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Friday, May 14, 2021 - 13:11
I picked this session in part for the promise of an LGTBQ+ topic, and in part for an examination of race in early modern literature. But the middle paper also potentially intersects my interests (see the LHMP tag for Mary Wroth).
Sidney’s "Black Boies": Race as Emblem in the New Arcadia - Dr. Kathryn DeZur, PhD, SUNY Delhi
Description from Sidney’s Arcadia of a coach drawn by white horses ridden by “black-a-moor” boys, with the entire equipage in themes of black and white. The speaker provides a context for the vocabular of Sidney’s phrase “black” “boys”. Sidney’s use of visual imagery is discussed with considerations of how to interpret the connections between life and art in the text. In this episode, the reverse is present: a description of (in-text) life that is present as if a work of emblematic art, where the symbolism is more important than the contextual reality.
What can this particular image tell us about the concepts of race and difference in Sidney’s social context? Even though the word “race” was not used in the modern sense associated with ethnicity, racialized descriptions still carry symbolic meanings indicating essentialized traits and judgments. Does it matter that these characters are black? And does this blackness count as “race”? The presenter answers “yes” and will go on to support this conclusion.
Examples are presented of “emblems” treating the blackness of “Ethiopians” as an essential characteristic, something that cannot be changed. And although black skin is not directly equated to negative traits, the parallels of other unchanging essential characteristics that are mentioned imply negative polarity. In the Arcadia heraldic emblems are used as identifying features. The character of Helen (the inhabitant of the black and white coach) is discussed in dark/light terms with her virtue being “light” and her sorrow being “dark”. The black and white color scheme of her coach and servants thus are not about the coach and servants, but are merely a medium for the symbolic color scheme representing Helen herself. The boys’ Blackness, in itself, doesn’t matter because they don’t matter—not because they are Black, but because they are a living “emblem” of Helen’s qualities. And yet, their skin color matters because they were presumably chosen for the position in order to be part of that color scheme.
The presence of racialized individuals in European households, and their association with non-Christian cultures, combined with the context of Western color symbolism makes it inevitable that negative (from a Christian perspective) essential characteristics would be projected on dark skins. But within the Arcadia some of the traits projected on the Black riders (such as fear of the attacking knights) can be understood as a rational reaction to their vulnerable status as servants, rather than being an essential trait.
Given the potentially ambiguous interpretations, this consideration is not a claim about Sidney’s own views on race, but is intended to address oft-overlooked themes of race that should be foregrounded by scholars.
Lady Mary Wroth Now - Paul J. Hecht, Purdue University Northwest
This paper also touches on issues of race, as well as queerness, looking at the linked poem. The poem may relate to court masques involving black-face. The speaker suggests that she is “blackened” by her love, just as “Indians” are blackened by the sun. But the black/white imagery is ambiguous and confusing, with a certain uncertainty of pronoun reference. (We’re getting a very close reading of the verse and I’m not going to be able to summarize in any detail.) The general topic has to do with racialized conceptions of religious faith. (I’m drifting away from the details at this point, but the preceding is the theme.) We move on to a second poem. This poem of disappointed love uses imagery of day/brightness/happiness and night/darkness/sorrow. Alas, the speaker didn’t have time to touch on the matter that the beloved in this poem appears to be referred to with female pronouns.
Taking Cleophila Seriously: LGBTQ+ Students and the Old Arcadia - Nancy L. Simpson-Younger, Pacific Lutheran University
The speaker notes that this is more of a pedagogical paper than an analysis. There is a question about whether one can identify “coming out” moments within historic contexts. Is it appropriate to use modern terminology of gender and sexuality when discussing historic figures and characters? And how does one affirm the identities and experiences of modern students when teaching this material? The focus is primarily on transgender experience, and so there is a certain focus on cross-dressing motifs in early modern texts. (I’m not going to take notes on the basic theoretical concerns here, since my blog has gone over this sort of topic a lot.) The overall thesis seems to be, yes, queer and trans students can see themselves in early modern texts and this gives them a rooted investment in the material as well as a framework for moving forward within the cultural context.
The focus of this discussion is the character of Cleophila in the Arcadia (the assigned-male character who presents themselves as an Amazon to woo the princess Philoclea). But the discussion is strongly focused on classroom dynamics that can help make queer students feel welcome and included in the discussion without feeling singled out or highlighted. Also, what the students anxieties may be around subject matter that potentially includes queer interpretations and how that will be handled within the classroom. (This is actually very fascinating, but not easy to summarize since it involves a lot of anecdotal material. Also, as noted above, mostly about the process of teaching. So I’m pretty much leaving it here.)
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Friday, May 14, 2021 - 11:12
I primarily picked this session for the 2nd paper on a clothing topic, which was definitely worth coming for all on its own. I had skipped the first two sessions to work on this week's podcast (which should have been done already!) but may go back and pick up one of them in recorded form next week.
Personifications of Abstract Ideas as Expressions of Donors' Elite Status in Late Antiquity - Prolet Decheva, University College Dublin
[I came in a little late, so I didn’t get the introductory remarks.] Ktisis as personification of “foundation” used in buildings. Female personification shown dressed in chlamys with tablion, a normally male garment that usually only appeared as a female garment on an empress. More examples of personifications: Magnanimity. Personifications more typically dressed according to the figure’s gender. [I missed taking a bunch of notes because my wireless mouse keeps dropping the signal and I had to hunt down a wired one.] The general theme here is the ability to connect the images of personified attributes as “portraits” of a person associated with the building or space in which the personification appears. I’m not trying to take down the details, but I’m finding the arguments fascinating and convincing.
