Translator Andrea Gehrz, who produced an English version of the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy, has started her own blog here. She’s posted some material from the ancient astrologer Vettius Valens. I hope that she will turn more of these kinds of works into English.
Year: 2011
Any more bloggers at the Oxford Patristics Conference next week?
Annoying copyright problem
I want to buy a download of Sister Hazel’s track Change your mind. It’s a trivial amount. It’s available for download on Amazon.com. But … it’s not available, as far as I can see, in the UK. And US sites won’t sell downloads to people in the UK.
Anyone got any ideas?
Extracts from Brockelmann’s “History of Arabic literature” – 1
For the last week or so, I’ve been reading sections of vol. 1 of the 2nd edition of Carl Brockelmann’s History of Arabic Literature. I’m starting to get some idea of what exists, which is the object. I thought that it might be useful to give some extracts in English here. Let’s look at some material from the introduction, starting on p.2. I’ve added links to the books where I could find them online, but if you can find more of them, do let me know!
II. Sources and earlier manuals on the history of Arabic literature.
The most important sources for biography and bibliography for the whole subject, leaving to one side monographs on particular subjects that will be given in their place, are the following:
1. Biographical works.
b. Ḫall. = Ibn Ḫallikān (S. 326), Wafayāt al-A`yān, Būlāq 1299 1) Vitae illustrium virorum, ed. F. Wüstenfeld, Gottingae 1835-40. [vol.1, vol. 15 – there are other vols online] Ibn Khallikans biographical Dictionary translated from the Arabic, by Mac Guckin de Slane, 4 vols. Paris-London 1843—71. [vol.1, vol.2, vol.3, vol.4 I could not find]
Fawāt = M. b. Šākir al-Kutubī (II, 48), Fawāt al-wafayāt, 2 vols. Būlāq 1299.
2. Bibliographical works.
Fihr. = Kitāb al-Fihrist, ed. by G. Flügel, after his death continued by J. Rödiger and A. Müller, 2 vols. Leipzig 1871/2. [I couldn’t find this online]
HḪ = Lexicon bibliographicum et encyclopaedicum a Mustapha ben Abdallah Katib Jelebi dicto et nomine Haji Khalfa celebrato compositum, ed. latine vertit et commentario indicibusque instruxit G. Flügel, Leipzig-London 1835-58, 7 vols. [I could not find vols 1 or 2, vols.3-4, vol. 4, vols.5-6, vol. 6] Kesf el-Zunun, Birinci Cilt, Katib Celebi elde mevcut yazma ve basma nüshalari ve zeyilleri gözden gecirilerek, müellifin elyazisiyle olan nüshaya göre fazlalari cikarilmak, eksikleri tamamlanmak suretiyle Maarif Vekilligin karari üzerine Istanbul Üniversitesinde Ord. Prof. Serefettin Yaltkaya ile Lektor Kilisli Rifat Bilge tarafindan hazirlanmistir, Maarif Matbaasi 1941.
This is followed by others, of no obvious special use, and then a list of catalogues of manuscripts. There is a footnote on Ibn Khallikan:
1. As this volume will be cited mainly using the numerals of the Lives, here is a short concordance with that of Wüstenfeld: W. 1-75 = K. 1-75. Missing in K. are: W. 76, 78, 133, 147, 149, 150, 154, 186-199, 201, 202 (= Fawat I, 145), 213, 214 (= Fawat I, 149), 217, 277, 278 (= Fawat I, 171), 288, 291, 292, 293, 294, 303, 317, 318, 337-347, 364, 380, 381, 528, generally only a single line, occasionally with date of death. On the other hand 297 K. is missing in W.; 357 was skipped by W. in the count of numbers; 405 W. gives as an appendix to 404 = 367 K. and not separately ennumerated. In the following Lives K. is more detailed than W.: 220 K. = 233 W.; 223 K. = 236 W.; 230 K = 243 233 K. = 246 W.; 248 K. = 261 W.; in the other direction only 242 W. is more detailed than 229 K. On the other hand 181 K. = 186 W. Because W. reverses the sequence Ha’-Wäw in K., note the following: W. 778-90 = K. 745-57 and W. 791-96 = K. 739-44.
