Proleptic Steps: Rethinking Historical Period in the Fifteenth-Century Dance Manual

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-47
Author(s):  
Seeta Chaganti
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Theater History ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages

For some time now, scholarly medieval studies have been preoccupied with questions about the relationship between the modern and the premodern, and even about the very meanings of these terms. Medievalists in different fields have thoughtfully re-examined the critical paradigms that rely on a break between the medieval as premodernity, on the one hand, and the early modern as an initiation of modernity, on the other. Such new perspectives on periodization and the Middle Ages have tended to originate in studies of literature, theater, history, and art. The discipline of medieval studies has not, for the most part, considered what dance might contribute to our understanding of the constitution of historical periods such as “medieval” and “early modern.” And yet, basse danse and bassadanza, due to their placement in a fifteenth-century moment variously claimed by both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, potentially offer much to such discussions of periodization. As a performance, this fifteenth-century dance situates itself in a dynamic transition between the medieval and the early modern, raising questions about the nature, location, and even existence of this periodization boundary. At the same time, however, the instructional and codifying techniques associated with basse danse and bassadanza reinforce a more traditional periodization dynamic, whereby a culture looks back mainly in order to look forward, organizing its ideas about time and history around the mechanism of anticipation. I shall argue in this essay that basse danse and bassadanza reveal a suggestively conflicted perspective on time through the distinction they establish between the temporality of execution and that of instruction. Furthermore, in their espousal of anticipatory strategies, the instruction manuals in particular show how representations of early dance can construct perspectives on historical periodization. Casting into relief thus an occluded narrative about how period borders form and solidify, basse danse and bassadanza additionally offer early period scholarship some new ways to reconsider and dissolve such borders.

Fear, error and death: The abjection of the Middle Ages

2018 ◽  
pp. 70-94
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Prendergast ◽  
Stephanie Trigg
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Creative Play ◽  
Historical Accuracy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
Judicial Systems

As a disciplinary formation, Medieval Studies has long been structured by authoritative hierarchies and conservative scholarly decorums; the associated fear of error in medieval studies dates back to the Renaissance and the Protestant reformation. In contrast, medievalism increasingly celebrates creative play and imaginative invention. Such invention inevitably produces anxiety about historical accuracy. Popular scholarship and journalism in turn are often attracted to the abject otherness of the Middle Ages, especially the torture practices associated with its judicial systems. Such practices are designed to solicit the truth, and so, like illness, mortality and death, they are a useful double trope through which to analyse the relationship between medieval and medievalist approaches to the past.

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.

Paridis de Puteo: A Fifteenth-Century Civilian’s Concept of Papal Sovereignty

1987 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 369-392
Author(s):  
Diana Perry
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Fundamental Study ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
Modern Mind ◽  
Political Evaluation ◽  
City State ◽  
The Relationship

Sovereignty—suprema potestas—in the later Middle Ages was not blessed with Austinian simplicity: it was a complex and contradictory thing. Held by the ecclesiastical and lay powers, held by pope, emperor, king, and city-state, few populi were subjected to one authority alone. Not only did there exist a hierarchy of sovereign powers in the Western community, de iure and de facto, but the suprema potestas was in itself limited. It was the extent of this limitation and the degree of sovereignty possessed by the various governments which exercised, to a very large extent, the minds of later medieval and Renaissance jurists. A major reordering of the relationship between the spiritual and secular authorities was occasioned with the propounding of the via media by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Thomistic doctrine did much to promote and enhance the importance of civil government at the expense of hierocratic theories, but, as Michael Wilks observes in his fundamental study of medieval sovereignty, it proved to be almost as dangerous to the concept of the societas humana as to that of the societas christiana. Quite simply, as long as moral standards were applied to earthly government, political evaluation was forced into the theological sphere, and so, to some degree, into the realm of papal determination. And to Thomistic influences, as Michael Wilks again remarks, the civilians nearly all succumbed. Laying their claims very largely upon the bases of Roman law and Aristotle, legists expounded a profoundly secular philosophy; but the seemingly logical conclusion—logical, that is, to the modern mind—that secular man was freed from the theological order was not reached. The pope retained both a unique degree of dignitas and a superior degree of authority; he was head of the populus christiana, and this awesome position bestowed upon him certain ultimate rights and responsibilities in the affairs of secular corpora, even though these corpora were sovereign entities. In other words, papal sovereignty, although increasingly restricted and relegated to the realm of theory as the early modern State evolved, none the less remained a potent force; indeed, as it will be seen, in a particular aspect it fulfilled for the jurist a critical need of the young State.

