Category Archives: History

February 24, 2013

Hollywood History

By daseger

This has been quite the year for historical movies: the majority of best-picture nominees are set in the past, even if it’s the relatively recent past of Argo and the very recent past of Zero Dark Thirty. In addition, there has been lots of discussion about the historical accuracy of these films which, while occasionally interesting (particularly the Connecticut v. Lincoln controversy, initiated when Connecticut congressman Tom Coutenay criticizing the film for its portrayal of two fictional Connecticut congressmen voting against the 13th amendment when in fact all four congressmen from the state voted for the amendment outlawing slavery) is hardly news. All historians know that “historical” films are never accurate, but I, for one, still have my favorite films set in the past. I like these films for various reasons– the feelings they provoke, the certain aura or spirit that they might capture, the way they look, the performances, the soundtracks– but I rarely learn anything from them. There are some films that I like to show in class just because they provide a lesson in just how inaccurate “historical” films can be!

So, in honor of Oscar night, here are my top ten period films, in chronological order of setting. I’ve left out the major epic movies, most of which I do not like either as movies or history, in favor of “smaller” films that are personal favorites. And remember, I teach medieval and early modern history, so most of my films come from these eras: sorry, no World War II films, guys (I actually like war films, but I’m more of the Mrs. Miniver and Best Years of Our Lives type, with the exception of submarine movies, which for some reason I adore. If I could add an eleventh film, it would be Das Boot).

Medieval Movies:

The Thirteenth Warrior (1998): this film was a financial and critical failure, but I like it, or parts of it. Based on Michael Chrichton’s novel Eaters of the Dead, the plot is a curious combination of Beowulf, pre-Christian Scandinavian culture, and a real early medieval source: the Risala of Ibn Fadlan, the chronicle of a 10th century Arab diplomat who journeyed to eastern Europe and Russia and encountered the Vikings along the way.

Valhalla Rising (2009): an extremely atmospheric film in which a one-eyed Norse warrior (Odin?) and his child companion go on a mysterious journey, and end up in the New World. They come out of the fog into a dramatic encounter with Native Americans (apparently played by Tibetans) at the very end of the film. This is not an easy film, but its marriage of mysticism and blind faith are pretty compelling.

The Seventh Seal (1957): Ingmar Bergman’s classic film about a returning Swedish (again–I didn’t realize I was so obsessed with Scandinavia before writing this post!) Crusader’s encounter with the Black Death and Death Personified, with whom he plays chess intermittently throughout the films until Death wins. The scene in which the knight and his companions wait for death/Death at dinner in his castle is haunting, as is their “Dance of Death” at the very end of the film. This is one of the few films which I try to show in its entirety in class, rather than just clips, and the students usually get (into) it.

A Knight’s Tale (2001): and on a much lighter note………….you might be surprised to find this film on my list but I love this film’s spirit as well as its use of very deliberate anachronisms. I like to think of Chaucer’s world this way. You can’t recreate the fourteenth century on film anyway, so you might as well have fun!

Henry V (1989): this is my favorite Shakespeare film as well as my favorite Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare film. The St. Crispin’s Day speech is of course extremely inspiring, as is the score by Patrick Doyle, most especially the choral epilogue at the end of the Battle of Agincourt: “Non Nobis, Domine”. Most students have a rather romantic view of medieval warfare, which the long and bloody battle scene helps to dispel.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928): it is difficult to over-emphasize the power of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s film, which narrates the examination, trial and execution of Joan of Arc in 1431 through extreme close-ups of the participants, warts and all. The master negative of the film was destroyed in a lab fire only a year after its release, and so the complete film was lost for decades, until a copy was miraculously found in the closet of a Norwegian mental hospital in the early 1980s. The DVD release in the 1990s includes an oratorio by Richard Einhorn called “Voices of Light” which actually makes the silent film even more compelling, but the real star of the production is actress Renée Jeanne Falconetti, who appears to be in a near-ecstatic state for most of the film, as if possessed by Joan.

A Queen and Two Kings:

Elizabeth (1998): this film is a historical hot mess which plays with chronology and the facts with abandon—and the sets are terrible. Nevertheless I do like Cate Blanchett’s characterization of the young Elizabeth, and the movie is useful to me as I can teach against it. I really like the poster too: I have framed versions in both my university and home offices.

A Man for all Seasons (1966): now here is an example of much more subtle anachronism, with Thomas More not only deified for his faith, but also for his individualism. There were so many English “historical” movies made in the 1960s (The Lion in Winter, Becket, Anne of the Thousand Days, Mary Queen of Scots, Lawrence of Arabia, etc…) that I felt that I should include one, and More’s struggle between conscience and obligation to Henry VIII is universally appealing. Paul Scofield as More and Richard Shaw as Henry VIII are both great; in fact, Shaw is probably my favorite screen Henry VIII. If I show clips in class, however, I feel that I have to balance the film’s portrayal of More’s resolute passage to martyrdom with his zealous persecution of Protestants.

