scholarly journals REWRITING THE GESTA NORMANNORUM DUCUM IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY: SIMON DE PLUMETOT'S BREVIS CRONICA COMPENDIOSA DUCUM NORMANNIE

Traditio ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 385-435
Author(s):  
BENJAMIN POHL ◽  
RICHARD ALLEN
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Book Collecting

This article is dedicated to Liesbeth van Houts, editor of the Gesta Normannorum ducum, generous mentor, colleague, and friend.This article offers an analysis, edition, and translation of the Brevis cronica compendiosa ducum Normannie, a historiographical account of the dukes of Normandy and their deeds, written at the turn of the fifteenth century by the Norman jurist and man of letters, Simon de Plumetot (1371–1443). Having all but escaped the attention of modern scholars, this study is the first to examine and publish the Brevis cronica. It not only demonstrates that the work is of greater importance than its rather scrappy form might at first suggest, but it also looks to place the text within the broader context of Simon's literary and bibliophilic practices and to determine its raison d’être. In doing so, it argues that the Brevis cronica was perhaps created as part of a much larger historiographical project, namely an extended chronicle of Normandy, written in the vernacular, the text of which is now lost. By exploring these important issues, the article sheds new light on a wide range of topics, from early humanist book collecting to the writing of history in France in the later Middle Ages.

Liberty, Manners, and Politeness in Early Eighteenth-Century England

1989 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 583-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence E. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
English Language ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Polite Society ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Aesthetic Standard ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

In the early eighteenth century, the language of politeness became a major fixture of English discourse. Centring on the term ‘politeness’ and consisting of a vocabulary of key words (such as ‘refinement’, ‘manners’, ‘character’, ‘breeding’, and ‘civility’) and a range of qualifying attributes (‘free’, ‘easy’, ‘natural’, ‘graceful’, and many others), the language was used to make a wide range of objects intelligible. Though the word ‘polite’ had been in the English language from at least the fifteenth century, denoting the state of being polished or neat in quite literal and concrete ways, the term entered on its significant career only in the mid-seventeenth century, when it began to convey the meanings of studied social behaviour of the sort inspired by and associated with princely courts. However, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, ‘politeness’ grew to cover a range of meanings, considerably freed from the initial association with courts. Several broad categories of usage of the term ‘polite’ are indicative: as a behavioural and moral standard for members of an elite (e.g. ‘polite gentlemen’, ‘polite ladies’, ‘polite society’, ‘polite conversation’); as an aesthetic standard for many kinds of human artifacts and products (e.g. ‘polite arts’, ‘polite towns’, ‘polite learning’, ‘polite buildings’); and as a way of generalizing about and characterizing society and culture (‘polite age’, ‘polite nation’, ‘polite people’). In the latter usage, ‘politeness’ was frequently deployed retrospectively as an attribute of classical civilizations. ‘Politeness’ helped recast the renaissance model of history, in which modernity was separated from its true ancestor, the ancient world, by the vast dark gulf of the middle ages: the ‘politest’ nations were ancient Greece and ancient Rome; the ‘politest’ ages, the spells of Hellenic and Roman creativity.

A Fifteenth-Century Confession Sermon on “Unkyndeness” (CUL MS Gg 6.26) and Its Literary Parallels and Parodies

Traditio ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 259-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Galloway
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
High Moment ◽  
Indefinite Number ◽  
Wide Range

The later Middle Ages was the high moment of the popular, vernacular sermon, yet relatively few examples of extraliturgical sermons can be recovered from the written evidence. Latin collections of sermon cycles—those preached in the context of the mass liturgy and saints' days—were produced in large quantities in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, functioning more or less directly as exemplars for the actual sermons that would then be preached in the local vernaculars of western Europe. In England, such Latin sermon collections of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries often include some vernacular materials, especially lyrics, and many treatises are extant that provide priests with the materials to make sermons on a wide range of topics and for an indefinite number of occasions. Of the relatively few English sermons and sermon collections extant from the period, however, by far the greatest number are, like the Latin cycles, those keyed to the cycle of Sunday texts and to saints' days, whose very formality militates against a sense of them as representative of the most common forms and themes of vernacular sermons, particularly those earnestly preached on the occasions like that which Chaucer satirically describes in theSummoner's Tale, when “ther wente a lymytour aboute / To preche, and eek to begge, it is no doubte” (3.1711–1712). With so few examples of non-liturgical sermons extant, our sense both of the reality and of the satire is incomplete.

Young Scholars Conference “Slavic World: Commonality and Diversity”. 21–22 May 2019. Session “Linguistics”

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 295-297
Author(s):  
Sergej A. Borisov
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
International Context ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Russian Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Current State ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

For more than twenty years, the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences celebrates the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture with a traditional scholarly conference.”. Since 2014, it has been held in the young scholars’ format. In 2019, participants from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Togliatti, Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, and Rostov-on-Don, as well as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania continued this tradition. A wide range of problems related to the history of the Slavic peoples from the Middle Ages to the present time in the national, regional and international context were discussed again. Participants talked about the typology of Slavic languages and dialects, linguo-geography, socio- and ethnolinguistics, analyzed formation, development, current state, and prospects of Slavic literatures, etc.

