Folie à Deux - released today on IndieFlix

The feature-length drama I co-wrote, produced and directed, Folie à Deux, is released today on IndieFlix. This is a better quality version of the film than previous online releases, and this is the one you should watch. Go here to watch the trailer and the film, or cut and paste this link into your browser:

https://indieflix.com/indie-films/folie-a-deux-37791/

Photo: David Hamnett.

A Boat Retold Screens in Stornoway @ Faclan

A Boat Retold screens in Stornoway on 30 October at 1930 as part of Faclan, the Hebridean Book Festival. The film opens an evening with Ian Stephen, whose first novel, A Book of Death and Fish, has just been published. He will be in conversation with one of the film's other stars, the writer Robert Macfarlane. For more details, and to book a ticket, go here:

http://www.faclan.org/events/a-book-of-death-and-fish/

Charlie Chaplin Lived Here - Please help back this short film

A quick reminder to say we're still looking for backers to help us complete Charlie Chaplin Lived Here, a short film about Chaplin's London, shot in 1966 by Bill Douglas.

The Yezidis & Gnosticism in Islam: Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio

I'm on Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio again, discussing the Yezidis with Miguel Conner.

Charlie Chaplin's London - Funding Campaign Launched

I'm cross-posting this from the filmmaking blog, just in case there are any Chaplin fans reading this! We want to raise a modest amount of cash to complete a short film about Charlie Chaplin's London, shot by legendary Scottish auteur Bill Douglas. More info on the IndieGoGo link. Please chip in if you can. Thanks.

On this day in 1666...

Today is one of my favourite alchemical anniversaries. John Frederick Helvetius takes up the story. The action takes place in The Hague, in late 1666:

"A little after this, he also asked me, whether I had not another Room, the Windows of which were not to the Street-side; I presently brought this Phaenix, or Bird most rare to be seen in this Land, into my best furnished Chamber; yet he, at his Entrance (as in the manner of Hollanders is, in their Countryes) did not shake off his Shoes, which were dropping wet with Snow. I indeed, at that very time, thus thought: perhaps he will provide, or hath in readiness some Treasure for me; but he dashed my hope all to pieces. For he immediately asked of me a piece of the best Gold-mony; and in the mean while layed off his Cloak, and Country Coat; also he opened his Bosom, and under his Shirt he wore in green Silk, five great Golden Pendants, round, filling up the magnitude of the Interior Space or an Orb of Tin. Where, in comparing these, in respect of Colour and Flexibility, the difference between his Gold, and mine, was exceedingly great. On these Pendants he had inscribed with an Iron Instrument, the following Words, which, at my request, he gave leave that I should coppy out.

The form of the Pendants, and words engraven thereon, are as follows.

I. Amen. Holy , Holy, Holy, is the Lord our God, for all things are full of his Power. Leo: Libra.

II. The wonderfull wonder-working wisdom of Jehovah in the Catholick Book of Nature. Made the 26 day Aug. 1666.

III. [Sun. Mercury. Moon] The wonderfull God, Nature, and the Spagyrick Art, make nothing in vain.

IV. Sacred, Holy, Spirit, Hallelujha, Hallelujha. Away Devil, Speak not of God without Light, Amen.

V. The Eternal, Invisible, only wise, Best of all, and omnipotent God of Gods; Holy, Holy, Holy, Governour and Conserver deservedly ought to be praysed.

Moreover, when I, affected with admiration, said to him; My Master, I pray tell me, where had you this greatest Science of the whole World?"

Where indeed.

Tarkovsky and eastern philosophy

My essay on Tarkovsky and eastern philosophy has just been published - in Russian only, I'm afraid! I hope it will appear in English at some point. The book is the proceedings of the Tarkovsky conference held in Ivanovo last June. 

A Gnostic Easter

The Gnostic view of the resurrection, as we might expect, differs markedly from the orthodox position. The Nicene Creed states that Jesus ‘suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again’. This resurrection is bodily, which will one day be experienced by all, as the Creed states ‘we look for the resurrection of the dead’. The Gnostic text known as the Treatise on the Resurrection, however, regards the Resurrection as something that is not physical at all, something ‘which is better than the flesh’. As with Paul’s interpretation of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, which was written to offer the only true understanding of it, so the Nag Hammadi Treatise was likewise written to a Gnostic who did not know what to believe. The anonymous author tells his recipient, a man named Rheginos, that the resurrection is a necessary experience for the Gnostic believer to undergo, but it is a raising from the death of ordinary consciousness to the life of gnosis:

"What, then, is the resurrection?... It is the truth which stands firm. It is the revelation of what is, and the transformation of things, and a transition into newness."

