King Arthur’s Charter: A Thirteenth-Century French Satire Against Bretons

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-37
Author(s):  
Christopher Berard
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Old French ◽  
The Other ◽  
Diplomatic Edition

AbstractOn the verso of the last leaf of a twelfth-century manuscript containing the poetry of Hilarius, a student of Abelard, appears a faux charter purporting to have been issued by Arthur, king of the Britons, in the hundredth year of his immortality. In the act, Arthur thanks the descendants of his British subjects for their fidelity and grants them an exclusive franchise to fish in secret rivulets. The privilege contains two prohibitions: one prohibiting Britons from wearing shoes and the other prohibiting them from owning cats. This article provides a diplomatic edition, English translation and analysis of King Arthur’s Charter. It identifies the strange stipulations of the charter as tropes of anti-Breton satire, attested also in the Privilège aux Bretons (c. 1240), an Old French song that mocks the customs and occupations of impoverished Breton immigrants to thirteenth-century France.

Bastard Feudalism and the Framing of Thirteenth-Century England

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Coss
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

In the introduction to his great work of 2005, Framing the Early Middle Ages, Chris Wickham urged not only the necessity of carefully framing our studies at the outset but also the importance of closely defining the words and concepts that we employ, the avoidance ‘cultural sollipsism’ wherever possible and the need to pay particular attention to continuities and discontinuities. Chris has, of course, followed these precepts on a vast scale. My aim in this chapter is a modest one. I aim to review the framing of thirteenth-century England in terms of two only of Chris’s themes: the aristocracy and the state—and even then primarily in terms of the relationship between the two. By the thirteenth century I mean a long thirteenth century stretching from the period of the Angevin reforms of the later twelfth century on the one hand to the early to mid-fourteenth on the other; the reasons for taking this span will, I hope, become clearer during the course of the chapter, but few would doubt that it has a validity.

Byzantine Scyphate Bronze coinage in Greece

1961 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 42-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. M. Metcalf
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The Other ◽  
Purchasing Power ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Market Place ◽  
Fourth Crusade ◽  
Unusual Form

The Byzantine coinage in the twelfth century was of three kinds. There were gold nomismata, with a purchasing power which must have been a good deal greater than that of a present-day five-pound note, and also nomismata of ‘pale gold’—gold alloyed with silver—of lower value; at the other extreme there were bronze coins, smaller than a modern farthing, which were the coinage of the market-place; intermediate, but still of low value, there were coins about the size of a halfpenny, normally made of copper lightly washed with silver. The silvered bronze and the gold were not flat, as are most coins, but saucer-shaped. The reason for their unusual form is not known. Numismatists describe them as scyphate, and refer to the middle denomination in the later Byzantine system of coinage as Scyphate Bronze, to distinguish it from the petty bronze coinage. Scyphate Bronze was first struck under Alexius I (1081–1118). Substantive issues were made by John II (1118–43), and such coinage became extremely plentiful under Manuel I (1143–80) and his successors Isaac II (1185–95) and Alexius III (1195–1203). After the capture of Constantinople in the course of the Fourth Crusade, the successor-states to the Byzantine Empire at Nicaea, Salonica, and in Epirus continued to issue scyphate bronze coinage, although in much smaller quantities, until after the middle of the thirteenth century.

The Two Jurisdictions: Theological and Legal Justifications of Church Property in the Thirteenth Century

1987 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 75-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Coercive Force ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Universal Jurisdiction ◽  
The Other ◽  
The One

With the revival of Roman and the development of canon law in the twelfth century a doctrine of supreme and universal jurisdiction began to be expounded with increasing vigour by the papacy. By the thirteenth century those learned in Roman and canon law began to distinguish in more subtle ways between jurisdiction on the one hand and holy orders on the other; between the capacity to make law and to discover law; between legislating and adjudicating; and, most importantly, between ruling and owning. Jurisdiction had become one of a cluster of terms used to define aspects of rulership, authority, prelacy, and imperium. It combined the idea of rightful administration with the legitimate and authoritative use of coercive force.

What Is Boncompagno‘s ‘Newest Rhetoric’?

