From biographies of the leading warriors to the grumbling of a government official, here are thirty medieval texts that have been translated in 2016. Chronicles, law books, letter collections, religious and literary works were among those edited and translated this year, many for the first time.
Keith Houston, “The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time”“Find the biggest, grandest hardback you can,” advises the author in the introduction. “Hold it in your hands. Open it and hear the rustle of paper and the crackle of glue.” Exactly. Exactly. If you love books you will love this book, and not only because it is beautifully and almost reverentially put together, standing physically for the argument it makes. Books are not like anything else in human history. They have filled houses of worship and toppled empires. But we rarely pause to think about where they came from.
There are other fine volumes in recent years about the history of the book, including outstanding contributions by veteran bibliophiles Robert Darnton and Nicholas Basbanes. But Houston’s wonderful history of the science of the book is irresistible. We all know that Gutenberg and his contemporaries printed with movable type, but how did they make the molds for the letters? Houston investigates. I particularly loved the bit about the debate -- yes, the debate -- about how papyrus books were made and why they survived the ages. He is also fascinating in tracking the mystery behind the St Cuthbert’s Bible, the oldest surviving bound book.
To which I will add these older editions:Anne Boleyn’s tragic death and dramatic life — including her marriages, sibling relationships, alleged crimes, and subsequent martyrdom — have cemented her place as a notorious historical figure. From biographies to movie adaptations, Boleyn’s life still fascinates us to this day. If you’re someone who loves to read about this controversial queen, check out the novels HERE, complete with publishers’ descriptions.
Anne Boleyn by trickd
Dr. Alois Pichler was almost always surrounded by books. In 1869, Pichler, originally from Bavaria, became the so-called “extraordinary librarian” of the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg, Russia, a prestigious position that gave him a salary three times higher than the average librarian: 3,000 rubles.
While many librarians have a deep appreciation for books, Pichler was afflicted with a specific irrepressible illness. A few months after Pichler took his position at the library, the staff discovered that an alarming number of books were disappearing from the collection. They suspected theft. Guards noticed that Pichler had been acting strangely—dropping books by the exit and hurriedly returning them to the shelves, refusing to remove his large overcoat, leaving the library several times within a day—and started paying close attention to him.
On March, 1871, over 4,500 stolen library books on everything from perfume making to theology were found in his possession, Pichler committing the largest known library theft on record.
Pichler, who was found guilty and exiled to Siberia, was a victim of “bibliomania,” a dark pseudo-psychological illness that swept through the upper classes in Europe and England during the 1800s. Symptoms included a frenzy for culling and hunting down first editions, rare copies, books of certain sizes or printed on specific paper.
Canberra replaces Somerset. There are complicated family feuds, long-buried secrets, fireside chats, purring cats and comfort food. The cases are cold – really cold – cases connected to archaeological finds from the sites of the world's greatest ancient civilisations and Owen's young sleuth, Dr Elizabeth Pimms, must use her skills as an archaeologist and working librarian to find answers.
The first in the series, Olmec Obituary, features the discovery of a royal Olmec cemetery deep in the Mexican jungle and a 3000-year-old sculpture of a female ball player.
The second, Mayan Mendacity, introduces readers to the court of Lady Six Sky, a long-forgotten leader of the Mayan Empire.
Warned by friends of the long odds of finding a publisher in the sub-genre of cosy crime, she self-published, raising $10,000 by crowdfunding. Five days into last year's Kickstarter campaign she was contacted by Angela Meyer of Echo Publishing, which has now published both books back-to-back.
Sometimes, the truth really can be stranger than fiction, especially when it comes to famous women around the world. Besides, a good non-fiction book not only teaches you about its subject, it makes you want to read more of the book and hopefully more about that person!
Hedy Lamarr
That’s why we’ve put together this starting list. Books featured here cover history stretching all the way back to ancient Egypt and coming all the way here to today with a Nobel Prize winner and a rather notorious judge. Each book features one — or more — real women.
