City, State, and Public Ritual in the Late-Medieval Burgundian Netherlands

1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Arnade
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Permanent Record ◽  
The Public ◽  
Distinguished Career ◽  
Wedding Ceremony ◽  
City State ◽  
Duke Of Burgundy

At the end of a distinguished career as chronicler of the Burgundian court, Georges Chastellain (1404–75) penned a quick sketch of the outstanding accomplishments of his duke, Charles the Bold. Accustomed to expositions awash in chivalric pomp, Chastellain employed a different tack to commemorate this sovereign: He sketched eleven “magnificences” performed by the duke of Burgundy, all reconstructed images of this prince's engagement with ceremony. Foremost among this snapshot collection of state ritual was neither a tournament, nor a wedding ceremony, nor even a processional entry. What stood out, in Chastellain's estimation, as Charles' greatest deed was something more riveting and more powerful than any of these spectacles so beloved by the fifteenth-century Burgundian court:The first [magnificence] was at Brussels, where, seated on his throne, his sword unsheathed and held by his Marshall, he gathered the men of Ghent arranged kneeling before him and at his pleasure and in their presence cut and tore up the political charters they bore. Done for permanent record, this action was without parallel.For Chastellain, the supreme magnificence of Charles the Bold was a lesson in exemplary punishment, the public abasement of the aldermen and guild deans of the Flemish city of Ghent in January 1469, a year and a half after a city revolt of rank-and-file guildsmen had unsettled celebrations in honor of his accession to the countship of Flanders.

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.

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.

Christian-Muslim Encounters: George of Trebizond and the ‘Inversion’ of Eastern Discourse regarding Islam in the Fifteenth Century

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 137-149
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Papastathis
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Intellectual Elite ◽  
Eastern Christianity ◽  
Contemporary Context

The capture of Constantinople (1453) by the Ottoman troops of Mehmed II was a historical turning point. The political reference point of Eastern Christianity was now in Muslim hands, the Ottomans representing in the eyes of late medieval Europeans not only an enemy of the true faith, and as such an obstacle for ecclesiastical unity, but also a potential rival of the papacy as a political power. In short, within the contemporary context and the socially dominant apocalyptic frame of mind, the Ottomans were viewed as an existential threat for Christianity as a whole. While the papal reaction to this development was to go on the offensive, expressed through the call for a new crusade, the emergence of a few voices expressing divergent theological content and political orientation had special significance. One of the voices which ‘set off the politics of religious synthesis from different quarters” was that of George of Trebizond (1395–1472/3), a Cretan emigrant to Italy who lived in Venice and Florence before moving to Rome. He had converted to Catholicism without losing his sense of belonging to the East, and became a prominent figure of the Italian intellectual elite and an editor of classical and theological literature, as well as a member of the Vatican bureaucracy.

The chivalric tomb in fifteenth-century Portugal

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-284
Author(s):  
Teresa Soley
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Funerary Monuments ◽  
Historical Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Portuguese Society ◽  
Public Imagination

The fifteenth-century Portuguese nobility was a proud and image-conscious social group that transformed tombs into opportunities for self-promotion. Manifesting changing conceptualizations of history and agency, the nobility’s elaborately sculpted sepulchres also reveal the means of successful social advancement in this society. The ruling dynasty of Avís encouraged the chivalric ethos of the long fifteenth century to exert control over the powerful nobility and validate their expansionist agenda in Africa. This profoundly shaped the visual idiom of funerary sculpture, resulting in the emergence of the ‘chivalric tomb’ in Portugal. Taking advantage of the blurred lines between chivalry and politics and between history and propaganda, Portuguese aristocrats began to manipulate their posthumous images to construct enduring, positive legacies in the public imagination. Aristocratic Portuguese tombs remain virtually untapped sources of social-historical information, particularly through their display of consistent commemorative strategies ranging from genealogical epitaphs to figural portrayals of Africans. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and archival research and offering a close examination of these monuments through visual, literary and historical evidence, this article explores the artistic intersection of death and memory in late medieval Portuguese society and elucidates how aristocratic funerary monuments performed a persuasive, as well as memorial, function.

scholarly journals The urban community in fifteenth-century Scotland: language, law and political practice

Urban History ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLAIRE HAWES
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Urban Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Urban Elites ◽  
Language Law

ABSTRACTThe political culture of Scotland's late medieval towns has been neglected in recent scholarship. This article seeks to provoke discussion through an analysis of communitarian language and its use by urban elites in the fifteenth century. The Scottish urban community, as elsewhere, could be positioned as a location, a legal construct and a group of people. This provided the burgh council with a variety of political tools which could be employed – consciously or otherwise – in order to legitimize its authority.

