Friars Conference

This weekend SLU Madrid hosted a small conference, entitled "The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain." Dr. Smith and Dr. García-Serrano organized it together and invited scholars specializing in the medieval mendicants to convene at our campus for what turned out to be a wonderful weekend of papers!

This last week or so was quite busy, as I worked with Jessica in the finance office to finalize the non-academic details of the conference - the materials, the location, the budget, the meals and coffees, etc. Until the conference got close, I had kind of been waiting for Paco or Damian to tell me how I could be helpful, but they already had enough on their plates and hadn't given me much to do specifically. So in the last two weeks, as the conference was fast approaching, I took more initiative and contacted Jessica in administration. We sat down a couple times together, solved all the unsolved problems, and finalized all the last details. Together we finally got the programs, flyers, name tags, and posters printed; the welcome information and directions sent out to the arriving guest speakers; the transportation and reimbursements figured out; reservations and payments for meals confirmed; and the snacks purchased and the different coffee and tea breaks arranged (who would have thought that two coffee breaks were going to be harder to organize than the lunches and dinners combined!). It was busy and it felt really good to be helpful in getting all those things finalized and taken care of. At one point Jessica turned to me and said "Are you sure you're an academic? You don't seem like one - You seem like one of us!" It was the best/weirdest compliment of my organizational skills, ever. I attribute these limited event-planning skills to my years in PAAC, Dark Purple, and Slick Shoes back in my Cornell days. :-)

Getting folders assembled

When the weekend finally arrived, we had a student worker Tara helping too, which was great, because I definitely needed some back-up. I was at the main building, welcoming the scholars, passing out folders, and directing them to the location of the conference, while she was at the other building, directing anyone who had showed up there by mistake over to me at PRH 8. Scholars either arrived late because they'd gotten a bit lost, or because they had shown up on 'Spanish time' - aka, late. We got started with the opening remarks at 11, rather than 10:30, and spent most of the weekend moving through our schedule always just about half an hour late, which ended up being fine.

Programs and nametags, ready to go!

In the morning, we heard from Adeline Rucquoi, Damian Smith, and Robin Vose, so we started the conference with a bang. All the papers were really interesting! It was entertaining that right away in the first paper, as I was pushing the limits of my knowledge of Spanish to follow Dr. Rucquoi's paper, which was on Dominic's early life, I heard her cite the work of Kyle Lincoln, one of our SLU grad students! At first I was like "did I hear that right?" but then she mentioned his research another time later on, so that was definitely pretty cool. Damian's paper was on Ramon de Penyafort, emphasizing our need to recognize and understand his powerful influence in the thirteenth century world. Plus his jokes about medieval lawyers went over well. Dr. Vose's paper on the early inquisitors was really well done too, so I found the whole first session quite fascinating. 

That afternoon we had lunch at Gino's. The food was amazing, and I got to sit near Dr. Burman and talk about my dissertation prospectus and hear his thoughts on Ramón Martí  which was such a treat for me. I can already tell consulting with him as I move forward on my dissertation work is going to be a really good experience. He's a very kind and humble man, and seemed as excited to hear my ideas as I was to hear his, which I really appreciated. I also sat near some of the younger female scholars, and it was lovely to hear their stories on dissertation research and their developing careers. They were enthusiastic about both their research and their teaching, which was both inspirational and helpful, as they had plenty of advice and ideas to share.

Sessions two and three in the afternoon, punctuated by a coffee break, were equally as enjoyable as the morning had been. My favorite papers were from Dr. Chubb, who was looking at Valencian Dominican art and had a lot of beautiful images to share; Dr. García-Serrano, who spoke on the friars, nuns, and the economy among the medieval Dominicans in Castile; Dr. Burman's paper comparing and contrasting Ramón Martí's and Riccoldo da Monte di Croce's polemical approaches to Islam (so fascinating!); and Dr. Jones's paper on Christian and Muslim preaching.

Dr. García-Serrano giving his paper, "Friars and Nuns: Dominican Economy and Identity in Medieval Castile"

Dr. Burman presenting "Ramón Martí and his Arab Books"

Later, after drinks and a break, was dinner at Paulo, a fancy place that's a bit tucked away, near campus. It was a long and delicious dinner, in which Paco told me lots about the Spanish Civil War, which was really interesting, especially after hearing about it from my host family as well.  I've learned as much more about modern Spanish history than I had expected during this trip! Because Damian and Paco each had to leave early, I stayed until the very end of dinner, made sure the bill was settled, and walked the remaining merry group back to the metro. 

