The Spirits of Crossbones Graveyard

Sondra L. Hausner

Description

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Every month, a ragtag group of Londoners gather in the site known as Crossbones Graveyard to commemorate the souls of medieval prostitutes believed to be buried there—the "Winchester Geese," women who were under the protection of the Church but denied Christian burial. In the Borough of Southwark, not far from Shakespeare's Globe, is a pilgrimage site for self-identified misfits, nonconformists, and contemporary sex workers who leave memorials to the outcast dead. Ceremonies combining raucous humor and eclectic spirituality are led by a local playwright, John Constable, also known as John Crow. His interpretation of the history of the site has struck a chord with many who feel alienated in present-day London. Sondra L. Hausner offers a nuanced ethnography of Crossbones that tacks between past and present to look at the historical practices of sex work, the relation of the Church to these professions, and their representation in the present. She draws on anthropological approaches to ritual and time to understand the forms of spiritual healing conveyed by the Crossbones rites. She shows that ritual is a way of creating the present by mobilizing the stories of the past for contemporary purposes.

Introduction Set And Setting
1. The Myth of the Winchester Goose
2. Medieval Bankside
3. Shamanism and the Ritual Oscillation of Time
4. The Virgin Queen and the English Nation
5. Southwark, Then and Now
Conclusion Making the Present
Epilogue Crossbones Garden

Sujets

• Comparative Religion
• Medieval
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Edad Media
• General officer
• Southwark
• Middle Ages
• History of Europe
• English Civil War
• Church of England
• Anthropology
• Great Britain
• General
• Southwark (district londonien)
• Weber
• London
• Émile Durkheim
• Europe
• Clifford Geertz

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 29 août 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253021472
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Spirits of Crossbones Graveyard
London and the Borough of Southwark, 1720.
The Spirits of Crossbones Graveyard
TIME, RITUAL, AND SEXUAL COMMERCE IN LONDON

