Trinitite

Trinitite (pronounced trin-a-tight)

(1) The glassy residue left on the desert floor after the Trinity nuclear bomb test of 16 July 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico, USA.

(2) By extension, any melt glasses left by nuclear bombs (known also as Alamogordo, atomsite glass or nuclear melt glass).

1945: Compound word trinit(y) +‎ -ite.  Trinity is from the Middle English trinitie & trinite from the Anglo-Norman trinitie or trinite (or ternite, trenite, trinetei, trinitiet & trinitet) from the Latin trīnitātem, accusative singular of trīnitās (the number three; a triad; the Trinity), from trīni (from trīnus (triple) from trēs, from the Proto-Italic trēs, from the primitive Indo-European tréyes (three)) + the suffix -itās from the Proto-Italic -itāts & -otāts from the primitive Indo-European –tehts, the suffix forming nouns indicating a state of being.  The suffix –ite is from the Ancient Greek -ίτης (-ítēs) and was adopted in Latin as part of Greek loanwords, both as –ītēs but also often as -īta.  It was used in Biblical tribal names (Thus either Levītēs or Levīta; plural in –ītae) and in the Medieval Latin of religious groups, such as Marcionītae, Ebiōnītae, Monophysītae.  It’s an adjective-forming suffix, especially of nominalised adjectives identifying groups of people as "those belonging to".  Trinitite is a noun; the noun plural is trinitites.  The verb trinitize is unrelated; it's from Christian theology and means "to divide into a trinity".

It was the physicist Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967), head of the Manhattan Project which developed the first atomic weapons, who choose the name of the test site for the first atom bomb: Trinity.  He’s remembered for a snatch of verse he said the sight of the first atomic explosion made him recall, words from the Bhagavad Gita: Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.  Oppenheimer also had a fondness for the metaphysical poetry of John Donne (1572–1631), the Church of England cleric, and said he remembered also:

As West and East
In all flat Maps—and I am one—are one
So death doth touch the Resurrection

While those lines do not a Trinity make, others do such as Batter my heart, three person’d God and the Holy Trinity permeates much of his Donne's work.

Variations since Trinity include kharitonchik (melt glasses from the Soviet nuclear bomb Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan), impactite (metamorphic minerals caused by meteor heating of non-meteoritic materials), impact glass (melt glasses caused by meteor heating of non-meteoritic materials), fulgurite (melt glasses caused by lightning strikes) and fusion crust (metamorphic minerals on the surface of meteorites caused by atmospheric entry heating).  Trinitite has also been referred to as atomsite or Alamogordo glass (after the nearby city).

Physicist Norris Bradbury (1909–1997; director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory 1945-1970), group leader for bomb assembly, stands next to the partially assembled "Gadget" (code-name for the first plutonium A-bomb) atop the test tower, New Mexico, 16 July 1945).

The Trinity test of the plutonium A-bomb in New Mexico in July 1945 was a genuine test.  The uranium A-bomb which had also been built and which ultimately was dropped on Hiroshima in August was a device in which the scientists had such faith that it was deemed no test was necessary, something that sounds astonishing now but among all the physicists and engineers attached to the Manhattan Project (the A-bomb development team), there were no dissenting voices.  As a uranium bomb, the Hiroshima device was (at least for decades) a genuine one-off, all subsequent nuclear weapons being plutonium-based devices (and that may still be true; the details of the DPRK’s (North Korea) bombs remaining murky).  A uranium bomb turned out to be (relatively) easy to design and build and the trigger mechanism was simple but production of uranium to the specification required was a slow and exacting process given the machinery at the time available.  By contrast, a supply of weapons-grade plutonium was possible with the existing facilities but it was a formidable engineering challenge to create the trigger mechanism while ensuring the device remained within the size and weight parameters of a gravity bomb dropped from an aircraft which would have to fly thousands of miles to reach the target.  The Hiroshima bomb could be made to explode simply by firing a uranium bullet into the uranium core but if that approach was used with plutonium, all that would happen would be the melting of the core.  The solution was to surround the core with sufficient high-explosive to create the pressure required to trigger the chain reaction.  It was this process that the Trinity was staged to test.

Trinitite on the desert floor.

Although the test was over seventy-five years ago and completely fulfilled the purpose of testing the plutonium bomb, it was in another sense an extraordinary experiment in high-energy physics and even in the twenty-first century, analysis of the data and the physical aftermath at the site continues to reveal interesting discoveries.  Geological excavations in 2005 confirmed that the explosion, as predicted, initially pushed-down the ground but that it then rebounded, forcing the material upwards into the fireball in the sky where it was vaporized before cooling and crystallizing, eventually raining down in the form of the trinitite fragments.  Most of the trinitite was green because of the iron content in the sand while a smaller volume was black because their source was the iron from which Trinity’s tower structure was constructed and, being refined and processed, the iron content was much greater than that in the sand.  Finally, among all the trinitite, there was found a tiny number of red crystals which gained their color from all the copper cables which were also vaporized.  The propensity of copper to color its immediate environment was well-known, the mining conglomerate Rio Tinto formed in 1873 with a company name from the Rio Tinto (red river or Tinto River); the highly acidic river in the Sierra Morena mountains of southwestern Spain that runs red & orange because of the high copper content in the surrounding soil.

