January 7th: Electric Opportunity

Click here for a description of the Electric January Project.

Today’s Electric January Post is an homage to one of the BEST things to come out of Year of Our Lord 2020 (also known as The Year of Covid-19): The Chateau Diaries.

Media: YouTube channel

Location/Length: The Chateau Diaries Channel; since 2019.

How I found it and Reason for Sharing: There is a lovely write-up by CNN, which I will link at the bottom of this post, covering Stephanie’s story in much more depth than I can or should here. However, the succinct version is that Stephanie is co-owner of a stunning 16th-century chateau in rural central France and she has begun to document her life there in video-blogs, or vlogs. These vlogs are charming, to say the very least, and they highlight the best of what humanity can offer, as well as much of its beauty.

Now, Stephanie Jarvis and the Chateau Diaries have been around on TV and YouTube for a while now, since before March 2020, but her style and spirit have taken on a new role in my life, one which would not have been noticed without Covid. “Rose from the Thorns”, so to speak.

We have been watching this YouTube channel since the early days of the First Lockdown, March 2020. The channel began airing several months before then, and Stephanie and her Chateau appeared in the English TV programme ‘Escape to the Chateau: DIY.’  But, becaue of Covid restrictions preventing us from getting out and doing what we normally would, many people world-wide wished for and turned to something to take their minds off of the pandemic and the confusion and/or sadness that frequently ensued. Many people recognized the need to supplement their lockdown lives with something altogether different and altogether uplifting or encouraging. Enter Stephanie Jarvis!

The timing of this post is rather ideal, as Stephanie is taking some time off from vlogging to rest up after an incredibly busy holiday season. She and the ‘Lalanders’ produced 24 videos in 24 days–for Advent. In celebration of this dedication I am sharing the vlog she did about ‘the story so far’, so that, if you wish, you can spend the next few weeks ‘catching up!’

What I love: Like yesterday, though I am spotlighting a single video, I want to raise awareness of the channel, presesnt the entire ouvre, so to speak, for it is lovely and an excellent way of looking at the world as a global community, for that is what Stephanie has done at Chateau de Lalande. There are, at any given time, volunteers and guests from all over the globe, and English is second-language to many who appear in the Vlog. This alone is reason to celebrate it.

 

CNN article: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/french-chateau-owner-pandemic-living/index.html

 

The First Supervision

Greetings all,

Yesterday marked my first supervision of my second PhD undertaking. I sincerely believe that this one will come to fruition. For the history of my first PhD attempt, which was in English and looked at place-names in Derbyshire, just look at any draft of any work that you never finished and never will. That is my first, abandoned, undertaking.

But this, my second, has begun beautifully. To say it is radically different from the first is to underestimate everything, for it is the difference between attempting to walk up a down-escalator and running up an up-escalator: both methods may get you there in the end, but in the first illustration you’ve got to wonder whether or not the idea wasn’t a bit ridiculous. In the second, the escalator works in your favour and that is exactly what my supervisor does: assists, lifts, and keeps me from falling into the shoppers down below.

To summarise our supervision:

We discussed some of the texts that influenced The Pilgrim’s Regress including, of course, Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. Lewis was, of course, a great scholar of sixteenth-century literature and my next reading will be his volume in the Oxford Handbook of English Literature–what he called his OHEL book–entitled ‘English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama.’ These, alongside Plato’s The Republic, will form the basis of my reading for the next month, as I begin to form an outline of the patterns Lewis builds, and builds upon, for his narrative.

We also discussed The Confessions of St. Augustine, an obvious autobiographical work of conversion as well as confession, with parallels to The Pilgrim’s Regress, but I felt that City of God held more sway or weight in Lewis’ work. We shall see. St. Thomas Aquinas is another great theological writer worth exploring throughout this project and certainly his Summa Theologiae features in Lewis’ vast reading. I haven’t figured out where or how, yet.

We talked of course of conversion narratives and some of the scholarly work done on them–particularly those of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century. There really was no need for Lewis to write a conversion narrative–no one demanded it, and it was not a common practice in 1932, but he did, and it has proved enlightening and difficult all at once. I am already familiar with the project from the Center for Early Modern Studies at York University: Conversion Narratives in Early Modern Europe, A Cross-Confessional and Comparative Study, 1550-1700, which formed the basis for my proposal. But there is much more to be explored, and my purpose in this exploration is, again, to draw the framework of the narrative form and see how Lewis followed and diverged from it.

