True Crime and Gossip

Dear Reader,

Are you looking for some super obscure true-crime stories that your friends definitely don't know about!? Or maybe some hundred-and-thirteen-year-old gossip? Well, have I got news for you! I know that I have been enthusiastically advocating for these projects that I've been working on, and I get it, they might not seem all that interesting, but please read on! I might just succeed in convincing you that there is a cool side to academia and research.

True Crime

Ok, so for the Medieval Anglo-Jewish Women (MAJW) project (fresh off the press with a new edition as of March 28), I have a medieval murder mystery for you! Can you solve the murder of Solomon Turbe? The best place to start might be Mirabel of Gloucester. Since Mirabel is one of thirty-six featured women of MAJW, she has a biography on her page, which was written by Project Lead and Editor Dr. Adrienne Boyarin.

If you click on the names above, they will link you to each of their person pages. Person pages will give you the locations that they've been (for court), relatives that they have, and records that they appear in. If you want to start digging around the evidence of this murder mystery, the "Records" section at the bottom of the person page is the place to start. Each record has an event page that tells you information like the location, business, and date of the court case—all the key pieces of evidence that you might use to solve the mystery. This is the first event page from Solomon Turbe's person page (I believe this is the last record that the MAJW site has of him alive). Some of the secondary sources, which can be found at the bottom of each event page, are even viewable online (like certain Fine Rolls and Plea Rolls)! The secondary sources are translations or transcriptions of the original manuscripts of court cases concerning the businesses of Jewish women from 1154 to 1307. (If you get lost by following the source links on the MAJW site, then the event pages also provide page number and manuscript number.)

So, if Solomon's murder piqued your interest, then what are you waiting for? Dive into the nitty-gritty evidence—and then do a podcast on it! Or maybe comment below what you find!

Gossip

Isn't it funny when men degrade other men due to toxic masculinity? Well, not that funny, but it's about as funny and interesting as murder mysteries (and you've read this far; congrats by the way!). A previous project that I worked on (and which I hold very dear to my heart because it was my first) focuses on the entries of Romantic Era Poets in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911) and compares them with the contemporary articles of American scholars.

It is so interesting to me how even formal or prestigious texts can throw some fairly hefty shade; and I love it when contemporary scholars come to the rescue of people like little Johnny Keats. If you click his name and follow the link, you may notice that one of the first things that Algernon Swinburne writes is that "in Keats’s first book there was little foretaste of anything greatly or even genuinely good."

Now, this critique of John Keats's first book of poetry is warranted. The book is most commonly known to have not been very good; I think even he figured that one out. What was probably not warranted, though, is how Swinburne so comically continues to bash Keats's work and his lack of "manliness." Go check it out; tell me what you think!

Margaret Byrant's half of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB11) article is much more reserved and factual, and Susan J. Wolfson's contemporary article is very informative and refreshing to read. She wrote two other articles for the EB11 project: Felicia Dorothea Hemans and Dorothy Wordsworth. I recommend checking those out too (if not the whole website)! If you'd like to know more about the authors of each of the articles on Keats's page, you can click on the names of the authors, which are found at the bottom of each article on the EB11 side and near the title on the contemporary side (a mini biography will pop up).

Last Thoughts

I hope that this informal article inclines you to check out these lonely websites. They don't get much traffic, mainly because the projects cover niche topics that only specific researchers might find interesting enough to seek out. Additionally, we live in a tough era where internet resources still don't hold the same value as a book or journal article—and if these texts are online, they are usually hiding behind a university library access point (password or IP address protected), or a substantial subscription or pay wall. Websites like MAJW and the EB11 project are caught in a limbo where they are marketed towards researchers but are in a format (free, online website) which more so caters to the general public. There's this weird overlap where the standards of researchers and the interests of the public aren't yet able to be conveyed through literature in a compatible way. HCMC works to change this incompatibility by making their websites reliable, as well as user friendly and accessible.

Let me know any of your thoughts! If you subscribe, you will have my email; I am always open for a conversation!

Cheers,

Alexandria

P.S. This is a personal/informal article and is not technically affiliated with HCMC, the projects, or UVic. I am a student and employee, but these organizations may hold different opinions than those represented in the article above.

Works Cited

Blank, G. Kim, ed. Home page.Poets THEN and NOW: The 1910-1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Romantic Poetry Project. Edition 1.3. University of Victoria, 10th January 2024.

"Medieval Anglo Jewish Women: Home Page." Medieval Anglo-Jewish Women, Edition 0.8, edited by Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin. Victoria: University of Victoria, 28th March 2024.