Introduction
My name is Gillian and I am an AHRC funded
first year PhD candidate at the University of Manchester. The focus of my
research is the medieval religious dramas (known as the mystery plays) that
originated from areas of the north of England, specifically those associated
with the cities of York and Chester, along with those contained in the Towneley
manuscript that appear to have some connection with the Wakefield area. I did
my undergraduate degree in English Literature at Manchester where my passion
for medieval literature soon became apparent. Having achieved a First Class
B.A., I went on to study my M.A. in Medieval Studies also at the University of
Manchester. Hard work is rewarded at Manchester – I got a scholarship which
enabled me to study for a Master’s with all fees waived!
In Depth…
Medieval literature may seem rather
irrelevant to a modern society, but I believe that there are important challenges
that we face today on global levels that have precedent in medieval society.
Negotiating borders and boundaries, tensions inherent in religious beliefs and
differences, the global economic and environmental challenges we face today –
all of these, I contend, were of concern to medieval people who imagined the
consequences of these challenges in ways which could appeal to an everyday,
non-academic audience. The texts of the religious dramas are, on a very basic
level, re-workings of Christian biblical narratives that depict the story of
the bible from Creation to Doomsday. But they are also much more than that.
People wrote how they spoke well into the seventeenth century (and in some
cases well beyond this) and so what you can also tell from these stories is
where these plays could have been best understood, in the region in which they
were written. They are regional texts written with a preferred audience in
mind. Part of the humour which, perhaps surprisingly, runs through these plays,
depends upon local dialects – they promote regionalism as a mode of belonging
just as much as any religious persuasion. My research is currently
investigating the plays’ depiction of Noah and the flood from the three
different regional perspectives of York, Chester, and the West Riding of
Yorkshire (Wakefield). The questions I am posing are whether the differences
between the plays’ dramatization of similar material is influenced by the
environment of their production – do they display an acknowledgement of the
very real threat of global environmental disaster caused by flooding that is of
concern to everyone today? Do they promote inclusive community reaction and
therefore action? Or do they display more individual responses that reveal
exclusions and self-interest? During the summer months I will be visiting both
York and Chester where the plays are being staged again. I want to ask the
people who go to see these plays today what they get out of them, why do they
still go? Why do the cities still produce these plays? What relevance do they
have in today’s society? Can they be produced to appeal to a multi-faith
international community, or do the choices taken by the producers of these
modern versions maintain notions of civic imperialism and Christian elitism? My
research will investigate these plays as transtemporal texts to suggest that
each rendering of familiar material has specific differences in order to offer
a very regional mode of both belonging and questioning as the following
medieval images reveal. The first image is from a manuscript housed in the John
Rylands library – look at all the fantastical beasts, and then see how the
raven pecks at the eye of the corpse not among the chosen few on Noah’s ark.
Were Noah and his family the first boat 
people, early refugees?
There are twelve people in the
image below, but only eight made it onto the ark – go figure!
How do the texts
respond to/replicate/question these contemporary images?
Going Further…
(www.inthemedievalmiddle.com) A really useful website
detailing the lastest research areas of key medieval scholars and the relevance
of medieval literature to modern society.
(www.alc.manchester.ac.uk) A key contact point for all
current information regarding entry requirements, course components, etc. in
the School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures at the University of Manchester.
(www.luminaruim.org) A veritable treasure trove
of free to access information/essays/texts on all things medieval.
(www.medievalsociety.blogspot.co.uk) Blog from the
Manchester Medieval Society which is run by current academics who are all at
the cutting edge of research in their fields. All are welcome to join and join
in!
by YPU Admin on July 9, 2015,
. Tags:
demons, french, history, Humanities, imagery, medieval, Religion, Research, theology, and witchcraft
Introduction
My name is Tom and I am embarking on
a PhD in History at the University of Manchester this autumn. I studied for my
BA in History at Manchester and I’m currently finishing my masters in Gender
History at the University of Glasgow. In between these courses I spent a year
working as an English Language Assistant in two secondary schools in Lille,
France. During my undergraduate studies I developed a passion for early modern
beliefs about the supernatural and I wrote a dissertation on sixteenth-century
French demonological treatises (you could call these witch-hunting manuals!). My
research has now taken me to the phenomenon of demonic possession in sixteenth
and seventeenth-century France and England, particularly on how possession narratives
contributed to the cultural construction of the body.
In Depth
Demonic Possession may seem strange
to us now, something you expect to see in a horror film, but during the early
modern period
it was an extremely important phenomenon. There were perhaps thousands of cases
of possession and exorcism across continental Europe, including France, during
the early modern period (c. 1500-1800).Young
boys and girls, often teenagers or young adults, were recorded as having seizures,
possessing unnatural strength, speaking in ‘foreign tongues’, levitating and
spitting out objects like pins and nails. There are many cases in France where
entire convents of nuns were said to be possessed by the devil. During the
Reformation and Counter-Reformation, when Western Christianity split and
Protestant churches emerged, demonic possession and exorcism acted as a vehicle
of religious propaganda, a way of showing which religious denomination God
favoured.
However it was also an important
phenomenon for everyday people. Men and women flocked to see public exorcisms
in France and there was a booming book trade which centred on stories of
demoniacs (a possessed person) which would rival the best Stephen King novel.
In this way demonic possession can be viewed as a type of performance, even a
form of mass-entertainment. This is where my research centres. I’m interested
in why demonic possession was such an important phenomenon in this period but
also how it affected other areas of people’s lives. I look at the use of the
body within the performance of demonic possession and how it was written about
and understood. I use a wealth of documentation left behind, from the trials of
witches accused of causing possession, personal and witness testimonies of
possessions and exorcisms and the wealth of printed books which distributed
these narratives to a mass audience. In doing so I hope to shed light on how
beliefs surrounding the supernatural were connected to early modern cultural
ideas about the body and the life-cycle.
I developed my interest for this
area of history in my final year of undergraduate studies during a module on
Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Europe and I was supported by my supervisors in
developing this project. Having French language skills made this a viable PhD project
and so if I could give one word of advice it would be to learn a language! Not
only do languages give you a competitive edge in academia or on the job market
but they’re actually pretty fun and (cliché alert) really do take you places.
It was fantastic having the opportunity to live in France and practice my
French for a year. I gained life-long friends and memories plus I’ve picked up
practical skills in the process. It’s never too late to learn either! I started
learning Latin this year and in fact your first year at university is the
perfect time to experiment. Manchester’s University Language Centre lets you
take a language as part of any degree programme. You may not have clicked with
French, German or Spanish at school but have you ever thought about Portuguese,
Polish, Chinese or even Arabic? Try it and who knows where you’ll end up!
Going Further
There really is a wealth of on-line
resources out there on early modern Europe and the Supernatural. Also, in 2016
there will be an exhibition, “Magic and the Expanding Early Modern World”, at
John Rylands Library on Deansgate!
15-Minute History: “Demonic
Possession” in Early Modern Europe (Podcast) (http://15minutehistory.org/2013/10/23/demonic-possession-in-early-modern-europe/)
The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft (http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/Research/witches/)
The Damned Art: The History of Witchcraft
and Demonology (Internet Exhibition) (http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/specialcollections/virtualexhibitions/damnedart/)
The Many-Headed Monster (Blog) (https://manyheadedmonster.wordpress.com/)
The Pendle Witch Trial (Documentary)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv-JDUfADiw)
A helpful website on European
Witchcraft (http://www.witchcraftandwitches.com/index.html)
Women and the Early Modern Witch
Hunts (Blog Post) (http://www.jesswatson.co.uk/post/78990856670/women-and-the-early-modern-witch-hunts)