She was my professor and she was WONDERFULLY intelligent, kind and funny! I dreaded taking a class on Arthurian lit and came out LOVING it. I adore this woman
It's good to get out though haha. For some reason people keep asking questions like "How did people in the past deal with X then?" when they doubt the efficacy or importance of something we currently have that they didn't have in the past (IE Vaccines, etc.). And the answer a lot of times is that. They just dealt with it. However bad it may be. And it often sucked. "People have been giving birth since humans were around, natural is best!" I mean, people have also been dying in child birth since humans were around too. Frequently. They also died of disesases we have vaccines for all the time. They also had terrible diets, not some idealized "natural" diet that is perfectly designed for them. Life was just harder and had a lot less value in the past and we take almost all modern advances for granted because we frequently don't have any other context. When we DID live through the other option, we tend to be more supportive of the advances. Most people that are old enough to remember Polio and TB and Measels and so on being massive epidemics that crippled and killed millions don't end up anti-vaxx for instance simply because they remember what it was like before widespread adoption of vaccines.
She must not know much about ancient Roman history though. Arturius is an ancient Roman name, and there is circumstantial evidence that "Arthur" was part of a family of an ancient Roman aristocracy in Britain that took power when the Romans left; that is until the Saxons invaded.
In those times there was no printing press and the materials for such manuscripts would've been costly to obtain since they predate the use of paper, also you have to consider how detailed the illustrations were.
the note is in Latin, and apparently says "Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during the night in Daventer. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others too. And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come."
Check out the great courses plus, she has a whole series about the black death. It's presented more formally than this video but it's still worth checking out.
I was about to say the same but for Portuguese. Turns out the problem is English didn't have ortographic reforms so their written language didn't keep up with the way people speak.
If you google image search, you have to remember that arrow as a symbol for pointing is very recent, so you have these lovely images of drawn pointing fingers on stained papers.
7:20 Adding to that: People also had different hygiene habits up until the late 19th century. It wasn't necessary to wash the body so often because clothes weren't made out of plastic (making them sweat more) but had multiple layers including cotton undergarments which absorb moisture and are washed.
@@bob8776 Wool is an excellent insulator. Bedouins wear wool exclusively and live in the Sahara. Before synthetics, baseball uniforms were made of wool.
In Europe it was linen which was the main underlayer, you'd wear a white or undyed linen shift or shirt underneath your woollen gown or tunic which would be washed daily and the woolens would only need spot cleaning if you spilled something on them.
@@bob8776you’re confusing modern woollens with medieval cloth. The cloth was much finer and therefore less “heating” (look at super 100 wool cloth for instance) also wool is naturally hygienic and requires less washing than modern fabrics, which don’t allow the body to breathe…..
And that practice continued up to the invention of the light bulb. I've heard that references to the "second sleep" were edited out of georgian novels such as Jane Ayre
A queen who not only divorced her husband, but got quickly remarried and had several sons, among them the famous Richard Lionheart, but she also lived to 80yrs old!? That's a lifetime achievement award!
She was legitimately one of the most powerful European women in history, her influence and wealth were almost unmatched by ANYONE of any gender. Really an incredible historical figure.
a great source of history and archaeology is the Time Team and Absolute History (and associates) channels. Loads of medieval and earlier stuff. Very entertaining
@@valeriataylor8337 And knowledge-enhancing! On so many levels, including how there always will be certain gatekeepers in any subject that are a hindrance for universal knowledge and understanding...
what i love is how that story entered folklore! I have received several copypastas in my emails back in the day, and later on social media, about this tale - some details changed, like the profession of the man and the breed of the dog, but it was basically the same story. Our capacity for storytelling is fascinating!
I took a class in Chaucer, a core requisite, and we had to memorize and recite the first 18 lines of Canterbury Tales... so when I was practicing my pronunciation, everyone said I sounded like I was reciting in some mix of German and French. But hearing Dorsey speak in Medieval English just reignited all those struggling memories LOL
You are seriously needed at every get together where folks are standing around trying to come up with something to talk about. I mean that as a compliment.
Don't know if anyone else has commented but the story of the sainted greyhound is almost identical to a story in medieval Cymru (Wales) about a dog called Gelert. In fact, you can visit where his grave is meant to be in a village in North Cymru called 'Beddgelert' which translates as Gelert's grave.
@@benn454 a,e,i,o,u AND y and w are vowels, the welsh have more vowels than you... you might think you're seeing too many consonants, but dd is one letter making a hard "th" noise, welsh has lots of digraphs, ch, ll, rh, ff, dd, ng, ph, th. They make no more unusual sounds than english uses 2 letters together, the language started off orally, so the written was made to match the verbal, and why would one sound be more than one letter even if a letter was in the shape of what other countries would think of as 2?
Professor Armstrong is one of my favorite instructors on Great Courses Plus -- her Black Death courses, especially her more recent updated course, with latest research results, is amazing! SHE'S amazing!
On the "animal drawing" question, I have to add that animals are difficult to draw: unlike with people, you can't get an animal to holds a pose for you. Before photography, artists relied a lot on dead / taxidermies animals to draw animals.
