CeSMA newsletter March 2011

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