Mirabile dictu! October 2015 Mirabile dictu! The Newsletter of the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS) at the University of Colorado
The Mouse That Made Latin Cool by Professor Scott G. Bruce Mirabile dictu! Latin vocabulary and grammar as well as Roman CMEMS is very pleased to announce our first literature and culture. Our textbook is the highly outreach initiative. Beginning in January 2016, acclaimed Minimus, widely considered to be the Whittier International Elementary School in best introduction to the Latin language for Boulder, Colorado, will offer its very first weekly elementary age students. Read on, gentle reader, to afterschool program in Latin! In the winter and learn more about the mouse that made Latin cool! spring semesters, fourth and fifth graders in the Whittier Latin Club will have their first exposure to Continued on 4
Speaker Profile: Professor Mark Your Calendars for the CMEMS Sponsors 2015 Elisheva Baumgarten Annual CMEMS Conference Medieval Writing Workshop Professor Baumgarten will give Religion and (the Master) Anglo-Saxon scholars gather at a public lecture on consent in Narrative Takes Place at CU CU Bouder to discuss new medieval Jewish marriages. Boulder on October 22-24. projects in Old English Lit. Page 2 Page 3 Page 6
Mirabile dictu! October 2015
A specialist in medieval Jewish communities in northern Europe, Elisheva Baumgarten is Professor of History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Elisheva Baumgarten’s Professor Baumgarten is research focuses on the Jewish currently writing a social history communities of medieval of medieval Jewish marriage in Germany and northern France. northern Europe. Her CMEMS- She is a social historian who uses sponsored lecture will examine gender methodology and com- evidence from a wide variety of parative methods to examine the medieval Hebrew sources daily life of medieval Jews within discussing the age of brides at their Christian surroundings. marriage and their agency in Her research has examined choosing their spouses in the SPEAKER PROFILE: family life, life-cycle rituals, medieval Jewish communities of ELISHEVA education, midwifery, and piety. Germany and northern France. Reviewers of her books have Contrary to recent scholarship, BAUMGARTEN been deeply impressed by the Professor Baumgarten will argue way that her studies have that Jewish brides and grooms Elisheva Baumgarten is illuminated both the lived were far from passive in the Professor of History in the experience of medieval Jews and arrangement of their own Department of Jewish the ideological and ritual marriages and that the brides History and Contemporary frameworks that structured and were generally older than has Jewry at The Hebrew reflected it. By examining “the commonly been assumed. In non-elite, non-official sphere” of comparative fashion, she situates University of Jerusalem. Jewish women and children in changes in this pattern in Jewish Professor Baumgarten the wider comparative context of communities over the course of received her Ph.D. from medieval Christianity, she has the High Middle Ages within The Hebrew University of made “a major contribution in so shifting conceptions of marriage Jerusalem in 2001. Her carefully delineating the inter- in medieval Christian Europe at first book, entitled Mothers connections of medieval Jewish large. and Children: Jewish and Christian family life. Family Life in Medieval On 8 October 2015, Elisheva Baumgarten will Europe (Princeton deliver a public lecture entitled “Consent and Choice University Press, 2004), Reconsidered: Marriage in the Medieval Jewish won several awards, and her most recent book -- Communities of Northern Europe.” Practicing Piety in On Thursday October 8 at 5pm, Medieval Ashkenaz: Men, CMEMS is proud to present Women, and Everyday Professor Elisheva Baumgarten, Religious Observance who will give a public lecture entitled “Consent and Choice (University of Reconsidered: Marriage in the Pennsylvania Press, 2014) Medieval Jewish Communities of -- has already received rave Northern Europe.” The event will reviews. Professor take place in HUMN 1B90. Baumgarten has been a Refreshments will be served. The research fellow at IAS talk will last 45 minutes, to be followed by a Q&A with Professor Princeton, and at the École Baumgarten. des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) 2
Mirabile dictu! October 2015
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Mirabile dictu! October 2015
(continued from p. 1) in these sources. In fact, inspired the narrative. Minimus himself plays little The first Minimus book Welcome to Vindolanda! more than a cameo appearance (Minimus: Starting Out in Minimus is a little mouse who in these books; most of the Latin) was so popular that a lives with a Roman family at dialogue and stories involve second one geared to slightly Vindolanda, a well-documented events in the daily life of an older children soon followed first-century fort in the north of extended Roman family, (Minimus: Moving On in Latin). Britain. Vindolanda is well including their children and Thereafter the creators of the known to historians because of their slaves. series, Barbara Bell and Helen the remarkable survival of Forte, created three sets of ten several hundred letters and The pedagogy of the Minimus minibooks – thirty individual other texts written on thin books makes them attractive Latin stories – detailing the wooden tablets that were and fun for elementary school further adventures of Minimus discovered in the garbage pits students. Each chapter uses a and his human family. of the fortress during short Latin dialogue to intro- excavations that