The Madness of King George (1994): a very entertaining presentation of King George III’s descent (and recovery) into a porphyria-induced insanity in the late eighteenth century, and the ensuing Regency Crisis. The actual events seem to be accurately, albeit dramatically, portrayed, but this is not really my period so I can’t critique accuracy; I’m just entertained. Nigel Hawthorne as King George is amazing in this film; he was robbed by Forrest Gump of the Oscar that year.

One War Film:

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930): an extremely powerful view of another descent, of innocent, whipped-up German boys into the hell of World War One. This film was on TCM several weeks ago and I sat watching it, riveted, even while it was extremely difficult to do so. I think this movie benefits from its age; you can tell that it was made by the same generation that experienced the first World War. And of course all the battle scenes would be computer-generated if the film were made today, which would transition it into video-game territory and rob it of its humanistic power.

So there you have it: my top ten list of historical films–for now. This was tough; I think I would come up with a different list next week, or maybe even tomorrow. All comments and suggestions are more than welcome (even for war films): the list is always subject to substitutions.

19 Comments | tags: Culture, films, Medieval | posted in Culture, Current Events, History

February 22, 2013

Double Houses

By daseger

Our house is part of a double house, in which a central party wall divides two autonomous units, a not-uncommon configuration in historic urban areas, large and small. Though, as you will see in my pictures below, double houses are not exclusively urban constructions. I love living in our half of the double house, primarily because we have great neighbors, but also because there are no restrictions on privacy and lots of economic benefits which derive from the common wall: I am certain that the heating bills for my very large house would be a lot higher without it! Our particular property has very private spaces out back as well, as the previous owners of my house (several previous owners ago) extended an addition to my neighbors’ barn, creating separate courtyard gardens on each side. While our houses started out as mirror images of each other, many changes have been made over the nearly 2 centuries of the building’s existence, mostly to my side. Even though they are semi-detached (to use the British term), we could even paint our houses different colors if we wanted to (but we don’t).

It seems that every double house has its own story: many were built by and for family members, but not all. Here in Salem, there are several instances of fathers constructing double houses for their marrying daughters (in one case, daughters who are marrying brothers!). There are also business partnerships behind the construction of double houses. Here on Chestnut Street and in the surrounding McIntire Historic District, I think builders were running out of land on which to build, and double-house construction offered an economic way to build two houses in a fashionable neighborhood. I know that’s the story with our house, which was built by the distiller-developer Deacon John Stone who lived across the street: he bought the lot as an investment, and constructed our house as an investment property, to be let out on both sides. Quite soon after its erection, both sides of the house were sold to different families, and then its separate-but-connected history began. Some double houses were converted from single houses; some single houses were extended to become double houses.

My favorite double house (besides my own, of course) is not in an urban setting or even in Salem: it is in Byfield, Massachusetts, on a rural country road. I don’t know anything about its construction, but the fact it is built in the midst of isolated farm/marshland leads me to believe there was a family connection; I can’t imagine strangers living side by side but maybe its dwellers were looking for close comfort. On the day before the big snowstorm a couple of weeks ago, I was up in that part of Essex County, so I took some pictures of the Byfield house and some other double houses in nearby Newburyport, Newbury and Essex.

Double House on the Marsh, Byfield, Massachusetts, the former Newburyport Academy on High Street in Newburyport, converted into a double house in 1842; the Swett-Ilsley House (Historic New England), which began its life as a single house in 1670 and then was extended (HABS photograph from 1940, Library of Congress); a double house in Ipswich.

Double houses in Salem are for the most part more straightforward constructions, but as is the case with our house, changes to the exterior on one side or another over time distort the mirror image, but usually in a relatively graceful way. There are lots of added bay windows and rear and side additions. I’ve don’t have any interior images today, but the comparative interiors of a double house often provide an interesting lesson in architectural history; generally one side is a bit more pristine and the other a bit more “modern”. There are lots of double houses in Salem, in every area of the downtown, so I chose a chronological sampling of those in my immediate neighborhood, and I’m picturing them in chronological order, starting with the Pickering-Mack-Stone double house on Chestnut Street, which was built in 1814-15 for two Pickering brothers. The western (right-hand) half of this house is currently for sale: it has absolutely beautiful “bones”, a Federal carriage house out back, and, according to Bryant Tolles’ Architecture in Salem, Andrew Jackson was entertained there in 1833 on a presidential visit to Salem.

Frank Cousins photograph of Chestnut Street in the 1890s, New York Public Library.

Next are two great Greek Revival double houses, the Thompson-West double house, built in 1845-46 on Chestnut Street (note the entrance bay window added to the left-hand side later in the nineteenth century), and the Nancy Courtis double house, built in the following year on Federal Street. Miss Courtis was a “singlewoman” who built the house and lived on one side her entire life while leasing out the other, no doubt a convenient arrangement for her. It’s a striking house, made all the more so because of its paint scheme.

