Under the shadow

This time next week, I will be on an eclipse trip under-standing the shadow with my family, and thinking about all of the people sharing that experience, and the profound and powerful human eclipse experience throughout history. I thought I’d write a little about it.

I don’t think I’ve looked at a manuscript that had eclipse-related illustrations, but I was able to search and find one, with the help of the British Library. This is from BL Burney MS 169, folio 69r, and it shows Alexander of Macedonia consulting astrologers after the battle of Arbela while his army gazes up in awe.

I wrote some stuff about this illustration assuming it depicted a solar eclipse somewhat oddly, before I noticed that the British Library blog article specifies it’s a lunar eclipse. Whoops. So instead I will write: I love this picture of soldiers witnessing an astronomical event together, and I especially love the radiating curves around the moon.

Eclipses in chronicles and art are important because they allow scholars to, among other things, align humanity’s various calendar systems to a precise reference point.

You can read more about eclipses in pre-modern records at these links, in increasing order of length and complexity:

• Total Eclipse of the Sun at the British Library blog
• Astronomers use Byzantine chronicles to learn about the Earth’s rotation at Medievalists.net
• Analyses for graphical records for a total solar eclipse in May 1230: a possible reference for the “Medieval Grand Maximum”, open access at ResearchGate

There are medieval manuscripts with astronomical diagrams of eclipses in them, and verbal descriptions, but other than the above, I didn’t have a lot of luck finding manuscript illustrations of people witnessing eclipses.

So, let me try again with a solar eclipse: this is a detail of “Dionysius the Areopagite Converting the Pagan Philosophers” by Antoine Caron (previously exhibited as “Astronomers studying an eclipse”). It was painted in the 1570s, and thus would have been informed by experiences and descriptions of a solar eclipse in 1571. However, this doesn’t look like a painting of eclipse totality to me– and indeed, EclipseWise suggests the totality path only barely touched Gibraltar.

For a complete discussion of the details of the painting, including an analysis of what kind of solar phenomenon it might show, read this 5-page article helpfully archived by NASA and Harvard. Spoiler: the authors don’t think it’s an accurate depiction of any kind of eclipse. Perhaps more interestingly, they go on to list a variety of interesting astronomical phenomena that could have inspired it.

Here’s one more eclipse from art history, which does appear to depict totality! Specifically, as the moon comes into perfect alignment with the sun, the sliver of sunlight around the edge squeezes down smaller and smaller, until the sunlight seems to form a thin circle with a single splash of bright light for a moment. That moment is called the diamond ring.

You can read more about the painting at this “Eclipses in art” web exhibit.

The early eighteenth century was an exciting time for eclipses in Europe, with total or annular eclipses crossing the region in 1706, 1708, 1715, and 1724. Cosmas Damian Asam painted his first work of Saint Benedict’s vision in 1726, but the one I’ve chosen here was painted in 1735. You can read more about Asam and St. Benedict in this 30-page paper.

The early eighteenth century was also a great time for eclipses because it’s when precise calculations of where eclipses could be seen became possible– and thus, it became possible to make sure to be in the right place. I had no idea that eclipse travel had such a long history! You can read more in this Smithsonian article on the history of eclipse chasing or this Atlas Obscura article about Edmond Halley’s eclipse maps. One of Halley’s goals in creating the maps was to make the phenomena less startling and confusing, and thus easier to appreciate as astronomical wonder. People who are tired of hearing about eclipses this year now know who to shake their fist at. I hope my readers who are in that population will forgive me this deviation from my usual 15th and 16th century manuscript material– I know I’m overdue for rambles about armor art, and I will try not to make you wait too much longer.

Hello, SoCal!

I’ll make this quick, for once. I promised you a link to the sea knights story, and here it is:

The story was “Battered and Bruised: A Translation of the ‘Fish-Knights’ Episode from Perceforest” by Coline Blaizeau. If you want to read more of Perceforest in modern English, Blaizeau suggests Nigel Bryant’s 2011 book.

Glamorous paleography: nasal capital review

Dearest readers, I try sometimes to share the real honest process of manuscript research with you. And so, here’s my translation project from this week: comparing every capital N or M in the Florius manuscript.

You see, we realized some sentences we thought started with “Me” (a reflexive pronoun) might actually start with “Ne” (which negates verbs), meaning we had thought we had sentences like “I cover myself” that might actually say “I don’t cover.”

Our conclusion? The manuscript features at least three capital Ns and two capital Ms… and this ambiguous letter appears as both, but probably mostly as N. So now we need to go back and re-read all of those ambiguous sentences to see which version makes more sense.

