Category: History

Book Review: Saint of the Day

Our pastor included  Saint of the Day (6th edition, Leonard Foley ed.) on his recommended reading list this past Advent.   I’ve never gone wrong in taking his advice, so when the book showed up on the Catholic Company’s review list, I saw my big chance.    The result was consistent with Father’s track record: Not something I would have chosen myself, but I’m glad to have given it a try.

Saint of the Day is a compilation of lives of saints spanning from the time of Jesus through our day.  Most entries are about one page front and back, and include a brief biography, a reflective commentary, and a quote which is either from that saint, or which is connected in some way with that saint’s life and teachings.   There are also entries for most (but not all) of the event-related feasts.  (Think: the Visitation or the Immaculate Conception.)

To answer the most common question I received while reading this book:  No, there is not an entry for every single day of the year.  So, for use as a daily devotional, it will meet many readers’ needs far more precisely than we would like to admit.

Because the entries are brief, the editors naturally had to be selective about what information to include.  The general pattern is this: If it is expected that the average reader already knows about the saint, the focus is on analysis and spiritual lessons to be learned.  If the saint is either relatively obscure or relatively new, the entry provides more concrete biographical details.  Certain major saints and events don’t make the book, either because they are too specialized (St. Genevieve – Patron Saint of Paris) or so well known they needn’t be discussed at all (Feast of the Incarnation).

I  found the book most helpful for learning about new saints — especially those newly canonized, but also some of the more obscure historic saints.   I found that if I already knew quite a lot about a saint, invariably the editors had chosen to leave out some crucial detail I thought terribly important.    I was also frustrated with some entries that omitted even bare biographical details such as where the saint lived, in favor of more reflective commentary.  For example, the entry for “Teresa of Jesus” never tells us that this Teresa of Avila — I was only sure they were one and the same because I happened to have The Way of Perfection sitting on the bathroom counter,  which work was mentioned in the “Teresa of Jesus” entry.

I was very happy to confirm the commentary is all 100% straight Catholicism — neither to the left nor the right.  Because the book was assembled from the work of many contributing authors, and because my mood is highly changeable, sometimes I found the quotes and reflections a little wanting, other times they seemed to be dead-on.  For many entries, the related quote comes from a papal encyclical or other modern church document. I found myself  frustrated at times by their ponderous style, but also glad the editors chose to introduce the reader to these momentous and undeniably relevant works.

I’m still looking for the perfect one-volume, general-interest saints book.   Saint of the Day takes an honest stab at that effort, and if it isn’t perfect, I wasn’t able to find another book on the shelves of my local catholic bookstore that did as well.   For the fairly informed catholic adult looking  for a combination devotional and historical brush-up, this is a sound choice.  It probably will not be the one book that meets all your needs, but it is reliably catholic, and certainly does what any good saints book will do:  it points you in the right direction.

Interesting article re: witchcraft, the church and the state.  Quick, readable, specific enough to be useful.  Can’t comment myself, but gives you some fodder for further study.  Will say that the info Mike Flynn gives does seem to coordinate with what I have read elsewhere.  (H/T to Mark Shea for posting the link.)

Letting Swift River Go

We read Letting Swift River Go this week at school.  Tells the story of the damming of the Swift River, from the perspective of a young girl whose home and town are dismantled to make way for the lake.

Well done, highly recommended for the check-out-at-your-local-library list.  My three-year-old sat still for it (hot-chocolate assisted) and all my big kids (5,7,9) listened with interest.    Fits well into mid-20th century American history (all ages), or for little kids, as part of the famous “my town” social studies topic, if you happen to have a dam of your own.   Covers the entire process from making-the-decision to lake-is-full.  I did need to explain to the kids that our local man-made lake was created for a different purpose (hydro-power) than the water project in the story.

More details available at the author Jane Yolen’s blog.

 

Cover art courtesy of Jane Yolen’s blog.

torture, surgery update

Entirely unrelated tidbits:

The Coalition for Clarity has two historical quotes of interest posted here. The first is St. Augustine, writing at the end of the Roman Empire of course; the second is Pope Nicolas I, writing in 886.

So many times history books try to sum up an entire society by what happened most.  Peering into the detailed lives of individuals gives a more accurate picture.

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And our other topic: For those who are looking here for an update: Aria is doing great, little finger is pinned back together and she’s a happy girl.  Especially since this whole event has been associated with the aquisition of new clothes.  Prayers for good results at the follow-up appointment Feb 8th much appreciated.

