{"id":9917,"date":"2021-05-26T23:51:27","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T22:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/?p=9917"},"modified":"2021-05-30T11:24:51","modified_gmt":"2021-05-30T10:24:51","slug":"battling-ducks-other-animals-lych-gates-and-anglo-saxons-busy-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/battling-ducks-other-animals-lych-gates-and-anglo-saxons-busy-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Battling ducks, other animals, lych gates and Anglo-Saxons – busy times!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many apologies to all those who wanted to join the \u2018In conversation with Dr Marc Morris\u2019<\/strong> event on Tuesday evening, we experienced major technical issues just as we were getting started. However, Marc is happy to reschedule, and it will now take place on Wednesday 2 June at 7pm using Teams Live Events<\/strong>. We are keeping our fingers very tightly crossed this time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

For those who would like to join this free, open event<\/strong>, here is the new joining url<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/l\/meetup-join\/19%3ameeting_YTE3MGYyODQtNTcyMi00NTc0LWE3NGItOTQyYjE3NTFhNDgy%40thread.v2\/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%220320b2da-22dd-4dab-8c21-6e644ba14f13%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%225438ffb7-ff66-44f6-9ccf-cf504309571b%22%2c%22IsBroadcastMeeting%22%3atrue%7d&btype=a&role=a<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

or use the short form:<\/strong> https:\/\/bit.ly\/3fPmMHE<\/a>  Booking is not required<\/strong> and for those who do not have Teams, please follow these instructions: as soon as you click on the link or open it in your browser \u2013 if you do not<\/strong> have Teams installed, firstly click ‘cancel’ <\/strong>when it prompts you to open Microsoft Teams; second, select ‘Watch on the web instead’, finally <\/strong>select ‘watch anonymously’ <\/strong>unless you have a Teams or Microsoft account. You will see the event has started or be told, it has not started yet. If the latter, wait for the event to start. There is no limit to the number of times you can retry to enter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Another chance to show the Bookshop’s display<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As before this rescheduled public event sees me \u2018in conversation\u2019 with Dr Marc Morris about his new book The Anglo-Saxons. A History of the Beginnings of England<\/em><\/strong>. Described as \u2018A rich trove of ancient wonders\u2019 and \u2018An absolute masterpiece\u2019 Marc will take us on a voyage of discovery as he draws on original evidence to explore this only dimly understood period of history. Moreover, during this interview he will help us separate truth from legend as he examines not only the well-known figures but also some lesser-known characters. Please do come and join us and if you would like to buy a copy of Marc\u2019s book, please contact the CCCU Bookshop at: https:\/\/bookshop.canterbury.ac.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also next week, but the evening before ie Tuesday 1 June, Dr Diane Heath<\/strong> is going to give one of the free<\/strong> Open Lectures<\/strong> in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Education<\/strong>, beginning at 6.30pm, her talk is entitled \u2018Medieval Animals: teaching green heritage to support SEND children’s emotional engagement\u2019. In her lecture she will focus <\/strong>on Medieval Animals and their rich heritage \u2018afterlife\u2019 in animal history and culture (think Fantastic Beasts and Pokemon but weirder!). Real and imaginary animals depicted in Kent\u2019s medieval books, paintings and sculpture expressed their times\u2019 sense of wonder in the natural world. Among the examples Diane will consider are the animals found in the Rochester Bestiary, on Faversham\u2019s Painted Column and on Minster in Thanet\u2019s 15th<\/sup> century misericords. For, as Diane will relate, St Anselm and other medieval scholars specifically sought to engage people’s feelings by making animals the bearers of emotional meanings. Bringing this to the present day, as Diane will demonstrate, it is feasible and indeed exciting to reimagine their creativity in vital and fascinating ways to aid SEND children understand their emotions by teaching through local green heritage. Booking is required and please use this link to the booking form: https:\/\/www.canterbury.ac.uk\/arts-humanities-and-education\/events\/2021\/public-lecture-series-2021.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leopard head medieval tile<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I thought I would also like to bring you good news about the Lawrence Lyle Memorial Prize<\/strong> which has been awarded to the best Taught MA dissertation in MEMS and Modern History. In 2020 we have three winners, Beth Brown<\/strong>, Lizzie Burton<\/strong> and Ed Skeates<\/strong>. Some of you may remember Beth<\/strong> from her work on the pop-up banners for the exhibition at St Mildred\u2019s church<\/strong>: https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/celebrating-st-mildred-and-other-canterbury-and-kent-saints\/<\/a>  For her dissertation she took a somewhat allied topic in that she explored the eschatological, apocalyptic and millenarian mentalities and their associated emotions found in England between 1300 and 1666. This crossing of periods was an important part of her research that deployed several case studies to assess and evaluate such apocalyptic mentalities because often these ideas and the emotions generated are overlooked by historians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lizzie<\/strong>, too, worked on the history of emotions, although in her case she focused on the nature of charitable giving and receiving involving the rich and poor during the 17th<\/sup> century. For her evidence, she drew heavily on visual and material culture to explore how charitable activities were depicted across different art forms in this period, while her main source for the poor were the petitions made in the late 16th<\/sup> century. Having explored her key questions such as how the rich and poor conceived of charity and what dominant or hidden emotions she could find through her study, she believes she detected what she sees as a turmoil of emotions for both rich and poor, not least because they were caught in a framework that differentiated between the deserving and undeserving poor, another fascinating study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ed<\/strong> looked at how castles were used to imprison people as shown in various chronicles from across the Anglo-Norman world between the 10th and 15th centuries. He looked at different sorts of confinement, how chroniclers presented imprisonment and finally how chronicle translators affect our engagement with these same chronicles. He concluded that within medieval narratives, imprisonment was a valuable tool for the chroniclers regarding ideas such as justice, morality, dynasty and divine providence, more great ideas!