Friday, November 17, 2006

Medieval News of the Week

Medieval Events of the Week:

Nov. 10-Martin Luther's Birthday

No. 12-Boniface III (d. 607) and Canute the Great (d. 1035)

Nov. 13: Augustine of Hippo born (b. 354) and King Edward III of England
(1354); Pope Nicholas I died, 867,

Nov. 14: Emperor Justinian (d. 565) and Alexander Nevsky (d. 1263)

Nov. 15: Pope Nicholas IV born (1397), and Albertus Magnus died (1397)

Nov. 16: St Hugh of Lincoln (1200) and Henry III of England (1272) died
on this day

Nov. 17: Hild of Whitby (d. 680) and Elizabeth of Hungary (d. 1231)

Nov 18: Odo of Cluny died (942)

Recreation of a Viking Trip:
http://us.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/10/viking.ship.ap/index.html

An Early Medieval Saxon Sword:
http://www.lutontoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=545&ArticleID=1879186

Free LIbrary of Philadelphia announces online Medieval and Renaissance mss: http://libwww.library.phila.gov/medievalman/

A blog discussion on Eusebian Canon Tables, not medieval, but something every medieval bible contained: http://neonostalgia.com/weblog/?p=175

Words of the Day for the week:

From Wordsmith:
tween-tween is a form of between that shows up first in the late 13th century, it comes from Old English between (I've not included the OE and ME spellings) which originally was a prepositional phrase bi + tweonum and variants, "by two", a dative plural. Constructions such as frith freondum be tweon(um), lit, peace by two friends, means peace between friends. bi tweonum, bi tweon in time became a preoposition in its own right, between, shortened in some Middle English texts to tween.

ONe Word A Day
For the 16th, OWD offered abetment, a nominalization of the verb abet. Abet came into English from French, a (from Latin ad) beter, to bait, urge on, hound on, from Old Norse beita, to bite, and cognate to Old English bitan, to bite. The word has since fallen out of French as far as I can tell (though some here will correct me if I'm wrong). Abet (ME abetten) gave rise to a noun abette, incitement, urging, also from Old French, and abettement, a specifically Anglo-French coinage meaning incitement to commit a crime or offense. These meanings are now obsolete in favor of a more general "to give aid or encouragement" most often in a negative sense.