The Gospel of Philip is quite explicit about what the resurrection actually is:

"Those who say that the Lord died first and then rose up are in error, for he rose up first and then died. If one does not first attain the resurrection he will not die."

The idea is reiterated later in the gospel, making it clear that the resurrection happens before death, not after it:

"Those who say they will die first and then rise are in error. If they do not first receive the resurrection while they live, when they die they will receive nothing."

from The Gnostics: The First Christian Heretics

The (un-)Harrowing of Hell

The idea of a fleshy Jesus being crucified while the real Jesus laughs would be more than enough to have the Church Fathers reaching for their smelling salts; it completely subverts orthodox doctrine. Subversion, however, was not the Gnostic intention. Rather, they held that the crucifixion – like the rest of Jesus’ ministry and teaching – can only really be understood through paradox, poetry and startling images. The concept of the laughing Jesus is perhaps best understood this way.

Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy point out that, while the world is full of beauty, it is also full of suffering and death. The way to free oneself is through gnosis (which they term ‘lucid living’), which in turn enables one to both rise above suffering and empathise with those who are experiencing it: '…when we live lucidly we find ourselves loving all and suffering willingly with all. This is the state of gnosis symbolised by the sublime figure of the laughing Jesus.'

from The Gnostics: The First Christian Heretics

 

A Gnostic Good Friday

Following the Round Dance comes a section [in the Acts of John] known as the Revelation of the Mystery of the Cross.When Jesus is crucified, the disciples ‘fled all ways’, with John hiding in a cave on the Mount of Olives.While he is there, Jesus appears to him and shows him a cross made of light around which a multitude stands. The cross is the Word which unites all things and only when people hearken to it will all the light particles scattered within humanity be gathered back together again and be taken up. Jesus also tells John that he is not ‘he who is upon the cross’ at Calvary, reflecting the common Gnostic belief that Jesus was a divine being, not a human one.

Furthermore, Jesus informs John that:

‘You hear that I suffered, yet I suffered not; that I suffered not, yet I did suffer; that I was pierced, yet I was not wounded; hanged, and I was not hanged, that blood flowed from me, yet it did not flow.’

The Nag Hammadi Apocalypse of Peter takes the image of a Christ who does not suffer during the crucifixion one stage further, portraying Jesus as ‘glad and laughing on the tree’. Jesus explains to Peter that:


‘He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him, and look at me.'

from The Gnostics: The First Christian Heretics

Maundy Dancing

The Acts of John, a Greek version of which was discovered at
Oxyrhynchus in the 1890s, could have been composed some time
in the second century,with some traditions holding that the Gnostic
chronicler Leucius Charinus was its author, although this attribution
isn’t certain. Leucius was said to have been a young disciple of
the aged St John, from whom he received secret teachings and
stories about Jesus. The Acts of John is an account of the activities
of the apostle in Asia Minor some time after the crucifixion, its most
celebrated passage being the so-called ‘Round Dance of the Cross’.
This scene takes the form of a sermon delivered by John to a crowd
of people, probably in Ephesus, where much of the Acts of John
takes place. John recounts the events of the night before Jesus was
arrested. In canonical accounts, Jesus prays in the Garden of
Gethsemane, but in the Acts of John, he instead commands them
to dance and respond with an ‘Amen’ to his praises to God:

He then began to sing a hymn, and to say:
‘Glory be to you, Father!’
And we circling him said, ‘Amen’
‘Glory be to you,Word! Glory be to you, Grace!’
‘Amen’ […]
We praise you, O Father.We give thanks to you, light, in whom
darkness does not abide.’
‘Amen.’

