1. science
2. social science
3. history
4. medieval history

Borderlines
XIX
Translating the Past:
Appropriating the Medieval and
Early Modern Worlds
Book of Abstracts
Queen’s University Belfast 2015
Panel I:
Academic Approaches to Translating the Past
Aislinn Collins (UCC)
Translating Academic Research into Public Knowledge
“Publish or perish” while still pertinent is slowly being replaced by
“public engagement” and “commercial application” as measures of
success in academia. Scholars are increasingly encouraged to make their
research relevant and accessible in order to meet one or both of these
metrics. Focusing on public engagement, theses, journal articles and
many conference papers are often impenetrable, if even available, to a
lay audience; consequently more creative methods are necessary to
achieve real engagement and communication.
This paper will discuss “living history” – representations of the past in
the form of displays of replica artefacts showing how they were used in
a particular era. It will outline the various forms living history can take
and settings in which it is used to communicate the past to a diverse
public audience. This interdisciplinary approach combines the
knowledge and research of history, archaeology, experimental
archaeology, language and myriad other traditions to create “living
papers” that are accessible to non-specialists and can be effectively used
to translate academic research into public knowledge.
Roman Bleier (TCD)
From Manuscript to Digital Edition: Translating Saint Patrick’s
Epistles
Arguably the most important sources for fifth-century Irish history are
two contemporary epistles written by St Patrick. A new digital edition
being compiled at Trinity College Dublin tries to explore the seven
surviving manuscript witnesses of these epistles in more detail.
While previous editions of Patrick’s writings attempted primarily to
compare the textual evidence of the surviving manuscript witnesses, the
new digital edition, based on deeply encoded diplomatic transcriptions,
explores the text in its manuscript context. The variant readings are
recorded alongside information about text structure and scribe-related
features. The electronic transcriptions are a translation of the
manuscript witnesses into a computer readable form to allow further
study and online presentation.
My paper will explore some challenges that scholars face trying to
translate medieval manuscript into electronic texts. The digital edition of
St Patrick’s epistles will be used as a case study, and in particular issues
of manuscript encoding using the TEI encoding standard, and issues of
character representation will be discussed.
Lois Barnett (York)
Is Historical Re-Enactment an Effective Teaching Tool or Cultural
Appropriation?
Historical re-enactment has, only recently, been marginally accepted at a
legitimate teaching tool. It has been hailed for its unique approach to
teaching as a way for visual or tactile learners to engage with the past. It
is also changing the way children are taught history, as it helps the past
become alive and relevant to them, and ensnare their
imaginations. However, the question arises if historical re-enactments
stray into a sort of historical cultural appropriation? Is historical reenactment truly useful as a teaching tool as it can only portray a narrow
or quantifiable display of the period? Does that narrowness, by its very
nature, rob the past of the rich variety that it holds? Does the re-enactor
and the sub-culture associated with them appropriate the time period
they are portraying for their own and present only their view how the
period was? Does the inherent showmanship of re-enactment
compromise the period that they are trying to faithfully portray? This
paper will try to concisely answer these questions in their relations to,
particularly, medieval re-enactment of the period between 1066 and
1215. The problem will be looked at from a historical perspective, as in,
does re-enactment in fact portray history as accurately as possible and
therefore have a legitimate place in education. The problem will also be
looked at from a sociological perspective, wherein, does re-enactment
fall under cultural appropriation as the members of the dominant culture
(now) pick and choose what parts of the minority culture (the past) to
portray and accentuate.
Panel II:
Cultural Identities and Material Landscapes
Rena Maguire (QUB)
Faith of our Fathers: The Beginnings of the Early Medieval Period
in Ireland Questioned using a Palaeoenvironmental Study of the
Ritual Landscape at Jamestown, Co Meath
The Irish Early Medieval period is usually considered as commencing
from the 5th century onwards, with the introduction of Patricianinfluenced Christianity. Yet archaeological and palaeoenvironmental
studies of the ‘royal’ pagan Iron Age cult sites of Tara, Tlachtga and
Uisneach, indicate considerable – and sometimes dramatic – ritual
activity during what currently is considered to be the Early Medieval
period of the mid 5th century AD. A recent palaeoenvironmental analysis
of Jamestown Bog, situated between Faughan Hill (the alleged burial site
of Niall Noígiallagh) and Tlachtga, Co Meath, indicates a memorialised
landscape of continuity, identity and presumed stability, lasting into the
early 6th century AD. The sacred trees and groves of the region
continued to be of great importance, with the Mullyfaughan Tree on the
peak of Faughan Hill and the Bile Tortain in nearby Ardbraccan
considered threats to the mission of conversion to Christianity resulting
in their destruction and assimilation into the new religion. It is apparent
that monotheism did not conquer hearts and minds either easily or
quickly within ‘Royal Meath’.
Something is missing in our understanding of the landscape of the Early
Medieval Period in Ireland. The transition between the Late Iron Age and
the start of the historical period is so blurred it requires a new translation
without chronological prejudice, or haste to categorise Ireland as ‘pagan’
or ‘Christian’ during this enigmatic period of change.
Sophie Laidler (Durham)
Contemporary and Competing Vistas: Public Perceptions of
Wearmouth and Jarrow
The Contemporary and Competing Vistas project aimed to explore the
diversity of ways that people memorialise, understand and engage with
the post-industrial landscapes of Wearmouth and Jarrow, in particular
the iconic monastic remains at St Peter and St Paul’s, which were recently
nominated as potential UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Between May and November 2010, the public, local stakeholders and the
Wearmouth-Jarrow Partnership for World Heritage Status were invited
to take part in interviews, focus group sessions, and drawing and
photographic elicitation exercises. The use of a multi-faceted approach
facilitated the collection of a range of qualitative, spatial and visual data
which has provided insights into how townscapes are perceived in terms
of personal and communal memories, meanings, experiences, beliefs and
emotions. Participants discussed their perceptions of the past, present
and future with frequent reference to recent regeneration schemes,
developments and the demolition of familiar features. The desire to
preserve certain aspects of the landscape because of historical
associations, personal and communal symbolism was a recurrent theme.
The Contemporary and Competing Vistas project is a facet of the ‘One
Monastery in Two Places’ landscape study funded by English Heritage
and coordinated by Durham and Newcastle Universities. This case-study
provided insights into how local people perceived the medieval monastic
remains at St Peter’s and St Paul’s. It also demonstrates the potential of
public engagement for practical application in decisions made about the
identification and representation of heritage assets.
Rachel Tracey (QUB)
Translating Our Past, Re-Negotiating Our Future: Material Culture
& Identity in Early Modern Carrickfergus
The significance of archaeology and the realisation of the importance of
cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible, as an agent of
reconciliation and resolve in post-conflict societies has now become
global convention. This is particularly relevant for Northern Ireland,
who has witnessed an explosion of post-medieval urban archaeological
investigations since the mid-1990s, resulting in an archaeological record
that appears to be contradicting the dominant ideologies of Northern
Irish politics. Too often is later-medieval and early-modern Ireland
depicted as a war torn landscape, a fraught frontier between Irish and
British, Native and Newcomer, and used to fuel our current and highly
resistant sectarian divides, which are still deemed to stem from the
contested British and Irish histories of 16th- and 17th-century British
expansion into Ireland. Interpretation of the material culture of a 17thcentury Ulster town such as Carrickfergus – home to a conflation of Scots,
English, and Irish cultural identities – offers the prospect to delve into
the complicated constructions of cultural relations and to renegotiate
translations of our past.
