UCL Festival of the Arts, 21 May 2015, 18:30 to 19:30 - Live tweets from public discussion on the use and abuse of digital images of medieval books: #ManuscriptsNow

This week's collection of news and tweets for medievalists.

For our fellow medievalists, here are some of the news and interesting posts that we came across in the last week:

Finally, this image, created in 1512, shows the first mention of the phrase: "Throw out the baby with the bath water".

Found in Narrenbeschw�rung (Appeal to Fools) by Thomas Murner.

It looks like I'm not the only one who disliked having to carry around a lot of books. Back in the mid-16th century a German publisher created this six books in a book, where you can open it up in different ways to read the different texts.

This particular book is owned by the National Library of Sweden, and it contains religious texts including one by Martin Luther. You can see more images of it from the Flikr page of the National Library of Sweden, but if you want to see it in action, check out Erik Kwakkel's Tumblr! You can also follow him on Twitter @erik_kwakkel

An image from a 16th century Portuguese manuscript may indicate that Europeans visited Australia earlier than previously thought.

A drawing that appears to show a kangaroo has been found in the manuscript belonging to a Portuguese nun. The small manuscript, which dates from between 1580 and 1620, has recently been acquired by Les Enluminures Gallery of New York.

Laura Light, a researcher from Les Enluminures Gallery, told the Sydney Morning Herald, "A kangaroo or a wallaby in a manuscript dated this early is proof that the artist of this manuscript had either been in Australia, or even more interestingly, that travellers' reports and drawings of the interesting animals found in this new world were already available in Portugal."

While it is commonly believed that the first Europeans to reach Australia in 1606 were Dutch, some historians suggest that the Portuguese visited the continent as early as 1521.

Click here to read the full article from the Sydney Morning Herald

Damien Kempf on Tumblr writes about this image from a 12th century manuscript known as the Bible of Stephen Harding. This work contains many images, including this page that details the story of King David. Just like a modern day comic book, you are supposed to go through this page from left to write and top to bottom, and read the caption for each box. 

The manuscript - Dijon BM MS.14 - has been scanned and is available on the French government website www.enluminures.culture.fr

You can also follow Damien Kempf on Twitter at @DamienKempf

The Voynich Manuscript has confounded scholars ever since it was revealed by a book dealer named Wilfrid Voynich in the early part of the 20th century. There have been several theories of when this odd manuscript, which contains bizarre images and indecipherable writing, was created, with some believing it dates back to the Middle Ages.

In his article Cracking the Voynich Code, Batya Ungar-Sargon takes a look at the history of the manuscript. Radiocarbon dating finds that the manuscript was made between 1404 and 1438, although we do not know when the ink was written on it. Still, some believe the manuscript is really just a hoax, perhaps created in the 17th or even the 20th century.  You can read the article on Tablet Magazine.

Icelanders are seeing the potential value of its medieval archaeological sites as tourist attractions, according to an article in the Iceland Review Online. �l�f �rr Atlad�ttir, director general of the Icelandic Tourist Board, explains that �Nature still has the most attraction but culture, in a broad sense, is gaining popularity. Tourists are constantly seeking new experiences and not least the interplay between daily life and nature through centuries. Strategic development of tourism related to cultural values like archaeological remains plays a big part in that context.�

However, she also warns that the her country needs to do a better job protecting archaeological sites from environmental degradation. Click here to read this article from Iceland Review Online.

Meanwhile, Chinese archaeologists report that they might have discovered the tomb of Emperor Yang Guang, who was the last ruler of the Sui Dynasty. The small tomb contains a gravestone that identifies the emperor and relates events about the year he died, 618. However, Shu Jiaping, head of Yangzhou's Institute of Archaeology, warns "we're still not sure whether it was the emperor's final resting place, as historical records said his tomb had been relocated several times."

Emperor Yang Shang had a very active rule, ordering major building projects including a Grand Canal and rebuilding large parts of the Great Wall. But his construction work and military campaigns bankrupted the state, eventually leading to a coup in which he was murdered. Click here to read the full article from the China Daily.

A Dash Of Olive Oil May Preserve British Cathedral 

A report from NPR about using the oleic acid from Olive Oil to preserve York Minster in England

Will this be the last Pope?