As the disciples continue to respond to Jesus, he begins to dance and
instructs them to do the same:

‘The whole universe takes part in the dancing.’
‘Amen’
‘He who does not dance, does not know what is being done.’
‘Amen’

Jesus’ hymn now becomes a series of paradoxes, stating that he will
flee and stay, adorn and be adorned, unite and be united.The hymn
ends with some beautiful mystical statements:

‘I am a lamp to you who see me.’
‘Amen.’
‘I am a mirror to you who perceive.’
‘Amen.’
‘I am a door to you who knock on me.’
‘Amen.’
‘I am a way to you, wayfarer.’
‘Amen.’

Jesus then encourages the disciples to understand the dance by
seeing him within themselves, which echoes the Gospel of Philip’s
statement that those who have achieved gnosis are ‘no longer a
Christian, but Christ,’ and also the Gospel of Thomas, in which
Jesus declares:

‘Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me.
I myself shall become that person,
and the hidden things will be revealed to that one.'

The similarity with the mystery schools is made explicit in the very
next line, in which Jesus enjoins the disciples to ‘keep silence about
my mysteries!’ Jesus explains that, through the mystery of the
suffering that he is about to undergo, the disciples will have the
chance to become moved and, in doing so, will be ‘moved to become
wise…Learn suffering and you shall have the power not to suffer.’

from The Gnostics: The First Christian Heretics

Appearance at Edinburgh International Science Festival

I'm appearing at the Edinburgh International Science Festival today. A description of the proceedings:

Who is best placed to write about science for the general public – scientists, who know what they’re talking about; or writers, who know how to express ideas clearly and readably? Our panel of distinguished authors have written books about botany, chemistry, alchemy and scientific history and biography. Join them for a conversation about knowing and communicating. Are they scientists, or writers, or both? Hosted by Stranger Than Fiction, Edinburgh’s only organisation devoted to writers of non-fiction.

And from Stranger Than Fiction's website, written by STF kingpin Colin Salter:

Stranger Than Fiction‘s public debut is only three weeks away now. As already announced, we are hosting a discussion about science writing at the EISF this year, appropriately in the Summerhall Anatomy Lecture Theatre. The event, “Who Should Write about Science?”, is at 5.30pm on Tuesday 15th April 2014. The panel consists of:

Sean Martin, whose proposal for his current project A Short History of Disease we discussed at STF a few months ago

James McCarthy, whose piece on botanical fieldwork you may remember from STF in January

Barbara Melville, writer in residence at the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine

Mhairi Stewart, a molecular parasitologist and expert in public engagement with science.

For my sins I’ll be in the chair trying to keep track of the conversation. I hope you can come along, enjoy the debate and join in the Q&A session at the end.

More info, tickets, etc, here:

http://www.sciencefestival.co.uk/whats-on/categories/talk/stranger-than-fiction-who-should-write-about-science

You can find out more about Stranger Than Fiction here.

As Colin mentioned, I am working on a book entitled A Short History of Disease (a vague sequel to my earlier The Black Death). This should be out this time next year - stayed tuned for more details. So most of my contribution today will be relating to matters medical.

Mediaeval Ghosts in Edinburgh

I'll be giving a paper on mediaeval ghost stories this Saturday in Edinburgh. Details are:

Traditional Cosmology Society Day Conference

Saturday, 12 April

School of Scottish Studies

27 George Square

Edinburgh EH8 9LD

Day conference on ‘Ghosts’ from 10 am to 5 pm.

Conference fee for TCS members £1; others £2.

Students free.

Opening speaker: Professor Mirjam Mencej, Royal Society of Edinburgh Exchange Fellow from Slovenia. The Annual General Meeting of the Traditional Cosmology Society will take place at 12.30 pm.

9.30 -10.20 Mirjam Mencej "The Rise, Spread and Decline of Ghost Stories Attached to the Building of the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Ljubljana"

10.20-10.50 Mariah Hudec "The Trial of Margaret Lang: Fairies and the Dead in Early Modern Scotland".

11.10-12 Joy Fraser  " 'Locked in a graveyard at night with an active poltergeist': Legend, Performance and Belief on the City of the Dead Ghost Tour, Edinburgh"

12-12.30 Lewis Hurst “Punch Lines in Ghost Stories and Jokes: A Common Mechanism”

12.30 AGM of the Traditional Cosmology Society

2-2.50 Willem  de Blécourt “Enacting  Ghosts, or: How to Make the Invisible Visible”

2.50-3.20 Martha McGill  “The Laird of Coul’s Ghost: An Eighteenth-century Scottish Story”

3.40-4.10 Sean Martin “The Walking Dead: Supernatural Encounters in Mediaeval England”

4.10-5 Lynn Holden “Ghosts in Love”

5-6 Reception

All welcome.

