This is partially a writing advice post, and partially the beginnings of an answer to several questions I frequently receive about my work.
So what I want to talk about is word choice. One of (several) common problems I saw in slush, back when I was reading slush, was iffy word choices. That is, words that are dictionary-correct, but wrong for the context.
Obviously the wrongness of the choice doesn't lie within the dictionary definition. But what a word means isn't confined to its dictionary definitions.
The thing is, we mostly don't learn our vocabularies by reading dictionaries. We learn words by hearing people talk, and by reading. When we were babies, we learned by hearing others around us talk, and watching what they did while they were talking, and by repeating things and discovering that particular words would elicit particular reactions. So one of the ways words mean things is by their associations–with real objects, with other words, with the circumstances in which we first heard or read those words, or the circumstances and context in which we often or nearly always hear those words. For most of the words we use on a daily basis, and quite a few others we use a bit less often, the most painstakingly accurate dictionary definitions are nothing more than schematics of our experience of their meaning. Indeed, the dictionary definitions are derived from those experiences and associations, not the other way around.
This is one of the reasons, by the way, that incautious use of a thesaurus can lead a writer astray. There aren't actually any real synonyms–that is, you can't just freely replace any instance of "purse" with "receptacle" even though the thesaurus lists them as synonyms.
Anyway. For most of us, we don't experience words as distillations of their dictionary definitions, but as a set of associations. If I say "table" you've got some idea of what a table is, formed either by your personal experience with tables, or ideal cultural images of tables. Or, more likely, both. If I say "operating table" you get another very specific image, likely formed by movies or TV unless you work in the medical profession or have a lot of experience with healthcare.
She put the tray of tools on the operating table.
Let's even grant that context has been sufficiently established–yes, the reader understands that we're in a table repair shop, and that all the other tables in the room do not, in fact, work. Still, that phrase, operating table is going to pull up associations that are entirely inappropriate for the scene. I'm not trying to associate my replicator tables with surgery (I might want that, on another occasion, but not this time).
So, it's extremely important to be aware of the associations words have, because your reader is going to be experiencing those as they read. And you can get a lot of mileage out of choosing the word with the right association. If our table story were, say, a horror story in which a character was going to be disassembled by a replicator table, then "She put the tools on the operating table" might be exactly the sentence I want, to set some associations ringing right away. Or maybe not, right? Maybe that would still be clumsy. The only way to know is to think about how it might or might not work for me, if I were the reader.
Which brings me to my next point. Our ideas about what words mean, and the associations words have for us, are all a product of our personal histories–our families, our families' in-jokes and private conversational tics, where and how we went to school, the version of English that dominated where we grew up, the books we read, the shows or songs we've seen and heard, the kinds of things our friends talk about. There is no universal experience of a word. You can mostly (mostly) rely on really common words, that most of us use every day. Most people will have the same (or same enough) set of associations with the word "table." Being aware of those common associations, paying attention to them and choosing words accordingly, will get you part of the way, keep you from the clumsiest of missteps.
But you want more than that. Right? The problem is, not all your readers will have the same set of associations.
The most obvious example of this is one I tried explaining to my daughter, years ago, when I was telling her that words are like plants–the word itself is leaves and flowers, but its roots under the soil are entangled with other roots, and you can't pull on the flower without also tugging on those other plants. In the right circumstances, you can say one word and your listener will hear some of those others more or less faintly in the background. "In the right context," I said, "if you say the word spice to a science fiction reader, they will instantly think of sandworms. " She was dubious.
Of course, she'd read Dune. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have had that same experience I'd just had. I could have said "Ooh, I smell spice!" to my mother-in-law, and (lovely mother-in-law though she is) she would have had no reaction, or only thought about food.
So, this is my point–the language we speak isn't like a programming language, where definitions are set and meaning follows an absolutely logical sequence and there's some perfectly logical way to decode the meaning of any word or sentence. (No one has actually died in the shower from not being able to exit the loop on the back of the shampoo bottle. Indeed, the joke is funny because it never has and never would happen, because human languages don't work like computer languages.) The dictionary definitions of words are only the surface of what they mean–but what's below that surface is different from person to person, even if some meanings are common to some groups of people.
As a writer, your work is to some extent made more difficult by this. But if you turn it around and look at it as a tool to be used, you can get some really cool effects from it. Just, not every reader is going to be in a position to experience the effect. But that's all right, that's just life. That's how it is.
The writing advice here is, think very carefully about the resonances and associations of even common words, while you write. Be sure the echoes of your words are the ones you want. Always remembering, of course, that some readers won't hear them at all or will hear different ones, but that can't be helped.
The answer to the questions about my work? Well, if a dictionary-correct word isn't producing the set of associations I want, I'm going to either try to manipulate the context so that it's closer to what I want (by, say, using other words in immediately previous sentences to prime the association I'm after), or choose a different one. So if you've wondered why I chose one word and not another, that would be why.
Funny you should mention the spice thing, because the word "ancillary" will never be the same to me again.
Hah, yes, I thought of mentioning that. I did the same to myself–I can't see the word without doing a double-take now. You're right, it's the same effect, just very obvious because "ancillary" wasn't in much use previously except in a few specialized areas.
Ann, I feel exactly the same about "ancillary" at this point. I wanted to say that the way you argue your point above is backed up by psycholinguistics and the way it talks about word meanings. I wrote an article related to this for the editorial of Analog's May issue this year, called "Not Just Semantics." It's possible that you or your readers might find it interesting. The main point is that word meanings are a concatenation of all the contexts in which a person has ever heard a word, and all are activates simultaneously when the person hears the word. Thus, words we read don't transmit meaning to us, but evoke it, and what gets evoked will differ depending on the person. Great article.
Ooh, is the editorial available online?
PSA: Subterranean have just announced the hardcover of Ancillary Sword, and the artwork is simply superb!
Thank you, citizen! I have been anxiously waiting to be able to tell people about this, so glad to know it's announced!!!


War Thunder Update 1.75 "La Résistance" is now rolling out for players. According to the official patch notes, the new War Thunder 1.75 update has added new weapons, Location and mission changes and much more. In addition, the War Thunder version 1.75 also introducing more than a dozen new aircraft such as the Soviet Yak-2, the Yak-4 or the French MS.406C1, as well as the post-war F3D1 Skyknight naval fighter or the top-rank Japanese F-86F-40 jet. Read full details below.
French ground vehicles have been added in this update and we begin the closed test of these unusual machines. You can get access to the test by completing several easy in-game tasks or by purchasing early access packs and be the first to test French armour!
This time War Thunder has also introduced more than a dozen new aircraft such as the Soviet Yak-2, the Yak-4 or the French MS.406C1, as well as the post war F3D1 Skyknight naval fighter or the top-rank Japanese F-86F-40 jet.
A new location for combined battles known as "Maginot Line" has also been added in this update – A famous French defense line full of bunkers and fortifications.
The other map "Middle East" will be familiar to our players – it was already introduced during the april's fool event this year, it has been reworked and optimized and now our players will have an opportunity to battle among the city ruins and an oil factory situated in the hot sands of the Middle East.
"Active scouting". In order to scout the environment in Arcade mode just select a target and push the "Scout" button (may be found in the settings). After that, an enemy marker will become visible for all your teammates for 30 seconds. In Realistic mode, you will have to use binoculars or sight (sniper) view. Once in this view put your crosshairs on an enemy vehicle and press the "Scout" button. After that, a marker will appear over the enemy vehicle and will be updated for 30 seconds.
If you are playing a heavy tank for example – select the "Repairing!" short message – any allies who are driving light vehicles may assist you even if they are not members of your squad.
Check your game update and download the latest update on PS4 and PC.


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Taxi For Trivandrum International Airport
Trivandrum International Airport is an airport serving the capital city of Kerala state, India. Located in Thiruvananthapuram, it is the first airport of Kerala and the first international airport in a non-metro city of the nation. The airport is interestingly an "all weather" airport in the country. It is also ISO 9001-2000 certified. Apart from the civil operations, the airport also caters to the Indian Air Force (IAF) as well as the Coast Guard for their strategic operations.
Pick and drop facility for Trivandrum International Airport, Anywhere in Thiruvananthapuram city of Kerala state, India. 24x7 customer support at: +91-888 200 1133
Car Rental Services For Trivandrum International Airport
Trivandrum Tour
Thiruvananthapuram formerly known as Trivandrum is the capital city of Kerala. Located beautifully at the South Western tip of the country, the city is bordered by the Arabian Sea on the West and state of Tamil Nadu towards the East. Tourists in large numbers visit this place from all over the world to enjoy the best of picnic spots, mesmerizing shoreline, internationally renowned beaches, grandeur of historic monuments, backwater stretches and a lot more. The city is one of the most sought after tourist places across the globe.
Thiruvananthapuram is easily accessible by air through Thiruvananthapuram international airport which is about 6 kms from the city. The city is also well connected to all major towns and cities of the state by road.
There are many beautiful tourist places to visit in Thiruvananthapuram. The Kovalam Beach is just16 kms away from the city. This is an internationally renowned Beach Resort and a hot favourite haunt of tourists since the 1930s! It comprises of three adjoining crescent beaches. Padmanabha Swamy Temple is another popular tourist site dedicated to Lord Vishnu. Kuthiramalika Palace Museum is a palace built by Maharaja Swathi Thirunal Balarama Varma, the King of Travancore, a musician, great poet, statesman, and social reformer. The museum displays paintings and a huge number of priceless collections of the royal family.
The Napier Museum was built in the 19th century and an indo-saracenic structure. It claims to accommodate a "natural" air conditioning system and home to a rare collection of archaeological and historic artifacts.
Sree Chitbra Art Gallery is a beautiful gallery displaying priceless select paintings of eminent personalities from the world of art including Nicholas Roerich, Raja Ravi Varma, and Svetlova. Other places of tourist interest in Thiruvananthapuram include zoological park , observatory, priyadarshini planetarium, shankhumugham beach, Thiruvallam, Aruvikkara Dam, Kanyakumari, and connemera market.
Hiring a taxi in Trivandrum will help you enjoy the tour in Kerala and areas around better.
MyTaxiIndia (MTI) Car rental services in Trivandrum:
Airport Transfer in Trivandrum
Car hire in Trivandrum for local uses
Trivandrum Taxi Hire package for Out station uses
Hire taxi on rent in Trivandrum for M.I.C.E
Trivandrum Car rental service for Marriage, party and event
Corporate Cab Rental in Trivandrum
Looking forward to enjoy a memorable tour experience in God's Own Country? Get in touch with us for an experience that you will treasure for a lifetime. At My Taxi India, we guarantee proficiency in services and complete comfort to our esteemed clientele and potential customers.
We understand that travellers are bound to have apprehensions and queries when on a tour to a new place. Our dedicated team will take care of your minutest requirements and surpass all expectations based on tour to anywhere in Kerala. With us, just expect the most comfortable journey to Thiruvananthapuram ever!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