Not that “Wüstenfeld” has been mentioned yet — sloppy editing, this — but fortunately for me I started at the histories, and this was defined at the top of the section, in the middle of p.140, which gave these general sources:
F. Wüstenfeld, Die Geschichtschreiber der Araber und ihre Werke, Abh. d. Kgl. Ges. d. Wiss. zu Göttingen, vols. 28 and 29, 1882/3, (cited as “Wüst.”).
E. Sachau, Studien zur ältesten Geschichtsüberlieferung der Araber, MSOS VII Westas. St. 154/96. [I could not find this online by title, although it dates to 1905][PS. it’s here]
A curiosity appears on p.6, after a long list of catalogues of Arabic manuscripts:
2. The first attempt to present a complete history of Arabic literature was made by J. Hammer-Purgstall.1) The shortcomings of this book are so familiar that we may simply ignore it in what follows. The same is true of Arbuthnot’s work.2) The short sketch by A. von Kremer 3), however, is masterful and we acknowledge our debt to it.
1. Literaturgeschichte der Araber, von ihrem Beginne bis zu Ende des zwölften Jahrhunderts der Hidschret, 7 vols, Wien 1850-56. [At Google books: vol.1, vol.2, vol.3, vol.4, vol. 5, vol.6, vol.7]
2. Arabic authors, a Manual of Arabian History and Literature, London, 1890.
3. Kulturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, vol. II, Wien 1877, p. 341-484.
That’s enough of this highly condensed information for now, I think. All these reference works were very, very rare. How delighted and excited Dr Brockelmann would have been, to see links to them accessible at the touch of a key!
What I did on my holidays
The silence earlier this week was caused by an unannounced outbreak of holidays. I didn’t feel that it was a good idea to announce online that my house would be vacant, and I took a very welcome break from using a computer at all.
I finished work on Friday, and then had Saturday free. This was a good idea, because the number of things that have to be done in the last week before a holiday tends to leave the unwary exhausted! So I wandered around like a ghost under grey skies. I hadn’t actually even decided for certain that I would go away. But the conviction grew during Saturday, and I packed my bags, filled up the car, and located my lists of “things to take” and “things in the house to check are closed/unplugged/etc”.
On Sunday morning I was up at a sensible time — no dawn starts for me! — and I hit the road about 8:30. Destination … St Austell in Cornwall!
I drove down the A12 to London, and then around the top of the M25 London Orbital motorway. The traffic was light, and I reached the junction with the M4 motorway, near Heathrow, after a couple of hours. Then westward, westward, as the sprawl of London fell away and the chalk hills of the downs began to rise on either side.
I stopped at Membury service station, just east of Swindon, where I once had a summer job in 1980. It was a hole then, and it is still a hole now! Then on again, past Swindon. Soon there were signs for Bath, and the Roman baths, which I have never seen. It’s a long old trip from Ipswich, but one day I must do that.
Then the great descent towards Bristol, through a cutting in the hill, and I gained my first sight of the Severn. Soon I turned off, onto the M5, and headed south. I stopped at Sedgemoor services and refueled again. Then on, through Somerset, along roads that were not entirely uncluttered with holiday-makers, over the bridge over the River Axe, to Exeter.
At Exeter I turned off onto the A30, which runs the length of Devon and Cornwall, up hill and down dale. These days it is mostly a dual carriageway, which makes it easier. Soon the road rose, up onto the moors, which looked as desolate as ever. A sign appeared for Jamaica Inn, the old smugglers’ hideout on Bodmin Moor. This is in the centre of the county, but in truth is only a dozen miles from the coast, by the bridleways that were known to local folk. Those paths saw much use during the Napoleonic wars, when the government duties on wine and spirits were last at the foolish heights they are today.
