More news, random facts, etc.

Here's a review of a new book on the royal impostor "Jean I," by Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri. The reviewer is somewhat skeptical at the tone/success of the book, as am I from the description, but it sounds like it is tailor-made for an excellent micro-study, something along the lines of The Return of Martin Guerre.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/10/17/bofal117.xml

Well, here's an article from a clearly left-wing online publication, interviewing James Carroll on the documentary just released, based on his book Constantine's Sword. I've seen this book around, but never read it. I guess it should go on the list. While I appreciate his concerns, some of which he voices in this interview with passion and eloquence, I think he has much to review/learn regarding Christianity during Late Antiquity, not to mention the crusades. The Knights Templar, after all, didn't lead the Rhineland Massacres in 1096, for the simple reason that they didn't exist yet...

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/130

But then again, I haven't read the book, so I'll withhold further judgment until then.


On a more light-hearted note, here's a brief history of "biscuits" from "the UK's oldest student newspaper." It mentions Richard the Lionheart, ergo the mention here...
http://www.studentnewspaper.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=166:thats-the-way-the-cookie-crumbled&catid=35:features&Itemid=55

The Royal Academy in London is running what looks to be an exciting exhibit on the Byzantine Empire (should open this Saturday--I don't know how long it runs).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/10/18/babyzantium118.xml


The Knights Templar in Yorkshire, by Diane Holloway and Trish Colton; looks like an interesting book, taking as its basis the ever-popular Templar myths and "treasure" and doing some down-to-earth, painstaking research into early fourteenth-century Yorkshire society.
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/features/The-stuff-of-legend.4582115.jp

[As I've said to my students on more than one occasion, "Go ahead and dig for the 'templar treasure.' If you find any, I want a cut. Good luck--there is no Templar treasure!" At which one chap grinned and said, "No smoke without fire, man, no smoke without fire!" Heh...]

Anyone interested in viewing some Robin Hood sillyness?
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_stage_theat/2008/10/theater-revie-1.html

Oh, the humanity...

A few random photos

I've also figured that a few photos from my travels would not come amiss. Just make sure you give the proper attribution to the pics.

First, here's a photo of the Hildegard abbey at Eibingen, on the east bank of the Rhine. A very beautiful spot, and a very wonderful place. Lots of vineyards, peaceful. The original abbey was apparently on the other side of the river, and is now built over. The small Hildegard museum has a model of the conjectured layout. This picture comes from my first trip in '05, but I try to visit this place whenever I am back in country.

Many people write off this castle as a tourist trap, but aside from some over-priced icecream, I have to disagree with them. Haute Koenigsbourg is one heck of an impressive fortress (though that didn't prevent the Swedes from obliterating it around 1635). Our art library actually has the 1908 folio volume produced by the German chap who restored it. Bodo Ebhardt was his name, and, as was rather common in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, he was somewhat creative with his restorations. It is a very fine museum, however, and the view over the Rhine basin and across the Vosges is wonderful. My little brother had told me that he would stay in the car if this was another hiking slog (since we had just climed the mountain to Ortenbourg, across the valley). No worries, the road led straight to it...

Round up of random medieval headlines...

Edward III has been in the news over the last couple days...

Excavations at Hampton Court:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3216583/Hampton-Court-medieval-hall-was-burned-down-after-Edward-III-knees-up.html

And another take on the foundations:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1078477/Archaeologists-discover-earliest-foundations-Hampton-Court-Palace-800-years-ago.html

And here is a short article which appeared in the Times on October 2, by Sir Anthony Clarke, the Master of the Rolls:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article4860276.ece. He makes several interesting points, and the article in general is suggestive of several ways in which medieval history still has relevance to current life and affairs...

Is anyone familiar with this author?
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4961567.ece
The Times seems to think she's very talented, but I've developed a skeptical outlook on "medieval" novels. Bernard Cornwell is sort of an exception to that skepticism...Just don't get me started on Umberto Eco's Baudolino--that book has more to do with the way Eco wishes the MA were, rather than the way sie eigentlich gewesen waren.

Germany in the news...

One of my minor fields is modern Germany (as you can imagine, rather a large minor field); thus, I often scan the news for Germany-related articles. This stellar example of German sensitivity came up this morning...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122410947451238107.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Cardiff Center for the Crusades, call for papers

I figured that I should probably post this, although many of you have probably received the call for papers by now. This is the updated call, with a deadline for proposal submissions.

[Apologies for the condensed format--I copied and pasted the Word document. If you want the actual form, see the SSCLE's website, under "conferences."]
____________________________________________________
Cardiff Centre for the Crusades

The Military Orders: Politics and Power
3-6 September 2009

The fifth conference will be held in Cardiff University from Thursday 3rd – Sunday 6th September 2009. It will follow a similar pattern to the previous meetings held at St John’s Gate, with three plenary sessions, and parallel sessions for communications.

If you wish to offer a communication of 20 minutes at this conference, please complete the table below.

Name

Address

Email

Proposed title of paper

Abstract of paper (50-100 words)

Audio/visual equipment required (e.g. Powerpoint, Overhead Projector)


Please return this form before 3 March 2009 to the conference administrator, Mrs Claire Rees:
By email: reescl@cardiff.ac.uk
or at: Cardiff School of History & Archaeology, Cardiff University, Humanities Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, Wales, UK.