A Boat Retold Screens in Edinburgh Today @ Alchemy @ Hidden Door

Just a quick cross-post from my filmmaking blog:

A Boat Retold screens in Edinburgh tonight at 1905 at the Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival Preview, which is taking place at the Hidden Door Festival, in the psychogeographic wonders that are the Market Street Vaults. (On the immediate south side of Waverley Station, the Old Town side.) The main Hidden Door preview kicks off at 1700, but the Alchemy tasters and teasers will run from NOON till MIDNIGHT.

We will be there for the Boat screening.

The full line-up - loosely a "best of" previous editions of Alchemy - is:

12 pm: JUSQUE-LÀ

Enrique Ramirez / France / 2012

In a small town in northern France (Béthune), the oldest non religious

brotherhood of the world still exists, formed more than 825 years

ago. In other place of the world, 5000 feet high, there is an imaginary

man who takes a walk, who represents the unknown and uncertain

journey between the life and the death.

12.35 pm: SIN∞FIN THE MOVIE #3

VestAndPage / Italy / 2012

Sin∞Fin #3 is the third part in a trilogy of films by performance

artists Verena Stenke and Andrea Pagnes. Set in Antarctica, the two

characters move through the deserted, icy vastness of an oneiric

land. They find themselves creatures being torn between life and

death, absence and misleading mirages, fortune and emptiness.

1.25 pm: SHORT FILMS

FICTIVE LANDSCAPES

Dean Kavanagh (Ireland), Gonzalo Egurza (Argentina), Alasdair Bayne (UK), Shaun Hughes (UK), Enrique Verdugo (UK/Chile

In the telling of stories, these landscapes permeate their narratives, becoming metaphorical, contextual, signifying or emotive.

2.45 pm: RE-FORMATION

Jeanette Groenendaal / Netherlands / 2012

Jeanette Groenendaal returns to a village in the Dutch Bible Belt to film a personal study of the scapegoat mechanism. A project staging tableaux performances melting frozen memories in an emotionally charged landscape. In a series of ‘visions’ she reconstructs excerpts from her childhood.

4.10 pm: SHORT FILMS

WILDER MOVES

Kika Nicolela (Brazil), Plan B / Katrina McPherson (UK), Jonathan Inksetter (Canada), Claudia Borgna (UK), Jac Min (Singapore), Vicent Gisbert (Germany), Irene Loughlin & Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa (Canada), Rachel Sweeney (UK)

5.20 pm: THAT UNTRAVELL’D WORLD

Julie Brook / Scotland / 1997

The landscape work developed by Scottish artist Julie Brook when she lived for over a period of 3 years on the uninhabited west coast of Jura. including temporal sculptures involving stone and ice fire-stacks, the wind and the sea.

5.55 pm: SHORT FILMS

ELEMENTALS: PRESENCE

Enrique Ramirez / France / 2012

In a small town in northern France (Béthune), the oldest non religious brotherhood of the world still exists, formed more than 825 years ago. In other place of the world, 5000 feet high, there is an imaginary man who takes a walk, who represents the unknown and uncertain journey between the life and the death.

7.05 pm: A BOAT RETOLD

Louise Milne & Sean Martin / Scotland / 2013

Artist and poet Ian Stephen, writer Robert Macfarlane and others tell stories in and around the restored Orkney boat, Broad Bay, as it sets off for the Shiant Islands. The boat and its history becomes the narrative focus for movements in time over three generations, a complex narrative of island traditions, arts and crafts.

7.40 pm: SHORT FILMS

TRAVERSING THE WILD 1

Emilie Crewe (Canada), Mihai Grecu (France), SJ. Ramir (New

Zealand), Maike Zimmermann (UK), Davor Sanvincenti (Croatia), Robert Todd (USA)

From politicised desert landscapes to an abstracted metaphysical presence, the snow-covered world of Derek Jarman’s Dungeness, to a blind predator dreaming through its prey’s eyes.

