Pilgrimage, Travel and Migration across Time and Space
A Roundtable
‘Hospitality on the Pilgrim Road to Santiago de Compostela’
On Monday 20th March 2017, the School of History and Heritage hosted a roundtable to accompany the exhibition entitled ‘Hospitality on the Pilgrim Road to Santiago de Compostela’ which is displayed at the Chapter House in Lincoln Cathedral until Sunday 2nd April 2017.
The event was introduced by Dr Francisco Singul (Xunta de Galicia) who highlighted the importance of hospitality, ceremony, and personal encounters with nature and other pilgrims on the route to Santiago de Compostela
This was followed by short presentations by Dr Jamie Wood, Dr Michele Vescovi, Dr Robert Portass, Dr Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo, and Dr Sarah Longair . The speakers touched on several different aspects of pilgrimage; including how architecture, ecclesiastical ambitions and economic pragmatism shaped the experience of medieval pilgrims, and how the history, meaning and power of the pilgrimage experience (medieval and modern) can be conveyed through exhibitions such as ‘Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam’ at the British Museum and ‘Hospitality on the Pilgrim Road to Santiago de Compostela’ in Lincoln Cathedral.
This roundtable was a great companion to the current exhibition hosted at Lincoln Cathedral and sponsored by the Xunta de Galicia, as it offered different methodological approaches to the study of medieval pilgrimage which, in turn, inform our understanding of contemporary experiences of the spiritual and physical journey – the pilgrimage. Indeed, pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela remains a very popular phenomenon that attracts people from over 150 nationalities and across 5 continents.
The personal experiences of these pilgrims are beautifully captured by Manuel G. Vicente.
‘The Donkey and the Boat: Rethinking Mediterranean Economic Expansion in the Eleventh Century’
The University of Lincoln was delighted to welcome one of the most esteemed medieval historians in the world, Prof. Chris Wickham, to speak at the Annual Medieval Lecture on Tuesday 14th March 2017.
Prof. Wickham taught at the University of Birmingham for nearly thirty years and from 2005 to 2006 was Chichele Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College. He has published on a wide range of topics, including legal culture, lordship, the peasantry, the Feudal Revolution, and the economy and society of early medieval Europe; but, on Tuesday his lecture focused on the development of internal trade networks in Egypt prior to the eleventh century.
I was particularly interested in attending this lecture because I was encouraged to read Prof. Wickham’s work as part of my undergraduate degree in modules such as A Tale of Two Cities In Medieval Spain: From Toledo to Cordoba run by Dr Robert Portass. It was great to listen and talk to the historian who’s publications informed my understanding of Iberian history!
Prof. Wickham’s expertise and his passion for medieval history came across clearly in his presentation and it was fascinating to listen to him lecture.
On Wednesday 15th March, the University of Lincoln invited Prof. Stephan Church (University of East Anglia) to meet the undergraduate and postgraduate medieval studies community. Prof. Church lent his expertise on twelfth-century kinship to two modules: Chivalry in Medieval Europe (Level 3) and Public and Private Emotions (MA Medieval Studies).
Luke Brown, a third year undergraduate student, had this to say on Prof. Church’s visit.
“Prof. Church’s lecture in Chivalry in Medieval Europe was both enjoyable and enlightening. His focus, the topic of household knights, allowed the group to use the knowledge of previous lectures, such as the education of a knight, in a new way; a focus on the political circles of knights. His own research, kings and their household knights in the twelfth and thirteenth century England, provided a different perspective upon Medieval chivalry when compared to the Iberian and French sources we usually discuss. His guest lecture was an interesting insight into a different dynamic of European Chivalry.
Similarly, Prof. Church’s seminar provided an engaging discussion of the ideal household knight William Marshal. The knight and his textual “history” was the perfect example as he had a long career spanning the time of five different English kings. Prof. Church’s approach, which deployed modern day comparisons without being anachronistic, made the topic easily accessible.”
Prof. Church also joined our Public and Private Emotions seminar on Wednesday afternoon in which we focused on depictions of anger in medieval sources. It was great to have another voice in our discussions on medieval emotions and Prof. Church expertise on twelfth and thirteenth-century kingship complimented our understanding of ‘royal emotion’ which we had explored in a previous week.
