Printing was expensive and not accessible

The world of antiquity was famous for its large libraries, the most famous and largest of which was the Library of Alexandria. There is a certain irony that most of the scrolls that were kept in these huge storage all over the ancient world were lost forever. They were either burnt in fire or destroyed during wars and turmoil.

Yet, there was another reason for the loss of all those invaluable scrolls. Generally, papyrus scrolls don’t last more than a couple of centuries. Those scrolls that were chosen not to be copied on parchment during the times of Christianity did not survive.

Even with the invention of printing European hand-written manuscript writing kept on going for another century. Printing was expensive and not accessible for everybody at those times. Each time when a copy of a document was created more and more errors were introduced with each copy. That is why, specialists have to compare different versions of the same document to figure out the most authentic parts of a document. As for private and governmental documents, they remained handwritten until the invention of the typewriter in the 19th century.

Hand-written manuscripts

Originally, all documents and books were written by hand. This type of manuscripts lasted until the invention of printing in China in the 7th century and later in Europe in about 1450. The material used for hand-written ancient manuscripts differed depending on the geographical location. The ones that were preserved till our days included papyrus, various parchments, and even palm leaves and birch bark documents.

First ancient manuscripts were discovered in Egyptian tombs and mausoleums. They were either located inside the sarcophagi or even reused as mummy wrappings. Archeologists and adventurers were discovering scrolls of manuscripts in bizarre places like dry caves, desert burials, or within the secretly buried jars.

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Medieval manuscript the Chantilly Codex

From Avignon this musical style spread to Southern France, Paris and Northern Spain. In the beginning of the 15th century it reached England and established itself there too. Ars subtilior music was exclusively secular. Its songs were telling of courtly love, war, chivalry and even praise of public figures.

The majority of what we know about ars subtilior French composers comes from a single invaluable and extremely rare medieval manuscript the Chantilly Codex. It is the most important source of information, because we don’t know anything else about many of these music creators, including their biographies, dates of life and death. Brief texts that accompany the music and some of its lyrics allowed us to discover great composers of that time like Solage, Borlet, Grimace, Trebor, Senleches and others. The Chantilly Codex contains 112 polyphonic pieces, mostly ballads, motets, and rondeaus, that represent the most popular courtly dance styles of its time.

A new musical style

In the end of the 14th century a new musical style emerged. Specialists call it ars subtilior. It is of extremely complex and experimental nature, hard to sing and produce and with super refined musical notation. Obviously, only a small circle of true composers and music lovers could enjoy this musical style.

Overall, it was the avant-garde music of the late medieval period. However, as a specialist and web analyst I find some controversy in this issue. Even though the ars subtilior music is highly refined, it was not merely a dead-end artistic movement. Even more, it seems that some of ars subtilior music was widely known and distributed because many of the devices first used by its composers became standard compositional techniques in the Renaissance.

The center of ars subtilior was Avignon when it was a residence of a Pope who was fighting the opposing fraction in Rome headed by another Pope.

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Priceless document

What’s so special about this document, you may ask? Well, first of all, it is the single largest primary source of music of the early Italian Renaissance that took place in the 14th century, known to the experts and specialists as Trecento. This treasure contains of 216 parchment folios, richly illuminated and in good condition. All complete pieces of music are preserved. 353 compositions in the Codex are all secular and belongs to the famous composers of the Trecento such as Francesco Landini, Bartolino da Padova, Niccolò da Perugia, Andrea da Firenze, Jacopo da Bologna, Lorenzo da Firenze, Gherardello da Firenze, Donato da Cascia and others.

The document is priceless. Imagine, that somewhere in the 27th century new generations of people would discover something similar, like all-star catalog of all truly famous composers of the 20th century. And that would be the only book around at this distant future!

Truly invaluable manuscript

In the middle of the 15th century through the ways unknown to us, famous organist Antonio Squarcialupi got hold of truly invaluable manuscript. On his death bed Antonio passed this manuscript to his nephew, then the latter passed it to his inheritors. So the document was still in the family until it found its way into the estate of Giuliano de’ Medici, who gave it to the Biblioteca Palatina in the early 16th century. And at the end of the 18th century the manuscript passed into the ownership of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.

Although the manuscript still says in gold letters that its owner is Antonio Squarcialupi and even bears currently his name as the Squarcialupi Codex, originally, it had nothing to do with him. The manuscript was compiled in the Florentine monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli, probably in the beginning of the fifteenth century. At least this is what the archives of my local web analytics company claim.

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Gigantic present from the grateful emperor

One of the most famous forgeries of the Dark Ages was the manuscript called the Donation of Constantine. This fake Roman imperial edict was evidently devised in the second part of the 8th century for the Pope of Rome Stephen II.

The Donation of Constantine t was used by Catholic church for centuries as the support for its territorial claims. It believed blindly in the authenticity of the famous manuscript. Only in the second part of the fifteenth century, with the revival of Classical scholarship and textual critique, the Church had begun to realize that the document could not possibly be genuine.

In the forgery Roman emperor Constantine allegedly grants to the Popes of Rome dominion over lands in Judea, Greece, Asia, Thrace, Africa, the city of Rome and the entire Western Roman Empire. The manuscript tells that all these territories are presented a gift of the first Christian emperor to the pope Sylvester. All these named lands were a one gigantic "present" from the grateful emperor to the pope for instructing him in the Christian faith, baptizing him, and even miraculously curing Constantine of leprosy.

Pope Stephen II was a shrewd diplomat. He successfully used the forgery to create the foundation of the Papal States. He crossed into Gaul with this manuscript and presented a copy to the new king of Franks Pepin the Short. Pope managed to gain king’s support against Lombards who occupied former Byzantine territories in Italy and threatened to push the Pope out of Rome. In 756 Pepin and his Frankish army forced the Lombards to surrender their conquests to the pope of Rome. These lands would become the Papal States and would be the basis of the Papacy’s secular power for the next eleven centuries.

Great hardships

During the second part of the journey Friar and his companions experienced great hardships. excessive fatigue and even hunger. They were constantly ill and had to tightly bandage their bodies to survive the enormous ride. Monks passed Ural and Syr Darya rivers and reached the imperial camp in Karakorum on the Mongol river Orhon after covering some three thousand miles in hundred days!

Naturally, the Great Khan did not convert to Christianity but demanded for all Christian kings and the Pope to swear allegiance to him. He sent them back with a letter to the Pope written in Mongol, Arabic and Latin with the same context.

Miraculously, Friar Joannes and his companions survived the journey back and reached Kiev in 1247. Those who knew them thought that they were risen from the dead. Soon after, stoic monks got to Pope and delivered him the Great Khan’s letter. Friar Joannes was made an archbishop and sent as papal legate to French king Louis IX. At those barbaric times, after all hardships of his journey, Joannes managed to live five years more and died in the age of seventy two.

He left Europeans a great book describing Mongols and Tartars, their rulers, countries, climate, manners and traditions, religion, policy and even military tactics. His works proved invaluable to many other travelers who followed his steps. The contemporary sources state that Friar Joannes was a fat and heavy man, but one won’t find a single word of complaint in his works or in any related manuscripts.

Extremely brave and courageous man

Travels of famous Marco Polo come to our mind whenever we think of first Europeans who visited Mongol rulers of the East. But, in fact, there were other Western travelers who visited Great Khan long before Marco Polo.

According to historical accounts that we know of, the first European who went with the mission to the East was Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, one of the companions and disciples of his countryman Saint Francis. Marco Polo was not even born when Pope of Rome sent Giovanni or, as he was called Friar Joannes, with the first formal Catholic mission to the Mongols in 1245.

Friar Joannes was probably an extremely brave and courageous man - he was not a young man at the time, reaching the age of sixty five. He was provided with a letter from the Pope to the Great Khan, and a couple of monks who accompanied him.

At the time Mongols were at the hight of their power. Friar completed the first part of his journey, passing city of Kiev, rivers Don and Volga and at last arrived to the Ordu which was the camp of Batu, the famous conqueror of Eastern Europe. Batu permitted Friar Joannes to proceed onward to the court of the supreme Khan in Mongolia.

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Series of moral essays

In Hollywood movie adaptations of the novel somehow Robinson Crusoe is a cast away somewhere new African continent, this Friday is of African origin. But in the book Robinson Crusoe was most certainly based in the Caribbean. Since author mentions that the Crusoe's island was almost in the mouth of the river Orinoco, it was probably the island of Tobago, since that island is near the mouth of the river Orinoco, and in sight of the island of Trinidad.

And this is what modern public most definitely don't know. Daniel Defoe wrote a sequel to the first book which had another long title: "THE FARTHER ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE; Being the Second and Last Part OF HIS LIFE, And of the Strange Surprizing Accounts of his Travels Round three Parts of the Globe. Written by Himself".

But wait! Here is more ... There is even the third book written by Daniel Defoe with the title "Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe". That book had really nothing with the adventures of Robinson as the first two books. It represents a series of moral essays. What has that got to do with Robinson, you may ask? Well Daniel Defoe just attached the name Crusoe to increase sales of this book and to attract the attention of the readers.

There are several historical facts

Everybody knows a novel by Daniel Dafoe that is known as Robinson Crusoe. This book had been all-time bestseller at the times when there was no such word as "bestseller" itself. In fact, by the end of the 19th century, no book in the history of Western literature had spawned more editions, spin-offs, and translations than Robinson Crusoe. There had been more than seven hundred such alternative versions, including children's versions with mainly pictures and no text. Hundreds of adaptations in dozens of languages, had been published - from The Swiss Family Robinson to Luis Bunue'’s film adaptation.

But there are several historical facts unknown to general public. First of all the full title of the book was not Robinson Crusoe. When the novel was published in April 25, 1719 it had the following title: "The Life and strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely delive'’d by Pyrates. Written by Himself."

