BBC Radio 3 will be broadcasting a series of 'Anglo-Saxon Portraits' in their 'Essay' slot, over thirty programmes (3 sets of ten 15-minute episodes) beginning on Monday 15th October at 10.45pm and continuing into 2013. The first essay, on Vortigern, is by Barry Cunliffe. Further information about the series here. Future programmes are set to cover Augustine of Canterbury (presented by the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams) and King Raedwald (presented by Martin Carver), amongst many other topics. And the episodes should be available from the Radio 3 website via the 'listen again' function.
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Anglo-Saxon Portraits on Radio 3
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E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture 2012
The 2012 E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Professor Ruairí Ó hUiginn, Professor of Modern Irish at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. The title of his lecture is:
Marriage, Law and Tochmarc Emire ('The Wooing of Emer')
The lecture will take place at 5pm on Thursday 29th November in Room GR 06/07 of the English Faculty Building, 9 West Road, Cambridge, and will be followed by a wine reception. All welcome.
Edmund Crosby Quiggin (1875-1920) was the first teacher of Celtic in the University of Cambridge. His extraordinarily comprehensive vision of Celtic studies offered an integrated approach to the subject; his combination of philological, literary and historical approaches paralleled those which his older contemporary, H.M. Chadwick, had already demonstrated in his studies of Anglo-Saxon England and which the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic continues to seek to emulate.
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Literacy, Memory and the Conversion of the Isles
Dr Brittany Schorn writes:
Literacy, Memory and the Conversion of the Isles
November 2-4, 2012
University College Dublin
The Leverhulme Trust Converting the Isles network, based in ASNC, looks forward to our next colloquium this week at University College Dublin. Its theme of 'literacy, memory and the conversion of the Isles' will explore conversion and literate culture. We will ask how literacy developed in the context of the spread of Christianity, whether there was ever an independent non-ecclesiastical literate culture, and how we can use written texts to gauge the interaction between Christian and traditional cultures. Please see our website for a full programme, registration information and, in due course, podcasts and other materials from the colloquium. We hope to see you in Dublin!
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Linguistic Encounters and Educational Practice in Medieval Europe
Dr Máire Ní Mhaonaigh is hosting a colloquium on 'Linguistic Encounters and Educational Practice in Medieval Europe' at St John's College, Cambridge, on Thursday 29th - Friday 30th November. Featuring leading scholars working on the intersection of Latin and the vernacular languages of medieval Britain, Ireland and continental Europe, there will also be a comparative lecture on ninth- and tenth-century Chinese manuscripts. The programme is available online, and details on how to register can be found here.
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A Medieval Manuscript Comes Home to Wales
Prof. Paul Russell writes:
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In the early eighteenth century a manuscript of medieval Welsh law, formerly owned by William Philips (1663–1721), Recorder for the town of Brecon, found its way to America. The details are unclear but Philips’s daughter married into the Scourfield family of New Moat, Pembroke and his library passed to them, and it is probably no coincidence that a Morris Scourfield was one of the first recorded purchasers of land for the Pennsylvania community. At some point before its departure for America the main text of the MS was foliated by Edward Lhuyd as a result of which we know how many leaves are now missing. The MS first surfaces in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston as a gift, probably in the early nineteenth century, and became their MS. 5.
In early 2012 it emerged that the MS was to be sold through Sotheby’s in London at an auction on 10 July 2012. The description composed by Sotheby’s, which made some interesting claims about the nature of the text and language, left it in no doubt that they were hoping for a wealthy American buyer; it ended, ‘It seems impossible that any such witness would ever again be allowed export from the United Kingdom, and so this must be the final appearance of this language on the open market’. The previous occasion a medieval Welsh MS came up for sale was in 1923 when the National Library of Wales (NLW) purchased the Hendregadredd MS (NLW MS 6680) for £150. The estimate on the Boston MS was £500,000–700,000.
I had been asked by the National Library of Wales to examine the MS and write report on it with a view to a bid being made. So in late June, Daniel Huws, former keeper of manuscripts at the NLW, Maredudd ap Huw, manuscripts librarian at the NLW, and I met in London and spent the afternoon with the MS. It was immediately clear, despite the carefully selected photographs in the catalogue, that the MS was in very poor condition – coloured initials cut out, pages damaged to the point of near shredding, and general all-round distress – and a hot summer’s day in the Sotheby’s office was doing it no good at all. The time, however, was well spent giving the MS as close as an examination as it had probably had for a long time – not least because we might never have seen it again. On the basis of our reports and one also from a conservator send down from Aberystwyth, the Heritage Lottery Fund agreed to put up the majority of the funding with help from the Friends of the National Libraries and the Welsh Government.
When 10 July came around, I watched the auction on line in my office, and it was immediately clear that prices were very subdued. When lot 23 came up, it went for £450,000 (£520,000 with the buyer’s premium) and I knew the MS was going home. By the same afternoon, it had already acquired an NLW number – NLW MS 24029A – though among the medieval Welsh lawyers it will continue to be known by the siglum ‘Bost’ (if nothing else, as an important reminder of its eventful career).
The news of the purchase caused great excitement in Wales and it was put on display in the Library for several weeks before it was removed for conservation. On 20 September I met Daniel and Maredudd in the back-rooms of the Library to watch the MS being dismantled and the beginning of the long process of conservation. Despite the amount paid for the MS, it was clear that it needed complete dis-binding and every leaf repaired and conserved, and the only way that amount of money could be justified was to do everything to preserve it for the future. Every stage of the process was recorded; every bit of the binding preserved; every single loose fragment of vellum preserved. The first thing to go was the binding which has been too tight and was part of the problem as it had never let the vellum expand and contract with changes of temperature. It was then left overnight to allow the glue on the spine to soak and soften. The next day the sewing threads were cut and the MS came apart in our hands, and the real work could begin.
PR examines one of the more intact openings
So why does any of this matter?
While the tradition of medieval Welsh law is traced back to the reign of Hywel Dda (died 950), the earliest surviving MSS date from the mid-thirteenth century; between then and the sixteenth century there are surviving some thirty or more MSS, most in Welsh but some in Latin. The Welsh MSS fall into three groups, or redactions, the Iorwerth redaction (originally from Gwynedd), the Cyfnerth redaction (from the south and east of Wales), and the Blegywryd redaction (from the south-west, and in origin deriving from a Welsh translation of one of the Latin versions of the law). Although the use of Welsh law was probably more restricted after the fall of Gwynedd in 1282, it remained strikingly resilient and found a continued importance in the Marches where the validity of a case might well have depended on a prior claim based on Welsh law. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of the MSS of Welsh law from the fourteenth century and later come from the east of Wales, and in recent years there has been a growing interest in these later aspects of the history of Welsh law.
An example of a less than intact opening and why the MS was badly in need of conservation.
The Boston MS is one such. It belongs to the Blegywryd redaction and its text would originally have been in use in the south and west of Wales. Wherever the original provenance of the main text (and Daniel Huws suggests that this MS may have been copied at Strata Florida in the middle of the fourteenth century), it appears from the later annotation that the MS can be associated with Brecon.
