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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture From: John Briggs <[log in to unmask]> http://www.kzoo.edu/history/Wickstrom/Maurus.jpg"http://www.kzoo.edu/history/Wickstrom/Maurus.jpg > You're looking at the wrong person! Third from the right - chap with green beard (The Green Knight? He's not tonsured, so he's a layman, anyway.) ahhhh.... *that* guy. sorry DOM. well, that guy is just holding a riding crop (of the sort which can surely be seen in some German musuem, somewhere). not nearly as interesting as the scales. From: John Wickstrom <[log in to unmask]> >The scales for bread and the mina measure for wine are shown here, as you suggest, since the Vita says that Benedict gave Maurus these for the community rations, warning him not to vary from these. i've never come across this custom before (which doesn't mean much). it speaks of Discipline in Hard Times, i should think. >What I'm interested in is the implement held by the figure with the greeenish hair and orange cloak i read that cloak as being a reverse ermine --white tufts on a red field, rather than the other way round, trimmed in white-- very popular threads, en ces temps la, among the Hoi and the Poloi. the pelt across his lap is certainly feline --the ears and paws are clear enough-- and some sort of spotted cat from the Luxury trade would seem most likely. that guy is definitely well dressed and, with his roan stallion and two-man entourage, he's definitely a Great Muckety Muck (to use the appropriate Latin term). the vita i've got (see below) seems to say that this guy visited Benedict in Italy, and the cat might have been a trophy taken in the alps, a mountain lion of some sort. doesn't really look like a leopard to me --certainly not an African one. >The figure with the animal (skin) is described in the text as a wealthy French noble, but also an official (chancellor is the title) of the bishop of Le Mans and so seems to have had some sort of clerical status...though he was married and had a family. Hmmm.. i see from the rubric that he is part of the "legatis cinomannici presvlis", but i can't seem to find this in the on-line AASS vita (by St. Fausto) which i have access to. presumably this ms. is a different life(???). if my rusty Latin (note understatement) is right, in the vita i have the legates of bishop Bertigrannus of LeMans are the Archdeacon Flodegarius and a certain "Harderadus", who is styled "Vicedominus", the latter being our Guy with the fancy cat pelt. in many dioceses, the _Vicedomnus_ (Fr. Vidame) was an officer of the bishop, apparently charged with heading up the "ost" which was assembled from those who held land from him in fief and who consequently owed him military service. the bishop's "ost" would become part of the army of the king or count when called upon by the overlord of the bishop for such service. he was therefore usually a layman, and the office was usually hereditary (i know nothing about the Vidames of LeMans, but am speaking from the Chartrain situation, where the office is tracable from the later 11th c. through and beyond the 13th c.). but, if your text is calling him "chancellor", then all bets are off (though there is considerable evidence for married canons at this period). if he's a Vidame, then what you may have is a situation where the c. 1100 Vidames of LeMans (and anyone connected to that family) are having their belief in an ancestor named "Harderadus" validated by this Vita and its spiffy new ms. the cartulary of St. Maur-des-Fosses has recently been published, i believe, and it would be interesting to see if there are any LeMans guys mentioned there as donors to the abbey. i don't know if the cartulary of Glanfeuil has been published, but looking at that to see what role (if any) the Vidames of LeMans played might be productive as well. > The color issue is interesting and extremely puzzling in this MS. Usually monastic habits follow some sort of iconographic scheme. But here, as you suggest, they seem to vary for the sake of design and color, much like orange and green horses etc. we must not underestimate the role which Charming Whimsy played in this particular "style". after all, it was only a generation before that we have several Horses of a Different Color in the Bayeaux "tapestry", so it's not to be unexpected that we might find them here, in the work of an artist who, while he's a good story-teller, is not a particularly competent visionary. whether or not the colors of the monastic habits are charged with "iconographic" meaning is another question. if, indeed, there was a heirarcy of colors used in this period --blue for abbots, green for (say) priors, and your basic homespun brown for simple brothers-- then we must assume that there was more than Whimsy at work in this ms. but, if this use of livry doesn't correspond to the Historical Reality of usage (as we know it from other sources), then we have something mid-way between Whimsy and a desire to set the Man of God apart from his fellow monks. which doesn't explain the monks in green, however. but, you can't expect too much in the way of Rational Explanation when dealing with these 1.5-Cameral middlevil minds. c ********************************************************************** 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