Dress and Historical Imagination: A Case Study - Merih Danali, PhD, Princeton University
14th c. Greek astrological manuscript includes various illustrations including two unique portraits. A female figure sitting in a howdah on the back of an elephant, wearing a turban and a loose blue garment with gold bands. An inscription added later identifies her as “The Grand Lady” using an Arabic title. Facing her is a young man with a beard, sitting cross-legged on a carpet. He wears a white turban and a white garment decorated with red birds. The legend indicates “a sultan” in a calligraphic script but the top of the page has been removed and a legend “Ptolemy” has been added.
We are given some comparative images from Mamluk art of a similar era. The single-headed eagle on the man’s garment is a Mamluk symbol (as contrasted with the double-headed eagle).
Interpretations of these figures include: Islamic royalty (indicating prior ownership), that they are separate from the manuscript’s contents, and that the female figure is related to the male figure. Specific identifications are uncertain.
Some problems: for double portraits, they lack expected features such as indications of relative status, parallelism. But the subject portraits are not symmetric in composition or appearance, the woman physically dominates the space in comparison to the male figure. There is a reversal of the expected gender hierarchy. Proposed: the current arrangement of folios is not original and the two portraits were never intended to be paired visually. [We are given a demonstration with photocopies of how this works.]
In the original composition, the male figure faces a depiction of a map of the world. This is a standard Byzantine composition indicating authorship (Ptolemy’s geography). But why would Ptolemy be depicted as a Mamluk sultan? There was a common conflation of the Greek geographer Ptolemy with the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty. Thus the depiction of Ptolemy as a (contemporary) Egyptian ruler (a Mamluk sultan) is in this tradition.
The female figure was also originally paired with a different image, now lost. If that image were available, it would presumably indicate her identity more clearly. The speaker suggests Hypatia of Alexandria (Greco-Egyptian philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer). The elephant was a symbol of imperial power and, via association with Alexander the Great & Alexandria, became associated with Egyptian elites. Thus the placement of the female figure on an elephant could simply indicate a “wise Egyptian woman” by which the viewer would understand Hypatia.
Ptolemy and Hypatia were both from Alexandria and had other connections as well. Therefore the connection between them in the text has many different underpinnings, but indicating an intellection connection, not a familial one. We get a review of Hypatia’s symbolic role as a pagan female intellectual martyred by Christian fanatics.
Donors in Their Built Context: A Reexamination of Village Donor Portraits - Mark James Pawlowski, University of California, Santa Cruz
Examinations of donor portraits typically focuses on identifications, etc. but this paper looks at the “built” context in which they appear, and how that speaks to their relationship to the community. The two images analyzed here appear within a church in Marathos. [I’m not sure I have enough basic background to follow this one well.] We are given a description of the physical circumstances of the village. A fairly ideal location for a medieval village. A small community with remains of houses and churches, possibly 100+ inhabitants. Houses are built of local stone and there is no differentiation in style. [We’re looking at heaps of undifferentiated rock and being given interpretations that are far from obvious!] In the first phase of building, there is one significantly larger house, though otherwise not much variation. Some size difference is from later additions to the original structures. Indication that families may have shifted in prosperity.
One house near the church does stand out somewhat, being set slightly apart physically but not significantly different in size. The church itself is better preserved, is unique in using masonry, and includes wall paintings. High vaulted ceiling and other signs of “better quality” than any other building in the settlement. There are other signs that the isolated house is connected physically to the church. There is a suggestion both of separation of the church and the house, as well as association between them. But the church does not appear to be intended for private access by the family in the house. Also, there are two cisterns located between the two buildings which are clearly intended for communal access. Further, when the house was expanded, it reoriented access to the house away from the church. Examples of similar situations were a house and church in close proximity created deliberate separation between the two.
Much of the painting in the church has degraded, with maybe half a dozen figures being identifiable. The donor images are part of a later renovation of the church, ca. 13th c. So the donors cannot be associated with the original creation of the church, but may have been recognize for some smaller amount of expansion or renovation. Thus, artistic features of their clothing that appear to represent luxury features may have been symbolic representations of status, rather than major differences of wealth. The features of their dress do not correspond to aristocratic fashions, but rather more ordinary styles. [Note: although not specifically proposed, it sounds like there’s a suggestion that the donor portraits may be of the family living in the associated house.]
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ConventionsThursday, May 13, 2021 - 16:40
Normally, browsing the bookroom at Kalamazoo is a kid-in-a-candy store type experience. The books are there, physically. You can leaf through them and figure out whether they hit the spot of your particular interests. Not having that direct interaction made it a bit difficult to determine what I wanted to buy, in this case. But there were still the conference discounts…
So here are the titles I ordered, that will trickle in over the next month or so, complete with commentary on why I bought it.
Publisher/Vendor: The Compleat Scholar
Peters, Edward. 1982. The Magician, the Witch, and the Law. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0812211016 – When and how, during the middle ages, did magic shift from being considered an acceptable science to being an unacceptable heresy? Bought for deep background on historic attitudes toward magic.
