The Musical Training of the Pearl Poet

PMLA ◽  
1931 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-181
Author(s):  
Coolidge Otis Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Pearl Poet ◽  
Sir Gawain ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
Knight's Tale ◽  
The Church

In the fourteenth century all good Englishmen were singers. How large a part music played in the life of the time is apparent in Chaucer, who, as Burney remarks, ‘never loses an opportunity of describing or alluding to its general use, and of bestowing it as an accomplishment upon the pilgrims, heroes, and heroines of his several poems.’ The carved figures in the minstrels' gallery at Exeter Cathedral and the Angel Choir of Lincoln are lasting memorials to the universal popularity of music in that day. While the cleric devoted himself to the music that lent beauty to the services of the church, the layman delighted in the music of the banquet, the battle, and the chase. Edward III. himself kept a band of household minstrels that included ‘trompeters, cytelers, pypers, tabrete, mabrers, clarions, fedelers, wayghtes.’ Le Art de Venerie, written by Twici, huntsman to Edward II., reveals a highly developed hunting music, and the martial music is mentioned by Chaucer in the Knight's Tale (A. 2511–12):Pypes, trompes, nakers, clariounes,That in the bataille blowen blody sounes.Born into such a world as this, the poet of Pearl and Sir Gawain bore the deep impress of the popular taste. His own taste was of wide compass, and included an appreciation of instrumental and vocal, secular and ecclesiastical music.

Ethan Campbell, The Gawain-Poet and Fourteenth-Century English Anti-Clerical Tradition. Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications / Western Michigan University, 2018, pp. 238.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 427-429
Author(s):  
Jane Beal
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Dual Language ◽  
Pearl Poet ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Sir Gawain ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Western Michigan University ◽  
Facsimile Edition ◽  
Scientific Rhetoric ◽  
Gawain Poet

In the past four years, there has been a flurry of valuable new work on the poems of the Gawain-poet (also known as the Pearl-poet), which includes new editions, translations, monographs, pedagogical studies, and online resources. Among the editions and translations are Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron’s excellent facsimile edition and translation of Cotton Nero A.x (Folio Society, 2016), Simon Armitage’s verse translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl (W.W. Norton, 2008 and 2016 respectively) and, I allow myself to mention, my own dual-language edition-translation of Pearl with supplementary materials for collegiate teaching (Broadview, forthcoming). Academic monographs include Piotyr Spyra’s Epistemological Perspective of the Pearl-Poet (Ashgate, 2014), Cecelia Hatt’s God and the Gawain-Poet: Theology and Genre (Boydell & Brewer, 2015), my Signifying Power of Pearl: Medieval Literary and Cultural Contexts for the Transformation of Genre (Routledge, 2017), and Lisa Horton’s Scientific Rhetoric of the Pearl-Poet (Arc Humanities Press, forthcoming). Editors Mark Bradshaw Busbee and I have published Approaches to Teaching the Middle English Pearl (MLA, 2017), which contains insightful pedagogical essays from several professors. The journal Glossator provides a complete commentary on each section of Pearl, available online (<ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://glossator.org/2015/03/30/glossator-9-2015-pearl">https://glossator.org/2015/03/30/glossator-9-2015-pearl</ext-link>/), and additional resources are available at “Medieval Pearl” (<ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://medievalpearl.wordpress.com">https://medievalpearl.wordpress.com</ext-link>). Now Ethan Campbell’s The Gawain-Poet and the Fourteenth-Century English Anticlerical Tradition joins the ranks, making a meaningful contribution to our understanding of the poet in his cultural milieu.

The English Hierarchy in the Reign of Edward III

1956 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 115-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. L. Highfield
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Primary Object ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
Break Up

THE English hierarchy in the period between the Norman Conquest and the death of Edward II has attracted the attention of a number of modern scholars. Recently Mr. Pantin has extended those studies in an outline survey of the episcopate for the whole of the fourteenth century. The primary object here is to fill in with more detail the background of that out-line for the reign of Edward III. I shall, however, break up one of his categories into four. In general I shall suggest that care must be taken not to exaggerate the importance of bishops with experience in the royal administration or of those with high aristocratic connections. I shall seek to classify the 85 bishops in order to show their origin, their experience and, in the case of the aristocrats, their social class. In a century when civil servants might also be scholars like Richard of Bury, or when monks could hold great offices of state like Simon Langham, any attempt at an exclusive division into categories is bound to be artificial. Exclusive percentages will not, therefore, be relied on. Bishops may occur in one or more categories.

