Live-Blogging Kalamazoo: Saturday 13:30
May. 12th, 2012 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjFeast and Famine: Abundance, Scarcity, and Power in the Medieval World
What Not to Eat: Excess and Moderation at the Medieval Catalan Table -- Donna M. Rogers, Dalhousie Univ.
Constraints on food based on health/medicine, religious ritual, etc. For Christian Europe, restrictions on consumption were regular and ritualized but in addition to notions of self-related reasons (piety, self-denial) the overt justification might also include societal reasons, e.g., restricting food consumption to be able to share with others. But underlying these ritualized restrictions, for much of the population the constraints were more practical based on practical limitations on both quantity and variety of what was available to eat. Major focus on grains and grain products in pre-plague Europe, but afterwards the lower population and greater labor needs of agriculture led to a higher proportion of animal content in the diet. Products and technologies introduced from the Arabic world, as in Iberia, could increase the variety and productivity of food products. Ingredients reflecting these influences include sugar, pomegrante, citron, chickpeas, saffron. Book of Saint Sovi & Libro del Coch include many recipes overtly associated with health, e.g., "for the sick". Treatise (missed the reference?) covering gluttony including drunkenness, and other health and behavior issues around consumption. Excerpt from a letter from a monk to a physician describing a patient's lavish diet requesting advice on consumption. (Includes useful information about meal structures.) The physician replies rather harshly, i.e., the virtuous choice is self-denial. The treatise goes on to courtesy and table manners. (There's a fair amount of reading excerpts for entertainment here.) Treatise conclude with advice for serving. (I think the treatise's author is something like "Eshemen"???)
The Manipulation of Feasting and Drinking Practices During the Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England -- Kevin Lasko, Catholic Univ. of America
Begins by discussing "drinking culture", i.e., how cultures interact with and understand the consumption of alcohol. (We now get some illustrative examples of modern American drinking culture to loosen up the audience.) Thesis is that Christian missionaries adapted and manipulated AS drinking practices to establish and promote Christian culture among the AS nobility. For the context of pre-Christian AS drinking culture he's using Beowulf and Tacitus's Germania which doesn't seem to bode well for the depth of investigation. Emphasis on generous hospitality, offering food and drink to anyone who arrives. Drinking as a context for serious political, social, and economic negotiations. Evidence for beer-like drink made from barley and wheat, less commonly wine via trade. Examples of women as a mediator for ritual drink consumption. Discussion of the changing symbolism of the drinking horn, comparing mention of drinking horns in an episode from the Voyage of Saint Brendan (who has what to do with Anglo-Saxons?) where the voyagers are tempted to steal some treasures including drinking horns. But the presenter claims this contextualizes drinking horns as a symbol of negative power (rather than a symbol of tempting wealth). The comparison is to an episode in the life of St. Cuthbert who turns water into wine by drinking from it. I'm confused how these things are supposed to relate to each other. Drinking culture in early medieval penitentials, esp. concerning drunkenness. Drunkenness not a sin if it comes from what one has been commanded to drink by a supervisor by a (religious) superior, contrasted with drunkenness done against a lord's prohibition. This is presented as a Christian versus pre-Christian contrast in culpability but I see it as a recognition of the mitigation of obedience in wrongdoing. Now we're contrasting a law regarding the stealing of a swarm of bees with a later tax paid in wine. This is again presented as a contrast between earlier "Germanic" versus later "Christian" concerns (honey=mead >> wine) but ... but ... oh, never mind. Excerpts from Bede, one concerning an excommunication including a prohibition on food and drink, the other concerning a sick man healed when sent a drink of wine in a chalice by a bishop.
(Note: he mentioned at the beginning that this paper is condensed from his Master's thesis. It definitely strikes me as student work. The examples are too superficial and tenuous to convince me of much of anything in areas I'm not familiar with. In fact, in my opinion, the argument structure alternates between self-contradictory, irrelevant, and incoherent.)
Perspectives on the Catalan Famine of 1333: Food History as Urban History -- Marie A. Kelleher, California State Univ.–Long Beach
Extreme weather conditions cause significant agricultural failures in Catalonia in 1332-35, but especially 1333, resulting in famine and widespread sickness. As her research progressed, the focus became less about the famine itself and more on how food issues help understand urban history. Research into famine tends to focus on quantitative research, rather than qualitative issues of choice, status, or ritual. But just as qualitative research can sketch an understanding of cultural history, can it reveal the history of a city? Food geographers can shed light on this topic by looking at networks tying together city, region, government, etc. Looking at 3 case studies that shed light on the city of Barcelona via food issues.
City as urban unit: Tension between natural and man-made geologies of food. Ordinances passed against food hoarding and other supply problems. Official correspondence grows increasingly panicked regarding shortages and their social consequences. Rumors circulated that the city councilors were hoarding grain themselves resulting in attacks and ransacking. The actions and reactions suggested a view of the crisis as an internal matter for the city, not an external problem.
City as member of network of cities: Barcelona had insufficient associated agricultural land to support itself, therefore competition between cities for available supplies became critical in time of shortage. When grain shipments intended for Barcelona were hijacked by a town they passed through, the defense was that the shipper couldn't prove that the grain belonged to the city and not to a speculator. This didn't go over well.
City as center of Mediterranean network: Portuguese fleet bringing grain from Sicily to Lisbon are hijacked by pirates and brought to Barcelona. Conflict between the Portuguese merchants and the Barcelonan pirate crews. The merchants complained to the courts in Barcelona to no avail and the cargos were sold within the city.
This crisis highlights the impact of extra-official agents and and groups on the outcome of legal and social processes.
