Tag: history

Reflections on the Newberry

This last weekend I had the honor and opportunity to attend and present at the Newberry Library’s Annual Graduate Student Conference.  It was wonderful to be surrounded by my peers and to become part of the community of young scholars.

I didn’t get to go to all the panels I wanted to attend (who does?) but the ones I did get to sit in on were fantastic.  They were filled with fascinating research and thought-provoking questions.  I particularly enjoyed the one on LGBT research in medieval/renaissance literature/musical performances.  Listening to the papers made me really think about my own research, and to think about incorporating more theoretical frameworks into my analysis.  How each of the presenters managed to do the theory and to have it flow seamlessly into the history was skillful and that is something I hope to work on this semester with an article I’m writing for a research seminar.

I also got wonderful questions about my own research that made me think about how I wrote the paper, how I presented the work and where I am going from there.  I also got a great book suggestion that will stretch me out of my temporal comfort zone (but still sticking with my subject, consorts!) that I immediately ordered from Amazon and will devour when it arrives.  I really want to look at the foreignness of Henrietta Maria and how that played a part in her reception in England (which I did to some extent, but I think looking at it more would yield more insights) and I’ll incorporate a bit of that into my article, where I am looking at Anna of Denmark’s masquing career as well.

 

I do a lot of comparative work.  I’m OK with that. 🙂

MOOCs for the Independent Scholar

MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses, are classes available online for anyone to take. They cover a wide variety of topics, and depending on from where they come, varying levels of difficulty and specialization. A major host of MOOCs is, of course, Coursera. Partnered with academic institutions, Coursera will host their content and provide a digital framework for the course. Either currently available or in their archives, Coursera boasts an impressive number of different courses. These range anywhere from, “Dinosaurs 101” through the University of Alberta, to “Heterogeneous Parallel Programming” from the University of Illinois-Champaign, to “Statistical Molecular Thermodynamics” from the University of Minnesota, and more.

Each of these, for the most part, will follow a similar structure/grading methods:

  • Lectures are delivered via pre-recorded videos.
  • Multiple Choice Quizzes
  • Forum Discussion
  • Class Project (complete with peer evaluations)

The participant will also be graded, sometimes, on how many peers’ projects they themselves have evaluated. In the end, if the grade is satisfactory, the participant will be awarded a certificate of accomplishment, or, as a push from Coursera to pay for the free courses, a Verified Certificate.

Personally, to challenge myself during my gap year, I am currently enrolled in 4 MOOCs. They are the above named Dinosaurs 101, Magna Carta and its Legacy, Data Scientist’s Toolkit, and Digging Deeper: Making Manuscripts. Only three of these, though, are through Coursera, the fourth, is created and hosted by the good people at Stanford. So far, my experience with Digging Deeper is very different from the Coursera courses. I am not sure if it is because the topic is more directly relevant to my research or because how it is structured differently, but my enjoyment and learning levels seem to be different.

Stanford’s, or at least the professors’ approach, is somewhat similar to Coursera’s, where the lectures are presented by video. There is a transcript that runs alongside the video, as well as captions on the screen itself. There are mini-quizzes after each short video, to test recall and understanding. There are also, and this is the difference for me, practical exercises. I am also graded on how well I transcript an actual medieval manuscript. Already, after only having done the first week’s worth of material, I feel more confident in approaching a manuscript and attempting to understand it.

If you can, I would suggest signing up for Digging Deeper – it looks to be a promising course!

A Quiet Week

This week I have been working hard on studying for the GRE, which has been an adventure in and of itself.  Learning more about my weaknesses and strengths as a student and academic is an interesting exercise and has proven to be surprising and difficult.  Regardless of my own Sisyphean trials these past couple weeks, I have been working to stay connected, at least marginally, to the community from Kings and Queens 3.  One of the best ways to do that has been via Twitter, and from there, I found a fascinating tidbit to share with you today.

 

Beyond the Dark Ages- A nunnery by any other name 

 

In this post, Sarah Greer give a little information about what she studies, female monasteries.  Not nunnery?  Well, a nunnery and a monastery were two different things! She does a great job of explaining why she uses the term “female monastery.”

