探花直播 of Cambridge - 17th century

Early foster care gave poor women power, 17th-century records reveal

ta385 — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 05:45:00 +0000

A rare collection of 300-year-old petitions gives voice to the forgotten women who cared for England鈥檚 most vulnerable children while battling their local authorities.

Samuel Pepys鈥� fashion prints reveal his love of fancy French clothes

ta385 — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 05:00:00 +0000

A collection of French fashion engravings offers precious new insights into the life of Samuel Pepys years after his premature final diary entry. 探花直播prints show the tailor鈥檚 son remained fascinated by the power of fashion long after he had secured wealth and status. But they also expose Pepys鈥� internal conflict over French style.

Opinion: There鈥檚 no such thing as a natural-born gambler

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 15:04:35 +0000

探花直播fight to recruit online gamblers in the UK is at fever pitch. If you googled 鈥減lay live blackjack鈥� in March, it cost an advertiser 拢148.51 to be the first ad that came up. In fact, 77 of March鈥檚 top 100 most expensive keywords were about gambling. With this relentless clamour to grab attention, you might think gambling was hardwired into human nature; that we were doomed to cave in to the enticements of bookmakers and casinos.

In truth, huge swathes of the planet just didn鈥檛 gamble. No cards, no dice, not even a coin flip, and we鈥檙e not talking about a thousand years ago either; in some areas it is just 50 years since gambling arrived. We can say with confidence that 150 years ago betting on contests was absent from the indigenous peoples of most of South America, almost all of Australia, most of the Pacific Islands including the vast islands comprising New Guinea and New Zealand, most Inuit and Siberian peoples, and a great many peoples of southern Africa.

My own fieldwork in Highland Papua New Guinea showed the introduction of gambling occurred in the 1950s 鈥� in other words, within living memory. If whole populations don鈥檛 or didn鈥檛 gamble, well it can鈥檛 very well be a universal human trait. So why didn鈥檛 they?

Those looking for an easy answer would say that these people were isolated and marginal, but we know that was not the case at all. For instance, there have been huge polities spanning the Amazon, and trade networks that bridged the Pacific well before Captain Cook. How easy it would have been to pick up some dice, or make them when you got home.

On a roll. Christa Lohman/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

聽

Risk aversion

You might well counter that these people were just isolated from 鈥渦s鈥�. In fact, contact with the West and the presence of gambling just don鈥檛 correlate.

But lets say that non-gamblers were too far removed from the great gambling traditions to pick it up directly, despite the evidence. 探花直播enormous variety of gambling and the breadth of forms it has taken across the world both in the past and today strongly suggests that gambling is not a hard idea to invent. 探花直播real question should therefore be why was gambling not worth inventing or adopting? Under what conditions is gambling a silly idea?

Another piece of common wisdom says that gambling is more prevalent among people who face greater risk in their lives, but this is not the answer either. While the correlation holds for some people in some countries that already gamble, many of the peoples who didn鈥檛 gamble at all had a far riskier time of things than peoples who do.

So there is nothing innate about gambling that simply must bubble to the surface, but this doesn鈥檛 mean gambling addiction is not real or serious either. Many of those indigenous peoples who once didn鈥檛 gamble now have very high levels of problem gambling. It is one thing to say gambling is not in our genes, and quite another to say that some people aren鈥檛 predisposed to develop a dependency on gambling when it is around them.

Gambling鈥� Summer Fete style. David Edwards/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

聽

If it wasn鈥檛 isolation, and it wasn鈥檛 lack of risk, or lack of imagination, why have many of us gambled so much while many others who didn鈥檛 at all have now taken it up so quickly? Simple. We have money and a stratified society with a lot of economic inequality and they didn鈥檛.

Easy money

Money may seem a self-evident thing, but it is surprisingly hard to make a hard and fast distinction between what we all know to be money and things like shell currencies. Like money itself, its definition can easily slip through our fingers. What people who have adopted money tell anthropologists, however, is that what matters is that money has more uses, is more portable, more easily hidden, and easier to spend. Many people in those societies that were new to money took up gambling as a way to access or direct this slippery new kind of wealth.

Inequality is another good indicator for gambling, both statistically and on the ground. Where I did my fieldwork, gambling arrived with the return of the first migrant labourers, young men who, along with a knowledge of gambling, brought back what seemed like huge wealth, and who had the potential to upend traditional hierarchies.

As with so many non-gambling societies, it was new inequalities that made gambling seem a good idea for some. And for all its problems, one has to admit that it is a very exploratory, profound way to engage with money. In gambling, by mutual agreement, players pit their monies against each other, making less into more (or more into less) while cutting out the laborious market system. This also explains why Mao Tse-Tung and the leaders of so many other communist (read anti-inequality) uprisings made banning gambling a first priority.

Turning in his grave.. Steven Woodward/Flickr

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Joining the game

What does all this tell us about our lust for online gambling, which seems so lucrative for Google as well as the betting firms? We have been gambling for a long time, long enough for it to seep into our collective psyche and appear completely natural, but as recently as medieval times our kings blamed our gambling on French influence.

We have gone through fits and spurts of gambling, but probably the most important was in the 17th century, when mercantilism upset the economic order of the day, while new forms of accurate measurement and a more widespread currency system spurred us to think more in numbers, bending our minds towards gambling.

It is certainly profitable for the gambling industry that we think of ourselves as a nation of instinctive gamblers. But think again. That the risk taker in us becomes an online gambler tells us much more about how we internalise present day economic inequality and the way technology makes money ever easier to spend than it does about our animal instincts.

