Carnations, not native to Europe in the late Middle Ages, along with private gardens, and some associated high status containers such as Venetian ripple glass, and majolica pots, formed part of the material culture of Northern Europe in the Early Modern period. Carnations became important symbols of social status among Northern European elites. Raised indoors in greenhouses, they were brought out in the spring as a way of showing others the high status of the gardener and his or her power over nature. The practice of raising carnations, along with other aspects of bourgeois and aristocratic domestic life, appears frequently in the trompe l’oeil borders of the Flemish manuscripts, books of hours primarily, whose magic realism of plants, flowers, butterflies and other insects made them a treat to the eye. Carnations hold pride of place among other plants in these borders and depictions of their raising and display form a fascinating window on Flemish culture, sometimes with a slightly satiric edge. The talk will be illustrated with numerous pictures from medieval manuscripts.
John Block Friedman is Professor Emeritus of English and Medieval Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Among his awards and recognitions are Guggenheim and ACLS fellowships. His books and articles range widely over the literature, iconography and material culture of the European Middle Ages and include publication in the Chaucer Review (where he is a member of the Editorial Board), Speculum, Studies in Iconography andViator. Perhaps his best- known book is The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought, (Harvard, 1981) and now in paperback from Syracuse University Press. His most recent work on material culture is Brueghel’s Heavy Dancers: Transgressive Clothing, Class & Culture in the Late Middle Ages. His edition, translation, and commentary on the facsimile Secrets de l’Histoire Naturelle, a Middle French topographical and encyclopedic compendium is forthcoming from Siloé, Burgos, Spain. He has given many conference papers and plenary addresses and most recently presented the Joseph Schick endowed lecture at Indiana State University.
