Chivalry (Chivalry)

This article examines the chivalric encounters organized on the occasion of the Joyous Entry of Prince Philip in the Low Countries in 1549–50. It poses the question as to how they functioned as a performative tool to enhance cohesion among the nobles of the Habsburg composite state. The tournaments served as a regulated outlet for noble violence, controlled by the prince and his closest collaborators. In this way, they both created and cemented the bonds of knightly brotherhood within the entourage of the household, while at the same time reaching out to others who did not (yet) belong to the new prince's circle.

This volume presents English prose translations of two separate works of Old French verse, each recalling a late thirteenth-century tournament. There are sound reasons for combining these texts in this way. Not only did the tournaments take place within seven years of one another, they were held in the same geographical region and, most importantly, were attended by some of the same individuals. The result is an engrossing, highly-detailed picture of a particular aristocratic culture, capturing its tastes, values and even its sense of humour.

Angeregt durch das grundlegende, aber nicht unumstrittene Werk Johan Huizingas »Herbst des Mittelalters«) setzt sich die Forschung bis heute mit dem Problem auseinan­ der, wie zwei offensichtlich widersprüchliche Verhaltensstrukturen in der Adelskultur vor allem des spätmittelalterlichen Frankreichs und Burgunds in Einklang zu bringen sind, nämlich: einerseits das rational nüchterne Kalkül in Politik, Verwaltung und Rechts­

Nuno Álvares Pereira is one of the most well-known Iberian figures of the late Middle Ages, not least due to the posthumously produced and anonymous Crónica do Condestabre, which purports to recount his deeds. This article examines the Crónica's presentation of some of the most pressing military issues of the period, as they are refracted through the material of Nuno Álvares's life, including the treatment of prisoners of war; military justice; respect for the Church during wartime; perception of Just War; military ethos and chivalric behavior, all in a comparative perspective regarding works of the same genre.

afghans of First Afghan War with British East India Company, respected non combatants, unlike Indians of 1857 who murdered non combatant women and children mercilessly in cold blood
September 2023
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13662.41283
Agha H Amin

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, supernatural testers disrupt both Arthur's court and the interlocked perfections of the Pentangle, weighing Gawain and finding him wanting. Gawain's failure, moreover, foregrounds the human need for grace and forgiveness, demonstrating both the impossibility of human perfection and the humanity of imperfections redeemed. This essay explores the semi-typological relationship between Gawain and St Peter, arguing that the likenesses between the Arthurian knight and Christ's disciple effectively reinforce the poem's message that failings are inevitable in a post-lapsarian world, but that those errors can yet be mercifully and graciously redeemed. Gawain's fairy-wrought 'fall' from excellence is, it turns out, a happy one-a chivalric felix culpa that makes room for the forgiveness and recovery of knightly failings.

“Modern authors tend to accept as an axiom that in the twelfth century,
there existed a strong identification between crusaders and the Maccabean warriors. Penny Cole wrote, for example, that “in all essential ways the struggles of the Maccabees against the persecutor Antiochus . . . and by association, of the crusaders against Muslim infidel, are substantially identical”.”
Elizabeth Lapina.

Monstrosity is an elusive term that is interlocked with the concept of normality. As a cultural construct, monster's elusiveness stems from its contingency to spatio-temporal parameters that are ever-changing so that the normative self's attempt at constructing an enclosed identity is essentially vulnerable. The normative self's continued attempts to attribute monstrosity to the other to establish an enclosed and normative selfhood invariably fail because the fluidity of monstrous identity disrespects any of the constructed boundaries between the self and the other. Accordingly, in the romance genre, monstrous identity is inextricably linked with the chivalrous identity. Analysis of monstrosity is a useful lens for exposing the discursive boundaries between the two, and displaying that chivalry is an ideal impossible to maintain. This is especially because the formulation of chivalric identity is based on malleable precepts such as moral, cultural, religious norms and performative compliance or deviance enable transition across the constructed boundaries between the knight and the monstrous other. This article defines monstrosity as excess, lack, or deviance from chivalric behaviour so that subjects are rendered monstrous due to becoming sources of undeserved harm or violence. From this perspective, this article analyses the fluidity of chivalrous and monstrous identities in Richard Coer de Lyon. Crusades offer symbolic and literal spaces of alterity and convergence between the East and the West in perpetual contestation. However, the attributed monstrosity of the Saracen against the moral superiority of the Christian knight is a fragile binary that is not static but in constant negotiation that makes it fluid. This fluidity is investigated through the conformity or non-conformity of Richard and other European rulers to chivalric principles and monstrosity in the romance.

This article focuses on the 13th century noblewoman Margareta van Wezemaal, wife of lord Jan of Heverlee. It is shown she was the daughter, not sister, of lord Arnold III of Wezemaal. A previously unknown sister of Arnold, married to lord Hendrik van de Lek is also identified. The second marriage of Margareta to Hendrik van Boutersem is shown to fit in the reconciliation with duchess Aleidis after the failed revolt of her father. It is also shown the timing of the events of the revolt was different than assumed up to now, and that duchess Aleidis employed a crafty policy of granting of new titles and benefits to nobles and liberties to cities to bring them over to her side. Hendrik van Boutersem had previously married a daughter of the viscount of Brussels, and it is shown his successor, also named Hendrik, was a son from that first marriage, while the second marriage also had a son Hendrik "van Linter". Finally, it's made likely that after her father's death, Margareta commissioned the writing of the so-called "Rymkronyk" by Jan van Heelu, which recounted her father's revolt, and the Brabantine victory in the battle of Woeringen.