And last but certainly not least, two Victorian double houses in the same general area. I’m really not sure about the date of this first house, which is further along Federal Street from the Courtis house: it looks like it was built in the 1850s or 1860s to me, but I could be wrong. I wanted to include it because of its doorways, which are not located adjacent to each other but at opposite ends of the building. This seems a bit unusual to me, especially for a town house. Both sides of the house have their addition wings off the side,and matching dormer windows as well. The paint color (a very dark purple with salmon-orange doors) makes this house really stand out on the street. The last house, on Hamilton Street, was built in 1890 for the Reverend James Potter Franks, long-time rector at Grace Episcopal Church around the corner, and his daughters. The gabled entrance really stands out on this house; it is clearly the result of deliberate design rather than organic evolution.

14 Comments | tags: Architecture, Chestnut Street, Historic Preservation, Massachusetts, urban planning | posted in History, Home, Houses, Paper

February 20, 2013

A Sentimentalist in Salem

By daseger

For me (so far), blogging is a remarkably easy, even effortless activity; every post comes from 1) a walk or a drive; 2) a glance at the calendar; 3) reading–either for pleasure or class preparation; 4) looking at art-again, either for pleasure or class prep; and 5) stumbling around the web. Since I do all of these things daily blog posts naturally follow, without much consternation. But there is one more source of inspiration that is a bit less immediate: my digital folders of things (images, articles, news items) that catch my interest but are so singular that they don’t really call to mind some larger topical theme–even one sufficient for a fleeting post. Most of these items have no context, but if you keep collecting them, patterns emerge.

A good case in point is my rather bulging (if digital files could, in fact, bulge) file which I have labeled “Fading Salem”. In this file are a number of items and articles from national periodicals about how far Salem has fallen from the glorious heights of its commercial ascendency at the beginning of the nineteenth century. These items all date from the period 1850-1914: the end date does not refer to the beginning of World War I (as it would for the rest of the world) but rather to the Great Salem Fire. There are references to crime and poverty, general malaise (one item is even titled “Dull Salem”) and the faded grandeur of “old Salem”. As the century turns, there is definitely an emphasis on the latter: rather than looking at Salem as in decline, a succession of observers note how well-preserved it is, and how it serves as a bastion of tradition in a rapidly-changing world. There is one article that captures this transition perfectly, written and illustrated by a Canadian-born artist named Charles Henry White and published in Harper’s Monthly Magazine in June of 1908. White (1878-1918) traveled around the country sketching and writing little impressions of a host of American cities for Harper’s in the first decade of the twentieth century; before he came to Salem he had produced articles on New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Charleston, Richmond, New Orleans, Boston and Philadelphia, and his view of Washington D.C., “Queer Folk at the Capital”, came a year after his “Salem” article. Just before the war broke out, he was off to Europe, where he eventually died in 1918 at age 40.

White starts out with the traditional late-nineteenth century impression of Salem: As you center Derby Street on your way to the Custom House, where, in more prosperous times, the main current of the commercial life of the city ebbed and flowed, making the streets ring with the cheerful din of business activity, and reach the deserted quays, you feel not unlike a stranger who has wandered into an abandoned theater and walks alone across the stage, picking his way gingerly through the tattered scenery, long after generations of actors who made the place echo with their laughter have departed.

Frankly, his writing is a little dramatic for me but I do like his accompanying illustrations.

C.H. White, “Deserted Quays once Redolent with Foreign Spices”, 1908.

As he strolls around town, it does not take long for White to discover a more charming Salem. Just a step away from the rotting wharves, he finds himself continually stumbling across eloquent reminders of past splendor in the numerous old mansions of former Salem merchants, still marshalled in broken line, looking seaward, with their graceful porticos tufted with ivy, fluttering in the clear sunlight……and he goes on and on: the streets, spanned by titanic elms, become cathedral naves; and through the lofty arch of whispering foliage steal at infrequent intervals into the cool depths below shafts of limpid sunlight, sifting across the splendid rows of Colonial mansions….and I could go on and on quoting him, but you get the general idea. And again, I think his etchings are more eloquent.

C.H. White, views of Chestnut and Essex Streets, Salem, 1908.

Fortunately few of the stately mansions that White alludes to throughout his piece were swept away by the fire a few years later; but much later in the century the “titanic elms” were of course decimated by Dutch Elm Disease. So there is an aura of bittersweetness when one reads his words with the benefit of hindsight, knowing what was on the horizon for those trees, for Salem, for the world, and for White himself in five short years.

C.H. White, “Lower Salem” and “An Old Corner”, Harper’s Monthly Magazine, June, 1908.