What Not to Eat: Excess and Moderation at the Medieval Catalan Table -- Donna M. Rogers, Dalhousie Univ.
Constraints on food based on health/medicine, religious ritual, etc. For Christian Europe, restrictions on consumption were regular and ritualized but in addition to notions of self-related reasons (piety, self-denial) the overt justification might also include societal reasons, e.g., restricting food consumption to be able to share with others. But underlying these ritualized restrictions, for much of the population the constraints were more practical based on practical limitations on both quantity and variety of what was available to eat. Major focus on grains and grain products in pre-plague Europe, but afterwards the lower population and greater labor needs of agriculture led to a higher proportion of animal content in the diet. Products and technologies introduced from the Arabic world, as in Iberia, could increase the variety and productivity of food products. Ingredients reflecting these influences include sugar, pomegrante, citron, chickpeas, saffron. Book of Saint Sovi & Libro del Coch include many recipes overtly associated with health, e.g., "for the sick". Treatise (missed the reference?) covering gluttony including drunkenness, and other health and behavior issues around consumption. Excerpt from a letter from a monk to a physician describing a patient's lavish diet requesting advice on consumption. (Includes useful information about meal structures.) The physician replies rather harshly, i.e., the virtuous choice is self-denial. The treatise goes on to courtesy and table manners. (There's a fair amount of reading excerpts for entertainment here.) Treatise conclude with advice for serving. (I think the treatise's author is something like "Eshemen"???)
The Manipulation of Feasting and Drinking Practices During the Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England -- Kevin Lasko, Catholic Univ. of America
Begins by discussing "drinking culture", i.e., how cultures interact with and understand the consumption of alcohol. (We now get some illustrative examples of modern American drinking culture to loosen up the audience.) Thesis is that Christian missionaries adapted and manipulated AS drinking practices to establish and promote Christian culture among the AS nobility. For the context of pre-Christian AS drinking culture he's using Beowulf and Tacitus's Germania which doesn't seem to bode well for the depth of investigation. Emphasis on generous hospitality, offering food and drink to anyone who arrives. Drinking as a context for serious political, social, and economic negotiations. Evidence for beer-like drink made from barley and wheat, less commonly wine via trade. Examples of women as a mediator for ritual drink consumption. Discussion of the changing symbolism of the drinking horn, comparing mention of drinking horns in an episode from the Voyage of Saint Brendan (who has what to do with Anglo-Saxons?) where the voyagers are tempted to steal some treasures including drinking horns. But the presenter claims this contextualizes drinking horns as a symbol of negative power (rather than a symbol of tempting wealth). The comparison is to an episode in the life of St. Cuthbert who turns water into wine by drinking from it. I'm confused how these things are supposed to relate to each other. Drinking culture in early medieval penitentials, esp. concerning drunkenness. Drunkenness not a sin if it comes from what one has been commanded to drink by a supervisor by a (religious) superior, contrasted with drunkenness done against a lord's prohibition. This is presented as a Christian versus pre-Christian contrast in culpability but I see it as a recognition of the mitigation of obedience in wrongdoing. Now we're contrasting a law regarding the stealing of a swarm of bees with a later tax paid in wine. This is again presented as a contrast between earlier "Germanic" versus later "Christian" concerns (honey=mead >> wine) but ... but ... oh, never mind. Excerpts from Bede, one concerning an excommunication including a prohibition on food and drink, the other concerning a sick man healed when sent a drink of wine in a chalice by a bishop.
(Note: he mentioned at the beginning that this paper is condensed from his Master's thesis. It definitely strikes me as student work. The examples are too superficial and tenuous to convince me of much of anything in areas I'm not familiar with. In fact, in my opinion, the argument structure alternates between self-contradictory, irrelevant, and incoherent.)
Perspectives on the Catalan Famine of 1333: Food History as Urban History -- Marie A. Kelleher, California State Univ.–Long Beach
Extreme weather conditions cause significant agricultural failures in Catalonia in 1332-35, but especially 1333, resulting in famine and widespread sickness. As her research progressed, the focus became less about the famine itself and more on how food issues help understand urban history. Research into famine tends to focus on quantitative research, rather than qualitative issues of choice, status, or ritual. But just as qualitative research can sketch an understanding of cultural history, can it reveal the history of a city? Food geographers can shed light on this topic by looking at networks tying together city, region, government, etc. Looking at 3 case studies that shed light on the city of Barcelona via food issues.
City as urban unit: Tension between natural and man-made geologies of food. Ordinances passed against food hoarding and other supply problems. Official correspondence grows increasingly panicked regarding shortages and their social consequences. Rumors circulated that the city councilors were hoarding grain themselves resulting in attacks and ransacking. The actions and reactions suggested a view of the crisis as an internal matter for the city, not an external problem.
City as member of network of cities: Barcelona had insufficient associated agricultural land to support itself, therefore competition between cities for available supplies became critical in time of shortage. When grain shipments intended for Barcelona were hijacked by a town they passed through, the defense was that the shipper couldn't prove that the grain belonged to the city and not to a speculator. This didn't go over well.
City as center of Mediterranean network: Portuguese fleet bringing grain from Sicily to Lisbon are hijacked by pirates and brought to Barcelona. Conflict between the Portuguese merchants and the Barcelonan pirate crews. The merchants complained to the courts in Barcelona to no avail and the cargos were sold within the city.
This crisis highlights the impact of extra-official agents and and groups on the outcome of legal and social processes.
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no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 12:34 pm (UTC)I'm not familiar with the source, but it sounded to me like "Eximenez". I want to find that source too; it sounded cool.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 07:03 pm (UTC)o.0 for Lasko's.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-15 04:22 pm (UTC)