52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies

Chertsey Combat Tiles. The British Museum, London (1885,1113.9051-9060). Image: The British Museum

Conference Date: May 11, 2017–May 14, 2017 Location: Medieval Institute Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, MI 49008 Session 1 Title: Material Histories of Exchange I: Representations of Cross-Cultural Dress in Byzantium and Beyond (Session 246) Session Date: May 12, 2017 (1:30 PM - 3:00 PM) Session 2 Title: Material Histories of Exchange II: Transmission of Dress and Ornament in Byzantium and Beyond (Session 305) Session Date: May 12, 2017 (3:30 PM - 5:00 PM)

Participants

Session 246

Heather Badamo (University of Santa Barbara)

Co-organizer and presider

Jennifer Ball (Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY)

Monastic Dress Codes and the Secular World

While we often think of Christian monks of the Eastern Mediterranean as wearing austere, plain and coarse clothing, evidence from burials, written descriptions and images of monks demonstrates that monks not only ornamented their clothing but that it was crucial in identifying them as such. For example, Dorotheus of Gaza notes that monks in sixth-century Palestine wore “a purple mark, signifying their fight for Christ, their king” on their tunics. Ornamental markings on monastic clothing signaled not only their vocation, distinguished from members of secular society, but ornament was also used to specify other monastic attributes such as their locale, type of monasticism they practiced, and their rank within their monastery.  Enabled by color and placement on the body, the entire monastic habit consisting of garments and accessories, was recognized by people across great distances, for example Palestine, Constantinople, Egypt and Greece; by Christians and non-Christians; by secular, as well as by other monastics, despite the fact that monastic garments were the same basic ones worn by secular people.  

This paper examines how monastic garments and their ornamentation – the monastic habit - functioned within and outside of monastic culture, in the Byzantine and Islamic lands of the Eastern Mediterranean. The habit communicated with other monks but, significantly, it also demonstrated status in secular society. Often using the same sartorial tropes found in secular society, in both the Christian and Islamic lands, the habit defined the monk to himself and his brothers, but also to outsiders.  For example, images of monks survive who wear belted coats and leggings (aqbiya and ran) associated with the Mamluks, conveying an elite professional status. The movement of codes of dress across monastic and secular networks, which at times could cross great distances, is also addressed.

Antje Bosselmann-Ruickbie (Johannes Gutenberg Universität, Mainz)

Dress Ornamentation in the Late Byzantine Period

Depictions of dresses in the Late Byzantine Period (13th to 15th centuries) often reproduce richly decorated fabrics, for example with animals and mythical beasts such as griffins or sinmurghs but prevailingly with ornaments. Donor’s portraits and depictions of imperial garments are the most rewarding objects for research in this respect since they are very likely to reflect latest fashions.

Many questions can be raised looking at the painted Late Byzantine dresses: to which extend are the dresses and their ornamentation a reflection of reality? Do they represent an exchange of fashions and style? And which are the areas of exchange? Methodologically, one question is crucial: How much can research on ornaments which is still in its beginnings contribute to these questions? We will investigate monumental painting, especially in “hotspots” of cultural exchange such as Mistra but also smaller portraits, for example the donor Maria Komnena on an icon revetment in the Tretjakov Gallery in Moscow. It was made in the late 13th/early 14th century and can be compared to objects from other genres, particularly architectural sculpture.

Annie Montgomery Labatt (University of Texas at San Antonio)

Co-organizer and presenter

Dressing the Magi—Visualizing the Persian East in Early Medieval Italy

In the Christian churches of Santa Maria Maggiore and Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, the three Magi have distinctly Persian dress—Phrygian caps, pearl-punctuated embellishments, brightly colored and pattered leggings, robes, tunics.  Early Christian sarcophagi also show the men with their specialized hats, although without the embellished dress of the monumental mosaic programs.  These imaginative interpretations of Persian dress could play a role in explaining important theological transitions and contrasts.  The exterior display of splendor and richness embodied in the costumes of the Magi contrasts with the more humbly attired Christ Child and, in the case of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, the veiled Madonna.  These magicians of the old world, with their ability to read the stars, are contrasted with the new religion, of which the Christ Child is the star.  

