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IMC 2011: Sessions

Session 721: Gift-Giving, VI: Texts and Gifts

Tuesday 12 July 2011, 14.15-15.45

Organiser:Jinty Nelson, Department of History, King's College London
Moderator/Chair:Jinty Nelson, Department of History, King's College London
Paper 721-aQuid pro quo: Gift-Giving in Early Irish Literature
(Language: English)
Caroline Geher, Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung
Index terms: Language and Literature - Celtic, Mentalities, Social History
Paper 721-bTexts as Gifts in 9th-Century Francia
(Language: English)
Clare Woods, Department of Classical Studies, Duke University
Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Monasticism
Paper 721-c'It Stant as it Were to the Ground Yglewed': Materiality and the 'Vertu' of Gifts in Chaucer's Squire's Tale
(Language: English)
Rob Ellis, School of English & Drama, Queen Mary, University of London
Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English
Abstract

Paper -a:
Based on the theories of Jürgen Link and Gert Althoff, this paper will explore the function and meaning of gift-giving in early Irish literature. Link suggests that literature should be understood as an 'interdiscourse', which imports elements of special discourses, where these discursive elements are used as communally understood symbols. In this context, gift-giving can be seen as symbolic action (a 'ritual' in Althoff's sense of the word) that follows the pattern of the do-ut-des-principle.
The main aim of this paper is to extract information about formalized behaviour from the literary texts by using interdisciplinary methods - under the assumption that they originated from within early medieval Irish society.

Paper -b:
In 819, on the occasion of the dedication of Fulda's new basilica, the monastery presented to archbishop Haistulf of Mainz a copy of a recent work composed by their schoolmaster, Hrabanus. The work in question was De Institutione Clericorum, and three years later its author was elected abbot of one of the most important monasteries in Francia. This paper investigates the choice of this text as a gift to Haistulf, and uses this example of the gift of a book to explore the politics and dynamics of gift giving between religious establishments, and between individual clerics/monks.

Paper -c:
Juxtaposing the materiality of the court and the natural garden in The Squire's Tale, this paper considers how Chaucer uses gifts to comment on contemporary ways of assigning value.