British Carved Whale Bone Box

The object featured here – a box carved out of whale’s bone – comes from Britain in the early 700s, which was an age of fragmented states and political destabilization. The scene shown is a rendering of the sack of Jerusalem by the Romans, but to the onlooker the most obvious activity is that of weaponized violence. The Western Medieval world in these centuries was indeed permeated with vendettas and feuds, and much of this can be explained by the existence of what cultural psychologists call “honor cultures”. Honor cultures are ones in which people (usually adult males) deal with any threat to their reputation with violence — which thus explains the preponderance of feuds. Whether the honor cultures are the White American South, L.A. gangs, or the Kabyle of Algeria, people expect an affront or a threat to be met with retaliation. This behavior comes out of political instability, when protecting one’s assets – including reputation – must be loudly proclaimed lest one appear weak, and fodder for surrounding groups.

Honor culture features prominently in the famed Old English epic _Beowulf_: whether through Cain and Able, Grendle’s mother, or Beowulf himself, repeatedly the values of establishing a reputation and not letting insults lie, are upheld. Ultimately, the poet of _Beowulf_ recognizes that the feuds are horrifically destructive, but he nonetheless upholds the ideal strong warrior leader as the solution to a society’s ills.