Creative Bilingualism in Late-Medieval Welsh Poetry

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-120
Author(s):  
Llewelyn Hopwood
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
The Social ◽  
Linguistic Integration ◽  
Do So

This article considers why bilingual poets from medieval Wales exploited their various languages as avenues of creativity. It discusses five poems from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that synthesize Welsh and either English or Latin to varying degrees. The article untangles the conscious and often complex linguistic integration, using the term 'extralinguistic bilingualism' to do so with two exclusively English poems that nonetheless use Welsh strict metre and 'orthography'. One of these is a series of once anonymous English englynion recently found to be the work of prolific poet Tudur Aled, who flourished in the last quarter of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the sixteenth century. By examining the poems in tandem and contextualizing their apparent isolation within Wales's contemporary linguistic landscape and within the phenomena of multilingual poetry, Marian lyrics and 'aureate' diction, the impetus behind their curious hybridity is queried. It is argued that comedy, piety and literary craft are key considerations, and that all are connected by an overarching concern for relative linguistic prestige: the perceived divergence between the social and literary status of each language.

Public and Private: The Late Medieval Wall Paintings of Haddon Hall Chapel, Derbyshire

2006 ◽  
Vol 86 ◽  
pp. 179-205
Author(s):  
Mellie Naydenova
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Wall Paintings ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Public Statement ◽  
The Public ◽  
Parish Church ◽  
Public Persona ◽  
Private Devotion

This paper focuses on the mural scheme executed in Haddon Hall Chapel shortly after 1427 for Sir Richard Vernon. It argues that at that time the chapel was also being used as a parish church, and that the paintings were therefore both an expression of private devotion and a public statement. This is reflected in their subject matter, which combines themes associated with popular beliefs, the public persona of the Hall's owner and the Vernon family's personal devotions. The remarkable inventiveness and complexity of the iconography is matched by the exceptionally sophisticated style of the paintings. Attention is also given to part of the decoration previously thought to be contemporary with this fifteenth-century scheme but for which an early sixteenth-century date is now proposed on the basis of stylistic and other evidence.

A Neglected Eucharistic Controversy: The Afterlife of John Wyclif's Eucharistic Thought in Bohemia in the Early Fifteenth Century

2015 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcela K. Perett
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Real Presence ◽  
The Subject ◽  
John Wyclif ◽  
Full Century

The renewed interest in John Wyclif (d. 1384) has brought this late medieval figure back into the spotlight of historians, giving rise to numerous studies evaluating his thought and its implications in the context of late fourteenth century England. However, it is not possible fully to appreciate Wyclif's importance in late medieval European culture without understanding the legacy of his ideas on the continent. According to the accepted narrative, John Wyclif's thought was mediated to the continent through the scholarly contacts between the universities in Oxford and in Prague, and re-emerged in the Latin writings of Jan Hus. This article argues that John Wyclif's thought, especially his critique of the church's doctrine of transubstantiation, found a larger audience among the rural clerics and laity in Bohemia, whom it reached through Peter Payne, who simplified and disseminated the works of the Oxford master. Wyclif's critique of transubstantiation sparked a nationwide debate about the nature of the Eucharist, generating numerous treatises, both in Latin and in the vernacular, on the subject of Christ's presence in the sacrament of the mass. This debate anticipated, a full century earlier, the famous debate between Luther and Zwingli and the Eucharistic debates of the sixteenth century Reformation more generally. The proliferation of vernacular Eucharistic tractates in Bohemia shows that Wyclif's critique of transubstantiation could be answered in a number of different ways that included both real presence (however defined) and figurative theologies—a fact, which, in turn, explains the doctrinal diversity among the Lollards in England.

scholarly journals Evidence for the Continued Use of Medieval Medical Prescriptions in the Sixteenth Century: A Fifteenth-Century Remedy Book and its Later Owner

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Connolly
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Finding Aids ◽  
Continued Use ◽  
The Difference ◽  
User Friendly

This article examines a fifteenth-century remedy book, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson c. 299, and describes its collection of 314 medieval medical prescriptions. The recipes are organised broadly from head to toe, and often several remedies are offered for the same complaint. Some individual recipes are transcribed with modern English translations. The few non-recipe texts are also noted. The difference between a remedy book and a leechbook is explained, and this manuscript is situated in relation to other known examples of late medieval medical anthologies. The particular feature that distinguishes Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson c. 299 from other similar volumes is the evidence that it continued to be used during the sixteenth century. This usage was of two kinds. Firstly, the London lawyer who owned it not only inscribed his name but annotated the original recipe collection in various ways, providing finding-aids that made it much more user-friendly. Secondly, he, and other members of his family, added another forty-three recipes to the original collection (some examples of these are also transcribed). These two layers of engagement with the manuscript are interrogated in detail in order to reveal what ailments may have troubled this family most, and to judge how much faith they placed in the old remedies contained in this old book. It is argued that the knowledge preserved in medieval books enjoyed a longevity that extended beyond the period of the manuscript book, and that manuscripts were read and valued long after the advent of printing.

