An annuncation from 1492

Today, March 25, is the feast of the Annunciation, which commemorates the Archangel Gabriel's announcement to the Virgin Mary that she would be the mother of God. This is one of the most important feasts of the liturgical year in the Latin Church, and medieval calendars typically mark this date in red ink to demonstrate its high liturgical rank. 

Last week, I was looking through the 1492 edition of Passionael, printed by Steffen Arndes in Lübeck, which is a collection of texts on the various feasts of the Catholic liturgical year. The collection is modelled on the Legenda Aurea by Jacobus de Voragine (c.1260), but it is also adapted to the interests of the Lübeck audience. (For instance, a number of Scandinavian saints were added, and these can be read about in this article by Iliana Khandza.) In 1492, Arndes issued an updated second edition of the book - the first edition came in 1488 - which included new chapters and new woodcuts. 

The chapter on the Annuciation runs from folios 384r to 387r and is introduced by a lovely and curious woodcut vignette. The Annunciation is a common theme in medieval art, and in numerous renditions Mary is depicted as reading from a book or performing her devotions. the Archangel Gabriel is usually standing a few feet away, although sometimes touching Mary with its hand. This 1492 rendition, however, is the first instance I have seen of Gabriel touching Mary with a staff, as if to rouse her out of her pious meditations. The woodcut is expertly done and contains a lot of details for such a small space, and it captures Mary's surprise very well.  

I am very fond of these woodcuts, as they represent a form of art that is not often as appreciated as the large wooden panels or frescoes so commonly associated with the fifteenth century, but which captures contemporary iconography in an effective and interesting way. 

Steffen Arndes, Passionael

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.384r

 

A thousand years is not that long - an example from Aarhus

 

The past is not as unfamiliar as is often presumed. Those who work on history-related subjects know this well. In the present day, however, this knowledge is often overshadowed by a pervasive sense of progressivism, by which I mean the idea that human history is constantly progressing, and often towards some specific goal. The most forceful form of progressivism nowadays is that which touts the blessings of artificial intelligence, colonising Mars, and other technological wonders that will change our relationship with earth, with knowledge, with ourselves, and so on ad nauseam.  

For me, however, raised as a son of farmers in the Western Norwegian fjords, elements of the past often resembles things from my own background. These resemblances are not due to the fjords being particularly backwards - although I suspect a lot of urban Norwegians would protest that this is exactly what it means - but rather that certain technologies are perfected very early in their history, and a lot of such technologies pertain to farm life. As a consequence, the solutions offered by these early technologies are still in use. 

I was reminded of this longue durée history of technology when I was visiting the Viking Museum in Aarhus this weekend. (Not to be confused with the famous Moesgaard Museum a bit south of the city.) The museum is small, but contains a lot of interesting archaeological finds from the centre of old Aros, the tenth- and eleventh-century city which was located in what is currently the centre of Denmark's second largest city. The items displayed in the museum are typical of such trading hubs as Aarhus was in that period - typical, but no less interesting for that - and include cooking pots of soapstone, nails from boats, weights from a loom, and whetstones. One of the items that caught my eye was a sinker, a rounded stone used to weigh down a fishing net so that one of its ends is dragged down into the water and prevents the net from just floating on the surface. 

Fishing with nets remains the best method for catching large amounts of fish on a lower scale, and in my family we are always paying attention to when the ice will break on one of the lakes back home, so that we can begin the season. Moreover, when I am out walking with my parents and we are traversing rocky ground, my father will often keep an eye out for rocks that might be suitable as sinkers. They are not as rounded and polished as the one found in the archaeological layers in Aarhus, but in order to serve as sinkers a stone only needs to be heavy but not too much, a bit thin and elongated so that it is possible to tie a cord around it, and shaped in such a way that it is easy to carry.  

The sinker is a technology that need not be improved upon, and I am not sure that it can be improved upon either, only altered in various ways that might give the illusion of improvement. There are several such technologies, and I think it is healthy to be reminded that due to their longevity, they connect us to the past in useful ways - useful because it is good to realise that some solutions have been perfected early, and also useful because modern people do sometimes need the reminder that a thousand years is not that long ago in certain respects.