I wonder how soon it'll be before we reach the point where books debunking The Da Vinci Code have sold more copies than The Da Vinci Code itself. Dan Brown's book has become the new default question someone asks on finding out that I'm a medievalist-in-training. "Oh, wow," they gasp. "That's so interesting. I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code. I just love medieval stuff." There's no good way to respond to that, nor is there a good way to respond when they continue with, "I mean, I never knew Jesus got married!"

But nowNorris J. Lacy, a famous, respectable Arthurian* has published an article on The Da Vinci Code. It's available for free from the same folks who bring you the journal Arthuriana.

Add to the list of tasks I'll never get around to doing my planned parody of The Da Vinci Code, Duh Milton Bradley Code, the story of a world famous Scrabble player who tracks down the clues hidden by Milton Bradley in all of their famous games. From Baltic Avenue to Boardwalk, it'll be a thrilling chase. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, immediately go to your bookstore and buy it! The reviews just write themselves. If only the book would. I'd be a modestly rich man once the Tom Hanks movie comes out.

*Respectable and famous are almost mutally exclusive terms with Arthurians, so this is a big deal indeed.

Read More...

Summary only...

Most newspapers and online outfits are behaving themselves when it comes to the use of the word medieval and the various details of the Pope's recent death, upcoming funeral, and impending succession.* In fact, it's one of the few times when the media has been genuinely awed by the middle ages and the Catholic church's lingering medievalities.

In the rash of AP stories bent on ensuring no papal stone was left unturned, one strange quote was run concerning the wishes of some Poles to have the Pope's heart buried in their country:

"There was once this Romantic custom that after death parts of the body of known and loved people be placed in important places," Macharski said. "This tradition is no longer ours. Respect for the human body says that it ought to be laid in a grave."

I'm not sure how the cardinal in question indicated that there was a capital letter on the front of the word 'Romantic'. Maybe it's like how some folks can put a capital H in front of Him or He when talking ostentatiously about their connection to the Lord. But with the capital there, it looks like we've got a weird case of the press attributing something weird and gruesome to a post-medieval age!

Too bad this custom is very medieval. The list of nobles who wanted one part of them buried here and another there is too long to list off here, but it's the sort of thing that was on the Church's (note the capital C) mind since at least the time of Pope Boniface VIII, who outlawed the practice in a papal bull in 1299 called 'Detestande feritatis' or 'abhorred wounds'. It prohibited carving up the body and shipping it around, as well as the practice of cutting up a corpse and boiling it so as to remove the bones for easy shipment, something Crusaders were wont to do. So when the cardinal says "that tradition is no longer ours" he means it. For over seven hundred years. Not that the papal bull ended the practice entirely. Even in Romantic times, folks like Chopin had this sort of thing done to them.

--

*Occasionaly there has been a cringeworthy construction, like San Francisco's Sun Sentinel's describing the Pope's funeral rites as being both "majestic and medieval," which, while technically correct, irksomely suggests that being majestic and being medieval are two different things rarely juxtaposed. All the kings who insisted on being called "Your Majesty" (In England that's at least two hundred years of kings from Richard II on.) must have been very pre-modern. Or maybe they think that the normal medieval funeral rites involved throwing dung or something.

Read More...

Summary only...

As reported by "Totally Jewish.com" news's Alan Hall...

A German Jewish artist is calling on churches throughout the country to provide better explanations as to why they contain medieval sculptures depicting Jews being suckled by pigs.

The demand comes in the wake of attempts by Regensburg Cathedral in Bavaria to justify its 650-year-old piece, the Judensau or Jewish sow.

If you're seated on the left side of the blog, you can look out your window to see a real live image of a stone cold Judensau. (The image was lifted shamelessly from the Martin Luther website. This particular one has the advantage of being extra-offensive to Jews, mocking their holy language to boot.) [update 5/1/05 -- Martin Luther's gone MIA, taking his page and my stolen picture with him.]

The Regensburg Cathedral has recently added a sign explaining the significance of their Judensau in response to Jewish outcry. But Wolfram Kastner, aforementioned Jewish German artist, is leading a protest and demanding that the images be removed from all churches because, "For centuries, these depictions have caused murder, robberies, and degradation."

You don't have to be a tooth-gnashing Limbaugh dittohead to feel uncomfortable with Herr Kastner's demands that these offensive statues be removed from all churches. Especially perplexing is his demand that the churches provide better explanations. Isn't the explanation clear? "In the middle ages, Jews were't so much respected as not. This is a cathedral that has been around since then." Will outraged feminists soon demand an explanation for why there were no female apostles?

This is about as absurd as all the hubub around the Passion of the Christ's depiction of jews being counter to the Vatican II general Jewish Christ-killing-related amnesty. Over and over, the talking heads mentioned that Mel Gibson belongs to a splinter sect of the Catholic church that doesn't recognize these important reforms. You know who else doesn't recognize Vatican II (or Vatican I, or much of anything Vatican-related)? Protestants!

I'm highly skeptical that people visiting these German churches know that these carvings are meant to depict jews in the first place. Most people probably discover this when they read the signs that are meant to pacify their offended modern sensibilities. If the outrage over this medieval legacy causes more signs to be put up, then it seems to me like it'll have the opposite effect: more people will see these carvings as slights against jews.

Read More...

Summary only...