CeSMA newsletter March 2011
Transkript
CeSMA newsletter March 2011
CeSMA — 4.0 — March, 2011 CeSMA: Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages Vernacular Inscriptions from Later Medieval England: A Developing Corpus In September 2010 I attended a symposium on the patronage of the magnificent late fifteenth-century church of the Holy Trinity at Long Melford in Suffolk. My paper – delivered from the pulpit! – announced newly ‘discovered’ English and Latin inscriptions in John Clopton’s chantry chapel, including a verse by the local poet-monk John Lydgate (c. 13701449/50). Other papers during the day discussed the unique collection of early Tudor stained glass portraits of the Cloptons and their associates, and tombs and monumental brasses covering the period 1410-1630. This recent Lydgate ‘discovery’ is one of the 4500 vernacular inscriptions in a database under development in the English Department. Taking inscriptional texts to mean those employed in distinctively non-manuscript forms – whether painted, carved, incised, molded, woven or scratched -- the project is creating a corpus for the entire later medieval period in England. Already recovered are texts English, French, Cornish, Welsh, Hebrew and Dutch. With public texts used so extensively in English society, to express personal and communal beliefs, allegiances and aspirations, we have a wealth of inscribed objects and buildings. The corpus covers all manner of vernacular inscriptions, from simple lines of commemoration for blacksmiths and parish clerks to aristocratic and royal epitaphs, devotional texts in glass and wall paintings in parish churches, texts in hospitals and guildhalls, in Jewish ritual bathhouses, and on civic structures such as city walls and bridges. Also, graffiti, texts found in royal residences and domestic houses, and words inscribed on personal items including clothes, jewelry, badges, weapons, drinking vessels, and seals and - by David Griffith seal matrices. The earliest of these postConquest examples dates from the late eleventh century (in runes and in Roman letters) and the project has taken the death of Mary I as a natural end point. With the Protestant settlement public textuality in all forms -- in ecclesiastical, civic and domestic settings -- is radically altered. Long Melford, Clopton. Chantry chapel, with squint and inscription from John Lydgate's poem 'A Balade at the Reverence of Our Lady', c. 1487-94. The primary concern of the project is to record surviving vernacular inscriptions and where possible to supply antiquarian readings for fragmentary or destroyed texts. Antiquaries’ collections are a major resource and the project makes full use of their transcriptions and descriptions, especially those made for the great county histories of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This diverse body of texts hardly figures in contemporary academic discourses. Corpora for medieval inscriptions in French and German-speaking lands are well advanced and are under development for pre-Conquest Britain but there has been no systematic attempt to collect inscriptions made between 1066 and the Protestant Reformations. And as many sectors of English society were bi- or multilingual during this period this constitutes a remarkable body of material. As well as providing a resource for scholars working in a range of disciplines, the corpus will generate new modes of literary and linguistic analysis that will help shape the emergent interest in the materiality of medieval texts, in the interrelations of Latin and the vernacular languages, and in text-image relations. If you’re interested to learn more, drop me a line – or perhaps just carve a message on my office door! Yarnton (Oxon). Bird quarries with English texts from a Reynard the fox narrative, c.1485-1500 Haddiscoe. Slab to Barbele, wife of Peter, son of Peter the Dykegraaf (master of the dykes, d. 1525), text in Dutch. CeSMA — 4.0 — March, 2011 CeSMA Outing to Kilpeck & Deerhurst - by Cory Hazlehurst On 8th June Cesma had its annual summer trip. Over a dozen members of staff and postgraduate students braved the blustery weather and made the journey to Herefordshire to look at three medieval churches. The first visited was Kilpeck Church, which was built around 1140. We were given a short and informative tour of the church, and its wonderful stone carvings, by Dr John Hunt of the IAA, who has done a large amount of research into the stone sculpture and architecture of Kilpeck. Also near the church was Kilpeck Castle, originally built around 1090 by William Fitz Norman, who was given the manor of Kilpeck from William the Conqueror. Only a small amount of ruins survive, but there were great views from both the castle and the church. Our group then moved from Kilpeck to Deerhurst, and visited two other churches in close proximity to each other. One, Odda’s Chapel, is one of the oldest surviving AngloSaxon churches. It was built by Earl Odda in 1056, after the death of his brother Aelfric. Inside the original masonry survives, and there is a replica of a stone plaque with Odda’s dedicatory inscription on it. The Kilpeck ‘hare and hound’ responds with stony silence to the mystery of Birmingham medievalists. Our final call was at Deerhurst parish church, which has been in existence in the ninth century. Of some interest to AngloSaxonists might be the fact that Alphege, who became Archbishop of Canterbury and was martyred by the Danes in 1012, began his ecclesiastical career there. They also host the Deerhurst lecture series, where Birmingham academics such as Steven Bassett have spoken. There are some marvelous sculptures and other artwork there, and it was a wonderful end to our