tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/medieval-literature-44471/articlesMedieval literature – The Conversation2023-09-06T14:55:49Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2129292023-09-06T14:55:49Z2023-09-06T14:55:49ZThree medieval tales about adventures to the Moon from around the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546667/original/file-20230906-25-imgaen.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We have always wondered what was up there. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=moon+engraving&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With <a href="https://www.news9live.com/science/here-is-why-jaxas-slim-spacecraft-will-take-at-least-four-months-to-snipe-the-moon-2275228">the Japan mission to the Moon just beginning</a> and with the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-chandrayaan-3-landing-moon-south-pole-rcna101296">space race to its south polar region</a>, we are reminded of the wonder and excitement of travelling to the Moon. </p>
<p>Of course, since the 20th century, humans have been able to physically travel there, but imagining travel to the Moon has been part of our history from long before the 1900s. Looking back through the centuries reveals exciting stories of lunar adventure. </p>
<h2>1. An English poem: The Man in the Moon</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Engraving of the man in the moon" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546664/original/file-20230906-25-iuzza0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Man in the Moon in this medieval English tale is sent away from earth for stealing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/82/Man_in_Moon_engraving.png">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>The English poem, <a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/fein-harley2253-volume-3-article-81">The Man in the Moon</a>, tells the story of a man who is living and suffering on the Moon. The poem is in a famous book known as the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/harley-manuscripts?gclid=CjwKCAjwo9unBhBTEiwAipC11-Fh3CFmKn8GNMbx9-ibCnTyMJ-YsIRbabMtCdRkh-c1_Zilv2zuJxoCAy0QAvD_BwE">Harley manuscript</a>, which was written in the 1300s.</p>
<p>There are many versions of this folktale, including in English, German and Dutch traditions. In this English version of the story, the man on the Moon (known as Hubert) is imagined as a medieval peasant guilty of stealing thorns to make a hedge. Medieval peasants would make hedges to act as fences, which were important for keeping animals from wandering. </p>
<p>It’s said in this poem that Hubert was born and raised on the Moon, though he also seems to be imprisoned there. In other traditions elsewhere in Europe, the peasant’s punishment is to be exiled to the Moon.</p>
<p>The person who speaks in the poem is on Earth, looking up at Hubert and trying to help free him from his imprisonment. </p>
<p>The cunning plan is this: the speaker and his wife will distract the “hayward” (legal official) by getting him drunk and then stealing the pledge (the penalty) the hayward has taken, in order to release Hubert. But unfortunately, Hubert can’t seem to hear the speaker of the poem and the speaker grows frustrated.</p>
<p>In this poem, there is a comical attempt to connect with Hubert – an attempt to bring the Moon and the Earth that bit closer.</p>
<h2>2. An Italian epic poem: Orlando Furioso</h2>
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<img alt="An illustration of a boat travelling to the Moon" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546472/original/file-20230905-23-teqmv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A knight who has lost his mind must travel to the moon to find it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gallica collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/ariostos-orlando-furioso-in-english-1591">Orlando Furioso</a> (The Frenzy of Orlando) is an Italian epic written by poet Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533). It tells the story of Charlemagne’s knights and their adventures. Charlemagne (who died in 814) was a king and emperor who is known for uniting most of Europe under his rule. Unsurprisingly, there are many legends about him and his knights. </p>
<p>One of his knights is Astolfo, cousin to the knight Orlando. Orlando has “lost his mind” or “lost his wits”. His lost sanity can only be found on the Moon and so Astolfo has to travel there.</p>
<p>When Astolfo is on the Moon, he discovers that it is a kind of dump site and all that has been lost from Earth has found its way there – which is why Orlando’s lost sanity can be found on the Moon. </p>
<p>The Moon carries not only physical objects but also abstract ideas like fame, broken promises and the tears and sighs of lovers. The one thing Astolfo can’t find on the Moon is foolishness – because there is plenty of that here on Earth.</p>
<p>In this poem, the Moon becomes a reflection of Earth and its people, with all their limitations and frailties.</p>
<h2>3. A Japanese story: The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter</h2>
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<img alt="A Japanese painting of a woman in the sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546471/original/file-20230905-18936-yk8ou6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">After growing up on earth, Kaguya-hime must return to her home on the moon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_Fairy_Book_-_Ozaki_-_P118.png">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>What about Moon people travelling to the Earth? This very thing happens in a Japanese story from the late 800s or early 900s: <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2014/09/the-original-japanese-moon-princess.html">Taketori Monogatari</a> (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter). </p>
<p>An old man, while cutting bamboo, finds a tiny, three-inch girl bathed in light. He takes her home and he and his wife nurture her tenderly, even placing her in a cradle. </p>
<p>She grows up remarkably quickly under the care of her adoptive parents, bringing them great joy. They bring a diviner to grant her a name, and she is called <em>Nayotake no Kaguya-hime</em> (Shining Princess of the Young Bamboo).</p>
<p>But in her adult years, Kaguya-hime keeps looking at the Moon with great sadness and her loved ones are worried about her. She eventually reveals what is wrong – she is not an earthling. </p>
<p>She actually comes from the Moon and now she must return there. A magnificent troop comes to take her away and Kaguya-hime is forced to leave the people on Earth she has grown to love.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-boy-and-the-heron-hayao-miyazakis-latest-studio-ghibli-film-is-a-skilled-remix-of-his-greatest-hits-212811">The Boy and the Heron: Hayao Miyazaki's latest Studio Ghibli film is a skilled remix of his greatest hits</a>
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</em>
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<p>The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is the earliest surviving example of the <em>monogatari</em> (tale, novel) and has been adapted into a Studio Ghibli animation, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILVGna1QMkc">The Tale of Princess Kaguya</a>. </p>
<p>The Moon has always been a place that inspires imaginative stories of travel, adventure, and discovery. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter also reminds us that these stories are not found only in Europe. </p>
<p>All these texts – the English poem, the Italian epic, the Japanese narrative – raise important questions about what it is to be human, and how valuable the Earth is itself.</p>
<hr>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ayoush Lazikani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Humans have always been fascinated by the moon and before we could really get there we travelled to it in our stories.Ayoush Lazikani, Lecturer in Medieval English, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1995442023-02-13T16:39:06Z2023-02-13T16:39:06ZValentine’s Day’s connection with love was probably invented by Chaucer and other 14th-century poets<p>As an undergraduate, on a tour of Europe, I happened to step into the church where Saint Valentine’s head was kept. The tour guide told us a (likely fictitious) story about Saint Valentine performing forbidden marriages for persecuted Christians under the Roman emperor <a href="https://archive.org/stream/scriptoreshistor01camb/scriptoreshistor01camb_djvu.txt">Claudius Gothicus</a> (possibly 269-270 AD). Valentine was then imprisoned and beheaded in Rome. </p>
<p>His saint’s day has since become a celebration of romance. But earlier medieval accounts of Valentine’s life contain no mention of his association with love.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120112234436/http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/golden169.htm">The Golden Legend</a> (c. 1225) –- an enormously popular book, which is the main database of saints’ lives throughout the middle ages and beyond – I found no references to love or marriage in the story of Saint Valentine. </p>
<p>In The Golden Legend, Valentine of Rome manages to restore the sight of an official’s daughter. As a result of this miracle he converts many to Christianity and incurring the wrath of the emperor. Valentine refuses to sacrifice to Roman idols and is imprisoned and beheaded. There is no love and there are no lovers.</p>
<p>But to add further complication, there is yet another prominent Saint Valentine, this time of <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/2847741">Terni, Italy</a>. Often confused or conflated with Valentine of Rome, Valentine of Terni was a bishop and scholar. His reputation reached a man named Crato whose son had been crippled since he was three. Valentine agreed to try and cure the child on the condition that Crato converted to Christianity. </p>
<p>Valentine succeeded in curing the boy and converted Crato, his household and many others including the local magistrate. Upon hearing of this cure, the Roman senators demanded that Valentine prays to their gods. Valentine, refusing to do so, was beheaded becoming a saint as well.</p>
<p>The two Valentines are remarkably similar and while their cults were popular throughout Europe, it is difficult to distinguish one from another. What is intriguing about these stories is that neither connects Valentine with love. The statements of Saint Valentine conducting secret marriages seem unsupported by medieval texts.</p>
<p>So where do we get this association between Valentine and love? Well, one short <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Chaucer_and_the_Cult_of_Saint_Valentine/_bqdZbKPztMC?hl=en&gbpv=0">answer</a> is the medieval poet <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/2847741">Chaucer</a>, who is sometimes heralded as the father of English Literature. </p>
<h2>Chaucer and Saint Valentine</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A painting of many birds." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509779/original/file-20230213-448-9m08d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C4%2C1016%2C829&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509779/original/file-20230213-448-9m08d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509779/original/file-20230213-448-9m08d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509779/original/file-20230213-448-9m08d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509779/original/file-20230213-448-9m08d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509779/original/file-20230213-448-9m08d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509779/original/file-20230213-448-9m08d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Parliament of Birds by Carl Wilhelm de Hamilton inspired by Chaucer’s poem of love.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parlement_of_Foules#/media/File:Carl_Wilhelm_de_Hamilton_-_The_Parliament_of_Birds.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>In Chaucer’s <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-riverside-chaucer-9780199552092?lang=de&cc=lt">Parliament of Fowles</a> the birds gather in a meeting (or parliament) to choose their mate. And what date should they gather on, but Saint Valentine’s Day:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For this was on seynt Valentynes day,<br>
Whan every foul cometh there to chese his make’ (309-10)</p>
<p>For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day<br>
When every fowl comes to choose his mate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chaucer mentions four times that birds meet on Saint Valentine’s Day to choose their partner. The final reference reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Saynt Valentyne, that are ful hy on-lofte,<br>
Thus syngen smale foules for thy sake:<br>
Now welcome, somer…’ (683-85)</p>
<p>Saint Valentine, that are full lofty on high<br>
Thus small fowls (birds) sing for thy sake.<br>
Now welcome, summer…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chaucer mentions that birds sing for Saint Valentine and choose their spouse on his day. So we have a connection between Saint Valentine and love.</p>
<h2>The date of Saint Valentine’s day</h2>
<p>One question that scholars discuss is the exact date of Saint Valentine’s celebration in Chaucer. Is it in fact on Saint Valentine’s feast day on February 14? Do birds choose their mates this early in the year when it still feels like midwinter? </p>
<p><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/2847741">One argument</a> is that according to traditional medieval calendars, spring began with the appearance of the Pisces star sign, which occurred on February 15. Other traditional calendars regard February as the <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/2847741">first month of spring</a>. Several medieval calendars state that birds begin to sing on <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/2847741">February 12</a>. </p>
<p>This year by February 6 in Durham, I noted the longer daylight. I have heard birdsong in the early morning and witnessed blackbirds quarrelling in a hedge (possibly over their choice of mate).</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/1865">another suggestion</a> is that the Valentine’s Day referred to by Chaucer belongs to a certain Saint Valentine of Genoa whose feast day was held on May 2. It is argued that Chaucer potentially knew of this bishop through <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/1865">his visits to Genoa</a> in 1372 and 1373. It is possible that Chaucer had in mind this Genoese Valentine whose feast day is in May. Throughout medieval literature, May is the month when <a href="https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/spring">birds sing and lovers pair off</a>.</p>
<p>Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowles is one of the largest pieces of evidence that links Saint Valentine with courtly love. However, Chaucer was <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/1865">not alone among his 14th-century contemporaries</a> to do so. The English poet John Gower (d. 1408), the French poet Oton de Grandson (d. 1387) , and possibly the Valencian poet Pardo make references to Valentine’s Day and courtly love. </p>
<p>By 1415 the French Duke of Orleans, imprisoned in the Tower of London, called his wife “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14343/14343-h/14343-h.htm#p245"><em>Ma doulce Valentine gent</em></a>” (my sweet gentle Valentine).</p>
<p>It is possible that Chaucer began the trend of linking Saint Valentine with love and other poets copied him, but it is uncertain. What is interesting is that writers – including Chaucer and Gower – who were deeply interested in the concept of courtly love, make much of Saint Valentine’s Day. </p>
<p>This medieval connection between Valentine’s Day and love likely either reflects a notion that was popular in medieval society or that medieval poetry is responsible for propagating the connection. Thus courtly medieval literature has an important part to play with Saint Valentine and his romantic associations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199544/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Goodison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A poem about birds meeting in February to pick their mates is the first known example of Valentine’s day being connected with love.Natalie Goodison, Teaching Fellow in Department of English Studies, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1974462023-01-12T05:54:13Z2023-01-12T05:54:13ZHow Chaucer’s medieval Wife of Bath was tamed and then liberated in the 21st century<p>Chaucer’s Wife of Bath is one of the most famous characters in English literature. Since appearing in the Canterbury tales in 1387, her tale has been rewritten and adapted by authors from the <a href="http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/about-voltaire/link">French philosopher Voltaire</a> in the 18th century to the <a href="https://kilntheatre.com/whats-on/the-wife-of-willesden/?gclid=CjwKCAiAk--dBhABEiwAchIwkRs0QIeFohcfDvdYWF7Zpu_NNvBphCzTGCP9yZaj41J2Ut-DTDWlbxoCIeUQAvD_BwE">contemporary author Zadie Smith</a> in 2021.</p>
<p>As I write in <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691206011/the-wife-of-bath">my book</a>, there is something about this fictional, five-times-married, medieval woman that has taken hold of so many writers’ imaginations.</p>
<p>Before the Wife of Bath (whose name is Alison), women in literature were princesses, damsels-in distress, nuns and queens – or whores, witches and evil old crones. The principal source for the Wife of Bath is an old prostitute. Chaucer’s character is a middle-aged, mercantile, sexually active woman, who gives us her point of view. While she is an extraordinary figure (for her time), she is also an ordinary woman.</p>
<p>Across time, readers have been fascinated – and often threatened – by her. From <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/659551/pdf">scribes who argued</a> against her in the margins of 15th-century manuscripts to censors who <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4172030.pdf">burnt ballads</a> about her in the 17th century, there are many examples of her provoking anxiety in readers.</p>
<p>Many modern writers have also been drawn to her. But most of them have not been interested in her (still relevant) concern with discussing rape, domestic abuse, ageism, and the silencing of women (lines 692-696). Nor have they been interested in her humour or her self-awareness. Rather, these aspects of her have caused extreme discomfort and most authors have wanted to punish, ridicule, reduce or tame her in their own adaptations.</p>
<h2>Sex, lies and videotapes</h2>
<p>In 1972, the Italian filmmaker <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001596/">Pier Paolo Pasolini</a> made a film of the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067647/">Canterbury Tales</a>. He focused on sex and the body, in a radically skewed interpretation of Chaucer that ignores the principle of variety that underpins the original text. For Pasolini, the Wife of Bath, as an older, sexually-active woman, is an abomination.</p>
<p>In his version, sex with her literally causes her fourth husband’s death. Her fifth husband is sexually uninterested in her. The episode ends with her biting his nose, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26301382#metadata_info_tab_contents">a symbol of castration</a>. </p>
