Ask a Medievalist

The Silk Road spanned four thousand years and lasted for centuries–it’s hard to think of anything comparable in scale. From the second century BCE until the mid-15th century, jade, silk, tea, horses, the plague, and more flowed across the Eurasian continent. Join Em and Jesse as they talk about it–and also about Route 66, the origin of the word “tea,” Mongolian horses, and other questionably relevant things.

1/ Route 66 celebrates its centennial in 2026! https://www.route66-centennial.com/ The google doodle was April 30, 2022: https://doodles.google/doodle/celebrating-route-66/ It recognized the day in 1926 that the designation “U.S. 66” was proposed for the route.

2/ Tom Robbins did write a book called Another Roadside Attraction, but the family of clowns was in Villa Incognito. I refuse to link to those books on Wikipedia. You cannot read a summary of a Tom Robbins novel; they must be experienced.

3/ The Green Book: https://www.loc.gov/item/2016298176/

It was inspired by The Jewish Vacation Guide, a book published in 1917 that did a similar thing—list places where road-tripping Jews would be welcome.

The LOC site suggests that after the Civil Rights act of 1964 passed, the kinds of discrimination the book helped people avoid stopped happening and so the guide stopped being published. But I’ve talked to Jews who went on motorcycle road trips across the country and stopped at various establishments in the south in the late 70s and felt they were, in modern parlance, extremely sus, vibes are off, etc. So, like, sundown towns maybe went away but the people’s attitudes did not change as quickly.

4/ It was Turkmenistan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9QYu8LtH2E

The mention of Azerbaijan on Last Week Tonight.

5/ Bongbong Marcos was elected in 2022. We taped this one a while ago.

6/ Podcast episode on textiles: Episode 33 (on women artisans and textiles), Episode 54 note 15 (on the Bayeux Tapestry), and Episode 62 on tapestries.

7/ Mongolian horses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_horse

They live outdoors in temps that get down to -40 degrees. There are more horses than people in Mongolia right now.

In trying to source the cheese-making story, I have learned that horse’s milk cannot be made into cheese, because the lactose level is too high! So it’s probably not cheese that was made that way, but fermented mare’s milk—airag—which needs to be churned while it’s fermenting.

8/ Famously, people call it “chai” if it arrived in their country by land (for example, India, most of peninsular SE Asia, Russia, Japan) and “tea” if it arrived by boat (e.g., England and all of their colonies). Both of these words come ultimately from the Chinese “tu”, which became “cha” in Mandarin but “ta” and “te” in Min, a group of Chinese languages spoken in Fujian province and Taiwan (among other areas—there are over 70 million speakers! And you’ve never heard of it!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_tea has a nice table with different words in different languages if you’re interested in the linguistics here.

9/ The thing Em says about a Mayan god of zero appears to be incorrect. However, linguistically, in at least one Mayan dialect, yesterday and tomorrow are always expressed as “day minus one” and “day plus one” respectively—today is always zero. (https://baas.aas.org/pub/2021n1i336p03/release/2) The Mayans were a long-lived and pluralistic society and in retrospect it’s not right to say, “The Mayans thought,” because when did they think this? Which group? Today they are still over six million people speaking twenty-eight languages! Their earliest villages were established before 2000 BCE and their last city fell in 1697 CE.

9/ Rabban Bar Sauma (c1220–1294) was a Nestorian (named for Nestorius). We discussed miaphysitism and dyophysitism in Episode 48 (see note 14).

Join Em and Dr. Jesse as they talk about the last two branches of the Mabinogi.

Em’s books can all be found here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C5XX9BH3 (or at many other fine internet sites.)

1/ The previous episodes were: Episode 78 (introduction), and episode 79 (branches 1 and 2). Also, we’re still using The Mabinogion translated by Sioned Davies (2008, Oxford University press) Link.

2/ People still alive: Pryderi, Cigfa, Manawyden, Rhiannon, Arawn

3/ Bank of England inflation calculator: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

4/ Branch four: Trigger warnings for sexual assault.

5/ The film in which Bernie walks around by himself (in the US Virgin Islands) is Weekend at Bernie’s II. In the first film, his body is just repeatedly stolen. For some reason it was on TV constantly in 1994 or so. I don’t remember it well but I don’t think I have to in order to assert it has loads of super sketchy voodoo representation. Among other things, I’m sure.

