From the Court of Richard II to the Court of Prempeh I: The problem of the ‘Asante’ ewers

Abstract

The role of the fortuitous, the contingent, the unpremeditated, and the unforeseen in history has always caused significant problems for historians. Cherished theories of linear progression, development and evolution, for instance, are often confounded by them. The chance encounter, the quirk of fortune, the sudden change in the weather, the unexpected discovery – all tend to qualify, if not to undermine, deterministic or evolutionary theses of historical causation and development. Similarly, the study of symbols, symbolism and symbolic communication forms one of the more treacherous areas of both historical and anthropological research. How can we ever know exactly what was typified, represented or recalled, in the minds of contemporary observers, by the use of symbols – not only in their ritual, or ritualised, embodiment but (if they ever played any role in it) in the world of everyday life? Symbolism and ritual could convey meanings that were both ambiguous and unstable and, once chronological, geographical, social or cultural frontiers were crossed, those meanings could change dramatically.