Urban Materialities Conference: In tweets

The Materialities of Urban Life in Early Modern Europe conference took place last week in London. We were delighted with the response to our call for papers and it was wonderful to have a room full of people engaged in exciting research in various aspects of urban material culture in the early modern period.  The event generated much interest within the Institute of Historical Research and without. There will be podcasts available online shortly but those of you unable to attend can get a sense of the various sessions and papers in real time as captured in tweets; some of the highlights are included below. Start at the bottom and work your way back to here ; – )

Many thanks to all tweeters for such engaged and comprehensive coverage of the conference…

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Laura‏@hypocras 19 Apr

Great day at #materialities conference. So much talk of merchants and craftsmen! Much to ponder and many emails to send.

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Tara Hamling‏@TaraHamling 19 Apr

#materialities & excellent new work by early career researchers in various disciplines suggests health and vitality of field looking forward

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Tara Hamling‏@TaraHamling 19 Apr

#materialities different definitions & approaches to MC & materiality but sense of coherent field, interdisciplinary dialogue & connections

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Tara Hamling‏@TaraHamling 19 Apr

#materialities closing remarks- movement of things in, within, through & out of urban context crucial for understanding early modern period

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Darius Rafter‏@dariusrr 19 Apr

@CREMS_bham @stephappleton84 Agree – great coverage, much appreciated! Wonder if anyone’s collating the #materialities tweets in a Storify..

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Iain Richards‏@IWRichards19 Apr

@stephappleton84 really enjoyed your commentary on the #materialities conference. Some fascinating papers!

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#materialities Movement of garments across urban landscape in various stages of completion, before they even reached Leicester complete.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#materialities Leicester’s dress conveyed his ancestry & position but also reflected on the court of Elizabeth I

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities final paper tracey wedge, behind and within th wardrobe of robert dudley,earl of leicester. wedge used to be conservator

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#materialities Time for our final paper – Tracey Wedge on the wardrobe of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester!

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#materialities Bishop of Aberdeen had his silk sheets cut up & used as wick in the candles for his house!

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#materialities Tallow candles had shelf life 8/10 months. Raises questions about consumables as artefacts.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#materialities By 1688 Edinburgh had established council-regulated street lighting.

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities allen, tallow candles had a shelf life of 8-10 months. i’m intrigued now about how long tallow soap lasted now!

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities aaron allen, production and th missing artifacts, candles in the early modern scottish town

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Next paper from Aaron Allen – candles in early modern Scottish town. What problems arise in studying a missing artefact?

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Francis also undertook building projects/alterations in & around Paris to accommodate his court in sufficient grandeur&style

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Records of Francis I’s ‘privy purse’ type accounts show he patronised artisans i.e. gold & silversmiths

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CREMS [Birmingham]‏@CREMS_bham 19 Apr

@stephappleton84 Great tweets from the #materialities conference, keep it up! Next best thing to being there for those who couldn’t make it.

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities on to glenn richardson, paris and the court of francis i

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Next up: Glenn Richardson on Paris and the court of Francis I.

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities. anyone know what a taggerwoman sold?

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Fabric had political connotations,i.e. Charles II wore wool to show support of this English trade.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Urban environment helped ensure a tailor’s success-London place for clients to show off their clothes.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Watts made clothes for the king 1670-77, but also for Nell Gwyn. He made her a blue suit for the stage!

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Maria Hayward on William Watts, tailor. His skill brought him status – court appointment.

