Today is Guy Fawkes Day. This day commemorates the foiled Gunpowder Plot, a plan to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords during the king's opening address on November 5, 1605.
The Protestant James I was less favorable to religious freedom than many of his subjects had hoped he would be. Led by Richard Catesby, a small group of English Catholics planned to kill the king, place his Catholic daughter on the throne, and start a popular revolt in order to restore the country to Catholic rule. They rented a storage area under the chamber of the House of Lords and packed it with gunpowder, intending to ignite it when the king visited to open the session.
An anonymous tip in the early hours of November 5 led to the arrest of Guy Fawkes, who had been guarding the explosives, and who confessed the details of the plot under torture. Several other conspirators were captured and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, a fate Fawkes avoided by jumping off the scaffold to his death.
James allowed his subjects to celebrate his survival with bonfires, and the observance became mandatory the next year with the passage of the Thanksgiving Act. Early celebrations involved artillery salutes, bell-ringing, sermons, and fireworks.
Ever wonder who your favorite comic book superhero would vote for in the upcoming election? SCARaB’s own Rebecca Vogler helped Vox Magazine sort out the issues, superhero style.
On October 28 in 312 A.D. Constantine defeated the superior forces of his rival Maxentius at the battle of Milvian Bridge. Maxentius’s forces attempted to retreat across the Tiber by way of the Milvian Bridge, but the bridge quickly became overcrowded. As Lactantius records in De Mortibus Persecutorum, or The Deaths of the Persecutors, "the army of Maxentius was seized with terror, and he himself fled in haste to the bridge which had been broken down; pressed by the mass of fugitives, he was hurtled into the Tiber" (44.9 ).
Diocletian had planted the seeds of this civil war. In the 49 years before his accession, Rome had had 26 rulers, most of whom met with a violent end. In an attempt to stabilize imperial succession, he introduced the system of tetrarchy, in which the empire was divided into two halves, each governed by a senior emperor assisted by a junior emperor who would eventually accede to his office. When Diocletian and his co-emperor, Maximian, retired, their successors jointly acceded to their offices. But Diocletian's plan derailed when these new emperors appointed their successors. Many hopefuls, including Constantine and Maxentius, felt they had been denied their rightful claim. Constantine's claim arose from the fact that his father had been sub-emperor under Maximian and was now emperor of the West. Maxentius, as the son of the Maximian–the emperor whom Constantine’s father had replaced–also felt slighted. When Constantine’s father died, opening the office of emperor of the West, Constantine moved his army of 40,000 Gauls southward toward Rome, where his 40,000 troops would engage with the forces of Maxentius, 100,000 strong.
Many early literary sources of information about Constantine survive. Special Collections and Rare Books houses several editions of both Lactantius’ De MortibusPersecutorum and Eusebius’s Historia Ecclesiastica, along with one edition of the Chronicon. We also have eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary and historical works that are heavily indebted to these sources. Click on the images to learn more about the particular edition pictured.
Contemporary sources provide an idealized picture of Constantine, created to fulfill the various agenda of their authors. Lactantius lived in poverty until he found employment as tutor to Constantine’s son Crispus. Eusebius was invested in his theory about the proper relation between the church and state, and it was convenient to have an example so near at hand. Averil Cameron has duly noted “the eagerness of all parties to make claims on the rising star” (Cameron 91).
Constantine's contemporaries inflated his origins. In 310 A.D., an anonymous panegyrist of addressed Constantine as follows: “[Y]ou were born an Emperor, and so great is the nobility of your lineage that the attainment of imperial power has added nothing to your honor, nor can Fortune claim credit for your divinity, which is rightfully yours without campaigning and canvassing.” (Nixon 221) On the contrary, he had humble origins: he was the illegitimate child of a Jewish barmaid (allegedly a prostitute) and a Balkan peasant. When the latter's military success raised him into imperial ranks, he rearranged his personal affairs by adopting Constantine and making of Helen an honest woman.
