The mystery of the Life archive is a mystery no more (thanks to Jen's search fu). Turns out that the images of those college-aged kids and their medieval hijinks are mistagged. They actually belong to the Life feature article on a big day out put on by Bethany College in West Virginia called "The College Joust," which appeared in the May 19, 1952 issue (pictured left).  

Other feature articles that week included a story on American prisoners in Communist China, a photo essay on the poverty-striken peoples of Peru and Bolivia, and a feature on the fashion craze that was sweeping the nation, "Powedered Streaks," a way of adding temporary highlights to your hair by dusting yourself with tinted talcum powder.

Poking around the Bethany College website, it looks like the Joust was a tradition that did not last the fifties.

As for the mysterious smiling lady, she is still a mystery.  The photographer clearly liked her; there's a good two dozen or so pictures of her in the archive, but none appear to have made it to print.

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For once, the question in this post's title is neither rhetorical nor a setup for a joke, though I suppose the answer is obvious. She's having her picture taken. But this leads me to the next question: Why did this lady dress like a medieval princess to have her picture taken?

If you do a search for "King Arthur" in Google's nifty archive of images produced for Life Magazine, you bring up a whole slew of images tagged only by date, "May 1952", photographer, "George Skadding", and subject, "King Arthur".  This is one of those hits.

Filed along with our Truman-era Guenevere are pictures of men and women, mostly college-aged, all dressed like extras on an Errol Flynn movie.  Festivities of this mystery day in May of '52 include an archery contest, a mock naval battle, a sock-hop, and a feast attended by jongleurs.  My first thought is an early Renaissance Faire, but it seems several shades more awesome than any faire I've ever seen, and it's tagged under "King Arthur," not "Renaissance Faire."  There was a Connecticut Yankee movie made in 1952--the one for "Studio One" that starred Boris Karloff, but this event has no obvious connection to it.  Certainly, there's no Karloff to be seen anywhere.

So, does anyone out there know why Life would be sending a famous photographer to a rockin' King Arthur-themed medieval party in May, 1952?

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Hey, remember that thing I used to do, where I would pay Google back for misdirecting a wayward searcher to my blog by answering after the fact the question that led them here in the first place?  Yeah, Google Penance is so 2007*, but for old time's sake, I thought I'd dash off a quicky.  To the poor Googler who made the oddly specific search for "a sequence of events for the Middle ages a flow chart that tells about the events that happend during the Middle ages such as the famous people and famous inventions that they made", here's the best medieval timeline on the web that I know of.  I'm sorry that Google brought you to my archive for articles from September of 2008, oh anonymous Googler.

Oh, and though I've not done any Google Penances lately, while we're on the subject, there's a much cooler iteration of the idea now going on over at my friends' blog, Satisfactory Comics.  Mike and Isaac do me one better by creating Doodle Penances," wherein they take turns sketching their misdirected Google searches.  This is my favorite so far, made by Isaac in response to a search for "werewolf the apocalypse comics panels": 

According to the Satisfactory Ones, this panel is composed of three luminaries:

First, our former Yale colleague Matthew Giancarlo, whose lycanthropy was in full evidence because of the phase of the moon; second, Obsidian 20-Jaguar, the physical embodiment of the looming Aztec apocalypse of 2012; third and finally, the cartoon version of Scott McCloud. (The real Scott McCloud was unavailable.)

That's exactly the sort of Scott McCloud joke that I wish I'd written. Sadly, he doesn't come up much here, and I couldn't draw him if he did, anyway.

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*The real reason I don't do these as often is that as this blog has become more popular, they have gotten a lot harder to do, since the interesting incoming links in my sitemeter cycle out more quickly.  I'll have to upgrade to a professional meter solution, if I want to catch all the weird stuff that brings people here.

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This week's marginalia comes from a manuscript that has become a frequent visitor to our studios here at Got Medieval, Pierpont Morgan Library's MS G24:


I'm beginning to feel bad for the poor souls who have to tag the scans of medieval manuscripts for online collections. How can you be sure you've accurately captured every point of interest a potential search might be after, especially with a manuscript illuminator as mind-bogglingly weird as the one responsible for MS G24? This particular image bears the catalogue description

In left margin, hybrid animal, with crowned human head and serpentine body, plays bagpipe through anus.

That's a pretty good start, but it fails to mention that 1) the man's anus is wearing a hood and 2) the entire creature is growing out of a foliate border, making it not an animal at all, but rather some sort of strange fruit. We can't even be sure that the crown and bagpipe aren't themselves part of this weird plant-creature, like the sea-horse knight in the Knight of the Parrot.*

Of course, given the way files tend to be named in my own personal archives of marginal images, I shouldn't complain.  If I were in charge, there'd be no tags, just a file name like  "weird_ass_dude_27.jpg". And when I came across it later, I'd sit there scratching my head, wondering if I had meant that this was a weird ass-dude or a weird-ass dude.