The next day was like, 68 and sunny - a beautiful day for a conference!

Patio at SLU Madrid, Saturday morning

I met Tara bright and early at Trujal to pick up the coffee, milk, and water for tea, and then we set up the coffee service. Then I got to sit out in the bright morning sun and wait for our speakers to arrive. We started late, again, as was expected.

Waiting outside SLU Madrid for professors to arrive

The Saturday papers were also enjoyable. A lot more of them were in Spanish - some were very easy for me to follow, and some were quite difficult for me to understand. It really just depended on the speaker. We had lunch at Ferro's, one of my favorite places, and I talked more with Emily Graham and Taryn Chubb about teaching the middle ages. 

In the afternoon session, I particularly enjoyed Dr. Vargas's presentation about the need for historians to collaborate, and incorporate recent technological advances for modeling change. He had a lot of interesting propositions about the potential value of such work for understanding the Dominicans, and his presentation certainly stirred up quite a bit of conversation during questions time. 

The conference technically ended at 6pm, after which I had a lot of break-down work to do, but the fun of the weekend didn't stop there. When I was returning the coffee canisters to Trujal, I ran into many of the attendees having a drink there, and was invited to join them. I sat with Emily Graham and Linda Jones, and when it was time to leave Trujal they were trying to sort out plans for the evening, and I got included in that, which was wonderful. I was thinking they'd want to spend the last hours of the weekend working at the library or something, but they actually wanted to do some shopping and then grab dinner. I was able to help them locate the stores they were looking for, and suggested Balmori for dinner, which went over very well. I enjoyed joining them for a bit of shopping, because it was so nice to see that esteemed professors are still real people, who are just as happy discussing flower scents while stopping in a little Perfumeria or Spanish cuisine at length over our dinner at the Asturian Cider House as they are their research. I had so much fun spending the evening with both of them after the conference. 

It was the perfect ending to the weekend, and highlighted the benefits of such a small conference - by the end of the two days everyone had gotten to know everyone else fairly well, which is so beneficial for future collaboration and conversation. I heard from so many of the presenters how much they enjoyed the small and intimate size of the conference, which allowed conversations from one morning to continue into lunch, and be brought up again over coffee the next day. It allowed me to actually get to know people and their research and ideas, rather than just exchanging contact info and disappearing into the crowds like at larger conferences. 

All in all, the conference was a success - it was exhausting and fascinating!

Madrid's Mosque, and contemporary Islam in Spain

Today I took advantage of one of the cultural events offered at SLU Madrid. They were taking a visit to Madrid's M-30 Mosque and Islamic Cultural Center. It's the largest operating mosque in Europe! I thought it would be good to learn a little bit about the history and practice Islam in Spain after the 1614 Morisco expulsions! And I really did learn a lot. I'm so glad I went.

So, they were meeting at 10:15. But I slept through my pleasant alarm, and didn't wake up until 9:50. Damn! I live a good 20-ish minute walk from campus and I wasn't even dressed. I'd never make it. I was bummed, and laid in bed being bummed about it for another ten minutes, resolving myself to having missed it, which was lame of me. At 10am it occurred to me that it's only a 5 minute drive via taxi, which would only cost me like 4 euros. The event was free anyway, so it would be worth it. If I leapt out of bed and could wash my face, brush my teeth, put on clothes and mascara, and grab a breakfast bar in the space of 10 minutes, I could totally make it. Plus everything here starts on "Spanish time," aka, late, so I knew I had at least a five minute cushion on top of that. So I rushed! And I made it! And I'm glad I did because it was a very cool morning excursion.

SLU Students headed toward the mosque

Madrid's Mosque

Before entering the mosque, we needed to cover our heads. I had thrown on outfit with a scarf this morning just in case we'd need to do this, and I'm so glad I'd had that thought. The woman from SLU leading the group had brought a few extra, but just enough. She showed us how to cover our heads so that the scarves would stay put, but said we didn't need to worry about our hair being perfectly covered since we weren't there to pray.

Trying to contain the blonde frizz

Me and Laura, a SLU undergrad I chatted with throughout morning, wearing our makeshift hijabs!

