Blog

[This is the time of day when blogging becomes extra important to keep me focused. Not that the papers aren’t fascinating! But I’m starting to get people overload.]

The Lady as Lord: The Exercise of Lordship by the Wives, Widows, and Heiresses of Territorial Lords of All Ranks and the Problems It Presented, ca. 1070–ca. 1500

Saturday 3:30

Sponsor: Seigneurie: The International Society for the Study of the Nobility, Lordship, and Knighthood

Formal and Informal Expressions of Power in Twelfth- and Early Thirteenth-Century Flanders: The Public Roles of Mathilda of Portugal, Wife of Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders (1183–1218)

Els de Paermentier, Univ. Gent

Part of a continuing challenge to the idea that women had little access to power in the middle ages. A new approach looks at less “institutional” forms of power, and a consideration of women as fulfilling multiple structural roles that involved access to and employment of other forms of power. Mathilda is a useful example to explore as she outlived her husband by nearly 20 years and continued to play an important role in Flemish politics. She also had a substantial extent of dower lands which brought her into conflict and negotiation with many contemporaries. Three sources of evidence: “static” formal power due to social position, “dynamic” power deployed by strategies and interactions, records of how her male contemporaries viewed her. A brief outline of her familial and political background. The charters from her period of regency and in her widowhood do not differ in substance from what one sees for a hereditary ruler. She was involved in many local conflicts, not as a participant necessarily but as an adjudicator in local feuds. She also had influence through her oversight of the daughters of Baldwin IX (her great-nieces) and she had significant input into their marriages. The witness lists for her charters reveal her efforts to strengthen the pro-France party in Flanders, as well as to balance the main factional rivalry among the Flemish nobility. Conclusions: beyond Mathilda’s official status as Countess of Flanders, she was able to act independently as regent and widow to have continuing political and social power and influence, especially due to the extent and importance of her dower lands. But she enhanced this by strategic social connections and personal alliances.

Isabella of Lennox after the 1425 Executions: Successes and Failures of Female Power in Late Medieval Scotland

Shayna Devlin, Univ. of Guelph

[This paper was not presented.]

The Lady as Lord in the Fifteenth-Century Duchy of Bourbon

Maureen B. M. Boulton, Univ. of Notre Dame/Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

We begin with a brief geographic and historic contextualization of Bourbon. The paper will focus on two women, from the beginning and end of the 15th century: Marie and Anne. Their influence was implemented, in part, through an extensive specialized household staff. Official power and financial resources might come through husbands and fathers, but women had control over how they were implemented. Further, women such as Marie might hold substantial de facto power when appointed as regent during their husband’s absence. Marie gained power through marriage but also as her father’s heir in Auvergne. (Her father was the famous Duc du Berry, he of the fabulous manuscripts.) She used this wealth and influence to support religious establishments, as well as for her own purposes, such as to bargain with the English for her third husband’s release (captured at Agincourt). She spent most of that marriage functionally in charge of her husband’s lands as well as her own. Reference to conduct books for noble women that recognized their power and responsibility in providing them with guidance for how to use them appropriately. She was part of an entire generation of French noblewomen who had to deal with the death or other loss of male relatives to the ongoing wars with England. Anne de France was married as a child to Pierre, duke of Bourbon, a marriage that evidently was a successful partnership. The two ruled France as regents for Anne’s brother Charles VIII, but although Pierre was the official regent, their contemporaries recognized Anne as the true power. Her position must be identified in unofficial sources, including complaints about her influence, including in military matters. After Pierre’s death, Anne continued to rule in Bourbon in the name of their daughter, rather than ceding power to the French crown. Anne herself wrote an advice manual for her daughter, in expectation that she too will hold significant power and responsibility. Summary of the types of power and influence held by these two women, illustrative of types of “unofficial” lordship prevalent underneath the official structures.

Saturday 10:00

Sponsor: AVISTA: The Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Inter­disciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art; EXARC

Working with Craftsmen: The “It Depends” Dilemma

Christina Petty, Univ. of Manchester

General topic is the necessary ambiguity and variation of practice in crafts, making clear and objective description of the functionality and logistics of object production. “Expert” knowledge is highly reliant on expertise, but in trying to evaluate historic practices, one must know not only the physical requirements of the practice, but the range of individual expertise of the practitioners. Experience with modern standardized materials and techniques is misleading when trying to understand historic practice.

