Madeline H. Caviness

Feminism, Gender studies, and Medieval Studies

This article traces the multiple and rapid changes that have occurred during the past fifteen years, in theorizing “sex/gender arrangements”. A secondary aspect is the reception, application and above all modification of these theories by some scholars of European medieval cultural production, in which varieties of difference are found that do not apply in modern societies. Deconstruction of the binary m/f (whether thought of as sexual or gender difference) erupted among feminist thinkers in the 1990s and eventually “queered” academic discourses by destabilizing labels that had been naturalized, including a consistent gender identity for the individual in medieval or modern society. The author claims that queer and post-colonial theory, far from being antithetical to feminist theory, are out-growths of it, and exist in parallel; the proponents of each are concerned with the societal forces, including our own discourses, that maintain difference, and create communities of oppression Yet it is also necessary to raise the question, when will the next radical departure occur, and how will new theories be generated?

The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral, circa 1174-1220

The Description for this book, The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral: Circa 1175-1220, will be forthcoming.

Conflicts between Regnum and Sacerdotium as Reflected in a Canterbury Psalter of ca. 1215

An English Psalter in Paris (Bibl. Nat., MS lat. 770) has never been seriously studied by art historians.1 Even the challenge of unidentified scenes has been neglected.2 Yet the extraordinary program of pictures contained in this book forms a unique historical document: the pictures present an allegory of the conflicts between regnum and sacerdotium, the Crown and the Church, in the period around 1200, and especially in the reign of King John. Political allegory was safely veiled by scriptural imagery and exegesis and hidden in a private liturgical book, but once deciphered the pictures appear as outspoken as the most extreme of contemporary treatises on kingship, and more powerful in their impact than the written word. The Psalter also deserves interest as a transitional production, made at a time when secular painters were beginning to provide illuminations for monastic books.

A Contemplative Life in Washington

A stained-glass medallion with a seated woman holding a scroll that labels her as a personification of the contemplative life, was found in storage in the National Museum of American Art in 1986. Its composition and colors, and the style and technique of the painting, led the author to attribute it to Châlons-sur-Marne (now officially renamed Châlons-en-Champagne), and to date it in the third quarter of the twelfth century. The majestic veiled figure resonates with representations of the Virgin, Ecclesia, and Sapientia, and is more likely to have formed a set with the contemplative virtues than to have had the active life as a pendant. Whereas the contemplative and the active lives were sometimes polarized, as in the quarrel between Mary and Martha in Lukes gospel, some sources viewed the Virgin Mary as having attributes of both. Yet there is no sign of activity in the Washington figure. This sapiential personification, who neither writes nor reads her scroll, symbolizes the silent Word with God, a sign of the eternal contemplation of God within the soul. This essay treats the iconography of the figure in relation to the theological debates over the merits of the contemplative and the active life-styles that were engaged in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The foundation of such orders as the Cistercians and Premonstratensians, and the greater prestige of episcopal over abbatial centers as institutions of learning, produced many advocates of the active life. The Washington figure appears conservative in this context, an additional argument for associating it with the collegiate church of Notre-Dame-en-Vaux in Châlons-sur-Marne, which was splendidly decorated in the period 1160-1185.

Saint-Yved of Braine: The Primary Sources for Dating the Gothic Church

Research for this paper was supported by a fellowship from the American Couincil of Learned Societies. In addition I am grateful to Bernard and Jean Ancien of Soissons for aiding me in gaining access to documents and monunments, to Steven P. Marrone, Bryce and Mary Lyon, and Anne van Buren for help with transcribing the documents, and to Andrew W. Lewis and Stephen White for discussion of the charters. Carl F. Barnes, Jr., Jeoraldean S. McClain, and William Clark helped by supplying photographs. Finally, the paper has benefited greatly from critical readings by Carl Barnes, William Clark, Giles Constable, Peter Fergusson, and Luke Wenger, many of whose suggestions have been incorporated. Elisabeth C. Pastan has checked some readings in Paris libraries.

