Viewpoints – Placecloud (English)

Washington, United States. The United Nations started with the UNRRA. Created in 1943, driven my Anglo-American interests, UNRRA was a champion of post-war peace, stability, and safety. Although largely forgotten today, UNRRA was a revolutionary organisation that aimed to not only relieve hunger and prevent disease, but to rehabiltate people and land to prevent conditions similar to post-1918 from recurring. The first state-driven international humanitarian organisation, and the blueprint for future world peace.

Saint-Lô, France. On the West Coast of France in 1945, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) requisitioned buildings in Granville and Jullouville to set up training centres for those who were tasked with helping Europe's Displaced Persons. Becoming an UNRRA worker was, for some, much more than a job but a second chance at a different life. These centres, with a high turnover, created thousands of workers to help repatriate, resettle, and rehabilitate the war's displaced persons.

Shrewsbury, United Kingdom. Little is known about the medieval Welsh poet Gwerful Mechain, but she wrote some absolute bangers, including ‘Cywydd y cedor’, or, to non-Welsh speakers, ‘Poem to the vagina’. In the opening, she says that men have written some great praise poetry about women, but they are incomplete, because they don’t include detailed praise of genitalia. She then gives us a further thirty lines dedicated to WAP.

Further Reading:

Katie Gramich, The Works of Gwerful Mechain (Peterborough, ON, 2018)

London, United Kingdom. In 1497, Joan Rokker called Joan Sebar a whore on her front doorstep then threw bread at her. How, where, and why did medieval women publicly sexually defame other women?

Kingdom of East Anglia, United Kingdom. It's winter in Suffolk, and you and your friends are bored of sewing. What next? Why, a round of ‘Have Your Desire’, of course! In this quick fire dice game, you roll to reveal your fortune. Spoiler alert: you're probably going to have sex.

Further Reading:

Nicola McDonald, 'Fragments of Have Your Desire: Brome Women at Play', Medieval Domesticity, ed. Kowaleski & Goldberg (Cambridge, 2008)

London, United Kingdom. If you were sure you had married someone but they didn’t agree, the London consistory court was the place to be. Here, ecclesiastical judges heard contested marriage cases. Disgruntled non-couple couples brought all kinds of evidence: gifts, exchanges of vows, sexual relationships. But for one woman, denying marriage was as simple as admitting that they had made out a couple of times but she had never intended to marry him.

Further Reading:

Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London (Philadelphia, 2006)

York, United Kingdom. Impotence was sufficient grounds for annulment, but how to prove that a man experienced erectile disfunction? In 1433, one court asked ‘seven honest women’ to ascertain whether or not the defendant was capable of an erection with that timeless method, a lapdance.

Further Reading:

Bronach Kane, “Impotence and Virginity in the Late Medieval Ecclesiastical Court of York,” Borthwick Paper 114 (2008)

London, United Kingdom. In 1394, a sex worker and a Yorkshireman are arrested in a stable for public sex, and specifically for ‘committing that detestable unmentionable and ignominious vice’, sodomy. The ensuing deposition reveals that Eleanor has been known as John at various times in their life, and has had sex with both men and women. This episode places Eleanor in conversation with other cases of queer public sex, in particular that of Simeon Solomon in 1873.

Further Reading:

For Kadin Henningsen’s article on Eleanor Rykener: https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2189&context=mff

For the work of Simeon Solomon: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O126681/the-bride-bridegroom-and-sad-drawing-solomon-simeon/

For Neil Bartlett’s A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep: https://www.simeonsolomon.com/documents-online.html

London, United Kingdom. In an obscure early printed song book that survives only by chance, a woman sings about seeing her lover out with a ‘mistress bastard’. Her reaction? She calls him a fuckboy and goes dancing.

Hereford, United Kingdom. In c.1340, a professional scribe of Shropshire copied down a fun fireside tale. Three women are off on a pilgrimage. On the road, one of them finds ‘a great huge penis, draped about with just its muzzle peeking out’ from behind a hawthorn bush. This episode considers a variety of stories of wandering genitalia, and the problems with picking up a disembodied penis off the road.