[This is largely a personal philosophical exploration of issues from a subjective point of view and with a very informal chatty style. I may have made it sound more structured than the paper itself. It also fails to recognize the likely differences between the expertise range among modern craftsmen versus the likely range or practice/experience among historic people practicing those same crafts as a lifelong economic profession. Range of variation among modern craftspeople may be important for creating estimates for experimental projects but may not be useful for trying to project historic practice.]

Experiencing Viking Age Spinning Technologies

V. M. Roberts, York Univ.

Opens with a similar theme: individual expertise may vary, but in a historic economic-career context, producers tend to be consistent with expertise known to their market.  Using a social anthropology approach to analyzing spinning techniques by experienced researchers and practitioners. Discusses “bodily knowledge” for techniques like spinning (I’d call it kinesthetic knowledge). Effects of repeated physical practice on the body, even to the point of being interpretable from skeletal remains. “Technologies are ...communities of practice....” But we can’t access historic communities of practice except by how they are reflected in the surviving work.  His research was based on recursive interviews with a small group of practitioners, following up on recurring topics to explore subjective concerns from within the practice. Conclusions can be non-intuitive, e.g., that spindle weight is irrelevant to thread size, any thickness of thread can be spun on any weight of spindle. Communities may have beliefs about whether heavy or light spindles are better for a particular weight of thread, but these are in conflict between different communities. Points out that the accumulated weight of thread on a spindle will typically be larger than the weight of the spindle itself, therefore the spinning of a consistent thread must be independent of spindle weight. This suggests that attempts to correlate spindle whorl size/weight/material with particular types of thread production may be produce conclusions more in line with the investigator’s beliefs about practice than about historic reality.

[This was also a somewhat informally structured paper.]

Modeling of the Thermodynamic Properties of Interior Processes within a Barrel Smelter Using Measurements of Exterior Temperature Gradients

Robert Gissing, Conestoga College

[This paper did not appear.]

The Making and Breaking of Moulds: An Experimental Approach to Non-Ferrous Metalworking in Sweden

Rachel Cogswell, Univ. College Dublin

Topic is experimental work on Vendel-era bronze casting. Two basic types of mould creation: direct matrix by pressing the object into the mould, or lost wax where the object is created in wax and the mold created around it then the wax is removed. Working with a site with a large number of mould fragments for making clasp buttons (4-8th c. Sweden). Object is used for fasten cuffs, legs of breeches. These items are highly detailed and three dimensional, requiring a multi-part mould. Due to physical structure, lost wax is more likely as an approach. Beekeeping wasn’t prevalent in that era and area., but there is evidence of beeswax in gravesites. Her research project was to investigate whether multi-part or lost-wax moulds better fit the available evidence. Possibly hybrid technique using tin models where the basic shape is created by a standard method (ensuring regularity) then elaborated in the details. Various experiments for multi-part moulds had issues especially for such a small object (e.g., different parts of the mould shrinking in different ways). Wet clay worked best for multi-part moulds. Experiments with multi-part versus lost-wax suggested that the latter was more efficient with respect to time per object. So do broken moulds match the archaeological evidence? The lost-wax moulds tended to shatter, while the multi-part ones fractured along the construction lines (I think she indicates this is more characteristic of the remains?). (I get the impression that the multi-part moulds are created in pieces while wet, then assembled, then cast while still wet. So still single-use.) Both methods had loss of decorative elements. The multi-valve approach sometimes had flashing that must be removed.  Overall conclusions: multi-part moulds seem likeliest but this is a skilled procedure for consistent success. Suggestions for further research to pin down details and remaining questions.

Saturday 8:30 (Plenary Session)

Bonnie Wheeler, Southern Methodist Univ.

[This is going to be very stream of consciousness.]

Begins with an overview of her experiences with the medieval congress and recognizing how it has changed and continued to work on inclusivity. The need for change and open minds. Kalamazoo as a community and enjoyable experience. Moving on to the paper topic...

