Urban Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Ages
Fundamentals of Medieval and Modern Culture Ed.
Albrecht Classen e Marilyn Sandidge
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Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York
Urban Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
Albrecht Classen
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Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York
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Cataloging data in the Library of Congress publication Urban Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period / edited by Albrecht Classen. P. cm. ⫺ (Fundamentals of Medieval and Modern Culture; 4) Mainly in English with three contributions in German. Including index. ISBN 978-3-11-022389-7 (alk. essay) 1. Urbanization ⫺ History. 2. Cities and Towns ⫺ Growth ⫺ History. I Classen, Albert. HT361.U718 2009 307.7609⫺dc22 2009027975
ISBN 978-3-11-022389-7 ISSN 1864-3396 German National Library Bibliography Information The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; Detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. ” Copyright 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or other information storage and retrieval, without written permission of the publisher. Printed in Germany Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing and binding: Hubert & Co., Göttingen
Index
Introduction Albrecht Classen Stadtraum at MitteA described the Early Modern Period: Historical, Spiritual, Cultural, and Socioeconomic Investigations. . . . . . . . . . . . 1
C.DavidBenson The DeadandtheLiving: SomeMedievalDescriptionoftheRuinsandRelicsofRomeKnowtotheEnglish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Kisha G. Tracy Defining the Medieval City by Death: A Case Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Alan V. Murray The Demographics of Urban Space in the Crusader Period Jerusalem (1099–1187). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Andreas Meyer Inheritance law and urban topography: on the development of Italian notarial archives in the late Middle Ages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
BrittC.L.Rothauser „Areuer...brighterþenboþethesunneandmone“: The Use of Water in Medieval Consideration of Urban Space . . . . . . . . . . 245
Birgit Wiedl Jews and the City: Parameters of Jewish Urban Life in Late Middle Ages Austria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
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Index
Rosa Alvarez Perez Next Door Neighbors: Aspects of Judeo-Christian Coexistence in Medieval France. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Jeanette S.Zissell Universal Salvation in the Earthly City: De Civitate Dei and the Significance of the Hazelnut in the Julian of Norwich Shows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Patricia turns “with clenched teeth and an angry face”: “Revenge, visitors and the judiciary in fourteenth-century France. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Jean E. Jost Urban und Liminal Space in Chaucer's Knight's Tale: PerlousorProtective? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Daniel F.Pigg Imagining Urban Life and Its Discontents: Chaucer's Cook's Tale and Masculine Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Shennan Hutton's Women, Men and Markets: The Gender of Market Space in the Late Middle Ages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
LiaB.Ross AngerandtheCity:Who was responsible for the Paris Cabochi Revolt of 1413? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Fabian Alfie "The Merchants of My Florence": A Sociopolitical Lament of 1457. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
JanHirschbiegelandGabrielZeilinger UrbanSpaceDivided?The meeting of bourgeois and courtesan spheres in late medieval cities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
Index
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Klaus Amann and Max Siller Literary Entertainment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: The Tyrolean Example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Connie Scarborough UrbanSpacesintheTragicomediadeCalistoyMelibea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
Marilyn Sandidge's Urban Space as Social Conscience in Isabella Whitney's “Wylland Testament”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
Michael E. Bonine Waqfandit's Impact on the Built Environment in the Medina of the Islamic City in the Middle East. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615
Pnar Kayaalp The Role of the Imperial Mosque Complex (1543-1583) in the Urbanization of Uskudar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645
Martha Moffitt Peacock EarlyModern DutchWomenintheCity: TheImagingofEconomicAgencyandPower. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
Allison P. Coudert Sewers, cesspools and latrines: Waste as reality and metaphor in pre-modern European cities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713
List of figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735 collaborators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751
Albrecht Classen (University of Arizona)
Urban Space in the Middle A offered the beginning of the modern period: historical, mental, cultural and socioeconomic studies1
Research questions: The starting point, where did we come from, where are we, where are we going? When did urban space gain relevance in the Middle Ages, or when was it perceivedasaseparateandsignificantentitywherehumanaffairswerenegotiated anddecided,wherepowerstructuresmanifestedthemselves,andwherethereal economiccenterrested,incontrasttotheworldoftheruralpopulation?Whatdid thecityreallymeanformedievalorearlymodernpeople,asfaraswecantrustthe countlessliteraryandhistoriographicaldocumentsfromthattimeperiod?The contrast between the urban world of the Roman Empire and that of the early MiddleAgeswithitsalmostexclusivefocusonagricultureasitseconomicbaseis moreorlessselfevident.Althoughmanycitieshadoriginallybeenfoundedbythe Romans across Europe, they continued to exist even though many had to wait many, many centuries before they flourished again in terms of population, wealth, hearts, architecture and economy.2
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I would like to thank Marilyn Sandidge, Westfield State College, Westfield, MA, for her critical reading of this introduction and her great support in many ways. All remaining errors are obviously mine. JohnRich, The City in Late Antiquity. Leicester Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society, 3 (London and New York: Routledge, 1992); Towns in Transition: Urban Evolution in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Neil Christie and S. T. Loseby (Aldershot, Hants, England, and Brookfield, VT: Scholar Press, 1996); AD 312–609 (New York: Routledge, 2000); Yizhar Hirschfeld, "Habitat", Interpreting Late Antiquity: Essays on the Postclassical World, eds. G.W. Bowersock, Peter Brown and Oleg Grabar (Cambridge,
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When a medieval or modern writer mentioned a city, did he really mean the same thing as today when we refer to such a place? And if a city was mentioned, what value or importance was attached to it? When and how did medieval artists think about urban space, and why did they do so, when normally ecclesiastical spaces and courtyards seem to have dominated the public imagination most of the time? How did people in the Middle Ages view and react to the ancient urban civilization that persisted even after the fall of Rome in the 5th century, both in the form of numerous cities founded by the Romans and in literary works that referred to Roman models in dealing with urban space? Undoubtedly,urbanspacecertainlymeantsomethingquitedifferenttopeople intheMiddleAgesandtheearlymodernagethantothosewhostilllivedwiththe Romancultureinmindordrewtheirvaluesandinspirationfromthatancient world.Wecanprobablyassertthatthesamekindofdifferenceexistsbetween,on theonehand,ourmodernattitudetoandrelationshipwithurbanspace,andthat heldbypeopleinthepremodernera,ontheother.Atanyrate,however,boththen and today urban space constitutes a focal point for many different societies, perhapsmoreinthepostmodernagethaninthepremodernage,buteventhen townsandcitiesprovedtobesomeofthemostcriticalnodesinthelargernetwork ofawholecountryorpeople.4 The modern Italian novelist Italo Calvino perhaps puts it best in his fictional travel narrative Lecittà invisibile, an imaginary account written by Marco Polo to the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan, describing, for example, the city of Zaira:
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MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), 258-72. See the various contributions to: LaFindelacitéantiqueetledébutdelacitémédiévale:delafinduIIIe siècleàl'avènementdeCharlemagne.Actesducolloquetenuàl'UniversitédeParisXNanterreles1,2et3 avril 1993, réunis par Claude Lepelley. Munera. Studi storici sulla tarda antichità, 8 (Bari: Edipuglia, 1996). Comprehensive and up-to-date scientific representations of this important topic can be found in the entries on City, Municipal Laws, Urban Deities, Urban Law and Urban Architecture in Derneue Pauly: Encyclopedia of Antiquity, editors Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider. Today there are entire shelves of studies on urban space; see, for example, Allan B. Jacobs, Great Streets (Cambridge, MA, and London: The Hit Press, 1993); Martin M. Pegler, Streetscapes (New York: Retail Reporting Corporation, 1998); David Pinder, VisionoftheCity: Utopianism, Power and Politics in TwentiethCenturyUrbanism (Edinburgh:EdinburghUniversity Press 2005); UrbanSpace.No.5:FeaturingGreenDesignStrategies,ed.JohnMorrisDixon.Designed by Veronika Levin (New York: Visual Reference Publications, 2007). As city architects still say today, what constitutes urban space and how to design it is a critical issue for society at large because many of the people involved, management and maintenance, security and at the same time functionality and must offer appeal. aesthetic; see Sarah Gaventa, New Public Spaces (London: Mitchell Beazley, 2006).
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The city is not made of that [how many steps form the streets that rise like stairs, ibid.], but of relationships between the dimensions of its space and the events of its past: the height of a pole and the distance from the swaying feet of a a hanged usurper of the Floor; the rope stretched from the pole to the opposite banister and the garlands decorating the course of the Queen's bridal procession; the height of that railing and the jumphead that climbed over it was dawning. . . . A description of Zaira as it is today must include all of Zaira's past. However, the city does not tell the past, but contains it like the handwritten line written on the corners of the streets, on the bars of the windows, on the handrails of the steps..., each segment is successively marked with risks, notches, scribbles. 5
Calvino composed his novel shortly after Marco Polo's Milione, but whereas the Venetian traveler was driven primarily by mercantile interests and curiosity about the alien world in its physical manifestation, Calvino explored the entire stage of urban space.6
Cities in the Transitional Period from the Late Roman Empire to the Early Middle Ages A point about the cities of the Middle Ages must be made at the outset, which hopes to deconstruct one of the many myths surrounding this period as a time of supposed primitivism, barbarism and lack of civilization. While we tend to equate cities and complementary urban life with the Early Modern Age, more narrowly defined as the Renaissance, many cities already dominated the landscape of the Early Middle Ages, albeit in most cases considerably smaller in size and physical extent than than in later centuries.
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ItaloCalvino,InvisibleCities,trans.fromtheItalianWilliamWeaver(1972;NewYorkandLondon: HarcourtBraceJovanovich,1974),10–11;seealsothecontributionstoMedievalPracticesofSpace, ed.BarbaraA.HanawaltandMichalKobialka.MedievalCultures,23(MinneapolisandLondon: UniversityofMinnesotaPress,2000),especiallyMichaelCamille,“SignsoftheCith:Place,Power, andPublicFantasyinMedievalParis “(1–36). Marina Zancan, „Calvino's invisible cities“, Italian literature: Leopera, vol.4: The twentieth century, part 2: The literary research, ed. Alberto Asor Rosa (Turim: Einaudi Gallimard, 1996), 828–930; .Suzanne Concklin Akbarian and Amilcare Iannuci (Toronto, Buffalo and Londres: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 182–200.
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land and that the nobility retained the leadership role it inherited from the early Middle Ages, at least until the 15th century. terms, at least in terms of pride and civic identity. This phenomenonhasbeenstudiedmanytimes,yetitcontinuestovexusdeeply,and requiresevernewapproachesdrawingfromdifferentsourcematerial,whether historical,arthistorical,literary,orsocialeconomic.Inaddition,themeaningof urbanspacechangesfromareatoarea,fromcountrytocountry,andsoalsofrom languageregiontolanguageregion.Surprisingly,however,commonelementscan bediscoveredeverywhere,asIwilldiscussbelow,whetherweinvestigatethe treatmentoftowns/citiesandtheirculturalmanifestationineighthcenturyIberia orinthirteenthcenturyNorway.8 Wehavetotakegeneralstatementsaboutmedievalurbanismreallywithagrain ofsalt,aswhenKathrynL.Reyersonclaims, tries to summarize the state of the art in his field: “One of the most dramatic examples of the shrinking and shrinking that distinguishes the ancient world from the Middle Ages is found in the medieval city. .The contrasts between the cities of Roman times and those of the early Middle Ages were profound. From a complex legal vocabulary associated with cities in antiquity, there is a transition to a simplified classification system in the Merovingian period. Three terms were used by the Merovingians to describe urban forms: civitas, castrum and vicus.”9 She mainly endorses the ideas developed by Henri Pirenne about the loss of
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ThisfindsremarkableexpressioninthevastcorpusofBooksofHoursinwhichtheworldof agricultureprovidestheessentialbasisforthecalendarbecauseofthecycleofseasonscouldbe bestobservedinnature,TeresaPérezHiguera,MedievalCalendars(1997;London:Weidenfeld& Nicolson,1998),128–32.However,atcloserexaminationtherearealsonumerous,thoughvery smallreferencestourbanlifeemerginginthedistantbackground.Anexcellentexamplefollowing thesamemodel,thoughnotaBookofHours,provestobethepictorialcycleintheCastellodel BuonconsiglioinTrento,ibid.,181–83.Hereanaristocraticcompanyenjoysitselfwiththrowing snowballsateachother,whilehuntersstandbyinthebackground,nexttothemightycityand Schloss. Siehe die Beiträge zu The Comparative History of Urban Origins in NonRoman Europe: Ireland, Wales, Denmark, Germany, Polen, and Russia from the Ninthtothe Thirteenth Century, ed. Howard B. Clarkund Anngret Simms. BAR International Series, 255 (Oxford: B.A.R., 1985). , e Raymond Gillespie. Irish Historic Towns Atlas, 11 (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2002). Kathryn L. Reyerson, „Urbanismo, Europa Ocidental“, Wörterbuch des Mittelalters, Hrsg. Joseph R. Strayer. Vol.12 (Nova York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989), 311–20; hier311–12.
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importance of the city to the early Middle Ages (313), but then Head actually gives considerable evidence that seems to point in a different direction, emphasizing the role of Emperor Charlemagne and the Church as a whole, a lot of new energy for development from the city to waste space. The size of cities is irrelevant to the study of urban culture and urban space in the premodern world, especially in the period just after Roman times, as long as we can see that urban space continued to dominate social, economic and political life. However, historians and archaeologists disagree on the definition of what concretely constitutes a city. Would an administrative headquarters or an economic center be important enough to speak of a city in the early Middle Ages? As is often the case, simple answers are not enough, but a set of criteria as defined by Edith Ennen is needed, including 1. Defense; 2. road planning; 3. Market(s); 4th office; 5. legal autonomy; 6.aroleasacentralplace;7. relatively large population; 8. economic diversification; 9. Types of urban housing not specifically designed for housing and agricultural production; 10. social differentiation;11.acomplexreligiousorganization;and12.judicialfunctions.10 Butagain,asscholarshaverepeatedlywarned,wehavetoacceptremarkable differencesbetweenurbansettlementsnorthoftheAlpsandsouthofthem,ifwe canuntanglethethornyissueofwhatmakesupatownandwhatacity.11Political and military developments in medieval England also led to a considerably differentdevelopmentofcitiescomparedtothoseonthecontinentbecausealong periodofinternalpeacehadmadethecitywallmostlyunnecessaryfordefense purposesatleastsincethethirteenthorfourteenthcentury,anditmaintainedonly
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Edith Ennen, Die Europäische Stadt des Mittelalters.3rd, rev.andexpanded.(1972;Göttingen:Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht,1979); Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europeand the Mediterraneanan 400-800 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 591-96. here 100. See also Wolf Liebeschütz, "Cities, Taxes, and the Accommodation of the Barbarians", FromRomanProvincestoMedievalKingdoms, ed.ThomasF. X. Noble. Rewriting Histories (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 309–23. For a nice overview of the social, economic, military, religious and literary aspects that determined the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, but without considering urbanism, see William R. Cook and Ronald B. Herzman, The Medieval World View : An Introduction.Sec.ed.(1983; NewYorkandOxford:OxfordUniversityPress,2004) 90-128. But they briefly discuss the rise of cities since the tenth century on pages 178-84.
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the role of a tariff barrier, protecting the domestic merchant class and allowing the city to levy tariffs on all goods imported by outside merchants. At the same time, he observes, “cities were also changing. Their own identitiesshifted,astheybecamelessthestageofallsignificantcivilaristocratic activity,lessthefocusforanautonomous,inwardlooking,publicpolitics.Public spacebecamemorereligious,forexample,asbishopsbecamemoreimportant(the smallerthecity,byandlarge,themorereligiousitspublicspacebecame—inthe civitasofnorthernFrancia(France)andEnglandwhichkepttheirbishopsbutlost theirurbaneconomicfeatures,religiousceremonialwasallthatwasleft).”13 One of the key reasons seems to have been the switch of a taxation system controlledbylocalgovernmentstoataxationsystemorganizedbythecentral governmentinmostcasesfaraway,underminingsomeofthecrucialmotivating factorsthathadtraditionallysupportedtheurbanelite—theendofthecuria,both incitiesintheeasternandinthewesternEmpire,whichsubsequentlyledtothe “physicaldecayoftheforum/agoraanditsassociatedcivicbuildingsatthecentre ofcities,which...couldhappenatthesametimeasthebuildingorrepairofrich privatehousesandprivatelyfoundedchurcheselsewhereintown.”14 Nevertheless,citiesdidnotsimplydisappearinthewakeofextensivemilitary problemsandpoliticalcrisesduringthepostRomanperiod,butthearistocratic elitefounditlessandlessattractivetolivethere,whichwastobecometheclear harbingeroftheearlymedievalworldwhere“participationinthepoliticalretinue ofacountcouldbedonefromeitheranurbanoraruralbase;andcountsmight nothavesomuchauthoritythatsocialleadersneededtobeintheirretinuesat all. 15 This may, but does not necessarily, lead to a general disintegration of the urban community, requiring extreme care in assessing the city's history at this early stage of the Middle Ages.
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A.E.J. Morris, History of Urban Form Before the Industrial Revolutions. Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 595. ChrisWickham,FramingtheEarlyMiddleAges,598;TimothyW.Potter,TownsinLateAntiquity: IolCaesareaandItsContext.OccasionalPublication,IanSandersMemorialFund,2(Sheffield:Ian SandersMemorialFund,1995),63–102.SeealsoTownsandTheirTerritoriesBetweenLateAntiquity andtheEarlyMiddleAges,ed.GianPietroBrogiolo. The Transformation of the RomanWorld, 9 (Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill, 2000); Townsin Transition: Urban Evolution in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Neil Christie and S.T. Loseby (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998); Contribuições de evidências arqueológicas (Oxford: Archeopress, 2008). Chris Wickham, Enquadrando o início da Idade Média, 602.
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beginning of the fourth century possessor and decurio were considered synonymous,bytheendofthatcenturyandinthefifthwefindthatthemembers of the curia belonged to a genuinely urban middle class, especially small landownersandmerchantsorartisansnotconnectedwithlandowning.”16 Afterall,themanyexamplesofsignificantandevengrowingcitiesspeakaloud anddistinctlanguage.Insomeregionsthearistocracynotablylivedincities,such asinpostsixthcenturyItaly,buteventherethenumberofimportantaristocrats residinginthecountrysidewasalsonotnegligible.InMerovingianFrancethe majorityofnobleslivedoutsideofthecities,butagain,thisdidnotnecessarily affect Negative city growth after about 550 AD Chris Wickham provides a valuable summary: “In the years 700-50, say Egypt, Italy and Syria, Palestine are clearly the regions with the most urbanized aristocrats. Then come southern Spain and southern Gaul, perhaps the subregion of Marmara near Constantinople, and perhaps Africa, where cities were not the only places of aristocratic life, but important nonetheless.”17
The High Middle Ages As soon as we turn our attention to the tents of the last century, the situation changes significantly and becomes much more complex. Its blacksmiths and assassins made swords, helmets and chain mail for knights in Italy, Provence, Germany and beyond, while coinage yielded over twenty thousand silver cents a year.”18 They point to the complicated relationship between advanced agricultural productivity , such as viticulture ,
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Pablo C. Díaz, “City and Territory in Hispania in Late Antiquity”, “Cities and Their Territories Between Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages”, 2000, 1–35; here7. In practice, the unity of city and country dissolved, the Territoria became independent of city control, and state officials began to operate from the city in rural areas, which, despite administrative schemes, were regulated by their mechanisms themselves. Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 608-609; he emphasizes the exceptional situation of England in the early Middle Ages (with little urbanization until c. 700) and of the Rhineland with its significant economic prosperity centered on urban economies. Joseph and Frances Gier, Lifeina Medieval City (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), 11.
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and sophisticated artisanal production methods that led to the development of large markets, the focal points within a city. In other words, technological developments had a direct impact on improvements in agriculture, crafts and commerce/trade, which in turn aided and strengthened the development and growth of cities much earlier in the Middle Ages than is commonly believed. However, in our study of this and later periods, we must be careful not to confuse general trends with specific cases, nor to fall victim to global assumptions about the steady growth of medieval cities in the early modern period, as if history were a process progressive and linear could be described. In Italy, for example, the period from 550 to 750 is usually described as a period of urban crisis and widespread decline in economic and cultural activity, while the period from 750 to 950 is seen primarily as a period of remarkable rebirth and new growth. in the French city of Troyes, Joseph and Frances Gies point out: “All had abbeys and monasteries and many churches – mostly wooden, some stone with wooden roofs. A feature of many cities, including Troyes, was the palace of a secular prince. In these communities there were still empty spaces - marshy land along a river or an unused meadow. Most cities ranged in area from 100 hectares to half a square mile, with populations ranging from 2-3,000 to 10-20,000. Not surprisingly, many medieval poets, even when they focused primarily on court life and courtly protagonists, at least behind the scenes or on the margins of major events, involved cities, citizens and the power of urban communities in the production of money, crafts, food. , clothes and all kinds of fine amenities of a sophisticated lifestyle. I will cite below some examples from the 12th to 15th centuries, when urban life gained increasing economic, political and military importance and, thus, also became attractive for literary projections. Remarkably, despite numerous military attacks during the Migration Period and beyond, late antiquity and early medieval cities were not simply abandoned or 19th century.
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Cities and their territories between Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages, ed.Gian P. Brogiolo, 2000; Città, Castelli, Campagneneneterritoridi Frontiera: 5. SeminariosulLate AntiguityandEarlyMedievalinCentral-NorthernItalia,MonteBarroGalbiate(Lecco),910June1994, Ed.GianP.Brogiolo. Archaeological Documents, 6 (Mantua: Ed.S.A.P., Soc.ArcheologicaPadana, 1995). Joseph and Frances Gies, Medieval Town of Lifeina, 15th Century
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allowed to decline through Germanic invasions, who were often mistakenly called "barbarians". Einigen Statistiken zufolge gab es um 900 u. Z. in Mitteleuropa ca. 20 größere Städte, die a 1150 auf ca. 1250C.E.themedievallandscapewasdottedbyca.1500cities.Infact,90%ofallcitiesstillinexistencetodayinthatlargegeographicareawerefoundedbetween 1100and1350.IneleventhcenturyGermany,about40outof120townsthatcanbeidentifiedtodayweresitesofbishops'seats,and20werenearmonasteries,andaround60realfoundationsdeveloped. However, the importance of the “specific location on an important long-distance trade route, as well as [ ] the existence of a fortress that provides protection for the growing merchant community” should not be outgrown looked, north extensive impact of the colonization process extending into central, eastern, and northern Europe at least since the twelfthcentury.EvenIrelandexperiencedastrongurbanizationprocessasaresult ofitscolonizationbytheAngloNormansbeginningintheeleventhcentury.21 Thisdoesnotmeanthatthoseearlycitiescouldpridethemselvesonalarge numberofinhabitants.InCologne,forinstance,onlyafewthousandpeoplelived duringthetenthcentury,whereasLondon(Lundenwic)housedbetweenfiveand tenthousandpeople.22Intheeleventhandtwelfthcenturiesthepopulationof Parisisestimatedtohavebeenbetween80,000and200, 000;Florence,Venice,and Milanboastedofupto100,000peoplebytheyear1300 ,whereasFlemishtowns normallydidnotexceed50,000people.Ofcourse,wehavetobecarefulintrusting anyofthosefiguressincetheyareallestimatesanddependverymuchonthe selectionofcriteria ,hencethevastrangeforParis,forexample.23Butcitiessouth oftheAlpswiththeirlongstandingMediterraneanculturestandoutbecauseof theirextensivepopulation,sometimesreachinguptoninetythousandpeopleeveninthemiddlecategory,suchasCordoba,Spain,whereasRomeandAthens,for
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Anngret Simms, "The Early Origins and Morphological Inheritance of European Towns", Urban Landscapes: International Perspectives, ed. J. W. R. Whitehand and P. J. Larkham (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 23-42; here 27; and N. J. Baker and T. R. Slater, "Morphological Regions in English Medieval Towns", ibid., 43-68. See also A.E.J. Morris, History of Urban Form, 94-95 (however, some of his perspectives are based on much earlier research, but provide an excellent overview with good visuals, maps and graphs Reyerson, "Urbanism", 315-16.
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instance,representcitiesofamoreindividualstatusthatwouldneedparticular treatmentforwhichthereisnoroomhere.24 We can be certain now that many of the Roman cities, even those founded outsideofItalyandeventhosenorthoftheAlps,continuedtoexistlongafterthe falloftheRomanEmpire,thoughtheyexperiencedtremendouschanges,both economically and architecturally, and successfully competed with new city foundations,ultimatelyandtoalargedegreesurvivinguntiltoday.25Afterall, administrativeandjudicialservicescontinuedtobeofsupremeimportance,even forthenewcolonizersandrulerswhotookoverthelandswheretheRomanshad dominatedbefore , as in the Iberian Peninsula.26 This does not mean that ancient Roman cities did not undergo major changes, but they did not simply disappear. As Adela Cepas points out referring to the city of Clunia in northern Hispania, “The archaeological history of Clunia is well known: rapid urban development in the early imperial period, followed by the late Roman period, marked by the change of function and/or the abandonment of most of its structures... By the end of the imperial period, however, most of the public buildings had lost their former function. The rich material culture that Palol has unearthed since 1958 stands in stark contrast to the use people make of the city's buildings.... At least like Grenville Astill
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27
H. Steuer, "City: Cultural History," Royal Lexicon of Germanic Archaeology. Sec., completely revised and expanded by Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich and Heiko Steuer. 29 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2005), 447 to 72, here 451 to 53. This article also provides an extensive bibliography. Steuer,“Stadt:Kulturgeschichtlich,”458–61,emphasizesthattherewerehardlyanyconstruction activities in Gallic and Italian cities until the seventh century, but between 650 and 700 this changedremarkably,probablybecauseofrenewedtradeandcommerce,paralleltotheemergence ofanurbannetworkalongthecoastoftheNorthSea.Heinsiststhatwehavebeendeludedby thetraditionalhistoriographicalperspectiveofaruralworldnorthoftheAlpsandanurbanworld intheMediterraneanregionduringthelateantiquityandtheearlyMiddleAges:“Mitgewissen Unterschieden,dieauchnichtübersehenwerdensollten,entwickeltensichüberallnachBedarf zentraleOrte— one in a landscape originally inhabited by tribes, the other in the transformed base of the ancient Roman Empire” (461). See, for example, J. Arce, “LosgobernadoresdelaDiocesisHispaniarum(ss.IV–Vd.C.)yla continuidaddelasestructurasadministrativasromanassenlaPenínsulaIberica,” AntiquitéTardive 7(1999):73–83. Adela Cepas, "The Ending of the Roman City: The Case of Clunia in the Northern Plateau of Spain", People and Space in the Middle Ages, 300-1300, ed. Wendy Davies, Guy Halsall and Andrew Reynolds. Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 15 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 187-207; here. Specialist research on your topic can be found there.
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points out: “Urbanization continued to be stimulated and dominated by aristocratic production and consumption until at least the late eleventh/early twelfth century, when there were signs that a portion of the urban population had acquired sufficient economic and political power to achieve a level of independence . This trend had considerably accelerated by the later twelfth century,whenthereisextensiveevidencefortheincreasedcommercializationof thecountrysideandagreaterinvolvementofalargepartofthepopulationinthe market.”28 Ofcourse,therewasnocityjustlikeanyother,andyetwecannotignorethe fundamentalidentityofthemostcriticalfeatures.However,onapoliticallevel, someweredominatedbythebishopandhiscathedral;otherswerecontrolledby afeudallordwhohadhisresidenceinthecityornearby;othersagainenjoyed considerablefreedomfromlocallordsandachievedadegreeofindependencethat was unprecedented even in antiquity, only subordinated under the king or emperor, particularly in later centuries. As Joseph and Frances Gies summarize: “Medieval cities enjoyed great individual freedom, varying degrees of self-government, and little democracy. ) and are normally licensed as mayor and councilor.”29
UrbanSpaceasanEpistemologicalChallenge Ascountlessstudieshavealreadydemonstrated,theparticularfocusonindividual citiesallowsforindepthinvestigationsofspecificaspectsofeachculture,whether weconsiderreligiousgroupsandtheirconflictswitheachother,economicaspects concerning individual social classes (merchants and bankers versus crafts men/artisansandjourneymen),genderrelationships,agedifferences,culturaland linguisticgroups(FlorentinesinLondon,GermansinVenice,FlemishinCologne, etc.),30 or the world of sexuality (prostitution , Bordelle, Zuhälter, Vergewaltigung, Ehebruch,
28
29 30
Grenville Astill, "Community, Identity and the Later Angelsaxon Town: The Case of Southern England", People and Space in the Middle Ages, 233-54; here 234. Ibid., 199. For a study of early modern immigrants to cities since the seventeenth century, see Alexander Cowan, “ForeignersandtheCity:TheCaseoftheImmigrantMerchant”,MediterraneanUrbanCulture1400–1700,ed.id.(Exeter:UniversityofExeterPress,2000),45– 55.
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marriage,etc.).31Thecitywasregularlythesitewheremajortensionsdeveloped andwerefoughtoutmostintensively,asseenwhenwethinkofthepogromsthat were directed against Jewish populations in Rhenish cities during the First Crusade(1096),32orinthewakeoftheBlackDeathin1348–1350,andsubsequently farintothelatefifteenthcentury,suchasinNuremberg.Onamoremundane level,consideringeverydaylife,wemightwanttofollowArsenioFrugoni'slively, butprobablyalsoveryaccuratedescription,takingexceptiononlyindetailsor consideringlocalvariantshereandthere: Themedievalcity ,aftertheeleventhcentury,hadsomuchferventlifeandconfidence thatwecanreadilyrecognizecharacteristicsofourownmodernworldinit.Butitis alsoextraordinarilydifferentinmanyways,andweneedtoemphasizethataswellas wefollowmedievalpeoplethroughanaverageday.Betweentheeveningtwilightand thegraynessbeforedawnonecanhardlymakeoutthewallsofthehousesforthere isnolightinginthemedievalcityaswesaid.Ateveningcurfewthewomencoverthe coalsinthehearthwithashtoreducethefirehazardandkeepthemaliveuntilnext morning.Thehousesarebuiltwithbeamsofoakandeveryoneisapotentialtinderbox waitingtoblazeupsoatnighttheonlyflamesleftburningarethecandlesbeforethe holy images. Warum sollten die Straßen überhaupt beleuchtet werden? Abends sind die Zugänge zu den gefährlichen Vierteln versperrt, Ketten über den Fluss gespannt, um einen Überraschungsangriff barbarischer Plünderer flussaufwärts zu verhindern, und die Stadttore sind fest verschlossen. Die Stadt ist wie ein großer Haushalt, in dem alles gut gesichert ist.33
31
32
33
Alice Beardwood, Alien Merchants in England 1350 to 1377: Their Legal and Economic Position (Cambridge, MA The Medieval Academy of America, 1931); Grethe Jacobsen, GuildsinMedieval Denmark: theSocialandEconomicRoleofMerchantsandArtisans,Ph.D.diss.UniversityofWisconsin,Madison,1980; (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1987). ). See also Fabian Alfie's contribution to the present volume. For sexuality in medieval cities, i.e. mainly prostitution, see Ruth Mazo Karras, "Prostitution in Medieval Europe", Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, eds. Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage (New York and London: Garland, 1996). , 243-60. FundamentalsoofMedievalandEarlyModernCulture, 3 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2008), in particular Gertrud Blaschitz's study of brothels and prostitutes (715-50). These tragic events have been extensively documented and analyzed, and for a good collection of primary texts dealing with the desperate actions of Jews in Rhenish towns, see Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1987). Robert Arsenio Frugoni, "Introduction", Chiara Frugoni, ADayinaMedievalCity, trans. William McCuaig (ChicagoandLondon:TheUniversityofChicagoPress,2005),1-13;here6.
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Continuing this approach, we can also design the patterns of the streets, the houses, the interiors, the workspaces, the churches, the public buildings and squares, the city walls, the gates, the warehouses, the market stalls and shops, the administration, Examine churches, schools, and libraries.34 Life in the city was determined by economic and religious considerations. The idea of the City of God of St. Augustine, as the spiritual ideal of the earthly city as its natural counterpart, provided the basic paradigm for medieval city-dwellers.35 Consequently, the need arose for numerous ecclesiastical buildings, altars, relics, chapels, confessionals, and also the corresponding priests and priests. other overly large clerics, often turning the earthly city into the individual's search for a spiritual home. Whatevercitywemightwanttouseasanillustrativeexample,invirtuallyevery casethecitizensexpressedgreatprideintheirsocialenvironment,whetherinthe citywallsorthefacadesoftheirownhomes,theirchurchesorthepiazza/city square, as wonderfully illustrated by the latemedieval artist Neroccio di BartolomeodiBenedettode'Landi,whose“TheVirginCommendsSienatoJesus from1480(Siena,ArchiviodiStato)showsthekneelingVirginholdingasmall modelofthecitystandingonthreemarblecolumnsofdifferenthue,presenting ittoChristhoveringabove.Themodel'sthreecolumnsrepresentthefundamental Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity, reflected in their individual colors.36 But there was no reason for any urban community to rely on its own security and self-reliance, as demonstrated by countless examples of cities destroyed, burned, and razed, all victims of countless wars, riots, fires, and disasters. natural. military or natural, found enormous and impressive expression in murals and sculptures and in the nomenclature of ecclesiastical buildings in medieval and early modern cities. Not surprisingly, Saint Christopher, the giant who carried the baby Jesus across the river without knowing his true identity, was one of the most popular saints in medieval street art, and for good reason.37
34
35 36 37
For recent investigations into the architectural design and social function of urban homes, see the contributions to Medieval Domesticity: Home, Housing and Household in Medieval England, ed. Maryanne Kowaleski and P.J.P. Goldberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), particularly by Felicity Riddy, Mark Gardiner, Sarah Rees Jones and Jane Grenville. Frugoni, "Introduction, 9-10. Chiara Frugoni, ADayinaMedievalCity, 21–23, the illustration on p.22.
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Everyday Life in a Medieval Town Both birth and death took place in the town, the former requiring extensive medical care and health care, the latter requiring considerable effort to properly bury the deceased. and hospitals, which provided the final resting place for the dying, were of great importance to the urban population (Roberta Gilchrist). Until well into the late Middle Ages, cemeteries were centrally located, right next to the parish church, that is, in the center of town (Julia Barrow). Finally, funeral processions and memorial services and services played an important role in urban life (ClareGittings; Malcolm Norris).38 It was not until the 15th century that cemeteries finally disappeared from the inner city because space was scarce and city governments were dangerous. developed resulting from the burial of the dead in the land of the water supply of the urban population. Lagopoulosobserve,thoughfromamodernperspective:“Theimageofthecity incognitivemapsisnotthecityitself,norisitsomereflectionoffundamental innateprocessesofspatialperception,becauseweknowthatmostofthewaysin whichpeopleperceivespacearesociallylearnedandexperientiallybased.The cognitivemapissomuchaproductofsocialinteractionthatevenindividuals living near each other in the very same neighborhood will hold different conceptionsoftheirareaasaproductofseparatesocialnetworks....Insum, cognitivegeographylocatestheproductionofspatialmeaningwithintheminds ofindividuals.”40
38
39
40
Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead, 100-1600, ed. Steven Bassett (1992; London and New York: Leicester University Press, 1995). Anja Tietz, "The City Cemetery of Eisleben: Martin Luther's Influence on the Funeral System," Martin Luther and Eisleben, ed. Rosemarie Knape. Writings of the Luther Memorials Foundation in Saxony-Anhalt, 8 (Leipzig: Evangelical Publishing House, 2007), 189-205. For an older but valuable study of the history, see Herbert Derwein, History of the Christian Cemetery in Germany (Frankfurta.M.: Franzmathes, 1931). M. Gottdiener and Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos, "Introduction", The City and the Sign: An Introduction to Urban Semiotics, ed.id. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986),11.
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In other words, there is a certain type of social grammar that allows the individual to first perceive the urban space and, secondarily, to determine it from a social perspective: "Urban semiotics being then the study of spatial structures derived from internalized grammars of patterns and drawings that are externalized by semiosis.”41 to interpret, and in a way these same signs make up the urban space; thus, both the urban space and its semiotics are subject to constant historical changes, as the social subject perceives, interprets and creates the signs differently at each moment.42 However, this should not ignore the enormous impact that social determinants have on the individual and the social group, whether at the church, guild or family level, which also overshadow and influence the perspective and the design of urban space, in the middle of the day. As Roland Barthes states, also in a modern perspective but still relevant to our theme, “the inner city is always like the space where subversive forces act and meet, starting forces , playful forces. Residence, identity.”43 Some of the great literary protagonists of the Middle Ages, such as Alexander the Great and Apollonius of Tyre, clearly operated in cities and used cities for their global strategies, at a time when most medieval cities were still very far from the model provided by ancient cities and when most viewers were unfamiliar with the concept of true urban habitat as ancient.44
41 42
43 44
Gottdiener and Lagopoulos, “Introduction”, 15. Umberto Eco, “Function and Sign: Semiotics of Architecture,” The City and the Sign, 55–86; here 69: "Thus, in the course of history, primary and secondary functions can be found undergoing losses, recoveries and substitutions of various kinds. Roland Barthes, "Semiology and the Urban", The City and the Sign, 87-98; here96. Rolf Bräuer, "Alexander the Great: The Myth of the Invincible World Conqueror as Model, Warning, and Pejorative Example," Rulers, Heroes, Saints, ed. Ulrich Müller and Werner Wunderlich. 19 See also contributions to Alexander's poetry in Middle Ages: Cultural Self-Determination in the Context of Literary Relations, edited by Jan Cölln, Susanne Friede and Hartmut Wulfram.
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Certainly, as court poets reflect, medieval knights roam through forests, meadows and fields, visit castles and set out again on new adventures as if the world of commoners, merchants, bankers and craftsmen played no role or did not exist in any class. of citizens, although the history of medieval cities begins every year and does not gain importance until the 11th and 12th centuries. These observations raise the question of when did medieval minds perceive the city as a significant and distinct entity on most people's horizons? And when did you recognize the striking difference between city dwellers, country people, and members of aristocratic courts? Can we meaningfully use the urban area or central urban space as a hallmark for the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance or at least the early modern period? Allthesetransitionswerecertainlyfluidandtookalongtime,butifwetalk aboutparadigmshiftsinurbanhistory,wecanclearlyrecognizetheimportance ofcitiesasstakesinthelongtermshiftfromoneperiodtoanother.Urbanlifedid notsimplydisappearwiththeendoftheRomanEmpire,thoughtherewas,over thecenturies,aremarkabledeclineineconomicactivitiesandartisticproduction inthoseurbancentersalongwitharefocusonagriculturalproduction.45Inearly medievalTuscany,forinstance,thatis,duringthesixthtotheeighthcenturies,we canobservethetrendtowardtheestablishmentof“concentratedruralpopulation, withinwhichitisdifficult,ifnotimpossible,todiscernarcheologicaldatathat pointstosocialdifferentiation....Insidethesevillagestheprocessofcreatingthe materialsettlementstructuresonan'urban'modelparalleledtheestablishmentof ruralaristocracies and it did not begin until the middle of the eighth century.”46 The slow but steady disappearance of Roman public buildings, for example, and the use of amphitheaters and coliseums as quarries for private buildings signal a fundamental shift in the orientation of local people's interest. population, although economic production in the ancient Roman centers did not disappear. On the contrary, as Joachim Henning emphasizes, “skilled manual production flourished in the Merovingian period. The Paris of Gregory of Tour in the sixth century was a
45
46
Chris Wickham, “Repensando a Estrutura da Economia Medieval Inicial”, The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies, eds. Jennifer R. Davis e Michael McCormick (Aldershot, Hampshire e Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008 ), 19–31; aqui 27–29. Riccardo Francovich, "The Beginnings of Hilltop Villages in Early Medieval Tuscany", "The Long Morning of Medieval Europe", 55–82; aqui68.
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livingcitywithworkshopsandmarkets.”47TurningtoCologne,theauthornow corroboratesthattheruralizationprocessdidnotoccur,thattherewasnomajor hiatus between the ancient Roman world and the early Middle Ages as far as urbanlifewasconcerned.“Instead,theMerovingianperiodsawflourishingcraft production,includinghighlyspecializedinstallationssuchasglassovens.When productionactivitiesnextpickedupisstillindisputebutitseemstobeaboutthe tenthcenturyatthelatest.”48 Butabsolutecontinuitywasneveragiven,andthedestinyofmedievalcities oftendependedonglobaldevelopmentsineconomic,military,andsocialterms. Some urban centers experienced dramatic declines, others experienced rebirths, and still others simply continued their steady growth. In this regard, the focus on urban space, while not covered in detail here, provides excellent insight into broader issues of Merovingian and Carolingian empire building, prolonged famine, economic restructuring processes, and military conflicts.49
TheChurchandtheCity Concomitantly,theroleofecclesiasticalbuildingswithinmedievalcities,especially ofcathedralsandparishchurches,abbeysandconvents,cannotbeunderestimated withregardstoattractingnewsettlementsaroundthemandprovidingbothmore securityandculture.50Moreover,churches,monasteries, priories,chapels,and other ecclesiastical buildings represented focal points for urban growth and developmentthroughouttheentireMiddleAgesandfarbeyond,suchasinthe case of the city of Mainz on the Rhine, today west of Frankfurt, as an important ecclesiastical center, as a place of great economic production and trade, and as an important "passage point for the shipment of goods that are brought over the Alps,
47
48 49 50
Joachim Henning, “Strong Rulers – Weak Economy? Rome, the Carolingians, and the Archeology of Slavery in the First Millennium AD,” “The Long Dawn of Medieval Europe,” 33–53; Henning, "Strong Rulers", 50-51. Henning, "Strong Rulers", 51-53, with further reading on the subject. In a series of brief contributions, Bernd Fuhrmann discusses the following aspects: urban space in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages; Urban Space in the High and Low Middle Ages; Urban construction methods, culture of urban life; Urban Acquisition of Food and Other Supplies and Waste Handling and Urban Social Topography, in: Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, eds. Gert Melville and MartialStaub, Vol. II (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2008), 256-79; for bibliography see 478-79. As in most other cases in this encyclopedia, these entries provide good overviews, with lots of hard data, but lack a critical, scholarly approach, which is not surprising (or expected) for an encyclopedia. See my review, coming soon to Mediaevistik.
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including spices from the East, and was frequented by Muslim and Jewish merchants.”51 The same applies to Lucca, Italy, before the 10th century stone that resisted fires or floods, and here the enemy could not easily achieve the desired objectives. and wreak havoc. The belfries served exceedinglywellaswatchtowers,andtheneutralityofapublicspaceinvited administrators,rulers,andrepresentativesoflargerurbangroupstomeettherefor negotiations,councils,ordebates.ButmanycitiesnorthoftheAlps,particularly inScandinavia,theBaltics,andIreland,suchasYork,England,orDublin,were mostlybuiltoutofwood,evenifcloseto10,000peoplecouldlivethereattheend ofthetenthcentury.53 Notsurprisingly,thechurchprovedtobetheideallocationtodepositimportant legal and political documents; and the city governments liked to store their privileges,seals,measures,andweightsinchurches.Inotherwords,theparish church,andsothecathedralinlargercities,emergedasthecentralpointforurban administrationandinformation,whichalsoledtothefoundationofimportant librariesrightthere(see,forinstance,Heidelberg).Finally,churcheswerethefirst buildingsinmedievalcitieswithmechanicalclocks,andthebellsstructuredthe livesofallpeoplelivinginacity,atleastsinceca.1370–1380.54Butwhatdoesall Did this importance for the creation and subsequent development of urban space in the environment A offered to the beginning of modernity?
51
52
53 54
Julia MH Smith, Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000 (Oxford, New York, et al: Oxford University Press, 2005), 192. Lynette Olson, The Early Middle Ages: The Birthof Europe (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire). and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 134-35. Olson, The Early Middle Ages, 137. Jan Kuys, “Secular Functions of Late Medieval Parish Churches in the Northern Netherlands,”TheUseandAbuseofSacredPlacesinLateMedievalTowns,ed. ” ibid., 117-34.
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Critical Treatment of the Medieval City All these questions are naturally based on rhetorical questions that cannot be answered without further ado, otherwise this volume would not have been necessary or even possible. We know that the emergence of the city as a distinct topographical and architectural entity dramatically and inevitably changed the topography and mindset of the Middle Ages and then profoundly influenced and defined the early modern world. As the contributors to a symposiumheldinTrient,November9–11,2000,indicate,thephenomenonofthe medievalcityfundamentallytriggeredthecreationofanewtypeofconsciousness, theriseofanurbanclass,anurbanculture,andanurbanidentity.55Andasearly modernhistoriansandhistoriansofmentalityhaveoftenconfirmed,thoseurban centersalloverEuropeincreasinglyattractedagrowingamountofwealth,even effectivelycompetingagainstthetraditionalpowerplayers,especiallytheChurch andthenobility,thoughitwouldhavetobeamatteroffurtherandintensive debate as to the role which territorial dukes played, and how much The royal courts managed to maintain their cultural, military and political supremacy even outside the city walls. But also the crucial function of cities - for the purpose of this study I will not make any particular distinction between the two terms, although statistically and economically the city should be defined as a much larger, much denser and much more important entity than a city - in the network of production and consumption, trade and markets, which were already so central in the world of antiquity, have since played the most important role, whether the city was an episcopal, ducal, royal possession or not. 56
55
56
Aspettiecomponentidell'identitàurbanainItaliaeinGermania(secoliXIV–XVI),acuradiGirogio ChittoliniandPeterJohanek.Annalidell'IstitutostoricoitalogermanicoinTrento,12(Bologna andBerlin:IlMulinoDunkerandHumbolt,2003);seealsothereviewbyElenaDiVenosa,inStudi medievali49,1(2008):436–44.Chittolinicorrectlyemphasizes:“Ilperiodopropostoèstatoquello deisecoliXIII–XVI;un' etàincuilacittàdaunlatohamaturato,siainItaliacheinGermania,una forte'coscienzacivica',dalpuntodivistapolitico;eincui,nellostessotempo,devefronteggiare altreforzepoliticheesterne,comesignori,principie'dominanti',edèquindisollecitataariflettere eaesprimereinformeparticolarilapropriaidentità”(8).BerndRoeckemphasizes,ontheother hand,theneedtoanalyzethefundamentaltransitionfromtheimaginarycity,asborrowedeither from antiquity or from the autochthone examples, as reflected in seals or frescoes, to the realistically identifiable city that extends far beyond the traditional castle and the narrow row of houses shaded by the tall towers and church walls: "The city in modern times becomes increasingly decided in its specificity optically tangible individuality, and finally concludes as an object of autonomous representation" (ibid., 12). H. van Werveke, "The Rise of the Towns", The Cambridge Economic History of Europe.
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Themodernworldis,asweallknow,increasinglydominatedbyurbanculture, andlessandlessoftheworldpopulationislivinginthecountry,whichisastrong trendthatcontinuestoimpactourmodernlivesbothintheWesternandinthe Easternworld.57Modernurbanspacesarebeingdesigned,andartificiallycreated forpolitical,economic,social,andculturalpurposes.58Theoppositewasnormally thecaseinpremoderntimes,andyettherootoftheexplosivedevelopmentof citiesallovertheEuropeanlandscaperestsintheeleventhandtwelfthcenturies, ifnotearlier,asIhavediscussedabove.Itwouldreallytakeuntiltheeighteenth, and especially the nineteenth centuries for cities of the size of a megapolis to emerge ,pensava existir um espaço verdadeiramente urbano já na Idade Média, ainda que numa escala microscópica face ao que vivemos hoje. Thehistoricalexplorationofthemedievalcityhasalongtradition,obviously becauseurbancentershaverepresentedthenodesofanevergrowingnetwork deeplyinfluencingmedievalsociety.Constitutionalhistorianshavetreatedthe phenomenonofthecityfrommanydifferentperspectives,especiallywithregard tourbanprivilegesandfreedomsthatmadelifeinacitysodifferentfromliving inthecountrywithinruralcommunitieswherefeudalstructurescontinuedto dominatefarintotheeighteenthandnineteenthcenturies.FritzRörig,forinstance, examined the rise of the medieval city in the wake of the crusades, the developmentofanurbanlandscapeincentralandeasternEuropeduringtheso calledeasternColonization,thenewrelationshipbetweencityandstatesincethe late Middle Ages, the considerable growth of the urban population and the Estabelecimento do poder urbano em toda a Europa medieval. Ele citou o estabelecimento de governos municipais independentes (não em todos os lugares, mas com bastante frequência), o papel das guildas, os sistemas educacionais urbanos e, com eles, o aumento da alfabetização como as principais causas desse enorme fenômeno, o poder econômico das cidades e, muitas vezes, também poder marítimo urbano, tanto ao longo dos grandes rios como nas margens dos vários mares, além do poder militar e seus sistemas de defesa. Na maior parte dos casos, o recém-criado orgulho e identidade urbana encontravam a sua melhor expressão nos Paços do Concelho, ou Câmaras Municipais, edifícios sempre muito representativos,
57
58
EncyclopediaofUrbanCultures:CitiesandCulturesAroundtheWorld, ed.MelvinEmberandCarolR.Ember.4vols.(Danbury,CT:Grolier,2002); /Prentice Hall, 2005). The literature on modern urban space is indeed legion and need not be discussed or listed in detail here. The number of relevant studies that have just recently emerged is almost innumerable, see, for example, Urban Design, editors Alex Krieger and William S. Saunders. Architecture/Urban Studies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008); John R. Short, Alabaster Cities: Urban U.S. since 1950, 2006); Companionto Urban Economics, ed. Richard Arnott and Daniel P McMillen. Blackwell Companions to Contemporary Economics,4 (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).
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However, the differences between English and French cities, on the one hand, and German cities, on the other, remained noticeable depending on the political framework, not to mention Italian and Spanish cities.59 Jean Denis G.G. Lepage calls this unprecedented development "urban emancipation" and comments: Despite opposition from the authorities, citizens were gradually assimilated into society and won their freedom. As early as 1032, the citizens of Venice proclaimed their freedom and swore to defend it. The same happened in Milan in 1067 and in Lucca in 1068
But also in efforts to achieve urban independence and economic influence, the great differences between Western and Southern Europe, between Northern and Eastern Europe must be taken into account again and again. However, most economic trade, but also the creation of art, the flourishing of schools and universities, and to some extent also the production of literature depended heavily, if not exclusively, on cities with their markets, handicrafts, political power. and military forces. security. , but held out from February to April 1155. He besieged Crema from July 1159 to January 1160 and Milan a second time after failing in August/September 1158, from May 1161 to March 1162. In contrast, the castles they were usually smaller and sometimes weaker targets.”62
59
60
61
62
FritzRörig,TheMedievalTown,trans.J.A.Matthew(1932;BerkeleyandLosAngeles:University ofCaliforniaPress,1967);seealsothecontributionstoTheEnglishMedievalTown:AReaderin EnglishUrbanHistory1200–1540,ed.RichardHoltandGervaseRosser.ReadersinUrbanHistory (LondonandNewYork:Longman,1990);R.H.Hilton,EnglishandFrenchTownsinFeudalSociety: AComparativeStudy.PastandPresentPublications(Cambridge, NewYork, et al.: Cambridge University Press, 1992); JeanDenis GG Lepage, Castles and Fortified Cities of Medieval Europe: An Illustrated History (Jefferson, NC, und London: McFarland & Company, 2002), 251. JohnFrance, „Siege Conventions in Western Europeandthe LatinEast“, WarandPeaceinAncient and Medieval History, hrsg. Philip de Souza e John France (Cambridge, Nova York, et al.: CambridgeUniversityPress, 2008), 158–72; hier163. Frankreich, „Belagerungskonventionen“, 163.
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However, each city faced different challenges and enjoyed different opportunities, whether from a domineering lord or the lack of a unitary system on a global scale, as in Germany, at least since the end of the Staufen dynasty. Cities faced conflicts with Muslim neighbors in the Iberian Peninsula, conflicts with nobles, especially in England, and struggles with the German emperor, as in Italy.63 Each medieval and early modern city was different in its historical roots, its economic conditions and political and the context of their cultural, geographic and religious conditions. At the same time, we can place many cities in the same categories in terms of birth, development, structure and cultural and economic focus. Historians have regularly divided medieval European cities into three geographicalzones,firsttheinner,orsouthernzonecomprisingtheterritoryofthe formerwesternRomanEmpire,centeredontheMediterranean.Thenorthernzone consistedofthosecitieslocatedintheareanorthoftheAlps,mostlysituatedon thebanksoftheriversRhineandDanube.Thethirdzonecomprisedtheregion whereRomancultureandcivilizationhadexertedeitherverylittleornoinfluence, suchasScotland,Ireland,Scandinavia,andtheSlaviccountrieswhereeconomic andculturalaspectsdidnotattractthecolonizers'interests.64 But then there were new foundations, relocations, merging of smaller settlements, the concession of privileges that provoked the emergence of markets and, therefore, of cities. New towns were not only planned and built in the early modern period, for example at the end of the Renaissance, but also in the High or Late Middle Ages, such as Aigues-Mortes. As Georges Zarnecki states, "This great enterprise is a valuable example of a city that was practically rebuilt in the 13th century and not completed until the next reign of Philip the Bold (1270-1285)." Contrary to some modern assumptions, this was not the only case in medieval Europe.65
63 64
65
Lepage, Castles and Fortified Towns, 252-53. The classic study of this phenomenon is Edith Ennen's early history of the European city. Publication of the Institute for Historical Regional Studies of the Rhineland of the University of Bonn (Bonn: L. Rörscheid, 1953). Now see also Joachim Herrmann, "Settlement Historical Foundations and Historical Prerequisites for the Development of Berlin", Early History of the European City, ed. Hans Jürgen Brachmann et al.; for a focus on Scotland, see Edinburgh: The Making of a Capital City, ed. Brian Edwards and Paul Jenkins (Edinburgh:EdinburghUniversityPress, 2005). See also Edith Ennen, The European City of the Middle Ages. 2nd expanded and improved. Georges Zarnecki, Art of the Medieval World: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Sacred Arts. Art History Library (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1975), 395.
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Again and again it must be emphasized that the variety of medieval and early modern cities was considerable, whether as a bishopric, a noble castle, a palace or imperial estate, as a junction of important trade routes, etc., around which the first urban settlement then emerged and spread in the developed over time. Not surprisingly, then, urban growth did not proceed lineallyandsystematically,andthereweremanysetbacksandfailuresatspecific timesandperiods,especiallywhenwethinkofthedeepimpactofthesocalled BlackDeath,nottospeakofwars,famines,economiccrises,andotherfactors.66 Detailscannotbeexaminedanddiscussedhere,whichwouldonlyrepeatwhat hasoftenbeenstatedelsewhere;henceitwillsufficeforourpurposesjusttokeep inmindthatthehistoryofmedievalandearlymoderncitiesdifferedconsiderably fromregiontoregion,fromcountrytocountry,andalsofromculturetoculture. In other words, despite the apparently unified history of medieval cities, variants and differences significantly dominated, the result of which can still be observed today. To give you just a taste of the enormous potential of the study of medieval and early modern urban life, and to capture the wealth of critical insights in this field, I will list a few random examples from recent publications below. Paul Trio, like many other historians, has worked extensively on medieval brotherhoods, with a focus on Ghent.67 John Henderson preceded him with a similar study of brotherhoods in medieval Florence.68 Marjan DeSmet, along with Paul Trio, has examined the relationship between the church and the city at the end of medieval Holland.69 Poverty and the hospital at the end of the Middle Ages
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JosephP.Byrne, TheBlackDeath.GreenwoodGuidestoHistoricEventssoftheMedievalWorld(Westport,CT,andLondon:GreenwoodPress,2004),57–72; of a Human Trauma, Ed. Mischa Meier (Stuttgart: J.G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung, 2005), 179-98. PaulTrio,Volksreligiealsspiegelvaneenstedelijkesamenleving:debroederschappenteGentindelatemiddeleeuwen.SymbolaeFacultatisLitterarumetPhilosophiaeLovaniensis.SeriesB,11(Leuven: UniversitairePersLeuven,1993);id.,"ConfraternitiesintheLowCountriesandtheIncreaseinWrittenSourceMaterialintheMiddleAges,"FruemittelalterStudien34(20–0246.38): John Henderson, Confraternities and the Church in Late Medieval Florence (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986). MarjanDeSmetandPaulTrio,“TheRelationshipbetweenChurchedtownsintheNetherlandsandintheLateMiddle Ages,examinedthroughtheinterdict,”Yearbookformedievalhistory 5(2002):247–74.Seealsoherarticle“TheInvolvementoftheLateMedievalUrbanAuthoritiesintheLowCountrieswithRegardtotheIntroductionoftheFranciscanObservance,”Revued’histoire ecclésiastique(3–108.106),108,106(3–108):
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urbansocietyconstitutetheresearchinterestofSheilaSweetinburgh,70butwealso needtomentiontheseminalstudybyMichelMollatfrom1978focusingonthe pooratlarge.71ThecontributorstoArmutundArmenfürsorge(2006)examinethe publicdiscourseaboutthepoorwithinthecontextofthemonasticorders,therole ofhospitalsandothercharitableinstitutions,thepointsofcontactsbetweenJews andChristiansintheareaofcharityforthepoor,andthevarietyofperspectives on the poor in texts and images from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries.72Citiesweredeeplyaffectedbywarandbynaturalconsequences,73but theirsteadyrisefromtheearlyMiddleAgestotheRenaissanceandbeyondcould notbestopped,anddespiteourcommonassumptionthatthemedievalworldwas dominatedbychivalryandknighthood,alongwiththeChurch,whereasthevast majority of peasant population was simply downtrodden, holds true only for certainperiodsandcertainareas,andeventherewewouldhavetodifferentiate considerably.74 Moreover,itwouldbeerroneoustoassumethaturbanlifeinthepremodern periodwastranquilandstable,withmostpeopleonlybusilyworkinghardto makealivingascraftsmenandartists.Thehistoryofurbanuprisingsandrevolts extendsovercenturiesandindicateshowmuchtheseurbancommunitieswerein constantfluxandunderwentregularchangesaccordingtopolitical,economic, religious,andsocialtransformations.75Infact,thedenselivingconditionsinacity,
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Sheila Sweetinburgh, The Role of the Hospital in Medieval England (Dublin: Four Courts, 2004); eadem, "Clothing the Naked in Late Medieval East Kent," Clothing Culture, 1300-1600, ed. C.T. Richardson (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 109-21. Michel Mollat, The PoorintheMiddleAges: AnEssayinSocialHistory,trans.ArthurGoldhammer(1978;NewHaven:YaleUniversityPress,1986) Poverty and Poor Well-Being in Italian Urban Culture Between the Thirteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: Images, Texts, and Social Practices, editors by Philine Helas and Gerhard Wolf. For recent studies of marginalized people in the Middle Ages, see Living Dangerously: On the Margins in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. See, for example, Gerhard Fouquet, "For a Cultural History of Natural Catastrophes: Earthquake at Basel 1365 and Great Fire at Frankenberg 1476," Cities of Rubble: Disaster Management Between Antiquity and Modernity, ed. Andreas Ranft and Stephan Selzer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 101–31. See, for example, the contribution to Art and Politics in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Italy, 1250-1500, ed. Charles M. Rosenberg. Notre Dame Conferences in Medieval Studies, 2 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990). JelleHaemers,“AMoodyCommunity?EmotionandRitualinLateMedievalUrbanRevolts,” EmotionsintheHeartoftheCity(14th–16thCentury),ed.ElodieLecuppreDesjardinandAnne LaureVanBruaene.StudiesinEuropeanUrbanHistory(1100–1800),V(Turnhout:Brepols,2005), 63–81;AurelioEspinosa,TheEmpireoftheCities:EmperorCharlesV,theComuneroRevolt,andthe TransformationoftheSpanishSystem .Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, 137 (Boston:
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where the different social classes - and therefore also the two sexes - had to interact on a daily basis, conflicts and tensions repeatedly arose, some of which culminated in riots and armed conflicts -1045), Cambrai (1077-1227), Laon (1107- 1112 and 1128), Cologne (1073 and 1074), Bruges (1127-1128), Rome (1143-1155), London (1191-1216) and many others over time until the 16th century.76 After all, Dante was also Alighier stated in his DivinaCommedia (Paradiso) that human beings are social beings and must live together to prosper and grow: Ond'elliancora: "Ordì:sarebbeilpeggio perl'omointerra, senonfossecive?" "Sì"rispuos'io; "equiragionnoncheggio." 77 [And he continued: "Now tell me, would it be worse for a man on earth if he were not a social being?" "Yes," I agreed, "and I'm not asking for proof here."]
To paraphrase Claire E. Honess, it should be noted that Dante was a strong advocate of the idea of the civic community, which is the essential framework for productive human life. She comments: "Dante very clearly states that the individual is worse off in this life if he is not a citizen, a view made clear by the exchange...between the pilgrim and Charles Martel [Par.VIII, 115-17]." 78. . represents a rethinking, though not necessarily a rejection, of many of the most common medieval ideas about the Christian's role in political society, most notably inspired by St.
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Brill, 2008. See also Lia B. Ross' contribution to the present volume. Knut Schulz, "Because they love freedom so much...: Municipal revolts and the rise of European citizenship in the Early Middle Ages (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992). See also Gerd Schwerhoff, "Public Spaces and Political Culture in the Early Modern City: A Sketch Using the Example of the Reich City of Cologne," Interaction and Rule: The Politics of the Early Modern City, ed. Rudolf Schlögl. Historical Cultural Science, 5 (Constance: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, 2004), 113-36. Dante Alighieri, Paradiso Reverse translation by Robert and Jean Hollander Introduction and notes by Robert Hollander (New York, London, et al.: Doubleday, 2006), see commentary at 199. Cf. ,37:“FollowingAristotle, Dantemaintainsthat,socially,humanbeingsinclinenaturally towardsthatwhichtheybelievetobegood—the'vitafelice'—anaimwhichindividualsalonecanneverhopetoachievewithoutthehelpoftheirfellowhumanbeingswithinthecommunity.”I wouldliketoexpressmythankstomycolleagueFabianAlfie,UniversityofArizona,forpointingoutthispassageinDanteandthestudybyHoness. Holiness, From Florence to the Celestial City, 38.
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Augustine.”79 In other words, an individual’s identification with urban space and community can be seen as a critical benchmark for differentiating the social, mental, and ideological differences between two global periods, the Middle A and the Early Modern Era. (not necessarily from the Renaissance). ). SomemedievalcitiesgrewoutofancientRomansettlements;otherswerethe productofearlymedievalfoundationsofmonasteriesandbishoprics;othersagain developedoutofsmallruralsettlementsoraroundcastleswherecraftsmenwere constantlyneeded,apartfromtheservantsandfarmhands.Thereare,ultimately, manydiverseexplanationsfortheestablishmentandgrowthofcities,sosuffice heretoobservethatitwouldbeutterlyerroneoustoregardpremoderncitiesas negligibleentitieswithinthecontextoffeudalsociety,eventhoughmedievalpoets tendtoignorethemerchantsorregardthemasdubious,untrustworthy,unstable, andoftensimplynotasreliableandhonorablecharacters.80AsH.vanWerveke concludes, The towns, once they had acquired their own constitution and had become independentpoliticalentities, oftentriedthroughtheirtownprivilegetoconsolidate theirprosperityandtheirpreponderanceoverthesurroundingcountryside,whichhad originallyresultedfromthefreeinterplayofeconomicforces.Inthesameway,within thetowns,therulingclass,whoseascendancywasoriginallyfoundedonwealthalone, tendedtotransformitselfintoapoliticallyprivilegedpatriciate,capableforthatreason ofmodifyingtoitsownadvantagetheconditionsofmateriallife.Ontheotherhand, inthoseplaceswhere,about1300orlater,thelowerclasswasabletoassureitselfeven a modest participation in the management of public affairs, it also exercised an influence on economic life by striving for regulation, with the aim no longer of greater productivity, but of a more socially just distribution of existing sources of wealth.81
Some of the most important areas in Europe where cities grew and flourished over the centuries were: Southern England, Flanders, Northern France,
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Holiness, From Florence to the Celestial City, 39. Wolfram von Eschenbach, however, particularly in his Willehalm (ca. 1220), casts quite a different picture of the admirable, highly ethical, and courteous merchant; see Danielle Buschinger, “L'Image du marand chez Wolfram von Eschenbach,” Guillaume et Willehalm: Les Epopees françaisesetl'œuvredeWolfram von Eschenbach, ed.eadem: Based on manuscript 857 from the Abbey Library of St. Gallen. , commentary, editor Joachim Heinzle. With miniatures from the Wolfenbüttel manuscript and an essay by Peter and Dorothea Diemer. H. van Werveke, "The Rise of the Towns", 41. See also the various contributions to The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. II: Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages, ed.
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southern and western Germany, northern and central Italy, and eastern Spain.82 But there were also important cities in Scotland, Scandinavia, the Baltic countries, and Russia.83 The difficulties encountered by urban communities, or communes, in establishing themselves during the medieval period and into early modern Europe were regional or local lords and found their own selves legion, and while many more or less managed to gain their freedom and independence, others eventually failed and were ruled completely by noble lords, bishops or by the emperor himself, as Jean-Denis G. G. Lepage confirms: Some cities received only privileges but remained under the direct rule of the local lord, prelate, bishop or archbishop. Other cities came under the authority of a prince, king or emperor. Called communes in northern Europe and communes in the south, free cities became collective powers, autonomous lay people or independent principalities. According to the charter, free cities had the right to maintain a standing army, build fortifications, wage war, and make alliances and peace treaties.84
Not surprisingly, a whole range of relevant documents in city archives and elsewhere attest to the profound influence of city life on medieval and modern society in every possible sense of the word, though most importantly in relation to politics and economics. However, from the point of view of the history of thought, the city as such does not seem to have played an important role in public discourse or to have entered the thematic horizon very late.
New Approaches to the Study of Urban Space The purpose of the present introduction and the numerous contributions cannot be to examine the history of medieval and modern cities in Europe and adjacent regions of the world as a whole, although all these aspects are discussed in different contributions. in this volume will materialize
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For the Netherlands, see contributions to The Use and Abuse of Sacred Spaces, 2006. JeanPierreLeguayetal.,"Stadt",LexikondesMittelalters,VII(München:LexmaVerlag,1993), 2169-2208; see also Clive Foss, "Urbanism, Byzantine" (304-3007); A.L. Udovitch, "Urbanism, Islamic" (307-311); Kathryn L. Reyerson, "Urbanism, Western Europe" (311-20), Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. Strayer. Vol. 12 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989). Lepage, Castles and Fortified Cities, 256. See also Olson, The Early Middle Ages, 186-89.
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regions.85 Likewise, interest in certain aspects of urban culture has also been strong because their study sheds important light on the development of medieval and early modern society.86 This does not mean, however, that the characteristics of urban culture or medieval culture and early modern life in urban space has been sufficiently and satisfactorily analyzed and discussed in more depth on the physical environment and social services, civic religion, city economy, social organization and tensions, including riots, riots, protests general and mob activities, and the political structures (the guilds and the patriciate). Sculptures and therefore also urban architecture. Surprisingly, many of the so-called city books, which contain a variety of documents reflecting all kinds of social, legal, economic, religious and political activities in the city, are still awaiting close scrutiny.
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See,forinstance,DasLebeninderStadtdesSpätmittelalters:InternationalerKongressKremsander Donau20.bis23.September1976.ÖsterreichischeAkademiederWissenschaften.Philosophisch historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 325. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Mittelalterliche RealienkundeÖsterreichs,2(Vienna:VerlagderösterreichischenAkademiederWissenschaften, 1980);L'evoluzionedellecittàitalianenell'XIsecolo,acuradiRenatoBordoneeJörgJarnut.Annali dell' Istitutostoricoitalogermanico, 25 (Bologna: SocietàeditriceilMulino, 1988); Brigitte Streich, Between travel domination and residence formation: The Wettin Court in the Late Middle Ages (Colônia e Viena: BöhlauVerlag, 1989); Knut Schulz, "Porque eles amam tanto a liberdade..." ; Evamaria Engel, Diedeutsche Stadt des uniMittelalters. Heike Bierschwale e Jacqueline van Leeuwen, Como governar uma cidade: ensinamentos de regimentos de cidades alemãs e holandesas da Idade Média. Veja, por exemplo, Penelope Davis, Town Life in the Middle Ages (Londres: Wayland, 1972); Crossroads of Medieval Civilization: The City of Regensburg and Its Intellectual Milieu, edited by Edelgard E. DuBruck and Karl Heinz Göller. Medieval and Renaissance Monograph Series, V (Detroit: Michigan Consortium for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 1984); Towns in Transition: Urban Evolution in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Neil Christie e ST London and New York: Longman, 1997); :Routledge, 2001). ThesearethesubheadingsintheanthologyofrelevantdocumentsforthehistoryofItaliancities inTheTownsofItalyintheLaterMiddleAges,trans.andannotatedbyTrevorDean.Manchester MedievalSourcesSeries(ManchesterandNewYork:ManchesterUniversityPress,2000).Seealso GerdSchwerhoff,“ÖffentlicheRäumeundpolitischeKulturinderfrühneuzeitlichenStadt:Eine SkizzeamBeispielderReichsstadtKöln,”InteraktionundHerrschaft:DiePolitikderfrühneuzeitlichen Stadt,ed.RudolfSchlögl.HistorischeKulturwissenschaft,5(Constance:UVKVerlagsgesellschaft, 2004),113–36 .
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officialapproval,whichwasthenrecorded.Guildshadregulations,whichwere jotteddowninsuchcitybooks,orchronicles,88andjudicialconflictswerealso documented.Inotherwords,acarefulexaminationoftherelevantsourcesallows ustogainfarreachinginsightsintothebasicstructureanddevelopmentofan urbancommunityovertime,andshedssignificantlightonthecity'stopography, economicpositionwithintheglobalEuropeannetworkoftrade,therelationship between the Christian majority and the Jewish minority (never the other way around!),andtheconditionsofeverydaylifewithinthefamilies.89 Tostudymedievalcitiesandtheirurbanspacebothineconomicandsocial,and soinculturalandintellectualtermsrequiresahighlycomplexapproach,taking into view a kaleidoscope of various social classes, physical aspects, economic interestsandconcerns,legalcriteria,andreligiousfactors.90Theinterestofthe presentcollection,however,thoughtouchinguponmanyoralloftheseaspects, liesinmentalhistoricalinvestigationsthatfind,forinstance,remarkablesource materialinsuchthingsasthesocalledfamilybooks(HausandFamilienbücher;see alsobelow).Thesewerenormallycomposedbymembersofanindividualfamily whoweredeeplyconcernedwiththeirownidentityandthatoftheirfamilyboth pastandpresent,reflectinguponpersonal,dynastic, und gemeinschaftliche Interessen, und das Schöpfen aus einer Vielzahl spezifischer städtischer Quellen. Wie reagierten Außenstehende, die oft die große Mehrheit der Bevölkerung ausmachten, d. h. die Bauern und dann auch die Adligen, auf die Stadt und die ständig wachsenden Städte?
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See the extraordinarily valuable series of city chronicles, chronicles of German cities from the 14th to the 16th century (1862–1968; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht, 1961–1969). A great proven example is the Weimar City Books, see The Weimar City Books of the Late Middle Ages: Edition and Commentary, ed. HenningSteinfuhrer. SeealsoDasältesteRostockerStadtbuch(etwa.1254–1273),ed.HildegardThierfeldermitBeiträgen zurGeschichteRostocksim13.Jahrhundert(Göttingen:Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht,1967).There aremanysimilarexamplesforotherareasofmedievalEurope;see,forinstance,Epistolaridela Valènciamedieval,ed.d'AgustínRubioVela;pròlegd'AntoniFerrando.2vols.(ValènciaSpain: Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana; Barcelona: Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat, 1998-2003); Medieval Gloucester, 1066-1547, an extract from the Victoria History of the County of Gloucester. Vol IV: the City of Gloucester, edited by Nicholas Herbert (1988; Gloucester: Gloucestershire Record Office, 1993). Evamaria Engel and Frank Dietrich Jacob, Urban Life in the Middle Ages: Written Sources and Pictorial Evidence (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2006). Birgit Studt, "Introduction," House and Family Books in the Urban Society of the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. eadem (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2007), 1–31.
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Excellent availability of critical archival and literary documents, but many questions will remain because we still don't know enough about people's real attitudes, ideas and values towards the city and urban life in the Middle Ages and early modern period. Itisclearthatburghersgenerallydisplayedastrongsenseofidentitywiththeir home city, as powerfully reflected by festivals, public rituals, coats of arms, donations,legalpractices,thecitygovernmentitself,andthelocalarts.92Thebest evidenceforthisnotsosurprisingphenomenonconsistsofthecathedralsand otherchurcheserectedinmedievalandearlymoderncities,monumentsinstone ofcommunaleffortsextendingovermanygenerationstoprovetotheoutside worldtheglory,wealth,and power ofanurbancommunity,butespeciallyto displayitsdedicationtoGodandtoillustrateGod'sobviousfavorgrantedtothe city.93 Both the pictorial program in stone (sculptures) on the facades and the individual portals, and then the ideological program in images, such as the frescoesandthestainedglass,explicitlyaddressurbanvaluesandidealswithin areligiousframework,thatis,civicprideinthebestpossiblerepresentationofthe cityinitsecclesiasticalarchitectureandartprogram.94Afterall,manychapels, sculptures,altarpieces,andotherelementsinmedievalandearlymoderncities weredonatedandcommissionedbywelltodocitizenswhowantedtorepresent theirwealth,theirpiety,andtheirsocialpoliticalstatuswithinareligiouscontext. Critical examinations of the history of mentality have not yet covered 'urban space' sufficiently, although themes such as 'man and nature' and the 'spatial experience' have certainly attracted a great deal of attention.
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See the contributions of Pietro Corrao (97-122), Roberto Bizzochi (123-34), Paola Ventrone (155-91) and others to Aspettiecomponentidell'identitàurbana. See contribution to Dergotische DominKöln, edited by Arnold Wolff (Cologne: VistaPointVerlag, 1986); Robert A. Scott, The Gothic Enterprise: A Guide to Understanding the Gothic Cathedrals (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Ulrich Meier, MenschundBürger: The City in the Thought of Late Middle Ages Theologians, Philosophers, and Lawyers (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1994); id., "Burgerlichvereynung: Dominant, Dominated, and 'In-Between' Citizens in Political Theory, Chronicle Tradition, and Late Middle Ages Sources,"Bürgerschaft: Reception and Innovation of Terminology from the High Middle Ages to the 19th Century Carpenter. Language and History, 22 (Stuttgart: KlettCotta, 1994), 43-89. See the relevant contribution to "nature/environment" and "space" in the European history of mentalities: main themes in individual representations, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher. Kröner Pocket Edition, 469 (Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner, 1993); the 2nd rev. and the expanded edition has recently appeared (Stuttgart:Kröner, 2008).
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decrypted, it can be read. Such a space implies a process of signification.”96 This specific space, culturally and economically defined, becomes characteristic of every society: “every society – and therefore every mode of production with its subvariants [sic], i. H. all those societies that illustrate the general concept - produce a space, their own space. H. Spatial practice, spatial representations and representative spaces.98 Furthermore, all historical events and activities produce space: “The productive forces (nature; work and work organization; technology and knowledge) and, of course, the relations of production play a role A paper. . . in the production of space.”99 Studying medieval cities in comparison with early modern cities, for example, will force us to think about new uses and production of space. Quoting Lefebv again, the “people” – residents, builders, politicians – stopped moving from urban messages to the code to decode reality, decode the city and the country, and started to go from the code to the message, to produce a appropriate code. a story, a story that has been determined in the west throughout the history of cities. Eventually, he would allow the organization of cities, repeatedly overthrown, to gain knowledge and power, that is, to become an institution.
Concretely,thismeantthatinthecourseoftimetheactualconfigurationofurban spacewaschangedtomeettheneedsforpublicrepresentationandgovernment, leadingtotheemergenceoftheearlymodern,orBaroque,city:“façadeswere harmonizedtocreateperspectives;entrancesandexits,doorsandwindows,were subordinatedtofaçades—andhencealsotoperspectives;streetsandsquareswere arrangedinconcordwiththepublicbuildingsandpalacesofpoliticalleadersand institutions.”101 Lefebvreoffersamostinsightfulanalysisoftheprofoundchangesaffectingthe urban space in the transition from the early to the high Middle Ages with its inventionofthemagnificentGothiccathedrals.Whereasthepreviousperiod, or rather, the church of the time had focused primarily on the crypt as the sacred place of its worship of the dead, the development of tall Gothic buildings with their projecting towers into space reversed the concept of space.
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97 98 99 100 101
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (1974; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 17. Lefebvre, The Making of Space, 31. Lefebvre, The Making of Space, 38–39. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 46. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 47. Ibid.
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"They [the cathedrals] 'decrypt' vigorously... in the sense of the word: they are an emancipation of the crypt and the cryptic space. freeing himself he attained enlightenment and exaltation.” he disregards the history of Romanesque churches, many of which had already majestically explored and conquered open space, such as Mainz Cathedral, follows his general approach in which the medieval city often centered around the church or cathedral and soon after, if not parallel to it, it established the market as the central axis of an economic network that freed the urban population from agricultural production and laid the foundations for "a space of exchange and communication, and therefore of networks". private and space for education and learning.104 This does not mean, however, that the urban world has been completely dissociated from agriculture and typically rural occupations, given the extensive swiddens, considering livestock and also the relocation of peasants from beer production to the city, through specific construction projects that for a long time had many similarities with the characteristic houses of the rural settlement with it
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Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 256-57. Heavy references are made here to Erwin Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism (1951; New York: New American Library, 1976), 58, who coined the crucial term “visual logic” for the space dominated by the new church. Lefebvre, Die Raumproduktion, 266. HereIbreakoffthediscussionofLefebvre'smarvelous,thoughsometimesalsodeceptivelyglossy explanationsbasedonradicalabstractionsandgeneralizations;forfurthercommentsonhiswork, seeSheilaSweetinburgh,“MayorMakingandOtherCeremonies:SharedUsesofSacredSpace AmongtheKentishCinquePorts,”TheUseandAbuseofSacredPlaces,165–87;here167–70.Felice Riddy,“'Burgeis'DomesticityinLateMedievalEngland,”MedievalDomesticity:Home,Housing and Household in Medieval England, ed. Maryanne Kowaleski and P.J. Goldberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 14-36, convincingly challenge some of Philippe Ariès' basic notions that there was no concept of privacy until about 1700, even in townhouses as early as the 14th century. and fifteenth century. Richard W. Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 40-43. Not everyone could be a brewer, as there were requirements to be able to brew beer, organize a business and have access to capital. However, many individuals began to trade, not just for domestic needs, but also as business ventures' (43).
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specific needs to accommodate the farmer with housing for the farmer and his family.106 Social historians have examined many specific aspects, such as enactment of spirituality in prayer, meditation, and liturgical rituals; and space for punishments and executions.107
The City and the Courtly World As has often been pointed out, in stark contrast to our earlier observations, the chivalrous protagonist of medieval literature usually just traverses lands and forests and, having accomplished his task and overcome great challenges, returns to King Arthur's court. , which again is just a small setting, perhaps a camp with tents or sometimes a castle. This observation applies to both German and English, French and Italian, Spanish and Portuguese court romances or verse narratives, irrespective of whether the audience is really only aristocratic or also includes urban readers/listeners. Despite the city's growing importance, at least since the eleventh century, medieval poets do not seem to have incorporated an urban space of real importance to their individual protagonists or audiences.108 Both heroic images and courtly romances,
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Dies war die zentrale These von W. A. Pantin, „Medieval English TownHouse Plans“, Medieval Archaeology 6–7 (1964, for 1962–1963): 202–39); –1500, Hrsg. Katherine Giles and ChristopherDyer(Leeds:Maney,2005),4363.AsJaneGrenville,“UrbanandRuralHousesand HouseholdsintheLateMiddleAges:ACaseStudyfromYorkshire,”MedievalDomesticity:Home, HousingandHouseholdinMedievalEngland,92–123;here95,demonstrates(soherthesis):“some buildingsseemtodependonthedirectandexplicitrelationshipbetweentownandcountrywhile othersemphaticallydonot,butratherrepresentadistinctivelyurbantype.”Sherightlyconcludes, 123:“Inthedevelopmentofthemedievaltown,theforcesofconservatismwerecontinuously pitchedagainstthespiritofentrepreneurship.Materialculturewasusedtosignalthesetensions ....” MedievalPracticesofSpace,ed.BarbaraA.HanawaltandMichalKobialka,2000;JoyceE.Salisbury, TheMedievalWorld.TheGreenwoodEncyclopediaofDailyLife,aTourThroughHistoryfrom AncientTimestothePresent,2(Westport,CT,andLondon:GreenwoodPress,2004).Whereasthe first Band knapp an konkreten Beispielen ist, richtet sich der zweite hauptsächlich an ein nicht-akademisches Publikum. Uta StörmerCaysa, Grundstrukturen mittelalterlicher Erzählungen: Raum und Zeit im höfischen Roman. de Gruyter Studienbuch (Berlim e Nova York: de Gruyter, 2007).
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didactic texts and lyric poetry make little mention of cities, surprisingly ignoring the great phenomena that would change the entire world of the Middle Ages, or that from an early age accompanied feudal structures and even ended up replacing the agrarian society with a society in which handicrafts and the first forms of industrial production were practiced and dominated in the urban context. OneinterestingexamplewouldbetheMiddleHighGermanDiuCrône(The Crown) by the Styrian poet Heinrich von dem Türlin, composed sometime between1210and1240,offeringanamazingpanoplyofArthurianthemesand metaliterary references and reflections, with Gawein emerging as the main protagonist who not only accomplishes many chivalric goals, outdoing even ParzivalinhisquestfortheGrail.Mostuncannily,Gaweinwitnessesmanyscenes obviouslydrawnfromaninfernalfantasy,orfromtheDayofJudgment, which deeplyastonishandfrightenhimandtheaudienceaswell,withoutanyonebeing abletogetinvolvedbecausetheyrepresentimaginarysettingsorquotesfrom previousliterarytexts.Overall,however,asJ.W.Thomasinsightfullycomments, “Thecourtreappearsatintervalsthroughouttheworkassomethingofgreatvalue thatmustbepreservedatanycostfromthedangersthatthreatenitfromwithin andwithout.ForitisnotmerelyacommunityofSybaritesbutalsoasourceofaid fortheoppressedinthesurroundinglands.”109Indeed,peopleinthecountryside receivehelp,whereasthoselivingincitiesarebarelymentioned. At some point, Gawein enters a chapel, which some girls observe with great curiosity. While everyone wonders who these imposing knights could be, one of them speculates sarcastically: "These are two cunning merchants who transport a lot of goods and treasures and pretend to be knights to save themselves from theft; they think it will protect them
109
neithertheArthurianromancenortheliterarymanifestationsofTristanandIsoldearepredicated inanyclearsenseoncitylife.AgoodexamplewouldbeTristaninGottfriedvonStrassburg's eponymousromance(ca.1210)wherethebadlywoundedprotagonistarrivesinDublinunderthe pretenseofbeingamerchantwhohasbeenseverelywoundedbypiratesandnowseekshelpin Ireland.Afterhavingbeenpulled in from thewateroutsideoftheharbor,Tristanisquickly whiskedfromthecityofDublintothecourtoftheIrishqueenIsolde,andweneverhearofDublin again.GottfriedvonStraßburg,Tristan.NachdemTextvonFriedrichRankeneuherausgegeben, insNeuhochdeutscheübersetzt,miteinemStellenkommentarundeinemNachwortvonRüdiger Krohn.UniversalBibliothek,4471(Stuttgart:Reclam,1980),7362–766 A priest discovers Tristan's marvelous abilities, quickly leaves the city of Dublin, turns back to the castle and tells the queen what he has discovered about this stranger. Heinrichvondem Türlin, The Crown: ATale of Sir Gawein and King Arthur's Court, trans.andwithintroductionbyJ.W.Thomas(LincolnandLondon:UniversityofNebraskaPress,1989),xiii. Würzburg Contributions to German Philology, 27 (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2005), 182–253.
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bulging,andIcanseefromtheirappearancethattheyarefulloftreasure;achild wouldknowthattheydon'tholdhauberks,forthesewouldrattle.”110Gawein seemstohearherwordsashelooksuptothewindow,butthenhesimplymounts hishorseandentersthecitytofindquartersforhimselfandhiscompanion.But themerchantwasalreadyaspecificfigureatthattime,howevermostlyregarded withsuspicionbythearistocracy,especiallybecausehequicklygainedeconomical preponderanceandcouldchallengethetraditionalpoliticalandsocialroleplayed bythenobility.111 Hereisanotheroccasionfortheauthortoaddsomereallybriefremarksona townintheimmediatevicinityofacastle:“Theywanderedaboutonlyashorttime before finding quarters with a worthy merchant, who furnished everything neededfortheircomfort.Themanwassohonest,respected , and a fortune not to be found in the whole city, he was also brave. Is this really a humble trader or a pre-capitalist, super-rich international trader? Apparently, history really looms over the royal palace, and its wealth matches that of a nobleman, a narrative motif that finds some reflections in contemporary literature, such as Parzival (c. 1205) by Wolfram von Eschenbach and Rudolf von Ems in Derguote Gerhard. strangelyenough,theentiremale populationismissing:“Gaweinfoundthereatownthatwaslargeandstatelybut lackedonething:neitherinitnorinallthecountryaroundwasthereasingle man”(196).AndlaterHeinrichmentionsanothertown,butonlybecause“ahost ofknightswhomIcannotname”(204)hasassembledthere,preparingitselffora tournament:“Whenthetimecamethefollowingmorningforeverymantoget readyforthetournament,manywereplainlyconcernedwiththecontestsahead” (205). Apparently, on closer inspection, urban space figured well on the thematic horizon, but for the novelists only as an insignificant place where horsemen rode.
110 111
112
Heinrich von dem Türlin, The Crown, 200. Jenny Kermode, Medieval Merchants: York, Beverly e Hullin the Later Middle Ages. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Ser. 4, 38 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Richard K. Marshall, Os Comerciantes Locais de Prato: Pequenos Empresários na Economia Medieval Tardia. The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 117ª série, 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). Rudolf von Ems, Dergute Gerhard, ed. Moriz Haupt. rate (1840; Hildesheim: Weidmann, 1988); seealsoid.,DerguoteGerhart,ed.JohnA.Asher.2ndrev.ed.AltdeutscheTextbibliothek,56(1962; Tübingen: Niemeyer,1971); .
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sometimes they spend a night resting (Wolfram von Eschenbachs Willehalm), where they find new equipment (Hartmann von Aues Erec), or get angry at guards who don't really recognize who they really are (Wolfram von Eschenbachs Willehalm). Exceptions often confirm our general conclusions about urban space in the Middle Ages and beyond, as when we think of the three holy cities of Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela, all of which provide a specific image of an ideal city supported by God the Holy One. . Spirit evokes.114 tombs, altars, and the clergy, but not urban life and urban space on a microscopic level.115 When Margery Kempe (ca. 1373–ca. 1440) is in Rome, say, on her pilgrimage, she just comments on your usual prayers and your crying and the conflicts
113
114
115
Hartmann von Aue, Erec. With an imprint of the new Wolfenbütteler and Zwettler Erec Fragmente, ed. Albert Leitzmann, continued by LudwigWolff. 7th. ed. KurtGärtner. Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, 39 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2006). When Erec arrives at the castle where the tourney will be held, he avoids the castle and turns his horse towards the town below him: “einmarket undermhûselac” (222) e: “nûvanterandemwege/vondenliutengrôzenschal. / diu houses were above all / vastly protected” (228–34). Chrétien de Troyes, The Complete Romances, trans. with an introduction. by David Staines (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UniversityPress,1990),bycontrast,offersaconsiderablymoredetailedimpressionoflifewithin thecity/town,butwehavetobecarefulinourassessmentofthedetails:“Ereccontinuedhis pursuitofthearmedknightandthedwarf...untiltheyreachedawellsituatedtown,whichwas bothbeautifulandfortified,wheretheyimmediatelyenteredthroughthegateway.Inthetown therewasjubilationamongtheknightsandamongthemaidens,formanybeautifulmaidenswere there.Alongthestreets,somepeoplewerefeedingmoltingfalconsandsparrowhawks;others werebringingtercelsoutside,alongwithsorrelhoodedgoshawks .In other places, other people played games, one at dice or another game of chance, others played chess and backgammon. In front of the stables, the grooms were rubbing and winding the horses ”(5). Although we are led to believe that Erechas entered a city, the description implies that it is the courtyard of a large castle. BiancaKühnel,FromtheEarthlytotheHeavenlyJerusalem:RepresentationsoftheHolyCityinChristian ArtoftheFirstMillenium(Rome:1987);LaGerusalemmeceleste:catalogodella mostra,Milano, UniversitàCattolicadelS.Cuore,20maggio–5giugno1983,ed.MariaLuisaGattiPerer(Milano: VitaePensiero,1983);ClausBernet,“DashimmlischeJerusalemimMittelalter:Mikrohistorische IdealvorstellungenundutopischerUmsetzungsversuch,”Mediaevistik20(2007 ):9-35. NineRobijntjeMiedema,Die'MirabiliaRomae':UntersuchungenzuihrerÜberlieferungmitEdition derdeutschenundniederländischenTexte.MünchenerTexteundUntersuchungenzurdeutschen LiteraturdesMittelalters,108(Tübingen:MaxNiemeyer,1996);seealsoChristianK.Zacher, CuriosityandPilgrimage:TheLiteratureofDiscoveryinFourteenthCenturyEngland(Baltimore:The JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,1976);ZacharyKarabell,PeaceBeUponYou:TheStoryofMuslim, Christian,andJewishCoexistence(NewYork: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). Richard Krautheimer, Rome, ProfileofaCity: 312-1308 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).
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with his social circle: “Then this creature was taken to the hospital of Saint Thomas of Canterbury in Rome, and there every Sunday he received Communion with great weeping, heavy sobbing and loud screaming and was greeted by the master of the hospital and all your beloved brothers.” just before Christmas, our Lord Jesus Christ ordered her to go to her confessor, Wenslavbybyname, and begged him to give her permission to wear her white robes again..." (128). Thantraditionallyassumed.Whereasahistoricalapproachtothetopicatstakehascertainlyshedmuchlightontheissue,westillneedtoinvestigatehowpeopleinpremoderntimesperceivedthecityasaninnovative,challenging,and, most importantly,asapromisingandexcitingsiteoutacommunitytoestablish itself,profferingeconomicprosperity,security,culture,education,andreligion. More broadly, the social and spatial order of the medieval cityscape acted as a mirror of the wider medieval cosmology. depictions of Holy Jerusalem reflected in the sky in the 9th and 10th centuries.
116
117
The Book of Margery Kempe, trans. BA Windeatt (London: Penguin, 1985), 116. For a full discussion of her work, see now Albrecht Classen, The PowerofaWoman's Voice in MedievalandEarlyModernLiterature: NewApproachetoGermanandEuropeanWomenWritersandtoViolenceAgainstWomeninPremodernTimes. Foundations of Medieval and Modern Culture, 1 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 271-308. Keith D. Lilley, City Life in the Middle Ages 1000–1450. European Culture and Society (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave, 2002),242. urban landscapes; urban and land property; and city dwellers and cityscapes.
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Before examining some of the fundamental aspects of medieval and early modern urban history, with an emphasis on the history of mentality, let us look at some literary examples with important references to the city as an important place for the development of an individual character. ThroughouttheentireMiddleAgesandfarbeyond,theanonymousnovelfrom late antiquity, the Historia Apollonia Tyrus, attracted enormous attention and enjoyedfarreachingpopularity.Thismightcomeasasurprisebecauseboththe geographicalsetting—theeasternMediterranean—andthevaluesystemcodified inthetextseemtobefarremovedfrommedievalandearlymodernculture.The protagonistoperatesasanideal,butcertainlyabsoluteruler,onlysubjecttoGod andfortune.Traveltakesplacebymeansofships,andpiratesareasteadythreat. Christianity is not yet present and the sense of man's destiny, very much the sense of Boeth's teaching, despite the somewhat anachronistic problematic, is a central concern. Furthermore, and this is the most important observation in our context, focus The narrator and numerous subsequent translators focus heavily on the city as the critical arena in which people interact with each other and also experience their worst and happiest. life moments. Although the earliest surviving manuscripts date from the 19th century, 6th century Venancio Fortunato already refers to the Historia Apollonia Tire in one of his poems and describes himself as sadder than the protagonist Apollonius. Throughout the following centuries poets continued to cite the Historia and commentonitsimportance.LibrarycataloguesalloverEuropecontainlistingsfor this text since the ninth century, and the number of actually existing Latin manuscriptsisaboutonehundred.Thentherearecountlesstranslationsintothe various vernaculars and creative adaptations, which often incorporated new materialandpursueddifferentagendas.AsElizabethArchibaldconfirms, BythefifteenthcenturythestoryofApolloniuswasbeingretoldinagreatnumberof vernaculars;itswideappealisdemonstratedbytextsfromhithertosilentareas. These include a Czech version with biblical and folk coloring [V19], three German prose versions [V25 and 26], not particularly innovative but very popular in the case of Steinhöwel's Volksbuch, a heavily Christianized Greek version, the Diegesis Apolloniou [27 ], and two exemplary versions in Spanish, based respectively on the Gesta Romanorum and the Confessio Amantis [V28 and 29].11
After the invention of the printing press, Historia gained new fame and popularity in many languages and was also translated into German.
118
Elizabeth Archibald, Apollonius of Tyre: Medievaland Renaissance Themesand Variations.
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dramatic version of Shakespeare with his Pericles (1609). To follow Archibald again: 'Until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there were a great variety of versions: some emphasizing chivalric values, others Christian morality; some medievalized heavily,othersreintroducedclassicaldetails.”119Wemightgosofarastoclaim thattheHistoriatrulyrepresentsaworldclassic,andthisuntiltoday.Particularly medievalaudiences,however,seemtohaveenjoyedthistext,despite,orperhaps justbecauseof,itsalmostOriental,thatis,certainlyexotic,setting.Surprisingly, throughoutthenovel,thecityemergesasthecentrallocationwheremostofthe significanteventstakeplace.AstheveryfirstlineintheLatintextindicates:“In thecityofAntiochtherewasakingcalledAntiochus,fromwhomthecityitself tookthenameAntioch”(113 ). Thisrapistfatherisverymuchconcernedwithpreservingtheairofagoodruler whocaresforhispeople,thecitizensofAntioch:“Hepresentedhimselfdeceitfully tohiscitizensasadevotedparent”(115).Hisopponent, youngApollonius,is similarlyidentifiedwithhiscityanditscitizenswhoareworriedabouthimafter hisreturnhomeandwanttopaytheirrespecttohim.Buthehasalreadyleftagain, havingrealizedthathehadactuallysolvedtheriddlepresentedbyAntiochusand mightfaceseriousdangerofbeingkilled. Significantly, the entire population of the city mourns and mourns his disappearance, causing the city to cry. We get a brief glimpse of real urban life in a Roman city that cannot be heard in any medieval text: "So great is the people's love for him that for a long time the barbers were deprived of customers, the shows were canceled and the baths were closed "(117). More important for our investigation, Poeter allows a deep look into the interior of the city, pointing to the entertainment, services and health industries. percentage always tried to live from artistic presentations and other types of services, some legal, others illegal, as would be the case today, and songs and small concerts were common spectacles, especially when the arrival of
119
120
Archibald, Apollonius, 51. For the German printed history of this novel, see Bodo Gotzkowsky, "Volksbücher" Part I: Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Prints. Bibliotheca Bibliographica Aureliana, CXXV (BadenBaden: Verlag Valentin Koerner, 1991), 184-91. Gertrud Blaschitz, "The Brothel in the Middle Ages: Inderstatwassessen/ainunrainerpulian . . .", History of Sexuality in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age, ed. Albrecht Classen. Foundations of Medieval and Modern Culture, 3 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2008), 715-50.
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oneofthereligiousholidaysmadeitlikelythatanumerouspublicwouldturnup forthesetemptingattractions.”121 Moreover,theentireurbancommunitydemonstratesitscloseknitrelationship whentheyallturntomourningoverthedisappearanceoftheirlord,aswelearn from a boy’s response to the assassin Taliarchus’s inquiry about the curious situationinthecity:“‘Whatashamelessman!Heknowsperfectlywellandyethe asks!Whodoesnotknowthatthiscityisinmourningforthisreason,becausethe princeofthiscountry,Apollonius,camebackfromAntiochandthensuddenly disappeared’”(117). Apollonius, on the other hand, has meanwhile arrived at another city, Tarsus, where starvation is imminent, without any hope; they put her on the forum ”(121). Whereas in most other medieval narratives the focus is on the court in a castle or palace, without any sense of urban surroundings, here the city community comes forward and expresses its gratitude collectively. Despite being shipwrecked, Apollonius quickly regains his fortune in the city of Pentapolis, where he flatters himself with the king and his daughter, whom he ends up marrying. Here, too, the urban context retreats, albeit fleetingly, when a young man announces to the public that the high school has opened: “Listen, citizens, listen, foreigners, free and slaves: the high school is open!”. From here, events are confined to the courtyard, while the city itself takes a backseat.
121
122
Chiara Frugoni, A Dayina Medieval City, 85. She notes that in many cases the city authorities even paid for these amusing spectacles to appease the population and keep the well under control, 190, note 77: “Quod...camerarius comunisdeipsius comunispecuniadetetsolvatistis tubatoribus, menestreriisetioculatoribusquiveneruntethonoraveruntfestum sanctorum”.
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We can be sure that the city itself will remain a constant here and after. Andeachtime,despitetheprominentroleplayedbytherespectivekings,wegain aclearsenseoftheurbanpopulationplayingitsownimportantpart.Forinstance, whenApolloniusmarriesArchistrates'sdaughter,thecelebrationsdonotonly takeplaceinthepalace;insteadtheyalsoinvolvetheentirecity:“Therewasgreat rejoicingthroughoutthecity;citizens,foreignersandguestsrevelled”(137).The sameoccursinothercities,suchasMytilene,whereApollonius'sdaughterTarsia istakenasaslaveandprostitutemuchlater.Theurbanpublicisalwayspresent andparticipatesintheeventsthatarelocatedinthecenterofthecity:“Shewas landedamongtheotherslavesandputupforsaleinthemarketplace”(149) .After the transfer to the brothel, there is another glimpse of the crowded urban space: "Tarsia was brought to the brothel, preceded by crowds and musicians" (151). Of course, the crucial meetings between Athenagoras, the prince of the city, and Apollonius take place at the bow of the ship, where the latter spends his period of mourning. Upon learning of the other's suffering, the prince sends Tarsia to the ship to soothe the poor man, which she succeeds in, leading to a mutual appreciation. But for our purposes the narrative here includes two seasons, the ship on the beach, or rather in the harbor, and the city itself in the background, ever-present because of the brothel that exists there, the local festivities and the prolonged festivities. OnceApolloniushaslearnedofhisdaughter'sdestinyatthehandofthepimp, heexpresseshisintentiontoexacthisrevengeandtodestroythecity.Atenagoras immediately announces this terrible news to the entire city population, which underscores,onceagain,theconsiderabledepthofperceptionuponwhichthis novelispredicated:“WhenprinceAthenagorasheardthis,hebegantocalloutin thestreets,intheforum,inthesenatehouse,saying:'Hurry,citizensandnobles, orthecitywillbedestroyed'”(169). The response is, of course, enormous, indicating the extent to which the urban population radiates its own weight on the political stage, as described here: "A huge crowd gathered, and there was such an uproar among the people that absolutely no one stayed at home” ( 169) Not surprisingly, everything has a fairy-tale happy ending, but the narrator is quick to add a brief comment about Apollonius' kingdom, characterized by cities, not land, or by fields, forests, and other types of land: a peaceful and happy life with his wife” (179). People: “So
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Apollonius, in turn, increased the public jubilation: he restored the public works, rebuilt the public baths, the city walls and the tower on the walls” (177). This focus on individual cities as a site of tragic events and political developments characterizes the entire text, which later translators and editors have not significantly changed. 1170(ms.A),butfullyavailableonlyintwomuchlatermanuscripts(ms.aandb from1441andlateinthe15thcenturyrespectively)thatarebasedoncopiesfrom theearlythirteenthcentury(reconstructedms.B),themaleprotagoniststruggles foralongtimeagainsthisevilfatherinlaw,EmperorOtte,becauseanenvious advisorhadmalignedtheyoungduke,claimingthatheintendedtousurpthe throne.124Themilitaryconflictragesforalongtime,buteventually,nolongerable to resist the pressure, the duke has to leave his country and he embarks on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On the way, he stops at Constantinople and receives a warm welcome from the Byzantine emperor and his court. After some time, Ernst receives a well-equipped ship and embarks on his next voyage, accompanied by a whole fleet of Greek ships. But after five days, a violent storm approaches and nearly everyone drowns except Ernst and his men. Even so, three months pass without them reaching the mainland, and
123
124
Para a tradition alème, particularly no que diz respeto ao Apollonius von Tyrland de Heinrich von Neustadt, ver Simone Schultz Balluff, Dispositiopicta–Dispositioimaginum: On the connection of image, text, structure and 'sense' in the transmission carriers of Heinrich von Neustadt " Apollonius von Tyrland ". mesmo que nem semper, pasado em paisagens urbanas ao fundo ou aparecendo no horizonte Ver also Giovanni Garbugino, Enigmidella History of Apollonius King of Tyre. Testi e manuali per l'insegnamento universitario del latino, 82 (Bologna: Patròn, 2004); GA Kortekaas, Commentary on the History of Apollonius of Tyre. Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava, Supplement, 284 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007). For further studies, seeAlbrecht Classen, “MedievalTravelintoanExoticOrient:TheSpielmannseposHerzogErnstasaTravelintotheMedievalSubconsciousness,”Lesarten.NewMethodologiesandOldTexts,NeworYkM ,andParis:Lang,1990),103–24; id., “MulticulturalismintheGermanMiddleAges? (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996), 198–219; Search for Erlangen. Series A: Humanities, 82 (Erlangen: Universitäts Bibliothek, 1997), 1-83; Odovon Magdeburg, Ernest, ed. and comment Thomas A.P. Small Spoils of Berlin, 1 (Hildesheim: Weidmannsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2000), 9–62.
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fear hunger and thirst. At the last moment, as it were, they finally reach the land of Gripia, where they intend to stock up. Grippiaprovestobethefirstextensivedescriptionofamajorcityinmedieval vernacular literature, if we ignore the numerous references to classical Troy, Carthage,andRome,thethreemonumentalstagesinAeneas'scareer,fleeingfrom burningTroyviaCarthagetoItalywherehefounds,uponthegods'commands, thenewcity,imperialRome.125 ThegoliardicpoetofthisMiddleHighGermantalehadreferredtoseveralcities before,suchasthoseoccupiedbyDukeErnstandtheEmperorrespectively.In thosecaseseachcitywastreatedasafortressthattheenemybesieges,suchas Nuremberg(878),whichcanresistOtte' Since the emperor does not easily achieve his goal of crushing the young duke, he demands an imperial diet at Speyer, but the city is given little prominence and the description seems to be limited to the court where the emperor resides (1243-44). Ernst secretly enters the castle to assassinate the Emperor, who manages to escape at the last minute, where an evil adviser, the Count Palatine, is beheaded.
125
See,forinstance,AdolfEmileCohen,DevisieopTrojevandewestersemiddeleeuwsegeschiedschrijvers tot1160.VanGorcum’shistorischebibliotheek,XXV(Assen:VanGorcum,1941);C.DavidBenson, TheHistoryofTroyinMiddleEnglishLiterature:GuidodelleColonne’sHistoriaDestructionisTroiaein MedievalEngland(Woodbridge,Suffolk:D.S.Brewer,andTotowa,NJ:Rowman&Littlefield, 1980); Gert Melville, Troy: The Integrative Cradle of European Powers in the Late Middle Ages (Stuttgart:KlettCotta, 1986); Troy Fantasies: Classic Tales and the Social Imaginary in Medieval and Modern Europe, ed. Alan Shepard and Stephen D. Powell, Essays and Studies, 5 (Toronto: Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2004). Medieval Cultures, 36 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003); Bettany Hughes, Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore (New York: A. Knopf, 2005); For solid studies of the role of Troy in medieval German literature, see Manfred Kern, Agamemnon weeps, or, Arthurian metamorphosis and Trojan destroying in the “GöttweigerTrojanerkrieg” ErlangerStudien, 104 (Erlangen: Palm&Enke, 1995); Literature of Knowledge in the Middle Ages, 22 (Wiesbaden: L. Reichert, 1996).
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Later, when the emperor fights back, he attacks the castles and towns of the duchy of Ernst Bavaria, but is met with fierce resistance, especially from the citizens of Regensburg, who only give up their fight after five years of bitter fighting. During this period of siege, both sides try by all means to impede the adversary's military operations, but in the end the emperor wins due to his better resources. The narrator gives only cursory descriptions of the whole city, emphasizing the city gates (1467), the towers and other parts of the fortifications (1531) and the moat (1547), and also refers to the citizens as defenders (1521), but in general he regards Regensburg as a "castle" or burgh (1570), although he also resorts to the term "stat" or city (1556). , but the wall, for example, is brilliantly decorated, consisting of multicolored shining marble stones in many different colors (2215-29). In addition, many sculptures that strongly reflect light (2224–29) were placed, as if they were only for decorative purposes, which almost undermines the basic function of the wall to defend that the city could not be conquered. Forourpurposeofexploringthementalhistoricalconstructandperceptionof urbanspaceintheMiddleAgesandtheearlymodernageaspartofthewider mentalhistory,thenarrativepresentationofGrippiadeservesgreaterattention.127 Theradiusoftheentirecityisextensive,andtheforeignerscanhardlyfindtheir wayintoitwithoutgettinglost(2510).Manyvaluablesculpturesdecoratethecity, andsodonumerouspalaces,givingarealofsenseofacomplexarchitectural ensemble.Grippiaislocatednexttothesea,makingitimpossibleforpotential
126
127
JeanDenis G.G. Lepage, Castles and Fortified Cities of Medieval Europe: An Illustrated History (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2002) provides an excellent and detailed encyclopedic overview of medieval cities. Hartmut Kugler, The Exposition of the City in the Literature of the German Middle Ages. Munich Texts and Studies on German Literature of the Middle Ages, 88 (Munich: Artemis, 1986), 19, 133; Richard Coiler, "The Orientreise of Herzog Ernst", Neophilologus 67.3 (1983): 410-18.
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It is said that attackers surround the whole city on all sides (2553-56). An animal park, like a zoo, forms the heart of the city, but the royal palace dominates it all, covered in gold and green emeralds. One is particularly impressive, apparently the private chamber of a king (2570-2644). After Ernst's adviser Wetzel left the building, they entered a large courtyard in which many cedars had been planted. For your joy, there is also a house that has hot and cold water in the tubs according to the user's desire (2670-78). The whole system is extremely efficient and impressive, as if Grippia were an 18th century city. soinderburcerhabenwas undmandâschônewoldehân, sôliezmandazwazzersân überaldieburcgên. sômohtedânihtbestên neither dazhorn nor dermist. in a short period sôwartdiuburcvilreine. ichwæneburcdeheine ûferdeniesôrîchgestê: irstrâzenglizzensôdersnê.
(2682–98)
[This was deliberately arranged. All the streets of the city, big and small, were built with marble stones,
128
For the history of bathing in the Middle Ages, see Gertrud Wagner, The trade of bathers and barbers in the German Middle Ages (Zelli. W.: F. Buar, 1917); Hans Jürgen Sarholz, Medicinal baths in the Middle Ages: the beginning of healing in Central Europe. see also Georges Vigarello, Concepts of Cleanliness: Changing Attitudes in France since the Middle Ages, translation by Jean Birrell (1985; Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Maison de Sciences del 'Homme, 1988).
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Thecontemporaryaudiencewouldhaveagreed,andevenwithinthenarrative contextwecanconfirmtheremarkabledifferencebetweenthosecitieslocatedin WesternEurope,suchasNurembergandRegensburg,andGrippiasomewherein theexoticOrient.Generallyspeaking,neitherlargepublicspacesnorhygienein the modern sense of the word was fully available or of major significance in medievalcities,129thoughtheyquicklyemergedinthelateMiddleAgesandthe Renaissance,alongwithmajorpublicbuildings,suchastownhalls,guildhouses, courtbuildings,etc.130AsPhilippeContaminenotes: Perhapsthemoststrikingfeatureofthemedievalcitywasthescarcityofpublicplaces and buildings. Streets and squares were under the jurisdiction of municipal, manor or royal authorities, and the right to high-ranking government was not unknown. However, one is left with the impression that the publicity was limited and total; worse, it was under constant threat of private invasion.131
However, we cannot forget that “men of the Middle Ages spent a lot of time together, in the streets with their neighbors... and presented their products on the street on wooden counters in the street or in the street.
129
130 131
See contributions to Medieval Practices of Space, editors Barbara A. Hanawalt and Michal Kobialka. Medieval Cultures, 23 (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). As Hanawalt and Kobialka point out in their introduction: “By focusing the practices in a heterogeneous space, it becomes clear that the space is completely permeated by quantities and qualities that mark the presence of bodies, signs and thoughts that emerge from what has disappeared from sight or from a discourse in the topography of the medieval landscape.” (xi) Georges Zarnicki, Art of the Medieval World, 395–97. Philippe Contamine, "Peasant Hearth to Papal Palace: The Fourteenthandteenth Centuries", Revelations of the Medieval World, eds. Georges Duby, trans. here 438. See also Daniel Furrer's amusing and well-reasoned study Wasserthronund Thunderbolt: A small cultural history of the quiet little place (Darmstadt: Primus Verlag, 2004), 38-55.
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wallofthehouse.”132OnlybythelateMiddleAgesdidthissituationbeginto change,andbothconcernsforpublichygieneandtheimprovementofpubliclife were voiced repeatedly, which led to more distinct separations of private and publicspaces.AntonioofBeatiscommented,forinstance,onMechelninBelgium: “Superbcity,verylargeandhighlyfortified.Nowherehaveweseenstreetsmore spaciousormoreelegant.Theyarepavedwithsmallstones,andthesidesslope downslightly,sothatwaterandmudneverremainstanding.”133 ReturningtotheMiddleHighGermangoliardicpoem,notsurprisingly,Grippia withitsalmostmodernlookingcanalizationsystemwouldhavetoberegardedas anextraordinaryexception,perhapsalmostlikeanarchitecturalideal.Medieval citiescertainlydidnotlooklikethat,andthecommentsaboutRegensburgand NurembergdonotindicateatallanysimilaritieswithGrippia.Ofcourse,thepoet projectsanidealsetting,almostanurbanutopia,butheonlyglorifiesthebuilding elements,whereasthepeoplepopulatingthatcityquicklyturnouttobemembers ofamonstrousrace,halfhumanandhalfcrane.Astobeexpected,hardlyhave ErnstandWetzelfinishedtakingabathandputontheirarmoragainwhenthe Grippiansreturnfromawarcampaignduringwhichtheyhavekilledthekingof Indiaandhiswife,andhavekidnappedtheirbeautifuldaughter.TheGrippian kingwantstomarryher,butwhenaservantdiscoversthetwotravelershidingin adarkcorner,theybelievethatsomeoftheprincess'sservantshavefollowed,so they stab her to Tod mit ihren Schnäbeln, was die Helden dazu zwingt, vorwärts zu stürmen und jeden zu töten, der sich ihnen in den Weg stellt, und sich durch die Menge zum Stadttor zu hacken, wo sie schließlich von ihren eigenen Leuten gerettet werden. Nachdem Ernst und seine Gefährten Grippia hinter sich gelassen haben, begegnen sie zahlreichen anderen Abenteuern, aber sie stoßen nie auf eine Stadt wie die, die von diesen Kranichmenschen gebaut wurde, obwohl sie lange Zeit mit anderen monströsen Völkern im mysteriösen Osten verringen. Überraschenderweise wird nicht einmal Jerusalém als wichtig erachtet, um später in der Erzählung besondere Aufmerksamkeit zu erhalten
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ChiaraFrugoni,ADayinaMedievalCity,49–50.Shereferstoliteraryandarthistoricalevidence, suchasanovellabyFrancoSacchettiandaminiatureinamanuscriptfromca.1470.Turningfrom thepublictotheprivatespace,sheemphasizes:“Theshortageofspaceintheinteriorsdrove peopleoutofdoors;thestreetsbecameevermorenarrow,evenastheybecamemoreanimated, becausemenandwomenstoppedinfrontofthecounterstobuy,tomakecontracts,tochat, perhapswithamemberofthehousehold....Womenlikedtobeatthewindoworonthebalcony ...”(51).“Menlikedtobeinthestreetsandthepiazzas, Doing business, shopping, talking and discussing” (58). Whether this strict gender differentiation of public and private space can be maintained in the medieval city remains to be examined more closely. See Lia B. Ross' contribution to this volume. Quoted from Contamine, "PeasantHearth", 441.
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and he fought against the infidels for a long time and gained a great reputation. After being secretly informed that his father-in-law, the German Emperor, had changed his mind and would welcome him home, Ernst leaves Jerusalem and travels to Europe, of course paying a visit to Rome on his way west. But here, too, the narrative focus is not on urban space; Instead, we only learn that the Duke was led to St. Peter and donated valuable clothing (5800-24). Only Grippia turns out to be a real city in the modern sense, but for all its beauty and cleanliness it looks more exotic than an ideal model. Although medieval society was largely determined by feudalism - see Iceland as an exception - and the dominance of rural populations, at least statistically, it would be correct to ignore the deep and growing impact of cities and urban life, as we repeatedly observe on individuals. scholars have also discussed how the city was presented and projected in medieval literature. HartmutKugler,forinstance,examinesthelaudesurbium,theliterary imagesofCarthageandRome,themetaphorofthecelestialcityofJerusalemand itsconcretefunctioninthehistoricalcontext,andfinallythecityasthecenterof aregiondeterminedbyhumanactivities,implyingthesitusurbisasthecentral locationofacomplexcommunalsystem.135Butasourdiscussionofthegoliardic epicpoemHerzogErnsthasindicated,wealsoneedtoapproachthetopicofurban spacefromamentalhistoricalperspective. How might the diverse audience of her most popular fairy tale have reacted to Gripia's stunning depiction? Didid represent a literary dream or did he warn against the overdevelopment of urban space, which can only be found in the exotic East?
135
See, for example, NormanPounds, TheMedievalCity.GreenwoodGuidestoHistoricEventssoftheMedievalWorld (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood, 2005). It addresses the following topics: origins; the city map; the urban way of life; the town church; municipal administration; urbancraftsandtrade;health,wealth,andwelfare.Hecorrectlyconcludesthatthecitybecame “thefastestgrowingandthewealthiestofanydivisionofsociety,anditwasquicktomakeits influencefeltatleastinwesternandcentralEurope”(153).Reviewingthearchitectural,artistic, intellectual,religious,andpoliticalinheritancefromtheMiddleAges,allattributabletothecity, henotes:“Theartisticandculturalachievementofwesterncivilization,likeitspoliticallegacy, wasbyandlargetheachievementofitscitiesandtowns”(163). Kugler, The Exposition.
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celebrations. On the one hand, the protagonist ends up being a victim of his own curiosity and temptation, marveling at the beauty and richness of urban architecture. On the other hand, his entire journey represents a passage for him that eventually leads to some kind of rebirth after he and his men travel through a crowd on a small raft during their next big adventure. Rather, he was genuinely concerned that Anderotic was interested in rescuing the Indian princess, though he underestimated the Crane People's prowess and military strength. Indeed, he and his companion Wetzel would have died in the end had that fellow not arrived in time to free them from the deadly conflict in the city and force their way through the gate within. You can't really blame Duke Ernst for wanting to visit the city a second time and then shower in the most elegant bathhouse - obviously an exotic rarity for him and his adviser. Yet the city itself represents the stranger and danger of the mysterious East for the Christian warrior on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. and in the end he has to literally fight his way out of the city, barely surviving the onslaught of the army from outside. This does not mean, however, that the anonymous poet Duke Ernst would portray this city as a place of sinfulness, debauchery and decadence, perhaps the new Sodom and Gomorrah. In fact, the protagonist deeply admires the urban architecture and enjoys the scandalous amenities that this city offers its unwanted visitors. Admittedly, the Crane People are not described positively: they are waging a brutal and unwarranted war against India and will immediately stab the kidnapped princes if they think there are some Indian soldiers hiding in the palace. But they behave like most other medieval people, and their king can easily be compared to any other European ruler, given the vast body of bride-wish stories. Goliard's poem contains elements of criticism and admiration for this new type of city;
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David Malcolm Blamires, Duke Ernst and the Otherworld Voyage: A Comparative Study. Manchester University Faculty of Arts Publications, 24 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1979); Albrecht Classen, "Medieval Travel into an Exotic Orient: The Spielmannsepos Herzog Ernst as a Travel into the Medieval Subconscious", Readings: New Methodologies and OldTexts, ed.AlexanderSchwarz.Tausch,2(Frankfurta.M.,New York,and Paris:PeterLang, 1990),103–24. Further reflections on this phenomenon can be found in the articles on travel to this world and the afterlife in the Middle Ages: Voyagesdansl'icibasetdansl'audelàaumoyenâge, Ed.WolfDieterLange.Studium Universale,14 (BonnandBerlin:BouvierVerlag,1992).
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general public, but also warns against identifying too much with this type of city, as residents belong to monstrous races who also associate their urban space with a dangerously exotic sense. In all likelihood, the poet was reflecting on the new experiences that had haunted Christian crusaders in the Holy Land, where they encountered a superior and sophisticated urban culture that would soon influence Western civilization as well as urban space. YetthiswasonlyoneofamyriadofperspectivestowardthemedievalcityinEast and West, and we also would have to consider the most important world of learningandschoolingatleastsincethetwelfthcenturythatemergedinurban centerswhenthetraditionalcathedralschoolslostesteemandhadtocedemuch oftheirinfluenceandauthoritytonewinstitutionsofhigherlearning.138Afterall, withthetwelfthcentury,universitiessprangupeverywhereinEurope,allofthem locatedincitiesanddrawingspecificallyfromurbanlife,whetherinParis,Oxford, Cambridge, Bologna, Salamanca, Salerno, or in Montpellier, Toledo, and ultimatelyalsonorthoftheAlpsinPrague, Heidelberg, Krakow and Vienna. The life and work of Peter Abelard (1079-1142), one of the most famous medieval philosophers, was narrowly and significantly determined by and dependent on urban space, despite his various attempts to retreat to an isolated monastic community far from Paris.