AT&T and other ISPs have claimed that the unlimited Internet access account creates an environment where a few heavy users spoil the online experience for casual users. Additionally, they claim that the excessive usage of the few costs them too much money, so those users should be made to pay more if they choose to download more.
It would seem that one of the responsibilities of the ISP, as a provider of Internet access to its customers, is to continually innovate and improve its network so that the online experience is not diluted for some at the expense of other users. They provide a service, and the responsibility for making that service attractive to customers is what they, as a business, should do. However, this is not what they do as a corporation.
As a corporation, they are beholden to their shareholders. This means that they are not as concerned about their users, paying for the service that they provide, as they are about their shareholders. As a corporation, their calculus finds the way to maximize their profits (e.g., providing dividends, pumping the stock price, rewarding upper management financially, etc) while minimizing their expenditures. Those expenditures would be the things that they could do to maximize their customers' experience online (e.g., providing bandwidth, improving infrastructure, making the ISP as transparent as possible to the online experience).
Unfortunately, AT&T and other ISPs, in measures such as this and the impending customer abuse as a result of removing net neutrality from the picture, want to get as many customers as possible who are willing and able to pay for crap service in order to maximize the things that really matter to the corporation's logic of appeasing its true masters (i.e., not the customers).
Which ISP will be the next with innovative ways to stick it to their customers?


