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The Later Middle Ages: A Missing Chapter in the History of Migration to England

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The Medieval Section’s December lecture on migration to English during the later Middle Ages will be given by Dr Bart Lambert, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of York. Dr Lambert has kindly provided the following details about his talk:

Historians studying migration to the British Isles traditionally concentrate on the successive comings of the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans, before moving rapidly forward to the arrival of minority religious and ethnic groups, both as refugees and as forced migrants, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Yet in 2015, the AHRC-funded England’s Immigrants-project revealed that during the later Middle Ages, between 1 and 5 per cent of the English population was born abroad. These first-generation immigrants made essential contributions to the country’s commercial, agricultural and manufacturing economies and left a lasting cultural legacy. Their presence prompted the government to develop new legal frameworks, parts of which are still in place today. This paper will explore the lives of late medieval England’s immigrant population and establish its wider significance in light of the longer-term history of migration to the British Isles.

The lecture meeting will take place in the Swarthmore Education Institute at 2pm on Saturday 9th December and will be followed by the Medieval Section’s traditional Christmas afternoon tea.

 

IMS Open Lecture Series: ‘Medieval Cursing and Its Uses’

Tuesday 31st October 2017 at 17.30 in the Parkinson Building: Nathan Bodington Council Chamber.

Sarah Hamilton is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Exeter. She researches religion and society in the early Middle Ages with an especial interest in liturgy. Her books include Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, edited with Helen Gittos (2015), Church and People in the Medieval West, 900-1200 (2013) and The Practice of Penance, 900-1050 (2001). She is currently PI for the HERA funded project, After Empire: Using and not using the past in the crisis of the Carolingian world, c. 900-c.1050.

‘Let them be above the face of the earth on a dung heap, so that they are an example of disgrace and cursing to present and future generations. And just as these lights are extinguished, thrown down from our hands today, so may their lights be extinguished in eternity.’

This paper explores texts like this one from early tenth-century Rheims to investigate the gap between the oral world of ritual performance and that of text. Anathema – the cursing and excommunication of obdurate sinners – was the most powerful spiritual weapon available to bishops. Its use is attested from the time of the early Church onwards, but the earliest surviving liturgical records date only from the tenth and eleventh centuries. Investigating how and why such records came to be made at this time, this paper suggests they can cast fresh light both on the development of episcopal authority in this period, and on how and why service books came to be compiled.

Holy but not healthy? Fish-eating in the Middle Ages

feeding the five thousand British Library Arundel MS 157 f.7

The next lecture in the programme of the Medieval Section will be given by Associate Professor Iona McCleery of the University of Leeds who will speak about fish eating in the Middle Ages. Dr McCleery has kindly sent the following summary:- ‘Medieval people seem to have started to eat a lot of fish from the 11th century onwards (what archaeologists call the ‘fish event horizon’). This is usually explained as widespread adoption of strict Christian dietary rules and/or the development of deep sea fishing technology. However, from around the same time medieval medical writings began to view fish as unhealthy foodstuffs. This talk will explore the ambiguous role of fish in medieval culture, drawing in particular on medieval miracle narratives as sources for the complex relationships between medicine, spirituality and daily life.’

Iona McCleery is Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Leeds (since 2007). She researches the history of medicine, food, healing miracles and late medieval Portugal and its early empire. Between 2010 and 2014 she ran the Wellcome Trust-funded project You Are What You Ate, which was a collaboration of Wakefield Council and the universities of Leeds and Bradford on the history, archaeology, science and representation of food.

The lecture will be held at 2pm in the Swarthmore Institute in Leeds on 11th November.

Rothwell Charnel Chapel Project

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The next meeting of Harrogate Archaeological Society will feature an illustrated talk  by Dr Jennifer Crangle entitled ‘Rothwell’s bones; medieval curation of the dead’. Dr Crangle, together with Dr Elizabeth Craig-Atkins and Prof Dawn Hadley, established the ‘Rothwell Charnel Chapel Project’ based on the medieval crypt and collection of human skeletal material at Holy Trinity Church, Rothwell, Northamptonshire.

This subterranean charnel chapel houses one of only two remaining in situ medieval ossuaries (collections of human bones) in England. The Project aims to further the understanding of charnelling practices in the medieval period and in gaining insight into the role of human remains in medieval Christian religious practice.

The lecture will take place on Saturday 5th August at 2.30 p.m. at Harlow Hill Methodist Church, Otley Road, Harrogate HG2 0AG (£3 admission fee for non-members includes refreshments).

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World Medieval: a Mongol Coin at Manchester Museum

Uljaitu hare

With the hotly anticipated seventh series of HBO’s Game of Thrones about to to be released, it seems opportune to flag a coin in Manchester Museum’s numismatic collection with a passing link to the terrifying Dothraki horseman who began their long-awaited sea crossing to Westeros at the end of the last series.

