Two good talks

A busy night next Wednesday. First there is this seminar by one of our outstanding graduate students:

School of Culture and Communication Seminar

Wednesday 26, Lecture Theatre C, Old Arts, 4.30-6pm

David McInnis

(University of Melbourne, English)

“Lost Plays, 1580-1642”

Our picture of the English Renaissance theatre (c.1580-1642) has been shaped exclusively by the plays that were printed and have survived, but more than 550 plays have been lost, or exist only in manuscript fragments. Our conception of the Renaissance theatre is, therefore, a partially distorted one. This seminar will provide an introduction to a new, collaborative digital humanities project designed to address this problem: the Lost Plays Database. Edited by David McInnis and Roslyn L. Knutson, and hosted by the University of Melbourne, the LPD is a wiki-style forum for scholars to share information about lost plays in England. It provides a wealth of data for early modern scholars interested in repertory studies, the history of playhouses and playing companies, Renaissance audiences, and playwrights of Shakespeare’s day, and promotes an innovative alignment of technology and scholarly aims.

David McInnis is a PhD candidate in the English program at the University of Melbourne, where his thesis examines vicarious travel and the early modern English stage. His work has been published in such journals as Parergon, Notes & Queries, Ariel and Early Modern Literary Studies, and (with Brett D. Hirsch) he has recently co-edited a special issue of EMLS on the theme ‘Embodying Shakespeare’. He is currently co-editing a book on ‘Refashioning Myth’ for Cambridge Scholars Press, and has just been awarded a short-term Fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC to pursue research on lost plays.
http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/seminars.html 

and then later that same evening, I'm off to a lecture for the Heraldry Society. I'm thinking of doing some work on Australian university coats of arms, but Stephen is the real expert here:

Stephen Michael Szabo will present a lecture titled "It's Academic: The Heraldry of Australian Universities and Colleges". Based on research done during 2006 (The Year of Academic Heraldry) and since, this will be an overview of arms, both granted and assumed, of many of Australia's universities and some of their associated colleges. Details are:
 
Date: Wednesday 26 May 2010

Time: Doors open at 6:00pm for 6:30pm start

Location
Meeting Room
Balwyn Library
336 Whitehorse Rd
Balwyn

Light refreshments will be available and a gold coin donation to assist with costs would be greatly appreciated. Please telephone 0431 701 055 or send e-mail to secretary@heraldryaustralia.org to advise if you will be attending.

A Sydney date

Now that it's October, time to give notice of a talk I'll be giving in Sydney later this month for the Australian Heraldry Society: hope to see some Sydneysiders there.

Click to enlarge these two pages of the lovely four-page invitation they have prepared.

Monday Melbourne Medievalism Blogging (5) Postera Crescam Laude

Well, yes, again, it's Tuesday. But better late than never.

I'm thinking of writing something this year on the various coats of arms of Australian universities, as a kind of medievalism through form and structure, if not imagery as such. Heraldry is alive and well in the life of institutions; and students and staff at Melbourne and other such places work daily under its signs and symbols but it's not often considered as a version of medievalism. There are some great examples of Australian universities using heraldry to signal their allegiances or affiliations. Sydney, for example, combines the arms of Oxford and Cambridge in its coat of arms, while Macquarie University cites Chaucer's clerk in its motto: "and gladly teche".

The University of Melbourne's coat of arms is a blue field with a figure of Victory (presumably for Victoria, the state; and Victoria the queen [the university started teaching in 1854], surrounded by the four stars of the Southern Cross, with the motto postera crescam laude. This used to be translated as "later I shall grow by praise", but in recent years the standard translation has become "We shall grow in the esteem of future generations."

I used to know a bit about how to blazon, but this one defeated me. However, I found it in A.C. Fox-Davies' A Complete Guide to Heraldry, and it's fantastically elaborate, given that the shield shape is not divided or quartered:

Azure, a figure intended to represent Victory, robed and attired proper, the dexter hand extended holding a wreath of laurel or, between four stars of eight points, two in pale and two in fess argent

The azure is of course the blue background or field; the or and argent name the gold and silver of heraldic colours. In pale and in fess refer to the vertical and horizontal axes across the shield where the stars of the Southern Cross appear.

Here are two images: the first, a sculpture on the east side of the Union building (note the gothic arch made of cream brick):

Second, a rather lurid painting in the Council Chamber (click to enlarge):

The previous vice-chancellor's growth strategy was called "Earning Esteem", and when the new VC appeared at Melbourne, he gave a lovely disquisition to Academic Board in this very chamber on the Horatian ode from which the motto comes, and eventually launched the current strategy, "Growing Esteem", from which the very controversial "Melbourne model" emerged.

I'm actually in favour of the intellectual and academic program of the model (broader undergraduate degrees; deferring specialisation into law and medicine, for example, into graduate programs), though the process of change and reform has been immensely difficult.

Recently, I had occasion (ahem) to give my card to Somerset Herald, who was in Australia on a lecture tour; and then in the second lecture he gave, he held up my card and observed that the University had now altered its shield substantially, by repositioning the stars to the left side of the shield, and actually adding a fifth star, for a more naturalist image of the Southern Cross. Of course, as he said, the University can do what it likes, but this new shield, shown below, is not the coat of arms as it was granted to the University by the College of Arms, and as it is registered there.