Booklet Report – Church & State . . .

The Relation of Church and the State in the Middle Ages

The Very Reverend Bede Jarret, OP, MA, STL

Requiem Press, 2005

ISBN 0-9758542-7-5

Whew.  So as you know, when it comes to philosophy, I really have just fallen off the turnip trunk.  Which  is a bit of a problem, because when I picked out this little booklet as part of my Req Press omnibus order in January, it looked like a perfectly nice essay on *history*.  Close: history of ideas.  Lent-a-claus sure was feeling lenty on me.

Luckily not a very long essay — the whole booklet is about 30 pages of comfortable middle-sized print – and entirely readable.  I couldn’t comment critically on it, but I could understand it.

Here’s what it is: A summary of how theologians have viewed the relationship of church and state from the founding of Christianity through the end of the middle ages, and how that relationship has worked in practice.  The goal is to puzzle out how the English Martyrs got into the position they did.  Seems obvious now, but apparently, as the publisher’s preface observes, even St. Thomas More didn’t initially believe that the papacy was a divine institution.

Now if your history-of-philosophy education was as sorry as mine, your knowledge on this topic might consist of two assumptions:

1) We enlightened people believe in the Separation of Church and State

2) People in the past believed in The Divine Right of Kings.

The Relation of Church and State walks you through a much more nuanced and detailed assessment of how Christian thought and practice has developed over the centuries.  It opens with this observation about why the question is a uniquely Christian one:

That the difficulty [of adjusting the relations of church and state] is wholly Christian can be seen if it be remembered (using the words in their present day sense) that to the pagan his State was his Church, and to the Jew his Church was his State.  In either view, they were not two powers, but one. . . . For the Christian, however, the problem was much more delicate, since he was brought up to look on both the Church and State as divinely authorized powers and to believe that the authority of both was from God.

Tricky, what with the king being Nero and all.

But it got even trickier after the Edict of Milan:

. . . when Christians were allowed freedom of worship, and when the Emperor himself became a catechumen.  The difficulty now was no longer the simple difficulty of heroic obedience to a persecuting government, but of adjusting obedience to two authorities which were both interested in the application of the moral law of Christ to life.

The essay details of how this tension was addressed through the centuries, and what legacy was available to the martyrs of the English Reformation.   I can’t tell you how completely or precisely the author covers the topic, because it is brand new to me.  But I will say that it is worth your attention, if you want a survey of ideas for an introduction.  (Or, if you are more knowledgeable, you want a nice argument.)

Curiously, the conclusion is that relationship of the papacy to the national monarchies remained incompletely resolved at the close of the middle ages.  Jarret concludes that the the right to invest the Bishops was won by the papacy.  The right to tax and judge the clergy was won by the national monarchies.  But one thorny issue remained open:

. . . the right to determine the character of the beliefs of the nation.  This was the wholly new problem which John Fisher, Thomas More and the rest had to settle for themselves.

Worth a look.  I won’t say it’s an essay for everybody; but if it is a topic that interests you, it’s a respectable start.  And manageable – ordinary mortals can read it, which cannot be said for all works of philosophy.

Oh and the most wonderful bit about Requiem Press’s edition:  *translations of all the Latin*. Ha.  Because you know back in 1928 when this paper was first presented, it was assumed you could just toss off bits of Latin and everyone would understand.  Turns out not only was my philosophy education deficient, but my Latin isn’t all that great either.  Go Req Press.  My heros.  Woohoo.

Slavery; Pens

Update:

Dr. Boli posted a direct link to the Medieval Manuscript Manual in the combox.  I haven’t tested it yet, but here it is: http://web.ceu.hu/medstud/manual/MMM/index.html

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Separate topics.  First, here’s a link to a helpful on article on the history of slavery, over at Inside Catholic.  (Thank you to Mark Shea for the link.)  Sumarizes the christian (catholic) relationship with slavery over the centuries, starting with Exodus and ending in the 16th century.  Topic I’ve wanted to learn more about; most of the books in my local public library don’t really begin until the 16th century.  Hard to think clearly about a topic when you don’t know much of the context.

Can’t offer any critical analysis on the Inside Catholic article, what with it being my introduction to the topic.  Will of course remind the reader to read the combox with a grain of salt.

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In other news, I made my first quill pen!  Woohoo!  Followed instructions found here and here.   Not nearly as hard as you would think.  I don’t say that I made a particularly good pen, nor that I write all that well (I’m no master of the ballpoint– expectations are low), but entirely doable.  And fun.

