Live data from Hacker News

A medieval comedy act has been discovered in first-ever find, researcher says

vice.com

31–40 of 56 posts

Re: A medieval comedy act has been discovered in first-ever find, researcher says

#31
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. The table of contents is rewritten in modern cursive, though I can't read everything even there. Contents The Hunttinge of the Hare. A Mock Sermon. ... From there we can flip forward to the actual content and ... yep, can't read it. Honestly the only reason I know it says "huntinge of the hare" centred at the top is because I read it in the table of contents. I can tell it's English, but that's about all…

Looks like a Gothic font with spelling differences, I think the first line translated is something like: > (something) tale I will now tell Except the spelling is like: > (something) take y wyll yow tell I can also read what seems to be "me to blame" on the 6th line.

Here's the best I can do with the first bit, several edits later:

  A letyll tale y wyll yow tell
  y troye hit wyll lyke yow well 
  þat ye shall habe gud game ooooo
  Bot were(?) it was y dar? not say
  for appyr.??ly a nod? day
  hit myght t?ne me to blame ooooooo
  ?ow take gud hede evrython(?)
  how a yomon come rydyng alon
  hafull fayre way he fond ooooooo
  he lokud be syde hym lyght glydand
  he fond a hare full fayr syttand
  a pon a falow lond ooooooooo
  he markyd wyll wher the fatt þ
  þkyd to the town as fast as he myght go
  þ way þen con he ha? ooooooo
  þ fyrst mon þt he mett wt all
  was a husbond hyght honkyn of þ hall
  a gud mon and a twwe(?) oooooooo
  ...
We have letyll = little, wyll = will, troye = trust(?), hit = it, lyke = like, yow = you, habe = have, gud = good, yomon = yeoman, rydyng = riding, lokud = looked, be syde = beside, hym = him, fayr = fair, syttand = seated/sitting, etc.

I think the y with dot over is "I", while the þ with a dot is "the" or "thou" etc. I'm not entirely sure what all the abbreviations are supposed to be.

* * *

Edit: there's apparently a full transcription at http://doi.org/10.1515/angl.2010.009 though it's not easy to accurately transcribe something like this so full of abbreviations, old spellings based on old pronunciations, archaic glyphs like ſ and þ, letters like u and v which have since diverged, etc.

Re: A medieval comedy act has been discovered in first-ever find, researcher says

#32
post #24
post #23

Got me thinking... what is the oldest, preserved joke? Is it still funny?

The oldest recorded joke[0], as recorded on a Sumerian tablet somewhere between 1900 and 2300 BC: Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart on her husband’s lap. [0] https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2017/09/oldest-know...

    An intellectual was told by someone: “your beard is now coming in.” So he went to the rear-entrance and waited for it. Another intellectual asked what he was doing. Once he heard the whole story, he said: “I’m not surprised that people say we lack common sense. How do you know that it’s not coming in by the other gate?”
Most of them suck by today's standards, but that one is genuinely still funny today!

Re: A medieval comedy act has been discovered in first-ever find, researcher says

#34
post #11

This is no surprise. There's a lot of Monty Python style in Shakespeare, and he was definitely influenced by earlier sources, such as medieval morality plays, etc.

Perhaps we should say that Monty Python draws on Shakespearean comedy, given the relative times and the fact that we know that most, if not all of the Pythons studied Shxpr.

It was clearly Shakespeare who got the inspiration for his plays from Monty Python sketches. After all they're timeless.

Re: A medieval comedy act has been discovered in first-ever find, researcher says

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. The table of contents is rewritten in modern cursive, though I can't read everything even there. Contents The Hunttinge of the Hare. A Mock Sermon. ... From there we can flip forward to the actual content and ... yep, can't read it. Honestly the only reason I know it says "huntinge of the hare" centred at the top is because I read it in the table of contents. I can tell it's English, but that's about all…

I think the table of content is modern. It says "rebound in 1964" after all. This is what seems to be the first page of the text https://digital.nls.uk/early-manuscripts/browse/archive/1341... I recognize latin characters in what my classmates called "gothic font" in highschool. But I can't recognize the language.

[deleted]

Re: A medieval comedy act has been discovered in first-ever find, researcher says

#37
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. The table of contents is rewritten in modern cursive, though I can't read everything even there. Contents The Hunttinge of the Hare. A Mock Sermon. ... From there we can flip forward to the actual content and ... yep, can't read it. Honestly the only reason I know it says "huntinge of the hare" centred at the top is because I read it in the table of contents. I can tell it's English, but that's about all…

If you take a screen capture then paste it into google image search then select the text or translate button - it also detects the English characters, but still makes very little sense to me.

[deleted]

Re: A medieval comedy act has been discovered in first-ever find, researcher says

#38
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like a Gothic font with spelling differences, I think the first line translated is something like: > (something) tale I will now tell Except the spelling is like: > (something) take y wyll yow tell I can also read what seems to be "me to blame" on the 6th line.

Here's the best I can do with the first bit, several edits later: A letyll tale y wyll yow tell y troye hit wyll lyke yow well þat ye shall habe gud game ooooo Bot were(?) it was y dar? not say for appyr.??ly a nod? day hit myght t?ne me to blame ooooooo ?ow take gud hede evrython(?) how a yomon come rydyng alon hafull fayre way he fond ooooooo he lokud be syde hym lyght glydand he fond a hare full fayr syttand a pon…

Any idea why so many lines end in ooooooo?

Re: A medieval comedy act has been discovered in first-ever find, researcher says

#39
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the best I can do with the first bit, several edits later: A letyll tale y wyll yow tell y troye hit wyll lyke yow well þat ye shall habe gud game ooooo Bot were(?) it was y dar? not say for appyr.??ly a nod? day hit myght t?ne me to blame ooooooo ?ow take gud hede evrython(?) how a yomon come rydyng alon hafull fayre way he fond ooooooo he lokud be syde hym lyght glydand he fond a hare full fayr syttand a pon…

Any idea why so many lines end in ooooooo?

You can look at the manuscript. I don't think it's really supposed to be letters – more like a decorative doodle – but I'm not sure what the deal is: https://digital.nls.uk/early-manuscripts/browse/archive/1341...

Re: A medieval comedy act has been discovered in first-ever find, researcher says

#40
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a noob asking from a place of curiosity, does “Medieval” mean anything outside of the Europe sphere of influence? Medieval evokes a certain imagery in my mind, rather than a time period. It feels weird and Eurocentric to refer to Asian countries in ~1200 as “Medieval” for example.

"Medieval" can sometimes be applied to places like China or India, but it's not used that way by historians. In general historians don't use the terms "Medieval" or "Dark Ages" much anymore, and if they do it's with qualifiers. For Europe "Post-Classical," "Early Middle Ages" or "Late Antiquity" are more often used refer to the earlier Middle Ages.

"Medieval" is certainly still used.[0] "Dark Age" is no longer used interchangeably with Medieval, however. This is because many now see the period starting from the High Middle Ages in Europe as directly leading to the modern period. Refering to the entire Medieval period as a Dark Age is to take a side in that argument.

[0]https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Medieval&scisbd=1

Post reply on HN