> “Here we have a late-12th-century sermon deploying a meme from the hit romantic story of the day,” Seb Falk, a historian at the University of Cambridge, says in a statement. “This is very early evidence of a preacher weaving pop culture into a sermon to keep his audience hooked.”
One of the oldest pieces of writing I have from my ancestors is a dedication in a family bible, to my great-grandfather from his parents. It quotes a popular hymn. But when I looked it up, that was a quite recently written text at the time they quoted it, and it wasn't technically even a hymn, but a song from a play (Christian Richardt's version of the fairy tale sleeping beauty). Looks at first glance like they're quoting an old hymn, but it's more like me quoting a Disney film from 20 years ago.
> “Here we have a late-12th-century sermon deploying a meme from the hit romantic story of the day,” Seb Falk, a historian at the University of Cambridge, says in a statement. “This is very early evidence of a preacher weaving pop culture into a sermon to keep his audience hooked.”
One of the oldest pieces of writing I have from my ancestors is a dedication in a family bible, to my great-grandfather from his parents. It quotes a popular hymn. But when I looked it up, that was a quite recently written text at the time they quoted it, and it wasn't technically even a hymn, but a song from a play (Christian Richardt's version of the fairy tale sleeping beauty). Looks at first glance like they're quoting an old hymn, but it's more like me quoting a Disney film from 20 years ago.
The paper is very approachable too: https://academic.oup.com/res/article/76/326/339/8198901
Includes mention of M.R.James whom I know mostly as an author of ghost stories!
The guy’s name is Wade and he’s studying the ancient Song of Wade closely