I. Sir John Fastolf's Lawsuit Over Titchwell 1448–55

1958 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.S. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Legal Knowledge ◽  
Violent Action

When Edmund Paston was at Clifford's Inn in the spring of 1445 he was firmly advised by his mother ‘to thynkk onis of the daie of yowre fadris Counseyle to lerne the lawe for he seyde manie tymis that ho so euer schuld dwelle at Paston schulde have nede to Conne defende hymselfe’. In this much-quoted remark as in other opinions her sound and sensible husband, judge William Paston, was far from being original. The advice was at least two centuries old, if not older; the popularity of law-books for their estate managers in the thirteenth century is evidence of how many landlords then took it to heart.1 A landowner's land was a permanent temptation for his neighbours; such legal knowledge in some degree was therefore vital to him or to his stewards for its defence. More violent action was restricted, if not wholly extinguished by twelfth-century legislation; but that legislation itself and later enactments provided new, more subtle and probably more certain ways of depriving an honest possessor of his property. And titles to land, complicated from the thirteenth century on by landowners’ increasing employment of the entail and the use, gave in the later Middle Ages ample scope for the dexterous at law. Lawsuits on three manors bought on dubious and complicated titles nearly doubled their cost for an over-eager Sir John Fastolf in the middle of the fifteenth century. As Agnes Paston told Edmund her son and as an anonymous versifier told other potential landowners, it was as well to beware.

Agnes of Harcourt, Felipa of Porcelet, and Marguerite of Oingt: Women Writing about Women at the End of the Thirteenth Century

2007 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean L. Field
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Religious Women ◽  
Clemence Of Barking ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Women Writing ◽  
European Women

Three vernacular religious biographies were written by women about other women around the year 1300: Agnes of Harcourt's FrancienVie d'Isabelle de France(ca. 1283), Felipa of Porcelet's ProvençalVida de la benaurada sancta Doucelina(begun ca. 1297), and Marguerite of Oingt's Franco-ProvençalVia seiti Biatrix virgina de Ornaciu(between 1303 and 1310). Although a limited number of similar texts had been composed in Latin dating back to the early Middle Ages, and a few twelfth-century women such as Clemence of Barking had refashioned existing Latin lives of early female martyr-saints into Anglo-Norman verse, the works of Agnes, Felipa, and Marguerite are the first extant vernacular biographies to have been written by European women about other contemporary women. Just as strikingly, after the three examples studied here, few if any analogous works appeared until the later fifteenth century, with most writing by women about other religious women in the intervening period instead being found in “Sister Books” and convent chronicles.

The Conquest in Historical Writing from the Late Thirteenth Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 173-208
Author(s):  
George Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old English ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of

Chapter 5 analyses three genres of historical writing about England in the later middle ages: histories of individual churches, universal histories, and histories of the kingdom. It confirms the provisional judgement reached in Chapter 4: that with respect to the Conquest and earlier England, historical writing fossilized. There were, however, exceptions, most of which could be categorized in the first genre. These are examined in great detail, and follow on from the treatment of the unusual episodes recorded during the thirteenth century at St Augustine’s, Canterbury and Burton Abbey which were considered in Chapter 4. The first is the problematic, neglected Historia Croylandensis attributed to (Pseudo-)Ingulf, which is for the most part a fabrication of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, but which masquerades as the work of the abbot at Crowland at the end of the eleventh century, and therefore as contemporaneous with the great post-Conquest histories of England. The second is the early fourteenth-century Lichfield Chronicle, written by Alan of Ashbourn. The third is a general history of England conventionally attributed to John Brompton, abbot of Jervaulx in the early fifteenth century, and perhaps written at the abbey. All three pay a great deal of attention to (different) twelfth-century compilations of Old English and immediately post-Conquest law. This unusual characteristic accounts for their exceptional interest in the Conquest. The chapter also includes a briefer discussion of the more conventional histories into which condensed earlier discussions of the Conquest were inserted.

