Journal Articles
This article analyses the front flyleaf of the cartulary of Tinselve, a manuscript created at the northern French abbey of Prémontré in the mid-13th century. While the manuscript proper contains acts associated with one of Prémontré’s dependent curtes, Tinselve, the scrap piece of parchment used to create the flyleaf contains brief summaries of five letters to be sent from the abbey to other Premonstratensian houses in France and Germany and to a count of Holland. It is therefore a unique survival of the administrative ephemera which the mother abbey of a major medieval monastic order must once have created in abundance.
I therefore designed this lesson to harness students’ curiosity about the Middle Ages while building their facility with analyzing primary sources and developing their geographical knowledge. It uses cartographic sources—maps and globes—to help students better conceive of the horizons of the medieval world, and to better understand how the differences between a map sketched on parchment and one generated by a GPS system come down to more than simple matters of technological capability.
Other Writing
“How Joan of Arc Inspired the Suffragettes”, The Public Medievalist, September 10, 2020.
Davison’s death drew international press coverage. She was swiftly hailed as a martyr by other militant suffragettes. Thousands gathered to form an honor guard for her coffin on its journey from Victoria Station to the funeral service. One of them, Elsie Howey, rode in costume as Joan of Arc. Many others wielded banners of purple silk on which were stitched words attributed to the medieval saint: “Fight On, and God Will Give the Victory.”
This was far from the first time that feminists had rallied under the banner of Joan of Arc—whether literally or metaphorically—and it would not be the last.
The changing fates of one of France’s grandest castles are a microcosm for its history.
“Notre Dame has always been the people’s cathedral,” in Vox, April 16, 2019.
Since the Middle Ages, it’s been the backdrop against which the city’s inhabitants have lived their lives. The building, which stands on a small island in the Seine River, was a constant amid the upheaval of the French Revolution and the terrors of the Nazi occupation. As one 14th century scholar wrote, the cathedral was “like the sun among stars.”
Book Reviews
In 1220, Évrard, bishop of Amiens, laid the first stone for his city’s new cathedral. Eight centuries later, Stephen Murray has written a sweeping history which tells of that act and of the many others after it which were needed to construct the famous cathedral of Notre-Dame of Amiens. Murray writes with both great knowledge about and deep affection for the building, and Notre-Dame of Amiens: Life of the Gothic Cathedral is sure to be an absorbing read for anyone with an interest in the history of Gothic architecture or of Picardy during the Middle Ages.
And One Last Thing…
Not a publication announcement but a publication heads up. Heather Wacha and and I will be publishing our edition of the thirteenth-century cartulary of Prémontré, the mother abbey of the Premonstratensian Order, next year. It will be available in both print and digital formats—more to come about it soon!
Thrilled to be able to announce that after a lot of hard work, @hgwacha and I will be publishing our edition of the cartulary of the abbey of Prémontré with @MedievalAcademy through @utpress (print) and @digitallatin (open-access digital)! Look for it in 2022. pic.twitter.com/SwMO4Buslw
— Yvonne Seale (@yvonneseale) July 12, 2021