Gravity

Climbing Lucifer in Dante's Inferno

A long time ago (it seems) I touched on gravity and said "there was no working theory of gravity yet; just a feeling that substances could be heavier or lighter." Theories of gravity did not need Newton to become useful to understanding the world.

Still, if the inhabitants of this globe knew it was a globe, they had to come to terms with how things stayed on it. John Mandeville wrote a book of travels in the 14th century in which he addresses this issue:

from what part of the earth that men dwell, either above or beneath, it seemeth always to them that dwell that they go more right than any other folk. And right as it seemeth to us that they be under us, right so it seemeth to them that we be under them. [Mandeville, Voyage and Travels, chapter xx]

The Middle Ages understood that objects inclined toward the earth itself, wherever they were upon its spherical surface. In fact, gravity was sometimes described as "kindly inclining."

Dante (1265-1321) in his Inferno has his traveler and guide (Virgil) descend through the levels of Hell—not a metaphorical journey, but descending deeper and deeper below the surface of the Earth—finally reaching the gigantic body of Lucifer embedded in the ice. They start climbing down his body when, at his groin region (the bottom-most part of the world), down becomes up, and they have to reverse their orientation. They are now climbing up to his feet.

Was Dante just speaking metaphorically? Did he understand gravity as it operates at the center of the Earth?

Maybe he did. Vincent of Beauvais (c.1190 - 1264) wrote an encyclopedia that was very popular in the Middle Ages. It is not unexpected that Dante would have been very familiar with it. Vincent was well aware of the spheroid nature of the Earth, and that objects fell directly to Earth no matter where they were on the surface. In his Speculum Naturale ["Mirror of Nature"], he explains as much of the world as he can in 3,718 chapters spread across 32 books. In Book vi, he tells the curious what would happen to a stone dropped into a hole that goes straight through the globe to the other side. He says that it would not fight gravity and rise to the other side, but would stay at the center.

The acceptance of a terrestrial globe forced scholars and philosophers to re-think the action of falling bodies and their relationship to the Earth. Common sense led them to arrive at the proper effects of gravity, even if they did not have the science or mathematics to understand the cause of gravity.

Old New Year

Clearly, Old New Year is still a big deal!

Happy New Year!

Today, 14 January,* is the "original" New Year's Day in the Julian calendar at the time that the Gregorian calendar was devised to replace it. (This switch was discussed in several places, most notably here and here.) As can be expected, not everyone adopted the new calendar system right away. Some hung onto the Julian calendar for a long time; in fact, it wasn't until 24 January 1918 that Lenin made the Gregorian calendar the law of the land in Russia.

By the early 20th century, the Julian and Gregorian calendars were separated by two weeks (not the 7 days that were the case centuries earlier in the time of Gervase of Canterbury, or even the 10 days that were the case in the 16th century when a whole chunk of October disappeared from European countries).

It turns out that Lenin did not actually change New Year's Day in Russia so much as he created a second one. In Russia it is the Old New Year, a day of nostalgia and feasting. In the Eastern Orthodox liturgy, it is the Leave-taking of the Christmas season: the final "wrap-up" of Christmas.

The Old New Year is still remembered in Serbia, Georgia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Ukraine. It is celebrated in Wales as Hen Galan ["old new year"] (at least in Gwaun Valley in Pembrokeshire) when children receive sweet treats and sing carols. Likewise, some parts of Switzerland keep up the old tradition of Alter Sylvester, described and illustrated here.

Thanks to the refusal of protestant countries to change their dating systems based on a Roman Catholic idea, some very old customs have survived into modern times.

*Sometimes Old New Year is the 13th.

St. Mungo

Today presents many opportunities to tie into previous posts. It is the date of the deaths of St. Rémy in 533, of Abbot Suger in 1151. It is the date of riots in Constantinople that destroyed half the city when the Blues and Greens fought, and the elevation of a new King of the Franks named Odo. Instead, however, let us talk about Kentigern, known to the Welsh as Cyndeyrn Garthwys, but whom the world now knows as Mungo.

Although he lived in the late 6th century, no complete biography exists before the 1185 version by the hagiographer Jocelyn of Furness. Jocelyn claims he used an Old Irish document; there is a manuscript  with a partial biography from the Cotton Library that might be what he refers to.

If we turn to Welsh geneaological tables from the Middle Ages, we learn that he was the son of King Owain of Rheged. If we are to believe Jocelyn, Owain raped a saint, Teneu, whose father then had her thrown from a hill in Lothian; she survived, fled to Fife, and there gave birth to Mungo.

In his twenties, Mungo started ministering in Strathclyde to those living in what is now Glasgow. Saint Ninian had already brought Christianity to the area, and he welcomed Mungo. An anti-Christian push by a later king prompted Mungo to travel to Wales where he spent time with Saint David (c.500 - c.589). Eventually, a new king in Strathclyde invited Mungo to return.

Mungo has some miracles to his name, such as reviving a dead pet robin and finding a fish in the River Clyde that had swallowed an important ring needed to prove the queen's fidelity to her husband.

Mungo is said to have died in his bath on 13 January (in either 603 or 612 or 614), now considered his feast day. He is the patron saint of Glasgow.

Traveling to Canterbury

St. Adrian of Canterbury

Yesterday's post on the Leiden Glossary mentioned its two chief contributors, Adrian of Canterbury and Theodore of Tarsus. Also interesting is their journey to Canterbury—not just their appointment to their positions, but what it took to get to their new jobs—and what it tells us about the Middle Ages.

Bede tells the story of Adrian of Canterbury in his Historia ecclesiastic gentis Anglorum ["Ecclesiastical history of the English people"]. Adrian was born in North Africa—we don't know when, but he died about 710—and was abbot of a monastery when Pope Vitalian (who would send Benedict Biscop to England as well) offered him the position of Archbishop of Canterbury on the death of Archbishop Deusdedit in 664. Adrian turned down the offer, and suggested a nearby monk, who also declined. When the pope asked Adrian a second time, Adrian introduced to the pope another friend who happened to be in Rome, Theodore of Tarsus.

The pope accepted Theodore as the new Archbishop of Canterbury, but asked that Adrian accompany him to England; according to Bede, Adrian had traveled to England twice before, and knew the way. Keep in mind that this is a world without roadmaps, without highways, without public transportation or any regularly scheduled wagons or boats or anything of the kind.