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Q: Are there significant resource-usage differences among: HTTP polling VS Websocket VS Webhooks? There is the following scenario:
The desktop app communicates with node.js server to get the updates/messages. For example, 100 users have that desktop-app open. Will server get less load if I choose either #1,#2 or #3 method:
1) having http request sending to backend once in every second to get the new message
2) having websocket connection to get the new message
3) having webhook to send message to desktop app
(my goal here is about server resource usage and goal to have less server load. I am not familiar, but answers are also welcomed mentioning http/2 protocol)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Praying in tongues in a famine year
Well, I had promised that the next post would be a report on an age-old seminar paper by Dr Conor Kostick. However, I figured that by now he must have published it, so I checked that, and in fact it seems that he has not. In that case, it seems a little unfair to have a go at it when apparently it didn't go any further anyway, so I've decided to drop that and instead haul something out of my unfinished stub posts from about the same time with which to entertain you. So this comes from the early stages of the first run of my Carolingians module at Leeds, HIST2005 Rule and Reform under Charlemagne and his Successors, 768–987. This was the first time I'd taught the Carolingians for more than a week, and so it got me reading a lot of things I honestly should have read ages ago but somehow had not, and one of these was the Capitulary of Frankfurt.1 In the middle of that, I suddenly came upon a question I couldn't answer, and I still can't, so I put it before you all.
Opening page of the earliest manuscript copy of the Capitulary of Frankfurt, from the ninth-century Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Latin 10758, fo. 25r, image via Gallica
For those of you not quite as deep as some of us in Charlemagne's world, firstly a capitulary is a species of law-code issued as items under headings or capitula, quite a vague category, and secondly that of Frankfurt was quite a big deal. It followed on two years of bad harvests and a minor rebellion, and it seems that these events all had the leading men of Charlemagne's massive kingdom worrying about whether God had withdrawn his favour from the hitherto-successful Franks and what should be done about that. There was also a fairly large-scale three-way theological argument going on with the Byzantine Empire and the Papacy and it was deemed necessary to depose the erstwhile Duke of Bavaria, a ruler nearly as prestigious as Charlemagne himself.2 As a result, the council left very little untouched, and the measures range from what might seem to us very practical ones, such as opening state stockpiles of produce for famine relief and fixing maximum prices to try and stop hoarders exploiting shortage to sell high, through high diplomacy and politics to spiritual ones about tightening Church discipline. These do make sense together in that framework of winning back God's support, of course, but it means that one jumps quite quickly from information vital to numismatists like what you should be able to buy for a denarius, through the stitched-up denunciation of Duke Tassilo to orders to close down fake roadside shrines that people may have set up (perhaps people like Aldebert of a few years before, for readers with long memories) and indeed fake bishops.3 It's a rare scholar now who would focus on all this equally.4 And on this particular read-through, there was one bit that struck me especially, which goes like this:5
"That no-one is to believe that God may be prayed to in three tongues only; for God may be worshipped and a man's prayer heard, if he ask for things which are just, in any language."
I don't know about you—and sadly, I don't think it sparked anything for my students—but for me, at least, This Raises Questions. Firstly, why had this come up? Was someone trying to tell their flocks that they couldn't pray in the vernacular but had to learn something else? Should we see this as connected with the false shrines and so on, was this more bad churchmen peddling a strange line that needed stopping?
A niche on the roadside of la Vinya de Vallfogona, which would probably not have been cool in 794. Photo by your author.
Then, I wondered if in fact it's not more like clerical magic that's being prohibited here: this was apparently about getting stuff one asked for, in which case it might be thought more like a spell or an incantation than a prayer as such, and we might not be surprised that people thought it was a special language. Still, if it really were that, I think the Church would probably have been as down on it as they were on most magical practice (most…), whereas it seems in fact that all this is cool, as long as one asks for "things which are just". So, maybe not. So, what?
Well, I can't answer that, but it's all washed away by the biggest question of all for this particular Carolingians geek, which is of course: what languages? This is in some ways like our old question about the so-called 'Third King of Spain'; it may be more important to ask about the first and second… Now, Heaven only knows how many languages were spoken in the Carolingian kingdom at this (or any other) point: Latin, obviously, because here's a text in it, maybe some Greek, Frankish (Einhard tells us so, quite apart from any other evidence), rather a lot of late Latin/early Romance forms presumably (as would soon afterwards turn up in the Oaths of Strasbourg), and then Frisian, Breton, Old Saxon, Old High German, some forms of Slavonic, probably Arabic in places, Hebrew, Old English and Old Irish in certain monastic communities…6 More than three, anyway, so which were the three that were being allowed? Evidently it was restrictive, so I would tend to assume that they were not vernacular, or at least mostly not so. Latin, Greek and Hebrew, the languages of the Bible? Latin, Frankish and Romance, the three most widely spoken, but still difficult if you were Breton or Croat? The different possibilities have quite different implications about who was being shut out of worship by some clerics somewhere: the rustics, or the irredeemably local? Was this about suppressing regional identities or about confining the practice of Christianity to an educated elite? Or something else? Either way, we note that Charlemagne and his advisors didn't like it. But who did, and what were they trying to do, eh?
1. Text to be found in Alfred Boretius (ed.), Capitularia Regum Francorum, Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Leges: Capitularia) I-II (Hannover: Hahn 1883-1887), I, no. 28 (pp. 73-78), translated in P. D. King (transl.), Charlemagne: Translated Sources (Kendal 1987), pp. 224-230.
2. For background see Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 768–987 (London 1987), p. 59; for more on the theological dispute see now Thomas F. X. Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians (Philadelphia, PA, 2009) and for Bavaria, Stuart Airlie, "Narratives of Triumph and Rituals of Submission: Charlemagne's Mastering of Bavaria" in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th Series Vol. 9 (Cambridge 1999), pp. 93–119, on JSTOR.
3. See n. 1 for references. These are clauses 4 (King p. 225), 3 (King pp. 224-225), 42 (King p. 229) & 22 (King p. 227).
4. Though most of them come up in the course of Rosamond McKitterick, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge 2008). Separate studies are most obviously combined in Rainer Berndt (ed.), Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794: Kristallisationspunkt karolingischer Kultur, Quellen und Abhandlungen zur mittelrheinischen Kirchengeschichte 80 (Mainz 1997).
5. King, Charlemagne, p. 229 (cap. 52).
6. I admit to not having gone and checked them for this, but my two stock references for language in the Carolingian world are Roger Wright, Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (Liverpool 1982) and Michel Banniard, Viva voce: Communication écrite et communication orale du 4e au 9e siècle en Occident latin, Études augustiniennes: Moyen Âge et temps modernes 25 (Paris 1992). I suppose I should get a new one now. Any suggestions?
Posted in Carolingians, Currently teaching...
Tagged capitularies, Charlemagne, language choice
He's a jolly good Fellow
This is, for now, the last of the posts about my great achievements; I have so much stuff in publication queues that another can't, hopefully, be too far away, but for now this is the last one. (Then we can get to really clearing backlog… !) I already mentioned these two things in passing, but in the last couple of years I have achieved a certain level of professional recognition that lets me start adding more letters after my name when I really want to show off. In late 2016, I managed to achieve election as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Then, in August 2017 I also attained Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. These two things are quite different in both process and signification so I thought I'd say something briefly about both.
The Royal Historical Society is a 150-year-old learned society in the traditional mould, which it is now working to break down a bit as it generates important work about how that 'traditional' mould has restricted career progress for anyone who's not male and white.1 (I was born lucky in this respect, of course.) The way you get to be a Fellow of it is that you make a case to them that your work is a significant achievement in the field, get someone else who already is a Fellow to write agreeing with that, and then they decide. In my case, I had a slight starting advantage in that the book of my thesis was published through the Royal Historical Society and they nearly (alas, only nearly) gave it a prize, so I was pretty sure it was OK in their eyes, and I made it the cornerstone of my case. I took a long time doing this, however, and I will admit that what made me actually apply in the end was a combination of going to hear Katy Cubitt talk at the Society and there being names announced of new fellows whom I thought of as much younger than me (because they are) and became outraged that I hadn't already achieved this before them—which was my own fault of course—and of trying to achieve some sense of recognition in my new job. But once the application was in it was easy, I was elected and since then it's just been a matter of remembering to pay my society fees.
The Higher Education Academy no longer exists as such and was when I applied a youthful 14 years old. (It is now called Advance HE and is slightly differently constructed, but still awards the Fellowships.) Its focus is entirely on teaching quality. For a while the UK university sector proliferated teaching qualifications, ranging from the nationally-recognised Postgraduate Certificate in Education that schoolteachers take through to various bespoke university ones some of which weren't recognised even throughout their own institutions, let alone more widely. The HEA Fellowship scheme was, as I understand it, a governmental intervention in that situation to provide a recognisable accreditation for university teachers, and it has become more and more popular, partly because of governmental use of it as a teaching quality benchmark but mainly, I think, because it has allowed universities to apply a universal standard of teaching qualification to the staff they take on. I, for example, hold a Certificate in University Teaching from Birkbeck College London. It was very useful to me, but no other institution could easily find out what it means in terms of training, not least because Birkbeck, University of London (as they now are) no longer offer it. But if you hire someone with an HEA Fellowship you know what they've done to get it. One can be a Junior Fellow, a straightforward Fellow or a Senior Fellow and what these more or less mean is "I have some recognised teaching training and experience and some idea that this is a subject of academic study in its own right", "I am up to speed with modern requirements on university teachers, how we can teach and why the scholarship thinks we should do it so" and "I am all that, but have also made other people change how they teach". I went for the middle one.
This was a lengthy process. Leeds supplies pretty extensive support, so there were training sessions, other people's draft applications to read and so on, but it boils down to references from two people who've seen you teach, a log of one's professional development over the previous year, a reflective account of one's teaching practice with reference to the scholarship, and a form saying you've done all those things. The log was the most frustrating of these, and if I'd understood the process better I would have made a better job of it. As you may just remember me saying, on arrival at Leeds I threw myself into quite a lot of training, thinking I wouldn't have as much of a chance later and conscious that it was one of my probationary requirements. But you may also remember me saying that while applying for Fellowship was also one of those requirements, the University had just, when I arrived, pulled its scheme for doing so, and the national one they were using as backup required you have a year of experience teaching in post first. So, by the time I could do my application, most of my training was already ageing out of relevance! Anyway, leaving that aside, the reflective log was also not something I enjoyed putting together. In the first place, it had to speak the right language, that of the UK Professional Standards Framework. That's not actually hard to do, and there are worse jargon structures, but it does mean one starts to write in parrot form unless one's careful, losing one's own voice in the writing. In the second place, it means one has to at least show awareness of a lot of literature about university pedagogy and, while, there is much good stuff about that out there (I now know) there is also quite a lot of soapboxing or science-by-anecdote, and standards of proof are slippery in much of it. Some of it certainly did challenge me to improve my teaching. Nonetheless, I took a certain vicious pleasure, firstly in citing myself, and secondly in making sure that Hacking the Academy, and especially the chapter therein called "Lectures are Bullshit", were in the Bibliography, as some kind of reward to myself for having perforce to cite this stuff without space for critique.2
Anyway, it all worked, I got the Fellowship and, eventually, cleared probation, though that is a longer and separate story that will not be told here. And I have to say, looking back over the reflective statement just now, there are things in there I had forgotten I'd done in a classroom, as well as many promises to do things I have yet to follow up. I could be a much better teacher if I followed my own advice… I have, accidentally, created a reflection that deserves further reflection, and in that respect, I have to admit that the process was and will continue to be more useful to me than it seemed at the time I was doing it. I should pay attention to that message! Such are the thoughts on this occasion of Dr Jonathan Jarrett, M. A., Ph. D., F. R. Hist. S., F. H. E. A.
1. See Gender Equality and Historians in UK Higher Education, The Royal Historical Society (London 2015), online here; Race, Ethnicity & Equality in UK History: A Report and Resource for Change, by Hannah Atkinson, Suzanne Bardgett, Adam Budd, Margot Finn, Christopher Kissane, Sadiah Qureshi, Jonathan Saha, John Siblon & Sujit Sivasundaram (London 2018), online here; Promoting Gender Equality in UK History: A Second Report and Recommendations for Good Practice, by Nicola Miller, Kenneth Fincham, Margot Finn, Sarah Holland, Christopher Kissane & Mary Vincent (London 2018), online here.
2. I got myself in there via talking about coins as a teaching tool (on which see Jonathan Jarrett, Coins in Collections: care and use. A Guide to Best Practice by the COINS Project (Cambridge 2009), if you can somehow find a copy). The other cite is of course Jeff Jarvis, "Lectures are Bullshit" in Daniel J. Cohen & Tom Scheinfeldt (edd.), Hacking the Academy: New Approaches to Scholarship and Teaching from Digital Humanities (Ann Arbor, MI, 2013), pp. 66-69. Of what I read without the intent to be smug, Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson, "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" in American Association for Higher Education Bulletin (Denver, CO, 1987), pp. 3-6, repr. in Biochemical Education Vol. 17 (1989), pp. 140–141 inter alia, repr. separatim as Wingspread Journal Vol. 9 no. 2 (Racine, WI, 1989) and thence online here, Michael Jackson, "But Learners Learn More" in Higher Education Research & Development Vol. 16 (Abingdon 1997), pp. 101–109, DOI: 10.1080/0729436970160108 and Anoush Margaryan, Allison Littlejohn & Gabrielle Vojt, "Are Digital Natives a Myth or Reality? University Students' Use of Digital Technologies" in Computers & Education Vol. 56 (New York City 2011), pp. 429–440, DOI: 10.1016/j.compedu.2010.09.004 might be my top three, and John B. Biggs and Catherine So-kum Tang, Teaching for Quality Learning at University: what the student does, 3rd edn. (Maidenhead 2007) would be an incredible resource if trying to implement it wouldn't clearly kill you from overwork. Philip Race, The Lecturer's Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Assessment, Learning and Teaching, 3rd edn. (London 2007) is probably the single one I found most practically useful. It's tempting to give a list of ones I thought were terrible too but that would just make me into a bad person.
Posted in Currently teaching..., Institutions, Uncategorized
Tagged career, Higher Education Academy, Leeds, Royal Historical Society, teaching
From the Sources XV: Trading in nostalgia in 11th-century Pavia
Posting here with any regularity continues to be difficult; the gaps pretty much coincide with the arrival of marking, and last for as long as it does. None of this is reducing the queue of things I want to talk about, but this post will at least get something out of it. I've been meaning to write something about this particular source for three years or so, since my second semester here at Leeds in which I found myself the convenor of an old module that I still run, called 'Empire and Aftermath: The Mediterranean World from the Second to the Eighth Centuries'. This is more or less a late antique survey of essentially political content, with some pauses to consider other issues, and one of these other issues is the venerable Pirenne thesis, the argument of the early twentieth-century historian of towns Henri Pirenne that despite its political breakdown the Roman world remained an economic and cultural unit until the rise of Islam cut northern and western shores of the Mediterrean off from eastern and southern and ended the commerce on which the whole thing ran.1 I used to worry about teaching the Pirenne thesis, because it seemed to me like a dead debate and I think focusing on those artificially is a bad illustration to students of what we do, but a recent article by Bonnie Effros has revived it somewhat or, at least, shown why it's still current, and coincidentally makes a great key secondary reading! But the question I was faced with was what to use as a primary source. How do you show a class with no foreign languages a large-scale economy over the course of a century from which there's very little relevant written evidence?
Sixth-century imported kitchenwares on display a few stories above the rubbish pits in which they were found in the Crypta Balbi, Rome, photo by yours truly. I have honestly thought of compiling these photos, dodgy though they are, and transcriptions of the museum captions into a source-pack, but thankfully have so far stopped myself. Why isn't there such a write-up?
Obviously, you have to focus on a case study. My first thought was that I wanted a short clear piece of English writing about the ceramic deposit from the rubbish dump in the Crypta Balbi in Rome, which dramatically shrank then stopped over the seventh century. As far as I can see, though, there isn't such a piece of writing: I could find use of it as an explanation of stratigraphy in a two-page appendix on ceramics in the period in general, or else just diagrams, and everything else is in Italian.2 I even asked someone knowledgeable at the British School of Rome and the best they could suggest was the museum guidebooks, which I duly ordered and were, alas, no use at all for my purposes.3 (The photos came later, and I'll tell that tale in due course.) So, in the first year I went with the list of travellers from the appendices of Michael McCormick's Origins of the European Economy, but they're almost impossible to understand out of the context of the book.4 Next year, inspired by a then-recent paper of Chris Wickham's, I used the letters of Pope Gregory the Great that talk incidentally about Mediterranean shipping, but that wasn't ideal either because Gregory was pre-Islamic, so could only show a before, not an after.5 Now I use a charter supposedly issued by King Chilperic II about tolls on shipping at Marseille, and that sort of works, but it took me a while to find it and it's still not quite ideal because of its complex textual history and some dubious features.6 But this post is about none of these things—though any suggestions and comments would be most welcome—but something I found while looking. (Pirenne does come back at the end, though, there is a plan of sort at work here, honestly.)
This is not the right charter of Chilperic II, but it does do some of the same things; this is a grant to St-Denis from 716 that survives as Paris, Archives nationales, K3/17, image from ARTEM via Wikimedia Commons
If you are a teaching medievalist, or even just a determined enthusiast, you will of course be familiar with that marvellous phenomenon, the old source reader. While either Patrick Geary's or Barbara Rosenwein's big newer ones serve teaching purposes very well, the tradition in which they stand is a very long one.7 If you've really looked at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook you may have noticed quite how much of it has names like Henderson, Thatcher, Ogg and so on attached to it, and to be honest while he's added to the basic corpus, so does Geary's in many places, and so indeed does pretty much every other modern anthology I've used.8 And while the commonest ones are all from the early twentieth-century USA and carry pretty much the same basic content, with a religious and constitutional focus unsurprisingly enough, when you start poking around not only does each of them have one or two things in that only their translators thought were interesting, but also there are some specialist ones constructed because of that thematic focus, these usually being economic.9 And in those latter there's some really interesting stuff, things that not only have people not translated but which not that many people know exists.10 At least, I didn't (which I realise is not the same thing). And this post, he finally announces three paragraphs down, is about one of those.
Cover of Robert S. Lopez and Irving W. Raymond (edd./transl.), Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World
