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“Fascinating and thorough! I was delighted to learn so much about the process that so many of us
often just take for granted.This volume is bound to be the standard reference work on understanding
the writing process for decades to come. A work of great breadth and superb scholarship. I expect
this volume to be one of the most cited reference works for the international community of scholars
and students of writing.”
— David Berliner, Former President, American Educational Research Association;
Professor Emeritus, Educational Psychology, Arizona State University, USA;
author of Public Education. Defending a Cornerstone of American Democracy (2022)
“This is a timely book that covers many aspects of one of the most fundamental cultural inventions
in human history that changed our mode of thinking and allowed communication across time and
space.”
— René van der Veer, Emeritus Professor, Department of Education,
University of Leiden, The Netherlands;
author of Understanding Vygotsky (1991),
The Social Mind (2000), and Vygotsky’s Notebooks (2018)
“This masterful volume will be a key resource for scholars of writing for decades to come. It covers
the historical development from prehistory to the digital age, and it has something to tell us about
writing’s educational, psychological, and sociological dimensions. Horowitz has collected and
organized the chapters to come up with a volume that provides new insights into just about every
aspect of writing.”
— James V. Wertsch, Vice Chancellor for International Affairs, Emeritus,
David R. Francis Distinguished University Professor, Department of
Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, USA;
author of Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind (1985),
Voices of the Mind (1991), and How Nations Remember:
A Narrative Approach (2021)
THE ROUTLEDGE INTERNATIONAL
HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH ON WRITING
Rosalind Horowitz is Professor at The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA. Dr. Horowitz has
received research funding from a variety of sources including The National Academy of Education
USA and was selected by the College of Education and Human Development at The University of
Texas at San Antonio for Excellence in Globalism Advancement.
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOKS
IN COMMUNICATION STUDIES
Second Edition
57
FINLAND
18
16
14 50
10 13 51
48
37 40
34 52 60
58
35 25
6
33 28
21 24
31 NEPAL
39 23 9 41
38 30
EGYPT 29 59
26
32 27 22 7
OMAN 8
THAILAND
53
PART I
A History of World Writing and Literacies 1
4 History of Typography 48
David Jury
xi
Contents
PART II
Speaking and Writing 103
PART III
Writing and Reading 139
PART IV
Writing Beginnings, Cognitive Processes and Self-Regulation 185
PART V
Unique Elements of Digital Writing: Linear and Non-Linear
Multidimensional Contexts 257
xii
Contents
PART VI
Intercultural Rhetoric Research 281
PART VII
Writing in Everyday Contexts 299
PART VIII
Educational Communities of Writing 335
PART IX
Individual Uses of Written Language 379
xiii
Contents
PART X
Students Who Are Deaf and with Autism Spectrum Disorder:
Development of Writing 409
PART XI
Writing in the Sciences and Engineering 443
PART XII
The Emergence of the Desire to Write 475
PART XIII
Inspiration and Creativity in Writing 509
PART XIV
International Measures for the Assessment of Writing 531
xiv
Contents
Index 585
xv
INTERNATIONAL
ADVISORY BOARD
xvi
EMERGING SCHOLARS OF
WRITING
xvii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The contributors to this Handbook merit recognition—with honor and applause—for their years
of sustained dedication to the study of writing and their contributions to world literacy. They have
produced chapters that will be substantial sources of knowledge and inspiration for researchers of
the writing processes for decades to come. The research included herein appears in this volume
because of the dialogue that I have had with scholars who have had a firm belief in the possibilities
that written communication can bring for life opportunities, advancing clear thinking, and human
development—psychologically, linguistically, socially, culturally, emotionally through time and across
land and borders that cover a range of spaces. The International Advisory Board represents scholars
with whom I have interacted over numerous years and at various stages of this project, who suggested
researchers who would provide the most cutting-edge contributions and read manuscripts as needed.
I thank Routledge Press for the support that they provided for seven years as this book was being
conceptualized and produced. Sean Daly helped see the project through fruition. Grant Schatzman
assisted in early stages of its development. Brian Eschrich served as Chief Editor. Kelly Winter led
the editing to the final stages. Each offered valuable input, along with genuine dedication to the
project. I thank my graduate students in Texas, who stimulated my thinking, especially offer grati-
tude to Brittany Paul, The University of Texas at San Antonio, who helped inaugurate this project;
Lisa Griffith, Texas State University in San Marcos who worked diligently to locate authors, obtain
chapters, and organize the volume. Sara Chapa, a graduate student at The University of Texas at
San Antonio, was meticulous and efficient in reviewing the final parts of this book. I was granted a
semester leave by The University of Texas at San Antonio to pursue the production of this volume.
Finally, I thank colleagues, many represented in a variety of capacities throughout this project, albeit
authors or graduate students who are learning to produce writing research and those listed in various
capacities throughout the volume. During the preparation of this work we lost giants whose thinking
have influenced writing: M.A.K. Halliday and Wallace Chafe.Their contributions to language, writing,
and views of the mind were stellar for world-wide writing studies. I am grateful for extraordinary
research opportunities at The University of Minnesota with Gene L. Piché in Speech-Rhetoric and
Writing and S. Jay Samuels in Reading and faculty in The University of Minnesota Center for Human
Learning. I enthusiastically thank Charles Bazerman, The University of California, Santa Barbara, for
taking the lead by inaugurating Volume I of this Handbook. Study and communication with creative
minds at the University of Minnesota, Harvard University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
teaching at The University of Toronto, and travels to international conferences, including interactions
at the International Association of Applied Linguistics and the World Congress on Comparative and
xviii
Acknowledgements
International Education Societies including cross-disciplinary federally funded travel to Russia and
China expanded my knowledge of scholarship on writing and possibilities for greater collaborations
in this field, internationally. My dream is that this Handbook paves the way for building international
peace and harmony, through discourse processes, giving all peoples an opportunity to grow in mind
and spirit through writing.
