Gifts of food in late medieval England

Gifts of food were an integral part of late medieval culture. Small items, such as fruit, might be given by anyone. As part of commensality, sociability, hospitality and charity, food gifts underpinned customary patterns of life; they developed networks of relationships, establishing good lordship, and played an important role in negotiations. Patterns of giving demonstrate the distinctiveness and appropriateness of some categories of foodstuff, and illuminate the purposes of donors. Changes over time can be identified: indiscriminate hospitality or large-scale food alms fell out of common practice after the Black Death and gifts of money were preferred in some circumstances. Giving choice foodstuffs, however, remained a constant.     

Holy cow!: the miraculous cures of animals in late medieval England1

Interactions between saints and animals have been the focus of modern scholarship, yet an important aspect has been neglected, namely that of the saint as healer of animals, when a third party has requested help on behalf of the animal. This article therefore examines, through examples drawn from saints' Vitae and other sources, the types of animals for which saintly intervention was sought, the ailments from which they suffered, and the form which their cure took, in order to understand why medieval people turned to the saints when their animals were ill. An examination of this relationship between saint and animal will not only elucidate the role of saint as thaumaturge, but will also shed light on the veterinary aspect of animal welfare.     

Reconciling mendicant and secular confessors in late medieval England

This essay questions the argument, advanced by some historians to explain anti-fraternalism in fourteenth-century England, that friars appeared as lax and even socially disruptive confessors because they placed less emphasis than secular parish priests on confession and penance as a means of social discipline and resolution of interpersonal conflict, emphasising instead the individual, psychological aspects of sin. To test this hypothesis, this study examines instructions for interrogating penitents about the sins of wrath/anger and the requirements for the reconciliation of enemies. It compares the Latin manuals of the Dominican, John of Freiburg, and the anonymous, Franciscan Fasciculus morum on the one hand with the Latin manual by the secular clerk William of Pagula and the Middle English manuals for secular clergy by John Gaytrick and John Mirk on the other. The findings challenge the supposed dichotomy between secular and mendicant approaches to penance. Manuals for both types of confessor addressed conflict and enmity and encouraged introspection that connected anti-social behaviour and discord with an individual's psychology and spiritual wellbeing. Nor can it be assumed that such introspection was imposed on the laity, which was accustomed to struggling with feelings of anger or hatred when attempting to make peace.     

A biomechanical study of activity patterns in a medieval human skeletal assemblage

Activity patterns in an assemblage of medieval skeletons from York, England, are investigated using analyses of biomechanical properties of the humeral diaphyses. Evidence is found for differences in activity patterns between males and females and between male layfolk and members of a male monastic community. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mongol inhospitality, or how to do more with less? Gift giving in William of Rubruck’s Itinerarium

This article examines the journey to the Mongol court by the Franciscan William of Rubruck and his unsuccessful attempts to negotiate his way through the Mongol hierarchy with gifts of food. Using William of Rubruck’s account of his journey, the Itinerarium, this article analyses the utility of gifts of food across different cultural contexts. Rubruck ultimately gained status among the Mongols through his ‘gift of self’, demonstrating how social standing can be negotiated through finding the appropriate cultural grammar for gift giving. Pervasive western medieval views on gift giving were not uncontested: alternate views of what constituted a gift existed within the broader thirteenth-century world.     

中古晚期农业对英国产业分化的作用

从近代产业结构形成与发展的角度来看,英国从中古向近代的转变过程中农业发挥了基础性作用。农业和农村的经济社会变革成功地促进了英国中古晚期的产业分化,并在一定意义上为其提供了产权保障和分化条件,从而为英国走向近代化奠定了基础。     

The consilience of historical and isotopic approaches in reconstructing the medieval Mediterranean diet

During the Middle Ages, the economies of Europe, the religious directives involving dietary requirements, and the general human subsistence base were transformed. These complicated and intertwined issues are starkly revealed in an isotopic study of two inland Italian human populations that are separated by approximately 850 years in time. Stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotopic values observed in human dentin and bone collagen from the sites of early medieval Castro dei Volsci and late medieval Rome are consistent with diets that differed substantially. As the North Atlantic opened to fishing and food preservations methods improved, Mediterranean peoples increased their fish consumption dramatically, and in doing so, met the religious directives of the Catholic Church. By analyzing both teeth and bone collagen within individuals, long-term feeding behaviors are documented, and the utility of last erupted teeth collagen as sources of adult dietary information is established. This study offers the first physical evidence of this new economic reality linking the Atlantic and Mediterranean economies at the end of the Middle Ages.     