One feature of the Blegywryd MSS, all of which seem to date to the fourteenth century or later, is that they tend to have a ‘tail’ of material often derived from the other redactions; it seems that, when these text were used in the March, the distinction between redactions was less important than simply having as full a law text as possible. For example, Oxford, Jesus College MS 57, a MS copied by Hywel Fychan, the main scribe of the Red Book of Hergest, has a long ‘tail’of material mainly deriving from the Iorwerth redaction. In that case, the whole text is in the hand of Hywel Fychan and we can only tell that there is a ‘tail’by comparison with other MSS.
Maredudd ap Huw and PR check the collation
In this respect the Boston MS is extremely important: it has a ‘tail’ but it is in several different hands and clearly shows evidence of the cumulative gathering of extra legal material over a period of time. There are several phases: the main text ends on p. 181 (I use the pagination as this part of the MS was not foliated by Lhuyd) and there is extra material on the lower part of the page; a contemporary but rougher hand has then added legal material on the next few pages. However, subsequently – and this is one of the unique features of this MS – a gathering of six leaves was inserted after the current p. 182 containing a section of text in a finer, more professional hand from a different slightly later MS. We might imagine that this gathering was lying around and tucked into the back of the Boston MS for safe-keeping. This video clip shows me removing the extra gathering and indicating that, once it is removed, the text either side is continuous. It is worth dwelling on the fact that that was probably the first time it had been removed since ca 1360. It will of course be re-bound back in the same place.
One could envisage that, if this MS had then been copied, the distinctions between these different additions in the ‘tail’ would have been lost. As it is, however, this MS provides us with a precious example of the creation a ‘tail’ and tells us something we could only have guessed at, namely that, while text was copied from other sources, another mode of ‘tail-creation’, as it were, was by simply inserting pages from another MS. In other words, this is a working-copy, much closer to the reality and practice of the law than a tidy version like Jesus College 57, and all the more valuable and useful for that.
Daniel Huws and PR discuss the collation of the dis-bound MS laid out in quires on the desk.
What now ?
The MS is now undergoing repair conservation leaf by leaf and will be soon in a condition to be digitised; the images will then in due course be available to be consulted on the NLW’s Digital Mirror. Interesting details are still emerging; for example, when the MS was disbound, tacket holes were visible on some of the bifolia suggested that quires might have been held together with fine vellum strips before it was bound.
A conservator repairs a leaf on a light-box (tacket holes are visible just below the right-most finger)
It now emerges that in quire 4 only there are worm holes in the vellum. Putting these details together, it would appear that the MS might have remained unbound for some time with the individual quires held together with tackets. Another intriguing glimpse into how it might have been used, and no doubt more will emerge from further study. The MS will be rebound and two facsimile copies will be made in addition, one of which will be bound so as to allow demonstration of the arrangement of quires and insertions. The purchase of this MS has provided an extraordinary opportunity to be able to observe the dismantling of a MS book, and in some ways its relatively poor condition has allowed things to be seen and learnt which would be impossible with a better preserved book. Already students in ASNC are finding out what an important learning and teaching resource this MS can be, and I hope others can benefit from what has been learnt in conserving this MS for future generations.
Many thanks to the National Library for permission to use the photographs, and in particular to Maredudd ap Huw and Daniel Huws, the conservation staff, Iwan Bryn James, Elgar Pugh, and Dilwyn Williams, and the photographers, Mark Davey and Michael Jones. More news and pictures can be found on the Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru blog. [Edit: further updates on the National Library of Wales blog here]
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Conference report: Literacy, Memory and the Conversion of the Isles
Dr Brittany Schorn, network facilitator for the 'Converting the Isles' network, reports on their recent conference:
The Leverhulme Trust Converting the Isles Network, based in the Department, held its colloquium on ‘Literacy, Memory and the Conversion of the Isles’ on November 2–4 at University College Dublin. The conference was one in a series, each considering a different aspect of conversion.This weekend historians, archaeologists, linguists and literary scholars brought their expertise together to produce a groundbreaking reassessment of the relationship between the conversion to Christianity and another revolutionary development with which it is intimately associated: the rise of literacy in northwestern Europe.
It was therefore fitting to begin Friday morning, after a warm welcome from John McCafferty, himself a church historian and head of the School of History and Archives, with a paper on the origins of ogham by Dr Anthony Harvey of the Royal Irish Academy.Dr Harvey challenged long-held assumptions about the chronology of the writing system, and suggested that contact with Latin in Ireland before St Patrick’s mission has been underestimated.His paper was complemented by Professor Anne-Sofie Gräslund’s on Germanic pre-Roman script. Professor Gräslund, of the University of Uppsala, demonstrated how the runic monuments of the late Viking Age reveal the effects of conversion to Christianity on a Scandinavian cultural practice.
In the afternoon, art featured alongside inscription in a pair of papers by Professor Nancy Edwards of the University of Bangor and Dr Lise Gjedssø Bertelsen of the University of Uppsala. Dr Edwards brought together the evidence of inscriptions, images and symbols from Wales and Pictland to paint a contrasting picture of conversion in the two regions. Evidence from Scandinavia was then brought in by Dr Bertlesen who drew out the meaning of the images of the great Jelling Runestone, on which inscriptions, images and symbols work together to convey a powerful message of a new, Christian royal identity.
The day was brought to a close by a thought-provoking keynote lecture from a rather different perspective, delivered Dr Joseph McMahon of the Irish Franciscan Province. Speaking on his own experiences as a missionary, Dr McMahon offered valuable insights into what conversion means to a Christian evangelist.
The second day of the colloquium opened with a session on the written law, a phenomenon Dr Roy Flechner of UCD observed is ubiquitous within Christian culture across Europe. Professor Liam Breatnach of the Dublin Institute for Advanced studies examined the thoroughly Christianised society revealed by Ireland’s early laws and raised important questions about the use of medieval law texts. These questions were also central to the next paper, on the earliest Anglo-Saxon laws, by Dr Helen Forbes of the University of Exeter. Here too the laws, though strikingly different to the Irish material in other ways, painted a picture of a thoroughly Christian land and monarchy. A lively discussion ensued and was continued in the roundtable at the end of the afternoon.
The next session was opened by Dr Connor Newman, of the National University of Ireland, Galway, who brought archaeological evidence back into the discussion with a paper on conversion through the prism of art. He demonstrated the adaptation of older traditions for Christian purposes, often to significant and sophisticated effect. Dr Alex Woolf of the University of St Andrew’s continued the session by looking at the word plebs, which became the normal word for ‘parish’ in Welsh and Cornish. Taking a broad view across the post-Roman West, he examined how this common noun was used an adapted in both Insular Latin and vernacular languages.