His contemporaries also distorted his religious beliefs, seeing him as the hand of God, accomplishing His will on earth. Lactantius was one so inclined: "The hand of God was over the battle-line," he declares, in his account of the battle in De Mortibus Persecutorum (44.9). His was the earliest account we have of a vision that was to become very influential:
"Constantine was advised in a dream to mark the heavenly sign of God on the shields of his soldiers and then engage in battle. He did as he was commanded and by means of a slanted letter X with the top of its head bent round, he marked Christ on their shields. Armed with this sign, the army took up its weapons." (44.5)
Eusebius, on the other hand, is silent on the issue of the vision in Historia Ecclesiastica of c. 323 A.D. But in his Life of Constantine, written sometime around 338 A.D., he revises his earlier account, devoting all his rhetorical powers to describing the vision. In doing so, he creates a scene that would remain in collective memory to this day:
“About the time of the midday sun, when day was just turning, he [Constantine] said he saw with his own eyes, up in the sky and resting over the sun, a cross-shaped trophy formed from light, and a text attached to it which said, ‘By this conquer’. Amazement at the spectacle seized both him and the whole company of soldiers which was then accompanying him on a campaign he was conducting somewhere, and witnessed the miracle.
He was, he said, wondering to himself what the manifestation might mean; then, while he meditated, and thought long and hard, night overtook him. Thereupon, as he slept, the Christ of God appeared to him with the sign which had appeared in the sky, and urged him to make himself a copy of the sign which had appeared in the sky, and to use this a protection against the attacks of the enemy (1.28).
When Constantine arrived at the gates of Rome, Maxentius hunkered down inside with his 100,000 troops. He probably could have successfully waited out the siege had he not misapplied an oracle: according to Lactantius, "he ordered the Sibylline books to be inspected; in these it was discovered that 'on that day the enemy of the Romans would perish.' Led by this reply to hope for victory, Maxentius marched out to battle" (DMP 44.7-8), and thereupon met his end. According to Eusebius, Constantine then "rode into Rome with songs of victory, and together with women and tiny children, all the members of the Senate and citizens of the highest distinction in other spheres, and the whole populace of Rome, turned out in force and with shining eyes and all their hearts welcomed him as deliverer, savior, and benefactor, singing his praises with insatiate joy." (HE 294)
Though the victory at Milvian Bridge has been associated in popular memory with the accession of Constantine and the triumph of Christianity, in fact, Maxentius was just one of several rivals for control of the Roman Empire; there were six total, including old Maximian, who came back out of retirement. Of one of them, Will Winstanely, author of England's Worthies, comments, “man proposeth, and God disposeth; for he who dreamt of nothing less than a glorious victory, was himself overcome by Licinius of Tarsus, where he shortly after died, being eaten up with Lice.” One by one, the contenders knocked each other off, until only Licinius remain. He was defeated in 323 A.D. , making Constantine the sole ruler of a united Empire until his death in 337 A.D.
***
Whatever role God might have played in the outcome of Constantine's military career, it is clear that Christianity is Constantine's legacy to European and Byzantine civilization. Constantine and Licinius jointly legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D., which proclaimed that “Christians and all other men should be allowed full freedom to subscribe to whatever form of worship they desire, so that whatever divinity may be on the heavenly throne may be well disposed and propitious to us, and to all placed under us." Edward Gibbon, who was not fond of revealed religion, casts a less than favorable light on the legalization of Christianity in Rome. He attributes the “fall” of the empire partially to the influence of Christianity to it because it instilled “patience and pusillanimity” until the “last remains of the military spirit were buried in the cloister.” Nonetheless, he concedes that “if the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.” For different reasons, modern historians concur in locating some of the blame in Constantine's policies. His founding of Constantinople exacerbated the division between Eastern and Western Empire, (a division started by Diocletian’s system of tetrarchy) and the concentration of wealth in the Eastern half. Both of these developments left the Western Empire an easy target for the barbarians, who would soon come flooding through the gates.
Constantine is responsible for many developments that would be important in European and Byzantine civilization. Under his rule, the church gained the right to inherit property. Clergy were relieved from paying taxes.He convened and presided over the Council of Nicea in 325 and had a major role in the formulation of the Nicene Creed, thus setting a precedent for the state's involvement in settling matters of doctrine. Whereas previously Christians had met clandestinely in houses, now great basilicas were erected, as Constantine funded building projects all over the Empire, including Lateran basilica and St. Peters in Rome. He also funded building projects over important sites in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, creating the concept of the Holy Land while doing so. Most significantly for bibliophiles, however, are the developments in the history of the book. These grand basilicas and churches required equally magnificent copies of sacred texts so that services could be carried out. To that end he ordered Eusebius to arrange for fifty lavish copies of Scriptures to be prepared. Before Constantine's reign, Christian texts were copied into a small, inconspicuous codices. During this period, however, Christian texts came out of the closet, eventually resulting in the illuminated display Bibles of the early Middle Ages.