Rosalind Horowitz
xix
CONTRIBUTORS
Estanislado S. Barrera, IV, School of Education, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, USA
Carl Bereiter, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Toronto,
Ontario, Canada
Douglas Biber, Applied Linguistics Program –English Department, Northern Arizona University,
Flagstaff, Arizona
Talitha Buschor, Department of Education, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara,
California, USA
Janine Butler, Department of Liberal Studies, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester
Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, USA
Gala Campos, Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education, Penn
State University, State College, Pennsylvania, USA
xx
List of Contributors
Ulla Connor, International Center for Intercultural Communication, Indiana University and Purdue
University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
John H.A.L. De Jong, Department of Art History and Cultural Studies, The University of
Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Jessica Early, Department of English, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
Rachel Eggleston, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Michael Erard, Institute of Data Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
Julie Dyke Ford, Mechanical Engineering Department, New Mexico Tech, Socorro, New
Mexico, USA
Brian Gabrial, Department of New Media, Journalism and Communication Arts, Northwestern
State University of Louisiana, Natchitoches, Louisiana; Department of Journalism, Concordia
University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Steve Graham, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
Douglas J. Hacker, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City,
Utah, USA
Suzanne E. Hidi, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto,Toronto,
Ontario, Canada
Richard Hudson, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London,
London, England, United Kingdom
David Jury, Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, United Kingdom
xxi
List of Contributors
Ioulia Kovelman, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Ely Kozminsky, Department of Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Israel
Rachel Mazique, Department of Liberal Studies, National Technical Institute for the Deaf,
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, USA
Bonnie J.F. Meyer, Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education,
Penn State University, State College, Pennsylvania, USA
Nils Johannes Naumann, Institute for Educational Research, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal,
Germany
Nancy Nelson, School of Education, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
E. Michael Nussbaum, Department of Education, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas,
Nevada, USA
David R. Olson, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Toronto,
Ontario, Canada
Anna Sala-Bubaré, Blanquerna Faculty of Psychology, Education and Sport Sciences, Universitat
Ramon Llull, Barcelona, Spain
xxii
List of Contributors
Marlene Scardamalia, Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Denise Schmandt-Besserat, Department of Art and Art History,The University of Texas at Austin,
Austin, Texas, USA
Ari Sherris, Department of Teacher and Bilingual Education, Texas A&M University at Kingsville,
Kingsville, Texas, USA
George H.S. Singer, Department of Education, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa
Barbara, California, USA
Kim Skinner, School of Education, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
Wakana Tsuji, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Toronto,
Ontario, Canada
Michael S. Van Winkle, Department of Educational Psychology and Higher Education, University
of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Deborah Wells Rowe, Department of Learning and Teaching, Vanderbilt University, Nashville,
Tennessee, USA
Jia Yu, Department of Asian Studies, Penn State University, State College, Pennsylvania, USA
Matthew Carl Zajic, Department of Health and Behavior Studies, Teachers College, Columbia
University, New York, New York, USA
Hui Zhang, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA
Kehui Zhang, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
xxiii
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
This Handbook contains chapters by distinguished international scholars of writing, many who
have devoted over 50 years to what has been a lifetime study of writing. They have pursued
intense work with passion, often single-handedly, valuing ramifications for world communica-
tion. The authors in this Handbook convey theoretical approaches to writing, have conducted
scientific and qualitative research, ethnographic, and additional methods and studies that explore
histories of writing, child drawing and writing processes, outcomes, a range of genres, from
informal to academic writing, for a range of audiences in social and cultural contexts. Chapters
report on the evolution of writing, books, and technology—the earliest forms of messaging—
from chiseling on caves, or vessels, to writing with such instruments as quill feathers, charcoal,
fountain pens, and with today’s computer-based keyboards and mouse. The development of
writing from infancy to adult years is addressed.
Chapter authors reviewed their own research trajectories, highlighted provocative studies, histor-
ical periods of research, and offered recommendations for future research. In addition, the last section
of this Handbook provides discussions of methodologies used for specific kinds of inquiry that will be
useful for developing researchers. The goal is to provide questions and procedures that will guide and
summarize priorities from the past to the designing of future research.
This Handbook was conceived as a source to build an international community and develop
means for cross-national collaboration in the study of writing. This would allow for compara-
tive analyses and for contrasts that enrich our understanding of writing in social-contexts and
geopolitical worlds.
The authors cross disciplines—from history, the arts, developmental psychology, linguistics, com-
position and rhetoric studies, reading processes and learning sciences, anthropology, book history, and
socio-linguistics.
In preparing this Handbook it became evident that the study of language must consider relationships
between writing and reading; speaking and writing; reading, writing, and listening to talk and text.
For too long, these studies have been isolated or poorly connected, yet these language arts function
in connection with one another.
Writing research warrants attention at the forefront of funding priorities. International
data and reports on school writing seem, to this editor—seriously missing. However, written
communication across countries is vital for our survival. This Handbook contains contributions
from scholars from across the globe whom I hope will gain immeasurably from cross-cultural
collaborations and funding.
xxiv
newgenprepdf
Preliminary Remarks
The study of writing sets the stage for forming an identity, human relations, health, the growth of
regions, and the building of democracies that enhance human growth—above all, life.We all hope this
book will remind us of the research of the past and will ignite creative possibilities for new inquiries
and substantive research for future generations.
Rosalind Horowitz
xxv
PART I
Abstract
Writing is a unique human achievement, and this chapter sketches some of the history of
this achievement and how it is distinct from art. We visit the three known origins of writing in
Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica to show how writing arose, in what forms, and how it spread.
We also provide an overview of how writing systems have been studied in modern times, and we
propose some ideas about the future of writing, as well the future of research on writing and writing
systems.
Introduction
Writing is a system of graphic marks that represent the units of a specific language. The units to be
represented (whether individual sounds, syllables, parts of words, or some combination of all three)
is a function of the structure of the language, the needs and traditions of the society that uses that
system, and the capabilities of the human brain. “Writing” is a general term for a visual system dis-
tinct from art, and a mode of language use that is distinguished from speaking, while “writing system”
refers to a specific type of graphic marks that represent types of linguistic units. Other words for
“writing systems” are “script” and “orthography.” Alphabets (such as the Roman alphabet), syllabaries
(such as Cherokee or Ethiopic, which represent consonant+vowel syllables), abjads (such as Arabic,
which represent only consonants), and logosyllabaries (such as Chinese, which represent words) are
all types of writing systems.
Writing is a unique human achievement, and this chapter sketches some of the history of this
achievement. It is distinct from art, as we discuss. We visit the three known origins of writing in
Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica to show how writing arose, in what forms, and how it spread.
We also provide an overview of how writing systems have been studied in modern times, and we
propose some ideas about what the future might hold for writing and writing systems.
DOI: 10.4324/9780429437991-2 3
Michael Erard and Denise Schmandt-Besserat
a community. For example, in Western society, the picture of a dove evokes “peace.” It is a common
assumption that art and writing are related, namely that writing has its origin in pictures. However,
both communication systems are fundamentally different, fully independent from each other, and
play different roles in society.
Archaeological evidence shows that art preceded writing by some 25,000 years.The first evidence
of art comes from France in the Paleolithic Aurignacian period about 30000 BC. The appearance of
art does not coincide with any major physiological, technological, or economic human development.
Therefore, it remains a mystery why image making appeared so relatively late in human cultural
development.The first art creations consisted of lines, circular depressions called “cup marks,” incom-
plete sketches of animals, and a motif interpreted as a female vulva, all pecked with a flint axe on
stone boulders (Leroi-Gourhan, 1971; Bahn & Vertut, 1988; Bahn & Vertut, 1997). In the Gravettian
period, about 23,000 BC, small three-dimensional sculptures representing obese women become
familiar. The same repertory of shapes made with the same technique were repeated in several rock
shelters of southwestern France.They attest to the existence of an extended community of Paleolithic
humans who communicated meaning via complex visual symbols that were stylized in various ways.
A community, dispersed in time and space, communicating with visual symbols: all of these elements
underlie the development of writing as well.
