Medieval

Medieval (pronounced mee-dee-ee-vuhl (U), med-ee-ee-vuhl (U), mid-ee-ee-vuhl (non-U) or mid-ee-vuhl (non-U))

(1) Of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or in the style of the Middle Ages.

(2) In informal (usually disparaging) use, extremely old-fashioned; primitive; backward; uncivilized.

1820-1830: A creation of Modern English from the New Latin medium aevum (the middle age, thus pertaining to or suggestive of the Middle Ages), the construct being medi(um) (the middle) + aev(um) (age) + -al (the Latin adjectival suffix appended to various words (often nouns) to make an adjective).  The Latin medium was from the primitive Indo-European root medhyo- (middle); aevum was from the primitive Indo-European root aiw- (vital force, life; long life, eternity), also the source of eon.  Mediaeval & mediæval are the now rare alternative spellings.

Between Rome and the Renaissance

The noun medievalism, originally a descriptor of the beliefs and practices characteristic of the Middle Ages, dates from 1846, later used to describe the academic discipline studying the epoch; the adverb medievally was first noted in 1844; the noun medievalist, first used in 1847, meant "proponent of medieval styles, one who sympathizes with the spirit and principles of the Middle Ages”, but was from 1882 a companion word to the later sense of "medievalism” and used to describe historians and others “versed in the history of the Middle Ages".

Lindsay Lohan dressed in "medieval" flavor, Wendy Nichol's fashion show at the Elizabeth Street sculpture gardens, New York Fashion Week, September 2013.

The Middle Ages (or the Medieval) is one of the three epochs in Western Civilization: (1) Antiquity, (2) the Middle Ages and (3) the Modern Age (itself not to be confused with modernism or modernity).  It’s a modern construct.  The writers and historians working during the Medieval period divided history into periods such as the "Six Ages" or the "Four Empires", and, under the influence of Christian eschatology, seem universally to have though their own time to be the last before the end of the world, all referring to their age as "modern".  The phrase "Middle Ages" appeared first in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas (middle season) and this, over centuries, spawned many variants, including medium aevum (middle age) in 1604 and media saecula (middle ages) in 1625.  The more familiar medieval (and the now rare mediaeval & mediæval) is from medium aevum, its creation reflecting the enduring European reverence for the classical world (which still exists in academic historiography’s Greek and Roman factions).  The tripartite division of Western history had been used by historians for some time and became (more or less) standard after the seventeenth century German classical scholar Christoph Cellarius (1638–1707) in 1683 published his Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, and New Period.

Be prepared: Medieval armor.

Historians date the beginning of the Middle Ages from either in 410 or 476, depending on whether they prefer the Visigoth’s sack of Rome or the final overthrow of the last Roman Emperor as the crucial turning point.  A date around 1500 is usually accepted as the end of the Middle Ages but there’s no precise end-date and the transition to the modern era was marked by immense regional differences, some parts of Europe remaining distinctly medieval well into the twentieth century.  The end was more a milieu, events such as the discovery of the "New World" (1492), the fall of Constantinople (1453) and the Protestant Reformation (1520s onward) all landmarks of the transition.

Lighting up the Dark Ages: The burning of Protestant heretics, in English historian John Foxe’s (circa 1517–1587) Actes and Monuments (1653) (often published with the title John Foxe's Book of Martyrs).

The once parallel term "Dark Ages" does cause confusion.  It adopts a traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the “light” (the learning and progress Antiquity and the Modern Age) with the “dark” (the violence, backwardness and stultification of the Middle Ages), the phrase derived from the Latin saeculum obscurum (dark age), originally applied by Italian cardinal and ecclesiastical historian Caesar Baronius (1538–1607) in his writings about an especially tumultuous period during the tenth and eleventh centuries.  A memorable phrase, it caught the popular imagination and the concept came to characterize the entire Middle Ages as a time of intellectual darkness between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, a slur most widely applied during the eighteenth century Age of Enlightenment.  It’s now less used and English-speaking historians, following their German counterparts, generally subdivide the Middle Ages into "Early", "High", and "Late", avoiding “Dark Ages” completely, those who make any mention generally noting it can apply only to the earliest centuries and then usually in the context of the paucity of documents and other historic records rather than as a damnation of a thousand-odd years.

Christ Rescuing Peter from Drowning (1370) by Lorenzo Veneziano (known as Lorenzo the Venetian, his dates of birth and death are unknown but he was active between 1356–1372).  A number of paintings from the medieval era featured the famous New Testament story in which Christ is said to have walked on water during a mighty storm.  Lorenzo's work depicts the fishing boat in which Jesus’ disciples were traveling in across Israel’s Sea of Galilee.  The story appears in three of the four Gospels (Matthew 14:22-33; Mark 6:45-52 & John 6:16-21), each telling the tale in a subtlety different way.