By the way, the image above is 320x480 pixels, making it exactly the right size for medieval iPod touch or iPhone wallpaper, if you're inclined to put such a thing on your mobile device.**

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*In which King Arthur fights a knight riding a sea-horse and kills it only to find that what looked like a man riding a sea-horse was actually a creature with a man's torso and a sea-horse's body. The knight's shield and spear, too, are parts of its body, not implements. Hmmm, come to think of it, I should go re-read that bit now and see if there's any other hint there that the sea-horse knight is a parody of bizarre marginal figures...
**Me, I'll probably stick with Buffy.

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I think I may have an opening slide for my Sword in the Stone paper.  From the Life Magazine photo archive hosted by Google:


A different take on how Arthur was able to get that pesky sword free.  For those unwilling to click the link to zoom, the inscription on Excalibur reads "Excalib-- / Made in GER--". Perhaps Excalibur is a Henckel.

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Because of the new iPod, I've been searching out album art to tag my MP3's with. While trying to find the cover for an old Mediaeval Baebes CD, I came across this, the cover to the Washington Symphonic Brass album Carmina Burana & Other Delights:


Why is this monk covered in whipped cream, you ask? For that, we have Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass to thank.  The cover to their 1965 album  Whipped Cream and Other Delights, features the model Dolores Erickson wearing a dress made out of the stuff:

Alpert's whipped-cream-coated cover is a fixture of "Sexiest Album Cover Ever" articles,* an image so iconic that it has spawned a host of parodies just as unfortunate as the Burina monk.  Here are just a few:


From left to right, that's Pat Cooper's Spaghetti Sauce and Other Delights, Soul Asylum's Clam Dip and Other Delights, and the Frivolous Five's Sour Cream and Other Delights. Viewed in light of these, it's clear that the Washington Symphonic Brass messed up. If you're going to name your album Carmina Burana and Other Delights, the monk on the cover should be slathered in Carmina Burana, not whipped cream. Poor form, Mr. Symphony Brass. Poor form.**

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*Such as this one, this one, and this one.
**To be a purist about it, the monk should probably be naked, too, but you're never going to hear me calling for more monastic nudity.

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Attentive readers have no doubt noticed a lot of backdated posts suddenly appearing. My apologies to future historians hoping to chronicle the day-by-day thoughts of twenty-first-century medieval bloggers, but my policy in general is to let the datestamp reflect the day when I started the post, not when I finished it, unless I'm post-dating for automagic scheduled publishing.

The start of the semester just hit me hard this time, and lots of posts went half-finished when I realized that, oh crap, I forgot to make the photocopies of the Venus of Willendorf, or something similar. I think I have it all back under control now.

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Found on a random internet trawl, "The Complete & Utter History of Britain," a comedy show made by some of the members of Monty Python--before they was Pythons! Via Youtube:



Since I just finished explaining the Norman Conquest to my freshmen, I was particularly vulnerable to this bit:

ANNOUNCER
It was here that there occurred the first momentous event of 1065. Eric Smith, the serf, was walking to work, when... he stubbed his toe. 

But even this was soon to be overshadowed by a host of other remarkable events.

Richard the Quincy hits his thumb. ("Dooowww!") 

Norman Black discovers the force of gravity [man trips and falls over]. 

Aaron Simon Miller Anvil Smith discovers the thimble. ("Found it!")

Edward the Confessor sits closer to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

And Bristol Zoo was not yet built. [...]

But how do those who lived through this remarkable year actually remember 1065?

MAN ON THE STREET
"1065? Never heard of it."

WOMAN ON THE STREET
"Is it a kind of pastry?"

SOME OTHER MAN ON THE STREET
"Black Pudding."

A MAN WHO SELLS MUGS
1065? [spits] Terrible year. Terrible, rotten year for us in the commemorative mug business. I got hundreds of these in the back of the shop. A Present from 1065. Welcome to 1065. Ha! 1065: Top Year. And what happened? Nothing. Same as the year before. I'm getting out before 1066, I can tell ya.

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Pop quiz, hotshot.  You're the illuminator for Bodleian Library MS Douce 49, a late 13th-century Flemish Psalter.*  You notice there's a bit of spare room up above your historiated initial of the Passion of the Christ (pictured above).  Mel Gibson won't return your calls, and you've already burned your lifelines.  What do you do?  What do you do?

If you answered "Add a monkey riding a lion," you are correct! (And probably a cheater.)


Nonetheles, enjoy your Passion of the Christ, now fortified with essential monkey.