Parallel 1:
Translating Gender Roles
Tristan B. Taylor (Kent)
Theorizing Adaptive Practices: Pretexts and Performance in
Arthurian Filmic Adaptations
On translation, Umberto Eco claims that translation is “a shift, not
between two languages, but between two cultures.” The appropriation of
a cultural signifier inevitably leads to hermeneutical issues. The act of
translating and adapting a text is itself a performative with which comes
the opportunity to revise, interpret, or append. My paper asserts that
contemporary adaptations of Arthurian legends rework, according to
social pressures, masculinity, and insert contemporary signifiers of
manliness. Medievalists have generally accepted Eco’s concept of the
medieval pretext from his paper “The Return of the Middle Ages”;
however, the idea of the pretext can be pushed further: not only the
Middle Ages, specifically, but also characteristics and identities, generally,
can be used as a pretext. Therefore, I argue that directors of
contemporary Arthurian filmic adaptations have taken the narratives of
the Arthurian legends and have employed the characters as a pretext to
discuss social anxieties surrounding masculinity, homosociality, and
homoeroticism. It can be shown that Arthurian characters depicted in
film represent not the characters of Malory and other romance authors,
but rather contemporary men working out contemporary social
anxieties surrounding masculine performance. Beginning by asking a
simple question of how gender is translated, I discuss issues of gender
performance, the role of the translator, and ways of interpreting the
medieval narrative in the modern era.
Rebecca Mason (QUB)
“I’m no lady”: Medievalism and the Subversion of Gender Roles in
HBO’s Game of Thrones
The genre of medieval fantasy has had a long-lasting, enduring battle
with regards to the depiction of women. The genre battles not only with
societal norms, but also with the chivalric standards and gender rules of
medieval times which it emulates. In this paper I aim to investigate the
representation of woman as warrior in HBO’s Game of Thrones, through
close analysis of Brienne of Tarth, Arya Stark and Daenerys Targaryen:
all strong female characters in their own right. I will attempt to explore
the gender bias in cinematic gaze, and how the strong women that are
portrayed in Game of Thrones are often expected to surrender their
feminine identity and assume a characteristically masculine persona in
order to challenge the patriarchal society in which they are a part of. I
will address Claire Spousler’s regret that “the Middle Ages are often so
understood to have been shaped by a monolithic and homogenizing
patriarchal regime that predates modern constructions of sexuality and
otherness”, and explore depictions of warrior women in both
Scandinavian sagas, such as Lagertha the Viking shield-maiden in the
12th-century Gesta Danorum, and medieval romances, such as Le Roman
de Silence, a 13th century post-Arthurian romance which tells the story
of a woman rejecting her femininity in order to overcome societal
restraints. I will address whether or not the ‘powerless’ medieval woman
is indicative of the position women held within medieval society, and
whether or not the ‘powerful’ medieval woman is a socially constructed
modern phenomenon, based entirely on medieval fiction.
Natalie Hanna (Liverpool)
“in widewes habit”: Translating Chaucer’s Chaste Criseyde
Chaucer, the “grant translateur”, focused much on his early career on
translating works of French, Latin and Italian literature into the English
tongue. When he came to Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato he adapted the fickle
lover Criseida into the notably complex character of Criseyde. Not only
does her “chameleon-like” status dramatically change throughout the
course of the text from celestial to false as she becomes “increasingly
enfleshed” over the five books, but she begins in an ambiguous sexual
state of widowhood and possible virginity (Morey, 2007). The reader’s
image of Criseyde in Book I and II are of a young woman “in widewes
habit blak”, which Pandarus repeatedly tells her to cast off as it does not
yet fit her to assume this role. Such statements, together with the
narrator’s evasive comment that he does not know if Criseyde had
children, have left critics unsure of her sexual status at the opening of the
text. Using legal, medical and literary texts, as well as art-work from the
period, this paper will examine the medieval connotations of Criseyde’s
‘habit’ and why male characters such as Pandarus would not think such
a widow’s status is fitting for her. Through analysis of the term and its
surrounding phraseology in Chaucer’s works, this paper proposes that
the medieval ‘widewe’ does not translate to our modern English
understanding of a widow, and explores how medieval ideas associated
with this term may inform our reading of Criseyde and her chastity.
Panel III:
Problematising Modern Perceptions of Beliefs
Matthew Bingham (QUB)
Believing the Unbelievable: Religious Ideology and Historical
Translation
To avoid the problem of anachronism, effective translation of the early
modern past requires historians to reimagine the world as their
historical subjects perceived it. But this task is complicated by the degree
to which early modern minds reflexively embraced concepts and ideas
that can seem wildly implausible, if not offensive and bizarre, to postEnlightenment observers. Nowhere is this gap between the sensibilities
of past and present more obvious than within the realm of religious
thought. In response to this plausibility gap, many historians have
interpreted early modern religious belief as a sort of mythic gloss over
top of some other, deeper, more basic concern. Ostensible religious
commitment is thus reduced to some different kind of commitment, one
that is more comprehensible to modern, secularised minds—economic
interest, communal inclusion, or the establishment of local hierarchies,
to name a few.
In the present paper I will analyse the shortcomings of this approach and
suggest an alternative. Informed by the methodological reflections of
Quentin Skinner, and using my current research into seventeenthcentury radical religion as a case study, I will advance the position that
religious belief ought to be understood first on its own terms, and, in the
absence of strong evidence to the contrary, understood as holding in
itself an explanatory power that does not need to be first converted into
some other causal currency more intelligible to twenty-first century
inquirers.
Scott Eaton (QUB)
Fairy-tales: The Changing Interpretations and Representations of
Fairies
The paper will outline the changing beliefs in fairy-lore starting from its
suggested origins, and tracing it to the modern period. There are
numerous stories about the origin and nature of these beings: they were
a race-memory of ancient pygmy Britons; they were the memories pagan
gods; they were the souls of unbaptised children. Many believe that the
concept of fairies has its roots in Celtic societies, however Diane Purkiss
argues they were part of the Ancient world’s mythology long before the
Celts conceived of them. Purkiss detects creatures in Greek mythology
which mimic the behaviour of fairies such as child-demons and nymphs.
These creatures found the basis from which the medieval fairy was born.
Ronald Hutton states this form of ‘fay’ began in France, eventually
proliferating through the rest of Europe during the 1400s via the oral
tradition and literary works. During this period it underwent change to
reflect the ideals of its medieval society, for example the increased use of
knights and royal fairies. Moreover, some parts of society had begun to
‘demonise’ fairies which played its part in the early modern witch-hunts
that swept across Europe. In more recent times, the Victorian era
reshaped our conceptions of fairies, creating the romanticised version
which we are more familiar with, and often see within our own media.
The paper will endeavour to outline the changing nature of fairy-lore,
highlighting how it has been adapted and re-interpreted in different time
periods to suit the needs of society.