Back again...

So...September went by with only one post. Call that "submerged with work and student papers as soon as I got off the plane" syndrome. I'm still submerged with the same, but what the heck. Honestly, I've had some heavy semesters, as we all have, but this one is definitely a Category 5. Never had anything like it. Perhaps teaching four courses will do that to you. Not a lot of students, on the whole, but being responsible for everything in four classes will take its toll. Good experience, I guess. The key, I'm learning, is to get at least one thing done every day; don't try to do too much, and concentrate rather than spread your efforts.

That being said, I'm about to break that rule for the next fifteen hours or so. Heh heh...And don't ask me what I'm doing up at 3:00 a.m., because I'll probably throw things at you. Just kidding. Well, maybe not.

Oh, and one last note...My profile is no longer accurate, since I've stopped karate completely (various reasons), and actually put my fencing gear in the basement yesterday. Medieval longsword is on hold as well, until the work is under control. Good times. I admire and wonder at people who can maintain several activities in addition to their work! I am not one of these...

Can I go back to my Dr. Pepper and papers now, pleeease??

Medieval news...

Turns out that today's high roads are as dangerous as the medieval ones. Who would've guessed?

http://news.scotsman.com/uk/Safety-measures-leave-road-travel.4596448.jp

It's also interesting to see the Sword Brothers order get some attention, when you least expect it:
http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/21556/

Here's a letter to the Times of London by some poor sap who needs some kind of shakabuku treatment (you have to have seen Grosse Pointe Blank to get this reference) and a good book by Warren Hollister or R. W. Southern...Apparently, medievals "[found] evidence an embarrassment and [saw] little value in human rights." Amazing. But then again, just google "dark ages" and see what you get. We're in an uphill battle, people.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article4943986.ece

And here's one of those nice stories of discovery. Keeps up your hopes of being the lucky one to find a hitherto lost manuscript, or perhaps a whole trove of manuscripts!

http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBrand=edponline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED12%20Oct%202008%2020%3A37%3A15%3A400

Coming home

Well, I wound up dropping off the cyber map for the last week, since the conference wound up being more involved than I thought (it always is, right?), and in was only on Friday that I discovered, courtesy of Charles Bowlus, that the university was actually offering wireless access...so, look for more posts after I get back to the States, God willing, in about 8 hours or so. This has been one heck of a trip, extraordinarily challenging, but also very rewarding. And, although I feel like a racecar driver thanking his corporate sponsors, I have to say that without the help of many people, this would not have happened. Thanks from the depths of my heart. You know who you are!

See you in the states...

Goodbye London

Well, it's the last evening here in London, and I must say that it's been quite a time. I don't really have time for a post, since it's getting late, I'm tired, and I have a bunch of odds and ends to piece together before leaving tomorrow morning.

I'll see what I can find by way of internet when I get to Avignon (God willing) tomorrow evening. Good night to you all!

Continuing from yesterday...

As I was saying yesterday, when time constraints forced me to post the post quickly, I regard the whole "Allen Affair" as a tempest within a teapot, which will mostly survive in the memories of those who were offended by her satirical prose. I must confess, I found the article quite amusing, if somewhat mean-spirited in parts--but then again, my fields of scholarly endeavor (military, crusades, 14th-century England, and Staufen Germany) were not included in the diatribe, so perhaps that's simply a laugh at other people's expense. Sorry (sort of...not really) about that. The way I see it, Allen simply took all the funny/ridiculous bits of Kalamazoo and put them all in one cauldron, which she then brought to a slow boil...Of course the final result will look distorted. Clothing sense? There's much to laugh at--I laugh at myself some times for the same reason. And anyone who can't chuckle at her description of the infamous dance needs to stop taking themselves so seriously, because others certainly will over time.

On the other hand, her mocking of poor medievalists stuck in small liberal arts colleges with no one to talk to but themselves struck me as rather a low blow. I would say that that is one of the advantages of Kalamazoo, and colleagues in that situation deserve a beer and our sympathy, not derision. Also, from the various vehement (and occasionally profane) discussions of her article on the blogs, one gets the impression that Allen didn't go to many of the sessions she critiques, since her factual details are incorrect. Papers she discusses were not actually given, quotes are taken out of context, and so on. Some folks who have done background research on her have discovered that her previous entries at the 'Zoo have mostly been Chaucer-related, so her 'Byzantine studies' label is something of a mystery.

Here is some of the most relevant blog coverage of this little thunderstorm:

Dr. Richard Nokes has some of the best entries at Unlocked Wordhoard: http://unlocked-wordhoard.blogspot.com/2008/05/dark-age-for-medievalists.html.
Gabriele's pointed question probably the best. It is a serious issue, that.
Nokes has also usefully provided a summary of other blog comment, at
http://unlocked-wordhoard.blogspot.com/2008/05/dark-age-for-medievalists-round-up.html.

Of course, Larry Swain's page, mentioned in my previous post.

Lisa Spangenberg also has an interesting page:
http://www.digitalmedievalist.com/news/2008/05/about-that-dark-age-for-medievalists.html.

And Melissa Snell, who blogs on/for About.com (never quite knew what to make of About, but their info is usually quite good...)
http://historymedren.about.com/b/2008/06/04/misrepresented-medievalists.htm.