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Eight editions

At the age of 50 he decided to retire from business. As an aftermath, he wrote a book about himself. In this book he complained about his wife, politicians, clergy, and the like. He called his work "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truth in a Homespun Dress", and it contained almost 9 thousand words and 34 thousands letters. But there was not a single punctuation mark in the whole book! So what do you think happened?

You are right, his book became a bestseller of those times. Following the success of his book, the second edition was immediately published, where Dexter added only one additional page of punctuation marks. His advice to readers was to use these punctuation marks at any place of the book, as they please. Overall, there were eight editions of his book published one after another.

It all was just pure luck

It seemed that Dexter always lucked out. Any other businessmen would end with financial disaster in the ventures similar to his. It all was just pure luck. Judge for yourself. Some people gave Timothy a bad advice trying to ruin him completely. They advised him to send his ships to sell coal in English city of Newcastle, that had rich coal mines of its own! And he did accordingly and amassed a fortune after his cargo arrived during a miners' strike which had crippled local production. Thus, a popular English idiom "Selling coal to Newcastle" was born.

Any venture that Timothy undertook would bring him unimaginable profits. He would come out with huge money each time when, for example he sold bibles to India or stray cats to Caribbean islands. Once by mistake he stored a lot of whalebone and still got huge profits by selling it as the support material for female corsets.

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Genius in business

He managed to charm and marry a very rich widow and subsequently buy a big house. Somehow everybody disliked him. He did not get respect from others who considered him an ignoramus and wished him bad luck. But he did not care and made the next move. At the end of the War of Independence European currency was worth nothing. The only buyer of it was Dexter who stored bags of useless then paper. But when the bad times were over and trade with Europe resumed, it turned out that this was not a stupid move at all. Timothy became a nouveau-riche.

He decided that he was a genius in business and bought two ships. His first big business action was to buy warming pans and send them to West India. His captains sold them all and made big profit. It turned out that locals needed ladles for their booming molasses industry. Timothy was so excited that his next business move was much weirder. He sent woolen mittens to the tropical places in the Caribbean. All the cargo was sold out almost instantly by Asian merchants who bought them for export to Siberia.

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Timothy Dexter, an American businessman

People usually say, that there is no such thing as luck. And even if there is luck, it is always greatly aided and abetted by the application of intelligence and the acquisition of reliable information. Yet, the story that I am going to tell you shows that throughout history there were some people who were haunted by luck, even if they may not really deserve it.

But here comes Timothy Dexter, an American businessman, who nicknamed himself as "Lord". He was born in the middle of eighteen century in Massachusetts, never went to school and through his whole life never learned to spell. There was nothing distinguished about him. Since his childhood he was a farm laborer and at sixteen he became an apprentice for a leather dresser. He did not have a penny to his name until he was twenty one. And things started magically to change for Timothy.

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Blond men rich with gold and furs

I found an interesting story about another lost land while doing my web analytics research. This legend surfaced in Canada during French colonization in the the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. French colonists in North America learned from Algonquin Indians that somewhere in the north, there was a mythical kingdom which is inhabited by blond men rich with gold and furs. Algonquin Indians even had a name for this land - Kingdom of Saguenay. One of the Indian Chiefs named Donnacona also told a lot of stories about this kingdom while being imprisoned in France in the 30s of the sixteenth century. Donnaconna claimed that blond inhabitants of the kingdom also have in their posession great mines of silver and gold.

French colonists tried hard to find kingdom of Saguenay, but all their attempts ended in vain. Up until now, specialists speculate about the source of this legend. Some even say that it was an ancient pre-Colombian settlement of Europeans. They believe that Indian oral tradition referred to Viking settlements in America, although this has not been definitely proven.

Nevertheless the name Saguenay exists in many modern canadian placenames. One of the regions in Quebec even refers to itself as Kingdom of Saguenay trying to attract tourists and for other marketing purposes.

New expeditions

Viceroy of New Spain organized an expedition headed by the Franciscan monk Marcos de Niza, who thought that the castaways’ stories were related to seven cities of Cibola and Quivira. The expedition failed. And Marcos de Niza returned to Mexico City and claimed that they had seen a city very far away and greater than the great Tenochtitlan; in this city, the people used dishes of gold and silver, decorated their houses with turquoise, and had gigantic pearls, emeralds, and other beautiful gems.

This news fueled new expedition.The Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza immediately organizing a second large military expedition to take possession of the riches that the monk had described so vividly. New expedition was going more slowly. It went through the state of Sonora and arrived in present day Arizona. There, conquistadors discovered that Marcos de Niza's stories were lies and that there were in fact no treasures as he had described. They also found that, contrary to the monk's account, the sea was not within view from that region, but many miles away.

Myth about cities of Cibola and Quivra

While researching myths and legends of the Renaissance period in my local web analytics company, I found a new one - about cities of Cibola and Quivra. According to the legend, around the year 1150 when the Moors conquered Merida, Spain, seven Cathlic bishops fled the city, not only to save their own lives but also to prevent the Muslims from capturing sacred religious relics. Many years later rumor appeared, that in an unknown place these bishops found the cities of Cibola and Quivra. Then new details appeared in this newborn myth - these cities grew rich mainly from gold and precious stones. Myth kept on growing, and soon instead of 2 cities, there were seven - for each bishop who had left Merida. And all seven cities were magnificent and made of gold.

Surprisingly, this naive myth fueled many expeditions in the Old World in search of the mythical cities during the following centuries. In 1528 Spanish four survivors of unsuccessful expedition to Florida said that they had heard from Native Americans stories of cities with great riches somewhere in the north.

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Shambhala kingdom as enlightened society

Various cultures place Shambhala in central Asai, north or west of Tibet. Some texts identify it with the Sutlej Valley in Himachal Pradesh. Mongolians name the location of Shambala at certain valleys of southern Siberia. But they all see Shambhala kingdom as enlightened society that people of all faiths can aspire to and actually realize. The path to this is provocatively described as the practice of warriorship — meeting fear and transcending aggression, and of secular sacredness — joining the wisdom of the past and one's own culture with the present. Shambhala teachings inspired numerous educational, artistic, and spiritual institutions, including Naropa University, Shambhala Training, Shambhala Sun, the Shambhala School, Shambhala Institute, and many others.

Tibet was largely closed to outsiders until very recently, and so what information was available about the tradition of Shambhala was haphazard at best. The first information that reached western civilization about Shambhala came from the Portuguese Catholic missionaries Joao Cabral and Estevao Cacella who had heard about Shambala and thought it was another name for China. In 1627 they headed to Tashilhunpo, the seat of the Panchen Lama and, discovering their mistake, returned to India. Later esoteric writers further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by a hidden mystic brotherhood whose members labor for the good of humanity. There were numerous Tibetan expeditions to discover Shambhala, but all in vain.

Beautiful story from Tibetan Buddhist tradition

Somewhere, beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas lies a mythical kingdom Shambhala. The kingdom is a society, where all the inhabitants are enlightened. Its capital city is Kalapa. Shambhala is ruled by a line of king known as Kaliki kings. When the world declines into war and greed, and all is lost, the twenty-fifth Kalki king will emerge from Shambhala with a huge army to vanquish "Dark Forces" and usher in a worldwide Golden Age. It will happen somewhere in 2424 AD. This is what I found from Kalachakra tantra, while researching myths and legends for my web analytics company and funeral home directory.

This beautiful story came to us from Tibetan Buddhist tradition. According to this legend, Buddha taught the Kalachakra tantra in Shambhala upon the request of King Suchandra. So, part of Buddha's teachings is still preserved in the kingdom.Word Shambhala itself is derived from Sanscrit which means place of tranquility and happiness. It is mentioned in various ancient texts, including Kalachakra tantra and the ancient text of the Zhang Zhung culture that even predated Tibetan Buddhism. As with many concepts in the Kalachakra Tantra, the idea of Shambhala has alternative meanings. Shambhala is not an ordinary country. It exists as a physical place, although only individuals with the appropriate karma can reach it and experience it as such. One can not actually arrive there, unless he has the merit and the actual karmic association.

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Integrated robots

One of the most controversial tales of inner-Earth-dwellers is the so-called Shaver Mystery. In 1945 a story was published by some Richard Shaver, who claimed he had recently been the guest of what remained of an underground civilization. Although few really believed the story, Shaver always averred that his story was true. He contended that the Elder Race, or Titans, came to this planet from another solar system in our prehistoric past. After a time of living on the surface, they realized our sun was causing them to age prematurely, so they escaped underground, building huge subterranean complexes in which to live.

Eventually, they decided to seek a new home on a new planet, evacuating the Earth and leaving behind their underground cities populated by artificial beings: detrimental robots and integrated robots. It was these beings that Shaver claimed to have met. Despite the enormous popularity of the Shaver Mystery the location of the entrance to this underground world was never divulged.

The inhabitants of Agartha

While the whole place is an inner continent, its satellite colonies are smaller enclosed ecosystems located just beneath the Earth's crust or discreetly within mountains. Cataclysms and wars taking place on the surface drove these people underground. The Sahara, Gobi, the Australian Outback and the deserts of the southwestern US are said to be but a few examples of the devastation that resulted. The sub-cities were created as refuges for the people and as safe havens for sacred records, teachings and technologies that were cherished by these ancient cultures.

The inhabitants of Agartha are said to have scientific knowledge and expertise far beyond that of the people who live on the surface of the planet, and lost technology from the days of Atlantis. They all follow what is known as the Ancient Path and do not interfere in the lives of humans that live above the surface. Nor is there any interaction between them. All entrances to Agartha from any other part of the planet are hidden safely. They are secured by illusory technology that is beyond the comprehension of modern science.