Anthony J. Pickles, Research Fellow in Anthropology at Trinity College, 探花直播 of Cambridge

This article was originally published on 探花直播Conversation. Read the original article.

探花直播opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the 探花直播 of Cambridge.

Anthony聽Pickles (Division of Social Anthropology) discusses why gambling is a relatively modern invention.

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.聽 All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

How artisans used colour printing to add another dimension to woodcuts

amb206 — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 16:59:06 +0000

探花直播fearsome dragon is dead, its body contorted and mouth hanging open. Above it, a triumphant St George sits astride a splendid horse. He wears full armour, his legs thrust forward, spurs glinting and lance聽held high. Atop his helmet, impossibly elaborate plumes and feathers cascade upwards and outwards.聽In the background, a city perches on a mountain top, silhouetted against a glowering sky.

This opulent image, worked in black and gold on a blue background, is one of the earliest European examples of colour printing used in fine art. It was created in 1507 by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472鈥�1553) at the request of his patron, Friedrich III, Elector of Saxony. 聽Artisans working for Cranach, whose initials are worked into the design, used two wood blocks (black and gold) to print his masterful design of a horse and rider on to paper pre-painted with indigo. 探花直播medieval imagery contrasts with the strikingly modern Renaissance technology.

Cranach鈥檚 print is one of 31 German Renaissance woodcuts and a single drawing currently on display at the British Museum in an exhibition of early colour printing. All come from the British Museum鈥檚 collection but few have been shown to the public before. Together, they chart the ways in which advances in early print technology opened up new avenues for artists in creating a sense of movement, depth and opulence not possible in black and white.

探花直播exhibition German Renaissance Colour Woodcuts has been curated by Dr Elizabeth Savage (Faculty of English and Department of History of Art). Her pioneering research into archival collections in Germany and the UK, combined with her detailed grasp of the medium of woodblock printing, challenges accepted thinking about the use of colour in woodcuts, a craft-based technology associated almost exclusively with black-and-white or monochrome images.

When colour does appear in early woodcuts (for example St Dorothea and the Christ-Child, c.1450-1500) it has generally been applied by hand as a secondary process, often as a wash to draw attention to a significant aspect of the design. Given the considerable technical difficulties of colour printing using wood blocks, it was long assumed that colour printing did not develop on any significant scale until 1700, when Jakob Christoff Le Blon (1667-1741) invented a way to print all natural colours using only blue, red, yellow and black. His method became our CMYK: cyan, magenta, yellow, 鈥榢ey鈥� (black), following his order. Scholars thus assumed that early colour prints were extremely rare and judged them to be unrepresentative 鈥榦utliers鈥�.

Close analysis of colour images by Savage now reveals that, throughout the 1500s, thousands (and perhaps tens of thousands) of colour prints were in circulation in European countries. Furthermore, the range of colour woodblock prints in production varied from costly images, commissioned and collected by wealthy patrons, to more affordable 鈥榤ass-produced鈥� prints designed to decorate the surfaces of furniture and the interiors of homes whose owners hankered after the latest styles of intarsia and marquetry 鈥� effects created by laborious and highly skilled inlay techniques.

One reason why so many colour prints have hidden in plain sight is that colour can be mistaken for paint. When the surfaces of prints are examined by an expert eye a different story may emerge. For instance, the pressure of the press often leaves tell-tale marks like indenting the design into the paper, forcing 鈥榠nk squash鈥� into a raised outline, even giving the paper an almost sculptural relief. Savage collaborated with Gwen Riley Jones, a specialist in imaging gold at the 探花直播 of Manchester, to document the surface texture of the portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1519) by Hans Weiditz (c.1500鈥揷.1536). It can now be identified as the sixth image printed with gold in early modern Europe.

探花直播development of colour printing may have been technology-led, emerging from the workshops in the German cities of Augsburg and Strasbourg, among others, where competitive, innovative printers developed new ways to make their books stand out. But, in order to flourish, these advances required the backing of rich and powerful individuals whose status was closely tied to the conspicuous (and competitive) consumption of the latest in luxury goods, from textiles to prints.

鈥� 探花直播British Museum holds one of the world鈥檚 largest collections of colour prints, including unique examples from late medieval and early modern Germany. Early printers vied with each other to achieve stunning colouristic effects 鈥撀�500 years before the advent of Photoshop,鈥� says Savage. 鈥淲e think of prints as being exactly repeatable black outlines on white paper, but some survive in many as 30 very different palettes. Their printers developed inks in royal blues, baby pinks, dusky oranges, lush greens, rich burgundies to create endless variety and unprecedented three-dimensional effects.鈥�

Three prints, displayed side by side, illustrate how rivalry between members of the ruling elite stimulated important developments in colour printing. When in 1507 Friedrich III in Wittenberg sent images by Cranach of 鈥渒nights printed from gold and silver鈥� to his friend and competitor collector, the imperial advisor Konrad Peutinger in Augsburg, 聽he created a friendly contest between two major artistic centres with artists and artisans stretching their skills to the limit in the quest for the most impressive image.

