Letter-writing and literary culture in Merovingian Gaul

This essay discusses Gregory of Tours' claim that literary culture was in decline in light of the considerable quantity of poetry and letters composed by Merovingian authors. Scholars have come to appreciate the importance of letter-writing for historical inquiry, yet the contrast between Gregory's assessment and aristocratic literary activity remains under-explored. This essay discusses fifth-century precedents and examines the continuity and discontinuity that occurred in the literary transition from late Antique to early-medieval Gaul. It examines the place of literary culture within Merovingian elite friendship networks, focusing on the interconnected writings of three Merovingian authors. Venantius Fortunatus was an Italian-born poet who spent most of his career writing for Merovingian elites. The royal officials Dynamius and Gogo composed letters found in a compilation of sixth-century letters called the Epistolae Austrasicae. Using the letters and poetry of these three writers, this essay argues that literary skill facilitated the creation and maintenance of connections across distance and was a necessary part of elite identity. It shows that Gregory of Tours' dramatic rhetorical claim did not reflect the true state of literature in Gaul.     

Introducing δSr analysis in archaeology: a demonstration of the utility of strontium isotope fractionation in paleodietary studies

Isotopic methods are widely used in archaeology to investigate paleodiet. Here, we present a new method to identify trophic level in archaeological human populations and to investigate paleodiet. We demonstrate that strontium isotope compositions (reported as δ^88/86Sr) vary in a mass-dependent manner with increasing trophic level and can elucidate paleodiet in archaeological human populations. We present new mass-dependent strontium isotope data from tooth enamel and bone from individuals buried during the Late Intermediate Period (c. AD 1000–1300) in the large cemeteries of Chiribaya Alta, Chiribaya Baja, San Gerónimo, and El Yaral in the Ilo and Moquegua Valleys of southern Peru. We compare these data to radiogenic strontium isotope data (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) and light stable isotope data (δ¹⁵N_col and δ¹³C_col) from the same individuals to investigate geologic variability in strontium sources as well as marine food consumption among the Chiribaya. Our results demonstrate the utility of measurements of strontium isotope fractionation as a new tool for archaeological investigation of paleodiet. Importantly, this new technique can be used to generate paleodietary (δ^88/86Sr) and paleomobility (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) data from the same specimen, minimizing destructive analyses of invaluable archaeological material, and provides a new way to examine paleodiet through hydroxyapatite, which is particularly important when collagen is poorly preserved.     

The Socio‐Nature of Local Organic Food

Abstract: The concept of socio‐nature asserts that social relations are inherently ecological and that ecological relations are inherently social. This paper examines how, and with what consequences, discourses and practices of support for local and organic food reflect this idea. It argues that proponents of local organic agriculture view the food they promote as simultaneously social and the product of human labor. However, advocates’ understanding of the concept is partial and constrained by social privilege. It does not extend to industrial agriculture or paid farm labor. The literature on socio‐nature coheres around the revelation that what is understood as natural is also social and vice versa. In contrast, this paper takes a new approach, examining socio‐nature as a practice‐shaping discourse already embedded in social life. Investigating the on‐the‐ground ideological work performed by the concept also allows for assessment of its political consequences.     

Heritage,identity and community engagement at Dunluce Castle,Northern Ireland

As Northern Ireland transitions out of conflict, increased attention is being paid to the role heritage can play in building peace across society and developing a more sustainable future. Recent archaeological investigations at Dunluce Castle have uncovered elements of the site’s Gaelic past and the remains of an early seventeenth-century town built immediately prior to the Crown-sponsored Plantation of Ulster. The project included a dynamic programme of community engagement and outreach that created opportunities to work as a group in the embodied act of recovering the physical past. This formed a space in which to challenge aspects of the region’s contested past and facilitated the renegotiation of accepted local histories and existing identity constructs.     

(Sick) Love and the Older Woman in Marcel Prévost's L’Automne d’une femme

Marcel Prévost, a prolific novelist, journalist, and academician, is best known for works such as Les Demi-Vierges (1894), which demonstrates how Parisian society and education corrupt young women, and Les Vierges fortes (1900), which, according to Louise Lyle, “develop[s] the concept of the secular, self-perpetuating community of female educators only to explode it as an empty ideal” (60). In his 1893 novel, L’Automne d’une femme, Prévost focuses not on virgins but on the older woman, telling the story of forty-year-old Julie, who has languished for over twenty years in an arranged marriage to Antoine Surgère. Despite having the natural ability to ease the suffering of others, Julie shows no interest in nursing her husband when he falls ill, though she eagerly cares for the daughter of one of his colleagues, Claire Esquier, and the son of another associate, Maurice Artoy, who is all too eager to reciprocate when Julie's feelings for him become something more than maternal. Unbeknownst to Julie, however, Maurice and Claire once dabbled in a youthful romance that neither forgot. The glue that holds this tangled web of relationships together is illness, a theme so pervasive that the verb souffrir and its derivatives are employed no fewer than 137 times, along with myriad other terms related to pain. Prévost's creation of a veritable culture of illness in which love cannot possibly flourish for the woman in her “autumn” might be said, in fact, to feed into the Decadent vision of woman as dangerous and corrupting.     

