In the late 16th century, with Spain dominating southern Italy and influencing the north, Grand Duke Ferdinand I pushed for more autonomy in Tuscany. Aside from improving the economy at home and making Livrono a free port, he also looked to establish colonies abroad - in Africa - but Spain and Portugal refused. Not looking to give up so easily, he looked further afield.

It was then that Ferdinand ordered an expedition, in 1608, to explore the Amazon and Orinoco rivers. The exploratory mission - known as the Thornton Expedition after the English sailor Robert Thornton who was commissioned to head it - sought to establish a colony in South America to facilitate trade in valuable Amazonian goods, such as spices, dyes, and medicinal plants, and to enhance Tuscany’s economic influence. He focused the mission on parts of the Amazon and Guiana as they were less tightly controlled by Spain & Portugal.

However, Ferdinand’s death - in early 1609 - cut the project short, and his successor Cosimo II abandoned it. The Thornton Expedition wasn’t a total loss, however. They not only were able to utilize extensive maps from Livorno’s renowned cartographic school but they brought back a lot of new information. Robert Dudley, Earl of Warwick, had joined the crew while in Livorno, eventually creating the first maritime atlas and introduced Mercator projection maps to Italy [3]. Other “belongings” they returned with included unknown metals, a few dozen aborigines and some tropical parrots.

While the mission ended prematurely, Ferdinand’s death underscored the reality that Tuscany might have established the only Italian colony in South America. The failure sheds light on how smaller Italian states - namely Venice, Genoa and Florence - couldn’t compete with major colonial powers when it came to establishing their own.

Here’s an imaginary map of what the colony might have looked like, along with a short story, in Italian, on how it might have proceeded.

Additional Information

1 - The Brazilian spice trade

2 - Reimagining roots in the New World

3 - Il tentativo toscano di colonizzare le Americhe (14m)

Sources

1 - L’esperimento coloniale fallito di Ferdinando de’ Medici.

2 - From Livorno the "Thornton expedition", colonial attempt by Ferdinando I

Under a treaty aimed at redrawing European borders post-World War I, the region of South Tyrol was transferred from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire to Italy. This move was part of a pre-war treaty, where Italy agreed to join the Allies in exchange for new territories. At the time of this cession in 1919, South Tyrol was predominantly German-speaking, with about 90% of its inhabitants using German as their first language. This fact presented a challenge for Italy as it sought to integrate these new territories into its culture and language as well as incorporate 220,000 German (and Ladin-speaking) Tyroleans into Italy.

This integration process, known as Italianization (or Provvedimenti per l'Alto Adige), was actually a forced assimilation of the majority to adjust to the minority, in what might be deemed - at least regionally - an upside-down cultural hegemony. Its aim was not merely to Italianize the region but rather to ban both Austrian influences and the German language across South Tyrol. Its implementation occurred in a gradual manner, starting with administrative changes, but escalated sharply with Mussolini's rise to power in 1922.

Catacomb Schools

In the realm of education, the 1923 Gentile Law centralized and standardized Italy's school system, aligning it with Fascist ideology. The law, combined with Italianization, brought about the banishment of German as a language of instruction in 1925, which affected 30,000 students. As a result, it led to the creation of an underground network of secret German schools known as Katakombenschulen (catacomb schools) or Notschulen (emergency schools) where 5,000 children studied at least two hours per week. Among the driving forces leading the effort for clandestine learning was priest Michael Gamper who said:

If we are no longer allowed to speak German in public, then we will do as the first Christians did; we will go underground, we will go into the cellars, we will go into the catacombs [1]

Aside from financing, via a German cultural association - the VDA, books had to be spirited among farms and convents, and teacher aides had to be procured. Two-thirds of the estimated 500 young female volunteers were soon smuggled in from both Germany and Austria.

These verboten hotbeds of grammar drills, declinations and case systems reportedly started in 1923 when the proverbial writing was already on the wall. Teaching was done in homes, farmhouses and churches, in small groups to minimize detection, with lessons mostly held late in the evening. The sessions operated under the constant threat of raids, leading to a chaotic learning environment where children had to quickly hide materials or escape [2]. When adults were caught they were fined, imprisoned and at times deported from the Kingdom of Italy or to Lipari, near Sicily.

Wider Oppression

The Italianization scheme in the Trentino-Alto Adige region went longer and harder than one might imagine. Mussolini said his desire was:

[…] to push the Italianization of the region to the maximum, that is, to profoundly and durably alter its physical, political, moral, demographic character; that is, replacing, or at least mixing, the current German majority, with an Italian majority or a very strong minority that takes away from the region the character it has today, and which is predominantly German [3].

Eventually, the Italian government brought in swaths of Italians to replace locals in public positions, leading to cultural suppression and land expropriation for industrial purposes. This disenfranchisement pushed some Tyroleans towards Nazism. In 1939, under the Berlin Agreement, they faced an ultimatum: move to Germany or stay and accept Italianization, with rumors deterring the latter choice by suggesting deportation to Sicily.

The "vote" saw 86% (or 213k) opting for Germany, and while only 35% (or 75k) actually relocated, upon arrival they faced harsher realities than what was promised. The results empowered the Nazis locally, leading to a dual power structure with Italian authorities allowing Nazi activities, including the opening of German schools. This left many German-speaking Italians caught between two oppressive forces [3].

Conclusion

It would take until after the end of WWII for the German-speaking population of the region to secure cultural and linguistic autonomy, initially promised by the 1946 Gruber–De Gasperi Agreement and enshrined in the 1948 Constitution. This was later reinforced by the 1972 Autonomy Statute, which realized these promises by granting concrete legislative and administrative powers. However, full resolution of some issues wasn't achieved until the 1992 acknowledgement (the kind of timeline that showcases Italy’s famous “lentocrazia”, or slow bureacracy).

Following the 100 year remembrance of the negative effects of the Gentile Law, there was a ceremony held in Bolzano in 2023, in appreciation of all the Catacomb teachers, as well as a suggestion for a way to honor them. The head of the South Tyrolean Rifle Association stated:

Let us look back with humility and gratitude and simply be thankful to these almost 500 teachers for their selfless dedication. This dirty era deserves a memorial, and the heroic teachers of the Catacomb Schools should have a monument erected right in the center of Bolzano [4].

Linguistically, nearly 60% of South Tyroleans today speak German as their first language and 22.6% speak Italian. Across the 116 municipalities of South Tyrol, 102 are German-speaking majority. Such statistics hint at perhaps the real memorial to the efforts of the underground schools: the living one that can be heard across the region.

Additional Information

1 - Michael Gamper (Wikipedia)

Sources

1 - Documentary on schools in South Tyrol, Part 1 & 2 (German)

2 - Le scuole clandestine durante il fascismo

3 - La resistenza sudtirolese, parte #1

4 - Danke für Euren Einsatz!