In response to the receipt of Cranach鈥檚 St George, Peutinger sent Friedrich a pair of larger colour woodcuts of St George and Maximillian I on horseback designed by Hans Burgkmair the Elder (1473鈥�1531). With these woodcuts, Peutinger demonstrated that his Augsburg artists and craftsmen were able to outdo Frederick鈥檚 ostentatious effort. 鈥淔riedrich and Peutinger鈥檚 glittering exchange jump-started colour printing on a scale that we are only now beginning to appreciate,鈥� said Savage. 鈥淚t鈥檚 mind-boggling that one of Peutinger鈥檚 technicians corresponded directly with the Holy Roman Emperor about colour printing. Like Cranach鈥檚 nearly 24-karat gold printing ink on flimsy paper, it suggests the incredible value of these vivid breakthroughs.鈥�

That extraordinary, short-lived, pre-Reformation heyday is thought to be the whole story, but Savage鈥檚 research recasts it as a short chapter. Dozens of colour impressions of German prints were known, by just a few artists, from the 1510s. This exhibition hints at the thousands of colour prints, circulating in perhaps tens of thousands of impressions, which were made and used across Germany. Rather than dying out before the Reformation, later European adaptions attest that the craft knowledge and market demand survived for generations and even spread abroad.

All prints are team efforts, with the artist normally considered the main producer. In the exhibition curated by Savage, the printer is the star player. Two colour impressions by Albrecht D眉rer (1471鈥�1528) and one by Hans Holbein (c.1497鈥�1543) are on display, but neither ever designed a colour print. Instead, printers commissioned others to design and cut tone blocks to accompany the great masters鈥� 鈥榥ormal鈥� woodcuts. As a woodcut, D眉rer鈥檚 portrait of Ulrich Varnb眉ler (1522) is a 16th-century German masterpiece; as a colour print, it鈥檚 a triumph of 17th-century Dutch marketing.

探花直播exhibition鈥檚 focus on printers, not artists, expands an apparently small and sporadic fine art movement into an ever-growing wave. Savage said: 鈥淧eople prayed with them, collected them, learned from them, decorated with them, upgraded cheap wooden furniture with them. Few were as stunning as Cranach鈥檚 golden, saintly knight, which is precisely the point. We鈥檝e forgotten that colour woodcuts were normal, not exceptional, in the 鈥榞olden age鈥� of print.鈥�

German Renaissance Colour Woodcuts is on display in Room 90 on the fourth floor of the British Museum until Wednesday, 27 January 2016.

Inset images: Anonymous (German), St Dorothy of Caesarea and the Christ-child in an Apple Tree, c.1450-1500, British Museum 1895,0122.18, presented by William Mitchell聽漏探花直播Trustees of the British Museum and courtesy of the Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care, 探花直播 of Manchester;聽Attr. Hans Weiditz, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, 1519, British Museum 1862,0208.55 漏探花直播Trustees of the British Museum and courtesy of the Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care, 探花直播 of Manchester; left:聽Albrecht D眉rer, Ulrich Varnb眉ler, 1522, British Museum 1895,0122.739, presented by William Mitchell, centre and right: later editions printed with new tone blocks by Willem Jansz. Blaeu, c.1620, British Museum 1857,0613.345 and 1857,0613.345, 漏探花直播Trustees of the British Museum.

An exhibition of early colour printing in Germany shines a light on the ways in which technology jump-started a revolution in image making. 探花直播British Museum show is curated by Dr Elizabeth Savage, whose research makes a radical contribution to an understanding of colour in woodcuts.

Friedrich and Peutinger鈥檚 glittering exchange jump-started colour printing on a scale that we are only now beginning to appreciate

Elizabeth Savage

漏探花直播Trustees of the British Museum, courtesy of the Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care, 探花直播 of Manchester

Cranach George 1895,0122.264 37044001

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

What is so unusual about a sloth鈥檚 neck?

amb206 — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 09:58:52 +0000

Scroll to the end of the article to listen to the podcast.

Xenarthra is an order of primarily South American mammals that includes sloths, ant-eaters and armadillos. Several are sufficiently endangered to be on the IUCN 鈥榬ed list鈥�. In previous millenia, the group was far bigger. It covered many other creatures, now extinct, such as giant ground sloths estimated to have exceeded the size of a male African elephant.

As 鈥榚xotic鈥� animals, xenarthrans have long fascinated westerners and became a must-have item in 鈥榗abinets of curiosities鈥� 鈥� collections gathered from a world that was opening up to exploration from the 15th century onwards. In the mid-17th century, the naturalist-physician, Georg Marcgrave, stationed in Dutch Brazil, described the armadillos that he encountered:

" 探花直播Tatu or Tatu-peba in Brazilian, Armadillo in Spanish, Encuberto in Portuguese, we Belgians call Armoured-piglet.聽It is a most powerful animal that lives in the ground, though also in water and soggy places. It is found in various sizes."

As a consequence of the blossoming of scientific enquiry in the 19th century, many leading zoology museums have examples of xenarthrans in their collections. Cambridge鈥檚 Museum of Zoology, for example, has a fine collection of specimens collected on expeditions to South America, from the diminutive Pink Fairy Armadillo (Chlamyphorus truncatus) to the towering giant ground sloth (Megatherium americanum) which became extinct some 10,000 years ago.

探花直播ground sloth is one of a number of relatively recently extinct large sloths, one of which Charles Darwin himself helped discover on the voyage of the Beagle. On September 18, 1832, Darwin noted in his dairy that he had dined on 鈥淥strich dumpling & Armadillos鈥�. 探花直播鈥榦strich鈥� he ate was, in fact, rhea; the abundant armadillos were a staple diet of the local gauchos.

Not long afterwards, Darwin saw for the first time fossils of shells and other animals, embedded in soft sea cliffs, including a specimen of giant ground sloth which was to be named Mylodon darwinii 聽in his honour.