What did Paleolithic cup marks mean, and why were they associated with animal designs or
vulvae? We will never know for certain. However, most scholars consider them to be representing
the elements of a cosmology. The images stood for ideas of utmost significance for the society, such
as the creation of the world, the meaning of death and the principle of reproduction. According to
this hypothesis, visual art dealt with the supernatural, the unknown, the feared or the wanted. It was
a powerful instrument of thought to conceive ideas and bring a community to forge a common
understanding of the mysteries of life. By the late Upper Paleolithic and the following Mesolithic
and Neolithic periods art had become a world-wide phenomenon: no culture is known that does
not foster art.
Mesopotamia
When writing came about in Mesopotamia about 3200 BC, its function was exclusively economic.
While art dealt with the numinous, each sign of writing stood for mundane goods, namely each
4
Origins and Forms of Writing
represented a precise unit of a specific commodity. Art expressed what words cannot; the goods dealt
with corresponded to a Sumerian word. After 10000 BC art became an integral part of every culture,
while writing remained the asset of few civilizations. Moreover, art came without precedent, while
the signs of writing derived their shape, meaning, format, and economic function from a 4,000-year-
old counting system using clay counters called “tokens.”The long evolution from counting to writing
can be summarized as follows (Schmandt-Besserat, 1992).
Figure 1.1
5
Michael Erard and Denise Schmandt-Besserat
Figure 1.2
Two-Dimensional Signs
About 3500 BC, the temple economy of the Sumerian city of Uruk required keeping tokens in
archives –perhaps to keep track of debts until they were settled. The temple administration invented
envelopes consisting of small hollow clay balls in which tokens could be held together and be
protected from tampering. The envelopes also offered a clay surface upon which the temple officials
as well as debtors could impress their seals to warrant the terms of the transaction represented by the
tokens included inside (Figure 1.3).
About 3500 BC, the envelopes were perfected to make their content visible. The tokens were
impressed on the surface showing how many of what shape were included inside. This invention was
a major step towards writing because the three-dimensional tokens were reduced to two-dimensional
markings (Schmandt-Besserat, 1996) (Figure 1.4).
About 3300–3200 BC, evidence from such cities such as Uruk in Mesopotamia, Susa in Elam
and Habuba Kabira in Syrian shows tokens imprinted on a solid clay ball –a tablet (Figure 1.5).
Accordingly, the signs were no longer merely duplicating actual tokens held within. The tablets did
altogether away with tokens, and by doing so, the signs became independent entities.The tablets were
far more convenient than envelopes filled with tokens since they could display permanently one or
even several accounts that could be viewed at a glance.
6
Origins and Forms of Writing
Figure 1.3
Figure 1.4
Figure 1.5
7
Michael Erard and Denise Schmandt-Besserat
Figure 1.6
8
Origins and Forms of Writing
Figure 1.7
Figure 1.8
9
Michael Erard and Denise Schmandt-Besserat
Figure 1.9
name of a deceased individual was to be spoken aloud at regular intervals in order for his or her ghost
to exist in the underworld explains the funerary texts (Bayliss, 1973; Scurlock, 1988; Jonker, 1995;
Niditch, 1996). Meskalamdug’s name, couched in gold, suggests that casting the sounds of a name into
writing was held equivalent to a perpetual utterance for the benefit of his ghost. After 5,000 years of
accounting, the second function of writing was to guarantee the survival of the dead in the nether-
world (Westenholz, 1993). At this point, for the first time, art and writing became complementary.
The artifact enshrined the written word.
10
Origins and Forms of Writing
The Alphabet
The alphabet was invented only once which means that all the present alphabets, from Latin
and Greek to Mongolian and Hangul, derive from the same first alphabet. The invention of the
alphabet took place in the Near East, probably in present day Lebanon, about 1700 BC (Healey,
1990). The alphabet owed nothing to the previous cuneiform script since it was neither syllabic
nor logographic. It was a totally new system based on the identification of the distinctive sounds
of a language and matching each with a specific sign: a letter (Yardeni, 2003). The first alphabet
consisted of 22 letters each standing for a phoneme –a single sound of speech (Sass, 2005). The
11
Michael Erard and Denise Schmandt-Besserat
success of the alphabet was to streamline script. Compared to about 600 cuneiform signs, the 22
letters were easy to learn allowing literacy to spread more widely. The letters of this first alphabet,
however, only represented consonants.
The Phoenician cities that thrived on the coast of present day Syria and Lebanon between 1000–
300 BC played an important role in the diffusion of the alphabet across the Mediterranean sea, and in
particular to Greece (Whitt, 1995; Markoe, 2000). Perhaps as early as 800 BC, the Greeks adapted the
Semitic alphabet to their Indo–European language by adding letters for vowels. This resulted in a 27
letters alphabet that made it easier to transcribe the spoken word and even easier to read, since all the
sounds were indicated (Cook, 1987). In turn the Etruscans who occupied the province of Tuscany in
present-day Italy starting in the eighth century BC, adopted the Greek alphabet by slightly modifying
the shape of the letters (Bonfante, 1990). When Etruria was conquered by Rome in the first century
BC, the Etruscan alphabet became that of the Romans. The diffusion of the Latin alphabet followed
the conquests of the Roman armies through Europe (Reynolds, 1991).
Chinese
Among these three origins of writing, the Chinese is the only one that has an unbroken record
of use in the last three millennia leading up to the modern time. The earliest evidence of Chinese
charaters dates to 1250 BC. About 4,500 symbols have been identified on shards of turtle shell and
cow bone that were used in divination practices. Questions to an oracle were written on the shell or
bone, which were then heated in the fire; the resulting cracks were read, and the answers given were
also inscribed in the bone. About 1,500 of these 4,500 symbols have survived as modern Chinese
characters. The oldest examples of oracle bone writing have been found in north central China in
the Shang region.There is no evidence that the Shang were solely responsible for developing writing
in China, but there is also no evidence of Chinese writing at any other place at an earlier time
(Keightley, 1978).
From the beginning, Chinese was written vertically, the columns read right to left. (Modern
conventions have also added horizontal, left-to-right reading.) Early Chinese writing had several
variants. The “great seal” script, ta chuan, was used in 1200 to 800 BC on bronze vessels and carved
on character seals, and was also used in all other writing. Other seal scripts were the most diverse of
formal writing. From 403 to 221 BC, a number of independent states developed their own script
styles, but from 221 to 206 BC the Qin dynasty established a standard script called hsiao chuan, or
“lesser seal script.”This gave way to li shu, the “clerkly script,” a straighter style that was easier to write,
developed by the staff of the imperial democracy and used from 206 BC to 220 AD. Around the
second century AD a third formal style, the standard script (or kai shu) was developed (Boltz, 1994).