Summers, Sandra Lindemann. 2013. Ogling Ladies: Scopophilia in Medieval German Literature. University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0813044187 – The idea that women were passive players within the medieval romantic landscape is contradicted by literary examples of “the female gaze” in a very literal sense. In several of the “gender confusion” romances (though the ones I’m thinking of aren’t German) the experience of gazing on the beloved is a key element of the femme character’s participation in the romantic relationship. Even when present in a m/f relationship, the element of the female romantic/sexual gaze disrupts ideas about the role of the woman in medieval romantic scenarios.
Farmer, Sharon. 2016. The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris: Artisanal Migration, Technological Innovation, and Gendered Experience. Penn Press. ISBN 9780812248487 – Not sure why I haven’t bought this previously, since it intersects two interests: textiles and female-dominated industries. The Parisian silk industry was a highly gendered field and offered unmarried women some unusual opportunities (while still being underpaid relative to male-coded occupations). These themes are also reflected in references to silk-workers in medieval romances, reflecting an image of female-dominated workshops that were a site of social solidarity as well as economic independence.
Publisher/Vendor: Broadview Press
Claire M. Waters. 2018. The Lais of Marie de France: Text and Translation. Broadview Press. ISBN 9781554810826 – I have an English-language edition of her work, but regularly find myself wanting to check things against the original language.
Publisher/Vendor: McFarland Books
Short, William R. 2010. Icelanders in the Viking Age. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0786447275 – A general-interest (rather than academic) work that brings together recent scholarship and interpretations. This is general background for my eventual novel set in the Viking era.
Publisher/Vendor: University of Chicago Press
Hunting, Penelope. 2021. My Dearest Heart: The Artist Mary Beale. Unicorn Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1912690084 – Mary Beale made a living as a portrait artist and author in the second half of 17th century. Her career was thoroughly documented by her husband, who approved of her success. She also wrote in favor of the equality of the sexes in marriage. I’ve been collecting up biographies of interesting English (and other) women with dreams of a series of romance novels set in Restoration England.
Stoichita, Victor I. 2019. Darker Shades: The Racial Other in Early Modern Art. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1789140569 – Part of my program of re-training my imagination to see non-white people in history.
Nummedal, Tara. 2019. Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226639727 – Not a study of alchemy itself, but of alchemists (both male and female) and what their lives were like. Yes, I really do need to write more Alpennian stories involving alchemy.
Publisher/Vendor: Columbia University Press
DeVun, Leah. 2021. The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231195515 – OK, funny story here. For about the last year, every month when I search Amazon listings to put together the new book listings for the podcast (sapphic historical fiction), this title keeps popping up in the first page or so of results. I’ve gotten very used to ignoring it, since I only see it when I’m looking for fiction. But I was chatting with folks about queer historic topics, and one of my friends says, “There’s this book coming out that I think you really need to read.” So now I’ve ordered it.
Publisher/Vendor: University of Toronto Press
Pugh, Tison. 2021. On the Queerness of Early English Drama: Sex in the Subjunctive. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1487508746 – I winced a bit at the price on this one, particularly since the catalog listing didn’t answer the question of whether it included any female-relevant material. (Not at all a given.) But I was able to find a more detailed discussion that gave me hope, so I added it to my list.
Publisher/Vendor: Penn Press
Bennett, Judith M. 2020. A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader and the World of English Peasants Before the Plague. Penn Press. ISBN 9780812224696 – I’m not sure why I hadn’t picked this up previously. Bennett is a great writer and I expect this to be a very readable and informative description of everyday medieval life.
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ConventionsThursday, May 13, 2021 - 14:50
Usual reasons for listening to sessions of history of magic. A bit concerned that that presenters and presider make up over ¼ of the people on screen. Ah, no, they just announced that three of the four anthropologists listed in the panel won’t be appearing, so the actual audience ratio is higher.
And I ended up noping out of the session. No one had actually come prepared to speak to the subject, so it ended up being a meandering discussion that would have been great as “hanging out in the bar shooting the breeze” but doesn’t work as a formal session. Sometimes that happens.
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ConventionsThursday, May 13, 2021 - 13:31
Honestly, I added this to my schedule with no idea what the content is going to be. I was originally planning to do a bike ride in this time-slot, but I just got my second Moderna shot this morning and decided to take it easy. Roundtables typically involve multiple short presentations (we have 5 people on the panel) followed by discussion. I don’t think I’m going to try to take detailed notes [spoiler: I took detailed notes], but rather give an overall impression at the end. Hmm, but they’re testing the presentations before the panel and there are fancy purses. So maybe notes after all?
Session 286 - New Perspectives on Gender and Difference in Honor of Sharon Farmer (A Roundtable)
Nancy A. McLoughlin - University of California, Irvine
Begins by discussing how the honoree influenced her work and career. Studying “Illicit persuasion” and the female personification of vices with respect to male ecclesiastical authors. Motifs of gendered authority, including the feminine personification of the University. Sermons about how illicit lust causes men to do disastrous things. Use of the personified University as a contrast to female-personified vices. Alternate symbolic interpretations of David and Bathsheba in positive terms, rather than as an example of dangerous lust. More female personifications (the church, the nation) set up as “better” than the influence of actual women (mothers, queens). [I’m starting to lose the through-line.] We’re talking about discourse around crusades as ways of forming political connections among Christian rulers. Now we’re talking about the symbolism (as opposed to reality) of Saracens as Other. In all these high-level symbolic discourse, actual women have little presence.
Fiona Harris-Stoertz - Trent Univ.
