Inauguration of Debussy monument

On 17 June 1932 the Debussy monument was inaugurated with pomp and circumstance. In newspaper reports of the occasion there was no mention of Madame Emma Claude Debussy. There were many fulsome descriptions of the design by the Martel brothers and its position in the boulevard Lannes bordering the Bois de Boulogne. The concept was described as ingenious, particularly the significant presence of water mirroring the carvings. ‘Water! Water was Debussy's best friend. He loved water, painted water, glorified it,’ wrote Gabriel Astruc. Emma can be seen in press photographs, seated in the third row of onlookers, watching the luminaries process. These included the President of the Republic, Albert Lebrun, Jean Mistler, Under-secretary of the Beaux-Arts and the monument committee, Paul Léon, Chairman of the committee and Director-general of the Beaux-Arts, Raoul Bardac, Roger-Ducasse, Paul Dukas, D-.E. Inghelbrecht, Louis Laloy, E. Vuillermoz, Jean Messager, Robert Brussel and Gabriel Astruc. Several speeches were given in which the attempt was made to define Debussy's skill and the source of the unique attraction of his music, but his character was even more difficult to convey. How could anyone who knew the man agree with Paul Léon's dismissive statement, ‘Of the life of Debussy there is little to remember and less still to conclude. No fairy-tale existence. Thoughts but no events.’? Jean Mistler emphasised the beauty of what he called ‘musique de jardin’ (garden music) and this ‘musicien de plein air’ (musician of the open air) but, despite this, the occasion proved that such music is not really destined to be played outside. Only the band of the Garde Républicaine succeeded in making its fanfares resound clearly. They also lent weight to the finale of Le martyre de Saint Sébastien. Otherwise the voices of choirs evaporated into the air, as did the Trois Chansons de Charles Orléans conducted by Roger-Ducasse.

The inauguration was preceded the night before by a concert of chamber music with Ninon Vallin singing the Chansons de Bilitis, Cortot and Thibaud performing the Violin Sonata and the Kretily Quartet playing Debussy's String Quartet.

‘Stratagem slipped into disuse in Europe during the Middle Ages […] As late as the Battle of Ravenna (1512) adversaries were accustomed to open battle, with chivalrous challenges and to conduct war, at least in theory, in accord with agreed rules and fixed means’. At least, this was the view of the twentieth-century military theorist Barton Whaley. The medieval chroniclers studied in this volume would have been astonished. They clearly thought that stratagems were an integral part of warfare: they depicted kings and emperors, crusaders and Muslims, nobles and commoners employing deception to achieve their goals.

Did all these incidents take place exactly as described? Almost certainly not. Many of them are probably fiction, fabricated by boastful warriors or by writers seeking to embellish their narratives. Their true value lies in what they tell us about medieval culture. The chroniclers evidently thought these stories were worth recording and that their readers would be interested in reading them. They are colourful, dramatic, often comical, contradicting any ideas about chronicles being ‘dry and dusty’. These incidents also tell us what qualities contemporaries admired in their fighting men, what kind of behaviour they thought was worthy of praise or censure. This is surely more useful to scholarship than whether Robert Guiscard really did have a ‘fake corpse’ carried into Montecassino or whether Louis the Fat actually infiltrated Gasny dressed in a monk's habit.

This study of the language and presentation of military deception has revealed a profound ambiguity towards the subject of trickery, not dissimilar to that found in our own culture. Different chroniclers could describe the same essential act as a nefarious fraud or a sound tactical decision. Deceitful behaviour could be ascribed to either treachery or prudence. The quality of ‘cunning’ could be attributed to both heroes and villains. Even the language used inhabited a grey zone of moral meaning, as the same phrases were also used for works of skill, engineering and rhetoric. Consider the subtle difference between ‘craft’, ‘craftsman’ and ‘crafty’ in modern English, or the range of meaning that be attached to words such as ‘artifice’ or ‘subtle’.

Before we can analyse how deception was used in medieval warfare, we must establish the cultural framework within which the combatants operated: the social values by which they and contemporaries judged their conduct. It is also necessary to understand how our sources were written, what the authors and their audience expected from a narrative history and particularly a history of war. As noted above, medieval chronicles are often far removed from our notions of impartial reporting. They are conscious literary constructions, drawing on over a thousand years of Classical and medieval writing. Each chronicle author had their own agenda and nuances that influenced how they depicted warfare.