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Belief in underground civilizations

Since 19 century, the myths of Agartha tricked into fictional works. An early source for the belief in underground civilizations is the book The Smoky God written by Willis George Emerson in the beginning of 20th century. It claims to be the biography of a Norwegian sailor named Olaf Jansen. The book explains how Jansen's sloop sailed through an entrance to the Earth's interior at the North Pole. For two years he lived with the inhabitants of an underground network of colonies who, were a full 12 feet tall and whose world was lit by a "smoky" central sun. Their capital city was something like the original Garden of Eden.

While Emerson does not use the name Agartha, later works such as Agartha - Secrets of the Subterranean Cities have identified the civilization Jansen encountered with Agartha, and its citizens as Agarthan. According to Secrets, one of the underground colonies, was also the seat of government for the network.

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Legendary city in the Earth core

Agartha is a legendary city that is said to reside in the Earth core. My coworkers from from web analytics company told me that today the word Agartha is related to the Hollow Earth theory and is a popular subject in esotericism. Agartha is one of the most common names cited for the society of underground dwellers. While once a popular concept, in the last century little serious attention has been paid to these conjectures, and the theory is not supported by modern science.

The idea of subterranean worlds may have been inspired by ancient religious beliefs in Hades, Sheol, and Hell. For several centuries, there appeared theories that named various locations of the entrances to Agartha. Among them Great Pyramid of Giza, Brazilian Mato Grosso and Manaus, North and South poles, Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

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Modern legends

A number of modern Shangri-La pseudo-legends have developed since 1933 in the wake of the novel and the film made from it. Even crazy Nazis had an enthusiasm for Shangri-La, where they hoped to find an ancient master race, similar to the Nordic race, unspoiled by Buddhism. They sent one understandably unsuccessful expedition to Tibet in 1938.

As of today, various places in China still claim the title, including the tourist destinations of Lijiang and Zhongdian. Sichuan and Tibet also claim the real Shangri-La was in its territory. In 2001, Tibet Autonomous Region proposed that the three regions optimise all Shangri-la tourism resources and promote them as one. Also in 2001, Zhongdian County in northwestern Yunnan officially renamed itself Shangri-La County. Country of Bhutan, which was until now isolated from outside world and has its unique form of Tibetan Buddhism, has been hailed as the last Shangri-La.

Utopian ideal

We often use word Shangri-La in a similar context to Garden of Eden, It means for us some kind of a perfect paradise that exists hidden from modern man. In some cases we use it as an analogy for a life-long quest or something elusive that is much sought by man in the form of love, happiness, or Utopian ideals. Shangri-La has its place with other mythical and famous examples such as The Holy Grail, El Dorado, The Fountain of Youth. But, in fact, this word came to us from ... fiction. This word first appeared in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, Shangri-La is a mystical, harmonious valley, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. The novel was so popular, that this word became synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia. From my web analytics company archives I found, that the author based the story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

It is getting funnier, though. As years rolled by, several locations in the Buddhist Himalaya between northern India and Tibet claimed to be the basis for Hilton's legend, largely to attract tourism. A popularly believed inspiration for Shangri-La is the Hunza Valley in northern Pakistan, close to the Tibetan border, which Hilton visited a few years before Lost Horizon was published. Being an isolated green valley surrounded by mountains, enclosed on the western end of the Himalayas, it closely matches the description in the novel. A Shangri-La resort in the nearby Skardu valley is another popular tourist attraction.

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Abbess and a collector of old music

Anna became the Abbess of Quedlinburg in 1755, although she chose to spend most of her time in Berlin, where she devoted herself to music, and became known as a musical patron and composer. In 1758, she began a serious study of musical theory and composition, engaging as her tutor Johann Philipp Kirnberger, a student of Johann Sebastian Bach. She composed chamber music, such as flute sonatas, and wrote music to Ramler's Passion cantata "The Death of Jesus". This was also her favorite piece. Only a few of her works have survived, and it is highly likely that she destroyed many of her compositions. After all, she did described herself as being very self-critical person. In addition to that, princess Anna was also a collector of old music, preserving over 600 volumes of works by notables such as Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, George Philipp Telemann, and others. This act in itself was a significant contribution to Western culture. Her library was split between East Germany and West Germany after World War II, and despite serious damage by fire in 2004, still survives today.

Adventurous princess

It seems that princess was a very brave and passionate woman. When she was twenty years old, Anna met Friedrich von der Trenck, whose adventurous life inspired works by literary giants such as Victor Hugo and Voltaire. In 1743, Anna secretly married him. When her brother, who was already a king, discovered she had married secretly and was pregnant, he annulled her marriage and imprisoned her husband for ten years. Then Frederick exiled her in anger to Quedlinburg Abbey, a place where many aristocratic women were sent to give birth to children out of wedlock. However, Anna continued to correspond with Friedrich von der Trenck until her death.

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Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia

In my blog entries, I describe mostly outstanding creative people who had God given talents in spite of the harsh times that they were living. Luckily, not everybody is born a genius. There were other composers. I would not call them minor talents or diminish their creativity in any way. They also deserve the utmost respect and gratitude of the following generations. One of these dedicated people was Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia. I found out about her when I was doing my regular research for my web analytics company.

Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia was one of eight children of Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia. She was a younger sister of the famous Frederick II, King of Prussia and she was born in 1723 in Berlin. Among her other famous close relatives were Wilhelmine, Margravine of Bayreuth, Louise Ulrika, Queen of Sweden and Augustus William, Prince of Prussia. Anna was eleven years younger than her brother Frederick, and would have been seven years old when he made his attempt to run away from home, after being humiliated by his father. Both children were musically inclined, but for Anna formal musical instruction was only possible after the death of her father, who hated music with all his heart. Music was her secret consolation against his cruelty to her - in his bursts of rage he would often drag her across a room by the hair. Fortunately, her mother encouraged Anna to learn how to play the harpsichord, flute, and violin. And she received her first lessons from her brother, future king.

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Medieval love story

She wrote many hymns for the Christian liturgy; the most famous being the Hymn of Kassiani. Tradition says that later Emperor Theophilus who was still in love with her wished to see her one more time before he died. So he rode to the monastery where she resided. Kassia was writing her Hymn when she heard the Emperor looking for her. She was still in love with him but now she was devoted to God and she hid away because she did not want to let her passion overcome her religious feelings, but she left her unfinished Hymn on the table.

Theophilus found her cell and entered it alone. He looked for her but she was not there; she was hiding in a closet, watching him. Theophilus felt very sad, cried, and regretted that for a moment of pride he rejected such a beautiful and intellectual woman; then he noticed the papers on the table and he read them. When he was done reading he sat on the chair and finished the Hymn which Kassia had started writing and then he left. Legend says that as he was leaving he noticed Kassia in the closet but he did not speak to her; he just left. Kassia emerged when Theophilus was gone and he read what he had written and she cried.

Greek-Byzantine poet and composer

I am a history buff, especially, if it is related to the history of music, art and literature. While I was doing a research for local web analytics company, I discovered the story of Kassia from Byzantium. She was a Greek-Byzantine poet, composer, and hymnographer. She was born between 805 and 810 in Constantinople into an aristocratic family. Kassia was a participant in the "bride show", organized for Theophilus by his mother Euphrosyne. Smitten by Kassia's beauty the young emperor Theophilus approached her but he did not like her answers. So he chose another bride, Theodora.

Kassia founded a convent in 843 in the west of Constantinople near the walls of Constantine and became its first abbess. Although many scholars attribute this to bitterness at having failed to marry Theophilos, a letter from Theodore the Studite indicates that she had other motivations for wanting a monastic life. It had a close relationship with the nearby monastery of Stoudios, which has to play a central role in re-editing the Byzantine liturgical books in the 9th century and the 10th century, so were important in ensuring the survival of her work.

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Talented female artists

I went through more manuscripts and found more interesting personalities from so called Dark Ages.

In my previous post I mentioned that Medieval women worked a lot on illumination. Manuscript illumination affords us many of the named artists of the Medieval Period including Ende, a tenth century Spanish nun; Guda, a twelfth century German nun; Claricia, twelfth century laywoman in a Bavarian scriptorium. Hildegard of Bingen is a particularly fine example of a German Medieval intellectual and artist. She wrote "The Divine Works of a Simple Man", "The Meritorious Life", sixty-five hymns, a miracle play, and a long treatise of nine books on the different natures of trees, plants, animals, birds, fish, minerals, and metals. From an early age, she claimed to have visions. When the Papacy supported these claims by the headmistress, her position as an important intellectual was galvanized. The visions became part of one of her seminal works, which consists of thirty-five visions relating and illustrating the history of salvation. The illustrations showing Hildegarde experiencing visions while seated in the monastery at Bingen, differ greatly from others created in Germany during the same period. They are characterized by bright colors, emphasis on line, and simplified forms. While Hildegard likely did not pen the images, their nature leads one to believe they were created under her close supervision.

Creative women in the medieval period

In the twelfth century there was the rise of the city in Europe, along with the rise in trade, travel, and universities. These changes in society also influenced the lives of women. Women were allowed to head their spouses' businesses, if they were widowed. Women also became more active in illumination. Many women worked alongside their husbands or fathers, including the daughter of Maitre Honore and the daughter of Jean le Noir. By the 13th century, most illuminated manuscripts were being produced by commercial workshops, and by the end of the Middle Ages, when production of manuscripts had become an important industry in certain centers, women seem to have represented a majority of the artists, and scribes, employed, especially in Paris.

I processed a lot of the manuscripts on a research, and I found a lot about the women in the Middle Ages. Especially, about the ones with artistic talents. In the Medieval period, women often worked alongside men. They created manuscript illuminations, embroideries, and carved capitals and what-not. Documents show that they also were brewers, butchers, wool merchants, and iron mongers. Women who were artists, often were of two literate classes, either wealthy aristocratic women or nuns. Women in the former category often created embroideries and textiles. Those in the later category often produced illuminations, and even composed church music.

