Two treats from Unlocked Wordhoard for the holiday

Part of my regular reading is Richard Scott Nokes' blog. Nokes is an Alabama medievalist with a sense of humor and a personal touch in his writing.

In the past week he's posted two interesting things, one light-hearted that he's just passing along, the other quite serious and all his own.

The first is a YouTube video which shows the Bayeux Tapestry as animation. Those of us who are already familiar with the BT are astounded by how good this is. Those of you who don't know the BT should get on the Web and look up some good discussions of this unique piece of embroidery which was commissioned by the victorious Normans soon after they conquered England. There is an excellent disc version of the BT that you can buy, which includes lots of background material, but I can't find a link because there are a lot of free, online versions cluttering up my Google search.

The original Nokes contribution is his discussion of how he tries to put Boccaccio's apparently lightheared Decameron into its original context. As a history teacher myself I'm quite impressed.

As is often the case, clicking on the image above -- a short section of the BT -- will give you a bigger better image.