Foxy Outlaws and Outlaw Foxes: Trickery in Medieval Literature

We begin by noting that one of the most enduring and recognisable images of the European Middle Ages is a trickster figure: Robin Hood, the greenwood outlaw who uses his cunning as often as his bow and arrow to resist the Sheriff of Nottingham. Modern audiences are familiar with Errol Flynn leading his men into Nottingham Castle disguised as monks (1938, dir. Michael Curtiz and William Keighley) and Kevin Costner's band emerging from foxholes to ambush wagonloads of ill-gotten tax money (1991, dir. Kevin Reynolds). This use of deception reflects the original fifteenth-century ballads. In Robin Hood and the Potter, after losing a fight with the titular potter, Robin exchanges clothes with him and uses the disguise to work his way into the Sheriff's confidence. Similarly, in Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, having killed Gisborne and mutilated his severed head, Robin dresses himself in Gisborne's clothes and passes his enemy's head off as his own in order to rescue Little John.

Although these ballads were likely composed much later than the period studied in this volume, similar tales of forest-dwelling outlaws have survived from the central Middle Ages. The infamous pirate Eustace Busquet (d. 1217) was portrayed as a cunning anti-hero in the thirteenth-century Old French poem Li Romans de Witasse le moine, fighting against the unjust count of Boulogne from his refuge in Hardelot Forest. He adopts many disguises, including a shepherd, a carpenter, a pastry cook, a prostitute and a potter.

I first met Linne Mooney in 1974 at the University of Toronto, where I had been invited to give a lecture and where she was newly embarked on a Ph.D. She was very young. Later she took up a post at the University of Maine in Orono, and when I left York to go to Harvard in 1985 I began to see more of her when she came down to attend our weekly medieval seminar, and on other occasions. At this time she was preparing an edition of the Kalendarium of John Somer, which was published in 1998 in the Chaucer Library Series. She was also working on some of the most complex and difficult of fifteenth-century literary manuscripts, most of them miscellanies, almost as if she were choosing them because they were difficult and therefore more interesting. She gave a talk at the Harvard seminar on one occasion about the lyrics in the famous miscellany in Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.3.19, beginning to make proper sense of them for the first time. She was also doing ongoing and never-ending work on the many manuscripts of Lydgate's Verses on the Kings of England, trying to establish some sort of order and coherence to their bewildering variety. Lydgate's Verses is not a work of great literary interest, to say the least, but Linne was not much worried by this, in fact she seemed to revel in it. I had to learn that my own interest in manuscripts, chiefly as valuable repositories of important literary texts, was not everyone’s. I went to a talk a long time ago by one of Linne's eminent predecessors as a codicologist and palaeographer, devoted to a description of a particular MS. I asked her afterwards, in my old-fashioned way, what was the text in the MS? ‘I don't know’, she said, ‘I don't do that sort of thing’.

In 1999 I organised a conference at Harvard called ‘New Directions in Medieval Manuscript Studies’, and one of the speakers I invited, keen to give her a larger hearing, was Linne. Her talk was about her work in identifying the hands of fifteenth-century vernacular scribes which appear in more than one manuscript.

The Sermo in natale unius confessoris (‘Sermon for the Feast-day of a Confessor’) is Ælfric's second homily for this liturgical occasion, his first being that in the Second Series of Catholic Homilies (CH II.38). In the Second Series, the confessor homily formed one of six sermons for the Common of the Saints, that is, sermons for various categories of saints (apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and patron saints of churches) to be used to commemorate individuals without a designated mass of their own. Ælfric's confessor homilies honor a man of religious vocation who confessed his faith by preserving his chastity, persisting in prayer, and faithfully preaching God's word, and they were to be read on his natalis (‘nativity’ or ‘birthday’), the day he was born into eternal life. Both texts are pericope homilies intended for the laity. In CH II.38, Ælfric expounds the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25.14–30 and applies it to the clergy and the laity ‘so that the teacher-saint or holy confessor comes to stand as a model of the Christian who puts God's talents to work’. In the Sermo, he likewise celebrates the teacher-saint, but not in such a way as to collapse distinctions between the layperson and cleric. Rather, his interpretation of Christ's exhortation to his disciples to keep watch for the Second Coming in Matthew 24.42–7 draws attention to the authority and responsibility of preachers to reprove and restrain foolish laymen.