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities importance of tablelinen in guilds – appeared in both kilburn-toppin and branch paper

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Lots of brilliant examples of textile work from Laura Branch: I’m sure @Finny_stitch is taking copious notes! #materialities

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

A nice example of recycled church-work, from Laura Branch. Chimes with some of the work we’ve been doing at Hardwick Hall. #materialities

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities very slow rate of change from catholic material culture, & secularisation of vestments

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities branch, guildsmen investments in material culture of parish churches during reign changes

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Laura Branch notes that guilds often retained pre-Ref objects and ‘reformed’ them, rather than dispose of them

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Branch: reform and alteration of pre-Reformation material culture by livery guilds. #materialities

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Branch links mercantile activity, protestant reform, and material culture. #materialities

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities laura branch, material culture of london livery co.s and reformation

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities some guildsmen donated tools to be displayed (at death)

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities kilburn-toppin emphasises collaborative work by guildsmen in redesigning buildings . importance of communal hall space

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities kilburn-toppin significant rebuilding of medieval guilds in 17thc. still built around courtyards, diff from domestic

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Late sixteenth-century saw significant reshaping of guild halls and company spaces – opportunity to re-affirm status. #materialities

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities kilburn-toppin gifts to guilds performed internal hierarchies

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Kilburn-Toppin on #materialities of livery guilds. Guildsmen competed to sponsor important aspects of Hall fixtures, fittings, and furniture

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Now Jasmine Kilburn-Toppin on artisanal identity in the pewterers’ guild

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities jasmine kilburn-toppin on construction of guildsmen’s identities through communal mat culture

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

I am enjoying such phrases as ‘whiffler trims’, ‘last whiffler of Norwich’, and so on… #materialities Now also Dick fools and snapdragons.

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities awesome whiffler picture from 19thc. with red breeches and bright purple knee sashes

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Shades of white: Morgan suggests the fine distinctions of colour symbolism. #materialities

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities morgan linking royal and civic regalia ie sceptre/mace, hat under crown/mayors hat. with cool velvet hat image!

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Morgan: Early mod colour theory draws on pre-reformation religious modes; heraldry; biblical re-reading; classical sources. #materialities

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities victor morgan on civic colour symbolism in norwich. can we see colour as contemporaries did?

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

How did the early moderns see colour? #materialities

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Need to be aware of colour/pigment degradation over time. Can we see colour as early moderns did?

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Morgan: Colour’s ‘mute symbolism’ a product of our ‘depleted understanding’ of the early modern colour system. #materialities

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities Next Victor Morgan on colour symbolism in civic material culture of Renaissance Norwich

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Connections between portraiture and heraldry emerge clear in Tittler’s #materialities paper.

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities tittler, contextualising elite portraiture in east kent. wonder if he used overton et al inventories?

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Tittler’s conclusions point intriguingly to larger #materialities – geography, climate, culture come together as conditions for portraits.

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Tittler: How far do regional / local commitments affect the patron / artist / portrait triangle? #materialities

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 19 Apr

#Materialities First paper of day from Robert Tittler on regional distinctions in post-Ref England, previously understudied

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 19 Apr

Bob Tittler argues for a geographically-aware and regional approach to early modern portraiture. #materialities

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 19 Apr

#materialities looking forward to some guild expertise on panel one. starting with geog of portraiture by robert tittler

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Tara Hamling‏@TaraHamling 19 Apr

Last day of urban #materialities conf -today is portraits, civic/guild/court contexts and issues of production & supply; clothing, candles

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Sara Pennell‏@HistorySara 19 Apr

#materialities loved fertile mix of papers abt stuff, space, memory, law, imagination, eating, performance, identities, belonging, mapping..

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Kate De Rycker‏@KateDeRycker 19 Apr

Great day yesterday at Materialities of Urban Life in EM Europe conf, though I dreamt I was chased by Italian toffs playing pallamaglio

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Richard Hemming‏@outofmischief 18 Apr

Some fascinating papers at #Materialities of Urban Life in Early Modern Europe conference. We’re now off for a spirited game of pallamaglio!

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities … But I would question whether we can assume bedrooms were ‘private’ in the sense that they are today.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Smith arguing for private nature of tactile encounters with musical instruments in early modern home, i.e. in bedroom…

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

Simon Smith focusses our attention on the lute as a physical object within the Renaissance theatre. #materialities

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Final paper of day from Simon Smith on musical instruments as domestic objects on early modern stage.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Great, engaging discussion with Yolanda Vasquez & @DrFarahKC !

