medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
This is really a response to Pat, whose post seems to have been eaten by my anti-spam filter (I only became aware of it from Henk's response). The tactile or olfactory weakness of the story has been noticed before: I've seen a version (modern? -- I can't remember) in which this is gotten around by ascribing to J. a customary haste in dressing.
Apropos the shoes (a detail in the St. Vitalian version; I haven't seen it when the story is applied to Jerome), Pat makes a good point. On top of that, IIRC, in the Italian communes sumptuary legislation against fancy women's shoes begins in the fourteenth century. Such legislation is always later than the practices it attempts to suppress. And those practices in turn may have developed from earlier forms of ornamentation or other stylistic differentiation that were not considered offensive to public morals, that being ordinary will have caused no mention in our very partial surviving textual record, and that archaeologically either have escaped notice or else simply have no surviving exemplars (I don't know how many late twelfth- or thirteenth-century shoes survive from south Italian cities).
Best again,
John Dillon
On Saturday, October 24, 2009, at 4:32 am, Henk wriote in answer to Pat McIntosh-Spinnler:
> Right! A very practical and down to earth question, which, IMHO, is
> all too
> often not asked about medieval texts in general and hagiography in
> particular.
>
>
>
> Henk
>
>
>
> Van: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Namens Pat McIntosh-Spinnler
> Verzonden: vrijdag 23 oktober 2009 22:12
> Aan: [log in to unmask]
> Onderwerp: Re: [M-R] Medieval lighting [Jerome]
>
>
>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
> culture
>
>
> I think "wode" and "wood" are interchangeable. Surely Malory uses "stark
> wood" on more than one occasion?
>
>
>
> The story has many improbabilities, and the ecclesiastical dress of either
> period concerned isn't a topic I have studied. However there have been
> many
> eras in which male and female costume are very similar, distinguished
> by
> details we would see as subtle to the point of invisibility. Garments
> might
> be the same shape but of different preferred colours, or fastened in
> different ways, or with embroidery round the hem (that's one of the most
> likely giveaways in this case.) What puzzles me is how on earth Jerome
> managed to dress in someone else's clothes without noticing he was
> doing so,
> even in the dark. Surely they must have felt different, or even smelled
> wrong?
>
>
>
> Pat McIntosh-Spinnler
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