Some books are autobiographies. Others instead put together several shorter entries about plenty of different women, gathered around a theme. Many of these entries have plenty of pages to consume, but some shrink it down to about the length of a normal novel.
We’ll also include more books about famous women as additional recommended reading on each slide.
Together, they represent a very short introduction to women in history around the world, and how to find them in the world of non-fiction, all presented in no particular order. All that said, let’s get started.
Kate Schatz puts forth her list of writers from this last century that we should all read.The first known author was an ancient Sumerian priestess named Enheduanna. The first novel was written by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Court in Japan. Women wrote plays in ancient Greece, poems in ancient Persia. Fast forward some centuries, and five of the world’s top ten bestselling authors are women. Women from all over the world have been creating, influencing, and contributing to literature since its inception.
Harald Hardrada was one of the most fabulous adventurers of medieval times. His career has served as a template for fantasy characters such as Conan the Barbarian and even for the tumultuous turns of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. Harald was a child exile, like Arya Stark; as clever as Tyrion Lannister; as accomplished a warrior as Jaime Lannister; and travelled into the exotic east, like Daenerys Targaryen. His story is the archetype of the barbarian who rose to the heights of power and made himself king.
Shieldwall (2011), the first of a series of books examining the narratives and context of the 1066 Battle of Hastings, was a Sunday Times book of the year. Viking Fire is the second in this series and follows the adventures of Norwegian king Harald Hardrada.
She has been cited as an inspiration by Stephen King, Donna Tartt, Neil Gaiman and Joanne Harris. Now the American author Shirley Jackson, once memorably described as writing “not with a pen but a broomstick”, is set for a long overdue reappraisal on this side of the Atlantic.
This week sees the release of a new biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, swiftly followed by a graphic novel version of her most famous short story, The Lottery, illustrated by her grandson, Miles Hyman, and the publication of Dark Tales, a collection of her most chilling short stories. And the revival does not stop there: next year will see a film of her book We Have Always Lived In The Castle, with rising stars Taissa Farmiga and Alexandra Daddario, alongside Sebastian Stan and Crispin Glover.
In an era when domestic noir reigns at the publishing houses and our thirst for dark tales of women under threat rages unabated, Jackson’s ability to unnerve strikes a chord. “There’s a whole new appreciation today of what it means to be a mother and a writer and how to reconcile those two things,” says Franklin. “We’re also more interested in the lives of women and that in turn has led to a revival of interest in Jackson’s work. I honestly feel as though she’s one of those authors who’s been in the background for a long time, yet has a huge influence on American fiction, and it’s only now that we’re beginning to see how important she is.”
Born in Canada of Scottish extraction, Kelly graduated in History and English from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. After graduating Kelly moved to the UK where she continued her studies in history, focusing on Medieval England and the Icelandic Sagas (with a smattering of Old Norse and Old English). Her first novel, The Northern Queen, was released in 2015 and she is currently working on the second book in her Anglo-Saxon series, set in the years prior to the Norman invasion.
Jezebel was the Phoenician Princess of Sidon (9th century BCE) whose story is told in the Hebrew Tanakh (the Christian Old Testament) in I and II Kings where she is portrayed unfavorably as a conniving harlot who corrupts Israel and flaunts the commandments of God. Recent scholarship, which has led to a better understanding of the civilization of Phoenicia, the role of women, and the struggle of the adherents of the Hebrew god Yahweh for dominance over the worship of the Canaanite deities Astarte and Baal, suggest a different, and more favorable, picture of Jezebel as a woman ahead of her time married into a culture whose religious class saw her as a formidable threat (phoenicia.org). The historian and biblical scholar Janet Howe Gaines notes this new interpretation in scholarship, writing:
For more than two thousand years, Jezebel has been saddled with a reputation as the bad girl of the Bible, the wickedest of women. This ancient queen has been denounced as a murderer, prostitute and enemy of God, and her name has been adopted for lingerie lines and World War II missiles alike. But just how depraved was Jezebel? In recent years, scholars have tried to reclaim the shadowy female figures whose tales are often only partially told in the Bible.Read rest of article at Ancient History Encyclopedia
In the mid-1970s, when Steven Runciman was in his own eighth decade, he became a frequent house guest of the archaeologist (and husband of Agatha Christie) Max Mallowan. Like all who met him, the Mallowans were impressed by this charming and intellectually brilliant man, who was one of the best-known historians in the country. But one evening Mallowan confided to a friend that he had been shocked by his last conversation with Runciman, who told him “that he felt his life had been a failure because of his gayness”. Mallowan was dismayed not only because such soul-baring was startlingly out of character. As the friend later said, “I remember Max saying with huge indignation how tragic and wrong it was that Steven should feel this way.”