The anthology in question is about medieval trade, and like most sourcebooks it's out to provide documentation for a historical argument—I guess they all are, really, if one accepts that 'these are the roots of our culture and liberties' is an argument. That argument is the one of the so-called Commercial Revolution, and accordingly the sourcebook is by the man who came up with that, Robert Lopez, along with some help from one Irving W. Raymond.11 And while the things you'd expect to be there—bits of Genizah documentation, letters from Genoa and so on—are here, so is some really interesting other stuff. I was going to do a run of From the Sources posts about these, but then remembered that because there is a second edition of this book, updated by the late lamented Olivia Remie Constable, they're all still under copyright.12 So you can't have the Lombard slave sale I thought was such a clear example of people-dealing in the early Middle Ages, but I do want to say something about what Lopez and Woodworth bill as 'Regulations from the Royal Court at Pavia'.13 I can't give it you in full translation, because as I say what Lopez and Raymond gave of it is protected by law, but they didn't use all of it, so I can give you the rest, and when you have that it starts to look like quite a different, and fascinating, but awkward, source. So, here are some rules that someone in Pavia wanted written down, with the bits that Lopez and Raymond covered in square-bracketed summary with references.14 As ever this translation is fast and could probably be improved, but I hope it's accurate enough to justify the argument I'm going to pull from it.
"In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, ever-eternal God. These institutes of the kings of the Lombards, these royal fasces, these honours of this ancient city of Ticinum should be fixed in solid white marble, lest long age should anywhere succeed in abolishing them. This city, the first to hear Christian words and on this account blessed with the Lord among other cities, Saint Syrus did bless at the beginning of his introduction and said: 'O blessed city, read! No little, but greatly and copiously shall you be called upon within the limits of cities among other towns, praise shall come to thee from the furthest mountains.' Rome named Pavia and called it her daughter. And just as Rome crowns the emperor in the church of San Pietro with her pope, so does Pavia with her bishop crown the king in the church of San Michaele Maggiore, where there is one round stone with four other round stones. The royal palace is in this city of Pavia, to which and to the royal presence therein are bound to and should come all the princes of Italy, for so fortune stirred up from the deeds of Ausonia councils to be celebrated with mature deliberation and whatever should have been deliberated in the said council to be observed under the beneficence of the king. For Pavia ought to have counts of the palace, who should hold audiences or courts of law for the whole of Italy in every place as if it were before the emperor and to do justice unto everyone; and she should have a missus of the king, and he should resolve disputes throughout Italy according to precept. Pavia should have a royal advocate and palatine judges. Moreover all the judges of Italy should settle cases by sentence. For they used to come to the general school of this blessed city of Pavia from all the cities of Italy to study in the civil law and to learn the laws, and the best and most honoured were the judges of Pavia. The bishops of Pavia stand out from all the cities of Italy. From all the priests of the church of San Siro, from all the clergy who were of this city, there were vouchsafed many divine graces and blessings.
"All of you whom touch the love, utility and honour of the kingdom of Lombardy, hear with light and equable spirits, how all of the duties that pertain to the royal chamber and palace and all the royal rights of the Lombards were instituted in ancient times!"
[Merchants entering the kingdom paid a tenth of most sorts of produce (horses, slaves, cloth, some metals) at any (maybe all?) of a range of listed toll stations; pilgrims to Rome are exempt.15]
[Anglo-Saxon merchants were also exempt, because they raised so much trouble and complaints that a treaty was brokered by which their king sent a load of luxury goods (silver, dogs (wearing silver), cloaks (probably silver-embroidered…), shields and so on) to the Lombard king every year instead.16]
[Venice had a similar arrangement by which fifty pounds of silver deniers annually and a big cloak buys their merchants free access to all Lombard ports.17]
[Despite that, Venetian merchants coming to actual Pavia paid every fortieth solidus they carried to the monastery of San Martino there, and a delegation from Venice still brings the royal treasurer a pound of pepper, one of cinnamon, one of galanghal and one of ginger annually, plus a comb and mirror or twenty deniers for his wife.18]
[Salerno, Gaeta and Amalfi had the same deal for access to Pavia.19]
[Pavia's own merchants carry an imperial safe conduct which should get them trouble-free access to all markets in Italy, on pain of a payment of 1,000 mancuses.20]
[Pavia's mint is farmed out to nine masters each year, who are in charge of the moneyers and pay 12 pounds each to the royal treasury annually for the privilege, and another four to the count of the palace; they are to cut off the right hand of any moneyer making false coin.21]
[Milan can make coins on the same standard as Pavia as long as they pay twelve pounds of them to the royal treasury in Pavia every year; the same rules about forgers apply.22]
"Also there are all the gold-panners who send a levy to Pavia, and they never ought to sell gold to anyone under oath, and they ought to consign it to [the king] and the chamberlain. And they ought to buy all that gold at a rate of two solidi, that is an eighth of an ounce, that is two and a half deniers, for sixteen solidi, that is eleven ounces, in the rivers where they pan for gold, which are these: Padus, Ticinus, Dorica, Sicida, Stura, Misturla, Octo, Amalone and Amalona, Celo, Duria, Blavum, Urba, Salvus, Sesedia, Burmia, Agonia, Ticinus from the Great Lake that runs into Padua. There are also these rivers: Abdua, Oglius, Mentius, Sarno, Adexe, Brenta, Trebia. And they ought to pan for gold in all the other rivers aforesaid.
"There are moreover fishermen in Pavia, who should fund one master from all their goods, and they should have sixty ships, and for each one of the ships they ought to give two denari every Kalends; the which kalendular denari they should give to their master, and they ought to make such savings that, when the king is in Pavia, they may use those denari to buy fish and at the same time bring them honourably daily to the court and to give fish to the chamberlain every Friday.
"There are also twelve tanners, makers of hides, with twelve juniors, and they should make twelve of their hides from the best cows every year and give them to the royal chamber, so that no [other] man be allowed to make hides. And whoever infringes this, let him pay a hundred Pavian soldi to the royal chamber. And when any one of these tanners first enters, the greater ones ought to give four pounds, half to the royal chamber and half to the other tanners."
[The local boatmen and shipowners also appoint masters, from whom the king and queen each have pre-emption of one ship when they are in Pavia, along with a smaller pilot vessel to clear their passage, all of whose expenses are borne by the court.23]
"And there were soapmakers in Pavia, who used to make soap, and who gave a render every year to the royal chamber of a hundred pounds of soap, and ten pounds of soap to the chamberlain, so that no-one else should make soap in Pavia.
There is also a custom with those women, who are rich, but who do not have tutors or guardians, and who wish to marry, that they should come and entreat the chamberlain, so that he may act for god and for the soul of the king, and give them a tutor or guardian and license to marry whom they wish, according to his law; and that woman ought to offer there a best-quality shield and lance, to give to the chamberlain.
"There is moreover in the church of San Siro a brass lamp, where the chamberlain ought thrice yearly, at Christmas, Easter and Pentecost, for each one of those festivals, to give a pound of Pavian denari in oil, so that that lamp may be filled and lit for the soul of the king. And the twelve retainers who are wardens in the church of San Siro, ought each one to receive linen clothes and each one a pair of boots and at Easter each one a cloak and cord shoes, so that they guard the emperor's light well; and as many times as the king enters the church of San Siro in procession, thus he ought to give to those same twelve retainers every year for the king's soul, so that God may answer their prayers. And two of the retainers of San Michaele Maggiore should receive clothes, just as do the retainers of San Siro."
[No-one is allowed to undertake any of these roles without license from the court, on pain of the bann, and Pavia's merchants always get first choice in the markets here.24]
Lopez and Raymond stopped there, but actually there's a load more, and it's metaphorical gold:
"And the abovesaid men, who hold these duties, which are written above, ought not to arrange or hold any meeting except before the king or the chamberlain.
"And of all these duties, which are written above, the tenth part belongs to the royal chamber, as a benefice, note, the tenth as a benefice of the king, and from all those same duties that pertain to the king, his wife the queen ought to have the third part.
"Know you this, that Gisulf the chamberlain, who was noble and rich, received all those same duties with all honour in the time of King Hugh and his son King Lothar, husband of Adelaide, and in the time of the first King Berengar and in the time of the first Emperor Otto. Once that Emperor Otto was dead, that Gisulf held the chamberlain's office and his son Ayrald held it after him with all honour, just as did his father, up till the second and third Emperors Otto. With Ayrald the chamberlain having died, Agisulf his son ought to hold the chamberlain's office, just as his father did.
"Then there came that devil who is named John the Greek, who was a very apostate and a heretic, the Bishop of Piacenza, and he was a counsellor of the Greek empress and her son the third Emperor Otto, who was a child, and the king bestowed all those same duties on John the Greek, and he wanted to hold all those same duties which belonged to the royal chamber in his own hand. And he emplaced two of the Greek empress's slaves, one of them named Siccus and the other Nanus, and gave them all those duties that are written above. And then that accursed John the Greek did not know the difference between the honours of the chamber and the profits of the royal chamber. And then that John and the bad ministers of the Greek empress with her son Otto, who was a child king and a young man, began to put the royal duties up for sale and to give them out in perpetuity and to disperse all those same duties, and those same duties were never afterwards honourable. And Emperor Henry sold many duties, which, since he had no son, the chamber should have inherited as a royal honour. And if he had been a prudent and honourable emperor, such as the empire should have, he would have had all those grants that have been made from these duties of the chamber cut up and the royal chamber assured of its status and permanence, just as it was from ancient times.
"All these honourable duties and very many others should be in Pavia, with the mercy of God and Holy Mary and Saint Syrus, who sends her bishops to Rome so that they ought to receive blessing and unction and consecration from the hand of the Pope. Just as the Apostle who raised the dead is in Rome, so there is Saint Syrus in Pavia who raised three men from the dead and gave sight back to a blind man, which we have never heard that any of the apostles did, and he did other beautiful and marvellous miracles too. In Rome there is one of the four doctors, Saint Gregory. In Pavia is another holy doctor, Augustine. Also by the mercy of God there was a bishop of Pavia who was from the apostolic see in Rome, who was called Peter by name. O glorious city of Pavia, endowed with a hundred and twenty-seven churches and sixteen monasteries, which are well staffed by night and by day and busy praying to the Lord, so that thou may always be saved with the men and women who are in thee, and with the animals and all the goods!"
You see, isn't it more interesting when you know how it ends? So, let's consider here. Lopez and Raymond billed this as "a nostalgic list of the rights and incomes lost by the royal treasury in Pavia", and seamlessly stitch it together with a tale of burgeoning economic forces that made such royal control of trade impossible: the free market and the communes were coming, and tradition could not stand in their way!25 They offer it, therefore, as a source for what had once been, which apparently included royal trading treaties not unlike ones we've looked at here before and a variety of things we might reasonably call guilds, somewhat precociously. Predictably, as we can see, Lopez and Raymond were much more interested in anything that was sold or shipped than anything that was not, especially if it looked like royal throttling of free market exchange; their story was of the triumph of the market. But once you have the coda, it's clear that that was not what the compilers thought was going on. I think, given how much he comes up, it is clear that those compilers were at the church of San Siro, and it looks rather as if they had somehow wound up either inheriting or championing the claim of the would-be third-generation chamberlain Agisulf to whatever rights they themselves didn't get, which is why we have this odd mish-mash of commercial and ecclesiastical prerogatives. Clearly, what they thought had happened is that a foreign regime with no respect for their rights had barged in and sold all the offices off. They were still out there, the duties were still being charged as far as we can tell; those sailors were probably still paying their denari, the fisherman were still likely piling up money for fish for the court and for all we know twelve really good hides were still dumped at the palace every year, but San Siro and Agisulf weren't seeing the profits, and that was the real issue.
The Romanesque church of San Michele Maggiore di Pavia, as rebuilt at the end of the eleventh century, a fact that will shortly become significant! Image by Slawojar and licensed under Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons
What does this mean for the source as used by Lopez and Raymond? Well, firstly it means that since the rights were no longer held by the people who claimed them, we can't be sure that they all ever were. Presumably they did exist, or granting the claim would mean setting up new infrastructure to try and exact them, and there are other sources we've looked at here showing extensive market trade in tenth-century Pavia; but lots of these things might not actually have been effective royal claims. For Lopez and Raymond that maybe didn't matter; as they said, "it commemorates a regime that was already doomed as the document was drafted".26 And they may have been right about that, but they were also wrong, or (since Lopez knew his Italian history) more likely quietly misleading, about why it was doomed.
Byantine ivory showing Christ crowning Emperor Otto II and Theophanu in 982, Paris, Musée de Cluny, image by Clio20, licensed under Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons
The deeper context here, you see, is not economic at all.27 As the source says, Otto III succeeded as a child after his father's untimely death in 997, and his mother, the Byzantine princess Theophanu, became regent. Perhaps, indeed, she and her cronies didn't understand how great and magnificent Pavia was supposed to be—from the beginning and end of the source it seems like maybe no-one really can understand this enough. But the problem was not that they gave in to market forces and the clamouring demand for capitalist liquidity; it's that they didn't hold court at Pavia. In fact, no-one had done that with any regularity for quite a while. Hugh and Berengar I did, but kings from over the Alps then became Kings of Italy as well as Kings of the Germans with the Ottonian takeover, and obviously then they weren't there as much. Otto III actually set up in Rome (whose apostles, as we are told here, aren't a patch on Saint Syrus) and Henry II was barely in Italy at all. Furthermore, when he first came, it was provoked by the need to remove from it a new local king, Arduin, who had been crowned guess where? In Pavia, in San Michaele Maggiore to whose churchwardens the king should be giving fresh linen three times a year but which was actually at this point lying partly ruined after its destruction in 1004, hence the Romanesque rebuild shown above! (You'll notice there's no mention of that, or of Arduin, in our source…)
I mean, you can see he had his hands full… Coronation image from Henry II's own sacramentary, now München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4456, fol. 33, image public domain via Wikimedia Commons
So Henry was understandably not friendly with the royal city of the Lombards and in any case, he was largely busy elsewhere. Pavia had just ceased to be a major royal centre. The king or emperor didn't come and eat the fish any more, no-one needed the hides; even the Anglo-Saxon silver, if it was still being sent, was presumably being sent somewhere else. The disconnection and disenfranchisement of the old capital would become such that, as very very long-term readers may remember or else maybe you already know, in 1037 the citizens would actually burn the palace and then claim, when called to account for it, that since there had been no king at the time there was no blame attached to such actions. King Conrad II thought otherwise, and in so judging sort of invented the idea of the king's two bodies, but that would be a story for another time.28 The thing is, it wasn't economic change that had made a backwater out of Pavia, it was good old-fashioned royal dynastic politics. Lopez's Commercial Revolution has quietly stood the test of time nearly as long as Pirenne's thesis with which we began this post (remember?), but it's things like this that make me wonder whether, if we poked it, it would begin to come apart in the same way. It makes you wonder why no-one has tried, doesn't it…?
1. Referring of course to Henri Pirenne, Mohammed and Charlemagne, trans. Bernard Miall (London 1939). For historiography on it (huge!) see Bonnie Effros, "The Enduring Attraction of the Pirenne Thesis" in Speculum Vol. 92 (Cambridge MA 2017), pp. 184–208, with many many references.
2. Stratigraphy training: Olof Brandt, "Interpreting the Archaeological Record" in Philip Rousseau (ed.), A Companion to Late Antiquity (Oxford 2009), online here, pp. 156-169 at pp. 160-161; diagrams in Simon Loseby, "The Mediterranean Economy" in Paul Fouracre (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History volume I: c. 500‒c. 700 (Cambridge 2005), pp. 605–638 at p. 609. I think the Italian work of reference would be Daniele Manacorda, Lidia Parola & Alessandra Molinari, "Diletta Romei: la ceramica medioevale di Roma nella stratigrafia della Crypta Balbi" in La ceramica medievale nel Mediterraneo occidentale: (Atti III Congresso Internazionale della Università degli Studi di Siena) (Firenze 1986), pp. 511-544, but I will admit I haven't read it.
3. I got Daniele Manacorda, "Excavations in the Crypta Balbi, Rome: a survey" in Accordia Research Papers Vol. 1 (Firenze 1990), pp. 73–81 and Daniele Manacorda et al., Crypta Balbi: Museo nazionale romano. English edition, trans. Joanne Berry and Nigel Pollard (Milano 2000), but while both are good, I was after something quite specific.
4. Michael McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, A. D. 300-900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 799-810.
5. Now best found, despite some reservations, as John R. C. Martyn (trans.), The Letters of Gregory the Great, translated, with introduction and notes, 3 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004).
6. Theo Kölzer, Martina Hartmann and Andrea Stieldorf (edd.), Die Urkunden der Merowinger, Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Diplomata regum ex stirpe merowingicarum) (Hannover 2001), 2 vols, I doc. no. 171.
7. These days available as Patrick J. Geary (ed./transl.), Readings in Medieval History, 5th edn. (Toronto 2016) and Barbara H. Rosenwein (ed./transl.), Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic World (Toronto 2014), so Toronto profit whichever you buy!
8. Referring respectively to Ernest F. Henderson (ed./transl.), Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages (London 1903, many reprints), online here; Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar Holmes MacNeal (edd./transl.), A Source Book for Mediæval History: Selected Documents illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age (New York 1905), online here; and Frederic Austin Ogg (ed./transl.), A Source Book of Mediæval History: documents illustrative of European life and institutions from the German invasions to the Renaissance (New York 1907), online here.
9. The one of these I'm not using here, hard to get hold of but very interesting, is Roy C. Cave and Herbert H. Coulson (edd./transl.), A Source Book for Medieval Economic History (New York 1965).
10. Though none of them seem to contain the Raffelstetten Inquest. Why not? You'll just have to carry on getting it here I guess…
11. Robert S. Lopez & Irving W. Raymond (edd./transl.), Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World: Illustrative Documents Translated with an Introduction and Notes (New York 1967). From this would soon come Robert S. Lopez, The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950–1350 (New York 1971), which is therefore I suppose an example of teaching-led research.
12. Robert S. Lopez, Irving W. Raymond & Olivia Remie Constable (edd./transl.), Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World: Illustrative Documents Translated with an Introduction and Notes, 2nd edn. (New York 2001).
13. Leeds only has the first edition, so the following cites all come from Lopez & Raymond, Medieval Trade, not Lopez, Raymond & Constable. In that first edition the slave sale is doc. 13, pp. 45-46, a Lombard sale of a "boy from the Gallic people". The "Regulations" are doc. 20, pp. 56-60.
14. The Latin can be found in A. Hofmeister (ed.), "Institvta regalia et ministeria camerae regvm longobardorvm et Honorantiae civitatis papiae" in H. Kaufmann, Hofmeister, G. Leidinger, W. Levison, G. Smidt & E. Assman, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores in folio XXX.3 (Leipzig 1934), pp. 1444-1460, online here.
15. Lopez & Raymond, Medieval Trade, doc. 20 at pp. 56-57.
17. Ibid., p. 58.
18. Ibid.. I have to admit that this seems very very early to me for galanghal to be coming west, which might make us want to ask about the fourteenth-century preservation of this apparently-eleventh-century text (acknowledged Lopez & Raymond, Medieval Trade, p. 56 n. 26). But I'm not going to ask about it now, because this post is already a massive monster…
21. Ibid..
25. Ibid., p. 56, inc.: "The new economic forces help the bishops undermine the power of the emperor and king, but at the same time they also prepare the future downfall of both bishops and imperial officials and the victory of the free Commune."
27. For what follows see most simply Guiseppe Sergi, "The Kingdom of Italy" in Timothy Reuter (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History volume III: c. 900–c. 1024 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 346–371, and more deeply Giovanni Tabacco, The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: structures of political rule, transl. Rosalind Brown Jensen (Cambridge 1989), pp. 144-222.
28. For this, as well as Tabacco, I'd still cite Hagen Keller, "Das Edictum de beneficiis Konrads II. und die Entwicklung des Lehnswesens in der erste Häfte des 11. Jahrhunderts", in Il Feudalismo nell'alto Medioevo, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo Vol. 47 (Spoleto 2000), I pp. 227-261, though I realise that that's not a massively helpful reference to the casual enquirer.
Posted in Anglo-Saxons, General medieval, Germany, Italy
Tagged Commercial Revolution, medieval economy, medieval trade, Pavia, Pirenne thesis, Roberto Lopez


