Learning About Little Corpses
One of my favorite things about Loyola is the quest for knowledge outside of the classroom. My Astronomy professor, for example, recently sent out an email bringing to my attention a seminar about … well, ‘Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation’ happening this week. I know what all of those words mean individually, but I have to be honest, Astronomy is not my top subject.
History, on the other hand? I’m a history major. Plus, one of my professors gives us extra credit for attending the lectures the history department sets up, like one I recently attended called “Living With Little Corpses” and examining infant burials in post-Roman/Early Medieval Britain. A wild topic, right?
It was a great lecture, which I was not expecting, actually. I was very hesitant about the content – because Britain is not really in my area of study, nor is burials – or infants – but they had a small essay contest for a free copy of the speaker’s latest book (which I participated in and won, because 1. Why not and 2. I love free books), plus hors d’oeuvres and coffee. The speaker, Professor Robin Fleming from Boston College, was engaging, hilarious, and it turns out: had a very interesting topic, because it was a very interesting mystery. The essence of her speech was describing her findings studying graves made during post-Roman/Early Medieval Britain – and apparently, she found very few children’s bodies, which was odd given the child mortality rates of the time, and she found infant’s bodies buried beneath the floors of working buildings like stables and kitchens. The why is a puzzle to be solved, especially given that as the Medieval age dawned, children’s bodies start to re-appear in cemeteries while infant bodies vanish in graveyards and in houses (unless they are buried with adult men).
All sorts of stuff I never knew about! Professor Fleming also chose not to use textual evidence during her research – well, sort of chose. Sort of.. Because there is no existing textual evidence! The texts we have regarding that age come either from across oceans and hundreds of miles away and deal with the elite class (while these burials were of common, peasant folk) or from hundreds of years after the fact, neither of which address the why anyway nor can be accepted as close enough to the truth.
Other lectures I’ve attended this year included exploring the biology of the Black Death (and how it still exists today) and the history of human’s idea of Hell over the ages. Granted, I have only been attending lectures that the Medieval Studies department has set up, so it makes the topics a little dark so far. But I think one is coming up about the environment (as in, forests and land) in the Middle Ages, so maybe that one will be less gruesome. Only maybe. It is the Middle Ages, after all.