Ælfric freely composes his exegesis with occasional recourse to Bede's Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (In Lucae Euangelium expositio), where an analogous account of the Parable of the Talents is found (Luke 12.35–48), and perhaps homilies by Pope Gregory and Haymo of Auxerre. As he works his way through successive verses in the first part of the homily [lines 5–171], his application of the passage to all believers – who must keep watch against the devil [lines 50–93], prepare for an inevitable death with good deeds [lines 94–113], and be vigilant to avoid an evil demise [lines 114–27] – narrows. He comes to focus on the teacher-saint, not as a model Christian but as a model preacher.

Introduction

Glass is commonly found in archaeological excavations, often in small fragments as a result of its characteristic fragility. However, despite the important role that glass played in historical societies, archaeology has paid relatively little attention to this material, at least in comparison to other materials such as ceramics. One of the main reasons for this is that glass is not considered a reliable chronological indicator, as glass typologies often remained unchanged for long periods of time. Even so, the study of archaeological glass is crucial if we are to fully understand its value for past societies, as well as the associated mechanisms of production and circulation.

Since the production of the earliest glass objects, in the mid-3rd millennium B.C., the consumption of glass has done nothing but increase.

In a lecture to the Society of Arts in November 1884, Ernest Hart (1835–98) – surgeon and editor of the British Medical Journal –reported his observations of the recently closed London International Health Exhibition. ‘It was often said by the public scorner’, he began, ‘when walking through the crowded course of the Exhibition … “This is a Health Exhibition – Where is the health?”’. The popular response to this question, Hart determined, was ‘outside in the gardens’. From their inception, exhibitions had been designed to combine education, entertainment, and spectacle. While their educational aspects generally remained confined to the inside of the buildings, by the 1880s the gardens that surrounded them had become hives of entertainment. These outdoor spaces, in layout and function, inherited the traditions of the seventeenth-and eighteenth-century European ‘pleasure garden’, combining fountains, walkways, grottos, and spectacular lighting effects with a wide variety of refreshments and carnival amusements. The centrepiece of these gardens was the bandstand, and military or brass bands and light orchestras filled the programmes of most exhibitions, playing to a consistently numerous and attentive public. The bands in their impressive garden setting were, for many, the main drawcard of the exhibitions. As the Illustrated London News explained in 1886, ‘we have heard several honest pleasure-takers avow that they go, year by year … not to inspect the objects displayed there, but to listen to the music’. The St James's Gazette oncurred; most exhibition visitors only wanted ‘to stroll upon the terraces and amongst the flowers and fountains, and to lounge within hearing of good music well played’.

But what constituted ‘good’ music? For the critical musical press this was the kind of music that could enlighten and ‘improve’ the public, and was found in the high art of symphonies, oratorios, and the works of the canonic greats. It was certainly not the kind of music curated to popular taste or to make money. The bands in the exhibition gardens were, therefore, categorically not good music. The same could be said of the organ recitals that were given inside the exhibitions. While the quasi-religious atmosphere of buildings was heightened by the performance of organ music, critics were frequently frustrated by the organists’ supposed pandering to popular taste, with repertoire more closely resembling the bands in the gardens than the transcendental art expected of them.

De uirginitate (‘Concerning Virginity’) is a scribe's somewhat misleading title for this composite homily that talks about virginity and about marriage, widowhood, obedience, almsgiving, and tithing as well. Over a span of nearly twenty years, Ælfric authored its four component parts, all of them freely composed, and scholarly judgments as to his responsibility for assembling the sermon range from possible (Clemoes and Pope) to probable (Kezel). If Ælfric was the compiler, then he likely completed De uirginitate sometime around 1006 since part one [lines 2–57] corresponds to the passage on marriage, widowhood, and virginity in De sancta uirginitate (AH I.7), which also dates from this period. Part two [lines 58–70] consists of two non-consecutive excerpts from a much earlier work, De doctrina apostolica (‘Concerning Apostolic Doctrine’ [SH II.19]), a homily featuring St Paul's teaching on chastity and marriage. Part two is written in ordinary prose, not in the alliterative prose adopted by Ælfric from about 998 onwards, and Pope speculates that he wrote the portion of De doctrina excerpted here while working on the Catholic Homilies, which is to say in the late 980s or early 990s. Part three consists of a passage in rhythmic prose on obedience and almsgiving [lines 71–145] that Ælfric may have written for the De uirginitate since it is found nowhere else in his corpus. The non-rhythmic prose of the fourth and final part on tithing [lines 146–76] again points to a date before 998. There is no indication that the passage belonged to an earlier work, though Ælfric's later use of it in a different composite homily may be a point in favor of his authorship of this one.