6/ Guards, Guards! is by Terry Pratchett. Did we say that?

Did you see a headless (possibly satanic) angel rising from the stage during the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics, or Winged Victory? Or did you wonder, as we did, how the two happen to be so similar, when angels in the bible are often described as having six wings, or wheels, or four faces and many eyes, or voices that sound like many people speaking at once? And actually, now that we mention it, why are apples so common in Mediterranean myths? Join Em and Dr. Jesse as we talk through the Olympics closing ceremony, its symbolism, and how the modern Christian imagination is inextricably tied to Greek myth.

1/ Bobby Gibb was technically the first woman to run Boston in 1966. Katherine Switzer ran it in 1967 and the officials’ attempts to eject her produced the photos described.

2/ The apple/evil pun only works in Latin (not Greek). Also, although both the Septuagint and the Vulgate use a generic word for fruit in Genesis, the word for apple (which Latin got from Greek) not only served the Latin pun but brought an accrual of meanings from the Greek world (which, as we discussed in this episode, is presumably why the apple became the de facto fruit in the garden).

3/ Dan Smith’s blog: https://danaturg.blogspot.com/2024/07/dramaturgy-of-paris-olympics-opening.html

4/ The Hymn to Apollo was in episode 46.

Last week, the 2024 Summer Olympics started in Paris with an opening ceremony that featured nods to several musicals, a heavy metal band named after Godzilla, a bit of an aria from Carmen, and of course, a tableau of drag queens and gender bent fashionistas referencing Leonardo da Vinci’s 1498 painting The Last Supper. Or perhaps they were referencing Jan van Bijlert’s 1640 work Le Festin des Dieux (The Feast of the Gods). Join Em and Dr. Jesse for a wide-ranging conversation about the history of the games, the video game Assassin’s Creed, camp, kitsch, and Susan Sontag. Oh, no, sorry. That tableau. Spoiler: Jesse had thoughts.

No notes today. Also, Em’s mic sounds bad because like a noob she didn’t check what Audacity was recording with. Sorry for the slightly less than pristine sound quality.

The Mabinogi: what’s it actually about, when you get down to it? Join Em and Jesse as they discuss the first two branches, in which Pwyll meets Arawn, lord of the underworld, and has adventures; in which Pwyll meets Rhiannon and has a lot more adventures than maybe he bargained for; and in which Bendigeidran, Branwen, and Manawyden fight Ireland.

0/ Find links to Old Time Religion here, or buy it directly from Ingram Spark here. If you are seeing this during the month of July 2024, it (and Dionysus in Wisconsin) are currently 75% off at Smashwords.

1/ The Mabinogion translated by Sioned Davies (2008, Oxford University press)

The Horse in Celtic Culture: Medieval Welsh Perspectives ed. Sioned Davies and Nerys Jones (University of Wales Press, 1997)

2/ Randomly, there’s a fairly well-known professor of graphic design who shares my original surname. I don’t think we’re related.

3/ Branch one major characters:

4/ For our thoughts on The Green Knight (both story and film), hunt down Episode 60.

5/ Geoffrey of Monmouth (c1095–c1155). Extremely responsible for King Arthur mythos. See episode 60 on The Green Knight!

6/ The early modern Irish “Children of Lir“:

Different from “The Children of LLYR” (from the Mabinogion) and not related to Shakespeare’s King Lear

7/ The actual children of Llyr (from the Mabinogion):

8/ The Gundestrup caldron: this cauldron is clearly ceremonial (not for everyday use), but cauldrons generally are very communal and demonstrate the importance of being a good host

9/ A torc is a stiff metal neck ring (aka really iconic jewelry from the Bronze age through the Middle Ages, found throughout Europe from the Balkans through Celtic regions)

Paul: Look, it’s a school of whales.

Ever wonder what Wales is, on a mythological level? That strange country of Michael Sheen with a dragon on the flag! And jokes about leeks in Henry V. The most well-known Welsh myths are collected in a book called The Mabinogi, which has solidly medieval origins. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss where the book came from and what we know about it.

0/ You can get Old Time Religion here.

1/ Spoiler: It was not January when the episode went out.