11 Comments | tags: Antiques and Collectibles, Art, ephemera, Flora and Fauna, writing | posted in History, Salem

February 18, 2013

Presidential Plates

By daseger

Because I dislike Presidents Day so much (because of its ahistorical morphing of all the presidents together, thus denying their individual achievements, as well as the fact that it never seems to occur on the actual date of either Washington’s or Lincoln’s birthdays, the particular presidents it claims to commemorate), I’m going to downplay the historical and emphasize the material today with a very brief examination of Presidential china. The morphing of presidents is a very popular pastime today (see this viral video), but I prefer not to morph.

I spent (another) snowy afternoon looking through two books (Official White House China by Margaret Brown Klapthor and Susan Gray Detweiler’s American Presidential China. The Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art) and accessing two online sources (the White House Historical Association’s “Picturing the President’s House” digital series (so well done!) and the McNeil Americana Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art) and quickly formed an impression of presidential plates: those from the first century of the presidency are far more aesthetically pleasing and interesting than those from the second. Twentieth-century presidential china is, for the most part, boring.

Here are some of the early presidential plates, starting with that of the Washingtons, a gift to Martha from Dutch East India trader Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest, who commissioned the design in Canton, China. I love the chain of 15 states, the state of the union in 1796. The service commissioned by James and Elizabeth Monroe from the French firm of Dagoty-Honoré is considered the first official White House china because of its patriotic motif: surrounding the eagle are five vignettes depicting Strength, Agriculture, Commerce, Art, and Science, the foundations of the new nation. Successive presidents apparently used the large Monroe service (400+ pieces) for big state dinners but also brought their own china into the White House for daily use: Mr. and Mrs. John Quincy Adams used this neoclassical service (with seahorse motifs), likely manufactured by the La Courtille Factory in Paris and purchased during Mr. Adams’ earlier diplomatic service in Europe, during their time in office.

Porcelain plates used during the Washington, Monroe, and Adams administrations, McNeil Americana Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

There is no doubt that the star of early presidential china was the set purchased by James and Dolley Madison from the Nast Factory in Paris: an absolutely stunning (and modern!) design featuring wheels, of all motifs. It seems to be very sought after; at first I thought this was because of its relative rarity, given the fact that the Madison White House was burned down by the British in 1814. But it seems like most of the service survived (did Dolley sneak it out in the last hours, along with that great portrait of George Washington?), so I think its value must be based on the unusual design. I love it, and am even tempted to buy a copy–nearly every presidential library’s shop, including the JFK Library here in Massachusetts, seems to offer reproduction presidential china produced by Woodmere.

The Madison China, purchased c. 1806 from the Nast Factory in Paris. Plate and sauce boat, Philadelphia Museum of Art; dessert cooler, White House Historical Association.

The Lincoln “Royal Purple” china, pictured below on the cover of Detweiler’s book, was certainly expensive, like most of Mary Todd Lincoln’s White House “improvements”, but it seems to have stood the test of time and was supplemented and complemented by later sets. The scalloped shape set it apart from its predecessors, and like all White House china commissioned before 1918, it was made in France, by Haviland.

In terms of their china choices, the two most innovative, or nationalistic (as well as naturalistic), first ladies were Lucy Webb Hayes and Caroline Harrison. Quite by chance, Mrs. Hayes met an artist and reporter for Harper’s Weekly named Theodore R. Davis who convinced her to use native American flora and fauna in the design of a new White House service in 1880; the end result, designed by Davis in collaboration with the Haviland Factory in Limoges, France, was a rather dramatic departure from the traditional styles of the mid-nineteenth century. A decade later, Mrs. Harrison incorporated the naturalistic theme in her own design, but also paid tribute to tradition with the eagle and stars, and to Mrs. Lincoln’s plates with the scalloped edge.

Soup plate and serving platter from the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes, designed by Theodore R. Davis in collaboration with the Haviland Factory, Limoges France, 1880, Philadelphia Museum of Art and White House Historical Association; A soup plate designed by Mrs. Benjamin Harrison (Caroline Lavinia Scott) and manufactured by Tressemanes and Vogt, Limoges, France, 1891.

With the arrival of the twentieth century we come to the era of domestic production (mostly by Lenox) and rather boring bands: lots of gold, along with blue (Roosevelt), green (Truman and Bush), red (Reagan), and yellow (Clinton). The only departure from these restrained designs seems to be the Johnson wildflowers. I’m not sure what the Obama plans are regarding china, but in the mean time, we do have the “Abraham Obama” tea set by Ron English ( I suppose I am engaging in a little bit of presidential morphing after all) and you can also custom order your own flowered presidential plate here; I might go for Teddy Roosevelt myself.

6 Comments | tags: Abraham Lincoln, Antiques and Collectibles, Etsy, George Washington, holidays, Pottery | posted in History

February 14, 2013

Queen of Hearts

By daseger

She appears first in late medieval decks of cards, perhaps representing the biblical Judith or some contemporary Queen, and experiences a great expansion in her popularity in the nineteenth century, first with Charles Lamb’s poem, and then with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Now she is ingrained in our culture, certainly more so than any of the other queens in the pack. For this Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d examine the evolving image of the Queen of Hearts, even though (to be honest) she’s not really the most romantic character.

