Malcolm Hebron
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198186205
- eISBN:
- 9780191674440
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186205.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Sieges were a popular subject in medieval romances. Tales of the Crusades featured champions of Christianity capturing towns in the Holy Land or mounting heroic defences. The fall of a great city ...
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Sieges were a popular subject in medieval romances. Tales of the Crusades featured champions of Christianity capturing towns in the Holy Land or mounting heroic defences. The fall of a great city such as Troy, Thebes, or Jerusalem provided opportunities for the recreation of ancient chivalry and for reflections on historical change. Images of the siege in romances also point to other forms, such as drama and love allegory, where it represents the trial of the soul or the pursuit of the beloved. This book is the first full-length study of this important theme in medieval literature. Close reading of selected Middle English shows how writers used descriptions of sieges to explore such subjects as military strategy, heroism, chivalry, and attitudes to the past. This study also draws on a wide range of writings in several languages, to set the romances in a broad context. When they are seen against a background of military manuals, patristic commentary, pageantry, and love poetry, the sieges of romance take on deeper resonances of meaning and reflect the vitality of the theme in medieval culture as a whole.Less
Sieges were a popular subject in medieval romances. Tales of the Crusades featured champions of Christianity capturing towns in the Holy Land or mounting heroic defences. The fall of a great city such as Troy, Thebes, or Jerusalem provided opportunities for the recreation of ancient chivalry and for reflections on historical change. Images of the siege in romances also point to other forms, such as drama and love allegory, where it represents the trial of the soul or the pursuit of the beloved. This book is the first full-length study of this important theme in medieval literature. Close reading of selected Middle English shows how writers used descriptions of sieges to explore such subjects as military strategy, heroism, chivalry, and attitudes to the past. This study also draws on a wide range of writings in several languages, to set the romances in a broad context. When they are seen against a background of military manuals, patristic commentary, pageantry, and love poetry, the sieges of romance take on deeper resonances of meaning and reflect the vitality of the theme in medieval culture as a whole.
Richard W. Kaeuper
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199244584
- eISBN:
- 9780191697388
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244584.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter discusses Mark Twain and his idea of romanticism. The most compelling reason to avoid romanticizing chivalry is that to take a view through rose-tinted lenses distorts and trivializes ...
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This chapter discusses Mark Twain and his idea of romanticism. The most compelling reason to avoid romanticizing chivalry is that to take a view through rose-tinted lenses distorts and trivializes this force in early European history. By escaping romanticism, people can recognize the linkage between chivalry and major issues in medieval society, especially the issue of violence and public order. It argues that in the problem of public order the knights play an important role, and that the guides to their conduct that chivalry provided are in themselves complex and problematic.Less
This chapter discusses Mark Twain and his idea of romanticism. The most compelling reason to avoid romanticizing chivalry is that to take a view through rose-tinted lenses distorts and trivializes this force in early European history. By escaping romanticism, people can recognize the linkage between chivalry and major issues in medieval society, especially the issue of violence and public order. It argues that in the problem of public order the knights play an important role, and that the guides to their conduct that chivalry provided are in themselves complex and problematic.
Rosalind Brown-Grant
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199554140
- eISBN:
- 9780191721069
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554140.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Whilst French romances of the 12th and 13th centuries enjoy a privileged place in the literary history of France, romances from the later middle ages have been neglected by modern scholars. In ...
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Whilst French romances of the 12th and 13th centuries enjoy a privileged place in the literary history of France, romances from the later middle ages have been neglected by modern scholars. In particular, although this genre has been seen as providing a forum within which contemporary ideas about masculine and feminine roles were debated, little work has been done on the gender ideology of 14th- and 15th-century texts. This book's aims is to fill this gap in the scholarship by analysing how the views of gender found in earlier romances were reshaped in the texts produced in the moralising intellectual environment of the later medieval period. In order to explore these topics, the book discusses sixteen historico-realist prose romances written between 1390 and 1480, many of which were commissioned at the court of Burgundy. It addresses key issues in recent studies of gender in medieval culture including the construction of chivalric masculinity, the representation of adolescent desire, and the social and sexual roles of husbands and wives. In addition to offering close readings of these texts, it shows how the romances of the period were informed by ideas about gender which circulated in contemporary works such as manuals of chivalry, moral treatises, and marriage sermons. It aims to question the critical consensus on the role of gender in medieval romance that has arisen from an exclusive focus on earlier works in the genre.Less
Whilst French romances of the 12th and 13th centuries enjoy a privileged place in the literary history of France, romances from the later middle ages have been neglected by modern scholars. In particular, although this genre has been seen as providing a forum within which contemporary ideas about masculine and feminine roles were debated, little work has been done on the gender ideology of 14th- and 15th-century texts. This book's aims is to fill this gap in the scholarship by analysing how the views of gender found in earlier romances were reshaped in the texts produced in the moralising intellectual environment of the later medieval period. In order to explore these topics, the book discusses sixteen historico-realist prose romances written between 1390 and 1480, many of which were commissioned at the court of Burgundy. It addresses key issues in recent studies of gender in medieval culture including the construction of chivalric masculinity, the representation of adolescent desire, and the social and sexual roles of husbands and wives. In addition to offering close readings of these texts, it shows how the romances of the period were informed by ideas about gender which circulated in contemporary works such as manuals of chivalry, moral treatises, and marriage sermons. It aims to question the critical consensus on the role of gender in medieval romance that has arisen from an exclusive focus on earlier works in the genre.