The Indexical Self

Last Words ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Sebastian Sobecki
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Social Character ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Medieval Text ◽  
Late Medieval England

No medieval text was designed to be read hundreds of years later by an audience unfamiliar with its language, situation, and author. By ascribing to these texts intentional anonymity, we romanticize them and misjudge the social character of their authors. Instead, most medieval poems and manuscripts presuppose familiarity with their authorial or scribal maker. Last Words: The Public Self and the Social Author in Late Medieval England attempts to recover this familiarity and understand the literary motivation behind some of the most important fifteenth-century texts and authors. Last Words captures the public selves of such social authors when they attempt to extract themselves from the context of a lived life.

Wangara, Akan and Portuguese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. I. The matter of Bitu

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivor Wilks
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The World ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Late Fifteenth

In late medieval and early modern times West Africa was one of the principal suppliers of gold to the world bullion market. In this context the Matter of Bitu is one of much importance. Bitu lay on the frontiers of the Malian world and was one of its most flourishing gold marts. So much is clear from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writings, both African and European. A review of this body of evidence indicates that the gold trade at Bitu was controlled by the Wangara, who played a central role in organizing trade between the Akan goldfields and the towns of the Western Sudan. It is shown that Bitu cannot be other than Bighu (Begho, Bew, etc.), the abandoned Wangara town lying on the northwestern fringes of the Akan forest country, which is known (from excavation) to have flourished in the relevant period. In the late fifteenth century the Portuguese established posts on the southern shores of the Akan country, so challenging the monopolistic position which the Wangara had hitherto enjoyed in the gold trade. The Portuguese sent envoys to Mali, presumably to negotiate trade agreements. The bid was apparently unsuccessful. The struggle for the Akan trade in the sixteenth century between Portuguese and Malian interests will be treated in the second part of this paper.

Kinship Ties and Young Patricians in Fifteenth-Century Venice

1985 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Chojnacki
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Renaissance Italy ◽  
Social Units ◽  
Kinship Ties

Regimes and families: historians have recently enriched our understanding of the patrician regimes of late-medieval and Renaissance Italy by analyzing relations among their component social units. This essay will contribute to this literature by throwing some light on the social structure and practices of the ruling class of fifteenth-century Venice. For a long time, but with quickening rhythm in the last decade or so, historians of Venice have been charting various currents that ran through the Venetian patriciate. On the whole, though, they have preferred to concentrate on political and economic groupings, less on the family and kinship patterns that fascinate investigators of other cities, notably Florence.

scholarly journals A Curious Harpour in Helle : An Edition of the Commentary on the Orpheus Metre of De consolatione philosophiae in Manuscript Thott 304 2º

2015 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aapo Takala
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
English Verse ◽  
Master's Thesis ◽  
Late Medieval England

Aapo Takala: A Curious Harpour in Helle. An Edition of the Commentary on the Orpheus Metre of De consolatione philosophiae in Manuscript Thott 304 2º   The article presents an edition of the commentary on the Orpheus Metre in Ms. Thott 304 2º. The manuscript is located at the Royal Library in Copenhagen and it contains an English verse translation of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae and an accompanying prose commentary. The manuscript, the translation, and the commentary are rare examples of literary culture in late medieval England. The manuscript can be dated to the early fifteenth century and it probably is the copy made specifically for the patron of the translation, the noblewoman Elizabeth Berkeley. In the sixteenth century it was used as exemplar for a printed edition of the translation: the printer’s markings can still be seen in the manuscript. The commentary is the most comprehensive medieval English commentary on De consolatione philosophiae, and only extant in this manuscript and in the sixteenth-century printed edition.   The manuscript has previously been studied in a handful of articles and one Master’s thesis. Thus far, there has been no extensive research on the commentary. In addition to the edition, the article includes a discussion of the manuscript’s background and an overview of previous research on it.  

