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Dr. Erik Wade -- CEASEFIRE NOW

Feb 21, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X

🧵:Are you confronted by a threatening wyvern? Take off your clothes! Wyverns--according to some medieval bestiaries--run away from nude people.

(BnF, Français 1951 f.5) #MedievalTwitter

This idea seems to have some connection to the wyvern's serpent-like nature and to the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

(BnF, Français 15213 f.63v)

The wyvern (or sometimes the viper or serpent, depending on the bestiary) is like the Serpent in the Garden, unable to approach the pure Adam and only able to come close once Adam has Fallen (and realized his nudity).

(BnF, Français 1444 f.258)

Look how happy this one is to see a fully dressed person.

(Morgan Library, MS M.459 fol. 5r)

"No, I don't to be hugged, you ridiculous nudist!"

(BnF, Latin 2843E f.70v)

Sometimes this is applied to totally unrelated animals, like this big cat-thing (probably a Woutre) that seems terrified of a naked man.

(Arsenal, 3516 f.200v)

Basically, medieval wyverns are perpetually afraid that there's a naked person nearby.

(BnF, Français 412 f.229v)

"There.....there's a nudist colony behind me right now, isn't there?"

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More from @erik_kaars

Dr. Erik Wade -- CEASEFIRE NOW

@erik_kaars

Jun 30, 2023

Why are we not talking about Sir William Neville & Sir John Clanvowe, the two gay English knights buried together in a tomb with marriage motifs???

Who were friends with Chaucer and possibly the inspiration for his The Knight's Tale?

And also maybe SPIES? #MedievalTwitter

So the above image is the tombstone of Sir William Neville & Sir John Clanvowe, who died in Galata (outside Constantinople) in 1391 within days of each other. Their shields are "impaled"; that is, their coats of arms are merged. This really only happens with married couples.

The article about their tombstone tries SO hard not to say gay.

Read 17 tweets

Dr. Erik Wade -- CEASEFIRE NOW

@erik_kaars

May 27, 2023

Plz look at these married Roman queer women!

The clasped hands are a traditional sign of a married couple on funerary reliefs like this.

Their names are Fonteia Eleusis and Fonteia Helena. Quick thread about them!

Fonteia Eleusis and Fonteia Helena were freedwomen. Their funerary relief dates from the first century BC.

The British Museum is SO confused.

"why are the ladies acting like they're MARRIED?!"

Read 9 tweets

Dr. Erik Wade -- CEASEFIRE NOW

@erik_kaars

Sep 17, 2022

I want to highlight an example of the whitewashing & erasure of the work of scholars of color--particularly Black & Indigenous ones--in the work of white medievalists. I came across it yesterday, & it's such a clear demonstration of how their work gets credited to white people.

This isn't a critique of the article's claim or its contribution to the field of race studies in Old English.

This is about how white medievalists who start publishing on medieval race draw on the work of scholars of color while obscuring them.

So this article came out recently in PMLA, a journal that has notably blocked work on race by premodernists of colors (medium.com/the-sundial-ac…)

That matters, since this article will be highly visible and cited in a way that the work of scholars of color won't.

Read 25 tweets

Dr. Erik Wade -- CEASEFIRE NOW

@erik_kaars

Sep 6, 2022

🧵: Modern people: Oh man, medieval people must have really believed in dragons and been terrified of them coming to kill them.

Medieval people: Dragons are a major threat to manuscript marginalia. They hate decorations.

(Paris, BnF, Espagnol 286 LXv)

Dragon: What the heck is this overly flowery border??? Have none of you heard of minimalism??

(Paris, BnF, Espagnol 227 f.1)

"This letter is TOO ornate! GOLD LEAF? REALLY?"

(Paris, BnF, Français 2628 f.22)

Read 5 tweets

Dr. Erik Wade -- CEASEFIRE NOW

@erik_kaars

Sep 5, 2022

🧵: So several scholars of color are pointing out the problems with racists mad about the new LoTR series. I did the same. My tweet got tepid responses, while the scholars of color faced vicious racism immediately *often from the same people*

[CW: racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia]

Most the people disagreeing with me didn't make it an issue of my identity & didn't insult me. These are among the meanest ones.

Easily a third of the responses to the scholars of color were hateful.

Dr. Ramírez got six comments on his main tweet and two of those were immediately vicious insults.

Read 10 tweets

Dr. Erik Wade -- CEASEFIRE NOW

@erik_kaars

Aug 21, 2022

🧵The AHA president's "scholarship on race is ahistorical and presentist" blog isn't an outlier view or a brave take in the face of "the woke mob" or the "radical Left". It's been the party line among many senior scholars for decades.

Take medieval studies. (Really. Take it).

Look at basically any "state of the field" forum in medieval studies from the last few decades, especially in Old English studies. A lot of the big names--Allen Frantzen springs to mind--made careers out of slamming new approaches as presentist and ahistorical.