Just what is it that I do in the archives?

In an effort to explain just what I’m doing in Spain, I thought it might be interesting to show a few photos from the archives. In addition to archives in the city of Sevilla, I have been traveling to others located in neighboring towns. The building in the picture at right offers a good example of what these look like. This particular building, a former residence, houses both the municipal library of Carmona and its archive, the Archivo Municipal de Carmona (AMC). On a busy day, the archivist at the AMC can expect about three to four visitors. Of course, I have spent days in archives of this sort where I was the only visitor. Though the majority of visitors are professional scholars, it not unusual for such archives also receive architects and engineers pursuing restoration work and representatives from the ayuntamiento (municipal government) in search of town records. Technically part of the ayuntamiento, the municipal archive serves as the depository for the town’s records, including documents like the actas capitulares (minutes) of the cabildo (town council).

The contents of every archive are cataloged by a number of standardized sections: gobierno (government), secretaría (administration, correspondence, and dispatch), contaduría (accounting), etc. Loose papers are bound in book form or gathered together by string and placed into cardboard legajos (file boxes), which are sorted by number. In some cases it is necessary to view the whole legajo; in others a precise signatura (call number) exists for a specific expediente (record). Sometimes the contents of a legajo may pertain to a specific case from a limited time period. However, it is also the case that documents like that at right from the 1600s are often grouped together for others pertaining to the 1800s, essentially without a cohesive logic.

Consulting original documents is a key part to the writing of history in order to help separate fact from fiction – at least to the extent that is possible based on the quality of source mat

erial. As a graduate dissertations are intended to comprise an original contribution to the field, in most cases this means no prior individual has pursued the same line of inquiry. Even when something is not all that new, this process of review also serves as an important means to validate the work of prior historians. In my case, viewing original election tallies (like that at right) and letters of petition help to reconstruct the political life of a town.

Most of the documents pertaining to the time period of my research were written, not typed, on stamped paper. That is, contemporaries recorded information on paper bearing an official sello (stamp) indicating the official character of the document in question and to demonstrate that the notary or his – it was always a he in this period – employer had paid the necessary tax pertaining to the transaction of government business. In the picture at right it is possible to view the stamp at top of the page and to see that it pertained to the reign of Fernando VII in the year 1813 and that the particular cost of this stamp was 40 maravedis. Students of American history may recall the aversion of American colonists to a pesky British law called the Stamp Act of 1765. Their objections were not raised to stamps as we know them today, but rather to stamps of this sort, which were rather commonplace to the world of early modern Europe.

Reading these documents, I encounter more than a few challenges.

The authors themselves left ink blots, smudges, or may have used a type of ink that lightened with time or corroded the integrity of the paper making it more brittle – in

some cases the inked portion of the paper has disintegrated leaving only the outline of text. It’s often the case that a layer of black sand –residual blotting used to help dry the ink after its application – falls out from between the leaves of paper as I flip through them. Though this sand gives the ink a sparkle, it usually ends up all over my hands. Whatever doesn’t make it onto my hands covers my immediate workspace. Beyond these concerns exists an array of conservation problems. The years have not always been kind to these documents. Some papers are littered with water stains, mold marks, and in some cases are even worm eaten. In addition, to these physical characteristics, I run across a number of linguistic challenges that pertain to my own abilities as a scholar of the Spanish language.

Deciphering text in the documents that I have consulted has been an interesting task. Of course, just reading another’s handwriting is a challenge. The word de (of) is often written more as a stylized squiggle particular to each individual than something possessing the letters D or E. Adding to this challenge, the Spanish use the vosotros verb tense (second person, plural) in a way Mexicans and other Latin Americans do not. This applies to both formal and informal communications. Hence, a royal decree might include the command “SABED” (Let it be known that...). Abbreviations also prove hard to tackle at times. For instance, it took me more than a week to realize the abbreviation “dho.” was contemporary shorthand for dicho (said). I was somewhat quicker to discern the use of superscript letters for names, “M^a.” in place of Maria and “Fern^do.” in place of Fernando. The same applies to other words – “ciu^d.” in place of ciudad (city) and “p^a. q^e.” in place of para que (such that). Others proved vexing, as I had to guess at the missing letter order and number of syllables, as was the case with “Rn^ta. R^ls.” in place of Rentas Reales (Royal Rents) and “Supp^os.” in place of suplicamos (we ask). Still, long lists of letters proved mystifying without lengthy historical explanation. For example, references to the city of Sevilla are often prefaced with the letters “M. N. y M. L.” in place of Muy Noble y Muy Leal (Most Noble and Most Loyal), a reference to the city’s decision to defend Alfonso X (see my blog entry on “NO8DO”). Still other abbreviations pertain to the titles and ranks of the Royal Crown, nobles, institutions and members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Consider, for instance, the use of “S. M.” in place of Su Majestad (His Majesty – third person, singular) and “V. M.” in place of Vuestro Majestad (Your Majesty – second person, plural).