The Relation of the Slave and the Client to the Master or Patron in Medieval Islam

1971 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul G. Forand
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Near East ◽  
The Other ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
The One ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages

In antiquity and in the Middle Ages slavery played a significant role in the military, economic, political and social life of the Near East. Many studies have been made of these aspects of life, but little has been said in the context of Islam about the psychological bonds which, at least to some extent, characterize the relationship between slave or freedman and master. The institution of ‘mutual alliance’ also played an important part in Islamic history, and there were certain similarities between the relation of the ‘ally’ to the patron on the one hand, and of the freedman to the former master on the other. But it is the purpose of this discussion, in part, to point out some basic differences between the two relationships.

scholarly journals The peculiarities of dialectic of good and evil in works of the philosophers of the Early Modern Age (T. Hobbes, B. Spinoza, G. V. Leibniz)

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Andrei Andreevich Kovalev
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Human World ◽  
The One ◽  
Good And Evil

The subject of this research is the categories of good and evil in philosophy of the representatives of the Early Modern Age (on the example of the works of T. Hobbes, B. Spinoza, and G. W. Leibniz). These philosophers conceptualized the dialectic of good and evil leaning on the shifted paradigm at the turn of the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. However, the article advances a hypothesis that despite a fundamental turn in the philosophy of the Modern Age, the prevalent n medieval philosophy dialectic of good and evil had a strong impact upon the views of the philosophers of the Early Modern Age. The research employs the dialectical method and metaphysics, which allowed viewing the categories of good and evil from the perspective of the logical-philosophical position of their contradiction, as well as revealing their initial nature and the role in human world. The novelty of this study consists in the fact that in a certain sense it explores the dual dialectic: on the one hand, it is a longtime problems of good and evil, while on the other hand, the philosophy of good and evil of the Early Modern Age is ambiguous and contradictory, when the previous paradigm is no longer relevant, although a new philosophical concept of good and evil is yet to be formed. There is a good reason why the author chos the ideas of T. Hobbes, B. Spinoza, and G. W. Leibniz – their approaches towards the problem of good and evil in the traditions of the Early Modern Age mark the key milestones in the research of these categories in the transitional historical period.

Picatrix: A Medieval Treatise on Astral Magic. Trans. with an intro. by Dan Attrell and David Porreca. Based on the Latin edition by David Pingree. The Magic in History Series. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019, xii, 372 pp.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 530-532
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Modern Time ◽  
State University ◽  
Pennsylvania State University ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Early Modern Time ◽  
The Middle Ages

Ordinary readers would welcome this new translation as one of many publications rendering a medieval Latin into modern English. All those efforts are certainly most welcome and necessary to maintain the scholarly and pragmatic-didactic approach to Medieval Studies. However, the Picatrix represents a unique magical treatise which every European pre-modern magician consulted and which enjoyed greatest respect for its universal relevance. Many contributors to the edited volume Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time, ed. by Albrecht Classen (2018) refer to the Picatrix, acknowledging it as a most important source for magic throughout the entire pre-modern world.

