[Sca-cooks] Fun and ignorance - The Response

[Laura C. Minnick]

I have a couple of small remarks-

At 05:13 PM 10/14/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Signora Apollonia Margherita degli Albizzi wrote:
>>
>> Here are the thought of the editor of the page...
>
>... and I have inserted another way to analyze her response ...
>
>Please NOTE that my comments here are simply my initial analysis of
>the editor's response to Apollonia merely to expose the wide use of
>false rhetoric in that response.
>
>Please keep in mind that the study of Rhetoric (reasoning, discourse,
>true and false arguments), ... was a required course of study in the
>Middle Ages.  ... but, sadly, not emphasized nearly enough in the
>current era.

How wonderful to use a medieval tactic to analyze this! I heartily approve!

>> Second- you offer no validity for your comments such as a PHD in
>> cultural study for example.  Which I suspect you are not as if you
>> were- you would first of all know that although N. Culpepper was
>> notorious in his day- that was the case only in particular realms
>> and not the whole of the medieval era GLOBALLY.
>
>Ad Hominem attack against Apollonia
>
>Misleading response since Culpepper is a Renaissance source not Medieval.

Most moderns don't know the difference.

>> Everyone who has bothered to study herbalism is also aware that much
>> of Culpepper's information is erroneous to modern standards - and was
>> also disputed by his contemporaries, as well as by some noted
>> herbalists later to his day but still historical to us in the 21st
>> century...
>
>Ad Hominem Attack
>False premise -- after all, it is possible to study herbalism without
>knowing about Culpepper.

Especially if one is wonking with medieval sources, not ren.

>> Fourthly- the article was tying in the impact of the religious
>> mindset in broad terms.
>
>Off topic non sequitor ... or ... did we misunderstand:  maybe the
>subject/topic of her web page was actually about religion in the Middle
>Ages and we did not have the wit to recognize her actual point.

I thought this one was BS myself- it is apparent that she is not even sort
of qualified to address religious issues, neither does she cite any
religious experts in her list of learned sources. I might as well insist
that the work I'm doing on manners and serving is of religious nature, and
list Furnivall as my source. Which is apropos of nothing...

>> During the dark ages the practice of using herbs for medicine,
>> beauty, and household maintainence was a practice generally employed
>> only by monastery monks and "herbalists"; it was not an accepted part
>> of the medical mainstream.
>
>BTW, this is an implied appeal to authority -- here, she is suggesting
>that the University trained doctors were the only ones who practiced
>healing arts.  That trend did become stronger at the time of
>Hildegard von Bingen, but would not apply to earlier periods.

She's wrong on that count, and she also uses the blanket 'the dark ages',
which reflect an ignorance of the period. So what are we? Renaissance, or
pre-Christian? There is a difference.

>> I correspond with Doctorates in ancient studies from all over the
>> world- none of whom would EVER make such clearly unkind and cruel
>> remarks.
>
>Appeal to Authority
>Anonymous Authority

More BS- and I don't know who she corresponds with, but I'm on academic
lists, and I'll tell you, they are not immune from human frailties such as
unkind and cruel responses. What I saw of Appolonia's letter doesn't even
sort of compare to some of the blasts from the furnaces of scholarship that
I've seen. Clearly, this woman hasn't a clue. And since when do Doctorates
in ancient studies have to do with medieval herbalism? I don't pretend to
know anything about the Greeks and Etruscans...

>> Editor- Alternative-Beauty.com

Which is like saying that USA-Today is brilliant and insightful scholarly
work on contemporary politics...

Feeling snarky today.

BTW- I appear to have two copies of the Sloane 'Boke of Curtasye' (BL
ms.1986), c 1460, but the editions are a little different. I don't have the
title page on the one with the ms number and date, and the other has not ms
number, teh editor Halliwell calls it the Sloane text, and gives teh date
as 'Fourteenth Century'. Does anyone have any idea which edition is which?
It appears that the bulk of the text is the same, but I would like to be
sure of the ms. and date... Johanna? Anyone? Help!

'Lainie
___________________________________________________________________________
"This would be a better world for children if the parents had to eat the
spinach." Groucho Marx, _Animal Crackers_