Oxmas (7th Week, MT)

Because the Oxford term ends so absurdly early (December 4th, this year), Christmas celebrations tend to get bumped up a few weeks, resulting in a phenomenon known as “Oxmas”. By mid-November, a Christmas tree is awaiting lights in the Bodleian quad, carols are being sung by various college choirs, and every social event is accompanied by obligatory mulled wine and minced pies, infusing some festive cheer into the cold, dark weeks before the break. Perhaps the hope is that the extra sugar will allow us to survive the last two weeks of term . . .

Essaying Essays (6th Week, MT)

It’s interesting that the etymology of the word essay goes back to the Latin word exigere, which means “to weigh, or put to the test”. While in Oxford the word does typically just refer to “a short piece of writing on a particular subject”, that older definition is actually feeling pretty accurate at the moment.

Singing for My Supper (5th Week, MT)

If you are looking for a classically “Oxford” experience, but are reluctant to endure the physical exertion and frigid early morning practices required by rowing, I heartily recommend joining a college chapel choir. You might not escape the cold (stone chapels not being known for their warmth), but physical exertion is generally limited to saving enough breath to get through the Amen without passing out.

Fog (4th Week, MT)

. . . which simultaneously describes the current state of both the weather and of my brain–the latter state being principally due to the simply atrocious cold that has set up camp inside my head. As if all this studying weren’t hard enough already!

The meteorological fog I find much more attractive. I’ve just walked back from an evening seminar in Medieval History with the street lights glowing rather cheerfully in the darkness through thin veils of mists and church spires soaring majestically up into the fog.

The seminar itself was very interesting. As always, a professor was presenting a paper on medieval history. As always, far more people than can possibly be permitted by current fire regulations crammed themselves into a room in All Souls College–on chairs, window ledges, or the floor if need be–to hear it. This week, Professor Sarah Foot, the current Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, was discussing her thoughts and various issues she has encountered in formulating a plan for a biography she will be writing on the Venerable Bede. It was actually rather reassuring – to know that even Oxford academics have to take their time to hammer out and wrestle with and sort out their topics and methodologies.

Tempus Fugit (3rd Week, MT)

Oxford days have uncanny ability to slip away. One moment, the day stretches before you, flushed with productive promise. The next, it’s mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind a stack of books lamentably unread and assignments still unfinished.

My schedule from Wednesday, a day in which I have just one hour of class to attend, may illustrate:

The Historian as Artist?

The first duty of a historian is to produce works of art. By this I do not primarily mean works that are finely written, but works that are emotionally and intellectually satisfying, that combine a clear unity of conception with a vivacity of detail, and portray people whose actions are intelligible within the framework of their circumstances and character. It is thus that one might describe as the aims of a Balzac or a Tolstoy: I say therefore that a historian should aim at satisfying the same emotional and intellectual needs as a novelist or poet. How he is to do this within the limits of the available data is the great question.

R.W. Southern, ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of History Writing’

Take a foreign language, write it in an unfamiliar script, abbreviating every third word, and you have the compound puzzle that is the medieval Latin manuscript.

Preface to English translation of A. Cappelli’s The Elements of
Abbreviation in Medieval Latin Paleography (1982) 

A very helpful resource which I had vaguely been aware of for a while but which I have only recently starting using more regularly is the Regesta Imperii OPAC Literature Database for the Middle Ages (RI-OPAC), available in English as well as German.

The database lists over 2.5 million academic books and articles on medieval topics, searchable by author, title, and thematic tags. Since it is limited to medieval research, even a search for a single word (e.g. ‘counsel’, ‘gestures’, ‘kingship’) tends to be much more fruitful than searching the entirety of a research library catalogue. While not exhaustive, the database is regularly updated and is therefore an excellent tool for investigating what research has already been done on any particular topic.

I recently came across these excellent guides to palaeography from the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (St John’s University). As well as access to a number of helpful resources, they have virtual courses in Latin, Syriac, and Arabic scripts, as well as guides for manuscript transcription.

https://www.hmmlschool.org/

Gallica is the digital library of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF) and is one of the best freely accessible digital archives online, crammed full of brilliant historical sources. It’s fairly easy to navigate, and you can register to save documents and books to your digital workspace.

I’ve personally been using it a lot lately to access all the 19th-century editions of my medieval primary sources from the comfort of my bed, instead of having to trot all the way out to the Bodleian Upper Reading Room!

Word Tools: Thanks to the wonders of the internet, there are now various Latin word tools that will tell you not only what any Latin word means, but also that it happens to be a genitive singular future passive participle, or whatever the ‘case’ may be.

Whitaker’s Words – My personal favourite, partly because it does take into account some medieval spelling and vocabulary changes)

Perseus Latin Word Study Tool

Health Advisory: While brilliant for making your way through a tricky translation, I would recommend using online word tools sparingly when it comes to actual Latin study – it’s easy to get dependent and forget to actually learn the vocabulary and grammar yourself, which comes back to haunt you later . . .

Dictionaries: Most Latin-English dictionaries only reflect classical usage and vocabulary. The best dictionary for medieval Latin is the recently completed Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (DMLBS) published by Oxford University Press, which is also available as a subscription service online and through the Latin/Greek online dictionary search Logeion.