Patricia A. Cahill
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199212057
- eISBN:
- 9780191705830
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212057.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter turns from abstraction to the matter of fleshly bodies and traumatic representation. It shows how, long before 19th‐century discourses of shellshock, the Elizabethan theater represented ...
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This chapter turns from abstraction to the matter of fleshly bodies and traumatic representation. It shows how, long before 19th‐century discourses of shellshock, the Elizabethan theater represented the experience of battlefield injury as an occurrence so overwhelming that it could not readily be assimilated or even seen. The chapter explores the staging of repetitive images of trauma in The Trial of Chivalry, an anonymous drama that takes it pseudo‐historical plot from some episodes in Philip Sidney's Arcadia. Exploring the play's representation of injury, this chapter shows how the culture's gender politics enable a woman's disfigured face to become legible as a kind of stand‐in for a soldier's injuries.Less
This chapter turns from abstraction to the matter of fleshly bodies and traumatic representation. It shows how, long before 19th‐century discourses of shellshock, the Elizabethan theater represented the experience of battlefield injury as an occurrence so overwhelming that it could not readily be assimilated or even seen. The chapter explores the staging of repetitive images of trauma in The Trial of Chivalry, an anonymous drama that takes it pseudo‐historical plot from some episodes in Philip Sidney's Arcadia. Exploring the play's representation of injury, this chapter shows how the culture's gender politics enable a woman's disfigured face to become legible as a kind of stand‐in for a soldier's injuries.
Colin Morris
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198269250
- eISBN:
- 9780191600708
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198269250.003.0014
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
There was a new element of humanism in twelfth‐century thinking, and with this came a concern for the ordering of an increasingly technical society. The older idea of ‘orders’ in society was ...
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There was a new element of humanism in twelfth‐century thinking, and with this came a concern for the ordering of an increasingly technical society. The older idea of ‘orders’ in society was increasingly superseded by the idea of ‘estates’. There was a massive commitment to the relief of the poor, and a new theology of marriage was elaborated. Commercial ethics were an important issue, especially the question of usury, and so was the elaboration of an ideal of knighthood.Less
There was a new element of humanism in twelfth‐century thinking, and with this came a concern for the ordering of an increasingly technical society. The older idea of ‘orders’ in society was increasingly superseded by the idea of ‘estates’. There was a massive commitment to the relief of the poor, and a new theology of marriage was elaborated. Commercial ethics were an important issue, especially the question of usury, and so was the elaboration of an ideal of knighthood.
John P. Wright
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199227044
- eISBN:
- 9780191739309
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199227044.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
Recent work on dating Hume’s manuscripts by M. A. Stewart, with further evidence adduced here, establishes the likelihood that Hume’s manuscript ‘An historical essay on chivalry and modern honour’ ...
