Author: Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo

As part of the History and Heritage Research Seminar Series, sponsored by the Medieval Studies Research Group:

Dr Julia Hillner (University of Sheffield) joined us on Wed 6^th April 2016, 4.30-6pm, in MB3201 to delivered a paper on ‘

Women, Crime and Confinement in Late Antiquity.

Julia discussed late antique legal developments (up to the 7th c.) surrounding crimes committed by women, especially those related to adultery. Penalties inflicted on female criminals differed from those applied to men, although this did not necessarily mean that they were more lenient.

Julia’s presentation charted the interference of the state in this area on the one hand, and families’ exploitation of, and resistance against, this interference on the other. Under Augustus, cases of adulterium (adultery) and stuprum (sexual offence) became matters of state order and therefore they were judged at court rather than dealt with in a domestic context, as it happened before. However, it was under Constantine that families had the power to decide what sort of punishment women should be subjected to. Perhaps not surprisingly this also coincided with the weakening of the popular accusatory system which prevailed until then.

Exploring dynamics of domestic confinement and seclusion, as well as culturally recognizable “rituals of domesticity”, Julia’s paper shed light on the emergence of a peculiar form of punishment for female deviants in late antiquity: confinement in a monastery.

While discussing some of the key questions which she had already explored more in depth in her recent book Prison, Punishment and Penance in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2015), Julia also gave us an insight into her forthcoming research project, which will focus on women and crimes other than those of a strictly sexual nature.

We look forward to reading more about such a fascinating subject!

This is exciting: writing a blog post from New York, where I was kindly invited by Professor Simon Doubleday to join the Department of History at Hofstra University to deliver a session on “Friendship in Medieval Iberia”.

The 2 hour session  was specifically aimed at the students who are currently enrolled in the module “Investigating History”, for which they are asked to develop an independent research project on ideas and representations of ‘friendship’ from different perspectives, mainly based on the primary materials available in the Hofstra Archives.

A number of scholars working on friendship in different contexts and time periods had already joined some of these sessions to provide the students with additional ideas and encourage them to reflect upon the multidisciplinary potential of this subject. Needless to say that I was thrilled to contribute by sharing my own research experience!

Unsurprisingly, considering the nature of the Hofstra Archives, the majority of those students’ projects focused on modern American History. So, the question I tried to answer since the beginning of my presentation was how and to what extent the study of friendship in Medieval Iberia could inform their projects.

Reading anthropological, sociological and philosophical studies on friendship proved extremely useful for my own research, as it helped unpacking differences and similarities between modern and pre-modern communication, networks formation and relationships labelled as ‘friendship’ (among other definitions). In our digital environment ‘friends’, ‘contacts’ and ‘followers’ virtually interact with each other within the boundaries of the digital communities to which they belong. In a sense, medieval communication shared similar practices, as it was often based on a sense of belonging, defined by social, economic, ethnic and religious criteria, among other factors. Medieval epistolary exchanges are perhaps one of the most noteworthy examples. In fact, despite the fact that not always the interlocutors knew each other in person, they frequently addressed each other as “friends”, a formula which also carried deeper political and diplomatic implications.

This general overview led us to examine thematic approaches; language as a vehicle of communication; the History of emotions and the related tension between individualistic and cultural interpretations of human emotions and their display; ideas of change and continuity; as well as writing strategies on how to come up with, develop and deliver an independent research project!

I presented my own research experience to the History students at Hofstra by talking them through the stages which led to the completion and publication of my  monograph, Friendship in Medieval Iberia. I hoped this would be an interactive session and it definitively was: the students asked questions, provided feedback and engaged in a very lively debate.

This was an extraordinary experience, which brought my research and teaching expertise together in a lively cross-disciplinary forum for discussion. I hope there will be other thought-provoking opportunities like this in the future!