Bibliography
Brown, Michelle. In the Beginning: Bibles before the Year 1000. Smithsonian Books, 2006.
Cameron, Averil. “The Reign of Constantine,” The Cambridge Ancient History: The Crisis of Empire A.D. 193-337. Vol. XII. 2nd ed. Ed. Alan Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Averil Cameron. 90.109.
–. “Late Antiquity,” Christianity: Two Thousand Years. Ed. Richard Harries and Henry Mayr-Harting. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001. 21-43.
Davis, Paul K. “Milvian Bridge,” 100 Decisive Battles from Ancient Times to the Present. Oxford UP, 1999. 78-82.
Eusebius. The History of the Church. Tr. G.A. Williamson. Penguin. 1965.
–. Life of Constantine. Tr. Averil Cameron and Stuart Hall. Oxford UP. 1999.
Lactantius. De Mortibus Perssecutorum. Tr. J.L. Creed. Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1984.
Nixon, C.E.V. and Barbara Rodgers. In Praise of Later Roman Emperors. Berkeley, U of California Press. 1994.
Among the bonny winding banks, Where Doon rins, wimplin’ clear, Where Bruce ance ruled the martial ranks, And shook his Carrick spear, Some merry, friendly, country-folks, Together did convene, To burn their nits, and pou their stocks, And haud their Halloween Fu’ blithe that night.
– Hallowe’en by Robert Burns
Although Halloween has its roots in the pagan practices of Scotland and Ireland, its name comes from the Scottish phrase “All Hallows’ Even”, the night before the Christian holiday, All Hallows’ Day. The word, Hallowe’en was first used in the 16th century. Halloween is most closely linked with the Celtic holiday, Samhain, the day, it was thought, in which the natural and supernatural realms were nearest to each other and the dead could revisit the living.
The Reformation brought Halloween rituals under attack, although the customs still flourished in most of Scotland and Ireland. Furthermore, the popularity of Guy Fawkes Night on November 5th every year also put a damper on Halloween in England. The Puritans who sailed to America did not bring the Halloween traditions with them and Halloween was largely ignored until the 19th century influx of Scottish and Irish immigrants. By the early 20th century, the popularity of Halloween in America had taken hold of the majority of the population.
Today, Halloween is a huge commercial enterprise. In the U.S., Halloween generates $2.4 billion in sales. More candy is sold on Halloween than Valentine’s Day and more parties are held on Halloween than on New Year’s Eve. In terms of gross sales, Halloween is second only to Christmas. Almost every television show and cartoon has a Halloween episode at some point and every comic has a Halloween theme as well. The two comic books, Batman’s “The Long Halloween” and “Garfield in Disguise” are two such examples.
At Special Collections, such spooky tales like The Night Hag and Dante’s Inferno might tickle your fancy this time of year. Come on by our Reading Room at 401 Ellis to take a look at our Halloween themed books and comics. Have a safe and happy Halloween!
Textus seque[n]tiaru[m] cu[m] optimo comme[n]to, was one of a few incunabula we acquired last year. Published in Cologne by Heinrich Quentell in 1496, the book is a collection of Sequences with extensive comments and explanations for students by a well known Nederlandish scholar and grammarian Hermann Torrentinus (ca.1450-1520)
Liturgical Sequences were an integral part of the Roman Mass. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) defines the Sequence (Sequentia, or Prose [Prosa]),-as "the liturgical hymn of the Mass which occurs before the Gospel, while the hymn (poetry), belongs to the Breviary." In other words, while hymns were part of the Mass from the earliest times, sequences originated in the ninth century as "texts written to accompany what had hitherto been a wordless musical extension of the final -a of the Alleluia at the end of the antiphon sung between the Epistle and Gospel." * Some scholars think that sequences came from the Byzantine rite; others insist that it was an independent invention of the Roman Church. **
The word "Sequentia" was first introduced in the 9th century by Notker Balbulus (ca. 840-912), monk of St. Gall (Switzerland nowadays), who put some liturgical texts into rhythmical melodic phrases. The structure of these sequences was completely new — it was none of the traditional structure of Latin sacred verse, but was "unfolding in a vigorous series of free rhetorical periods, cast in the sonorous cadences of classical Latin diction, and, in the Notker case, –in a more exuberant diction rich with assonance." ***
One of the best known sequences today is the Christmas carol Adeste Fideles, known in English as "O Come, All Ye Faithful", also the Marian sequence Stabat Mater by Jacopone da Todi.
