Quotes from Joseph Gies

Across the bottom of the last page of many a book is written 'Explicit, Deo Gratias ('Finished, thank god')...Books are kept not on open shelves, but in locked chests.

At mealtime a very broad cloth is laid on the trestle table in the solar. to facilitate service, places are set along one side only. On that side the cloth falls to the floor, doubling as a communal napkin...there are several kinds of knives...but no forks.

beggars were permitted to enter great houses and solicit directly from the table, but now they are restricted to the doorstep.

As the baby grows bigger, she [wet nurse] will chew his meat for him.

Instrumental keys [on organs], introduced in the twelfth century, are so heavy and stiff that they must be played with clenched fists.

For outdoors, he wears a mantle fastened at the shoulder with a clasp or chain; although buttons are sometimes used for decoration, the buttonhole has not been invented.

Between two each places stands a two-handed bowl, or ecuelle, which is filled with soup or stew. Two neighbors share the ecuelle, as well as a winecup and spoon.

The undermining of the common fields, the declining effectiveness of the village's internal government, and the development of a distinct group of wealthy tenants [spelled the] triumph of individualism over the interests of the community," in the words of Christopher Dyer.

Even for a well-to-do city family, making life comfortable is a problem. But arriving at a point where comfort becomes a problem for a fair number of people is a sign of advancing civilization.

Sometimes the pagan spirit of Roman poetry arouses qualms. Guibert of Nogent confesses in his autobiography that early in his monastic life he took up verse making and even fell into "certain obscene words and composed brief writings, worthless and immodest, in fact bereft of all decency," before abandoning this shocking practice in favor of commentaries on the Scriptures.

A Jewish ethical treatise warns that a man must not express his anger by pounding on a book or by hitting people with it. The angry teacher must not hit the bad student with a book, nor should the student use a book to ward off blows.

A] vicar's concubine, learning that the bishop was coming to order her lover to give her up, set out with a basket of cakes, chickens, and eggs, and intercepted the bishop, who asked her where she was going. She replied, "I am taking these gifts to the bishop's mistress who has lately been brought to bed." The bishop, properly mortified, continued on his way to call on the vicar, but never mentioned mistresses or concubines.

The fact that a reactionary can sometimes be right is a little less recognized that the fact that a liberal can be. . . .

I try to learn one new thing a week to balance the one thing I forget a week, but lately I forget three things a week.