On 27 May 668 (note: 4 years after the death of Deusdedit), Adrian and Theodore left Rome. They traveled by sea to Marseille on the southern coast of France (far preferable to crossing the Alps). In nearby Arles they stayed for a time with its archbishop, John, until they managed to get passports from King Clotaire III's Mayor of the Palace, Ebroin. These passports could be shown to any civil servants along the way to grant them safe passage through Clotaire's domain.

By the time they made their way to the north of France, winter had come, so they needed to stay somewhere. Theodore went to stay with the Bishop of Paris. Adrian stayed first with the Bishop of Sens, then the Bishop of Meaux.

In the spring of 669, King Ecgberht of Kent sent for Theodore, who reached England a whole year after he first set out. Adrian, however, was not so lucky. For some reason, Ebroin decided that Adrian might have been an agent of the Greek emperor.* The Greek emperor that he feared had died in September of 668, but news could travel as slowly as bishops crossing France, so Ebroin (and Clotaire) were probably fearing someone that had been dead for months. They finally allowed Adrian to leave France.

Arriving in England, Adrian was made abbot of the monastery of St. Peter, which was re-named St. Augustine's Abbey. He and Theodore taught and wrote commentaries that, along with the writing of others, were compiled into a collection of glosses in Latin and Anglo-Saxon. At least one copy made its way to the continent and the Abbey of St. Gall, where it was copied in 800. That copy eventually wound up in the Netherlands, where it became known as the Leiden Glossary.

*In 669 the emperor would have been Constantine IV, "The Bearded"; Ebroin probably feared the emperor's predecessor, his father Constans II.

The Leiden Glossary

You can get your own copy here

The Leiden University Library in the Netherlands, founded in 1575, was an important part of the Enlightenment (late 17th to early 18th century), due to its enormous collection of texts that include 2500 medieval manuscripts. One of their medieval manuscripts, the Leiden Glossary, preserves a document from 9th century England that might otherwise be lost to us.

A "glossary" is a collection of "glosses," or explanations of a word or term. The Leiden Glossary contains glosses and commentaries by two priests and scholars, Adrian of Canterbury and Theodore of Tarsus (mentioned here), who were both at St. Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury.

The 48 chapters are lists of sayings and phrases used by Adrian and Theodore in their teaching, as well as commentaries they made on other works: think of it as a teacher's handout to his students so they don't have to take notes. There are, for instance, 8 chapters by Theodore with glosses on the "Pastoral Care" of Pope Gregory I (Gregory has been mentioned here).

There are also glosses from different people. For instance, there are three glosses on the same subject of the Historia Ecclesiastica ["History of the Church"] of Eusebius. The three are of differing quality, as if the book records the attempts by three different scholars—maybe students— to explain the passages in Eusebius. One of them echoes a different commentary found elsewhere that is known to be by Aldhelm, so it may have been Aldhelm himself who contributed it to the Leiden.

The Leiden is a mixture of glosses in Latin and Anglo-Saxon, another indication that the original glossary must have come from England. The Leiden Glossary was made in the library at the Abbey of St. Gall, presumably from that original. One of the things that we learn collaterally from the Leiden Glossary—because of the manuscripts about which the glosses have been written—is that the library at St. Augustine's Abbey must have been extensive. Alas, it did not survive the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII.

Conjoined Twins

from a 1499 woodcut by Jacob Locher

Hippocrates was aware of the phenomenon of conjoined twins, and offered an explanation: the male provided too much seed for just one being and yet not enough for two.

Whatever the reason, antiquity and the Middle Ages were well acquainted with this occurrence. Not everyone would have had opportunity to see an example of conjoined twins—there's no evidence that Hippocrates himself ever saw or "treated" such a case—but some who did witness the phenomenon wrote about it. One eyewitness was Leo Diaconus, or Leo the Deacon.

Leo the Deacon was a Byzantine historian who was born about 950. After 992 he started a history of the Empire, for some reigns of which he is our only source. His writing style has been criticized, but his facts have not. He reports:

At this time male twins, who came from the region of Cappadocia, were wandering through many parts of the Roman Empire; I myself, who am writing these lines, have often seen them in Asia, a monstrous and novel wonder. For the various parts of their bodies were whole and complete, but their sides were attached from the armpit to the hip, uniting their bodies and combining them into one. And with the adjacent arms they embraced each other’s necks, and in the others carried staffs, on which they supported themselves as they walked. They were thirty years old and well developed physically, appearing youthful and vigorous. On long journeys they used to ride on a mule, sitting sideways on the saddle in the female fashion, and they had indescribably sweet and good dispositions. [Leo Diaconus]

The pair lived for several years, apparently making appearances around the Eastern Empire (perhaps earning money for some 10th century P.T.Barnum). Eventually, one twin died.

...skilled doctors separated them cleverly at the line of connection with the hope of saving the surviving one but after living three days he died also. [Theophanes Continuatus]

A history written in the 11th century has an illustrated page for the case of these conjoined twins. You can see the pictures here.

[Today's post is inspired by a recent item on medievalists.net, a blog I recommend.]

Emperor Justinian

The results of Justinian's plan for re-unifying the Empire

The Byzantine Emperor Justinian was known for—among other things—establishing a code of justice. His reign, from 1 August 527 until 14 November 565, was sufficiently long that he managed to achieve many other things—enough that he earned the title Justinian the Great.

When I call him a Byzantine Emperor, I refer to a geographical designation; technically, he was emperor of the Roman Empire, albeit he ruled from the Eastern Empire. The division of the vast Roman Empire made it difficult to manage the entire territory; Justinian, however, decided during his reign that it was time to bring the empire back together.

Now, this might have been easy if the Western Empire were still under Roman rule. The Western Empire, however, had been overrun by Goths and Vandals. Justinian, who is sometimes referred to as the "Last Roman Emperor" because he was the last ruler who spoke Latin as his first language (as opposed to Greek), instituted a renovatio imperii ["restoration of the empire].

This restoration plan produced the Gothic Wars, lasting 20 years, Not only did he bring much of the old Roman territory around the Mediterranean back under one rule, but he also brought new territory to the Empire. The Tzani (now called the Zans, a subtonic group of the Georgians) on the east coast of the Black Sea had never known Roman rule, but were included in his military campaigns.

Treating Corpses

A medieval reliquary from the collection in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Over a year ago I touched on funeral practices. A recent comment on that post has sent me back to look at, shall we say, "divergent practices." The comment was very pertinent: how do we account for attitudes toward saints' relics if preserving corpses was important?

