Author Archives: Christene

Crusades – Reedified

In returning to my Crusades research for a conference presentation I gave back in April that I have since then expanded on, I have moved from the Knights to the Assassins, a sect of Saracen followers that have a tumultuous and often misrepresented history. It has not been easy discovering information about the Assassins as so much of it is steeped in myth and legend where the Assassins have taken on a role larger than life and have through a medieval game of telephone become the ultimate enemies of Christendom. However, despite an alarming lack of resources, enough research has shown me that while they were extraordinary for various reasons, they were not the malicious force multiple (perhaps unreliable) sources make them out to be. In fact, as far as the Knights Templars and the Crusades are concerned, they were innocuous to this conflict, and even at times beneficial, as their main targets and principle enemies were other Saracen factions.

Without reiterating the history of the Assassins since multiple other sources have already for the most part done this, I will briefly state that the sect which came to be known as the Assassins was born in the 1090’s as the Ismaili movement split into two. The Nizari Ismailis, one of the two factions, became known during the Crusades as Assassins, which has now been identified quite globally among scholars as a misnomer derived from a western mispronunciation of the term “hashish,” a narcotic this particular group was known for using. So those who were known to consume “hashish” consequently became known as “hashishians,”and if you say this term followed by “assassins,” you should be able to deduce the connection. However, the newly coined pronunciation carried a far more sinister, and not altogether correct connotation as the term assassin became synonymous with murderer.

Obviously referring to an entire group of people as murderers requires at least a bit of an explanation, which can for the most part be grounded in an idea of orientalism that thrived on the “us versus them” mentality and all easterners were quickly relegated into the realm of uncultured barbarian heathens, ready to murder at the least provocation, performing myriad irrational acts of brutality. However, even that did not appease the masses of westerners who wanted to attribute logic to these seemingly unfathomable acts of violence, and thus they drew upon the connection of the assassins to hashish and came to the conclusion that the entirety of the Assassin population was operating under the influence of this narcotic, performing their work while drugged. To further this notion a supreme leader was borne,  first Hasan and then the Old Man, who were apparently dictating the Assassins’ killing sprees and obtaining unparalleled devotion from their followers through maintaining and further supplying their addiction. Essentially, by keeping them at all times high, they would continue forth not only under the influence of the drug, but under the leader’s influence as well.

Yet the answer to understanding the Assassins rests outside of these polarizing ideals where we either fully accept or reject the exaggerated accounts. Per usual, a moderate approach is best, so while the Assassins were very much real, and they did commit murders, and were associated with hashish, the most realistic image we can use to define them is of a group outside the traditional Muslim following which in itself already creates a frightening image to those who were Muslim, but even more so to outsiders who did not understand the eastern world. The Assassins dealt with hashish, but were more than likely selling it, or using it as raw material far more than consuming it as a narcotic. They murdered, but in the true understanding of Assassin, meaning high profile personalities, and certainly not in the sense of religious murders we are prone to witness today. They were extremely selective and efficient with their victims who were chosen far more often for political rather than religious reasons. Just like the Crusades were equally political and religious, so was the agenda of the Assassins who were the outcasts of the outcasts and murdered high ranking officials only when needing to demonstrate enough power to be left in peace and continue surviving in a highly competitive land where all corners of the world were converging over a single strip of earth upon which several religions were supposedly founded.

Before continuing further I have to interject with the reminder that this presentation, delivered for the Medieval Worlds in Popular Culture panel as part of the International Popular Culture Association Conference, originally drew the distinction between actual events in the Crusades, namely the Third Crusade, and the mass consumer video game, Assassin’s Creed. Should you be interested in my other preliminary findings, you may read them here and here. However, moving forward, let us remember and pause for a moment upon our video game’s hero, Desmond Miles, the face of the Assassins, who fights solely to maintain his life, wishing he would have been kept out of the Templar’s missions run by Abstergo.

Historically the Assassin’s most notable victim that undoubtedly propelled their name and legend into the western world was the Conrad of Montferrat who had substantial holdings in Jerusalem. His successor, Count Henry of Champagne, nephew to Richard the Lionhearted, was directly responsible for multiple rumors circulating in regards to the Old Man and the Assassins’ narcotic addition as his stories are said to have been told in first person where he served as an eye witness to the sect’s behavior. Here we get the beginnings of a rumor that would circulate for 900 years.