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139
C. Stephen Jaeger, The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950–1200. Medieval Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994); Alan Balfour, The Medieval Universities: Their Development and Organization (London: Methuen, 1975); Universities and Schooling in Medieval Society, ed. William J. Courtenay. Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 10 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), Vern L. Bullough, Universities, Medicine and Science in the Medieval West. Variorum Collected Studies Series, 781 (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2004); Rainer Christoph Schwinges, Students and Scholars: Studies in the Social and Cultural History of German Universities in the Middle Ages. Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 32 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). his study is marred by numerous errors and a rather superficial treatment of his subject. In particular, his explicit critique of supposedly thorough scholarship in this context is quite tongue-in-cheek and amusing. Hilde by Ridder Symoens. Volume 1: Universities in the Middle Ages (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). See now Letters of Peter Abelard, Beyond the Personal, trans. Hilde de Ridder Symoens History of the University in Europe, 1 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
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demonstrate,bythethirteenthcenturythefocusofliteraryproductivitymoved awayfromthecourtstotheurbancenters,reflectingaprofoundtransformation process even in terms of mental history.140 Nevertheless, the universities increasinglybecametheintellectualcentersoflatemedievaltowns,andtherewere numerouseconomicconsequencesfortheurbanpopulationaswell,whetherwe thinkofroomandboardforscholarsandstudents,bookproduction,theerection ofspecialuniversitybuildings,andartsandentertainment.141 Turning to the late Middle Ages, increasingly cityscapes dot the imaginary landscapeofpoetsandwriters.OneofthemostinfluentialFrenchpoets , Christine dePizan (ca. 1364-1430), até usou a metáfora da cidade em suas reflexões sobre a liberdade e a igualdade das mulheres. .143Todos estes
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Ursula Peters, Literature in the City: Studies on the Social Prerequisites and the Forms of Cultural Organization of Urban Literature in the 13th and 14th Centuries. Studies and texts on the social history of literature, 7 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1983); On Citizens, Cities, and Urban Literature in the Late Middle Ages: Report of Colloquia by the Research Commission on Late Middle Ages Culture 1975-1977, editors Josef Fleckstein and Karl Stackmann. Philologische Historische Klasse, 3rd series, 121 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht, 1980); Heinz Schilling, Die Stadt in der Frühen Neuzeit. 1350-1700, ed. Max Reinhart. The Camden House History of German Literature, 4 (Rochester, NY, and Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2007), 43-87; here 62-74. Francsisco Bertelloni, "Aristotle's Proximity and Distance: The New Meaning of Civitas in Political Thought from the 13th to the 15th Century: Between Thomas Aquinas and Nikolas von Kues", University, Council, City: Intellectual Culture on the Rhine (1300–1550) : Acts of the XIIth International Colloquium of the SociétéInternationalepourlÉtudedelaPhilosophieMédiévale, Freiburg imBreisgau, 27–29 October 2004, ed. Laurent Cesalli, Nadja Germann and M.J.F.M.Hoenen. Recontres de Philosophemédiévale, 13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 323-47. Thenumberofolderandmorerecentstudiesonthistextislegion;sufficeitheretorefertoashort selection:Forasympathetic,briefthoughconciseintroductiontoChristine,seeElisaNarinvan Court,“ChristinedePizan,”EncyclopediaofMedievalLiterature,ed.JayRuud(NewYork:Factson File,2006),135–38.SeealsoBärbelZühlke,ChristinedePizaninTextundBild:ZurSelbstdarstellung einerfrühhumanistischenIntellektuellen.ErgebnissederFrauenforschung,36(StuttgartandWeimar: J.B.Metzler, 1994); Sister Prudence Allen, R.S.M., The Concept of Woman. Vol. 2: The Early Humanist Reformation, 1250-1500 (Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2002), 610-54. LoriJ.Walters, "LaRéécrituredeSaintAugustinparChristinedePizan:DeLaCitédeDieuàlaCitédesdames,"AuChampsdesescripture:IIIe.ColloqueinternationalsurChristinedePizan,ed.ErickHicks,DiegoGonzalez,andPhilippeSimon.Étudeschristiniennes,6(Paris:Champion,2000), 195-215.
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detailsdonotneedtobediscussedherefurthersincetheyhavebeenexplored manytimesbefore,whereasthemetaphoritselfdeservesgreaterattentionthanit hasenjoyedsofar.144 Three allegorical ladies appear to the authornarrator who represent fundamentalvirtuesthatanywomancanorshouldsubscribeto,ifnotanyperson: reason,rectitude,andjustice.TheychallengeChristinetobuildacitywhereall womencanproperlyresidebecauseitwouldbebuiltuponthosevaluesandideals bywhichallpeoplecouldlivehonorably.Whereasacitynormallyrepresented, in concrete, material terms, a location where a maximum of protection was availabletothecitizens,theseallegoricalfiguresimplyconsiderablymore: “sothat fromnowon,ladiesandallvaliantwomenmayhavearefugeanddefenseagainst the various assailants, whose ladies who have been abandoned for so long, exposedlikeafieldwithoutasurroundinghedge....”145 LadyReasonevengoesintofurtherdetailswhyChristineshouldbuildacityfor allwomen:“youwilldrawfreshwatersfromusfromclearfountains,andwewill bringyousufficientbuildingstone,strongerandmoredurablethananymarble withcementcouldbe.ThusyourCitywillbeextremelybeautiful,withoutequal, andofperpetualdurationintheworld”(177).Ontheonehand, themetaphorof thecityserveswellasanexpressionofstrengthforwomeninahostileworld;on theotheritindicatesthatwomencanhaveaplaceoftheirown,beingproudof theirownbeautyandinnerstrength.ComparingthecityoftheAmazonswiththe onetobeerectedbyChristine,LadyReasoninsiststhatthelatterwilllastlonger than the former because of its better and more solid foundation and defense mechanisms:“[it]willbefarstronger,andforitsfoundingIwascommissioned, inthecourseofourcommondeliberations,tosupplyyouwithdurableandpure mortartolaythesturdyfoundationsandtoraisetheloftywallsallaround,high andthick,withmightytowersandstrongbastions,surroundedbymoatswith firmblockhouses,justasisfittingforacitywithastrongandlastingdefense “(178). Während in der Historia Apollonius ein klares Gefühl einer authentischen Stadt mit einer komplexen Bevölkerung besteht, greift Christine hier auf Standardbilder der Stadt zurück, die im Wesentlichen durch ihre Verteidigungsstrukturen konstituiert sind. Die eigentliche Stadt als Schauplatz für ein enges Geflecht
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Veja, por exemplo, Judith L. Kellog, "LeLivdelacité desdames: Reconfiguring Knowledgeand ReimaginingGenderedSpace", ChristinedePizan: ACasebook, eds.BarbaraK.Altmann,DeboraL. McGrady, com prefácio de Charity Cannon Willard. Routledge Medieval Casebooks, 34 (New York and London: Routledge, 2003), 129-46; Betsy McCormick, "Building the Ideal City: Female Memorial Praxis in Christinede Pizan's Citédes Dames", Studies in Literary Imagination 36,1 (2003): 149-71. The WritingsofChristinedePizan.Selectedanded.byCharityCannonWillard(NewYork:Persea Books,1994),176.
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Population or community, however, with myriad groups and social classes working together in some way to make urban identity possible, does not really appear in the text. Only Lady Rectitude offers meaningful reflections upontheactualurbanspace,whensheremarks:“Allthingsaremeasuredbythis ruler,foritspowersareinfinite.ItwillserveyoutomeasuretheedificeoftheCity whichyouhavebeencommissionedtobuild,andyouwillneeditforconstructing thefaçade,forerectingthehightemples,formeasuringthepalaces,houses,and allpublicbuildings,thestreetsandsquares,andallthingspropertohelppopulate theCity”(179).146 LadyJustice,finally,inhercommentsaboutwhathermeaningmightbeinthe constructionoftheallegoricalcity,mentionsfurtherarchitecturalelements: "My task will be to build the high roofs of the towers and the high mansions and inns, all made of shining gold. Then I will populate the city for you with worthy ladies and the powerful queen that I will bring to you” (180). Just some of the illustrated manuscripts contendo o texto de Christine também apresentam imagens de uma cidade real. Ms. Harley 4431, British Library, London, however, provestobeanexcellentexceptionwhereonfol.323Droitture(Rectitude)leads thesibylsintothecity.Weclearlyrecognizethecitygateandwall,alargenumber ofhouseswithvariousrooftops,andonehousethatisstillintheprocessofbeing erected,withbeamsfortheroofalreadysetupbutnotyetcoveredbytiles.The artistevenincludedchimneys,reflectingontheneedforcomfortwithintheliving spaces. 147 Asimilarscene,providingfascinatingdetailsofcarpenters'workontheroofs,canbefoundinthesplendidilluminationinthemanuscripthousedinMunich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex Bile. 8, fol. 90v.148 Mrs. Fr. 1177 at the Bibliothèque National, Paris, on the other hand, shows very little interest in depicting concrete urban space. For example, on fol. 45r, we see Justice leading the Sibyls into the city, with a door opening immediately to the right quite unexpectedly, for the city gate itself, with its two tall towers, stands in the middle.
146
147
148
Maureen Quilligan, The Allegory of Female Authority: ChristinedePizan's CitédesDames(IthacaandLondon:CornellUniversityPress,1991), 104-17. Quiilligan, The Allegory, 106. She also observes: “Droitture's emphasis on the Sibyls continues the subtle critique of Rome begun in the One by Reason section and through its emphasis on an alternative tradition of female civilization with its very different cities, Carthage and Babylon. , foi reforçado" (108). Seeplate1(followingp.42)inSusanGroagBell,TheLostTapestriesoftheCityofLadies:Christine dePizan'sRenaissanceLegacy(Berkeley,LosAngeles,andLondon:UniversityofCaliforniaPress, 2004).Otherilluminationsgofarbackinthematicdesignpriortotheerectionoftheutopiancity, suchastheminiatureintheBelgianmanuscriptofLeLivredelacitédesdames,RoyalLibraryof Belgium,Brussels,MS9235,fol.10v;seetheplateviiiinGroagBell 'sTheLostTapestries.
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Background. Obviously, there is no real sense of the city here, as the warm focus is on the group of sibyls and their most elegant fashions.149 Later, returning to Christine's text, the city as such is no longer spoken of because the images served their purpose. purpose. Nevertheless, overall Christine explicitly indicates how much the city had emergedasacrucialmetaphorforallaspectsinhumanlife,andthatastrongand reliablehumanexistencecruciallyneedstherelevantsupportwithinacity,atleast forthenonaristocraticclasses.Forher,andmanypeopleamongheraudiences thattendedtosupportandevenadoreher,thedefenseofwomenagainstmale attacksbothinphysicalandmetaphoricaltermscouldbefullyachievedonlyby hidingbehindcitywalls,atleastinimaginaryterms,nothowever,behindthose ofacastle,probablybecauseChristineidentifiedwiththecityaswomen’strueand onlysafehaven. At the same time, as glimpses of Christine's writings suggest, these freedoms of urban culture were not necessarily stable and could easily be lost. relating to identifying with one's own community. The city becomes, in Christine’s terms, the location of memoryandutopiaaswellwherewomencanfindrefugeandasafeexistence dominatedbyvirtuesandethicalandmoralideals.151Inasubtle,butcertainly significantwayDantehadalsooutlinedthisconceptinhisParadisowherewomen, primarilyasmothersandwives,wereregardedastheessentialmembersofthe urbancommunitywhokeptthememoryofthegloriouspastaliveandpassedit ontotheirchildren.AsHonessnowobserves,“theimageoftheFlorentinewomen putforwardinParadisoXVservesasaveryclearillustrationthat,forthepoet,both men and women function as citizens, and that both are able to function as
149
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Quilligan,TheAllegory,127.TheillustrationofCarthagewhereDidocommitssuicideinMs.Royal CV20,London,BritishLibrary,fol.65r,seemsratherodd.Thegroupofthreemenwitnessing Dido'sdeathtotheirrightstandsbehindalowwall,andtheactualcitiesrisesbehindthem,with orientallookingtowersinthedistance,whereasaseriesofconnectedhousesconstitutetheactual city;seeQuilligan,TheAllegory,172.SeealsoSandraL.Hindman,“WithInkandMortar:Christine dePizan' sCitédesDames(AnArtEssay),”FeministStudies10(1984):457–77;eadem,Christinede Pizan's“EpistreOthéa”:PaintingandPoliticsattheCourtofCharlesVI(Toronto:PontificalInstitute ofMediaevalStudies,1986);RosalindBrownGrant,“IlluminationasReception:JeanMiélot's Reworkingofthe'EpistreOthea',”TheCityofScholars:NewApproachestoChristinedePizan,ed . Margarete Zimmermann e Dina De Rentiis. European Cultures, 2 (Berlin und New York: de Gruyter, 1994), 260-71. Diane Wolfthal, „‚Douleursurtoutresautres‘: RevisualizingtheRapeScriptintheEpistreOtheaandtheCitédesdames“,ChristinedePizanandtheCategoriesofDifference, Hrsg. Marilynn Desmond. MedievalCultures, 14 (Minneapolis e Londres: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 41–70. Margarete Zimmermann, „ChristinedePizan:Memory'sArchitect“,ChristinedePizan:ACasebook, Hrsg.BarbaraK.AltmannundDeborahL.McGrady.RoutledgeMedievalCasebooks (Nova York e Londres:Routledge, 2003), 57–77; hier66–71.
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Examples that provide a fundamental lesson in the relationship between the individual and the community.”152 Globally, life in the city still meant that the individual could enjoy enormous advantages over people in the countryside. Dona Retidão highlights the importance of the City for all those who had the privilege of living there. More importantly, however, it gives a deep insight into the royal structure of a late medieval city with its very varied topography: "our construction is quite advanced, as the houses of the City of Ladies are completed in the wide streets, their royal palaces are well built , and its pinnacles and towers are so high and straight.” This idyllic, perhaps utopian city signals how much urban life was aspired to by everyone who could afford to live there: “As citizens are becoming happy with a building, as they don't have to fear or worry about being expelled by foreign armies, for this work has the special quality that its owners cannot be expelled" (192). This city harbors only the most intelligent and dignified ladies: "they will all be women of integrity, of great beauty and authority, for there could be no fairer population or greater adornment in the city than women of good character" (192). However, it also immediately forces us to oscillate between the ideal image of an urban space inhabited by people of noble spirit and the often harsh and torturous conditions for married women who suffer from brutal and ignorant husbands and many thermal offenders in the city to distinguish, especially when women did not enjoy the male protection of their father or husband: "How many hard blows - for no reason and for no reason - how many injuries, how many cruelties, insults, humiliations and indignities many sincere women suffered, not one of them cried out to Christine verbally challenges husbands' abuse of their wives, especially in urban settings, though she sees no other realistic escape route than retreating to the metaphorical City of Ladies, a literary urban dream world.
152
Honess, From Florence to the Celestial City, 51; see also Jacques Goudert, Dante et la politique (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1969), 139.
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turnsintoasafehavenforwomenagainsttheirviolentandbrutalhusbands.153She isrealisticenough,however,torecognizeandadmitpubliclythattheurbanspace, asamostfamiliarsiteoflatemedievalsocietyaccordingtoherownexperience andthatofheraudience,provestobeasitewheremenofallclasses,ages,and politicalstatusescanalsoroamfreelyandabusewomen,wheretavernsinvite peopletocomeinanddrink,wherevicesandsinfulnessflowerfreely,andwhere thephysicallyweakermembersofsocietycanbecomevictimsofthosewithmore power. Ofcourse,andnottrulyexpected,Christinedoesnothavearealanswerforhow todealwithmaleviolence,bothwithinmarriageandoutside—infact,noonein the late Middle Ages had any pragmatic suggestion or solution, except to recommendtowomenthattheysubmittotheirdestinyandtopraytoGod—but shedreamsofacitywhereuprightandvirtuouswomencanlivefreelyfromall thatabuseanddedicatedtothefundamentalvirtuesandvaluesinhumanlife: “NowwehavecomebacktoourCity,thankGod,withallthenoblecompanyof fairanduprightwomenwhomwewilllodgethere”(194). Similarly,LadyJusticealsooffersheradviceandmakesacontributiontothe CityofLadies,againinmetaphoricalterms,andemphasizesattheend:“itseems tomethatIhaveacquittedmyselfwellofmyofficeincompletingthehighroofs of your City and in populating it for you with outstanding ladies, just as I promised”(205).Thecityemergesbothasametaphorofwomen'sveryownspace freeofmalepersecutions,andasasitewheretheyhavetoaccepttheirearthly blight.AsChristinecommentsherself,thisuniquecityhouses“ladiesfromthe pastaswellasfromthepresentandfuture,forithasbeenbuiltandestablishedfor allehrwürdige Dame“ (205). Christine spricht weiter über die Ehe, insbesondere mit einem bösen oder grausamen Ehemann, und appelliert an ihre weiblichen Leser, geduldig und demütig zu sein. Für sie besteht dieses Publikum aus Frauen aus allen sozialen Schichten, „ob Adel, Bourgeois oder Unterschicht“ (207), foi sinalizado, dass sie die Stadt als Kosmos der gesamten Gesellschaft wahrnimmt von Guten, in der Stadt der tugendhaften und verherrlichten Damen: „ Und einige mögen es Ihnen erfreuen, meine hochverehrten Damen, Tugend zu kultivieren, sich zu scheuen, unsere Stadt zu vergrößern und zu vermehren und sich zu freuen und gut zu handeln” (207).
153
Albrecht Classen, The Power of the Female Voice in Medieval and Modern Literature. Fundamental also of the Middle Ages and Modern Culture, 1 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2007), 181–84.
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ForChristineandhercontemporariesthecityhadobviouslyalreadyemerged asthecentraliconoftheirtime,akeymetaphorwithmultipleconnotations.154As RosalindBrownGrantnowsuggests,“Christine'suseofthesymbolofthecity underpins one of the central arguments of her text, namely that women have contributedtothemoralandspiritualdevelopmentofcivilizationasepitomized by the urban community.”155 Of course, the moral symbolism alluding to the desiredprotectionofwomen'schastitywithinthiscitycannotbeoverlooked,and has been discussed several times. The fact that Christine is based mainly on the imagery of urban space also shows her great interest in the city as a place of culture and late medieval civilization that replaces the court, the palace and the church, despite the great concern of the poetess with her most important patrons. , the highest ranks of the French nobility, i.e. the courtly public. ForChristine,thecityprovestobethelocationwherevirtuescanbloomand findthenecessaryprotection,if,andthisisabigcaveat,thiscitycanbeproperly builtandconstructedappropriatelyforwomen'sneedsanddesires.156 Itwasaliteraryimagination,yetitwasalsopredicated,bydefault,onavery concreteconceptofthecityinitscomplexstructureandproperties.Discussingthe cityinhercontext,Christinereaffirmsthefundamentalsignificanceofthecityas the new and all important central location of social, economic, and cultural religious activities, even though she projects virtually nothing but a fantasy. This should not deny the permeability of the city wall and the metaphorically connoted opening of the urban space to the outside, especially intellectually, as the author allows the numerous references to outstanding women of the past, whether princesses or martyrs, to enter the feminine. space and thus opened up a far-reaching communication system, in which the city serves as a central hub.157
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157
Sandra L. Hindman, "WithInkandMortar:ChristinedePizan'sCitédesDames:AnArtEssay", FeministStudies10(1984):457-84. Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, übers.undmit Einführungund Anmerkungenvon Rosalind Brown Grant (Londres: Penguin, 1999), xxix–xxx. Sieheauch Brown Grant, Reading Beyond Gender: Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defense of Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Douglas Kelly, A mudança de opinião de Christine de Pizan: uma busca pela certeza no meio do caos. Gallica (Woodbridge, Suffolk, und Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2007), 84–85. HereIdrawfromapaperbyFedericaAnichini,“ChristinedePizan’sCityofLadies:Excavating Prejudice,BuildingKnowledge,”deliveredatthe44thInternationalCongressonMedievalStudies, May7–10,2009,Kalamazoo,MI,attheWesternMichiganUniversity.Seealsothecontributions toTheCityofScholars:NewApproachestoChristinedePizan,ed.MargareteZimmermannandDina DeRentiis.EuropeanCultures,2(BerlinandNewYork:WalterdeGruyter,1993).
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This finds intriguing confirmation in the poetic works of her contemporary, ThomasHoccleve,whoworkedasascribeinLondon,beingfirstcitedinChancery rollsfromshortlypriortoJune21,1387toMay8,1426,aposthumousnote.158He wasbornaround1367andbeganhiscareerasanapprenticeclerkinthePrivy Seal,servingasunderclerktoGuydeRoucliff.Shortlybefore1408hehadachieved sucharankthathewasassignedanassistantclerk,JohnWelde.Heretiredin1426 anddiedsoonafter.159Hocclevehassufferedforalongtimebeingregardedasa secondarypoetinthelongshadowcastbyGeoffreyChaucer,butrecentresearch hasrecognizedhismostidiosyncraticapproaches,styles,themes,andimages .160 HemightactuallybecomparabletoFrançoisVillonandOswaldvonWolkenstein becauseofhisstronginterestinautobiographicalselfreflectionsinhispoemsand therebellious,satirical,sometimesalmostgrotesqueverses.161InhisLaMaleRegle, forinstance,writtenin1405,he“presentshimself...asanapostatetothegod Helthe.Hehasfortwentyyearsbeenagluttonandafool,eatinganddrinking untilhecan'tgetoutofbedinthemorning,andspendingallhislittlemoneyto buytheflatteringwordsofboatmenontheThamesandof'Venusfemellusty childrendeere.'ThepoemshowsChaucer'sinfluenceinthecomicpresentationof Hoccleve'spastmisdeeds,butitisquiteunChaucerianinitsdetailedimagination ofclerklylifeinearlyfifteenthcenturyLondon.” 162 Hoccle bezieht sich regelmäßig auf sich selbst und sein Leben in der Stadt London und gibt damit nicht systematische, aber höchst interessante Einblicke in das frühe 15. Jahrhundert
158
159 160
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B.C. Reeves, "Thomas Hoccleve, Bureaucrat", Mediaevaliaet Humanistican.s.5 (1974): 201-14; see also TF Tout, "Literature and Learning in the English Civil Service in the Fourteenth Century," Speculum 4(1929):365-89; ,PA:ThePennsylvaniaStateUniversityPress,2001), 20-43,etpassim. See also Günter Hagel, Thomas Hoccleve:Lebenundwerk eines Schreiber imEnglanddes Late Middle Ages. Selections from Hoccleve, ed. M.C. Seymour (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), xi–xxxiii. ThoughaddressingamajortextinHoccleve'sœuvrethatdoesnotnecessarilyshedlightonourtopic,NicholasPerkins,Hoccleve'sRegimentofPrinces:CounselorandConstraint(Woodbridge,Suffolk:D.S.Brewer,2001),shedsimportantlightonHoccleve'spositioninthehistoryofMiddleEnglishliterature. ,1999). Albrecht Classen, The Autobiographical Poetry of the Late European Middle Ages: Studies in Hugo von Montfort, Oswald von Wolkenstein, Antonio Pucci, Charles d'Orléans, Thomas Hoccleve, Michel Beheim, Hans Rosenplüt, and Alfonso Alvarez de Villasandino. Amsterdam Publications on Language and Literature, 91 (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1991). Knapp, The Bureaucratic Muse, 37. See also A.C. Spearing, Medieval Renaissance in English Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 110-20; Eva M. Thornley, "The MiddleEnglish Penitential Lyric and Hoccleve's Autobiographical Poetry", Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 68 (1967): 295-321; Albrecht Classen, Hoccleve's Independence from Chaucer: A Study of Poetic Emancipation, Fifteenth Century Studies 15(1990):59-81; id., The Autobiographical Voice of Thomas Hoccleve, Archiv für das Studium der modernen Sprachenundliteraturen 228(1991):299-310 .
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poetperceivedandreactedtotheurbanspaceuponwhichhisownexistencewas predicated.InhisLaMaleRegle,forinstance,Hocclevecommentsingeneralabout themoraldeclineofhistime,ofwhichheisjustasguilty,wastinghismoneywith drinking,partying,andenjoyinglifetoexcess.Repeatedlyhementionshislifein thetaverns:“Ofhimþathauntithtauerneofcustume,/Atshortewordes,the profytisthis:”(161–62).163Satiricallyhecastshimselfasthebestknownmaninthe entireareaaroundWestminster,clearlysignalingtherelevanceoftheurbanspace inthatquarterforhispersonaldebaucheries: WherwasagrettermaistireekthanY, OrbetaqweyntidatWestmynstreyate, Amongthetauerneresnamely Andcookes what am I late for? Ipychidnatatheminmynacate, But I paid Hemasþattheyaxowolde, For I was the welcome gate And for a very smooth stop.
(77–84)
Furthermore, he expressly describes his journey from the tavern to the Privy Seal, which offers us a truly sensual and safe life in the city, with many streets, squares, bars, bridges, people, traffic, etc. (185-92). Andtherthebootmentookvponmekeep, /Fortheymyriotkneewonfernago./Withtheymyriotkneewonfernago./WithhemIwasittoandforre,/Sowel he was þat I with wolde fare, /For Riot paieth principally euremo” (195–99). He then turns to a lengthy moralizing about the dangers of deceitful and flattering words uttered by servants to their masters, the consequences of a violent life in public, especially in pubs, so lying, and the problem of money: "A, nay, mypoorepursandpeynesstronge /Hanartid [thanks] speak to me as I speak haue" (395-96), which ends with an appeal to his patron for monetary rewards (44). ). Hoccle certainly follows many traditional medieval motifs and themes in this and other poems, but he is not afraid to place himself in the midst of all these reflections, thus providing the public with an important insight into the concrete conditions of life of a religious poet in the metropolis of London.
163
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„Meine Compleinte“ and other Gedichte, hrsg. Roger Elis. Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2001),68. Katherine C. Little, Confession and Resistance: Defining the Self in Late Medieval England (Notre Dame, IN: UniversityofNotreDamePress, 2006).
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mentalillness.Asthenarratoremphasizes:“ForoftewhanneIinWestmynstir Halle/AndekeinLondounamongethepreeswent,/Isythechereabatenand apalle/Ofhemþatwerenwontemefortocalle/Tocompanie...“(72–76).165 Everyonefleesfromhim,afraidofhisboutoflunacy,comparinghimtoavessel lostatsea(81)orawildox(120).Thenarratorthenseeksrefugeathomewherehe staresintothemirrortofindoutwhohereallyis:“Andinmychaumbreathome whanneþatIwas,/ MysilfealooneIinþiswisewrou3t./Istreitevntomymirrour andmyglas/Tolokehoweþatmeofmychereþou3t”(155–58),therebysignaling thetwosidesofthecoinlivinginacity,thatis,thepublicandtheprivate.166But hebitterlycomplainsthatpeoplesubsequentlymistookhimasstillbeingilland avictimoflunacy,althoughhehadrecoveredyearsearlier:“Manbihisededis andnotbyhiselookes/Shalknowenbe,asitiswriteninbookes”(202–03). Of course, Hocclevel mainly focuses on philosophical, ethical and moral issues and asks the audience to think of a sensible approach to recognizing and identifying an individual and also how a person should live properly in this mundane existence autobiographicallens: many have also done this mirror when I think if I look among the people as I did, no error of suspicion can show on my face. I'm sure that's not representative, and if it's not reasonable for the Vs, then it's reasonable.
(162-68).
Although Hoccleve does not discuss the city as such, it seems to form the crucial social fabric for his entire existence, judging both by his parties and troubles in pubs and elsewhere, and by his comings and goings to and from work, eventually spending time in home and examines his face and therefore his identity.
The city as theme and motif in historical-mental terms
165
166
Quoted from a selection by Hoccleve, 77; see also Seymour's Comments, 122-35. See Roger Ellis notes in his Santhology, "MyCompleinte", 128-30. D.M.Palliser, T.R.Slater and E.Patricia Dennison, "The Topography of Towns600-1300", The CambridgeUrbanHistoryofBritain.Vol.1:600-1540, eds.D.M.Palliser (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2000),153-86;here175- 78.
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Significantly, by the end of the Middle Ages, a growing number of individual citizens, belonging to both the upper class (merchants) and the nobility, realized that they needed to take stock of their lives and reflect on their families in a wider context, leading to the creation of from a rather large corpus of so-called home and family books, as mentioned above. that is, the level of education attained by the individual author. Primarily for private use, these rather voluminous volumes contain a wealth of information relevant to many different social and age groups, including data on the family business, marital relationships, births and deaths, positions, endowments, income, wealth; therefore, they are perfectly suited for an in-depth analysis of late medieval urban life, mental structures, religious attitudes, gender, and economic and political issues to remember current generations. They were also often compiled by individual family members who were experiencing a dramatic increase in power or suddenly faced with a significant decline in their family's wealth, if not simply the demise of the entire family.
167
168
Home and Family Books, in Urban Society in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. Birgit Studt. City search. See, for example, PierreMonnet,"LaMémoiredesélitesurbainesdansl'EmpireàlafinduMoyenÂgeentreécrituredesoiethistoiredelacité,"Memoria,communitas,civitas:Mémoireetconscience urbainesenoccidentàlafinduMoyenÂge,ed.HannoBrand,PierreMonnet,andMartialStaub. Supplement to Francia, 55 (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2003), 49-70; Heinrich Schmidt, The Chronicles of the German City as a Reflection of Bourgeois Self-Reliance in the Late Middle Ages. Interest in these urban documents of an autobiographical nature has been intense in recent years; see the contribution to The Pictured I: Studies on self-certifications of the later Middle Ages and early modern times, ed. Sabine Schmolinsky, Klaus Arnold, and Urs Martin Zahnd. Self-Testimonies from the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, 1 (Bochum: Winkler, 1999); Gabriele Jancke, Autobiography as Social Practice: Concepts of Relationship in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Self-Testimonies in German-Speaking Countries. Self-testimonies of modern times,10 (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna: Böhlau, 2002). 1–31. See also Gabriele HofnerKulenkamp, The Image of the Artist with the Family: Portraits of the 16th and 17th Century Hildesheim and Moller in Hamburg.
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Death or absence of heirs.169 However, despite the rather rigid class structures, urban centers were the scene of intense social struggles, which, for example, separated artisans in particular from the mercantile class commonly called patricians. This is in stark contrast to some late medieval and early modern book illustrations in which the city itself does not seem to exist historically. In one of the most spectacular 13th-century manuscript copies of the Roman Delarose, composed by Guillauumede Lorrisca. 1237, later continued and greatly expanded by Jeande Meunca. 1264/1274,171 dedicated to the French King Francis I (1515-1547), probably shortly after his celebrated victory over the Swiss army defending the Duchy of Milan, again in September 1515, as we can see in the urban and most notable example of a notable expansive and transverse city
169
170
171
Studt, "Memory and Identity", 9; see also Valentin Groebner, "Council of Interests, Family Interests: Patrician Conflicts in Nuremberg around 1500," City Regiment and Civil Liberties: Scope for Action in German and Italian Cities of the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, ed. Klaus Schreiner and Ulrich Meier. Bourgeoisie: Contributions to European social history, 7 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 278-308; Pierre Monnet, "Real und ideale Stadt: Die Oberdeutschen Städteim Spiegel, Autobiographical Testimonies of the Late Middle Ages," From the Person Portrayed to the Person Remembered I: European Self-Testimonies as a Historical Source (1500-1850), ed. Kaspar von, Gruyere, Heinz Medick and Patrice Veit. Self-testimonies of modern times, 9 (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna: Böhlau, 2001), 395-430; id., “ParticularismesurbainsetpatriotismelocaledansunevilleallemandedelafinduMoyenÂge: Francfortetseschroniques,”IdentitérégionaleetconsciencenationaleenFranceetenAllemagnedu MoyenÂgeàl'epoquemoderne.Actesducolloqueorganiséparl'UniversitéParisXIIValdeMarne, l'InstitutuniversitairedeFranceetl'Instituthistoriqueallemandàl'UniversitéParisXIIetàlaFondation SingerPolignac,les6,7et8octobre1993,ed.RainerBabelandJeanMarieMoeglin.Beihefteder Francia,39(Sigmaringen:J.Thorbecke,1997),389 -400. This topic has been discussed many times with focus on many different cities in late medieval and early modern Europe; see, for example, Alexander Cowan, The Urban Patriciate: Lübeck and Venice, 1580–1700. Sources and representations of Hanseatic history, new series, 30 (Cologne: Böhlau, 1986); see also the contribution to Townsin Societies: Essaysin EconomicHistory and Historical Sociology, ed. Philips Abrams and E.A. Wrigley. Past and present publications (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978); and Florentine Tuscany: Structures and Practices of Power, ed. William J. Connelland Andrea Zorzi. Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Albrecht Classen, "Guillaumede Lorris" (285-86), "Jeande Meun" (345-47), "Romandela Rose" (548-49), Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature, ed. Jay Ruud (New York: Factson File, 2006).
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hoverinthebackgroundoflatemedievalmentality,andyetalsodemandednew attention.172 Typicallyforthattimeandtheroyalculture,thededicationilluminationfocusesonthecourt,withthekinginthecenter,receivingthevolume.Thespectator'sgazetravelsintothebackgroundthroughaloggia,whichopensuptoavastlandscapewithsomebuildingonahilltotheleft(4r).Astobeexpected,manyoftheillustrationsshowgardenstructureswithahighwallaroundOccion1Owesioneecca.ygallylated2seetower,theareaanda mighty( , again in the background, a kind of city surrounding a palace, but the buildings in in front of you, eg. Other times, the profile of an expanding fortress appears in the background (fol. 25r), or a palace is revealed (fol. 29r), while the urban space or city life seems not to play a role. no paper. If there is a realistic background, then it is landscapes, regularly with a blue mountain rising in the distance (fol.57vand fol.58r). The absence of true urban space in favor of parklike nature scenes with individual buildingsinthebackground,someofwhichseemtoformpartofafarm, whereasothersrepresentboththeoldcastleontopofamountainandthenewpalaceatitsfoot(fol.147v),speaksvolumes,especiallyincomparisonwithcontemporaryprintedbooks,suchasHartmannSchedel'sNurembergChronicle, whichalreadybelongstoanewworld,theGermanRenaissance(seebelow). As the city is on fire, citizens flee through the city gate as the flames engulf the tall towers and skyscrapers.
172
173
SeethecommentaryofthefacsimileeditionbyMargaretaFriesen,DerRosenromanfürFrançois I.NewYork,PierpontMorganLibrary,M.948(Graz:AkademischeDruckundVerlagsanstalt, 1993;VollständigeFaksimileAusgabedesRosenromansfürFrançoisI.M.948ausdemBesitzder PierpontMorganLibraryinNewYork.CodicesSelecti,XCVII(NewYork:ThePierpontMorgan Library;Graz:AkademischeDruckundVerlagsanstalt;Lyon:LesSillonsduTemps,1993).She emphasizes, 120 : “Schwere Rundtürme, Festungsruinen, strohgedeckte Fachwerkhäuser und mächtigeRenaissancepalästebestimmendieHintergrundsgestaltung.IhreAnordnungimBildfeld wirdimmerneukomponiert.ZwarsindesdiegleichenGrundtypenvonBauwerken,diesich wiederholen,dochführtihreabwechslungsreicheVariierunginjederMiniaturzueinemanderen Ergebnis. Wenn auch die Paläste (fol. 29r, 50v, 79v oder 84v) im Stil der Renaissance wiedergegebenwerden,sowirddochderForderungderitalienischenRenaissancebaukunstnach Symmetrie, Gleichmaß und Harmonie As massas de construção são semper empurradas para a imagem de um lado e minam qualquer tentativa de apresentar pilastras, cornijas e ornamentos de construção simetricamente” (120-21). Veja a contribuição para este volume by Albrecht Classen.
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buildings.Thelargenumberoffrightenedcitizensindicatesthatthewallshidea fairlylargeurbanspace,butthatspaceisnotvisible,nordoesitevokeanyinterest fortheartistortheaudience.Afterall,thisfamousallegoricalromancerepresents one of the masterpieces of the Middle Ages, and this particular copy in the PierpontMorganLibraryinNewYorkwascomposedforanddedicatedtothe FrenchKingFrancisI.Itdoesnotcomeasasurprisethatsucharoyalartworkand pieceofliteratureisfarremovedfromtheearlymodernawarenessaboutand interestinurbanspaceincountlessothercontexts.174
TheSocialDiscourseAboutUrbanSpaceandIdentity Overall,wefaceafascinatingandintricatecombinationorcompetitionofvarious discoursesbytheindividualpowerplayersinlatemedievalandearlymodern society.Whereasthenobilitytriedhardtomaintainitstraditionalstatusaslong aspossible,boththecityassuchandthewealthiestburghersstruggledwithall theiroptionsavailabletocarveoutanicheinpubliclifeforthemselves,togain recognition,andtodeterminethenatureofthecontemporaryculturewiththehelp oftheirownmeans,oftenopenlycompetingwiththemembersofthearistocracy serving at courtssituatedincities,suchasViennaandSalzburg.175Wecannot expect,ofcourse,tofindnecessarilyrepresentationsofthedifferentsocialclasses andgroupswithinthesametextgenresorartworks,thoughwestillwouldhave toagreewiththegeneralobservationthatanamalgamationprocessinthelate Middle Ages brought nobility and urban patriciate significantly close to each other.176 Darüber hinaus fand selbst innerhalb der mittelalterlichen Stadt ein tiefgreifender Diskriminierungsprozess statt, der die Handwerker und die ärmeren Mitglieder zunehmend ausgrenzte
174
175
176
UlrichMüller,“Burg,”Burgen,länder,Orte,ed.id.andWernerWonderlich. Christian Schneider, Hovezuht: Literary culture of the court and ideal of court life around Duke Albrecht III. of Austria and Archbishop Pilgrim II of Salzburg (1365–1396). Contributions to early literary history (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2008), 50-63. Wolfgang Herborn, "Bürgerliches Selbstunderstand im Late Medieval Cologne. Remarks on Two Domestic Books of the First Half of the Fifteenth Century," The City in European History: Festschrift for Edith Ennen, ed. Werner Beschetal. (Bonn: L. Röhrscheid, 1972), 490-520; Horst Wenzel, "Aristocratic Self-Understanding in Cologne's Urban Patriciate Shown in the Cologne Chronicle Gottfried Hagens", Literature, Audience, Historical Context, ed. Gert Kaiser. Contributions to Early German Literary History, 1 (Bern, Frankfurt am Main, and Las Vegas: Peter Lang, 1977), 9–28.
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der Stadtgesellschaft von der Stadtverwaltung. As George Huppert observes regardingFrankfurtamMain:“Frankfurt'séliteconsistedofsome45families,less than1percentofthepopulation.Thissmallgroupretainedexclusivecontrolofthe 15 top offices from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries and it invented elaborateassociationstosafeguarditspositioninthecity.”177Atthesametime,this urbaneliteendeavoredhardtoclimbevenhigherandtojointhenobility,ifthe necessarycriteriaforthismovecouldbemet:“Thestandardtestofnobility,bythe latesixteenthcentury,wasthedemonstrationthatafamilyhadlivednobly—that is, withoutworking—forthreegenerations.Thisstandardwaseasilymetbythe membersofurbanélites,butitdidnotsatisfythefeudalnobility,fromwhose perspectivenobilitywasaninheritedqualityresidinginthebloodandtestedon thebattlefield.”178 Nevertheless, the urban centers attracted a growing number of people from differentbackgroundsandsocialclasses,andwithdifferenteducationallevelsand individualinterests.Majorcouncilsmetincities,suchasConstance(1414–1418) andBasel(1431–1449).179Tradeandbankingwerecentrallylocatedincities,and So waren das Bildungssystem, das Gesundheitswesen, das Handwerk und die Herzen. Musikalische Unterhaltung und der literarische Prozess waren eng mit der Stadt verbunden, wie die unzähligen Liederbücher zeigen, von gutem Trinkwasser.181 Bier, z
177
178 179
180
181
George Huppert, After the Black Death: A Social History of Modern Europe. Mon. ed. Interdisciplinary Studies in History (1986; Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998), 45. Huppert, After the Black Death, 50. Christopher M. Belitto, The General Council: a History of the Twenty One General Council from Nicaeato Vatican II (New York: Paulist Press, 2002), The Church, the Council, and Reform: the Legacy of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Albrecht Classen, German Songbooks of the 15th and 16th Centuries. Folk Song Studies, 1 (Münster: Waxmann, 2001); id., Georg Forster's Songbooks in the 16th Century: Last Flowering and End of an Epoch. Historical Reception Studies on the Late Medieval Song Genre," Lied und Popular Kultur. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Volksliedarchivs 48 (2003): 11–47; See Contributions to City Life; Keith D Lilley, City Life in the Middle Ages; NormanPounds ,TheMedievalCity;RobertaMagnusson,“PublicandPrivateUrbanHydrology: WaterManagementinMedievalLondon”(171–87),andThomasF.GlickandLuisPabloMartinez, “MillsandMillers in MedievalValencia”(189–234),WindandWaterintheMiddleAges:Fluid TechnologiesfromAntiquitytotheRenaissance,ed.StevenA.Walton.MedievalandRenaissance TextsandStudies,322.PennStateMedievalStudies, 2 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006).
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B. an important drink in medieval urban culture, it profoundly determines the social and economic structure of cities, be it the breweries themselves, the purchase of basic ingredients, the different types of fuel used in the brewing process, trade, taxation, the impact of brewing affects the labor market and property rights.182 Process, expert breeding, and brewery competition. But many city governments enacted strict regulations and tax systems, which goes to show how deeply beer production has influenced urban life as a whole.183 Virtually every aspect of human life was intimately connected with urban space, as the comprehensive study by Hartmut Boockmann. It covers the following topics: walls, gates, towers and weapons; hygiene and health, commerce and transport, handicrafts, city councils, legal system; urban supremacy struggles between different social classes; the city as the seat of the ducal residence; funerals and memorials; urban churches and monasteries; hospitals; pilgrimage sites; piety, superstition, and heresy; Jewish cities; guilds and brotherhoods; Children; Schools and Education.184
Late Medieval City Life in Art Although the growth of medieval cities was omnipresent, although it was certainly not an automatic, progressive and linear phenomenon, the perception of cities varied greatly, mainly because many different people gathered in cities. However,thosewholivedwithinthecitywallscertainlyidentifiedwiththecity andregardedtheirownexistenceasconsiderablymoresecurethanthatinthe countryside.AsChiaraFrugonicomments:“Inthefollowingcenturies[sincethe thirteenthcentury—A.C.],downtotheRenaissance,thisawarenessofacontrast, denoted by the walls, between order and chaos, organized space and savage nature,growsmoreacute;asaresulteveryviolentdeath,everyeventthatdisturbs thepeacefulunfoldingofaliferegulatedbylaws—liketheexecutionsthat,the 182
183
184
Richard W. Unger, Beerin the Middle A sent the Renaissance, 38, emphasizes: “The origin of the urban beer industry was not the presence of breweries in monasteries or episcopal houses, despite the technical influence that such establishments could and did have. ” Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages, 43–50. He emphasizes that, in the end, "the tax system and regulations in general made small-scale brewing difficult and encouraged the development of an urban industry increasingly dominated by professional brewers." 2nd edition (1986; Munich: Beck, 1987).
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statutestellus,didinfacttakeplace'outside'—isordinarilyrepresentedoccurring intheopen.”185 Even though medieval artists continued to create idealistic images of cities, commonly following the model of the Holy Jerusalem, hence treating the city basicallyasasymbolandnotasarealisticspace,186bythelateMiddleAgesthecity becametheobjectofintensivecriticalanalysisbecauselocalgovernmentsemerged thatfeltincreasinglyindependentandwantedtoexpressthisnewsentimentof civicprideandidentityinpublicartworks,suchasAmbrogioLorenzetti's“Sala dellaPace”inthePalazzoPubblicoofSiena (1338–1339).187 Michel Feuille recently described the urban network visible in Lorenzetti's frescoes as follows: additional comfort for opening elegant boxes. As an additional sign of this growth of urban space, the artist depicts a construction site in which a team of masons are perched on scaffolding.188
[The artist squeezed the houses together, tall and comfortable, colorful, punctuated by many windows, cantilevered in streets and squares, opening onto elegant loggias to add to the charm of the scene. As a supplementary sign of the interdependence of urban space
185
186 187
188
Chiara Frugoni, A Distant City: Images of the Urban Experience in the Middle Ages, trans. William McCuaig (1983; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 11. Frugoni, ADistant City, 108-09; see also Kugler, The concept of the city, 79-141. Frugoni, ADistant City, 118-88. See also George Rowley, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 2 volumes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958); Chiara Frugoni, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti ([Bergenfield, NJ, ? and New York ?]: Scala Books, 1988); Randolph Starn, Ambrogio Lorenzetti: The Palazzo Pubblico, Siena (New York: George Braziller, 1994); Max Seidel, DolceVita: Portrait of the State of Siena, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Basel: Schwabe & Co., 1999); "Peace is joy": The organization of a bustling city modeled on the fresco "Good Government" by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, edited by A. Luisa Haring and Erich Kaufer (Siena: Edizioni Il Leccio, 2002); Ambrogio Lorenzetti: fourteenth-century life in Siena and the Siena countryside in public and private historicizing commissions. Good Government Guide edited by Alberto Colli, introduction by Mario Ascheri (Siena: ArtiGrafiche Nencini Poggibonsi, 2004), Luciano Bellosi and Giovanna Ragionieri, Giotto and his legacy: Filippo Rusuti, Pietro Cavallini, Duccio, Giovannida Rimini, Nerida Rimini, Pietroda Rimini , Simone Martini, Pietro Lorenzetti, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Matteo Babancod, Giovanni Milano, Giottino, Giusto de Menabuoi, Altichiero, Jacopo Avanzi, Jean Pucelle, the Limburg brothers (Florence: IlSole24Ore, 2007) Also Chiara Frugoni, A Dayina Medieval City, draws draws heavily on these pictorial testimonies for his historical-intellectual examination of late medieval life in the city. Michel Feuillet, "La Fresque des Effets du Bon Gouvernement d'Ambrogio Lorenzetti dans le PalazzoPubblicodeSienne: unemiseenimagedeladialectiquevillecampagneàlafinduMoyen Âge", Villehabitée,villefantasmée: Actesducolloque "Lavilledansethorslesmurs"..., ed. Georges Frédéric Manche (Paris: L'Harmattan, 69.2000), 79.2020. –92;here80.
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Artist Albrecht Classen shows a construction site where a team of masons work on scaffolding.
At the same time, concern for the proper government of cities grew everywhere, reflected in a large corpus of relevant critical poems and treatises on good and bad city government ("Stadtregimentslehre"). Particularlythosetextsthatcontainalsogeneraldidacticconceptswerewidely disseminated, such as the Antwerpse school and the stanzas “Hoemen ene stat regerensal”and“Vonguo ttenrae tten,”especiallybecausetheywerenotfocusedon oneindividualcityandcouldbeappliedeverywhere.Buttheentiregenreenjoyed considerablepopularitybetween1300and1500,whentheinterestinthemseems tohavedeclined,althoughwithsomemajorexceptionsfarintotheseventeenth century.189 Latemedievalart,especiallyfromtheFlemisharea,demonstratestheenormous fascinationexertedbythenewurbanism.AsJamesSnydercomments,forinstance, regardingthepainting“ Madonna with the Chancellor Nicolas Rolin' by Janvan Eyck (ca. 1435), 'The background landscape in the Madonna Rolin has been identified as Bruges, Autun, Liège, Maastricht and Geneva. But, as with his architectural interiors, Van Eyck is an architect and urban planner himself, creating a compelling backdrop that also serves as a symbolic backdrop for the figures. wecanalsodiscoveraremarkabledepictionofurbanspaceinthe famousEnglishLuttrellPsalterfromthefirsthalfofthefourteenthcenturywhich providesmuchinformationaboutdailylifebothinthecountrysideand,tosome extent,alsoatcourt(scenesofgames,jousting,hunting,etc.).Althoughthisheavy tome,consistingof309leaves,writtenbyonesinglescribe,focuses,initspictorial program,mostlyonruralaspectsoffarmwork,createdbyatleastfivedifferent illuminators,wealsodiscoveronespectacularimageofawalledmedievaltown (fol.164v).JanetBackhouseoffersthefollowingdescriptionandcomment: The townscape (41) it is therefore of particular interest, not so much for its dancers and musicians, as for the considerable variety of buildings confined within its walls. The central feature is a cruciform church with a tower and belfry.
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Heike Bierschwale and Jacqueline van Leeuwen, Wiemaneine Stadtgoregierensoll,145, summarize their finding as follows: "The sayings reminded officials in abbreviated form of their official and moral duties, while at the same time conveying an awareness of the high social standing of councillors, which, in this sense, also made them suitable for representative functions." James Snyder, Northern Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, the Graphic Arts from 1350 to 1575 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985), 109.
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com chumbo, e o pilar íngreme é coroado com um cata-vento. Betweenthetwoisavariedcollectionofhouses,someroofedwithtilesandothers withthatch.Whilethemajorityaretimberframed,someseemtobeofstone,acouple evenpossiblyofbrick.Variousformsofwindowanddoorarediscernible.Thethird housefromtheleftintheuperrowisjettiedoutoverthesquare.Severalbuildings havehighlydecorativepiercedchimneysandthegrandestofthehouses,inthelower righthandcorner,boastsarowofdecorativecrestsalongitsridge.Thishousehasa shieldofarmshangingfromapoleonthefacewhichfrontsthesquare.Thejettied houseandthehousenearesttothecitygatearebothapparentlyidentifiableasinns becausetheycarrythesignofabushonapole.191
Theartisthereobviouslydeviatedfromthetraditionaltownscapecharacterized by a cluster of houses densely packed together behind tall city walls, profiled mostlybychurchtowersandspires,normallygivingusnosenseofamarketor anyotheropenspace.Here,bycontrast,wewitnessastronginterestintheurban setting,people'slivingconditions,diversearchitecture,andalsointheopeningup ofthecitytotheoutside,asreflectedbyarowofdancers,allbutonewiththeir backtotheviewer,leavingthecitygateontheleft.MichaelCamilleidentifiedthe dance performance as the procession associated with supplication (Christianization of the ancient feast of May). On another occasion, one of the heart artists also inserted the image of a castle (of love) besieged by knights on sheet 75v, placed at the bottom of the page, but this
is clearly for allegorical purposes, as the defenders are women throwing flowers at the attackers, men
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JanetBackhouse,MedievalRuralLife intheLuttrellPsalter(TorontoandBuffalo:Universityof TorontoPress,2000),50–51.SeealsoEricGeorgeMillar,TheLuttrellPsalter:twoPlatesinColourand EightyThreeinMonochromefromtheAdditionalManuscript42130intheBritishMuseum(London: PrintedfortheTrustees,1932);MichaelCamille,MirrorinParchment:TheLuttrellPsalterandthe MakingofMedievalEngland(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,1998).Forastunningfacsimile, nowseeTheLuttrellPsalter:AFacsimile , Commentary by Michelle P. Brown (London: The British Library, 2006). Michael Camille, Mirrorin Parchment, 274–75; see also comment by Michelle P. Brown, 45. She claims that the musicians' trumpets carry the guns of Luttreland Sutton, ibid., but the enlarged image in Backhouse does not confirm this. See Brown's comment, 39.
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the emergence of the city as a major focus of public attention, even among the gentry.194
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AsBackhouse,MedievalRuralLife,51–52,comments,“Medievalstonehouseswhichwouldhave been known to Sir Geoffrey Luttrell survive both within the city of Lincoln and at Boothby Pagnell,onlyafewmilesnorthofhisIrnhamhome.Timberframedhousesare,however,more susceptibletodecayandtoalterationandarecorrespondinglylesseasytopinpoint.Asurviving earlyfourteenthcenturycityscapeofthetypeofferedbythisminiaturewouldindeedbeararity, thoughthehousesofwhichitiscomposedcanbecomparedwithknownbuildings.”
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Figure 1: Luttrell's Psalter, fol.164 verso
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This growing and profound interest in urban space as a new pictorial backdrop is almost always present in the 15th-century Flemish quarter, even if the viewer's gaze is mostly focused on the foreground, mostly on the interiors, as in Robert Campin's Salting Madonna. around 1430 (National Gallery, London). Nevertheless, because of the darkness in the room, except for the brightly illuminatedMadonnanursingtheInfant,andalsofortheBiblelyingopenonthe lectionary,theviewer'sattentionisalmostequallydividedbetweenthereligious sceneandtheurbanworldnicelyframedinthedepthofthepictorialspace.195 HansMemlingwascertainlyamasterofthismotifandincludedmanyelaborate detailsofurbanspaceinhisaltarpieces,suchasintheleftpanelofthe“Altarpiece oftheVirginwithSaintsandAngels”from1479(HospitalofSaintJohn,Bruges), wherenumerousbuildingsinacityfillthebackground.Buteventhecenterpiece, though focusing on the Virgin with The Child Surrounded by Shepherds and Angels is based on the idea that all important events in human existence take place within the framework of the city. ). wir zugleich Hafenkulisse, Innenraum und öffentliche Szene unter dem Turm .197Otherartists whofollowedthesamestrategyanddesignmodelwereJohannKoerebeckeand DerikBaegert,andfinallyalsoMichaelPacher,tonamesomemorenamesofthose whoconfirmthegeneralinterestinthecityasapictorialmotif.198 AlbrechtDürermightwellhaveofferedoneofthemostintriguingexamplesof theintensivefascinationwithurbandevelopmentwhenhecreatedhisoilpainting “TheFeastoftheRoseGarlands(TheBrotherhoodoftheRosary)”in1506,today housedintheNárodniGalerieinPrague.199TheGermancolonyofmerchantsin
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197 198
199
See James Snyder, Northern Renaissance Art, 123, No. 119. See also a very similar composition and drawing in Madonna and Child, by Dieric Bouts, circa 1465 (National Gallery, London); here 145, No. 142. Snyder, Northern Renaissance Art, 197, color plate 31. See also Gerard David's "Altarpiece of the Baptism of Christ" from circa 1502-1507 (Groeningemuseum, Bruges; here 198, color plate 33) and Michael Wolgemuts (attributed) "Resurrection" from the Hofer Altarpiece, circa 1485 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), here 204, color plate 40. Snyder, Northern Renaissance, 221, No. 212. Snyder, Northern Renaissance, 232-37. 1969]); and André Chastel, The Studios and Style soft the Renaissance: Italy 1460-1500, trans. Jonathan Griffin (1965; London: Thames and Hudson, 1966). .jpg; orat: http://www.wga.hu/framese.html?/html/d/durer/1/05/03rose.html; alternatively, see the website: http://www. booksplendour.com.au/gallery/classics/Durer/durer_The%20Altarpiece%20of%20
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Venice,housedintheFondacodeiTedeschi,hadcommissionedhimtopaintthis panelfortheirchapelintheparishchurchofSanBartolomeo,whichshowsthe enthronedVirginMary,holdingtheinfantJesusonherlap,whilePopeJuliusII (?)andthedesignateHolyRomanEmperorMaximilianIkneeltobothhersides, thelatteralreadycrownedwithagarlandofrosesbytheVirgin,whereasJesusis justabouttocrownthePope.Agroupofpeople,noneofwhomcanbeeasilyor positivelybeidentified,throngaroundthethrone,whichallowedDürertoinclude himselfinthebackgroundontherighthandsidestandingnexttoatree.Leftto hishead,inthefardistance,emergesasplendidcitywithwonderfultowers,walls, urbanresidences,andhouses,allbeforeamightymountainouslandscape.The lowerpartofthecityextendsintoasunfloodedlowersectionofthecity , enriquecido com uma elegante ponte e torre de portão, para não mencionar muitos outros detalhes quase imperceptíveis. WhetherDürerhereportrayedareallyexistingcity,orcreatedanideal,doesnot concernushere,buthemadesuretogivetheviewerthesenseofthespectacular natureofurbanspaceastheultimateresourceinwhichtheindividualcanfinda homeandalsoanidentity.SoitmightbeNuremberg,butitcouldbeanyother city,aproudrepresentationoftheearlymodernurbanspace.200Thepaintingitself laterbecameacrownjewelofEmperorandCzechKingRudolphII’scollection, whoboughtthismasterpiecefortheexorbitantpriceof900goldducats.201There arestrikingparallelstotheimageofNuremberginHartmannSchedel’sfamous worldchronicle.
TheCityinLateMedievalLiterature For those who were not members of the civic communities, the urban space representedasourceoftremendousattractionandalsosuspicion.Throughoutthe MiddleAgesweobservehowbothpeasantsandaristocrats,bothgoliardsand scholars,musiciansandmedicaldoctorsinvestedmuchenergyandresourcesto joinanurbancommunity,thatis,togainlegalstatusasacitizen.Evencraftsmen facedahardtimeachievingthatstatusiftherewerenotsufficientpositionsopen as masters in the specific professions. Es war ein Privileg, kein Recht
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the%20Rose%20Gardens.jpeg (accessed December 9, 2008). For details on this town scene, see Peter Strieder, The Hidden Dürer (1976; Rushcutters Bay, NSW, Australia: BayBooks Pty, 1978), 94–5. Albrecht Dürer: The Feast of the Garlands of Roses 1506–2006, ed. Olga Kotková (Prague: Národnigalerie v Praze 2006): Catalog of an exhibition at the National Gallery in Prague, Old Masters Collection, Wallenstein Riding School, June 21 to October 1, 2006; seepunkte.de/2007/02/12411.html (last accessed December 9, 2008).
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necessarilybornwith,asweknowfrommanycraftsmenwhostrovewithalltheir mighttomarryeitheracraftsman'sdaughterorhiswidowbecauseonlyinthat caseweretheyallowedtosettleinthetown,thentoriseinrank,andtogainthe statusasmasterwhocouldrunaworkshopinthecity.202 Primarilyinurbancentersmoneychangedhands,andthecostoflivingwas veryhigh,buttherewerealsomanyformsofentertainmentandlearning.Inthe citiescustomerscouldfindallkindsofspecializedservices,includingthatofsex workers,i.e.,prostitutes.Brothelswerestrategicallylocatedatthecitygatesto helpreducetheproblemwithsexualviolence,andprostitutesactuallysometimes played a rather significant role in diplomatic affairs, officially welcoming a dignitaryoutsideofthecitygates.203Butprostituteswerealwaysregardedand treated as outsiders and their social existence was unenviable, just as it is today. However, they formed a notable social group in late medieval town life, which attracted numerous patrons and also drew sharp criticism from the clergy, although their profession was seen like most others, despite the morally negative connotations.
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There is a legion of relevant studies; see, for example, John Harvey, Medieval Craftsmen (London: Batsford, 1975); Göttingen Contributions to Economic and Social History, 9 (Göttingen: Schwartz, 1983); Heather Swanson, Medieval Artisans: An Urban Class in Late Medieval England (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989); Steven A. Epstein, Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991); Craftsmen in Europe, 1300–1914, ed. James R. Farr. New Approach to European History, 19 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Günther Binding, Migration of Master Craftsmen and Craftsmen in the Early and High Middle Ages. Reports of Scientific Society meetings at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, 43.1 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2005). Gertrud Blaschitz, "The Brothel in the Middle Ages", 715-50. See also Leah Lydia Otis, Prostitution in Medieval Society: The History of an Urban Institution in Languedoc (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1985); (Paderborn, Munich, Vienna and Zurich: Ferdinand and Schöningh, 1992); Beate Schuster, The Free Women. CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 2004), vol. II: 770–75. See also Ruth Mazo Karras, “The Regulation of Borthelsin Later Medieval England,” Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages, ed. Judith M. Bennett, Elizabeth A. Clark, Jean F. O'Barr, B. Anne Vilen, and Sarah Westphal Wihl (1976. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), 100-34; eadem, Ordinary Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England. Studies in the History of Sexuality (1996; New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998);
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Significantly, prostitutes were simply one social group in a kaleidoscope of urbandwellers,thoughtheirunusualprofessionmakesthemstandoutinour investigations,whereasthehistoricalsourcesdonotnecessarilyconfirmthat.204 Customerscouldbecriticizedharshlybecauseoftheiroriginalvowofchastity (clerics),ortheycouldberidiculedbecausetheyhadbecomevictimsoftheirown lustfulness and ignorance, especially when they became victims of the manipulationsofgobetweensandpimps.205 OnelatemedievalGermanpoet,OswaldvonWolkenstein(1376/1377–1445) , whosecastlewaslocatedinmoderndaySouthTyrol(nowinItaly),butwhowas privileged enough to travel throughout Europe in many different functions, reflectedrepeatedlyonhisexperienceswithprostitutesandalsodiscussedhis observationsinvariouscities,somepleasant,othersdisagreeable.Thelastfew decadeshavewitnessedanevergrowinginterestinthismostfascinatingpoet whoseworksplacehimoddlybetweentheMiddleAgesandtheRenaissance.He producedincrediblydetailedautobiographicalpoetry,yethealsoreliedheavily ontopicallanguageandimagery.Hislifecanbetracedingreatestdetailboth through historical documents (ca. 1000 sind heute noch erhältlich) und seine Liedpoesie. Oswald reiste viel durch ganz Europa e engagierte sich intensiv in der lokalen und nationalen Politik. Musikwissenschaftler und Philologen haben ebenfalls großen Respekt vor seiner Arbeit zum Ausdruck gebracht, obwohl er Melodien und wahrscheinlich auch viele Themen, Motive, Bilder, Metaphern und Ausdrücke zeitgenössischer französischer, flämischer und italienischer Dichter ausgiebig kopiert hat.
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See Sarah McDougall, “The Prosecution of Sex in Late Medieval Troyes,” Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, 691–714. GretchenMieszkowski,MedievalGoBetweensandChaucer'sPandarus.TheNewMiddleAges(New York:PalgraveMacmillan,2006);seealsohercontribution“OldAgeandMedievalMisogyny:The OldWoman”(299–19)toOldAgeintheMiddleAgesandtheRenaissance:InterdisciplinaryApproaches toaNeglectedTopic,ed.AlbrechtClassen.FundamentalsofMedievalandEarlyModernCulture, 2 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), along with Karen Pratt's parallel but certainly not identical contribution, "Devetula: the Figure of the Old Woman in Old French Literature" (321-42), ibid. Interestingly, although both are based on basically the same material, they come to quite different conclusions. DieLiederOswaldsvonWolkenstein,ed.KarlKurtKlein.3rdreworkedandexpanded. by Hans Moser, Norbert Richard Wolf, and Notburga Wolf, Old German Text Library 55 (1962; Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1987); by Alan Robertshaw Innsbrucker Contributions to Cultural Studies Trecento culture in the work of Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376/771445). South Tyrolean Cultural Institute Publication Series, 4 (1977; Bolzano: Verlagsanstalt Athesia, 1989); see also Albrecht Classen, “Oswald von Wolkenstein”, German Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation 1280–1580, Dictionary of Literary Biographies, 179, ed. James Hardin and Max
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Oswald proves to be an exceptional literary source for all aspects of the late medieval history of the mind, whether it be about gender relations, religious sentiments, legal concepts, political issues, travel experiences, pilgrimages, the joy of languages, sexuality, marriage and the relationship. between the gentry and the peasantry 207 Interestingly, Oswald also drew on his personal experiences in various southern German cities for some of his autobiographical poems, not forgetting Oswald's conflicted interaction with the Tyrolean provincial duke Friedrich IV Sigismund, the Tyrolean Duke Frederick IV and the Bishop of Neustift near Brixen in the city of Constance and Überlingen. In his song Kl. 45 "Wermachen gut", he mockingly addresses the experiences of foreigners in the city of Überlingen on Lake Constance, where hyperinflation has made visitors suffer greatly from their innkeepers and other service providers. In fact, Oswald goes into amazing detail about the specific prices, the currency used, and customer complaints about the high cost of box products: “fleischlützel, krutaingrossgeschrai; the queue of many people/eating from a small bowl).208
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Reinhart (Detroit, Washington, DC and London: Gale Research, 1997), 198-205; Alan Robertshaw, Oswald von Wolkenstein: The Myth and the Man. Göppinger works in German studies, 178 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1977). 3 vol. (Vienna, Cologne and Weimar: Böhlau, 1999–2004) (ultimately5vols.intotal) Seenow Albrecht Classen, The Poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein: An English Translation of the Complete Works (1376/77–1445). The New Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). See, for example, Albrecht Classen, "Onomatopoesie in der Poetry von Jehan Vaillant, Oswald von Wolkenstein, and Niccolò Soldanieri," Journal for German Philology 108,3(1989):357-77; id., "Der Bauern in der Poetry Oswalds von Wolkenstein," Euphorion 82, 2 (1988): 150-67; The Autobiographical Poetry of the Late European Middle Ages: Studies in Hugovon Montfort, Oswald von Wolkenstein, Antonio Pucci, Charles d'Orléans, Thomas Hoccleve, Michel Beheim, Hans Rosenplüt, and Alfonso Alvarez de Villasandino, Amsterdam Publications on Language and Literature, 91 (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Editions Rodopi, 1991); id., "ToFearornottoFear. Questionthat: Oswald von Wolkenstein Facing Death and Enjoying Life. Fifteenth-Century Mental History Reflected in Lyric Poetry," FearandItsRepresentationsintheMiddleAgesandRenaissance,ed.Anne Scott and Cynthia Kosso. Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 6 ( Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2002), 274-91; Sieglinde Hartmann, Old Age Poetry and Self-Representation in Oswald von Wolkenstein. Göppinger Works in German Studies, 288 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1980), see also contributions to Oswald von Wolkenstein: Contributions to the Philological and Musicological Conference in Neustift near Brixen 1973, ed. Egon Cows Bacher, Innsbruck Contributions to Cultural Studies, German Studies Series, 1 (Innsbruck: University Institute of German Philology, 1974). of traducionism, borrowed from my translation of the complete works of Oswald (New York: Palgrave, 2008).
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Significantly, Oswald doesn't really tell details about the city itself or the urban space. Rather, his poem basically reflects his highly subjective view and perception, which focuses on food and drink, pay, housing, entertainment, such as: "Zwargüterkurzweilsichtmanvil/damittenaufdem blatze,/mittanzen,sprung,saitenspil/vonainerrauhenkatze" (43-46 ; In fact, you can see a lot of fun there in the middle of the square, like dancing, jumping and playing the violin, played by a slovenly cat). his own landlord, grocers, and others stole his money: "Meinwiert, who was damaged,/erschied dasgold vonleder;/das namichanderbettstatwar,/zwelfpfenninggultenainfeder" (52–55; my landlord knew about the deal: he took the gold from [my] leather bag. In this regard, the parallels with her contemporary Margery Kempe, along with many other travelers of the late Middle Ages, are quite striking, although she had mainly religious aims in mind when she visited Rome stunned by the splendor, noise, crowds, sexual attractions, music and food. From a distance, Oswald's poem reads as the typical musing of an ignorant tourist who notices only the most glaring aspects of a place or city, deeply intrigued by the glitz and farce, or disgusted by the abuse of foreigners at the hands of the city's merchants and other service providers, including pimps and prostitutes.For our purposes, it does not matter whether Oswald created this poem during his participation in the Council of Constance as a diplomat translator, or at some other time later in the service of Emperor Sigismund in 1430, who stayed there instead of in Constance because of civic unrest in that city. ,a place where country aristocrats like Oswald, despite their cosmopolitanism and multilingualism,
209
See Burghart Wachinger's commentaries on Oswald von Wolkenstein, songs: Early New High German / New High German Selected texts edited, translated and commented by Burghart Wachinger. Melodies and compositions edited and annotated by Horst Brunner (Stuttgart:Reclam, 2007),376–77.
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wouldhavefullyidentified.Otherwisehewouldnothavemocked,forinstance, thepoorqualityofthelocalwine,whichhesarcasticallycontrastswiththosethat hecanfindinhishomeregion:“Vasstsüsserweinalsslehentranck,/derreuhet mirdiekelsokranck,/dassichveierrtmeinhelsgesangk,/dickgenTraminnstet meingedanck;/seinhertertwangk/pringtscharpfenungelimpfen”(31–36;Really sweetwine,likejuiceoftheblackthorn,mademythroatveryscratchyandmade mysonggetstuckdeepinthere.InmythoughtsI'dratherturntotheTraminer wine.Itsharshgripcausesconsiderablediscomfort) . However,wecanneverfullytrustthatOswaldisformulatinghistrueopinion because he always demonstrates an enormous degree of an actor's attitude, constantlyperforminginchangingrolesandwithshiftingmasks,whichapplies eveninhisautobiographicalpoetry,thoughweshouldnotunderestimatehisfull concernwithcreatinghisliteraryselfportrait.210Thisfindsitsconfirmationinhis poeticencomiumonConstance,Kl.98“Owunniklichesparadis,”wherethesinger issuddenlyfullofpraiseforthewonderfulandmostpleasingatmosphereinthe city,whichhasnothingtodowiththeshiftfromÜberlingentoConstance,closely situatedtoeachother.Onthecontrary,Oswaldsimplyshiftstoadifferentregister inhispoetictreatmentofcitylife,oneunderscoringallitspositivefeatures,then er macht sich über die Misshandlungen von Wirtsleuten und Prostituierten lustig, die tradicionalmente unter einem schlechten Ruf litten. 9–16), além de wegen ihres eleganten Auftretens, ihrer kultivierten Sprache und ihrer gebildeten Manieren (17–19). stattdessen betont er nur die außergewöhnliche Gelegenheit, den Tanz mit den Damen im städtischen Tanzsaal (28) zu genießen, die ihn sehr beeindrucken, da höfische Damen immer tradicional höfische Poesie getan haben: „Undderichnicht
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Albrecht Classen, The Autobiographical Poetry of the European High Middle Ages, 1991; Johannes Spicker, Literary Stylization and Artistic Competence in Oswald von Wolkenstein (Stuttgart and Leipzig: Hirzel, 1993); SieglindeHartmann, "OswaldvonWolkensteinetlaMéditerranée:espacedevie,espacedepoésie," JahrbuchderOswaldvonWolkensteinGesellschaft8(1994/95):289-320. Johannes Spicker, Oswald von Wolkenstein: Die Lieder. See my review, to be published in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. For Oswald's metapoetic reflections on himself, see Albrecht Classen, "Sangeskunst und moderne Selbstverrealung im WerkOswalds von Wolkenstein (1376/77–1445), in hôhem prîse: A Festschrift in Honor of Ernst Dick, ed by Winder McConnell. Work by Göppinger on German Studies, 480 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1989), 11–29. Richard W. Unger, Beerin the Middle Ages, 50–51, 180–81, 218–19, et passim. Marold/Robertshaw, commentary, 241 , identifies “Paradis” (Paradise) as a northwest suburb of Constance located outside the city wall that was used, at least in the Middle Ages, as a venue for tournaments and festivals.
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will forgotten;/dasmachtirminniklichgestalt./miterenlustichlichfreudenspil /vindtmanzuCostnitzmanigvalt” (29–32; I can't forget them all because of their cheerful looks. Polite and pleasant conversation, as one can find in Konstanz). But if we look for a concrete reference to the city itself, we are left empty, except for the brief mention of the ballroom "of the cats" (28.213). does not see himself as part of the urban community and only discusses Konstanz as a point on his many trips and diplomatic missions. After all, in Kl. 123 "Derseines put sergecztwellsein" Oswald had very different feelings about consistency and has now returned to the same tone he had in his Überlinger Lied Kl. 45. Again he sarcastically reports that the women abuse outside guests and steal their money, though he probably means only the local postitutes: he said he was well-behaved and clean-shaven, the goats at Costnitzanden, obimdieraisswolfüge. Thereinnsowontmangfreulinkind, diekunnengrazeindempart, obsichkainhardarinnverchart, dazernitgerentruge.
(Kl.123,1–8)
[Anyone who wants to get rid of their worries and shave should go to Constance on the Rhine214 if this trip fits into their plans. Many fine women live there, who are good at scratching their beards and looking to see if there are any hairs lurking in them that might bother them.]
Not surprisingly, Oswald's biographers have touched on these passages only fleetingly, recognizing full well that the poet had no significant interest in the city as such and treated it only as a backdrop for him.
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Marold/Robertshaw, commentary, 242, identifies "inder Katzen" as the former guild building for the urban gentry and the patricianate. Technically, this is correct, as coming from Switzerland, the Rhine flows through Lake Constance, while Constance is on the northwest side.
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reflections upon his personal sentiments and experiences.215 Contemporary chroniclerssuchasUlrichvonRichentalregularlyprojectedtheveryopposite perspectiveofthecitybecausethelatter,atleast,livedinConstanceandsowas naturallyinclinedtopaintaverypositivepictureofhishomecity.GeorgeF.Jones addstheunusualbutcertainlycorrectanglethatthehighpricesinConstancewere reallyreasonableconsideringtheeconomiccircumstances.Moreover,“thecity fathersofConstancebrokewithmedievalmonopolisticpracticebypermitting tradesmenandartisansfromoutsidetoopenshopinthecityforthedurationof thecouncil.”216AndastoOswald'ssatiricaldescriptionoftheuglywomeninthe city,Jonesadds:“Oswald'sparodisticdescriptionofthehousemaidistypicalof thetimes,forhepresentsexactlytheoppositeofthestylizedidealoffeminine beauty.” 217 Closing his song with some reflections on his general experience in the city, Oswald finally states: if I am from Costnitzschaidensol, I desemphin hand of him. I praise the noble, guldin Schlegel, also sokerich my candles, ettwoiminderwelthinker, so avoid ichselden.
(75–80)
[If I have to leave Konstanz, I will note it in the margin.218
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Anton Schwob, Oswald von Wolkenstein, 107-08. He correctly comments, 107: "His Constance songs mostly relate fringe entertainment, drinking, dancing events, the economic skills of Constance's 'ladies' and usurious prices. Oswald's songs give the impression that he had nothing else to do than recite to his drinking companions the sober experiences of an amusing provincial in the city on Lake Constance, political events ran" (While Oswald's songs evoke the impression as if he had nothing else to do but present the sober experience of a country man interested in finding a little fun [in the city, the political events [he mentions] come swiftly one after another.) George F. Jones , Oswaldvon Wolkenstein. Twayne's World Authors Series, 236 (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1973), 52. Jones, Oswald von Wolkenstein, 52. For the rhetorical record of older women, see Gretchen Mieszkowski, “OldAgeandMedievalMisogyny:TheOldWoman,”OldAgeintheMiddleAges, 299 –319. See also Karen Pratt, “De vetula: the Figure of the Old Woman in Medieval French Literature,” ibid., 321–342. Meaning: I will have no more money; my purse on the left side will be empty.
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I praise the noble Golden Snitch to which I turn my candle; Wherever I come into the world, I will never stop praising you.]
As much as Oswald concentrated his attention on isolated cities - and he also speaks of Nuremberg (Cl. 99) and Augsburg (Cl. 122) - in reality this aristocratic poet could not identify with the urban centers and only listed them as curious places, where the visitor had pleasant and unpleasant experiences, where food prices were inflated and prostitutes were hostile to him. suchasinhissong“Ainburgherundainhofman”(Kl.25), Oswaldmadefulluseofthis,thoughwithouttherebyidealizingthearistocracy altogether.Instead,hiscriticismagainstthosewhomakealivingascourtiersis characterizedbyridiculeandwrath.221 Everythingdependsontheindividualviewpoints,ofcourse,andwhileOswald, asalandedgentry,onlypassedthroughanumberofGermanandotherEuropean cities, reflecting upon them fleetingly as it fit his own personal agenda, his contemporarySwissauthorHeinrichWittenwilerarguedvehementlyinfavorof cities that knew how to assess their individual situation in contrast to foolish peasantsanderraticaristocrats.InhishighlysatiricaldidacticallegoricalpoemDer Ring(ca.1400)heprimarilypaintsadeftlycriticalimageoftheworldofthestupid peasantswhoareutterlysubjecttotheiremotions,lackrationality,andcannot learnfromanyseriousteaching.Theversenarrativefocusesonayoungpeasant couplethatintendstogetmarried,thoughtheyfaceanumberofobstaclesthat theyhavetoovercomeuntiltheycanfinallyjoininawedding.Butthenviolence breaksout,andthisquicklyeruptsintoafullblownwarinwhichtheentirevillage wherethegroomhadoriginatedfromiswipedout.Onlytheprotagonistsurvives, buthedoesnotdemonstratethathehaslearnedanythingfromthecatastrophe,
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Or an aninn's name, then it would be "Schlegel", or an ironic reference to some beating they received there; see Wernfried Hofmeister, in Oswaldvon Wolkenstein, Sämtliche Liederund Poems. Wachinger, in Oswald von Wolkenstein, Lieder, 376: “Oswald is not always concerned with cities as such, but with the stylization of experiences in social occasions. Insofar as these songs are only remotely connected with the interest in descriptions of cities and towns that unfolded in the 15th century..., only in a very distant connection” (Oswald is never really interested in cities as such; instead , he is concerned with the stylization of experiences in social gatherings.See also the sonnet “Emerchatantidellamia Fiorenza” composed by the Florentine wool beater Burchiello in 1457, studied in this volume by Fabian Alfie.
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and naively retires to the Black Forest and spends the rest of his life as a hermit.222 As part of their preparations for war, the peasants of Lappenhausen in their council consider whom they might turn to as allies and first send messengers to the cities to ask for help. However, the narrator first tries to give his audience an understanding of the urban world that every educated person should know, and develops a long list of cities across Europe, starting with Rome, Venice and Bruges, then on to the Spanish cities of Santiago de Compostela, Pamplona, Barcelona, Seville, etc., which also covers cities in France, Italy, Cyprus, Tyrol, Savoy, Flanders, Germany, Switzerland, Bohemia, Poland and Austria. The number of cities here quoted is 72, a highly symbolic number often used in learned encyclopedic works, considering, for example, the 72 disciples Christ sent into the world (Luke 10:1) and those of the Middle Ages, it was widely believed that there were only 72 languages,223 implying that Wittenwiler really regarded the global network of cities as the most important aspect of public life, where commerce, administration, banking and education took place and where the brightest and most cultured people lived a life explicit jab at the native population.224 Wittenwiler expressed no explicit interest in urban space per se, a subject that would not have been appropriate for his narrative focus on satirizing foolish peasants. But he portrays the representatives of the various cities as extraordinarily intelligent, level-headed, careful, diplomatic and peace-oriented, in stark contrast to the hot-headed Lapps, the country bumpkins, who are always ready to fight thoughtfully, regardless of all odds. risks and implications. As the Roman senator points out:
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224
HorstBrunner,HeinrichWittenwiler:DerRing.Early New High German/New High German.After text by Edmund Wießner translated into New High German and edited. Universal Library, 8749 (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1991); Christoph Gruchot, "Ring" by Heinrich Wittenwiler: concept and construction of a textbook. Göppinger's work on German studies, 475 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1988); Eckhart-ConradLutz, Spiritualisfornicatio: Heinrich Wittenwiler, His World and His 'Ring'. History of Constance and Legal Sources, XXXII (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1990); OrtrunRiha, Die Forschung zu Heinrich Wittenwiler's “Ring” 1851–1988. Würzburg Contributions to German Philology, 4 (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1990); Albrecht Classen, Despair and Hope: The Search for Communicative Community in German Literature of the Middle Ages. Arno Borst, The Tower of Babel: History of Opinions on the Origin and Diversity of Languages and Peoples. Vol. 1 (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1975), 674-75; Bernhard Sowinski in: Heinrich Wittenwiler, “Der Ring”, edited, translated and commented by Bernhard Sowinski. HelfantTexte, T9 (Stuttgart: Helfan edition, 1988), 476-77. Sowinski, Heinrich Wittenwiler, "Der Ring", 477.
UrbanSpaceintheMiddleAsenttheEarlyModernAge “Lampartereinweisenuog. Die von Franchreichsunderchluog, Teutschermanisauchgelert; So be it given to them: what Florentz's priole and Costentz's amman, of Pareis's haut speak, so be it done!'
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(7695-702)
[“The Lombards are quite intelligent, the French are particularly intelligent, the Germans are really deserving; Therefore, the following deserves the honor: What the prior of Florence and the magistrate of Konstanz and the governor of Paris say (recommend) must be accepted!']
In particular, the Constance magistrate is given extra space to formulate his theoretical concepts on how to advise friends and enemies and how to approach the Lappenhausen peasants' request in the most pragmatic way. But it happened in moderation, Dazmaneveryman comes out undefeated and stung: Wondaz in his, Dos win the man would be under one another.
(7781–90)
[We are all obligated to protect a Christian at all times when he suffers injustice against his body, honor, and property. This protection must be done in such a way as to avoid hitting and stabbing him at all costs.
225
Some scholars have tried to add an archaic and parodic tone to Wittenwiler's description of this magistrate; see, for example, Lutz, Spiritualis fornicatio, 212, but that would not do justice to Ammann's undeniably positive characterization; see Riha, Die Forschung zu Heinrich Wittenwiler's "Ring", 15 and 169.
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Albrecht Classen That would be avenged on him if this beaten man were another gentleman's subject.]
After brief deliberations, the city council decides to accept this and previous recommendations and refrain from taking sides in this conflict between farmers. Unsurprisingly, the war-hungry Lappenhauseners turn to the surrounding villages, where they find many strange humans and shady creatures willing to join them, but end up killing them all. In contrast, cities, though not discussed further in the text, stand up to the struggle and continue to thrive and prosper, a clear blow to the mindless country-dwellers and a powerful, if somewhat elusive, compliment to the intelligent and cultured. citizens. Searchingforfurtherevidenceofthegrowing,ifnotcentral,significanceoflate medievalandearlymoderncitiesinpublicandprivatelife,wecouldeasilyrefer to the rich entertaining literature of short, hilarious tales, such as the fabliaux, mæren,novelli,andfazetie.BothBoccaccioandChaucer,bothHeinrichKaufringer andtheanonymouscomposer/softheNovellino(alsoknownasLibrodinovelleedi belparlargentile),thenthefamous,alsonotorious,PoggioBraccioliniandGiovanni Straparolahave,amongmanyothers, contributed profusely to the genre and drew heavily on their own experiences in urban settings. These short, didactic and amusing tales, often relating to court life, are usually about cities.226 A seemingly innocuous but significant example would be the first story of the second day in Boccaccio's Decameron, where the setting is Treviso:
226
Robert J. Clements and Joseph Gibaldi, Anatomy of the Novella: The European Tale Collection from Boccaccio and Chaucer to Cervantes (New York: New York University Press, 1977); Klaus Grubmüller, Order, Joke and Chaos: A History of the European Novel in the Middle Ages: Fablaiau - Mare - Novelle (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2006). About Boccaccio, he notes that most of his tales take place in cities such as Genoa (I8 and II9), Bologna (I10, VII7, X4), Treviso (II, 1), Naples (II, 5, III6, VI 2, etc.), Pistoia (III, 5), Venice (IV, 2), Brescia (III, 6), Salerno (IV, 10), Rome (V3 and X8) and so on. In addition, Boccaccio also turned his attention to important cities outside Italy, such as London, Bruges, Paris and Alexandria (272-73). Albrecht Classen; with contributions from Maurice Sprague; and with an edit of "The Disappointed Lover" by Froben Christoph von Zimmer. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 328 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007).
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Era,nonèancoralungotempopassato,untedescoaTrivigichiamatoArrigo,ilquale, poverouomoessendo,diportarepesiaprezzoservivachiilrichiedeva;e,conquesto, uomodisantissimavitaedibuonaeratenutodatutti.Perlaqualcosa,overoonon verochesifosse,morendoegliadivenne,secondocheItrivigianiaffermavano,che nell'oradellasuamortelecampanedellamaggiorchiesadiTrivigitutte,senzaessere daalcuntirate,cominciaronoasonare.227 [NotlongagotherelivedinTrevisoaGermannamedArrigo.Hewasverypoor,and hiredhimselfoutasaporter.Buthewasamanofmostholylifeandeveryonethought himagoodman.Whetherthiswassoornot , o povo de Treviso said that when he died, the synos of the major igreja de Treviso começaram to dobrar milagromente, intocados por mãos humanas.228]
Theinformationprovidedisnotessentialforthefurtherplotdevelopment,except thatitclearlysignalswheretheeventstakeplace.However,aswecanclearly perceive,thecityalwaysrepresentsadenseurbanspacewithcrowdsofpeopleof allkindsofsocialclasses,fromtherichandmightytotheoldandsick,withan intensivereligiouslifeembracingall,butalsoaplacewhereindividualssuffer frompovertyandhavetomakeameagerlivingbydoingsimplemenialjobs.229In otherwords,Boccaccio’snarratorshedslightonreligious,sociological,economic, andurbanpoliticalaspects.230 Surprisingly, however, the rich corpus of fourteenth and fifteenthcentury illustratedBoccacciomanuscriptsoffershardlyanyspecificreferencestourbanlife andoffersonlytinyindicationsofurbansettings.231Whereashereonepersonalone
227
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Giovanni Boccaccio, studied as an introduction by Nino Borsellino, One Hundred Books Per Thousand Years, ed. Walter Pedullà (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zeccadello Stato, 1995), 322. Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, transl. Richard Aldington (1930; Nova York: Dell Publishing, 1970), 83. For an Excellent Chiara Frugoni, A Dayina Medieval City, 69-80 provides boas illustrations and descriptions of a variety of literary and historical documents. Ver, por exemplo, Mario Baratto, Realtà estile nel Decameron (1970; Vicenza: Neri Pozza Editore, 1974); Vittore Branca, Boccaccio: The Man and His Works, trans. Richard Monges. Cotrans. anded. Dennis J. McAuliffe Prefácio de Robert C. Clements (Nova York: New York University Press, 1976), 56-85, Francesco Bruni, Boccaccio: A invenção da literatura mezzan (Bologna: Società editriceil Mulino, 1990). Boccaccio Illustrated: Narration in Words and Images between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, edited by Vittore Branca, Vol. 3: Opered'arte d'originefrancese, Flamengo, Inglês, Espanhol, Alemanha (Turim: Giulio Einauditore, 1999). algumas muralhas da cidade, casas individuais, torres, ambientes internos e palácios. ,Munich,Bayrische Staatsbibliothek,msGall.6,deParisorTours,1458,aqui127,n.
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attractstheattentionoftheentirecitybecauseofhisallegedsanctity,manyother contemporary accounts and chronicle reports underline the relevance of the religiouslifewithinthecityinwhichtheentirecommunityparticipated.Beguines, forinstance,todrawfromanonliteraryexample,experiencedbothcriticismand suspicionandalsoenjoyedgreatrespectandauthoritybecauseoftheirchaste(or notsochaste)lifeintheirurbansettlements.232Buttheycreatedtheirownspaces withintheurbanworld,withdrawingintotheirBeguinage,suchastheonein Bruges.Atthesametimetheyintensivelypartookinthechurchlifeofthecity, attending church masses, confessing, praying, participating in the regular performances and rituals, altogether creating a kind of “street mysticism,” as UlrikeWiethaushascalleditregardingtheVienneseBeguneAgnesBlannbekin.233 Ofcourse,withBoccaccio,afourteenthcenturyFlorentine,wewouldnotexpect muchelse,yetitstilldeservestobeemphasizedhowmuchhelocatesmostofthe eventsinhisaccountsincitiesandlargelyfavorstheurbanspaceastheideal settingfortheeventsthatcharacterizehistales.Notthathefocusesoncitiesfor theirownsake,butforhim,asformanyotherauthorsofshortnarratives,the humaninteractionsincitiesprovideenoughofprovocativeandsatiricalmaterial toachievethegoalofteachingandentertaininghisaudienceatthesametime, suchasintheseventhtaleofthethirddaywhereEmiliaexplainsherchoiceof storywith:“Amepiacenellanostracittàritornare,dondealleduepassatepiacque di partirsi, e come un nostro cittadino la sua donna perduta racquistasse mostrarvi“ (458; „Es freut mich, in unsere Stadt zurückzukehren, während die letzten beiden Geschichten
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Horseback riding extends backwards. While Branca characterizes the interior as Italian, he believes the street scene reflects French urban architecture (126, note on fl. 10r where the miniature is located). Another interesting example is a miniature for illumination of Theseis by Boccaccio, Vienna, Austrian National Library, Hs. 2617, page 39r, from ca. 1457–1461 and 1470–1471, here no. 362. Although the city itself is not fully in focus, we observe the urban space fully, as the public in Athens at that time crowded around a triumphal chariot that represented the Protagonists East and two ladies are transported while five grieving widows sit. if to one side. All windows are full of onlookers. The crowd behind the carriage slowly disappears into the winding streets in the background. Ernest W. McDonnell, The Beguinesand Beghards in Medieval Culture: Withspecial EmphasisontheBelganScene(1954;NewYork:OctagonBooks,1969);SaskiaMurkJansen,BridesintheDesert:TheSpiritualityoftheBeguines(Maryknowll,NY:OaksBooks,1998); The Begine: A Story of Women's Awakening and Oppression. Herder spectrum, 5643 (Freiburgi. Br.: Herder, 2005). Ulrike Wiethaus, "Spatialality and the Sacred in Agnes Blannbekin's Life and Revelations", Agnes Blannbekin, Viennese Beguine: Life and Revelations, Latin translation, with introduction, notes and interpretative essay by eadem. Library of Medieval Women (Cambridge: DS Brewer, 2002), 163-76; here170. Göppinger's work on German studies, 419 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1994).
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tellerswerepleasedtodepartfromit,”207).Notsurprisingly,shehasheraccount begininFlorence: FuadunqueinFirenzeunnobilegiovaneilcuinomefuTedaldodegliElisei,ilquale d'unadonna,monnaErmellina,chiamataemoglied'unoAldobrandinoPalermini, innamorato oltre misura per li suoi laudevoli costumi, meritò di godere del suo disiderio.(458) [InFlorencetherelivedanobleyoungman,namedTedaldodegliElisei,deeplyinlove withaladynamedMonnaErmellina , wife of Aldobrandino Palermini; e por suas virtudes destacadas, ela merecia realizar seus desejos,208]
ButpoetssuchasFrançoisVillon(1431–1463),whowasdeeplyimpactedbyhislife inParisanddeftlyuseditasthefoilandbackgroundforhispoetry,234deliberately didnotshyawayfromdrawingfreelyfromtheurbansetting,buttheninavery different, much more intimate, approach compared to that of Oswald von Wolkenstein: Item,Iaddontothestick ThehousesignofSaintAntoineStreet Orelseaclubfordrivingballs, AnddailyapotfulfromtheSeine Tothose'pigeons'who'rebadlyoff Alllockedupinthe'aviary,' Myfinemirror, exatamente o que eles precisam e o sorriso da esposa do carcereiro.235
Fragmentary as this Impressionist allusion is, it certainly suggests how much this poet lived in and with the city and its citizens, beautifully illustrated by a dance in his Last Testament: Item, I give my barber, named Colin Galerne, who lives near Angeloth , the Herbalist , Abigiceblock (From where? From the Marne), To spend the winter comfortably. Let him scratch near his stomach; so if he treats himself in the long autumn, he will be warm enough next summer.
234 235
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Albrecht Classen, "Villon, François", Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature, 663–65. François Villon, "The Legacy", stanza 29 or C23, quoted from François Villon, Complete Poems, ed. with English translation and commentary by Barbara N. Sargent Baur (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto to Press, 1994).
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As Michael Camille commented, "Examples like this suggest that, in reflecting on the place that was the medieval city, we need to broaden our notion of public space to include this common system of signs... There were, in the fifteenth century, . . . medieval city was peopled with signs...'236 As David A. Fein attests, Villon differed notably from most of his French predecessors in his use of 'more descriptive imagery'. Reflections of his own world. fifteenth-century society. However, living in the urban context also seems to have forced him to push his way through the crowd, metaphorically speaking, as an underrecognized, often much maligned poet struggling for public fame through his satirical verses.We find confirmation of this observation not only in literary documents. , but also in the rich art of the late Middle Ages and early Modern era, as noted above.However, the rich source of 15th-century miniatures and religious manuscripts may also be important. The abundance of lifelike detail proves to be overwhelming, nearly exploding at the joints or out of frame.
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Michael Camille, "SignssofttheCity: Place, Power, and PublicFantasyinMedievalParis",Medieval PracticesofSpace,eds.BarbaraA.HanawaltandMichalKobialka.,2000,1-36;here17. David A. Fein, François Villon and His Reader (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 29. See also ibid., François Villon Revisited. Twayne's World Authors Series, 864 (New York: Twayne Publishers; London, Mexico City, et al.: Prentice Hall International, 1997). ,1967), for solid introductions to this poet. Fein, François Villon, 41. JaneH.M.Taylor, ThePoetryofFrançoisVillon:TextandContext.CambridgeStudiesinFrench (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 117-18; she specifically emphasizes: “By inviting us to look and feel beyond his perceptive awareness, his aspiring self, he makes indifference impossible. . . . Villon's passionate personal and ideological commitment - to a subject apparently next to the related merits of the city and its bank - is one of the strongest weapons in his poetic arsenal" (138).
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Everyday scenes, palaces, markets, church interiors, rooms, construction sites, altarpieces, etc. seem inexhaustible. Obviously,bytheendoftheMiddleAgesartistsalloverEuropefeltdeeply fascinatedbythenewopportunitiestoexploretherealityoftheirworld,although theywerestillrequiredtoconnectitwiththespiritualdimensionaimedforbythe genreofthebookofhours,amongmanyotherswheretheminiatureassumed centralposition.240Spaceasatopicgainedsupremeimportance,whethertheopen landscape,farmland,ortheurbanenvironment.AsMauritsSmeyersobserves, “People,objects,andnaturewereallrepresentedinthegreatestdetail.Thevaried clothingwaspaintedwithallofitsfolds,clasps,buttons,anddecorativeelements. Miniaturists showed how all individual parts of furniture and everyday objects were attached to each other and embellished, conveying the special properties of materials. The interiors were closely observed.”241
UrbanSpace,SocialConflicts,andtheHistoryofEmotions Atthesametime,urbanspacebecameincreasinglythecriticalsettingforpeople’s emotionstobeactedout,performed,ritualized,andstaged,bothinthestreets wheretheindividualsactuallyinteractedwitheachother,and,concomitantly,on thelatemedievalstagewhereShrovetideplaysandmanydifferentreligiousplays (Christmas,Passion,Easter,etc.)providedamediumforcommunicatingwiththe citizensregardingtheirreligiousvaluesandmorality.242
240
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242
Maurits Smeyers, Flemish Miniatures from the 8th to the Mid-16th Century: The Medieval World on Parchment (Leuven: Brepols, 1999), Chapters VI–VIII. Smeyers, FlemishMiniatures, 422. See also Roger S. Wieck, Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art (New York: George Braziller, 1997); Gregory Clark, The Spitz Master: A Parisian Book of Hours. Book of hours of Juana I de Castilla, Juana I de Castilla (Barcelona: M. Moleiro, 2005); Albrecht Classen, The Book of Hours in the Middle Ages, Futhark: Revistade InvestigaciónyCultura2 (2007):111-29. See contributions by Valerie M. Wilhite (203-222), EveMarie Halba (223-42), Dirk Coigneau (243-56), and Stijn Bussels (257-69) in Emotions in the Heart of the City; eadem, DeathbyDramaandOtherMedievalUrbanLegends (ChicagoandLondon:UniversityofChicagoPress,2002); Johan Nowé, "We waves have a spil": On the history of drama in the German Middle Ages. Munich Texts and Studies on German Literature of the Middle Ages, 124 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2003).
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Allthiswasimportantbecauseinthelatefifteenthcenturyurbanlifeunderwent, itseems,afundamentalparadigmshift,liberatingitfinallyanddefinitivelyfrom thecountrysideasthemainsourceofincome.AsHenriLefebvreobserves: Thehistoricalmediationbetweenmedieval(orfeudal)spaceandthecapitalistspace whichwastoresultfromaccumulationwaslocatedinurbanspace—thespaceofthose 'urbansystems'whichestablishedthemselvesduringthetransition.Inthisperiodthe townseparatedfromthecountrysidethatithadlongdominatedandadministered, exploitedandprotected.Noabsoluteriftbetweenthetwooccurred,however,and theirunity,thoughrivenwithconflict,survived....Theurbaniteslocatedthemselves by reference to the peasants, mas no sentido de um distanciamento deles: havia dualidade na unidade, distância sentida e unidade imaginada.243
If we consider, for example, the constant mockery of peasants in the carnival plays of the late Middle Ages, composed by the master singer from Nuremberg Hans Sachs (1494-1576), this observation finds strong support in literary history. In "Derfarendt-SchulerimParadeiß" (1550) both are shown to be ridiculous and ignorant, but not because they are farmers. They represent, basically, common people's lack of intelligence, discrimination, foresightedness,andsmartness.Thewifedislikeshersecondhusbandandgrieves thelossofthefirst,whoseemstohavebeenmuchkinderandmoregenerousthan thesecond.Whenastudentarrivesandbegsforfood,hetriestoimpressherwith thereferencetoPariswherehehadstudieduntilrecently.Shedoesnotseemto knowanythingaboutParis;insteadsheisonlyfamiliarwiththeterm'paradise,' whichshenowconfuseswiththeactualcity.Immediatelysheinquiresaboutthe wellbeingofherhusbandthereandhastolearn,tohergreatchagrin,thatheis sufferingfromseverepovertyandcannoteveneatanddrinktohissatisfactionas everyoneelse.Thepeasantwomanthusdecidestoutilizetheidealopportunity andgetsclothing, food and money from their hiding places and asks the student to take them to her late husband. As soon as the second husband returns home, he finds out from his wife what happened and realizes that she ended badly. Pretending to be worried that she has not given the student enough money for her first husband, he runs after the young man, who soon realizes that he has all the ideal gifts. When the farmer arrives at the scene, he is very impatient not to notice who is standing in front of him. Accordingly, on the advice of the student, she walks through a swampy field and tries to catch the "thief".
Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 268-69.
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thenridesaway,knowingfullwellthathehasnowcheatedboththeignoramus wifeandherhusband.Thepeasantlearnsofthissoonenoughandharshlyblames himself, but then he also begins to understand how stupid he has performed himself.Deeplyembarrassedherefrainsfromblaminghiswifeandcontinuesto playhispreviousrole,hopingthatallthiswillremainasecret.Unfortunately, however,hiswifehasalreadyspreadthewordeverywhereinthevillage,making bothofthemthepubliclaughingstock.Thisprovidesthepeasantwithhisfinal lessonbecauseheperceivesnowthatalthoughmarriedlifeisfraughtwithmany difficulties,misunderstandings,anddisagreements,mostlybothpartnershaveto beblamedforanyconflictsanddisagreements.Hence,agoodmarriagewouldbe based on mutual respect, tolerance, and love, that is, above all, the ability to overlookfailings,iftheyarenottooegregious,andtoaccepttheotherwithall his/hershortcomingsaslongaslovebondsthemtogetherbecausetheonewho criticizesmighteasilyprovetobejustasfoolishorignorantastheother.244 Despitetheruralsetting,thereisnodoubtthatSachsintendedthisShrovetide playforanurbanaudiencebutusedapeasantcoupleasthemajorprotagonistsso astoavoiddirectlycriticizinghisurbanaudience.Thebasicmessageaddressesthe basicprinciplesofhappymaritallife,andinthishespecificallytargetedmarried peopleinNurembergandothercities,wherevertheplaywasperformed,whereas it seems most unlikely that ein dörfliches Publikum hätte es je erreichen können. Leben der Bauern auseinanderzusetzen, wie der ganze Kontext und die gängige Praxis des Stadttheaters andeuten, die humorvolle Lektion könnte seinem Publikum leichter vermittelt wenn, wenn die Kritikpunkte zu directkt wären. Das Lachen über dumme Menschen, die auf dem Land leben, war weit verbreitet und sprach das städtische Publikum regelmäßig an, was ihm ein starkes Gefühl kultureller Überlegenheit vermittelte
244
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Quoted from: Hans Sachs, master songs, proverbs, carnival games: selection. Presented and explained by Hartmut Kugler, Universal Bibliothek, 18288 (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2003), 87–102. Albrecht Classen, "Women, Wives, and Marriage in the World of Hans Sachs," Daphnis 32:3-4 (2003):491-521. Albrecht Classen, "Love, Marriage, and Transgression in Medieval and Early Modern Literature: Discourse, Communication, and Social Interaction", Discourse on Love, Marriage, and Transgression in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, ed. Albrecht Classen. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 278 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2004 [appeared., The Discourse of Love and Marriage from the High Middle Ages to the Early 17th Century. Folk Song Studies, 5 (Münster, New York, Munich and Berlin: Waxmann, 2005) See also my contribution to the present volume on the urban poems of HansSachs.
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and their wives, who curiously served as a striking mirror of people's lives in the urban setting.
Development of late medieval urban space Finally, after Lefebvre, the early modern city created its own identity and history in this context, which led to considerable conflicts with royal and papal power across Europe. "The Renaissance city saw itself and its territory as a harmonious whole, as an organic mediation between earth and sky." the growth of the city: , one building after another to add an extension of a street or another square to the existing ones. each innovation modified the whole, and each 'object' - though hitherto somehow external - came to affect the whole structure." 248 Remarkably, already at the end of the 13th century
247 248
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Lefebvre, Die Raumproduktion, 271. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 272; here Lefebvre draws heavily on Manfredo Tafuri, Teoriee storiadell'architettura (Rome and Bari: LaterzaFigli, 1968); see also Chiara Frugoni, Distant City; and The Cities of Italy in the Late Middle Ages; Oscar Schneider, Nuremberg's Height: Imperial Urban Revival, European Humanism (Cadolzburg: Ars vivendi, 2000); Naomi Miller, Mapping the City: The Language and Culture of Cartography in the Renaissance (London and New York: Continuum, 2003); Patricia Fortini Brown, Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: Art, Architecture, and the Family (NewHavenandLondon:YaleUniversityPress,2004);Manfredo Tafuri,InterpretingtheRenaissance:Princes,Cities,andArchitects. ) . David Friedman, Florentine New Towns: Urban Design in the Late Middle Ages (New York: Architectural History Foundation; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988). GeorgesZarnecki,ArtoftheMedievalWorld,395;GeorgesJehel,AiguesMortes,unportpourunroi: lesCapétiensetlaMéditerranée(RoanneLeCoteau:Horvath,1985);MichelÉdouardBelletand PatrickFlorençon,DieFestungsstadtAiguesMortes.Itinérairesdupatrimoine(Paris:Onum,Éd.du Patrimoine,2001).Forthedegreetowhichmedievaltownswereactuallyplanned,seeAnngret Simms,“TheEarlyOrigins,”UrbanLandscapes , 1992, 30: “Kell is typical of thermonastic sites which seem to have been designed according to a planned arrangement in which the round tower is normally to the west of the church
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toimprovetheconditionofthestreets,whichobviouslyalsoinvolvedthesewer system.AsweknowofsomeItaliancities,forinstance,in“1290,itwasdecidedto brickoverallthestreetsofSienabecausethesidestreets,whichwereunbricked, were spilling filth and mud into the thoroughfares, which were already 'paved'(withbricks,thatis,notstones).IntheportionofLorenzetti'sfrescoIlBuo Governo.GliEffettidelBuonGovernoincampagna(GoodGovernment. TheEffects intheCountryside),weseewideandwellkeptroadsdividingfieldsandhillsinto asinuouscheckerboard,exactlythewaythemagistracyfortheroadsofSienaand thesurroundingdistrictprescribedthattheyshould.”251 In other words, modern assumptions that urban efforts to work toward the improvementofpublicstreets,hygiene,andthesewersystemdidnotbeginbefore theeighteenthornineteenthcenturyhavetobeseriouslyquestioned,considering thatmuchdependsonacity'ssize,theavailabilityofflowingwater,theplanting of gardens, and the city's geographical location, and der Prozentsatz der Menschen, die Landwirtschaft und Gartenbau innerhalb der Stadtmauern forte.
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it lay to the east and was marked by a special cross, a boundary around which market functions developed.” Other cities, such as Rostock on the Baltic Sea, developed only gradually and over time experienced a series of devastating setbacks (37-39). . ChiaraFrugoni,ADayinaMedievalCity,38;DuccioBalestracciandGabriellaPiccinni,Sienanel Trecento:Assettourbanoestruttureedilizie(Firenze:Clusf,1977),41;forfurthersourcematerial regardingtheinnovativeurbanrenovation,seeZdekauer,LavitapubblicadeiSenesinelDugento (Siena:I.Lazzeri,1897),104;seealsoW.Braunfels,MittelalterlicheStadtbaukunstinderToskana (Berlin:G. man, 1959); Cesare Brandi, Pitturaa Sienanel Trecento, acuradi, Michele Cordaro (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1991). Quoting L. Mumford (The City in History [1961; Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1992]), AE J. Morris, History of Urban Form, 100, emphasizes: “Sanitary conditions are closely related to density. Although medieval cities only marginally rejected disposal regulations and water supply was a constant problem, especially in mountain towns, it should not be assumed that disease was necessarily an everyday part of urban life.” See also Britt C. L. Rotauser's contribution. Allison P. Coudert also argues differently in this volume, and again, there is very strong evidence to suggest that she was concerned with long-term problems in the development of medieval and modern cities, possibly as far back as the late 19th and 20th centuries. .Century have been fully addressed or even resolved. On the importance of water and hygiene in cultures over time, see The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing and Hygiene from Antiquity through the Renaissance, eds.CynthiaKossoandAnneScott.TechnologyandChangeinHistory,11(LeidenandBoston:Brill,2009).
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they have remained the same.253 But there are many other issues that characterize the early modern city that continue to challenge modern historiography and which need not be discussed here, although we need to be aware of the broader implications for the overall approach presented in this volume.254 However, we must recognize that the medieval and early modern city here, despite numerous differences, as a whole did not simply settle into a chaotic urban plan, as well as distinct patterns of streets, neighborhoods, open spaces, etc. . ., suggest that many cities grew so well over time because their administrators or lords (bishops, princes, or the patriciate [i.e., the upper ruling class]) had a keen interest in looking after the promotion and advancement of urban development, even at the beginning of the Middle Ages. ,Franco Sacchetti(CentoNovelle), PoggioBracciolini(Facetie), HermenBote(authorship still somewhat uncertain; Till Eulenspiegel), Hans Wilhelm Kirchhof(Wendunmuth), MartinMontanus(Wegshortener), MichaelLindener(RastbüchleinundKatzipori) and MargueritedeNavarre(Heptaméron), therefore describe writers from all over Europe who in several of their short processes, people and conflicts fall into toilets, into the sewer or otherwise come into highly uncomfortable contact with human feces while operating in the city, pursuing a love affair or falling prey to scammers and criminals . 1400).256 But the character of Till Eulenspiegel also demonstrates how much the protagonist, who acts more cunningly in urban culture to pull everyone's feet, reveals the negative side of polite society and learns about pretense, hypocrisy, arrogance,
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254
255 256
See Allison P. Coudert's contribution to this volume. For more details and images, see Jacob Blume, Von Donnerbalken und innerer Einkehr: Eine Klo Kulturgeschichte (Göttingen: Verlag Die Werkstatt, 2002); Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973); Jande Vries, European Urbanization, 1500-1800 (London: Methuen, 1984); Christopher R. Friedrichs, The Early Modern City, 1450-1750. A History of Urban Society in Europe (London: Longman, 1995); Alexander Francis Cowan, UrbanEurope 1500-1700 (London: Arnolds, 1998); David Nicholas, The Later Medieval City, 1300-1500. Country and the City: Wymondham, Norwich and Eaton in the 16th and 17th Centuries, ed. John Wilson. Norfolk Record Society, 70 (Norfolk: Norfolk Record Society, 2006); Jaroslav Miller, Urban Societies in East Central Europe: 1500–1700. Historical Urban Studies Series (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007). Anngret Simms, "The Early Origins," Urban Landscapes, 1992. Erotic Tales from Medieval Germany. Selected and translated. Albrecht Classen, 2007.
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False claims and false pride use feces in a variety of situations, provoking both general dislike and public laughter. significantly in the 16th century. Wendunmuth, 1563, vol. 1, nº 141) we heard a student who has an apartment with a window to the backyard in the city of Leipzig. They have, however,discoveredthatthebackyardwherethestudenthappenstoliveprovides theneededopportunity,whichcausesanintensivestenchandbadlybothersthe student,whoexpressivelyvoiceshisseriousprotestagainsttheirhabitwithout bringingaboutanychangeintheirbehaviorbecausetheysimplyfollowthecall ofnatureanddisregardhiscomplaints.258 Finallythestudenthitsuponabrilliantideaandusesanimalbloodwhichhe shoots,bymeansofacontraption,ontooneofthemwhoisjustabouttodohis businessunderneathhiswindow.Thepoorfellowbelievestohavebeenfatally shot, regarding the massive amount of blood on his body, and he faints. Friends of his come to his rescue and take him to the doctor, who, however, claims that, as the narrator points out, there is only the old known hole and no real wound. Realizing that the peasants are not just victims of the student's strategy, he laughs at the situation, does not blame the patient and encourages him to go back to drinking, as there was nothing else to do ( W 1, p. 172 ). the student wins in this case because the deceived peasants realize that the backyard can no longer be used as land and they avoid the site from then on. While we cannot be sure that the narrative suggests that city officials were genuinely interested in creating public restrooms and building a sewer system, we do know for sure that the humor of this story is based on the
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Albrecht Classen, "Till Eulenspiegel: Laughter as the Ultimate Epistemological Vehicle in the Hands of Till Eulenspiegel", Neophilologus92 (2008): 471–489; idem., "Transgression and laughter, eschatology and epistemology: new insights into Till Eulenspiegel's pranks", Medievaliaet Humanistica 33 (2007): 41–61. For more research on how modern city dwellers perceive stench and how authorities deal with stench, see The City and the Senses: Urban Cultures since 1500, eds. Alexander Cowan and Jill Steward. Historical Urban Studies (Aldershot, England, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007). Hans Wilhelm Kirchhof, Wendunmuth. Vol. 1, Hermann Österley edition. Library of the Literary Society in Stuttgart, IC (1869; Hildesheim and New York: Olms, 1980).
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Recognize that human feces are disgusting and must be handled hygienically. The satire was aimed at peasants who do not have access to toilets, which may indicate that the situation of city dwellers, including students, is quite different. Without giving us any specific information about the availability of toilets in the city of Leipzig, Kirchhof nevertheless makes it clear that the audience was genuinely concerned that she would ask the public to mock the ignorant and mindless peasants who simply smuggled out the use of the backyard for themselves. to relieve. . Withoutgoingintofurtherdetails,wecandrawfromthisonenarrative,and certainlymanyotherexamples,howmuchurbanspacetrulyoccupiedmedieval andearlymodernmentalityandalsoreflectedspecificaspectsofurbanculture.260 Acarefulanalysisofliteraryexamplesindicateshowmuchinformationwecan cull from literary and arthistorical material regarding human interaction in medievalandearlymoderncitylife,therelationshipofpeoplewithinanurban setting.Takingalltheevidencetogether,wecanbecertainthattheRomancitydid not simply disappear, that the awareness of the significance of urban culture continuedtodominatepublicopinionthroughouttheMiddleAges,thateconomic, political, and Cultural life has been centered in cities from astonishingly remote times, growing only well into the early modern period and then up to the present day.
Urban space in an interdisciplinary perspective To do justice to this vast subject, we would have to draw on the broad spectrum of disciplines in the humanities, including architecture, archaeology, musicology, ethnology, anthropology and history
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There is a wealth of relevant research literature on the subject; see, for example, ChristopherR. Friedrich, The City of the Early Modern Period, 1450-1750. History of Urban Society in Europe (Harlow, England, London, New York, et al.: Longman, 1995); David Nicholas, The Later Medieval City 1300-1500. A History of Urban Society in Europe (London and New York: Longman, 1997); Shaping Urban Identity in Late Medieval Europe, ed. Marc Boone and Peter Stabel. Studies in Urban, Social, Economic and Political History of the Medieva and Early Modern Low Countries, 11 (Leuven Appeldorn: Garant, 2000); DM Palliser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
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it can be achieved to some extent by having at least a group of medievalists and early modernists from different faculties talking to each other. This goal was achieved at the Fifth International Symposium on Medieval and Modern Studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson, in May 2008. There was no concrete attempt to discuss "the" medieval or early modern city, neither pragmatic nor idealistic. Simply put, such a city never existed. We can observe many parallels and similarities between Spanish and English, French and Italian, Dutch and German cities, but in the end each urban space is a distinct entity. People and ideas shape these spaces, as do social, economic, geological, climatic, political and religious conditions. But within those spaces people interact with each other most intensively, and we might say that our understanding of everyday life in the MiddleAgesandtheearlymodernageisbestviewedthroughthelensofurban space.Notexclusively,butcertainlydominantlywecanidentifymostclearlyhow peopleviewedchildhoodandoldage,howthegenderrelationshipsdeveloped, whatvaluelove,marriage,andsexualityenjoyed,howcitizensrespondedtothe Church,howChristiansreactedtoJews,261howtheprivatepersonregardedthe membersoftheroyalhousesandotherauthorityfigures,whatpeoplethought about Life and death, how they accumulated wealth, what entertainment and health care they sought, how they defended themselves, how they dressed and what they did in their spare time. Because, although medieval literature seems to be predominantly determined by courtly ideals and values, it quickly gave way to old and new, i.e. ancient Roman concepts related to urban life
261
See, for example, B. Donatella Calabi, “The Jews and the City in the Mediterranean Area,” Mediterranean Urban Culture 1400–1700, ed. Alexander Cowan, 56–68; Coexistence: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Spain, eds. and Jerrilynn Denise Dodds (New York: G. Brazillerin Association with the Jewish Museum, 1992). Year of Life, ed. Friedhelm Burgard, Lukas Clemans and Michael Matheus (Trier: Kliomedia, 2002). The research results of Elisheva Baumgarten, MothersandChildren:JewishFamilyLifeinMedievalEurope, trans. fromthehebraw, are particularly important in this context. Jews, Christians, and Muslims from Ancient to Modern Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). See also Bernard Lewis, Cultures in Conflict: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Age of Discovery (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
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In literature from an early age, but at the end of the Middle Ages it was a fixed element, especially as the urban world gained enormous importance. As evidenced by the rich inventory of letters (ca. 140,000), account books, trade books, statutes, insurance policies and bills of lading, bills of exchange and checks, written or addressed to the Prato merchant Francesco di Marco Datini (ca. 1335 –1410) trade was already one of the most profitable at the time and extraordinary wealth was introduced to those who knew how to practice their trade well. Merchants like Datini established a network of communication across Europe and beyond through intensive correspondence, and also emerged, through their wealth, as major donors and patrons of art. Iris Origo characterizes shimas like this: His life was not peaceful. Thecankerwhichatealljoyaway,bothinyouthandoldage,andwhichisrevealed byalmosteverylineofthiscorrespondence,wasanxiety.Itisthis,perhaps,thatmakes Datiniseemsoakintous,somuchtheprecursorofbusinessmenofourowntime.He wasanastuteandsuccessfulmerchant;buthewas ,aboveall,anuneasyman.Eachof hiswasaconstantsourceofanxiety:hemistrustedhispartners,hismanagers,andthe captainswhoseshipscarriedhismerchandise;andhewentinconstantfear,too,ofall themisfortunesthatmightovertaketheseships—shipwreck,piracy,overloading, or an outbreak of the plague among the crew. And when his great fortune was finally made, new anxieties arose; he worried about his investments, his taxes and his fines. He did not trust his bailiffs and servants at home better than abroad.
Furthermore, the rich correspondence sheds an important light on Francesco Datini's married life with Margherita, with whom he unfortunately had no relationship.
262
Iris Origo, The Merchant of Prato (1957; London: The Folio Society, 1984), 6 to 7. In fact, the merchants left many testimonies about their trade, their lives, their contacts and also about their personal relationships to cura di Andrea Bochi. Supplements to the Journal of Romanic Philology, 237 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1991); École Pratqique des Hautes Études.—VieSectionCentredeRecherchesHistoriques.AffairesetGensd'Affaires,XXVII(Paris:S.E.V.P.E.N.,1965).See alsoGuntherHirschfelder,TheCologneTraderelationsintheLateMedieval. Cologne City Museum Publications, X (Cologne: Cologne City Museum, 1994); Carolin Wirtz, Cologne and Venice: economic and cultural relations in the 15th and 16th centuries.
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children,whichultimatelycausedmuchgriefandunhappiness.Inotherwords, thewealthoftestimoniesfromtheworldofthemerchantclassallowsustogain deepinsightintotheeverydaylifeofcitydwellers.263 Globallyspeaking,allthisdoesnotmeanthatthecourtasacentraladministrative andculturalinstitutionlostinimportance;infact,theoppositeseemstohavebeen the case at least since the sixteenth century in the wake of the massive territorializationprocessandthegrowthoftheRenaissanceandthentheBaroque court.264Butthecitydidnotfallintothecourt'sshadow;insteaditexperiencedits owneconomic,political,andculturaldevelopment,asreflectedinearlymodern literature,music , and the fine arts. But we would be wrong if we pursued a polarity between city and court since the 15th and 16th centuries. Rather, both social worlds competed and complemented each other, as art history convincingly teaches us. Princes continued to have their own residences and castles in the countryside, but they also ventured into the cities, where they increasingly settled from the end of the 16th century. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann comments: “Innovations in urban architecture were often initiated directly or in response to aristocrats. thepositionofmanyofthecastlesrebuiltorconstructedinthisperiod,dominating thetowns,expressesquitewelltherelationship.”265Manytimestownsthathad burntdownwererebuiltbytheprinceswhothendirectedthearchitectstomodel theurbanspaceaccordingtotheirownneedsforurbanrepresentationofthelord’s power, such as the town of Zamo that was refounded by the hetman Jan Zamoyskí,withacentralizedplanaccordingtoanidealmodelactuallyseldom realizedeveninItalywherethisnewmodeloftheearlymoderncityhadfirstbeen developed. To implement this plan, Zamoyski consulted the Italian artist
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Origo, The Plate Merchant, 157-77. Princes, Patronage, and the Nobility: the Courtat the Beginning of the Modern Age, c.1450-1650, ed. RonaldG.AshandAdolfM.Birke.StudiesoftheGermanHistoricalInstitute,London(London: GermanHistoricalInstitute;NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1991);EinzweigeteilterOrt:Hof undStadtinderFrühenNeuzeit,ed.SusanneClaudinePilsandJanPaulNiederkorn.Forschungen undBeiträgezurWienerStadtgeschichte,44(Innsbruck:StudienVerlag,2005);DerHofunddie Stadt:Konfrontation,KoexistenzundIntegrationinSpätmittelalterundFrüherNeuzeit:9 .Symposium of the Residency Committee of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, organized in cooperation with the Historical Commission of Saxony-Anhalt, the Institute of History of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and the German Historical Institute Paris, Halle and Saale, 25 .- 28. September 2004, editor Werner Paravicini and Jörg Wettlaufer. Residence Survey, 20 (Ostfildern:Thorbecke,2006). Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Court, Cloister, and City: The Art and Culture of Central Europe, 1450-1800 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 159.
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Bernardo Morando of Padua, who strove hard and successfully to fashion this new city as an earthly mirror of the divine universe, reflecting in particular the central power of the Lord, which, as is supposed, was bestowed upon him by God. Theothermodeloftheearlymoderncitywasthefreecity,onlysubjecttothe emperororking,whooftenenjoyeddemonstratinghispowerthroughapompous entryintothecity,accompaniedbyastoundingartwork,musicalperformances, drawings,poems,andthelike,perhapsbestrepresentedbyCharlesV'sentryinto Nuremberg.266Here“thestructureserectedbytownsmencanbeseenasaresponse to a more general fashion, in which certain architectural elements become the desiredmode.”267However,bothmodelscouldfindexpressioncombinedinone building,suchasthetownhallofPozna,Poland ,reconstructedfrom1557to1567 bytheNorthItalianarchitectGiovanniBattistaQuadroofLugano.Ontheone handthebuilding'soveralldesignindicatesthecivicprideandindependence mindedattitudeofthecitizens;ontheotherthecrenellatedparapetonthetop evokestheimageofanaristocraticurbanpalace.Theformerlyattachedportraits ofkingsontheexteriorexpressedexplicitoppositiontothepoweroflocallords andthedesiretoassociatewiththecentralgovernment,whichcertainlyprovided the city with considerably more independence. Furthermore, the numerous medallions show the heads of ancient wise men and underline the bourgeois pride that found excellent expression in this Renaissance building with its three-story loggia.268 In Germany, on the other hand, many town halls were built in the Medieval Gothic style. late to the 16th century
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AlbrechtKircher,DeutscheKaiserinNürnberg:EineStudiezurGeschichtedesöffentlichenLebensder ReichsstadtNürnbergvon1500–1612.FreieSchriftenfolgederGesellschaftfürFamilienforschung inFranken,7(Nuremberg:DieEgge,1955);RoyC.Strong,ArtandPower:RenaissanceFestivals, 1450–1650(BerkeleyandLosAngeles:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1984);BonnerMitchell,The Majesty of the State: Triumphal Progresses soberanos estrangeiros na Itália renascentista (1494-1600). Biblioteca dell' "Archivum Romanicum", 203 (Florença: Olschki, 1986); Klaus Tenfelde, "Adventus: Sobre a iconologia histórica do concurso", Historical Journal 235 (1982): 45-84; Arthur Groos, "The Cityas Text: The Entry of Charles Vinto Nürnberg (1541)", The Construction of Textual Authority in German Literature of the Middle Ages and Early Modern Periods, eds. James F. Poag and Claire Baldwin. University of North Carolina Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures, 123 (Chapel Hilland London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 135-56. DaCostaKaufmann, Court, Monastery and City, 160. Teresa Jakimowicz,Ratuszpoznaski(Varsóvia:SportiTurystyka,1979),36;Teresa Jakimowicz, DziejePoznania[HistoryofPozna],ed.JerzyTopolski,vol. 86; Jan Skuratowicz, Ratuszpoznaski (Pozna, 2030.dois),122.