SLU girls donning scarves for our tour

Once inside the mosque, we went first to a multipurpose room full of couches, where we watched a film introducing Islam, explaining the 5 pillars of the faith and giving a brief history of the religion. Then an older lady came to tell us a bit more about the Cultural Center, and the history of Islam in Spain in recent decades. They served piping hot mint tea, which was delicious, and let students ask questions.

I was most interested in hearing about the last two centuries, because I knew nothing at all about the recent history of Islam in Spain. She explained that there was a lot of religious freedom and toleration in the mid to late 1800s, (which made sense to me given the progressive freedoms of the Bohemian movements in Europe - think Moulin Rouge time!) and that this was a good time for Muslims to be in Spain. But under Franco, (a dictator who ruled Spain from 1936-1975) Roman Catholicism was the only legally permitted public religion in Spain. People could believe and practice their faiths in their homes, to an extent, but only the Catholic Church could advertise, own property, or have any public presence. It reminded me of a religious status not quite as bad as persecuted Moriscos practicing crypto-Islam, but not as good as the medieval dhimmi status. Things like civil marriage, divorce, and contraception were also outlawed in Spain, which was problematic for many Spanish families, whose previous civil marriages and/or divorces were no longer recognized by the state. It was only after the death of Franco in the 1970s that other religions could begin to have a public presence again in Spain.

In 1992, on the 500th anniversary of the 1492 expulsion of the Jews and many Muslims from Spain, this mosque was built, and since then, the presence of the Muslim population in Madrid has grown considerably.

After our tea and lesson in Islam, we went into the prayer space itself. First we had to remove our shoes, a possibility I'd not considered when throwing clothes on this morning, and at that moment I was very grateful I'd chosen to wear socks! I was surprised at how soft and thick the carpet was once we stepped onto it though! Must have been at least an inch of dense comfortable pile!

Barefoot SLU students settled on the comfy carpet in the mosque

The mosque itself was simple, but lovely. It was modeled on the Great Mosque in Cordoba, and the influence is apparent in the colored columns and the double arches.

The Qibla, the prayer nook positioned in the direction of Mecca

Our guide, explaining the religious features of the mosque, and our SLU organizer/translator on her right

Me at the Cathedral Mosque in Cordoba in 2010, and the simple, modern interpretation in Madrid

Apparently, now as ever, there's still tension between Islam and Christianity in Spain. All the churches that were originally built as mosques are today still strictly Catholic, and Muslims are not permitted to pray or worship in them. Apparently just a year or two ago a Muslim tourist visiting the Cathedral Mosque in Cordoba knelt down to pray in the space. When the guards came over to make him stop or leave, his friends confronted the guards so he could finish his prayer, there was a confrontation, and they were arrested. Spain is just now beginning to discuss adding an addition to some of these spaces where Muslims might enjoy prayer at/near their cultural heritage sites throughout Spain, but the Catholic Church is very much against it, since these now-churches are consecrated spaces.

The way the laws stand today in Spain, mosques can be built, religious freedom of worship is guaranteed in the state, but it's not complete - certain restrictions still apply. For example, this mosque's minaret is purely architecturally decorative, as it is illegal to sound the call to prayer. Church bells ring hourly, but the muezzin is not permitted to call Muslims to Salat. (This word, which is the second pillar of Islam, is often translated as "prayer" but it really means something more like "connection with God" - prayer is what you do within that connection.) Because the muezzin's call is simply a reminder to pray, and has no religious significance in and of itself, it is not protected under any religious freedom laws, and can be banned under the laws regarding city noise.

Madrid's silent minaret

Our guide and translator explained that religion and politics are still fraught with tension in Spain, and although there has been significant progress in recent decades, it's still a very complicated situation. In addition to modern global fears of Islamic extremism and terrorism clouding people's judgement about mainstream Islam, here in Spain in particular there is also a fear that allowing further accommodations and freedoms to Muslims would be like inviting them to 'reconquer' Spain as they did in the Middle Ages. The ideology and glory of the Christian Reconquista still holds strong, and the Church and many Spanish people are hesitant to give up any ground on the matter.

All in all, I'm really glad I decided to hop in that taxi this morning so I wouldn't miss this visit. I had a wonderful time, learned more than I expected to, and have a much better understanding of the history of Christian and Muslim relations throughout the history of Spain.

