#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!

[ltwilliammowett]

The barquentine "Maid of England" with broken mast and covered in ice coming into Halifax Harbour in 1923.

Photo: W.R. MacAskill

[theofficialpresidentofmars]

started watching Death Note yesterday and have come to the conclusion that if Hamlet had access to a death note, literally nothing in the play would change or happen differently in the slightest

[highmagician]

been hyperfixated on Cthulhu media and accidentally created an entire au/story about it

Dr. Arthur James Kirkland is a professor of archaeology who is assigned to help excavate a recently discovered cave with strange artifacts strewn about, but most notably an old yet entirely intact book. It's written in an unknown language, resulting in a globe spanning investigation to discover an origin and translation. after a few months of studying the book, though, he slowly becomes consumed by it. it speaks to him, showing him strange visions and eventually granting him the secrets locked in it, translating the text before his eyes. slowly, he loses track of reality and slips into the madness that radiates from the dark grimoire, almost fully consuming him.

I based it mostly off of the ttrpg mechanic-wise while using the mythos as a backdrop for everything else. currently, the other investigators are surface-level ocs who have their own place in the story alongside him.

idk I just think it's neat and I need somewhere to put my shit so here-

[viva-la-axe]

✧ dave england, jeff tremaine, bam margera, johnny knoxville, and chris pontius ✧

[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.

[the-last-tsar]

Yet another family wedding took place later that year, in June — of George, Duke of York, to Princess Mary (May) of Teck. Alix did not attend, pleading the need of the Hesse family to be careful with money, but the Russian imperial family had no such concerns and Nicky was sent to represent them, staying at Marlborough House in London. The Prince of Wales, "Uncle Bertie" (whose wife, Princess Alexandra, was Nicky's mother's sister), seems to have taken a rather dim view of his nephew's customary attire, arranging for him to be visited by "a whole bevy of tailors, shoemakers and hatters." "He is very funny in that respect," commented Nicky, "but he has always been extremely attentive and kind to me." Nicky in his turn seems to have been unimpressed by the physical qualities of British women, lamenting the lack of attractive specimens at a state ball at Buckingham Palace. On the next day the party set off for Windsor to visit the Queen — "a round ball on unsteady legs" — as Nicky described her in his diary. Mercifully unaware of such remarks, she presented him with the Order of the Garter. Throughout this stay attention was constantly being drawn to the physical similarity between Nicky and his cousin "Georgie" — "l am getting quite tired of hearing the same thing all the time," Nicky protested. He greatly enjoyed this visit, however, and was sad to leave.

Alix and Nicky | Virginia Rounding

[lemonerix]

@usukweek

Day 3: Early morning // Historical AU

Who wouldn't be waking up with a smile on your face when you're waking up to someone you want to be with forever every morning?

[labyrinthofstreams]

"Jane Morris, posed by [Dante Gabriel] Rossetti"

Photographed by John R. Parsons, 1865, London.

[wizzard890]

And I saw another beast come up out of the earth...and he spake as a dragon. (Revelation 13:11)

.

The Coronation of His Majesty King Bastian I - The Hour of Wolves

When he was born he was a small thing. A screaming infant, a second son, destined perhaps for military greatness, but never dukedom. Never inheritance. Never conquest.

But at the inception of the light, the birth of the world, the moment between silence and splendor when The Glory breathed across the scope of creation: he was no small thing then.

Even then, he was coming.

His rise runs with blood: knives in the back, poison, betrayal, kidnapping and vengeance.

His rise burns with greatness: glory, family, rescue, love and ferocity.

The secret world recognized him before he knew himself. A fairy witch marked his passing and offered her slender wrist for his talons. A dead sun opens its mouth for him, a vanished Christ is his counterpart, a death knight worships before him, a raven-haired little girl holds the hand of her doting and beloved father.

The world we know calls him king of France, the monarch of a seized throne, a general who has promised the great lords England on its knees.

The Devil, in his own tongue, may call him son. The Glory has said nothing.

Would you know him if you saw him? Would you recognize what he is?

Bow, while you consider, and kiss his ring. There is a crown of flame upon his brow.

[ltwilliammowett]

The wooden walls of England, by Patrick O’Brien (1960-)

[chipper-smol]

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

[novuit]

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

[digitalmemoriez]

✫･ﾟ*.2004･ﾟ✫*.

[nachtcrapp]

one google search and my "arthur brought the plague to england" hc/joke went to the gutter

[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.