As you will soon see by clicking on any of the above links, it's all pretty negative.

But, just to leave you with a positive, and perhaps a little perspective on this supposedly well-publicized put-down of our field, here's an email which I recently received from the ICM Leeds (edited for brevity): note the emboldened text. I guess that, despite articles such as Allen's, medieval studies aren't in such bad shape...Like I said, funny, more than anything else. To be continued...

Dear colleague,

Please find below the latest instalment of the Leeds International Medieval Congress
Newsletter. The newsletter will also be available online at
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/IMCNewsletter.pdf from 15 August. We hope through the
newsletter to keep in touch with IMC participants past and present, and to inform
them of forthcoming IMC events.

We would appreciate if you could print out this leaflet and display it in your
institution or department/school.

We aim to make this newsletter a regular occurrence - if you prefer not to receive
this newsletter in the future please let us know by return email. We always
appreciate your feedback, so do please feel free to suggest improvements to this
newsletter, and to let us know what you would like to see included in future issues.

With best wishes for the summer,

Axel E. W. Müller
Director, International Medieval Congress

1.1 Academic Programme
The IMC 2008 took place between 7-10 July at the University of Leeds, UK. 1464
medievalists attended, from 41 different countries, making this yet another
successful year.

The Congress continues to draw in international participants with 30% coming from
Europe (excl. UK) and over 12% from the US and Canada. This year also attracted a
wide number of delegates from as far afield as Australia, China and Israel. Some 325
sessions and roundtable discussions explored all aspects of the European Middle Ages,
with papers on subjects as diverse as 'Grenzen und Grenzmarkierung in den
mittelalterlichen Natur', 'Le souverain dans l'exégèse carolingienne', 'Medieval DNA:
On the Use of Molecular Genetic Methods for Exploring the Past', and 'Come la grazia
eccede l'agire etico e realizza la politica della convivenza civile e della
comunicazione'.

Press coverage of the IMC explored a number of topics arising out of sessions and
roundtables at the Congress. These were linked to the special thematic strand and
ongoing research as well as specific IMC events and resulted, amongst others, in
articles by the Guardian Online and local press, showing that medieval studies is
still generating interest from the general public.

Amongst many positive comments about the Congress, participants said that IMC 2008
was 'a smashingly good Congress' and that the 'plenaries were outstanding'. This
year's special thematic strand, Natural World, was particularly challenging and
generated both interest and enthusiasm, with more than 150 sessions presented under
the auspices of the strand, including keynote addresses by Oliver Rackham, (Corpus
Christi College, University of Cambridge) and Richard C. Hoffmann, (Department of
History, York University, Toronto, Ontario). The Natural World strand was
co-ordinated by Brigitte Resl, (School of History, University of Liverpool) and we
would like to take this opportunity to thank her for all her work this past year. The
strand opened up new avenues of interest in these subjects, and we hope all who
presented in or attended sessions on the Natural World found the experience a
positive one.


Section 2: Looking Ahead
2.1 IMC 2009: 13-16 July 2009
Paper proposals must be submitted by 31 August 2008, session and roundtable proposals
by 30 September 2008.
Plans for next year's Congress are well underway. As in previous years, papers and
sessions on all aspects of the study of the European Middle Ages are most welcome, in
any major European language.

A focus for 2009 will be the special thematic strand on 'Heresy and Orthodoxy'. The
full call for papers is available on our website at
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/imc2009_call.html

The Core Strands are:
* Anglo-Saxon Studies
* Archaeology
* Art and Architecture
* Byzantine Studies
* Celtic Studies
* Central and Eastern European Studies
* Church History and Canon Law
* Crusades and Latin East
* Culture and Society
* Daily Life
* Drama
* Gender Studies/Women's Studies
* Geography and Settlement Studies
* Government and Institutions
* Hagiography and Religious Writing
* Historiography (Medieval and Modern)
* Jewish Studies
* Language and Literature -Comparative
* Language and Literature -Germanic
* Language and Literature -Middle English
* Language and Literature -Romance Vernacular
* Late Antique and Early Medieval Studies
* Latin Writing
* Literacy and Communication
* Material Culture
* Medievalism and Reception of the Middle Ages
* Mediterranean and Islamic Studies
* Monasticism and Religious Life
* Music and Liturgy
* Philosophy and Political Thought
* Scandinavian Studies
* Science, Technology and Military History
* Social and Economic History
* Sources and Resources
* Theology and Bible Studies

We prefer proposals to be completed online - a quick, easy, and secure method. To
submit a proposal, go to http://imc.leeds.ac.uk/imcapp/

Remember to order your equipment for 2009 on your proposal form! Check
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/equipment.html for more details.


3.2 International Medieval Bibliography: Call for Contributors
The International Medieval Bibliography (IMB), based at Leeds since 1967, is a
multi-disciplinary database of Medieval Studies which helps underpin the work of the
IMC. Now, after the implementation of the IMBOnline, the bibliography is working to
greatly expand its coverage of publications. To this end, the editorial team is
looking for individuals or organisations to become contributors to join its existing
range of partners throughout the world. Contributors take responsibility for
identifying and cataloguing publications relating to specific subject or geographical
areas, and are rewarded with free subscriptions to IMB (online or print), other free
publications and other benefits. Contributors are sought who are based in the USA,
France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Russia, Portugal, Israel, Lithuania, Greece, Cyprus,
Latvia, Romania, and the Arab world, particularly with interests in archaeology, art,
regional and local history, and vernacular languages. If you are interested in
becoming a contributor, cont
act the editor, Dr Alan V. Murray, at A.V.Murray@leeds.ac.uk.