An end to piracy in and around Tortuga

Naturally, our famous pirates were not unemployed, there was a constant demand from France and England for able and ruthless sailors that could be used as a striking force. Infamous great pirate Henry Morgan was on the rise when he started recruiting his sailors from Tortuga for his great and cruel expeditions against Spanish colonies. France was also trying to bribe the pirates, so it could create a stronghold in the Caribbean.

The fun for the pirates ended with the Treaty of Ratisbon in 1684 signed by major European powers. The piracy in the Caribbean grew to such extent that part of this treaty is dedicated to the united decision to put an end to piracy in and around Tortuga. And several years earlier English parliament forbade pirates to sail under foreign flags. The punishment for disobedience was death in the gallows.

Most of the pirates, especially those who had families did not want to end their life dancing on the rope, so they had to join English fleet and hunt their own pirate buddies who were still sailing under the flag of a Jolly Roger. That was the end of the free pirate life on the Turtle Island.

Turtle Island

Tortuga is one of the first islands that Columbus discovered during his very first voyage into the New World. The island got its name in 1493 from Columbus' sailors because its shape reminded them of a turtle. Spanish colony was set up there and thrived for over a hundred years until it became a part of a dispute between France, England and Spain. Tortuga was changing hands for a while until the island was divided between French and English settlers in 1630. It still did not prevent Spaniards to reconquer the island a couple of times during 17th century, but there were pushed out by settlers in 1638.

This is exactly the time when English, French and Dutch pirates moved in to this island. The situation soon spiraled out of control. One can only imagine what was going there. A decade later a French governor of Tortuga made the situation even worse when he brought on the island almost two thousand prostitutes hoping to bring some harmony there. Boy, he was wrong!

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Wild history of Turtle Island

If you like books and movies about pirates and their adventures you probably heard the name Tortuga many times. In the last movie trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean island of Tortuga was showed to us as a haven for pirates. In famous writer Sabatini's book series about Captain Blood and the movies based on it, Tortuga is also mentioned as the main base of pirates operations. So what exactly is Tortuga? What is its history and where this island is located?

Nowadays it is a quiet island that belongs to Haiti. A little bit over 20 thousand people live on its small territory which is about 180 square kilometers. It is very mountainous and full of rocks. Yet, it is hugely dense of lofty trees that grow upon the hardest of those rocks. Basically, in translation into English it means a Turtle Island. And it has a very wild history, as it was a major center of Caribbean piracy in the seventeenth century.

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Caesar and pirates

There are also ancient Greek stories about fierce Thracian pirates who chose the island of Lemnos as their base of operations. They and several other tribes were also threatening and attacking trade ships of ancient Rome. Even great Julius Caesar was the victim of pirates who kidnapped and held him prisoner in 75 BC. Caesar did not look his cool and maintained his superiority towards his kidnappers. And when pirates decided to exchanged him for a ransom, he felt insulted that they were asking so little and told the pirates that they could get for him fifty talents of gold instead. He also promised them that they all would be crucified, but the pirates did not believe him and thought that he was joking.

Well, these pirates surely messed with a wrong man, because as soon as the ransom was paid and prisoner freed, Caesar raised a fleet, pursued and captured the them. He crucified each and every one of them at his own authority, as he promised. And later great Pompey went out with whole Roman fleet to completely eliminate pirates and battled them for three months of full naval warfare.

Piracy in ancient times

When we talk about pirates, we usually imagine these boys sailing on the ships under the flag of Jolly Roger. But in fact piracy has always been here since ancient times. In fact, historians the first documented cases of piracy dated as far back as thirteen century BC. Ancient Egyptian chronicled stories about Ramses II fighting mysterious Sea People who came almost out of nowhere and ruled for some time Aegean and Mediterranean seas. In the archives of my local web analytics company I also found stories about dangerous Illirian pirates, who were operating from western Balkans and probably from some parts in the south of modern Italian peninsula. Roman ships were constantly under their attacks, until republic subdued Illirians in the first century BC. It became one of the Roman provinces in the end.

Bones of Arthur and his queen

Since Middle Ages people were trying to find the location of the mysterious island. For example, by the 12th century Avalon became associated with Glastonbury. Monks at Glastonbury abbey claimed to have discovered the bones of Arthur and his queen. Though no longer an island at the time, the high conical bulk of Glastonbury Tor had been surrounded by marsh. During the reign of English king Henry II the abbot of Glastonbury, Henry of Blois, commissioned a search of the abbey grounds. After a lot of deep digging, the monks discovered a massive oak coffin and an iron cross bearing the description: "Here lies King Arthur in the island of Avalon". Inside the coffin were two bodies, presumably of Arthur and his queen. In 1278 the remains were reburied with great ceremony, attended by king Edward I and his wife, before the High Altar at Glastonbury Abbey, where they were the focus of pilgrimages until the Reformation. However, scientists generally dismiss the authenticity of the find, attributing it to a publicity stunt performed to raise funds to repair the Abbey, which was mostly burned down in 1184.

Throughout the times there were many other places competing to be called Avalon. For example, Ille d'Aval on the coast of Brittany, and Burgh by Sands, in Cumberland, which was in Roman times the fort of Aballava on Hadrian's Wall. Other candidates include the Bourgogne town of Avallon, and Bardsey Island in Gwynedd, famous for its apples and also connected with Merlin. There were also claims that the most likely location to be St Michael's Mount in Cornwall, which is near to other locations associated with the Arthurian legends.

It sounds mysterious

Everybody who is familiar with the famous Arthurian legend, heard this magical word Avalon. It sounds mysterious and has its origin from the Celtic word that means "apple". In the legend, it is an island somewhere in Britain, famous for its beautiful apples. When it comes to facts, though, not much is know about the exact location of the island and existence of its inhabitants. During my research at my local web analytics company I found additional facts that allowed me to decode the past with much less difficulty.

Avalon is the place, where King Arthur is taken to recover from his wounds after his last battle with Mordred at Camlann, and where his sword Excalibur was forged. Welsh and Breton tradition claimed that Arthur had never really died, but would return to lead his people against their enemies, but some later writers were less credulous, and said that Arthur had in fact died there. Although primarily known in connection with King Arthur, Avalon is sometimes referred to as the legendary location where Jesus visited the British Isles with Joseph of Arimathea and that it was later the site of the first church in Britain. This location of the Isle of Avalon is usually associated with present day Glastonbury. Avalon also plays a role in non-Arthurian French literature, such as the stories of Holger Danske, who was taken there by Morgan le Fay in a medieval romance, and in the story of Melusine. A nearby valley is named the Vale of Avalon.

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Modern fantasy stories

Lyonesse has been also used as a setting for many modern fantasy stories. J. R. R. Tolkien drew some of his inspiration for the lost kingdom of Numenor from the legends of Lyonesse; one of the kingdom's many names in his myths is called Westernesse.

There is evidence that in Roman times the Isles of Scilly were one large island. According to legend, Lyonesse stretched from Scilly to Land's End at the westernmost tip of Cornwall, and once had some 140 churches. Its capital was the City of Lions, located on what is now the treacherous Seven Stones reef. The names of the traditional kings of Lyonesse are derived from Welsh and Arthurian myth. It is often suggested that the tale of Lyonesse represents an extraordinary survival of folk memory of the flooding of the Isles of Scilly. Cornish people still believe strongly in a sunken forest in Mount's Bay. And there is archaeological evidence of the forest. The remains of it is evident at very low tides, where petrified tree stumps become visible.

Lyonesse - birthplace of the knight Tristan

I had to gather bits and pieces of information about the myth of the lost kingdom of Lyonesse. Even my research for local web analytics company did not help. There just was not much to write about. The legend of a sunken kingdom Lyonesse appears in both Cornish and Breton mythology. In Christian times it even came to be viewed as a sort of Cornish Sodom and Gomorrah story. Lyonesse is identified as a sunken land lying off the Isles of Scilly, to the south-west of Cornwall. Lyonesse is a fictional country in Arthurian legend, birthplace of the knight Tristan. In the medieval story, after Battle of Camlann, that took place supposedly in 537, King Arthur's men fled west across Lyonesse. They were pursued by Mordred and his men. Arthur's men survived by reaching what are now the Isles of Scilly, but Mordred's men perished in the inundation.

Other versions of the medieval story mention that Lyonesse is the home of Guinevere, a small land situated between Camelot and Malagant's territory. This kingdom was ruled by Guinevere's father until his death, after which Guinevere received the title of the Lady of Lyonesse.

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The last Druid in Brittany

Gradlon then founded Quimper and on his death, a statue representing him on horseback looking in the direction of Ys was erected on the Saint Corentin Cathedral and still stands there. French Bretons have also a longer version of the legend, that says that Ys was the most wonderful city in the world, and that Lutece was renamed Paris after Ys was destroyed.

The most mysterious factor in the legend of Ys is that the location of the city is well defined. There is the statue of Gradlon looks at it, most of the localities mentioned exist. Also several ancient Roman roads actually lead into the sea, which strenghtened the belief that they lead to Ys. So, in fact, this myth could depict the real engulfment of a real city during the fifth century. Some specialists consider the story of Ys as the way to describe the victory of Christianity over Celtic gods. In the legend king Gradlon was converted by Saint Winwaloe over druidism, while Gradlon's daughter Dahut and most inhabitants of Ys were worshipers of Celtic gods. However, a Breton folktale version states that Gradlon met, spoke with and consoled the last Druid in Brittany, and oversaw his pagan burial, before building a chapel in his sacred grove.

Gradlon and Dahut

Ys is a Celtic word for a mythical city. According to the legend it was built in in the Douarnenez bay in Brittany by Gradlon, King of Cornouaille, for his daughter Dahut. Ys was built below sea level, protected from inundation by a dike. The only keys of the gate in the dam were held by Gradlon. I had to spend some hours on Internet and in my local web analytics company to find what this story was about.