Review and Rambling: Crown of Thistles – The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots

Crown of Thistles: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots (or in the US Tudors vs. Stewarts: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots)

By Linda Porter

Crown of Thistles cover

In the course of my hiatus, I had the opportunity to read a few books that’d been on my “want” pile, and at the very top was Crown of Thistles, which I purchased on my trip to England earlier this summer.  I’d already read the other “fun” book I purchased at the same time, a biography on Queen Matilda, whose husband was King William I of England.  I’d wanted to get one in temporal area of research and one out.  I was quite pleased to find one that seemed to be about Mary Queen of Scots, mother-in-law to Anna of Denmark, whom I presented a paper on this summer.

After presenting and having the opportunity to talk shop about history with the other presenters, I’ve become more resolved to look at not just English history, as I’ve done previously, but also Scottish.  Scottish history is a rich and vibrant field and I want to continue my study looking at royalty, the construction of feminine identity and authority, and educational history, especially in context of the other monarchy on the island and in relation to those on the continent.

So this book Crown of Thistles, fits in quite well with my geographic focus and my focus on royal studies.  Originally, from the title, I thought it was primarily going to be about Mary Queen of Scots, and a focus on her relationship with Elizabeth I of England, but I was mistaken.  From the start, I was annoyed that we were reading about Catherine de Valois, Queen Consort to Henry V, and James III, but I was drawn in to Porter’s prose with her flair for bringing these historical characters to life as flesh and blood people and realizing where she was going by starting so far in the past.

By starting in the 15th century, she carefully sets up the tempestuous relationship between the two dynasties, and then carefully gives us background and biography on each of the rulers and other main players in the government and society.  I was glad, it was a breath of fresh air, to read about Scottish monarchs James III, James IV, and James V.

Also written in great detail was the Battle of Bosworth Field, as well as the rest of Henry VII’s exile and battles for the throne.

Pulling together these two seemingly disparate threads to put light on Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth was an interesting approach, and although I’d wanted more on Mary, there are other sources which fall under that heading, like Lady Antonia Fraser’s work, or John Guy’s.  This put her childhood in France in context with the ambitious nature of her mother and brought to life the Auld Alliance.  As a reader, she helped me to understand that while the story can seem simple, it is infinitely more complex than it seems, and to bring an understanding of the people, as living-breathing people, can grant the reader more clarity.

 

I would whole heartedly recommend this book, with the caveats that it is 1) not just about Mary Queen of Scots, and 2) for a trade paperback, REALLY long.  It reads quickly and is not overly difficult.

“And I Will Make Them One Nation.”

This BBC programme, all about how the Stewarts led the century that set up England, Scotland and Ireland to become Great Britain, is a highly watchable and accessible piece of work by Dr. Clare Jackson, of Cambridge University.

Mary Queen of Scots (Mary, Queen of Scots as a young girl)

“The Stuarts” BBC Programme Link

 

In it, she starts of telling the story of James VI and his impeccable lineage, descended from not only the Scottish Stewarts, but also the Danish royal family (Through Margaret of Denmark),  and, more importantly, the English royal family (through his paternal great-grandmother, Margaret Tudor).  He had apparently always felt that he would unite the crowns and kingdoms of England and Scotland under one man, himself.  Dr. Jackson then takes us through his efforts to legally unite the two nations, but for James, to no avail.

Margaret Tudor   (Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York)

What was curious for me, and I was glad to see it, was that she had also paid attention to Henry Frederick, James’ eldest son and Prince of Wales.  In many texts, his life tends to be glossed over a bit as it wasn’t he, but his younger brother Charles, who succeeded their father as King.  This was due to a premature death at the age of 18.  From there, Dr. Jackson goes into the story of Charles as Prince of Wales and his incredible journey to Spain.  She supposes that much of his style of kingship was influenced by his time there as a guest of King Philip IV.   His love of pageantry and his insistence on ceremony may also have been influenced by Philip’s court.

