Category: Announcements

General announcements

Tutorial: How to download the LIDAR datasets from the UK Environment Agency website

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Lidar is a technique for displaying the shape of the ground using pulses of laser light.  The results have been widely used to discover Roman monuments, as they can process them to omit modern buildings, trees, etc.  I have been interested in this ever since I discovered some Lidar images of the seabed showing the submerged ruins of the Roman fort of Walton Castle at Felixstowe.

Most of the United Kingdom has been surveyed using Lidar, and the resulting datasets are now freely available for download on the Environment Agency / DEFRA website.  If you can download them, then you can pull them into a tool like QGIS, and turn the data into images.   But this website is not well organised.  I have never been able to work out how to download anything!

Partly this is because I used my Android mobile much of the time.  Just don’t.  You won’t be able to get it to work.  Instead go to your trusty PC and open your browser.  I did all this in Chrome.

[Update: 19 March 2024: The website has changed, so I have updated these instructions.]

1. Go to the Defra Home page, and search for LIDAR

Go to https://environment.data.gov.uk/, ignore all of it and put LIDAR in the search box.  The next page gives you more options to search:

  • Change the search term to “LIDAR Composite” (without quotes)
  • Change “Organisation” to “Environment Agency”
  • Change “Sort by” to “Alphabetical A-Z”
  • Change “Results per page” to 100.

You currently (March 2024) get 14 results, which look like this.  (Click on the image for a larger image) (You can get more results if you omit “composite” but none looked useful).

If you scroll down, you will find “LIDAR Composite … DSM – 1m” and “LIDAR Composite … DSM – 2m”, and LIDAR Cmposite … DTM – 1 m” etc.

The LIDAR Composite DTM and DSM materials are what you want, taken at various resolutions.  DSM is the raw data.  DTM removes surface objects like trees and houses.

2. Click on LIDAR Composite Digital Terrain Model (DTM) – 1m

This takes you to a waffle page.  At the bottom are various links:

The “WMS” links do not work – any of them.  On enquiry I was told that:

You need to open the WMS/WFS links within the GIS software in order for the data to load, please refer to the following FAQ:

https://support.environment.data.gov.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/360000921077-Why-do-I-get-a-Query-Parameters-must-include-Request-error-

Apparently “WMS” is is a way to get the datasets from the GIS tool directly.  Not what I have in mind here at the moment.

The one you want is the “Download the Survey Data” which I have highlighted in red.

3.  Click on “Open The Link”

This takes you to https://environment.data.gov.uk/survey, which after a pause builds the following inscrutable screen:

Ignore the “Download” box for now!

The bit you will need is the square.  But… NOT YET!  It is, in fact, a tool to draw an area on the map.  We’ll use it in a moment.

4.  First, zoom into the area that you want to look at

This bit is fairly obvious.  Use the “+” icon to zoom, and drag the map around.  Once you get far enough in, a grid will appear with references on it. If you know the reference, you can enter it in the search box, although I notice this sometimes does not work.

I’m using the area off Felixstowe, so I get to this.

Until you are zoomed in, you can’t do anything.  You can only download datasets for small areas, you see.  But this is probably enough.

5.  Draw a polygon on the map of the area for which you want Lidar

Now at last you can click on the “Draw polygon” button!  So long as you stay over the map, it is surrounded by a grey area with a yellow border.   If you move off to another window, it cancels this, tho!  But now you can draw.  (This frankly can be pretty tricky too.)

  • Hover over the map at one corner of wherever you want to draw, and click.  A small white circle should appear.  If it doesn’t, look back at the “Draw polygon” icon – it’s probably lost focus.
  • Now move the mouse.  Click again, and you’ll get another white circle, and a blue line back to the last corner.  Here’s a screen grab, (although the cursor went everywhere!)

  • Repeat until your area is right, and then click back on your first circle to close the area.  At that point the “Get available tiles” button on the popup will return to a normal green colour, and you can use it.

It will now look like this:

Note my polygon on the map.

Now, at last, you have something you can download. So click on the “Get Available Tiles”.  You will now get a new menu:

What this lists is the various different types of dataset.  In fact it lists the lot, of all sizes and resolutions.  Whatever you choose, you get the link in blue at the bottom.

But there is more.  Notice how the scroll bar to the right shows that the window is scrollable?  If you scroll down you get this!

The link is to a zip file.  In Chrome, just click on it to download to the Downloads folder; in IE, right-click and choose “Save target as” in the usual way.  Either way you will end up with a lidar_composite_dtm-2022-1-TM33nw.zip file on your PC.

In my case, clicking “Download all” had the same effect.

[Note: I have not updated the following notes since 2019, so I don’t know if these work.  I believe the bit above is what causes people trouble!]

6.  Unzip the dataset

How you use the dataset is a different question, but I will give you what I found out.

First, you need to unzip the dataset.  I use 7Zip on my PC, and right-click, 7-Zip, and extract to folder.  So…

That created a folder Bathy-Coastal-Multibeam-2013-TM33nw in that directory.

I’m more interested in the DTM 1 meter stuff, so I get a download of LIDAR-DTM-1M-TM33nw.zip, and unpack it to a folder LIDAR-DTM-1M-TM33nw.

Inside the new folder are a bunch of .asc files.  These together make up the dataset.

Next, you need a GIS tool to view this stuff.

7. Import into QGIS

I found this very hard to do, but here’s some notes on what I did.  I worked it out based on this tutorial for an older version: http://geophyswithsnuffler.blogspot.com/2015/11/processing-uk-environment-agency-lidar.html

First, I installed the latest version of QGIS from the download site, which for me was 3.4.5.  Look for the “long term stable release” stuff, and ignore the rest.  This installed fine, and created a folder on my desktop, labelled QGIS 3.4, and an icon, “GRASS GIS 7.6.0”.  Now … do NOT try to start that icon.  Instead drag it into the folder, and forget about it.

Next open the folder, and double-click on the QGIS Desktop icon, again ignoring the GRASS thing.  This will open something you can work with.

Next, create a project by Project -> New.  Then do Project -> Save, and choose a name for your QGZ file – I used my own name.