Seven stories high...

That's how high London is: 7 stories. Occasionally 8. Anywho...Well, here I am, Saturday evening, a very hard week of studying under my belt, and a good meal (for once) in my belly, and it's time to think about the weekend. Yes, my weekend tends to be one day, and that's Sunday. I've never really had a problem with a six-day workweek, as long as I generally have the flexibility to use Saturday as I need to. I actually broke down and bought a filling meal of fish and chips...or more accurately, fish and french fries, with mushy peas and washed down with a cold beer. It was a fine change of pace from ice cream bars, Cadbury bars (nothing wrong with them, but...), cookies, pies, and water. So, now I can sit back, work on my conferencen proposal for Kalamazoo 2009, my lesson plans for my classes, and what will now be a much-improved conference paper for next week. Seriously, without these British libraries, I would have missed much. Just goes to show you, right when you think you know your subject, you really don't know it at all.

Apparently what the MGH has been turning to in recent years is commisioning scholars to prepare critical editions of medieval correspondence. So you have, for example, the Admonter Briefsammlung, of which I heard too late to make much of an impact on my second year paper in 2007. Browsing the IHR's very complete collection of the MGH today, I grasped by chance Die Juengere Hildesheim Briefsammlung, which is a fascinating collection of letters held by the chancery of the bishopric of Hildesheim. Most interesting of all, it has an entire series of correspondence around the years 1187-1189, when Barbarossa and Philip of Cologne were at loggerheads. There has apparently been a lot of controversy over the validity of these letters, which older historians dismissed as stylistic exercises of the chancery school (so-called Stiluebungen), or as too doctored to use. More recently, Ferdinand Opll has defended the validity of many of these letters, as has another chap, can't remember his name right now, Brent or Brendt, I think. This is a relief, since they should come in quite useful for this book chapter I'm finishing on Barbarossa's crusade preparations. And, giving the letters a quick look-through, I must say that they strongly support my interpretation of the months between Audita tremendi (Gregory VIII's crusade bull of 1187) and the departure of the imperial army from Regensburg in May, 1189. They fit with the rest of the evidence, and to my mind it points to a very serious political/military situation in northwest Germany during that time--far more serious than current historians like to admit. If you doubt me, you can read about it in a year or so...if they still want the chapter when I'm done with it (long-passed deadlines...).

Apparently some of the reservations about the collection center on the formulas for opening and closing letters, to which many in this collection do not strictly adhere. But, while we must be cautious, I think there is a great danger of becoming too dogmatic about what was, in the end, an undogmatic process, particularly in the case of letters which were not meant for public distribution. That may not have been many letters, as Giles Constable has discussed in an old French publication (can't remember the title right now), but there were still some which were meant as communications between person and person, and not person and community.

Well, enough of that. If you want to read further, and are fluent in German and Latin, the link is http://mdzx.bib-bvb.de/dmgh_new/. Click on ''Epistolae,' and then on 'Die Briefe der deutschen Kaiserseit.'

I have eight minutes left on my computer time, so let me toss out another bone on which folks can chew...Here's one to which I will return in the weeks to come.

A few weeks after Kalamazzo, this very provocative article was published in the Weekly Standard, called 'A Dark Age for Medievalists
At their annual congress in Kalamazoo, it's no longer your grandfather's Middle Ages,'
by one Charlotte Allen. .http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/146etleh.asp. The reaction this article has drawn from the medieval blogging world (such as it is) has been absolutely devastating, and (as I see it) out of proportion to its punch or predictable impact. This despite Larry Swain's passionate post at The Ruminate, http://theruminate.blogspot.com/2008/06/allen-furor.html.

Well, anyway...to be continued.

University of London

The Brits continue to impress with their courtesy and hospitality. I was welcomed as a visiting graduate student who needed to use the collections for a couple days, and received a visitor's permit without any problem. Also, between the Warburg Institute and the Institute for Historical Research, you should have all the medieval books you need. Toss in the Senate House Library and the University of London's main library, and you're all set. Capital, capital.

Also, the next time you plan a trip to London, you might not want to schedule it during the August Bank Holiday...Sigh.

Goodnight all.

More news from London

Well, this is definitely what blogs are for: to help folks back home keep up with you, and to vent your thoughts when you don't have anyone else to talk to....

Day 2 at the archives. I'm not sure that I really needed to spend an entire week here in London, since I'm not ready to actually start researching the dissertation, and I think I've done about all I can with the records for the time being. Of course, I still need to look into lodging and such for the spring. Also, tomorrow I think I'm going to avail myself, if possible, of the University of London's holdings. Mostly in connection with that conference next week...

I think that the only way to become familiar with the medieval records is, well, to become familiar with them. Like anything, you can't learn it overnight.

