2) The Mayans were a long-lived and pluralistic society and in retrospect it’s not right to say, “The Mayans thought,” because when did they think this? Which group? Today they are still over six million people speaking twenty-eight languages! Their earliest villages were established before 2000 BCE and their last city fell in 1697 CE. 9/ Rabban Bar Sauma (c1220–1294) was a Nestorian (named for Nestorius). We discussed miaphysitism and dyophysitism in Episode 48 (see note 14).

Synopsis Did you see a headless (possibly satanic) angel rising from the stage during the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics, or Winged Victory? Or did you wonder, as we did, how the two happen to be so similar, when angels in the bible are often described as having six wings, or wheels, or four faces and many eyes, or voices that sound like many people speaking at once? And actually, now that we mention it, why are apples so common in Mediterranean myths? Join Em and Dr. Jesse as we talk through the Olympics closing ceremony, its symbolism, and how the modern Christian imagination is inextricably tied to Greek myth. Notes 1/ Bobby Gibb was technically the first woman to run Boston in 1966. Katherine Switzer ran it in 1967 and the officials’ attempts to eject her produced the photos described. 2/ The apple/evil pun only works in Latin (not Greek). Also, although both the Septuagint and the Vulgate use a generic word for fruit in Genesis, the word for apple (which Latin got from Greek) not only served the Latin pun but brought an accrual of meanings from the Greek world (which, as we discussed in this episode, is presumably why the apple became the de facto fruit in the garden). 3/ Dan Smith’s blog: https://danaturg.blogspot.com/2024/07/dramaturgy-of-paris-olympics-opening.html 4/ The Hymn to Apollo was in episode 46.

Synopsis The Mabinogi: what’s it actually about, when you get down to it? Join Em and Jesse as they discuss the first two branches, in which Pwyll meets Arawn, lord of the underworld, and has adventures; in which Pwyll meets Rhiannon and has a lot more adventures than maybe he bargained for; and in which Bendigeidran, Branwen, and Manawyden fight Ireland. Notes 0/ Find links to Old Time Religion here, or buy it directly from Ingram Spark here. If you are seeing this during the month of July 2024, it (and Dionysus in Wisconsin) are currently 75% off at Smashwords. 1/ The Mabinogion translated by Sioned Davies (2008, Oxford University press) The Horse in Celtic Culture: Medieval Welsh Perspectives ed. Sioned Davies and Nerys Jones (University of Wales Press, 1997) 2/ Randomly, there’s a fairly well-known professor of graphic design who shares my original surname. I don’t think we’re related. 3/ Branch one major characters: Arawn: Lord of Annwn, the underworld Pwyll: A guy (okay, he’s the Prince of Dyfed) Hafgan: Pwyll fights and defeats him (on behalf of Arawn) Rhiannon: the wife of Pwyll (but also very smart and a hero in her own right) Pryderi: the son of Pwyll and Rhiannon 4/ For our thoughts on The Green Knight (both story and film), hunt down Episode 60. 5/ Geoffrey of Monmouth (c1095–c1155). Extremely responsible for King Arthur mythos. See episode 60 on The Green Knight! 6/ The early modern Irish “Children of Lir“: Different from “The Children of LLYR” (from the Mabinogion) and not related to Shakespeare’s King Lear 7/ The actual children of Llyr (from the Mabinogion): Brân the Blessed / Bendigeidfran Branwen Manawyden 8/ The Gundestrup caldron: this cauldron is clearly ceremonial (not for everyday use), but cauldrons generally are very communal and demonstrate the importance of being a good host 9/ A torc is a stiff metal neck ring (aka really iconic jewelry from the Bronze age through the Middle Ages, found throughout Europe from the Balkans through Celtic regions)

Summary Here comes the parade, want some beads? Okay, so carnival is a prelude to Lent, which is an extremely solemn time in Catholic tradition. So why is it the way that it is in so many places? Let’s talk about it. Notes 1/ It’s late, but it’s up before the end of Lent. lol sob 2/ carnem levare: Latin for putting away (not eating) meat. 3/ The dialog is: Aziraphale: Did you ever meet him? Crowley: Yes…seemed a very bright young man. I showed him all the kingdoms of the world. Aziraphale: Why? Crowley: He’s a carpenter from Galilee. His travel opportunities are limited. (From s1e03) 4/ https://www.comicmix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pancakes4.jpg pancakes 5/ John Bossy, Christianity in the West: 1400–1700. 6/ Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World. 7/ By “the countries [UK and the Netherlands] have some connections,” Em means that during the Glorious Revolution, William III (of Orange) and Mary II were invited to rule England, because they’d run out of endogenous rulers owing to having kicked James II/VI out. (They were invited because Mary was James’s eldest surviving child, and they reigned as co-monarchs, which honestly seems like a very rational move to me.) 8/ Peter Bruegel the Elder: The Fight between Carnival and Lent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fight_Between_Carnival_and_Lent Jan Miense Molenaer (1610–1668): The Battle between Carnival and Lent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Miense_Molenaer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Between_Carnival_and_Lent Molenaer shared his studio with his wife, Judith Leyster, who was also an awesome painter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Leyster Hieronymus Bosch: Ship of Fools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Fools_(painting) The poem mentioned was written is by Jacop (Jacob) van Oestvoren who wrote “De Blauwe Schuit” (“The Blue Boat”) in 1413 9/ Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance