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Pig-faced Women
Legends featuring pig-faced women originated roughly simultaneously in Dutch Republic, the Netherlands, Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of France, France in the late 1630s. The stories tell of a wealthy woman whose body is of normal human appearance, but whose face is that of a pig. In the earliest forms of the story, the woman's pig-like appearance is the result of witchcraft. Following her wedding day, the pig-faced woman's new husband is granted the choice of having her appear beautiful to him but pig-like to others, or pig-like to him and beautiful to others. When her husband tells her that the choice is hers, the enchantment is broken and her pig-like appearance vanishes. These stories became particularly popular in England, and later in Ireland. The magical elements gradually vanished from the story, and the existence of pig-faced women began to be treated as fact. The story became particularly widespread in Dublin in the early 19th century, where it became widely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maternal Impression
The conception of a maternal impression rests on the belief that a powerful mental (or sometimes physical) influence working on the mother's mind may produce an impression, either general or definite, on the child she is carrying. The child might be said to be "marked" as a result. Medicine Maternal impression, according to a long-discredited medical theory, was a phenomenon that explained the existence of birth defects and congenital disorders. The theory stated that an emotional stimulus experienced by a pregnant woman could influence the development of the fetus. For example, it was sometimes supposed that the mother of the Elephant Man was frightened by an elephant during her pregnancy, thus "imprinting" the memory of the elephant onto the gestating fetus. Mental problems, such as schizophrenia and depression, were believed to be a manifestation of similar disordered feelings in the mother. For instance, a pregnant woman who experienced great sadness might imprint depressi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackfriars, London
Blackfriars is in central London, specifically the south-west corner of the City of London. Blackfriars Priory The name first occurs in records of 1317 in many orthographies. Friar evolved from as has, meaning 'brother'. Black refers to the black cappa worn by Dominican Friars. They moved their 1220s-founded priory from just west of Holborn bridge at the top of Shoe Lane (modern Holborn Circus) a few hundred metres south to be between the tidal Thames and the west of Ludgate Hill, a modest rise, but the highest in the city proper, in about 1276. Edward I gave permission to rebuild London's city wall, against the Fleet brook and Ludgate Hill, north and west of their precinct. The site hosted great occasions of state, including meetings of Parliament and the Privy Council, state visits, such as of Emperor Charles V in 1522, then, seven years later, a divorce hearing of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII. The priory was by legal process dissolved in 1538 under Henry's diss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friar Bacon And Friar Bungay
''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'', originally entitled ''The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay'', is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by Robert Greene. Widely regarded as Greene's best and most significant play, it has received more critical attention than any other of Greene's dramas. History The date of authorship of ''Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay'' cannot be fixed with certainty on the basis of the available evidence; the play is normally dated to the 1588–92 period. 1589 may be the single most likely year: a line in the play's opening scene, "Next Friday is S. James", fixes St. James's Day (25 July, the feast day of St. James the Great) as a Friday, which was true in 1589. Some critics argue that the magic in Greene's play was inspired by the magic in Marlowe's '' Doctor Faustus,'' (''c.'' 1589–92) which if valid would mean that ''Bacon and Bungay'' must post-date ''Faustus;'' Greene's play also has relationships with several other play ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Greene (dramatist)
Robert Greene (1558–1592) was an English author popular in his day, and now best known for a posthumous pamphlet attributed to him, '' Greene's Groats-Worth of Witte, bought with a million of Repentance'', widely believed to contain an attack on William Shakespeare. Greene was a popular Elizabethan dramatist and pamphleteer known for his negative critiques of his colleagues. He is said to have been born in Norwich. He attended Cambridge where he received a BA in 1580, and an M.A. in 1583 before moving to London, where he arguably became the first professional author in England. He was prolific and published in many genres including romances, plays and autobiography. Family According to the author Brenda Richardson, the "chief problem" in compiling a biography of Robert Greene was his name. ''Robert'' was one of the most popular given names of the era and ''Greene'' was a common surname. L. H. Newcomb suggests that Robert Greene "was probably the Robert Greene, son of Robert ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. For most of its history the Empire comprised the entirety of the modern countries of Germany, Czechia, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Slovenia, and Luxembourg, most of north-central Italy, and large parts of modern-day east France and west Poland. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne Roman emperor, reviving the title more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The title lapsed in 924, but was revived in 962 when Otto I, OttoI was crowned emperor by Pope John XII, as Charlemagne's and the Carolingian Empire's successor. From 962 until the 12th century, the empire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chapbook