It is important to remember that the Middle Ages is a thousand years of many different cultures; there will be no answers that account for all circumstances:

In medieval times the practice of body partition, artistic or actual, was fraught with "ambivalence, controversy, and profound inconsistency." The culture of ancient Rome had possessed strong taboos against moving or dividing corpses, and Christians of the third and fourth centuries maintained this intense concern for proper burial. Indeed, the belief that corporeal integrity is crucial to identity runs throughout medieval culture. The Parisian theologian Gervase of Mt.-St.-Eloi, for example, insisted that it was better to bury bodies intact so they would be "ready for the trumpet" (for the Last Judgment when, it was believed, the soul would be reunited with the body). [source]

Of course, bodies decay, and if Christians believed in bodily resurrection, they must also believe that resurrection would restore the decaying body to its living healthful status. Apparently, however, that belief did not include being able to re-assemble limbs if they had been separated, or restoring organs and cuts if there had been an autopsy.

Research, however, shows that attitudes toward the treatment of corpses were "contextual": important bodies—ones that had religiously or politically sentimental significance—could be partitioned for special purposes. Saints' relics are the most obvious example, but there were others. When Henry III died in 1272, he was interred in Westminster Abbey, but in 1292 his heart was removed and sent to Fontevrault Abbey because of his Angevin family connections.

And remember that the process of hanging, drawing and quartering was a special punishment for the worst of crimes: those who wanted to bring harm to the body of the king (and, by extension, the "body politic" of the country).

Clearly, the treatment of bodies depended on various and varying cultural attitudes, as well as on the needs of the culture to get further "value" from the person by utilizing (or abusing) the corpse after his or her death.

...and Sometimes It Works

Holding hot iron in a Trial by Ordeal.

In the post on Margaret Eriksdottir we saw an example of how Trial by Ordeal doesn't always work out for the defendant. People still invoked that dubious method of justice, so belief in it (and, presumably, its efficacy in some cases) kept it alive.

The post linked above mentioned how Haakon III died without an heir, so a nephew named Guttorm Sigurdsson was put on the throne of Norway. He was only four years old, and so the responsibility of governing was put into the hands of regents. Guttorm only lived as king a few months, actually, dying of an illness (remember the sudden illness that killed his predecessor? it seems to have been a trend in Norwegian politics of the 13th century). One of his regents was Haakon the Crazy.

To give this new Haakon the benefit of the doubt, what we translate as "crazy" would probably more appropriately be defined as "furious in battle" than "unstable of mind." He was a supporter of King Sverre (Margaret's husband), and was made regent for Guttorm and leader of Norway's armies at the death of Sverre's son, Haakon III. Unfortunately, he had connections with Sweden that made him unsuitable for king, so at Guttorm's untimely death, Haakon the Crazy's half-brother Inge became king.

Haakon the Crazy died at the end of 1214; King Inge died in April 1217; and here's where it gets more interesting. A woman whom Haakon III had taken as a concubine in 1203 appeared in public with her young son, claiming that he was a son of Haakon III. Normally, this would not necessarily carry any weight, but she decided to go through a Trial by Ordeal. She carried a piece of hot iron without apparent damage from the heat, proving before all of Sweden that her claim of proper paternity for her son was true!

The boy, Haakon, became King Haakon IV and reigned from June of 1217 until his death on 16 December 1263. His reign is considered a golden age of medieval Norway.

Margaret of Sweden

Retrieving an object from boiling water without
suffering burns would prove innocence.

Margaret (or Margareta) Eriksdottir of Sweden (c.1155 - 1209) is only briefly mentioned in the histories of the time, but one incident in her life underscores the flaws of the medieval justice system.

She was the daughter of King Eric IX of Sweden (d.1160) and was married to King Sverre of Norway  (c.1151 - 1202) in 1189. Sverre fell ill and died on 9 March on his return from a military expedition. Margaret returned to Sweden after his funeral, but her daughter, Kristina, was not allowed to return with her. Sverre's successor (King Haakon III, a son from a previous marriage) kept Kristina at his court. This, presumably, caused some hostility between Margaret and Haakon.

Two years later, Margaret decided to return to Norway. Unfortunately for Margaret, Haakon died very shortly after her return, and accusations of poison were made against her.

Margaret invoked Trial by Ordeal* to prove her innocence, and had a man undergo the ritual in her place. Sadly, he was badly burned—not surprising to a modern audience, but proof of guilt to the law court of the time. The man was drowned, and Margaret had to flee for her life back to Sweden.

Haakon died without a son, so Guttorm (a grandson of Sverre) was named king, even though he was only four years old. No one was around to carry a grudge against Margaret, so in 1209 she returned to Norway for the wedding of Kristina to one of the regents for Guttorm. Sadly, she became ill and died a few weeks after the wedding.


*See the post on Trial by Combat.

Changing the Year

[Notate bene: this post is based on one that originally appeared on 30 June 2012.]

Pope Paul III, as played by
Peter O'Toole in "The Tudors"

In 2012, June 30th had one extra second added to it. This is only the latest in a long list of calendar corrections. We'll avoid the modern arguments about what actually constitutes a "year" (a problem resolved by designer of the Jalali calendar) and go back to a simpler time.

Readers of this blog are probably familiar with the pope's work to "fix" the calendar when he realized that the Julian calendar was "off" by several days. Sure, the Julian took into account that a "year" is actually 365 and a quarter days, but it wasn't exactly a quarter-day off, and so adding a day every four years wasn't sufficient to even things out. Every 131 years, the solstices and equinoxes would be off by a day. This was a real problem for the Church, because over the centuries Easter started shifting to summer, rather than spring.

Pope Paul III (1468-1549) saw the problem and gathered several astronomers to develop reforms.* Then Paul III died, five popes came and went, and in 1572 Pope Gregory XIII was elected and found himself faced with a growing problem and several possible solutions. He mulled it over for a few years, and then declared to the world:

• The Leap Day would move to after February 28 (it had been tucked in before February 25).
• The date of Easter would be calculated differently.
• A Leap Year that is divisible by 400 will not have a Leap Day.
• Ten days needed to be omitted from the calendar, to bring it back into alignment with the solstices. Accordingly, in 1582, the day after Thursday, October the 4th, was Friday the 15th....and then everything was fine. Except when it isn't, like when we have to add an extra second here or there. (And can you imagine trying to explain to someone 1000 years ago that the year gained about 45 seconds every 10 millennia because the Earth's rotation was slowing?)

