INVENTION OF TRADITION

1. INVENTION OF TRADITION • Most Europeans assume that many of the rituals, customs, popular celebrations, holidays, and festivals that they practice are of relatively ancient antiquity • This is sometimes true but is not always the case • Many are of relatively recent vintage and were “invented” relatively recently by a small group of people either to manipulate public opinion or simply to make money • Bastille Day • Trappings around the British monarchy

2. SCOTTISH HIGHLAND TRADITION • Tradition includes the kilt, the tartan plaid which differs from clan to clan and gives each its unique identity, bagpipe music, etc. • Most people believe that all of this is very old, stretching back at least as far as the Middle Ages • But it all was developed fairly recently during the 18th and 19th centuries in reaction to the union of Scotland with England and the subsequent absorption of Scottish culture by the all-conquering Anglo-Saxon culture

3. Lowlanders Viewed by most as mean, lazy, predatory, corrupt, and ignorant barbarians who had never been touched by civilization Generally literate and enjoyed many cultural links with the English Historic Scotland consisted of two distinct groups of people Culturally depressed backwater until the 1600s Highlanders Irish Celts who had left Ireland for one reason or another and who moved to the western coastal islands and west coast of Scotland At the beginning of the 18th century, an independent, glorious, and colorful tradition (of allegedly great antiquity) was created for the Highlanders This invented Highland tradition soon overwhelmed all of Scotland and became the tradition for all Scots

4. CREATION PROCESS • Three stages • Rewriting of early Scottish history in order to create a cultural tradition for the Highlands that was both independent from and superior to that of mother Ireland • The artificial creation of new Highland traditions that were presented as ancient, original, and distinctive • The process by which these traditions were offered to, and adopted by, the people of Lowland Scotland • All three stages took place in the 18th and 19th centuries • Relatively recently

5. THE MACPHERSONS • James MacPherson and Reverend John MacPherson committed a joint act of blatant forgery and created an ancient, native, literature for Highland Scotland • And also rewrote Scottish history to support the claims of this literature • Both this new literature and its supporting history, insofar as it had any connection with reality, was stolen from the Irish James MacPherson Reverend John MacPherson

6. COMMITTING FRAUD • James MacPherson collected some Irish ballads that had circulated in Scotland for centuries and mixed them together to produce an elaborate epic poem in which all references to Ireland were replaced by Scottish ones • Claimed the fake was very old and that all modern Irish poetry and ballads were second rate imitations of it

7. COMPOUNDING THE FRAUD • Reverend John MacPherson wrote book entitled Critical Dissertations • Claimed to find evidence of a “Celtic Homer” • Wandering Highland poet named Ossian (100 AD) who wrote James MacPherson’s forged epic poem • Argued that, during Dark Ages, Irish barbarians invaded Scotland and took this literature back home with them • Served as a model for all subsequent Irish literature • Transformed uncultured, barbaric, and wantonly violent Highlanders into the culture saviors of the Celtic heritage

8. REASONS FOR FRAUD • Macphersons never said why they committed their fraud • Maybe it was to gain a scholarly reputation for themselves • Maybe the complete lack of a Highland cultural tradition offended their Scottish pride • Maybe the union of Scotland with England made them worry that Scotland would be swallowed up culturally as well and made them determined to create a strong, native culture that could not be co-opted by the English

9. A SUCKER BORN EVERY MINUTE • Hoax was a spectacular success • Even Edward Gibbon fell for it • Gave it international credibility and prestige • Put Highlanders on the map • Now celebrated as the Celtic heartland that produced Ossian, the finest epic poet since Homer • Also cut the Highlands’ link with Ireland and created an independent cultural tradition for the region Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

10. FASHION • Highland dress was originally the same as Irish dress until the 16th century • Long Irish shirt, a tunic, and a cloak • In the 17th century, Highland “fashions” changed due to weakening of links with Ireland • Highland nobles adopted plaid trousers called “trews” • Highland commoners adopted the belted plaid • Similar but not the same as the kilt • Mark of poverty and low social status

