Starting all over again

So today I started work on my PhD. I will be looking at the use and perception of space contained within the Gott Collection housed at the Hepworth gallery Wakefield with several layers - Victorian medievalism, current medievalism, the use of space in the Middle Ages, Victorian period and in the modern day.

I'm jumping into something new and leaving behind medieval gender history which isn't something I thought I would say. At the moment I think I'm still within the more undergraduate stage of thinking I understand some of the key concepts - that there is medievalism in the nineteenth century as a response to the scary industrialism (and the varied problems it brings)  as well as a continuation of the perpetual fascination with the medieval period more recently evolved as Romanticism. Medievalism affected architecture, art, interior design and literature to produce a response to both of the contemporary and previous schools of thought/practice and to the changing world of the period, giving it a 'Janus-faced gaze' as Sophie Gilmartin termed it.

This is what I expected to find therefore I am suspicious of it! I am also very aware of the lack of materials at Huddersfield for (Victorian) medievalism as it is not something we teach.

Facts of the Day

1. Edward I wasn't crowned for two years after he became king because he was off on crusade.

2. I'm only a couple of inches taller than the average medieval Englishwoman.

3. A knight was killed at the coronation of Edward II after the collapse of a wall.

All from Michael Prestwich Plantagenet England (Oxford, 2005)

Edouard Perroy

I just want to laud one of my academic heroes for a moment. Edouard Perroy wrote the fantastic The Hundred Years War (in his own words:) 'uninterruptedly, during the winter of 1943-4, thanks to the precarious leisure granted to me during an exciting game of hide and seek with the Gestapo'. I have added the emphasis on the end so that we can all appreciate the that he wrote this without the benefit of a library or an office or anything "academic"; just previously-made notes and his memory and in a place occupied by invaders. The book was revised for publication but I maintain that Perroy is an incredible writer. That, and the fact that he used the word 'pettifogging' (see p.52).

Fourteenth Century families and Consanguinity

So with Edward's family have a lot of consanguineous marriages. I've been drawing little diagrams and working out how people were related and how many degrees of consanguinity that would be.

This is the table which I've been using - so helpful to work it out! 

So, what did I come up with?

These are some of the fruits of my labours!

So the royal family is a bit of a mess in this period! Not only is the heir to the throne married to his first cousin once removed (which is the fifth degree and therefore not prohibited) but Joan's granddaughter marries Joan's husband's brother! That was prohibited... 

Well done fourteenth century aristocracy!!

Connections

I've managed to get my first love (twelfth century queenship and Matilda of Scotland) into my thesis about Edward III! Success.

We are all one big happy, connected historical family...

Why are chronicles so expensive to buy?

9 June Review

Today I have:

• submitted expenses forms
• tracked down boxes for the clearout of the office on the weekend
• agreed a time for the clean up
• posted a note about the clean up on the office door
• written a blog post about the conference
• continued laundry
• food shopping
• started applying for the job at Buckingham Palace

• added an introduction to the Number of Children section

Not an impressive work day. I'll be going shopping, home and then doing some more. Slightly embarrassed - but that's the point of doing this...