Intends to discuss the contributions of the honoree to feminist scholarship, particularly from her earlier period. [This seems to be primarily a review of topics and works that Farmer has covered.] Focus on “difference” and on dissecting gender dichotomies. First monograph on veneration of S. Martin in three different communities. The very different ways in which a single symbol, such as a particular saint, can be interpreted and used. Relates this back to contemporary scholars and how they are shaped by their own communities. Participated in push-back against Georges Duby’s characterizing of medieval women as powerless pawns. Discussion of several articles taking this stance. Women’s persuasive power working across formal power structures, but also working within those structures contrary to misogynistic claims. [Losing the thread again.] “Subverting the dominant gender binaries.” Next topic of study is the poor people of medieval Paris. [I’m recognizing some book covers that looked intriguing in the bookroom, but not sufficiently in me wheelhouse to buy.] Within the study of poverty, gender is a less important category than other elements.
Kate Kelsey Staples - West Virginia University
[Oh, I think I have her book on daughters in London! Ah, yes, I blogged it here: https://alpennia.com/blog/what-wills-can-tell-us-about-womens-lives] Plans to talk about contesting gender norms. Learned to discard modern assumptions about how economies work and modern prescriptive interpretations about the place of gender. Focus on women’s work within the household economy rather than looking only at women’s incursions into male-dominated roles. In working on London wills, exploring how the elite created opportunities for both sons and daughters, some of the gendered patterns in occupation led to seeking out alternate sources of data that told different gendered stories. Clerical authors often envisioned separate spheres for men and women: men were productive, women were reproductive. But this provides an inaccurate view and we must contest the filters of medieval authors to find the realities. In looking for the “exceptional” women who insert themselves in primarily-male roles, the nature of urban records can make them difficult to identify. But does this mean they are actually rare, or only that the usual types of records don’t reflect the actual work being done? Is it an exceptionality of reality or only of how the women are categorized in contemporary records? Studies of Parisian merchant families, showing the significant work and influence of women within those families. Some fascinating details of specific examples. Sums up: despite these types of evidence, there is still a constant struggle to re-educate people around the traditional myths of women’s place in medieval societies. Ties this in with gendered differences in student evaluations in academia, which is more effective at demonstrating student bias than teacher effectiveness.
Anne E. Lester - Johns Hopkins University
Has put up slides about purses. Examples from Sens, France that survived due to repurposing as relic containers. Many described as “Saracen work.” These objects were ubiquitous in secular use, but primarily survive only when repurposed. [Many lovely slides of objects.] Now we move on to one specific intriguing object, made from two different luxury fabrics (description). This object is variously described in different inventories. Why was it made of two different fabrics? Not similar to the purses made of embroidered silk and velvet studied elsewhere. The textiles clearly have Eastern associations. There is a discussion of possible avenues by which it came to Sens. Might it have been used as a reliquary purse and brought back from crusade in that context? Or might it have been deliberately created as a patched-together object from fabrics that had independent meaning? Not only are we looking through the lenses of how medieval people discussed such objects, but we look through the lens of the 19th c. publications that may be our only easy access to them, unless given special physical access. [The talk now goes on to personal reminiscences of the honoree and becomes much harder to take notes on.]
Martha G. Newman - Univ. of Texas-Austin
[So far it’s primarily personal reminiscences about working on a book that the honoree edited: Gender and Difference. The talk is primarily about approaches to doing history, and especially an intersectional approach.] A suggestion that the natural outgrowth of this approach is to recognize the problems in using a binary approach to gender and the benefits of exploring the “elasticity” of gender categories and how they interact with other categories of difference. Distinctions between studying “representations” of gender and studying bodies and embodied experience. Insight from trans studies. [But I’m getting lost in the jargon a little.] Discussion of the transgender aspects of Engelhardt’s story of Hildegund/Joseph of Schonau. [See LHMP items tagged with this individual.]
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ConventionsThursday, May 13, 2021 - 07:09
In addition to a general interest in early medieval cultures, in early Ireland, in Viking-era material culture, the simple fact that I have a book planned in Viking-era Ireland would make a session like this irresistible.
Gendered Patterns of Labor in Early Medieval Ireland: The Bioarchaeological Evidence - Rachel E. Scott, DePaul University
[Note: the presenter has requested that images not be presented on social media out of respect for the human remains. I’m interpreting this narrowly with regard to images this time.]
Focuses on non-urban cultures, rather than Viking-age Dublin as such. Early Irish society was trbial, rural, hierarchical, familiar, patriarchal, and Christian. Contemporary documentation is available, but limited primarily focusing on elite men in religious institutions. It represents an idealized view of society from an elite point of view. This paper compares literary data for two gendered occupations—weaving and warfare—which are likely to also leave physical remains.
A brief overview of gendered occupations within the textual evidence. E.g., textile and food production = feminine; warfare = men. Women participate (textually) in warefare as victims and prizes.
Now we look at the archaeological evidence around these activities. Spindle whorls, spindles, loom weights, needles for textiles. Spear points, shield bosses, some swords in elite burials for warfare. But the physical artifacts themselves aren’t gendered. We can associate them with gender via the archaeological context, especially burials. Unfortunately, Christian Irish burials did not include grave goods, therefore burials cannot provide gender context for artifacts.