Craig Wallace (QUB)
The House on the Borderlines: Landscape, Spectral Apparitions,
and Medieval Legends in the Television Ghost Stories of Nigel
Kneale
The ghost stories of Nigel Kneale often feature research scientists
engaging in amateur archaeology, or investigation of medieval
manuscripts containing obscure folklore. Archaeological excavation or
archival descent disrupts accumulated layers and activates spectral
apparitions that haunt the landscape. Past/present distinctions are
blurred. The haunted house on Hobbs Lane in Quatermass and the Pit
(1959) is a derelict ruin. All of the hauntings, recorded as far back as a
fourteenth-century Latin manuscript in Westminster Abbey, are
connected to disturbances of the ground. Even in 1341 the district was
known as a troubled place. The Middle Ages are constructed as an age of
superstition. Belief in witchcraft, black magic, and devil worship are
represented in the gargoyles on cathedral walls, the horned figures in
manuscript illuminations, and in the legend of the wild hunt. However,
this rational and enlightened retrospective invention of folk culture,
echoing medieval Christian attempts to supersede older beliefs and
practices considered definitively of-the-past, is undermined by the
spectral return of the ‘primitive’ and ‘barbaric’ encrypted in the earth.
Hobbs Lane is akin to a sacred site that retains its apartness even when
no longer used. Disturbance of the landscape is a violation of sacred
space and identity. Kneale’s dramas are in many respects a product of
their time, reflecting conservationist and ecological concerns.
Materialistic Capitalist consumer culture contaminates the natural
environment and identity. The modern homogenised Western Christian
identity is haunted by the survival of an older inheritance: the residual
trace of a potentially revolutionary alternative occult heritage.
Parallel 2:
Retracing Textual Sources
Jesse Harrington
The Earliest Christian Curse in Ireland and the Medieval
Representation of the Maledictive Past
In 1982, D.A. Binchy observed that the saints of early Christian Ireland must
have been figures of considerable sanctity to command commemoration and
veneration by their local communities in the immediate generations after
their lifetimes, but that the stock hagiography of later centuries had obscured
their true character and attributed them qualities he saw unbefitting of the
Christian saint. This beguiling assessment is one which has proved both
widespread and long-lived. Since at least the time of the Bollandist editors in
the seventeenth century, hagiologists and other scholars have reflexively
decried the apparent alienness, absurdity, or 'sub-Christian' character of
many of the medieval narratives on their subjects. Few sources contemporary
to their subjects survive to spotcheck later narratives, but the contrast
between the humility and vulnerability of the Patrick known from his letters
and the all-conquering thaumaturge known from later legend has been
commented upon. The propensity of Irish saints to place curses upon their
opponents, exemplified in the Lives of Patrick and the celebrated cursing of
Tara by Ruadán of Lorrha, in particular has been taken as the accretion of later
tradition. In this paper, I will argue however that the specifically Christian
tradition of cursing is as old in Ireland as the Irish Christian tradition itself. By
considering several of the earliest sources, including the letters of Patrick and
Abbot Adomnán's Life of Columba, I hope to indicate some of the key literary
foundations and inspirations for the later 'accretions' of saintly malediction
in the Irish hagiographical tradition.
Cliodhna McAllister (QUB)
Situating the Old English Soul and Body
Responses to Soul and Body have been substantially informed by an anxiety
as to how the poem might be ‘squared off’ against its antecedents and/or
analogues. This anxiety has been compounded by a critically uniform
acceptance of the poem’s sources as homiletic and Pseudo-Augustinian.
Sources and Analogues of Old English Poetry identifies three likely precursors
to the poem: the Nonantola Version of a homily attributed to Macarius; the
Pseudo-Augustine Sermon 49; and the Pseudo-Augustine Sermon 58. Louise
Dudley suggests Sermon 69 as an additional source (1909), though this is
generally understood to be a later reworking of the Nonantola Homily. The
Vercelli Homily IV has also been regularly identified as echoic of Soul and Body.
It must be said that scholars have accepted that, of these texts, none are
convincing as a sole and undisputed source of Soul and Body. Despite this
concession, however, these very sources remain the exclusive catalysts for
theological discussion of the poem. While certain parallels are indisputable,
critical application of these findings has been problematic. Primarily, the
identification of a conclusive range of sources has permitted an assumption of
imitation, where it may be more fitting to identify appropriation or rejoinder.
Secondly, such conclusiveness has halted interrogation of additional
ontological influences (both literary and material) to which the poet may have
been exposed. In short, while the identified sources patently conform to an
interpretive grouping with much greater ease than Soul and Body, a perceived
homogeneity has persisted in framing scholarly engagement with the poem.
This has allowed the creation of a critical space in which a didactic ‘dualism’
marks the point of departure for all discussion. I aim to revisit the suggested
sources and analogues of Soul and Body, to refute the more generally accepted
binaries which surround the poem(s). I will also propose Muspilli as a
potential analogue to Soul and Body, which might more adequately reflect the
complexity of the poem’s theology, and recognise the role of cognition and
sentience in its discussion of the self.
Andrew Ó Donnghaile (Cambridge)
Cáin Dairí: Legal Appropriation and Historiography in NinthCentury Ireland
As one of the ecclesiastical cánai, a set of Old Irish edicts promulgated
jointly by leading Irish clergy and kings (primarily to regulate lay social
behaviour), Cáin Dairí included various kinds of appropriation to
establish its authority. This understudied edict, along with Cáin Domnaig,
acknowledges using stipulations originating in the earlier Cáin Phátraic
(authored by Armagh). What does this appropriation reveal about how
Cáin Dairí engaged with the recent legal past and how it constructed a
common identity within its intended sphere of influence, using sixth- and
seventh-century saints? More broadly, what does it reveal about how
royal and ecclesiastical potentates used both the distant and recent past
to translate legal authority to a contemporary, ninth-century audience?
This paper will suggest that Cáin Dairí represents an edict originally
enacted in Munster c.810 A.D., with its authority translated through the
legacy of a local Munster saint; however, it seems to have been recast in
the name of a sixth-century Connacht saint, Dairí, upon its promulgation
there in 812. This apparent reworking of the edict likely represents a
joint effort between Núadu (bishop of Armagh), and Muirgius mac
Tommaltaig (king of Connacht), illustrating both how Muirgius
consolidated his kingship over Connacht and how Armagh secured its
legal influence in multiple overkingdoms. Through exploring how
prominent individuals recast legal ordinances to imbue them with past
political and cultural significance, we can begin to understand how these
elite figures reshaped their society through their own historiographical
reinterpretation.
Panel IV:
Translation in Practice
Catherine Coffey (QUB)
The Knights of the Lion: A Skopos-based Approach to Iwein
Löwenritter in Translation
An anonymous reviewer on Amazon asks whether Felicitas Hoppe’s
2008 version of Iwein Löwenritter insists that the most recent ‘simplified’
version of a famed medieval tale begs the questions of whether the
resulting text ought to be judged an ‘innovative children’s book’ or ‘a
mindless simplification of the story’.
Through a brief comparison of the structure and detail of Chrétien de
Troyes’ and Hartmann von Aue’s late-12th-century versions with each
other and that of Hoppe’s recent rendering, I hope to help solve this
reviewer’s conundrum while also examining the changing nature of and
attitudes towards translation itself, both in the Middle Ages, and now.
To aid this investigation I shall be applying theories of reception, such as
those of Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser, and the Skopos theory of
translation, developed by Hans Vermeer and propagated most notably by
Christiane Nord.
The use of these theories, in addition to a straightforward literary
analysis and brief historical overview of the evolution of the act of
translation from the late 12th-century to the present day, should
demonstrate the manner in which similarities and disparities in storytelling and the reception of tales can arise as the result of a range of
contextual factors surrounding both the source-text and the target-text.