A silver queen of hearts from an Augsburg deck, 1595-1600, after the French suits of hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs had been standardized across Europe.

I know it seems like she’s been around forever, but the tart-baking queen does not appear in printed verse until the later eighteenth century, and a few decades later the English poet Charles Lamb published the King and Queen of Hearts: with the Rogueries of the Knave who stole the Queen’s Pies (1805) which really took her out of the pack. This is our most earnest Queen of Hearts, working hard to please her man, only to have her efforts foiled by that dastardly knave! Though this little story was not intended to be a nursery rhyme, it became one, primarily through the efforts of children’s book illustrators in the nineteenth century. A more elegant tart-baking Queen became the focus on one of Randolph Caldecott’s “Picture Books” in 1881, and the playing card Queen merges with the lyrical one in the “Nursery Rhyme” transformation deck from about the same time. And since she bakes, the Queen of Hearts was a perfect character for Victorian greeting cards celebrating hospitality and domesticity, at Christmas or throughout the year.

Title and first page from Charles Lamb’s King and Queen of Hearts (1805); Cover and illustrations from Randolph Caldecott’s Queen of Hearts (1881); Cobbler advertisement from 1890 (British Library); Prang of Boston Christmas Card from 1896; The Queen of Hearts card from the “Nursery Rhymes” deck, c. 1880.

The Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) is impatient, scary, and of course judgmental, pointing in the iconic John Tenniel illustration and for at least a century afterwards. She doesn’t seem to be able to break free of that posture until after World War II, but even when she does, she is a formidable presence.

John Tenniel illustration from the first edition of Lewis Carrol’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1665); the Queen in a dramatic version of Alice adapted by Emily Prime Delafield (1897), and a rough drawing and finished illustration of the Queen by British illustrator Marvyn Peake for the 1954 edition of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

Peake’s post-war Queen is more than formidable; she is menacing–especially the drawing on the left. He started his work on Alice right after he returned to Britain from war-torn Germany, where he had seen not only devastated cities but the newly-liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, so clearly he had a darker vision than Tenniel and his immediate successors.

By about 1890, the Queen of Heats makes her appearance on a succession of mass-produced Valentine’s Day cards. She is at first rather recognizable, as in the first Raphael Tuck card below, and then rather more generic. That’s the impact of mass production in an age of insurgent democracy: everyone can be a Queen.

Then again, several very distinct personalities also took on the persona of the Queen of Hearts, including the “it” girl Evelyn Nesbit Shaw a century ago and Diana, Princess of Wales, more recently. Even though she doesn’t quite fit this theme, I have got to put Ginger Rogers in here as well, if only because she wore (in Carefree, 1938) the best Valentine’s Day dress, ever.

Evelyn Nesbit as the Queen of Hearts, Punch Magazine, 1904; a still from Carefree (1938) with Ginger Rogers in the iconic hearts and arrows dress.

5 Comments | tags: Art, ephemera, holidays, illustration, Valentine's Day | posted in Culture, History

February 12, 2013

Love, Illuminated

By daseger

I’m not really the romantic type, but even I can appreciate Pierre Sala’s “Le Petit Livre d’Amour”, the little book of love that French poet Pierre Sala presented to his future wife Marguerite Bullioud in the early sixteenth century. For me, the combination of illuminated miniatures and Sala’s verse are a testament to both personal and courtly love, for Sala was that ideal Renaissance Man, an accomplished courtier to three French kings. But he was also a rather whimsical poet, and the images (énigmes attributed to the mysterious “Master of the Chronique scandaleuse”) are so completely charming that one cannot help being……….charmed. A look at this little book is the perfect way to start off what has become Valentine’s Day week.

Sala declares himself right at the beginning, when he gives his strawberry-like heart to Marguerite, or drops his heart in a marguerite flower, a rather more exotic example of our own marguerite daisies. Then it’s games and desperation, as he is parted from the object of his affection. The most captivating miniature is of a pair of maidens capturing hearts, literally: hearts that can easily fly away!

British Library MS Stowe 955.

Sala’s book is one of several iconic manuscripts (including da Vinci’s notebooks and Beowulf) recently digitized by the British Library: you can find out more about these treasures here, and additional information and images of the “Petite Livre” here. The book was presented (and still is) in its own wooden carrying case, covered with tooled, painted and gilded leather, with the letters “P” and “M” prominently displayed, of course. At the end, there is a stunning portrait of Sala, in which he even looks like the ultimate Renaissance man! It was painted by his fellow courtier, the royal painter and limner Jean Perréal, who, according to the British Library catalogue notes, was also supposed to paint in Sala’s face in the book’s first heart-dropping image. Somehow that never happened, which makes the book even more charming in its imperfection.

British Library MS Stowe 955, folio 17: Pierre Sala (1457-1529).