However we do have the skeletons. Both weaving and warfare affect the skeleton, via impacts like osteoarthritis or trauma. These can be compared statistically with respect to gender to see if particular skeletal patterns align with gender. E.g., osteoarthritis in the hands. In one site, 1/7 women had osteoarithis in the hands. Individuals with grooves in the teeth may reflect textile practices. ¾ adults from one site with tooth grooves were female. Skeletal trauma can indicate interpersonal violence, esp. skull fractures and facial fracture. In one site, 7% of men had this type of injury and 1% of women. But most men did not have this type of damage.
Thus, the skeletal evidence does not support a pervasive gendered difference in activities, though it does align anecdotally. In general, men’s skeletons show more evidence of heavy manual labor. General trauma (not specifically interpersonal violence) appear roughly equally between men and women. Other than the interpersonal violence injuries, skeletal trauma primarily appears as fracture of long bones. The Irish data on this matches that of some non-Irish agricultural sites.
Gendered differences are of emphasis, not of kind. The skeletal data doesn’t contradict the image of gendered labor, but they don’t support the hypothesis of clear and significant gendered differences in skeletal data indicated by the textual data.
Ale-Feasting Foreigners: Labor and Identity in Viking-Age Dublin - Mary A. Valante, Appalachian State University
Looks at the subject from the concept of diaspora: the outward migration and settlement of people from Scandinavia creating a series of elite centers based both on shared language and ongoing contacts. These centers interacted with their immediate neighbors, and individuals could identify in a variety of ways. Further, there was movement returning to Scandinavia as well as away from it.
DNA, strontium analysis, etc. indicate that as time passed, many of the women of Dublin were born locally, while there is evidence that women among the initial settlers included women from Scandinavia. The question is, how did the residents of Dublin think of themselves as these changes occurred?
This paper looks at how domestic labor in Dublin, especially that done by women, reflects or indicates concepts of identity. Both goods and labor were brought into Dublin from the local community, while luxury goods were brought in through trade. A cosmopolitan place.
Most immigrants to Dublin came from Norway. Overall there are gendered differences in people movements with respect to Scandinavia, with movement out more likely to include men and movement in being more general in gender and ethnicity. But Dublin was a bit different from the norm. Graves and grave goods in Dublin identify women who clearly identified culturally with Scandinavian culture. One author suggests these women represented the elite “organizers” of household labor. There is a discussion of archaeological house-related evidence for women’s domestic activities, such as weaving. E.g., sunken-floor buildings in Dublin where the floors are dug into the bedrock (thought to be associated with weaving) that surround a communal open space with a hearth, though the sunken-floor buildings do not have evidence of domestic habitation such as hearths. Implication is “weaving workshops” with an implication of Scandinavian cultural identification based on the evidence for warp weighted looms characteristic of Scandinavia. Evidence for tablet weaving in Scandinavian culture in general, also in Irish crannog sites [I missed the specific Dublin evidence—I think maybe a lack of artifacts for tablet weaving?]
Discussion of textual evidence for luxury cloths in Dublin. Implication that this is tangential evidence for tablet weaving? I’m not quite following. Was there a status difference in textile work in Dublin based on Scandinavian vs Irish identity? Lot’s of “probably”s in this discussion.
So what about the “ale-feasting foreigners”? Textual evidence for food production, discussion of responsibility for hospitality, very general remarks. Discussion of shift from cattle-focused economy to grain-focused. Speculation that this shift was associated with the need to provide food for Dublin. Irish textual evidence for the high status of mead making as a male-associated occupation. Some general comments on the larger European association of ale brewing with women. All in all, the paper felt like it lost the thread somewhere.
Weapons, Brooches, and Longphuirt: Re-Evaluating the Role of Women in Ninth-Century Dublin - Stephen H. Harrison, University of Glasgow
Longphuirt is a term for Viking camps, military bases, with a D shape facing on a river. Previously thought to be ephemeral, now there’s more evidence for longer term occupation. These are the sites the paper is concerned with.
Increasingly understood to have a complex economy, not just military bases. Evidence for silver as medium of exchange, indicating more complex activities. Popularly understood as male spaces of a “pagan” nature. Examples of male military graves at these sites. But the idea of “male spaces” has been challenged based on more recent evidence. Greater presence of women among the invading groups is being documented, as support staff, not as “warriors.” But, in the argument for military women, see e.g., the Birka “warrior grave” of a skeleton now known to be biologically female (but surrounded by “male” grave goods). Archaeologists argue over whether this is still a “male grave” despite being occupied by a female body, others arguing that the gendered understanding of Scandinavian culture needs to be reevaluated.
Regarding gendered artifacts and spaces, examples of spinning and weaving evidence. Furnished burials provide more evidence for gendered goods, though as a consciously created assemblage. The placing of gendered goods in a grave is symbolic and deliberate, not a “snapshot” of the person’s life. Discussion of types of gendered goods. But not all graves contain “gendered objects”. Possibly this is an artifact of later looting of the grave. Poverty might be another explanation. Possibly it was a deliberate decision not to include the high-status items that are most strongly gendered. Numbers in Dublin: 200 “male”, 50 “female”, 129 “ungendered graves” (including 10 w/female skeletons).
Dublin is the site of the majority of Viking-type burials in Ireland. Because of the size of this data set it provides useful data on gender. ¾ of identifiable graves are male, suggesting a male-dominated society, but in fact comparisons to Norway show similar proportions of gender, simply indicating that the culture may have prioritized burials for men in ways that left evidence.
Key points: gender display was a key element of Viking burials, closely linked to status. In Dublin, female graves are in the minority (but similar to proportions in Scandinavian sites). Women had key role in the community and even “military” sites in the 9th century were complex and had women present.