The Folvilles of Ashby-Folville, Leicestershire, and their Associates in Crime, 1326–1347

1957 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 117-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. L. G. Stones
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Criminal Jurisdiction ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
History Of ◽  
Habitual Criminal ◽  
The Church

On a date which cannot be exactly discovered in 1340 or early in 1341, a priest called Richard de Folville, who had long been notorious as a habitual criminal, took refuge from justice, with some of his followers, in the church of Teigh, Rutland, of which he had been rector for twenty years. After he had killed one of his pursuers, and wounded others, by arrows shot from within, he was at length dragged out and beheaded by Sir Robert de Colville, a keeper of the peace.2 In itself this sordid occurrence is of no special interest, but if we look into the long career of crime which ended thus, we may find that we have come upon something of wider significance. This Richard proves to have been one of six brothers who were all criminals, and their history has left a considerable mark in the records. Thanks to the work of a number of scholars in recent years, we now know a good deal about the apparatus of criminal jurisdiction in the earlier fourteenth century, but of what might be called the forces of disorder, indispensable though they were to the working of the system of justice, we are still very ignorant. ‘Who were the burglars, robbers, and murderers … the sleepers by day and wanderers by night? What was their political, social, and economic status?’ These questions, given here in the words of Professor Putnam, are the reason for devoting this paper to so narrow a subject as the history of one obscure midland family during the early years of Edward III.

The Marriage of Edward III and the Transmission of French Motets to England

1992 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Wathey
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Direct Product ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
Political Program ◽  
The Future ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Fundamental Cause

This article describes the hitherto unsuspected transmission to England of the two motets in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS français 571 (also found in Chaillou de Pesstain's interpolated version of the Roman de Fauvel (MS français 146)) as a direct product of the period spent in France by Isabella, Queen of England, 1325-1326, and of the negotiations for the marriage of her son, the future Edward III of England. Isabella's expedition, both before and after the open break with her husband, Edward II, afforded numerous opportunities for the proximity of English and French musicians; new documentation presented here permits the charting in detail of English clerics' contacts with Gervais du Bus, one of the authors of the Roman de Fauvel, and with Philippe de Vitry. A new dating is advanced for MS français 571, compiled for the marriage of Prince Edward and Philippa of Hainault. Edward's proximity to the French royal line (and the residual English claim to the French throne) provided a rationale not only for the English diplomatic handling of the marriage, but also for the inclusion of the motet texts in MS français 571. The motets' topical texts, originally cast with other purposes in mind, are here subordinated to the broader political program of the Anglo-Hainault marriage. Thus, far from being monofunctional, fourteenth-century motets could be re-used in new contexts that made quite different uses of the messages promulgated in their texts: the adaptability of individual motets may, indeed, have been a fundamental cause in their transmission and even in their later survival.

The Authorship of The Pearl

PMLA ◽  
1932 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 346-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coolidge Otis Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Sir Gawain ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Sacred And Profane ◽  
Unusual Combination ◽  
The Church ◽  
Secular Life

Attempts to name the author of Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the two homiletic poems found in MS. Cotton Nero A x. have so far failed. Neither the Scottish Huchown of the Awle Ryale, nor the Londoner Ralph Strode, can well be accepted on the strength of any evidence yet available. But though the name of the poet has escaped detection, much has been learned about him. The thoughtful reader of his works will recognize a man intimate with the Bible and with the writings of the Church Fathers, and one concerned with the theological problems that occupied men's minds in the late fourteenth century. To a strong religious and moral bent there is added a love of romance and the pomp and brilliance of the life in a noble household. The poet's skill in argument and his familiarity with the life and manners of the nobility have led Professor Osgood to the belief that he was a clerk who had studied at Oxford or Paris. Professor Gollancz draws a charming picture of the young man listening to the romantic tales of the minstrels in a great hall, and himself eager to emulate them. The man we seek, then, is an unusual combination of theologian and minstrel, a student of sacred and profane literature, and a close observer of the religious and secular life of the time. Such a man I propose to name as the probable author of the poems before us.