Next, you need to import the dataset.  Raster -> Miscellaneous -> Merge brings up a daft dialog box headed “Merge”.

Click on the “…”, and you get another daft dialog box headed “Multiple Selection”.  Click on “Add”, and browse into the folder LIDAR-DTM-1M-TM33nw.

Select all the files in the folder, and hit “Open”.  They will all appear in the “Multiple Selection” box.

Now hit “OK”.  You’ll be back at the Merge dialog box.

You’ll want to save the resulting .tif file, so under “Merged” there is “Save to temporary file” – hit the “…” next to that and choose “Save to file”, and then pick a name.

Your “Merge” dialog will now look like this:

Don’t twiddle anything else.

Now hit Run, and go and make a cup of coffee.  It takes a while.

When it finishes, it will pop up “Algorithm ‘Merge’ finished”, and look like this:

Hit “close” to get rid of the dialog box.  You now have some results.

You can use the mouse to drag it around, and zoom in.  The results are likely to look… disappointing.

On the left side is a box “Layers”.  If you right-click on “Merged”, and choose “Properties”, you get stuff that you can play with.  Select “Symbology”, and you can change the “Render type”.  You can change it to “Hillshade” (whatever that is), and hit “Apply” and you get more details:

But that’s as far as I could get.

However, it IS more than I knew before.

Bibliography

Some links that I found useful:

  • http://apps.environment-agency.gov.uk/wiyby/151365.aspx – overview of the datasets
  • https://www.gislounge.com/what-is-a-shapefile/ – the datasets are “shape files”
  • https://www.gislounge.com/shapefile-viewers/ – possible viewers
  • https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map – Easily the best way to  view Lidar.  Only works on Chrome tho.  Based on the 1m DSM data.  Actually better than anything I got from this!

Share

Underwater archaeology beneath the pyramids of the Black Pharaohs

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A simply amazing story has appeared in National Geographic magazine this month (July 2, 2019, by Kristin Romey).  It’s online here.

An expedition is investigating the burial chambers under some of the pyramids of Nuri in Sudan.  Rising ground-water means that these are drowned in water, and so inaccessible.  Indeed some may never have been accessible since ancient times.  The expedition website is http://www.nuripyramids.org/.

Dive beneath the pyramids of Egypt’s black pharaohs

Somewhere below the surface of the kiddie-pool sized patch of brown water is the entrance to the 2,300-year-old tomb of a pharaoh named Nastasen. If I crane my neck back far enough, I can just make out the eastern flank of his pyramid rising nearly three stories above me.

It’s a sweltering morning in the desert of northern Sudan, the land of Nubia in the time of the pharaohs. Sweat drips into the dive mask hung around my neck as I negotiate my way down a narrow, ancient staircase cut deep into the bedrock. Waterproof flashlights clank from each wrist, and a 20-pound weight belt is slung commando-style across my chest. An emergency container of air, no bigger than a can of hairspray, is secured uncomfortably in the small of my back.

At the bottom of the stairs, archaeologist and National Geographic grantee Pearce Paul Creasman is standing chest-deep in the muddy water. “It’s really deep today,” he warns. “There’s not going to be any headroom in the first chamber.”

It’s a fascinating article, and some gorgeous photographs.  Apparently there is a TV programme too: “Black Pharaohs: Sunken Treasures”, to be broadcast today in the US.

The article ends:

On our final dive, Creasman and I float silently in water in the back chamber of the tomb, hovering above what may very well be Nastasen’s undisturbed sarcophagus. We talk about the team’s goal for 2020: to excavate the pharaoh’s 2,300-year-old submerged royal burial chambers. It’s an audacious aim and a huge logistical challenge, but Creasman is optimistic.

“I think we finally have the technology to be able to tell the story of Nuri, to fill in the blanks of what happened here,” he says. “It’s a remarkable point in history that so few know about. It’s a story that deserves to be told.”

Read it all.

(Note that the article is easier to understand if you first look at the map of where they are diving, in the middle of the page!)

Share

A 1987 plan for the ruins of the Roman fort of “Walton Castle”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Walton Castle is the local name for the remains of a Roman fort, now submerged beneath the waves offshore at Felixstowe in Suffolk, Britain.  Resources for study of this monument are limited, and I have discussed them in other posts.

One interesting article appeared in, of all things, a popular magazine.  Such an item is, of course, not usually held by research libraries so can be very hard to locate.  The item is Julian K. Hagar, “A New Plan for Walton Castle”, Popular Archaeology Today, vol. 8, no. 1 (February 1987), p.22-25.   Fortunately today I was able to find a copy.  In view of the difficulty of locating it, I will make a scan of the article available here:

Hagar’s analysis of the sketchy evidence is deeply convincing.  He points out that by 1623, the earliest date at which we have  knowledge of the site, the eastern side of the ruins must already be long gone.  The cliff did not erode quickly, and indeed has only eroded another 50 metres in the last 200 years.

A sketch from 1623, reproduced in the Victoria County History of Suffolk, shows the west side of the fort more or less complete.  The wall was perhaps 180 metres long, if we assume the measurements given in 1754 were copied from an earlier, now lost, account.  Hagar suggests that this view is taken from the land-ward side, that the sea can be seen through the “gate”, and that we should disregard “cliffs” in the foreground as artistic license.

On this basis, he proposes this map for the castle in 1623:

By 1722 much of the remains had fallen into the sea, and the length of the west wall was only about 100 metres.

 

By 1750 it was all gone.

The highest point remaining, in the water, today, is still the ruin of the south-west corner tower and a fragment of each of the adjacent walls.  This tends to favour Hagar’s theory.

Another point in favour of Hagar’s reconstruction is the north alignment that he gives the ruins, which does indeed seem to be the case.  It is unfortunate that I was unable to locate the manuscript of the 1969 survey, which would have clarified this point.

But on the other hand, there are two obvious problems with Hagar’s plans.

The first is that the beach does not today run NW-SE as he shows it.  It probably never did.  It might have run N-S, but today it certainly runs SW-NE.  The northern end of the ruins is therefore closer today to the beach, not the southern end.

