tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.comments2022-06-28T07:21:08.987-07:00The horse in history and cultureAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12899599245861869407noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-13396231486073683652013-03-10T12:03:23.213-07:002013-03-10T12:03:23.213-07:00Lot o love and pacific wind died on impact. Stacy ...Lot o love and pacific wind died on impact. Stacy still disabled but recovering even still. Dariahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17058582017189132178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-63422241509231657282012-08-03T00:22:55.747-07:002012-08-03T00:22:55.747-07:00Thanks for the link. I'm more of a former co-e...Thanks for the link. I'm more of a former co-editor - I deleted myself last year to cut down on online commitments and use of Google services. Otherwise I'd probably be shamelessly spamming the book here myself!<br /><br />In the introduction I cited your essay on geohumoralism from The Horse as Cultural Icon, which is really good. I still haven't had time to read all the other essays but it looks like a very impressive collection.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-81226519197099128662011-12-04T16:04:45.744-08:002011-12-04T16:04:45.744-08:00Did you ever find your answers to the above two qu...Did you ever find your answers to the above two questions?Sandra Kosterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11952979317643801588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-64179981989491119532011-05-31T10:53:58.923-07:002011-05-31T10:53:58.923-07:00There was some more discussion of this at Airminde...There was some more discussion of this at Airminded:<br /><br />http://airminded.org/2010/08/18/charge/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-45315683444269323942011-01-18T04:08:00.308-08:002011-01-18T04:08:00.308-08:00Autochthonous horse breeds? Horse people: defining...Autochthonous horse breeds? Horse people: defining cute-crazy since the Picts walked into Britain via Doggerland --apparently with Exmoor ponies at their side.Erik Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-41686282384928182622010-04-19T06:17:40.399-07:002010-04-19T06:17:40.399-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-72263971650759909052010-02-09T06:01:13.300-08:002010-02-09T06:01:13.300-08:00I can't make it because I didn't manage to...I can't make it because I didn't manage to book a train ticket in time. But I will try to post summaries of any horse related papers that I do get to hear in future.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-47363646285423770932010-02-08T20:45:05.620-08:002010-02-08T20:45:05.620-08:00Are you attending, Gavin? How about a summary for...Are you attending, Gavin? How about a summary for the far flung members of the blog?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12899599245861869407noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-12949894906391654142009-11-06T13:27:36.895-08:002009-11-06T13:27:36.895-08:00I don’t know If I said it already but …I’m so glad...I don’t know If I said it already but …I’m so glad I found this site…Keep up the good work I read a lot of blogs on <a href="http://www.onlinepharmacycom.net/" title="Online Pharmacy" rel="nofollow">Online Pharmacy</a> a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say great blog. Thanks!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-46080833900611619772009-10-06T13:48:14.179-07:002009-10-06T13:48:14.179-07:00Thanks for the post, Gavin. The way the scold'...Thanks for the post, Gavin. The way the scold's bridle overtly makes the connection between women and animals also crossed my mind. It definitely plays into the whole late medieval/early modern gender binary that privileges the masculine as more reasoned/rational/controlled (and therefore 'human'). Love the title of that paper!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-71855398301901651712009-10-05T04:06:49.814-07:002009-10-05T04:06:49.814-07:00You're definitely right that it's more com...You're definitely right that it's more complicated than the modern binary. I wrote <a href="http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/2009/08/17/combat-roles-and-patriarchal-equilibrium/" rel="nofollow">another post</a> about war and gender (but not horses, so I didn't cross-post it here) where I suggested that the definition of combat roles and/or the extent to which women have been allowed into those roles has fluctuated over time, and that this has something to do with Judith Bennett's concept of patriarchal equilibrium.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-4010965275817744882009-10-05T04:02:07.829-07:002009-10-05T04:02:07.829-07:00This is a great post. Lots of useful stuff to thin...This is a great post. Lots of useful stuff to think about. In <a href="http://www.investigations.4-lom.com/2008/05/30/social-political-animals/" rel="nofollow">this paper</a> I suggested that the scold's bridle also made a woman more like an animal because it deprived her of speech, which was supposed to set humans apart from animals. I'm really interested in the way that real and symbolic things (not in the Lacanian sense) interact. Putting a bridle on a woman symbolises the idea that women are like animals, and it also effectively turns her into an animal.<br /><br />After writing that paper I started to wonder whether the scold's bridle really existed in early-modern England, especailly when I read in Judith Bennett's History Matters that the chastity belt was not used in the middle ages but invented later. The stuff you've cited shows that they definitely were used in this period, although my interpretation of its meaning would still stand even if it was a myth. And such a myth would probably serve a patriarchal purpose such as creating an illusion of progress.