Writing commentaries on sequences was, it would appear, a quite common literary pursuit in the twelfth or thirteenth century. It was part of the extensive commentary literature, especially widespread in the German-speaking countries. Besides Hermann Torrentinus we know the names of Jacob Wimpheling (1450-1528), Caesarius von Heisterbach (ca. 1180 – ca. 1240), and Johannes Adelphus (1445-1522). Such commentaries likely played an important didactic role in schools or universities, depending on the depths of the analysis, which ranged from a basic explanation of the meaning of a phrase to a philosophical treatise.
Our book contains detailed comments by Torrentinus, including analysis of Latin phrases and their component parts in the 51 sequences written by Notker Balbulus. These are on the feasts of the Nativity of Christ (De Nativitate D[omi]ni), St. Stephen, St. John, The Innocents (slain by Herod), the Holy Trinity, St. Nicholas, St. Elizabeth, St. Katherine, the Virgin Mary, the Ascension, the Conception of the Virgin Mary, and many others.
A short introduction states the purpose and subject of the book: "laus divina" –Divine glory, than follows an explanation of the book's structure. Torrentinus then dwells on the meaning of the first sentence of the sequence for the Nativity of Christ (Christmas), and the grammatical structure of it. His explanations of some of the words are quite curious, for example, the word "diabolus":
Grates nunc omnes reddamus domino deo
Qui sua nativitate nos liberavit de dyabolica potestate.
(Item dyabolica est nome[n] adiectivium derivatum a nomine dyabolus. A dya q[uod] est duo…)
The word "dyabolica" is the adjective, derived from the noun "dyabolus".
"Dya" means "duo"– double, and "bolos" – sting, as if {it were} a double sting which strikes our bodies and souls– says the author.
This explanation shows that the man, known as a great grammarian of his time, apparently didn't have much Greek, giving a peculiar interpretation of the original Greek word: "Diabolus (from Greek: Δια + βάλλειν), where Δια — penetration through the line from one end to the other, often the effect of weapons, division, like in "diaphragm","diameter" ,diacritic", and βάλλειν –-"throw", like in ballistics, so the whole word means a "divider", "slanderer"," backbiter".
Most probably this book was intended for beginners studying Liturgy who knew Latin enough to understand instructions and explanations of the book. It has multiple marginal notes, comments by several contemporary owners, corrections, and in some cases an empty space, left for the illuminated or rubricated initial letter, is filled in pen or pencil.
Curiously enough, it doesn't have a colophon. The only date mentioned in the text could be found on the verso of page signed [3iij], Folium iiij, where the author, while speaking of the Nativity of Christ, explains the principles of dating: "Annos dat ab Adam donec Xr[istu]s homo fact[us]. Sed a nativitate[m] Xri[st]i usque ad nu[n]c scribitur anno domini. Mcccclxxxxvi", ("Dates used to be given from Adam to Christ's incarnation. But from the nativity of Christ onwards they are written as Anno Domini .1496"}which gives us 1496 as a possible date of publication.
Who was the man to whom these comments are attributed?
Torrentinus belongs to that huge crowd of late mediaeval scholars whose names are known nowadays only to a small number of enthusiastic book lovers or medievalists.
Hermann von der Beeke, known mostly under his Latinized name Torrentinus, or Torrentius (meaning "brook" or "torrent, as translated from the original word beeke ) was born around 1450 in Zwolle, Netherlands, about 80 miles north- east of Amsterdam. He received initial education in his native town in the School of the Brethren of the Common Life (Fratres Vitae Commune), a Roman Catholic religious community founded in the 14th century by Gerard Groote, and devoted to education and teaching. The brethren didn't take up irrevocable vows, in difference from a regular monastic community, but led a simple and chaste life, practicing ascetic discipline and devoting all their time to attending Divine services, reading, and labors. They lived in the common houses and had meals together.