The only feature of the landscape that would permit more erosion at the N end is the presence of “the Dip”, the shallow valley carved by the stream that runs into the sea at that end, which is still there today.  But this seems doubtful.

The second point leads us in the same direction.  If we agree with Hagar that the 1623 drawing was made from the landward side – for how else could it be drawn? – then the drawing shows quite a bit of masonry on the north side.  This is equally obvious in what is probably the original of the drawing:

The map at the foot of the drawing is of the same period.  Hagar is probably right to treat the east wall as an artist’s guess; and to suppose that the “corner towers” drawn at that end were in reality bastion towers, mid-way along the wall.  The fort, then, was square, just like other Roman forts of the Saxon Shore.

But in Hagar’s favour, we can see that within the map are some ruins at the SW corner, possibly the remains of a demolished medieval castle keep mentioned in the sources.  These must have been visible in 1623 or they wouldn’t be noted.

I would therefore suggest that perhaps the beach in 1623 did indeed run North-South, and preserved more of the North wall than Hagar allows.  Perhaps the north side eroded faster – who can tell?  But the hypothesis that half of the wall fell first does indeed seem to be correct.

It is very unfortunate that the survey undertaken by Jeff Errington and his divers in 1969 cannot be located.  Jeff told me that his divers did indeed locate the gateway area on the sea-bed.  I have written again to the Ipswich Museum team to see if anything can be done to locate the survey manuscript.  At present the material is unclassified and therefore researchers are not permitted to access it.

Share

Two ancient Latin versions of the letter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Thanks to a kind correspondent here, I have become aware that the letter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia is preserved in two Latin versions.  These are given in Hans-Georg Opitz, Urkunden zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites (Documents on the history of the Arian dispute), in Athanasius Werke, III, pt. 1, 1934.  He gives an edition of the letter as “Urk. 1” (Doc. 1).  The text can be found at Archive.org here.

On the first page he lists the two Latin versions, rather gnomically as “Cand. Migne L. 8, 1035.” and “Col. Rev. Ben. 26, 93”.  His needless brevity has cost me an hour of my life, and doubtless others the same, so I thought it worth indicating where these might be found.

“Cand.” is Candidus Arianus, whose letter to Marius Victorinus quotes the letter of Arius.  “Migne L” means the Patrologia Latina, vol. 8, col. 1035, and it may be found online here.

“Col.” is manuscript 54 of the cathedral of Cologne, of the end of the 8th century.  It was published by D. de Bruyne, “Une ancienne version latine inédite d’une lettre d’Arius“, in: Revue Bénédictine 26 (1909) 93-95.  This isn’t online, so I attach it at the end.

The Candidus text in the PL is of course a pre-critical text.  But there is no question as to what it says, on col. 1037: “ante tempora et aeones plenus deus, unigenitus, et immutabilis” – “before ages and ages fully God, only-begotten and immutable”.

The Cologne ms reads:

Here’s the edition of both in Optiz:

Both say plainly “plenus deus”, fully God.

Since the De Bruyne article is out of copyright but inaccessible, I’ve uploaded it here:

My thanks to the correspondent who sent it to me!

Updated July 1 2019 to add the De Bruyne article material.

 

 

Share

Ibn Khaldun, taxation, and Boris Johnson

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Warning: Undefined variable $silent in /usr/home/rpearse/public_html/weblog/wp-content/plugins/footnotes-for-wordpress/wp-footnotes.php on line 156

During a TV interview yesterday, a politician suddenly referred to a 14th century Arabic writer.  Via Twitter:

When asked about his spending plans and plans to cut taxes, Boris Johnson responds “as the great Tunisian scholar and sage Ibn Khaldun pointed out as early as the 14th century, there are plenty of taxes that you can cut which will actually increase your revenues”.

The interviewer was a certain Sophie Ridge on Sky News, and the politician was Boris Johnson, currently hoping to become British Prime Minister.

Naturally my first thought was to wonder whether Ibn Khaldun did say anything like this.

There is an old English translation which is abridged: Abd Ar Rahman bin Muhammed ibn Khaldun: The Muqaddimah, tr. Franz Rosenthal.  In book 1, chapters 36-7, headed read as follows.[1]  A reprint can be found at Amazon US here, or UK: The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History (Princeton Classics).

36. Taxation and the reason for low and high (tax revenues).

It should be known that at the beginning of the dynasty, taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments.

The reason for this is that when the dynasty follows the ways (sunan) of the religion, it imposes only such taxes as are stipulated by the religious law, such as charity taxes, the land tax, and the poll tax. They mean small assessments, because, as everyone knows, the charity tax on property is low. The same applies to the charity tax on grain and cattle, and also to the poll tax, the land tax, and all other taxes required by the religious law. They have fixed limits that cannot be overstepped.

When the dynasty follows the ways of group feeling and (political) superiority, it necessarily has at first a desert attitude, as has been mentioned before.  The desert attitude requires kindness, reverence, humility, respect for the property of other people, and disinclination to appropriate it, except in rare instances.  Therefore, the individual imposts and assessments, which together constitute the tax revenue, are low. When tax assessments and imposts upon the subjects are low, the latter have the energy and desire to do things. Cultural enterprises grow and increase, because the low taxes bring satisfaction. When cultural enterprises grow, the number of individual imposts and assessments mounts. In consequence, the tax revenue, which is the sum total of (the individual assessments), increases.

When the dynasty continues in power and their rulers follow each other in succession, they become sophisticated. The Bedouin attitude and simplicity lose their significance, and the Bedouin qualities of moderation and restraint disappear.  Royal authority with its tyranny, and sedentary culture that stimulates sophistication, make their appearance. The people of the dynasty then acquire qualities of character related to cleverness. Their customs and needs become more varied because of the prosperity and luxury in which they are immersed. As a result, the individual imposts and assessments upon the subjects, agricultural laborers, farmers, and all the other taxpayers, increase. Every individual impost and assessment is greatly increased, in order to obtain a higher tax revenue. Customs duties are placed upon articles of commerce and (levied) at the city gates, as we shall mention later on.  Then, gradual increases in the amount of the assessments succeed each other regularly, in correspondence with the gradual increase in the luxury customs and many needs of the dynasty and the spending required in connection with them.  Eventually, the taxes will weigh heavily upon the subjects and overburden them.  Heavy taxes become an obligation and tradition, because the increases took place gradually, and no one knows specifically who increased them or levied them. They lie upon the subjects like an obligation and tradition.