Ultimately, the importance of the target-audience in the reception and
assessment of texts, be they seemingly ‘simplified’ or not, will form the
final dwelling point of the paper and provide a springboard for further
discussion.
Melanie Peters-Turner (Birmingham)
Don’t You Know Who I Am? Translating Relationships and Affinity
in Later Medieval Wills
With the recent completion of the huge Dictionary of Medieval Latin from
British Sources it would be easy to lapse into thinking that the
translations within it are now definitive. However as translations of
testamentary records are vanishingly rare, testamentary vocabulary has
been largely ignored. In presenting the groundwork done towards
creating a glossary for use in translating medieval wills, this paper aims
to discuss some of the issues surrounding relationship vocabulary later
medieval English wills.
Wills are valuable resources for many different areas of historical study,
but have been used most frequently over the centuries for prosoplogical
and genealogical study. Interpretation of testamentary records using
standard dictionary translations has caused many ongoing arguments
regarding the exact identity of individuals mentioned and how they
relate to each other. Through a detailed discussion of certain key terms,
this paper will set the discussion of relationship and affinity terminology
onto an academic footing.
Widening literacy in this period has meant both a dramatic increase in
the number of records which survive, and an expansion of diversity in
testators. The ensuing unique combination of legal and literary language
used in wills leaves conventional dictionary entries often obscuring the
nuances of testamentary word usage.
It is hoped that this paper will assist others working with translations
from later Medieval Latin, whether wills or other sources.
Parallel 3:
Afterlives of Rebellion
Derek Crosby (QUB)
“For god made all men free with his precious bloody shedding”:
The Afterlife of Kett’s Rebellion in Contemporary Norwich
In the aftermath of Kett’s rebellion in 1549, both the rebels and their
ideology were decried by Norwich’s city fathers, and the city’s
deliverance by Royal forces was a day which was commemorated in the
city well into the 17th century. However, in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, Kett underwent something of a popular rebirth as a champion
of liberty striving against corrupt landlords that all men should be made
free and equal.
Once Kett’s association with Norwich became a source of pride, rather
than shame for the city, his insurgency became officially commemorated
at the city’s expense by placing a plaque on the wall of the Norman Castle
from which he was hung in chains in 1549. The events were also
recorded in the name of a mural and a tavern in the city, and in an oak
preserved on Mousehold Heath purporting to be the famous ‘oak of
reformation’ under which Kett and his fellow leaders sat.
The places and material remains of Kett’s rebellion have also been
appropriated by various causes in the early 21 st century, most notably
the Occupy Norwich protests. This paper aims to examine the way in
which subsets of Norwich’s population have attempted to utilise the
legacy of the Kett’s rebellion to convey a message, and what sort of
afterlife Kett’s rebellion has in the city.
Katherine Byrne (Kent)
Popular Memory, Identity and Rebellion in Early Modern Kent
From 1381 until 1549 popular political rebellions against royal
government were a recurrent feature of English politics, and in these
popular rebellions certain counties, particularly Kent, often played
prominent parts. Although the importance of the localities has been
recognised, much work has yet to be done on why certain counties were
the ones to rise time and time again. The work of David Rollison and
Andy Wood has revealed traditions of popular rebellion which seemed
to grow throughout the period, with Wood’s work on the 1549
Rebellions, focusing mainly on Norfolk, also showing the importance of
individual counties. His latest book, The Memory of the People, looks
deeper into the customs and memory of the villages and towns of
England, drawing out trends from across the country but much work
still needs to be done on individual counties.
My paper will aim to increase awareness of the commons of Kent, their
locations, memories and identities, and their significance to the study of
popular politics and rebellion. By looking at Elizabethan local
depositions describing events and customs happening ‘time out of mind’,
as well as popular poetry, chronicles and plays, I argue that the history
of Kent was remembered and used by its people in times of rebellion,
forming an identity as a rebellious county immersed in the rhetoric of
commonweal: one that was recognised by both the people of Kent as well
as people from outside the county.
Panel V:
Cultural Exchange in Theatre Adaptations
Samantha Lin (QUB)
Satellite Simulcasts: Screening Shakespeare’s Stage
Over the past four centuries, Shakespeare’s plays have undergone a
variety of treatments in the theatre, including edited ‘improvements’
during the English Restoration, a propensity for lavish costumes and sets
in Victorian productions, and the multi-cultural, multi-lingual renditions
as part of the 2012 Globe to Globe Festival. Since the advent of film in the
early twentieth century, Shakespeare’s plays have also appeared on the
big screen, produced by independent and Hollywood studios alike. Some
of these well-known adaptations, such as Stuart Burge’s 1965 Othello
with Laurence Olivier as the eponymous character, are filmed versions
of stage productions that are later made available for the cinema and
television, as well as on home entertainment formats.
More recently, theatre companies have utilised satellite technology in the
simultaneous broadcasts –also known as ‘simulcasts’ – of their
productions, delivered live to cinemas in the UK, Ireland, and across the
world. To date, simulcasts of the Bard’s plays have been produced
regularly by Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and
the National Theatre, with all three companies now running a dedicated
simulcast season. Drawing on a range of these productions, my paper
explores the implications of this increasingly popular mode of delivery:
how it has affected our experience of Shakespeare’s plays, and how it has
contributed to the translation of early-modern texts into our
contemporary vernacular.
Francisca Stangel (Kent)
An English Comedian in Stockholm – Rethinking Early Modern
European Theatre Practices
This paper studies the networks of theatre, drama, and performance between
England and Sweden during the early modern period in order to develop our
understanding of European theatre practices. A large body of work has been
undertaken on cultural exchanges between England and Central and Southern
Europe but very few scholars have looked north of Germany, and even fewer
past Denmark. This paper will bring Scandinavia from the periphery of
existing scholarship and recognise Northern Europe and the North Sea as an
important facilitator for cultural dissemination. In the 1640’s and 50’s English
actor and company director George Jolly came to Stockholm as a part of his
time traveling and performing around Europe. He advertised himself as a
‘Genuine English Pickleherring’ and said that his company proudly offered
good instructive stories, a theatre decorated in the Italian manner, beautiful
English music and genuine women after the French fashion. By using Jolly as
a case study this paper will investigate what it meant to include these
references to nations such as England, Italy, and France in a branding
apparatus and to what extent there is such a thing as a ‘European Theatre’.
From an Anglo-Scandinavian perspective, this paper rethinks Early Modern
drama and argues that theatre, drama, and performances that took place in
Europe during this period were all part of a wider European network and
made up the emerging phenomenon that we can call ‘European Theatre’.