sightseeing. After a convivial pub meal, we returned to Birmingham. If anyone has any ideas of where CeSMA should go for next year’s summer trip please e-mail Christina Possel: University of Birmingham medievalists contemplate the mystery of the ‘hare and hound’ corbel at Kilpeck Church. c.u.possel@bham.ac.uk. CeSMA Management Team Chris Callow - History and Cultures Christina Possel - History and Cultures William Purkis - History and Cultures Emily Rozier - EMREM & PG Representative Gareth Sears - Archaeology and Antiquity Philippa Semper - English Aengus Ward - Hispanic Studies John Warrick - Drama and Theatre Arts Simon Yarrow - History and Cultures Join the CeSMA mailing list for CFPs, lecture announcements, and more. Send your e-mail address to: cesma@contacts.bham.ac.uk CeSMA works to facilitate conversations and collaboration across Schools and disciplines between all members of the University engaged in the study or research of the Middle Ages, broadly defined. www.CeSMA.bham.ac.uk Facebook : ‘Birmingham Medievalists’ CeSMA — 4.0 — March, 2011 CeSMA Postgraduate Networking Event - by Emily Rozier CeSMA hosted a networking event for current postgraduate students and staff at the University of Birmingham in the penultimate week of the Winter Term 2010. The event was an opportunity for attendees to network over a glass of wine and a mince pie. There were various activities taking place, including a research poster showcase in which postgraduates were able to advertise their work. The posters ranged from the handdrawn to the computer generated (like that pictured at left for Michael Rush’s research) and they all spurred much discussion. An element of competition was added to proceedings through the inclusion of ‘networking bingo’ in which participants had to find people who had experienced each of the scenarios on the card. These included ‘has marked an essay that cited Wikipedia’ and ‘is going to the ICMS Kalamazoo 2011’. Academics and students alike entered into the spirit of the game and the speed networking was a great success. The EMREM Postgraduate Forum Annual Symposium ‘The Monstrous, the Marginal and the Misunderstood’ Friday 18th March 2011 CeSMA, the GHIL and New Approaches to Medieval Religious Cultures - by William Purkis On 16 December 2010 CeSMA cohosted an international and interdisciplinary workshop on ‘New Approaches to Medieval Religious Cultures: Concepts, Perceptions and Practices of Piety and Charity’ with colleagues from the German Historical Institute London. The workshop’s participants included speakers from the UK, Ireland, Germany and Spain, and the event was attended by both staff and students from Birmingham as well as a wider audience of academics and postgraduates from other UK universities. The emphasis of the workshop was on methodologies and the formulation of research questions and problems, and those who were present were fortunate to hear a range of excellent papers from both established scholars and doctoral candidates, covering such diverse subjects as the use of relics to create sacred space, the sen- Introducing EMREM … ! The EMREM Forum is designed to facilitate discussion amongst postgraduate students who are interested in the Early Medieval-MedievalRenaissance-Reformation-Early Modern period. The Forum aims to generate an informal atmosphere in which postgraduates (and staff!) can share their research and participate in interdisciplinary and cross-period debate. We welcome members from all institutions and disciplines. Past Events: The Forum was created in 2009 and has held a variety of activities since its inception. Discussion meetings have focused on such cross-period topics as periodisation, gender and the afterlife. It has also arranged a staff paper, two postgraduate paper sessions and a film session (complete with popcorn) dealing with modern representations of the EMREM periods. The Forum also presented a roundtable discussion at the Hilton Shepherd Symposium 2010. We took two panels to the Leeds International Medieval Congress, where we held a very successful networking event. This gave us an opportunity to meet around fifty of our fellow postgraduate students from other institutions. In the summer term we made a short film to promote the research projects of five EMREM members, which was planned, written, sourced, shot and edited in two days! We also organised a summer excursion to Charlecote Park, a sixteenth-century country house in Warwickshire. Future events: sory experience of medieval pilgrimage, and the application of GIS as a tool for studying the historical development of saints’ cults. The workshop provided a valuable opportunity for members of CeSMA to engage with scholars and students from across western Europe, and it is anticipated that Birmingham will host a follow-up event at some point in the future. Full details of the workshop’s programme have been archived at: http://www.ghil.ac.uk/events_and_conferences/ conferences_and_workshops/conferences_2010.html This year, in addition to discussion meetings, student papers and a guest lecture, we plan to hold several workshops on some important aspects of a postgraduate career: attending conferences, surviving your viva, getting published and presenting your research through New Media. We are taking up the mantle of the Hilton Shepherd Centre and will be holding the first EMREM Symposium in the Spring, as well as taking a panel to the Kalamazoo International Congress on Medieval Studies, in collaboration with CeSMA. There will also be another summer trip to look forward to! If you would like to get involved, please email the EMREM Committee at emremforum@googlemail.com, or join us on facebook (search for ‘EMREM Forum’).