Dear Carlos,
Ouch.
Some of that stuff has been kicking around in my head so
long that the address of the original sender is just no longer
legible.
This is true, I know, for the Paris Ball Players anecdote, which
I *believe* I never saw in print but heard from my (late) history
prof at Vanderbilt, Dayton Phillips. He didn't mention a source, but
was not the kind of historian to make stuff up out of whole cloth.
Maybe it's in Guerard's publication of the Cathedral Cartulary
(IU doesn't have a copy, so I'm relieved of checking).
The Chartres Bird Hunters is mentioned, I *believe* in Robert
Branner's introduction to his _Chartres Cathedral_ (Norton Critical
Studies in Art History), 1969 (1996).
I don't have this to hand; let me know if I hallucinated the source and
I'll search the soft drive again.
I believe that Branner also publishes a translation of a 13th c. document
(one of several) which talks about a certain family (the Tachainvilles) which
had the hereditary right to annually (on Assumtion day??) "wash" the
bejewelled Sainte Chaisse of the Virgin with water and wine.
By the early 13th c. to this custom had also accrued (if that's the proper
word) the right to *keep* any jewels which might fall off the box during
the washing process, and the Chapter brought a case to try and put these
guys back in their place.
(I've got, somewhere, [not very good, I fear] transcriptions
of several of the other--unpublished--documents generated by this case and
would be happy to supply them to anyone who might like to work up an
interesting article, though a trip to the AD at Chartres would be necessary
to get it done.)
Maybe I've gotten the source for the Bird Hunters confused with this other
remarkable case. But I'll take a look at Branner (if I can find my copy)
tonight and try again if it's not there.
The Beauvais Anti-Crime Thorn Crusade is easier.
Stephen Murray gave me a draft of his _Beauvais Cathedral: Architecture of
Transcendence_ (PUP, 1989) to look at and, there amongst the turgid academic
prose (*great* book, but Joyce Stephen ain't), was this jewel, which I
convinced him (not *too* hard to do) to publish along with some of the other
remarkable documentary material which he had unearthed in the Beauvais
Archives Departmentales. It's there, in an appendix, I believe, as one of the
account records of payments made by the chapter (sorry I can't supply the
exact ref: the IU copy is out and my copy is at home).
Hope these help, somehow.
Let me know if anything comes of the Chartres material, will you?
On another point in this interesting string:
Patrick, I assume that you've looked at Hugo _Farsitus'_ account of the
miracles of the Virgin surrounding the ergot outbreak in the 1120's in
Soissons?
I got interested in this facinating text (still mostly untranslated??) whilst
doing some ergot-like investigating of my own in the late '60's and was
interested in the text for its descriptions of the visions which many (most?)
of the victims experienced.
Hugo was something of a doctor, it seemed to me, judging by his careful
descriptions of the disease. His descriptions of crowds and crowd-like
movements (if any: I don't remember) would share this interest in detail.
I haven't kept up on the litterature and would be interested if anyone has
worked on this source in the decades since.
-----------------------------------------
Carlos wrote:
>Could you tell us which are the sources for the examples you cite
below? I am really interested on the archers question.
Thanks in advance
Carlos
>Reminds me of the strict prohibitions against playing ball
>in the cathedral of Paris (!) *while Mass was being said* (!!)
>or against archers shooting arrows at birds on the porches
>of Chartres (!), knocking off bits of the sculptures (!!).
>And, among the 15th c. expenditures recorded in the account
>books of the construction of Beauvais cathedral, there
>is the lovely entry noting money appropriated for cart-loads
>of thorns to be placed on the just-emerging unfinished piers,
>to keep urchins from playing on them.
>
>Christopher Crockett
-------------------------------------
Best to all from here,
Christopher
Christopher Crockett
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