According to a report from Discovery.com, a 12th century prophecy suggests that the about-to-be-elected Pope will be the last one before the Last Judgment. Apparently, in 1139 an Irish archbishop named St. Malachy gave Pope Innocent II a list of who the next 112 Popes will be. This 112th Pope will be named Peter the Roman, and according to the prophecy will �feed his flock amid many tribulations, after which the City of the Seven Hills shall be utterly destroyed, and the awful Judge will judge the people.� The document containing the prophecy was found in the Vatican Archives in 1590, and many scholars believe it was actually created in the sixteenth century.

The Cat and the Manuscript

This great picture went viral last week - Emir O. Filipovic, a scholar working in the Dubrovnik State Archives in Croatia, found this when he opened up a manuscript. Apparently, a 15th-century cat must have got his paws into the ink, then onto this document. Emir took a photo of it, and later on tweeted to Erik Kwakkel and from there it went call over the world. Click here to read Emir's article about it.

Beginning today, we will be changing how the Medieval News blog is presented. We hope to bring you a new post every day or two, which will cover what medieval and history news stories are out there, and some interesting things that were also found online. We hope you enjoy the links and videos!

Can the Pope Resign?

Pope Benedict XVI announced today that he will be resigning as the Pontiff effective February 28, 2013. Also known as Joseph Ratzinger, the 85-year old Pope has been suffering from poor health. Still, this is a very surprising announcement, with the last Pope to resign being Gregory XII in 1415. A few months ago, we posted about The Pope who Quit, by Jon M. Sweeney, which details the papal intrigues surrounding the resignation of Celestine V in 1294.

Lines of beauty: British Library�s medieval manuscripts go digital

The Financial Times has profiled the British Library's efforts at digitizing its 25,000 medieval manuscripts, and profiles six of these items. Claire Breay, head of medieval and earlier manuscripts at the British Library, explains �Anybody can enjoy them whether they are the leading academic on some aspect of that manuscript � or a schoolchild doing a project." Some beautiful images here.

How I mapped the �lost� forests of Huntingdonshire 

Jason Peters has been examining records related to royal forests in Huntingdonshire during the Middle Ages. Using local archives and geographic computer programs, he was able to locate various royal and private forests in the county. In fact, nearly all of the county was legally considered a forest.

Peters explains, �A Norman-Medieval forest was, in effect, a legally defined conservation area where no matter who was the landowner construction, resource exploitation, habitat degradation and hunting of game could not be undertaken without Crown approval. The Forest of County Huntingdon was an evolving, dynamic, socio-political phenomenon, not limited to woodland habitat but extending across pastures, Fenlands, arable, meadows and rivers.

�There is 800 years of history that hasn�t been understood. People could be living somewhere that was a forest. By mapping areas that we now know were woods, we can understand the ecology of the area, which could be very important when considering any future development.�

You can check out Jason Peters' website, Posthumous Plans: Mapping Lost Landscapes, which officially launches later this week.

Richard III: Exhibition draws in the crowds at Leicester's Guildhall 

 The City of Leicester is already showcasing the story of Richard III, and has a temporary exhibition about the discovery of the English King. Here is a video of how it looks:




Richard III Memes

Some pretty funny work being done with Richard III this week...

Top Tips for Visiting Medieval Cairo

Finally, I want to point you to a podcast I heard the other day: Elizabeth Eva Leach, Professor of Music at the University of Oxford, spoke as part of the Engage: Social Media Talks series, about Blogging and Tweeting. Professor Leach is a medievalist who has developed a very good website about her work, and also tweets from @eeleach. For those interested in using social media as part of their academic career, this is well worth a listen too!

Think you're the first person to consider the offensive capabilities of cats and birds in a hypothetical war against zombies space invaders enemies of the Holy Roman Empire? Think again!

Click here to read more from The Atlantic

The majority of Timbuktu's ancient manuscripts appear to be safe and unharmed after the Saharan city's 10-month occupation by Islamist rebel fighters, experts said on Wednesday, rejecting some media reports of their widespread destruction.

Denying accounts that told of tens of thousands of priceless papers being burned or stolen by the fleeing rebels, they said the bulk of the Timbuktu texts had been safely hidden well before the city's liberation by French forces on Sunday.

Brittle, written in ornate calligraphy, and ranging from scholarly treatises to old commercial invoices, the Timbuktu texts represent a compendium of human knowledge on everything from law, sciences and medicine to history and politics. Some experts compare them in importance to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

News that they were mostly safe, from people directly involved with conservation of the texts, was a relief to the world's cultural community, which had been dismayed by the prospect of a large-scale loss.