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

Session w/ Yolanda raises qs about changing cultures. Were difficult costumes for a modern actor so tricky for a Ren boy? #materialities

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Women wearing man’s costume v.restrictive. Makes you stand in certain way, also can’t go to the loo!

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Now Yolanda Vasquez in discussion on acting with costumes made with original practices. No mad arm gestures & lots of pins!

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

@AliceDolinen As long as the dying involves copious fake blood it will fit @lucymunro’s lovely paper perfectly!

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities battery dying so will have to log off twitter for the last few papers

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

Blood should be ‘in no wise of an oxe or a cow, for that will be too thicke’ (Scot, 1584). #materialities @lucycmunro

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities lucy munro & use of blood (paint/ink/animal blood) on th stage.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities now Lucy Munro-how does stage blood interact with theatrical form? Does it point to genre?

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Great question from @AliceDolinen on ephemerality of trenchers. Would they be reused many times with same group of friends?

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities so many questions after this session its like a quick fire quiz round!

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities merry; bright red swedish 1620s doublet. i love it!

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Interrogating what ‘household’ meant for those who lived in more than one place, i.e. Warwick & London.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Last paper for this session-Mark Merry on a lodging household in C17th London, moving objects around.

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities mark merry, sir thomas puckering, lodging in london in early 17thc. contextualised with his european travel

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 April

Mark Merry promises us boxes in the coming paper – clearly doesn’t know his audience if he thinks we’ll find it dull! #materialities

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

Jackson: great 1650 design for trencher (pun on ‘cod’) makes me think about print as decoration / ideas of replicability. #materialities

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities but likely their text was meant to be read aloud/sung to provide entertainment.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Common themes on trenchers inc. biblical, proverbs & relations between sexes. No real consensus as to how they were used.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities trenchers bit bigger than modern beer mats. Used for banquet course (sweets), blank on one side with image & epigram on other

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities jackson using great extant egs from british museum. 2 categories of designs-lewd and spiritual

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities now Victoria Jackson on banqueting trenchers & performance of dining in early modern London.

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

New fabrics: the ‘imperceptible’ replaces the ‘invisible’ of last year… Mitchell at #materialities

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

Mitchell Fashion for dining at night led to changes in faceting gemstones to make them sparkle brilliantly in candlelight. #materialities

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities mitchell showed amazing colourful print of montespan’s cabinet. assualt to th senses!

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities social and material contexts of chocolate, tea and coffee drinking. shame there’s no hot choc at th next tea break

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities david mitchell on impact of changing french social attitudes on plate demand in restoration london

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

Storey: ‘exercising one’s judgement’ in the choice of equipment and route a crucial marker of elite exercise. #materialities

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materiality pallamaglio, good for elite men because long pole so they didn’t bend over&concave end so no dirty hands

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities storey on how exercise affected emotions and shaped cities. discussing pallamaglio,like golf

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Now Tessa Storey on exercise and health in early modern Italian city – book out soon!

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Sennefelt -women’s networks apparent throughprotection of/identification of/exchange of material goods

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities … also how people looked at things, other people & negotiated status.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Karin Sennefelt will use ads for lost items in C17th Stockholm to explore how they made up social fabric…

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities karin sennefelt on lost object notices in stockholm churches c1700. how did people ‘see’ status from material culture?

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Court case-perpetrator chrged with trespass tho only entered yard. Makes me think about boundaries of ‘home’&fluidity in this

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Riitta Laitenen on C17th Turku. V. few buildings survive, but court records rich source – explore material culture here.

