The Miroir des dames in Fifteenth-Century England

The Library ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-497
Author(s):  
J R Mattison
Keyword(s):  
French Text ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Henry Vii ◽  
French Texts

Abstract This article outlines the circulation and readership of a continental French text called the Miroir des dames in England during the fifteenth century. Three surviving manuscripts can be connected with England: one belonged to the Duke of Bedford, another to Henry VII, and a third was created in England and copied from Bedford's manuscript. Documentary evidence indicates that at least two further manuscripts of the Miroir circulated in England. These manuscripts and references demonstrate the continued reading and copying of French texts in England among a select circle of bibliophiles.

Edmund Dudley: Minister of Henry VII

1932 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 133-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. M. Brodie
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Critical Time ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Henry Vii ◽  
The Times ◽  
Late Fifteenth

To the historian of the late fifteenth century interest is centred on the transitional character of the times. Throughout Europe medieval thought and institutions were decaying. The dream of Christendom was fading, and the development of non-moral national states was quickened by the policy of despotic rulers in many countries. Medieval “liberties“ appeared only as bars in the path of progress, and in most countries fell before the new centralized administrations. Economic changes spread more rapidly and defeated that apparent inertia which had afflicted the countryside during the rule of the feudal baron. New conditions meant an age of distress and turbulence, and new opportunities meant the rise of strong, vigorous personalities who were left without authoritative guidance to work out their country's salvation. Of such were Henry VII and his council of the “ablest men that were to be found”. They were typical examples of the age; men brought up with medieval traditions, using medieval forms, yet treating many problems in an independent spirit, cautiously feeling their way to a development that is only clear at the close of the sixteenth century when the modern state had been almost created. Of the importance of this formative period there can be no doubt, but not much can be learnt about the men who guided England at this very critical time, for they have left only scattered and often but fragmentary records behind them. For the sake of the light that the Tree of Commonwealth throws on the views that Edmund Dudley must have shared with his colleagues, as well as for its own original and lively expression of opinion on many political and social questions, the work and its author seem to deserve more serious consideration than they have yet received.

The Date and Significance of the Imbangala Invasion of Angola

1965 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Birmingham
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
African History ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Late Fifteenth

The study of Central African history is still in its infancy. Valuable indications can, however, be obtained by combining the study of oral traditions with that of Portuguese documentary evidence for events taking place near the coasts. It has long been known, for instance, that the overthrow of the powerful Songye rulers of the Luba country indirectly caused long-distance migrations, one of which, that of the Imbangala, came into contact with the Portuguese in Angola. Previous analyses of this migration have suggested that it culminated in the early seventeenth century. In this paper an attempt has been made to show that the Imbangala arrived in Angola much earlier, probably by the mid sixteenth century and certainly before 1575. This date indicates that the Luba invasion of Lunda, which was the direct cause of the migration, probably took place in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Finally, it has been tentatively suggested that the overthrow of Songye rule and the establishment of a new, expansionist Luba empire might have taken place as much as a century earlier, from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century.

Towards a Reassessment of the Dating and the Geographical Origins of the Luso-African Ivories, Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries

2007 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 189-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Mark
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West African ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
Coherent Body

Fifty years ago, a group of 100 ivory carvings from West Africa was first identified by the English scholar William Fagg as constituting a coherent body of work. In making this important identification, Fagg proposed the descriptive label “Afro-Portuguese ivories.” Then, as now, the provenance and dating of these carved spoons, chalices (now recognized as salt cellars), horns, and small boxes posed a challenge to art historians. Fagg proposed three possible geographical origins: Sierra Leone, the Congo coast (Angola, ex-Zaïre), and the Yoruba-inhabited area of the old Slave Coast. Although Fagg was initially inclined on stylistic grounds to accept the Yoruba hypothesis, historical documents soon made it clear that the ivories—or at least many of them—were associated with Portuguese commerce in Sierra Leone. This trade developed in the final decades of the fifteenth century.Today approximately 150 works have been identified by scholars as belonging to the “corpus” of carved ivories from West Africa. Although the sobriquet “Afro-Portuguese” remains the most common appellation, these pieces should more appropriately be referred to as Luso-African ivories. The latter term more accurately reflects the objects' creation by West African sculptors who were working within Africa. The works, although hybrid in inspiration, are far more African than they are Portuguese. In addition, no documentary evidence exists to indicate that any of the ivories were carved by African artists living in Portugal. West African artists created the sculptures within the context of their own cultures.

scholarly journals Behind the Early Modern English Translation of The Laws of Oléron: Determining the Underlying French Text

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (6) ◽  
pp. 115-137
Author(s):  
Kinga Lis
Keyword(s):  
French Text ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
French Texts

The objective of this paper is to analyse the sixteenth-century French texts which might lie behind an Early Modern English translation of a sea-code known as the Laws of Oléron, in an attempt to determine which of them served as the actual basis for the rendition. The original code has been dated back to the thirteenth century, with the earliest extant copies coming from the fourteenth century, at which point it was already known and used in England. It was not, however, before the sixteenth century that a translation was commissioned and appeared in a book called The Rutter of the Sea. The publication in question went through multiple editions and the views concerning the French text that served as the basis for the rendition diverge greatly. This paper analyses the various proposed theories and juxtaposes the actual French texts with each other and the Early Modern English translation.