The year 1490 finds Torrentinus in Groningen, teaching rhetoric in the Brethren of the Common Life School. After the death of his father he had to return to Zwolle to help and support his mother, where he took a position of school teacher. Torrentinus is known as an editor of Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics (1502), and as the author of a Elucidarius Poeticus (dictionary of proper names of people, places, plants, etc., encountered in history and poetry) (1498).
He revised and edited the first part of Alexander de Villa Dei's standard Latin grammar, the Doctrinale (1504), and wrote several small books for use in his school. Around 1508 his eyesight was failing and Torrentinus had to leave his position as Head of Zwolle Brethren School. He died in Zwolle in 1520.
It looks like an uneventful life. Appearances often deceive, however. In Groningen Torrentinus came under the influence of such a forceful figure as Wessel Gansfort whose anti-papal sentiments and rather unorthodox interpretations of the Bible****** were known. Some sources mutedly suggest that Torrentinus also might have entertained some peculiar ideas; however we know so little about him that it's hard to prove.
Our copy is bound in half red leather with decorated endpapers and boards, its spine is decorated with floral motif between raised bands in gilt and embossed with "c.1494". Marginal annotations in Latin are in contemporary ink. Initial spaces are not rubricated; on rear lining paper there is a bookplate of Glenmore Whitney Davis, journalist for the New York Globe (New York daily newspaper published till 1923).
References and notes:
*Messenger, Ruth, The Medieval Latin Hymn, Washington DC, 1953
Kaske, R.E., Medieval Christian Literary Imagery: a guide to interpretation, Toronto.
**In the Byzantine Church/Orthodox Church it is called Alleluaria and was established on the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. See: Дмитревский И. И.Историческое, догматическоеитаинственноеизъяснениеБожественнойЛитургии, p. 234 :"МеждупениемАллилуявозглашаютсячтецомстихи, называемыеАллилуариями"
***Richard Crocker, The Early Medieval Sequence, U of California Press, 1977.
**** Erika Kihlman, Expositiones sequentarum. Medieval Sequence Commentaries and Prologues. Editions with Introductions. Stockholm University,2012?
***** Though Gansfort firmly stands on a Catholic ground and he never had brushes with the Inquisition, his writings were on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Bibliography:
John Edwin Sandys (1844-1922) A History of Classical Scholarship: From the Revival of Learning to the End of the Eighteenth Century in Italy, France, England and the Netherlands.
Contemporaries of Erasmus: a biographical register of the Renaissance and Reformation. Ed. Peter G. Bietenholz. Toronto, U of Toronto press, 1987
Five hundred years ago today, Martin Luther was awarded a doctorate in theology. In 1512, Luther was 28 years old. Seven years before, when Luther was attending law school at the University of Erfurt, a place he called a beerhouse and a whorehouse, lightning struck near where he was riding his horse. This event made Luther realize that he feared for his soul and he made a promise to Saint Anna to become a monk. It was a promise Luther thought he could not break, so he sold his law books and left university to join a monastery in Erfurt. His father was furious at him! How could Luther throw away all the education he received?
After only two years at the monastery, Luther’s sadness and deep introspection was too much for his superiors. Luther was ordained as a priest in 1507 and ordered back to academia where Luther pursued degrees in theology, eventually obtaining a position with the University of Wittenberg’s faculty a mere two days after receiving his doctorate. His position was that of Doctor in Bible.
At Special Collections, we have a few items published during Luther’s lifetime and just after. The Kirchen Postilla : Das ist, Auslegung der Episteln und Evangelien an Sontagen und Furnemesten Festen durchs Gantze Jar is one prime example. A rough translation of the title is Church Notes: That is, Interpretation of the Epistles and Gospels for Sundays and Festivals through the Entire Year. This book was meant to be used by Protestant churches all over Germany as a reference book for Protestant ministers while they prepared their Sunday sermons. The book came with two clasps, although one is now missing. It was a chained book, which means that this particular copy that Special Collections possesses must have been chained to a desk. This prevented the possibility of being stolen from the library, church, or monastery where it probably first resided.
Later, Luther published his German translations of various books of the Bible. Der Prophet Sacharja (The Prophet Zechariah) was published in 1528.
The woodcut illustration on the title page depicts Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Zechariah is shown in the upper right hand corner giving the masses the prophecy that Jesus fulfilled that day.