In my second term module ‘Public and Private Emotions’ run by Dr Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo, we use a range of source material to study medieval perceptions and expressions of emotion: a field of inquiry which has recently received significant scholarly attention. We address themes such as love, friendship, hatred, fear and examine whether, and to what extent, concepts of private and public can be applied to a pre-modern era.
As 21st-century historians, we must be able to engage with a range of different audiences through various means of media; so, for our first assessment, we were asked to produce a creative source analysis that could engage a modern-day audience in the discussion of a key theme from the module. This task aimed to enhance our ability to interpret, analyse and present primary source material and provided a refreshing change from our usual essay-based assessments!
Guibert de Nogent’s Facebook Profile
I chose to use Facebook as a platform to present a modern interpretation of Guibert de Nogent’s twelfth-century autobiography, Monodies. I think that the selectivity of Facebook networks calls into question the definition of concepts such as ‘public’ and ‘private’, and demonstrates the comparable nature of exclusive twenty-first-century virtual ‘friendship’ networks and the self-regulated twelfth-century Christian communities which are prevalent topic of discussion in Monodies. Similarly, the format of Facebook allows for a mix of both introspection and interaction, which Guibert demonstrates in his autobiography by simultaneously engaging with personal memories and interacting with contemporary twelfth-century theological debates.
I chose fear as the filter through which to discuss ideas of identity and otherness, and the divisions between mind and body in Guibert’s emotional autobiography. My analysis of Monodies aimed to highlight Guibert’s retrospective engagement with fear as an internal feeling, an emotional response and a socio-religious construction. I studied Monodies for my undergraduate dissertation, and I thought I was quite familiar with Guibert’s personal anecdotes; yet, examining this autobiography in light of a more nuanced historical discipline such as the study of emotions has radically developed my understanding of Monodies while simultaneously giving cause to question everything I thought I already knew!
Further Reading:
Guibert de Nogent. Monodies, Joseph McAlhany and Jay Rubenstein (trans.)(New York, 2011).
Fleming, John V. ‘Medieval European Autobiography’. In, Maria DiBattista and Emily O. Wittman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Autobiography (Cambridge, 2015), 35-48.
Kane, Bronach. ‘Social Representations of Memory and Gender in Medieval England’. Integrative Psychological and Behavioural Science 46 (2012), 544-558.
Rosenwein, Barbara H. Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (New York, 2007).
Rosenwein, Barbara H. ‘Worrying about Emotions in History’, American Historical Review 107 (2002), 821-845.
Scott, A. & Kosso. Fear and Its Interpretations in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Turnhout, 2002).
With the upcoming release of Guy Richie’s latest film King Arthur: Legend of the Sword the question in some people’s minds might be ‘do we really need another film about King Arthur?’ It’s a legitimate question. I can’t deny a certain weakness myself for all things Arthurian but it still seems curious to me that one figure has succeeded in inspiring generation after generation of storytellers. The 2004 film King Arthur, BBC’s Merlin and Starz short lived show Camelot are just three of the most recent examples in the English language, not even touching upon the many T.V. shows and films that predate these or those created globally elsewhere. Of course we shouldn’t forget that this isn’t a purely modern phenomenon as even a passing familiarity with the works of the romantic poets or the Pre-Raphaelites proves that the Victorians weren’t immune to the charms of Camelot and its fictional inhabitants either.
In spite of his enduring popularity every incarnation of the legendary king differs wildly from the one that came before. The reason why most likely lies in the original source material; there are so many ‘Arthurian Legends’ it means there is no definitive account, no single authoritative voice dictating who Arthur is or was. In modern adaptations of Arthur just as the plot and characters are inspired by Medieval Romance so is the trend of re-writing the stories to suit a contemporary audience. He remains a figure shrouded in mystery, half fact half fiction. As such, writers and artist are free to re-imagine him as they wish.
The earliest datable appearance of Arthur in literature is the Welsh work History of the British but it is Geoffrey of Monmouth who is widely credited with sparking the Arthur trend. The Arthur that appears in Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain is a great warrior King who successfully conquers England, Ireland, areas of Europe and even secures victories as far afield as Asia and Africa. This early incarnation of Arthur is an empire builder, who dies defending his land from his rebellious nephew Mordred. The idea of Arthur the Imperial victor has mostly fallen out of fashion, probably because the values of the conqueror are not ones shared by a modern audience.
