that the bubonic plague was constantly on the minds of people throughout Europe, Asia, and especially northern Africa (where most outbreaks began) during this period. Its principal symptoms were widely known, and its details known enough for someone like Berthe to realize that if her husband’s sores had not developed into buboes, the near-black sores that gave the Death its name, the disease was likely not the plague. On the other hand, many other people were not capable of such discrimination, leaving open the possibility that Berthe’s ability was only a product of her association with Isadora, a gifted healer. —C.C.
‡ “rose fever” Variations on this term can be found in more than a few ancient and medieval manuscripts, as can the many other names given to what was almost certainly typhoid fever; but it is important to note that “rose fever” could denote several other mortal fevers and sicknesses that shared crucial symptoms. The most common of these was typhus, and the general inability to tell the difference between the two during ancient and medieval times — evident in the similarity of and relationship between names — was a problem especially pertinent to and within the Broken Manuscript, as shall be seen. Even Gibbon, given the extent of medical knowledge in his eighteenth century, was in no position to make such distinctions (indeed, it was only in the nineteenth century that typhoid fever and typhus were definitely identified as two different illnesses); and at the time during which the events in the Manuscript were taking place, the lines between pestilences were far more blurred, so that the term “rose fever” likely included several other candidates, as well. Today, we can be more discriminating, and try to accurately distinguish between what were certainly (as we shall soon see) two illnesses that struck at the kingdom of Broken and the lands around it at the same time, but that were labeled “plague” by the stricken peoples; and the most important differentiating factor, in terms of understanding the events that the rest of the Manuscript chronicles, lies in the methods of transmission of these illnesses: direct physical contact with the afflicted, breathing of the same air or drinking of the same water, and finally (as we shall soon see) eating the same diet, a practice that brings into the picture yet another widespread disease with certain similar (actually, more horrific, but, ironically, less virulent) symptoms, a further confusion that would make the situation even harder to analyze. Note: To say more of this last method of transmission at this juncture, however, would be to spoil the suspense that the narrator is working hard to construct, at this as at other points: it is enough that we note, here, that two diseases were actually at work in Broken, and that none of them was actually “the plague” or “the Death,” phrases generally reserved for the Black Death, or bubonic plague.
Finally, it also should be noted that this phenomenon of two diseases being identified as one was not at all unusual, during this historical era; in fact, it is in many ways typical, especially of how little medicine had been allowed to advance by the various monotheistic faiths (for whom dissection of the bodies of those killed by the afflictions was a sin), in the four or five hundred years since Galen. —C.C.
† Bohemer and Jerej Both Slavic, and probably Slovak (given the geography), names, of which Gibbon comments, “We know the Slavs to have followed earlier invader tribes into central Europe by the beginning of the sixth century, and we must concern ourselves here with one of the principal groupings of this race, the Bulgars, whom we know to have undergone, by the late seventh century, a fractious division into two or more ‘empires’ of ‘great khans’—neither of which ‘empire,’ we should note, was as powerful or even as large as Broken. One of the chief factions thus produced moved east to the familiar ground of the Volga, while the other pushed on to establish itself upon the lower Danube; and from this forcefully acquired territory, the second group immediately commenced raiding the settlements, not only of the Byzantine [or Eastern Roman] empire to the south, but of other barbarian tribes in other directions. It therefore seems entirely credible that, by the moment of Broken’s crisis two centuries later, superfluous, criminal, or merely adventurous members of this empire — which had by then become firmly entrenched — might have struck out on their own, to find their fortunes in such famously wealthy kingdoms as Broken. Or, they may have been prisoners of war — or perhaps they even entered Broken, like Heldo-Bah, under the rather sinisterly ingenious policy of indentured servitude that allowed flesh-dealers to cheat Broken’s laws concerning slavery.” The two names, like the two servants, have rather contradictory natures, each being Broken dialectal versions of Slovak names, in the first case for “god of peace,” the second, “worker of the earth.” — C.C.
