Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T17:32:11.473Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Love and hope: emotions, dress accessories and a plough in later medieval Britain, c. AD 1250–1500

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2020

Eleanor R. Standley*
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, UK
*
*Author for correspondence: ✉ eleanor.standley@arch.ox.ac.uk

Abstract

Human emotion is of interest across a wide range of disciplines, but in the field of archaeology it has received attention only very recently. This article contributes to the archaeology of emotion through a focus on later medieval objects in Britain. It identifies ‘emotants’ within the archaeological record, defined as evidence that can communicate, create or intensify emotion(s). By exploring emotants in the form of inscribed later medieval finger rings and brooches, and an iron plough coulter, the author aims to introduce a neologism that can be employed to advance this challenging yet untapped field of study.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alberti, B., Jones, A.M. & Pollard, J. (ed.). 2013. Archaeology after interpretation: returning materials to archaeological theory. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast.Google Scholar
Brown Vega, M. 2016. Ritualised coping during war: conflict, congregation, and emotions at the Late Pre-Hispanic Fortress of Acaray, in Fleisher, J. & Norman, N. (ed.) The archaeology of anxiety: the materiality of anxiousness, worry and fear: 157–86. New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3231-3_8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, B.M.S. 2011. Grain yields on English demesnes after the Black Death, in Bailey, M. & Rigby, S. (ed.) Town and countryside in the age of the Black Death: essays in honour of John Hatcher: 121–74. Turnhout: Brepols. https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TMC-EB.1.100560CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeMarrais, E. (ed.). 2004. Rethinking materiality: the engagement of mind with the material world. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Dixon, P. 2014. Survey and excavations at Alnhamsheles deserted medieval village, on the Rowhope Burn, Alnham Moor, Northumberland. Archaeologia Aeliana 43: 169220.Google Scholar
Dolan, A. & Holloway, S.. 2016. Emotional textiles: an introduction. Textile: Cloth and Culture 14: 152–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2016.1139369CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffy, E. 2001. The voices of Morebath: reformation and rebellion in an English village. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Duffy, E. 2005. The stripping of the altars: traditional religion in England 1400–1580. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyer, C. 2018. Rural living 1100–1540, in Gerrard, C.M. & Gutiérrez, A. (ed.) The Oxford handbook of later medieval archaeology in Britain: 193209. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198744719.013.9Google Scholar
Evans, G.E. 1966. The pattern under the plough. London: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar
Evans, J. 1931. English posies and posy rings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fleisher, J. & Norman, N. (ed.). 2016. The archaeology of anxiety: the materiality of anxiousness, worry and fear. New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3231-3_1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, C. & Harris, O.J.T.. 2015. Enduring relations: exploring a paradox of new materialism. Journal of Material Culture 20: 127–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183515577176CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, J.T. (ed.). 1898. Extracts from the account rolls of the Abbey of Durham, from the original MSS Volume I. Durham: Surtees Society.Google Scholar
Frevert, U., Scheer, M., Schmidt, A., Eitler, P., Hitzer, B., Verheyen, N., Gammerl, B., Bailey, C. & Pernau, M.. 2014. Emotional lexicons: continuity and change in the vocabulary of feeling 1700–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199655731.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerritsen, A. & Riello, G.. 2015. Introduction: writing material culture history, in Gerristen, A. & Riello, G. (ed.) Writing material culture history: 114. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Gosden, C. 2004. Aesthetics, intelligence and emotions: implications for archaeology, in DeMarrais, E., Gosden, C. & Renfrew, C. (ed.) Rethinking materiality: the engagement of mind with the material world: 3340. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Gregor, W. 1884. Some old farming customs and notions. Folklore Journal 2: 329–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/17442524.1884.10602754Google Scholar
Harris, O.J.T. & Sørensen, T.F.. 2010. Rethinking emotion and material culture. Archaeological Dialogues 17: 145–63. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203810000206CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutton, R. 2001. Stations of the sun: a history of the ritual year in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hutton, R. (ed.). 2016. Physical evidence for ritual acts, sorcery and witchcraft in Christian Britain: a feeling for magic. Basingstoke: Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137444820Google Scholar
Ilmakunnas, J. 2016. Embroidering women and turning men. Scandinavian Journal of History 41: 306–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/03468755.2016.1179831CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, M.H. 2015. English houses, materiality, and everyday life, in Overholtzer, L. & Robin, C. (ed.) Special issue: the materiality of everyday life (Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 26): 2739. Arlington (VA): American Anthropological Association. https://doi.org/10.1111/apaa.12058Google Scholar
Klápště, J. 2016. On the meaning of agrarian tools from a Czech perspective, in Klápště, J. (ed.) Agrarian technology in the medieval landscape (Ruralia X): 443–48. Turnhout: Brepols. https://doi.org/10.1484/M.RURALIA-EB.5.110482CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langland, W. & Schmidt, A.V.C.. 1978. The vision of Piers Plowman. London: J.M. Dent.Google Scholar
Leahy, K. 2013. A deposit of early medieval iron objects from Scraptoft, Leicestershire. Medieval Archaeology 57: 223–37. https://doi.org/10.1179/0076609713Z.00000000022CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerche, G. 1994. Ploughing implements and tillage practices in Denmark from the Viking Period to about 1800: experimentally substantiated (The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters’ Commission for Research on the History of Agricultural Implements and Field Structures 8). Copenhagen: P. Kristensen.Google Scholar
