by Mary Gentle
8 – [Possibly China. By the physical description in the text, this is not Rattus Rattus, the Black Rat, but Rattus Norvegicus, the Brown Rat, which is Asian in origin.]
9 – [Ash’s concern with the destructive capacity of rodents is original to ‘Fraxinus’, and must have been a similar problem for all army commanders.]
10 – [Presumably ‘cervix’]
11 – [Otherwise De Re Militari. The 1408 edition, made on the orders of Lord Thomas Berkeley?]
12 – [The mediaeval medical theory of humours attributes health to a balance of the sanguine (dry), choleric (hot), phlegmatic (wet) and melancholy (cold) humours in the body. Ill-health is a predominance of one over the others.]
Part Seven:
1 – [Young pike.]
2 – [The geography of Visigothic Carthage, as depicted in the ‘Fraxinus’ manuscript, does not appear to wildly contradict the known archaeological facts. The compass directions are a little off, but there is more often than not a mismatch between site and chronicle in archaeology.
In fact, there were two enclosed harbours behind an isthmus: the commercial harbour and the great naval shipyards. They were a feature of what we may call Liby-Phoenecian, or Carthaginian, Carthage; as was the Byrsa, an enclosed hilltop citadel within the main city itself. The streets were, indeed, stepped.
Close to this original site, Roman Carthage added other features, including water-storage cisterns, aqueducts, baths, an amphitheatre, and many features of civilised life; as well as their own great naval shipyards.
[Anna – here’s my rough aerial sketch of the ruins of present-day Carthage, and a proposed geography of 15c Visigoth Carthage.
I’ve included a possible new Visigoth harbour (which, like areas of the Roman/Carthaginian ones here, and the one at Leptis Magna, may have silted up in the interim).
The exact site of the Byrsa or walled hill during the 15c is conjectural, based on textual evidence.
Pierce]
3 – [‘God protect you’.]
4 – [‘Green Christ, Christ Emperor’.]
5 – [More properly, Ego te absolvo: the priest’s absolution of one’s sins.]
6 – [Archaeological evidence shows only a single Roman aqueduct; 90 km long, it brought 8.5 million gallons of water per day to Carthage from Zaghouan. The remains can be seen crossing the Oued Miliana valley, twenty miles south of Tunis.]
7 – [Nothing of this ‘stone bestiary’ survives, that we know of.]
8 – [Patron saint of lost causes]
9 – [Literally, ‘aforerider’.]
10 – [Term used of Celtic travelling monks, without an abbey of their own: ‘a wanderer for Christ’.]
11 – [The battle of Tewkesbury (Saturday 4 May 1471) decided the second of the Yorkist/ Lancastrian wars in favour of the Yorkists. Ash would have been thirteen or fourteen years of age at this time. Edward of York, afterwards king, is said to have hidden two hundred of his ‘fellowship’ in a wood, from where they broke out, flanked and routed the Duke of Somerset’s troops, and began the rout of the whole Lancastrian army, large numbers of which were butchered, becoming trapped in the ‘evil ditches and lanes’ covering the battlefield. Contemporary reports do not mention mercenaries in this context, but they were known to have fought in the battle of Barnet, which immediately preceded Tewkesbury.]
12 – [‘War-machine’, ‘machine [for making] tactics’.]
Part Eight:
1 – [Crossbowmen used these wooden shields as mobile protective defences, shooting from behind them. Pavises were often three to four feet high. They would be supported upright by stakes, or by another man.]
2 – [Two-man portable weapons, between the size of a hackbut and a small cannon.]
3 – [Cumbrous steel plate shoulder defences.]
4 – [The skirts or articulated lames of armour protect the lower abdomen and buttocks; protective plates called tassets hang below them to protect the thighs.]
5 – [A shaped piece of armour that straps over the knee.]
6 – [Song of Solomon 6: 10, AV.]
7 – [The ‘Fraxinus’ text has machinae ferae: ‘wild machines’. By the latter part of the manuscript this has become a proper name.]
8 – [A direct translation of the ‘Fraxinus’ ms.]
9 – [Mediaeval bad Latin: possibly intended for ‘wild machines in a state of nature’; ‘natural machines’ or ‘engines’; ‘natural devices’.]
10 – [Mark 5: 9.]