Chivalry

Chivalry (pronounced shiv-uhl-ree)

(1) The sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms; the combination of qualities expected of an ideal knight, especially courage, honour, justice and a readiness to help the weak.

(2) The rules and customs of medieval knighthood; Courtesy, respect and honourable conduct between opponents in wartime (often as a historical re-construction).

(3) The medieval system or institution of knighthood.

(4) Cavalry; horsemen armed for battle (historic use only).

(5) Collectively, knights, gallant warriors or gentlemen, fair ladies and noble chivalry (archaic).

(6) The ethical code(s) of the knight prevalent in Medieval Europe, having such primary virtues as mercy towards the poor and oppressed, humility, honour, sacrifice, fear of God, faithfulness, courage and courtesy to ladies.

(7) Courteous behaviour, especially of men towards women.

(8) In historic English law, a tenure of land granted by virtue of knightly service.

Circa 1300: From the Middle English chivalrie and the eleventh century Old French chevalerie (knighthood, chivalry, nobility, cavalry).  The early form was chevaler (knight) from the Medieval Latin caballarius (horseman), from the Latin caballus (nag, pack-horse).  The Medieval Latin caballaria (knighthood, status or fief of a knight) was the most familiar form by the twelfth century, the term chevaler long in use to describe "a knight or horseman".  The meaning (related to cavalier) "the nobility as one of the estates of the realm", dates from the fourteenth century whereas the more modern use "social and moral code of medieval feudalism" appears to be an eighteenth century historical revival.  Chivalry is a noun and chivalrous is an adjective; the noun plural is chivalries.

The Song of Roland

In Medieval Europe, there never was one universal code of chivalry.  The code was a moral construct which several authorities reduced to writing and, despite this disparate history, the concept was well understood in medieval times.  Although only parts of the codes were concerned with warfare, the texts formed the basis of the early rules of war and from here, can be traced the origins of much international law.  The epic-length poem The Song of Roland (written between 1098-1100) is a recount of the eighth century "Knights of the Dark Ages" and the wars fought by Charlemagne; it's essentially Charlemagne's Code of Chivalry but it is a literary work, a tale of betrayal and a normative text of what ought to be rather than a historical document of chivalrous warfare.  In summary, Charlemagne’s code can be reduced to:

To fear God and maintain His Church
To serve the liege lord in valor and faith
To protect the weak and defenseless
To give succor to widows and orphans
To refrain from the wanton giving of offence
To live by honour and for glory
To despise pecuniary reward
To fight for the welfare of all
To obey those placed in authority
To guard the honour of fellow knights
To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit
To keep faith
At all times to speak the truth
To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun
To respect the honour of women
Never to refuse a challenge from an equal
Never to turn the back upon a foe

The Duke of Burgundy’s Code

In the fourteenth century, the Duke of Burgundy reduced Charlemagne’s code to a list (printed on pigskin), which knights could carry in their Bibles: Faith, Charity, Justice, Sagacity, Prudence, Temperance, Resolution, Truth, Liberality, Diligence, Hope & Valor.  One can credit the Duke of Burgundy with the invention of the credo card.

The High Court of Chivalry

Lindsay Lohan usurping the escutcheon of the Secret Society of the Les Clefs d’Or (digitally altered image).

In London, in December 1954, the High Court of Chivalry was summoned for the first time in two centuries to hear the case of a city council claiming their coat of arms had been usurped by a private company displaying it on their theatre.  Before substantive matters were introduced, the judge had to rule whether the ancient court still existed and if so, if it was the appropriate body to hear the case.  The judge found the court extant and with valid jurisdiction, his reasons a succinct sketch of the UK’s unwritten constitution in operation and a tale of how law and language interacted over several centuries.  The important principle established was to confirm, even in the modern era, there existed an enforceable law of arms and the law takes as much notice of bad heraldic manners as it does of more violent discourtesies, the judge disapproving of the “prevalent” notion that something cannot be unethical if it’s lawful.  That theme has of late been noted by royal commissioners though perhaps not politicians; in the judgement, the temptation to comment on whether chivalry was dead was resisted.

In Manchester Corporation v Manchester Palace of Varieties Ltd [1955] 1 All ER 387, the Manchester Corporation was successful and the court has not since sat but in 2012,  the council of the Welsh town of Aberystwyth issued a statement that they were prepared to lodge a writ against a Facebook page they alleged was usurping its coat of arms.  Before the council made clear whether they were intending to sue facebook.com or the author(s) of the page, the offending image had been removed.  As one of the findings in 1955 had been the High Court of Chivalry could be abolished only by an act of parliament, because New Labour’s judicial reforms didn’t do this, it appears the court would have to be convened in some form to hear similar matters although it's thought the marvellously flexible British constitution would allow a judge at an appropriate level to declare that their court was "sitting as the Court of Chivalry for the purposes of this case".

