Sea Monsters, Bones, and Textbooks: Medieval News Roundup

The Bones of Charlemagne

Swiss researchers believe they have confirmed that the 94 bones and bone fragments kept at Aachen Cathedral belong to the first Holy Roman Emperor. Professor Frank Rühli of the University of Zurich explains, "Thanks to the results from 1988 up until today, we can say with great likelihood that we are dealing with the skeleton of Charlemagne."

The remains of Charlemagne were taken out of his grave in the 12th century and put into various reliquaries. The researchers took various measurements of the remaining bones, and conclude that he was about six feet tall and thinly built.

You can read more details from Medieval Histories

Medieval Sea Monsters

The Public Domain Review website has a posted an article about the drawings of the sea creatures made by the 16th century writer Olaus Magnus and his influence on sea lore. They note:

The northern seas of the marine and terrestrial map teem with fantastic sea monsters either drawn or approved by Olaus. The most dramatic of those, off the busy coast of Norway, below the dreaded Maelström, is the great serpent, coiling around a ship’s mast and lunging with bared teeth at a sailor on the deck.

You can see more images and the full article from the Public Domain Review

What's wrong with History Textbooks

David Cutler, writing in The Atlantic, is finding that high-school history textbooks in the U.S. are not very useful for teaching history. His reasons for this include:

1. Textbooks present history as unchanging, but as time passes, our understanding and interpretation of the past constantly evolves. 
2. Textbooks are one-sided, offering a top-down, often white-male-centric view of history. 
3.  Without a thesis or any semblance or argument, textbooks don’t accurately reflect how most scholars (at least good ones) write and present history. Teachers should assign readings that model effective historical writing. 
4. Most importantly—and this merits repeating—textbooks are boring and intimidating. 
5. Textbooks can serve as a crutch for teachers who don’t know history or the historian’s craft.

While this article is aimed at teaching American history in High School, some of the observations might also be apt for the use of textbooks in college or first year university history courses too.

Click here to read this article from The Atlantic

Answering the questions 'May a Man Marry a Man?' and 'Who am I?' in the Middle Ages

May a Man Marry a Man? A Medieval Debate 

Charles J. Reid, a Professor at the University of St.Thomas and writer on religious issues for the Huffington Post, recently posted May a Man Marry a Man? A Medieval Debate, which takes look at how medieval writers approached the issue of same-sex marriage. The surprising thing, notes Professor Reid, is that they actually talked about this issue. He begins by referencing the work of Henry of Segusio, better known as Hostiensis, a 13th century canon law expert, who penned the question: "May a man marry a man?"

The answer was an emphatic no, and would remain so throughout the Middle Ages. Reid does it find interesting that many of the arguments against same-sex marriage that were first written over 800 years ago remain prominent today.

Click here to read his article.

Thomas Aquinas – Toward a Deeper Sense of Self

Therese Scarpelli Cory has written a very insightful piece on the Cambridge University Press blog on Thomas Aquinas – Toward a Deeper Sense of Self. It explores how St. Thomas Aquinas might approach the question 'Who am I?' and introduces us to Cory's new book Aquinas on Human Self-Knowledge. She writes:

"It’s a common scholarly myth that early modern philosophers (starting with Descartes) invented the idea of the human being as a “self” or “subject.” My book tries to dispel that myth, showing that like philosophers and neuroscientists today, medieval thinkers were just as curious about why the mind is so intimately familiar, and yet so inaccessible, to itself. (In fact, long before Freud, medieval Latin and Islamic thinkers were speculating about a subconscious, inaccessible realm in the mind.) The more we study the medieval period, the clearer it becomes that inquiry into the self does not start with Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” Rather, Descartes was taking sides in a debate about self-knowledge that had already begun in the thirteenth century and earlier."

Click here to read her blog post

The 16th century version of Kindle - it gives you six books in one!

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

A Kangaroo in a 16th century manuscript?

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

Articles from All Request Sunday

By popular request, here is the list of the twenty articles we posted yesterday for All Request Sunday:

Saint Anselm of Canterbury and Charismatic Authority

Sickness and Sin: Medicine, Epidemics and Heresy in the Middle Ages

The diagnosis and context of a facial deformity from an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Spofforth, North Yorkshire

The Battle of Agincourt: An Alternative Location?

A stitch in time (Bayeux Tapestry)

From Flax to Linen: Experiments with flax at Ribe Viking Centre

The Serpent in the Sword: Pattern-welding in Early Medieval Swords

Into the frontier: medieval land reclamation and the creation of new societies. Comparing Holland and the Po Valley, 800-1500

The Queen and her consort : succession, politics and partnership in the kingdom of Navarre, 1274-1512

What do We Really Know about Medieval Women?

Behind the Veil: The rise of female monasticism and the double house

Snorri’s Trollwives

Transvestite Knights: Men and Women Cross-dressing in Medieval Literature

How important was the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 to the Rise of the Seljuk Turks?

Spectacles through the ages and period inaccuracies

“In this our lightye and learned tyme”: Italian baths in the era of the Renaissance

Illness and Disability in Twelfth and Thirteenth-Century Notarial Documents in Medieval Toledo

The uses of secular rulers and characters in the Welsh Saint’s lives in the Vespasian Legendary

Sound, body and space: audience experience in late medieval English drama

The Imposition of Society on Medieval Irish Sport

Look who is starting Viking and Medieval Norse Studies and Medieval Icelandic Studies at the University of Iceland

Post by Viking and Medieval Norse Studies Programme.

How Do You Know When You're Middle-Aged?

Thanks to John Egiziano for sending this to us!