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of urban prosperity first seen in the Netherlands.269 More importantly, however, medieval town halls clearly expressed civic pride, a strong sense of growing independence, and a new emphasis on urban political identity.270 Of course, architects had to change mit einer Vielzahl sozialer, politischer und wirtschaftlicher Interessen auseinandersetzen ,sothehistoryofbuildingdesignsnorthoftheAlpsdoesnot necessarilytellusthefullstoryabouttheearlymoderncityinitspositionasan independententityorasamajorpawninthehandofalocallordoroftheking because the same architectural style could serve for very different political purposes,unlesswecombinethestudyofspecificdesignswithanexaminationof theconcreteinterestsandmotifsdeterminingthepatronsandothersupporters, includingtheentireurbancommunity.271 Carefullyconsidered,urbanspaceprovestobeamostcomplexissuethatcannot beanalyzedsimplyfromoneperspectiveorinlightofonedisciplinaryapproach. Architectural history should be considered, as well as art history, literary history, religious history, social and economic history, political history, and some other areas of study.
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Peter Kurmann, “Late Gothic Architecture in France and the Netherlands,” The Art of Gothic: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, ed. Rolf Toman (Cologne: Könemann, 1998), 156–87; here 182–87, with beautiful full-page illustrations. Stephan Albrecht, Bremen City Hall in the sign of urban self-representation before the Thirty Years' War. DaCostaKaufmann, Court, Cloister, and City, 160 to 165. He provided many examples and showed that competing architectural models influenced or complemented each other. He refrains, however, from drawing specific conclusions about the political and economic position of a city within its historical territorial geographic context. Architecture represents, after all, people's lives, ideas, emotions and political interests, etc.), the construction of a city wall, the construction of a town hall and other public buildings, not to mention aristocratic residences. and patricians, and the creation of specific neighborhoods for the various guilds, parishes and also religious communities (Jewish ghettos), profoundly influenced people's attitude towards the urban space as a framework for the social and religious community.
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Figure 2: Poznan Town Hall
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genders, and collaboration, even on the most mundane level, was of prime importanceforeveryoneinvolved.Infact,thedifferencesbetweenthearistocracy andtheleadingbourgeoisfamilies,atleastsincethelateMiddleAges,werenot asdramaticaswemightthinktoday.272 Aswehaveseenabove,thehistoryofurbanlifecanbebeautifullyemployedto gainadeeperunderstandingoftheparadigmshiftfromthelateRomanEmpire totheearlyMiddleAges,andsoalsooftheparadigmshiftfromtheearlytothe high,thenlateMiddleAges,and,consideringthenextmajorstep,fromthelate MiddleAgestotheRenaissanceandtheageoftheReformation.Ofcourse,urban historywillalwaysfacethedangerofremainingfragmentarybecausejusttoo Many factors play a role in shaping the lives of many people in a city. But it is precisely this shortcoming that also reveals one of the greatest advantages of the thematic commitment to urban space, because here both the life of the natives and that of the social and economic elite is apprehended. Outsiders such as wandering scholars and country nobles - an odd but certainly not incongruous pairing of these two groups - viewed the city with admiration and disrespect, with admiration and fear, with envy and danger. Poetsexpressedtheirsentimentsaboutcitiesasmuchasmusiciansandpainters did.ChroniclerssuchasHartmannSchedelindicatedtheirgreatprideintheir homecity,andcraftsmenpoetssuchasHansSachswentsofarastoprojecttheir identityinlightoftheurbanspace.ItalianandSpanishmerchantsemergedas major representatives of their own urban communities, and so also medical doctors,internationaltradespeople,architects,composers,andscholars.Afterall, already in the Middle Ages, but above all since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuriesthecityhadturnedintothecrucibleofcultureinthewidestsenseofthe word , although at the same time aristocratic courts outside urban centers also emerged as crucial centers of political power and cultural development. HartmannSchedel’sfamousworldchronicle,hisLiberchronicarum,indeednicely illustratesthesupremeimportanceofthechronicleforourtopic,urbanspacein thepremodernworld.Thischronicle,knownunderitsfulltitleasLiberchronicarum cumfigurisetymaginibusabiniciomundi,wasprintedonJuly12,1493,bythehighly respectedandextraordinarilysuccessfulAntonKobergerinNuremberg,probably themostproductiveandesteemedbookprinterandsellerinallofGermany,and henceinlatemedievalEurope.273AGermantranslationfollowedonDecember23,
272 273
See the contribution to this volume by Jan Hirschbiegeland Gabriel Zeilinger. Here I am relying on the facsimile edition: The Nuremberg Chronicle: A Facsimile of Hartmann Schedel's BuchderChroniken: Printed by Anton Koberger in 1493 (New York: Landmark Press, 1979); see alsoElisabethRuecker,HartmannSchdelsWeltchronik:The Greatest Book Publisher of the Dürer Era. With a catalog of city views (Munich: Prestel, 1988). See also Hartmann Schedel, Weltchronik: Reprint [of] the complete color edition of 1493
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1493. The chronicle contains a total of 1,809 woodcuts of 645 wooden sticks, making it the only printed book with more illustrations of its time.274 The drawings were done by Michael Wolgemut, Albrecht Dürer's teacher, and his son-in-law Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. Nuremberg bankers and merchants Sebald Schreyer and his brother-in-law Sebastian Kammermeister financed the entire project, which actually started in 1471, so it took over two decades to complete. SchedelwasinclosecontactwithmanyNuremberghumaniststoassisthimin special details, such as the famous medical doctor Hieronymus Münzer, who helpedhim,basedonhisowntravelexperiences,tocreateatwopagemapof Germanyandtocover,forthepurposeofachronicle,themostrecenteventson the Iberian Peninsula, where Münzer had traveled between 1494 and 1495, focusingmostlyontheindividualSpanishandPortuguesecitiesandoffering,as oneofthefirst,alwaysglobalviewsovertheentireurbanspaceperceivedfroman elevatedpoint,suchaschurchtowers.275 Indeed, the global paradigm shift found strong expression in Germany (but also in other parts of Europe), where imperial power lost more and more influence, giving way to growing territorial princes and powerful and independent cities, for which the chronicles took on a new meaning as a means of communication reflecting on individual concerns and universal history.276 Interestingly, Schedel paid close attention to cities and offered detailed descriptions. 32 of the city views are obviously based on personal observations. Most importantly, on sheet 100 the author included the Nuremberg cityscape, a triumphant visual homage to this imperial city that
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Stephan Fussel (Augsburg: Weltbild, 2004). For a fully digitized version of the chronicle, see http://www.obrasraras.usp.br/; and http://mdz1.bibbvb.de/~mdz/kurzwahl.html?url=http://mdz1.bibbvb.de/cocoon/bsbink/E xample_S199,1.html(bothlastaccessedonSept.29,2008). Late Middle Ages European Travel Journals: An Analytical Bibliography, Ed. Werner Paravicini. Part 1: German Travel Reports, Ed. Christian Halm. 2nd revised and enlarged edition with appendix. Kiel workpieces. Series D: Contributions to European History of the Late Middle Ages, 5 (1993; Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, et al.: Peter Lang, 2001); Albrecht Classen, "The Iberian Peninsula from the Perspective of a Nuremberg Humanist Scholar Hieronymus Munzer: Itinerarium Hispanicum (1494-1495)", Communications from the Austrian Historical Research Institute 111,3-4(2003):317-40;id. , "Border Crossings of Southwestern Europe from the German Perspective: Foreign Encounters Between German-Speaking Travelers and the Iberian World in the Late Middle Ages", Ads by the Austrian Historical Research Institute 116, 1-2 (2008): 34-47. Leopold Hellmuth, "Geschichtsepicund Reimchronistik," From Calligraphy to Printing: Late Middle Ages, Reformation, Humanism: 1320-1572, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz and Ulrich Müller. German Literature: A Social History, 2 (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1991), 140-48; here 146-47.
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Center of economic power, craftsmanship and German hearts.277 (Fig. 9) Some of the churches are named and we can more or less trust that they represented the city quite realistically, showing us the double wall, city gates, bridges and above all the castle enthroned above the city. But the humanist perspective also finds its reflection here, as the gaze is invited to wander into the distance, linger on hills with some buildings, then return to the river that flows around the city and to some buildings out there, such as the paper mill, then to the gallows and fences as part of the advanced defense system The chronicle provides some of the most striking evidence of the fundamental paradigm shift that affected the view of urban space.278 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, new riches were accumulated in Germany and Italy, and the first modern banks can be traced back to late medieval cities, particularly in Lombardy/Italy, but also in Flanders, England and southern Germany. The enmity that the middle class has gained from the practice of exchanging money and lending - inevitable in a rapidly developing international credit-based economy - is best understood through its most common caricatures, avarice and usury... based on faith - bartering direct exchange of goods for goods in kind, or the promise of such an exchange - the belief has now been replaced by money.279
Thehatredthathadoftendevelopedovertheabuseofthecommonmanatthe handofpriestsandmonkswhohoardedconsiderablewealthandusedittotheir advantageagainstimpoverishedfarmersorthoseinsuddenneedbecauseofcrop failure,etc.,nowturnedagainstmerchantsandbankers.280 Concomitantly,thenewwealthproducedinthecitiesalsofacilitatedenormous architecturalprograms,lavishdecorationswithsculpturesandfrescoes,making lifeinthecityincrediblyattractive,evenifthepublicdisplayofpowerandwealth
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278
Klaus Arnold, "Images and texts: description of the city and cities in Hartmann Schedel," Acta Conventus NeoLatini Hafniensis, ed. Rhoda Schnur et al. (Binghampton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1994), 121-32. Hartmut Kugler, The Conception of the City in the Literature of the German Middle Ages.
279
Alick McLean, „Medieval Towns“, The ArtofGothic, 262–65; hier262.
280
See also Fabian Alfie's contribution to this volume.
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often represented more pretense than reality.281 The common goal was to compete, conform, and embrace noble values, aristocratic status, and political standing comparable to those of the gentry, with enormous implications for the respective architecture, political and economic structure, as well as sociocultural conditions, which made it quite difficult to compare medieval and early modern cities from a list of just a few categories. Pádua contratou os melhores artistas e arquitetos de seu tempo, como Giotto, para criar capelas privadas para uso of their families only where the iconographicprogramprovidedvisualaidsforconfessionandcontritiononpart oftheusurer.Ofcourse,thisfamousScrovegniChapelalsoallowedhimtodisplay hisextraordinarywealthandpowerthathadmadeitpossibleforhimtohiresuch afamousartistasGiottoandGiovanniPisanotodecoratetheinteriorspace.But ashestatedinhisowndocumentregardingtheendowmentofthechapel,itwas built,todrawfromAnnaDerbes'sandMarkSandona'swords, für den Ruhm der Jungfrau und der Stadt Padua und für die Errettung seiner eigenen Seele und der seiner Vorgänger. More specifically, in Enrico's own words, found in his last will and testament, composed just a few months before his death in 1336, the chapel was to serve as his burial place. or the urban patriciate and guilds were discussed with great intensity in the late Middle Ages and early modern period.284 The comic prose poet Hans Wilhelm Kirchhof of the sixteenth century
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McLean,“MedievalCities,”263:“themedievalbourgeoisieinvestedconsiderableamountsof moneyindevelopingalternativewaysofrepresentingthemselves.Theirstoryisinscribedintheir urbanarchitecturejustasmuchasintheirliterature,portraits,andfamilyhouses.Thestreets, squares,andbuildingsoftheemergingmedievalmiddleclassarenot,however,justrecordsof theirsuccess,butratherexpressionsoftheiraspirations....Instead,theyaspiredtobeingeither nobleorholy,generallyboth.” McLean, "Medieval Cities", 264-65. Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, The Usurer's Heart: Giotto, Enrico Scrovegni, and the Arena Chapel in Padua (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008), 35-36. Heike Bierschwale and Jacqueline van Leeuwen, Wiemaneine Stadtregierensoll, 2005, provides a solid overview of the didactic literature on this subject from German and Dutch cities of the Middle and Early Modern period (to the beginning of the 16th century).
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Prose Stories, Wendunmuth (1561). Nothing remains for the citizen but to recognize and recognize the bishop for a deep sense of tradition and loyalty: “as in the old days” (118). Although he also recognizes the unchangingnatureofthepresentpoliticalstructure(“dejureetdefacto,”118),he warnshisopponentofthedangersforallwomeninthecitywhoareregularly exposedtoerotictemptationstosleepwiththepriestsandmonks.Thiswould openallfloodgatesforthedeviltoentertheciviccommunityandtodestroyits ethicalandmoralfoundation(ibid.).285 Kirchhofdoesnotpursuethistopicfurtherinthisshortnarrative,butthisone talealonewithitsinsightfuldebate,despiteitsprimaryfocusonthetraditional anticlerical sentiment, clearly indicates how much even within ordinary discussionsorinsatiricalnarrativestheissuecouldsurfaceastowhichwasthe mostappropriateformofurbangovernmentinthesixteenthcentury. While we equate the emergence of urban space with the advent of the Renaissance, and certainly for many good reasons, we can also draw extensively on medieval sources that examine the city and its specific cultural and social contexts to provide important insights into its history and its world. . Significantly, the focus on urban space allows for very rich investigationstakingusfromlateantiquitythroughtheMiddleAgesandthenfar intotheearlymodernage.Differencesareclearlynoticeable,andyettherearealso many remarkable similarities and commonalities among the plethora of premoderncities.Tracingthedevelopmentofacityfromitsearliestfoundation to its expansion and steady, if not explosive, growth in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturieswouldfacilitatetheprojectionofafarreachingandprofound culturalhistory, combiningthephysicalworldofthecityarchitectureandthe publicspaceswiththeimagesofurbanspaceasprojectedbywriters, Painters, sculptors, carvers and also composers. But such a project really requires the collaboration of many scientists from different disciplines, as indicated above. However, critics will likely correctly point out that this goal was only partially achieved, because exploring the city in pre-modern times would require far more perspectives than this collection of articles could muster. architectural historian,
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Hans Wilhelm Kirchhof, Wendunmuth, Vol. II, 2/3. Ed. Hermann Oesterley. Literary Association Library in Stuttgart, XCVI (1869; Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms, 1980), no. 74:118-19.
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Musicologists, religious scholars and others have not joined us. However, the range of perspectives contained here promises to provide us with a robust set of concepts about the meaning of urban space. And I also hope that this introduction has covered many scientific bases in many different disciplines. Maryanna Kowaleski has recently edited an excellent textbook devoted to medieval towns which, as Ben R. McRee comments, contains a wealth of material illustrating the everyday life and concerns of medieval town dwellers.” “We hope that the present volume fulfills this desideratum more comprehensively and comprehensively, focusing on historical-mental aspects, modes of perception, social and economic conditions and on the interaction of different social groups within the urban community. Below, I offer brief summaries of each contribution to this volume, which I hope will be a valuable addition to our book series, Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture.
Although most descriptions of medieval cities strive to place both the architecture and the domestic culture, that is, the people, at the center, the situation in the case of Rome tended to be notably different. C. David Benson examines how medieval English descriptions of Rome (in both English and Latin) seem to perceive only ruins and relics as reflecting a glorious past by the Augustinian friar John Capgrave's Pilgrims' Solace, composed shortly after his return from Rome in 1450, along with a handful of other important travelogues, such as that of Master Gregorius. Rather than providing information about services, processions and church building in contemporary Rome, medieval authors prefer to reflect on the history of churches in Rome and their prime importance for pilgrims in the present and the ruins of antiquity. This is all the more surprising given that most other city lobbies emphasize current population, economics and politics and therefore present the city in its current state as a real community and conviviality. While there are occasional references to Roman senators or residents of Rome telling the narrator about the city's history, the focus is mostly on the ruins, the hollow, empty urban center of the Roman Empire.
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MedievalTowns: AReader, editor Maryanne Kowaleski (Peterborough, Ont.: BroadviewPress, 2006), review by BenR.McReeinTheMedievalReview09.01.09.
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Ashes and sarcophagi of ancient emperors and in sculptures and monuments dedicated to the dead who suffered their fate for their Christian faith. Roman glory in its physical manifestation, however, often finds critical commentators condemning great public buildings like the Colosseum as pagan temples, seemingly unaware of the true purpose of these monumental buildings. The authors expressly expressed their desire to see such non-Christian architecture destroyed and removed, particularly as it looked too attractive and seductive and deprived visitors to Rome of the true purposes of their journey, which was to go to church, ask for indulgences and seek absolution from are distracted by sins. AttheotherendofthediscourseaboutRomewefindMasterGregoriuswhoin hisNarraciodeMirabilibusUrbisRomae(latetwelfthorearlythirteenthcentury) extolsthebeautyandbrillianceoftheancientstatuesandbuildings.However,the majorityofvoicesleanedtheotherwayandhighlightedtheexperienceofdeath inthatcity,thatis,ontheonehand,thedeathofChristianmartyrsandsaints,and ofthemightyandpowerfulinthepastontheother.Thishistoricalperspective, almostbydefault,depopulatesRomewithinthemedievalnarrativesandgives absolutepreferencetothesignificanceofRomeservingasthesiteofremembrance andmemory.Hencethegreatemphasisinthesenarrativesontherelicsandbodies of martyrs, which might well be characteristic, as Benson observes, not of traveloguesorencomiaintendedasguidesfortheactualtravelerorpilgrim;but instead of religious reading material for those who stay behind—religious armchairreaders,ifyoulike.287 Inotherwords,theEnglishencomiaonRomedidnotsimplyignorepeople's lives,butchoseprimarilytotalk,first,aboutmartyrs,henceaboutthosewhohad diedinRomefortheirfaithandwhoserelicscouldprovidenew,spirituallifeto thefaithfulvisitorstotheancientcity,grantingindulgencesandpardons,hence pavingthewaytothereaders'salvation.Curiously,thenumberofyearspromised by the individual churches and sites of Worship quickly reached inflationary proportions, but this was typical of the common late medieval interest in Rome, one of the holiest places of pilgrimage, alongside Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela. Secondly, they also focused on antiquity, which has survived only in ruins. While most descriptions of Rome are devoid of commentary on contemporary life, they do allow the past to speak through countless stories.
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The situation is very similar with Felix Fabri's German pilgrimage report for a female audience, after having published an actual travelogue in Latin, cf. see Albrecht Classen, "Imaginary Experience of the Divine: FelixFabri's SionspilgerLateMedieval PilgrimageLiteratureasaWindowintoReligiousMentality", StudiesinSpirituality15(2005):109-28.
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They spoke of individual buildings or sculptures reminiscent of an Artyrora saint. They particularly refer to churches that commemorate an Artyrora saint or, much more commonly, to churches that possessed a relic, even if not named after it. The less these medieval writers think about contemporary life in Rome, the more they allow the past life, that of Christian models of late antiquity, to appear in their texts, which promise, as it were, a new spiritual life. For them, dead Rome is the basis for a new Rome, the future one, the heavenly Jerusalem. While medieval theologians and preachers commonly referred to the concept of the City of God that St. In fact, he had a ubiquitous role. Graves of deceased secular rulers or bishops, heads of households and other influential figures have shaped the cityscape, both within the church and monastic precincts and elsewhere on farmland. Medieval poets explicitly reflected this phenomenon, emphasizing, for example, the importance of individual rulers as founders of cities, as in the Chronicles of Layamon in early 13th-century Brut and mid-12th-century Old French Romand'Enéas by according to Layamon. The abodes of the kings are located in elevated places, which makes them visible to all who constantly remember the past and their deeds and benefit the city, similar to epitaphs dedicated to the dead. Literary accounts find remarkable confirmation in actual medieval architecture and funerary art, allowing surviving family members and the wider urban community to commemorate the dead and draw spiritual strength from deceased founders and rulers. All this clearly signals an awareness of the
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A similar approach can be seen in the nearly timeless tale of Apollonius of Tire, see Albrecht Classen, "Reading and DecipheringinApolloniusofTyreandtheHistoriavondenSiebenwiesenMeistern:MedievalEpistemologywithinaLiteraryContext",StudiMedievali49(2008):161–88.
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intimatecorrelationbetweendeathandlifewithinmedievalmentality,particularly withintheurbansetting.289Buturbansocietiesalsoexperiencedatroublesome disruptioninthefamilytraditionsbecauseofpeople’sconstantmigrationfromthe countrysidetothecity.Thewealthiercitizensthereforeturnedtothepriestsand paid for masses to be read for the dead, creating a whole religious memorial business,uponwhichWilliamLanglandcommentsrathersardonicallyinhisPiers Plowman(Btext),criticizingpriestsforseekingpositionsincitiesbecauseofthe muchhigherincomethereresultingfromthefuneralservicesandthecountless ramifications,allleadingtospecificincomefortheclerics. Interestingly, as also outlined by Tracy, the importance of the dead in their past lives can contribute greatly to a city's political, military, and economic posture, as exemplified by conditions in eleventh-century Cambrai or medieval Venice, both of which were heavily influenced by the dead. they have long depended on bishops or founding saints to gain public authority and prominence in direct confrontation with neighboring cities (such as Aquileia). In her study, Tracy illustrates this phenomenon particularly in light of the late 14th-century Middle English poem Saint Erkenwald, where the 14th-century discovery of the bones of the medieval Episcopalian saint beneath St Paul's Church gave the city a major boost. proclaim itself divinely blessed and be considered the capital of the whole country. More specifically, the rulers of medieval cities consciously used the cult of the dead, the memory of the past, and the appearance of the remains of saints and other virtuous people who died in the early history of these cities to enlarge the respective urban community through The tightly intertwined past with the present and the future, highlighting the importance of the dead in the survival and prosperity of a city in the distant future. Since late antiquity, Jerusalem has been a cornerstone in global relations between Christians, Jews and Muslims. As a holy city, Jerusalem has been central and iconic to both Western and Eastern cultures and religions, so it's not surprising that many wars have been fought over it; but unfortunately the great world conflicts continue to focus on this city for more or less the same reasons
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Peter Dinzelbacher, Europe in the High Middle Ages 1050-1250: A history of culture and mentality. Culture and Mentality (Darmstadt: Primus, 2003), 96-99; ibid., “Eschatology,” Handbook of Medieval Studies, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, in press). See also contributions on “Sterben/Tod” to the European history of mentalities: main themes in individual representations, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher).
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Jerusalem,aboveall,andforcenturiesbeyondthatspecificdate.Thisfindsan impressivereflectioninthecontinuousstreamofpilgrimsandtouristswhowent toPalestinethroughouttime,manyofwhomcomposedavarietyoftravelogues.290 ButwecanneverforgetthecrucialperiodoftheearlyCrusadesasacritical momentinhistorywhenthefuturedestinyofJerusalemwasdeeplyshapedbythe religiousmilitaryconflict,whichhaslasteduntiltoday,bothbecauseChristian knightsconquereditin1099,andthenbecausetheMuslims,undertheleadership ofSaladin,recaptureditin1187,andthis,ofcourse,tothegreatchagrinofthe EuropeanChristians. Although modern fantasies of medieval chivalry and knighthood convey a beautifulimageofanimpressiveagelonggone,thebrutalrealityofmedieval warfarewasquitedifferent,asAlanV.Murraydemonstratesinhisinsightful, detailoriented,andratherpainfulstudyonhowtherespectiveconqueringarmies dealtwiththecivilpopulation.291Everyarmyhastorely,ifitwantstobeeffective andsuccessfulinachievingitsgoals,onthebestpossiblelogisticsforsuppliesand people,andonsolidifyingitsconquestsandfortificationsasquicklyaspossible. Aber die Kreuzritter waren nur eine kleine und ziemlich formlose Streitmacht im Vergleich zu der ziemlich großen muslimischen und judischen Bevölkerung in Jerusalem und im Heiligen Land im Jahr 1099, ganz zu schweigen von den großen feindlichen Streitkräften, die sie bedrohten. WhentheArabsunder‘UmarhadreconqueredJerusalemin638C.E.,they forcedmostofthesurvivingChristianintelligentsiatoleavethecity.Nevertheless, this was not at all comparable to what happened in 1099, when the crusaders foundthemselvesinadifficultsituationasasmallmilitaryentityfacingalarge nonChristianpopulation.Thereisnodoubtthatthecrusadersimmediatelybegan withmassiveslaughterwithinthecity,carryingoutwhatwewouldcalltoday ‘ethniccleansing.’ThesurvivingChristiansourcesclearlysignalthatthismassacre wasexplainedawaythroughreferencestorelevantpassagesintheBible,notably
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Christian Halm, German Travel Reports. European Travel Reports of the Late Middle Ages, 1. Kiel Works. Suzanne M. Yeager, Jerusalem in Medieval Narrative. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). For the Crusades, see Christopher Tyerman, God's War: A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006); historical-political perspective, see Dore Gold, The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City (Washington, DC: Regnery Publ., 2007). For a general introduction and critical analysis, see Maurice HughKeen, Medieval Warfare: A History (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); see also contributions to Violence in Medieval Courtly Literature: A Casebook, ed. Alberto Classen. Routledge Medieval Casebooks (New York and London: Routledge, 2004). See also Jonathan Riley Smith, The Crusades: AHistory. 2nd (1987; London and New York: Continuum, 2005); (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
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the apocalypse. However, to put it simply, the Crusaders massacred hundreds and possibly thousands of people to get rid of a potentially dangerous non-Christian population. However, Murray draws attention to the complexity of the concrete situation in Jerusalem after the conquest, which was by no means stable and clear to the crusaders who settled there. Having conquered a large city with a solidly hostile population, it is not surprising that the first big steps were taken to target the dangerous Muslim civilians and military. Protecting Jerusalem from hostile elements inside and outside the city presented a major challenge that helps us understand the more violent treatment of civilians - though it certainly doesn't excuse the situation. It was decades before Christian rulers decided to allow Syrian Christians to settle in the city, underscoring the issue of population control in such a hotly contested city. They also expelled the Greek Orthodox clergy and established numerous Catholic churches to accommodate their own religious demands. Bycontrast,whenSaladintookcontrolofJerusalemin1187,hepursuedarather different strategy, expelling instead of slaughtering the major portion of the WesternChristianpopulation.Therewasaconsiderableriskthatahugenumber ofMuslimprisonersheldcaptiveinsidethecitymightbeslaughteredinresponse toanattack,andSaladinobviouslybelievedthatitwouldbemoreeffectiveto allowtheFrankishpopulationtopayforitsfreedomthantoslaughterit.Notonly didthisprovidehimwithahugeprofitandfreethecityofenemypopulation,but it also swelled up the few remaining Christianheld cities with a civilian populationthatwouldmakethemmoredifficulttodefendagainsttheMuslims. Saladin encouraged Muslims to settle in Jerusalem, and allowed Jews and easternChristianstoreturnbecausethesepeoplehelpedhimtogaineconomic profit.ButtheentireFrankishpopulationwasremoved,transformingJerusalem fromanexclusivelyChristian,andlargelyWesterncity,intoatotallyEasterncity ofpluralfaiths.Allthisstronglysuggeststhatinthebattleforthisplacesacredto threereligions,theremovalor,inthethinkingofthecrusaders,theeliminationof anenemypopulationwasregardedasanecessity.TheMuslimapproachwas, however,muchmorecomplex,butwealsohavetokeepinmindthatSaladinand otherIslamicrulersenjoyedmuchbetterlogisticconditionsandcouldaffordto pursuemoreflexibleapproaches. Murray's focus on Jerusalem dramatically sheds light on the military importance of cities in the Middle Ages, the dangers civilians often faced in war, and also how rulers believed that manipulating the various social and religious groups that inhabited them was an essential tool to establish their regimes. .
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Wecangainagoodunderstandingofthebasiccharacterandessenceofacityand itssocialstructurewithinitshistoricalcontextwhenwepursuemanydifferent approaches,whichistheprimarypurposeofthisvolume.Oneofthemconcerns legal conditions and the work of notaries, the topic of Andreas Meyer's contributiontothisvolume.Fromearlyonnotariesplayedasignificantrolein latemedieval Italian cities, because they were highly instrumental in helping peoplehandlinginheritancesissuesandpropertytransfer.Meyerunderscoresthe significantchangeofkeepingrecordsbythenotariessincethetwelfthcenturyin NorthernItalywhennotariesbegantokeepcentralizedregistersonthebasisof whichindividualdocumentscouldbecreatedforspecificlegalpurposes.This ultimatelyreducedthecostsforeveryoneinvolvedconsiderably.Basically,the notarybecameanarchivistforhisentireneighborhoodandthushelpedtheurban communitytohavemuchbetterandeasiercontrolovertherelevantdocuments pertainingtopropertyorlegalmatters .Gleichzeitig wurde den Aufzeichnungen zufolge der Notarbesitz zu einer guten und langfristigen Einnahmequelle für ihn und seine Familie. Erst im 15. Jahrhundert zwangen die Stadtverwalter die Notare, ihre Register an öffentliche Archive zu übergeben, was den gesamten Rechtsprozess und die Archivierung wirklich zentralisierte. In diesem langjährigen Prozess wurden die Notariatsregister zunehmend von immer weniger Notaren ausgewählt, die sie meist von verstorbenen Kollegen erbten. Das bedeutete jedoch oft, dass bei Zerstörung oder Beschädigung eines dieser Archive der Verlust von Dokumenten für einen ganzen Stadtteil hochdramatisch war. The contemporaries already realized the subsequent grave dangers for the entire communityandthelegalsystem,tryingtheirbesttocounteractnumerousrisk factors,butmostlytonoavail.Anotableexceptiontotherulewasthecaseof Genoa where the city organized from early on in the fourteenth century centralizedcommunaldepotsforthenotaryregisters.Nevertheless,therepeated attemptstoenforcethispolicytocollectallregistersthereandthepossibilityfor notariesrelatedtothosewhohaddeceasedtofetchtheregistersandtostorethem athomeagainsignalshowdifficultitwas,despitethebestefforts,toupkeepand maintain the centralization process. Gleichzeitig enthielten die genuesischen Tresore zahlreiche andere Arten von juristischen Dokumenten, oft privater Natur, sodass sie bis zum Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts insgesamt privatisiert wurden. Tragischerweise für moderne Historiker wurden seit dem 14. Jahrhundert viele der Register und Dokumente privater Natur aus früheren Zeiten als Verpackungsmaterial oder für andere Zwecke verkauft, und große Kontingente sind uns heute aus sehr profanen Gründen einfach verloren gegangen. Allerdings gab es auch große Platzprobleme, und da ältere Register einen erheblich geringeren Wert für die Zeitgenossen hatten, ist es nicht verwunderlich, dass eine große Menge davon verschwand und Platz für neue machte, da der Rechtsprozess kontinuierlich weiterging. Obwohl sich Meyers Untersuchung auf eine spezialisierte Textgattung konzentriert, veranschaulicht sie eindrucksvoll, inwieweit interna Rechtsstrukturen eine Rolle gespielt haben
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enormous influence on the growth and development of cities in northern Italy since the 13th century.
Many of the great cities of antiquity and the Middle Ages were founded and established near watercourses, the main means of transporting large goods and an important source of drinking water. When medieval poets reflect on urban space, they often also speak of nearby rivers or the coast as important features in the formation of urban identity, as Britt C. L. Rothauser points out in his contribution to this volume: 1) as a defining element; 2) as a protective barrier; and 3) as a cleaning agent. But water was also an important source of energy in industrial production or handicrafts, which they only marginally address. While the historical importance of water to urban development in the Middle Ages and beyond has been commented on in earlier surveys of urban history, Rothauser examines how various Middle English poets perceived the physical, real city and its environment, regularly separated from land by water. , beginning with Fitz Stephens Description obilissimæ civitatis Londonæ of the twelfth century served only for the necessary support of the city. However, when speaking of the Thames, FitzStephens clearly points to the demarcation of the parameters of the city and also points out the crucial places for citizens to do international trade and also to enjoy leisure time in gardens outside the city. In remarkable contrast, the fourteenthcentury anonymous poet of the allegoricalPearlpoemidentifiestheriverasthedefiningboundarythatseparates theNewJerusalemfromtheearthlyrealm,therebygrantingwaterwaysamuch morepowerfulsignificanceinkeepingtheChristian,herethedreamer,outsideof theholycityuntiltheDayofJudgment—andthisinimportantparalleltotheriver Styxthatseparatesthenetherworldfromtheearthlyexistence,suchasinDante's DivinaCommedia,andthen,ofcourse,alsoinclassicalantiqueliterature.Whereas inFitzStephan'sLatinencomiumthewateroftheriverThamesisalsousedfor keepingthecityclean,thePearlpoetspecifiesthefunctionoftheheavenlyriver asonetorepresentthedivinewill,orGod'scivilization,asreflectedbythepaving oftheriverbedandtheembankment,anarchitecturalachievementonlypossible , it seems, from the Lord himself. But he also points to many people from the late Middle Ages.
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See now Contributions to the Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Baths and Hygiene from Antiquity to the Renaissance, eds. Cynthia Kosso and Anne Scott, 2009.
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they wanted to improve living conditions in their cities and envisioned an urban space paved with precious stones as a reflection of the ideal celestial city. For Gower, the river served as a metaphor for the relationship between town and country, as the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 brought much devastation and misery to the town. According to the poet, the ripple of the river and the consequent flooding of the urban space represent the recalcitrant peasant class that needs control and channeling from the urban government and, therefore, real. Rothauser then turns to the question of how much rivers could really protect a city, and if they could not pose additional dangers to the defenders, as Gower also expresses in his texts, while for the poet of Pearl the situation was due to the religious function from the waterway, which, together with the city wall, completely kept all besiegers away from the holy place, was fundamentally different. This is also confirmed in the 14th century literary legend of Sankt Erkenwald, where a lake replaces the river but achieves the same constructive purpose. Finally, the author examines the cleansing function of the Thames as clearly delineated, for example, in Letterbook A of 1275 or in John Lydgate's description of New Troy in his TroyBook of 1420. cleansing of the human soul that inhabits such a divine city. By paraphrasing this aspect, however, Gower also points to the constant danger of losing this degree of virtue, because the vice was powerful enough to penetrate into every corner, and therefore also into the crevices of the soul, to remain in the image ( Vox Clamantis).
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See Allison P. Coudert's contribution to this volume. After all, over the centuries, there have been serious complaints about dirty streets and squares in cities and the lack of functioning sewage systems. A notable exception is the anonymous 12th- and early 13th-century High German Goliard epic Herzog Ernst, see earlier part of my introduction above.
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The earthly city could reflect the heavenly city, New Jerusalem, so rivers, watercourses and water in general could symbolize the tension between virtues and vices in a Christian world, but also a very dangerous one, where social hierarchy is not an absolute guarantee. Of course, urban space does not just mean buildings and structural extensions, but also living space, i.e. people and their interaction with each other. One of the most burning issues in this context concerns the coexistence of Christians and Jews in the Middle Ages and beyond. Birgit Wiedl offers powerful perspectives on this situation, especially in Austrian cities, by examining concrete historical and artistic documents, which often cast the issue in a different light than the specific laws and regulations of the church and dictated authorities “Careful investigations prove convincing. In particular, the complaints of churches, which repeatedly violated their rules about such contacts, show how much Jews and Christians actually lived together as neighbors and not as religious enemies, despite much public controversy to the contrary. Interior decorations (wall paintings) or book illustrations commissioned by Jewish showmen show the extent to which both groups shared the same cultural values and enjoyed the same aesthetic ideals. However, Jews in medieval Austria experienced different legal relationships, with territorial princes long exercising power over Jewish communities, although city governments regularly tried to deprive them of this privilege. In fact, the sovereigns were so powerful that only they could grant the right to build public buildings for the Jewish community, such as a synagogue, in each city. For a long time Christians lived as much among,ornextto,theJewsasthelatterlivedamongChristians,andwehave plenty of evidence that both groups provided service to each other against payment,includingwomenactingaswetnurses.Undercertaincircumstancesthe synagoguecouldalsofunctionasthesiteforlegalproceedingsinvolvingJewsand (!)Christians.InthejudicialworldwealsoencountermanyJewswhoservedas witnessesandarbiters,andJewscouldturntoaChristianjudgeappointedfor theirownconcerns,bothsignalinganastonishingdegreeofmutualacceptance andcollaborationparticularlywithintheurbanspaceoflatemedievalcitiessmall andlarge. The many protests, especially from the church, against these common practices prove the importance of an intense interchange in Austrian cities of the late Middle Ages, at least until the thirteenth century.
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integrate them more closely into the city's defense system. Interestingly, Wiedl even provides evidence that Jews were entitled to a share in public markets, although they were not allowed to hold public office. A real conflict arose when the Jews also engaged in handicrafts and competed with their Christian neighbors, for example, in the area of slaughtering and selling meat. Before long, they and their flesh were being vilified or banned from public spaces, a favorable strategy for dealing with the problem from the perspective of the majority. This, in turn, provided the basis for religious arguments that quickly led to blood poisoning and accusations of alleged host desecration, which make up most of the accusations leveled against Austrian Jews. Despite overwhelming evidence of intense exchange and even coexistence of both religious groups until the early 14th century, expulsions and bans of Jews from Austrian cities became the norm in the late 20th century for a variety of reasons. More significantly, however, as Wiedl concludes, we would seriously misunderstand the medieval and late medieval history of Christian-Jewish contacts if we saw it only through the lens of the cross-mind with its followers, a paranoia directed against the Jewish population, which was, after all, they essentially contributed to the history of the country. Of course, Austria was not a safe haven for Jews, especially in the late Middle Ages, but there were strong traditions of notable forms of coexistence and cooperation, particularly within urban communities. WhereasWiedldiscussestheissueofcohabitationofJewsandChristiansinlate medievalAustria,RosaAlvarezPerezinvestigatesthesametopicwithregardto contemporaryFrance.There,however,thesituationwasrathermoredangerous andultimatelycatastrophicbecausetheJewswererepeatedlyexpelled,forthelast and final time in 1394. Nevertheless, the focus on urban space invites a more carefulanddetailedinvestigationbecauseitwasherewhereactualcontactstook placeandwheretherepresentativesofthetworeligionsencounteredeachother. Perez focuses on Jewish communities in northern France because conflicts only became more intense later and relatively peaceful coexistence seems to have been more pronounced in earlier periods (particularly from the 19th to 11th centuries). During the High Middle Ages, urbanization in northern France, as in many other areas north of the Alps, experienced dramatic rates of growth which also led to a significant increase in the Jewish population in cities where many economic opportunities awaited them. We can measure this, for example, by the number of rabbinic schools. Ironically, royal decrees come soon
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It prohibited Jews from living in rural areas and small towns and forced them to settle in large urban centers, perhaps to better control them and obtain more financial gains because they were "servants of the king". Similar to other parts of Europe, however, Jews soon acted as catalysts for common feelings of fear and insecurity. As Perez notes, despite the numerous decrees against Jews that forced them to live in certain areas and wear certain insignia (especially since the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215), Jews in many cases still enjoyed some freedom to move around in different areas. parts of the city and were able to interact easily with their Christian neighbors. However, the ghettoization process was also taking place everywhere, forcing Jews to live in cramped and often unhealthy spaces, while Christians had more opportunities for expansion. religious beliefs. Although Jews were generally excluded from traditional crafts, some could still engage in this type of work for domestic needs, as surviving records under certain names show. But money lending (and usury), as throughout medieval Europe, was a privilege of the Jews, and here we even find several Jewish women who were also active in this field. As the research showed, moneylenders were much more common than previously thought, but they concentrated on smaller amounts and relied on liens as collateral rather than expensive notaries. But Perez also notes that the proximity of these two religious and economic communities in the medieval cities of northern France led to small-scale violence, even involving significant numbers of women, the court documents say. As the many examples adduced by Perez indicate, despite these constant conflicts,JewsandChristianscollaboratedinmanyinstances,andtherearemore reportsoferoticrelationshipsamongthemthanexpected,astherepeatedlegal stipulationsandlawcasesconfirm.AlbeittheChurchexpressedabhorrenceatthe ideaofChristiansminglingsexuallywithJews,theveryfactthatsuchstatements existconfirmstheexistenceofsuchaffairs,andthisevenlongaftertheofficialand finalexpulsionofallJewsfromFrancein1394.Aswelearnfromvariousliterary andlegaldocuments,itappearsthatJewishwomenweremoreloathtoreligious conversion than Jewish men, but this issue still requires further investigation. Furthermore, Perez has shed some light on Jewish representation in contemporary literature through a close reading of Li Roumans de Berte de Grans pies (late 13th century), where many of the traditional stereotypes against Jews are fully represented.
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Despite the serious problems and threats faced by late medieval French Jews, their existence in the northern metropolitan areas concerned the entire population, as Perez can emphatically attest. One of the most famous images of urban space that developed - at least allegorically - throughout the Middle Ages (if not earlier) was Augustine's (AD 354-430) concept of the heavenly city in his City descivitata (City of God). But not everyone adhered to Augustine's teachings on the vanity and uselessness of the secular city in its metaphorical dimension. The latemedieval English mystic JulianNorwich(1342/1343–ca.1416)pursued,asJeanetteZissellargues,quitea differentapproach,drawingmuchinspirationfromhermysticalinterpretationof thesymbolichazelnut.JulianperceivedGod’slovetobesoprofusethatitalso extendedtotheearthlycitybecauseitcouldnotbecontainedonlyintheheavenly city.Theformerprovestobenotmuchlargerthanahazelnut,andyetitisentirely embraced by God’s love. The heavenly city, however, of which Augustine spoke, is located, according to Juliana, within herself, in her heart. Zissell suggests that Julian deliberately deviated from, or rather reinterpreted, the Augustinian tradition to accommodate the concept of global love extended by God to both cities in creation, heavenly and earthly. Whereas Augustine focused on how people love each other, which determines whether they can move from the earthly to the heavenly dimension, Julian looks primarily at God's love for people, implying that both dimensions are equally embraced by him. Augustine did not foresee universal salvation as Origen (c. 185–254 CE) had suggested, and instead planned a city for the chosen few. In contrast, Julian believed the opposite, arguing that God's love was far greater than the Father of the Church could have imagined and that it could extend to material existence, to the earthly city.
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earthly city as long as the individual inhabitant of that city proves to be a believer. In other words, God's love can already be experienced in human life, here in this urban space. More specifically, the earthly city, the hazelnut, represents the human soul where God truly dwells, and the heavenly city is the source of divine love. Inthissense,themetaphorofthecityservedJulianexceedinglywelltodescribe inpoetictermstheetherealunionofthehumansoulwiththeGodhead,which takesplacewithinthemystic’s,oranyotherperson’s,heart,amergingofboth urbanspacesbecauseoftheinfinitepowerofGod’slove.Asmuchasthebeliever’s spiritualcityisenclosedinhisheart,theearthlycityisenclosedinthebeliever’s hand,asrepresentedbythehazelnut.Althoughtheearthlycitydoesnotguarantee spiritualprotectionandrestfulness,butitclearlyindicates,asJulianformulatesit, theextenttowhichGod’sloveofmanandofthehumanworldispresentand assuredforeveryonewhoreturnsthislove. Zissell discovers a significant pre-theological level of meaning in Julian's use of the hazelnut metaphor and shows that much urban space, even within mystical discourse, was of great metaphorical importance because it represented the meeting space of the human soul with divinity. In this sense, as Zissell suggests, Julian could be identified as a follower of the ideas developed by Origen, in an almost explicit position on Augustine. In our context, however, we can draw the important conclusion that urban space, represented here in the image of a hazelnut, has become a powerful metaphor for profound theological interpretations of human existence and the meaning of salvation. Urban space in the Middle Ages was not simply delimited by city walls, but urban authority regularly extended, sometimes up to seven, entire cities or entire regions. However, to what extent could a city hall prosecute a person who had a criminal contract in another city? To explore these complex issues, Patricia Turning examines a case in 14th-century Toulouse involving two men whose business relationship went awry and so resorted to legal, albeit unsuccessful, means. Significantly, this dangerous conspiracy had been planned for months and was carried out near City Hall in a conscious effort to provoke councilors to take legal action. Turning uses recent spatial theory (Bordieu et al.) to shed light on how much urban space was in fact competitive territory and battlegrounds for different social groups within and beyond city limits. also used to mark areas
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the control exercised by individuals and interest groups. Even the public executions, with all their gory details of torture and slow dismemberment, served to demonstrate urban authority and power within a clearly defined urban space, beyond their intent to accuse. Significantly,throughouttheMiddleAges,andsoalsoinToulouse,thecity authoritieshadtonegotiateonaregularbasiswiththeducalorroyalpowersthe extenttowhichtheycouldexerttheirownjurisdiction,hencecouldclaimpolitical, legal,andmilitaryindependence.295ThephysicalattackontheToulouselawyer Bernardus de Bosto was motivated, of course, by his opponent's desire for revenge, but it also expressed explicitly the defiance of an outsider who disregardedthehonoroftheurbancommunityrepresentedbythislawyer.His facialdisfigurementwas,metaphoricallyspeaking ,aslapinthefaceoftheurban authorities.Hence,asTurningargues,thecityhadtoendeavormassivepublic courtproceedingsandtobringtheopponent,StephanusSaletas,totrial.However, theauthoritiesofhishomecity,Villamuro,balkedatthatidea,andtheentireaffair enteredintoapublicstrugglefordominanceamongthesecities,quicklyspilling intotheneighboringspaceoutsideoftherespectivecitywalls.Ultimately,Saletas was handed over and thrown into prison, questioned, and tortured, but the sourcesdonotrevealtheoutcomeofthetrial.Nevertheless , the general case clearly shows how much urban space and individual space could easily compete, not forgetting that other forces are involved at smaller and larger scales, all of which show how much a medieval city is at the crossroads of countless political, social, groupings and organizations. religious and cultural. As Jean E. Jostre observes in her haunting analysis of Chaucer's The Knight's Tale, the space within a city represents more than just a physical entity, but also gives identity to the individual protagonists. Some spaces are protective, others are dangerous, and some are a mixture of both for the urban environment, as it developed in the late Middle Ages, offered, as it still does today, a multitude of different possibilities for individuals to hold their interests and carry their ordinary lives.
295
See also Lia B. Ross' contribution to this volume. The difficulties for even the most powerful cities were most evident in the case of 16th-century Nuremberg, as the Meistersinger and shoemaker poet Hans Sachs reflects in his Stadtencomia. See the contribution to this volume by Albrecht Classen.
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places. But even more interesting are the surrounding border areas, where travelers arrive and depart, major events take place and decisions are made. Finally, Canterbury Tales are based on a pilgrimage that runs through the most diverse spaces, both proto-urban and urban, hence the importance of borders as key crossing points. As Jost illustrates, Chaucers strategically operates with a variety of spaces within the city and its fringes, forcing his protagonists to explore the various options within each for their own purposes. Although the city is regularly surrounded by a wall, the interior does not guarantee total protection, harmony and happiness as is the case with Athena in Chaucer's tale, especially when Duke Theseus finds the weeping widows nearby and dismounts from his horse, causing the the social differences between them are blatantly blurred. On another level, love blossoms on the outskirts of the city as well, as the lovely lady in the garden can be glimpsed from the gate through a prison tower window. The orchard, with multiple symbolic meanings, serves above all to deepen the love story, problematized by the physical and social barrier that separates the two knights and their lady - they are prisoners, she is a princess. Even Theseus' palace proves to be an extremely important setting for each character, and the narrator clearly signals that much space is the critical setting for key elements of Chaucer's text. Indeed, there seems to be a stillness in the city, and the individual spaces begin to communicate with each other in, no doubt, typically Chaucerian fashion. As Jost convincingly argues, his only part of The Knight's Tale proves to be the storyteller's keen interest in confined spaces, particularly cities, despite his having roamed the entire known world in search of knightly adventures himself. However, these spaces also clearly reflect external spaces within an urban setting. In other words, the knight tells the story of sushi with great emphasis on the urban world, as it is in the city and in the breasts that basic human conflicts find their strongest expression. Interestingly, the growing pains of late medieval cities seem to have been quite similar to those experienced by modern cities under comparable circumstances. This was the case in Paris as well as in London, the latter finding good reflection in numerous literary texts such as Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
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in urban life and using the city's social structure to address specific social problems and concerns characteristic of late medieval London. DanielF.PigghereexaminesthewayhowChaucerreflectsuponurbansociety andthetensionswithinthecityasreflectedinTheCook’sTale,wherethecentral conflict concerns the relationship between a footloose apprentice, Perkyn Revelour,andtheclassofguildsmen.ThisyoungmanservedChaucerexceedingly welltoexplorethemeaningofmasculinitywithinlatemedievalurbansociety wheretraditionalpowerstructureseasilycollidedwiththeinterestsofmigrant workersfromthecountrysideandespeciallytheyounggeneration(apprentices) whochallengedtheauthorityofthecraftsmenandstruggledhardtoestablish their own masculinity. In this respect, the story itself, despite its apparently fragmentary character, turns out to be basically complete, as the basic statement about social conflicts based on the idea of masculinity, especially the process of its formation in urban space, is clearly formulated. Pigg launches a global discussion of the emergence of guilds as constituent institutions in late medieval cities that relied heavily on a strong system of regulation for all their members, particularly apprentices who were usually kept under tight control and required submission to their master, so they almost replaced his own father. The main concern of the guild men was to prevent their apprentices from having sex and marrying. In other words, the relationship between apprentice and master turned out to be a central crossroads where the male individual explored masculinity and tried to establish his own sexual identity. The cook's position in late medieval urban society proved unstable and easily the object of ridicule and public scorn, making the whole narrative scenario even more problematic in terms of the young man's quest for manhood. Furthermore, as Pigg now suggests, cooking also evoked strong sexual connotations, which are strongly reflected in the chef as narrator, who finds himself in a rather awkward position vis-à-vis the host, who as innkeeper chefs, when working independently, of course as strong competitors. Interestingly, the apprentice Perkyn in Cook's Tale doesn't quite live up to the moral standards expected of young men like him, who enjoy the city's nightlife to the fullest, but not exactly in the traditional male role of the utterly unproductive member of their society. who eventually throws him out, disgusted by his lack of manhood and disregard for traditional customs.
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As he proves to be unproductive, urban society, based on crafts and guilds, distances himself from this young man, which also allows the narrator to interrupt his story, whether it is a fragment or not. If the apprentice does not recognize the masculinity expected of him, and if he disregards the traditional constraints of a late medieval urban society that relied heavily on production, services, crafts, and guilds as an organizational structure, the master has only the option of letting him go. As Pigg suggests, unproductive masculinity was simply not tolerated in medieval cities, which sheds important light on the deep tensions and anxieties in late fourteenth-century urban society, particularly after the Black Death. Contrary to popular assumptions about the role of urban women in the late medieval and early modern periods, as a collective they were not simply required to spend all of their time in the domestic sphere of the home under the control of a husband or father, confined to their typical roles as daughters, mothers, wives and widows. We have known for a long time that such generalizing concepts have more to do with ideological projections than with socio-historical realities, which differ notably from time to time and from region to region. Guilds prevented most women from working as artisans. While there are clear indications that women increasingly lost status and influence in the early modern market economy, for example in Cologne after 1550 and also in Ghent, this was not synonymous with the establishment of an absolutely patriarchal system.
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Martha C. Howell, Women, Production, and Patriarchy in Late Medieval Cities. Women in Culture and Society (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986); Albrecht Classen, “Women as Book Printers in the German-Speaking World of the 16th and 17th Centuries,” Gutenberg Jahrbuch75(2000):181–95;id., “Women in the 17th Century Book Printer Trade. Continuation of a late medieval tradition and refutation of an ancient myth. Preliminary methodological considerations to illuminate the role of female printers,” Gutenberg Jahrbuch (2001): 220–36; , De Wivesto Widows in Early Modern Paris: Gender, Economy, and Law.
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Just allow us to draw analogies with the situation in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. To explore this theme further, Shennan Hutton here examines the situation of women in 14th-century Ghent, where the city's extensive woolen cloth industry brought many profits and where there were few markets in which women could carve out a significant niche for themselves. same. Focusing on Ghent, one of North West Europe's most powerful, influential and economically prosperous cities, Hutton's research promises to shed light on the more global conditions for women within the wider network of wool traders who focus on wool products. high quality. An important observation concerns the differences in roles and spaces that men and women occupy within the urban community. However, even in some of the most important markets, women occupied intermediate positions and could carry on their own trade there, although undoubtedly on a smaller scale, and not in the wholesale trade, which, by specific city regulations, was dominated by male representatives. of the richest families. Still, Hutton points out, they had a good chance in the middle position and went about their business energetically and efficiently. Due to the smaller scale of their trade, they could not really compete with the big textile wholesalers, so they could occupy a female space that was itself significant but not threatening to their male counterparts. The journey further suggests that many of the stalls run by women were passed down to women across generations, supporting the observation that there were specific female spaces in urban markets, whether these supported female status in the city or the male prerogatives in question. That is, within urban society there were privileged spaces for women and other forms. Or women could keep theirs, even if they didn't have the right to rise to the top of the trade in certain products. For example, the situation of women in the world of butchers was very different because butchers gained complete control over their profession and, more importantly, excluded women from the profession. If they ventured inside, they would be considered prostitutes and fallen women, and they wouldn't even think of opening their own stalls there. Women were also excluded from the pool of innkeepers willing to reap the greatest profits from international trade by providing room and board.
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Hutton,however,alsoalertsustoalternativemarkets,suchastheFridayMarket, wherewomencouldcertainlybecomeactiveasmerchantsandplayasignificant roleinthespicetrade,forinstance,orasmercers,andthisbothascustomersand sellers.Italldependsonthespecificsituation,ontheproductsoldonthemarkets, andonthetraditionalgenderrolesintheparticulartrade.Ofcourse,therewere gender markers and gender lines, and of course patriarchy held on to its traditionalpowerbasewhereverpossible.ButasthesituationinGhentindicates, genderwasnottheonlyandallpervasivecriterionallowingordenyingwomen entrancetotheprofessionoftraders.Spacecouldbenegotiated, and some women in the prosperous city of Ghent knew only too well how to navigate the complex web of commercial relationships, traditionally gender-privileged spaces in respective markets, and the general economic structure. Contrary to certain assumptions about late medieval cities and towns as harmonious, law-abiding, peaceful communities where artisans and merchants worked together most productively, we must recognize that urban communities could easily become hotbeds of social unrest, class conflict and violence by individuals who were side by side on the dividing line of offices fighting for specific political goals that could be confused with concerns about the position of the king or the most powerful members of the royal family. Ross' contribution to this volume. She is interested in the ambiguous nature of this revolt, part urban uprising, part court coup d'état, and the relationship that developed between popular and aristocratic parties. Drawing on contemporary sources and modern sociological insights, Ross suggests that this revolt may have been the result of external political manipulations and covert strategies with no specific goals.
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See the various contributions to Emotions in the Heart of the City (14th–16th Century), ed. Elodie LecuppreDesjardinandAnneLaureVanBruaene,2005(loc.cit.);ErnstPiper,DerAufstand der Ciompi: on the riots incited by the “wool workers” in Early Renaissance Florence. Wagenbachs Taschenbücherei, 49 (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1978; with many reprints);
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urban affairs; instead, they were developed by France's great powers, who used the streets of Paris as a stage for their political interests. While the general motivation behind this revolt finds its explanation in wider "national" tensions between France's ruling houses, its most poignant expression is found in the urban conflicts of Paris, arguably the most effective stage for the struggle for national supremacy. Johannes was bold enough to defend himself immediately afterwards, pointing out that the king's life was in danger as a result of Louis' violent political maneuvers. The population was more willing to accept this explanation because the sacrifice was apparently hated for its association with court corruption and waste. Once the crowd took to the streets, their rage was unstoppable, as has been seen repeatedly in recent times when mass movements take control of a city. Yet, as Ross argues, the mafia did not act entirely on its own, but somehow followed more or less subtle directives from the outside and was manipulated by ducal interests that had nothing to do with urban concerns in the strict sense, known to be regional. and national With the intention of triggering revolutions,298 the Cabochina revolt was quickly dispatched by the threat posed by the princely armies. In addition to the lack of material resources to confront the nobility, Ross sensitively observes, the urban population also seems to have been greatly handicapped by an abstract identification with royalty and therefore did not pursue any reformist aspirations during the brief success. Instead, concludes Ross, the insurgents explicitly sought to maintain traditional privileges and rules and saw themselves as protectors of the royal house, much to the latter's chagrin, except perhaps to conquer themselves. This attitude may have been more typical of Paris than of other cities, such as Flanders and northern Italy, where urban revolts were directed much more specifically against local power structures and were shared (perhaps to a lesser extent) by Londoners. , who also had a strong sense of identification with the royal court and therefore could not really be successful in any kind of revolt in the late Middle Ages.
298
See, for example, Dennis E. Gale, Understanding Urban Unrest (London: Sage, 1996).
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Thecabochienrevoltpowerfullyillustratesthehighlycomplexnatureoflate medieval urban structures, the conflictual web of interests amongst various groups,thenewfoundpowerofthemob,andyetalsoitsopennesstopolitical manipulationsbyhigherforces,suchasthemightyFrenchbaronsanddukes.In fact,rapidlyswitchingtomoderntimes,wecanactuallyconfirmthatmanymajor revolutionsstartedwithincities,thatis,centersofgreatpopulationaggregates,so the analysis of latemedieval urban unrest can shed important light on contemporaryconcernsaswell.299 Latemedievalurbanlifeisintimatelyassociatedwiththemerchantclass. De fato, os interesses e as atividades comerciais sempre moldaram, se não dominaram, as cidades em todos os tempos e na maioria das culturas, o que ainda pode ser verdade hoje. il Burchiello (geb. ca. 1390–1400;d.ca.1448)whocreatedratherbizarrepoetry,butenjoyedconsiderable popularityathistime,althoughmodernscholarshiphasmostlydisregardedhim astrivialorirrelevant,yetprobablynotforreallyconvincingreasons.Significantly, manyotherpoetsfollowedBurchiello'smodel,andhemightactuallybeidentified astheinitiatorofawholemovementoffifteenthcenturyItaliancomicpoetry.His œuvrefocusesspecificallyontheordinarylifeinthecity,whichmakeshistexts sosignificantfortheexplorationofthelargertopicpursuedinthisvolume,urban spaceinitsculturalandmentalhistoricalframework. Em um soneto "E merchatantidellamia Fiorenza" (1457), provavelmente composto por um dos muitos imitadores de Burchiello, que Alfienow finalmente apresenta em uma edição crítica, toda a ambivalência da sociedade urbana italiana medieval tardia em relação à classe mercantil e a considerável influência do enorme capital os ganhos podem ser vistos
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Ulrich Meier, "Molterivoluzioni, moltenovità: Social Change in the Mirror of Political Philosophy and in the Judgment of Urban Chroniclers in the Late Middle Ages," Social Change in the Middle Ages: Forms of Perception, Patterns of Explanation, Mechanisms of Control, ed. Jürgen Miethke and Klaus Schreiner (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1994), 119-76. Horst Brunner, The Old Masters: Studies in the Tradition and Reception of Middle High German Singing Poets in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. Munich Texts and Studies on German Literature from the Middle Ages, 54 (Munich: Beck, 1975); Fritz Langensiepen, Tradition und Mediation: Historical-Literary and Didactic Investigations on Hans Folz. Philological Studies and Sources, 102 (Berlin: Schmidt, 1980); Winfried Frey, “The Intimate Other: Hans Folz's 'Christian and Jew' Dialogue,” Meeting the Foreign in the Middle Ages, ed. Albrecht Classen (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), 249–6.
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os recém-adquiridos, especialmente dos banqueiros, vêm à tona e formam a base para o humor poético específico e a crítica ideológica de Burchiello. Althoughatfirstsightthesonnetseemstobelongtopoetrycomposedonthe streetforcoarseentertainment,Alfie'scarefulphilologicalandliteraryhistorical analysisindicatesthatthepoet,assumingthefirstpersonvoiceofawoolbeater, certainlyalludedtothenotoriousCiompiriotsof1387andunderscoredhowmuch powertheurbanmassesstillheldagainstthemerchantclass.Moreover,thereare sufficientsignalsandallusionsinthetexttoconfirmBurchiello'shighlevelof familiaritywiththehistoryofFlorentineliterature.Afterall,Dante,towhomhe refersexplicitly,hadalreadyrailedagainstthepotentiallyevilnatureofmerchants inhisInferno,andotherpoetshadalsodrawnfromthistopos, so Burchiello's sonnetcontinuesalongstandingtraditionwithintheurbandiscourse.301 Itmightactuallybepossiblethatthetextwasintendedtoappealtothenobility becausetheywereparticularlythreatenedbytheeconomicriseofthemerchant class,andthenarrativevoiceconsistentlysuggeststhatthearistocraticworldwas indangerofbeingunderminedbythesenouveauxriches.302Also,therichwebof intertextualallusionstoolderandcontemporaryItalianpoetswhohadvoiced similarconcernsandhencehadalsoreliedonthetropeofinvectivesagainstthe A estranha onda de poder capitalista através do comércio de mercadorias confirma essa impressão. Alfie points out the significant parallel between the invectives against the merchantsinpseudoBurchiello'ssonnetontheonehand,andtherichtradition ofinvectivesagainstoldwomen(thevituperatiovetulaetopos),bothaggressively associatedwithpervasivesinfullifestyles.Themostcuriouselement,however,of thesonnetconsistsoftheambivalentsocialpositionthewoolbeaterassignsto himself.Althoughwoolbeatersbelongedtosomeofthelowestclassesinlate medieval Florence, the poet voice strongly suggests this association with the nobilityinhisstarkoppositionagainstthemerchants,perhapsusingthefigureof the woolbeater apenas como uma máscara para sua verdadeira identidade para representar Burchiello com sucesso. Isso também explicaria por que a ideia poética idealiza o valor da estrutura de classe tradicional, embora com a desvantagem prática de
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302
There may be significant parallels with the poetry of Oswald von Wolkenstein, who made similar arguments against the merchant class, see his poem Ainburgherundainhofman (Cl. 25) quoted above. This phenomenon has been studied for a long time; see Erich Maschke's now classic study, "La Mentalité des marchands européens au moyen âge", Revue d'histoire économiqueetsociale42(1962):457-84; ). See also Kathryn L. Reyerson, “The MerchantsoftheMediterranean:MerchantsasStrangers,” TheStrangerinMedieval Society, ed. FRP Akehurst and Stephanie Cain Van D'Elden. Medieval Cultures, 12 (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 1-13; Jennifer Kermode, Medieval Merchants: York, Beverly and Hullin the Later Middle Ages, 1998.
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woolbeaterstowhichheallegedlybelonged.Atanyrate,thissonnetprovides excellent insight into the social discourse within earlyRenaissance poetic discoursewhichpoignantlytookaimatthechangesintheclassstructurebecause oftheunstoppableriseofthemerchantclassbasedontheirmonetarypower.303 Medievalandearlymoderncitiesprovetobehighlyfascinatingentities,certainly muchmorecomplexintheirconstitutivepolitical,social,economic,andreligious componentsthancommonlyassumed.Morespecifically,theydonotrepresent,as wearewonttothink,localitiesfortheburgherclassalone,almostlikebulwarks againsttheexternalruralworldstilldominatedbymedievalfeudalstructuresand forces.Instead,asJanHirschbiegelandGabrielZeilingerdemonstrate,wecanalso observe intricate and complex interchange between the nobility and the bourgeoisie. Scholarship, however, has mostly focused on the clear separation between court and bourgeois culture, regularly studying only one or the other, although the evidence points in the opposite direction. and moving east,305 but that is not the subject of Hirschbiegel and Zeilinger's investigation. Instead, they focus on events in smaller cities, where both layers of society seem to have regularly met and shared many experiences. The two authors convincingly argue that small towns were a distinctive feature of the urban fabric of the Holy Roman Empire and therefore had a major impact on world politics, either because they were the location of Prince Sorbishop's residence or because they were in close proximity to his residence. The best expression of common culture is found in public feasts, processions and ceremonies, when representatives of both social groups cooperate closely in ritual processes or public performances. One of these, the Council of Constance (1414-1418), turned out to be unique and highly significant.
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Peter Suford, Power and Profit: The Merchantin Medieval Europe (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2003). For previous efforts in this regard, see Hartmut Boockmann, Die Stadtimspäter Mittelalter.2nded. (1986; Munich: C.H. Beck, 1987); id., Princes, Citizens, Nobles: Pictures of Life in the Late Middle Ages (Munich: CH Beck, 1994). I have already discussed this phenomenon in a different context to illustrate the increasing economic, political and cultural exchanges between Germany and Italy in the late Middle Ages, in the reception of the northern Italian culture of the Trecento in the work of Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376/77 –1445). The oldest social historical research literature is listed there.
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a long-lasting event, as almost the entire medieval world seems to have gathered where important decisions about the local and global status of the church were made, and where territorial and imperial policies were established and then implemented. Poets and artists gathered in Constance, public entertainment was of the utmost importance, diplomats and lawyers from various parties and groups met and debated important issues. The chronicler Ulrich Richental reported in detail the most important events of the Council, which were also reflected in several other reports, including some poems by the South Tyrolean poet, landed gentry and statesman such as Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376-145). King Sigismund's entry into the city in December 1414, the ceremonial introitus, required extensive preparations involving the entire population of the city and led to splendid ceremonies that expressed the esteem and power of the king, on the one hand, and the wealth of the citizens and political independence on the other. the other literally, considering, for example, the number of people who attended the move, and then the city itself had to find accommodation. Richental's chronicle turns out to be truly remarkable both for the detailed description of events and for the rich program of illustrations. Althoughthespectaculareventseemstohavebeenhighlyexceptional,bringing theeverydaylifeexperiencetoahalt,almosttheoppositecanbeobservedtosome extent,asthetwoauthorsconfirm.Ofcourse,theexceptionalsituationcannotbe doubted,butthevariouschroniclesoutlineveryspecificallytheenhancingand profilingeffectoftheintroitus,sheddingintensivelightonthenormalconditions inthecitywhere,asHirschbiegelandZeilingerconclude,thecourtlyandthecivic met much more commonly and shared a considerable degree of interests and values.306
306
Thomas Zotz, “Adel in der Stadt des deutschen Spätmittelalters: Erscheinungsformen und Verhaltensweisen,”ZeitschriftfürdieGeschichtedesOberrheins141(1993):2250;PierreMonnet, “DoitonencoreparlerdepatriciatdanslesvillesallemandesdelafinduMoyenÂge?,”Bulletin delaMissionHistoriquefrançaiseenAllemagne32(1996):5466;MartinAurell,“WesternNobility intheLateMiddleAges,”NoblesandNobilityinMedievalEurope:Concepts, Origins, Transformations, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Rochester, NY: Boydell, 2000), 263-73, Edward Coleman, "Cities and Communes," Italy in the Central Middle Ages 1000-1300, ed. David Abulafia. The ShortOxfordHistoryofItaly(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,2004),27-57,255-57; Birgit Studt, "Remembrance and Identity: The Representation of Urban Elites in Late Medieval House and Family Books," House and Family Books in Urban Society of the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed.eadem (Colônia, Weimar e Viena: Böhlau , 2007),
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Astownsandcitiesgrewovertimeandreachedunforeseendimensionsinthelate Middle Ages, urban space also became increasingly the site for public entertainment,primarilyintheformofplays,oftenreligiousinnature,butthen alsoShrovetideplaysandothersecularplays.KlausAmannandMaxSillerfocus ontheareaofTyrol(todaysplitbetweenAustriaandItaly)andexaminetherich traditionofplayscomposedandperformedintheTyroleanurbancenters.These plays came into being parallel to a veritable explosion of popular songs that circulatedfarand wideandsoonmadetheirwayintooftenvoluminoussong collections,mostlycommissionedbywealthyburghersorpatricians. 307 One of the best-known love songs, "Isbruck, ichmusdichlassen", enjoyed great popularity until modern times and impressively reflects the strong attraction of urban centers as the stage for new types of identification processes. However, Amann and Siller have a particular focus on dramas, especially those collected and directed by Benedikt Debs and Vigil Raber. These shed important light on sociological and ideological aspects within the city, such as gender relations, class structures, ethical and moral issues, then political and economic relations, and finally, of course, they also illustrate issues of religious power and issues that have been debated. publicly and performed on stage. As the two authors note, the Passion Plays were regularly performed by male representatives of the upper echelons of society, while women were absent and therefore nobles, although they had their representatives in the city council of Bolzano, for example. Furthermore, the clergy are completely absent, suggesting that the plays served primarily for the self-identification of the upper-class lay population. Not surprisingly, some of the plays also contain subtle and not-so-subtle criticisms of chivalry, and therefore the aristocratic class.
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1–31;here3–5,offersanexcellentoverviewoftherelevantresearchliterature.NowseealsoPaul Oldfield,CityandCommunityinNormanItaly(CambridgeStudiesinMedievalLifeandThought. FourthSeries(Cambridge,NewYork,etal.:CambridgeUniversityPress,2009),184–225.Heoffers plentyofevidencepertainingtothespecialregioninSouthernItaly,whichcanalsobeusedin supportoftheclaimmadeherewithregardtotheinterminglingofthesocialclassesinConstance andotherSouthernGermancities. AlbrechtClassen,DeutscheLiederbücherdes15.und16.Jahrhunderts. Volksliedstudien,1 (Münster, Nova York, et al.: Waxmann, 2001).
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Adel.308 On the whole, however, conclude Amann and Siller, the other folk plays of Tyrolean towns in the late Middle Ages and early Modern Ages reflect a growing sense of urban culture and urban identity, despite many traditional elements that still dominated. The stage. Not only did urban life expand considerably in the late Middle Ages, but Chartists and writers increasingly drew on everyday experience and living conditions in cities, as I noted several times above. Connie Scarborough extends this observationthroughhercarefulreadingoftheSpanishComediadeCalistoyMelibea byFernandoRoja,firstprintedin1499andpublishedca.threeyearslaterina considerablyexpandedversionasTragicomediadeCalistoyMelibea.Indeed,here allthemajormovesbytheindividualprotagoniststhroughoutthecityunderscore therelevanceofurbanspaceasthenewsettingwhereallcentralaspectsoflifeare carriedout.Butthecityalsoprovidedtheframeworkforcrimesandallkindsof violence;henceventuringoutofthehousecouldbehighlydangerous,especially forthoseseekingeroticadventures.309Althoughanightwatchorguardianspatrol the streets, the Tragicomedia indicates how much people actually feared the lawlessnessofthenightinthecity.310 Another major characteristic of latemedieval urban life proves to be a clear notion of time determined by public clocks. It is clear that timekeeping was practiced during the Middle Ages, particularly in monasteries, but in Roja's early modern text we observe a new emphasis on time pressure and time sensitivity, structured by a mechanical device, the clock.311 Scarborough also identifies the importance of the square, the large central market, where criminals are punished in the presence of the entire population as witnesses and witnesses
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309 310
311
See, for example, Waltraud Hörsch, "The Aristocracy Within the Spell of Austria: Proximity Structures for Governing in the Aargau-Lucerne Area", Guy P. Marchal, Sempach1386: From the Beginnings of the Territorial State of Lucerne. Contributions to the early history of the canton of Lucerne (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1986), 353-403; Arend Mindermann, AdelinderStadtdesLatemittelalters:Göttingen und Stade1300bis1600,25-28. September 2004, Werner Paravicini edition, Residence research, 20 (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2006). See also Patricia Turning's contribution to this volume. Jean Verdon, Night in the Middle Ages, translation by George Holoch (1994; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002); For a critical analysis of time and measurement in the Middle Ages, see Camarin M. Porter, “Time Measurement and Chronology in Medieval Studies,” Handbook of Medieval Studies, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, in press).
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Public. At the same time, urban space is also determined by private spaces, such as houses with their living rooms and bedrooms and, above all, by the gardens where lovers meet (see also Jost's comments). For the narrative development of tragic media, and evidently an indirect reflection of late medieval urban life in Spain, at least, walls and doors represent important markers or dividing lines, indicating the complexity of urban space both externally and internally. Similar to Italian cities, towers also feature prominently in this cityscape (see Ambrogio Lorenzetti's frescoes, discussed above). But despite all the efforts of the upper class to differentiate itself from the lower class through architecture (walls, towers, gardens, etc.), in Tragicomedia the urban space becomes the place where both meet and mingle, interact and coexist. with each other. others in this dense residential area. Basically a brothel, however, Celestina's house is generally viewed with disrespect, as prostitution was generally viewed with very mixed feelings, although it played an important role in late medieval towns and was certainly much more tolerated than in later centuries. But even Celestina was forced to move her house from the center to the periphery and live on the edge where traditional ethics and morals were not so rigorously applied. Other typical aspects of urban life that are reflected in Roja's work relate to work, the role of serfs, money and wages, class distinctions based on individual wealth, and therefore also conflict between older aristocratic circles. and the new urban class, which is its income. of capitalist companies. As Albrecht Classen repeatedly confirms in his contribution, cities in the late Middle Ages and early Modern period became decisive centers of economic, political, artistic, spiritual, cultural and religious development. One of the best representations of this global paradigm shift can be found in the world chronicle of the Nuremberg physician and humanist Hartmann Schedel, the Liber Chronicarum (1495), to which important artists of his time, such as Albrecht Dürer, contributed important and outstanding woodcuts. of individual cities like Nuremberg, which were in the midst of This chronicle contains cityscapes or vedute from across Europe and even the Levant, including Constantinople and Jerusalem. This period is changing from earlier views of medieval towns which are bounded by their walls and allow the viewer only to observe the fortification system, city gates and perhaps some church towers and a castle. On the contrary, the artists of the heart, whose works have a compiled calendar, have made a great effort to always place the city in its context and open up many perspectives on the surroundings,
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signals the importance of the hinterland and the travel routes that connect a city to the whole country. But Classen's focus is not just on Schedel's work. Instead he aims for a broadlyconceivedcomparativeperspective,takingintoviewalsotheelaborate and variegated city encomia composed by the Nuremberg cobbler poet, Hans Sachs(1494–1576).Thesemightnotrankamongthebestvernacularsixteenth centurypoetry,butinourcontexttheyserveexceedinglywelltoillustratethe considerableinterestinthecityasthecentrallocationforagrowingnumberof peoplewhocertainlypreferredlivingwithinanurbancommunityratherthanin thecountryside.SachsownedacopyofSchedel'schronicle,andinhisLobspruch derstattNürnbergfrom1530hedevelopedanintriguinglycomplexperspectiveon thiscitywhichenjoyedsomeofthehighestreputationasanurbancenterallover Germanyduetothecrafts,arts,humanisticendeavors,andpoliticspracticedthere, and also for its architecture and striking urban spaces. The praise also proved to be an important vehicle in Sachs' political maneuvering to persuade the city government to lift the ban on his publications, which had become too political for Nuremberg's well-being in a dangerous military climate. Sachs therefore praises the entire city and, in this context, also provides detailed information about the specific characteristics of this imperial center. While this eulogy served an explicit political purpose, it shows how much the poet identified with Nuremberg and wanted to paint a glorious picture of the city's various social groups, government, crafts, and architecture. The key word here is “vatterland” (198, 37; homeland), but Sachs went a step further and described other places along his own travel route through the German-speaking area in his other city encyclopedias during his time as young newsboy with a similar civic pride was watching. At times, the poet even sought historical perspectives, as if he had taken this information from Schedel's chronicle or comparable works. Not content with focusing on the essentials of what constitutes a city, Sachs also included comments on urban spaces, as in his Encomium on Munich (1565), and on economic events, such as large fairs, as in his Encomium Frankfort (1568). . What is also fascinating about Sachs' Sencomia is the discussion of the roads leading to and from the various cities, then bridges, ports and markets, and also specific products sold by individual vendors in the city. This means that the emphasis is obviously also on the economic importance of the respective cities. On the other hand, there are also encomias, such as those of Hamburg (1569), which are limited almost exclusively to historical frameworks and dimensions. And in the case of Salzburg (1549), Saxony even mentions the occupation of book printer—certainly one of the most important new occupations in early modern cities.
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Although often derided by modern scholars for certain perceived shortcomings, Sachse is emerging as a notable spokesman for urban culture and urban identity, particularly for its senkomia, in the spirit of Hartmann Schedel's Welchronik. Whether we can identify any of them with the Renaissance in the strictest sense remains questionable, or at least vague. However, both impressively document the city's remarkable importance to the culture, mentality, politics and, above all, individual identity of early modernity. To some extent, Sachs followed the pictorial model developed in Schedel's Chronicle, and it can be argued that the Chronicle provided a good framework for the poet to create his Stadtencomia. We rarely hear from women what they thought about the city they lived in and about modern urban society in general. A remarkable exception proves to be Isabella Whitney's “Wyll and Testament”from1573inwhichshereflectswithastoundingclarityandperception onLondonandthesocialillsthataffectitscommunity,deeplydeterminedby excessivemonetaryvaluesandalackofethicalideals.Infact,asMarilynSandidge illustratesinhercontributiontothisvolume,Whitneyemergesasaquitevocal critic of her world, exposing the extensive poverty and squalor in sixteenth centuryLondon.Butshewasnot,asearliercriticshaveassumed,amemberofthe lowestsocialclasses;insteadwemaysafelyarguethatWhitneybelongedtothe middleclassthatalsosufferedbadlyfromeconomicwoes, asautobiographical references in her text, but then especially the concrete criticism against the behavioroftheupperclassindicate.Consideringwhatshepublishedandwhom sheselectedasherprinters,wecanbecertainthatWhitneybelongedtoasmallbut dedicatedandactivegroupofearlymodernEnglishurbanliterati.Inthisregard wemightwellcompareherwithChristinedePizan(d.1432),asamoreorless independentandintellectualwriterofhertimewhoprosperedbecauseofher individualskillasawriterandbecauseofhertopics,focusing,especiallyinher “WyllandTestament,”onsocialproblemsinthecity. The author poetically addresses London as a lover of herself, but laments how the city has failed her and the thousands of others who cannot survive in the city for lack of money and jobs. Contrary to traditional city accolades, Whitney mostly ignores church structures or institutions; Instead, it draws our attention to public squares and crowded streets. While she emphasizes the richness and complexity of the city as such, she also deplores the pollution, noise, poor living conditions and therefore tends to view London in a negative light. In her "Wylland Testament", Whitney also sketches the economic structure of London in remarkable detail, showing where different types of food are sold, where the various artisans have their workshops and where doctors and pharmacists can be found to help people with their needs. needs. need help medical care
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needs.Heretheauthorembarks,asSandidgeobserves,onanincreasinglycritical strategy,revealingthesocialwoesthatbadlybesetearlymodernLondon,andshe doesnotneglecttomentiontheprostitutesandbathhouses,clearlyprofilingthe strongcontrastsbetweenthepoorandthewealthy,betweensocialmiseryand aristocratic luxury, underscoring the injustice and inequality characteristic of sixteenthcenturyurbansociety.Thisfindsitsmostimpressiveexpressioninher discussionoftheprisonsthatwerefilledtoalargeextentwithpeoplewhosimply couldnotpaytheirdebtsanddidnotgeta‘bailout’asinmodernsocietyduring the current global economic crisis (2009). Relief for the poor was sparse and the economic and social suffering great, Whitney noted. The final comments in Wylland's Testament concern the legal system and the Inns of Court, which are far from the center of the city and safe from the filth and poverty that dominated the heart of London. It may be, as Sandidge speculates, that Whitney intended this last section of her text as an appeal to young law students to uphold justice and provide future legal aid to those languishing in prisons because they cannot pay their debts. While Whitney does not appear to have pursued an aggressive program in her social commentary, she certainly appealed to her audience to reach out to those in need, both financially and medically, and thus seek an overall betterment of metropolitan life under explicitly social conditions. Whereasmostofthecontributionstothisvolumeconcentrateonurbanspaceand citiesthatdevelopedincentral,southern,orwesternEuropeduringtheMiddle Agesandbeyond(butseePnarKayaalp'sarticle),MichaelE.Boninetakesusto theMiddleEastwhereurbanculturehadalreadyplayedasignificantrolesince thetimeoftheancientGreekandRomancivilizations.However,withthecoming of the Islamic religion, many aspects of urban culture changed considerably, deeplydeterminedbyshari'a(Islamiclaw)andthelocalcustomarylaw(urf).One ofthemostimportantcentralpointsintheMuslimcitywaswaqf,orreligiously Donated property that can be discovered in many different countries where the Islamic religion prevailed. Contrary to traditional views of the usual waqf structure existing in unchanging traditional patterns, Bonine shows that the waqf has undergone tremendous organic changes over time and depending on the specific context. In other words, her essay provides important information about economic and social structures, developments and
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It functions as a central social institution in the urban context of the Middle East, extending to the most diverse countries where Islam prevails. As Bonine points out, Waq Fass encompassed secular, economic and political as well as spiritual ritual functions, perhaps similar to the numerous cathedrals of medieval Europe, although social obligations to the lower classes seem to have been stronger in the East than in the West. in all moments. The Waqf provided rental income for religious facilities within the city, although it was also subject to very specific regulations, laws and rents. But the waqf can also become private property and therefore subject to very fluid economic forces and regulations. Most commonly,asBonineillustrates,waqfownedcommercialpropertyandprovided itwiththenecessarymeanstocarryoutitssocialfunctions,suchastosupporta mosque,tomaintainpublicfountains,ortoprovidewelfarefortheneedy.Because ofitspeculiarcharacter,waqfcouldbeflexibleunderspecificcircumstances,even circumventingIslamiclaw(shari’a).Insomecasesthisinstitutioncouldalsopursue goalsverydifferentfromthoseinitiallyassociatedwiththeendowment,which hadoftenbeenestablishedbymembersoftherulinghouses. Afterhavinglaiddowntheprinciplesofwaqf,Bonineturnstoawiderangeof individualcasestudies,includingConstantinople/Istanbul,OttomanAleppoand Cairo,Damascus,Jaffa,SafavidIsfahan,Balk(Afghanistan),QajarTabriz(Iran), andevenJerusalem.Whetherthewaqfcontributedtothegrowingdensityofcity buildings, or whether its establishment affected the opposite depends on the variouscontexts,sobothphenomenacanactuallybeobserved.Sometimesrural propertyservedforthefinancialsupportoftheurbanwaqf, sometimes urban space was cleared for the construction of new buildings for the waqf, and sometimes the waqf initiated construction of a cemetery. As Bonine concludes, in many cases the waqf did indeed contribute to the increase in density of the medina, but in other cases the ownership of the waqf led to decay and therefore a decline in urban density. In any case, Bonine's article allows us to understand the nature of urban space in the Islamic world from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the modern period from socio-religious, economic and political perspectives, combined with insights into the urban planning of according to Muslim principles and ideals. Despite the bitter military and religious conflicts between Christian Europeans and the Ottoman Empire, there is no doubt that to fully understand the culture and history of the 16th and 17th centuries, we must include the Islamic world equally in our global investigations. Urban development in architectural, economic and cultural terms also took place and very strongly in the eastern Mediterranean regions.
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Pnar Kayaalp challenges us to remember that Istanbul was one of the largest European cities in the mid-16th century. It focuses on a recent building project, the Mihrumah Mosque Complex (külliye) in the Üskudar district of the Bosphorus in 1543, as an example of modern urban planning that included public and private buildings, imperial structures and religious buildings, mainly mosques. While Üskudar was previously just an army and trading post, it has now transformed into a true urban center of great significance, shedding important light on how city planning took place in the Ottoman Empire during a time we would now identify as the Renaissance. Both members of the imperial household and wealthy merchants, not to forget representatives of religious communities, recognized the founding of the Mihrümah mosque complex as the most convenient and attractive new urban avenue where they could withdraw from the busy city across the Bosphorus and enjoy this serene coastal coast. Many mosques were also erected there. But Uskudar was not just a place of concentration of mosques and palaces. Overtime, schools, stables, barracks and other public buildings were dismantled. More importantly, Kayaalp can convincingly demonstrate how conscious planning has driven the growth of this new urban center in a way that is both aesthetically pleasing and pragmatically effective, indeed not far removed from the urban planning of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. in the rest of Europe. Furthermore, Üskudar continued to serve as a central location for caravanserai, where large contingents of foreign merchants could rest, prepare for the upcoming journey, and also sell their wares. Overall, Kayaalp says, the careful planning and design of this new city served many different purposes and brought administrative, religious, educational, commercial, military, and charitable functions together in one place. Examining how Üskudar was founded and then developed over the centuries, she impressively traces how an Ottoman city emerged and then grew organically over time, an interesting test case for the history of the early modern city. We often read that early modern European women experienced a significant decline in their public status and were increasingly forced to withdraw from their domestic sphere due to male pressures, especially patriarchal ones. For
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The year 1500 is usually seen as a decisive turning point for the dominance of patriarchal power structures, which is reflected in the rise of capitalist modes of production, less and less anchored in the family and, therefore, mostly excluded from women. However, we have already seen in Shennan Hutton's essay in this volume how a careful analysis of local conditions, for example in Ghent, can oblige us to change this perception and treat this whole complex of problems with much more care and openness. Martha Moffitt Peacock takes the next bold step by examining how 17th-century Dutch Chartists represented women, which quickly provides a stark contrast to the prescriptive and dull language of contemporary didactic writers like Jacob Cats. For example, guilds were not particularly reluctant to admit women into guild ranks, and we find ample evidence of women's active participation in economic life, both as producers and sellers, but also as buyers. In other words, the extensive corpus of 17th-century Dutch paintings that focus on market scenes provides solid evidence that public life was not simply male-dominated. On the contrary, as Peacock points out, in many of these genre paintings, men standing or sitting in the background are portrayed as passive and even helpless, while individual women are portrayed as active, energetic, self-confident and dominant. without drawing scorn or derision to the painters, these dominant roles apparently reversed. The Netherlands was perhaps the exception to the rule when it came to the influence of women in its society, with many travelers reporting in amazement on the impact that Dutch women had on their civic communities. This finds confirmation in a number of social factors and legal traditions that seem to have benefited women's independence and power in this culture. Furthermore, much of this unique development is related to urbanization and the huge economic boom that Holland experienced in the 17th century. Most of these clues point to the realistic character of market scenes in seventeenth-century Dutch painting, which most dramatically emphasize the renewed or newly gained strength of women in all spheres of city life. Not surprisingly, we also find a number of paintings depicting women as rulers, here appearing as powerful and independent individuals. This also finds clear expression in the warm representation of large numbers of buyers or buyers who, as a social group, most clearly dominate urban commerce, at least according to art history.
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Evidence Finally, here we see women controlling, distributing, collecting or distributing the money and governing the marketing economic lifeline of the city. As Peacock points out, the images don't just show ordinary women as consumers; Heartists often show elegantly dressed women out shopping, reflecting the general increase in prosperity in 17th-century Dutch urban society. Furthermore, when inflation hit the markets, women knew how to exercise their muscles, as various stories of revolts attest. It is likely, therefore, that Dutch artists created their works mainly for female clients, who obviously prided themselves on their independence and economic and political power. The city's triumph also laid the groundwork for women to overcome old patriarchal stereotypes and prejudices, as well as the disrespect and disadvantage that accompanied these ancient traditions. When did city-dwellers in medieval and early modern Europe begin to find the pollution of their cities and the uncontrolled dumping of rubbish and excrement in streets and squares not only distasteful, but repugnant and intolerable? At the beginning of this introduction, I discussed a student's strategy against the pedestrians that regularly rest in the yard just below the student's window, as described in a joke. For him, being constantly confrontedwiththeexcrementalsmell,thesituationsoonbecomesunbearable, whichforceshimtotakeenergeticstepstoscarethepeasantsandchasethem away.Inotherwords,therewasaclearsensealreadyatthattimethatdefilingthe city,whereveritmightbe,constitutedaninsulttohumansensesandwasnot reallyacceptable.AndBrittC.L.Rothauser,inhercontributiontothisvolume, focusingonfourteenthandearlyfifteenthcenturyEnglishtexts,findsplentyof evidence already pointing into that direction.312 But as Allison P. Coudert can
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InherreviewofSusanSigneMorrison'sExcrementintheLateMiddleAges(2008),ValerieAllen correctlypointsoutthatitmightbesomewhatmisleadingtosubscribetothegeneralizingnotion thatbythelateMiddleAgesurbanauthoritiesincreasinglydealtwithhumanexcrementasdirt andasdespicablematterthathadtoberemovedoutofsightandsmell.Certainly,excrementwas dirt,butthenegativeorpositive(!)connotationofdirtdependsverymuchonitspracticaluse (suchasfertilizer)oruselessness,andalsoonthelocationwhereitisdeposited.Inparticular,she referstoToftGreeninfifteenthandsixteenthcenturyYorkthat“wastheonlywideopenspace positionedinsidethecitywalls,inthesouthwest,besideMicklegateBar.Itwastherethatcattle markets and weekly horsemarkets were held (yielding muito esterco), e o local também ostentava um grande aterro para despejar lixo municipal e lixo, que fornecia fertilizante para o solo e as plantações” (The Medieval Review, online, 03/09/08). Ver também Angelo Raine, Mediaeval York: A Topographical SurveyBased on Original Sources (Londres: John Murray, 1955), 244-45. Allen então passa para uma pesquisa muito mais interdisciplinar a esse respeito: "Talvez seja hora de o estudo literário da escatologia combinar sua apreciação do significado simbólico e cultural dos excrementos com o conhecimento científico da arqueologia, análise química do solo e o
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Pointing out the fundamental problem, namely the lack of adequate bathrooms and a functioning sewage system, did not find an easy solution and led to a real paradigm shift in the 18th century, which led people to react vehemently and radical protests to the pollution of urban space reacted by human excrement. in the 18th century, a scientific revolution related to the sense of smell took place, which subsequently led to odors and all kinds of waste being strictly condemned as unacceptable for society. AsCoudertobserves,afterthegreatfireofLondonin1666,profoundchanges tookaffectconcerningpublichygiene,expressedinnewbuildingcodesespecially concerningthetreatmentofwasteproducts.WriterssuchasSwiftandDefoeand artistssuchasHogarthtookclearnoteofthedisgustingappearanceofDublinor Londonandsatirizedboththeurbanpopulationandthegovernmentintheirwitty criticismconcerningwidespreaddepositingofdirt.Butcontinentalwriterssuch asJohannWolfgangGoethealsoobservedwithdisgusttheextenttowhichcities were soiled everywhere. For Pierre Chauvet, Paris was the "centre of stink", which obviously reflected a lot of public sentiment. Mostsignificantly,Coudertattributesthischangingattitudetowarddirtand refuse to the development of a new hypersensitivity to foul odors especially among the upper classes, and explains this as a reaction to new scientific discoveriesregardingthehighlyheterogenouscompositionofairatlargewhich couldeasilycarrydangerousgerms(miasmatheory).Commonlypeoplevoiced greatconcernaboutallkindsoffissuresoutofwhichcouldemergeevilsmells, whichwasnolongernaivelyassociatedwithsuffumigationcomingfromHell,but insteadwithdangerousgasesexitingfromtheearth.Modernsciencehadentered theworldofhygiene,andsuddenlytheuppersocialclasses,especiallyincities, tried to stand out from the lower classes in terms of smell. The nose was used to distinguish the rich and powerful from the poor and downtrodden, and smells in 18th and 19th century cities were a crucial tool for differentiating social classes. However, as Coudert points out, this does not mean that these elites could easily clean up all the filth and stench around them, as efforts to install modern sewer systems have been slow and not as effective as desired. But the snide remarks and general ridicule of those whose hygiene did not meet newly defined social standards offered the upper class a strategy to switch off.
environmental studies."
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theireyestotherealityofhumanlife,henceoftheactualhygienicconditionsof theirtime.Nevertheless,forthembodyodor,orratherlackthereof,hadsuddenly becomeamajormarkerofsocialclassattribution.313 Asthecontributionstothisvolumedemonstrate,andascountlessnewresearch projects, book publications, and conference activities indicate, the world of medieval and earlymodern urban space proves to be a most fascinating and productivetopicthatinvitesevernewanalysis.Bystudyingurbancultureand urbanpopulations,byexaminingtheliteraryandarthistoricalevidencereflecting medievalcities Somos rapidamente colocados em uma posição extremamente poderosa para obter mais informações sobre uma riqueza de diversos aspectos relevantes para a história econômica, política, cultural, religiosa e artística. . . . South Italian urban communitieswereconstantlyinapositiontomakechoices,andchoicesbrought avoiceandpower....Atthesametimethereisagreaterevidenceofthefluidity ofthesocialorderingofurbancommunities,whilethenotionofcitizenshipand civicidentityacquiredgreaterarticulation.”314Herightlywarnsusnottoequate modernnotionsof“apovertystrickenSouth”withtheactualurbanconditionsin theMiddleAgeswhenthecitizenswereconsiderablymorecapabletoexpress their political opinion and to establish a certain degree of freedom and independencethanwemightassumetoday.315Thecontributorstoavolumewith proceedingsresultingfromaninternationalconferenceonasimilartopicheldat Nájera, Spain, in 2006, mostly confirm essas observações, no entanto, concentram-se principalmente na situação da Península Ibérica.316
313
314 315
316
For a slightly different point of view, see Ulrich Rosseaux, Städteinder Fruehen Neuzeit. Gesamtkompakt (Darmstadt: Wissenliche Buchgesellschaft, 2006), which warns us not to project too quickly from general statements about poor hygienic conditions in nineteenth-century cities to those in the Middle East in early modern times. Culture and Mentality (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2009), 40-41. Paul Oldfield, City and Community in Norman Italy, 264. Oldfield, City and Community, 265. See also Bea Lundt, Europas Aufbruchin die Neuzeit 1500-1800), 39-52. Laciudadmedievalysuinfluenciaterritorial:Nájera.EncuentrosinternacionalesdelMedievo2006,ed. Beatriz Arízaga Bolomburu and Jesús Ángel Solórzano Telechea (Logroño: Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 2007).
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Inthisregard,thestudiesassembledherepromise,asIhope,toshedfurtherlight onfundamentalaspectsofmedievalandearlymodernculture,thehallmarkofour bookseries.Iwouldliketoexpressmygratitude,onceagain,toallcontributors fortheirmarvelousresearch,theirincrediblepatiencewithmeastheirnagging editor,andfortheircollaborationinrevisingallandeverypieceincludedhere manytimesuntiltheymetallexpectations.Mythanksalsogoouttothewonderful staffatWalterdeGruyterinBerlin,especiallytoMr.FlorianRuppenstein,and then,mostimportantly,Dr.HeikoHartmann,editorinchief,whohadinvitedme severalyearsagotolaunchthisbookseries.Awholesequenceoffuturevolumes is already in Preparation. Thanks also to my dear colleague Marilyn Sandidge for her excellent assistance in proofreading and editing some of the articles.
C. David Benson (University of Connecticut)
The Dead and the Living: Some Medieval Descriptions of the Ruins and Relics of Rome Known to the English
Theformaldescriptionofcitiesispartofalongtraditionofepideicticrhetoric stretchingbacktoantiquitythatcontinuedintheMiddleAgesasarecognizable genre, in prose and poetry, of urban praise: the encomium civis or laus civis.1 Medievalexamplessurvivefromasearlyastheeighthcenturyandwereespecially prominentinItalywheretheyexpressedthegrowingsenseofcivicprideofsuch centersasMilanandVerona.Theseworkscelebratethematerialsplendorofcities (laudesurbium)—theirsitesandsucharchitecturalfeaturesaswalls,towers,and churches—andalsothevibrancyofciviclife(laudescivitatum)—theircultivation oftheartsandsciencesaswellasthewealthandcharityoftheircitizens.2Inthis, asinsomanyotherthings,Romewasdifferent Medieval descriptions of Romed do not so much extol the contemporary city and its inhabitants, but take the form of another, more retrograde type of eulogy (Elegiae urbium), an elegiac meditation on the city's ancient remains, its pagan monuments, and the bodies of Christian saints: the physical vestiges of what had been.3
1
2
3
See in particular Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (1948; 1953; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), 155-57; JK Hyde, "Medieval Descriptions of Cities", John Rylands Library Bulletin 48 (1965-1966): 308-340; John Scattergood, "MisrepresentingtheCity:Genre,IntertextualityandFitzStephen'sDescriptionofLondon(c.1173)",ReadingthePast:EssaysonMedievalandRenaissanceLiterature(Dublin:FourCourtsPress,1996),15-36;andPaoloZanna,"Descriptionesurbium"andElegyinLatinandVernacularseries,intheEarlyMiddleAgesi,352Agesi,intheEarlyMiddleAgesi,352Study –96. For this distinction and the consequent idea of elegiae urbium, see Zanna, "Descriptiones urbium"; see also Curtius, European Literature; recently Claire E.Honess, FromFlorencetotheHeavenlyCity:ThePoetryofCitizenshipinDante.ItalianPerspectives,13(London:Legenda,2006). However, I will refer to all these medieval representations of ancient Rome, despite their legitimacy.
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Medieval descriptions of Rome portray a city that seems largely deserted, populated by inert fragments of the distant past - a world-renowned ghost town. The Eternal City, Golden Rome, once the scene of empires, wonders and glorious martyrs, now harbors relics and ruins, the rubble of death. There are signs of life in medieval descriptions of Rome, but they tend not to be found in the contemporary city or in the civic, religious and commercial activities of its citizens, but rather in the responses of individual writers, often visitors, trying to understand and interpret objects. inanimate. In addition to editions of the primary texts in Latin and English and bibliographicalmanuals,previousscholarlyworkonthemedievaldescriptionsof Rome,fromwhichIhavegreatlyprofited,tendtoconcentrateonsingletextsor onaparticularsubgroupoftexts,suchasthosethatdiscussthepaganremainsin thecityorthosethatdiscusstheancientchurchesandtheirholyrelics.Muchof thisworkhasbeenbroadlyhistoricalorantiquarianandattemptstoassessthe accuracy of these descriptions, which are often found wanting, as well as identifyingpossiblesources.Someofthebeststudiesarecommentariestoeditions andEnglishtranslations,whichwillbecitedwhentheyarediscussedbelow.My The purpose of this essay is not so much to establish the veracity or origins of individual texts as to trace a particular and paradoxical theme (the relationship between death and life) across the spectrum of this rich material. Perhaps the most ambitious previous attempt to consider several of these descriptions (including Chaucer's most obvious literary work) is Jennifer Summit's essay, although her main interest is in how these texts deal with the transformation from paganism to Christianity, which is only part of my own interest in the diversity of life found in the inert remains of the ancient city. I focus on the English knowledge of these Rome accounts, and particularly the vernacular texts, and pay special attention to two neglected works: Averse Account of Rome in the Metrical Version of Mandeville's Travelsand and John Capgrave'svast Solace of Pilgrims. Thereweretwodifferent,ifoverlapping,classesofmedievaldescriptionsof Rome.Thefirst,whichincludestheMirabiliaanditssubsequentversions,Master Gregorius’sNarracio,andthebeginningofCapgrave’sSolace,focusesprimarilyon theclassicalremainsofthecity,thoughtheindividualwritersalsomentionthe ancientChristiancatacombs,commentontheChristiandestructionorrededication ofancientmonuments,or,inpassing,notethepresentnameofastructure.Byfar themostpopularexampleofthiskindofdescriptionisgenerallyknownafterthe
tone, through the more neutral term "descriptions".
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Title of its 12th-century Latin original, Mirabilia Urbis Romae (The Miracles of Rome), which was probably first put in the form we know about 1143. ecolunas; secondly, he tells stories about some important monuments, such as the bronze horseman we know as Marcus Aurelius, the huge statue of two naked men and their horses that we know as Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux) and the Pantheon; Finally, he plots an itinerary through the streets of Rome with its array of ancient sites, starting at the Vatican, crossing the Tiber, passing through the city center and returning across the river in Trastevere. I will refer to the common knowledge of the Mirabilia under this title unless otherwise noted, but no title or form represents the multilayered variety of this extraordinarily plastic work, which is an excellent example of a medieval "multitext" - Mandeville's voyage .” , and personal observation – was transformed, adding and subtracting passages, as it was adopted in various forms and languages throughout Europe until the 15th century. Examples were also copied in manuscripts prepared for English readers.7 But the most popular form of Mirabilia in England seems to have been the slightly later 22nd-century Latin version known as Graphia Aureae Urbis (ca. 1155), one of the most common forms of dissemination was an early shortened version of the influential 13th-century Chronicon
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For more recent discussions of the Mirabilia, see in particular Nine Robijntje Miedema, Die 'Mirabilia Romae': Investigations into their tradition with edition of the German and Dutch texts. MünchenerTexteundUntersuchungenzurdeutschenLiteraturdesMittelalters,108(Tübingen: Niemeyer,1996);I'MirabiliaUrbisRomae,'ed.MariaAccameandEmyDell'Oro(Rome:Tored, 2004);andDaleKinney,“FactandFictionintheMirabiliaurbisRomae,”RomaFelix—Formationand ReflectionsofMedievalRome,ed.ÉamonnÓCarragáinandCarolNeumandeVegvar.Church,Faith andCultureintheMedievalWest(AldershotandBurlington , VT: Ashgate, 2007), 235–52. Iain Higgins, Writing East: The "Travels" of Sir John Mandeville. The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), viii. For editions of some later versions of the Mirabilia, see Codex Urbis Romae Topographicus, ed. Carl Ludwig Urlichs (Würzburg: Stachelianis, 1871), 113–69. For more recent discussions and editions of some of these texts, see Cesare D'Onofrio, Visitiamo RomaMille AnniFa: LaCittàdei Mirabilia. StudietestiperlastoriadellacitàdiRoma,8 (Roma:RomanaSocietàEditrice,1988). See the list of manuscripts of various forms of Mirabilia (and Rome's Seasons and Indulgences discussed below), arranged by language, in Miedema, The 'Mirabilia Romae'.
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Pontificumet Imperatorum by Martinus Polonus (Martin von Troppau). The most important of these is an addition of 400 lines in animated couplets which was inserted into the metrical version of Mandeville's Travels in the early 15th century. In the late twelfth or early thirteenth century there was another more idiosyncratic Latin description of Roman antiquities, the Narraciode Mirabilibus Urbis Romae by a certain master Gregorius. The Narracio does not attempt to provide a comprehensive catalog of the city's ancient monuments, such as the Mirabilia, but reports, ostensibly to some of his colleagues who studied the Scriptures, the marvels that most impressed and delighted Gregory on his first trip to Rome 10 Gregorius was The which most attracted the artistic vestiges of Rome, not only the splendor of some buildings, but also images of all kinds, such as the narrative reliefs on the triumphal arches, and especially the numerous bronze and marble statues, whose art he constantly beheld.
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TheGraphiabothaddssomematerialtotheoriginalMirabilia(especiallyapreliminaryhistoryof RomethatemphasizesitsTrojanorigin,whichwouldhavebeenofspecialinteresttoEnglish readerswhoalsoclaimedTrojanancestors)andomitsothermaterial.Theseadditionsareoften markedintheoriginaleditionofFrancisMorganNichols'stranslationoftheMirabilia(Mirabilia Romae:TheMarvelsofRomeoraPictureoftheGoldenCity[London:EllisandElvey,1889]).These additionsarenotindicatedinthesecondeditionofNicholsusedandcitedbelow.Referencesto theLatinGraphiaaretotheeditionofRobertoValentiniandGiuseppeZucchettiintheirCodice TopograficodellaCittàdiRoma,vol.3.Fontiperlastoriad'Italia,pub.dalR.Istitutostoricoitaliano perilmedioevo. Scrittori.SecoliI–XV,90(Roma:TipografiadelSenato,1946),67–110.Forthe influenceofMartinPolonus,seeWolfgangValentinIkas,“MartinusPolonus'Chronicleofthe PopesandEmperors:aMedievalBestSellerandItsNeglectedInfluenceonMedievalEnglish Chroniclers,”EnglishHistoricalReview116(2001):327–41.ThemostrecenteditionofMartin'swork isMartiniOppaviensisChronicon,ed. Ludwig Weiland. Monumenta Germaniae Historia, Scriptorum 22 (1872; Nova York: Kraus, 1963), 37–482. Alle Zitate in diesem Text stammen aus The Metrical Version of Mandeville's Travels, herausgegeben von M.C. Seymour. Early English Society, OS269 (Londres: Oxford University Press, 1973); sie werden nach Zeilennummer zitiert und die Schreibweise ist leicht modernisiert. QuotationsofGregorius’sNarracioarefromtheLatineditionofMagisterGregorius:Narraciode MirabilibusUrbisRomae,ed.R.B.C.Huygens.Textusminors,44(Leiden:E.J.Brill,1970)andthe Englishtranslations,slightlymodified,fromJohnOsborne,MasterGregorius:TheMarvelsofRome (Toronto:PontificalInstituteofMedievalStudies,1987).Allfurthercitationswillbeincludedin thetextandwillreferfirsttothepageandlinenumberoftheLatinoriginalandthentothepage numberoftheOsbornetranslation.
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praisesandwhosedestruction,alongwiththatofothermonuments,heblameson Churchmen,particularlySaintGregory,theavariceoftheRomanpeople,andthe simpleravagesoftime.NothingisdefinitelyknownaboutMagisterGregoriusto whomtheNarracioisattributedinitsprefatoryincipit,butheisgenerallyassumed withsomereasontohavebeenanEnglishcleric.11ThetextoftheNarracio,ina copythatisnottheoriginalandapparentlyissomewhattruncated,survivesina singlemanuscriptnowinCambridge,anditreachedawideEnglishaudience, learnedandvernacular,becauseofitsusebyRalphHigdeninhispopularearly fourteenthcentury Latin Polychronicon, still extant in some 135 complete manuscripts, which itself was twice translated into Middle English, most significantlybyJohnTrevisainthelatefourteenthcentury;fourteenmanuscripts ofTrevisa'stranslationalsosurvive.12 ThesecondclassofmedievaldescriptionsofRomeknowntotheEnglishwas addressedtodevoutpilgrims,notantiquarians,thoughitssubjectislikewisethe Romanpast.MorelikeaguidethantheMirabiliaandalsoextantinmanyforms, itenumeratestheremainsofearlymartyrsandotherrelicscontainedinthecity's manychurchesaswellasthepardonfromsintheseobjectsoffertothedevout visitor.13ManyLatinmanuscriptcopiesofthisbriefguidearestillextantinEnglish libraries,anditsmaterialappearedinMiddle Englishinthefifteenth century, usuallyinundistinguishedverseofunderathousandlineswithmanyvariants fromtexttotext(thereisalsooneproseversion).14Theworkiscollectivelyknown inEnglishasTheStationsofRome,thoughthisisasomewhatmisleadingtitle.In fact,StationesproperlyweremedievalLatincalendarsthatidentifiedtheparticular churchinRomeatwhich An jedem Tag, besonders aber während der Fastenzeit, wurde die Hauptmesse der Stadt vom Papst oder seinem Stellvertreter gefeiert.15Die Mitte
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See Osborne, Master Gregorius, 12-15. See, for example, John Taylor, The "Universal Chronicle" of Ranulf Higden (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966); David C Fowler, John Trevisa. Authors of the Middle Ages, 2 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1993); A.S.G.Edwards, "John Trevisa", ACompaniontoMiddleEnglishProse,ed.id.(Cambridge:Brewer, 2004), 117-26. Foranaccountofthesedescriptions,basedprimarilyonLatinexamplesintheBritishLibrary,see JamesHulbert,“SomeMedievalAdvertisementsofRome,”ModernPhililogy20(1923):403–24.For abriefaccountofthehistoryofindulgences(pardons),seeRobertW.Shaffern,“TheMedieval TheologyofIndulgences,”PromisaryNotesontheTreasuryofMerits:IndulgencesinLateMedieval Europe,ed.R.N.Swanson(Leiden:Brill,2006 ), 11–36, and now Robert W. Shaffern, The Treasury of Penitents: Indulgences in Latin Christianity, 1175–1375 (Scanton and London: University of Scanton Press, 2007). Hulbert, SomeMedievalAdvertisements, notes that there are discrepancies in the Latin text she studied at the British Museum. This usually involved a procession to the station church and a mass there. See John F. Baldovin, S.J., The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and Meaning of Stational
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Stations, despite their name, are actually versions of a related Latin work known as the Indulgentiae, which catalogs relics and indulgences in Roman churches. Stationes and Indulgentiae, as complimentary guides to what Roman churches had to offer pilgrims, are sometimes found together in medieval manuscripts.16 Material from both the Stationes and Indulgentiae, prefaced by a versionoftheMirabilia,isincludedinthemostambitiousdescriptionofRomein MiddleEnglish,TheSolaceofPilgrimesbytheAugustinianfriarJohnCapgrave, whichwaswrittenafterhisjourneytoRomeinabout1450andsurvivesinasingle incompletemanuscript.17Afteranopeningaccountoftheancientmonuments,the Solacedeclaresthatitwill In his second part (which eventually expands into a third part) "he testifies to the Church in Rome and the spiritual treasures contained therein" (60). That's what Consolation does, first describing these even more important Roman basilicas, before moving on to the station churches for each day of Lent and concluding with accounts of other important churches. These medieval descriptions of Rome, whether their main focus is the ancient pagan or Christian city, note that its glorious past is accessible only through its few remaining physical fragments. The capital of the once great Roman Empire has shrunk to a few devastated monuments. These accounts of the past show little interest in the inhabitants or activities of modern Rome. Master Gregorius occasionally mentions the cardinals as a reliable source of information about the city's past, but neither the narrative nor any of our other descriptions say anything about the mysterious work in the modern papal court, which is why so many Englishmen travel to Rome on ecclesiastical matters. . . Also not shown are the elaborate religious processions that often wound through the streets of the city, such as the one that annually paraded the wonderful portrait of Christ from the Lateran to S. Maria Maggio, around the image of the Son with an equally wonderful appearance a Unite portrait of your mother.18
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Liturgy. Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 228 (Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1987). The original purpose of the Roman stations may have been a pope's attempt to unite the various parishes and regions of Rome, but they also provided a program (and perhaps a stopover) for pilgrims visiting the city's churches. See Miedema, Mirabilia Romae. John Capgrave, The Solace of Pilgrimes, editor CA Mills (London: Oxford University Press, 1911). HerbertL.KesslerandJohannaZacharias,Rome1300:OnthePathofthePilgrim(NewHavenand London: Yale University Press, 2000), chapter 3. Capgrave does mention the “solempne procession”heldattheLateranonPsalmSunday,buttheninsteadofgivingafullaccountofthis procession,hediscussesthehistoryofPsalmSundaycommemorationsthroughouttheChurch fromthetimeoftheApostlestoCharlemagne(146–47).InreferringtoRomansaintsandtheir
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Capgrave tells most of contemporary Rome, though he himself gives little more than brief glimpses, such as the passing remark that a passion play is performed before S. Croce on Good Friday (79), or his speculations of that the women are not in the reliquary chapel. of the same church, either because the well-known tendency of pilgrims to "touch and kiss all the holy relics" could have slowed things down, or because the rush of the crowd would have been dangerous for the sick or for their health (7). Although the Solace lists the station churches where papal Masses were held during Lent, it says almost nothing about these particular liturgies, although Capgrave reports in his account of the last station that the saying of the Agnus dei differed slightly from English custom ( "as we do"), which he heard in "various masses" (155). This unusual moment in Solaceize reveals little otherwise said in these descriptions of the actual religious life of medieval Rome. Amid pagan and Christian remnants, the contemporary city is not shown as an active, functioning community, but rather as an abandoned movie set, its actors and technicians long gone, leaving only the remnants of its stale dramas - a few scattered props and decadent settings - for the lonely Let the visitors look at them. Contrast these accounts of the ruins and relics of ancient Rome with a civic descriptionwritteninthesamecenturyastheMirabiliaandGraphia(andperhaps thesamecenturyasMasterGregorius'sNarracio)portrayingacitymuchcloserto homefortheEnglishreader:theLatinencomiumofLondonwithwhichWilliam FitzstephenprefaceshislifeofSaintThomasàBecket,theDescriptioNobilissimae Civitatis Londonaiae (1173–1175).19 Like the Mirabilia and Graphia, Fitzstephen's DescriptiomentionssomeofthenotabletopographicfeaturesofLondon,butits primaryattentionisonthecommunallifeofthepresentcityratherthanonitspast monuments. Fitzstephen announces at the end of his prologue that this account of London will consider two aspects of the city: its physical situation (situum) and its
19
Igrejas Eu usei as formas italianas modernas de seus nomes, exceto para os exemplos mais comuns, como Peter e Lawrence, que eu dou como nomes ingleses para maior clareza. QuotationsfromtheLatinDescriptioarefromMaterialsfortheHistoryofThomasBecket,Archbishop ofCanterbury:(CanonizedbyPopeAlexanderIII.,A.D.1173,ed.JamesCraigieRobertson.Rolls Series.RerumBritannicarumMediiAeviScriptores,67(London:HerMajesty'sStationeryOffice, 1877;rpt.[Nendeln,Liechtenstein:]Kraus1965),3.2–13.IalsousethetranslationbyH.E. Butler, withsomemodifications,inNormanLondon(NewYork:ItalicaPress,1990).Allfurthercitations willbeincludedinthetextandwillreferfirsttothepagenumberoftheLatinoriginalandthen tothepagenumbersoftheButlertranslation.Seethediscussionofthe workinScattergood, “Misrepresenting.”Fitzstephen'sworkhelpedtoshapetheEnglishconceptionofLondonthrough theseventeenthcentury.ItsurvivesinseveralLatinmanuscripts,wasincludedintheimportant fourteenthcentury register of London documents, the Liber Custumarum, and parts of it also appearedinanothermunicipalcollection,theLiberAlbus .No final do século XVI, foi inspirado e impresso pela primeira vez como um apêndice da SurveyofLondon de John Stow.
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publiclife (rempublicam) (2, trans.48), but this emphasis falls on the latter. The description honors London's citizens and social activities rather than its architectural monuments or holy shrines, making italauscivitas rather than alaus urbis. The city walls and gates beginning at the Mirabilia are mentioned by Fitzstephen (3, trans. 49), but the length of the former is not measured, nor are the latter named; instead these structures are presented as useful, not as defensive bulwarks but as recreational passageways through which crowds of Londoners (particularly young Londoners) pass eagerly to enjoy the delights of the countryside beyond, whether winding in suburban fountains in the summer (3- 4, trans.50) or more ambitious skating on the swampy fields outside the city in winter (11–12, trans.58–59). publicacoquina)bythe Thames(5,trans.52).ThisseeminglyhumblecanteenispraisedbyFitzstephen becauseitisusefultomuchofthecityand“pertainingtotheartofciviclife”(Haec equidempublicacoquinaestetcivitatipluriumumexpediensetadcivilitatempertinens), beingopendayandnighttoservefoodtoalllevelsofsociety—therichandthe poor—andespeciallyconvenienttoresidentsifunexpectedguestsshouldarrive (6,trans.52).20Fitzstephenpresentsacurrentsocialpracticeratherthananaccount of the past. His London, in contrast to Rome in the medieval descriptions, is dynamicwiththeeverydayurbanactivitiesofcontemporarylife:tradesmenand laborersgoingeachmorningtotheirspecialdistrictsinthecity,publicdisplaysof schoolboywitandlearning;horsefairsinSmithfield.21 My comparison of London to Rome is not gratuitous, for Fitzstephen throughoutbothexplicitlyandimplicitlycontraststhetwocities,andalthoughthe EnglishboroughconspicuouslylacksboththepaganmonumentsandChristian saintsofitsancientrival,theDescriptioisinsistentthatitisthemorevitalofthe two, as seen especially in the extended emphasis given to the rowdy, competitive games that are played in different parts of London throughout the year by young men (young men, Fitzstephen's inclusion has limits). Participation in the joys of unbridled youth"
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Singular though it is, it is perhaps a series of kitchens rather than a single restaurant on the Thames, the dignity of which is reinforced by Fitzstephen's quote from Platoon the Art of Cooking which immediately follows. Of course, this is a selective portrayal of the city, with no mention of the poor or hospitals, for example, detected as grit ('misrepresentation',19).
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(participatione gaudiorum adolescentiae liberioris) make you feel young again (9, trans. 56-57). ThebustlingpublicactivityofFitzstephen'sLondonisabsentfromthemedieval descriptionsofRome.TheMirabiliaandtheNarracioofMasterGregoriusandtheir vernacular redactions do not mention the commercial life of Rome or the recreationsofitscitizensbecausetheirattentionisonthephysicalremainsofthe classicalcity.Andyeteventhesematerialobjectsarenotfullypresent—muchhas disappearedorisonlyinfragments.TheMirabiliabeginsconfidentlybylisting whatRome“has”(habet),suchasitswall,andthestructuresthat“are”(sunt)there, suchasitsgatesandarches(17.1and5 , trans.4,5), but the narratives of the middle part are set in the distant past, "in the times of the senators and consuls" (temporibus consulumets senatorum), when Rome was still golden (34,1, trans. 21). quaeadmemoriamducerepossum) had been to the Capitol before (51.7, trans.38). Many of the most active and ingenious of the marvels of Rome had now vanished.TheMirabiliaandatgreaterlengthGregorius'sNarraciotellofamagical systemofstatueswithbellsaroundtheirnecksrepresentingeachprovinceunder Rome'ssway(Mirabilia34.3–9,trans.21; Narracio18.214–19.239,trans.24).Ifa provincebecamerebellious,thebellontheappropriateimagewouldinstantlyring andthustheauthoritieswerealertedtoathreatthatneededattention .But those statues and bells are gone like the kingdom they were supposed to protect. There remain, according to Master Gregorius, parts of the walls of the building in which the statues were a "strong and inaccessible" (horrideeinaccessibiles) crypt (18.222, trans. 24). Even those ancient wonders that did not entirely disappear from medieval Rome are often broken and useless except to look at. Although Master Gregorius begins his story with the disturbing panorama of his first vision of Rome, the towers and palaces he saw looking down from the hills, a closer inspection of the city in a verse he quotes from Hildebert of Lavardin reveals a Rome that is "almost a total ruin" (prope tota ruina) and shattered (12.40, trans.18). His decline teaches us the transience of things at the time, his narration is a testament to his growing indignation at this destruction.
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QuotationsfromtheoriginalMirabiliaarefromtheeditionbyRobertoValentiniandGiuseppe ZucchettiintheirCodiceTopograficodellaCittàdiRoma,vol.3(Roma:TipografiadelSenato,1946), 3–65.Ialsouse,withsomemodifications,thetranslationoftheMirabilia(conflatedwithlater versions)byFrancisMorganNichols,TheMarvelsofRome,2nded.(1sted.,1889;NewYork:Italica Press,1986).Allcitationswillbeincludedinthetextandreferfirsttothepageandlinenumber oftheLatinoriginalandthentothepagenumberoftheNicholstranslation.