At the Edge of Reformation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Linehan
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Black Death ◽  
The West ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
History Of ◽  
Portuguese Society ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

This book springs from its author’s continuing interest in the history of Spain and Portugal—on this occasion in the first half of the fourteenth century between the recovery of each kingdom from widespread anarchy and civil war and the onset of the Black Death. Focussing on ecclesiastical aspects of the period in that region (Galicia in particular) and secular attitudes to the privatization of the Church, it raises inter alios the question why developments there did not lead to a permanent sundering of the relationship with Rome (or Avignon) two centuries ahead of that outcome elsewhere in the West. In addressing such issues, as well as of neglected material in Spanish and Portuguese archives, use is made of the also unpublished so-called ‘secret’ registers of the popes of the period. The issues it raises concern not only Spanish and Portuguese society in general but also the developing relationship further afield of the components of the eternal quadrilateral (pope, king, episcopate, and secular nobility) in late medieval Europe, as well as of the activity in that period of those caterpillars of the commonwealth, the secular-minded sapientes. In this context, attention is given to the hitherto neglected attempt of Afonso IV of Portugal to appropriate the privileges of the primatial church of his kingdom and to advance the glorification of his Castilian son-in-law, Alfonso XI, as God’s vicegerent in his.

The Bishops and the Deposition of Edward II

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 131-151
Author(s):  
Samuel Lane
Keyword(s):  
Legal History ◽  
Legal Aspect ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

The deposition of Edward II was a watershed in the legal history of later medieval England. However, the significance of the church in its accomplishment has remained controversial. This article offers a reassessment by providing a brief narrative of the episcopate's involvement in events; analysing the importance of their contribution, with particular reference to the quasi-legal aspect of proceedings; considering whether this participation reflected their own initiative or was something about which they had no choice; and questioning why so many bishops turned to oppose Edward II. It becomes evident that prelates played a key part in Edward II's downfall, and that they became involved as a consequence of the oppressive treatment which he had meted out to them, to their families and to political society more broadly.

scholarly journals Per Ravenna trecentesca: nuove proposte per l’assetto architettonico di Santa Maria in Porto Fuori

2019 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-31
Author(s):  
Fabio Massaccesi
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Subject ◽  
First Time ◽  
Santa Maria ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Church

Abstract This contribution intends to draw attention to one of the most significant monuments of medieval Ravenna: the church of Santa Maria in Porto Fuori, which was destroyed during the Second World War. Until now, scholars have focused on the pictorial cycle known through photographs and attributed to the painter Pietro da Rimini. However, the architecture of the building has not been the subject of systematic studies. For the first time, this essay reconstructs the fourteenth-century architectural structure of the church, the apse of which was rebuilt by 1314. The data that led to the virtual restitution of the choir and the related rood screen are the basis for new reflections on the accesses to the apse area, on the pilgrimage flows, and on the view of the frescoes.

Church Discipline in the Later Middle Ages: the Priors of Durham as Archdeacons

2004 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 95-105
Author(s):  
Margaret Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Church Discipline ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Church Courts ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

It is often forgotten that the medieval Church imposed public penance and reconciliation by law. The discipline was administered by the church courts, among which one of the most important, because it acted at local level, was that of the archdeacon. In the later Middle Ages and certainly by 1435, the priors of Durham were archdeacons in all the churches appropriated to the monastery. The priors had established their rights in Durham County by the early fourteenth century and in Northumberland slightly later. Although the origins of this peculiar jurisdiction were long ago unravelled by Barlow, there is no full account of how it worked in practice. Yet it is not difficult from the Durham archives to elicit a coherent account, with examples, of the way penance and ecclesiastical justice were administered from day to day in the Durham area in this period. The picture that emerges from these documents, though not in itself unusual, is nevertheless valuable and affords an extraordinary degree of detail which is missing from other places, where the evidence no longer exists. This study should complement the recent work by Larry Poos for Lincoln and Wisbech, drawing attention to an institution which would reward further research. It is only possible here to outline what the court did and how and why it was used.

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