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Recent work on dating Hume’s manuscripts by M. A. Stewart, with further evidence adduced here, establishes the likelihood that Hume’s manuscript ‘An historical essay on chivalry and modern honour’ was written in 1732 or 1733. What can we learn from the chapter about the development of Hume’s ideas in ethics and religion at this time, six or seven years before the publication of his Treatise of human nature? Throughout the chapter Hume assumes Hutcheson’s theory that genuine virtue is natural, and that its perversion results from artifice. Both the chapter itself and Hume’s contemporary correspondence strongly suggest also, however, that he was beginning to be influenced by the sceptical philosophy of Bernard Mandeville which stresses the role of artifice in moral judgement. The overreaching principle developed in the early chapter appears to be applied also in Hume’s later writings on religion, where the scepticism of Mandeville and Bayle is explicit.Less
Recent work on dating Hume’s manuscripts by M. A. Stewart, with further evidence adduced here, establishes the likelihood that Hume’s manuscript ‘An historical essay on chivalry and modern honour’ was written in 1732 or 1733. What can we learn from the chapter about the development of Hume’s ideas in ethics and religion at this time, six or seven years before the publication of his Treatise of human nature? Throughout the chapter Hume assumes Hutcheson’s theory that genuine virtue is natural, and that its perversion results from artifice. Both the chapter itself and Hume’s contemporary correspondence strongly suggest also, however, that he was beginning to be influenced by the sceptical philosophy of Bernard Mandeville which stresses the role of artifice in moral judgement. The overreaching principle developed in the early chapter appears to be applied also in Hume’s later writings on religion, where the scepticism of Mandeville and Bayle is explicit.
Suzanne F. Cawsey
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199251858
- eISBN:
- 9780191719073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199251858.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
While the kings of Aragon could use their speeches to enhance and develop a political mythology, their arguments could only retain credibility if they corresponded to their audiences' accepted ...
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While the kings of Aragon could use their speeches to enhance and develop a political mythology, their arguments could only retain credibility if they corresponded to their audiences' accepted ideologies. Thus the expression of royal power in the cortes represents an interesting compromise, or perhaps even conflict, between the political limitations imposed on the kings of Aragon and their ambitions for royal authority. Moreover, it is in this context, more than in any other, that the need for political argument, explanation, and apology is demonstrated: in justifying the king's own position as ruler. This chapter looks at kingship and propaganda in peace and war, along with chivalry, in Aragon during the medieval period.Less
While the kings of Aragon could use their speeches to enhance and develop a political mythology, their arguments could only retain credibility if they corresponded to their audiences' accepted ideologies. Thus the expression of royal power in the cortes represents an interesting compromise, or perhaps even conflict, between the political limitations imposed on the kings of Aragon and their ambitions for royal authority. Moreover, it is in this context, more than in any other, that the need for political argument, explanation, and apology is demonstrated: in justifying the king's own position as ruler. This chapter looks at kingship and propaganda in peace and war, along with chivalry, in Aragon during the medieval period.
Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199557219
- eISBN:
- 9780191720932
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557219.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, European Literature
This book examines all four verse continuations that follow Chrétien's unfinished Grail story, a powerful site of rewriting from the late 12th through the 15th centuries. By focusing on the dialogue ...
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This book examines all four verse continuations that follow Chrétien's unfinished Grail story, a powerful site of rewriting from the late 12th through the 15th centuries. By focusing on the dialogue between Chrétien and the verse continuators, this study demonstrates how the patterns and puzzles inscribed in the first author's romance continue to guide his successors, whose additions and reinventions throw new light back on the problems medieval readers and writers found in the mother text: questions about society and the individual; love, gender relations, and family ties; chivalry, violence, and religion; issues of collective authorship and doubled heroes, interpretation, rewriting, and canon formation. However far the continuations appear to wander from the master text, the manuscript tradition supports an implicit claim of oneness extending across the multiplicity of discordant voices combined in a dozen different manuscript compilations, the varying ensembles in which most medieval readers encountered Chrétien's Conte. Indeed, considered as a group the continuators show remarkable fidelity in integrating his romance's key elements, as they respond sympathetically to the dynamic incongruities and paradoxical structure of their model, its desire for and deferral of ending, its non-Aristotelian logic of ‘and/both’ in which contiguity forces interpretation and further narrative elaboration. Unlike their prose competitors, the verse continuators remain faithful to the dialectical movement inscribed across the interlace of two heroes' intertwined stories, the contradictory yet complementary spirit that propels Chrétien's decentered Conte du Graal. Chrétien de Troyes's unfinished Grail story generated numerous rewritings in verse and prose from the late 12th through the 15th centuries. Cycles and sequels invariably raise questions about how stories are joined and how they end, what makes a whole, and what changes in meaning emerge across their continuities and discontinuities. In the context of medieval invention and manuscript culture, what is the nature of collective authorship? The central argument of this study addresses these questions to demonstrate how the patterns and puzzles inscribed in Chrétien's Conte du Graal continue to guide his four continuators in verse. However much they seem to stray from the originating text, close examination reveals how faithfully they use the distinctive narrative techniques of their common model and ask the questions about love, chivalry, religion, and violence that entered Arthurian romance so problematically in the first ‘Story of the Grail’.Less