Teaching Day!

Today I was a guest lecturer in one of the history classes here at SLU Madrid! It was so much fun and I'm very glad I had the opportunity to teach while I was here at the Madrid campus. It was a blast and a very new teaching experience for me. I've given one lecture, my first year as a TA for Dr. Hitchcock, but that was a 50 minute lecture several years ago. This was an hour and fifteen minute lecture - which I was surprised to learn is like a whole different beast! I'm hoping to teach as an adjunct professor at the SLU home campus sometime in the coming year, so this was nice practice in handling my own lesson. I've spent three years as a TA supplementing professors' lectures with discussions and readings and mini lessons of my own, so it was nice to do get a chance to teach on a larger scale.

On the SLU Madrid campus - ready to teach!

A bright beautiful day to talk about the middle ages!

The professor let me choose a week's topic off the syllabus so I chose the dark ages lecture - a discussion of the period between the fall of Rome and the Carolingian empire. I have a special spot in my heart for the low middle ages. We talked about the establishment of the Barbarian (for lack of a better word) kingdoms and the shift in European culture after the collapse of the Roman government. Basically, I was explaining this mess right here:

Look at all those loosely organized barbarian kingdoms - god I love the "dark ages"

I'd been putting together the general ideas for the lecture for awhile - figuring out what issues I wanted to cover and how to frame the period, but it wasn't until yesterday that I really sat down to write out my notes for the thing and create a PowerPoint. In keeping with the professor's structure, I mostly just used the PPT for maps and pictures and to put up key words that might be hard to spell. I think when you put up a solid, wordy outline of all your points on the PPT, students are just worried about copying it all down, and aren't actually listening to your explanations. So I just used it as a visual aid, which I think worked well. 

For the content, I started with my own ideas of what I wanted to cover (one good side effect of PhD exams is that they've left me feeling pretty confident in my ability to outline and present the period myself), and I consulted a number of sources to fill in the meat of the lecture: 

- The Making of the West - the students' textbook, 

- Bennet and Hollister's Medieval Europe - one of my favorite medieval textbooks for undergrads (every time I open this book I am reminded of how much fun I found medieval history to be in college. I can't wait to assign it myself someday), and 

- Class notes I'd taken in an introductory course on the low middle ages in college (Oh Professor Miller, I steal so many of your jokes). 

These sources gave me a solid idea about how to present this information to undergrads in a way that would be both educational and entertaining. I really reject the idea that history means just political history, so I really tried to incorporate aspects of social, cultural, linguistic, religious, and even a bit of gender history into the lecture to give a well-rounded approach to the period.

And the lecture went so great today! I was a bit worried about my timing - I've never given an hour and fifteen minute lecture, and I hadn't been able to practice it as many times as I would have liked, but I just relied on my instincts for judgement, and the lecture came in right at an hour and ten minutes exactly, which was perfect because the professor asked me to end a few minutes early so he'd have time to pass back the midterms. I had little timing signposts in my notes (halfway point! etc.) so with that was helpful. Very proud that my teaching pacing instincts didn't let me down! The professor suggested I give them a two minute break in the middle cause the class is long, which was a good idea - gave me a chance to hydrate and them a chance to chat and relax. 

Quick selfie during the students' break - behind me is the classroom and my PPT. 

I'm trying not to be obvious about smiling a little while checking my phone ;-)

I think the students had fun too! It was a pretty full class - not many absences. I was glad to have a big group. The professor wasn't there - he trusted I'd do fine and used the time to grade instead. I'm not nervous about being observed while teaching - I've done that plenty of times as a TA, but it was kind of nice to have it be just me and the students. I could loosen up, be a little more conversational in my lecturing style, make a few more jokes, etc. And I made them laugh! Repeatedly! I realize history is not a comedy show, but one of my main goals is to get students to actually enjoy learning about history, so getting them to chuckle is always a success in my book. They laughed quite a bit during a discussion of Germanic law and the wergeld, which is always a good time. 

"How much do I owe for the dismembered limbs?"