Ultimately, in the rather brief time I have with each document, I have to judge whether something is of value and debate how long and complete of a note to take. Ultimately, I most often choose to capture a photo and keep moving. In general, that’s my motto, keep moving. I have a lot of files to cover between now and next June.

Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

Just a few hours after finishing clean-up operations from Thanksgiving dinner and after an all too brief slumber, I began my trek to the Scottish capital city of Edinburgh (EH-din-bur-uh). Scotland had always been high on my list of places to visit. Edinburgh held a special interest as the home of the Scottish Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century, an intellectual movement that included the likes of personal intellectual curiosities David Hume, Adam Ferguson, and Adam Smith. By way of a series of flights that hopped between Madrid and London, I made it to Scotland in time to meet my friend Steve for dinner – a nice helping of haggis. Delicious! A few glasses of single malt for dessert made for heavy sleep.

As luck would have it, St. Andrew’s Day fell that weekend and more than a few blue banners with white Xs hung to commemorate Scotland’s patron saint. Saturday morning Steve and I made it to Edinburgh Castle well ahead of the crowds to find that entry was free for the day thanks to the new push on the part of Scotland’s recently devolved government to advocate a stronger sense of national pride.

From the castle, we made our way down the Royal Mile to find Adam Smith’s resting place at Canongate Cemetery and then on to the Her Majesty’s Official Residence in Scotland, the Palace at Holyroodhouse. Before lunch we were able to duck into the recently opened Scottish National Parliament (that’s Pàrlamaid na h-Alba in Gaelic, if you’re curious). One authentically-Scottish-meal-in-a-haunted-lodge later, we made to visit a few of the city’s finer purveyors of Scotch whisky – “liquor store” just doesn’t have the appropriate cultural resonance. Later in the day we managed to see a few more of the city’s main sites before meeting one of Steve’s friends for Indian food that evening.

Sunday morning we awoke early yet again to board a train across the bridge spanning the Firth of Forth, where the then snowcapped peaks of the Highlands were visible in the distance, to Inverkeithing-Burntisland-Kirkaldy and finally on to Leuchars in the County of Fife to meet Steve’s friend. From the train station, she drove us into St. Andrews in time to see the university students returning from Sunday mass in their brilliant red gowns. We ate lunch in the clubhouse overlooking the 18^th hole of the St. Andrews golf course with the strip of beach where the famous scene from Chariots of Fire was filmed in the distance and returned to Edinburgh in the afternoon.

On Monday morning we were able to walk Princes Street, Edinburgh’s main drag, reopened only the night before after months of work to complete the city’s new aboveground trolley line. Later that day, I began the journey back to Sevilla.

Thanksgiving in Sevilla

Okay, technical difficulties resolved!

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Perhaps no other holiday is so quintessentially American as Thanksgiving Day. And so it should come as no small surprise to the reader, as was certainly the case with my Spanish friends, that until rather late I had no concrete plans as to how I should commemorate this day of days. I had known for several months that returning to the U.S. would not be financially feasible. In the absence of an oven, I had all but resigned myself to finding a local expat haunt in the desperate hope of at least having turkey.