Finally I reached the St Austell turn off. A narrow road threaded up through the village of Bugle, all granite stone houses and walls and narrow streets, up to the top of the hills where the china clay used to be mined and a great spoil heap still stands. Threading through the lanes, I came over the ridge and St Austell bay opened up before me, with an immense view of sea and headlands. My hotel was the St Austell Premier Inn, which stands at Carclaze, just at the head of the road. It was 2pm, so I had made very good time over the 350 miles.
The rest of the day I spent pottering about. I went down to Charlestown, the tiny old port of St Austell, where the china clay used to be loaded and tourism is now the main thing. It was grey, but very warm and muggy, even up on the heights at Carclaze. Indeed I had to change room at 10:30 at night, because my room was at 24C! Another room looked over the car park, and had a breeze, and was 19C, and there I stayed.
On Monday morning I telephoned various relatives to announce my arrival. It can be slightly dicey making your presence known. Sometimes the relatives see a visiting stranger as a useful source of labour, to get jobs done! But not so this time.
In the morning I drove into St Austell, and parked in the new multi-storey car park. This replaced an appalling specimen of 60’s brutalist concrete architecture, which is now gone to its inevitable, rotted concrete, reward. St Austell town centre itself is only a shadow of the thriving town that I remember from my childhood. I could, indeed, find nothing that I wished to buy.
The afternoon was spent with relatives, just talking. They were interested to see the Eusebius book. The weather was improving, and the sun breaking through. I then went down to Charlestown again, where I had dinner and wandered around. I also drove down to Carlyon Bay, which is the posh end of St Austell. Everywhere I saw the blue hydrangeas — indeed I was told that they grow like weeds there! My main purpose was to identify the dismal hotel in which I stayed once, in October, for a funeral, so that I would know never to stay there again. It was the Cliff Head Hotel, and it looked even more run-down to me than I remembered. But as I drove back, to my astonishment I saw that mist was gathering on the high ground, up around the spoil heaps and Carclaze. So it proved; warm air below, and sunshine, and mist and fog a mile away up on the heights. Apparently this happens regularly.
In the morning there was bright, hot, sunshine. Back in Ipswich it was cold and grey, I learned, so this news delighted me! I had arranged to meet with an elderly aunt, and take her out for the day. She chose to go to Mevagissey. We drove down there, detouring to look at some fields that my grandfather once rented, and a lane in which stood a cottage where my aunt was born, well before WW2.
Mevagissey was a delight. It was also flat, which was important for the frail old lady whom I was with. We parked in the large car-park, and walked into the town and soon found ourselves on the harbour. The sun beat down, and the smell of the sea was in our faces. We sat there on a bench for some time — long enough for my arms to prickle and warn of impending sun-burn! A man drove up on a little blue motorcycle with boxes on the back and, as people do in those parts, got talking to my aunt. He was off to go fishing in a little boat that was tied up in the harbour.
After more walking around, my aunt stopped at an ice-cream shop where she knew one of the ladies, and asked her where we should eat. She recommended “number 5, market square” as the best place to eat, and there we went. And it was! My aunt had a jacket potato, and I had a ploughman’s lunch. The furniture was good solid wood, we were served quickly but not rushed, and everything was nice but not pricey. After that, we drove back. Again in the evening I went down to Charlestown, and what a difference the sun made!
On the second day, I went to see another relative, to talk about an aunt who had made a will which was giving concern to those who might end up as executors. A local financial advisor has been appointed co-executor, and nobody knew who he was, or on what terms. There is, of course, very little that can be done with my more mulish relatives, but after much discussion I formed the opinion that what had been done was sensible in principle, and that the family should be able to involve the financial services regulator if anything amiss transpired. The main problem, really, was that in making her will, my aunt had been secretive about the details of the executorship which had worried the others who would have to do it all.
After all that business — and some third degree from the lady responsible! — I again took the same aunt out for the day. We drove down the road from St Austell to Lostwithiel, and down to Looe. The road meandered down the country lanes, and past a sign for “Herodsfoot”. Some of the place names in Cornwall are a delight, all by themselves!
