Capitolo 187: Marozzo Listicle

 (Number five will surprise you!)

This post is, sadly, yet another post about posting, rather than content, as Capitolo 187 has that signature Marozzo messiness and it is taking quite some time to finish.  But while we're all waiting, the capitolo has a number of really interesting characteristics that merit a bit of commentary:

• Medieval listicles?  More common than you'd think!*  Marozzo starts off by saying that there are "five things which in the battle from person to person are sought, foremost which is to be conveyed as if for the Emperor if you were found to be in the state of instructing him." Elsewhere in the text, he describes these as relevant to "the authority of the thing."
• ...but it's not his listicle... These five things aren't according to Marozzo--well, okay, they are, but he doesn't take credit for them. Instead he attributes them to "Sir Baldo of Perossa, Doctor of Law . . . finding himself at a disputation in Bolognia"; Marozzo is simply repeating what this authority has "confirmed" in his earshot. Basically, the whole thing is a fancy period way of saying "Okay so here's what this lawyer I know says."
• ...and it's also not a listicle. This one takes a bit of unpacking, and also has a significant amount of speculation from Yours Truly. Suffice to say, Marozzo appears to be a lay person interpreting a lawyer's summary of a traditional doctrine. And though Marozzo's language in summarizing this has a kind of Top Five feel to it, generally legal doctrines are outlining all of the factors which must be present for a doctrine to apply at all. In other words, the five things aren't general things you need to know; they are the five components which all must be necessary in order for something to be done legally. For a modern equivalent: think list of ingredients, not list of favorite celebrities. If you don't add all of them, you don't get a cake, and the cake in this instance is "not getting arrested." So it's a pretty important cake!

More writing to follow shortly, hopefully in the form of actual translation. And this one is bone-dry, so we'll be reprising the patented** Bella Translation Translation process for it as well.

*Unless you've read any work by Ghisliero, a man who truly loved his lists.

**not actually patented