Dr Siân Grønlie of the University of Oxford and Dr Barry Lewis of the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth looked at the role of saints in conversion of Iceland and Wales. Dr Grønlie explored their curious absence in the Old Norse sources, which portray the men responsible for bringing Christianity to Iceland as complex and somewhat morally problematic individuals. Dr Lewis then discussed the literature of the Brittonic regions, in which national conversion is of only marginal interest. Instead of pagans, these texts were more interested in the problem of converting bad Christians.
The themes and questions arising from the various sessions were finally brought together by Dr Elva Johnston of UCD, who re-assessed what literacy in early medieval Ireland actually meant, with important observations applicable across Ireland, Britain and Scandinavia.She reminded us of how small the literate class would have been, confined to, but not encompassing, the social elite whose primary mode of communication remained oral.It is important, she argued, to envisage a more complex model than is often supposed, with a much larger society interacting with literacy and supporting it, if not reading or writing themselves.
Podcasts and other materials arising from this fascinating conference will shortly be available on our website.We look forward to continuing the discussions begun in Cambridge and Dublin at Bangor University on March 22–23, 2013 in a colloquium on. Further information can be found HERE.
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Dreams and Nightmares: Festival of Ideas
Dr Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, Lecturer in Scandinavian History, who organised the ASNC contribution to the Festival of Ideas, reports:
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If I say so myself, ASNC’s event for the Festival of Ideas was a great success. The theme of the Festival this year was ‘Dreams and Nightmares’, so ASNC organised a series of short talks and recitations dealing with ‘Dreams and Nightmares in Early Britain and Ireland’. The event was held in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, rather than the usual lecture room, and this contributed to the theatricality of the presentations, as did six metre-high panels designed and painted by current ASNC students, which illustrated scenes of dreams, visions, and monsters from the various ASNC literatures. The three-hour programme began with Prof. Paul Russell discussing ‘Dream narratives in Old Welsh and Old Irish’, followed by students reading passages of these texts in the original. The studio quickly filled to capacity in the first half hour and stayed that way until the end. From the Celtic languages the focus turned to the Germanic side of things with Dr Richard Dance explaining where the words dream and nightmare come from and reading the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood.
Richard Dance explicates Old English 'dream' and 'nightmare'
(photograph by Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson)
Three students read appropriate passages from Beowulf, and then Old Norse texts dealing with dreams and nightmares were read by Orri Tómasson (our teacher of Modern Icelandic) and Vicky Cribb (a postgraduate at ASNC) and explicated by Dr Judy Quinn. Dr Rory Naismith continued the English part of the programme by exploring the symbolism of the monsters and beasts that appear on Anglo-Saxon coins, and Dr Quinn capped off the event by discussing the Old Norse dreams and nightmares in compelling detail.
Adam Kirton, a current ASNC undergraduate, reads Old English
(photograph by Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson)
The audience’s level of interest was evident not only in their attendance but also in the spontaneous question-and-answer sessions that happened after every talk. The audience’s attention was grabbed as well by the signs directing the public to the event, for student volunteers outside the building had them attached to swords, spears, and axes, and the student doorwarden keeping order in the hallway outside the drama studio was kitted out in authentic period costume. The audience was requested to fill out comment cards as they left, and most of those gave the event the highest rating. ASNC once again ably communicated the attraction and interest of our field, supported by the volunteer efforts of the many students who helped in advance and on the day.
ASNC undergraduate Becky Shercliff reads Old Irish
(photograph by Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson)
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The Times Stephen Spender Prize: Irish Poetry and Prizes
Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson, teaching associate in Modern Irish in ASNC, writes:
Modern Irish poems were highlighted in the recent announcement of the winners of the 2012 Times Stephen Spender Prize for translation of poetry. Two of the winners in the Open Award section have connections to Modern Irish Language courses taught in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic—courses which have been supported by a generous grant from the Irish government since 2006.
Comhghairdeachas (congratulations) to Dr Kaarino Hollo, lecturer in Irish at Sheffield University, who was awarded first prize for her translation of the beautiful Irish poem Marbhghin 1943: Glaoch ar Liombó ('Stillborn 1943: Calling Limbo'), by Derry O'Sullivan, an Irish poet born in Rochestown, Co. Cork, in 1944. Dr Hollo taught Modern Irish courses in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic from 2006-08. Her translation of the poem, with comments, can be read here. Hollo received the prize in London on 13 November, and her achievement and long interest in Irish language and literature are featured in the Guardian.
Comhghairdeachas also to Modern Irish language student Seán Hewitt, who was awarded a commendation in the 2012 Times Stephen Spender Prize, open, for his translation of Brendan Behan's Jackeen ag caoineadh na mBlascaod‘A Jackeen Keens for the Blasket Island’. Behan, a Dubliner who learned Irish, is chiefly remembered for his works in English, but Seán gives a fresh voice to Behan's Irish poem on the remote Blasket Island, An Bhlascaod Mhór, located off the coast of the Dingle Peninsula in Co. Kerry. As Hewitt observes, ‘this poem shows a gentle longing for an Ireland wildly unlike the poet's own, one removed from him not simply geographically, but also culturally and linguistically.’ The poem was written just five years before the last Blasket islanders—Irish speakers who preserved a wealth of traditional lore and verse—were evacuated from the island in 1953.
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Seán Hewitt, who is affectionately known among Cambridge University students in the Modern Irish classes by the leasainm (nickname) ‘Seán Ard’, excelled in Modern Irish classes taught in the ASNC Department (2010-2012), earned a certificate in the Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge examination at the University of Maynooth, and graduated in June 2012 with a first in English (with several papers in Irish literature). During the ASNC celebration of Seachtain na Gaeilge, an international festival of Irish culture, he delivered memorable recitations of poems by the modern poet Seán Ó Riordáin, and the love song Máire Ní Eidhin by ‘Raifteirí’, the blind poet alluded to in W.B. Yeats's 'The Tower'. In 2011 he was awarded a H. M. Chadwick Scholarship to study of Modern Irish in the West Kerry Gaeltacht. Hewitt’s personal experience of the language and landscape is poignantly conveyed in his translation of Behan’s poem. Hewitt writes: ‘Last summer I had the privilege of continuing my study of Irish in West Kerry, thanks to a generous grant, and my visit to the Blaskets was truly haunting – I will never forget the slow backbone of land rising out of the sea-mist, the cormorants skimming the water and, most incredibly, the sheer, devastating silence. It is this silence that the poem conveys so well.’
A Jackeen Keens for the Blasket
Sunset, and the wide sea will be laid out like glass,
no sailing boats or signs of life, just a last
eagle that glints on the world's edge, separate,
circling over the lonely, spent Blasket...
The sun sunk down, and nightshadows scattered
over the high moon, herself scaling
the ground with bare, outstretched fingers, cold
on the broken houses, the life's scaffold...
All silent but the birds' bellies sliding
over the waves, glad to be home, head tucked
snug in breast, the wind's breath rocking the door,
and the damp hearth, fireless, heatless, unwatched.
