Blanche, Two Chaucers and the Stanley Family

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-119
Author(s):  
Simon Meecham-Jones

The textual history of The Book of the Duchess challenges many spurious traditions encouraged by the apparently disordered state of Chaucer’s texts on his death. The lack of contemporary references casts doubt on whether the poem was circulated in the fourteenth century or commissioned by John of Gaunt as an elegy for his wife. The first witnesses, in three mid-fifteenth-century manuscripts, contain substantial lacunae, ‘resolved’ in Thynne’s printed edition of 1532. This article examines Bodleian MS Fairfax 16, which bears the arms of John Stanley of Hooton, a leading court functionary from a rising family. It argues that the selection of texts in that MS reflects Stanley’s contact with a cultural milieu centred on the Duke of Suffolk, while the inclusion of The Book of the Duchess and The House of Fame may result from Suffolk’s wife Alice Chaucer making available material from her grandfather’s personal papers.

Traditio ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 257-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Celenza

There are many still unstudied aspects of the cultural history of early Quattrocento Rome, especially if we consider the years before 1443, the date of the more or less permanent re-entry into the civitas aeterna of Pope Eugenius IV. The nexus between the still ephemeral papacy and the emerging intellectual movement of Italian Renaissance humanism is one of these aspects. It is hoped that this study will shed some light on this problem by presenting a document that has hitherto not been completely edited: the original will of Cardinal Giordano Orsini. As we shall see, this important witness to the fifteenth century provides valuable information on many fronts, even on the structure of the old basilica of Saint Peter. The short introduction is in three parts. The first has a discussion of the cardinal's cultural milieu with a focus on the only contemporary treatise specifically about curial culture, Lapo da Castiglionchio's De curiae commodis. The second part addresses the textual history of the will as well as some misconceptions which have surrounded it. The third part contains a discussion of the will itself, along with some preliminary observations about what can be learned from the critical edition of the text here presented for the first time.


1994 ◽  
Vol 108 (4) ◽  
pp. 157-170
Author(s):  
Hugo Van Der Velden

AbstractA South Netherlandish panel in the collection of the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, painted around 1475-85, can be identified as one of the few surviving fifteenth-century justice pictures. Bruyn succeeded in tracing the painting's enigmatic iconography to a mediaeval 'exemplum', The King's Brother Threatened with Death, in which elements from The Sword of Damocles and from the story of the trumpet of death in the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat are combined into a single history. In the Gesta Romanorum, under the heading 'De timore extremi iudicii', the tale is told of a wise and righteous king who threatens to have his frivolous brother executed as a means of demonstrating his own state of mind: the thought of the Last Judgement makes it impossible for him to abandon himself to the pleasures of earthly life. In written sources this 'exemplum' is often associated with 'righteousness', becoming more closely interwoven with the practice of secular justice as time passed. In the fourteenth century, for example, it featured in a moralizing discourse on good and righteous government (the Ludus Scaccorum) and in the fifteenth century as a model of god-fearing conduct - even in a code of law (the Wetboek van Den Briel). This development corresponds closely with the literary history of other judgement scenes, such as the Judgement of Cambyses. The cited literary sources stress that judges should be filled with 'Timor Dei' as exemplified by the story of the king and his brother. The tenor of the 'exemplum' is a reminder that the secular judge will eventually have to answer for his actions to the Supreme Judge, an idea which was conveyed in town halls by representations of the Last Jugement. In view of the written tradition it is quite likely that the panel in Sarasota and two other representations of The King's Brother Threatment with Death - a drawing attributed to Lucas van Leyden and a stained-glass window - served as (designs for) a judgement picture. This interpretation is substantiated by sixteenth-century pictorial sources. In both a South German drawing and a print by Theodoor de Bry the story of the king's brother is combined with a number of familiar 'exempla iustitiae'.


2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 306-339
Author(s):  
Josef Ženka

Muṣāhara (affinity/relation by marriage) represented one of the essential distinctions of the ruling elite of fourteenth-century Granada. Ibn al-Khaṭīb understood its importance for life in Granada and he felt the need to mention it whenever two people were related by marriage. His perception has been taken as one of the most fundamental for historical research, as he drew on his personal experience in Granada. This study first defines the concept of the ruling elite of fourteenth-century Granada. Within this group, the concept of muṣāhara as understood by Ibn al-Khaṭīb is further elaborated. The definition of muṣāhara is followed by the description of its actual use among the families close to the office of the vizier (wazīr) and by Ibn al-Khaṭīb himself. The history of one of these families (al-Fihrī) has been hailed as an exceptional example of the “ruling elite family” that included contemporaries and adversaries of Ibn al-Khaṭīb. The example of the al-Fihrī family shows how strong and active their position was during the rule of every fourteenth-century emir. Consequently, this study demonstrates that the extensive Granadan families similar to those known from the fifteenth century had existed and cooperated with each other before this time.


