#early england

[insidemyfavoritemanuscript]

Episode 17: Kathryn Maude on politics, the queen as evangelist, and the 11th century Encomium Emmae reginae

British Library Add MS 33241, fol. 1v

In Episode 17 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot and Lindsey chat with Kathryn Maude about the 11th century Queen Emma, who was married to and had children with both the English king Æthelred the Unready and his successor the Danish king Cnut the Great. The resulting political situation was complicated, and the Encomium Emmae reginae can help us understand the lines that Emma was attempting to walk as her sons grew into adulthood and prepared to take the throne. The text survives in two copies, the earliest one of which is British Library Add MS 33241, believed to be the copy that was presented to Queen Emma herself. Kathryn walks us through the manuscript and we talk about both the politics and the materiality of this fascinating text.

Listen here, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Below the cut are more photos and links relevant to the conversation.

British Library Add MS 33241, aka Encomium Emmae reginae (digitized online)

Folio 1v, the presentation of the book to Queen Emma, with her sons peeking out from the margin.

A close-up of folio 1v focusing on Emma and her sons.

A close-up of folio 1v focusing on the scribe presenting the book. Note that his hands are covered with a cloth. The son's hand has been added.

A close-up of folio 1v focusing on the curtains

Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 11, miniature of Saint John, folio 107r

Close-up of folio 107r focusing on the curtains. Note Saint John holding the book with a cloth around it.

Copenhagen, Royal Danish Library, Acc. 2011/5, aka Courtenay Compendium, which contains the late 14th century copy of the Encomium Emmae reginae (apparently not digitized)

Doors of Durin, drawn by JRR Tolkien.

The Doors of Durin (Gates of Moria) from the Fellowship of the Ring film by Peter Jackson

Middle Aged Women in the Middle Ages, edited by Sue Niebrzydowski. Gender in the Middle Ages, Volume 7. D. S. Brewer, 2011.

Folio 18r, Sven and Cnut's names are capitalized Half Uncials while the rest of the text is a regular Carolingian script.

Folio 48r, another example. Here Emma's name is capitalized at the top.

A king pointing to the text on folio 46r - "a manicule with a king attached" - with a note written beneath in the later middle ages, probably at Saint Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury.

An ugly manicule (hand pointing at the text), folio 46v.

Folio 5r, a gloss in the margin.

Folio 60r, an emoji in the margin of a couple of eyes to annotate the word oculi (Latin for eyes) in the text.

Close-up of the eyes.

Folio 58v, the parchment has been mended during the parchment preparation process, before the text was written.

Folio 54r, space was left for initials that were never added (the penciled M is probably contemporary but was never decorated)

Folio 2r, the first page of text, featuring a zoomorphic initial (i.e., an initial in the shape of an animal, in this case some sort of dragon and a fish eating each other) and colorful capitals.

Folio 8r, a zoomorphic initial R made of more critters eating each other. Good for a tattoo?

Folio 19v. "Explicit Lib[er] I" means the end of book 1, and "Incipit Secundus" means the beginning of [book] two (the second book).

Folio 50v, featuring Lindsey's ugly manicule

A close-up of the manicule

The Annunciation of Mary in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 11

We talked to Brandon Hawk about the Vercelli Manuscript in Episode 7.

A hedgehog in the Luttrell Psalter (folio 19v)! (See it online)

"The Social Centrality of Women in Beowulf: A New Context" Dot's very first published article!

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question : Murder and Disappearance Edition I

Given that Judge Crater, Roanoke, and the Dyatlov Pass Incident are credibly solved, though not 100% provable, I'm leaving them out in favor of things ,ore mysterious. I almost left out Amelia Earhart, but the evidence there is sketchier.

Some people were a little confused. Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury are the Princes in the Tower.

[novuit]

Extremely late but I had to draw something for his birthday this year </3

[chipper-smol]

Capitalism shure will make you feel guilty about wanting to work on a later schedule than 8 to 5

[leveragehunters]

I was going through my great grandfather's memoirs (born 3 March 1880) and came across this part, which feels eerily similar to our current times:

Our biggest handicap was the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. With men off sick we were lucky to have 50 staff. Some would come back and more would go off. I was off two weeks myself. There were many deaths in the city.   The war was over and the men were returning from France. We were working a fifty hour week. With the men returning, the trend was to repress wages and frown on a reduction of working hours. My responsibility had been increased so as I was next to the superintendent. This was fine, except my wages were the same as the day I started. They said, "You are doing a good job, but with the men returning that is all we can pay you." There was general upset. The returned men were dissatisfied with the wages offered, not only with our company and the warehouse business, but with what was being offered in general.

He then goes on to explain how they met with the Trade and Labour Council to form a union and present their demands (which were union recognition, basic wage of $180.00 a month, an eight hour day in a year's time, and a two year contract), but it all went to hell because of spies reporting back to the bosses and scabs who refused to honour the strike.

After the second day they flooded back like sheep. At Ashdown the travellers and buyers worked the warehouse without interruption of service. The strike was a washout. I was out of a job!

The night before the strike was scheduled to start the bosses even resorted to the closest they had to social media 105 years ago.

The Evening paper carried an advertisement, by all companies concerned, advising that all employees absent from work for three days, would be discharged.

(The memoirs are 180 typed pages, so I may post more bits as they catch my eye)

[escapismsworld]

Wisteria Hysteria💜

Gardens at Iford Manor in Wiltshire, near Bath. Created by Edwardian designer Harold Peto when Iford was his home from 1899-1933.

📸Photo by @wordyelaine

📍Iford Manor Gardens, Wiltshire

[filmbropilled]

girl not me handcrafting this meme right before class

[maddieg444]

[solcattus]

Everetts Old Mill, Corfe; 1909

By Arthur Ernest Streeton

[thesixthduke]

[goldenstarprincesses]

Out: Puritan and Quaker America

In: America lived with the Shakers because they saw him as just another sad little abandoned orphan and with their interpretation of God leaning more mystical they weren't freaked out by him not aging normally

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 46: Early Modernish and Earlier

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. Basically, I'd already moved on to human history, but I'd periodically get a pre-homin suggestion, hence the occasional random item waaay out of it's time period, rather than reopen the category.

In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had. (Invention ofs tend to fall in an earlier grouping if it's still open. Ones that imply height of or just before something tend to get grouped later, but not always. Sometimes I'll split two different things from the same culture into different polls because they involve separate research goals or the like).

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.

[novuit]

Doodle of a fic I wrote that's going to come out soon :)

[barbucomedie]

Harquebusier Armour from England dated to about 1680 on display at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Scotland

During the 17th century harquebusier cavalry were some of the most common in European armies. They were named after the carbine musket they used, the "harquebus" a shorter musket than the ones used by infantry. By 1680 though the Royal Scottish and English armies (later unified as the British Army) were converting these units in regiments of dragoons, mounted infantry who could also charge as cavalry. The armour was phased out of British cavalry regiments by the time of the 18th century.

Photographs taken by myself 2023

[gbiechele]

Morning Fire Minolta MC Auto Tele Rokkor-QE 100mm f/3.5 Sony A7

[armthearmour]

A flamberged Smallsword with a delicately pierced hilt,

OaL: 39.5 in/100.25 cm

Blade Length: 32.1 in/81.5 cm

England, ca. 1670-1787, housed with the Royal Collection Trust.