Later traditions tended to focus upon the independent knights rather than the grand monarchical narrative. The most familiar version of the tale is from the romance of the high middle ages. The stories of Chrétien de Troyes in which Percival’s hunt for the Holy Grail and Guinevere’s and Lancelot’s doomed love appear for the first time. Arthur also spreads beyond its British origins amalgamating earlier stories into the Arthurian canon such as the tale of Tristan and Iseult. The far reaching popularity of the stories is demonstrated by the appearance of Arthur in the decorative carving of Modena Cathedral in Italy (it’s even been suggested that this is the earliest surviving depiction of him, although there is lively debate over its exact date).
Depiction of Arthurian characters, Modena Cathedral, Italy.The Round table, Great Hall, Winchester
As Arthur grew in popularity the English monarchy started to use the reputation of the legendary king as a propaganda tools for themselves. Never is this more evident than in the round table still displayed in pride of place on the wall of what remains of Winchester Castle. It was made in the reign of Edward I who, like his grandson Edward III, used Geoffrey of Monmouth as historical antecedence for their claims over Scotland and the latter even suggested setting up his own round table of knights. The Tudors got in on the Arthurian action too with Henry VII calling his first son Arthur in the hope that he would become Arthur I of England; with Arthur’s premature death his brother Henry VIII wasn’t above playing up his welsh ancestry to suggest an hereditary link with the Arthur of old, and had the Winchester round table painted with a Tudor Rose and a portrait that bore a striking resemblance to Henry as a young man.
Arthur easily lends himself to being a hero for all time, because that is what he has always been. Each author has taken the name of Arthur and used him as a vehicle to present their idea of a great King. From the early incarnations of the fearsome warrior, to the epitome of Chivalric values Arthur can be everything to everybody because every writers creates their own new Arthur inspired by, yet independent from those that came before. From the look of the trailers Richie’s Arthur rejects his hereditary position being ‘raised on the streets’ in order to make a rough tough action hero who is more palatable to a twenty-first century audience than a privileged rich boy who hasn’t had to work for what he has. The hunt for the ‘real Arthur’ has spawned all kinds of studies, and ideas about the historical truth behind the legends but the reality is that the real life King Arthur, if there ever was one (a big if) will always remain unknowable but Monmouth did succeed in creating one of the most enduring popular fictional figures ever.
Beth Williams, February 2017. – Beth is currently undertaking a MA Medieval Studies course at the University of Lincoln.
For an Introduction to Arthurian Literature see:
Archibald, Elizabeth and Ad Putter (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend (Cambridge, 2009).
The second medieval pancake recipe I tried this Pancake Day comes from the 15th century Harleian Manuscript (279) and is cited as the first pancake recipe in English. This manuscript demonstrates a contemporary French influence on cooking and refers to these pancakes as ‘Cryspe’ after the French crêpe (meaning ‘crispy’).
Ingredients
Ingredients:
2 egg whites
1 cup warm milk
1 tsp yeast
1 tbsp sugar
½ tsp salt
2 cups plain flour
Any grease
Original Method:
Take Whyte of Eyroun, Mylke, & Floure, & a lytel Berme, & bete it to-gederys, & draw it þorw a straynoure, so þat it be renneng, & not to styf, & caste Sugre þer-to, & Salt; þanne take a chafer ful of freysshe grece boyling, & put þin hond in þe Bature, & lat þin bature renne dowun by þin fyngerys in-to þe chafere; & whan it is ronne to-gedere on þe chafere, & is y-now, take & nym a skymer, & take it vp, & lat al þe grece renne owt, & put it on a fayre dyssche, & cast þer-on Sugre y-now, & serue forth.
I interpreted this method as follows:
Activate the yeast in the warm milk and sugar.
Add milk mixture to the egg whites and combine.
Whisk in the flour a bit at a time to make a runny batter (add more milk if necessary).
When the mixture is combined strain the batter to remove any lumps.
Place a heaping spoonful of batter into your hand and let the mix run through your fingers into a shallow pan of hot oil.
Create a thin lattice of batter in the oil.
Flip the cryspe to ensure that it is cooked on both sides before removing from the oil.
Drain the cryspe and repeat.
Serve warm with sugar.