5 - Popolazione e aspetti sociali, 2024 (pg 116, pdf)

In the High Medieval period, having a fire always going in one’s home was essential for warmth and cooking. While the fire didn’t need to be at full flame, having embers hot and ready was a handy and time-saving practice. Having the ability to start a fire from those embers revolved around the action of covering and therefore preserving them and their residual heat, not only for reasons of practicality but for safety too, especially with wood and hay around as unintentional kindle.

In France, the device used to cover the fire was literally called a “couvre-feu”, or cover fire (after the Old French carre-feu or cerre-feu). It’s hypothesized that the word “curfew” derives from this concept due to the Medieval practice of ringing of a town bell, around 8PM, to remind people to cover their fires so as not to burn down their homes and establishments while they slept [1].

The curfew itself was a lid like construction with vented sides. This allowed the fire to be contained whilst allowing oxygen to breathe life into the embers. This meant that with the help of bellows, the fire could be brought back to life easily in the morning. The curfew could be made from various materials from unglazed terracotta clay to metal depending on the wealth of the user [2].

A semantic shift occurred where curfew became less about covering fires and more about the town bell that was rang when people turned in for the night. Popular etymology will say this concept was initially due to William the Conqueror terrorizing the English as he invaded their lands (to prevent rebellious meetings, associations and conspiracies by night), but the practice of covering fires and ringing bells at night was already common practice across Europe at the time.

According to researcher Lionel Cresswell in a 1895 article on the origins of the word curfew, he states that there’s little to no apparent connection to fire and that it’s more likely the word derives from the medieval “third place”: carrefour (a town square or crossroads where a bell tower would normally be located) [4].

Of course, a curfew bell is most effective from a bell tower, and such edifices were born from churches going back to 400 AD. They served to summon the faithful to religious services, but also for giving an alarm when danger threatened. As a central institution of medieval towns and cities, churches have been mostly located in the town square.

Nonetheless, the modern term for curfew in two Romance languages remains a variation on “cover fire” (for example, the aforementioned couvre-feu in French, and coprifuoco in Italian). In Portuguese and Spanish, the terms differ: toque de recolha and toque de queda, which can be interpreted as “ring to gather” or “ring to stay,” respectively.

No matter the origin, meaning or the manner of employment of curfews - be it the device or directive, they can both be thought of as risk mitigation for the Middle Ages.

For another look at the history of social safety in Europe, see The Salvation of San Servolo.

Sources

1 - The Curfew Bell

2 - The History of the Curfew

3 - The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps'

4 - A four-forked etymology: curfew

“Navegar é preciso, viver não é preciso” (to sail is necessary; to live is not) is a well-known phrase in Portuguese culture, borrowed by famed poet Fernando Pessoa. One might think it derives from the historical tradition of the Portuguese navigators of the 15th century, but instead it comes from Greek historian Plutarch who in turn got it from Roman general Pompey in the 1st century BC.

The journey

According to Plutarch in Parallel Lives, his biographical series of famous men, Pompey spoke the phrase “Navigare necesse; vivere non est necesse” while faced with the task of transporting wheat on merchant ships from Sicily back to Rome.

Navigation was risky due to limitations in technology, the probability of pirate attacks and, in this particular case, an approaching storm. Danger also lurked back in Rome as there was a slave rebellion led by Spartacus causing a supply crisis, so the choice was between risking it all or staying safe where he was. Despite the storm, the usual headwinds (which could easily quintuple the travel time), and the fear of dying at sea, the general ordered his soldiers to board the ships for the long journey.

Interpretations

The Roman general’s words suggest that if the cause is just, the risk of death is acceptable. For Pessoa, writing in 1914 Lisbon far removed from such immediate dangers, the phrase took on a symbolic meaning. Sailing became a metaphor for the act of creation, imbued with risk, discovery, purpose, and meaning - contrasting with the mere survival that defines living.

In Portuguese, “é preciso” has the double meaning of “is needed” and “is precise”. Here, Pessoa expertly offers up ambiguity in the phrase, between one of necessity and one of precision (from the original Latin “necesse” to the Portuguese “preciso”). One interpretation is that navigating a ship requires precise instrumentation, but navigating life is uncertain.

The phrase, no matter when it was used, serves as a meditation on the balance between peril and purpose, between action and survival. The unpredictability and uncertainty of life involves taking risks, in addition to making decisions and learning, all while knowing that new challenges will continue to come.

Notes: Poem in Portuguese & English & a cover of a Caetano Veloso song by Lula Pena

navegar é preciso (PT & EN)

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The tradition of the peregrinatio academica - or academic pilgrimage - was a defining feature of its time. Elite mobility in the Middle Ages was generally afforded to two groups of people - nobility and scholars - so much so that it was seen as a rite of passage to travel Europe. The nobility did it via the Grand Tour where the aim was gaining cultural refinement through experience, while would-be scholars sought out institutionalized, formal education through the great universities.

One can think of the peregrinatio as a wandering Erasmus program, only amplified. In the medieval period, universities were relatively few and often specialized (ex. Bologna for law, Paris for theology, Salamanca for medicine), so in order to curate their own interdisciplinary education and learn from the best, travel was essential. Journeys were facilitated by regional corporations that united students from the same area or who spoke the same language.

Student nations of France

Academically rooted “nations” were more than informal, self-organized student groups, they were central to the structures of medieval universities. They provided fraternity, legal protection, privileges (including the ear of the King and Pope), self-governance, mutual assistance, alumni networks and reputation. The collective identity framework that nations embodied helped students navigate the complexities of foreign cultures and laws, much like guilds helped artisans maintain standards and assert their rights within their trade.

Different universities structured their nations differently, both in number and country of origin. The University of Bologna, where the concept of nations is thought to have originated around 1180, was such a place. They had just two nations (one for Italians not from Bologna, and another for foreigners) and 31 sub-nations. In contrast, the University of Orleans had 10 nations in the early 1500s until France’s highest legal authority - the Parlement de Paris - ruled that six had to close.

Some nations, like the powerful German one in France, wasn’t actually German - at least not in its entirety or even majority, depending on the era. It was administratively divided into Superior Germania (actual Germans) and Inferior Germania (ex. Dutch, Belgian). At times, the nation’s regent, or representative among professors, was from the Inferior group, which caused protests among the Superior class.

At the Universities of Paris and Orleans, there were the French, Normans, Picards, and the English (later named German) nations. At Orleans, registration with a nation was mandatory because the university only recognized students who enrolled in one of the four nations. Additionally, it was a requirement by the local government, which sought to keep an eye on young foreigners temporarily residing in the city. Many of the well-to-do students treated their journey through the universities as more of a gap year (for the experience’s sake) than a serious endeavor. Those simplices, or non-ambitious learners, who slacked off were not immune from consequences.

If a student, arriving in a city, failed to register with a nation within a set period of time - such as six weeks - they were blacklisted by the nation. In some instances at Orleans, the bailiff would be notified when registration wasn’t heeded. The Germanic nation, in fact, had an informal agreeement of mutual aid with the French government. The nation’s members were shielded from persecution and allowed special privileges, while the crown secured a loyal and influential group of students.

