Frohe Weihnachten!

Wiesbaden's opera house

Many of Germany's Christmas traditions (like trees!) have been exported, but the solemn festivities here remain very special, and celebrated for 3 days. Christmas Eve is Heiligabend, the holy evening, and then the 25th and 26th are observed as the first and second days of Christmas. I am taking full advantage of this! I started Christmas Eve by baking breakfast rolls (Rosinen-Quarkbrötchen,) after which I headed off to help serve an all-comers brunch with the parish of St. Augustine's, the Episcopal church which I've been attending here. Another Ph.D. candidate from the congregation invited me for a coffee afterwards, and we had a very nice and relaxed time in a café in central Wiesbaden. I came home to be almost literally pulled into the kitchen by my landlord's sister, who is a) visiting and b) very nice. So I joined her and my landlord for Christmas cookies and carol singing, with the recorders which they break out once a year (!). After all this, I felt that a bit of a rest was called for before late-night services… and Carols from King's was streaming via the BBC. This was actually my first Christmas in an Anglican service, as I've always traveled home for the holidays, so I was excited to get all the glorious liturgy. As, for example:

O God, who makest us glad by the yearly remembrance of the birth of thy only Son Jesus Christ: Grant that as we joyfully receive him for our Redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold him when he shall come to be our Judge; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen

On modern medicine

I spend a lot of time reading (and writing!) scholarly investigations of medieval medicine, pointing out the effectiveness of remedies tested by practice, and reminding non-specialists that it wasn't until the later nineteenth century that practices based on research into germ transmission started to be systematically implemented. The number of Completely Untrue Things written about medieval understandings of health, hygiene, and medicine are truly distressing. (For the record: many medieval cities had public bathhouses; water was not universally unsafe to drink; management of clean air and water was pursued at an individual and collective level.) But I digress. This specialist soapbox-standing is but a preamble to the observation that German druggists' and pharmacies still bear witness to much older and more diverse practices of maintaining and repairing health than U.S. drugstores. Shelves of herbal teas specially designed for a variety of minor ailments are here normative, not reserved (and priced) for niche health food stores. I've had more colds this winter than in any season I can remember, so have proved the effectiveness of "Bronchial health" tea, which advertised that its composition was based solely on experience and tradition, and lemon-herb cough suppressant tablets created in a monastery garden. And these are not just shelf remedies: the pharmacist at the Apotheke recently gave me ibuprofen for a fever, and for the sore throat that accompanied it, an oil of cloves, sage, fennel, and eucalyptus. With years of experience of self-selecting giant bottles of aspirin and syrupy compounds as potent as they are evil-tasting, I've found that these new customs take some getting used to. But I really do like them, on principle. The doctor to whom I turned in my need for antibiotics handed over her prescription with the advice "And drink lots of tea!" With both prescriptions, as you may imagine, I have enthusiastically complied. My planned spurt of pre-Christmas productivity was laid low, but fortunately, there are a number of old Heinz Rühmann movies on YouTube. And I have truly massive quantities of tea.

Schöne Adventszeit

Above is the front page of this Sunday's edition of the FAZ (Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung.) That what is one of Germany's biggest and most prestigious papers features an Advent wreath and an article about exhaustive taste testing of Christmas cakes tells you that this season belongs on the long list of Things Germans Take Very Seriously. I absolutely love this. Train stations and shop windows are decked in fir garlands (and real fir garlands have appeared next to the fruits and vegetables on the weekly market.) As a member of a liturgical church tradition, I especially love that the observance of Advent, as a season separate from Christmas, is so culturally engrained over here. Acquaintances wish each other "eine schöne Adventszeit," "a good Advent-tide." A friend and I even got wished this by a sweet older lady whom we got to take this picture:

Further Adventures in the Archives

"Any presentation of a theme of Mainz's older history, including the history of the numerous monasteries and foundations of the city, of the archbishops and their ecclesiastical and secular activities and politics, is a difficult undertaking, if it is to be earnestly worked up from the sources. How troublesome it is, to have to work with such widely-scattered materials!" --Ludwig Falck, venerable historian of Mainz