Red Trinitite.

Beginning in that fraction of a second when the nuclear age was born was the process which produced the red crystals, the extreme pressure and temperature (the Trinity site was briefly hotter than the surface of the Sun) forging a most unusual structure within one grain of the material just 10 micrometers across (barely longer than a red blood cell).  Made from silicon, copper, calcium and iron, the rare form of matter was called a quasicrystal.  Normally, crystals are made from atoms locked in a lattice that repeats in a regular pattern but quasicrystals, while having a structure that is orderly like a normal crystal, don’t have patterns which repeat and this grants quasicrystals properties forbidden to normal crystals.  First discovered in laboratory observations during the 1980s, quasicrystals also occur naturally in meteorites, matter transformed by stars, another place of extreme heat and pressure.

The Trinity test, the world's first nuclear explosion.

Until their observation in the 1980s, physicists regarded quasicrystals as “impossible” because they would have violated the rules scientists had over centuries constructed to define crystalline materials; the quasicrystal was thus a ‘black swan” moment in physics.  Traditionally, crystals were held to possess what were known as “rotational symmetries”, places where the structure could symmetrically be split in half, along one, two, three, four and six axes.  The black swan quasicrystal broke the rules or, more precisely, proved the rules were wrong, demonstrating instead an “icosahedral symmetry” a construct which includes six independent five-fold symmetry axes; as solids with these rotational symmetries, the quasicrystal is unique.  To the US military-industrial complex, it may also prove uniquely useful because, if a sample could be obtained of a quasicrystal created during nuclear tests conducted by other nations, it could be analyzed and might yield new understandings of their programs and weapons.  It’s always been possible to examine radioactive debris and gases to build models of how the devices were built and the materials used but those signatures decay.  Not only might a quasicrystal reveal new information but, and this is obviously most useful if the analytical process uses non-destructive tests, quasicrystals are a form of matter which goes as close (theoretically) to lasting forever as any yet known.

Lindsay Lohan (right) illustrating the typical hue of green trinitite (left).

What’s sometimes described as “trinitite green” and used for glass crockery or decorative items is misleading because such purity was never in New Mexico after the blast.  A glassy material, most trinitite exists in a range between a pale to olive green but smaller quantities in red and black have also been observed, the coloration dependent on the specific minerals and materials in the blast site.  The green is a product of iron while the red comes from the copper electrical wiring used in the Trinity test equipment being fused together with the quartz and feldspar sand grains from the desert floor.  A quirk is that red trinitite is brightly fluorescent under short wave ultra-violet light whereas the more abundant green variety of typically shows little to no fluorescence under UV, the difference again due to the mineral composition.  Black trinitite is rarest, formed by virtue of the presence of iron alone from the tower with no copper content.

Eponymous

Eponymous (pronounced uh-pon-uh-muhs)

(1) The giving of one's name to something.

(2) Of, relating to, or being the person or entity after which something or someone is named.

1833: The construct was eponym + -ous, from the Ancient Greek ἐπώνυμος (epṓnumos), the construct being ἐπί (epí) (upon) +‎ ὄνυμα (ónuma), a Doric and Aeolic variant of ὄνομα (ónoma) (name).  The word seems first to have been used in the second millennium BC, when, for several decades, the Assyrians named each year after a prominent government official, the alternative form eponymal appearing first in the record in reference to the other classical eponymos, a title of certain magistrates in ancient Greece who gave their names to the years when they held office, a practice later adopted by the English to record statute law.  In England, until 1953, the naming conventions for recording the bills parliament passed used regnal years; a statute gazetted in the seventh year of the reign of George V would have been dated 7 George V and were the system still in use, one passed in 2021 would be sealed 69 Elizabeth II.  Widely used in English (the Victorian age, the Nixon doctrine, the Menzies era etc), eponymic has been used in the sense "name-giving; pertaining to eponymic myths" as well as "of or pertaining to a classical eponymos."  The Greek epṓnymos was derived from onyma (name) the root also of a number of English words, including synonymous, pseudonym and anonymous.   Most dictionaries seem to list the comparative as "more eponymous" and the superlative as "most eponymous" although its difficult to imagine how the terms could be used, something either eponymous or not, unlike a word like "unique" where modifiers ("most unique"; "quite unique" (are now generally accepted (grudgingly by some) although all seem to draw the line at the clumsy "very unique".  Eponymous is an adjective and eponymously is an adverb.

Lohan Nightclub, Athens

Lohan Nightclub is Lindsay Lohan’s eponymous operation in Athens.  Actual ownership seems murky but at least at one point she was said to hold some equity.