While most documented cases of Assassin activity had little to do with the Crusades, the two groups first clashed in 1106 resulting with the Assassins losing portions of their holdings. Subsequent interaction between the groups, fueled by western fears of assassination attempts lead to further removal of property from the Assassins until their holdings had been so severely depleted it rendered them practically helpless to the ire of the mongols who eradicated them.

Yet as the history of the Assassins comes to an end and a better glimpse into their past is presented (keeping in mind I am only ever so gently glossing over a far more intricate, detailed, and infinitely richer history) the question arises as to how they fit into the depictions we have of the Assassins today in popular culture. What about their past, aside from their dexterity in the act of murder, cast them in such an idolized light?

Since the beginning of this exploration into the Crusades, and the role of the Assassins is based upon understanding the popular video game Assassin’s Creed, I now need to contextualize the game within the myriad facts uncovered. No one is expecting the video game, produced for mass consumption, to conform to historical idiosyncrasies, but more interestingly, it is at the points the video game diverges that pose the most interest. In other words, why does the game vary from history in the ways that it does?

Keeping in mind the majority of the targeted audience for the game resides in the western hemisphere, in order to successfully breach the borders between the east/best dichotomy and introduce a culturally perceived enemy as the main character, the Assassins and Templars would need to receive a contextual make-over. Ironically where the video game seemingly changed the ways in which we understand the conflict between the Knights and Templars it reedified their origins – while the Assassins took center stage as the virtuous heroes of our story, so too the Templars displayed their true colors that were murky and unfavorable at best. Assassin’s Creed is not in fact a reconceptualization of history, but rather an instance in which popular culture finally got history right.

Sources:

Latham, Andrew. Theorizing Medieval Geopolitics: War and the World Order in the Age of the Crusades.

Lewis, Bernard. The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam.

Stark, Freya. The Valleys of the Assassins and Other Persian Travels.

The Queen’s Bed

While continuing my work on Paris, BnF fr. MS 342 I came back to this scene:

Corbenic

(folio 52r)

It is a depiction of the daughter of King Pelles laying in bed at Corbenic. For those of you unfamiliar with her role in Arthurian legend, her and her father act to beguile Lancelot into mistaking her for Guinevere, afterwards presenting him with their son, Galaad. She has since been read in numerous ways ranging from temptress and witch to a victim of her circumstances and puppet to the men surrounding her. This particular manuscript takes a distinct stance that firmly positions her on the most bottom rungs of morality. Of the various artistic options available for this folio, she is here shown in bed, representing the part for which she is best remembered. Yet, this is also one of the most prominent associations past and present audiences have made when confronted with the representation of women in bed.

Roughly a little over a decade after the above manuscript, Paris, Bibliotheque de l’Arsenal, ms. 3142 was created, and on the first folio is the image of the woman who commissioned it, Marie de Brabant, Queen of France. She too is in bed.

Marie

However, here the bed chamber, an intimate space, is divorced from the physicality implied above. The bedroom, a private and protected quarter, is generally juxtaposed with obscenity as either sanctioned or unsanctioned carnality transpires, or the sick are healing with a faint hint towards the soil paired with, and the cause of, illness, and even in images of giving birth there lies a subtle undertone of the uncleanliness involved in the act. Yet with this iconography of the queen’s bedchamber I argue for a revisualization of the sacred space, unadulterated by those things concerning the body.

Marie de Brabant is surrounded by loved ones, close friends and relatives, along with her favorite trouver, in a different kind of intimate scene that merges the private and public. Her robes, bearing the heraldic symbols of her lineage by birth and through marriage permeate the bedchamber and eradicate any feelings of unease of trespassing. Unlike the daughter of King Pelles, her bedroom scene will cast her in remembrance as the woman who reinvented courtly habits, and through her patronage redefined acceptable tropes within secular art.

About a hundred years later the idea of the queen’s bedchamber as a space for artistic endeavors continued and thrived. Christine de Pizan notably presented her work to Queen Isabeau in her bedroom as demonstrated in another manuscript commissioned by women, for women.

Queen Isabeau

(British Library, MS. Harley 4431 f. 3r).

The ladies in waiting surrounding the queen reflect a fashion that would take hold in courts across Europe as the bedchamber became a means for queens to hold their own court and their majestic beds served as their thrones. This intimate space would be theirs to assert themselves and have free reign to choose those who they invite.