Traditio ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 299-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence O. Tunberg
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Public Speaking ◽  
Theoretical Foundation ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
The Other ◽  
Legal Documents

The intensification of intellectual endeavour which characterises the twelfth century is manifested in the art of rhetoric no less than in the other fields of learning. Two new types of theoretical manual represent the trends of twelfth-century rhetoric: the artes dictandi, which apply rhetorical doctrine to the composition of letters and documents, and the artes poetrie, which are primarily concerned with the writing of verse. This creative momentum continued after 1200, particularly in Italy, where dictamen underwent rapid development. There the ars notarie emerged as a semi-autonomous discipline, which was exclusively devoted to the composition of legal documents. Moreover, Italian dictatores of the thirteenth century began to turn their attention to secular speeches, creating a new offshoot of dictamen which is sometimes called the ars arengandi. Boncompagno of Signa's Rhetorica novissima (finished in 1235) is by far the most ambitious of these new treatises on public speaking. Most of the early works on oratory are collections of models, consisting either of exordia or of entire speeches. The Rhetorica novissima, however, not only provides models, but attempts to lay out a completely new theoretical foundation for the art of speech-making.

Motoori-Norinagas Contribution to a Scheme of Japanese Grammar

1950 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 474-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Yanada
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Reference Book ◽  
Vital Part ◽  
Teachers And Students

In Japan, since the eleventh or twelfth century, when teachers and students of the tanka (, a short poem) recognized the importance of the teniwoha for expressing thoughts or feelings, its study became a vital part of kagaku (, the study of verse-making). One of the earliest books on the matter, the “ Teniwoha Taigaisyô ” ( ), was said to have been written by Huziwara-Sadaie (, 1162–1241), a well-known poet of the thirteenth century. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the study of the teniwoha made further headway, the reason being that the gap between the written and spoken language which had been developing since the eleventh century had widened so much that people found it difficult to understand the tanka of earlier times. There were at this time two groups of people who studied the teniwoha for the art of verse-making; one group was concerned with the tanka, and the other with the renga (, a linked poem) which was then very popular. Although these studies of the teniwoha could be called the origin of the grammatical study of the Japanese language, they were very naive; all that the scholars did was to compile glossaries or reference book for verse-making.

The ‘Poenitentiale' of Robert of Flamborough: An Early Handbook for the Confessor in its Manuscript Tradition

Traditio ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 541-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Firth
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Manuscript Tradition

The Poenitentiale or Liber Poenitentialis of Robert of Flamborough, canon penitentiary of the Abbey of St. Victor at Paris, is a practical manual which made available to the ordinary confessor of the early thirteenth century the fruit of the speculation of canonists and theologians as well as the jurisprudence of popes — all of which had been accumulating during the latter half of the twelfth century. It applied the canon law of the time to such matters as marriage, ordination, simony, usury and feudal contracts. Such a work is of obvious interest to the scholar, and two recent articles, one by Stephan Kuttner in Traditio in 1944 and the other by Pierre Michaud-Quantin in Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale in 1959, have dealt with it at some length. Some features have come to my attention which apparently had escaped the notice of others.

The Quest of the Holy Grail: From the Old French Lancelot-Grail Cycle, trans. and ed. by Judith Shoaf. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Editions, 2018, 363 pp., 12 b/w ill.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 431-432
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Old French ◽  
The Other ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Great Care ◽  
Personal Taste ◽  
Holy Grail ◽  
The Real ◽  
Critical Editions ◽  
English Translations

Broadview Editions produces really attractive modern English translations of medieval texts, such as this one, which offers an excellent modern translation of the Quest of the Holy Grail contained in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle. Judith Shoaf is not the first, and will probably not be the last to try her hand at this complex and intriguing narrative, but she clearly stands above previous efforts by Pauline Matarasso (1969) and E. J. Burns (2010), making here available one of the greatest medieval texts for the modern classroom without some archaisms or stilted expressions in Matarasso’s version. However, it does not become clear what the real differences might be, and not having the older translation directly available, the argument that this is a better translation remains a bit obscure. On the other hand, Shoaf has taken great care to draw from the best critical editions (Albert Pauphilet, ed., 1965, H. Oskar Sommer, ed. 1913) and offers a smooth text, maybe so smooth that it removes us already a bit too much from the original. Comparing her rendering with those offered by others, Shoaf reached the conclusion that some of her decisions, which are based on an examination of some of the original manuscripts and her “personal taste” (69) should be trusted by the reader. This is somewhat speculative and maybe even biased. Here we are given only the English translation and no original text to compare with. In the footnotes, however, we find much valuable information about how she chose what version for what reason, and additional comments about sources and references.