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IfthestructuresofancientRomearedecayedorvanishedinthesemedieval descriptions, its present inhabitants are largely invisible: the conclusion of the Mirabilialistsasoneofitssourcesthestorieshewastoldbyoldtimers(65.4,trans. 46),andMasterGregoriusoccasionallyreferstocardinalsandclerks,butnoneof thesefiguresmakesanactualappearanceineithernarrative.ClassicalRomansare even less on the scene, of course, because they are long dead, and funeral monumentsaregivenparticularattentionintheMirabilia,asinthebeginningof its Perambulação descrevendo a alegada tumba (sepulcro) de Rômulo (45.6, trans. 35), o elaborado templo do imperador Adriano (agora CastelSant'Angelo) contendo seu sarcófago (46.5–47.3, trans.35–36) [Fig Nr.1 ]andthecastlebuiltbyAugustustoentombRome'semperors(47.8,trans. 36).Perhapsthemostrevealingexampleofasupposedmonumenttothedead, however,is that containingtheremainsofoneoftheempire'sgreatestrulers: JuliusCaesar.TheMirabilia,MasterGregorius,andCapgraveeachrecountthe legend that Caesar's ashes were in a small dayof the Egyptianinstisto.Stelithatocenter.Egyptianinelithatcenter 'sSquareandwasnearby in theMiddleAges (Mirabilia , 43.7-44.8, tradução 33-34; Narracio, 28.513–29.548, Übers. 34–35;Solace22–24)[Figureno.2].TheseaccountsofCaesar'spillar(or“needle” [agulia])commentonitsremarkableconstructionfromasinglestoneandsome discusstheemperor'slife(includinghisbloodyassassination)andaccomplish ments.TheMirabiliaandCapgravedrawspecialattentiontothesuitabilityand ironyofhisrestingplace,forjustashewasruleroverallmen,nowallstillremain abaixo de seu poleiro final, mas o contraste entre César vivo e César morto é forte e comovente: César, você já foi tão grande quanto o mundo Mas agora você está trancado em uma pequena caverna. Caesar, tantuserasquantusetorbis, Sednuncinmodicoclauderisantro. [Mirabilia,44.5–6,trans.33]
Caesar, like Rome, is a very diminished thing, there are only fragments of ash included in "Litilden" after Capgrave (24) to testify to what was once alive. In addition to royal tombs, some of the most prominent classical statues depicted in these works were designed as memorials to preserve the glory, if not the bodies, of their subjects after death. The gilded bronze statue of the mounted knight (now known as Marcus Aurelius) was particularly admired by the writer of the Mirabilia and the Master Gregorius, as by so many others since (Mirabilia, 32.3-33.22, trans. 19-21;
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Narracio 13.56–16.163, trans.19–22).23 In the Middle Ages, the statue was placed in front of the Lateran complex, as in a 15th-century fresco by Filippino Lippi [3]. In the sixteenthcenturythefigurewasmovedtotheplazaontopoftheCapitolineHill, whereacopystandstoday,withtheoriginalindoorsnearby,protectedfromthe elements[Figureno.4].Ourauthorsgivesomewhatdifferentstoriesaboutthe identityofthehorseman(Gregoriusoffersachoiceoftwo),but,aswithanother monumentalimageoftwomenandtheirhorses,nowknownastheDioscuri,the equestrianstatuteissaidtohavebeenspecificallyintendedasaremembrance:“a memoriallinmindeforevermore”asTrevisa'stranslationofthePolychronicon's puts it (231).24 Even before telling of The deed that brought the knight to this monument is now considered dead and buried. An alternative explanation of the Master Gregorius statue associates the knight with death even more explicitly: when no one else is willing to sacrifice himself by riding into an abyss that has brought a deadly plague to Rome, the leader makes him republic, thus saving the city. through its own destruction. Inadditiontomanythatcontainorrepresentthedead(andothersthatwere adaptedtootherpurposes),theclassicalstructuresandstatuesinthemedieval descriptionsofRomewereoftensubjectedtodeliberateactsofannihilation.These monumentsbecameruinsnotonlybecauseoftheinevitabledecayoftime,but also,liketheEnglishmonasteriesunderHenryVIII,their“dissolution”isshown tobetheresultofapolicyofexterminationbythenewreligion.Alaterversionof theMirabiliaaddsadetailedaccountoftheColosseum,thenasnowanexample ofbothRome’sgloryanditsdecline,whichisonlymentionedinpassinginthe original version [Figure no. 5]. Not understanding the true function of this massive structure, the 14th or 15th century writer calls it a temple and explains that there was a huge statue of the sun in a hall that contained a model of the firmament with the sun and moon functioning, the real ones Generated thunder and rain.25 A particularly dramatic portrayal of this temple and its statue (and its fate)
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For a brief account of the history of this statue, see Osborne's commentary on its translation by Master Gregorius, quoted above, 43-48. Quotations from John Trevisa's English translation of Ralph Higden's Polychronicon are from Volume I of the Rollsedition edited by Churchill Babington (London: Longman, 1865) and are cited in the text by page number. TheaccountoftheColosseuminthislaterversionoftheMirabiliaiseditedbyUrlichs,Codex, “QuartaClassis,”136,cf.also160;itistranslatedinNichols’sMarvels,28–29.Thispassageisfull ofinformationrejectedbymodernscholarsbutreflectingmedievalviews:thegreatstatuereferred towasprobablyerectedbyNeroandwaslaterplacedoutsidetheColosseum,which,ofcourse, wasnotatemple.Theheadandhandsaidtobefromthisstatueareprobablyfromanotherstatue ofanemperorandarenowdisplayedintheCapitolineMuseum.SeethenotestoSeymour’s editionoftheMetricalVersionofMandeville,91,andOsborne’scommentarytoMasterGregorius,
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found in Romein's description inserted in the metric version of Mandeville's Travels (385-412). The poet begins by praising the Colosseum as the "most meritorious temple of all", with high walls, turrets and "avenues painted in rich colors" (386-92), and describes its similar rumbling from heaven reverently: The roof was made a image in the firmament, with sun, moon and stars, shining day and night. Thunder and light, hay and rain, Whenever they were unsure, Thai lovingly wed. [393-299]
Butadmirationforsuchingenuityistemperedbydamninglyattributingittothe “crafftofsorcery”(400),perhapsbecausewhatwasproducedseemedtoomuch likeanimitationofGod’screation.Thegiantbejeweledstatueinthecenterofthe templewithasphereinitshandisdescribedascorrespondinglypresumptuous initsclaimofearthlypredominance:“Andinhishondeagoldenballe/Intokene that Rome was chieff cite / Of alle this worlde” (410–12) [Figure no. 6]. This claim of pagan Rome's dominion over heaven and earth cannot stand if the city becomes Christian. And another templis ful many one" (417-18) and builds churches in its place offering eternal Christian riches: "fulgretepardoun" (421). eradicatedthepagantemplessothatvisitorstoRomewouldnotbeabletovisitsuch“profanebuildings”(profanebuilding),butinsteadgodevoutlytoChristianchurches.26TheMetricalMandeville,inapassageimmediatelyfollowingitsaccount of the Colosseum, is explicit that some structures of pagan Rome had to be destroyed because pilgrims to the city were more 'devoted/seeing them complete their pilgrimage' (431-34).
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48-53. Urlichs, Codex, "QuartaClassis", 136, Nichols's translation of Miracles of Rome, 29.
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offuturepardonandsotheyareterminated(withextremeprejudice).Thelater versionoftheMirabiliadescribesthetreatmentofthecolossalstatueoftheSun almostasiftherewereanexecution:Sylvesterorderstheheadandhandofthe idol (caput vero et manus praedicti ydoli) to be placed in front of his palace.27 Dismemberedlikeacapturedenemyorcondemnedcriminal,thebronzeremains aredisplayedbeforethepope’spalaceattheLateranasiftheywereatrophyof Christianconquestandtriumph. Many medieval descriptions of Rome, both in English and in Latin, show that pagan monuments must "die" for the new religion to live. The most famous dissenter among our writers is the Master Gregorius. Enchanted by the architectural glory of Rome's past at his first glimpse of the hills above the city, he repeatedly criticizes the loss of a classical heritage so rich that it must have seemed particularly remarkable and precious to someone whose native background seems to be art and architecture. British. Gregorius regrets everything that diminishes the original splendor of these monuments. For all his admiration for the bronze equestrian statue, he notes that it was once again magnificent and blames Romanavarice (Romana...avaricia) for destroying the gold that had once gilded it lavishly and Beatus Gregorius (Pope Gregory the Great) também haben statue from its original locationontheCapitolinordertoremovethefourcolumnsonwhichitstoodto useinthepapalchurchofSt.JohnLateran(13.63–68,trans.19).Despoilingand reusearebadenoughinMasterGregorius'sview,butheprefaceshisaccountof themostbeautifulstatueheencounteredinRome,theVenusdiscussedbelow,by suggestingthathisnamesake(andelsewhereaspecialherototheEnglishbecause of his role in the conversion of the island, the same “blessed Gregory” ) was somethinglikeamassmurdereragainstthemarblestatuaryofRome:“almostall ofwhichweredestroyedortoppledbyblessedGregory”(quepeneomnesabeato Gregorioautdeleteautdeturpatesunt)(20.277–78,trans.26).28 ThatancientChristianRomeaswellasancientpaganRomeisacityofdeathin themedievaldescriptionsiseveneasiertodemonstrate.IftheMirabiliatradition and especially Master Gregorius are haunted by the ruin that time has wrought—Rome'sancientempirevanished,itsheroesconfinedtomausoleumsor statues, its religion exterminated, their wonderful creations calmed and broken - death at the center of Christian accounts of the city and shown
27 28
Ebenda. InalaterEnglishguidetoRome(c.1470),WilliamBrewynjudgeshackingofftheheadsandlimbs ofthepaganimagesbySt.Gregoryasatriumphof“ecclesiasticaltruth”(AXVthCenturyGuide BooktothePrincipalChurchesofRome,trans.C.EveleighWoodruff[London:MarshallPress,1933], 14).Infact,theseaccusationsoficonoclasmagainstSt.Gregory,thoughwidespreadintheMiddle Ages,seemtohavebeenunfounded:seeTilmannBuddensieg,“GregorytheGreat, theDestroyer of Pagan Idols“, JournaloftheWarburgandCourtlaudInstitute28(1965):44–65.
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Be the source of your supremacy. he created it. The city's special spiritual authority comes directly from the famous martyrs who were executed there - Peter and Paul, the most important of the autumn, who, according to the Seasons, redeemed the city with "Heoreflesh and with Heoreblode" (14), but also from many others from the heroic first Church age, such as Agnes, Lawrence, Cecilia, and Sebastian, as well as thousands of anonymous victims29 [Figure #7]. In the prologue to the second part of his Solace, Capgrave reflects on why the Church in Rome should have swechgreteprivilege as its main mode enorchererofourefeith (60); The last reason she gives is "the multitude of martyrs shedding blood to confirm our faith in the same place" (61). Also the Mirabilia, which deals mainly with classical monuments, has a chapter on the sites of Roman martyrs (chapter 8 in Latin) and another on their Christian catacombs (chapter 10). The lifelessness of these remains is emphasized not only by the reference to the violent death of the saints, but also by the attention to their torn bodies. The StationsofRomeisaguidetowherethese“holybones”(afrequentlyrepeated phrase)aretobefoundinRome,suchasatthechurchofSt.Sebastian,wheresuch bones“layundergrounde/Anhundredyerertheyweorefounde”(161–64).The numbersoftheancientsacreddeadaresometimesstaggering.Wearetoldthat “monyisthatholybone”underthealtarofthechapelofScalaCoeli(nolessthan theremainsof10,000martyrs)attheabbeynowknownasTreFontane(123–25), whileatthechurchofS .Pudenzianathebodiesof40,000martyrsrestaccording totheVernontext(542),thoughotherversionsputthenumberatamoremodest, butstillimpressive,3,000(Cotton,666).Notonlyaretheserelicsregularlyreferred toaslittlemorethanbones,buteventhebestpreservedexamplesareoftenin pieces.ThechurchofSt.Julianissaidtocontainthatsaint's“chinwithhisteth” (450),and,ofspecialinteresttoEnglishreaders,St.ThomasàBecket'sarmand“a partiofthebrayn”isinSantaMariaMaggiore (497-99). Peterand's bodies
29
My quotations from Rome's railway stations are taken from two forms of verse in the fifteenth-century work, the Cotton Version, edited by Frederick J. Furnivalin, political, religious, and love poems. EarlyEnglishTextSociety, Os15, Secondedition (London: Keganpaul, 1903), 143-73, and the Vernon Version, edited by Furnivallinthestacionsofrome.aRlyglishTextSociety, OS25 (London: n.trübner, 1867). 1901), 2609-11. All citations are numbered and listed in my text; they are Vernon's unless otherwise noted.
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Paullieintheirrespectivebasilicas,buttheirheads,keptoverthehighaltarofthe Lateran,weredisplayedduringtheweekbeforeEaster,andCapgravereportsthe sightintheSolaceofPilgrimes:“ThehedofPetirisabroodfacewithmechheron hisberdandthatisofgreycolourbetwixwhitandblak.ThehedofPauleisalong faceballedwithredher,bothberdandhed”(73).Thenonhumanrelicswhich weresofamousandabundantinRomearealsooftenassociatedwithdeathand mutilation, not surprisingly for a faith whose primary sign is the cross. Estes incluem o pilar em que Cristo foi açoitado por Pilatos em S.Prassede e a madeira e os pregos da cruz em S.Croce. Onceagain,aswiththemedievaldescriptionsthatemphasizetheremainsof classicalRome,theChristianStationsofRomeandeventhesecondandthirdparts ofCapgrave'sSolacesaylittleaboutcontemporaryRomeanditssocialactivities, residents,orvisitors.Capgraveoffersthemostinformationofthiskind,butonly inbrief,unsystematicglimpses,aspreviouslynoted,thoughhedoesreport,with strongdisapproval,alocalSpringcontestinvolvingattackingpigsastheyrun downMt.Testaccio,resultingindeathandinjurytomenandanimalsalike:“aful onliklygamemethoutgh[sic]”(50–51).WhenCapgravementionstheexhibition oftheheadsofPeterandPaulattheLateran Ele não diz nada sobre qualquer cerimônia associada a esta exposição, nem a reação dos outros, mas apenas oferece sua própria observação pessoal. The generous pardon that these texts announce was availableinmanyRomanchurchesandobviouslyattractedlargecrowds,butwe almostneverseethem,certainlynotinanydetail.Ararementionofpilgrimsin general notes that Pope Silvester offered pardon “to pilgrimes / That thider cometh”(103–04);yetevenhereitisthepastnotthepresentthatisevokedby citingsuchanearlypope,andtheword“pilgrimes”maybeusedasmuchforits rhymeasanythingelse.CurrentliturgicalservicesinRomealsogounmentioned intheStations, thoughreferenceisoccasionallymadetothoseoflongago.For example,St.GregoryistoldbyanangeloftheholybonesburiedatSt.Sebastian “ashesongmasse”atthehighaltarthere(149–52).30 TheunderlyingargumentoftheStations(thereadershouldvisitRomerather thanotherholysitesforpardon)isimplicitlymadetoallChristians,butitisoften, thoughnotalways,expressedinthesecondpersonsingular:“Thoushalthaveas muchepardoun/AsthoutoSeintJame[Compostella]wentandcom”(91–92,my grifo). Na verdade, a estação parece estar realizando um tour privado para o leitor
30
Vernon also mentions the "great Solempnite" (167), also in the distant past, when buried bones were recovered at S. Sebastian.
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honde,/Andthoushaltfeeaswetegronde/Aswetessmelleofbodyesthattherbe” (Cotton 528-30), pode ter sido concebido pelo leitor solitário na Inglaterra menos como um guia prático para um viajante real a Romethana do que como uma convocação para uma peregrinação espiritual. But if medieval Rome in these various descriptions known to the English is permeatedbydeath,therearealsosomesignsoflifeamongtheancientruinsand relics.NotpresentdaycommunallifeasinFitzstephen'sDescriptio,butpastor future life accessible to the individual observer (and reader) who can imaginativelyordevoutlyrespondtotheremainsofRome.Justasdeathiseven moreobviousintheStationsofRomethanintheMirabiliatradition,soislife,and botharearesultofthemostprominentfeatureofthesetexts:thebodiesofmartyrs andotherrelicsinRome'schurches .Thelifetheseobjectspromiseis,ofcourse, beyondthispresentworld,andyetthesaints'bodiesandrelicshavenotbeen whollyimmobileevenonearth.Althoughinaccordancewithancientcustom, mostoftheoriginalRomanmartyrswerekilledandthenburiedoutsidethecity walls,notallremainedintheircatacombs.WhereasearlyChristiansjourneyed beyondthecitylimitstoworshipattheextramuralcemeteriesthatcontainedthe mostfamousburialsites(suchasthoseofSaintsPeterandLawrence,whichwere eventually enclosed by basilicas), later popes, once they were free to do so, broughtthebonesofthesemartyrsintotheheartofRome,astheirnumbersat suchcentralchurchesasS.PrassedeandSantaPudenziana, já mencionado, testemunhar. Jerome: "De Damas [Damasco] / Ele foi trazido para este lugar" (481-82). Relíquias não humanas foram trazidas da Terra Santa, como a mesa da Última Ceia (305–08) e a vara de Aarão (321), entre muitas outras no Latrão, sem "uma fotografia de Maria Madalena" ( 664) em p.para mencionar Cecília. Mais importante do que a ilusão de renascimento implícita em seu movimento urbano ou internacional, os corpos dos santos nas igrejas romanas, muito diferentes das cinzas frias de César em seu pilar, ainda estavam ativos e capazes de suportar o dom da vida por vir. para os homens: a vida exuberante e feliz do céu em vez dos tormentos do inferno "thefuirofhelle,/Wherofthepeynesnomoncon telle" (Prólogo, 15–16), pois ele pode receber o remédio do perdão em "grete Rome" (Prólogo, 17), garantindo assim que "Nedestohevenemostehewende/
31
Siehe R. N. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England: Passports to Paradise? (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 2007) and Robert W. Shaffern, The Penitents’ Treasury.
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Withoutenpeynelasseormore” (Prologue, 26-27).32 The stations contain a list of the many Roman churches that offer this medicine and in what quantity, for without such forgiveness of mortal sin “thy soul shall not live” (179). Present existence is less important than what the Roman Saint Cecilia in Chaucer's Second Nun's Tale calls "better elsewhere"33 and so the martyrs are told "dethalleinRome/Heoresoulesinheoresulesfortocome" (127-28; cf. 199-200 ) tolerated. The seasons do not require the pilgrim (or reader) to make such a final sacrifice, but do state that he can avoid the future torments of Helen and even obtain deliverance from the torments of purgatory. In addition to granting one's own life in heaven, Rome also permits the acquisition of others after one's death: "Therm men may helpe quike and dede / As the secretaries in bokes rede" (129-30). For example, visiting the Church of St. Lawrence every Wednesday for a year allows you to release someone who is already in purgatory: "Asouletodraw fromPurgatoryfer" (412). More generously, Cotton's version states that in the church of S.Giovannia Porta Latina, in addition to the daily personal pardon of one hundred years (Cotton, 272–73), if you are present on the feast day of the saint, “an owl from ( Cotton ,271).Atleastone Romansiteseemstoguaranteeaplaceinheaven,withnomentionofreform, simplyforbeinginterredthere.NeartheendoftheCottonversionoftheStations, wearetoldthatSt.Gregory“purchasedsychegrace”atthechurchofSt.Andrew thatwhoeverisburiedthere(“manorwoman”)willbesavedfromhellaslongas thepersonhasfaithinGodandtheChurchregardlessofpastbehavior:“Ifhe beleveinGod&HolyChyrchealso,/Heshallnotbedampnedfornoughtthathe hathedoo”(Cotton,898–901,myemphasis ). The Narrator insists that this general pardon, for all its seeming unorthodoxy, "is what I say," while acknowledging that some readers may not believe it, and offers as evidence that it is specifically written there: "no chyrchedorethoumaysthitsee" (Cotton, 903-905). In contrast to the narrow span of human existence, the seasons speak again and again of the vastness of years to come, when the reader will be freed from the pains of purgatory to enjoy the blissful life of heaven. Originally, popes granted indulgences only to crusaders, and in this case, apparently in response
32
33
The prologue emphasizes that anyone asking for forgiveness must be "in love and forgiving" to others and keep themselves "clean to the end" (23-25), although in the main body of seasons forgiveness seems to be automatically available without this. the recipient's responsibility is remembered. The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Bensonetal., third edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), VIII, 323.
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publicdemand,theywerelatermademoregenerallyavailabletopilgrims,an effortwasmadetorestricttheyearsofthepardon,fortyyearsbeingthelimitthat individualbishopscouldgrant,forexample.34 ButthehopefulexpectationsofvisitorstoRomesooninflatedthiscurrencyas surelyasthatofWeimarGermany.Forexample,thechurchofSt.Clementgranted “twothousendyer”(704)ofpardonandthatofSt.Julian“eightethousendyere” (452).Inthetheologyofindulgences,itwasnevermadeclearjusthowtheseyears weredetermined,whowaskeepingtheaccounts,orexactlyhowmuchtimethe sinnermightactuallyneed.Attimestheamountslistedinpopulartextslikethe Stations, whether or not officially approved, are thrown around like so much Monopolymoney,withmultiplesofathousandthemostcommondenomination, thoughsometimesthefiguresarefussilyprecise:thusonechurchpromised1030 years(662)andanother4384(720–24).Thetimeofyearcanincreasethenumbers dramatically:atthehighaltarofSt.Peter'stheusualpardonis28years,butfrom HolyThursdaytoLammasitshootsupto14,000(48–54).Thedifficultyofthe Die Reise wirkt sich auf die Menge aus: Wenn der Vernicle of St. Veronica (das Tuch mit dem Abdruck des Antlitzes Christi) in St. 9.000 für einen Nicht-Einwohner und 12.000 für einen Pilger, der eine Reise unternommen hat (trotz mangelnder Aufmerksamkeit für sie), implizite Anerkennung der Plus in Rome forgivenessofathirdofone'ssins—andallthesenumbersaredoubledduring Lent(59–70).35ThebonesandrelicsofRomearenotonlymaterialwitnessesof ancientdeathandsufferinginthecity,buttheyarealsothemeansbywhichthe pilgrimcanachievetheheavenlylifetocome.36 Considerando que é a vida futura que diz respeito às Estações de Roma, na tradição de Mirabilia, Mestre Gregorius, e mesmo Capgrave, é o passado que é trazido à vida. Thefirststatuehementions,abronzebullliketheonethatJupiterusedtodeceive Europa,isnotdescribedinanyrealdetailbutwearetoldthatitwassoskillfully madethatitappearstoviewersasifitwereaboutto“bellowandmove”(mugituro etmoturo)likealivingcreature(13.54,trans.19).Gregoriusoftenmakesclearthat theanimationoftheseimagesresultsnotonlyfromtheskillofthecreatorbutalso fromthecarefulattentionoftheobserver:thustoonelookingintently(attencius inspexerit),thebronzeheadoftheColossusappearstobe“movingandspeaking”
34 35
36
See Shaffern, "The Medieval Theology of Indulgences." Often seasons go beyond the exact numbers and only mention that a particular location offers full indulgence for all sins. Given the indulgences available in Rome, the station of Stellsus, there is no need to travel to the Holy Land, for in Rome "forgiveness knows no bounds" (285-93).
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(moturo et locuturo) wegen der Sorgfalt und des Aufwands, mit dem es hergestellt wurde (17.204–18.205, trans. 23). These responses have been seen as protoHumanist, thoughGregoriusisattractedmorebytheingenuityandevenemotionalappeal oftheseworksthanbypurelyaestheticappreciation,asisclearestinGregorius’s mostdramaticaccountofsuchanexperience,hisrepeatedvisitstoviewamarble statueofVenusthatsomehaveidentifiedwiththe“CapitolineVenus”37[Figure no.8].AswillbetrueformanysubsequenttravelerstoRome,Gregoriusfindsa presenceinthecoldmarblethataffectshimviscerally,perhapsevenerotically.As withthebronzebull,GregoriusfirstassociatestheVenuswithanancientlegend, theJudgmentofParis,beforeabruptlymovingfrommythtotheobjectbeforehim. ThisVenus,heinsists,wasmadewithsuchwonderful,eveninexplicableart(miro et inexplicabili perfecta est artificio) that it seems more like a living person (viva creatura)thanastatue;heevenimagineshecanseeitblushanddeclaresthatthose wholookclosely(comminusaspicientibus)canseethebloodflowinhersnowy complexion(inniveooreymaginissanguinemnatare),whichcausedhim(perhapsas theresultofamagicspell)tobedrawntorevisititthreetimeeventhoughitwas distantfromhislodgings(20.286– 293, Übers. 26). Higdens Polychronicon und seine Übersetzungen ins Mittelenglische machen Gregorius’ Berichte über diese Statuen weniger persönlich, um ihrem objektiveren Stil der Geschichte zu entsprechen, aber sie behalten seine Ansprüche an das lebensechte Aussehen der Bilder. ThusTrevisasaysthebull“semedlowingeandstartlinge”(225),themouthofthe Colossus“asthey[though]itwerespekinge”(235),and,mostvividly,theVenus “socraftlichemadethatinthemoutheandlippes,thatwereaswhiteasenysnow, semedefreschebloodandnewe”(225).TheextraordinaryeffectoftheVenuson GregoriussuggeststhetaleofPygmalion,butweshouldnotethatinhistelling, nottomentioninthelessferventEnglishversions,thereisasignificantdifference. Obwohl Gregorius insinua der Anziehungskraft der Statue auf übernatürliche Kräfte hindeutet, steigt seine Dame nicht von ihrem Sockel und geht mit ihrem Bewunderer davon. Vênus
37
GordonRushforth,“MagisterGregoriusDeMirabilibusUrbisRomae:ANewDescriptionofRome intheTwelfthCentury,”JournalofRomanStudies9(1919):14–58;here25,madetheidentification ofGregorius'sVenuswiththefamousonenowintheCapitolineMuseum,andthiswasaccepted byOsborne,MasterGregorius,59,butDaleKinney,“MirabiliaUrbisRomae,”TheClassicsinthe MiddleAges,ed.AldoS.BernardoandSaulLevin(Binghamton:MedievalandRenaissanceTexts and Studies, 1990) calls this identification “neither likely . . . still necessary” (214). However, it could very well have been a statue similar to the Capitoline Venus. ForGregoriusasaprotohumanist,see,forexample,JamesBruceRoss,“AStudyofTwelfth CenturyInterestintheAntiquitiesofRome,”MedievalandHistoriographicalEssaysinHonorofJames WestfallThompson,ed.JamesL.CateandEugeneN.Anderson(Chicago:UniversityofChicago Press,1938),302–31;here320,andCristinaNardella,“LaRomadeivisitatoricolti:dallamentalità umanisticadiMaestroGregorio(XII–XIIISecolo) aquellamedioevalediJohn Capgrave(XV Secolo),,”Archiviodella SocietàRomanadiStoriaPatria119(1996):49–64;here,52. Compare Kinney's more skeptical view of Gregorius' appreciation (“Mirabilia,” 214–19).
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remains an ancient marble. But even if the viewer cannot find any real life in the marble, he can recapture the illusion that the anonymous artist created long ago. Gregorius' intense scrutiny forged a connection to a once-thriving world over the centuries. Writers of medieval descriptions of Rome know, as Odysseus and Aeneas discover in the underworld, that it is impossible to physically embrace the dead, but their shadows can be evoked and recognized. Gregory does this most dramatically during his encounter with the statue of Venus, but the most common method these texts use to bring the past to life is through stories. In addition to the sense of animal and human presence that Gregorius experiences from some Roman statues, he more often uses the ancient images he finds to recreate the true tales of the past that he assumes (almost always incorrectly) to tell himself, before turning away. to the reliefs on the arch which, he says, on closer inspection (cumintenciusaspicias) give the impression of seeing Actium's own struggle (verabellavidereexistimes) as Augustus pursues Cleopatra (24.406-07, trans.30). accountofthemarble'srepresentationofCleopatrabeingcaptured,applyingthe asps to her breasts, and going pale in death: “Cleopatra subducitur et appositis aspidibusmammissuisinPariomarmoresuperbamuliermoriturapallescit”(24.410–12, trans.30).39 AnumberofespeciallyprominentancientstatuessavedfromtheruinsofRome inspireourwriterstogobeyondcataloguingandobjectivedescriptionandattempt tobringtolifetherealhumanbeingsbehindthemonumentsbygivingthemback theirvoicesandactions.Ofcoursethesestoriesarelargelylegends,thoughthey wereundoubtedlywidelybelievedinmedievalRome. Themiddlesectionofthe Mirabilia includes several looks at the narrative. Thus, the aforementioned Bronze Horseman, whom we know as Marcus Aurelius, is given a long narrative, complete with the figure's thoughts, intentions, speeches, and dramatic actions (32.3-33.22, trans.19-21) [Illustration #9].
38
39
None of the arches known to have been built for Augustus fit the description here; a single, not multiple, arch commemorating the Battle of Actium was erected in the Forum (not near the Pantheon here) and appears to date from 19 BC. having been destroyed, see Osborne's commentary on his master Gregorius, 79–89. The Polychronicon briefly notes the Arch of Augustus with what Trevisa terms 'his legacy' (215), but does not actually identify Actium as one such legacy or describe its events.
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quem é nosso herói, esta propriedade promete dinheiro e uma estátua comemorativa se ele puder libertá-la do falso exército que sitia Roma. Therefore, disguisedasagroom,heapproachesthetree,andthoughwarnedawaybyroyal attendants,boldlyseizesthekingandcarrieshimbackintothecity,tellingthe Romanstoattackthenowleaderlessarmy,whichtheydosuccessfully.Neitherthe statuenorthestoryappearsintheMetricalMandeville'sTravels,butCapgravetells aversionintheopeningsectionoftheSolacethatisevenlivelierthanthatinthe Mirabilia.Hechangesthelatter'sindirectstatementthattheattendantstoldthe disguisedsquiretogetawayfromtheking,coeperuntclamare,utipseauferretsede viaanteregem(33.8–9,trans.20),intoconvincinglyblusteringspeech:“Bewar,carl , o que fazer.Comenotsonsonthekyng.Youhangstandstandtouchhim"(32). MasterGregoriusprovidesnotonebuttwodifferentlongnarrativesaboutthe reallifeactionsthatinspiredthisequestrianmonument(chapters4and5).The firstisaversionoftheMirabilia'sstorywithsomechangesindetail(thekingless comically goes out at night to practice magic, not to relieve himself), and the secondtellsofQuintusQuirinus,aruleroftherepublicwhogavehislifeforthe commongoodbyridingintoafierychasmbecauseonlybythissacrificewould thatearthlyfault,whosefumeswerecausingaterribleplagueinRome,beclosed.40 TheLatinPolychronicon,whichoftenshortensGregorius,givesbothstoriesinsome detailandbothalsoappearinitstwoMiddleEnglishtranslations(228–33 ). JohnCapgrave,perhapsinspiredbytheclassicalstoriesfromtheMirabiliathat heretellsinthefirstpartofhisSolaceofPilgrimes,recreatesthereligiousaswellas secularpastofRomewithnarrativesthatarefarmoreextensivethanthebrief biographicalnoticesfoundoccasionallyintheMiddleEnglishStationsofRome.41 Heismoreinterestedinthelivesofthesaintsthantheirphysicalremains,andhe repeatedlymovesfromperfunctorydescriptionsofachurchanditsrelics,with onlyoccasionalnotationofavailablepardons,toextendedaccountsofwhatthe saints did while alive, at the same time reporting their martyrdoms and their miraclesforbelieversafterdeath.Forexample,thechurchofSS.Giovanniand Paoloitselfisidentifiedinafewsentences:CapgravetellsthedateduringLentof
40 41
There is a much shorter version of this second story in Mirabilia (56:1-5, trans. 41). Most of the saints at the stations are only mentioned by name, after all pilgrims beg forgiveness because of the power of their holy bones. A few episodes, incomplete biographies, from the lives of some important saints are briefly narrated, notably Pope Sylvester's healing of Constantine's leprosy and the Emperor's conversion (241-76) and St. killed 20 - sent back to town.
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its mess at the station, its location "quickly in the monastery of Seynt Andrew", the "certain thing they sell there" on the station's day, the "fair place" owned by a cardinal on one side and the ruined palace on the other (89-90). for visitors to the church, but without specifying exactly its extent or giving any account of the relics there, Capgravedevotesthevastmajorityofhischapter(perhaps75percent)nottothe physicalchurchanditscontents,buttostoriesofthetwosaintsforwhomitis named.Asaprefacetothis,Capgraveexplainshisgeneralmethodtothereader: afterreferencetothepardonasaresultoftheholybonesofGiovanniandPaolo, hedeclares,“butwethinkbestatthistimetotellesumwhatofthelifofthese seyntes and why they wer dede,” an Emphasis on the narrative richness and, above all, on the human 'life' of the saint that she will accompany throughout the entire work: 'aswecastusfordoofalleothir' (90). Humanstoriessuchasthesedoindeeddominatethesecondandthirdpartsof theSolaceofPilgrimes,incontrasttotherepetitivelistsofobjectsandpardonsthat makeupsomuchoftheStationsofRome.Capgrave'sholylegends,inthemanner oftheexemplainclericalhomilies,seemmoreinterestedinprovidinghisreaders with inspirational models for living on earth than in simply promising future rewardsinheaven.SpecificrelicsofRomeinspireCapgravetotellstoriesfromthe medievalperiodaswellasfromtheancientpast.Forexample,hesaysthathesaw a “memoriale” in the church of S. Sabina on the Aventine concerning Saint Dominic and how, by spray-painting this church in confirmation of his command, he angered the devil that the devil "cast rage attempts at a mechor more than a man" when he tried to kill the saint, but by a "great miracle . "'missed and only one piece of marble broke (87). Capgrave even cites the Latin inscription about the incident and gives his "Sentens" in English, both of which are a little less detailed and dramatic than the version he has just given]. This is hardly a tale of death and sorrow but one of the triumph of an exemplary Christian man, and its remaining material mark (the stone) promises the visitor not forgiveness but inspiration for his own earthly trials. Other stories in Capgrave's Solace show the power of the Christian faith in the present as well as in the heroic past. His introductory chapter on the ancient and splendid Church of S. Maria in Trastevere does not describe the building's appearance, but tells that at a time when the site was a refuge for soldiers of the Roman Empire, on the day of Christ's birth, two sources (Fonsolei ) protruded (111) [Figure #11]. This folktale is reminiscent of the site's pre-Christian history, but Capgrave makes the ancient wonder
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relevanttocontemporaryChristiansbyarguing,withmanyBiblicalexamples,that clerks say that the wells ran with oil rather than another liquid because oil “signifiethmercy”andChrist'scomingmeanttheestablishmentof“alawefulof mercy”(111).Incontrasttothespecificyearsofindulgencepromisedtovisitors atspecificchurchesintheStations,thisisageneral(andmoretheologicallysound) “pardon”availableatalltimesandeverywhere:“ThenameofJhesusisoilelargely spredabroodinhevene,spredinerde "Espredinhelle" (112). As this manifestation of the Nativity in ancient Rome suggests, the medieval city is presented in these descriptions not as an absolute break with the pagan past, but as a continuation.42 Some of these texts, as we have seen, report with satisfaction the destruction of false idols, but others show Rome's greatest leaders advocating for the coming of a new way, new truth, and new life. This is clearly seen in the story of the vision of Emperor Octavian (Augustus) in S. Maria in Aracoeli, which occurs both in Mirabilia (but not Metrical Mandeville) and in Capgrave, although it is absent from Master Gregorius, who has an analogous story about Romulus , which also occurs in Mirabilia and Metrical Mandeville [Figure #12]. Because of Octavian's great beauty and many accomplishments, the Roman Senate wants to idolize him: "weallewithonassetarethusacordidto worchip your persone as a god" (39). But Octavian, knowing he is mortal, hesitates and seeks Sybil's head, which, according to Capgrave, proves that there were "perfect and holy creatures" among the pagan Romans, just as there were among the first Jews (40). 40). Once these verses are expounded, Octavian is grantedavision(apparentlybecauseofhisgoodnessandholiness)ofanaltarin theskyonwhichwas“afairmaidestandingandinhirarmeachild”(40),while aheavenlyvoicedeclares,“ThisistheauterofGod;tothis,lokethoudoworchep” (40),inresponsetowhichOctavianfallsdowninreverence.Hethenreturnstothe senatorsandrelatesthe“gretmerveiliswhichhehadseyn,”and,refusingtheir devotion,“seidehewoldbeservauntontothischildevyrwhilehemaylive “(41). Pagan Rome became part of providential history and was already preparing to become the holy city because the great temperaments can be guessed.
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On this point, see Osborne's suggestion in the introduction to the Master Gregory that the Mirabilia seeks "to build a series of bridges between the pagan past and the Christian present" (10). Jennifer Summit, "Topologyas Historiography: Petrarch, Chaucer, and the Making of Medieval Rome", Journal of Medievaland Early Modern Studies 30 (2000): 211–46; a Christian city.
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and embrace the Christian future. The vision certainly heralds the death of ancient Rome, but, like the fall of Troy, it makes possible the birth and future life of the new Rome. The medieval descriptions of Rome discussed here are of limited help to modern surveyors, although among the fantastical legends there is genuine information about the martyrs of the ancient city who have survived the bones, who find life of all kinds in their remains. Rome's abundant pardons offer the pilgrim a place in the heavenly Jerusalem. He also recounts the Christian manifestations in the city throughout its history, be it a vision of the pagan Octavian or the protection of Santo Domingo from stoning by the demon ready to respond. The ingenious, even magical, devices that once operated in the city fascinate these writers, even if some eventually dismiss their energy as diabolical. And Master Gregorius even realizes the antiquarian's ultimate dream of bringing the past to life, if only for a moment and only in his imagination, by joining the spark of animation created for the first time by the original sculptor of Venus.
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Figure 1: CastelS.Angelo (Hadrian's tomb)
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Figura 2:ObeliskatSt.Peter's(Caesar'sPillaror Needle)
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Figure 3: Fresco of the equestrian statue in front of the Lateran (by Filippino Lippiat S. Mariasopra Minerva)
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Figure 4: Copy of the equestrian statue (Marcus Aurelius) in the Capitol
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Figure 5: Colosseum
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Figure 6: Head, Hand and Sphere of the Emperor (Idol of the Sun)
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Figure 7: Tomb of Saint Lawrence and Stephen (under the high altar of Saint Lawrence)
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Figure 8: Capitoline Venus
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Figure 9: Original equestrian statue (Marcus Aurelius)
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Figure 10: Throwing a stone at St.DominicbyDevil(S.Sabina)
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Figure 11: Location of the oil well in Natividade (S. Maria Trastevere)
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Photo 12: Vision of Altarin Otaviano (S. Mariain Aracoeli)
Kisha G. Tracy (University of Connecticut)
Defining the medieval city by death: a case study
Given the words "city" and "death", most likely, particularly as a result of the work of St. Augustine, those familiar with medieval imagery would immediately think of the heavenly city inhabited by souls who once led pious or virtuous lives. . Texts such as the Middle English Gawainpoet’s Pearl, Dante’s DivineComedy,andavarietyofmedievalsermonsvividlyillustratethenatureof thisurbanafterlifeandtherequirementsforbecomingoneofitscitizens.1While thepresenceofdeathis,giventhepathasoulmusttakeinordertogothroughthe gates,understoodtobeanessentialfeatureindiscussionsofthisetherealcity,the significance of death’s role in perceptions of the earthly city is not as well recognized,yetexaminationsofhistoricaldocuments,art,andliterarytextsreveal
1
See EnvisagingHeavenintheMiddleAges, editors by Carolyn Muessig and Ad Putter. Routledge Studies in Medieval Religion and Culture 6 (London: Routledge, 2007); Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in LateAntiqueReligions, editors Ra'anan S. Boustan and Annette Yoshiko Reed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); John Howe, Creating Symbolic Landscapes: Medieval Development of Sacred Space, "InventingMedievalLandscapes: SensesofPlaceinWesternEurope", editors John Howe and Michael Wolfe (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), 208–23; Imagining Heaven in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, editors Jan Swango, Emerson, and Hugh Feiss, Garland Medieval Casebooks 27 (New York: Garland, 2000); E. Ruth Harvey, "Constructing Bliss: Heaven in the Pearl", The Middle Ages in the North West: Papers Presented at an International Conference Sponsored by the Centers for Medieval Studies at the University of Liverpool and Toronto, eds. Tom Scott and Pat Starkey (Oxford: Leopard's Head Press, 1995), 203-19; and Sarah Stanbury, "The Body and the City in Pearl", Representations 47 (1994): 271-85. , Spuntiericerche: Rivistad'italianistica 11 (1995), 18-34; Nicola Coldstream, "TheKingdomofHeaven:ItsArchitecturalSetting", AgeofChivalry:ArtinPlantagenetEngland 1200-1400, ed. Jonathan Alexander and Paul Binski (London: Royal Academy of Arts in collaboration with Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987), 92-97; and Homo, MementoFinis: The Iconography of Just Judgment in Medieval Art and Drama, edited by David Bevington.
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that images of the medieval city are often contrasted with images of death. Death and corpses are often necessary to define the city's identity. This definition sometimes includes emphasizing a city's unique individuality, asserting foundations or power structures, or establishing an emerging new urban character. Historical texts disclose instances of public performancesinwhichdeathplaysaprominentrole;theyalsoemphasizethe value of cemeteries and tombs as memorial devices in city settings.2 Simultaneously,literarytextsfromwidegeographic,chronologic,andstylistic ranges—includingsuchexamplesastheOldEnglishpoemTheRuin;theMiddle EnglishSt.ErkenwaldandPiersPlowmanaswellastheworksofHoccleveand Lydgate;theOldFrenchRomandeThèbesandtheRomand'Enéas;Heinrichvon Veldeke'sMiddleHighGermanEneit;theSpanishCantardelmioCid; Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron and the Chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace and Layamon use the metaphor of death or depict images of death in connection with their particular needs in terms of the narrative construction of their respective cities. Together, the historical and literary analyzes paint a dramatic picture of how death, far from being just a static idea, is actually a dynamic part of medieval urban space, confirming – not denying – the city's powerful energy and historical importance. Throughout the Middle Ages, the dead were an important aspect of everyday life, a common physical presence and a common theme of reflection.
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OnevaluablereferenceconcerningthisconceptisDeathinTowns:UrbanResponsestotheDyingand theDead,100–1600,ed.StevenBassett(London,NewYork:LeicesterUniversityPress,1995).This collectionofessaysismostlybasedinarchaeologicalandanthropologicalstudiesofburialsites andmortalitypatterns.AlsoseeColinPlatt,KingDeath:TheBlackDeathandItsAftermathinLate MedievalEngland(Toronto:UniversityofTorontoPress,1996);DerToddesMächtigen:Kultund Kultur des Todes spätmittelalterlicher Herrscher, ed Lothar Kolmer (Paderborn, Munique, et al.: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1997); Death in the Middle Ages, edição de Arno Borst, Konstanz Library, 20 (Constance: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 1993); Edward L. Bell, Vestiges of Mortality & Remembrance: A Bibliography on the Historical Archaeology of Cemeteries (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1994) e Mortality and Immortality: The Archaeology and Anthropology of Death, ed.S.C. Humphreys e Helen King (Londres: Academic Press, 1981). Forvaluablestudiesonmedievaldeath,seePaulBinski,MedievalDeath:RitualandRepresentation (Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress,1996);HowardWilliams,DeathandMemoryinEarlyMedieval Britain(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2006);PatrickJ.Geary,LivingwiththeDeadin theMiddleAges(Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress,1994);LastThings:DeathandtheApocalypseinthe MiddleAges,ed.CarolineWalkerBynumandPaulFreedman. MiddleAgesSeries(Philadelphia: UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress,2000);ChristopherDaniell,DeathandBurialinMedievalEngland, 1066–1550(London:Routledge,1997);VictoriaThompson,DyingandDeathinLaterAngloSaxon England(Woodbridge:BoydellPress,2004);ThePlaceoftheDead:DeathandRemembranceinLate MedievalandEarlyModernEurope,ed.BruceGordonandPeterMarshall(Cambridge:Cambridge UniversityPress, 2000); Craig Koslofsky, The Reformation of the Dead: Death Ritual in Early Modern Germany, 1450-1700 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000); Death Dying in the Middle
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Death marked a transition, a change of status, but not an end. . . The dead were present among the living through liturgical celebrations, dreams and visions, and in their remains, especially in the tombs and relics of saints. They were omnipresent and were drawn into all areas of life. They played an important role in the social, economic, political and cultural fields.4
Geary characterizes death as an intrusion into the cultural and social practices of the living, emphasizing how fundamental the relationship was. Medieval people envisioned a powerful and meaningful position for the dead, realized at least in part by the Christian Church's insistence that its followers meditate on death in order to avoid sinning in life. It remains, however, to see how this conceptualbondrevealsitselfandwhatitcantellusabouttheemploymentofthe deadincitycontexts.Inmyresearch,Ihavefoundseveraldifferentavenuesof evidencesupportingtheconceptofjuxtaposingthecityanddeath—forinstance, thelocationandgeographyofcemeterieswithincitiesortheanthropologicalstudy ofhowrelocationtocitieschangedhowoneapproacheddeathinthefaceofnew “relationshipframeworks,”inthephraseemployedbyJeanClaudeSchmitt.6In thisarticle,throughaseriesofrepresentativecasestudiesfrombothwellknown andmoreobscureliteraryandhistoricalexamples,Iwillattempttoexplicateafew oftheseconceptualrelationshipsincluding:thespacefordeathincities,especially physicalandsocialspaces,andhowthedeadplayedintourbanpolitics.
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Ages, eds.EdelgardE.DuBruckandBarbaraI.Gusick(NewYork:PeterLang,1999);Frederick S.Paxton,ChristianizingDeath:TheCreationofaRitualProcessinEarlyMedievalEurope(Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress,1990);DiesIlla.DeathintheMiddleAges:Proceedingofthe1983ManchesterColloquium,ed. 1 (Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1984); Death in the Middle Ages, editors Herman Braet and Werner Verbeke (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1983); and T.S.R. Boase, Death in the Middle Age: Mortality, Judgment, and Remembrance (New York: McGrawHill, 1972). Geary, Life with the Dead in Medieval England, 2. See Daniell, Deathhand Burialin Medieval England, 1–2: “Time on earth was fleeting and infinitely small for the life of the soul after death, but the eternal destiny of the soul made it himself determined by his actions. while in the mortal body. DAvray, Death and the Prince (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), notes that "the liturgy created royal communities in which the living and the dead were brought together (1) and that "the memorial sermon at this time was about life and business with death” (68). Jean-Claude Schmitt, Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Deadin Medieval Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 126.
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While previous studies have tended to focus on one aspect of medieval culture or geographic area, this discussion will synthesize different narratives and reveal how the architects behind different types of documents and artistic endeavors manipulated and applied the influential concept of death in urban settings. and made the concept of death both a real physical presence and a means of interacting with the community. This study examines the intersection between historical reality, literary construction and artistic expression.
TheSpaceforDeath:PhysicalandSocial Thepervadingpresenceofthedeadincitiesmanifestsitselfindifferentways, occupyingspacesbothphysicalandintangible.Literarytextsarearichsourceof materialforconsideringhowauthorsareabletousethedeadindepictingthe parametersofthevariouscitiesimportanttotheirtextsandhowtheyfurthertheir ownparticularagendas.Here,Iwillexaminetheuseofdeadkingstomarkurban foundations, particularly that of London, in Layamon's chronicle, the early thirteenthcentury Brut, and the dead as urban protectors in the midtwelfth centuryOldFrenchRomand'Enéas.Theseliteraryinstancesofhowthedeadare integratedintocityspacesareparalleledbyartisticandhistoricalrepresentations of the dead in urban settings, particularly through monuments such as the crosses of Eleanor of Castile.7 While these images speak to how death occupies significant physical space in cities, others, including William Langland's 14th-century Middle English Piers Plowman, reveal literary authors often examining the consequences of this evolving social landscape. Passages from Piers Plowman, for example, show that death in cities significantly affected religious life in rural areas.
7
Anotherarticleinthisvolume,C.DavidBenson’s“TheDeadandtheLiving:SomeMedieval DescriptionsoftheRuinsandRelicsofRomeKnowntotheEnglish,”arguesthatthemedieval textswhichexplorethefadedgloriesofRome,particularlyitsruinsandrelics,aremorethan simplydescriptionsofadeadcity,butare,rather,anattempttobringthemetropolisbacktolife throughcomposition..Thisstudydemonstratesbothhowprominentmonumentstothedeadwere inRomeandhowauthorsattemptedtoreinvigorateancienturbanspaces.
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TheDeadasUrbanFoundation:Layamon's Brut To begin the discussion of the physical space of the dead, I would first like to turn to the concept of urban founding myths through Layamon's Brut, a chronicle of the British (replacing that of Great Britain according to La3amon's text ) and narrated the founding of human society on the island, the ancestors of the islanders, and the most important political events of subsequent rulers.9
OneoftheaspectsofBritishsocietythatLayamonandhissources,Geoffreyof MonmouthandWace,areinterestedinexploringistheconstructionofcities,from the ones that Brutus either encounters or founds as he journeys to his new kingdomtotheonesthatspringupinBritain.Withrespecttothisstudy,however, whatisparticularlyinterestingisthatthesestoriesareoftenaccompaniedbyan imageofburial.Indeed,often,itisadeathwhichleadstothenamingofacityor whichidentifiesoneofitsdefiningfeatures,and,furthermore,thebodiesofthe deadarefrequentlyburiedwithinthesecities.Forexample,oneofthefirstto exhibitthisrelationshipisToursinFrance. When Turnus, one of Brutus' most devoted followers and kinsmen, is killed in battle, his body is taken back to the Trojan fortress that the Trojans had recently built and buried there. ÞuruþanilkaTurnusTurswesihaten, TuruinealþatlondþurhTurnusdeaðe.
(865–68)10
[Brutus found him dead and took him to the fortress and buried him next to a stone wall. Because of this rotation it was called the Tours; the whole region was called Touraine after the death court of Turnus.]
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The passages I will refer to here are actually the same as the parallel passages in Layamon's twelfth-century source, Waces Romande Brut. Lesley Johnson, "Reading the Pastin La3amon's Brut", The Text and Tradition of Laamon's Brut, ed. Françoise LeSaux (Woodbridge, Suffolk: DS Brewer, 1994), 141-60; here 142. For study abroad of chronicles in England, see Chris Given Wilson, Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England (London and New York: Hambledon and London, 2004). All Layamont quotes and translations are from La3amon's Brutor Hystoria Brutonum, ed. and trans. W.R.J. Barron and C. S. Weinberg (New York: Longman, 1995).
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The foundation of this urban center is built around the corpse of the warrior. HeisphysicallyconnectedtoToursinthatheisinterredwithinitswalls,andhe isalsoinsertedintothelegendaryspaceofthecity.11 AsLayamon'stextisconcernedmostlywiththehistoryofBritain,thecityof Londoniscentraltoitsstory,includingitsfoundingandtheevolutionofhowits namechangedfromNewTroy,designatedbyBrutus,toLondon.Throughoutthis retelling, it is clear that it is not just the kings who lived in this city who are significant,butalsothosekingswhodiedandwereburiedthere.Indeed,their burialsindicateboththeloveoftheirpeopleaswellasthesignificanceofthecity itself. Three figures in particular illustrate these concepts: Brutus, Belin and Lud. Brutus, namesake of the text and founder of London, is buried in the city by his sons: Þaheorafaderwes deadalllheomenenneread andhinebiburieninNewTroyeþereburh3e þatheorafaderhefdeimakedmidmuchelereblisse. (1049–51) [When his father died, they unanimously decided to bury him in the town of New Troy, which his father met with great joy.]
Just as Turnus is buried in Tours, Brutus is placed within the city he founded, reconnecting his corpse to urban myth and granting him an omnipresent presence within London's walls. On the other hand, the tombs of the other two kings I would like to highlight, Belin and Lud, are in specific locations. wawesheomonliueforþæskingesdæðe. Heoferdentohishordeandnomeþermuchedealgoldes; empowered denanetunneofgoldeandof3imme; þenekingheodudenþerinne,þatwesherelouerdBelin, vpheohinedudenhe3eanufenmesteþanturre þatmemihtehinebihaldenwide3eonþeonlonde. (3027-34)
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For a discussion of proper names other than those of cities in Layamon's text, see J.D. Bruce, "SomeProperNamesinLayamon'sBrutNotRepresentinWaceorGeoffreyofMonmouth," ModernLanguageNotes26.3(1911):65–9.
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[Thekingliveslonguntilhisendcame,andhelaydeadinLondon—hissubjectswere sad;becauseoftheking’sdeaththeyweresorrytobealive.Theywenttohistreasury andtookfromitagreatquantityofgold;theymadeavesselofgoldandofgems,put theking,whowastheirlordBelin,init,placedhimhighupinthetopmostpartofthe towersothathecouldbeseenfarandwideacrosstheland.Theydidthatoutoftheir greatlove,becausehewastheirbelovedlord.]
One of the most important aspects of this scene, besides the fact that the king was buried in the city, is the description of his burial. Placed in the tower "so that it could be seen throughout the land", Belin's body becomes almost a symbol of the city, visible and omnipresent. Ludkingiwarðdæd – in Lundenemehineide. Þerweoreneorlesswiðewæte,andleidenþenekingbiane3ate þat3etmecleopeðfuliwisPortLudaBruttisce. (3555–59) [And so it prospered in this land until the king's life came to an end. King Luddied - he was buried in London.
While Brutus is the city's founder, Lud is the king who built a wall around London and changed its name to Kaer Lud to reflect his own. This renaming makes him something of a secondary founder. But all protection is just an illusion. Like rivers, cities become symbols of death. Cities under siege are usually completely destroyed – except those that surrender.” While Alamichel's claim may apply to cities portrayed as under siege, I would argue that in the case of Louis and his burial beside his protective wall, death was not a form of death's destruction, but rather an affirmation of permanence, and with its limits defining the mythical and physical urban space.
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MarieFrançoise Alamichel, "Space in the Brut", The Text and Tradition of La3amons Brut, eds. Françoise LeSaux (Woodbridge, Suffolk: DS Brewer, 1994), 183–92; aqui188.
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Camille:UrbanProtectorintheRomand'Enéas ThemidtwelfthcenturyRomand'Enéas,aromanceretellingofVirgil'sAeneid, providesaninterestingparalleltotheimagesweseeinLayamon'swork.Unlike its primary source, this Roman does not depict the famous scene of Aeneas descendingintotheunderworld,therealmofthedead,whereheistoldthathe andhislineagearedestinedtofoundthegreatcityofRome.Indeed,thisworkhas verylittleconcernforthefoundationofRome;rather,ittransformsVirgil'sinterest inthevenerationofthehistoryofhiscityintoaninterestinmakingEnéasintoa chivalricknight,successfulbothinloveandwar.13Giventhisrenovationofthe story,itseemslogicaltosupposethattheauthorwouldhavenorealneedforthe deadwithrespecttoanyurbanconsiderations.However,thisisnotthecase.One particularfigureisworthyofexaminationinthiscontextthatofCamille,queen ofVulcane.Awarriorwomandescribedasbothqueenandking,Camillearrives toaidTurnusinhiswaragainstEnéasforthehandofLavineand,thus,theright togovernLaurente,thecityofLatinus.Ratherthanthefewlinesaccordedherby Virgil,theRomanauthorspendsquiteabitoftimedescribingherappearance,her dedicationtochivalry,andeven,atonepoint,herhorse,anditisclearinthetext thatsheisaccordedtheesteemofanequalcombatantbyherallies,ifnotalways von Ihren Feinden. Besonders ihre Beziehung zu Turnus ist von gegenseitigem Respekt geprägt, da er sich an sie wendet, wenn er beschließt, einen Hinterhalt gegen Enéas zu legen. Nachdem Camille im Kampf gestorben ist, sehen wir, wie der Tod in das Bild der Stadt einfließt und wie die Toten in diesem romantischen Kontext als Wächter fungieren. Followingtheaccountoftheentirearmy,especiallyofTurnus,andthecitizensof Laurentegrieving,thereisadescriptionofhowherbodyistransportedinagreat processionthroughthestreetsandthenhowitistakentoherowncity.Oncethere, sheisinterredinamagnificentshrine.Theinterestingaspectofthissceneliesin thefactthatalargemirrorisplacedatthetopofthisunusualtomb,amirrorthat servestoprotectthecity.Thetextreads: dedesoreot.I.miroior: illuecpooitbienl’enveoir quantl’ens’ivendroitasseoir, oufustparmeroufustparterre,
13
See Helen C. Laurie, "EnéasandtheDoctrineofCourtlyLove", ModernLanguageReview64(1969):283-94, and Howard R. Bloch, "EnéasbeforetheWallsofCarthage:TheBeginningsofttheCityandRomanceintheSuburbs", Beginnings in French Literature, eds. Freeman G. Henry (New York: Rodopi, 2002), 1-27. For a more comprehensive examination of degest and death songs, see Sarah Kay, "The Life of the DeadBody: Deathhand the Sacreinthe Chansons degeste", Yale French Studies 86 (1994): 94–108.
The medieval city defined by death was never nefustconquisparguerre. Bienverroientaumiroior quiertassizensonlator loranemisverseuzvenire, dontsepovoientbiengarnir, appareillieraeuzdeffendre; n'erentpaslegierasorprendre.
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[Above that was a mirror in which they could see very well if someone attacked them, either by sea or by land. They would never be conquered in war; Whoever sat at the base of the tower could see their enemies coming towards them in the mirror. That way they could fend for themselves and prepare for defense; they would not be easily surprised.]15
Camille continues to do her duty as Vulcane's defender; even though she herselfwaskilledinwar,herbodyandthetombthatveneratesitavertsthesame fateforherpeople.Furthermore,herdemisepreventsthepotentialdestructionof Laurenteitself.Whenthetextturnsawayfromthedigressionconcerninghertomb backtothewar,Turnusimmediatelygivesthespeechinwhichhedecidestoface Enéasinhandtohandcombatratherthancontinuingthedevastationofopen battle.InVirgil'sversion,Turnus'sdecisionisrenderedinasuccinct,angerdriven monologue.IntheRoman,thetoneofhisspeechissadandresigned,andone cannothelpbutfeelthathisgriefatthedeathofCamillehasbroughtabouthis resolution.Asaresult,Laurenteavoidspotentialdestruction,suchasthatfound inthenearcontemporaneoustext,theRomandeThèbes,inwhichthetitlecityis razedtothegroundintheaftermathofabloodycivilwar By emphasizing the late Camille's protective power for both her own city and Laurent, the author of Ené was able to explore an emotional aspect of Turnus that is unnecessary in the original epic.
The art of death: monuments, tombs and Eleanor's crosses The representation of the physicality of corpses in urban environments in Brut and Enéas is not just a fictional device. Historical and archaeological evidence shows that the dead were present everywhere, particularly in monuments, tombs and cemeteries. Family members often commissioned works of art such as tombstones, stained glass, plaques or columns.
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Zitat aus Romand'Enéas, Pocket Book (Paris: Gothic Letters, 1997). Tradução de Romand'Enéatirado de Eneas: ATwelfth Century French Romance, trad. John A. Yunck. Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies, 93 (Nova York: Columbia University Press, 1974), 204–05.
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commemorate their relatives, thereby hoping to ensure that they would be remembered;wealthierurbanfamilies,especially,chosetoorderworksofthis nature.16Thoseattendingchurchwouldbesurroundedbymemorialsofthosewho hadpassedon,creatingareasinwhichthedeadwerevisuallyandsymbolically presenttotheliving.Royalfigures,particularlyincapitalcities,werefrequently memorializedandidealizedwitheffigiesandpublicburialspaces.17Inaddition, mostcitiessupportedalargenumberofgraveyards,whichisnotsurprisinggiven the amount of people within these environments and urban mortality rates . Vanessa Harding, for example, noted that there were 107 churches plus St Paul's and many religious houses in pre-Reformation London, all responsible for the burial of London's dead. Regarding cemeteries, Jean-Claude Schmitt observes:
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A literary example of this commemoration can be found in the texts of Apollonius of Tyre, where a significant monument is erected, influencing both the development of the story and the characters. For a basic discussion of the Apollonius history tradition, see Elizabeth Archibald, Apollonius of Tyre: Medievaland Renaissance Themes and Variations, Inclusion the Text of the Historia Apolloni Regis Tyri with an English Translation (Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 1991). See also Albrecht Classen, "Reading and Deciphering in Apollonius of Tire and the 'Historia' of the Seven Wise Men:MedievalEpistemologywithaLiteraryContext", StudiMedievali49.1(2008):161–89. For discussions of the "Art of Death", see Mark Duffy, Royal Tombs of Medieval England (Gloucestershire, UK: Tempus Publishing, 2003); AnnMarie Yasin, "Funeral Monuments and Collective Identity: From the Roman Family to the Christian Community," Art Bulletin 87.3 (2005): 433-57; Karl S. Guthke, The Gender of Death: A Cultural History in Art and Literature (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Howard Colvin, Architecture and the Afterlife (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991); Nigel Llewellyn, The Art of Death: Visual Culture in the English Death Ritual, c. and James Clark, "The Dance of Death in the Middle A" by Renaissance, reprinted in Death the Visual Arts (New York: ArnoPress, l977). VanessaHarding,“BurialChoiceandBurialLocationinLaterMedievalLondon,”DeathinTowns: UrbanResponsestotheDyingandtheDead,100–1600,ed.StevenBassett(LondonandNewYork: LeicesterUniversityPress,1995),119–35;here120.AlsoseeVanessaHarding,TheDeadandthe LivinginParisandLondon,1500–1670(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2002).Foran overalldiscussionofthehistoryofcemeteriesinEngland, see Daniell, Deathhand Burial in Medieval England, 145-74. For a similar discussion of burials in Flanders and Tuscany at the time of the Black Death, see Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., "The Place of the Dead in Flanders and Tuscany: Towards a Comparative History of the Black Death", ThePlaceoftheDead: DeathandRemembrance in LateMedievalandEarlyModernEurope, ed. 2000), 17-43.
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At the center [of many European villages] is the parish church, and then the graves in the cemetery are heaped around it... The cemetery was enclosed by a wall. . . The cemetery was thus an intermediate place between the church and the village, and played a mediating role: the inhabitants had to go through it constantly, not only when going to church or returning from church, but also when coming from one end of the village. to another or from one neighborhood to another within the city.19
Monuments also played a similar role, as they were intended to keep the dead in mind and the memory of the living.20 There are many examples of monuments and tombs in medieval urban settings, particularly in urban cathedrals and churches. The Eleanor Crosses are particularly interesting, however, because they represent one of the most elaborate collections of royal monuments in English history, twelve crosses erected on Edward's orders and completed in the years following the procession to commemorate each stop Eleanor's body made when it was taken from Harby, where it died, back to Westminster Abbey.22 There are many theories as to why Edward did this.
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Schmitt, Ghosts in the Middle Ages, 183. See Elizabeth Valdezdel Alamo and Carol Stamatis Pendergast, "Introduction," Memory and the Medieval Tomb, eds. Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo and Carol Stamatis Pendergast (Aldershot, UK and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 2000), 1–15; here 1: “Monuments designed to commemorate use many means to trigger memories: vivid images that are wonderful and active; strategically placed figures or inscriptions that contextualize the place; and a kinetic relationship between the funerary monument and its visitors, often manifested in ritual acts involving movement around or within the monument. These commemorative strategies established a dialogue between the living and the dead, articulating mutual benefits for both sides.” : St Martin's, 1995); Anne Crawford, "The Queen's Counsel in the Middle Ages", English Historical Review 116,469 (2001): 1193-211; and David Crook, "The Last Days of Eleanor of Castile: The Death of a Queen in Nottinghamshire, November 1290, At Richard of Weston's House in Harby", Transactionsofthe Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire: 17208 (1798-1994). For a discussion of her burial in relation to other queens of the time, see John CarmiParsons, "'Neverwasabody buried in England with such solemnity and honor': the burials and posthumous commemorations of English queens up to 1500", Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference Held at Kings College London, April 1995, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 1997), 317-37. For a brief history of crosses, see Doreen Shakesby, "The Crosses of Queen Eleanor", Medieval History 3 (1993): 26-29, and Eleanor of Castile 1290-1990: Essays to Commemorate the 700th Anniversary of Her Death: 28 November 1290, editor David Parsons (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1991). Most of these monuments were destroyed during the English Civil War. In addition to the crosses, three tombs for Eleanor, the Dominican Black Friars, were also erected in Lincoln Cathedral.
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para encomendar esses monumentos, mas a maioria parece concordar que foi por devoção à sua esposa. Doreen Shakesby states that Edward “certainly went to extraordinarylengthstomarktheroutetakentohisqueen'sfinalrestingplace, presumablyinthemistakenbeliefthatthememorialsheerectedwouldstandas aperpetualvisibletestimonytohismelancholyjourneybacktoWestminster.”23 There have been some scholars, such as Nicola Coldstream, who suggest that Edwardintendedthecrossestoencourageaviewofroyalsplendorandpower.24 Notonlyarethesecrossesexceptionalasexamplesofmonumentsintendedto commemorateroyaldeath,theyarealsodistinctlyurbanintheircharacter,both inlocationandinthecircumstancesoftheirconstruction.Thecrosseswerebuilt in the following places: Lincoln , Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, North hampton,StonyStratford,Woburn,Dunstable,St.Albans,Waltham,WestCheap, andCharing.Thesesiteswere,byandlarge,townsatthetimethecrosseswere constructed,whileWestCheapandCharingwerelocatedwithintheboundaries ofLondon.Mostofthesemonumentswerebuiltinthesquaresoratthecrossroads inthetowncenters,prominentlydisplayedforalltravelerstosee,includingthose followingthesamepaththattheprocessiontookintoLondon.Furthermore,the two within the Metropolitan, West Cheap e Charing eram os mais ornamentados e famosos, custando £ 226 e £ 700, respectivamente, contra a média de £ 100 em que os outros eram avaliados. De fato, o trabalho para todas as cruzes se originou em Londres e foi supervisionado por um dos mestres pedreiros da cidade, Ricardo de Crundale, com as outras cidades menores ao longo do caminho ilustrando a presença onipresente de tais marcas de morte.
Death and Social Space in Urban Environments: Crowds for the Dead It is well documented that with the emergence of cities, the geographic location of populations changed as people migrated to these areas. These changes influenced how individuals reacted to their own deaths and those of others. Cohn states that "urbanization, commercialization and migration were affecting the individual as early as the thirteenth century".
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Westminster Church and Abbey. Shakesby, "Queen Eleanor's Crosses", 29. Nicola Coldstream, "The Commissioning and Design of the Eleanor Crosses", Eleanor of Castile 1290-1990, ed. David Parsons (Stamford:PaulWatkins,1991), 55-67; here 65. Coldstream, "The Commissioning and Design of the Eleanor Crosses", 59.
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familyandtiestotheancestorsledtonewlevelsoffearfeedingthegrowthinthe territoryofPurgatoryandwithittheneedforeverincreasingnumbersofmasses andintercessorsforthesoul.”26Insteadofdependinguponone’sfamilytoperform thenecessaryritesafterdeath,thisseparationfromancestrallinesforcedpeople inurbanenvironmentstodevelopothermeansofensuringthecontinuedprayers fortheirsoulsaftertheydied.Asaresult,thebusinessofperformingmassesfor thedeadflourishedincitiesasindividualsbegangivingmoneytoreligioushouses toensuretheirplaceintheafterlifethroughposthumousprayer.27Theexamples ofthispracticearenumerous.Forinstance,urbanguilds,whichwerewealthier thantheirmoreruralcounterparts,wereabletopayprieststoperformmassesfor their dead members.28 In literature, this custom generally elicited scorn. For example, in William Langland's Piers Plowman B text, there is concern that priests left their villages for London to enjoy the comfort and wealth that came from this occupation: people and women vicars sacrificed them to the bishop because vicars were poor to have a license and live in London to live and Syngen for them. (B.Prolog.83-86)29
This migration of priests has left parishioners with no one to tend to their spiritual needs, which is obviously an issue she and Langland are critical of. While holding funeral masses was not unique to cities, it became a popular business within them, influencing religious practices and the form of communities as residents were forced into relationships beyond their families and the relocation of priests affected urban areas.
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Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., “O Lugar dos Mortos na Flandres e na Toscana”, 19:20. Para um exame da evolução inicial das causas da morte, ver Paxton, ChristianizingDeath. Daniell, Deathhand Burial in Medieval England, 19-20. Citando o texto B de Piers Plowman de The Vision of Piers Plowman, ed. A.V.C. Schmidt (Nova York: Qualquer um, 1995). Simony does, of course, include other acts besides acceptingpaymentforperformingmassesforthedead;however,itisgenerallyconsideredby scholarsofthepoemthatthispassageisreferringtothisactspecifically.Forstudiesonsimony inPiersingeneral,seeRussellA.Peck,SocialConscienceandthePoets,SocialUnrestintheLate MiddleAges:PapersoftheFifteenthAnnualConferenceoftheCenterforMedievalandEarlyRenaissance Studies,ed.FrancisX.Newman(Binghamton,NY:MedievalandRenaissanceTextsandStudies, 1986),113–48 ; (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1976). Ver também John Wycliffe, On Simony, trad. Terrence A McVeigh (Nova York: Fordham University Press, 1992).
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PoliticalRolesoftheUrbanDead KatherineVerdery,inastudyonthedeadinpostsocialistcultures,remarksthat “[d]eadbodieshaveenjoyedpoliticallifetheworldoverandsincefarbackin time.”30Thisassessmentisappropriateforthedeadinmedievalcitiesforthey wereverymuchapartofthepoliticalatmosphere.Dependingonhowtheywere manipulated, they could either solidify authority already in place or escalate contention,serveasacity’ssymboloritsprotector.Thebodiesofthosewhohad alreadypassedon,particularlythosewhohadsomesortofpowerorpositionin life,wereasmuchapartofpoliticalnegotiationsandoperationsasweretheliving. Toillustratethepossibilitiesofthisconcept,Iwillbrieflyexaminetwohistorical cases;thefirst,fromeleventhcenturyCambrai,demonstrateshowthedeadare employedwithinacity’sinternalaffairsandthesecond,concerningtheninth centuryriseofVenice,associatesdeathwiththedevelopmentofexternalpolitical affiliationsandidentity.Whiletheseareonlytwoillustrations,theydorevealhow thephysicalpresenceofbodies,whetherofsaints,holyfigures,ormembersofthe community,issignificant,evennecessary,indefiningpoliticalurbancharacter. Die Toten können, wie im Fall der Feierlichkeiten in Cambrai, eingesetzt werden, um den Anschein von Bürgerlichkeit zu erwecken, oder, wie in St. Wie bei historischen Referenzen ist die schiere Menge an nützlichem Material in diesem Zusammenhang weit verbreitet und fast grenzenlos; hier werde ich jedoch das mittelenglische Gedicht Saint Erkenwald aus dem späten 14.
Cambrai,BishopGerard,andSt.Géry InreadingarelativelyrecentarticlebyRobertSteinentitled“SacredAuthorityand SecularPower:TheHistoricalArgumentoftheGestaEpiscoporumCameracensis,”31 I was introduced to a text called “The Deeds of the Bishops of Cambrai,” the compositionofwhichwascommissionedaround1024byBishopGerardI;itisa threevolumeworkthatdetailsthesuccessionofthecity'sbishops,recountingthe foundation of Cambrai, and its affiliations with Benachbarte Klöster u
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Katherine Verdery, ThePoliticalLivesofDeadBodies: ReburialandPostsocialistChange (NovaYork: ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1999),1. Robert M. Stein, “SacredAuthorityandSecularPower:TheHistoricalArgumentoftheGesta EpiscoporumCameracensis“,SacredandSecularinMedievalandEarlyModernCultures:NewEssays, Hrsg.LawrenceBesserman(NewYork:Palgrave,2006),149–65.
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Religious houses.32 The last section deals with Gerard's own life and the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral. The Gesta scene of particular interest for this study is the one Stein also refers to in his article, albeit with a different purpose. In November 1030, after the completion of work on the cathedral, Bishop Gerard organized a special ceremony to consecrate the church, an occasion that brought together all the residents of the city and the surrounding area. GaugericusintheLatin,isbroughtintotheCathedral.Géryisconsideredtobethe foundingbishopofCambrai,livingfromthelatterhalfofthesixthcenturytothe beginningoftheseventh.Gerardhasthesaintsetonthe“cathedrapontificali” (“thepontificalseat”);notably,thetextthensaysthathewasseatedthere“sicut antefuerat”(III.49.30;justashehadbeenbefore).Theimagehereisthatofthe reveredbodyofadeadholymanaccordedthesamecourtesyandthesamerespect thathewouldhavebeengivenduringhislifetime.Furthermore,SaintGéryisnot the only deceased figure in attendance. The bodies of other Cambrian bishops, 7th-century Aubert and Vindicien and 8th-century Hadulf, can sit at the event. as the text says, "ipsi eiusdem altaris comministri fuerant" (III.49.30; they themselves served the same altars). Along with these sacred figures from the past are others from the diocese, from the city of Cambrai, the bodies of "martyrs, confessors and virgins" (III.49.30; martyrs, confessors and virgins), all arranged according to their social position. In short, in this Gesta scene, as Robert Stein observes, the dead seem to be "connected with the surviving members of the congregation in a sacred ceremony." . . commixtos” (III.49.42–43;thebodiesofthesaintsweremixedtogetherwiththepeopleand clericsofourdioceseinasinglecongregation).TheimagepromotedbytheGesta, whetherornotitwastrueinreality,isofagatheringofthecitizensofCambrai, bothpastandpresent,inaunifiedcelebration.InastudyofGerardofCambrai, DianeReillyrecognizestheBishop’sawarenessofhispositionasapoliticalentity: “Asadefenderoftheecclesiasticalstatusquo,GerardofCambraisoughtnotjust to preserve the ancient rights of bishops, but also with them the divinely
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All quotations from the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracens come from the Gestapontificum Cameracensium, http://mdz10.bibbvb.de/~db/bsb00001080/images/index.html?seite=403), Monumenta Germaniae Historia, Scriptores7, ed. Ludwig Bethmann (1846; New York: Kraus, 1963). can be found in the digital Monumenta Germaniae Historia (http://www.dmgh.de/). Translations are by the author (both sites last accessed February 7, 2009). Stein, "Sacred Authority and Temporal Power", 150.
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sanctioned rights of kings... As a product of the imperial system of patronage for bishops, he was well acquainted with the workings of court politics and its potential to function as a religious intermediary of power.
St. Mark and the Rise of Venice Next, I turn to an example from Venetian history: this particularly famous case illustrates the political and cultural value of the tombs and monuments of saints, especially those found in urban areas. To give a brief background, the city of Venice itself was founded in the early 5th century, with various stories and myths surrounding its origins. For the first three centuries of its existence, it remained a rather insignificant area. Then, in 775, the eastern island of Olivolo became a bishopric and a cathedral was built. In 805, after a series of political and martial upheavals and despite internal loyalties divided between pro-Byzantine and pro-French factions, Venice paid homage to Charlemagne; When the Frankish and Byzantine empires entered into a treaty in 811, the effect on Venice was to free the city from Charlemagne's control and, while retaining the status of a Byzantine province, allow it to be autonomous for all intents and purposes.36
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DianeJ.Reilly,TheArtofReforminEleventhCenturyFlanders:GerardofCambrai,RichardofSaint VanneandtheSaintVaastBible(Leiden:Brill,2006),141.Besidesservingthegeneralintentionof providing vivid, physical evidence of authority, theceremony also was aimed at reinforcing Gerard'scontroloverthenearbyabbeyofSaintVaast,asheenterstheprocessionwithRichard, themonastery'sabbot.SeeReilly,TheArtofReform,111 –14. Outro excelente exemplo do reforço morto da autoridade episcopal urbana é o Panteão Episcopal do século XIII na Catedral de Léon. For a study, see Rocío Sánchez Ameijeiras, “Monumentaetmemoriae:TheThirteenthCenturyEpiscopalPantheonofLéonCathedral,”Memory andtheMedievalTomb,ed.ElizabethValdezdelAlamoandCarolStamatisPendergast(Aldershot, England,andBrookfield,VT:Ashgate,2000),269–86.Also,themanipulationofthelifeanddeath ofSt.HelenofAthyrainthepoliticalstrugglesbetweenthecathedralandthecityofTroyesinthe thirteenthcenturyisusefulaswell.SeeGeary,LivingwiththeDeadintheMiddleAges ,221–40, e Elizabeth Chapin,LesVillesdefoiresdeChampagnedesoriginesaudébutduXIVesiècle (Paris: Champion,1937),32–4. Para a história detalhada de Veneza, consulte John Julius Norwich, AHistoryofVenice (Nova York:Alfred A.Knopf, 1982).
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It is into this environment that St. Mark is brought in 828. Stolen from Alexandria by Venetian merchants in a dramatic and secret manoeuvre, the body of the Evangelist was placed in the private chapel of the Doge's palace. A year before the translation of Mark's remains in 827, Aquileia's official rights were confirmed at the Synod of Mantua. When the saint's body was secured, however,anewlegendwascirculated,statingthatMarkhadbeenforced,bya storm,toputintoportinwhatwouldbecomepartoftheVenetianlagoon;during hisstay,hereportedlyhadadreaminwhichhewastoldto“beatrest,”avision thatwassubsequentlyinterpreted,asawayofrationalizingthetheft,tomeanthat hisbodywasdestinedtobelonginVenice.ThephysicalpresenceoftheEvangelist achievedanumberofobjectivesforthecity.Religiousauthorityshiftedawayfrom theneighboringAquileiasincepossessingthebodyofthesainttrumpedsimple myth.AsGaryWillsremarks,“Venice...managedwhatOttoDemuscallsa' coup d'état, wresting from Aquileia the original basis of its authority, its link with Mark.”37 Furthermore, it allowed Venice to further distance itself from Byzantium and Rome. By claiming an apostolic heritage, Venice was also able to "surpass a spiritual level after Rome itself, with a claim to ecclesiastical autonomy". . . unparalleledinLatinChristendom.”38 AsImentionedpreviously,thebodyoftheEvangelistwasplaced,notinthe cathedralatOlivolo,asmightbeexpected,butinDogeGiustiniano'spalace,a movethatallowedhim,asecularfigure,controloverMark'sremains,including therighttoappointchaplainschargedwiththecareoftherelics.Thisdecision deposedtheauthorityofthebishops,whowereliterallypushedtotheedgesof sacralimportanceinthattheywerehousedattheoutlyingcathedral.Thepresence ofMarkinthepalacechapelincorporatedthesaintintoeveryaspectofVenetian politicallife.Inthefollowingcenturies,thesymbolofMark,thelion,wouldspread throughoutthecity,andVenice' Smartial achievements and their progression
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GarryWills,Venice:LionCity—TheReligionofEmpire(NewYork:Simon&Schuster,2001),29.Also seeElisabethCrouzetPavan,VeniceTriumphant:TheHorizonsofaMyth,trans.LydiaG.Cochrane (Baltimore:TheJohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,2002),53:“Venicethusplaceditselfunderthe protectionofapatronsaintandprivilegedintercessorwhopermittedittoproclaimitsoriginality andthegrowingstrengthoftheworldofthelagooninthefaceofAquileiaandthemainlandbut alsotostateitswillforindependencefromByzantium.” Norwich, Geschichte Venedigs, 29.
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maritimeventures,wouldbeattributedtotheEvangelist’sprotection.39Thomas Dale has observed that “[t]he saint’s tomb was a nexus of political and ecclesiasticalpowerinthemedievalcity.Beyondperpetuatinghispraesentiaor physicalpresenceasafocusofcommunalintercession,thetombcouldevokea sacredpasttolegitimizecurrentcivicinstitutions.”40Hecontinuesbycommenting thatMark’stranslationwas“tangibleevidenceforanewlyinventedsacredpast.”41 Thisinvention,predicatedonthebodyofthesaint,wasanimportantfactorthat allowedVenicetosolidifyitsindependentidentityandtoachievearisetocivic andecclesiasticalpower.
Establishing London as the mayster toun in Saint Erkenwald We next turn to Middle English Saint Erkenwald, the story of a Papagan magistrate found under St Paul's Cathedral as it was being rebuilt by the titular bishop in the seventh century. He describes it as 'metropol' and 'maystertoun', 'the capital' (26).43 It is clear from the outset that the author is concerned with England's conversion to Christianity, particularly as this manifests itself in the way pagan names were changed and adjusted to reflect the introduction of the new religion, and more specifically, how temples
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See CrouzetPavan, Venice Triumph, 54: “[I] say to you that the Venetian shipping companies have found a privileged protector. At the end of the 10th century, the situation gradually changed, and Venice went on the offensive. Thomas EA Dale, "StolenProperty: StMarksFirstVenetianTombandthePoliticsofCommunalMemory", MemoryandtheMedievalTomb,eds.ElizabethValdezdelAlamoandCarolStamatisPendergast(Aldershot,England,andBrookfield,VT:Ashgate,2000),205-15; Dale, "StolenProperty", 205. Ruth Nisse, "'ACorounFulRiche': The RuleofHistoryinStErkenwald",EnglishLiteraryHistory 65(1998):277-95;here278. Quotes from Saint Erkenwald, ed. Clifford Peterson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977). For studies of the saint's legend, see Gordon Whatley, The Saint of London: The Life and Miracles of St. Erkenwald (Binghamton, NY: Medieval&Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1989) and "HeathensandSaints: St. ): 330-3 63 and T. McAlindon, "Hagiography into Art: AStudyofSt.Erkenwald", Studies in Philology 67(1970):472- 94.
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and people in pre-Christian London were converted.44 Indeed, the pseudo-history of London is told throughout the text - how Brutus founded the city and so on - all relating chronologically to the life of Christ, creating a parallel line. of time for the city. Furthermore, as Lynn Staley notes in reference to St. Erkenwald, the most immediate location of St. Paul emphasizes the particularly urban character of the work, as "[t]he cathedral was once the point of intercession for the lost, a sign of London's new identity, an example of proper worship, a place of learning, a place where classes meet in diverse works, and the intersection of the past and the present.”45 Furthermore, D. Smith has classified Saint Paul's Cathedral, relying primarily on evidence from a public plaque from 1346 identifying key dates in London's history as responsible for the "symbolic management of London time" and as "a repository of memory and a historiography beyond human experience". Erkenwald himself is worth examining when examining the juxtaposition of death and the city. Mary. The history of Erkenwald'scultaswellasofhisascensiontopopularityinLondon ritualsprovidesmuchdetailforconsideration.
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Raymond P. Tripp, Jr., "St.Erkenwald: A Tale of Two Souls", in Geardagum14 (1993): 89–110; 1996):234–50. Lynn Staley, "The Manin FoulClothesandLateFourteenthCenturyConversationaboutSin", StudiesintheAgeofChaucer24(2002):1-47;here23-24. D. Vance Smith, "CryptandDecryption:ErkenwaldTerminableandInterminable", NewMedieval Literatures5(2002):59-85;here63. See Whatley, The Saint of London, especially 57-70. For example, Whatley, The Saint of London, 58, refers to an eleventh-century Anglo-Norman hagiographer, Hermann von Bury, who says that Londoners are not saints, although the cult of Erkenwald was strong; Hermann's intention seems to have been to replace the saint with his own patron, St Edmund.
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mentions that the king's symbolic procession through the city included a visit to Erkenwald's tomb: Rexreginaquemoxpostthecpeditesadierrun, Sacramonasteriituncvisitareloca O[c] they run equally among the princes and bishops of the cities; Obviatetclerusilliuseecclesie. Concomitantureos, papal worship, AdErkenwaldsanctasepulcrasimul Then he was venerated by the holy of holies; Scan quickly if you have feet.
(343–50)49
[Shortly afterwards, the King and Queen set out on foot to visit the abbey sanctuary. The primate and bishop of the city met her there; A clergyman from that church also came out to greet them. He quickly mounts the horse at his feet.]
The fact that Maidstone found it necessary to include this representation in her work emphasizes the connection between the body of the Holy Bishop and the civic work of the contemporary city of London, St Paul's Cathedral and a sanctuary with strong urban ties. Then, the other main character of the text is placed in this conceptual situation – the corpse of a virtuous pagan judge found in the foundations of the cathedral. talking about his discovery, but only to Erkenwald; Stars fall on the judge, his soul is redeemed and his body shows signs of decay for the first time.
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Quote from Richard Maidstone's DeConcordia: Concordia (Richard II's Reconciliation with London), ed. David R. Carlson, trans. AG Rigg (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2003). See Nisse, "'ACorounFulRiche'", 279-80. For a discussion of the body itself, see Siegfried Wenzel, “St. Erkenwald and the Uncorrupted Body, Notes and Queries 28.1(1981):13-14, Allen J. Frantzen, St. Erkenwald and the Raising of Lazarus, Mediaevalia 7(1981):157-71; For a discussion of "the speaking dead," see Patricia Harkins, "St. Erkenwald and the Speaking Dead," Mississippi Philological Association publication (1987): 96–105.
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reinforceandcontinuetheChristianizationofEngland'scapital,53thedeadbody seemstorepresentLondon'sreligiousandlegendarypast,claimingashedoeshis relationshiptotheoldcityanditspreviousnameof“NewTroie.”Despitethefact thatitisapagantimeheisreferringto,byestablishinghisownrighteousness,he createsa“fundamentallyvirtuoushistory”forLondon.54Yet,atthesametime, sinceherequirestheinterventionofSaintErkenwaldinordertoachievecomplete salvation, the bishop's work in advancing the Christian conversion Augustine beganbeforehimthroughtherenovationofSt.Paul'sisvalidatedandmadeeven moresacred. AsMonikaOtterstates,“Oncecommunicationwiththedeadman isestablished,themysteriousdiscoverycanbemadetoworkforErkenwald's people,offeringmoralinstruction,highlightingandreinforcingthechangesthat havetakenplacesincethejudge'sdeath,andthatarecurrentlytakingplaceunder Erkenwald'sleadership.”55WhileLondon'spastmaybevirtuous,itspresentis undeniablyChristian,providingtwofoldsupport,throughthepresenceofthe dead body, for the perception of London in the beginning of the text as the “maystertoun .“
Conclusion In the examples I have given here, I have demonstrated the importance and pervasiveness of the medieval relationship between death and the image of the city across time, space and genre. It is a rich topic for discussion in medieval urban studies, as it takes into account a variety of perceptionsanddemandsexplorationofhistory,politics,literature,hagiography, andanthropology,amongotherfields.TheparticularcasesthatIhavediscussed hererevealhowthedeadandtheirbodiesweremanipulatedinavarietyofways, bothphysicallyandfictionally,withinrepresentations ofthecity.JeanClaude Schmitthassaidthatthe“deadhavenoexistenceotherthanthatwhichtheliving imagineforthem.”56Indeed,thepeopleofmedievalcitiesorthoseauthorswho
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MonikaOtter,“'NewWerke':StErkenwald,StAlbans,andtheMedievalSenseofthePast,”Journal ofMedievalandRenaissanceStudies24(1994):387–414;here407:“[T]hepoetstressesthatLondon (thencalledNewTroy)wasthecapitalofpaganEngland,andthatitsnewreligiousandcivic prominenceunderChristianleadershipis,again,bothacompletechangeandalogical,organic continuation.ErkenwaldisthenintroducedasAustyn'ssuccessor. ..and his 'NewWerke', the reconstruction and rededication of the most important pagan temple, St Paul's Cathedral, is in direct continuity with the Christianisation of Austyn's England. Nisse, "'ACorounFulRiche'", 291. Otter, "'NewWerke'", 412. Schmitt, Ghosts in the Middle Ages, 1.
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Literary cities imagined a vital existence for their dead, but even beyond that the dead were real. They were active in urban politics, claimed their own spaces in urban landscapes, and were powerful parts of literary narratives that grounded and emphasized the complexities of urban concerns.
Alan V Murray (University of Leeds)
The demography of urban space in crusading Jerusalem (1099-1187)
Introduction On15July1099,afterasiegelastingjustoverfiveweeks,thearmiesoftheFirst CrusadestormedthewallsofthecityofJerusalem.TheseizureoftheHolyCity fromtheMuslimFtimidcaliphatefulfilledthegoalofanexpeditionthathadbeen proclaimed three and a half years before by Pope Urban II at the council of Clermont,andlaidthefoundationsforaChristianstate,thekingdomofJerusalem, inPalestine.On2October1187,JerusalemsurrenderedtoSaladin,rulerofEgypt andMuslimSyria,whoseforceshaddefeatedthearmyofthekingdominbattle attheHornsofHattinon5Julyofthatsameyear.Thetimebetweenthesetwo eventsconstitutedthelongestperiodofChristianruleoftheHolyCityfromthe timeofitscapturefromtheByzantineempirebythecaliph‘Umarin638rightup tothepresentday. These eighty-eight years were a period when the Franks, as the Western settlers in Palestine became known to themselves and their Muslim enemies, effected great changes in the character of the city and its people. the building of new Western-style Latin churches and monastic institutions and, perhaps most impressive, the identification of existing Islamic structures as Old Testament sites. The second major development was the change in the demographic composition of the city by the Franks. The demographic composition of the city was an important factor in this control; for the city to be under secure Christian rule, it was necessary that its population be of Franks or of other nationalities who supported or supported it.
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sympathetictothem.Thefirstofthesetwodevelopmentshasleftstructuresand stylisticfeatureswhicharestillnoticeableintheurbanlandscape,andhasbeen extensively studied by religious and art historians.1 The effects of the second developmentwerelargelyreversedinthecourseofSaladin'sconquestin1187and almostcompletelyobliteratedwhenFrankishruleinthecity,reestablishedby treatyin1229,wasfinallyextinguishedin1244.Thisessaywillnotaimtoaddto the extensive literature on the physical appearance of Jerusalem, but rather to studythehumanoccupationofurbanspace,examininghowtheconquerorsofthe cityin1099and1187manipulateditsdemographiccomposition,bybothviolent undriedliche Mittel, im Interesse religiöser Identität und militärischer Sicherheit.
The population of Jerusalem since 1099 The siege of Jerusalem by the Arabs under Umar, the second caliph, in 638 took the lives of many of the Byzantine population – then almost exclusively Christian – and when the city surrendered, many of the surviving administrators, soldiers and clerics fled into Byzantine territory. These refugees were replaced by Muslim immigrants from Arabia, as well as Jews (including members of the Samaritan and Karaite sects), since Umar appears to have lifted the Byzantine-era ban on Jews residing in the city. Most Christians belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church, but there were also some of the so-called Eastern or non-Chalcedonian Churches: Syrian Orthodox (Jacobite), Armenian and Coptic. The 11th-century Arab geographer Muqaddas, himself an Emit of Jerusalem, praised "the most elevated cities" but lamented that their population was still largely Christian and lamented that "Christians and Jews predominate there, and
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For the sacred topography of Jerusalem in Frankish times, see in particular: T.S.R. Boase, "Ecclesiastical Art in the Crusader States in Palestine and Syria," A History of the Crusades, gen.ed. Kenneth M. Setton, 6 volumes (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969-89), 4:69-139; Bernard Hamilton, "Rebuilding Zion: The Holy Places of Jerusalem the Twelfth Century", Studies in Church History 14 (1977): 105–116; "International History Review 17 (1995), 693-712; Adrian J. Boas, Jerusalem the Time of the Crusades: Society, Landscape and Art in the Holy City under Frankish Rule (London: Routledge, 2001). Dan Bahat and Chaim T Rubinstein, The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 68–89.
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the mosque devoid of congregations and assemblies.”3 The demographic composition of Jerusalem did not change significantly after the fearsome caliph Hkimbi Amr Allh began to persecute Muslim communities in 1009, although several Christian churches, most notably the Holy Sepulchre, were demolished and, eventually, in quite inappropriate places. the roads were restored after Hkima gave up its activities in 1020. Jerusalem, conquered by the Crusaders in the summer of 1099, was essentially the area of the present Old City. Its area was definedinaperiodofreconstructionfollowinganearthquakeoccurringin1033 or1034,whichdestroyedmanyofthecity'sByzantineperiodfortifications.While thewestern,northern,andmostoftheeasternwallswererebuilt,itdidnotprove practicaltorestorethesouthernandsoutheasternsectionswhichhadenclosedthe spurcontainingthereligioussitesofMountZionaswellasmuchoftheterrain thatslopeddowntotheeasttowardtheKidronvalleyasfarasthespringsof Siloam(mod.'AinSilwan).Anew,shortersouthernwallwasconstructed,leaving thecity'sdefencesinaroughlytrapezoidformcorrespondingtotheOttoman periodwallsthatsurvivetoday.4 TheprocessthatleduptotherebuildingofJerusalem'sfortificationsafterthe earthquakegivesusthefirstreasonablydetailedinformationonthecontemporary compositionofthecity'spopulation,whichremainedsubstantiallyunchanged until arrival of the crusaders. The timid Caliph Ab Tamm Ma'add al Mustansr billh ordered each religious community to bear the cost of reconstruction. He diverted funds from the imperial revenues from Cyprus, but made the condition that only Christians would be allowedtolivewithinthesectionofthecityenclosedbythewallsthathehadpaid for.ThelatetwelfthcenturyhistorianWilliamofTyre,whocarriedoutextensive researchonthehistoryofthenorthwesternsectionofthecitythatformedthe Patriarch'sQuarterunderFrankishrule,recordedthat“untilthatdaytheSaracens hadlivedtogetherwiththefaithfulindiscriminately,butfromthattime,byorder oftheprince[i.e.,thecaliph]theywereobligedtowithdrawtootherpartsofthe city, so that this fourth was left to the believers without discussion.”5
3 4
5
AlMuqaddasi, The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions: A Translation of Ahsanal Taqasimfi Ma'rifatal Aqalim, translated by Basil Anthony Collins (Reading: Garnet, 1994), 151-52. Bahat and Rubinstein, The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 87-88. The new course of the southern and southeastern walls left several important religious sites outside the fortified sites, including the churches of St Guillaume de Tyr, Chronicles, ed. Robert B.C. Huygens, Corpus Christianorum, Continuation Medievalis 63-63A, 2 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), IX. 16-18, 442-45; here 444: “They lived in good health and to this day promiscuous with the Muslim believers, but in the hour of hearing the supreme command they accepted the necessary parts of their citizenship without the fourth believer mentioned above
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The completion of the walls, which William dates to 1063, may have given members of different religious communities a stronger impetus to live side by side, seems to have taken place on the northwest section.6 However, it would be wrong to assume that this trend led to the formation of exclusive residential neighborhoods, but that there were accumulations around certain parts of the city. Since Christians still formed the majority of the population,asindicatedbyalMuqaddas,itwouldbeunrealisticforallofthem tobeconfinedwithinwhatlaterbecamethePatriarch'sQuarter.TheByzantine emperorregardedhimselfasprotectorofGreekOrthodoxchurch,anditislikely thatthosewhoresidedinthesectionwhosefortificationshehadfinancedwere membersofthatconfession,whowereknownasMelkites,literally'imperialist' Christians.7AftertheMuslimconquesttheJewshadmostlylivedsouthofthe AqsMosque,butthisareawasleftoutsidethecity'slimitaftertheconstruction ofthenew,shortersouthernwall.Theyseemtohaverelocatedtothenortheastern section,sincethisarea,oratleastpartofit,wasstillsometimesreferredtoasthe Juiverie(orLat.Juderia)bytheFranks.8 ThebasicdemographiccompositionofJerusalemcanhavebeenlittlealteredby theseizureofthecity,alongwithmostoftheinteriorofPalestine,bytheSaljq Turksin1077.FtimidrulewasrestoredwhenanEgyptianarmybesiegedand recapturedthecityinthesummerof1098.WhenthearmiesoftheFirstCrusade enterednorthernSyria,theFtimidshadmadediplomaticoverturestowardthem, hopingforanallianceagainsttheTurks.YetoncethecrusadersenteredPalestine, lessthanayearafterFtimidrulehadbeenrestored,itwasclearthattheHolyCity
6
7
8
erelikta contradiction.” Translations of the Chronicles of William of Tire cited in this essay are by the author, unless otherwise noted. The exact chronology of the reconstruction is problematic. William of Tyre identifies the ByzantineemperorwhoprovidedfundingasConstantine(IX)Monomachos(1042–55).However, healsodatesthecompletionoftheChristiansectionofwallsverypreciselytotheyear1063,and tothirtysixyearsbeforethecrusaderliberation.Therearetwopossibilitiesofreconcilingthis conflictinginformation.OneisthatConstantineIXprovidedfunds,butthattheworkwasnot completeduntilatleastadecadeafterhisreign;theotheristhatWilliamconfusedthenameand reignofthisemperorwiththatofConstantineXDoukas(1059–67),whowasactuallyreigningat thetimethewallswerefinished. ThetermderivedfromtheArabicmalik,“king,ruler,”relatingtotheByzantinebasileos.Sidney H.Griffith,“TheChurchofJerusalemandthe'Melkites':TheMakingofan'ArabOrthodox' IdentityintheWorldofIslam(750–1050CE),”ChristiansandChristianityintheHolyLand:Fromthe OriginstotheLatinKingdoms,ed.OraLimorandGuyG.Stroumsa,CulturalEncountersinLate AntiquityandtheMiddleAges,5(Turnhout : Brepols, 2006), 175–204. ChartesdeTerreSainteprovenantdel'abbayedeN.D.deJosaphat,ed.HenriFrançoisDelaborde (Paris:EcolesFrançaisesd'AthènesetdeRome,1880),43–45;CartulaireduchapitreduSaintSépulcre deSépulcredeJérusalem,ed.GenevièveBrescBautier(Paris:AcadémiedesInscriptionsetBelles Lettres,1984),no.169;JoshuaPrawer,TheHistoryoftheJewsintheLatinKingdomofJerusalem (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 17-18, 22.
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was the intended goal. The city had only a small garrison, so the timid governor Iftikhr al-Dawlah had to withstand the expected crusader siege until an army arrived from Egypt. He expelled the Christian residents for fear that they would collaborate with the Crusaders.9 They were replaced by Muslims and Jews from neighboring villages, who were expected to take an active part in defending against the Crusader attack.
TheCrusaderConquest There is a broad agreement among Western, Armenian, Arabic and Hebrew sourcesthatassoonastheyhadfoughttheirwayintoJerusalemon15July,the crusadersbeganamassacreofthecity'sMuslimandJewishinhabitants,which wasresumedthenextday.Modernhistorianshavebeengreatlyaffectedbythe descriptionsofthecontemporaryWesternsourceswhichdescribethekillingin lurid and sometimes extensive terms.10 Thus the southern French chronicler RaymondofAguilers,himselfaneyewitness,relates:“Someofthepaganswere mercifully beheaded, others pierced by arrows plunged from towers, and yet others,torturedforalongtime,wereburnedtodeathinsearingflames.Pilesof heads, hands, and feet lay in the houses and streets, and indeed there was a runningtoandfroofmenandknightsoverthecorpses.”11Itisnoticeablethat muchoftheimageryusedtodescribetheseeventsisBiblical incharacter;the booksofIsaiahandZechariahandtheRevelationoftheNewTestamentwere employedtojustifytheliberationofJerusalemandtheslaughteroftheGentiles ashavingbeendivinelyordained.12RaymondgoesontostatethatontheTemple
9 10 11
12
Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, VII.23, 374-75. For a detailed analysis, see Benjamin Z. Kedar, “The Jerusalem Massacre of July 1099 in the Western Historiography of the Crusades”, Crusades 3 (2004), 15–75, here65. "Raimundide Aguilerscanonici Podiensishistoria of the Franks who conquered Jerusalem", in RHC Hist.Occ.3:231-309, here 300: but others have long since been perverted and burned with fire. Guibert von Nogent, "Historia quae dicitur Gesta Dei per Francos", Recueil des Historien des Croisades: HistoriensOccidentaux [hereinafter referred to as RHCHist. OK quoted], 5 vols. (Paris: Académiedes Inscriptionset Belles Lettres, 1844-95), 4:113-263; here 227-29,237-38; Robert de Reims, "Roberti Monachihistoria Ierosolimtana", RHCHist. OK 3:717-882; here 868-82.
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Mountthecrusaders“rodeinblood[up]tothekneesandbridlesoftheirhorses.”13 ThisphrasecanbeidentifiedasareferencetoRevelation14.20,whichdescribes thevisionofthewinepressofthewrathofGod,fromwhichbloodwillflowupto thebridlesofhorses.14FulcherofChartresandBaldricofDoldescribehowthe HolySepulchreandtheTemplehadbeencleansedofacontagioncausedbypagan superstitions.15AproblemofinterpretationhasbeenpointedoutbyBenjamin Kedar,whohasundertakenthemostexhaustiveandnuancedinvestigationofthe massacres: the adoption of such imagery does not in itself invalidate the descriptions given by Raymond and other chroniclers; slaughter remains slaughter,evenifitisdescribedinapocalypticterms.Kedar'sdetaileddiachronic studyofthemedievalandmodernhistoriographyconcludesthatthemajorityof thecity'sinhabitantswereindeedkilled,althoughnumbersofbothMuslimsand Jewswereabletoescapeorwereransomed.16 AnotherproblematicissueintheinterpretationoftheWesternaccountsisthat theirextensiveuseofBiblicalimageryseemsmorelikearetrospectivejustification of the slaughter, and does not by itself necessarily explain why the crusaders embarkeduponthemassacre.Inrecentyearssomehistorianshavearguedthatthe massacreofbothcombatantsandcivilianpopulationalikewasthenormalfateof any city taken by storm according to the conventions of warfare at die Zeit, die auf ähnliche Ereignisse hinwies, bei denen die Verteidiger sich geweigert hatten, sich zu ergeben. 13
14
15
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"Raimundide Aguilers... the history of the Franks", 300: "But it is enough that they rode at the same time in the hypostyle hall of Solomon, bloodied and kneeling, and at the feet of the mad. With the fair court of the people, he would redeem the blood of my people, who have long endured blasphemy against God." Raymond of Aguilers, book, eds. John H. Hill and Laurita L. Hill. ,1969),150n.2;RaymondofAguilers,HistoriaFrancorumquiceperuntIherusalem,128n.22 Bible according to the Vulgate Version, edited by Robert Weber et al., 3rd edition (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1969), 1896: "etcalcatesetlacusextracivitatemetexivitsanguisdelacuusque millperseadfreno." for other contemporary Western authors, it seems to reinforce the theologically apocalyptic dimensions of the massacre by omitting any references to such basic fears as the capture of Plüpfe and Capzure. FulcheriCarnotensisHistoriaJerosolymitana(1095-1127), ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg: Winter, 1913), I.xxxiii,305-06; BaldricofDol, "BaldriciepiscopiDolensisHistoriaJerosolymitana", RHCHist.Occ4:102-03. Kedar, The Jerusalem Massacre of July 1099 in the Western Historiography of the Crusades, 65. John France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 355–56; Kaspar Elm, "The Conquest of Jerusalem in 1099: Its Representation, Evaluation and Interpretation in the Sources of the History of the First Crusade", Jerusalem in the Early and Late Middle Ages: Conflict and Conflict Management - Concepts and Views, eds. Dieter Bauer, Klaus Herbers and Nikolas Jaspert. Campus Historical Studies, 29 (Frankfurt Main: Campus, 2001), 31–54.
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Enquanto eles escalavam as paredes e lutavam pelas ruas estreitas desconhecidas, deve ter sido difícil distinguir entre soldados inimigos e civis desarmados, e no calor da batalha, como sabemos de numerosos conflitos subseqüentes, muitas vezes se sabia que Soldaten die Bereitschaft zeigten, potenzielle Gegner zu töten, ob bewaffnet oder nicht the slaughter continuedthenextday,16July,whileoncesource,theRhinelandchroniclerAlbert ofAachen,statesthatthecrusaderskilledofftheremainingSaracensonthethird day,thatis17July.18 Onecanbelievethatthedesiretocleansetheholysitesofthegentilecult,which figuredasoneofthemainthemesoftheWesternchroniclers,mayhavemotivated theclericalleadershipofthecrusadesandpossiblysomeofthemoredevoutlaity, butthedescriptionsofthesourcesarelessconvincinginexplainingtheactionsof themajorityoftherankandfilecrusaders.Forweekstheyhadbeenshortoffood andwater,andbythistimetheymusthavebeen physicallyexhaustedbythe exertionsofthesiegeandthefightingthatfolloweditwithinthecity.Theirmost immediate concerns must têm estado em sua segurança física e bem-estar, e comida e água; além disso, um desejo de adorar nos lugares sagrados pelos quais há tanto ansiavam e, possivelmente, um desejo de obter pilhagem e resgate. O riso do primeiro dia pode ter sido resultado do frenesi vingativo da batalha, mas temos que assumir que a maioria dos cruzados pelo menos descansou na noite seguinte. Bythetimeoftheconquestcrusadernumbershadbeenreducedtoabout10,000 fightersandnoncombatants.19AsmallgarrisonhadbeenleftbehindatLydda, nearthecoast,butessentiallythecrusadershadnosecurecommunicationseither withtheWestorwiththepocketsofFrankishheldterritoryfartothenorthat Antioch(modernAntakya,Turkey)andEdessa(anlurfa,Turkey).Theonlyships thathadjoinedthecrusadersinPalestinehadbeendismantledandtransported overlandbytheirGenoesecrewstoprovidewoodforbuildingsiegeenginesat
18
19
AlbertofAachen,HistoriaIerolimitana:HistoryoftheJourneytoJerusalem,ed.andtrans.SusanB. Edgington, 2 volumes Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon, 2007), 439-45. Stuttgart Contributions to History and Politics, 1 (Stuttgart:Klett, 1966); Susan B. Edgington, “The First Crusade: Reviewing the Evidence,” The First Crusade: Origins and Impact, ed. Jonathan Phillips (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 57–77. France, Victory in the East, 131, gives this estimate for Crusader forces at the Battle of Ascalon, fought by Crusaders against the Photid relief army in August 1099; thus, it provides an approximation to numbers that allow for Crusader casualties in the siege of Jerusalem.
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Jerusalem. F-Intimidated controlled the port of Ascalon (mod. Tel Ashqelon, Israel), where Egypt's relief forces were already concentrated. The only conceivable strategy for the crusaders was to secure Jerusalem as quickly as possible and use it as a base to face the timid army on the coastal plain; in case of defeat, they could retreat to the walled city and try to hold out there, hoping that some help would arrive from the west in later waves of Crusades. Securing Jerusalem in these circumstances was by no means a foregone conclusion.20EvenallowingforthepreviousexpulsionoftheChristianpopulation andthecasualtiesof15July,therewerestillalargenumberofMuslimsandJews leftwithinthecity.Notallofthemwerecaptives.Somehadtakenrefugeonthe Templeplatform;otherswerehidinginhousesorcellars;andfinally,theFtimid garrisonandsomecivilianswerestillholdingoutintheTowerofDavid,themain fortificationofthecity,underthecommandofthegovernor.Thecrusadershadto manthecity'swallsandkeeptheFtimidtroopsinthetowerisolated,whilealso attemptingtolocatefoodsuppliesforthecomingweeks;inthefaceofthesetasks, theyneededtocontrolthesurvivinginhabitantsinsidethecity,whosenumbers mayhavebeenequalorpossiblyevengreaterthantheirown .They must have feared that these people might rebel against the Crusaders as soon as the city's timid support army approached the city. Thenativeinhabitantscouldhavebeenransomedorsimplyexpelledenmasse, buttheywouldstillpresentamajorproblem.AllowinglargenumbersofMuslims andJewstoleavewouldhavesimplyincreasedthenumberofpeoplecompeting for scarce resources of food and water in the environs of Jerusalem.21 More dangerously,theycouldhaveprovidedalaborforcethatcouldbeemployedby theFtimidsinmountingasiegeofthecity.Thechancesofasuccessfulassault would have been greatly improved by large numbers that could be used to constructandmovesiegeengines,fillinditches,andhaulsuppliesoffoodand water.Thethinkingofthecrusadeleadershipcanbediscernedinapassagegiven by Albert von Aachen, who received his information from the returning crusaders. Albert relates a speech he attributes to "greater and wiser men", a phrase that must mean the leaders of the crusading armies:
20
21
The pre-siege population of Jerusalem has been estimated at around 20,000 to 30,000, see Joshua Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972),82. See Ronnie Ellenblum, "Frankish Castles, Muslim Castles, and the Medieval Citadel of Jerusalem," in Laudem Hierosolymitani: Studies in Crusades and Medieval Culture in Honor of Benjamin Z. Kedar, eds. Iris Shagrir, Ronnie Ellenblum, and Jonathan RileySmith (Aldershot : Ashgate, 2007), 93–110. On supply problems, especially water shortages, see France, Victory in the East, 334–35.
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Jerusalem, the city of God on high, was reconquered, as everyone knows, with great difficulty and not without loss to our men, and is now restored to her own children and freed from the hand of the king of Egypt and the yoke of the Turks. Butnowwemustbecarefullestweloseitthroughavariceorslothorthepitywehave forourenemies,sparingprisonersandgentilesstillleftinthecity.Forifwewereto beattackedingreatstrengthbythekingofEgyptweshouldbesuddenlyovercome frominsideandoutsidethecity,andinthiswaycarriedawayintoeternalexile.And sothemostimportantandtrustworthyadviceseemstousthatalltheSaracensand gentiles who are held prisoner for ransoming with money, or already redeemed, shouldbeputtotheswordwithoutdelay,sothatweshallnotmeetwithanyproblem fromtheirtrickeryormachinations.22
It is clear from these descriptions that considerable reflection had already taken place. Most of the city's residents were held captive for ransom, and arrangements may have been made for the release of many of them. But Crusader leaders were aware of the dual dangers from enemies within and without. The July 16th and 17th massacres are most plausibly understood as a calculated action aimed at eliminating this threat. The fearful garrison was still able to put up serious resistance; it was thereforeremovedbybeinggrantedfreepassagetoAscalon.23Thecrusadersthen turnedtotheremainderoftheMuslimandJewishinhabitantswhowereexecuted inthecourseofthenexttwodays.Thefactthatsomanycrusaderspostponedtheir plundering and did without ransoms in order to carry out executions is an indicationofaslaughterthatwasassystematicasitwasmerciless.Thecaptive inhabitantsweresplitupintogroupsandsystematicallyexecuted,whilefugitives werehunteddownsothat,inthewordsofAlbertofAachen,“notonlyinthe streets,housesandpalaces,buteveninplacesofdesertsolitudenumbersofslain weretobefound.”24Someofthecaptivesweresparedtocarryoutthetasksof cleansing the city and dragging the bodies of the dead outside the walls for disposal, until they too were slaughtered.25 As the Chronicler
22
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AlbertofAachen,HistoriaIerosolimitana,440–41:“Ierusalem,ciuitasDeiexcelsi,utuniuersinostis, magnadifficultate,etnonsinedampnonostrorumrecuperata,propriisfiliishodierestitutaest, etliberatademanuregisBabylonieetiugoTurcorum.Sednunccauendumestneauariciaaut pigriciauelmisericordiahabitaergainimicoshancamittamus,captiuisetadhucresiduisinurbe gentilibusparcentes.NamsifortearegeBabylonieinfortitudinegrauioccupatifuerimus,subito abintusetextraexpugnabimur,etsicinperpetuumexiliumtransportabimur.Vndeprimumet fideleconsiliumnobisuideturquatenusuniversiSarracenietgentilesquicaptiuitenenturpecunia redimendiautredemptisinedilationeingladiocorruant,nefraudeautingeniisillorumnobis aliquaaduersaoccurrant.” Fulcheri Carnotensis History of Jerusalem, I.30, 308–309. Wie Kedar argumentiert, war es wahrscheinlich, dass einige der Zivilisten, die in den Tower of David geflüchtet waren, die Garnison verlassen kontnen. Albert von Aachen, Geschichte Jerusalems, 442–43. 'Historiaquaedicitur GestaDeiperFrancos', 228
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When Fulcher of Chartres visited the city a year later, he was overcome by the violent stench emanating from the decaying bodies of the defenders that still lay around the city walls.
Jerusalém e seu povo sob o domínio franco Os massacres de 1099 podem ser entendidos como uma solução horrível e de curto prazo para a situação estratégica, que encontrou justificativa subsequente no idealismo religioso. Itisevenconceivablethatsomeoftheleaderswerethinkingofthelongerterm securityofthecity.Atanyrate,thenewdemographicfactsonthegroundthat werecreatedbytheslaughterwereperpetuatedforideologicalreasons.Afterthe immediate threat was averted, the Franks permanently enshrined the consequencesofthemassacrebyenactingalawthatnoMuslimsorJewswould beallowedtoresideinthecity.AsitwasexpressedbytheFrankishhistorian WilliamofTyre,“toallowanyonenotbelongingtotheChristianfaithtoliveinso veneratedaplaceseemedlikesacrilegetotheleadersintheirdevotiontoGod.”27 NonChristianmerchantsandpilgrimswereallowedin,butonlyastemporary visitors;theruleseventuallyseemtohavebeenrelaxedtopermitresidencefora handfulluckyenoughtosecureexemptionsbecausetheyhadnecessaryskillsthat could not be supplied by the Christian population, such as the Os tintureiros judeus foram mencionados por Benjamin de Tudelain em 1170.28 A nova capital, entretanto, não atraiu um grande número de francos para as administrações eclesiásticas e atendeu à crescente peregrinação estimulada pelo estabelecimento do acesso ocidental aos locais sagrados. Continha uma proporção relativamente alta de clero, tanto secular quanto regular, devido ao grande número de locais sagrados agora administrados pela Igreja latina, que atendia tanto aos peregrinos ocidentais quanto à população franca. Os francos assumiram a igreja do Santo Sepulcro, principal local religioso da cidade, expulsando seu clero grego, e realizaram um grande programa de reformas que ainda estava em andamento quando foi consagrada em 1149.
26 27 28
Fulcheri Carnotensis History Hierosolymithane, I.33,332-33. William of Tyre, Chronicle, XI.27,535-36. Boaz, Jerusalem at the time of the Crusades, 40.
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betweentheSheepPools.Thesevariousbuildingswereeasilyoutshonebythe toweringmagnificenceoftheIslamicstructuresontheHaramalSharif(“thenoble sanctuary”), as the Temple Mount in the southeast of the city was known to Muslims.TheIslamicsitestherewerereclaimedfortheChristianfaithbyaprocess ofwhatmightbecalledcreativereidentificationbytheLatinChurch.TheDome oftheRock, situatedatthecentreoftheTempleMount,wasidentifiedasthe ancientJewishTemple(Lat.TemplumDomini),andprovidedwithAugustinian canonsin1112.TheAqsMosquesituatedtoitssouthwasidentifiedasthePalace of Solomon (Latin Templum Salomonis) and in 1119 it was given to the newly foundedmilitaryreligiousorderoftheTemple,whichtookitsnamefromthe building.29ThesetwobuildingsweremosquesconstructedinatypicalIslamic style,andsotheyweregivenanew,Christianappearancebytheconstructionof new conventual and ancillary buildings and the addition of unambiguously Christiansymbolsanddecorations,suchasalargegoldencrossthatwaserected ontopoftheDomeoftheRock.TheTempleMountwasfarmoreprominentand splendidthanthesiteofChrist'sburialattheHolySepulchre,andcouldnotbe ignored,andsoitwasredefinedasagroupofOldTestamentsites,whichcould thusbeintegratedintothe das liturgische Leben der Stadt zusammen mit vielen neutestamentlichen Stätten. Der Tempelberg mit seiner architektonischen Pracht und den großen Freiflächen stand im Kontrast zu den überfüllten Gassen, die den Rest der Stadt prägten. ItsmainfunctionunderFrankishrule wasworship—asithadbeenunderthe Muslims—anduntilthenumberofpilgrimsbegantoincreaseitmusthaveoften beenfairlydeserted.Ithadonlyasmallresidentpopulation,consistingmainlyof theTemplarsandtheirancillarystaffwhowerestationedalongitssouthernside from1119.30Duringthefirsttwodecadesofthekingdommuchoftheremainder ofthecity’sspacewasevidentlyunoccupied.Themajorityofcrusadersreturned towesternEuropeinthesummerof1099;WilliamofTyrelaterestimatedthat GodfreyofBouillon,thefirstrulerofthekingdom,wasleftwithonly300knights and2000footsoldiers.31Tothisnumberweshouldadddependents,togetherwith clericsandothernoncombatants,butevenallowingforthem,aswellasnative
29
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John Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099-1185. Hakluyt Society Second Series, 167 (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1988), 28, points out that the Greek naos and the Latin templum both had the dual meanings of 'temple' and 'palace'. Templar houses in this area are mentioned by the pilgrim Theodoric, who visited the city around 1170, see Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099–1185,295. Guillaume of Tyr, Chronicles, IX.19, 445. For the relatively small number of forces available during Baldwin's time, see Alan V. Murray, "The Origin of the Frankish Nobility of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1100-1118", MediterraneananHistoricalReview4( 1989).281-300.
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With Christians returning to the city and other Franks arriving with Godfrey's successor King Baldwin I in the late 1100s, the total population must have been considerably lower than before the conquest. In fact, it was a measure of expropriation of non-resident property.32 The small population during the first two decades of the kingdom's existence made the security of the city a major concern. The capital was less than 80 kilometers from the fearsome front base of Ascalon and, in 1123, the caliphate proved capable of boosting the invasions of the kingdom. WilliamofTyreclaimsthat“therewasnotsufficientpopulationinthecityto carry out the necessary business of the kingdom, or even to defend its gates, towersandrampartsagainstsuddenenemyattacks.”33Hegoesontoexplainthat atthistimetheFrankishpopulationwasscarcelynumerousenoughtofillasingle vicus(i.e.quarterordistrict).34PrawerconcludedthattheFranks“doubtlesssettled inthenorthwesternquarterofthecity.”35Inmanywaysthiswouldhavebeena logicaldevelopment.ThisareawascentredonthechurchoftheHolySepulchre, which was the most important shrine of the city , and it enjoyed additional protectionintheformoftheTowerofDavid,situatedclosetothecentralpointof thewesternwall;thetwomainexitsofthenorthwesternsegment,theJaffaGate andStStephen'sGate,gaveaccesstothetwomainroutestoFrankishsettlements onthecoastandtothenorthinSamariaandGaliliee.Yetonewonderswhetherthe settlementpatternwasquitesodrasticasPrawerassumes.Themaingatesonall foursideswouldbeinregularusetobringinsuppliesoffoodstuffs,livestockand firewood.PilgrimsreturningfromtheMountofOlives,BethlehemortheJordan andwouldpresumablyusethegatesintheeasternandsouthernwalls.Allofthese gateswouldneedtobeguarded,andsoitwouldbereasonabletoassumethat
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34
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Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, IX.19.446. Guillaume de Tyr, Chronicle, XI. 27, 535: "... itauteoadceteranegociadenecessitateatevocato no sesete civitatate populus, quisaltemadprotegendos citvitatisintroitussetturresetmenia counterpentinashostium irruptiones sifficeret..." city in the time of hostility through many tribulations and endless troubles, they were as rare as if there were no number of them." 35 Joshua Prawer, "The Settlement of the Latins in Jerusalem," Speculum 27 (1952), 490-503, here 493.