The historical context for this coin is rather complicated but here goes:-

The story really begins with Yissugei, father of Jenghiz or Gengiz Khan, who was leader of one of the tribes on the northern boundary of the kingdom of China. Yissugei asserted his independence from Chinese influence and was succeeded by Temujin (the name of Jenghiz or Chinngiz Kahn). Temujin spent 30 years uniting the Mongol tribes and in 1206 AD claimed the title of ‘very mighty king’.

By the time Jenghiz or Chinngiz Khan died in 1227 AD, aged 64, the Mongols had conquered a large part of Central Asia, and the Mongol Empire stretched from the Yellow Sea to the Crimea. The empire was created by an army of cavalry using bows and arrow but it was a force that also had access to sophisticated Chinese siege technology. The Mongols were irresistible. Their conquests have been referred to as an ‘appalling avalanche of destruction’ (J.J.Saunders, A History of Medieval Islam 1965, repr. 1982, p.171). The Mongol leadership demanded not friendship and alliance but abject submission (p.180)! They are presumably the inspiration for J.R.R.Martin’s savage horse-riding Dothraki in Game of Thrones. It is symptomatic of how savage they are that when asked what is the Dothraki word for thank you, one of the characters replies pointedly, “There is no Dothraki word for thank you”.

Now I don’t know whether the Mongols  have a word for thank you but the name used for the Mongol tribes over which Jenghiz ruled is ‘the Golden Horde’, which subdivided into ‘the Blue Horde’ and ‘the White Horde’, each ruled by one of his sons. Hulagu, second brother of Mangu (with Khubilai Khan), were all grandsons of Jenghiz Khan. In 1258 the Mongols under Hulagu captured Baghdad, one of the great cities of the Islamic Caliphate, plundered it, slaughtered the Muslim population (800,000 is the lowest estimate) and killed the last Caliph, Al Mustasim, by trampling him to death.  The sacking of Baghdad put an end to 500 years of the Abassid caliphate. Hulagu was bitterly hostile to Islam. Osama bin Laden compared the US led invasion of Iraq to the Mongol conquest of the 1250s.

Hulagu established a dynasty in Persia that became the Ilkhanid dynasty  – the Mongols of Persia. Ilkhan means a provincial khan. Further Mongol extension to the west was stopped by the Mamluks of Egypt at the battle of Ain Jalut or Goliath’s Spring (September 1260). Ain Jalut was one of the world’s decisive battles yet it is relatively little known in popular culture. Had the Mamluks been defeated Islam might well have been destroyed as a religion.

Uljaitu Mongol legeed

In the numismatic collection of Manchester Museum is a coin known as a copper fals, issued in the reign of Arghun ibn Abaga (683-690 = 1284-1294) or Uljaitu ibn Arghun (704-716 = 1304-1316) showing a hare running to the right with the Kalima, the Islamic statement of faith (‘there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet/Messenger’). The reverse shows lines of writing. This is Mongolian with Uyghur and Phags-Pa script and can be seen on most of the Ilkhanid coins. It is a statement of loyalty to the ancestors. However, the dynasty was established in the Middle East where Arabic was and remains the daily language for many people. Arabic was used on the coins because the Mongols still found coinage useful as a medium for communicating the power of the state.

On the reverse is:-

Qaghanu (tilte of khan)

Nreber (an honorific?)

The khan’s name e.g Arghun or Uljaitu

Deledkegulug (?)

For a good diagram explaining this, See:-

http://altaycoins.com/makaledetay.asp?dil=Mg==&id=MjI=

It is often said that Islam prohibited pictorial art but it is clear that this was not enforced rigidly and attitudes were more tolerant at different times. The Mongols, certainly, would have been familiar with hares from seeing them on the Asian steppes. A hare is sometimes seen on Islamic pottery of earlier and later date. The Mongols were influenced by Nestorian Christianity in the early years but later accepted Islam as their religion. Europeans tended to regard Nestorianism as heretical for its beliefs about the nature of Jesus. Uljaitu, the Ilkhan of Persia, in whose name this coin was probably struck, may have been Christian but converted to Islam.

Medieval Section lecture and AGM – Saturday, 13 May, 2 pm

Medieval Section lecture and AGM this Saturday:

Gary Brannan is talking about the the York Archbishops’ Registers. He writes:

The registers contain a wealth of information relating to both clerical and lay matters, and are one of the largest, yet least-exploited sources for the study of medieval England and, specifically, medieval Yorkshire. The registers document the church’s role in society, its relationship with the state and crucially, with itself. From wayward priests to royal infidelity and expressions of personal piety to papal indulgence, the registers are a crucial source for local medieval research and are now available free online.

At Swarthmore, Saturday, 13 May, 2 pm, and followed by the section AGM. There’s an opening for a new member to join the committee – please let Bryan know if you’re interested.