Names of the familiares of Henry II's sons can be identified from charter witness-lists.  They reveal Young King Henry's military retainers as members of mid-ranking noble families.  A clerical element in his household was largely selected by his father and loyal to him.  Richard's experience in governing Poitou  allowed him greater freedom to select his household members from local administrators in Poitou.

This is a three-day book symposium organized by Marie Göbel and Reza Mosayebi (Bochum). Commentators (in the order of presentation) include Jasmine Gani (St Andrews), Reza Mosayebi (Bochum), Marina Martinez Mateo (Munich), Ewa Wyrębska-Đermanović (Bochum), and Pauline Kleingeld (Groningen). The format is hybrid.

Further details here: https://kant-zentrum-nrw.de/veranstaltungen/workshops-2/book-symposium-huaping-lu-adler/

Le roman de Horn, Jehan et Blonde et Jehan de Paris sont des récits de différentes périodes et styles de la littérature médiévale française, qui montrent comment le héros chevaleresque se consacre à l’étranger. Et pour y arriver, il doit affronter dans les trois cas un rival étranger. Cette étude contrastée des trois récits se propose d’observer comment la conscience narratrice envisage les rapports du héros avec la culture autre où il se consacre. Étant donné qu’il s’agit de pays chrétiens dans tous les cas, des rapports de convergence et de divergence sont décelables entre le héros et ceux qui l’accueillent dans les trois récits.

An article covering the Crécy Campaign (1346 — 1347) of King Edward III of England against the forces of Philippe VI King of France. It covers the campaign from the landing of the English near Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue in Normandy, the seizing of Saint Lô, the Battle of Caen 1346, the English march across France and the Battle that took place on 26th August 1346 at Crécy-en-Ponthieu.

Counsel was a fundamental element of politics in medieval and early modern England and Scotland. It assisted decision-making; facilitated dialogue, representation, accountability, consent and consensus; and was used tactically to delegate, delay and criticise decisions. Despite the platitudinous commonplace that good rulers heard advice, counsel was fraught with tension. Whose advice was wisest, whether it should be given in institutional councils, and its relationship to sovereignty, were questions at the heart of thirteenth- to seventeenth-century political debate. Emphasising counsel over councils, and exploring how to identify this ubiquitous yet archivally elusive practice, this volume uses government records, pamphlets, plays, poetry, histories and oaths to establish a new framework for understanding advice, reassess some crucial reigns, and evaluate continuity and change.

Raimundo Lúlio, na sua última estadia em Paris (1309-1311), escreveu O livro da lamentação da Filosofia. Encaminhou diversas cartas ao rei da França – Filipe IV – e, com elas, a obra sobre a Filosofia. Ele apelava ao rei o apoio para propagar a fé cristã e renegar os ensinamentos averroístas que estavam sendo veiculados, principalmente, na Universidade de Paris. Na obra, Lúlio apresenta a Filosofia como a personagem que dialoga com 12 princípios. A finalidade do diálogo filosófico é provar que a Filosofia não era contra a Teologia, mas o meio de comprovação da existência de Deus. O objetivo da investigação é compreender os ensinamentos de Lúlio e analisá-los como valores, considerados pelo autor, necessários para a formação do homem do século XIV. Porém, esses valores, no entendimento de Lúlio, só seriam passíveis de apreensão pela via da ciência.

A lenda do Rei Artur deu origem a um dos grandes generos da literatura ocidental, que ficou conhecido como romance de cavalaria ou romance arturiano. Na obra Romances da Tavola Redonda(1998), do escritor frances Chretien de Troyes (1130-1191), ha quatro narrativas pertencentes ao genero mencionado e, dentre elas, selecionamos Cliges ou a que fingiu de morta para analisar e comentar os aspectos que nos permitem considera-la como um texto que se filia ao genero da ficcao de cavalaria, tais como a idealizacao das personagens, os constantes torneios e batalhas, o amor cortes, o final feliz.

The period from 1177–1211 saw the composition of a collection of texts commemorating the translation of a major relic of the True Cross from the eastern crusading frontier to the abbey of St Gerard of Brogne near Namur. Although the texts are notionally devoted to the relic, in fact they contain extended meditations on the qualities of knighthood as demonstrated by the local lord, Manasses of Hierges, who was responsible for the relic’s acquisition and translation. Most striking in these texts is the use of the crusading frontier as a stage for the performance of Manasses’s virtues and the accumulation of reputation and prowess, which returns home with him in material form as the cross relic given to him by the princess of Antioch. This use of the crusading frontier as a stage for knighthood allows us a new perspective on the relationship between chivalry and crusade. Often seen as in tension by historians who understand knighthood as essentially secular and crusading as a project of the church, the case of Manasses shows that while crusading itself could be fully understood within the context of devotional practice, the crusading frontier could function separately as a space for aristocratic performance.