P.S. There is an apparently-beautiful facsimile of The Little Book of Love out there in limited quantities (for you Romantic types out there) but I wasn’t able to find a copy that was either available or for less than $6500.

11 Comments | tags: Art, books, British Library, holidays, Manuscripts, Renaissance | posted in History

February 7, 2013

Royal Entries (and Exits)

By daseger

The thought of Richard III’s re-interment ceremony got me thinking about the royal festivals of the early modern era, when every coronation, wedding, procession, visitation or funeral was projected to peers and the public via the new medium of print. The festival books that record (or make up) these events are great examples of “official history”, or propaganda. If it was logistically impossible for the “new” monarchs of the sixteenth and seventeenth century to project absolute authority, they could at least project magnificence, even, as in the case of Richard’s vanquisher, Henry VII, and his granddaughter Elizabeth I, in death.

The Death of Henry VII in 1509 at Richmond Palace, British Library MS Additional 45131,f.54; Funeral procession of Elizabeth I, 1603, British Library MS. Add. 35 324, fol.37v.

But these solemn displays were nothing compared to the elaborate events that occurred on the Continent, which were recorded in both lavish manuscript books and well as more spare printed texts. The British Library has digitized much of its collection of festival books, and assembled a comprehensive site where you can access over 250 texts in addition to links to other collections and scholarly context and analysis. In these texts, you can read about, and see, all sorts of amazing events staged to mark the “joyful entries” of Renaissance monarchs: processions (with detailed lists of participants), tournaments, masques and other theatrical performances, ballets, water spectacles, fireworks, and all sorts of temporary architectural and/or mechanical constructions. The effort and expensive that went into these festivities is all the more impressive (and of course, seemingly wasteful) because the moments are so fleeting. A great example of flagrant-display-for-very-little-purpose was the meeting of Kings Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France near Calais in June of 1520, which became known as the Field of Cloth of Gold because of the profligate use of gold for the pavilion tents and presentation clothing of the participants. The two kings achieved very little (besides a wrestling match in which Francis bested Henry), but they put on a great show.

British Library-G.1209.(3)_c3499_02_0006_01

Royal Entry MS Augustus III, 18 Gold 1520

Royal Entry BL Cotton Augustus III f 19 framed

Field of Cloth of Gold Richard Doyle framed

A printed account of the Field of Cloth of Gold, and two illustrations of the Pavilion tents, British Library MS Cotton Augustus III, folios 18-19; Punch caricaturist Richard Doyle’s cartoon of the wrestling match between Francis I and Henry VIII, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

For both aesthetic and pedagogical reasons (and because it provokes shock and awe among my students), my favorite festival book is a beautifully illustrated account of the promenade into Antwerp of François,the Duke of Alencon and Anjou, in 1582. This elaborately-staged “joyous entry” was in fact an attempted conquest by the heir to the French throne (and Elizabeth’s serious suitor) in disguise, and the Duke barely escaped with his life. But what does that matter? There was an elephant in the parade!

British Library- C.22.c.12 c1742_11_0280+001

British Library- C.22.c.12 c1748_02_0280+036

British Library- C.22.c.12 c1748_04_0280+044

British Library- C.22.c.12 c1748_01_0280+023

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Title page and Scenes from La ioyeuse [et] magnifique entrée de monseigneur Francoys, fils de France, et frere unicque du roy, par la grace de dieu, duc de Brabant, d’Anjou, Alencon, Berri, [et]c. en sa tres-renomée ville d’Anvers (Antwerp, 1582), British Library.

5 Comments | tags: Art, books, British Library, ephemera, print culture, Renaissance | posted in Culture, History

February 5, 2013

Rest for Richard

By daseger

Now that it has been confirmed that the skeletal remains found underneath a parking lot in Leicester, England are indeed those of the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, at last he can be laid to rest in a place and manner befitting a king. His advocates, the Riccardians, have been uncharacteristically divided in the past few months over the burial: should Richard have a grand state funeral and be laid to rest in Westminster Cathedral, or remain in Leicester, or be interred at York Minster, which he himself might have desired? I took note of more than one newspaper British headline that read Bones of Contention, but in the end Leicester won out, so Richard’s bones will not have to travel very far.

I’ve already posted about Richard and the discovery of his bones, so today I have some rather random thoughts about reactions to their verification. My first thought upon hearing the news was for Josephine Tey, who wrote the 1951 historical detective novel (one of the first of its genre?) Daughter of Time about a twentieth-century detective’s efforts to untangle the Tudor mythology of Richard’s life and death. This little book definitely sparked my own interest in history when I first read it in my teens, and I’ve seen it have the same effect on countless students and friends. Though the recovery of Richard’s remains sheds little light on his life deeds and misdeeds, he is forever linked with historical curiosity for me.

The cover of the first edition of Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time, 1951.

