Using "Facebook" for Research

This had led me down a rabbit's hole...

Apparently, a group of French researchers have been going through medieval land transactions in the province of Lot (in S. France) to reconstruct social networks. The title of this piece is "Social Networking gets Medieval." From the title and my short description, I was thinking that they had constructed a computer model (a la Facebook) to reconstruct social networks in late medieval France. But that's not quite what these researchers did.

Publishing their findings in the journal Neurocomputing, these researchers went through legal transactions to figure out who knew who and where and when. Their conclusion? There are lots of pretty graphs and they figure out that these statistical models can help historians in some ways, although social context matters greatly and a "perfect community" (whatever that means) can't really be constructed.

I don't really know what to make of all this. On the one hand, computer modeling of intricate relationships - especially if it were user-friendly and widely available on the web - would be tremendously useful, especially if you're dealing with (what seem to be) tight social networks, like we do indeed have in most areas of the Middle Ages (and elsewhere). One could log-in, add a name and some information about that person, and have the program automatically draw out possible connections to other people that other scholars have found.

On the other hand, I think what they're doing is just called prosopography and I think Jonathan Jarrett (among others) knows a heck of a lot about. These French mathematicians are, in a sense, reinventing the wheel here, rather than utilizing the voluminous literature on social networks in the Middle Ages that generations of (predominantly German) scholars have put together. Look at what Paul Ormerod says about quantitative analysis. He's just plain wrong. This model is all numbers without the analysis.

Now, my head's a little fuzzy. When I saw Nature.com's headine, I was expecting Facebook to be made relevant to me as a scholar. Now, I'm dealing with free-lance economist/ historian consultants and statistical analysis of social networks. Help!

K'zoo Postmortem

Well, K'zoo is over. I am back in my office working on my Margery Kempe article, a small portion of which I presented--I want to be done with this article and move on to other projects. I feel deflated--I attended so many good sessions and presided over two great sessions (one that I organized--so I was pleased that even though it was a Sunday morning session and it was cold and wet, 20-some people came out to hear about Teaching the Mystics) that all the intellectual stimulation over-stimulated me. What's the word for intellectually amped and emotionally drained?...I'm sure there is one out there.

I look forward to going back next year (that was my fourth K'zoo in six years). But, now I have a summer of research ahead of me.

In the meantime, read the adventures of the Tiny Shriner at K'zoo here. I feel like Modern Medieval needs a mascot. Despite, their complete dismissal of gnomes over at ITM, I have a gnome in my office that the students love. He is my Big Lots Gnome...that's right he's from Big Lots. And he is awesome. Clearly, I need to attach a pic. I will have to do that.

For other K'zoo shenanigans: read Richard Scott Noke's blog. Did I see you in Muggs (the coffeshop) on Saturday morning? I'm not sure; I was very late for the blog meet up because I had to take the shuttle from the Holiday Inn (the wife and kids took the car for the day)...oh well, next year.

That is a wrap.

K'zoo

I'm off to Kalamazoo tomorrow morning (I'm dragging the whole family along so it is an abbreviated K'zoo outing). I will be there for Friday evening festivities, and the all of Saturday and Sunday (my busiest day is Sunday when I am presiding over a panel I organized--my first, on Teaching the Mystics--and presenting in the last time slot! on Margery Kempe and space. I look forward to meeting up with friends and making new ones! and....hearing some inspirational and thoughtful work (I am the only medievalist on my campus so K'zoo is my medieval fix for a whole year).

See you there!

Living in the 11th Century, Still: Charlemagne, Crusade, and Doing Research

This past weekend, I had the privilege of addressing the University of Delaware's Undergraduate Research Symposium. (UPDATE: Article here.) It's an outstanding program. I'm a product of it myself and I can't praise it enough. Anyway, there are some thoughts that I wanted to share, some of which I'll probably develop into an article (or 2) at some point later. It also has a lot to do with some things -- here and here -- that this blog has been focused on lately.

I invite your feedback...