Satan made Gradlon's daughter Dahut steal them and give them to him. He then opened the gate and Ys was flooded. In some versions of the story, Satan was sent by God to punish the city, whose inhabitants were becoming decadent. Other versions tell that Dahut stole the keys either at her lover's request or in order to open the gates of the city to let her lover in. The only survivor was the King Gradlon, who was advised to abandon his daughter. Everyone who lived in the city died, while the souls of the dead children were then swallowed by the ocean as a punishment. The legend claims that, one can still hear the bells of Ys, warning of a storm.

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Descriptions of the lost continent and its inhabitants

Madam Blavatsky book was followed later by other creations of the occult writers. One of them claimed that survivors from a sunken continent Lemuria were living in or on Mount Shasta in northern California. The Lemurians lived in a complex of tunnels beneath the mountain and occasionally were seen walking the surface dressed in white robes. Later popular novels also repeated the belief that Lemurians inhabit Mount Shasta. Some of the writers linked Lemurians to Ancient Egypt, UFOs and a method of travel called vortex portals to sacred places on Earth and points unknown in the universe. There were other fantasy descriptions of the lost continent and its inhabitants. For example, Lemuria was posted as the homeland of a reptilian race of creatures, often identified with dragons or nagas. Various bits of mythology and folklore were assembled in support, such as the Cambodian naga traditions. Folkloric claims of Australian aborigines sighting dinosaur-like creatures were also often viewed as evidence.

Hypothesizing about Lemuria

Although in the next century scientists completely dismissed the idea of Lemuria, some strange events took place. In 1999 a research vessel in the Indian Ocean discovered evidence that a large island, the Kerguelen Plateau, was submerged about 20 million years ago by rising sea levels. Samples showed pollen and fragments of wood in a 90 million-year-old sediment. This might lead one to expect similarity of dinosaur fossil evidence and will help to understand the breakup of the Indian and Australian land masses.

Occult writers went much further than scientists hypothesizing about Lemuria. In 1880, one of them, Madam Blavatsky claimed that she had seen an ancient, pre-Atlantean Book. According to Blavatsky, Lemuria was occupied by mysterious humanoid species that were about seven foot tall, sexually hermaphroditic, egg-laying, mentally undeveloped and spiritually pure. The gods, aghast at the behavior of these mindless species, sank Lemuria into the ocean and created people endowed with intellect on Atlantis.

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Idea of Lemuria

"Lost continent" Lemuria. Did it really exist? For centuries people pinpointed the location of this lost land either in Indian or Pacific oceans. All accounts share a common belief that a continent existed in ancient times and sank beneath the ocean as a result of geological cataclysmic change. Current specialists think that although sunken continents do exist, there is no geological formation under the Indian or Pacific Oceans that corresponds to the hypothetical Lemuria. At the library of my local web analytics company I found that the name of this land was adopted by occult writers and some Tamil writers of India.

Where did the name Lemuria come from? Modern lemurs are only found in Madagascar, several surrounding islands and nowhere else. Nevertheless, archaeological evidence shows that other extinct lemurs used to inhabit the area from Pakistan to Malaysia. In the 19th century geologist were really puzzled by the presence of fossil lemurs in both Madagascar and India, but not in Africa nor the Middle East. That is why they proposed a theory that Madagascar and India had once been part of a larger continent, which they named "Lemuria" for its lemurs. Other scientists hypothesized that Lemuria had extended across parts of the Pacific oceans, explaining distributions of species across Asia and the Americas.

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Unique holiday

However, the idea of the holiday was loosely imported from the old British holiday that has the identical name. The original Mother's Day started in England somewhere in the sixteenth century. At first it was not viewed as a holiday but more as a Christian practice of visiting one's mother church annually. Then it grew into a day when mothers had a chance to reunite with their children. It was especially important for young working women and apprentices who were allowed by their masters to visit their families.

Nowadays, in Britain this holiday partially lost its religious meaning. On Mother's Day people celebrate and give thanks for mothers. The holiday falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent which exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday.

The most popular day of the year

On May 11 we celebrated Mother's Day in the US. In some ways it is our own unique holiday. This holiday is one of the most popular and commercially successful US holidays. It is the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in America. And it still remains heavily marketed concept.

But originally this holiday was intended as a call to unite women against the war in 19th century. A social activist Julia Ward Howe horrified by casualties of the American Civil War wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870. Her call for peace and disarmament failed and did not get formal recognition at first. Only many years later some states started celebrating Mother's Day and, eventually, Woodrow Wilson made it into a national holiday in 1914.

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Rumors and gossip

Elvis Presley funeral took place in 1977. Over thirty years passed but the persistent rumor that the rock star did not die still consume imagination of people, creating some kind of national phenomenon and unusual funeral tradition. Although the idea that the Presley is alive and kicking and live in hiding for so many years seem bizarre, to say the least, it does not go away even in XXI century.

If he were alive, Elvis would be in his seventies and would most likely be amazed at all the stories about him circling the country. Rumors and gossip reached the new heights by adding all possible conspiracy theories - from an empty casket to extraterrestrial involvement. An army of impersonators seem to spread these stories around for publicity and advertising reasons. It is a sure bet that any tv program or show about Las Vegas will have Presley's song or a short tune in it.

I wish there would be simple answer, why people just don't let Elvis rest in peace. His former fans - baby boomers, have already retired or in the process of retiring. I don't think that they are the ones who perpetuate the stories about undead Elvis Presley. Generations of talented musicians that came after him, respect the "king", but don't spread the rumors either. Except, maybe, the guy from Oasis who claimed in 2007 that he was drowning but Elvis Presley saved him.

Fashion of Roman Empire

Around 36 BC Chinese forces encountered and clashed with Roman soldiers in Sogdiana for the first time in the recorded history. These Roman legionaries may have been either irregular warriors or a part of Mark Antony's army invading Parthia. Chinese got out of this battle victorious, thanks to their crossbows, whose bolts and darts seem easily to have penetrated Roman shields and armor.

In spite of this within several years an intense trade between China and Rome soon followed, probably with Parthians as middlemen. Famous Chinese silk became in fashion among Romans, who thought that it was obtained from the trees. This obsession with silk went so far that its importation caused a huge outflow of gold out of Rome. There is evidence that the The Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds. Senate proclaimed that silk clothes were decadent and immoral.

The trade route

During the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), China officially became a Confucian state and prospered domestically: agriculture, handicrafts and commerce flourished, and the population reached over 55 million people. It lasted over four hundred years and it is one of the greatest periods in the history of China. In the 1st century BC China made numerous attempts to consolidate a road to the Western world and India, both through direct and diplomatic relations with the countries located further west. This is when Silk Road network of routes came into existence.

Chinese army regularly policed the trade route against nomadic bandit forces. In the 1st century AD China even sent an army of seventy thousand soldiers and light cavalry troops to secure the trade routes far west across central Asia to the doorstep of Europe. It even set up base on the shores of the Caspian Sea to cooperate with Parthia. China subsequently sent numerous embassies, around ten every year, to other countries reaching as far as Syria.

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Extension of the Silk Road

Alexander the Great and his Macedon generals had great impact in the development and extension of the Silk Road network of routes. Their campaigns are thought to be the first major step in opening the big connection between the East and the West. Alexander's empire extended from Greece to Central Asia. In Fergana Valley, which is located in modern Tajikistan, he founded the famous city Alexandria Eschate which later became the major point of northern Silk Road.

After his death Alexander's general Ptolemy and his descendants got Egypt and became first Greek pharaohs. Egypt heavily depended on trade, it had large sea ports on Red Sea and established routes to the Middle East and India and to the South, reaching East Africa.

As for Greek kingdoms in Central Asia, they lasted for the next three hundred years. They were trying to continue the expansion to Sogdiana and India and set up new Greco-Indian kingdoms there. Ancient historians noted not once that Greek kingdoms led their expeditions to China and Chinese Turkestan around 200 BC, which constitutes the first verified by documents contact between China and the West.

Discoveries of Chinese silk remnants

There are even more mysteries that surround the origin of the Silk Road network. Nobody could clearly explain one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century - so called Tarim mummies. The number of mummies were found deep in China, they date from 1800 BC to AD 200. And all found corpses exhibit Caucasoid physical type. Many of discovered mummies were found in amazingly great condition. They have their hair physically intact, ranging in color from blond to red to deep brown, and generally long, curly and braided. And what is even more amazing - their costumes indicate a common origin with Indo-European neolithic clothing techniques.

Another mystery that supports the theories of early human contacts between East and West were several discoveries of Chinese silk remnants. These remnants have been found in Ancient Egypt from 1070 BC and later.

I mentioned in the previous entry ancient Scythians. It seems that they brought from the West and introduced in China the most valuable metal of all - gold. This probably happened around eight century BC. It seems that the impact was deep because Chinese jade carvers began to use gold to make imitation Scythian designs of the steppes. They easily adopted the Scythian style animal art like descriptions of animals locked in combat. Scientists also found in China imitations of Scythian rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze with alternate versions in jade and steatite.

Persian Royal Road

Exactly at the same time historians learned about the existence of another autonomous routes of the Silk Road network. This subnetwork was called Persian Royal Road and extended to almost two thousand miles. Its origin was dated to the fifth century BC. This road was maintained and protected by the ancient Persian rulers and it even had postal stations and relays at regular intervals!

Royal couriers had at their disposal fresh horse and riders at each relay. They could carry messages the entire distance in nine days, though normal travelers covered the same distance within three months. Persian Royal Road subnetwork included the routes to India and Central Asia. In fact, Persian rulers encouraged regular contact between India, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean. Even in the Biblical Book of Esther, there are accounts of dispatches being sent to provinces as far out as India.

Famous Silk Road

Everybody heard about famous Silk Road - a series of trade routes that were vital to cultural interaction connecting East and West Asia. Silk Road linked traders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads from China to the Mediterranean Sea during various periods of time. Overall, the serious of routes extended over five thousand miles on land and sea.