This book examines all four verse continuations that follow Chrétien's unfinished Grail story, a powerful site of rewriting from the late 12th through the 15th centuries. By focusing on the dialogue between Chrétien and the verse continuators, this study demonstrates how the patterns and puzzles inscribed in the first author's romance continue to guide his successors, whose additions and reinventions throw new light back on the problems medieval readers and writers found in the mother text: questions about society and the individual; love, gender relations, and family ties; chivalry, violence, and religion; issues of collective authorship and doubled heroes, interpretation, rewriting, and canon formation. However far the continuations appear to wander from the master text, the manuscript tradition supports an implicit claim of oneness extending across the multiplicity of discordant voices combined in a dozen different manuscript compilations, the varying ensembles in which most medieval readers encountered Chrétien's Conte. Indeed, considered as a group the continuators show remarkable fidelity in integrating his romance's key elements, as they respond sympathetically to the dynamic incongruities and paradoxical structure of their model, its desire for and deferral of ending, its non-Aristotelian logic of ‘and/both’ in which contiguity forces interpretation and further narrative elaboration. Unlike their prose competitors, the verse continuators remain faithful to the dialectical movement inscribed across the interlace of two heroes' intertwined stories, the contradictory yet complementary spirit that propels Chrétien's decentered Conte du Graal. Chrétien de Troyes's unfinished Grail story generated numerous rewritings in verse and prose from the late 12th through the 15th centuries. Cycles and sequels invariably raise questions about how stories are joined and how they end, what makes a whole, and what changes in meaning emerge across their continuities and discontinuities. In the context of medieval invention and manuscript culture, what is the nature of collective authorship? The central argument of this study addresses these questions to demonstrate how the patterns and puzzles inscribed in Chrétien's Conte du Graal continue to guide his four continuators in verse. However much they seem to stray from the originating text, close examination reveals how faithfully they use the distinctive narrative techniques of their common model and ask the questions about love, chivalry, religion, and violence that entered Arthurian romance so problematically in the first ‘Story of the Grail’.
Yoon Sun Lee
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195162356
- eISBN:
- 9780199787852
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195162356.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
A clue to Burke's conception of the public sphere can be found in the theatricality of his rhetorical tropes. Unlike radicals such as Priestley, who defined the public sphere as the exercise of ...
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A clue to Burke's conception of the public sphere can be found in the theatricality of his rhetorical tropes. Unlike radicals such as Priestley, who defined the public sphere as the exercise of rational agency, Burke saw the public sphere of the ancient regime France and Britain as constituted by elaborate fictions that were a matter of public knowledge and consensus. Fictions such as chivalry beneficially blurred the distinctions between agency and passivity, domination and subordination and gave rise to a distinctively ironic, self-conscious strain of civic emotion. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, as well as in other writings and speeches, Burke praised Britain's tradition of skillfully manipulating conventional deference. The practices of actors and theatrical audiences exemplify for Burke the type of emotional response that rests on voluntary complicity and the disavowal of knowledge.Less
A clue to Burke's conception of the public sphere can be found in the theatricality of his rhetorical tropes. Unlike radicals such as Priestley, who defined the public sphere as the exercise of rational agency, Burke saw the public sphere of the ancient regime France and Britain as constituted by elaborate fictions that were a matter of public knowledge and consensus. Fictions such as chivalry beneficially blurred the distinctions between agency and passivity, domination and subordination and gave rise to a distinctively ironic, self-conscious strain of civic emotion. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, as well as in other writings and speeches, Burke praised Britain's tradition of skillfully manipulating conventional deference. The practices of actors and theatrical audiences exemplify for Burke the type of emotional response that rests on voluntary complicity and the disavowal of knowledge.
Samuel England
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474425223
- eISBN:
- 9781474438544
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474425223.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
Medieval Empires and the Culture of Competition shows how the interactive, confrontational practice of courtly arts helped shape imperial thought in the Middle Ages. Its analysis covers Classical ...