Author(s):  
Outi Merisalo

During the last years of his life, Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), former Apostolic Secretary and Chancellor of Florence, was working on a long text that he characterized, in a letter written in 1458, as lacking a well-defined structure. This was most probably his history of the people of Florence (Historiae Florentini populi, the title given in Jacopo’s dedication copy to Frederick of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino), revised and published posthumously by Poggio’s son, Jacopo Bracciolini (1442-1478). Contrary to what is often assumed, Poggio’s treatise was not a continuation, nor even a complement, to Leonardo Bruni’s (1370-1444) official history of Florence. It concentrates on the most recent history of Florence from the fourteenth-century conflicts between Florence and Milan through Florentine expansion in Tuscany and finally reaching the mid-fifteenth century. This article will study the genesis and fortune of the work in the context of Poggio’s literary output and the manuscript evidence from the mid-fifteenth century until the first printed edition of the Latin-language text by G.B. Recanati in 1715.


TALIA DIXIT ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 59-83
Author(s):  
Carmen Benítez Guerrero ◽  
◽  
Covadonga Valdaliso Casanova

Although traditionally it was considered that the annals were the form of historical writing in the Early Middle Ages and fell into decline in the thirteenth century, several witnesses prove that the series of annals –i.e., series of concise historical records arranged chronologically –were copied, corrected, expanded, and continued, bringing it up to date, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This article comprises a study of a series of annals copied in the fifteenth century, but composed before, that cover the history of the Castilian Crown, focusing especially on the so-called Reconquest. As we will try to show, its contents are closely related to other annals written in Andalusia in the first half of the fourteenth century, as well as to later similar compositions


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 75-98
Author(s):  
Catherine Mary MacRobert

Modern scholarship on the textual history of Church Slavonic biblical translation recognizes two distinct revisions of the Church Slavonic Psalter from the early fourteenth century, Redaction III (sometimes called the ‘Athonite’ redaction) and Redaction IV, known only in the Norov psalter manuscript. Although they are both attested from the same period and in manuscripts of similar Bulgarian provenance, these two redactions are in some respects systematically different in their linguistic character, their approach to translational issues and their Greek textual basis. In the light of A.A. Turilov’s observation that the Mihanović Psalter, possibly the earliest witness to Redaction III, is written in the same hand as the greater part of the Norov Psalter, this paper examines the textual antecedents of the two redactions and the importance of the Mihanović Psalter as a link between them.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-752
Author(s):  
Roman Yu. Pochekaev ◽  

Research objectives: This article contains a characteristic of the jurisprudence in the Golden Horde (Ulus of Jochi). The author considers basic stages of development of the Golden Horde’s jurisprudence and uncovers its scholarly centers located within its territory. Research materials: This research was carried out on the basis of the classical and most recent works on the history of the Golden Horde and its specific aspects (including those that began to be studied by specialist only recently). It was also based on the sources including those which were introduced into scholarly circulation relatively recently; for example, works of medieval eastern authors that were not previously known to a wide range of researchers or were not typically employed as sources on the history of the Golden Horde. Novelty of the research: Following the example of specific scholars (specialists and lecturers in law), the author characterizes basic directions of the development of the Golden Horde’s jurisprudence, while analyzing academic contacts of the Golden Horde’s scholars and the process of “academic mobility”. Also, the author pays attention to the Golden Horde rulers’ support of jurisprudence and the reasons behind its flourishing in the first half of the fourteenth century and its decline by the beginning of the fifteenth century. Research results: The author has found that the Golden Horde’s jurisprudence was undoubtedly part of jurisprudence of Islamic Eurasia in general, but at the same time had specific “Golden Horde” features. These determined the basic stages and directions of its development and even had an influence on the life and activity of specific scholars. It provides justification to speak of the original character of the Golden Horde’s jurisprudence and perspectives in regard to its further research: the study of the Golden Horde’s written monuments (legal and non-legal), biographies of specific scholars, etc.


2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-351
Author(s):  
Karin Finsterbusch

Abstract In Second Temple Jewish Literature, more than a hundred quotations of and allusions to Ezekiel are preserved. Although only a few of them are text-critically relevant, these cases may help to shed light on the complex textual history of the book. In this article, eleven cases of quotations and allusions are analyzed in detail: Six cases should be regarded as evidence for the existence of the non-masoretic Hebrew Vorlage of the Old Greek Ezekiel. In two of these cases, non-aligned textual elements appear as well. Taken together with two non-aligned cases in the Damascus Document, these quotations and allusions substantiate the assumption that even more non-masoretic Ezekiel texts were in use until the beginning of the first century BCE—alongside proto-masoretic Ezekiel texts, which are attested by three cases of quotations and allusions.


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