The assessments increase beyond the limits of equity. The result is that the interest of the subjects in cultural enterprises disappears, since when they compare expenditures and taxes with their income and gain and see the little profit they make, they lose all hope. Therefore, many of them refrain from all cultural activity.  The result is that the total tax revenue goes down, as (the number of) the individual assessments goes down. Often, when the decrease is noticed, the amounts of individual imposts are increased. This is considered a means of compensating for the decrease. Finally, individual imposts and assessments reach their limit. It would be of no avail to increase them further.  The costs of all cultural enterprise are now too high, the taxes are too heavy, and the profits anticipated fail to materialize. Thus, the total revenue continues to decrease, while the amounts of individual imposts and assessments continue to increase, because it is believed that such an increase will compensate (for the drop in revenue)in the end. Finally, civilization is destroyed, because the incentive for cultural activity is gone. It is the dynasty that suffers from the situation, because it (is the dynasty that) profits from cultural activity.

If (the reader) understands this, he will realize that the strongest incentive for cultural activity is to lower as much as possible the amounts of individual imposts levied upon persons capable of undertaking cultural enterprises. In this manner, such persons will be psychologically disposed to undertake them, because they can be confident of making a profit from them.

God owns all things.

37. In the later (years) of dynasties, customs duties are levied.

It should be known that at the beginning, dynasties maintain the Bedouin attitude, as we have stated. Therefore, they have few needs, since luxury and the habits that go with it do not (yet) exist. Expenses and expenditures are small. At that time, revenue from taxes pays for much more than the necessary expenditures, and there is a large surplus.

The dynasty, then, soon starts to adopt the luxury and luxury customs of sedentary culture, and follows the course that had been taken by previous dynasties.  The result is that the expenses of the people of the dynasty grow. Especially do the expenses of the ruler mount excessively, on account of his expenditures for his entourage and the great number of allowances he has to grant. The (available) revenue from taxes cannot pay for all that. Therefore, the dynasty must increase its revenues, because the militia needs (ever) larger allowances and the ruler needs (ever) more money to meet his expenditures.  At first, the amounts of individual imposts and assessments are increased, as we have stated. Then, as expenses and needs increase under the influence of the gradual growth of luxury customs and additional allowances for the militia, the dynasty is affected by senility. Its people are too weak to collect the taxes from the provinces and remote areas. Thus, the revenue from taxes decreases, while the habits (requiring money) increase. As they increase, salaries and allowances to the soldiers also increase. Therefore, the ruler must invent new kinds of taxes. He levies them on commerce. He imposes taxes of a certain amount on prices realized in the markets and on the various (imported) goods at the city gates.  (The ruler) is, after all, forced to this because people have become spoiled by generous allowances, and because of the growing numbers of soldiers and militiamen. In the later (years) of the dynasty, (taxation) may become excessive. Business falls off, because all hopes (of profit) are destroyed, permitting the dissolution of civilization and reflecting upon (the status of) the dynasty. This(situation) becomes more and more aggravated, until (the dynasty) disintegrates.

Much of this sort happened in the Eastern cities during the later days of the ‘Abbasid and ‘Ubaydid(-Fatimid) dynasties. Taxes were levied even upon pilgrims making the pilgrimage. Salah-ad-din Ibn Ayyub abolished all such institutions and replaced them with good works. The same also happened in Spain at the time of the reyes de ta’ifas. Yusuf b. Tashfin, the Almoravid amir, put an end to it. The same has also been happening in the cities of the Jarid in Ifrigiyah, ever since their chiefs gained control over them.

God “is kind to His servants.”

Interesting indeed.

Share
  1. [1]These are on p.352 of the PDF that I found online, derived from material at http://muslimphilosophy.org/philosophers, where the Arabic text may also be found.↩

The New Jerusalem like a bride in Rev. 21:2 and Christ as bridegroom

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An interesting enquiry on Twitter here:

Who is the very first commentator to apply to Rev 21:2 (the New Jerusalem) the analogy of Christ as bridegroom to his Church? I’m looking for the very beginnings of this tradition and a nice juicy source on its dissemination.

Let’s have Revelation 21:2 first:

21 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

Probably the answer to this question is to consult some database of patristic references to scripture, like BIBLINDEX.  Unfortunately this is very laborious to use.

Another alternative is to look at the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ACCS) series.  There is a volume on Revelation, and this has quotations on Rev. 21:2.

The very interesting introduction (p.xx) informs us of commentaries in the west from the “commentary of Victorinus of Petovium through those of Tyconius, Primasius, Apringius, Caesarius of Arles, the Venerable Bede,” and later medieval writers.  Victorinus died ca. 304.  In the east “no Greek commentary of the Revelation appears before the sixth century (Oecumenius and Andrew of Caesarea), and that after the commentary of Arerhas (c. 900), who largely works over the commentary of Andrew of Caesarea, no additional commentary of significance arises…”.

On p.364 we find the material on Rev. 21:2.  Three of these refer to the matter at hand.

It begins with Primasius:

By the testimony of the Truth this is the “city set on a hill.” Also Isaiah says, “The mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be raised above the hills.”‘ [Isaiah says this] either because of the height of its righteousness, of which we read, ‘Your righteousness is like the mountains of God,” or because both the apostles and the prophets are called mountains. However, being more excellent than all others, the Lord Christ towers as a mountain above the heights of mountains, and from his fullness, it says, we receive grace for grace. Fittingly he says [that the city comes] down our of heaven from God, for [the church’s] beauty will then be seen more fully, when through the Spirit, by whom her bridegroom is believed to have been conceived and born, she has merited to bear the heavenly image. Therefore, it is this very bride that is this city. – Commentary on the Apocalypse 21.9-10.”