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Garrison members, and possibly their families, were billeted near their posts outside the northwest quadrant. Around 1116, King Baldwin I took steps to increase the city's population by resettling Syrians from the Transjordan region southeast of the Dead Sea who "lived in villages under harsh conditions of servitude and forced tribute". SyriorSurianiwasthetermusedbytheFranksforArabicorSyriacspeaking Christians;itcouldrefereithertotheGreekOrthodox(Melkites),whousedGreek astheirliturgicallanguage,ortotheSyrianOrthodox(Jacobites),whoseliturgy wasinSyriac.ModernhistorianshaveoftenassumedthattheSyriansweresettled inthenortheasternsectionofthecitywherethepreConquestJuiveriehadbeen situated,andhavethususedthedesignation“SyrianQuarter”fortheentirearea correspondingtothepresentdayMuslimQuarter.37IntheOttomanperiodthe OldCityoutsidetheHaramalSharifwasdividedintofourconfessionalquarters: Christian(northwest),Muslim(northeast),Armenian(southwest)andJewish (southcentral ). However, we must be careful not to extrapolate these conditions hundreds of years back to the time of the Crusades. ThisapparentagreementontheexistenceofaSyrianQuartergoesbacktothe work of Prawer, who in his study of Latin settlement in Jerusalem sought to connecttheimmigrationoftheSyriansaround1116withevidenceprovidedbya laterOldFrenchguidetothecityofJerusalem.Thistext,knownbyitsmodern editorsaseitherEstatdelacitédeIherusalemorsimplyCitezdeIherusalem,survives inseveraldifferentmanuscriptsofanearlythirteenthcenturycompilationnow knownastheChronicleofErnoulandBernardleTresorier.38Thewholetransmission historyofthiscompilationiscomplex,anditisdifficulttodatetheOldFrench guide precisely. It may have been written between 1187 and 1229, as some of the words seem to indicate that the city was then conquered by Muslims.
36 37
38
Guillaumede Tyr, Chronique, XI.27,535–36. Prawer, “O assentamento dos latinos em Jerusalém”, 496; Prawer, O Reino Latino de Jerusalém, 40; Boas, Jerusalém no Tempo das Cruzadas, 88; Bahat und Rubinstein, The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 97. Ernoul, „L’EstatdelacitédeIherusalem“,ItinérairesàJérusalemmetdescriptionsdelaTerreSainterédigésenfrançaisauxXIe,XIIeetXIIIesiècles, hrsg. Henri Michelant and Gaston Raynaud, PublicationsdelaSociétédel’Orientlatin,Sériegéographique,3(Genève:Fick,1882),29–52;here 49.Confusingly,whilethisistheformofthetitlegiveninthecontentsofthiscollectionandthe firstpageoftheedition,therunningheadsgivethevariantLaCitezdeIherusalem.Thelatteristhe formofthetitleusedbyBoas,JerusalemintheTimeoftheCrusades.Tofurthercomplicatematters, MichelandandRaynaudalsousedthetitleEstatdelaCitédeIherusalemtodenoteashortertext transmittedintheworkknownasEstoiresd’OutremeretdelanaissanceSalahedin.
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it was written in its traditional form; however, she seems to have drawn an earlier text or text of a similar size, giving detailed information about the topography of the city just before the conquest of 1187 ,thewording atthispointoftextdoesnotimplythattheSyrianslivedexclusivelyinthisdistrict, andindeed,itwouldseemthattheareabeingdiscussedwasaneighbourhood consistingofseveralstreetsaroundtheSyrianOrthodoxmonasteryofStMary Magdalene,ratherthantheentirenortheasternquadrant.Inanycase,itwouldbe unwisetoassumethatlivingpatternsinthelatetwelfthcenturyhadremained unchangedsincearound1116; all it means is, that subsequently the Syrians were found predominantly in the northeast. He only says that the king "granted to them those parts of the city which seemed most in need of help, and filled the houses with them." different parts of the city depopulated or in need of economic renewal. Security considerations would also favor dispersing the population across the city, rather than imposing block settlement in a single area that would leave other areas empty. Throughout history, immigrants of different ethnicities or religious affiliations have often tried to congregate in urban settings, and it is therefore entirely possible that the Citez de Iherusalem was merely the result of a gradual movement of population over the course of the 12th century. there is reason for that. It is doubtful that over time there has been a high proportion of Syrian settlements in the northeastern part of the city, but it would be wrong to think of this as an exclusively ethnic or sectarian area. There was a Syrian exchange office in the covered streets southeast of 39
40
Ernoul, "L'EstatdelacitédeIherusalem,"49: "Orreviengàle RuedeIosaffas.EntreleRuede Iosaffas&lesmursdelacité,àmainsenestre,dusqueàlePortedeIosaffas,areusausicomune ville.LàmanoientliplusdesSuriiensdeIherusalem.EtcesruesapeloitonleIuerie.Encellerue deIuerieavoit.j.MoustierdeSainteMarieMadeleine.Etprèsdecelmostieranevoitunepoposterine.sirsiromaisiton." Guillaume of Tyr, Chronicles, XI.27, 536: "Consulting all parts of the realm which seemed most in need of relief, he filled them with residence."
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ofthechurchoftheHolySepulchre(aLatin,i.e.,Frankish,moneyexchangewas situated further south).41 In this same central area there were also Syrian goldsmiths,whileSyrianshopkeepersweretobefoundinthestreetknownasthe coveredmarket,sellingproductsasdiverseasclothandcandles.Assumingthat artisansandshopkeepersnormallylivedabovetheirbusinesspremises,aswas commoninmedievalurbansociety,there musthavebeen a significantSyrian presenceinthecentralcommercialdistrict.42Similarly,Armeniansseemtohave lived around around the nucleus of their cathedral of St James in the south westernsectionthatformsthemodernArmenianQuarter;yetFranksmusthave heretooafteranewroyalpalacewasconstructedhereinthesecondhalfofthe twelfthcentury.43 Itwouldthereforeseemthatfromevidencefromthetimeofthecrusadesthe citywasnotdividedintoexclusiveresidentialquarters.44Amoreaccurateuseof the term “quarter” in this period would be to denote ownership rather than residence,asinthecaseofthePatriarch'sQuarter,thatisthenorthwesternsection which was owed by the patriarch of Jerusalem und die Kanoniker des Heiligen Grabes,45 und das benachbarte (aber viel kleinere) Krankenhausviertel, das Kirchen, Vorratshäuser und das große Krankenhaus umfasste, das Unterkunft und medizinische Versorgung für Pilger bot.46 Selbst nach der Ansiedlung von Syrern gab es ofensichtlich betr unbesetzte Flächen, da die Stadt regelmäßig eine Bevölkerung von nichtständigen Einwohnern unterbringen und versorgen konnte ,das sind die Pilger, die jedes Jahr im Frühjahr ankamen und am Ende des Sommers abreisten;in manchen Fällen waren sie es
41 42
43 44
45 46
Ernoul, "L'Estatdelacitéde Iherusalem",42: "Ançoisc'onviegnealCangedesSuriiens,aune rueàmaindiestre,c'onapieleleRuedelSepulcre.LàestliPortedemaisondelSepulcre." àmaindiestre,unerue couverteàvolte,parouonvaalmoustierdelSepulcre.EnceleruevendentliSuriienlordraperie, &s'ifaitonlescandellesdecire.“ Boas, Jerusalem zur Zeit der Kreuzzüge, 80. OnewonderswhetherPrawer 'spostulationofaSyrianQuarterwasnotinfluencedbyhisbeliefs aboutwiderrelationshipsbetweentheFranksandthenativepeoples.Inhishighlyinfluential work,TheLatinKingdomofJerusalem,Prawerdescribesthisrelationshipasbeingcharacterizedby exploitationofthenativepopulationaswellas“politicalandsocialnonintegration”(512)and evenapartheid(524),inwhich“ Native Christians were treated no better than Moslems, Jews or Samaritans”(510). If this were true, then one could well imagine that non-integration would have been reinforced by physical separation. However, recent research by Ellenblum has shown that the Franks lived together with native Christians and maintained close relations with them in the interior of Palestine. There is no reason to believe that such relationships were not imitated in the city of Jerusalem. See Ronnie Ellenblum, Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1998), especially 119-44. Guillaumede of Tyr, Chronicles, IX.17-18, 442-45. Boaz, Jerusalem at the Time of the Crusades, 85–88.
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prolongedtheirstaysintosecondorfurtheryearssothattheymightbeconsidered aspermanentresidents.Muchofthecentralandsouthcentralsectionsofthecity weredevotedtosupportofpilgrims:alargenumberofcommunalinstitutions, such as hospices, were essential to coping with the large numbers, as were moneychangers,andevencateringarrangements.Mostoftheshopsinthecity weresituatedcentrallyonthestreetsrunningnorthtosouthalongthecourseof theancientRomanthoroughfareknownastheCardo.Becauseoftheshortageof woodaroundthecityitwasnotpossibleforeveryhouseholdtokeepitsown oven,andsomuchofthecookingandbakingwasdoneinlargecommunalovens. Pilger waren besonders auf die Dienste des Vicus Coquinatorum angewiesen; this was the burger strip of twelfthcentury Jerusalem, which providedalargeassortmentofreadycookedfood;itwasbetterknownironically inFrenchasMalquisinat,thatisthe“StreetofBadCooking.”47Itisalsointeresting toconsiderwheremuchofthisfoodcamefrom.Therewasacattlemarketand abbatoirsituatedjustinsidethesouthernwalltothewestoftheTempleMount andapigmarket(thePorchariapatriarchalis)inthesouthwestofthePatriarch's Quarter.48 The latter facility is noteworthy because many of the nonFrankish ChristiansofPalestine,whetherMelkite,SyrianOrthodoxorArmenian,tended keine Schweinefleischzubereitung,aufgrund des jahrhundertealten islamischen Einflusses.Die ExistenzdesSchweinemarktesistdahereindeutigerHinweisaufdenhohenAnteilderwestlichenBevölkerung,dasssowohl fränkische Einwohner als auch Pilger sind.
Saladin's Conquest (1187) On September 20, 1187, Saladin's army, having invaded most of Palestine after its disastrous victory over the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in July, began the siege of the Holy City. Frankish refugees arrived in Jerusalem from the surrounding area, while others fled from more distant places handed over to Saladin. However, there were relatively few warriors in the city.
47 48 49
Ernoul, “The State ofJerusalem,” 37–38: “FrontCangle,WindowsandWheelsHerbs, auneruec’napelMalchisinat. The Chronicle of the Third Crusade: The Pilgrims' Itinerary and the Deed Regis Ricardi, trans. Helen J. Nicholson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), 38; Ibn alAthr, The Chronicle of Ibn alAthr for the Crusading Period fromal Kmilfi'lta'rkh, Part 2: The Years 541–589/1146–1193.
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Moment, which involved an almost exclusively Christian urban population, swollen by a large number of refugees from the neighboring country, but containing a relatively small proportion of trained soldiers, was therefore almost a reflection of Muslim Jerusalem as it had been on the eve of the eighties and eight years. behind the conquest of the Crusaders. IntermsofitseffectsonthebesiegedpopulaceSaladin'sconquestwasradically different.AtthebeginningofthesiegeSaladinofferedterms,whichwererejected bythedefenders.However,oncehissappershadunderminedasectionofthe northernwalls,theFrankishcommander,BalianofIbelin,openednegotiationsfor surrender.Prevalentmilitarycustomdictatedthatsincethedefendershadrejected surrender terms when they had first been offered, and Saladin was under no furtherobligationtoshowanymercy;indeed,theMuslimclericswithhisarmy hadremindedhimofthemassacrecarriedoutbytheChristiansin1099,andwere nowurginghimtoavengeitbytakingthecitybystorm.However,suchanaction wouldbringitsownrisks.AccordingtothechroniclerIbnalAthr,BalianofIbelin threatened to destroy the Dome of the Rock and the Aqs Mosque and to kill severalthousandMuslimprisonerswhowerebeingheldwithinthecity.50 Thepotentiallydamagingcostsoftakingthecitybyassaultevidentlypersuaded Saladintoagreethattheinhabitantsshouldbeallowedtopurchasetheirfreedom, andthecitysurrenderedon2October.Thereisafairlycloseagreementbetween Arabic and Western sources on the rates of ransom that were eventually concluded.Saladinhadstartedoffwithrelativelyhighdemands,buteventually agreedtotendinars(or“ Saracenbezants”totheFranks)foraman,fivefora womanandoneforachild.AlargenumberofindigentChristianscouldnotraise theirownransoms,andsoSaladinagreedtoacceptalumpsuminexchangefor atleast7,000ofthem.Sincethedefendershadnowexhaustedallavailablefunds, includingalargesumofmoneylodgedwiththeOrderoftheHospitalbyKing HenryIIofEngland,theremainderwereenslaved,althoughSaladinandsomeof hisofficersfreedmanyoftheseasanactofcharity.51 The circumstances of the surrender of Jerusalem to Saladin have often been contrastedfavourablywiththemassacrescarriedoutafterthecaptureofthecity bythecrusadersin1099.BythetimethatthedefendersofJerusalemaskedfor terms,SaladinwasincontrolofallofPalestine,saveforthewellfortifiedcoastal
50 51
„The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, 1184–97“, The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sourcesin Translation, trans. Peter W. Edbury (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 58. „A Antiga Continuação Francesa de Guilherme de Tiro“, 60–63; D. S. Richards(Aldershot:Ashgate,2002),78;‘ImâdadDînalIsfahânî,ConquêtedelaSyrieetdela PalestineparSaladin,trans.HenriMassé,Documentsrelatifsàl’histoiredescroisades,10(Paris: PaulGeuthner,1972),49.IbnalAthr,TheChronicle,332,divergesfromthepricesofransomgiven bytheContinuationandIbnShddadonlyinspecifyingtwodinarsastheransomforachild.
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City of Tire and some inland forts. Fighting to the last would have cost the lives of many of the soldiers (whether with his army or in captivity) who would have had to besiege Tyre; if one believes the threats attributed to Balian of Ibelin, he would also risk the destruction of the two main religious sites in Haramal Sharif and the negative impact this would have on Muslim public opinion. The terms of surrender granted by Saladin were an effective means of gaining control of Jerusalem. His subsequent actions show that his immediate aim was to rid the city of its Frankish population, but they brought other benefits in his wider struggle to reconquer all of Palestine and Syria for Islam. There is great discrepancy between sources as to the number of poor Franks who were released and held captive, but it is clear that the entire Frankish population was expelled from the city. By peacefully transporting these people to Tire and Tripoli, Saladin increased the number of mouths to be fed in these already crowded places that would soon attack, further straining his logistical resources without significantly increasing his increased defensive capability. Individual Franks had to collect their ransoms, often selling valuables to Saladin's troops or local Christians at bargain prices. Dies war ein viel effizienteres Mittel, um den Reichtum der Stadt zu sichern, als es nach einem Generalangriff möglich gewesen wäre, bei dem Wertsachen von ihren Besitzern versteckt oder beschlagnahmt worden wären Saladin's plunderingsoldiers,anditgavehimtheopportunitytosystematicallyrewardhis followersandmakebenefactionstoreligiousandcharitablecauses.53 ThenewidentityofJerusalemasaMuslimcitywasrapidlysymbolizedbya transformationofreligioussitesorderedbySaladin.Thegreatgoldencrossontop oftheDomeoftheRockwascastdown,andtheancillarybuildingsbuilttoservice theTemplarheadquartersweredemolished .54 Other buildings belonging to the Latin Church were confiscated to serve as Islamic religious foundations and charities.
52 53 54
"The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre", 64-65; Bah'al DnIbn Shaddd, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, 78. 'Imâdad Dînal Isfahânî, Saladin's Conquest of Syria and Palestine, 61–62. Bah'al DnIbn Shaddd, The RareandExcellentHistoryofSaladin,78;'ImâdadDînalIsfahânî, Conquest ofSyriaandPalestinebySaladin,51-59.
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school),whileaSfconventwasestablishedinthepatriarchalpalace.These,and otherfoundationssuchashospitals,werealsogivenpropertiestakenfromthe LatinChurchtoprovideendowments.55 Saladin'snewinstitutionswerenotonlyasignofJerusalem'snewstatusasan Islamiccity,butwereintendedtoserveasfocalpointsforMuslimimmigrants.For themanipulationofthe city'spopulationwasjustasimportantindefiningits identity,andevenmoresoinguaranteeingitssecurity.Jerusalemdidnotbecome anexclusivelyMuslimcity,anditisdoubtfulwhetherSaladincouldhavemade itso.However,hemadesignificantchanges.HerevokedtheFrankishprohibition onJewishsettlement,andtheJewsretainedaparticularlypositivememoryofthe sulatnbecauseofhisperceivedbenevolentpoliciestowardthem.56Armeniansand SyrianOrthodoxChristianswerepermittedtoremain Their religious authorities resided in places beyond Frankish control, and Saladine evidently assumed that they had no particular reason to share in the conquest. He was less generous to the Melkites, probably because of his loyalty to the Byzantine Emperor. They retained their rights of residence, but with a less privilegedstatusthanthenonChalcedonianchurches:theywerenotpermitted to replace the Latin patriarch with a Greek Orthodox one, as the Byzantine emperorhadhoped.57ThemostsignificanteffectofSaladin’sconquestwasthatthe entireFrankishpopulationwasremoved.Intermsofurbandemography,Saladin’s apparentlymercifulbutpragmatictreatmentofJerusalem’spopulationin1187 broughtaboutasimilarconsequenceastheslaughtercarriedoutasaresultofa systematicpolicyofexecutionin1099:theemptyingoftheHolyCityofenemy inhabitantsasdefinedbytheirreligiousaffiliation.
Conclusions The slaughter that followed the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 was not primarily the result of battle fury, but the cold-blooded manifestation of a phenomenon that has become unfairly known in the modern world as "ethnic cleansing."
55
56 57
Johannes Pahlitzsch, "Saladin's Transformation of Latin Religious Institutions into Islamic Endowments in Jerusalem", Governing the Holy City: The Interaction of Social Groups in Medieval Jerusalem, Hrsg. Lorenz Korn und Johannes Pahlitzsch (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004), 47–69. Prawer, Die Geschichte der Juden im Lateinischen Königreich Jerusalem, 64-75. Richard B. Rose, „The Native Christians of Jerusalem, 1187–1260“, The Horns of Hattn: Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, Jerusalem und Haifa, 2.–6. July 1987, Hg. Benjamin Z. Kedar (Jerusalem: YadIzhakBenZvi, 1992), 239–49.
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Palestine committed similar massacres in the coastal cities it conquered from its Muslim rulers. In the strategic thinking of the Frankish Christians, the securityoftheirnewkingdomrequiredthattheMuslimpopulationofitsmain citiesbedestroyed,expelled,orreducedtoasmallminority.However,thestrict demographic policies pursued by the Franks with regard to Jerusalem in the followingyearsshowthattheHolyCityhadauniquestatuswithinthestatesof Outremer,andperhapsevenwithinthewholeofChristendom,andthatthese policieshadasmuchtodowithreligiousidentityaswithsecurity.After1099the citycouldbe—andwas—markedoutasChristianthroughtheconstructionofnew religiousbuildingsor,asinthecaseoftheTemple, appropriating the places of worship of other religions, but it was equally important for the new rulers that the Christian identity of the city was materialized in the composition of its population. This demographic manipulation posed a challenge to the power of Islam, leaving the victorious Saladin in 1187 with little choice but to reverse its effects, although his actions would prove far less bloody on execution.
Andreas Meyer (Philipps University of Marburg, Germany)
Inheritance law and urban topography: on the evolution of the Italian notarial archive in the late Middle Ages
No início do século XII, o surgimento do registro notarial, ou cartular, revolucionou o sistema de documentação existente, encerrando a era das escrituras e inaugurando a era dos registros administrativos. Intheageofcharters,twopartieshadreachedasettlementbeforeanotary,who thendrewupapublicinstrumentandhandedittotheparties.Thenotary'ssole functioninthisprocesswastoexecutetheparchment.Thedocumentenjoyed generalcredibilityaslongasitmetcertainformalcriteria.Thefabricationofsuch adocumentwascumbersomeandlaborintensive,sincethenotaryhadtowritea faircopybeforetheissuerandthewitnessesoftheproceedingscouldsignthe document.Thisprocedureoriginatedinlateantiquity,whenchartersintheform ofsealedwaxtabletswerecommon.Thetermtabellioforanotaryisareminiscence ofthattime.Whenparchmentchartersbegantoreplacewaxtablets,theprocedure didnotchangeimmediately,buttheautographicsignaturesoftheissuerandthe witnessessoondisappearedbecauseoftheseinconveniences.1 Thenotarialregisterdevelopedfromthenotesthatwereoriginallytakenbythe notaryinthepresenceofthecontractingparties.Fromthesenotes,thecharter couldlaterbedrawnup.Suchprovisionalnotes,whichhadnolegalbearing , podem ser encontrados até meados do século XII.
1
The following abbreviations are used: AAL=Archiepiscopal Archive of Lucca, ACL=Capitular Archive of Lucca, ASL=State Archive of Lucca, Dipl.=Diplomat. Andreas Meyer, "Notary", The New Pauly: Encyclopedia of Antiquity, Vol. 1/15: La-Ot (Stuttgart and Weimar: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 2001), col. 1088-101. My thanks to Rebekka Götting, Marburg, for translating my article into English.
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they began to write them down more or less chronologically on parchments or special sheets, which were then kept by the notary. This change in procedure brought several advantages. Firstly, the contracting parties could now do without a parchment deed, which was particularly profitable for short-term business and commercial transactions, 80 percent of the protocols recorded by a tarar never existed outside its registry. Notonlydidthisnewwayofproceedingrationalizetheprocess,italsoeffected areductionofcosts.Entriesintothenotarialregistersweremuchcheaperthana parchmentchartersincetheyrequiredlesstimeandmaterial.Atthesamecosts, onecouldnowemployanotaryfarmoreoften.Thethirdimprovementwasthe factthatacharter’sauthenticitycouldnowbeverifiedbycomparingitwiththe registerofthenotaryconcerned.Inshort:Thekeepingofaregisterturnedthe notaryintoanarchivistonbehalfofhisclients.Sincetherewerealwaysseveral notariesineveryquarterofatown,theypracticallylivednextdoortotheirclients, andthearchiveswerealwayswithinreach. The records were the property of the notary. They represented an additional source of income for him and his heirs, since the deeds of incorporation could be kept for a long time after the original registration of the process in the register. *** However, the above advantages did not come for free. Since the registry office served as an archive for the notary's clients, it had to be accessible during the notary's absence, but also after his death. This brings me to the heart of my argument. Next, I would like to show how public notary archives came to be.
2
3
Andreas Meyer, Felix and inclined notary public. Studies on the Italian Notarial Profession from the 7th to the 13th Century. Library of the German Historical Institute in Rome, 92 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2000,) 294-95. Cf. Meyer, Felixetinclitus Notary, 179-222.
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Charter books from before 1300 preserved? Is this a coincidence of tradition or are the losses due to structural conditions? It is surprising that the 13th century Commission office mentions the exact location of the notarial record in question.
4
5
InthirteenthcenturyLuccasuchmemorandacanparadoxicallyalmostonlybefoundifthenotary HenricusGuercii(Meyer,Felixetinclitusnotarius,no.188)hadstoredtheregisterinquestion, cf.AALArchiviodeiBeneficiatiperg.M136:theengrossingnotaryVelterquondamAlbertini Veltri (no. 911) noted: “hec omnia fideliter sumens de rogito quondam Ingherrami Raggiosi notarii(no.192)parabolaetmandatoHenrigiGuerciinotarii,apudquemipsiusrogitainveni,ut ineoinveni ,hicbonafidescripsietmeumsingnumetnomenapposui"ASLDipl.Archiviodi Stato1219.09.14:Aldebrandusqd.DactiMaghenthie(no.531)signedwith"suprascriptaomnia delibroqd.Rolandinotarii(no.674)rogitorumfidelitersummensparabolaetmandatoHenrigi Guerciinotarii,pudquepredictumliberrogitoruminveni,scrisieetmeosignoetnomine.Paganino†1(GAALDiplione†6.Canganino†6Diplione 6) noted : derogito Lucteriinotarii (Nr. 240) ". . . das Gleichnis und das Gebot des Notars Henry Guercii, bei dem ich die vorgenannten Bitten fand, ... schrieb ich" usw.; AALDipl.†C55: Aldibrandinus Jacobi Tadiccionis (Nr. 12) unterzeichnet mit "hec omnierogito Bonaventure Guerciinotarii (Nr. 71) getreu dem Gleichnis und Gebot von Henrigi Guerciieius Sohn, von dem die Vorhersage kam, schrieb er den Gedenkgrund und das Zeichen und brachte seinen Namen an ", ASL Dipl. S. Ponziano 1250.09.08, ist eine Ausnahme: Ricciardus Bonaventure Vecchii (Nr.305) notierte: "proutinrogitorumlibro Jacobi Leccamolininotarii (no.211)contineri invenilicentiatetmandato Gerardini Malusinotariigermanis(sic)sui, cuipredictilibrisintet lic[ ententiatetmandato Gerardini Malusinotariigermanis(sic)sui, cuipredictilibrisintet lic[ententiatetmandato] habetcartasethiperhyperifaium " .567) schrieb: "über ein bestimmtes Petiçõesbuch von Guidi Caldovillani notarii (Nr. 166) ... über die Lizenz und das Testament von Percivallis Ricchomi Paganide Lucanotarii, quidictos libroshabet ...", ASLDipl.OperadiS Croce 1280.10.08; Ursusqd.OrlandinidictusdeVicocivislucanus schrieb: "predictaomniaprout fand ich in den Büchern der rogitors qd. ser Bonacursi Johannis de Valgiano notarii (no. 784) fidelitersumensexlicentiamimihiconcesssaaqd.dominovicarioqd.dominilucanipotestatishic exemplaviscripsietpublicvietmeisingnumetnomenapposuietquiliberremansitsubcustodia Johannis filii qd. Bonacursi acima", ASL Dipl. Ghivizzani 1296.11.19; die Kartulare von Bellone (Nr. 43) befanden sich 1378 "in der Obhut von Dettori Lanfredi de Luca", ASL Dipl.-Ing. Andreuccetti1269.03.22.AcharterfromTortonafrom1255bearsthefollowingsignature:“IGuillelmusdeBagnolonotariuspalatinusfiliusqd.dominiPetrihanccartam,whichIabbreviatedperRufinumdeCagnanonotariumiussuAribertiSuavisnotarii,inquemipsiusiaabbreviationperverunent,auctoritatescriptipsi,”cf. Documentidegliaarchivtortonesirelatialstoriadi Voghera diaggiunvio della cattedrale. von V. Legé and F. Gabotto. Bibliotecadella Societàstoricasubalpina, 39 (Pinerolo: Chiantore Mascarelli, 1908), Nr. 108 TheBergomascstatutesof1264compelnotariestohandback"ownerlessnotarialscripts"totheir ownerswithinthreedays,StatutinotarilidiBergamo(secoloXIII),ed.GiuseppeScarazzini.Fonti estrumentiperlastoriadelnotariatoitaliano,2(Rome:Consiglionazionaledelnotariato,1977), 80§11and119§146.InPaviaeachnotaryhadtoswearthathewouldornothidebreviariaalivethernotaries, Renato Sóriga, decree et ordinamenta societatis et collegiinotariorum Papiereformata(1255– 1274 ), "Carteestatutidell'Agroticinese.Bibliotecadella Societàstoricasubalpina,129(Torino:M.Gabetta 1933),135–261;hier178,§175. der öffentliche Notar, hatte das Penesal entdeckt und erfunden, wer auch immer der Notar gewesen wäre, hätte dazu fähig sein können
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The notaries who worked in the same city knew each other well because they went to college together. The general view of the deposits of the deceased notaries was also kept by special directories of location of municipalities or notary colleges. If I am not mistaken, this fact is mentioned for the first time in a Bergamo statute of 1264: EtperconsulesilliuscollegiieliganturduonotariiproqualibetportacivitatisPergami,quineanturinquirerenotariosdefunctosadecemannisinfraetquisuntilli,qui habent et habere debent illorum imbreviaturas. . . . Et predicta scribantur in uno quaternoremansuropenesconsulesipsiuscollegii.6 [The consuls of the colleges of notaries must choose two notaries for each district of the city of Bergamo, who must find out who keeps the records of notaries who have died less than ten years ago.
Arranjos semelhantes foram documentados para todas as cidades do norte da Itália e da Toscana desde o século XIII. For example, the statutes of the Lucchese commune of 1308 compelled notaries to create an index (memoriale) of their contracts(contractus)after1240,amarginalnoteinthestatuteof1331specifiesthey mustbeperalfabetum.Furthermore,everynewPodestàwasobligedtoconveneall notariesduringthefirsttwomonthsofhistenure,compellingthemonoathto createalistofalltheregistersintheircustody,includingboththeirownregisters andthoseofothernotaries.Bothlistsservedtohelpcitizenslocatetheircontracts.7
6
7
"And if the records belonging to a deceased notary are found with someone who is not a notary, the podestà or the judge must arrange for them to be deposited with a notary designated for the purpose by the legal successors, provided that he has a good reputation ), citation by Giorgio Costamagna, "Laconservazionedella documentazionenotarile", Archiviperlastoria3 (1990): 7-20; here 8. Corrado Pecorella, Studi sul notariato a Piacenza nel secolo XIII University of Parma Pubblicazioni della facoltà digiurisprudenza,26 (Milan: A. Giuffrè 1968), 140, argues that the number of notaries in the Duecento was still manageable and that, moreover, notaries were linked by ties of friendship and family Statutinotarilidi Bergamo, 118 § 141 – 42. The legislation was repeated and amended in 1281, ibid 138- 43 § 199-212 In Pavia, control over the writings of deceased notaries was the responsibility of the Academy of Notaries, see Sóriga, Statute 153 § 39-41, 159 § 56, and Index 158 n.º 58-60. ,“LaconservazionedegliattinotarilinegliordinamentidellaRepubblica lucchese,”Archiviostoricoitaliano109(1951)193–226;here195and220(Statuteof1331).Statutum lucanicomunis108–09:“Etquislibetnotariuslucanecivitatis,burgorumetsuburgorumetlucani districtusteneaturfacerememorialedeomnibuscontractibus,quoshabetetfecitabannodomini M.CC.XLcitraetquosfacturusestinantea.Etpotestaslucanusinfraduosmensessuiintroytus teneaturpersevelsuumiudicemconvocarevelconvocarifacerecoramseomnessuprascriptos notarioseteisetcuiqueeorumimponerepernovumiuramentumabeisprestandumetpercipere, quoddeomnibussuprascriptisrogitis,tamdesuis,quamdealteris, (Todo
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Furthermorenotarieswereobligedtoreportforeigncartularies,whichweregiven intotheirhands,tothemunicipalchamberwithintheperiodofamonth.From these lists, two delegated notaries compiled indexes that were issued in book form.8 Thisregulationremainedunaltereduntil1448whentheLuccheseauthorities issuedneworders.Fromthenon,heirswerecompelledtodeliverthedocuments ofadeceasednotaryintothecustodyofthepublicarchivewithintendays.After theyhadbeeninventoried,thedocumentsshouldthenbeplacedinacapsaatthe charge of the community.9 This marked the creation of a communal notarial ArchivinLucca.Abstract:Notary archives developed in three phases. In the initial period, from the mid-12th century to the mid-13th century, records were kept exclusively by notaries and their heirs, who served their own interests. From 1250, however, the number of notaries working in the same place at the same time increased rapidly, which in turn required a greater degree of regulation, as the usual procedure threatened to become unmanageable. Henceforth, holders of notary records were no longer required to create a publicly accessible record of the volumes they held, a
8
9
Der Notar von Luccas sollte seit 1240 ein Verzeichnis aller Verträge erstellen, die er aufbewahrt. Statutumlucanicomunisan.MCCCVIII (Lucca: MariaPaciniFazzieditore, 1991) (isaReprintof StatutodelcomunediLuccadell'annoMCCCVIII. Memorieedocumentiperservirealallastoriadi Lucca, 3/3 [Lucca: Tipografia Giusti, 1867]) 109-10: „Und dass alle Notare der Stadt Lucca, des six miles und the Bezirks will be present and having the books of any notaries or of some notaries held and compelled to be denounced in the chamber of the Lucanic office, whose books they had within a month of the announcement made public by the majority of the Lucan regime; when the announcement of the Lucan regime was made within one month on the day of his entry, he would be kept. ,teneanturetdebeantexindeunumlibrumfacere,inquopredictadescribant ” (AllnotariesofLuccawhostorecartulariesofdeceasednotariesshoulddeclare,withinonemonth aftertheywereorderedtodosobythegovernment,registersoifothernotariestheyown.The governmentshouldaskthemtodothisduringthefirstmonthoftheirtermofoffice;thenotaries andthekeepersofthemunicipalbooks,ConteClavariiandTedaldinusLazariiGay,ortheir substitutesshouldproduceanindexoutoftheinformationsobtained).Whoeverdisobeyedthis directivehadtopaytheextraordinaryhighfeeofahundredpounds. But this was not a novelty of 1331, as stated by D'Addario, “Laconservazione”, 196. D'Addario, "La conservazione", 207 and 222 (Statut von 1448). 1540 wurden schlusslich alle Inhaber von Notariatsregistern verschmidt, diese an das Staatsarchiv abzugeben, ebd. 211. Derselbe Wortlaut des Statuts von 1448 noch einmal bei Vito Tirelli, "Il notariato a Lucca in epoca basso medioevale", Inotariatonellaciviltàtoscana. Studistoricisulnotariatoitaliano, 8 (Rome: Consiglio nazionaledelnotariato, 1985), 239–309; hier300–01, Anm. 97.
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A commitment that ensured the retention of ownership for notaries and facilitated the location of contracts. Only in the mid-15th century did the obligation finally prevail to place private records under the custody of an archive controlled by the municipality or the notary. 300 years have passed since the creation of the first registry to the establishment of public notary archives. *** However, this long duration does not fully explain why so few records from the early period survive. Not only does this source provide us with valuable information about the afterlife of the first records, it also exemplifies why few records have managed to survive in this way. TheoldestsurvivingcatalogueofthelocationsofnotaryregistersinLuccaopens intheyear1344.10Inthefollowing,letushaveacloserlookatthedenuntiationes (declarations)oftwonotaries.Onthe26thofJanuary1367,Johannesquondam PieriBenettideLuca,11whohadbeenworkingasanotarysince1350,declaredthat hewasinpossessionofseveralvolumesbySerAldibrandinusGhiandonis,12by SerGhiandoneGregorii13andbySerFavaBeccafave,14“dequibushabetlicentiam sumendi”(forwhichhehaspermissiontodrawthemup)sinceJuly30,1361;by SerPaganellusGhiove,bySerRustichellusGhiove15andbySerAndreasParenti,16 “dequibushabetlicentiam”(forwhichhehasapermission)sinceMay7, 1354;by SerJohannesRegabeis,17bySerTediciusMorlani,18bySerBonaventuraVecchii and bySerRiccardusVecchii,dequibuhabedlicentiamssinceDecember1362;19by
10 11 12
13
14 15
16 17 18 19
ASLArchivipubblici13. ASLArchivipubblici13fol.5rs. Possibly identical to Aldebrandinusquondam Ghiandolfi Homodei, cf. Meyer, Felixetinclitus notarius, No.11. Meyer, Felixetinclitusnotarius, No.153.Probably active in ContradadiSanMatteo,cf.AAL Dipl.*C70:[Luce]indictadomo[quondamVenturequondamAdvenantisincontradasanctiMathei]. Meyer, Felixetinclitus notarius, No.119. Meyer, Felixetinclitus notarius, nos 1303 and 646; Ghiova probably worked at the Contrada di Santa Maria in Via. Some volumes of the Ghiova were restored in the house of Vannellafilia quondam Ser Paganelli Ghiovede Lucain in 1382, arresting notary was Jacobusquondam Ser NicolaDomaschi, cf. ASLArchivipubblici30fol.133r. Meyer, Felixetinclitus notarius, No.20. Meyer, Felixetinclitus notarius, No.223. Meyer, Felixetinclitus notarius, No.329. Meyer, Felixetinclitusnotarius, nº 721 and 305. The Vecchii worked in the neighborhood (Porta) of San Donato, they also called themselves Deposterula Fluminis, who worked in the church of S. Tommaso, cf. ACLLL17fol.66v, LL21fol.76v: “Bartholomeus decontratasancti Thomeide posterula fluminisquondam Angiori.” This gate has been documented since the 10th century,
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SerTomasusLeonisandbySerLandusLeonis,“dequibushabetlicentiam”since the6thofMarch1365;20bySerJacobusquondamGuilielmiVecchiiandbySer GhirardinusRicciardiVecchii,“dequibusnonhabetlicentiam.”21Hiscollection ofoldcartularies,aboutthesizeofwhichJohannes’scommentaryisunfortunately verysparse(quosdamlibros),washenceacquiredwithintheperiodofelevenyears, providedweonlyconsiderthosenameswhichareknowntousbysignaturesfrom
20
21
cf. IsaBelliBarsali, "LatopografiadiLuccaneisecoliVIII-XI", Proceedings of the International Congress of Studies on the High Middle Ages, Lucca 3.-7. October 1971 (Spoleto: Italian Center for Studies on the High Middle Ages, 1973), 461-555; here 476 and 547 (Saint Thomas). The location of Giulio Ciampoltrini, 'Lucchean Archeology of the Municipal Age: The City Walls and the New Lands', Medieval Archeology 29(1997):445-70; here 445-60, copied from Guido Tigler, 'Der Fall Lucca', The Beauty of the City: Municipal Law and Urban Design in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, eds. Michael Stolleis and Ruth Wolff (Tübingen: MaxNiemeyer Verlag, 2004 ), 134-203; here 150-51, is wrong. The proof presented by Ciampoltrini (460, n. 53) correctly says: "ultraLucamapudposterulamfluminisindomosuprascriptiLanberteschinotarii[quondam Guinithellinotarii]" (Meyerno.228), while the area near Fratta outside the city walls is described as extra murum civitatis lucane iuxta pontem LLFracte 31 ALFRact becomes . 37v. It belongedtotheContradadiSanPietroSomaldi:“LuceextramurosnovoscivitatisapudFractam contratesanctiPetriSomaldiindomo,quamdictaJacobinainhabitat,queestJohannisquondam AntelminelliCornadoris,”AALDipl.*M76,respectivly“indictadomo[propemuroslucane civitatisextrapontemdeFractaincontratasanctiPetriSomaldi],”ASLArchivigentiliziDeNobili perg.n.2B.FlumenofcoursestandsfortheSerchio,whosecoursewascontinuallyforcedback fromthecityduringtheMiddleAges.Tigler'ssource(150)thusrefersnottothepartofthecity wallthatstartsattheHospitalofSanGiovanniincapiteburgiandrunssouth,paralleltothe modernViadiSantaGemmaGalgani , but for the part that leads west of the former Sancti Fridian Hospital. Parts of it can still be discovered in the current city wall, see Paolo Mencacci, Lucca:. lemur novels. Accademialucchesediscienze, Lettereedarti platea fluminis ex parte civitatis, per amplumconservaboinvaliditatemcivitatisetutilitatemlucanipopulietcomunisbrachia25iuxta ipsummurumetdeforisnovosmurosbrachia36,sitantaplagiaetterrenumibiest,sinautem usqueadid,quodmodoibiest,usqueadpredictammensuram,etipsumterrenumsiveplagias faciamterminatumpermanereinfranovumetveteremmurumet,sialiquapersonaipsumaldium [sic,insteadofalvium]imbrigaveritetc.,disgomberarifaciametc.ettollamimbrigamentumet nullamfoveamessepermittaminterortosetipsumaldium, nisisepesest(?)expartevieseualdii, itaquodfoveanonseparereturdeipsoaldio(andfromthewallwhichthepriorofSanFrediano hadrecentlybuiltastownwallnorthofthehospitaluptothetowngate( posterula), wherethe platform(plateafluminis)issituatedforsomelittletimenow,Ikeepopenastrip25armswide towardstown,andoutsideofthewallonestrip36armswideforthebenefitofthetown,provided thatthereissomuchspace,orasmuchspaceasthereisopen;andIhavethisterraininsideand outsideofthetownwallsecuredwithboundarystones,andwhensomebodygrabsit,Ihaveit cleared;furthermore,Idonotallowaditchtobedugthere),ASLRaccoltespecialiG.B.Orsucci 40fol .38v. Meyer, Felixetinclitusnotarius, nº 330 and 270: The Leonines owned a bottega in the church of San Pietro in Cortina, in what is now Piazza Napoleone. Meyer, Felixetinclitus notarius, nº 1107, 1016.
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The sheaves of documents that came into Johannes' hands usually contained papers from related notaries, such as those of the Ghiova, Vecchii, or Leonis. ThemanyregistersthatthenotaryBernardusfiliusquondamSerBonacurside LanfredisfromthecontradaS.PetriCigolistoredathisplaceonthe27thofJanuary 1367sufferedthesamefate.22Inhiscollectionwecanfindnotonlythecartularies oftheGlandolfini,23whoworkedinthesamequarterofthetownintheduecento, but also those of Gualtroctus de Quarto,24 of Bellone,25 of Nicolaus Jacobi Gualistaffi,26 of Perus Peri, and of several others.27 The only registers that Bernardus'ssonDectorusexplicitlydeclaredin1378arethoseoflateSerBellone, andthoseofthreemembersoftheGlandolfinifamily. 28 The other volumes were probably lost in the meantime. During the fourteenth century, there was a slow but steady concentration of stewardship records in the hands of just a few new notaries, often working in the same neighborhood. As a result of this development, a single catastrophe, a single oversight, was often enough to irrevocably erase the entire record collection of an entire group of notaries, while at the same time shaping, or rather distorting, our historical knowledge.
22
23
24 25
26 27 28
ASLArchivipubblici 13fol. 12r–13r, cf. Meyer, Felixetinclitusnotarius, 375. FortheLanfredicf. AndreasMeyer, "O mais antigo Luccheser Imbreviaturen (1204) - uma fonte até annò negligenciada na história comercial", ItaliaetGermany: LiberamicorumArnoldEsch, ed. HagenKeller, Werner Paravicini e Wolfgang Schieder (Tübingen: MaxNiemeyerVerlag, 2001), 563-82; here 570-71 Para esta família ver Meyer, Felixetinclitusnotarius, 371-77 e Meyer, Luccheser Imbreviaturen, 564-65. Meyer, Felixetinclitusnotarius nº 161; ele havia trabalado em San Michelede Burghicciolo Meyer, Felixetinclitusnotarius, nº 43; or Bottega was probably in the Contrade of San Pietro Somaldi. Meyer, Notar Felixetinclitus, Nr. 569 Meyer, Notar Felixetinclitus, Nr. 801 ASLArchivipubblici30fol.121v.ThisdepositoryisalsoconfirmedbythesignatureofJohannes quondamSerUrsiConsiliiolimdeDecimocivislucanus,cf.ASLDipl.Andreuccetti1269.03.22: “predicta omnia fideliter summens de libro rogitorum quondam Bellonis notarii existenti in custodiaDettoriLanfredideLucahicscripssi(!)etpublicavi, proutineointeraliudcontineri inveni,exlicentiamihiconcessaamaiorilucanoregiminepercartampublicamscriptammanu serFederigiquondamserNicolaiPantassedeLucanotariietcustodislibrorumcammerelucani comunisfactam,annonativitatisdominimillesimotrecentesimoseptuagesimooctavo,indictione prima,diedecimaoctavamensismaii”( Ihavefaithfullytakentheaforesaidfromthenotarial Register des verstorbenen Bellone, das bei Dettorus Lanfredi von Lucca aufbewahrt wird, und ich habe es hier publicht, wie ich es unter anderem darin fand, gemäß der Gengemung der Regierung de Lucca, concedido pelo notário e administrador dos livros municipais, Federigus quondam SerNicolai Pantasse de Lucca, em 18 de maio de 1378).
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*** Notare waren nicht immer so knapp bei der Meldung der von ihnen gespeicherten Register. Detailedinformationinthesedeclarationsallowforanidentificationofseveral survivingvolumes,eventheirlocationintheTrecentocanbereconstructed.Onthe 22ndofJanuary1367,thenotaryFilippusGangiowned,amongstothers,“libros multosquorumprimusestannidominiMCCLXXetprimuscontractusestquarto kalendasianuarii”(manyvolumesofwhichtheoldestgoesbacktotheyear1270 andinwhichthefirstcontractdatesfromDecember29,1269)JohannesBerald29 “librostresquorumprimusestannidominiMCCLXXIIetLXXIII”(threevolumes of which the first dates from the years 1272 and 1273) by Paganellus de Fiandrada,30“librumunumpaciumannidominiMCCCetCCCI” (onevolume withpeacetreatiesfromtheyears1300and1301)byLambertusSornachi,31and “librostres,quorumprimusestannidominiMCCLXXXIIII”(threevolumesof whichthefirst datesfromtheyear1284)byNicolausChiavarii.32Butofthose manyvolumes,onlyfourhavesurvived.33 These stocklists also inform us about the fate of communal volumes of documents.TheregisterofLambertusSornachimentionedabovecontainedonly peacesettlements(pax),itwashencewrittenoncommunalorder,andnevertheless founditswayintothepersonalarchiveofthenotary. Aperusalofthementioned inventoriesofthefourteenthcenturyshowsthatthedocumentsoftheLucchese lawcourtsfrequentlyremainedwiththerespectivenotaries.Althoughthestatutes of1308onlycompelledthecancellariicomunisLucanitodelivertheirregisterstothe communalchamberonceayear,itseemsthatthisregulationquicklyextended itselfontonotariesworkingatcourt,ascanbeseenfromtheearliestinventoryof thechamberin1344.34Nevertheless,thedeclarationofpossessionbyGregorius
29
30 31 32 33
34
Meyer, Felix and the Famous Reporter, #215; he lived in Contrada di San Giusto, ASL Dipl. Several anno 1287. In the Middle Ages, Christmas in Lucca began the New Year. Meyer, Felixetinclitus notarius, No. 280. Worked at Contradadi San Anastasio. Meyer, Notary Felixetinclitus, No. 466 Meyer, Notary Felixetinclitus, No. 468 ASL Public Archive 13 fols. 45rs; ASL Archivio dei notari parte prima filza 37 register 1 (Johannes, from 1300), filza 12 register 1 (Paganellus, from 1272–1273), filza 41 (Lambertus), filza 14 register 2A (Nicolaus, from 1284) 136 r. Statute of Luccaunis 108: "Every year, in the first week of January, the chancellors must deposit in the Chamber of the Municipality of Lucca all the volumes of councils and letters of the Municipality of Lucca that they keep in their homes."
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Filiusolim Andreucci Arnaldi from 1389 contains a large number of volumes "asked by Ser Jacobi Dardagnini de Luca", including "a book of the examiners of wills, a book of unresolved letters of the year 2243. The four community books that Gregorius kept under his *** Thefactthatvolumeswrittenbymanydifferentnotariesaccumulatedinaprivate archiveisnotinitselfextraordinary.In1381,thehouseofPina,headedbythe widow of Ser Paulus quondam Ser Jacobini de Corelia olim notarius, held the productionofnolessthansixtynotaries. ,which provesthatthecollectionhadaconsiderableage.35 The Lucchese merchant and son of a notary Andreas quondam Ser Andree Domaschi36storedfifteenvolumesofAlluminatusJacobiandanothernotaryin1389,someofwhichhavesurviveddespitetheconspicuousannotation“ "weighing 52 pounds."37 Maybe that's what Andreas was thinking
35 36 37
oldestsurvivinginventoryoftheLuccheseChamberstemsfrom1344.Itlistsmanyvolumesof theLuccheselawcourts,cf.AntonioRomiti,“ArchivalinventoryinginfourteenthcenturyLucca: Methodologies,theories,andpractises,”TheotherTuscany.EssaysintheHhistoryofLucca,Pisa, andSienaDduringtheTthirteenth,Ffourteenth,andFfifteenthcCenturies,ed.ThomasW.Blomquist and Maureen M. Mazzaoui. Estudos em cultura medieval, 34 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1994), 83-109; aqui 85-86, com notas 9-13. Spätestens ab 1286 war die Lieferung für Kanzler obligatorisch, vgl no. 232): “Gerardectus de Chiatri notarius consignavitetdeditdompnisNicolaoetFilippocamerariislucanicomunisunumlibrumliterarum conpositumetfactumtemporedominiJohannisCenciiMalabrancheolimpotestatislucensisin annodominiMCCLXXXproVIultimismensibusdictianni”(ThenotaryGerardectusdeChiatri handedovertothecammerariiofLucca,NicolausandFilippus,avolumeoflettersthathavebeen writtenduringthelastsixmonthsoftheyear1280undertheruleofthepodestàatthattime, JohannisCenciiMalabranche). ASLArchivipubblici30fol.133r. Meyer, Felixetinclitusnotarius, No.486. Ou seja, ASLArchiviodeiNotariparteprimafilza17registri1–2,filza18registro2,filza19 registro1.
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recycling the volumes as waste paper after weighing them, since the record he called “valdecorruptum et disstructum” is missing today. because they took up a lot of space. But this process has often eliminated not just the output of a single notary or family of notaries. – In the worst case, it also destroyed the production of an entire generation or group of notaries who worked in the same neighborhood, with serious consequences for our historical knowledge. *** With the help of the volumes of municipal indexes mentioned above, contemporaries were able to locate the records of deceased notaries. The application of this solution
38 39
ASLArchivipubblici15fol.253r. After the untimely death of Philippus Quondam Specte, who had his office near Santa Maria na Via, his cousin in Ursusquondam Lamberti Armanni, who lived in the distant "capital Burgi sancti Fridiani", brought suit81, Meyer, Felixetinclitus notarius, 292-94 .
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canbefoundinPiacenza,40Treviso,41Pisa,42Florence,43Pistoia,44andSiena45since thelatterpartofthethirteenthcentury.Butthisprocedure,asmentionedabove, didnotfullysecurethestorageofthevolumesthroughthecenturies.Accordingly, in1389itwasadvisedinSienatostorethecartulariesofdeceasednotariesinthe roomsofthenotarycollege.46Butitseemsthatthisadvicewasnotheededinthe following centuries because the two oldest surviving cartularies from Siena, stemmingfromtheearlythirteenthcentury,reachedtheRecordOfficeofSiena
40 41
42
43
44
45
46
Pecorella, Studisulnotariato, 140 Bianca Betto, Icollegideinotai, deigiudici, deimediciedeinobiliin Treviso (secc.XIII-XVI).Storiae documenti.Miscellaneadistudiememorie, 19 (Venice: Deputazioneeditrice, 1981), 120: “When a member of this college speaks, it is the year of his death, the date which is strictly charge and day, and the name of the one to whom your records were delivered should be noted next to the name). StatutiineditellacittàdiPisadalXIIalXIVsecolo,ed.byFrancescoBonaini,3vols.(Florence:G.P.Viesseux,1854–1870),vol.1:229:“Etherescuiusquenotariitenaturpostmortemnotariiipsa actarecomendareapudaliquemnotariumcumconscientiaijudicisdechancellaria”(Theheirofa notaryisorderedtodeposittherecordsofthedeceasedwithanothernotarywiththeapprovalofthejudgeandofthechanceller),vol.49999353 Seit 1420, vgl. Antonio Panella, „Le origini dell' archivio notarile di Firenze”, Archivio storico italiano92(1934)57–92; here66. Appuntidistoria degliarchifiorentini, edited by C. Vivoli (Florence: EDIFIR, 1991), 27-52, is of little value for lack of references. Ezelinda Altieri Magliozzi, “Protocolli notarili conservati nell'Archivio di Stato di Pistoia,” Bullettinostoricopistoiese80(1978):121–33;here121–23(1332).ThecorrelatingPistoieseregister from1466accordingtoprescriptionsshouldcontain:“achuisonostatecommessequellescripture ...equantilibrisonoetquandocominciaronolesoprascrittescriptureequandofinironoequanti quadernièillibroetquantecharte:exemplo,“etcetera,lescritturediserTaiuolodiPierosono appressoameserGiovannisuofigliuoloesonolibrinove,elprimolibrocominciòadì12di gennaio1450,finìadì6dottobre1457etèquaderniXIecarte160”“echosìseguitiglaltrilibri” (atwhosehousetherecordsaredeposited...,howmanyvolumesthereare,whentheystartand whentheyend,whichextenttheyhave,forexample:“therecordsofSerTaiuolodiPieroare storedatmyson'shouse,thenotaryJohannes,thereareninevolumes,thefirststartingonJanuary 12,1450,andendingonOctober6,1457,thereareninebooksand160leaves”andsoonforallthe othervolumes). In 1351, Siena contented itself with listing all the notarial records of deceased notaries (and their locations) that still existed in the city. here 103-09. ArchiviodiStatodiSiena.L'archivionotarile(1221-1862).Inventario edited by GiulianoCatoni and SoniaFineschi.PubblicazionidegliaarchividiStato,87(Rome:FratelliPalombi,1975),15-16
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onlythroughapurchasein1908.47Asarule,publicnotaryarchivescameinto existenceonlyinthefifteenthandsixteenthcentury.48 Butthereisanexceptiontothatrule:Genoaapparentlystartedbuildingcentral depotsfornotarialscriptsasearlyasthebeginningofthefourteenthcentury.The Genuesecommunepaidtherentfortwovaultsin1304,inwhichtheregistersof deceasednotariesdeversusBurgumrespectivelydeversusCastrumwerestored.49 Theplaceofactivityofanotaryhencedeterminedtowhichdepothislegacywas brought. The two vaults, to which a third had to be added in 1453 due to lack of space, remained unused until 1466, when they had to be vacated because the Casadi San Giorgio, then in charge, refused to use them. 50
47
48
49
50
Dina Bizzarri, Imbreviature notarili I, Liber imbreviaturarum Appulliesis notarii comunis Senarum MCCXXI-MCCXXIII, Documents and Studies on the History of Commerce and Italian Commercial Law, 4 (Turin: S. Lattese Cie., 1934), IX. Giorgio Tamba, "A notarial archive? No, but", Archives for history. Journal of the National Association of Archives of Italy 3 (1990): 41-96; here 41-42 cf. . ., 1983), Vol. III: N–R (Rome: Ministero per . . . , 1986), vol. IV: S–Z (Rome: Minister Opera..., 1994). Verona was founded in 1500, but unfortunately burned down completely on the night of August 31, 1723, see Giulio Sancassani, "Ilcollegiodeinotaia Verona", Il notariato veronese tra icento, ed. Giulio Sancassani et al. (Verona: Collegio notarile, 1966), 1-24; here 18. In 1588 Sixtus V suggested the founding of notarial archives in the Papal States (with the exception of Rome and Bologna), cf. –66; here 47. Leges Genuenses, ed.C.Desimonietal.HistoriaePatriaeMonumenta,18 (Turin, apudfratres Bocca bibliopolas regis, 1901), col. 171: “Pro pensione volte, in qua reponuntur cartularia notariorumdefunctorumdeversusBurgumlib.VI.Propensionevoltenotariorumdefunctorum versusCastrumlib.VIII.”GiorgioCostamagna,IlnotaioaGenovatraprestigioepotere.Studistorici sulnotariatoitaliano,1(Roma:Consiglionazionaledelnotariato,1970)219–220pointsoutthat thissolutioncannotstemfromatimeearlierthanthesecondpartofthethirteethcentury.This is probably due to a printing error in Giorgio Costamagna, "The preservation of notarial documentation", Archives for history 3 (1990):7-20; here7: "Only by document do we have news that already in the twelfth century [!] there must have been a place where they gathered and kept deeds drawn up by notaries, since there is talk of keeping cartel deeds, rumposse" , as no further information was given. The Casadi San Giorgio (founded 1407) in Genoa administered Gabelle's municipal revenues, taxes and fees. Elsewhere this was the task of the city council, cf. A. Sciumé, "Casadi San Giorgio", Lexicon of the Middle Ages, vol. A petition from the College of Notaries to the Doge of Venice on 6 October 1492 states that the plebeian had decided nearly 400 years ago to rent two vaults to keep records at his own expense;
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By 1470 at the latest, the charters of later notaries were deposited in other buildings at the expense of the notary school. Until they were finally transferredtosomevacantroomsinthearchiepiscopalPalais,whichthenotary collegehadboughtforthisspecialpurpose,51thevolumeshadbeenonaveritable odyssey.Unfortunatelythisverybuildingwasbombedonthe17thofMay1684, whentheFrenchlaidsiegeonGenoa,whichresultedinmassiveanddeplorable lossesofpapersanddocuments.52 Now,whathadbeenstoredinthetwoGenoesevaults?A l l thecartulariesof thedeceasednotaries?Theanswerisno.In1358,theVicarofthePodestàpublicly announcedthateverybodywassupposedtohandoverthecartulariestheystored contraformamcapituli,tothetwonotariesthatwerechargedwiththecustodia.In 1384,thecommandwasrepeated.53Accordingtothenotarialstatutesof1462,the obligation to deliver Notarial acts and the prohibition to treat them must be published annually
51
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pensionibus,scripturasipsassicrepositasindictisvoltispartimvendiderunt,partimautempro aliqualieorumsatisfactionedictarumpensionumretinuerunt,partimautemscriptureipseex dictisvoltissubtracteetdispersefuere”(Thisprovesthattheownersofthisvault,becauseoftheir incapacitytopaytherent,soldpartsoftherecordsdepositedinthesevaults,withheldotherparts ofthemfortherentals,ortherecordswereevenremovedfromthevaultsandgotlost),cf.Tra SivigliaeGenova.Notaio,documentoecommercionell'etàcolombiana:.AttidelConvegnointernazionale distudistoriciperlecelebrazionicolombiane(Genova12–14marzo1992),ed.VitoPiergiovanni.Per unastoriadelnotariatonellaciviltàeuropea ,2 (Milão: Dott. A. Giuffrèeditor, 1994), 565–67. AlfonsoAssini, "L'Archiviodelcollegionotarilegenoveseelaconservazionedegliattitraquattro ecinquecento", TraSivigliaeGenova, 213-28; here 223–25. MarcoBologna, „1684maggio17.Leperditedell'archiviodelCollegiodeinotai“, AttidellaSocietà liguredistoriapatriaN.S.24(1984),267–90;hier273kommteinVergleichderInventarevon1644,1681,1734und1984zudemErgebnis,dasskeineNotarregisterausdem12. Assini,“Archiviodelcollegionotarile,”217:“contraformamcapitulipositisubrubricadeduobus notariiseligendisetcontraformamemendationisfactepercapitulatorescommunisIanuesupra dictumcapitulum”(againstthewordingofthearticleof“thetwonotariestobeelected”and againstthewordingoftheaddendumwhichtheresponsiblepersonsofthecommuneofGenua enactedinadditiontoit).Heassumesthatthismightrefertothecodexofstatutesinusesincethe endoftheDuecento;theemendationesmightstemfromthetimeofSimoneBoccanegra. Puncuh,Glistatutidelcollegiodeinotai,298§17:“Nondebeataliquisnotarius,uxor,filiusvel defamiliasuavendere,lacerarevelaliterdestruerealiquemlibrum,prothocollumvelfoliacium publicumnecaliquamscripturampublicamnisideconsensurectorumdicticollegiisubpena soldorumcentumianuinorum....Nemoetiampossitemere,receptarenecdestruerelibrum aliquem, prothocollum vel foliacium publicum nec aliquam scripturam publicam sub pena premissa:etsiadmanusalicuiuspersonadictapervenerintactapublicavelipsorumaliquod,cito debeat id significare premissis rectoribus unter einer Strafe, die nach Ermessen derselben Behörden verhängt wird. Davon senden alle Syndikatoren der Stadt einmal im Jahr eine Proklamation durch die Stadt selbst mit den Rektoren, die die Requisition des Vorgenannten begembenden haben.
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statutes,whichbecamevalidin1470,revealthatthecloserelativesofanotary werenotonlyallowedtostorethescriptsofthedeceasedathome,theycouldeven fetchthembackfromthearchive,providedtheythemselveswerenotaries.Butthis regulation did not create a new law, it only confirmed an entrenched habit explicitly.55 Nexttotheprivatecartulariesoflatenotaries,volumesofdocumentswrittenin thecommunalservicewerealsostoredinthevaultsbecausetheGenoesenotaries, accordingtothestatutesof1462,wereobligedtotakethesevolumeshomeandto store them properly no later than a year after the expiration of ihrer Amtszeit.56Nach ihrem Tod die im Kommunaldienst geführten Register
55
56
public volume of records of said punishment; However, if someone obtains such records, he must inform the directors of a possible penalty to be applied by the directors. Community leaders should have these ordinances proclaimed by the barker once a year, as soon as they are invited to do so by the rulers). LegesGenuenses,col.35(anotarialsubscriptionof1364:“EgoConradusMazzurrussacriImperii notariusetcancellariuscomunisIanue,predictuminstrumentumbaylieetpotestatisdictidomini ducisetdictorumsapientiumaddictumsacramentumextraxietinhancformampublicamredegi acartularioinstrumentorumcompositorummanucondamObertiMazzurrinotariietcancellarii comunisIanue,nihiladditoveldiminuto,quodmutetsensumvelvarietintellectum,nisiforte sillabaseupunctoabreviacioniscausa.Habensadhec,tamquamconstitutussupercustodiam cartulariorumdefunctorumnotariorumIanuedequatuorcompagnisdeversusBurgum,quam tamquamfiliusdictiquondamOberti,generalemandatum”(I,ConradusMazzurrus,notaryand chancellorofGenua,havecopiedthementionedinstrumentfromtherecordsofthedeceased notaryandchancellorofGenua,ObertusMazzurri,becauseofthepermissionoftheDogeandthe wisemen. Ihavechangednothingaboutitthatwouldalterthemeaning,except,perhaps,an abbreviated syllable or a punctuation mark. I had a general permission to do this as the responsiblekeeperoftheregistersofthedeceasednotariesforthefourcompaniestowardsthe castleandalsoasthesonofthedeceasedObertus).Thesourceprovidesnoinformationaboutthe locationofthisregister;itwasprobablysituatedinthehouseoftheexecutingnotary.Astatute of1402allowsforexceptionsfromthegeneralobligationtodeliverregisters,cf.Legesgenuenses, col.641(from1402):“Statuimusetordinamus, quodomnispersona,cuiuscumqueconditionissit, penes quam fuisset reperta aliqua cartularia, protocola, manualia, sentencie vel processus aliquorumvelalicuiusnotariidecollegiodefonctorumveldefoncti,teneanturetdebeantipsa consignareetponereinvirtutenotariorumadeorumcustodiamdeputatorumsecundumformam alicuiuscapituli.Nisiessetpersonacui,performamalicuiuscapituliveldecreti,permissumesset retinereipsacartulariavelscripturas”(Weprescribethatallwhostoretheregistersofdeceased notarieswiththemare,accordingtothecorrespondingrule,orderedtohandoverthesevolumes tothenotariesresponsibleforthekeeping,exceptforwhenitisexceptionallyallowedtokeep themoneself).Cf.alsoGiorgioCostamagna,IlnotaioaGenovatraprestigioepotere. Studistoricisul notariatoitaliano, 1 (Rome: Consiglionazionaledelnotariato, 1970), 223-24. DinoPuncuh,“GlistatutidelcollegiodeinotaigenovesinelsecoloXV,”Miscellaneadistorialigure inmemoriadiGiorgioFalco(Genova:Tip.Ferrari,OccellaeCie.,1965),267–310;here298§17: “QuoniametiamlibriveterescumaliisactibuspublicisofficiorumcommunisIanuequandoque exmalacustodiavidenturdestructietdeipsisprocapiendopapirocartevidenturablate,non debeantnotarii,perquosipsilibriscriptifuerintinofficiispredictis,librosipsosdimitterenecalia ipsorum acta publica, nisi solum per annum unum postquam exiverint from the offices themselves; in which the year is not yet over, they shall bring the said books and records into the public houses...” (Volumes sold
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they were to be transported to the two public vaults together with their private charters.57 The history of the Genoese crypt shows that it was not the "Public Archive of Charters", but a repository in which all documents drawn up by Genoese notaries, including municipal documents and records judicial. Especiallythelatterwereprobablythereasonwhythecommunehadinitiallypaid therentforthevaults,sinceasaruletheItaliancommuneswerequicktoarchive theirowndocuments.58Butwheninthefifteenthcenturypeoplestartedtorealize thattheamountofprivatescriptssurpassedtheamountofpublicscriptsbyfar, thedepositoryofnotarialbookswasprivatized,andtherentwaspassedontothe notarycollege.59 Itwashencethepublicinterestinthemunicipaldocumentsthatinducedthe Genoese commune to rent two vaults, maybe as early as the late thirteenth century, but certainly since 1304, in order to store the registers of deceased notaries.OtherItaliancitiesthatdifferentiatedveryaccuratelybetweenpublicand privatenotarialregisterswerequicktointroduceageneralobligationtodeliver
57 58
59
withpublicdocumentsofGenua'sofficeswerealreadydestroyedorpaperwasremovedfrom withinthem,nonotarywhohassetupsuchavolumeinthementionedofficesshouldpartwith thisvolume,exceptduringthefirstyearafterheretiredfromhisoffice;whenthisyearhaspassed, heshouldtaketheserecordshome...)Thenfollowarrangementsincaseofatemporaryabsence fromGenoa.“Nechabeattamenlocumpresenscapituluminactiscuriedominorumconsulum rationisnecetiaminactiscuriemaleficiorumIanue,sedeademactaserventuretservaridebeant moresolitopenesnotariumadipsorumcustodiamdeputatumseupertemporadeputandum” (This rule should neither apply to the records of the audit division of the consuls nor to the records of the criminal court, and they must be deposited as usual with the notaries responsible for this purpose). Town hall and court documents were apparently held centrally by the Genoese municipality. In Lucca, all court files had to be handed over to the city council after the mandate expired. Assini, "Archiviodelcollegionotarile", 22122; cf. também fonte 36 em Tra Sivigliae Genova, 564. Cf.alsoPietroTorelli,Studiericerchedidiplomaticacomunale.Studistoricisulnotariatoitaliano,5 (Rome:Consiglionazionaledelnotariato,1980)(thisisaReprintoftheAttiememoriedellaR. AccademiaVirgilianadiMantovaN.S.4[1911],5–99andofPubblicazionidellaR.AccademiaVirgiliana diMantovavol.1,Mantova1915), 375–80;cf.forBologna:DianaTura, "Lacameradegliatti", Cameraactorum.L'ArchiviodelComunediBolognadalXIIIalXVIIIsecolo,ed.MassimoGiansante, GiorgioTamba,DianaTura.DeputazionediStoriapatriaperleprovincediRomagna.Documenti e studi, 36 (Bologna: Deputazione di storia patria, 33–06; 375–80; Antonio Romiti, L'Armarium comunisdellacamaraactorumdiBologna:.L'inventariazionearchivisticanelsecoloXIII.Pubblicazioni degliArchividiStato.Fonti,19(Roma:Ministeroperibeniculturalieambientali.Ufficiocentrale peribeniarchivistici,1994),andforPisa:PaolaVignoli,“LaquestionedeiLibriiuriumaPisa:a propositodell'interpretazionedeltermine‚Pandette'usatoinalcunefontideisecoliXIII–XIV,” Bollettinostoricopisano76 (2007): 57-72. Assini, "Archivio del collegionotarile",221: "Possiamoperciò concluderesituandoneidue decennitrailCinquantaeilSessantadel'400lasvoltacheconducealla'privatizzazione'degli archivi" (We can therefore place the change that led to the privatization of archives in the 1550s and 60s chronologically).
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Municipal Registers, a decision that in the long run was to the detriment of private notary offices. But in this way, Genoa also managed to save some volumes from the 12th century, because the two vaults also contained those writings that formed the core of municipal archives in other cities, namely tax and financial documents, as well as court records.
*** Becauseofthelateestablishmentofpublicnotarialarchives,itisnotsurprising thatagreatnumberofthecartulariessurvivingfromthetimebefore1300cannot befoundinthePublicRecordOffices,butinchurcharchives.60However,evenif cartulariesquicklyfoundtheirwayintoclericalarchives,thiswasnotaguarantee fortheirsurvival.Ofthe53volumesoftheLucchesenotaryCiabattusthatare listedintheinventoryoftheLucchesechapterofthecathedralof1315,only30 havesurvived.61 Agewasdangeroustotheregisters:theoldertheywere,thelesslikelyitwas thatanengrossmentwouldbemadefromtheirpages.Withtheaccrualofyears, the chances of earning money with a register waned; Instead, old charters became a burden to their owners, taking up valuable space.62 Empty at a time
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Zur Situation der historischen Überlieferung vgl. Meyer, Felix etinclitusnotarius, 179-222. ThecartulariesweresituatedinthesacristyofSanMartino: “QuaternidecartismontaninisXLV,extractidelibrisrogitorumBartholomeinotariideBoçano/LibriLICiabattinotariicontractuumetcausarum/LibriVIIcausarumscriptimanumondamLeonardinotariideMassagrosa/Libr unuscausarumeiusdemLunardinotarii/Librialiuscausarumeiusdemnotarii/Librialiiduo casurum of the same notary/Librili causairum of A. Orselli. 1321 / Liber causarum scriptusmanu Orlandi Ugolininotariide Cardoso / LibercausarumetcontractuumBenedicti notarii / Liber AnselminotariideterresetredtibusextractusdeextimanibusmexMiliariorum et factusperLuc(anum) Commune / LibercausarumscriptusmanuFrancischiBonsostegnenotariisuba casurum Bartholomeu notarii de tempore domini MacaciorietdominiAldebrandiniTallialmelerictorumterrarumLucaniCapituliproCapitulo / Quaternidoabatuumscriptustarium,”Ciummanucf. Inventaridelvesvato, della cattedra e di altre chiese di Lucca, ed. Pietro Guidi von E. Pellegrinetti. . Hinweise auf die Verwendung alter Kartulare sind naturgemäß spärlich Martin Bertram, “Bologneser Testamente,ersterTeil:DieurkundlicheÜberlieferung,”QuellenundForschungenausitalienischen ArchivenundBibliotheken70(1990):151–233;here202–03,publishedonethatmightberecord breaking:1368thenotaryGuilielmusPetrobonideBançisexecutedanactstemmingfrom1257 “exrogationibusquondamdominiYsnardiBonzohanniniRubeidePicholpilonotarii.”Anactof PaganellusMaconis(Meyer, Felixetinclitusnotarius, no.278) de 1247foi executado em Luccain 1308, ASLDipl. Certosa 1247.02.16;
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Antiquarian trends regarded these volumes as useless ballast. Especiallyinthefourteenthcentury,hintsatacarelesshandlingofcartularies accumulate.InSiena,peoplecomplainedthatcartulariesmadeofpaperweresold to“salumieriedaltribottegai.”63Florencerepeatedlyprohibitedthedestruction andsaleofregisters.64AndyetwelearnfromtheLibridiricordiofOrsanmichele that two cartularies from the early Duecento were on sale in 1357: “un libro d'inbreviaturedicartepecora,cominciatonel1213,unlibrod'inbreviaturedicarte pecora,cominciatonel1229”(onenotarialregistermadeofparchmentthatstarts in1213, a notarial record on parchment from 1229).65 On 9 February 1389, the Lucchese Guardiano deilibridecameradelcomune complained to his superiors about the large number of cartularios that had recently been sold to merchants. He also reported that none of them could be found in the registers of fifty notaries who, according to the municipal books, should have been in the possession of a specific person.66 On the other hand, in Milan it was still legal in 1413 to sell the registers of deceased notaries. to merchants as wrapping paper, subject to the approval of the director of the notary school.67
63 64 65
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intoanditsdrawingupfromthecartulary.In1264thecommuneofSavonaaskedtheVicarof Albatodressupanactfrom1192fromthe“abreviationibusRaymundicivisAlbensisdictiJudicis notariiquondam,”cf.DocumentiintornoallerelazionifraAlbaeGenova(1141–1270),ed.Arturo Ferretto,2vols.,BibliotecadellaSocietàstoricasubalpina,vols.23and50/1(Pinerolo:Chiantore Mascarelli,1906–1910);herevol.1:259– 61no.309. A Florentine charter of 1184 was first transferred to parchment in 1259, see Robert Davidsohn, History of Florence, 4 vols. ,ed.byGiorgioFalco.BibliotecadellaSodicastoricasubalpina,91(Turin:Tip.SanGiuseppe,1920),No.71. State Archives of Siena Notarial Archives15. Panella, The Origins of Notarial Archives, 58 and 63. Francesco Carabellese, "The Company of Orsanmichele and the Book Market in Florence in the Fourteenth Century", Archivio Storico Italiano 5ta Serie 16 (1895): 267-73; here 268-69. D'Addario,Conservazione,201–02;Tirelli,“IlnotariatoaLucca,”298–99withnote96:“...chedi nuovomoltilibridirogitietcontractidinotarimortiassaifrescamentesonostativendutiaspetiali quaaLucaedifuori,etmaximamenteaunospetialechenecompròaun'oralibrecento,liquali perchénefuripresoàconservatoetconservaindelabotegasuasenzastraciarli.(...)Sabeneche aquestigiornialcunoessendoitopercercareacasad'unapersonadiquestaterra,laqualeavea libridicinquantanotari,opiùcomesitrovaperscriptoinlaCameradelcomunepredictoper manodinotaiopublico ,nonsitrovòneunediqueilibri”(thatrecentlyhere,inLuccaandits environs,registersofdeceasednotarieshadagainbeensoldtospicemerchants,especiallytoone single, who had bought 100 pounds of it at once, but had stored them untorn in his bottega becausehewascaughtdoingthis.[...]Itwasalsoknownthat,inthepastdays,somebodyhad beenvisitingacertainperson,atwhosehousetheregistersof50notariesshouldhavebeenstored accordingtothemunicipalindexes,butwherenosinglevolumehadbeenfound ). Alberto Liva, notary and notarial deed in Milan from the early Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century. Studies in the history of Italian notarial practice, 4 (Rome: National Council of Notaries, 1979), 116 quotes from a letter by Filippo Maria Visconti: “ut non sit aliquis spiziarius, formagiarius, lunegagarius, venditor pissium, salsorum, carnium nec aliarum rerum qui emat nec recipiat aliquas
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*** Althoughmanythingsthatwewouldholddeartodayhavebeendestroyedinthat time,weshouldnot be tooharshonthepast.Ifanotary,greatgrandsonofa dynastyofnotaries,hadreallybeenaskedtostorethecompletefamilyproduction ofcartularies,andalltheregistersofthenotarieswhohadworkedinthesame quarter,whichthecommunehadtransferredtohimforpracticalreasons,inhis ownhouse,andtokeepthisimmenseamountofvolumessafefrommice,water andfire,itiseasytoimaginethathewouldencounteraseverespaceproblem.68
68
imbreviaturasnotariidefunctisinelicentiaAbbatumcollegiiMediolani” (so that dealers in spices, cheeses or sausages, nosellerOffish, sauces, meats or others could buy all the records of deceased notaries without the permission of the head of the Milan Academy of Notaries). The luchese notary Thomassusfilius Orlandi Leonis (Meyer, Felixetinclitusnotarius, n. 330), active in the second half of the Duecento, kept his great-grandfather's rogita from 1173 in this house, cf. RegestachartarumItaliae,6,9,18und18bis (Rome: E.Loescher, 1910–1939); here vol. 2 no. 1310, note.
Britt C.L. Rothauser (University of Connecticut)
"Areuer...brighterþenboþethesunneandmone": the use of water in the medieval vision of urban space
When we, like medieval authors, think about the nature of urban spaces, we need to consider the city's most precious natural resource: water. Water is a defining element of urban space, as perfect as the divine city, as suggested by the use of a quotation from Pearl in the title of this essay. Civilization cannot advance without a source of water to feed people. Obviously, water is necessary for hydration and food production. Water in the form of groundwater, irrigation and geographic water resources supports food crops. In addition, hydroelectric power facilitates the refining of cultivated raw materials, for example by turning mill wheels.1 It is no coincidence that water forms an integral part of the planning and development of most great medieval urban centers like London, fictional ones like New Troy, and divine urban centers such as New Jerusalem, Medieval English authors from William FitzStephen to John Lydgate
1
2
For more information on mill use from ancient through medieval times, see Steven A. Walton's collection of eleven papers from the 2004 Pennsylvania State University conference, "WindandWater: The MedievalMill." Wind and Water in the Middle Ages: Fluid Technologies from Antiquity to the Renaissance, ed.StevenA.Walton.MedievalandRenaissanceTextsandStudies,322.PennState MedievalStudies,2 (Tempe:Arizona Center for MedievalandRenaissanceStudies,2006). If we look at the main medieval urban centers, we will see that they are all located near the water: London, Paris, Rome, Brussels, Florence and Venice, to name just two of the commercial and population centers of Europe.
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and John Gower emphasize the importance of water through their descriptions of the rivers, streams, springs, and springs that surround and permeate public space. We find that this prominent consideration of water exists not only in earthly cities, but also in descriptions of the holy city of New Jerusalem by authors such as the Pearl Poet and of more diabolical territories such as Dante's Inferno.3 Water stands out not only for its literal meaning proximity to most major cities in the focus of medieval authors, but also for its role in the literary conceptualization of urban space. Medieval authors describe not only the presence of water near cities, but also the use of water by citizens. 2) a protective barrier; and 3) a cleaning agent. In depictions of historical or fictitious earthly cities, we see water used in these functions individually, or perhapsdually,suggestinganimportanttoposforwater,butnotaformulaicuse ofit.Whenalloftheserolesappearinonedescription,wefindtheperfectionthat existsinthecelestialcityofPearl.Butwhentheserolesaresubverted,weseethe apocalypticnightmareofJohnGower’sLondoninVoxClamantis.Itisthroughthe author’smanipulationofwaterinthesethreerolesthatwecanseehowmedieval authorsmayexpresstheirconceptoftheurbanspace. Significantresearchhasbeendoneinrecentyearsconcerningtheprevalenceand needforwaterincitiesfromantiquitytothemodernera.Muchofthisscholarship overlaps,thematically.Forexample,inthefieldofwastemanagementintheurban environment,MichèleDagenaisusesthecleansingpropertiesofwatertodiscuss thedichotomyofcivilizedandwild,aswellastherelationshipoftheindividual tothegroup.4Andwhilethistopicisveryclosetomyownsectionthreeofthis paper,Dagenais’sinterestrestsintwentiethcenturyMontreal,Canada.Wecansee similaritiesfortheuseofwaterinbothmodernCanadaandmedievalEngland, butthebureaucraciesandenvironmentaldilemmasthatconcerncivicplannersin Canada at the turn of the last century are not those of medieval London. For Dagenais, the manipulation of water and the construction of the city "conquered the land" and "reformed the morals and behavior of society".
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For the purpose of this article, I will limit my discussion to a handful of authors from the 14th and 15th centuries. While I will also consider William FitzStephen's 12th-century Descriptio nobilissimæ civitatis Londoniæ, most of this article will focus on Pearl and St (these works see note below), John Lydgate's TroyBook, and John Gower's Mirrourdel'homme and VoxClamantis . Michèle Dagenais, “City cleaning, drainage and sanitation: conceptions and uses of water in the Montreal region”, The Canadian Historical Review 87.4 (December 2006): 621–51. Dagenais, "Cleaning, Draining and Sanitizing the City", 621.
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Medieval drainage ditches and paved roads were preserved in late medieval England and Scandinavia, given the complex relationship between the government and citizens in removing household waste from the city. There are also many articles on medieval towns, such as "Some Poets' Tours of Medieval London: Varieties of Literary Urban Experience" by C. David Benson.7 In this essay, Benson explores medieval London through the eyes of his "guides": William Fitz Stephen, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, Thomas Hoccleve, John Lydgate and the anonymous author of London Lickpenny. The resultingdifferencesleadBensontoconclude,alongsideMicheldeCerteau,that depictionsofthecityareasdifferentastheauthorsthatcomposethem.8These poets,forBenson,givevividdescriptionsofthecityfrom,withtheexceptionof WilliamFitzStephen,roughlythesameera.Whileourauthorsoftenintersect,and I am indeed indebted to David Benson for the genesis of my own article, his purposeisnottoarguethatthepoetsarecreatingtheirurbanspacethroughtheir literaryuseofwater,asIhopetoaccomplishhere.9
I. Water as Definition Water's first role is definition. However, when the image of a medieval city is conjured up, it is usually not the first image that comes to mind in modern thinking. Often, we first imagine the massive walls that mark the boundaries and keep out the desert and unwanted people. Of course, fully walled cities were not the only urban spaces built in the Middle Ages; however, the image of impregnable walls like Carcassonne is typical of the modern notion of medieval urban space, reinforced by Hollywood's portrayal of medieval and imaginative cities in films such as The 13th Warrior, Robin
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Dolly Jørgensen, "Cooperative Sanitation: Managing Streets and Gutters in Medieval England and Scandinavia", Technology and Culture 49.3 (July 2008): 547–67. C. David Benson, "Some Poets' Tours of Medieval London: Varieties of Urban Literary Experience," Essays in Medieval Studies 24 (2007): 1-20. Benson, Some Poets' Tours of Medieval London, 2 and 17. Finally, Benson concludes that medieval views on almost all subjects are as varied as the individuals considered: "These tours offer contemporary images of medieval London and belie the idea that that there is a single medieval view, even a view of medieval literature, on everything, especially anything as complex as London.”17 For a fuller discussion of water uses in urban settings, see Albrecht Classen's Introduction to this volume.
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Hood: Prince of Thieves or The Crusades.10 Our imagined medieval city is probably more like a walled garden, only on a much grander scale. In La RomandelaRose,forexample,thegardeniscompletelysurroundedbyhighwalls, keepingoutthosewhowishtoentertheenclosurewithoutpermission.Manfred Kuscharguesthatgardensrepresenta“rationallycontrolledsystemsurrounded byanoftenamorphouswilderness.”11AlthoughKuschisdiscussingtheenclosed gardenwithinanurbansetting,hisargumentsapplyequallytotheenclosedcity surroundedbywildernesspopularinthemodernconsciousness.Althoughthe protective nature of walls is not lost on the medieval perception, a walled enclosuredoesnotmerelyrepresentsecurity.Thegarden,suchasthatinLaRoman de la Rose, is considered by medieval authors as “places of virtue, devotion, harmony, lust, and gluttony, to name but a few examples.”12 And we also see these characteristics in authors' descriptions of medieval cities. The holy city of Pearl extols the virtuous devotion of its citizens, those blessed dead who found eternal reward for their godly lives. For Fitz Stephen, London exists as the harmonious balance between rural and urban areas in which its citizens coexist peacefully. John Scattergood, in Misrepresenting the City, argues that the authors' descriptions of a city's all-enveloping wall reflect an individual's view of perfection.
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Although The Lord of the Rings is set in a fantasy world, it also helps to further the concept of the medieval walled city because of its depiction of medieval clothing, weapons, and technology. While some of the cities portrayed by Hollywood, such as the city of Troy in Troy, may indeed have been fenced, the popular view of a medieval city seems to be that they were all walled, and some cities were not walled until long after communities were established. (Brussels, Belgium, for example, was not walled until the 13th century, but has been continuously inhabited since the 10th century.) here 1. Although Kusch much later discusses the use of gardens and the inclusive/exclusive space binary, his comments on the garden in art in literature apply to the use of enclosed garden spaces throughout literary history. Kusch, "The River and the Garden", 1. See also Jean E. Jostand Connie Scarborough's contributions to this volume. John Scattergood, "Misrepresenting the City: Genre, Intertextuality and FitzStephen's Description of London", Reading the Past: Essayson Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1996), 15-36; here 19.
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civitatis Londoniæ.14 The text is variably dated to “sometime before 1183”15 or “between1173and1175”16anddescribesLondon,bothintermsofitsphysical appearance,aswellasitsinhabitantsandtrades,inthevividfirstpersondetailof someonewhoknowstheareawell.Afterabriefdescriptionofthecity'scleanair, majorchurches,andtheTowerofLondon,FitzStephenturnshisattentionstothe city'sfortifications.17Atsomepointinthepast,fromFitzStephen'sperspective, Londonhadbeenentirelyenclosedbyfortifiedtowersconnectedbygatedwalls .18 If, as John Scattergood suggests, the perfectly closed city is needed to fulfill the author's idea of an ideal city, London has already done so. And Fitz Stephen's description of London, as Scattergood has observed, is extremely idealistic.19 The ideal of a perfectly closed and defined city does not last, however, when one of the walls collapses against the relentless force of the river: to the south, London was once similarly bricked up and piled up, but the Thames, that mighty river teeming with fish which flows on this side with the ebb tide, in time has washed away, undermined and overthrown these bulwarks.20
Scattergood argues that while London need not have a wall completed in FitzStephen's time for it to exist, it must have been completed sometime in the past.21 For Scattergood, FitzStephen cannot see a city so perfectly.
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The edition used here, the 1990 Italian press edition, follows the translation of the text by H.E. Butler, originally published by The Historic Association in 1934. The 1990 edition includes Frank M. Stenton's essay "Norman London" and an introduction by F. Donald Logan. DescriptionobilissimæcivitatisLondoniæ serves as an introductory preface to William FitzStephen's Life of Thomas Becket. F. Donald Logan, "Introduction" in Norman London by William FitzStephen (New York: Italica Press, 1990), ix. Scattergood, “Misrepresentation of the City”, 19. “To the east is the palatine citadel, extremely large and strong, whose walls and ramparts rise from very deep foundations, whose mortar is mingled with the blood of beasts. Scattergood, "MisrepresentingtheCity", 49. In addition to the great height of the walls with their "deep foundations (49), FitzStephen's walls are reinforced by the inclusion of "blood of beasts" mixed into the mortar (49). );overcrowding,poverty,disease,wastecontamination,andcrimeareall absentfromFitzStephen's“descriptionofthemostnoblecityofLondon”(48).Justasthetwelfth centuryauthorturnsablindeyetotheflawsinherenttocitylife,healsomustrepresentthe fortificationsofthecityasideal.However,hecannotconjureaphysicaledificeaseasilyashean eraseunwelcomesegmentsofthepopulationandsoinhistextFitzStephenaddressesthemissing wallonthesouthsideofLondon. William FitzStephen, NormanLondon (Nova York: Italica Press, 1990):49. Scattergood, " Misrepresentation of the City", 19.
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closed unless it has been completely surrounded by a wall at some point in its history. However, this demand for perfection doesn't seem to fit Fitz Stephen's description of his time wall. Instead, Fitz Stephen describes London as first among cities, blessed among other things with "the strength of her ramparts". pour. . . down” the strong ramparts.23 The river is simply stronger than the wall. But the manifold is not just an acceptable replacement for a damaged wall. The river's existence as London's southern boundary dates back to the building of the Wall. Londoners must have used the river as a boundary marker before they even realized the need to surround their public space with walls. London's south wall fell into the Thames because city planners decided that the Thames was the city's southern boundary. They placed their shelter within the natural boundary of the Thames. And as the force of the current undermined and eventually destroyed the strongholds, civilization accepted the natural barrier as sufficient. Regardless of any built boundaries, it is the River Thames that defines the south bank of medieval London. While the presence of water creates a natural, physical boundary for London, separating the city from what is not the city, the water also serves to define the city in the description obilissimæcivitatis Londonæ as an urban center, as well as the surrounding landscape. Jacques Le Goff observes that scholars since Karl Marx have seen the relationship between town and country as that of master and slave; However, LeGoff argues for a sense of civic unity between the gated city and the countryside with free travel between the two. "In the north, woods, pastures and pleasant places in flat meadows, cut by running waters turning mill wheels
22 23 24
FitzStephen,NormanLondon,48 FitzStephen,NormanLondon,50. Jacques LeGoff, „The TownasanAgentofCivilisation“ em The FontanaEconomicHistoryofEuropeed.
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Merrydin.”25 While there is significant travel between town and country, it is not the symbiotic relationship that le Goff envisions. The movement is in one direction. Urban citizens leave the city, blending in with the physical essence of the landscape but not with other people, and then retreat to their fortifications. Thepreferredunidirectionalrelationshipofthecityandthecountryisonethat issharedamongallthetextsthatIdiscusshere.Ineach,asIwilldescribe,thecity istheterritoryenclosedwithinthewallsandthesurroundingcountrysideisonly part of the urban area in that it contains the methods of food production that peopleinthecityneedtosurvive.InthecaseofPearl,thesurroundingcountryside doesnotevenproducefoodfortheinhabitantsofNewJerusalem;thecountryside thereexistsonlyasafurtherseparationofthedreamerfromtheurban.Thisisa conception of the city supported by Isidore of Seville's discourse in the Etymologiae.26Isidore With his typical combination of name and subject, he argues in Book 15 that a city is so named because of the walls that surround it, the greed that supports them, or the defenses that protect them.27 It is important, however, to note that the examples I use here provide a literary view of the city, not necessarily the reality of urban life and the inner city: surrounding farmers brought produce to city markets, and individuals died in search of honest work or perhaps less than honest opportunity. As David Benson has observed, cities are not static entities: during the fourteenth century nearly half of London's population died, originally up to 100,000, with immigrants from the periphery.28
25 26
27
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FitzStephen, NormanLondon,49-50. Isidoro de Sevilha, Etymologiae, editado por Rudolph Beer (Leiden, Holanda: A. W. Sijthoff, 1909); especialmente o Livro XV. IsidoreofSeville,Etymologiae,XV,ii,5.Isidorecontinuestoargueinlineselevenandsixteen,that thesmallervillagesaremerelyacollectionofpeople,withoutthedignitycommandedbyacity andthatthesuburbs(or“undercity”)arethebuildingsaroundacity.Clearlythereisacommon themeintheMiddleAgesthatthephysicalpropertyofthecityisthatwhichlieswithinthewall aswellastheproductionofthelandssurroundingit,butnotnecessarilythepeople.Foramore thoroughdiscussionofmedievalconceptsofthecity,seeHartmutKugler,DieVorstellungderStadt inderLiteraturdesdeutschenMittelalters.MünchenerTexteundUntersuchungenzurdeutschen LiteraturdesMittelalters,88(Munich:Artemis,1986) .Ver também a introdução de Albrecht Classen a este volume. C.DavidBenson, "London", Chaucer:AnOxfordGuide, ed. SteveEllis (Oxford:OxfordUniversity Press, 2005),66-80;aqui66.
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But as much as the reality of London consisted of a fluctuating population, the depiction of idealized London seems remarkably urban-centric. First, FitzStephen describes the Palace of Westminster as the link between the city and the 'populous suburb'.29 However, this is not a population we see in action. We only know that the royal palace is surrounded by the houses where this invisible mass lives, and behind these houses are the fields that support life in the city: "On all sides, beyond the houses, there are the gardens of the citizens who inhabit the suburbs, planted with trees, spacious and beautiful, adjacent to each other.”30 Instead of describing the people who inhabit this rural space, Fitz Stephen focuses on the trees and gardens, the rich Asian plains, how to 'enjoy the harvests' and fill their farmers' granaries 'with bundles of Ceres stalks.'31
The flat grasslands and meadows, while presumably maintained by humans, are not actively worked by humans. As well as being important producers of crops and wildlife, the countryside around London is also a place of trivia and play.
29 30 31
FitzStephen, NormanLondon,49. FitzStephen, NormanLondon,49. Fitz Stephen, NormanLondon, 50.
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city-dwellers.32 The first interaction that FitzStephen describes between city and country revolves around water: there are also in the suburbs of London the best springs, whose waters are sweet, wholesome and clear, and whose "brooks between waters shiny pebbles licking".
Itisquiteclearlyfromthecityandtowardtheruralenvironsthatcitydwellers movetointeractwithwater.Thewells,sweet,clear,andfamous,bringpeopleinto thecountrysidefromthecity.Butwhileinthecountryside,theurbancitizensdo notapparentlymeetwithanyruralinhabitants.Instead,theyinteractsolelywith thewaterthatservestotiethecountrysidetothecityinaholisticdefinition.The uninhabitedcountrysideactsasanextensionofthecity,aplaceofproduction wherethecityinhabitantsvisit,butsurelybelongingtothecityitself.Wateracts totiethepastoraltotheurbanasalocationforthecitizenstovisitaswellasthe meansofproducing,quiteliterally,theirdailybread.Inhisholisticconsideration ofLondon,FitzStephenusestheimageofwatertodefinethecityasboththe urbansettingandthecountrysidethatsupportsit. No entanto, a água não serve apenas para definir os limites da cidade como um limite físico ou através da incorporação na paisagem
32
33
It is important to note that the lack of people living in the countryside is evidently not due to the general love of the people described in the description. FitzStephen's lyrics contain inflammatory stories about different people's hobbies and pleasures. However, these people are regularly described as being from the city, citizens of London or Londoners. Indeed, Fitz Stephendescribesnumerousfrolics,games,anddiversionsinwhichthepeopleofLondonpartake thatwouldrequiretheirdeparturefromthecity:“Inwinteronalmosteveryfeastdaybefore dinnereitherfoamingboardsandhogs,armedwith'tuskslightningswift'themselvessoontobe bacon,fightfortheirlives,orfatbullswithbuttinghorns,orhugebears,docombattothedeath againsthoundsletlooseuponthem”(58).Eachweek,horsetradersbringtheirlivestocktoflat fieldsoutsideofLondon,bringingoutthe“Earls,BaronsandKnightswhoareintheCity,and withthemmanyofthecitizens”(53 ).Healsodescribesthe“greatmarsh”tothenorthofLondon thatfreezesinthewinter,when“densethrongsofyouthsgoforthtodisportthemselvesuponthe ice”(58).Furthermore,“Londoners”enjoy“takingtheirsportwithbirdsoftheair,merlinsand falconsandthelike,andwithdogsthatwagewarfareinthewoods.Thecitizenshavethespecial privilegeofhuntinginMiddlesex,HertfordshireandallChilternandinKentasfarastheriver Cray”(59).Hetellsof“alltheyouthoftheCity”goingintothefieldstoplayballgames(56. ) We should note that each of these descriptions creates the image of a multitude of individuals coming out of the city walls to play in the fields, forests and waters of the countryside. For FitzStephen, the people involved in these pastimes are those who live within London's walls. Fitz Stephen, NormanLondon, 50.
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In our consideration of the City of London, there is a symbolic setting that water serves to create. London's commerce is not limited to its immediate surroundings, but draws people to it by its position on a major waterway to the ocean. London, through its export of wool to the Continent, an international city. This suggests that cities as they are today are symbolically equated with an image, a role or a product. Cairo, for example, resembles the pyramids; Paris is the city of lovers; or Bruges is famous for its lace. WhiletheactualriverandwaterwaysaroundLondonworktodefine,somewhat ambiguously,eitherthedivisiveorinclusiverelationshipbetweenthecityandthe countryside,theroleofriversbecomesabsoluteinconjunctionwiththedivinecity inPearl.Writteninthelatefourteenthcentury,Pearlformspartofacollectionof poems all argued to have been written by one master of medieval alliterative poetry,thePearlpoet.36ThePearlpoettreatsthesubjectofwaterinconjunction withanurbancenterinmanyofthesamewaysthatFitzStephenuseswaterinhis descriptionofLondon.Aswiththedefinitionoftherealcitythroughitsproximity towatersources,theriverinPearldefinesNewJerusalembothintheliteralsense
34 35
36
FitzStephen, NormanLondon,49. The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, ed. William Aldis Wright (London: Printed for H.M. Stationeryoff., by EyreandSpottiswoode, 1887), Zeile 139–41. ThePearlpoetisistalternativesTheGawainpoetbekannt,nacheinemanderenbekanntenText,derdemselbenKünstler,SirGawainundTheGreenKnight, zugeschrieben wird. Erkenwalds Autorschaft, see Larry D. Benson, „The Authorship of St. Erkenwald“, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 64 (1965): 393–405; and C. J. Peterson, „Pearland St. Erkenwald: Some Evidence for Authorship“, The Review of English Studies, New Series 25.97 (Feb 1974): 49–53. showing that common authorship 'is not proven' is not the same as showing that it is impossible'”(4).
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byrevealingthecitytothedreamerandinthemetaphoricalsensethroughits divineorigin.Asthenarratorwandersthroughhisdreamvision,hecatchesa glimpseofaparadisiacalcity:“ForþyIþo3tthatparadise/Watzþerouergaynþo bonkezbrade”[“Therefore,Ithoughtthatparadisewasnearbyoverthebroad banks”].37 AswithLondon,theriveroutlinestheboundaryofthecity'sphysicalspace,but inconjunctionwiththewallsdefinesNewJerusalemasacityofexclusion.InPearl, thereisaredundancyofdefinitionsuggestedbytheriverandthewalls.Theriver offersaboundaryoverwhichthecasualobservercanviewacity,whereasthe wallsblockthespecificjoysofparadisefromview.SarahStanburyarguesin“Pearl and the Idea of Jerusalem” that the city represents the Christian's inability to reuniteinthebodyofChristuntiltheLastJudgment,suggestingits“tantalizing yetephemeralnature.”38Becausetheriverdoesnotimpedethedreamer'sview, itdoesindeed“tantalize”thenarratorwithaglimpseoftheheavenforetoldbythe Church.Asaphysicalboundary,however,itmarksthelimitofwherehemay approachthemanifestationofthattheologicaltheory.Whiletheparadisiacalcity existsasatangiblelocationinthecontextofthedream,itisbeyondthereachof thedreamerasalivingbeing.JohnFinlaysonargues,in“Pearl:Landscapeand Vision ,” that the elegiac nature of the poem and dream necessitates the progressionofclarityallowedtothedreamer.39Thecityisavailabletothedreamer withnoimmediacyandnopersonalrelationship,yet.Itisonlyafterhe,likehis daughterthePearlmaiden,diesthathewillbeallowedapersonalrelationship withthecityhecanonlyknowthroughthemediationofthechurchinlife.The riverdefinesthecityasaplacethedreamercan“see”throughhisdream,butthe wallsdefinethecityasaplaceofexclusion,whosejoysareunavailabletothe narratoreveninadream. Während der Fluss buchstäblich die physischen Orte in Pearl als für den Träumer einschließend oder exklusiv einteilt, definiert er die Stadt auch auf einer bildlichen Ebene. Die Themse definiert London bildlich als eine Stadt des internationalen Handels; Der Fluss in Pearl dient dazu, die unmenschlichen und beeindruckenden Qualitäten der Stadt hervorzuheben. In einer irdischen Stadt wie London unterstreicht die Fähigkeit, den Weg fließenden Wassers durch die Verwendung von Rohren und Leitungen zu manipulieren, dies Höflichkeit dieses urbanen Zentrums.
37
38
39
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Pearl, in The Complete Works soft the Pearl Poet, edition and translation Casey Finch) Berkeley: University of California Press, c1993), 43-103; here lines 137-38. Sarah Stanbury, 'Pearland the Idea of Jerusalem', Medevalia et Humanistica 16 (1988): 117-31; here315 The city emphasizes civility as well as the engineering of the
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The survival of many urban centers in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany was made possible by man's ability to alter the course of water.41 As William H. TeBrake argues, the development is "one of the most densely populated and urbanized regions in Europe. " for that reason alone is it possible why humans began to manipulate the flow of water away from human settlements.42 Likewise, the paving of the heavenly river at Pearl serves to highlight the divine civilization of the New Jerusalem. This is a flow whose path is dictated by divine will. Its route is dictated by cobblestones. In“TheImageryandDictionofThePearl,”WendellStacyJohnsonarguesthat acelestialriverbedpavedwithgemsisametaphorforpurity.43Butwaterways pavedingemsalsosuggestacivilizedsetting.InPearl,thehumanabilitytocontrol smallamountsofwaterwithinthecityisoverwhelmedbythewealthandskill suggestedbythedivineabilitynotonlytoreinforcetheriverbedwith“bonkez beneofberylbry3t”[“banksthatweremadeofbrightberyls(preciousstones)]44 butalsotocontrolthedepthandflowoftheriveritselfbypavingthebottomwith “emerad,saffer,oþergemmegente”[emeralds,sapphires,andotherbeautiful gems].45Thisisnotasmallamountofwaternavigatedbytheurbanengineers,but rather an an entire river whose course and purpose were created by a divine civilization was paved with precious stones. "By the fourteenth century, paving became commonplace," says LeGoff.46 This is another division between the
41
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44 45 46
Residents, even monstrous residents, see Albrecht Classen's discussion of Duke Ernst's description of grippia in the introduction to this volume. Indeed, Classen suggests that the description of flowing water used as a bathing sand and then as a cleansing agent is more appropriate for an 18th-century city (or, as I will argue below, the celestial city). While the waterways depicted in Herzog Ernst suggest politeness, it's important to remember that the monstrous citizens are probably not intended to represent the pinnacle of civilization in ethical, moral, and religious terms. William H. TeBrake, "Taming the Waterwolf: Hydraulic Engineering and Water Management in the Netherlands during the Middle Ages", Technology and Culture 43 (July 2002): 475-99; here 475. TeBrake, "Taming the Waterwolf", 483. Wendell Stacy Johnson, "The ImageryandDictionofThePearl:TowardanInterpretation"inMiddleEnglishSurvey:CriticalEssays,ed.EdwardVasta(NotreDame:UniversityofNotreDamePress,1965),161-80;here168. Pearl, 110. Pearl, 118. Jacques LeGoff, TheMedievalImagination, trans.ArthurGoldhammer(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,1988),89. Argues that the pavements of Paris in 1185 were only for the main streets and it was the "new north", although Italian cities, even the smallest ones, paved their streets, and "new north", the Taudowns, op The Journal of the American Society of Architectural
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civilizationofman,andthecitieshecreates,andthewildernessthatsurrounds them.Featsofengineeringsuchaspavedstreetsandthemanipulationofwater sourcesdividethecivilizedculturefromthebeaststhatwearpathsthroughthe wildernesssimplybyrepeateduse.Eveninadescriptionoftheheavenlycity,the Pearl poet reverts to images and phraseology that exist in realistic urban descriptions.ThecivicauthorityofLondonmaynotpavetheThamesinprecious gems,butbothearthlyanddivineengineersusetheriverasanaturalboundary fortheircity,allowingthosenotpermittedthroughthebarriersaglimpseofthat whichtheycannotattain,accesstothefreedomofthecity.Inthisway,theriver inbothLondonandPearlworksasastrongdefiningelement. Uptothispointwehavediscussedthepositiverolesofwaterintheliteraland figurativeconsiderationsofLondonandtheheavenlycity.JohnGower,however, intheVoxClamantisaswellasintheMirourdel'Ommemanipulatestheimagery oftranquilwatertodisplaythecatastrophicpowerbarelycontainedbyariver's banks.GowercomposedtheVoxClamantisasareactiontothehorrorsheviewed andimaginedoccurringduringthesocalledPeasants'Revoltof1381whenthe inhabitants of the outlying areas of London, in a widespread reaction to the unusuallyhighpolltaxof1380,invadedthecity,burnedJohnofGaunt'spalace, andmurderedtheArchbishopofCanterbury.47 TohighlighttheutterlackofcivilityduringthefourdayuprisinginJuneofthat year,Gowerjuxtaposestheidyllicpreriotinteractionoftownandcountrywith anightmarishdescriptionofthetownduringtheperiodofunrest.Goweruses waterimagerytosuggestnottheliteralboundariesofthecity ,butratherapositive definitionofhispastoralidealbeforethe1381rebellion;natureandthepeasantry dwellinthecountrysideandgrowtheprovisionsrequiredbythecity.Waterhere, therefore, does not define the city itself, but rather Gower's preferred social hierarchybetweencityandcountry:theproductivewater,likethepeasantsthat useit,canmoveunrestrainedinthecountryside.Waterinthecities,however, muchlikethepeasantsthatvisit,mustbeconstrained.Watermustflowthrough designatedchannelsandpipes;thepeasantrymustconformtothelevelofcivility thatGowerexpectstoseewithinanurbanenvironment. LeGoff argumentou em The Medieval Imagination, dass Naturbilder in Literatur und Kunst nicht auf einen Kampf zwischen Stadt und Land hinweisen, sondern auf das, foi
47
Historians, 3.1/2 (January, April 1943): 30-35; here 31–33.) For a contrasting view of the expansion of paved roads in medieval Europe, see Allison P. Coudert's contribution to this volume. It is not the purpose of this paper to examine the events leading up to the Troubles of 1381, including the depopulation of the area by the plague of 1348-1350, the attempt by the ruling classes to freeze wages and restrict peasant movement. , and a per capita tax three times higher than the previous year.
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it is essential for everyone, a “contrast between what was built, cultivated and inhabited (city, castle, village) and what was essentially wild (the sea and the forest, the western equivalents of the eastern desert). For Gower, water flowing freely across the landscape is not "wild water". It is water that corresponds to its natural place in the wider world order as he understands it. The water flows in the fields and grows things that the townsfolk and, by extension, Gower herself love to eat. However, Fitz Stephen's idyllic repose will not last in Gower's time. Water becomes the binary opposite of the city's essential qualities, the destructive force that undermines civilization's creations. Before the country subjugates London in Vox Clamantis, Gower describes its utopian environment: Estalter paradisesibi, namquicquidhabere Menshumanacupit, terrabeataparit, Fontibus irriguisfecundus, semineplenus, Floribus insignisfructiferisquebonis. (VoxClamantis, LiberPrimus, ll.79-82)49
[It was a second paradise ether, for whatever the human spirit desired, the blessed land produced
This is not a pastoral setting inhabited by people, nor is FitzStephen's description of London's "most excellent" springs as having "sweet, wholesome and clear" water.51 Similar to Fitz Stephen's preface in which young people leave London to set playing in uninhabited countryside, Gowerhere describes an environment where, although full of all sorts of growing things, few people appear. Where Iver absolutely defines the physical city in Pearl, the rural waterways suggest, for both FitzStephen and Gower, a favored natural social hierarchy in which nature and the farmers who cultivate it remain on the land and produce 48 49
50
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LeGoff, The Medieval Imagination, 58. Citado de John Gower, The Complete Works of John Gower, ed. GC Macaulay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902), Here and Everywhere. John Gower, Vox Clamantis em The Major Latin Works of John Gower: The Voice of One Crying, and The Tripartite Chronicle, ed. Eric W. Stockton (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962), 52. FitzStephen, Description, 50.
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Things that city people can use. But Fitz Stephen uses waterways to include the pastoral in his definition of the city, while Gower uses them to exclude it. Gower'scountryside,significantlyseparatefromthecity,isaplacefromwhich peoplecomeonlyinanapocalypticnightmare.Thereisasubtledifferenceinthe distinctionsbetweenthetwoauthors.FitzStephen'spastoralpeasantryinvisibly worksinthefields,creatingthethingsthecityneedstosurvive,butstayingin theirplace.Gower'scountrydwellersmoveintotheurbanspaceasaninvading force.Theidyllicpeaceofthecountryexistsonlyaslongastheunseenpeasantry remainsinvisiblyworkinginitsrightful,asdefinedbyGower,pastoralplace.As BarbaraHanawaltpointsoutinherintroductiontoChaucer'sEngland,descriptions likeFitzStephen'sandGower's,ofthepastoralidealwhich“couldsanitizeand tamethepeasants,” 52has not glossed over the real dangers on earth. The town of Gower is what the walls protect. IntheMirourdel'homme,writtensporadicallyoverthethirdandfourthquarters ofthefourteenthcentury,Gowerexplainsexpresslyhisfearofsocialdisorderin hislargercomparisonofthecourtlytraditionoftruelovewithspiritualmorality.54 Written during the period of social unrest that leads up to the 1381 riots, the MirourbrieflytouchesonGower'sviewsofaciviluprising.Whenthepastoral setting described in the Vox Clamantis deteriorates, Gower fears the resulting hierarchicalinversion,whichhedescribesfirstintheMirour: Troischosessontd' unecovyne, Quisanzmercyfontlaravine Encasq'ilssoientaudessus: L'unestdel'eauelacretine, L'autreestduflammelaravine, Etlatierceestdesgensmenuz Lamultitudeq'estcommuz: Carjaneserrontarrestuz Parresounnepardiscipline. (26497–505) [“There are three things with a single behavior that will ruthlessly wreak havoc when mastered. One is floods. Another is a fire
52
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Barbara A. Hanawalt, Chaucer's England: Literature in Historical Context (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), xxii. Gower, Vox Clamantis, 52. For the current debate over the date of Gower's work on The Mirror, see RF Yeager, “Gower's French Audience: The Mirror of the Omme,” The Chaucer Review 41.2 (2006): 111–37.
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Im Spiegel sagt Gower voraus, dass die vielen „kleinen Leute“ die soziale Ordnung umkehren und in London bürgerliches Chaos schaffen werden. The direct parallel between riotingpeasantsandfloodssuggestsacataclysmicintersectionbetweenwilderness andcity.Withoutthesocialhierarchy,theruralpeasantrybecomesassenselessas waterandinvadesthecityjustastheThamescouldfloodthemarketstreetsof LondonorSouthwark.Forthecivicentityofthecity,anuprising,suchasin1381, representsasignificantthreattothestatusquo,shatteringthisotherEdenand invertingtheroleswaterplaysinthecity.56 If Gower's first use of water in the Vox Clamantis is that of a positive demarcationbetweenurbanandrural,itquicklyshiftstoanegativerepresentation with the approach of the rioting pastoral laborers: “Sic adeunt vrbem turbe violenteragrestes,/Etmarisvtfluctusingrediuntuream(ll.91112;“Andsothe savagethrongsapproachedthecitylikethewavesoftheseaandentereditby violence”).57Thephysicaldefinitionofthecityhasfailed,becomingincreasingly swampedbythetideof“littlepeople”whodestroytheboundarybetweenurban andruralbyleavingtheirnaturalplaceinthesocialhierarchyandinvadingthe city.Gowerequatestheinvadingpeasantrywiththeuncontrollableocean,leaving itsnaturalplaceandoverwhelmingtheboundariesofthecity.Ifwaterintheform ofriversservestodelineatetheboundariesofthecitythroughtheircontainment withintheirbanks,thentheiroverflowdestroysthecity'sdefiningphysicality.
II. Water as a protective barrier The second role of water in the form of a river is to protect the city from outside forces.
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56
57 58
Traduzido por G.C. Coulton, Social Life in Britain From the Conquest to the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1919), 353. Para outra discussão sobre agitação social urbana, consulte Lia B. Ross, "AngerandtheCity:WhoWasin ChargeoftheParisCabochienRevoltof1413?", em este volume. Gower, Vox Clamantis, 70. Max Weber, "The Nature of the City" em Classic Essay on the Culture of Cities, ed. Richard Sennett (Nova York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1969), 23-46, aqui 32-36. Originalmente publicado como "The City: A Sociological Inquiry", Archive for Social Science and Social Policy 47 (1921):
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fortifications.ContainedwithinthefiftyvolumesetoftheCalendarofLetterBooks isadetailedrecordofthecivicconcernsthatfacedLondonfrom1275to1509.The entries catalog the recognizance of citizens for their neighbors, ordinances governingeverythingfrommurdertotheproperweightofbread,andthefines leveledandpaidforfailuretocomplywiththoserules.Thereisadefiniteconcern regardingthedefensibilityoftheThames,aswereadintheprovisionsforthe protectionofthecityintheLetterBooks.Theriverneedsconstantvigilancebecause oftheeaseofcrossingintothecityundetected.Atnight,whennooneshouldbe enteringorleavingthecity,onlytwosleepingmenmonitorthegates,buttheriver hasalarger,moreactive,patrol: TheserjeantsofBillingesgateandQueenHythearetoseethatallboatsaremooredon theCitysideatnight,andaretohavethenamesofallboats; Und niemand darf nachts die Themse überqueren
Thegates,onceshut,offertheirownprotectionforthecitizensofLondonandonly requiretheattentionoftwosomnolentguards,buttheriverrequirestheactive patrolofasergeantandfourmen.Inotherwords,theonlyopeningswithinthe wallsofthecity,thegates,requireonlythemostcursoryofadministrationinorder tofulfillitsroleasprotection.Theriverrequiresafarmoreactiveguard,gathering allboatstoensurenolatecrossingsandforcefullyblockingtrespassers.Itisnotan easilydefensiblelocation,andtrespassersbywayofwaterareaconstantthreat, if the concern in the LetterBooks is an indication. It is not the river itself that protects the secular city, it is the people who patrol it. It's only the divine barriers in Pearl and Saint Erkenwald that can act independently of a guard to protect the city. If there is an imperfect barrier that suggests a defensible fortification but offers no protection against incursions by boats or swimmers, the river that surrounds the city of Pearl perfects this defensive role and keeps the unworthy dreamer away from Jerusalem. Maddened by his desire to be reunitedwithhisdaughter,thenarratorrashlyattemptstocrosstheriverinto NewJerusalem,inlines1153–70.Theseactions,however,donotpleasethePrince ofthecity,Christ,andthereforewinthedreamerexilenotonlyfromthecity,but alsofromhisdream.ReadingPearlthroughtheimageryusedinfifteenthcentury courtly love poetry, Maria BullónFernández argues in “By3onde Þe water: CourtlyandReligiousDesireinPearl”thatswimmingtheriverinPearlsymbolizes
59
621–772. CalendarofLetterbooksPreservadoEntreosArquivosdaCorporationoftheCityofLondonaattheGuildhall.Vol.1.ed.ReginaldR.Sharpe(Londres:ImpressoporJohnEdwardFrancis,1899),21.
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sexual activity, culminating on the far bank.60 The poet's description, however, does not suggest physical intimacy between the dreamer and the girl, but rather Christ's anger at the dreamer's attempts to invade the city: WhenIguildestartinþestremastraye, OutofþatcasteIwatzbycalt: HitwatznotatmyPryncezpaye . HitpayedHymnoþatIsoflonc Ouermeruelousmerez,somadarayd.... Forry3tasIsparreduntoþebonc, þatbrathþeoutofmydremmebrayed [WhenIwantedtoleapastrayintothestream OutofthatdreamIwassummoned ItwasnotatmyPrince’spleasure ItdidnotpleaseHimthatIrushed Overthemarvelouswaters,insuchafrenzy.... BecausejustasIrushedtothebank, Thatimpetuosityjerkedmeoutofmydream].61
It is possible to read this passage as a dream banishment once the dreamer enters the water. The line "When should I start on þe strem astray" suggests that the dreamer is taken out of the dream at the moment when he wants to cross the river. Asthehetouchestheoppositebank,thedreamerfindshimselfexiledbythe riverbecauseofthePrince'sdispleasure.Theriveractsasanabsoluteguardian, upholdingthelawsofthecityandthedesiresofitsLordbyrepellingtheinvasion ofthisunworthyforeigner.Itisunlikelythattheriverisametaphorforsexual activity,asswimminginwateritselfdoesnotpromptanyretaliation,but,asSarah Stanburyargues,itisthedreamer'sinabilitytoenterthecityasalivingcreature combinedwithhisinabilitytounderstandGod'sineffability,thatpreventshim from crossing the river.62 The swimmer may spend as much time as he likes rushingthroughthewater,anunlikelysituationifswimmingsymbolizessexual activity But they should not remain in sight as the heat tries to enter the physical space of the city defined by the other side.
60
61 62
MaríaBullonFernandez, „By3ondeÞewater:courtlyandreligiousdesirinPearl“, Studiesin Philology 91.1 (1994): 35–49;hier47–49. Perle1162–70. Stanbury, „Pearland the Idea of Jerusalem“, 127.
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um den Versuch der Christenseele zu symbolisieren, seine Beziehung zu Gott zu verstehen. WhiletheChristianmaycontemplateGod'snature,orstrivetocrosstheriver,he maynotfullyinteractwithGod,orenterthecityinPearl,untilthemomentof death.63 InmydiscussionoftheredundancyofdefiningelementsinPearl,Inotedthat whiletheriverdefinesthecitylimits,thewallsalsoservetodefineitsphysical area.Similarly,thewallsandriverperformredundantfunctionsinprotectingthe cityfromforeigninvasion.Itisnot,ofcourse,thedesireofthephysicaldefenses ofNewJerusalemthatremovethedreamerfromthedreaminPearl.Christhimself istheactingagentprotectingNewJerusalemthroughsheerwill.However,the poet represents this absolute defense of the city by two easily identifiable landmarks:theriverandthewalls.Shouldtheriverfail,thewallsremainasan easilydefendedfortification.AswithLondon,wallsrequirelessattentiveguards becausetheyaresimplymoredifficulttobreach.ShouldtheriverinPearlfailto stopthedreamer'sinvasion,givingthehuman,orinthiscasedivine,guardsthe opportunitytoremovetheoffender,thewallsofNewJerusalemwillcertainly succeed.Butbecauseofthedivinesetting,therivercannotfailtoprotectthecity; diese perfekte stadt bleibt absolut bewacht von zwei unfehlbaren verteidigungsanlagen. Das Perlengedicht aus dem 14. Jahrhundert dient meinem Argument als gutes Beispiel für die perfekte Rolle des Wassers in der mittelalterlichen Betrachtung des Stadtraums, ist aber nicht einzigartig in seiner Aneignung dieses topologicischen Merkmals. Although firmly set in the real city of London, the Legendonlyreferstowaterinconjunctionwiththespiritualdefenseofthedivine city,keepingtheunbaptizedsoulfromreachingthecelestialparadise,“Quenwe aredampnyddulfullyintothedepelake/Andexilidfrothatsoperso”(Whenwe are sorrowfully condemned into the deep lake and therefore exiled from that supper).64 Thesoul,unabletoattainthejoysofHeavenbecauseofitspaganstate,isexiled fromthesupperservedinheavenuntilbaptizedasaChristianbySt.Erkenwald's tears. Der See ersetzt den Fluss in Pearlland und bildet eine natürliche und unüberwindbare Barriere, die den Himmel vor den unwürdigen Seelen schützt, die dort nicht willkommen sind
63
64
For a further discussion of New Jerusalem imagery, see Ann R. Meyer, Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem (Rochester, New York: D.S. Brewer, 2003). See also J. Allan Mitchell, "TheMiddleEnglishPearl:FiguringtheUnfigurable", TheChaucerReview35.1(2000):86-111. SaintErkenwald, Ed. Clifford Peterson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), 302-03. For a discussion of Saint Erkenwald and the works of other Pearl poets as a social commentary on the state of religion and politics in London during the Ricardian era, see John M. Bowers, ThePoliticsof"Pearl":CourtPoetryintheAgeofRichardII (Woodbridge, England, and Rochester, NY: Boydelland Brewer, 2001).
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feast.JustasthelivingconsciousnessofthedreamerinPearlsuffersbecausethe water blocks his entrance into the celestial city, so too does the pagan soul in Erkenwaldlamentbecause,whilenotpreciselydamnedtohell,hecannotreachthe tantalizinglyvisibleparadise.Itisnotuntilthesoulhasbeencleansedofitspagan taintthatheisreleasedfromthedeeplakeandintothefeastforwhichhepines.65 IftheThamesRiveristhehumanequivalentofanaturallyoccurring,butfaulty, protectivebarrier,theriverinPearlandthelakeinSaintErkenwaldaretheultimate expressionsofcelestiallyprotectivewater.TheThamesfailstoprotectthecity, requiringthepresenceofguards,butthedivinelycreatedbarriersprotectNew Jerusalemandtheheavenlyfeastabsolutely. Where the Thames represents the perfect earthly barrier of the home and the pearl represents the divine perfection of that protection, Gower reverses the protective quality of water and emphasizes its most destructive power. In Fitz Stephen, the destructive power of the Thames holds London's south wall but replaces it, however imperfectly, with a natural barrier.
65
Theimageoftheriverisnotuncommoninmedievalliterature.Riversappearthreetimes,atlines 160,246,and308,inSirOrfeoassceneryintheforestthroughwhichHeurodisandlaterOrfeo himselfmustpasstogettotheunderwold.Inlines699–700,SirGawaincrossesariverfrom HolyheadtoWirral,the“wyldernesse.”Theriverhereformsaboundarybetweentheknownand theunknown.InCantoIIIofDante’sInferno,Danteseesabandofsoulsthatpinetocrosstheriver intoHeaven: “Figliuolmio,”disselmaestrocortese, “quellichemuoionnel’iradiDio, tutticonvegnonquid’ognepaese; eprontisonoatrapassarlorio chèladivinagiustizialisprona sìchelatemasivolveindisio. Quincinonpassamaianimabuona; eperò,seCaronditesilagna, benpuoisapereomaichelsuodirsuona” [“Myson,”saidthegentlemaster,“herearejoined ThesoulsofallwhodieinthewrathofGod, Fromeverycountry,allofthemeagertofind Theirwayacrossthewater–forthegood Neverpassthisway;therefore,ifyouhear Charoncomplainingatyourpresence,consider Whatthatmeans.”] TheInfernoofDante,ed.andtrans.RobertPinsky(NewYork:Farrar,Strauss,andGiroux ,1994), III, 100-108. Siehe auch Charles Dahlberg, The Literature of Differentness (Hannover und London: University Press of NewEngland, 1988).