But what I really want to say in this post was how much FUN this was. I LOVE TEACHING. I find it completely satisfying and thrilling to share my love of history with students. I love making historical change make sense to them, explaining why and how cultures differ from one another, showing them the origins of the bits of history are preserved in our modern world, and mostly sharing hilarious/awesome/badass/cool stories that need telling. I think they had a good time. I got interrupted with several questions, all of which were very good questions that I had answers for. Nice to see they're paying attention enough to be curious about stuff. At the end of class there was a bit of applause, which was unexpected and entirely unnecessary  but very polite, and the professor said he loves having a guest lecturer because he always learns something new. I appreciated that, because he really only saw the last 15 minutes or so of my talk. 

Anyway, teaching was a blast again today, as it always is for me, and it renewed my energy for pursuing my degree. The last year of exams and not teaching has really worn on me, and it was nice to be reminded so vividly of why I'm doing this and how much fun this career truly is. 

Coffee in Spain - "Un café con leche templada, por favor"

One of my favorite things about Spain so far, (other than the vellum-bound gorgeous old books) has been the coffee. I felt it deserved its own post. I had my first cup at Ferro's Cafe with Dr. Paul Vita, SLU's academic dean. He ordered "un café con leche templada, por favor" and I said "lo mismo" because I had no idea how to order coffee in Spain at all. He explained that ordering it "templada" means you want it with mixed hot and cool milk, and that it is thus "templada" or "temperate" - ready to drink.

It. Was. Perfection.

I'd never had such a good coffee drink in my life. I never thought I'd say it, but it put Dunkin to SHAME. I love coffee in America, but it might be hard to go back. Spaniards laugh at the idea of American coffee. One man I talked with called it "dirty water," and my host mom said it "lacks strength." When compared to the Spanish understanding of what coffee should be, it's a fair assessment. Spaniards say the only other country that makes good coffee like in Spain is Italy. Italy and Spain have a lot more in common culturally than I realized.

So what is a 'Cafe con Leche,' in American coffee terms? My coffee expert friend Kyle tells me that it's what an American Latte should be, but never is. It's simply expresso with steamed milk, but done really well. In the mug, there's about a centimeter of thick, dark, expresso, and then the rest of the cup is milk. (I think maybe it's whole milk?) The difference is that the expresso here is really good, the milk is really good, thick, and perfectly steamed, and the sugar comes in giant, perfect, 8 gram packets. That's right, none of these crappy little 2-4 gram packets like in America that you need a zillion of, in Spain you get one hefty 8 gram bag, always. When you order it "templada," they bring over two pitchers of milk, a hot steamed one, and a cool one, and they pour in a bit of each. If you don't specify, they'll usually just use hot milk. But if they ask you anything about your order, it'll be how you take your milk - templada, caliente, etc.

Me at the coffee counter, taking a research break at the BNE

My favorite part of the day today was after lunch, when I ordered my cafe con leche over at the coffee bar downstairs in the Biblioteca Nacional's Cafeteria. The top of the bar is covered with stacks of little plates with a teaspoon and an 8 gram sugar packet on each. They just await the mug. Beneath the glass bar is a display of snacks you could order with coffee - cookies, donuts, croissants, sandwiches, and, most popularly, Spanish tortilla.

Cafe con leche with a piece of Spanish Tortilla, at a cafe near my home stay.

Many people just order, wait for their specific mug to be set down on one of these stacked plates, then take the plate back to their table, but it's perfectly common just to stand and drink it at the bar too. I prefer to stay at the bar because it is my favorite form of people watching.

People watching at the library, like a total creep

I love to watch the busy baristas making magic on the expresso machine, dashing back and forth filling orders. And I also really love watching the other customers order their specific drinks. Lots of people order "cafe solo" which is just a tiny cup of expresso. All Spanish coffee drinks seem to have this single expresso as their common base, but it's amazing how many different ways they take it. The girl next to me ordered "cafe cortado," which was a single expresso in a tiny mug with just a teensy pour of milk. The old ladies next to me ordered "cafe con hielo" which was super amusing to watch. They were each given a steaming cup of expresso, sugar, and super tall glasses filled with ice cubes. They mixed the expresso and the sugar, stirred it very well, and then poured it into the cup of ice. They drank them quickly! I mean, they poured boiling expresso over ice, and when they were done their empty glasses were still at least half full of ice. The Spanish really don't like watery coffee it seems. I've only ever ordered "cafe con leche" because it's hard to imagine there's anything more delicious to be had, but there's clearly a myriad of ways they prepare expresso, and I'll be sure to try something else before I leave.

