Les Transferts culturels dans les mondes normands médiévaux (viiie–xiie siècle). Objets, acteurs et passeurs ed. by Pierre Bauduin, Simon Lebouteiller and Luc Bourgeois (review) Lola Sharon Davidson Parergon, Volume 40, Number 2, 2023, pp. 214-215 (Review) Published by Australian and New Zealand Association of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Inc.) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/pgn.2023.a914791 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/914791 [188.92.136.6] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 08:09 GMT) University of Sydney Library 214 Reviews that explores the mendicant churches of medieval Rome. A formidable corpus of studies on medieval church architecture in Rome has been produced, and is engaged with, here. This book is placed within this broader investigation and contributes to it by focusing on these seven Dominican and Franciscan buildings. It is an important addition to this field. Judith Collard, The University of Melbourne [188.92.136.6] Project MUSE (2024-04-09 08:09 GMT) University of Sydney Library Bauduin, Pierre, Simon Lebouteiller, and Luc Bourgeois, eds, Les Transferts culturels dans les mondes normands médiévaux (viiie– xiie siècle). Objets, acteurs et passeurs (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 36), Turnhout, Brepols, 2021; hardback; pp. 363; 69 b/w, 7 colour illustrations, 2 b/w tables; R.R.P. €90.00; ISBN 9782503593661. This dense and copiously illustrated volume consists of fourteen articles, of which four are in English and the remainder in French. The articles in French are provided with brief abstracts in English, except for the introductory article by Pierre Bauduin and the concluding article by Geneviève Bührer-Thierry. The English articles do not have abstracts in French—it might have been simpler to translate the four English articles. The volume is the product of a 2017 conference, which itself formed part of an ongoing collaboration on cultural transfers in the Norman world begun in 2009. It is a great strength of this project that it brings home the vast geographical extent of Norman, or possibly Viking, influence. The editors’ assumption that Normans are merely rebranded Vikings, though arguably justified, leads to a title that may well mislead prospective readers into neglecting a work with valuable contributions to their field. Most anglophone scholars would be surprised at the idea of Norman, as opposed to Viking, influence extending to Central Asia. The articles in this book, however, go a long way toward supporting the ongoing coherence of the Norman/Viking world. Section I deals with objects as vehicles of cultural transfer. The first two papers discuss archaeological material recently uncovered by metal detectors. Anne Pedersen traces the gradual adoption of Christian symbols, firstly the cross and crucifix, then Christian animal motifs, on small personal ornaments, generally brooches and pendants in copper alloy or silver. Whereas burials and hordes preserve the possessions of the elite, these ornaments come from the common people. They provide us with evidence for the Christianisation of the Danes, which complements the top-down accounts of our other sources. Continuing with Denmark, Jens Christian Moesgaard examines the introduction of coinage. Originally, foreign coins functioned as bullion, but around 720 locally minted coins appear as standard exchange units at Ribe, then later at Haithabu. Endorsed by a succession of kings, the European model of coinage had imposed itself on the countryside by the mid-eleventh century, though not without resistance. Jacques Le Maho argues that a funerary slab from Fécamp is that of two young sons of Richard I of Normandy and his wife Emma, daughter of Hugh the Great. Parergon 40.2 (2023) Reviews 215 The only similar design is found on an altarpiece from Narbonne. The southern tombstone’s presence in the north may be explained by the presence there of two prominent clerics from Occitania. These sculptural and personal connections supplement those already commented on from the Song of Roland. Alexandra Lester-Makin places the Bayeux Tapestry within the wider context of embroidered hangings used for political purposes throughout the Viking and Norman worlds. She shows that the commissioning of local artisans, in this case Anglo-Saxon and elsewhere Muslim, was a standard Norman strategy for consolidating relations with newly conquered people. She argues that the high status accorded this female work was itself part of a philosophy of unification. Section II is entitled ‘Translate, Transmit, Adapt’. Oaths were a fundamental aspect of pagan Scandinavian and Germanic society. Simon Lebouteiller looks at how Christianisation shifted the form of oaths, sworn by pagans on their weapons, the temple door ring, and their gods, to those sworn on Christian liturgical objects. Underneath this apparent replacement, however, lurks continuity, shown by the swearing of oaths at the church door and the use of the sword in the swearing of fealty, as well as a continued