scholarly journals Giudizi universali. Reti devozionali e tensioni escatologiche attorno ai gesuati milanesi

2020 ◽  
pp. 189-225
Author(s):  
Edoardo Rossetti
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Urban Area ◽  
Local Network ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
The Creation

This essay provides an outline of the familial, social, and cultural network of the Milanese Jesuati between the end of the fifteenth century and the first decades of the sixteenth century. Particular attention is given to their interactions with Cardinal Bernardino López de Carvajal, one of the protagonists of the schismatic Council of Pisa-Milan (1510-1512). Starting from the creation of their settlement of San Girolamo, new documentary evidence is employed to show how the surrounding urban area and the physical buildings that should have been erected there actually mirrored the local network of both the Jesuati and Carvajal. The patronage of the cardinal in San Girolamo and the creation of a Last Judgement fresco are then discussed and connected to the eschatological tensions stirring Milan at the time.

Visible Lives: Black Gondoliers and Other Black Africans in Renaissance Venice*

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 412-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Predominantly White ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
Black Africans ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Medieval Italy ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
Sub Saharan

This article contributes to the study of the early sub-Saharan African diaspora in Europe by analyzing both visual and documentary evidence relating to black gondoliers in Renaissance Venice. Gondolas and gondoliers were iconic features in fifteenth-century Venice, yet most gondoliers were not Venetian. Although black Africans were highly visible in a predominantly white society, naming practices and linguistic usages rendered them virtually invisible in the documentary sources. It is now possible not only to investigate representations of black gondoliers in paintings, but also to identify black gondoliers in the lists of gondoliers’ associations and in criminal records. Slavery was an accepted institution in late medieval Italy, and nearly all black Africans arrived in Venice as slaves, yet usually ended their lives free. Being a gondolier gave a few black Africans a niche occupation that allowed them to manage their transition to freedom, and to integrate successfully into Venetian society.

William Brown's Hospital at Stamford: A Note on its Early History and the Date of the Buildings

1966 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-286
Author(s):  
P. A. Newton
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will ◽  
Henry Vii ◽  
The Town

The documentary evidence relating to the foundation and early history of the almshouse founded by William Brown at Stamford is somewhat extensive and contradictory. The project was in hand towards the end of Edward IV's reign: an undated petition for letters patent for licence to establish the almshouse is extant, wherein reference is made to its chapel as being ‘lately built’. There is no record of this petition having been presented. However, on 27 January 1485 William Brown was authorized by letters patent to found and endow the almshouse. Here again the chapel and other houses and buildings are referred to as ‘newly built’. William Brown and his wife Margaret both died in 1489. The management of the hospital then passed to Thomas Stokke, brother of Margaret Brown. He obtained fresh letters patent from Henry VII on 28th November 1493. The text of these letters patent contradicts the licence of 1485 as it states: ‘Whereas William Browne of Staunford, county Lincoln, one of the Staple of Calais, had proposed to build a chapel and houses in the town of Staunford for divers chaplains and poor of both sexes for an almshouse, but was prevented by death, licence for Thomas Stokke, clerk, the brother of Dame Margaret Browne, relict of the said William Browne and executrix of the will of the said William, to found an almshouse at Staunford aforesaid, (etc.)’. The chapel was consecrated on 22nd December 1494 and Thomas Stokke issued the Statutes for the management of the hospital on 9th October 1495.

Some English medieval alabaster carvings in Italy

1955 ◽  
Vol 35 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 182-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. L. Hildburgh
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Public Museums ◽  
Private Collections

There are, or at least are known formerly to have been, in Italy a somewhat surprising number of alabaster carvings produced in medieval England, some of them in their original gaily-painted frameworks, in churches or in museums; others, detached from their initial wooden supports and now more or less isolated, preserved in public museums or in private collections. How and when these carvings came to be in Italy would seem to have remained as yet almost uninvestigated, although examination of contemporary archives concerned with Italian churches in which English alabasters exist, or from which it is known that they have been removed, might well bring to light information of signal importance to historians of the once vigorous English alabaster industry. Despite the abundance of surviving English alabaster carvings—they may well number some thousands—it is to only a minute percentage of them that we are able to assign with reasonable certainty a date more than broadly approximate; or, at least for those carved after about 1400, with more than moderate assurance the locality responsible for their production. Although records there are, some foreign but for the most part English, of matters connected with the English alabaster industry, co-ordination between individual carvings and the documentary evidence is almost completely lacking. While there is strong probability that some of the English alabasters in Italy reached there as refugees expelled from England, or smuggled out, because of the religious disturbances resulting from the English Reformation, it would appear correspondingly probable that many of them passed to Italy in the ordinary course of trade, as seems indeed to have been the case with the St. Peter and St. Paul, and their two accompanying alabaster carvings, cited infra. Most of the English alabasters still in Italy or recorded as having come from there are presumably attributable to the fifteenth century. I think it by no means unlikely that examination of Italian ecclesiastical records could in at least some cases inform us where those alabasters had been purchased, when and whence they were shipped, by or through whom they were presented, and perhaps of other matters of interest in connexion with the English alabaster industry.

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