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*True, you probably wouldn't refer to it as "Bodleian Library MS Douce 49."  You'd probably call it, "The prayer book for Mr. 'Oooh, that page isn't gilt enough for me, I'm such a fancy pants noble'".  Assuming you hate the guy who commissioned it, of course.

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I got an iPod Touch for Christmas and am now obsessed with it. From the end of this sentence on, all my blog posts will be typed on its tiny touch screen.

AS I eas sayding, I realy lovr this nmew tecjknowlogy.*

Anyway, while searching for new iPod wallpaper, I discovered two things. The first is that even the iPod is not safe from the old "so-crappy-its-medieval" meme. According to MacNewsWorld (the website for people who don't have time to press the space bar, they're so busy getting up-to-date mac news from the world), Apple recently relaxed its policy that required third-party iPod application developers to sign non-disclosure agreements before being given their development kits, a stunning about-face that could only be described with the headline, "Apple Goes a Little Less Medieval on Devs."

I think the word they were looking for was "draconian," not medieval. Dragons--particularly those from ancient China--are well known for their elaborate non-disclosure agreement rituals.

The other thing I learned is that we are currently experiencing a global shortage of medieval wallpaper for our iPod Touches and iPhones. When I did a search for medieval ipod wallpaper, the first thing I got was this:**

As always, I try to keep an open mind about questions of periodization, but I'm pretty sure that Buffy the Vampire Slayer holding a riding crop isn't going to make it into the Norton Anthology of Medieval Iconography any time soon. So, as a thank you to all my readers who use an iPod Touch to view this site, here you go:



Voila! Medieval iPod Touch wallpaper.***
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*See what I did there? I faked a bunch of typos to make you think I had switched, when in fact--oh, so you knew that? What would you say if I told you that I actually had typed that on my tiny touch screen, but only faked being bad at it, and that I am even now still typing on the tiny screen, but with the skill and dexterity of the very skillful and dexterous iPod touch typer that I happen to--what, you don't buy that, either?  Well who cares what you think, anyway, Dr. Know it All?
**I know that you all know better than to trust my footnotes, but I swear, that's what I pulled up. In the time since I first started this post, the first wallpapery hit on Google Images for "medieval iPod touch wallpaper" has been replaced with an image of the band Dethklok from Metalocalypse. [UPDATE: Now Dethklok has fallen to 2, behind wallpaper with the motto "I Love Ale!"  Hopefully, all the readers I'm getting today from BoingBoing Gadgets will soon raise the monkeys above to #1 on Google's search.]
***Be warned, I've installed special tracking cookies. I will know if you download Sarah Michelle Gellar instead, and I will inform the tenure review committee.

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In an article discussing the possibility of the Anglican Church appointing its first female bishop, a reporter from The Times offers this helpful bit of analysis:

Edward the Confessor, the 11th-century King most closely associated with the abbey [Westminster], would probably be more alarmed by the singing Santa Claus and teddy bear outside her solid oak door* in the cloisters of the abbey than he would by her [Canon Jane Hedges, the potential bishop] being a woman.

This is, I think, an excellent line of argument. We should all, before embarking on a controversial decision, ask ourselves, "Would the outcome alarm Edward the Confessor more, or less, than electronic Santa Clauses?" Do keep in mind that Edward the Confessor died in 1066 and likely was familiar with only the most rudimentary electronic novelty devices.  If this seems a little esoteric a question, feel free to substitute in any familiar electronic novelty device that seems appropriate to the situation. 

For example, if you happen to be Associate Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar of the California Supreme Court,** you could phrase the question instead, "Would my voting to overturn Proposition 8 and allow a man to marry a man in California alarm Edward the Confessor as much as giving him a Tickle Me Elmo*** doll?"

Or, if you are lucky enough to be the (formerly) Right Reverend Bishop Robert Duncan of the diocese of Pittsburgh, you might go with, "Would my leading my diocese to succeed from the U.S. Episcopal Church and join with Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay in the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of America as a protest against gay bishops alarm Edward the Confessor as much as putting a Big Mouth Billy Bass on the wall of Wesminster?"

I should warn you, however, that this


is a typical portrait of Edward the Confessor. Dude doesn't look like he'd be alarmed by much.****

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*The second her refers, I believe, to Westminster, though I remain open to the possibility that Canon Jane Hedges has a solid oak door.

**I admit, I'm using her full name in an attempt to bait and switch all those people searching Google for "topless boobs associate justice kathryn m. werdegar of the california supreme court topless tpoless".

***Of course, I mean T.M.E.X., the The Extreme Tenth Edition of Tickle Me Elmo, the one who gets "more outrageous" on the second and subsequent ticklings--not that that sissy first edition Elmo from 1996, with his greatly inferior mono-outrageous tickle module.

