| Medieval history, according to my students |
[Apr. 30th, 2008|12:25 am] |
The three most common punishments for crimes in the Middle Ages were hanging and mutilation.
It was not inconceivable for a monastic house to increase the number of sheep farming in this period.
The earliest recorded human dissections in Europe date from the fourth century B.Sc.
Collette of Corbie's biographer stresses that ... both in life and death her body gave off only sweat odors.*
Sadly, these may be the last additions to my student blooper collection. Next year I'm not going to TA.
*I'm aware that this last line is a direct (if mangled) quote from Caroline Walker Bynum's Holy Feast and Holy Fast |
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| My students think I'm smart or something |
[Apr. 30th, 2008|12:42 am] |
Another little trend I noticed in this term's papers was the tendency to throw around vocabulary I'd never seen before. To balance the impression created by the post below, here are five words I learned from my students this term.
adjuvant a.: tending to help.
indelt n.: I still don't know what this is, or whether the word was a typo for something else. From the context, it is some sort of financial or judicial transaction performed at the papal curia.
lubricious a.: sleazy in a slippery kind of way.
misogamous a.: marriage-hating.
scapulimancy n.: divination performed by examining cracks in the shoulder blades of sheep (as practiced by the Mongols). |
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