Palace

Palace (pronounced pal-is)

(1) The official residence of an emperor, king, queen, bishop or other exalted personage.

(2) A large and stately mansion or building.

(3) A large and often ornate structure used for entertainment, exhibitions etc.

(4) To decorate or ornate (obsolete).

1200–1250: From the Middle English palais (official residence of an emperor, king, queen, archbishop etc), from the earlier paleys, from the Old French palais (palace, court), from the Medieval Latin palācium (“a palace” and a spelling variant of the Classical palātium (generic use of Palātium, in reference to the Palatine (from Mons Palatinus (the Palatine Hill)), one of the seven hills of Ancient Rome, where the aristocracy of the Roman Republic (and later the emperors) built large, splendid residences)).  The hill’s name may be from the Latin palus (stake) on the notion of "an enclosure" while some speculate it’s from the Etruscan and connected with Pales (said to be although this too is contested “an Italic goddess of shepherds, flocks and livestock).  One noted etymologist linked it with palatum "roof of the mouth; dome, vault", the rationale being that because “palate” can be referred to as a “flattened or vaulted” part and the terms “flat” and “vaulted” are often applied to hills in accordance with their shape; on that basis, the idea of a derivation of palatium from palatum seems compelling.  Palācium was the source also of the Spanish palacio and the Italian palazzo.  The modern French palace is a direct borrowing from the English which was from the Old French palais.  In English, the general sense of "magnificent, stately, or splendid dwelling place" emerged by circa 1300 and the ironic sense is documented from the early 1600s although it may have been in oral use earlier.  The French palais was the source of the German Palast, the Swedish palats and other Germanic forms whereas others, such as Old English palant and the Middle High German phalanze (Pflaz in modern German) are from the Medieval Latin word.  Palace is a noun, palaced & palace-like are adjective, palacing is a verb and palaceward an adverb.  The noun plural is palaces.

The noun palazzo (large and imposing building) was from the 1660s, from Italian palazzo.  The adjective palatial (of the nature of a palace, magnificent) dates from 1754 and was from the French palatial (magnificent) from the Latin palātium (see palace); the adverb palatially is noted from 1761.  In Middle English there was palasin (literally "belonging to a palace or court"), dating from circa 1400, from the Old French and palatian (1845) was a revival in that sense and most associated with the palaces of India under the Raj.  Palacious, noted first in the 1620s, meant “magnificent, of the nature of a palace” but is long obsolete.  The noun paladin is from the 1590s and was used by those (many) authors of the medieval romance cycle (one of the twelve knightly champions in attendance on Charlemagne and accompanying him to war) and was from the sixteenth century French paladin (a warrior), from the from Italian paladino, from the Latin palatinus (palace official), noun use of palatinus (of the palace).  In the Old French the spelling was palaisin (from which Middle English gained the circa 1400 palasin) but the Italian form prevailed, even though the subject matter was French, simply because most of the poets attracted to most of the poets attracted to the tales were Italian.  The extended sense of "a heroic champion" dates from 1788 and the modern use is often negative in the sense of describing operatives and functionaries associated with political leaders.

The adjective palatine (possessing quasi-royal privileges (literally "pertaining to a palace)), was by the mid-fifteenth century applied to counties and non-sovereign states, conveying the meaning "ruled by a lord who has privileges resembling those of an independent sovereign"; it was from the fifteenth century Old French palatin and directly from the Medieval Latin palatinus (of the palace (ie "of the Caesars”), from palātium.  In Medieval Latin there was palatinus, a title given to one holding any office in the palace of a prince, hence "possessing royal privileges" and best understood as something like the “courtesy titles” which are a feature of the UK’s system of peerage.  The German state of Rhineland-Palatinate was created in 1946 (as part of the abolition of Prussia) and is made up of parts of the former states of Prussia, Bavaria & Hesse (including Bavaria’s former Palatinate kreis (district)).  The historic Rhineland state was once an electorate in the Holy Roman Empire and by the early eighteenth century, Palatinate was also a noun meaning "resident of or immigrant from the German Palatine".

1200-odd rooms and twenty times the size of the White House: The Quirinal Palace, Rome.  Had things worked out better for Napoleon Boneparte (1769-1821), the Quirinal would have be the seat of his imperial rule. 

There had long been houses larger than others but as legend has it, it’s Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, 37–68; Roman emperor 54-68) who is regarded as having ordered the first.  Rome’s Palantine hill had always been a central part of the city but as the metropolis spread, it became the smartest “suburb” and the place many rich and prominent citizens built their houses.  Noting this, the Emperor Nero ordered all on the hill be evicted and their properties purchased so a vast and elaborate dwelling could be erected for him alone and this was named the palātium (literally “on the site of the palatine”).  From this history is ultimately derived the synecdochic and metonymic use of palace, the general “the palace” historically referring to the views or policies of kings and more recently to whatever may be thought or done by the now more typically non-royal inhabitants.