Address:      Iera Odos 30-32, Athina, Greece
Telephone:  +30 698 750 1825
Website:      http://lohanathens.com
Facebook:    www.facebook.com/lohannightclub/
E-mail:        info@lohanathens.com

Located in the Kerameikos region of Athens and featuring what’s described as an industrial baroque aesthetic, Lohan Nightclub is described as the only Athenian mega-club.  Opening hours vary with the season and the lighting and sound systems said to be state of the clubbing art.  An entry ticket is €15 (US$15) and VIP tables are available, subject to a minimum spend of around €600 (US$700).  Lohan is said to be a destination for clubbing in its most extreme iteration and it’s suggested if one isn’t wholly committed to all that that implies, one won’t enjoy things.  The Lohan Nightclub’s material on various platforms notes an atmosphere of decadence promising “something decidedly different”, the greeting of bright pink flowers and neon lights promoting the escapist experience within, the overall impression, loud, hedonistic and Lohanic.

Lohan Night Club, Athens, opening night, 15 October 2016.

Disinterest & Uninterest

Disinterest (pronounced dis-in-trist (U) or dis-in-ter-ist (non-U))

A freedom from bias or involvement; the absence of any conflict of interest.

1605–15: The construct was dis- + interest.  The prefix dis was from the Middle English dis-, from the Old French des from the Latin dis, from the proto-Italic dwis, from the primitive Indo-European dwís and cognate with the Ancient Greek δίς (dís) and the Sanskrit द्विस् (dvis).  It was applied variously as an intensifier of words with negative valence and to render the senses “incorrect”, “to fail (to)”, “not” & “against”.  In Modern English, the rules applying to the dis prefix vary and when attached to a verbal root, prefixes often change the first vowel (whether initial or preceded by a consonant/consonant cluster) of that verb. These phonological changes took place in Latin and usually do not apply to words created (as in Modern Latin) from Latin components since the language was classified as “dead”.  The combination of prefix and following vowel did not always yield the same change and these changes in vowels are not necessarily particular to being prefixed with dis (ie other prefixes sometimes cause the same vowel change (con; ex)).  The verb interest is from the Middle English interest, from Old French interesse & interest (intérêt in modern French), from the Medieval Latin interesse, from the Classical Latin interesse (to concern, to be between).  "The original meaning from circa 1600 was “cause to be interested, engage the attention of”, was based on the earlier (1560s) interesse, from the noun and may have been at least influenced by interess'd, past participle of interesse.  In other contexts, interest can mean “having a stake in or money involved in something, or “charges payable under the terms of usury (borrowing money).

Disinterest is a verb (used with object) although the cost commonly used derived form is probably the seventeenth century adjective “disinterested” (Having no stake or interest in the outcome; free of bias, impartial (and technically a corruption of the adjectives disinterest & disinteressed)).  Disinterest should be associated with words like neutrality, impassivity, detachment, dispassion, impartiality & nonpartisanship.

Uninterest (pronounced un-in-trist (U) or uhn-in-ter-ist (non-U))

A lack of interest in something; indifference.

1890–1895: The construct was un + interest. The prefix –un was from the Middle English un-, from the Old English un-, from the Proto-West Germanic un-, from the Proto-Germanic un-, from the primitive Indo-European n̥-.  It was cognate with the Scots un- & on-, the North Frisian ün-, the Saterland Frisian uun-, the West Frisian ûn- &  on-, the Dutch on-, the Low German un- & on-, the German un-, the Danish u-, the Swedish o-, the Norwegian u- and the Icelandic ó-.  It was (distantly) related to the Latin in- and the Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-), source of the English a-, the Modern Greek α- (a-) and the Sanskrit अ- (a-).

Dating from the 1660s, the adjective interested was first vested with the now familiar meaning (characterized by concern or sympathy), as the past-participle adjective from the verb interest.  From 1828 it picked up the sense (having an interest or stake (in something) which has since lent confusion to the uninterest / disinterest thing; the sense "motivated by self-interest" attested since 1705 and may be a back-formation from disinterested.  Although it’s clumsy enough to be rare, the noun interestedness (the state or quality of being interested, or having an interest; selfishness) really does exist; fortunately, it not often comes up in conversation.  Uninterest should be associated with words like aloofness, coldness, coolness, detachment, disregard, indifference & lassitude.

Lindsay Lohan looking uninterested.

Some of the vendettas run by the grammar Nazis against contemporary practices (eg the refusal to accept the meaning of the word “decimate” has changed and that those reading histories of the Punic Wars are unlikely to be confused) but the insistence on differentiating between “disinterest” and “uninterest” is a campaign worth or support.  Historically, "disinterested" has had two meanings, the first and still most widely accepted being “impartial; unbiased by personal interest or advantage” and most associated with judges or those who sit on deliberative tribunals (the practical mechanism being the "apprehended bias" test which is a determination of whether a perception of bias might reasonably be inferred from a judge's past comments, conduct or circle of acquaintances).  The second meaning is “having or showing no feeling of interest; indifferent”.  In other words, to ensure the fairness of a trial, judges should be disinterested in the matters before them but certainly not uninterested.  Both senses are long established in all varieties of English but disinterested is often used to mean “not interested” although uninterested seems rarely misused, presumably because disinterested is the more effortlessly economical form and uninterested that bit more clumsy.  Unlike something like “notorious” which is one of those annoying words with one spelling & pronunciation yet two distinct meanings which cannot always be resolved through context, English has given us disinterest & uninterest and so they should both be used in their separate, allocated meanings, thereby eliminating any ambiguity.

