Abstract
In the previous chapters we have occasionally signalled how memories of persons and places are linked with objects and sites. Objects such as jewellery, sacred vessels or cloths were passed on from one generation to the next and carried with them stories of their donors. That material evidence helps to trigger memories has been shown conclusively in anthropological studies of primarily oral cultures in modern times. The use of photographs, especially, has been found to be enormously effective in helping to recall the (recent) past.1 In the Middle Ages the use of pictures and objects to recall past events, and stories in general, was well known and advocated by the clergy as a means of teaching the illiterate.2 Today we have to rely on written references to ways in which medieval people were reminded of the past by looking at sites and objects. Few of the actual sites and objects which are mentioned in the sources have survived. Of the surviving material evidence, only objects from ecclesiastical institutions remain because churches and monasteries had archives and treasuries built in which to keep their heirlooms for ever. Very few objects from a secular background have survived, however, because family possessions if not stored in institutions, got dispersed and lost. Buildings and sites were more durable and they, like objects, had stories of their founders or later events attached to them.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
E. Tonkin, Narrating our Pasts. The Social Construction of Oral History (Cambridge, 1992), 93–5, 109.
M. Carruthers, The Book of Memory. A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1990), 221–9.
Guillaume de Poitiers, Histoire de Guillaume le Conquérant, ed. R. Foreville (Paris, 1952), 205.
The Waltham Chronicle, ed. L. Watkiss and M. Chibnall (Oxford, 1994), 50–6, xliii–xlvi
Rodulfus Glaber, Opera, ed. J. France, N. Bulst and P. Reynolds (Oxford, 1989), 162.
Guillaume de Pouille, la Geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. M. Mathieu (Palermo, 1961), 254–9, 336–7.
Reading Abbey Cartularies, ed. B. R. Kemp, 1 (London, 1986–87), 301–2, 353, 403–5.
J. L. Nelson, ‘Women at the court of Charlemagne: A case of monstrous regiment?’, Medieval Queenship, ed. J. C. Parsons (1993), 43–62.
For a colour photograph of the illuminated page, Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, MS Guelph 105 Noviss. 2, folio 171v., see C. R. Dodwell, Pictorial Arts of the West 800–1200 (Yale, 1993), 285.
This section is based on J. Jesch, Women in the Viking Age (Woodbridge, 1991), 48–74;
R. I. Page, Chronicles of the Vikings. Records, Memorials and Myths (London, 1995), 168–72;
B. and P. Sawyer, Medieval Scandinavia. From Conversion to Reformation c. 800–1500 (Minneapolis and London, 1993), 188–213.
Otto von Freising, Chronica sive de duabus civitatibus, ed. A. Hofmeister and W. Lammers (Darmstadt, 1961), 486.
The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. M. Chibnall, 2 (Oxford, 1969), 168.
Willelmi Malmesbiriensis, De gestis Regum Anglorum, ed. W. Stubbs, 1 (London, 1887), 218.
The Chronicle of Battle Abbey, ed. E. Searle (Oxford, 1980), 15–6, 36–8, 60–2.
Actes des comtes de Flandre 1071–1128, ed. F. Vercauteren (Bruxelles, 1936), 16–19.
B. S. Bachrach, Fulk Nerra, the neo-Roman consul 987–1040. A Political Biography of the Angevin Count (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993), 131–5. For the consecration and subsequent collapse of the church, see Rodulfus Glaber, 58–64.
D. Wilson, The Bayeux Tapestry (London, 1985), Pl. 17;
D. Bernstein, The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry (London, 1986).
S. A. Brown and M. Herren, ‘The Adelae comitissae of Baudri of Bourgueil and the Bayeux Tapestry’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 16 (1993), 55–74.
D. Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills (Cambridge, 1930), 15.
Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake (London, 1962), 136.
C. R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art. A New Perspective (Ithaca and New York, 1982), 134–6, 188–9.
Eadmeri: Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. M. Rule (London, 1884), 107–10; trans. G. Bosanquet, Eadmer’s History of Recent Events in England (London, 1964), 111–13.
See also, V. Ortenberg, The English Church and the Continent 900–1100 (Oxford, 1992), 104.
C. Duhamel-Amado, ‘Femmes entre elles. Filles et épouses languedociennes (XIe et XIIe siècles)’, Femmes, mariages, lignages, XII e -XIV siècles. Mélanges offerts à Georges Duby (Bruxelles, 1992), 126–55, esp. 153–4.
For a similar conclusion with regard to fifteenth-century bequests at Douai, see M. C. Howell, ‘Fixing movables: gifts by testament in late medieval Douai,’ Past and Present 150 (1996), 3–45 at 25–9.
P. Skinner, ‘Women, wills and wealth in southern Italy’, Early Medieval Europe, 2 (1993), 133–52; esp. 136–7, 138–9, 142–3.
R. H. C. Davis, The Normans and their Myth (London, 1976), 74–5; Pl. 36.
D. Abulafia, Frederick II (London, 1992), 10–12; plate on 10 shows Emperor Charles V in the same coronation mantle.
The Life of King Edward Who Rests at Westminster, ed. F. Barlow, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1992), 24.
English Romanesque Art 1066–1200, ed. G. Zarnecki (London, 1984), 291–2.
Suger, Vie de Louis VI le Gros , ed. H. Waquet (Paris, 1929), 276; trans. R. C. Cusamo and J. Moorhead, Suger, The Deeds of Louis the Fat (Washington 1992), 154.
Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St Denis and its Art Treasures, ed. E. Panofsky, 2nd edn (Princeton, 1979), 78–9.
G. Beech, ‘The Eleanor vase: witness to Christian-Muslim collaboration in early 12th-century Spain’, Ars Orientalis, 22 (1992), 69–79. I am very grateful to Professor Beech for sending me his article.
Early Yorkshire Charters, ed. W. Farrer and C. T. Clay (York, 1939), 3, 60–70, at 69.
Beowulf, trans. D. Wright (Harmondsworth, 1970), 98, lines 3015–16. For an attempt to identify the surviving weapons, see O. Bouzy, ‘Les armes symboles d’un pouvoir politique: l’épée du sacre, la sainte lance, l’oriflamme au VIIIe-XIIe siècles’, Francia, 22–1 (1995), 45–57.
M. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, England 1066–1307, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1993), 35–6.
A. Porée, Histoire de l’abbaye du Bec, 1 (Evreux, 1901), 650–1; Chibnall, Empress, 189–90.
P. Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith. Queenship and Woman’s Power in Eleventh-Century England (Oxford, 1997), 143.
Les actes de Guillaume le conquérant et de la reine Mathilde pour les abbayes caennaises, ed. L. Musset (Caen, 1967), 112–13.
E. M. C. van Houts, ‘The Norman conquest through European eyes’, English Historical Review, 110 (1995), 832–53;
P. McGurk and J. Rosenthal, ‘The Anglo-Saxon gospelbooks of Judith, countess of Flanders: their text, makeup and function’, Anglo-Saxon England, 24 (1995), 251–308.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1999 E. M. C. van Houts
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
van Houts, E. (1999). Objects as Pegs for Memory. In: Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe 900–1200. Explorations in Medieval Culture and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27515-1_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27515-1_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-56859-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-27515-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)