I love you, Spanish beverages <3

For more info, I just found this little explanation of the Spanish coffee drinks. Which would you choose?
http://gospain.about.com/od/fooddrink/qt/coffee_in_spain.htm

Pictures/Details from a 16th century text, or, as some might say, "Book Porn"

Went back to the BNE today to spend some quality time with a 16^th century text on the history of the Dominican Order in Aragon. So cool! When I first requested the text, it said it was in the general  Recoletos collection – I usually associate this with modern publications, considering there is a whole separate area, the Sala de Cervantes, for rare books and manuscripts. So I was very surprised when they brought me one of the actual original copies of the book, printed in 1599! It was a really exciting surprise and I tried not to act like a fangirl when they handed it over to me trusting that I'd take it back to my desk and treat it properly. No biggie.

Awwwwwww Yeah! Cradling/carrying it back to my desk. This is gonna be good.

 In St. Louis, to view a book from the 16^th century would require going to the rare books room,  filling out paperwork, setting up foam book supports to cradle the text, and being watched like a hawk by the librarians. Here, for this copy anyway, not so much.  And I'm not quite sure why. The binding may not be original (Though I'm sure in age it's closer to 16^th century than it is to the 21^st), but the pages certainly are, and they're gorgeous. I'm not really sure why this copy is in circulation while others are in the rare books room or the archive, but my best guess would be that it has to do with the later binding? I have a hard time imagining it's just their crappiest copy that they don't mind passing around, because this text is in SO MUCH better condition than the copy Google worked from when they digitized the book recently – Google's is a water-stained mess and the printing clarity isn't very sharp. I'm glad I didn't rely on just reading the internet's copy, because this was a really wonderful experience – the book itself is in much better condition than the one online, and it's far easier on the eyes to read through for hours at a time. PLUS, it's cool! And there were little interesting tidbits and a bit of marginalia unique to this copy alone that I would never have gotten to appreciate otherwise. I might want to check out the other copies of this same text in the libraries holdings, to see if they have anything unique to offer too.  Plus it'd be a good excuse to get my feet wet in the Sala de Cervantes, which I really need to do.

Okay, so yesterday when I looked at this book, I'd forgotten my iphone for the day, and couldn't take any quick pics to post. But I didn't make that mistake twice, and today I snapped away so I could share the fun with all of you. I hope you find it as interesting as I did!

Let's get started: The book has a rather unassuming cover, but BAM, a pretty impressive title page.  If you look closely, you can tell the cover of the book has been made with vellum, which pretty much will last until the end of time. I assume this is not the original cover and binding for this text, but the fact that it's made with vellum means it's certainly not a modern binding. 

Isn't that a sweet shield? 

The book is  the Historia de la Procincia de Aragon de la Orden de Predicadores... by Francisco Diago

An interior binding detail

Now into the book! Here's the prologue page, dedicated to the reasonable reader 

Check out the pointing guy in the Q! Isn't he amazing? 

This text was full of beautiful details like the historiated initial above. (A historiated initial is a letter that has a picture inside - aka, the best kind of letters.) I took a picture of this Q specifically, but as I was looking through my photographs, I realized I'd inadvertently captured a lot of other beautiful initials as well. The following aren't 'historiated' initials, merely 'decorated initials' or 'illustrated initials' but they're very lovely. So I clicked through the images and copied/cropped any that had initials in them to show you a few more. It might be a fun side project to collect images of initials from books I consulted. Maybe I could get a whole alphabet by the end of my trip! Unlikely, but it might be fun. 

I think the E and the L were each especially lovely. 

Wish I'd paid more attention to the other initials as I was going through!

But initials aside, the book had a lot of other beautiful decorated elements to enjoy. Like this gorgeous banner above this index of martyrs:

 Fancy!

Or the way the end of the prologue tapers into a decorative point, followed by an intricate decoration: 

 

But more so than the lovely early modern printed decorations, I was excited by the text itself. So let's dive into that! Here's page one. Well, technically, it's "Folio one, Recto." This book's pagination is not by page, but by folio, and only the recto (the front side) of each folio is numbered. So the back of this page isn't "page two," it's "Folio 1, Verso" (back side). So by our modern standards, this book has twice as many pages as it's numeration claims. Hah.  

This first page has everything! A beautiful banner, italic and regular fonts, marginal notes, a decorated initial, a stamp pasted in stating its provenance as part of the "Biblioteca Real" collection (see the BR with a crown on top above the illustrated L)... what more could a book nerd want!?! 