<p>Out of all of the hundreds of responses to the Wife of Bath across time that I have come across, this one is perhaps the most disturbing, demonstrating extreme discomfort with the idea of a confident, middle-aged woman.</p>
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<p>In the same decade, the British author Vera Chapman also created a new version of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/683194.The_Wife_of_Bath">the Wife of Bath</a>. This female-authored version is notably sympathetic. In Chapman’s novel, Alison is kind and considerate, even refusing advantageous marriage offers if she thinks the man might regret it.</p>
<p>But in order to make the Wife of Bath sympathetic, Chapman also makes her far more conventional. She becomes a damsel in distress, twice saved from rape by the intervention of chivalrous men. Chapman also turns her into a loving mother, giving her several children. </p>
<p>These adaptations show that the kind of woman Chaucer wrote was not seen as a viable heroine in the 1970s – she had to be tamed and made to fit into disturbingly narrow stereotypes.</p>
<h2>From Molly Bloom to #Metoo</h2>
<p>Somewhat similarly, the poet Ted Hughes celebrates and reduces the Wife of Bath. In his poem, <a href="https://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/th2-chaucer.htm">Chaucer</a>, Hughes writes that the poet Sylvia Plath recites the Wife of Bath’s Prologue out of pure enjoyment and love of Chaucer. He tells us that the Wife is Plath’s “favourite character in all literature”.</p>
<p>Both women embody certain positive characteristics – they are articulate, desirable, and confident. However, they also talk endlessly, listened to only by cows. Ultimately, Plath and Alison need to be rescued by a strong man (Hughes himself) as she too becomes a damsel in distress, unable to look after herself, and reliant on male strength and decisiveness.</p>
<p>This desire to reduce the Wife of Bath to something more generic is also evident earlier in the century. </p>
<p>James Joyce’s Molly Bloom in Ulysses is a reincarnation of Alison of Bath, as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44871131#metadata_info_tab_contents">other critics</a> have noted. However, Joyce’s focus on women as “the flesh that always affirms’” runs counter to the Wife of Bath’s interrogation of the misogynist idea that women are unintellectual. The Wife of Bath’s knowledge of the Bible and skill at argument are not paralleled in Joyce’s version, as he creates a simpler, more stereotyped and essentialised version of womanhood. </p>
<p>In the 21st century, many women writers, including <a href="https://carolinebergvall.com/link">Caroline Bergvall</a>, <a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/patience-agbabilink">Patience Agbabi</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiyKat1QzbQ">Jean “Binta” Breeze</a>, have taken on the Wife of Bath and embraced her complexities. </p>
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<p>Zadie Smith’s <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320466/the-wife-of-willesden-by-smith-zadie/9780241471968">Wife of Willesden</a> transports her to contemporary north-west London, where she becomes Alvita. Although the text is ostentatiously of the present moment, with its references to #MeToo, Jordan Peterson and Beyoncé, it closely follows Chaucer’s text. </p>
<p>Alvita, like Alison, is complex, neither monstrous nor blameless. Alison’s searing indictments of rape culture, of the power of hate-filled misogynist books, and of the structural silencing of women in her world are re-voiced as Smith emphasises their ongoing relevance in the 21st century.</p>
<p>The history of feminism is not straightforward – some things get worse over time, not better. It is only in very recent years that new adaptations are no longer less progressive than the original. Despite all the attempts to silence and humiliate her, nevertheless, the Wife of Bath persisted and her voice is now louder than ever before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197446/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:marion.turner@ell.ox.ac.uk">marion.turner@ell.ox.ac.uk</a> received funding from The Leverhulme Trust for her work on the Wife of Bath. </span></em></p>How Chaucer’s medieval Wife of Bath continues to make her voice heardMarion Turner, J.R.R Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1901142022-10-06T16:30:47Z2022-10-06T16:30:47ZWhy so many medieval manuscripts feature doodles – and what they reveal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488503/original/file-20221006-19-8en54u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C119%2C1907%2C1275&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">a drawing of the Italian poet and court writer Christine de Pizan writing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449047c/f9.item.zoom#">BNF Archives</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>To “doodle” means to draw or scrawl aimlessly, and the history of the word goes back to the early 20th century. Scribbling haphazard words, squiggly lines and mini-drawings, however, is a much older practice and its presence in books tells us a lot about how people engaged with literature in the past.</p>
<p>Although you wouldn’t dare doodle on a medieval manuscript today, squiggly lines (sometimes resembling fish or even elongated people), mini-drawings (a knight fighting a snail, for instance), and random objects appear quite often in medieval books. Usually found in the flyleaves or margins, doodles can often give medievalists (specialists in medieval history and culture) important insights into how people in earlier centuries understood and reacted to the narrative on the page.</p>
<p>It was commonplace to write in margins, underline and annotate, use blank spaces for recipes and handwriting practice, and even colour in images. Given the skills and specialisation required for writing in the Middle Ages – the training, level of literacy, access to materials, for example – doodles in manuscripts were rarely <a href="https://historyofthebook.mml.ox.ac.uk/2020/12/15/hidden-in-plain-sight-secret-messages-in-manuscript-marginalia/">thoughtless or accidental</a>. </p>
<h2>The history of doodling</h2>
<p>The origins of doodling in the Middle Ages are hard to pinpoint, but they probably started with pen trials. When we see images of scribes (people who made written copies of documents) writing, they are often depicted with a pen and knife in hand.</p>
<p>The knife was used for a variety of purposes, such as pricking and correcting errors by scraping the parchment. It was also used for gently holding the parchment in place so that the scribe could avoid resting their hand on it, which would risk leaving fingerprints or natural oil from their skin on the <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-medieval-knife-used-like-eraser-scribe-manuscripts-parchment">surface of the page</a>. </p>
<p>Importantly, the knife was used to adjust the nib of the writing instrument when it became dull after much use. After trimming the nib, the scribe would usually test the pen on a blank piece of parchment or flyleaf to make sure that his letters were legible. Doodles from pen trials were never meant to be seen by the future reader as the flyleaf would later be glued to wooden covers. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A page of medieval text featuring doodles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483820/original/file-20220910-1182-znab0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483820/original/file-20220910-1182-znab0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483820/original/file-20220910-1182-znab0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483820/original/file-20220910-1182-znab0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483820/original/file-20220910-1182-znab0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483820/original/file-20220910-1182-znab0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483820/original/file-20220910-1182-znab0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Drawings in the Book of Hours.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/library/wren-digital-library/">Wren Digital Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now, though, with modern technology, medievalists can uncover all sorts of messages that lie behind the pages of these ancient books. These types of doodles – an odd name here and there, modest works of art or even a line of music – are important because they give us a rare glimpse into the real day-to-day life of these medieval scribes and what they really thought about the books they were scribing.</p>
<p>We see this in a manuscript catalogued as <a href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Cotton_MS_Vespasian_D_VI">Cotton Vespasian D. vi</a>, which is currently held in the British Library in London. The scribe has written the Latin words “<em>Probatio Penn[a]e</em>”, which means “pen test”. </p>
<p>Sometimes, though, the scribes were a little bit bolder and wrote more emotively about their work. In Aelfric’s 11th-century Old English De termporibus anni, a concise handbook of natural science, the scribe finishes with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Sy þeos gesetnys þus her geendod. God helpe minum handum.</em></p>
<p>Thus, let this composition be ended here. God help my hands.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This scribe was obviously not enjoying their work.</p>
<p>Pen trials such as these show that scribes were not just passive processors of the text, but active participants in making the text.</p>
<h2>Marginalia</h2>
<p>Doodling in medieval books also brings us into the world of play as readers and scribes then, as now, surrendered themselves to the urge to interrupt empty spaces on the page. </p>
<p>Doodles in the margins – properly known as marginalia – offer the reader some respite from the labours associated with concentrated reading, but also tell us something about how readers reacted to and engaged with the literary world on the page. </p>
<p>For example, although Sir Thomas Malory’s <a href="https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/englit/malory/">Le Morte Darthur</a> contains relatively few marginalia compared with other medieval manuscripts (80 throughout the 473 surviving folios, by my count), they often mirror the action happening in the narrative in unique ways and demonstrate that the scribes weren’t merely mechanical copiers. Rather, their copying habits are highly sophisticated and provide an example of how, in this case, 15th-century scribes played a role in shaping the reception of literary texts by their contemporary audiences.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A page of text featuring scribbles and drawings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483826/original/file-20220910-1182-92a6f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483826/original/file-20220910-1182-92a6f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483826/original/file-20220910-1182-92a6f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483826/original/file-20220910-1182-92a6f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483826/original/file-20220910-1182-92a6f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483826/original/file-20220910-1182-92a6f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483826/original/file-20220910-1182-92a6f8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A copy of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, which was composed in Newgate Prison, London between March 1469 and March 1470. The copy features many doodles in the margin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_59678_fs001r">The British Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Books in the Middle Ages were much more valuable than they are today because of the time, skill and expense it took to make them. Besides being regarded as an object of permanence, to be retained, saved and used as a repository for eternity, medieval books were also public spaces owned by groups of people, institutions or generations of owners (up to today). </p>
<p>Doodles, annotations, marks, commentaries and additions become public declarations. Coupled with the book’s status as an enduring object, it makes sense that readers felt drawn to write their names or doodle in the margins and flyleaves of these books. Through making their mark, they – as ephemeral beings – were inscribing themselves into the book’s eternal living history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine S. Killacky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tiny drawings, such as knights riding snails, and random lines and squiggles were common in medieval books.Madeleine S. Killacky, PhD Candidate, Medieval Literature, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1673642021-10-27T19:12:16Z2021-10-27T19:12:16ZThe Green Knight review: a wonderfully unsettling cinematic reimagining of the medieval story of Sir Gawain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423752/original/file-20210929-16-okwjx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=28%2C0%2C6202%2C4119&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">A24/Eric Zachanowich</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: The Green Knight, directed by David Lowery.</em></p>
<p>Nothing about The Green Knight, the new film from director David Lowery, is comfortable. </p>
<p>From its opening scene, where Gawain (Dev Patel) sits in an empty throne room, a crown menacingly hovering above his head as flames suddenly engulf him, this film is wonderfully unsettling.</p>
<p>The Green Knight is a reimagining of the Middle English poem <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Gawain?rgn=main;view=fulltext">Sir Gawain and the Green Knight</a>, which tells the story of Gawain, a knight of King Arthur’s court. Gawain accepts a challenge from a supernatural Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) to use his axe to strike this knight, and take a reciprocating blow from him the following Christmas. </p>
<p>Although Gawain beheads his opponent, the Green Knight does not die. When Gawain departs the following year to fulfil his promise, he demonstrates chivalry and fidelity to duty. But despite this show of chivalry, his honour is tested by the lord and the lady of the Hautdesert, a castle in which he takes refuge. </p>
<p>This narrative poem is a part of the larger collection of stories about King Arthur: a pseudo-history caught up in ideas about nationhood and identity. Throughout this tradition, Arthur is posited as a “once and future king”; Camelot as a utopian government. </p>
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<p>Today, representations of the Middle Ages have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-far-right-and-white-supremacists-have-embraced-the-middle-ages-and-their-symbols-152968">embraced by right-wing nationalists</a>. But Lowery’s adaptation disrupts these narratives of a utopian past and future.</p>
<p>Lowery presents a series of contradictions and conflicts between duty, heroism, honour, fear and temptation. He offers viewers a medieval world in which contemporary anxieties about nationality, national identity and personal politics can be explored.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-far-right-and-white-supremacists-have-embraced-the-middle-ages-and-their-symbols-152968">Why the far-right and white supremacists have embraced the Middle Ages and their symbols</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The hero’s journey</h2>
<p>Despite being named for the monstrous Green Knight, this film follows the story of Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur (Sean Harris). </p>
<p>Awed by the King’s invitation to sit with him, Gawain quietly contends the other knights present “have spilled enough blood” to be more deserving of the honour.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-arthurian-legend-64289">Guide to the classics: the Arthurian legend</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But despite his inexperience, Gawain is the first to meet the challenge of the eponymous knight: to strike him and receive the same blow in return the following year. Although Gawain severs the knight’s head with one clean blow, he retrieves his gruesome head, his raspy laughter echoing off the walls.</p>
<p>Unlike the knightly figure in the medieval poem, Patel’s Gawain is not yet a knight. The bulk of this film forms his hero’s journey: his chance to spill blood for his King and be worthy of a seat at the table. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423754/original/file-20210929-14-1t8auxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dev Patel holds a sword." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423754/original/file-20210929-14-1t8auxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423754/original/file-20210929-14-1t8auxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423754/original/file-20210929-14-1t8auxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423754/original/file-20210929-14-1t8auxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423754/original/file-20210929-14-1t8auxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423754/original/file-20210929-14-1t8auxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423754/original/file-20210929-14-1t8auxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Green Knight is a hero’s journey: Gawain’s quest to prove he is worthy of becoming a knight.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">A24/Eric Zachanowich</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gawain was a celebrity as he left Camelot. The hero of street theatre productions and the subject of portraits; a popular culture icon recognised by all. But his bravery had been untested. </p>
<p>Indeed, the chivalric bravery expected of a legendary knight is remarkably absent during this journey. This Gawain displays weakness, uncertainty and fear. </p>
<p>He cites “honour” as the motivation for his journey. Yet the Gawain of this film asks the restless spirit of a raped and murdered woman for payment to retrieve her head so that she may be at peace. He succumbs to the sexual advances of the lady of the house in which he is given refuge. He would use an enchanted girdle to trick his way out of his knightly duty. </p>
<p>Honour does not seem to be one of his virtues.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-faithful-retelling-of-the-arthurian-legend-155511">There's no such thing as a 'faithful retelling' of the Arthurian legend</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>De-romanticising the medieval</h2>
<p>This disparity between the celebrated hero of medieval legend and the flawed Gawain of this film invites us to consider how the medieval is reconstructed in popular culture. </p>
<p>The Green Knight begins in a conquered land. When Gawain rides to the Green Chapel, the signs of war are all around him, from the stark landscape pocked with ruin to an entire battlefield of recently dead men. </p>
<p>These are the Saxons the King is referring to when he gives his Christmas speech:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Out my window this morn, I looked and I saw a land shaped by your hands. You have lain those same hands on your Saxon brethren, who now in your shadow bow their heads like babes. Peace. Peace you brought to your kingdom.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The peace was won through a bloody conquest, but our contemporary imagining of a medieval past often romanticises these conquests. This sort of romanticisation encourages the use of the medieval in right-wing politics, and can <a href="https://www.publicmedievalist.com/vile-love-affair/">legitimise racism</a>. </p>