Part Nine:
1 – [3 a.m.]
2 – [There is no mention in conventional histories of a siege of Dijon in the autumn of 1476. Since the ‘Fraxinus’ document depicts it, one must assume that it is an exaggeration, by Ash or by Visigoth chroniclers, of a minor military incident that history has ignored. The ‘Fraxinus’ narrative breaks off in November 1476: there is then a gap between the end of the ‘Fraxinus’ text and Ash’s presence in the Nancy campaign.]
3 – [‘Huke’: a sleeveless knee- or thigh-length tunic, often not sewn closed at the sides, and worn with a belt.]
4 – [Bombard: the great siege gun, often not firing more than one or two of their 550 lb shot per day. The smaller cannon – culverins, serpentines, and others – kept up a more rapid fire.]
5 – [Presumably Visigoth legions named for the areas from which troops were initially raised. Judging by the text, these ‘legions’ resemble the Classical pattern in their strength (within the 3,000-6,000 men of the Roman legion at various periods), and conceivably their infantry/cavalry/ auxiliary structure, if one supposes the place of the auxiliaries to have been taken by Visigoth slaves. There is, however, no mention of them dividing their legions into cohorts or centuries. I suspect the Visigoth fighting force otherwise resembles the Western European mediaeval model, but with some additions – religious terms, and some ranks – in keeping with their concept of themselves as the successors of the Roman Empire.]
6 – [‘Faris’: cavalryman; knight.]
7 – [‘Clouts’ – cloths; in this case presumably menstrual.]
8 – [‘Wild machines’.]
9 – [‘In the name of the Green Christ’.]
10 – [‘Christ the Light-bringer’.]
11 – [9 p.m.]
12 – [Daughter of an astrologer-physician, herself widowed with three small children, Christine de Pisan earned her living as a professional writer. She produced, among her many other works, The Book of Feats of Arms and of Chivalry (begun AD 1409), a revision of Vegetius and a practical manual of warfare much used in the field by the great captains of her era. This is most probably the book of hers to which ‘Fraxinus’ here refers.]
Part Ten:
1 – [Final part of the document ‘Fraxinus me fecit’, presumed written c. 1480 (?).]
2 – [‘Boss’.]
3 – [Wooden structure built out from the walls to allow missiles, etc., to be dropped through holes in the floor.]
4 – [6 a.m.]
5 – [More properly referred to as a ‘lioncel’, or ‘leopard’; ‘Fraxinus’, however, prefers the more unorthodox usage. Presumably this reflects Ash’s religious devotion to the ‘Heraldic Beast’ of her childhood: the mythical ‘Lion born of a Virgin’.]
6 – [i.e. 8 a.m.]
7 – [At the Battle of Agincourt (1421) an English force of perhaps 6,000 men (five-sixths of whom were archers) defeated upwards of 25,000 French cavalry and foot, wiping out the heart of the French nobility for a generation. Henry V’s English army is reported as suffering ‘a few hundred’ casualties; the French had 6,000 dead and many more captured for ransom.]
8 – [During November – Anglo-Saxon ‘blodmonath’ – it was the usual practice to slaughter all animals except the breeding stock for meat, to enable communities to survive through the winter.]
9 – [‘Pride’. There is a certain knowing defiance about this name, pride being in the mediaeval mind a great sin – and one that goes before a fall.]
10 – [Small siege-engines: stone-throwers
that operate by winching a wooden beam down and using the tension as a spring to propel rocks.]
11 – [‘Master Engineer’: specifically, here, a military siege engineer.]
12 – [The ‘Fraxinus’ text uses this indiscriminately with both ‘enginur’ and ‘enguigniur’; all mean ‘engineer’, in the sense of ‘combat engineer’.]
13 – [Presumably a reference to the gold ring at the centre of targets used for archery.]
14 – [‘The Wheel of Fortune’.]
15 – [At this time, at the height of its power, Burgundy consisted of the Duchy of Burgundy, the County of Burgundy (Franche-Comté), Flanders, Artois, Rethel, Nevers, Brabant, Limbourg, Hainault, Holland, Zeeland, Luxembourg, Guelders, and – briefly, in 1475 – the Duchy of Lorraine.]
