scholarly journals The urban community in fifteenth-century Scotland: language, law and political practice

Urban History ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLAIRE HAWES
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Urban Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Urban Elites ◽  
Language Law

ABSTRACTThe political culture of Scotland's late medieval towns has been neglected in recent scholarship. This article seeks to provoke discussion through an analysis of communitarian language and its use by urban elites in the fifteenth century. The Scottish urban community, as elsewhere, could be positioned as a location, a legal construct and a group of people. This provided the burgh council with a variety of political tools which could be employed – consciously or otherwise – in order to legitimize its authority.

scholarly journals Odysseus and the Cyclops: Constructing Fear in Renaissance Marriage Chest Paintings

Humanities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 107
Author(s):  
Margaret Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Visual Narratives ◽  
Trojan War ◽  
Recent Scholarship

Recent scholarship addressing access to Homer’s epics during the Italian Renaissance has illuminated the unique importance of visual narratives for the dissemination and interpretation of material associated with the Trojan War and its heroes. This article looks at early fifteenth-century images deriving from the Odyssey that were painted for marriage chests (cassoni) in the popular Florentine workshop of Apollonio di Giovanni. Focusing on Apollonio’s subnarrative of Odysseus’ clash with the Cyclops Polyphemus (the Cyclopeia), I argue that Apollonio showcased this archetypal tale of a failed guest–host relationship to explore contemporary anxieties associated with marriage, an institution that figured prominently in the political and economic ambitions of fifteenth-century patriarchal families.

Christian-Muslim Encounters: George of Trebizond and the ‘Inversion’ of Eastern Discourse regarding Islam in the Fifteenth Century

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 137-149
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Papastathis
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Intellectual Elite ◽  
Eastern Christianity ◽  
Contemporary Context

The capture of Constantinople (1453) by the Ottoman troops of Mehmed II was a historical turning point. The political reference point of Eastern Christianity was now in Muslim hands, the Ottomans representing in the eyes of late medieval Europeans not only an enemy of the true faith, and as such an obstacle for ecclesiastical unity, but also a potential rival of the papacy as a political power. In short, within the contemporary context and the socially dominant apocalyptic frame of mind, the Ottomans were viewed as an existential threat for Christianity as a whole. While the papal reaction to this development was to go on the offensive, expressed through the call for a new crusade, the emergence of a few voices expressing divergent theological content and political orientation had special significance. One of the voices which ‘set off the politics of religious synthesis from different quarters” was that of George of Trebizond (1395–1472/3), a Cretan emigrant to Italy who lived in Venice and Florence before moving to Rome. He had converted to Catholicism without losing his sense of belonging to the East, and became a prominent figure of the Italian intellectual elite and an editor of classical and theological literature, as well as a member of the Vatican bureaucracy.

News, Noise, and the Nature of Politics in Late Medieval English Provincial Towns

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
National Level ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Conceptual Structures ◽  
Rural And Urban

AbstractRecent research has stressed the importance of “popular politics” in English political culture especially after the Peasants' Revolt and during the political disturbances of the fifteenth century. Scholars have begun to explore how the structures of local political culture could inflect the nature of politics on a national level, notably through petitioning and the circulation of open letters and manifestos, thus moving beyond the nobility and gentry to consider the influence on late medieval political life of the society and culture of rural and urban communities that were far from the center of power. This article is a contribution to a growing body of work that aims to show how particular aspects of provincial urban politics affected national political culture. By focusing first on news distribution and contemporary conceptual structures that linked rumor, noise, and riot in one continuum; and by then considering the relationship between communal mobilization at times of political crisis and everyday policing institutions such as the hue and cry, the article investigates how the nature of political life in provincial towns affects our understanding of late medieval English political culture as a whole.

Hospitals and Charity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Mayall Brasher
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Urban Community ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Political Interference ◽  
Urban Elites ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Individual

Medieval hospitals in Italy, originally intended to house pilgrims and comfort the dying, evolved from religious institutions reflecting communal and personal piety to civic facilities intended to provide a comprehensive social welfare and medical service to the urban community. The founding and management of hospitals provided a means for the acquisition of political power and social status for the new urban elites. Brasher’s study provides the first comprehensive examination of the foundation of small independent hospitals throughout the region beginning in the twelfth century and then considers the challenges to establishing and managing these institutions in the face of ecclesiastical and political interference over the succeeding three centuries. The resulting charitable institutions reflected a nexus of lay initiative, religious culture, and civic political life. The independent nature of the individual hospitals has made generalization difficult, yet through a comprehensive examination of evidence from over 175 hospitals, the volume covers a wide geographic and chronological expanse to create a picture of the internal life of the institutions and their place within the urban community. The rise of the central, civic hospital of the fifteenth century, generally seen as a particular phenomenon of the Renaissance, is placed in the context of its earlier origins. The book will be of interest to students and researchers of medieval social, religious, or urban history.