Historians are really puzzled and still can not establish for sure, how the Silk Road network began. Originally, the historians point of view was that the Silk Road was initiated by Chinese Han Dynasty around 114 BC. As the years rolled by, new evidence was discovered which pointed out that Silk Road existed centuries earlier before that date. For example, it turned out that ancient Scythians, nomads who Hungarian plain to China participated in Assyrian invasion on Egypt in 7 century BC. Their distinctive arrowheads were found even in the south of Egypt. Scientists also learned that ancient Scythians encouraged long distance travel of merchants as a source of income through the enforced payment of tariffs. So, they, obviously, played an important role in the development of the Silk Road. But that was not all.

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Ironic nickname Fortunate

That is why the kingdom of France went to Philip, son of Charles of Valois, who was the closest male heir and grandson of Philip III. The new Philip VI got the ironic nickname Fortunate. It was due to the fact, that without the sudden deaths of three Capet kings he would not have a single chance to become the ruler of France. But, since his father was the brother of the late Philip the Fair, he was therefore a nephew of Philip IV and the cousin of Louis X, Philip V and Charles IV.

Edward III was furious that his claim to the throne was rejected. He tried all kinds of diplomacy, intrigues and negotiations to achieve his goal, but everything failed. The only remaining solutions for him remained the use of force. These were the key events that led to the bloody Hundred Years War between England and France.

Trouble on the horizon

The Capet dynasty was one of the longest ruling families in Europe. So, when Philip IV, the Fair, died, there was no trouble on the horizon either. After all, Philip had three grown up sons Louis, Philip and Charles, who were supposed to continue the Capet dynasty for many years in future. Philip the Fair also had a daughter Isabella married to the king of England Edward II.

But everything went awry after all three sons died one after another, after ruling for a very short period of time. What was even worse: neither of these French kings was able to provide a single surviving male heir to the throne.

Still, it seemed that the dynasty would not end. The strongest claim to the throne belonged to Isabella's son, king of England Edward III. However, the French interpretation of medieval Salic law only recognized the male line. French nobility demanded the throne be passed through the male descendants of late Charles of Valois. It was also evident, that no Frenchman would accept an English King as his ruler.

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Archaeological discoveries

Fifty five hundred of these warriors were sent by emperor Marcus Aurelius to guard Roman settlements in Britain against attacks by the Celts. In our times the archaeological evidence related to presence of this Sarmatian force was discovered in Britain. Sarmatians even built there their own retirement villages!

Around these times specialists observe the first appearance of Celtic dragon image, which highly likely came from Sarmatian sources. The most curious fact is that in the religion of the Sarmatians, the altar represented a sword embedded in a stone. As we remember from Arthurian legends, famous Excalibur was that kind of the sword. Excalibur could only be drawn from the stone by Arthur, the rightful king. In some versions of the legend the sword is not even called Excalibur but with another name - Sword in the Stone.

This establishes an interesting and valid possibility between the Arthurian legends and the Sarmatians. There is also another interesting coincidence. Arthur's father was called Uther Pendragon, which, basically, means "Dragon's head" and refers to the dragon head symbol on a shield. The evidence suggests that the Sarmatians with their armor created a military caste that survived several centuries and provided the leadership in the early feudal era.

Archaeological search still continues. So, there will be more discoveries that may establish Sarmatian presence and their influence on Celtic Britain.

Sarmatians warriors in the Roman army

What similarities can the system of knighthood in England share with nomadic tribes that lived on the vast steppes of what is now Russia and the Ukraine? How can any link between them be possible?

There is a theory that knighthood was brought to Britain by Sarmatians, an Iranian language speaking people who displaced the Scythians. Sarmatians tribes migrated from Central Asia to the Ural Mountains around fifth century B.C. and eventually settled in most of southern European Russia, Ukraine, and the eastern Balkans. In fact, their realm was even wider. At some point it extended from China in the east and the Roman empire in the west.

Among other things Sarmatians adopted the dragon motif. They were skillful horse riders and archers, they were also famous for using heavily armored cavalry in their battles. They wore dragon emblems on their shields and armor.

A first big clash between Sarmatians and Romans took place in the third century AD. There was a big battle between them near the mouth of the Danube River on the Black Sea. Romans overcome the Sarmatians but were very impressed with their fighting prowess. That is why, one of the terms of the peace agreement with Sarmatians, included the following condition advanced by Romans. They demanded six thousand Sarmatians warriors and their horses join the Roman army.

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End of existence

After the successful invasion of England by the Normans the guard began to see increased inclusion of Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Thousands of them started arriving to the Byzantine empire and enrolling into service.

Overall, Varangian guard was quite a peculiar and and unusual bunch of people, whose loyalties lay with the position of Emperor, not the man that sat on the throne. In 969 an Emperor Nicephorus II was assassinated in his palace. A servant had managed to call for the Varangian guard while the Emperor was being attacked, but when Vikings arrived he was already dead. Without any hesitation they instantly knelt before the emperor's murderer John Tzimisces and hailed him as Emperor. Their logic was the following: they would defend the late emperor if he was alive, but now that he was dead there was no point avenging him. Besides, they had a new master in the house.

Varangian Guard ended its existence in 1204. It happened during Fourth Crusade, when the army of knights attacked Constantinople. In fact, Vikings turned out to be the only part of the Byzantium army that successfully defended part of the city. Contemporary sources say that the fighting was very violent and there was hand to hand fight with axes and swords. After the capture the Varangian Guard was disbanded.

Popularity of Varangian Guard

Over the years the popularity of Varangian Guard in Byzantium grew so much, that these mercenaries and former pirates received a very prestigious title in the empire that can be translated from Greek as Great Companions. The Varangian guard was stationed primarily around Constantinople. Most of the guardsmen relied on their long axes as their main weapon, although they were also skilled swordsmen and archers as well. They were also famous for their penchant for drinking.

In 989 general Bardas Phocas rebelled against emperor Basil II. According to the true historic facts, Basil with his fierce Varangian guard landed at Chrysopolis to meet the rebels face to face. Sources say, that as soon as the rebellious general saw what he would have to deal with, he turned blue in the face and died of a stroke in full view of his opponent. Seeing that Bardas was lying dead on the field, his troops turned and fled, while being pursued by Vikings who were cheerfully hacking adversaries to pieces.

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Irreplaceable special force

Since the times of the Roman Empire, praetorian guard very often played an infamous role of replacing one ruler with the other. Especially, if the new guy promised to pay the praetorians more. This practice survived even after Roman Empire split in two and new Byzantine Empire was created.

In 976 Bazil II became the ruler of the empire. He had the utmost distrust for his native guardsmen, whose loyalties shifted all the time, so he was seeking the solution to protect himself and avoid fatal consequences. And he found it: he hired Vikings, mostly of Swedish origin, to become his personal bodyguards. This new force became known as the Varangian Guard. As the years went by, new recruits from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway kept a predominantly Scandinavian cast to Varangian Guard up until the late 11th century. That kind of "employment" became so popular in Scandinavia, that special medieval law was created there stating that no one could inherit the estate of a recruit who was staying in Byzantium.

Over the years, Varangian Guard proved itself to be an irreplaceable special force of Byzantine emperors. And they had one of the greatest and unique perks for their service. When the Byzantine Emperor died, the Varangians had the unique right of running to the imperial treasury and taking as much gold and as many gems as they could carry. This privilege known in Old Norse as "palace pillaging" enabled many Varangians to return home as wealthy men. And, in return, it encouraged even more Vikings to enlist in the Varangian Guard.

Mass murders in Spartan society

This fear contributed to mistreatment of helots. Because of it, Spartan men always carried their spears, undid the straps of their bucklers only at home. That may also explain why there were so inclined to succeed in military training.

There was no end to humiliation suffered by helots from Spartans. They made helots wear hats from dog's skin, so they would not mix with Spartans. Dogs were considered servile and cowardly animals, thus the canine symbolism was clear to the Greeks. Each year, the helots were ritually flogged, apparently for no other reason than to affirm their servitude. Any Spartan could to kill helots without any repercussion or punishment. In fact, mass murders of helots were quite usual in Spartan society. For example, in 425 B.C. over two thousand helots were massacred in a carefully staged event.

It would seem to make good sense to keep the slaves well nourished, but Spartans were too weird. Any helots who became overweight were put to death, with their Spartan masters fined for "letting them get fat". What is more, the Spartans used to rape helot women as a means of meeting the state's needs in terms of human resources. Born from this rape girls were left to die, while boys were taken to serve as soldiers for a Spartan war machine.

Spartan slaves

Have you ever wondered why Spartans were able to spend so much time of the lives on military exercises? I guess, everyone watched the movie about 300 brave Spartans and their king Leonidas who did not let Persian king to invade ancient Greece. Everyday life of Spartans was shown in great details omitting one "dirty" secret. The helots.

Spartans were one a very few ancient Greek nations who had their own slaves of the same Dorian origin. In other words, these slaves were their Greek fellows by birth, mostly from Messenia. This was quite unusual for the rest of Greece, where slaves were mostly foreigners, who were captures during wars.

The helots outnumbered Spartans many times by its population. They either worked on Spartans lands or were carrying all domestic work. Yet Spartans hated them as much as anybody could hate his worst enemy. This unusual hatred of the Spartans towards the helots originates in fear. Given the relatively small number of Spartans in comparison with huge slave population, they feared that helots would attempt to destroy them.

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Barbaric Ritual

This time I would like to tell you about one of the strangest barbaric rituals of ancient Rome that started after 390 B.C. and took place for centuries. Once a year dozens of Roman guard dogs were crucified on the Capitoline hill. At the same time Capitoline geese were present at the ceremony. They were watching the ceremony of poor dogs crucification, from the most prestigious place, sitting on gilded purple cushions.

