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News of the Week:
St. Petersburg:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/arts/2006/12/05/baherm05.xml

UNESCO Church in Sofia Reopens with New Frescoes:
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=73564

Saxon jewelry:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/6200614.stm

An interesting take on the medieval in the modern:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/SiliconInsider/story?id=389513&page=1

Of note:
http://historymedren.about.com/od/carolingianempire/a/charlesgreat.htm

Dec 1:

Birthday of:
1088: Anna Commena

Saints:
660: Eligius of Noyons

Anniversary of the death:
1135 Henry I

Events:

1170: Becket returns to Canterbury

Dec 2:

Saints:
361: St. Bibiana

Anniversary of the Death:
537: Pope Saint Silverius


Dec. 3

Birthday of:
1368     Charles IV, King of France

Saints:
649: St Birinus of Wessex

Anniversary of the death:
1154     Pope Anastasius IV
1181     St. Galgano, a knight who plunged his sword into a stone as an
act of renunciation of warfare.
1469     Piero de'Medici


Events:
1059 BCE     Earliest probable recorded observation of Halley's Comet

Dec 4:

Birthday of
1383     antipope Pope Felix V
1585     John Cotton, Puritan clergyman in Massachusetts Bay Colony

Saints:
235: St. Barbara (old calendar)
1099: St. Osimund, Bishop of Salisbury, aka Edmund

Anniversary of the death
771     Carloman, co-ruler of the Franks
1099     St. Osmund
1214     William, "the Lion," King of Scotland
1334     Pope John XXII at Avignon

Saint Day
306     St. Barbara, virgin, martyr (about 306)
450     St. Peter Chrysologus, archbishop of Ravenna - His Feast Day is
July 30th
655     St. Siran or Sigirannus, abbot in Berry, confessor
1075     St. Anno, archbishop of Cologne, martyr
1099     St. Osmund, bishop and confessor

Events:
265     Last of the wall around Verona, Italy, built
1093     Archbishop Anselm, of Canterbury, consecrated
1154     Election of Pope Adrian IV (only English Pope)
1183     The Siege of Castle Kerak is lifted; Saladin withdraws



Dec 5:
Birthday of
1443     Pope Julius II, patron of Michelangelo, Bramante, Raphael

Saint Day
304     St. Crispina, martyr
532     St. Sabas, abbot
566     St. Nicetius, bishop of Triers
1109     St. Gerald, Abbott of Moissac, who was appointed choir
director of the Cathedral of Toledo.
1160: Christina of Markgate

Events:
  St. Nicholas's Eve (Netherlands)
  Sven name day in Sweden
1212     Frederick II chosen King of Germany...again
1484     The Pope sets severe penalties against German witches and
magicians
1492     Columbus discovers Hispaniola
1496     King Manuel I orders the expulsion of all Jews from Portugal


Dec 6:

Birthday of
1421     Henry VI, King of England
1478     Baldassare Castiglione, Italian diplomat, writer, poet

Saints:
346: St. Nicholas!
484: St. Dionysia with her son, Majoricus, and sister Dativa


Anniversary of the death
342     St. Nicholas
1185     Alphonso I, King of Portugal
1352     Pope Clement VI
1475     Castilglione

Events
Election Day of the "Boy-Bishop:":
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02725a.htm
1240     Mongols take Kiev, Russia
1273     St. Thomas Aquinas ceases writing
1323     John of Nottingham and Robert Marshall of Leicester undertake
the murder of Edward II, King of England, by witchcraft
1362     Coronation of Pope Urban V
1491     Marriage of Duchess Anne of Brittany to Charles VII of France
1492     Haiti/Santo Domingo discovered by Columbus

Dec 7
Birthday of
521     St. Columba (Colum Cille)
1598     Giovanni Bernini

Saints:
374: Ambrose of Milan, see below

Anniversary of the death
983     Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor
1254     Pope Innocent IV

Events:
374:St. Ambrose Ordained


Words:

haplography-the inadvertent omission of a repeated letter(s) in
writing (e.g. writing philogy for philology)
This is encountered frequenly in working on medieval manuscripts and
texts.

machination--Anglo-Norman and Middle French machination plotting,
wicked contrivance or stratagem (13th cent. in Old French) and its
etymon classical Latin machinatio-machine making.  The word enters
English in the second half of the 15th century.

skulk-a word borrowed from Old Norse, skulka--to lie in wait, lie
watching and comes into the English language fairly early.  Maybe some
of our Scandinavian friends can speak to its continued life in those
languages.  In the early period the word is usually used with adverbs,
so to "skulk away", or to skulk about.  In English it seems to have
acquired a negative connotation almost right away, used in an early
Middle English version of the Ancrene Wisse (The Anchoresses' Rule)
warning against skulking away.

nawab--an originally Arab word, borrowed into medieval Persian, it was
taken over by Urdu from whence this form comes and referred first to a
native governor under the Moguls, then to a Muslim of high status in
India during the Muslim centuries.

Quote of the Week:, in honor of the holidays:

>From Carmena Burana:

Bibit hera, bibit herus,
bibit miles, bibit clerus,
bibit ille, bibit illa
bibit servus cum ancilla. (14.33-36)

The wife drinks, the husband drinks,
the soldier drinks, the priest drinks,
he drinks, she drinks,
barkeeper drinks, waitress drinks.'
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