Lindsay Lohan as an interested but disinterested judge on The Masked Singer (2019).

Some word nerds, most of whom seem to believe the distinction between the two worth preserving, believe the battle is lost but that the linguistic causalities will be light, in instances where such things matter (usually in courts of law) few likely to be troubled by the mistake which mentally they’ll correct and move on.  Even some once rigorously dictionaries seem to have given up and accepted descriptive reality, the Macmillan saying only “Many people think that this use of the word is not correct” and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in one edition was prepared only to muse it was "Often regarded as a loose use."  Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage noted the a long history of overlapping use, “uninterested” originally meaning what the more fastidious now insist “disinterested” is supposed to mean today, the distinction emerging only in American English in the 1800s. Merriam-Webster conclusion was that “disinterested” has taken on an additional but "uninterested" still means only what it always has which seems a dismally defeatist position for a dictionary to adopt.

Druid

Druid (proniunced droo-id)

(1) A member of a pre-Christian religious order which existed among the ancient Celts of Gaul, Britain and Ireland (sometimes with initial capital).

(2) A member of any of several modern movements which have attempted to revive (what they claim to be) druidism.

1555–1565: From the Latin druis (feminine druias; plural druidae), from the Gaulish Druides (and replacing the sixteenth century French druide).  In the Old Irish druí was the nominative, druid (wizard) the dative & accusative and druad the plural.  from the Celtic compound dru-wid- (strong seer), from the Old Celtic derwos (true), from the primitive Indo-European root deru- (tree (especially oak)) + wid- (to know), from the primitive Indo-European root weid- (to see).  The meaning in the Old Celtic was thus literally "they who know the oak" which some etymologists have suggested may be an allusion to divination from mistletoe but probably was understood as something like “those able to divine (know) the truth.  In the Anglo-Saxon too, there was an identical word meaning both "tree" and "truth"; that was treow.

The adoption in English came via Latin rather than directly from Celtic although in the Old English there was dry (magician) which, though unattested, has always been thought likely from the Old Irish druí from which Modern Irish and Gaelic gained draoi, genitive druadh (magician, sorcerer).  Related forms are the nouns druidity & druidism and the adjectives druidic, druidical, (the alleged) druidistic & druidic (of or pertaining to druids or druidry (which dates from 1773)).

The feminine form druidess (female druid; druidic prophetess or priestess (plural druidesses)) was actually coined as late as 1755; prior to that druid had been used when speaking of box sexes.  Despite the similarity in spelling and a speculative etymological link, the female proper name Drusilla (diminutive of Drusus and a frequent surname in the gens Livia) is derived from the earlier Drausus which, although of uncertain origin, may be from a Celtic word meaning literally "strong" (thus the possible connection with the Old Celtic dru- which meant both "oak & "strong".

Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England.  Despite the popular association, archaeologists believe there's no basis for the medieval myth Stonehenge was built by druids, the construction pre-dating them by many centuries.  In medieval histories, there was not a little "making stuff up", even some of what were passed-off as myths from antiquity were creations of the time.

The class structure of ancient Celtic society was not untypical, the four major strata, like the Indian caste system, organized in four groups (1) peasants and artisans, (2) warriors, (3) the ruling classes and (4), the druids although, unlike in India where the Brahmin priestly caste sit atop the hierarchy, among the Celts, it was the kings and chieftains who enjoyed primacy.  That much is certain but the rest of what constitutes druidic history is mostly a mix of the writings classical Greek & Roman authors, medieval writers with varied relationships to scholarship and the work of modern anthropologists who have examined the archaeological record.  Given the time which has passed, the evidence is not only patchy but limited in scope.  Although the Romans & Greeks had encountered the Celts in the wars of earlier centuries earlier, it was only in the first century BC their historians began, sometimes impressionistically, sometimes more systematically, to observe their cultures and customs.

Among the earliest observers was the Syrian stoic polymath Posidonius (circa 135-circa 51 BC) although none of his text survives, except in referenced by later writers, notably the Greek geographer Strabo (circa 64 BC-circa 24 AD) who credited Posidonius as his primary source.  Contemporary to Posidonius, though perhaps less reliable was Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) who devoted some pages to a description of "the barbarians" in Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War), his vivid recollections of the conflict.  Written as a third-person narrative in which Caesar describes the battles and political intrigue of the conflict, it too shows evidence of the legacy of what was created by Posidonius but the Roman general certainly had many first-hand experiences with the Celts, both as opponents and allies, some (notably the Aedui), serving in his army.  Obviously astute in the practice of politics as well as military matters, Caesar suggested druidism had probably originated in Britain and from there spread to the Gauls but although he had the advantage of being there at the time, he offered no documentary evidence and scholars and historians have long speculated on their origins.  What's more solid is his description of their place in society.  He wrote that they seemed a secretive but learned group who enjoyed certain privileges among the Celtic population, exempted from taxation and military service and acting as judges, deciding cases and setting penalties.  Unlike most in the tribal-based culture, they appeared to enjoy freedom of passage through any territories.

