The limits of stoicism

Philosopher Nancy Sherman discusses the applicability of the ancient Stoic philosophy for today's warriors, and its limits. An excerpt:

Stockdale’s resilience is legendary in the military. And it remains a living example, too, for philosophers, of how you might put into practice ancient Stoic consolations. But for many in the military, taking up Stoic armor comes at a heavy cost.

In the military, even those who have never laid eyes on a page of Epictetus, still live as if they have. To suck it up is to move beyond grieving and keep fighting.

The Stoic doctrine is essentially about reducing vulnerability. And it starts off where Aristotle leaves off. Aristotle insists that happiness depends to some degree on chance and prosperity. Though the primary component of happiness is virtue — and that, a matter of one’s own discipline and effort — realizing virtue in the world goes beyond one’s effort. Actions that succeed and relationships that endure and are reciprocal depend upon more than one’s own goodness. For the Stoics, this makes happiness far too dicey a matter. And so in their revision, virtue, and virtue alone, is sufficient for happiness. Virtue itself becomes purified, based on reason only, and shorn of ordinary emotions, like fear and grief that cling to objects beyond our control.

In the military, even those who have never laid eyes on a page of Epictetus, still live as if they have. To suck it up is to move beyond grieving and keep fighting; it is to stare death down in a death-saturated place; it is to face one more deployment after two or three or four already. It is hard to imagine a popular philosophy better suited to deprivation and constant subjection to stressors.

And yet in the more than 30 interviews I conducted with soldiers who have returned from the long current wars, what I heard was the wish to let go of the Stoic armor. They wanted to feel and process the loss. They wanted to register the complex inner moral landscape of war by finding some measure of empathy with their own emotions. One retired Army major put it flatly to me, “I’ve been sucking it up for 25 years, and I’m tired of it.” For some, like this officer, the war after the war is unrelenting. It is about psychological trauma and multiple suicide attempts, exacerbated by his own sense of shame in not being the Stoic warrior that he thought he could and should be.

One of the best things about this column is the vigorous and informed debate in the comments.

Back in the Near North!

Medieval landing craft --- see update to bibliography

See here, post and comments.

Medieval landing craft?

The latest Robin Hood movie depicts a French invasion of England using amphibious landing craft that are suspiciously like World War II landing craft. This of course has aroused a certain amount of negative comment. but no one doubts that medieval armies transported warhorses by sea. What did the ships that accomplished this task look like?

Will McLean at A Commonplace Book offers us these two intriguing quotations from primary sources, from only a few years after the supposed landing shown in Robin Hood.
I quote from Will:

[Source quote 1]

Then began the mariners to open the ports of the transports, and let down the bridges, and take out the horses; and the knights began to mount, and they began to marshal the divisions of the host in due order.
Geoffrey de Villehardouin [b.c.1160-d.c.1213]: Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople, trans. Frank T. Marzials, (London: J.M. Dent, 1908)

[Source quote 2]

So the fleet came to land, and when they were landed, forth came the knights out of the transports, all mounted; for the transports were built in such fashion that they had doors, which were easily opened, and a bridge was thrust out whereby the knights could come forth to land all mounted.

Robert of Clari's account of the Fourth Crusade

[Will himself]

Those sources called the horse transports uissiers. Other names included chelandium, tarida and dromon. They were big galleys capable of carrying 12-30 horses. The big thirty horse taride of Charles I of Sicily shipped 108-110 oars. The doors and ramps were at the stern between two sternposts, so the vessels backed onto the beach to unload and load. They were shallow draft: in Villehardouin's account the knights jumped from the transports into waist-deep water.

Does anyone have more information, textual or graphic, that would shed light on this question?
Will, can you provide a more complete citation on the matter of terminology?

Updated bibliography from various readers:

Martin, Lillian Ray. 2007. Horse and cargo handling on Medieval Mediterranean ships. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. Volume 31 Issue 2, Pages 237 - 241.

Bernard S. Bachrach, "On the Origins of William the Conqueror's Horse Transports," Technology and Culture, Vol. 26, No. 3 (July 1985), pp. 505–531.

See also comments to this post.

Caveat lector!

"Let the reader beware!"