Parallel 4:
Deadly Ethics of Appropriation
Saksham Sharda (Univerzita Karlova v Praze/Universidade do
Porto/Kent)
Haider in Purgatory: Rituals of Remembrance and the Ethics of
Appropriation
Building upon Stephen Greenblatt’s assertion, in Hamlet in Purgatory, that
Hamlet is primarily a play about remembrance fuelled by a crisis surrounding
the elimination of Purgatory in 1563 – as opposed to being a play about
revenge – this paper examines the ethics behind a particular cultural
(mis)translation of the said play from a Christian to an Islamic context. In
Haider (2014), a Bollywood cinematic adaptation of Hamlet, we see the
ambiguities surrounding the figure of the Ghost in Hamlet (cf. “a spirit of
health or goblin damned”) appropriated in order to transform him into a new
character, that of the jihadist-recruiter who blurs the borderlines between
remembrance and revenge for young Hamlet (Haider). Triggering,
consequently, a terroristic spectacle-of-revenge that has nothing to do with
its targets but that is, paradoxically, aimed at exorcising the collective amnesia
of the characters towards Old Hamlet’s (Meer’s) death. The everyone-dies-inthe-end signature of a revenge tragedy, in other words, is appropriated to
defend a terroristic suicide-bomb attack that does, similarly, leave everyone
dead.
Haider, it would be shown, displays a terrific instance of what Greenblatt, in
Renaissance Self-Fashioning, calls the “weapon of the powerless: the seizure of
the symbolic initiative” which “any group confronting a hostile institution that
possesses a vastly superior force” has to its disposal. The film symbolizestranslates-appropriates-exploits the inherent tension between remembrance
and revenge in Hamlet to portray revenge itself as a ritual of remembrance for
a Muslim community undergoing a crisis of faith. Set in the valley of Kashmir
– among the borderlines of three nuclear-armed nations India, Pakistan and
China who lay claim to it – the film, it would be argued, tests the boundaries
of the ‘ethics’ of appropriation.
Mark Ronan (UCD)
Fals? Don’t be Absurd! Re-reading Criseyde Through the Lens of
Camus
“O fals Cresseid and trew knicht Troylus” (546, 553). This is the
condemnatory exclamatio spoken by Robert Henryson’s narrator in his
fifteenth-century continuation of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.
Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid epitomises the traditional reading of
Chaucer’s version of the Il Filostrato; a reading in which the inconstant
Cresseid is taken as the unambiguous villain of the piece, unjustly jilting
faithful Troylus for the first Greek beau who passes her way. Shakespeare
too falls into the easy demonization of his Cressida: “A proof of strength
she could not publish more/Unless she said, ‘My mind is now turned
whore’” (5.2.119-20). The post-Chaucer period’s preoccupation with
steadfastness is clearly apparent in these, and other, late-medieval and
early-modern invocations and reinterpretations of Troilus and Criseyde.
There are, however, always other ways to read a Chaucer text.
In this paper I reassess the characters of Troilus, Criseyde, and Chaucer’s
narrator by applying Albert Camus’ absurdist treatise, The Myth of
Sisyphus, to the circumstances and reactions of the characters in
Chaucer’s epic. I argue that the three most prominent personalities in the
poem typify the three possible reactions, named by Camus, to a
realisation of the meaningless nature of existence: acceptance,
philosophical suicide, and actual suicide. Using a combination of Camus’
theories and those of the medieval theologians/philosophers Boethius
and Saint Augustine, I present a reading of the poem which, rather than
viewing her as the false villain depicted by Henryson and others, views
Criseyde as the character in Chaucer’s translation with the most integrity.
Panel VI:
On Vices and Virtues
Emma Martin (York)
‘Slouthe ys my name, off custom callyd Ydelnesse’: Translating the
Theological into the Temporal in Late Medieval Culture
This paper aims to explore what the descriptions of sloth, as a theological
concept, can tell us about slothful behaviour within temporal society.
Sloth has a variety of daughter sins or branches, including sluggishness,
tenderness, negligence and wanhope. While some branches are rooted in
spiritual deviance, such as wanhope, some of these daughter sins are
performed through temporal actions. While idleness is recognised as a
lack of activity, it may also include pursuits that are deemed void of
purpose or unsuitable for a person’s station in life. As such, the spiritual
danger of sloth is deeply rooted in each person’s specific temporal role
in society.
How do sloth’s depictions engage with the varied lifestyles across social
lines? Which daughter sins are reinforced for the young, the labouring,
and the old? Using fourteenth- and fifteenth-century devotional
literature, as well as visual images from murals and manuscript
illustrations, this paper will aim to understand how this theological
concept engaged with particular groups in society. By examining
personifications of sloth and the exemplum used to explain sloth and its
branches, this paper will aim to understand how sloth was seen to
penetrate the temporal realm.
Ine Kiekens (Ghent)
‘Poenitentiam agite: appropinquavit enim regnum cælorum’ : The
Evolution of the Concept of Penance in the Light of the Twelve
Virtues
At the end of the 14th century, Godfried van Wevel – canon at the
monastery of Groenendaal near Brussels – wrote the Middle Dutch
treatise Vanden twaelf dogheden (On the twelve virtues). This text
contains twelve chapters in which Wevel discusses ways to obtain
virtuousness. Two centuries later, his text was rediscovered by the Dutch
theologian Petrus Noviomagus. He was an ardent supporter of the
Catholic Reformation and wanted to counterbalance the Protestant
Reformation by spreading Catholic works. Therefore he revised Wevel’s
treatise and renamed it (Treatise on Virtues).
One of the main aims of my PhD is to sketch the evolution from Vanden
twaelf dogheden to its later adaptations and to interlink the changes on
the level of the content with their contexts of origin. Each chapter of
Vanden twaelf dogheden was indeed rewritten in to serve the Catholic
Reformation. Whereas the focus in the first text lies on humility, for
instance, it is in the latter that penance is promoted as the most
important virtue to pursue. In this paper I will examine that shift of
emphasis as well as the further evolution of the concept of penance. It is
my expectation that this will lead to a better understanding of both texts
as well as to an improved insight into the appropriation of religious
themes from Medieval to Early Modern times.
Alexander Holland (Kent)
Translating falsitas
Truth and falsity are two significant themes which run through medieval
literature, and which helped to shape medieval culture. A great deal of
scholarship has focussed on these themes in relation to Middle English
texts such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Piers Plowman. Very
little research, however, has been devoted to the Latin tradition which
influenced and interacted with these texts. This paper seeks to bridge
that gap. Specifically, it will seek to explain how the notion of falsity was
used to define truth. In doing so, it will investigate how ideas about falsity
were translated from a Latinate, intellectual culture into the vernacular,
and vice versa.
The relationship between three distinct textual traditions will be
considered: the scholastic, intellectual tradition, exemplified by the
writings of Thomas Aquinas; the sermon tradition, exemplified by
material found in the Summa Praedicantium, a fourteenth-century
preaching handbook; and the vernacular tradition, exemplified by
fourteenth-century Middle English texts, particularly Piers Plowman and
the anti-mendicant satires. By investigating the notion of falsity, and how
it developed within different discourses, it is possible to understand
more fully how the idea of truth was constructed, negotiated and
contested.
Parallel 5:
Historicising the Past: Contemporary Popular Culture
Colin Davey (Durham)
Re-fashioning felaȝschyp: Translating Sir Gawain, and Modern
Imaginings of Chivalric Community
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the protagonist is famously lauded
for his ‘felaȝschyp forbe al þyng’, an assertion which the rest of the poem
considerably complicates. This paper briefly reviews the striking
amount of trouble the word has consistently given to modern translators,
ever since Tolkien’s rendering of it as ‘friendliness’ (surely an interesting
choice from the author of The Fellowship of the Ring). The word is
strange in its familiarity. The concept, constricted by its archaism, is
strikingly in need of translation and yet at once evades it.