Sondra L. Hausner
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
BLOOMINGTON INDIANAPOLIS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2016 by Sondra L. Hausner Lyrics from Mind Games Written by John Lennon 1973 Lenono Music. Reprinted by permission. The British Library Board, Maps.Crace.II.81
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
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Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-02124-3 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-253-02136-6 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-253-02147-2 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17 16
For Ion
Ion Alexis Will (December 10, 1941-December 26, 2010)
A ROYAL PALACE
HENRY BOLINGBROKE
Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son? Tis full three months since I did see him last; If any plague hang over us, tis he. I would to God, my lords, he might be found: Inquire at London, mongst the taverns there, For there, they say, he daily doth frequent, With unrestrained loose companions, Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes, And beat our watch, and rob our passengers; Which he, young wanton and effeminate boy, Takes on the point of honour to support So dissolute a crew.
HENRY PERCY
My lord, some two days since I saw the prince, And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE
And what said the gallant?
HENRY PERCY
His answer was, he would unto the stews, And from the common st creature pluck a glove, And wear it as a favour; and with that He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE
As dissolute as desperate; yet through both I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years May happily bring forth.
William Shakespeare, Richard II (1595-1596)
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION Set and Setting
ONE The Myth of the Winchester Goose
TWO Medieval Bankside
THREE Shamanism and the Ritual Oscillation of Time
FOUR The Virgin Queen and the English Nation
FIVE Southwark, Then and Now
CONCLUSION Making the Present
EPILOGUE Crossbones Garden
PERMISSIONS FOR TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project did not start as a book, but as the 2010 Barbara E. Ward Memorial Lecture, which I gave under the title of Ritual Redemption in London s Economy of Love at the invitation of Oxford s Institute for Gender Studies, and I remain grateful to Peggy Morgan and Maria Jaschok for thinking of me at the time. Rather than stopping there, it became a book at the encouragement of my institution, the Faculty of Theology-now the Faculty of Theology and Religion-at the University of Oxford, and particularly the rallying of my senior colleagues, including Sarah Foot, Paul Joyce (whose visit to the ritual with me was memorable), George Pattison, Guy Stroumsa, and Johannes Zachhuber, all of whom were willing and delighted to have an anthropologist visit the habits of English history.
But it is no mean task to undertake a historical investigation when one s colleagues are the best historians in the trade. Mark Edwards has been a constant source of intellectual support and inexhaustible knowledge, and a dear friend throughout. Diarmaid MacCulloch encouraged me to work in the thick of Reformation history when he knew full well I was a novice; his scholarship is an inspiration. Sarah Apetrei offered kind and helpful commentary. The historians of St. Peter s College, Oxford-most especially experts in the medieval histories of gender, Henrietta Leyser and Caroline Barron-gave me a green light and an encouraging push, and graciously introduced me to the larger world of medieval scholarship. Martha Carlin took considerable care to teach me something of Southwark in the Middle Ages. More than the usual scholarly caveat, any errors in this text are mine alone.
I have relied on long-standing academic mentorship as well as recent collegiality: I am lucky to have had mentorship and training on gender and sexuality early on in academic life, and the inspiration of anthropologist and theorist Carole Vance, as well as the friendship of Diane di Mauro, influence me still. The late professor A. Thomas Kirsch trained me as an anthropologist of religion, and I am honored to follow in his footsteps in this fulfilling profession. Since 2007, the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Oxford has been a disciplinary intellectual home.
St. Peter s College has been a support in many ways, specifically the women s empowerment network that comprised Hanneke Grootenboer, Abigail Williams, Claire Williams, and myself. This book would not have seen the light of day-nor any of us the joy of being together at Oxford-without our sisterhood. The St. Peter s College Library patiently extended my long list of borrowed books on women s histories in England time and time again-and Janet Foot and David Johnson insisted that they wanted to see the finished product in a way that kept me going. My students at St. Peter s and at other Colleges across the University cannot know how much they helped me think through the layered terrain of ritual thought and action.
Women friends in Oxford and in London have been the most sustaining part of the last five years, during which this book was conceived, researched, written, and rewritten: Jocelyn Alexander, Bridget Anderson, Rutvica Andrijasevic, Julie Archambault, Elizabeth Frood, Clare Harris, H l ne Neveu Kringelbach, Emily Paddon, and Isabel Shutes-all wonderful scholars in their own right but, more importantly, wonderful friends-made the complex worlds of gender theory and academic life rich and fruitful. In addition, many dear ones have supported me along the way, and accompanied me to the ritual on which this book is based: Ben Eaton (who also gave me remedial history lessons); the late Lindsay Friedman; my mother and sister, Nancy and Ellen Hausner; and the memory of my father, Bernard Hausner. On the other side of the Atlantic, I am lucky to have Greta Austin, church historian and close friend. Most importantly, John Constable-Crow supported the writing of this book and the investigations it elicited: it was a treat to have him hear an early reading and disagree with parts. John and his flock have welcomed me with open arms, for which I owe much thanks.
Early versions of chapter 4 , under the name Gender, Resistance, and the Origins of English Transnationalism (1558-Present), were given in 2014 at the Radical Anthropology Group in London, the Religious History Seminar in Oxford, and the Wednesday Club at Christ Church. My thanks go to convenors and open-minded audiences both, who received the argument with some curiosity but also genuine interest in the combined contours of cultural history and social theory. The Humanities Division at Oxford supported the project throughout, including with a John Fell Fund grant in 2011 to enable writing at what turned out to be an early stage. The wondrous Bodleian Libraries never disappointed, and the Southwark Local History Library gave me a taste of what it was to be a practicing historian.
A project of temporal complexity goes through many phases of its own. The last stages of writing took place during a visiting appointment at the University of T bingen in 2015, where the book as a whole was presented to the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology; my thanks go to Roland Hardenberg for that generous invitation. Final editing took place at the gracious home of Sophia Preza and Ira Schepetin in Woodstock, New York, with the support of many New York City friends and family members. At Indiana University Press, three anonymous readers kept me true both to the ethos of the project and to the discipline of anthropology, and Rebecca Tolen remained a steadfast support and superb editor. Darja Malcolm-Clarke was an exceptionally patient and kind project manager.
The book is dedicated to Ion Will, known to me since early life as Wicked Uncle Ion, who inspired me to end up at Oxford, much as he insisted that I attend the ritual in the first place. He was sure John and I would have a lot to say to each other. He did not live to see the book come to fruition, but he knew it was in process and that it would be for him. He was an inspiration to see the world with mischievous eyes, never to take anything for granted, and to commune with the spirits who had been around the block-and listen to what they might have to say.
The Spirits of Crossbones Graveyard
John Crow

Introduction
SET AND SETTING
So keep on playing those mind games together
Doing the ritual dance in the sun
Millions of mind guerrillas
Putting their soul power to the karmic wheel
Keep on playing those mind games together
Raising the spirit of peace and love
John Lennon, Mind Games (1973)
On November 23, 1996, a London playwright and performer by the name of John Constable had