Tragic and wrong indeed. People differ in how they measure their own success or failure, but by almost any standards Runciman had led a successful life. His many books on Byzantine and medieval history had been acclaimed by specialists and avidly consumed by general readers; he had received a knighthood and became a Companion of Honour in 1984; he was an honorary whirling dervish and was appointed Grand Orator of the Greek Orthodox Church. At the age of 97 he complained that “the only friend I now have who is older than me is the Queen Mother”; yet one would need to analyse the guest list for his 90th birthday party, to which he invited 400 friends, to be sure of the accuracy of that remark.Continue reading Noel Malcolm's review of Minoo Dinshaw’s Outlandish Knight at the New Statesman
Although her name is shorthand for “murder mystery” and she is the most translated and biggest-selling writer in history, Agatha Christie shunned publicity. She rarely gave print interviews and steadfastly refused to appear on television or radio. Surviving radio documentaries feature mainly other people talking about her and her work. Authorised biographies appeared only long after her death and her own Autobiography is maddeningly offhand about her writing. With Poirot-like diligence I have gathered together these 126 facts about the Queen of Crime to mark what would have been her 126th birthday last month.
1. Christie has been outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible.
2. It was never Christie’s intention to become a writer, but she was determined to rise to the challenge set by her sister Madge who had dared her to write a detective story.
An illuminated encyclopedia that dates back to the 12th century, the tome, the title of which is Latin for “Garden of Delights,” covered a wide range of topics, from a retelling of the Biblical history of the world to the scientific interests of the day. Meant to serve as a primer for young nuns and abbesses entering the service of the Hohenburg Abbey, a convent perched atop an Alsatian peak, much of the knowledge and writing contained in the text was reprinted from preexisting religious and philosophical manuscripts.
However, the author/compiler of the Hortus Deliciarum, an abbess named Herrad of Landsberg, added much more to the text. Herrad joined the convent in her youth, coming from a wealthy royal family. Hohenburg Abbey was a well-funded and respected convent that had the blessing (both spiritual and financial) of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa I, allowing the education of its nuns to flourish. Herrad likely received the best possible education a woman of her time could have received, learning about music, sciences, theology, and the arts.
The Hortus Deliciarum is probably best remembered by its vivid illustrations. The 300-plus images cover subjects ranging from historical vignettes to religious scenes including one particularly striking vision of a fiery hellscape. (Sorry, sinners.) While Herrad is thought to have directed the creation of the illustrations in the text, which were rich in telling detail, “The artists of the Hortus Deliciarum, likely the canonesses living at Hohenbourg in the late 12th century,” says Joyner, “gave a great deal of attention to details like luxurious clothing, the plow and a mill, and apparently the pretzel!”
In a new book by Jennifer Worth, Shadows Of The Workhouse, the former nurse and midwife recounts stories told to her by inmates of a 20th century workhouse in London's East End.
Worth's generation grew up in the shadow of the workhouse. Thousands of people lived in constant dread that some accident or illness would overtake them, leading to destitution and to that place where husbands were separated from their wives, and mothers from their children. People who witnessed neighbours going into the workhouse never forgot what they saw.
The workhouse, in its heyday, was intended to be a form of social welfare for those with nothing. In practice, it was seen as a dark and terrible fate. Not only the destitute were confined in them: workhouses were used as a dump for the mentally and chronically ill, and the disabled.