Side note: One of the texts I’ve been picked up for this project is Alan Jacobs’ Year of Our Lord 1943. I was interested in reading this because I enjoyed The Narnian (2005) and the articles he’s written about reading and literary attention. However, this particular work does not provide the same sort of thoughtful message as the others, and I struggled to find and keep the narrative thread as I went along. Indeed, I have not finished the book because I’d no idea what I was reading for! When I presented the title to Alison, my supervisor, she shared a similar experience of being a bit disappointed, and even bewildered in that it did not cover some of what she believed were key points and events of that year. I was not looking for those points, necessarily, but I confess I have struggled to clearly see where it is going.

Talk of Haddon and its famous, ancient roses, of Dorothy Vernon and her romantic getaway with John Manners also featured in the conversation, which took place, as all academic meetings now are, on Teams.

Now to read. On we go, ever the pilgrim!

Field-Names: An abbreviated corpus glossary complete with medieval picture

In case anyone is looking for it, the (very trimmed down) glossary specific to my thesis on medieval field-names in the English Midlands is right here.  I’ve included a picture that may or may not be of any help/interest, but I haven’t yet converted every OE (Old English) character that needs converting.  That’ll be tomorrow’s project.

Calendar page for July: Farm workers scything.

A glossary of p.n./f.n. elements from the corpus
æ þ ð ā ē ō ū ȳ Æ Þ Ð ī

æcer OE, amount of land tillable by a yoke of oxen in one day; ‘a plot of arable or cultivated land, a measure of land (an acre) which a yoke of oxen could plough in a day’;

ald OE (Angl), eald (kt, WSax), adj., ‘old’.

beonet OE ‘bent grass’

beorg, burh, berg (Barroacr’) OE ‘a hill, a mound’

blæc (blacan wk. obl.) OE adj., ‘black, dark-coloured, dark’

bōth ODan, ‘a booth, a temporary shelter’

botm, *boðm OE, ‘a bottom, a valley bottom’

brād (brādan wk. obl.) OE adj. ‘broad, spacious’

brēc OE (Angl, Kt), braēc (WSax), brēche ME, ‘breaking, breach, land broken up for cultivation’

brēr OE (Angl) ‘briar’

 

brōc OE, ‘a brook, a stream’

brōm OE ‘broom’

būr OE ‘a cottage, a dwelling’

burna OE, ‘a spring, a stream’

butte ME, ‘a strip of land abutting on a boundary’, also ‘a short strip or ridge at right angles to other ridges, a short strip ploughed in the angle where two furlongs meet’

cald OE (Angl), ceald (Kt, WSax), kaldr ON, cald, cold ME, adj., ‘cold’

clæg OE ‘clay, clayey soil’

clif (clifu, cliefu, cleofu nom.pl.) OE, klif ON, ‘a cliff, a bank’

cnoll OE ‘a hill-top, the summit of a large hill’, later ‘a knoll, a hillock’, freq. in f.ns.

cot neut. (cote dat.sg., cotu nom.pl.), cote fem. (cotan dat.sg., nom.pl.) (cotum dat.pl.) OE, ‘a cottage, a hut, a shelter, a den’

cress/cresse OE ‘cress’ v. caerse

croft OE ‘a small enclosed field’, dial. croft ‘a small enclosure of arable or pasture land’ and in the NCy often ‘such an enclosure near a house’

cros OIr, kross ON, cros late OE, ME, ‘a cross, the Cross’

crumb OE ‘crooked, twisted, bent’ (esp. in a river or stream); cramb OE ‘land in the bend of a river’

crymel OE, ‘a small piece (of land or water)’, ‘something crumbled’, possibly also in the later sense of ModE crumble ‘fine debris’.

dēop OE, djupr ON, adj., ‘deep’, especially with words for ‘valley’, ‘water’, and ‘ford’.

