Tag: Michael Peixoto

“Nature’s Especial Repository:” Symbolic Meaning in Gerald of Wales’ Descriptions of the Environment in the British Isles

Presenter: Doug Sam

Mentor: Michael Peixoto, Honors College History

Oral Presentation

Majors: Environmental Studies and Geography

Following the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, King Henry II of England sent Gerald of Wales to tour the newly conquered territory. Throughout his travels in Ireland, Gerald describes the land and geography
he encountered. His inclusions of environmental detail hint at the spiritual and imperial aspirations of the Norman conquerors. Using depictions of the environment from Gerald’s Topographia Hibernica (1187), with other twelfth- century narrative accounts of the natural features of the British Isles, my research explores medieval perceptions of human-environmental interactions. Focusing on the spiritual, economic, and political meanings attached to the characterization of natural objects, I show how concepts of both the real and imagined environment took on a symbolic function in depicting the worth of Ireland’s conquest. For example, Gerald writes of the “fruitful and fertile” land, yet describes that “only the granaries are without their wealth.” The Irish therefore weren’t using the land to their advantage thus, in the Anglo-Norman perspective, were primitive—conquerable. Long before the rise of the British Empire as a global power, European writers such as Gerald were already experimenting with the idea of the primitive and natural as justification to civilize and convert. This dichotomy frequently builds upon a discourse of development centered on the human and physical geography of the subaltern, thus creating a language of environmental prejudice, one that persists to the present day.

Early Medieval Perceptions of the Environment: A Wondrous, Weird, Supernatural Land

Presenter: Becca Marshall

Mentors: Michael Peixoto, Honors College History; Helen Southworth, Literature

Oral Presentation

Major: Environmental Studies 

In the past religious concepts of creation mediated a relationship between humans and their surrounding environment. During the early Middle Ages literature and the presence of the Church in the landscape worked in conversation with biblical and metaphorical interpretations of nature to shape humans’ perception of their place in the environment. The central role of religion and its influence on environmental depictions emerges in chiliastic sources, such as Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Within these texts lands and specific sites are imbued with religious/divine qualities and values. Additionally, a large amount of environmental mentions in monastic annals depict wondrous and fantastical events. Which provides insight into the significance of these happenings for the people of the medieval period. Along with this, the work of Ellen F. Arnold on monastic culture in the Ardennes forest suggests a diverse understanding of monks connection to nature including their views of the natural world as a wilderness, a source of human salvation, and even as a pastoral heaven. Other important depictions of the land and its association to the supernatural exist in poetry, medieval folklore, and popular stories such as Beowulf. All of these literary mediums frequently contain religious undertones and illustrate ways in which people are connecting to the land. Medieval cosmological views framed a world that moved ever closer toward the last judgment and the ultimate end of the world. This teleological focus, particularly prevalent in millenarian and quasi-historical writing, situated/informed man’s encounters with nature as fundamentally ephemeral while also imbuing them with deep symbolic significance. By analyzing chiliastic and literary sources from the early middle ages my research presents the way in which the literature and religion in the early Middle Ages worked in tandem to inform the peoples’ perception of the environment. Hence, a greater sense of humans’ tenor of life at this time can be unearthed by examining the multi- dimensional role of nature-as their physical abode, and as a symbol of the divine and the harsh, unforgiving reality of existence.

Heretical Childcare: Pediatric Medicine in Western Europe during the Late Middle Ages

Presenter: Helena Klein

Mentor: Michael Peixoto, Honors College History

Oral Presentation

Major: Biology 

Parents will go to amazing lengths to protect their child, from avoiding anything potentially toxic during pregnancy to refusing vaccines to prevent even a slight risk of complications. Even today, modern pediatrics mixes with traditional and superstitious views, many of which are constructed from a psychology of fear and hope. In the Middle Ages, parents treated their children using not only the latest techniques recommended by the Church and based on Galen’s philosophy of balancing humors, they also resorted to traditional, pre- or quasi-Christian medicines. Much of the study of medieval medical practices has assumed that medieval parents and doctors believed the balance of humors was constant throughout one’s lifetime, which would lead to children receiving the same treatments as adults. Furthermore, there is little scholarship on the place of children in medieval families more generally. My research examines the social history of medical and quasi-medical practices in the case of young people. Through an examination of medical and culinary treatises, inquisitorial and confessor records, and archeological accounts from Western Europe in the High and late Middle Ages, I provide new insights and raise new questions regarding the balance of humors in children. By extension, my work seeks to understand medicine not as an anomaly, but as a total social practice that can reshape our views on the role of the child in medieval society.

Accounting in the Middle Ages: More Modern than Medieval

Presenter: Amanda Gonzales

Mentors: Michael Peixoto, Honors College History; Monique Balbuena, Honors College Literature

Oral Presentation

Major: Business

Common accounting practices have evolved greatly over time, beginning with simple inventory records and progressing to complex forms of standardized accounting methods. The practice of managerial accounting, which entails analyzing financial data to assist internal decision-making, became standardized during the industrial revolution. As new corporate-style businesses expanded, owners began to maximize profits and increase their wealth by using new methods that allowed them to standardize costs and quantify human capital. Human labor became a cost that needed to be cut in order to maximize profits, which in turn exacerbated the stratification of wealth in society. The origins of this dehumanization of the working class and increase in wealth disparity between owners and workers are identifiable in pre-modern history. My research analyzes medieval methods of administering the production of peasant labor. I examine sources including the Domesday Book, notarial registers, and landed charters, to provide insight into the management techniques used by landowners from the perspective of managerial accounting methods. Although such methods were not standardized during the Middle Ages, the techniques that landowners used in the management of peasant labor show that the evolution of managerial accounting began long before the industrial revolution. The economy in the Middle Ages is often viewed as a compilation of rural agricultural work, however the studied management techniques utilized by lords over peasant labor reveals characteristics of a capitalistic society in a time that capitalism is not believed to have existed.

