What I'm Reading #17

A fascinating book for periodic, episodic reading is Norman Davies' colossal "Europe: A History". I've been nibbling at it for years and no time is better than summer time when one wants a distraction from time to time. Davies' knowledge is unlike anything that I've encountered on this topic, and he generously shares it in this 1,365 + page tome.

Tonight I was reading about the 1500's when I stumbled upon this gem: "At the Midsummer's Fair in mid-sixteenth century Paris, cat burning was a regular attraction. A special stage was built so that a large net containing several dozen cats could be lowered onto the bonfire beneath. The spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized. Cruelty was evidently thought to be funny." OMG!

Or this: "Andalusian Gypsy music in the style now known as flamenco has been played and admired since the sixteenth century...Flamenco simply means 'Flemish.' In the vocabulary of art, it also gained the connotation of 'exotic' or 'ornate.' One theory poses that Jewish songs banned by the Inquisition found their way back to Spain from Flanders, where many Spanish Jews had taken refuge. Another suggests that flamenco derives from the Arabic "fellah-mangu" or 'singing pheasant.'"

Or this: "Jachimov is a small Bohemian town in the Joachimsthal, some 80 km north of Pilsen. In 1518 Count von Schlick was granted an imperial patent to mine silver there and to establish a mint. His silver coins were produced by Walsenwerke or "rolling machines," and were formally classed as "large groats." Their popular name was jaochimsthaler, soon shortened to "thaler." Hence the origin of the modern word Dollar.

Is it any wonder that this book is so enthralling? And don't get me started on Nostradamus, Vlad the Impaler, Hexes, or the 100 year's war!