The 1582 change gave rise to a slight oddity for historians, because technically, every date prior to October 4th, 1582 is a Julian date, but also has a corresponding Gregorian date that is several days different. How you count it depends on whether you consider the date to be just a label given by those who were there at the time, or a certain number of days prior to the present day. Or it's important if you want to declare the anniversary of an event.

Anyway, the extra second was added just before midnight. You may not have noticed it, but you can say you lived at a time when a minute was 61 seconds long!

*Copernicus had dedicated his work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium [On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres] to Pope Paul III, hoping it would save him from potential hostility for his radical thoughts. Had Paul called him, Copernicus probably would have come running to join the team of calendar reformers; alas, he had died in 1542.

Evesham Abbey

The early history of the founding of religious buildings goes hand-in-hand with visions and miracles, such as the August snowfall in Rome. The history of Benedictine structures is no exception.

Evesham Abbey was founded when Bishop (later saint) Ecgwine received a visit from a shepherd or swineherd named Eof. Eof told him of a vision he had of the Virgin Mary requesting that a monastery be built in her honor on a certain spot where he grazed his animals. ("Evesham" means "Eof's town.") Bishop Ecgwine built the monastery; we don't know when construction started, but we do have the charter of Pope Constantine granting privileges to the abbey in 709, firmly establishing its founding as an abbey.

Ecgwine was all too happy to resign his bishopric and become abbot until his death in 717.

Of Evesham Abbey only a bell tower remains since the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. Evesham had trouble when the Danish invasions led to the monks being replaced. Within a generation, fortunately, St. Dunstan (previously mentioned in association with abbeys here) re-established the Benedictines there.

Later, when William the Conqueror took over the country, then-Abbot Æthelwig wisely hastened to pledge loyalty to him. Evesham and its Benedictines flourished under Norman rule, so much so that it supposedly earned the envy of the bishops of Worcester.

Saint Benedict

Benedict holding his Rule;
you can see the raven that
saved him from poisoned bread.

In the discussion of time I mentioned Benedict of Nursia, who created a rule for monks to follow. This blog has also mentioned Benedictines frequently. Let us look a little more closely at the man who founded the Benedictines.

Much of our (dubious) information on his early life comes from Pope Gregory I's book Dialogues. If we are to believe Gregory, Benedict was born about 480 in Nursia in Umbria and was sent to Rome at an early age to be educated, where the licentiousness of that city made him flee to a deserted area 40 miles from Rome. There, in Sublacum (Italian Subiaco), he met a monk, Romanus. Romanus gave him a habit, led him to a deep grotto, and introduced him to the life of a hermit.

Benedict lived as a hermit for three years, leaving it when the residents of a local monastery came to him and begged him to take the position of their deceased abbot. This was not a good idea. The monks and Benedict had such divergent opinions on how to conduct their lives that they ultimately decided to kill their new abbot. His prayers before meals foiled their attempts to poison him; in one instance, a raven carried away poisoned bread before Benedict could eat it. He eventually returned to his solitary life in Subiaco, founding 12 monasteries in that area.

In order to ensure harmony among monks and consistency among those observing the religious life, he devised what we call the Rule of St. Benedict. The Rule consists of 73 short chapters covering how to run a monastery, how monks should conduct themselves, and how to maintain discipline. Among other things, the Rule expects that all brothers are called to participate in discussions of subjects that affect the whole community, expects monks to be sparing of speech (although it doesn't expect complete silence), wants monks to sleep in their habits so that they can rise ready to do the day's work, and expects that all monks take turns in the kitchen.

He died 21 March 543.

Statutes of William the Conqueror

William, Duke of Normandy, who won the Battle of Hastings and conquered England, has been brought up many times in this blog. He ruled for 20 years (25 December 1066 - 9 September 1087). In that time, you would imagine that he made many laws. In the best estimate of historians, he probably made ... ten. That is really all the we can be certain of, and here they are:

1. Firstly that, above all things, he wishes one God to lie venerated throughout his whole kingdom, one faith of Christ always to be kept inviolate, peace and security to be observed between the English and the Normans.

2. We decree also that every free man shall affirm by compact and an oath that, within and without England, he desires to be faithful to king William, to preserve with him his lands and his honour with all fidelity, and first to defend him against his enemies.

3. I will, moreover, that all the men whom I have brought with me, or who have come after me, shall be in my peace and quiet. And if one of them shall be slain, the lord of his murderer shall seize him within five days, if he can; but if not, he shall begin to pay to me forty six marks of silver as long as his possessions shall hold out. But when the possessions of the lord of that man are at an end the whole hundred in which the slaying took place shall pay in common what remains.

4. And every Frenchman who, in the time of my relative king Edward, was a sharer in England of the customs of the English, shall pay according to the law of the English what they themselves call onhlote and ascot.[*] This decree has been confirmed in the city of Gloucester.

5. We forbid also that any live cattle be sold or bought for money except within the cities, and this before three faithful witnesses; nor even anything old without a surety and warrant. But if he do otherwise he shall pay, and shall afterwards pay a fine.

6. It was also decreed there that if a Frenchman summon an Englishman for perjury or murder, theft, homicide, or " ran"-as the English call evident rape which can not be denied-the Englishman shall defend himself as he prefers, either through the ordeal of iron, or through wager of battle. But if the Englishman be infirm he shall find another who will do it for him. If one of them shall be vanquished he shall pay a fine of forty shillings to the king. If an Englishman summon a Frenchman, and be unwilling to prove his charge by judgment or by wager of battle, I will, nevertheless, that the Frenchman purge himself by an informal oath.

7. This also I command and will, that all shall hold and keep the law of Edward the king with regard to their lands, and with regard to all their possessions, those provisions being added which I have made for the utility of the English people.

8. Every man who wishes to be considered a freeman shall have a surety, that his surety may hold him and hand him over to justice if he offend in any way. And if any such one escape, his sureties shall see to it that, without making difficulties, they pay what is charged against him, and that they clear themselves of having known of any fraud in the matter of his escape. The hundred and county shall be made to answer as our predecessors decreed. And those that ought of right to come, and are unwilling to appear, shall be summoned once; and if a second time they are unwilling to appear, one ox shall be taken from them and they shall be summoned a third time. And if they do not come the third time, another ox shall be taken: but if they do not come the fourth time there shall be forfeited from the goods of that man who was unwilling to come, the extent of the charge against him—ceapgeld [**]as it is called—and besides this a fine to the king.