dīc OE, ‘a ditch’, was used in OE chiefly of ‘an excavated trench’

docce (doccan obl., doccena gen.pl.) OE, ‘dock, a dock’

dryge OE adj., ‘dry, dried up’

ecg OE, ‘an edge’, most often in p.ns. of ‘the sharp edge at the top of a hill, esp. an escarpment’

ende OE, aende (ESax), endi ON, ‘end, the end of something, the end of an estate, a district or quarter of a village or town’

eng ON, ‘meadow, pasture’

feld OE, ‘open country’ (see full entry EPNE)

flat, flot ON, ‘a piece of flat level ground’

fox OE, ‘a fox’

furlang, forlong OE, ‘the length of a furrow, a furlong, a piece of land the length of a furrow’

geard OE, ‘a fence, an enclosure, a yard, a courtyard’

græfe OE, ‘a grove, copse, thicket’

gráf, gráfa, gráfe OE, ‘a grove, copse’,

grēne (grénan wk. obl.), groenn ON, adj., ‘green, young, growing’

hæc(c) OE (Angl, WSax), hec(c) (Kt, Merc), ‘a hatch, a grating, a half-gate, a gate’

(ge)hæg OE, (ge)heg (Kt, Merc), hay ME, ‘a fence, an enclosure’

halh (hale dat.sg., halas, healas nom.pl., halum, healum dat.pl.) OE (Angl), healh (heale dat.sg.) (Kt, WSax), ‘a nook, a corner of land, a water-meadow’./ ‘a secluded hollow in a hill-side’ or ‘a small steep valley on the side of a larger one’, but most commonly ‘a remote narrow valley’

hālig (halgan wk.obl.) OE adj., ‘holy, sacred, dedicated to sacred use’

hall OE (Angl), heall (Kt, WSax), ‘a hall, a large residence, a manor house, a place for legal and other public business and in later dial. ‘a farm-house’

hangende OE pres.part., ‘hanging’

hēafod OE, ‘a head’, ‘the upper end or top of something, a hill, an eminence, the end of a ridge’, esp. when combined with topographical els. denoting ‘hill’ and the like; ‘a headland, a spit of land round which a river flows’

hēah OE ‘high’; ‘high, in lofty position’, ‘tall, long’, cliffs, banks, posts, etc.; ‘chief, important’ 2. ‘a high place, a height’

hlæfdige OE, levedi, lavedi, ladi ME, ‘lady, a nun, Our Lady’; in f.ns. it is used of land dedicated to the Virgin.

hlāw, hlaew OE, ‘a mound, a hill’; common literary contexts meaning ‘an artificial mound, a burial mound, a mound in which treasure is hidden’, also ‘hill, a conical hill resembling a tumulus’

hol holh, OE, hol ON, ‘a hole, a hollow’

holegn OE, ‘holly’

hors OE, ‘a horse’

hungor OE, ‘hunger, famine, usually as a term of reproach in allusion to ‘barren ground’

hwæ-te OE ‘wheat’

hwit OE adj., ‘white’

hyll OE, ‘a hill, a natural eminence or elevated piece of ground’

hyrst OE (Angl, WSax), herst (Kt), ‘a hillock, a copse’. The attested meanings of hyrst are: ‘ a hillock, a bank’, ‘ a copse, a wood, a wooded eminence’ and in ME ‘a sandbank’

intak ON, ‘a piece of land taken in or enclosed’

kjarr ON, ‘brushwood’

(ge)lād OE, ‘a water-course, a passage over a river or stream’
læ-s OE, ‘pasture, meadow-land’

land, lond OE, land ON, ‘land’. This el. has in p.ns. a variety of meanings of which the principal ones are: ‘a part of the earth’s surface (as distinct from water), earth, soil, dry land’; a tract of land of considerable extent’ as in county or regional names; ‘an estate or smaller tract of land’, which is no doubt the common one in p.ns.; ‘a strip of arable land in a common-field’

(lane, lone) lanu OE, ‘a lane, a narrow road’

lang (langan wk. obl.) OE adj., langr ON adj., ‘long’, in p.ns. usually means ‘extending over a great distance’

lēah OE masc., lēah OE fem. ‘a wood, a clearing in a wood’

leme ME, ‘an artificial water-course’

hlot OE, allotment, ‘a lot, a share, an allotment’; ‘a piece of land assigned by lot’

lȳtel, lytel, litel OE adj., litill ON adj., ‘little, small’

mæ-d (maedwe obl.sg., maedwa nom.pl., maedwum dat.pl.) OE (WSax), mēd (Angl, Kt), ‘a meadow’, orginally ‘a piece of meadowland kept for mowing’

mersc, merisc OE, ‘watery land, a marsh’

micel OE adj., ‘big, great’

middel (midlan wk.obl) OE adj., ‘middle’, midlest OE adj. sup ‘middlemost’

munuc OE, monke ME, ‘a monk’

myln, mylen OE (Angl, WSax), meln (Kt), ‘a mill’

park Ofr, ME, ‘an enclosed tract of land for beasts of the chase’

persone OFr, ME, ‘a parson, a beneficed cleric’

pie-2 OFr, ME, ‘a magpie’

pil-āte OE, ‘pill-oats’ cf. ME pilcorn.

