Eifelheim

A note on terms and sources

Certain German terms, idioms, and turns of phrase employed from time to time have been written as if they were English: thus “gof” and “doodle” instead of Gof and Dudl. But for the most part, English equivalents have been used. So, Bear Valley and Stag’s Leap instead of Bärental and Hirschsprung. Wiesen Valley instead of Wiesenthal. Birds like Waldlaubsänger and Eichelhäher are woodleafsingers and acorn-jays; flowers like Waldmeister are ‘woodmasters,’ and so forth.

The feudal and manorial systems were common across Western Europe into central Germany, although by the time of the story both had been breaking down for some time. The terminology is equally strange, whether German, French, English or Latin. I have used the more familiar term unless there is good reason otherwise. So, castle, manor, steward, dungeon instead of schloss, hof, verwalter, or bergfried. Where the English term would have sounded “too English,” the German was employed: buteil, vogt, junker instead of heriot, reeve or squire. The German for a joust was buhurdieren, so I used the archaic English word, bohorts.

Manfred’s speech on page ‹238› is adopted from the 14th century biography of Don Pero Nino, El Victorial [“The Unconquered Knight,”] by Gutierre Díaz de Gómez, one of his companions.

The decription of Manfred girded for war on page ‹239› is adapted from the medieval epic, Ruodlieb

Fr. Rudolf’s sermon on page ‹274› is from Peter of Blois, 1170. Max’s complaint about sportsmanship on p. ‹276› is likewise taken from life.

The story of Auberede and Rosamund on page ‹157›, which took place in France, is recounted in Regine Pernod’s Those Terrible Middle Ages! and combined with that of another peasant.

The famous stink of Brun, brother to Otto, and the attendant bathing practices mentioned on p. ‹273› are from the epic Ruotger and applied to Manfred’s neigbor. We often read that people did not bathe in the Middle Ages, yet we have the evidence from Ruotger and also, more offhandedly, that flagellants took an oath not to bathe for the duration of their service, and it would seem contrary to swear an oath to avoid something that one never did. More likely, in Transalpine Europe in a time before hot water heaters, bathing was a sometime thing.

“Falcon Song” on p. ‹314› was modified and adapted from Franz H. Bäuml’s Medieval Civilization in Germany 800-1273, (Ancient Peoples and Places, v. 67).

Dietrich’s discussion of the intension and remission of forms and the mean speed theorem on p. ‹105› is adapted from William of Heytesbury’s Regule solvendi sophismata as quoted and discussed in Edward Grant’s The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages.

Some of the Latin honorifics bestowed on various philosophers have been translated. So Peter Aureoli, the doctor facundus, is ‘Doctor Eloquent’ and Durandus, the doctor modernis is ‘Doctor Modern.’ Will Ockham, who never completed his doctorate, was called the venerabilis inceptor, the “Old Ineptor.” Inceptor was a “degree” short of the doctorate that enabled one to teach.

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