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week among those giving seminar presentations on their current research projects to the School of Humanities and Educational Studies Research Seminar<\/strong> was Dr John Bulaitis<\/strong>. John has been working for several years now on his study of tithe and \u2018the tithe wars\u2019 of the early 1930s, especially in Kent and East Anglia, and this summer he hopes to complete his book. As regular readers of the blog will remember, John first spoke about \u2018the battle of the ducks\u2019 at the Michael Nightingale Memorial Lecture<\/strong> in 2015. These lectures are a joint venture between the Centre<\/strong> and the Agricultural Museum, Brook<\/strong>, and for those who would like to refresh their memories, here is the blog on this Nightingale Lecture: https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/rescuing-ducks-and-liberating-sows-the-kentish-tithe-war\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marching against the imposition of tithe payments<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In some ways as a consequence of John\u2019s interest in the history of tithe, the Centre held a conference on the topic in 2017 entitled \u2018Tithe through the Ages: the Historian\u2019s View\u2019<\/strong> that featured in the blog: https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/celebrating-canterbury-conferences-and-paul-bennett-mbe\/<\/a> Again livestock was to the fore, but perhaps pride of place should go to the tithe pig that was immortalized in porcelain and saw rectors and other clerics becoming the staple fodder of illustrators and cartoonists in the 18th<\/sup> century, who saw the corpulent parson in comparison to his skinny parishioners as an easy target. Moreover, it is also worth noting that resistance to tithe payment has a long history in Kent, albeit there were certain areas in the county where this was far more common, including the Romney Marshes, both in the medieval and Tudor periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keeping with the topic of local versus national and farmers (tenants and owner-occupiers) versus great institutions \u2013 Crown, religious houses, I thought I would mention that I tuned into the Cambridge Medieval Economic and Social History<\/strong> seminar this week to see Toby Hrynick\u2019s<\/strong> presentation on \u2018Thirteenth-century customs of Romney Marsh: local government and environmental change\u2019.<\/strong> Toby is a student working under the supervision of Professor Maryanne Kowaleski<\/strong> at Fordham University, New York, and I are grateful to her for alerting me to the seminar. Toby concentrated on the mid thirteenth century because this was a period of crisis as great storms battered the coastline of Kent and the low-lying marshland was especially vulnerable to inundation, but it was also a time of political instability, witness the activities of Simon de Montfort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Toby’s opening slide<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Toby took his audience through the chronology of the apparent growing use of documents produced by the jurors of Romney Marsh who, while stressing the antiquity and authority of their ancient practices of organizing maintenance of drainage features, were actually ensuring their establishment, perhaps for the first time. Moreover, the jurors recognized the value of having Henry III\u2019s approval because royal legitimacy was important, even from a weakened monarchy, and in fact this weakness may have strengthened the hand of the marshland jurors as they sought to establish their authority over the marshland farmers to contribute towards maintaining drainage and sea defences. Interestingly such developments in Romney Marsh apparently coincide with similar activities in the Rhineland, and the borrowing of words and infrastructure ideas also suggests the presence of specialists in both regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This very careful and detailed research is revealing how the local government of marshland drainage developed, as well as the fault lines between the different constituencies on Romney Marsh: the tenants, those from the upper groups in the peasantry, the great landholders, Crown officers such as the sheriff and the king. Consequently, Toby\u2019s presentation generated numerous questions and comments from the audience, and there was general agreement that such a regional study is extremely valuable for the light in sheds on these practices, not least because this in some ways communal governance of the marshland\u2019s defences was seen as a suitable model to be adopted elsewhere, even into the early modern period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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St Martin’s lych gate<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Finally, I thought I would mention that John Hills<\/strong> and I will be doing some filming at St Martin\u2019s lych gate<\/strong> this week as part of an initiative from the sustainability team, including Professor Peter Vujakovic,<\/strong> which is keen to hi-lite biodiversity and heritage on campus and in the UNESCO World Heritage Site<\/strong>. The team would like to engage with a national week celebrating CCCU\u2019s local burial grounds (St Gregory’s and St Martin’s churchyards), hence I\u2019m going to be considering this portal between life and death, a route of passage that none can avoid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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