Now, I don't (yet) claim to be an expert, but I am becoming more than ever convinced that those who argue for a peaceful, law-abiding England under Edward III are creating castles out of air, for three reasons. First, volume of surviving petitions from all the counties; these are people who want royal intervention to end oppressions, felonies, etc. Second, the layers and layers of legal officials, not all of whom either a) heard the same cases, or b) were royal officials. This last has been pointed out by Charles Donahue, as an oft-overlooked category of English justice and administration. Third, and contrary to the views of G. L. Harriss and Christine Carpenter, it seems that violence was NOT the 'last resort' of the desperate, the losers, and the fringes of society (close paraphrase of a quote from Harriss), but was business-as-usual for a large portion of the landed and powerful in society. In petitions which I have read, both here at the archives and more extensively in the Patent Rolls, there is often no mention of previous litigation. Rather, it seems that a disagreement between individuals turned violent before the king's justice became involved or was asked to intervene...

Ok, time to go. More tomorrow.

Btw, I have the greatest respect for Harriss and Carpenter as scholars--this is simply a professional disagreement....

Yesterday Evening's Report from London

Excuse some of the prose: it was late, and I haven't had a chance to post it until now...

First Impressions…

Well, I’m in London now, and have already accumulated a number of observations and comments on the great metropolis…

1. I had to walk about five miles before I could find a shop which sold bath towels. Apparently they hide them in various places throughout the city, in anticipation of the arrival of students who forgot to bring their own towels to the hostel…
2. A haircut costs about $20. There goes the idea of getting a trim before the conference. Well, I’m not the only academic with long-ish hair.
3. A pack of cigarettes costs between $11 and $12. Wow.
4. Motorists have no hesitation in honking the horn at pedestrians (such as yours truly) who aren’t crossing fast enough, or who are crossing against the signal.
5. Far too many people have a strange fascination with the latest techno/disco type music videos. Not that I’m knocking that—some of that stuff is really good. But when that’s ALL you play/watch/listen to, I start wondering…
6. Clearing customs was 20 minutes waiting in line, 15 seconds for the chap to stamp my passport. Hardly gave me a second glance. “What’s the purpose of your visit?” “Research at the National Archives.” “Ok, have a great day.”
7. British people are, overall, the most polite folk I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Cheers!
8. I’m not sure what to make of British cities, on the whole. If you look for it, there is plenty of evidence of what the doom-sayers like to call the “decline of British civilization.” Whatever that means. Rows and rows of small shops that sell exotic fruits and vegetables, a 99-cent store, hearing less English and more foreign languages on the streets. Sure. Fine. I don’t really regard those as negative points, however. Ethnic diversity = good, as far as I’m concerned. But then, that’s probably the immigrant in me talking. Descending from that whole 1919-1920s wave, I’m less concerned with homogeneity than others. What impresses me, however, is the curious, cramped uniformity of English cityscapes. In the United States, I love passing old buildings, from say the 1890s or early 1900s, since they often look very picturesque, have a history, and look charming. London is full of such houses, but they lack the full charm. Rows upon rows of apartment houses, curiously uniform in look, dimensions, smut in all the same places, whitewash ditto, and simply no space. Perhaps that’s it. The slightly smaller scale of everything here. All those jokes about Americans and size come to mind, but I can’t help it. There is a curiously depressed air to many buildings, even the ones which are in good repair. It’s as if the buildings themselves realized that there is no more room, and they’ve shrunk in on themselves, receding into a certain Dickensian retrospective…

Ok, that was overwrought.

9. The National Archives are excellent. A much more pleasant experience than the U.S. archives at College Park. At the latter, you can’t bring in anything not directly associated with your work. In the PRO, you can bring in walkmans, iPods, and such, as long as they don’t disturb other people. Quite the festive atmosphere, almost. Everyone is simply bustling and pleasant, very helpful, and busy. Like a beehive.
10. So, my advisor once spoke to us about one’s first time at the PRO (this is now the National Archives, but as a medievalist I really have to keep calling it the PRO whenever I can. Public Records Office, for those of you who are brand new to the field. Which won’t be many of you). And he was right. The exhilaration as the librarian hands you your first stack of documents. Here it is! Real parchment. Faded writing from almost 800 years ago. The odd imperfection in the parchment. The thrill, as Trevelyan wrote, in realizing that someone sat at a desk and wrote what you are holding now. This sort of imagined connection between you and the dead across time, that they would help you if they could, but since they can’t cross the gulf they just watch in frustrated amusement as you make the most elementary (and probably incorrect) observations about their lives.
11. Some remarks about working at the PRO…
1. Remember to bring evidence of your current address!!!! Without it, you can’t get a reader’s card. I happened, by the purest happenstance, to have brought a letter from the IRS which, happening upon me just before I left the US, I did take. Old, but still valid, address was inscribed thereon. I am more than ever convinced that there is a divine power in the universe. Mock as you please.
2. Paleography, paleography, paleography. Don’t put it off, as I have. Without it, you will get nowhere. I remember enough to make out some words, but Kaeuper’s stories about thinking you know the material until you come face to face with a document are vividly proved correct. Note to self…
3. The situation is complicated by the often poor and faded condition of the documents you are so anxiously seeking. An interesting indictment is completely faded at the beginning and illegible at the bottom of the parchment. The writing is standard, nicely spaced, and then suddenly some new hand, writing very cramped, ovular prose.
4. Something I discovered by accident: if your parchment is faded on front, flip it over, and think about transcribing it from the back. Backwards. Sheer genius, or not. Haven’t tried it myself. Yet. Often, the ink bled into the skin, so that it has lasted much longer on the back than the front…Not sure why that is.
5. Digital Camera. ’nough said.
6. You can order 3 documents at a time, and a max of 21 in a day. I figure that, with a moderate pace, I should be able, in the spring, to get through between 7 and 14 a day. Probably optimistic. At first I thought, “21? What’s with that arbitrary number?” But they know what they’re doing.
12. Well, that’s it for today. What to do now…work on tomorrow’s plan for the PRO, work on the conference paper, go to bed. Bed. Sounds good. Several days of little and bad sleep will wear down even the strongest person. Someone switched the channel, and now we’re watching X Men 2. Good grief.

time to get more contentious...