The Élysée Palace, Paris.

Sometimes, the reference may be specific such as “the Quirinal” (referencing Rome’s Quirinal Palace), used variously and metonymically for (1) the Italian civil government as opposed to that of the Holy See in the Vatican, (2) the (2) the court of the king as opposed to the fascist government of the Duce and (3) in Modern Italy the office of the (indirectly elected and mostly ceremonial) presidency as opposed to that of the (popularly elected and executive) prime-minister.  The use is common in countries where the head of state or government is in some way associated (though not of necessity resident) with a palace although the form of use varies for reasons which may be historic or linguistic.  In France, it’s usually “the Élysée” when speaking of the government (or sometimes of the president vis-à-vis the government) although BBC journalists do seem fond of “the Élysée Palace”.  The BBC may also be a good guide to use in the UK, impressionistically preferring “the palace” for home consumption and “Buckingham Palace” when seeking to make clear to foreign audiences that much of what is attributed to the Queen of England is really the thoughts of the royal court, an operation at the scale of a SMB (small & medium business) which runs “the firm”.  Either way, pronouncements from “the palace” or “Buckingham Palace” which once concerned the great affairs of Church, state and empire, seem now more often about family scandals and squabbles.  In the Philippines, both “Malacañang Palace” and “Malacañang” are used to refer to executive government, the choice dictated seemingly by whichever best suits the sentence construction.

A palace guard, Buckingham Palace, London.

In idiomatic use, a “palace coup” (short for Coup d'état (literally "blow of state")) is a general term indicating one faction or family member has overthrown another, something which can be as innocuous as a vote or as dramatic as actual regicide.  A “palace revolution” is actually the same thing but it would be handy if a convention of use could evolve whereby it indicates the more violent events while coups can suggest more civilized changes.  A “palace guard” is literally a police or military squad which provides both physical security and a ceremonial presence at a palace; figuratively it refers to any group protecting someone or something.  A puck palace is an informal North American terms to describe an especially impressive ice hockey stadium.

Pink gin.

The casual term gin palace (literally “A tavern that serves gin”) is anything thought a bit disreputable and a bit gaudy, reflecting London society’s disapproval of the corroding effects of gin on the working class.  A memorable variation was the “floating gin palace, applied to the Royal Navy’s HMS Agincourt, a dreadnought launched in 1913 and fitted out with unusual elaborateness because it’d originally been built to the specification of a foreign navy, the luxury attracting wits who, noting the corruption of her name (A Gin Court) and the alleged fondness by captains and admirals afloat for Pink Gin (Plymouth Gin with a dash of Angostura bitters, the bitters lending the mix a pinkish hue), decided it should be call the “floating gin palace”.

HMS Agincourt, Scapa Flow, Scotland, 1918.

HMS Agincourt was an unusual ship with a curious history and a design unique in the Admiralty list.  Built originally for the Brazilians, then in the throes of the brief but intense South American naval arms race, before completion she was sold to the Ottoman Empire but, with the outbreak of war in 1914, the ship was seized by the British, an act which some historians maintain influenced Turkey to ally with the Central Powers, thereby triggering a chain of events which included the Allied attempt to force the straits of the Dardanelles (remembered in Australia & New Zealand as the Gallipoli campaign) and the eventual break-up of the Ottoman Empire, unleashing forces which to this day still ripple across the region from the Rock of Gibraltar to the Persian Gulf.  The geopolitical speculations aside, Agincourt was of note for being the dreadnought which mounted more heavy guns (fourteen) and more turrets (seven) than any other.  Although that configuration didn’t represent the current thinking in naval architecture, it was certainly in keeping with the Brazil’s requirement for an especially impressive looking ship, rather than one optimized for a high-seas battle.

HMS Agincourt's stern gun turrets.

Reflecting this too was what remains reputedly the largest wardroom (85 x 60 feet (25.9 x 18.3 m) ever installed on a warship and one luxuriously equipped with tableware, crystal & silverware.  That was said to be an impressive sight but so must have been the wall of flame created the first time she fired those fourteen twelve inch (305 mm) naval canons in a broadside, observers noting it was “was awe inspiring and enough to enough to create the impression the ship had blown up”.  Dramatic though it was, the floating gin palace was undamaged, despite the concern of some that a broadside of 12,040 lb (5461 KG) (14 x 12 inch (305 mm) guns firing 860 lb (390 KG) shells) would impose a damaging load on the superstructure.  However, other dreadnoughts, such as the Iron Duke endured 14,000 lb (6350 KG) broadsides (10 x 13½ inch (343 mm) guns firing 1,400 lb (635 KG) shells) without ill-effect and the Agincourt too sailed serenely on.  However, much of the elegant tableware and glassware did shatter and little of what remained surviving subsequent broadsides.  Like much of the fleet, the floating gin palace saw little action during the war although she was part of the inconclusive Battle of Jutland (1916).  Agincourt was struck from the fleet in 1919 and scrapped in 1922 to meet the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty (1922).