Used watercolor paper for the writing surface, what with there being a real shortage of parchmenters in my neighborhood.  (I do want to order some vellum just to see what it’s like, but have not done so yet.)  For ink we went with the something-suspended-in-egg-white method.  Didn’t have any soot lying around (will rectify that problem soon — Mr. Boy is eager to assist), so tried various substances from the spice cabinet.  And eventually discovered iodine will work in a pinch.

[Handy tip: if your experiments with various coloring agents lead to a lumpy mixture, use a tea ball to strain.]

Used craft feathers for my first attempt, and my trusty pocket knife as the cutting tool.   The kind of feathers you get for your YMCA projects — bright colors.  So my first ‘medieval’ quill is, um, purple.  Have some un-dyed feathers available for a more period look, but wanted to get the hang of the art before using them.   With any luck, will get to show off my handiwork at an SCA event here shortly.  Exciting.

Nice little online intro to the whole topic of medieval writing can be found at http://medstud.ceu.hu/ but then you have to search around to find the Medieval Manuscripts Manual in the Medieval Studies department’s publications.  Some weird feature that makes it so you can’t link directly.  Or I can’t, anyway.

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Most educational element of making a real quill pen: you understand why letters were formed as they were.  Had gotten some calligraphy books from the library over the holidays, and learned to write an approximation of a caroline miniscule, using a steel fountain pen.  Had a bit of trouble with remembering to form the letters using multiple strokes.  Ah, but use a quill pen, you get it.  Pen just doesn’t want to toss around the same way a steel tip will tolerate.  Likewise, it isn’t a matter of ‘remembering’ to hold pen at proper angle, etc., but of not being able to do it any other way except the right way.  Those quills are good teachers.

Figuring Out What’s What in Medieval French

I’ve been reading The Story of French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow on and off for a while now.  Picked it up from the library about a year or so ago and never got past the introduction; got it out again recently, and have been browsing through it in spurts.  Pleasantly surprised tonight to discover I have one more renewal left before it goes back, so I may yet make some headway.

I should say right now that if you pick up this book, go straight to a chapter that interests you.  I had to slog through the introduction (I’m not saying *you* shouldn’t read it, just saying, don’t judge a book by its intro), but was rewarded in chapter one with a great lesson on the basics of what-was-what in medieval french languages.

So far I’m up to p. 100 in the cover-to-cover reading of the book, but I’ve also skipped ahead and read some bits farther along, and it was all good.  Assuming you have at least a smidgen of background on the topic, you can pretty safely just pick up and read wherever you like, and come away entertained and educated.  You do not, by the way, need to know French — English translations provided for all the non-obvious French words tossed out as linguistic examples, and some of the obvious ones, too.  (Say you couldn’t figure out that the word zéro meant, er, zero?  Don’t worry, there’s a translation there for you on p. 30.)

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What struck me in reading the chapter on medieval ‘french’ is just how busy a time it was, linguistically.  By the year 800 a language distinct from latin had emerged, to the point that the church had to require homilies be given in the vernacular.  But this new language was both very local — not so much a unified language as a collection of more or less mutally understandable regional dialects — and vigorously international.  In addition to the exportation of Norman French to England with William the Conquerer, there was the development of the lingua franca, an italian-french dialect used in the mediterranean.

(Why did French become the, er, lingua franca of this region?  It was the dominant foreign culture.  Not unlike how the Amish call the rest of America ‘the English’, or a non-hispanic American might be called an ‘Anglo’, the Arabs apparently call all the crusaders, regardless of country of origin, ‘French’.)

–> And still more going on in addition to all that, over the five or so centuries that are especially middle of the middle ages.  Borrow the book and read Chapter 1 to get the introductory course.

There’s something worth understanding here.  When we think about language and geography and politics and culture, we Americans come from a perspective of a single highly standardized common language that has been fairly stable since as long as we can remember.  It is important in looking at medieval history and culture to understand that it was not this way then.  By getting a grasp of what was going on linguistically, we can avoid some common blunders in our historical analysis, and even hope to understand why certain elements of medieval society worked as they did.  Good stuff.  Well worth your time.

History Book Round-Up : “Discovering” America

‘Tis the season for talking about explorers, colonizers, and the people who had to deal with them.  Here are my four off-the-top-of-my-head favorite books to date.  The ones that if I need to quick grab something from the shelf, here’s what I grab.