Exploring the fractures and continuities in modern filmic translations of
the medieval notion of fellowship, the paper goes on to address the
disintegration of the Round Table in Bresson’s Lancelot du Lac (1974)
and its parodic counterpart in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975);
versions of medieval buddy/road-movies in Jackson’s The Lord of the
Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale (both
2001); and recent highly popular TV offerings such as the inbetweener
chivalric ‘bromance’ of the BBC’s Merlin and the – ostensibly – celibate
male enclave of the Night’s Watch in the sexual maelstrom of HBO’s Game
of Thrones. Adopting and cross-examining Foucault’s ‘friendship as a
way of life’ the paper explores similarities and differences between
medieval and modern notions of homo-social/sexual community, and
asks how far apart – or close – the two are as ways of life that ‘yield a
culture and ethics’.
Romano Mullin QUB
Entirely Beloved Cromwell: Wolf Hall, Revisionist History, and
Reimagining Renaissance Selfhood
The purpose of my paper is to explore how recent screen and prose
representations of the Renaissance have reimagined selfhood. It argues
that traditionally, depictions of selfhood in the period have revolved
around iconic figures such as Henry VIII, Elizabeth I or Shakespeare, but
that over the past two decades there has been a shift towards privileging
peripheral perspectives and revisionist accounts of history. By using
Hilary Mantel’s 2009 novel Wolf Hall in conjunction with its 2015 BBC
Two adaptation, I will explore how the figure of Thomas Cromwell
epitomises this new way of translating selfhood in Renaissance England.
Wolf Hall, in both structure and content, follows Cromwell’s entire life
trajectory from the poverty of a life in the margins to the centre of English
power in the Henrician court. Mantel and the BBC adaptation achieve this
by creating new ways of seeing Renaissance selfhood and so
reinvigorating old narratives, carefully crafting an unprecedented and
sympathetic inner life for a man so often regarded as a villain that
orchestrated the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Crucially, my paper will argue
that such developments in creative representations of the period are
directly linked to the theoretical opening out of the Renaissance in the
eighties and nineties. Ultimately it will assess the role revisionist history
has in such depictions of the period, and the impact this has on the wider
public remembrance of the Tudor era, and the reign of Henry VIII in
particular.
Gerard Hynes (TCD)
Medievalism and Historicity in the Works of George R.R. Martin
Fantasy, whether on screen or in print, provides the primary interaction
with medieval and medievalist materials for a huge audience worldwide.
George R.R. Martin has emerged in the past decade as the most
commercially successful contemporary writer of medievalist Fantasy
literature. He has also been credited with pushing Fantasy into
innovative and morally-ambiguous directions (Grossman). This is not
just a development internal to the Fantasy genre but is intimately
connected with Martin’s medievalism.
Martin’s works stage a conflict between two incompatible medievalisms:
one Romantic and nostalgic, another disenchanted and cynical. Martin’s
treatment of these medievalisms implicitly makes historical and
epistemological claims, purporting to reveal a more ‘realistic’ and
‘historical’ Middle Ages than previous medievalist Fantasy works.
This paper will explore Martin’s rhetoric of historicity and authenticity
by examining his paratextual references to historical events and the
implications of his intensely-focalised depiction of interpersonal and
socio-economic destructiveness via court intrigue and medieval warfare.
It will also examine Martin’s intertextual subversion of the tropes of both
medieval romance and medievalist Fantasy through the characters of
Jaime Lannister, a Lancelot-like ideal knight and critique of the knightly
ideal, Sansa Stark, an increasingly critical reader of medievalist romances
who lives through a subverted romance, and Samwell Tarly, who
metatextually questions the novels’ in-universe historiographical
traditions. Taken together, this will allow a clearer assessment of
Martin’s translation of an ‘authentic’ medieval past for a contemporary
audience.
Panel VII:
Narratives of Religious Identities
Julia Mattison (Jesus College, Oxford)
The Myth of the Middle Ages in Late Nineteenth-Century French
Antisemitism
French antisemitic writers, artists, and politicians of the late nineteenth
century often united their anti-Jewish sentiments with praise for
medieval France. The presence of medieval references in antisemitic
thought and propaganda has never before been studied at length, even
though the theme occurs in countless pamphlets, caricatures, novels, and
other popular works. The role that medievalism plays in the rise of
antisemitism becomes particularly clear in the writings of Édouard
Drumont—author of La France Juive (1886), one of the most popular
books and most virulently antisemitic works of the century. Drumont,
imbuing his tract with pervasive nostalgia for the Middle Ages,
appropriates medieval history as a compelling rhetorical strategy to
capture his audience’s interest. His ideal France – a France free from
Jewish influence – is that of the Middle Ages and he urges his readers to
translate the time period to their present day. Contemporaneous artists
and caricaturists supplied widespread visual expression to Drumont’s
ideas, praising the Middle Ages and denigrating the modern era for
perceived Jewish control. Understanding late nineteenth-century
antisemitism within the context of popular enthusiasm for the Middle
Ages distinguishes it from pervious strains of antisemitism. The
representation of the Middle Ages in anti-Jewish propaganda was
integral in transforming such ideology from a niche economic position
into a seemingly legitimate racial, political, economic, and religious belief
system. This paper, drawing on rarely discussed materials, highlights the
dangerous potential of representations – and appropriations – of history
to influence social trends and have a powerful cultural significance.
Stuart Morrison (Kent)
Having Faith in History: The Sources of Information for Ephraim
Pagitt’s Christianographie (1635)
Christianographie, or The Description of the multitude and sundry sorts of
Christians in the World not subject to the Pope was an enormous literary
undertaking by Ephraim Pagitt (1574-1646) that was the culmination of
almost a decade of study and organisation of material. The stated aims of
this encyclopaedic text were to display the vast numerical and
geographical advantage that the reformed and orthodox churches held
over Roman Catholicism, and to prove these churches more primitive
and apostolic that that of Rome. In order to achieve such a grand aim
Pagitt compiles information from a wide range of sources: travel
accounts, histories, saints’ lives, patristic theology, epistolary exchanges,
ecclesiastical laws, and so on. These publications come from various
European presses: Rome, Rostock, Douai, Paris, Lisbon, Basel, Leiden,
Köln, and London and so the question of how he accessed his sources is
an interesting one. In terms of age as well, the books range from the
1540s to Pagitt’s present day of 1635.
In the course of my paper I aim to explore in further detail some of the
sources discussed above that provide the foundations upon which Pagitt
builds his argument. In doing so, I hope to show that for Pagitt to rewrite
the grand narrative of Christianity according to his own understanding,
he had to have faith in the printed histories at his disposal.
Richard Smith (Freie Universität, Berlin)
Polemical Ethnography: Representing ‘Kapparoth’ in Early Modern
Europe
My paper will be centred on differing representations of the ‘Kapparoth’
ceremony in ethnographies of Judaism in early modern Germany.
Kapparoth is one of the Jewish new year rituals, involving the ritual
slaughter of a cockerel. The term ‘polemical ethnography’ was coined by
Ronnie Po-chia Hsia in 1994 to describe a genre of work, originating
around 1500, which depicted contemporary Jewish daily life. Sixteenthcentury ethnographers who brought Kapparoth to a sixteenth-century
Christian audience included the converted Jews Johannes Pfefferkorn in
the 1509 pamphlet The Confession of the Jews and Antonius Margaritha
in the book Der gantz Judisch glaub in 1530, and later by Johannes
Buxtorf, a Christian-born Hebraist in Synagoga Judaica in 1603. My aim
will be to compare these differing illustrations and descriptions to see
how each author interacted with each other; either by borrowing from,
contradicting or developing each other’s work, to find a changing
Christian view of this Jewish ritual throughout sixteenth century
Germany.