scholarly journals Mac Giolla Phádraig Clerics 1394-1534 AD: Part I

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 42-65
Author(s):  
Mike Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Century Science

Mac Giolla Phádraig Clerics 1394-1534 AD is a three-part series, which provides an account of all known individual Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics in the late medieval era and details their temporalities, occupations, familial associations, and broader networks. The ultimate goal of the series is the full contextualisation of all available historical records relating to Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics alongside the genealogical record that can be extracted by twenty-first century science – that being the science of Y-DNA. The Papal Registers, in particular, record numerous occurrences of Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics, predominantly in the dioceses of Cill Dalua (Killaloe) and Osraí (Ossory), from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth century. Yet, no small intrigue surrounds their emergence. Part I of Mac Giolla Phádraig Clerics 1394-1534 AD examines the context surrounding the earliest appointments of Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics, which is in neither Cill Dalua nor Osraí but the diocese of Luimneach (Limerick). Once that context is understood, a pattern of associations emerges. A ‘coincidental’ twenty-first century surname match from the Fitzpatrick Y-DNA project leads to a review of the relationship between the FitzMaurice of Ciarraí (Kerry) clerics and Jordan Purcell, Bishop of Cork and Cloyne (1429-1472). The ‘coincidence’ then leads to an examination of a close Y-DNA match between men of the surnames Purcell and Hennessey. That match, coupled with the understanding that Nicholas Ó hAonghusa (O’Hennessey), elected Bishop of Lismore and Waterford (1480-1483) but with opposition, is considered a member of Purcell’s household, transforms the ‘coincidence’ into a curiosity. Part I morphs into a conversation, likely uncomfortable for some, relating to clerical concubinage, illegitimacy, and the ‘lubricity’ of the prioress and her nuns at the Augustinian nunnery of St Catherine's O’Conyll. The nunnery was located at Mainistir na gCailleach Dubh (Monasternagalliaghduff), which lay just a stone’s throw from where Bishop Jordan Purcell and Matthew Mac Giolla Phádraig, the first Mac Giolla Phádraig cleric recorded in the Papal Registers, emerged. Part I makes no judgments and draws no firm conclusions but prepares the reader for Part II by ending with some questions. Do the Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics of Osraí, who rose to prominence in the late-fifteenth century, have their origins in Deasmhumhain (Desmond)? Could the paternal lineages of Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics be, at least from the mid-fourteenth century, with the house of the Geraldine FitzMaurice clerics of Ciarraí? And, could some of the modern-day descendants of the Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics be those Costigans, FitzGeralds, and Fitzpatricks who are found under haplotype R-A1488?

The One Who Comes After Me

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 639-708 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Alan Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
John 1 ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Temporal Parameters ◽  
The Past ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
Vatican City ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Studies of the past two decades have shown that late medieval and Renaissance composers participated in a culture of symbolic representation by inscribing Christian figures and concepts into musical design. One figure who has been overlooked in this line of scholarship is John the Baptist, the precursor of Christ. This essay outlines the Baptist's historical impact on the conception of Christian temporality and proceeds to demonstrate some distinct experiments in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century music for John that express his predecessory character through emblematic manipulations of temporal parameters. By the sixteenth century, several inscriptions found in Vatican manuscripts reveal that the Baptist was associated with a particular musical craft that controls masterfully the unfolding of time: the art of canon. Drawing heavily on Scripture (especially John 1:15, 27, 30) to articulate the compositional conceits, the rubrics likened the leader (dux) and follower (comes) of a canon to the relationship between John (the forerunner saint) and Jesus. The analogy intensified around the papal chapel choirbook Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Cappella Sistina 38.

The Theatrical Figures in Tyrnau's Illustrated Book of Customs

1988 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-96
Author(s):  
Ahuva Belkin
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Do So ◽  
Illustrated Book

The late fifteenth century and the whole of the sixteenth century were dark years for the Jewish people, and the Jews of Italy did not escape the grim fate of their brothers. Old decrees were resuscitated and reinforced by a succession of newly-passed harsh measures. Expulsion, forced wearing of the humiliating Jewish badge, censorship of books, the burning of the Talmud and pogroms inspired and led by zealous Christians, were daily occurrences. It is during those tragic years that an astonishing phenomenon emerges on the Italian scene: Jews engage in the performing arts with passion and play an important role in the development of spectacles and shows. They do so in defiance of internal opposition; the fierce objection of Rabbis, ever since Talmudic times, to any form of theatrical entertainment, had never abated.

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