Jonathon Jarrett over at A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe critiques a supposed breakthrough in our knowledge of the Pictish language. This excerpt explains why such a critique should be of interest to people who don't care much about Pictish, but might care about some other obscure, pre-modern historical problem:

Okay, here’s another thing I wanted to write up before I went to Kalamazoo. You may have seen, if you are following Archaeology in Europe as you all should be, that there was a recent paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society A that apparently decodes the Pictish language or something similar. I confess to initial scepticism, not least because they inexplicably persist in using the term `Iron Age’ for a people only attested under the name ‘Picts’ from the Roman period onwards, and whose glory days are most definitely early medieval, but I am interested in the Picts, I am in favour of Science! in history and so I thought I’d better have a look. After all, I am developing a blog-tradition of critiquing scientific papers on matters historical, and I’d hate to pass up another opportunity. Now, if those instances have taught me anything, it is these things:

1. articles based on the press release usually massively exaggerate the impact, and indeed the intent, of the actual research;
2. the actual research is usually more interested in proving a method than in its applications, otherwise it would have been published in a historical forum not a scientific one; and,
3. it is unfortunately rare for the authors of that research to have read enough in the field to which they’re supposedly contributing to have an accurate sense of whether or not they really are.

And this particular case ticks all three boxes, which is to say it’s interesting, appears scientifically rigorous at first glance, but sadly isn’t going to add much to the historical or linguistic debates, even though the news coverage would have you believe it’s a revolution in the field.

Like I said, let the reader beware.

One of the problems with work done by "scientists" in historical fields is that they tend to think that one simple procedure or test will cut through all the problems that have puzzled scholars for decades or centuries. But scientific evidence is usually as incomplete as any other kind.

Image: The Pictish symbols.

Sabbatical update -- end of the Windsor sojourn

I will soon be returning to the North Bay area and although my sabbatical is neither formally nor informally over, there will be a break in my labors and a reorganization. In particular, I will have to organize course materials for my fall courses. So I thought that it was a good time to issue a complete scorecard of what I have accomplished so far.

Projects finished

Reviews:

• Charles Kurzman, Democracy Denied (Journal of World History, accepted for fall 2010)
• Mark Pegg, A Most Holy War (Michigan War Studies Review, now available online)
• Richard Kaeuper, Holy Warriors (The Medieval Review, now available online)

Article:

• "Republics and Quasi-Democratic Institutions in Ancient India: Their Significance Today," for the forthcoming book The Secret History of Democracy (a rethinking and recasting of an earlier web-published article; forthcoming this year; submitted and accepted)

Conference paper delivered:

• "Chivalry: Military biographies and other tales of the later Middle Ages" at the 45th International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan; special lecture sponsored by De Re Militari and the Journal of Medieval Military History.

Still in process

• The lecture delivered at Kalamazoo, revised and retitled, will be published in the Journal of Medieval Military History next year (as is the custom with this series of special lectures). This must be finished by the end of the year.
  
• I have finished a first draft of my translation and commentary on Charny's Questions on War. Right now the draft is out with another informed reader. I hope to have a thorough rewrite done by the end of summer.
  
• I have translated a good third of the Chronicle of the Good Duke -- about 110 pages in the printed edition. I hope to return to it by the fall.
  
• I have been asked to write a substantial article on the ancient Indian republics for the
  The Edinburgh Companion to the History of Democracy, due end of September.

Rho Ophiuchus and Antares

For more information, see Astronomy Picture of the Day.

On a personal note

Jane Cloutier is a Michigan artist who works in cut paper. I acquired a piece very much like this just today hoping to get more in the future. This picture does not really do the piece I got justice. My original is far more colorful and vibrant. If you want to see more go here.

Focus on what they do -- and their priorities

Paul Rand is a Libertarian/Republican candidate for a seat in the United States Senate. Having won his local primary election, he has been making statements about policy and political philosophy as fast as he can. In one such statement he went back as far as 1964 and said that he always opposed any kind of discrimination, but his belief in the limits of government power meant he could not support the ban on discrimination by private businesses contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This led people to wonder whether he was a racist. He is, after all, running for the Senate in a state where Jim Crow legislation existed back in 1964. One of the people who commented on Paul's statement was Josh Marshall, founder and editor of talkingpointsmemo.com, a progressive Democratic news and commentary site. What he said and his reply to the criticisms of some of his readers are well worth looking at. You will seldom get this kind of instruction at a university.