I believe this project is suitable for the Borderlines conference because it
will include some of my own original translations of Margaritha’s Der
gantz Judisch glaub, a work from 1530 that has only been partially
translated into English. It also centres on the representation and
interpretation of Jewish praxis in early modern Germany.
Parallel 6:
The Modernist Middle Ages
Andrew Farrow (UCC)
Blake’s Chaucer: The Extent to which William Blake’s Mythological
‘nation’ is Informed by his Perceptions of Chaucer and Medieval
England
William Blake declared that “Chaucer is himself the great poetical
observer of men, who in every age is born to record and eternize its acts”.
My paper revises current perceptions of Blake’s exhibition (1809), using
his Chaucer painting and Prospectus to indicate his urge to develop
public interest in English art and poetry. I will examine the extent to
which Blake’s ‘eternized’ mythological system is informed by his
perceptions of Chaucer. My paper suggests the need for an historical
understanding of Blake. As well as this, we require knowledge of Blake’s
own historicising methods. His later works especially suggest an anxiety
about national identity and reflect a tension between history and
mythology. Blake’s unique rereading of Chaucer is an example of the type
of change that Romanticists required of medieval models.
My PhD research revises current understandings of Chaucer in light of
Blake’s earliest exposures to the medieval world at Westminster Abbey.
Blake must have been aware of Chaucer from an early age, and my
argument reconnects his cumulative works to his formative years as an
artist. While Blake’s Descriptive Catalogue and Prospectus show us his
deep knowledge of Chaucer, a recoupling must be made between the
impact of the exhibition and the gradual inspiration that Blake drew from
the ‘Father of English’ at an early age. I imply that a deep connection
between Chaucer and Blake’s later works may be traced from his earliest
ideas of nationhood via the royal tombs at Westminster.
Conor Leahy (St John’s College, Cambridge)
Modernist Medievalism: W.H. Auden and Older Scots Poetry
W.H. Auden’s use of the Older Scots poets William Dunbar and Gavin
Douglas has never before been noticed, but his response to their work
constitutes one of the most compelling episodes in twentieth-century
medievalism.
Auden’s ‘A Summer Night’ is regarded by his critics and by the poet
himself as the most pivotal work of his early career. Written in June 1933,
its occasion was a visionary experience that the poet underwent whilst a
schoolmaster at the Downs School, Herefordshire. The experience had a
profound effect on Auden’s life and work, and ‘A Summer Night’
represents a turning point in his art, but the poem’s complex affiliations
with medieval poetry have never been recognised.
While writing ‘A Summer Night’, Auden was reviewing a new edition of
Dunbar’s poetry, which had been published by T.S. Eliot in 1932. Auden’s
poem is filled with lines and images borrowed from Dunbar and from his
contemporary, Gavin Douglas. My paper includes a close analysis of its
linguistic and thematic debts to Dunbar’s ‘The Thrissil and the Rois’
(1503), to his ‘The Lament for the Makaris’ (c. 1505), and to Douglas’s
translation of Virgil’s Aeneid (1513). I will also provide a broader
examination of the vibrant and thoughtful medievalism that existed in
the Modernist movement.
Auden’s use of Older Scots poetry brings us very close to his own
compositional techniques, but it also serves as a potent reminder of how
‘olde bokes’ may still, as in Chaucer’s day, be variously translated into
original works of art.
Ruairí Cullen (QUB)
Reassessing the ‘failed conquest’ in the Early-Twentieth Century:
Alice Stopford Green and G. H. Orpen
These texts evince two conflicting interpretations of Anglo-Norman
Ireland. My method is to analyse their narratives, use of source material
and to examine the numerous reviews of their works. Stopford Green’s
text in particular ignited historiographical debate either side of the Irish
Sea concerning the nature of history as a science. These two histories
reflect a wider split in approaches to historical methodology that was
produced after the explosion of historical literature from the 1890s. Both
authors rejected early modern interpretations that saw the period as one
of unmitigated disaster and instead crafted narratives that glorified the
Normans, as a parable to the Anglo-Irish in Orpen’s case, or a prosperous
native Irish culture, in Stopford Green’s case. Though both perceived
themselves as writing scientific history, their histories are dominated by
their politics and their shared Anglican and Irish backgrounds. Orpen has
remained on the historical register, but Stopford Green has been
dismissed as a nationalist zealot. I argue that though in thrall to her
politics, this appellation neglects to explore her unique reimagining of
Anglo-Norman Ireland as a prosperous urban society within the
European sphere. In addition, I explore the revival of interest in Stopford
Green by historians of female history writers and question some of the
statements made about her.
Panel VIII:
Imagining Temporalities
Denise Kelly (QUB)
‘Figuring the nature of the times deceased’: Re-imagining the
‘Passed’ in Shakespeare’s History Plays
This paper will explore the complex relationship between time, memory,
and imagination in Shakespeare’s history plays (looking, specifically,
towards the Henry IV/V trilogy), and the temporal implications of
staging memory and re-imagining the ‘past’.
Interacting with theorists such as Ricoeur, and entering into the active
critical arena of early modern memory practices, I revisit and revise the
current body of critical literature that surrounds memorative theory and
Shakespeare’s history plays. Using the Henry IV/V plays as a central
point of focus, I will explore how the history plays anticipate and
interrogate the intersections between time, memory, and imagination,
and dissect the ways in which the trilogy self-reflexively renegotiates the
relationship between past, present, and future through imagining and reimagining narratives. Returning to the Platonian paradigm of cyclical
temporality, and anticipating the Ricoeurdian assertion that, in the
processes of remembering and imagining there exists the ‘capacity to
traverse, to move back through time, without anything, in principle,
preventing the pursuit of this movement, without any end to its
continuity’, I argue that Shakespeare’s history plays refute the
conception of time as strictly linear and distinctly tripartite, and
challenge the notion that the past is irrevocably ‘passed’.
Clare Fletcher (TCD)
Gower's Golden Age in the Confessio Amantis
Gower's Anglo-Norman Mirour de l'Omme is primarily concerned with
the loss of virtue and the proliferation of vice. The poem commences with
an allusion to the biblical age of innocence and is followed by the
detailing of Adam and Eve's subsequent fall from Paradise. Vox Clamantis,
Gower's Latin work, similarly opens with a depiction of a past innocent
age with his Ovidian description of springtime nature. Its irenic
overtones and explicit imagery of efflorescence and fecundity are
entirely reminiscent of the youthful Saturnian golden age. It is evident,
then, that the loss of the golden age and Paradise alongside the decay of
virtue and multiplication of vice are important themes in Gower's first
two major works. It is surprising, however, to note that these exact
themes so prevalent in his other works are rarely studied in Gower's final
major work the Confessio Amantis. These themes are never more
apparent than at the conclusion of the Prologue of the Confessio. With the
example of Arion, Gower at once laments the lack of an Ovidian golden
age and offers us a very potent and clear utopic vision of his own. He
envisages a pre-lapsarian world free of division, hatred, predation and
social estates. Man and beast, rich and poor, noble and peasant are united
by Arion's measured and tempered harp playing which in turn becomes
a kind of common and universally understood language as was present
in the Garden of Eden. This paper will centrally focus on this passage
arguing that Gower utilises both Ovidian golden age myth and the
Genesis creation narrative and show how it directly contrasts with the
depiction of the ageing, dying world through the image of the metallurgic
statue of Nebuchadnezzar and the division of the six ages of man. This
metaphor of the ageing world and loss of innocence is ultimately
mirrored in the transformation of Amans and his journey from an
idealistic youthful lover to the realisation that he is an old and sick man.