Well, it's been dawning on me for some time that I'm going to have to start posting more opinion-type things on this here blog space, since there are only so many links in the world. And besides, after seeing some of the other medievalist blogs, I think a rather different perspective (not necessarily well-balanced, mind you!) may be useful...So, if anyone's reading this, get ready for some bones on which to chew...

And some more...

Courtesy of Cliff Rogers' Soldiers' Lives Through History--The Middle Ages. Some of these I would never have found if I hadn't been given the actual adddress. Anything to help poor undergraduates access primary sources... That's one thing I've noticed about courses on the Middle Ages in general: students' paper topics tend to be limited simply because there isn't enough translated primary material. Somewhat of a relief, in a way, but there are times when the lack of material really irks me...unless said student can read Latin, which so far I haven't found.

In parentheses
http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/

Susan Rhoads' website
http://www.elfinspell.com/clio.html

Graham Loud, University of Leeds
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/history/weblearning/MedievalHistoryTextCentre/medievalTexts.htm

The Latin Library
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/medieval.html

The Medieval and Modern Thought Digitalization
http://standish.stanford.edu/bin/page?forward=home

More cool medieval links...

So, here are some more excellent databases and resources for the medievalist.

Hill Museum and Manuscript Library. http://www.hmml.org/

Ah, the Hill Museum. World-famous for its collection of monastic and other religious documents, with special strengths in German and Eastern Christian material--but not as many people know about their collection of digital images. This is very much a work in progress, due to the size of the museum's holdings, and not everything is, or can be, digitalized. But definitely worth a look, and their browsing features make life easier.

Early English Books Online. http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home

Great resource for the early printed word in England. Great search features and a fine collection. In their own exalted prose: "this incomparable collection now contains about 100,000 of over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplement." NOTE: this database is a restricted-access project, available only through participating libraries (of which Rochester is apparently one).

The Soldier in Later Medieval England. http://www.medievalsoldier.org/

This site is meant to be a database of all the English soldiers who served in the Hundred Years' War, for the period between 1369 and 1453 (so, don't try to find the musters for Edward of Woodstock's forces at Najera in 1367). It is the brainchild of Anne Curry and Adrian Bell, and is of immense help to those of us who have long been plagued by lack of precise data on these orders of battle. The purpose of the database is " to challenge assumptions about the emergence of professional soldiery between 1369 and 1453."

English Medieval Legal Documents Wiki. http://emld.usc.edu/tiki-index.php?page=HomePage

A very promising website, with tons of links and good information on the torturous paths of medieval English legal history. Useful links and bibliographic information on scholarship as well. There is the odd link or two which don't work, but all in all this is a blessed good site.

Calendar of the Patent Rolls. http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/patentrolls/

University of Iowa has digitalized--yes--the Patent Rolls, Henry III through Henry VI. The search feature is quite good, and fairly nuanced. In order to prevent folks from downloading entire PDF volumes, the pages show up as individual PDFs--excellent for searching, not so good for quick reading or browsing.


Digital Scriptorium. http://www.scriptorium.columbia.edu/

Formerly out of Berkeley, and now based from Columbia; boasts "5300 manuscripts" and "24,300 images." Some (many?) from the Huntington Library. It has a fairly good search engine, but no browsing option per se, which I consider a drawback, but that's just me.

Germans and Saracens...

I'm looking for good studies on the depiction of Saracens in medieval German literature...I'm tracking down a number of studies regarding Willehalm, in particular. My own study involves German chronicles of the Third Crusade, which have not yet been analyzed in this fashion. At the moment, I am really hoping to avoid the complicated debates over the interior relationships of these chronicles, but that may not be necessary. Having just been to the crusades conference at Fordham, I am running on a surfeit of ideas regarding Western Christendom and its portrayal of the "other." Personally, I dislike that kind of terminology, since I feel that it creates both an overly simplistic, non-contextualized normative paradigm, and a psycho-socially deterministic, pejorative discourse in a field which demands the opposite [As I've pointed out to various of my English department colleagues, I can talk this way when I wish...] However...in this instance, I believe that the later "hardening of ideological lines", so to speak, between Christian and Muslim in the later Middle Ages, had, in the German case, something to do with the German experience in the Third Crusade definitely, and the Fifth Crusade perhaps. We'll see.

Kalamazoo coming up!!