Xenarthans have been a source of fascination to Dr Robert Asher, an evolutionary biologist in the Department of Zoology, ever since he first began studying mammalian diversity as a graduate student some 20 years ago. He鈥檚 particularly interested in the evolutionary stories told by the structure of their skeletons 鈥� and the ways in which their bones act as clues to their relative position within the tree of life.

Natural history museums in Berlin, Paris and London have in their collections examples of three-toed sloths, including embryos and foetuses. These specimens enabled Dr Robert Asher and his colleague Dr Lionel Hautier (formerly a Cambridge postdoctoral fellow and now at the 探花直播 of Montpellier) to publish research聽on an aspect of the anatomy of sloths which sets them apart from almost every other mammal on earth.

探花直播difference lies in the arrangement of vertebrae in sloths鈥� spinal columns 鈥� which can be seen as clues to xenarthrans鈥� divergent evolutionary pathways over the past few million years.

You might think that animals with long necks would have more neck vertebrae than those with short necks. This is certainly true of some birds and reptiles. But almost every placental mammal on earth (some 5,000 species in total) has seven 鈥榬ibless鈥� vertebrae in the neck 鈥� even creatures with long necks such as giraffes. 探花直播three-toed sloth deviates from this rule: many of these tree-living creatures have eight, nine or even ten cervical vertebrae.聽

This remarkable diversity was noticed in the 18th century and scientists continue to tease apart the mechanisms by which mammals deviate from the 鈥渞ule of seven鈥�. In 2009, Asher and colleagues set out to learn more about this intriguing quirk. Neck vertebrae are known as cervicals and the rib-bearing vertebrae below them are known as thoracics. Thoracic vertebrae have facets which allow articulation with the ribs.

Asher and colleagues looked at patterns of bone formation in mammals as they developed. They found that, in all mammals, the centrum (or middle part) of the first thoracic (number eight, counting down from the skull) turns from cartilage to bone earlier than the centra of the posterior-most cervicals. In sloths, too, the eighth vertebrae begins to develop early 鈥� but, in their case, this ribless vertebra is located in the neck and generally considered to be 鈥榗ervical鈥�.

鈥� 探花直播鈥榚xtra鈥� vertebrae in sloths鈥� necks have the same developmental聽 characteristics as thoracic vertebrae. They are, in effect, ribcage vertebrae, masquerading as neck vertebrae. In sloths, the position of the shoulders, pelvis and ribcage are linked with one another, and compared to their common ancestor shared with other mammals, have shifted down the vertebral column to make the neck longer,鈥� explains Asher.

鈥淓ven in sloths, the mammalian 鈥榬ule of seven鈥� applies to the vertebral centra. 探花直播ossification of the centra in a long-necked sloth resembles ossification in other mammals. However, sloths can deviate from the 鈥渞ule鈥� by shifting the embryonic tissues that give rise to the limb girdles and rib cage relative to the vertebrae, adding what are essentially one or more ribcage vertebrae into the caudal end of their neck. 探花直播next question to address is why and how sloths managed this shift.鈥�

Xenarthrans also pack some intriguing surprises when it comes to teeth. Anteaters have no teeth. Sloths have just one set of teeth to see them through life 鈥� as do all but one genus of armadillo. Armadillos in the genus Dasypus (including seven- and nine-banded species) are unlike other armadillos in having two sets of teeth during their lifespan: deciduous (or 鈥榤ilk鈥�) teeth and permanent teeth.

Most mammals, including humans, shed their baby teeth while they are growing. Recent research聽by Asher and colleagues from the 探花直播 of La Plata, Argentina, into the dentition of Dasypus revealed that its permanent teeth erupt long after the animal reaches its full size. 鈥� 探花直播equivalent scenario in a human would be losing your milk teeth, and gaining all your permanent ones, once you were fully grown and well into your 20s,鈥� says Asher.

In this regard, Dasypus is similar to most species of endemic African mammals (Afrotheria) 鈥� a group of animals that includes elephants, manatees, tenrecs, golden moles and sengis. 鈥淓ruption of adult teeth after the attainment of full body size and sexual maturity is not unheard of in other mammals,鈥� says Asher. 鈥淪ome people reading this won鈥檛 yet have erupted their 鈥榳isdom鈥� teeth or third molars. But few groups do this as pervasively as Afrotherians and Dasypus.鈥�

With gratitude to PhD candidate Natalie Lawrence (Department of History and Philosophy of Science) for her input on early western encounters with 鈥榚xotic鈥� animals.

Next in the聽Cambridge Animal Alphabet: Y is for an animal that is an integral part of high-altitude livelihoods throughout the Himalayas, Tibet and Central Asia.

Have you missed the series so far? Catch up on Medium聽here.

Inset images: Illustration of an armadillo from Historiae Naturalis Brasilae Tatu by聽Georg聽Marcgrave; Skeleton of a giant land sloth (Museum of Zoology);聽Three-toed sloth - Bradypodidae - Luiaard (Martha de Jong-Lantink); Lateral view of 3D reconstruction of computerized tomography (CT) scans of skeleton in the three-toed sloth Bradypus (Hautier et al).

探花直播Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge鈥檚 connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, X is for Xenarthran. A must-have item for 15th-century collectors of 'curiosities' and a source of fascination for evolutionary biologist Dr Robert Asher.