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

Barrels seem to be a real theme of the Urban #materialities conference! Burial urns, hiding places, transport for rosaries…

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

Numerous egs of fabrics represented in stone in Romanet’s paper. Interesting to think about materials and how made to matter. #materialities

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities … commissioned by successor Odet de Foix to assert continuity & legitimacy of French governorship in Milan.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Philippa de Romanet period of French dominance in Milan has left little material evidence! But tomb of Gaston de Foix…

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities romanet-paper illustrates relationships between political conflicts & material culture. establishing fr rule in milan

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities romanet gian giacomo triviulzio, took ducal possessions of milan under fr rule, including silk worms

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities philippa de romanet on civic collusion and noble commemoration in french milan.tomb of gaston de foix

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Conversionnarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

Gilks: Different attitudes to restoration, and particularly to vivid colours, in late C18th Paris. #materialities

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

Gilks: Parisians had a functional interest in Roman ruins – how to move water in a city of almost unprecedented scale? #materialities

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities david gilks on urbanism&heritage in paris pre 1789

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ConversionNarratives‏@conversiontales 18 Apr

Andrew Spicer on relics is making me wonder how far we can talk about urban / a city’s material culture in the singular. #materialities

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities reliquaries carried through streets i.e. Tournai to reinforce religious dimensions of urban network & relief from disease

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Andrew Spicer on relics/reliquaries in context of resurgence of Catholicism in southern Netherlands.

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities spicer relics were lent between cities. some sent to mons to help cure plague. interesting!

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities andrew spicer on material culture of plague & relationship with growth of catholicism in holland

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

#materialities eekhout – attempts of hoorn to gain status by memorialising battle against spanish

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Objects include decorated windows, text panels & cannonballs left in situ in buildings hit during siege!

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities … should be brought in to map this memory landscape & local/regional involvements/concerns.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities now Marianne Eekhout on Dutch Revolt & its commemoration. Traditionally literary sources examined, but material objects…

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

@conversiontales #materialities book imprints as a tool to read geographies

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

@conversiontales helen wants to develop understanding of printing communities in 1590s london. sounds great!

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

@conversiontales [Helen Smith] up next on mapping shakespeare in print #materialities a work in progress paper.

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities Also, can we speak of ‘home’ as material assemblage with any legal certainty pre-C18th?

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities of hholds so everyday that no political/satirical comment on it.

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

@historysara #materialities emphasises lack of security over goods. regularity of movements of goods

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

@historysara #materialities thorough overview of legal situation of distraint

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

conference starting off with @historysara on dispossession of goods, focusing on chattel distraint #materialities

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Stephanie Appleton‏@stephappleton84 18 Apr

#Materialities stimulating opening paper from Sara Pennell, distraining of hhold goods in C18th. Legal material movement of goods in & out..

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Alice Dolan‏@AliceDolinen 18 Apr

looking forward to materialities of urban life in early modern europe today @ihr_history

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Andy Kesson‏@AndyKesson 18 Apr

Materialities of Urban Life in Early Modern Europe begins today. See lots of you there! http://events.history.ac.uk/event/show/8331

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Metropolitan History‏@CMH_London 17 Apr

Like to follow the proceedings of ‘Materialities of Urban Life in Early Modern Europe’ over the next three days? Use #materialities

 

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Performing Material Culture on the Early Modern Stage

With just a few days to go until the Materialities of Urban Life in Early Modern Europe conference, here is a taster of the panel organised by Farah Karim-Cooper (Shakespeare’s Globe)…

This panel examines the ways in which objects are defined and interpreted through performance. What is the relationship between identity and material culture and how is this mediated through the use of objects – such as mirrors, musical instruments, costumes, even stage blood – on the stages of early modern theatres?

Laura Tosi asks what a female ruler sees when she looks at herself in the mirror, exploring how the Duchess of Malfi negotiates her own performative role through the object of the looking glass. Lucy Munro’s paper is interested in the ways in which a material substance – the paint, ink or animal’s blood used to represent human blood on the early modern stage- interacts with theatrical form and convention Yolanda Vazquez, actor from Shakespeare’s Globe as well as many other theatres, including the RSC, talks about how costume helps to construct and negotiate time, place and identity through performance. Finally, Simon Smith’s paper examines the way in which musical instruments should be understood as domestic objects; in the hands of actors these become staged properties, contributing to theatrical performance through their material form as well as through the sounds they could produce.

‘Death and the Maiden’, an allegorical painting of a young woman playing a lute, with the figure of Death behind her, about 1570. © Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.