Looe is more down-market, as evidenced by the number of people sat on benches smoking and indeed tatooed individuals sitting on the (packed) beach smoking. But we enjoyed ourselves. Lunch was at a converted pub called the Golden Guinea, where the girls were extremely kind and thoughtful to my old aunt. Food there was just as good as at Mevagissey, and in some respects better.
Again in the evening I went down to Charlestown. The sea was as flat as a millpond. One of the tall ships had gone out, and was loitering about, offloading people onto a launch and taking on supplies of various sorts.
In the morning, the weather had gone grey, which reconciled me to going home, although I learned that later on it got hot again. The same trip back, in reverse, took a little longer, and I got home about 3pm.
And now I’m back home, and it’s cold and grey out there! But I shall be going back to St Austell again, when I get the chance!
From my diary
Up late last night trying to produce printed copies of a large book which I have in PDF. I did most of it — will do the rest today.
One nice thing that happened is that an Italian bookshop ordered a copy of Eusebius, Gospel Problems and Solutions. They’re in the road that leads up to the Vatican, and I expect they’ll sell it handily. Today I did the order. I also had to produce an invoice, with bank details for international transfers — IBAN and Swift code, etc. Let’s see if I did it correctly.
I’ll tell you all about what I’ve been doing for the last few days later on today!
From my diary
I can’t read PDF’s on-screen, and so this evening I’m putting together another PDF to upload to Lulu, so I can get a printed form that I can hold in my hand.
But disaster! Lulu will only do paperbacks up to around 740 pages, and this one is 1,000 exactly.
I suppose what it means is that I shall have to split it into two halves. Not a bad thing, necessarily; but it feels a bit odd!
From my diary
One of the few Arabic historians that I know by name is Abulfeda. This evening I thought that I would see what I could find about him online.
A Google search brought up a rather useless Wikipedia article. Once I might have edited it, but these days I know better.
But it seemed to be based on an article in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. This I found online, and it indicated that he wrote two works, a history and a geography. A French translation of the latter was soon at my disposal, thanks to Google Books.
I found already on my hard disk a “Historia ante-Islamica” of Abulfeda. Apparently the work has been published in bits. But I learned of an “Annales Moslemici” by Reiske, in five volumes, from ca. 1800, which covered the rest of the work. This I could not locate, until I searched on Europeana.eu, which is the eurocrats attempt to rival Google Books. It’s so badly designed, however, that it isn’t always obvious that there is material in PDF for download there. But a bit of persistence brought me to pages at a German library with it on, and I am downloading it at the moment. Never know when it might be useful!
I would have added links to the Wikipedia article; but since they would just be deleted by some troll, I don’t see the point.
I did unpack a PDF of Supplement 1 of Brockelmann’s Geschichte, with a view to turning it into a PDF to upload and get a printed copy. But I think I will defer it, as I doubt I shall be looking at Brockelmann in the next few days.
UPDATE: I will add some links here.
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Europeana results for Abulfeda – at BSB
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Geographie d’Aboulfeda, ed. Reinaud, 1840
In addition, doing these searches turned up other interesting material:
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Google books search for Aḥmad ibn ʻAlī Maqrīzī – not the same chap, but some interesting finds.
Problems in the broadcast media
We’ve all seen the story about the explosion and shootings in Norway yesterday. I’ve noticed something worrying in the reporting of the story by the BBC and SkyNews on their teletext service, yesterday and today.
Yesterday, the word “Moslem” was not used. On page 6 of 7 of the SkyNews report a mention was made of the possibility that the attacks were by “al Qaeda”, but quickly qualified by a claim that perhaps it was by “far right” groups.
Today we learn that the attacker was a single man, a Norwegian, supposed to be linked to the “far right”. The news reports also describe him as a “Christian fundamentalist”. We’re also told that nothing like this “right wing violence” has ever happened before, which makes it curious that they referred to it as a possibility yesterday.
