Tag: Medieval manuscripts

An app for Chaucer with an assist from Monty Python’s Terry Jones

An international team led by the University of Saskatchewan's Peter Robinson has created the first web and mobile phone app of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. It features an audio performance of the General Prologue along with the digitized version of the original manuscript. While listening to the reading you can access supporting content such as a translation in modern English, commentary, notes and vocabulary explaining Middle English words used by Chaucer. “We have become convinced, over many years, that the best way to read the Tales is to hear it performed—just as we imagine that Chaucer himself might have performed it...

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At Yale University’s Library Recycling Is The Law

A Page From: The Passion of Saint Alexander, Pope and Martyr, (Passio Sancti Alexandri martyris papae) circa 975-1075. Reused To Strengthen The Cover Of Flos testamnetorum By Rolandinus, de Passageriis, Published In Padua In 1482. (Images Courtesy Of The Lillian Goldman Law Library Rare Book Collection, Yale University.)The last weekend of April 2010 saw celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Citizens of the world were urged to "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," to help save our imperiled planet. An exhibit at the Yale University's Lillian Goldman Law Library proves that, as fine an idea as this is, it is hardly...

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My (sort of) Fourteenth-Century Bar Mitzvah

And so it came to pass that on the 27th day of Tishri in the year 5725, young Stephen ben Kenneth ben Edward ben Morris ben Aaron of the House of Gertz (formerly Gershowitz, “Horse Traders to the Czar Since 1826”), who dwelt in the land of Queens in the province of New Judea also known as La Ciudad de Nueva York, reached his majority and was accepted into the congregation as a man because God, blessed be He who bestows savings bonds, apparently figures that when a boy’s sperm squad is mature enough for successful reconnaissance and friendly fire...

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