NerdMoment™
Dec. 10th, 2004 07:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lareinenoireI just came back from spending about five and a half hours in the Rare Books Room at the University Library.
What was I doing?
Poking through a nine-volume genealogical history of French nobility.
Why do I do this?
Because, in my strange and twisted mind, it's ever so much fun. Seeing how they fit together. Seeing how truly messed-up everyone was. Finding out that Guilhem IX the Troubadour Prince of Aquitaine was just as much of a lech as I'd read in other sources. That Geoffroy à la Grand Dent did technically exist and did have a reputation for burning down monasteries. Now my question is, did the name stem from the legend, or did he have one giant tooth?
Of course, part of this was viable research on the Courtenays. Must do more over the next few days before heading to Swansea. But quite a bit of it was my own perusal of Aquitaine (Guyenne), Anjou, Lusignan (Lezignem), and de Montfort for random novel backstory. None of it is actually going to show up in the novel, but as far as I'm concerned, it makes things make sense to me, and that's all that matters.
I've reserved one of the books (the one I didn't finish with) to work on tomorrow. And I actually woke up at a decent hour--9:30 AM--today! Go me!
What was I doing?
Poking through a nine-volume genealogical history of French nobility.
Why do I do this?
Because, in my strange and twisted mind, it's ever so much fun. Seeing how they fit together. Seeing how truly messed-up everyone was. Finding out that Guilhem IX the Troubadour Prince of Aquitaine was just as much of a lech as I'd read in other sources. That Geoffroy à la Grand Dent did technically exist and did have a reputation for burning down monasteries. Now my question is, did the name stem from the legend, or did he have one giant tooth?
Of course, part of this was viable research on the Courtenays. Must do more over the next few days before heading to Swansea. But quite a bit of it was my own perusal of Aquitaine (Guyenne), Anjou, Lusignan (Lezignem), and de Montfort for random novel backstory. None of it is actually going to show up in the novel, but as far as I'm concerned, it makes things make sense to me, and that's all that matters.
I've reserved one of the books (the one I didn't finish with) to work on tomorrow. And I actually woke up at a decent hour--9:30 AM--today! Go me!
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 05:43 pm (UTC)I am having so much fun at my new company poking through the databases of academic journals...
As part of my exploration of the features of our company's products, I will now get an email every time a new issue of The Sixteenth Century Journal comes out, with the table of contents. [I didn't even know there was such a magazine...]
Happy geeks at play...
no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 11:21 am (UTC)::ears perk:: There's a Sixteenth Century Journal?! And where could one acquire such?
And what cultures does it cover?
no subject
Date: 2004-12-12 07:37 am (UTC)You know, subscription price for individuals appears to be quite reasonable (compared to the prices in thousands of dollars I hear for other journals: http://escj.truman.edu/orders/item.asp?itemId=54)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-12 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 10:40 pm (UTC)~LaReine the admitted Marlowe Fangirl
no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 09:08 am (UTC)And Geoffroy *is* a real French name! Mike laughed at me when I called Jeff that once, saying it didn't exist. I knew it did... there's a character in the Petit Nicolas books named Geoffroy...
I understand your geekdom entirely. I think that if the Japanese would allow me, I'd lock myself in the Kyoto Architectural Archives and never emerge. But you need a reading pass for that, and I'm not a Kyodai student... at least I'll have the pass for Nanzan Toshokan soon, so I'll be able to start my study on the history of gendered education and the use of English acquisition as a tool of empowerment among Heisei generation Japanese females!
Must get into graduate school. Must must must. Hey, look, a programme on traditional Japanese woven arts...
A dork among friends,
Pixie