But how did the clothing associated with Persia become part of the conceptualization of the three Magi?  The earliest writings about the Magi are sparse, although the classical names attributed to the men—Balthazar, Caspar, and Melchior—were established by the fifth century.  How can one account for the association of Persian style with these biblical figures?  How did the tradition of such elaborate dress indicate the ways in which early Christian artists may have conceptualized the historical east and their sense of the biblical past?  Finally, how might one approach the appearance of similarly dressed figures in later textiles in which they appear as subjugated slaves, as in the eighth-century roundel of Heraclius?   This paper will address the ways in which the identities of the Magi, as understood in sixth-century Italy, were constructed through dress, through elaborate and variegated clothes which spoke of the wisdom and wealth of a distant and different world.

Session 305

Heather Badamo (University of Santa Barbara)

Co-organizer and presenter

Ceremonial Arms and Armor: Fashioning Visual Charisma in the Mediterranean Court

Arms and armor have long occupied a prominent position within art museums and the discipline of military history, but they have seldom received attention in art history. Yet they display considerable aesthetic and technical sophistication. Surviving examples demonstrate a high level of craftsmanship and rich repertoire of decoration, indicating that this category of artifacts gained high esteem in medieval society. More than military instruments, arms and armor were emblems of authority that played a central role in Mediterranean court societies. As an essential component of elite male dress, arms in particular conveyed messages about rank and office, religious affiliation, economic wealth, and even place of origin. For this reason, descriptions of arms and armor appear in accounts of diplomatic receptions, court ceremonies, and the hunt – occasions in which the capacities of dress to speak to both internal and external audiences was of paramount importance.

This paper considers the role of medieval arms and armor as elements of ceremonial dress, drawing attention to their particular cultural resonances and expressive capacities. It considers a range of artifacts and textual sources (military manuals, poetry, epics, and gift lists) drawn from the Byzantine, Crusader, and Islamic lands from the ninth through fourteenth centuries. Focusing on the courtly setting, it investigates evidence for the use of arms in armor in creating visual forms of charisma intended to overwhelm and intimidate beholders. What emerges from this study is the ways in which armaments performed in a manner analogous to other court technologies such as automata, but in a form that makes explicit the military prowess that undergirded relationships both within and between polities.

Annie Montgomery Labatt (University of Texas at San Antonio)

Co-organizer and presider

Amanda Luyster (College of The Holy Cross)

English Visions of the East in Textile and Floor Tile: Multicultural Imagery under Henry III and Eleanor of Provence (c. 1250)

In this paper, I examine the cosmopolitan construction of English rulership by reassessing an enigmatic set of floor tiles, the Chertsey combat tiles (c. 1250), and concluding that they witness sustained dialogue with eastern Mediterranean cultures.  England’s fascination with the art and material (especially textile) production of this region are seen to operate in conjunction with Crusading culture, which played importantly in royal rhetoric.  I am not the first or the only scholar to draw connections between English production and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean, specifically Byzantine, eastern Christian, and Islamic traditions adjacent to and including the Holy Land.  However, the case study I present helps us to understand the prominence and prevalence of such imagery in English court circles in the mid-thirteenth century.

The so-called Chertsey tiles, from the time of their rediscovery in the nineteenth century, have been among the most admired medieval floor tiles in England. Named after the site where they were first uncovered, Chertsey Abbey in Surrey (some 25 miles southwest of London), the Chertsey tiles have been generally agreed to derive from the royal patronage of King Henry III (or, I think more likely, his wife, Eleanor of Provence) at another site, probably a palace. The tiles discovered at Chertsey include more than one series; this paper focuses on the combat series. These tiles depict the duel of Richard and Saladin and other combats depicting mounted archers, knights, Saracens, and lions.  The Richard and Saladin tiles have drawn attention in exhibitions in Germany, the U.S., and elsewhere due to their fine and appealing drawing style and Crusading themes.

Previous scholarship has recognized the duel of Richard and Saladin as well as the combat of Samson and the lion in this series of tiles, concluding that the scene depicts a series of famous combats. Relying both on visual evidence and on fragmented inscriptions which I have reconstructed, I suggest instead that these tiles are meant to evoke the east as a context for the Crusading deeds of Richard the Lionheart.  The inscriptions direct our attention not only to the identity of Richard and Saladin but also to the weapons and specific actions in the melee.  The “lion” combats visually reference the “lion heart” of Richard the Crusader himself as shown his exploits in the east.  The Samson combat marks the setting as that of the Bible, the lands of the Levant, where lions were thought to live.  The more generic archers and mounted knights shoot arrows across the floor, wounding Saracens, making of the entire tiled floor a battle in full action, within which, of course, the most famous deed is that of Richard’s heroic dispatch of Saladin, who is shown falling limply from his weakened horse.   The effect of this evocation of the east, however, is not limited to the context of royal Crusading rhetoric, but should be seen as a part of broader English efforts to incorporate the rich visual heritage of the eastern Mediterranean into their own expressions of power.