<p>This film interrupts those narratives not just with the colour-conscious casting of Gawain and his mother Morgana (Sarita Choudhury), but also with its demand that we look beyond the common plot points of medievalist stories into what lies beneath: the conquests, the displacement of people, the grotesque Middle Ages.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423755/original/file-20210929-26-i47o7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dev Patel is getting dressed by three women." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423755/original/file-20210929-26-i47o7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423755/original/file-20210929-26-i47o7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423755/original/file-20210929-26-i47o7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423755/original/file-20210929-26-i47o7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423755/original/file-20210929-26-i47o7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423755/original/file-20210929-26-i47o7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423755/original/file-20210929-26-i47o7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Green Knight asks us to consider what lies beneath narratives of the Middle Ages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">A24/Eric Zachanowich</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Patel’s performance as Gawain is nothing short of captivating. Doubt, vulnerability and trepidation pour from him throughout the quest. </p>
<p>Lowery’s film is beautifully cast and beautifully shot, but always disquieting and inquisitive. It leaves the viewer with more questions than answers. </p>
<p>From the lilting, hissing, ominous voice over of the opening scene, The Green Knight will enthral you - right through to the ambiguous ending where you will release a breath you did not even know you were holding.</p>
<p><em>The Green Knight is on Amazon Prime from 28 October.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167364/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sabina Rahman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The hero of The Green Knight, played brilliantly by Dev Patel, is flawed and less than honorable. The film is a deliberately unromantic exploration of the world of King Arthur and his court.Sabina Rahman, Sessional Academic in English Literature, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1523122021-07-19T12:12:20Z2021-07-19T12:12:20ZCalls to cancel Chaucer ignore his defense of women and the innocent – and assume all his characters’ opinions are his<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411496/original/file-20210715-15-wkdao0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1337%2C2246%2C1508&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Was Chaucer a toxic misogynist, or a staunch women's ally?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/geoffrey-chaucer-english-poet-equestrian-portrait-of-news-photo/113489302">Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Spying is a risky profession. For the 14th-century English undercover agent-turned-poet Geoffrey Chaucer, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kYzgDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA95&dq=Chaucer+military+intelligence&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikmuL34d_xAhWRcc0KHRMHB0kQ6AEwAHoECAkQAg#v=onepage&q=Chaucer%20military%20intelligence&f=false">the dangers</a> – at least to his reputation – continue to surface centuries after his death. </p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/why-is-chaucer-disappearing-from-the-university-curriculum-leicester-essay-a-s-g-edwards">July 2021 essay</a> for the Times Literary Supplement, A.S.G. Edwards, professor of medieval manuscripts at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, laments the removal of Geoffrey Chaucer from university curricula. Edwards says he believes this disappearance may be propelled by a vocal cohort of scholars who see the “father of English poetry” as <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/727754">a rapist, racist and antisemite</a>.</p>
<p>The predicament would have amused Chaucer himself. Jewish and feminist scholars, among others, are shooting down one of their earliest and wisest allies. This is happening when <a href="https://voegelinview.com/feminist-thought-of-geoffrey-chaucer-the-wife-of-bath-and-all-hire-secte">new research reveals</a> a Chaucer altogether different from what many current readers have come to accept. My decades of research show he was no raunchy proponent of bro culture but a daring and ingenious <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-the-birds-hardly-valentines-day-was-reimagined-by-chivalrous-medieval-poets-for-all-to-enjoy-respectfully-155099">defender of women and the innocent</a>.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iDoS8ewAAAAJ&hl=en">medievalist who teaches Chaucer</a>, I believe the movement to cancel Chaucer has been bamboozled by his tradecraft – his consummate skill as a master of disguise.</p>
<h2>Outfoxing the professors</h2>
<p>It’s true that Chaucer’s work contains toxic material. His “<a href="https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/prologue">Wife of Bath’s Prologue</a>” in “The Canterbury Tales,” his celebrated collection of stories, quotes at length from the long tradition of classical and medieval works on the <a href="https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/12914/">evils of women</a>, as mansplained by the Wife’s elderly husbands: “You say, just as worms destroy a tree, so a wife destroys her husband.”</p>
<p>Later, “<a href="https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/%7Echaucer/teachslf/pri-par.htm">The Prioress’s Tale</a>” repeats the anti-Semitic <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/resources/glossary-terms/blood-libel">blood libel</a> story, the false accusation that Jews murdered Christians, at a time when Jews across Europe <a href="https://www.montana.edu/historybug/yersiniaessays/pariera-dinkins.html">were under attack</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An illustration of two women characters from Geoffrey Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411132/original/file-20210713-21-fxqh4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Prioress and the Wife of Bath from Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-prioress-and-the-wife-of-bath-from-old-england-a-news-photo/1036139720">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These poems in particular generate accusations that Chaucer propagated sexist and antisemitic material because he agreed with or enjoyed it. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=5rDoDwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=elaine+tuttle+hansen+chaucer+and+the+fictions+of+gender&source=gbs_navlinks_s">Several</a> <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/40555">prominent</a> <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691160092/chaucer">scholars</a> seem convinced that Chaucer’s personal views are the same as those of his characters and that Chaucer is promoting these opinions. And they believe he abducted or raped a young woman named Cecily Chaumpaigne, although the <a href="http://www.umsl.edu/%7Egradyf/chaucer/cecily.htm">legal records</a> are enigmatic. It looks as though Cecily accused Chaucer of some such crime and he paid her to clear his name. It’s unclear what actually happened between them.</p>
<p>Critics cherry-pick quotations to support their claims about Chaucer. But if you examine his writings in detail, as I have, you’ll see themes of concern for women and human rights, the oppressed and the persecuted, reappear time and time again.</p>
<h2>Chaucer the spy</h2>
<p>Readers often assume Chaucer’s characters were a reflection of the writer’s own attitude because he is such a convincing role player. Chaucer’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=E4DXD7Sk7WcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=life+of+Chaucer+Riverside+Chaucer&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiws4jr0uXxAhWnEFkFHXbCAOQQ6AEwAHoECAsQAg#v=onepage&q=life%20of%20Chaucer%20Riverside%20Chaucer&f=false">career in the English secret service</a> trained him as an observer, analyst, diplomat and master at concealing his own views.</p>
<p>In his teens, Chaucer became a confidential envoy for England. From 1359 to 1378, he graced English diplomatic delegations and carried out missions described in expense records only as “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-riverside-chaucer-9780199552092?lang=de&cc=lt">the king’s secret business</a>.”</p>
<p>Documents show him scouting paths through the Pyrenees for English forces poised to invade Spain. He lobbied Italy for money and troops, while also perhaps investigating the suspicious death of Lionel of Antwerp, an English prince who was probably poisoned soon after his wedding. </p>
<p>Chaucer’s job brought him face to face with the darkest figures of his day — the treacherous <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-II-king-of-Navarre">Charles the Bad, King of Navarre</a>, a notorious traitor and assassin, and Bernabò Visconti, lord of Milan, who helped devise a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0YoxAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA179&dq=Bernabo+Visconti+torture&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizxdyM8t_xAhVZGs0KHZgQCn0Q6AEwCHoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=Bernabo%20Visconti%20torture&f=false">40-day torture protocol</a>.</p>
<p>Chaucer’s poetry reflects his experience as an English agent. He enjoyed role-playing and assuming many identities in his writing. And like the couriers he dispatched from Italy in 1378, he brings his readers covert messages split between multiple speakers. Each teller holds just a piece of the puzzle. The whole story can only be understood when all the messages arrive. </p>
<p>He also uses the skills of a secret agent to express dangerous truths not accepted in his own day, when misogyny and antisemitism were both entrenched, especially among the clergy.</p>
<p>Chaucer does not preach or explain. Instead, he lets the formidable Wife of Bath, the character he most enjoyed, tell us about the misogyny of her five husbands and fantasize about how ladies of King Arthur’s court might take revenge on a rapist. Or he makes his deserted <a href="http://mcllibrary.org/Houseoffame/">Queen Dido cry</a>: “Given their bad behavior, it’s a shame any woman ever took pity on any man.”</p>
<h2>Chaucer the chivalrous defender</h2>
<p>While current critiques of Chaucer label him as an <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/40555">exponent of toxic masculinity</a>, he was actually an <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=E5BCs9mylBsC&pg=PA379&dq=Chaucer+human+rights&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjKqeXc1OXxAhV3F1kFHZztDcYQ6AEwAXoECAoQAg#v=onepage&q=Chaucer%20human%20rights&f=false">advocate for human rights</a>. </p>
<p>My own research shows that in the course of his career he supported women’s right to choose their own mates and the human desire for freedom from enslavement, coercion, verbal abuse, political tyranny, judicial corruption and sexual trafficking. In “The Canterbury Tales” and “The Legend of Good Women,” he tells many stories on such themes. There he opposed assassination, infanticide and femicide, the mistreatment of prisoners, sexual harassment and domestic abuse. He valued self-control in action and in speech. He spoke out for women, enslaved people and Jews. </p>
<p>“Women want to be free and not coerced like slaves, and so do men,” the narrator of <a href="https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/%7Echaucer/teachslf/frkt-par.htm">“The Franklin’s Prologue” says</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>As for Jews, Chaucer salutes their ancient heroism in his early poem “<a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/English/Fame.php">The House of Fame</a>.” He depicts them as a people who have done great good in the world, only to be rewarded with slander. In “The Prioress’s Tale” he shows them being libeled by a desperate character to cover up a crime of which they were manifestly innocent, a century after all Jews had been brutally expelled from England.</p>
<p>Chaucer’s own words demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt that when his much underestimated Prioress tells her antisemitic blood libel tale, Chaucer is not endorsing it. Through <a href="https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/%7Echaucer/teachslf/pri-par.htm">her own words and actions</a>, and a cascade of reactions from those who hear her, he is exposing such guilty and dangerous actors as they deploy such lies.</p>
<p>And was he a rapist or an abductor? <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/07/document-casts-new-light-on-chaucer-rape-case">It’s unlikely</a>. The case suggests he might well have been targeted, perhaps even because of his work. Few authors have ever been more <a href="https://scholarship.depauw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1133&context=studentresearch">outspoken about man’s inhumanity to women</a>.</p>
<p>It is bizarre that one of the strongest and earliest writers in English literature to speak out against rape and support women and the downtrodden should be pilloried and threatened with cancellation. </p>
<p>But Chaucer knew the complexity of his art put him at risk. As his character the Squire dryly observed, people all too often “demen gladly to the badder ende” – “They are happy to assume the worst.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Wollock is a member of the New Chaucer Society.</span></em></p>Chaucer’s career as a secret agent helped him assume different disguises in his writing. Some scholars interpret this role-playing as Chaucer being sexist and anti-Semitic.Jennifer Wollock, Professor of English, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1550992021-02-11T20:10:50Z2021-02-11T20:10:50ZFor the birds? Hardly! Valentine’s Day was reimagined by chivalrous medieval poets for all to enjoy, respectfully<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383815/original/file-20210211-19-qdtz6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=302%2C627%2C761%2C755&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Roses are red, thieving birds are blue. My neck is aching, are you uncomfortable too?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg848/0494">Universitatbibliothek Heidelberg</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Valentine’s Day <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2012/02/13/opinion/obeidallah-hate-valentines-day/index.html">annoys many people</a>.</p>
<p>For many in a relationship, the pressure to impress a partner can weigh heavily, and expensive gifts serve as a reminder of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/feb/12/valentines-day-commercialised">relentless commercialization</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228150577_A_Holiday_Loved_and_Loathed_A_Consumer_Perspective_of_Valentine's_Day">of the holiday</a>. Meanwhile those still looking for love <a href="https://blog.pof.com/2020/01/the-pressures-of-valentines-day-dating-study/">approach the day with trepidation</a> – another reminder of their single status and the pressure to find a partner.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholars.library.tamu.edu/vivo/display/nbfd0863b/Persons/View%20All">chivalric literary historian</a> who has studied the origins of the holiday, I find this a shame. When the notion of Valentine’s Day as a day for romance emerged in the 1380s it was all about love as a natural life force – birds choosing their mates, the freedom to choose or refuse love and the arrival of springtime. But even then many people did not understand or value these things. In fact, that is why it was invented. </p>
<h2>Odes to love</h2>
<p>The first to write of Valentine’s Day – a feast day with <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/holidays/reference/saint-st-valentines-day/#:%7E:text=The%20earliest%20possible%20origin%20story,sacrifice%20a%20goat%20and%20dog.&text=When%20Pope%20Gelasius%20came%20to,put%20an%20end%20to%20Lupercalia.">ancient pagan roots</a> – as a holiday celebrating love and lovers were the 14th-century <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/geoffrey-chaucer">English squire Geoffrey Chaucer</a> and his friend, the internationally admired <a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/nicholson-grenier-winther-granson-poems-introduction">knight and poet Oton III de Granson</a>, from Savoy in modern-day France. Both poets were recognized in their own time as chivalrous advocates for human rights. And in tandem, they seem to have <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-parliament-of-fowls#:%7E:text=The%20idea%20that%20Valentine's%20Day,their%20mates%20for%20the%20year.">concocted Valentine’s Day as a day for lovers</a>.</p>
<p>Their work supported principles still important for us today, notably the right to free choice in love and the right to refuse romantic advances.</p>
<p>Chaucer and Granson encountered one another in the service of <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Richard_II_of_England/">Richard II of England</a> and admired one another’s poetry. Their poems about Valentine’s Day show them operating as an international chivalric team to address pressing issues in the theory and practice of love, then and now.</p>
<p>In the poem “<a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/English/Fowls.php">The Parliament of Fowls</a>,” Chaucer presents Valentine’s Day as a day when birds gather to choose their mates under the supervision of nature. In the poem, presented as a dream, three rival eagles each express a lifelong commitment to a single female. Birds of lower social status and different temperament, waiting in line, quarrel about how to resolve the impasse so they, too, can select their mates.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An engraving of four eagles in a tree as depicted in Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Parliament of Fowls'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383790/original/file-20210211-15-1ycv2m0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 19th-century illustration of Chaucer’s ‘Parliament of Fowls.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/illustration-from-the-kelmscott-press-edition-of-the-works-news-photo/464000155?adppopup=true">The Print Collector/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the scenario, two of the eagles must be disappointed – Valentine’s Day is no guarantee that all will find love. But in the end the wise female eagle obtains from the figure of Nature the right to take her time in deciding her mate. She chooses not to choose. It is a story of waiting to recognize one’s true love, knowing your own heart and having the right to choose your partner yourself.</p>