Elizabeth Stuart (Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen, daughter of Anna of Denmark and James I)

She concludes the episode after explaining how Charles came to be king, married a French princess, the Catholic Henrietta Maria, and the struggles he faced over religion with Scotland.

Henrietta Maria (Henrietta Maria, queen consort to Charles I)

All in all, this episode is a fabulous bit of history and it was quite enjoyable to watch!  The only thing that was frustrating to me, really was the lack of Queen Anna.  Her name was mentioned exactly once.  That was in reference to the death of Henry.  Was Anna’s influence as queen consort not felt more than just the death of her son?  Wasn’t she a partner in the creation of the legacy of the Stuart dynasty?  She spent 14 years in Scotland with James before they took England by storm in 1603. She then spent 16 years as Queen of England before her death in 1619.  It seems as though she was shunted to the side, ignored.  Henrietta Maria got her portrait on the screen and the mention about how she was Catholic.  There is evidence to support a supposition that Anna converted to Catholicism, so wouldn’t that conflict between her and her strongly Protestant husband make for an interesting bit of monologue?

 

What seems to be forgotten, at least so far, is the story of the women of the Stewart/Stuart dynasty.  Brief mention of Mary, Queen of Scots, Margaret Tudor, Elizabeth Stuart, Henrietta Maria, and even less for Anna.  Perhaps this will be discussed in the future two episodes set to air?  If not, then I hope there will be material on the programme’s website dedicated to these women.  (Anna’s not even mentioned in the “The early Stuarts: marriage is power” page!)  I think that focusing on the monarchs makes for good TV, but including the consorts and daughters makes for good history.

Current Projects and Near Future?

In light of the fantastic experience I had at Kings and Queens 3, I come away with an even greater appreciation for the act of research and the necessity of sharing said research with others.  I was inspired by the many fantastic papers I heard and would like to work on some more projects of my own in the near future.

 

First project?  I will continue the work I presented at the conference.  I still have a few more masques of Anna’s to analyze and I have even more ideas thanks to comments and questions at the panel to inform my current work.  I’ll work on adding in ideas from Samuel Daniel’s work, “Tethys Festival or The Queen’s Wake” and then the final Anna-produced masque, “Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly.”  I’ll continue to focus on the political use of the masques as well as a literary analysis in terms of how Anna used them to self-fashion her own public image.

Masque of Queens
Masque of Queens

 

I was also particularly inspired by the work presented by Estelle Paranque, “Jezabel d’Angleterre”: Queen Elizabeth I through French eyes”  and how she used French sources to chart and analyze the reaction of the royalty and aristocracy to Elizabeth’s rise and reign.  I think it may be particularly interesting to analyze the French (or others) reaction to Anne Boleyn’s meteoric rise and catastrophic fall.  The French perspective would be, I think, the richest to focus upon because of Anne’s early ties to the French royalty.  This will also make me work on learning French, which, after this conference, I’ve learned is a necessity.  This site is one that Estelle said she used quite a bit, and I hope it’ll aid me in my research: Gallica.

Anne Boleyn Portrait

Another particularly inspirational paper, for my research, was “Scotland’s Royal Children: 1371-1528″ by Amy Hayes.  She worked on researching the lives of the children of monarchs who were not expected to inherit the throne.  This was difficult research for her as there is scant documentary evidence available.  It doesn’t seem to exist.  What I would like to do, though, is look for threads on the curriculum taught to these children and to piece together the educational programme established for the royal broods.  England will be far easier than either Scotland or Ireland, and I’d also like to add in the Danish royal family.  There are not that many (read: basically none) sources in English on the Danish royal family, but with the work I’ve done on Anna of Denmark, I would really like to see what I can do to piece together her early childhood and that of her siblings.  One key way to understand the reigns of monarchs is to understand what was taught to them as children.  I’d like to do that with Anna and her siblings to start off with and then move on to other  royal broods.

 

This is in addition to studying for the GRE (again… ugh) and getting applications in line for graduate programs!