After his death, Luther’s commentaries on the New Testament epistles, Der Erste [Bis Zwelffte] Teil der Bücher, were published. These hefty volumes, twelve in all, not only include thousands of pages of text, but also a large amount of printed margin notes. Like many German tomes of the period, these volumes included metal clasps and hinges to keep the books closed, but all that remains now are the hinges.
On the title page, Martin Luther kneels at Jesus’ left and the Elector of Saxony, who guaranteed Luther’s security while Luther was being pursued by the Cardinal Cajetan, is shown kneeling on Jesus’ right.
Special Collections also owns a few copies of sermons published only a few years after Luther posted his famous 95 Theses. Come by during our operating hours to check out what we have!
If you missed Food Revolutions, our exhibition of food- and diet-related publications last spring, you can now view it online! This exhibition examines our changing notions of healthy eating over two centuries.
The digital version of the exhibit features a video of Dr. Ingolf Gruen’s opening talk, as well as images and links to full text for many of the books we featured in the Ellis Library Colonnade. Food Revolutions was an event affiliated with Food Sense: The 8th Annual Life Sciences and Society Symposium.
Today marks the beginning of Banned Books Week, a yearly celebration of the freedom to read. Special Collections is home to many banned books, and our extensive Comic Art Collection of more than 15,000 comic books contains some of the most-suppressed literature in the library.
Horror and Suspense
Horror, crime, and suspense comics became quite popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s. EC Comics, edited by Al Feldstein and Harvey Kurtzman, was one of the main publishers of this type of literature. The company published several highly popular titles, including Tales from the Crypt, Frontline Combat, Panic, and Shock SuspenStories.
Sparked by the publication of Seduction of the Innocent by psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, movements to censor these types of comics began popping up around the country after World War II. Wertham claimed that children would be conditioned to emulate what they saw on the pages of the comics, and that an entire generation was at risk of moral and mental corruption because of their reading material. Congress held an official inquiry on comics and juvenile delinquency in 1954, and many cities throughout the country passed or considered municipal bans on comic books in general.
The Comics Code Authority
Fearing government regulation, the comics industry turned to self-censorship, forming the Comics Code Authority (CCA) in late 1954. The Code set a number of content and artistic standards, including the stipulation that good must always triumph over evil, a general ban on the words “horror” and “terror” in comic book titles, and strict guidelines for the handling of crime, race, sexuality, and political issues.
Although the CCA had no legal power, most distributors refused to carry comics without the CCA seal of approval. Some publishers adapted to the new regulations, while others went out of business. EC Comics cancelled all of its titles except for Mad magazine (which was not subject to the Code), and was later absorbed by DC Comics.
The Comics Code remained in effect as it was written in 1954 until it was challenged by Marvel over a Spider-Man cover in 1971. The Code’s authority began to break down in the late 1980s, but it remained in force with major publishers until Marvel officially abandoned the Code in 2001, and DC dropped it in 2011.
Underground Comics
By the late 1960s, artists began exploring themes banned by the Code in self-published or small-press “underground” comics. Many were inspired directly by EC Comics, Mad, and the work of Harvey Kurtzman.
Frank Stack, an emeritus professor of art at MU, is credited with creating the first underground comic book when he published The Adventures of Jesus in 1964 under the pseudonym Foolbert Sturgeon. Artists such as Gilbert Shelton and R. Crumb also established the genre with publications such as The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Fritz the Cat.
Crumb stated that the appeal of underground comics was their lack of censorship – and this is certainly expressed in their content. Many underground comics offer commentary on drug use, sex, racism, the anti-war movement, and women’s rights. These were all topics that could not easily be treated by mainstream comics publishers.
Book Banning Continues
Comics and graphic novels of all genres, particularly those for children and teens, remain reading materials often targeted by bans. The American Library Association releases a yearly list of the top 10 most challenged books, and graphic novels often figure among them. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, Genderqueerby Maia Kobabe, Persepolisby Marjane Satrapi, and, most recently, Mausby Art Spiegelman are all graphic novels that have been banned or challenged in public and school libraries. They and many others are represented in the Comic Art Collection in Special Collections, where they are available to all.
Are you tired of your Moleskine planner? Do Siri’s annoying reminders tax your nerves? Consider trying a medieval perpetual calendar and discover a more streamlined approach to managing your affairs.