(I should note that I will be grabbing from other people’s shelves: three from my local public library, and the fourth from my dad’s house. 3 of the 4 come with a ‘buy’ recommendation, but since I don’t have to do so myself, I won’t.)

Read all four, and you should be well on your way to being able to discuss all the hot Thanksgiving-related history topics that will be no doubt swirling around the table next week.

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Don’t Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned by Kenneth C. Davis

This one showed up on the New Books shelf of my local library either last winter or the year before, and I grabbed it despite myself.  From the title and cover it sounded like it was going to be one of those cute little wow-your-friends-with-trivia books written in large print with lots of bulleted lists of amazing factoids, destined to circle the internet in spamlets for years to come.  Not so.  Far from it.

Each chapter is devoted to a famous moment in American History, as usually taught in American public schools.  Columbus, Pilgrims, all that stuff.  (You can look at the table of contents on amazon).  The content is the setting-the-record-straight work that college professors do to incoming freshman, essentially filling in the details and nuances to stories that are too-often summarized in three sentences through most of k-12.

I think I must have found the book tedious at times — I had to make myself finish it for the purpose of being able to write a review.  For certain there are moments when Davis gets on roll and his politics start showing, especially when he steps beyond his area of expertise.  And of course if you read the book this week, you may find yourself an insufferable dinner companion at Thanksgiving next week when a well-meaning relative tries to tell the neices and nephews about ‘The story of Thanksgiving’ and you feel compelled to offer additions and corrections.

All that said, it is still a useful reference for anyone who is interested in US history but hasn’t been through a good college-level course lately.  Loaded with details and facts surrounding various controversial moments in US history.  If you have your brain intact and can therefore read critically and reserve the right to form your own opinion, this book is a good starting point for making the transition from a sound-bite ‘knowledge’ of history to a competent understanding of what actually happened, to whom, by whom, when and how.

–> I recommend it as a library find.  Not sure I’d pay for it (above and beyond my regularly scheduled tax dollars), but I’m glad I read it.

Mayflower 1620 published by the National Geographic Society is one we bring home every year from the library.  If I couldn’t get it there, I would buy it.  The topic is the historic voyage of the Mayflower, with photos from the travels of the living history group that re-enacted the trip. Lots of good, solid, detail-laden historic evidence.

Look for it in your children’s department, but the book would be of interest to anybody who wants a thorough primer on the topic. The text is for older-elementary years and up.  As a read-aloud to younger children, I find myself having to do way too much explaining.  Younger kids, however, will enjoy the photos, and you can tell a pared-down version of events as you browse.

(Nerd-person tip of the week: Because it is easily readable, illustrated with lots of captions, and interesting across age ranges, this would be a fun one to bring along to Thanksgiving, for the browsing pleasure of people who don’t do football, and are otherwise at a loss for post-dinner conversation.  If yours is the sort of family where perusing a history book could count as ‘fun’.  It probably is, if you read this blog.)

And here are two that longtime readers may remember:

I just re-posted my original review of Squanto’s Journey.   Excellent book, beautifully illustrated and told.  Best for middle-elementary age and up — a touch too detailed for little listeners.

And finally, moving off the whole Thanksgiving topic, but still very much concerned with the early encounters between europeans and native americans is the novel Cacique by Bishop Robert Baker.   Unless you’re from Florida (and even then) you may not have studied the history of the early spanish missions in that state.  This is a very fun way to learn a good bit about the topic, if you like breezy action-adventure tales.  (Who doesn’t?  And written by a real live catholic bishop, so you can feel virtuous for reading it.)  My original review is re-posted immediately below.

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That does it for this week.  Have a great Thanksgiving, and try to be gentle with your fellow diners as you whip out all your newly-acquired historical knowledge.

(re-post) Book Review of _Cacique_

And here’s another one for the round-up, originally posted on the old site in February 2007.

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Cacique: A Novel of Florida’s Heroic Mission HIstory

By Bishop Robert J. Baker with Tony Sands

St. Catherine of Sienna Press, 2006

ISBN-13:  978-0-9762284-4-8

ISBN-10:  0-9762284-4-0

www.bishopbaker.com

I sent this book to my dad for Christmas, thinking it was more his genre than mine.   The plan was for him to read it, and then if he thought I’d like it, I’d read it over vacation.   First part of the plan didn’t work out — Dad has been short on reading time lately — so we skipped directly to step 2.  I read it, it was good.