This way Roman citizens were commemorating a tragic event that occurred in 390 B.C. which is known to historians as sack of Rome by Gauls. It was a collective initial shock for people of Rome that was hard to forget. The memory of the catastrophic defeat stayed with Rome for generations. The dogs were crucified because they did not alert Romans when the Gallic troops attacked. And the geese were rewarded because honking provided the only warning of approaching Gauls.

They got it all

Russia also received for safekeeping archives of the Romanian Academy, priceless religious artifacts and manuscripts and even multiple deposits that citizens kept at the Romanian banks. It is impossible to estimate the value of the second transport, the value of the first transport could not even stand close to this one.

And then Russian Bolshevik Revolutions of 1917 happened. And, as you many know, Bolsheviks refused to abide and respect an treaty signed by tsar and previous government. Numerous attempts of Romania to recover its national treasure were futile. Then only stuff that Romania got back was bits and pieces of the archives in 1935 and small part of the paintings and ancient objects in 1956. Even after the fall of the Soviet Union all negotiations with the present day Russia failed. And there is no hope that national Treasure will ever be returned back to Romania.

The interesting case

The second interesting case is the mysterious disappearance of the complete national treasury of Romania. During World War I Romania was on the side of the Entente Powers. At the beginning of the military campaign Romania was heavily losing to Germany. The situation turned out to be so bad that very soon German troops occupied Romanian capital Bucharest. Romain administration had no other choice but to send its Treasure abroad. There were heated discussions related to which Entente country would safekeep the Treasure until bad times are over. In this hard situation the decision had been made to send Romanian Treasure to tsarist Russia and keep it there until the end of the war.

So, one night almost hundred tonnes of gold bars and coins with the total cost of 1.25 billion dollars were sent to Moscow and safely got there. However, Romanian military situation was not improving and got even worse after the departure of the first transport. This was the reason why the second transport left for Russia. It included priceless items, like jewels of Romanian royalty, jewels of ancient rulers, jewels dated to the time of Roman empire and antique jewels of the pre-Roman epoque. But this was not all.

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Lost National Treasure

When I was going through my web analyst archives, I found two interesting cases, when major governments of Europe were cheated and lost their treasures to Bolsheviks. The first case is related to the Civil war in Spain in the thirties of the twentieth century. It is called infamously Moscow gold case.

Short lived Spanish Republic desperately needed arms and military equipment but other European countries did not want to get involved in the civil war and did not sell anything to the Spaniards. The only country that ignored this embargo was the Soviet Union. That is why in 1937 the Spanish republic sent most of the gold reserves from its national Treasure to Russians. One must say, that at the time Spain was on the fourth place in the world for its stored gold. And the USSR got most of it, which amounted at the time to five hundred million dollars.

When Franco and his supporters learned about it, they heavily protested this transaction, stating that this gold belongs to the people and not to the Spanish government. But the transaction turned sour for the republicans because Soviets sold them all kind of military junk stored since World War I. Besides, prices were extremely inflated for each rifle and each bullet. This outdated equipment, part of which was malfunctioning right from the start, turned out to be one of the huge factors that impacted the defeat of the Spanish Republic.

Stories about buried pirate treasure

In fact, this is all a hoax, you know. There were several extremely popular books published in nineteen century that popularized the myth of buried pirate treasure. Mind you, these books were written by great authors and they still excite minds of the children and grown-ups. Naturally, we are talking about nobody else, but Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving and Robert Louis Stevenson!

All three famous writers separately learned about one and only one story about buried pirate treasure. It seems that for all those centuries there was only one more or less verifiable story that some pirate buried part of his treasure. It was infamous William Kidd, a.k.a. Billy the Kid. He was an English privateer who went astray. He did not want to die on the gallows for all his sins, so as story goes, he hid some of his wealth on Long Island before sailing to New York. That hidden stuff was his bargaining chip in negotiations with authorities. But this did not work, they hanged Billy the Kid by the neck for piracy.

As far as I know, nobody found Kidd's treasure on Long Island yet. But as a result, we have great fiction stories: Treasure Island, The Gold-Bug and Wolfert Webber written by the authors mentioned above.

Searches for pirate treasure

Even now there is a lot of talk about pirate treasure. That talk, naturally, consists mostly of gossip and rumors and nothing else. But still… Would not it be good for us to know that here and there people dig out bags of gold, silver and such, left to us by generous pirates?

For several centuries, people somehow believed that pirates often buried their stolen bounty in remote places. It seems that they searched for pirate treasure since 1795. Why would they do that, you may ask? The popular belief was that pirates had intentions to return for their stuff later. But how would they find the treasure, you may ask again? Well, here comes the great belief in specially drawn, and sometimes heavily encrypted treasure maps!

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Hidden truth in old legends

There was one catch, though - the door to Annwn. Those living could enter Annwn if they could find this door. Welsh legends mention that the door was somewhere near either Lundy Island of Glastonbury Tor. On a certain day of the year, this door would open, and the inhabitants would welcome humans in for feasting and celebration. There was one condition - living should not take nothing with them to the human realm. This went on until one human visitor kept a flower in his pocket. From that day on, the door has remained closed. There is always some kind of hidden truth in these old legends, but one has to get to the bottom of it. Not so long ago, archeologists discovered an ancient temple near Lydney that seems to be important in Druid esoteric spiritual readings.

A couple of centuries later we hear about the land of Avalon, which gives shelter to king Arthur. Well, this is actually land of Annwn, that we were talking about. As the years went by, Celtic legends transformed it and Annwn became identified with Avalon.

Land of departed souls

In Welsh poetry, orally transmitted by the bards, a strange land of Annwn is often mentioned. The archives of my web analytics company claim that these poems are dated back to the sixth century. In a later poem, The Spoils of Annwn, king Arthur and his knights are traveling through the land of Annwn. They search for a magical squadron possessed by nine women. Only a few return back home, including Arthur, of course. So what was behind the word Annwn for Welsh people?

In their mythology Annwn was the otherworld, ruled by Arawn, and later by Gwynn ap Nudd. It was a world of delights and eternal youth where disease is absent and food is ever-abundant. Welsh thought that Annwn was located somewhere very far to the west. Wit the advent of Christianity, Annwn also became Christianized. People started to identify it with the land of souls that had departed this world. One could only reach Annwn by dying himself.

Interesting Phenomen

It is very interesting phenomenon: mostly all Austronesian people, Including Polynesian trace their origin to some mystical land that they call Hawaiki. Polynesian cultures have ancient oral traditions that say that they migrated from their homeland Hawaiki to the islands in the Pacific Ocean in open canoes. Maori people of New Zealand also trace their ancestry to groups of people who traveled from Hawaiki in open canoes.

In the same oral traditions the legendary land of Hawaiki also serves like some kind of place where the spirits of Polynesian people return to after death. In New Zealand Maori people even give possible pointers to the direction in which Hawaiki may like.

Before the advent of DNA analysis many anthropologists doubted that a deliberate migration in open canoes ever happened. They preferred to believe that the migration occurred accidentally when seafarers became lost and drifted to uninhabited shores. Famous Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl wanted to test the legends and sailed the Kon-Tiki, a balsa-wood raft, from South America into the Pacific in 1947. By that expedition Thor tried to show that humans could have settled Polynesia from the eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean, with sailors using the prevailing winds and simple vessels.

Soon by using DNA, linguistic and archaeological evidence, scientists began to realize that the Austronesian-speaking peoples,including the Polynesians, probably originated from islands in eastern Asia, possibly from Taiwan, and moved southwards and eastwards through the South Pacific Ocean. The common ancestry of all the Austronesian languages supports this theory. At least some of the migration occurred against the prevailing winds and was deliberate migration rather than just accidental. Austronesian and Polynesian navigators may have deduced the existence of uninhabited islands by observing migratory patterns of birds.The possibility of such migration seems more likely in the view of recent research. More and more boat builders construct vessels by using traditional materials and techniques, sail them using ancient navigation methods.

Famous Trobaritz of the past

There are not many works of medieval female troubadours or trobaritz, as they called them in Occitan, that survived to our days. Specialists attribute to them from twenty three to forty six works only. We have names of a dozen or more trobaritz but very few biographical details. Some of them were even considered fictitious in the past, like Alamanda de Castelnau. Only later after numerous researches, it was found that her name was mentioned by at least three famous troubadours, who pointed at her prominence in Occitan poetic circles. And only one of her songs reached us.

Two trouvères from Arras, in Picardy, France remain mysterious as well. They were called Dame Margot and Dame Maroie and they created music and wrote poetry somewhere in the 13th centuyry. But all that we have today is their only existing work, which represents a single debate song. And guess, what? This song survives in two manuscripts, and each version give separate and unrelated melodies.

The same goes for Beatriz de Dia. She was born somewhere in the 12th century, and, probably, was the daughter of Count Isoard II of Día. One song in Occitan with the music intact came to us through the ages, other songs exist too but without the melody. According to her short romanticized biography, Beatriz was married to Guillem, Count of Viennois but she was deeply in love with famous troubadour Raimbaut of Orange.

We know somewhat more about famous trobaritz Na Castelloza, who created music and poetry in the early thirteen century. She was a noblewoman from Auvergne and a wife of Turc de Mairona, Her husband’s ancestors had participated in a Crusade, which was the origin of his name. She wrote several songs about Arman de Brion. She was in love with him, but he was of greater social rank than Castelloza. Romanticized biography describes her as vivacious, highly intelligent and beautiful lady. Her four songs still exist, but, unfortunately, all without music. This, however, makes her the share the tie for the title of the most prolific of trobairitz in terms of surviving works. Only Beatriz de Dia certainly has also four songs to her name. The subject of all Caselloza poems is courtly love.

Author of sarcastic masterpieces

One of the most famous German minnesingers Neidhart von Reuental was born in Bavaria and lived in Austria. His name is most likely a pseudonym and we don’t know much about his life at all.