16 – [This is, broadly speaking, what happened when Charles the Bold died in 1477, having failed to sire a male heir, or arrange the marriage of his only daughter and heir, Mary. Had Charles lived, his ambition to be a European monarch might well have succeeded.]
17 – [Charles the Bold, ordinance of Thionville, 1473.]
18 – [The practice of wearing a sword over ‘civilian’ clothing does not, in Western Europe, really begin until the sixteenth century. In 1476, a sword is normally only worn with armour or other war-gear. (The wearing of a knife, however, would be universal.)]
19 – [Louis XI of France.]
20 – [Some textual corruption here? If St Petersburg/Leningrad is intended (conceivably an addition by a later hand), Peter the Great did not found the city until 1703.]
21 – [It is interesting to plot these and the other geographical points mentioned on a map of Europe and the Mediterranean. In fact, they form more than half of an ellipse, with the north-eastern coast of Tunisia as its hypothetical centre.]
22 – [c. 10 a.m.]
23 – [In fact, Charles of Burgundy had been born, in Dijon, in AD 1433.]
24 – [The canonical sixth hour of the day: noon.]
Part Eleven:
1 – [Sible Hedingham ms, part 1.]
2 – [The first part of this sentence has been lost with the missing page(s) of the Sible Hedingham ms.]
3 – [The solid parts of battlements, as opposed to the ‘crenels’ or gaps between them.]
4 – [‘Mantlet’: a protective screen which can be moved to enable archers and gunners to advance closer to besieged walls.]
5 – [Iron spikes with four points, made so that one spike always projects upwards, no matter how the caltrop falls.]
6 – [3 p.m.]
7 – [Cf. Revelation, ch. 6.]
8 – [I wonder if this phrase might better be translated as ‘energy’, or even – to a modern reader – as ‘solar power’? Perhaps even as ‘electromagnetic force’?]
9 – [Final service of the day, 9 p.m.]
10 – [This description in the original text resembles death by renal failure, after prolonged illness. Confusingly, in our history Charles the Bold is not reported as dying until two months later, on 5 January 1477, and in this case from fatal wounds, on the battlefield at Nancy, fighting the Swiss.]
11 – [A dagger used to give the coup de grace, so called from the religious aspect, granting the final mercy.]
12 – [First service of the day, held at midnight.]
13 – [1 November. Second century; martyred, coincidentally enough, at Dijon.]
14 – [‘Situation report’.]
15 – [Underwear. A cloth-lined mail covering for this vital area.]
16 – [A variety of hunting dog.]
17 – [14 September.]
Part Twelve:
1 – [Sible Hedingham ms, part 2.]
2 – [Together with black henbane, the ingredients of an anaesthetic recently discovered by a dig at the fourteenth-century Augustinian hospital at Soutra, near Edinburgh. Oak-gall solution served to revive the patient after surgery.]
3 – [‘Wolf-cat’. Possibly, by the textual description, a lynx.]
4 – [Variety of hunting hound.]
5 – [The ceremonial flaying and butchering of the dead beast, often done on the spot.]
6 – [St Hubert (died AD 727) is one of the saints credited with a vision of a hart bearing a crucified Christ-figure between its horns.]
Part Thirteen:
1 – [Sible Hedingham ms part 3.]
2 – [A better translation might be ‘epileptic fit’?]
3 – [Two saints by the name of Gregory have a feast day in November: Gregory Thaumaturgus (‘the Wonderworker’), d. c. 270, and Gregory of Tours d. c. 594. Both feast days occur on 17 November. The events of this text therefore must take place within the first 48 hours after the ‘hunting of the hart’.]
4 – [In Roman military terms, the legionary who carries an image of the emperor. Presumably the text implies the Visigoth imaginifers carried images of the King-Caliph.]
5 – [Puzzling! Mentioned in the Roman army of Trajan’s era, as players of curved horns – but of course this may be Visigoths using a Roman term to legitimize some ritual musicians of their own.]
6 – [‘Mangonels’: military catapults – crew-served weapons, of various sizes. ‘Arbalest’: a siege-size crossbow, usually frame-mounted.]
7 – [An order of chivalry founded by Duke Philip of Burgundy.]
8 – [In fact, Charles the Bold had no such formal obsequies after the battle of Nancy. This funeral seems more like the one accorded his father, Philip the Good, in 1467, nine years earlier.]
