Happy New Year, my loyal readers. If you’re sitting home with nothing to do today or perhaps huddled before the computer nursing a bottle of Pepto-Bismol in penance for last night’s frivolity, you might take the opportunity to look back on the top 5 most popular Got Medieval Posts of 2010. And they were:
#5 – Completely Serious: Let’s Drop the GRE – I was actually a bit surprised to see this sitting so high in the site-meter rankings. But it makes sense, as it’s by far the most be-spammed post, and the reason I had to start moderating comments back at Blogspot. So there’s that.
#4- Medieval Copy Protection – Yes, yes, I know–believe me, I know!–the title’s a bit misleading, but folks still seemed generally interested to learn that medieval books came booby-trapped with horrible curses that could imperil your immortal soul. If you prefer, you can read it over at Gizmodo, too.
#3 – What’s All this About Super-Sized Last Suppers? – This little bit of absurd “study” debunking was popular enough that the author of said debunked “study” even showed up to comment. Beats me as to why.
#2 – Why are Books so Big? – The hidden connection between book sizes and livestock continues to get bounced around the Internet. (My favorite recent re-headline: Baa, Baa, Booksheep). Since I didn’t before, I probably ought to thank Bob Babcock, my Latin Paleography instructor and the former medieval manuscripts curator at the Beinecke for turning me on to this factoid.
#1- Professor Newt’s Distorted History Lesson – Really, it was no contest for the most popular post of the year. This Cordoba mosque thing was the most popular post on the site ever, thanks to nudges from Andrew Sullivan and the Huffington Post. And four months later I’m still getting hate mail, though thankfully it seems to have dropped off sharply over the last few weeks.
Funny, three of the top four posts all came from August. A helluva month, I guess, and I know content’s been a bit spotty since then, but bear with me just a touch longer. Oh, the plans I have for 2011!