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What I did yesterday
Apr. 21st, 2008 03:54 pmYesterday was the Mediaeval Faire at the State Library, to ring up interest in the exhibition of Manuscripts which is on at the moment (and I still haven't seen...). I was there as an exhibit, as part of the SCA's cohort. I brought along some of my calligraphy gear, expecting to be a little contextually appropriate colour.
I found myself, instead, talking to a three-deep crowd for six hours straight.
I now have a sore throat, for some reason.
I should point out that the girls were there in garb, Abi in a brand new dress made specially, and they were photographed like it was going out of fashion. They were both very chuffed at how pretty they were looking, and did really well until they started to crash and burn.
Another lady was there who does Illumination properly, with glair and powder pigments and sheet gold and everything. I was the scribe, writing things down and demonstrating different hands, the minim problem, that sort of thing. As I knew that I'd need something to copy, I brought along Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer. Thus, I got to answer questions about English, and its development, and why do we spell things like we do, and ‘I'm learning Latin, and this is latin, why can't I read it?’, and such things.
The ‘Why can't I read this Latin’ was easy: I just explained the development of Latin into Ecclesiastic Latin from the Classical they were learning (almost universally out of the Cambridge Latin Series), and when they complained that Church Latin pronounced things funny, I pointed out that Cicero might have called himself \Kikero\ in the Senate, but his mates would have called him \Chichero\ down the taberna.
Anyway: I gave the History of English several times, and I've got it down fairly pat by now. ( So, here it is )
I also talked about how there was no such thing as The Renaissance. There were several, in various places, at various times, such as Alfred's English renaissance, the Carolingian renaissance (with the assistance of the English bishop Alcuin), the Arabic renaissance, which led to the preservation of some of the great works of antiquity, translated from Greek to Arabic, then from Arabic to Latin and re-learned by Europe.
The other lady and I talked about pigments, and how the Earth colours were basically dirt, usually from Italy (Sienna is dirt from Sienna, Umber is dirt from Umbria), how Ultramarine was the most expensive pigment you could get, more expensive even than gold, and why, and how the brightest colours, Orpiment and Cinnabar, could kill you if they weren't prepared carefully enough, and ruin the painting if you didn't know how to apply them. And how you could write with carbon ink, made from lampblack, or bone black, or just finely crushed charcoal, or you could use Oak Gall ink, where the tannic acid starts pale watery yellow, then oxidises in front of your eyes into a rich black, but unfortunately could leave sulphuric acid behind which attacked the parchment.
Oh, and how transcription errors could screw your history books. For a long time the introduction to the Anglo Saxon Chronicles was taken as gospel, where it said that the Irish had moved there from Armenia. It made no sense, but the source book had it thus, and thus it must have been. Until someone thought to see where the authors of the ASC had got it from, and found that section almost verbatim in Bede's History of the English People. Only he says that the Irish came from Armorica, in what is now Spain. (And that actually does make sense, that the Irish were originally Iberian Celts, who migrated around to the west of the British Isles). It does mention Armenia, though, a couple of lines down. What we think happened is, the scribe who was composing the ASC was reading from his copy of Bede, looked away to write, and lost his place when he looked back. He probably didn't even notice. And thus the history books were wrong for a thousand years.
And also there was discussion on various other topics, but these above were the lion's share of those six hours. And my throat hurts, and my back aches.
But still, not bad for no warning or preparation, purely off the top of my head, eh?
I found myself, instead, talking to a three-deep crowd for six hours straight.
I now have a sore throat, for some reason.
I should point out that the girls were there in garb, Abi in a brand new dress made specially, and they were photographed like it was going out of fashion. They were both very chuffed at how pretty they were looking, and did really well until they started to crash and burn.
Another lady was there who does Illumination properly, with glair and powder pigments and sheet gold and everything. I was the scribe, writing things down and demonstrating different hands, the minim problem, that sort of thing. As I knew that I'd need something to copy, I brought along Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer. Thus, I got to answer questions about English, and its development, and why do we spell things like we do, and ‘I'm learning Latin, and this is latin, why can't I read it?’, and such things.
The ‘Why can't I read this Latin’ was easy: I just explained the development of Latin into Ecclesiastic Latin from the Classical they were learning (almost universally out of the Cambridge Latin Series), and when they complained that Church Latin pronounced things funny, I pointed out that Cicero might have called himself \Kikero\ in the Senate, but his mates would have called him \Chichero\ down the taberna.
Anyway: I gave the History of English several times, and I've got it down fairly pat by now. ( So, here it is )
I also talked about how there was no such thing as The Renaissance. There were several, in various places, at various times, such as Alfred's English renaissance, the Carolingian renaissance (with the assistance of the English bishop Alcuin), the Arabic renaissance, which led to the preservation of some of the great works of antiquity, translated from Greek to Arabic, then from Arabic to Latin and re-learned by Europe.
The other lady and I talked about pigments, and how the Earth colours were basically dirt, usually from Italy (Sienna is dirt from Sienna, Umber is dirt from Umbria), how Ultramarine was the most expensive pigment you could get, more expensive even than gold, and why, and how the brightest colours, Orpiment and Cinnabar, could kill you if they weren't prepared carefully enough, and ruin the painting if you didn't know how to apply them. And how you could write with carbon ink, made from lampblack, or bone black, or just finely crushed charcoal, or you could use Oak Gall ink, where the tannic acid starts pale watery yellow, then oxidises in front of your eyes into a rich black, but unfortunately could leave sulphuric acid behind which attacked the parchment.
Oh, and how transcription errors could screw your history books. For a long time the introduction to the Anglo Saxon Chronicles was taken as gospel, where it said that the Irish had moved there from Armenia. It made no sense, but the source book had it thus, and thus it must have been. Until someone thought to see where the authors of the ASC had got it from, and found that section almost verbatim in Bede's History of the English People. Only he says that the Irish came from Armorica, in what is now Spain. (And that actually does make sense, that the Irish were originally Iberian Celts, who migrated around to the west of the British Isles). It does mention Armenia, though, a couple of lines down. What we think happened is, the scribe who was composing the ASC was reading from his copy of Bede, looked away to write, and lost his place when he looked back. He probably didn't even notice. And thus the history books were wrong for a thousand years.
And also there was discussion on various other topics, but these above were the lion's share of those six hours. And my throat hurts, and my back aches.
But still, not bad for no warning or preparation, purely off the top of my head, eh?