<p>Chaucer’s tale relates to an actual courtship that included three suitors and ended in the wedding of two 15-year-olds: <a href="https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/royals/richard-ii-and-anne-of-bohemia">Richard II and the princess Anne of Bohemia</a>, in 1382. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Granson promoted Valentine’s Day in his French poems as a day for human lovers to choose one another and pledge their love, as do the birds. Granson pledges his own undying love to a mysterious lady in his “<a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/granson-nicholson-grenier-winther-complainte-de-saint-vallentin-garenson">Complaint to Saint Valentine</a>.” There was no merchandise involved and no gifts were expected.</p>
<h2>Free love</h2>
<p>Chaucer and Granson’s celebration of love as a relationship between partners, a union of souls grounded in respect and the freedom of choice, contrasts with many of the traditions of the age in which they lived.</p>
<p>Throughout the Middle Ages, most <a href="https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/society/sex/sex-spouses.php">marriages were arranged and often forced</a>, usually in childhood – as <a href="https://www.unicef.org/stories/child-marriage-around-world">many still are today</a> – with the full support of tradition and the law. Saints’ lives and legal documents describe <a href="https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1948&context=mff">parents coercing children to marry</a> by brute force. Chaucer’s own father was <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TQHw98Pn16IC&pg=PA371&dq=John+Chaucer+aunt+kidnapping&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwia1M3l9uHuAhXaG80KHYaWDLIQ6AEwAnoECAcQAg#v=onepage&q=John%20Chaucer%20aunt%20kidnapping&f=false">kidnapped at age 12 by his aunt</a> in an attempt to force him to marry her daughter in order to gain control over his inheritance.</p>
<p>In this context, Chaucer and Granson reimagined the already existing Valentine’s Day festival to celebrate the potential beauty of love itself. In a world where forced and child marriages are still all too common, it is important to reflect on Chaucer and Granson’s visions. Their reinvention of the day opened the eyes of poets, knights, ladies and just plain folk to the need for respect and self-respect in courtship – and the value of partnerships entered into for love, not just for lust, power or money.</p>
<p>Servants of love, these two knightly poets shaped Valentine’s Day as a gift for future generations. Their chivalrous enterprise deserves to be celebrated as we pursue our own happiness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Wollock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The view of Valentine’s Day as a day for lovers can be traced back to two medieval poets who stood up for romance and the freedom to choose.Jennifer Wollock, Professor of English, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1426622020-08-03T05:05:31Z2020-08-03T05:05:31ZChaucer’s great poem Troilus and Criseyde: perfect reading while under siege from a virus<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350107/original/file-20200729-31-yu15l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C4%2C926%2C1194&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chaucer at the Court of Edward III by Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/ford-madox-brown/chaucer-at-the-court-of-edward-iii-1851">Wikiart</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In our series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Art+for+trying+times">Art for Trying Times</a>, authors nominate a work they turn to for solace or perspective during this pandemic.</em></p>
<p>The Greeks are at the gates, and the city of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Siege-of-Troy-1250-BCE">Troy is under siege</a>.</p>
<p>Every day, the Trojans ride out to do battle with Agamemnon, Odysseus, Ajax and the aggrieved husband Menelaus, whose wife Helen has been abducted by the Trojan prince Paris. But despite this crisis, the Trojan leisured classes carry on with their lives.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fall-of-troy-the-legend-and-the-facts-92625">Fall of Troy: the legend and the facts</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One joyful spring morning, when the sun is shining and the meadows are filled with flowers, a beautiful young widow, Criseyde, sits in her palace, in a paved parlour with two other ladies, while a young maiden reads to them the story of another siege, that of the Greek city of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thebes,_Greece">Thebes</a>. </p>
<p>This pleasant scene is interrupted by Criseyde’s uncle Pandarus, who is bringing the astonishing news that Paris’s younger brother Troilus has fallen in love with her. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Geoffrey_Chaucer/">Geoffrey Chaucer</a> wrote his great romance <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Troilus-Criseyde-Penguin-Classics-Geoffrey/dp/0140424210/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1595565343&refinements=p_27%3ABarry+Windeatt&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Barry+Windeatt">Troilus and Criseyde</a> around 1386. I teach this text every year in my honours class. It is long and difficult, and we normally spend half the semester working through the poem. Even then we don’t read it all in detail. </p>
<p>This year, the global pandemic brings a new context for reading this poem about a passionate but doomed love affair between two Trojans, conducted under siege conditions, in addition to all the constraints Chaucer’s very medieval lovers place around themselves.</p>
<h2>A secret affair</h2>
<p>Chaucer’s language in this text is rich and ornate, and the poem is written in a rhyming stanza whose syntax ranges from elegant to knotty. The narrative is both leisurely and intense. </p>
<p>It offers philosophical digressions about the nature of free will and predestination; but it is also full of intricate private meditations, and absorbing, intense conversations between the three main characters. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350115/original/file-20200729-17-14pfivp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Book cover: medieval painting of couple" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350115/original/file-20200729-17-14pfivp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350115/original/file-20200729-17-14pfivp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350115/original/file-20200729-17-14pfivp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350115/original/file-20200729-17-14pfivp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350115/original/file-20200729-17-14pfivp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350115/original/file-20200729-17-14pfivp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350115/original/file-20200729-17-14pfivp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.amazon.com/Troilus-Criseyde-Penguin-Classics-Geoffrey/dp/0140424210/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1595565343&refinements=p_27%3ABarry+Windeatt&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Barry+Windeatt">Penguin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nothing in the brutal rough and tumble of Shakespeare’s later play <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/troilus-and-cressida/">Troilus and Cressida</a> can prepare you for the lyric drama of this poem.</p>
<p>Criseyde’s father has abandoned Troy and gone over to the Greek camp. She has been allowed to remain in Troy, but she is very vulnerable and fearful. The love affair must remain secret to protect her honour; Troilus and Criseyde cannot marry because he is a prince and she is the daughter of a traitor; and nor can they leave Troy and abandon their city. </p>
<p>They are also both overcome by shyness, dread, and reluctance to speak to each other. Indeed, the lovers do not exchange a single word until the beginning of the third book, and by the beginning of the fifth and final book they have parted, never to meet again. </p>
<p>Every year my students bring fresh insights to this poem’s emotional and cultural drama. Although I am on long service leave this semester, I am still conducting my annual reading of the poem on Zoom with a group of friends and colleagues. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/ancient-medieval-and-early-modern-studies/seminars-reading-groups/middle-english">Middle English Reading Group</a> is made up of staff, present and former students, and members of a thriving community of scholars and lovers of medieval and early modern culture. </p>
<p>This year, reading together through Zoom offers a powerful contrast with Chaucer’s scene of medieval women’s communal reading. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o0j2ifNeZvM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Leisurely yet intense language fills rhyming stanza – all seven hours of them.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/say-what-how-to-improve-virtual-catch-ups-book-groups-and-wine-nights-134655">Say what? How to improve virtual catch-ups, book groups and wine nights</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Reading aloud</h2>
<p>When Pandarus enters Criseyde’s paved parlour, where the maiden is reading from the book about the siege of Thebes, she greets him warmly and brings him to sit next to her. Hoping to turn her mood to thoughts of love, he asks what they are reading: is it a book about love? Is there anything he can learn?</p>
<p>Criseyde teases her uncle and when they have finished laughing she tells him where they are up to. She points to “thise lettres rede,” the <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/rubricated">rubricated</a> or decoratively coloured chapter heading that introduces the next section.</p>
<p>Pandarus replies that he knows all about that sorrowful story but insists they should turn their thoughts to spring, as a prelude to introducing his news about Troilus. He invites her to dance but Criseyde recoils in horror. As a widow, she says, it would be better for her to live in a cave, to pray, and read the lives of the saints. </p>
<p>In typical Chaucerian fashion, this passage shows a female character’s awareness of what she might do, and perhaps should do, but does not. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-iliad-80968">Guide to the classics: Homer's Iliad</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Unhappy endings</h2>
<p>The domestic charms of this safe interior space, Pandarus’ fearful invitation, and the pleasures of reading and talking about familiar books distract us from the dreadful history lesson in the book they are reading. For just as Thebes was destroyed under siege, so too will Troy be. </p>
<p>Chaucer’s readers knew this; we know it; and even Criseyde’s father, a soothsayer, knows it: he has already abandoned Troy and gone over to the Greek camp, leaving her unprotected except for her uncle who is about to embroil her in the complexities of Trojan court politics.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350105/original/file-20200729-35-ejdhzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Book cover: writer Chaucer" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350105/original/file-20200729-35-ejdhzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350105/original/file-20200729-35-ejdhzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350105/original/file-20200729-35-ejdhzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350105/original/file-20200729-35-ejdhzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350105/original/file-20200729-35-ejdhzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350105/original/file-20200729-35-ejdhzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350105/original/file-20200729-35-ejdhzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wiley.com/en-au/30+Great+Myths+about+Chaucer-p-9781119194057">Wiley</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We know that this love story will turn out badly. In the very first stanza, Chaucer has told us the ending of the story: that Troilus will win Criseyde, but that she will forsake him. </p>
<p>Knowing the ending doesn’t affect our pleasure in this text. And so we read on, absorbed by Chaucer’s capacity to conjure the lives of others as they balance distress with hope, and external disaster with private joy. </p>
<p>Like the Trojans, we may not be able to learn from the past so as to avoid disaster. But Chaucer is forgiving, and offers us the seductive pleasures of reading and rereading, and the comfort of repetition.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/missing-your-friends-rereading-harry-potter-might-be-the-next-best-thing-136236">Missing your friends? Rereading Harry Potter might be the next best thing</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Trigg receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>When we feel under siege, Chaucer’s doomed love story during the battle for Troy might be just the distraction we need.Stephanie Trigg, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of English Literature, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1421782020-07-08T10:03:41Z2020-07-08T10:03:41ZCity of Ladies: modern artists are redefining a 15th-century call to arms by an early French feminist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346007/original/file-20200707-194396-1v42ao5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C2024%2C1242&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christine in her study with the three virtuous ladies as the construction of the city begins. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">London, British Library, Harley MS 4431, fol. 290r</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Alone am I and alone I wish to be.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So runs the opening line of <a href="https://archive.org/details/oeuvrespotiqu01chri/page/12/mode/2up">one of the most famous <em>ballades</em></a> composed by Christine de Pizan (c.1364 to c.1430), a professional writer in service at the court of France in the early 15th century. </p>
<p>Her story has particular relevance today. Over the course of our recent enforced and necessary isolation, several news outlets have pointed out the productive potential of quarantines for <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-rich-reacted-to-the-bubonic-plague-has-eerie-similarities-to-todays-pandemic-135925">Boccaccio</a> and <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/alumni/life-in-lockdown">Isaac Newton</a>, both of whom composed their magnum opuses from a place of seclusion. Christine’s case is slightly different – rather than being forced into solitude, she sought it out, and from her isolated study in Paris, she imagined a better world. </p>
<p>Christine’s vision was given allegorical shape in her work of 1405, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/works/the-book-of-the-city-of-ladies">The Book of the City of Ladies</a> – a work whose proto-feminist stance has inspired modern artists to creatively imagine how the world might be created differently for women.</p>
<p>Christine’s City of Ladies is, in essence, an anthology of good women drawn from historical, literary and biblical sources whose combined stories counter <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2928500">the misogyny found so often in medieval literature</a>. In the text, the writer bemoans that men have written “so many devilish and wicked thoughts about women and their behaviour”, a lament that culminates in her crying out to God: “why did You not let me be born in the world as a male?” </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346019/original/file-20200707-194418-vulwfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346019/original/file-20200707-194418-vulwfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346019/original/file-20200707-194418-vulwfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346019/original/file-20200707-194418-vulwfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346019/original/file-20200707-194418-vulwfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346019/original/file-20200707-194418-vulwfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346019/original/file-20200707-194418-vulwfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346019/original/file-20200707-194418-vulwfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A group of women welcome the Virgin Mary and other female saints into the City of Ladies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">London, British Library, Harley MS 4431, fol. 361r</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Immediately, the three virtuous ladies Reason, Rectitude and Justice appear before her and tell her she is to build a “city of ladies”. This city is, on a literal level, a fortified city, a place in which virtuous women can take refuge against misogynous diatribes – an architectural aspect of the city that is emphasised in the miniatures that illustrate the manuscript.</p>
<p>The city is also represented by a collection of narratives aiming to counter the torrent of anti-feminist literature circulating at the time, and forms a metaphorical double for Christine’s book. The women whose stories form its individual chapters thereby form the materials that construct the architectural city.</p>
<h2>Contemporary readings</h2>
<p>The architectural aspect of the text was taken up and creatively rendered in Tai Shani’s 2019 Turner prize-winning work, <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/turner-contemporary/exhibition/turner-prize-2019/tai-shani">DC: Semiramis</a>. It’s an artistic and psychedelic expansion of the medieval text that encompasses performative and sculptural features in an immersive, large-scale installation. In the performance, the bodies of 12 real women partly construct the feminised city that Shani imagines.</p>
<p>But the recorded performances, which are intended to be viewed alongside the display, also give a certain dynamism to the static figures. Unlike in Christine’s text, where the stories of women from history are recounted in the third person, here they speak directly to the camera to tell their own. </p>
<p>Shani is not the only feminist artist to have been influenced by Christine’s work. Judy Chicago’s art installation <a href="https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/christine_de_pisan">The Dinner Party</a> (1979) was the first to incorporate the medieval author into a modern artistic context. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346033/original/file-20200707-46-1eod0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346033/original/file-20200707-46-1eod0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346033/original/file-20200707-46-1eod0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346033/original/file-20200707-46-1eod0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346033/original/file-20200707-46-1eod0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346033/original/file-20200707-46-1eod0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346033/original/file-20200707-46-1eod0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party: Christine de Pizan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brooklyn Museum/Photograph by Jook Leung</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Chicago in effect created her own city of ladies in a different shape – famous women from history are guests at her dinner table as opposed to bricks in a building.</p>
<h2>Building a perfect world</h2>