Among their many virtues is longevity: the same calendar can be used year in, year out, all the way up to the Second Coming. How is this possible? As our forebears knew, parchment is a durable medium that can withstand the insults of time and use. It is also well suited to accommodating the changing winds of orthodoxy. Should it be necessary to remove a feast from the calendar, simply scrape the pigment off, and no one will suspect your error. Should a new saint arrive on the scene, simply pencil in the feast day as someone has done for Saint Wulfstan using brown pigment in the calendar above from twelfth-century England.
Perpetual calendars are imminently portable. Tuck yours inside your breviary, where it be within reach at all times. Rise in your co-workers esteem by scheduling meetings according to the Julian calendar (left). Your coworkers will be impressed by your willingness to master a more complicated scheme of keeping track of dates, and you will soon have everyone trying to count the days forwards and backwards from Kalends, Ides and Nones.
You will be the life of the party on New Year’s Eve, when, with a furtive glance, you can determine the dominical letter, for the upcoming year (right). Dominical letters are useful for determining the date of Easter, a service for which your friends and relations will no doubt be grateful.
Be the envy of everyone with your attractive, vintage planner. You might think the colors are there merely to delight the eye, but look again. Differentiate feast days of high-status saints from those of middling status. Color code astronomical events from those of a more cosmic nature. They serve the practical purpose of differentiating different kinds of events, as well as ranking them in importance. In the calendar we’ve been looking at, the feast of the Ascension, the feast day of Saint Barnabus, the sun’s entrance into cancer, the feast day of St. Aethelthryth, and a commemoration of Saint Paul the apostle are all given special distinction. Most astronomical information is recorded in green pigment.
Attractive, convenient, and durable, medieval perpetual calendars allow you to honor the past as you plan the future. They sit quietly inside your psalter or breviary without interrupting your classes. Get yours today!
Dr. Rabia Gregory, an assistant professor in the Religious Studies department at the University of Missouri, is the focus of the first Teacher Spotlight of the new school year. Her primary interest is in medieval women’s religious literature, and she can often be found teaching courses at Mizzou on Historical Christianity, and Women and Religions. Dr. Gregory is a frequent visitor to Special Collections and has often brought her classes to learn about the primary sources we have here. We were pleased to get a chance to talk to her at the beginning of the semester.
SC: How have you incorporated Special Collections into your teaching?
Gregory: I initially only took upper-level and graduate seminars to Special Collections and designed the visits to help students learn to work with sources in the original. Last spring I attempted to bring a large introductory lecture course to Special Collections. I designed a new assignment asking the undergraduates to spend time with a manuscript or an early printed book and then write about it as if they were, themselves, professional historians.
SC: What sort of outcomes or effects on your students have you observed after visiting the Special Collections department?
Gregory: I noticed a variety of responses, particularly with the large lecture class. Some students were so excited that they snapped photos of manuscripts to share with old teachers or with family members. Others came back to visit with friends and classmates. And some were completely disinterested, trying to sneak out of the room even before class was over. Learning how books were made and used really changed the ways that my class responded to primary sources in translation. They less frequently asked "why" different sources offered competing versions of history or why miracles were recorded. Instead they were interested in why those versions of history had been considered important enough to put into something so expensive and time-consuming as a manuscript.
SC: What advice would you give to faculty or instructors interested in using Special Collections in their courses?
Gregory: Plan ahead, make sure that the visit has a clear pedagogic purpose for your class and that the students have a way of finding meaning from the objects they will (most likely) not be able to read. Do talk with the Special Collections staff and get their input on the assignments, a semester in advance if you can! And make sure that you explain clearly to your students and teaching assistants the purpose of the assignment.
Today is Guy Fawkes Day. This day commemorates the foiled Gunpowder Plot, a plan to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords during the king's opening address on November 5, 1605.
An anonymous tip in the early hours of November 5 led to the arrest of Guy Fawkes, who had been guarding the explosives, and who confessed the details of the plot under torture. Several other conspirators were captured and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, a fate Fawkes avoided by jumping off the scaffold to his death.
Dr. Rabia Gregory, an assistant professor in the Religious Studies department at the University of Missouri, is the focus of the first Teacher Spotlight of the new school year. Her primary interest is in medieval women’s religious literature, and she can often be found teaching courses at Mizzou on Historical Christianity, and Women and Religions. Dr. Gregory is a frequent visitor to Special Collections and has often brought her classes to learn about the primary sources we have here. We were pleased to get a chance to talk to her at the beginning of the semester.