Early Identity Building in the Boy Scouts of America 1910–1912

Presenter: Charles Steenkolk

Faculty Mentor: Michael Peixoto, Jamie Bufalino

Presentation Type: Poster 92

Primary Research Area: Humanities

Major: History, Spanish

The Boy Scouts of America is one of the most popular, largest, and longest running youth organizations in the United States. Created in 1910, the organization competed with other youth organizations that started around the same time. This article looks at the incorporating documents, the letters and correspondence, and the minutes of the first national meetings, in order to identify and track the initial conceptualizations of the BSA as it asserted itself in the American society. The documents span from 1910 to 1912, the first two years of the BSA. The documents show that the future of the organization was not clear at the time, and that there were significant issues presented to the organization as it formed. The documents also show that the BSA was a composition of the individual people that founded it, and the consensus on a course of action was not present at first. The individual decisions of the leaders of the organization led to a more clear definition of the organization’s niche in society, and its identity as a youth organization.

“Then Brynhild Laughed”: Female Heroism and Changing Tradition in Volsunga Saga

Presenter: Basil Price

Faculty Mentor: Gantt Gurley, Michael Peixoto

Presentation Type: Oral

Primary Research Area: Humanities

Major: Art, Medieval Studies

The legend of Sigurd the Dragonslayer is one of the most long-lived heroic tales in the European imagination, and the characters of Sigurd Fafnisbane, Gudrun, and Brynhild are legendary. Nonetheless, the character of Brynhild, described by Theodore Andersson as “the most complete psychological portrait, male or female in Icelandic literature” saw constant evolution and change. Her place within the legend is dependent upon missing sources, such as the hypothetical Lay of Brynhild, and the lost Meiri text. Her role is further complicated by changes in the narrative due to Christianization and regional variation between Icelandic and Germanic versions. The Icelandic narrative emphasizes her heroic traits, her self-determination, and her magical properties. But the Germanic variations are not nearly as positive, reducing her character to an eroticized prize for Sigurd to win. Although there are incongruities between Icelandic The Saga of the Volsungs and The Poetic Edda, by analyzing specific, shared motifs in conjunction with the Germanic Thidrek’s saga, it is possible to evaluate Brynhild’s role in the lost Meiri manuscript. Her virginity, her reaction to Sigurd’s death, and her relationship with Gudrun throughout the texts indicate that, just as Andersson claimed, Brynhild’s role in the Meiri is one of complex psychology, heroic self-agency, and laughter.

The Evolution of Law: How Medieval Peasant Disputes Shaped Legal Systems

Presenter: Caroline Doss

Faculty Mentor: Michael Peixoto, David Frank

Presentation Type: Oral

Primary Research Area: Social Science

Major: Undeclared- Anticipated: Anthropology

How have legal proceedings evolved throughout the centuries? In the late nineteenth century, Frederick William Maitland argued that many judicial proceedings were not derived from Roman Law or even royal laws, but from customs of the medieval peasantry and non-judicial decisions and compromises. In more recent decades, a wealth of scholarship has analyzed disputes and settlements in medieval France and England, making connections between practices that used to exist and those that have survived to create our current legal system. For example, Fredric Cheyett’s article “Suum Cuique Tribuere” provides a definition for law that stresses the important of compromise in dispute settlements, an idea present in courts today. However, the legal proceedings of the nobility have also influenced the legal system present in the United States. Through an analysis of medieval disputes and settlements, as well as analyses of the different sorts of trial, primarily annulments and marriage law, my research explores the process in which court practices in divorce and marriage proceedings from both the nobility and peasantry have survived as decisions made out of court came to be a functional legal system. Texts such as Alison Weir’s “Eleanor of Aquitaine” and Baldwin’s “Government of Philip Augustus” will offer key insights into the marriage and annulment processes of medieval France and the evolution of such laws.

Eternal Pearly Whites: The Meaning of Teeth in the Middle Ages

Presenter: Chelsey Boguslawski

Faculty Mentor: Michael Peixoto

Presentation Type: Oral

Primary Research Area: Social Science

Major: General Science

As the only bones that can fall out without hindering our everyday progress, teeth are miraculous. They help us consume food to obtain energy, give us wonderful smiles, and can indicate a lot about the body’s health. However, they have not always been portrayed in such positive light. Teeth in the middle ages carried a multitude of meanings, from indications of value to symbolic representations of the grotesque or monstrous. Perceptions varied from relics of religious significance to practical tools used for hunting and survival. Despite their prevalence in medieval literature, little modern scholarship has ever considered the ultimate meaning of teeth during the period. Using primarily monastic writings, in particular the work of Guibert of Nogent on relics, and encyclopedia cosmological texts such as Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies, I aim to change the common misunderstanding of the tooth’s irrelevance outside the scope of the human body. Through this exploration, my paper argues that teeth could act as physical representations of eternity. Through drawing connections between biblical descriptions and medieval stories, I critically examine the capacity of the tooth to hold complex and often competing meanings in medieval society. In so doing, my paper connects the diverse discourse on teeth to metaphysical meaning of the tooth as a semiotic object to elucidate how medieval people understood their world, as well as their pearly white smiles.