(no subject)

I am still doing introductions. Don't wince. Especially if you are not into high-minded literature don't wince. Because I have two quite different pieces today. Neither is terribly high-minded.

The first is Montague Summers' classic translation of the truly bizarre Malleus Maleficarum. What is important about this introduction is that it is the introduction to a particularly foul manual used with particularly evil intent. Colourful and fascinating, but a rather nasty piece of work. It has sold well over the years, too, so it is worth wondering what Kramer and Sprenger wrote to get their audience so fascinated and enthusiastic about defining witches and damaging them.

Summers is a fun person (did I just write that? Summers was not fun as in the life of the party, but fun as in fascinating and strange) but I don't know how much I should trust his headings. I am going to include them, though, because this is the manual we know. So think of this as the twentieth century view of the late fifteenth century text.

It is a manual, so it needs lots of layers of headings. If you want to identify the level of bewitchment and whether or not it relates to the level of sin, you most definitely need an apparatus to guide you. I will give you (beneath the cut) all those layers from the beginning to the end of the first paragraph.

( Malleus opening )

This is a powerful opening. Nasty. But powerful. Heresy was life-threatening in the fifteenth century. These religious souls are saying "Think like us, or else." This book changed the way a lot of people saw witches and defined witchcraft, so that opening is terribly important. Only one cute gimmick, which is to mimic theological treatises with the "Questions" framework. No need to do anything else, because that opening paragraph intimated so firmly "You are with us or you are damned."

This is ick stuff, but it is a modern opening. Leading with the emotional guns rather than leaning on tradition.

I ought to go further into this, but the Malleus Maleficarum always leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. When I teach with it, I get all kinds of angry. If anyone else would like to add the missing thoughts on the opening, please do so. And anyone who wants to rant about the whole witch craze and how evil it was will have me cheering on. I just feel it isn’t enough to condemn - you have to understand how the bad stuff happens. And the firm rhetorical position of "You believe what I believe or you are damned" is incredibly strong.

I will do another post in a minute, so hang in there for something a bit less weighty. I want to see if the writer of a book of manners from around the same time also intimates hellfire.

(no subject)

"Stans Puer ad Mensam" is all about a young kid standing at a table and wondering how not to look stupid. You need the official title of the volume containing the translation to fully understand its tone, which is more what the late nineteenth/early twentieth century thought about the Middle Ages than what I think of the Middle Ages.

"The Babees' Book: Medieval Manners for the Young: done into Modern English from Dr. Furnivall's Texts by Edith Rickert." I have a 1960s reprint, just for the purely bibliophilic among you.

I keep hoping the original was less sickening, but haven’t been able to get my hands on it. The translation begins:

"My dear son, first thyself enable
With all thine heart to virtuous discipline;
Afore thy sovereign, standing at the table,
Dispose thou thyself, after my doctrine,
To all nurture thy courage to incline.
First, let all recklessness in speaking cease,
And keep both hands and fingers still at peace."

The advice is good. I don't know how many times I have heard adults say to kids "Shut up and stop fidgeting" but the tone is not attractive. I am hoping it is all in the translation. This poem is full of good advice and interesting comments on manners, but it is all as sluggish as that first paragraph.

Edith Rickert claims to have translated pretty literally, and if that's the case then maybe the introduction is all about hierarchy. Interest and excitement are not the aim of the tale, so they don't even get hinted at. What gets said, pretty straightforwardly, is that the boy is learning and in need of learning and ought to dispose himself and his strength to that purpose. Not good teaching, but an opening that will reinforce the son's feeling of inadequacy in a way that 'Shut up and stop fidgeting' may not.

Texts like this are terrific documents for social history, but they are equally wonderful at reminding us how lucky we are when we read good books. And sententiousness is catching. I must read one of Laurie King's Mary Russell books tonight, to wash that sententiousness right out of my brain.