Such privileges included voting rights, access to legal assistance and loans, as well as exemption from taxes, tolls, and the droit d’aubaine (inheritance tax on foreigners). They also received royal protection throughout France. In 1583, King Henry III granted noble students the right to carry swords, similar to the French nobility. King Henry IV reaffirmed these rights in 1600, guaranteeing their safety and immunity from capture or ransom, even in times of war, ensuring they could travel freely.

Students from the most notable families were asked to register almost immediately after arriving in the city, so that the record books could be adorned with their names. Other students that took part in the nation system would only attain recognition later in their life, such as Nicolaus Copernicus and Miguel de Cervantes.

The fall of nations

Whlie student nations still exist in countries like Sweden and Finland, or in different configurations such as American fraternities and sororities, they died out long ago in Latin Europe. Medieval French chronicler Jacques de Vitry wrote of the in-fighting among nations in Paris:

They affirmed that the English were drunkards and had tails; the sons of France were proud, effeminate and carefully adorned like women. They said that the Germans were furious and obscene at their feasts; the Romans, seditious, turbulent and slanderous; the Sicilians, tyrannical and cruel. After such insults from words they often came to blows.

Belgian sociologist Léo Moulin adds:

Thus, all of Europe was ridiculed by the Europeans themselves. It is needless to say that such serious insults - spoken in Latin - accompanied by obscene allusions to the mother of the person in question, would have been drowned in blood.

Though student nations have mostly disappeared, traces of them can be found in modern academic and social organizations as well as study abroad programs, reflecting the historical roots of student communities and networks.

Sources

1 - Peregrinatio academica

2 - Professeurs et étudiants étrangers dans les facultés de droit françaises (pdf)

3 - Les registres-matricules de la nation germanique de l’ancienne Université d’Orléans

4 - Medieval Sourcebook: Jacques de Vitry: Life of the Students at Paris

5 - Nationes (Wikipedia, IT)

6 - La vita degli studenti nel Medioevo (Léo Moulin)

Università Nel Medioevo

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Sardinian, or sardu as it’s called locally, is known for its conservative nature, preserving many characteristics of Latin that were lost in other Romance languages. This linguistic conservatism partially comes from Sardinia’s geographical isolation, which allowed it to largely avoid the effects of Germanic invasions and the resulting language changes.

                                                             [spoken sardu]

Yet, Sardinia’s history is deeply connected with another Latin-speaking region: Roman Africa. Coastal cities in modern-day Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, and Morocco once spoke African Romance, a vulgar Latin similar to Sardinian. These Roman Africans - such as Saint Augustine - were made up of Roman settlers and native populations who adopted Roman customs.

The two regions shared more than language; they were both influenced by Carthaginian rule before coming under Roman control. Cicero himself condemned the connection, saying, “Africa itself is the parent of Sardinia”.

African Romance’s eventual disappearance is an example of Romania submersa, or regions where Romanization faded. Sardinia, meanwhile, held onto its Latin roots, keeping its connection to the Roman past intact.

Notes: Roman Africa isn’t the only time the two regions were united. Italian East Africa was part of Mussolini’s colonial empire, between 1936 and 1941, and included what is now Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia.

From Latin to the Romance languages, even simple words like “more” have evolved in unexpected ways, shaping how people express things. Derived from Latin grammar, the terms plus and magis survived as markers for making both figurative and literal comparisons in the Romance languages. At the core of comparisons lies the concept of “more” or “greater,” but it’s slightly more granular. In Latin, plus is an adjective that conveys "more in amount" and is tied to quantity, while magis is an adverb that conveys "more in degree" and relates to intensity or comparison.

Due to grammatical economy and semantic drift, these terms also evolved to express contrast and negation, implying terms such as “but”, “however” and even “never”. While these terms came to be associated with contrast or negation, it's essential to note that the conjunction “but” did not directly derive from plus or magis. Rather, the semantic shift allowed these terms to influence the syntax and contrasting structures of modern Romance languages without “but” being supplanted.

The way in which “more” became its opposite can seem slightly confusing. In Latin, "non plus" literally meant "not more" or "no more", while “nihil plus” meant “nothing more”. These were often used in a context where something came to an end or was no longer available, but also to oppose what came before in the sentence.

In modern Romance languages, these combinations became “ne/plus” in French, “non/più” in Italian, “no/más” in Spanish and “não/mais” in Portuguese. This transformation highlights the flexibility and adaptability of language over time, showing how comparitive terms influenced the structure and nuance of modern Romance languages.

The following are prime examples of both terms:

Magis

• More:

  • Spanish: más

  • Portuguese: mais

• But/Contrast:

  • French: mais (but, although)

  • Italian: ma (but)

  • Spanish: mas (but, rather)

  • Portuguese: mas (but)

• Negation:

  • Italian: mai (never)

Plus

• More:

  • French: plus

  • Italian: più

Notes:

• Nihil is related to nihilism and nil (a shortened version of nihil still in use today).

• Magis is also related to the Jesuits, and the philosophy of doing more for Christ.

In Romance Philology, the term Latin Europe and the concept of Romània (not to be confused with Romania, the country) capture how the Roman Empire shaped the way people speak and live. The term Romània likely comes from the 5th century AD as a way to refer to the Roman Empire. Over time, its meaning evolved - first referring specifically to the Byzantine Empire and later aligning with the concept of Latin Europe during the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Under this conceptualization, there are three Romànias:

Continuous/Historical Romània

This refers to the uninterrupted areas where Vulgar Latin evolved into the Romance languages spoken today, stretching across Western, Southern, and Southeastern Europe. These regions form the historical heart of Latin linguistic continuity.

Submersed/Lost Romània

Some territories of the Roman Empire underwent Latinization but either failed to maintain it (ex, North Africa, the British Isles, and Germany) or saw their Romance languages supplanted by others. For instance, Moselle Romance (Germany), Morlacco (Bosnia and Montenegro), and Dalmatian (Croatia and Montenegro) were isolated and short-lived, replaced by Germanic and Slavic influences.

New Romània

Through colonization, Romance languages traveled beyond Europe. Spanish and Portuguese became the main languages in Latin America, French and Portuguese left their mark on Africa, and French continues to be spoken in places from Polynesia to the Caribbean. Together, these regions form a “new Romance world” that connects more than 900 million native speakers across continents.

Notes:

• Just like there are three Romànias, there are also three Romes: Ancient Rome, Constantinople, & Moscow (a theological/political idea of 15th & 16th century).

• The eastern Romagna region in Emilia-Romagna is named for being the only part of northern Italy still under Roman control during the Germanic invasions.

• Interestingly, “Romania” and its variations have often referred to the East - whether the modern country, the Byzantine Empire, or Italy's Romagna region.