Nevertheless, this is not meant to argue that the bed lost its common connotation (far from it), as can be seen in an early fourteenth century manuscript, also from the Lancelot cycle, depicting King Mordrain and his Queen, Giseult, in bed:

kingmordrain

(British Library, Royal MS 14 E III, f. 32r)

However, beginning in the latter half of the thirteenth century such associations were beginning to undergo an ideological shift. This post’s intentionally provocative title calls attention to the disparity between common conceptualizations of the bed chamber and another way of regarding the activities associated with this venue. Returning to the first depiction from Paris, BnF fr. MS 342, considering the overall tone of the manuscript – a lesson on morality disguised as a romance – I cannot help but see the illustration as a deliberate attempt at drawing the distinction between those scenes we want to see, and those that elicit embarrassment from the audience. Further, another disparity emerges as both kinds of portraits operate in line with voyeurism, but their composure distinguishes between the appropriate reactions for each.

The daughter of King Pelles lays on her bed, much like Marie de Brabant, but not poised and self assured. She is buried under a blanket like a body too grotesque to expose in a pose not unlike those that adorn tombs. Despite that “la fille le roi pelles vint a la cort le roi artu se li fist on molt grant feste,” all the fanfare of her arrival to court is undone as Lancelot “ne [sa] daigne seulment nes regarder” [would not even deign look at [her]]. She is unwanted, and her isolation is pictorially made abundantly clear.

Note Queen Giseult’s pose in the last image above who, despite the nature of her encounter, regally bears her crown, and her body does not embody shame, guilt, or necessitate suppression under the covers. Neither she nor the daughter of King Pelles are holding court upon their beds, but carnality obviously carries a different implication for each.

Arguably the daughter of King Pelles’s representation is in line with another from the Orme Bonum “adulterium” scene in the middle of the fourteenth century manuscript British Library, Royal MS 6 E VI:

6a00d8341c464853ef01a3fcbc1c72970b-500wi

(f. 61r)

Nevertheless, there is certainly no paucity of manuscript portraits showing people in beds, and while a queen’s bed, fluctuating in meaning, takes center stage for diverse reasons across genres, it appears the daughter of King Pelles’s bed functions within a specific strand of this tradition and consequently serves to draw attention to itself as another instance of uncondoned bedside behavior. The creator of this manuscript had a specific agenda when carrying out the text and accompanying illustrations, and with each nuanced unraveling of the images a broader tapestry of intention can be woven.

As for those of you now asking “what about Guinevere?” I assure you, she has not been forgotten, at least not within the context of my larger project.

What I Learned at Kzoo

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Most of you reading this probably already know from various other mediums that I attended the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo this past weekend. It was indeed as amazing as I had envisioned it would be, and even though I unfortunately could not see or hear everyone I would have wanted (a sentiment I think the majority of those at the conference felt), the panels I did attend were brilliant and left me wanting to explore many different topics. Nevertheless, despite having learned much from the papers I heard, those are pieces I won’t be discussing – they belong to others who have worked long hours on them, and I will leave to them the task of disseminating their ideas however they so choose. I have not yet fully mastered the art of live tweeting, and I most certainly do not want to now, days later, misrepresent anyone’s ideas. However, there are certain general ideas I pulled from the conference as a whole, and would love to share those instead.

Although this was my first time attending, I have paid close attention to the conference in the past, and one theme that I felt reemerged more than ever was the questioning of our presence in this venue; it was never about why we are here, but what we are doing. And more importantly, what are we? Perhaps a silly question since we are clearly a slew of medievalists attending a conference geared towards our interests, but therein surfaces the question of what constitutes a medievalist. Thus the inquiry that emerged over and over again brought to question our very ontology, and as I bobbed in and out of various panels trying to form a cohesive interpretation of what I was witnessing, I realized not only that there is no one way of defining this conference, but also that that is a wonderful thing in and of itself.

I am in no way negating the larger umbrella term “medieval” under which this conference has been operating for fifty years, or the ways in which this term is used to define our collective field,  but as was openly discussed via different means, the term itself only serves to loosely define a certain time period in a selective hemisphere, namely Western Europe from 500 to 1500 A.D.. Needless to say this is a rather narrow approach that no longer suites our larger purposes. However, unlike some who have proposed doing away with the term altogether, I think the word is ready to enter yet another etymological phase and become reconceptualized in accordance to our current needs.

