A student reading in his room, as painted in Paris circa 1420. British Library Royal MS 20 B XX. Cropped from an image in the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts which has been released under a Creative Commons CCO 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
One of my academic interests is knightly combat in late medieval Europe as described in four manuscripts by Fiore dei Liberi dating to the beginning of the fifteenth century. Fiore’s works, and those of his contemporaries in more northerly lands, give us a unique chance to understand how the weapons and armour racked in museums were meant to be used. They at the very least give anyone interested in how ancient people fought food for thought.
This series of posts is inspired by the Greek scholar Plutarch, who wrote an antiquarian essay asking why the Romans practiced some curious customs. Plutarch was wise enough to give questions not answers, and that will be my policy in these posts as well.
One of the most common verbs in Fiore’s works is “to enter” (Italian entrare or intrare). Translators often translate the Italian word with its English cognate, but I have never felt that I understand every use. Tom Leoni speaks of three types of expression which a translator must handle: those which are purely technical, those which are part of ordinary speech, and those which have both a common meaning and a technical one. Phrases like “to enter into the zogho stretto” fall into his third category, the most difficult to translate. Fiore also wrote in verse, and poetry usually allows a wider range of words, meanings, and expressions than prose. Being away from my books, I have used Wiktenauer to compile some examples of usage: Read more
Ancient martial arts are dead and beyond recovery. Anyone who wishes to learn a method for using ancient weapons effectively must study an art originating within the last thousand years before looking at the scraps of literature and painting and sculpture which give us some hint to how Assyrians or Romans fought. We are extraordinarily lucky to have a series of European fencing manuals running back to circa 1300, and over the past decades these sources have attracted researchers willing to face the formidable scholarly, epistemological, and physical challenges of interpreting them. In Italian Longsword Guards: Comparing Vadi’s Guards with Fiore and Marozzo Guy Windsor makes a first attempt at one of these problems: the relationship between guards for the sword in two hands in the oldest known Italian writers who describe that weapon, namely Fiore dei Liberi (wrote circa 1404-1410), Philippo Vadi (wrote circa 1482-1485), and Achille Marozzo (first edition printed 1536). Vadi’s verse manual contains many names and phrases which resemble Fiore’s words, but also significant differences. Read more
Most people today take for granted the custom of numbering kings, so that James Stuart is James VI of Scotland and James I of England. I am not certain that any society used this before the sixteenth century, although I have heard a story that it was invented in 14th century England to deal... Continue reading: Regnal Numbers
Chicago Assyrian Dictionary “S” page 313 (abbreviations are expanded for clarity):
siriam (sariam, siriannu, širiam, širˀam, širˀannu) substantive masculine and feminine; [meanings] 1. leather coat, often reinforced with metal pieces, 2. (a garment); [attested in the following dialects and archaeological sites:] Middle Babylonian, Boghazkuei, Early Assyrian, Nuzi, Standard Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian; foreign word; pl. sarijamāti, širˀamēti.
A few weeks ago I showed what a bare-bones publication of a cuneiform text looks like. A much newer book is a good example of a lavish edition.
John MacGinnis and Cornelia Wunsch, Arrows of the Sun: Armed Forces in Sippar in the First Millenium BC. Babylonische Archive Band 4. ISLET-Verlag: Dresden, 2012.
Nicolo Machiavelli, tr. W.K. Mariott, Il Principe courtesy of Project Gutenberg: Chapter IV Why the Kingdom of Darius, Conquered by Alexander, did not Rebel Against the Successors of Alexander at his Death Considering the difficulties which men have had to hold to a newly acquired state, some might wonder how, seeing that Alexander the Great... Continue reading: A Comment to “The Prince”
A tally stick from Bactria or Sogdiana dated to the third year of Darius the King (probably 334/333 BCE). The text is in the Official Aramaic script. 12 cm long, 2 cm wide. Catalogue number D3 in Aramaic Documents from Ancient Bactria. Read more
The last few copies of Philip de Souza ed., The Ancient World at War seem to have reached bookstores and are selling at a discount. My copy was well worth the reduced price. This book contains some good chapters and beautiful photos, although some of the ideas and illustrations are familiar from other books for... Continue reading: Some Thoughts On “The Ancient World at War”
An Open Letter to the University of Saskatchewan by several students In the project briefs the university expresses an aspiration to improve the quality and quantity of humanities research. It intends to do this by removing some programs, and merging others. Research is a valuable goal, but to suggest that the problem with specific humanities... Continue reading: Two Admirable Letters
A much younger self was once sitting in a professor’s office when the conversation turned to the textbook which we were using in that professor’s course. He asked me what I thought of it. I commented that it was good enough … but that it was better at telling people what not to believe about... Continue reading: The Shoe is On the Other Foot