The Romance languages evolved from Vulgar Latin, but their divergence is marked by isoglosses - linguistic boundaries that highlight differences in phonology, grammar, or vocabulary. One prominent isogloss is the La Spezia–Rimini Line in northern Italy, which roughly follows the northern Apennine Mountains and separates Western Romance languages (such as Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Northern Italian dialects) from Eastern Romance languages (including Southern Italian and Romanian). This boundary explains key linguistic features:

• Plural Formation:

  • Western languages use /s/ to form plurals (ex. libros for books)

  • Eastern languages use vowels to form plurals (ex. amici for friends)

• Pronunciation Differences (ci/ce palatalization):

  • Historical: centum (Latin) vs cento (Italian) for hundred

  • Contemporary: cena (dinner) in Spanish vs cena in Italian

• Gemination (Doubling of Consonants):

  • Traditional: palla (bowl) vs pala (shovel) in Italian

  • Dialectical/Regional: doppio (double) is pronounced dopio in Northern Italy

Such isoglosses and distinctions are shaped by historical and political factors, including the influence of pre-Latin languages (ex, Estruscan, Gaulish, Iberian), geographical division (ex, Cisalpine Gaul & Gothic Line), the migrations of peoples, and regional isolation. These linguistic boundaries reveal not only the diversity within the Romance family but also the historical and cultural forces that shaped Latin Europe's linguistic landscape.

Notes: La Spezia-Rimini Line was developed in 1950 by noted German linguist Walter von Wartburg. Preceeding him was Gerhard Rohlfs, another German linguist, who developed the Roma-Ancona Line in 1937, an isogloss for central and southern Italy.

Knowledge can’t be effectively spread without words, and words require a language. In some cases - such as the changeover from Vulgar Latin to fledgling Romance languages - the dissemination of knowledge is helped along by the spread of a new language.

The story of a language is really the story of the transfer of knowledge, which can occur in many different ways such as formal, informal, vertical or horizontal, among others [2]. The birth of Romance languages made use of all of these but the focus here will be mostly on the vertical, or rather hierarchial kind of learning, as opposed to the informal and horizontal kind.

Around the seventh century, written Latin began to fragment as documents showing regional differences started to crop up. This would have been a “natural” process (as much as the expansion of the Roman Empire could be considered natural) that occured as Latin spread across communities that had their own vernacular. Due to a lack of education among the common folk and the practical necessity of using a local dialect for everyday interaction, a diglossic environment developed.

This would be a long process, spanning several hundreds of years, as it wasn’t until the 10th century that these new Romance languages would begin to slowly take over from Latin in its written form. Depending on the country, the transition happened either by legal decree or via cultural propagation, such as with Portugal and Italy, respectively.

Examples of the transition

The earliest proof of a nascent Italian vernacular is evidenced by three separate events between the 8th and 10th centuries: the Commodilla catacomb inscription in Rome; the Placiti Cassinesi juridical documents in Campania; and the Veronese Riddle. In the 13th century, the Sicilian School of poetry greatly helped Vulgar Italian evolve and spread throughout the region and beyond, eventually inspiring subsequent generations of Tuscan writers. The father of Italian, Dante Alighieri, wrote a treatise - De vulgari eloquentia - praising the Sicilian School and the beauty of the vulgar language. Intellectuals debated the meaning of Dante’s writing, as well as the direction of a common language and whether it should follow the Florentine or Tuscan dialect (the latter won out).

Military occupation also played its part in the linguistic shift away from Latin. A prime example occurred from the eighth century when the Moorish invasion, and later conquest, of Iberia hindered the continued proliferation of Latin and thus aided its nascent offshoots. Another example is when a military force is otherwise occupied in a far away location (such as when the Romans fought the Persians), leaving an opening for foreign armies to invade and thereby influence the language of the invaded population. In fact, it was the preoccupation with Persia that allowed the Arabs to invade Iberia.

In France, there was an example of Latin being corrupted in a more literal manner, with badly translated or copied texts. In Charlemange’s Epistola de litteris colendis, a letter to Abbot Baugulf of Fulda which promoted his ideas on educational reform, the Emperor writes:

[…'] the wisdom for understanding the Holy Scriptures might be much less than it rightly ought to be. And we all know well that, although errors of speech are dangerous, far more dangerous are errors of the understanding. [4]

Discouraged by the knowledge of a loss of understanding, Charlemange pushed to keep Classical Latin at the forefront in the 8th and 9th centuries. This revival was one of many aspects to be known as the Carolingian Renaissance, which “covered educational and ecclesiastical reform within the Frankish kingdom, [and] established his religious and educational aspirations for the kingdom”. [5]

However, Latin wasn’t legally imposed. In instances where the majority of parishoners fared better in the vernacular, the king had no qualms about relegating Latin to second place. In fact, at the king’s request, the Council of Tours was created in 813, in which the Church mandated that priests communicate to their parishoners in the vernacular - be it rustica romana lingua or Thiotisca (Vulgar Latin or Frankish, respectively).

The Reichenau Glossary - created to aid priests in updating, or better translating, Latin terms that fell into disuse - became indispensable for having a decipherable Bible. For more than a millennia, until the year 1530, the most widely-known Bible was the common-tongue Vulgate but it underwent many revisions over the centuries and thus required a separate glossary.

Highly prized in monastic culture, these glossaries often traveled great distances, and were collected and recopied into larger compilations which amount to forerunners to modern dictionaries. [6]

Spreading knowledge in the vernacular

Centuries after Charlemange’s rule, as the High Medieval Period came to a close, both Spain and Portugal had their own cultured kings. Alfonso the Wise, as the 13th-century Spanish ruler was unofficially known, espoused learning through exposure to the arts, an approach that was followed by King Denis in Portugal. Alfonso’s aim wasn’t just to intellectually enrich his court and the surrounding nobility but to bring Castile out of the Dark Ages, a task that wouldn’t be possible if learning required previous knowledge of Latin.

Alfonso was indispensible in promoting Castilian in courts, church and literature, as well as translating foreign texts into the vernacular. He wrote Galician-Portuguese poetry that was set to music, and sponsored a renewal of the astrological tables for better calculating celestial positions in relation to fixed stars.

Additionally, he supported historians in contextualizing Spain within world history, marking a significant intellectual advancement during his reign. One of the most important works in Old Spanish was the Estoria de España, a literary project that was spearheaded by the king in the latter half of the 13th century. The 790-page chronicle, told in four parts, details the extended history of the country and includes sources such as the Bible and chansons de geste, or medieval epic poetry.

Across the border, in Portugal, King Denis - who was the grandson of Alfonso - was also heavily into arts and culture, and went on to compose 137 cantigas, or lyrical poems, in the troubadour tradition. He also established the first Portuguese university in the 1290s.

European political theory of the time suggested that the kingdom is the body, the king is the head and heart, and the people are the limbs, thus everything works best when all are healthy. Such advice would be found in a literatary genre called mirrors for princes which were, for lack of a better term, “How to be a Ruler for Dummies”. In regards to the “limbs”, Alfonso’s efforts helped spread the sciences, literature and philosophy to the public, particularly in light of the Reconquest. His goal of spreading knowledge and producing an educated populace serendipidously lined up with the increasing ability to share that information.