The program for the International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, Michigan, is now up (actually, it's been up, I'm only getting to it now...). Lots of great sessions, especially Hundred Years' War stuff on Thursday and Friday morning, if you're into that kind of thing, which I am. The 'zoo is really getting too large, if you ask me. Anyhow...if you live in Chicago, it's just a hop, skip, and jump. I'm taking the train--with Student Advantage, it's under $140, and gets you directly to the conference. And I like trains, anyway.

http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/

Determining the end of chivalry

As a student of Richard Kaeuper, it should come as no surprise that medieval chivalry is one of my research interests. Currently, I am preparing two different online bibliographies (one geared for grade school teachers) and one exhibit on the subject. Attempting to reduce such a complex phenomenon as chivalry to about 26 linear feet is forcing me to make significant (and perhaps controversial) interpretations. One of the largest that I am facing to date is determining how to discuss the "end of chivalry." Did it end? If so, when? How? Why? By whom/what? Or did it rather transform into something different from medieval chivalry? If so, the same questions apply. And since we here approach the "Early Modern Age," the source material expands, modes of thinking are changing, and the methodologies available to the historian multiply as well.

The old wisdom, that chivalry was shot down with gunpowder weapons, has been pretty decisively refuted by now: chivalry far outlasted the advent of gunpowder. It also did not really come to grief on the "rise of infantry" or the changing character of the late medieval army (best exemplified, perhaps, by the armies of Burgundy): to Philippe de Commynges, chivalry was still a potent presence, despite the fact that knights often dismounted and sometimes fought with infantry formations.

At very least, neither of these explanations is in any way sufficient by itself. My advisor would argue (and I would largely agree with him) that "chivalry" as such ended when the core of the warrior's identity and loyalty changed. Religious validation became somewhat less important, and loyalty to the state comparatively more important, in ways which left the practice of arms roughly the same while changing the mentality of the man who practiced them. Honor slowly became bound up with serving the state, not necessarily with personal renown gained through deeds of prowess. This (hopefully accurate) paraphrase and summary seems a good explanation, especially when combined with the other (less individually convincing) explanations above--after all, as Strickland has demonstrated, the character of armies did change over time, as the decline of the longbow in Tudor England demonstrates (e.g., among London militia companies, not to mention yeomen).

So, for purposes of an exhibit with limited space, WHEN can we say "Medieval chivalry is no more"? My own slowly evolving opinion is that, for sake of convenience, medieval chivalry ended in 1559, when Henry II of France was killed in a joust. Henry VIII of England, another king who strongly identified himself with chivalry, had died in 1550. And Maximilian I of Germany, the "last knight" and master of the tournament, had died earlier in 1519. It seems to me that, if pressed against the wall, one could say that the passing of the last great "chivalric" monarchs of Europe conveniently marks the passing of medieval chivalry, and the culmination of all those changes which historians identify, often individually. Debatable, surely, and I am still thinking this through, but as a stopping point (and one HAS to stop somewhere) it seems to hold much promise...

Anyhow, back to thinking and writing and commenting on students' work...

thoughts about qualifying exam prep...

So, that time of year is coming up, the time of qualifying exams. I have resigned myself to the fact that, no matter how much one studies, one is never "ready" for these things...One simply attempts to reach a certain "comfort" level of unreadiness. For medieval history here at my university, there is no set reading list--understandably, since it's hard to formulate any kind of comprehensive plan for a massive geographical space over the period of a millennium (one expects to teach the general "High Middle Ages," "Late Middle Ages" courses, naturally, but that's mostly a matter of finding a half-decent non-textbook textbook, and tailoring the course to your own interests, unless you are creative...whatever). On the other hand, how do you process all this information, especially if, as I am doing, you are developing a minor field in modern history as well? [My major field is medieval European history, minor field 1 is medieval monasticism/art history, minor field 2 is modern Germany--which last is really a rather major minor field, and one in which I have various research interests.]

To deal with this situation, I have been attempting to put into practice a bowdlerized version of Duke's system for preparing their history grad students, which is based on preparing a portfolio of their fields, teaching and intellectual philosophies, etc., and which is supposed to serve not only as a exam prep but as job market prep as well. Very useful, it seemed to me, if rather intense, having learned about it, if I'm remembering correctly, as a prospective from another prospective while visiting an institution which was not Duke. The full description, for the curious, is here:
http://www-history.aas.duke.edu/graduate/handbookpreliminaryexams.php

My own approach has been to design a series of syllabus templates, at several levels (introductory, upper level seminar, and graduate seminar), which should cover major teaching topics while at the same time solidifying my reading and grasp of the field in general. So far, not bad, I think. We'll see how it goes in the "dry run" in about a week.

In the mean time, there are certain to be more posts of a more-or-less esoteric nature on various archaic points of history and historiography, some of which will probably be driven by frustration and a lack of sleep. They say it only gets worse from here...

St. Gall codices digitalized...(a la Cologne)

This looks like a first-class site, with excellent digital transfers of various texts. Here is the project description from the website:

'The purpose of the “Codices Electronici Sangallenses” (Digital Abbey Library of St. Gallen) is to provide access to the medieval codices in the Abbey Library of St. Gallen by creating a virtual library. The project will begin with a two-year pilot to digitally reproduce a selection of the finest illuminated codices at such a high resolution that researchers cannot only work with the manuscripts but also perform detailed (art historical or otherwise) analyses of the miniatures in the codices. Codex metadata (primarily scholarly descriptions of the codices) will be managed in a database system and referenced with the digitalised items through various access mechanisms. All these elements will constitute a single long-term tool for codex research that can potentially incorporate all the information on the individual codices. The tool can act as a partial substitute for direct examinations of the irreplaceable originals, thereby preserving them. At the same time, an intuitive, appealing internet presentation will communicate the medieval codex culture to a wider audience.'