Next, Caesarius of Arles:

By the mountain he refers to Christ It is the church, the city established on the mountain, that is the bride of the Lamb. The city is then established on the mountain when on the shoulders of the Shepherd it is called back like a sheep to its own sheepfold. For were the church one and the city coming down from heaven another, there would be two brides, which is simply not possible. He has called this city the “bride” of the Lamb, and therefore it is clear that it is the church itself that is going to be described. – Exposition on the Apocalypse 21.10, Homily 19.

Finally Andrew of Caesarea:

That he was “carried away in the Spirit” indicates that through the Spirit he was elevated in his mind from earthly things to the contemplation of heavenly realities. The image of the “great mountain” indicates the sublime and transcendent life of the saints, in which the wife of the Lamb, the Jerusalem above, will be made beautiful and glorified by God. – Commentary on the Apocalypse 11.10-11.

The Venerable Bede is worth quoting also:

After the destruction of Babylon, the holy city, which is the bride of the Lamb, is seen located on a mountain. The stone which was cut out of the mountain without hands broke the image of the world’s glory into small pieces, and it grew into a great mountain and filled the whole world. Explanation oh the Apocalypse 21.10.

In truth the link between the New Jerusalem and the Church and Christ as the bridegroom is pretty obvious in the biblical text.

Now Primasius is supposed to be based on Tyconius and Augustine, De civitate Dei, 20.7-17.  The latter is online in English here but I could not see any discussion of our point.

Tyconius has been reconstructed from Primasius recently, and an English translation of the reconstruction exists.  Tyconius, Exposition of the Apocalypse, in: Fathers of the Church 134, (2017) p.181, is as follows:

Chapter Twenty-One

[1] And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth have gone away. And the sea is no more. [2] And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. [3] And I heard a loud voice from heaven, saying: Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men; and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. [4] And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will no longer be death, and there will no longer be pain. The first things have passed away.

He calls this “Jerusalem” the church, by recapitulating from the passion of Christ up to the day on which she rises and, having triumphed with Christ, she is crowned in glory. He mixes each time together, now the present, now the future, and declares more fully when she is taken with great glory by Christ and is separated from every incursion of evil people.

How this relates to the text of Primasius is not obvious, but not our concern here.

So our winner is … Tyconius!

Share

Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia: the Son is “fully God”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Da Vinci Code has spawned a host of people who believe that the First Council of Nicaea voted on whether Jesus was God.  I tend to correct such people by pointing out that Arius himself calls the Son, “fully God”, in his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia (321 AD).  I usually include a paragraph from the translation of Henry Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church, 1947, p.55 (online here), as a particularly clear statement of this:

Eusebius, your brother, Bishop of Caesarea, Theodotus, Paulinus, Athanasius, Gregory, Aetius, and all the other bishops of the East, have been condemned for saying that God existed, without beginning, before the Son; except Philogonius, Hellanicus and Macarius, men who are heretics and unlearned in the faith; some of whom say that the Son is an effluence, others a projection, others that he is co-unbegotten.

To these impieties we cannot even listen, even though the heretics threaten us with a thousand deaths. But what we say and think we both have taught and continue to teach; that the Son is not unbegotten, nor part of the unbegotten in any way, nor is he derived from any substance; but that by his own will and counsel he existed before times and ages fully God, only-begotten, unchangeable.

This evening I noticed that not every translation of this letter reads this way.  So I wondered just what the Greek said.

The letter is transmitted to us by Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, book 1, chapter 5 (although in the NPNF version it is mysteriously chapter 4).  The text is edited in the GCS series, and the key passage appears on p.26-27.  In fact the key words are the very first two words on p.27.  And there are no variants!  Here’s the text:

And there it is: πλήρης θεός – pleres theos, fully God.  Pleres indeed can mean complete as well as full, as we see in LSJ.  But the idea is pretty clear.

I did wonder if there was a variant.  After all, everybody knows that Arius did not think that the Son was God in the same way as the Father.  I fully expected to see someone “correct” the text to fix what it said, to  bring it into accordance with the known views of Arius.  But the GCS does not list one.

But Theodoret is not our only source for the letter of Arius.  It is also transmitted by Epiphanius in the Panarion, 69.6.  This also was edited in the GCS series, by Holl.  On p.157 (here) we find the text as follows:

with apparatus:

Here Holl is proposing an emendation.  But the text as transmitted is still πλήρης θεός – pleres theos, fully God.

There are also two ancient Latin versions of the letter of Arius.  The first is by Candidus Arianus, which appears among the works of Marius Victorinus.  The other is found in an 8th century manuscript from Cologne Cathedral.  Both of these say “plenus deus”, “fully God”.  (I have written a separate post on these  here).

The letter was also edited by H.-G. Optiz in the Athanasius Werke III/1, as “Urkunden zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites” (= “Documents for the history of the Arian dispute”) 1934, Urk. 1 (= Doc. 1) accessible online here.  Optiz did something a little odd: he simply inserted Holl’s conjecture into the text:

With apparatus:

This refers to Holl, and to John 1:14

14 Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός, πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας· (SBL)

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (ESV)

But there seems no pressing reason to introduce this into the text as transmitted.

The NPNF translator rendered πλήρης θεός as “perfect God”, doubtless thinking of the Latin “perfectus”, completed.

However the translation at the excellent Fourth Century site here is different: it follows Optiz.

(4.) We are not able to listen to these kinds of impieties, even if the heretics threaten us with ten thousand deaths.  But what do we say and think and what have we previously taught and do we presently teach?  — that the Son is not unbegotten, nor a part of an unbegotten entity in any way, nor from anything in existence, but that he is subsisting in will and intention before time and before the ages, full <of grace and truth,> God, the only-begotten, unchangeable.

The translation is in fact that of R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 1988, as they make plain.  Hanson page 6:

Which is what Optiz give us.

All the same, we have to work with what Theodoret and Epiphanius and the Latin witnesses record, and what Arius wrote.  The old heretic definitely wrote “fully God”.  What he actually meant by this, of course, was the subject of the Arian disputes.  But he did not believe that the Son was not God.

Note: My sincere thanks to A. von Stockhausen for telling me about Epiphanius and the Optiz text in the comments below, with the very useful links.  I have revised this post to include this very valuable information.

