This week, we’re looking back at an earlier episode of “Meeting in the Middle Ages.” In late 2022, we chatted with Dr. Megan J. Hall, Assistant Director of the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame. We spoke with her about women’s literacy and learning in medieval England, the trials and tribulations of writing an academic article, and why impromptu bell-ringing can reveal the true value of scholarship.
Studying history can show us the bigger picture. It can help to explain why nation states behave as they do, why complex geopolitical situations emerge, and how entire landscapes have been shaped over time. But it also allows us to connect with the past on a local level. It can show us where we come from. Speaking with Dr. Hall, we were reminded several times that through historical research, people can identify with those who came before. Moments of identity like that can drastically reshape our relationship with the past. Dr. Hall’s meeting with a group of bellringers in rural England is a perfect example. During this surprise encounter, she was able to share her own work with the group and participate in a tradition of bell ringing which has centuries of history. Her work prompted one of the group to ask ‘so, could women read in the Middle Ages?’ Dr. Hall was able to correct a common misconception of women and the possibilities open to them in medieval England. Yes, some women could read! Some books were written specifically for women! This revelation changed the questioner’s view of medieval women, and was a triumphant ‘I knew we could!’ she experienced a moment of solidarity with them.
Dr. Hall’s story, as has been the case for so many of the conversations we’ve had on Meeting on the Middle Ages, is also a reminder of the privilege that medievalists have. We are able to visit museums, archives, libraries, and go beyond the public spaces. We can consult ancient materials. We don’t have to rely on facsimiles (well, sometimes we do). We can work with the original, turning it over in our hands and connecting with its creator. In doing so, we become another link in a chain that has been forged over centuries. With the Ancrenne Wisse it begins with the object’s creator, perhaps the scribe or composer of a manuscript. It binds together dozens of men and women who received the text and used it in their lives. Dr. Hall is part of that chain. And in telling her story, we all become a part of it too.
Thanks for listening. See you next time in the Middle Ages.
Will Beattie & Ben Pykare Medieval Institute University of Notre Dame
In September 2022, the ‘Meeting in the Middle Ages’ podcast launched its first episode. It was the culmination of months of planning and preparation. Launched initially on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, we are happy to say that it found its audience. As we continue to post our monthly episodes and our audience steadily grows, we wanted to introduce the podcast to readers of the MI Research Blog and explore the rationale behind it.
What is the podcast?
‘Meeting in the Middle Ages’ is a monthly conversation with a medievalist scholar or graduate student. Each month, we as hosts (Will and Ben) sit down to find out ‘what medievalists do, and how they came to do it.’ Medieval Studies can seem like an inaccessible field, relying on knowledge of language, history, philosophers, theologians, and texts that general readers would rarely (if ever) stumble upon. We want to try and elucidate the work that medievalists do: what skills they have to develop, the ways that they approach problems. But we also want to share how people get into the field of Medieval Studies. Our guests, unsurprisingly, all have a love of history and research. But their paths to the medieval world have been varied and surprising.
As we continue to develop the podcast, we are keeping two audiences in mind. Our hope is that ‘Meeting in the Middle Ages’ intrigues not only excited graduate students like ourselves, but anyone interested in the medieval world or the many fields that intersect with medieval studies: history, anthropology, theology, philosophy, literary studies, and more.
How did it begin?
The podcast was born out of an independent research project for a leadership course. Early on in the course, Will knew that he wanted to work on a public-facing humanities project. Thinking through the idea of podcasting, he realized that there were plenty of excellent podcasts that could teach you about historical battles or literature. But there were none that explained how the research behind those other podcasts might be done. No one was there to explain ‘how the sausage got made.’ To pursue the idea further, Will asked Ben to join him in bringing the podcast to life.
As Ben recalls, ‘last year, Will approached me with a simple but exciting idea: a podcast for the Medieval Institute. As he started to explain the idea, I already knew my answer would be an enthusiastic yes. As young academics entering this field, so much of what medievalists do seems intimidating or mysterious. We appreciate the impressive books and articles that steadily flow from senior medievalists into our library, but we also want to know how such works were made. Getting to sit down informally with medievalists from across the world to discuss their processes, passions, and personal histories was too exciting of an opportunity to pass up.’
How is it going?
Since launching the podcast in September 2022, we’ve released three episodes and (at the time of writing) are gearing up to release episode 4. In Episode 1, we interviewed Dr. Andrew Irving of the University of Groningen and talked about the value of consulting materials in person. As his stories reveal, doing in-person research can lead you to record and analyze some very surprising parts of your materials! In Episode 2 we spoke with Eleonora Celora, a graduate student at Notre Dame who recently co-authored and published Décrire le manuscrit liturgique. Méthodes, problématiques, perspectives (Brepols, 2021) with Dr. Laura Albiero. Episode 3 is a chat with Dr. Rachel Koopmans and her fascinating work on the stained-glass windows of Canterbury Cathedral. We have several other interviews recorded and in the editing phase that we’re excited to share with you.
We’re extremely grateful to all the professors and students who have consented to participate in the podcast. They have been gracious with their time and support. Feedback has been very positive, and we are always working to improve our format and content. We’ve been able to expand our reach beyond Spotify and Apple Podcasts to include Google Podcasts and Overcast.
The podcast is a labor of love for us both. Through it, we’ve had to become sound engineers, social media managers, administrative coordinators, and, most important of all, interviewers. It’s been a challenging but rewarding opportunity that we hope will long outlive our tenure as graduate students at Notre Dame. We want this podcast to become part of the fabric of the Medieval Institute, and an outlet for public-facing engagement just as the MI Research Blog has become. We hope that the podcast will be a place for students to practice public-facing work while also sharing the exciting work of scholars at various stages in their careers with the broader community. The medieval is for everyone, and we hope you listen in and explore it with us.