Although it was some 11 years ago that I was sitting out there in the audience, just where you all are right now, I still remember the day quite vividly. I remember the excitement, the nerves of talking about my research in front of people. I don’t, I must admit, remember anything about the keynote speaker though (me). So, I’m under no illusions as to my place here. This day, today, is about you, and all the work you’ve done over the past year. Strutting your stuff, showing off – and rightfully so – your research to family, friends, faculty mentors, and each other.

So, please allow me to be brief and complete the relatively easy job I’ve been asked to do. To talk about my intellectual development and the place, I think, UD and undergraduate research played in all that.

Hi. My name’s Matt Gabriele. I grew up in Poughkeepsie, NY, came to Delaware as an Alison Scholar (the inaugural class, I believe), lived in Dickinson, the Towers, Harter, and Ray Street (in that order), and graduated with an Honors BA in History in 1997. After that, and despite the many protestations of my undergraduate mentor, Prof. Daniel Callahan, I went straight to graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley (Go Bears!). I finished my PhD in Medieval History in 2005, then got a job as a medievalist – someone who researches and teaches about the European Middle Ages. Since 2006, I’ve been an Assistant Professor of Humanities and Coordinator of Medieval & Early Modern Studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (the formal name for a school you might know as “Virginia Tech” – Go Hokies!).

I love my job. I love being a teacher. I love the fact that I get to spend the rest of my life “in college” (but, best of all, without paying tuition and being able to afford decent beer). Most relevant for this talk though, I love doing my research.

Through its many incarnations, my research has remained focused on the Crusades, even more fundamentally on the point of intersection between religion (Christianity, specifically) and violence. I’m currently finishing a book project entitled The Legend of Charlemagne and the Origins of the First Crusade, based on research I did for my PhD dissertation. But the origins of this project go back further – to my Senior Thesis at Delaware and, ultimately, all the way back to a seminar paper I wrote for Prof. Callahan in my junior year. So, let me 1st discuss my project.

Charlemagne (Karolus Magnus in Latin = Carles li magnes in Old French = “Charles the Great” in English) was king of the Franks, one of the Germanic peoples who settled in Western Europe as centralized power in the Roman Empire began to fall away. In 800, on Christmas Day in Rome, he was crowned Roman Emperor – the heir of Caesar, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, et al. – and, by the time of Charlemagne’s death in 814, he controlled most of Europe, a swath of territory not held together since antiquity.

But that empire fell apart after his death, in the age of Charlemagne’s grandsons, as they fought one another for the inheritance they thought to be theirs. Throughout the late 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries, power decentralized and the memory of Charlemagne and his empire seems to have decentralized with it. Charlemagne himself became a towering, legendary figure, who presided over a Golden Age – defender of an idealized, unified (if fictional) Christendom. Like a fish tale, his exploits grew with each generation. The boundaries of his empire expanded to include places that he and his successors never conquered, nor likely ever dreamed of going to – Spain, England, Ireland, Sicily, the Byzantine Empire (modern Greece and Turkey), and the Holy Land (Jerusalem).

But as this legend developed, and the time in which he lived became more idealized, Charlemagne himself seems to have paradoxically become less important. What I mean is that the focus of the legend shifted from the man himself to the people he led – the Franks. And almost anyone could be a Frank. In places as diverse as Saint-Denis (just outside Paris), Aquitaine (in what’s now SW France), Saxony (in NE Germany), Lombardy (in what’s now N Italy), Catalonia (in what’s now NE Spain), and Bavaria (in SE Germany), authors remembered a shared past, emanating from Charlemagne’s reign. In the 11th century, people could – and did – still have local identities. They were still Normans, Bavarians, or Lombards, for instance. Yet, when they spoke of themselves in a larger, European, or Christian context, they were “Franks.”

In the context of the First Crusade – an event with long, deep roots into Christian spirituality stretching back more than 1,000 years, but immediately sparked in 1095 by a speech given by Pope Urban II in Clermont (in what’s now S France). In the context of the First Crusade, the Charlemagne legend and the population’s self-identification as Franks were critically important to why people went – why they decided, based on the power of an idea, to walk the approximately 4,000 miles separating Paris and Jerusalem, suffering hunger and thirst, killing people they had probably barely heard of, and certainly never seen.