Unlike Apicius’ 5th century Ova spongia ex lacte, these 15th century cryspes have a more traditional pancake batter recipe. However, the slightly unconventional French ‘drizzle’ method renders these cryspes more akin to a funnel cake than a crêpe-style pancake. (For more information on medieval funnel-cakes see the 14th century guidebook: Le Menagier de Paris, Trans. Gina L. Greco and Christine M. Rose (New York, 2009).) Nevertheless, this recipe was delicious!
Cryspe
While modern style pancake recipes don’t appear in English until the 16th century, the two ‘pancake’ recipes I tried provided a glimpse into the fascinating medieval history of this humble dish.
For more information on the global origins of the pancake, please see:
Albala, Ken. Pancake: A Global History (London, 2008).
This Pancake Day I indulged my inner food-historian and recreated two medieval pancake recipes.
Galen explores the nutritional properties of literal ‘pan-cakes’ (têganitai) in his On the Properties of Foodstuffs (De alimentorum facultatibus, 2nd century); yet, historic recipes for traditional pancakes are rare due to their simple set of ingredients and easy cooking instructions. For this reason, the first ‘pancake’ I made comes from the Apicius Manuscript, an early 5th century collection of Roman cookery recipes.
Ova spongia ex lacte (egg sponge with milk)does not call for flour like a traditional pancake recipe, but it is the earliest written example of a ‘cake’ made in a pan!
Ingredients
Ingredients:
4 eggs
A hemina (240 ml) of milk
Oil
Honey and pepper to garnish
Method:
Beat eggs into the milk
Heat oil in a frying pan
Cook egg/milk ‘batter’ on one side, then flip and cook the other side
Serve with pepper and honey
Egg Sponge with Milk
Unsurprisingly, this recipe turned out a bit like a soggy omelette. However, in his De alimentorum facultatibus, Galen suggests that the honey served with the Ova spongia ex lacte ‘gives rise to a humour that is a mix of thick and thin, and in healthy people [is] better for liver, kidneys and spleen than those [foods] that have been prepared without honey’. So, despite the odd texture, the honey garnish makes this ‘pan-cake’ beneficial for our internal humoral balance!
While the recipe wasn’t overly delicious, I was astounded by the ancient origins of the humble pancake.
Reading:
Albala, Ken. Pancake: A Global History (London, 2008).
Apicius. The Roman Cookery Book: A Critical Translation of the Art of Cooking, for Use in the Study and the Kitchen. Trans. Elisabeth Rosenbaum and Ed. Barbara Flower (London, 1958).
Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs (De alimentorum facultatibus). Trans. Owen Powell (Cambridge, 2003).
This volume is the first interdisciplinary study of the cultural meanings of beds and chambers in late medieval England and sheds new light on how medieval people felt about their domestic space and how this shaped their ideas about wider concepts such as of love, God, sex and politics.
This monograph draws from Hollie’s doctoral research which she completed at the University of York in 2014. Hollie says that she did not face many problems while writing and publishing her study, but confessed to feeling like she had to resurrect the metaphorical PhD monster ‘only to slay it again’ with the publication of this book!
In Beds and Chambers, Hollie draws on an array of literary, pragmatic and visual sources including romances, saints’ lives, lyrics, plays, wills, probate inventories, letters, church and civil court documents, manuscript illumination and physical objects. When asked what her favourite source to work with was, Hollie replied that she has always liked medieval romances, her favourite of these being Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which appears at the start and conclusion of her book. In our meeting, Hollie strongly advocated the use of a range of source materials as well as an interdisciplinary approach to Medieval Studies in order to nuance our understanding of the period: a methodology that is successfully employed in her own work.
I was particularly interested to find out more about the manuscript illumination on the cover of the volume. Hollie chose to use the historiated initial ‘A’ of ‘Adulterium’ from James le Palmer’s Omne bonum, an encyclopaedia of universal knowledge, which shows a man and woman in bed, with the explanation ‘Adulterium est alieni thori violacio’: adultery is the violation of the bed of another. Hollie explained that this renders the bed itself the focus of the illumination, making it a highly fitting and intriguing image for the front cover of this volume.
Hollie’s long term research goal is to understand what ‘home’ meant in late medieval England. With this in mind, Hollie plans to examine the cultural meanings of hearths and halls in her future research.
Congratulations Hollie on the publication of your book, and thank you for a lovely meeting!
In this world of instant messages and emojis, we rarely have cause to put pen to paper. If you are finding it difficult to convey your feelings in a Valentine’s Day card this year, take heart (and inspiration) from this fifteenth-century Middle English poem recently re-discovered in Trinity College Cambridge.
