Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Peter J. A. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Politics And Government ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
King Henry Ii ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Critical Overview

The Introduction discusses how, towards the end of the twelfth century, enigmatically powerful images of laughing kings and saints began to appear in texts circulating at the English royal court. At the same time, contemporaries began to celebrate the humor, wit, and laughter of King Henry II (r.1154–89), and his martyred archbishop of Canterbury, Saint Thomas Becket (d.1170). This introductory chapter briefly explores the potential intellectual, literary, social, religious, and political roots for these images, outlining the framework of the book as a whole. Along with a critical overview of existing scholarship on medieval humor, the politics and government of Henry II, and the sainthood of Thomas Becket, the chapter indicates for the reader how a study of the relationship between laughter and power may have implications for how we understand the political and religious reforms of the twelfth century more generally.

scholarly journals (Un)faithful Subjects of (Un)faithful Rulers

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Machalski
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central European ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
The Relationship

This article focuses on the role loyalty played in the relationship between rulers and their subjects in the earliest Central European chronicles, written at the beginning of the twelfth century: Gesta principum Polonorum by Gallus Anonymous, Chronica Boemorum by Cosmas of Prague, and the twelfth-century historiographical tradition of Hungarian Royal court, which survived as a part of the fourteenth-century century compilation called The Illuminated Chronicle. In the comparative study of those works article aims to analyze how authors of those works, closely connected to the ruling elites of recently Christianized Central European polities, imagined bonds of loyalty between rulers and their subjects, by analyzing the questions about its unilateral or mutual nature, accompanying responsibilities and consequences of breaking it. Answering those questions reveals common ideological underpinnings of the concepts of loyalty used in Central European narrative sources, which present a vision of loyalty as primarily a reciprocal bond characterized by its negative content. This highlights the ideological message of consensual lordship, which coexists in those narratives next to the strong ideas about divine origins of dynastic authority, constituting important common feature in the political and cultural development of Central Europe as a historical region.

The Oxford Handbook of Spanish Politics

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Politics And Government ◽  
International Audience

This handbook examines Spanish politics and government since the transition to democracy. The volume studies the political history, institutional changes, bureaucratic decision-making, political behaviour, and foreign affairs of Spain. The introductory chapter provides an overview of the main themes of democratic Spain and discusses the end of Spanish exceptionalism. It also introduces Spanish politics to an international audience of scholars and practitioners to be considered either in its own right or as a case among others in a comparative perspective. The driving force of the handbook is to move away from complacent analysis of Spanish democracy and provide a nuanced view of some of its strengths and challenges. The introduction also explains the rationale for the volume and outlines its organization and themes.

Setting, Concepts, and Theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Félix Krawatzek
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Symbol ◽  
Conceptual Clarification ◽  
Subsequent Section ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
The Relationship

Youth can play a central role for understanding political developments during crises. The introductory chapter suggests combining the discursive and the physical mobilization of youth to understand its relevance in moments of crisis. Conceptual clarification is provided on the book’s key terms: ‘crisis’ as a category of experience which conveys contingency and possibilities; ‘youth’ as a political and cultural symbol; and ‘generation’ as combining experiences and expectations. The comparative historical frame starts from the contemporary Russian case and gradually adds variation in a controlled manner. A subsequent section develops a theory of the entwined processes of the political mobilization of young people and changing discourses about youth in moments of crisis in distinct political settings. The discussion of the theoretical processes leads to the formulation of the three guiding hypotheses on the symbolic and physical mobilization of youth and the relationship between youth and society at large.

Laughter and Power in the Twelfth Century

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. A. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Spiritual Power ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
Spiritual Transcendence ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Charismatic Authority ◽  
Popular Images ◽  
King Henry Ii

Towards the end of the twelfth century, powerful images of laughing kings and saints began to appear in texts circulating at the English royal court. At the same time, contemporaries began celebrating the wit, humour, and laughter of King Henry II (r.1154-89) and his martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, Saint Thomas Becket (d.1170). Taking a broad genealogical approach, Laughter and Power in the Twelfth Century traces the emergence of this powerful laughter through an immersive study of medieval intellectual, literary, social, religious, and political debates. Focusing on a cultural renaissance in England, the book situates laughter at the heart of the defining transformations of the second half of the 1100s. With an expansive survey of theological and literary texts, bringing a range of unedited manuscript material to light in the process, the book exposes how twelfth-century writers came to connect laughter with spiritual transcendence and justice, and how this connection gave humour a unique political and spiritual power in both text and action. Ultimately, the book argues that England’s popular images of laughing kings and saints effectively reinstated a sublime charismatic authority, something truly rebellious at a moment in history when bureaucracy and codification were first coming to dominate European political life.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Diego Muro ◽  
Ignacio Lago
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Politics And Government ◽  
International Audience