 

 

 

Book Review: Matilda: Wife of the Conqueror, First Queen of England

Luxembourg_-_La_Reine_Mathilde (Image Courtesy of Wikipedia)  Statue of Matilda of Flanders

 

This biography is well researched and draws upon a variety of sources.  The author, Tracy Borman, does an excellent job of taking what could otherwise be dry, lifeless text and makes it into a relatable and accessible work of prose.  The work sets up Matilda in context of her relations to her natal family as well as some of the political climate of the time.  There are plenty of examples of other ruling females from the time, which I would be keen to know more about.  However, this work seem to, at least at this point, have one major flaw: even though it is a work centered around Matilda, much of it is a revisit of historical thought on the men in her life, not on her.  This may be due to scant evidence, but I was honestly excited to find out more about her, not William, not the Bayeux Tapestry, not the Battle of Hastings… her.  While it is fascinating to see more work done on William that paints him in a more sympathetic light (instead of only a warlike and cruel invader), this central focus on this work is purportedly Matilda, not her husband.  And while the author’s gift of prose is shown in describing the Battle of Hastings in detail (as well as setting up the context of the battle, in terms of Harold, the Oath, and the battles he’d fought against Tostig just before) that brings the battle to life and helps the reader to connect with the important event… where is Matilda?  Oh, she’s at home, ruling Normandy.  Doing a bang up job of it too, which Borman does a fantastic job of relating to the reader.  Also interesting that while the Tapestry was rightfully mentioned in the book, there are other volumes that do a better job of describing in detail and research the various theories of where it was created, who commissioned it, and for what reasons.  Andrew Bridgeford’s 1066: The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry is one such work.  Borman, after discussing the various origin stories of the Tapestry concludes that it most likely wasn’t Matilda, after all, who commissioned it or worked on it.  So, then, why spend so much time and valuable space to bring it up?

Without the filler of work on William, Matilda’s family or the Tapestry, the book would probably be 3/4 of its final length.  However, especially for a casual reader, this book is still a valuable and engaging read.  As an introduction to the world of Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, this does a fantastic job of making the peoples, ideas and political climate of the time and place relatable and interesting.

 

Rating: 4.5/5 Owls

Why Owls?  Because everyone is fond of owls, and they’re wise.

In which we learn about a Hoist House, Exploring, and CCI

While exploring the Iron Ore Heritage Trail on a run last week, I found something interesting and quite unexpected!  This area I’m currently living in, the around surrounding Marquette, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula, has a lot of ties to mining in its history.  Honestly, mining is what provided the boom for enough people to come and settle here to actually give the area its population. One of the major players in the mining industry up here has been the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company, and love them or hate them, the company has provided a lot of jobs over the years here in the U.P.  CCI was huge here, and one of the endeavors of the Central Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan University Archives has been to collect and preserve the documentary history of the company and the impact it had on the residents, natural landscape, and economic situation of the Upper Peninsula.

Hoist House
Old Hoist House, Ishpeming, Mich.

Well, on this particular exploration of the Trail, I found that, literally just lying on the trail, was an old book.  I looked at the first page (the cloth bound book’s front and back covers were missing), and saw that it was a ledger for processing preferred stocks from CCI dating 1929-1931.  I immediately grabbed it and brought it home (as it had begun to violently storm).  After letting it dry and letting the bugs run out, I contacted my friends at NMU’s archives and they were thrilled to say the least.  I brought it to them the next day and then we went on a field trip so I could show them the building where I was pretty sure it had been stored.  There was only one building that was close to that part of the trail, and it is an old hoist house, and according to An Old Finnish Man, it is actually the oldest building left in Ishpeming.  A hoist house is something that I’m trying to learn a little more about, but it looks like this was just storage for the mine.  Typically, a hoist house literally houses the mining hoist.  There are a few examples of remaining hoist houses around the UP – one being the Quincy Mine No. 2 Hoist House in Houghton, Michigan.  This one has been preserved, rather than abandoned like the one in Ishpeming.  It is on the National Register of Historic Places, which is pretty significant.  Regardless, the one here in Ishpeming seems to house previously unknown documents relating to CCI and hopefully this means that there will be more exploration of the building and its possibly historical contents!!  I am excited and hope I get to be a part of this adventure into history!