He found one aspect most curious.  Although a partially literate society, the Celts using both Greek and Roman script (depending on the state of conquest), the druids had never committed their learning and traditions to writing, remarkable given it apparently took over twenty years fully to be schooled in the philosophy, divination, poetry, healing, religious rites and spells that was druidic knowledge.  That knowledge therefore existed almost entirely in the collective memory of the living druids, its transmission oral except for a few inscriptions found in sacred sites such as shrines and sanctuaries.  There may have been some philosophical basis for that or it may have been just a restrictive trade practice designed to maintain closed shop, Caesar observing the Gauls were a most religious people but they always had to wait for the druids to perform the necessary rituals or sacrifices.  The exclusivity of the trade and the secrecy of its protocols was sound business practice and one that can be identified in religions and other institutions over the centuries.  There are both similarities with and differences between Celtic and other religious traditions.  The Celts didn’t build temples to their gods, the druids practicing their worship in the open air in places they described as sacred, often a space with some geographically distinct identity such as a grove or the shores of a lakes although, as Caesar noted, a sacred spot could be anywhere a druid nominated, a kind of ad-hoc consecration; another practical advantage of having no written record to contradict the assertion.  As later writers confirmed, the Gauls believed in an immortal soul but rather than a conception of heaven & hell or any other afterlife, they believed that upon death, it passed to another body after death, an eschatology of reincarnation.

Druids, gathered for the annual summer solstice ceremonies, Stonehenge, June 2019.

The lack of historic documents means it's impossible exactly to describe any exact sense of an internal druidical structure or indeed any indication whether it was static or essentially unchanging.  Caesar said that in Gaul there were three groups: the druidae, vates or uatis & bardi (which existed in Ireland as the druidh, filidh & baird) but whether these were exact organization divisions or simply a description of traditions or disciplines is unknown and all druids seem to have been required to learn all the skills to permit them to function as teachers, philosophers, physicians, priests, seers and sorcerers.  It was certainly a wide job-description which ranged from teaching the children of the nobility to performing human ritual sacrifice but the fundamental role (and the one which gave the druids their mystique and legitimacy) was that which appears in the institutional structure of the clergy in so many religions: the druids were the priests who would communicate with the gods on behalf of the Celtic people and thus mediate their relationship with the gods.  However, although the name was shared, what is often casually referred to as druidism wasn't monolithic and there are Irish and Welsh texts which mention druids as teachers, healers, seers and wizards, but not as priests and certainly not following the Gallic druids tradition of prayer, Irish myths suggesting druids were sorcerers and wizards rather than priests.  More is actually known about the druids of the Partholonians, Nemedians, Milesians & Fomorians because, unlike those in Gaul and Britain, there were no rules against writing.

Modern interest in the druids focuses mostly on their magic, sorcery and spells.  Over the centuries, there's been much imaginative speculation about their nature and purpose in Gaul, something inevitable because unlike in what survives in the Irish and Welsh record, there's scant evidence.  In the Irish & Welsh literature, classical authors found mentions of magic and witchcraft although the details were vague, it’s clear ancient druids were much concerned with healing and divination, like the shamans or medicine men who gathered herbs and poultice to ward off evil spirits.  There was also practical medicine, the natural scientist Pliny the Elder (29-79 AD) writing that druids held the mistletoe and oak trees as sacred, the former cultivated and with great ceremony on the sixth day of the moon; as part of the ritual, a golden sickle was used carefully to cut the mistletoes, the druid garbed in a full-length white cloak.  A bit of a cure-all in the druidic medicine cabinet, mistletoe was said to be able to heal all illness and disease, act as the antidote to any poison and impart fecundity to barren cattle.  In the medieval Irish histories, the vista of arboreal sacredness and utility is wider spread, ash trees (often called rowan and quicken), the yew, the apple and the hazel all listed.

For the professional historian, the druids are difficult subjects because nobody will ever know how much truth lies in so many ancient and medieval writings.  The speculations, exaggerations and general mischief-making however probably accounts for much of the interest in druidism and it long predates both the revival of paganism and the weird world of the new age.  The haziness means it can by anyone be constructed to be what they wish it to be and there are many societies to join if one wishes to become a druid although those lured by the attraction of ritual human sacrifice will these days have to join a more accommodating religion.

A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids, oil on canvas by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

William Holman Hunt's 1860 painting was at the time of its exhibition sometimes referred to as A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Priest from the Persecution of the Druids by those who liked the whiff of popery that "priest" seemed to summon.  The depiction is of a family of ancient Britons in their humble hovel, concealing and tending to the wounds of a Christian missionary, injuries inflicted presumably by the pagan Celtic Druids, seen outside pursuing another fleeing missionary at the urging of the white-robed Druid priest.  The artist always remained convinced this early work was one of his finest but it was much criticized on both compositional and representational grounds.