The workhouses were officially closed in 1930. But since there was nowhere else to house thousands of institutionalised people who could not be expected to adjust to the outside world, they continued under other names well into the second half of the 20th century.
Inmates were allowed out; creature comforts were provided and families were kept together. But they continued to be run as institutions, by masters and officers whose attitudes were often set still in the 1900s.Read full article here - Workhouse of Horrors
Ever been unsure about how to deal with a drunken family member returning from an orgy? A collection of newly translated textbooks aimed at Greek speakers learning Latin in the ancient world might hold the solution.
Professor Eleanor Dickey travelled around Europe to view the scraps of material that remain from ancient Latin school textbooks, or colloquia, which would have been used by young Greek speakers in the Roman empire learning Latin between the second and sixth centuries AD. The manuscripts, which Dickey has brought together and translated into English for the first time in her forthcoming book Learning Latin the Ancient Way: Latin Textbooks in the Ancient World, lay out everyday scenarios to help their readers get to grips with life in Latin. Subjects range from visiting the public baths to arriving at school late – and dealing with a sozzled close relative.
The oldest versions of the texts exist as fragments on papyri in Egypt, where the climate meant they survived. Due to the size of these fragments, Dickey had to refer to medieval manuscripts from across Europe. “They have been copied and copied over many centuries, with everyone introducing more mistakes, so they’re not that readable. As an editor, I had to find all the different manuscripts and try to work out what the mistakes were, so I could get to the original text.”
Dickey shows how the students had glossaries to help them get to grips with the new language, collecting together lists of words on useful subjects such as sacrifices (“exta” means entrails, “victimator” is a calf-slaughterer and “hariolus” is a soothsayer) and entertainment. “They’re definitely not the same sorts of words as we’d need,” said Dickey.
Currently housed at the University of Cambridge Library, the historic Book of Deer is said to have been discovered by the University's librarian, Henry Bradshaw, around 1860. It is said to be the only pre-Norman manuscript revealing tenth century northeastern Scottish culture's society and religious traditions, and is the earliest known Gaelic document in existence.
Although fascinating to historians for multiple reasons, the greatest intrigue for those drawn to this ancient text lies within the handwritten notations made in its margins and other blank areas, and not necessarily within the text itself. The notations, also referred to as 'notitiae', are written in the type of Gaelic typically spoken by the upper classes in the early twelfth century region of Buchan at a time later than the original text, indicated land grants or 'charters' and represented the legal rights to land believed to have belonged to the original Deer monastery of Aberdeenshire in Scotland, thus presenting a clear connection to the Deer region.
If manuscripts that come with cheeky insanity warnings are your cup of tea, a select few of you are in luck. A small Spanish publisher has obtained the rights to, in essence, clone the document, down to the holes in the parchment and tears on the pages. (If you prefer your unreadable tomes digitized, Yale has made pages from the book available online.) Holding the manuscript, the publisher argues, provokes a feeling that images on the Internet cannot capture.Read more on publication via Washington Post
The Voynich – currently under lock and key at Yale University – is a 240-page, lavishly illustrated book that dates from the early part of the 15th century. It has been studied intensively for decades by historians, linguists and cryptologists – including some very smart boffins who successfully cracked codes during two world wars – and still no one has figured out its language, much less its meaning.
A rare collection of 250 documents from the 11th to the 15th century was purchased by the National Library and reveals for the first time the main trade routes of the Silk Road, which stretched from the Far East to Europe. The collection, dubbed the Second Afghan Genizah, was found several years ago in caves in the city of Bamyan in central Afghanistan. The find is considered an ancient and rare treasure from which scholars can learn much about life in ancient Jewish and Muslim communities in Persia and Afghanistan before the Mongol conquest.
Most of the texts were written by Jewish and Muslim merchants who lived in the period preceding the destruction the Mongol armies wreaked from 1258-1260, when they were led by the grandson of Genghis Khan.