****Except for 1st generation Teddy Ruxpin. Fun fact: the C-Batteries under that back panel are hooked to a dummy circuit that slowly drains them and are not required for the toy to function.  The original Teddies Ruxpin are homonculi powered by the disappointment and ennui of human children. 

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Since I am now professionally embracing this weird thing I do on the internet, I thought I'd let my readers know where they can find me, professionally speaking, in 2009. 

I've got two conference papers on my plate already. To no one's surprise, I will be giving a paper at Kalamazoo on marginalia titled something like " 'Are you lookin' at me?': Voyeurism, Paranoia, and Self-Awareness on the Margins of Medieval Manuscripts." This title violates both of my recently developed rules for conference papers--no colons, no intro quotes--proving that I really will abandon all my principles for the slightest hint of public attention.

I will also be attending the PCA/ACA's (Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association's) conference in New Orleans over Easter weekend. (Pop culturalists are an ungodly sort.) There, my topic will be "The Sword in the Stone in Outsider Arthuriana". The original title used the vulgar word for "psychoceramics" for the Arthuriana I mean--things like Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and the Alano-Sarmatian hypothesis--but the session organizers rightly suggested I try not to piss off famous people who do actually come to the PCA/ACA conference from time to time.

I'm also working on a paper on the Middle Ages in Sid Meier's Civilization games that would have been better suited for the Pop Culture conference, if I weren't already doing the Sword in the Stone thing there.  Recently, while leading Charlemagne to an embarassing defeat at the hands of the Incans and their pesky airships, it struck me how fundamentally weird it is to think of a "Middle Ages" in a game that by design will lack all of the usual events that we use for our periodization.  If the Middle Ages isn't, in Sid Meier's creation, defined with reference to the fall of Rome or the Protestant Reformation, how is it defined?  Does Sid (or his minions to whom he handed off the game) have anything deeper in mind than "In the Middle Ages, your attack units are knights with an attack strength of 4 and a defense of 2, while in the Modern Era, your attack units are tanks with attack of 10 and defense of 5"?

I may submit that one for Plymouth State's Medieval Forum, a conference everyone in the Northeast should make room for because of the amazing multi-course medieval feast they put on at the end of it. Yes, you do have to deal with some undergrads running around in period garb, which I usually am quite opposed to, but I will also abandon my principles for soup served in a fancy bread bowl and castles made out of butter.

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From the lower right margin of a late fifteenth century book of hours, Bodleian Library MS Douce 266:


And as a bonus, I've translated the accompanying text:

CHRISTINE
In sleep he sang to me
In dreams he came
That voice which calls to me
And speaks my name
And do I dream again?
For now I find
The phantom monkey of the opera manuscript is there,
Inside my mind

PHANTOM MONKEY
Sing once again with me
Our strange duet
My power over you
Grows stronger yet
And though you turn from me
to glance behind
The phantom monkey of the opera manuscript is there
Inside your mind

In related news, I heard recently that Andrew Lloyd Webber has entered a development contract with a video game studio to bring his vision of dancing cats and roller-skating Jesuses (Jesui?) to the big screen (that's hooked to the X-Box). I think my advice for the adaptation is obvious.

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According to medieval calendars, January is the time to take the month off to feast by the fire, so no farm chores this month, people; take some time to yourselves.  You deserve it, after all that reaping, sowing, and slaughtering your livestock these last few months.

Notable dates in medieval history in the month of January include:

• January 2nd, 1492 -- The last Moorish stronghold in Spain, the Emirate of Granada is reconquista'd. 
  
• January 6th, 1066 -- Harold Godwinson is crowned king of England.  He doesn't last the year.
  
• January 8th, 871 -- Alfred the Great--then, just Alfred the Kinda Promising--defeats the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown.
  
• January 9th, 1431 -- Legal proceedings against Joan of Arc are begun.
  
• January 13th, 888 -- Odo becomes King of the Franks, succeeding the deposed King Charles the Fat.
  
• January 14th, 1129 -- The Knights Templar are officially endorsed by the Church at the Council of Troyes, officially beginning Dan Brown's career.
  
• January 16th, 1412 -- The Medici become the official bankers of the Papacy. [Kids, insert your own credit liquidity crisis joke here.  I would make one, but I'm too busy feasting.]
  
• January 20th, 1265 -- The English parliament sets up shop in the palace of Westminster.
  
• January 23rd, 971 -- The royal war elephant corps of the Southern Hans are defeated soundly by the crossbowmen of the Song Dynasty.  Elephant-mounted troops fall out of fashion in China soon thereafter.
  
• January 28th, 1077 -- Henry IV of the Holy Roman Empire finishes his barefoot walk to Canossa.

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