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tidesremoveanytraceofthewallsandrenderthegatesuseless66:“Adextrisque nouammetuncvidisseputabam/Troiam,queviduelanguidmorefuit:/Que soletexmuriscingipatuitsinemuro,/Necpotuitserasclaudereportasuas(ll. 879–82;“OnmyrightIthenthoughtIsawNewTroy,whichwaspowerlessasa widow.Ordinarilysurroundedbywalls,itlayexposedwithoutanywall,andthe citygatecouldnotshutitsbars”).67GowerportraysLondonasacitythathaslost theessential,immobilequalitiesofbeingacity.Robbedoftheirprotectivepower bythedestructiveforceofwater,thewallsvanishandthegatenolongerworks tokeepthewildnessofthecountryoutofthecity.Thisisnotmerelyanimperfect barrier as we see in LetterBooks. It is the total destructive power of the people, symbolized as floods, gaining a level of mastery beyond their social standing and working to destroy the city's defenses and civilization.
III.WaterasCleansingAgent Thefinalwayinwhichtheurbanizationofwaterexpressestheextentofman's civilizationisthroughitscleansingproperties,bothliteralandspiritual.Iwishto turnfirsttotheliteralimportanceofcleanlinessinbothterrestrialandcelestial cities, and then consider the baptismal quality suggested by Pearl and Saint Erkenwald.Thefilthofcitystreetsisasubjectthatfrequentlyconcernsmedieval Londoners.InLetterBookAof1275alone,thechroniclerwritesthatneglectful ownersforfeitanyrubbish,usefulitem,orlivestockfoundinthestreets,68thatthe streetsmustbecleansothathorsemenandpedestrianscanpassunhindered,69that fishvendorsmaynotthrowrefuseorwaterinthestreets,butmustcarryittothe Thames,70andthat“nooneshallthrowanyfilthintothehighway, norallowitto berakedinthetimeofrain,norremoveitsoastobeanuisancetoneighbors.”71 These entries in LetterBook A suggest the high concern shown by urban authoritiesregardingthecleanlinessoftheirstreets.Furtheredictsfromtheking continuethisconcernforwastemanagement.KingEdwardIIappearspreoccupied withthestreetsofLondoninhis1309orderdictatingthatthepeopleofLondon needtostopthrowingtheirtrashintothestreetandreturntotheirolderpractice ofthrowingitintheThames,or“elsewhereoutoftheCity,whitheritusedtobe
66
67 68 69 70 71
Ironically, despite the doubts of the postmen and their river patrols, it is through the gates most easily defended with their two sleeping guards that the rioters break in - according to legend. Gower, Vox Clamantis, 70. Calendar of Letter Books, Vol.A,220. Calendar of Literature Books, Vol.A,218. Calendar of Literature Books, Vol.A,219. Calendar of Literature Books, Vol.A,219.
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carried.”72Beforetheplagueof1348–1350,theauthoritiesfocusonthephysical obstaclesposedbyrefuseasa“nuisance”andshowlittlecareforwherethetrash shouldgo,solongasitisoutofthestreets.AfterthepopulationofLondonhas beendecimatedbytheplague,EdwardIIIdeclaresthatthecitizensofLondonmay nolongerremovetheirtrash,dirtordungintothestreet,theThames,ortheouter walls of the city because of the “grievous and great abomination” that is “commonlyinflicteduponallthegreatcity.”73Filthstrewnpassagesandwaste managementbecomealargercivicconcern, for they contribute to the "great and great abomination," the plague, which afflicts the city. It is not wholly surprising, then, that post-plague authors single out this bourgeois preoccupation with dirt, contagion, and cleanliness. The1348–1350BlackDeaththatdecimatedthepopulationofEnglandwasnot theendoftheplaguesthatfrequentedtheisland.Fortheremainderofthecentury andintothefifteenthcentury,theplaguedescendedontheEnglishpopulation withfrighteningregularity,withotherlargeoutbreaksoccurringin1361,1374,and 1390.74Itisthisrepetitionofplagueandthestillconstantcomplaintoffilththat echoesinJohnLydgate’sdescriptionofNewTroyinhisTroyBook,writtenin1420. Understandably, Lydgate seems preoccupied with waste management in his literary urban creation. While the London Shire and scavengers are clearing rubbish from the streets,75 the citizens of Lydgate in New Troy are building waterways to clean up road debris in unknown locations.76 This is done through the use of water.
72
73
74
75
76
Memorials of London and London Life, H.T.Riley, eds. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1868), 67. This text contains excerpts from several books of letters. Memorials, 299. This text is also among Edward III's statute books. in letter book G, fol. lxi. For a detailed description of plague epidemics and the debate over the exact extent of the plague epidemic, or whether the disease was plague, see John Theilmann and Frances Cate, "Aplague of Plagues: The Problem of Plague Diagnosis in Medieval England", Journal of Interdisciplinary History 37.3 (Winters, 2007): 371-93. Caroline M. Barron, "Lay Solidarities: the Wards of Medieval London." Law, Laity and Solidarities: Essays in Honor of Susan Reynolds, eds. Publications, 1998).
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the townspeople clean their surroundings and remove the filth that brings death, according to Lydgate: by which the Americans were absolutely sure they were caused by angereryngofalcorrupcioun, by Wikkedeyr & frominfeccioun, by their violence Mortaliteundgretpestilence
[In this way, the city was completely protected from the rise of evil air corruption and infections, which often lead to death and the great plague of great violence].77
Lydgate, like Edward III, knows that the dirt on the city's streets increases the risk of disease and death. So the crucial aspect of this feat of engineering is the ability to remove the residues that cause “mortalites and gretpestilence [death and great pestilence]” [by removing the filth deep into the ground through perforated iron grates],79 but Lydgate is pushing the equal preoccupations with dirt in the streets that we find in the statutes of the Letter Books of London and royal proclamations. They remove the need for humans to expose themselves to contagion, freeing up all citizens for productive work, perhaps in guilds and trading houses discussed earlier.
77 78 79
Who made a complete purgacioyn of alorure and filthes in the toun, washing the stretys like stodar and goterist in the bass, that in the cit there was no filthesene; To channels kurte wassclene And devoted in so secretwye That no man could spy or roam. Lydgate, Troy Book, 760-63. Lydgate, TroyBook, 763. Lydgate, TroyBook, 698-99.
(740–58)
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Furthermore, the citizens of Lydgate ensure that the streets are clean and that debris is not improperly removed, leaving the job not to human fallibility but to the ever-flowing water. Unlike the City of London, whose waste management is not always the most efficient, as in Edward III. WhiletheearthlycitiesofLondonandNewTroyrecognizethedangersofstreet garbageandwork,imperfectlyasusualinthecaseofLondon,tocleansetheir cities,Pearlagainshowsustheperfectionofthedivinecityanditsredundant systems.ThePearlpoet,followingthetextofApocalypse22,80speaksofariver flowingfromthethroneofGodandstreamingthroughoutthe streetsofNew Jerusalem.TheBiblicaltextfocusesonthemiraculousandineffablenatureofthis river;notonlydoesitremarkablyremain“clearascrystal,”81despiteitstravels throughthestreets,italsosustainsthetwelvetreeswhosefruitsoffermonthly healingforallnations.ButratherthanfollowJohn'smodelexactly,thePearlpoet firstconsidersthecleanlinessofthestreets,showingaconcernformoremundane rolesfortheriver,onlyreturningtoJohn'stextfifteenlineslater: Areuerofþetroneþerranoutryghte Watzbrighterþenboþethesunneandmone . Sunnenemoneschonneuersoswete Asþatfoysounflodeoutofþatflet; Swyþehitswangeþurguchastreet Wiþoutenfylþeoþergalleoþerglet [The arrival rushed from the throne brighter than the sun and moon. Neither the sun nor the norm shine as pure as this lush river in this city; Quickly ran through all the streets without dirt, bile and phlegm].82
80
Todas as referências a textos bíblicos são de The Holy Bible Translated from the Latin Vulgate (Versão de Douay Rheims), Ed e Tradutor Richard Challoner (Londres: Baronius Press, 2005). (1)Andheshewedmeariverofwateroflife,clearascrystal,proceedingfromthethroneof GodandoftheLamb.(2)Inthemidstofthestreetthereof,andonbothsidesoftheriver,was thetreeoflife,bearingtwelvefruits,yieldingitsfruitseverymonth:theleavesofthetreefor thehealingofthenations.(3)Andthereshallbenocurseanymore:butthethroneofGod andoftheLambshallbeinit.Andhisservantsshallservehim(Apocalypse22:1–3).
81
Revelation 22:1. Pearl, 1055-1060.
82
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Like John's river flowing "crystal clear"83 through the streets, the waters of the Pearl Poet remain "brighter than sun and money",84 emphasizing his divine nature. While the divinity of God and the New Jerusalem are evidently predominant in this highly spiritual poem, there is a brief moment where the all-earthly preoccupation with waste management creeps into the poet's description of the New Jerusalem. Immediately after he describes the glitter of the river, the poet returns to more civic concerns, noting that the water runs through the streets free of “fylthe other galle other glet”. So, althoughthepurposeofthisriverisnottocleanthealreadyspotlessstreetsof NewJerusalem,theauthorstillpausesinhisretellingoftheBiblicalaccountto dwellonthiscleanlinesshighlightingthewater’sabilitytocleansethestreets,if theneedexisted.Hisvisionoftheperfectcityisonewhosestreets,whilealready clean,areredundantlysluicedwithcrystalclearwatertoensureabsolutefreedom fromcorruption.Thisbetraystheauthor’shumanconcern,notforthecleanliness ofNewJerusalemwhichmustbyitsdivinitybefreefromallcorruption,butrather forwastemanagementinhisownenvironment.Thisdescriptionoftheholycity andtheriversuggestsapreoccupationwiththeworldlythatseepsintoeventhe mostdivinerevelation. In“TheTownasanAgentofCivilisation,”JacquesLeGoffarguesthaturban fountains“werebothnecessaryforhygiene,andaestheticallysatisfying,showwell themanysidednatureofmedievalurbanism.”86Fountains,muchlikethepipes and conduits which highlight man's mastery over his surroundings described aboveinSectionI,actalsotoprovidecleansingwaterthroughoutthecity.Butin VoxClamantis,weagainfindthatthenormativefunctionscollapseamidthesocial unrest of 1381. During the riots, the water that exists within the fountains no longerperformsitscleansingfunctionsandinsteadbecomesalocationofpotential contamination:“Fonsvbicumquetumet,sanguinitaterubet(l.1172;“Wherevera fountainswelled,itbecameredwithbloodiness”).87 Justastheprotectiveroleofwaterasanaturalbarrierisinvertedtoemphasize theuncontrollabledestructivecapabilityofwaterintheVoxClamantis,heretoo doestheinversionofGower'ssocialnormsdeprivewaterofitspositiveurban role.NolongercanfountainsoffertheLondoncitizenryaplaceofhygieneand
83 84 85 86 87
Apocalipse 22:1. Pearl, 1056. Pearl, 1060. LeGoff, "The City as Agent of Civilization", 89. Gower, Vox Clamantis, 75.
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Schönheit, vorgeschlagen von Le Goff. They now become the location of potential pestilenceandhorror.Ifrefuselitteringthestreets,walls,andriverofLondon concernsEdwardIIIin1358,theusuallycleansingfountainwaters,befouledwith blood,mustalsobeaconcerntoGower.Theyhavenotonlylosttheirabilityto cleanse, they now offer a possible source of that “grievous and great abomination”88thatravagedLondonfrom1348–1350 andpromptedthesocial imbalancethatultimatelysparkedthesubjectofGower'sVoxClamantis,therevolt of1381 .
IV – Conclusion If water works literally as a cleansing agent, it also cleans figuratively as a baptismal medium and, unsurprisingly, can be found in urban areas. It is the baptizing use of water that brings together all the functions of water in a typically urban way. Christianity is a very urban religion. Jennifer Summit, in her article "Topography as History: Petrarch, Chaucer, and the Making of Medieval Rome", argues that the conversion of Rome occurred when Christianity moved out of the suburbs, the sites of its catacombs, and "into the urban center". . spaces formerly occupied by pagan temples and monuments. it becomes crucial for the cleaning role of water. on an individual level. At Pearl, the baptismal water does not come from an earthly source, but in the form of Christ's bodily fluids.
88 89
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Denkmäler, 33. Jennifer Summit, "Topography as Historiography: Petrarch, Chaucer, and the Making of Medieval Rom", Journal of Medievaland Early Modern Studies 30.2 (2000): 211-46; here237. LeGoff, "The City as Civilization's Agent", 78. Wendell Stacy Johnson, "The ImageryandDictionofThePearl:TowardanInterpretation",Middle English Survey:CriticalEssays,ed.EdwardVasta(NotreDame:UniversityofNotreDamePress,
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urban context that highlights man's achievements in civilization or failure in its absence, then the fountain, like the same metaphor for trapped water, expresses the highest level of that achievement. For the author of Pearl, the idea of perfectly contained liquids seems to resonate in a well. The fluids that flow from the wounds of Christ, freeing humanity from Hell, are divinely controlled currents that represent the body of Christ, not as a river, but as a baptismal font: in nothing, wax from that font, blood and water from the wound. Theblodvusboghtforballeofhelle,Edelyueredvuofthedethsecounde; The water is baptized, which calms everything, which followed the gray soil, which washed the skins of Gyltes, which Adam within vusdrounde [Basta grew from this well, blood and water from the great wound. The blood rescued us from the pain of hell and saved us from the second death; Water is baptism, to tell the truth, Accompanying the sharpened spears so fiercely, Washing away the guilt of death That Adam drowned them all in death].92
The fluids that flowed from Christ's body during the crucifixion, the blood and water, bathe the world in the baptismal medium and blot out the sins of Adam, which until then had drowned the inhabitants of the world. Just as the peasantry invading London appears in Gower's VoxClamantis as a vanished civilization in the tide of its boisterous behavior, so Adam drowns humanity in the tide of its sinfulness. But Christ's sacrifice redeems humanity through baptism and defines the world Christocentrically. It purifies the sins of humanity and redefines the theme of the saved. And it does this mostly, as Summit and LeGoff argue, in cities. In a thoroughly urban text, the tears of the pious transform individual heathens into the politeness of Christianity.
92 93
1965), 161–81; hier172 Pearl, 649-56. St. Erkenwald, 333.
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of its pagan stain and the redefinition of the soul as Christian. While Christ performed baptism on a global level, St. Erkenwald delivered his body in tears on an individual level to the only heathen noble who had cleansed him of the sins of his birth. Just as the water of the deity or the pious has the capacity to restore heaven to men, God's manipulation of water returns to the social order in Gower's Vox Clamantis: "He [God] stilled the waters of the deep and set a limit to elas ... . As God restores the peace of London and reasserts the civichierarchy, the water, justasthepeasantry, isagainputinitsrightful,naturalplace. seeninitsdescriptionsofLondonandNewTroy,andperfectedinthedivinelyredundantsystemsofNewJerusalem.Itisthedeviation from Gower's preferred hierarchy, and therefore the positive role of water, that produces his apocalyptic vision.
94
Gower, A Voice That Chora, 91.
BirgitWiedl (Institute of Jewish History in Austria)
Jews and the City: Parameters of Jewish Urban Life in Late Middle Ages in Austria
In 1391, the Municipal Court of the Swiss city of Zurich was faced with a series of accusations made by several participants in a wedding organized by the family of Vifli, one of the richest and most prominent Jews in the city.
1
2
This article is not intended to provide a comprehensive account of medieval Jewish urban life, but rather to point out various aspects of Jewish existence in medieval (late) Austrian cities that either correspond to general developments in Jewish urban life or are different due to the particular circumstances of the countries they comprise. present-day Austria, from which they may differ. For a general overviewoverAustrianJewishHistory,seeGeschichtederJudeninÖsterreich,ed.EvelineBrugger, ChristophLind,AlbertLichtblau,andBarbaraStaudinger.ÖsterreichischeGeschichte,15(Vienna: Ueberreuter,2006);onJewishChristiancohabitation,seenowJonathanElukin,LivingTogether, LivingApart:RethinkingJewishChristianRelationsintheMiddleAges.Jews,Christians,andMuslims fromtheAncienttotheModernWorld(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,2007 ). I would like to thank Albrecht Classen and Marilyn Sandidge for their valuable comments and corrections. In addition, I would like to thank Martha Keil, Hans-Jörg Gilomen, Gerd Mentgen, and Markus Wenninger for allowing me access to evidence from their most recent research publications. Cf. Markus Wenninger, "Jüdische und Judisch-Christlichenetze im Late Medieval Eastern Alps", Networks of Ashkenazi Jewish Relationships During the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, ed., JörgR.Müller. here167; On Christian Participation in Jewish Festivals in the Middle Ages", Not in a Bed: Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. Institute of Jewish History in Austria (St. Pölten: Eigenverlagdes Institut, 2005); 10-17, here 13-14 (downloadable as a PDF file here: http://www.injoest.ac.at/upload/JudeninME05_2_917.pdf; last accessed April 8, 2009) Markus Wenninger is planning an extensive publication on the subject, i.e. "Of Jewish Knights and Other Gun-Carrying Jews in Medieval Germany", Ashkenas: Journal for History and Culture of the Jews 13.1 (2003): 35-83; here 72-75. Augusta Weldler Steinberg, Interior of the Living Jews of Zurich on the 14th
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otherprominentJewishfamilieshadobviouslyreachedacrisisandhaderupted infirstavociferousargument,theninabrawlandhadendedinseveralmembers oftherespectivefamiliesfacingeachotherwiththeirswordsdrawn.Thequite detailedcourtrecordsrevealastonishingfacts:NotonlydidtheJewsturntothe Christianmunicipalcourttosettletheirdispute,theywerebearingarmsandwere obviouslyaccustomedtousingthem;3yettheprobablymostremarkablefact,as Markus Wenninger has pointed out, was the quite high number of Christian witnesseswhogavetestimonyatcourt.Apartfromthosewhohadbeenhiredas servants or musicians, twelve Christianshence about a third of the witnesseshadclearlybeenpresentasguests,mostofthembeingmembersofthe Zurichupperclass: aknight,theformermayor,thetownscribe;andatleastfive ofthemlivedinclosevicinity,someevenwithinthesamelane,theBrunngasse, whichhousedthemajorityoftheZurichJewishpopulationintheMiddleAges.4 Underpenaltyofexcommunication,thesynodsatWrocaw(forthearchbishopric ofGniezno)andVienna(fortheecclesiasticalprovinceofSalzburg,andcityand bishopric of Prague) had stated in 1267, Christians shall not invite Jews and Jewessesastheirdinnerguests,ordrinkoreatwiththem,neithershalltheydance at their Hochzeiten oder Feste.5 Dieser Artikel war in der Tat eine Ausarbeitung des
3
4
5
(Zurich: Verlagsund Versandbuchhandlung'Der Scheideweg', 1959), 22–24; , "tensions and contradictions. Commemoration of František Graus, ed. Susanna Burghartz (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke1992), 229-44, 1995), 1733-34. On the ban on Jews carrying guns and its 'reality', see articles by Wenninger, "Von Jewish Knights" and Christine Magin, "'Gun Law' and 'Gun Prohibition' for Jews in the Middle Ages - On a Research History Myth", Ashkenas: Journal for History and Culture of the Jews 13.1 (2003): 17-33; Markus Wenninger, "Bearing and Use of Weapons by Jews in the (Late) Middle Ages," Jewish Studies 41 (2002, appeared in 2003): 83-92. Wenninger, "Hochzeit", 13 to 14. On the location of Jewish families in the Zurich general, see Germania Judaica, vol.II: From 1238 to the mid-14th century, part 2: Maastricht–Zwolle, ed. ZwiAvneri (Tübingen: J.C.B.Mohr 1968), 946 ( until 1350) and Germania Judaica, vol.III/2, 1726-27. A contrasting example, where Christians were punished for participating in a Jewish wedding feast, is given by HansJörg Gilomen, "Cooperation and confrontation: Jews and Christians in the Late Medieval Towns in the Area of Present-day Switzerland", Jews in Their Environment: Acculturation of Judaism in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. Matthias Konradt and Rainer Christoph Schwinges (Basel: Schwabe, 2009), 157-227, here 176-77 (Zurich 1404). See "Continuatio Vindobonensisa.1267–1302,1313–1327," ed.WilhelmWattenbach.Monumenta Germaniae HistoricaScriptores, vol. applies to all MGH volumes cited. online (applies to all MGH volumes) )here: www.dmgh.de(last accessed 8 April 2009).
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Decrees at the end of the Fourth Council were generally aimed at restricting opportunities for Jews to participate in the daily lives of their Christian neighbors and vice versa. the lamentationsandcomplaintsoftheBishopofOlomoucandtheprovincialsynod atSalzburgasearlyas1273and1274respectivelyaboutthe‘persistentviolation’ oftheseregulationsspeakforthemselves.7Tellingly,itwasthebreachofthe‘safe conductandpeace’(freiesgeleitundfried)thatthetownofZurichhadpromisedthe outoftownvisitorsonVifli’srequestthatrequiredanexaminationbeforethe aldermen,thefisticuffs,theverbalandbodilyassaults,andparticularlythedrawn
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Bern, New York, and Paris: Peter Lang, 1994), 224 (Wrocav) and 228 (Vienna, both German translations of relevant articles); 1989), 244-46, No. 6 (Wrocaw), 247-48, 277, 290, No. 7 (Vienna); Eveline Brugger and Birgit Wiedl, Regesten on the History of the Jews in Austria in the Middle Ages, vol. 1: From the Beginnings to 1338 (Innsbruck, Vienna and Bolzano: StudienVerlag, 2005), 59-61, No. 45 (Vienna); /index.php?lang=EN; last accessed April 8, 2009. The second volume, to be released in 2009, will cover the period from 1339 to 1365. Fourth Lateran Council, Canon 67Quantoamplius, quoted after Giuseppe Alberigo's German text, Conciliorumoecumenicorum decreta (Bologna 1973) by Josef Wolmuth (ed.), Dekreteder ekumenischen Konzilien: Councils from the Middle Ages from the First Lateran Council (1123) to the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–1517), vol.2 (Paderborningerdinanden: Schnaborningerdinanden 2000), 265-66. Concerning the Jews, see Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews, vol. 1:1198-1254 (Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1933; Sec.ed. New York: Hermon Press, 1966), 312-13, no.13. Many of these regulations were adapted by legal codes such as the Schwabenspiegel or Sachsenspiegel, which in turn, due to their rapid and wide circulation, had an impact on later secular and ecclesiastical legislation, see Klaus Lohrmann, "Die Rechtsstellung der Juden im Schwabenspiegel, " Die LegendevomRitualmord: Zur Geschichte der Blutvornachung gegen Juden, ed. Rainer Erb (Berlin: Metropol , a widely discussed issue which can be found in the ecclesiastical regulation of 1267, as well as in the Schwabenspiegel (among others), see the later HansJörg Gilomen, “Jüdische UseoffererundprivaterBrunnenimLätmittelalter,”... Fountains in European urban history, edited by Dorothee Rippmann, Wolfgang Schmid, and Katharina Simon Muscheid (Trier: Kliomedia, 2008), 133–45. Olomouc: Constitutionesetactapublicaimperatorumetregum, vol.3:1273–1298, ed. –1906; rpt. Hanover and Leipzig: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1980), 594, nº 620; Salzburg: Joannes Dominicus Mansi, Sacrorumconciliorumnovaetamplissimacollectio, vol.24:1269–1299(1903rpt.;Graz: Akademische DruckundVerlagsanstalt,1961),136.In1254 ,PopeInnocentIVhadalreadycomplainedthattheJewsofthetownandbishopricofConstancedidnotwearthemandatoryattributes,seeShlomoSimonsohn,TheApostolicSeeandtheJews:Documents492–1404.StudiesandTexts(1988;Toronto: Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, 1991), 209, no. Gilomen, "Kooperation und Konfrontation", 172–73, also on the (partial) application of this regulation.
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swords,8 while the presence of Christians at what was clearly a “Jewish feast” simply meant the questioning of additional witnesses. In whatever house the marriage took place, it must have been close to the house that belonged to the moneylender Minna9, widow of Menachem, who lived in the first half of the 14th century with her sons Mordecai and Moshe and lived in the same street.
8 9
10
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Wenninger, "Of the Jewish Knights", 73. The role of Jewish women in profitable businesses should not be underestimated, see Rosa Alvarez Perez's article in this volume. II (1999-2001), ed. Christopher Clause. Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 317-30; “Jewish women as a category? Judinne in obrigkeitlichen Urkunden des deutschenSpätmittelalters,”RäumeundWege:JüdischeGeschichteimAltenReich1300–1800,ed.Rolf Kießling,PeterRauscher,StefanRohrbacher,andBarbaraStaudinger.ColloquiaAugustana,25 (Berlin:AkademieVerlag,2007),335–61;“MobilitätundSittsamkeit:JüdischeFrauenimWirt schaftslebendesspätmittelalterlichenAschkenas,”WirtschaftsgeschichtedermittelalterlichenJuden: Fragen and Reviews, edited by Michael Toch. Writings of the Historical College of Munich, Colloquia, 71 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008), 153-80. Moshe was a recognized scholar, so the family "was not far from the baptismal font", as put by Martha Keil, "Lebensstilund Representation". Jewish Upper Class in Late Middle Ages Ashkenaz,” TresCulturas: The Three Cultures of Europe Between the Middle Ages and Modern Times. Friesach Academy publications series, 6 (Klagenfurt: Wieser, 1999), 178-83; here 181-82. FrescoesinZurich, Brunngasse8.SeeToch,"Self-Portrait,"illustrations 185–91.DölfWild, "Significant Testimonies of Living Jewish Culture Discovered in Zurich's Old Town," Ashkenaz: Journal for History and Culture of the Jews 7 (1997): 267 –99 ; with a particular focus on iconography, see Rudolf Böhmer, "Bogenschütze, Bauerntanz und Falkenjagd: ZurIkonographie der Wandmalereien im Haus "Zum Brunnenhof" in Zurich," Literaturund Wandmalerei vol. I: Manifestations of Courtly Culture and their bearers in the Middle Ages, ed ;see more Edith Wenzel,"EinneuerFund:Medievalwandmalereienin Zürich,"Zeitschrift für deutschePhilologie116(1997):417–26;Gilomen,"KooperationundKonfrontation,"164–66;Harald Woltervon dem Knesebeck, "Profane Wandmalerei in Jewish houses of the Middle Ages," Abstractofthethirdconference" InterdisciplinaryForumJewishHistoryandCultureintheearlyNewTimes, ”online here: http://www.forumjuedischegeschichte.de/2002Wolter.html(last accessed April 8, 2009); Grenzenund Grenzübertretungen : Cultural Relations Between Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages, ed.id.Part
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particularly the rural and somewhat rude dance scenes, greatly resemble the scenesdescribedinthelyricsofthethirteenthcenturyAustrianpoetNeidhartand could as well have been the decoration of a Christian householdlike the 'Neidhartfrescoes'fromaround1398inthehouseofawealthyViennesecitizen,12 orthefourteenthcenturydancescenesacitizenofRegensburghadoneofhis representationalroomsdecoratedwith.13AndliketheVienna(Christian)example, thedecorationoftheZurichJewishhousealsobearsscenesthatcatertoamore nobleaudiencehuntingscenes,particularlyfalconry,andasaspecial'bonus'the Mantles from the farms of Minna's noble guests (and very likely debtors)14 on a frieze running through the paintings with an inscription of their names in Hebrew letters
12
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of Ashkenaz: Journal for History and Culture of the Jews 14.1 (2004): 31-50, 47-48, sobre a questão de uma audiência cristã judaica. FrescoesinVienna,Tuchlauben19.EvaMariaHöhle,TheNeidhartFrescoes,theoldestsecularmural paintingsinVienna(Vienna:MuseumsoftheCityofVienna,1984);GertrudBlaschitzandBarbara Schedl, “Die Ausstattung eines Festsaales im mittelalterlichen Wien: Eine ikonologische und textkritischeUntersuchungderWandmalereiendesHauses'Tuchlauben19',”Neidhartrezeption inWortundBild,ed.GertrudBlaschitz.MediumAevumQuotidianum,SonderbandX( Krems: Medium Aevum Quotidianum, 2000), 84-111. Nikolaus Henkel, "A Neidhart Dance of the 14th Century in a Regensburg Town House", recepção de Neidhart, 53–70; para mais exemplos, Neidhartmotifsinwallpaintings, consulte os outros artigos neste volume (Lake Constance, Matrei). Wenninger, "Jewish and Jewish-Christian Networks", 166-67, chama o friso de "lista de referência" dos parceiros de negócios do Minna. ThusexplicitlyputbyKeil,“LebensstilundRepräsentation,”chapter1.JustasexplicitisIsrael JacobYuval,TwoNationsinYourWomb:PerceptionsofJewsandChristiansinLateAntiquityandthe MiddleAges,trans.fromtheHebrewbyBarbaraHarshavandJonathanChipman(2000;Berkeley, LosAngeles,andLondon:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,2006),206,onthequestiontowhat extentJewswereawareofChristianrituals.Thephenomenonofculturaltranslationhasbeenthe centraltopicofmanystudies,mostofwhich,however,focusontheEarlyModernPeriod.Forthe specifictopicofJewishChristianculturaltranslationintheMiddleAges, seetheanthologyby Wenzel,"GenzenundGrenzübertrauenungen";further,albeitwithafocusonthenineteenthandtwentiethcenturies,kulturtransferinderjudeischenHistory,ed.WolfgangSchmaleandMartinaSteer(Frankfurta.M.andNewYork:Campus,2006). Bernd Schneidmüller,andAnnetteSeitz.EuropaimMittelalter,10.AbhandlungenundBeiträgezur historischenKomparatistik(Berlin:AkademieVerlag,2008),195 –209:parteIII:ArbeitsforumB: KontaktundAustauschzwischenKulturenieuropäischenMittelalter,seguidopordoisestudosdecasosobreatraduçãojudaicacristãcultural(FrederekMusallonMoshebenMaimon,209–28, e RainerBarzen e LennartGüntzelontheexpulsionoftheJewsinFranceandInglaterraandtheperceptionofcrise,228–51).
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one's own culture into a new context,16 as adapting personal tastes as well as generalconceptsofaestheticsthataresharedbypeopleofacomparablesocial status.17Thissharedtasteextendstoareasoflifethatremainmoreprivate,orat leastrepresentationalwithinasmallergroupofpeople.When,forexample,Israel Isserl, magister iudeorum and one of the most prominent Jews of Vienna, commissionedaSeferMordechai,acollectionofRabbinicalresponsaebyMordechai barHillelfromthelatethirteenthcentury,tobewrittenforhimin1371/ In 1372 he had the manuscript decorated in the so-called Lower Austrian marginal band style, a book illumination that was widespread at the time; it was, for example, the style in which a missal from Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria, dating from approximately the same period, was decorated (see Figure 5).18 Although Isserl's Hebrew codex did not tend to be used, or at least not predominantly, used in the presence of Christians, it had, however, been decorated in a style that might be considered "in vogue" for the time and region, the Isserl Codex being just one example of Hebrew manuscripts with margins decorated in that particular style. With close cultural and social ties to their Christian neighbors, the Jews remained in many respects a separate, if not homogeneous, group within (or rather outside) Christian society.20 As for Christians
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Raingard Eßer, "Migrationsgeschichte und Kulturtransferforschung," The One Europe and the Diversity of Cultures: KulturtransferinEuropa1500-1850, ed. Thomas Fuchs and Sven Trakulhun (Berlin: Berliner WissenschaftsVerlag, 2003), 69-82; here73-74 .Enzyklopädiedeutscher Geschichte,44 (1998; Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003), 33–34, on intensified contacts with Christians in the late Middle Ages as born of necessity due to the (violently) reduced Jewish population, 38. Keil , "Lifestyle and Representation", on the example of luxury clothing. Andreas Fingernagel and Alois Haidinger, "New Witnesses to the Lower Austrian Marginal Style in Hebrew, German, and Latin Manuscripts", Codices Manuscripti 39.40 (2002): 15–41; here 15-29. Martha Keil, "Community and Culture - The Medieval Foundations of Jewish Life in Austria", History of the Jews in Austria, 15-122; here 28-29, illustration (Sefer Mordechai and missal from Klosterneuburg), 28. Keil, "Gemeindeund Kultur", 29. See also Robert Suckale, "ÜberdenvordenTeil christian-Maler in the Decoration of Hebrew Manuscripts from Gothic in Bavaria," History and Culture of the Jews in Bavaria (Essays), ed. Manfred TremlandJosef Kirmeier. Publications on Bavarian History and Culture 17.88, ed. 34 On the highly problematic and widely discussed 'labeling' of Jews as a fringe group, see Frantisek Graus, "Randgruppen der Stadten Gesellschaft im Late Middle Ages", Journal for Historical Research 8 (1981): 385-437; here particularly 396 on the definition of 'marginal group'; gerd
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As far as secular authorities were concerned, the legal and economic status of Jews, both as a group and as individuals, was generally defined by the ruler, particularly the Holy Roman Emperor, who also held suzerainty over all Jews in the Roman Empire. empire and regarded them as part of its treasury included:21 "the sole purpose of rulers is money," as Rabbi Jacobbar Jechiel bluntly put it in the mid-13th century. Judenregal) being just one among them.
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Mentgen, "'Jews have always been a fringe group.' On a questionable premise of current Jewish research," Liber amicorum necnon et amicarum for Alfred Heit: Contributions to Medieval and Historical Regional Studies, ed. Friedhelm Burgard, Christoph Cluse and Alfred Haverkamp. Trier Historical Research, 28 (Trier: Verlag Trier Historical Research, 1996), 393-411, Anna Foa, "The Witch and the Jew. Two Ilikes that Were Not the Same," From Witness to Witchcraft. Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought, ed. Jeremy Cohen. WolfenbüttlerMittelalterStudien, 11 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997), 361-74. First explicitly declared in general imperial privilege by Emperor Frederick II in 1236, Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et regum, vol. 2: 1198–1272, editor Ludwig Weiland. Monumenta Germaniae Historica Leges IV, Constitutiones, 2 (1896; Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1963),274,no.204. For a similar development in France, see Rosa Perez Alvarez's contribution to this volume. Martha Keil, "Proximity and Delimitation. The Medieval City as a Space for Meeting," Not in a Bed, 2–8; here 4–5. The full article can be downloaded as a pdf file here: http://www.injoest.ac.at/upload/JudeninME05_1_18.pdf (last accessed April 8, 2009). See Generalia Judaica, vol. III: 1350–1519, part 3: Gebietsartikel, Einführungsartikel, Indices, ed. –49. Still essential is Herbert Fischer (later Arye Maimon), The Constitutional Position of Jews in German Cities During the Thirteenth Century. See further Toch, “Jews in the Medieval Empire,” 106–107; for a general summary on Jews and cities, see Alfred Haverkamp, "Jews and Urban Life: Bonds and Relationships," Jews of Europe, 55-69; on imperial/royal rights and their relation to imperial cities, see Germania Judaica, vol. III/3, 2167, oncitiesandjews,2169–70, onJewsascitizens,2181–87,onjurisdictionalquests2188–91; for regional examples see Alfred Haverkamp, “Die Juden im Erzstift Trier,” Die Juden in Its Medieval Setting, edited by Alfred Ebenbauer and Klaus Zatloukal (Vienna, Cologne and Weimar: Böhlau, 1991), 67–89;
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ThefirstencompassingdefinitionofthelegalstandingoftheAustrianJewswas thequitecomprehensiveregulationwhichtheBabenbergDukeFredericIIissued in1244,25whichremainedthebasisforfurtherlegislationwithintheduchy of Austria26 and also served as a model for other rulers.27 The rather detailed economic issues, mostly in favor of the Jews, and the quite wideranging protectionsuggestthatDukeFredericaimedatprovidinganincentiveforJewsto settledowninAustria28aspartofhis,andnolongertheEmperor’s,treasure. In relation to cities, this also means that the ruler was determined not to lose control over what he had just acquired29 and considered his immediate possessions, in addition to his treasure, to be protected and/or exploited and exploited as he saw fit. . It remained the exclusive prerogative of rulers to grant Jews the right to take up residence in their empire. Only in the last decades of the 14th century did some Austrian cities manage to do so.
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Latest edition by Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol. 1, 35–38, #25. For an English translation, see http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/jewish/1244jewsaustria.html (last accessed 8 Apr 2009), which is based on the translation ( somewhat problematic) by Jacob Marcus, The JewintheMedievalWorld:ASourcebook, 315-1791 (New York: JPS, 1938), 28-33. ReissuedadimitationemclarememoriequondamFridericiducisAustrieetStiriebyKingRudolfIin 1277(BruggerandWiedl,Regesten,vol.1,71–73,no.56).TheexplicitreferencetoDukeFrederick IIconveysaclearmeaning—ontheonehand,Rudolf'srivalPemyslOtakar,the(outlawed)duke ofAustria,wasbeingblatantlyignored,andontheotherhand,byrevertingtotheducalprivilege of1244,andnottheImperialone,Rudolfstressedhisfamily'sclaimontheduchiesofAustriaand Styria ( Eveline Brugger, "From Settlement to Expulsion - Jews in Austria in the Middle Ages," History of the Jews in Austria, 123–228; here142). Hungary: BelaIV, 1251 (MonumentaHungariae Judaica, vol.1:1092–1539, ed.ArminFrissandMór Weisz [Budapest: Magyar Izraeliták Országos, 1903], 23–30, no. 22); Bohemia and Moravia: Pemysl OtakarII, 1255, 1262 and 1268 (Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol. 1,45–48, no.34,51–54, no.39 and 62–65, no.47, the first including Austria, the last two Austria and Styria); Poland: Duke Boleslav, 1264 (Jews in Europe: Your history in sources, vol.1: From the Beginnings to the late Middle Ages, ed. Julius Schoeps and Hiltrud Wallenborn [Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft , 2001], 139-43, no.65); Bamberg: Bishops Henry II and Wulfing, between 1304 and 1328 (Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol.1,255–57, no.302). ' (see Lohrmann, Judenrecht, 182–89 [Carinthia], 200–06 [Styria], late Habsburg privileges 230–35). Jewish migration to the middle Danube region had already increased during the first half of the 13th century;
In 1331, Emperor Ludwig IV officiated the Austrian Dukes with Jewish Law (Jewish Regime), Brugger, “Settlement”, 143–44.
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togainatleastpartialcontrolovertheJews,mainlyfocusingonjurisdictionaland economicmatters.30 YettheseeminglyunduepreferenceaccordedtheJewsrankledwiththecitizens, causing the author of the Viennese Stadtrechtsbuch (a compendium of legal regulationsfromtheendofthefourteenthcentury)tocomplainpolemicallyabout the“cursedJews”havingabetterlegalpositionagainsttheChristiansthanthe ChristiansagainsttheJews,directlyreferringtothe1244regulationsandblatantly ignoring the everyday reality that had by then long changed to the clear disadvantageoftheJews.31 Their increasing influence notwithstanding, Austrian cities remained for the mostpartpowerlessshouldtherespectiveruler,inwhoseofficialpossessionthe JewsremaineduntiltheendofJewishmedievalsettlement,decidetointerfere.The AustriandukesgavetheirJewsasfiefstonoblementheywantedtoparticularly honor,reward,orbribe,32withoutasmuchasnotifyingthegovernmentofthose citieswheretheJewsdwelled;shouldaJewfleefromaruler'sterritory,thecities wereneitherinvolvedintheensuingtrialnordidtheyparticipateinthesharing oftheJew'sconfiscatedproperty.33Thisappliesnotonlytotownsthatwereunder the rule of a powerful lord, like (partially) the Duke of Österreich, aber auch an Adlige, deren unmittelbare Herrschaft sich auf ein erheblich begrenztes Gebiet erstreckte, gelang es, die Juden als herausragende Gruppe fest im Griff zu behalten. 1350 verlieh der Adelige und Kanzler der Steiermark, Rudolf Otto von Liechtenstein, dem Juden Häslein, dem wohlhabendsten Stand der damals proeminentesten Juden im Kärntner/Steirischen Raum, das Niederlassungsrecht em seiner Stadt Murau und platzierte ihn und seine Familie em Murau
30
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See Birgit Wiedl, "CodifyingJews.JewsinAustrianTownChartersoftheLateMiddleAges,"TheConstructedJew:JewsandJudaismthroughMedievalChristianEyes,ed.KristineT.UtterbackandMerrallL.Price(Turnhout:Brepols, in press 2009). Christine Magin, "How Right Around the Jews:" The Status of Jews in Late Medieval German Law Books (Göttingen: Wallenstein Verlag, 1999), 103; Heinrich Maria Schuster, Das Wiener Stadtrechtsund Softbildbuch (Vienna: Manz, 1973), 130-31; Lohrmann, Judenrecht, 161; id., Viennese Jews in the Middle Ages (Berlin and Vienna: Philo, 2000), 36–37. The most famous of these was the adornment of the Counts of Cilli (today Celje, Slovenia) with the Jew Chatchiman and his family by Duke Rudolf IV. See Germania Judaica, vol. III/3, 209; Brugger, "Settlement", 184-85; . Lower Austrian Institute for Regional Studies and Studies, 38 (St. Pölten: self-published Lower Austrian Institute for Regional Studies, 2004). For 'famous flights' of Jews, see below; plus Brugger, “Ansiedlung,” 181–82 (Häslein) and 184–85 (ChatschimandMosche); Lohrmann, Judenrecht, 218–20 (Häslein) and 225–30 (Chatschim and Mosche).
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veryprivilegedpositionwithrespecttoboththeJewishcommunityofMurauand thetownitself.34 AlthoughitisverylikelythatRudolfOttoofLiechtensteinissuedtheprivilege withducalapproval,thereisnomentionofanyinvolvementwhatsoeverofthe townofMurau—which,ifnothingelse,hadtorenounceanyjurisdictionalrights over HäsleinwhofellunderthesolecompetenceofRudolfOttohimself.This exampleconcurswithageneralincreaseofpersonalizedprivilegesinthesecond half of the fourteenth century,35 privileges that granted a special status to an individualJeworJewess(usuallyincludingtheentirefamily)andexemptedthem fromthelegalrequirementsofthetowntheylivedin.Whenseveralyearslater, Häslein left his new abode in the ducal city of Judenburg without prior permission and Duke Rudolf IV confiscated all her property and all outstanding debts, none of the cities where she lived or with which she had dealings were attributed to her. TheAustrianrulers’controlevenextendedtoJewishgeographicalspaceswithin acity.Thepermissiontoerectorrebuildasynagogue,toestablishortoenlargea cemeteryremainedtherightoftherespectivelordofthetown,36leavingthetown’s administrationwithnosayinthematter.37Tothecontrary,arulerliketheBishop ofBambergwhoownedtheCarinthiantownofVillachcouldeven,afterhaving grantedtheJewAschroktherighttoerectasynagogue(inreturnforapayment of200pounds)38,coercehisChristiansubjects,inthiscasethemayorandcouncil ofVillach,intopromisingtoprotecttheJewsshouldany“uprise”againstthem occur.39Butevenifreducedtothemeregeographicalspace,tothepublicand
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Brugger, "Settlement", 181-82, Wilhelm Wadl, History of the Jews in Carinthia in the Middle Ages: Looking Up to 1867. Revised Supported. Eveline Brugger and Birgit Wiedl, "'...und other frumeleutegenuch, paidechristenundjuden.' See similar French legislation Rosa Alvarez Perez's contribution to this volume. The Church, however, tried to gain control over building new and altering existing synagogues. State Archives of Bavaria, Bamberg, A78 Lade403 Nr.4 ( 1510, 4 May). III:1350–1519, part1:AachLychen,ed.AryeMaimonandYacovGuggenheim(Tübingen:J.C.B.Mohr,1987),415; ,1759;Wilhelm Neumann," DieJudeninVillach,"CarinthiaI155(1965),327–66;here349–50;Wadl,JudenKärnten,166,223. Austrian State Archives Vienna, Haus, Hof, und Staatsarchiv, AURUk.1359IV1.Germania Judaica, vol.III/2,1534,GermaniaJudaica, vol.III/3,1759;Lohrmann,Judenrecht,163;Neumann,“JudenVillach,”342,350 ;JohannEgidScherer, DieRechtsbedingungen derJudenindendeutsch
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In private places, a medieval town was a meeting place for Jews and Christians.40 They lived side by side, and not just on these two Zurich streets in Vienna and Krems, in Wiener Neustadt and Graz, in the episcopal cities of Friesach, Villach and Wolfsberg in Carinthia and then southern Styria, now Slovenian Maribor and Ptuj, just to name the largest Jewish communities, could have Jewish settlements. However, many members lived outside those parts of the city where Christians lived, such as (not only ) the Vienna sources among the Calling the Jews “among the Jews”: therefore a meeting was inevitable. evenessential:“hehadservantsandmaids,nonJewishandJewishtoo,” EphraimbarJacobwroteinhismemorialbookabouttheJewSchlom,masterof theducalmintinViennaaround1192,notfindingthisintheleastpeculiar.43On bothsides,religiousauthoritieswereupinarmsaboutChristianwomenengaging Jewish,andJewessesengagingChristianwetnurses;44andthestorytoldbythe CarinthianAbbotandhistoriographerJohannofViktringaboutaChristianwet nurse,whoin1343abductedthedaughterofherJewishemployerstohaveher baptized,mayontheonehandconfirmthattheworries,atleastontheJewish side,weren'tcompletelyunfounded,butontheotherhandgivesevidenceofthe
40 41 42
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Austrian countries. With an introduction to the principles of Jewish law in Europe during the Middle Ages. Contributions to the History of Jewish Law in the Middle Ages, 1 (Leipzig: Duncker&Humblot, 1901),509;Wadl, JudenKärnten,162. Keil, "NäheundAbschluss," 2–4; Haverkamp,"JewsandUrbanLife,"62and65–66. Keil, "Proximidade e Delimitação", 2. WhereasthesynodatWrocav,wherethematterisaddresseddirectlyforthefirsttime,doesnot forbidChristianstoworkasservantsinJewishhouseholds,butmerelydeclaresthattheywere nottostaytheredayandnight(dienoctuque),itisdebatedwhetherthewordingoftheViennese synod(dienocteve)aimsatprohibitingChristianservantsatall.Grayzel,ChurchandJews,vol.2, 244–46,no.6(Wrocaw);BruggerandWiedl ,Regesten, vol.1,”59–61, #45 (Vienna), see above for other editions; Schreckenberg, Adversus Judaeos Texte and Its Literary and Historical Context (13th-20th Century), 230. For theschabbesgoj, the really essential Christian servant, see Keil, "GemeindeundKultur", 76. Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol.1,17– 18, no.4 (full text in Hebrew and German translation); Brugger, "Agreement," 126. Martha Keil, "Lilithund Hollekreisch: Pregnancy, Birth, and Postpartum in Late Middle German Judaism," All Beginnings: Birth, Birth, Birth. "Demarcation of Näheund,"7–8.OnthetopicooffemaleinteractionElishevaBaumgarten, MothersandChildren: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 119–53, particularly 135–44 on Christian wet nurses in Jewish homes and vice versa .
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(since Johann von Viktring interprets the kidnapping as notable, but not the employment itself).45 There was, and still is, a wide and lively discussion on the subject of the Jewish quarter and whether its settlement was scattered or close to the city, the most prominent public building in it.46
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Fedor Schneider (ed.), Iohannis abbatis Victoriensis Liber Certarum historiarum. Monumenta GermaniaeHistoricaScriptoresrerum Germanicaruminusumscholarum, 36.2 (Hanover and Leipzig: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1910); Keil, “Lilithund Hollekreisch”, 151–52; GermaniaJudaica, vol. II: From 1238 to the mid-14th century, part 1: Aachen – Lucerne, ed. Zvi Avneri (Tübingen: J.C.B.Mohr,1968),265;GermaniaJudaica,vol.II/2,786;Wadl,JudenKärnten,185. Of the extensive literature on this subject, see the latest summary in Germania Judaica, vol III/3, 2082-89. Survey of Jewish History, A 13 (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2003); Simha Goldin, "The Synagogue in Medieval Jewish Communities as an Integral Institution", Journal of Ritual Studies 9.1 (1995): 15-39; Keil, "Lifestyle and Representation," Chapter 1; eadem, “Places of the Public: Jewish Quarter, Synagogue, Cemetery,” A Theme–Two Perspectives: Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, ed. Eveline Brugger and Birgit Wiedl (Innsbruck, Vienna, and Bolzano: StudienVerlag, 2007), 170–86; eadem, “BethaKnesset, Jewish School: The Synagogue as Place of Worship, Office Space, and Focal Point of Social Life,” Wiener Jahrbuch für jewisches Historisches, Kultur und Museumswesen4 (1999/2000): 71–90; Silvia Codreanu Windauer, “Stadtviertel oder Ghetto? Das Mittlere Judenviertel Regensburgs,” CenterRegionPeriphery.MedievalEurope, PreprintedPapers,2(Hertingen2002),316–21;id., “Regensburg: The Archeology of the Medieval Jewish Quarter,” and Pam Manix, “Oxford: Mapping the Medieval Jewry,” both in Jews of Europe, 391–403 and 405–20, respectively; Paul Mitchell, "Synagogue and Jewish Quarter in Medieval Vienna," Synagogues, mikvahs, settlements: Jewish everyday life in light of new archaeological finds, ed. Fritz Backhaus and Egon Wamers. Markus Wenninger, "Borders in the City? On the Location and Demarcation of Medieval German Jewish Quarters," Ashkenas: Journal for History and Culture of the Jews 14.1 (2004): 9-30; id., "On the topography of the Jewish neighborhoods in medieval German cities using Austrian examples," Jews in the City, ed. Fritz Mayrhofer and Ferdin and Opll –117. On the confined space of the eruvchazerot (the 'mixing, joining of courtyards' to facilitate the transport of objects from one domain to another on the Sabbath, symbolized by a loaf of bread, see Encyclopaedia Judaica, sec.ed., vol.6 [Detroit, New York, San Francisco, etal: ThomsonGale, 2007], 484–85),withinacity,“see Keil,” GemeindeundKultur,”75–76, additionallyYuval, TwoNations, 236–39 with particular and intriguing reference to alleged host wafer accusations ; i.e. Gilomen, "Brunnen", 133-35. Mordechai Breuer, "Expressions of Ashkenazi Piety in the Synagogue and House of Teaching,"
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the display of one's social status48 and the stage on which the sanctions of intra-Jewish jurisdiction were publicly imposed,49 the synagogue was not perceived by Christians as an "exclusively" Jewish space, but as a public space to which they had access. In some towns, the Jews had to take their oaths in front of the synagogue,50andaccordingtoAustrianducallegislation,thesynagoguewasthe placetoholdacourtsittingifaJewwassomehowinvolvedintheprocess.51Thus, thesynagogueheldasemilegalfunctionforJewsandChristiansalike,inaddition toprovidingaconvenientandthereforecommonmeetingplacewherebusiness transactions were negotiated and concluded, goods delivered and the newest gossipdiscussedwhileitsacousticsignalspermeatedintoChristianspaceasmuch (ifnotasmanifold)aschurchbells.52 Christians therefore showed no In early November 1354, Nikolaus Petzolt, the magistrate of the prosperous city of Maribor in southern Styria (now Slovenia), which was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the region, was visited by messengers from the counts von Pfannberg, a local nobleman. family with considerable Jewish business contacts. They asked him to accompany them to the synagogue. Petzolt, the iudex iudeorum Wilhelm, and another citizen of Maribor were obliged, and when they arrived at the synagogue, the messenger of the school rattles53 asked if
48
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Judaism in the German-Speaking Area, ed. Karl E. Grözinger (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1991), 103-16; here105; Goldin, "Synagogue", 15-16; Keil, "LebensstilundRepresentation", chapter 1 . Jewish Germania, vol. III/3, 2085; Goldin, "Synagogue", 22-23; Keil, “Lifestyle and Representation,” Chapter 1. Michael Toch, "Hands on the Torah: Disciplining as an Internal and External Problem in Late Middle Ages Jewish Communities," Discipline and Material Culture in the Middle Ages and Early modern times, ed. Gerhard Jaritz. Publications of the Institute of Royal History of the Middle Ages and Modern Period, 17th Austrian Academy of Sciences. Philosophical-Historical Class, Session Reports, 669 (Vienna: Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1999), 155-68; here161; Keil, "OrtederÖffentlichkeit", 175-77; GermaniaJudaica, vol. III/3, 2105-08; Goldin, "Synagogue", 23-24. The 'little oath' of the Jews of the lower Austrian town of Krems had to be taken in front of the synagogue, with the oath's hand on the doorknob; see Brugger, “Ansiedlung,” 151. Accordingtoducallegislation,theJewshadtotaketheiroathsolelyinfrontoftheduke,which provedhighlyinexecutable,whereashumiliatingritualsaccompanyingtheoath(selfexecration, standingonasow'sskin),asdescribedintheSchwabenspiegel,arenotrecordedforAustria;see HansVoltelini,“DerWienerundKremserJudeneid,”MitteilungendesVereinsfürGeschichteder StadtWien12(1932):64–70;here69–70; Toch, "Hand on Torah", 162-67. Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol.1,36, no.25,§30. On 'Jewish' sounds within a city, see Keil, "Orteder Public", 172. The shullapper (German Schulklopfer, in Christian documents - as in the letter quoted above - often called the 'sexist of the Jews', judenmesner) was responsible for summoning the Jewish prayer; he served as a town crier and was involved in collecting taxes, taking oaths, and handling jurisdiction, see Germania Judaica, vol.III/3,2092–93; Encyclopaedia Judaica, sec.ed., vol.
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anyoftheJewsstillheldsomedebenturebondsofthePfannbergfamily,andifso, toproducethematthesynagogueinorderthattheycouldrepaythedebts.The Jewsansweredthatnoneofthemheldanyobligations;thusthemessengershad theshulklapperdeclarethatanybondspresentedlateronweretobeconsidered nullandvoid.Thethreecitizenscorroboratedthecharterissuedonthatoccasion withtheirseals,declaringthattheyhadbeenpresentatthesynagoguealongwith 'otherrespectablepeople.'54 Oneofthemainopportunitiesofcontactandinteractionremainedthecontact viabusinessandthecloseeverydaycontactandtheinteractioncaneasilybe detectedinitemsandactivitiesofthedailybusinesslife.Businessdocumentsare oneofthemostextensivelytransmittedtypeofsourcesinAustriaasfarasJewish Christianinteractionisconcerned.55 From the financier of noblemen and rulers to the lowly pawn broker, their clientelewaspredominantlyChristianandoftenrecruitedfromtheirimmediate surroundings, especially when envolve promessas e empréstimos em pequena escala; Considerando que os clientes nobres, tanto seculares quanto eclesiásticos, judeus financeiramente mais fortes geralmente vinham de uma área geográfica mais ampla. entre judeus e seus vizinhos cristãos. ‘Classical’ contracts like debenture bonds, pawn certificates,andchartersforsafeguardingtheguarantor(Schadlosbriefe)arebuta partofthevastamountofJewishappearancesinbusinessdocuments.Jewsappear inbothducalandmunicipalaccountbooks,57theywereregisteredinrentalsnot onlyaspawnkeepersbutasregularlandand/orhouseownersandappearin chartersassuch;when,e.g.,theStyriannobelmanPoppoofPeggaubequeathed severalofhisestatestotheUpperAustrianmonasteryofReichersbergin1235,he didsoaputWinnamindomoTechaniiudei,inVienna,inthehouseofTekatheJew, towhom,alongwithseveralViennesecitizens,58theestateshadbeenpledged.
54 55 56
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18 (Detroit, New York, San Francisco, et al.: Thomson Gale, 2007), 531. Austrian State Archives Vienna, Haus, Hofund Staatsarchiv, AURUk.1354XI4. BruggerandWiedl, "Christian-Jewish Interaction," 285. See research by Eveline Brugger, “'Do musten da hin zue den jewen varn' – die Rolle(s) of Jewish financers in late medieval Austria,” Ein Thema–zweiPerspektiven,122 –38; for in-depth studies of Lower Austria and Carinthia, see Brugger, Adel und Juden and Wadl, Juden Kärnten, 193–225, respectively. BruggerandWiedl, "Christian-Jewish Interaction", 292. In addition to the already mentioned wide variety of other occupations which the Jews pursued, it is of great importance to emphasize that the end of money was never exclusively a 'Jewish trade'; usually Joseph Shatzmiller, Shylock reconsidered. Jews, Moneylending, and Medieval Society (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990); for a comparison of different
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Evenmoreso,Tekadidnotonlyactasahostbutwasnamedastheintermediary oftheentiretransaction(quomedianteetprocurantehocomniafactasunt).59Although Tekaistobeconsideredaratherexceptionalfigurewithcloseconnectionstothe HungariankingandtheAustrianduke60,quitecasualreferencestoJewsowning housesorplotsoflandarenotexceptional,andoftenmerelygiventoidentify anotherChristianownedhouse.61 However,itwouldmostdefinitelybeshortsightedtodismissthosebusiness contractsasyieldingmerelyinformationonmattersofeconomy;62asobjectsof
59 60
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forms of credit, see Hans Jörg Gilomen, “The economic basics of credit and the Christian-Jewish competition in the late medievaleval,” Ein Topa–zwei Perspektiven, 139–69; id., “Kooperation und Konfrontation,” 216–22, with statistics on Jewish and Lombard credits in fifteenth-century Zurich. Already in the XIII century, Lombards and Cahorsins appear in the Austrian region; Duke Rudolf IV bestowed himself with the right to “hold Jews and Cahorsins” (tenere judeos et usurarios publicos, quos vulgus vocat gawertschin) in the forged PrivilegiumMaiusofaround1358.ParticularlyinthesouthofAustria,theCarinthiandukesand thenobilityresortedtobusinesscompaniesfromtheVenetoFriulanianareathatincludedboth JewsandChristians;seenowthetwoarticlesbyWenninger,“Jüdischeundjüdischchristliche Netzwerke,”andGerdMentgen,“NetzwerkbeziehungenbedeutenderCividalerJudeninder erstenHälftedes14 .century,” networks of Ashkenazi Jews, 163–76 and 197–246 respectively, with further literature. See also Gerd Mentgen, Studien zur History of the Jews in Medieval Alsace with regard to money lending, with further literature. However, Christian participation in all types of cash-based businesses is not limited to these specific groups. the final total was declared in the documents, usually already including the interest to be paid at the end; for Austrian examples, see Brugger, "Ansiedlung", 157. Bruggerand Wiedl, Regesten, vol. 1, 24-25, No. 11. Probably the best example of this is the peace treaty of 1225 between King Andrew II and Duke Leopold VI, where Teka is on bail from the Austrian Duke; a few years later he is the comecamere (tax farmer) of the Hungarian king (Bruggerand Wiedl, Regesten, vol. 1, 20–21, no. 7, 23, no. 10, with additional literature). Fromthevastamountofcharters,seethearbitramentthatsettledadisputebetweencitizensof theLowerAustriantownofKlosterneuburgoverseveralvineyardsandhouses,oneofwhichwas locatedandemnidernmarchtzenachstSteuzzenhausdezjuden(“atthelowermarket,nexttothe houseof[David]SteusstheJew,”ArchivesoftheMonasteryofKlosterneuburg,Uk.1364X31, facsimileonlineat:http://www.monasterium.net,subarchivio;lastaccessedonApril8,2009). Onthebroadvarietyofusingchartersassources,seePaulHerold,“SchriftalsMöglichkeit– MöglichkeitenvonSchrift.Genese,WirkungsweiseundVerwendungvonSchriftamBeispiel österreichischerPrivaturkundendes12.und13.Jahrhunderts,”TextalsRealie,ed.KarlBrunner andGerhardJaritz.VeröffentlichungendesInstitutsfürRealienkundedesMittelaltersundder FrühenNeuzeit,18.ÖsterreichischeAkademiederWissenschaften.Philosophischhistorische Klasse,Sitzungsberichte,704(Vienna:VerlagderÖsterreichischenAkademiederWissenschaften,
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in everyday life, they demonstrate the mutual influence of the intersecting habitats of Jews and Christians as clearly as any building, piece of fabric, or object of art. In everyday transactions, Jewish businessmen adjusted to the needs of their Christian clientele: documents they issued for their Christian partnerswerenotonlyineitherGerman63or(veryrarely)inLatin,64theydifferin nopointtothoseissuedbyChristianstheformulacommonlyusedbyChristians isadoptedwordforword.Crucialdatesliketheduedateofthedebtorthedate ofissuancearerenderedinthesamewayasinChristiancharters,byusageof commonlyknowndaysofsaintsorfeasts.Asmuchasthisisduetothefactthat theChristianbusinesspartnerhadtounderstandthedocumentaswell,thisalso providesevidenceofafirmknowledge(andusage)oftheChristiancalendarand certain'keydays' such as the ever-popular Sao Miguel (September 29th), Sao Martinho (November 11th) and Sao Jorge (April 23rd/24th) paydays. Followingthestandardformulae,however,wasnotlimitedtodocumentsissued byJewsforChristians;inthe(rare)chartersinHebrew65,whichwereeither,inthe majorityofcases,issuedasanadditionalconfirmationofthetransactiondealtwith intheGermanone(seeFigure6)66orkeptbytheJewishbusinesspartner,mostof thecommonphrases(e.g.,“ofourownaccordandwiththeapprovalofourheirs,” the Schadlosformel that protects the business partner should a third party raise claims)wereliterallytranslatedintoHebrew. In contrast, all dates are given according to the Jewish calendar and confirmation is by subscription only. Quite revealing is the single modification of one of the standard formulas, whereas the Christian version says "everyone who sees or hears this epistle reads it", the Hebrew version is merely adapted to "all who see this epistle" and assumes that every Jew who sees the letter he can read it himself.67
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2003), 135-52. The question of whether medieval Ashkenazi Jews spoke Middle High German or Old Yiddish or regional dialects has been a topic in scholarly literature since the 19th century, albeit with a clear focus on literary texts. TheeldestLatincharterintheAustrianregionisalsotheeldestoneissuedbyaJewaltogetherin thisregion:February18,1257,thetwobrothersLublinandNekelo,comitescamere(taxfarmers) oftheAustriandukeandlaterBohemiankingOtakarPemyslII,settledadisputewithBishop ConradIofFreising,whichtheycorroboratedwiththeirshared(and,unfortunately,missing)seal, seeBruggerandWiedl,Regesten,vol.1,50–51,no.38,withfurtherliterature. Brugger and Wiedl, "Christian-Jewish Interaction", 305, Fig.2. These Hebrew letters were often sewn, glued, or otherwise attached to the German letter they corresponded to (sometimes occurring centuries later); see the Kremsmünster monastery example from 1305, figure 6. See e. B. the second oldest Hebrew documents in the Austrian area, both issued by the four
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Jewsdoappearinotherfunctionsaswell:shouldtheneedarise,theyactas arbitrators together with Christians,68 they corroborate Christian charters as witnesses even if they (or any Jews at all) are not involved in the transaction documentedinthecharter.69Jewishappearanceaswitnessesdeclinesperceptibly fromthelastquarterofthethirteenthcenturyonward,whichprecedesthegeneral decreaseintheusageofwitnessesinfavourofsealsasthe(almost)onlymeansof authenticationbyonlyafewdecades.WealthyandprominentJews,however, did adaptthiscustom,this'newfashionarticle,'70andstartedusingseals,albeitonly forchartersissuedforChristianbusinesspartners.71 ThecommonwayofcorroborationamongJewsremainedtheaforementioned HebrewsignaturethatwasusedonbothHebrewandGermandocuments,72partly announcedwiththesameformulathatwouldbeusedforannouncingaseal:with the forumla und umb taz pesser sicherhait bestett ich die obergeschrift mit meiner judischen hantgeschrift unden darunder (“as an additional corroboration [as an additionalinsurance]Iherebyconfirmtheabovewritten [Texto] mit meinem Juden
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brothers Mosche, Mordechai, Isakand Pesach, sons of Schwärzlein/Asriel, and corroborated by their signatures and those of Rabbis Chaim and Abraham, Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol. 1, 119, #124 (April 29, 1305, see Fig. 6), 167–68, #165 ([1309]), Hebrew and German translation. For example, the ducalcellar Konrad von Kyburg and the Jew Marusch, who decided to dispute between the monastery of Heiligenkreuz and the Jew Mordechai about the postponed payment of taxes (Bruggerand Wiedl, Regesten, vol. 1, 203-04, no. 219). For example, the Jew Bibas who witnessed a deed of surety that the (high-ranking) noble Alberovon Kuenring and the citizens of the cities of Krems, Stein and Linz issued to two other nobles in 1247, guaranteeing them their permanent surety. Bibas is listed as the last of Krems's 21 witnesses (Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol.1,39, no.28); Heinrich Fichtenau, Documents in Austria from the Eighth to the Beginning of the Thirteenth Centuries. Comunicações do Instituto de Pesquisa Histórica Austríaca, volume suplementar, 23 (Viena e Graz: Böhlau, 1971), 238. TheeldeststillexistingJewishsealintheGermanspeakingrealmisthesealofPeterbarMosche haLevifromRegensburg,attachedtoacharterissuedbyhissonsHatchimandJacobin1297for ArchbishopConradIVofSalzburg.Itshowsacornutedhatwithabirdontop,flankedbya crescent and a eightpointed star, see Keil, Martha: “Ein Regensburger Judensiegel des 13 Jahrhunderts.ZurInterpretationdesSiegelsdesPeterbarMoschehaLewi,”Aschkenas:ZeitschriftfürGeschichteundKulturderJuden1(1991):135–50;BruggerandWiedl,Regesten,vol. 1.97, #93; on Austrian Jews in general, see Brugger, "Ansiedlung", 123–228. See also Daniel M. Friedenberg, Medieval Jewish Seals from Europe (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), unfortunately with serious errors and misunderstandings. Keil, "Judensiegel", 135–36; eadem, "'Petachja, called Zecherl': Names and Nicknames of Jews in the German-Speaking Area of the Late Middle Ages", personal names and identity. 46; here 138-41.
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Manuscript"), the Jew Mosche of Herzogenburg announced his signature (MoschebenhaKadoschRabbi Izchak.k.l., "Moshe, son of the martyr Rabbi Izchak, the memory of the martyr may be honored"), using the same clandestine security "keywords" as a Christian used to announce his seal to the Jews of the city without his own seal, often facing the respective Christian, then holding the so-called iudexiudeorum, a rather exclusive office in the eastern parts of present-day Austria75, to witness and seal76 his acts of control over the sale of unpaid pledges and was entitled to a series of fines from Jews and Christians, thus sharing at least a small part of the proceeds of the ducal protection of the Jews
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Keil, "Names and Epithets", 138, deed of sale May 10, 1445. Brugger and Wiedl, "Christlich-Jewish Interaction", 294-95. ThefirstiudexiudeorumismentionedinthelowerAustriantownin1264ofKrems(Bruggerand Wiedl,Regesten,vol.1,56–57,no.42.).ItwastobecomearathercommonofficeinbothAustria and Styria, partly also in the Styrian and Carinthian enclaves of Salzburg, but was never introducedintootherpartsoftheHolyRomanEmpiresaveBohemiaandMoravia,wherethe 1244privilegewasintroducedbyKingPemyslOtakarII.Forthefewappearancesoutsidethese territoriesseeGermaniaJudaica,vol.III /3.2190. Having another seal document was a common practice among Jews and Christians; If the issuer had its own seal, it asked another person to confirm the license with its seals (seal request), which was noted separately along with the promulgation of these seals in a specific formula. Little is known about the organization known as the Judengericht (although the literal translation "Judengericht" should not be confused with the inner court of the Jewish community, see Keil, "GemeindeundKultur", 40-41, 60-72). ,”150).Inthe courseofa general court reform, Duke Rudolf IV decreed the continued existence of the Viennese Judengericht,yetspecifiedneitheritsconstitutionnoritscompetenceindetail.Presidedoverby theiudexiudeorum,itsassessorsconsistedofdelegatesfromthecityandtheJewishcommunity inequalrepresentation.Itsrangeofjurisdictionalcompetence,however,cannotbeinferredfrom itsonlymentionforViennaorfromtheStyrianreferencesofthefifteenthcentury(seeBrugger, “Ansiedlung,” 150), although it is Most likely, the scope of empowerment mainly involved conflicts between Jews and Christians. For example, all the courts of law or courts in the present provincial capital of Upper Austria, Linz, were also administrators of Linz Castle, the residence of the ducal bailiff (Lohrmann, Judenrecht, 159).
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Strengthening its position and expanding its competencies and gradually transforming the office into an at least partially self-sufficient municipality. Withthegrowingclaimofthetownsonamorecomprehensivejurisdictional andeconomiccontrolof‘their’Jews,which,unsurprisingly,startedshortlyafter thewiderangingpersecutionsof1338,theofficesofthetownjudgeandtheiudex iudeorumwereutilizedtosupervisethebusinessactivitiesoftheJewstoagreater extent.Jewswereobligedtoproducetheirdebtinstrumentstothetownjudge annually79oreventhriceayear,80whereaspledgeshadtobepresentedtotheiudex iudeorumonaregular,sometimesevenweeklybasis;81insomeStyriantowns,the municipalcontrolwasexpandedfurtherbydemandingthatanydebtinstrument wastobesealednotbyeitherbutbyboththetownjudgeandtheiudexiudeorum.82 Inthesecondhalfofthefourteenthcentury,citiestriedtogetorganizedwhenit cametokeepinganeyeontheJewsandtheirbusinesstransactions. The progressive decline of ducal protection gave the cities considerable leeway to shift powers in their favor, allowing them to noticeably increase their hold on the Jews. Its objective of controlling and monitoring credits and pledges no longer only contemplates the preparation and authentication of commercial documents, extending to the many transactions of lesser value, until now normally not documented in writing. To establish this control, many cities created so-called Jewish books and generally administered by the iudex iudeorum, the
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For example, 1376 on the city charter of Salzburg from Ptuj, now in Slovenia, see Scherer, legal relations, 549-50, Wadl, JudenKärnten, 176-77. For example, in the Lower Austrian city charter of St. Pölten of 1338, granted by the Bishop of Passau, who was lord of the city; see Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol. 444. Ptuj: Inanimate pledges (Schreinpfand, as opposed to essendes Pledge, "to eat promise," ie cattle) had to be presented to the judexiudeorume every Thursday, Lohrmann, Judenrecht, 160; Germania Judaica, vol.III/2,1100. Meir Wiener, Regesta on the History of the Jews in Germany during the Middle Ages, vol. 1 (Hanover: Hahn'sche Hofbuchhandlung 1862), 236, No. 144 (Graz, Leoben); Lohrmann, Judenrecht, 160, incorrectly applies this regulation to most Styrian towns. ThesettingupofJudenbücherwasnotexclusivetothecitiesrulersaswellasnoblefamiliesandinthefifteenthcentury,alsotheEstatesofStyriaandCarinthiatriedtokeeptrackoftheirdebtsbyestablishingJewishbooks(Brugger,"Ansiedlung,"161–62). ).Most of theJewish books were lost during the persecutionsof1420/1421thatendedJewishsettlementinLowerAustria.AsfarasthegeneralscholarlydiscussiononJewishbooksisconcerned;for recent discussion see Thomas Peter, “Jewish books as a source genre and the Znaimer Judenbücher. The best examples of documents in Austria are the “Judenbuch der Scheffstrasse” and the Liber
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The Judenbuch was the place where all business transactions to and from Jews had to be registered (which also provided some protection for Jews, as registration made it impossible to claim that titles presented by Jews were forgeries). Withthe tighteninggripofthecitiesontheirJews,thedemandforthemto partakeincivicdutiesgrew,85whilstinreturn,manyGermancitieshadtakento granting(partial)citizenshipstoJews;86arightthathad,forthemostpart,been transferred to them by the lord of the town.87 In the territory of modernday Austrianterritory,boththedominatingpositionoftheruler(s)andthelackof reallypowerful,importantcitiesismostlikelythereasonfornonexistingJewish citizenship,thegrantingofsettlementremainingexclusivelyinthehandsofthe rulers .88 Information about the participation of Austrian Jews in municipal functions is therefore
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Judeorum de Wiener Neustadt. Whereas the second part was dedicated to loans among Christians, the third part is the “Judenbuch,”entriesofloansgrantedbyJews(VienneseaswellasLowerAustrianandBohemian Jews)toinhabitantsoftheScheffstrasse.Sincethemajorityoftheinhabitantsweresmallscale craftsmen,mostofthesums(aconsiderablenumberofwhichweregrantedbyJewesses)were rathersmall.ArturGoldmann,DasJudenbuchderScheffstrassezuWien(1389–1420).Quellenund ForschungenzurGeschichtederJudeninDeutschÖsterreich,1 (Viena and Leipzig: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1908). To velho Jews bucho da cidade de Viena foi perdido; Para Wiener Neustadt, ver Martha Keil, “Der Liber Judeorum von Wiener Neustadt 1453–1500. Edition,” Studies on the History of the Jews in Austria, ed. eademand Klaus Lohrmann (Viena, Colônia e Weimar: Böhlau, 1994), 41–99. Wenninger, "Vonjudeen Rittern", 54-67, sobre os judeus participando dos deveres militares dentro da inatividade. Alfred Haverkamp, "'Concivilitas' of Christians and Jews in Ashkenaz in the Middle Ages," comunidades, comunidades e formas de comunicação na Alta e Baixa Idade Média, ed. Friedhelm Burgard, Lukas Clemens e Michael Matheus (Trier: Kliomedia , 2002), 315–44 (rpt.do artigo publicado pela primeira vez em comunidades judaicas e formas organizacionais desde a antiguidade até o presente, ed. RobertJütte.Kuster.AbrahamP Ashkenas: Journal for History and Culture of the Jews, suplemento 3 [Viena , Colonia e Weimar: Bohlau, 1996]: 103-36); Germania Judaica, vol. III/3, 2181-87; Barbara Türke, "Notas sobre o conceito de cidadania na Idade Média: o exemplo dos cidadãos cristãos e judeus da cidade imperial de Nördlingen no século XV," Inclusão/Exclusão: Estudos sobre estranheza e pobreza desde a antiguidade até o presente, ed. Andreas Gestrich and Raphael Lutz. Segunda edição (2004; Frankfurt. M. e Viena: Peter Lang, 2008), 135–54; .RainerChristophSchwinges.Journal for historical research.Supplement, 30(Berlin:Duncker&Humblot,2002),125–67. Existem muito poucos exemplos de cidades (Worms, Praga) onde este direito de conceder cidadania aos judeus era independente da concessão de seu governante, ver Germania Judaica, vol.III/3, 2169, 2181-82. Klaus Lohrmann, "Observações sobre o problema 'judeu e cidadão'," Judeus na cidade, 145-66; aqui
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scarce.SincetheJewsweregenerallysubjectedtotaxationtonoonebuttheruler, the towns strove either to charge additional taxes or at least partially to incorporatetheJewsintothetaxrevenueofthetown.89Theearliestdocumented exampleinAustria,however,isremarkableintworespects:in1277,KingRudolph Inotonlyconfirmedbutalsoexpandedtherightsofthe(small)townofLaa/Thaya (LowerAustria),amongstwhichheaddedtherighttoexclude'their'Jewsfrom thegeneralJewishtaxandtoincludethemintothecitizens'taxrevenue,90thus documentingnotonlythefirstexceptiontothegeneraltaxtheJewswerepaying directly into the treasury but the first mention of the 'Jewish tax' on Austrian territoryatall.91 Formorethanacentury,however,therulers'claimtotaxingtheJewsremained widelyunchallenged;onlythelatefourteenthcenturysawAustriandukesyield tothepressureofbothtownsandtherisingestates.In1396,alargenumberof StyriantownswereallowedbytheDukesAlbrechtIVandWilliamtocoercethe Jewsowninghousesand/orplotsoflandwithintherealmofthetowneithertosell thesepremiseswithinayearortoparticipatehenceforwardinthetaxrevenueof the town.92 The references to Jews partaking in outro bürgerliche Aufgaben wie die Stadt
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161–64.Thereisbutoneexception:thesmalltownofFeldkirchintheutmostwestoftoday's Austriawhichwasundertheruleofalocalandnotoverlypowerfulnoblefamily.Unlikein Austria,JewishcitizenshipwasfairlycommonespeciallyintheareaaroundLakeConstance,to whichFeldkirchbelongedbothpoliticallyandculturally;seeKarlHeinzBurmeister,medinat bodase.ZurGeschichtederJudenamBodensee,vol.1:1200–1349(CKonstancez:Universitätsverlag Konstanz,1994),40–42.However,Jewishcitizensareonlymentioned'intheory' in the city charter of Feldkirch from the mid-14th century, and no individual possessing the status of a citizen is known; dissertation, University of Innsbruck, 2001, 236. See also Brugger, “Ansiedlung,”204. On the many 'stages' and appointments of taxation of Jews by cities, see Germania Judaica, vol.III/3, 2263-67. BruggerandWiedl, Regesten, vol.1,74,no.57. See also Lohrmann,Judenrecht,113–14. Rudolph I was acting like King of the Romans and not like the Duke of Austria (which he never was), preparing, however, the reasons for his sons to assume the duchy and, thus, trying to persuade the - however small they were - cities to ally with him. Publications of the Max Planck Institute for History, 44 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976), with particular respect to this letter 75–78. Scherer, Rechtsbedingungen, 403. There is a very similar regulation noted in the then Hungarian town of Eisenstadt; it is questionable though whether this town charter, which mentionsthetaxesofJewslivinginandoutsidethecitywalls,isauthentic;seeHaraldPrickler, “BeiträgezurGeschichtederburgenländischenJudensiedlungen,”JudenimGrenzraum:Geschichte, KulturundLebensweltderJudenimburgenländischwestungarischenRaumundindenangrenzenden RegionenvomMittelalterbiszurGegenwart,ed.RudolfKropf.WissenschaftlicheArbeitenausdem Burgenland,92(Eisenstadt:BurgenländischesLandesmuseum,1993),65–106;here68–69 .
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watch,ofwhichthereisevidenceinotherregions,93areevenrarer;thereisbutone example of the nowadays Italian town of Gorizia where in 1307, Jews and Christiansalikewerecommittedtowatchduties.94 Facedwithsimilarchallenges,JewsandChristiansoftenarrivedatquitesimilar solutions.TheorganizationoftheJewishcommunity(kehilla)isinitsmainfeatures ratheruniform;95yet,itbearsastonishinganalogiestoChristianorganizations, particularlytothoseofcraftguilds.96Thecontemporarieswerenotobliviousto thisfact:intheAustrianregion,97theJewishcommunityisquitecommonlycalled Judenzeche, "Guilda judaica", enquanto seu Parnassus, o chefe da comunidade judaica, era referido como o Zechmeister der Juden, "mestre da guilda dos judeus".
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Wenninger, "Von Juden Rittern", 54-67, who gives numerous examples from the end of the thirteenth century onwards. See also Germania Judaica, vol. III/3, 2181-82; Toch, Jews in the Medieval Empire, 51–54; Magin, “‘Waffenrecht’,” 23–24; Haverkamp, “Concivilitas,” 125–128; from a 'rabbinical perspective' Israel Jacob Yuval, "The Issue of Weapons from a Rabbinic Perspective", Borders and Crossing Borders, 13–16; here 15 (Jews participating in the defense of the city of Worms in 1201). Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol. 1, 160, No. 153. For Swiss examples, see Gilomen, "Kooperation und Konfrontation", 168–70, which discusses the issue of Jews actually participating in guard duties or simply paying their share of dues and gives examples for both. For a test summary of Jewish communities and their form of organization, see Germania Judaica, vol. III/3, 2080-2138; Yacov Guggenheim, “Jewish Community and Territorial Organization in Medieval Europe”, Jews of Europe, 71–92, on the striking similarities of Jewish communities across medieval Europe, 72–73, and with further literature. See the two corresponding articles: Rainer Barzen, "'So we imposed and decided...' Takkanotim in medieval Ashkenas," 218–33, and Birgit Wiedl, "'Confraternitaseorumquod invulgaridiciturzhunft': economic, religious and social aspects of craft guilds in the mirror of their orders", 234-52 (both in a two-perspective theme). GermaniaJudaica, vol.III/3, 2080, with emphasis on this being an Austrian particularity. For example, in Krems: zechaiudeoruminamunicipalrentalfrombetween1350and1370, LeopoldMoses, “AusdemKremserStadtarchiv,”JüdischesArchivNeueFolge1,3–4(1928),3–8;here5; . See also Keil, “GemeindeundKultur,” 39. For example, in the Sefer Terumatha Deschen (collection of legal opinions) by Rabbi Israel Isserlein of the (then) Styrian city of Wiener Neustadt (ed. Shemuel Abitan, Jerusalem 1991), which houses the term quite frequently, see Germania Judaica, vol. III/2, 1621. A collection of the rights and liberties of the city of Vienna, maintained from 1320 to 1819; see Ferdinand Opll, Das Große Wiener Stadtbuch, called “Eisenbuch”. Series A: Archive Inventory, Series 3, Number 4 (Vienna: Self-published by State and Municipal Archives Vienna, 1999). Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol.1,33–338, nrr.439 (Hebrew) and 440 (German), Jewish community reducing its interest rate in 1338. A representation of the page can be found here:
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'basic prerequisites' may have been, the similarities both in the general compositionofthecommunityaswellasmanydetailsarestriking:bydemandof mandatorymembership,theorganizationcouldnotonlyofferextensiveprotection for,butalsowieldwiderangingauthorityoverthemembers,whilstthebanfrom thecommunity,whichposedagenuinethreattoinsubordinatemembers,was utilizedtoexertcontrol.Socialconcernslikethecareforwidows,orphansand impoverishedmembersweredealtwithby,andthrough,thecommunitybythe institutionofTzedakahandtheguilds'welfaresystemrespectively,bothofwhich were financed by regular contributions ;102 members who in any way broke the rules were brought to justice; religious and denominational property was jointly owned; and generally (at least in theory) a code of conduct governed many aspects of public and private life. Food and sometimes money, as well as foreign and/or poor Jewish students, were provided by the kehilla.103 Jews participated in the daily activities of the city's markets, entering and sharing social and economic space with their Christian neighbors. However, while areas such as markets also offered convenient avenues for (physical) exclusion and division, they often struggled to gain control.
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http://www.wien.gv.at/kultur/archiv/geschichte/zimelien/images/juden.jpg (last accessed 8 April 2009). For a summary of scholarly discussion, see Rainer Barzen, "'Whatthepoorrequiresuntilyouobligedtoadmit:'Research Addresses Care of the Poor in Ashkenazi in the Early and Late Middle Ages," Wirtschaftsgeschichte dermedienJuden, 139–52; particularly 142–48. On the similarities, see Birgit Wiedl, "Eine zfuerte Gemeinde: Handwerkszunfte und Juden Gemeindeorganisation im Ververgleich," Not in a bed, 44-49, available for download as a pdf here: http://www.injoest.ac.at/upload /JudeninME05_4_4349(1 ).pdf. On the importance of markets as 'crucial elements of the medieval city', the gender aspect and how market space can be utilized for inclusion and exclusion, see Shennan Hutto's article in this volume. Theprohibitiongoesbacktocanon69oftheFourthLateranCouncilwhichinturnreferredto canon14oftheThirdConciliumToletanumof589.Itis,however,theonlyregulationfromthe LateranIVthathadmadeitswayintosecularlegislation.Fromthevastliteratureonthetopic,see Heinz Schreckenberg, Die christlichen AdversusJudaeosTexte (11.13. Jahrhundert): Mit einer IkonographiedesJudenthemasbiszum4.Laterankonzil.EuropäischeHochschulschriften.Second edition.ReiheXXIII:Theologie,335(1988;Frankfurta.M.,Bern ,NewYork,andParis:PeterLang, 1991),425–26.EmperorFrederickIIincludedthisparagraphintheprivilegehegrantedthecity ofViennain1238(forthelatestedition,seeBruggerandWiedl,Regesten,vol.1,28–29,no.17,with additionaleditionsandliterature).ThebanwasreconfirmedforViennain1247(byEmperor FrederickII)and1278(byKingRudolfI)andwasalsoincludedintheprivilegefortheStyrian
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overthelegalstatusandtorestrict,oratleastmonitor,theeconomicactivitiesof ‘their’Jewsduringthelatethirteenthandfourteenthcenturies106.NeitherJewish landownership nor Jews being involved in winegrowing and trade107 were uncommon,yettherangeofprofessionstheJewscouldmakealivingwithwithin thetowns’realmswasbeingmoreandmorelimited.Withthecraftguildsgaining importance,regulationsthatexcludedJewsfromspecificprofessions108onbehalf of the respective guild appeared in town charters as well as guild articles. In Austria, Jews from one of the most important Jewish communities in Habsburg territory, Wiener Neustadt, were prohibited from trading and selling cloth, presumably at the request of the guild,109 but professions dealing with food in particular were blacklisted111 Jews were disallowed, but overall the slaughter and sale of meat proved to be the most contentious issue.
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city of Wiener Neustadt, which supposedly predates the Viennese charter, but is in fact a forgery from the last third of the 13th century (Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol. 1.40, no. 29.76, no. 60.22– 23, no. 9). (part 1). 52; for this letter 646–47); on the factual validity of the forged letters, see Thomas Hildbrand, “Sisyphus unddie Urkunden: Medievistische Considerations zursemiotic Work,” Textals Realie, 183–92; here186. Wiedl, "CodingJews". HaymSoloveitchik,"Halakhah,TabuandtheOriginofJewishMoneyendinginGermany,"JewsofEurope,305–17,whichdespiteitstitleexaminesJewishwinecultureandtradeas well as viticultural credits; more Toch,"Economic Activities,"205–06. ': Zuswinkler in the Middle Ages,” 'And if so, then bishop or abbot': In memory of Günther Hödl (1941–2005), ed. Christian Domenigandothers (Klagenfurt: Kärntner Druckund Verlagsgesellschaft, 2006), 53-72, Bruggerand Wiedl , "Christlich-Jewish Interaction," 302-03. For Jews as artisans, see Michael Toch, “Jüdische Geldleiheim Mittelalter,” History and Culture of the Jews in Bavaria, ed. Manfred Tremland Josef Kirmeier (Munich, New York, London, and Paris: K.G. Saur, 1988), 85–94; here 85-86; id., “Underwriters and Nothing Else? On the Economic Activities of Jews in the German-Speaking Area of the Late Middle Ages,” Tel Aviv Yearbook for German History22 (1993): 117–26;id.,“EconomicActivities,”187,204–10;Mentgen, JudenimmedievalElsass, 579–85;GermaniaJudaica, vol.III/3.2139-46. Wiener Neustadt 1316, Bruggerand Wiedl, Regesten, vol.1, 195–96, nº 205. It is not quite clear whether the regulation refers to the fabric trade or tailoring, or both. 1297/1308, Bruggerand Wiedl, Regesten, volume 1, 99, nº 96, §13. .
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TheChristianmistrusttoward'Jewishmeat'hadbeenclearlyexpressedatthe provincialsynodsofWrocawandViennain1267,whereinveryclearwords, ChristianswerecautionedagainstbuyinganynourishmentsfromJewslestthese, whoallegedlyregardedtheChristiansastheirenemies,poisonthemwiththeir food(necchristianicarnesvenalesseualiacibariaaiudeisemant,neforteperhociudei christianos, quos hostes reputant, fraudulenta machinatione venenent).112 The later adaptions in several town charters, however, hardly ever referred straightforwardlytoanythreatposedtoChristiansshouldtheybuy,orconsume, meat( or,cometothat,anyothergoods)of“Jewishorigin.”Thefirstattemptat excludingJewsatleastpartiallyfromthatbranchofbusinessappearedasearlyas 1267 (!), when the butchers' guild of the Lower Austrian town of Tulln put additionalchargesonthefatstockthatwasboughtbyJews.Consideringthatthe Jews were most likely butchering the animals themselves to guarantee kosher slaughter,thesumtheJewshadtopaywaspresumablyintendedasakindoffine forthelossofincomethecraftsmensufferedsincetheycouldnotchargethemfor theirslaughteringservice .113 Bis ins 15. Jahrhundert blieb jedoch das Hauptproblem, dass die Juden nicht nur selbst schlachteten, 114 sondern auch Fleisch an Christen verkauften und damit in die Domäne der Handwerkerzünfte eindrangen. The “simplest”solution,chosenbytheCarinthiantownofSt.Veitinthelatethirteenth century,wastobanJewsfromsellingtheirmeatpubliclyaltogether.TheJewsof thistownwereonlyallowedtobutcherandselltheirmeatathome;accordingto thetown’sregulations,theynotonlyremainedwithoutapossibilitytoparticipate inthepublicmeatmarkedbutwerealsobeingdeniedtherighttoownlivestock (mostlikelyforbreedingpurpose,sincetheywereallowedtoslaughterathome) andrefusedtheirshareintheborough’scommon.115
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Bruggerand Wiedl, Regesten, vol. 1, 59-61 (cit. 59), no. 45. Brugger and Wiedl, Regesten, vol. 1, 61, #46. English translation (incorrectly dated 1237): http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1237butcherstuln.html (last accessed 8 April 2009). Jewish Germania, vol. I: From the earliest times to 1238, ed. I. Elbogen, A. Freimann and H. Tykocinski (Tübingen: J.C.B.Mohr, 1963), 388–89. Jews, however, were not the only group of people that medieval butchers had to grant the right to carry out the slaughter on their own. BruggerandWiedl, Regesten, vol.1.99, no.96,§13.
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ThiscompletebanofJewsfromthepublic(economic)sphereofmarketactivities remained rather unique among the regulations of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries.Commonly,Jewswereallowedtoselltheirmeatatthepublicmarketvia aspecificstallthatwaseitherdirectlyadministeredbythemunicipalgovernment oratleastundertheirstrictcontrol.Thatstallwasusuallyremotefromthoseofthe Christianbutchersandquiteoftenlocatedatthefringeofthemarketplace.116In addition to that, some towns demanded that the meat be presented 'in an unobtrusiveway':not,asatthebutchers' Guild tents attached and hung from the ceiling, but set up like tools.117 The fact that their meat is sold exclusively in this particular type of tent can therefore be interpreted as a mere economic disadvantage for the Jews, but in many regulations additional specifications are aimed at a about a segregation of the Jews that went beyond mere economic measures. The municipal stand was usually the place where cheap meat was sold,118 meaning rotten meat (trichina), as well as meat from sick or injured animals.119
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Andenendten(“atthesides”)andnotattheregularbutchers'stallsshallthejudenfleisch(“Jewish meat”)besold,whereithasbeensoldvonallter(“sincetimeimmemorial”),statestheregulation thetownofJudenburgissuedfortheirbutcher'sguildin1467;FritzPopelka,Schriftdenkmälerdes steirischenGewerbes,vol.1(Graz:EigenverlagdesWirtschaftsförderungsinstitutesderKammer dergewerblichenWirtschaftfürSteiermark,1950),137–37, no.104;GermaniaJudaica,vol.III/1,594. Adolf Altmann, história dos judeus na cidade e estado de Salzburgo desde os primeiros tempos até o presente Salzburg1420(seeabove), buttheregulationdatesbacktotheearlyfourteenthcentury:itappearsasearlyas1307inthetowncharteroftheBavariantownBurghausen(1307,ChristianHaeutle, "Einige altbayerische Stadtrechte," Oberbayerländisches Geschichte 4/5 [18188] :163–262;here183)andwasadopted,oftenwithaquitesimilarwording,inthetown chartersofNeuötting(1321,id., “Alguns antigos direitos municipais da Baviera: continuação e conclusão,” Oberbayerisches Archiv für vaterländische Historische History47[1891/1892]:18–124;here29), Landshut(1344,GermaniaJudaica,vol.II/1,467–68),e Schärding(1316, todayUpperAustria,BruggerandWiedl,Regesten,vol.1,194,no .202). , perhaps asa kind of 'preventive measure' against potential future Jewishinhabitants. Gilomen, "Cooperation and Confrontation," 177. AccordingtothelibertiesofthetownofMühldorf(before1360),pfinichsflaischs,wolfpaizzichsflaischsundswazderjudersucht(foulmeat,meatthat'hasbeenbittenbythewolf'andmeat'which theJewdesires'),shouldbesoldbythebutchers,butinfrontofandnotinsidetheirbooths.Karl Theodor Heigel (ed.), “Mühldorfer Chroniken Stadten, Regensburg, Munich13–les 4 Chronic, Mühldorfer Chroniken Stadten, Regensburg13–les 4 ed. Comissão Histórica da Academia de Ciências da Baviera, Segunda Edição. Hans-Georg Herrmann, “A lei da cidade de Mühldorf no final da Idade Média e no início
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TheadditionalassociationofJewswiththe"rotten"and"foul"isthereforequite obvious, a connotation that was stressed even more when the meat had to be clearlytaggedand/orthepotentialChristiancustomerhadtobealertedtothefactthattheywereabouttobuyeitherfoulor"Jewishmeat."120Inlatefourtheenth/earlyfifteenthcenturies,theideaofthewellpoisoningcommonmeasuresat Jews prevailing, many townsresortendepassingtomoredrasticanymeatdes thathadmerelybeentouchedbyJewsasbeinginthesamecategory, hence it is of inferior quality or even unfit for Christian consumption. This often coincides with or is included in regulations aimed at comprehensively controlling the behavior of Jews in the market: instead of touching the goods, the Jews would point the other way, especially the food, that they wanted to buy and should they touch something, they had to buy it, often at additional cost. Schlom, the ducal mint master and the first Austrian Jew known by name, fell victim to the Crusaders along with his family in 1196; 122 About 100 years later, the first blood libel and accusations of alleged desecration of honeycombs were committed on Austrian territory and claimed their victims among the Jews of the cities of Lower Austria.
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Neuzeit,” Mühldorfam Inn: SalzburginBayern935–1802–2002. Volume accompanying the exhibition of the same name from 8 June to 27 October 2002 (Mühldorfam Inn: Eigenverlag der Stadt, 2002), 36–47; here36; Altmann, Salzburg Jews, 67-69. LibertiesofthetownofMühldorf:(...)swerdazflaischvoninchauft,ezseigastoderpurger,demsol erezsagen,wieezumbdazflaischste,pei72den(whoeverbuysthemeat,betheyvisitororcitizen, he[thebutcherwhosellsthemeat]shalltellthemabouttheconditionofthemeat,atapenaltyof 72pence),Heigel,“MühldorferAnnalen,”396;Thejudenfleischhasbeenfrequentlyinterpreted as“koshermeat”ingeneral,whereasthefactthatitwassoldatthemarkettoChristianssuggests thatthetermreferstothepartsofthekosherlyslaughteredanimalstheJewswerenotallowedto eatandthussoldviathemunicipalstall (which, in fact, may also have heightened the Christians' suspicion that the Jews were selling them meat of flow quality). Larger Jewish communities often owned a slaughterhouse and employed their own kosher butcher, for example. Vienna; see Lohrmann, Viennese Jews, 55, 100, and 102. Liberties of the City of Bolzano (late fourth century, see Germania Judaica, vol.II/1.99; referring to all kinds of wares), adapted butchers' regulations; liberties of the city of Munich (fish), order of the city council of Ulm (1421, cattle, fish, meat, poultry, fruit), see Scherer, Legal relations, 577-78, with analogies with French legislation; while the city of Passauto takes a different (and rather intriguing) stance by banning its butchers from working for them, Municipal Archives of Passau III/22 (Gemainer Statt Passau Recht und Freiheiten sambt old and new contracts). regulation originates in 1432, and the paragraph containing the above-mentioned sentence is an undated but clearly late addition. Bruggerand Wiedl, Regesten, vol.1,17–18, no.4 (Hebrew and German translation).
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ein in Teilen funktionierendes jüdisch-christliches Zusammenleben. Schlom had his thievish Christianservantimprisoned,andonlythestridentcomplaintsoftheservant's wifeinthenearestchurchalertedthecrusaders;andwhentheaccusationofahost waferdesecrationwaslaunchedinthesmallLowerAustriantownofKorneuburg in1305,theJewZerklinsoughtrefugeathisChristianneighbor'shouse,whotook him in willingly and tried to protect him from the enraged citizens, albeit in vain.123 Thefirstoverallshifttotheworsecamewiththepersecutionsthatfollowed anotherallegedhostwaferdesecration.StartingfromPulkauin1338,thusalmost parallel to the catastrophic “Armleder” persecutions that heavily affected the JewishcommunitiesinSouthernGermany,124thissoonbecamethefirstwaveof persecutionsthatwentbeyondthelocalscope,affectingover30townsinAustria, Bohemia,andMoravia.125WhileinZurich,Minnaandhersonsfellpreytothe pogromsaccompanyingtheBlackPlague126duringthefatalyearsof1348–1350, DukeAlbrechtIIstillmanagedtoholdaprotectivehandovermostoftheAustrian Jewishcommunities;hiscomingdownheavilyonthetownofKremsthathad persecutedtheirJewsonaccountofanallegedwellpoisoningearninghimthe
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Thewholeincidentisuniquelydocumented:atranscriptoftheinterrogationofaltogether21 witnessesbytheCistercianmonkAmbrosiusofHeiligenkreuz,whocarriedouttheinvestigation attheorderoftheBishopofPassau,istransmitted(BruggerandWiedl,Regesten,vol.1,125–42, no.133),andfromalatersourceweknowthatthebloodiedwaferhadbeenfakedbyapriest (BruggerandWiedl,Regesten,vol.1,339–40,no.442).SeeEvelineBrugger,“Korneuburg1305– eineblutigeHostieunddieFolgen,” Not in a bed, 20-26, available for download here: http://www.injoest.ac.at/upload/JudeninME05_2_1926.pdf (last accessed 8 Apr 2009); Miri Rubin, Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 57-65; Winfried Stelzer, "Using the Example of Korneuburg: The Alleged Hostile Sacrilege of Austrian Jews of 1305 and Its Sources," Austria in the Middle Ages: Building Blocks for a Revised Overview, ed. WillibaldRosner. 1999), 309-48, in this source, particularly 312-28; Fritz Peter Knapp, The Literature of the Late Middle Ages in the Countries of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg and Tyrol from 1273 to 1439. History of Literature in Austria from the Beginning to the Present, vol. 2, part 1 (Graz: Akademische Druckund Verlagsanstalt, 1999), 106-07, Brugger, "Ansiedlung", 211-26, all with further literature. From the vast literature, see Friedrich Lotter, "Loss of Hosts and Fake Blood Miracles in the Persecutions of the Jews in 1298 ('Rintfleisch') and 1336–1338 ('Armleder')," Fakes in the Middle Ages, vol. 5: Dummy cards. Piety and Counterfeiting. fakes. Monumenta Germaniae Historicaschriften, vol.33.5 (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1988), 533-83; Jörg R. Müller, "Erez gezerah - Land of Persecution: Pogroms Against the Jews in the regnum Teutonicorum Fromc.1280to1350,"JewsofEurope,245-60 . Brugger, "Settlement", 216-19; Rubin, Gentile Tales, 66-67. Keil, "Lifestyle and Representation," Chapter 2; Toch, "Self-Representation", 181-182; Böhmer, "Archer", 330-34.
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insultingephitetoffautoriudeorum,“PatronoftheJews,”fromtheChurch.127The traditional stereotype of the 'Wucherjude,' the rapacious Jewish usurer, was repeatedinandpermeatedbyliteratureandiconographyalike,128posingadeathly threattogetherwiththeideasofJewishwellpoisoning,thebloodlibelaccusations andallegedhostwaferdesecrations.Althoughtherewerefewerpersecutionsin the second half of the fourteenth century than had been in the first half, the politicalandeconomicinterestsofrulers, estatesandmunicipalitiesalikeledtoa considerable worsening of the overall situation of the Jews in the Austrian territoriesduringthelastdecades.Therulers',noblemen's,andcities'ideasof profitingfromprosperingJewishcommunitieshadchangedfromsqueezingas muchmoneyaspossibleoutofthemtonotneedingthemanyfurtheratall,129 while the ecclesiastical climate had shifted from being at least ambiguous to clearlyandoutspokenlyantiJewish,furtherfosteringthosesentimentswithin both authority and the populace. Von der verheerenden Wiener Gesera 1420/1421, die dem jüdischen Leben im Herzogtum Österreich ein Ende setzte, bis zur Vertreibung der Salzburger Juden 1498,130 wurde der jüdischen Existenz in den österreichischen Gebieten im Laufe des 15. Jahrhunderts gewaltsen bereamite ein. InthebeautifulilluminationofanearlyfourteenthcenturyMahzor,awoman andamanduringaweddingscenearedepicted(seeFigure4).Theman,cladin acloakofanoffishwhiteanddarkgreengarments,wearsacornutedhat,andhis handreachesouttowardshispresumptivebride.Itisthefigureofthebridethat isunusualnotthegarmentsinreversedcolors,thecloakbrimmedwithfur,and thehintatathronewhichsheissittingon,buttheacrownonherheadandthe blindfoldacrosshereyescomeasasurprise.TheconnectionwiththeChristian iconography is clear, the reference to the numerous statues and depictions of
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Wilhelm Wattenbach, ed.", vol.II/1,454; Alfred Haverkamp, "The Persecution of the Jews in the Time of the Black Death", on the history of the Jews in late medieval and early modern Germany, ed. Alfred Haverkamp See AlbrechtClassen's contribution to this volume, on the example of Hans Sachs; Friedhelm Burgard, Alfred Haverkamp, and Gerd Mentgen (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1999), 135–64; With emphasis on the financial aspect, see David Nirenberg, "Why the king had to protect the Jews and why he had to persecute them", The power of the king: rule in Europe from the early Middle Ages to the modern age, ed. Bernhard Jussen (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2005), 225–40 and 390–92. Brugger, "Settlement", 221–27, with reference to additional literature.
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Synagogue was defeated with her blindfold, her staff broken and the crown slipped from her head, Ecclesia triumphed with her crowned head, often looking at her with some suspicion (see Figures 1, 2 and 3). Here the roles are reversed, the Christian figure is blindfolded and the Jew can see, but both figures approach each other. Encounter, contact and interaction were inevitable, neither Christian nor Jewish authorities could prevent Christians and Jews from meeting daily in their common living space of a medieval city. No group is homogeneous, Jews and Christians also some at various social levels, where the personal level of encounter is often determined by belonging to a comparatively similar social class. but with the changes in the economic, social and ecclesiastical climate, and by will, or at least by lack of interest, of the powerful, these neighborhood relations broke down in violence and expulsion. WhiletheacademicfocushaswidenedasfarasJewishhistoryisconcerned duringthepastdecadestoencompassbroader,andmoredifferent,questions,it is,inmanyregards,stilladesideratumforJewishhistorytobefullyintegrated intothehistoryofaregion,city,ortopicratherthantobetreatedinafootnoteor, atthebest,aseparatechapter.Jewsdoplayaroleinurbanhistory,claimingtheir spaceswithinmedievalcitiesandinteractinginmanywaysandonmanylevels, theirhistorybeing,inthecasedealtwithhere,asmuchurbanasitisAustrianand Jewish.
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Figure 1: Statue from the synagogue, Bamberg Cathedral, circa 1230
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Figure 2: Statue of the synagogue, Strasbourg Cathedral, ca. 1225
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Figure 3: Statue da Ecclesia, Strasbourg Cathedral, ca. 1225
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Figure 4: Mahzor representing a wedding couple, the bride, with the typical objects of the Ecclesia, with her eyes blindfolded, which is the distinguishing feature of synagogues in Christian representations, around 1330, (Hamburg State and University Library)
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Figure 5: Decoration in the “Lower Austrian Rand band style”, Missale, second half of the 19th century (Stiftsbibliothek Klosterneuburg, Cod.74)
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Figure 6: Certificate of purchase from the monastery of Kremsmünster (Upper Austria) with the associated Hebrew certificate (Kremsmünster Abbey Archives, 29 April 1305, Hebrew and 3 May, German)
Rosa Alvarez Perez (Southern Utah University)
NextNext door: aspects of Jewish-Christian coexistence in medieval France
ThecomplexrelationsJewsandChristiansdevelopedinNorthernFrancebetween theeleventhandthefourteenthcenturiespriortotheirfinalexpulsionin1394 revealthedistinctboundariesthatmappedanddemarcatedthepermissiblezones ofcontactandinteraction.Despitemultiplerestrictions,individualsfromthetwo divergentcommunitiesdidcrosstherealandvirtualbordersofsocialseparation andcreatedtemporal'pockets'ofmoreviablerelationships.IfingeneralJewish women'sactivitiesduringthatperiodaffectedmostlythelocalcommerce,leaving minimalifanytracesintheFrencharchives,thefewdocumentsthatremaindo neverthelessattesttotheirinvolvement.ThisaspectofJudeoChristianrelations has often gone unnoticed until recently when Rebecca L. Winer and Elisheva Baumgarten began working respectively on Jewish women in Mediterranean FranceandSpain ,andGermany.1WhileWinerfocusesonthecityofPerpignan, aCatalancityinthethirteenthcentury,IexaminetheNorthernFrenchJewish communities,socially,linguistically,andculturallyindependentfromthoseofthe south,whichareconsideredAshkenazisincetheysharedsimilartraditionswith GermanJews,2andunliketheirbrethrenintheSouth,thesecommunitieshavenot beenasabundantlystudiedanddocumented.3Theyalsoofferanexcellentbasis forastudyofthedevelopmentoftheeconomyandtheestablishmentofnumerous
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Rebecca L. Winer, “Silent Partners? Women, trade and family in medieval Perpignan c. 1250–1300”, Ph.D. Diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1996; Elisheva Baumgarten, Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004); for more information on urban Jewish life in Germany, see also Birgit Wiedl's article in this volume. See David Shohet, TheJewishCourtintheMiddleAges:StudiesinJewishJurisprudenceaccordingtotheTalmud,GeonicandMedievalGermanResponsa (NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1931). Eliakim Carmoly, Bibliographie des Israélites de France (Frankfurt.M.: G. Hess, 1968), 7.
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Jewish communities at this time. In a micro context, I will therefore examine the interactions between the two communities that lived so closely together and, in particular, the recurrent exchanges between women of both faiths. Althoughtheterm“invisibility”isperhapsanoverusedclichéinrelationto women,itremainsrelevantformedievalJewishwomenwhohavebeentrapped forsolongina“fictionalrole,”livinginasocietythathighlyvaluedspirituality andstressedmalepreeminence.ThecommunitiesofNorthernFrancewereindeed renowned for their spiritual leaders in the fields of Talmudic studies, Biblical exegesis,andmysticalspeculations.4Womenthuswereinstructedtocomplywith BiblicalmatriarchalmodelsprescribedbyHalakha(religiouslaw).Insuchafervent environment, the more ordinary aspects of everyday life were not considered registrable; Thus, historically, the social and economic influence of these women, who were more able to participate in community life than the godly men in their communities, was easily overlooked. In line with the concept of zahkor (remembrance) ajortenet in traditional Jewish practices and teachings,5 Jewish recorders of events, in their own way, erased women and resolved their past within the framework of general historical discourse. The memory of past times was recombined to reflect the aspirations and struggles of the community and, more importantly, to report the dramatic moments experienced by the communities. The maneuverability of Jewish women was thus caught between social mores and religious obligations and, despite their recognized entrepreneurial skills, they remained in a subservient position. Undeniably,Jewishscholarshiphasremainedpredominantlythestudyofmale Jews,consideredthedefaultvalueoftheirculture.Withinsuchaperspective,the centralfigureoftheJewcouldonlybe“thebodywiththecircumcisedpenis—an imagecrucialtotheveryunderstandingoftheWesternimageoftheJewatleast sincetheadventofChristianity.”6WhileJewishStudieshavetakenasharpturn inthepastseveraldecadeswithnewresearchgeneratingnewperspectivesthat have greatly affected the outlook of this field of study, Jewish feminism only emerged as a new current in Jewish thought during the 1990s,7 generating an
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Robert Chazan, "Compilation of Twelfth Century Persecutions of Ephraim Ben Jacob", Jewish Quarterly Review 84 (1993-94): 397-416,397. Sarah Silberstein Swartz and Margie Wolfe, eds., FromMemorytoTransformation:JewishWomen's Voices (Toronto:SecondStoryPress,1998),9. Sander Gilman, The Jew's Body (New York and London: Routledge, 1991), 4-5. See, to name a few, contributions to On Being a Jewish Feminist, edited by Susannah Heschel (New York: Schocken Books, 1995); Paula Hyman, Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History: The Role and Representation of Women (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995); Judith Baskined., Jewish Women in Historical Perspective (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991); Bernadette
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lively debate that recontextualized the actual position and role of Jewish women in their own communities. Inmedievalsociety,Jewishcommunities,shapedbysocialisolation,hadcome toinhabitaninbetweenspace,aspacethatElizabethGroszdefinesasaposition ofpossiblemovementanddevelopment,butinterestinglyenoughalsoasaspace forcontestation.8Wemightalsocallita‘thirdspace.’Indeedintheabsenceof legitimacy,Jewishappropriationofspace,withinthecitiesandtowns,wasaway ofreclaimingspace,bothspatiallyandsymbolically.Buteventhisliminalpresence wasinitselfaformofexcessintheeyeofChristiansociety,andthedisruptive functionofthisexcesssignificantlyrenderedthesecommunitiesinassimilable.But inspiteofthedifficultiesofcoexistence,Jewsneverthelessinhabitedthemargins ofsociety,addingdiversitytourbanlifeinmedievalFrance. The assertion of the French Tosaphist 9 R. Jacob Tam (died 1171) that "less than ten years ago some Omesusot (mezuzah (sing.): wrapped parchment placed on the doorposts of Jewish houses) were found in our kingdom" 10, is intriguing. Does this statement emphasize the rapid expansion of Jewish communities, or was the famous rabbi suspicious of oversight in applying this statement to a specific religious command, as some scholars have suggested? population, but also the establishment of multiple Jewish communities Mid-12th century
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Brooten, Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Aviva Cantor, The Jewish Woman, 1900-1985: A Bibliography (Nova York: BiblioPress, 1987); Judith Hauptman, Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman's Voice (Boulder: WestviewPress, 1998); Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law (Nova York: Schocken Books, 1984). Elizabeth Grosz, Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space (Cambridge, MA:MIT, 2001), 92–93. Os Tosafistas comentaram o trabalho de Rashion, o Talmude. Elliot Horowitz, “The Way We Were: Jewish Life in the Middle Ages,” Jewish History 1–3 (1986–1988):75–90;aqui77. Bernhard Blumenkranz, Juifsetchrétiensdanslemondeoccidental (430–1096). Série Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études (França). Seção des Sciences Economiqueset Sociales. Études Juives, 2 (Paris: Mouton & Co, 1960). Robert Ian Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe (950-1250) (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 60.
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there were at least fifteen major rabbinic schools in France.13 But despite their growing reputation as religious centers exercising authority over matters of civil and ceremonial law, the communities of northern France remained small, independent entities that managed to maintain their isolation within a balance of Christian majority. an important network of exchanges and an active correspondence. WhileearlierJewsinFrancehadbeennotonlyurbandwellers,butalsorural landowners and wine producers, the situation started to change by the tenth century.Inamovementofgeneraldefection,Jewsprogressivelymigratedtothe growingtowns,abandoningruralsettlements.R.JosephBonfils,awellknown Frenchscholaroftheeleventhcentury,calleditajustifiedchangeinaresponsum addressedtotheJewsofTroyes.Hefurtherexplainedthatthepossessionoffields waslessprofitablethanmoneyinvestedincommerce,whichbroughtgreatprofits andcouldeasilybewithdrawnintimesofcrisis.14ThesalecontractsinwhichJews had previously appeared as buyers of land showed them thereafter mostly as sellers,achangethatacceleratedbetweentheeleventhandthetwelfthcenturies.15 Themovementtowardthecitiesandtownsclearlyappearsintheexamination of the topography of the cities of Paris, Sens, Troyes, Rouen, Senlis, Soissons, Auxerre,Chartres,Provins,Orléans,andEtampes,indicatingthatbytheeleventh centuryamajorityoftheJewslivedneartheroyalornoblepalaces.16Butifthe movewasoftenmotivatedbyeconomicreasons,ironicallythecitybecamelater onforJewsamandatoryplaceofresidence,sanctionedbytheroyalordinanceof April1289 This statute prohibited Jews from further settling in small towns and rural areas.17 The grouping of Jews into administrative centers was certainly dictated by the desire to exercise tighter control over these groups. If the servants had been
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Norman Golb, The Jews in Medieval Normandy: A Social and Intellectual History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 174. Jacob Mann, The ResponsaoftheBabylonianGeonimasaSourceofJewishHistory(Philadelphia:The DropsieCollegeforHebrewanandCognateLearning, 1918),319. SiméonLuce,“Cataloguedes documentsduTrésordesChartes,”RevuedesEtudesJuives1–2 (1880–81):15–72;here62.Aftertheexpulsionof1306,in1309Jewswerestillowningagricultural landinChampagne:“...heritagesdesJuifsd'AndelotsisàAndelotetaufinagedecetteville, consistantenchampscultivés,prairiesetvignobles...,”1309,29November,Paris(JJ41 ,Folio 91,92Nr.156). Brigitte Bedos Rezak, „The Confrontation of Orality and Textuality: Jewisand Christian Literacy in On ElevenhandTwelfth CenturyNorthernFrance“,SedRajna,Gabrielleed.,Rashi1040–1090: HommageàEphraïmE.Urbach(Paris:EditionsduCerf,1993),541–88;hier551. Gustave Saige, Les Juifsdu LanguedocantérieurementauXIVesiècle (Paris: A. Picard, 1881) 212,223. Neben anderen Verboten verbot Philip the Bold Juden das Leben in Kleinstädten (Fonds Doat, Band XXXVII, Blatt 197); dieses Dekret wurde von Philip the Fair em abril de 1291 wiederholt (Fonds Doat, Band XXXVII, Blatt 211).
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Emancipados em grande escala na região de Paris no século XIII,18 os judeus tornaram-se servos da coroa nos séculos XI e XII. Jewishbodieshadbecomethepropertyeitherofthekingoroffeudallords.19 Thefeudalsystem,arigidlytopdownstructure,establishedbetween950and 1150,20resultedinthefragmentationofpoliticalauthority.21Thelackofcentralized authorityinmedievalFrancegaveJewstheopportunitytoestablishautonomous communalentities.AlthoughTalmudiclawenabledJewishcommunalauthorities toexercisesocialcontrolwithpunitivemeasuresforthesuppressionofcrime,22 they only imposed minor sentences like the “bastonnade” and turned to the secularauthoritiesfortheapplicationofmajorpunishments.23Theperiodbetween theninthandtheeleventhcenturiesconstitutesacomparativelylenienttimein whichtherulesofsegregationwerenotsystematicallyenforced,andwithonly sporadicspurtsofviolence.24 TheinfluencethatJewishleaderscouldexertisillustratedbytheinformative case of Lyons, a Cidade que foi um importante centro comercial na encruzilhada entre Itália, Espanha e Alemanha durante o período carolíngio (780-900). Seu mercado semanal de sábado proibiu os judeus de se envolverem em transações comerciais e, ao fortalecer o poder real, Irving Agus afirma que os judeus estavam em uma posição mais forte para negociar os termos de seu acordo com o poder local.25
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Olivier Martin, HistoiredelacoutumedelaprévôtétvicomtédeParis, vol.1 (Paris:ErnestLeroux, 1922),21. L'Histoire des InstitutionsetdelavieprivéeenBourgogne, ed. Jules Simonnet (Dijon: Imprimerie Rabutot, 1867), 399-400 (f.338). uma família judia foi doada a um certo Vigier; Robert Fossier, "Remarquessurl'étudedescommotionssocialesauxXIeetXIIesiècles", Cahiers deCivilisationMédiévale16-1(1973):45-50;aqui45. Oliver Martin, 42. Rabi Meiro de Rothenburg, His Life and His Works as Sources for the religioso, lega and Social History of Germany in the Thirteenth Century, ed. Irving A. Agus (Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1947), 55n (resposta de R. Joseph Bonfils, L423). Simon Schwartzfuchs, Kahal: La Communautéjuive del'Europemédiévale (Paris: Maisonneuveet Larose, 1986), 105-06. Jacob Katz, Exclusivity and Tolerance: Studies in Medieval and Modern Jewish-Gentile Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 9. Irving Abraham Agus, Urban Civilization in Pre Crusade Europe: A Study of Organized Town Life in Northwestern Europe during the TenthandEleventhCenturiesBaseontheResponsaLiterature(Novo
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Communities emerge and find expression, argues Elizabeth Grosz, not only through the recognition and establishment of common interests, values, and needs, but also through the marginalized groups that reject them.26 The signs that define these "others" reinforce stability from the community centre, the signs of the medieval city were not only carved in stone, but also drawn on bodies that moved in space like the Jewish body with its yellow or red felt cloth,27 the only brightly colored garment that was allowed to be worn . Jews were not the only individuals to wear a mark of humiliation; Prostitutes and lepers were also carriers of signs that isolated and separated them from the dominant society. Officiallytoleratedaswitnessofthefaith,thedisruptiveandculturallymarked categoryofJewsservedasthecatalystforChristianculturalfears.28TheChristian preponderant and central position in medieval society was certainly due to refusingandmarginalizingJewishpresence.TheantiJewishsentimentsthatwere stirred up beginning with the First Crusade denote how medieval sensibility channeled by Churchinfluenceandpressurestronglyreactedtoandopposed diversityinallitsmanifestations.Coexistencewithaculturalotherconstituteda challengeandamenacethatcompelledChristianstoresorttoviolenceasaradical wayofnegotiatingdifference. Fear of Jewish environmental pollution was the main concern of Christians and led secular and religious authorities to punish Jewish transgressors. As various parliamentary records show, the population was anxious to ensure that the Jews had not committed any wrongdoing; for this reason, individuals have not tried to take the law into their own hands and impose immediate punishments, for example, beating Jewish women who violate the Christian prohibition against bathing in rivers
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York: Yeshiva University Press, 1965), 17. Grosz, Architecture from the Outside, 152. Michael Camille, "Signs of City, Place, Power and Public Imagination in Medieval Paris", "Medieval Practices of Space", ed. Barbara A. Hanawalt e Michal Kobialka. Medieval Cultures, 23 (Minneapolis e Londres: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 1-36; aqui28. Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jews in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley, Los Angeles e Londres: University of California Press, 1999). Veja Léon Brunchwicg, "Les Juifs d'Angersetdupaysangevin", Revuedes Etudes Juives 28-29 (1894): 229-44; aqui239
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This could happen where Jewish women in small communities, without the necessary funds to build a mikvah (ritual bath), were forced to resort to rivers for their monthly purification ritual to fulfill the religious commandment (nidah). although it was strictly forbidden to the Jews. The Church, as the main controller of social homogenization, assumed an ambiguousandcontradictorypositionregardingJewishcommunities.Although initsofficialdiscoursetheChurchpromotedtolerancetowardaminoritythatwas partofthe‘symbolicorder,’inrealitytherewasnotadefinitesenseofacceptance, andJewishinclusionintosocietywaslimited.Thefirstlegalprescriptionimposing onJewsthewearingofamarkofrecognitiongoesbacktotheFourthLateran decreeof1215.30 Inthefollowingyearsanddecades,additionalprovincialsynods,royaldecrees, andtownordinancesenforcedthisdecreeinavarietyofmodulationsuntiltheir expulsion from the kingdom of France. However, it remains unclear in what precise periods, and to what extent in what cities and towns, this law was effectivelyimposedontheJewishpopulation.QuiteafewcasesinFrenchofficial recordsattesttoanddocumenttheviolenceJewsbroughtonthemselveswhen theytransgressed againstthisregulation,andaccordingtotheserecords,men ratherthanwomenweregenerallytheonessubjected,tovariousdegrees,toinsult, assault,andtheftbyindividualsiftheywererecognizedasJews31inthetown's streetsandnotwearingtheprescribedbadge.32Itisalsotruethatinmostcasesa beardedappearancetargetedmorementobesubjectedtoaninquisitivegaze,to besingledout, and being exposed to abuse and violence.