2/ Edition we recommend:

Sioned Davies, tr. The Mabinogion. Oxford: OUP, 2008. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-mabinogion-9780199218783

3/ If you speak Welsh, I’m just really sorry.

4/ Lady Charlotte Guest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Charlotte_Guest

5/ House of Legends: See episodes 59, 61, and 63.

6/ Geoffrey of Monmouth: see episode 60 on The Green Knight. We’ve recorded some other episodes on King Arthur, but apparently they’re not out yet.

7/ Possible authors:

8/ Mari Lwyd–essentially a hobby horse but using a (horse’s) skull. Really interesting, look it up for pictures!

9/ The prototypical Welsh word with a “w” as a vowel is “cwm,” which is a hollow at the head of a valley. Go forth and win at Scrabble.

10/ Brave weatherperson saying “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch”

Here comes the parade, want some beads?

Okay, so carnival is a prelude to Lent, which is an extremely solemn time in Catholic tradition. So why is it the way that it is in so many places? Let’s talk about it.

1/ It’s late, but it’s up before the end of Lent. lol sob

2/ carnem levare: Latin for putting away (not eating) meat.

3/ The dialog is:

Aziraphale: Did you ever meet him?

Crowley: Yes…seemed a very bright young man. I showed him all the kingdoms of the world.

Aziraphale: Why?

Crowley: He’s a carpenter from Galilee. His travel opportunities are limited.

(From s1e03)

4/ https://www.comicmix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/pancakes4.jpg pancakes

5/ John Bossy, Christianity in the West: 1400–1700.

6/ Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World.

7/ By “the countries [UK and the Netherlands] have some connections,” Em means that during the Glorious Revolution, William III (of Orange) and Mary II were invited to rule England, because they’d run out of endogenous rulers owing to having kicked James II/VI out. (They were invited because Mary was James’s eldest surviving child, and they reigned as co-monarchs, which honestly seems like a very rational move to me.)

8/ Peter Bruegel the Elder: The Fight between Carnival and Lent

Jan Miense Molenaer (1610–1668): The Battle between Carnival and Lent

Molenaer shared his studio with his wife, Judith Leyster, who was also an awesome painter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Leyster

Hieronymus Bosch: Ship of Fools

The poem mentioned was written is by Jacop (Jacob) van Oestvoren who wrote “De Blauwe Schuit” (“The Blue Boat”) in 1413

9/ Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance

If you’re one of those people who thinks about the Roman Empire a lot because aqueducts are really cool, you’re going to love this. Join Em and Jesse as they discuss the irrigation of the Chengdu Plain, the plumbing of Tenochtitlan, and water management at Machu Picchu. Then we round out our “the middle ages didn’t constantly smell awful” series with a discussion of the history of perfume.

1/ Various news articles about water pollution:

Chicago River story: https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2023/9/28/23895006/trump-tower-chicago-river-pollution-attorney-general-kwame-raoul

2/ John Snow proved that the Broad Street Pump was carrying disease in 1854: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7150208/

Germ theory of disease was actually first proposed in 1546 but not widely accepted in Europe until the end of the 1880s. THE 1880s!

3/ The Irrigation of the Chengdu Plain: the Dujiangyan irrigation system is a UNESCO heritage site! https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1001/

4/ Tenochtitlan plumbing: the Chapultepec aqueduct! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapultepec_aqueduct

5/ The Incan plumbing:

6/ For the record, although there were people in the area of Venice from around the 10th century BCE on, the dedication of the first church, symbolically recognized as the founding of the city, was 421 CE. (There was a Roman city there before, of course.) Tenochtitlan, on the other hand, was founded around 1325 CE (with, again, some wiggle room).

7/ The tallest building in Des Moines, IA, is 801 Grand, which is 45 storeys high. [Sorry Des Moines!!! You are awesome.]

8/ Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression, was published from 1977–2005. In vol. 12 (1996), they did publish an article entitled “Linguistic and Blasphemous Aspects of Bavarian Micturition and American Toilet Names” by the editor, Reinhold Aman. However, the journal is now offline.

He, uh. Really hated the Clintons.

9/ QI bits: I can’t find them. [I think you might need BBC iPlayer or a VPN or similar.–Jesse]

10/ The Ted Chiang short story is “Tower of Babylon,” which is collected in Stories of Your Life and Others. It’s really good!