The Holy Roman Emperor, King Frederick II of Sicily, who lived roughly around the time of Alfonso, spoke six languages and patronized the Sicilian School of poetry which itself was centered around his court. It was where the sonnet was born and where the Sicilian language was first attested to in its literary form.

Like King Denis, Frederick II also established one of the world’s oldest universities, in Naples. Additionally, he was a keen enthusiast of birds and their migratory patterns (though probably not in the auspicious sense). A great amount of the information and culture that the king surrounded himself with during his reign was collated from other cultures, such as the Greeks and Arabs. For those who didn’t have such unfettered access to any and all culture of the era, the drawing and redrawing of geopolitical frontiers - both linguistic and literal - forced cross-cultural exchange and learning. The borders between Portugal, Galicia and Spain provide ample examples.

Language borders

In the Northwest of Iberia, the linguistic separation was made evident, two years after the creation of the County of Portugal in 868 AD, when Galician-Portuguese, or Old Portuguese, was first attested to. The Portuguese Kingdom formed in 1139, but it wasn’t until the late 1200s that the Portuguese language separated from Galician.

Due to the Muslim conquest of Iberia which dominated the central and southern parts of the penninsula from 711 to 1492, Portuguese took on influences from the processes of Islamization and Arabization. According to the book Léxico Português de Origem Árabe, the Portuguese language suffered changes across 17 semantic fields and grammatical categories as a result of Arabisms [7].

In 1297, King Denis of Portugal declared that Portuguese - then simply called the “common language” - was to be used officially. Despite the regal sanctioning of the new language, nearly two and a half centuries would pass before the first book of grammar would be published in the Portuguese language, in 1536.

Galician, meanwhile, would adopt characteristics of the language of neighboring León and Asturias, a region that received less Muslim influence. In fact, there’s a well-known isogloss between the two regions where Galician and Asturleonese have produced spontaneous contact vernaculars [9].

While the strength and popularity of the Galician language ebbed and flowed over the centuries, Castilian Spanish rose to prominence. The earliest grammar book in the language, written in 1492 by Antonio de Nebrija, was the first of its kind for a modern European language and likely an early printed book. Nebrija is said to have dedicated it to Queen Isabella I, where he reminded her that:

“…language was always a companion of empire, and that it followed it in such a way that together they began, grew and flourished, and then together was the fall of both.” [10]

Many centuries later, an idea simliar to that of Nebrija would be popularized in New York and, subsequently, among linguists. That is, a language is essentially political while a dialect need not be, however the latter can become an impediment to the former’s consolidation. In essence, the influence of language on power dynamics and social cohesion is paramount.

Conclusion

As we look at linguistic evolution, the extent to which language boundaries were webs of power and influence is apparent, especially as Latin splintered into Romance languages. From medieval courts to military conquests, language has served both as a way to dominate and to resist.

Without the likes of Charlemange or the other cultured kings, Europe would have, in all probability, turned out very differently. An argument could be made for the positive effects of the printing press on wider society a few centuries later, but the population wouldn’t have been primed for such a development. These rulers laid the groundwork for later innovations that shaped European society, leading to a vibrant and dynamic intellectual and cultural landscape in subsequent centuries and for countless generations.

If you enjoyed this, you may enjoy its companion article.

Sources

1 - Image: Why is Charlemagne called the 'Father of Europe'?

2 - Knowledge transfer (Wikipedia)

3 - Image: Post from linguist Danny Bate on X

4 - Letter to Abbot Baugaulf of Fulda

5 - The Contributions of the Emperor Charlemagne and the Educator Alcuin to the Carolingian Renaissance

6 - Romance Languages: A Historical Introduction (p. 319)

7 - Léxico português de origem árabe: subsídios para os estudos de filologia

8 - Image: From Regional Dialects to the Standard: Measuring Linguistic Distance in Galician Varieties

9 - Atlas lingüístico ETLEN sobre la frontera entre el gallegoportugués y el astur-leonés en Asturias

10 - La lengua, compañera del imperio

The definition of a country can be viewed as a process rather than a fixed set of facts. Over time, rulers come and go, languages gain or lose importance, and borders are constantly molded, through conquer or capitulation. Borders tell the story of how the concept of a nation was crystalized, defining the rule of kings and the reach of a language.

The Stripe, also known as La Raya in Spanish or A Raia in Portuguese, is recognized as the longest uninterrupted border in the European Union. This border has separated Portugal from Spain since the late 1200s, making it one of the oldest borders in the world. Nevertheless, distinct periods of suzerainty, or overlordship, muddied the political separation between the two countries, as will be examined later.

Over the course of 700 years, numerous agreements defined and redefined the borders between Portugal and Spain. The geographic formation of Portugal began with the County of Portugal, which functioned as a vassal state within the Kingdom of Galicia, which itself existed as a dependency of the larger Kingdom of León [1].

In the early half of the 12th century, the County of Portugal fought two decisive battles which gained it independence - initially self-declared in 1139 and, later, officially recognized with the Treaty of Zamora in 1143. At this time, Portugal had its northern borders generally defined and, to the south, it reached as far as Lisbon. The new kingdom had attained roughly half of its current-day territory but there was still room for growth to the south. The period of constantly shifting borders continued for centuries [2].

The year 1249 saw the end of the Muslim occupation of the Kingdom of the Algarve, with the Portuguese capture of Faro. The Treaty of Badajoz in 1267 culminated in Spain agreeing to define Portugal’s southern border to the east, along the Guadiana river, and to the south with the Algarve region. It was only in 1297, with the Treaty of Alcañices, that Portugal’s modern border was generally established. That is, Spain had confirmed Portugal's sovereignty over the territories it already controlled.

Outliers

The Stripe includes outlier situations and small territorial disputes, such as the case of the town of Olivenza immediately south of Badajoz, to which both Spain and Portugal still claim ownership. The town, which was hard for the Portuguese to defend since it lies on the Spanish side of the Guadiana river, belonged to Portugal from 1297 but was taken by Spain in 1801 as a result of the supposedly unclear language of the (second) Badajoz Treaty. In 1815, another treaty was signed where Spain promised to return Olivenza but the actual transfer never came to pass, even more than two centuries later.

Just across the northern border of Portugal, another geographical outlier was the micro-state of Couto Misto, which was founded by monks and completely independent of both Spain and Portugal from the 9th to the 19th century. The country, roughly the size of the modern-day European micro-state San Marino, was nothing more than a monastery and a few hamlets in the mountains bordering both countries. It mostly existed in Spain although the small population spoke portunhol/portuñol, a mix of Spanish and Portuguese, as do many border towns up and down The Stripe.

Less than a three-hour drive from the former Couto Misto is Miranda do Douro, on the northwestern border of Portugal and Spain. While it is not a micro-state or an autonomous region, Miranda did develop its own culture and a language, known as Mirandese. Despite the minor language being spoken by less than 15,000 people, it enjoys co-official status in Portugal, alongside Portuguese.