Further, those of us who make use of the term to define our studies should be the ones spearheading this movement. Instead of finding a new nomenclature for our research, we can widen the scope of that which is in existence. In other words, simply because medieval studies haven’t yet focused on different parts of the world, or even delved into certain disciplines, does not mean that medieval studies can’t breach these boundaries. It is not about finding a new word to call ourselves, but redefining the ways our current vocabulary operates. And in doing so we maintain control of the context in which medieval studies flows and for those of us who do bear an anxiety about the word’s future we can rest assured it’s power will be harnessed towards future academic endeavors internationally and interdisciplinary, and will not become misappropriated or abused. We can continue to kindly correct those who misuse the term, and continue to educate others who wish to know more about its variable meanings.

Coming from a literature background it is perhaps easy for me to discuss word usage, and rely on past instances of language change to better understand and talk about the very changes we are witnessing today. However, I don’t believe this is simply a philological question, but rather one that permeates into true interdisciplinary territories. It is a philosophical question that explores the fundamental existence of “medieval” as a concept. It is a question for historians to trace this concept and negotiate how it operates to define various junctions in our past. It is a question for geographers who must rethink and redraw our world maps when confronted with medieval studies, adventuring beyond the borders of what once was central to the discipline. It is a question for librarians and those in manuscript studies who have in the last twenty or less years been inundated with manuscripts from territories that had previously been closed off to academia. The list of disciplines that are confronted with this question continues, and frankly I don’t believe it stops. There is no field that medieval studies has not, or cannot, infiltrate. Some might argue this becomes an issue about relevance, and I don’t necessarily disagree, but feel it is about more than that – it is about challenging axiomatic understandings of the past and using all the resources available to us to address and redraft the narrative of “medieval ____.”

Which brings me to another aspect of scholarship in general, that is not necessarily confined to medieval studies: the means of information sharing which has in recent years come a long way. The fact that you are reading this is in itself a demonstration of one such medium for distribution of ideas. I am not well known in academia for my long publication history (although that is certainly a goal), I am occasionally known for my presentations, but mostly I am known for my online presence. At almost every panel I attended someone knew me because they had encountered me online, interacted with me, read my blog, and/or were to some extent familiar with my research. For a barely-out-the-door academic this was immensely positive. A lot of my research is not yet complete, and not ready for publication. However, my blog has given me a platform to nevertheless share my ideas with others, communicate with them about my projects, obtain valuable feedback, and most importantly form connections.

Ten years ago this wasn’t possible. Five years ago it wasn’t prudent. Now it has become an almost established norm, and becoming more and more acceptable. Kzoo happens once a year. MLA happens once a year. Regional conferences happen once or twice a year. Blogging can happen as often as one can manage to produce new ideas, and others can read as much and as often as they like, providing feedback and continuing conversations well outside conference venues. Of course this does not take away from or diminish the energy of in-person interaction, or of presenting to a large room of people. Yet we cannot escape the idea that there are peripheral conversations occurring in academia well outside its walls.

A large part of these marginal, but not necessarily marginalized discussions permeate into topics such as “what is a medievalist?” but range well beyond that into far more obscure spheres with an almost self awareness that their vary existence challenges the definition of medieval studies. There is no one right subject to investigate in medieval literature, history, philosophy, musicology, etc. To devote an entire paper to the findings centered around a single word in an obscure text is no less important or interesting than, say, reconceptualizing the Canterbury Tales. These are equally fascinating topics that appeal to just as many, and often overlapping, scholars.  Even as I no longer identify myself as the Anglo-Saxonist I once started out as while sitting in Donka Minkova’s Linguistics course as an undergrad at UCLA, I have not veered so far as to deny a fascination with Old English. Similarly I currently study Old French, Occitan, and Eastern European manuscripts as part of three different projects. The only importance I give one over the others has to do with completion deadlines. Nevertheless, there was a time when I thought of myself as the wrong type of medievalist. I wasn’t studying anything relevant. As I related my research to a colleague about my French female scribe and her involvement in drastically editing a manuscript within the post-vulgate Lancelot cycle he looked blankly at me and asked “who cares?” It occurred to me I wasn’t functioning in the mainstream of scholarship. Despite the praise I had received from other more advanced academics, I was certain my topic was inherently flawed. Honestly, I still have these fears, and in the last year they have been more prevalent than ever.

These last few days, as I watched others navigate their own topics it was reassuring. Many others were attempting to construct arguments on equally obscure topics and sources. While some papers given were based on or were parts of forthcoming books or articles, others were fledgling ideas searching for approval or an outlet.

And for me I suppose that that is what this conference was ultimately about – a conglomeration of academics that operate as a seemingly homogenized body with similar and simultaneously disparate interests and intentions and who continue to prove that there is no one right way to be a medievalist – a term that has a definition only in so much as we define it.

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