An excellent and very engaging paper, sponsored by the MSRG as part of our History and Heritage Research Seminar Series, delivered by the award-winning BBC broadcaster, author and Visiting Professor in Conservation at the University of Lincoln:

Jonathan Foyle

 Jonathan joined us at 4.30-6pm in MB3202 to talk about:

“Flower Power: What Overlooked Floral Symbolism Reveals About The Late Medieval English Monarchy, c.1450-1550”

Floral images like roses, daisies, irises and marigolds are often literally relegated to the margins of late medieval art, as if they served to randomly decorate. But when we look more closely and see the same subjects used consistently in a range of royal works of art including architecture, furniture and manuscripts, then a system of meaning emerges. A three-year study of this language has thrown new light on the political intentions of the later fifteenth-century English monarchy, including revelatory insights on the moment of the ‘Tudor’ accession.

Jonathan opened his speech with an ambitious statement: “You will leave this room with a radically different view on what you have always accepted as part of the ‘historical’ truth and it is, in reality, a myth and a cultural construction influenced by deeper and more complex symbolic meanings.”

Jonathan’s brilliant presentation reminded us of the importance of combining methodologies, approaches and discourses to get an insight into the complex nature of medieval symbols and how they were created, manipulated, adopted and displayed. We found out that what has been sold for centuries as the ‘Tudor Rose’ was in fact a Marian symbol, associated with ideas of charity, chastity and redemption.

Jonathan was right…we left the room having changed our  minds on the Tudors’ adoption and display of the rose as their heraldic symbol, but we also had the chance to reflect on the very nature of ‘historical myths’ more generally!

After all, as historians, this is what we do!

Dr Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo

How exciting to be back at Queen Mary, University of London!

This time as an invited speaker at The Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar on Friday 19 February 2016 at 3.30pm in Arts One, room 1.31.

For more information about the MHRS programme, click here.

I will present my current research on:

‘Emotional Memory and Medieval Autobiography: King James I of Aragon’s Llibre dels Fets’

The thirteenth-century Llibre dels fets (Book of Deeds of James I) has been widely regarded as the first secular autobiography attributed to a Western European Christian King, James I of Aragon (r. 1213-76) and it is a very unusual example of self-writing attributed to a layman who was also a political and military leader. The analysis of such an intriguing text will pave the way to examine how the processes of memory recollection, mediation and transcription became paradigms through which ‘private’ and ‘public’ discourses merged within the same historical and historiographical frameworks, supported by the manipulation and transformation of emotional memories, which were shaped through a process of both oral and written transmission. Emotional memories helped to allocate images from the past within wider personal and historical frameworks. Emotions have been an important locus for subjectivity in Medieval Studies and the analysis of sources such as King James I of Aragon’s chivalrous autobiography through this lens will certainly open new fruitful and interdisciplinary lines of enquiry.

James I of Aragon, as depicted in the Cantigas de Santa Maria 169, panel 3

Dr Jamie Wood will give a paper on ‘Isidore of Seville: Problems and Possibilities’ on Friday 5th February 2016 at the COLOQUIO INTERNACIONAL “LA PÉRDIDA DE LAS HISPANIAS: IDEOLOGÍA, PODER Y CONFLICTO” in Madrid!

More information about the programme is available HERE.

New Directions in the Study of Visigothic Spain is the title of a new and thought-provoking article authored by our colleague, Dr Jamie Wood, in collaboration with Javier Martínez Jiménez and published this month in History Compass.

The article re-assesses the major historiographical debates concerning the study of Visigothic Spain, while acknowledging and emphasizing the centrality of  archaeological evidence to better understand the period and its complex nuances.

Abstract:

Since the fall of the Visigothic kingdom in 711, analysis of its history has been tied to contemporary Spanish politics. Political and economic developments in Spain since the 1970s have driven research into the late antique and early medieval period. Most notably, archaeological evidence has come to play a much more prominent role in analyses of the Visigothic period in Spain. This article synthesises archaeological and historical research from the past 20 years. It draws on recent developments in urban and rural archaeology in order to examine key avenues of research on the period: the negotiated nature of power, post-Roman identity politics, and law and literacy.

Happy reading!