1965 Citroën DS21 Pallas (left) & 2020 Citroën DS E Pallas Homage Study.

Citroën introduced the DS in 1955 and, because "DS" is a homophone of déesse (goddess), almost immediately it picked-up the nickname goddess.  In 1965, the factory introduced an up-market version of the DS called the Pallas, not an allusion to the luxury of palaces but a borrowing from Greek mythology, Pallas the goddess of wisdom and useful arts and prudent warfare; Pallas often used as an epithet of Athena.  The idea was that the Pallas would be thought the "goddess of Goddesses".  Citroën have since applied the Pallas moniker to many models and in 2020 a designer created the Citroën DS E Pallas Homage Study, imagining a possible electric vehicle.

Goblin

Goblin (pronounced gob-lin)

(1) In folklore, a small grotesque supernatural creature (depicted often as elf or sprite, regarded as mischievous and malevolent towards people.

(2) In modern fiction, one of various hostile supernatural creatures, in fantasy writing often depicted as malicious, grotesque and diminutive humanoids (sometimes also described as trolls or orcs.

1300–1350: From the Middle English gobelin & gobelyn (a devil, incubus, mischievous and ugly fairy), from the Middle French, from the Old Northern French gobelin (the source also of the Norman goubelin and the Walloon gobelin), perhaps a blend of the Old Dutch kobeholdo (goblin) (related also to the Dutch kabouter, the Middle High German kobold and the German Kobold) and the Late Latin cobalus (mountain sprite), from the Ancient Greek κόβαλος (kóbalos) (rogue, knave; goblin).  It displaced the native Old English pūca and was later picked up by some Easter European languages including Polish and Serbo-Croatian.  Goblin is a noun; the noun plural is goblins.

Curiously, in the twelfth century, there was also the Medieval Latin gobelinus, the name of a spirit haunting the region of Evreux, in chronicle of Orderic (Ordericus in the Latin) Vitalis) (1075-circa 1142) which etymologists say is unrelated either to the Germanic kobold or the Medieval Latin cabalus, from the Greek kobalos (impudent rogue, knave) & kobaloi (wicked spirits invoked by rogues), of unknown origin; it’s speculated it may be a diminutive of the proper name Gobel chosen for some reason (even as an in-joke) by the author.  Orderic’s Chronicles have been extensively cross-referenced against other primary and secondary sources and historians regard them as among the more reliable Medieval texts.  His other great work was the Historia Ecclesiastica, written in the last twenty years of his life (the bulk of the text composed between 1123-1132).  One interesting aspect of the history noted by etymologists was that although the French gobelin seems not to have appeared for over two centuries after the word emerged in English, it does appear in twelfth century texts in Medieval Latin and it’s thought few people who in some way adhered to folk magic used Medieval Latin.  John Wycliffe (circa 1328–1384) must have thought the word sufficiently well-known to use it in his translation of the Bible (published 1382-1395) intended to be read by (or more typically read to) a wide audience.  Psalms 91:5: Thou schalt not drede of an arowe fliynge in the dai, of a gobelyn goynge in derknessis.  Unfortunately, in the King James Version (KJV; 1611), the passage was rendered as the less evocative: Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.

A goblin shark (left) and a 1962 Dodge Dart station wagon (right).

The horrid looking goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni, also knonw as the elfin shark), goblin shark a calque of its traditional Japanese name tenguzame (tengu a Japanese mythical creature often depicted with a long nose and red face).  The last survivor of ancient lineage and one that retains several "primitive" traits, it's been called a "living fossil" and despite the fearsome appearance, dwelling at great depth, there have been no reports of attacks on people.  There's nothing to suggest Dodge's stylists were in the early 1960s influenced by the sight of a goblin shark; within Chrysler, it was just their time of "peak weirdness".

The system works: A goblin shark eats a fish.  Things didn't work out so well for the 1962 Chryslers which received some hasty re-styles to achieve a more conventional look. 

Folklore (and latter-day fantasy writing) has produced a number of derived terms including gobbo, goblette, gobioid, gobony, goblincore, goblinish, goblinize, goblinkind, goblinry, goblinesque & goblinish.  The history of the goblin’s depiction as something grotesque attracted some in zoology who named the goblin spider (which doesn’t look much more frightening than most arthropods) and the truly bizarre goblin shark which does live up to the name.  The noun hobgoblin dates from the 1520s, the construct being hob (elf), from Hobbe, a variant of Rob (short for Robin Goodfellow, an elf character in German folklore) + goblin.  Hobgoblins & goblins are all supernatural and all regard humans with malicious intent.  Traditionally, they are depicted as human-animal hybrids with an appearance tending to the former and they were said to assail, afflict and generally annoy folk before retreating to their haunts under bridges on in secluded spots in forests; Shakespeare’s contrast being: “Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,” (Hamlet, act I, scene 4).  Gremlins are a more modern creation and are especially prevalent in machinery, breaking things and disrupting production, their cousins in software being bugs.