In the Hellenistic Era—that's 323 BC to 31 BC, for all you numbers fans—the Library of Alexandria, Egypt was a research hub of high prestige. But while certainly the largest of its time and the most famous, the Library of Alexandria wasn’t the only institution of its kind. Libraries throughout the ancient world competed to be the best Greek library, in rivalries that proved as dangerous and unscrupulous as actual wars.
Perhaps the most vicious rivalry of all was between the libraries of Alexandria and Pergamum in the city of Pergamon—present-day Bergama, Turkey. In this conflict, the ego-driven kings of both cities enforced various sneaky maneuvers to stunt the growth of the opposing collections.
Clarkson University Associate Professor of Ancient History Sarah Melville has just published a book examining military and political struggles in the ancient the Near East.
Sarah Melville "The Campaigns of Sargon II, King of Assyria, 721-705 B.C." is the first in-depth military study of an Assyrian king. Melville's book demonstrates how Sargon changed the geopolitical dynamics in the Near East, inspired a period of cultural florescence, established long-lasting Assyrian supremacy, and became one of the ancient world's most successful kings.
Sargon reigned in what is now northern Iraq, the area where ISIS recently destroyed Assyrian ruins at Nineveh (modern Mosul) and Nimrud. By contrast, Sargon II aimed to improve the territory he took.
The Book of Job is quite possibly the strangest book in the Hebrew Bible, and is notoriously difficult to date.
In essence, Job is an essay on the problem of evil. The book starts with God and Satan discussing Job, a “perfect and upright” man who “feared God and eschewed evil” (1:1). Satan tells God that Job is only virtuous because he is well off; were he to suffer, he would surely “curse thee to thy face” (1:11). God accepts the challenge and gives Satan permission to destroy Job’s life.
Since the story lacks any historical context and no historic individuals are mentioned, it is very hard to date.
There's a snag, though. The language in Job is unlike any other found in the Bible, or outside it. True, the book is written in Hebrew, but it is very strange Hebrew indeed. It has more unique words than any other book of the Hebrew Bible. The language is archaic, which would indicate that it was very ancient: but it is also heavily influenced by Aramaic, which would make it relatively late.Read more: Haaretz News
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| Courtesy: Slovakia Travel |
Books were also important in the Premonstratensian monastery at Jasov, south of Košice. Its library comprises about 45,000 titles, and the whole monastery possesses an impressive 100,000 books. A visitor to the library can admire books stored along all its walls, arrayed along the shelves of tall cabinets. The oldest of these date from the 16th century.
In a rare reversal, archaeologists have determined that a Maya book written almost 900 years ago is genuine—after decades of believing it was fake. The Grolier Codex was so named because it was first displayed in 1971 at the book lovers' Grolier Club in New York City. Archaeologist Michael Coe, who arranged the 1971 showing, later described its rather questionable history in a book.
Grolier Codex
It was acquired in a spectacularly scammy way in 1966 by a Mexican collector named Josué Sáenz. Coe says that Sáenz told him that a group of unknown men offered to sell the book to him, along with a few other items found "in a dry cave" near the foothills of the Sierra de Chiapas. They would only sell it if Sáenz agreed never to tell anyone or show the book. The collector, intrigued, took a plane to a remote airstrip with two experts, who declared the codex fake. But Sáenz went with his gut and bought the codex. After allowing Coe to display it in New York, he gave it to the Mexican government.
In the 1960s, what is said to be one of the rarest books in the world was discovered: an ancient Maya book called the Grolier Codex. While the physical book itself — meaning the actual pages — were quickly dated back to the 13th century, researchers have long speculated that the drawings contained in the book were forgeries, something sellers would have made to try and get more money for the product. That’s not true, it turns out. Researchers with Brown University have announced that the Grolier Codex is genuine in every way, making it the oldest known manuscript found in America.
Since it was reportedly unearthed in the 1960s, the 13th century Grolier Codex – one of the rarest books in the world – has been regarded with scepticism. Some people have questioned the authenticity of the book, suggesting that it was forged by modern writers. However, a new study has reviewed all known research on the manuscript, and suggests that the Grolier Codex is both genuine, and likely the oldest of all surviving manuscripts from ancient America.