Share

Some further notes on Primasius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Warning: Undefined variable $silent in /usr/home/rpearse/public_html/weblog/wp-content/plugins/footnotes-for-wordpress/wp-footnotes.php on line 156

Following my post of yesterday, I have gleaned a few more details on Primasius of Hadrumetum and his commentary on Revelation (Commentarius in Apocalypsin).

A better account of his life and actions can be found in the old 19th century Dictionary of Christian Biography volumes, with references, here.  It reads:

Primasius, bp. of Adrumetum or Justinianopolis, in the Byzacene province of N. Africa. He flourished in the middle of 6th cent., and exercised considerable influence on the literary activity of the celebrated theological lawyer JUNILIUS, who dedicated to him his Institutes, which spread the views of Theodore of Mopsuestia in the West. Primasius first comes before us in a synod of his province in 541, the decrees of which are known only through Justinian’s decrees confirming them, as given in Baronius, Ann. 541, n. 10–12. He was sent to Constantinople in connexion with the controversy on the Three Chapters c. 551. He assisted in the synod which pope Vigilius held against Theodore Ascidas and was still in Constantinople during the session of the fifth general council, but took no part in it, notwithstanding repeated solicitations (Mansi, ix. 199 seq.). He was one of 16 bishops who signed the Constitutum of pope Vigilius, May 14, 553. When, however, Vigilius accepted the decrees of the fifth council, Primasius signed them also. According to Victor Tunun. (Migne’s Patr. Lat. t. lxviii. col. 959), other motives conspired to bring about this change. He was at first exiled to a convent, and then the death of Boethius, primate of the Byzacene, aroused his ambition to be his successor. He gained his point, but, returning home, his suffragans denounced him as guilty of sacrilege and robbery. He died soon afterwards. His writings (ib. pp. 407–936) embrace commentaries on St. Paul’s Epp. and the Apocalypse; likewise a treatise (now lost), de Haeresibus, touching on some points which Augustine did not live to treat with sufficient fullness (Isid. HispaI.Vir. lll. xxii. in ib. lxxxiii. 1095; Cave, i. 525; Tillem. xiii. 927, xvi. 21). Our Primasius is sometimes confounded with bp. Primasius of Carthage. The best account of Primasius of Adrumetum is in Kihn’s Theodor von Mopsuestia, pp. 248–254, where a critical estimate is formed “of the sources of his exegetical works. [CHILIASTS.] Cf. also Zahn, Forschungen, iv. 1–224 (1891).

A kind correspondent linked to a study by Haussleiter from 1887.[1].

I was able to learn of the following manuscripts of the Commentarius in Apocalypsin:, partly from Haussleiter, partly from a wonderful twitter thread by Colleen Curran.  (When will somebody start a project like Pinakes for Latin mss?)

  • Oxford, Bodleian, ms. Douce 140.   Late 7th / early 8th century.  This was in England in the Anglo-Saxon period.
  • Kassel, MS Theol. fol. 24.  9th century.  From Fulda.
  • A = Codex Augiensis 222.  Late 8th / early 9th century.  Originally from Reichenau.  But Curran gives this as “Karlsruhe, MS 212 (s.vii, Reichenau)”.
  • C = Paris 2185, once the Colbertinus.  Partly 10th c., partly 11-12th.  Originally from Corbie.
  • G = Paris 13390, once the Sangermanensis 94.  9th century.  Also from Corbie.

In Becker’s Catalogi of old medieval libraries, various copies of Primasius seem to have existed.

  • 2 distinct copies at Reichenau in 822 AD, nos. 348 and 349 in the catalogue.
  • 1 copy at St Riquier in 831, no. 191.
  • 1 copy in two volumes at St. Gall in one catalogue of the 9th century, nos. 272-3, but only one volume in another catalogue of the same century, this time bound with Gregory but labelled as “corrupt”.
  • 1 copy at Bobbio in the 10th century in two volumes.
  • 1 copy at St Bertin in the 12th century, no. 211.
  • 1 copy at Corbie in the 12th century, no. 253.
  • The same single copy in the catalogue of Corbie of ca. 1200, no. 209.

The editio princeps of Primasius appears to be in 1535 in Cologne.  This was unknown to Haussleiter.  The manuscript used is attributed to Jean de Gagny, who seems to have had access to all sorts of monastic libraries in France at this period.

It is delightful to find this edition is online, at the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek (BSB), here.

The most easily available edition is that of the Patrologia Latina, 68, cols. 793-936.  This may be found from the links on the right.  There is a modern CCL 92 edition, which of course is inaccessible to most people, so I have not seen it.

Here’s the Latin for the prologue.  I initially scanned Haussleiter – scanning the PL text is a nightmare – but the PL was at least printed by someone who understood it, so I have added back in the capitals at the start of sentences and converted “Jotor” to “Jethron”, which is plainly what it should be, changed elitist spellings and generally changed it back to something that a normal person could work with.  I’ve had rather enough of working with partly corrupt Latin texts lately.