<br /><br />I'd love to write a paper called 'Scolds, Nags and Pony Girls: the Disturbingly Blurred Boundaries Between Women and Horses'. I'm not entirely sure what it would actually say, but it's a great title.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-3504964375847692052009-10-04T15:45:43.321-07:002009-10-04T15:45:43.321-07:00This is a fascinating research topic (topics? Ther...This is a fascinating research topic (topics? There are so many different strands here that could be pursued), and if 'Queering the Renaissance Horse' isn't already a book title, it should be! On Aristotle, the image/motif of Phyllis riding Aristotle (complete with bridle and sometimes riding crop) was common in the late medieval-early modern period, as a reflection of wider anxieties about 'women on top' and domineering women transgressing their 'proper' gender roles in patriarchal society. <br /><br />As to women and war, I think the issue is much more complex than a simple exclusion of the feminine gender from active service. I've been reading some accounts recently dealing with the Wars of Religion in 16thC France where women's active role as defenders/combatants in cities under siege was not uncommon. I sometimes wonder if modern readings of exclusion are partly the product of 19th century historians, who had a much more binary sense of gender roles and sex difference than people did in the medieval/early modern periods.Bavardesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10737120234578385755noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-63685123385279970082009-08-21T09:20:25.561-07:002009-08-21T09:20:25.561-07:00"Is this the earliest representation of what ..."Is this the earliest representation of what is now known as pony play?"<br /><br />Possibly not, as while Googling for pony play (it's research!) I found a rumour that Aristotle was a pony boy, although I'm not sure when it originated. I also found lots of other interesting stuff about pony play, but maybe we don't want to go there...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-88071702142002650842009-08-08T05:15:52.148-07:002009-08-08T05:15:52.148-07:00Don't worry, I didn't think you were compl...Don't worry, I didn't think you were complaining. :) I'm just in the habit of putting long posts behind a cut becasue it's easy on Wordpress, but after some more searching it looks like it's quite hard on Blogger.<br /><br />I think you're probably right about horse-horse sex. I can't think of any counter-examples off the top of my head. Now I'm wondering how humans represent the sexual pleasure of the horse. Does it get erased because people are only interested in the functional aspects of horse breeding? Or was the mare's orgasm considered necessary for conception, as it was with women? How do the hot humours of stallions affect their sexual appetite?<br /><br />Also, if Descartes believed that animals couldn't feel pain, did he also think that they couldn't feel pleasure?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-63498394068567718812009-08-07T12:34:58.272-07:002009-08-07T12:34:58.272-07:00I was just thinking about the Dauphin in H5 as I w...I was just thinking about the Dauphin in H5 as I was brushing my teeth after posting my wild claim, and of course there are certainly lots of passages and practices that queer horse-human relations (in various ways). I guess what I'm really wondering about is horse-horse relations, which seem so resolutely straight (?) <br /><br />As for long posts, I'm not sure about how to make them shorter other than to divide them into smaller sections. Anyway, I wasn’t criticizing you for length, just expressing a sense of analytical vertigo ;) I really appreciate your thoughts!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12899599245861869407noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-13673916335700950652009-08-07T04:37:59.402-07:002009-08-07T04:37:59.402-07:00Great point. I haven't thought about sexuality...Great point. I haven't thought about sexuality that much, but I really should. There is an article that I haven't read yet, arguing that selective breeding of Welsh cobs imposes gender roles and traits that aren't naturally there:<br /><br />Samantha Hurn, ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It?’, Society & Animals, 16 (March 2008), pp. 23-44.<br /><br />As for queer horses, how about the Dauphin's horse in Henry V? I can't claim to understand it properly but there's definitely something going on there: "my horse is my mistress" seems pretty queer to me. This horse starts off apparenty very masculine with very hot humours, but then it leads to paradoxical gender-bending lines like "my mistress wears his own hair". Gender-swapping? Homosexuality? Bestiality? All three? Is it more transgressive for a man to have sex with a male horse than with a female horse? I get the impression that the most common (or at least commonly perceived) form of bestiality in early-modern England is a man "buggering a mare". Does heteronormativity carry over into bestiality? (Erica can probably tell us more about this.)<br /><br />And of course queer doesn't just mean homosexual. There are lots of non-mainstream sexualities which can blur gender and species boundaries. Gabriel Egan's conference paper on The Witches of Lancashire mentioned scenes where people put bridles on each other and rode each other like horses. Is this the earliest representation of what is now known as pony play?<br /><br />(btw I know it's a very long post, but i couldn't work out how to do a cut tag in Blogger. If you know could you explain or fix it please?)