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Sponsored Conference Sessions

Since 1993, the Research Group has sponsored Sessions at The International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo.  

  • "Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge," organized by Mildred Budny, held at the 28th International Congress in May 1993.

  • "Imaging Manuscripts for the Twenty-First Century: Photographs and Beyond," organized by Mildred Budny, held at the 29th International Congress in May 1994.

  • "The Imperfect Art:  Editing Medieval Texts," organized by Roy M. Luizza, held at the 38th International Congress in May 2003.

  • "Medieval Manuscripts as Teaching Texts, Then and Now," organized by Sharon M. Rowley, held at the 39th International Congress in May 2004.

  • "Under-Appreciated Masterpieces:  Illuminating The Wonders of the East in the Beowulf Manuscript," organized by Asa Simon Mittman and Susan M. Kim, held at the 40th International Congress in May 2005.

  • "The Manuscripts of Gerald of Wales," organized by Asa Simon Mittman and Brian Golding, held at the 41st International Congress in May 2006.

  • "Getting Medieval:  Medieval Monstrosities and their Ill Repute," organized by Jennifer A. Smith, held at the 42nd International Congress in May 2007.  

  • "Bark at the Rune:  Transforming the Medieval Warewolf," organized by Jeff Massey, and "Heads Will Roll: Decapitation Motifs in Medieval Romance," organized by Jeff Massey and Larissa Tracy, held at the 43rd International Congress in May 2008.  

  • "Margins of Error:  On the Self-Correcting Medieval Manuscript", organized by Jeff Massey, to be held at the 44th International Congress in May 2009.  

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Since 2006 the Research Group has co-sponsored Sessions with other organizations at the International Medieval Congress, for which information appears on our Co-Sponsored Sessions page.

Information about the International Medieval Congress appears on its website: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/

We invite you to watch our site and theirs for preparations for future events.

As they take shape, the Program and Abstracts for coming Sessions and Co-Sponsored Sessions appear on our page on the International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo.

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Abstracts of the Proceedings of Previous Sponsored Sessions

The Abstracts of some papers presented at our Sponsored Sessions are published in the Old English Newsletter and are now available online:  
http:www.oenewsletter.org/OEN/abstracts.php.  They include the paper by Sharon M. Rowley for Session 605 in 2003, and the papers by Asa Simon Mittman, Ed Lind and Carol Lind, and Susan M. Kim for Session 611 in 2005.

Here we present the abstracts of the contributions for our completed Sponsored Sessions from 2007 onward.  They represent the papers in their finished form for presentation at the session and publication on our website.  

2007

  • "Getting Medieval:  Medieval Monstrosities and Their Ill Repute", organized by Jennifer A. Smith

    This session of papers, plus a response, addressed the curious duality manifest at present between descriptions and depictions of monstrous creatures in the Middle Ages, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, some prevalent assumptions nowadays of supposedly "medieval" practices and behavior, also deemed monstrous, albeit in somewhat different and generally untutored terms.  In distinguishing between these realities and fantasies, both then and now, our papers focus upon specific cases of monstrous beings represented in medieval sources, in a variety of media.  We also consider the definitions, interpretations, and characteristics of monstrosity (or "barbarity") during the medieval period as such.

    Abstracts

    • Larissa Tracy (Longwood University, Farmville, Virginia), " 'Rending the Flesh':  Modern Misconceptions about Medieval Torture"

      The body in pain and its representation in art, literature, and historical record have created a modern impression of the Middle Ages as barbaric, bloodthirsty, and consumed with cruel desire.  Torture has evolved into a dominant mythology, one that suggests that the Middle Ages were a period during which sadistic torment was inflicted on citizens with impunity and without provocation.  Museums of medieval torture can be found in most modern European cities displaying barbarous implements like the rack, the strappado, the gridiron, and the Iron Maiden.  Many people, scholars and students alike, have formed their image of the medieval period based on a foundational belief that violence was a common and enjoyable spectacle and that torture was a pervasive part of medieval life.  A prescient modern example is American Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's assertion, upon the death of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on June 8, 2006 (as reported in The Washington Post), that Zarqawi "personified the dark, sadistic and medieval vision of the future of beheadings and suicide bombings and indiscriminate killings."  Secretary Rumsfeld's comment typifies modern assumptions about the medieval period imbedded in the popular imagination.  