Benjamin Pykare & Will Beattie PhD Candidates Medieval Institute University of Notre Dame
Educational training was the cornerstone of ecclesiastical and monastic life in the early medieval period, with the aim of producing knowledgeable clergy, who might then serve as spiritual and intellectual shepherds for their population. However, as Kathryn Kerby-Fulton explains in her recent monograph, The Clerical Proletariat and the Resurgence of Medieval English Poetry, because universities in the late Middle Ages were turning out more clergy than the church could hire in beneficed positions, many found themselves experiencing a crisis of vocation. Kerby-Fulton argues that this crisis produces a “clerical proletariat” many of whom ultimately become civil servants, secretaries in great households, writing office clerks, or casual liturgical laborers, especially in London. She shows how this crisis of mass underemployment is further exacerbated by pluralism (the unethical practice of hogging multiple benefices).
Beneficed priests were in a privileged position: they received both income from parish holdings and wealth from the church. Although medieval universities were producing highly educated clergy, there were more qualified candidates than ever before, while at the same time, beneficed priests were sometimes acquiring multiple benefices and then outsourcing the work of delivering the mass and managing the church operations to poorer paid vicars, chaplains and lesser church officials, while pocketing most of the money themselves.
Kerby-Fulton argues that this sharp increase in qualified clergy and decrease in beneficed positions, resulted not only in a vocational crisis and the creations of a clerical proletariat, but ultimately in a resurgence in Middle English poetry, as this class of clerks saw more opportunities for writing English because they were working for the laity, though many still worked with Latin (or French) documents all day long. Figures like Thomas Hoccleve, a late medieval poet-clerk, comment regularly on the financial struggles and tenuous existences of the unbeneficed clerical proletariat, observable in his poem “The Complaint” which states:
Thomas Hoccleve’s Signature; Durham University Library MS Cosin V.III.9, f.95r.
I oones fro Westminstir cam, Vexid ful grevously with thoughtful hete, Thus thoughte I: ‘A greet fool I am This pavyment a-daies thus to bete And in and oute laboure faste and swete, Wondringe and hevinesse to purchace, Sithen I stonde out of al favour and grace.
“When once I came from Westminster, very bitterly troubled with burning anxiety, I thought like this: ‘I am a great fool to beat these streets like this every day and to work doggedly and sweat indoors and outdoors, in order to earn nothing but restlessness and misery, since I am fallen out of all good fortune and grace.’” (Jenni Nuttall, 183-189). In this passage, we learn how Hoccleve is very upset with his vocational prospects (184), and he deems himself a greet fool “great fool” (185) for working endless and performing in and oute laboure faste and swete “firm and sweaty labor, indoors and outdoors” (187) with nothing to show for it but wondringe and hevinesse “wandering and hardship” (188).
Thomas Hoccleve presents ‘The Regiment of Princes’ to King Henry V; British Library, MS Royal 17, D.vi f.40r.
Similarly, in his poem, The Regiment of Princes, Hoccleve laments how he initially pursued the priesthood but ultimately forgoes these dreams and instead marries. Hoccleve describes his vocational rollercoaster, emphasizing that at first he sought Aftir sum benefice “after some benefice” but states that whan noon cam, / By procees I me weddid atte laste, “when none came, in time, I did wed at last” (1452-53). Moreover, Hoccleve stresses that his initial reluctance to marry is specifically because he long held hopes of a career as a beneficed priest, explaining that I whilom thoghte / Han been a preest “for a while I thought I would have been a priest” (1447-48). In both poems, Hoccleve expresses his frustration with the vocational crisis of underemployment which produces the clerical proletariat that Kerby-Fulton examines in her book.
Members of the clerical proletariat loom large in Middle English literary culture, and various characters in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, including the Clerk of Oxenford, the hapless lover and parish clerk, Absolon (in the “Miller’s Tale“), and the noble Parson, who is perhaps the most virtuous figure on the pilgrimage. Similarly, William Langland (the author of Piers Plowman) was such a clerk, and likely so were the authors of the Owl and Nightingale and Laȝamon’s Brut. The University of Pennsylvania Press notes that “Taking in proletarian themes, including class, meritocracy, the abuse of children (“Choristers’ Lament”), the gig economy, precarity, and the breaking of intellectual elites (Book of Margery Kempe), The Clerical Proletariat and the Resurgence of Medieval English Poetry speaks to both past and present employment urgencies.”
Author portrait of Laȝamon in British Library, Cotton MS Caligula A.ix., f.3.
Indeed, many modern untenured scholars (including myself), who work three or more academic jobs to pay the bills, will surely identify with the position Hoccleve voices in his complaint. As Kerby-Fulton insightfully observes in her book, the circumstances outlined in this late Middle English poem closely resemble the current crisis of vocation within modern academia, where well-paying tenured faculty positions are disappearing as the universities seek to outsource more and more of the work of education to adjunct professors, the modern equivalent of the late medieval clerical proletariat. Meanwhile, universities continue to produce an endless stream of highly skilled and qualified professionals, many of whom will sadly face chronic underemployment and even possible unemployment as a result of over-qualification and unethical practices now embedded in our private university system that is seemingly more concerned with profits than with the future of the academy.
Richard Fahey PhD in English University of Notre Dame
Further Reading& Selected Bibliography
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Harvard University: The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2021.
