A Medieval Brass Robot and the Unutterable Name of God April 12, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
This account is given by William of Malmesbury in one of his histories. It is interesting for many reasons, not least because it supposedly came from a doctor in his monastery, who told it to William, when the future historian was a boy. When I [William’s informant] was seven years old despising the mean circumstances […]
A Year-Long Dance in the Eleventh Century? April 5, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
A busy day here but really this strange twelfth century text (about an eleventh century event) needs little in the way of explanation. Wonder should be enough. William of Malmesbury, who quotes this account, apparently has a witness to hand. Note that Ethelbert sounds an Anglo-Saxon name but it is presumably an Anglified version of […]
Halley’s Comet and the Generations! May 12, 2013
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, Medieval
***Dedicated to Larry who got me interested in this and provided, through his emails and forwards, much of the information*** It recently struck Beach that Halley’s comet would be a perfect measure of the continuity of knowledge in ancient and medieval civilizations. After all, here is a comet that returns every 75 (and a bit) […]
Flight in Eleventh-Century England August 14, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
As regular readers will know Beachcombing is one of those irritating sceptics, who looks askance at most historical records of the ‘impossible’. But every so often even he has to shake his head and admit that the evidence for the ‘impossible’ is frighteningly good. Take this record from William of Malmesbury’s Deeds of the Kings […]