Until the early twentieth century, all dialects of Chinese were written in a literary dialect that
dated to the late Old Chinese period, about 1100 BC to 100 AD. This meant that literate Chinese
wrote in a way they themselves did not speak. This form persisted, in part, because of the Chinese
civil service’s power in creating and maintaining the written standard for 2,000 years. However, in
the early twentieth century, a reform movement in China adapted modern spoken Chinese as the
basis for written Chinese. Now writing is done in Modern Standard Chinese, a dialect close to the
Mandarin spoken in Beijing.
The most remarkable feature of Chinese writing is the size of its character set. Since around 100
AD, when the scholar Xu Shen created a dictionary of 9,353 characters, the number of characters
has steadily increased to about 60,000. Most of these characters, however, are archaic words, variant
characters, or proper names. For the modern Chinese writer and reader of Chinese, 1,000 characters
account for 90 percent of all occurrences in texts, and 2,400 characters cover 99 percent of occurrences.
In other words, only a slight fraction of the total number of characters is required to be fully literate
in contemporary Chinese societies (Boltz, 1994).
12
Origins and Forms of Writing
In the West, a myth about Chinese writing has persisted. Because Chinese characters are written
with elaborate series of pen strokes, and because Chinese calligraphy is done with brushes and ink,
the characters have been considered small pictures that represent ideas.This is not the case, and a small
mountain of books have been devoted to dispelling this myth (de Francis, 1984). Most characters do
represent speech sounds; 90 percent of the characters consist of a graphic element that indicates pro-
nunciation, combined with another element that marks meaning.
Mesoamerica
In Mesoamerica –what is now southern Mexico and the countries of Central America –as many
as 13 different writing systems had been developed by 900 AD by various civilizations (Lounsbury,
1989). The most visible of these is the Maya writing system, because it was written on stone on
upright monuments know as stelae, and because major advances in Maya decipherment have been
made in the last 20 years (Coe, 1999). Maya was written during the height of the civilization, from
250 to 900 AD through to the sixteenth century when Christopher Columbus first encountered
the Maya.
Maya characters are known as “glyphs,” about 800 of which are known to exist. Each glyph
organizes several smaller elements known as graphemes and contains a main grapheme with one
or more diacritics. The diacritics can appear to the left, right, top, or bottom of the main symbol.
The glyphs represent morphemes (or basic units of words), syllables (consonant +vowel sequences),
as well as semantic and phonological determinatives. Because there was no set standard for glyph
construction, writers could present the same word in many different ways, often in the same texts.
However, glyphs are always written in paired vertical stacks and read top to bottom, left to right, in a
zig-zag fashion. The sequences of graphemes in a glyph are read –more or less –from the upper left
corner to the lower right.
The Maya not only carved glyphs on stone stelae; they also painted them on ceramics and bark
paper books called codices; most archaeological and deciphering work is done with these. If writing
in Mesopotamia is associated with economic functions, then in Mesoamerica writing is associated
with calendrical calculations and the actions of kingly dynasties. Hundreds of codices existed and
were used by the Maya; most were destroyed by the Europeans as pagan works. (Since the nineteenth
century the extant codices have been copied and photographed; though they are known by the
European cities where they reside [the Dresden Codex, the Madrid Codex, the Paris Codex, and the
Grolier Codex], they are now distributed world-wide via the internet.)
Despite its prominence, Maya writing was not the oldest Mesoamerican writing, and archaeologists
have attempted to establish its lineage more precisely. Some markings that may be precursors date as
early as 1100 BC.The earliest writings that are recognizably antecedent to later scripts date to around
650 BC in the states of Tabasco and Oaxaca, Mexico. In 2002, archaeologists M. Pohl, K. Pope, and
C. von Nagy announced the discovery of a roller stamp and plaques with glyphs, which were found
near the Olmec site of La Venta in Tabasco (Pohl, Pope, & Nagy, 2002; Stokstad, 2002). The discovery
bolstered the theory that the Olmec had influenced other civilizations and cultures. From 400 BC to
200 AD, three related writing systems were used in Mesoamerica.The Isthmian script (the descendent
of the Olmec script and a logosyllabic script like the later Maya script) was used from the Mexican
Gulf Coast through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; the Oaxacan script was used in the Valley of Oaxaca;
and the Maya script was used in an area that extended from the Yucatan peninsula to the foothills of
the Guatemalan Highlands.
When Europeans arrived in Mexico, they outlawed the use of native writing systems. Indigenous
Mesoamerican people have revived the use of glyphs in contemporary times as a symbol of their
heritage.
13
Michael Erard and Denise Schmandt-Besserat
Writing as Culture
The contemporary interest in the structure of writing systems is generally agreed to begin with I.J. Gelb,
a philologist at the University of Chicago, whose 1952 book, The Study of Writing, was the first to cat-
egorize various writing systems in terms of their history and structure. Though many of his statements
about writing’s relationship to language have been disputed and corrected, his book sparked further
exploration into writing systems. Gelb even coined a name for this field: grammatology. (The word is per-
haps better known among humanists as the title of a book by the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida.)
However, scholars’ interest in the relationship between orality and literacy traditions began with
Milman Perry in the 1920s (Jahandarie, 1999). Perry was a Harvard classicist who first showed that
the texts of the ancient Greek poet Homer were primarily oral compositions. This closed a debate
(ongoing at the time) about Homer’s identity and whether “Homer” was a single author or several.
(Parry argued that Homer was a single, real person who assembled his unique epics from a number
of essential themes and variations that had been passed down as part of an oral tradition.) Other early
investigators, such as Eric Havelock (1976), sought to uncover how literacy shaped Greek society, and
the impact of the alphabet on the organization of ideas, abstract thought, and consciousness.
In the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian media critic, became a popular thinker on the effects
of mass media and media technologies, such as television, which led him to consider how cultures
that relied on aural/oral information differed from visual cultures (Mc Luhan, 1962; 1964; Moos,
1997; Gordon, 2003). Many of McLuhan’s colleagues and followers extended these ideas to thinking
about the properties of cultures that did not have books or writing. Walter Ong argued that writing
is a technology that restructures consciousness of individuals who use it and refocuses the energies
of societies that utilize it (Ong, 1982). Anthropologist Jack Goody, characterizing writing as a “tech-
nology of the intellect,” tackled the oral-literate divide to show how writing influences religion, the
economy, law, and commerce (Goody, 1977; 1987a; 1987b). David Olson argues that writing, not
speech, determines our ability to reflect on ourselves (Olson and Torrance, 1991; Olson, 1994).
For most of the twentieth century, linguists did not pay much attention to forms of written lan-
guage, arguing that their task was to study language as it was spoken. In the 1970s they found renewed
interest in writing systems as evidence for abstract units of language and for insight into otherwise
inaccessible linguistic processes. The fact that many writing systems are alphabetic (because they
represent individual sounds) suggests that individual sound segments called phonemes are fundamental
to linguistic cognition. However, the fact that some writing systems encode syllables suggests that
syllabic units are also highly salient. Anthropological linguists have been attentive to writing, begin-
ning in the late nineteenth century, due to work describing languages indigenous to the Americas
and recording narratives, oral poetry, and other verbal performance. Later they theorized how tran-
scribing spoken utterances, conversations, and oral performances altered the interpretations of spoken
discourse (Bauman & Sherzer, 1974).