Also, I found one place where we had read a capital H as a capital N, so I guess we’ll fix that too.

Anyway, if you’ve always wanted to see every nasal capital– that is, M or N– in the Paris Fiore manuscript, here they are in order. Viewing the manuscript– or the text– like this, what do you notice that you’ve never seen before?

I was surprised by how much the definition of the brush strokes varies, and the opacity or darkness of the ink. This is all the official high-quality BnF photography, so the scribe and not the camera is probably responsible for variations in crispness.

Come out and be known as your truer self

I’m a couple days late for Coming Out Day, but I know you always enjoy my reflective writing.

People have been asking me lately when I’m going to give a presentation about historical swordswomen again. And… I wasn’t really planning to. But I think it’s probably time to reexamine that choice.

There are a lot of reasons I haven’t felt excited about going back to it. When I was working on updating and expanding it, a bunch of stressful stuff was going on in my life, including a lot of tension and frustration with someone who was working on the project with me. Going back to the subject feels too much like going back to all of that, to the extent that I’ve never put it on my Lectures and Recordings page.

But the reason that comes into my mind first is, that’s not what I want to be famous for. I don’t want to be remembered as the woman who works on woman stuff. Historical swordfighting is a very male-dominated space, and I’ve been navigating that my entire adult life, trying to find the right amount of “remind the men that people who aren’t men exist and are different” and trying not to worry about “they won’t take me (or maybe any woman) seriously if I’m not man enough.”

So… I have this presentation I don’t want to be famous for, but it’s already something people remember about me and, more importantly, want more of. Which I guess means I have an opportunity to reshape their perception.

And it’s information that needs to be put out into the world again, because for the love of kittens, “cool non-man swordfighters” does not begin and end with La Maupin and basically none of those meme pictures are actually of her anyway. And also her story usually has wacky exaggerated genderfuckery fingerprints all over it, like some 18th or 19th century person said “aha, a story with non-mainstream gender and sexuality! Allow me to impose some of my ideas about gender onto it to make sure you notice gender things are happening but also reassure you that women are ladylike and attracted to men!” Like the bit where she stabs a guy in a duel but then tenderly nurses him back to health before having sex with him. Or the thing where her early serious relationship with a woman is only discussed as the framing for why she set the convent on fire and is otherwise elided to a couple sentences.

I guess I have more to say about this topic.

So.

The world needs me to share more information about individual non-men fighters, and probably also broader categories of non-men who were doing combat and defense stuff, and point out that a lot of the gender division ideas we modern folk have about the medieval era were given to us by the historians of intervening centuries.

And I need to find ways to do that– all of that– without feeling like I’m compromising my own priorities for presenting my identity to others.

I think the first step to making it manageable is to separate it into two topics, because I think it would be difficult and also unhelpful to simultaneously cover “binary gender has been imposed onto history in weird ways” and “gender and sexuality are not binary.” Taken separately, I think each of those topics fits better with the current Darth Kendra brand than the old presentation does.

I suspect a lot of you are now wondering, Darth Kendra, what do you want to be famous for? Because, you’re right, I shouldn’t define myself by what I don’t want. And I think if I have to boil it all down to one single idea, that idea is READ ALL THE MANUSCRIPTS. I don’t want to be remembered as the person with all the ladies in armor pictures, or the merfolk pictures, or even as the Florius translator– I want all of those to be taken together to create a big picture of “Darth Kendra will read everything unstoppably when she’s on the trail of something interesting, and then (sooner or later) share the journey and also the discovery at the end.”

While I’m talking about ways I intend to be more out and true, I’m resolving to put more stickers on my HEMA gear. I think– I’m trying to believe– that using my gear to celebrate some things I love, and thus share a little more of my truer self with everyone I fight, will make me stronger and healthier. Even– or, no, especially– if some of those things are definitely not manly, like glitter pastel cottagecore and fluffy cats sitting by rainy windows.

We can’t stop here, this is wombat country

So, I went to Las Vegas. (Please supply your own Show Biz Kids reference.) Michael Chidester and I brought HEMA Bookshelf to CombatCon, and we both also taught some classes.

I have been politely referring to some parts of the trip as “misadventures” and “learning experiences,” but in the interest of transparency, “minor disasters” is probably more accurate. If my recounting sounds less than glowing, please read that not as a reflection on Vegas or CombatCon, but a natural consequence of having an unexpected 17 hour layover on the way in. Case in point, this probably isn’t the right place to start my story, but here we are.