Bastard Feudalism and the Framing of Thirteenth-Century England

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Coss
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

In the introduction to his great work of 2005, Framing the Early Middle Ages, Chris Wickham urged not only the necessity of carefully framing our studies at the outset but also the importance of closely defining the words and concepts that we employ, the avoidance ‘cultural sollipsism’ wherever possible and the need to pay particular attention to continuities and discontinuities. Chris has, of course, followed these precepts on a vast scale. My aim in this chapter is a modest one. I aim to review the framing of thirteenth-century England in terms of two only of Chris’s themes: the aristocracy and the state—and even then primarily in terms of the relationship between the two. By the thirteenth century I mean a long thirteenth century stretching from the period of the Angevin reforms of the later twelfth century on the one hand to the early to mid-fourteenth on the other; the reasons for taking this span will, I hope, become clearer during the course of the chapter, but few would doubt that it has a validity.

Time and accounting in the Middle Ages: An Italian-based analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Adamo ◽  
David Alexander ◽  
Roberta Fasiello
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Accounting Information ◽  
Accounting Practice ◽  
Economic Context ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages

This work is focused on an issue scarcely examined in the literature, concerning the analysis of the relationship existing between time and accounting practice. The aim is to highlight how changes in the interpretation of the concept of time influenced the development of accounting practices and contributed to the rise of periodical accounting reporting from the beginning of the thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth century. The socio-economic context existing in Italy in the Middle Ages, the development of commercial partnerships among merchants ( compagnie) and the international trade created the conditions for the development of periodical reporting. The relevance assigned to time in economic activity is one of the crucial factors of the rise of accounting information related to recurring accounting periods. Furthermore, the article shows how the concept of time is important and its significance widely underestimated, in a variety of further applications.

Early Latin Discussions of the Eternity of the World in the Thirteenth Century

Traditio ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 171-197
Author(s):  
Richard C. Dales
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
The World ◽  
Preceding Period

Although the doctrine of the eternity of the world had evoked much concern and opposition among the Fathers of the Christian Church, it ceased to engage the attention of Latin Christian writers during most of the early Middle Ages. When interest in the question revived during the twelfth century, it was nearly always considered in the context of Plato's Timaeus or Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiae. By 1270, the issue seemed to be between the supporters and the opponents of Aristotle. Although the story of Latin discussions of the eternity of the world during the 1260s and 1270s has been quite thoroughly investigated, the preceding period from about 1230 to 1260 has been largely ignored. It is the purpose of the present study to elucidate this neglected stage in medieval discussions of the eternity of the world and to show its relationship to the earlier and later periods.

The Waldensian Recourse to Violence

1986 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna K. Treesh
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Reformation

From their origins in the twelfth century to their support for and involvement in the Reformation in the sixteenth, the Waldensian heretics professed nonviolence as one of their beliefs. Later Protestant and Catholic polemicists equated the profession of nonviolence with a policy and bestowed upon the sect a reputation as one of the precursors of religious pacifism. More recent scholars have noted that the heretics at least occasionally employed violence. I will argue that lay Waldensian believers, called credentes, reacted violently to persecution and learned to employ aggression in pursuit of political goals. In the later Middle Ages, at least, Waldensians resorted to violence on enough occasions and in enough different locations to justify dropping the idea that they were a nonviolent group. Their use of violence did become more sophisticated—that is, more closely connected to political goals—during the fifteenth century as access to representatives of the state increased.

Italian Fables in Verse

PMLA ◽  
1906 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 226-278
Author(s):  
Kenneth McKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Folk Tales ◽  
The People ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Four Books ◽  
The Middle Ages

