 |
 |
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture "Ms Brenda M. Cook" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: [quoting me] >>never having seen mention of this phenomenon in the literature (i'd welcome a reference from someone), i like to call these "cluster obituaries" --several families not always on the same day, but all within a few days of each other, usually in the necrology of the same house, but sometimes in those of several houses in the region. >I too would like to know of any study of this phenomenon. Nothing in the literature I have read. i had a bit of a conversation with someone considerably more knowledgeable than i (not difficult to be) at my stall at k'zoo a few years ago and bounced the idea off him (Joseph Dyer??) and, while he too had not actually read anything of the sort, it seemed to him to be a reasonable deduction. one recent work that i've only glanced at which, at a minimum (and it's a pretty small work) might have some recent bibliographic hopefulls is in the sometimes useful series published by Brepols, "Typologie des Sources du Moyen Âge Occidental" : N. Huyghebaert, _Les documents nécrologiques,_ 1972. 76 p., + 14 p. updating by J.L. Lemaître. (http://www.brepols.net/catalogue/index.jsp?mpk=20295&art=90530 ) >And it causes laughable discepancies in some of the less discriminating family trees on the 'Net. my limited experience with viewing medieval genealogies on the web is that, except perhaps for those dealing with very highest level of the "nobility," they are all inherently unreliable. even off the web, in old-fashioned "printed" books, the information in the secondary literature (including, say, footnotes to published charters) must be used with great caution and "controlled" against the actual sources. i'm sure that the published chartrain material is not at all exceptional in this regard, and i've found it to be *full* of contradictions and revisions. eg., footnotes in sucessive publications of cartularies --even by the same editor-- might give a great variety of information about a given family, but be subject to sucessive revisions as more and more of the charters were published or simply unearthed in the course of the 19th c. but, unlike a webpage, the earlier publication is *out there* in the world and cannot be changed nor in any way linked to the subsequent publication correcting or expanding it. and even the better "monographic" treatments of individual families (de Dion on the LePuisets or Depoin on the Gallardons & the Leves) must be used with considerable caution, not only checked against the published charters but also, wherever possible, against the originals themselves (considerable opportunities for transcription errors, there in those tedious and "unimportant" witness lists). this can end up looking a *lot* like Work, if one is not careful. the only way i can see to arrive at a dependable genealogy is to just plow through the charters (and the occasional other sources, including necrolgies) and tease out the relationships, one name at a time, citing one's sources in specificity so that one can go back, repeatedly, and weed out the inevitable, innumerable, errors one has made. (http://www.ariadne.org/centrechartraine/lords/GALFAM1.htm ) not many genealogical sites i've seen on the web have the patience for such tedious work. >Is the phrase "cluster obituaries" copyrighted ? [:)] alas, yes, it is (though i believe i used it in a previous discussion on this list a year or so ago). however, if you will write your name on the back of a hundred dollar bill and send it to me, i'll speak to the Copyright Holder and see what i can do. he's a pretty tough Old Bird, but responds remarkably well to the sight of Cash. >>(a good occassion for a family reunion, also.) >A nice idea this, and one that had not occurred to me. thanks. i sometimes found that if i could immerse myself deep enough in the charter material i could, to a certain extent, enter --or at least "view from the inside"-- the world in which they were created, and think in terms of some of what may have been going on, on the "micro" level, in the lives of the people envolved. seeing these "lesser nobility" families out in their "seats" and their relationship to the Great City of Chartres (12th c. population of, what?, 15,000??) was part of this process. a Trip into Town would surely have been something of a Special Occasion, for most members of the family (the Knights, of course, would have gotten around quite a bit more than the womenfolk and younger members). and, of course, the Occasion of an Anniversary Mass (much less a *series* of Anniversary Masses) for one's departed kinsmen and women would have been a very Solemn and Special Occassion indeed, i should think. >>the same fellow would commonly be entered into different necrologies on different days, the difference sometimes a function of the distance the given house was from the actual place of death. >Exactly my feeling, especially if X died (for example) in the Holy Land, or if the eccl. inst. was distant from the family seat. yes, but great distances needn't *necessarily* be involved; and, when they are *not* we are given a further clue into what the devil was Going On. as i recall there are one day discrepancies in the death dates of quite a few Chartres fellows (bishops and suchlike), between and among the various surviving necrolgies of, say, the cathedral and the outlying monasteries (none of which is more than an hour's walk from the other). suggesting to me that : 1) as you noted previously, contrary to our own supreme and myopic interest in exact chronolgies, the *actual* date of death of the guy was, to the Middlevils, of secondary importance (compared to the Absolute Necessity of seeing to it that his name was intered into the house's Book of Life and that there was formally established the Regular Celebration of his Anniversary); b) given this, the entry was made during the next working period after the news was received at the given house --thus, word of the death of the bishop might actually reach the house in the evening, say, but would not be intered until the next day, as part of the normal scribal routine. (just guessing, of course.) >There is the additional point of the OBITUARY SCROLLS of senior ecclesiastics and, not just the Seniores, but many Lesser Lights as well, including (as best we can tell) quite ordinary monks. >- those things that went the rounds from monastery to monastery the result of, what were they called?, "confraternities" (?) between the various abbeys --agreements to share (or commonly pool) the commemoration of their departed members. >to have laudatory comments added on. sometimes with additions; but frequently --most often, if i recall-- just the list of names was enough. much to the chagrin of modern Scholarship. the main thing was, apparently (and as i understand it) to get the guy's Name in the Book, so that the commemoratory and spiritually salubrious Ju-Ju can be set in motion. >Probably not enough evidence has survived, but has anyone tried to collate the entries on an obituary scroll with the entries in the necrologies of the contributing abbeys ? i believe the Urpublication of the Rolls is : L. DELISLE, Rouleaux des Morts du IX au XV siecle, Paris 1866 there should be some more up-to-date stuff on them in the Huyghebaert i mentioned above, since they are certainly "documents nécrologiques." our problem here is that such intensive work would probably only appear in a monographic publication dealing with the necrological sourses for, say, a given house and wouldn't necessarily show up in some more generalized discussion of the subject. >To see if the commemoration dates would fit with the possible date the scroll arrived and was added to. worth doing, for sure. let me know if i can help you do it with the Chartres material. i'll hold your coat. >>the possibility exists, however, that having an anniversary mass for the same guy (or girl) on different days would allow members of the family to attend more than one ceremony in more than one house on the same trip in from the Sticks. >Another nice one this, just follows naturally from the observations above (viday soupra) and the "simple" act of trying to put oneself in the place of these folks. reading historical fiction (Undset & Oldenbourg) helps, i find. >But in any case, Necrology data should carry a health warning for unsuspecting genealogists! and even suspecting ones. like i say, i can see no other way to do it than to just slog through the original sources... the _pons asinorum_ has been washed out in the Flood. best from here, christopher Christopher's Book Room Corporate Motto: "Will Sell Books for Food" Catalogues in Progress: RELIGION & THEOLOGY: http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BooksBrowse?page=LOW&lowcatid=10604308 MEDIEVAL HISTORY: http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BooksBrowse?page=LOW&lowcatid=10514133 MEDIEVAL ART & ARCHITECTURE: http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BooksBrowse?page=LOW&lowcatid=10514201 CHARTRES: http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BooksBrowse?page=LOW&lowcatid=10623032 OTHER SUBJECT AREAS: http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BooksBrowse?vendorclientid=807329&page=CLIENT ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html