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Fontainele Comte Abbey Documents: XII-XIII Century (Poitiers: Société des archives historiqueduPoitou, 1982) T.25: "she was bathing in the river ClainatPoitiers." CharlesJosephHefele,HistoiredesConcilesdaprèslesdocumentsoriginaux(Paris:LetouzeyetAné, 1913),Vol.5:Can. canonically characteristic Jewish characters. Sara Lipton, Images of Intolerance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). see also Bernhard Blumenkranz, Le Juifmédiévaaumiroirdel'artchrétien (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1966); Jules Viarded., Les Journals du Trésorde Philippe IV LeBel (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1940), XVI. The Jews were the king's property. The Saint Louis decree of June 18, 1269 required Jews to wear a badge of scarlet cloth or felt.
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The social divide between Christians and Jews was promoted and encouraged by the Church, but residency requirements did not become commonplace until the late 13th century. Wealthy Jewish families could circumvent the ban and live among Christians if they paid an additional tax. AnexaminationoftheregistersoftheChâteletfortheperiodbetween1389and 1392clearlyatteststoJewishChristianurbancoexistence.Inseveralinstances, Christianindividualsarrestedforpettycriminaloffensesaredescribedasliving inorattheperipheryoftheJewishquarter,asinthefollowing: EnQuareismedernièrementpassévolerentdansunhostelunepairededrapsdelit ...lesvendirentàLorencelaPicarde,demourantauboutdelarueausJuifs.33 [DuringLentenseason,theystolefromaninnapairofbedsheets...(and)soldthem toLorencethePicard,livingattheendoftheJew’sstreet]
In this apparently purely informative narrative, the writer contrasts Christin Lorence's illegal activities and the urban space within the Jewish quarter. Whether intentional or not, the comment nevertheless suggests making a connection between the dodgy businesses and their location. No accusations are made, but suspicions are raised, and if indeed Jews were occasionally involved in the trade in stolen goods,34 it was the case that Christians generally understood the practice to be common. Gilbert Dahan argues that there were no typically French-Jewish neighborhoods in medieval French cities and, moreover, that there is no common history for these neighborhoods. the inhabitants were easily uprooted by expulsions that implied a homogeneous Christian identity. Still, Jews who operated outside the social order tended to congregate near a synagogue and mikveh for religious purposes. They followed the pattern of occupation of medieval urban space, in which the streets tended to bring together members of the same society or individuals with similar interests. The City of Paris tax list for the year 1292 is a good index
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CharlesLahure, ed., Register Crimineldu ChâteletdeParis (September 6, 1389 to May 18, 1392), 2 vols., (Paris:CharlesLahure, 1861) vol. 1377 (August 151390). Edgard Boutaric, ed., Acts of the Parliament of Paris. 2 flights. (Paris: Plön, 1863–1867), 2283 "Order for the Defense of Christians and Christian Women to Abide in Jewish Dwellings, That the Servants of the Jews may Guard Them There" (OlimIIfol.50ro). Gilbert Dahan, "Quartier JuifetruedesJuifs", Art and Archeology of the Jews in Medieval France, ed. Bernhard Blumenkranz (Toulouse: Private, 1980), 15-32; 21-28.
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Phenomenon.36 The Jewish taxpayers, listed in a separate section at the end of the list, lived in a very small area a few streets away from the city. In a later account of the neighborhoods of Jewish communities, Nicolas Delama gives a description of medieval Paris, information he obtained from the Chronicle of St. Denis, known as The Great Chronicle. in hastily built shoddy houses and in dark, narrow streets closed at night. In northern France, Germany and England, most Jewish communities were very small, representing at most 1 or 2% of the city's population.39 Although the percentage was small, the number of individuals and families eligible to reside in the city was limited. and strictly regulated. Delamare'sdescriptionofamedievalJewishquarterdoesnotdiffermuchfrom descriptionsofotherpopulatedquartersinanygiventownorcity.Therefore, livingincrampedquartersanddarknarrowstreetswascommonplace,andthe deplorablesanitaryconditionsofthecitieswerenotorious.PhilipAugustuswas offendedbytheloathsomesmellofthestreetsofParis,whichrequiredeveryyear alevyofahundredthousandfrancstoremovethemud.Theywere“...noires, puantesd'uneodeurinsupportableauxétrangers,quipiqueetçafaitsentirà3ou 4lieuesàlaronde.”[black,smellingofanodorwhichisunbearabletoforeigners, whichoffendsandcanbesmelledupto3or4leagues.]TheKingorderedacertain numberofstreetstobepavedtoreducethepestilence.41 The majority of Jews became residents of the city until their final expulsion, but often the only physical trace of the Jewish presence left in any city is a street bearing the name “rueaux juifs”.
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Hercule Géraud, ParissousPhilippeleBel: d'apresunmanuscritcontenant "lerôledelataille" imposed on the inhabitants of Paris in 1292 (Paris: Crapelet, 1837). Jules Viard, ed., Les Grandes Chroniques de France, 8 vols. (Paris: Société del'Histoirede France, 1920). Nicolas Delamare, Traité de Police, 4 vols., (Paris: Michel Brunet, 1722), vol. 1,301. Salo W. Baron, "The Jewish Factor in Medieval Civilization," Facets of Medieval Judaism, ed. Seymour Sieggel (New York: Arno Press, 1973), 1-48; here6. Edgard Boutaric, Actes, after 1948. Henri Sauval, Histoireetrecherches: Les AntiquitésdelavilledeParis, 2 vols., (Paris: C. Moette, 1724), vol. 1, 187. For further discussion of this topic from an early modern perspective, see Allison P. Coudert's contribution to this volume. Golb, The Jews of Medieval Normandy, 75.
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of the Jewish presence was discarded, even eliminated. New residents were installed, new activities followed, supplanting the Jewish memory. Thus, when Philip Augustus expelledtheJewsin1182,inParisalonethesynagogueandatotaloffortytwo houses, twentyfour in rue de la Pelleterie and eighteen in rue de la Vieille Draperie,43wereconfiscatedbytheroyalofficersandsoldtomerchantsordonated asgiftsbythekingtotheChurchortoloyalroyalofficers.44 ThepoliticallandscapeofmedievalFrancewasfarfromhomogeneousandits fragmentationcausedJewstoliveunderdifferentrulesandregulationsaccording to the authority in place. In a changed political and urban environment, 45 Jews were admitted back to Paris in 1198 but were not allowed to occupy their old quarter in the heart of the city. This time they were relegated to the new city limits close to the fortifications, just outside the walls, in a neighborhood called Les Champeaux. Re-established in Paris, the Jews organized themselves into two distinct communities: a populous46 and well-oriented business community on the right bank of the Seine; the other on the left bank, which was the domain of the intellectuals, where members of the school of São Victor dared to take Hebrew veritas from the Jewish masters.47 In this more dispersed habitat, the Jews had two synagogues, a mill and two cemeteries. Philip the Bold prohibited Jews, regardless of the size of their community, from having more than one synagogue and cemetery per city.49 Jews were also specifically prohibited from singing loudly during their services. This particular ordinance was enforced in Paris in 1288
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Bernhard Blumenkranz, Jews in France, Scattered Writings (Paris: Diffusion Belles-Lettres, 1989), 104. Henri Gross, transl. Moïse Bloch, Gallia Judaica. , the halleauble of the Jewish quarter; see also Léopold Delisle, Catalogs Actes de Philippe Auguste (Paris: Durand, 1856). schoolsruedelaTacherie, see Henri Sauval, History and research: Les Antiquitésdelaville de Paris, vol.1,21. John W. Baldwin, The Decisive Decade: The Years 1190-1203 in the Reign of Philip Augustus, Revue Historique 266(1981):311-37. Robert Anchel, Les Juifs de France (Paris: Janin, 1946), 65-66; A survey of the 1292 tax list clearly shows that the vast majority of Paris's population lives on the right bank of the city. Isidore Loeb, "The Talmud Controversy of 1240", Revue des Etudes Juives 1-2 (1880-1881): 247-61; here249. Aryeh Graboïs, "A Jewish Intellectual Center in Paris on the Left Bank of the 12th-13th Centuries". Century?" RevuesEtudesJuives131(1972):223–24. MichelRoblin, "The Jewish Cemeteries of Paris in the Middle Ages", Paris and Ilede France Memoires 4 (1952): 7-20.
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the Jewish community was condemned to pay a fine of three hundred parisi poundsforbreakingtheregulation.50 Theomnipresentandhauntingfigureofthemoneylenderandusurerappearing in Christian exempla51 points to the means of employment that many Jews did indeedturntosincemanyotherpossibletradesandoccupationswereforbidden tothem.However,againstthegenerallyacceptedassertionthatJewswerenot artisans,namesofthatperiodareoftenproofthattheywereborrowedfromthe professionthesemenwerepracticing,likeCorrigarius(makerofstrapsorgirdles), Vaginarius (gainier) ,52 or lotin (peddlers).53 Without access to the trades that allowed for a wider market protected by powerful guilds,54 they had to rely on Christian craftsmen and workers to provide goods and services, which they did not master, for example, as butchers. , bakers, winemakers, barbers, soap makers, embroiderers, tallit and tzizit weavers, scribes, and bookbinders.56 Jewish communities were able to circumvent obstacles and influence city affairs. Money lending and usury are the most prominent aspects of regular and repeated interactions between the Christian and Jewish communities.
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Théophile Cochard, La Juiveried'Orléans (1895; Marseille: Laffitte Reprints, 1976), 115; (Bailliede Paris 1288: "De emendâ Judaeorum pro eo quod nimis old cantaverunt, IIIe lib. Parisis"); Apparently he was not a loner, he complained: the Precheurs Mineurs de Troyes complained to Philip the Long that the Jew was noisily spraying in their synagogue and that they were disturbing them. Frowald Gil Hüttenmeister, "Synagogues and Cemeteries in Medieval Champagne", Rashi 1040-1990: HommageàEphraïmUrbach, ed. Gabrielle SedRajna(Paris:LesEditionsduCerf,1993), 579-85;here583. Jacques Le Goff, The Stock Exchange and Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages (Paris: Hachette, 1986). MichelRoblin, The Jewish Cemeteries of Paris in the Middle Ages, Paris and Ilede France (Memoirs) 4 (1952): 7-20; here 14–15. P.PiétressondeSaintAubin, "DocumentéditrelatifauxjewsdeTroyes", LeMoyenAge31 (1920–1921):84–86;here85.(Arch.del'Aube7H.136fo131,Helieus,filiusDouceronlajuyve). For protection against Jewish interference, see Etienne Boileau, Le Livredesmétiers: "It should be required that no male worker may buy silk from Jews, nor from spinners, nor from anyone else, but from singers, not from spinners, nor from other nobody. , but; "Our Jews of the city of Paris cannot buy a coarse and wordy silk rug of this kind, except from a proper and proper dealer, nor can anyone buy it to sell bourreedesoi, seelen'estboulie" [378; Aryeh Graboïs, "Christian urban society in northern France in the 11th century, seen through the Responsade Rashi", Revue historique 296 (1996): 241–52; here250. Mark Wischnitzer, A History of Jewish Crafts and Guilds (New York: Jonathan David Publishers, 1965), xx-xxi.
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NorthernFrance.Constantmonetarydemandsfromthetwelfthcenturyonwere certainlyoneofthefactorsallowingnumerousJewishwomentheopportunityto participatealongsideofJewishmenintheeconomicsphereoftheregion.Forthat matter,asZeevFalkargues,FrancoAshkenaziJewishlawaccordedtobusinesswomenthecapacitytocontractontheirownbehalfandtoappearincourtwithorwithoutrepresentation.Inamoneys provided to all valuable commodity groups inseeconomy,theintercommunalservice society. No entanto, sua posição na "complexa interface de fatores temporais, culturais e sociais"57 expõe a eles e a todos os members da comunidade à manipulação e exploração. Unefemmesortitdelasynagogueavantquelacommunautén'eutfinideprier.Elle envoyasaservanteàsonmaripourluidemanderlaclé.Lorsqu'ilsortitàsontourde lasynagogue,ildemandaàsonépousepourquoielleavaiteubesoindesclés.Elle répondit que des chrétiennes étaient venues chercher leurs objets engagés parce qu'ellesdevaientalleràl'église.Lemariluiditqu'elleavaiteutortdesortirdela synagogueetd'envoyerchercherlesclésafindeleurremettrelesobjetsengagés,avec lesquelsellesiraientàl'église.Elleavaitfaitpassercequiétaitdétestableavantcequi étaitsacré.59 [Awomanleftthesynagoguebeforethecommunityhadfinishedpraying Ao sair da sinagoga, perguntou à esposa por que ela precisava das chaves. Ela colocou o abominável antes do sagrado.]
Like his Christian contemporary Caesarius von Heisterbach, Rabbi Yehudah the Hasid, in his Sefer Hasidim, used example to teach and frequently draws his stories from a common reservoir of Germanic and other folk tales. This example serves to demonstrate the inability of women to separate material and
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Arjun Appadurai, „Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value“, Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Hrsg. Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986),15. Vgl. Diane Peters Auslander, "Victims or Martyrs: Children, Anti-Semitism and the Stress of Change in Medieval England", Childhood in the Middle on Renaissance: The Results of a Paradigm Shift in the History of Mentality, Hrsg. Albrecht Classen (Berlin and New York: Walterde Gruyter, 2005), 105–34. JudahbenSamuel, Sefer Chassidim, trans.RabbiEdouard Gourévitch(Paris:EditionsduCerf,1988), 332(Pa.465;Bol.783).
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Because Jewish women are not bound by prayer time like men are, and their participation in the synagogue's liturgical ritual is limited to a more passive presence in silent prayer, they are more aware of and responsive to the needs of Christian borrowers. The passage also reveals a very interesting perspective, the Jewish woman's desire to return home and retrieve the pledges. Trust plays an important role as liens are returned to borrowers for a short period of time before being returned. Non-denominational communication only seems to be possible between women. Disputes over high loan interest rates certainly contributed to urban violence and exacerbated conflicts between the two communities. In one of the documented cases of a murder of Jews that took place in Montargis (in the Orléanais region) at the end of the 14th century, a fight broke out between two unidentified Jewish women, allegedly the wives of Eliot Salman and Moreau du Bourc, and Valenète, a Christian, on the other hand. When Moreau,oneofthehusbands,joinedthefight,thedisproportionbetweenthetwo sidesledtothedeathofValenète.Homicidecommittedcollectivelybyagroup wasfrequentinmedievalsociety,wherethebondsofmutualdependenceamong familymembersandkinwerestrong.ThethreeJewswereimprisonedandtheir belongings(as‘Jewsoftheking’)immediatelyconfiscatedbyroyalofficials.60The cause of the quarrel remains unknown, although the mention of “spouses of moneylenders”inthecourtstatementmightbeanindicationthatmoneywasthe trigger. Gérard Nahon61 and William Chester Jordan, in their studies of Picard's mid-twelfth-century notes (Supplementum: Queremoniae contra judaeos), emphasized the role of Jewish women in the credit business.
60
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Théophile Cochard, La Juiveried d'Orléans du VIeau XViècles, Son Histoire et Son Organization (1895; Marselha: Laffitte Reprints, 1976), 149-50. Ver Gérard Nahon, “Credit and the Jews in 13th Century France”, Annales(ESC)24(1969): 1121–1148; "Para uma geografia administrativa dos judeus em Saint Louis France (1226-1270)", RevueHistorique253-254 (1975): 305-44. William Chester Jordan, "Relações judaico-cristãs na França do meio do século XIII: um enquete inédito da Picardia", Revue des Etudes Juives 138 (1979): 47–55.
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Christian counterparts,63 and for obscure reasons, these medieval Jewish businesswomen left fewer contracts than their male counterparts.64 As Roger Khon argues, it was true that, according to the documents, most women handled small loans and probably preferred liens to liens. contractual loans that required notary fees. Die Kreditnehmer – Bauern, Handwerker, and workers—were often in need of small shortterm funds, and the only possessionstheycoulddepositassecuritywerecookingvessels,bedding,and clothingitems.Intherecurrentpatternthatemerged,Christiansattemptedon manyoccasionstorejectandeliminateJewsonlytodiscoverthattheyweretoo dependentuponthem.Andwhenfinallytheydecidedtogetridofthemin1394, itwassimplybecausethepracticeofmoneylendinghadbeenincreasinglyused byChristiansnolongerfearingtheChurch.65 This visible and documented aspect of Jewish participation in the economic sectorconcealedtherolethatJewishwomenplayed.ThetaxrollofthecityofParis for the year 1292 lists a total of 125 Jewish taxpayers, one of the largest communitiesinthekingdomofFrance.Fiftyfivearewomen,representingforty fourpercentoftheJewishtaxpayers.Whileacloselookatthesenumbersreveals thatsixteenpercentofthemwererecordedinconjunctionwiththeirhusbandsand thuswithoutanymentionoftheirownnames,twentyfivewomenarerecorded alone.And,inarareaddition,twowomenarementionedwithatradeoccupation, Joielafarinière(themiller)andSarrelamirgesse(thephysician). 66 Violence was a common aspect of urban life at all levels of society and, within this framework, violence between Jews and Christians was triggered not only by religious resentments, but also by everyday contacts.67 Proximities and differences
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Kenneth R. Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 203. Roger Kohn, Les JuifsdelaFranceduNorddanslasecondemoitiédu14èmesiècle(Louvain:E.Peeters, 1988),96. For German scholarship on Jewish communities, see Gerd Mentgen, Hans Jörg Gilomen, Markus Wenninger, and Michael Toch, The Jews in the Medieval Empire. Encyclopedia of German History, 44 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1998); Alfred Haverkamp, Municipalities, Communities and Forms of Communication in the High and Late Middle Ages: Celebrating the Completion of the 65th Year, ed. Friedhelm Burgard, Lukas Clemens and Michael Matheus (Trier: Kliomedia, 2002); Robert Chazan, Medieval Jews in Northern France (Politicalal Social Band: Ary John Hopkins University Press, 1973). See also contributions to German Literature Between Faiths: Jewand Christianat Oddsandin Harmony, editor Peter Meister, Studies in German Jewish History, 6 (Oxford, Bern, et al.: Peter Lang, 2004). Hercule Géraud, Parissous Philippe Bel (Paris: Crapelet, 1837), 178. For further histopic studies, see the contribution to Violence in Medieval Courtly Literature: A Casebook, ed. Albrecht Classen. Routlededge Medieval Casebooks (New York and London:
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aggravated complaints and led to frequent fights, French records show. Quarrelsomewomensquabblingwithneighborsandsusceptibleto“chaudecolle” wereanurbanreality.Inoneoftherarecasesofrecordedfemaleviolence,which tookplaceinDijoninAugust1388,Pérenote,wifeofJacquot(orPerinot)lePitoul, inflicted serious injury on a Jewish woman whose identity is reduced to the mentionofhermaritalstatus.Theviolentgestureisvividlydescribed,butthe causeoftheattackisleftout: ...qu'elleinjurieusementgitapleinuneponoicledechauxtouzchauxsurlevisaige delafemmeSauleminleJuifdontayeuetaydesempôlesauvisaige.68 [. ..that she threw a handful of hot lime in the face of the wife of Saulemin the Jew, bruising her and blistering her face.]
Pérenote was arrested and imprisoned. She was fined one franc, which was disproportionately low for such an injury. As a common practice, violence between people that did not end in death was punished with compensation or a fine. Medieval law imposed harsher penalties only when private property was violated. Contrary to popular belief, however, the interactions were not always violent. French rabbis, more lenient with some sources, allowed non-Jews to light fires in Jewish homes during the cold winter months, an act that violated Shabbat.70 The employment of Christian servants and wet nurses by Jewish families was, despite the prohibition by the Church, common practice and an important space for interaction between the women of the two communities. It opened up, as Elisheva Baumgarten attests, "a complex world of interactions", a theme she develops at length in her study of Jewish family life in northern Europe.71
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Routledge, 2004) See also Birgit Wied's contribution to this volume. Roger Kohn, The Jews of Northern France, 178. Judith M Bennett and Amy M Froide, "A Singular Past," Singlewomen in the European Past 1250–1800, eds. Judith M Bennett and Amy M Froide (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 1-37; here2 JacobKatz, The ShabbesGoy: A Study in Halachic Flexibility, trans. YoelLerner (Philadelphia and New York: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 57-66. Elisheva Baumgarten, Mother and Sons: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe, 2004.
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A narrative in a pardon letter (dated April 1375) also illustrates the women's complicity. The bailiff from Sens, who claimed that the spells were harmless and not “chosen by morssepeuten suivre”,73 dismissed the case and the two women were immediately released. Living with Christians was not only a source of anger, tension, and violence, but also offered the opportunity for closer contacts between Jews and Christians. However, when relationships were inevitable, sexual relationships - the transgression par excellence - represented a social rupture that both communities condemned and sought to prevent with various punitive measures. In this social context, the Jewish body was marked and prohibited, but at the same time the temptation to be different exerted an attraction on Christians and created an exus of contradictory desires that could not contain borders and prohibitions, often zones of fluid borders. Inresponsetointerfaithsexualrelations,Christianpunitivemeasuresvaried accordingtotheplacetheyoccurred,thenatureofthetransgressionandthesocial statusoftheperpetrator.SexualrelationsbetweenJewsandChristianswereoften punishedbydeathintheregionofAngers(thirteenthcentury).Christianmen accusedofsexualrelationshipswithJewishwomenwereburnedatthestakeif theywereconvicted.74Butonmanyoccasionsthesanctionwasindeedreplaced byafine.TheSynodofVienne(1267)appliedalighterpunishmentforsexual intercourse between Jews and Christians, declaring that the Jew who had fornicatedwithaChristianwomanwouldbesentencedtopayafineof10silver marks,75buttheaccusedChristianwomanwasbanishedfromthecityafterbeing flogged.76 The sentence applied to the The woman was much stricter, as she broke ties with family and relatives and abolished her status in society, while the man was free by paying a fine.
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Susan L. Einbinder, BeautifulDeath:JewishPoetryandMartyrdominMedievalFrance:Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 160. Roger Kohn, Die Juden Nordfrankreichs, 84. Léon Brunschvicg, “The Jews of Anger and the Angevin Country”, Revue des Etudes Juives 29–30 (1894–1895):229–44; hier239. Gérard Nahon, "Crédito e os judeus na França no século XIII", Annales (ESC) 24 (1969): 1121-1148. Arthur Beugnot, Die Juden des Westens (Paris: Imprimerie de Lachevardière Fils, 1824), 24.
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in investigations of prohibited sexual crimes, criminal convictions reveal unequal treatment between men and women.77 In 1397, a few years after the Jewish communities were disbanded and expelled from the kingdom of France, the remaining Jews in the territory were imprisoned or were treacherous merchants. Thestoryisremarkablebyallaccounts:hewasguilty,accordingtothehistorian HenriSauval,forallowingthechildrenhehadwithaJewishwomantopractice the religion of their mother.78 Johannes Gallus, in his judicial chronicle of the period,insistsonthesexualaspectoftherelationbetweentheChristianmanand theJewishwoman,presentingherasapollutingagent.GallustakestheChurch prohibitionastepfurtherandpresentstheguiltyrelationshipasasexualdeviance “contrenature,”abestialactpunishablebyburningatthestake: habereremcumJudea,proChristiano,estremhaberecumcane,jurisinterpretatione; siccoburidebet.”79 [Relationships with a Jewish woman are like relations with a dog to a Christian according to the interpretation of the law; therefore he must be cremated.]
Equating Jews with animals was just one of many derogatory practices that dehumanized Jews, and in this particular case the popular condemnation is transferred to the legal domain and incorporated into legal rhetoric.80 This case informs us indirectly about the presence of crypto-Jews in the city after the eviction. Did your father secretly convert to Judaism? The question remains unanswered, and whether Jean Hardy was accused of apostasy remains open. However, he met his death at the stake as a heretic. We have to speculate about the fate of the Jewess. Large numbers of Jews willingly or unwillingly succumbed to assimilation and conversion, but exact conversion figures are difficult to determine because accounts of conversions from Christian and Jewish sources served different purposes. Elisheva Carlebach notes that the most common pattern found in Jewish and Christian literary sources is that the husband initiated the conversion while the wife did.
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Kathryn Gravdal, Ravishing Maidens: Writing Rapein Medieval French Literature and Law. New Cultural Studies Series (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1991), 130. Henri Sauval, Histoireetrecherches: LesAntiquitésdelavilledeParis, Bd.2,510. JeanLeCoq,QuestionesJohannisGalli,ed.MargueriteBoulet.BibliothèquedesÉcolesFrançaises d'AthènesetdeRome,Fasc.156(Paris:E.deBoccard,1944),481–82,q.403(folio187). Esther Cohen, „SymbolsofCulpabilityandtheUniversalLanguageofJustice:TheRitualofPublicExecutionsinLateMedievalEurope“,HistoryofEuropeanIdeas11(1989):407–16;hier411.
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it tended toward resistance.81 The attitude of Christians toward Jewish women was more ambivalent. If they followed the premise that women are inherently a commodity subject to conversion, then they might assume that Jewish women would be more receptive to Christian teachings and therefore would accept conversion. InChristianreligiouseducationaltexts,Jewishmenwereseldomrepresentedas willingconvertstoChristianity;however,Jewishwomenfrequentlyappearedas moreeagertoembracetheChristianfaith.InTheDialogueonMiracles,aseriesof exempla destined for the instruction of novices, Caesarius of Heisterbach manipulatesJewishwomen'svisibilityinnarrativesofattractionandconversion toChristianity.TheclericaldiscourseontheattractionexertedbytheChristian faithonJewishwomenisratherevocative,depictingyoungJewishgirlsmorethan anxious to convert.82 Heisterbach offers us several portraits in which Jews are constructedthroughtherepetitiveuseofthearchetypeoftheyoungJewishgirl onlytoservetheideologicalinterestsoftheChurch. In the example, very young women are easily persuaded and persuaded to convert. Jewish men are portrayed as harmless and, as their masculinity is questioned, there are no examples of Christian women being seduced by Jews. In one of Caesarius of Heisterbach’s exempla of a converted Jewish girl, a curiousstoryladenwithelementsofpopularculture,thelatrinebecomesthefocal elementofascatologicalceremonyperformedbyaJewishmother.Bysubmitting herdaughtertoaparodyofChristianritual,sheattemptstoannulherdaughter’s conversionbyreversingtheritualofbaptismwiththefollowingwords: Ego, inquit Judaea, tribus vicibus te sursum traham per foramen latrinae, sicque remanebitibivirtusbaptismitui.83 [Iwoulddrawyouthreetimesthroughtheopeningofalatrineandthusthevirtueof yourbaptismwouldbeleftbehind.]84
Men do not appear in this story, in which the connection between women and magic is particularly significant. According to Carmen CaballeroNavas, the ritual invocation must be by the maternal lineage, which deeply resists
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Elisheva Carlebach, Divided Souls: Converts from Judaism in Germany, 1500–1750 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 31. Caesarius von Heisterbach, O Diálogo sobre Milagres, trad. H. by E. Scott e C. Swinton Bland, 2 vols. (Londres: Routledge, 1929), 107-09. Cesário Heisterbacensis, Dialogo dos Milagres. J.M. Heberle, 2 vols. (1851; Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press, 1966), 98-99. Caesarius von Heisterbach, The Dialogue on Miracles, 109–110.
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patriarchal principles.85 The mother is presented as a desecrator of the sacrament of baptism, which she perceives as an impure element that must be physically expelled from the body. And, according to popular belief, impurity must be expelled through the anus.86 This example emphasizes the power of Christianity over practices most associated with witchcraft; the mother-daughter confrontation will provide an opportunity to show the triumph of Christianity over such practices. [On the day of the Lord's resurrection, Christian women who nurse children of Jews partake of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The Jews let these women pour their milk into the latrine for three days before nursing the children again.]87
Living together made Jews a part of society, albeit a fragile one, and their reception and representation in literature led to a distorted image of them, to resentments and fantasies. through mainly negative representations, reflections that contain all the prejudices and misunderstandings of the denounced group. Jews, close neighbors in life, become fictional dark creatures that ooze hatred and are blamed for the underhanded behavior of a Christian character. 85
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Carmen Caballero Navas, editor and translator, The Book of Women's Love and Jewish Medieval Literature on Women(SeferAhavatNashim)(London;NewYork;Bahrain:KeganPaulLimited, 2004),53; according to the Abbey Mother: "All incantations repeated several times must contain the name of the patient's mother." Talmud Shab.66b. See Claude Gaignebet and J. Dominique Lajoux, Artprofaneereligionpopulaireaumoyenâge (Paris: PUF, 1985). Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the Thirteenth Century: A Study of Their Relations During the Years 1198-1254 Based on Papal Letters and Conciliar Decrees of the Period (New York: Hermon Press, 1966), 314-15 (July 15 from 1205 Innocent III to the Archbishop of Sens and the Bishop of Paris). Eine ausführliche Analyse des literarischen Korpus finden Sie unter: Gilbert Dahan, Ernest Renan, Bernhard Blumenkranz, Abraham E. Millgram, Charles Lehrmann, Manya LifschitzGolden, M. SteinschneiderIntheepics,representationisminimal:Jewsaremostlyreducedtoepithetslike desfaez,tirant,félon,fals.JewishcharactersinthesetextsareoftendepictionsofJewslivingatthe timeofChristorassociatedwithSaracens.ThelargestrepresentationofJewsinFrenchliterature occursinreligiousplays ;HeinzPflaum,“LesScènesdeJuifsdanslalittératuredramatiquedu moyenâge,”RevuedesEtudesJuives89(1930):111–34.(Fromthetwelfthcenturyon,Jewsare negativelyrepresented,allowingtheauthorstointroduceacomicelementintheplay,notpossible otherwisewithsuchatopic.Theyaregivenridiculousnamessuchas“Pinceguerre, Trinquala Palha, Malenquarant, Cambafort (Anmerkung 7 „Malencarat (prov.)“ à minerenfrognée [grumpy face], Camba fort (prov.) cuisse, “quartier de porc [pork rump], or royal names like Haquin, Vivant, Mousa, Marques .. .113–15).
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Indeed, the Jew who appeared on stage in moralizing narratives, chronicles and anecdotes or preachers' models was not an individual but a type, the pattern after which the whole community was modeled. In these productions, the Jew was often nameless and rarely had personal attributes. The accusation of witchcraft practices in real life translates into literary texts and vice versa. The epic novel Li Roumans by Berteaus Granspies (late thirteenth century) is a good example of this conventional practice. Although the story has its origins in the 8th century, these "Romanians" developed in the courts of Louis IX. and Philippe Hardis. Just as the deception is about to be discovered, Margiste, the mother, is presented as a typological sorceress, a standard device in medieval literature. The mother reveals to her daughter that her knowledge of poisons was transmitted to her by a Jewish woman, another recurrenttropeinFrenchliterature: Aenherberm’apristjadisunejuise MieuslesainesetfemmequidusquesenFrise Blancheflourtraÿraienpoireouencerise Douveninseraitostpourveüseetpourquise90 [TomakepoisonsalongtimeagoaJewesstaughtme NowomanknowshowtobetterthanmefromheretoFrise Blancheflourwillturnintoapearorcherry OfvenomIwillsoonbethepurchaserandpurveyor]
Adenetle Roi portrays the social status of these two flowerless women in a very negative light. Although they are Christians, they show all the negative sides of the denigrated group, suggesting that negative Jewish influence permeated the social fabric through women.
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Joshua Trachtenberg, The DevilandtheJews: The MedievalConceptoftheJeandItsRelationtoModernAntisemitism (Philadelphia:JewishPublicationSocietyofAmerica, 1983),13. AdenésLiRoi,LiRoumansdeBerteausGranspies, Hrsg. Auguste Scheler (Bruxelas: Closson, 1874), verso 1830–34.
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Jews: usury and loan sharking. This ambitious but more pragmatic character proposes to her mother an alternative lifestyle that indicates a Jewish influence: "De presteràusuretrèsbiennous garirons"91 [by our effort to finish very well, we are saved]. The "scaffolding", or series of visible screens that Jewish communities had patiently erected for protection over the centuries, was under constant strain, and cracks caused by repeated evictions and setbacks since 1180 further exposed its vulnerability. FragilityisthetermthatbestsummarizestheJudeoChristianrelations.However, despitebeingsubjectedtoaformidablepressureandtoanarrayofreligiousand secular interdictions, provisions and concessions made cohabitation possible althoughprecarious.Jewishwomen,definedbothincontrastandinrelationtoa malecentered society, have often emerged as silent figures thus cultivating persistingstereotypes.Nevertheless,inspiteofthedearthofdocumentationand thedifficulttaskofdissociatingwomen'sexperiencesfromthecollectiveidentity, theavailablesourcesrevealthatfrequentexchangesbetweenJewishandChristian womentookplaceandoccasionallynurturedmorepositiveinterrelations.92 FrenchJewishculturevanishedcompletelyforseveralcenturies.93Anduntil theirreinsertioninFrenchsocietyfourcenturieslater,thisgroupthathadbeen sociallyperipheralprovedtobesymbolicallymuchmoreimportant .Indeed, the disappeared Jews left lasting marks, clear marks on the French cultural landscape.
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AdenésLiRoi, LiRoumansdeBertefromGranspies,Verse1850. An equally complex situation arises in medieval German literature, where we find numerous examples where Jews not infrequently enjoy a rather positive reputation, see Albrecht Classen, "Jewish-Christian Relations in the German Middle Ages - the exploit of Alternative Voices? a myth or factual history? Literary-Historical Investigations”, Amsterdam Contributions to Ancient German Studies 58 (2003): 12349; idem., “Jewish Christian Relations in Medieval Literature”, GermanLiteratureBetweenFaiths:JewandChristianatOddsandinHarmony,ed.PeterMeister,5365. Roger S Kohn, "L'Expulsion des Juifs de Franceen 1394: Les Chemins del'xiletlesrefuges", Archives Juives 28-1 (1995): 76-84; here 80.
Jeanette S. Zissell (University of Connecticut)
Universal Salvation in the Earthly City: DeCivitate Dei and the Meaning of the Hazelnut in the Manifestations of Julian of Norwich1
In the medieval period, as now, urban space could define the identity of the individualswhodwelledwithinit.ALondoncitizencouldclaimspecialrightsand privilegeswithinthecitythatallotherscouldnot.2ChaucersatirizesLondoners andcitylifeingeneralthroughoutmanyofhistales,andDante’ssoulsinHellare acutelyawareoftheircityaffiliations,evenastheysuffereternaltorments.3One’s cityshapeshowoneviewstheworld,whatonewearsandeats,andwhoone’s enemiesmaybe.Wheresomeoneis,inasense,defineswhosomeoneis. ThispaperwillconsiderhowJulianofNorwich(bornsometimeintheyears 1342 or 1343) adapts the medieval conception of urban space to a theological purpose.IndoingsoshefollowedatraditionthatoriginatesintheBible,inthe BookofRevelation'sdescriptionoftheheavenlycityinwhichGodwilldwell amongthesoulsofallthesavedattheendoftime.AugustineofHippousesthis abstractiontodescribethespiritualstatusofthewholeofhumanity.TheHeavenly city, in this interpretation, is the eternal home of those who love God, and its enemy ,die irdische Stadt,ist ein vorübergehender Zufluchtsort derer, die nur sich selbst lieben. Die Staatsbürgerschaft in beiden Städten wird eher durch spirituelle Ähnlichkeit als durch irgendeine definiert
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I would like to thank C. David Benson for reviewing earlier drafts of this article. For example, the opportunity to participate in high-level municipal politics and greater freedom of commerce within the city. See Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), especially 10–11. For an in-depth analysis of Chaucer's relationship to London and literary representations of cities, see Chaucer and the City, ed. Ardis Butterfield, ChaucerStudies, 37 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2006). For more on Dante's satire of contemporary Florence, see John M. Najemy, "Dante and Florence", The Cambridge Companionto Dante, ed. Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 236–256. On the broader theme, the identity of the individual with the city, see Albrecht Classen's contribution to this volume.
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Zusammenhang mit geografischem Standort, Kultur oder Zeit. The image is used in literature,suchastheMiddleEnglishpoemThePearl, 4andtheworksofother theologians such as Bernard of Clairvaux.5 The design and ornamentation of churcheswereoftenintendedtoevoketheheavenlycitytowhichparishioners believedthattheyreallybelonged.6 AsanyonewhostudiesJuliannotes,littleisknownaboutherlife.However, scholarsnearlyuniversallyacknowledgethebeauty,incisiveness,andtheological complexityofherprose.AsRitaMaryBradleystates,“JulianofNorwichisthe firstknownwomanoflettersinEnglishliterature,andoneishardputtofind prosesuperiortohersintheMiddleEnglishperiod.” 7Sheproducedtwobooksin herlifetime,bothdescribingaseriesofreligiousvisionssheexperiencedduring alifethreateningillnessinMayof1373attheageofthirtyandahalf.Thefirst book, known as the “short text,” seems to have been written shortly after the visionstookplace,andthesecond,the“longtext,”wasamoredetailedadaptation ofthefirst,writtenafteratleasttwentyyearsofcontemplationaboutthemeaning ofwhatshehadseen.Atsomepointinherlife,probablyafterhervisionshad taken place, she was enclosed as eine Einsiedlerin in der Kirche St. Julian in Norwich.8 Der Name dieser Kirche ist der einzige Name, unter dem sie bekannt ist. Es geht aus den Aufzeichnungen von Vermächtnissen hervor, die einer Einsiedlerin dieser Kirche gegeben wurden, dass sie mindestens bis zum Jahr 1416 lebte, aber ihr genaues Todesdatum ist unbekannt
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The description of the celestial city in the poem is in lines 973–1092, Pearl, ed. Sarah Stanbury (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001). See also Britt C. L. Rothauser's contribution to this volume. For a brief synopsis of Bernard of Clairvaux's participation in the heavenly city, see Adriaan H. Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux: Between Cult and History (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2001), esp. 267–75. Herbert L. Kessler, SeeingMedievalArt(Peterborough,OrchardPark:Broadview),34. Rita Mary Bradley, "Julian of Norwich: Writer and Mystic," An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe: Fourteen Original Essays, edited by Paul E. Szarmach (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 195-216; here, 195. For more information on medieval anchorites and the lives of the Korites, see F. A. Jones, "Anchorites and Hermits in HistoricalContext", ApproachingMedievalEnglishAnchoricandMysticalTexts, ed. Dee Dyas, Valerie Edden, and Roger Ellis, Christianity and Culture: Questions in Teaching and Research (Woodbridge and Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer, 2005), 3–18. Biographical information about Julian's life can be found in Mary R. Reichardt's Exploring Catholic Literature: A Companion and Resource Guide (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), particularly 43–58, and also in John JaeNamHan's JulianofNorwich, CatholicWomenWriters: ABioBibliographicalSourcebook” , ed. Mary R. Reichardt (Westport: Greenwood, 2001), 187-92; see also Lisa Gaudet, "Julian of Norwich", Women in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia, eds. Katharina M. Wilson and Nadia Margolis, Vol. I (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 2004), 499-503.
TheHazelnutinJulianofNorwich'sShow
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Julian was surrounded by a vibrant city, which in 1330 had a population of 25,000.10 However, although Norwich itself lived in the heart of such a large city, Norwich itself is notably absent from his writings. In her account, Juliana describes cities as theological abstractions, in the tradition rooted in the work of Augustine. As an anchorite, Juliana was more interested in the heavenly city and, I might argue, the earthly city as she saw it reflected in her own mind. TheideaattheheartofJulianofNorwich’sShowingshaslongbeenacknowledged asthetranscendentalpowerofdivinelove.Thisseeminglystraightforwardtheme, however,raisesmorequestionsthanitanswers.Whatdoeslovemeanfromthe perspectiveofthedivine?Howfarcanthatloveextendtothosewhodwellina sinfulworld?Julian’ssimplemessageofGod’sloverequiredtwotexts,shortand long,apparentlywrittenoverthecourseofalifetimetoexplore.Throughouther Showings,JulianattemptstopushthelimitsofChristiantheologyoutwards,to placeGod’slove,ratherthanhisomnipotenceorjudgment,atthecenterofall theologicalissues. In my essay I intend to discuss how Julian of Norwich used the imagery of heavenly and earthly cities to investigate the nature of God's love for man. Juliana's reading is a response to the prevailing medieval understanding of the two cities, originally established by Augustine in Decivitate Dei, nearly a hundred years before her visions took place. Augustine shows the two cities as completely separate and diametrically opposed entities. ToJulian,however,thetwocitiesbothequallyrepresentthesoul'sunionwith God.IwishtoarguethatJulian'sdiscussionoftheheavenlyandearthlycities centerslargelyontwosectionsofthetext.Thefirstisthepassageregardingthe hazelnut,foundatthebeginningofhervisions,inwhichshedescribesthewhole of the world as not larger than a hazelnut lying in the palm of her hand, and which,despiteitssmallness,willbeforeverheldinGod'slove.Ibelievethatthis hazelnut represents Julian's Reinterpretation of the earthly city of Augustine. The second is the passage that concludes the visions where Julian describes them.
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Norman Tanner, "ReligiousPractice", Medieval Norwich, editors Carole Rawcliffe and Richard Wilson (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006), 137–56; here, 141.
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Discovery of the heavenly city and find it anchored deep within his own heart. Both represent the whole of human society in a microcosm contained in the body of the believer. Through her portrayal of the earthly city, in the hazelnut passage, as a fundamentally good entity that is eternally preserved by the love of God, she essentially equates her spiritual state with that of the heavenly city. fleetingnatureoftheearthlycitytoargueagainstOrigen'sargument foruniversalsalvation,Julianinvertshisstrategyagainstitself,andusesthesame imagetoexplorethepossibilityofeternalredemptionforallmankind.11 WhileJulian'sdepictionoftheheavenlycityhassometimesbeencomparedwith Augustine's,itismoreoftenassociated withtheheavenlycityasdescribedin Revelation.12ChristopherAbbotreadsJulian'suseoftheheavenlycityimageas rootedpartlyinDecivitateDei,butdoesnotrelatetheearthlycityimagewiththat of the hazelnut.13 Overall, there seems to have been more discussion of an AugustinianinfluenceonJulianthroughtheConfessionesandDeTrinitatethan therehasbeenthroughDecivitateDei.14TheinfluenceofDecivitateDeionJulian's 11
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Peter Dinzelbacher, "Ecstatic Flight and Visionary View of the World in the Middle Ages", id., From the World Through Hell to Paradise - The Medieval Afterlife (Paderborn, Munich, including: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2007), 181-206; here 196 he emphasizes the symbolic meaning of the hazelnut as an expression of the vanity and triviality of this material world in the face of the macrocosm. According to Dinzelbacher, the hazelnut may be loved by God, but it still distracts attention from the true goal that the human soul should pursue. For example, Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins note, “The city in the soul resembles the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21:1–27, as portrayed in works of art and poetry such as Pearl or The Prick.” Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins (UniversityPark:PennsylvaniaUniversityPress, 2006), 110. Quotes from Julian's Showings are from the long text version contained in the Watson and Jenkin edition unless the short text is specifically noted. See Christopher Abbot, Julian of Norwich: Autobiography and Theology. Studies in Medieval Mysticism, 2 (Cambridge: Brewer, 1999), 155. Abbot identified Augustine's Confessions as an indirect model for Julian's autobiographical approach in writing his Introductions (ibid., 10), and J.P.H. Clark believes evidence from the trip may have known her directly or through other sources such as Sentences -76 by Peter Lombard. Denise Baker also reads De Trinitate as a source for Julian's understanding of the structure of the soul. See "The Structure of the Soul and the "Pious Wylle" in Julian of Norwich's Showings", The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England, ed. E.A. Jones. Exeter Symposium, 7 (Cambridge: DS Brewer, 2004), 37-49; especially 37-38. That would be, directly or indirectly
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Understanding heavenly and earthly cities requires more investigation than hitherto. Julianisanindependentthinkerandwriter,awareofbutnotconstrainedbythe theologicalinheritancefromAugustine.AsJ.P.H.Clarkstates,“JulianofNorwich seldomquotesauthorities,buthercreativeinsightscanrepeatedlybeshowntobe rootedintheologicaltradition,”andalsothat“itisclearthatshecouldgraspand express the commonplaces of theology, especially those of Augustinian theology.”15 While some see similarities in interpretation between Augustine's theologyandJulian's,16 mostargueforsomedegreeofdivergencebetweenthe two.Thosewhoargueforthestrongestdegreeofseparationbetweenthem , such as Kenneth Leech, Maria R. Lichtman, and Kevin J. Magill, tend to focus in their interpretations of the sinfulness of the body.17 Most, however, see Julian's theology as an interpretation of certain divergent teachings of Augustine, not a sweeping rejection of the theological tradition he founded. For example, Denise Baker claims that, unlike Walter Hilton's standard reprise of Augustine De Trinitae, Julian adapts this interpretation of the Imago Dei in a way that "differs so much from his more traditional reprise that it constitutes a groundbreaking contribution to late medieval theology. ". and still finds its conceptual basis in Augustine. 18 J.P.H. Clark suggests that she reinterpret Augustine's assertion that God is outside of time, stating that "the emphasis on the timelessness of the view of God may claim similarities with Augustine, but the way in which it is applied goes beyond him".
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It is difficult for any serious religious thinker to avoid Augustine's pervasive influence on medieval thought. Clark, "Time and Eternity," 259. Abbot, in particular, identifies a "retrospective Augustinian paradigm operating within the text." See Abbot, Autobiography and Theology, 34. See Kenneth Leech, "HazelnutTheology:ItsPotentialandPerils", JulianReconsidered, ed.Kenneth LeechandSr.BenedictaWard,SLG(Oxford:SLGPress,1988)1-9;especially 3. See also MariaR. Lichtmann, "Godfulfilled mybodye": Body, Self, and God in Julian of Norwich, "Gender and Text in the Later Middle Ages", ed. Jane Chance (Gainesville, Tallahassee, et al.: University Press of Florida, 1996), 263-79, and Kevin J. Magill, Julian of Norwich: Mystic or Visionary? Routledge Studies in Medieval Religion and Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), esp. Garland Medieval Casebooks, 21 (New York and London: Garland, 1998), 35-60; here 35. J.P.H. Clark, "Predestination in Christ According to Julian of Norwich" Downside Review 100 (1982):79-91;here,83.
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Augustine or the Augustinian tradition, but adapting its ideas to new purposes. The two cities discussed in De civitate Dei find their origin in Isaiah 65:17-19 and Revelation 21:1-4, both of which describe a heavenly Jerusalem made when all previous creations perished, and in which there will be signs of an opposition. earthly city whose members will be condemned at the end of time. For Augustine, the two cities represent "the most fundamental division of humanity."22 These two groups, separated from each other, represent the essential condition of humanity, both in this world and after the Last Judgment.23
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J. P. H. Clark, „Nature, Grace and the Trinity in Julian of Norwich“, Downside Review 100 (1982): 203–20. IntheDouayReimsBible,Isaiah65:17–19,readsasfollows:“ForbeholdIcreatenewheavens,and anewearth:andtheformerthingsshallnotbeinremembrance,andtheyshallnotcomeuponthe heart.Butyoushallbegladandrejoiceforeverinthesethings,whichIcreate:forbeholdIcreate Jerusalemarejoicing,andthepeoplethereofjoy.AndIwillrejoiceinJerusalem,andjoyinmy people, and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the Stimme des Weinens.“ AugustinedirectlyreferencesthispassageinbookXX,Chapter17ofDecivitateDei.Revelation 21:1–4mirrorstheBookofIsaiah'slanguage:“AndIsawanewheavenandanewearth.Forthe firstheavenandthefirstearthwasgone,andtheseaisnownomore.AndIJohnsawtheholy city,thenewJerusalem,comingdownoutofheavenfromGod,preparedasabrideadornedfor herhusband.AndIheardagreatvoicefromthethrone,saying:BeholdthetabernacleofGodwith men,andhewilldwellwiththem.Andtheyshallbehispeople;andGodhimselfwiththemshall betheirGod. AndGodshallwipeawayalltearsfromtheireyes:anddeathshallbenomore,nor mouring,norcrying,norsorrowshallbeanymore,fortheformethingsarepassedaway.“Alle Bibelpassagen sind aus DouayReims zitiert, da es sich um die englische Standardübersetzung der lateinischen Vulgata handelt, und als solche vielleicht die engste englische Annäherung an die Bibel ist, wie sie mittelalterliche Denker erlebt haben würden.Die hier zitierten Passagen stammen ausTheHolyBible:Douay RheimsVersion,19 . Paul Weithman, „Filosofia Política de Augustin“, Cambridge Companion to Augustine, hrsg. Eleaonore Stump und Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) 234–52; hier, 235. Augustinealsohadapracticalpurposeinmakingthisdistinction.AsGeraldBonnerstates,De civitateDeiis“designedtorefutethosepaganswhoclaimedthatChristianityhadruinedthe RomanEmpire,andtoreassureanxiousChristianswhocouldnotunderstandwhyGodhadnot protectedChristianRomeagainsttheGoths.”Seehis“Augustine'sUnderstandingoftheChurch asaEucharisticCommunity,”AugustinetheBishop:ABookofEssays,ed.FannieLaMoineand ChristopherKleinhenz.GarlandMedievalCasebooks,9(NewYorkandLondon:Garland,1994) 39–64;here ,39. Ao descrever a cidade de Deus como distinta da cidade de Roma, Augustin sieht sich in der Lage, „auf den Vorwurf zu antworten, dass die Aufgabe der römischen Gottheiten für den Gott der
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In discussing the two cities, Augustine's main focus is humanity and its connection with God - or, conversely, with his own worldly pride. Certainly, self-love is earthly, even the contempt of God, and the love of God is heavenly, and the love of God is to be despised, seeks glory among men, the other finds its highest honor in God, the witness of our conscience.]25
In his argument, Augustine particularly emphasizes the human perspective, human love, and human society. Unlike Julian, as I will show later, Augustine is primarily interested in the social interactions of people in the world, with their loved ones, rather than with God's love for them.26 Cities are two distinct entities, they live side by side in same human society. The differences between them may not be apparent from the outside, but in reality they are completely separate and opposite to each other. Iftheyareseparateinthefocusoftheirloves,thetwocitiesarealsoseparatein theireventualfates.Onlythemembersofheavenlycitywillachievesalvationand beadmittedintoeternallife.Theheavenlycityisimmortalandunending,andthe earthlycity,conversely,willfall.Theearthlycityisatemporarystructure,which willceasetoexistattheendoftime:“Terrenaporrocivitas,quaesempiternanon erit(nequeenimcuminextremosuppliciodamnatafuerit,jamcivitaserit)”(XV.4; But the earthly city will not be everlasting; for when it condemned to the punishment that is its end, it will cease to be a city). The structure of
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Christianity was an injustice to the gods that resulted in the sack of Rome by the barbarians.” See Weithman, "Political Philosophy," 241. Pagan religious practices were a potential threat to Augustine's belief system. All quotes from Decivitate Deia are from Volume 41 of Patrologia Latina. All English translations of Decivitate Deia are from The City of God Against the Pagans, trans.R.W. Dyson, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). For a detailed discussion of Augustine's social and political theories, see R.A. Markus, "De Civitate Dei: Pride and the Common Good", Proceedingsoft the Patristic, MedieavalandRenaissanceConference12/13(1997-1998),1-16, and John M. Parrish, "Two Cities and Two Loves: Imitation in Augustin's MoralPsychologyandPoliticalTheory",HistoryofPoliticalThought26( 2005):209-35 .
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die irdische Stadt wird zerstört, wenn sie gerichtet wird, und zu ewiger Qual verdammt. ItisledbySatan,andwillbecondemnedbyChristatthefinaljudgment: CumperJesumChristumDominumnostrum,judicemvivorumatquemortuorum,ad debitos fines ambae pervenerint civitates, quarum una est Dei, altera diaboli, cujusmodisuppliciumsitfuturumdiabolietomniumadeumpertinentium,inhoc libronobis,quantumopedivinavalebimus,diligentiusdisputandumest.(XXI.1) [Wecomenexttothenatureofthepunishmentwhichistobevisiteduponthedevil andallwhobelongtohimwhenthetwocities—theCityofGodandthecityofthe devil—havereachedtheirdeservedendsthroughJesusChristourLord,theJudgeof thelivinganddead.]
The proper fate for the earthly city is total annihilation, imposed by the judgment of Christ. For as they do not affect the laws of this city, if a man is called back to death, more quickly, if he should call back eternal life, doomed to the second death." (XXI.11)
Augustine makes it clear that the two cities are completely different, they are complete opposites: one loves God, the other loves itself, one remains forever, the other will perish, one is led by Satan, the other by God. This binary opposition between the two cities opens the way for Augustine's argument against Origen's theory of universal salvation: I now see that we must pity our hearts and appease all those men whom the fairest judge of hell found worthy will explain and who will not they believe in an eternal future punishment, but after a while they believe that they will be released from it through the goals of those who have sinned more or less. In this Origen was certainly most merciful, that he believed in angels both in the devil himself and in angels, after the heaviest merits and prolonged sufferings of the exiles from the Crucifixion and the companions of the saints (XXI.17). They assume that the convicts will be released after a certain period of punishment, longer or shorter, depending on each man's level of sin.
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His angels, having suffered the heaviest and most prolonged punishments that their sins deserve, will be redeemed from their torments and united with the holy angels.]
While sympathetic to the desire to believe in the salvation of all mankind, Augustine vehemently rejects the possibility that all people are saved. However, it's not just ridiculous, it's dangerous. He goes on to argue that a universal salvation is not merciful, but is actually cruel because it represents an injustice to the righteous: by losing what was once merciful by making unhappy the saints, with whom they were punished, and the false happiness he he wasn't sure, and that was for sure they would never have fun. [ButtheChurchhascondemnedOrigen,andnotwithoutreason,becauseofthisandseveralothererrors.Inparticular,hesuggeststhatthereisaceaselessalternationof blessednessandmisery,andthattheinterminabletransitionsfromtheonestatetotheotheroccuratfixedages.Atthispoint,however,heloseseventhemercywhichhehadseemedtodisplay.Forheassignstothesaintsrealmiseriesforthepunishmentoftheir sins,yetonlywhichisfalseincertainfareandthereincertaininthehappiness]
ForAugustine,theheavenlyandearthlycitiesarewhollyseparate,andtobelieve inanalterationoftheirspiritualstatusafterthejudgmentistonegatethemercy andjoyofferedtotheelect.Theirhappinessisfalse,toAugustine,whenitisnot secure—whenitisnoteternalandunchangeable.Theheavenlycityiseternal,and lovesGodinrejectionofallworldlythings.Thetemporal,fleetingearthlycity,to itsowndetriment,lovesonlyitself.ToAugustine,onlyeternaldamnationofthe condemnedandtheeternalsalvationoftheelectcanconstitutejustandthustruly compassionateactiononthepartofthejudge. Julians Interpretation der beiden Städte scheint der von Augustinus völlig entgegengesetzt zu sein. Julian follows its outlines so closely, even while challenging its conclusions at everystep,thatitseemslikelyshemayhavedirectlyorindirectlybeenawareof thetext.ItisimpossibletoknowwhetherornotJulianhadreadDecivitateDei personally, but there is good reason to believe any serious fourteenthcentury religiousthinkerwouldhavebeeninfluencedbyitsinterpretationoftheheavenly andearthlycities.AsM.W.F.Stonestates,thetextwasavailableandwidelyused eveninthethirteenthcentury,andhisideaswerealsoknownindirectlythrough othertexts:
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Jeannette S. Zissel Thirteenth-century philosophers and theologians knew Augustine mainly through a few standard treatises—Confessiones, Decivitate Dei, Deliberoarbitrio, Dedoctrina chirstiana, Deverareligione, and GeGenesiadlitteramlibriduodecim—and through numerous citations made under his name in Florilegia, Canon Law, and Lombard's Sententiae circulated
Thefourteenthcentury,however,markedaresurgenceofinterestinAugustine’s theology.Histextsweremorewidelyandaccuratelycirculated.AsStonestates: Thefourteenthcenturycanbesaidtohavewitnessedaprofoundchangeintheuse anddiscussionoftheworksofAugustinebymedievalphilosophers.Tobeginwith, onefindsagreatervarietyofworksbeingcited,accompaniedbylongerandmore exactquotations.Furthertothis,thereisanearnesteffortonthepartofscholarsto maintainthehigheststandardsofaccuracyintheircriticalpresentationofAugustine’s views.28
ThiswastheenvironmentinwhichJulianwroteherShowings.TheAugustinian influence on her text, long acknowledged by scholars, seems to include a reinterpretationofAugustine'stheologyoftheheavenlyandearthlycities.She invertshisargument,usingthesameimageryasafoundationfromwhichtobuild anentirelydifferentviewofhumansalvation.WhereAugustine'sfocusisonthe division of mankind into insoluble categories based on what they love, one eternallysavedandtheothereternallydamned,JulianfocusesonwhatGodloves, andwhatGod'slovemeansforbelieversonearth .As I'll argue in the next section, God's love for Julian is all-pervading, earth-ending, for all that was made and will never be destroyed. Julian, both the earthly and heavenly city is held in the love of God. One of the most famous and memorable images in Julian's performances is that of the hazelnut. In the fifth chapter of the Long Text, it appears as one of the first in a series of visions recounted by Julian. She has everything that has ever been made and is amazed that creation can sustain itself, knowing that in the hand it is so small and insignificant that it could hardly exist. At the same time, however, she is overwhelmed by the reassurance she has received that her insignificance and unsustainability are irrelevant because God's love will never fail her and that love will allow her to last forever:
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M.W.F. Stone, "Augustine and Medieval Philosophy", Cambridge Companion to Augustine, ed. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 253-66; here, 255-56. Stone, "Augustine and Medieval Philosophy", 259.
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And on it he showed a little thing, the size of a hare, lying in the middle of my palm, and it was as round as any sphere. I looked at it in my mind's eye and thought, "What could this be?" And the general response was, "It's all it's made of." And I was answered in my understanding: “It takes time what everyone is doing because God loves. In this little thing I saw three qualities: first, that God made it, second, that God loved it, and third, that God struck it.
Acredito que o uso que Juliano faz da imagem da avelã fornece uma interpretação da descrição de Agostinho da cidade terrena. Like Augustine, Julian of Norwich presentsheraudiencewithanimageofearthlycreation,balancedwithanimage ofHeaven.However,Julianemploystheseimagestounitetheheavenlyandthe earthlyrealm—todescribetheirsimilarities,ratherthantheirdifferences..The hazelnutimage,inwhichJulianholdsthewholeofcreationinherhandandistold thatGodwillloveitandpreserveitforever,demonstratesanequationofthefates oftheearthlycityandheavenlycity.BothareheldequallyinGod'slove.Julian's descriptionoftheheavenlycityisconsistentwithherdescriptionofthehazelnut, oftenusingthesamelanguagetomakethesamepoints.IncontrasttoAugustine's dominantview,Julian'sheavenlyandearthlycitiesareunitedinthebeliever—one heldinthehand,theotherintheheart . ScholarshavelongacknowledgedthehazelnutasanimageofGod'senduring loveforhiscreation.Mostviewitasapositiveassertionofman'sunionwithGod, despite mankind's apparent insignificance and the unworthiness of created creaturestoengageinsuchaunion.Ithasbeengenerallyacceptedthat,toJulian, God'sloveredeemsandpreservestheworld.Examplesofargumentscenteringon thisinterpretationofthehazelnutarenearlytoonumeroustonote.HughFeiss suggeststhat: Julian's discussion of the littleness of the world is inseparable from the “homely loving” de Christianmanifes em sua vinda à terra e em seu sofrimento pela humanidade.29
The world is small, insignificant, but loved nonetheless. Charles Cummings makes a similar comment:
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Hugh Feiss, “Dilatation: GodandtheWorldintheVisionsofBenedictandJulianofNorwich”, AmericanBenedictineReview55(2004):55–74; aqui65.
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Susan K. Hagen claims that the daily familiarity with the hazelnut is "an effective and efficient reminder of God's creative, loving and sustaining power", is precious and belongs to God. Creation is wrapped in the love of God forever.”32
Most scholars view Julian's interpretation of the hazelnut as a dramatic departure from Augustine's and medieval thinkers' understanding of God's relationship to his creation. This sentiment is particularly strong among scholars who champion Julian's positive understanding of the human body. Grace M. Jantzen sees the hazelnut image as part of the strategy through which Julian provides“asharpchallengetotheideathatchastityisessentialforspirituality,”33 andZinaPetersenagrees,statingthat: SheisgentlerthanmostifnotallofherpastorcontemporaryChristianthinkerswhen discussingsuchtopicsasthehumanbody,preferringtopraiseGodforthebody’s functionsratherthancondemnthefleshaspartofthemortalworldtobesubduedand castoff.Whenshownnothingnessincomprehensiblethan“allofcreation”asatiny unitthesizeofahazelnut,sheatthesametimeperceivesGod’stremendouslovefor thethingassustainingit.34
The hazelnut is all creation, preserved forever by God's love. In doing so, she provides an impressive counterargument to many of the more common theological arguments that interpret creation as inherently flawed and corrupt.
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Charles Cummings, "God's Homely" Love in Julian of Norwich, Cistercian Studies 13 (1978): 68-74; hier, 71. Susan K. Hagen, „St.CeciliaandSt.JohnofBeverly:JulianofNorwich'sEarlyModelandLate Affirmation“, Julian of Norwich: A Book of Essays, hrsg. Sandra J. McEntire. Garland Medieval Casebooks, 21 (Nova York e Londres: Garland, 1998) 91–114; hier, 106. KerrieHide, „OnlyinGoddoIHaveAll:TheSoteriologyofJulianofNorwich“, DownsideReview 122 (2004): 43–60; hier, 51. Ebenfalls von Interesse ist Hide’s Gifted Origins to Graced Fulfillment: The Soteriology of Julian of Norwich (Collegeville, MN: Order of St. Benedict, 2001). Grace M. Jantzen, Poder, Gênero e Misticismo Cristão. Cambridge Studies in Ideology and Religion, 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 238. Zina Petersen, „EveryMannerofThingShallbeWell“:MirroringSerenityintheShewingsofJulianofNorwich“,MysticsQuarterly22(1996):91–101;hier,238.
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Na verdade, na medicina medieval e nas histórias de amor, as avelãs estavam intimamente associadas à fisicalidade, à sexualidade e ao corpo. Peter Dronke, in writing aboutmedievallyrics,notes“theageoldassociationofhazelnutswithfertilityand eroticfulfillment.”35Tothisheadds: Itisunderthehazelnuttreethatlovehasthebestchanceofbeingreturned,evenby thosewhohaveshownnoloveelsewhere.Inawiderangeofproverbialexpressions goingintothehazelnuttrees[…]issynonymouswithlovemaking;alreadyinthe ancientworldsterilewomenwerebeatenwithhazeltwigstomakethemfertile,and hazelnutsweregiventothebrideandbridegroomontheweddingnight.36
MelittaWeissAdamson notesthat,amongtheirothermedicaluses,hazelnuts wereconsideredanaphrodisiac.37Hazelnutsandhazeltreesalsooftenfigurein romanceliteratureintimatelyassociatedwitheroticexperiences.38 This association with sex, love, and fertility has not gone unnoticed in its connectiontoJulian'simagery.LizHerbertMcAvoybelievesthehazelnutstands asevidenceofJulian'suseof“gynaecentricimagery,”39andassociatesitwiththe nutsdescribedintheBiblicalSongofSongs: However,withinthecontextoftheSongofSongsthetinynutoflittlevaluetakeson inordinate significance in its association com o Hortus inclusus, que é também o lugar do desejo sexual e sua realização.40
The goodness of the earthly city, in Julian's hazel image, seems to be closely linked to erotic material corporeality. Finally, mankind was commanded to be fruitful and multiply. It is the means by which humanity participates in God's creation.
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Peter Dronke, TheMedievalLyric, 3rd.(1968;Woodbridge and Rochester,NY:Boydelland Brewer,1996),194. Ibid., 194. Melitta WeissAdamson, Food in Medieval Times. Food Through History (Westport: Greenwood, 2004), 25. Forinstance,seeKarlP.Wentersdorf,“Pandarusshaselwode:acomparativeapproachtoa Chaucerianpuzzle,”StudiesinPhilology89(1992),293–313.Ahazeltreealsofigureslargelyin TristanandIseult'stryst,asdescribedinMariedeFrance'sChevrefoil.SeeWilliamSayers,“Marie deFrance'sChievrefoil,hazelrods,andtheOgamlettersCollandUillenn,”Arthuriana14(2004), 3 –16. Para o significado iconográfico das nozes em geral, ver Gertraud Meinel, Nuss, Nussbaum, Enzyklopädie des Marchens, ed. Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, vol. 10.1 (Berlim e Nova York: Walterde Gruyter, 2000), 159–63. Liz Herbert McAvoy, Authority and the Female Body in the Writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe (Cambridge and Rochester, NY: Boydeland Brewer, 2004), 84. Ibidem, 83.
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Juliana's image of the hazel tree corresponds to her image of the heavenly city, both in the language she uses and in the meaning expressed in that language. For Julian, the human soul is the city of God in which Christ is enthroned. The image of the heavenly city emphasizes God's love for mankind, his oneness with believers, and the eternal salvation of those united in love for him. Julian links the heavenly city with the earthly city, repeating the language used in the hazelnut passage to unite the two in the reader's mind. Thelongtextexpandstheuseoftheheavenlycityimagefromthesinglepassage presentintheshorttext.However,allreferencesseemtousethecityforthesame purpose:todescribetheunionofmankindwithGod.41Inthelastvisiondescribed intheShowings,Julianrelatesherdiscoveryoftheheavenlycityinherownheart, inthefinalvisionofthetext: Andthenouregoodlordeopenedmygostelyeyeandshewdememysouleinthe middesofmyharte.Isawthesoulesolargeasitwereanendlessewarde,andalsoas itwereablissefulkingdom,andbytheconditionsthatIsawthereinIunderstodethat itisawurshipfullecitte.InmiddesofthatcittesittethourelordeJhesu,veryGodand very man: a fair person and of large stature, highest bishoppe, solempnest kinge, wurshipfullestlorde. And I only see him dressed in worship.
Theimageofthe“wurshipfullecite”withinthebeliever’ssoulnaturallyevokes theheavenlycityoftheBible.AsinRevelation,Christdwellswithinit,inunion withit.Botharedescribedinthesameterms:thecityis“wurshipfulle”andChrist is“wurshipfullestlord,”clothedin“wurshippes.”ItisaplacewhereChristis constantlylovedandpraised.InthisitseemsconsistentwithAugustine’sreading oftheheavenlycity:itistheeternaldwellingplaceofthosewholoveGod.Julian
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Thesepassages,providedinChapterFiftyOne'sparableofthelordandservant,readasfollows: “Buthissittingontheerth,bareynanddesert,isthusto/mene:hemademannessouletobehis ownecitteandhisdwellingplace,whichis/mostpleasingtohimofallhisworkes”(51.123–25), and“Nowsitteththeson,veryGodandveryman,inhiscittein/restandinpees,whichhisfader hathdightetohimofendlessepurpose,andthe/faderintheson,andtheholygostinthefader andintheson” (51.278-80). These passages connect the heavenly city with the world today. As I will argue in this section, this seems to respond to Augustine's reading of the heavenly city by placing it in the same context as the earthly city represented by the hazelnut.
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não apenas anseia por outro lugar ou tempo, mas também se vê como ela é agora, na terra. Unlike Augustine's heavenly city, Julian's heavenlycityisvictoriousonearth,asitisinheaven.42 The text immediately turns to concerns about the nature of creation, and whetherthesubstanceofcreationcanbesustainedforever:“TheplacethatJhesu takethinouresouleheshallneverremoveitwithouten/ende,astomysight,for inusishishomeliesthomeandhisendlessewonning.And/inthisheshewdethe likingthathehathofthemakingofmannessoule”(68.12–14).Julianisassured Christwillneverberemovedfromthesoul ,andthatitishishomewithoutend, justastheheavenlycity,inRevelationandinAugustine,isGod'seternalhome.43 Thebeginningofthehazelnutpassageusespreciselythesametermstoestablish itsmessage.Itpresentsastrikingimageoftheearthlyrealminrelationtothe individual believer: just as the heavenly city is described as enclosed in the believer'sheart,theearthlycityisenclosedinthebeliever'shand.Furthermore, itisdescribedaseternal,aprominentdivergencefromAugustine'sinterpretation ofthefateoftheworldlyrealm: Andinthis,heshewedalittlethingthequantityofanhaselnot , estava na metade da minha palma e era redondo como qualquer bola. Eu olhei para ele com os olhos da minha mente e pensei: "O que pode ser isso?" E a resposta geral foi: "É tudo feito em que tenho pensado quanto tempo poderia durar porque imaginei que não poderia ter dado em nada por causa de seu tamanho pequeno. E fui respondido em meu entendimento: “Dura enquanto Deus o ama.
This passage bears some striking similarities to the picture of the heavenly city given in chapters sixty-eight.
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Siehe Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt, Julian of Norwich e The Mystical BodyPolitic of Christ. StudiesinSpiritualityandTheology,5 (NotreDameandLondon:NotreDameUniversityPress, 1999),182–83. JoanM.NuthnotestheAugustiniansourceofthisimage,amongitsothersources:“WhileJulian sometimescallsthesoulwithoutqualificationthecityofGod,thefactthatsheoftenspecifically designatessensualityasGod’scityshowsthatshewasconsciousofthehistoricalandbodily implicationsofthetermasemployedbyAugustine.”Itseemslikelythatthehazelnut,initsclose associationwiththebody,mayalsorefertoAugustine’searthlycity.SeeWisdom’sDaughter:The TheologyofJulianofNorwich(NewYork:Crossroad,1991),113.
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God. To say that the world "lasts and will last forever, because God loves it" is a marked contrast to Augustine's view of the transience of the earthly realm. As J. P. H. Clark observes in relation to the hazelnut, "God's love is shown both in preservation and increase."44 Augustine's interpretation of the heavenly city is also described in these terms. For Julian, God loves the earth as he loves heaven. Both the heart and the sky are connected to the living body of faith in the world and will never be destroyed. They are not only loved, they are loved in the same way: eternally, by faith. In the heavenly city passage in chapters sixty-eight, Julian again refers to "whatever is made", arguing the inherent connection of creation with God, faith and the kingdom of heaven: 21). The language used here, again referring to creation as "all that he made", parallels this latter vision with the image of the hazelnut depicted in the former. This balance between the two images can reflect the Bible, beginning with Genesis and the creation of all things and ending with Revelation and its promise of the heavenly city's eternal rule. Both "show his dominion" and both specifically describe kingdoms that belong to him. This depiction of "kingdoms yearning for one lord" contrasts with Augustine's more traditional reading of the two cities. More than one kingdom belongs to this lord. Instead of one city ruled by Satan and the other by God, both belong to God. Both passages reach the same conclusion concerning the meaning of the earthly and heavenly kingdoms: both were preserved by God for the express purpose that believers might be united to him. The land itself does not offer rest and true security, but points to the love of God and his fellow men through whom that love is eternally expressed. But what is it for me? Sothly the creator, the guardian, the lover. For until I have essentially fallen into Him, I can never fully rest in all blessedness: that is, I am indebted to Him that no good thing is done between me and my God. (5.14-17)
The vision of the hazelnut indicates to Julian that God is the creator, lover and guardian of all creation. It is a sign of the believer's union with God that he preserves what he has made and that the lesser nature of the earthly creation makes him
44
Clark, "Trinity", 203.
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Of course, "total rest" is impossible without the Creator, Lover, and Keeper of things. The same point is emphasized again in the heavenly city passage, this time using God's heavenly creation as a sign of God's love and a means of union with Him. The vision of heaven indicates that we are to find rest in God. And when he comes upon all creatures in himself, let him not detain himself in beholding himself, but all beholding is joyfully placed on God, who is the Creator who overcomes in him.
Theheavenlycityimagehas,forJulian,thesamemeaningasthehazelnutimage: thatmankind'sonlyrestcanbefoundinGod.AsChristopherAbbotnotes,“The climactic sixteenth showing discloses the completion of a retrospectively discernibleAugustinianparadigmoperativewithinthetext:Julian'sconcernis withthepassagefromknowledgeandloveofcreatedthings“wherinisnorest” toknowledgeandloveofGodwhois“theveryrest.”45IfthisisAugustinianinone sense,inthatGodistheonlytruesourceofhumanhappiness,italsodiverges fromAugustinebytheassociationofthehazelnutwiththeearthlycity.Juliansees theearthlyandheavenlycitiesasequaltokensoftheloveofGod.Godispresent inboth , in the world and in the heavens to come. Indeed, for Julian, the heavenly city is not an end in itself, but "the highest/light and brightest splendor of the city is the glorious love of our/Lord God Astomsight" (68:27-29). Not the city itself, but God's love is significant. As Cynthea Masson observes: "In addition to her belief that God dwells in humanity, Juliana also discusses the possibility of man's entry into the divine realm." humanity and the love of humanity. Augustine defines the two cities in terms of what their members love. Julian responds to this interpretation by applying to God the same standard that Augustine applied to man. For Julian, both heavenly and earthly cities are signs that indicate that God loves humanity unreservedly, just as Augustine argues that humanity must love God above all else to ensure access to heaven.
45 46
Abt, Autobiographie und Theologie, 34. Cynthea Masson, "The Point of Coincidence: Rhetoric and the Apophaticin Julian of Norwich's Showings" Julian of Norwich: A Book of Essays, ed.
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City. The hazelnut as a symbol of the world changes Augustine's interpretation to explore new interpretations of the meaning of the earthly city. Julian transforms it from a fickle and cursed kingdom ruled by Satan into a symbol and proof of God's love. Julian'smessageisnearlyuniversallyacknowledgedasoneoftheoverpowering natureofGod'slove.ScholarsrepeatedlynoteJulian'spositiveunderstandingof man'srelationshipwithGod.KarlTamburrstatesthat“Julianproposesavision ofredemptionthatisultimatelymoretolerantanduniversal,”47andJayGilchrist states that Julian's theology is a “theology of mercy.”48 Her text explores the outermostreachesofhowGod'slovecanfunctioninahumanlife.Bothinthe passagesdiscussedhereandinherworkasawhole,sheexperimentswithhow muchandinhowmanywaysGod'slovecanaffectmen' shearts.49 Julian'sinterpretationoftheheavenlyandearthlycitiessuggeststhatGod'slove hasnolimits,andmayhavetheabilitytosaveallofmankind—allmembersof bothcities—fromtheirsins.IfJulianistestingthebordersofChristianexperience, attempting to create a theology based wholly on God's love, then a universal salvationisperhapsthegreatestexpressionofthefarextentthoseborderscan reach.NicholasWatson,amongothers,proposesthatabeliefinuniversalsalvation existedinMiddleEnglishtheologyingeneral,andJulian'sShowingsinparticular.50 He asserts that Julian and other English thinkers "had the idea - largely implicit in early patristic thought and made explicit by Origen, but attacked in Augustine's De civitate Dei and condemned at the Second Council of 47
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Karl Tamburr, "Mystical Transformation: Julian's Version of Hell's Torment", Mystics Quarterly 20 (1994): 60.67; here, 66. See Jay Gilchrist, "Unfolding Enfolding Love in Julian of Norwich's Revelations", Mystics Quarterly 9 (1983): 67-88,83. However, that's not to say that she doesn't discuss evil in her work. and also Simon Tugwell, “Julian of Norwich as a Speculative Theologian,” Mystics Quarterly9 (1983): 199–209. Overall, Juliana's discussion of evil seems separate from her discussion of heavenly and earthly cities, which focuses on God's love for humanity in response to the Augustinian interpretation. However, Banchich argues that Hazel's passage is an articulation of godly fear because it makes Julian and readers aware of the fragility of existence. See Banchich, CE, "'A Heavyly Joy in a Dredfulle Soule': Julian of Norwich's Articulations of Dread", Fearandits Representations in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, eds. Anne Scott and Cynthia Kosso. Arizona Studies in Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), 311-40; especially 321. Many scholars identify Julian's text as a positive affirmation of universal salvation. Stephen Fanning also argues that "Amidst the disasters and pessimism of her times, Julian's message brims with optimism. Contrary to the prevailing spirit, which emphasized the horrors of hell that awaited the unrighteous, Juliana believed that Jesus had given her the assurance of universal salvation for mankind, in MitigationsoftheFearofHellandPurgatoryintheLaterMiddleAges:JulianofNorwichandCatherineofGenoa, FearanditsRepresentationsintheMiddleAgesandRenaissance, 295-310.
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Constantinoplein553 – that all mankind will attain salvation.”51 Watson identifies Julian as one of the theologians who revived Origen's belief in universal salvation for all mankind.52 It is of particular importance to this article that Decivitate Dei is central to the church's struggle primitive against a universal salvation. While Augustine condemns members of the earthly city and Origen rejects arguments, Julian refashions the same image to explore the possibility of universal salvation. Julian's famous passage that "alles hallebewele, undalleshallebewele, undallemanerofthinge/shallebewel" (27.10-11) may indicate that all men will be saved, just as the image of the hazelnut suggests that the whole world will be preserved and never condemned. How will everything be saved? If sin has no substance, as Julians suggests, sins may not be "things" to them - they may also be insubstantial and would not be included in the promise that "all sorts of things will be good". Statements by him may not be final. Julian uses the imagery that Augustine used to refute universal salvation to explore this very possibility. It questions the permanent separation of heavenly and earthly cities and unites them in their work to find the power of God's love for all people. ThiskindofdepictionoftheearthlycityisperhapspossiblebecauseJulian’s focusrestsonthespirituallifeofanindividualbeliever.Sheisessentiallysecure intheknowledgeofhersalvation.Inthefirstchapteroftheshorttext,sheassures herreadersthat“ItraystesothfastlyethatIshuldebesafe”(1.17–18).Sheisnot, perhaps,amember,orevenapilgrimcaptiveoftheearthlycityasAugustinesees it.Asananchorite,orsimplyevenasabeliever,shehas,insomesense,removed herself from the world, and from anxiety over sin. As Maria R. Lichtmann observes, Julian's isolation from the social structures of the family, the church, and even the religious community freed Julian from some of his limiting implications.
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Nicholas Watson, Visions of Inclusion: Universal Salvation and Vernacular Theology in Pre Reformation England, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27(1997):145–97. Watson, "Visões de Inclusão", 162.
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Because of his position, Julian is relieved of the burden of teaching an audience. In doing so, Julian absorbs the Church's theological traditions to explore new ways of understanding those traditions. She doesn't reject the images, but questions the argument behind those images. In any case, her intent is not didactic or apologetic like Augustine's. The world itself, represented by the earthly city, can be used as a positive image of unity with God, not as an antithesis of God. The celestial city, of course, seems to evoke a comparison with the hazelnut. Both are shortened to better represent the intimate connection between the individual believer and God. They are small enough for one person to hold. One is held in the hand, the other in the heart. Her experience in the heavenly and earthly cities seems deeply individual, deeply focused on the personal connection between the individual believer and God. In a sense, the heavenly and earthly cities seem to have a population of two: the individual believer and God. onehede" is insignificant, and his "onehede" in turn embraces all existence, through the eternal and unfailing power of divine love. Julian of Norwich's understanding of heavenly and earthly cities forms part of a long theological tradition in which space urban is used as an equal metaphor for spiritual identity. Medieval theologians used cityscapes to explain the basic nature of humanity, to divide it into political entities that directly opposed each other, like two city-states at war. As one's residence within a real city would convey information about one's identity to the world, so affiliation with the heavenlyorearthlycityrevealsone'sinnernature.JulianofNorwichisuniquein thewaysheadaptsthisimageryinordertoexploreGod'sloveformankind.Julian inhabitsboththeearthlyandheavenlycities,andunitesthemwithinherselfand withintheloveofthedivine.Theyarenolongeropposed,inherview,butinstead findharmonywithinthebeliever.Julianusestheimagestoexploretheidentityof thesoulwholiveswithinthem,andinwhom,paradoxically, essas cidades por sua turn
53
Maria R. Lichtman, „Godfulfilled mybodye“: Body, Self, and Godin Julian of Norwich, „Gender and Text in the Later Middle Ages“, Hrsg. Jane Chance (Gainesville, Tallahassee, Tampa e Boca Raton: Florida University Press, 1996) 263–79; aqui, 263.
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can also be found. The identity Julian finds there is that of God's beloved creation—creative love in the cities of heaven and earth.
Patricia Turning (Arizona State University)
"With Grit Teeth and Angry Face:"1 Revenge, Visitors, and Justice in 14th-Century France
Onaspringafternoonin1332,abusinesslawyernamedBernardusdeBostowas justoneofmanyindividualsmakinghiswaythroughthebusystreetsofToulouse towardthetownhall.Likemanymedievalcities,thetownhallwassituatedina centrallocationintheurbanspace,whereadministratorscouldmeettheneedsof theirconstituentsinthecourtroom,orridthecityofthemalefactorslockedaway in the municipaljail.2Thebuildingalsoservedasasymbolofcivicprideand autonomy,andreportedlystoredthetrebuchetresponsibleforthefatalstonethat killed Simon de Montfort during the Albigensian Crusade.3 It is unclear what broughtBernardusdeBostotothetownhallonthatspecificday,buthispresence musthavebeenfamiliarenoughamongthepeoplecomingandgoinginthearea thatagroupofmen,armedwithconcealedswordsandotherweapons,layinwait forhisarrival.Whenthegang' Um vigia avistou Bernard Usus emergindo da multidão e sinalizou para os outros agirem.
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ArchivesmunicipalesdeToulouse–FF57,45:"cumvultoirataetdentibusfremens." Doravante referido como AMT. Jules Chalande, Histoire Monumentale de l'Hôtel de Ville de Toulouse (Toulouse: Imprimerie St. Cyprien, 1922). HenriGilles,ed.LesCoutumesdeToulouse(1286)etleurpremiercommentaire(1296)(Toulouse: ImprimerieMauriceESPIC,1969),163:“quilapisfuitprojectuspermachinamcumquodictus comesMontisfortisfuitpercussus.Quemachineestadhucinpalatiocommuni.”Foradescription ofthisevent,see,forexample,WilliamofTudelaandanonymoussuccessor,TheSongoftheCathar Wars: A History of the Albigensian Crusade, trans. Janete Shirley. Crusade Texts in Translation (Sydney: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1996), 172. AMT–FF57,31.
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Bernardus de Bos suffered a "devastating and horrendous" wound to his face that was incessantly deformed and was bleeding profusely on the ground.5 Due to the amount of blood, one of the bandits thought he had slit Bernardus's throat, but decided to give the lawyer one final shot. hit him as he lay helpless in the street. It wasn't long before Toulouse's twelve elected officials, the Capitols, learned of the lawyer's dramatic ambush, which took place just steps away from the very building that served as formers for their constituents. City officials soon made contact with the refugees who were hiding in the church. Oncetheassailantsrealizedtheywerebothidentifiedandtrapped,theybeganto revealthatthewholeattackhadbeenplannedandcommissionedbyacitizenof thenearbyvillageofVillamuro.Theyallegedthatthisman,namedStephanus Saletas,hadbeeninToulouseonmultipleoccasionsandhadpromisedtopay themhandsomelyifthey“mutilatedthelawyerintheface.”Later,theattackers provided sworn statements against Saletas to Toulouse's court officials, and detailedhisplanandmotivationforthewholeevent.Astheevidencemounted against Saletas, the capitols began to mobilize their administration toward preparationforatrial,sothatthelawyerBernardusdeBostocouldreceivejustice for this public insult and his facial disfigurement. However, a significant problem arose: the officials of the city of Villamuro claimed authority over the person of Stephanus Saletas and refused to extradite their citizen to Toulouse. StephanusSaletas'scaseofconspiracy,mutilation,andtheintensivedebates concerningextraditionwasrecordedinanotary'sregisterfrom1332,foundtoday inthemunicipalarchivesofToulouse.Thedocumentasawholecontainsthetrial transcripts, copies of appeal letters (papira cedula), and the capitols' legal correspondenceforfiftytwoseparatecasesheardbetweenthemonthsofApril andOctober.Verdicts,unfortunately,donotappearthatoftenintheregister.The trials themselves took place in the town hall's courtroom , where the Capitols presided over the hearings, dealing with the various lawyers, jurists, medical specialists, defendants and witnesses who stood before them
5 6
Ibid., 48. Dubbed the “Aimery-Berenger Affair” by modern scholars, this case sparked years of debate between the king, pope, and capitals over the extent of royal jurisdiction in the 1330s.
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Register concerns allegations of various violent crimes, including rape, kidnapping and physical assault, using a wide range of weapons. The cases are certainly not representative of the criminal activity case in Toulouse. For example, if an official committed a transgression, he would be tried in an ecclesiastical court. Asidefromjurisdictionallimitationstothenumberofcasesheardbythecapitols, manylesseroffenceswereneverrecordedorevenmadeittotrial.Asthepolitical capital of Languedoc with a population somewhere between 30,000 to 40,000 residents,thereislittledoubtthat,likeParis,thecityhaditsshareofunemployed transientswhohadtostealorresorttoviolencetosurvive.7Butforlesseroffenses, perhapsthecapitols’notarydidnottakethetimetorecordthedetailsofthecase or to conduct an extensive investigation into the matter. The overwhelming majority of victims or defendants who appeared in court were well established in the community, were permanent residents of Toulouse, and had extensive social and professional contacts who provided financial and emotional support in court.8 In many ways, the role of the trial judge was not , therefore, that
7
8
University student employees. The original of the notarial record is in AMT–FF57,1–30. The whole process is copied by another notarial hand in the AMT–FF58 record. Fragments of the process have been written in different places. 23. The archivist Ernest Roschach summarizedthisdocumentinFrenchinVilledeToulouse–InventairedesArchivesCommunales Intérieursà1790(Toulouse:ÉdouardPrivat,1891),107.–MarcelFournierpublishedRoschach's versionofthetrial,andseverallettersbetweentheKing,archbishopofToulouse,andthecapitols fromtheVaticanarchivesinLesStatutsetprivilègesdesuniversitésfrançaises,depuisleurfondation jusqu'en1789,vol.1(Aalen,Germany:ScientiaVerlag,1970),nos .563-89. ThepopulationestimationisfoundinJeanNöelBiraben,“LaPopulationdeToulouseauXIVe etXVesiècles,”JournaldesSavants(1964):285–300.ToulouseseemstobeacontrasttoParis,where scholarsarguethatthepoorandmarginalfigureslivingintheCapetiancapitalcommittedmost ofthecriminaloffenses.Muchofthisislinkedtotheeventsofthefourteenthcentury,whichled toadisplacedpopulationthatfledtothecapitalcityofParis.JacquelineMisraki,“Criminalitéet pauvretéenFranceàl’époquedelaGuerredeCentAns,”Étudessurl’histoiredelapauvreté,vol. 2, MoyenAge–XVIesiècle, ed. MichelMollat (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1974), 535–546. Bronisaw Geremek, The Margins of Society in Late Medieval Paris, trans. Jean Birkel. Past and present publications (1971; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 6-43. Most examinationsofParisiancrimecomefromtheonlyextantcriminalregisterfromtheChâteletof Paris dating from 1389 to 1392. From this register, containing one hundred and seven trials involvingonehundredandtwentyeightdefendants,themajorityofoffenderswereamongstthe poorestinhabitantsofPariswhohadnopermanentresidencesorpossessionsinthecity,andhad committedtheftofsomesort.RegistrecriminelduChâteletdeParisdu6Septembre1389au18Mai 1392,ed.M.HenriDuplèsAgier(Paris:ImprimerparC.Lahure,1861–1864).See,EstherCohen , "Patterns of Crime in Fourteenth-Century Paris", French Historical Studies 11 (1980): 307-27; Claude Gauvard, "La CriminalitéparisienneàlafinduMoyenge:unecriminalitéordinaire?" For example, the AMT criminal record, FF-57 of 1332 contains over seventy named principal defendants, only three of whom, including Stephanus Saletas, were not residents of Toulouse.
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prosecuting transient thieves who lurked on the outskirts of the city, preying on innocent citizens. Instead, criminal proceedings allowed capitals and their officials to resolve conflicts between neighbors and demonstrate their authority by breaking judgments on their captured or suspected city ordinances. The trial of Stephanus Saletas turns out to be an exception to this rule. He wasn't a citizen of Toulouse, but he wasn't a wandering bandit either. His crime was not a spontaneous, emotional attack, but a cold, calculated attack that took months to coordinate before finally unfolding. This article analyzes the points of contact between Toulouse's "insiders" and "outsiders" and examines how justice (interpersonal and judicial) was implemented in urban space. The case of Stephanus Saletas operates on two distinct levels: the local arena, where Saleta set out to deface Bernardus de Bosto to show his revenge in a symbolic city location, and the larger regional theater, where the two municipalities fought to demonstrate power by protecting their respective citizens. I will argue that, as the violation took place in public space in Toulouse and involved the humiliation of a lawyer famous for the symbolic location of the town hall, the capital had to go to great lengths to bring the offender back to stand trial in its court, to show that his urban space and citizens were protected and the rule of law was respected. To elaborate on this interpretation, this article follows the tradition of recent historians who have borrowed terms from spatial theory to understand the trial as an exercise or ritual of justice. Until recently, geographers were more interested in applying social theories to spatial constructions. In other words, trying to "explain why something happens is to explain why it happens where it happens". 1974, also extremely influential in leading scholars to unravel what space is like
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Robert David Sack, Conceptions of Space in Social Thought: AGeographicPerspective (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), 70. Other geographers have included sociological perspectives to emphasize how geographic planning or proximity and social relations are interrelated and interdependent forces.
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perceived, conceived and lived.10 Having accepted that the concept of space involved more than just geometric boundaries, theorists such as Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu described space as a contested geography and territory over which groups and individuals seek power and exercise control. . InPower/Knowledge,Foucaultarguedthat,“awholehistoryremainstobewritten ofspaces—whichwouldatthesametimebethehistoryofpowers...fromthe greatstrategiesofgeopoliticstothelittletacticsofthehabitat.”11Bourdieucame toasimilarconclusionthroughhisobservation'softheBerbergroup,asserting that the power of a society's dominant group lay in its ability to control the constructionsofrealitythatreinforceitsownstatus,sothatsubordinategroups acceptthesocialorder,andtheirownplaceinit.12Tomaintaintheiradvantages, any powerful group must create an ordering of space for subservient groups through symbolic rituals, laws, or the regulation of habitation and work opportunities.However,thepowerofadominantgroup'spoweroverspaceisnot permanent.Inherstudyofthemaleuseofspatialpowertosubordinatewomen, DaphneSpainrevealedthatthe“reciprocitybetweenspaceandstatusarisesfrom theconstantrenegotiationandrecreationoftheexistingstratificationsystem.”13 Atalllevelsofthesocialhierarchyandsocializationprocess,powerfulandless powerfulgroupsarecontinuallyvyingtoassert,ormaintaintheirpowerover space. In recent years, medieval historians have begun to examine the various ways in which monarchs, local governments and the common man manipulated, perceived and lived their urban space in the light of spatial theory. AstheeditorsofCityandSpectacleacknowledge,“tomedievalurbaninhabitants, spacewasnotneutral.Selectionofparticularspacesforeventsspeakstoexclusion ofsomeurbaninhabitantsaswellasinclusionofothers.”14Onalargescale,people livinginmedievalcitiesrecognizedthesymbolicmeaningsbehindcivicrituals and ceremonies which were enacted throughout the streets in order to assert municipalauthority,legitimizeanewmonarch,orcelebrateprideinaguild’s historyorachievements.Spectacleusedspacetoshow,orrefuse,arealignmentof powerandcontrol,andsocialcohesion.15Beyondroyalandreligiousprocessions, 10 11
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Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Paris: Anthropos Publishing House, 1974). Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, eds. and trad. Colin Gordon, et al. (New York: Pantheon, 1980), 149. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology, 16 (1972; Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 90-91, 160-63. DaphneSpain, Gendered Spaces (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 17. Barbara A. Hanawalt and Kathryn L. Reyerson, Introduction to City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, eds. Mervyn James, "Ritual, Drama and the Unfinal Social Body of the English Medieval City," Pastand
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Medieval city dwellers also witnessed a large number of public executions and punishments. Through the bloody defacement and symbolic condemnation of criminals that took place in various parts of the city, the urban masses were able to witness the power of municipal jurisdiction and the return of the centralized authority of the citizenry, more historians began to portray the trials themselves as civil rites of justice carried out. throughout the urban space. Robert Bartlett, for example, argues that the trials should be interpreted as windowsintogreatermeaningsoftheinteractionwithinsocialcommunitiesand conceptsofcrimes.17Inotherwords,thetrialitselfservedasa“stagedevent”in whichthecriminalproceedingswereaplayofareallifedrama.18The“tales”that aretoldinthecourtrecordsbringtolightthevaluesofthejudgesandthejudged, and establish the society's system of rules of behavior.19 Thus, the notary's descriptionofcrimesandthewitnesstestimonyrevealtohistorianstheboundaries ofgoodandbadbehavior , and decided who was admitted and excluded from an orderly society
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Gegenwart 98 (fevereiro de 1983): 3–29. Joëlle RolloKoster, „The Politics of Body Parts: Contested Topographies in LateMedieval Avignon“, Speculum78 (janeiro de 2003): 66–98 ':TheExecutionRitualinLate MedievalParis,”Law,Custom,andtheSocialFabrinMedievalEurope:EssaysinHonorofBryceLyon, ed.BernardS.BachrachandDavidIII. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1990), 285–304. Walter Prevenier, “Violence Against Women in a Medieval Metropolis: Paris Around 1400” Law, Custom, and the Social Fabric , 263–84. Claude Gauvard, „PendreetdépendreàlafinduMoyenÂge:lesexigencesd'unritualjudiciaire“, Riti eritualinellasocietàmedievali, Hrsg. Jacques Chiffoleau, LauroMartines und A.ParaviciniBagliani (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1994), 191-214. Guido Ruggiero, "Constructing Civic Morality, Deconstructing the Body: Civic Rituals of Punishment in Renaissance Venice", Ritieritualinellesocietàmedievali, 175–90. Antoine Garapon, Bien Juger: Essai sur le rituel judiciaire (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1997). Andrée Courtemanchedividesonetrialintoliterarycategoriessuchas“protagonists”andthe“plot”in “TheJudge,TheDoctor,andthePrisoner:MedicalExpertiseinManosquinJudicialRitualsatthe EndoftheFourteenthCentury,”MedievalandEarlyModernRitual:FormalizedBehaviorinEurope, China,andJapan,ed.JoëlleRolloKoster.Cultures,Beliefs,andTraditions,13(LeidenandBoston: Brill,2002),105– 23. DanielLordSmail, „Telling Talesin Angevin Courts“, FrenchHistoricalStudies20 (1997):183–215. Natalie Zemon Davis, FictionintheArchives:PardonTalesandtheirTellersinSixteenthCenturyFrance.TheHarryCampLecturesatStanfordUniversity(Stanford,CA:StanfordUniversityPress, 1987). B. Ann Tlusty untersucht zum Beispiel Zeugenaussagen im frühmodernen Augsburg, um zu argumentieren, dass die Gesellschaft unterschiedliche Niveaus und Standards akzeptabler Gewalt hatte, insbesondere unter den Menschen
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a sense, drawing both literal and figurative borders in the city: restrictions of acceptable behavior, communal obligations of conduct, as well as physical boundariesofsocialinteractioninneighborhoodsandcitystreets.21Thelitigants whobroughtcasesbeforethecapitolsdidnotnecessarilyconsidertheoutcomeof thetrialasthemostimportantfactorofthedispute.Instead,thepublicnatureof theaccusationandthespectacleofthesocialdramainvolvedintakinganenemy tocourtwerejustassignificant.22Medievalpeopleinvestedinpressingcharges againsttheirenemy,notnecessarilyforthefinancialoutcome,butbecausethey coulddefameanopponent,orgivelegitimacytothehatredorangertheymay possess. Thus, for capitals and litigants alike, more than just the outcome of the process was important. Citizens were given a hearing for their complaints and administrators were able to establish their sovereignty. This essay attempts to situate Stephanus Saletas' judgment within the historiography of spatial theory by accepting urban space as a contested topography over which different groups struggle to maintain dominance through displays and negotiations of power. Thefirstportionwillexploretheplanned assaultagainstBernardusdeBosto.Thecourtrecordsrevealthatafterabusiness transactionwentawrybetweenStephanusSaletasandthelawyer,Saletasvowed toavengethisdishonorthroughthespectacleofmutilation.Eventhoughhewas acitizenofVillamuro,andthusanoutsidertothesocialhierarchyofToulouse,he stillaspiredtohavethisretaliationtakeplaceinpublic.Butinsteadofplayinga leadingrole,hewascontenttoworkthroughhispersonalconnectionsinthecity toorchestratetheeventfromadistance.Inthesecondportionofthecase,the struggleforjurisdictionoverSaletas,thecapitolsutilizedthisinterpersonalcrime todisplayandsolidifytheirjurisdictionalsovereigntybothwithinthecitylimits andbeyond.Thiscasewasanopportunityforsocialandjudicialpowerstructures tobenegotiated,andlegitimized,withinapublicurbansphere.
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theartsanswhofrequentedtaverns.„ViolenceandUrbanIdentityinEarlyModernAugsburg: Communication Strategies Between Authorities and Citizens in the Adjudication of Fights“, Cultures of Communication from Reformation to Enlightenment: Constructing Publics in the Early ModernGermanLands, Hrsg: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2002, 10–23 Michelde Certeau, The Practice of Vida Cotidiana, übers. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1984), 123. Daniel Lord Smail, The Consumption of Justice: Emotions, Publicity, and Legal Culture in Marseille, 1264–1423. Konjunktionen von Religion und Macht in der mittelalterlichen Vergangenheit (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003),23.
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Due to the nature of the extant archival sources, it is difficult to offer any accurateassessmentofthesocialcompositionof Toulouse, ortogainanyreal knowledgeofthemovementofpeopleinandoutofthecity.23Butwedoknow thatbythefourteenthcentury,thecityofToulouseplayedapivotalroleinthe politicalandlegalnetworkofsouthernFrance.AftertheFrenchkingconquered the region and ended the Albigensian Crusade in 1229, Toulouse became the region'sheadquartersforroyalofficialssenttoprotecttheinterestsoftheking, and for the Dominican Mönche, die vom Papst geschickt wurden, um die Ketzerei der Katharer zu bekämpfen. Between1280and1320,theKingPhiliptheFairsentlargenumbersofofficers trainedinRomanlawtoserveintheroyaladministrationinLanguedocasjudges, orasroyalprocurers.24Inaddition,theregionwasintegratedintotheroyaljudicial hierarchybybeingdividedintoregions,sénséchaussées;eachadministeredbya seneschal,aroyalofficer,whohadajudicialcourt,whichservedasthelastcourt ofappealsinmattersbeforetheparlementinParis.25Thesénséchausséeswerethen 23
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For the most part, scholars have concentrated on the city's political transition into the royal kingdomduringthethirteenthcentury.BeyondthecopiouspublicationsofJohnHineMundy, themostrecentstudyisChristopherGardner,“NegotiatingLordship:EffortsoftheConsulatof ToulousetoRetainAutonomyunderCapetianRule(ca.1229–1315),”Ph.D.dissertation,Johns HopkinsUniversity,2002.Historiansinterestedinthecitybeyondpoliticalissueshaveconsulted taxrecords, Guild bylaws and various church documents to determine certain standards of living, economic means of production, and family structures. For example, in 1335 the capitals began to register the taxable assets of each head of the family. Philippe Wolff worked extensively with these late fourteenth and fifteenth-century documents in Les "estimes" ToulousainesdesXIVeetXVesiècles (Toulouse: CenterNational delaRechercheScientifique, 1956); CommercesetMarchandsdeToulouse(vers1350–1450)(Paris: LibrairiePilon, 1954); and "Toulousevers1400: Répartidiquetopographsprographes" Toulouse: Édouard Private, 1978), 269-78. For a discussion of available guild records, see Sister Mary Ambrose Mulholland, Early Guild Records of Toulouse (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941). and Benjamin N. Nelson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), 167-80. Furthermore, documents from Dominican inquisitors, stationed in Toulouse as early as 1233, have been scrutinized by scholars of heresy and the mechanisms of ecclesiastical oppression, in part because inquisitors such as Bernard Gui kept accurate records of the punishments they inflicted on convicted heretics. ed.Documents pourserviràl'histoiredel'inquisitiondansleLanguedoc (Paris: H. Champion, 1977) and WalterL. Wakefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974). Joseph R. Strayer, Les Gensde Justice du LanguedocsousPhilippeleBel (Toulouse: Association Marc Bloch, 1970) and The Reign of Philip the Fair (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980). Marie-Martin Chague, "Contributionàl'étudedurecrutementdeagentsroyauxenLanguedoc auxXIVeetXVesiècles",FranceduNordetFranceduMidi:Contactsetinfluencesréciproques,vol.1,Actesducongrèsnationaldessociétéssavantes.Sectiondephilologieetdhistoirejusquà1610(Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale-3). This political organization of France is best described in John W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages (Berkeley: The University of
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subdividido em viguerie ou jugerie, com o nobre vigário presidindo um tribunal com uma multidão de oficiais subalternos e burocratas. MostoftheseroyalofficialsresidedandworkedintheChateauNarbonnaisin thesouthernportionofToulouse.ThenewlyinstitutedUniversityofToulousealso providedthecitywithabodyofprofessionallawyersandjuriststrainedinRoman law.26 The friars resided in various locations throughout the city, but they conductedtheirtrialsintheJacobinsmonastery,wheretheystandardizedand institutionalizedthepracticesofinquesttoeliminateheresy.TheDominicanshad attheirdisposalgroupsofnotariesandsoldierswhowouldsummonorforce suspectsintothecityofToulousetostandtrialfortheirbeliefs,ortosufferthe consequencesoftheircondemnation.Manyoftheirofficers,especiallynotaries, cruellyextortedmoneyfromthepeopletheyencountered,and,worse,captured andtorturedmenandwomenuntiltheysecuredconfessions.27Theoverlapping jurisdictionsofthemunicipal,royalandecclesiasticalofficialsinthecityledto frequentdisputesandconfusion , mas também garantiram que Toulouse se tornasse um local importante para as preocupações legais significativas dos residentes de Languedoc. As estruturas dos tribunais da cidade de Toulouse mudaram drasticamente como resultado dessas duas novas influências. Todos os sistemas judiciais, inclusive os das capitais, se beneficiaram do aperfeiçoamento dos métodos inquisitoriais dominicanos.28 Nesse novo processo, as autoridades não precisavam mais esperar que as denúncias contra os infratores fossem levadas à justiça, mas podiam apontar suspeitos ou outros dissidentes com o poder de seu Escritório para rastrear e perseguir ativamente. Os dominicanos também se mostraram extremamente eficazes na formulação de métodos de interrogatório e formas de extrair confissões daqueles sob seus cuidados. À medida que mais homens foram educados em cânones e civis nas universidades da Europa, muitos se tornaram
26
27
28
California Press, 1986) and more recently Elizabeth M. Hallam, Capetian France, 987-1328 (New York: Longman, 2001). For a general history of the University of Toulouse, see Cyril Eugene Smith, The University of Toulouse in the Middle Ages: Its Origins and Growth to 1500 A.D. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin: The Marquette University Press, 1958). in Responsa doctorum tholosanorum (Haarlem: H.D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon, 1938). Menet de Robécourt is the best example of a notary who violently exploited and persecuted the inhabitants of Carcassonne. See Jean-Marie Vidal, "Menet de Robécourt, commissaire de l'inquisition de Carcassonne", MoyenÂge 16 (1903): 425-49; James B. Given, Inquisition in Medieval Society: Power, Discipline, and Resistance in Languedoc (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 145-46. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 prohibited the use of torture in ecclesiastical courts and systematically established regulations for an inquisitorial procedure in courts to prosecute suspects. Given, Inquisition in Medieval Society, 13-22.
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ofthesetechniquesoftheinquisitioncarriedoverintothecivicjudicialprocedures inFrance.29 Sothecapitolshadadoptedthemechanismstoinvestigateallegationsofcrimes throughquestioning,detainment,andinsomecircumstances,torture.Butatthe sametimethatthecapitolsacquiredtheinquisitorialmethod,theintegrationinto theroyalcourthierarchythreatenedmanyoftheprivilegesandcustomsofthe municipaljudicialsystem.Thecapitolsdidnegotiatewiththekinginorderto preservesomeoftheirtraditionallegalprivilegesandlaws(whichwereeither acceptedorrejectedbytheking).30Oneofthemostcontestedissuesforthecapitols concernedwhohadlegitimatecustodyofthetown,andwhoheldjurisdictionover itsinhabitants.31InOctober,1283,PhilipIIIaddressedthisdebateandworkedout acompromisebetweenthecapitolsandtheroyalvicar.32 Most significantly to this essay was the royal proclamation that granted the capitolstherighttohearallcriminalcasesforoffensescommittedinToulouseand thesurroundingvicariateofLanguedoc,eitherbroughttotheirattentioninthe formofanofficialcomplaint,orifmunicipalsergeantsseizedthedefendantinthe processofcommittingthecrime.Duringthetrial,thevicarorhislieutenantwould sitinontheproceedings,andapprovethecapitols'recommendationforcorporal sentences.Withthisroyalmandate,thecapitolscontinuedintheroleasthefirst resourceforjusticeforthepeopleofToulouse,enforcingthecustomarylawof theirpredecessors.Inthesubsequentyears,themunicipalofficialswouldfight ardently to protect this right against the competing administrations, and to maintainapositionofrelevanceandauthorityfortheirconstituents. In diesem Umfeld começou também a morrer Geschichte von Stephanus Saletas und Bernardus de Bosto
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30
31
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A. Esmein, A History of Continental Criminal Process with Special Reference to France, trans. John Simpson, The Continental Legal History Series [5] (Boston: Little, Brown, 1913), 88-93. Many of the rejected exchanges and laws preserved in AMT-AA3:2, from 1274-1275, and ATM-AA3:3 list those that were rejected. ClaudeDevicandJosephVaissètte, HistoiregénéraleduLanguedoc, editor AugusteMolinier (Toulouse: Private, 1872–1904), X, doc. 26, art. IV, column 154. , the contrary is stated. AMT–AA3:4 and AMTAA4:1, dated October 1283.
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thatwasbeingheldbyanotherMasterPetrusdeErto.WhendeBostoinformed Saletasthattheaskingpricewastwentysixsoltols,Saletasbecameagitatedand, withan“angryexpression,saidthathedidnotoweMasterBernardusmoneyor love.”33Uponhearingthisexplosiveresponse,BernardusdeBostorefusedtodeal anyfurtherwiththeclient.Accordingtowitnesstestimony,Stephanusleftthe lawyer'sofficeandbegantocomplainbitterlytohisfriendsthatthepricehad changed.Heclaimedthattheyhadpreviouslyagreeduponaspecificpayment, andtheyhadswornanoathconfirmingthedeal.StephanbelievedthatBernardus hadbrokenthispromise,andhadchangedthepriceatthelastminute.Thenext day,Stephanusaskedhisfirstcousin(consobrinus)toconfrontthelawyerinthe streetsbeforetheChâteauNarbonnais.34 After several After verbal exchanges and reluctant negotiations between the two, Bernardus de Bo agreed to meet again with Saleta and bring in another magistrate to settle the dispute. Unfortunately, this encounter with a third party also proved unsatisfactory for Stephanus Saletas, as he now owed the notary an additional sixteen soles for his agency services.35 What began as a simple transaction between lawyer and client turned into a widespread disaster, the Stephanus Saletas frustrated and betrayed by the legal system that brought him to Toulouse in the first place. It didn't take long for this irritation to manifest itself in a dramatic way. From the day after the argument with Bernardo de Boto until the next day, Saletas began to make verbal threats to retaliate very soon. He informed several people that the lawyer was facing "bad punishment". Witnesses noted that he became so angry that he had "an angry facial expression and clenched teeth" 36 or that he maintained an "angry, angry face" 37. For starters, it was a way for Saletas to "display" his anger in front of an audience that reinforced his feelings about the lawyer and the whole ordeal. He announced his hostility and criminal intentions and made it clear that he would not tolerate this alleged injustice.
33
34 35 36 37
AMT–FF57, 44: "Then he answered angrily and said that he did not owe Master Bernard the moneylender for himself." Ibid.: "Raymundus Jordani is said to be a cousin of the said Stephanus." Ibid., 45 ibid.: "cumvultuiratoexistensetetdentibus remens." Ibid.: "looking angry".
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During the trial, he maintained his innocence, his facial expression and voice being specific indicators that provided a connection and motivation for the attack. Stephanus Saleta planned a calculated and symbolic retaliation against Bernardus de Bosto. He hired some men he knew from his social media around town to stalk, attack and get revenge on the lawyer. A close friend, named PetrusCortesii,coordinatedameetingwithtwomenwillingtoacceptmoneyfor theassault.Whentheconspiratorsmetforthefirsttime,Saletasinformedthem that,“acertainlawyercalledMasterBernardusdeBostohasdonemewrong;I wantvindication,andsoIamaskingyoutowoundhimsobadlyinthefacethat hewillbedeformedfortherestofhislife.”38Theactofmutilatingafoeasaform ofvengeancecanbefoundinseveralmedievalrecords.39Perhapsthebestknown exampleisthestoryofPeterAbelard,whowascastratedbyhisloverHeloise's vengeful uncle who “cut off the parts of my [Abelard's] body whereby I had committedthewrongofwhichtheycomplained .”40 The German historian Valentin Groebner argues that focusing on the face or cutting off a nose meant an attack on an individual's honor, both in criminal sanctions sanctioned by local governments and in duels fought between rivals. 42 But a wounded or maimed officer pointed to a real vulnerability in the city's communal control.43 He represented the power group's lack of control over the subservient population of the social hierarchy. by express
38
39
40 41
42
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44
Ibid.: "bacallarisinlegibusvocatusMagisterBernardus deBostofecitmichialiquasinjuriasita pro modis omnibus volo ipsos vendicari et ipsos rogano instanter ut dictum Magistrum Bernardumtaliterinfacievulnerarentprototalitervitasuaessetdefformatus." lábios, nariz e pés. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, trad. Betty Radice (New York: Penguin Books, 1974), 75. Valentin Groebner, "LosingFace, SavingFace: NosesandHonourintheLateMedievalTown", trans.PamelaSelwyn, HistoryWorkshopJournal40(1995):1–15. MariedeFrance, "Bisclavret", TheLaisofMariedeFrance, trans.GlynS.BurgessandKeithBusby (Nova York:PenguinBooks, 2003), 68-72. Guido Ruggiero, Violência em Veneza no início do Renascimento. Crime, Law, and Deviance Series (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1980), 140-43. Robert C Davis, The War of the Fists: Popular Culture and Public Violence in Late Renaissance Venice (Nova York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 87.
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By ordering the Mente to cripple Bernardus de Boto, Salet intended to leave his mark and render him powerless as a respected professional and legally competent member of the community. The lawyer should suffer this public humiliation so that anyone looking at him would see that he was being dishonored. As Saletas had uttered his revenge plan before an audience, people were able to make the connection and know that, although Saletas did not commit the act, his honor and rule over de Bosto was restored by this mutilation. After they agreed upon the payment of one hundred sols tols for the attack, SaletasleftToulousetoawaitwordthathisrevengehadbeencarriedoutbyhis mercenaries.Thissuggeststhatnoncitizenshadmobilityinandoutofthecity limits,andthattherewassomenetworkofcommunication.Italsobecomesclear fromthecourtrecordsthattheplanwasnotaprivateorconcealedaffair.Instead, asthedaysprogressed,morepeoplebecameentangledintheplotthatcontinued tounfoldinvariouspublicspacesofToulouse.Forexample,whennonoticeofthe attack arrived, Saletas came back to the city on numerous occasions to speed thingsalongwithpromisesofadditionalmoney.Hemetwiththehiredthugsin crowded taverns or in the houses of his friends.45 But the organization of the assaultdoesnotappeartohavebeenthemostsophisticated,becausesuspicious neighborskeptquestioningtheintentionsofthemenwhentheycongregated.The conspiratorsallhidinthesamehomewiththeirwivesandprostitutes,gathering weaponsandtheircourageformonths.46Inoneinstance,allofthemenwerefully armedandexitedthehometheyusedasaheadquartersfortheiroperation.When acouplewholivedclosebyinterrogatedthehomeowner,afriendofStephanus Saletas,heexplainedthatthemenintendedtotakealongjourney,andwerenot a threat to the security to the neighborhood.47 Stephanus Saletas therefore had allies in the city of Toulouse who were willing to side with him and harbor paid subjects to mutilate Bernardus de Bosto.
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AMT–FF57,46–47.Inthemedievalcity,tavernsservedasapublicenvironmentwheresocialand professionalactivitiescouldtranspire.B.AnnTlusty,BacchusandCivilOrder:TheCultureofDrink inEarlyModernGermany.StudiesinEarlyModernGermanHistory(Charlottesville:University PressofVirgina,2001),158–82.BarbaraA.Hanawalt,“TheHost,theLawandtheAmbiguous SpaceofMedievalLondonTaverns,”'OfGoodandIllRepute: „GenderandSocialControlinMedievalEngland(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1998),104–23.NicoleGonthier,Crisdehainesetritesd'unité:laviolencedanslesvilles,XIIIe–XVIesiècle.CollectionViolenceetSociété(Turnhout:Brepols, 1992),111–49. AMT–FF57,46–47. Ebenda, 46.
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When the subjects finally felt secure in their preparation and in Saleta's promise to pay for the attack, the spectacle took place in insignificant parts of the city space. Stephanus Saleta's trusted accomplice, Petrus Cortesii, received word from a Roman informant that Bernardus of Bosto was on his way to work at the town hall. As it is today, the courtyard around the town hall was filled with city administrators and lawyers, pilgrims on their way to the grand basilica of Saint-Sernin, university students on their way to classes, and merchants selling their wares to eager customers. So why did the conspirators choose this moment in this location to attack the lawyer? Although the records are silent, we can speculate that perhaps they expected the crowd to hide their attack and allow them to take Bernardus de Bo by surprise. It took a hearing with Bernardo de Bosto's colleagues to properly defame and dishonor the lawyer. But in many ways, City Hall represented the legal system that had failed Saletas, humiliating him among his friends and family. So it was fitting that the attacks would not only bring down one of the city's respected lawyers, but also serve as a wake-up call to capitals and their administrations. It may also have been a means of demonstrating that justice was being served outside the Toulouse City Council court system. To add insult to injury, the perpetrators fled the scene to a church, where they took advantage of the church's jurisdiction. Accordingtothecanonicallawofasylum,anyoneseekingrefugefromapublic authoritycouldbeprotectedinanychurchormonastery,wheretheycouldnotbe removed.Thiswasanissuethathadbeenhotlydebatedbetweenthecapitolsand the king, as they tried to establish their own privilege to make sure that the interestsoftheToulousainswereprotected.48Thenotionofasylumwasimportant tothechurch,asitwasameansofcontinuingaphysicalpresenceandauthority inthesecularlegalcomponentofToulouse:theecclesiasticalauthoritieswanted tokeepchurchesasrecognizablyprotectedspacesinordertomaintainpowerin municipaljurisdiction.49Thecapitolsandtheirofficerschallengedthisstipulation in1288,whichcausedthearchbishopofToulousetoissueacomplainttoKing
48 49
AMT-AA1:4(1152) Limouzin Lamothe, La Communede Toulouse, 267-68. For example, see an example of negotiations between the Church and municipal authorities in Montpellier in 1332 in Katheryn L. Reyerson's Flight from Prosecution: The Search for ReligiousAsyluminMedievalMontpellier, FrenchHistoricalStudies17(Spring 1992):603–26;J. Charles Cox, The Sanctuaries and Sanctuary Seekers in Medieval England (London: G. Allenand Sons, 1911).
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Filipe IV.50 At the beginning of the year, a criminal fled from the capitals to the Church of Nazareth and immediately claimed the privilege of asylum. A messenger of the capitolsdisregardedthesafeguardofthereligioussite,brokeintothechurchand draggedtheaccusedtothetownhall.Horrifiedtolearnthatcapitolssubmittedthe mantointerrogationandthetortureof“questioning”inordertohearaconfession, thearchbishopbeseechedthekingtoenforcetheprotectionofthechurch’ssacred space.Theroyalparlementorderedthecapitolstoreturntheprisonertothechurch, thuscontinuingthetraditionofasylumforthechurchandrenderingthecapitols impotentagainsttheroyalprotectionofthechurch. Although the attackers remained protected from secular authority within the confines of the church, six days passed and their sponsor's silence became very worrying. The most daring of the bunch crept out of the church and fled Toulouse in the middle of the night and located Stephanus Saletas at a small nearbylocationofBoudigos.51TheunnamedmandescribedtheattacktoSaletas, andceremoniouslyhandedovertheswordthathadwoundedBernardusdeBosto asheproclaimed“thisswordhasdonegreatthings.”52Thiswasthemomentthat Saletaswasexpectedtofulfillhispromise,andpaytheonehundredsolstols.Ifhe had,maybehisroleintheattackwouldneverhavebeenrevealedtoToulouse’s authorities. But Stephan Saletas gave this representative of the attackers only twenty-five sol tols. It didn't take long for that fact to come back to Toulouse when Saleta retreated to his hometown of Villamuro. Even Petrus Cortesii, once the most trusted comrade in Saleta, gave the capitals an affidavit and confession of the entire conspiracy. The trial of Stephanus Saletas would signal the restoration of the power structure through the use of urban space to demonstrate the authority of the municipal government. It was therefore crucial for the capitals and their officials to ensure that Saletas was tried in their court at Toulouse City Hall, for a number of reasons.
50 51 52 53
Departmental archives of her Haute Garonne–1G345, fol.42–43. AMT-FF57.50. ibid. AMT-FF57.51.
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toulouse In September 1291, the capitals turned to the authorities at Castelnaudry (40 kilometers to the southeast) to capture and extradite a certain Raymundus Furutrii, so that he could be held accountable and punished for his “excesses and crimes” committed in Toulouse, which became a Forum to establish cycles of inclusion and exclusion within the community.55 The authorities had to conduct the process in a public and formalized way so that city dwellers could testify that the capitals and their officials were delivering justice to the victim. And just as the attack on Bernardo de Bosto was a spectacle aimed at a specific audience, the trial and judgment were also an act of justice involving a multitude of participants. The twelve capitals decided the court cases, but many other "good men" were also present, including bureaucrats and legal advisers, such as notaries and lawyers. In addition, dozens of professional lawyers and notaries were also included as witnesses, which is not surprising considering that the attack took place close to the busy and bureaucratic City Hall. ancilla) and a notary accompanied by his trainee.56 This was clearly a case that went beyond an interpersonal conflict between Stephanus Saletas and Bernardus de Bosto: it was a public matter that involved many levels of the social hierarchy. As previously mentioned, the criminal record contains copies of correspondence from the capitals with officials from Vilamuro and the regional senator regarding the extradition of Stephanus Sale to the city of Toulouse. In their first letter, the capitals informed the consuls of Villamuro that they had extracted confessions from Bernardo de Bosto's assailants.