First post:

TPM Reader SW wrote in this morning cautioning that we make clear that opposing all civil rights legislation on libertarian grounds doesn't mean you don't support civil rights. I think this is far from an uncontested claim. ...

First here's SW's email.

You write that Rand Paul is "...against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act and supporting abolishing the Department of Education..."

It's worth noting that Libertarians are against the Civil Rights Act, but not against civil rights. Indeed you'll find no stronger defender of civil rights of any type than libertarians. For us its a matter of approach. ...

He's not against civil rights, people with disabilities, or against educating today's youth.

Let's start the conversation by agreeing that as a technical matter, this is true. Libertarianism is a political philosophy rooted in a belief in radical limitations on state power. And I'm inclined to follow my friend Mike Lind's argument that unlike a lot of mishmash conservative claptrap libertarianism is a political philosophy I can disagree with but still recognize as internally consistent and rooted in important principles. As Mike wrote once, I simply think its assumptions and understanding of human nature are off. But this is hardly the end of the story.

Political philosophy can never be free of history. And there is no denying that similar states rights or libertarian arguments have been the arguments of choice for those who want to defend racial discrimination since avowed defenses of racial prejudice and subordination became publicly unacceptable outside some parts of the South in the early second half of the last century. That's simply a fact. In principle, it doesn't delegitimize libertarian political philosophy. But we don't live in classrooms or treatises. We live in an actual world where history and experience can't be separated from philosophy.

When he ran for President in 1964 Barry Goldwater ran on opposition to federal Civil Rights legislation on what he claimed were states rights grounds. And there's some reason to believe that for him that really was what it was about. But it is entirely clear that his political punch came from supporters in the South who wanted to keep Jim Crow in effect. Again, that's just a fact.

So that's the history.

Then there is the simple matter of priorities. To a degree the argument Paul is making is something like saying that I don't like rape or murder, I just don't believe in a police force to prevent it or a judiciary to punish the offenders. The reason we, albeit imperfectly, have equality before the law and in the society at large (in terms of public accommodations and so forth) on racial grounds in the whole of the United States is because of federal legislation that forced that to be the case. The reason we don't have white and colored drinking fountains or pools for whites only, etc. You can say you think all those things are awful and you may be telling the truth. But what are you going to do about it? The variant of libertarianism which Paul espouses, while internally consistent in theory and separate from race, has you saying, I wouldn't do anything about it -- though I'd decry it as an individual.

Folks who espouse this kind of philosophy deserve to be held to account for that fact, whatever their inner beliefs about race and equality may be.

His follow-up post:

In response to my previous post on this topic, a number of you have written in to ask whether I'm not offering a rationalization of what are simply egregious views. I'm not. I would hope that that is clear.

What I'm arguing is something different: It's very hard to know what's in people's hearts, especially if they're making no clear efforts to make it clear. And in any case it can be a fruitless endeavor in the realm of public debate. It's also true that there are libertarians who believe in radical limitations on state power for reasons that have nothing to do with any personal animus on race issues, even if those beliefs dictate policies that would be disastrous for civil rights.

These I think are the bounds of the relevant conversation. And within them, the important point -- the one I was trying to make -- is that we shouldn't get distracted by what people feel in their hearts and focus on what their preferred policies would actually do and what that says about their priorities.

Thank you, Josh.

Robin Hood (2010)

Here is a joke that I heard the Kalamazoo conference.

Q. A bunch of medievalists go to see Robin Hood. How many of them bitch about the inaccuracies?

A. twice as many!

I was not particularly in a hurry to see this film and I wasn't excited about it, because I have seen so many versions of Robin Hood. On the other hand I am a sucker for Ridley Scott films, and members of my family went while I was in Kalamazoo and told me that the movie was very entertaining. I decided to go today. And I found that liked it quite a bit.

If anybody reacts to this post at all, I expect that some of them will exclaim, "what about King John burning Magna Carta?" Well, one can say that he sort of did, didn't he? Just not literally, and not while all his barons were standing around looking at him. I'm just glad Magna Carta got into a movie in the first place, even anonymously. Name another medieval movie where Magna Carta is mentioned. Go on, I'm waiting.