Translated from the Irish by Seán Hewitt
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For Seán Hewitt’s full commentary, see here. The Stephen Spender Trust supports the translation of poetry from any language, classical or modern, into English. Students are encouraged to submit translations of verse for the 2013 competition, which opens on 11 January, 2013. The deadline for the 2013 prize will be Friday 24 May. Details and entry forms will be available on this website.
Modern Irish poems were highlighted in the recent announcement of the winners of the 2012 Times Stephen Spender Prize for translation of poetry. Two of the winners in the Open Award section have connections to Modern Irish Language courses taught in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic—courses which have been supported by a generous grant from the Irish government since 2006.
Comhghairdeachas (congratulations) to Dr Kaarino Hollo, lecturer in Irish at Sheffield University, who was awarded first prize for her translation of the beautiful Irish poem Marbhghin 1943: Glaoch ar Liombó ('Stillborn 1943: Calling Limbo'), by Derry O'Sullivan, an Irish poet born in Rochestown, Co. Cork, in 1944. Dr Hollo taught Modern Irish courses in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic from 2006-08. Her translation of the poem, with comments, can be read here. Hollo received the prize in London on 13 November, and her achievement and long interest in Irish language and literature are featured in the Guardian.
Comhghairdeachas also to Modern Irish language student Seán Hewitt, who was awarded a commendation in the 2012 Times Stephen Spender Prize, open, for his translation of Brendan Behan's Jackeen ag caoineadh na mBlascaod‘A Jackeen Keens for the Blasket Island’. Behan, a Dubliner who learned Irish, is chiefly remembered for his works in English, but Seán gives a fresh voice to Behan's Irish poem on the remote Blasket Island, An Bhlascaod Mhór, located off the coast of the Dingle Peninsula in Co. Kerry. As Hewitt observes, ‘this poem shows a gentle longing for an Ireland wildly unlike the poet's own, one removed from him not simply geographically, but also culturally and linguistically.’ The poem was written just five years before the last Blasket islanders—Irish speakers who preserved a wealth of traditional lore and verse—were evacuated from the island in 1953.
An Bhlascaod Mhór / The Great Blasket Island (photo: Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson)
Seán Hewitt, who is affectionately known among Cambridge University students in the Modern Irish classes by the leasainm (nickname) ‘Seán Ard’, excelled in Modern Irish classes taught in the ASNC Department (2010-2012), earned a certificate in the Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge examination at the University of Maynooth, and graduated in June 2012 with a first in English (with several papers in Irish literature). During the ASNC celebration of Seachtain na Gaeilge, an international festival of Irish culture, he delivered memorable recitations of poems by the modern poet Seán Ó Riordáin, and the love song Máire Ní Eidhin by ‘Raifteirí’, the blind poet alluded to in W.B. Yeats's 'The Tower'. In 2011 he was awarded a H. M. Chadwick Scholarship to study of Modern Irish in the West Kerry Gaeltacht. Hewitt’s personal experience of the language and landscape is poignantly conveyed in his translation of Behan’s poem. Hewitt writes: ‘Last summer I had the privilege of continuing my study of Irish in West Kerry, thanks to a generous grant, and my visit to the Blaskets was truly haunting – I will never forget the slow backbone of land rising out of the sea-mist, the cormorants skimming the water and, most incredibly, the sheer, devastating silence. It is this silence that the poem conveys so well.’
Jackeen ag Caoineadh na mBlascaod Beidh an fharraige mhór faoi luí gréine
mar ghloine,
Gan bád faoi sheol ná comhartha beo ó dhuine
Ach an t-iolar órga deireanach thuas ar imeall
An domhain, thar an mBlascaod uaigneach luite...
An ghrian ina luí is scáth na hoíche á scaipeadh
Ar ardú ré is í ag taitneamh i bhfuacht trí scamaill,
A méara loma sínte ar thalamh
Ar thithe scriosta briste, truamhar folamh...
Faoi thost ach cleití na n-éan ag cuimilt thar tonna
Buíoch as a bheith fillte, ceann i mbrollach faoi shonas,
Séideadh na gaoithe ag luascadh go bog leathdhorais
Is an teallach fuar fliuch, gan tine, gan teas, gan chosaint.
Brendan Behan
Reproduced by kind permission of The Gallery Press
A Jackeen Keens for the Blasket
Sunset, and the wide sea will be laid out like glass,
no sailing boats or signs of life, just a last
eagle that glints on the world's edge, separate,
circling over the lonely, spent Blasket...
The sun sunk down, and nightshadows scattered
over the high moon, herself scaling
the ground with bare, outstretched fingers, cold
on the broken houses, the life's scaffold...
All silent but the birds' bellies sliding
over the waves, glad to be home, head tucked
snug in breast, the wind's breath rocking the door,
and the damp hearth, fireless, heatless, unwatched.
Translated from the Irish by Seán Hewitt
Seán Hewitt with ASNC students Katie McIvor and Caitlin Ellis following Seachtain na Gaeilge, 2011, in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (photo: Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson)
For Seán Hewitt’s full commentary, see here. The Stephen Spender Trust supports the translation of poetry from any language, classical or modern, into English. Students are encouraged to submit translations of verse for the 2013 competition, which opens on 11 January, 2013. The deadline for the 2013 prize will be Friday 24 May. Details and entry forms will be available on this website.
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Three Late Anglo-Saxon Rarities Acquired for the Fitzwilliam Museum
Dr Rory Naismith writes:
The Department of Coins and Medals in the Fitzwilliam Museum has recently secured a number of items of major importance for knowledge of tenth- and eleventh-century England.
Seal matrix of Ælfric
This is only the fourth known surviving late Anglo-Saxon seal matrix, and the only one held by a public collection besides the British Museum. It was found two years ago on the Wiltshire/Hampshire border by a metal-detectorist, and was bought by the Fitzwilliam in November 2012.
Like one of the other surviving matrices, this example is made of copper alloy (the other two being carved from walrus ivory). Unlike any of the others, however, this one shows traces of gilding: a thin layer of gold applied across the entire surface of the matrix at the time of manufacture. This would originally have lent it the appearance of solid gold, and made a powerful visual impact. The handle at the top of the seal (with a loop-hole for mounting) and the acanthus leaf decoration carved on the back also add to the impression that this seal matrix was in itself intended for display, as well as for leaving a mark on wax.
The inscription on the seal reads ‘+SIGILLVM ÆLFRICVS’ (‘the seal [of] Ælfric’). The man portrayed in the centre of the seal is presumably intended to represent Ælfric himself. Like the images on other seals, this elaborate bust is closely akin to coins of the same period, and may even have been carved by the same craftsmen. Some of the details of the image are obscured by loss of gilding and decay of the copper, but it is entirely possible that Ælfric was once shown holding a sword, as the figures do on all three other surviving seals for Anglo-Saxon laymen. Interestingly, one of these (now in the British Museum) also names an Ælfric, was made of copper-alloy and was found in Hampshire. It may once have belonged to the very same man as the new matrix, although the name Ælfric was common in late Anglo-Saxon England.
