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hrj(Sponsor: Medieval Association of the Midwest)
As with all events of this type, you either have 5 different sessions that all look fascinating at the same time, or a time-slot where everything's a little "meh". The first time-slot is the former, with great-looking sessions on early Arthurian literature, medieval linguistics, "women and medieval institutions" (whatever that means -- there are a couple of interesting papers on women in guilds), but I've settled on this one.
We start out with a lost opportunity to be a tech savior. The session organizer has not nailed down computer projection compatibility issues in advance. We have a projector with standard VGA connection. We have a pc desktop machine that is password-locked. We have a presenter with a MacBook. We have no video converter cables. (Since I have faith in the people organizing my sessions, I'm relying on being able to show up with a memory stick. So I didn't pack any of the more arcane hardware that my paranoia might otherwise drive me to. I did bring my iPhone-Pico Projector just as a fun toy to show off to my friends, but it's back at the dorm. With 10 minutes and that hardware (plus my phone cable) I could have the speaker's Powerpoint files converted to a slide show, transferred to my phone, and being projected in at least reasonably useable form with the Pico projector. But, alas, I fail. I will remember this for future miracle-pulling-off.
How Much of Our Clothing is Originally English? An Analysis of the Semantic Field "Clothing" in Medieval English -- Magdalena Bator, Adam Mickiewicz Univ.
French influence on English clothing vocabulary was most significant from the later 13th c. on. She's comparing pre- versus post-Conquest vocabulary, using various historic dictionaries. The vocabulary is categorized according to several groupings: garments in general, "coats" (I think this is what I'd call "body garments"), body/trunk garments, clothing for the head, accessories, clothing for the legs/shoes, parts of clothes, and miscellaneous items.
We're now going through the various categories, discussing which items were introduced when and what their origins and applications were. The paper doesn't seem to make distinctions based on usage frequency, although the tendency of roots to form multiple combining forms is seen as a key to importance in the vocabulary (e.g., "coat"). Looking over the word-lists, the overall impression of frequency is likely skewed by the presence of many highly-specialized terms and compounds, although this speaks to the speaker's position that foreign words came to be associated with "novel" or fashionable items.
Overall, the paper is more or less in the catalog-presentation genre -- one that I'm certainly fond of for my own work -- but the frosting on the cake would have been a bit more overall analysis and summary.
Coped, Crowned, and Coted: Images of Clothing in Piers Plowman -- Diana Coogle, Univ. of Oregon
(The lack of projector function is being substituted by the presider walking around with the laptop showing the slides. Fortunately there are only a few of them.)
Clothing is used mostly for allegorical communication, to define characters, rather than some of the other common functions, such as disguise or display. However the illustrations in one manuscript of the text (Douce 104, see some of the images linked at this page) sometimes provide a side-commentary on the clothing and characters with variations and contrasts in details not mentioned in the text. "Fashion" language does show up in passages illustrating pride, envy, and covetousness. There are strong contrasts made between the notion of clothing as a basic bodily need (which is good) versus clothing as a medium for the pursuit of luxury (which is bad). But in the illustrations clothing is also an important signifier for sins that aren't essentially clothing-related, e.g., gluttony, whereas the text doesn't make this as an overt connection. On the other end of the scale, there's an interesting cognitive disconnect in the text between an assertion that the poor must work if they want to gain bodily essentials like clothing, as opposed to the notion that charity (including clothing) is in some way a cultural "right" (or at least a cultural imperative) whether the poor are "deserving" or not. Overall, clothing is used more for the contrast between rich and poor (having enough vs. not having your needs covered), rather than as a commentary on excess consumption, per se.
Clothing, Corruption, and Christian Virtue in William Langland's Piers Plowman -- Anna Whitney Noice, California State Univ. Los Angeles
Scratched.
As with all events of this type, you either have 5 different sessions that all look fascinating at the same time, or a time-slot where everything's a little "meh". The first time-slot is the former, with great-looking sessions on early Arthurian literature, medieval linguistics, "women and medieval institutions" (whatever that means -- there are a couple of interesting papers on women in guilds), but I've settled on this one.
We start out with a lost opportunity to be a tech savior. The session organizer has not nailed down computer projection compatibility issues in advance. We have a projector with standard VGA connection. We have a pc desktop machine that is password-locked. We have a presenter with a MacBook. We have no video converter cables. (Since I have faith in the people organizing my sessions, I'm relying on being able to show up with a memory stick. So I didn't pack any of the more arcane hardware that my paranoia might otherwise drive me to. I did bring my iPhone-Pico Projector just as a fun toy to show off to my friends, but it's back at the dorm. With 10 minutes and that hardware (plus my phone cable) I could have the speaker's Powerpoint files converted to a slide show, transferred to my phone, and being projected in at least reasonably useable form with the Pico projector. But, alas, I fail. I will remember this for future miracle-pulling-off.
How Much of Our Clothing is Originally English? An Analysis of the Semantic Field "Clothing" in Medieval English -- Magdalena Bator, Adam Mickiewicz Univ.
French influence on English clothing vocabulary was most significant from the later 13th c. on. She's comparing pre- versus post-Conquest vocabulary, using various historic dictionaries. The vocabulary is categorized according to several groupings: garments in general, "coats" (I think this is what I'd call "body garments"), body/trunk garments, clothing for the head, accessories, clothing for the legs/shoes, parts of clothes, and miscellaneous items.
We're now going through the various categories, discussing which items were introduced when and what their origins and applications were. The paper doesn't seem to make distinctions based on usage frequency, although the tendency of roots to form multiple combining forms is seen as a key to importance in the vocabulary (e.g., "coat"). Looking over the word-lists, the overall impression of frequency is likely skewed by the presence of many highly-specialized terms and compounds, although this speaks to the speaker's position that foreign words came to be associated with "novel" or fashionable items.
Overall, the paper is more or less in the catalog-presentation genre -- one that I'm certainly fond of for my own work -- but the frosting on the cake would have been a bit more overall analysis and summary.
Coped, Crowned, and Coted: Images of Clothing in Piers Plowman -- Diana Coogle, Univ. of Oregon
(The lack of projector function is being substituted by the presider walking around with the laptop showing the slides. Fortunately there are only a few of them.)
Clothing is used mostly for allegorical communication, to define characters, rather than some of the other common functions, such as disguise or display. However the illustrations in one manuscript of the text (Douce 104, see some of the images linked at this page) sometimes provide a side-commentary on the clothing and characters with variations and contrasts in details not mentioned in the text. "Fashion" language does show up in passages illustrating pride, envy, and covetousness. There are strong contrasts made between the notion of clothing as a basic bodily need (which is good) versus clothing as a medium for the pursuit of luxury (which is bad). But in the illustrations clothing is also an important signifier for sins that aren't essentially clothing-related, e.g., gluttony, whereas the text doesn't make this as an overt connection. On the other end of the scale, there's an interesting cognitive disconnect in the text between an assertion that the poor must work if they want to gain bodily essentials like clothing, as opposed to the notion that charity (including clothing) is in some way a cultural "right" (or at least a cultural imperative) whether the poor are "deserving" or not. Overall, clothing is used more for the contrast between rich and poor (having enough vs. not having your needs covered), rather than as a commentary on excess consumption, per se.
Clothing, Corruption, and Christian Virtue in William Langland's Piers Plowman -- Anna Whitney Noice, California State Univ. Los Angeles
Scratched.
