Benjamin And Eleanor Will Be Your Guides On Our Tour Of The Twelfth Century
I'd never heard of Benjamin of Tudela,
and of Eleanor of Aquitaine I knew a little. What amazed me was where
I found the book The Travels
of Benjamin of Tudela
by Uri Shulevitz (ISBN 0374377545) – in the children's section of
Minot Public Library. I checked it out to read myself at the same
time I checked out David
Goes to School. for
Jeffrey's book report last week. More than a hundred years before
Marco Polo's travels, Benjamin traveled from his home in the Jewish
quarter of Tudela, Spain by barge, foot, wagon, and ship through
southern Europe, southwestern Asia, and up the Nile through Egypt and
back home through the Mediterranean (known then as the Great) Sea on
a fourteen-year journey. First traveler to mention China, arrived in
Baghdad on the one day of the year the caliph – the then-king of
the Islamic world – appeared to his subjects in their capital city,
saw Mount Sinai (but didn't climb it, hah!) and relates other stories
he hears. Almost Herodotus with a yarmulke …
Then
you have my contender for best-worded title I've read this year (only
44 days in, but it's still impressive), A
Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver
by E. L. Konigsburg. ISBN 0440472016 Scarlet refers to Eleanor's
royal robe and miniver – I did not know this – refers to that
white fur used as the trim on said robe. Anyway, this queen of
England and France (Aquitaine present-day southwestern France) along
with others relates, from the perspective of the afterlife (I don't
know what Konigsburg's views on the afterlife were as she died last
year – it seems reflected as a proto-Catholic view in this book,
where if you weren't a Saint you had “Hell to pay” before coming
up to Heaven, but I digress) – her life from being young and
learning her duties as a royal to surviving two husbands. (If you
still
don't recognize Eleanor of Aquitaine, some of her children may ring
bells – Richard I, perhaps better known as Richard the Lionhearted,
and John who became king after his death of Robin Hood fame.) So
we're approaching the 13th
century too.
NOW
from the perspective of the 21st,
after getting home last night and everyone had pretty much fended off
hunger by eating what they chose too since the ground turkey we took
out that morning hadn't thawed yet, we settled in to eat, and then to
read chapter eight of Humphrey,
the book about the hamster that's been assigned to Longfellow for
families to read together. It's an engaging book I must give you
that! AND overnight we had a fresh inch and a half of snowfall, so
much so – but not as much as we were expecting – that it was a
good idea to brush off our cars (which Jeffrey was super-eager to
help me with, leaving our girls alone) and shovel the sidewalk.
Nothing compared to what regions south and east of us are getting, I
understand … saw a news item this morning that New York City has
snow plows on twelve-hour shifts. Not to brag, but in our part of the
country that's the white stuff we are used to … shoveling and
otherwise.
And like Marco Polo, I have not told half of what I saw.
David
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