Do you ever wish you had a way to see into the future, to see how events might play out? The editors at the AND would certainly love to have this ability! As evidenced by a numerous medieval writings, the desire to predict or foretell the future, or predire in Anglo-Norman, has been a longstanding wish of many. Two of the most recent additions to the Dictionary library are Tony Hunt’s Writing the Future: Prognostics Text of Medieval England ( Textes littéraires du Moyen Âge 24, Paris, 2013 ) and Stefano Rapisarda ’s Manuali medievali di chiromanzia ( Biblioteca Medievale 95, Rome, 2005 ). Both of these books contain editions of Anglo-Norman texts which could be used to tell the future – texts to interpret the lines on hands, the meaning of dreams, the zodiac, the moon, the stars... [1] Palmistry, BL Additional 11639, f. 115 Lunarie , a term attested in another prognostic text edited by T. Hunt [2] , refers to a ‘lunary’, a text that provides a collection of predictions...
A blog that highlights and discusses interesting words in the Anglo-Norman language, presented by the editorial team of the Anglo-Norman Dictionary (www.anglo-norman.net).