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AMT, Layettes II, carton 84. September 21, 1291. "Expartedominostrogis Francie et nostro vocaquerimusac. We beseech Quathinus Ramundus Furutriquiemlators Seulators infidels to confinement to investigate and punish all those guilty of excess and crime, from the same Ramundumin Tholosa et sublime dictionostra commissitat alitaly about those who will harm those who are safe.” For example, if someone was falsely accused of a crime, their honor in public opinion had to be restored by wiping away the accuser's slander was brought to trial AMT–FF57,104 : "Master Peter of Hercianotaire and his disciple."
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(whowereintheircustodyinthemunicipaljail),andthatthemenhadspecifically implicatedStephanusSaletasinthecrime.57 ThecapitolsrequestedthattheconsulsandbailiffofVillamurosurrenderSatelas into their custody, and to cease the protection and the concealment of their resident.TheletterspromisedthattheywouldgiveSaletasafairtrial,andthathe wouldbetreatedwell.Whenthiswrittenreassurancefailedtoyieldaresult,the capitolsofToulousedeployedthreemunicipalsergeants,anotary,andseveral juriststoVillamuroonmultipleoccasionstoconvincetheadministrationthatthe capitols'hadproperjurisdictioninthematterbecausethecrimehadtakenplace inToulouse.58ApparentlythepresenceofToulouse'sofficialsdidnotintimidate theconsulsofVillamuroeither,sothecapitolsdrewfromtheirroyalprivileges and appealed to the court against this Necho of Languedoc. As correspondence and political wrangling over Stephanus Saletas dragged on for weeks without result, the capitals began to bring forward new accusations against Saletas. It seems that they were absolutely determined that, whatever the crime, Stephanus Saletas would return to Toulouse to stand trial. It also demonstrates the capitals' firm belief that they must take active steps to achieve justice, both to please their constituents and to assert their place in the local and regional judicial hierarchy. The capitals revealed to the Villamuro consuls that Stephanus Saletas had also been terrorizing some local landowning families on the outskirts of Toulouse. For example, he robbed several families at gunpoint and punched a man in the face.60 The main witness for the prosecution, Petrus Cortesii, informed the capitals that during the reign of Stephanus Saletas against Bernardus of Bosto, Saletasse had committed great plunder. of the lawyer who was outside the walls of Toulouse were safe.61 By adding these new crimes to their original charges against Saletas, the capitals may have tried to establish that this was a threat to the whole community; It was Bernardo de Bosto
57 58 59 60 61
Ibid, 32. Ibid, 33-5. Ibid., 36. Ibid., 52. Ibid.
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was not the only victim of Saletas' ill intentions, but everyone in Languedoc was vulnerable to his manipulation or outright violence. Like Stephanus Saletas, the royal intervention acted on behalf of the capitals. Under pressure from the royal seneschal, the Villamuro consuls placed Saltas in the care of the capital's officials. The city sergeantsescortedtheprisonerbackintothecityspacethathehadviolatedtobe heldaccountableforhiscrimes.DespiteallofthepromisesofToulouse'scapitols, itwasveryunlikelythathadafairtrial.StephanusSaletasalwaysmaintainedhis innocenceinthecase.Heinsistedthathebarelyknewthemeninvolvedinthe attackagainstBernardusdeBostoandthathehadnoinvolvementintheattack.62 But Saletas was submitted to the torture of the “question,” even though his attorneys protested that this violated their jurisdiction.63 Torture (quaestio or tormentum in the Documents), considered part of the judicial process in the 13th and 14th centuries, was another element of jurisprudence that had been upheld as a legal privilege by the Toulouse administrations.64 Unfortunately, that is so much information that the records contain and constantly distorted on the face. But, although we left more questions than answers in the resolution of this dramatic case, the surviving records demonstrate the importance of using urban space to administer justice. Stephanus Saletas came to Toulouse to take advantage of the legal system that Toulouse offered as the capital of Languedoc. Believing that Bernardo de Bosto had abandoned him, he wanted to take revenge with a show that took place at the Toulouse town hall. After Saletas fled to his home in Villamuro, the Capitals mobilized their administration to bring him back to Toulouse, where the attack took place, so that they could demonstrate their sovereignty and authority. The trial of Stephanus Saletas then reveals much more than just a
62 63 64
Ibid., 41-42. Ibid., 56. Edward Peters, Torture (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 40-73. Historians debate how often torture was used in secular cases. Kenneth Pennington, for example, believes that torture was not practiced with as much delicacy as was thought in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Prince and the Law, 1200-1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition. A Centennial Book (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 42-4, 157-60.
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Random act of medieval violence: a sublime example of the negotiation of urban space and power.
Jean E. Jost (Bradley University, Peoria, IL)
Urban and Liminal Space in Chaucer's Knight's Tale: Perlousor Protective?
Barbara A. Hanawalt and Michael Kobialka have eloquently defined the new postmodern notion of space in literary contexts: since the word "space" lost its strictly geometric meaning, it has been acquired and accompanied by numerous adjectives or nouns that define its "new " use and attributes are some of the terms that have emerged alongside Euclidean, isotropic or absolute space... the possibility of producing altered space, like talking and imagining what used to be empty space
The method of use of space reveals a lot about how authors conceive, design and execute their literary art, as well as shape the meaning and significance of their artifact. In particular, space in fictional and real cities provides unique and effective landscapes for writing literal and fictional human history, a different kind of everyday literacy, not based on textual learning but on a different system of symbols and understood structures.
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Práticas medievais do espaço, Hrsg. Barbara A. Hanawalt e Michael Kobialka. MichaelCamille,“SignsoftheCity,”inMedievalPracticesofSpace,ed.BarbaraA.Hanawaltand MichaelKobialka.MedievalCultureSeries,23(LondonandMinneapolis:UniversityofMinnesota Press,2000),1–36;here9.Unfortunatelyfewerliterarystudieshaveconsideredtheroleofurban spacewithinspecificliterature.SomeofthemostinterestingincludeDavidWallace,“Chaucerand theAbsentCity”inChaucer'sEngland:LiteratureinHistoricalContexts,expandedinhisChaucerian Polity :Absolutist LineagesandAssociational FormsinEnglandandItaly (Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress,1997);CraigBertholet,„UrbanPoetryintheParliamentofFowles“,StudiesinPhilology 93.4(1996):365–89;John.H.Fisher, „CityandCountryintheFabliaux“,MedievalPerspectives1
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Visual signs reveal and form part of the larger spatial landscape of the medieval town and its Kobialka importance. However, modern concepts of space can be applied to medieval literature, regardless of whether writers call their setting "space" or "place". German scholars in particular have used a broad definition of urbanization that encompasses everything from large metropolises to the smallest privileged settlements under "cities".
JohnMichealCraftonrecognizestheseoverlappingusages,claiming“thewords cityandtown,usedalmostcompletelysynonymously,appearmostofteninTroilus andsecondmostintheKnight’sTale.”6Withthiscaveatofthearbitrarinessofthe citytowndistinctioninmind,wewillconsidertheurbanspatialarrangementof Chaucer’sKnight’sTale,intheancientcitystatesofThebesandAthens,ascarefully delineatedlociwithaspectsbothperilousandprotective.Thefictivenatureofthe tale,orfictioningeneral,usuallyfollowstheactuallayoutofrealcities,andinfact, medievalauthorsmayevenhaveexperienceofthoserealcitiesfromwhichthey maydrawtheirdesign. David Wallace points out that "Chaucer's Canterbury Tales do not begin in London, but begin south of the Thames at Southwark and steadily move away from the city walls".
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6 7
(1986): 1-15; City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, editors Barbara Hanawalt and Kathryn L. Reyerson. Medieval Studies at Minnesota Series, 6 (Minneapolis: University of Michigan Press, 1994); John Michael Crafton, "Chaucerand the City", Medieval Perspectives 17.2 (2002): 51-67. Camille, "Signs of the City", 9. Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place: Aphilosophical History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 103-15. David Nichols, The Growth of the Medieval City from Late Antiquity to the Early Fourteenth Century. A History of Urban Society in Europe, 4. (New York and London: Longman, 1997), preface, xiv, xv. Crafton, "Chauce and the City", 52. Wallace, Chauce and the Missing City, 59.
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Canterbury; most stories describe places that are not London but represent a variety of places. Pilgrims from London to Canterbury used to spend the night in Southwark so that they could begin their journey before the city gates opened for the day. . . . The effect of the Southwarki meeting underscores the randomness of this meeting.... [Furthermore] Southwark functioned as a containment and exclusion zone before the onset of modern London: dirty or fringe businesses such as lime burning, tanning, dyeing, hospitality and prostitution flourished there; Criminals fleeing London's courts and foreigners working close to London's trade rules have found a home... In short, the name Southwark identifies governance as a problematic issue, takes the issue outside the city and still allows the city not to leave everything back .8
Bothappropriatelyandironicallyinthisraucousandsubversiveliminalspace,a ragtagassemblygathertogetherandtelltheirequallyunconventionaltales.Inthis unruly place, the rules of taletelling are established, themselves to be both disorderedandbroken;herethetalesofgameandearnest,solasandsentence,will besetandinterrupted.Herethesacredandprofaneadventurebegins,butdoes notend.Here,theconditionofperilisasprominentasthatofprotection.Theact ofpilgrimagingitselfconsistsofmovingfromoneurbanspace,throughliminal ruralspace,9tothenexturbanspacewithaneverfluctuatingseriesofeventsand narratives punctuating those spaces. O objetivo da peregrinação pode muito bem acabar por ser um espaço religioso ou espiritual, refletindo um desenvolvimento psicológico do espírito num outro tipo de espaço emocional. Butwhathappens,fictivelyandliterarilyinthoseintermediateliminalspaces aretherealobjectofthepoet’sscrutiny.Here,Tellersfromvariedculturaland hierarchicallocicompeteforthespacetotelltheirtalesofsolasandsentenceand wintheprize.Craftoninterestinglycontendsthat“Chaucerplacestheproblemof thecityasaproblemofmargins,notamarginalproblembutmarginsthatsetout, thatframe,thespacesofinscription;”10thepilgrimageframesChaucer’snarrative spaces,highlightingtheimportanceofthoseliminalmaterialborderspacesaswell 8
9
10
Wallace, "Chauce and the Missing City", 60.61. Memorials of London and London Life in the Thirteenth, Fourth, and Fifteenth Centuries, AD1276-1419 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1868), 492. The Italian word counted means "surrounding countryside"; Captains (or greater knights) and Valvasours (or their vassals) are the two levels of urban and rural nobility. Crafton, "Chauce and the City", 65.
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than the literary connections that link the narratives. These spaces protect the integrity of the narratives and the composite, despite their fragmented nature.11 Within the fictional pilgrimage of the Canterbury Tales, material, emotional and psychological spaces can expand, delimit, define, contrast, evoke, make sense of and diminish the narrative situations. The evolving environment of The Knight's Tale alternates between large cities, small villages, uninhabited forests and their surroundings, with concomitant emotional volatility. It includes battlefields, gardens, towers, groves, castles and chambers. As V. A. Kolve points out, "Chaucer's theme [in The Knight's Tale] is none other than the pagan past, which is most noble and dignified, conceived from within," military and inclusive, personal and intimate. Can they be made more or less like this?” The outdoor spaces really do seem the most dangerous and pitiful, as battles and tournaments are fought, mournful widows mourn their losses, supplicants pray in temples, there are hospitalizations due to unfortunate events. But they can also restrict and weaken within the city, such as prison towers, death rooms and inner psychological places. The entire complex structure of The Knight's Tale depends particularly on its multiple locations, which reveal its physical and emotional significance, imposing political, legal and personal landscapes to further its impact. Furthermore, human events that occur in these spaces can change the nature of their protection or preservation, as new emotional perspectives transform these natural places. As such, The Knight offers a complex pattern of locations to explore permanence, ritual and eventual dissolution, all based on the relative use of various types of space. The story begins with Duke Theseus traveling from the now-conquered domain of Femenye13 to his native Athens on a centuries-old pilgrimage. As John H. Fisher claims 11
12
13
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are divided into ten fragments, which are assembled after his death according to different editorial principles. Narratives with links to earlier or later narratives are combined into a fragment. V. A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1984), 86. John H. Fisher suggests that the place name of the house of the Amazons in the "Regne of Femenye" (from lat. femina, woman) apparently invented by Chaucer, et al.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977),
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"Men of the Middle Ages looked to Athens as the source of secular social and political theory",14 perhaps Chaucer is contrasting a medieval notion of illegitimate or unnatural lawlessness - domination by women - with the ordinary law of Theseus, which nevertheless brings with it danger and disaster. The Duke rejoices in his victory and his upcoming marriage to Ypolyta, Queen of the defeatedAmazons.Thesiteofbattlehastreatedhimkindly.However,wehave noevidenceofherdesiretobedethronedfrompower,tobelongtoTheseus,orto bemovedfromhercityintohis.ForYpolyta,thecityspacehasprovenperilous, inthatshehasunwillinglylostherlibertyandindependencethroughTheseus's conquestofherlands.AsLauraKendrickseesit,“Theseuscurtailsandrepresses outrageous, unlawful, erotic and aggressive desires: first, he conquers the AmazonsandturnstheirQueen,Ypolyta,intohisobedientwife.”15Iftheproofis inthepudding,wemightask,doesTheseus'sreignfinallyproveprotective,or perilous,lawfulandpeaceable,ormilitaristicanddeadly,tohiscitizens?Wedo knowYpolyta'ssisterEmily'sdesire:shewantsnopartofmarriage,asonewould expectfromanAmazonian;presumablysheandYpolytawouldprefertoremain intheirownqueendom.Nevertheless,fromaperspectiveoutsidethetale,the The voiceless Ypolyta has to leave her homeland, accompany her forced husband to her new city. However, on the outskirts of Athens, Duke Theseus encounters his first provocation. "Whanhewascomealmoostuntothetoun", 16 mourning widows in black robes showing "bisekenmercyandsuccor" (918), first hardships. You are in a miserable emotional space. They ask him for help and put him in a similar position, empathetic, on the verge of his pain. A repeated pattern of complicationemergesinwhichthemostevocativeandemotionaleventsoccuron thebrinkof,butnotintheheartofaputativelywellgovernedcity.Theliminal spacebetweentheoutskirtsandthecityshouldprotectthecommunityandensure urbanharmonyisnotdisturbedbythedisharmonyofitsinhabitants.Inthese border spaces, conflict is acknowledged, negotiated, and perhaps resolved, protectingthecityatlargefrominvolvement.Thelocusofthesekeeningwidows, formerly powerful Queens, suffering battle scars and emotional trauma, is a physically and emotionally desperate place. Kneeling submissively at the feet of a powerful figure to mourn her husband's death and need a new one
14 15
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25, note on Tol. 866. Chaucer did not completely remove the stigma from this site, since Theseus' conquest is accepted as legitimate, although he is ignorant of the reasons for this. Fisher, Complete Poetry and Prose, 25, No. Toll.860-61. Laura Kendrick, Chaucerian Play: Comedy and Control in the Canterbury Tales (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), 118. Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), I.894. This and subsequent quotations are taken from this edition.
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Social order for a future, these weak and vulnerable women are a visual representation of their situation in their own city. Their situation recapitulates the military and amorous experience Theseus has just completed: in the military conquest and in the emotional court of Y, the land of Femenye, and now in the search for a new inclusive social organization in that court. She is responsible for all three places. If a jingoist motif is the value of a fast-paced society governed by a wise and astute ruler, its physical domain, particularly its urban space, must exemplify that excellence in governance that was soon to be extolled in the Renaissance textbooks Rules for Princes. But hostile cities like Femenye don't always seem to fall within Theseus' sphere of protection. Pity these devastated widows; these descend politely and lift them into their real space, lifting them gently from the earth to their realm where they belong from birth. Jill Mann brilliantly reveals the meaning of the carefully arranged iconography: "Chaucer places his Theseus on the horse and has him instantly dismount under his 'compassionate' impulse, so that it dramatically illustrates the conqueror's equating himself with the victims, the abandonment of his triumph to the identification with your pain". The duke's appointment of the queen to her most comfortable space of dignity and respect foreshadows the action of care and healing that he will soon undertake on her behalf in the space of his city, as he will later attempt in Thebes. This border space outside the city is a safe place where Sovereignty, while not symbolically and literally above them, is in its space to do its business. Theblackgarbedmournersonthe“heigheweye”(1.897)representdeprivation, injustice,andviolation:1)deprivationofhusbandlysupport,wisegovernance, opportunitytoleavethepastbehindandmoveontothepresent;2)injusticein unfairtreatmentagainstthem,forCreonhasnotonlykilledtheirhusbandsinthis locus,buthasleftthemunburiedcarrionforthebirdsandroamingdogs,avery badlocusforthedead;and3)violation,indenyingthemtheirburialpracticesand rituals, their proper place as mourners and Queens, thus They disregard their cultural customs and desecrate the victims' lives.
17
JillMann, FeminizingChaucer.ChaucerStudies, 30 (1991; Woodbridge, UK, und Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer, 2002), 135.
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DukeTheseus,alwaysthesageproblemsolver,vowsvengeanceonCreon,and movesintothecityconfinesofAthens,intoasiteofpriorkilling,tounseatand destroythatreigningtyrant.ForCreon,thespaceofhisowndomainhasbecome dangerous,notprotective,asretributionisestablishedwithhisdeath.Arebuilding or restructuring is only possible after the razing of the prior urban space, its confines,anditspsychicidentity.ForthosealliedwithCreonandcurrentlywithin thecity,thespaceisindeedperilous.Inafield, “Hefaught,andslough[Creon] manlyasaknyght/Inpleynbataille,andputtethefolktoflyght”(987–88).Forthe Queensoutsidethecity,theirrightstotheirdomain,theirabilitytoofferburial rites,andtheirprotectiontofulfillcustom'sritualshavebeenreinstated.Here,on thesiteofthedemolition,Theseuschoosestoremainthenight:“Stillinthatfeeld hetookalnyghthysreste”(1003)thusreinforcinghisclaimtopowerandassuring hisdominanceintheurbanspaceofThebes.Nocommentismadeaboutthefuture ofthisnowdemolishedspace Seine leere Leere spricht Bände über die Vorkriminalität seines Anführers Kreon. AftertheAtheniansiegeofThebes,ransackersfindtwohalfdeadcousinspiledon a heap of corpses “liggynge by and by, / Bothe in oon armes” (1.1011–12) intertwinedwitheachotheronthegroundsofthebattlefield.Theyevensharethe samefamilialDNA,aswewouldsaytoday,andhierarchicalplaceinsociety.Their physicalproximityconfirmstheirintertwinedfuture,inspacesbothamicableand hostile to each other, albeit in ways neither could immediately envision. Dieser externe Ort des Nahtods auf einem Feld außerhalb der Stadt und der Burg veranschaulicht ihren tragischen Status: einst hochgeborene Ritter, jetzt buchstäblich und metaforisch in die Tiefen der Verzweiflung und der bloßen physischen Existenz gefallen. Ihre Nähe zueinander begründet ihre Beziehung, sowohl direkt als auch ironisch, innerhalb der Geschichte. angwisse und in wo” (1.1030). Dem steht die Siegesposition Theseus in Athen gegenüber: „Withlauercrownas sieger / And there he lyveth in joye and in honor / Terme of his lyf“ (1.1027–29). While the city may protect Theseus, it merely deadens the defeated–Creon'ssoldiersandsurvivors.GerhardJoseph'sexcellentvisualization ofspacehereaccuratelysummarizesthespacedivisions: TheKnight'sTalemovesthroughfourearthlyenclosuresthatgivewaytooneanother as the locales of significant action: the prison tower in which Palamon and Arcite contendverballyfortherighttoEmilye,withwhomtheyhavebothfalleninlove(Part I);thegroveinwhichPalamonandArcitecomeupononeanotherandinwhichthey tentar matar um ao outro antes da intercessão de Teseu (Teil II); die Tempel von Venus, Mars und Diana im Amphitheatre, das Theseus für den Zusammenstoß gebaut hat
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JeanE.Jost from Two Hundred Worthy (Part III); and the arena itself, where the decisive tournament takes place (Part IV).
Young knights are therefore only slightly better off for their relocation. Though they are momentarily out of mortal bodily danger, they have lost control and power over their existence: no intellectual freedom of movement, action, choice or location does Chaucer (borrowing his original Theseida from Boccaccio) go further to emphasize its architectural continuity.
However, they are not the same - one means nature, freedom, openness to heaven, the other to artificial art, narrowness, darkness without sky doun' (1.1069), Palamon 'Gothinthechambreromyngetoandfro' (1.1071), Emily 'romedtoandfro' and ' romethintheyonderplace' (1.1119);20 this insistence on physical movement through space underscores their different experiences of uncomfortable imprisonment or freedom. Which of the castles was the chief Dongeoun (the knights were in prison, of which Itoldeyoundtellenshal was), was even happy with the Gardynwal Therasdiese Emelyehaddehirpleyynge.
(1056–61)
Speaking of the walls in Troilus and Criseyde, Crafton states that they "offer a variety of narrative arrangements, but are ambiguously labeled as freedom or closure, protection or threat, and finally unity or fragmentation"21, a shared observation equally applies to the walls. from Knight's Tale.
18
19 20 21
Gerhard Joseph, "Chaucerian 'Game' - 'Serious' and the 'Herbergage Argument' in The CanterburyTales", Chaucer Review (1970): 83-96; here 84. Kolve, Chauce and the Imagery of Narrative, 86, 87. Kolve, Chauce and the Images of Narrative, 88.89. Crafton, "Chauce and the City", 61.
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are presented as inextricably linked and form the subject of this story. One day, outside the walls of the prison tower, bright and luminous footsteps walk through nature's place, the flower garden, rivaling its beauty. Palamon, roaming about high in the manmade tower is instantly captivated by the unavailablemaidenhespiesthroughhisexcludingthickbarredwindow—toofar fromhimindistanceandsocialrank.Arcitesoondiscovershiscousin'sobsession, andjoinshiminlovelonging.Thetwoknightsarecaughtinanewspace,the imprisonmentoftheirinfatuation.Kolverecountshowoneartist,theMasterof RenéofAnjou,depictsthistableau: Emiliainthepleasuregarden,sittingonaturfedbench,andweavingagarlandof flowers,whilethetwoknightslookoutuponher through thebarsoftheirprison window.Theroombeyondthemisindarkness , while the garden, delicate in its colors and open to the sky, is flooded with spring light
The space-a-movement effect is palpable. As Henry Ansgar Kelly points out, "Palamon's joy, though briefly told, makes the prison of life noticeably less filthy." the knight has. Palamon would enter Emily's heart. Arcite is similarly hurt by her beauty, but sees Emilya as the locus of social and political capital to be earned and the twin triumphant victory as the locus of successful achievement rather than recognition of the woman's love. It would only penetrate her body location. His explorations, moving freely in the space of the flower garden, emphasize the spatial imprisonment of the knights, separated from nature and separated from the object of their desire. They have no power, no ability to communicate, no freedom of action. But his place of freedom motivates his escape. LeePatterson recalls that the Knight's Taleis is a painting, a frieze, a series of static images, a procession, in its most dynamic form, a procession...
22 23
KolveChauceandtheImageryofNarrative,87. Henry Ansgar Kelly, Chaucerian Tragedy (1997; Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2000), 86.
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Jean E. Jost, significantly, through Theseus' May Hunt at Grete Herte. The prison brawl becomes a battle in the woods and then a tournament in the amphitheater.
This triple frame reinforces the rider's nature: conservative, traditional, standardized, expected - all in keeping with the prevailing design. Patterson concludes: If “all narrative actions assume the same configuration . . . [the narrative] perfectly expresses both the self-adulation of chivalrous ideology and the hesitation of chivalrous practice.”25 The dual configuration of order and expansion runs parallel to nature. ritualistic lover of the order of the knight and his hero Theseus . susceptibletoritualtheybecome.Meredecorativeelaborationmakesfororder,afact thatTheseussurelyunderstands.Itisforthisreasonthatthemovesthecombatfromthegroveintothemassivearenawithitstemples;itisforthisreasonthatthedispenses thesinglecombatbetweentheenragedPalamonandArciteoveracompanyoftwohundredknights . . . Through this continual consecration of space and time through expansion, Theseus seeks to bring a temporary and finite perfection to the confusion of this life.26 Thus, dealing with space in repetitive patterns based on Teller's (Knight) fear and uncertainty and in the character (Theseus) seeking order through extension are based on Chaucer's portrayal of Teller's psyche, a careful treatment of military order, as this discussion suggests. Ultimately,thelossofEmilyesupplantsthelossoffreedomandpower,forthe smalljoyofseeinghercannotwipeouttheanguishofprison.LauraKendricksees itthisway: These two heroes, confined to their prison tower, are powerless, conflicted child figuresparexcellence.TheyaresubjectnotonlytofateandTheseusbutalsototheir ownemotionsanddesires–toloveandhate.WhentheyseeEmelyewalkinginthe gardenbelowtheirprison,bothofthemfallinlovewithherinstantlyandcompletely, and“sibling”rivalrybeginsfortherighttopossessthefemaleloveobject,whichis unattainablenotonlybecauseEmelye“belongs”toTheseus, her sister's husband, who has paternal authority - and a conqueror's right - to dispose of her person.
24
25 26
Lee Patterson, Chauce and the Subject of History (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 209. Patterson, Chauce and the Subject of History, 209. Joseph, “ChaucerianGame,” 84–85.
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Rather than openly expressing resentment towards Theseus for preventing their wishes from being fulfilled, the two youths direct their anger at each other...
Os amantes estão em um lugar de impotência, presos à torre física e frustrados por seu desejo e incapacidade de se mover. That these knights are stripped of their maturity and independence in the face of this love object exacerbates their dissatisfactionwithplace.Kolvesuggestsanemotionalchangeofplaceaswell,in that Chaucershowsadeepermovementofthespiritaswell—acompulsionnotcomic, arbitrary,ortrivial...[they]fallinlovewithEmelyeforherbeauty,unmistakably,but thebeautyofherfreedommostofall....Fromwithinprisontheyfallinlovewitha creaturewhoseemstoincarnateaconditiontheexactoppositeoftheirown28
– being able to choose your own space. Her entry into the garden and the story create a distance, an emotional split, between the cousins who are now political rivals for the possession of her charms, however different they may be. They also transform a formal architectural frame. . . [in a] lively opening into a realm of contingency and change. Perotheus gains Arcite's freedom, Palamone escapes, and the prison/garden opening icon, now left as a literal location. . . it is redefined and used through a series of metaphors to illuminate the meaning of the plot.29
In other words, Emily's place of freedom creates a second kind of place for lustful youth. Little Arce realizes that exile in a strange place without his beloved will is actually a worse place of imprisonment. WhenPerotheus,mutualfriendofTheseusandArcite,visitsAthens,hearranges tofreethelatteronconditionofhisremoval,hisexilefromthatplace.Butfor Arcite,onefreedominAthensleadstoanotherbondageoutofit—deprivedofthe sightofhisbelovedinThebes:“Noughtinpurgatoriebutinhelle”(l.1226),lowon Fortune'swheel,doeshethinkhimselfnow,envisioningtheconfiningtoweras paradise.Aftersixmonthsofagonizing,Arcitebreakshispromise,andreturnsto Athens,nearbutnotwithhisbeloved;herehelanguishesforayearortwoand finally, Emily's anonymous page becomes "Philostrate".
27 28 29
Kendrick, Chaucerian Play, 119. Kolve, Chauce und the Imagery of Narrative, 90. Kolve, Chauce und the ImageryofNarrative,91.
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the languid, impotent, idle Arcite resists tormentingly, and therefore hurries to the pilgrimage at this first opportunity. Yetanothertransformationenactedhereisthemovefromrelativestasis,two knightsimprisonedwithinatowerwatchingamaidwalkinginaconfinedgarden, to relative activity and animation in the tournament, in a city within the city, “openingoutintoarealmofcontingencyandchange.”30ButasJillMannpoints out,first“Palamongoestothegrovetohidehimself,and'byaventure'(1506) Arcitemakesforthesameplace...hewandersintotheverypathbywhoseside Palamonlieshidden.”31Theyfirstbeganinthesamelocus,separatetemporarily , and seven years later they accidentally meet again, now with a deadly agenda that, as we'll see, makes the complex itself dangerous. So, after those painful years in the Athenian prison tower, Palamon, scolding Dame Fortuna, Saturn and Juno, decides to escape from his "cage". Who, including the knight, would not fear such an isolated place? Through "Adventure" Arcite chose to do her May bows in the same grove mentioned above. Also emotionally trapped behind his disguise in a protective pretend identity, and located in the body of the squire he calls "Philostrate" to protect his life and be close to Emilye, he seeks this salvific haven as an escape. possession, which is not even 'possible'. Perhaps this display of fear and frustration is also characteristic of the knight.
30 31
32
Kolve, Chauce und the ImageryofNarrative,91. Jill Mann, „Chance and Destiny in Troilus and Criseyde and the Knight's Tale“, The Cambridge CompaniontoChaucer, Hrsg. Piero Boitani und JillMann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, 2003), 106. Arlyn Diamond, „Sir Degrevant:WhatLoversWant“,PulpFictionsofMedievalEngland:EssaysinPopularRomance,Hrsg.NicolaMcDonald.(ManchesterandNewYork:ManchesterUniversityPress, 2004),82–101;
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In the prison tower, their experience is characterized as imprisonment and coercion”33, regardless of their physical location. In this benevolent natural orchard, far from the eyes of the city, three forces converge: while two cousins are fighting their physical competition, "they have blood up to their necks" (1.1660), the third, father figure Theseus, soon appears in the same forest and goes hunting ! And, as Ansgar Kelly points out when speaking of narrative and thematic breaks, “we can cite the grove first destroyed by Theseus in the construction of his Colosseum and later used as a site for Arcites Exquis”34 as an example of mutant construction. A place of potential danger between two knights becomes a place of actual danger among two hundred, eventually, perhaps inevitably, becoming a deadly graveyard. Confinedtothesafespacebackinhisroomapartfromthedangerousaction,but cladinridingclothesinpreparationforsomeevent,Theseusisatfirstoblivious tothedevastation.Whenheridesout,theconfluenceofthethree,thesymbolic fatherreigninginhistwosons,meetinginoneexternallocus,initiatesamajor conflictwhichonlymaternal,feminineintercessioncanmollify.Thus,following hissources,theKnightmustcreateaseparateterrain,albeitonthesamespot, specificallytoresolvetheEmilyrivalry,shebeingthesymbolicandliteralprize andthelocusoftheromance.Herfree,socialselfisaseductiveconduittoher emotionalandmilitarystability.Onthatterrain,ofEmilyeandthegrovewhere herloverscontend,isthesiteonwhichthenextpartofthenarrativeisplayedout. Though these would slay the knights who broke the oath on the spot for their infidelities, one for breaking the prison and the other for breaking the exile upon returning to the city of Athens, their weeping queen Ypolyta, her sister Emelye, and their ladies would trade this spot. and they also influence this situation through their placement and their actions. And on their bare knees they fall And woldehavekiisthisfeestheashestoed.
(1757–59)
As Mann points out, “It is Chaucer who introduces this second group of kneeling women into the narrative; Boccaccio's Theseof feels only a moment of anger, which passes by itself (V 88), so that the women need not intervene. Again, the visual imagery hints at the feminine nature of piety, the 'verray wommanhede' it evokes.
33 34 35
Kolve, Chauce and the Images of Narrative, 91. Ansgar Kelly, Chaucerian Tragedy, 224. Male Feminizing Chaucer, 136.
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Two of them were Queen Ypolyta and Emelyen, who had no pity for the young knights. Fortunately, "what goes around comes around" or, in Chaucerian parlance, "piteerennethsooneeingentilherte" (1761), empathizes the two vignettes together. Theclimaxoneyearhence,aproper,safe,controlled,compassionatetournament will be fought with one hundred warriors per side in that exact locale where PalamonandArcitewerefound.MannfindsTheseus“providesacivilizedcontext withinwhich[thecontest]canoperate.”36Unlikethevicious,personaloneonone battleofthecombatantsaloneinthegrove,thispubliccontestanditsdisplaysof strengthbyprofessionalsiscontrolledbyrulesandregulationsdesignedtowin withoutdeathratherthanwithit.Althoughcertaindangerofindividualconflict tothedeathintheoutdoorgroveisreplacedbypotentialdangerincontrolled group battle in the same grovecum arena, both activities create a dangerous environment. The outcome in this grove, the novel's most enduring and unifying place, determines the story's resolution, Emily's final location, and the Knights' political place. heytoreof[God's]purveauance' (iv, prosevi, 219), in which oppositions are held 'to shine that they may differ'.
The third part of the story tells about these prayers and their results; she creates an artificial outdoor triple temple space, open to the heavens but surrounded by walls, like a stadium, filled with crafts and art worthy of the worthy events to be held. Albrecht Class, in his article in this collection, points to the growth of cities in the 13th century.
36 37
Mann, "Chance and Destiny," 107. Julian Wasserman, "BothFixedandFree:LanguageandDestinyinChaucer'sKnight'sTaleandTroilusandCriseyde",Sign,Sentence,Discourse:LanguageinMedievalThoughtandLiterature,ed.id. and Lois Roney (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1989), 194-222; here 208. For an opposing view, see Henry Ansgar Kelly, “Chaucer's Art and Our Art,” New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism, ed. Donald M. Rose (Norman, Oklahoma: PilgrimBooks, 1981), 107–20, who asserts: “The the same conclusions of confusion and inattention to the visual arts must be drawn for Chaucer's depiction of the three temples in The Knight's Tale' (114).
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whetherwethinkofcathedralsandchurches,cityhalls,urbanhouses,libraries, orsplendidcitywallsaspartofthefortificationsystem.”38Withinthisclassical setting,thatexpressionwouldbemanifestedastemplesandColiseum.Itisnot surprisingthatTheseus'screativestructurewouldbeartisticallyexpressive.Itis liminal,neitherexclusivelycitynorcountry,butanappendageofboth,bridging thetwoloci.This“nobletheatre”(1.1885), Thecircuitamylewasabout, Walledofstoon,anddychedalwithoute Roundwastheshap,inmanereofcompas, .. .Wechseln Sie zu Wasnoonon, als einsamer Raum. (1.1887–89;1895–96)
Interestingly, the walled boundary around this city wall is spatially allegorically represented as a mini-globe, "in the shape of compasses", with opposing poles on the east (in honor of Venus), west (in honor of Mars) and north (in honor of Mars). to Venus). honor of Diana) Domains: A microcosm of a world of conflicting religious ideals. It is carefullyandappropriatelydesigned,withorderandreason.Theseus'sartists fabricategraffitionthiswallreflectinganartificial,unnaturalnatureonthewall placard,itselfplacedwithinnature.ThespaceofVenus'sEasternwallisagarden settingpaintedonwhitemarbledepictingbrokensleeps,sacredtears,andfiery strokes of desire on its face, a telling cuckoo on her hand and a fragrant rose garlandonherhead.Thespaceisseductive.Mars'sWesternwallofgoldcopies thetempleofMarsinThrace( Greece), not a garden, but a cold, frosty forest of rafters through which a gusty wind blows, a space under a grassy hill. Each location can easily be identified with the deity it was created to honor. Furthermore, the space is delineated, divided into discrete units, organized, ordered, prioritized and hierarchical to emphasize additional points of its narrative. .[seen in] the large number of transitional passages that tie the narrative together.”39
38 39
Albrecht Classen, Hans Sachs and His Encomia Songs,” neste volume, 568. Patterson, Chauce and the Subject of History, 210–11.
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Three apparent demarcations are seen below: "Suffisethheere ensamplesoonoutwo,/andthoughIkouderekeneathousandmo" (1953–54); “An example in ancient histories will suffice; / I cannot rekene hem alle although I want to” (2038–39); and "Now wol Istynten of the goddesobeave, Of Mars, and of Venus, goddesse of love, and telly you were pleynly as Ikan/Thegrete effect, for that I bygan" (2479-82). Each of these departments forms a single, separable compartment. The style of discrete units exemplifies Theseus' behavioral pattern and organizational way of governing and the Knight's patterned thought process and way of narrating. Indeed, John V. Fleming would extend this observation on the basis of the General Prologue narratives, arguing that "in the Prologue portraits, Chaucer's 'sense of an ending' is strong and active, and that what we call 'final portraits' he can". ' above all they enjoy a certain pride...the descriptions of the pilgrims usually end with a wealth of thematic statements or summary statements.”40 The same tone is found in the material art on the walls of the Coliseum. This theater of deadly beauty, ambiguous at best, outside the civilized city, is wonderfully adorned with exquisitely crafted images, paintings, artistic designs, statues and altars of Mars, Venus and Diana, with Pluto, Callistope and others lining the walls. . ; they signify sources of power and connections with Venus, Mars and Diana, love, war and chastity, Arcite, Palamon and Emily respectively. Fleming points out that "decorative design and pictorial representation were everywhere in Chaucer's world, in the sacred spaces of churches and in the city's banqueting halls... : a forest, a garden, the cold and icy region of Thrace, a hill, hunting fields and the dark region of Pluto. Although they are beautiful, they are also the background of vice, from the dark crime to the cruel rage, the red like burning coals, the smiling knife killer, the traitorous killer in bed, the bleeding mouth of the martial name less. No doubt the knight himself witnessed such atrocities, which still burn in his mind. The visions represent real-life locations and causes of death, props as this is where the mortal tournament will take place.
41
John V. Fleming, „ChaucerandtheVisualArtsofHisTime“,NewPerspectivesinChaucerCriticism, Hrsg.DonaldM.Rose (Norman,OK:PilgrimBooks,1981),121–36;hier132–33. Fleming, „ChauceandtheVisualArts“,124.
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thethreeideologicalpositionsofthegods,aswellasthepersonaetheyreflect, throughimitationanddelineationoftheirdeificpatrons,andthecontenderseach represents.Andyetitisalsoaplaceofdeath,andatombsite.Thecharactersthe Knightchoosestodepicthaveironicrelevancetothistaleoflove,reinforcingthe text.Heinstantiatesthemanythemesofloveandconflict,selfandother,subtly pervadingthetextthroughout;hepubliclyannouncesTheseus’sidentity,values, andgreatlearningintheimagesbygivingthesubjectsofTheseus’simagination aconcretelocusonthewalls.Thesplendid,dramaticpresentationthreatensto stealtheshow,theactualphysicalcontestforaplaceintheheartofEmily. The Palamon and Arcite entourages that arrived the night before the tournament are presented in spatial dimensions. Arcite is paired with Emetreus, king of India, riding high in "Uponasteedebaytrappedinsteel" (2157). The Host Duke Displays the combatants' parades hierarchically according to their power level; they are placed in orderly rooms in the opulent inner palace of your city, splendidly luxurious and arranged with great precision, row by row in proper order. These Theseus, this duke, this worthy knight, when he brought them to him, and them, all these degrees, he consolidated them, and salutes the work Toesenhemanddohemalehre, that still men not dasniemaneswitofnoonestaatnekoudeamendenit.
(2190–96)
This interior is perfect! They stay within a perfectly protected and controlled order. Here, at last, is the security she and the knight can count on. At least until the games start. Whenallretireforthenight,thethreeprinciplesinthisprayerfestvisittheir shrineofchoice.FirstPalamonarisestovisitVenus“Andinhirhourehewalketh forthapas/Untothelystestherehiretemplewas”(2217–18).Here,humblyonhis knees,hebegs“tohavefullypossessioun/OfEmilye...SothatIhavemylady in[thespaceof]mynarmes”(2242–43,2247).Hevowstheplaceof“Thytemple wol I worshipe everemo, /And on thyn auter, where I ride or go, / I wol do sacrificeandfiresbeete”(2251–53).Recallingherstatusasgoddesswhorosefrom theseaattheislandofCytherafurthercreatesamentalconstructbywhichto knowher.Thissacredspaceofheroratoryaswellasherhistoricoriginshewill honorwithhiseverlastingsacrificeandfires.Butthenthisplaceisdeifiedwiththe presenceofVenusherself,since“attelastethestatueofVenusshook,/Andmade asigne”(2265–66 ) and turned it into a wonderful place.
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Next,“uproosEmyle,/AndtothetempleofDyaneganhye”(2273–75),toher placeofworshipwhereshelightsfires,burnsincense,andsacrificesclothesand alltherestthatsacrificeentails.Notingherthreefoldroleofgoddessofthehunt, ofthemoon,andoftheunderworld,Emilyprays“Ochastegoddesseofthewodes grene,/Towhombothheveneandertheandseeissene,/Queenoftheregneof Pluto derk and lowe, / Goddesse of maydens, that myn herte has knowe” (2297–2300) and lights two fires on her altar. So she declares her own place as a maid who loves to hunt and poach, and walks through the wild forest, not like a pregnant woman, and pleads for that virgin life. The tears streaming down her face mark her place of mourning. The goddess' response causes the place to physically shake as "on of the fyresqueynte / Andquykedagayn" (2334–35) flashes back and forth and the winds blow. Finally,ArcitewalksintofierceMars'ssovereigntemple,thegodhonoredinthe coldregionsofThracewho“hastineveryregneandeverylond/Ofarmesalthe brydel[reins]inthynhond”(2375–76),aplaceofpowerandstrength.Thisplace hewill“moosthonoren/Ofanyplace...InthytempleIwolmybanerhonge” (2406–07,2410).ThusthespaceofthetemplebecomesthespaceofArciteaswell asofMars,asharingofvaluesandcommitment. Arcitewilleverburnfiresto Mars,bindinghisbeardandhairtothegod.Theresponseelicitsclatteringofrings anddoorsofthetemple,asweetaromafromthefires,aringingofhishauberk, andalowmurmuring“Victory”fromMars'sstatue.Thescenenowmovestoa newnonurbansetting:“intheheveneabove”(2439)theplaceofpowerwhere Father Saturn who dwells “in the signe of the leoun” (2462) utters the final decisionandconsoleseachcontestant. So, early in the morning before the start of the tournament, both competitors and Emily kneel before the altars in the temples of their respective deities, as the place where the outcome is determined is the battle zone itself. Seemingly an extension of the theater, in this place they ask their mentors for desired outcomes and are promised fulfillment, an unlikely portent of outcome given the contradictory nature of desires. Isolated in the sacred oratories of the deities, Emelye cries imploring her patroness Diana for release from an unwanted marriage; Palamon asks Venus for her true love; Arcite prays to Mars for victory. The scene then shifts to the celestial heavens where the gods negotiate, and Saturn assures Venus, "I am full of lust" (1.2478).
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thusbeingwidestofall)thathisinfluencedominatestheplanetsbeneathhim.”42 Being furthest away from earth, and offering the greatest perspective, the all seeinglocusofthegodsreinforcestheirgreatauthority.HeretheKnightusesthe authorityofthegods'celestiallocustotantalizetheaudience:howcanallthree wishesbefulfilled?Onlywiththeirintervention.Asthemorningofthetourney breaks,Theseus'sguestsroamthepalace,predictingtheday'soutcome.Theyare indoors,personallysafe,andremovedfromperilousexternalinfluence. Fell à forma, o nobre Teseu “Heeldyetthechambreofhispaleysriche/TilthattheThebaneknyghtes,bothyliche/Honrado,entraramnopaleysfet”[fetched](1.252–27). and Battle in the Grove, which has now become a formalized place of death. Perhaps the knight identifies with him here, powerful and sure. When the ceremonies begin, his place is high on the horse, leading the competitors into battle. Letthegamesbegininthenewcitywithinthecity.Thetwohundredwarriors who enter Theseus’s prefabricated enclosure are only marginally safer than PalamonandArcitewhocontendedinwideopenspacesoneyearbeforeonthe samespot.AlthoughTheseusordershis“lysts”toprotectunnecessarylossoflife, and follows proscribed tournament protocol, danger still prevails in this ambiguouslydesignedindooroutdoorspaceofconflict.TheDukeescortswarriors ofeachknightfromhisperfectpalacewheretheyrestedthenightintohiswar theatrewithhonoranddignitybefittingtheirkinglystatus. Afterfiercefightingandgreatlossesonthebattlefieldbyeachsideoutsidethe city,Palamonisvanquished.Indeed,helosesthebattle.Butasthevictor,Arcite, ridesaboutthestadiumacceptingcongratulations,theplaceoverwhichherides is disrupted by Pluto at Saturn's request: “Out of the ground a furie infernal sterte”(1.2684);itbecomesthelocusofhisdeath.AfterArcite'sincidentoutdoors, heisbroughtinside,intoaplaceofrestinTheseus'scastle, futile attempt to save him. But removing the threat of battle does not improve the wound. Therefore, a supernatural miracle must produce a natural effect in this border space to bridge war and peace, an inner outer environment. He won the battle but loses the prize by dying
42
Mann, „ChaucerandSchicksal“, 107.
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Duke chooses the exact spot where he and Arcite first fought, the exact spot where Arcite won the fight, and the exact spot where he lost his life. Ansgar Kelly recalls this pattern, noting: "The grove first destroyed by Theseus in building his Coliseum [is] then used as the site of the sexequien of Arcite."43 But no matter how appropriate, the anxious attitude pervades the grove/A arena . Furthermore, as stated by H. Marshall Leicester Jr., there is a momentary atmosphere of something truly horrible that selects the landscape of the Temple of Mars with its broken trees "where neither the good nor the best dwell" (1976). The hyperbolic destruction of the grove has interesting and disturbing implications for the symbolic topography of the poem. Chaucer's shift, therefore, makes the Lists more of an ad hoc institution created for a specific cause, more purposefully emphasizing the power and energy of human creativity.
It's the end of an era that marked the terrain where the tournament took place, just as the arena itself marked the narrative. Years later, Theseus summons Parliament; so he summons Palamon and finally Emily to meet in a place where he decides their future. Thus, in solemn and dignified ritual, Theseus wed them: “Bitwixenhem wasmaad anonthebond/Thathightematrimoigneormariage” (1.3094-95). city from its borders of Athens, to the interior of the theater However, the description of the intimate space of the bedroom, common in many novels, is retained by a chivalrous box, perhaps more political than romantic.
43 44
Ansgar Kelly, Chaucerian Tragedy, 224. H. Marshall Leicester, Jr., The Disenchanted Self: Representing the Subject in the Canterbury Tales (Berkeley, Los Angeles e Oxford: University of California Press, 1990), 355.
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flattering fans, but in the cramped quarters of the wise duke, who will undoubtedly announce it publicly. In discussing the function of Boccaccio's urban space, Crafton postulates "representatives of two very different social classes who are developing citizens willing to defend the city against external threats". Interestingly, each knight's wish is fully granted by their respective deity; But Emily from the Amazon gets only partial relief from the marriages she doesn't want, the marital risks she doesn't choose. Although she was not a wife, she accepts the role when Diana requests it. The city is relatively safe for her as long as she is employed until Theseus determines her luxurious new position. The function of this edge on which she has lived for many years, the boundary between the confinement of human habitation and marriage and freedom from encroachment, is both dangerous and protective. In this realm, which embodies the worst of both worlds, she is free but uncertain and unsure that her status won't change any time soon. These complex, even ambivalent loci bring human drama, a sense of narrative evolution, and emotional punctuation to this burgeoning foray into the romance of love and war in cities and rural settings. Thepublicfaceofchivalryprecludesaplaceofreflectionandthemerelypersonal whichdefinestheKnightoftheGeneralPrologue,“releasedfromhisformulaic enclosure into the unstable territory where questions are asked—into the problematicofselfdefinitionthatmotivatestheCanterburyTales,”46asPatterson suggests.Inthisnewlocusofopenexplorationandselfunderstanding,theKnight emerges,notsurprisingly,asChaucer’sfirst,andoneofhisfinestTellersofcity tales.Thedomainofknightsingeneralissomewhatliminal,travelingastheydo throughdangerousterrainfromurbancourttoruralbattlefieldandback.Itis
45 46
Crafton, "Chauce e a Cidade", 52. Patterson, Chauce and the Subject of History, 168–69.
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It is therefore somewhat ironic that Chaucer's Knights, having fought in cities and fields around the world, chose to tell a space-based story with such a strong focus on the city. In fact, Theseus, the knight's substitute, can be said to have created urban space by expanding its protective boundaries to protect and preserve previously limited spaces of the dangerous rural forest. Rather than seeking out dangerous "adventures," he would favor smart, safe terrain. Fleming reminds us "of the great pictorial riches that would have surrounded Chaucer in the more cosmopolitan world of the city, in the churches and private palaces of Thamesside...we must not forget that Chaucer was a Londoner, and his poetic urbanity is the sophistication of a cultural capital" . public order and refinement which the knight successfully occupied and dissolved at the end of his story, perhaps as much for himself as in the person of Theseus.
47
Fleming, „ChauceandtheVisualArts“,125.
Daniel F. Pigg (University of Tennessee at Martin)
Imagining Urban Life and Its Discontents: The Cook Tale of Chaucer and Male Identity
Depictionsofcontemporary,medievalLondon,acitygrowingasamercantile centerinthefourteenthcentury,showittobeaplaceofproblemsalmostina stereotypicalway.Bymedievalstandards,Londonwasasignificantcity.AsDavid Wallacehasobserved,the1377polltaxreturnsshowLondontobetwicethesize ofcitiessuchasYorkorBristol.1Itwasacitywithclearrivalriesamongvarious guilds, and as it is depicted in civic records, it was a place where the typical temptationsandvicesmightbefound.ExaminationoftheLondonLetterBooks revealsaworldwhereacommonstandardofjusticeintermsofpunishmentsfor crimes was lacking, but one in which the "male oligarchy" clearly directs in urban space to support and take advantage of the power group. noted in his portrayals of guild members in the general prologue to the Canterbury Tales – Chaucer's portrayal of city life was structured around the material achievements of the guilds. Anyone who challenged these mighty men would fall under the judgment of the city they controlled.
1
2
David Wallace, "Chaucer and the Absent City", Chaucer's England: Literature in Historical Context, ed. Barbara Hanawalt, Medieval Studies at Minnesota, 4 (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), 61-64. Wallace, Chaucer and the Absent City, 63-64. For an examination of the implications of guild life in the City of York, particularly the ways in which male authority and power are linked to the guild's role in the production of the Corpus Christicycle plays, see ChristinaMarie Fitzgerald, The Drama of Masculinity and Culture. Medieval of the English Guilds The New Middle Ages (New York and London: Pal20, Macmill/7).
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"Citizens" that was acceptable behavior. Challenging or breaking that image meant a degree of ostracism, if not labeled as criminal activity. Chaucer Cook's Tale offers the audience what seems to be the most obvious account of this London life, even with the passage of "Chepe" (4377) in the text a city or a village. Training took place in post-plague London for men and women, but the chef directs his attention to the specific challenges faced by men. David Wallace has examined this history from the perspective of contemporary history, but I want to examine it from the perspective of social history and in light of a system of thought that seeks to create social structures that affirm the limitations placed on property, wealth, and society in the Middle Ages. the protection of guild authority. In particular, these fears concern the production of capital for the market through hard work. The point at which the cook seeks to show that Perkyn Revelour, the outspoken and chic freelance singer-dancer, disregards the systematic formation of male character through a legal contract of service, a legal contract almost feudal in character and practice.
3
4
5
6
Jacques Roussiaud, "The city dweller and life in cities", Medieval Callings, ed. Jacques LeGoff, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 162. Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Cook's Tale", The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd ed., Larry Benson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), 84- 86 All references to the text of the story are from this edition. "Chepe" refers to Cheapside. David Wallace, Chaucerian Polity: Absolute Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy, Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture Series (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 156-81. Wallace, Chaucerian Polity, 168.
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associationsaswellastothedevelopmentofametaphoricthinkingtoremoveall whoviolatethosenorms.Atthesametime,however,thistaleseemstolackthe moralimperativesfoundinothertalesofFragmentI,atleastfromamedieval Christianperspective.Thislackofmoralimperative,asDanielPintiobserves,led thefifteenthcenturyscribeofBodley686toaddtothetalewithadditionaltextto support the theme of governance,7 a theme that I argue is already implicit in Chaucer'soriginaltale.Intypicalfashion,Chaucerallowshistellersandcharacters a free reign to do what they will , sogar der impliziten Selbstkritik zu erliegen. InvestigatingPerkynRevelourwithinthecontextofthemercantilebasedvision ofmasculinityhelpsmakebettersenseofatalethatafterweseethecourseof actionthatPerkyntakes,thereislittlepointincontinuingastorywhereavision ofmalebehaviorandresponsibilityhaspassed.Inthissense,theCook’sTaleis certainlycomplete”thereisnomoretosay,”asE.G.Stanleyonceobserved.8In amorerecentstudy,JimCaseycontendsthattexualaspectssuchastheplacement oftheCook’sTaleinFragmentIanditsdescriptionofafailedapprenticeseemto haveauthorialintention,“sincethetaleappearstoinformlaterconversationand interactionbetweenhispilgrims.”9Bothofthesestudiesrelyontextualevidence. Dieser Artikel argumentiert von einer Position innerhalb der Fiktion des Textes selbst in Bezug auf die Bedeutung der Idee selbst. Es gibt eine implizite Textlogik für den Stand der Geschichte. Chaucer könnte beabsichtigt haben, die Geschichte aus einem bestimmten Grund vollständig zu lassen.
I The difficulty of understanding Perkyn Revelor in this story is compounded by the conflicting social discourses around performative masculinity and its constraints in the world of apprenticeships in the late fourteenth century. The questions 'What did it mean to be a man?' and 'What did it mean to be an apprentice? a name assigned by the cook makes him an "identifiable literary type".
7 8 9
10
Daniel Pinti, „Governance in the“ Cook's Tale „in Bodley 686“, Chaucer Review 19.1 (1996): 379–88. E.G.Stanley, „OfThisCokesTaleMakedChaucerNaMoore“,Poetica5(1976):36–59. Jim Casey, „Unfinished Business: The Termination of the ‚Cook's Tale‘“, Chaucer Review 41.2 (2006): 185–96. V.J.Scattergood, „PerkynRevelourandthe‘Cook'sTale‘“, ChaucerReview19.1(1984):14–23;hier 21.
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they have already encountered them elsewhere.11 Some London accounts of master-apprentice interactions, for example, could easily have been turned into fiction, as they also seem to be close to that genre. Chaucer's original audience may have found it difficult to separate the chef's fiction from a very contemporary reality. To suggest that the representation of masculinity was timid in the Middle Ages and also a theme of Chaucerian comedy is perhaps an everyday place that seems so obvious that it does not need to be explored. However, the fragment speaks several times about the world of "Pryvetee", which must be revealed if we are to understand the unspoken class secrets that lie behind Chaucer's lost lyrics and the quest for control in the medium. Late medieval society inherited a philosophical position that biology is destiny. Citing classical medical sources, medieval philosophers and theologians reaffirmed male superiority on biological grounds and justified these grounds by also extending to psychological and intellectual abilities. Bullough notes that masculinity was defined as "making women pregnant, protecting loved ones, and providing for the family."12 Masculinity was therefore defined in terms of achievement. Thus, impotence threatened the existence of this world and often became the source of comedy in medieval texts, as well as granting Mary the status of perpetual virginity. The fact that it was the potential source of marriage annulment suggested that significant male achievements should be displayed due to the social structure. Scientists have discovered that in this biologically based construction of masculinity, the presence of the feminine is negative. For example, as Bullough and Sponsler note, except during Carnival, cross-dressing was inappropriate for the hegemonic paradigm of masculinity.13 Love itself was seen as the feminization of man. The desire to be sick was overcome by resorting to sexual intercourse with women, preferably with multiple partners, to avoid unwanted affection for one.
11 12
13
14
Earl D. Lyons, „RogerDeWare, Cook“, ModernLanguageNotes52.7(1937):491–93. VernL.Bullough, „OnBeingaMaleintheMiddleAges“,MedievalMasculinities:RegardingMenintheMiddleAges,Hrsg.ClareA.Lees,ThelmaFenster,andJoAnnMcNamara.MedievalCultures, 7(MinneapolisandLondon:UniversityofMinnesotaPress,1994),31–45;hier34. Bullough, „OneBeingMaleintheMiddleAges“,33–35;Claire Sponsler, „OutlawMasculinities: Drag, Blackface,andLateMedievalLaboringClassFestivals“,BecomingMaleintheMiddleAges, Hrsg.JeffreyJeromeCohenandBonnieWheeler.TheNewMiddleAges,4(NewYorkandLondon: GarlandPublishing,1997),321–47. Bullough, „On Being MaleintheMiddleAges“, 33–35.
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Such excess would complicate his vocation. Fiction just bears witness to the obvious potential with its greater control similes and metaphors. The late 14th century witnessed the rise of cities and civic responsibility and the importance of craft guilds to the literal and symbolic fabric of the city. In this world, manhood was formed, nurtured and controlled as a set of obligations. Economically healthy guilds were important to a city's wealth. Keeping that strengthmeantkeepingapprenticesofworthandsocialclassequivalenttothose whoweretrainingthem.15Citygovernments,realizingthisfact,oftenplacedtough restrictionsonthemandallbutprohibitedforeigncompetitioninthecity.16As Sylvia Thrupp has noted, these rules extended into the relationship between masterandapprentice.17Thegoalofapprenticeshipwastobesponsoredbythe masterintothefreedomofthecity.18Theprocessrequiredbetweenthreetoseven years and sometimes as many as ten, and sometimes provided for a small stipend.19Kowaleskicallsapprenticeshipa“meansofsocialmobilityformany They come to the City of London from all over England to seek their fortune, but often without discipline, they arrived in London at around age fourteen.21 Apprenticeship provided that discipline and training.23 Separation was not only problematic, perhaps a source of shame and acknowledgment of misjudgment, but could also bring the ire of the town and other guild members against the master craftsman.24 The master craftsman
15
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18 19 20 21
22 23
24
Ruth Mazzo Karras, De menino a homem: formações de masculinidade na Europa medieval tardia. The MiddleAges Series (Filadélfia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 119-20. Maryanne Kowaleski, Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 100. Sylvia Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London 1300–1500 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 215–20. Kowaleski, Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter, 169. Kowaleski, Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter, 170. Kowaleski, Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter, 170. Barbara A. Hanawalt, Growing Upin Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History (New York and Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1993),135. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London, 1300-1500, 217. Shannon McSheffrey, Casamento, Sexo e Cultura Cívica no final da Londres Medieval, The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 84; Karras, From Boys to Men, 121-23. Karras, FromBoytoMen,123.
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he might even use prison as a means of instructing his apprentice, but when events reached that stage, it was evidently beyond all hope. As this practice continued beyond the 14th and 15th centuries into the 16th century, as one scholar notes, a scholar often led to open immorality of a sexual nature among apprentices. Contracts often prohibited an apprentice from having sexual intercourse on and off the master's property. In one case, a rapist punished his errant apprentice with a "ceremonial whipping on the factory floor, perpetrated by masked men". a master alone. A guilty apprentice was disciplined by men before men to maintain the status of men. The penalties, of course, do not imply that all male trainees are sexually lavish, but such rules would not exist if there were no problems in this area. Fromthesetwointersectingplanes,wecanunderstandthedifficultiesofthe Cook'sTale.Atonce,malepowermanifestedsexuallyandsublimatedthrough male competition was to be turned into the making of capital and reputation, usuallyamongone'smalepeersandsuperiors.Transgressionsofthatmethodof symbolicandmaterialdevelopmentwereregardedasviolationsoftheworldof business,wherehumanlaborisquantifiedandrewardedwithsocialstatus.The apprenticecouldmarryafterbeingadmittedtothecityfreedom,andhiswife wouldbringtothemarriageherowncapitaltocontributetothehousehold.The theoryseemstooneat,andisthestuffofliteraryfictionthatThomasDeloneywas tomakefashionableinthesixteenthcenturyandwhichBeaumontandFletcher were to ridicule in The Knight of the Flaming Pestle. The private world threatened to undermine his very public manifestation of masculine power in Chaucer.
25 26 27
28
Hanawalt, Growing Up in Medieval London, 166–67. McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London, 84. Thrupp,TheMerchantClassofMedievalLondon,1300–1500,192.ZurweiterenUntersuchungderRollederSexualitätimLatemiddleAgesandRenaissance siehe SexualityintheMiddleAgesandEarly Modern Times: New Approaches to a Fundamental CulturalHistorical and LiteraryAnthropological Theme, Hrsg.AlbrechtClassen.FundamentalsoofMedievalandEarlyModernCulture,3 ( Berlim e Nova York). Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London, 1300-1500, 169.
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People's desires often grow around social constraints, and that was the message of Fragment I, particularly in the Miller and Reeve stories. Here, the cook just unleashes every tool of lust from the land and the village into a city teeming with apprentices, all intent on managing lust, even through subterfuge, as Perkyn's friend disguised himself.
II The Cook's Tale Prologue provides an interesting link between the Reeve's Tale and a disclaimer that brings together the competing discourses of performative masculinity and market-controlled masculinity. We were looking for a team to come into their Spryvette.
(4330-34)
[Well, Solomon said in his own language: Do not be everyone in your house, because it is dangerous to dwell at night. Good advice to whom he brings to his secret council.]
TheCookclearlyseesthecrimeagainsttheMillerasaviolationofproperty,of goodstherapeofthewifeanddaughter.WorkingorimprovingontheReeve, hesays:“ButGodforbedethatwestynteheere”(ButGodforbidthatweshould stophere)(4339).Theviolationofpropertyissimilartothetheftofthecraftsman’s goodshewilltellabout.TheMillerisdefeatedbythepowerofmaleperformance bythetwoSolarHallscholars,buttheCook,mostcertainlyamemberofaguild, sees the violence directed primarily against the Miller on purely mercantile grounds. Everything has monetary worth, and male power is defined by the controlandcirculationofcapital.InsomemedievalEnglishcities,cooks were amongthepoorestinthefoodindustry;theireconomicfortuneswereoftenin jeopardy.29ThushisattentiontotheMiller’slossofgoodsbecomesevenmore telling.Economicruinequalsthelossofmalepowerinhisworld.Thisimageis reopenedagainintheprologuewiththeHost’scommentsaboutthequalityof Roger’sfood.TheHostwouldbeatthetopofthesameindustryastheCook.His
29
Kowaleski, Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter, 141–42.
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No entanto, a sorte provou que ele é o 'homem melhor'. A luta entre os anfitriões e Roger of War no prólogo de Cook requer uma análise mais profunda. The conflict between these two men in similar, supporting professions,butoperationalizedbycompetingguildsbringstheircontemptfor eachothertothesurface.ConstanceB.Hieattsuggeststhatthechargesleveledby theHostconcerningtheCook’susingmeatinpastriesthathasbecomedangerous forotherstoeataredesignedtoexposetheCookasacharlatan.Hewouldhave beenarivaltoinnkeepersandtavernkeepers,allofwhomwereinanindustry thatservedthepublic.30Thatcityordinanceswerewrittenagainstfalseadvertising aboutthemeatingredientsinpiesandaboutthecleanlinessoftheworkersincook shopssuggeststhattherewasagreatdealoffearaboutthenatureoffoodservices inthemedievalcity.31Thechallengesregardingfoodpreparationcontinuedlong afterChaucer’sCookastheessaybyAllisonCoudertinthiscollectionshows. GettingevenaftersuchaccusationsseemstobeonthemindofRoger,whosename hasbeenlinkedhistoricallywitha“nightwalker”ofLondonstreetsandwhose reputationisassociatedwiththekindsofactivitiesoftheftandprostitutionthat readersdiscoverinthetaleitself.32TheCooksaysthathecouldindeedtellatale ofa“hostileer”(4360),yethedecided,“ButnathelessIwolnattellityit;/Buter weparte,ywis,thoushaltbequit”(4361–62;ButnonethelessIwillnottellityet, butbeforewepartcompany,certainly,youshallbequited;). Tison Pugh sugere que estando perto de onde o anfitrião estava sentado e percebendo o anfitrião como um companheiro de Perkyn Revelour, o cozinheiro que localizou a história em Eastcheap pode estar impedindo-os de chegar a um acordo com o anfitrião. Nesse sentido, deve-se notar que a esposa do amigo de Perkyn está administrando um negócio de prostituição 'desde que a história, até certo ponto, aprofunda os temores de decadência social dentro da estrutura da guilda que deve ter estado no coração da cidade medieval tardia. Embora a erudição moderna certamente tenha descoberto uma série de atitudes em relação à prostituição, até mesmo sua existência vital como instituição urbana, particularmente associada ao "trabalho feminino",34 o narrador desse conto chauceriano considera as associações negativas.
30
31 32 33
34
Constance B. Hieatt, "A Cook They Had with Hem for the Nones", Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in "The Canterbury Tales", hrsg. Laura C. Lambdin e Robert T. Lambdin (Westport, CT e Londres: Greenwood Press, 1996), 201–02. Hieatt, „ACookTheyHadwithHemfortheNones“,201–04. Hieatt, „ACookTheyHadwithHemfortheNones“,203. TisonPugh, SexualityanditsQueerDiscontentsinMiddleEnglishLiterature,TheNewMiddleAges (NovaYorkandLondon:PalgraveMacmillan, 2008), 60–61. Ruth Mazo Karras, "Prostitution in Medieval Europe", Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, ed. Vern L. Bullough e James A. Brundage. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, 1696 (Novo
The History and Masculine Identity of Chaucer's Cook
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The story itself presents us with one of Chaucer's loosest and most outspoken characters, while also being one of the least productive male characters in terms of male achievement and mercantile masculinity. He is merry as a “goldfynch in the shawe” (4367; goldfinchinawoodand“Brounasaberye”(4368;brown[inhisskin]asaberry). He“wasasfulofloveandparamour/Asisthehyvefulofhonyswete”(4372–73; wasasfullofloveandsexualdesireasisthehivefullofsweethoney).Whatseems ironicaboutthisaspectisthattheanimalimageryinChaucer'sotherfabliauis associatedwithfemalecharacterssuchasthedescriptionofAlisounintheMiller's Tale.Clearly ,theimportintheimageryistoshowenergy,life,andvitality,with thelastdetailhavingsexualpotential.WilliamF.Woodsseessimilarpotentialsin thedescriptionofPerkyn'sdancing,hoping,andleaping.35AccordingtoJoyceE. Salisbury,medievalmedicalandtheologicaltextslocatedmalesexualityinthe thighs.They“representedstrength,musculature,power,andactivity.”36Strong thighswouldbenecessaryforthatleapinganddancing.Noneoftheseactionsis, however, productive for mercantile masculinity ;none involve the conversion of energy into productive economic capital. Indeed, these acts are most closely associated with the acquisition of Perkyn goods. While typical acceptance-in-training statements required individuals to be "non-deformed", there were also requirements related to reading and Writing (he loved the tavern more than the job) does not indicate any of these skills. Basically, Perkyn loves the world where the commodities he trades are resold and reinvested in the business, and yet it is not intrinsic productivity that is earned, but passive productivity in which money is asked of him. Culturally, he performs a socially feminine act according to the patriarchal paradigm; so it should come as no surprise that this activity is also somewhat feminized on a literal level.
35
36
37
York e Londres: Garland Publishing, 1996), 243-60. See also Gertrud Blaschitz, “Das FreudenhausimMittlealter(TheBrothelintheMiddleAges],SexualityintheMiddleAgesandthe EarlyModernTimes:NewApproachestoaFundamentalCulturalHistoricalandLiteraryAnthropological Theme,ed.AlbrechtClassen,FundamentalsofMedievalandEarlyModernCulture,3(Berlinand NewYork:WalterdeGruyter,2008),715–50. WilliamF.Woods,“SocietyandNatureinthe'Cook'sTale,' Paperson Language and Literature 32 (1996): 189-205 Joyce E Salisbury, "GenderedSexuality", HandbookofMedievalSexuality, ed.
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players oriented around him and conducts his business in "Pryvette" (4388). Mercantile manhood was clearly geared towards the careful counting of goods, as seen in Shipman's Tale, but clearly not in Perkyn's private world, which tacitly undermines the very substance of the business. The Master's "box" (4390) is empty! Unlike the merchant from Shipman's Tale, however, Perkyn has nothing to show for his activity. The farmer learns that these goods have been stolen and that he must take action against Perkyn. At the same time, this gentleman must tolerate some degree of behavior from Perkyn, as he has a "Papir" (4404) or contract with him. Many crafts forbade certain acts, but it is not clear that "mynstralcye" (4394) was among them, beyond the fact that some minstrels were associated with vagrants and theft and brawling. Maria Dobozy has made similarassociationsinherstudyofminstrelsinmedievalGermanliterature.38Such behaviors might include statements about “drinking, gaming and going to theaters.”39WilliamLanglandinPiersPlowmanconnectedthemwithfaultyspeech andcalledthemchildrenofJudasbecausetheydenaturedlanguage.40Herethe importisthatittakesPerkynnotonlyawayfromworkbyleavingtheshopat manytimesduringthedaytoseestreetactivitiesandtoengageingaming,butthe lifestylealsoleadshimtoprison,even“Newegate”(4402). At the end of the apprenticeship, the master does not recommend offering him the freedom of the city, but rejects him. If masters have often been accused of not training their apprentices,41 it is also fair in this context to say that the master "rebuked" (rebuked) "too late and too late" (4401), after all he was in a sense a member of your own family. There is a clear contrast here between Perkyn's frivolous nature and the master's consistency. He just doesn't want Perkyn's influence to ruin any of the other apprentices. By dispensing with it, he asserts his own authority, shows that the commendation of the city's freedom is not automatic, and thus demonstrates that unproductive masculinity can become a metaphor for bad apples. Thus, the initial images of life, vitality and male sexuality are presented as loss of productivity. The image is clearly no coincidence. What happens next is just as significant as the rejection to illustrate unproductive masculinity. Rogerio says:
38
39 40
41
Maria Dobozy, Remembering the Present: The Medieval Poet Minstrelin Cultural Context. Disputato, 6 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005) Hanawalt, Growing Up in Medieval London, 135. William Langland, Piers Plowman: A versão B, rev. Eds., George Kane e E. Talbot Donaldson eds.(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), Prologue, 35–39. Hanawalt, Growing Up in Medieval London, 157–59.
Chaucer's Cook's Taleandidentitymasculine And for that there's no foot without a basske to help waste and sow brybekanorborwemay's hymn, anonesentehisbedandhisarraytoacompeeofsowensdedyslovedandwalksandjokes,
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(4415–22)
[And because there is no thief without a helper to help him squander and spend the tins, he might soon borrow that he gave this bed and its things to a fellow of his kind who liked to play dice, to feast and amuse himself, and [he] had a wife who kept up appearances in a shop and prostituted herself for her livelihood.]
Perkyn forms another corporation, again enmeshed in "Pryvetee", one with the outward appearance of a shop. The text is unclear about Perkyn's place in this world other than living there. For Roger, the union's guilt is proof enough of activity. but it is also a world of unproductive performative as well as unproductive mercantile masculinity. Perkyn is here figuratively a prostitute, it is unclear whether he himself is directly related to prostitution. If so, he would be the only male prostitute in Chaucer's works, but male prostitution is such a cultural issue that it probably would not appear in Middle English texts. At the very least, he took a passive position of gaining wealth through female business practices. By the end of the story, Perkyn has lost the related and competing images of masculinity that we ponder. From this world there is no return. Whether we view the image based on medieval Christian morals or mercantile values, Perkyn failed. Masculinity no longer exists in its social construction
42
Stanley, „OfThisCokesTaleMakedChaucerNaMoore“,55.
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Versão para Perkyn. Er stellt einfach eine Bedrohung dar, die die Kräfte der Macht ausgeschlossen haben. Seeninthisway,theCookhaspushedtheargumentoftheanxietyofmasculine performanceintheReeve'sTaletotheultimate.InhisstorytheCookdescribesa masculinitythatfromhismercantileperspectiveisnolongeraviableoptionfor Perkyn,atleastbasedonhischoice.Londonwithitsappeal,itspromise,perhaps evenmoretellinginthelatefourteenthcenturyaftertheBlackDeath,hasbecome a place of corruption for a person like Perkyn who gets caught up in the performanceintheworldof“pryvetee”inaprofessionthatexpectsanythingbut thatkindofworld.Builtintothatworldwasaseriesofobligations,training,fees, andresponsibilities .Perkynsquanderedmanychances,andhehasfallenvictim towhatmusthavebeenarealityformanywhowerecaughtupintheaspectsof citylife.ItwasalongwayfromtheguildhallortheLordMayor'sresidenceto Newgateandtotheillicitshopofprostitution.Perkynmaybeamusing,andwe maybefooledbyhisfootlooseandfancyfreebehavior,butfortheworldofRoger andtheguildsmen,thismanrepresentssheertroubleashethreatensthefabricof their existence in the sense that if everyone followed the lead of Perkyn—somethingthatthemasterhimselffears—theneatlybalancedideology ofhowmasculinityiscontructedintheguildworldwouldbecompromised.Itis no wonder that Roger speaks in contempt of him . Es gibt wirklich „nichts mehr zu sagen“ Perkynhadit, verschwendete es, verlor es, und jetzt hat ihn die Welt verloren. Doch gleichzeitig sollten wir fragen: „Ist der Koch sowohl zum wissenden als auch zum unwissenden Gegenstand der Geschichte geworden?“ Zumindest an der Oberfläche muss die Antwort „nein“ lauten. Er verurteilt die Handlungen von Perkyn eindeutig, auch wenn die Sprache des Textes mit der Welt des Karnevals in Verbindung gebracht wird. Auf einer tieferen Ebene jedoch angesichts der späteren Täuschungen desselben Kochs im Prolog zu The Manciple's Tale, dessen „verfluchte Breethinfekte alle“ (IX.39; verfluchter Atem würden uns alle infizieren). ), kann der Leser wahrscheinlich mit „Ja“ antworten. erlaubt den sprachlichen Kräften des männlichen Kaufmannsverhaltens, Kritik zu üben und jene Elemente zu eliminieren, die seine Produktion belasten
43
Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor (Nova York: Farrar, Straus e Giroux, 1978), 1–15.
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The largest structure of public life in London is protected. For Perkyn Revelour, the City of London offered the potential for economic stability within the domains of a mercantile masculinity, but at the same time it offered the world of vice in which the allure of a degraded masculinity, perhaps mixed with a touch of antipathetic feminism and a unbridled female desire, it was her will to shape future existence. He is now free to go beyond the commercial radar screen to become part of the social fabric of corruption that covers the pages of the London Register. IfweposedthequestionaboutwhetherPerkynistypicaloratypical,thenwelook attheworldfromthevantagepointofthesocialhistorianwhoseunderstanding oftruthisadjudicatedbystatistics.CertainlythenotionbehindtheCanterbury TalesfromtheperspectiveofthetaletellingcontestwhichtheHosthimselfatthe conclusion of the General Prologue sets up as a motivating force for the fiction wouldsuggestthattheCook'sTaleismeanttopresentmerrimenttoitshearers.At thesametime,thesocialanxietiesthataregeneratedbythepotentialforwastein monetary funds expended by guildsmen and the families of apprentices over degenerate apprentices would be enough to power a work of fiction whose potential to blur the distinction between the world of fiction and the world of the London market could only be recognized by someone like Cook. He is deeply involved in the system he criticizes. "The Cook", "The Host" and "Perkyn Revelour" are tangled up in that nexus between fiction and reality, in the nebulous space between your favorite games that grounds Chaucerian mythmaking.
Shennan Hutton (Independent Scientist, Napa, CA)
Women, men and markets: the gender of market space in late Middle Ages Gent
One of the most important elements of the medieval city was its indoor and outdoor markets as places of trade that provided the city's wealth and necessary supplies for its existence. 1 Open-air markets were also places of display and display of political power and cultural hegemony
1
2
The research on which this article is based was funded by a Fulbright grant and carried out at the Ghent City Archives (Stadsarchief Gent). Many thanks to Joan Cadden, Patricia Turning, Marc Boone, Jelle Haemers, Jan Dumolyn, and Albrecht Classen for their support and comments on earlier versions of this article. Marc Boone, "Urban Space and Political Conflict in Late Medieval Flanders", Journal of Interdisciplinary History 32,4(2002):621-40; PeterStabel, "MarketingClothintheLowCountries: Manufacturers, Brokers and Merchants (14th to 16th Centuries)", International Trade in the Netherlands (14th to 16th Centuries): Merchants, Organization, Infrastructure: Proceedings of the GentAntwerp International Conference, January 12-13, 1997 , ed. Peter Stabel, Bruno Blondé and Anke Greve. Studies in Urban, Social, Economic, and Political History of the Medieval and Modern Low Countries, 10 (Leuven Apeldoorn: Garant, 2000), 15–36; and "Women in the Market: Gender and Retail Trade in the Cities of Late Medieval Flanders", Secretum Scriptorum: Liberalumnorum Walter Prevenier, ed. Wim Blockmans, Marc Boone and Thérèse de Hemptinne (Leuven Apeldoorn: Garant, 1999) 259–76; Donatella Calabi, The Market and the City: Square, Street and Architecture in Early Modern Europe, trans. Marlene Klein (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004); (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 63-81; Hanawalland Michal Kobialka. Medieval Cultures, 23 (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota, 2000); Peter Arnade, Martha Howell and Walter Simons, "FertileSpaces: The Productivity of Urban Space in Northern Europe", Journal of Interdisciplinary History 32, 4 (2002): 515-48.
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localandregionaltradenetworks,butinternationalcommerceaswell.Although thehighestechelonofsaleswasdominatedbyelitemen,Ghentwomenhadaccess tosomemarketspacesandtheopportunitytofunctionaslegitimatemarketsellers intheirownrightinspecificniches.Asaresult,numerouswomencouldattaina middlinglevelofprosperity,insteadofbeingconfinedtothelowestpaid,least respectedmarkets.Genderdifferencealsohelpedstructureeachofthecity’smajor markets—theClothHall,theMeatHall,theCornMarketandtheFridayMarket. Market rules or strategies are softening the gender-segregated market space (women can go here but not there) in a way that has been interpreted as restricting women's access to the guild trades that occupied that market space. Female market vendors built the legitimacy of their market presence to increase their profits by actually collaborating with male vendors rather than just obeying them. This essay examines the gender constructions of these fourteenth-century markets through the lens of spatial theory, particularly Michel de Certeau's definition of space as practiced place.4 Certeau's website offers a way to view fragmentary sources of actual practice in relation to normative sources, such as market or guild regulations, which he identifies as strategies of a space through the everyday operations and tactics of historical subjects. Some of their stories or traces of these local operations can be found in court decisions and contracts preserved in the records of the aldermen of Keure, the first council of aldermen in Ghent. These stories reveal the normally invisible activities of women and men who, along with official strategies, established the space of each market. Spaces are also articulated by dividing and demarcating boundaries.
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5
David Nicholas, TheDomesticLifeofaMedievalCity:Women,Children,andtheFamilyinFourteenthCenturyGhent (LincolnandLondon:UniversityofNebraskaPress,1985),102-03. Michelde Certeau, The practice of everyday life, trans. Steven Rendall (1980; Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1984), 125-30. Annual Register of Keure Councilors (SchepenenvandeKeure: Jaarregisters), Ghent City Archives (StadsarchiefGent) (hereinafter SAG), Series 301, Nos. 1 and 2.
The genderification of the market space
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Stories about gender in Ghent's market squares are particularly significant because Ghent was an exceptionally large, prosperous and powerful city in medieval northern Europe. In addition, his stories of market spaces illuminate how markets work in overseas cities across continental Europe from Paris to Germany. Inthemidfourteenthcentury,Ghenthadapopulationofapproximately64,000 people,makingitalargemetropolisbymedievalstandards.6InnorthernEurope, onlyParisandperhapsLondonwerelarger.Ghentwasthemostpowerfulofthe semiautonomouscitiesinthehighlyurbanizedcountyofFlanders,andclosely tiedintotheinternationalnetworksoftradefocusedinnearbyBruges.Fromthe eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, Ghent's merchants grew extremely wealthyfromwoolclothproductionandtrade,andthousandspouredintothecity toworkinthedraperyorwoolclothindustry.Inthehugeindoormarketcalled theLakenhalleorWolhuis(ClothHall),brokersandmerchantsarrangeddealswith internationalmerchantsforwoolandfinishedcloth,andlocalmerchants,market sellers,anddrapersboughtandsoldwool , yarns and fabrics in countless qualities and production stages. Ghent and other Flemish cities built their fortunes by producing cheaper woolen fabrics for export to markets across Europe. In the late 13th century, a series of developments – loss of Mediterranean markets for cheap fabrics, increased competition from other towns and rural producers, rising wool prices and wool embargoes – challenged the traditional drapery industry in Ghent.
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7
Most historians estimate that the population of Ghent ranged from 55,000 to 64,000 in the years 1356 to 1358; Walter Prevenier and Marc Boone, "The 'CityState' Dream, 1300-1500", Ghent:In Defense of the RebelliousCity:History,Art,Culture,ed. van Schaik, "Between Crisis and Prosperity: Social Changes 1300–1500", General History of the Netherlands: Middle Ages: Socioeconomic History 1300–1482, Political Development, Institutions and Law 1384–1482, Sociocultural and Intellectual Development 1384–1520, Ecclesiastical and Religious Life 1384–1520, vol. 4 (Haarlem: Fibula Van Dishoeck, 1980), 42–86. 7. From the extensive literature on the subject, here are some key works: Henri Pirenne, Les Villeset les Institution Surbaines, vol.1 (Paris and Brussels:Librairie Felix Alean, 1939), 143-301; Patrick Chorley, "Exports of Fabrics from Flanders and Northern France during the Thirteenth Century".
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The shrinking fabric market and increased competition also forced changes in fabric production and marketing. In the 13th century and perhaps earlier, drapers (many of whom were women) managed and supervised the fabric-making process, but the real profits went to the long-distance brokers and wholesalers (mostly men) at the head of the weavers' guild. . Sea weavers controlled both the supply of wool to their guildmates and the sale of finished fabrics.9 In the 16th century, women played almost no role in the cloth trade of Ghent, except for low-paid spinning, carding and to comb. Although Ghent has not suffered as much from the pressure as was thought, the
8
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Century: AluxuryTrade? “Economic History Review 40 (1987), 349–79; ed.MarcBooneand WalterPrevenier.StudiesinUrbanSocial,Economic,andPoliticalHistoryoftheMedievalandModernLowCountries(LeuvenApeldoorn:Garant,1993);JohnMunro,“TheSymbiosisofTownsandTextiles:UrbanInstitutionsandtheChangingFortunesofClothManufacturingintheLowCountriesandEngland,1270–1570,”JournalofEarlyModernHistory3.1(Feb.1999):1–74, as well as many other Works; Marc Boone, "The textile industry in Ghent au bas moyen age ou les ressurreiçõessuccessivesd uneactivitéréputémoribonde", LaDraperieancienne, Eds. Boone a Prevenier, 15–62; Stabel, "Marketing Pano", 15-36. Alain Derville, “Les Draperies flamandesetartésiennesvers 1250–1350:quelquesconsiderationscritiquesetproblematiques”, Revue du Nord 54.215 (1972): 353–70; Hans Van Werveke, “De koopmanondernemerendeondernemerindeVlaamselakennijverheidvandemiddeeleuwen,” Mededelingenvandekoninklijke Vlaamseacademievoorwetenschappen, letterenenschonekunstenvan België, klassedeletteren8(1946),5–26; Boone, “L’IndustrietextileàGand,” 16–17.Womenworked asdrapersinPatritureinDouaiandGhentinthethirteenthcentury,andasdrapersinLeideninthefifteenthcenturyProduction,WomenandtheMedievalarchy,MarthaHowellin. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); Ellen E. Kittell, "A construcción da identidade social das mulheres na Douai medieval: evidences de epitetos de identificación", Journal of Medieval History 25,3 (1999): 215–27; Marc Boone, Thérèse De Hemptinne and Walter Prevenier, "Gender and Early Emancipation in the Netherlands after the end of the Middle Ages and the Modern Period", "Gender, Power and Privilege in Modern Europe", Eds. Jessica Munns and Penny Richards (Harlow and London: Pearson Education Limited, 2003), 21–39. Marc Boone, GentendeBurgondischehertogenca.1384–ca.1453.Eensociaalpolitiekestudievaneen staatsvormingproces.Verhandelingenvandekoninklijkeacademievoorwetenschappen,letteren enschonekunstenvanBelgië,133 (Brussels:PaleisderAcademyën,1990); MarthaHowelland MarcBoone, “BecomingEarlyModernintheLateMedievalLowCountries,”UrbanHistory23, 3(1996):320–21 Stabel, “WomenattheMarket,” 22. An exceção a isso era o direito das viúvas dos members da guilda de continuar com os artesanatos de seus maridos falecidos. MarianneDanneel, Weduwenenwezeninhetlaat middeeuwseGent.
The genderification of the market space
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citygraduallylostitspredominanceasaninternationalpowerhouseofthecloth trade.11Thecity'ssalvationwasthedevelopmentofagrainstaple,whichgave Ghent control over crucial imports of grain from northern France, and tax revenuesfromthereshipmentofgraintotherestofnorthernFlanders.Thestaple, whichincreasedinimportanceafter1357tobefirmlyestablishedbytheendofthe century,augmentedthepowerandimportanceoftheprovisioningguilds,which also controlled the local and regional provisioning markets.12 The spatial and economicdominanceoftheClothHallgraduallyshiftedtotheKoornmarkt(Corn Market), der Freiluftmarkt für Getreideimporte und -exporte und das Vleeshuis (Fleischhalle), die Markthalle der Metzger, sowie andere Lebensmittelmärkte. These guilds, which were all connected to provisioning or the grain staple,werealsoamongthemostpowerfulandinfluentialincitygovernment.The highestofficialsoftheseguildsbelongedtoacloseknitoligarchythatcontrolled Ghent both politically and economically, passing public offices, leases for tax farming(collectingindirecttaxes,)andprovisioningcontractsaroundamongtheir (male)membership.13Whilewomenhadneverhadequaleconomicopportunities tomeninthispatriarchalsociety,theeconomicshiftfromwoolclothproduction toregionalprovisioningtendedtomarginalizewomenbyexcludingthemfrom themiddlingpositionssomehadformerlyheldandconfiningthemtothelowest paidoccupations. Neben den wirtschaftlichen Herausforderungen dieser Zeit war Gent auch in einen langen Kampf verwickelt, um halbautonom (im Gegensatz zu unabhängig) von flämischen Grafen, französischen Königen und burgundischen Herzögen zu bleiben. Die Stadt wurde von zwei Schöffenräten regiert: den Schöffen der Keure, die Verordnungen erließen, die Rechtsprechung ausübten und Verträge besiegelten, und den Schöffen der Gedele, die die Vormundschaft für Kinder, die Erbschaft und die Auflösung von Familien beaufsichtigten
11 12 13
14
Boone, "L'Industrietextileà Gand", 15-7 and 50-51. Nicholas, Metamorphosis, 250, 291–92, Howelland Boone, 'Becoming Early Modern', page 321. Boone, Ghent and Dukes of Burgundy, 79; Peter Stabel, "Guilds in Late Medieval Flanders: MythsandRealitiesofGuildLifeinanExportOrientedEnvironment",JournalofMedievalHistory 30.2 (2004):187-212. Although Flanders was technically a province of France, French kings were only sporadically able to assert their supremacy over the county. Maurice Vandermaesen, "Flanders and Hainaut under the House of Dampierre 1244–1384", Algemene Geschiedis der Nederlanden (Haarlem: Fibula Van Dishoeck, 1982), 2:399–440; David Nicholas, Medieval Flanders (London and New York: Longman, 1992).
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Feuds. The city charter was a combination of written privileges of the Flemish counts and unwritten customs interpreted by the aldermen. The city's guilds provided the militias that fought in revolts and wars, and often with each other, for supremacy over the city's government. However, because women were rerigidly excluded from the political and military functions of the guilds, they were significantly marginalized within those guilds that did admit them.15 The gendered boundary around political activity resonated throughout the city’s market spaces. This market, like the great open-air markets in medieval cities, shared a variety of functions - political meetings, official pronouncements, militia meetings, guild demonstrations, riots, punishments and religious processions. One of the sharpest contrasts in the Friday market was the transition from a market with both male and female sellers and buyers to a site of political demonstrations, official proclamations and even fights, all of which (officially) excluded women. Before delving into the gender distribution of the market in this turbulent era, another issue needs to be addressed – the lack of sources, particularly for the earliest period of Ghent's history.
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Marc Boone, “Trades in Flemish Towns in the Lower Middle Ages (14th-16th Century): Normative Images, Sociopolitical and Economic Realities,” Trades in the Middle Ages: Economic and Social Aspects: Proceedings of the International Conference of Louvain-la- Neuve October 7–9, 1993, ed. Pascale Lambrechts and Jean Pierre Sosson, Publications of the Institute of Medieval Studies, Texts, Studies, Congress, 15 (LouvainlaNeuve: Catholic University of Louvain, 1994), 1–21; JanDumolynandJelleHaemers, „Patterns of Urban Rebellion in Medieval Flanders“, Journal of Medieval History 31.4 (2005): 369–93; Raymondvan Uytven, „The Urban Life 11th–14th Centuries: Urban History in the North and South“, General History of the Netherlands 2:187–245; Vandermaesen, "Flandern." Boone, „Urban Space and Political Conflict“, 622–23.
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Aldermen of Keure and Gedele from the mid-14th century.18 In Flemish courts, legal acts were written on pieces of parchment called chirographs, and each warden received a copy of them. for the legal instrument was the chirograph (perishable) and not the register. TheGhentaldermen’sregistersonlycontainafractionofcontractsanddisputes inthecity.Manyactswereoralandtherewereothercourtsandcorporatebodies thatperformedthesefunctions.TheClothHall,forexample,haditsownofficials whoadjudicateddisputes,authorizedcontracts,andkeptrecordsofactivity.None ofthoserecordssurvivetoday.Inaddition,theannualregistersincludeonlya fractionoftheactsheardbeforethealdermen,becausecopyingtheactintothe registercostextramoney.Thecontractsandjudgmentsinthealdermen’sregisters arebiasedtowardswealthyelites,andarefragmentary,terse,andoftenoblique. Sincerecordsfromthefifteenthandsixteenthcenturiesaremuchmorelengthy, informative,andcomplete,thetemptationistoreadbackonearliercenturieswhat istrueinthelaterperiod,andtosupplementwithwhatisknownaboutothercities (oftenfromEngland,forexample).Inthispaper,Iamattemptingtousethemid fourteenthcenturyevidenceaboutmarketspacetostripawaythechangeswhich occurredoverthefifteenthandsixteenthcenturies,butatthesametime,notto superimpose midfourteenthcentury conditions on the Ghent markets of the twelfthandthirteenthcenturies.Theevidenceinthispaperlargelycomesfromthe periodwhenthewoolclothproductionhadbeenunderpressureformorethan eightyyears,andmanyyearsaftereachofthesemarketspaceshadbeenfounded. Certeau's theories of outer space are particularly useful in this context, as they offer strategies for partially reconstructing lost oral practice from fragments in surviving sources. Surviving sources indicate that women and men interacted in different roles and patterns within specific markets, shaped by different discourses and having different roles, suppliers, customers and gender boundaries. The two main stop markets held in physical markets of the same name, the corn market and the Friday market, represent polar opposites;
18
Thealdermenkeptannualregistersinthethirteenthandearlyfourteenthcenturies,butnonehave survived.TheearliestsurvivingregistersofthealdermenoftheGedelebeginin1349(SAG,series 330.)TheearliestsurvivingregistersofthealdermenoftheKeurearefragmentsfrom1339–1340, 1343–1344, and 1345, followed by four complete year registers, from 1349–1350, 1353–1354, 1357–1358,and1360–1361(SAG, 301 series). Some of the city's accounts also survive from the early to mid-14th century. Guild documents were destroyed by order of Emperor Charles V after he defeated a revolt in the city in 1540. Howelland Boone, "Becoming Modern", 310.
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it was configured as a masculine space, while the latter was the site of a considerable mix of men and women in all roles. In Cloth Hall, men dominated the most important and lucrative roles in sales, while women occupied minor roles, but the two coexisted and sometimes worked together. Only men could sell at the butcher shop and women could only be present as customers. In three Ghent market spaces—the Cloth Hall, the Meat Hall, and the Corn Market—officialstrategiespartitionedspaceintermsofgenderdifference.Asthe relativestatusofthesemarketspaceschangedovertime,theimpactofthatgender differenceshiftedaswell.InmidfourteenthcenturyGhent,accessofwomento thecity'spremiermarketspace,theClothHall,allowedwomenstallholdersto attainmiddlingstatusandprosperityassellersofwoolandcloth.Theirstatusas mercersandspicemerchantswithshopsandboothsintheFridayMarketput manyoftheminthemiddlerangeofprosperityaswell.Otherfourteenthcentury market spaces, like the Meat Hall and the Corn Market, marginalized and excluded women. As these markets became more important than the ancient cloth trade, the grain merchants and butchers who controlled these markets became the dominant forerunners. During the same period, the two Ghent men lost much of their access to mid-status markets.
TheClothHall Ghent’straditionalsourceofwealthwaswoolencloth,whichhadenrichedthe city’sproducersandsellersforcenturies.Bythemidfourteenthcentury,thedate oftheearliestsurvivingrecordsofactualpractice,theclothtradewasalreadyin decline,afterbeinghithardbywoolembargoesandcompetition.Thecenterof woolandclothsaleswastheClothHall,alargemultistorybuildingalongthe city’swealthieststreet,theHoogpoort,aspatialconfirmationoftheimportanceof woolclothproductiontothecity.19Salesofwool,yarn,andclothprobablyalso tookplaceoutsideofthishall.Thealdermenmademanyattemptstoconfinesales tothehall,buttherepetitionofordinancessuggeststhattheywerenotparticularly
19
The 14th-century Cloth Hall was located between the Town Hall and the Clock Tower, about two blocks from the Kornmarkt. It was to the north of what is now the Cloth Hall, built in the mid-15th century.
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successful.20 Nevertheless, the aldermen, and the elites whose views they promoted,envisionedthephysicalspaceoftheClothHallasthelegitimatecenter ofthewoolandclothtrade.Thebuildingitselfwaslargerthanthecityhalland hadtwostoriesandcellar.Thecellarcontainedscalesforweighingwoolandcloth, andthetwoupperfloorscontainedlargeopenhalls,withthetopfloorreserved forthehighestgradesofluxurycloth.21Onthelowerfloor,cheapergradesofcloth, knownaswhiteandbluecloth,weresold,alongwithwoolandpossiblyyarn.22 Alongthewallsofeachfloorwereeitherstallsorbenches,assignedtospecific womenfortheirlifetimeuse.TheClothHallwasthereforepartitionedbyeither tableorcounterstructures.Womenstallholderssatorstoodbehindthecounters, whilemalebrokersandwholesalersmadedealswithforeignmerchants(almost exclusivelymale)intheopencenteroftheroom.23 Theclothtradewascontrolledbybrokersandclothwholesalers,whohandled largetransactionswithforeignmerchants.Mostofthembelongedtoasmallelite groupwithintheweavers'guild,andtheyalsoprofitedfromsupplyingimported rawmaterialstotheirpoorerfellowweavers.24Inoneordinancefrom1338,the brokersappearasthepersonsinchargeoftheClothHallwhenthey“agreedthat thewomenshouldbeallowedtoselltheirwhiteandbluecloth,”referringtothe cheapergradesofclothsoldinthelowerhall.25Thebrokersalsoagreedthat“the women”wereallowedtobuyuptofifteenstonesofwool,equivalenttoninety pounds.Ifafemalemarketsellerbroughtmorethanfifteenstonesofwool,thesale hadtogotoabrokerwhowouldreceivehalfoftheprofit.Thisordinanceclearly limitswomenfromlargewholesaledeals .
20
21 22
23
24
25
For example, in 1374, the aldermen decreed that “no foreign man or woman should sell wool in Ghent, except in the Wool House”, Napoléon DePauw, DeVoorgebodenderstad GentindeXIVeeeuw(1337–1382)(Ghent:C.AnnootBraeckman,Ad.Hoste:1885 ), 131 Fabrics for local consumption were sold at the Friday market. White (white) and blue (blue) wool textiles were various cheaper fabric qualities known in England as 'sayes' or 'worsted'. An act refers to a bench next to the aisle. SAG, Series 301, nº 2, f. 28v, Law No. 3, July 14, 1362. Stabel, "Marketing Cloth in the Low Countrys." For the influential position of weavers in the social structure of late medieval cities, see also Fabian Alfie's contribution to this volume. 1338Ordinanceentitled“Vandenmakeleren”:“Voert,sohebbendemakeleerengheconsentertdatde vrouwenzullenmoghenvercoepenharewittelakeneendehaerblaeuwe,endevoertzullendevrouwen moghencoepen15steenewullenendenietdaerboven....”DePauw,Voorgeboden,29;alsotranscribed inRecueildedocumentsrelatifsàl'histoiredel'industriedrapièreenFlandre.Premièrepartie:desorigines àl'époquebourguignonne,ed.GeorgesEspinasandHenriPirennne(Brussels:P.Imbreghts,1909) , nº 432, item 5, 2: 431.
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However, most small cloth merchants who were able to manufacture single pieces of wool bought wool in batches of less than 90 pounds. For example, when a couple, Wouter and Aechte van Vinderhoute, died suddenly (probably of the plague) in 1360, their estate inventory contained four wool logs in batches of eighteen to thirty-five pounds.26 The couple probably worked together. as drapers because the list of debts included the purchase of credit for wool and cloth manufacturing services. 27Aechtecontracted severalpurchasesoncreditbyherself,inadditiontootherdebtsandpurchases madebyWouteraloneandthecoupletogether.Whetherthiscouplepurchased thewoollotsintheClothHallisunknown,buttheestateinventoryclearlyshows thatwoolwasregularlysoldinsmallquantitiestosmalldrapers.Thewomenwool sellersintheClothHallcouldmakeatidylivingfromsellingwoolinthesesmaller quantities,whilethebrokersandwholesalersmaynothavebeenasinterestedin breaking up large shipments of wool into these smaller lots. Saleswomen thus formed a middle class in the wool distribution system. Stockbrokers bought wool in bulk and sold the tin sacks to merchants in cloth halls, who then cut the wool into smaller batches and sold it to individual cloth makers. Thesewomenoccupiedacrucialcentralnicheinthesalesanddistributionof wool,thread,andcloth.Atthesametime,womensellershadtodefertomale brokerswhensalesreachedacertainvolume.Thetextoftheordinancenarrates that elite men controlled the space, allocated resources, and thus apportioned income,butallowedwomenintothatspacetoperformauxiliaryroles.Beneaththe textmaybeanolderexistingspatialpracticeinwhichwomenstallholdershad beensellingwool,thread,andclothintheClothHallperhapsfarbackintothe undocumented cloth production and trade in the city stretching back to the eleventhcentury . This ordinance is also a recognition of the practices of women and men - their everyday tactics and actions - inscribed in Cloth Hall Square. The ordinance shows that the women had been selling fabrics and wool there for some time. Merchants, brokers, textile traders and fabric wholesalers
26
27
SAG, series 301, #1, loose watch number 215.1, August 21, 1360. The inventory reads: "Item, V½steenwollen, XLgt.densteen(5–1/2stonesofwool,at40d.grootperstone) Item,VIIsteenwollen,IIp.g. densteen (7stonesofwool, at2lbs.grootperstone ) Item,IIIsteenwollen1pontminblaus,XVIIIgt.densteen(3stonesless1poundofblue?wool,at18d.grootperstone) Item,IIIsteenendeIpont,VIIIgt.densteen at six modern pounds The couple contracted nine debts together, two of them alone. were women, one was a marital partnership, and two were working mothers with children SAG, series 301, no. 1, loose watch 215.1.
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they conducted much of their business in the open space around the stalls, if not within the stalls themselves. The women sat or stood behind tables covered with wares, in sharp contrast to the men who walked midway through the hall. The space in the Cloth Hall was sometimes divided by tables, sometimes by the front counters of the stalls. According to Certeau, a dividing wall structures the space and functions as a boundary and a bridge. The Cloth Hall strategy (the gatehouses and gatehouses) determined the area open to male cloth merchants, brokers and wholesalers. The table or counter was a barrier that separated vendors by gender. But in practice, how could a retailer show a prospective buyer a piece of fabric without laying it on a table? A real estate agent is believed to have used a market stall to spread a cloth, an action that would have turned the partition into a bridge. Furthermore,allocationofthestallsintheClothHallwascontrolledatleastin partbywomen.Twostoriessurvivingfromdocumentsinthealdermen’sregisters indicatethatwomenheldthestallsfortheirlifetimes,andpassedthosestallson tootherwomenortofemalefamilymembers.Onestorywastoldtothealdermen bySimeonvanAelst,himselfaformeraldermen.Hetestifiedthathislatewife, Aechte,hadappearedbeforeapreviousboardofaldermentotransferherstallin the Cloth Hall to a woman named Bette van den Wijngaerde. On the basis of Simeon’stestimony,“thealdermentransferredthatstallbacktoBettetousefor herlifetime.”28Theinitialtransfertookplacebetweenthewomen,followedbythe aldermen’sofficialgrantofthestalltoBettevandenWijngaerde.Thealdermen’s righttograntstallstowomenislikelyagraftontoolderoralpractice,awayof emphasizingtheircontrolbyapprovingalongstandingcustomarypractice.Itis alsonoteworthythatAechte,theoriginalholderofthestall,wasthewifeofan aldermen,meaningthatshewasatleastofmiddlingstatus.29
28
29
SAG, Série 301, No. 1, F. 27r, Act. No. 3, Set. 5, 1349: "...sohave cepenes sábios, Gillis Rhinefishing seus ghezels, mid the vors. Informação esta geada. roubou ghegheven e gheven os vors. Wetten, das ist so friedvoll wie ein ruhiges Mogheghebrukenalselangheallifealohnejemenskalaenge.“ SimeonvanAelstheldtheninthseatonthebenchofthealdermenoftheGedelefortheyear 1346–7.(Thealdermenservedforoneyearterms,beginningon15August.)TheGedelebenchwas lesspowerfulthantheKeurebench,andtheninthseatheldmuchlesspowerthanthefirstor secondseat.Inaddition,in1346,Ghentguildsandfactionswerestrugglingoverpower,meaning thattheremighthavebeenanopportunityforlessercraftsmentowinseatsincitygovernment. SinceSimeondoesnotappearagaininthesurvivinglistsofcityofficials,itislikelythathewas eithernotamemberofthecity’selite,orthathelackedsufficientstandinginanyofthecity’s factions,DeRekeningenderStadGent.TijdvakvanJacobvanArtevelde1339–1349,ed.NapoléonDe PauwandJuliusVuylsteke.MaatschappijvanNederlandscheletterkundeengeschiedenis(Ghent: Ad.Hoste,1874–1885),3:1;Boone,Gentendebourgondischehertogen,33–39.
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A segunda história torna ainda mais provável a teoria de que os conselheiros impuseram seu controle sobre a prática comum entre as mulheres. Inadecisionfrom1362,thealdermengrantedastalltotheminordaughtersofa deceasedstallholder,andchargedherwidowertomaintainthestallfortheyoung girls: Kenlicsijetc.datherJacobWillebaerd,herLievinvandenHoleendeharegezellen scepenen van der Keure in Ghend hebben ghegheven en gheven Betkine ende KallekineHeinricsGheilardskindrendiehijhaddebijMergrieteKoenssiinwijfwas, dezelvestedeendebancindenederhallewitteendeblaeuwelakineuptevercoppene dieMergrieteharerbeedermoedervors.uterghiftenvanscepenendiedoewaren haudende was. Van der Vors quer acabar com este banco. kindre weghe ghevoedt ende ghemainteniertmoetenzijnghelijcdattertoebehoert.30 [BeitknownthatHeerJacobWillebaerd,HeerLievinvandenHoleandtheirfellow aldermenoftheKeureinGhenthavegivenandgivetoBetkine(Betty)andKallekine (Kathy),childrenofHeinricGheilardswhomhehadbyhislatewifeMergrieteKoens, the same place and bench in the lower hall to sell white and blue wool cloth that Mergriete their mother was holding (had, had been keeping ) como presente dos vereadores [naquela época?].
Although the advisers claimed that they had given this 'sales space' as a 'gift' to Mergriete and then to her daughters, it was far more likely that the daughters actually inherited this sales space. It doesn't seem to be in the city's interest to give the salesroom to minors with the expectation that their parent and guardian would have to maintain it for the benefit of the children. Thesestoriessuggestthatthegenderedpracticesthatstallswerepassedfrom womantowomanoftheClothHallpredatedthealdermen’scontrol.Thewomen whoheldstallsand/orsellingplacesintheClothHallhadhereditaryrights,at leastinpart.AsCerteauargues,storiesgobeforesocialpracticestocreateatheater ofactions.32Judicialdecisionscanonlymanipulateandreaffirmthistheater.Inthe ClothHallmarketspace,womenstallholdersbycustompassedtheirstallsonto otherwomen,andthealdermenwereconfirmingthispractice,andmanipulating ittoenhancetheirownauthority.TheClothHallspacehadbeenpartiallyfounded bywomenstallholders.
30 31
32
SAG, Series 301, nº 2, f. 28 V, Act No. 3, July 14, 1362. The difference in terminology is also interesting. Aechte kept a stable (stal) and Mergriete a place (stede) on a bench (banc). Certeau, Daily Practice, 125.
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The presence of women sellers in the Cloth Hall and in the alderman's record archives also complicates the commonly held assumption that male weavers monopolized the sale of wool and cloth to cloth merchants, brokers and wholesalers. Limitations on the amounts of wool and types of fabric women could sell had to be weighed against the legitimacy of their presence in the Cloth Hall and the profit potential of their businesses. They occupied an important niche in the distribution system of raw materials and finished fabrics for the production of curtains in the city. The Cloth Hall space divided by stall tables or counters was created through practices that privileged male brokers but included female stallholders and encouraged collaboration in the gender division of market space. However, the production of woolen fabrics in Ghent was no longer as profitable as it used to be, and by the mid-14th century, unemployment was widespread. In this environment of economic pressure and declining profitability, womendrapersandwoolsellerswouldhavebeenvulnerabletoattacksfrommale guildsmen,andtheaccessofwomentomiddlingpositionsinthetextileindustry declined.Inaddition,thestatusandimportanceofwoolclothproduction,oncethe dominantindustrythathadmadeGhentwealthy,declinedoverthecourseofthe fourteenthandfifteenthcenturies.Itwasincreasinglyreplacedbytheprovisioning trades,ledbythebutchers’guild,whichalsopartitioneditsmarketspacewith genderboundaries,butinaverydifferentway.
The Meat Hall By the mid-14th century, the Ghent Butchers' Guild was well on its way to becoming one of the most influential, powerful and exclusive guilds in the city. After the weavers, the butchers' guild was perhaps the strongest guild in Ghent in the mid-14th century, and would soon overtake the weavers. It was also one of the first guilds in Ghent to limit membership to the sons of masters.
33
34
35
There are other archival sources that suggest wives and spouses sold wool and cloth partnerships. Acts nº 2 and 3, of October 27, 1345; f. 117 v, Law nº 1; undated, f. 225 v, act no. 2, 19th December 1360. De Pauw and Vuylsteke, accounts; and Alfons Van Werveke, eds., Gentse Stads en Bailiffs accounts (1351–1364) (Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1970). Hans Van Werveke, The Ghent Meat Cutters under the Old Regime: Demographic Study on a Closed and Hereditary Craft Guild, Acts of Society for History and Antiquity in Ghent3(1948):3–32. Danneel, widows and orphans, 357; DePotter, Ghent, 2:366-67.
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guildreplacedtheiroriginalindoormarketplace,theMeatHall(Vleeshuis),with alargewoodenhallbesidetheLeieRiver,andin1407builtthemagnificentstone MeatHallwhichstandstherestill.Therapidupgradingoffacilitiesisatestament tothegrowingpowerandwealthofthebutchers’guildoverthesecondhalfofthe fourteenthcentury.Individualbutcherssoldtheirmeatfromstallswhichlinedthe wallsofthehall,partitioning,andthereforefounding,thespaceofthismarket.By the fifteenth century, this partition became a gendered boundary as well. A draconian decree ordered the following: Voortdatgheenvleeshauwerswijfnochjoncwijfennecommeinveertichvoetenna denvleeschuuse, updendachdatlanvleeschvercoopt, updemesdaetvanIIIpond. ...36 [From now on, no butcher's wife or maid shall come closer than forty feet to the butcher's shop on the day the meat is sold, under penalty of three pounds.]”
Butcher shop women were excluded from the market, even from consumption areas. While the ordinance was probably never effectively enforced, it is evidence of the butchers' desire to stake out the range of their Halla men. However, women apparently continued to break these rules. A later ordinance declared that “vannuvortangheenvrauwenterbanckstaenen zullenommevleeschtevercoopene . The arrangement of the counters separated the butchers from the female and male customers. These women had no rights, no backstory to justify their transgression of Meat Hallspace segregation. The strictness of the guild's written regulations cut short the previous flexible oral practice. The nature of the butchers' guild's work, dealing with large animals and heavy carcasses, suggests that the trade has always been predominantly male, but such a consideration would not prevent wives, daughters or maidservants from tending to customers and raising money.
36 37
Statutes of Vleeschouwers, undated, circa 15th century, DePotter, Gent, 2:554. Decree of 1541, DePotter, Ghent, 2:559.
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The Corn Market A different kind of gender boundary has marked the corn market. Marktregulierungen schlossen Frauen aus, selbst als Kunden.Außerdem waren alltägliche Praktiken innerhalb des Marktraums als männlicher Raum gekennzeichnet .Largegrainwarehousesalongthewharfprovided spaceforstorage.38Othershipsvisitedthissiteaswell,butthosecarryinggrainto thecitywerethemostimportant.Ghentwasdependentonimportsofgrainto feeditself,becausethedemandforfoodexceededFlemishagriculturalproductive capacityfromthetwelfthcenturyonwards.39ThefieldsofPicardyandArtoisin nearbynorthernFranceproducedasurplusofgrain,whichmerchantsshipped downtheScheldtandLeieriverstofeedtheFlemishcities.Inthe1330sthrough the1350s,Ghent,likeotherFlemishcities,sufferedintermittentshortagesofgrain, which caused periods of crisis. The corn market square itself was an open space, bordered by the church of St. Nikla to the west and flanked by inns and houses of important patrician families. They were often one and the same, as members of many patrician families worked as innkeepers, brokers, and wholesalers, and provided financial and commercial services to foreign merchants. Exchange stalls, food markets and the richest neighborhoods of the city were located in the streets that led to the market square.41 The corn square, normally open to pedestrians, became a men's square on the three days of the week known as configured market days. Brokers and grain buyers from the smaller towns of Flanders, along with their porters, stevedores, and teamsters.43 The women appeared only as clients, and illegally only.
38 39
40 41 42 43
Um deles, DeSpijker, ainda vive no Koornlei. David Nicholas, "Of Poverty and Primacy: Demand, Liquidity, and the Flemish Economic Miracle, 1050-1200," American Historical Review 96:1(1991):17-41. Boone, Ghent Dukes of Burgundy, 21-23. Nicholas, Metamorphosis, 118. DePauw,Forbidden,2. DePauw, Forbidden, 2.
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themidfourteenthcenturyforbadewomentobuygrainattheCornMarketon marketdays.44In1338womenwereforbiddentobuyatthemarket,onpenaltyof a3lb.fine,thesamefinewhichwasleviedonbakerswhoboughtmorethanaset quantity of grain.45 In 1343, an ordinance specified that “no man or woman [should]buymorethanonehalsterofgraininthe[Corn]Marketonmarketday.”46 Evidentlythepreviousordinancehadlapsed,andsomewomenwerenowbuying grain, or perhaps had always continued to buy grain. In 1350, women were prohibited from "going to the corn market to buy grain", on pain of losing "their best clothes". The extremity of the regulations, as well as the repetition, suggest that the decrees were temporary and that women normally shopped at this market. Themovementsofvehicles,maleporters,merchants,andsailorsthroughthe CornMarketalsomadethespacehostiletowomen.Itwascrowdedwithwagons, horses,andcarts.Foreignmerchantslineduptobuyfromthegrainmerchants, andsincedistributiontookplaceinthesamearea,theymusthavebroughtwith themtheirporters,waggoners,andotherlaborers,whostoodaroundwaitingto loadupthegrain.Shippersoffloadedthegrainonthewharfnearby,andsailors mingled with the crowds. Dockworkers passed through sweating under the burdenofheavybalesandswearingatthosewhoblockedtheirpassagethrough thecrowd.Womenstoodagoodchanceofbeingjostled,pushed,ogled,insulted, andpropositionedbyanassortmentofunsavorycharacters.Despitetheeasewith whichGhentwomenseemedtooperateinpublic,fewwomenfromthemiddling andelitegroupswouldhavewantedtogointotheCornMarket.Awomanwho entered the Corn Market risked her reputation and her social status, and by extension,thereputationofherfamily.Itisnocoincidencethatthepunishment for a woman buying grain at the corn market - the confiscation of her best dress - was the same punishment for a stipend wandering the wharf
44
45 46 47 48
Ordinances of 1338, 1350, and 1366. DePauw, Forbidden, 7, 37, 48–49, 95. Nicholas identified a widow selling grain in 1377, Nicholas, Metamorphosis, 333. DePauw, Forbidden, 7. DePauw, Forbidden, 37. DePauw , Forbidden, 48-49. An ordinance also prohibited prostitutes "from wandering at night in the square in front of the [Cloth] Hall or in front of the Spijker [the grain shop on the Maismarktkai] on the Vee bridge, on pain of losing your best dress. .", DePauw, Voorboden, 44 (1349)
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thattheauthoritiescouldconfiscate.Onlydesperatelypoorwomenorthosewith no reputation to lose would violate this male space, which was founded by strategiesdelimitingit(thealdermen'sordinancesandexclusionofwomenfrom theprofitableinternationalgraintrade)andbythesocialpracticesofthemale merchants,porters,andsailors.49 Thegenderboundarydrawnaroundthephysicalandtemporalspaceofthe CornMarketdidnotenclosethehousesandinnsaroundit,orSt.Niklaaschurch, orthesmallerfoodmarkets,shops,booths,andmoneychangers'tableswithina oneblockradius. The space outside the corn market was constructed somewhat more amorphously, and likewise the Gents involved in international trade were a mixed and amorphous bunch. The innkeepers and brokers, the organizers of international trade, were a group of professionals who operated between the corn market, the cloth market, taverns and exchanges. They organized, expedited, and profited from import-export deals with foreign merchants, mainly in grain, wool, and cloth. Its varied and multifaceted interests preclude its categorization into a single market. The core of their activities, however, were the inns at the hostels on the edge of the Corn Market. This group of brokers, porters, innkeepers, grain surveyors, and cloth wholesalers did not confine themselves to a single trade but often changed jobs or worked with family members in other occupations.50 Innkeepers or their family members were also cloth wholesalers. .51 Freight forwarders were also popular Geschäften für den Import und Export von Getreide beteiligt.52 in well-defined and mutually exclusive categories, but their efforts were largely unsuccessful. , and making financial arrangements in local markets.54 Brokers arranged purchases and financing, and hostels provided banking services for merchants, either personally or
49 50 51 52
53
54
Nicholas, Metamorphosis, 118. Nicholas, Metamorphosis, 144–47, 183. Nicholas, Metamorphosis, 144–148. A small and very wealthy guild, the Grain Knives, regulated the grain trade and sometimes acted as criminals, providing housing for French grain merchants. Example: 1349: Cloth makers and weavers were not allowed to practice any craft other than "wool work". 1353 Innkeepers and brokers were not allowed to make or have cloth made or sell wool. Murray, Bruges, 87-118 describes a more elaborate version of this for the city of Bruges.
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por meio de suas contas em cambistas.55 Esse grupo era dominado por homens da elite, e muitos pertenciam a famílias patrícias importantes. Womenwereexcludedfromthisgroup,justastheywereexcludedfromthe CornMarket,althoughwivesofbrokersandhostellersweresometimesinvolved ininternationaltradebecausetheactivitytookplaceininns.Hostellers'wives probablycontributedsignificantlytotheirhusbands'innkeepingbusinesses,just astheydidinBruges.56Beforethedeathofherhostellerhusband,SoetevanGhend forcedWouterScoiarttoacknowledgethatheowedhermorethantwelveshillings grootfor“foodanddrinkandmoneyloaned[tohim.]”57WhileherhusbandGillis wasonatriptoEngland,SoetinNaespostedatwothousandpoundbondtoact as a hosteller with official privileges to trade at the Cloth Hall.58 Hostellers, brokers,andwholesalersbrokereddealsintheClothHallandtheCornMarket, theytradedinimporteddyes,theylodged,fedandentertainedforeignmerchants andtheirlocalclientsintheirinns,whichwerealsotheirhouseholds.Havinga wifetomanagethedomesticsideofinnkeepingwasnecessary,andbyextension, wivesofhostellersandbrokerscouldhandlesalesthattookplacewithintheinns.59 The aldermen recognized this in a 1369 ordinance in which they required hostellers'andbrokers'wivestoswearalongwiththeirhusbandsthattheywould notbuyandsellmadder(adyestuff)ifitwasstoredintheirresidences.60 Inaddition,whilewomenwerenotallowedintheexteriorspaceoftheCorn Market, Dentro das estalagens, as mulheres provavelmente realizavam a maior parte dos serviços para os mercadores estrangeiros. Centenas de mulheres devem ter ganhado a vida como garçonetes, garçonetes, cozinheiras, lavadeiras e criadas nas hospedarias dos 55
56 57
58
59 60
Foreigners could buy grain from grain knives, innkeepers, bakers or brewers. Nicholas, Metamorphosis, 245-47. Murray, Bruges, 318-21. SAG, Série 301, No. 1, 62 V, Law No. 5, April 16, 1350. The other debtor, Janvan Expoele, owed him eight shillings for food and drink, f. 63r, Law No. 2, of April 22. 1350. Philip van Ghend, husband of Soete, appeared to be alive on 24 July 1350, but definitely dead on 9 December 1350, 9. Dec. 1350. SAG, Series 301, No. 1, f.97r, 1349–50. Nicholas noted that there were numerous housewives in the 1370s to 1390s, Nicholas, Domestic Life, 87–89. DePauw, Voorgeboden, 104. Although most edicts referred to brokers using only the masculine form of the word, one edict from 1378 named a male broker (saemcoepre) and a female broker (saemcoepericghe). De Pauw, Voorgeboden, 131.
The genderification of the market space
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corn market. Prostitutes crowded the warehouses and the square in front of the Cloth Hall. As the Provisioning Guilds became the most profitable and dominant economic institutions in Ghent, their markets such as the Meat Hall and the Grain Market grew in importance. Even if they belonged to the families of the confreres, they could only operate on the outskirts of the spaces produced and reproduced by the movements of merchant men, street vendors and transporters. As these markets overtook the Cloth Hall in importance, women's access to in-between positions also suffered from the demise of the traditional textile industry, which offered men a legitimate and lucrative intermediary role.
The Friday Market The Friday Market (Vrijdagmarkt) is three blocks from the Getreidemarkt in a large open space beside the Church of St. James. In the 14th century it was the largest rest area in the city. Surrounded on four sides by household shops, it stood on the dividing line between the wealthy central neighborhoodandthepoorerneighborhoodsofartisansandlaborersonthenorth sideofthecity.62Shopsandperhapssomeboothswereopeneveryday,butone ofthemajorfunctionsofthespacewas(andstillis)alargeopenairmarketon Fridays.Merchantssoldawidearrayofproductsforlocalconsumptionatthe FridayMarket,withtheexceptionofmostfooditems,whichweresoldintheir ownmarketplaces.Itwasnotamarketforlargemerchantsinvolvedinimportand exportofbulkmerchandise,althoughthesemerchantsmayhavesolditemsat retailfromboothsthere.OnFridaysmanycraftsmenandwomenwouldsetup boot