Neidhart’s creative period lasted for almost thirty years - from 1210 to 1240. He was well-known for his sarcastic and comical masterpieces that were extremely popular in Europe. His songs were so harsh, that they were complete opposite to the topics that regular minnesingers used, singing about courtly love and romances. In his most famous songs called May Time he starts describing beautiful landscape and peaceful spring, but pretty soon switches to insulting his foes and several friends and allies who betrayed him. In spite of his harshness, the popularity of Neidhart’s songs gave birth to many imitators of his style in the next two centuries. Specialists even gave these imitators special names, like pseudo-Neidharts.

Lost Continent of Mu

This news caused quite a stir in the Western world. Augustus Le Plongeon, a nineteen century traveler, writer, and antiquarian just returned from the Maya ruins in Yucatan peninsula. Upon his return he made a sensational announcement. He stated that he managed to translate ancient Mayan writings. These writings showed that the Maya of Yucatan were older than later civilizations of Egypt and Atlantis. They also told the story of even older continent of Mu, which had perished like Atlantis and, that its survivors founded the Maya civilization. During my research, I learned that Le Plongeon mistranslated the writings, to put it mildly.

This is, basically, how the myth of the hypothetical lost continent Mu started. Very soon, this myth got second birth: it was popularized in the serious of books written by James Churchward. In a short time he created New Age type of a book Lost Continent of Mu, the Motherland of Man. It was followed by the book The Children of Mu, then by The Lost Continent Mu and The Sacred Symbols of Mu. These books enjoyed wild success at the times, and even now have their devotees.

One can say, that even nowadays the search for a lost continent of Mu is still in progress. There were multiple researches on Mu and expeditions to various locations. Some called Easter Island a mountain top of a submerged continent of Mu. One well-known institute even suggested that underwater structures off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, were the ruins of Mu without any real scientific evidence. Some marine biologists stated that they identified the ruins of an ancient city off the coast of Japanese Yonaguni island as the remnants of an Asian equivalent of Atlantis and, that it was sunk three thousand years ago during an earthquake.

Romantic Story of Famous Troubadour

In the late XII century, Arnaut de Mareuil, was less famous troubadour, than his contemporary Arnaut Daniel. Yet, contemporary sources claim that he surpassed Daniel in elegant simplicity of form and delicacy of sentiment. And in terms of his heritage he is definitely luckier, because from twenty-five to twenty-nine of his songs survived and six of them with music!

One of medieval romanticized biographies tells us that he had been a clerk from a poor family, who eventually became a jongleur. He created his talented songs at the courts of Toulouse and then Béziers. He was deeply in love with the countess Azalais of Toulouse and proudly considered himself to be her best friend. His surviving poems contain lyric cycle telling of his love to Azalais. However, king Alfonso II of Aragon, who competed with Arnaut for her love, won in this love triangle. Jealous king persuaded Azalais to break off her friendship with Arnaut. Saving his life, Arnaut fled to Montpelier, where he settled at the court of William VIII, who became his patron and protector.

Amusing Trace in the History

We don’t know the exact name of a troubadour and patron of troubadours Dauphin d’Auvergne. He is sometimes called Robert, but there is no solid evidence that it was really his name. We do know that he was born around 1150 and died either in 1234 or 1235. He was from the wealthy and noble family and his full title was Count of Clermont and Montferrand. Dauphin added the second title through the marriage to Guillemette de Comborn, countess of Montferrand.

All troubadours that worked with him or sang at his court left their trace in his history. Those were the times! Among these troubadours were Peirol, Perdigon, Peire de Maensac, Gaucelm Faidit, and Uc de Saint Circ. One musical exchange between Dauphin and Perdigon marks a stage in the poetical debate, begun by Guilhem de Saint-Leidier and taken up by brilliant trobaritz Azalais de Porcairagues and Raimbaut of Orange, as to whether a lady is dishonored by taking a lover who is richer than herself. A song on the same subject was composed by Guiraut de Bornelh and king Alfonso II of Aragon. Contemporaries claim that Dauphin was amazing and witty poet. His cousin, bishop Robert of Clermont used to exchange satirical and erotic verses with him, as did famous Richard the Lionheart.

Mystical Island Thule

As I start my story about mythical lands, continents and cities, I can’t pass by the legend of Thule. In Classical sources Thule is a place, usually an island located either in the far north, often northern Great Britain, possibly the Orkneys or Shetland Islands, or Scandinavia. In the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance the location of Thule was thought to be in the west and north, often Iceland or Greenland. They suggest that the name also denotes any distant place located beyond the borders of the known world. The Greek explorer Pytheas was the first who wrote of Thule after his travels between 330 BC and 320 BC. Strabo in his Geography written in 30 of our era, mentions that Thule is a six days’ sail north of Britain, and is near the frozen sea. Half a century later in 77, Pliny the Elder mentions Thule again and even describes it as a place in which there be no nights at all. Other late classical writers and post-classical writers keep on mentioning Thule over and over again. Some of them state that Thule is a large island in the north inhabited by twenty-five tribes.

During the Middle Ages the name was sometimes used to denote Greenland, Svalbard, or Iceland. A municipality in North Greenland was even formerly named Thule after the mythical place. The Thule People, A paleo-Eskimo culture and a predecessor of modern Inuit Greenlanders, was even called Thule people. Nowadays Southern Thule is a collection of the three southernmost islands in the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. The island group is overseas territory of the United Kingdom and uninhabited. The concept of Thule was so popular that this mysterious island lent its name to lends its name to the 69th element in the periodic table, Thulium.

It is interesting to note that Nazi occult mystics believed in a historical Thule and Hyperborea as the ancient origin of the Aryan race. They wrote a pile of material stating that mythical Thule, a Nordic equivalent of the vanished culture of Atlantis. They thought that a race of giant supermen lived in Thule, linked into the Cosmos through magical powers. And these inhabitants had psychic and technological energies far exceeding the technical achievements of the 20th century.

Lucky Bernart de Ventadorn

We should not be surprised that there is so little to find about famous troubadours of the Middle Ages. The Albigensian Crusade was launched in 1209 to eliminate the Cathars of Occitania in the south of France. It was a decade long struggle that had as much to do with the concerns of northern France to extend its control southwards than it did with heresy. In the end, both the Cathars and the independence of southern France were exterminated. Lost of invaluable manuscripts were burnt and many castles that kept this wisdom of ages were destroyed.

So the life and creations of a great troubadour composer and poet Bernart de Ventadorn is no exception. Yet he may consider himself very lucky comparing to other troubadours. Bernart is unique among secular composers of the 12th century in the amount of music which has survived. Out of his 45 poems, 18 have music intact, an unusual circumstance for a troubadour composer. Naturally, music of the trouvères from the North of France has a higher survival rate, because they were not touched by Albigensian Crusade, which scattered the troubadours and destroyed many sources.

Yet we again have to dive into the world of Middle Ages rumors digging out the little details about him. So what do we really know? According to one of his contemporaries, Bernart de Ventadorn was possibly a son of a baker in French castle Ventadorn in France. But another contemporary indicates that he was the son of either a servant, a soldier, or a baker and his mother was also either a servant or a baker. From evidence given in Bernart’s early poem, he most likely learned the art of singing and writing from his protector, viscount Eble III of Ventadorn. He composed his first poems to his patron’s wife, Marguerite de Turenne. Forced to leave Ventadour after falling in love with Marguerite, he traveled to Montluçon and Toulouse, and eventually followed Eleanor of Aquitaine to England and the Plantagenet court; evidence for this association and these travels comes mainly from his poems themselves. Later Bernart returned to Toulouse, where he was employed by Raimon V, Count of Toulouse; later still he went to Dordogne, where he entered a monastery. Most likely he died there in the last decade of the 12th century.

We really don’t know the date of Bernart’s birth or death. We can only guess that he was born somewhere in the thirties of 12th century. And we place his most productive time of work between 1147 and 1180. Bernart is often credited with being the most important influence on the development of the trouvère tradition in northern France. He was well known there, his melodies were widely circulated, and the early composers of trouvère music seem to have imitated him.

Brother and Sister Troubadours

Early Medieval troubadours and trobairitz make an extremely interesting part of European music in its roots. I found sources related to many of them while doing my researches for local web analytics company . The troubadour school or tradition began in the eleventh century in the Occitan language of southern France, but it subsequently spread throughout Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Simultaneous movements sprang up in northern France and Germany. Though it lasted slightly longer in Italy and Spain than in France, the art of the troubadours declined and eventually died out in the late 13th century.

A 12th-century trobairitz Tibors de Sarenom was the elder sister of the famous troubadour Rimbaud d’Orange. Her date of birth is unknown. She was appointed Rimbaud’s guardian by their mother’s will, which indicates to specialists that she was, probably over fifteen at the time. Later Tibors had two consecutive husbands. She married first Bertrand de Les Baux and then Goufroy de Mornas, but survived each. Contemporaries tell us of beautiful songs that she created. Unfortunately, out of all her work only one song in the form of canso has survived. The attached prose explanation of the song called “razo”, survived as well. Both canso and razo were written in Occitatan. Tibors is also mentioned in an anonymous ballad dated to between 1220 and 1245, where she acts as the judge of a game of poetry. Tibors died in 1181.

We know a little bit more about Tibors’ brother Raimbaut of Orange, who was born around 1147. By the way, in Occitan his name is pronounced as Raimbaut d’Aurenga. Raimbaut was the lord of lands of Orange and Aumelas. His properties included the towns of Frontignan and Mireval. He was a major troubadour, having contributed to the creation of cryptic style, in troubadour poetry. About forty of his works survive, his love to rare rhymes and intricate poetic form.He died in 1173 and was mourned by many. Other famous troubadours like Giraut de Bornelh, and even trobairitz Azalais de Porcairagues, composed songs about him.