Some things are really and truly timeless - such as some problems. Distraction, for instance. Unfortunately, I do know this problem really well, from my very own, very personal experience. I am easily distracted sometimes (and if I have work to do that is really boring, or that I really am not too keen on doing, distracting me is that much easier).

Having a timeless (and therefore probably also very common) problem, though, at least means that one can feel in good company. For instance, in good company with medieval monks, who looked for solutions (or techniques) for this as well. Which is, amazingly, documented in an early 5th century text... that you can read more about at Aeon. Including a few hints on how the monks and nuns tried to minimise distraction, more or less successfully.

We are so far removed from the Middle Ages that there are very, very few sensory things left that we can still experience in the knowledge that people in the twelfth century would have had the same experience. We can try to recreate recipes, for instance, but we will never know if a medieval cook would have seasoned something to the same taste... and even deeper than that, many of the foods available today have changed a lot through breeding, so in some cases it has become impossible to use a similar basis for the cooking itself already.

There are some things that have remained much the same, and we can still experience them. Wood fires are an example of this - wood will burn just like it did in 1140, and if it's dry it burns better than if it's wet, and different kinds of wood burn with a different heat, and burning wood gives off light and warmth. And smoke.

However, for most of us today, a fire is something special, not an everyday tool - which is very different from medieval times. Fire was an omnipresent tool, the heat and light supplier, and wood smoke consequently permeating everything. All the time. Which means... when we experience a fire today, we tend to notice the smell of burning wood as something special, while it would have been just like a city smell in our times: so much part of everyday life that it is hardly ever noticed.

We might get a little closer with something that has not changed as much from everyday to special, though - something that would have been noted in the Middle Ages, due to its significance, as it would be noted still today. Such as a church bell.



This bell is called the Theophilus-Glocke (Theophilus Bell) and was cast around 1140 by "Meister Wolfger". It is one of the oldest surviving church bells we have. The fact that we can still hear it ring? Absolutely utterly awesome.

(h/t to Matthis from the Schauhuette blog.)

It's finally Friday, and we're looking forward to a nice weekend (hopefully with okay weather too) for spending time with visiting friends and family. Bonus effect: The study is now much more orderly again. Added bonus effect: We will have yummy brownies. Next added bonus effect: We might be able to get some of the unknown plants in our garden identified by people who know them. (For the record, I have a very easy way to deal with unknown plants: I leave them in until they bloom, and then I decide whether I like them or not. I like them - they stay. I don't like them - they get ripped out, and off to the compost they go.)

And while I'm wondering over unknown plants here, I have a fitting link: A blog with medieval riddles, each one of them in the original Old English/Anglo-Saxon, then translated into modern English, and then the solution. There's also notes to each of the riddles. The blog is fittingly called The Riddle Ages.

I have never been good at solving riddles like these (probably partly because of little practice, riddles are just not so much en vogue hereabouts anymore), but for those of you who want to try their brains, beware of spoilers - the solution is directly below the last line of the translated riddle, and the comments or notes that are posted as blog entries after the riddles (so they turn up before on the blog) also mention the solution or possible solutions.

Cats are known for many things, and among these things is the fact that sometimes they pee on things. Now there's a whole lot of reasons for why a cat might pee on something - it smelled like pee before, the cat is stressed, the cat is in pain... but whatever the reason - the result is cat piss on something.

And that something might even be a manuscript. Which they might also not use as a perfect place to piss, but just walk over it.

Go follow this link to see for yourself. Me? I'll be checking on the cat now. Maybe she wants a book.

I'm back from our little vacation and working my way through the list of e-mails that arrived during the last few days. While I'm busy getting both my real and my virtual household back into working order, you can amuse yourselves with this picture of a medieval wandering household, complete with baby:


The image caption says it's jugglers/artists travelling. It's a coloured xylograph, single-leaf prints from about 1450. Today at the Herzog-Anton-Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig.

What I really like about this picture is that it shows a lot of medieval household items. You can see half a kitchen sticking out from the woman's carrycloth around her back... and as a true multitasking female, she's not only travelling, keeping all the household stuff, looking after the livestock (see the chickens on her head?) and looking after the baby, she's also spinning at the same time. Amazing. And modern folks say there's a lot of pressure on women nowadays...

Source: UITZ, ERIKA: Die Frau im Mittelalter. Wien 2003. Page 102.

I read about the very special helmet in Parzival, and now I'm wondering about it.

Gahmuret comes by a helmet of "adamas" ("dô schouwet er den adamas: daz was ein helm"). I have the middle high german - modern German version by Reclam, and the translation of "adamas" there is always "diamond".
In Lexer's dictionary, "adamas" is translated as a gemstone, especially diamond, but might also mean a magnet. Originally, the word seems to come from greek αδάμας, adámas, „impregnable“ (says German Wikipedia, sounding plausible enough for me). Which would mean a very hard thing - a very hard stone, in our modern interpretation of "diamond".

Now when I hear "diamond", my association is a small, sparkly, clear, expensive gemstone. Usually set in a ring of some sort. Not suitable for making into a helmet. At all. And I'm wondering about the associations expected from the medieval reader when hearing "adamas" and "helmet" in one breath.

Was the word so firmly linked to the one special gemstone? Lexer mentioning magnets suggests it was not so. And "adamas" is not so far removed, sound-wise, from "damasch" which would mean damascus steel (and that material, also called wootz, was a very good steel, and extremely hard).

On the other hand, making a helmet out of gemstones would not have been very practical - and making it out of real diamond more or less impossible. How far from reality would the author of such a story want to go? Is the audience expected to think of the helmet as an impossible fantasy, the invincible helmet of sparkling stone? A sparkle or even a strong gleam, however, is never mentioned in context with the helmet - though it is at length described when Wolfram talks about a garment made of gold cloth. Maybe "adamas" in this context was alluding to, or even meaning, damascus steel? Perhaps the closeness of the two words for damascus steel and diamond were a delightful play on words for Wolfram von Eschenbach and his audience? It is delightful to my own personal taste, when reading "adamas" and thinking "damascus steel" (which is also a beautiful thing).

I am very glad I can wonder about this only for my own private pleasure, and I do not need to prove anything. But it tickles my brain in a very enjoyable way.

If you have thoughts about the possible interpretations of this helmet, please share them - I'd love to know what you think!