On discovering the above complaint in one of Falck's many articles, I copied it out instantly. I may yet copy it out longhand and carry it from workspace to workspace as a sort of talisman, encouraging me with the reminder that challenges I face are not necessarily the result of a lack of experience or intelligent judgment on my part. For indeed, Mainz's archival holdings are unusually scattered and depleted, despite the city's well-attested medieval prosperity. (An advantage to this is that, while Mainz was super-important in the Middle Ages, it hasn't been studied as much as most cities of comparable or even inferior size and influence. This makes a great line when pitching my project to funding committees.) Many of the depletions I knew about before coming here; some came as a surprise. Early on, I protested. "But I did consult printed articles on the archives, and the reference work with lists of all your holdings!" I lamented to one of the diocesan archivists. "That's as may be," he answered, "but unfortunately, you have made an entirely false picture to yourself of what is here." Over the course of subsequent months, I have become more resigned… but this resignation (with which I imagine many, if not most medievalists are familiar) is anything but passive. Rather, I am finding that it requires both tenacity and scholarly imagination.

Thanksgiving Française

Marseille and the Mediterranean… and the Chateau d'If!

This past week, I took my nose away from the grindstone and took myself off to see a Fordham friend and colleague who's living in Marseilles. Being an American medievalist means mandatory travel in nearly all cases. This means coping with new challenges, academic and personal, without a social support system, of course… but also: living in Europe. It was my first time visiting France outside of Paris, my first time “en province,” as well as in Provence. The soil is different from that of my part of Germany; the building materials are different. (Parenthetically, I’m sure I wouldn’t be as conscious of this if 2 of the 3 weeks I spent tramping across northwestern Spain a few years ago hadn’t been alongside a professor who kept calling our attention to slate, to stone, to clay.) The countryside of Provence is the country of Marcel Pagnol, who managed to write tender and lyrical novels about how punishingly hard it can be to wring a living from the wind-weathered hills, as well as about the ecstasy of springtime there, and the unexpected enchantments of cultivated gardens. It’s also the territory which so often appears as “Countryside, near...” on museum plaques next to paintings by Cézanne.

Ein Lichtermeer zu Martins Ehr!

When I was growing up, my household always observed the 11th of November with some solemnity as Remembrance Day. My father remembers seeing and hearing the Blitz over London when he was a schoolboy at Winchester; some 25 years earlier, his father flew reconnaissance missions in the war that was to end wars. The question of how collective mourning for the First World War was done differently here in Germany is one I might explore in another post. But in Mainz, the 11th of November means just one thing: St. Martin's Day, and therewith the festive opening of the "fifth season" of Carnival. I didn't go to hear Carnival declared open at 11 past 11 in the morning, but I left the archives a little early, and went to the cathedral to see the Martinsspiel and procession. 

The procession gathers...

Martinstag, or, Why is there a bonfire in front of the church?

St. Martin, atop Mainz's cathedral

Tonight, when fellow choir-members and I disembarked from the Straßenbahn and approached the church where we practice, we were greeted by an enormous blaze. The fact that people of all ages were standing around it was partially reassuring. As we turned up the path, the group around the fire started singing, and my companions joined in lustily on the chorus. I was fascinated, but not enlightened. As we stood around waiting to get into a practice space, there was opportunity to observe more closely. "Oh look!" exclaimed Carina. "How sweet; they've made their own lanterns." "As it should be," rejoined Adrian; "it's not a proper celebration otherwise. Charlotte sidled up next to me. "I'm guessing," she said, "that this isn't a tradition you know very well?" I confessed that I knew it not at all, and received an explanation accordingly.