Prologus. Tuis, vir inluster et religiose Castor, suasionibus adquiescens, sic librum Apocalypsis beati Johannis multis mysteriis opacatum, in adjutorio domini nostri Jesu Christi, licet exiguis susceperem viribus exponendum, ut non meis solis tantum fuerim contentus inventis, sed quamquam numero pauca, si qua tamen a sancto quoque Augustino testimonia exinde exposita forte reperi, indubitanter adjunxi.  Sed etiam a Ticonio Donatista quondam certa, quae sano congruunt sensui, defloravi, et ex eis quae elegenda fuerant, exundantia reprimens, importuna resecans, et impolita componens, catholico moderamine temperavi.  Multa quippe in ipso eius opere reperi et supervacua, et inepta et sanae doctrinae contraria, ita ut et de causa, quae inter nos et illos vertitur, secundum pravitatem cordis sui loca nocentia captaret, nostraeque ecclesiae noxia expositione putaret mordaciter illudendum.  Nec mirum, quod haereticus rem sibi congruam fecerit, sed vel quod invenire potuit defloranda, quod tamen ille facere iniuste temptavit, nobis cura fuit, locorum opportunitatibus nactis, veraciter exsequi, eorumque errorem convincendo cassare.   Sicut enim preciosa in stercore gemma prudenti debet curare, collegi, et reperta dignitati ingenuae revocari, ita undecumque veritas clareat, catholicae defeudenda est unitati.  Huic enim soli competit quicquid veritas foris etiam personarit.  Juste namque fides a perfidis collegit, quod sui iuris esse cognoverit.  Nec prodesse potest alienis usurpatum sed filiis, cum iuri matris fuerit redditum.  Sic autem Donatistae hinc extolli non debent, sicut de sermone Caiphae quem dixit:  Expedit ut unus homo moriatur pro populo (John 11), Judaei non debent gloriari.  Sed nec nostris esse debet offensio.  Si qua enim fuerint ecclesiasticis utilitatibus profutura, nostris sunt instructionibus applicanda neque attendenda persona dicentis, sed qualitas consideranda est dictionis. Sic Moyses (Exod. 19), eruditus omni sapientia Aegyptiorum, post divini sermonis alloquium, cuius pridem meruit beari consortio, Jethron socerum suum, mitissimus rudem, peritus ignarum, magister copiosae multitudinis singularem, Israhelita gentilem devotus audivit, eiusque consilium sequens, mox utilitatem praedictam invenit.  Cum regendi populi communicanda per multos onera partiretur, specialiter levigatus, sic certe ab ethnicis auctoribus probabiliter dicta et apostolicis praedicationibus sociata nostro profectui usu meliore cesserunt, unde tamen non sinuntur gloriari gentiles.

Extenditur autem hoc opus in libros quinque.  Quorum lectio qualem studiosis sit latura profectum, experimento melius quam nostra pollicitatione probabitur.  Verum quia pro diversitatibus opinantium, diversis me modis arbitror fore culpandum, cum alii de huius operis coeperint prolixitate causari, alii autem libri profunda pensantes de exiguitate magis censuerint arguendum.  Tali primos reor sermone placandos, quod satius me fatear de paucitate notandum, eo quod latentem ibi mysteriorum plenitudinem divinorum nec penetrare conpetenter queverim, nec ea quidem quae intellegi potuerunt, idoneo valuerim sermone proferre. Secundis vero hoc alloquio satisfactionis insinuem, nihil me dominis conservisque meis malivole subtraxisse, sed ignorantiae confessione de exiguitate malle veniam postulare.  Si enim experto non crederem, sancti tamen Hieronymi edoctus sententia didicissem, qui de hoc libro docens dicit: ‘Apocalypsis Johannis tot tibi sacramenta quot verba: parum dixi et pro merito columinis laus omnis inferior est.  In verbis singulis multiplices latent intellegentiae.’  His intercedentibus, et veniam humilis confessio promeretur et praecelsi dignitas libri credentibus saltem, etsi necdum intellegentibus, innotescat.  Nam cum intellegentibus alibi raro interponi soleat tropica proprietati narratio, hic tamen aut frequenter intexitur, aut condensior figura sensus generatur ex altera, aut una eademque res sic variis profertur adumbrata figuris, ut non eadem credatur repeti potuisse, sed altera, quod et in principio Ezechielis et in aliquibus Danihelis visionibus invenitur, sed hic amplius.  Pro qua re me infirmem nostis vestris amplius orationibus adiuvandum.

I’ve not translated this, but let us note his description of getting material from Tyconius: “jewels from a dunghill” (“preciosa in stercore gemma”).

Share
  1. [1]J. Haussleiter, “Leben und Werke des Bischofs Primasius von Hadrumetum: Eine Untersuchung”, Erlangen (1887), online https://archive.org/details/lebenundwerkedes00haus/page/1↩

Primasius and his Commentary on Revelation

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Warning: Undefined variable $silent in /usr/home/rpearse/public_html/weblog/wp-content/plugins/footnotes-for-wordpress/wp-footnotes.php on line 156

Few will have heard of Primasius, bishop of Hadrumetum in Vandal Africa.  What little we know about him comes from the obscure chronicle by Victor of Tunnuna (who is NOT Victor of Vita),[1] and from Isidore of Seville (De viris illustribus 22).  The Italian continuation of Quasten’s Patrology published by Marietti (Patrologia IV: I padri latini (secoli V-VIII)) tells us:

On Primasius we are informed by Victor of Tunnuna and Isidore (Vir. Ill. 22).  Bishop of Hadrumetum, he was among the African bishops summoned to Constantinople in 551 because of the controversy over the Three Chapters.  Initially he took a position against Justinian and did not participate in the council of 553.  In consequence he was exiled to a monastery.  But then, according to Victor, in order to obtain the position of primate of the late Roman province of Byzacena, roughly equivalent to modern Tunisia, he sided with the emperor and began to persecute the defenders of the Three Chapters.

His Commentarius in Apocalypsin in five books is also mentioned by Cassiodorus (Inst. I, 9).  This is presented in the prologue as a work of compilation, based upon Augustine – although Primasius notes that Augustine had never written a commentary on Revelation as such – and Tyconius.  Tyconius had been a Donatist, so Primasius took care to declare this, and that he had selected the best bits, taken the gem out of the dung, etc.  …

Apparently Primasius also wrote three books on Heresies, to bring up to date the catalogue of Augustine.  Cassiodorus knew the first book of this, but it has not reached us.  The work under his name in PL 68 is the commentary of Pelagius on Paul, reworked by Cassiodorus, and supplemented by a work by Halberstadt.

CPL 873-4; PL 68, 793-936; PLS 4, 1208-1221; A.W.Adams, Commentarius in Apocalypsin CCL 92 (1985). …

Which is useful stuff as far as it goes.

The commentary only survived in seven manuscripts.  Strangely it is easier to find one of these in Google than anything else.  This, the oldest manuscript, is Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 140, which is late 7th century.  A page of it, fol. 4r, following the preface and the capitula for book 1, is shown here at the British Library website; the ms. is online here and here.

I have not been able to find any trace of a translation into any language, which is most curious.  However a reconstruction of Tyconius, by Roger Gryson, largely extracted from Primasius, has been translated into both English and French.  I do not object; but it does seem odd that a hypothetical book should receive translation while a real book does not.