At that speech at Clermont, Pope Urban – himself a Frank, born the son of a petty nobleman from a town not far from Reims, in N. France – urged his audience to remember the example of their collective Carolingian ancestors, and take up the long-neglected historical duties they’d had under Charlemagne. Retake your place as the rightful defenders of Christendom, vanquish the pagans, and restore good order to Christendom. As one chronicler remembered Urban asking his audience at Clermont: “On whom therefore is the labor of avenging these wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you?”

And the Franks responded. Over 100,000 people, from all over Europe joined the 1st Crusade. But look at how the response to Urban’s call matched up with sites important to the Charlemagne legend before 1100. In the eyes of one chronicler of, and participant in, the 1st Crusade (Fulcher of Chartres), people from Gaul, the German lands, Normandy, England, Scotland, Aquitaine, Italy, Spain, Brittany, and the Eastern Empire comprised the crusader army. Charlemagne had conquered Gaul, the German lands, Normandy, England, Scotland, Aquitaine, Italy, Spain, Brittany, and the eastern Empire, according to a contemporary epic poem, the Oxford Song of Roland.

In 1095, people knew that the community of all Christians, Urban evoked, didn’t exist. They did, however, believe that it once had – in Charlemagne’s empire. Social memory informs identity, but it can also tell a community how to act. Urban’s call to reclaim Jerusalem – land lost not only to Christendom, but lost specifically to the Franks who had held it under Charlemagne – was powerful because Urban tapped into something that was already simmering in the Frankish consciousness. 1095 seemed to be a moment when the past could be recreated; Jerusalem retaken, East and West reunited, the enemies of Christ defeated, and Christianity unified. Just as had been done under Charlemagne. Just as the Franks could now do again.

But, so what?

And that’s always, I think, a valid question – albeit one that scholars too rarely think to ask, let alone answer. It’s not that they (we) don’t have good answers, because we do. Rather, it’s often that these connections are self-evident – when you’re neck-deep in your research, you make those kinds of connections in your head without even thinking. (If you think I’m kidding, all you out there, think about how well you’d be able to succinctly explain the importance of your research – in just 1 sentence – to an aunt or uncle.)

So, back to the “so what?” I first got this question – and you never forget your first time – right here at UD, right here at this symposium. And I like to think that the research I did here, and the way that my advisors and fellow students pushed me to think about my work – that question they asked – has kept me honest. Why study the Middle Ages? Does an understanding of 11th-century “Frankish identity” matter? Why care about the crusades anymore?

I won’t presume to definitively answer these questions now. I won’t even pretend that I actually know the answers. But I do think that the questions are indeed important. Not “more” important than questions in other disciplines (the sciences, the social sciences, elsewhere in the humanities). But, luckily we’re not competing. It’s not – and this is something else we shouldn’t forget – a zero-sum game, where the importance of one person’s questions destroys the importance of another’s. Scholarship is essentially, necessarily, collaborative – not competitive. So, what I’d like to do, in the little time left to me, is to tackle this “so what?” by offering some preliminary thoughts on the idea of “crusade” today.

Shortly after 9/11, on September 16, 2001, President George W. Bush, speaking of how the United States would react to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, said (and I’ll spare you the imitation) “This crusade, this war on terrorism is gonna take awhile. And the American people must be patient.” A couple of days later, Jonathan Phillips, a crusades scholar at the University of London, published an op-ed in the English newspaper The Independent chastising Bush for his ill-considered words, especially when dealing with the Islamic world. But others, such as Tom Madden of St. Louis University and Jonathan Riley-Smith, recently retired from Cambridge and the foremost historian of the crusades in the English-speaking world, have defended the institution, and by extension I think, Bush’s use of the term.

