Matthew Paris

Matthew Paris lived from c AD 1200-1259. Just now, Amazon delivered the 3rd volume of Matthew Paris' Historia Minor. I now have all 3 volumes. That is, I have all 3 volumes in the Rolls Series, published in the 19th century. I believe this 19th century edition is still the standard edition. Things sometimes move slowly in the world of publishing in Latin, and compared to ancient Latin, publishing in Medieval Latin is much slower still.

Matthew Paris is generally considered to be one of the best Medieval historians. In addition to the Historia Minor, he wrote the Chronica Maiora, which runs to 7 volumes in the Rolls Series. I have a few of those volumes.

A few years ago the Cartography Department of the U of M had an open house, and I went, and I learned that this same Matthew Paris is considered one of the best medieval cartographers. One of the Department's big displays was one of Matthew Paris' maps. I'm not sure whether the people in that department had ever given much thought to Matthew's historical writings. They were definitely much more interested in his maps.

Once, long ago, must have been in the 1990's, I was in a hotel room which had a small TV and either no cable or just basic cable, so I ended up watching some women's bowling. And one of the bowlers was Lisa Wagner. Turned out, Lisa Wagner is one of the greatest female bowlers of all time.

While she was kicking ass in this bowling competition, as she did in many competitions, the commentators were talking about her. And, besides mentioning how much ass she was kicking those days, they also mentioned her very long fingers. She had an exceptionally good grip on the ball for a woman.

And that was when they mentioned that Lisa Wagner was a direct descendant of the famous 19th-century pianist Franz Liszt.

And that was when I realized that she was probably also a direct descendant of Richard Wagner,  who composed operas and wrote books, and married Cosima Liszt, Franz Liszt' daughter, and had 2 children with her.

And that those bowling commentators probably didn't know who Richard Wagner was. And I wondered whether Lisa Wagner knew who Richard Wagner was. Among other things, he was, and is, much, much more famous than his friend and father-in-law, the star pianist Franz Liszt.

And I wondered what Richard Wagner would think about one of female descendants becoming a professional bowler.