The delicate acanthus leaf decoration found on the reverse of this and the other Ælfric seal links them to the sophisticated tradition of ‘Winchester school’ art characteristic of high culture in late Anglo-Saxon England. This and other artistic affinities associate the seals with the late tenth or early eleventh century. The only specific date for any late Anglo-Saxon seal comes from impressions of a now lost matrix for St Edith of Wilton which must have been made in the period 975×984.
Despite their rarity, these objects played a significant part in the administrative system otherwise known from law-codes, charters and coins. They were used as tokens of authority by powerful laymen and ecclesiastics, up to an including the king. King Alfred the Greatexpected a seal and a writ (letter) to act as potent signs of the king’s will. Æthelred II (978–1016) is also known to have had a seal, of which no impressions survive; the earliest extant royal seal impressions date to the reign of his son, Edward the Confessor (1042–66). Interestingly, modern finds of tenth- and early-eleventh-century matrices are concentrated in England south the Thames: precisely the region where the king’s presence was concentrated and the exertion of royal power was most keenly felt.
Agnus Deipenny of Æthelred II
In the 970s and after England developed a remarkable monetary system based on standardised coin-types naming king, mint-place and individual maker (‘moneyer’) which were issued at up to seventy places across the kingdom, from York to Exeter and Dover. Every few years these coins would be brought in and replaced with a new type. Thanks to payments of tribute to the Vikings who menaced England during the reign of Æthelred, tens of thousands of silver pennies of most of these types have survived in hoards from modern Scandinavia.
Yet one particularly striking and historically important type remains poorly represented among them: the famous Agnus Dei type. Only 21 specimens have been discovered, all but four of them in Scandinavia or the Baltic. One of the latest to come to light was found near Epping, Essex, in 2008, by a metal-detector user. It was subsequently bought for the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Uniquely for the succession of types running from Edgar to Harold II in 1066, the Agnus Deicoinage dispenses with a representation of the king on the obverse and with the usual cross on the reverse. In their place, one finds a representation of the Lamb of God and of the Holy Dove. These images find extensive parallels among manuscript illuminations, sculpture and metalwork of the period, and demonstrate that the designers of coins were very much in touch with the artistic mainstream, and therefore presumably with the deep resonances which attached to these images. Both emphasise the peace-bringing power of Christ and the Holy Spirit: a message which chimes perfectly with the desperate efforts mounted by King Æthelred at the time of a great viking invasion in 1009 – a date which is also indicated by independent numismatic evidence. The attack of Thorkel the Talland his army beginning in the late summer of that year presented a genuine crisis for the English, whose own forces proved unable to co-operate or pin down their opponents in battle. Under these circumstances, the rulers of the English placed their hopes in God. A tract stipulating the donation of alms, fasting and prayer until conditions improved was issued in the run-up to Michaelmas (29 September) 1009, while the defenders of the southeast – where the force of the attack fell – braced themselves against the foe.
It is very likely that the Agnus Dei coinage was produced as a complement to this broader appeal for divine help in the late summer and autumn of 1009. Although scarce, the surviving coins were clearly a carefully conceived venture, innovative in fine detail as well as their striking iconography. They are also noticeably heavier than the immediately preceding coin-type, which indicates that they probably belong at the head of a new type (coins of which typically became lighter over time). Issuing a fresh coin-type meant more than inconvenience for the populace or a fundraising scheme for the king and his agents: it was a key defence against forgery and, in the eyes of contemporary commentators, an assertion of good order comparable to the prevention of other serious crimes. In other words, it was precisely the sort of endeavour that the circumstances of 1009 called for. The Agnus Deicoinage thus constitutes a very special inception for a new coinage; one which was closely tied to the exceptional conditions of the time.
The Fitzwilliam’s specimen of this coinage was made at Salisburyin Wiltshire by a man named Sæwine. The pattern of production visible from surviving specimens gives further clues to the unusual way in which the Agnus Dei coinage was issued. None of the leading mint-towns (Lincoln, London, Winchester and York) of England are represented; rather, minting was restricted to just nine relatively minor places, stretching in an arc from Salisbury in Wessex through a cluster of mints in western England at Stafford and Hereford, to another group in the east midlands. These nine places may represent the only ones to receive and use dies (stamps) for the new issue during its short period of currency, although there is some uncertainty about how this process was organised. The absence of Agnus Dei pennies from the southeast may be a result of the impact wrought by the viking invasion.
This penny was found already with the bend which can be seen in the illustrations above. Flattening it out was deemed too risky, and also as perhaps taking away from part of the coin’s history. It is very likely that it was bent deliberately by an eleventh-century user, possibly as a small votive offering: a custom which became widespread later in the Middle Ages.
The coin was recently featured on BBC 2’s Vikings with Neil Oliver.
Penny of Cissbury
The coin-issue for which Agnus Dei was such a highly-charged prelude, known as Last Small Cross, returned to the norm of royal bust and cross which had dominated the English currency for four decades by this time. Indeed, this final coin-type issued by Æthelred II was closely modelled on the coinage of his illustrious father Edgarand revered brother Edward the Martyr. At a time of uncertainty and deepening crisis, the coinage looked back to an age of peace and stability.
In organisation, however, it is apparent that the situation was quite different. Detailed analysis of Æthelred’s coinage has been used to show the steps which were taken to maintain one aspect of local government in the face of enemy action. In particular, viking attacks sometimes seem to have prompted the retreat of minting operations from exposed boroughs to fortified redoubts in the vicinity. Several were installed within the ramparts of prehistoric hill-forts. At one of these, South Cadburyin Somerset, excavations have uncovered evidence of the formidable defences which were erected in the time of Æthelred. Another such hilltop mint-site was at Salisbury in Wiltshire, which at this date was located at Old Sarum: a hill-fort 2.5km from modern Salisbury, which remained the site of the city until 1220. It is likely that this mint-place was established after the sack of nearby Wilton in 1003: several of the moneyers who had formerly served there can be traced subsequently at Salisbury.
Another probable case of a hill-fort which served as an ‘emergency’ mint under Æthelred is Cissburyin Sussex, near Worthing. The third new acquisition highlighted here is a coin attributed to this mint. Only about twenty pennies from Cissbury are known to survive. The context in which this specimen was found is unknown, although it has a long pedigree associated with some of the most important coin collections of the last century. At various times it belonged to the numismatic scholar Francis Elmore Jonesand to the great American collector Emery May Norweb.
This specimen is especially significant for its long and clear mint-name: SIĐESTEB. Like most mint-names on Anglo-Saxon coins, this is an abbreviation, and probably signifies Sithmestbyrig. This might be an Anglicisation of a now-lost older name, but it also means ‘the final fortress’ – a most appropriate name for what may have been a last-ditch stronghold against Viking attack. Coins provide the only medieval attestation of this name; other records of it do not survive from before the sixteenth century, when it was called Sissabury or Sizebury. But it can be independently shown that the dies (stamps) used to make the coin probably come from somewhere in Sussex. In short, there is every reason to believe that this imposing fortress provided another location for one of the ‘emergency’ mints of Æthelred II’s troubled later years.