<p>More recently, Penelope Haralambidou, from the Bartlett School of Architecture, displayed her exhibit <a href="https://domobaal.com/exhibitions/112-20-penelope-haralambidou-01.html">City of Ladies</a> at London’s <a href="https://www.domobaal.com/">Domobaal gallery</a> earlier this year. The exhibit uses Christine’s book similarly to Shani – as a starting point from which to reflect on broader topics. </p>
<p>This installation probes at the architectural theme in Christine’s text: if we had to start from scratch and build a city of ladies, from where would we start, and how would it be different? Haralambidou seeks to claim Christine for female architects since, in her words, “everything we see around us was physically constructed and imagined by men”. </p>
<p>For her display, Haralambidou took the three objects carried by the three virtuous ladies in Christine’s narrative as her focus: a mirror, a ruler, and a vessel. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346037/original/file-20200707-194427-4lady3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346037/original/file-20200707-194427-4lady3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346037/original/file-20200707-194427-4lady3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346037/original/file-20200707-194427-4lady3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346037/original/file-20200707-194427-4lady3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346037/original/file-20200707-194427-4lady3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346037/original/file-20200707-194427-4lady3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Penelope Haralambidou, ‘City of Ladies’: installation represents the three parts of Christine’s book.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charlotte Cooper-Davis</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The design of each object has been reimagined in a “feminine” way: the mirror is not flat, but curved and malleable, suggesting a different way of looking at things; the markings on the ruler, moulded around the artist’s fingers, allow measurements to be made using female dimensions.</p>
<p>The final object is a vessel, cast as an hourglass – intended to measure time. In a way that recalls the name of the <a href="https://timesupnow.org/">Time’s Up Now</a> movement, its purpose is to signal that a city conceived around female dimensions has not yet been made possible and to ask: “when will such a city be built?” </p>
<p>The means of constructing the glass vessel, which started as a ball of liquid glass that was gradually expanded, is echoed in a video which shows the biological formation of architectural models.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346311/original/file-20200708-47-1ry5yws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346311/original/file-20200708-47-1ry5yws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346311/original/file-20200708-47-1ry5yws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346311/original/file-20200708-47-1ry5yws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346311/original/file-20200708-47-1ry5yws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346311/original/file-20200708-47-1ry5yws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346311/original/file-20200708-47-1ry5yws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Penelope Haralambidou, ‘City of Ladies’. A 3D-printing of one of Christine’s manuscript illuminations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andy Keate for Domobaal</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These models are to-scale 3D printings of the architecture in Christine’s manuscript illuminations. In the video, the models of the city start off as indefinite shapes that slowly morph and grow until they form distinct structures and buildings. As the shapes take on architectural forms, the medieval illuminations are projected onto the emerging structures. The sounds on the video – the pulse of a heart, liquids oozing and bubbling, the muffled sound of a distant female voice – confirm that what we see is the city growing inside a womb. </p>
<p>Although it does not provide answers to how the new world into which we now tentatively begin to emerge <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/how-will-the-world-emerge-from-the-coronavirus-crisis">will be shaped differently</a>, artistic adaptations of Christine’s work are a testament to art, providing a medium in which alternatives to the status quo can be explored and imagined. </p>
<p>As we find ourselves trying to glimpse the new world take shape – the principles and people that will be valued within it – it may be of some comfort to know that women have been dreaming of a changed world from a place of solitude for hundreds of years. Can we dare to hope that some of those dreams might be about to come true?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlotte Cooper-Davis receives has previously received funding from the AHRC (terminated in 2015). </span></em></p>Christine de Pizan’s 15th-century feminist narrative has particular resonance today.Charlotte Cooper-Davis, Lecturer in French, St Hilda's College Oxford, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1397032020-06-03T14:08:59Z2020-06-03T14:08:59ZKnow your place – poetry after the Black Death reflected fear of social change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339474/original/file-20200603-130940-8lrxik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C53%2C17717%2C7001&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chaucer commended those who followed their societal roles and condemned those who didn't.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/g/morphart?searchterm=chaucer&sort=popular">Morphart Creation/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The sharp fall in population caused by the waves of plague which followed the arrival of the Black Death in 1348 led to one of the most <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=N6iODwAAQBAJ&pg=PT276&lpg=PT276&dq=By+1377,+the+population+was+around+only+a+half+of+its+pre-plague+level&source=bl&ots=qYKX8_xTdb&sig=ACfU3U37Lz2TvmZb80VFZbA9PzQDEgNUkA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjQvtuctuXpAhUHUxUIHR4XBu0Q6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=By%201377%2C%20the%20population%20was%20around%20only%20a%20half%20of%20its%20pre-plague%20level&f=falsef">dramatic periods of economic and social change</a> in English history. By 1377, the population was around only a half of its pre-plague level but for those who survived there were new opportunities. </p>
<p>With a great deal of land now available, peasants could obtain larger holdings and rent them on more favourable terms. Likewise, those who worked for wages could take advantage of the labour shortage to obtain higher wages enjoy more varied diets – with more meat and dairy – and buy a wider range of manufactured goods. </p>
<p>The second half of the 14th century was thus a period of rising living standards, social mobility and increasing class conflict as the lower orders now sought to obtain improved terms from their landlords and employers.</p>
<p>The dramatic social changes of these years drew several responses from contemporary poets. In the medieval period, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/36688848/England_Literature_and_Society">imaginative literature</a> was often seen as having an ethical function by teaching virtue, which was defined as fulfilling the expected tasks of their social order. <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4Vou9SZVHDAC&pg=PA498&lpg=PA498&dq=Modern+literary+critics+often+see+the+function+of+imaginative+literature+as+that+of+challenging+dominant+ideologies&source=bl&ots=vsIWZyjOuN&sig=ACfU3U3dyUYv2iWQBlHXmG4r0oMIVqvhHQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjBgZvRtuXpAhXoUhUIHUE2DV8Q6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Modern%20literary%20critics%20often%20see%20the%20function%20of%20imaginative%20literature%20as%20that%20of%20challenging%20dominant%20ideologies&f=false">Modern literary critics</a> often see imaginative literature challenging dominant ideologies or providing a sanctioned space for the expression of social dissidence. By contrast, the work of poets in the post-plague era often sought to buttress the social hierarchy against the threats with which it was now confronted. </p>
<h2>Langland and Gower against the peasants</h2>
<p>Such sentiments are to be found in William Langland’s allegorical poem, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Mp7j_xqKQ9IC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=cato:+to+%22bear+patiently+the+burden+of+poverty%22&source=bl&ots=sQ7keAyvp6&sig=ACfU3U3E64g6iMmh7bXW83moQK42fSSn5w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiXyKnJp-PpAhVPUBUIHeJgBiMQ6AEwAXoECAsQAQ#v=onepage&q=cato%3A%20to%20%22bear%20patiently%20the%20burden%20of%20poverty%22&f=false">Piers Plowman</a> (B-version written c. 1380). Here, the poet expresses his sympathy for those who were genuinely poor or hard-working but echoes post-plague labour legislation and attacked those who, he believed, preferred to beg rather than work.</p>
<p>There had been frequent complaints in parliament about labourers who preferred handouts to work or who took advantage of the labour shortage to demand higher wages. In response, a series of laws were introduced to reduce labour mobility and freeze wages at their pre-plague levels. Langland also calls upon the knightly class to defend the community from those “wasters” who refused to work and criticised the labourers who impatiently demanded higher wages and refused to obey the new legislation. </p>
<p>Contemporary moralists complained about those who rose above their allotted station in life and so in 1363 a law was passed that specified the food and dress that were appropriate for each social class. In line with such attitudes, Langland railed against the presumption of labourers who disdained day-old vegetables, bacon and cheap ale and instead demanded fresh meat, fish and fine ale.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339487/original/file-20200603-130903-59gc95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339487/original/file-20200603-130903-59gc95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339487/original/file-20200603-130903-59gc95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339487/original/file-20200603-130903-59gc95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339487/original/file-20200603-130903-59gc95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339487/original/file-20200603-130903-59gc95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339487/original/file-20200603-130903-59gc95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Gower depicted as an archer in Vox Clamantis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://dpg.lib.berkeley.edu/webdb/dsheh/heh_brf?Description=&CallNumber=HM+150">Berkley</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similar views are expressed in John Gower’s poem <em><a href="http://gowertranslation.pbworks.com/w/page/53690515/Vox%20Clamantis">Vox Clamantis</a></em> (the Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness) where the peasants are attacked for being idle and utterly wicked. The common people had fallen into an evil disposition in which they ignored the labour laws and were only willing to work if they received the highest pay. </p>
<p>When the lower orders refused to know their place, as in the Great Revolt of 1381 (also known as the Peasants’ Revolt), they were denounced by contemporary chroniclers as wicked, treacherous, and diabolical. In line with such criticism, Gower’s poem includes an allegorical account of the rising that portrays the rebels as farmyard animals rising up against their masters. They subsequently turn into monsters that attack humanity and becoming followers of Satan in their attachment to wrongdoing and slaughter. </p>
<h2>Chaucer’s difficult voice</h2>
<p>However, if Langland and Gower were openly hostile to the aspirations of the peasants and the labourers, Geoffrey Chaucer has proved more difficult to read. For many critics, Chaucer is a writer who prefers to <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12898557/Reading_Chaucer_Literature_History_and_Ideology">present his readers with questions</a> rather than providing them with stock answers. To them, his use of multiple voices and shifting perspectives pose a challenge to the accepted contemporary beliefs and exposes the kind of ideology found in the works of a Gower as partial and inadequate. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339486/original/file-20200603-130907-f5x96w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339486/original/file-20200603-130907-f5x96w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339486/original/file-20200603-130907-f5x96w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339486/original/file-20200603-130907-f5x96w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339486/original/file-20200603-130907-f5x96w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339486/original/file-20200603-130907-f5x96w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339486/original/file-20200603-130907-f5x96w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Instead of committing to a pious life of study and prayer, the monk pursued the pleasure of hunting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/g/morphart?searchterm=chaucer&sort=popular">Morphart Creation/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet for other critics, Chaucer is much more conservative or even, as the medieval scholar Alcuin Blamires puts it, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/31198175_Chaucer_the_reactionary_ideology_and_the_General_Prologue_to_The_Canterbury_Tales">reactionary in his outlook</a>. After all, among the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales, those who are presented as admirable are the ones who dutifully perform the traditional functions of their social estate. For example, the Parson is a good shepherd to his flock, the Knight is a chivalrous crusader, and the Plowman works hard and faithfully pays his tithes. It is those who fail in their duties or seek to rise above their station whom Chaucer satirises – as when the Monk prefers hunting to a life of study and prayer or when the Wife of Bath seeks female supremacy in marriage.</p>
<p>Certainly, <a href="https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/%7Echaucer/teachslf/parst-tran.htm">the Parson</a> offers us a socially conservative message when, at the end of the Canterbury Tales, he preaches that as part of the divinely arranged cosmic order, God has ordained that some people should be of higher social rank and others should be lower. People should, therefore, render honour and obedience not only to God but also to their spiritual fathers and their secular superiors. Nobody should lament their misfortunes or envy the prosperity of others but rather should endure adversity in patience in the hope of obtaining joy and ease in the next life. </p>
<p>Given that <a href="https://www.academia.edu/42900073/Ideology_from_P._Brown_ed._A_New_Companion_to_Chaucer_2019_pp._201-12">medieval literary theory</a> regards the ending of a text as being particularly important in conveying its meaning, we may perhaps regard Chaucer’s views as being in line with his Parson. If so, then Chaucer’s response to the social change of his day may have been rather closer to the views of Gower and Langland than many of his modern readers would like to admit. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/recovery-series-87523">Read and listen more from the Recovery series here.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139703/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Rigby has received funding from ESRC, AHRC, Nuffield Foundation and British Academy. </span></em></p>Poets and the wealthy were angered by those who saw their opportunity to rise above their station after the plague.Stephen Rigby, Emeritus Professor of Medieval Social and Economic History, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1341142020-03-31T12:49:38Z2020-03-31T12:49:38ZHow medieval writers struggled to make sense of the Black Death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324123/original/file-20200330-174736-28ldcp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=427%2C716%2C7666%2C4046&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Black Death inspired medieval writers to document their era of plague. Their anxieties and fears are starkly reminiscent of our own even if their solutions differ.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A plague of serious proportions is ravaging the world. But not for the first time. </p>
<p>From 1347-51, the <a href="https://arc-humanities.org/products/p-8097-116104-66-7727-1/">Black Death</a> killed anywhere from one-tenth to one-half (<a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/black-death-greatest-catastrophe-ever">or more</a>) of Europe’s population. </p>
<p>One English chronicler, Thomas Walsingham, noted how this “great mortality” transformed the known world: “<a href="https://archive.org/details/thomwalsinghamh00walsgoog/mode/2up">Towns once packed with people were emptied of their inhabitants, and the plague spread so thickly that the living were hardly able to bury the dead.</a>” As death tolls rose at exponential rates, rents dwindled, and swaths of land fell to waste “<a href="https://archive.org/details/polychroniconra00lumbgoog/page/n7/mode/2up">for want of the tenants who used to cultivate it….</a>”</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321655/original/file-20200319-22590-ntqdh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321655/original/file-20200319-22590-ntqdh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321655/original/file-20200319-22590-ntqdh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321655/original/file-20200319-22590-ntqdh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321655/original/file-20200319-22590-ntqdh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321655/original/file-20200319-22590-ntqdh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321655/original/file-20200319-22590-ntqdh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pierart dou Tielt’s miniature, Burying Plague Victims of Tournai.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doutielt3.jpg">(Wikimedia Commons)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a medieval historian, I’ve been teaching the subject of plague for many years. If nothing else, the feelings of panic between the Black Death and the COVID-19 pandemic are reminiscent. </p>
<p>Like today’s crisis, medieval writers struggled to make sense of the disease; theories on its origins and transmission abounded, some more convincing than others. Whatever the result, “… so much misery ensued,” wrote another English author, it was feared that the world would “<a href="https://archive.org/details/polychroniconra00lumbgoog/page/n7/mode/2up">hardly be able to regain its previous condition.</a>”</p>
<h2>A disease without borders</h2>
<p>Medieval writers produced a variety of answers for the plague’s origins. Gabriele de Mussis’ <em>Historia de Morbo</em> attributed the cause to “the mire of manifold wickedness,” the “numberless vices,” and the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526112712.00008">limitless capacity for evil</a>” exhibited by an entire human race no longer fearing the judgement of God.</p>
