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anotheranon, I'm guessing you're the vector behind a couple new readers popping up. Thanks for the shout-out. For those who showed up to read the Kalamazoo blogging, I won't be offended if you drop me again after the conference. I'm not usually this content-full.
Session 212: “Can These Bones Come to Life?”: Insights from Reconstruction, Reenactment, and Re-creation
Pure Air and Fire: Reconstructing Medieval Equitation (Michael A. Cramer, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY)
I came in a little late so I’m catching up here. A discussion of evidence regarding martial equitation practices based both on literature (instruction manuals), physical equipment and pictorial evidence (within the limitations of such) particularly for physical techniques as opposed to equipment. While the general focus is on general martial contexts, a lot of the evidence comes specifically from tournament riding and there’s discussion of the evolution of equipment for this purpose (e.g, development of the shield) that might diverge from that used for warfare. One conclusion is that control of the horse seems likely to have been neck reining (obviously not two-handed reining, given the need to hold a weapon), not leg aids, and extremely minimal use of spurs. Despite the apparent extremity of surviving bits (backed by those in art), instruction manuals indicate these were not used for direct control in battle, although there may have been an “attention-getting” function. Presentation of the debate whether medieval tournament riding (and horses) were more similar to that of modern English-style riding (close physical communication between horse and rider, emphasis on constant control, rider balance must be active) or Western-stye riding (more tenuous physical communication, relatively independent horse, rider balance more passive and saddle-assisted).
Our Father’s Eggs: The Use of the Paternoster as a Medieval Timing Device (Kathleen Dimmich, Independent Scholar)
Starts off with a recording of a chanted paternoster, timed as about one minute. Different mechanisms for counting different scales of time. Clocks primarily for counting hours but not smaller increments. Instructions for chant tempos include notations like “at the rhythm of a reaper’s scythe”. Based on mensuration and tempo indications, the common prayers would generally have the same performance duration whatever melody was used. This even appears to hold cross-linguistically, with German and English versions of prayers having similar durations (along with Latin). Paternoster and Ave Maria were the most popular prayers of lay people and of a useful duration for micro-timing. Instructions to use the paternoster as a timing device show up explicitly in cooking instructions, e.g., in Epulario an egg-cooking duration (hence the title of the paper). Other examples of explicit use include dying. Some discussion of instructions that give clues to what language the suggested prayers were expected to be in.
Styles of Radical Quill (Paul Werner, School of Visual Arts, New York Univ.)
Quill-cutting, that is. The paper starts out with pop-culture representations of, and interactions with, some medieval practices and artifacts, ranging from quill-cutting to interest in relics. (It’s going to be interesting to see where this is going – at the moment I’m wondering if I wandered into a Pseudo-session paper by accident.) Some underlying themes about “why do medieval things that have no practical use in modern times?” Mentions a hand-bound edition of Karl Marx and an obscure connection between Angela Davis and quill pens. An image of a school computer center as “modern scriptorium”. Ok, I give up on blogging this. If there’s a thread to follow, it’s been tied into macramé. And … we close with a quote from Sartre. No, wait, he said he was closing, but he’s still going … and going … and going …. Do we have a time-keeper? Did someone mention to him that there’s another speaker coming after him? Did he pay extra to get to talk for half an hour as one of four speakers in a 1.5 hour session? Evidently we now need to fit in a quote from Derrida. Please, just shoot me now. Another quote.
Open-Air Museums, Reconstructions, and Re-enactors in Poland (Blazej Stanislawski, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences)
Oh, I guess the fourth speaker scratched. They must have announced it before I came in. I guess I should be generous and assume that the third speaker was told he was allowed to blather on for two speakers’
anotheranon, I'm guessing you're the vector behind a couple new readers popping up. Thanks for the shout-out. For those who showed up to read the Kalamazoo blogging, I won't be offended if you drop me again after the conference. I'm not usually this content-full.Session 212: “Can These Bones Come to Life?”: Insights from Reconstruction, Reenactment, and Re-creation
Pure Air and Fire: Reconstructing Medieval Equitation (Michael A. Cramer, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY)
I came in a little late so I’m catching up here. A discussion of evidence regarding martial equitation practices based both on literature (instruction manuals), physical equipment and pictorial evidence (within the limitations of such) particularly for physical techniques as opposed to equipment. While the general focus is on general martial contexts, a lot of the evidence comes specifically from tournament riding and there’s discussion of the evolution of equipment for this purpose (e.g, development of the shield) that might diverge from that used for warfare. One conclusion is that control of the horse seems likely to have been neck reining (obviously not two-handed reining, given the need to hold a weapon), not leg aids, and extremely minimal use of spurs. Despite the apparent extremity of surviving bits (backed by those in art), instruction manuals indicate these were not used for direct control in battle, although there may have been an “attention-getting” function. Presentation of the debate whether medieval tournament riding (and horses) were more similar to that of modern English-style riding (close physical communication between horse and rider, emphasis on constant control, rider balance must be active) or Western-stye riding (more tenuous physical communication, relatively independent horse, rider balance more passive and saddle-assisted).
Our Father’s Eggs: The Use of the Paternoster as a Medieval Timing Device (Kathleen Dimmich, Independent Scholar)
Starts off with a recording of a chanted paternoster, timed as about one minute. Different mechanisms for counting different scales of time. Clocks primarily for counting hours but not smaller increments. Instructions for chant tempos include notations like “at the rhythm of a reaper’s scythe”. Based on mensuration and tempo indications, the common prayers would generally have the same performance duration whatever melody was used. This even appears to hold cross-linguistically, with German and English versions of prayers having similar durations (along with Latin). Paternoster and Ave Maria were the most popular prayers of lay people and of a useful duration for micro-timing. Instructions to use the paternoster as a timing device show up explicitly in cooking instructions, e.g., in Epulario an egg-cooking duration (hence the title of the paper). Other examples of explicit use include dying. Some discussion of instructions that give clues to what language the suggested prayers were expected to be in.
Styles of Radical Quill (Paul Werner, School of Visual Arts, New York Univ.)
Quill-cutting, that is. The paper starts out with pop-culture representations of, and interactions with, some medieval practices and artifacts, ranging from quill-cutting to interest in relics. (It’s going to be interesting to see where this is going – at the moment I’m wondering if I wandered into a Pseudo-session paper by accident.) Some underlying themes about “why do medieval things that have no practical use in modern times?” Mentions a hand-bound edition of Karl Marx and an obscure connection between Angela Davis and quill pens. An image of a school computer center as “modern scriptorium”. Ok, I give up on blogging this. If there’s a thread to follow, it’s been tied into macramé. And … we close with a quote from Sartre. No, wait, he said he was closing, but he’s still going … and going … and going …. Do we have a time-keeper? Did someone mention to him that there’s another speaker coming after him? Did he pay extra to get to talk for half an hour as one of four speakers in a 1.5 hour session? Evidently we now need to fit in a quote from Derrida. Please, just shoot me now. Another quote.
Open-Air Museums, Reconstructions, and Re-enactors in Poland (Blazej Stanislawski, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences)
Oh, I guess the fourth speaker scratched. They must have announced it before I came in. I guess I should be generous and assume that the third speaker was told he was allowed to blather on for two speakers’
