After a long period of writing essays (all awarded with 9s) and studying for exams (thus far, only one marked, and with an 8.1 no less) a new semester has finally dawned, bringing the light of the middle ages to my daily life.
Of course, it already was pretty noticeable in my life thus far, if my book collection is anything to go by.
The courses I have at present seem to be comparatively light work. There’s Middle Ages, a subject dealing with the cultural background of the middle ages, in a more in-depth way than that achieved in last year’s introductory course on the middle ages (there is, however, far less attention to political or economic history and a focus on the cultural aspects). Middle Dutch Literature (or Medieval Literature, the course name changes regularly) is the other compulsory subject, one I haven’t had yet, so can’t comment on. My two ‘free’ subjects are ‘Princes (Vorsten) of the World: the Popes in the Middle Ages’, a course by the superb orator professor Peter Raedts. Had one lecture of this thus far, and it was excellent. Probably the most politics-oriented of the courses of my pick, as it stresses the worldly function of the popes in the middle ages in combination with their religious function. Finally, I have picked a course (Handschriftkunde) combining paleography, codicology and the study of illuminations. This course has a massive heap of material, but luckily not all of it has to be studied by heart. For example, the 12 pages showing medieval abbreviations and their meaning are for reference only, as are all the names given to describe the various constituent parts of letters. This course is probably the most practical but certainly the least popular. There’s only about 20 students in the class, which allows for better contact with the lecturer. There’s also a greater percentage of older people (although they’re only with two, so their number isn’t directly overwhelming).
This course should hopefully prepare me for an internship in an archive next year, when I hope to work with some authentic 15th century manuscripts. As the Gothic script (which was used back then) is much harder to read than the preceding Carolingian minuscule this may still be quite tough.
On a related note, I recently (during my exam period) finished reading Umberto Eco’s Baudolino. I can only highly recommend this wonderful novel, which is about the arch-liar Baudolino, who tells his life story to a Byzantine historian to the backdrop of the capture of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade. Baudolino’s stories are consistent in their unlikeliness, as his life sometimes resembles that of the saint he was named after, sometimes places him in an unbelievably prominent role in the unwinding of history and sometimes is so plainly absurd that it beggars belief. But the story is simultaneously appealing and factually consistent, making it hard for his contemporaries to simply discard, and making it very memorable to both the general and the specialist reader.
