My first
day in London, I set off to see the Celts at the British Museum. I
was a tiny bit disappointed – not enough intertwined,
Dunfallandy-type stones. A lot of the show, reasonably enough, was
about the ancient "keltoi", inhabitants of the northerly
parts of Europe who seemed to have little connection with modern
Scots, Irish, Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons.
There was
an unexpected titbit of knitterly interest – if any of you are still
to see the show, you can fill me in on the details of this one. There
is a beautiful illuminated mss from Lichfield Cathedral in the show.
The label quotes Gerald of Wales (I think), a 12th century
writer previously unknown to me, saying that such manuscripts – or
was he actually writing about this particular one? -- well repaid
close study. He said that the interlaced decoration was "well
knitted".
I assumed
as I stood there that all this would be in the catalogue. The Museum
has an excellent arrangement whereby, when you book online, they will
send the catalogue to your home address without charge for postage.
So I went for that, so as not to have to carry it about.
Well, now
I'm in Edinburgh and now I've got the catalogue. But it is one of
those modern "catalogues" with essays illustrated more or
less with items from the exhibition, but not including the
item-by-item information which the word "catalogue"
conjures up for me. The mss from Lichfield is mentioned and
illustrated, but there is no mention of Gerald of Wales.
But maybe
I've got bits of this wrong. And, of course, G of W was probably
writing in Latin (I've mugged him up in Wikipedia) and "well-knitted"
may be no more than a creative 21st century translation.
Still, if
I had known it wasn't to be repeated and elaborated in the catalogue,
I would have studied that label for longer.
Something
completely different
We are
well advanced – Day Four, in fact – through Calcutta Cup week.
The match is on Saturday. Alexander and his family will call in to
see us on their way. The Little Boys have never seen Scotland win.
There is a feeling about that we're in with a chance this year, but
such feelings have a pretty low correlation with the actual result.
At some
point I decided that, if we win, my Calcutta Cup knitting this year
would be a Fair Isle vest for Alexander from the Vintage Shetland
Project, about which there is still no news. If it happens, I have
now decided that I will knit either Kate Davies' Macrahanish or Meg's
vest, published long ago in Knitter's. I am punishing no one but
myself thereby, but I will have found a vent for my crossness. I'll do it even if the book has appeared before I actually start knitting.
(First, win your rugby match.)
I signed
up for the VSP in July, publication promised for November. The last communication
was in early January. She was complaining about the weather.
Hi Jean, Try this link. It has the G of W quote with the citation. Looks like a pretty good web page: http://www.nli.ie/blog/index.php/2012/11/29/there-once-was-a-welsh-priest-called-gerald/
ReplyDelete"knitted" in this instance could mean joined or interlinked, rather than the handicraft (as in "knitted brow"
ReplyDeleteOr bones knitting together after a break.
DeleteI had the same reaction to the Celts exhibition - I found the gift shop more inspiring, actually. Just love that fascinating link to the Irish Library - your "Comments" sets the bar very high.
ReplyDeleteI'm kinda leaning towards Karen's idea. Of course, he could also have meant what we now call nalbinding, which we know was around at the time, right?
ReplyDeleteI have a chainmail making friend who refers to it as knitting and he insists it's not an uncommon term for making chainmail. He has yet to find me any documentation on that use of the term though, so who knows?
Goodness me it's a small world....
ReplyDeleteI work in a yarn store/mill way down under in Napier NZ...I got chatting to a lovely customer from Scotland (Edinburgh no less) yesterday and she turned out to be 'your' Kathy from Kathy's Knits. She said to say hello :)
That's very remarkable! Small world, indeed!
Delete"Well-knitted" for an interlaced pattern is probably either an enthusiastic modern translation, or possibly a translation of a word that was used for anything like that, such as "cnyttan", to tie with a knot, bind, or fasten. Related to cnotta and to Old Norse knytja, meaning to tie a knot. But Gerald would have written in latin, and the fanciest Latin he could come up with, probably "macula", the mesh of a net. "Knitting" is used for the process of making a net, though moderns (who care) tend to call it "netting". Even in the 17th century they weren't careful to specify.
ReplyDelete"Knitting" hadn't entered England yet; it had reached Estonia by the 13th century and there was a knitting guild in France in 1268, but those are well after Gerald's time.
Nowadays it's a common term for making chain mail, or maille, but it seems to be a back-formation from the documentable use of the same words for making nets.
Brief fact of the day: The overhead wires on the Edinburgh to London line and on all the electrified lines are also called " The Knitting " by the rail engineers.
ReplyDeleteFascinating, Tamar, thank you! I will let my friend know he's off the hook (not that he was ever on) for giving me sources (which he knows is far more about Melfina loves to read and learn and words are interesting rather than "are you sure that word's right?" and since he's the same way it works).
ReplyDeleteMost people around here refer to all hand yarn activities as either knitting or crochet depending on what they know about. Since my grandmother crocheted but couldn't knit and my mom knitted but couldn't crochet, I learned the difference early (before I could actually do either, though I remember a teacher trying when I was about 6 and I couldn't understand the bit about how to get old loop off one needle & new loop on other or even what was happening (brain wasn't ready for it, I learned to braid later too for mostly the same reason)).
Kate Davies and her husband won the Microbusiness 2016 award in London the other night. I think she's blogged about it. She looked really pretty on stage!
ReplyDelete