My Spanish friend David had invited me to a small dinner with his long-time friends the Sunday before Thanksgiving. After a long discussion at the dinner table on the history (which I no doubt butchered) and significance of Thanksgiving Day, I had initially declined an invitation to host a meal at my place. (By all marks, I think this is a tradition in and of itself if I’m not mistaken.) I think the anthropologists in the group, of which there were two, found the idea of actually experiencing the holiday with a real, live American too good an opportunity to pass by. They were very persuasive. At some point in the early morning as we waited out Sevilla’s first Autumn rainstorm – say around 3am – I accepted their nomination most certainly not thinking at my full potential. Only the next morning did I realize the full gravity of the situation.

In the hopes of trying to create as authentic an experience as possible, I was determined to make certain the very best expectations of Thanksgiving made it to the dinner table. Thankfully that fateful early Monday morning I also had the good sense to explain another venerable American dining custom, the potlatch meal. David offered to cook the turkey, (though we would later learn that it was the singular feat of his mother – thank you David’s mother!). The rest of the group promised baked potatoes and a salad. I later convinced additional guests to join with responsibilities for additional items, libations chief among them.

As host, I had to make sure a few traditional American items made it into the mix. Though somewhat impossible to get a football game on my television, I thought it all too funny that my friend and fellow Fulbrighter, Heather, was able to find chips and salsa – Doritos brand no less! Because cranberries are about as foreign as it comes in Spain and because the Spanish word for cranberry is most confusingly also that for blueberry – that other mysterious foreign berry – I was told it would be unlikely that I would find something to accompany the turkey. In fact, I was fortunate enough to find salsa de arándanos al Oporto (cranberries in Port sauce) in the gourmet section of one of the local supermarkets. Thanks to the marvels of the internet and a little improvisation, I managed to concoct stove-top stuffing out of stale baguettes, chicken stock, and vegetables sautéed in olive oil. Mashed batatas (sweet potatoes, not to be confused with patatas) made for an easy side dish. Heather also contributed a delicious Spanish bizcocho-style apple pie baked with the help of her language exchange partner. Sorry, no pictures; we ate it too quickly!

All in all, the meal proved very authentic, and quite a lot of fun. I finally managed to get the group out the door at 4am – still somewhat early by Spanish standards – so I could prepare for my 10am flight. For more info on this excursion, stay tuned...

Technical Difficulties...Again!

I have photos to post from Thanksgiving Day and my trip to Edinburgh, but the memory card reader on my Nikon Coolpix camera has decided rather randomly to stop working. I'm working to resolve the problem...

NO8DO

Every major city has more than a few quintessential features. Often it’s the sights that are some of the more memorable ones, perhaps because they stick in the mind better than the taste of a good glass of wine or the sound of a street band. To my mind, it’s the unexceptional sights that really help to mark a place; things so commonplace as to seem unpictureworthy, but which in the end help to shape our memory. In most cases, these serve as a point of pride for locals and as a reminder to visitors that they are in a foreign place. From Chicago, I can recall the checkered bands of police hats. From San Diego, it’s the sight of wetsuits drying in the sun. In Seville, the most pervasive facet of this sort is the ubiquitous impression of “NO8DO” on every street, street corner, monument, gate, lamp post, staircase, police car, manhole cover…the list goes on.

The use of the phrase supposedly dates to the 13^th century, when King Alfonso X “el Sabio” (the Wise), responding to the city’s decision to offer him safe refuge against a rebellious army of nobles led by his son and eventual successor Sancho IV, declared no me ha dejado” – literally “It has not left me.” If you think this strange, consider the motto of the English Knights of the Garter: honi soit qui mal y pense - “Shame on him who thinks it bad taste” – uttered in Old French by Edward III after making the chivalrous and somewhat bold move of picking up the fallen garter of a lady of the Royal Court.

Proud of its distinction and royal favor, the city government (ayuntamiento) of Sevilla has made use of the phrase for centuries, adapting the original spelling into a rather simple abbreviation. The middle syllables were substituted for a crude depiction of a bundle of yarn, or madeja in Spanish; what most people now mistakenly recognize as either the infinity symbol or the number 8. In fact, NO8DO reads “no-madeja-do.”

In short, NO8DO is one of the more conspicuous reminders of where I now live. To offer an idea of how extremely pervasive its use of has become, I have include a sampling of some of the more curious places I have found the motto in the pictures attached to this post. All were taken at various sites around the city.