Disputing legal privilege: civic relations with the Church in late medieval England

This article explores how provincial town governments sought to bolster civic authority in the period from c.1350 to c.1500. It focuses on royal boroughs, such as York, Chester and Norwich, which had a strong sense of lay civic identity and political pride. In these places, the king was the direct overlord, but the power of civic government was nonetheless frequently challenged by the franchises of local abbeys and convents, cathedral chapters, bishops' palaces, areas of sanctuary and the estates of local nobles. The main case study is urban relations with the Church, in particular disputes with local religious houses and rivalry between the Church and borough courts. How town leaders sought to deal with rival authorities provides an insight into the creation and assertion of lay urban identity in the late medieval period, and illuminates broader themes of how power was legitimised and enforced in post-Black Death society.     

Kings and favourites: politics and sexuality in late medieval Europe

This article examines the use of ‘discursive sodomy’ in political critique against five late medieval monarchs and their favourites. Sources from Castile, England and Sweden reveal common themes that recur. Contemporary sources frequently stated that the king’s love for his favourite was excessive and beyond measure; that the favourite was always by the king’s side and thereby hindered others from approaching him. Critics further claimed that the king showed no moderation in his generosity toward the favourite and that the difference in rank between the two men made their relationship suspicious. This paper argues that all four themes included allusions to same-sex desire with the purpose of implying that the natural order and hierarchies were put in jeopardy. The main issue at hand was that the king had been seduced or even bewitched and therefore was no longer in control. He had let another man dominate him.     

论中世纪晚期英国的圣徒崇拜

在中世纪晚期,英国的圣徒崇拜盛行,成为民众宗教信仰的中心。与中世纪早期相比,晚期的圣徒崇拜已发生了一些变化,民众已经开始关注到自己,具有了自我取向与现实取向。这表明在中世纪晚期,英国民众的宗教信仰中出现了“个人主义”倾向,在物质力量增长的同时,英国民众的精神力量也在发展。     

The development of the longbow in late medieval England and ‘technological determinism’

Traditional understandings of the development of the medieval English longbow and its role in the fourteenth-century ‘infantry revolution’ have recently been challenged by historians. This article responds to the revisionists, arguing based on archaeological, iconographic and textual evidence that the proper longbow was a weapon of extraordinary power, and was qualitatively different from – and more effective than – the shorter self-bows that were the norm in England (and western Europe generally) before the fourteenth century. It is further argued that acknowledging the importance of the weapon as a necessary element of any credible explanation of English military successes in the era of the Hundred Years War does not constitute ‘technological determinism’.     

英国原工业化地区的形成

"地区"观是考察原工业化的一个重要视角,英国原工业化的形成与"地区"有着密切的关系。琼·瑟斯克在分析了英国的一些乡村工业地区以后,认为英国的乡村工业与畜牧业地区有着天然的联系。然而,英国原工业化地区的形成决非如此简单,它是一个地区的自然资源、农业特点、社会结构以及继承习惯等众多因素综合的结果。     

Excavations on Brightstone and Bowcombe Downs,Isle of Weight,Made in August 1854

Abstract

Not a single English Romanesque great cloister arcade survives in situ. Despite this, the existence of a number of 11th- and 12th-century rear walls, and the discovery of quantities of stonework likely to have originated in cloister arcades, make it possible to recover something of the likely appearance and character of the cloister in Anglo-Norman England. The following paper considers that evidence, and assesses how our understanding of the underlying topography and archaeology of Anglo-Norman cloisters might enable us to reconstruct their lost walks. It concludes with an appraisal of the chronology of English cloister building.     

The history of urban families in medieval England

Few medieval historians have turned their attention to the history of families in urban England. But the groundwork for such studies has been laid in previous scholarship on the merchant class, on women and work in towns, and on borough law and customs. Future studies, more specifically focused on families in towns, will draw upon a wide variety of sources including wills, property records, marriage litigation, coroner's rolls, poll taxes, borough customs, and, most importantly, borough plea rolls. These studies should allow us to explore how the special characteristics of the medieval urban environment – continual in-migration, economic opportunity, commercial and industrial diversity, extremes of wealth, high population density, and borough legal structures – affected family formation, life-cycle, demography, and domestic life in medieval towns.     