Here in point form are some things I really liked about this actual as opposed to the ideal Robin Hood movie.

• Like Kingdom of Heaven, the whole thing had the air of reality when it came to material objects, clothing, armor, and landscapes. Anybody who knows anything about what people wore in the time of King John to point to many details that were wrong, but the feel of the thing was very good.
• Some of the panoramic views, especially of the ships, were very good; actually better than that.
• It had more than one woman it in a speaking role, , and none of them were androgynous, mysterious, hardly human beauties like the android in Blade Runner. Came close to this standard. For Ridley Scott, this shows a certain amount of restraint.
  
• One of the best interpretations of Marion in any Robin Hood. Of course I'm influenced by the fact that Cate Blanchett played the part, and she has that filmmaking genius which makes almost any part better and strangely convincing.
• Loved the the surprise ending. I guess Ridley Scott knew that I didn't want just another run through the traditional post-Walter Scott story.
• A lot of people went around speaking French at appropriate times.
• Robin Hood in Barnsdale stood.

Anyway, I am sure that anybody who cares to can find many problems, but I was pleasantly surprised and quite entertained.

Oh yes, the music was the usual British folk takeoff, but I love that stuff and it was was well done. Great Big Sea rules!

Update: I forgot William Marshal! Is this his first appearance in a big-time movie, or was he in Lion in Winter? If he was it was a small role.

Some things I learned from the Chronicle of the Good Duke, 2: That old gang of mine

Fighting in a mine, a tunnel or a ditch used to undermine a castle wall or break into a fortification, was in the late Middle Ages an effective but dangerous tactic, and such combats had a special prestige in a warrior culture where "doing more" than somebody else counted for a lot.

There is a passage in the Chronicle of the Good Duke in which fighting in a mine allows a number of different people to increase their renown and honor, most notably the good Duke and his fighting retinue. At the siege of Vertreuil in 1385, the good Duke decided that the English-held position could only be taken by mining. When the mine was ready to take an attacking force, the English did their best to stop the attack by sallying out through the gates to take on the Frenchmen above ground before the mine could be used. The attack was unsuccessful but it did cause unexpected casualties. The Duke acted almost immediately to get things moving in the right direction. Châteaumorand remembered it this way:

The same day the Duke of Bourbon took a dozen knights and some squires with him, saying: "I wish to go see the mine;" which he would not have done if he had no hope of combat there; so the Duke went putting himself right up front, and sent Le Borgne de Veaulce before him and said to him, "Borgne, go ahead since you know the people of this castle, and ask them inside if there's a knight coming forward, and tell them that he will find who will receive him to fight in the mine." Then Le Borgne de Veaulce called to ask if they had no knight who wished to perform arms. So they told him no, but with them was a high gentleman who had a good company inside, and was Lieutenant of the captain and was all ready and prepared to perform arms with whomever wished to come. And Le Borgne de Veaulce answered "Come forward and see one here who is ready," not wishing to name his master. And then the Duke of Bourbon advanced in the mine, and from the other side likewise came the squire which those of the castle had mentioned, who was called Reynaud de Montferrand…

When the fight began, some of the Duke's men shouted out his battle cry and Reynaud heard them, disengaged, and asked with astonishment if this was actually the Duke of Bourbon. On being told yes, Reynaud seems to have been taken by the unusual situation he found himself in, and dared to ask the Duke for a favor.

"…Tell him that I request that it please him that in this honorable place [the mine, where only the most courageous would risk themselves] where he is that he should make me a knight by his hand, for I will never have it more honorably. And for his honor and valiance I am ready to surrender the place to him."

After the briefest of negotiations, the Duke "who observed that all these things were to his great honor," accepted the surrender, if the keys to the fortification were turned over immediately. This was done and Reynaud de Montferrand was knighted on the spot. To increase the honorable nature of this special moment, however, the Duke added on another condition:

…he ordered that Montferrand would surrender the place the next day. And further it was ordered that the knights and squires who were there with the Duke of Bourbon should bear arms the next day inside their mine with those of the castle one side against the other, which M. John l'Aye the marshal would oversee, so that each would be satisfied to have fought in the mine… [And in fact the next day, this combat took place.] …They were not able to fight except with swords, because the opening had a width of only a foot and a half; but each one did his duty well, one after the other, according to the place, which was narrow and because the night grew dark, the companions returned to the tents. And the next day the Duke of Bourbon sent one of his marshals [to receive the promised surrender, which took place as agreed. Then] Reynaud de Montferrand knelt before the Duke and said to him, "My very redoubtable lord, I thank you most humbly for the benefits and honors which have come to me from you, to be a knight by the hand of so high and valiant a Prince as you are; so it is an honor to me and all my lineage forever." The Duke answered, "M. Reynaud, chivalry is very strong in you, for you are a valiant man of good lineage."