But even when the word “crusade” itself is missing, the complex cluster of ideas behind it are still there. In 2003, Lieutenant General “Jerry” Boykin went, in full uniform, on a preaching tour of American churches. On this tour, he spoke of Muslims worshipping an “idol” and “false god” and portraying America’s battle against militant Islam as a battle against “Satan.” The only way these enemies could be defeated, Boykin concluded, was to “come against them in the name of Jesus.” In 2007, after the death of Jerry Falwell, and the prospect of protests at his funeral by Fred Phelps and his virulently anti-homosexual Westboro Baptist Church, Liberty University student Mark David Uhl, a self-professed “soldier of Christ” on his MySpace page, was arrested after constructing several bombs he intended to use against Phelps. Earlier, in April 2007, at Virginia Tech, Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 of his teachers and classmates. He left behind a small corpus of writings (poems and a “manifesto,” most notably) that evoked Christian imagery in a peculiar way – a perception of righteous suffering, like Jesus, the working of the devil in the world, and the need to (violently) lash out against those seen to be his agents. Boykin’s, Uhl’s, and Cho’s language – Islam as idolaters, the work of the devil in the world, martyrdom, killing in Jesus’ name, etc. – could be lifted almost verbatim from any medieval Christian source.

But “crusade” has more than one meaning, and each is heavily laden with modern political meaning – and none of them entirely representative of current academic thought on the subject. For instance, one side condemns the crusades as a barbaric act of intolerance against Islam. Another side sees the crusades as primarily defensive, pushing back a muscular, expansionary Islam that would’ve soon engulfed all of Europe. Unsurprisingly, as with most simplistic explanations, both sides are wrong – sort-of. Moreover, just to make things more confusing, “crusade” has a third common meaning. Indeed, at least in English, the word can often have (what most would consider) positive, progressive connotations – a crusade against poverty, against homelessness, or (without irony) a crusade against violence.

Because of this complex interconnection of meanings, we must be wary, not just of the way we use words, but of the very words themselves. This is NOT relativism. It doesn’t mean that all interpretations of a word or other symbol – such as a flag – are equally valid. We have to critically examine those interpretations. To take an example, there’s recently been a big kerfuffle about the word “cling.” The truth is, in a Biblical context, it can indeed have both positive and negative connotations. Paul’s Letter to the Romans (12:9) says, “Hate what is evil; CLING to what is good” but the Book of Jonah (2:8) says, “Those who CLING to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” But even these readings are problematic, since they depend on one particular translation of the Bible. That passage in Jonah, for example, ONLY uses the word “cling” in the New International Version, and not in the innumerable other English-language translations out there.

More than anything else, what all this means is that the use of a particular word or symbol will activate a reader’s ingrained mental chain of associations. Connections might be made that couldn’t initially have been foreseen, and we can’t summarily discard interpretations simply because we didn’t intend them. Meaning doesn’t inherently reside in text or reader but is often generated in the peculiar interplay between specific text and specific reader (or listener). In other words, context matters – and it’s all of our jobs to critically examine those contexts.

These same problems reside with the word “crusade.” “Crusade” even in its apparently most benign usage – I saw an article recently talking about a woman’s crusade to save feral cats – implies struggle against. It divides the world into good and evil, black and white. It implies that the outcome of that struggle has almost cosmic significance, in which good (the side deploying the word “crusade”) must prevail. It’s a zero-sum equation that tends to excuse the means in service of the ends, simply because there is no acceptable end besides utter and complete victory for “the good.”

So, maybe it’s time to ditch the word altogether. Or, perhaps better, “archive” the word – remember the way the word has been used and only deploy it sparingly. Scholars in Medieval Studies can then focus on the complex, changing relationship between religion and violence across the centuries, without worrying about modern semantic debates. And, more generally, without the crutch of “crusade,” today, we can all think about exactly what we mean when we’re struggling against someone or something. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not really productive to think in such stark, Manichean terms – that our opponents are evil and that, because we’re the “good” guys, we have all the answers and can do whatever we want to the “bad” guys.

A Germanic king, long-dead these 1200 years, and an undergraduate research experience at the University of Delaware have led me here.
• Read everything critically.
• Think for yourself.
• Remember the context.
• But always, always remember the “so what?”
Those kinds of skills will come in handy if any of you do decide to go to graduate school, become a professor, get invited back to your alma mater to give a talk, and want to have a conversation with some new friends on a crisp and cloudy Saturday morning.