11/ UW–Madison and building better potatoes: https://pasdept.wisc.edu/2019/10/07/new-potato-helps-farmers-weather-the-frost/

UW Machu Picchu project is part of UW-Madison’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Ancient Engineering Technologies project:

12/ Pomander: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomander

13/ Wow, coming on hard with the perfume facts there, Em.

Recreating perfumes! https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/may-be-what-cleopatra-smelled-180972854/

An example of a glass perfume bottle (1st century CE): https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/239779

14/ National Theatre’s Antony and Cleopatra with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo is the best.

Some photos Jesse took of old pipes on Knossos:

After a brief discussion of how people brushed their teeth, we move on to the question of where the water they used came from. And yeah, Rome had aqueducts–but so did a lot of places! And the Romans didn’t even build the aqueducts they did have–they took them from the Etruscans! Who may have gotten the idea from the Minoans! Also we talk about China, Harappa, and the Inca. You don’t want to miss this amazing smorgasbord of plumbing knowledge.

1/ This discussion of dentistry is very weird to listen to; as I [Em] am editing this episode, I’m also preparing to get some dental work and…let’s just say we all appreciate being born after Novocain became a thing. [Ooooo, yes. I agree.–Jesse]

2/ St. Apollonia–see episode 10 (Icons and Iconography) note 37 and episode 28 (Food) note 29.

3/ A broken jaw wired together with gold thread: the jaw of a Byzantine warrior (14th century) was broken and healed after being wired together (probably with gold thread). Hippocrates had suggested this method in the 5th century BCE, but there’s not a lot of archeological evidence of this type of surgery. https://www.livescience.com/byzantine-warrior-fractured-jaw

4/ Our Flag Means Death is set around 1717–1720. The “acts of grace” Blackbeard takes advantage of were a 1717–1719 thing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1717%E2%80%931718_Acts_of_Grace), and IRL Blackbeard died in 1718. Also, Stede dresses like a gentleman of that era (banyans! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan_(clothing))

5/ First toothbrush: China, 600s CE. Here’s a history of toothbrush evolution in China! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22883376/

6/ Various tooth abrasives:

7/ The compound in coffee and tea that sticks to your teeth is tannin. When you brush your teeth with baking soda, I believe it forms a new compound—sodium tannate, and then it will leave your teeth alone! That’s why baking soda is a whitener. But it tastes NASTY.

8/ Trotula (12th century): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trota_of_Salerno

9/ Lead: plumbum in Latin. Pretty clear line from there to plumber.

10/ Indus Valley / Harappa:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_of_the_Indus_Valley_Civilisation

https://www.harappa.com/blog/mohenjo-daro-street-drains

Jansen, “Water Supply and Sewage Disposal at Mohenjo-Daro” in World Archaeology 21.2 (Oct 1989), 177-192.

11/ Shelves in the closet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKE2S-lHhRY

12/ The Minoans:

Jesse has seen the plumbing at the palace at Knossos and spent a lot of time taking pictures of it. It’s still there and truly incredible!

A.N. Angelakis “Hydro-technologies in the Minoan Era”

https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/water-harvesting-and-distribution-systems-of-the-minoan-civilization

13/ Linear A:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A

(The other one is Linear B, aka Mycinean Greek. We didn’t name things too creatively I guess.)

14/ For  more on Crete and the Minoans, see episodes: 2 note 9 and 68 note 9.

15/ The Etruscans:

https://novoscriptorium.com/2020/01/09/etruscan-hydro-technologies/

16/ The Cloaca Maxima in Roma:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_in_ancient_Rome

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca_Maxima

When Em was a kid, she was told that knights in shining armor didn’t bathe, that Elizabeth I had bathed only three times in her life, and various other assertions. But we know that soap is not a modern invention–the word itself comes from the Latin, and no less than Pliny the Elder discusses how to make it from tallow and ashes. So what constitutes bathing? Were people before the year 1900 CE just terribly smelly all the time? And what were bathrooms–and plumbing–like around the world? Join Em and Jesse for a far-ranging discussion of cleanliness, won’t you?

0/ Em’s new novel, Old Time Religion, can be ordered here. Dionysus in Wisconsin is here.