What does this story tell us about the Duke? He did very well by his practical goals and his reputation by taking unusual risks with himself, by entering the mine and daring the garrison, especially its leaders, to resist him. He won big with this tactic; his reputation was already so great, mainly perhaps because of his rank, but certainly also because of his experience as a warrior prince, that he was able to take the fortification with no further harm to himself or even his enemies. And like a winner at the gambling table, his victory increased his reserves of honor rather than diminishing them.

But the Duke was not content simply to increase his own renown. The Duke went out of his way to share the glory with his most valued captains. He did so by insisting that they not be cheated of the opportunity to fight in a mine. Even if nothing was at stake now except renown, the stories that could be told afterwards would amaze listeners. Hours of strenuous and dangerous fighting took place, until the level of light fell to the point that combat could not continue. Here we see the Chronicle of the Good Duke transformed into the Chronicle of the Good Duke's men. It is one more tale of "that old gang of mine," this time, in the mine.

The group renown won on this occasion turned out to be as valuable in a practical sense as the personal renown gained by the Duke, as we see almost immediately in the description of the army's return to Poitiers, which is described in the same short chapter as the taking of Vertreuil and the fight in the mine. Châteaumorand shows how warriors who had not benefited from the patronage of the good Duke saw him and his men. Duke Louis left Vertreuil intending to go to Paris and attend the King, something he was always under obligation to do whether it was convenient for him or not. At Poitiers he found himself delayed by the leading people of that strategic and historic city. The Poitevins, meaning the local seigneurs, who were at least in theory military men themselves, were worried about three places in the region that were occupied by the enemy and whose garrisons were destroying the countryside. The Poitevins asked Duke Louis for half of his men to stay at Poitou and deal with this menace. Duke Louis responded by saying "You are 600 men-at-arms, and I have another 600 of my house which I lead; you 600 will easily take these three places." So the Poitevins said to the Duke, "We are not able to do anything without your people; give us a captain to lead this war. They will be well paid and we will fly your banner, and six or seven banners of the people of your house." The Duke relented and traded 200 of his men at arms for 200 Poitevins; the numbers of each force remained the same but the army in Poitou was now stronger. The Poitevin army was to be commanded by nine of the Duke's best knights and three squires. These included several warriors well known to modern military historians, including Reynaud de Roye, Boucicault, and Châteaumorand himself. But maybe more to the point, of the twelve Châteaumorand names as leading members of this reinforced Poitevin force were four men who had just fought in the mine at Vertreuil. Their names and banners were regarded as valuable military resources; because of their association with the good Duke and their willingness to follow his path to glory and renown they were precisely the kind of men you would want in the forefront of your army.

Image: Verteuil? rebuilt later?

Dead Knight

Via Paul Halsall, the BBC and the Daily Mail, the reconstructed face of a 13th century knight.

My courses for Fall-Winter 2010-11

My sabbatical is not over yet. I am still on reduced pay; I still have projects to work on; I can still ignore most of the e-mail that comes in on my work address. The warning signs are there.

Last night late, I got an e-mail message indicating that the registrar's office had finalized the schedule for fall and winter classes. This is serious stuff.

If anyone cares, here's my schedule.

HIST 3805 -- History of Islamic Civilization -- Monday 12:30-2:00; Wednesday 2:00-3:30

HIST 4505 -- Topics in Medieval History (Chivalry and Warfare) -- Tuesday 12:30-3:30. A seminar for fourth-year undergraduates.

HIST 5126 -- European history seminar (Medieval Historians)-- Thursday 12:30-3:30. A seminar for Masters of Arts students, Fall semester only.

The odd scheduling of HIST 3805 is not a mistake; the University is experimenting with more flexible scheduling formats. We will see how it works out.

