2 days agoModern regulaeChapter 38 of the monastic Rule of St Benedict stipulates: ‘Reading will always accompany the meals of the brothers’. Reading in medieval refectories or dining halls was very common, not to say it was the rule. …2 min read2 min read
4 days agoThe halo effect of medieval cathedralsThe Cathedral of St Stephen in Metz has one of the highest naves among churches built in the medieval period. Construction started in the 14th century and ended in the early 16th. It has stood there undamaged through revolutions and geopolitical upheavals. One of the most common reactions people have…2 min read2 min read
6 days agoNumbers, more than lettersNumerals have a long history behind them. The earliest numeral notation appeared about 6,000 years ago. But it is only recently that numbers have declared war on letters. Only recently have we, first in the West, and then nearly everywhere else in the world, started to replace letters with numbers. …2 min read2 min read
Jan 20Zigzagging down the pageReading has more in common with skiing that one might suppose. A fast reader is a slalom master, negotiating hard turns through the narrow gates of meaning. Not every adventure is a descent, as any cross-country skier knows. …2 min read2 min read
Jan 18Finding the right routeAlmost every other modern philosopher may be found to have said, like Emerson, that it’s not the destination, but the journey that matters. The logicians and rhetoricians of the ancient world wouldn’t have gone onboard with this. For them, it was the destination that mattered. …2 min read2 min read
Jan 16CounterflowsIn most areas of social and cultural development, the advent of the modern world and the modern state means that things which used to look and feel differently in different parts of a country or across Europe slowly began to resemble each other. Weights and measures, regulation, law, even language…2 min read2 min read
Jan 13Ghosting the ghostsWhat is writing if not a congregation of ghosts, a reunion of traces? Disembodied presence, tangible absence, the past peeking and claiming underdetermined time. Every text is new, but every word is old. Some are newly coined, freshly recomposed, but their parts are old and must be old. Meaning depends…2 min read2 min read
Jan 11The territory and the mapNavigation has always been an arduous conquest. A conquest over culture as the map is over the territory. Finding the way takes time. Evolutionary time. X may mark the spot, but how do you know how to put the X in the first place? The history of writing and of…2 min read2 min read
Jan 9Incomplete picturesWhen it comes to history and texts, no picture can ever be complete. Our sources are never perfect. Historiographical vision is never 20/20. Looking back will always involve a large measure of fumbling in the dark. And describing texture and detail in candlelight. The poorer the vision, the larger the…2 min read2 min read
Jan 6Personal tasteBooks are objective items, but reading is a subjective human activity. Subjective, not intersubjective. Reading can’t be shared. Unless the text is recited, in which case it’s not a reading anymore, but a performance. …2 min read2 min read