As a work, it's indicative of the disapproval of paganism among Victorian Christians which even some historians tended to dismiss as something which, except for the odd deranged heretic, vanished wherever Christianity arrived which wasn't true; paganism in Europe enduring in places for centuries and even enjoying spasmodic revivals after Christianization.  The first country outside of the Roman Empire to embrace Christianity was Armenia in the fourth century and the last, Lithuania in the fifteenth so the two systems co-existed for a millennium.  In England, despite what Roman church's publicity machine taught to generations, paganism was not eradiated by the mission of Saint Augustine of Canterbury (circa 520-604) in 597 but by the ninth century conversion of Danelaw (the central and eastern regions of England where the way and laws of the Danes were practiced) and the killing of Eric Bloodaxe ((Eric Haraldsson (also known as Eirik fratrum interfector), circa 885-954; of Norwegian origin and variously (and apparently briefly) several times King of Norway and twice of Northumbria (circa 947–948 and 952–954)) in York in 954.  Beyond England however, paganism lived on as the dominant social order in Viking Scandinavia and the more remote regions of the British Isles until well into the twelfth century and in Prussia, it wouldn't be until the later fourteenth century crusades of the Teutonic Knights that Christendom finally prevailed.

Relic & Relict

Relic (pronounced rel-ik)

(1) A surviving memorial of something past; something that has survived from the past, such as an object or custom.

(2) An object having interest by reason of its age or its association with the past; something kept in remembrance; souvenir; memento.

(3) A surviving trace of something.

(4) Remaining parts or fragments.

(5) In ecclesiastical use in Christendom, (especially in the Roman Catholic and Greek churches) the body, a bone or other body part, or some personal memorial of a saint, martyr, or other sacred person, preserved as worthy of veneration.

(6) In linguistics, a once widespread linguistic form that survives in a limited area but is otherwise obsolete.

(7) In informal use, an old or old-fashioned person or thing, a survivor from a bygone era.

(8) The remains of a dead person; a corpse (largely archaic and usually in the plural).

(9) In ecology a now less common term for relict.

1175–1225: From the Middle English relik (a body part or other object held in reverence or affection due to its connection with a holy person), from the Old French relique & relike (the eleventh century plural was reliques), from the Old English reliquias, the construct being reliqu(us) (remaining) + -iae the plural noun suffix), from the Late Latin reliquiæ (plural) (the remains of a martyr (although in Classical Latin it had meant “remains; remnants”)), noun use of the feminine plural of reliquus (remaining, that which remains), from relinquō (I leave behind, abandon, relinquish), the construct being from re- (back, backwards; again) the prefix added to various words to indicate an action being done again) + linquō (I leave, quit, forsake, depart from), and related to relinquere (perfective reliqui) (to leave behind, relinquish, forsake, abandon, give up), from the primitive Indo-European linkw-, a nasalized form of the root leikw- (to leave).  The Old English reliquias was a direct borrowing from Latin.  The noun reliquary (receptacle for keeping relics, often small enough to be carried on the person) dates from the 1650s, from the fourteenth century French reliquaire.  The noun plural was relics and the obsolete spellings were relick & relique.  The third-person singular simple present was relics, the present participle relicing or relicking and the simple past and past participle reliced or relicked).

The now familiar general sense of "remains, remnants, that which is left after the loss or ruin of the rest" dates from the early fourteenth century whereas the meaning "something kept as a souvenir, a memento" didn’t emerge until circa 1600.  By the 1590s, the word had, in conversational use, developed the weakened sense of "anything made interesting by its association with the distant past and ten years earlier had come also to describe "surviving trace of some practice, idea etc, a use which later (by 1809) influenced the specific use in history & anthropology: “relic of barbarism” the “survival of a (bad) old custom or condition."  Other words used in this context includes antique, antiquity, artifact, curio, evidence, fragment, keepsake, memento, monument, remains, remnant, souvenir, archaism, curiosity, heirloom, memorial, remembrance, reminder, residue & ruins.

Relict (pronounced rel-ikt)

(1) In biology & ecology, a species or community of animals or plants that exists as a remnant of a formerly widely distributed group in an environment different from that in which it originated (usually as a modifier (eg a relict fauna)).

(2) In geology, a mineral that remains unaltered after metamorphism of the rock in which it occurs.

(3) In geomorphology, a landform (a mountain, lake, glacier etc) formed by either erosive or constructive surficial processes that are no longer active as they were in the past.

(4) A remnant or survivor (rare).

(5) The surviving member of a married couple after one or the other has died; a widow or widower (although in practice the word was only ever applied to widows and is now archaic).

(6) In linguistics, a surviving archaic word, language or other form (technically slightly different from a relic (qv) but in casual use both are often used interchangeably.

(7) In the law of real property, the gradual recession of water from its usual high-water mark so that the newly uncovered land becomes the property of the adjoining riparian property owner.