The Problem of Tyranny in Fifteenth Century England

Moreana ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (Number 191- (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Genet
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Late Medieval England

Was tyranny a crucial political problem in late medieval England? To answer this question, we examine which political texts were most widely read at that time. It is then possible to survey these texts and this reveals the two main meanings of tyranny: the king becomes a tyrant when he is unfair or/and when he is a predator. This second meaning is related to the development of royal taxation. However, the tyrants who are usually described by English authors are those of the ancient times. Tyranny is generally close to cruelty, and rarely referred to in a political context. The immediate preoccupations of the members of the political society in 15th century England were centred upon the problems of disorder and of legitimacy.

The Discourse on Rulership

2019 ◽  
pp. 22-96
Author(s):  
Hüseyin Yılmaz
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Literature ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Public Sphere

This chapter examines the Ottoman political discourse from its origins in the early fifteenth century to the third quarter of the sixteenth century. Views on the caliphate were expressed through a diversified corpus of works on government and rulership across various genres and disciplines accompanied by a broad-based interest in engaging with issues related to government among the Ottoman readership. This diverse body of political literature, written in different languages and genres, was produced by an equally diverse group of authors from various backgrounds, including statesmen, jurists, and Sufis. Along with the expansion of the public sphere in sixteenth-century social life, not only did ordinary folks come to be more interested in matters of government but new questions and sensibilities were introduced to the sphere of the political as well. The conventional form of political discourse that was largely confined to providing advice for rulership by a select few gave way to presenting views on all aspects of government by people from different walks of life.

Commentary: Social-Ethical Values Issues in the Political Public Square: Principles vs. Packages

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 731-740
Author(s):  
Margaret Somerville
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Sense Of Humor ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Distinguished Career ◽  
Small Measure ◽  
Square Principles

This article explores decision making about social-ethical values issues by members of the public in the context of the recent Canadian federal election, held in late June 2004. All of these issues are sensitive and controversial, and I hesitated to address them in an article that I dedicate, with respect and admiration, to my friend and fellow medical lawyer-ethicist, Bernard Dickens. Over the years Bernie and I have discussed, debated and disagreed on many of them. It speaks to his tolerance, reasonableness and wisdom that those occasions were for me always ones of learning and respect, colored by his inimitable sense of humor. I hope that Bernie feels that, in some small measure, this article reflects those same characteristics, ones that he has modeled for so many of us over the years of his distinguished career.

Democrazy—Dem Go Craze, O: Monitoring the 1999 Nigerian Elections

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-33
Author(s):  
Darren Kew
Keyword(s):  
Transition Program ◽  
The Political ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Soccer Match ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Military

In many respects, the least important part of the 1999 elections were the elections themselves. From the beginning of General Abdusalam Abubakar’s transition program in mid-1998, most Nigerians who were not part of the wealthy “political class” of elites—which is to say, most Nigerians— adopted their usual politically savvy perspective of siddon look (sit and look). They waited with cautious optimism to see what sort of new arrangement the military would allow the civilian politicians to struggle over, and what in turn the civilians would offer the public. No one had any illusions that anything but high-stakes bargaining within the military and the political class would determine the structures of power in the civilian government. Elections would influence this process to the extent that the crowd influences a soccer match.

Facing the Challenge of Democracy

2011 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Party Polarization

Citizens are political simpletons—that is only a modest exaggeration of a common characterization of voters. Certainly, there is no shortage of evidence of citizens' limited political knowledge, even about matters of the highest importance, along with inconsistencies in their thinking, some glaring by any standard. But this picture of citizens all too often approaches caricature. This book brings together leading political scientists who offer new insights into the political thinking of the public, the causes of party polarization, the motivations for political participation, and the paradoxical relationship between turnout and democratic representation. These studies propel a foundational argument about democracy. Voters can only do as well as the alternatives on offer. These alternatives are constrained by third players, in particular activists, interest groups, and financial contributors. The result: voters often appear to be shortsighted, extreme, and inconsistent because the alternatives they must choose between are shortsighted, extreme, and inconsistent.

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