Before the revival of Greek learning in the fifteenth century, the Æsopic fables of classical antiquity were known in Europe through Latin collections derived from Phædrus. Two of these collections were particularly well known; one which goes under the name of Romulus, written in prose in the tenth century; and a metrical version of the larger part of Romulus, written in the twelfth century. This metrical collection, called in the Middle Ages Esopus, is now ascribed to Walter of England, but is often called Anonymus Neveleti. Another metrical version of Romulus was made a little later by Alexander Neckam, and the fables of Avianus, also, were known to some extent. These collections, with numerous recensions and derivatives in Latin, and translations into many different languages, form a body of written fable-literature whose development can for the most part be clearly traced. At the same time, beast-fables were extensively employed in school and pulpit, and were continually repeated for entertainment as well as for instruction. Thus there was current all over Europe a great mass of fable-literature in oral tradition. The oral versions came in part from the written fable-books; others originated as folk-tales in medieval Europe; others had descended orally from ancient Greece, or had been brought from the Orient. Many are still current among the people in all parts of Europe, and beyond. From this mass of traditional material, heterogeneous collections of popular stories, including beast-fables, were reduced to writing in Latin and in other languages. An example of this process is found in the Esope of Marie de France, the earliest known fable-book in a modern vernacular, which was translated into French in the twelfth century from an English work which is now lost. Forty of Marie's fables, less than two-fifths of the whole number, came from a recension of the original Romulus called Romulus Nilantii; the others from popular stories of various kinds. Similarly, the important Æsop of Heinrich Steinhöwel contains the Romulus fables in four books, followed by seventeen fables called Extravagantes, others from the recently published Latin version of the Greek fables, from Avianus, from the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsus, and from Poggio,—in all, nine books, printed in Latin with a German translation about 1480, and speedily translated into many languages (including English, by Caxton in 1484, from the French version). The Extravagantes, like other collections, and like the episodes of the beast-epic (little known in Italy), came from popular tradition. Many writers show by incidental references that they were familiar with fables, although they may not have regarded them as worthy of serious attention,—writers like Dante, and his commentator Benvenuto da Imola. Moreover, the animal-lore of the bestiaries and of works like the Fiore di Virtù is closely akin to that of the fables. It is evident, then, that the collections descended from Phædrus, important though they were, represented but a fraction of the fable-literature that was current in the Middle Ages.

scholarly journals I Second That Emotion: Modelling the Anxious Experiences of Thirteenth-Century Episcopal Office

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Philippa Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Institutional Authority ◽  
Emotional Language ◽  
Christian Service ◽  
High Middle Ages ◽  
The Church

Abstract The episcopacy in the High Middle Ages (c.1100–1300) can be understood through the idea of a shared emotional language, as seen in two treatises written to advise new bishops. In them, episcopal office was largely defined by the emotions it provoked: it was a cause for sorrow, a burden akin to back-breaking agricultural service. The ideas most associated with episcopal office were anxiety, labour and endurance. Ideas about Christian service as painful labour became particularly important in the twelfth century, alongside the development of the institutional authority of the Church. As episcopal power began to look more threatening and less humble, this emotional register provided one means of distinguishing episcopal power from secular lordly power: both were authorities, but bishops were distinguished by sorrowing over office and ‘enduring’, not enjoying it.

Bearing the Stigmata

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-59
Author(s):  
Carolyn Muessig
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Francis Of Assisi

Chapter 1 traces the patristic and early medieval exegesis of Galatians 6:17. It assesses how language and imagery were appropriated and developed by eleventh- and twelfth-century monastic theologians (especially Peter Damian) into a soteriological system of penance and redemption that focused on Christ’s wounds. Significantly, it looks at examples of stigmatization before Francis of Assisi. These cases vary in their form; they gradually move from stigmata being almost exclusively associated with the sacerdotal order in the early Middle Ages to being linked to the laity by the early thirteenth century as with the cases of Peter the Conversus and Mary of Oignies.

The Theory of Natural Consequence

Vivarium ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 340-366
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Natural Consequence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Connexive Logic ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Special Case

Abstract The history of thinking about consequences in the Middle Ages divides into three periods. During the first of these, from the eleventh to the middle of the twelfth century, and the second, from then until the beginning of the fourteenth century, the notion of natural consequence played a crucial role in logic, metaphysics, and theology. The first part of this paper traces the development of the theory of natural consequence in Abaelard’s work as the conditional of a connexive logic with an equivalent connexive disjunction and the crisis precipitated by the discovery of inconsistency in this system. The second part considers the accounts of natural consequence given in the thirteenth century as a special case of the standard modal definition of consequence, one for which the principle ex impossibili quidlibet does not hold, in logics in which disjunction is understood extensionally.

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