<p>Describing its eastern origins, he further noted how the Genoese and Venetians had imported the disease to western Europe from Caffa (modern-day Ukraine); “carrying the darts of death,” disembarking sailors at these Italian port-cities unwittingly spread the “poison” to their relations, kinsmen and neighbours. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321762/original/file-20200319-22602-yvjjlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321762/original/file-20200319-22602-yvjjlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=644&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321762/original/file-20200319-22602-yvjjlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=644&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321762/original/file-20200319-22602-yvjjlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=644&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321762/original/file-20200319-22602-yvjjlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321762/original/file-20200319-22602-yvjjlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321762/original/file-20200319-22602-yvjjlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Master of Bruges of 1482’s rendering of Giovanni Boccaccio and Florentines who have fled from the plague.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giovanni_Boccaccio_and_Florentines_who_have_fled_from_the_plague.jpg">(Royal Library of the Netherlands)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Containing the disease seemed nearly impossible. As Giovanni Boccaccio wrote about Florence, the outcome was all the more severe as those suffering from the disease “mixed with people who were still unaffected …” Like a “<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/354/35486/the-decameron/9780140449303.html">fire racing through dry or oily substances</a>,” healthy persons became ill.</p>
<p>Possessing the power to “kill large numbers by air alone,” through breath or conversation, it was thought, the plague “<a href="https://archive.org/details/documentsindits00michgoog/page/n6/mode/2up">could not be avoided</a>.” </p>
<h2>Looking for a cure</h2>
<p>Scholars worked tirelessly to find a cure. The Paris Medical Faculty devoted its energies to discovering the causes of these amazing events, which even “<a href="https://archive.org/details/derschwarzetodin00hoen/page/152/mode/2up">the most gifted intellects</a>” were struggling to comprehend. They turned to experts on <a href="https://archive.org/details/b2492121x/page/36/mode/2up">astrology</a> and medicine about the causes of the epidemic. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321757/original/file-20200319-22598-jy9xnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321757/original/file-20200319-22598-jy9xnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321757/original/file-20200319-22598-jy9xnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321757/original/file-20200319-22598-jy9xnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321757/original/file-20200319-22598-jy9xnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1188&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321757/original/file-20200319-22598-jy9xnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1188&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321757/original/file-20200319-22598-jy9xnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1188&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Étienne Colaud’s ‘A meeting of doctors at the university of Paris.’ From the ‘Chants royaux’ manuscript.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Meeting_of_doctors_at_the_university_of_Paris.jpg">(Bibliothèque Nationale de France).</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the pope’s orders, anatomical examinations were carried out in many Italian cities “to discover the origins of the disease.” When the corpses were opened up, all victims were found to have “<a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=cUxAAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">infected lungs</a>.”</p>
<p>Not content with lingering uncertainty, Parisian masters turned towards ancient wisdom and compiled a book of existing philosophical and medical knowledge. Yet they also acknowledged the limitations in finding a “<a href="https://archive.org/details/derschwarzetodin00hoen/page/152/mode/2up">sure explanation and perfect understanding</a>,” quoting Pliny to the effect that “<a href="http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/perseus/citequery3.pl?dbname=LatinSept18&getid=1&query=Plin.%20Nat.%202.39">some accidental causes of storms are still uncertain, or cannot be explained</a>.”</p>
<h2>Self-isolation and travel bans</h2>
<p>Prevention was critical. <a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/plague-black-death-quarantine-history-how-stop-spread/">Quarantine</a> and self-isolation were necessary measures. </p>
<p>In 1348, to prevent the illness from spreading through the Tuscan region of Pistoia, strict fines were enforced against the movement of peoples. Guards were placed at the city’s gates to prevent travellers entering or leaving. </p>
<p>These civic ordinances stipulated against importing linen or woollen cloths that might carry the disease. Demonstrating similar sanitation concerns, bodies of the dead were to remain in place until properly enclosed in a wooden box “to avoid the foul stench which comes from dead bodies”; moreover, graves were dug “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44458671.pdf?seq=1">two and a half arms-lengths deep</a>.” </p>
<p>Butchers and retailers nevertheless remained open. And yet a number of regulations were imposed so that “the living are not made ill by rotten and corrupt food,” with further bans to minimize the “stink and corruption” considered harmful to Pistoia’s citizens.</p>
<h2>Community response and resolve</h2>
<p>Authorities responded in different ways to the outbreak. Recognizing the plague’s arrival by ship, the people of Messina “<a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=ttRYAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">expelled the Genoese from the city and harbour with all speed</a>.” In central Europe, foreigners and merchants were banished from the inns and “<a href="https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_ss_9/index.htm#page/675/mode/1up">compelled to leave the area immediately</a>.”</p>
<p>These were severe measures, but seemingly necessary given the varied social reaction to plague. As Boccaccio famously recounted in his <em>Decameron</em>, the whole spectrum of human behaviour ensued: from extreme religious devotion, sober living, self-isolation and a restricted diet to warding off evil through heavy drinking, singing and merrymaking.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321748/original/file-20200319-22610-n2kxg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321748/original/file-20200319-22610-n2kxg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321748/original/file-20200319-22610-n2kxg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321748/original/file-20200319-22610-n2kxg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321748/original/file-20200319-22610-n2kxg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321748/original/file-20200319-22610-n2kxg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321748/original/file-20200319-22610-n2kxg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The flagellants at Doornik in 1349. The people are pictured performing flagellations as an act of penance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_flagellants_at_Doornik_in_1349.jpg">(Wikimedia Commons)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The fear of contagion eroded social customs. The number of dead grew so high in many regions that proper burials and religious services became impossible to perform: <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/49038880/">new religious customs</a> emerged pertaining to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3729185.pdf?seq=1">preparing for and presiding over death</a>. </p>
<p>Families were changed. An account from Padua mentions how “<a href="https://archive.org/details/RerumItalicarumScriptores12/page/n501/mode/2up">wife fled the embrace of a dear husband, the father that of a son and the brother that of a brother</a>.” </p>
<p>Ultimately, there is a human element to plague too often lost in the historical record. Its influence should not be underestimated or forgotten. The modern response to pandemic evokes a similar community response. Different in scope and scale, and indeed in medical practice, administrative and public health actions remain critical. </p>
<p>But in 2020, we are not, as Boccaccio lamented, seeing the law and social order break down. Essential duties and responsibilities are still being carried out. Against our own 21st-century plague, wisdom and ingenuity are prevailing; citizens hang on “the advice of physicians and all the power of medicine,” which unlike the 14th century, is anything but “<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/354/35486/the-decameron/9780140449303.html">profitless and unavailing</a>.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kriston R. Rennie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>During the Black Death of the 1300s, medieval writers struggled to make sense of the disease just as we are now during the COVID-19 pandemicKriston R. Rennie, Visiting Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, and Associate Professor in Medieval History, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1100632019-02-26T11:22:10Z2019-02-26T11:22:10ZFour women poets who will take you on an alternative journey through Welsh history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260407/original/file-20190222-195861-xtfh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-sits-white-dress-leather-journal-1092022793?src=GDEvLIslU7P3C8kU3G6yeg-8-27">Alexander Gold/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Poetry has played an important role in the history of Wales. <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-welsh-developed-their-own-form-of-poetry-73299">From the medieval courts</a>, to the ongoing National Eisteddfod (the largest music and poetry festival in Europe), writers have used verse to document the land’s culture. But while male writers, such as the 12th century <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/arts/sites/early-welsh-literature/pages/poets-princes.shtml">poets of the princes</a> and more recently <a href="https://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/dylan-thomas">Dylan Thomas</a>, have presented one perspective of Welsh history and culture, female poets have documented a very different take on Wales through the centuries. Here are four who bring a different perspective.</p>
<h2>1. Gwerful Mechain (est.1462-1500)</h2>
<p>Gwerful Mechain is one of the few Welsh medieval poets from whom a <a href="https://broadviewpress.com/product/the-works-of-gwerful-mechain/?ph=9aca224f1207703b2563bc35#tab-description">substantial body of work</a> has survived to this day. One of the loudest voices speaking up for women of the time, Mechain was also one of the first poets in Wales to write about domestic abuse. <a href="http://www2.lingue.unibo.it/acume/acumedvd/Essays%20ACUME/AcumeGramichfinal.pdf">To Her Husband for Beating Her</a> is a poignant and powerful poem full of enraged language and energetic imagery. </p>
<p>Born <a href="https://biography.wales/article/s-GWER-MEC-1462">into a noble family</a>, Mechain was free to explore her own poetic interests without the pressure of securing patronage, unlike many of her male contemporaries. She became a prolific writer who was not restricted to one style. Her work includes religious, humorous and socially conscious poetry. One of her most well-known works, <a href="http://www2.lingue.unibo.it/acume/acumedvd/Essays%20ACUME/AcumeGramichfinal.pdf">To the Vagina</a>, chastises her male counterparts for praising a woman’s body from her hair to her feet but ignoring one hidden feature. She was bold and did not shy away from what some may consider crude imagery, as in her poem, To the Maid as she Shits.</p>
<p><a href="https://broadviewpress.com/product/the-works-of-gwerful-mechain/?ph=9aca224f1207703b2563bc35#tab-description">This extract</a>, in Welsh then English, is from <a href="https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cywydd-y-cedor/">Cywydd y cedor</a> (<a href="https://allpoetry.com/The-Female-Genitals">The Female Genitals</a>):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Pob rhyw brydydd, dydd dioed,<br>
Mul frwysg, wladiadd rwysg erioed,<br>
Noethi moliant, nis gwarantwyf,<br>
Anfeidrol reiol, yr wyf</p>
<p>Every poet, drunken fool,<br>
Thinks he is just the king of cool,<br>
(Everyone is such a boor,<br>
He makes me so sick, I’m so demure)</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>2. Katherine Philips (c.1632 - c.1664)</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/katherine-philips">Born in London</a>, Katherine Philips – who later wrote under the moniker “The Matchless Orinda” – moved to Wales when she was around 15 years old. From her home in Cardigan she became a significant female British poet, as well as the first woman to <a href="https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/print-and-perception-the-literary-careers-of-margaret-cavendish-and-katherine-philips">have a commercial play staged</a>, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/398748/pdf">Pompey</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the stigma against women <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/%7E/link.aspx?_id=7EBD2EA9A970488AADCBB32636FC0886&_z=z">publishing their work</a>, Philips <a href="https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/print-and-perception-the-literary-careers-of-margaret-cavendish-and-katherine-philips">succeeded by</a> circulating handwritten letters and volumes, as her male contemporaries did, while upholding supposedly feminine virtues such as humility and chastity <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/poems-by-mrs-katherine-philips-the-matchless-orinda">in her works</a>.</p>
<p>Though she was married with two sons, much discussion around Philips’ poetry and life concentrates on <a href="https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2013/03/was-katherine-philips-a-lesbian-love-poet/">whether she was or was not a lesbian</a>. The <a href="https://parallel.cymru/poets/?lang=en#katherine=philips">emotional focus of her poetry</a> was often on women and the passionate relationships she had with them. Regardless of Philips’ own sexual orientation, her work was the first British poetry to <a href="https://www.serenbooks.com/productdisplay/forbidden-lives">express same-sex love between women</a>.</p>
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<h2>3. Sarah Jane Rees (“Cranogwen”) (1839–1916)</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/5NBLyP27sktHGm6ljTG9h6J/cranogwen-sarah-jane-rees">Sarah Jane Rees</a> (also known by the <a href="https://parallel.cymru/poets/?lang=en#sarah-jane-rees">bardic name Cranogwen</a>) is perhaps one of the most pioneering poets in this list. <a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-48648">Born in Llangrannog</a>, west Wales, she spurned all attempts to enforce gender stereotypes – her family wanted her to work as a dressmaker – and instead joined her father on board his ship for two years after leaving school. She continued her education, eventually gaining her master mariner certificate. Returning home by the age of 21, Cranogwen fought against opposition to run her old school, and taught children as well as providing navigation and seamanship education to young men.</p>
<p>In 1865 she entered the Eisteddfod festival as Cranogwen with
Y Fodrwy Briodasal (The Wedding Ring), a satirical poem about a married woman’s destiny. When she was announced as the <a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-48648">first woman to win the prize</a>, there was <a href="https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3413322/3413327/44/Cranogwen">disgust from the established and renowned male writers</a> who had been competing. Cranogwen became famous overnight and a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Caniadau_Cranogwen.html?id=xF1xOwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">collection of her poems</a> was released in 1870.</p>
<p>The following lines are taken from <a href="https://parallel.cymru/poets/?lang=en#sarah-jane-rees">My Friend</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ah! Annwyl chwaer, ‘r wyt ti i mi,<br>
Fel lloer I’r lli, yn gyson;<br>
Dy ddilyn heb orphwyso wna<br>
Serchiadau pura’m calon </p>
<p>Oh! My dear sister, you to me<br>
As the moon to the sea, constantly,<br>
Following you restlessly are<br>
My heart’s pure affections</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>4. Lynette Roberts (1909-1995)</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-lynette-roberts-1603243.html">Lynette Roberts</a> was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina to parents of Welsh origin. A friend of Dylan Thomas, during World War II Roberts moved to Carmarthenshire with her then husband, <a href="https://www.walesartsreview.org/the-van-pool-the-collected-poems-of-keidrych-rhys/">journalist and poet Keidrych Rhys</a>, and stayed in Wales for the rest of her life. </p>
<p>Although now <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/search?query=Lynette%20Roberts&refinement=poems">her work</a> is seeing a resurgence, for a long time Roberts has been overlooked. <a href="https://theconversation.com/lynette-roberts-welsh-poet-who-fused-touch-and-sight-into-sound-105703">She was a poet ahead of her time</a> and her use of language is refreshing. Roberts was influenced by the rich colours and landscape of her childhood, which she entwined with the rural landscape and culture of Wales during a time of upheaval – World War II. </p>
<p>Roberts’s poem <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Collected_Poems.html?id=FJ9uBgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Swansea Raid</a> is perhaps one of her most powerful and insightful works. It depicts a snapshot of a relationship between herself and fellow villager Rosie and the tension between war and home. The changing technological world of war brought out warm, colourful language in her work, setting the colloquialisms of quiet, rural Wales against the starkness of bombing and constant threat of loss. Her most influential work has to be the heroic poem <a href="https://msu.edu/course/eng/362/johnsen/roberts.pdf">Gods with Stainless Ears</a>, on the war’s disruption of domestic life. </p>
<p>This verse is from Roberts’ 1944 <a href="http://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/lr1-llanybri.htm">Poem from Llanybri</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then I’ll do the lights, fill the lamp with oil,<br>
Get coal from the shed, water from the well;<br>
Pluck and draw pigeon, with crop of green foil<br>