9 – [‘Little/small council’.]
10 – [In the text’s original mediaeval Latin: ‘the siege perilous’.]
11 – [The garden bunting: a bird known as a table delicacy.]
12 – [Wheat boiled in milk, with cinnamon and sugar.]
13 – [In the Burgundian army under Charles the Bold, centenier refers to a captain commanding a company consisting of a hundred soldiers.]
14 – [I have freely translated a textual difficulty.]
15 – [Originally the sacred banner of St Denis.]
16 – [Actual birthplace of Jeanne d’Arc.]
17 – [Slave troops, often attaining high rank.]
18 – [I have regularized the text, which indiscriminately refers to him as ‘Bishop Jean’ and ‘Bishop John’ of Cambrai. There appears to be some independent evidence for Floria’s comment in this text – Bishop John’s funeral mass, in 1480, was attended by a total of thirty-six of his illegitimate children.]
19 – [‘Machina plena malis’: ‘a contrivance full of evils’. Used punningly in the text to refer to a ‘contrivance’ in the sense of a trick or snare, as well as a constructed device.]
20 – [c. 3 November? If this is the astrological sign of Scorpio.]
21 – [Margaret of Anjou, wife of the English King Henry VI; funded in some of her attempts to regain the crown for her husband or her son by Louis XI of France. In 14763 Margaret is reported as just having been ransomed from England, and present in the French court.]
22 – [The Flemish part of the estates-general: representatives of the cities and provinces there. In fact, these events appear to closely parallel the history of the early part of 1477, after Duke Charles’s death in battle at Nancy.]
23 – [Anthony de la Roche was taken prisoner at Nancy, in January of 1477, when Charles the Bold was killed. Rather than staying loyal to Margaret, or indeed to his half-niece Mary of Burgundy, he transferred his allegiance with breath-taking haste to Louis XI, and thus retained his lands in the conquered Duchy.]
24 – [In fact, the Lord of Chimay was taken prisoner at the battle of Nancy, on 5 January 1477, and after being ransomed, returned to loyally serve Mary of Burgundy and her heirs, in Duke Maximilian’s court.]
25 – [In the winter of 1476/77, raising troops for her husband, Margaret is reported as having raised another four thousand men from these towns.]
26 – [Is this a reference to Pope Leo III? This would put Gundobad’s death at or before AD 816.]
27 – [This fixes the date! If t
hese are accurate references, the year is AD 816, two years after Charlemagne’s death. Although dissolution began the year after Leo’s death, some do not date the fall of Charlemagne’s empire until AD 846 and the Treaty of Verdun.]
28 – [Lavatory.]
29 – [Matins: midnight; Lauds: 3 a.m.; the time referred to is therefore 2 a.m.]
30 – [Raised wooden platforms that strap on over shoes, for walking through mud.]
31 – [‘Pus bonum et laudabile’: a misunderstanding of Galen’s actual writings that must have cost hundreds of thousands of lives in Europe, between the decline of Roman military medicine, and the Renaissance.]
Part Fourteen:
1 – [French: ‘Witness my hand’s blood here placed’. Variant on the more usual ‘witness my seing manuel [signature] here placed’ on contracts and other documents? Sible Hedingham ms part 4.]
2 – [In post-Roman Western Europe, the practice of burying the dead at a distance from the living, and of organizing army latrines, dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century.]
3 – [A Greek theatre of war in which the Turks fought the Venetians.]
4 – [Europeanised as ‘Ottoman’. From Osman Bey, founder of the Turkish empire.]
5 – [Mehmet II (ruled 1451-81) was, in fact, Sultan of the Osmanli or Ottoman Empire at the time of their conquest of Constantinople; and was thus the man known to be responsible for the fall of Byzantium, the eastern Christian empire.]
6 – [The Sible Hedingham text here reflects the horrendous variety of languages being used. The Burgundian court habitually spoke French when in the south, and Flemish when they went north. Ash’s company would speak English (in several varieties), Italian, German, French (of two varieties); their own patois; and probably a smattering of Greek, Latin, and ‘Gothic’. I suspect that the Turkish officer uses a few words of German simply because that is the farthest west he has travelled up to this point I have attempted to imply interpretation, rather than spell it out each time as the Sible Hedingham ms does…]