It is a most powerful animal that lives in the ground, though also in water and soggy places

Georg Marcgrave

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

探花直播astronomer and the witch 鈥� how Kepler saved his mother from the stake

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 10:30:43 +0000

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) is one of the world鈥檚 most famous astronomers. He defended Copernicus鈥檚 sun-centred universe and discovered that planets move in ellipses. A planet, NASA mission and planet-hunting spacecraft are named after him.

Yet in recent years Kepler and his family have appeared as dubious, even murderous people. In 2004 for example, a team of American journalists alleged that Kepler systematically poisoned the man he succeeded at the court of Rudolf II in Prague: Tycho Brahe. He may well be the scientist with the worst reputation.

But the majority of slurs concern the astronomer鈥檚 mother, Katharina. Arthur Koestler鈥檚 famous history of astronomy, 探花直播Sleepwalkers, where Katharina features as a 鈥渉ideous little woman鈥� whose evil tongue and 鈥渟uspect background鈥� predestined her as victim of the witchcraze.

聽

Kepler, 1610.

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Then there鈥檚 John Banville鈥檚 prize-winning historical novel Kepler, which vividly portrays Katharina as a crude old woman who makes a dangerous business of healing by boiling potions in a black pot. She meets with old hags in a kitchen infested with cat smells. Outside in her garden lies a dead rat. Kepler desperately tries to hide his mother鈥檚 magical arts from his wife as they visit and Katharina searches for a bag filled with bat-wings. This horrendous mother is scary, disgusting, and probably a witch.

There is something behind these hints: the portrayals stem to the astonishing fact that 400 years ago, when her son was at the very height of his scientific career, Katharina Kepler was accused of witchcraft. It is because of this that it has become commonplace in Anglo-American writing to depict Kepler鈥檚 mother as a difficult, bizarre and half-crazed old crone.

But what is the real story? Kepler certainly must rank as one of the most influential scientists to come from a disadvantaged background. Whereas Galileo鈥檚 father was a noted scholar of music, Kepler鈥檚 was a soldier who kept running away from the family. His parents argued and the only brother close to him in age suffered from epilepsy. This made it difficult for the brother to attend school or learn a trade.

Johannes Kepler, by contrast, soon emerged as an extremely talented boy. He was picked up by one of the most advanced Lutheran scholarship systems in Germany at the time and lived in boarding schools. He once fought against a boy who insulted his father, and was in his teens when the father disappeared for good.

聽

Kepler鈥檚 model of the solar system.

聽

Kepler wrote bleak little characterisations of his parents and paternal family around the time that he finished university. He also wrote about himself as a flawed young man, obsessively interested in fame, worried about money, unable to communicate his ideas in a straightforward way. These pieces of writing have principally served as evidence who want to depict Kepler and his family as horrendous, even murderous.

Yet these writings need to be put into context. Kepler wrote them very early in his life, and he did so in order to analyse his horoscopes. 探花直播whole convention of astrology was to point to character problems, rather than to laud lovely people. Kepler was a deeply Christian man, and one of his most impressive characteristics is how optimistic he soon began to feel about the world he lived in, against his odds and despite looming war. He built his own family and deeply cared about his wife and children. Kepler was confident about the importance of his discoveries and productive, even though he was never offered a university position.

聽

Statue of Katharina Kepler in Eltingen. Harke, CC BY-SA

聽

Then came the accusation against his mother. 探花直播proceedings which led to a criminal trial lasted six years. 探花直播Imperial mathematician formally took over his mother鈥檚 legal defence. No other public intellectual figure would have ever involved themselves in a similar role, but Kepler put his whole existence on hold, stored up his books, papers and instruments in boxes, moved his family to southern Germany and spent nearly a year trying to get his mother out of prison.

Local records for the small town in which Katharina Kepler lived are abundant. There is no evidence that she was brought up by an aunt who was burnt for witchcraft 鈥� this was one of the charges which her enemies invented. There is no evidence either that she made a living from healing 鈥� she simply mixed herbal drinks for herself and sometimes offered her help to others, like anyone else. A woman in her late 70s, Katharina Kepler withstood a trial and final imprisonment, during which she was chained to the floor for more than a year.

Kepler鈥檚 defence was a rhetorical masterpiece. He was able to dismantle the inconsistencies in the prosecution case, and show that the 鈥渕agical鈥� illnesses for which they blamed his mother could be explained using medical knowledge and common sense. In the autumn of 1621, Katharina was finally set free.

Johannes Kepler and his mother lived through one of the most epic tragedies in the age of the witch-craze. It鈥檚 high time to re-evaluate what kind of man Kepler was: he does not deserve to be the scientist with the worst reputation. And nor does his mother deserve to be portrayed as a witch.

探花直播Astronomer And 探花直播Witch by Ulinka Rublack is published by Oxford 探花直播 Press on October 22.

Ulinka Rublack, Professor of Early Modern European History, 探花直播 of Cambridge.

This article was originally published on 探花直播Conversation. Read the original article.

Ulinka Rublack will be giving a talk at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas on Wednesday 28th October.

探花直播opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the 探花直播 of Cambridge.

Ulinka Rublack, Professor of Early Modern European History, discusses the reputation of astronomer Johannes Kepler and his mother Katharina, and the criminal trial for witchcraft that lasted six years.聽

Great Comet of 1577, which Kepler witnessed as a child.

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To the death

amb206 — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 10:34:48 +0000

Two of the most famous duels in English literature take place at the beginning and end of that giant among novels, Samuel Richardson鈥檚 Clarissa.