This your good supper from the lime-tree fell.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110063/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rhea Seren Phillips is affiliated with Parallel.Cymru on a short-term development project looking into the history of Welsh poets, available to read at <a href="https://parallel.cymru/poets/">https://parallel.cymru/poets/</a>. </span></em></p>From speaking out over domestic abuse in medieval times to telling the realities of war, these female poets present a very different version of Welsh life.Rhea Seren Phillips, PhD Researcher in Welsh Poetry, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1094582019-01-11T11:04:03Z2019-01-11T11:04:03ZWe found lapis lazuli hidden in ancient teeth – revealing the forgotten role of women in medieval arts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253226/original/file-20190110-32136-13qm2g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/natural-texture-lapis-lazuli-2229289?src=Sw5-C03JV-pjTgGct3eoZQ-1-22">Alexander Maksimov/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We recently and unexpectedly revealed direct archaeological evidence of involvement of <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau7126">medieval women in manuscript production</a>, challenging <a href="https://twitter.com/AlisonIBeach/status/1083368879781494784">widespread assumptions</a> that male monks were the sole producers of books throughout the Middle Ages. </p>
<p>We did so by identifying particles of blue pigments in the fossilised dental plaque of the remains of a medieval woman as lapis lazuli, a stone more precious than gold at her time. The finds are the first of their kind and strongly suggest it will be possible to increase the visibility of ancient female artists in the historical and archaeological record – by analysing their dirty teeth.</p>
<p>This discovery was made possible by applying technological advances in the field of archaeological science to an understudied “deposit” on teeth known as dental calculus, which is mineralised dental plaque (tartar). In most societies today, oral hygiene practices are part of our daily routine, meaning that dental plaque is regularly removed and doesn’t have a chance to build up on our teeth. This was not the case in the past. Plaque built up and mineralised over the course of people’s lives. This solid deposit has unique archaeological potential. </p>
<p>A key characteristic of dental plaque is that while it forms it has the ability to entrap a wide range of <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/christina_warinner_tracking_ancient_diseases_using_plaque?language=en">microscopic and molecular debris</a> that comes into contact with a person’s mouth. When dental plaque becomes “tartar” it can entomb and preserve these particles and molecules for hundreds or thousands of years – potentially even millions. This provides us with a unique glimpse, at the individual level, of the diet and living conditions of ancient people.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253210/original/file-20190110-32130-s3q0rd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253210/original/file-20190110-32130-s3q0rd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253210/original/file-20190110-32130-s3q0rd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253210/original/file-20190110-32130-s3q0rd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253210/original/file-20190110-32130-s3q0rd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253210/original/file-20190110-32130-s3q0rd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253210/original/file-20190110-32130-s3q0rd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The tartar of the female individual known as B78 can be seen deposited on her teeth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Tina Warinner</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The majority of scholarly work conducted on ancient tartar has been centred on <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.23147">reconstructing diet</a>, but, besides deliberate ingestion of food, the human mouth is subject to a constant influx of particles of different types directly from the environment. Tree and grass pollen, spores, cotton and bast fibres, medicinal plants, as well as diatoms, sponge spicules and micro-charcoal have all been reported among the finds from ancient tartar. Despite this promising evidence, the value of dental calculus as environmental evidence has not, so far, been much exploited.</p>
<p>But in our <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau7126">recent study</a>, made possible by multidisciplinary international collaborations, we demonstrated the potential for human dental calculus to reveal an unprecedented level of insight into the lives and working conditions of our ancestors.</p>
<h2>Lapis lazuli</h2>
<p>We analysed the skeletal remains of a female individual (known as B78) who lived in the 11th-12th century. She was buried on the grounds of a former women’s monastery in Dalheim, Germany, that is in ruins today, but was occupied by various Catholic religious orders for around a thousand years. </p>
<p>We found well over 100 bright blue particles, in the form of small crystals and individual flecks, scattered throughout her tartar, which was still preserved on her teeth. Her skeletal remains had not suggested anything particular about her life, besides a general indication that she probably did not have a physically demanding life. In contrast, the blue particles were an unprecedented find – not only for their colour, but for the sheer number of them. It suggested a repeated exposure to an unknown blue dust or powder. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253209/original/file-20190110-32124-b7ux1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253209/original/file-20190110-32124-b7ux1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253209/original/file-20190110-32124-b7ux1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253209/original/file-20190110-32124-b7ux1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253209/original/file-20190110-32124-b7ux1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253209/original/file-20190110-32124-b7ux1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253209/original/file-20190110-32124-b7ux1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lazurite in calculus of female B78.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Monica Tromp</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To securely identify the bright blue powder trapped in the woman’s tartar, a range of microscopy and spectroscopy techniques were used. All techniques provided the same identification: the blue specks were lazurite, the blue portion of the lapis lazuli stone. Lapis lazuli was more precious than gold in Medieval Europe. Afghanistan was the only source of the stone at the time, and the preparation of the pigment took great skill. </p>
<h2>Craftswomen</h2>
<p>So how did this precious material end up deposited on this woman’s teeth? A variety of reasons were possible, from painting to accidental ingestion during pigment preparation, or even the consumption of the powder as a medicine. </p>
<p>But the way in which the blue particles were found in tartar – single flecks in different areas – pointed to a repeated exposure, not a single ingestion. And creating a vivid blue pigment from lapis lazuli required an Arabic method of oil flotation that did not appear in European artist manuals until after the 15th century. So it’s more likely that ultramarine pigment was imported into the region as a finished product. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253207/original/file-20190110-32154-1mdlsiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253207/original/file-20190110-32154-1mdlsiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253207/original/file-20190110-32154-1mdlsiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253207/original/file-20190110-32154-1mdlsiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253207/original/file-20190110-32154-1mdlsiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253207/original/file-20190110-32154-1mdlsiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253207/original/file-20190110-32154-1mdlsiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dalheim archaeological site in Germany, where individual B78 was buried.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Tina Warinner</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most likely explanation, then, is that this was an artist who repeatedly used her lips to shape her brush into a fine point in order to paint intricate detail on manuscripts, a practice attested in the historic record of the time. </p>
<p>This finding suggests that women were more involved in the production of books throughout the Middle Ages than tends to be thought. This assumption partly derives from the limited evidence from surviving books: before the 12th century <a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/the-scribes-for-women-s-convents-in-late-medieval-germany-3">fewer than 1% of books</a> can be traced to the work of women.</p>
<p>Additionally, artists are largely invisible in both the historic and archaeological records as they rarely signed their work before the 15th century and there have hitherto been no known skeletal markers directly associated with producing art. </p>
<p>But now, we have a way of identifying earlier historical artists. Our work strongly points to the possibility of using microscopic particles entombed in ancient tartar to track the artists of ancient times. It also suggests that it may be possible to track other “dusty” crafts using this method and thereby reveal the invisible workforce behind many forms of art.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Radini's work on the medieval female artist mentioned in this article was partially funded by the Max Planck Society and the Leverhulme Trust (through a Leverhulme prize to Dr Camilla Speller). She also receives funding from The Wellcome Trust.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christina Warinner receives funding from the US National Science Foundation, the US National Institutes of Health, the Max Planck Society, and the European Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Tromp received funding from the Max Planck Society. </span></em></p>Male monks were not the sole producers of books throughout the Middle Ages.Anita Radini, Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in Medical Humanities, University of YorkChristina Warinner, Research Group Leader, Max Planck Institute of GeoanthropologyMonica Tromp, Affiliate Researcher in Anatomy, University of OtagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1016962018-09-12T11:30:38Z2018-09-12T11:30:38ZScience fiction was around in medieval times – here’s what it looked like<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235975/original/file-20180912-133901-1qhqhnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=132%2C846%2C3934%2C2835&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/env7uaku?query=medieval+sky">Comet in the sky, 1340. Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Science fiction may seem resolutely modern, but the genre could actually be considered hundreds of years old. There are the alien green “<a href="http://www.medievalists.net/2018/08/green-children-woolpit/">children of Woolpit</a>”, who appeared in 12th-century Suffolk and were reported to have spoken a language no one could understand. There’s also the story of <a href="http://www.eilmer.co.uk">Eilmer</a> the 11th-century monk, who constructed a pair of wings and flew from the top of Malmesbury Abbey. And there’s the <a href="http://www.voynich.nu">Voynich Manuscript</a>, a 15th-century book written in an unknowable script, full of illustrations of otherworldly plants and surreal landscapes.</p>
<p>These are just some of the science fictions to be discovered within the literatures and cultures of the Middle Ages. There are also tales to be found of robots entertaining royal courts, communities speculating about utopian or dystopian futures, and literary maps measuring and exploring the outer reaches of time and space. </p>
<p>The influence of the genre we call “fantasy”, which often looks back to the medieval past in order to escape a techno-scientific future, means that the Middle Ages have rarely been associated with science fiction. But, as <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/medieval-science-fiction-hb.html">we have found</a>, peering into the complex history of the genre, while also examining the scientific achievements of the medieval period, reveals that things are not quite what they seem.</p>
<h2>Origins</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235814/original/file-20180911-144473-5udvua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235814/original/file-20180911-144473-5udvua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235814/original/file-20180911-144473-5udvua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235814/original/file-20180911-144473-5udvua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235814/original/file-20180911-144473-5udvua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235814/original/file-20180911-144473-5udvua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235814/original/file-20180911-144473-5udvua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235814/original/file-20180911-144473-5udvua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amazing Stories, April 1926, Volume 1 Number 1.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amazing_Stories_April_1926.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Science fiction is particularly troublesome when it comes to matters of classification and origin. Indeed, there remains no agreed-upon definition of the genre. A variety of commentators have located the beginnings of SF in the early-20th-century explosion of <a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/amazing">pulp magazines</a>, and in the work of Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967), who proposed the term “scientifiction” when editing and publishing the first issue of Amazing Stories, in 1926.</p>
<p>“By ‘scientifiction’,” Gernsback wrote, “I mean the Jules Verne, H G Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of story – a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision … Not only do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading – they are always instructive.”</p>
<p>But here Gernsback was already looking backwards in time to earlier writers to define SF. His “definition”, too, was one that could also be applied to literary creations from much further into the past.</p>
<h2>Science and fiction</h2>
<p>Another longstanding idea is that the “science” in science fiction is key: SF can only begin, many historians of the genre <a href="https://www.bbc.com/timelines/zp7dwmn">proclaim</a>, following the birth of modern science. </p>
<p>Alongside histories of SF, histories of science have long avoided the medieval period (over a thousand years in which, presumably, nothing happened). Yet the Middle Ages was no dark, static, ignorant time of magic and superstition, nor was it an aberration in the neat progression from enlightened ancients to our modern age. It was actually a time of enormous advances in science and technology. </p>
<p>The compass and gunpowder were developed and improved upon, and spectacles, the mechanical clock and blast furnace were invented. The period also laid the foundations for modern science through founding universities, advanced the scientific learning of the classical world, and helped focus natural philosophy on the physics of creation. The medieval science of “computus”, for instance, was a complex measuring of time and space.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235976/original/file-20180912-133874-1h2dmaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235976/original/file-20180912-133874-1h2dmaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235976/original/file-20180912-133874-1h2dmaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235976/original/file-20180912-133874-1h2dmaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235976/original/file-20180912-133874-1h2dmaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235976/original/file-20180912-133874-1h2dmaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235976/original/file-20180912-133874-1h2dmaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Use of medieval abacus and counting board.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/s326qf59?query=medieval+science">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars <a href="http://www.medievalrobots.org">have started to reveal</a> the convergence of science, technology and the imagination in medieval literary culture, demonstrating that this era could be characterised by inventiveness and a preoccupation with novelty and discovery. Take the medieval romances that feature <a href="http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2011/10/alexander-versus-the-world.html">Alexander the Great</a> soaring heavenwards in a flying machine and exploring the depths of the ocean in his proto-submarine. Or that of the famous medieval traveller, Sir John Mandeville, who tells of marvellous, automated golden birds that beat their wings at the table of the Great Chan.</p>
<p>Like those of more modern science fictions, medieval writers tempered this sense of wonder with scepticism and rational inquiry. Geoffrey Chaucer <a href="http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/%7Echaucer/teachslf/cyt-par.htm">describes</a> the procedures and instruments of alchemy (an early form of chemistry) in such precise terms that it is tempting to think that the author must have had some experience of the practice. Yet his <a href="http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/%7Echaucer/teachslf/cyt-par.htm">Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale</a> also displays a lively distrust of fraudulent alchemists, sending up their pseudo-science while imagining and dramatising its harmful effects in the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233867/original/file-20180828-86150-w02gx2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233867/original/file-20180828-86150-w02gx2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233867/original/file-20180828-86150-w02gx2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233867/original/file-20180828-86150-w02gx2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233867/original/file-20180828-86150-w02gx2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233867/original/file-20180828-86150-w02gx2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233867/original/file-20180828-86150-w02gx2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander in his ‘submarine’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library, Royal MS 15 E. vi f. 20v</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The medieval future</h2>
<p>Modern science fiction has dreamt up many worlds based on the Middle Ages, using it as a place to be revisited, as a space beyond earth, or as an alternate or future history. The representation of the medieval past is not always simplistic, nor always confined to “back then”. </p>
<p>William M Miller’s immensely detailed medieval future in <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/science-fiction-classic-still-smolders">A Canticle of Leibowitz</a> (1959), for instance, dwells on the way the past consistently reemerges in the fragments, materials and conflicts of a distant future. Connie Willis’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2014/09/26/351539154/as-the-ebola-outbreak-worsens-a-book-about-compassion">Doomsday Book</a> (1992), meanwhile, follows a time-travelling researcher of the near-future back to a medieval Oxford in the grip of the Black Death. </p>