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ConventionsWednesday, May 12, 2021 - 13:47
Went off and did a 10 mile bike ride during an “off” session to get my blood pumping and get away from the screen for a while. Now I’m sitting down to enjoy light snacks served in my reproduction medieval tableware and taking in one more session of papers today.
This session doesn’t speak directly to my core interests in women’s history, but I’m always interested in topics in the field generally. The first paper, on the development of women’s aristocratic titles, is the sort of thing that might be of particular interest to authors of historical romance. Just what rank might your heroine have available, and what would it signify?
Duchess, Marchioness, Countess, Viscountess, Princess, Baroness: The Emergence of the Standard Hierarchy of Feminine Titles of Dominical Dignity, Latin and Vernacular, ca. 850-ca.1420 - D'Arcy Jonathan Dacre Boulton, Universities of Notre Dame and Toronto
[The presenter has requested that their paper not be shared on social media.]
Ivories and Inventories: Tracing Production and Patronage in Late Medieval French Household Records - Katherine Anne Rush, University of California, Riverside
[No restrictions on sharing, but I think I’m just going to passively enjoy the papers in this session and not worry about taking notes.]
Medieval Lordship, A Family Affair: Gentry Women's Letters and the Construction and Maintenance of Lordship in Late Medieval England (1350-1550) - Jordan M. Schoonover, The Ohio State University
[The presenter has requested that their paper not be shared on social media.]
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ConventionsWednesday, May 12, 2021 - 11:19
I’m going to be a bad, bad scholar here, because I’m only really interested in one paper in this session – the last one – and so I’m not going to take notes on the other ones. Sorry. (And apologies to the other two speakers if, by some unfortunate quirk of online searching, this comes to your attention.)
The Measure of a Man: Patrons, Priors, and Narrative Themes in the Book of the Foundation of Walden Monastery - Stephanie Skenyon, University of Miami
(not blogged)
Pondering the Past: History, Identity, and Community Construction in Fordun's Chronica - Austin M. Setter, Lake Michigan College
(not blogged)
Arthur Who? How the Welsh Conquer Rome—and Geoffrey of Monmouth—in Breudwyt Maxen Wledig - Joseph A. Shack, Harvard University
Despite superficially engaging with Roman-Welsh history, Breuddwyd Maxen Wledig (BMW) doesn’t engage much with the other Welsh texts in this genre. Shack compares its treatment of early history to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s version. In this, it acts something as a rebuttal to Geoffrey. Geoffrey describes Arthurs rise and establishment of power over the Saxons, followed by a European empire in France and Rome. But just as Arthur is advancing to Rome, he must return to Britain to deal with Modred, leaving his conquest unfinished and unstable.
BMW begins with a dream-episode where the Roman emperor Maxen dreams of a beautiful woman, Elen, who turns out to be a British princess. Maxen travels to marry her, but then must return to Rome to deal with a rebellion in which he is assisted by Elen’s brothers who help him prevail.
BMW was probably composed in the later 12th century with the earliest manuscript dating to the 13th. This places it very roughly in the same context as Geoffrey’s work, which was a work of Anglo-Norman myth-building, tying the dynasty to mythic British history. This era also say Welsh language adaptations of Geoffrey’s work that reinterpreted the material for a Welsh audience.
Shack suggests that the two brothers of BMW can be read as reflexes of Geoffrey’s Arthur, with the general events and movements seen in parallel. Another parallel is seen in the betrayal of a monarch who is away from home (Arthur-Modred and Maxen-people of Rome). BMW has little focus on Maxen’s successful battles, but more on his unsuccessful siege of Rome, thus highlighting the contributions of the Welsh brothers to that successful siege. The Welsh brothers demonstrate cleverness rather than brute force. The British forces, not Maxen’s, are the victors and Maxen is urged by Elen to petition the brothers to hand control over to him.
Thus we have a dominant theme of Welsh success, contrasting with the political landscape contemporary to the audience, in which the Welsh kingdoms were experiencing defeat at the hands of the English.
Both Geoffrey and BMW also have layers of prophecy with contemporary relevance, Geoffrey predicting the return of Arthur, BMW suggesting the freeing of the Welsh from foreign rule. But Welsh political prophecy does not revolve around an Arthurian return, but rather the rise of a “son of prophecy” not directly associated with a past figure. The “Arthurian return” motif is mostly derided by Norman authors who attribute it to the Welsh, even as it doesn’t appear in that form among the Welsh. The Arthurian-return is treated as misunderstood and misguided similarly to Jewish expectation of the Messiah. In contrast, Welsh prophetic texts, when they assign the expected Son of Prophecy role to a specific figure, it is to Cynan or Cadwaladr, who correspond to the brothers in BMW. Thus the Anglo-Norman focus on undermining Arthur as the expected Welsh hero misses the mark.
But does this mean that BMW was composed as a deliberate response to Geoffrey’s History? The aim of Geoffrey’s work was specifically to uphold Anglo-Norman supremacy in Britain and frames the Welsh as degenerate and deserving of having lost sovereignty over Britain. Welsh texts treat Arthur as a local folk-hero and tribal king, while Geoffrey participate in the “Englishing” of Arthur, coopting him for English identity and sovereignty. BMW omits Arthur entirely, dodging the question of cultural ownership.
