Mapping Identity: Geography, Genealogy, and Formulating the Self

       How people and communities of the past viewed themselves and their experience can be elusive; some privileged perspectives are inevitably easier to trace than others, and all are now limited by the fragmentary nature of extant evidence. Identity and its artifacts have been challenging medievalists for decades. Increasingly, the stakes of representation are becoming clear, scholars seeking through a meticulous combing of the material to reveal those experiences that have traditionally fallen between the cracks. Growing ever more apparent for the field is the compelling diversity of medieval identities: the ethnic, religious and geographic multiplicity of people who lived in the global Middle Ages. In a moment of introspection and reevaluation within the scholarly community, we continuean ongoing conversation about the variety and richness of medieval perspectives. Acts of self-actualization could be motivated by any number of different needs, but through their insistence they often underscore the inherent fragility of authority, be it in authorship, ownership or rulership. This exhibition reflects upon ways in which medieval schematic images could localize an individual or a community.

 

       Identity is keenly rooted in concepts of boundary, border and place; not only does identity concern who and where someone is, but also who and where they are not. For this reason, maps in various forms are a key part of the exhibition. Maps are, beyond being accurate or inaccurate depictions of the world, zones of societal representation, shaped by power structures and cultural currents in the places from which they originate. In the Middle Ages, mappae or cartae were fluid forms, and those surviving examples come in many shapes and sizes depending upon medium, purpose and location. Hanging wall maps like the famous Hereford Mapcould hang in churches, providing those who saw them with a unique visual description of the world. The most common maps to survive to the present day were safely couched in codices, diagrams or images that in various ways visualized the world’s organization. Some of these were very simple, such as the T-O maps that first appear in illustrations of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies. These diagrams, a T shape circumscribed by a circle, subdivided the world into the three known continents, each believed to have been entrusted to one of the sons of Noah. In some European sources, exotic peoples and monstrous races from accounts like the Wonders of the East often lurk on the margins of the known world. These curious and somewhat brutal conceptions of otherness marked the boundary of the civilized Christian world and the mysterious beyond, eluding to a dynamic of identity dependent upon geographic and religious constructs.

 

       Of course, images of the world could serve a variety of functions, and the Middle Ages saw a rebirth of advanced cartography. Atlases were made to facilitate industry and expedition, charting the distance between known points to aid in navigation at sea. In the case of the Portolan Atlas, this speaks to communities in conversation across bodies of water, vast connections forged across the Mediterranean despite the perils of sea travel. Though functionally, the most luxurious of these sea-charts might have gotten no closer to an actual ship than the wall of a rich nobleman or merchant’s estate, they speak to an unprecedented knowledge of distance and topography after the 12^thcentury.

 

       Identity is the product of a personal and communal mythmaking, a result of both unconscious and intentional creative processes. Oftentimes, this type of self-conceptualization was of key concern for rulers, whose authority was rooted in their legitimacy. Records of this kind of kingly identity are also some of the more easily traced in the Middle Ages. A material legacy of this kind is indicative of privilege. But it is also a token of anxiety, surviving in great numbers because of the large scale production. This emphasis, and overemphasis, on kingship was meant to cement a claim to both royal and civic identity. The seal of Edward III, a powerful and widely disseminated symbol of kingly prestige, is an image-bearer of the king enthroned. As a stand in for the physical presence of the king himself, the seal was imbued with the legal authority to authenticate documents. Genealogical rolls presented one avenue for conveying the historical sources of a monarch’s power, the continuous form visually insisting upon an unbroken line of authority. MS Roll 1066, a hybrid object that is genealogy and chronicle at once, a combination of biblical and English history, begins with Adam and Eve to trace Edward IV’s noble lineage. A folio in a patent of nobility from 16^thcentury Spain (LJS 19) juxtaposes the coat of arms of Charles I with an image of St James defeating the Moors. This association with a key image of Spanish lore aligns the king with long-held concepts of kingdom identity as well as religious and military might.  This kind of image building can also be seen in aristocratic genealogies, family chronicles and coats of arms, which served to both legitimize status and commemorate family ties.

 

       Histories or chronicles could also be receptacles for cultural memory and values. Despite their self-stressed validity, chronicle narratives from specific places can be useful primary sources when uncovering local biases and perspectives. The choices made in how and what is related can provide insight into the priorities and knowledge of the author. Often encompassing history since Eden, these ambitious works speak to a people’s understanding of their place in the context of human history.

 

       This collection of disparate objects presentsa rumination upon the relics of particular medieval traditions of identity from the Middle East, Iberia, the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, with a focus upon maps, chronicles and genealogical material. By understanding their context, their place on a map or their relationship to the past, medieval viewers could formulate a sense of their own position within the otherwise fairly abstract ideas of time and space. The chronicles, maps and genealogies presented here contextualize the experiences of a certain, elite few, reinforcing conceptions of the cosmic order as well as a person’s own earthly place within this divine schema.