1525–1535: From the Middle English relicte, from the Medieval Latin relicta (widow), noun use of feminine of the Latin relictus, past participle of relinquere (to relinquish).  Relicte in the sense of a widow, etymologically is "one who is left, one who remains", from the Old French relict (feminine relicte) (person or thing left behind (especially a widow)) and directly from the Medieval Latin relicta (a widow), noun use of feminine of relictus (abandoned, left behind), past-participle adjective from the Latin relinquere (leave behind, forsake, abandon, give up),

Relict came so often to be confused with relic that by 1926, Henry Fowler (1858-1933) noted in his Dictionary of Modern English Usage it had become a word seldom used except in legal documents when referring to a widow (and only lawyers would find the word “widow” unsuitable) and was thus "more often seen than heard", its place as an adjective in Middle English and early modern English (originally "left undisturbed or untouched, allowed to remain" (although used in various senses) long supplanted by relic.  As a technical word in biology, zoology and geology, it remains useful; the noun plural was relicts.

Print of original Heiltumsblätter (woodcut; circa 1496) of the relics of the Holy Roman Empire by Hans Spoerer of Nuremberg, hand-colored, printer's ink on paper, donated to the British Museum in 1916.

In the great cities of the Holy Roman Empire, there were publishers which offered entire relic-books but, parchment and even paper being expensive, as an alternative, pilgrims could purchase Heiltumsblätter (woodcut) reproductions of relics associated with a particular church or shrine.  The single-leaf woodcut illustrating the relics of the relics of the Holy Roman Empire was first printed circa 1480 with a second run of hand-colored versions offered in 1496 and as well as being used for private devotion, being large-scale they could be displayed in public places like churches, where they performed a similar function to indulgence announcements.

The Heiltumsblatt illustrating the relics of the Holy Roman Empire included pieces of the True Cross, thorns from Christ's crown, along with the sword, robe and scepter of Charlemagne (747–814; first Holy Roman Emperor 800-814).  The imperial collection also featured the Holy Lance that tradition stated was used by Longinus to pierce Christ's side after his death; this was a highly prized possession, since it was one of the few contact relics associated with Christ who was said to have left behind no bodily relics.  In 1423, Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368–1437; Holy Roman Emperor 1433-1437) bequeathed the Lance to Nuremberg for safekeeping, where it became the centerpiece of the Heiltumsweisung (sanctuary).  The Holy Lance's size in the woodcut is one indication of its importance, although this was not a mere effect of representation, for its makers claimed that this was a "true copy" of the Lance, which measures 508 x 79 mm (20 x 3.1 inches).

Cardinal

Cardinal (pronounce kahr-dn-l)

(1) Of prime importance; chief; principal.

(2) A color in the red spectrum.

(3) In the Roman Catholic Church, a high honor; an appointment by the pope to the College of Cardinals, ranking above all but the pope.

(4) In the Church of England, the two minor canons of St Paul's Cathedral, London who held two historic titles (Senior Cardinal and Junior Cardinal), abolished on 1 February 2016.  The only women in Western history to be styled Cardinal have been Church of England minor canons.

(5) A bird, the crested grosbeak, cardinalis cardinalis, of North America, the male of which is bright red (also called cardinal grosbeak).

(6) A woman's short cloak with a hood, originally made of scarlet cloth and popularly worn in the eighteenth century.

(7) In set theory mathematics, cardinal numbers are a generalization of the natural numbers used to measure the cardinality (size) of sets. The cardinality of a finite set is a natural number: the number of elements in the set. The transfinite cardinal numbers describe the sizes of infinite sets.

(8) A fritillary butterfly, pandoriana pandora, found in meadows of southern Europe.

(9) In astrology, of or relating to the signs Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn (the four zodiacal signs marking the equinoxes and the solstices).

(10) A freshwater fish, the cardinal tetra (Paracheirodon axelrodi).

(11) A type of mulled red wine (obsolete).

Pre 1150: From the Middle English from the Old English, from the Old French cardinal, from the Latin cardinālis, the construct being cardin ((stem of cardō) hinge) + ālis (the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals).   Meaning was thus something on which other things depend.  As used by the Roman church as titles for the ecclesiastical princes who constitute the sacred college, it’s short for cardinalis ecclesiae Romanae (episcopus cardinalis, in the original Latin), meaning "principal, chief, essential".  Origin of this is uncertain but meaning (and position in the Roman hierarchy) altered much over the years.  In the tituli (parishes) of the diocese of Rome, as early as the ninth century, the term cardinal was applied to any priest permanently assigned to a church or, specifically, to the senior priest of an important church, the familiar modern understanding (a prince of the church), evolving later in the middle ages.  Related forms are the adverb cardinally, the noun cardinalship and the adjectives inter-cardinal, post-cardinal & sub-cardinal.

The cardinal points (1540s) are north, south, east, west.  The cardinal sins (pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth), dating from circa 1600, are well known and much practiced; they’re referred to also as the seven deadly sins or the capital vices.  The cardinal virtues (circa 1300), divided into the natural (justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude) and the theological (faith, hope, charity), are less known and though much admired, seldom observed.

Ms Cardinal

Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023) does his bit to promote gender DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in the Holy See.  Cardinal Pell, Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013--2022) and Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013), Canberra, Australia, 2008.