Let me skip to a different part of the story, then! I did Primary Source Storytime and it was great– it was the most continuous reading I’ve done yet, filling a whole hour with three substantial pieces. (Past installments have been more like 20-40 minutes of reading at a time.) I was delighted to find that not only did my voice hold out, but also the audience seemed totally engaged the whole time. When I first had the idea for Primary Source Storytime, I hoped people would like it, but every time I sit down to read at a new event I get a little nervous that this’ll be the time it’s boring. So far, you keep proving me wrong and being fascinated, and that’s why you’re great.

Also, for the second time someone sketched while listening, and gave me the drawing, which is of an ox-like grazing fish creature described in one of the readings. After someone at Swordsquatch showed me their sketchbook, I hoped something similar might happen at a subsequent storytime, and it was even more delightful than I imagined.

Here’s the drawing anchoring my CombatCon and Vegas haul pile:

Not shown: awesome shadow Meyer pocket leggings from Ox & Plow, two Meow Wolf plush creatures, and some shiny things that must remain secret until they’re presented as gifts. Also a rainbow bracelet by What The Cat Made that I forgot to take off and put in the picture. And the Penn & Teller merch. You’re learning why I don’t usually do haul pile pictures.

If you came to this blog hoping to get more info about the texts that I read at storytime, you’re in luck!

The first piece was “The Knight under the Baking Tub” from Erotic Tales of Medieval Germany by Albrecht Classen. This book was recommended to me by the amazing Jess Finley, with the comment “I didn’t really understand the medieval idea of pursuit until I read these stories.” The stories are not (to my eye) erotic in the modern “pornographic, causing sexual excitement” sense, but they do generally concern what happens before and/or after people have sex, like how many sexual encounters constitute appropriate barter for one really cute pet bunny.

The second piece was “Battered and Bruised: A Translation of the ‘Fish-Knights’ Episode from Perceforest” by Coline Blaizeau. This curious and thought-provoking bit of adventure was recommended to me by the excellent Katie Vernon who helped me connect medieval images of merfolk in armor to contemporary fiction. If you want to read more of Perceforest in modern English, Blaizeau suggests Nigel Bryant’s 2011 book. I have read and liked another of Bryant’s translations, so I feel good repeating the recommendation.

The third piece was a selection of chapters from Michael Chidester’s transcription and edition of Thomas Bedingfield’s 1580 translation of Paride del Pozzo‘s Italian treatise on dueling jurisprudence. (Whew.) Michael published those and more chapters on his Patreon throughout 2021 and plans to return to the project someday when his book-publishing schedule chills out. If a lot of you subscribe to the Patreon and ask for more Pozzo, maybe someday he’ll publish a version with a title that’s easier to cite.

While at CombatCon, I also took classes from Steaphen Fick, Morgana Alba, and Simone Belli, which were all excellent. This is the most hands-on workshops I’ve attended at a single event in a long time, and even though it made HEMA Bookshelf table coverage hard to schedule I’m really glad I did. I learned new things in every class, and I spoke up and asked questions and got things wrong (but not as much as I thought I would). All this sword travel is often exhausting, but getting to learn new things and see different teaching styles and learn old things in new ways keeps me coming back for more.

At the risk of explaining a joke, the armored plushie in the photo is an official Combat Wombat.

After the ‘zoo

After the kazoo? Anyway, I went to the International Congress on Medieval Studies held at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, in person this year! It was a zoo.

First things first, if you looked me up because you want to know more about my presentation, here’s a PDF of the slides.

kendra-brown-kalamazoo-latin-lew-presentation-finalDownload

But if you’re a new reader or a longtime fan who isn’t the sort of person to hear about scholarly medievalism conferences… what is this Kalamazoo thing?

The 2023 conference was made up of over 400 sessions (2-5 presenters each) packed into 3 days, plus an exhibitor’s hall and a bunch of social events and also you have to eat, sleep, and walk all over campus. Apparently the conference used to be larger but got out of hand ten or so years ago, and has been strategically re-focused since then. In case the size of this event wasn’t clear already, the program is a book about the size of a standard manga volume, as thick as my finger and a little bigger than a mass-market paperback– and the program only contains session and presentation names and presenters, no descriptions about anything. One of the things I learned this year is, I should try to come up with catchier titles that have the key terms closer to the front so they’re easier to skim.

Manuscript ASMR, and some quick networking

I met a lot of people at SoCal Swordfight this weekend! I even remembered to give out my business cards, mostly while I was sitting at the HEMA Bookshelf table with Michael Chidester of Wiktenauer fame. (I brought cards to my Primary Source Storytime class, but forgot to give them out.)