Late in the twentieth century, the academic attention to writing systems matured. This interest
led to the publication of encyclopedic works on writing systems. These were novel because they
collected language, writing and cultural experts and combined these with state-of-the-art advances
in computer printing that allowed all the characters in numerous writing systems to be printed.
These works included The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems (1999), edited by Florian Coulmas.
Because of increased interest in teaching writing systems, several textbooks have also been published,
such as Writing Systems: An Introduction to their Linguistic Analysis (2002), by Florian Coulmas, and
Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach (2005), by Henry Rogers.
Decipherment
European scholars and explorers were deciphering ancient texts written in ancient, often no
longer used, writing systems long before Milman Perry and I.J. Gelb’s work. Three decipherments,
14
Origins and Forms of Writing
15
Michael Erard and Denise Schmandt-Besserat
diverse places into the same developmental plan, Latour’s explanation extends to Maya astronomers,
Chinese oracles, and Mesopotamian merchants.Writing systems may spread through the influence of
religion, military and political conquest, or economic ties, but it persists for reasons that have to do
with its utility for human work and its adaptability across spheres. One might use Latour to explain
that many writing systems evolve toward the alphabetic not because the alphabetic is essentially better
but because it has social advantages over the representation of ideas, words, or syllables: it may be
easier to learn and better adapted to other languages.
16
Origins and Forms of Writing
writing irrelevant. However, the ability to encode specific elements of specific languages in a writing
system is culturally and historically too important to ever wane.
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several other places, just as if she were some common burgher's wench with
a none too spotless reputation, had not ended with a song or two: no! the
malapert had actually been impudent enough last night to scale the
courtyard wall and to stand for over half an hour just below Madame's
window (how he knew which was Madame's window Satan, his
accomplice, alone could tell!) singing away to the accompaniment of a
twangy lute, which she—Nicolle—for one, could never abide.
That was yesterday. And now this outburst of rage! It was unbelievable!
Madame Jacqueline of a truth was hot-tempered and passionate—how
could she help being otherwise, seeing that she had been indulged and
adulated ever since, poor mite of three, she had lost both father and mother
and had been under the guardianship of Monseigneur d'Inchy and of half a
dozen other gentlemen. Never, however, had Colle seen her quite like this,
and for such a worthless cause! Colle could scarce credit her eyes and ears.
And alas! there was no mistaking the flood of heartrending weeping which
followed. Jacqueline sat huddled up in her chair, her face buried in her
hands, sobbing and weeping as if her heart would break.
II
All the obstinacy in the worthy old soul melted away in an instant,
giving place to heartrending remorse. She fell on her knees, she took the
small feet of her adored mistress in her hands and kissed them and wept
over them and cried and lamented tearfully.
'Lord God, what have I done?' she called out from the depths of her
misery. 'My dove, my cabbage! Look at me—look at thy old Colle! Dost
not know that I would far sooner bite my tongue out than say one word that
would offend thee? My lamb, wilt not look at Colle?—I vow—I swear that
I'll die here on the spot at thy feet, if thou'lt not smile on me!'
Gradually as the old woman wept and pleaded, Jacqueline became more
calm. The sobs no longer shook her shoulders, but she still kept her face
hidden in her hands. A few minutes went by. Colle had buried her old head
in the young girl's lap, and after a while Jacqueline, regally condescending
to forgive, allowed her hand to fall on the bowed head of the repentant
sinner.
'I'll only forgive thee, Colle,' she said with solemn earnestness, 'if Pierre
doth not lay a finger upon that heavenly singer—but, if he does——'
Colle struggled to her feet as quickly as her stiff joints would allow.
'I'll go and find the varlet myself,' she said fiercely, ready to betray with
cowardly baseness the confederate of awhile ago, now that she had
propitiated the mistress whom she adored. 'M. de Landas hath not yet left
the Palace, and if Pierre dares but raise his hand against that mal—hem!—
against the noble singer whom thou dost honour with thine attention, well!
he'll have to reckon with old Colle; that is all!'
'Go, Colle!' she said eagerly. 'Go at once, ere it be too late and that fool
Pierre——'
The words died upon her lips. The next instant she had jumped down
from her chair and run to the window. From some distance down the street
there had come, suddenly wafted upon the wings of the wind, the sound of a
voice singing the well-known verses of Messire de Ronsard:
'Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avait desclose
Sa robe de pourpre au soleil
A point perdu cette vesprée
Les plis de sa robe pourprée
Et son teint au vostre pareil.'[1]
Jacqueline knelt upon the window-seat, but she could see nothing, so she
turned back piteously to murmur to old Colle: 'Oh! if I could only see him!'
The old woman, after the experience of the past few minutes, was ready
to do anything, however abject, to further her mistress' desire.
'Put on thy mask, my pigeon,' she said, 'and then lean well out of the
window; but not too far, for fear M. de Landas should happen to be passing
in the courtyard and should see thee with thy hair down. No, no!' added the
old hypocrite obsequiously, 'there is no harm in listening to so sweet a
singer. I'll get thy purse, too, and thou canst throw him a coin or two. No
doubt the poor fellow is down-at-heels and only sings to earn his supper.'
And humble, fussy, still snivelling, Nicolle shuffled across the room,
found the satin mask and brought it to her mistress. Jacqueline fixed it over
her face; then she leaned as far out of the window as she dared to do
without fear of falling out. And, if M. de Landas saw her, why! he would be
so gladdened at the sight that he would have no ear for a mere street
musician, whilst she—Jacqueline—was just now in so soft a mood that if
M. de Landas happened to scale the wall to her casement-window—as he
had more than once threatened to do—she would return his kisses in a way
that she had never done before.
For she was deeply in love with M. de Landas, had been for years. She
had plighted her troth to him when she was a mere child, and she loved him
—oh yes! she loved him very, very much, only...
III
There was the width of the courtyard and the tall wall between
Jacqueline and the street where stood the singer whom she so longed to see.
She had caught sight of him yesterday when, to Nicolle's horror, he had
boldly scaled the wall and then had lingered for nigh on half an hour
beneath her window, singing one merry song after another, till her young
heart had been filled with a new joy, the cause of which she herself could
not quite comprehend.
She had watched him unseen, fearful lest some of the serving-men
should see him and drive him away. Fortunately Chance had been all in
favour of her new romance. M. de Landas was on duty at the Forts that
night; her guardian was still closeted with some other grave seigneurs, and
the serving-men were no doubt too busy to trouble about a harmless
minstrel. As for the wenches about the place, they had stood about in the
doorways, listening with delight at the impassioned songs and gaping in
admiration at the splendid bearing of the unknown cavalier.
