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...

Back in the Near North!

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Medieval landing craft --- see update to bibliography

See here, post and commen...

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...

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...

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 finishedReviews:Charles...

Rho Ophiuchus and Antares

For more information, see Astronomy Picture of the D...

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 he...

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...

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...

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...

Dead Knight

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

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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....

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...

Religious debate: "pork rinds"

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

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 conclusio...

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 Greenla...

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 Squa...

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,...

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 centu...

Frederik Pohl on Jack Vance

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

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...