Showing posts with label word problems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label word problems. Show all posts

Thursday, August 1, 2013

The Past Asks You: Strange Families, c. 800

Sometimes you ask the Past, sometimes the Past asks you. Today, it's the latter.
"If a father and his son take a widow and her daughter in marriage, so that the son marries the mother and the father the daughter, say, please, what is the relationship between the sons they will bear?" 
Alcuin (?), Propositiones ad acuendos juvenes ("Problems for sharpening the young"), c. 800
I would say that the relationship between the sons will be... awkward. Medieval bragging rights if you figure it out; I'll post the answer tomorrow.

Carolingian genealogy
Berlin Staatsbibliothek, MS lat. fol. 295, f. 80v (12th c.)