A look at how men deal with harmful words and humiliation. In modern culture, we often deal with this only in connection with other cultures. (Political references from current events.) Medieval scholars often posit a contrast between honor and shame, but she suggests that honor is dependent on the experience of shame and humiliation. Overcoming and mastering humiliation is essential for creating literature about masculine power. Chivalric literature is rife with anxiety about masculine humiliation. Understanding masculine humiliation--and how it can be erased--is essential for understanding medieval literary themes.  (A moment to recognize the work of many historians on the topic of emotion and affect in medieval texts.)

These historic literatures were adopted in the 19th century as “national literatures” that were considered to reflect essential character. The focus will be on Arthurian literature, esp. Mallory. “Humiliation” is the public face of shame, the way of experiencing the opposite of worship. But these experiences--honor and shame--exist outside a strict binary. Emotions are themselves culturally constructed experiences, but this position is not uncontested, with the other pole being that emotions are abstract bodily experiences that have objective meaning and reality.

She focuses on the management of humiliation in literary contexts. Example: the unwanted dinner invitation in Norse literature and how cultures are maintained across time by characteristic experiences of envy, shame, etc. Example: gifts create debts, a gift can be seen as an attack. in an honor-based system. In Egil’s saga, Egil wants to manage his own reputation without reliance on external factors such as what others say or do with regard to you. Examples given of creative insults within Old Norse society and how they constructed standards of masculinity. Such taunts and insults require response--in the sagas, this will be violent. Although not all scholars have recognized it overtly, shame is almost always about gender. About the loss of masculinity and feminization. But how do you recuperate from this type of shame/humiliation in literature?

Example: Peter Abelard - Abelard’s social power was largely through eloquent language. The social consequences of his persuasion of Heloise was castration, the ultimate masculine humiliation. How does Abelard recover his reputation from this? In his autobiography, he claims to ahve mastered desire and pride via his castration, thus that his alleged humiliation made him a “better man” by enabling him to resist temptation and sin. He uses rhetorical strategies to side-step the overt meaning of castration and reframe it as positive.

Imaginative literature creates a context for imagining a variety of scenarios of male humiliation and thus to provide a context for examining recuperative strategies. Examples from the Iliad. Humiliation is responded to by prowess--either in deeds or words--but prowess is not a stable feature. Comparison of Roland in the Charlemagne epic with Achilles in the Iliad - both are doomed young heroes whose lives revolve around the maintenance of masculine honor. Example: El Cid, how does a shamed vassal recuperate his reputation? The audience is, throughout aligned to El Cid as the sympathetic character. His accomplishments are enumerated in a way that the reader/listener can recognize. Even though his lord is unworthy, El Cid’s honor is redeemed apart from the worthiness of the one he acts to redeem it from. He gathers lands, goods, allies, and power. Through ritualized acts of public submission, he regains his lord’s approval. Self-abasement is a hyper-masculine weapon against undeserved humiliation. Comparison to the trials of Job. The lesson is how to be “good servants” of power, regardless if power deserves our service.

Example: Yvaine’s failure to keep his vow to this lady must be redeemed by repeated acts of prowess, but his male comrades never participates in voicing his shame, the struggle is internal, balancing the external masculine honor with the internal gender-reversed structures of the chivalric lover. Fear of humiliation drives chivalric valor.  Success for one requires failure for another.

Example: Sir Palomedes who functions as the foil to  the “winners” who have been chosen to be the heroes. Palomedes is good, but his abilities exist to be the loser so others may win, and this is shown to be a humiliation for him. He represents male fear of loss and lack.

Example: 14th c English legal case, plaintiff defends himself by saying he never did anything only said something. Loss was intangible. Earliest know case of defamation. What is “loss of a good name”? How can it be redressed? Is it even a crime? The history of slander law gives us a history of how words were understood as causing harm. Reputation is public property, not a personal attribute. One can lose fame not only by one’s own actions, but on what others say about one. In chivalric culture, the ultimate shame is to be feminized and have it stand uncontested.  Lists of “best knights” contributed to the reputation of the characters. Identity and reputation must be unitary, reciprocal, and public. See e.g., how Lancelot is the constant subject of gossip and rumor. If you’re already the best, how do you maintain that reputation? Lancelot can only address slander by prowess in battle. But his success in battle is not capable of stopping further gossip, and is therefore inadequate to maintain or recover reputation.