I wanted to solve this problem more elegantly, like having a sidebar with links to websites I think you should visit, but I couldn’t get WordPress to display that on the front page in addition to individual post pages, so here we are.

If you have my card and were hoping it would help you buy books about swords, you should go visit HEMA Bookshelf, but I hope you’ll also look around a little here at my informal but informative research articles, recorded talks and podcast appearances, and more.

With that out of the way, here’s a little collection of videos I thought you might enjoy, showcasing the tiny noises that manuscripts and other special books make.

Medieval and early modern history lectures

I watched a ton of recorded lectures in 2020 and 2021. Here’s a selection of my favorites, roughly grouped but not really in an organized order.

1. Codicology and manuscript history
   1. Erik Kwakkel
   2. Schoenberg Symposium
   3. Dark Archives conference
2. Medieval and early modern history
3. Art history
4. Arms and armor
   1. Royal Armouries
   2. Dr. Tobias Capwell
   3. Robert MacPherson

Come out and meet Catherine of Alexandria

^{Detail from “Madonna and Child with Saints in the Enclosed Garden,” follower of Robert Campin, National Gallery of Art}

It’s October 11th again (er, it was– I’m a little rusty), which means it’s time for me to write an oblique post for National Coming Out Day. You can read all of my past NCOD posts in the “special occasions” tag; apparently I intended once to write other special occasion posts . Organizing things that I haven’t written yet is hard. And speaking of “haven’t written,” October 11th has snuck up on me just as I’m trying to shake off a long writing dry spell, so I don’t have a big elaborate planned thing this time.

^{Carved walnut statue, Rhine valley, Metropolitan Museum of Art}

Today, I’m going to tell you about just one topic: Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

I’m going to call her just “Catherine.” Catherine of Alexandria is probably the most famous one, but there are quite a few other saints named Catherine.

She’s not my patron saint; I don’t think I have one. I regret sometimes that the medieval spiritual experience is pretty opaque to me– but I said I was going to stick to just one topic.

I run into Catherine a lot when I’m on an art gathering binge, because she’s maybe the most common medieval motif of a lady with a sword, and seems to just generally have been a very popular saint. I’ve written a little about her previously, in my post about gauffered books.

^{Stained glass window, Boppard-am-Rhein near Koblenz, The Cloisters}

It seems like the academic consensus points to Catherine of Alexandria not really being real. She was absolutely real to medieval Europeans, as real as Amazons and four humours medical theory, and that’s important. But I guess I feel better about attaching my own symbolism to her if there’s no authoritative “true” story that must be discarded first.

Last time I wrote about her, I suggested that Catherine and fellow virgin saint Barbara were icons of self-education and independence. “Icon” there means something like in “style icon,” but also something more literal: both saints include a book among their aspects, the props that symbolize parts of their stories and make them identifiable across centuries and art styles.

But most of all, I– silently, until now– think of Catherine as a queer icon of nonconformity.

Reminders I needed

Okay, first, something super small that’s been bugging me: when I wrote about the Rule of Saint Benedict and “Open the ears of your heart and listen,” I said I first learned about it from a Janina Ramirez documentary, and it was actually Secrets of the Castle episode 5.

With that out of the way– hi! It’s been a while.

I’ve been getting out to events some this year, and I met (or re-met) quite a few of you. It’s been really good to remember why I do stuff like write blog articles and, really, research in general. It’s just not as interesting without someone to tell about it. You’re all a lot more excited about my weird ideas than I expected after too much time being a hermit, and that really means a lot to me.

I spent much of the beginning of the year preparing for ICMS Kalamazoo, where you joined me on a whirlwind tour of merfolk and epic battles and sinuous hybrids. In Dijon, I showed you teeny tiny writing and said “I don’t know” about Fiore and Florius a lot. In Iowa, I used my dayjob skills to turn parts of your intense but kind of rambly leadership summit into guidelines and standards. In Washington state, I read you stories that were both charming and tragic. In New Hampshire, I wasn’t even presenting anything and you found me and talked to me about translations anyway.

And maybe this was the whole point all along: I’ve missed you, and I think it’s high time I started writing up some of the things I’ve investigated and visited. Yes, I owe you a lot more explanations about merfolk. I haven’t forgotten. And I want to get back to sharing manuscript pictures with you, maybe with more paleography photos I took myself than clippings from scanned manuscripts.

I don’t think I’m ready to start reading social media again, so some experimentation will be required to figure out how this is going to work. But I don’t need to say “I hope you won’t mind”; you’ve all reminded me that that’s what this is all about, and you like seeing new and strange things.