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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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And wonder why English scribes transcribing certain words beginning with an n decided it was essential to stick in a k. How did they know it was there to stick in?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Cnut?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Yes, but that is Canute. We don't say k-nowledge. We must consult Stephanie Flanders.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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But we do say conundrum.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Dont know, but this made me chuckle.
Here is wiki on Nottingham.
| The city predates Anglo-Saxon times and was known in Brythonic as Tigguo Cobauc, meaning Place of Caves (known also as "City of Caves"). In modern Welsh it is known poetically as Y Ty Ogofog and Irish as Na Tithe Uaimh "The Cavey Dwelling".[19] When it fell under the rule of a Saxon chieftain named Snot it became known as "Snotingaham"; the homestead of Snot's people (-inga = the people of; -ham = homestead).[20] Some authors derive "Nottingham" from Snottenga, caves, and ham, but "this has nothing to do with the English form".[21] |
Of course C or K=S but I aint telling this to your Snots folk.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Just switched on the radio and heard a discussion between Melvyn Bragg and his expert guests on automata and miracles. Big attraction in the pilgrim business run by medieval monks. A popular example was the Rood of Grace at the Cistercian monastery at Boxley near Maidstone on the famous Pilgrims Way.
Statues and images were seen to move, weep, speak and so on thanks to 'excellent engineering'. Later transferred over to fairgrounds and clockwork.
Melvyn: So it was deception?
Expert: Absolutely it was deception.
Some historians prefer to say 'theatrical' rather than deceptive but most would presumably agree with the guest. Even so, it seems too big a leap for historians to accept monastic records as deceptions.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Some historians prefer to say 'theatrical' rather than deceptive but most would presumably agree with the guest. Even so, it seems too big a leap for historians to accept monastic records as deceptions. |
The Dark Ages is theatre rewritten as history.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Can we quote you on that?
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Of course.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It'll fit right in.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Wile E. Coyote wrote: | | The Dark Ages is theatre rewritten as history. |
That may be literally true. I've an hypothesis that the story of Henry 8 was invented by Shakespeare.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It’s always been a bit of mystery why Kate Wiles, Senior Editor at History Today and therefore one of the most important people in the land when it comes to getting history books off the stocks, took such a personal dislike to Forgeries. We finally found out now it has been revealed that her first article for History Today – before she was even taken on staff – was about the very subject matter of Forgeries. So I thought a more careful appraisal of this (for me, personally) momentous article was called for. It begins
| The commonly accepted idea of a medieval scriptorium is of a low dark room dedicated to the purpose of producing manuscripts, with rows of highly trained scribes hunched over desks in alcoves working in serious silence. But the reality is that, while that set-up might be true of later medieval Britain, there is little evidence to support such a picture in the Anglo-Saxon or early post-Conquest period. |
That may be because there is not a single example of an Anglo-Saxon scriptorium known to man, beast or archaeologist.
more later
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Instead the term ‘scriptorium’ encompassed a variety of situations, of which no two are the same. An early medieval scriptorium could be anything from a room or building in which scribes worked, a collection of scribes with a co-ordinated, organised structure or, more loosely, a general location where manuscripts were produced. |
When you have no examples, you can conjecture anything you like.
| At its most basic it might amount to two scribes working together on more than one manuscript. |
At its most basic, surely one scribe.
| Very often this is the most we can confidently show to have existed at any so-called scriptorium. |
I hate to mention it, Kate, but there is nothing we can confidently say about early medieval scriptoria, whether they're so-called or not. You've just strung a lot of conjectures about what you think they might have been like, probably. Unless you're now going to produce some evidence...
more later
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| The closest physical evidence of a specially dedicated place in which scribes worked in this period |
... ah, at last.
| is found in 11th-century St Albans. |
Whoops! Dear old Kate has just confirmed what Hatty and me have been saying all along, that there is no physical evidence of anything before the Norman period. Thank God for academics, they know what they do.
So not ‘physical’ after all
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| Abbot Paul of Caen (1077-93) gave money for a single-room scriptorium to be built |
This is an example of an academic swindle we highlight in Forgeries as the 'either/or technique' and in THOBR is called the Three Card Trick. This is how it goes.
more later
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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When an academic wants to establish something that’s pretty important but which, for perfectly understandable reasons, there is no actual evidence, he or she will take something for which there is evidence and ‘conjoin’ it with the something for which there isn’t. The example we use in Forgeries is that of the Gospels of St Augustine (no historical evidence) which has been unobtrusively linked to some books sent to Canterbury by Pope Gregory (mentioned in Bede) leaving the impression that the Gospel book has historical evidence.
Dr Wiles has promised us a picture of scriptoria in the early medieval period in Britain. They are damn important because they are a key ingredient in the ‘Celtic/Anglo-Saxon Renaissance’ which helped to kick-start modern European (and therefore modern world) history. Pretty big stakes! What has Kate actually done? She has tacitly admitted there is no evidence for these and has started talking instead about a Norman scriptorium, paid for by a Norman prelate, built in England, presumably because there were none to be found there.
How has she managed to get away with this? Well,if you look carefully, by employing the cute phrase “in the Anglo-Saxon or early post-Conquest periodâ€. But she has already told us that “the reality is that, while that set-up might be true of later medieval Britain†– i.e. bog standard monastery scriptoria from the Norman and Plantagenet era that we all know about and which History Today would certainly not accept some generalised vapourings about.
She can get away with it because of the old Dark Age/Medieval switcheroo that historians have been hocus-pocusing on us all ever since .... well, certainly since my schooldays. I know everyone here is thoroughly sick of the subject but it's worth seeing how an old pro like Kate Wiles handles it...
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