text:
435c41f3-affb-4745-ad65-1a9a3e017f9d
Reopening of Marine Hotel to create 26 new jobs
Picture by Press Eye
Pictured (L – R) are Claire Hunter, Marine Hotel, Alastair Hamilton, Invest NI, and Colum McLornan, Marine Hotel.
Invest Northern Ireland Chief Executive Alastair Hamilton has announced that the Marine Hotel in Ballycastle, Co. Antrim has reopened in a £500,000 investment that will also provide 26 new jobs.
Mr Hamilton, speaking following a visit to the hotel, said: "This is very significant and timely boost for tourism in the Causeway Coast and Glens, one of our most popular regions. In addition to the employment that this investment will provide, the hotel will offer quality accommodation for visitors to Ballycastle and the surrounding area.
"Our support for the company's ambitious plans underlines Invest NI's commitment to the development of the tourism infrastructure here and to the creation of much needed employment opportunities.
"The investment will also bring business opportunities to local suppliers, particularly in food and drink, who will now be able to showcase their products to visitors to this region."
Invest NI has offered £78,000 of support through its Jobs Fund.
Colum McLornan and Claire Hunter, both experienced hospitality industry professionals, acquired the hotel in March 2013 following its closure in 2010.
Mr McLornan, outlining the company's future plans, said: "We are delighted to be reopening the Marine Hotel which was such an important part of the hospitality business in Ballycastle for so many years. We have exciting investment plans to develop the facilities and services as a premium three-star hotel.
"Overall, we plan to spend almost £700,000 on the hotel, services and people over the next few years including the reopening of its leisure facilities.
"We are confident that the hotel will prove attractive to a great many visitors to the nearby Giant's Causeway and, of course, the Glens of Antrim as well as providing a broad range of services in the locality. We are also very well placed to market our facilities and services to many visitors from Scotland using the ferry link in the summer months."
Alastair Hamilton / Ballycastle / Causeway Coast / Claire Hunter / Colum McLornan / Giant's Causeway / Glens of Antrim / Invest NI / Marine Hotel