      Torture, to many modern minds, is believed to be inseparable from the Middle Ages, and many discussions about medieval history or literature assume its presence and proliferation.  The Middle Dutch Roman van Walewein challenges that notion by making torture the tool of barbarians, and its application the practice of the unjust, contradicting modern misconceptions about medieval brutality.  

      Torture is noticeably absent from a large portion of popular, secular literature.  Its development in literature through the medieval period, in small, specific instances, suggests that torture was not a common threat hanging over the heads of the civilian population, that torture remained in the realm of judicial punishment, and was not wielded with careless savagery.  When authorities attempted to expand their powers, the populace responded and resisted.  

      Modern American society attempts to disassociate itself from the atrocities of its government by defining these actions as "medieval" -- distancing itself from the accountability that comes from enacting these policies and engaging in such brutality.  The recent debate over torture legislation in the United States has again raised questions about the history and reality of torture in the Middle Ages.  John H. Langbein, in the preface to his 2006 edition of Torture and the Law of Proof, clarifies the difference between medieval torture and current American policy:  "A book about how the Western legal tradition rid itself of its centuries' long dependence on tortured confessions is again in demand, because questions about the legality of torture have surfaced anew in contemporary affairs."  But while torture was part of legal proceedings in the Middle Ages, its use was restricted and often never needed because the threat was enough to produce a confession.  What is perceived by modern audiences as a medieval monstrosity was neither fully practiced by the authorities, nor fully embraced by the populace.

    • Jeff Massey (Molloy College, Rockville Center, New York), " 'There, Wolf . . . There, Castle':  Comedy, Romance, and the Self-Deconstructing Medieval Monster"

      In the twelfth century there emerged the figure of the "sympathetic werewolf," an almost tragic figure of a man's mind trapped in a wolf's body.  Modern lycanthropes, in films ranging from The Wolf Man and An American Werewolf in London to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Underworld, continue to evidence the simultaneously horrifying and sympathetic nature of this hybrid monstrosity.

      But beyond sympathy, werewolves in medieval romances elicited both humorous and deconstructive responses.  That is, in Arthur and Gorlagon and William of Palerne, the unconventional appearance of the werewolf raises questions of appearance and convention in/of the very work it inhabits.  In short, the comic werewolf in these tales serves as a tool for parodic self-deconstruction.

      In medieval romances the werewolves by all outward appearances are wolves.  That is, they are quadrupeds, unlike their contemporaries the bipedal cynocephaloi and modern filmic werewolves.  They display a human intelligence far beyond that of their human romance counterparts.  Put another way, the animal who exhibits a normal human intelligence underscores the lack of realistic intelligence in the traditional human romance characters around him.  As a result, the audience of the romance, already primed to see beyond the surface appearances by the existence of the werewolf in the narrative, is alerted to the awkward conventions of the romance itself and the self-imposed limits of the genre.

      In the Latin romance Arthur and Gorlagon, the normally heroic King Arthur is reduced to a simpleton who never gets the joke or the message.  He fails to recognize that his host is a werewolf just as he fails to recognize that his wife Guinevere is an adultress.  In the English romance William of Palerne, Alphouns the werewolf repeatedly aids the naïve couple William and Meliors, who, as Norman Hinton has rightly pointed out, are "stiff figures, almost frozen into conventional attitudes, sometimes devoid of narrative subtlety."  Alphouns, the monstrous werewolf, is the most realistic character in the tale, an incongruity which signals the artificial form of the romance he inhabits.  Again, the unexpected appearance of a sympathetic and self-conscious werewolf turns the romance conventions on end.

