medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 12:27:19 -0700
Christopher wrote:
>how about this :
>
>*originally* what was meant --and what gave the name to whatever was referred
>to in the 12th c.-- was (John again) a "bier with handles",
No, a "bier with handles" was Werner. John had suggested an original (and much earlier) donation of goodies on a platter or tray. That donation, called a "ferculum" after the tray carrying it, would on this view have metamorphosed into the practice Werner describes, with the word "ferculum" having become the designation for a base unit of the now much larger donations (which latter were now being passed out in multiples of four or five). It is an alternative hypothesis to Werner's, which derives the term from an object thought likely to have been used, in the later 11th and 12th centuries, to transport the donations to their appointed stationes. Both hypotheses are quite conjectural.
something that
>looked like this :
>
>http://www.gent.be/gent/english/tourism/museums/finearts/collec/fbreug1.htm
>
>http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/art/b/bruegel/pieter_e/painting/wedding.jpg
>
>just a "bier" (in this case, a small door, apparently) for carrying the food,
Or perhaps like this:
http://www.wzshop.com/c0102/c0102_pi86.htm
though without the cute legend "garden". That is, with the long axis of the bed or carrying frame the same as that of the poles and possibly also with a low railing (as shown) to keep the contents from falling off. Another term for this besides "bier" is "hand-barrow", though the latter has also been used in recent centuries for forms of wheeled barrow, such as this:
http://www.salvodata.net/dealers/conbuiprods/images/M206big.jpg
or even this:
http://www.adas.co.uk/horticulture/GOVREPORTS/baumschultechnik/Baum/21.jpg
>(Werner's statio = stand is certainly one meaning, but, John, couldn't
>"statio" also refer to a specific, customarily established "location", as
>well/in addition ?)
Yes, it could.
>(but they weren't *called* "stalls" because, originally, they weren't "stalls"
>but simple "stations" --locations/"stands"-- and they kept the
>terminology/nomenclature of their origins, just as John's "traditional"
>definition of "fercula" rather clearly had nothing to do with what they
>"literally" might have looked like in the 12th c. --they could have been
>"cartloads" at that time, after all)
Quelle surprise! For someone who's hitherto been blissfully unaware of "ferculum", Christopher, you're astoundingly prescient. By the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when we begin to get more lexicographical evidence, "ferculum" had come to have many meanings, one of which is "[wheeled] carriage" or "cart". Here's Eberhard of Bethune in point (_Grecismus_, ed. Wrobel, XI, 74): "Fercula sunt epulae uariae, sunt fercula currus:" ("'Fercula' are meals of varied courses [this is one of the ancient meanings], 'fercula' are carts"). Keeping the diminutive, we could translate "ferculum" as "charrette". Anybody seen a chevalier about?
Another meaning, BTW, is "enclosed chair", presumably of the portable variety, though my Parisian witness, John of Garland, doesn't mention this feature: "In hospitio probi hominis debent esse ista: ... sponde et fercula facta de lingnis levigatis,..." (_Dictionarius_, ed. Wright, p. 132; Wright notes ad loc. that such chairs, "which open and shut," are common in MS. illuminations).
Best,
John Dillon
"Von der Wiege bis zur Bahre,
Formulare, Formulare!!"
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