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-85739475337058520462009-08-06T20:07:22.063-07:002009-08-06T20:07:22.063-07:00Gosh, Gavin, there's an awful lot to comment o...Gosh, Gavin, there's an awful lot to comment on here. It's hard to know where to start. I'll just begin by posting a potentially controversial comment in the hopes of eliciting lots of responses ;). While it's true that attitudes toward horses are part of the larger construction of gender in early modern Europe, perhaps things like their frequently visible genitals, their supposed similarity to humans, and the economic importance attached to breeding make them less important as a part of the history of gender than as part of the history of sexuality. Of course the two are frequently inextricable (I'm just bypassing a huge theoretical issue here!). The thing is that in all the early modern examples I can think of, equine sexuality is deeply, even obsessively hetero-normative. Even Shakespeare (!) (in "Venus & Adonis") participates in this phenomenon. Given the complex and frequently ambiguous nature of sexuality at the time, I'm wondering why the Renaissance horse is so freakishly straight. Basically, I'm inviting others to queer the Renaissance horse, as peculiar as that sounds. Of course, if someone has already done this, I'd be happy to be reminded :)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12899599245861869407noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-87615937980247337222009-07-30T09:01:52.714-07:002009-07-30T09:01:52.714-07:00Excellent. I haven't upgraded to Zotero 2.0 or...Excellent. I haven't upgraded to Zotero 2.0 or explored the sharing much as I'm still trying to get my collections and tags into a state where I'm not embarrassed to show them to other people! I'm nearly there now, so I'll probably join the group and start adding stuff next week. I see you and Karl Steel also have a more general animal group, which looks really good.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-30242992299732835542009-07-12T10:46:08.476-07:002009-07-12T10:46:08.476-07:00Thanks, this is all really useful. The nationality...Thanks, this is all really useful. The nationality thing definitely ties in with what I've found in English Civil War records. The lists of horses donated to parliament's armies in 1642-43 give detailed descriptions in terms of sex, colour and markings, but rarely anything like breed. Sometimes there are nationalities (eg Barbary, Dutch) but mostly there aren't.<br /><br />Thoroughbreds are interesting because they were probably the first breed to emerge and be rigidly defined (at least in England) but they're not considered to be quite the same as "pure" breeds. It's always been acknowledged that they're a hybrid of eastern stallions and English mares. So purity might be something that comes even later, but I'd guess that later breed societies were influenced by the thoroughbred stud book.<br /><br />A quick Google suggests that English breed societies seem to start appearing in the late 19th century. Their websites seem to be full of all kinds of dodgy myths, but they do tend to admit that "native" breeds are not really all that pure and have been influenced by many different kinds of horse. It would be interesting to investigate what they said about this when they were first founded.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-12394000181406412802009-07-10T08:38:18.478-07:002009-07-10T08:38:18.478-07:00Let's try this again. It didn't work last...Let's try this again. It didn't work last time.<br /><br />I have several thoughts on this, a few of which I have published in an essay in Frank Palmeri's _Humans and Other Animals in 18c British Culture_ (Ashgate 2006) and in an essay that should be coming out (I think also from Ashgate) on the 18C Book, edited by Laura Runge.<br /><br />My main take is that I think in 17c and early 18c "breed" and "race" tended to be used as cognate terms, but in a sense that differs slightly from the modern use. By "breed" I find most frequently that people seem to be indicating the human agent responsible for the animal, so one would recommend buying a horse of "the breed of Fenwick" because Sir John Fenwick bred good horses. In a cognate fashion, one encounters "race" as seeming to refer to the immediate descendants and family within a given stud, so one speaks of "the race and breed at Tutbury" referring to those animals living and being bred at the royal stud in Staffordshire. Within the stud, the animals might be differentiated from one another by labels that we now tend to see as breed indicators, but that I believe at the time functioned as markers of nationality and (more importantly) geohumoral influence: barb, jennet, neopolitan, etc.<br /><br />One part of my larger argument about the origin of the thoroughbred that culminates in its codification at the end of the 18c in a General Stud Book is a process whereby an earlier notion that designates animals as primarily human property with geohumoral traits (ie, "Markham's Arabian") gives way to an emergent notion of animals as individuals having intrinsic inheritable traits that can be mapped through families.Richard Nashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13423786536082123979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-53327349961112576762009-06-24T07:38:31.023-07:002009-06-24T07:38:31.023-07:00I've put two instructional links on the right ...I've put two instructional links on the right hand side of the site. Hope they help.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12899599245861869407noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289629709021494454.post-55392331592327560132009-06-22T07:29:57.958-07:002009-06-22T07:29:57.958-07:00Hi Ian,
I am not certain how I can fix this site ...Hi Ian,<br /><br />I am not certain how I can fix this site on my computer so that I can access it immediately. At the moment I have to go to your original message, which incidentally ended up in my Spam folder! I have signed in and have acquired a Google account but when I clicked on the long http address, the inistructions told me to start from scratch.Help!<br /><br />Best wishes,<br />Pete EdwardsPete Edwardshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02524868660387331142noreply@blogger.com