(no subject)
Argh. I just finished reading an article that, in an irritating and insipid (and were I to be nasty, I would say particularly French) way... anticipates the paper I'm planning to write for advisor R's seminar this semester about the development and "social meaning(s)" of Saint-Florent's property in eleventh-century Brittany. Not only that, but it goes one better than I can at this point, because I don't have Marmoutier's Breton charters yet, and can't look at the interplay between Saint-Florent and Marmoutier's rival property and patronage networks.
Even more maddeningly, the article anticipates my paper in a passage that appears briefly somewhere on the freeway from apparent fantasy-genealogy to OMG IT'S A KINSHIP NETWORK OF GREGORIAN REFORMERS! And the argument, such as it is, makes massive claims that I couldn't follow because the only citations were to previous articles by the same historian! This historian is, admittedly, dead, yet still the greatest of the towering figures in the field, so it's no wonder I feel very small and uninformed in comparison. But I do feel very small and uninformed as to the larger context and I apparently need to develop some learnings of Anjou and the Touraine.
But anyway, I am righteously miffed that someone else thought of thinking about the meaning of this property, dammit! Even if, upon a less worried reread, I see that the word of choice was actually "mission," and it ends up being all about Marmoutier and Saint-Florent choosing Breton abbots in order to bring reform to the Breton Church.
Yeah, that doesn't actually necessarily explain what donating property meant from the lay Breton side of things, now that I think about it some more. Possibly the fantasy genealogy, where everyone is actually THE SAME PERSON OR ELSE CLOSELY RELATED TO THEM (do we think a conflation of an unknown "Guillelmus," a "Guillelmus cattus" and a "Guillelmus calvus" is a good plan?), is actually more threatening. Or maybe the worst part is not having the Marmoutier charters so I can really see what's going on with the apparently duelling priories.
The worst part about French articles is that, like French scholarly books, they don't stick to a single argument. They argue ALL THE THINGS, or at least, A LOT OF THE THINGS, but they only argue them a little bit, and then they build on each mini-argument with their next when they haven't really proven the first one yet!! Maddening!
Even more maddeningly, the article anticipates my paper in a passage that appears briefly somewhere on the freeway from apparent fantasy-genealogy to OMG IT'S A KINSHIP NETWORK OF GREGORIAN REFORMERS! And the argument, such as it is, makes massive claims that I couldn't follow because the only citations were to previous articles by the same historian! This historian is, admittedly, dead, yet still the greatest of the towering figures in the field, so it's no wonder I feel very small and uninformed in comparison. But I do feel very small and uninformed as to the larger context and I apparently need to develop some learnings of Anjou and the Touraine.
But anyway, I am righteously miffed that someone else thought of thinking about the meaning of this property, dammit! Even if, upon a less worried reread, I see that the word of choice was actually "mission," and it ends up being all about Marmoutier and Saint-Florent choosing Breton abbots in order to bring reform to the Breton Church.
Yeah, that doesn't actually necessarily explain what donating property meant from the lay Breton side of things, now that I think about it some more. Possibly the fantasy genealogy, where everyone is actually THE SAME PERSON OR ELSE CLOSELY RELATED TO THEM (do we think a conflation of an unknown "Guillelmus," a "Guillelmus cattus" and a "Guillelmus calvus" is a good plan?), is actually more threatening. Or maybe the worst part is not having the Marmoutier charters so I can really see what's going on with the apparently duelling priories.
The worst part about French articles is that, like French scholarly books, they don't stick to a single argument. They argue ALL THE THINGS, or at least, A LOT OF THE THINGS, but they only argue them a little bit, and then they build on each mini-argument with their next when they haven't really proven the first one yet!! Maddening!