This is not good reporting.
Firstly, it’s clear that those writing these reports fully expected Moslem terrorists to be responsible, and were trying not to say so. That’s a bit dodgy, but we might allow them this, to refrain from speculation, and not stirring up hate against a group which has yet to be found guilty of this specific atrocity, on the basis that to do so is strictly and narrowly reporting the news. But today, one day on, they don’t feel any hesitation in attributing exactly that to the Christians. So objectivity there was none. In short, they were deliberately not reporting the guilt of one party for political reasons.
That means that we can’t trust their reporting of anything to do with Islam or Moslems. It means — can it mean anything else? — that there is probably a lot more Moslem violence than we are allowed to hear about. And we have to ask … what else are we not allowed to hear about? What other things, other than Islam, are on the list of “may not be mentioned critically”?
Once a political censorship is in place, and we can show that it is, then we must remind ourselves that we don’t know what is being said. Our conception of what is normal tends to be formed or influenced by the news media, whether we like it or not. It is what is NOT said that is important, sometimes.
Now this may seem like an over-reaction, and, in some ways, I hope that it is. I doubt that every journalist is corrupt! I don’t suppose that every newspaper has a censor at their office. But censorship can be imposed in many ways other than a man in a uniform — societal intimidation is one — and anyway … how can we tell? We can tell that we’re being misled. The evidence has appeared.
Secondly, I read today that in the 1990’s, with “far right” activity at a high, and voters supporting them, all the Swedish newspapers on the same day published photographs on their front pages of all the members of the relevant political party. It sounds quite Orwellian — no concerns about “diversity of control of the press” there! — but that is what the BBC reports today.
But that raises more questions. With that kind of Goebbels-like orchestrated intimidation directed at a small group by the political establishment, I found myself wondering whether the supposed bomber was really just a fall guy. Is it possible that this really was an Islamic attack? If it was, and if this happened … how would we know? These are the questions you start to ask, once you know that you can’t trust the media.
Let’s not get lost in the political aspects of this. The issue for me is one of freedom of information, and political censorship. Whatever our political views, we don’t need this kind of interference with information, whoever does it. We need more diversity and less censorship. At the moment the pressure is all the other way.
It is, after all, Christians who have been fingered as responsible for this atrocity. That means me, you know. And I’m reasonably sure that I didn’t do it.
UPDATE: I’ve removed material which, interesting as it is, is extraneous to this post.
Not obtaining the catalogue of the manuscripts of Vlatadon in Thessalonika
Back in early June, I ordered, from the French National Library in Paris, by email, a photocopy of the hard-to-find catalogue of the manuscripts of the monastery of Vlatadon in Thessalonika. It was published in 1918. This is the library, remember, that had a manuscript of the works of Galen, containing his Peri Alupias (On grief) in which he describes the burning of the libraries of Rome in 194 AD, and also containing complete texts of two other works important for bibliography. What else might be there?
Today I had a letter — yes, on paper — from that institution. It only took them 6 weeks. I presumed that it was a bill.
Far from it. It was a letter declining to make a copy, because the work is “in copyright” and demanding that I produce evidence of permission to copy from the publisher or author.
I don’t believe that Greece in 1918 had copyright laws. At least, it probably did not. I’m quite sure that the author is dead, and so unable to give me permission. Probably the printer has long since gone out of business. In the USA all books before 1923 are out of copyright anyway. And they don’t say how they “know” that it is in copyright. I don’t know that, and it seems rather unlikely to me that an author publishing in the 19th century died after 1941, which is the limit even under euro-copyright.
All this the BNF must have known. So … this is just a jobsworth being difficult. I imagine that I am the first person in a century to ask to see this obscure item, and instead of supplying it they have waited 6 weeks to make difficulties. Shame on them.
This, dear readers, is what we all had to go through to get the tools of scholarship, before Google Books. Let us all give thanks that, for English books at least, the power of the petty bureaucrat and jobsworth to obstruct research has been drastically reduced!