Compositional Procedure in Machaut's ‘Hoquetus David’

1980 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 99-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Leech-Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Independent Form

Guillaume De Machaut's Hoquetus David has long been regarded as an exceptional work (for sources, see the bibliography appended to this article). Sections of hocket had been included in motets since the twelfth century (see Sanders 1974), and the technique still played an important part in the isorhythmic structure of Machaut's own motets. Surviving examples of hockets as independent compositions, however, are few. From the thirteenth century there are the seven consecutive pieces in Bamberg 115 (ed. Aubry 1908, nos. 102–8), five of them based on the same chant, together with isolated pieces in Montpellier 196 (ed. Rokseth 1935–9, no. 5) and Paris 11411 (no. 3). On the other hand, the numerous references in theoretical treatises to hocket as an independent form on a par with motets and organa suggest that hockets as separate pieces were not uncommon during the thirteenth century. For the fourteenth century, however, the picture is far less clear. Jacob of Liège, writing around 1330–40, states that modern composers use hocket only in motets, having abandoned the old duplex, contra-duplex, triplex, and quadruplex forms (ed. Bragard 1973, 89); and the fact that the Hoquetus David appears to be the only surviving example supports this.

Sexual Language and Human Conflict in Old French Fabliaux

1982 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Melhado White
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
French Literature ◽  
Old French ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Sexual Encounter ◽  
European Literature ◽  
New Form ◽  
Human Conflict ◽  
Personal Fulfillment

French literature has specialized, almost since its beginning, in accounts of eroticism and courtship. During the twelfth century, Northern romance and Southern lyric described an idealized heterosexuality and its role in honing the aristocratic individual. In the thirteenth century, a new genre appeared that dealt with sexual encounter in more materialistic terms. The new form, the fabliau, added to literary language a vocabulary of vulgarisms from the spoken vernacular. At the same time, it gave European literature a new theme: sexuality that betokens not personal fulfillment, but rivalrous interpersonal struggle.

Mon–Aslian contacts

1992 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 532-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Bauer
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Southern Thailand ◽  
Epigraphic Evidence

In an article concerning the prehistory of Kelantan G. Benjamin provided an etymology for the toponym ‘Lebir’ as deriving from the Old Mon [OM] word for ‘sea, river’, OM Iḅir, Iḅīr, modern Mon LM ḅś, SM /бi/. He went on to say that there is evidence to assume early Malay–Mon contacts; in fact, it was only by the twelfth century A.D. that a language-shift at the expense of Mon occurred in an area of what is today southern Thailand and northern Malaysia. By implication this might also mean that there were contacts between groups speaking Aslian languages and Mon.In support of his hypothesis Benjamin referred to epigraphic evidence, in particular to Mon inscriptions from southern Thailand as the earliest written in any vernacular. In fact, there are only two inscriptions, previously claimed to be written in Mon, Nś. 2, discovered in 1971, from Nakhorn Sri Thammarat [Ligor] and Nś. 3 from the same area. The Thai Government's Fine Arts Department [FAD] dates Nś. 2 to the later half of the thirteenth century A.D., at a time when Benjamin assumes the language-shift Mon > Malay/Thai in the peninsula to have already taken place. But the difficulty is not only how to reconcile the comparatively late date—based on palaeographical grounds—with Benjamin's chronological framework; the inscription is largely illegible and classed by the FAD in its most recent publication as written in ‘Old Mon and Old Burmese’. The other inscription which the FAD has interpreted as Old Mon is Nś. 3/RIS XXVII, dated by Cœdès to the sixth century. But Cœdès himself was unable to determine the language of this one line inscription, and it cannot be ascribed to Old Mon.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document