In the first encounter, Robert Lovelace, Clarissa鈥檚 would-be suitor, is challenged to a duel by her brother, James Harlowe. Their antipathy dates back to a 鈥淐ollege-begun鈥� tiff and has been inflamed by Lovelace鈥檚 interest in Clarissa and her sisters. During their bout, Lovelace has the chance to kill Harlowe but 鈥済ives him his life鈥�.聽探花直播incident helps to establish Lovelace, 鈥渁 finished libertine鈥�, as a man who lives his life as a sort of extended duel, continually challenging fate itself.

As the book draws to a close, Clarissa鈥檚 cousin William Morden seeks to avenge her death in a duel with Lovelace.聽In doing so, Morden ignores Clarissa鈥檚 pleas that 鈥渧engeance is God鈥檚 province鈥� and that her good-natured cousin should not risk losing his life to a guilty man. Letters are exchanged as the details of the duel are fixed; rapiers are chosen over pistols. When Morden kills Lovelace, the villain perishes but the victor risks carrying a moral burden that will never leave him. 聽探花直播lack of a winner is one of the great paradoxes of the duel.

In Touch茅: 探花直播Duel in Literature, Dr John Leigh (Medieval and Modern Languages) explores expositions of duelling in three centuries of writing. 探花直播first ever book devoted exclusively to the depiction of duelling in fiction, drama and poetry, Touch茅聽is pan-European in its scope and scholarly in its unpacking of contests that range from the comic stand-offs between Sir Lucius O鈥橳rigger and Captain Jack Absolute in Sheridan鈥檚 探花直播Rivals to the elegantly orchestrated cut and thrust of Dumas鈥檚 musketeers.

When Richardson wrote Clarissa, in the mid-1700s, duelling had long been illegal in Britain. With beautiful irony, laws renewed over the centuries made it a practice punishable by death.聽Arguments against duelling shifted over the centuries: framed in the 17th century as a theological wrong, it was condemned as barbarous (and non-classical) in the 18th century, and, finally, in the 19th century as an unseemly display of primitive urges. In his famous 1841 study of fashionable delusions, Charles Mackay likened duellists to 鈥渢wo dogs who tear each other for a bone, or two bantams fighting on a dunghill for the love of some beautiful hen鈥�.

But its appeal endured, in literature as in life. Duels feature in the works of dozens of British writers: Tobias Smollett was prodigiously fond of duels (his sword-happy characters include the wonderfully named Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle) as were Sir Walter Scott,聽William Thackeray and GK Chesterton.聽Among the many French writers intrigued by duelling are Moli猫re, Hugo and Maupassant. In Russian literature, Anton Chekhov and Alexander Pushkin (the latter an inveterate duellist) are masters in the telling of stories in which the duel plays a pivotal part.

探花直播sheer theatricality of the duel makes it an irresistible literary device, whether to demonstrate a gentleman鈥檚 valour in facing down a rogue or to mock the posturing of a foolish buck.聽探花直播richness of the drama lies in the stage directions: the count-down to the allotted hour, the scene at dawn or dusk, the pacing out of the exact distance between opponents, the checking of weapons, and the sobbing of bystanders. 探花直播deeper fascination, for the reader, is with the process by which words become deeds and the freedom of the nobleman is enmeshed in an utterly inexorable, irrevocable process.

Duelling is a posh pursuit, imbued with notions of privilege and sportsmanship. Fencing and swordsmanship, like dancing and riding, were accomplishments that defined the wellborn young man. Likewise, many of the most celebrated bouts in fiction depict noble combatants seeking to uphold or defend family honour against slur or slight. As Leigh writes, the duellist is the 鈥渁ntithesis of the bourgeois, because he fights not for gain from his adversary but to declare who or what he is鈥�.

But there are notable exceptions. Charles Dickens, most of whose characters are working or middle class, incorporates duels in several of his novels.聽In Pickwick Papers, duels generally assume the form of a comic set piece. 鈥淎 duel in Ipswich!... Nothing of the kind can be contemplated in this town,鈥� says the magistrate, summoned to halt plans for a confrontation between Samuel Pickwick and Peter Magnus. In Nicholas Nickleby, the protagonists are highborn but the message to the reader is that聽all聽life hangs on a thread. 探花直播tragedy of Lord Frederick Verisopht鈥檚 death, at the hand of Sir Mulberry Hawk, is set against the majesty of the rising sun and the running river - and the 鈥渢wenty tiny lives鈥� present on every blade of grass.

Leigh divides his text into themes, slotting duels into categories of 鈥榗omical鈥�, 鈥榩oignant鈥�, 鈥榡udicial鈥�, 鈥榬omantic鈥� and 鈥榞rotesque鈥�. In a chapter devoted to the 鈥榩aradoxes of the duel鈥�, he explores the incompatibility of a pursuit steeped in style and swagger with the seriousness of its likely outcome 鈥� the finality of death. 探花直播elegant language of duelling, sometimes couched in French, and its insistence on carefully regulated protocol, seemingly elevates it from the notion of brutal murder. But, in the end, the calculated nature of duelling is perhaps even more chilling.

探花直播noblest of duelling weapons is the sword. Firearms bring a certain sense of anonymity; sometimes they gain an identity all of their own. In his poem Eugene Onegin, Pushkin describes in steely detail the mechanisms of the pistols loaded by Onegin and Lenski. 鈥� 探花直播weapon,鈥� writes Leigh, 鈥渁cquires a sinister life of its own, as one action leads mechanistically and remorselessly to another, before the final, fateful event is triggered.鈥� In stark contrast, as Lenski鈥檚 life ebbs away, the poet turns to nature to describe the slow fall of snow and the sudden grip of cold.

