Leeds IMC 2011

Posted on 22 August, 2011

This was an excellent Conference on the theme of 'Poor...rich', and not least because of the number of people involved in the London Medieval Society who attended or gave papers. Our patron, Michael Clanchy, chaired a riveting session on William of Malmesbury to mark the forthcoming edition of his commentary on the Book of Lamentations. Session 605 on 'William of Malmesbury on Lamentations', was sponsored by Dumbarton Oaks. The speakers were R. M. Thomson on 'Another Case of William's Extraordinary Reading', who gave a brilliant synopsis of William's life, career and research trips; S. Sønnesyn who discussed the 'Secretum internae uisionis: The Introspective Reader and the Pilgrim Soul in William's Commentary', on William's views of presenting spiritual pathways through biblical interpretation; and Michael Winterbottom who delivered an effortlessly erudite piece on the style of William's exegesis, on examples of other rhetorical figures, and on the challenge faced by the historian in understanding the spirituality of the Book of Lamentations, previously summed up by R. M. Thomson as 'one long moan'. The questions included one on how William's writings changed over time.

Later in the week, in Session 1304 on 'Peter Abelard and the Liberal Arts, IV: Scholarly Identities', Michael Clanchy gave a fascinating paper, 'Authenticity in Authorship: Was Abelard Right to Deny that he Had Written the Book of Sentences Attributed to Him by St. Bernard?, on the 'publication' of Peter Abelard's writings which included discussion of a student's marginal notations on his Sentence commentary, about the unorthodox notion that God expected Eve to eat the apple. Other speakers included Eileen Sweeney on 'Abelard and the Jews', and Constant Mews spoke on 'Abelard's Ethics and the School at Laon', on the competition among the other Schools engendered by the death of Anselm of Laon. Discussion followed and centred on the role of Jewish scholars in the early twelfth century, as well as on the circulation of works with or without approval of their authors at this time.

Diane Heath, Rob Ellis and Tom Smith, Committee members of LMS also gave excellent papers at Leeds. Rob spoke on a theme of a recent LMS Colloquium on 'Gift-giving', a serendiptious joining with KCL's series of panels, moderated and organised by Jinty Nelson on the same subject, this one being Session 721: 'Gift-giving, VI: Texts and Gifts'. He gave a nuanced account of Chaucer's unfinished  Squire's Tale, where gift-giving of fabulous objects - including a flying horse and a ring that gives its wearer the ability to understand birdsong - goes wrong. This is a tale, Rob pointed out, where reciprocity and mutual obligation along Maussian lines fail. Other speakers included Caroline Geher on 'Quid pro quo: Gift-giving in Early Irish Literature' where wergild is refused in a tale of revenge; and Clare Woods, whose paper, 'Texts as Gifts in 9^th Century Francia' focussed on Hrabanus Maurus's timely gift of his own book to his archbishop which may have resulted in his preferment to his abbacy three years later. Also as part of the LMS exploration of gift-giving, Sheila Sweetinburgh spoke on 'William Faunt's Testamentary Gifts: Rehabilitating Family and Civic Identity in 15^th Century Canterbury' in Session 321: 'Gift-Giving III: Gift-Giving and Bequests'. Her paper began with the shocking scene of the public execution by burning at the stake of William Faunt's father, then Lord Mayor of Canterbury, following his unfortunate support of the Lancastrians, and then followed William's largely successful attempts to improve his family's position despite this calamitious event (he achieved alderman status), before focussing on his judicious use of bequests to the City of Canterbury and the popular friary of the Augustinian Canons there, to cement his family's continued civic standing. This paper displayed deep archival research, and demonstrated how a comprehensive knowledge of  the local informs the national picture. Julie Murphy gave an excellent paper on 'Gifts to the King in Anglo-Saxon Wills' on the role of heriot as a far from simple 'inheritance tax'. Matthew Ross spoke on 'Papal Chaplains, Gift-Giving, and Testamentary Bequests in the late 13^th Century Papal Court', a splendid combination of art-historical and archival research which discussed the tombs of cardinals and chaplains which the latter due to the regulations of the papal administration system were responsible for commissioning.

Session 106: New Directions in Crusade Studies: I; was the first of a series of panels with speakers from the Crusades Studies Forum, a joint project of St. Louis University, Missouri and Royal Holloway University of London. First, Philip Koski, from St. Louis, spoke on 'Spanish Origins: Understanding Arnaud Amaury and the Albigensian Crusade' drawing attention to Amaury's years in Spain and probable link to the Spanish Reconquista fighting orders as a factor in his attitude to the Albigensian Crusade. Ahmet Hilmi from RHUL, spoke on 'Female Power in 13^th C Jerusalem & Cyprus', focusing on Queen Alice of Cyprus and her impoverished regency, an interesting and unusual topic in Crusades historiography since his paper took a gendered approach.

Tom Smith's paper, 'Did a Papal Crusade Policy Exist under Honorius III (1216-1227)?' defined policy as a preconceived course of action and then discussed the Papal diplomacy in the light of this definition as largely responsive in action at this period, and indeed, much more responsive to lay requests and petitions than heretofore perceived. Tom used three case studies from the Papal Registers to establish the evidence for his point; on papal attitudes to the Livonian crusade; and papal attempts, including the Veroli Colloquium, to delay crowning Frederick II as Holy Roman Emperor until he agreed to go on Crusade. In essence, Tom portrayed Honorius III as 'the original yes-man' but nevertheless his lucid paper and continuing research sheds a more nuanced light on the difficulties the papacy faced during the pontificate of Honorius III.

Diane Heath, colloquium secretary for the LMS, organised and spoke at Session 1216: From Poor and Plain to Richly Illustrated: New Research on the Latin Bestiary, sponsored by the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS), University of Kent. This session was organised to showcase the research in progress on Latin bestiaries - an important corpus of source material that is relatively under-studied - and to stimulate further research in this area. Trish Stewart delivered her paper 'The Latin Bestiary in Eastern Europe', which focused on two bestiary manuscripts produced in south-east Germany around the early 15^th century, while Jan Vandeburie delivered his paper, 'Est autem in Babylonia alia bestia': Animals of the Holy Land - Bestiaries in Crusading Literature', which explored the Historia Orientalis of Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Acre. Diane's paper, 'The Bestiary in Canterbury: Perception, Reception and Usage', began by establishing the value of studying bestiaries, rebutting the judgements of early scholars who had perceived them to be of little scientific or literary merit, and therefore unworthy of attention. Diane then moved on to treat the audience to a richly illustrated analysis of the portrayal of the Onager - a wild ass - in bestiaries. The broad and far-reaching discussion which followed gave a clear indication of an on-going scholarly interest in bestiaries - an interest which evidently spans disciplines and time periods - and the audience left this session vocally wishing to see more such research on the bestiaries in the future.

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