Thus the singer had stood in the courtyard for some considerable time,
his martial figure silhouetted against the clear, moonlit sky, his voice rising
and falling in perfect cadence to the accompaniment of a soft-toned lute,
whilst Jacqueline, hidden within the shadow of the window-embrasure,
listened spellbound, her whole youth, her ardent, loving soul exultant at this
romance which was taking birth at her feet.
And now he had come back, and the very night seemed to bid him
welcome. It was still quite early in March, yet the air was soft as spring. All
day the birds had been twittering under the eaves, and on the west wind had
come wafted gently the scent of budding almond blossom and of the life-
giving sap in the branches of the trees.
The stately city with its towers and steeples and cupolas lay bathed in the
light of the honey-coloured moon. Far away on the right, the elegant church
of Saint Géry up on the Mont-des-Boeufs seemed like a bar of silver which
attached old Cambray to the star-studded firmament above, and around it
were grouped the tall steeples of St. Martin, St. Waast and St. Aubert, with
the fine hexagon of Martin et Martine which crowned the Town Hall;
whilst, dominating this forest of perfect and rich architecture, was the mass
of the cathedral close by, with its tall pointed steeple, its flying buttresses,
its numberless delicate pinnacles picked out as by a fairy hand against the
background of deep azure.
But Jacqueline de Broyart had for the nonce no eyes for all that beauty.
What cared she if the wintry moon outlined all these lovely heights with
delicate lines of silver? What cared she if the shadows of stately edifices
appeared full of a golden glow by contrast with the cold blue of the lights?
Her eyes were fixed, not on the tower of St. Géry nor on the steeple of
Notre Dame: they rested upon that high and cruel wall which hid the
unknown singer from her sight.
And her fancy went soaring into a world of romance—a world far away
from the sordid strifes, the political intrigues, the quarrels of to-day; a world
wherein men were all handsome and brave and women were all free to
grant them their hand to kiss, to listen to their songs, to reward their
prowess, to receive their homage unfettered by convention—a world, in
fact, such as Messire de Froissart had chronicled and of which Messire
Villon had sung so exquisitely.
Then suddenly Jacqueline's dreams were rudely interrupted, as was also
the song of the unseen minstrel. Loud voices were raised and there was a
clash which made Jacqueline's very heart turn cold in her bosom.
But Colle had shuffled out of the room some little while ago, in search of
Pierre, no doubt, whom evidently she had failed to find. And out there
behind that cruel wall the rough hands of that abominable varlet were being
laid on the precious person of the unsuspecting minstrel. Jacqueline felt
literally paralysed both with terror and with wrath. Colle had spoken of
Pierre's stout arm and still stouter stick, but there was also the possibility of
M. de Landas himself being about, and then—oh, then! ... Ye heavens
above! anything might happen! ... Oh! the wicked, wicked old woman and
that execrable Pierre! ... and ... and of course M. de Landas' jealousy was
sometimes terrifying!
The noise of the scuffle in the street became louder and louder. There
were cries of rage as well as of pain. Blows were evidently raining freely—
on whom? My God, on whom? Then, from further up the street, came the
sound of running footsteps as well as the stern voice of the night watchmen
hurrying to the scene. Jacqueline would have bartered some years of her life
to see what was going on the other side of the wall. Only a minute or two
had gone by: to the young girl it had seemed like hours of suspense. And
now these people all rushing along, no doubt in order to give a hand to
Pierre—to fall on the unarmed minstrel—to lay hands upon him—to
belabour him with sticks—to wound or hurt him—to——
Jacqueline uttered a loud cry of horror. It was the echo of one of terror,
of pain and of rage which came from the other side of the wall. The next
moment a dark mass appeared over the top of the wall, silhouetted against
the moonlit sky. To Jacqueline's straining eyes it seemed like the body of a
man which, for the space of a brief second, seemed to hover in mid air and
then fell with a dull thud upon the paving-stones of the courtyard below.
Jacqueline closed her eyes. She felt sick and faint. To her ears now came
the sound of loud groans and vigorous curses. And then—oh, then!—loud
laughter and the last bar of the interrupted song—a sound indeed which
caused her at once to open her eyes again; whereupon she, too, could have
laughed and sung for joy. The inert mass still lay in a heap at the foot of the
wall; Jacqueline could vaguely discern its outline in the gloom, whilst up on
the top of the wall, astride, hatless, lute in hand, sat the masked minstrel
with his head turned gazing toward her window.
She clapped her hands with glee, and he, with a loud cry of 'Mignonne!'
swung himself down from the wall and ran across the courtyard until he
came to a halt just beneath her window, and even in the dim light of this
wintry moon Jacqueline thought that she could see his eyes glowing
through the holes in the mask.
And somehow all this longing, all this thirst for a still-unknown
happiness, seemed personified in the singer with the tall, broad stature and
the mellow voice; it was embodied in the honey-coloured moon, in the
glints of silver and gold upon the steeples of Cambray, in the scent of the
spring and the murmurs of the breeze. Jacqueline pressed her hands against
her heart. She was so happy that she could have cried.
Beside her on the window-sill stood a tall vase fashioned of Dutch clay.
It was filled with tall-stemmed Madonna lilies, which had been produced at
great cost in the hot-houses belonging to her own estate in Hainault. Their
powerful scent had filled the room with its fragrance. Without thought or
hesitation, Jacqueline suddenly pulled the sheaf out of the vase and
gathered the flowers in her arms. The tender, juicy stems were wet and she
took her embroidered handkerchief out of her pocket and wrapped it round
them; then she flung the whole sheaf of lilies out of the window and
watched to see them fall, bruised and sweet-smelling, at the minstrel's feet.
IV
'Thou hast been gone a long time, Colle,' said the young girl carelessly.
'Where hast thou been?'
Old Colle sighed with relief. The Lord be praised! Madame had
evidently seen and heard nothing of that vulgar scuffle which had ended in
such disaster for poor Pierre, and in such a triumph for the impudent rascal
who had since disappeared just as quickly as he came.
'I just went round to see that those wenches were all abed and that their
lights were safely out,' replied the old woman with brazen hypocrisy.
'And didst speak to Pierre on the way?' queried Jacqueline, who had
assumed the quaintest possible air of simple ingenuousness.
'To-morrow's banquet?'
'Do not feign surprise, my pigeon,' rejoined old Colle, who was
decidedly out of humour. 'I even asked thee to-night, before taking off thy
gown, if thou wouldst wear that one or another on the morrow.'
'I remember,' replied Jacqueline with a yawn, 'I said that I did not care
what I wore, as I hated banquets, and company and bowings and——'
'But Monseigneur said that the banquet to-morrow would be for a special
occasion.'
'Oh! I am only putting two and two together, my cabbage,' replied old
Colle with a sly wink. 'There is talk of distinguished guests in Cambray, of
betrothals, and ... and ...
'Betrothals?'
'Why, yes. Thou art nearly twenty, my pigeon, and Monseigneur, thy
guardian, will have to make up his mind that thou wilt marry sooner or
later. I always thought that he did favour Monseigneur de Landas, until
——'
'There are so many rumours in the air,' replied Colle sententiously. 'Some
talk of the Duc d'Anjou, who is own brother to the King of France.'