And in case of exotic animals, sometimes only on the witness description. So it is actually quite impressive if people who never saw an animal were able to somehow accurately draw it.
On a more serious note, they actually believed animals didn't have souls and thus were lesser than humans. You can't make something without a soul a saint. I personally believe the dog was far more worthy of sainthood than most legitimate saints.
I love how this RU-vid channel introduces me to people who have careers in things I did not think would exist and have passions I did not know you could actually pursue.
I’m sorry but I was just going to put this on for something lighthearted in the background but instead sat glued to the tv screen while I sat on my couch completely absorbed by her, this was just fascinating. She is an incredible storyteller!
Internet: "Did Medieval artists even know what cats looked like?" Me, glancing sideways at _Garfield,_ _The Cat in the Hat,_ _Tom and Jerry,_ and the entire _Cats_ movie: "Do MODERN artists know what cats look like?"
The key thing to remember is that we humans are the same as 'we ever were', too. Biologically, we're identical to the Stone Age nomads that figured out you could bury plant parts to get more plant parts. 90% of human civilization is 'just' amassed knowledge, passed on orally, then in writing, and nowadays digitally. If you were to delete all history, knowledge, writing and the internet, we would pretty much be back in 10.000BC overnight, just with a lot more weird metal stuffs laying around.
In high school (back in the middle ages LoL), my love -- no, *adoration* -- of mediaeval history was born because of an exceptional teacher such as this 'Wired' Professor! Knowledgeable, enthusiastic, passionate about history, always painting an almost cinematic picture in her lessons, and just plain fun...a real treasure. If more teachers were like her, I'm *certain* history would be a much more beloved subject everyone would want to ace 📚💜
My High School history teachers were so dry, i could barely stay awake in class. I have learned more history by watching the History channel and others on cable TV than i did in school.
@@unclej3910 LoL same here! In all fairness, though, most of my history teachers were like that too! But then this one exceptional one came along and changed my world...and that's why *GREAT* teachers are so important! 🌟
Dr. Armstrong made me fall in love with medieval history twenty years ago with her book on gender and chivalry. She's also done an incredible series on the Black Death. My favorite historian hands down.
@@ash_speaker I agree. She's amazing. Truly incredible. I trust her "take" on the available clues/evidence more than anyone else. This lady seems cool too, and you are demonstrating good taste with Beard, so I will check her out.
I’m so glad she’s more Eleanor Janega than Rachel Fulton-Brown. I assume you’re familiar with Eleanor’s Going Medieval blog? If not, definitely worth a read!
We're probably the first generations of mankind that hasn't spent a lot of time observing the night sky. I envisioned farmers and herders that needed to stay up to watch their flocks but that doesn't explain the astronomers such as Galileo. People having different sleep patterns makes sense. Really enjoyed the discussion, it was educational and very easy to listen to.
On the plus side, a husky could probably sway a jury. They are among the more "talkative" of breeds and could convincingly paint others (including their owners) as the true villain.
Hi Professor Armstrong, Your class on the plague on Great Courses got me through the first few months of COVID. My Mom had just died, and I’m a nurse in an acute care hospital, donut was a real low point for me. Thank you!
@@TootlesTart Because : (1) "French" is how the Franks (also a germanic tribe) used to pronounce vulgarised-Latin words, that ended up becoming the French language (2) Because William the Conqueror (who spoke French) changed English forever, after his conquest and the replacement of Saxon overlords by Angevin and Normandic overlords. Arf, Americans, do you guys even go to schools ?
Dr. Armstrong is an awesome medievalist. My favorite professors as an English major were usually the ones who focused on medieval art, history, or literature. The Old English dirty riddles, the silly Canterbury Tales, the Romanesque architecture we had at UCLA, the history of mystics and witches, illustrated manuscripts. love stories like the one of Heloise and Abelard, the history of Islamic Spain… what is NOT to love about the Middle Ages?!
You got the good ones then. I had one who ended up getting the sack because she'd basically given up on life and that was how she taught. I have ADHD and you put that together with the most boring lecturing known to mankind and an archaic form of English that requires a certain level of translation and you get 😖😖😖
Atheist- Humanist use term "Dark Ages" to boast their atheistic-Humanist view is better than religious view in Renaissance. Ignoring the renaissance only can be existing only within Christian values.
I was looking at RU-vid videos, mostly drivel, and I came across this video posted at a site called “Medieval Support.” Every moment of this video was a refreshing delight to experience, fascinating. It was immediately obvious that Dr. Dorsey Armstrong is exceptionally well educated and articulate. Thank you Dr. Armstrong!
I would listen to her talk for hours. Please bring her back. Does she have a RU-vid channel?? A university where she lectures?? Should I get a degree in medieval studies???
I love the question regarding the favorite mediaeval castle! One of the most beautiful (in my opinion) is the Castillo de Gormaz in Soria, Spain, whose construction started during the Califato de Córdoba in the 10 century. It is now mostly ruins, but it is vast, and the view is incredible-you can understand why they chose to build a fortress there!
