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Cosmic Egg

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The Trinity in the Unity, and The Cosmic Egg Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias , II.ii and I.iii Rüdesheim/Eibingen, Benediktinerinnenabtei St. Hildegard, MS 1, fols. 47r and 14r Act I, scene i  1 A band of crystal lit with heaven’s fire burst o’er the earth and flashed across the plain, reverberating through the raining pyre of stories sung in cities built by Cain. A pinioned cloud danced rings around the flame, its cooing harmonized with chords of grace. A deep base note encoded love reclaimed from kingdom’s fall of mankind’s ancient race. The resonating wings revealed a clouded face.   2 The pigeon ether undulated free, an orchestra of feathers white as frost. The wingéd loom descended on the sea; from light it spun a subatomic cross. Bright feathers knit atomic Helios, while oscillating sparks set fire to quills. Reverberating wings turned light to dust. The looming man from loom that seemed to trill emerged in flesh from cloud of sapphire-blue beryl.   3 The chorus swelle...
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The Forge of Tolkien

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I first read The Lord of the Rings  when I was eleven. My mother gave me the boxed set (see above) for Christmas, and I read all four books in one trip to our grandparents’ house by New Year’s. Imagine my 11-year-old self struggling with the hobbits across Middle-earth as my mother drove us across the middle of America from Kentucky to Texas (and back again), and you will get some sense of the effect that it had on me. Of all the things that drew me to become a medieval historian, reading (and re-reading, and re-reading, and re-reading) Tolkien is at the top of the list, although it took me decades to admit it. Tolkien lived in my imagination somewhere between stories I remembered reading as a child and my first (magical) visit to England with a school trip in high school—not really real, certainly not the stuff of serious scholarship. Latin and Chartres drew me to study the history of medieval Christianity, not elves, hobbits and dwarves. Or so I told myself. And then...
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President Obama is a bully and a show-off who thinks that he is the only one who knows how to make tough decisions. Governor Romney has a pleasant voice and kind eyes, and he listens when other people are talking.
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Welcome to my Random Laypersons ! Welcome to the VFM, welcome to the Dread Ilk, welcome to the Reprehensibles, welcome to the Unauthorized , and welcome to the Bears!  This is the History Course you have been waiting for!  Or, rather, it will be, as soon as I get some feedback from you. I was greatly encouraged when Vox asked you the other night about whether you would be interested in such a course and so many of you said, “Yes—as long as it is real  history!” As Fencing Bear would put it, “ Three cheers !”  We are thinking about having a video a week, starting this summer.  The first question that I have is about format. What kind of format would make for a good course online?  What I do not want is to have these videos simply be lectures, the canonical professor-talks-while-the-students-doze lectures you get in the movies before the professor starts encouraging the students to stand on their desks.   I wan...
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Talking Points: Three Cheers for White Men

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1. When white women (see Marie de France and Eleanor of Aquitaine) invented chivalry and courtly love , white men agreed that it was better for knights to spend their time protecting women rather than raping them, and even agreed to write songs for them rather than expecting them to want to have sex with them without being forced. 2. When white men who were celibate (see the canon lawyers and theologians of the twelfth century and thereafter) argued that marriage was a sacrament valid only if both the man and the woman consented , white men exerted themselves to become good husbands rather than expecting women to live as their slaves. 3. When white women (see Christine de Pizan, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the suffragettes) invented feminism , white men supported them (see John Stuart Mill) and even went so far as to vote (because only men could vote at the time) to let them vote, not to mention hiring them as workers and supporting their education. And before you start telling me a...
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