<p>Although “medieval science fiction” may sound like an impossible fantasy, it’s a concept that can encourage us to ask new questions about an <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/medieval-science-fiction-hb.html">often-overlooked period</a> of literary and scientific history. Who knows? The many wonders, cosmologies and technologies of the Middle Ages may have an important part to play in a future yet to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Science fiction has been around for centuries.Carl Kears, Lecturer in Old and Middle English before 1400, King's College LondonJames Paz, Lecturer in Early Medieval Literature, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/875582017-11-22T10:27:35Z2017-11-22T10:27:35ZWhat exactly is the Holy Grail – and why has its meaning eluded us for centuries?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195659/original/file-20171121-6013-1dbqu5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=962%2C2%2C977%2C666&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Galahad_grail.jpg">The Achievement of the Grail / Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Type “Holy Grail” into Google and … well, you probably don’t need me to finish that sentence. The sheer multiplicity of what any search engine throws up demonstrates that there is no clear consensus as to what the Grail is or was. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people out there claiming to know its history, true meaning and even where to find it. </p>
<p>Modern authors, perhaps most (in)famously <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jul/26/featuresreviews.guardianreview17">Dan Brown</a>, offer new interpretations and, even when these are clearly and explicitly rooted in little more than imaginative fiction, they get picked up and bandied about as if a new scientific and irrefutable truth has been discovered. The Grail, though, will perhaps always eschew definition. But why?</p>
<p>The first known mention of a Grail (“un graal”) is made in a narrative spun by a 12th century writer of French romance, Chrétien de Troyes, who might reasonably be referred to as the Dan Brown of his day – though some scholars would argue that the quality of Chrétien’s writing far exceeds anything Brown has so far produced. </p>
<p>Chrétien’s Grail is mystical indeed – it is a dish, big and wide enough to take a salmon, that seems capable to delivering food and sustenance. To obtain the Grail requires asking a particular question at the Grail Castle. Unfortunately, the exact question (“Whom does the Grail serve?”) is only revealed after the Grail quester, the hapless Perceval, has missed the opportunity to ask it. It seems he is not quite ready, not quite mature enough, for the Grail.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195663/original/file-20171121-6020-1m4wegd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Holy Grail depicted as a dish in which Christ’s blood is collected.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=43455">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But if this dish is the “first” Grail, then why do we now have so many possible Grails? Indeed, it is, at turns, depicted as the <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/597634/Holy-Grail-Real-Location-Hunt-Crusade-King-Arthur-Templars-LoveAntiques-1-million-Worth">chalice of the Last Supper</a> or of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11225538/The-Holy-Grail-the-conspiracy-theories.html">the Crucifixion</a> or <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3140518/Have-POLICE-Holy-Grail-Wooden-relic-thought-Christ-s-chalice-recovered-year-stolen-burglars.html">both</a>, or as a stone containing the <a href="http://newagejournal.com/tag/serpent-grail">elixir of life</a>, or even as the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/22/books/the-last-word-the-da-vinci-con.html">bloodline of Christ</a>. And this list is hardly exhaustive. The reason most likely has to do with the fact that Chrétien appears to have died before completing his story, leaving the crucial questions as to what the Grail is and means tantalisingly unanswered. And it did not take long for others to try to answer them for him.</p>
<p>Robert de Boron, a poet writing within 20 or so years of Chrétien (circa 1190-1200), seems to have been the first to have associated the Grail with the cup of the Last Supper. In Robert’s prehistory of the object, Joseph of Arimathea took the Grail to the Crucifixion and used it to catch Christ’s blood. In the years that followed (1200-1230), anonymous writers of prose romances fixated upon the Last Supper’s Holy Chalice and made the Grail the subject of a quest by various knights of King Arthur’s court. In Germany, by contrast, the knight and poet Wolfram von Eschenbach reimagined the Grail as “Lapsit exillis” – an item more commonly referred to these days as the “Philosopher’s Stone”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195664/original/file-20171121-6027-jfauhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Holy Grail depicted as a ciborium.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>None of these is anything like Chrétien’s Grail, of course, so we can fairly ask: did medieval audiences have any more of a clue about the nature of the Holy Grail than we do today?</p>
<h2>Publishing the Grail</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/publishing-the-grail-in-medieval-and-renaissance-france-hb.html">recent book</a> delves into the medieval publishing history of the French romances that contain references to the Grail legend, asking questions about the narratives’ compilation into manuscript books. Sometimes, a given text will be bound alongside other types of texts, some of which seemingly have nothing to do with the Grail whatsoever. So, what sorts of texts do we find accompanying Grail narratives in medieval books? Can this tell us anything about what medieval audiences knew or understood of the Grail? </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195661/original/file-20171121-6013-laulka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sangreal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sangreal.jpg">Arthur Rackham</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The picture is varied, but a broad chronological trend is possible to spot. Some of the few earliest manuscript books we still have see Grail narratives compiled alone, but a pattern quickly appears for including them into collected volumes. In these cases, Grail narratives can be found alongside historical, religious or other narrative (or fictional) texts. A picture emerges, therefore, of a Grail just as lacking in clear definition as that of today. </p>
<p>Perhaps the Grail served as a useful tool that could be deployed in all manner of contexts to help communicate the required message, whatever that message may have been. We still see this today, of course, such as when we use the phrase “The Holy Grail of…” to describe the practically unobtainable, but highly desirable prize in just about any area you can think of. There is even a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJDEcLTyYdU">guitar effect-pedal</a> named “holy grail”.</p>
<p>Once the prose romances of the 13th century started to appear, though, the Grail took on a proper life of its own. Like a modern soap opera, these romances comprised vast reams of narrative threads, riddled with independent episodes and inconsistencies. They occupied entire books, often enormous and lavishly illustrated, and today these offer evidence that literature about the Grail evaded straightforward understanding and needed to be set apart – physically and figuratively. In other words, Grail literature had a distinctive quality – it was, as we might call it today, a genre in its own right.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/urRkGvhXc8w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In the absence of clear definition, it is human nature to impose meaning. This is what happens with the Grail today and, according to the evidence of medieval book compilation, it is almost certainly what happened in the Middle Ages, too. Just as modern guitarists use their “holy grail” to experiment with all kinds of sounds, so medieval writers and publishers of romance used the Grail as an adaptable and creative instrument for conveying a particular message to their audience, the nature of which could be very different from one book to the next. </p>
<p>Whether the audience always understood that message, of course, is another matter entirely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87558/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Tether works at the University of Bristol. She received funding for this research from Anglia Ruskin University, Ghent University, Somerville College, Oxford and the Stationers' Foundation.</span></em></p>Is the Grail the chalice from the Last Supper – or the Crucifixion? Does it contain the elixir of life? Or is it Mary Magdalene’s womb?Leah Tether, Reader in Medieval Literature and Digital Cultures, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/848042017-10-12T10:29:30Z2017-10-12T10:29:30ZFrom Chaucer to Trump, sexist banter has been defended as entertainment for 600 years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189356/original/file-20171009-6947-1iqo1rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">US President Donald Trump.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/donald-trump-rally-midland-theater-kansas-717753004?src=4H7cDR7j7hS7i5NslYovMw-1-9">Mark Reinstein/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As we approach the end of 2017, one might expect language and attitudes to be very different to those of the Middle Ages. And yet, there are some very prominent figures who seem to be stuck in the past.</p>
<p>Donald Trump, the US president, has once again <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/remysmidt/trump-again-dismisses-grab-them-by-the-pussy-comments?utm_term=.yanamNd4x#.nhQdNx2Bv">dismissed</a> his own infamous “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html?postshare=2491475870527101&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.6464fe84a0be">grab them by the pussy</a>” comments, one year after the 2005 Access Hollywood tape that revealed them came to light. </p>
<p>When his words <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-women-are-harmed-by-calling-sexual-assault-locker-room-talk-67422">first came to public attention</a>, Trump then brushed them off as “locker room banter”, insisting that the public should focus instead on war and terrorism that were making the world “<a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/09/trump_responds_to_2005_tape_its_just_words_folks_just_words.html">like medieval times</a>”. </p>
<p>Numerous athletes came forward at the time to say that these <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/10/donald-trump-locker-room-banter-athletes-reaction">are not the type of conversations</a> that take place in their locker rooms. The debate continues to this day, with some <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/boxing/floyd-mayweather-donald-trump-grab-em-access-hollywood-boxer-real-man-us-president-a7947796.html">supporting</a> Trump’s comments, while women’s rights campaign groups refuse to let him brush it “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-women/u-s-womens-group-plays-trumps-grab-them-tape-on-washington-mall-idUSKBN1CB2EL">under the rug</a>”.</p>
<p>Though Trump tried to deflect attention onto historical horrors of war, this dispute has far more in common with medieval times than he might think. This very dispute mirrors the quarrel of the <a href="http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2016/07/metaphors-misogyny-and-courtly-love.html">Roman de la Rose</a>, which happened in the 15th Century – in which a female writer fought vehemently against depictions of sexual assault and “loose” women in entertainment. </p>
<h2>Medieval attitudes</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189284/original/file-20171007-973-1kec848.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189284/original/file-20171007-973-1kec848.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189284/original/file-20171007-973-1kec848.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189284/original/file-20171007-973-1kec848.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189284/original/file-20171007-973-1kec848.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189284/original/file-20171007-973-1kec848.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189284/original/file-20171007-973-1kec848.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189284/original/file-20171007-973-1kec848.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A hermit lewdly embraces a miller’s wife.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=29284">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In medieval literature, women were commonly depicted as “easy”, particularly in the context of bawdy satire. Take, for example, Geoffrey Chaucer’s poems <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/CT/1:1.4?rgn=div2;view=fulltext">The Miller’s Tale</a> and <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/CT/1:1.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext">The Reeve’s Tale</a>. In both of these texts women are depicted as enjoying, or easily recovering from sexual assault. </p>
<p>In The Miller’s Tale, when a clerk, Nicholas, decides he wants to have sex with his host’s wife Alison he grabs her “by the queynte [crotch]” and holds her hard “by the haunchebones [thighs]”. Although Alison initially tells Nicholas to get his hands off her, within three lines she has been won round and begins to conspire with her new lover against her husband. </p>
<p>In The Reeve’s Tale, two clerks take revenge upon a miller, who has duped them out of their money’s worth of flour, by raping his daughter and his wife. But by the end of the poem it is the miller who is battered and humiliated, while the women are not depicted as particularly bothered at being raped. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189285/original/file-20171007-25775-1a01xnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189285/original/file-20171007-25775-1a01xnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189285/original/file-20171007-25775-1a01xnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189285/original/file-20171007-25775-1a01xnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189285/original/file-20171007-25775-1a01xnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189285/original/file-20171007-25775-1a01xnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189285/original/file-20171007-25775-1a01xnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189285/original/file-20171007-25775-1a01xnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A jealous husband beats his wife in a manuscript of Le Roman de la Rose.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=28553">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the most popular poems of the medieval period was Jean de Meun’s satirical, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/roman-de-la-rose">Le Roman de la Rose</a>, which took a cynical view of the pursuit of love. In one scene a “jealous husband” gives an in-depth account of the vices of loose women: “Toutes estes, serés, ou futes, / De fait ou de volenté putes!” (All you women are, will be, and have been whores in deed or desire!). The poem was championed by many influential men of the period, and writers such as Chaucer drew upon it time and again in their own works.</p>
<p>However, just as Trump’s comments have prompted protest today, back then it was down to Christine de Pizan – possibly the <a href="http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/06/christine-de-pizan-and-the-book-of-the-queen.html">first European woman</a> to make a living from writing, composing poetry and prose works in the late 1300s/early 1400s – to fight the patriarchy.</p>
<h2>Fighting back</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188084/original/file-20170928-1483-dwh0xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188084/original/file-20170928-1483-dwh0xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188084/original/file-20170928-1483-dwh0xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188084/original/file-20170928-1483-dwh0xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188084/original/file-20170928-1483-dwh0xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188084/original/file-20170928-1483-dwh0xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188084/original/file-20170928-1483-dwh0xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188084/original/file-20170928-1483-dwh0xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christine de Pizan in her study.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=28575">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Born in Italy, De Pizan moved to France as a child when her father Thomas took up an appointment as the astrologer of King Charles V. De Pizan made use of the library available to her at the court, teaching herself to read and write in many languages. When she was suddenly widowed at the age of 24 she turned to writing as a way to make money to support her family. This was exceptional for a medieval woman, but the court paid her because they enjoyed her writing and the novelty of a woman’s works. </p>
<p>De Pizan’s writings were unique in providing a public voice for women at a time when they were not allowed to have one. She argued against the established tradition of women as “frail, unserious, and easily influenced” in medieval texts. She was a force to be reckoned with, and took particular objection to Le Roman de la Rose and its presentation of women. </p>
<p>In her campaign against the poem, De Pizan wrote letters to Jean de Montreuil (Provost of Lille) and Gontier Col (secretary to King Charles V), who publicly supported the poem. Detailing her concerns, she told them “I cannot remain silent”. They, however, dismissed her as a “femme passionée” – an emotional woman – who didn’t understand satire. De Pizan had a point, though. Even if words are not meant to be taken seriously, perpetuating negative stereotypes and normalising them as entertainment is harmful.</p>
<p>De Pizan did not remain silent. Her response was to compose literature that countered the male tradition, defending women and their place in society. In <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/mar/14/whatimreadingthebookofth">The Book of the City of Ladies</a>, she wrote that she is “troubled and grieved” with men’s depictions of women as enjoying rape or not being bothered by rape even when they verbally object. And she makes further references to the visibility of domestic violence in her own neighbourhood. </p>
<p>In doing so, De Pizan brought to light the problem of trivialising abuse that was, and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-ministers-plans-to-transform-the-way-we-tackle-domestic-violence-and-abuse">still is</a>, prevalent in our society, and she encouraged early discussions of gender equality.</p>
<p>Six hundred years on, however, and women are still striving against the likes of Trump to leave sexist banter in the past. Until it is, it won’t be brushed under the rug.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Hanna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Old habits die hard.Natalie Hanna, Lecturer in English, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.