      If, as Caroline Jewers has recently suggested, parody has always been inherent in medieval romance, perhaps one of the most unlikely but effective means of establishing that parody was a sympathetic monster.  In the romance world of blacks and whites, the werewolf stands out a hoary grey — it doesn't fit convention, and its incongruity helps to destabilize and invigorate the very romance it inhabits.  Far more than simply a stock "scary monster," the medieval werewolf broke narrative convention; so that understanding this complex figure may help us break the conventional modern image of medieval literature as a humorless landscape stocked with predictably dreary castles, dire wolves, and morbid monsters.

    • Tom Tyler (Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, United Kingdom), "Monstrous Mixture:  The Archaeology of Teratology"

      The brutal cynocephali, a fearsome Eastern race of dog-headed hybrids, are variously described in extant manuscripts as fire-breathing, lantern-eyed, be-tusked cannibals.  It is little known that St. Christopher, the popular patron saint of travellers, was himself a ferocious cynocephalus.  After converting and receiving baptism he was captured whilst preaching to the heathens by King Dagnus of Samos, who subsequently tortured and ultimately martyred the now-gentle giant.

      In my paper, I explore the correlation unearthed by Michel Foucault between monstrous beings and monstrous practices during the medieval period.  Foucault's "archaeological" methodology, treating documents as discursive monuments, reveals an underlying relation between the monster's mixed nature and the exercise of disciplinary power.  The monster's very existence violates both natural and social law, requiring the exercise of spectacularly excessive sovereign retribution.  It comes as no surprise that King Dagnus practiced the most extreme, ritual torture on the hybrid body of St. Christopher.

      Two queries arise, however, when we examine the detail of Foucault's archaeological analysis.  First, corporeal mixture is by no means the only form of monstrosity mentioned in the many lists and accounts of medieval monsters.  Isidore of Seville's infamous taxonomy recounts a meticulous and varied schema of portentous aberrations, irregularities, and transformations.  Second, drawing on the work of Aristotle and Varro, Isidore explicitly argues that monstrous births and races are not contra naturam, but rather manifestations of divine will.  As such, these prodigies are contrary only to known nature.

      My paper thus explores the lacuna and the contradiction that seem to arise when Foucault's archaeology meets Isidore's taxonomy, providing a monstrous but enlightening mixture of archaeology and teratology.

    • Asa Simon Mittman (Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona), "The Monster of History:  A Response, via Walter Benjamin"

      In his essay On the Concept of History (AKA Theses on the Philosophy of History), Walter Benjamin offers a powerful vision of "the Angel of History."  Benjamin describes this creature thus:

      "His face is turned toward the past.  Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.  The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed.  But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them.  The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward.  This storm is what we call progress."

      This evisceration of the concept of progress presents divine history as blind to the future, and human history as mistaken about its past.  

      I would posit, as we try to understand the Middle Ages through their creation of monstrous Others, a "Monster of History," analogous in position of Benjamin's Angel.  What would such a being see?  How would this construct differ from that presented by Benjamin, and what do these differences tell us about the differences between medieval and modern world views?  We might, for example, envision the Pantoii, facing forward, sweating blood as its giant ears are caught in a storm (From Hell?  From Earth?), propelling him into a certain future (the Apocalypse), and further and further from a longed-for Golden Age in the distant past.  Such notions will be considered as a means by which to respond to the papers of the session, and to the concepts on which they are based.

    2008

  • I.  "Bark at the Rune:  Transforming the Medieval Werewolf", organized by Jeff Massey

    Given the rising interest in teratology among medievalists (stirred in part by the theoretical endeavors of Jeffrey Jerome Cohen), it is no surprise that a particular interest in werewolves is on the rise as well.  As metamorphic hybrids, werewolves occupy a particularly monstrous space in the medieval mind, as is evidenced by the persistence of werewolf lore throughout the Middle Ages in locations from Wales and Ireland to France, Germany, and Scandinavia (not to mention variants in the "exotic East").  Far more than simply scary monsters, werewolves encouraged humans to reconsider ideas about self/other, category change, transubstantiation, and so forth.