text:
package com.macro.mall.portal;

import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
import org.springframework.boot.test.context.SpringBootTest;

@SpringBootTest
public class MallPortalApplicationTests {

    @Test
    public void contextLoads() {
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Jar file for HttpRequestHandler in lwuit in j2me I need to open a web page in j2me emulator. As I have the flow that I can do this by using HTMLComponent. But I can not use this HttpRequestHandler class to create handler in j2me in Lwuit can anybody say me what is missing in my j2me? If is there any JAR file to use it then give me suggestion to make use of it. Then I have also tried DocumentRequestHandler in the same instead of HttpRequestHandler But it show me emulator that "Error in connecting stream"
My code is:
         DocumentRequestHandler handler=new DocumentRequestHandler() {

        public InputStream resourceRequested(DocumentInfo di) {
          return null;
            //           throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not supported yet.");
        }
    };
 HTMLComponent htmlc=new HTMLComponent(handler);
 htmlc.setPage("http://facebook.com");
 addComponent(htmlc);
 show();

In this code what i need to return in DocumentRequestHandler?

A: The class you are looking for is available at LWUITBrowser sample application and can be checked out from the LWUIT SVN under MIDP/applications.


Beauty from Within - Healthy Eating Facts - Need A Chemical Peel?
Healthy eating not only serves as the basic foundation for well-being and keeping healthy but also looking good and exuberating beauty from within. Here are some healthy eating facts to chew on as an introduction to healthy eating dietary guidelines.
Eating does not merely satisfy our hunger; it is also a viewed as social activity and a very important and pleasant one. Friendships, family ties and business relationships are often forged over the dining table. However, with today's lifestyle, frequent social gatherings and business entertainment, the wide varieties of food available especially at banquets sittings and buffet spreads, and easy access to fast foods, it is all too easy to lose sight of the principles that guide healthy eating. As the food we eat affects our health, appearance and well-being, it is important to consciously choose a healthy diet.
Healthy eating is selecting a balanced diet that is high in dietary fibre and low in fat, cholesterol, sugar and salt. It also means having different types of food in the right amounts and not overeating any one type of food.
It is never too early or too late to start eating healthily. So start eating healthily today by following some dietary guidelines to help you and your family plan and choose nutritious meals.
The aim of dietary guidelines is to guide our food choices to achieve good nutrition and maintain a healthy body weight.
Different foods contain different nutrients, so no single food can supply all the nutrients we need. Dietary guidelines are built around the recommendations of the Healthy Diet Pyramid help us to choose wisely what and how much to eat each day for good nutrition, good health and good skin.
The Healthy Diet Pyramid translates nutrient needs into actual foods. It categorises commonly eaten foods into 4 food groups – rice and alternatives, fruit and vegetables, as well as meat and alternatives – which form the foundation of a healthy diet. It serves as a guide that helps you plan a healthy diet that fits your lifestyle.
Eat a variety of food. This means eating different foods from the 4 food groups as well as within each food group. Each food group offers a variety of choices and each one has a unique nutritional value. No one food supplies all the nutrients your body requires to stay healthy.
Eat a balanced diet. This means eating the recommended number of servings of food from the 4 food groups daily. Include some plant-based foods every day.
Eat in moderation. It means eating the right amount of food, neither too much nor too little. Foods high in fat, sugar and salt should only be consumes in small amounts at all times.
If you are a vegetarian, the Healthy Diet Pyramid can still be used to plan a vegetarian diet that meets the nutritional needs of healthy adults. Pulses e.g. beans, peas, lentils, are good sources of protein. They are also part of the meat and alternatives group on the pyramid.
For a balanced diet, one plant-based protein food should be included in every meal.
Include 6 to 8 glasses of fluid (1.5 to 2.0 litres) in the diet every day. This can include water and fluid from soups and porridges.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this article. If you have any questions or want to leave your own tips, please leave a comment below.
do you recommend these products for sensitive skin as well? ive found my skin to burn (so much id have to immediately take it off) using salicylic acid, but I had been taking a medication with benzoyl peroxide which i heard may have been why my face burned with other products such as that one? i stopped taking it, but im afraid to try a product like that again.
Hi Marjorie, thank you for your question about TDF Glycolic Acid Peel.
Glycolic Acid Peel is generally very safe to use. However, it is best performed by a trained medical practitioner as improper use could potentially burn the skin and result in complications. The doctor will evaluate a patient's medical history and skin condition before recommending a glycolic acid peel. In addition, pre-peel conditioning with gylcolic acid containing products should be used at least 2 weeks prior to a glycolic acid peel. More information may be found here in this website.