Cooking and eating abroad

As many of you, Loyal Readers, may know, I like to cook, and I cook often. I don't hold myself to a high standard of culinary creativity. Recipes found on the internet, in library cookbooks, and "let's take what's in the fridge and throw it in a pot" experiments all make me happy. It's my belief that no recipe, written or created on the fly, can go far wrong if apparently-excessive quantities of butter and/or garlic are used. Due to an irresistible combination of nature and nurture (thanks, Mom!) I like love to cook for other people. And even when I'm only cooking for myself, I find the process soothing. It requires creativity and attention, but not too much mental effort; it allows physical activities rhythmic (slicing and dicing) or vigorous (smashing garlic! punching dough!) and results not only in good smells, but a concrete product, after a relatively short amount of time. For a variety of reasons, then, it's a great way to take a break from academic labor. It's also something that requires a whole raft of adjustments when moving to a new place.

Fahrradvergnügen

I'm still here, dear readers, and still getting good work done, and still doing well. But I keep trying to distill complex ideas (probably imperfectly processed ones) into blog form with limited success. So today, instead of a complex idea, I bring you a single word: Fahrradvergnügen: the pleasures of doing things on a bicycle. (The literal English is the slightly cryptic, vaguely racy "bicycle pleasure.") And this is what I have been enjoying on the machine pictured above. It's old, and the materials are simple, but it's all still functional and likely to remain so, as I was reassured by the technician who looked it over when I got the tires replaced. This undertaking was necessitated by the rear tire suddenly giving out one evening. The aged texture it thus revealed (and the experience of hauling the bike to the nearest bus stop) convinced me that replacing both simultaneously might be advisable. This misadventure notwithstanding, the Fahrradvergnügen has been considerable. The bike paid for itself in the fares it saved me while I waited for my student pass to be processed, and it gets me about 90 minutes per work day of enforced fresh air and exercise. Not only that, but it gets me all sorts of independence. I can get where I need to go without worrying about train schedules! I can explore the countryside! I can sail right past any hecklers and oglers! And thanks to German culture and infrastructure, I can ride my bike in designated lanes (not always, but often) and park it in designated racks... or, in a pinch, simply hitch it to a lamppost.

O Brethren of Song!

Parish church, Finthen

This past weekend saw me out and about with the choir I've joined--or, more accurately, with the choir that's adopted me. I've only had a few rehearsals, so while I've shared the intimate experience of singing together with everyone, I'm still learning names. So a weekend of double performances was a good way of immersing myself further in the choir as well as our repertoire. Our first appearance was at the yearly meeting of the incorporated choirs of Rheinland-Pfalz. The short version of explaining that is: choral societies! Lots of them! Organized by region! Or, as my seat neighbor explained it to me: "This is German culture for you... German culture the way many Germans don't know it anymore. It still has roots in the countryside, but you don't see it in the cities so much."

"Eine echte New Yorkerin" and her bicycle

As of Friday morning, the above is the view from the halfway point of my morning ride to the archives: an overlook point on a railway bridge where I can pull my bike over for a drink of water and a look at the Rhine. I acquired a reasonably-priced secondhand bicycle from a nice man in a nearby village, whose wife didn't need her bike anymore, and who was delighted to meet "a real New Yorker." So after a trial run and a nice chat, the bike was mine. The archive only does half-days on the weekend, so after an exciting Saturday of finding a house the leper hospital once owned and finding a reason to re-date the said hospital's account book (!) I set out to make the most of a gorgeous early-autumn afternoon. There will be plenty of chilly November Saturdays in which to write my dissertation... or thus, at least, I rationalized, as I set off along the marked bike trails surrounding Mainz and Wiesbaden. These paths wander through villages and through vineyards, along the river, past families and couples, people working in their gardens, people walking their dogs, and of course, other people on bicycles.

Heading out of Mainz...

And finding out why this is called wine country:

Fähnchencreuz outside Wiesbaden:

When I saw a sign for the "bird's nest" outlook point, I decided to cycle to it, but wasn't quite sure what I was looking for, until this appeared on the horizon:

Zum Schloss? Zum Schloss!

