As we kick off the New Year, we take a brief diversion from our Medieval True Crime miniseries to explore the world of precious stones and the extraordinary properties attributed to them through a look at the Lapidary of Marbodus and a couple of other short texts.

Today's Texts

Shackford, Martha Hale, editor. Legends and Satires from Mediæval Literature. Ginn and Company, 1913. Google Books.

Marbodus. The Lapidarium of Marbodus. Translated by C.W. King. In C.W. King, Antique Gems, Their Origin, Uses, and Value as Interpreters of Ancient History; and as Illustrative of Ancient Art, John Murray, 1860, pp. 389-417. Google Books.

References

Doyle, Arthur Conan. "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Project Gutenberg.

Duffin, Christopher John. "Chelidonius: The Swallow Stone." Speculum, vol. 124, no. 1, Apr. 2013, pp. 81-103. JSTOR.

Holmes, Urban T. "Mediaeval Gem Stones." Speculum, vol. 9, no. 2, Apr. 1934, pp. 195-204. JSTOR.