Such radical change (to curriculum, as well as coat of arms) naturally needs an advertising campaign. There have been a series of expensive television and media advertisements. Here's a link to a news item produced by the university, which features a tiny grab from the "dreamlarge" campaign. "Dreamlarge", as an advertising logo, has displaced the coat of arms, to some degree, while the university also wants to hold on to its traditional appeal.

You'll see in this video an awful banner, saying "The Evolution Starts Here", which for two years I could see out my office windows (just above the right ear of the man speaking). It's now been replaced, I'm glad to say, with the much less problematic "Welcome"; but this very insistent signage is everywhere.

It's easy to tell the difference between a coat of arms, a Latin motto, and an advertising slogan. But when a (medievalist) coat of arms is modernised, at what point does it become a logo?

Garter curtain ties

I'm replying to Highly Eccentric's comment on the previous post in a new post, as I wanted to show some pictures. This is Edward, Prince of Wales, from Bruges' Garter Book of c. 1430, with a much older version of the ties holding the mantle:



And then by Charles I's time, they had become so long (especially on a young man: here he is as Duke of York) they had to be looped up into his sword belt:



At the Restoration, Charles II regularised the Garter "underhabits" with "the old trunkhose" of cloth of silver, which persisted at least until Edward VIII's time (shown here as Prince of Wales, complete with enormous ties):



And yes, you are right that the blue ribbon is worn when the full robes aren't being worn. The image of St George on a ribbon is called "the lesser George", and replaces the big chain, or collar, with the little model of George killing the dragon you can see hanging on William's chest in the previous post. By 1508, it was recognised that this collar was to be worn only on feastdays, and "on the other days the image of St George shall be worn at the end of a little gold chain, or in time of war; sickness or on a long journey, at the end of a silk lace or ribbon." In the early seventeenth century, it became customary to put it over the left shoulder and under the right armpit, "for conveniency of riding or action" in Ashmole's words. You sometimes see this in portraits that emphasise the military accomplishments of the knights.

As ever, I'm indebted to Peter Begent and Hubert Chesshyre's authoritative book, The Most Noble Order of the Garter: 600 Years, published by Spink in 1999, for many of these details.

Conference blogging

It was just a two-day conference: the fifteenth annual symposium of the Perth Medieval and Renaissance Group. This is a group that is part of the excellent core of medieval and renaissance studies in Perth that put together the successful bid for the Australian Research Council Network for Early European Research. Perth, and more particularly, the University of Western Australia, has an unusually strong concentration of scholars in these fields, across a range of disciplines. They are energetic and original scholars, and also lovely people. This group has always had a number of members in the broader Perth community beyond the university, and this gives it a wonderful atmosphere of engagement.

Now that they are linked to the Network, they, like many such groups around Australia, are able to draw on additional resources to fund symposia and conferences: this one featured a number of local, interstate and international speakers, with about seventy people attending.

The theme was "reading religious change in medieval and early modern europe". I might not have gone, but it was a good chance to meet up with the other Australian members of my grant team, and talk with the people who are going to set up our online database for Australian medievalism in WA. My work isn't really about religious change, but I gave a paper on Edward VI's changes to what he saw as the overly catholic/medieval Statutes of the Order of the Garter.

The conference featured three wonderful plenaries: Juanita Feros Ruys from Sydney spoke about Heloise's fourth letter to Abelard, and showed how her discussion of bodily desire was a deliberate reworking of monastic discourse on temptation to take account of the female monastic body. James Simpson gave another brilliant paper from his new work on iconoclasm. In Melbourne he had spoken of abstract expressionism: in Perth he talked about Reformation images as "containers of the past", and offered a very moving reading of the poet's encounter with the image in Hoccleve's Lerne to Die. And Brian Cummings offered a wonderful reading of Thomas More's understanding of Conscience.

James and Brian both moved effortlessly backwards and forwards between the medieval and the early modern in a way that is still pretty unusual. I found all three plenaries completely compelling and inspiring; and I did some careful work on my own book today; and left this blog entry till the evening.

I also took a tour of the WA Parliament, as part of our Australian medievalism project. This image of the Parliament's emblem shows the state's distinctive black swan, above the medieval mace and black rod. One wonderful moment on the tour. We had been in the upper house and admired its fancy carpet which included the crown, but before we went to the lower house our guide warned us that the carpet had recently been replaced, and did not feature the crown design. "Tsk", clucked the person next to me. The Education Office then explained that if Australia became a republic, many of the carpets, windows and carvings might have to be replaced; and a shocked silence descended on the group, as these dire implications sank in.

Later that afternoon Louise and I went to St Georges Cathedral, where Sir Paul Hasluck's Garter banner and heraldic crest have been hung. Sir Paul's helmet features a stylised version of the wonderful xanthorrea, or grass tree, its green spikes sprouting triumphantly from the helmet. No picture, alas, but here's a lovely two-headed specimen:


Such fun to think about the incorporation of native plants and animals into these medieval heraldic formations.

I ate breakfast, my three mornings, up in the cafe at the top of King's Park: first alone, then with one, then with three companions. Each morning the city was washed with fresh rain; the mist drifted across the river; the lorikeets and wattlebirds sang; and the xanthorreas sent up their spikes and flowers in the soft morning light. Beautiful.