11. THOMAS RAWLINSON • Leased large wooded area from the MacDowell family in the Highlands and built an iron forge there • Employed 2-3000 Highlanders to cut trees, make charcoal, and work the forge • Realized belted plaid was inconvenient and impractical for the type of work they performed • Invented the kilt to replace the belted plaid • Single skirt-like garment with pleats and about kneelength

12. TRIUMPH OF THE KILT Belted plaid • Ian MacDowell started wearing the new kilt and his clansmen rapidly followed his example • Soon spread to other areas in the Highlands • Mainly because it was more convenient and practical than belted plaid • Also eventually penetrated the Lowlands • Highland kilt is a purely modern costume, first introduced by an English Quaker industrialist in order to make Highlanders better industrial workers Kilt

13. THE TARTAN • According to tradition, each Highland clan had its own distinctive plaid pattern • Developed over the centuries into its own distinctive configuration • However, surviving portraits that exist of Highlanders before the 18th century does not indicate any plaid differentiation according to clan • Many members of the same clan wear different plaid patterns • Before the 18th century, the choice of a tartan was a matter of individual taste or of necessity—not of clan loyalty or membership Guthrie tartan

14. ENGLISH CRACK DOWN • Highlands rebelled against English rule in 1715 and 1745 • Both failed • But they provoked the English to disarm all Highlanders, take away legal privileges of clan chieftains, and to prohibit the wearing of “traditional Highland dress”

15. RAMIFICATIONS • Common people switched to trousers and found they liked them • Highland upper classes, who had never worn the belted plaid or kilt before, adopted the tartan kilt • Wearing it in the privacy of their homes or at private parties to avoid arrest • When the prohibition against “Highland dress” ended in 1780, the fashion spread among more upper class Highlanders and also among middle and upper class Lowlanders

16. HIGHLAND REGIMENTS • In the 1760s, William Pitt the Elder created the so-called “Highland Regiments” to divert the violent energies of Highlanders in a useful direction • Ordered the design of their distinctive dress uniforms • Plaid kilts and the works • Just as the English government attempted to stamp out “traditional Highland dress” in Scotland, it simultaneously preserved it within the British army by means of the distinctive uniforms of the Highland regiments

17. RISE OF THE TARTAN • Number of Highland Regiments increased with time • And to tell them apart at a distance, each regiment developed its own distinctive plaid • This principle of “tartan differentiation” was easily transferred from regiment to clan, once civilians were allowed to wear plaid again • It was the fame of the Highland Regiments, and admiration for their colorful uniforms, that: • Caused the fashion of the kilt to be adopted by the Scottish upper and middle classes • Invented the idea that each clan should be differentiated by a unique tartan

18. MARKETING PLOY • Trend towards tartan differentiation by clan was strengthened by the publication of The Costumes of the Clans by John Sobieski Stuart (John Allen) in 1844 • Invented an entire history of tartan differentiation by clan • Stuart worked for Wilson and Son (company that made tartans for the Highland Regiments) • Book was an effort to widen market for their tartans

19. AN ANCIENT TRADITION IS BORN • Stuart’s book inspired others • James Logan’s Clans of he Scottish Highlands and General James Browne’s History of the Highlands and the Highland Clans • Perpetuated and validated, through repetition, the myth of different tartan patterns for different clans

20. CONCLUSION • The invention of the Scottish Highland tradition is a near perfect illustration of how popular culture and tradition can be manipulated • How human beings can, and often do, create their own cultural environment • How popular customs and traditions are seldom what they seem to be at first glance

21. ROBIN HOOD • Robin Hood never existed • But he has nonetheless become the greatest hero in English popular legend • He was basically a terrorist • Robbed and killed landowners and waged virtual guerilla war against authority • Why then was he so popular?