Share
  1. [1]The chronicle has been translated in John R. C. Martyn, Arians and Vandals of the 4th-6th centuries, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.↩

Augustine’s “De ordine” and his comment on prostitution

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Warning: Undefined variable $silent in /usr/home/rpearse/public_html/weblog/wp-content/plugins/footnotes-for-wordpress/wp-footnotes.php on line 156

Warning: Undefined variable $silent in /usr/home/rpearse/public_html/weblog/wp-content/plugins/footnotes-for-wordpress/wp-footnotes.php on line 156

Warning: Undefined variable $silent in /usr/home/rpearse/public_html/weblog/wp-content/plugins/footnotes-for-wordpress/wp-footnotes.php on line 156

One of the earliest works of St Augustine is a work that he wrote in 386 AD at a country villa while preparing for baptism.  It is one of a number of works that he wrote at that time.  Augustine had just abandoned his job as a teacher of philosophy, but the milieu is still that of late philosophy.

The work is De ordine, “On Order”, which Robert P. Russell, the first translator, revised to a more meaningful “Divine Providence and the Problem of Evil”.[1]  The work is concerned with explaining how God controls everything that happens in the world, even the bad things, although he is not responsible for them.  Given in dialogue form, it records a discussion between Augustine and his friends and a couple of students.

In De ordine book 2, chapter 4, we read the following statement:

TRYGETIUS: … Indeed, the entire life of the unwise, although it is by no means consistent and by no means well regulated by themselves, is, nevertheless, necessarily included in the order of things by Divine Providence. And, certain places having been arranged, so to speak, by that ineffable and eternal law, it is by no means permitted to be where it ought not to be. Thus it happens that whoever narrow-mindedly considers this life [the life of the “unwise”] by itself alone is repelled by its enormous foulness, and turns away in sheer disgust. But, if he raises the eyes of the mind and broadens his field of vision and surveys all things as a whole, then he will find nothing unarranged, unclassed, or unassigned to its own place.’

AUGUSTINE: … Now, you were looking for just one or two illustrations for that opinion of yours. To me there already occur countless illustrations which bring me to complete agreement.

What more hideous than a hangman? What more cruel and ferocious than his character? Yet he holds a necessary post in the very midst of laws, and he is incorporated into the order of a well-regulated state; himself criminal in character, he is nevertheless, by others’ arrangement, the penalty of evildoers.

What can be mentioned more sordid, more bereft of decency, or more full of turpitude than prostitutes, procurers, and the other pests of that sort? Remove prostitutes from human affairs, and you will unsettle everything because of lusts; place them in the position of matrons, and you will dishonor these latter by disgrace and ignominy. This class of people is, therefore, by its own mode of life most unchaste in its morals; by the law of order, it is most vile in social condition.

And is it not true that in the bodies of animals there are certain members which you could not bear to look at, if you should view them by themselves alone? But the order of nature has designed that because they are needful they shall not be lacking, and because they are uncomely they shall not be prominent. And these ugly members, by keeping their proper places, have provided a better position for the more comely ones.[2]

(Paragraphing mine).  The argument is fundamentally one in which Augustine is trying to explain how God controls evil and makes a use of it, assigning it a role in our broken society, but does not endorse it or take responsibility for it.  The examples are incidental.  Augustine was not describing how a society should be, but how his society was.  The social order of the Western Roman Empire was pagan to the end.

Unfortunately this idea, that prostitution and pimping were a necessary evil, like the hangman, was picked up by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologica, 2a 2ae, q. 10. a; 11. c, who used it to illustrate the idea that human legislators may at times permit certain evils for the purpose of avoiding greater ones.  This led to the awful institution of legalised brothels in Catholic countries, the abuse of women for profit, even in Rome itself.[3]

As the Fathers of the Church editor is keen to point out, Augustine spoke rather more clearly in Contra Faustum Manichaeum, book 22, chapter 61 (Latin here, English here):

Consulta quippe aeterna lex illa, quae ordinem naturalem conservari iubet, pertubari vetat, non nisi propagationis causa statuit hominis concubitum fieri, et hoc non nisi socialiter ordinato connubio, quod non pervertat vinculum pacis: et ideo prostitutio feminarum, non ad substituendam prolem, sed ad satiandam libidinem propositarum, divina atque aeterna lege damnatur.

Obviously by that eternal law, which commands that the natural order be conserved, and forbids it to be disturbed, human sex is not established to happen unless for the cause of propagation, and this not unless a marriage has taken place, so that the bond of peace is not overthrown/corrupted: and likewise the prostitution of women who offer themselves, not for the begetting of offspring but for the sating of lust, is condemned by the divine and eternal law.

The “bond of peace” is of course the institution of marriage.  Certainly this indicates that Augustine reaffirms that prostitution is wrong.

It is remarkable what men will do to justify an evil, if they stand to profit by it.  Indeed only this week I came across someone campaigning to “legalise prostitution”.  Prostitution is legal; it is pimping that is not, so the campaign is to permit the legal trade in women to resume.  I pointed out that prostitution was awful; and he had the cheek to ask me sneerily, “Why is prostitution awful”.  Those willing to commit some obvious evil are seldom ashamed to lie about it as well.

Curiously the second half of the NPNF translation is wrong at this point, reading:

Undoubtedly, by the eternal law, which requires the preservation of natural order, and forbids the transgression of it, conjugal intercourse should take place only for the procreation of children, and after the celebration of marriage, so as to maintain the bond of peace. Therefore, the prostitution of women, merely for the gratification of sinful passion, is condemned by the divine and eternal law.

What happened to “non ad substituendam prolem”, one wonders.

Share
  1. [1]“Writings of Saint Augustine volume 1”, in: Fathers of the Church 5 (1948), p.229-334↩
  2. [2]Key passage p.287-8.↩
  3. [3]See for another example, Michael M. Hammer, “Prostitution in Urban Brothels in Late Medieval Austria”, online here.  It seems to  be a paper from this 2017 seminar “Forgotten Women from a Forgotten Region: Prostitutes and Female Slaves in Central and Eastern Europe in the Long Middle Ages” here.↩