    This session considered a range of lycanthropic questions, from the pragmatic aspects of lycanthropy (how human-to-wolf transformation was effected), through the specific roles of werewolves within a within a culture (how the Celtic werewolf works within Celtic society), to the modern lycanthropic inheritance owed the Middle Ages (how the werewolf-as-detective endures in pop culture).  The experience of our session on monstrosity at the 42nd International Medieval Congress in 2007, with its excellent turnout, the stimulating questions from the audience, and the lively discussion about medieval lycanthropy lead us to explore this boundary-breaking monster further at the Congress in 2008.

    Abstracts

    • Derek Newman-Stille (Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario):  "Betwixt and Between:  Werewolves as Sacred and Profane in the Classical and Medieval World" (dereknewmanst@trentu.ca)

      Werewolves are naturally in a liminal state, being able to move from human to animal form and back, and, like most symbols of liminality they therefore have the potential to be considered either sacred or profane.  In the Classical world, the ability to turn into an animal was considered sacred when enacted by a god (Homeric Hymn to Dionysus), or when given as a gift by a god.  However, more often than not it was a curse when used by human beings (Pausanias’ Description of Greece, 6.6.7–11; Pliny’s Natural History, 8.80–2).  In Classical literature, the people who often had the power to turn into animals were witches (Herodotus’ Histories, 4.105; Virgil’s Ecologue, 8.64–109; Propertius’ Elegies, 4.5.1–18), the restless dead (Pausanias’ Description of Greece, 6.7.7–11), or people who were cursed by gods for unspeakable acts (Pausanias’ Description of Greece, 6.7.7–11; Pliny’s Natural History, 8.80–2).  Similarly, the methods whereby these people became werewolves were profane as transformations often took place in cemeteries (Petronius’ Satyricon, 61–2; Aetius of Amida’s Libri Medicinales, 6.11) and other religiously dangerous areas and using methods such as stealing offerings to the gods (Pliny’s Natural History, 8.80–2) or urinating in a circle around oneself (Petronius’ Satyricon, 61–2).

      The classical Greeks and Romans had a very strong concept of the hierarchy of beings with gods at the top, humans in the middle, and animals at the bottom.  Anything that occupied a space between these levels of beings was considered religiously dangerous.  The werewolf shares the ability to transgress these boundaries of being with the gods, but, in the case of the gods, it is something to be revered, whereas in the case of the werewolf, to be feared.  Deities, being considered above profanation, were able to do things that transgress boundaries, but humans doing the same were considered abhorrent because they reversed the natural order.  The werewolf as a symbol may have survived so adeptly into the medieval period because it so effectively embodies the idea of liminality, and much of its monstrous status in the medieval period likely arises from this liminal position.

    • Phillip A. Bernhardt-House (Everett, Washington):  "The Presence and Absence of Werewolves in Insular Celtic Hagiography" (phillip.bernhardthouse@gmail.com)

      Werewolves as commonly understood (though not always) are found in Insular Celtic sources at a very early date (from about the eighth century CE), and familiarity with their existence in these cultures can be assumed from the early medieval period onwards.&nbsp: The word "werewolf" in Irish (*ferchú*) occurs as a personal name, as well as a common noun, and a variety of other terms also imply a lycanthropic image or concept (for example *conrecht*, "wolf-shape").

      This paper mentions some of the more well-known Irish, Breton and Welsh werewolves in brief, before turning to its main subject, the Irish and Latin Vita of Saint Náile (Irish) and the related Vitae of Saints Ronán and Rumon (respectively Irish/Breton and Cornish).  The discussion examines how the image of the werewolf, while not present literally, is used in some cases to heighten the repute of the holy figure (Náile), or to accuse and demean him (Ronán and Rumon).  Conclusions emerge from the interconnection of these saints' feast-days and their wider associations to canid shapeshifting motifs and narratives in wider Insular Celtic and Arthurian traditions.