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The above is an approximation of my interaction with the employee of Darmstadt's public transit networks whom I asked about the best way to get from the train station to the city's archives. I haven't yet adjusted to castles being things to get directions by. But I verified that, indeed, his directions consisted of: "Take streetcar line 3 to the castle. Then walk through the castle. Then you will be at the archives." ...To the castle!

Mahlzeit! Extracurriculars in the archives

A face I often make at 14th-century handwriting

It hardly seems possible that I've had barely over a week in the archives. I've learned how to pace myself to stay there (productively) the whole day, although learning how to regularly have productive evenings afterwards will take more work. I've also read what seems like a daunting quantity of fourteenth-century contracts, though these are contained in a slim bound volume. I've uncovered several unexpected themes that excite me (oral culture! legal process as ritual!) and several prospective tasks which are... less exciting. (Since no one's yet created a map or graphs to keep track of the smaller hospitals' territorial possessions, guess what I get to do?) As of today, I feel that I've also had a breakthrough in my social relationships with the other archive regulars. A word of explanation: as the testimony of other researchers makes clear, I have landed in an unusually friendly archive. The size of it contributes to this, I'm sure: there's only one table for all the researchers, and if there are three of us to a side, polite elbow- and-document-shifting is necessary. Greetings and farewells were nearly the only words (besides mild jokes about scribal handwriting around the table, and shared Mozart nerdery with a musicologist) I'd exchanged with most of my fellow-toilers. The affable Herr H. was an exception: in a shared Kaffeepause in the lobby, we discovered that we shared a passion for opera, and that I'm about the same age as his daughter. Since then he's taken to uttering small English phrases at me with extreme gravity at intervals, in addition to more genuinely casual German remarks. When he informed the Herr Professor who is his seat neighbor that I was working on Very Old Documents Indeed, the latter kindly offered to take a look at any bits of handwriting I might find especially difficult. But it was not until today that I discovered the shibboleth for more shared interactions.

If Spain is that way, where's my path?

The municipal archives of Mainz are closed on Thursdays. In future, I'm sure I'll find productive ways to take advantage of this--writing, working on my databases, going to other archives--but today, I decided to frolic on this enforced day off. So I googled "Wanderwege Mainz," found a database of German walking/hiking trails searchable by starting point and desired distance (because of course such a thing exists) and found myself a Wanderweg. This helpful database noted that it was recommended to use a map when following their routes. It also made a note of how the routes were marked. I tend to think of "recommended maps" as the sort of thing that one scrutinizes anxiously for about 15 minutes, stuffs into one's bag in order to use the hands-free signs, and then stuffs at the back of a drawer for about 15 years. Well. Fortunately, I bought one anyway, on the principle that I could use it to plan independent expeditions. (The train station bookshop had a section devoted to maps of walking/hiking and bicycle trails. Have you gathered yet that the Germans are serious about this whole Wandern business?) Arrived in Gonsenheim, the village where my route was to begin, I walked in a circle twice without seeing any of the promised signs. And then I saw the sign on the left: the little yellow seashell on the blue background. This was a sign I recognized: such symbols mark the roads to Santiago de Compostela. Three weeks of walking through Spain trained me to greet these signs with joy, and so I decided to follow this one. And I was rewarded, for I soon began to recognize landmarks on my map, though I never did find the alleged path markings.

