Precarial grants: approaches of the clergy and lay aristocracy to landholding and time

Throughout the middle ages, the possession and ownership of land was not only the primary source of wealth and power, but of disputes and violence as well. In this regard, one of the least obvious but nonetheless fundamental elements was the attitude that the two dominant groups in society — the clergy and the aristocracy — had about time. The different ways that these two classes regarded time helps to account both for their approach to acquiring land and, in the event of a dispute, whether it would be settled by compromise or violence.     

New approaches to the study of tourist experiences in time and space

Nowadays, a growing number of researchers are investigating subjective attitudes of people toward their environment with ever-increasing spatial and temporal resolutions. It seems that researchers' interest in daily experiences is not merely a passing research fad, but rather that individuals in current societies find more interest in their own momentary experiences. They talk about their affective states, they spend considerable portions of their income on intangible experiences, and they instantly share personal ‘moments’ through various online social media platforms. These trends are even more apparent in the tourism and leisure industries which aim to generate positive experiences among individuals. This research note points out new directions in the exploration of experiences during tourism and leisure activities. It discusses a new relevant concept, subjective momentary experiences on one hand and presents novel methodological opportunities on the other. In order to portray these new trends, a case study that describes the episodic experiences of festival attendants in a high tempo-spatial resolution is presented.     

Reasons for leaving: The effect of conflict on English landholding in late thirteenth-century Leinster

In 1297 a parliament was convened at Dublin one of the main purposes of which was to defend more effectively the borders of the English lordship of Ireland. The conquest of Ireland had never been complete. Several of the pre-conquest kingdoms survived beyond the effective edge of the English lordship and elsewhere the actions of conquistador and settler had pushed the native Irish up into the hills. Consequently, the settler population in many parts of Ireland lived in close proximity to areas under Gaelic control. This was not a particular problem in the eastern province of Leinster until the 1270s when the Irish of the Wicklow mountains began to raid settler manors. It has recently been suggested that the effects of this ‘Gaelic revival’ and the legislation passed at the Dublin parliament to deal with its effects led several English lords to cut their landholding ties with Ireland. This article questions how important a factor conflict actually was in the decision-making processes of such English lords by examining their withdrawal from Ireland in a wider context. It concludes by pointing out that withdrawals from a landholding community were not necessarily negative in their effect or cause.     

Robert Grosseteste and the simple benefice: a novel solution to the complexities of lay presentation

That pastoral care was the main focus of Robert Grosseteste's theological work and correspondence is well established: Grosseteste is often characterised as the vehement, uncompromising promoter of the pastoral ideal in the face of strong opposition, ecclesiastical and lay. Less close attention has been paid to whether the records of his diocesan administration demonstrate the practical outworking of his pastoral theories. Although narrow in compass, his administrative rolls for the English diocese of Lincoln are not entirely sterile. They show Grosseteste experimenting with a novel form of parish organisation, using grants of simple benefices (simplex beneficium) to ensure appropriate provision for a parochial priestly function whilst offering a constructive compromise to the laity who had the right to nominate clergy for churches (the patrons) when their candidates were deemed inadmissible. The practical working out of these proposals reveals that they had both educational benefits, particularly for potential clergy, and allowed Grosseteste to focus his educational and pastoral efforts directly within the parishes.     

Pseudo-Turpin,the crisis of the aristocracy and the beginnings of vernacular historiography in France