HIST 5126 is my first official graduate course. Our MA program is quite new. Exciting!

Image: a model of our new library, which is almost done.

Some things I learned from the Chronicle of the Good Duke, 1

Not everyone could be at the International Congress on Medieval Studies last week, one so there are millions, yea billions of human beings who missed the paper I gave as part of the military history program. A few of those people might even be interested in the paper. Eventually, rewritten and retitled, it will appear in the Journal of Medieval Military History. But in the meantime, I will share with my faithful readers a couple of insights that I've gained from the work to date.

My subject was a fifteenth century chivalric biography called the Chronicle of the Good Duke, written in the year 1429 but recounting events of the previous century, largely as seen by an old knight named John de Châteaumorand, an old follower of the good Duke, Louis of Bourbon. John remembered Louis with a great deal of affection, because he had gotten his own start in the military life under the duke. In the first third of the Chronicle, there are a number of anecdotes that allow us to understand bonds of loyalty and love that could exist between Lord and follower.

One passage that is a particular favorite of mine shows how closely John, a young man entrusted to carry the Duke's pennon, identified with his master. Furthermore, it shows us that the older John felt that the honor of the Duke's retinue depended on the honor of the Duke and vice versa. Châteaumorand's prominent part in a stirring victory is depicted in a way that subordinates his personal identity to that of his leader and collective identity of his leader's armed retinue. Châteaumorand identifies himself in this rather long passage with the ducal pennon or banner that he carries; further, he makes sure the reader knows that he was just one of many worthy members of the retinue, all of whom had part in this victory and the honor that derived from it:

And there the Duke of Bourbon, having seen his knights and the squires of his household and country, and men at who appeared to sustain all contingencies destroy the palisade and garrison and pass through by force, was overjoyed. And during this melee, the pennon of the Duke of Bourbon, which John de Châteaumorand always carried, passed through the breach in the palisade, with those who followed him. Then the English …did not know what to do, outside of retreating into the fort; and as they retreated, the pennon rushed forward with the valiant men; and in this retreat … out of the English who ran away were killed and taken a good fourscore of the better men at arms from inside… And while [the English] retreated from certain lodges which were high up, to go to their fort, the pennon of the Duke of Bourbon with the people of his household charged them so close that as [the English] entered the tower, the pennon of the Duke of Bourbon rushed among them very well accompanied, so that those Englishman were not able to close the door of the tower, and so they surrendered to the one who carried the pennon of the Duke of Bourbon. And the prisoners surrendered to him […] and the very strong place was delivered. And in this way the pennon of the Duke of Bourbon with his companions [their names are listed] and five or six others of the household of the Duke of Bourbon, with his pennon, headed over to the other tower where they found already in front of it a great party of people of Auvergne who were climbing up there, and the lord of Montmorin, who was a valiant knight, and who had a fine company, and Geraud, lord of Laqueuilhe, accompanied by good people and who was a valiant man, the lord de Lafayette and others who had advanced by the advice of the lords and who had held very close to the English when they had arrived there so that the English could not flee. But when the English saw that the pennon of the Duke of Bourbon approached them, Captain Nolimbarbe surrendered with all of his companions to the Duke of Bourbon. And so was La Roche Senadoire taken, without a word of a lie.

In a bit I'll blog about another incident where the good Duke's honor and that of his faithful men are closely identified.

Khartoum (1966)

This movie is about the British general "Chinese" Gordon to hold the chief city of Sudan against a religious leader claiming to be "the Madhi," an apocalyptic figure of the Muslim tradition, in 1885. It has to rate as one of the best historical epics of the mid-20th century.

Two things stand out. The movie starts out with beautiful super-wide-screen views of Egypt and the Nile, and many other great pics of the desert, the river, riverboats, and cityscapes follow. It was lovingly, carefully, convincingly shot throughout.

The second thing is that the movie, although it has lots of action, focuses on the psychology of major and minor characters: Gordon, the Mahdi, Gladstone, etc., etc. Well-played by Heston, Olivier, Richardson, and a bunch of talented lesser lights. The scene where Gordon and the Mahdi each claim divine backing is perfect.

Image: Gordon, Governor-General of Sudan.