Parallel 7:
Appropriating Legends of Kings
Rebecca Pope (Kent)
Appropriating Arthur: Household Manuscripts, Arthurian
Romance and Gentry Identity in the Fifteenth Century
During the fifteenth century the newly established social class of the
English gentry can be seen to be constructing their own cultural identity
through the appropriation of the mystical and magical world of King
Arthur. Several insular Arthurian romances written in the fourteenth
century appear with frequency in the household manuscripts written by
and for gentry consumers. These romances, given prominence in the
books’ compilations, negotiate the idea of knighthood as it was
understood by these consumers, reaffirming their aristocratic status
whilst simultaneously revealing their tension with the extravagant world
of the upper aristocracy. This paper will focus on the texts themselves,
specifically the Awntyrs off Arthure and The Avowyng of Arthure. The
main focus will be to present how these texts appropriate Arthuriana for
their own cultural and social purposes. Central to this is how the texts
functioned within the manuscripts, positioned alongside historical texts
in the Brut tradition, hunting treatises, and even manorial court records.
Gentry studies are ‘in vogue’ in current literary criticism and historical
study. Considering that the gentry constituted the largest part of the
aristocracy in this period, they – and their literature – are incredibly
important to understanding the culture of the later Middle Ages yet they
have been treated as a largely homogenous group. Examining how these
consumers understood their history, their position in society and
themselves, can provide greater insight into the social and cultural
dynamics of medieval society.
Sonja Kleij (QUB)
“Once more unto the breach dear friends”: the use of Henry V in
early modern English plays during wartime.
Henry V is without a doubt one of the most heroic and popular kings in
English history. His victory at Agincourt is legendary and Henry VIII
viewed him as a role model. It is therefore not entirely surprising that
Henry V’s story was popular in times of war. Approximately four
different plays about Henry V were written during the Anglo-Spanish
War (1587-1603) of which The Famous Victories of Henry V (1586)
written by an anonymous writer is the only one that survives. Roger
Boyle, Earl of Orrery’s History of Henry the Fifth was first performed in
August 1664, right before the second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67), when
tensions between the two countries were already rising to critical
heights. And the most famous example is of course The History of Henry
V (1599) by William Shakespeare in which he addresses the Essex
campaign of 1599 as part of the Nine Years’ War in Ireland (1594-1603).
In this paper I will explore how these playwrights translated the history
of King Henry V into their wartime plays. I will do this by finding answers
to the following questions: Which parts of history were highlighted and
to what purpose? Are these plays simply glorifying war or do they also
question the use violence in a conflict? And how did these retellings
develop in relation to each other?
Panel IX:
Medieval and Early Modern Materialities
Valentina Grub (St. Andrews)
Sewing the Scene: Embroidery and Its Uses in Medieval Films
In the Middle Ages, when written communication was reserved only for
the clergy and upper classes, visual forms of communication were of the
utmost importance. Recent decades have established that literacy was
more widely spread through Europe in those times. However, films are
loath to relinquish the stereotype of the illiterate medieval person.
Therefore embroidery serves as an important way to anchor a work in
the Middle Ages. For instance, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves opens with
the credits rolling in front of the Bayeux Tapestry, which sets the tone as
distinctly medieval-esque. It also makes appearances in Bedknobs and
Broomsticks, El Cid, Hamlet, La Chason de Roland, Blackadder and The
Vikings – and always anachronistically. Most recently, a large
embroidered wall hanging (often misidentified as a tapestry) is a
significant plot point in the film Brave, and not only serves to reinforce
the temporal setting, but also becomes a springboard for dialogue about
gender and society, and the protagonist’s place in them. I propose to
explore the relationship between embroidery and the Middle Ages, and
how film has appropriated this type of personalized textile for its own
uses; most often, this is to communicate the illiterate, unindustrialised
and handicraft-oriented anachronistic age.
Caoimhin de Bhailis (UCC)
A Reappraisal of Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes: Finding
Meaning in the Missing/Putting Rabbits into Hats.
Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes (Florence, c.1464), continues to
fascinate art and cultural historians and has given rise to multiple
interpretations over the centuries. The sculpture is all the more
enigmatic due to the lack of original documentation with regard to its
dating and purpose. In many respects the wide ranging scholarship
engaged with the sculpture has helped to foster new ways of looking and
exploring the archive but this is all based on the lacuna that exists within
the archive. Although we acknowledge that what exists outside the
archive has as much resonance as that preserved within, the transference,
or imposing, of conjectured meaning as a substitute amounts to no more
than translations of emptiness into a language that can be read.
In the absence of text, I would like to suggest that the sculpture in
question has itself become a legible document within the covers of
location in time and space and alterations in time and space have allowed
it to become an alterable document. My paper will touch upon the
impacts of physical movement of the object, censorship and
reinterpretation of meaning in its own time and the pursuit to reveal past
meaning from a modern viewpoint. The lack of a ‘Holy Grail’ document
to interpret allows for an exposition of the ways which art and cultural
historians are freed to engage in ludic scholarship and expand our
understanding of a moment in time without words to translate.
Rachel Reid (QUB)
Curating the Curator? The Materiality of John Dee’s Mortlake, 1583
and 2015.
John Dee is often perceived as man blurring the lines between the
‘medieval’ and the ‘early modern’, his home at Mortlake being both a site
for the preservation of those manuscripts saved from the fires of the
Reformers and a place for the pro-active production of knowledge at the
cutting edge of Tudor experimentation and collaboration. An avid
collector, Dee's Mortlake library housed nearly 3000 books and
manuscripts alongside historical artefacts and ‘oddities’ in something
akin to a cabinet of curiosities. After the violent ransack of Mortlake
library, and later Dee’s death in 1608, his collections were dispersed and
many items were destroyed or disappeared entirely. This paper will
trace the transition of a few of the extant material objects associated with
Dee from their place in his home and laboratories (as recorded in his
1583 catalogue) to their current situations in museums or in private
ownership. I will focus chiefly upon those artefacts now found in the
British Museum. Comparing the use and ‘curation’ of the objects in situ
at sixteenth-century Mortlake with their current placement, this paper
will engage with critiques of museology and the appropriation of
historical objects ‘translated’ for a modern audience. In so doing, I will
question whether these objects remain relevant for their perceived social
and historical connections to Dee and his milieu, even if their provenance
is tenuous. By highlighting the needs of our own consumer culture this
paper will argue that the current curation of these objects may be
problematic and does not sufficiently acknowledge their origins, but
instead creates a new constructed narrative more suitable for the overall
‘theme’ of an exhibition.
Borderlines XIX is generously sponsored by:
Queen’s University Belfast’s School of English; School of History and
Anthropology; Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities, PostGraduate Centre Student-Led Initiative Fund; and The Forum for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies in Ireland.