Link: http://www.cesg.unifr.ch/en/

This project is meant to mirror a similar one for Cologne's archiepiscopal archive, at http://www.ceec.uni-koeln.de/

Correction Regarding Vatican Archives!!!!

Please note the following correction to the entry on Vatican Paleography course, as per Paul's kind comments below: the Vatican Archive remains open, so the paleography program is doubtless fully operational. My apologies for the error!

Cool Medieval Links for the Serious Student

Greetings! If you are interested in tracking down various sources, resources, and information regarding the medieval world and modern scholarship thereof, you might be interested in the following links (with my own somewhat trenchant commentary). More links will follow at a later time...

The Internet Medieval Sourcebook. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html

This has long been the standard beginner's sourcebook for things medieval, and is the brainchild of Paul Halsall at Fordham University. All in all, I feel that the site is not as useful as it once was--due to copyright issues, many entries are simply bibliographic notes, not links to content. Also, since Halsall is also editing ORB's content, a number of the working links take you to ORB anyway. For all that, the IMS remains a fairly useful tool if you are looking for a random source. Great for undergraduates.

The Crusades Encylopedia. http://crusades-encyclopedia.com/

A newer site, maintained by Andrew Holt. It is far from complete, given the scope of the subject, but new material is added fairly regularly. The primary and secondary source collections are very useful indeed, as are the links to scholarly opinion pieces about the crusades, book reviews, movie reviews, and so on. In the primary sources section, there are links for the ENTIRE French series, Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, in PDF files (obviously, I am excited about this...). Good resources for the Albigensian Crusade. This site has saved my students several times, and is an ever-improving resource for scholars.


The Labyrinth at Georgetown. http://labyrinth.georgetown.edu/

This is the new and improved Labyrinth--in other words, most of the links work on this new edition (though hardly all, so be warned). Unfortunately, Georgetown has elected to keep the unwieldy search format, which takes some getting used to, and the results of one's search can be highly uneven. On the other hand, the Labyrinth occasionally has links to obscure but very useful scholarly sites, so it is always worth checking in your research.


The ORB: Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies. http://www.the-orb.net/

I have mixed feelings about The ORB, mostly because my students have tried using the useful summaries and lecture plans as substitutes for reading genuine scholarly work...On the other hand, The ORB does have a fairly impressive collection of primary source materials and general resources--for instance, the only English version which I have found of the Teutonic Knight's "Rule", and a critical one at that (this could well be because I haven't looked hard enough, but still...). Definitely worth exploring...


Some paleography?

Anglo-Norman Paleography. http://paleo.anglo-norman.org/

The site describes itself as "a collaborative venture between the West Sussex Record Office and the Department of English Local History." It contains a good deal of information on Anglo-Norman paleography, a fairly comprehensive bibliography, exercises and self-testing, and much basic information about this important sub-category of medieval studies. It appears to have been designed for a specific university course, and for use with a cd--so, don't be surprised if its content appears choppy and incomplete. Not for the faint of heart!


The Vatican School of Paleography, etc. http://asv.vatican.va/en/scuol/1_directors.htm

This would be more useful if the Vatican Archives hadn't decided to close for a few years for (admittedly important) building repairs...So, the information on this site is a) almost certainly not applicable right now, and b) quite possibly out of date. Nevertheless, it's not a bad thing to tuck this website away for future reference


Latin dictionaries

"Words" by William Whitaker. http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe
Latin-English Dictionary Program. http://users.erols.com/whitaker/words.htm

Notre Dame's Latin dictionary recommends Whitaker's "Words" as a more comprehensive program, and thankfully he has provided it free of charge as a downloadable file (second link). The program is little short of amazing, for example providing you with a complete parsing of verbs--first person singular, present indicative active (not in that order!). I have come across only a handful of words absent from its inventory. Great stuff.


Orbis Latinus, by J. G. Th. Graesse. http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/Graesse/contents.html

Karen Green at Columbia has digitalized this old (1909) copy of Graesse's Latin place-name dictionary--indispensable stuff, and something which they don't really teach you (probably because they can't). Place names are often NOT intuitive: for instance, while "Regensburg" and "Ratisbonensis" sound fairly similar, you wouldn't guess that "Wuerzburg" is "Herbipolensis" in Latin...would you? This old edition is not exhaustive, and occasionally makes it difficult to find an entry due to spelling variations, but is still an outstandingly useful resource.



And, for those of you who read German...

Mediaevum. http://www.mediaevum.de/

This is a web portal to all things medieval in German scholarship, including information on most (if not all) medieval academic programs in Germany, a manuscript locater for over 65,000 manuscripts in German archives, links to digitalized manuscripts (more on those in another post), dictionaries, and just about any random scholarly information you can think of. The English version does not have much content, and if you want to get anything out of the site be prepared to click around, dust off your German, and enjoy!

One small step for this man...

Well, I have taken yet another step on the road of "being up to date": I now have a blog. From the title, one might reasonably assume that it will deal heavily with things medieval, and such an assumption would be correct. Look for links, some reviews, notes about medieval conferences and such, in the near future...