    • Leslie A. Sconduto (Bradley Uiversity, Peoria, Illinois):  "The Werewolf's Gaping Mouth:  The Motif of the goule baee in Guillaume de Palerne" (lscondut@bradley.edu)

      Guillaume de Palerne is a remarkable roman d’aventure that tells the story of a young prince of Sicily who is kidnapped by a werewolf at the age of four.  Woven into the story of the eponymous hero is the parallel story of Alphonse, the Spanish prince who was transformed into a werewolf by his stepmother when he was still a toddler.  This romance not only participates in the same tradition as Bisclavret, Melion, and Arthur and Gorlagon, but also provides the fullest treatment of the Werewolf’s Tale and represents an important reworking of its traditional motifs.  Indeed, with Alphonse we see that the werewolf has undergone a total metamorphosis; no vestige remains of the bloodthirsty beast.  One of the motifs contributing to his portrayal, one that is unique to Guillaume de Palerne, is the motif of his goule baee, his gaping mouth.

      Through close readings, I demonstrate how the poet uses this motif to draw attention to the romance’s theme of illusory appearance, serve a narrative function by announcing that the werewolf is about to attack, develop the image of the werewolf as a knight while at the same time insisting on his bestiality, and underscore Alphonse’s limitations:  although his mouth is open, he cannot speak.  Finally, I conclude that the werewolf’s empty gaping mouth signifies the absence of cannibalized flesh.  According to Geraldine Heng, the giant in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia allows cannibalism to be displaced into romance where it can be safely discussed.  The werewolf in Guillaume de Palerne goes one step further and accomplishes something that Geoffrey’s giant does not; it entirely erases the notion of cannibalism and redeems the image of the Christian knight.

  • II.  "Heads Will Roll:  Decapitation Motifs in Medieval Romance", organized by Jeff Massey and Larissa Tracey

    The decapitation motif recurs in nearly all medieval genres, from saints' lives and epics to comedies and romances, yet decapitation is often little regarded, save as a marker of humanity (that is, as the moment mortality exits) or inhumanity (that is, as the moment the supernatural enters).  However, as a seat of reason, wisdom, and even the soul, the head was afforded a special place in the body politic, even when separated from its body proper.  Rather than focusing solely on the separation moment itself, this session will explore, in detail, the recurring "rolls/roles" of the human head post-decapitation.  They include considerations of how the disembodied head remains a viable entity sans body, how its relationship with the body after separation may take shape, how the head enters (sometimes of its own accord!) into liminal spaces after separation, and perhaps also why the disembodied head remained a focal object even in as potentially wondrous a genre as the romance.

    Abstracts

    • Jeff Massey (Molloy College, Rockville Center, New York):  "Imputrible!  On the Care and Feeding of Severed Heads" (jmassey@molloy.edu)

      A magical greyne enables a decapitated Christian child to continue singing praises to God after his dismemberment at the hands of an angry Jewish mob.  A heroic Jewess decapitates a drunken and lusty Assyrian general and uses his miraculously preserved head to rally her people to rebellion.  An unfaithful ex-wife is forced repeatedly to kiss the embalmed head of her deceased lover even as her lycanthropic ex-husband kisses his new wife.  A Parisian saint continues to preach after his own beheading, carrying his haloed head under his arm as he walks to his voluntary entombment.  And finally, an over-proud knight learns humility from an otherworldly green man who shrugs off his own decapitation and laughingly threatens a similar cut in return.

      These myriad medieval moments of miraculous decollation — and they are but a few of the many extant — reveal an impressive range of reactions to postmortem severed heads, leading one to ask:  Was the undead severed head — the seat of reason and spirituality in the Middle Ages — a site of terror, awe, or reverence?  In this survey of the beheading topos in medieval fiction, I categorize and analyze the manner of extra-mortuary preservation of human heads in magical romances, cephalophoric saints’ lives, fairy tales, and mythical histories, ultimately suggesting that the manner of capital preservation predicates its reception.

      In short: I present a modern collation of medieval decollations. Tasteless puns and graphic illustrations surely follow.

