Posts from the ‘Breaking Medieval News’ Category

The Medieval Fold: Power, Repression, and the Emergence of the Individual

The Medieval Fold: Power, Repression, and the Emergence of the Individual (The New Middle Ages)
Suzanne Verderber (Author)
Hardcover: 216 pages
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (15 May 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 113700097X
ISBN-13: 978-1137000972

Striking cultural developments took place in the twelfth century which led to what historians have termed ‘the emergence of the individual.’ The Medieval Fold demonstrates how cultural developments typically associated with this twelfth-century renaissance—autobiography, lyric, courtly love, romance—can be traced to the Church’s cultivation of individualism. However, subjects did not submit to pastoral power passively, they constructed fantasies and behaviors, redeploying or ‘folding’ it to create new forms of life and culture. Incorporating the work of Nietzsche, Foucault, Lacan, and Deleuze, Suzanne Verderber presents a model of the subject in which the opposition between interior self and external world is dislodged.

Table of contents:

Introduction
1. The Gregorian Reform, Pastoral Power, and Subjection
2. The Courtly Fold: The Subjectivation of Pastoral Power and the Invention of Modern Eroticism
3. Chrétien de Troyes’ Diagram of Power: Perceval
Conclusion

SOURCE:

Palgrave Macmillan

Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular Against the Sacred

Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular Against the Sacred (Conway Lectures in Medieval Studies)
Barbara Newman (Author)
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press (15 May 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 026803611X
ISBN-13: 978-0268036119

The sacred and the secular in medieval literature have too often been perceived as opposites, or else relegated to separate but unequal spheres. In Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred, Barbara Newman offers a new approach to the many ways that sacred and secular interact in medieval literature, arguing that (in contrast to our own cultural situation) the sacred was the normative, unmarked default category against which the secular always had to define itself and establish its niche. Newman refers to this dialectical relationship as “crossover”—which is not a genre in itself, but a mode of interaction, an openness to the meeting or even merger of sacred and secular in a wide variety of forms. Newman sketches a few of the principles that shape their interaction: the hermeneutics of “both/and,” the principle of double judgment, the confluence of pagan material and Christian meaning in Arthurian romance, the rule of convergent idealism in hagiographic romance, and the double-edged sword in parody.

Medieval Crossover explores a wealth of case studies in French, English, and Latin texts that concentrate on instances of paradox, collision, and convergence. Newman convincingly and with great clarity demonstrates the widespread applicability of the crossover concept as an analytical tool, examining some very disparate works. These include French and English romances about Lancelot and the Grail; the mystical writing of Marguerite Porete (placed in the context of lay spirituality, lyric traditions, and the Romance of the Rose);multiple examples of parody (sexually obscene, shockingly anti-Semitic, or cleverly litigious); and René of Anjou’s two allegorical dream visions. Some of these texts are scarcely known to medievalists; others are rarely studied together. Newman’s originality in her choice of these primary works will inspire new questions and set in motion new fields of exploration for medievalists working in a large variety of disciplines, including literature, religious studies, history, and cultural studies.

Barbara Newman is professor of English, religious studies, and classics at Northwestern University. She is the author of a number of books, including God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages and Frauenlob’s Song of Songs: A Medieval German Poet and His Masterpiece.

SOURCE:
University of Notre Dame Press

A Renaissance Wedding: The Celebration at Pesaro

A Renaissance Wedding: The Celebration at Pesaro for the Marriage of Costanzo Sforza & Camilla Marzano D’aragona (26-30 May 1475) (Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History)
Jane Bridgeman (Author)
Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Harvey Miller Pub (31 May 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 190537593X
ISBN-13: 978-1905375936

This book offers an English translation of the Italian manuscript that commemorated the marriage of Costanzo Sforza Lord of Pesaro and Camilla d’Aragona of Naples, which took place in Pesaro in 1475. Furthermore, this richly illustrated text provides the reader with the necessary historical background and biographical details.

This publication is the first English translation from the Italian of the fascinating contemporary account of the spectacular four-day celebrations that took place in Pesaro in May 1475 to mark the marriage of Costanzo Sforza Lord of Pesaro and Camilla d’Aragona of Naples. The event was commemorated both in manuscript and early print in an anonymous narration that describes in great detail the arrival of the bride and her welcome procession into Pesaro; the actual marriage ceremony and the celebratory banquet that followed; the pageants, presentation of gifts and fireworks that filled the third day; and the final day’s excitement of jousts and yet more theatrical entertainment.

The translation has been made from the early printed text (the incunable in the British Library, I.A.31753 Sforza, Costantio Signore di Pesaro, 1475) and also directly from the unique illustrated presentation manuscript in the Vatican Library (MS Vat. Urb. Lat. 899) which, though previously thought to have been produced in 1480, may in fact have been made at the same time as the incunable edition. It is not known for whom the printed books were intended (7 copies only survive), but it is likely that the prominent dignitaries among the 108 guests – who included Federico da Montefeltro, the groom’s brother-in-law – would have been the recipients of the account when it was printed in November 1475.