Despite the likely hope of the English that Cissbury would provide a secure holdout against viking aggression, there is evidence to suggest that at least some interaction took place between its inhabitants and the Scandinavians. The marks on the reverse of this coin, known as peck-marks, are an indication that the quality of the coin was checked by a Scandinavian user at some point. Very many English coins of the period display peck-marks such as these; but it was much less common for English coin-dies to be used in Scandinavia as well as England. Yet analysis of coins made in contemporary Sweden and Denmark has revealed that the dies which made this coin, although of English manufacture, were also used to produce coins in the viking homelands. Whether the dies were taken across the North Sea through violence or by peaceful means is unclear, though there were several other English dies which made the same journey, some evidently purpose-made for use in Scandinavia with the names of local kings. Specimens from this later phase of the Cissbury dies’ use can be identified from their very high weight and, in at least one case, from being struck on a square piece of silver. At one stage the obverse die was also combined with a reverse of much cruder design and literacy. It is impossible to say for sure whether the present coin was made in England or Scandinavia, though on balance it is more likely to be English.
Together, these three acquisitions provide a valuable window onto the operation of the late Anglo-Saxon kingdom: how its leaders demonstrated their authority, and how its economy and administration adapted to weather testing times.
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Conference report: Linguistic Encounters and Educational Practice
Razvan Stanciu, a PhD student in ASNC, writes:
On 29 and 30 November, St John’s College was host to a symposium organised by the Department’s own Máire Ní Mhaonaigh and Michael Clarke of NUI Galway. They brought together six scholars of medieval literature who presented their work to an eager audience of lecturers and students, from Cambridge and beyond, all under the theme of ‘Linguistic Encounters and Educational Practice in Medieval Europe’. Rosalind Love of the Department kick-started the proceedings and warmed up the audience (on what was otherwise a crisp winter’s day) with a spirited and at the same time inspiring talk on glosses and commentary in the Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy. What otherwise could be mistaken for a terse topic caught the audience’s ear with its wider implications for early medieval intellectuals’ relationship to textual authority, but also with the abundance of involuntary humour emerging from some of the glosses. Abigail Burnyeat (University of Edinburgh) provided the second act of the day, an analysis of a single manuscript (British Library Egerton 1782) in which colloquy-type texts can be read as evidence for classroom practice. Elizabeth Tyler (University of York
Jan Ruediger's talk, chaired by Michael Clarke
After such a full day, we came back the next morning to experience a refreshing insight into the world of Chinese textual culture of the ninth and tenth centuries offered by Imre Galambos of the University of Cambridge. Imre’s talk was a highlight, especially since he emphasised some specific aspects of the material he is working with (i.e. geographical periphery, complex multilingualism) which are highly relevant to many medievalists too and to ASNC in particular. The two-day symposium concluded with a free round-table discussion, where the various participants, particularly the PhD students and postdocs, had a chance to exchange impressions about the issues raised during the two days and about the way in which the talks provided food for thought for their own work. And food for thought they indeed provided, through the often intriguing nature of the general theme and the unusual internal cohesion of the schedule of talks. The specific focus of the research group meant that in every presentation the issue of medieval education and of its interplay (or indeed interface) with textual multilingualism was given centre stage and harmonised with the particulars of each scholar’s work. It was thus a rather rare opportunity for many students and researchers to take part in an academic conference where the celebrated ‘And now for something completely different’ could not cross their minds.
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Report of Quiggin Lecture 2012
Helen Oxenham, a doctoral student in ASNC, writes:
One of the highlights of the ASNC year is always the annual E.C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture, begun in 1993, to commemorate Edmund Crosby Quiggin, the first teacher of Celtic at the University of Cambridge. This year's lecture was as highly-anticipated, well-attended, and fascinating as usual. On the 29th November at 5pm, the ASNC department was very pleased to welcome Professor Ruairí Ó hUiginn of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, to speak on the subject of ‘Marriage, Law and Tochmarc Emire (‘The Wooing of Emer’)’.
One of the highlights of the ASNC year is always the annual E.C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture, begun in 1993, to commemorate Edmund Crosby Quiggin, the first teacher of Celtic at the University of Cambridge. This year's lecture was as highly-anticipated, well-attended, and fascinating as usual. On the 29th November at 5pm, the ASNC department was very pleased to welcome Professor Ruairí Ó hUiginn of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, to speak on the subject of ‘Marriage, Law and Tochmarc Emire (‘The Wooing of Emer’)’.
The lecture began with a summary of the tale of Tochmarc Emire– a tale in which the hero Cú Chulainn pledges fidelity to Emer, and then proceeds to break his pledge with multiple women, while Emer remains faithful – and then moved on to an analysis of the surviving manuscript sources for the various sections and versions of the tale. Then came the main body of the lecture, which focused on the connections between the earliest versions of Tochmarc Emire (dating to between the eighth and the eleventh centuries) and the early Irish legal material. Professor Ó hUiginn argued convincingly that Tochmarc Emire can be viewed as a negative exemplary tale through an analysis of certain legal prescriptions. The legal text Cáin Lánamna, for example, carefully regulates a wide range of types of sexual union, both permanent and transitory. Cú Chulainn, however, enters an unregulated union with Aífe, a female warrior, which ultimately leads to him killing his own son.
The combined use of a vernacular prose tale and the early Irish legal texts threw new and interesting light onto the ways in which such tales might be analysed within their early medieval context, the underlying messages being given greater resonance and meaning through this wider understanding.
It is traditional at the Quiggin Lectures that questions be reserved for the time at which the visiting speaker has a glass in hand, so after the launch of the pamphlet for the previous year’s lecture (Professor Odd Einar Haugen on The Orthographic Reform of the Old Icelandic First Grammatical Treatise) the assembled audience moved out of the lecture room for a feast of wine and canapés, to continue discussion and bombard Professor Ó hUiginn with questions. We look forward to seeing this lecture in print about this time next year.
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Final congratulations of 2012
Hoping that all our readers are enjoying the holiday season, here's a final round-up of good news from the ASNC department:
Dr Rory Naismith, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in ASNC, has been awarded the 2012 Jan H. Nordbø scholarship and medal by the Norwegian Numismatic Society. This prestigious award exists to bring foreign scholars of numismatics to give a lecture in Norway. On 30 October, Dr Naismith lectured to the Norwegian Numismatic Society in Oslo on the subject of ‘Gold Coinage and the Fall of the Western Roman Empire’, and received the medal accompanying the scholarship. He also delivered a lecture the following day at the Museum of Cultural History in the University of Oslo, on ‘The Agnus Dei Coinage of Æthelred II’.
The Research Centre of St John’s College Oxford has awarded pump-priming funding for the initial stages of an international research project, ‘Interpreting Eddic Poetry’, to Dr Carolyne Larrington (Oxford) and ASNC's Dr Judy Quinn (Principal Investigators). The project will support an interdisciplinary research network which will convene for its first Workshop ‘Interpreting Eddic Poetry: Interdisciplinary Perspectives’ in Oxford in July 2013. Details of the programme and registration arrangements will be announced shortly.