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ConventionsWednesday, May 12, 2021 - 09:19
Another history of magic session, and one that isn’t being recorded so it got precedence for watching above the other three things I wanted to attend. (The recorded sessions will be available for watching starting next Monday, so the ‘zoo blogging will extend into a second week.) I got to sleep in today, since none of the 6am sessions (9am by conference time) appealed to me. So I was able to set up a leisurely birthday breakfast with sourdough smoked salmon pancakes.
Aliud Experimentum Cristalli pro Puero: Scrying in a Fifteenth-Century Nigromantic Manuscript - Hélène Colleu, POLEN, Université d'Orléans
One common motif in scrying manuscripts is showing the practitioner using a mirror and a child. But few manuscripts include actual recipes for crying. This paper explores one specific manuscript that does so, along with other instructions for divination. The recipes are for the purpose of finding hidden objects, identifying a thief, or seeking information from benevolent spirits, etc. Scrying implements include crystals and mirrors, or—somewhat peculiarly—the polished fingernail of a child. But the specific device is treated as interchangeable. But medieval lapidaries specify certain stones as having divinatory properties when placed under the tongue, such as the emerald, hyenite, heliotrope. But in the present manuscript, the focus is not on objects with a natural magic, but imbuing them with power by blessing and purifying.
Several of the experiments require the presence of a child, who must be pure and virgin (boy or girl), under ten years old, and of legitimate birth. The child has several roles: the source of knowledge due to having the purity to perceive it, as an intermediary with the spirits, as someone who can bind the spirits, as a scrying device (e.g., the fingernail as a reflective surface), and as a catalyst to amplify the effects. The recipes call on the Virgin and on virgin saints, invoking their purity as an essential element.
Why is scrying used? Scrying often has the purpose of invoking and binding spirits without necessarily having a specific stated goal. Certain sets of named spirits are invoked who together hold all knowledge. The spirits may be associated with a specialty. Other texts may invoke angels for a similar purpose, but with the wording being more of an invitation, without the threats sometimes used against spirits. The spirits may be ordered to appear in a specific form, perhaps a specific physical shape or wearing certain clothes. The spirits are conjured into the scrying device and then banished after the ritual. (In contrast to spirits that may be conjured into an object like a ring for an indefinite period.)
The information sought may be general information, but scrying was also used specifically to identify a thief, including showing where the stolen goods are. It isn’t always clear how the answer appears: in a vision, or by speech or written sign.
Scrying with the Saints: Holy Personalities and Their Marginality in Early Modern Magic - Daniel M. Harms, SUNY Cortland
Saints are often mentioned in the context of ritual magic as powerful individuals invoked when a magician is conjuring a sprit. These rituals may include references to non-cannonical texts and events and show a certain ambivalence toward the role of the saints.
Example: invocation of Saint Helen (mother of Constantine) in a 16th c ms. asking her to help with finding a thief. This specific invocation can be traced through several sources from Italy mid-16th c, to English demonology mss of the later 16th c, then back to a magical text (removing the disapproval of magical practices) ca. 1700. Although the saint is invoked, the response (seen by the child-assistant) takes the form of an angel.
Example: thumbnail scrying invoking S. George. Earliest example in late 15th c. But S. George has no traditional relationship to divination. The connection may come from his general role as a protector of the Virgin as shown in art.
Why these two saints in English scrying recipes? In pre-reformation England, Helena and George were among the top 20 popular saints in England, while also having specific connections with Britain. In other countries, different saints may fill this role, e.g., S. Christopher in a German ms.
Why aren’t saints more commonly invoked in scrying recipes? Conjurations are often modular, with equivalent entities swapped in and out regularly to tailor the recipe for a particular purpose. Conjuring a demon can use approved ecclesiastical models intended for exorcism. But Conjuring saints have no similar approved textual model. This might explain why S. Helena seems to alternate with an angel in the text, perhaps using a model text that specified an angel.
Seeing the Whole Picture: Scryers and Their Further Careers in Early Modern England - Ms. Sanne de Laat, MA, Radboud University Nijmegen
The paper looks at scrying as a stepping stone for later career moves due to its high-risk/high-gain nature. (There is a brief summary of her thesis on scryers in England in the 16-17th c. Far too many details on types of purposes and careers to be able to take notes. I may need to track this down.)
Scrying is a “gift” not an acquired skill. It’s technically forbidden (high risk) but can potentially result in wealth (high gain) either from finding treasure or by satisfying a wealthy client. Examples for this paper: John Davis, Stephen Mitchell, Edward Kelley. Davis was son of a small freeholder, perhaps with a classical education, and after gaining some reputation for scrying he became a sailor via connections with Walter Raleigh where he was seeking the Northwest Passage. Stephen Mitchell has an unclear background. Around 1589 we have records of him scrying for two employers, though he wasn’t very successful. One of him employers brought him into a career as a privateer, where he was more successful until he was tried for theft in relation to one of his ventures. Edward Kelley may have begun as an apothecary, did scrying for John Dee, and ended up as the royal court alchemist in Bohemia. Major payoff for the risks of his career. All three have career parallels in using one of their employers (for scrying) as a stepping stone to gain a non-scrying-related career with high success potential.
(The speaker concludes with a humorous connection between scrying and communicating with distant entities through a magical screen…)
Gender and Scrying in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Kabbalah - Marla Segol, University at Buffalo
[Speaker is not able to appear, but presider reads the abstract.]
