Projects in History
-
Dana M. Polanichka
Assistant Professor of HistoryNature of marriage and family at Charlemagne’s court
Proposal
This project explores the role of women and nature of marriage and family at Charlemagne’s court (r. 769-814 CE). I am interested in unraveling Charlemagne’s relationships with women at the royal court, determining the nature of romantic and familial relationships, and investigating marriage customs in the eighth- and ninth-century Frankish world. Due to the relative paucity of primary texts, this project includes significant historiographical and methodological components: the student(s) and I will survey secondary literature in history and related fields to better grapple with the difficulties inherent to these questions. Ultimately, we will attempt to piece together a fuller picture of early medieval women and family, love and marriage.
Academic year: 2011-2012 -
Kathryn Tomasek
Associate Professor of HistoryCrowdsourcing Transcription of Laban Morey Wheaton’s Daybook
I would like to hire one student per semester in 2010-2011 to pre-pilot crowdsourcing transcription of Laban Morey Wheaton’s daybook, an account book that Wheaton keep at a store that he ran in Norton between 1828 and 1859. This pre-pilot represents a new step in the Wheaton College Digital History Project (WCDH) and is inspired in part by a project at University College London called “Transcribe Bentham”.
Academic year: 2010-2011 -
Dana M. Polanichka
Assistant Professor of HistoryWomen and Family, Love and Marriage at the Court of Charlemagne
Faculty report (Dana M. Polanichka)
In the 2010-11 academic year, I continued the Wheaton Research Partnership began in January 2010, which explores the role of women and the nature of marriage, love and family life at the court of Charlemagne (r. 769-814 CE). Christine Sobieck ’12 continued on as my research assistant, and she was joined by Elena Malkov ’13 for the duration of the fall semester. In the spring, Elena then continued her work on the project, while Christine’s JYA semester allowed Eben Diskin ’12 to join the project.
The majority of research undertaken by the students consisted of surveying the vast amounts of secondary literature and historical scholarship on the closely related topics of court life, gender, family, and broader cultural, social, and intellectual aspects of the Carolingian world. In addition, primary texts in translation (mainly biographies of the Carolingian kings but also a handbook written by an early Frankish woman and some court poetry) were carefully read by each of the students. Christine, Elena, and Eben largely worked individually, taking detailed notes on the readings, and I met with each student one-on-one throughout the term to discuss how their research was progressing and whether we ought to shift our research questions.
While the WRP research began very broadly, over the course of the year, students were able to narrow in on specific areas according to their interests and discoveries. Elena, for example, spent the spring semester drawing together her notes to write a draft of an article on the nature of marriage during the Carolingian court, with a particular focus on Charlemagne’s daughter Bertha and her relationship to a man named Angilbert. Eben continued to follow his long-held interest in courtly society, while Christine increasingly focused on Carolingian cultural history.
Elena’s article draft will serve as the basis for a co-authored article we hope to submit to a journal in the next year, after I perform some primary text research in Latin to flesh out the article. The culmination of Eben’s and Christine’s research was the realization that there is little-to-no focus on the ways in which court spaces and activities were altered (or re-gendered) based upon the fluctuation of female presence at the court from Charlemagne’s to Louis the Pious’s reigns. This intriguing lacuna led Eben, Christine, and I to successfully apply for a summer Mars research fellowship to write an article tentatively entitled “Frankish Women on the Hunt—The Gendering of Politics and Court under Charlemagne (r. 768-814 CE) and Louis the Pious (r. 814-841 CE).”
The ultimate outcome of our 2010-11 Wheaton Research Partnership was our decision to expand our research project beyond the court of Charlemagne into that of his son, Louis the Pious, while simultaneously narrowing our focus to the life of Bertha, Charlemagne’s second-eldest daughter, in the hopes of writing a biographical study in the coming years.
Student report (Christine Sobieck)
Being able to work on the project over the course of two semesters has allowed me to consider a number of topics in increasing depth. During my first semester on the project last spring, my research began as somewhat general, because initially I needed a basis that would allow me to examine the issues that were the principal focus of the project. Reading primary and secondary sources dealing with Charlemagne’s reign and the Carolingian court gave me such a basis, and by the end of the semester I had begun to read articles that focused more specifically on the issues related to gender and women. These readings allowed me to think of some preliminary questions to keep in mind. The research during the second semester, such as looking at articles focusing on Carolingian cultural history and at primary source biographies of Louis the Pious, let me explore more thoroughly points that had interested me in previous readings, and having the opportunity to try to synthesize the information from the various sources that I have read has led me to be able to consider more pointed questions about topics such as the role of women at court and the differences between the courts of Charlemagne and Louis.
Student report (Elena Malkov)
Having acquainted myself with the Carolingian era during two previous semesters of research for Professor Polanichka, I was ready to focus on a more specific area of study during the 2011 spring semester. I familiarized myself with an extensive list of secondary sources in order to begin drafting an article exploring marriage in Charlemagne’s court. Concentrating specifically on the peculiar relationship dynamics between Charlemagne’s daughter Bertha and a man named Angilbert, I applied my findings to make broader conclusions on the nature of marriage in the Carolingian world.
Student report (Eben Diskin)
Using my Wheaton Research Partnership this past spring, I was able to assist Professor Polanichka in researching the Carolingian court, aristocratic women, and King Charlemagne. These are topics about which I had no knowledge before undertaking the project, and through the study of both secondary and primary sources, I have learned a great deal about a previously unfamiliar subject. More significantly than this, however, I learned how to effectively organize my notes and identify themes within them, so that by the end of the semester I noticed patterns and intriguing continuities that increased my curiosity about the subject. This led me to want to apply for the Mars Fellowship Grant with Professor Polanichka, to try to answer some of the questions raised during the semester, and eventually produce a publishable journal article on gendered spaces in Carolingian courtly society.
Original proposal
This project explores the role of women and nature of marriage and family at Charlemagne’s court (r. 769-814 CE). I am interested in unraveling Charlemagne’s relationships with women at the royal court, determining the nature of romantic and familial relationships, and investigating marriage customs in the eighth- and ninth- century Frankish world. Due to the relative paucity of primary texts, this project includes significant historiographical and methodological components: the student(s) and I will survey secondary literature in history and related fields to better grapple with the difficulties inherent to these questions. Ultimately, we will attempt to piece together a fuller picture of early medieval women and family, love and marriage.
Academic year: 2010-2011