Funding has been awarded to Dr Judy Quinn and ASNC alumna Dr Debbie Potts from the pilot AHRC Cultural Engagement Fund to support the projects ‘Kennings in the Community’ and ‘Modern Poets on Viking Poetry’. Dr Potts will be based in the Department for three months from February to April 2013 to develop the projects and organise events related to them.
Congratulations to all of them, and best wishes to all of you for the New Year ...
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Sutton Trust Summer School in ASNC 2013
Applications are now open for the 2013 Sutton Trust Summer School in Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, which will take place during the week of 26th - 30th August. The Summer School provides an opportunity for Year 12 pupils from non-privileged backgrounds to experience life at Cambridge. Participants will stay at St John's College, and will have the chance to take part in a range of lectures, classes and seminars on various aspects of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic languages, literature, and history. All costs are covered by the Sutton Trust. For more details about Sutton Trust Summer Schools at Cambridge, see the university's webpages. For more about the ASNC Summer School, see here. Or watch what one previous participant had to say about his experience:
Applications can be made through the Sutton Trust website. The deadline for applications is 11th March. Many of our current undergraduates first experienced ASNC through a Sutton Trust Summer School; other participants have simply enjoyed the opportunity to experience a week of interdisciplinary study completely unlike anything they've ever done at school.
Applications can be made through the Sutton Trust website. The deadline for applications is 11th March. Many of our current undergraduates first experienced ASNC through a Sutton Trust Summer School; other participants have simply enjoyed the opportunity to experience a week of interdisciplinary study completely unlike anything they've ever done at school.
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2013 H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture
The twenty-fourth H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture will be given by Professor John Blair (University of Oxford), on the subject of:
The British Culture of Anglo-Saxon Settlement
The lecture will take place on Thursday 14th March at 5pm in Room GR.06/07 of the English Faculty Building, West Road, Cambridge. The lecture will be followed by a wine reception. All welcome.
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Kennings in the Community and Poets on Viking Poetry
Dr Judy Quinn and Dr Debbie Potts have been awarded funding to run two cultural engagement projects from February–April 2013 as part of an AHRC pilot scheme. The projects – Kennings in the Community and Modern Poets on Viking Poetry– are aimed at nurturing a wider public interest in the aesthetics of skaldic poetry through creative writing workshops and collaborative cultural translation. As Debbie Potts elaborates…
At a workshop last weekend, I fell into conversation with a poet about kennings. To my surprise and gratification, she not only knew what kennings were, but was able to relate an interesting little anecdote about them. A colleague of hers had recently conducted a workshop on kennings with school children. The exercise involved developing ways of referring to family members using items and actions associated with their character or behaviour. A certain precocious child came up with a wonderfully original kenning for his father: sofa-farter.
Some of the most linguistically dexterous of skalds, experts in the rhetoric of defamation, would have found it hard to respond with a kenning equally as cutting. The idea behind sofa-farter is simple, but it carries with it a great deal of cultural resonance (irrespective of whether we would describe our own fathers in such terms). It plays on a cultural stereotype that is both gender and class specific – i.e. the working-class male couch potato (which is in itself a kenning) – andcould only emerge from a social milieu in which it is acceptable to occasionally make fun of one’s parents rather than holding them in a perpetual state of reverence.
I think this story provides an excellent illustration of the kenning’s universal cognitive appeal, its capacity to accommodate the mindset of a given individual or particular speech community. The project Kennings in the Community seeks to produce resources for creative writing workshops based on the kenning. My aim is not only to nurture a wider public interest in skaldic metaphor, but to encourage people to create their own kennings relevant to their everyday experience, thereby prompting them to question and re-imagine the way our culture conceptualises the world.
I’m excited to be working with three practicing word-smiths: LucyHamilton, Emma Hammond and Jane Monson.These habitual quaffers of Odinnic mead will be applying their creative writing expertise to the development of the workshop materials. Some ‘test’ workshops will take place at the beginning of April and the resources will be made available on the ASNC website before May, so watch this space! If you simply can’t wait until then to try your hand at creating kennings, you can take a look at an exercise I wrote for the Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network here.
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(from Wikimedia Commons)
The sister project Modern Poets on Viking Poetry is all about extending the skaldic aesthetic into the creative consciousness of contemporary poets. My intention is to encourage a dialogue between academic research and modern poetic practice.
In the wake of the Poetry Parnassus – the largest ever international poetry festival, hosted by London’s Southbank Centre last summer – it seems an opportune moment to be tapping into the poetry world’s enthusiasm for cultural exchange. Poets will be encouraged to engage with basic translations and commentaries provided by skaldic scholars; they will have complete creative freedom in the way they choose to interact with the poetry, and may produce anything from a poem that seeks to replicate the phonic qualities of skaldic metre to a multimedia art-piece…I’m intrigued to see what they come up with! Selected poems will be published on a blog attached to the ASNC website, and two events will take place (in Cambridge and London) at the end of April where poets will be invited to read or perform their translations.
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Debbie and Snorri
It must be acknowledged that neither project would be possible without the boundless curiosity of poets, who are constantly looking for new ways of understanding and expressing the world around us, however bizarre and alien (so much the better). And, of course, the open-mindedness and intellectual generosity of skaldic scholars, who are happily rather less mercenary than Mímir when it comes to offering a drink from the well of knowledge.
@eehammond
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Old English Riddles
Recent ASNC PhD graduates, Dr Matthias Ammon and Dr Megan Cavell, are pleased to announce their new blog, The Riddle Ages. Stemming in part from their participation in the department’s exciting Old English Reading Group, Ammon and Cavell have embarked upon the ambitious task of providing open access translations and commentary for every riddle in the Exeter Book. The hope is that this blog will act as a teaching and reference tool for those learning Old English, offer an easily accessible list of potential riddle-solutions for researchers and provide insight into these fascinating poems for interested members of the public.
Below is an example of the first post for Riddle 1:
Hwylc is hæleþa þæs horsc ond þæs hygecræftig
þæt þæt mæge asecgan, hwa mec on sið wræce,
þonne ic astige strong, stundum reþe,
þrymful þunie, þragum wræce
5 fere geond foldan, folcsalo bærne,
ræced reafige? Recas stigað,
haswe ofer hrofum. Hlin bið on eorþan,
wælcwealm wera, þonne ic wudu hrere,
bearwas bledhwate, beamas fylle,
10 holme gehrefed, heahum meahtum
wrecen on waþe, wide sended;
hæbbe me on hrycge þæt ær hadas wreah
foldbuendra, flæsc ond gæstas,
somod on sunde. Saga hwa mec þecce,
15 oþþe hu ic hatte, þe þa hlæst bere.
