Showing posts with label Chartres. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chartres. Show all posts

Monday, February 19, 2024

Adela of Normandy

Recent posts have mentioned three of William of Normandy's sons who had claims (some of them realized) to the throne of England. The Conqueror had several children with his wife, Matilda of Flanders. One of his daughters was known as Adela of Normandy, named for her maternal grandfather.

She has been called Henry I's favorite sister. She was born c.1067, a year before Henry, and so was close to him growing up, receiving a similar education. She was probably educated at the Abbey of Sainte-Trinité, a Benedictine nunnery in Caen founded by her father. (Her mother would be buried there after her death in 1083.) Although she would not be in a position to inherit anything from her father, her parentage made her a valuable political asset as a bride.

About her 15th birthday, therefore, she was married at Chartres Cathedral to the son and heir to Count Theobald III of Blois, Stephen-Henry. Stephen-Henry was well into his 30s at the time. The marriage linked two powerful families of northern France. They had several children, a few of whom (William, Theobald, and Philip) are seen in the above illustration with their mother.

Stephen became Count of Blois at his father's death in 1089. When the First Crusade was announced, Stephen became one of tis leaders, using money from Adela. He was present at the Siege of Nicaea, writing letters to Adela about the events. His later actions were less than noble, a fact that disturbed his wife deeply and caused her to mock him.

Adela was regent whenever he was away, showing his trust in her and her administrative ability. She made grants to build new churches, and worked with St. Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, concerning misbehavior of nuns. She made sure her children were educated, since they were likely to have illustrious political careers—except, of course, for the ones she wanted to see enter Holy Orders, like her youngest, Henry, whom she dedicated to a religious life.

She became ill in 1105, and was visited by Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently exiled to the continent because of disputes with Adela's brother, Henry. In their conversations, Anselm made clear that excommunication of Henry was a possible next step to force Henry to comply with Anselm's demands for church autonomy. It is believed that she had a large part in convincing Henry to work with Anselm instead of against him.

She retired in 1120 to a prestigious convent at Marcigny near Cluny Abbey, where her son Henry was living. She died in 1137. Her financial support of churches and her devotion caused her to be named a saint.

Her persuasion of her brother to work with Anselm was a continuation of her support for the Church. Let us return to Anselm's story tomorrow.

Friday, February 28, 2014

The Hourglass

Detail, Allegory of Good Government
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1338
The hourglass has become a symbol of medieval technology, one of our first attempts to quantify and measure time. We know it existed in the 14th century, from a 1338 fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (c.1290 - 1348) in which the allegorical figure of Temperance holds one (Temperance, after all, is about taking a "measured" response to something, rather than uncontrolled actions). In 1345, an English merchant's receipts show that he paid for "twelve glass horologes" in Flanders, establishing that they were probably already prevalent and in demand.

Sailors found the sand-filled hourglass a definite improvement over its predecessor, the clepsydra* (the water clock), which was affected too much by the swaying of the ocean. When Magellan (c.1480 - 1521) circumnavigated the globe, his fleet had 18 hourglasses per ship, with a page dedicated to turning each one to keep accurate time.

They were also preferable in the early Middle Ages to clocks, because they did not rely on complicated and delicate machinery that needed frequent maintenance.

Where and when was the hourglass invented? A story that it was invented in the 800s by a monk at Chartres named Liutprand has no evidence to support it. The clue to the origin may be in the construction. The earliest hourglasses used marble dust for the sand. Also, the hourglass required expertise in glass-blowing. The likeliest location for these two features of the hourglass to be brought together is Italy, particularly Venice, where glass-blowing was a highly developed art and marble was readily available.

By the end of the 14th century, hourglasses were so common that the Goodman of Paris, writing a guidebook for his young wife in the 1390s, included a recipe for preparing the sand/dust for an hourglass:
Take the grease which comes from the sawdust of marble when those great tombs of black marble be sawn, then boil it well in wine like a piece of meat and skim it, and then set it out to dry in the sun; and boil, skim and dry nine times; and thus it will be good.
Not only must the hourglass have become common, but its construction was clearly something that could be contributed to by a regular household.

*clepsydra is from the Greek and means "water thief"; they could be very elaborate, but were naturally susceptible to humidity and temperature.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Black Monday

Today is known in the USA as Black Friday. The term was coined in 1966 to refer to the practice of kicking off the Christmas shopping season with big sales on the day after Thanksgiving, and is "black" because the increased revenue is supposed to lift companies out of red ink and into solvency.* "Black" has been used historically to denote particular days when disaster has struck. There is more than one Black Sunday, and Black Tuesday will forever be linked with the USA stock market crash on 29 October, 1929. The markets crashed again on 19 October, 1987—though not so spectacularly as in 1929. There are also a number of Black Mondays, but I want to focus on two of them.

In The antiquities and history of Ireland (1705) by Sir James Ware and Sir John Davie, we find this:
The occasion of Black-Monday, and the Original remembrance thereof rose at Dublin. The City of Dublin, by reason of some great Mortality, being waste and desolate, the Inhabitants of Bristol flock'd thither to Inhabit, who after their Country manner, upon Holy-days, some for love of the fresh Air, some to avoid Idleness, some other for Pastime, Pleasure, and Gaming-sake, flock'd out of the Town towards Cullen's Wood upon Monday in Easter Week. The Bitanes, Tooles, (the Mountain Enemies) like Wolves lay in Ambush for them, and upon finding them unarm'd, fell upon them, and slew 300 men besides Women and Children, ...
Also called "The Cullenswood Massacre," the event in 1209 was commemorated by Dubliners every year for a few centuries afterward.

Hailstones from a storm in the Philippines
The other Black Monday (in fact, there are several, but I'm talking about the medieval ones) took place in 1360. The Hundred Years War was in a particularly busy phase, and Edward III's forces were all over France. While he was approaching Chartres, a storm of great severity struck his encamped forces on 13 April (Easter Monday that year). It brought thunder, lightning, high winds, hailstones as big as pigeon eggs that dented armor. One report described it as “A foul dark day of mist and hail, and so bitter cold, that sitting on horseback men died.” We are told that 1000 men and 6000 horses died from the storm. According to Froissart, this storm was taken by many of Edward's advisers to be an omen; they convinced him to make peace, and on 8 May the Treaty of Brétigny was first concluded (it was formally ratified months later at Calais).

*Calendar note: given the way Thanksgiving is calculated, today (the 22nd) is the earliest date that Black Friday can take place; the latest is 29 November.