As mentioned, border towns with their own language are not all that uncommon. Barranquenho, from the town of Barrancos in Portugal’s Alentejo region, is either considered an Alentejan Portuguese variety or an Extremaduran dialect depending on which academic one asks. The less than 2,000 residents of Barrancos would say that it is neither Portuguese nor Spanish, but wholly unique.

Directly between Miranda do Douro and Olivenza, while firmly in Spain’s Extremadura region, is an enclave of small towns where the Fala language is spoken by around 10,500 people. Similar to Barranquenho, it originates from the Middle Ages, and most speakers consider it to be its own autonomous language.

Outliers exist in other senses, not just geographically or linguistically. Over the millennia, the political unification of Iberia had as many successes as failures.

Iberism

Before Spain and Portugal were even countries, the Iberian Peninsula was unified several times. One of the early attempts was the Diocese of Hispania prior to the fall the Western Roman Empire, when the Iberian capital was Augusta Emerita where modern-day Mérida is located, near the Spanish-Portuguese border. It was founded by Augustus himself, and strategically positioned on a major Roman road, in an agriculturally fertile region, making it important for trade.

The next attempt at unifying the peninsula was a few centuries later, via the Caliphate of Cordoba. The Moorish invasion and occupation lasted from 711 to 1492, and brought the benefits of cultural exchange, scientific advancements, economic prosperity, and religious tolerance to the peninsula. Its peak, in territorial terms, was in the early 10th century when the Caliphate controlled two-thirds of Iberia from the southern capital of Cordoba.

By the Early Modern period, from 1580 to 1640, Spain and Portugal were jointly ruled by the Spanish House of Habsburg in a period known as the Iberian Union. During this time, while remaining otherwise independent, they shared the same three successive kings. That is, until tensions led to a 28-year war, which ended in 1668 with the Treaty of Lisbon. While Portugal considers the start of the war to be the date that it regained independence, Spain only recognized the fact with the signing of the treaty.

By the 18th and 19th centuries, an ideology called Iberism emerged which promoted the unification of both countries. Support generally came from Spanish intellectuals, authors and liberal politicians, meaning it was far from being mainstream. One Spaniard in particular, Sinibaldo de Mas, was such a proponent of unification that he wrote a book about the subject [5] which gained popularity in the political circles of Madrid and Lisbon. Its purpose was to highlight "the political, economic and social advantages of the union of the two peninsular monarchies into a single nation", with the suggestion that the Iberian capital be located in Santarém, near Lisbon.

The concept of unification still lingers, over 150 years later. According to a series of small university studies in Spain between 2009 an 2011, the Portuguese respondents were more open than Spaniards to political unification, a single taxation system and the removal of any and all restrictions regarding work [6]. When it came to required languages in school curriculum, the same trend was revealed although with a sharp disinterest for Portuguese as a required language in Spanish schools.

Iberism as a movement or a possible idea doesn’t die with a small study. The Spanish non-profit Sociedad Iberista Cultural, created in 2018 and based in Madrid, is “developing a practical and operative movement with civil society as a starting point”. The organization has eight regional bases across the peninsula, and focuses more on closer integration than full-blown federation.

An approximation, of course, wouldn’t eliminate the multitude of different cultural and linguistic contexts between Spain and Portugal. Variations lead to distinct observations and interpretations, even in areas that seem disjointed from culture or politics. In science, there are several concepts - such as the observer effect and uncertainty principle - that demonstrate how observation and distance from an object can intersect. In fact, the simple act of measuring a border - any border - turns out to be an essentially impossible task.

Paradoxes

In the 1950s, a British mathematician realized that Portugal’s border with Spain was measured by the Portuguese as being much smaller than Spain’s measurement of the same border. This phenomenon is called the Coastline Paradox [8] and it inspired the field of fractal geometry, showing that the smaller the unit of measurement, the more accurate the length of a border is.

Two countries coming to an agreement about where a border lies is not only a paradox of accurate measurements but also a definitional problem for determining if an administrative unit is a state or a country, for example. The Sorites paradox can be applied to this question, which says that if a pile of sand loses one grain at a time, when is it no longer a pile? In other words, small and incremental change can lead to larger transformations, even in the opposite direction.

The County of Portugal, albeit small, defended itself from the Moors and the Kingdom of León. It would seem that some grains of sand are more equal than others, as they tip the scales in one direction or another. In this case, self-defense, self-declaration and diplomatic recognition of Portuguese autonomy were essential to joining the “pile” category. The Sorites paradox shares a common problem with the concept of entropy, in that there are no clear boundaries between different states or conditions.

Between ordered and disordered states, the natural conclusion of something is that it falls apart. British physicist Brian Cox states, “everything in the universe is becoming more disordered and chaotic over time”, yet that depends if said entropy is considered high - which tends towards dissolution - or low - which coincides with order and structure. On a large enough timeline, even the anti-fragility of a sovereign state and its borders is transient.

Future Cooperation

On the other hand, the Lindy Effect states that something that has lasted will continue to last. The border between Portugal and Spain, which has existed for centuries, stands as a symbol of cooperation and mutual respect. Current examples include the Iberian Summits where both heads of state meet on a yearly basis to discuss common issues, the high-speed rail initiative between Lisbon and Galicia [9], and environmental cooperation by way of the Albufeira Convention [10, 11].

Should the border, or the entire European Union itself, be affected in the future by highly entropic political strife, hopefully the figurative bridges between the two countries become even shorter (something that is not possible when speaking of the literal kind). The most likely outcome, in the case of a dissolution of borders, is perhaps a reemergence of Iberism. Whether it is a softer or stricter version of previous iterations, time will tell.

Additional Information

1 - Portugal y España, una frontera de papel

2 - Iberian Union - What if Portugal and Spain United? (video, 13 min)

3 - What if the Reconquista failed? (video, 12 min)

4 - Coastline Paradox (videos: EN, 6 min / PT, 7 min)

5 - Las fortificaciones abaluartadas de la raya con Portugal

6 - Emperor of All Spain (Wikipedia)

Sources

1 - Timeline

2 - How the borders of Iberia changed in the Middle Ages

3 - Oliventine Portuguese (Wikipedia)

4 - Flag of Iberia

5 - La Iberia, por Sans i Mas

6 - Portuguese-Hispanic Opinion Barometer

7 - Sand castle picture

8 - Coastline Paradox (Wikipedia)

9 - Portugal is getting loads of swish new high-speed rail routes

10 - Acuerdo hispano-luso para combatir inundaciones y sequías

11 - Spanish-Portuguese Albufeira Convention

Formal education arrived in Latin Europe via several routes and across countless centuries. It required the transformation of writing materials, the creation of centralized places of learning, the development of a succinct mode of literary production and even advancements in visual representations based on writing scripts. In short, it required systemization.

