| Paper 315-c | Inhospitable Texts?: Reading Practices, Tourism, and the Chester Cycle
(Language: English)
Danielle Magnusson, Department of English, University of Washington
Index terms: Economics - Urban, Language and Literature - Middle English, Literacy and Orality, Printing History |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
Long distance trade was not unusual in the High Middle Ages, either by individuals or in partnerships. Profitable commerce relied upon sophisticated networks and communications. By looking at the trade between Cairo and Genoa and the trade between Genoa and the fairs of Champagne one can illustrate the mechanisms necessary for successful trade over considerable distances. This included effective courier systems for passing information, unambiguous mechanisms for settling accounts, and an operation within a trusted legal framework through remote partners and observing the rigours of 'community enforcement'.
Paper -b:
This paper will use the archival documents pertaining to Marco Bembo, a Venetian merchant who ran a network of agents around the Aegean Sea and further afield. This paper will use his correspondence to study the routes and ships he used to move goods to and from Venice, around the Aegean Sea, to Constantinople, to Crete and beyond to the Levant. Despite recent and ongoing hostilities between the Ottomans and Venetians, Bemb's records show that he was quite successful trading textiles, wine, and other commodities with Europeans and the Islamic Ottomans. His letters mention a large number of private ships, the Venetian state-sponsored galleys moving especially valuable cargos and ships from other countries.
Paper -c:
The Chester Cycle was not only a source of civic pride and part of a significant Christian ritual, but was also a means for attracting paying visitors to the city. But what happened to tourism as the Chester Cycle increasingly displayed the influences of Protestantism as well as the shift from a manuscript-based culture to a print-based one? I argue for an approach to this question that examines the textual conditions from which the cycle emerged and ultimately, propose a surprising link between changes in reading practices and the city of Chester's economic attitudes toward potential visitors.
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