The opening decades of the thirteenth century witnessed the birth of historical writing in Old French prose, marking a decisive evolution in the historical tastes of the lay aristocracy, whose interest in the past had until then been satisfied by chanted verse histories and chansons de geste. The earliest products of the movement toward vernacular prose historiography were the first translations of the Pseudo-Turpin chronicle, of which no fewer than six independent versions were made within the confines of the French realm between 1200 and 1230. The translation of Pseudo-Turpin, and with it the creation of vernacular prose historiography, was the work of a small group of Franco-Flemish lords circulating in the orbit of the count of Flanders. This extreme chronological and geographical concentration suggests that vernacular historiography in general, and Pseudo-Turpin in particular, addressed itself with special urgency to the needs of the French aristocracy at a moment of crisis and that historiographical innovation was, at least in part, a response to changes taking place in the social and political conditions of noble life experienced at that moment.The substitution of prose for verse, and of history for legend, would seem to be the product of an ideological initiative on the part of the French aristocracy, whose social dominance in French society was being contested by the rise of royal power during the very period which witnessed the birth of vernacular prose historiography. By appropriating the inherent authority of Latin texts and by adapting prose for the historicization of aristocratic literary language, vernacular prose history emerges as a literature of fact, integrating on a literary level the historical experience and expressive language proper to the aristocracy. No longer the expression of a shared, collective image of the community's social past, vernacular prose history becomes instead a partisan record intended to serve the interests of a particular social group and inscribes, in the very nature of its linguistic code, a partisan and ideologically motivated assertion of the aristocracy's place and prestige in medieval society.     

Reasons for leaving: The effect of conflict on English landholding in late thirteenth-century Leinster

In 1297 a parliament was convened at Dublin one of the main purposes of which was to defend more effectively the borders of the English lordship of Ireland. The conquest of Ireland had never been complete. Several of the pre-conquest kingdoms survived beyond the effective edge of the English lordship and elsewhere the actions of conquistador and settler had pushed the native Irish up into the hills. Consequently, the settler population in many parts of Ireland lived in close proximity to areas under Gaelic control. This was not a particular problem in the eastern province of Leinster until the 1270s when the Irish of the Wicklow mountains began to raid settler manors. It has recently been suggested that the effects of this ‘Gaelic revival’ and the legislation passed at the Dublin parliament to deal with its effects led several English lords to cut their landholding ties with Ireland. This article questions how important a factor conflict actually was in the decision-making processes of such English lords by examining their withdrawal from Ireland in a wider context. It concludes by pointing out that withdrawals from a landholding community were not necessarily negative in their effect or cause.     

Illegitimate birth and the English clergy, 1198-1348

This article studies illegitimacy, which was a canonical impediment to ordination, within the English clergy between 1198 and 1348. Scholarship on illegitimacy in the clergy has previously relied on canon law, conciliar decrees, and dispensations preserved in papal registers. Using these sources, historians have concluded that the papacy tightly controlled illegitimate men's access to orders, that the burdens of obtaining dispensations for illegitimacy (the defectus natalium) could pose substantial obstacles to a man's clerical career, and that priests' sons made up a significant percentage of the illegitimate clergy. This article, which draws on the large and previously untapped body of dispensations surviving in English episcopal registers to supplement the papal sources, reaches different conclusions. It argues that the great majority of illegitimate clerics in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century English clergy were the sons of unmarried lay parents. It further argues that dispensations were more readily accessible than has previously been suggested, and emphasises the importance of local branches of the ecclesiastical hierarchy to an individual's efforts to attain a dispensation to enter holy orders.     

The minor rural aristocracy and great lords in thirteenth-century Tuscany: three cases from the entourage of the Guidi counts

This article examines relations in thirteenth-century Tuscany between the minor rural aristocracy and great rural lords, that is, those based outside cities. The subject is approached through a study based on three families, with special emphasis on the way they were bound to the extended family of the Guidi counts, who were prominent at the highest level in the thirteenth-century kingdom of Italy. In the thirteenth century, attendance on the counts was not attractive to families of the minor aristocracy: it was universally acknowledged that the great rural lords of Tuscany had little to offer their adherents in terms of wealth, power and prestige, incentives which could be obtained from the cities of the region. Minor aristocrats who chose to live as professional soldiers were particularly attracted to the cities, which were always in need of soldiers for their armies.     

Earthquakes,grants, and public expenditure: How municipalities respond to natural disasters

We analyze the response of municipalities to the occurrence of natural disasters in terms of spending behavior, use of upper-tier transfers and recovery, using balance sheet data of about 8,000 Italian municipalities for the period 2000–2015, and the universe of earthquakes events. We find evidence of increasing expenditure for about 12 years after the shocks, with asymmetric responses between earthquake-related and unconditional grants, and heterogeneous flypaper effects across the country. While in northern municipalities expenditure tends to regress to pre-earthquake levels, southern municipalities stick to higher expenditure levels when grants drop. This evidence is coupled with a faster recovery of private income and housing prices in northern municipalities.     