A headline from the new century: diplomacy, May 2010

From today's Globe and Mail:

Iran to ship uranium to Turkey in nuclear deal

Agreement reached in talks with Brazil and Turkey

The article continues:

Iran agreed Monday to ship most of its enriched uranium to Turkey in a nuclear fuel swap deal that could ease the international standoff over the country's disputed nuclear program, just as pressure mounts for tougher sanctions.

The deal was reached in talks with Brazil and Turkey, elevating a new group of mediators for the first time in the dispute over Iran's nuclear activities. There was no immediate comment from the United States and the other world powers that have led earlier negotiations as to whether the new deal would satisfy them...

Brazil as a key actor in resolving a Middle East/nuclear non-proliferation conflict?

Image: A more usual notion of Brazil.

Professor Martha Carlin's Home Page -- food and other medieval subjects

I ate dinner with Martha Carlin of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee last night and among other subjects we discussed was her use of my Tales from Froissart website for some of her medieval history classes. She mentioned that she had links to a lot of sources on her academic home page.

Boy, does she ever!

And of sources related to food and culinary history, she has a mountain. I had no idea, and probably you don't either, how much is available.

A wonderful new resource -- The Online Froissart

I am currently at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo. "Kalamazoo," as many people call it, is my favorite academic conference, big, sprawling, varied, on the informal side. Sometimes the weather is even springlike, rather than wintry or summery! (But you can't count on anything, weatherwise!)

Today I had the pleasure of being introduced to a new scholarly resource by its designers, who put it through its paces, to our growing appreciation. It is the Online Froissart, an electronic edition and translation of the famous 14th century chronicler.

About a decade ago, I started typing Tales from Froissart out of my copy of Johnes' early 19th century translation and onto the Web. I am in a good position to appreciate how much of an advance this is. This is huge, since it allows you to browse transcripts of lots of manuscripts, collate (compare) them with each other, examine images, etc., etc. One example: if you click on a word in the French text, the program takes you immediately to a definition at the ATIFL Middle French dictionary. This kind of generosity reminds me of undeserved divine grace.

Although there are still improvements to come, especially in the use of more dynamic instruction,please have a look at it now. Poke around and get beyond that bland exterior. It's time to rock 'n' roll Froissart!

And if you've got an ms. of your own that you want to study, know that the most useful parts of this program are open source.

Religious debate: "pork rinds"

Thanks to the makers of this film, and Arabist.net for bringing it to my attention.

What does this have to say about historical movements in general?

Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station refers us to this dance party:



Draw your own conclusions!

The volcano was merciful

No hold-up on the flight to London, and only a three- or four-hour delay coming back. So I am back to my own side of the Atlantic.

Bonus: we flew way north to avoid the ash cloud on the return trip, and got to see the white, white mountains of Greenland.

How it looks to one Iraqi immigrant

This blogger is a recent immigrant to the USA, and this is what he has to say about the attempt to bomb Times Square.

Just missed Socrates...

Philosophy Now has been running a feature called Dear Socrates for a long time, 10 years, it seems. And it seems that I have missed all but the last in the series! Too bad, too, because whoever was answering letters from fans and critics sounds like the real thing -- if Socrates wrote in English.

Unfortunately, Philosophy Now has no easy- to-find link to an index of past columns, so those of us who want to see what Socrates has to say about more or less current events will just have to use search engines to find his wit and wisdom.

Maybe if we are lucky he is going to be Oprah's successor!

Jeff Sypeck reviews The Battle of Kosovo 1389

Albanians, Serbs, Christians and Muslims face each other across one of the most hard-fought fields of the 14th century.

Frederik Pohl on Jack Vance

One classic SF writer (and editor) reminisces about another: one of my favorite writers, Jack Vance.

Laws of arms: a contribution from Will McLean

Will McLean, author of the blog A Commonplace Book, has suggested that anyone interested in Charny's questions on war should take a serious look at the army ordinances issued by Richard II in 1385 in connection with campaign against Scotland. Instead of questions, these are answers: if I raise the banner of St. George and try to start a mutiny in the army, what punishment can I expect?

Will has posted the translated ordinances here.

I have corrected my initial attribution of the translation, which properly belongs to Francis Grose (1801), but we still have reason to be grateful to Will for hunting it out.