9. I forbid any one to sell a man beyond the limits of the country, under penalty of a fine in full to me.

10. I forbid that any one be killed or hung for any fault but his eyes shall be torn out or his testicles cut off. And this command shall not be violated under penalty of a fine in full to me. [source]

[*]The taxes and fees that allow participation in the community
[**]The forfeit of a beast

Our Lady of the Snows

Art over the door of the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica

I said on Monday that Pope Liberius was usually known for one thing—his part in the Arian controversy—but that we owe him for the date of Christmas. Well, there's at least one other story worth repeating: his part in a miracle of the Virgin Mary.

A couple years prior to his establishing 25 December as the birthday of Jesus, Liberius had a dream. In the dream, Mary appeared an told him that a church was to be constructed on the Esquiline hill of Rome.* The same dream appeared to two other people: a childless Roman couple whose intent was to give all their worldly goods to the Mother of God. They happened to own property on the Esquiline hill. In the dream, Mary told her that she would give them a sign by covering the hill with snow.

Snow in Rome is rare, something that is noted and celebrated. And this was summer! On the morning of 5 August 352, Rome awoke to a covering of white snow on the Esquiline hill. Pope Liberius used the snow to outline the dimensions of a church in honor of Mary (represented in the sculpture above). The church they built was called the Santa Maria Maggiore [Saint Mary Major] basilica, dedicated to "Our Lady of the Snows."

*Rome was built on seven hills: Aventine, Caelian, Capitoline, Esquiline, Palatine, Quirinal, Viminal.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve(nts)

The week, as you can imagine, is very hectic around the world for many people, and I am no exception. In  lieu of a regular post, here is a collection of links for events that took place on 24 December:

563 - Hagia Sophia is re-dedicated after being destroyed by an earthquake.

1046 - Pope Clement II is elected.

1167 - John "Lackland" is born to King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine; he would later sign the Magna Carta.

1294 - Pope Boniface VIII is elected. He would become an enemy of Dante, who would place Boniface in the 8th circle of Hell.

The Date of Christmas

Way back here we mentioned Pope Liberius, sent into exile by Constantius II because he wouldn't censure St. Athanasius for condemning Arianism (Constantius was an Arian). Liberius went to Beroea (modern Véroia in northern Greece), and Felix II became (an anti-)pope.

Liberius' fourteen-year papacy (352 - 366) is usually mentioned in relation to the Arian controversy and his replacement by Felix. But he is given credit for at least one other decision that has endured to modern times: the date of Christmas. The topic of the pagan date of Christmas gets mentioned every year in media, but the details are never revealed. Here they are.

It was clear, according to the mention of shepherds in the Gospel of Luke, that the birth likely happened in springtime. That didn't mean the birth had to be celebrated then; the Church could afford to be pragmatic about that, in its own way. By the 3rd century, Christians were already celebrating January 6th as the day when Jesus was revealed as divine, the Feast of the Epiphany. We now turn to one scholar:

About the beginning of the third century there arose in the Western countries a new opinion on the person of the Saviour. He was now held to have been a God from birth, His Father having been God Himself. [...] Within little more than a century that new dogma conquered the countries round the Mediterranean, [...] In the face of that view it could scarcely any longer appear proper to celebrate the memory of the deification of Christ in the festival of Epiphany on January 6. [Yule and Christmas: their place in the Germanic year, by Alexander Tille, p.120]

In 354, Liberius celebrated not only January 6 as "the appearance of Christ in God-like glory," but also he enforced December 25 as the actual birth, to reinforce the idea that Jesus was God from birth, not deified 12 days later. (And there's a bonus explanation: the 12 days of Christmas exist because of the dual celebrations from 25 December to 6 January.)

Liberius could not have been unaware of the long-term affects of this positioning. He knew that he was appropriating a day that was important to the Roman calendar: the old Dies Natalis Solis Invicti ["Day of Birth of the Unconquered Sun"]. By taking over that celebration he would eventually replace the Roman pagan festival with the Roman Christian one. I say "Roman" Christian because, in the Eastern Church the date of the Epiphany remained the primary date to celebrate.

The Sacrament of Marriage

A medieval marriage, from a British Library ms.

The Christian churches that have survived until the modern era (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy) consider marriage a sacrament; that is, one of the seven

efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. [Catechism of the Catholic Church]

Not everyone saw it that way. A Christian movement that was declared heretical, Catharism, had an entirely different view. (We call the movement "Catharism," but they called themselves Perfecti, "the perfected.") The Perfecti saw sexual reproduction as sinful, and wanted nothing to do with it. This meant they avoided anything that was the product of sexual reproduction, including animals that others would consume as food. They were opposed to marriage completely; so completely, that proof of legal marriage was enough to get a charge of heresy dismissed, if one was accused of being a Cathar.

It is due to the Cathars that marriage is considered a sacrament. The Synod of Verona in 1184 (during the pontificate of Pope Lucius III) was convened to discuss and condemn heresy. It declared marriage a sacrament in opposition to what was being said by Cathars and other heretical groups like the Waldensians.

This was despite the fact that marriage does not fulfill a goal in the same way as the other sacraments. There are sacraments of Christian initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, Communion. There are sacraments that "confer a character": Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders. Penance/Confession and Anointing of the Sick help to purify the soul. The sacrament of marriage puts a "stamp of approval" on the start of a new phase in a couple's lives and reminds them of their place in the community of Christians. In the words of one scholar:

Like the other sacraments, medieval writers argued, marriage was an instrument of sanctification, a channel of grace that caused God's gracious gifts and blessings to be poured upon humanity. Marriage sanctified the Christian couple by allowing them to comply with God's law for marriage and by providing them with an ideal model of marriage in Christ the bridegroom, who took the church as his bride and accorded it highest love, devotion, and sacrifice, even to the point of death. [source]

One of the most interesting aspects of marriage in the Catholic Church is that it relies on "free consent": two people choose to marry each other, and the Church only officiates, it does not give or deny approval to a marriage.

Władysław the Elbow-high

Władysław the Elbow-high was honored
with a 500-Złotych gold coin in 2013

You may remember the story of the Carolingian king Pepin the Short; not a great nickname to have if you want to gain the respect of your people. Well, what if you were so short that you were called "Elbow-high?" That was the unfortunate nickname of a king of Poland.

Władysław I* (c.1260-2 March 1333) was so short that his nickname was "elbow" as in "elbow height." He was named King of Poland long after the death of his father, Casimir I. It was a position he was going to have to work for. Poland had long before been divided into different provinces. Władysław inherited one from his father, gained two more as his brothers died, and then set out to gain control of all the provinces and reunite Poland.