The backbone of any formal education system, aside from the knowledge that fuels it, is the recording medium for the collective and individual storage of information. Within any literary culture, from Mesopotamia to Europe, the act of writing, and thus reading, was transformed over time by the storage device. From clay tablets - upon which writing first developed - to papyrus, then parchment, each material provided improvements upon the last, culminating with paper.

From its Asian beginnings, paper migrated slowly, first to the Middle East and, from there, to Spain via the Moorish invasion. Meanwhile, printing techniques and knowledge followed suit, westward, evolving from an arduous task requiring excessive manual labor to a somewhat automated undertaking under European charge.

Paper manufacturing went through a mechanization process in Europe, with the inception of water-powered mills dating to 11th century Spain. The introduction of such technology - particularly with paper making advances spreading to the rest of the continent - greatly reduced the cost of production.

While the existence and advancement of materials used for recording information were integral to hierarchical and peer-to-peer knowledge transfer, centralized locations for the dissemination of said information were just as important. Formal education can be found in the earliest of civilizations, dating back to the first school systems in Sumer, while higher education can be traced back to the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Chinese, among others. However, universities as a concept got a unique start and were born much later, from religious instruction.

Cathedral Schools

The idea for the first Cathedral schools was created in 527 from the the tenets decided at a clergical assembly known as the Second Council of Toledo. In the few centuries that followed, these early schools could be found across Spain and Gaul (modern-day France). By the late 700s, Charlemagne issued his famous edict, continuing the tradition.

The Admonitio Generalis, issued in 789, was one of the most important legislative acts of Charlemagne's reign. It called for the opening of schools at cathedrals and monasteries and mapped out a general educational program for the future. Importantly, it emphasized the study of letters as the proper province of the clergy, prerequisite to understanding Scripture. Clergy were to assume an active role in the process of social reform. [2]

Cathedral schools, run by the Church, were originally created to educate and train new priests. They were centered around the libraries of European cathedrals and would eventually evolve into the earliest of medieval universities, especially as demand for education grew amongst the secular population.

According to Carolingian precepts, the curriculum revolved around a specific set of core subjects going back to Ancient Greece. The trivium was the lower division courses made up of grammar, rhetoric and logic, which led to the quadrivium composed of music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. These encompassed the seven classical arts under a liberal arts education, and were differentiated by the practical arts of medicine, law and theology. Offering these subjects were the earliest of the medieval universities, in Western Europe: Bologna (1088), Salamanca (1130), and Paris (1150). Rather than providing a general take on the subject at hand - such as in modern textbooks - the lecture texts of the era were often those of subject-matter experts, where students read Cicero for rhetoric, and Aristotle for logic. [4]

Cathedral schools continued to exist despite their evolution into studium generale, or the first universities, and for those who didn’t take the priest track, becoming a scribe was another option. These trained monks were involved in the entire codex-creation process, from sheet and ink making, to the careful and time-consuming process of copying texts, an affair that required anywhere from six months to more than a year’s dedication, from dawn til dusk, to reproduce a complete literary work.

The Pecia System

Over time, even scribal work was outsourced and thus altered course. Texts were created and copied less and less for religious reasons as commercial interests took over. The pecia system, created in the 13th century in a Dominican Convent, and popularized commercially in the 14th and 15th centuries, was essentially a handmade “photocopy machine” for the Late Middle Ages. In its religious context, it was like a novel but contained literary assembly line for making manuscripts, but commercially it was nothing short of a small revolution.

In the latter sense, the system started with the original version from the author - a subject area expert - and was followed by the creation of limited manuscript copies of that work - known as exemplars - at the behest of the author. An exemplar would make its way to the university library at which point it would be copied a second time, but in eight-page sections known as peciae, and these are owned by a stationer, who is often a university-approved rental agent and publisher. As a means of obtaining an exemplar, the university or stationer likely had a direct relationship with the author or the author’s representatives.

Finally, there were the end customers who, in most cases, would be students renting out one section at a time to either copy themselves or pay for a scribe to make them a copy [6]. Due to limited copies for any particular text, stationers did not have all sections available at the same time, much less able to rent them out in the order that the student required. 

This system provided utility to other institutions as use cases grew in tandem with Europe's reading public. However, due to universities being at the center of literary culture, on account of the number of texts they started to hold in their libraries, an entire regulatory system emerged to control the accuracy of the copies and how they could be used. King Philip of France, for example, exempted universities from commercial taxes, which meant it was disadvantageous to do one’s literary dealings outside the higher learning institutions.

University administrators made themselves responsible for the exemplars which the stationers managed. The administrators, whether due to monetary recompense - since money exchanged hands at every step - or mere professional pride, created a verification process to make sure the copies were correct both grammatically and informationally.

The task of making copies would only become easier with the invention of Gutenberg’s moveable-type printing press in 1440, as well as the subsequent onset of printing towns, which were widespread throughout Europe. The main product of these initial printing towns was the earliest type of printed book, known as incunabula. They contained a general lack of standardization - that is, pagination, authorship, tables of contents, and the like, and were often stylized as manuscripts due to ease of recognition and familiarity.

The value perception between true manuscripts and the printed book was such that the “old-fashioned” manuscripts were later torn up and used as scraps to fortify early-modern book bindings for printed texts [7]. Changes in the production process were not limited to physical attributes but also by the script employed on the page.

Textual Aesthetics

The ability to share knowledge far and wide was aided by the unification and homogenization of vernacular lexicon, making literature easier and faster to print. Standardizing the look and characteristics of the written word helped to hasten the dissemination of scientific discoveries. This also meant that books were published even quicker which increased the copies available and allowed the average citizen to more easily access printed information with little to no travel required (an apt correlation to the modern information age is the ability to carry all the world’s knowledge in one’s pocket). In fact, literature could be carried on the body even in the Medieval period thanks to the invention of both pocketbooks and pouches attached to belts [8, 9].

Of course, literature wasn’t always easily accessible, from a physical or legibility standpoint. In the era prior to the fall of the Roman Empire, cumbersome scrolls were replaced by codices - the ancestor of the modern book - which made it possible to annotate and bookmark important sections.

Additionally, Latin would eventually become easier to read by dropping the use of scriptio continua, a writing style that saved room on costly paper by containing no spaces, punctuation and often all capital letters. Continuous script was based on capturing viva voce, or live speech, which was dictated to enslaved scribes, unintentionally leaving the resulting text open to varying degrees of interpretation.

Once the style fell into decline, the reader was no longer required to do mental gymnastics to comprehend the text and thus was able to take in the information at a faster pace, especially as the cost of paper decreased. Silent reading was also made possible by the decline in continuous script which doesn’t have an exact date of disuse.

“Though paleographers disagree about the chronological decline of scriptio continua throughout the world, it is generally accepted that the addition of spaces first appeared in Irish and Anglo-Saxon Bibles and Gospels from the seventh and eighth centuries.  Subsequently, an increasing number of European texts adopted conventional spacing, and within the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, all European texts were written with word separation.” [10]

Spacing and punctuation came to the wider reading audience, especially in vernacular Bibles used during sermons. However, an exception can be found in university texts which adopted a religious script called Textualis from the first half of the twelfth century. This particular script, essentially “gothic” in style, was dense and angular and allowed for more words per page under the pecia system.