Thank you.

The Uses of the Humanities

To piggyback on Matthew's previous blog, sign the petition. And, as a way to continue of the theme of the importance of the humanities, I thought I would comment on this thoughtful commentary from Easily Distracted (which I picked up from The Cranky Professor...btw welcome back stateside!)

As I was reading Distracted's commentary, it struck me as to how applicable these "answers" to the "so what?" question are to the humanities in general (not only history0. In medieval studies, there are constant arguments about how applicable the Middle Ages are to the current political/cultural situation or how they are not (for a nice back and forth on contingency issues see Cultural Studies of the Modern Middle Ages ed. Eileen Joy, Myra J. Seaman, Kimberly K. Bell, and Mary K. Ramsey--an excellent collection of essays that I read cover to cover).

Number three: the past is analogue is applicable for this post. I wanted to comment on this BBC story "Medieval Diets Far More Healthy." Food is a hot button issue at the moment, especially with possible worldwide food shortages. And possibly, the Middle Ages ate far less processed food, of course, no Hungry Knight dinners or Lean Queensines, and the Middle Ages were a lot more concerned with the cycles of the seasons and its effect on crops (as a shameless plug, I just had an article on what medieval people ate published in this collection). There were famines in the Middle Ages, of course, (1315-1317 comes to mind).

The issue with this BBC article is the unequivocal nostalgia. Yes, people ate more seasonally in the Middle Ages, but they were also tied to local markets which could prove volatile (if you were locked within a city under siege, you are out of luck). On the other hand, eating locally, as championed by Bill McKibben and challenged in this article from Alternet is important to consider. We should be more aware of where our food comes from and respect that there should be a fair price for the things we import.

Though the BBC article mentions class differences (albeit briefly), it is safe to say that the lower classes did not always have access to enough food in the MA. In many ways, these problems are resurfacing; with the recent reports on the price of rice and corn (because of faulty rationales that food will solve our energy crisis) and its effect on "Third World" countries--the least of us are already facing food problems. Though, I'm imagining that the recent caps on how much rice you can buy at Costco or Sam's Club are "fear" responses (we seem to be very good at that in this country at the moment).

So, what can be done? How can history help us in this moment? Of course, these situations are not exactly the same, but part of the answer is to admit the volatility of our markets, and to recognize our attachment to the land (until we start eating out of test tubes). [I mean the Plowman WAS often utilized as a Christ-figure, how much more respect can you have for those who work the land?]. We could also take a lesson from theology and think about temperance, about the middle path. Can we survive without our seven televisions (a relative of mine actually has this many TV's in his house)? Or can we learn how to produce more of our own food (grow a garden everyone!) There are bigger problems, too like monoculture and farm subsidies that act as enablers for monoculture.

The problem is complex; history suggests that it is. And THAT is what we often forgot.

Cheers.

The University of Toledo

I'm torn about doing this post. On the one hand, I want this blog to stay focused on "Modern Medieval" or, perhaps better, how being a medievalist means that you can say something about the modern world. On the other hand, this seems an opportunity to do so -- especially as I've tried to talk about how the Humanities (and Liberal Arts, more generally) can indeed help us understand our world (see medieval shrimp factories, meaning of history, medieval "tolerance", on Seung-Hui Cho 1, and 2, etc.).

-----
So, I'm going to do the post:

Read this post at New Kid on the University of Toledo. Then, go sign the petition.

There you go.

On Medieval Shrimp Factories

Saw this little gem on CNN.com today. If I may quote the article about working conditions in (predominantly) Thai shrimp factories:

The plant, Ranya Paew, "was more like a fortress than a factory, with 16-foot-high barbed-wire capped walls, an armed guard force, and an extensive internal closed-circuit television system," the Solidarity Center alleged, citing Thai police reports.