The combat tiles should also be viewed in the context of an English fascination with Byzantine and Islamic textiles. As I will show, the overall “medallion” composition of the tiled floor (framed roundels set into a foliate surround, with smaller motifs in between) and the type of iconographic motifs (mounted archers, mounted warriors, Samson) map closely onto specific eastern (often Byzantine) textiles, including the so-called “hunter silks.”  Textile finds, for instance those associated with the bodies of St. Edward the Confessor and St. Cuthbert, have previously provided evidence of English use of Byzantine and Islamic textiles, and so such interest is not entirely unexpected.  Inventories also witness English interest in foreign textiles, including “cloth of Antioch,” “Saracen” cloth, “imperial” (Byzantine) textiles, and luxury silk “baudekin” from the east, as previous scholarship has noted.  Furthermore, inventory entries show that Henry III owned multiple imported silk textiles, including one depicting “Samson,” and that his son, Edward I, owned a “baudekin” showing mounted knights in roundels. The English court provided a showcase for Byzantine medallion-design textiles and other fine eastern silks in terms of dress and other means of display, including canopies and other furnishings.  The Chertsey combat tiles also suggest aesthetic and intellectual engagement with such eastern textiles, in that certain elements seem to be imitated while others are changed.  

Crusading rhetoric was clearly important to Henry III and Eleanor of Provence and to those surrounding them.  Henry III and many English nobles (probably including Eleanor) vowed to go on Crusade in 1250.   However, this tiled pavement, I suggest, operates even more broadly.  The centuries-long English use of eastern textiles in association with special bodies, royal and sanctified, also needs to be brought to bear.   I suggest that these tiles also act, like the garments of “most precious baudekin” worn by Henry III in 1247, and like the Byzantine textile used to shroud the bones of another English king, Saint Edward the Confessor, and like the uncut imported silks used to cover the coffins of many deceased royals, to mark out the specialness of the royal family.  Among these “special” royal qualities, one must note the royal family’s actual (as witnessed by inventories) and apparent (as in the tiles) special access to the rare luxury fabrics of the east, access which could have been provided by diplomatic contacts, or through travel, or through sufficient wealth. These textile-seeming floor tiles, then, mark out the spaces inhabited by such special bodies.  Finally, then, the frequent association of eastern textiles with the bones and relics of saints links such textiles to the history of Christianity, not just in the Holy Land but in England too, as they were used for English saints and in English churches.  Therefore, in using imagery which resonates with eastern textiles, on English ground and for English monarchs, Eleanor and her husband stake a claim for themselves within that greater history of Christianity and empire, within the exotic luxury of gold threads and silk, within the rare air of sanctity.

Elizabeth Dospel Williams (Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection)

Appealing to the Senses: Experiencing Adornment in the Early Medieval Mediterranean
 
Byzantine and early Islamic jewelry is usually discussed in terms of its technical details and visual impact, while scholarship on clothing of these same periods usually addresses issues of group and individual identities and questions of fashion. This paper takes a different approach to this material by considering the broader sensorial effects of jewelry and dress as expressed in written, visual, and material evidence from Byzantium and the Islamic world from the sixth to the twelfth centuries CE.

First, Byzantine and early Islamic textual sources address in some detail the appearances, smells, and sounds of jewelry and clothing. Al-Kitab al-Muwashsha (The Brocaded Book), for example, relays substantial information about the sensory effects of stylish men’s and women’s dress in ninth-century Baghdad. Second, close visual analysis of representations of female dancers and musicians provide information about the sensory effects of adornment and dress. An eleventh-century Fatimid depiction of an entertainer with a lute evokes the enjoyments of musical performance, and aligns closely with textual sources describing the pleasures of singing girls. Lastly, surviving objects from sixth- through eleventh-century contexts provide ample evidence for the visual, auditory, and olfactory pleasures adornment gave to wearers and viewers. These include basket-shaped earrings from eastern Mediterranean contexts, some of which preserved small bits of fabric, likely once dipped in scent.

Perhaps the most important issue to emerge from these considerations concerns the “visibility” of women in the early medieval eastern Mediterranean. By drawing attention to the multisensory experience of adornment, it becomes possible to rethink how scholars define medieval women’s “visibility,” which should now also encompass auditory and olfactory presence.