8.30 pm: IMPRESSIONS & CHUVA

Jacques Perconte / France / 2013

Along the shores of Normandy, on the track of the Impressionist painters, something is happening: the colors are crashing against the screen… Jacques Perconte’s work is derived from the artistic manipulation of digital video, a pioneer in the use of compression codecs as an artistic tool

9.35 pm: JUST LE TEMPS &VOYAGE D”HIVER

Robert Cahen / France

Robert Cahen’s uniquely poetic experimental filmmaking spans a period of 40 years. Exploring the fleeting qualities of perception, filmed reality becomes a mutable substance, transformed through a vision rich in subjective meaning.

10.15 pm BATTEMENTS SOLAIRES & LA PLAGE

Patrick Bokanowski / France

Patrick Bokanowski is one of the most acclaimed and influential experimental filmmakers of our era. His work is concerned with the subjective psychology of the image, rejecting the tools of conventional representation in pursuit of a painterly, dream-like and visually poetic world.

10.55 pm: SHORT FILMS

TRAVERSING THE WILD 2

Robert Todd (USA), Sheri Wills (USA), Leneweit & Rodriguez (Germany), Sean Martin (UK), Lori Felker (USA), Sam Spreckley (UK), Fabienne Gautier (France), Tarrl Lightowler (USA), Alexander Isaenko (Ukraine)

In travelling through nature, what possibilities might open to our sight? Is nature just a box of aged, foil wrapped chocolates? Maybe it is constructed through a spatial temporal grid, or is it a metaphoric landscape mirroring the transience of life?

11.45 pm: SHORT FILMS

ELEMENTALS - FORMS

Tanya Shillina-Conte (USA), Mihai Grecu (France), Lin Li (UK), Anne Patsch (UK), Samantha Rebello (UK), Wolfgang Lehrner (Austria), Pat Law (UK), Debra Fear (UK), Patricia Townsend (UK)

The elements are as much psychological as physical, embodied both in the natural landscapes of the world we inhabit and as substantial force within image-making. This programme explores elemental embodiment as a set of both extensive and intensive qualities, in image substance itself and landscape as subject.

http://hiddendoorblog.org  

www.alchemyfilmfestival.org.uk

The Siege of Montségur: Cathars Now out in paperback

The Cathar fortress of Montségur

With Raymond now a spent force, the Church had only one place left to tackle that openly defied them: the Pyrenean fortress of Montségur, the so-called ‘Synagogue of Satan’ that had been a Cathar stronghold ever since the days of Innocent’s ‘peace and faith’ campaign. At a council at Béziers in the spring of 1243, it was decided that action against Montségur had to be taken. By the end of May, an army led by Hugh of Arcis, the royal seneschal in Carcassonne, was in place at the foot of Montségur, but given the fortress’s reputation for impregnability, they knew they would be in for a long wait.

  Montségur had been refortified in 1204 by Raymond of Pereille. He was a Believer, and both his mother and mother-in-law were Perfect. The castle had been a refuge for Cathars during the Albigensian Crusade, and when the Inquisition began its work, Guilhabert de Castres, the Cathar bishop of Toulouse, approached Raymond with the request that the castle become the centre of the faith. By the time Guilhabert died (of natural causes) around 1240, it was home to around 200 Perfect, overseen by Guilhabert’s successor, Bertrand Marty. They were protected by a garrison of 98 knights, under Peter Roger of Mirepoix, whom Raymond of Pereille had appointed co-lord of Montségur at some point prior to 1240. Raymond had guessed – rightly – that the community would need armed protection as the noose of the Inquisition tightened around the Languedoc. Peter Roger, who was from a family of Cathar Believers, had more in common with the bellicose Paulicians than the pacifist Perfect: he was not averse to armed robbery in order to keep the community fed, and had been the instigator of the assassinations at Avignonet. During its heyday, Montségur had been busy as a centre of both intense devotion and industry. Pilgrims travelled great distances to hear the Perfect preach, to be consoled, or simply to spend time in retreat. When not busy with tending to the needs of the Believers, the Perfect helped support the community by working as weavers (a craft long associated with heresy), blacksmiths, chandlers, doctors and herbalists. By the time the siege began, the total number of people living there – including the knights’ families – was somewhere in the region of 400.

