Those of you interested in Medieval folklore may be interested in two new papers concerning beliefs in the Mediterranean islands in the 15th century. 

 

Recently the writing system of a Medieval manuscript was revealed to be proto-Romance: i.e. the ancestor to Spanish and the other modern Romance languages. In addition, it is written with a proto-Italic alphabet. It is the only known document of this kind and therefore has considerable linguistic and historic importance.

 

Two papers have been issued, which explain the writing system and translate a number of excerpts as examples. They can be freely downloaded from the LingBuzz website. 

1. Linguistic Missing Links: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003737 
2. Linguistically Dating and Locating MS408: http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003808

 

The manuscript reveals that the Mediterranean population has a belief systems that combined Christianity with vestigial Pagan-Roman ideas, which is why the Catholic inquisitions occured, in an attempt to root out heretic beliefs. From our point of view the manuscript divulges some fascinating notions of malevolent and benevolent spirits, such as Vulcan of the firey underworld and Lar the protector, respectively. The second paper gives an account of the rescue of folk from the island of Vulcano in 1444, which makes reference to the dark magic and forces of Vulcan, beyond human control, and the sanctuary provided by Lar.