The minor rural aristocracy and great lords in thirteenth-century Tuscany: three cases from the entourage of the Guidi counts

This article examines relations in thirteenth-century Tuscany between the minor rural aristocracy and great rural lords, that is, those based outside cities. The subject is approached through a study based on three families, with special emphasis on the way they were bound to the extended family of the Guidi counts, who were prominent at the highest level in the thirteenth-century kingdom of Italy. In the thirteenth century, attendance on the counts was not attractive to families of the minor aristocracy: it was universally acknowledged that the great rural lords of Tuscany had little to offer their adherents in terms of wealth, power and prestige, incentives which could be obtained from the cities of the region. Minor aristocrats who chose to live as professional soldiers were particularly attracted to the cities, which were always in need of soldiers for their armies.     

Waltharius and Carolingian morality: satire and lay values

Some recent interpretations of the early medieval Latin poem Waltharius have seen it as offering a clerical critique of warrior culture. While the poem is difficult to date accurately, it seems more likely to belong to the ninth than the tenth century. When the poem is analysed in the context of contemporary Frankish works providing moral instruction to lay noblemen, its attitudes towards pride, wealth and warfare can be shown to lie within the mainstream of Carolingian reformers' thought. The notoriously bloody ending to the poem is also best seen as emphasizing Walter's successful heroism rather than undermining it.     

Gender collections: Three approaches to the subject

Frese, Pamela R. and John M. Coggeshall, eds. Transcending Boundaries: Multi‐Disciplinary Approaches to the Study of Gender. New York: Bergin and Garvey, 1991. xvi + 208 pp. including chapter references and index. $42.95 cloth, $15.95 paper.

Jolly, Margaret and Martha Macintyre, eds. Family and Gender in the Pacific: Domestic Contradictions and the Colonial Impact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. xii + 296 pp. including collected bibliography and index. $49.50 cloth.

Sanday, Peggy Reeves and Ruth Gallagher Goodenough, eds. Beyond the Second Sex: New Directions in the Anthropology of Gender. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. viii + 350 pp. including chapter references and indices. $36.95 cloth, $16.95 paper.     

Introduction: recent approaches to pottery and society in the Southeast

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the themes of this special edition of Southeastern Archaeology on modern pottery studies and summarizes the articles included in this edition. Southeastern archaeologists increasingly are applying new theoretical constructs and techniques to ceramic studies. These new techniques, in conjunction with traditional typological analysis, allow archaeologists to approach the study of past peoples from a broader perspective.     

Border crossings: new approaches to the Irish border

This paper explores and extends recent work on the Irish border that has sought to redress the relative lack of attention to the social, economic and cultural dimensions of the border in contrast to its intense political symbolism. In particular it addresses the theme of border crossing as a way to consider the border in terms of its everyday dimensions and in terms of questions of conventional and reconfigured categories of identity shaped by borderland life. The first section of the paper outlines recent approaches to the Irish border and their relationships to the field of border studies. The second section uses new research material to explore the ways in which the border was experienced on the ground in the lives of those most directly subject to its changing nature over the course of the twentieth century. The final part of the paper addresses recent suggestions that those experiences may form the basis of new cross-border and cross-community ‘border identities’. The term ‘border crossing’ in the paper's title thus stands both for the issue of physically crossing the border whose difficulties and effects have been central to the lives of those who have lived near the border, and for recent arguments that shared experiences of the impact of the border may be the basis for new senses of identity and commonality that imaginatively cross the borders of old categories of religion, culture and political affiliation. Recent efforts to reconceptualise border identities are emerging within a context still dominated by more polarised perspectives on identity and history, but they represent one significant strand of engagement with the Irish border. They suggest possibilities for forms of border identities that co-exist with, run counter to or cross cut old categories of division and difference.