‡ bulger Gibbon writes, “While we have no specific justification for believing as much, it seems plain, given the information gleaned thus far, that this adjective is connected to a name: ‘Bulgar,’ which remains the shortened form of ‘Bulgarian.’ But there is a matter of interest here that makes the word, perhaps, more than just another Broken adaptation of another people’s name: when the narrator refers to the Frankesh (‘Frankish’) or to the Varisian (‘Frisian’) tribes, the first letter of each name appears in the upper case, as a measure of respect, one not accorded to such tribes as the seksents (Saxons), a name which, as we have seen, the subjects of Broken likely equated with ‘peasants.’ Apparently their attitude toward bulgers was similar; indeed, it is possible that this little piece of the Broken dialect contributed to one of the modern German terms for ‘vulgar,’ vulgar, as much as did the commonly-cited Latin vulgaris.” [It should be noted, here, that Gibbon is indulging his sometimes wild taste for speculation. —C.C.]
† Isadora’s “makeup” Ignored, perhaps not surprisingly, by Gibbon, are these examples of ancient and medieval cosmetics from opposite ends of the safety spectrum: rose water (produced when rose oil is creating through the steam distilling of rose petals) was used then much as it is today, for harmlessly scenting and softening the skin, while galena is the naturally occurring form of lead sulfide, with all the toxic implications that the term implies. Fortunately, Isadora is using it, as did many, as eye make-up alone, which would limit the area of application, diminishing absorption through the skin and making accidental interaction with the eye the only real danger. “Lip paint,” in which flower or berry juice was used for tinting, usually had a beeswax base, making the only possible toxic reaction in this case the effect of the poppies themselves: not a concern, as the plants had to have flowered to produce petals for tinting, whereas opium is derived from first scoring the immature seed pods of the plant, then harvesting the thin latex that oozes from the cuts, and finally processing it. —C.C.
† “surcoat” Both Old Saxon and Old Low German had terms that contributed to the word “coat”; and so, while “surcoat” itself is derived from the French and is also a term that came into use in a later period, there was almost certainly an analogous concept in the Broken dialect. The more interesting question here is not one of etymology, but of the object itself, since surcoats bearing heraldic figures are not even thought to have been in use in Europe until well after the eighth century. Yet, because the crest that appears on the surcoat in question — the rampant bear of Broken — involves the emblem of a kingdom, instead of a family or an individual knight, it is consistent with the development of European heraldry, which was still using such crests as most ancient peoples (particularly the Romans) did: to connote national, imperial, or individual military unit identity, rather than family or personal distinction. —C.C.
‡ “… best marauder sword …” The debate over which Eastern “marauding” tribes — that is, those who raided into Europe, such as the Huns, Avars, and Mongols — as well as which Muslim armies (or, more precisely, which parts of which Muslims armies) carried the kind of curved blade that Dagobert is said to be girded with, here, is one that has persisted for well over a hundred years. Some authorities claim that there is a widespread misperception — largely created by fiction and Hollywood — that such “exotic” or “Oriental” peoples as the Muslims and the Huns used curved, single-edged sabers and scimitars, in keeping with their non-Roman, non- Western appearance. But in fact, while there is strong reason to think that raiding peoples may have adopted such a weapon during the period under discussion for their cavalry units (curved blades being easier to withdraw from an enemy’s body at high speed), those marauder and Muslim soldiers who made up their infantry arms almost always copied the enormously successful double-edged, straight weapons of the Sassanid Persian Empire. As is so often the case, in such debates, one can scarcely do better than to go back to the remarkable archaeological work done by the famed traveler, adventurer, and “Orientalist,” Sir Richard F. Burton, contained in his The Book of the Sword, originally published in 1884, but wisely kept in print by Dover in an only slightly edited and abridged edition of 1987. —C.C.
† “… skulls piled as high as mountains …” Gibbon writes, “This mention of the infamous piling of enemy skulls, usually associated with later leaders such as Genghis Khan and Tamburlaine is of use in dispelling those same legends: it demonstrates that the notion of enormous piles of skulls is a far older bogey for children than has previously been imagined, thus weakening the idea that it was ever anything other than a useful nursery tool.” In fact, the exact truth may never be known about such infamous and dramatic tales concerning the