It’s been suggested if Pope Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) would like his pontificate remembered for something rather than nothing in particular, he should appoint a woman cardinal.  She would have to be from the laity; priests would never accept a cardinal-nun, except perhaps one who has taken a vow of silence and these days, they’re hard to find.  Although cardinals have most often been drawn from the priesthood, historically the title has not been limited to those holding ecclesiastical office and there have been a small number of lay-cardinals (non-ordained), the last dying in 1899.  While it’s true the 1917 Code of Canon Law permits only the ordained to be appointed, the papal theocracy is an absolute monarchy and the right pope, if so inspired, could make a woman a cardinal by issuing a motu proprio (literally “on his own impulse”, the law-making mechanism available to absolute monarchs and usually styled a "royal decree").  From the usual suspects, there would be opposition, thus it must be not only the right woman, it would need to the the right pope and a pope certainly has some room to move, the office of cardinal lies exclusively in his gift and he need consult no-one.  

If the thought of outraged theologians sounds a bit tiresome, Francis could appoint a woman and not tell anyone.  That’s because there are secret cardinals or cardinals in pectore ("in the breast" (ie in their hearts)), a medieval invention whereby a pope would appoint a cardinal but not publish his name, an act provided for in canon law as creati et reservati in pectore.  It was a mechanism created to protect the lives of those for whom wider knowledge of their elevation might have put them in harm's way.  An in pectore creation is known only to pope and appointee so, should the pope die before revealing the cardinal in pectore's identity, the person's status as cardinal expires.  The last pope known to have named cardinals in pectore was Saint John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) who created four, including one whose identity was never revealed.  This is the sort of cloak and dagger stuff practiced by the Vatican, the Freemasons and the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or.

In July 2022, in what proved a surprisingly wide-ranging interview with the Reuters news agency, Pope Francis revealed he would be appointing two women to the Dicastery for Bishops, the committee which assists the pontiff in the selection of bishops.  It's a matter thought of some significance because the creation of bishops is a pope's personal prerogative and while under no obligation to following the advice of the dicastery, it seems unlikely he would not take advantage of the symbolism of the committee's afforcement by women by making their influence apparent.  Historically, the Dicastery for Bishops had maintained an all-male membership.

The pope was responding to questions about the place of women in the Vatican establishment; the Praedicate evangelium (an apostolic constitution reforming the Roman Curia, published and promulgated in March 2022) and which dicasteries might in future be entrusted to lay-members of the Church, especially women.  The pope responded by saying he was "...open should an opportunity arise", adding that "...two women will be going to the Congregation of Bishops, on the commission to elect bishops.  In this way, things open up a little bit.”  Too this he added that he sees "in the future" the possibility of lay people being appointed to lead certain Vatican departments such as the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, the Dicastery for Culture and Education, or the Vatican Apostolic Library.  To illustrate how things were opening up, he mentioned the appointment in 2021 of Sister Raffaella Petrini (b 1969) as deputy governor in the Vatican City Governorate, making her the first woman to hold the position and the earlier assumption by Francesca di Giovanni (b 1953) of the office of undersecretary for the multilateral sector in the Secretariat of State's Section for Relations with States and International Organizations, another first.

Other notable appointments by Pope Francis include Sister Nathalie Becquart (b 1969; a French member of the Xaviere Missionary Sisters), as co-under-secretary of the Synod of Bishops (which prepares the big meetings of bishops held every few years) and Sister Alessandra Smerilli (b 1974; of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians), as Undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.  Within the bureaucracy, there have been women in upper-level positions for some time including Barbara Jatta, the first female director of the Vatican Museums, Nataša Govekar (b 1975; Director of the Theological-Pastoral Office of the Dicastery for Communication and Cristiane Murray (b 1962; deputy director of the Holy See’s Press Office, all of whom were appointed by the current pontiff.  Critics did note that except for some "technical" positions, the jobs allocated to women tended to be either at the "deputy" and "assistant" level or in roles that were advisory rather than decision-making but all concede there has been progress and Praedicate evangelium allowing any baptized Catholic, including lay men and women, now to head most Vatican departments.

Not unexpectedly, the Reuters correspondent appears not to have brought up the matter of women being appointed to any clerical office, a matter successive popes have not merely dismissed but banned from being even discussed.  Nor was there any mention of a revival of the idea of lay cardinals, an office in abeyance since 1899 and apparently precluded by the 1917 revisions to Canon Law although, as an absolute sovereign of both Church and state, a pope could issue a motu proprio creating any baptized Catholic a lay-cardinal, man or women.  Subject only to bitchy letters of complaint (a dubia) from outraged bishops and pedantic theologians, what a pope rules actually becomes the law, a convenient arrangement for a head of state and one asserted (without some  success) by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; head of government (1933-1945) & head of state (1934-1945) in Nazi Germany) and (with less support) by Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974).

Lindsay Lohan in costume as nun with Smith & Wesson .50 Magnum revolver with 8" barrel (S&W500: SKU 163501) in promotional poster for Machete (2010).  Raised in the Roman Catholic faith, Lindsay Lohan is the ideal candidate to be the Church's first female cardinal.  Indeed, so obvious are her credentials to wear the scarlet a pope may already have appointed her Cardinal in pectore and if so, it was probably renowned Mean Girls (2004) fan Benedict who would have noted similarities between many of the movie's plot lines and the antics of the Curia.