Click here to read this article from Reuters

The fabled city of Timbuktu, a place of enigma for centuries, has now given the world another mystery: What happened to thousands of priceless, ancient manuscripts that have vanished into the dusty Sahara winds?

 When hundreds of French soldiers rolled into the remote desert city in northern Mali on Monday, cheered by thousands of residents who were ecstatic that the Islamist rebels had fled, one of the biggest fears was the fate of Timbuktu�s ornately crafted manuscripts, as precious to world history as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

 The city�s mayor, exiled far away in Mali�s capital, alleged that the Islamist extremists had torched the manuscript libraries, burning them to the ground. This was quickly disproved by a Sky TV crew embedded with the French soldiers, who found the main library intact, alleviating the worst fears of many scholars.

 Inside the library, television reports showed a few small piles of ash, along with dozens of empty boxes. Up to 10,000 manuscripts were gone. The immediate assumption was that the Islamist militia groups had stolen or destroyed them � although subsequent reports suggested that many of them had been hidden and saved.

Click here to read this article from The Globe and Mail

Some crazy examples of what people in the Middle Ages drew in their manuscripts. Lots of sex and violence.

Click here to see all twenty images from Buzzfeed

Around a million medieval documents have no date making their historical significance difficult to quantify. But automated computer techniques look set to revolutionise the work for historians.

 An important aspect of any society is the way it keeps records of property and land transactions so that ownership can be properly established and disputes resolved. In medieval Britain, this process was largely carried out by religious or royal institutions which recorded transactions in documents, written in Latin, called charters.

 Today, more than a million charters survive either as originals or more often as ancient copies. They provide a remarkable insight into the pressures at work in medieval politics, economics and society between the tenth and fourteenth centuries in England.

 For example, historians can use these documents to study the rise and fall of military and religious organisations. A good example is the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, a religious and military organisation set up after the western conquest of Jerusalem in the 11th century (the First Crusade). Historians say the charters clearly show how the organisation became militarised in response to the call for a Second Crusade in 1145, triggered by Muslim forces recapturing various towns in the region. Clearly, these documents have huge historical value but there is a problem: most charters are not dated, particularly during the period of Norman rule between 1066 and 1307.

Click here to read this article from the MIT Technology Review

Click here to read the article Dating medieval English charters

A trove of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew characters rescued from caves in a Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan is providing the first physical evidence of a Jewish community that thrived there a thousand years ago.

 On Thursday Israel's National Library unveiled the cache of recently purchased documents that run the gamut of life experiences, including biblical commentaries, personal letters and financial records. 

Researchers say the "Afghan Genizah" marks the greatest such archive found since the "Cairo Genizah" was discovered in an Egyptian synagogue more than 100 years ago, a vast depository of medieval manuscripts considered to be among the most valuable collections of historical documents ever found.

 The Afghan collection gives an unprecedented look into the lives of Jews in ancient Persia in the 11th century. The paper manuscripts, preserved over the centuries by the dry, shady conditions of the caves, include writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Judea-Arabic and the unique Judeo-Persian language from that era, which was written in Hebrew letters.

Click here to read this article from NPR

By Geoffrey York
The Globe and Mail

As rebels searched the bags of the truck passengers at a checkpoint near Timbuktu, one man was trying to hide his nervousness. Mohamed Diagayete, an owlish scholar with an eager smile, was silently praying that the rebels would not discover his laptop computer.

Buried in his laptop bag was an external hard drive with a cache of thousands of valuable images and documents from Timbuktu�s greatest cultural treasure: its ancient scholarly manuscripts.

 Radical Islamist rebels in northern Mali have repeatedly attacked the fabled city�s heritage, taking pickaxes to the tombs of local saints and smashing down a door in a 15th century mosque. They demolished several more mausoleums this week and vowed to destroy the rest, despite strong protests from UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency.

 With the tombs demolished, Timbuktu�s most priceless remaining legacy is its vast libraries of crumbling Arabic and African manuscripts, written in ornate calligraphy over the past eight centuries, proof of a historic African intellectual tradition. Some experts consider them as significant as the Dead Sea Scrolls � and an implicit rebuke to the harsh narrow views of the Islamist radicals.

Click here to read this article from The Globe and Mail

See also: The Manuscripts of Timbuktu