22. FIRST MENTION • First mention of Robin Hood appeared in William Langland’s allegorical Piers the Plowman (1370s) • Robin Hood ballads probably began to circulate orally in England in the late 1200s • Not written down until the late 1300s

23. FOUR ORIGINAL BALLADS • Gest of Robyn Hode • Robin Hood and the Monk • Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne • Robin Hood and the Potter

24. MERRY MEN? • Robin and his band were not “merry men” • They were mean and violent • Why? • Middle Ages were a violent time in general • Late Middle Ages were especially bad • Breakdown of feudal system and rise of new royal administrative systems • Attacked local power of nobility and made them cling stubbornly to their social and economic rights over peasantry

25. POWER STRUGGLE • Peasants were caught in middle of power struggle between monarchy and nobility • Kings trying to exert direct control over them with new officials, new laws, and new taxes • Nobles, on the other hand, continued to impose old exactions on them

26. SYMBOLIC ATTACK • Struggle between king and nobles acted out symbolically in Robin Hood • Evil Sheriff of Nottingham represented growing power of the central government • King was never blamed for new taxes and interference in lives of peasants • Robin Hood was a powerful symbol of what peasants would have liked to do to resist the encroachment of central authority upon local lives • Robin concentrated his efforts against agents of this encroachment, not the real source of the problem—the king

27. REAL LIFE TRAGEDY • Intense hostility to royal officials combined with naïve worship of the king would find tragic reflection in real life • English Peasants’ War (1381) • Robin Hood ballads arose within the context of growing peasant unrest against the increasing power of the central state • Also revealed the ideological weakness of this opposition

28. THE NOBILITY • Growing power of central state also threatened local nobles • Put them on same side as peasants • Reason why nobles do not appear as villains in Robin Hood ballads • Not because peasants saw them as allies • But because ballads were popular among nobles too • By the time the ballads were written down, whatever negative references to the nobility that originally existed in them had been deleted

29. PARADOX • The growing power of the state was the common enemy of both peasants and local nobles • Made Robin Hood, and the resistance he symbolized, attractive to both groups • Even though they were never allies in reality • As the ballads entered the realm of noble culture, they lost whatever anti-noble themes they may have originally possessed • By the time they were written down, there is not a noble villain to be found

30. PROXY VILLAIN • Peasants certainly had grievances against local nobles but cross-class audience for the Robin Hood ballads prohibited any specific reference to the increased exploitation of peasants by nobles • So a “proxy villain” was created that was acceptable to both peasants and nobles • The churchman

31. ST. MARY’S • Major villain in Robin Hood ballads (after the Sheriff of Nottingham) is the abbot of St. Mary’s monastery • Huge Benedictine monastery in Yorkshire that controlled thousands of acres of farmland • Which it rented out to local peasants • Abbot was example of “unrelenting landlordism”

32. PERFECT VILLAIN • Church landlords were notorious for exploiting their local rights and for being completely unsympathetic to peasant complaints • Also held mortgages on estates of minor local nobles • Churchmen therefore made perfect local foils for Robin Hood • Since they symbolized the greedy demands of local landlords to peasants • And the callousness of high finance to nobles • Both audiences saw the churchman as a villain in real life and he also appears as such in Robin Hood ballads

33. SUMMARY I • Robin Hood therefore did have a certain reality in the social and political conditions of the 13th and 14th century England • His story originated, evolved, and spread as a means of symbolic resistance to the intrusion of the modern state into local, rural life

34. SUMMARY II • Robin Hood ballads were also more than mere expressions of vicarious revenge against forces that local people were helpless to oppose • Local people did actively try to resist encroachments of the centralized state • English Peasants’ War • Demonstrated that Robin Hood not only represented a symbol of resistance but also a model of active opposition

35. DEATH • Death is a subject that has interested sociologists, anthropologists, painters, poets, and morticians for a long time • But not historians • Who have assumed that it has no history • Traditionally have preferred dramatic events and famous people to the so-called “great constants” of the human condition • Birth, childhood, marriage, old age, and death • But the “great constants” do have a history • They do change over time • This change is often slow and gradual, but it did occur and it had important ramifications

36. THE “GOOD DEATH” • In the late Middle Ages, a dying man played a central role in a supernatural drama • He staged and directed his death according to a prescribed ritual • Conscious of the fact that his life had reached its climax and that he could only save his soul by making a “good death” • Must resist temptations of demons and sincerely repent his sins

37. HORROR OF SUDDEN DEATH • Men in late Middle Ages had an absolute horror of sudden death • Might deprive them of their role in the metaphysical drama of death • Was the responsibility of doctors to warn their patients if death appeared to be even a remote possibility • So they would not be caught unaware and have time to prepare for good death