took place in duce a new topic (family, food, The goal of the Whittier Latin the 1970s. You can see many of the military, travel, religion, Club is to expose children to the these Roman letters on display health, etc.). There is a loose language, literature, history, in the British Museum in storyline that connects all of the and culture of the premodern London. You can also learn all chapters together. The Latin world as early as possible and about them and what they tell dialogues form the basis for to make this encounter as fun us about Vindolanda and its brief lessons in vocabulary, and exciting and stimulating as inhabitants in Alan Bowman’s grammar, and etymology. it can be. In future issues of excellent study, Life and Letters Every chapter concludes with a Mirabile dictu! we will follow on the Roman Frontier story, usually a well-known the progress of intrepid young (Routledge 1998). All of the myth. There are many Latinists. In the meantime, human characters in the illustrations throughout the consider sharing Minimus with Minimus books are based on book and some nice images of a young person in your life. You historical individuals attested the Vindolanda letters that have may just inspire a lifelong love
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Mirabile dictu! October 2015
of Latin! into late Merovingian religion and culture in the Aquitaine. Sub Arboribus The weather is getting brisk as the heat of the Colorado summer turns abruptly to the very short Looking Ahead to November autumn season that heralds the first frost and snow. November is a month of travel for those of us at Defying both the chill in the air and the dew in the CMEMS Boulder. The Annual Meeting of the grass, a group of stalwart graduate students (Sean Charles Homer Haskins Society takes place at Babbs, Amanda Nerbovig, Sarah Luginbill, and Carleton College in Northfield, MN, from Nov. 6- Manon Williams) gathers under the trees in front of 8. And thereafter, over Thanksgiving Break, the Hellems Building every Thursday morning to medievalists from around the world will gather translate yet another chapter of the Vita Pardulfi. for a week-long conference in Rome to mark the Written in a difficult (sometimes nigh 800th anniversary of Pope Innocent III’s Fourth impenetrable) Latin, this early eighth-century Lateran Council of 1215. CMEMS is hosting one saint’s life is a very good example of why the local event next month: a book launch for our Carolingian educational reforms were necessary. friend and colleague Katherine Eggert (English). But the struggle earns rewards! The early chapters We hope to see you there! of the work have yeilded some remarkable insights Servus,
About the Director: Professor Scott G. Bruce, Department of History
Scott G. Bruce earned his B.A. in History and A specialist on the history of the abbey of Latin summa cum laude (1994) at York Cluny, SGB has published widely on many University in Toronto, Canada. He pursued aspects of medieval monastic culture and his M.A. (1996) and Ph.D. (2000) in History literature. He also serves as an editor of The at Princeton University, where he Medieval Review (TMR) and plays an active concentrated on topics in religion and role in the Medieval Academy of America culture in the early Middle Ages and wrote (MAA). For more information, including a his dissertation under the supervision of complete list of publications, please visit: Professor Giles Constable. www.colorado.academia.edu/ScottBruce 5
Mirabile dictu! October 2015
CMEMS Sponsors 2015 Medieval Writing Workshop on New Directions in Anglo-Saxon Studies Five Anglo-Saxonists will convene on the CU Boulder campus from October 2-4 for the 2015 Medieval Writing Workshop, hosted by the Department of English with support from CMEMS and the Office of the Provost. Participants include Elaine Treharne (Stanford); Stacy Klein (Rutgers); Britt Mize (Texas A&M); Heather Maring (Arizona State); and our very own Tiffany Beechy (CU Boulder). Each scholar will be bringing a new project to the workshop for discusson and development. Professor Treharne will present a book project on materiality and medieval manuscripts entitled The Phenomenal Book; Professor Klein will present a book project on sexual difference in Anglo-Saxon literature entitled Men, Women, and Metaphor; Professor Mize will present a book project, The Medieval Invention of Judas Iscariot; and Professor Beechy will present an article in progress on Alcuin’s Rhetoric and the late medieval Dialogue of Solomon and Marcolf. CMEMS welcomes these distinguished Anglo- Saxonists to campus and is proud to sponsor this stimulating event!
CMEMS@Boulder Postscriptum: November is almost upon us! On Professor Scott G. Bruce, Director November 6-8, I will be attending the Annual Department of History, 234 UCB Meeting of the Charles Homer Haskins Society Boulder, CO 80309-0234 at Carleton College in Northfield, MN, so next Graduate Assistant: Ms. Kimberley Smith month's newsletter will feature a profile of the Contact us at: [email protected] CHH himself and news from the conference. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Academia.edu: More anon, SGB https://www.facebook.com/cmemsboulder http://colorado.academia.edu/cmems
IMAGE SOURCES:
Images of characters from the Minimus books have been rendered by Helen Forte. While you can find the two Minimus course books on Amazon, the minibooks and other accessories are only available through the official Minimus website: minimus-etc.co.uk
The manuscript page above depicts a dog-headed man (Cenocephalus), one of the many monsters featured in the so-called Beowulf manuscript (British Library, Cotton MS Vitellius A XV).