Books: The Year 1000

September 7, 2006

I spent the last few days leisurely reading The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger. It was a somewhat indulgent easy popular history about what it sounds like–a day in the life of someone in 1000 a.d. What it really served as was a good survey for me to make some notes about things I want to know more about that happened back then: the four humors (blood, phlegm, red choler and black bile) that were purported to make up the human body; Alefric, the monk-teacher who lived in the shadow of the titillating Cerne Abbas giant (snicker); the Cerna Abbas giant itself, for godsake!; The Norman Invasion).

I suffered (if you will) a series of “oh, jeez, duh” moments that were fun if humbling.

Like this, which I had, um, never put together before: Norsemen -> Normans -> Normandy.

Less “duh” and more “oh, huh”: the word sheriff comes from a contraction of “shire reeve”–that man (presumably male) in charge of the shire in Medieval England.

Oh, those wily and intriguing Anglo-Saxons.

Next: Either dabbling in Greek history or poetry, or something just for fun.

2 Comments

  1. Anonymous says:

    For more Anglo-Saxon words, try reading Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf. It includes the old English text.

  2. Lyza says:

    Ooh! I did–about 2 years ago. I loved it. I even was inspired to check out books about the Anglo-Saxon language. Thanks for the recommendation.

    Another fun read: Grendel by John Gardner. Modern work, but amazing.

Related Posts

Scipio the Computer has deemed that these might be similar in content!
Wonderful games with Caslon