Bishop Baker’s novel (pronounced ca-SEE-kay) is a fictional account of a franciscan mission to the Potano tribe in northern Florida.  The genre is Hardy Boys meets Butler’s Lives. The writing is clear and concise, not artsy — the prose serves as a vehicle for the story, not the end in itself.

Unlike the Hardy brothers, the heroes in this story do actually grow old and even die, such that in order to cover the entire life of the mission, Bishop Baker uses a sucession of main characters.  We begin with Fr. Tomas, the young and determined priest who founded the mission which is the subject of the book.  We end with the perspective of Felipe-Toloca, the cacique of the Potano village at the time the mission is disbanded by the Spanish.    The transition from one principal character to the next flows smoothly, and helps build the overall study of the life of the mission, which lasted over 100 years.  In moving from generation to generation we gain a sense of the history of the community, as well as a meditation on the communion of saints.

Also unlike the Hardy boys, our heroes are concerned with more than just fighting crime in Bayport.  The overarching theme of the many adventures is nothing short of evangelization and the bringing about of the kingdom of God.  Here Bishop Baker does a great service for catholic characters everywhere, for once rendering a series of faithful catholic heroes — first and foremost a priest — whose interior life is solid and sound.   Their struggles are not with the holy faith, but with how to live out that faith in the particular time and place given to them.

The novel succeeds where history books sometimes fail, in keeping the people real.  Neither the Spanish nor the Indians are made out to be a homogeneous pool of Good Guys or Bad Guys; we get individuals of all stripes, none perfect, and none are beyond the hope of forgiveness, mercy and redemption.

One of the risks of historical fiction is that we learn more about the author than about history.  Those looking for clues into Bishop Baker’s secret thoughts will discover the same messages that he has proclaimed throughout the diocese in his public life.   None of this was heavy-handed in my opinion;  even if our heroes are extraordinary for their own time — or our time — they are nonetheless consistent in action and attitude with other missionary saints of the 1600’s.

If you like an action-packed adventure story, this one is fun.  There are martial arts, traps, disguises, battles, shipwrecks, the whole nine yards.  If you are looking for a peek inside the mind of a missionary priest, that’s there too.  And at the end of the book there is brief note about the history that inspired the novel, as well as a bibliography for those who want to do further research.

Good book, very readable, very enjoyable.

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And a bonus feature This book  deserves an award for making a major advance in the world of southern literature: It treats the landscape of northern Florida as if it were, well, a perfectly normal place to live.  No long odes to Spanish Moss or treatises on the humidity — mosquitoes are mentioned so infrequently you might temporarily forget where this story is set.  The land is simply there.  Alligators, springs, quicksand, palmettos — they are all present, but mentioned only when they are relevant to action at hand. There is a time and place, of course, for seeing a well-known landscape with the eyes of an outsider; but frankly it is a relief to see a novel that is not only set in the south, but told through southern eyes.

(re-post) Review of _Squanto’s Journey_

Rather than linking to the old site, putting the text of my review of Squanto’s Journey here.  Originally posted in November 2006.  Still a good book.  Part of my book round-up post coming in a few minutes.

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Squanto’s Journey: The Story of the First Thanksgiving
by Joseph Bruchac, illustrated by Greg Shed
Harcourt “Silver Whistle”, 2000.
ISBN 0-15-201817-4

In anticipation of Thanksgiving, I picked up a handful  of children’s books from the local library.  This is a good one.

The book tells the story of Squanto’s life from 1614 to 1621.  Each major element of the story is told on one page, with an accompanying painted illustration.  The perspective is firmly Native American, but in a positive way that is respectful of non-Indians.  Because the story ends at the time of the famous first Thanksgiving, it is up to the parents to fill in the ensuing history.

In its precision and thoroughness, the book includes Indian names that may be unfamiliar to those learning this history in detail for the first time.  There is a glossary in the back, but unfortunately it does not include a pronunciation guide.  So if you are reading aloud, be prepared to have to do some sounding-out as you go.  Also, because of the detailed nature of the account, it will be helpfu to summarize what is happening as you go along, to keep track of the story, especially for younger listeners.  As a result, though, this book would be quite helpful to an older student (junior high through college aged) that wanted an approachable summary of these events.  The Author’s Note at the end of the book gives some interesting background on how the story was researched.

In all, just a lovely book.  It would make a nice jumping-off point for students all of ages to study this part of American history.