Who among heroes is so sharp and so skilled in mind
that he may declare who presses me on my journey,
when I rise up, mighty, sometimes savage,
full of force, I resound, at times I press on,
5 travel throughout the land, I burn the people’s hall,
plunder the palace? The reek rises,
grey to the roofs. There is a clamour on the earth,
the slaughter-death of men, when I shake the forest,
the quick-growing groves, topple trees,
10 sheltered by the sea, pressed into wandering
by the powers on high, sent afar;
I have on my back that which earlier covered each rank
of the earth-dwellers, flesh and spirit,
swimming together. Say what covers me,
15 or how I am called, who bear that burden.
See the original blog post for possible solutions!
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Illuminating the Middle Ages debate, Battle of Ideas 2012
Three ASNCs past and present, namely recent graduate Albert Fenton; Dr Levi Roach (Lecturer in Medieval History, University of Exeter); and Dr Elizabeth Boyle (Affiliated Lecturer in ASNC and Research Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge), teamed up with cultural commentator Lindsay Johns to discuss the significance of the Middle Ages at the Battle of Ideas 2012 at London's Barbican. You can watch the video here:
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Report: Communication and Cultural Contacts in the North Atlantic Community
Sarah Waidler, a doctoral student in ASNC, writes:
On 2ndMarch, the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic hosted a seminar entitled ‘Communication and Cultural Contacts in the North Atlantic Community’. Held in St John’s College, this lively and intellectually stimulating event focused on the related topics of medieval commerce and the economy within this geographical area. The seminar also touched on many other forms of exchange, including cultural, intellectual, familial and political ties between the lands joined together by the North Atlantic waters. Ranging from the actual process of trade and use of currency to how crafts and ideas travelled, to the memory of specific events and preservation of literary and historical traditions, this day presented much food for thought and presented many useful insights, while at the same time highlighting how much work still needs to be done in these areas.
The event was divided into two parts. In the morning, four speakers gave 45-minute talks on different aspects of contacts in this region. The day kicked off with a presentation by Andy Woods, from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, on ‘An economy of scale? Considering the volume and use of coinage in Ireland c. 995 -1170’. Andy presented his work on coinage in Ireland and demonstrated how it was possible to make fruitful comparisons between Dublin and many other commercial centres in the North Atlantic world in the medieval period. As well as showing the considerable variation in Ireland’s use of coinage both regionally and chronologically, this paper answered old queries and raised new questions on the nature of currency in Ireland. Dr Colmán Etchinghamof the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, was the next speaker of the morning and presented a paper entitled ‘The myth of the Irish monastic town’, in which he revisited a topic which he has discussed in other publications, including in his Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lecture at Cambridge in 2010. Dr. Etchingham provided further evidence in support of his argument that ecclesiastical centres in medieval Ireland did not function as commercial hubs. This included a very worthwhile investigation into the semantics of terms such as ‘óenach’ and ‘marggad’, which took account of the sources in which they appear.
The Lewis Chessmen, image © Trustees of the British Museum
After a short tea break, the third speaker of the morning, Dr Alex Woolfof the University of St Andrews, discussed ‘The bishops in the Lewis chess sets’ and looked in particular at the question of provenance of these famous pieces. This paper also considered the identity of the craftsman who made such pieces as well as other high-quality goods and how the basic materials for manufacture were obtained. The morning was rounded off with a lecture by Professor Helgi Þorláksson, from the University of Iceland, on ‘Between Oddi and the Orkneys: on Icelandic Orcadian connections, c. 1180-1240’. Professor Þorláksson examined the complex relationships between families in these areas and how much insight could be gained from the extant sources regarding their relationships.
In the afternoon, a text seminar was held to investigate three primary texts which had been circulated prior to the seminar. This discussion was led by Dr Máire Ní Mhaonaigh and Dr Elizabeth Ashman Rowe of the Department of ASNC and Dr Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir of the University of Iceland. Dr Rowe introduced a text entitled ‘Gísls þáttr Illugasonar’ in which an Icelander, Gísl, comes to the court of the Irish king Muirchertach as a hostage. Dr Ní Mhaonaigh and Dr Óskarsdóttir presented the Irish text ‘Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh’ and the Icelandic text ‘Njáls saga’ and examined how these texts represented the battle of Clontarf. These two sessions proved how bringing together experts from multiple disciplines to examine textual traditions can provide new insights into the material and help elucidate difficult textual quandaries. The discussion covered a range of topics, including the way in which the Irish language was portrayed in ‘Gísls þáttr Illugasonar’ and the transmission of material about specific events and wider culture phenomena between Ireland and the Norse-speaking world.
This seminar was attended by many of the members of the Faculty from the Department of ASNC, several distinguished speakers and visiting academics, as well as post-graduates and students. This event was an excellent example of how interdisciplinary approaches can hugely benefit research and present new findings. I’m sure that much of what was discussed at this seminar will go on to influence many of the attendees’ work and it is hoped that the many fruitful discourses that began at this seminar will continue for some time to come!
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Irish Songs from Connemara: A Concert by Saileog Ní Cheannabháin
Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson writes:
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Saileog's performance in the ASNC Common Room (photo: Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson)
The concert included versions of several songs from a region of Connemara known as Iorras Aithneach. Ní Cheannabháin has been influenced by singers from this region (among them, her father, Peadair Ó Ceannabháin), and yet her sean-nós style is very much her own. She was awarded the Seán Ó Riada Prize from the Department of Music at University College Cork (2009) for her study of the songs and singers from Iorras Aithneach. Consulting original manuscripts housed in University College Dublin (Ionad Uí Dhuilearga), Ní Cheannabháin researched songs which the Irish musician Séamas Ennis collected in Iorras Aithneach between the years 1942-45, many of which had since disappeared from the local repertoire. With the aim of bringing these songs back into the living tradition, Ní Cheannabháin recovered lyrics and tunes from various manuscripts, interpreted the ornamentations noted by Ennis, and arranged and recorded several of these rare songs on the recently produced CD I bhfíor-dheiriú oídhche.
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Saileog and Andrea in the Red Bull after the performance (photo: Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson)
Saileog Ní Cheannabháin has made a significant contribution to the Irish song tradition, and the ASNC Department extends its thanks and appreciation for a wonderful concert. It is particularly appropriate to commend the work of this young, talented musician during the weeks of Seachtain na Gaeilge (4-17 March), an international celebration of Irish language and culture. Thanks are also extended to ASNC Modern Irish student Andrea Palandri, who helped to bring Saileog Ní Cheannabháin to Cambridge University, Dr Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, Fellow of Clare Hall, who kindly assisted with arrangements, and Charlotte Watkinson, Secretary of the ASNC Department, who offered generous assistance throughout the event. The concert was organized by Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson, Teaching Associate in Modern Irish. The Modern Irish Language courses and cultural events have been supported by a generous grant from the Irish Government.
N.B. Saileog is on Facebook and her page can be found here. Details of her CD can be found here.
N.B. Saileog is on Facebook and her page can be found here. Details of her CD can be found here.
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Vacancy in Celtic History
The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic is currently advertising a one-year teaching associate post in Celtic History to cover a period of leave. The full details are available here, and the closing date for applications is 19th April.
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