text:
package com.azure.resourcemanager.iotcentral.implementation;

import com.azure.resourcemanager.iotcentral.fluent.models.OperationInner;
import com.azure.resourcemanager.iotcentral.models.Operation;
import com.azure.resourcemanager.iotcentral.models.OperationDisplay;

public final class OperationImpl implements Operation {
    private OperationInner innerObject;

    private final com.azure.resourcemanager.iotcentral.IotCentralManager serviceManager;

    OperationImpl(OperationInner innerObject, com.azure.resourcemanager.iotcentral.IotCentralManager serviceManager) {
        this.innerObject = innerObject;
        this.serviceManager = serviceManager;
    }

    public String name() {
        return this.innerModel().name();
    }

    public OperationDisplay display() {
        return this.innerModel().display();
    }

    public String origin() {
        return this.innerModel().origin();
    }

    public Object properties() {
        return this.innerModel().properties();
    }

    public OperationInner innerModel() {
        return this.innerObject;
    }

    private com.azure.resourcemanager.iotcentral.IotCentralManager manager() {
        return this.serviceManager;
    }
}


I'm sitting in McDonald's listing to people on CNN talk about a trade war with China. It seems like a big deal, but it's not, really. The truly important changes are not the ones discussed on TV by beautiful people with shiny skin and glasses. They are, rather, the ones that seem inconsequential and take place over a long period of time. These are the changes that poets and novelists see (or should see), which is why writers are important (and not just today—that's another news-cycle lie: that we need writers more today than before—but always).


This entry was posted on May 21, 2012 by Village Photography. It was filed under Uncategorized and was tagged with german origins, Kitchener, Mennonite, mennonite settlers, Pioneer Tower, Pioneer Tower Kitchener Ontario, sunset, Waterloo Region.
Gorgeous shot. Just look at that sky, and you maintained an excellent amount of detail on the tower.


text:
DOJ claims judge lacked 'common sense' in appeal of AT&T-Time Warner merger
Edward C. Baig
The Justice Department claimed federal judge Richard Leon ruled in favor of AT&T's $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner on June 12 "only by erroneously ignoring fundamental principles of economics and common sense."
The agency made that assertion in a brief filed Monday outlining the government's reasons for blocking the merger on appeal.
As part of his June ruling, Leon strongly urged the government to resist a stay and not to appeal the decision, stating at the time that, "I do not believe that the government has a likelihood of success on the merits of the appeal."
The government filed an appeal a month later anyway.
AT&T had a swift response to the government brief.
"Appeals aren't 'do-overs.' After a long trial, Judge Leon weighed the evidence and rendered a comprehensive 172-page decision that systematically exposed each of the many holes in the government's case," AT&T's general counsel David McAtee said in a statement emailed to USA TODAY. "There is nothing in DOJ's brief today that should disturb that decision."
AT&T announced the deal to acquire Time Warner, whose properties included HBO, CNN and TNT, in October 2016. The Justice Department sued to block the merger some 13 months later, claiming AT&T would gain too much power over both how Americans get their entertainment – AT&T provides broadband as well as owns satellite TV service DirecTV – and what it is that they watch.
During the ensuing six-week trial held in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the Justice Department argued AT&T would have the leverage to charge rival pay-TV providers more for the right to distribute Time Warner's networks, with higher fees passed along to consumers.
AT&T countered that the post-merger company would be better able to compete against such online video competitors as Facebook, Google, Netflix and Apple.
The government brief added that Leon's conclusion rested on "two fundamental analytical errors: It discarded the economics of bargaining, and it failed to apply the foundational principle of corporate-wide profit maximization."
The brief also went on to say that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has "acknowledged that despite his stated intention to operate Time Warner and AT&T independently, both units will report to him; he will be responsible for both units' strategic planning; and as CEO he is obligated to maximize shareholder value for the company as a whole."
Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter


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County Declared 'Sanctuary' for Gun Owners
By Editor | April 23, 2018 | 0
BY MARK HOSKINS
Last Monday saw a packed house during the county board meeting in Effingham. A ground-breaking resolution was passed by the county board, as the strongly republican county sent a message to Springfield.
The Effingham County board voted 8-1 to pass a resolution making the county a 'sanctuary county' for gun owners. This resolution essentially directs county employees to not enforce any new Illinois law that may "unconstitutionally restrict the Second Amendment." The idea is borrowed from a similar resolution passed in Iroquois County in March.
Language within the resolution states, "If the Government of the State of Illinois shall infringe upon our inalienable rights granted by the second amendment, Effingham County shall become a 'sanctuary county' for all firearms."
The measure was taken by the board in response to several proposed bills currently active in the General Assembly. Many of these bills have been labeled 'common sense' gun laws. Although many in Effingham county see them as a direct violation of second amendment rights.
"We are tired of the house and senate attacking our second amendment rights," said county board member David Campbell, one of leaders of the push for 'sanctuary' status in the county. "I have gotten a lot of feedback from the community and people are worried about some upcoming state laws," he added.
"Numerous bills coming through the Illinois General Assembly are slowly striping away our rights," added Effingham County State's Attorney Bryan Kibler. "This is our way of letting them know that if they keep on this path, there will be push back by the people and counties of Southern Illinois."
The story is gaining national news coverage as Effingham County has came to the spotlight in USA Today, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune as many other big time publications as the Associated Press as picked up the story. Kibler and Campbell even appeared on national television on Fox and Friends.
"We have received an outpouring of support… I believe many neighboring counties will follow our lead," added Kibler. "The phrase 'sanctuary county' has gotten a lot of attention but we are re-appropriating the term for our own purpose."
Although, not everyone supports this resolution. Karen Luchtefeld, of Altamont, was the lone county board member to vote against the measure, stating that 'it was inappropriate for her make such a decision for her constituents.'
At the county board meeting last Monday, several community members spoke out against the resolution, suggesting that it is inviting potential trouble and violence into the communities within the county. The board was reminded by members of the public of mass tragedies that have been caused by automatic weapons in recent years such as the Newtown, Connecticut massacre.
The resolution is largely symbolic according to Kibler. "It's a symbolic protest, that's all it is, it really isn't changing anything," said the State's Attorney.
It remains to be seen what impact this will have on law enforcement within the county, should the state General Assembly pass any legislation deemed to be unconstitutional by the county board and the sheriff's office.
Effingham County Sheriff Dave Mahon has stated that he and his office will be checking with the State's Attorney's office and the legal counsel of the Illinois Sheriff's Association before deciding on actions to take in regards to this new county measure.
Posted in Altamont Area News, Top Stories
Seventh Grade Girls Take State Championship in East Peoria


Yoga Scotland employs a variety of tutors and administrative staff. We also have a Board of Trustees, who manage and guide the work of the organisation, which is a registered Scottish Charity.
Yoga Scotland Board of Trustees has a vacancy for a treasurer.
This is a wonderful karma post, so if you have financial skills and experience, or know someone who might be interested, please get in touch with Gill Gibbens to find out more.
The Treasurer role includes being a Charity Trustee and attending trustee meetings and the AGM.
The Treasurer is a volunteer position.
1. Responsibility for liaising with book-keeping/ finance person who will be doing the actual day-to-day admin of the accounts.
3. Producing a summary of the accounts for the Annual Report, presenting the full accounts to the AGM and submitting the accounts to OSCR.
4. Reporting to Board meetings on Yoga Scotland's financial position and advising the Board about pricing including potential increases to fees or payments.
5. Acting as a full signatory including online authorisation of payments.
6. Acting as first point of contact with the bank and ensuring that signatories are changed when needed, eg following each AGM.
7. Ensure secure storage of accounts in accordance with charity legislation.
8. Knowledge of charity accounting, sage/quick-books, PayPal and gift aid are desirable.
The Board of Trustees is always happy to take on more members to ensure a diversity of skill-sets, knowledge and experience that contribute to Yoga Scotland's future growth and development. If you have a skill that you would like to share with us – e.g., you have a talent for marketing and promotion, or experience in events management – then please don't hesitate to get in touch via our Contact page above.
Be part of the team committed to providing high quality yoga training for the whole of Scotland.


text:
Der Hopffeldboden ist ein Bereich im nördlichen Teil des Obersulzbachtals bei Neukirchen im Salzburger Land auf einer Höhe von

Geologie
Der Hopffeldboden ist ein Fundort für Calcit und  Euxenit-(Y). Da die Erze dicht an der Oberfläche sind, sind viele Hobbygeologen in diesem Bereich zu finden. Jedes Jahr fällt durch Felssturz neues Material aus der Wand.

Die Nennung als einziger Fundort in Österreich von Vaterit geht auf eine Fehlbestimmung zurück.

Tourismus
Ein Parkplatz am Hopffeldboden ist heute über einen befestigen Forstweg, der auch mit Privat-PKW befahren werden kann, vom Blausee () unweit vom Ortsteil Sulzau zu erreichen, und dient als Ausgangspunkt für Wanderungen im Obersulzbachtal:

Mit Hüttentaxis kann weiter bis zur Berndlalm () und zur Postalm () gefahren werden, zwei während der Sommermonate bewirtschafteten Hütten. Weitere Hütten sind die Hofrat-Keller-Hütte, Schiedhofalm, Poschalm, Obersulzbachhütte, Kampriesenalm und Kürsingerhütte.