And that really is the key point. Curiosity, and engagement, are fostered by uncertainty about the past more so than any presentation of supposedly well-established “facts”. It’s been so exciting to see historians, scientists, and the general public engage with each other over the discovery of the remains of a long-dead king, and a short-lived and unpopular one at that. This engagement might not be palpable here in the United States (where I heard a succession of broadcasters take great pains to point out that this was Richard III, not Richard the Lionheart) but it sure was coming over loud and clear on my Twitter feed (along with a lot of bad jokes: a hearse, a hearse, my kingdom for a hearse!).

The other thing I have noticed (watching from afar) is the very personal, even intimate, nature of this entire revealing. The Riccardians have always taken Richard’s demonization very personally, so that is no surprise, but the sight of his curved spine (but no withered arm!) and cleaved skull is a verification not only of his existence, but his suffering. On the other hand, I found the images of the facial reconstruction released yesterday a little off-putting, though it’s interesting to read comments of how handsome he was: not a monster, after all.

Scenes from the big reveal: University of Leicester archeologists Richard Buckley and Jo Appleby discussing the archeological and DNA evidence, Richard’s curved spine, the results of scoliosis, the facial reconstruction, and a late 16th century portrait of Richard III, Getty Images & the National Portrait Gallery London.

And so now Richard will be laid to rest (again). I’m sure there will be a lot more discussion about the ceremony for his re-interment (will the Royal Family attend?), but it sounds like David Monteith, the Canon Chancellor of Leicester Cathedral, has already given this a great deal of thought: he announced that an ecumenical service of remembrance is being planned for our time, as the King had most certainly received a proper Christian burial in his.

Cathedral and Guildhall, Leicester.

10 Comments | tags: Archeology, books, England, Renaissance | posted in Current Events, History

February 1, 2013

Rumford Roasters

By daseger

We live right next door to Hamilton Hall, an elegant Federal-era assembly hall attributed to Salem’s famous architect and woodcarver Samuel McIntire. I wake up every morning and look out my bedroom window at McIntire’s carved eagle and swags on the exterior, and I’ve posted about most of its interior spaces here as well. The Hall’s grand ballroom, with its spring dance floor, Palladian windows, gilt mirrors, and musician’s balcony, always gets a lot of attention, but today I want to feature a more utilitarian room below the stairs: the “brick hearth room” with its Rumford Roaster, the cutting-edge culinary technology of the early nineteenth century. Here it is, built into the large hearth that dominates the room, in my photographs and a doctored drawing from the very charming 1947 Hamilton Hall Cook Book (containing recipes for “Afternoon Tea Dainties”, “Shrimp Wiggle”, and many puddings).

The Rumford Roaster transferred cooking from the open fire to an enclosed oven (the round opening, lined with metal inside), which was heated by the small square firebox directly below. There are openings in the sides of the oven to control the temperature, and the entire device was vented through the central chimney. The Rumford Roaster at Hamilton Hall is characteristic of the earliest examples in that it was built into the hearth (also see the roasters at the Gardner-Pingree House here in Salem and the Rundlet-May House in Portsmouth, below) but freestanding models developed a bit later. Its evolution seems to run parallel to the evolution of the American kitchen.

Rumford Roasters in the kitchens of the Gardner-Pingree House, Salem (Peabody Essex Museum) and the Rundlet-May House, Portsmouth, New Hampshire (Historic New England).

The Roaster was invented and named after Count Rumford (1753-1814), an absolutely extraordinary man whose biography reads like a (really bad) dime novel. Born plain old Benjamin Thompson in what was then the small village of Woburn, twelve miles northwest of Boston, he transformed himself into quite the continental Count through a combination of scientific genius and what can euphemistically be called “adventuring”. His biographical details can be found elsewhere (this account was good yet succinct; I think his life, work and times demand a larger volume), so I’m going to summarize as much as I can: Thompson was apprenticed to merchants in both Salem and Boston in his adolescence, and then he obtained a position as a schoolmaster in Rumford (now Concord), New Hampshire. There he met and married a wealthy and well-connected widow about ten years his senior. Through her, he made all sorts of useful connections and became a commissioned officer in the New Hampshire militia by the mid-1770s, but it turns out that he was at best a Loyalist and at worst a spy: he fled to London in 1776, abandoning his wife and child, after accusations of “being unfriendly to the cause of liberty”.

From a British perspective, Thompson distinguished himself in both public service and scientific experimentation during the American Revolution, serving in the British Colonial Office while simultaneously conducting experiments in ballistics and munitions: these lessons in military combustion would later be applied to more domestic mechanisms. He was knighted by King George III in 1784, but somehow was at the same time under suspicion of spying for the French !!! and so made his way to the Continent and wound up in the service of one of the most powerful German princes, Karl Theodor, Prince–Elector, Count Palatine and Duke of Bavaria. He remained in Bavaria for over a decade, working on such diverse projects as poorhouse reform and urban planning (including the creation of the Englischer Garten in Munich) while continuing to conduct experiments on the nature and applications of heat. In 1791, Sir Benjamin Thompson was made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and he chose the title “Rumford”, in reference to his New England origins. This, and the fact that he left a good part of his fortune to Harvard University to establish a Rumford professorship, indicates that there were some misgivings about betraying his native country. During the last phase of the Count’s life, there is something of a “man without a country” air about him; despite his honors there were whispers of spying (AGAIN–this time for Britain), which forced him to leave Bavaria. His last decade was spent traveling back and forth between England and France, where he died in 1814, “the spy who conquered the cold”.