The era of the rise of chivalric literature also sees the decline of legal “proof by ordeal”. At the same time, the details of slander law show the instability of licit vs illicit speech.  Church law supports excommunication for slanderers (though a defense was that the subject of the speech was a person of ill fame). Under defamation law, the harm to a person’s reputation might be considered more important than the harm of the actions described by the speech. This could be true even if the slander was true. The intent of the speech was itself a crime. This legal principle was not shifted until after the medieval period.

How do characters like Gawain and Lancelot manage their humiliation? Lancelot’s reputation requires that he be talked about (well) but that same speech is what he is most vulnerable to. Speech and physical prowess are in conflict. He is the best of knights but that is insufficient to counter speech.  Only by speech can speech be countered.

Example of Arthur as a nexus of humiliation and recuperation.

Thursday 3:30

Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)

Motivations for French and Mediterranean Royal Sumptuary Laws: Translations of the Lives of the Caesars

Sarah-Grace Heller, Ohio State Univ.

Discussion of purposes of sumptuary laws and whether they really fit under the category “law”. Paper will look at 13th c sumptuary laws and ancient works that discuss sumptuary laws and their dissemination. Suetonius cites the imposition of early Roman laws against excess luxury as a sign of good government. The term ‘sumptuary law” did not come in until the Renaissance. So what were they called in the middle ages?   13th c. texts such as those discussing Phillip Augustus use “statuta.” The application of “Augustus” was part of an echo back to the Roman empire.  13th c. Spanish “proclamations” have similar effect.. “Establissement” is also used. These texts cover not only clothing and other consumption, but behavior, including arrangements for transportation.  Some elements were universal but many are stratified based on class and income. Charles II of Anjou, king of Sicily makes reference to legis (laws) of the paste but calls his own rules statutes. Implication that they were not intended to be as durable and fixed as “laws”, but perhaps temporary restrictions.  Compare 13th c. editions of Gellius on Roman frugality requirements, which in his own time were considered “something our forefathers implemented that have now been forgotten.” Also medieval editions of Suitonius, similarly talking about restrictions by the Caesars on consumption and display. When Philips’s “establissementz” of 1294 restricted similar lists of items, were these items truly a living issue in the 13th century or were they included in imitation of the Caesars?

Getting to the Point: Testing Protective Qualities of Fabric Armors

Robert Charrette, Independent Scholar

The author has requested that his paper not be blogged.

Quilting Cotton into Shape: Experimental Quilting Methods and Treatments to Achieve Fashionable Form

Jessica Finley, Independent Scholar

Description of methods and equipment to process cotton from the field to workable fiber. After being compressed for shipment, beating serves to separate the fibers and increase volume. Next stage uses a bow to further beat the fibers using a vibrating string. As each cotton fiber is a single-celled hollow tube, wetting it changes the behavior as it re-absorbs water. Once wetted, the cotton fibers can be compressed and will not re-expand until dry again.  In cotton-quilted fabric armor, a typical structure is 5 layers, two pairs of cloth (linen & silk) and an inner layer of cotton fiber. The quilting goes through all layers, including the cotton.  Difficulties include how to perform the quilting stitches through all the layers, and how to pattern around the interior padding. To improve stitching techniques, used long vice to clamp the layers and sail-maker’s tools for sewing heavy fabric. The garment is painted with linseed oil and carbon and this can be done before or after the sewing constructions, with “before” having technical advantages. Quilt individual pieces separately and then assemble into garment. In order to more easily quilt through the cotton batting, quilt a partially stuffed layer, then wet and add more batting stuffed into the channels, which will expand when dry to a density closer to the original model. Alternate method, with cotton rolled into tubes and placed between the stitching, not quilting through the batting itself.  Construct with linen+batting+linen, then add silk exterior fabric after initial quilting. Quilting stiffens the resulting garment, but the manipulation of straight-grain and bias in the fabric also affects shaping. Additional padding in key areas, also provide shaping.  Overall, different techniques are required to achieve different effects and functions in the finished garment.