The character of creativity: Two traditions

Throughout Western history there have been two sharply differentiated beliefs about the character of creativity. However, one of these beliefs—Judaeo-Christian and neo-Platonic—has occupied such a dominant position that the very existence of the other has been obscured and ignored. Yet the evidence for this second belief is no less extensive or vivid. It has never been formulated in the same way as the first and so has never constituted a tradition as such; yet it has existed over as long a period of time and can therefore be called a tradition. Moreover, this second belief seems to bear a closer relation to the character of creativity displayed by people regarded as ‘creative’, as well as to what we have learnt about creativity in this century from psychologists. Attitudes to creativity in the modern period have generally been based on the first tradition, but the activities of creative people have borne out the validity of the second tradition. The attitudes, in other words, have been based on false expectations. To recover the lost tradition, therefore, may enable us to see more accurately what we may or may not achieve by being creative.     

The Sacred Marriage

DAVID OF SASSOUN: THE ARMENIAN FOLK EPIC IN FOUR CYCLES. Translated by ARTIN K. SHALIAN Ohio University Press, 1964, pp. 377. $10.00. Reviewed by E. O. James.

VOICES IN THE VALLEY. FRANK R. KRAMER. University of Wisconsin Press. 300 pp. $5. Reviewed by A. W. Smith.

DIE ROLLE DES HUNDES IN AFRICANISCHEN KULTUREN. By BARBARA FRANK. Studien zur Kulturkunde Vol. 17. Wiesbaden Franz SteinerVerlag, 1965. Pp.(6), 256. 5 Maps. Reviewed by E. Ettlinger.

GLI USI FUNEREI SARDI SECONDO LE VOCI DEL ‘DIZIONARIO DEGLI STATI SARDI’ COMPILATE DA VITTORIO ÁNGIUS. By ENRICA DELITALA. Offprint from Studi Sardi, XVIII for 1962–3, Gallizzi, Sassari, 1964. Pp. 65: map. Reviewed by Francis Celoria.

CONTES TRADITIONNELS DES TEILLEURS DE LIN DU TRÉGOR (BASSEBRETAGNE). By Geneviève Massignon. A. et J. Picard et Cie, 1965. Reviewed by Violet Alford.

HISTORY, TIME AND DEITY. By S. G. F. BRANDON. Manchester University Press, 1965. Pp. 240. 35s. net. Reviewed by E. O. James.

THE CAMBRIDGE ANCIENT HISTORY. Primitive Man in Egypt, Western Asia and Europe. By DOROTHY A. E. GARROD and J. G. D. CLARK. Cambridge University Press, 1965. Pp. 61.8s. 6d. net. Reviewed by E. O. James.

UNSERE ORTSNAMEN IM ABC ERKLART. By WILDHELM STURMFELS and HEINZ BISCHOF. 3rd, revised, edition. Dummlers, Bonn, 1961. Pp. 359, including Introduction, Indices and Bibliography. Reviewed by John McN. Dodgson.

THE NORTHMEN TALK. A Choice of Tales from Iceland. Translated by JACQUELINE SIMPSON. Foreword by Eric Linklater. J. M. Dent and Sons, Phoenix House and the University of Wisconsin Press, 1965. Pp. i–xxix, 290. 30s. net. Reviewed by H. R. Ellis Davidson.

ORAL TRADITION, A Study in Historical Methodology. By JAN VANSINA, translated by H. M. WRIGHT. Routledge &; Kegan Paul Ltd. 30s. Reviewed by K. M. Briggs.

GENTLE PLACES AND SIMPLE THINGS. By KEVIN DANAHER. Cork, The Mercier Press. 1964. Pp. 125. 5s. Reviewed by Theo Brown.

A FENMAN'S STORY. By W. H. BARRETT. Routledge &; Kegan Paul Ltd. May 1965. 21s. Reviewed by Beatrice Blackwood.

ONCE UPON A TIME; Fifty Hungarian Folk-Tales. By GYULA ILLYES. Translated by Barna Balogh and Susan Kun. Corvina Press. 1964. Reviewed by K. M. Briggs.

ULSTER DIALECTS; AN INTRODUCTORY SYMPOSIUM. Published by the Ulster Folk Museum, 1964. Pp. XIII, 201. 20s. Reviewed by Estyn Evans.

A BOOK OF MYTHS. Selected and retold by ROGER LANCELYN GREEN. Illustrated by Joan Liddell-Monroe. Dent, Children's Illustrated Classics. 16s. Reviewed by K. M. Briggs.

WEST COUNTRY FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. An Account of Village Benefit Clubs and their Brass Pole Heads. By MARGARET D. FULLER. The Oakwood Press for the Museum of English Rural Life, the University of Reading, 1964. Pp. xii, 73: Plates LII + map. 63s. Reviewed by Theo Brown.

STRUTTURA E ORIGINE MORFOLOGICA DEI MUTOS E DEI MUTTETOS SARDI. By A. M. CIRESE. Sardinia, Università degli Studi de Cagliari, 1964. Pp. 193. Reviewed by Francis Celoria.

DUTCH TILES. By DINGEMAN KORF. London, Merlin Press, 1963. Pp. 136. GLASS AND CRYSTAL, I, from the earliest times to 1850. By ELKA SCHRIJVER. Merlin Press, 1963. Pp. 134. Reviewed by W. Bonser.