Auf einer Stahlhängebrücke kann man beim Hopffeldboden den Obersulzbach überqueren.

Oberhalb des Talschlusses führen für Bergwanderer mehrere hochalpine Übergänge in die Nachbartäler:
 nach Osten über die Kürsingerhütte und das Zwischensulzbachtaltörl ins hinterste Untersulzbachtal
 nach Südosten über den Alpenhauptkamm unterhalb des Kleinvenedigers zur Neuen Prager Hütte und weiter ins Osttiroler Tauerntal (Felber Tauern)
 nach Süden zum Obersulzbachtörl: dort gibt es eine günstige Übergangsstelle von der Süd- zur Nordseite der Venedigergruppe und damit auch in das Osttiroler Virgental
 nach Südwesten über das Krimmler Törl und die Warnsdorfer Hütte ins salzachaufwärtige Krimmler Achental

Weiters verbindet der Bettlersteig von der Berndlalm das Obersulzbachtal mit den Untersulzbachtal.

Einzelnachweise

Tal im Land Salzburg
Geographie (Neukirchen am Großvenediger)
Geologie der Alpen

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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text:
Clearly Creation
Well, I suppose the debate should now end. Evolution is fact, according to the History Channel and recent letter writers to this paper—proven by "fossil remains" and mountains of "research." There is no more doubt about it than "cancer, kidney function, or volcanoes." I guess all of us poor, uneducated creationists should pack up our Bibles and slink back to the hills. If we stoop low enough and let our knuckles drag the ground, we can even resemble our "undisputed" ancestors.
Don't believe it for one minute, folks. It is very easy to make such absolute statements about evolution, but when one examines the evidence, it is easy to see the many weaknesses in the theory.
As I have stated before, the fossil record is full of holes that evolutionists don't satisfactorily explain. One big hole is the lack of "transitional forms" (fossils that show one kind of animal changing into another) in the geologic column. Dr. Jonathan Sarfati states, "Evolutionists recognize a serious threat to their whole argument—evolution predicts innumerable transitional forms, yet all they have are a handful of debatable ones." However, anyone watching the recent History Channel special would think that there are many of these types of fossils, especially in the "ancestry" of humans.
There are also numerous "out of place" fossil discoveries which are quite embarrassing to evolutionists. These are fossil finds that contradict evolutionists' assumptions about the geologic column, such as human footprints that appear at a "time" which is much earlier (millions of years earlier) than evolution allows. A good example of this is the famous fossil footprints at Laetoli, Africa. These are the prints of an upright walking biped, which evolutionists attribute to an extinct primate. University of Chicago's Dr. Russell Tuttle has shown that these are the same sorts of prints made by habitually barefoot humans.
Another type of "out of place" fossils are "living fossils." These are plants or animals alive today which are identical to fossilized forms, believed to have lived "millions of years ago." Examples of these, according to Dr. David Catchpoole, include the coelacanth fish (fossil coelacanths are believed by evolutionists to be 340 million years old), Gingko trees (125 million years), crocodiles (140 million years), horseshoe crabs (200 million years), and the Lingula lamp shell (450 million years).
Jim Scharnagel suggests that a branch of biology referred to as "evo devo" helps explain genetic changes in animals over time. Through a series of genetic "switches" (like a light switch), Mr. Scharnagel implies that one kind of animal can evolve into another.
These switches are actually Hox genes. Dr. David DeWitt says these Hox genes are master control switches that control the body plan. He adds, "These master switches work like circuit breakers and either turn on or turn off an array of other genes." By manipulating these "switches" scientists in labs have significantly altered the body plan of creatures like flies and shrimp. Dr. DeWitt continues, "The fact that scientists can significantly alter the body plan does not prove macro-evolution nor does it refute creation. Successful macro-evolution requires the addition of NEW information and NEW genes that produce NEW proteins that are found in NEW organs and systems."
In spite of information like this, many evolutionists love to portray those who believe what the Bible tells us about creation as backward and ignorant. Evolutionists also love to perpetuate the myth that those who practice "true science" must accept evolution and operate under its precepts. They also insist that our young people must be taught evolution if they want any chance of having a career in a field of science.
There are many individuals in all areas of science who accept creation as described in Scripture. I spoke to several locals who were willing to go on record in this divisive issue. Each of the individuals below accepts the biblical account of creation as literal and historically accurate, and, accordingly, rejects "Darwinian evolution." They also agreed that an evolutionary philosophy was not necessary for them to practice in their respective fields of science or to continue to develop professionally.
Dr. Clayton Cox, a practicing OBGYN physician for 18 years, with a B.S. in biochemistry and an M.D. from Emory University, says, regarding the debate concerning creation/evolution, "there is no debate." He adds, "I believe the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God."
Dr. David Barrett, a practicing dentist for 25 years, with a B.S. in biology and a D.D.S. from Emory University, says that, "Life as we know it is much too complicated" to have evolved, adding that, "the human body is an amazing miracle."
Dr. Frank Lake, a practicing OBGYN physician for 10 years, with a B.S. in biology and an M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia, states that, "One of the tenets or laws of our world is that things move toward disorder unless energy is input to change that (entropy). How, then, can a marvelously complex world go against that very tenet, unless an external source (creator, higher power) had a role in that?"
Local inventor, J.T. King, who, along with his new hearing aid, was recently profiled in a full-page article in The Times, passionately rejects evolution and defends creationism. Mr. King, who has a B.S. in electrical engineering, says that, "If I had bought into the theory of evolution, I would not have been able to come up with the concepts that spurred my technology."
Even with all that I have presented here, the thing that we all need to consider most when weighing evolution against creation is that, when the theories of man are in conflict with the Words of God, it is most certainly man who is in error.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
Posted by Trevor Thomas at 8:00 PM No comments:
Labels: creation, Darwinian evolution, evolution, Trevor Thomas


Karlamilyi - vast and remote.
WA's largest and most remote national park is located in the Pilbara amid lands between the Great Sandy Desert and the Little Sandy Desert.
The 1.3 million hectares of Karlamilyi National Park straddles the Rudall River, embracing desert dunes, spinifex grasslands, salt lakes and weathered plateaux and escarpments of sandstone and quartzite. Past ice age glaciers have abraded bedrock, striated and polished pavements and carved out valleys that remain today as features of the landscape.
The Little Sandy Desert is to the south-west, and the Great Sandy Desert to the north-east. There is a central belt of stony hills and undulating plains. The main vehicle access, known as the Telfer-Talwana Track, or the Kintyre track,crosses the park from north to south. Other tracks run east and west of the Rudall River Crossing but their condition is poor and driving them is not recommended.
The banks of the Rudall River are lined with tall stands of collibah, river gum and yulbah – the bats wing coral tree. Hardy acacias and hakeas occupy smaller watercourses, while paperbarks, bloodwoods and quandongs are in the valleys where there is sufficient ground water. Desert oaks may occure on sandplains, with spinifex and other grasses and small shrubs.
Rainfall is very erratic here, usually associated with cyclones and monsoonal activity between December and May. Permanent pools of the Rudall River are an oasis to 14 species of water birds. There are over 140 bird species recorded in the park with most observed near the river.
Reptiles are hardy arid land survivors and include Stimson's python, the gwardar snake, numerous skinks and geckoes, dragon-lizards and goannas.. There are seven species of bat, marsupial mice, red kangaroos and rock wallabies. Most are nocturnal to avoid the heat of day, coming out at dusk till dawn. Feral animals you may see during the day include camels and donkeys.
Martu Aboriginal people continue their long association with this country. There are two communities within the park –Punmu and the Parnngurr. Both communities have limited shop and fuel facilities.
In the late 19th century the first expeditions by geologists, explorers and surveyors took place. Prospector Frank Hann named Rudall River after a surveyor he met in the area in 1896.
Extreme heat can be experienced at Karlamilyi with temperatures often exceeding 40 degrees C in summer. Only walk during the cooler times of the day.
Carry adequate water. To avoid dehydration in summer, each person needs to drink a litre of water for every hour of walking. Apart form the two Aboriginal communities, there is no drinking water available in the Park.
Avoid sunstroke and sunburn - wear sunscreen, long sleeves and a hat.
You can bush camp in certain locations.
There are no facilities such as toilets or water available.
Help minimise damage to the local vegetation by using your portable gas stove for cooking.
Minimize your impact by taking your rubbish with you. If left or buried, rubbish can be dug up and eaten by native animals so damaging their health and that of the camp.
Two manual water pumps are located at the north and south of the park boundary. You can use these in an emergency but should not be relied upon.
Accommodation is available in Newman (260km) and Marble Bar (420km).
Fuel and other supplies are at available atNewman and Marble Bar. Punmu and Parrngurr have limited fuel and other supplies.
Park roads can be substantially damaged or closed after heavy rain. Conditions can change rapidly. Seek local knowledge on road conditions before travelling.
The North/South Track through the park has long, deep wash outs. Travel at safe speed. Some sections are quite sandy, particularly crossing Rudall River.
Karlamilyi National Park is accessble by 4WD over rough and unmaintained roads. There are no facilities at the park. Visitors need to be self-sufficient and well prepared with adequate food, water, communication, medical supplies and mechanical equipment for desert travel. Visitors need to be confident and capable of navigation and driving in remote locations.
Access from Newman is via Walgun and Billinnooka along the Talawana Track to the park turnoff (approx. 300km). Contact the Newman Visitor Centre (08) 9175 2888 for more information.
Access via Marble Bar is along the Ripon Hills Road, and Telfer Road to the northern park boundary.