The Problem of Tyranny in Fifteenth Century England

Moreana ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (Number 191- (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Genet
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Late Medieval England

Was tyranny a crucial political problem in late medieval England? To answer this question, we examine which political texts were most widely read at that time. It is then possible to survey these texts and this reveals the two main meanings of tyranny: the king becomes a tyrant when he is unfair or/and when he is a predator. This second meaning is related to the development of royal taxation. However, the tyrants who are usually described by English authors are those of the ancient times. Tyranny is generally close to cruelty, and rarely referred to in a political context. The immediate preoccupations of the members of the political society in 15th century England were centred upon the problems of disorder and of legitimacy.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 196-216
Author(s):  
James A. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Roman History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Social Distinction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Communal Institutions

This concluding chapter highlights Pope Boniface IX's engagement with Rome following his ascent to the papacy in 1389. Boniface's accrual of goodwill early in his papacy culminated in the concession to him of dominion over Rome in 1398. Ultimately, the production of social distinction and political legitimacy through the practices described in this book—practices not dependent on communal institutions—was so successful that Rome's political elites lost interest in defending the autonomy of the Roman commune, ceding power willingly to the papacy. It was this transformation of Roman political culture that ultimately enabled the transformation both of Rome and its place in future politics. Appreciating this frees one from a misleading sense of Roman history born from the pens of fifteenth-century humanists and, by so doing, fundamentally alters Rome's place in the political history of Italy and of Europe.

City, State, and Public Ritual in the Late-Medieval Burgundian Netherlands

1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Arnade
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Permanent Record ◽  
The Public ◽  
Distinguished Career ◽  
Wedding Ceremony ◽  
City State ◽  
Duke Of Burgundy

At the end of a distinguished career as chronicler of the Burgundian court, Georges Chastellain (1404–75) penned a quick sketch of the outstanding accomplishments of his duke, Charles the Bold. Accustomed to expositions awash in chivalric pomp, Chastellain employed a different tack to commemorate this sovereign: He sketched eleven “magnificences” performed by the duke of Burgundy, all reconstructed images of this prince's engagement with ceremony. Foremost among this snapshot collection of state ritual was neither a tournament, nor a wedding ceremony, nor even a processional entry. What stood out, in Chastellain's estimation, as Charles' greatest deed was something more riveting and more powerful than any of these spectacles so beloved by the fifteenth-century Burgundian court:The first [magnificence] was at Brussels, where, seated on his throne, his sword unsheathed and held by his Marshall, he gathered the men of Ghent arranged kneeling before him and at his pleasure and in their presence cut and tore up the political charters they bore. Done for permanent record, this action was without parallel.For Chastellain, the supreme magnificence of Charles the Bold was a lesson in exemplary punishment, the public abasement of the aldermen and guild deans of the Flemish city of Ghent in January 1469, a year and a half after a city revolt of rank-and-file guildsmen had unsettled celebrations in honor of his accession to the countship of Flanders.

The Political Economy of Local Governance in Yemen

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
Benoit Challand ◽  
Joshua Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Local Initiatives ◽  
Self Rule

This paper provides an historical exploration of local governance in Yemen across the past sixty years. It highlights the presence of a strong tradition of local self-rule, self-help, and participation “from below” as well as the presence of a rival, official, political culture upheld by central elites that celebrates centralization and the strong state. Shifts in the predominance of one or the other tendency have coincided with shifts in the political economy of the Yemeni state(s). When it favored the local, central rulers were compelled to give space to local initiatives and Yemen experienced moments of political participation and local development.

Religion and the Construction of a Christian Roman Polity

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-113
Author(s):  
Francesco Rotiroti
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
Ancient Christianity

This article seeks to define a theoretical framework for the study of the relation between religion and the political community in the Roman world and to analyze a particular case in point. The first part reviews two prominent theories of religion developed in the last fifty years through the combined efforts of anthropologists and classicists, arguing for their complementary contribution to the understanding of religion's political dimension. It also provides an overview of the approaches of recent scholarship to the relation between religion and the Roman polity, contextualizing the efforts of this article toward a theoretical reframing of the political and institutional elements of ancient Christianity. The second part focuses on the religious legislation of the Theodosian Code, with particular emphasis on the laws against the heretics and their performance in the construction of the political community. With their characteristic language of exclusion, these laws signal the persisting overlap between the borders of the political community and the borders of religion, in a manner that one would expect from pre-Christian civic religions. Nevertheless, the political essence of religion did also adapt to the ecumenical dimension of the empire. Indeed, the religious norms of the Code appear to structure a community whose borders tend to be identical to the borders of the whole inhabited world, within which there is no longer room for alternative affiliations; the only possible identity outside this community is that of the insane, not belonging to any political entity and thus unable to possess any right.

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