    • Mary Leech (University of Cincinnati):  "Social Virtue and Family Honor in Boccaccio's Unhappy Romances" (leechme@email.uc.edu)

      In romance, the decapitation of a character does not always signal death, as the head can speak and even reattach itself, most famously in Gawain and the Green Knight.  In the medieval romance, macabre imagery such as being tricked into eating a lover’s heart, or dying gruesomely for love, are commoon motifs.  The praising of body parts, the blazon, is also common in medieval romance, as is the social convention of venerating saintly relics.  In all these motifs, the dismembered body comes to represent various aspects of social need, often related to communal values or communal fears about the breakdown of such values.

      In The Decameron, the fourth day is dedicated to telling stories of love that ended unhappily.  Perhaps the most interesting tale here is the fifth story, the story of Lisabetta’s murdered lover.  With the retrieval of her lover’s head and her devoted care for the basil pot in which she buries the head, Lisabetta usurps her brothers’ desire to rid her of her lover.   The story hints, however, that the brothers have failed their sister by not finding her a suitable husband.  Their homicidal scheme to save the family honor eventually leads to the discovery of their sister’s affair and their role in the lover’s murder.

      Within this story of macabre imagery of love and sympathy for sinful lovers there is also a subtle moral for those who place too much emphasis on their place in the community rather than their moral duty to a family member.   The merchant-class brothers do not kill the lover for the dishonor to their sister, but rather for the threat the affair has to their social standing.  In this tale, images and motifs mix together in conflicting ways, perhaps pointing to conflicts within the understanding of the social dynamics represented in these tales.

    • Larissa Tracy (Longwood University, Farmville, Virginia):  " 'So he smote of hir hede by myssefortune':  The Real Price of the Beheading Game in SSGK and Malory" (traceyl@longwood.edu)

      The beheading game is a popular motif in a wide variety of medieval texts from the earliest challenge in the Old Irish Bricru’s Feast, to the heady companionship of Bendigeidfran in the Mabinogian, and the artful dislocation of the Green Knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  In most of these texts, the continued speech of the dismembered head, rather than serving as a frightening portent of impending death (except perhaps for Gawain), is a magical marker of the continuance of life and the endurance of magical belief.   However, late medieval authors like Thomas Malory strip away the levity of beheading as a game, and focus on the silence evoked by needless killing and the failures of knighthood.  In earlier texts the beheading motif contradicts the human fallibility of knighthood, but Malory reaffirms the reality and consequences of such “games” when Gawain accidentally beheads a woman pleading for her love.

      In the very dangerous world of the fifteenth century, human heads do not reattach, nor do they talk.  The beheading games of Bricru’s Feast, Branwen Daughter of Lir, and SGGK provide a striking contrast to Malory’s stark episode, where Gawain, now a seasoned knight, fails to grant mercy and must wear his penance around his neck.  Unlike Gawain’s encounter with the Green Knight, which serves as a training exercise for the realities of knighthood, Malory’s Gawain must learn a bitter lesson beyond his own shame.  By silencing his heads, Malory voices his disillusionment with the magical elements of earlier Arthurian tradition and rejects the romanticism inherent in texts like SGGK, in which there are no real consequences, and no one really loses their head.

    • Asa Simon Mittman (Arizona State University, Tempe), "A Response:  Answering the Call of the Severed Head" (mittman@asu.edu)

      Ælfric of Eynsham translated into Anglo-Saxon an account of the martyrdom of Saint Edmund, King of East Anglia in the ninth century.  Known for his holiness, Edmund was the unfortunate victim of a series of attacks by the Danes in 870.  After having been captured and riddled with arrows that failed to kill him, Edmund was decapitated.  His head was left in the woods by the Danes.   His followers sought him, and they, as Ælfric tells us, "frequently called out, just as is the custom of those who often go into the woods:  ’Where are you now, companion?’  And that head answered them, saying 'here, here, here' as often as any of them called, until they all came, on account of its calling to them.”  I use the framework of the Life of Edmund to pull the three papers together and then, following the actions of the martyr-king's followers, I call out to each of these “severed head” speakers, asking them to answer a few pointed questions (based on careful reading of their papers ahead of time), in order to spark a lively discussion among the participants and audience.

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