38. HOW A “GOOD DEATH” WORKED • Deathbed scene always took place in public • Priests, doctors, family, friends, and even passers-by crowded into the room of the dying man • He then took stock of his life, forgave his enemies, blessed his children, repented his sins, received last sacraments, and then died • His will regulated his burial • After prescribed period of mourning and isolation, family members returned to normal life

39. BAD DEATH • “good death” was a cultural ideal • Something to be ideally strived for • In actuality, most people were unable to act out the ritual of the “good death” • A good death was what most people hoped for; a sudden, painful, and lonely death was what they usually received

40. ACCEPTANCE OF DEATH • Death was not the feared, hidden, virtually unspoken menace that it is today • It was instead familiar and all-pervasive • Public executions were major spectator events • Dead found lying along side roads, in haylofts, and on city streets • Graveyards were often places of entertainment • Even if the “good death” seldom materialized, death itself permeated late medieval society and people acceptedit

41. AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH • 85% of deaths in the United States occur in hospitals or nursing homes • Most Americans die in isolation, surrounded by strangers and medical technicians • Who often hide the fact the patient is dying • Patient has no control over the situation and often does not even know that the situation exists

42. A TABOO • Problem is more than just one of hospital management • Part of a taboo embedded deep in American culture • Americans don’t like death, don’t like to see it, don’t like to talk about it • So it is hidden away as much as possible

43. DIFFERENCES • Art and literature of Late Middle Ages dealt with death matter-of-factly and realistically • Dwelt on skeletons, worms, decomposition, etc. • Today, American morticians make up bodies to look alive, put them in water tight caskets and airtight vaults to slow down decomposition, and bury them in graveyards disguised as gardens • We even avoid the term “death” as much as possible and substitute “passed away,” “terminal,” and “deceased.”

44. DERITUALIZED DEATH • Modern people have deritualized death • Traditional mourning is on the decline • Wakes are disappearing • Ritual gesture of sending flowers is often discouraged • Children often do not attend funerals • Code of behavior at funerals prescribes suppression of grief • Funeral industry has taken over expression of grief and exploited it for profit • And transformed it into a sterile, meaningless, and repressed ritual

45. MEDIEVAL VIEW OF DEATH • One explanation argues that medieval people saw death as a collective destiny • Ordinary, inevitable, and not particularly frightening because it would engulf all Christians like a great sleep until they woke up again in Paradise after the Second Comingof Christ

46. ERA OF THE “GOOD DEATH” • Around 1200, emphasis shifted away from the collective character of death towards them impact of death on the individual • Death became the supreme moment in a person’s individual quest fro salvation • Era of the “good death” • But death remained a familiar thing surrounded by prescribed rituals

47. VICTORIAN DEATH • In the 19th century, death came to be viewed in more affection-laden, family-oriented terms • Came to mean separation from loved ones and was no longer viewed as an ordinary part of the life cycle • Now seen as a catastrophic rupture with one’s family and loved ones • Death was now viewed as a horrible event that took away a loved one from his family forever • And now was accompanied by emotional excess • Hysterics, screaming, long periods of mourning, elaborate tombstones,ect • Seen as abnormal, extraordinary, and disruptive

48. TRANSITION • Reaction to emotional and physical excesses to 19th century view of death caused Western people to adopt modern attitude towards death • First developed in the U.S. and then spread to England and northern Europe • Currently making inroads in southern Europe and Latin America • Traditional rituals of death have be abandoned and death is now hidden from the dying person and transferred from the family to the hospital • Terminal moment has become a technicality

49. PHASES • Attitudes towards death has passed through four distinct phases • Traditional “tamed” death of the first 1000 years of Christian era • The more personal death of the next 750 years (the “good death” era) • The family-oriented obsession with “thy death” which prevailed from late 18th to the early 20th centuries • The “forbidden death” of the last 100 years

50. METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS • Assumes that there are clear transition points from one set of attitudes to another • In reality, the shift from one to another was gradual as one set of attitudes blended into another and coexisted for a long time • Does not take into account differences between different socio-economic groups in regard to death • What caused changes in attitudes towards death? • Relationship between the changing role of religion in people’s lives and attitudes towards death remains unclear