'A great lady, my cabbage,' said Nicolle solemnly, 'cannot follow the
dictates of her heart like a common wench.'
'No, no! Thank God for that!' assented Colle piously. 'As for the others ...
well! their name is legion ... some of them will be at the banquet to-
morrow.... There is the Marquis de Hancourt, a fine-looking youth, and that
horrid German prince whom I cannot abide! The English lord hath gone
away, so they say, broken-hearted at thy refusal; but there's the Spanish
duke, whose name I cannot remember, and Don José, own son to the
Emperor.... As for that stranger——' she added with a contemptuous shrug
of the shoulders.
'Well, I don't know much about him. But Pierre, feeling crestfallen, did
admit that Monseigneur chided him severely for having shown a want of
respect to a gentleman who ought to have known better than to pretend to
be a street musician.'
'Town gossip,' she went on with great volubility, 'has been busy with that
stranger for the past two days. 'Tis said that he is styled Monseigneur le
Prince de Froidmont; though what a prince should be doing in a shabby
hostel in that squalid quarter of the city I, for one, do not know—nor why
he should be going about masked and cloaked through the city in the guise
of a vagabond.'
'That's what I say,' asserted Colle triumphantly. 'And that's what Pierre
thought until Monseigneur told him that if he did not go at once and offer
his humble apologies he surely would get a flogging, seeing that the Prince
de Froidmont would actually be a guest at the banquet to-morrow, and
would of a certainty complain to M. de Landas.'
'Aye!' assented Colle. 'Didst ever hear the like! But he must be a
distinguished seigneur for all that, or Monseigneur would not bid him
come.'
'No, I suppose not,' said Jacqueline with perfect indifference. 'The Prince
de Froidmont?' she added with a little yawn. 'Is that his name?'
'So the town gossips say,' replied Colle, who was busy just then in
wrapping the bed-gown round her young mistress's shoulders.
'And he comes to the banquet to-morrow?'
Jacqueline said nothing more for the moment, appeared to have lost all
interest in the masked musician and in Pierre's misdeeds. She stretched out
her arms lazily while vigorous old Colle picked her up as if she were a baby
and carried her—as she was wont to do every night—to her bed.
She laid her down upon the soft feather mattress and spread the fine
coverlets over her. The alcove wherein stood the monumental bedstead was
in semi-darkness, for the light from the wax candles in the sconces about
the room failed to penetrate into the recess. But that semi-darkness was
restful, and for awhile Jacqueline lay back against the pillows, with eyes
closed, in a state of that complete well-being which is one of the
monopolies of youth. Nicolle, thinking that Madame would be dropping off
to sleep, made a movement to go; but Jacqueline's small white hand had
hold of the old woman's bony fingers, and old Colle, abjectly happy at
feeling the pressure, remained quite still, waiting and watching, gazing with
doglike devotion on the lovely face—lovely in repose as it was when the
light of gaiety and roguishness danced in the blue eyes.
After a few minutes of this silent beatitude, Jacqueline opened her eyes
and said in a dreamy voice, half-asleep:
She was sufficiently awake to feel quite happy at the thought that
Madame was suddenly taking an interest in her clothes, and continued
eagerly: 'It hath an underdress of that lovely new green colour which hath
become the mode of late, and all embroidered with silver. Nothing more
beautiful hath ever been fashioned by tailors' art, and in it Madame looks
just like an exquisite white lily, with the delicate green stem below.'
'Well then, Colle,' rejoined Jacqueline dreamily, 'to-morrow evening I
will wear my white satin gown with the pearls and the underdress of green
and silver, and Mathurine must study a new way of doing my hair with the
pointed coif which they say is so modish now in France. I will wear my
stockings of crimson silk and my velvet shoes, and round my neck I'll wear
the ropes of pearls which my dear mother did bequeath to me; in my ears I'll
have the emerald earrings, and I'll wear the emerald ring upon my finger. I
wish I had not that ugly mole upon my left cheek-bone, for then I could
have had one of those tiny patches of black taffeta which are said to be so
becoming to the complexion....'
She paused, and added with quaint wistfulness: 'Think you, Colle, that I
shall look handsome?'
'As lovely as a picture, my dear one,' said Nicolle with enthusiasm. 'As
exquisite as a lily; fit only to be the bride of a King.'
And even as she fell gradually into the delicious and dreamless sleep of
youth, her lips murmured softly: 'I wonder!'
CHAPTER VIII
I
Gilles had spent four days at the hostelry of 'Les Trois Rois,' and here he
would have liked to remain indefinitely and to continue the sentimental
romance so happily begun beneath the casement-windows of the
Archiepiscopal Palace. With the light-heartedness peculiar to most soldiers
of fortune, he had during those four days succeeded in putting his rôle out
of his mind. Though he had not yet caught sight of Madame's face at her
window, he quite thought that he would do so in time, and already he had
received more than one indication that his singing was not unwelcome. The
casement had been deliberately thrown open when he had scaled the
courtyard wall, and had resumed his song immediately beneath the window
which he had ascertained belonged to Madame's private apartment. He had
felt, even though he did not actually see, that some one was listening to him
from up there, for once he had perceived a shadow upon the casement
curtain, and once a hand, small and delicate, had rested upon the window-
sill. Gilles would have continued this wooing—aye! perhaps have brought it
to a happy conclusion, he thought—without being forced to assume another
personality than his own: a thing which became more and more abhorrent to
Messire Gilles' temper, now that the time for starting the masquerade in
earnest was drawing nigh.
'We could make ourselves very happy here, honest Jehan,' he had said to
the faithful companion of his many adventures. 'Waited on by that silent and
zealous youth, who of a truth looks like the very ghost of silence and
discretion. With judicious economy, the money which a gracious Queen
hath placed in our hands would last us a year. It seems a pity to fritter it all
away in a few weeks by playing a rôle which is detestable and unworthy.'
'You are quite right,' broke in Gilles gravely. 'Your argument is very
sound. The money, my friend, was given unto us in order to play a certain
rôle, and that rôle we must now play whether we like it or not, on pain of
being branded as vagabonds and thieves.'
'As you say,' remarked Gilles dryly, 'I have always found you of good
counsel, my friend. Very likely—that is what you would say, is it not?—
very likely, unless we played our parts as Madame la Reyne de Navarre did
direct, Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy would discover the fraud and have us
both hanged for our pains. And if the hangman did happen to miss us,
Madame Marguerite would certainly see to it that a gibbet was ready for us
somewhere in France. So for this once, I think, mine honest Jehan, we must
take it that honesty will be the best policy.'
'O-o-o-only th-th-th-that——'
'Quite so!' assented Gilles, 'only that in this case we cannot contrive to
remain honest without being dishonest, which is a proposition that doth
gravely disturb my mind.'
'Th-th-th-the o-o-o-only——'
'Hold your tongue, friend Jehan,' broke in Gilles impatiently. 'Verily, you
talk a great deal too much!'
