The Empresses Bag? (Noblet)

DianeOD

Matthew Paris - Opicinus?

Sounds as if his work might be sort-of related to that of Opicinus.

Opicinus was, if I recall - don't take my word for it though - of Saxon? or Anglo extraction, assigned to the Monastery of St. Victor - the residence college for monastic students at the University of Paris...

His maps and diagrams are amazing - sort of cross between much later cards that have 'human' forms for continents, and the arcane diagram forms we associate with magic or astrology. Not unlike Scot's diagrams, actually.

I guess that big cartography site (henrydavis?) might have some online. Will see what I can find, and return.
 

kwaw

Seeds the pips on loaded dice;)

kwaw said:
We have all come from heavenly seed; we all
Have the same father, and our mother earth
Receives from him the fertilizing showers.
So pregnant, she brings forth the shining grain,
The trees that make us glad, the race of men,
The generations of wild beasts, the food
By which they feed, increase, and multiply.
She is rightly called our mother.

(Lucretius De Rerum Natura II 991-998 trans., by Humphries)

the birdseed upon which the
birds on the royal shields feed ~
the pips of loaded dice :p

quote:
"In 1984, a small pewter container was found embedded in silt on the north bank of the Thames near London Bridge... The receptacle unearthed from the silt was emblazoned with a double-headed eagle set within a shield. Antiquarians concluded that it was a feeding trough from a late-15th-century birdcage. Instead of holding seeds, however, this particular model contained 24 bone dice. It has not been determined if the trough was used as a cup or a box from which the dice were thrown. That the dice were the kit of a hustler was confirmed, as every die was constructed or modified for cheating. X-rays revealed that 18 of the dice had been drilled out and weighted with quicksilver."

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20010408/ai_n14380185/pg_1
 

Rosanne

Just loved that tidbit Kwaw!
It certainly makes the Noblet Empress look like she is carrying a bird feeder bag.
You know it makes me laugh at how some things just stay the same through the years..ancient Indian Saying
“These can never be true friends: Hope, dice, a prostitute, a robber, a cheat, a goldsmith, a monkey, a doctor, a distiller.”
~Rosanne