Kabbalists of Safed & Damascus reimagined the myth and ritual of 13th c. Iberian kabbalists and developed new interpretations and rituals, using scrying as one of the methods for doing so. Scrying methods included oil drop divination, geomancy, using mirrors to conjur angels and demons, answering questions through sleep, and other techniques. In addition to the well-known male kabbalists, a number of powerful women participated as patrons and advisors, but also by practicing scrying rituals for the purposes of developing rituals but also to authenticate and establish the authority of the myths and rituals. Scrying might be used to answer the Kabbalists’s question, but sometimes direct divine insight is claimed, reflecting social authority. The relative weight given to ritual versus direct knowledge is variable. The paper was to explore the scrying techniques used by men and women and their association with gender and social position.
[Really wish I could have heard this paper!]
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ConventionsTuesday, May 11, 2021 - 17:16
I’m something of a sucker for food-related sessions, though I’m sometimes disappointed because I’m used to hanging out with folks who work at a pretty in-depth level (as well as many of them being excellent cooks). Food is a major thread running through my historical fiction, which provides another reason for packing away layers of knowledge in the compost-heap memory. With five papers in this session (rather than the default three), they will presumably be a bit on the shorter side. And…I enter the zoom just as they’re commenting on one of the presenters dropping out, but I don’t know which one yet.
Those Gluttonous Gauls: Gluttony and Abundance as a Late Roman Stereotype - Richard Ray Rush, University of California, Riverside
The late antique stereotype of Gauls as being gluttonous was used in turn to critique extreme fasting in Gaul at the beginning of the 5th century. Sulpicius’ life of Martin of Tours has a running joke about the supposed Gaulish tendency toward gluttony, showing up, e.g., in teasing his companions (Gauls) when telling a story about ascetic desert fathers. There is an implication that one’s ethnicity determines one’s relationship to food. The larger context is that S. Martin was accepted by all the people appearing in the text as being more holy than any of the eastern ascetics, and yet was able to manage this without removing himself from the world or going contrary to his nature. The running joke disrupts the significance of extreme fasting, making it a source of humor rather than awe.
A similar stereotype about Gauls is present in the writings of John Cassian (early 5th c) where he proposes a modification of the monastic rule for the use of Gauls, asserting that the harsher climate and the diversity of behavior made the eastern monastic rule impossible for Gauls to follow. But there is a suggestion that this may have had an alternate purpose of undermining the influence of specific ascetic figures in Gaul that Cassian was in conflict with.
Zooarchaeology and Community Construction in Early Medieval Ireland - Erin Aisling Crowley-Champoux, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
General comments about the importance of cattle and dairy products in early Ireland. A study of animal remains across a broad timespan can support or undermine the self-reporting of dietary practices from texts. Evidence for decline of previously consistent importance of cattle (alongside goats/sheep, horses, and pigs) around the 9th century, which coincides with a change in mill types. Coastal sites see remains of fish, wild birds and other non-domestic animals, with dear providing materials for crafts as well. Fish remains increase, especially in Dublin, in the later medieval period. There is a presentation of the archaeological history of a specific site on the east coast of Ireland. In the earliest strata, animal remains are ca. 2/6 cattle, followed by ca. ¼ sheep/goats (and then the slide moved on). Changes in the location and shape of the archaeological structures can be matched with shifts in the animal remains with cattle eventually falling somewhat in favor of greater diversity, as well as more evidence for grain production and storage. There is also evidence of fishing at significant offshore depths, suggesting intensive fishing rather than casual coastal fishing.
Golden Gifts in Anglo-Saxon Feasting - Kelly L. Plevniak, University of Minnesota- Twin Cities
[Presenter was not able to appear.]
The Normans and Saxons Who Knew All the Anguilles: Eels and Medieval English Identity - John Wyatt Greenlee, Independent Scholar
Modern western culture has developed a distaste for eels, but this is a significant change from the diet and economy of medieval England. Eels made up a massive proportion of the biomass in English rivers. In the English diet, eels were a greater proportion of the diet than all other freshwater fish combined, and greater than all saltwater fish combined. The phenomenon of eel rents is noted (i.e., payment of rents in eels). [Note: I am making the connection with the eel-rent guy on twitter. Could there be two academics both obsessed with eel-rents?]
The significant of eels shows up not only in the diet, but in place-names, coats of arms, as an artistic motif, as a symbolic representative of Englishness. An anecdote is presented about S. Aethelwold and a mystic vision of a boat full of eels who are turned into (English) men. [Note: we are presented with an image of a hovercraft full of eels.] This is a parallel made to being “a fisher of men” while localizing it specifically in England. More eel lore. Ending with a note on the eel’s endangered status and a plea for eel-consciousness.
“Car je ferai un grant mangerie”: Food and Identity in the Manière de langage - Ashley Powers, Ohio Wesleyan University
The manuscript mentioned in the title also featured in one of yesterday’s panels: a set of dialogues intended as something of a phrasebook to teach French to English people. The book is not merely a phrasebook but also a guide to conduct. Food is a significant theme. Such conduct books do not simply describe, but prescribe behavior. A contrast between two meals, described in detail, demonstrates this purpose. One is the meal eaten by a lord on the road when staying at an inn, the second eaten by two laborers. The lord’s meal is described in detail with a large variety of dishes in several courses. (Much of the content of the paper is lists of dishes and ingredients.)
The meal of the gardener and ditch-digger at an inn is much less varied, though hearty and calorie-rich. The diners have crude manners and eat quickly from hunger.
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ConventionsPages