  Hugh of Arcis did not have enough men to encircle the two-mile base of the mountain, and in such craggy terrain siege engines were useless. Hugh had no choice but to try to take the fortress by direct assault. His forces made numerous attempts to scale the peak, but each time were driven back by arrows and other missiles lobbed over Montségur’s ramparts by Peter Roger and his men. The months dragged on wearily and, by Christmas, Hugh’s army was becoming disillusioned. He needed a breakthrough if there was any chance of raising morale. He ordered an attack on the bastion that sat atop the Roc de la Tour, a needle of rock at the eastern end of the summit. The men climbed the Roc by night, and caught the garrison at the top by surprise. The defenders were all killed. When daylight came, the royal troops looked down in horror at the sheer face they had scaled, swearing they could never have made the ascent by day. Nevertheless, it gave the royal forces a strong foothold just a few hundred yards from the main castle itself, and work began immediately on winching up catapults and mangonels. Bombardment began immediately.

  Inside the walls of Montségur, the atmosphere of devotion intensified. While Peter Roger’s men returned fire on the French troops, who were edging ever nearer from their foothold at the Roc, Bertrand Marty and Raymond Agulher, the Cathar bishop of the Razès, attended the spiritual needs of both the garrison and the non-combatants. A messenger arrived to say that Raymond VII might intervene to lift the siege. Rumour had it that Frederick II was also planning a rescue mission to liberate Montségur. The weeks dragged on, but no one came. Finally, on 2 March 1244, Peter Roger walked out to announce the surrender of the fortress to Hugh of Arcis. The victors were lenient with their terms: everyone could go free, provided they allowed themselves to be questioned by the Inquisition, and swear an oath of loyalty to the Church. Past crimes, including the assassinations at Avignonet, were forgiven. For the Perfect, the choice was as stark as it had been for their forebears at Minerve and Lavaur: renounce Catharism, or burn. They had two weeks to think about it.

- Posted on the anniversary of the fortress's fall. The Cathars: The Rise & Fall of the Great Heresy is out now in paperback.

StAnza Poetry Festival Appearance Tonight

I'll be putting in an appearance at the StAnza Poetry Festival tonight at 1815, at the Zest Juice Bar on South Street. After which, we'll be going up to the Byre Theatre to see John Burnside. There had been vague plans for me to interview John, but these seem to have gotten lost in the works. Never mind, these things happen. John's new collection, All One Breath, just out from Cape, is excellent. If you liked his Forward Prize-winning previous collection, Black Cat Bone, you'll like this new book. 

Gutter 10 line-up announced - Freight Books

I have a couple of poems in the new edition of Glasgow's finest, Gutter Magazine. This is my first appearance in Gutter, so I'm thrilled to be included in the new issue. The two pieces are 'Borges' Paradox' (the poem formerly known as 'A Short Variation on Borges' Paradox'), and 'The Girl Who Got Onto the Ferry in Citizen Kane'.

More info and copies available here: Gutter 10 line-up announced - Freight Books

Memo to Self: Do a Fred Vargas

                                                                                                                                                                                             Photo: Alexandre Isard / Corbis

Just back from a tour of some local charity shops, where I picked up a copy of Fred Vargas's Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand - not one I'd read. I've read a few of her books, and loved their intricate plotting and general strangeness. Inspired to read up a bit about her online, I found a few interviews with her from the last few years where she's mentioned that she writes her first drafts in three weeks flat, and then spends a few months revising.

This reminds me that one of the most dangerous habits a writer can develop is obsessing about detail when writing a first draft. I speak from experience. Quite a while ago, I was writing something set in the C17th, and had a scene set at Xmas. I became completely stuck on what a middlingly-well-to-do household would have eaten for Xmas Dinner. It never occurred to me to just write something in with a view to changing it later ('Yorkshire pudding and roast turkey with lashings of gravy and roast potatoes'). Oh no. I had to find out exactly what would have been on the table. And the end result: my writing ground to a halt.

Now, writing something else, I find the same bad habit looming: how would a C12th person leave a house to someone in a will? Where would a monastery have got its parchment from? Luckily these are issues I've managed to resolve with not too much digression (although mediaeval law is very interesting), but must be on my guard against 'Dutch Xmas Dinner Syndrome'... the need to research at the cost of productivity. Having had one good idea completely grind to a halt over something trivial, I don't want to repeat past mistakes. I suspect Fred Vargas doesn't worry about such things when doing her first drafts in three weeks...