In which I enter the archives

I've just finished my first day at the archives, and I am brain-dead. I also feel as though my eyes and throat are still self-protectively tightened against the dust of ages (it really is the dust of ages.) But--I just finished my first day in the archives! I'll need to build up my dust-resistance, but this is really it: I am actually obtaining and reading the original documents relevant to my research! This is both thrilling and terrifying. I'm sure most (all?) fellow graduate students can relate to the horrible fear of Doing Things Wrong (what if I am not looking at these documents efficiently and intelligently?!?) I also had to overcome irrational fears: for instance, that my ringing of a small bell next to the imposingly solid door of the archives would result in a "Who goes there?!" interrogation. It resulted in the door being buzzed open, and a very pleasant woman giving me the paperwork (and the directory of relevant documents compiled in the 1920s and typed up in the 70s) which I needed. I also half expected an archivist to pop up from somewhere to ask if I was really qualified to do this. When the archivist did pop up over my shoulder, however, it was to ask how I was doing. He then proceeded to inform me that most of the extant hospital documents were account books (this I knew,) but that since I was doing social history, I might be interested in the leper hospital's chartulary, which contained, among other tidbits, information about one time in the fifteenth century when a leper, without permission, left the hospital to attend the carnival celebrations of Fastnacht. To this day, Mainz takes the carnival season very seriously, and I can't wait to find out all available details about the adventures of the partying leper. I'm also glad to know that Mainz's chief archivist has fifteenth-century leper stories at his fingertips. More soon!

Gut angekommen

Frankfurt Flughafen, early morning

An irrefutable debunking of German's mythical status as a harsh language comes, I think, in the humane courtesy of a few of its everyday idioms. "Have you arrived well?" "Have you rested delightfully?" The German language even recognizes that one must recover oneself after a flight. I feel I owe it to Lufthansa, though, to observe that they provided two opera radio channels and a film featuring Jeremy Irons and Martina Gedeck. It was an easy enough matter to get the train from Frankfurt to Mainz-Kastel; taking the bus once there involved more of an observer's tour of the city than I'd planned. Hopefully this will stand me in good stead as I continue to learn my way around (or "live myself well into the city," in the more comprehensive German phrase.) Phase one of this process will come in navigating various apartment-visits as I try to find a place to stay. And no, I didn't just move to Mainz without making arrangements.

Two days before my flight, I had an apartment ready to move into, and to share with an archaeologist of my own age and her cat. On the eve of my departure, I learned from the apologetic and piqued archaeologist that this arrangement had been vetoed by the landlady, who was reclaiming the entire apartment for her own use. I decided to drop off Fulbright paperwork at the university before beginning a round of phone calls, and thus came under the aegis of an avuncular man in the international students' office. He took my paperwork, gave me a Stadtplan, and then, apparently concerned as to my fate, put me into the hands of a younger colleague, who sympathized, told me such things were typical in Mainz (one characteristic local experience I could have done without!) and called a woman who was letting rooms to tell her that the situation had changed, and the university did indeed know of someone who would be interested. The long and indirect way I took to find this woman's house involved much tramping through wooded areas on narrow footpaths. The last one of these was Krähenweg, which inevitably evoked Schubert for me. Now, however, here I am: in a clean, white room with a Picasso print on the wall. I'm still looking for apartments, but a place to sleep, wash, cook, and send e-mails from is a great blessing. (Well, I can't cook until the electrician hooks up the stove and fridge, but there's an electric kettle for tea. Priorities!) I've already gone grocery shopping, and experienced the rush of obtaining a pound of Mehrkornbrot for 50 cents. Next up: exploring Mainz. The fact that my landlady identified the cathedral and the theater as central landmarks is, I feel, a good sign.

Los geht's!

Greetings, all! As I prepare to head to Germany for a year on a Fulbright and in the archives, I thought I'd set up this platform for sharing updates and photos. This is mainly intended for friends and family left behind, but I'll also be including information that might be helpful to other graduate students adjusting to living and researching abroad. I'll be in the cathedral city of Mainz, enjoying the architecture of a town which had its boom days in the Middle Ages, and boasts two archives in addition to its well-provisioned university library. Thrilling future topics may include:

Can I really live for a year out of one suitcase and a hiking backpack? How many cute German print dresses will I buy?

How will I squeeze an opera budget out of an, ahem, modest stipend? (It will happen.)

How many hilarious linguistic misunderstandings may arise in the course of sharing an apartment?

Are German archivists as grumpy as they are reputed to be?

Does the choir I hope to join have a Stammtisch?

All this and more to come... if any of you have Strong Feelings about things you'd like me to include, just say the word! Auf Wiedersehen, USA!