探花直播slaughter that took place in the muddy trenches of the First World War eclipsed the aristocratic notion of duelling as a test of nerve and a clean way of settling scores. But single combat remained, for some, an idealised form of warfare.聽Leigh writes that the Australian Spitfire pilot Richard Hillary recounts in his book 探花直播Last Enemy that: 鈥淚n a fighter plane, I believe, we have found a way to return to war as it ought to be, war which is individual combat between two people, in which one either kills or is killed.鈥�

Duels have been considered anachronistic for some four hundred years 鈥� but we remain fascinated by those who could take lives after taking exception.

Touch茅: 探花直播Duel in Literature is published by Harvard 探花直播 Press. John Leigh is a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, 探花直播 of Cambridge.

Inset image:聽French cased duelling pistols by Nicolas Noel Boutet. Single shot, percussion, rifled, .58 caliber, blued steel,聽Versailles, 1794-1797.聽Exhibit in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Dr John Leigh has written the first book exclusively devoted to the duel in literature. In Touch茅, he offers a compelling picture of the ways in which novelists, playwrights and poets have used duelling as a trope to reveal the extent of manly valour, trickery and sheer foolishness.

探花直播duellist fights not for gain from his adversary but to declare who or what he is

John Leigh

G. Durand - Harper's Weekly

" 探花直播Code Of Honor鈥擜 Duel In 探花直播Bois De Boulogne, Near Paris", wood engraving by Godefroy Durand

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Where to find a dragon in Cambridge

jeh98 — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 08:00:00 +0000

Scroll to the end of the article to listen to the podcast.

Earth, water, air and fire. If you were to pick an element that you most associate with dragons, you would probably choose the last 鈥� fire. And though the jaws of all the dragons to be found lurking in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) are devoid of flames, they do speak to the immense power of the dragon to ignite cultural imagination in all corners of the globe.

From the Anglo-Saxons of Old England, to the lamas of Tibet and the jungles of Borneo, dragons have been carved, stitched and emblazoned on countless artefacts of human creativity and endeavour.

But on closer inspection, a more appropriate element to associate with these mythical reptiles may indeed be water.

Sporting arguably the finest beard in the MAA, this dragon formed the fearsome figurehead of a canoe. On display in the Maudslay gallery, it was found in the Baram River District of Borneo by alumnus of Christ鈥檚 College and influential anthropologist, Dr Alfred Cort Haddon, during his fieldwork expedition to Malaysia and the Torres Strait Islands in 1898.

In the folklore of Borneo, the dragon is a goddess of the underworld. She protects the living, guards over the dead, and is associated with earth, water, thunder and lightning. One particular folktale tells of a dragon that guards a precious jewel on the top of Mount Kinabalu, the highest point of the island.

This fellow, and his mighty fine facial hair, has been temporarily removed for conservation but will be back to take his place in the museum soon.

A few paces across the gallery take you all the way from the coasts of Borneo to the former Kingdom of Derge, high in the Himalayan peaks of Tibet, and takes our watery connection in a slightly different direction. This extremely rare piece of Derge ware is an iron water bottle covered in silver and gold ornamentation and bound with brass. 探花直播hexagonal spout rises from the mouth of a sea monster at the base, and anyone looking closely at the handle will notice that it is in the form of a dragon.

探花直播dragon, or zhug, is a deity in Tibetan mythology. Influenced by the dragons of Chinese and Indian culture, Tibetan dragons are believed to have control over the rainfall and represent water. 探花直播dragon keeping a close eye on this water container was presented to Frederick Williamson, a Cambridge graduate and Political Officer of the British Raj, by the Prime Minister of Tibet in 1933 and deposited in the museum by his wife, Margaret, in 1976.

Stepping further back in time, we find dragons that were traded across the seas by Anglo-Saxons between the 5th聽and 11th聽centuries.

探花直播museum's聽collection of Anglo-Saxon brooches, some聽with dragon-like creatures engraved on the front, were among the first in Britain to have testing carried out on their garnets 鈥� decorative pieces of red gemstone. 探花直播results of this testing have provided evidence that the Anglo-Saxons were trading with India.

Serpentine or dragon-like shapes were common in Anglo-Saxon art as they were easy to work into the interlaced designs that were popular during the period. Beyond just being carved on jewellery and armour, the association between dragons and treasure was particularly strong in Anglo-Saxon writing 鈥� even entering proverbial sayings such as the maxim 鈥渄raca sceal on hl忙we, frod, fr忙twum wlanc鈥澛�(a dragon must be in a mound, old and proud in his ornaments).

Students in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNAC) come face-to-face with dragons in a number of courses, according to Dr Richard Dance. Probably the most famous of these is the dragon that defeats the eponymous hero of Beowulf in the epic poem鈥檚 dramatic finale.

聽

脨a se g忙st ongan 聽聽聽gledum spiwan,

beorht hofu b忙rnan; 聽聽聽bryne-leoma stod

eldum on andan;聽聽聽no 冒忙r aht cwices

la冒 lyft-floga 聽聽聽l忙fan wolde.

W忙s 镁忙s wyrmes wig 聽聽聽wide gesyne,

nearo-fages ni冒聽聽聽nean and feorran,

hu se gu冒-scea冒a 聽聽聽Geata leode

hatode and hynde: 聽聽聽hord eft gesceat,

dryht-sele dyrnne 聽聽聽忙r d忙ges hwile.

(Beowulf 鈥� XXXIII. Project Gutenberg.)