“Apply to Muslims What Was Said of the Jews:” Popes and Canonists Between a Taxonomy of Otherness andInfidelitas

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan K. Stantchev
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Specific Target ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Law ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
The One ◽  
Inherent Ambiguity

This article analyzes the targets of papal policies on Christians' relations with non-(Roman)Christians contained in canon law'sOn Jews, Saracens, and Their Servantsin a historical period that has attracted comparatively little attention: the mid-thirteenth to the late fifteenth century. It argues the inherent ambiguity of the normative discourse on “proper” relations with “infidels.” On the one hand, popes and canonists faithfully preserved a taxonomy of otherness inherited from the church's ancient past. On the other hand, they often reduced all difference to the pastoral distinction between flock and “infidels.” The conflation of non-Christians occurred in multiple ways: through the explicit extension of a specific policy's targets, overt canonistic discussion, the tacit application of the law to analogous situations, or its simplification for use in the confessional. As a result, a number of policies aimed originally at a specific target were applied to all non-Christians. In the course of the later Middle Ages, a whole group of policies meant to define Christians' proper relations with others became potentially applicable against all non-Christians. In the words of a widely, if regionally disseminated, penitential work, all that was said of the Jews applies to the Muslims and all that was said of heretics, applies to schismatics.

Theory in Time

PMLA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 759-767 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Davis
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Cultural Critique ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Middle Ages

To define or describe the middle ages is to take a political stance, wittingly or not. Controversy accompanies any period definition, of course, as recent skirmishes over the early modern, the modern, and modernity attest. But the politics of the Middle Ages has generally gone under the radar of literary and cultural critique, precisely because of the nature of its formation and its relation to the modern. In fact “the Middle Ages” is a colonial category, developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as (primarily western) Europeans worked to legitimize, classify, and make sense of colonial policies, practices, and encounters. The formation of medieval studies as a discipline, vital to the then incipient discipline of history, was also fully integrated with colonial bureaucracy and administration (Frantzen; Biddick; Dagenais and Greer; Ganim; Kabir; Davis; Davis and Altschul; Lampert-Weissig). As a form of temporal spacing, the category of the Middle Ages enabled the thought of Europe's difference from itself, thus making it possible not only to define European nations across time but also to establish a scale of comparison by which to measure others and to deny them coeval status—that is, equal standing as human beings in regard to law, trade, the capacity for self-rule, and so on.

scholarly journals Long Middle Ages or appropriations of the medieval?

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (33) ◽  
pp. 97-130
Author(s):  
Maria Eugênia Bertarelli ◽  
Clinio Oliveira Amaral
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Academic Context ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages

We present an overview of the studies on the Middle Ages that exceeds the traditional chronological milestones of the period. Initially, we present the historiography on the Long Middle Ages, a construct that postulates the idea of a medieval world found in the present and thus, beyond the 15th century and the European continent. In contrast, we seek to present the theory of Medievalism which emphasizes the relationship between the contemporary world and the discursive appropriations of the medieval period. This theory is not quite familiar in the Brazilian academic context, but it offers great possibilities to approach the Middle Ages from a more autonomous perspective, rather than the European historiography, on which, historically, medieval studies have been grounded.

scholarly journals Herkules i Gerion, królowie Hiszpanii. Mit i jego recepcja w iberyjskich kronikach dobry średniowiecza i nowożytności

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-125
Author(s):  
Dawid Barbarzak
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
New World ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
Colonial Expansion ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Middle Ages

The ancient myth about Hercules’ expedition to the island of Erythea, his combat with Geryon and setting the Pillars was adopted by the authors of Iberian chronicles from the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. The paper responds to the question of how the myth was being changed by the authors and what their political or genealogical aim related with the historical period was. The analysis of ancient sources and the comparison with chosen Iberian chronicles proves that the character of Hercules was intentionally adapted for creating old dynastic genealogies, a model of good king or founding myths of Spanish cities (as Cádiz and A Coruña). For similar reasons, Spanish colonial expansion changed also the idea of the Pillars of Hercules which were not perceived as the boundary of the Mediterranean anymore but became a gate to the New World.

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