Goblins from Texas en masse (left) and the one-off Goblin, Perth, Australia, 1959.

Although there have been Demons and Ghosts, no car manufacture seems ever have been tempted to build a Goblin although one Texas-based operation does offer a minimalist kit-car with the name and an enterprising Australian in 1959 chose it for a home-made special.  The Antipodean Goblin was the bastard offspring of unpromising origins: the chassis of a 1928 Essex, the drive-train from a wrecked Holden 48-215 (aka FX, 1948-1953).  Unusually for the era in which aluminum or fibreglass was preferred by small-scale producers, the body was all steel and apparently recycled from the donor Holden (although the grill components appear borrowed from the later FJ Holden (1956-1956), re-shaped with lines which owed something to both the MGA and AC Ace, later to become famous as the Shelby Cobra.  Its fate is unknown but, in the ways of such things, survival is unlikely.

1974 AMC Gremlin X.  Despite the ungainly look, it was a commercial success.

There was however a Gremlin, built between 1970-1978 by American Motors Corporation (AMC) (production in Mexico lasted until 1983 under AMC's Vehículos Automotores Mexicanos (VAM) subsidiary).  Created in the AMC manner (in a hurry, at low cost), the Gremlin was essentially a shortened AMC Hornet (1970-1977) with a kammback tail and was a successful foray into the sub-compact (in US terms) market, something well-timed given the importance the segment would assume during the difficult decade the 1970s became.  Purchased almost exclusively on the basis of cost-breakdown, the Gremlin did however attract the interest of the ever imaginative drag-racing crowd because, although AMC never fitted anything more powerful than a distinctly non-powerful (malaise-era) 304 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8, because (like Pontiac), AMC used much the same block size for all second-generation V8s, fitting their 401 (6.6) to the Gremlin was simple.  Many were produced, some in small runs with factory support and, being relatively light and small, the performance was more than competitive with some of the notably more expensive competition.

De Havilland Goblin jet-engine schematic (left) and prototype Gloster Meteor (DG207G) with Goblin engines, de Havilland airfield, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, 26 October 1945.

The origin of the jet engine lay in designs by French and German engineers which in principle would have worked but, as the authorities at the time realized, the metallurgy of the time hadn’t advanced to the point where alloys light enough to be viable and able to withstand the temperatures to which they’d be subjected, hadn’t been developed.  Progress however was made and in 1931 an English engineer was granted a patent for what was the first recognizably modern jet engine although, bizarre as it seems in hindsight, the Air Ministry allowed the patent to lapse and it was the German Heinkel company which first flew a jet-powered aircraft when the He 178 took briefly to the air in August 1939.  Fortunately, the Luftwaffe high-command was as short-sighted as the Air Ministry (“the bloody Air Marshals” Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964) called them while minister for aircraft production (1940-1941)) and, knowing their immediate need was for a capable, reliable fighter force within two years, declined to fund development of a project which would absorb at least three years of expensive development to be battle-ready.  The British however by then saw the potential and in June 1939 ordered production of experimental airframes and engines; it was these which would become the basis of the Gloster Meteor, powered by the de Havilland Goblin.  Both would enjoy surprisingly long lives, the Goblin in series production between 1944-1954 while the Meteor, although by then obsolescent, served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) until 1955, while in overseas service, some militaries didn’t retire their last planes until 1974.

Lindsay Lohan in goblin mode.

“Goblin mode” is a neologism for rejecting societal expectations and living in an unkempt, hedonistic manner without regards to self-image and Oxford University Press (OUP), publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), recently announced “goblin mode” as their 2022 word of the year.  Ignoring (as in the past) criticism from pedants they had picked a phrase rather than a word, OUP also provided a mini-usage guide, suggesting the most popular forms were “I am in goblin mode” or “to go goblin mode” and the meaning imparted was “unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy”.  This year’s award differs from OUP’s usual practice in that it was chosen by public vote from a choice of three selected by their lexicographers.  Unlike some recent elections, there can be no suggesting this one was “stolen”, goblin mode winning in a landslide with 318,956 votes, 93% of the valid ballots cast.  While it can’t be proven, the margin of victory might have been greater still had those already in goblin mode not been too lazy to bother voting.