Count Rumford was certainly a household name by 1800, inspiring both portraits and caricatures. Above, a mezzotint portrait by John Raphael Smith (1801) and a caricature which is poking fun at Rumford’s fashionable Royal Society lectures: he is the man who is “producing” steam in James Gillray’s 1802 print, Scientific Researches! New Discoveries in Pneumaticks! Or, an Experimental Lecture on the Powers of Air, both British Museum. And look at these companion satires below!

James Gillray, The Comforts of a Rumford Stove, 1800; Charles Williams, Luxury, or the Comforts of a RUMPFORD, 1801, British Museum.

Well, back to the rather less racy Rumford stove at Hamilton Hall! A couple of more shots are below, including open views of the oven (with the arm of a helpful Hall trustee) and the ash box below. There are great records of the administration and maintenance of the Hall in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, so we know that this Roaster was supplied by Elijah Fuller of Neptune Street in Salem; I searched through the Salem Register for references to Fuller’s shop and found the notice below, from July 1803. Rumford was clearly a recognizable name–and product–over on this side of the Atlantic as well.

Hamilton Hall has been the setting for countless “assemblies” over its two hundred + years, including large dinners for such dignitaries as the Marquis de Lafayette, Nathaniel Bowditch, and Martin Van Buren in the first phase of its history; I imagine that the catering of these events was greatly facilitated by the presence of Count Rumford’s Roaster.

In the Spotlight: a photograph of Hamilton Hall taken last week, during the dawn-to-dusk production of a music video.

15 Comments | tags: American Revolution, Architecture, Art, ephemera, Historic Preservation, Interiors, Samuel McIntire | posted in Design, History, Salem

January 30, 2013

Paste Paper and Poison

By daseger

I spent last Saturday morning at the Salem Athenaeum helping to choose this year’s candidates for our adopt-a-book program,very gently examining amazing books from the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There were first-edition volumes by such diverse and esteemed authors as Sir Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne (of course) and Jack London to examine, but surprisingly the works which really captured my fancy were lesser-know works on guns, robbers, and poison. Don’t be concerned; I have my reasons.

I was captivated by the Athenaeum’s copy of the classic eighteenth-century artillery manual, John Müller’s Treatise of Artillery (first published in 1768 and in America in 1779) not because of its subject matter but its binding. This manual was not covered in leather but rather in less costly paste paper, a process devised by sixteenth-century bookbinders where a colored paste is brushed onto wet paper and then carved, combed, brushed, etc. with a variety of tools to create patterns and designs. The cover of Müller’s Treatise struck me not only as beautiful, but also rather modern.

Obviously the cover is a little worse for wear as it was made in 1779, and officers and soldiers carried this book around with them during the Revolutionary War, but I think the design is amazing. I’ve got a new obsession, as this is an art which is alive and well as you can see by these examples here, here, and elsewhere.

Henry Fielding’s Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers &c. with Some Proposals for Remedying this Growing Evil (1751) did interest me because of its content rather than its presentation, which was rather pedestrian. I did not know that the novelist was such an advocate for law and order and justice (he was also a magistrate), and his analysis of the causes of escalating crime in mid-eighteenth-century England (which you can read for yourself here) was interesting, particularly the last part where he discusses (and blames) the spectacle of public executions.

The last book that really stood out, among the array that was before me, is another eighteenth-century text: Richard Mead’s Mechanical Account of Poisons in Several Essays, first published in 1702 and then reprinted several times over the century (you can read the second edition here). I don’t really work on or with the eighteenth century very much, which might be one reason these books are capturing my curiosity. Dr. Mead was a pretty eminent London physician, who counted King George II among his patients, as you can see on the title page below. The essays cover the usual suspects associated with poison and then some: the viper, tarantula, and “mad dog”, poisonous minerals and plants, opium, and “venomous exhalations from the earth: poisonous airs and waters” (assorted noxious fumes). I suppose the “mechanical” in the title refers to the empirical methodology of Dr. Mead; he does refer to various experiments (on pigeons and dogs) but he also seems to rely a lot on ancient unverified information. This was surprising to me–I thought the Scientific Revolution had triumphed in the eighteenth century.

I loved the illustrations of poisonous insects in the back of the book, and as this post seems to be crying out for a skull-and-crossbones image, I am concluding with an illustration from a 1742 printed eulogy for Peter Faneuil (of Faneuil Hall in Boston fame), yet another unassuming volume in the Athenaeum’s collection.