While we're on the subject of pagination, I want to point out this other neat and practical feature of early modern books. To aid in the assembly, and ensure that the pages were put together in the right order, at the bottom of each page, they printed the first word that will appear on the following page. Check it out:

This page notes that the following page should start with "Ami" ... 

And so it does! Good job assembling this properly, 16th century printer. 

Now, I've structured this post to get more obscurely nerdy as it goes, so feel free to ditch at any time if you're getting bored. But anyone who's taken medieval paleography will probably get a kick out of some of the holdovers from medieval abbreviations in the Early Modern period. Now, medieval books were handwritten on vellum, (calf skin) which is extremely expensive. Common words were abbreviated or given symbols to save space. However, this practice continues in the first century or so of early modern printed books, even though, since the change was made to paper, there's no concern about saving space. Just custom I suppose. 

The most common abbreviations in this book were a dash above a letter indicating that the following "n" has been omitted. The highlighted words here are "con" and "aun" 

 Here we see the same thing, where the word "orden" is missing it's final "n." But there's another common one here as well, where a "q" with a dash above it is a symbol for the word "que."

 In the marginal notes, (like the one below) where space saving is actually a concern, the abbreviations are more frequent. I especially like the "d" with the cross through the ascender. This is for the common Spanish word "de." Unabbreviated, this marginal note reads "Don Fray Raymundo siendo obispo de Valencia tomo el habito de la orden." (Roughly - "Don Fray Raymundo, being bishop of Valencia, took the habit of the order")

Also, how pretty are these italic ampersands? Totally resembles "et."

I also LOVED encountering the notes left behind by past readers. There's one commentator who took it upon himself, to 

  

(A) Make corrections (here substituting "Arnaldo" where "Alberto has been printed)

 (B) Provide suggestions for further reading

 (C) Get all worked up and point out "homicide!" during the description of a friar's death:

(D) (my favorite) Leave his own strong opinions about Ramon Llull:

This last contribution was my favorite, because something interesting happened. Here's how I sorted out what went down - let me know if  you agree. 

You see, this page has a tear in it. At first I thought maybe some of this scholar of yesteryear's marginal notes  had gone with it - see the "o" on the other side of the tear, suggesting that the first line of writing is incomplete, and part is now missing? I was bummed. Until I noticed that the following lines all negotiate around the tear. The tear must have been there before the scholar made his notes. But then what's up with that first incomplete line? 

Then I saw a piece had been cut out of the next page, but still had some evidence that something was once written there, and then cut away - see what looks to be the bottom bits of letters written in brown ink?

It seems the scholar started writing, didn't realize there was a tear in the page, wrote his line, realized part of it had gotten onto the next page, removed the mistake from the next page by cutting it away, and continued his rant on the next line, this time negotiating around the tear. 

These kinds of little quirks are SO amusing to me. 

The two fated pages

Anyway, these are things only a codicology nerd would love, but, that's me.

I also found someone else's notes tucked away, forgotten for who knows how long between the pages. The handwriting is different, and I have to assume these notes are newer than the ones written so neatly onto the book in brown ink, because these are scrawled with a blue ballpoint pen. 

Anyway, if you're still with me, I hope you've enjoyed my little tour through all the bits of this beautiful old book that so delighted me. I hadn't checked it out to view its initials, abbreviations, binding, or marginal notations though. They were fun bonuses, but I'd really gotten the book to read a 16th century account of the medieval history of the Dominicans in Aragon. And it was a very useful text in this regard. As Dr. Garcia-Serrano pointed out to me, oftentimes, despite their biases and problems, these 16th century early modern historians had access to sources that simply are no longer extant, and can be a great resource to historians of medieval Spain. So I was scanning the book for discussions of issues related to my dissertation. And I was rewarded for my patience, because there were mentions of Ramon Marti scattered throughout! Plus there was a whole section just on his life, so that's a great great source to have. :-) Time well spent in the BNE!

My favorite part of the book was finding out that it was going to be a really useful source for my dissertation.These selections of the text may not have had gorgeous decoration or interesting codicological tidbits, but it was nevertheless a thrill. Check it out - one of the parts that mentions Ramon Marti! 

Needless to say, I was a happy book nerd today. <3