emphasis on shame and social exclusion rather than divine vengeance as the penalty for oath-breaking. Alban Gautier tackles the Roman tradition of identifying Norse gods with the Greco-Roman pantheon and its effect on naming the days of the week. Christian attempts to block this had varied success across Europe, as we witness to this day. Although generally supportive of local cults, Normans also brought their own saints with them to southern Italy, as Laura Vangone demonstrates in tracing the Vitae of two Merovingian bishops and a Neustrian abbess. Continuing with Norman Italy, Rosanna Alaggio analyses church mosaics depicting characters from chansons de geste and medieval romances, particularly the Roman d’Alexandre. These visual declarations supported royal authority and a common feudal ethic as the Normans positioned their Italian realm as the frontier of Christian Europe. Section III is about people acting as agents of cultural transmission. Leszek Gardela uses the differing artistic styles of the Slavs and Scandinavians as indicators of ethnic identities in the area now known as Poland. The establishment of the state ruled by the Piast dynasty in the tenth century led to some ethnic hybridisation. Aleksandr Musin addresses a problem of unfortunate contemporary relevance, namely nineteenth-century Russian attempts to deny the Viking origins of Kyiv and of the first Russian dynasty. He argues against projecting backwards later concepts of identity. Through an examination of various literary and material signifiers, he argues in favour of the Vikings developing a hybrid identity while nevertheless remaining distinct and serving as specialised mediators between different cultural areas. Patrick Ottaway describes widespread innovation in the production of iron objects in Northern Europe between 700 and 1100, although he ascribes this to increasing trade rather than directly to the hypermobility of the Vikings. Anastasiya Chevalier-Shmauhanets points to Insular influence on ecclesiastical architecture in Normandy, as well as borrowings from southern Parergon 40.2 (2023) 216 Reviews Italy. Following on from this, Luis Derosa traces Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian themes transmitted by the Normans in the architecture of southern Italy, as well as a syncretistic artistic identity sponsored by them. This book is of obvious relevance to scholars of the Scandinavian diaspora and the Norman/Viking world generally. The different articles will be of particular interest to a variety of specialists, ranging from art historians and archaeologists to scholars of gender and identity studies. Lola Sharon Davidson, Sydney, Australia Bendall, Sarah A., Shaping Femininity: Foundation Garments, the Body and Women in Early Modern England, London, Bloomsbury, 2022; paperback; pp. 338; 150 colour illustrations; R.R.P £27.99; ISBN 9781350164116. Sarah Bendall presents Shaping Femininity as a revision of anachronistic narratives of clothing history that have up until this point cast foundation garments— structural items of clothing worn to achieve fashionable sculptural silhouettes—as tools of patriarchal oppression. Situating the origin of these ideas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (and historical scholarship on these periods), Bendall outlines her ambitious project of rewriting the history of the foundation garment in England. Not only does this rich history of the emergence and early evolution of foundation garments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries identify the limitations of the traditional archive, but it also uses experimental historical dress reconstruction to interrogate and enliven existing textual, visual, and material sources while proposing considered and methodical (as well as replicable) strategies for filling in the gaps. Like the foundation garment itself, as Bendall explains at various points, the insight provided by her experimental reconstructions is not consigned to the single, initial layer of the outfit—it is employed variously throughout to help shape, support, and showcase Bendall’s argument. This is not insignificantly aided by 150 colour illustrations that place reproductions of contemporary woodcuts, prints, and paintings alongside modern photographs of both rare extant examples of foundation garments and her own experimental reconstructions. The first chapter provides a chronological overview of structural fashions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, allowing Bendall to situate bodies, bum rolls, and farthingales in their broader early modern and European contexts and permitting her to proceed thematically in the subsequent chapters. The essential argument of this first section is that early modern discourse ‘conflated foundation garments with the parts of the body that they clothed or concealed’ (p. 19). Using a variety of visual, textual, and material evidence, Bendall illustrates the ways in which discourse, garments, and bodies shaped one another—both literally and metaphorically—in the early modern period. Parergon 40.2 (2023)