II
And now, at the very close of the fourth day, Messire Gilles made noisy
irruption into the tiny room which he occupied in the hostelry of 'Les Trois
Rois.' Maître Jehan—after the stormy episode outside the postern gate
wherein he had taken part—was in the room, waiting for his master.
Gilles was in the rarest of good humour. As soon as he had closed the
door behind him, he threw his plumed toque and the lute upon the table and,
sitting down on the narrow paillasse which was his bed, he fell to
contemplating a bunch of white lilies which he had in his hand. The stems
of these lilies were carefully wrapped in an embroidered handkerchief, but
they hung their bruised, if still fragrant, heads in a very doleful manner.
Gilles laughed softly to himself. Then he held the flowers out at arm's
length and called out gaily to Jehan:
'Congratulate me, honest Jehan!' he said. 'The first act of our
adventurous comedy is over. The curtain has rung down on a veritable
triumph! I have received a token! ... I have captured the first bastion in the
citadel of the fair one's heart! Give me a week, and I hold the entire fortress
for and on behalf of Monsieur Duc d'Anjou, our august master!'
'No, I have not seen her, my good man. All that fine fight outside the
walls, the complete discomfiture of our assailants, my perilous position
inside the courtyard, from whence a reinforcement of varlets might easily
have put me to flight, did not win for me even a glimpse of the lady. But her
window was wide open this time, and I could see her shadow flitting past
the casement. Then suddenly these lilies were flung at me. They were
crushed and bruised against the pavement as they fell; but they are a token,
friend Jehan, and you cannot deny it! Madame Jacqueline's heart is already
touched by the song of the unknown troubadour, and he hath but to present
himself before her to be graciously received.'
'That's just it!' broke in Gilles with a laugh. 'You have a way, my friend,
of hitting the right nail on the head. As you say, the four days' respite which
have been granted to us have now expired, and we have not yet seen the
future Duchesse d'Anjou face to face.'
'That is the trouble, I grant you. There is that infernal masquerade; and of
a truth, I am more convinced than ever that the reason why those noble
mynheers are so determined that Madame shall not show her face ere I have
irrevocably committed myself—I—that is, the Duc d'Anjou—that is——
Oh, my God!' he exclaimed. 'What a tangle!! Well, as I was saying.... By the
way, what was I saying just now?'
'Th-th-th-that——'
'Of course! You incorrigible chatterbox! I would have explained my
meaning before now if you had not talked nineteen to the dozen all the
time! I mean that I have completely changed my mind, and that I have
become convinced that Madame Jacqueline is as ugly as sin, else those wily
Dutchmen would not be so anxious to cover up her face.'
'Therefore, my good man, good fortune is in our debt. She did not favour
me with a sight of the lady ere I meet her in my official capacity. But
Madame Jacqueline hath given me a token: she is prepared to love me, and
I am still in the dark as to whether she squints or is pitted with pock-marks.
A terrible position for any man to be in!' he sighed dolefully, 'even though
he is out a-courting for a friend.'
'B-b-b-but——'
'You mean well, my friend,' quoth Gilles, who fell to contemplating the
bunch of faded lilies with a rueful expression of face. 'You mean well, but
you talk too much, and thus I am thrown on mine own resources for counsel
in an emergency. As for arguments! Why, you would argue the devil's horns
from off his head! Still,' he added, as he finally flung the lilies away from
him with a careless gesture of indifference, 'still, in spite of what you say, I
must stick to my bargain. Those mulish mynheers will not grant us any
further delay, and to-morrow I am pledged to appear at the governor's
banquet—yes, even I!—Monsieur Duc d'Anjou et d'Alençon, own brother
to the King of France, and you as my faithful servitor.'
'Ah! there you are wrong, my friend,' retorted Gilles. 'For my taste, the
dénouement is coming along at far too rapid a pace. To-morrow, already our
troubles will begin—peace will know us no more. I for one will never
rightly know who I am; nor will I know who it is who will know who I am
not. Oh, my Lord!' he added in mock despair, as he rested his elbows on his
knees and buried his head in his hands. 'My head will split ere I have done!
Tell me, Jehan, who I shall be to-morrow.'
'T-t-t-to-morrow,' stammered Jehan with painful earnestness, 'you—you
—you——you will b-b-b-b-be——'
'Own brother to His Majesty the King of France,' said Gilles, 'and as
great blackguard as ever disgraced a Royal house. To Monseigneur the
governor, and maybe also to some of his friends, I shall be a Royal prince.
To others, and notably to Madame Jacqueline de Broyart, I shall be the
Prince de Froidmont—an insignificant and penniless seigneur who only
dares approach the far-famed heiress under cover of a mask, having fallen
desperately in love with her. Ah, Jehan! Jehan!' he added with mock
solemnity, 'thou art of a truth a lucky devil! Thou canst keep thine own
name, thine own rank, even thine own ludicrous stutter: whereas I,—what
shall I be? A mime! A buffoon! And what's more, a fraudulent varlet,
pledged to deceive an innocent wench into the belief that her future lord is
both sentimental and amorous and can sing the love ditties writ by Messire
de Ronsard with passable tunefulness.... Ye gods, Jehan, hast ever heard
Monsieur Duc d'Anjou—the real one, I mean—sing?'
'N-n-n-no!' objected Jehan in pious horror, for he did not like to hear so
exalted a personage derided.
'Then hast ever heard the barn-door rooster calling to his favourite hen?'
'S-s-s-s-sometimes!'
'Well!' quoth Gilles lightly, 'so have I. And I prefer the barn-door rooster!
And now to bed, friend Jehan,' he added as he jumped to his feet. 'To-
morrow is the great day! Didst take my letter to the governor's palace?'
'I d-d-d-did.'
III
Jehan helped his master to undress. He pulled off the heavy boots and
laid aside the cloth jerkin, the kerseymere trunks and worsted hose. Then,
when Messire Gilles lay stretched out upon the hard paillasse, honest Jehan
bade him a quiet good night and went off carrying the guttering candle. For
one candle had to do duty for two customers, or even at times for three, at
the hostel of 'Les Trois Rois.' These were not days of luxurious
caravanserai: eight square feet of floor space, a tiny leaded window, a straw
paillasse, perhaps a table and a rickety chair, made up the sum total of a
furnished bedroom, if destined for a person of quality. Men like Maître
Jehan had to be content with the bare boards and a horse-blanket outside
their master's door, or behind a wooden partition set up inside the latter's
room.
Jehan went off, then, with the candle, and Gilles de Crohin remained in
almost total darkness, for the light of the moon failed to penetrate through
the narrow aperture which went by the name of window. For a long time
Messire Gilles lay motionless, staring into the gloom. Vague pictures
seemed to flit before his gaze: the unknown girl whom he was pledged to
woo appeared and disappeared before him, now walking across his line of
vision with stately dignity, now dancing a wild rigadoon like some unruly
country wench; but always, and with irritating persistence, wearing a mask