pingel ME, ‘a small enclosure’

pise (pisan), pisu, peosu OE, ‘pease, peas’

ruh OE adj., ‘rough’

rydding OE, ‘a clearing’

sæ OE, *sa (EAngl), sáer ON, ‘a sea a lake’.

scēap OE (WSax), scēp (Angl, Kt, late WSax), ‘a sheep’

sīc OE, ‘a small stream, esp. one in a flat marshland;, sik ON, ‘a ditch, a trench’; cf. dial. sike, sitch. In p.ns. sic was often used of a stream that formed a boundary and so came to denote ‘a field, a piece of meadow along a stream’

smið ON, ‘a smith, a worker in metal’

solum, dat. pl. of sol ‘dirty place’, OE ‘mud, slough, a wallowing place’

spring, spryng OE, ‘a spring, a well, the source of a stream’

stān OE, ‘a stone, stone, rock’, has a variety of applications in p.ns. Its common meanings include: ‘rock, stone’ in allusion to the character of the ground, esp. when used as a first el. (almost with the adj. function ‘stony, rocky’

stede, styde OE, ‘a place, a site, a locality’.

stigel, -ol OE, ‘a stile, a place devised for climbing over a fence’, probably also on topographical grounds ‘a steep ascent’

stubbing*, OE adj., ‘a place where trees have been stubbed, a clearing’

swin OE, svin ON, ‘a swine, a pig’

topp OE, ‘top, the top of a bank or hill’

toft, topt (ON); archaeology of ancient building site

torr OE, ‘a rock, a rocky outcrop, a rocky peak’

tūn OE, ‘an enclosure, a farmstead, an estate, a village’, tún ON, ‘an enclosure, a farmstead’

þorn OE, ON, ‘a thorn-tree, the hawthorn’; cf. also blaec-, lús-.

wælla, waelle OE, (Merc) ‘a well, a spring’, also seen as wall, walle v. wella.

wall OE (Angl), weall (Kt, WSax), ‘a wall’

weg OE, ‘a way, a path, a road’, but not usually an urban road; it denotes a great variety of tracks, from one used by animals to a great Roman road like the Fosse Way or the ancient British track of Icknield Way.

wilig OE (Angl), welig (WSax), ‘a willow’.

wulf (wulfes gen.sg., wulfa gen.pl.) OE, ‘a wolf’

What it means to the Institution

This morning John and I began over coffee what started out as a discussion about my life as a teacher and ended (if discussions of this nature ever end) as one that questioned the motives of institutional education. What responsibilities do school administrators have toward their staff? What guidance must we and dare we give our teachers, young and old? Who decides whether papers should be stapled to the hallway walls and who decides when it is time to give new room assignments?

All of this was on my mind when I found Jon Crispin and the Willard Suitcases Project via NPR.  The project is manifold, and from the contents of the suitcases he photographs, many questions and many beauties arise.  He is most obviously captivated by  his art and craft and also by the people with whom he is working–living and gone, both.  What I found so stirring in his blog were the realities unmentioned but clearly present: Who were these people? And, more pressingly, Why were they admitted to the Willard Asylum?

We have a need in our infinite humanity to institutionalize.  We order, we organize, we keep zoological records, and we overdo it time and time again.  Adam’s first task was to name the animals–a creative project given him by God.  And for his naming and his categorization we have order and contrast and something altogether pleasing to the earth.  But man is by no means content to stop there.  We find order and we find it good, and then we go ballistic, drawing lines and squaring edges and removing what is on the other side or in the corner.  Perhaps it is IN our nature to go to extremes, but it should not be OF our nature to remain there.

It is useful to think about all that has been lost in streamlining and mainstreaming and…institutionalizing our lives.  I am reading a book right now called Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford–food for many a future post, I believe–and find that my thoughts are not unique.  And gratefully do I find this true.