A chapbook is a type of small printed booklet that was a popular medium for street literature throughout early modern Europe. Chapbooks were usually produced cheaply, illustrated with crude woodcuts and printed on a single sheet folded into 8, 12, 16, or 24 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. Printers provided chapbooks on credit to chapmen, who sold them both from door to door and at markets and fairs, then paying for the stock they sold. The tradition of chapbooks emerged during the 16th century as printed books were becoming affordable, with the medium ultimately reaching its height of popularity during the 17th and 18th centuries. Various ephemera and popular or folk literature were published as chapbooks, such as almanacs, children's literature, folklore, ballads, nursery rhymes, pamphlets, poetry, and political and religious Tract (literature), tracts. The term ''chapbook'' remains in use by publishers to refer to short, inexpensive booklets. Terminology ''Chapbook ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys ( ; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English writer and Tories (British political party), Tory politician. He served as an official in the Navy Board and Member of Parliament (England), Member of Parliament, but is most remembered today for the diary he kept for almost a decade. Though he had no Maritime pilot, maritime experience, Pepys rose to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both Charles II of England, Charles II and James II of England, James II through patronage, diligence, and his talent for administration. His influence and reforms at the Admiralty (United Kingdom), English Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy. The detailed private diary that Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was first published in the 19th century and is one of the most important primary sources of the Stuart Restoration. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Marriage Of Sir Gawain
"The Marriage of Sir Gawain" is an English Arthurian ballad, collected as Child Ballad 31.Francis James Child, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads''"The Marriage of Sir Gawain" Found in the Percy Folio, it is a fragmented account of the story of Sir Gawain and the loathly lady, which has been preserved in fuller form in the medieval poem '' The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle''.Francis James Child, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', v. 1, Dover Publications, New York, 1965 The loathly lady episode itself dates at least back to Geoffrey Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale" from ''The Canterbury Tales''. Unlike most of the Child Ballads, but like the Arthurian " King Arthur and King Cornwall" and " The Boy and the Mantle", "The Marriage of Sir Gawain" is not a folk ballad but a song for professional minstrels. Synopsis One Christmas, at Tarn Wadling near Carlisle, King Arthur is challenged by a menacing 'baron.' To avoid a fight, Arthur agrees to return the foll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Wife Of Bath's Tale
"The Wife of Bath's Tale" () is among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales''. It provides insight into the role of women in the Late Middle Ages and was probably of interest to Chaucer, himself, for the character is one of his most developed ones, with her Prologue twice as long as her Tale. He also goes so far as to describe two sets of clothing for her, in his General Prologue. She calls herself both Alyson and Alys in the prologue, but to confuse matters, these are also the names of her 'gossip' (a close friend or gossip), whom she mentions several times, as well as many female characters throughout ''The Canterbury Tales''. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the "Prologue of the Wife of Bath's Tale" during the fourteenth century, at a time when the social structure was rapidly evolving, during the reign of Richard II; it was not until the late 1380s to mid-1390s, when Richard's subjects started to take notice of the way in which he was leaning toward bad counsel, ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loathly Lady
The loathly lady (, Motif D732 in Aarne–Thompson classification system, Stith Thompson's motif index), is a tale type commonly used in medieval literature, most famously in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Wife of Bath's Tale''. The motif is that of a woman who appears unattractive (ugly, ''loathly'') but undergoes a transformation upon being approached by a man in spite of her unattractiveness, becoming extremely desirable. It is then revealed that her ugliness was the result of a curse which was broken by the hero's action. Irish legend The loathly lady can be found in ''The Adventures of the Sons of Eochaid Mugmedon'', in which Niall of the Nine Hostages proves himself the rightful High King of Ireland by embracing her, because she turns out to personify the sovereignty of the territory (and is therefore sometimes referred in scholarship as a 'sovereignty goddess'). The motif can also be found in stories of the earlier high kings Lugaid Loígde and Conn of the Hundred Battles. D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Monstrous Shape, Or A Shapelesse Monster
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version is often written in one of two forms: the double-storey and single-storey . The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English, '' a'' is the indefinite article, with the alternative form ''an''. Name In English, the name of the letter is the ''long A'' sound, pronounced . Its name in most other languages matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables. History The earliest known ancestor of A is ''aleph''—the first letter of the Phoenician ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
