Biographies of Meaning: The Cultural Agency of Household Objects in Late Medieval English Towns.

在1391年伦敦杂货商理查德·托基和1430年左右约克郡泥瓦匠约翰·凯德比的存货清单中，廉价的小箱子都被列为珠宝。相比之下，富裕的教会家庭的财产清单将箱子列为器皿。我们可能会问为什么，它们的意义是什么，为什么它们在城市环境中被认为是不同的，以及它们是如何行动的？在中世纪晚期的英格兰，家用物品所扮演的角色至今还没有被人们所探索。这是我研究的基础问题。中世纪后期家庭物质文化的扩张被认为是我们消费社会的起源（Kowaleski 2006）。消费主义的框架，以及其教条式的接受，即社会抱负的模仿推动了不断扩大的“中等”物质性，导致历史学家忽视了批判性地参与客体机构和横向影响。最近，威尔逊关于勃艮第城市“剧院”（2015年）的工作鼓励了对客体能动性的批判性思考，摩根（2017年）对床的文化意义的研究含蓄地揭示了它们的能动性潜力。在现代早期，Hamling和Richardson（2017）开始探索家用物品和“中等类型”之间的关系。还有许多工作要做。本文将通过对一系列家居物品的分析来揭示它们的意义传记，从而解决这一学术空白。它将试图通过揭示家居物品在城市社会文化进程中的横向作用来挑战消费主义的主导话语。由于消费支出占英国GDP的60%，2017年消费放缓，需要对消费主义作为社会经济力量的有效性进行历史分析。意义传记是我从关于物质文化的理论争论中得出的一种独创性的方法论进路。它基于Kopytoff的“文化传记”（1986年）的概念，即价值观和ergo agency，一个物体在不同的使用环境中移动时所拥有的。然而，它不是一个对象传记的方法，而是考察对象类型的传记。使用这种方法，我将探讨什么样的文化价值观的家庭物品充满了通过他们的使用，无论是在房子里和房子外，以及这些价值观如何使他们在更广泛的城市社会文化进程代理。这项研究将主要利用博思威克研究所和约克敏斯特图书馆所拥有的现存中世纪资料的大型语料库。将对清单进行定量分析，以详细说明物体及其相关组合的空间位置。将讨论当代视觉和叙事来源中的对象的表示，以确定对象类型的文化含义。例如，为什么在多赛特郡克兰伯恩的一个教区教堂里，人们越来越多地用水壶来纪念暴食，比如墙上的七宗罪？最后，对遗嘱、教会法庭证词和切利、帕斯顿和斯托纳的信件进行定性阅读，将揭示这些物品是如何被积极使用的，以及它们是如何起作用的。1446年，罗伯特·菲茨罗伯特将一只名为“格雷特·格鲁布”的银杯送给了阿孔的圣托马斯，作为自己的纪念。如果仅仅把它看作一种消费品，那么这种命名的、具有媒介作用的家用物品就无法解释了。中世纪晚期的城市家庭是一系列经济、社会和宗教活动的空间场所。家居物品也是移动的，经常越过房屋的门槛进入其他城市空间。因此，这项研究有可能提供一个替代的观点，中世纪晚期社会的所有领域，认为社会文化过程的横向性质。它还将介绍一个创新的方法论框架，可以应用于物质文化研究超越地理，学科和时间的限制，这篇论文。

In both the 1391 inventory of London grocer Richard Toky and that of Yorkshire mason John Cadeby in c.1430 small inexpensive chests are listed as jewels. In contrast, the inventories of wealthy ecclesiastical households list chests as utensils. We might ask why, what was their significance, why were they perceived differently in urban contexts, and how did they act? The roles household objects performed in late medieval England has to date gone largely unexplored. This is the question that underpins my research. The expanding material culture of households in the later Middle Ages is understood as the genesis of our consumer society (Kowaleski 2006). The framework of consumerism, and its dogmatic acceptance that socially aspirant emulation drove expanding 'middling' materiality, has resulted in historians neglecting to critically engage with both object agency and lateral influences. Recently, Wilson's work on the Burgundian urban 'theatre' (2015) has encouraged critical thinking about object agency, and Morgan's (2017) examination of the cultural significance of beds has implicitly revealed their agential potential. For the early-modern period Hamling and Richardson (2017) have begun to explore the relationship between household objects and the 'middling sort'. Much more remains to be done. This thesis will address this scholarly lacuna through the analysis of an array of household objects to reveal their biographies of meaning. It will seek to challenge the dominant discourse of consumerism by revealing how household objects acted laterally in urban socio-cultural processes. With consumer spending accounting for 60% of the UK's GDP, and 2017 evidencing a consumer slowdown, historical analysis of the validity of consumerism as a socio-economic force is needed. Biography of meaning is an original methodological approach which I have drawn from the theoretical debate about material culture. It is grounded in Kopytoff's notion of 'cultural biography' (1986), viz. the values, and ergo agency, an object possesses as it moves through different use contexts. Instead of an object biographical approach however, it examines the biographies of object types. Using this methodology, I will explore what cultural values household objects were imbued with through their use, both within and without the house, and how these values made them agents in wider urban socio-cultural processes. This research will primarily draw upon the large corpus of extant medieval sources held by the Borthwick Institute and York Minster Library. Inventories will be quantitatively analysed to detail the spatial position of objects and their associated assemblages. The representation of objects in contemporary visual and narrative sources will be discussed to ascertain the cultural meanings assigned to object types. E.g. why were ewers increasingly present in depictions of gluttony, such as the wall painting of the seven deadly sins in a parish church in Cranbourne, Dorset? Finally, qualitative readings of testaments, Church court depositions, and the Cely, Paston, and Stonor letters will reveal both how these objects were actively used and how they acted. E.g. in 1446 Robert FitzRobert gave a silver cup named 'grete grubbe' to the house of St Thomas of Acon to act as a memento of himself. Viewed only as a consumer good this named, agential, household object defies interpretation.Late medieval urban households were the spatial location for a range of economic, social, and religious activities. Household objects were also mobile, frequently crossing the threshold of the house into other urban spaces. Thus, this research has the potential to offer an alternate perspective on all areas of late medieval society which considers the lateral nature of socio-cultural processes. It will also introduce an innovative methodological framework which can be applied to material culture studies beyond the geographic, disciplinary, and chronological limitations of this thesis.