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tea in the cloister

Category Archives: medievalia

latin shorts: bede

14 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by awgtaubman in medievalia

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bede, england, history, latin, medieval, translation, York

IMG_1133.JPG

Ever invest a lot of time in something, only to forget about it? I spent over a decade working with Latin and it’s been nearly a decade since I used it. So, I’m rusty.

To get back into practice I’m starting a project to translate short passages I haven’t seen before. And I’m going old school. Pen and paper. Double-spaced copying for space to scratch out a parsing. And then a fair copy English version – albeit at a basic, I’m sure error-filled, level.

The scene for this short is early medieval Northern England. King Edwin’s baptism is the first recorded history of a church in York. A small wooden building that will eventually become the mighty York Minster.

baptizatus est autem eburaci die sancto paschae pridie iduum aprilium in ecclesia petri apostoli quam ibidem ipse de ligno cum catechizaretur atque ad percipiendum baptisma imbueretur citato opere construxit. in qua etiam civitate ipsi doctori atque antistiti suo paulino sedem episcopatus donavit. mox autem ut baptisma consecutus est curavit docente eodem paulino maiorem ipso in loco et augustiorem de lapide fabricare basilicam in cuius medio ipsum quod prius fecerat oratorium includeretur.

Now, [King Edwin] was baptized in York on the holy day of Easter – the day before the ides of April – in the church of Peter the Apostle, which, when he was being instructed and catechized for receiving baptism, he himself quickly built from wood. In this city he also granted an episcopal seat to his teacher and bishop, Paulinus. Soon after he had obtained his baptism, on instruction from the same Paulinus he ordered a greater and more majestic basilica to be built from stone, in the middle of which was enclosed the oratory he had previously made.

-Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, II.XIV

Fourteen hundred years later, as far as I know, any remains of this church are lost. But medievals loved their traditions and it would not surprise me if later Minsters were built on the same land as the first.

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tea in the…islamic cloister

19 Monday Sep 2016

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aga khan, architecture, cloisters, election, history, islam, museums, opinions my own, toronto

Knox College at the University Of Toronto was my gateway drug into cloisters.

uoft_knox-cloisters

Then came years in England exploring the monastic ruins and cathedrals of the North. Their cloisters often hosted a tea shop where – especially on rainy days – you wrap your head around the solidity of being inside a stone hallway while facing so many windowless arches that you are simultaneously outside. Cloisters are the parallel universes of the medieval world.

cloistercollage

So, when I visited the Aga Khan Museum this summer, I stumbled joyfully into a new Toronto cloister. Complete with tea shop. Obviously I had to stop.

agakhan_cloister

The museum is a great addition to the city’s architecture. Unlike the ROM Crystal, the Aga Khan should age well. Its grounds are an OCD dream and the exterior itself is so plain and minimalist it will be hard to date in the future.

collage

The interior, like the cloisters, are an ultra-modern take on classic Islamic architecture. The cloisters stand as a courtyard in the middle of the building. A glassed-in space open to the sky, with Islamic designs etched into the walls. Like the western cloisters and courtyards I’m used to, the space is both interior and open. It’s modern and old. And it’s a piece of another culture in the middle of a major western city. Everything about it is an inviting paradox.

The museum collection itself is small, but beautiful. Unlike most museums where I see artifacts from our common western culture, and can imagine them in use, these objects are alien and challenging. I don’t know what they are, who used them, or what they mean. But that meant I spent more time reading those little museum cards I normally skip past, learning about a new world. Not knowing the cultural meanings of the collection also meant I could appreciate their artistry rather than having a historical monologue running in my head.

collagearabic

Maybe that’s a profoundly Orientalist statement to make. But what I like the best about the Aga Khan Museum is that it’s absolutely not Orientalist. It’s not the Islamic floor of the Met, or the British Museum, or the Louvre. These items didn’t end up in the museum as the leftovers of an imperial adventure. Nor are they explained by a museum curator named Johnson, Smith, or Dubois. The entire museum is an exercise in cultural outreach from one world to another. And, of course, could only be founded in Canada.

Tea In The Cloister…

01 Monday Jun 2015

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architecture, history, medieval, medievalmonday, newyork

…had tea in The Cloisters at The Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York City.

And it was glorious.

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why study the middle ages?

19 Tuesday May 2015

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history, medieval, medievalmonday

Posted by awgtaubman | Filed under medievalia

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medieval #readwomen2014

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by awgtaubman in book lists, medievalia

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famous women, history, medieval, middleages, readwomen2014

Medieval studies has a long tradition of important women academics. Women whose research still today forms part of the bedrock of the discipline. So, as a contribution to #readwomen2014, here are a few of them:

Eileen Power | Medieval English Nunneries (1922)

A little outdated now, but still the first go-to book for students of medieval nuns. Itself still an underserved topic.

Marion Gibbs & Jane Lang | Bishops And Reform (1934)

How did the English episcopacy receive the Fourth Lateran Council? Eighty years after publication, students of ecclesiastical history still open this book to find out.

Dorothy Whitelock | English Historical Documents (1955)

I defy anyone to find an English medievalist who has not referred to this essential collection of the key documents of English history.

Caroline Walker Bynum | Holy Feast And Holy Fast (1987)

The historian who made feminist theory acceptable – indeed necessary – to medieval studies.

Jocelyn Wogan-Browne | The Idea Of The Vernacular (1999)

Champion of the non-Latin Middle Ages: Old English, Middle English, Anglo-Norman. If regular people spoke it, so does she. And one of my own extraordinary thesis supervisors.

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  • the chain letter reading list
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  • tea in the…islamic cloister
  • 7 books to ACTUALLY understand the american election
  • i’m lovin’ it…

Recent Comments

Scott on the chain letter reading …
2019 Reading Challen… on the chain letter reading …
six best books of 20… on best of the year (so far)
all your books… on 2015 in books…in gr…
Susan on the time and place book t…

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