A Lost Cycle of Canterbury Paintings of 1220

Mid nineteenth-century sketches of paintings then in the vaults of the Trinity Chapel ambulatory of Canterbury Cathedral are published for the first time. They provide an opportunity to discuss the iconographic programme and style of the lost paintings. Kings of England and local saints were among those represented in commemoration of the translation of the relics of Becket to the Trinity Chapel in July 1220. The date of 1220 which seems to be given in an inscription is confirmed by comparison with a Canterbury Psalter of before 1220, and sculptures at Wells.

Reproducing Works of Art Held in Museums: Who Pays, Who Profits?:

In keeping with the general theme of the General Assembly of CIPSH in Beijing, 2004, in this article I emphasize the potential of the internet to impact the use of works of art in public and private museums for study and research, and for the publication of research. The possibility exists nowadays of creating a hyper-real ‘musée imaginaire’ or ‘museum without walls’ to use André Malraux’s phrase of more than fifty years ago. It is hard to see how it could be anything but a benefit to human knowledge to have images of all works in the public domain (that is, for which the creator’s copyright has expired) available on the world wide web. Under US law this year (2006) that would mean all works created before 1911.1 There are encouraging developments in that direction, but there is also constant legal wrangling. And I have to admit there are sometimes two sides to the question, even if I think one argument is far stronger than the other. All such wrangling and contests have a history. The general topic of the cost to scholars, in time and money, for purchasing photographs of works of art and using them to illustrate their published work, has been of paramount concern for some years. No matter how old a work of art, the scholar encounters one or two claimants to a reproduction fee. In a classic semiotic confusion, owners – even museums where one might hope for greater sophistication concerning signs and referents – hold that any reproduction of the original work entails a fee, just as if they held copyright to the original creation. In fact, the most they could claim under US law is that the photograph of the object is under copyright, and indeed it has become customary to place the photographer’s name in the printed acknowledgement, along with that of the owner. Such recognition is apt, but the overall impact of the claim is to extend copyright indefinitely. To quote a paper by Robert Baron (1997) to which I will return later:

Tucks and Darts

It is well known to everyone who studies medieval stained glass that the standard way to design and execute a window was to draw the full-size cartoon on a sized tabletop. This process was described by a monastic author who dubbed himself “Theophilus” in the twelfth century, and the only extant tabletop with a window design is in the Cathedral of Gerona, where it was used more than once in the fourteenth century.1 Such designs showed very clearly the matrix of lead cames that were to join the pieces of colored glass, so that the glasses could be marked for cutting, or even cut, on the rigid working surface. They also showed sufficient detail—drapery folds, facial features, leaf veins—to guide the draughtsmen who were to paint these features on the glass. The Gerona table demonstrates the versatility of this kind of pattern, in that the architectural canopy was repeated in at least two lights, whereas the figures under it were changed; this was easily done by whiting out part of the design and drawing new elements. Colors were noted by letters, and these too could be changed. When the glaziers had finished with this tabletop, they abandoned it in the eaves of the cathedral. The question raised in this paper is what might they have done if they had wished to make replicas of this window at another site? Transporting large panels is not impossible, but it would be costly. I am looking for a portable intermediary that could be used to generate the new setting-table design.2

Saint-Jean-des-Vignes in Soissons: Approaches to its Architecture, Archaeology and History (review)

Many sections of Parts II and III, taken separately, sparkle with insight and originality. The strength of Petkov’s work is to show how a seemingly incidental rite such as kissing in fact reveals a myriad of complex relationships in late medieval society. From another perspective he argues convincingly that the symbols can even have influenced subsequent behavior, specifically the business of making social peace. Highly recommended.

Tacking and Veering Through Three Careers

6 For this reason, when the women faculty of the Steering Committee for the Commission on Women (which I headed) were considering whether or not to include staff women, or high-ranking staff women, in the composition of the first elected commission, I argued for, despite the separateness of our concerns and possible class issues, because discrimination against one woman is discrimination against ali women. On the other hand, discrimination by a woman against a woman is not legitimized by the fact that she is female, an analogous mistake administrators often make when they select a woman for an administrative position and assume that her sex will justify any subsequent gender inequity in hirings or tenure and promotion decisions. I