He had opposition. Although the province of Greater Poland had originally supported him, they switched their loyalty to Wenceslas II of Bohemia, who was crowned King of Poland in 1300. Władysław went to the pope to press his claim, but Boniface VIII was no help. He continued his campaign of invading and uniting provinces, taking over Lesser Poland and Pomerania; in 1314 he re-conquered Greater Poland and held it, despite an attack from John of Luxemburg, the King of Bohemia.

In 1318 he tried once again to gain support for becoming King of Poland. This time, Pope John XXII (who also wielded political power in this case) gave his support. Keeping Poland was not easy. He managed, however, to subdue the perennially bothersome Teutonic Knights, and he married one son to a Lithuanian, helping to stop Lithuanian raids into Poland. His reign was an important stage in reuniting Poland under one ruler.

*He was First or Fourth, depending on which historian you ask and whether they stick with a single dynasty or blend all historical rulers with the same first name together.

Hildegard of Bingen, MD

Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179) has been discussed here before, and many know her as a nun and composer of devotional music. Her compositions have been adapted by numerous musical and spiritual groups. Among her writings, however, were also works about the natural world and medicine.

Two works in particular date to the 1150s. Physica ["Physics," or "The Physical World"] is her attempt to explain the whole world from the elements (the four: earth, air, fire, water) to all animals and plants, and even metals and stones, both ordinary and precious gems. One theme that runs through this work is the Genesis-based idea that Man has been given dominion over all the Earth. Everything on Earth has been put there by God, and therefore everything has value, and therefore Man can benefit from everything God put on Earth, from nourishment found in plants and animals to the material value of gems.

The other book was Causæ et Curæ ["Causes and Cures"]. In it, she lists 47 different diseases. Whereas in Physica she listed 200 herbs and other plants, in Causæ et Curæ she describes over 300 plants that are useful for medical use. She might not have had personal experience of all these, since she would have had access to standard texts from such as Pliny and Galen and Isidore of Seville. She wouldn't be the first or last to borrow from Pliny and the others.

She would not, however, give medicines the final say in the treatment of illness:

Hildegard gave physical events, moral truths, and spiritual experiences equal weight. Healing was both medical and miraculous, and God’s will was an important element in her remedies. “These remedies come from God and will either heal people or they must die, for God does not wish them to be healed,” she wrote. [source]

It wasn't just up to God and the herbals. She also believed in using rituals bordering on the magical as part of the healing process. She claimed betony leaves placed next to the bed would reduce bad dreams. Sadness could be countered by mandrake: mandrake she believed was made from the same earth that made Adam. If a sad man dug up a mandrake root, washed it in a fountain for 24 hours, then took it to bed, he could alleviate his depression after reciting: “God, who madest man from the dust of the earth without grief, I now place next me that earth which has never transgressed in order that my clay may feel that peace just as Thou didst create it.” [source] And marshmallow (the plant, not the sweet confection made from it) could counteract evil magic!

Marco Polo's Co-author

Page from Chapter CXXIII

Everyone is familiar with the story of Marco Polo, who traveled to the Far East, had amazing adventures, and returned home to be put in prison in Genoa because of local wars. In prison, he wrote a book of his travels, telling of things that were marvels to Western Europe.

What most people don't know is that Polo was not in prison alone. A fellow inmate, Rustichello da Pisa, was an author, without whose help what we call The Travels of Marco Polo might never have come to be.

We know little of the 13th century Rustichello. He was a native of Pisa, and might have wound up in a Genoese prison after the 1284 Battle of Meloria. He would have been there a long time when Polo was imprisoned in 1298 after the Battle of Curzola.

Rustichello had previously written a romance, called alternately Compilatione ["The Compilation"] or Roman de Roi Artus ["The Romance of King Arthur"]. It was a French version of a work in the possession of King Edward I of England. Rustichello must have had access to it while Edward passed through Italy in the early 1270s on his way to the Eighth Crusade.

But what was his involvement in Marco Polo's tale? Was he simply the scribe? According to some who read the book and Rustichello's other writings:

Everyone who studies Marco Polo acknowledges that Rustichello’s fiction-writing techniques and habits show up in the book, but critics writing in English tend to stop with a very few observations that are repeated faithfully from one study to another. [source]

He is also likely the reason that the original version was written in French, the language of romance literature, rather than Italian or Latin. The original title was Divisament dou monde ["Description of the world"]; an Italian edition was also called Il Milione ["The Million"}, but we do not know if that was intended to denote a million new things, or a million lies.

Doctor Illuminatus

A brilliant scholar and fervent theologian/philosopher did such a good job at achieving his aims that the Church realized they had to suppress his work!

Ramon Llull was born in Majorca in the 1230s and probably was a courtier at the court of King James II of Aragon. He had a vision at the age of 30; while about to write a love letter, he turned and saw Christ on a cross hanging in the air. This image appeared to him five times, inspiring him to the religious life with very specific goals, one of which was to convert the Muslims to Christianity.

He did not intend simply to travel eastward and preach to the Muslim world; he had a more reasoned plan than that. He would counter their religion with logical and philosophical arguments that were so clear as to compel them to abandon their faith for his. His first task was to counter their great scholar, Averroes, and his first step was showing that theology and philosophy could be reconciled.

The Arab world had found comfort in separating the two, explaining that what was true in philosophy could be false in theology. Averroes himself had relied on this distinction to avoid persecution for his heretical idea about the non-existence of a unique soul that survives death. Llull decided to prove the Arab world wrong by reconciling philosophy and theology, raising the Christian West to an intellectually superior status that the East would have to fall in line with. He allied the natural and there supernatural, arguing that divine truths needed to be approached with reason guided by faith. Likewise, faith needs reason, lest it be misguided by personal desires or emotions. Llull had created a machine, the Ars Magna ["Great Art"], which would affirm the truth of propositions by lining up geometrically shaped pieces when levers and cranks were used. The machine was a three-dimensional representation of his "Llullian Circle" that could demonstrate all the possible truths of his system.

Llull's followers called themselves Llullists and spread the glory of his writings.* He met John Duns Scotus in 1297, who gave him his nickname of "Doctor Illuminatus" for the illumination he brought to the faith. His followers gained such influence in Spain that they were able to endow chairs at the Universities of Barcelona and Valencia.

Lullian Circle [source]

We know that he was stoned to death by the Muslim inhabitants of the town of Bougie on a mission to North Africa. Documents by Ramon Llull exist that can be dated to December 1315, but he was probably dead shortly after.