Pope is inclined to see De uirginitate as the work of ‘some less gifted preacher’, though when considering the possibility of Ælfric's authorship, he acknowledges that ‘one cannot expect unfailingly high standards of organization from so prolific and so practical an author’. Pope emphasizes the homily's visible seams, we its coherence in spite of them. It is helpful to understand that the sermon has both the laity and the clergy in view. The opening section implies a dual audience by linking marriage, widowhood, and lifelong virginity to the variable yields of the good crops in the Parable of the Sower and their corresponding heavenly rewards [lines 2–57].

Introduction

The excavation of the area of the Secano in the Alhambra resulted in the collection of a large ceramic assemblage. The analysis of this assemblage has yielded the interesting conclusion that ceramic production in the area was virtually, if not entirely, abandoned in the 18th century, in keeping with the stratigraphic analysis of the two excavation trenches (see Chapters 5 and 6) and the results of archival research. Also in line with the excavation results, the assemblage suggests that the area witnessed substantial production activity in the Early Modern Age.

Methodology

The study of the ceramic assemblage began during the excavation season. After washing, labelling, and joining, diagnostic pieces were catalogued and entered into an ad hoc database. The initial examination consigned such variables as shape, colour of the fabric, clay composition (macroscopic), forming and firing methods, finishing of surfaces, and decoration.

General Introduction and History of Research

The Alhambra and the Generalife are located in the so-called Cerro del Sol, one of the last spurs of Sierra Nevada, just above the Vega of Granada. The knoll is flanked by the rivers Darro and Genil. These watercourses determined the location of the city of Granada, which was founded by the Zirid dynasty in the 11th century, after the abandonment of Madīnat Ilbīra. The last elevation, towering above the plain, is divided into two small plateaus, the Sabika and the Mauror – the seats of the Alhambra and Torres Bermejas, respectively.

The name Alhambra applies to the complex of buildings, many of which are of a palatial nature, and the vegetable gardens, woods and grazing land that surround them, located on the plateau of the Sabika.

As has been well documented, the dissolution of the monasteries brought about the dispersal and destruction of a large number of medieval manuscripts of varying (and now often unidentifiable) significance to the modern scholar. It also, however, led to a counter-movement, rooted in an antiquarian interest in recovering the past, which expressed itself in the searching out, preservation and transcription of medieval manuscripts for a variety of reasons: historical, political, genealogical, topographical, literary. In particular, the visits to religious houses made by John Leland from the year 1535, when the Act for the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries came into force, resulted in the various folio and quarto volumes of his notes and transcripts which came to be known as ‘The Itinerary’. Leland's notes often record material now lost, but both before and after his early death they had generated a spate of transcripts which have survived even when in some cases the original documents have not. This is the case with the two principal documents studied in this essay, both in a codex from the Benedictine Abbey of Tewkesbury (Glos.): the Charter of William Fitzrobert (1147–83), second earl of Gloucester, and the Chronicle of the Abbey. Into the twenty-first century these documents have been known to scholars only in transcripts of the sixteenth/seventeenth centuries.

Chronicles and charters were important to a monastic house because they confirmed rights and property. The Charter of William Fitzrobert was edited by Robert Patterson in his edition of Gloucestershire charters, using an early seventeenth century transcript (BL, MS Additional 36985). As for the Chronicle, William Dugdale's edition in Monasticon Anglicanum (first published in 1655) has been, and still is, the standard source for those interested in the history of Tewkesbury, its Abbey, and the relation of its benefactors to the great families of the medieval west Midlands, the Clares, Despensers, Beauchamps and Nevilles; it has been provided with a translation since 1712. Dugdale based his edition on an Elizabethan transcript (BL, MS Cotton Cleopatra C.iii) of a now-lost manuscript.