Susane the secunde, patron of plesaunce 1
That called is so throwe alle lumbardye,
Righte demure of chere and of contenaunce,
And in daunsyng, sport and curtesie,
Wele demeand and lady of venerye:
Remembre your servaunt that righte true is;
With that reward not disdayne hym to kys.
And of youre gentilnes se that he
This frosty wedir be nat lost for colde,
And that not defawte in you founde be; 10
So that in somer it may be said and tolde
Ye kept him warm with your armys folde,
And with the chere that ye hym made
Fulle ofte ye made his hart righte glade.
Nowe redres of alle my sorowes smert, 15
That righte true be withouten variaunce,
I you biseche, with sore wounded hert;
Me counforte throwe youre daliaunce,
And of my body take youre plesaunce;
And kepe it secret and not disclose 20
Whome to be true I can suppose.
By him that in forestes walkethe wyde
Where noone may passe with out his gyd,
Nor kene may in dale nor doune
But that he is other blake or broune. 25
In her detailed review of this poem, Julia Boffey explains that these 25 lines of Middle English verse present a ‘humorously uneven’ tone that seems to poke fun at the clichés of contemporary courtly love poetry. The poem is addressed to Susane who is praised for her ‘pleasunce’, ‘gentilness’ and ‘curtesie’ by an anonymous admirer but is also revered as a ‘lady of venerye’: a mistress of hunting or sexual activity. The poem also refers to the couples’ ‘daliaunce’ and ends with a call for discretion, further adding to the sexual undertone of the verse. Like many modern-day Valentine’s cards, the admirer maintains his anonymity but offers a clue as to his real name in the final four lines.
Below the verse is a painted red heart, pierced by two red arrows. While bleeding hearts occur with some frequency in devotional contexts its appearance in this secular poem is somewhat unusual. The interplay between religious imagery and secular verse demonstrated in this poem is also briefly explored by Boffey in other forms of material culture such as ‘posey rings’. A beautiful example is the early fifteenth-century ring found at Godstow Abbey which has a secular verse inscribed on the inside but is decorated with images of the Virgin on the outside.
While this poem does not make a direct reference to St Valentine, Boffey argues that the poems’ allusions to the seasons ‘do not preclude the possibility that it was conceived as a Valentine’s day gesture’. Similarly, we cannot be certain that this poem changed hands in the form of a missive; yet, this fragment still raises the intriguing possibility that such poems were produced for personal delivery and not conceived simply as components of social ‘courtly love’ games. Thus, while the vogue for sending Valentine’s Day cards started in the late eighteenth century, this fifteenth-century love poem is testimony to practices of amorous exchange well before the commercialisation of St Valentine’s Day.
Every Wednesday morning the MA Medieval Studies group has a session at the Cathedral Centre at the top of Steep Hill. Although it was overcast on this particular Wednesday, walking into our 9am session is always awe-inspiring as the Cathedral Centre (a beautiful thirteenth-century building in its own right) boasts an amazing view of the Cathedral’s West Front as well as the Castle: the two pillars of Lincoln’s medieval heritage!
Brut’s Chronicle
We are currently studying Palaeography with Prof. Philippa Hoskin which (while initially daunting) is fascinating and unlike anything I attempted during my undergraduate degree. Thanks to Lincoln’s unique resources we are able to use medieval manuscripts from the Cathedral Library, giving us valuable hands on experience with items we don’t usually get the opportunity to interact with. This week we transcribed a fifteenth-century passage from Brut’s Chronicle by taking it in turns to hold and read aloud from the original manuscript. It definitely adds an element of ‘realness’ when you are able to hold 600 years of history in your hands!
Medievalists Outside the Cathedral Archives
Being so immersed in medieval history is well worth the early morning walk up Steep Hill; but, we usually decide to treat ourselves to a cup of tea and a slice of cake on the way down!
e was a great companion to the current exhibition hosted at Lincoln Cathedral and sponsored by the Xunta de Galicia, as it offered different methodological approaches to the study of medieval pilgrimage which, in turn, inform our understanding of contemporary experiences of the spiritual and physical journey – the pilgrimage. Indeed, pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela remains a very popular phenomenon that attracts people from over 150 nationalities and across 5 continents.
Photographs by Manuel G. Vicente