Despite his fame and religious zeal during his lifetime, and his martyrdom, he has never been considered for canonization by the Roman Catholic Church. The Church realized that his ideas were too radical. Sixty years after Llull's death, Pope Gregory XI (1327 - 1378) condemned his work, as did Pope Paul IV (1476 - 1559) a century after Gregory. Linking the natural and supernatural together was not going to work for the Church as a whole, despite the efforts of the "Illuminated Doctor." There were too many things that relied on faith for the Church to insist that, without reason, they would not pertain.

Centuries after Llull's death, some of his other writings were discovered that made his name prominent in the field of "election theory," but we'll save that for another time.

*He is considered to be the first major writer in the Catalan language.

The Templars' Bad Luck Day

(This one may meander a little; just hang on.)

A few days after William Tell shot the apple from his son's head in 1307, another significant event took place on the other side of the Alps. On the 22nd of November, Pope Clement V issued a papal bull requesting that all countries in Europe arrest the Knights of the Temple and confiscate their property.

Clement had not always been an enemy of the Templars, but their purpose was fading. They existed, along with the Hospitallers, to escort pilgrims and maintain some security in the Holy Land, but European possessions in the Holy Land had all been re-taken by non-Christians. These Orders maintained their wealth and property in Europe, although the reason much of it had been awarded to them was now gone. A couple years earlier, in 1305, Clement had suggested that the Templar Knights and the Hospitaller Knights merge, since there seemed little reason for two such Orders under the circumstances. He invited the Grand Masters of each Order (Jacques de Molay for the Templars, Fulk de Villaret for the Hospitallers) to the Vatican to discuss it, but neither would agree to the merger.

This alone wasn't enough to turn Clement against the Templars, but he had some pressure. The King of France, Philip IV, owed the Templars a great deal of money, and decided that arresting all the Templars in France on charges of impropriety and confiscating their property would be a way to square his debts. Philip had taken action on October 13. It was a Friday. Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake, and it was downhill from there for the Templars. (Clement gave all their European possessions—that were not confiscated by Philip—to the Hospitallers.)

...and this has given rise to one theory about why "Friday the 13th" is considered an unlucky day. In fact, this is the theory that friends tell to me most often, since I am known to have an interest in the Middle Ages. Someone has also put forward the idea that the day has been considered bad luck since Chaucer, because the line "and on a Friday fell all this misfortune" appears in The Nun's Priest's Tale of The Canterbury Tales. (That is not an indication that Friday itself was unlucky; Chaucer often inserted small bits of info that make the tale seem more personal.) As I did with the nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie," however, let me splash some cold water on this theory.*

References to an actual unlucky day being a Friday the 13th of the month don't appear prior to the 20th century. A Boston stock promoter (and some say manipulator), Thomas Lawson (1857 - 1925) wrote a book about an unscrupulous stock broker who creates a panic on Wall Street to take advantage of the situation. The book is called Friday the Thirteenth, and he chooses that day because on Wall Street it is "Bear Saints Day" (whatever that is), not because it is inherently unlucky. "Friday the 13th" becomes a popular superstition after this book, according to one writer. Searching Google's Ngram viewer (which scans texts that Google has entered into its electronic database) for the phrase "Friday the 13" shows a steady rise of references to the term after 1905. There are earlier references as well, but if you search for "Friday the 12" or "Friday the 10" you will find similar results. There is no hard evidence I can find that "Friday the 13th" dominated the cultural consciousness prior to our Modern Era.

The Plague and Social Change

The climax of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381

On the heels of the recent news article about how victims of the Bubonic Plague still exist in significant numbers today, we have this article on how the Plague in the 14th century wrought huge changes on the fabric of society.

The radical shift in the numbers of the workforce and in the population of consumers threw off the balance that a stable society requires. Some goods were in great demand, there being fewer laborers to make things. Some consumer goods were in great supply, there being fewer consumers.

What the article above, from medievalists.net (a website I strongly recommend ), has just covered this week, DailyMedieval looked at back when the Occupy movement was first going strong in the United States.

The first installment briefly explained the philosophy behind the Peasants' Revolt.
The second explained some of the other factors that ruled up the lower classes.
Part three described the prominent characters that spurred on the movement.
Part four described the destruction caused in London by the Revolt.
Part five explains how the Revolt was quelled; the illustration above shows the "death" of the movement when its leader was killed during a parlay.

The Return of the Bubonic Plague

After the first catastrophic outbreak of the Bubonic Plague in 1348-50, Europe continued to suffer about every decade. The Plague returned, although without so devastating effect. Because people were familiar with the symptoms, they knew to avoid those who had it, and isolated the sick or themselves. Also, the Plague had already taken the weakest of the population, and so those remaining had a better chance of resisting.

Reappearances of the Bubonic Plague came in 1361-2, 1369, 1379-83, 1389-93, 1575-77, 2013.

2013? Yes. If you are reading this in December 2013, know that there are 20 confirmed cases of the Plague in Madagascar, as reported by the BBC. This is not a surprise, considering Madagascar had 60 confirmed cases in 2012. In fact, between 2000 and 2009 there were over 20,000 cases reported, with about 7% resulting in death! The illness is most prevalent in areas of reduced sanitation; these conditions occur in many parts of the world—even First World countries—and (as mentioned in the BBC article linked to above) Madagascar's prisons are a breeding ground for the disease. Madagascar accounts for a large percentage of total cases; it is not the top of the list, however—a list that includes the United States. Read more here.

To read about the Bubonic Plague as discussed in DailyMedieval, see my four-part series:

• Part 1 (an abbreviated timeline)
• Part 2 (a little about how it was spread)
• Part 3 (straightening out a nursery rhyme misconception)
• Part 4 (a touching first-hand response to the initial outbreak)

You might also be interested in

• How the Plague affected the economy of the 14th century
• How the Plague affected the Church

St. Leoba

[source]

This blog has mentioned before that St. Boniface called for help from women as well as men when he attempted to christianize Germany. One of those women was a nun—later a saint, due to several miracles—named Leoba.

Actually, her very existence was a miracle. Her parents were old and barren, but her mother one night had a dream in which she was told she would bear "a beloved child of Christ.". The woman vowed that she would give her daughter over to the Church. Her biographer, Rudolf of Fulda, tells us:

Shortly after the woman had made this vow she conceived and bore a daughter, whom she called Thrutgeba, surnamed Leoba because she was beloved, for this is what Leoba means. And when the child had grown up her mother consecrated her and handed her over to Mother Tetta to be taught the sacred sciences. [Life of Leoba, Abbess of Bischofsheim, by Rudolf of Fulda]

Leoba's exemplary behavior made her a natural fit for Boniface's mission to Germany (also, her mother and Boniface were cousins). A dream of Leoba's, that she would have great influence and accomplish many things, prompted her to join the mission.