This handbook examines Spanish politics and government since the transition to democracy. The volume studies the political history, institutional changes, bureaucratic decision-making, political behaviour, and foreign affairs of Spain. The introductory chapter provides an overview of the main themes of democratic Spain and discusses the end of Spanish exceptionalism. It also introduces Spanish politics to an international audience of scholars and practitioners to be considered either in its own right or as a case among others in a comparative perspective. The driving force of the handbook is to move away from complacent analysis of Spanish democracy and provide a nuanced view of some of its strengths and challenges. The introduction also explains the rationale for the volume and outlines its organization and themes.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann Chapoutot
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sacred Place ◽  
The Past ◽  
Place Of Origin ◽  
Totalitarian Regimes ◽  
The Relationship

This introductory chapter examines the scope of the relationship between National Socialism and antiquity, a topic that historians appear to neglect despite the fact that there have been precedents as to the political use of history—appealing to the past to justify political power in the present—which is a frequent phenomenon, all the more so in totalitarian regimes that seek to anchor their revolutionary political intentions in the depths of historical precedent. The possibilities afforded by the past appear, moreover, to have held great significance for National Socialism. Nazi Germany had coveted and revered the past as a sacred place of origin.

Introduction: Aesthetics of Gentrification

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Lindner ◽  
Gerard F. Sandoval
Keyword(s):  
Urban Redevelopment ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Struggles ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
Urban Transformations ◽  
Urban Contexts ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Relationship

This book examines the relationship between aesthetics and gentrification in contemporary cities from multiple, comparative, global, and transnational perspectives. In the introductory chapter, we argue that the aesthetics of gentrification produce sites of spectacular excess where the political economic forces driving urban redevelopment are empowered to remake space according to the needs of global capital. Through an analysis of the development of London’s Greenwich Peninsula, we suggest that these forms of neoliberal, consumer-oriented aesthetics create seductive spaces and instil the desires needed to accelerate exclusionary urban transformations. The introductory chapter also considers the ways in which the aesthetics of gentrification now constitute a globalized, transnational phenomenon involving struggles for power in neoliberal urban contexts. We conclude that aesthetics increasingly function as a battleground where these urban spatial power struggles are played out through displacement, exclusion, and division.

Introduction

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Kamen
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Naturalized Citizens ◽  
Military Life ◽  
The One ◽  
Full Citizen ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, namely to provide a thick description of Athenian status, ultimately broaching larger questions about the relationship between Athenian citizenship and civic ideology. “Civic ideology” here refers to the conception that all Athenian citizens—and only Athenian citizens—were autochthonous (that is, descended from ancestors “born from the earth” of Attica) and engaged in the political and military life of the city. This survey of statuses will demonstrate, among other things, that Athenian democracy was both more closed and more open than civic ideology might lead us to think: on the one hand, only some citizen males exercised full citizen rights; on the other, even noncitizens and naturalized citizens were, to varying degrees, partial shareholders in the Athenian polis.

scholarly journals A DINAMIZAÇÃO POLÍTICO-RELIGIOSA DA LÍNGUA PORTUGUESA NA IDADE MÉDIA * THE POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS ENHANCEMENT OF THE PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 255
Author(s):  
António Martins Gomes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Political ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
The Common ◽  
Old Portuguese ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages

Resumo:Na Idade Média, a corte, necessitada de concentrar o poder, procura uma coesão linguística. Assim, o português arcaico torna-se um veículo de propaganda régia, em detrimento do latim, uma língua menos acessível ao leitor vulgar. Normas e disposições legislativas são emanadas em vernáculo para serem melhor entendidas por todos os membros do reino.Por sua vez, o teocentrismo, que legitima a relação medieval entre o trono e o altar, pode ser encontrado nos primórdios da prosa literária portuguesa. Pela sua finalidade parenética, entendida à luz da função civilizadora da Igreja, várias narrativas apologéticas são vertidas para o vernáculo para persuadirem o maior número de leitores a edificarem-se em termos éticos e morais.Palavras-chave: vernáculo, trono e altar, legislação, scriptorium, parénese.  Abstract:In the Middle Ages, the Royal Court, in need to concentrate power, seeks out a linguistic cohesion. Thus, Old Portuguese becomes a means of royal propaganda, at the expense of Latin, a less accessible language to the common reader. Rules and laws are issued in vernacular, in order to be better understood by all members of the realm.In turn, theocentrism, by legitimizing the relationship between the throne and the altar, can be found in early Portuguese literary prose. For its paraenetical purpose, in the light of the Church’s civilizing role, several apologetic narratives are translated into vernacular, in order to persuade many readers to have an ethical and moral life.Keywords: vernacular, throne and altar, legislation, scriptorium, paraenesis. 

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lily Geismer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Urban History ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Route 128 ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Relationship

This introductory chapter describes the myth of Massachusetts exceptionalism in the context of suburban liberalism, and provides a brief overview of Massachusetts politics in general, particularly what it means to be a “Massachusetts liberal.” In particular, the chapter states that the suburban liberals in the Route 128 area have stood at the intersection of the political, economic, and spatial reorganizations that occurred in the United States since 1945, but they have been largely left out of the traditional frameworks of twentieth-century political and urban history. Yet the chapter argues that liberal activism in the Route 128 area illuminates several key factors about the nature of suburban politics and the relationship between national developments and the particularities of political patterns in Massachusetts.

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