The win has provoked some comment because, despite having been used on-line since first appearing (apparently on twitter) in 2009, it’s hardly been popular and some have speculated its success can be attributed to it being the one which most appealed to an audience with memories of COVID-19 lockdowns still raw, a goodly number of voters probably recognizing it was goblin mode into which many had lapsed during isolation.  The other choices OUP offered were “Metaverse” and #IStandWith”, both probably more familiar but, lacking novelty and the quality of self-identification, clearly less appealing.  OUP also noted the suggestion there may be in the zeitgeist, something of a rebellion against “the increasingly unattainable aesthetic standards and unsustainable lifestyles exhibited on social media”.

The Nightmare (1781), oil on canvas by John Henry Fuseli (1741-1825).  The juxtaposition of sleeping beauty and goblin provoked many reactions when first displayed and encouraged Fuseli to paint several more versions.  The Nightmare has been the subject of much speculation and interpretation, including the inevitable debate between the Freudians and Jungians and was taken as a base also by political cartoonists, a bunch more nasty in the eighteenth century than our more sanitized age.

Paraphernalia

Paraphernalia (pronounced par-uh-fer-neyl-yuh or par-uh-fuh-neyl-yuh)

(1) Tools, equipment, apparatus or furnishing used in or necessary for a particular activity (sometimes used with a singular verb).

(2) Personal belongings (used with a plural verb).

(3) At common law, a historic term for the personal articles, apart from dower, reserved by law to a married woman as goods the title of which did not pass to her husband upon marriage (used with a singular verb).

1470-1480: From the Medieval Latin paraphernālia, from the Ancient Greek παράφερνα (parápherna) (goods which a wife brings over and above her dowry), the construct being παρά (pará) (beside) +‎ φερνή (phernḗ) (dowry), + the Latin -ālia, (noun use of neuter plural of –ālis), thus the “things additional to a dowry”.  Among the propertied classes, title to the possessions of a wife (the dowry) passes to the husband upon marriage while the paraphernalia which she brought remained her property. Paraphernalia is a noun and paraphernal is an adjective.  Paraphernalia, perhaps strangely, is now inherently singular because a paraphernalia is a granular construct made of a number of items.  The Medieval Latin paraphernālia was the neuter plural of paraphernlis, pertaining to the parápherna (a married woman's property exclusive of her dowry) so in the Latin it was a plural and the singular was paraphernlis but the word has been absorbed into English as a plural.  Paraphenalium has been suggested but is likely just undergraduate humor.

Twenty-first century paraphernalia.

Paraphernalia in what is now the normal conversational sense refers to the “stuff” associated with and sometimes specific to some activity, modern usage by analogy, unrelated to status of ownership.  Hooks, and sinkers are part of the paraphernalia of fishing, brushes and easels those of painting.  The word has become a favorite of police who, when searching for drugs, don’t actually need to find any to bring charges, drug paraphernalia being enough to convince some judges, especially if accused has “a bit of previous”.  The more elaborate synonyms of paraphernalia are appurtenances, accoutrements, parapherna or trappings but most useful and certainly best understood is “stuff”.

Public service announcement: Lindsay Lohan sends the message.

In the context of the illicit use of narcotics, the term “paraphernalia” is sometimes referenced in legislation but there’s often not any attempt to list exactly which items may be considered thus, the definition hanging on purpose rather than form.  It refers to any equipment, product or material used primarily or intended for use in connection with the production, preparation, or consumption of illicit drugs.  Drug users can be imaginative in the adoption of hardware for purposes other than what was in the designer’s mind and a wide range of stuff has appeared as exhibits in prosecutions.  In some jurisdictions, possession, sale or distribution of drug paraphernalia can be unlawful, even if there’s no evidence of the presence of narcotics.  Examples of drug paraphernalia include:

(1) Smoking devices: Pipes, bongs, water pipes, hookahs, and rolling papers used for smoking marijuana, crack cocaine, or methamphetamine.  Obviously, some of these items can also be used lawfully to consume (dual-use in the language of sanctions) substances like tobacco so the possibility of prosecution depends on the circumstances of each case.

(2) Syringes and needles: These typically are associated with intravenous drug use, most infamously heroin and other opioids but there are many substances (including Diazepam (Valium) and other pharmaceuticals) which can appear in liquid form.

(3) Spoons and straws: Small spoons or hollow tubes (often depicted in popular culture being rolled from high-value US$ bills) are used to “snort” drugs supplied or rendered in powdered form, of which cocaine is the best known.  The popular association of spoons with cocaine led to the comparison “silver spoon vs paper plate” to contrast the user profile with that of the much cheaper crack cocaine.

(4) Grinders: Devices used to break down marijuana buds into smaller particles for smoking or vaporization.  There are specialized products for this but others use the regular kitchen item intended for grinding herbs such as mint when making mint sauce.  Weed smokers like to give their grinders affectionate names like “mull-o-matic”.

(5) Scales: High-precision scales are used to weigh drugs for distribution or sale.  Modern electronics mean these can now be very small.

(6) Roach clips: There are metal or plastic clips used to hold the end of a joint, allowing users to smoke without risk of burning the finger tips.  It’s just common sense really.