1/ This episode was apparently recorded in April of 2022. Amusingly, the novel I was working on is NOT either of the novels that have been published! It was TWO AND A HALF novels BEFORE Dionysus. 2022 was wild.

2/ William Alcott’s tract Thoughts on Bathing:

I think Em says 1939, she meant 1839.

3/ The most famous portrait of someone in a bath is, in my mind, The Death of Marat, by Jacques-Louis David, which is SOLIDLY 18th century. But there are others, from earlier.

(Also, who doesn’t love JLD? He’s amazing.)

4/ York Medieval interactive Viking attraction: https://www.jorvikvikingcentre.co.uk

5/ Nope, this is from a letter that Queen Elizabeth I wrote to George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, who is better known for being Lord Chamberlain and the patron of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (Shakespeare’s Company) after his father Henry, also Lord Chamberlain and patron of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, died. He was apparently having a great time at Bath, and the Queen wrote him: “[I] can not but wonder, considering the great number of pails of water that I hear have been poured upon you, that you are not rather drowned than otherwise. But I trust all shall be for your better means to health.” Here is a link to the letter. (Berkeley Castle Muniments Select Letter 8). The letter is also available in Katherine Duncan-Jones, ‘Elizabeth I and her “Good George” unpublished letters’, in P. Beal and G. Ioppolo (eds.), Elizabeth I and the Culture of Writing (British Library, 2007), 29–41.

6/ Monty Python scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi8vXOUi-eI

Dennis the peasant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng

7/ The process of making soap is called SAPONIFICATION. Sometimes this happens to bodies that get buried in certain environments. The word soap came to Latin (saponem) from a proto-Fresian dialect (I don’t think we have that word, just a reconstruction of it) and thence to many other languages, including savon (French), xa bong (Vietnamese), sebon (Welsh), soap (English), sabuu (Thai–I don’t know for sure it’s related but I’d be willing to place a bet)…

8/ Natron is hydrated sodium carbonate (https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history-technology/mummies-pigments-and-pretzels)

9/ Books for travelers Em alludes to:

10/ Polar plunge:

It’s madness if you ask me. [-Em]

11/ I Henry IV scene: I think this is II.i.15, which is actually about fleas not lice! Same idea though. –Jesse

12/ A truly disturbing fact: most lice now have become impervious to the anti-lice shampoos we used to use when we were kids. [Oh god!! –Jesse]

13/ For example, Bolton Strid (or “the Strid”) is a small, fairly calm-appearing waterway that has claimed a lot of lives. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bolton-strid

14/ There’s a long section on bathing in Matrix, by Lauren Groff.

15/ Mr Darcy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBaspD6Aq9E

16/ Inca baths: https://www.archaeology.wiki/blog/2019/02/27/researchers-reveal-inca-bath-complex-structure/

17/ Em was being a bit flippant about how long Japan’s written history goes back. The earliest written work recounting Japanese history (in Classical Chinese) was the Tennok and the Kokki, written in 620 CE. Neither survives. The Kojiki was the oldest account of Japan’s history (or it’s semi-historical, anyway) that still survives, and it dates from the early 700s. The first work to unambiguously mention Japan was the Book of Han, which was a Chinese book dating from 111 CE that covers history from 206 BCE to 23 CE.

18/ I know WAY MORE about the history of the 1970s now. Anyway, in his excellent autobiography, On the Move, Oliver Sacks mentions going to a bathhouse with a friend in San Francisco in 1978. Uncharacteristically, he doesn’t say anything more about the bathhouse itself.

Another fun fact, here at UW the pool at the Red Gym was men-only and swimsuit-optional until 1973. NINETEEN SEVENTY-THREE. A group of female students who forced their way into the pool (nude) forced the university to reconsider their policy.

19/ Greece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXt0VCPKfQ4

20/ Brooklyn 99 is the best. REST IN POWER Captain Holt: Andre Braugher (1962–2023) (https://www.npr.org/2023/12/19/1220282449/remembering-andre-braugher-star-of-homicide-and-brooklyn-nine-nine)

21/ Shanxi province excavations: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5111981/Luxurious-2-300-year-old-imperial-bathrooms-China.html

22/ Editing this, it is once again winter and I [Em] would happily move into a sauna for the next five months if available.