Script changes and trends reflected more than mere aesthetics, as they were often utilitarian by design. Punctuation aided in the act of reading both silently and aloud, and in religious texts it served to preserve original meaning [12]. While not the first nor the last person to place spaces, periods and the like, on a pedestal, a debt is owed to Italian scholar Aldo Manuzio, who helped normalize the European use of punctuation in printed works through his publishing house in late 15th century Venice.

Knowledge Economy

It was people like Manuzio, among so many others, who brought incremental but important advances to knowledge sharing. One might deem it the original knowledge economy, which is a term that only originated in the late 1960s to explain the phenomenon of consumption and production based on intellectual capital. It’s considered most apt for the information age in which we now live, but perhaps it’s better suited to have arisen from the Renaissance period and the Age of Enlightenment that followed.

A learning society, where education can be undertaken regardless of location, could not have come about today without the innovations around parchment and paper, codices and books, cathedral schools and early universities, manuscript culture and the printing press, as well as the economy surrounding them - of paper mills, book binders, translators, ink producers, and others.

To some in the economy, involvement was simply an opportunity to make money but to others it was a chance to flame the fires of knowledge, whether teaching it, spreading it or merely illuminating its importance. There is often a negative connotation to the phrase, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, but some eras - such as the original knowledge economy - need to be remembered and, if possible, rejuvenated because they bring out the best of humanity.

Additional Information

1 - Latin Paleography: The different types of gothic

2 - Early Printing: Incunable, Uncunable, and Post-Incunabula

3 - Features of Latin New Testament Manuscripts

4 - Some Highlights of Education in Christian Spain the Late Medieval Period

5 - How Sumerian Civilization Gave us Our Present Schooling & Education System

6 - Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading

Sources

1 - Jean Miélot (image)

2 - Charlemagne and kingship: the responsibility of absolute power (p. 44)

3 - Corso di teologia a Parigi (image)

4 - Lectures - Oxford

5 - The medieval scriptorium visualised

6 - The Pecia System and its Use in the Cultural Milieu of Paris (p. 24-25)

7 - Digitally leafing through invisible books

8 - Enchiridia (Wikipedia)

9 - Girdle books (Wikipedia)

10 - Scriptio continua: Decline (Wikipedia)

11 - Latin Scripts - Gothic Textualis

12 - The mysterious origins of punctuation

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Off the coast of Europe and Africa, one can find a collection of North Atlantic archipelagos including Azores, Madeira (together with the Savage Islands), Canary Islands and Cape Verde. Seemingly disconnected and not sharing much more than a volcanic origin, a contrasting landscape and a moderate climate, these 41 islands and islets - 28 of them, inhabited - make up Macaronesia.

The term Macaronesia is far from new, as it references the Fortunate Isles, known in the era of Ancient Greece as islands to the west of the Strait of Gibraltar, but also as a mythological place of reincarnation. The term was only applied, in its modern sense, in 1835.

The origin of this name is attributed to the British botanist Philip Barker Webb, around ad 1835, although it seems that he intended the term to encompass only Madeira, the Selvagen archieplago (Savage Islands) and the Canaries, the nucleus of the region (Stearn, 1973). Engler (1879) may have been the first author to include the Azores in the Macaronesian region, and it was not until 1961 that Pierre Dansereau argued for the inclusion of the Cape Verde islands (Vanderpoorten et al., 2007)… [1]

This collection of archipelagos isn’t the only way to frame these islands. Aside from Macaronesia, there’s an existing grouping of eight ultra-peripheral regions in the EU: five French overseas departments, two Portuguese autonomous regions and one Spanish autonomous community (the latter two are also part of Macaronesia). Therefore, it could easily be said that Cape Verde, being the only non-EU entity, is the main beneficiary of the Macaronesia cooperative framework, in that all other members receive EU financial support via the European Regional Development Fund.

Summit

The Summit of the Archipelagoes of Macaronesia (aka Cimeira dos Arquipelagos da Macaronesia, or CAM) is made up of an intergovernmental body aimed at creating “a space for political consultation and development cooperation.” The initial aim was to gather every two years to discuss common interests - such as air and maritime transport and safety, technology, oceanographic research, higher education, science, culture and environment - but the follow-up to the inaugural summit only occurred in several years later.

At the first Macaronesia Summit, which took place in 2010 in Mindelo, Cape Verde, the creation of the Macaronesia Region was officialized. The second, and most recent, Summit took place in 2018, on the island of São Miguel, in the Azores. The third meeting - if the same schedule is followed - would only occur in 2026.

Conservation

While regional cooperation was only made official in 2010, concerted EU conservation efforts for the region under its care began in 2001. The Natura 2000 regulations protect 5000 km2 of land and sea. Cape Verde’s own conservation efforts include 120 km2 - or 2.9% - of the country, plus a dismal 5 km2 of its much larger marine area [2].

Macaronesia constitutes just one of Europe’s 11 biogeographical regions. Furthermore, “the islands may represent a mere 0.3 % of the EU territory but they host 19 % of the habitat types and 28 % of all the plants listed in the Habitats Directive” [3]. All of the relevant Spanish and Portuguese protected habitat types and species can be found in the following list.

These native fauna and flora were brought to the island via long-distance dispersal, as none of the North Atlantic archipelagos were part of any continent. Some species are unique for other reasons such as mass deforestation across Europe. Some of the last remaining Laurisilva forests - designated a UNESCO world heritage site - exist in Madeira.

Conservation efforts even include more minor preocupations such as nomenclature. There are contrasting views within the scientific community about how to refer to floristic regions that contain biogeographical overlap, more specifically in regard to Cape Verdean plant species that should not be included in the term Macaronesia, when they are, in fact, Saharo-Sindian. Disagreements over phytogeography aside, much effort has gone into protection of these unique climates.

Cooperation

In regards to what might result one day from the intergovernmental cooperation between these territories, one might look towards the Andean Migration Statute. Citizens of the Andean Community of Nations - Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru - now have freedom of movement to more easily travel as tourists and to obtain residency in the other member states.

On the other hand, complications may arise in regards to the freedom of movement from the poorer Cape Verde to the richer EU member states, however smaller examples of cooperation, such as study abroad (PT) agreements, are possible. A list of other such proposals, as shown here (PT), shed light on what a more integrated socioeconomic ecosystem would look like. The third Macaronesia Summit could be an opportune moment to implement these ideas.

Further reading:

1. Macaronesia - Regional Ecosystem Profile (2016 EU study, link)

2. Macaronesia as a Fruitful Arena for Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology (link)

3. Macaronesia: Isles of the Blessed (documentary, 49 min, link)

4. NATURA 2000: The Backbone of Nature Conservation in the EU (symposium, 51 min, link)