Leys, R. 2011. The turn to affect: a critique. Critical Inquiry 37: 434–72. https://doi.org/10.1086/659353CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, C.J. n.d. 1973:0004—Massereene (Antrim Town), Antrim. Excavations.ie Database of Irish Excavation Reports. Available at: https://excavations.ie/report/1973/Antrim/0000141/ (accessed 17 March 2020).Google Scholar
McIntosh, M.K. 2012. Poor relief in England 1350–1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139057547Google Scholar
Meskell, L. (ed.). 2005. Archaeologies of materiality. Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470774052CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, D. (ed.). 2005. Materiality: an introduction. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Moran, A. & O'Brien, S. (ed.). 2014. Love objects: emotion, design and material culture. London: Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474293891CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morey, J.H. 1995. The ‘cultour’ in the Miller's tale: Alison as Iseult. The Chaucer Review 29: 373–81.Google Scholar
Morey, J.H. 1998. Plows, laws, and sanctuary in medieval England and in the Wakefield Mactacio Abel. Studies in Philology 95: 4155.Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary. 2018. Available at: www.oed.com (accessed 17 March 2020).Google Scholar
Overholtzer, L. & Robin, C. (ed.). 2015. Special issue: the materiality of everyday life (Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 26). Arlington (VA): American Anthropological Association. https://doi.org/10.1111/apaa.2015.26.issue-1Google Scholar
Parker, H. 1493. Here endith a compendiouse treetise dyalogue. of Diues [and] paup[er]. that is to say. the riche [and] the pore . London: Richard Pynson. Available at: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eebo;idno=A08936.0001.001 (accessed 17 March 2020).Google Scholar
Portable Antiquities Scheme. n.d. Available at: http://finds.org.uk (accessed 17 March 2020).Google Scholar
Reddy, W.M. 2001. The navigation of feeling: a framework for the history of emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511512001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reddy, W.M. 2012. The making of romantic love: longing and sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, 900–1200 CE. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rentz, E.K. 2010. Representing devotional economy: agricultural and liturgical labor in the ‘Luttrell Psalter’. Studies in Iconography 31: 6997.Google Scholar
Rhodes, W. 2014. Medieval political ecology: labour and agency on the half acre. The Yearbook of Langland Studies 28: 105–36. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.YLS.5.103723CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, C. 2010. ‘A very fine hat’: personal objects and early modern affection, in Hamling, T. & Richardson, C. (ed.) Everyday objects: medieval and early modern material culture and its meanings: 289–98. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Rosenwein, B.H. 2006. Emotional communities in the early middle ages. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenwein, B.H. 2010. Thinking historically about medieval emotions. History Compass 8: 828–42. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00702.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenwein, B.H. 2016. Generations of feeling: a history of emotions, 600–1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenwein, B.H. & Cristiani, R.. 2018. What is the history of emotions? Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Rosser, G. 2015. The art of solidarity in the Middle Ages: guilds in England 1250–1550. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201571.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skeates, R. 2017. Towards an archaeology of everyday aesthetics. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 27: 607–16. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774317000622CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, B. 1990. Salisbury Museum medieval catalogue. Part 2: pilgrim souvenirs and secular badges. Salisbury: Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.Google Scholar
Standley, E.R. 2013. Trinkets and charms: the use, meaning and significance of dress accessories, AD 1300–1700 (School of Archaeology Monograph Series 78). Oxford: University of Oxford, School of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Standley, E.R. 2016. Hid in the earth and secret places: a reassessment of a hoard of later medieval gold rings and silver coins found near the River Thame. Antiquaries Journal 96: 117–42. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581516000706CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Standley, E.R. In press. Fear, matter and miracles: coping with disasters through material culture c. 1200–1600, in Gerrard, C.M., Forlin, P. & Brown, P.J. (ed.) Waiting for the end of the world? New perspectives on natural disasters in medieval Europe. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Stearns, P.N. & Stearns, C.Z.. 1985. Emotionology: clarifying the history of emotions and emotional standards. American Historical Review 90, 2: 813–36. https://doi.org/10.2307/1858841CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarlow, S. 2000. Emotion in archaeology. Current Anthropology 41: 713–46. https://doi.org/10.1086/317404CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarlow, S. 2012. The archaeology of emotion and affect. Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 169–85. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145944CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, G., McDonnell, G., Merkel, J. & Marshall, P.. 2016. Technology, ritual and Anglo-Saxon agriculture: the biography of a plough coulter from Lyminge, Kent. Antiquity 90: 742–58. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2016.73CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toivo, R.M. 2016. Religion and emotion. Scandinavian Journal of History 41: 289305. https://doi.org/10.1080/03468755.2016.1179835CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. 2010. The ‘history of emotions’ and the future of emotion research. Emotion Review 2: 269–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073910361983CrossRefGoogle Scholar