Late medieval copper alloying practices: a view from a Parisian workshop of the 14th century AD

161 late medieval copper-based day-to-day items have been analysed, mostly consisting of small artefacts such as dress fittings. The items were all recently excavated from a 14th century AD metallurgical workshop located in Paris. Eight well-defined copper alloys have been identified that refer to various constraints, the most important one being economics. According to the model proposed, most of the alloys were obtained by dilution of a fresh brass master alloy by scrap metal containing small amounts of zinc, tin and lead. Pure lead was added separately in relatively large quantities, with a limit of 6 wt% Pb marking the boundary between leaded and unleaded alloys. It has been found that the less the cost of the artefact, the more the fresh brass is diluted. For the medium-size castings such as cast vessels, alloys containing large quantities of lead or alloys rich in antimony were used. Such complex alloying strategy pertains more to a small industrial-like plant organisation rather than to craftsman activity, as further supported by a variety of archaeological and historical evidence.     

Dental root dentine translucency used in age determination of medieval Norwegians from Trondheim

A pilot study on eight skulls from the churchyard of St Olav's church in Trondheim, excavated in 1988–1989, was carried out to compare age determined by root dentine translucency with the age assessed by a physical anthropologist. The difference in mean age between the two methods was not significant (p = 0.06). Age determinations based on root dentine translucency were then performed on removable teeth from the adults among the 248 skeletons found in the same churchyard, excavated in 1984–1985. A comparison between the ages determined using root dentine translucency and the ages previously determined by the direct inspection method was performed. A significant systematic difference was seen between the two methods (p = 0.000). The root dentine translucency method gave an age range for the cohort excavated in 1984–1985 between 30 and 72 years, whereas the direct inspection method gave a range between 15 and 63 years. Because evaluation of many criteria are required to achieve reasonably accurate estimates of age in connection with the direct inspection method, expertise in skeletal biology is necessary. The method of measuring root dentine translucency as a tool in archaeological and anthropological work and fieldwork and in forensic science seems to have advantages because the method can be used without previous extensive training.     

Pollen analysis of 15th century cesspits from the palace of the dukes of Burgundy in Bruges (Belgium): evidence for the use of honey from the western Mediterranean

Pollen analysis of two late medieval cesspits from the palace of the dukes of Burgundy in Bruges (Belgium) revealed the presence of pollen from several food plants and their associated weeds. Also a large amount of exotic taxa was found, most of which are not commonly used as food plants. This last group of taxa shows 4 common characteristics: (1) their distribution is restricted to the Mediterranean region, (2) no macrobotanical remains from these taxa have been found (3) they are insect-pollinated and (4) most of these taxa are important elements in pollen assemblages from modern honeys from SW-Spain and S-Portugal. The presence of these pollen types can therefore most probably be attributed to the use of honey originating from this region. The consequences for the palynological analysis and interpretation of pollen assemblages of medieval and post-medieval cesspits and other types of waste deposits are discussed.     

约曼与英国资本主义启动

农业是英国资本主义的基础,约曼又是农业资本主义的发动者、农村社会的“脊梁”。在英国农业资本主义发生的时候,约曼是先行者。“约曼”经历了由一个带有荣誉感的职业名词向具有经济与社会含义的名词的转变;约曼阶层经历了由采邑制度下的农民向资本主义农场主的演进。约曼是社会转型时期英国农村的精英群体,对经济、政治、教育文化、日常生活等方面都产生了重大而深远的影响,为英国率先成为第一个工业化国家提供了最初的、最基本的经济力量和政治力量,是英国资本主义的启动者。     

英格兰教育旅行传统探析

英格兰人为精神、文化方面的需求而前往欧洲大陆游历的做法由来已久,可以追溯到中世纪之初、甚至更为遥远的时代。在中世纪,英格兰人除了因外交、军事和商业等原因而旅行外,还以朝圣者、骑士和学者等身份前往欧陆。近代之初,知识结构的变化、人文主义的影响、绅士教育重点的转变及国际外交实践的影响,催生了新型的教育旅行。到17世纪中叶,因英格兰社会上层的政治经济需求、绅士阶层提高自身素养的需要以及部分英格兰人对自身生活习性的反思,新的教育旅行（“大旅行”）开始得到认可和接受,逐渐成为一种广受欢迎的社会传统和习俗。     

A typology of representative institutions in late medieval Europe

This article attempts to follow the tradition established by Hintze and Elias in comparing several aspects of representative institutions throughout medieval Europe. It uses numerous recent case studies and a new more detailed examination of the Low Country sources and it tries to take into account the criticisms levelled at the rather unsophisticated generalizations of earlier scholars. Attention is given to the structure of the institutions, their actual working and their functions.Comparisons are made whenever the available information permits, if possible by quantification, although our information is often too vague and incomplete to permit this. A number of ideal types are formulated as a working hypothesis for further investigation, based on the social structures within which these types of institutions functioned. The essential variables were the extent of urbanization in a particular territory, the form of government and the economic and juridical situation of the nobles and peasants.