This present edition of the text includes all the images that illustrate the original manuscript – 32 full-page miniatures that depict the floats that welcomed the bride at the city gates of Pesaro; the costumed figures at the wedding banquet who represented the presiding Sun and Moon or the male and female messengers of the classical gods and goddesses who announced  the exotic dishes of the 12-course banquet; and further colourful, unusually interesting illustrations of the ballets, fireworks and triumphs of the final two days of the celebrations.

In addition to the Introduction that provides the reader with the historical background and biographical details of the protagonists and personalities of this special occasion, Dr Bridgeman also adds helpful and highly informative annotations to the narration itself.  In addition she provides full descriptions and explanations of the illustrations – all reproduced here in colour – and devotes a separate appendix to listing and explaining all the dishes served at the wedding banquet, together with their ingredients and recipes.

Dr Jane Bridgeman is an Associate Lecturer in Fashion History and Theory at Central St Martin’s College of Art, London.  After graduating in Italian at Birmingham University, she studied History of Dress under Stella Mary Newton at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London where she also gained her Ph.D. on Aspects of Dress and Ceremony in Quattrocento Florence. She has taught at a number of universities and art colleges in the UK and has published numerous articles in English and Italian on the iconography of dress and the history of textiles.

SOURCE:

Brepols Publishers

The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature

The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature
(Cambridge Companions to Literature)
Malcolm Godden (Editor), Michael Lapidge (Editor)
Paperback: 376 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (2 May 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0521154022
ISBN-13: 978-0521154024

This book introduces students to the literature of Anglo-Saxon England, the period from 600-1066, in a collection of fifteen specially commissioned essays. The chapters are written by experts, but designed to be accessible to students who may be unfamiliar with Old English. The emphasis throughout is on placing texts in their contemporary context and suggesting ways in which they relate to each other and to the important events and issues of the time. With the help of maps and a chronological table of events the first chapters describe briefly the political, social and ecclesiastical history of the period and how poetry and prose in Latin and in the vernacular developed and flourished. A succinct account of Old English provides beginners with a handy guide to the rules of spelling, grammar and syntax. Subsequent chapters explore the range of Anglo-Saxon writing under different thematic headings. A final bibliography gives guidance on further reading.

Table of Contents:

1 – Anglo-Saxon society and its literature by Patrick Wormald

2 – The Old English language by Helmut Gneuss

3 – The nature of Old English verse by Donald G. Scragg

4 – The nature of Old English prose by Janet Bately

5 – Germanic legend in Old English literature by Roberta Frank

6 – Heroic values and Christian ethics by Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe

7 – Pagan survivals and popular belief by John D. Niles

8 – Beowulf by Fred C. Robinson

9 – Fatalism and the millennium by Joseph B. Jr Trahern

10 – Perceptions of transience by Christine Fell

11 – Perceptions of eternity by Milton McC. Gatch

12 – Biblical literature by Malcolm Godden

13 – Biblical literature by Barbara C. Raw

14 – The saintly life in Anglo-Saxon England by Michael Lapidge

15 – The world of Anglo-Saxon learning by Patrizia Lendinara

Further reading

Read PDF

pp. 282-291

SOURCE:

Cambridge University Press

Asinou across Time

Asinou across Time (Dumbarton Oaks Studies)
Annemarie Weyl Carr (Author), Andréas Nicolaïdès (Author), Gilles Grivaud (Author), Ioanna Kakoulli (Author), Sophia Kalopissi-verti (Author)
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press (21 May 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0884023494
ISBN-13: 978-0884023494

The church of Asinou is among the most famous in Cyprus. Built around 1100, the edifice, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is decorated with accretions of images, from the famous fresco cycle executed shortly after initial construction to those made in the early seventeenth century. During this period the church served the adjacent monastery of the Mother of God ton Phorbion (“of the vetches”), and was subject to Byzantine, Lusignan (1191–1474), Venetian (1474–1570), and Ottoman rule. This monograph is the first on one of Cyprus’s major diachronically painted churches. Written by an international team of renowned scholars, the book sets the accumulating phases of Asinou’s art and architecture in the context of the changing fortunes of the valley, of Cyprus, and of the eastern Mediterranean. Chapters include the first continuous history of the church and its immediate setting; a thorough analysis of its architecture; editions, translations, and commentary on the poetic inscriptions; art-historical studies of the post-1105/6 images in the narthex and nave; a detailed comparative analysis of the physical and chemical properties of the frescoes; and a diachronic table of paleographical forms.

SOURCE: Dumbarton Oaks