聽

探花直播stranger began then to vomit forth fire,

To burn the great manor; the blaze then glimmered

For anguish to earlmen, not anything living

Was the hateful air-goer willing to leave there.

探花直播war of the worm widely was noticed,

探花直播feud of the foeman afar and anear,

How the enemy injured the earls of the Geatmen,

Harried with hatred: back he hied to the treasure,

To the well-hidden cavern ere the coming of daylight.

(Beowulf 鈥� XXXIII. Project Gutenberg.)

聽

鈥淎 major theme in heroic and epic literature is obtaining treasure and giving it out to the people 鈥� treasure was particularly important in a pre-monetary economy. Dragons, often depicted jealously guarding their hoard, represent the obverse of generosity, like a bad king figure,鈥� says Dance.

鈥�Beowulf is the longest Anglo-Saxon poem that we know of, and it is complex, carefully wrought and evocative. It鈥檚 good poetry as well as being a good poem 鈥� a finely crafted piece of treasure in its own right. A lot of words and the way it arranges its ideas are recognisably poetic compared to Old English prose鈥�.

Dance explains that the words 鈥渄raca鈥� (dragon) and 鈥渨yrm鈥� (serpent, reptile) are used fairly interchangeably in the poem to refer to the hero鈥檚 final foe.

鈥淲hen the dragon appears towards the end of the poem we see that, very early on in written culture, the fantasy fiction idea of a dragon that we have today is already formed. Looking at dragons in modern fiction you can see that our ideas of what a dragon is depend quite closely on the ways they are presented in medieval literature like Beowulf, especially via the works of authors like J. R. R. Tolkien, himself an Anglo-Saxon scholar,鈥� says Dance.

Dr Judy Quinn of ASNAC, who researches Old Norse poetry, says that Scandinavian and Icelandic poems demonstrate how productive a symbol the dragon remained for poets in the medieval period.

鈥淧oets were drawn to the legend of dragons such as F谩fnir and N铆冒h枚ggr found in the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda 鈥� a 13th聽century Icelandic anthology of traditional anonymous verse. 探花直播proverb 鈥榙ragons often rise up on their tails鈥� is recorded in the 12th聽century Icelandic poem M谩lsh谩ttakv忙冒i,鈥� says Quinn. 鈥� 探花直播dreki or dragon most often encountered in medieval Scandinavian poetry is a ship, named for the dragon shape carved out of the prow of Viking-Age war-ships.鈥�

Whether in it, or on it, or providing a useful container for it, the dragons of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology have a long and storied relationship with water. Which is perhaps unsurprising given how the fire-breathing lizards of our imaginations started life in many cultures and mythologies 鈥� as serpents, sea monsters, or river deities.

But to find the most unusual connection between the MAA鈥檚 dragons, we need to turn to an even more essential element 鈥� tea.

Medieval England, between the 16th聽and 18th聽centuries, gives us an exhibit affectionately nicknamed 鈥淒ragon in a cup鈥�. One of the highlights of the MAA鈥檚 permanent Archaeology of Cambridge display, this piece of stained glass depicts St John the Evangelist. At the end of an outstretched arm, St John holds a poisoned chalice 鈥� with a tiny dragon peeping over the rim. It is a fairly common motif for St John to be depicted in this way, bearing an ominous cup of dragon 鈥� although the dragon in question looks far too friendly to be poisoning anybody.

For the next stop on our tea cup quest, we鈥檙e off to Borneo by canoe again to find another intricately carved prow, known to the museum staff as George.

Part-crocodile, part-dragon, George is afflicted by a condition that most tea-lovers will be able to sympathise with 鈥� he聽sees tea cups wherever he goes.

And finally, once more to Tibet and this tea cup decorated with a long, green dragon. Donated to the museum by the Williamsons, this cup is part of a large collection of Tibetan artefacts, including a teaspoon and a folding tea table both decorated with images of dragons.

All that remains is for someone to discover a dragon using a tea cup and the MAA鈥檚 collection will truly be complete.

You can meet all of these dragons, and many more of their friends聽prowling聽the treasures at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology 鈥� from Javanese Batik cloth, to Japanese netsuke.

During the summer, children can embark on their own animal adventure and try their hand at finding all of the exhibits in the museum鈥檚 Animal Safari Trail.

Admission to the museum is free and it is open every day except Mondays.

Next in the Cambridge Animal Alphabet: E聽is for an animal that聽takes pride of place among the medieval manuscripts in the Parker Library, and is the subject of vital conservation research in Thailand's 'Golden Triangle'.

Inset images: Figurehead of a canoe, accession number Z 2403 ( 探花直播 of Cambridge);聽Derge iron water bottle, accession number聽D 1976.115 ( 探花直播 of Cambridge); Viking ships (Jos van Wunnik); Circular panel of glass, showing a saint with a dragon in a chalice, accession number Z 16318 ( 探花直播 of Cambridge); Head for front of canoe, accession number聽Z 2698 ( 探花直播 of Cambridge); China tea cup ( 探花直播 of Cambridge).

聽

The聽Cambridge Animal Alphabet series聽celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, D is for Dragon.聽Watch out for聽fire-breathers聽among聽the treasures of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, in Anglo-Saxon proverbs,聽and in fantasy literature from medieval Scandinavia to the present day.

When the dragon appears in Beowulf we see that, very early on in written culture, the fantasy fiction idea of a dragon that we have today is already formed

Richard Dance

探花直播 of Cambridge

Derge iron water bottle. Accession number: D 1976.115.

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