Boniface established Leoba as the abbess of a convent in Tauberbischofsheim. (Tauberbischofsheim is the capital of the Main-Tauber district; its first mention in history is in St. Leoba's biography.) He gave her jurisdiction over all the nuns of the mission, and when he later left for Frisia, he gave her his cowl to indicate that she was his steward while he was gone. (He never returned, being martyred in Frisia.)

Later, she was given an estate by Charlemagne near Mainz, where she retired with several nuns. After she died, on 28 September 782, miracles were attributed to her intercession. When her relics were translated 50 years later as a result of her canonization, and placed behind the altar of a church in Fulda, Rudolf was given the task of recording her life. Rudolf says he witnessed some of her miracles himself: a man from Spain had terrible twitching in his limbs that was cured after lying prostrate before Boniface's shrine. Her explained that he had a vision of a woman who presented him to Boniface for his blessing, after which he woke up and had no more twitching. (Why this is a miracle of the woman and not of Boniface, I cannot say.) In another case, however, a man who had been bound by iron rings had them come off while praying before Leoba's shrine.

Lutefisk!

Today is an important day in Sweden: Anna's Day, celebrating all people named Anna. It is also the traditional day to start preparation of lutefisk in Sweden and Finland, so that it is ready for the traditional meal on Christmas Eve.

It is made from cod, soaked in cold water, changed daily, for five or six days, then left in cold water with lye for two days. The fish swells and takes on a gelatinous consistency. This stage also raises its pH value to 11-12, making it very caustic and downright dangerous to eat. In order to make it edible, it must be soaked in cold water for another week, changing the water daily to flush out the lye.

Why do this? The origin of the process is uncertain (see below), but the lye would make the fish unappetizing to wild animals; perhaps it was done to allow large amounts of fish to be left hanging on drying racks out in the cold air. It certainly helps preserve the fish. Treating food to make it more alkaline is also used in the preservation/preparation of corn into hominy.

Lutefisk has a history that stretches back centuries. Scholarly research claims it is first mentioned in the late 18th century; a cookbook from 1845 describes the preparation of the lye used to make lutefisk by combining limestone and birch ash in water. Historians, however, have found a reference to lutefisk by a Swedish archbishop in 1555, and that a letter from King Gustav I (1496 - 1560) mentions it in 1540.

Folklorists suggest an even earlier reference: when Vikings raided Ireland, St. Patrick had his followers make them an offering of fish—spoiled fish. The Vikings seemed not to mind, so Patrick had his people pour lye on the fish, hoping to poison the Vikings. The Vikings, against all expectation, found the fish tasty and demanded the recipe.

But let honesty prevail: the major Viking raids in Ireland happened a few hundred years after Patrick.  Still, lutefisk was probably around prior to King Gustav. The "Vikings enjoy something we think is vile" was probably an old joke at the expense of Vikings. I suppose the tale could be partially true, but Patrick was not likely to be the instigator.

So go buy some whitefish (cod or ling), start soaking it in cold water, and get some birch ash ready!

The Jalāli Calendar

Syrian Astrolabe

Yesterday I mentioned that Omar Khayyam spent some of his time working on calendar reform. This was not the same calendar reform being done in the Christian world, however. The Persian calendar was—and still is—far more accurate than the Gregorian calendar.

Originally, the Persian calendar was lunar, following the 28-day cycle of the Moon. Since the year does not fit into an equal number of lunar cycles, however, the lunar calendar creates "seasonal drift" without a lot of alterations. This calendar was begun over 1000 years BCE. Khayyam was one of several scholars using astronomical observations to create a revised version. It was approved on 15 March 1079 by the Seljuk Sultan, Malik Shah I.

Khayyam and his team calculated the length of the year to be 365.24219858156 days; modern science puts it at 365.2422464 days. Some aspects of the new calendar:

• The year started within a day of March 21st, the vernal equinox
• Months were based on when the sun transited to a new sign of the zodiac, not 12:00AM
• Months could last from 29-32 days, and
• Months could change their length from year to year

That 4th point is because of the 2nd point. Months weren't given arbitrary numbers of days as in the West. The Jalāli calendar depended on strict astronomical data, not cultural numerical choices. Therefore, the 6th month of the year might have 30 days one year and 31 days the next, depending on when the sun passed across the line in the sky that separated the zodiacal signs. It also means that seasonal drift—the tendency of seasons to start and end on widely varying dates over time—never exceeded one day. Leap years were unnecessary.

Eventually, the varying length of the months was considered a liability. The calendar—still used in Iran and Afghanistan—was changed in 1925 in order to have a more regular look and to save the hassle of applying the results of constant astronomical observation.

Omar Khayyam, Mathematician

First page of "Cubic equation and
intersection of conic sections"

A book of verses underneath the bough

A flask of wine, a loaf of bread and thou

Beside me singing in the wilderness

And wilderness is paradise now.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald in 1859, made Khayyam the most famous Persian poet in the 19th century. Few people realize that Khayyam did not need Fitzgerald to be famous. Centuries earlier, he was one of the most influential thinkers produced by the Middle East.

Born in Nishapur on the 18th of May in 1048, he spent part of his youth in Balkh, which would produce Rumi 80 years after Khayyam's death. He studied under the well-known scholars Mansuri and Nishapuri. He put his education to work: as an adult, he was either teaching algebra and geometry, studying the stars, working on calendar reform, acting as a court advisor, or learning medicine. He taught the works of Avicenna.

The Tomb

He was best known in his lifetime and afterward for his mathematical writing, especially on algebra. Many of the principles of algebra that made their way to Europe came from Khayyam's Treatise on Demonstration of Problems on Algebra (1070).

One of his claims was that the solution of cubic equations cannot be solved by a ruler and compass. He said it required the use of conic sections, and announced his intention to write a paper that lays out the "fourteen forms with all their branches and cases." He never got around to it, and 750 years would have to pass before someone produced the proof of Khayyam's claim.

Omar Khayyam died on 4 December 1131 at the age of 83, and was buried in what is now the Khayyam Garden in Nishapur. A  mausoleum was built in 1963 to house his remains.