Anna Russakoff, Imagining the Miraculous: Miraculous Images of the Virgin Mary in French Illuminated Manuscripts, ca. 1250-ca. 1450. Studies and Texts, 215; Text Image Context: Studies in Medieval Manuscript Illumination, 7. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2019, xviii, 194 pp., ill.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 541-544
Author(s):  
Juan Carlos Bayo
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old French ◽  
Illuminated Manuscripts ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Medieval Manuscript ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
Image Context ◽  
Panel Paintings

This monograph deals with illuminated manuscripts created in French-speaking regions from the mid-thirteenth to the mid-fifteenth century, i.e., from the earliest narratives of Marian miracles written in <?page nr="542"?>Old French to the codices produced at the Burgundian court at the waning of the Middle Ages. Its focus, however, is very specific: it is a systematic analysis of the miniatures depicting both material representations of the Virgin (mainly sculptures, but also icons, panel paintings, altarpieces or reliquaries) and the miracles performed by them, usually as Mary’s reaction to a prayer (or an insult) to one of Her images.

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Original Essays ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Middle Ages

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy provides, twice each year, a collection of the best current work in the field of ancient philosophy. Each volume features original essays that contribute to an understanding of a wide range of themes and problems in all periods of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, from the beginnings to the threshold of the Middle Ages. From its first volume in 1983, OSAP has been a highly influential venue for work in the field, and has often featured essays of substantial length as well as critical essays on books of distinctive importance. Volume LIII contains: an article on several of Zeno of Elea’s paradoxes and the nihilist interpretation of Eudemus of Rhodes; an article on the coherence of Thrasymachus’ challenge in Plato’s Republic book 1; another on Plato’s treatment of perceptual content in the Theaetetus and the Phaedo; an article on why Aristotle thinks that hypotheses are material causes of conclusions, and another on why he denies shame is a virtue; and a book review of a new edition of a work possibly by Apuleius and Middle Platonist political philosophy.

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 55

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Loss Of Control ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Original Essays ◽  
Constant Change ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Metaphysical Principle

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy provides, twice each year, a collection of the best current work in the field of ancient philosophy. Each volume features original essays that contribute to an understanding of a wide range of themes and problems in all periods of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, from the beginnings to the threshold of the Middle Ages. From its first volume in 1983, OSAP has been a highly influential venue for work in the field, and has often featured essays of substantial length as well as critical essays on books of distinctive importance. Volume LV contains: a methodological examination on how the evidence for Presocratic thought is shaped through its reception by later thinkers, using discussions of a world soul as a case study; an article on Plato’s conception of flux and the way in which sensible particulars maintain a kind of continuity while undergoing constant change; a discussion of J. L. Austin’s unpublished lecture notes on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and his treatment of loss of control (akrasia); an article on the Stoics’ theory of time and in particular Chrysippus’ conception of the present and of events; and two articles on Plotinus, one that identifies a distinct argument to show that there is a single, ultimate metaphysical principle; and a review essay discussing E. K. Emilsson’s recent book, Plotinus.

A Crooked Mirror for Princes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavlína Rychterová
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Bourgeois Culture ◽  
Mirrors For Princes

This chapter examines the growing importance of the vernacular languages during the later Middle Ages in shaping the form, content, and audiences of political discourse. It presents a famously wicked king of the late Middle Ages, Wenceslas IV (1361–1419), as a case study and traces the origins of his bad reputation to a group of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century writings. These have often been dismissed as fictions or studied solely as literature, but in fact they represent new modes of articulating good and bad kingship. The chapter shows that, in the context of an increasingly literate bourgeois culture, especially in university cities, these vernacular works transformed Latin theological approaches to monarchy, while rendering mirrors for princes and related literatures accessible to an unprecedented audience.

The medieval church of Montrose: a place ‘of much antiquity and abundantly populous’

2014 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catriona Anna Gray
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Date ◽  
Plausible Candidate ◽  
External Evidence ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Local Tradition ◽  
The Church

Montrose was one of Scotland's earliest royal burghs, but historians have largely overlooked its parish kirk. A number of fourteenth and fifteenth-century sources indicate that the church of Montrose was an important ecclesiastical centre from an early date. Dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, by the later middle ages it was a place of pilgrimage linked in local tradition with the cult of Saint Boniface of Rosemarkie. This connection with Boniface appears to have been of long standing, and it is argued that the church of Montrose is a plausible candidate for the lost Egglespether, the ‘church of Peter’, associated with the priory of Restenneth. External evidence from England and Iceland appears to identify Montrose as the seat of a bishop, raising the possibility that it may also have been an ultimately unsuccessful rival for Brechin as the episcopal centre for Angus and the Mearns.

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