(7) Pill bottles and pill crushers: These are used to store and crush prescription medications for illicit use.  In recent years there’s also been a crackdown on pill making devices which also have a legitimate purpose in communities such as the “holistic health” set who make their own pills from (non-narcotic) herbs.

(8) Freebase kits: One of the part-numbers associated with the trade of the dark web, the kits include the tools needed to convert cocaine hydrochloride into a smokable form, such as crack cocaine.

Historically, at common law, upon marriage, a woman’s assets became possessions of her husband, title passing automatically.  The exception was her paraphernalia which tended to include things inherently personal (clothes, sewing equipment, shoes etc) but could in certain circumstances include items of jewelry.  A husband could neither appropriate nor sell paraphernalia without her explicit consent and they did not accrue to his estate upon death but a woman could include paraphernalia in her will.  Concept is now obsolete in all common law jurisdictions but can still be cited in disputes over wills, though only in argument and the scope is limited.

Medieval paraphernalia.

Inherited from Greek and Roman law, in English law, paraphernalia differed from some of the property rights granted to women and mentioned in various iterations of the Magna Carta (1215-1225) in that it wasn't mentioned and assumed an at times strained co-existence with customary practice, the procedures of the Church, common law and civil law, judges feeling often constrained to distinguish between "our law" and "spiritual law", the latter tending always to be more generous to a widow.  All the medieval evidence however does hit that attempts to enforce ecclesiastical law were probably fitful although it may be that matters involving disputes about paraphernalia were either rare or nor recorded.  Where matters are recorded, they concerned not stuff like pins and needles but variations of apparel, a wide category which could include anything a woman might wear and that might be shoes, gowns or jewelry; in other words, like just about any dispute brought to court, money was involved.  Some jurisdictions were more accommodating still, The late-medieval and early-modern Court of Canterbury recognizing a "widow's chamber" which included her bed, the contents of her bedchamber, her apparel, her jewels and the chest in church all was stored.  There exists even records of proto-feminist husbands counter-signing their wife's list of what she considered her paraphernalia; a kind of early pre-nuptial arrangement.  The common law courts of course always preferred the rules of common law to any recognition of customary practice but in the Chancery courts of equity, successive chancellors recognized the local rules of London and York which, although abolished respectively in 1692 and 1724 and neither had anyway mentioned paraphernalia.  Despite the abolition however, at least in some instances, courts in London continued to make awards to widows based on the old rules.

Eighteenth century paraphernalia.

The most significant definitional development regarding paraphernalia dates from 1585 and it turned on the meaning of "apparel", extending the meaning of the term at common law.  What it did was confirm what some earlier judgements had at least implied: That it was no longer confined to pins and petticoats, items of little financial value, the wife in this case claiming as paraphernalia jewels and items of precious metal.  The plaintiff, citing medieval authorities, claimed it was established law that all the apparel of a woman was not paraphernalia but only that which was necessary and essential, ad necessitatem, not baubles and jewels which were ad ornamentum. How the court might have ruled on that as a general principle isn’t known because the matter appears to have been decided on the basis of the social status of the widow, a viscountess, the fourth wife of the viscount and some forty years his junior.  Whether the age difference attracted a sympathetic eye from the bench isn’t noted but the judge agreed that “parapherna” should be allowed to a widow according to her degree and viscountess being of a suitably high degree, he allowed he claim.  She kept the jewels.  While she may not have set a precedent in the narrow technical sense, the report of the case suggests this was not the first occasion where judges had been called upon to define what could be considered apparel based on the social and economic position of the widow, the viscountess certainly seems to have started a trend.  Just about every reported case thereafter, the paraphernalia sought was almost always jewelry.

So there was progress and by the end of the eighteenth century a widow was likely to keep many more of her personal possessions than women six-hundred years earlier, both the common law and equity courts expanding the definitional framework of paraphernalia well beyond the clothes on her back and case law existed to establish a husband could not by the operation of his will deprive his widow of her rights.  However, much still lay ahead, a husband’s debts in some cases still able to absorb paraphernalia, nothing prevented a husband giving away any of his wife’s possessions during his lifetime and a cleverly arranged trust could still defeat just about anything.  Still, progress there had been.

The legal progress attracted not just the odd viscountess but also the author Anthony Trollope (1815–1882), one with an eye for antics of an avaricious aristocracy.  In The Eustace Diamonds (1871), he tracks the progress of the beautiful but entirely unprincipled and recently widowed Lizzie Eustace through the dual plot of her husband-hunting and attempts to keep a cluster of diamonds, it being consequential whether they were an heirloom and therefore the property of her late husband’s heirs, or part of her paraphernalia and thus her own.  Most modern fiction may be worthless but Trollop is rewarding; everyone should read the Chronicles of Barsetshire (1855-1867).