This video is so satisfying for my love of history in so many ways. It was kind of a bummer to hear the question that was basically “how could anyone have fun before modern fun/technology” though. Though I enjoy having the internet at my fingertips, there were so many ways to keep entertained before its advent! We don’t need the eternal scroll to feel fulfilled and that’s just as true then as it is now!
I'm officially obsessed with this iconic professor. Her attitude and knowledge are off the charts, and I found this video so incredibly interesting. If I had lessons in History like this at school, I would have been so much more engaged
Privacy existed a long time before that. Most people didn't live in big cities and if you wanted some privacy, you could just go for a walk and have all the privacy you desire. And even still, a good fireplace usually attracts many people around it.
@@desyncer yes and no, privacy as the concept we think of today is very modern. Big cities are what truly allow privacy, for small villages made everyone identifiable and anonymity impossible. Before that, privacy existed to refer to private property or the opposite of public domains. But privacy, as being let alone and have secrets or confidential information was very hard to achieve during this time. Just think about how the catholic confession was one of many ways society used to disrupt the idea of a private life ;)
A cat peeing on a manuscript and the monk naming exactly which cat did the deed is relatable in a probably universal, cross-temporal way 😂 We are all humans!
Get this woman a television show! Good god, you can tell most of her comments are getting cut off b/c they go too long. I wanna hear the full explanation. The History channel needs to dump the reality TV crap and start recruiting people like this!
Professor Armstrong is amazing and entertaining!! I would love to be in one (or more) of her classes!! I wasn’t even sure why this was in my recommended, but I’m so glad I clicked on it!!! 😊
simply amazing! next would be a 3 hour video in same format! :D SUCH an interrresting time in human history! REALLY like the the short precise answers , that keeps out all overexplaing:D Great video!
If anyone is curious about the pronunciation of Middle English, I'd encourage you to also learn about the Great Vowel Shift, which is why a lot of the vowel sounds the professor makes sound completely different. It began in the 14th century, so more towards the end of the Middle ages. This is a very rough summary of this, but basically all long vowels charted on the English vowel diagram essentially shifted up a position, which also means tongue placement changed. However there are articulatory limits, so slowly modern English developed diphthongs, or 2 combined vowel sounds, like the /ai/ in bite. To get a rough idea of what Middle English sounded like, you need to reconstruct it by reversing these vowel changes. House, which has the diphthong /ou/, now becomes /hoose/. The GVS is immense and explains why English is so messed up even for native speakers. lmao I'm a linguistics major and I'd use IPA for more scientifically accurate examples, but not everyone can read IPA, so don't judge me. ):
When I was teaching Middle English to native speakers of Slavic languages (and I'm a Russian native speaker myself), my go-to explanation was to read every letter like a first-grader Slavic kid would, because as children we automatically associate A, O, E etc with our own vowels, which are more or less like the Spanish or Italian ones.
@@imokin86 Yes, Spanish has what are called 'true' vowels in that there are no changes in sound based on word environment. Modern English has 5 vowels, but 14 vowel sounds at minimum, which obviously change based on the dialect. I teach ESL in China and I constantly use exercises to break the students out of the habit of associating Chinese vowel sounds to English. So we start by discerning between long and short vowels, then as they get older it becomes more complex. Thank you for sharing your experience--I am a native Spanish speaker and I kinda prefer the simplicity. Haha
Her advice to take all the vowels and pronounce them as in French and to pronounce every letter isn't very helpful. She proves that by not following those rules in her examples, beginning with "wife" where her "silent e" is a good demonstration of the GVS effect you mentioned.
Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians (of Last Kingdom fame) was instrumental in the founding of England, which profoundly altered the course of human history. Her Mercian armies conquered the northern half of the Danelaw and she peacefully secured the submission of the Danes in York. The consummation of this deal would've effectively created England in 918, nearly two decades before her nephew ultimately achieved it on the battlefield at Brunanburh. Sadly she died right after and the deal fell apart. The fact that it did I think speaks to the weight of her influence. The Northumbrian Danes submitted to her, not to King Edward. The show takes many liberties with the truth, but Aethelflaed was an incredible woman. Her impact on history is severely underappreciated IMO. I love Eleanor, she's amazing, but I'd make a case for Aethelflaed being even more impactful.
@SanityTV_Last_Sane_Man_Alive That's a really vulgar way to describe it. Besides, it's not like a noblewoman in the middle ages had any other options than marriage.
No she wasn't. There was Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth, that infamous Chinese pirate, and countless others. This lady just had some kids that became kings. If that's all it takes then what about the virgin Mary?
16:28 - Objection! The Vikings weren't that stupid. When they entered the churches and saw the expensive religious symbols, they for sure would have figured out what sort of building it was. If not long before that.
they took slaves as spoils as well, and learned of christian culture through them. old english and norse weren't actually that different so they would have been able to understand each other with some difficulty
I feel like I got something to correct here: The term middle ages isn't all that new. The term came about with the emergence of humanism in 14th century Italy (originally in latin as medium aevum) which would then develop into the renaissance a bit later. With the middle ages by our modern understanding ending some time around the late 15th or early 16th century, depending on which event you wanna pin it onto, this means that the term middle ages is in fact medieval, though it should be mentioned that the humanists who invented the term considered the middle ages to have just ended.