"Behind the walls, the police found a scene that one report described as 'little short of medieval,' with hundreds of workers literally trapped inside the compound, living in squalid conditions, forced to work long hours, and subjected to physical, emotional, and sexual intimidation and abuse. Workers who angered the employer were often 'put to shame' in front of others by having their hair cut or shaved in patches. Women and girls were stripped naked and publicly beaten as a form of discipline." [my emphasis]

Apparently, the Middle Ages were worse even than this. Although I don't know as much as I should about medieval peasant society, I'm pretty sure this is actually worse than a typical manor. Granted, you don't hear the voice of the underclass much in medieval texts but the forcible imprisonment and public torture (just to take the most egregious examples here) seem to me beyond anything to be expected in a typical medieval village.

So, why use "medieval?" (Granted, I'm stepping on LLCoolCarl's shoes but that's my thang...) This is an entirely different use of the term -- and memory of the period -- than I've written about before. Even if the CNN/ Thai definition is a bit closer to my perception of the period, it's nonetheless a little troubling to me -- I happened about this article earlier today and it's stuck in my craw since then, compelling me to write something about it. I'm still not sure what the problem is though.

Maybe I'm bothered because the article simply throws the word out there without a whole lot of thought behind it. I mean, they're probably thinking about a dungeon, right? Whips, chains, iron maiden, etc. But maybe not. Maybe it's just an adjective that means "other," an uncritical, englightenment perception of a darker past that we, generally, have moved beyond. And generally, I might like to agree. The problem, then, is that this kind of thinking asserts that such behavior -- torture, kidnapping, etc. -- are aberrant in our society, when in fact they're really not. Certainly, all that stuff was there in the Middle Ages too. The thing is though, it never left. I hope I don't need to go into examples.

So, maybe the solution to dealing with all these problems is simply to be aware that they're out there and that they're actually more common than we might like to think. Maybe we all should acknowledge that good stuff and bad stuff happens to all people, at all times, in all places. It's not just confined to the "medieval." Personally, we might find such violence abnormal but there are, unfortunately, plenty who don't. We might (unfortunately?) stop being surprised when this stuff happens but we also might be able to stop it earlier, since we (reluctantly?) concede that it's indeed going on.

(Short) Review of Wealtheow, by Ashley Crownover

Being a blogger has its perks. It's not just the fame, the fortune, the prestige that naturally associates itself with the act of blogging. Sometimes, just sometimes, you get free stuff.

Along with Dr. Noakes and JJ Cohen, I was fortunate enough to be sent an advance copy of Ashley Crownover's Wealtheow: Her Telling of Beowulf. Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed the book. As you may guess, the novel (re-)tells the story of Beowulf from the point-of-view of Wealtheow, Queen of the Danes and Hrothgar's wife. In this telling, the plot revolves around her and the focus is on the role of the wife, as peace-weaver, as settler of feud, in this society.
Beowulf, as you might expect, shows up eventually and the familiar story takes over. But this is almost an epilogue to the main telling and Crownover spends the majority of her time on the shape of Danish society and the subtle interactions among all those with different roles to play.

Crownover certainly is a good storyteller. The narrative flows along at a quick pace and the characters are well-drawn. I have minor quibbles here and there but my only major concern was about the role magic seems to play in this society. It's not there, then it's sort of there, then it's REALLY there, then not so much again. When magic became important in the narrative -- and that comes suddenly -- it's quite jarring and, for me, was almost a "jump the shark" moment. Luckily, it wasn't.

Overall, I'd recommend the book. It might go well in a course on medievalism, especially if paired with Zemeckis' telling of Beowulf.

Gerard Caspary

Sometimes the personal intrudes.

I learned yesterday that one of my graduate school teachers, Gerard Caspary, passed away. Euromad has an elegant post up about his mentor.

In all honesty, I never saw eye-to-eye with the man but he was a towering intellect and (as I say over at Euromad), the one course I took from him, on biblical exegesis, was probably the most important course I've ever taken in my life. I hope, hope, hope that more of his work will come to light.

Off to NYC: Fordam/ Crusades Conference

Off to present at this conference this weekend (there are abstracts on the site, if anyone's particularly interested). Apparently, it's a popular place or something...

Anyway, if anybody else is going, say hi.