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Medieval Empires and the Culture of Competition shows how the interactive, confrontational practice of courtly arts helped shape imperial thought in the Middle Ages. Its analysis covers Classical Arabic poetry and official prose, Spanish court documents, Galician Portuguese lyric, and Italian narrative works. The historical span is 950-1350 CE. Scholars of premodern cultures have struggled to reconcile the political violence of the late Middle Ages with the cosmopolitanism of that era’s Islamic and Christian empires. This book argues that medieval thinkers’ most pressing cultural challenge was neither to demonize the foreign, “heathen” other, nor to reverse that trend with an ethos of tolerance. Instead it was to make the court appear as robust as possible in the face of major demographic change and regional war. The ritual of artistic contest allowed elites to come to terms with religious and ethnic groups’ rival claims to legitimacy, and to subsume those claims into an overarching courtly ideal.Less
Medieval Empires and the Culture of Competition shows how the interactive, confrontational practice of courtly arts helped shape imperial thought in the Middle Ages. Its analysis covers Classical Arabic poetry and official prose, Spanish court documents, Galician Portuguese lyric, and Italian narrative works. The historical span is 950-1350 CE. Scholars of premodern cultures have struggled to reconcile the political violence of the late Middle Ages with the cosmopolitanism of that era’s Islamic and Christian empires. This book argues that medieval thinkers’ most pressing cultural challenge was neither to demonize the foreign, “heathen” other, nor to reverse that trend with an ethos of tolerance. Instead it was to make the court appear as robust as possible in the face of major demographic change and regional war. The ritual of artistic contest allowed elites to come to terms with religious and ethnic groups’ rival claims to legitimacy, and to subsume those claims into an overarching courtly ideal.
Giorgio Agamben
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262037594
- eISBN:
- 9780262345231
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262037594.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy
This book charts a journey that ranges from poems of chivalry to philosophy, from Yvain to Hegel, from Beatrice to Heidegger. An ancient legend identifies Demon, Chance, Love, and Necessity as the ...
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This book charts a journey that ranges from poems of chivalry to philosophy, from Yvain to Hegel, from Beatrice to Heidegger. An ancient legend identifies Demon, Chance, Love, and Necessity as the four gods who preside over the birth of every human being. We must all pay tribute to these deities and should not try to elude or dupe them. To accept them, the book suggests, is to live one's life as an adventure—not in the trivial sense of the term, with lightness and disenchantment, but with the understanding that adventure, as a specific way of being, is the most profound experience in our human existence. The four gods of legend are joined at the end by a goddess, the most elusive and mysterious of all: Elpis, Hope. In Greek mythology, Hope remains in Pandora's box, not because it postpones its fulfillment to an invisible beyond but because somehow it has always been already satisfied. Here, the book presents Hope as the ultimate gift of the human adventure on Earth.Less
This book charts a journey that ranges from poems of chivalry to philosophy, from Yvain to Hegel, from Beatrice to Heidegger. An ancient legend identifies Demon, Chance, Love, and Necessity as the four gods who preside over the birth of every human being. We must all pay tribute to these deities and should not try to elude or dupe them. To accept them, the book suggests, is to live one's life as an adventure—not in the trivial sense of the term, with lightness and disenchantment, but with the understanding that adventure, as a specific way of being, is the most profound experience in our human existence. The four gods of legend are joined at the end by a goddess, the most elusive and mysterious of all: Elpis, Hope. In Greek mythology, Hope remains in Pandora's box, not because it postpones its fulfillment to an invisible beyond but because somehow it has always been already satisfied. Here, the book presents Hope as the ultimate gift of the human adventure on Earth.
M. A. Stewart
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199256525
- eISBN:
- 9780191719707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199256525.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Information on Hume's childhood education is lacking and his later retrospects on his mature development are sometimes unreliable. Entering Edinburgh University at ten years old, he studied Latin, ...
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Information on Hume's childhood education is lacking and his later retrospects on his mature development are sometimes unreliable. Entering Edinburgh University at ten years old, he studied Latin, Greek, two years of philosophy, and some mathematics. New evidence is provided here. He dispar-aged college philosophy, but learnt something from natural philosophy. Leaving college at fourteen, he expanded his literary and philosophical horizons, studying Stoicism and other ancient systems and the religious epistemologies of his day. How far he shared these explorations with friends is unclear. After suffering a nervous crisis at eighteen, and probably a religious crisis, Hume distanced himself from the ancients and sought a more experiential science of human nature that came to maturity in the Treatise. His ‘historical essay’ on chivalry shows this transition in progress. After he returned from France in 1737, Hume's biggest task was to complete the presentation of his moral theory, a project delayed by his introduction to Francis Hutcheson. By 1741, he had moved into political commentary, and towards political economy, ranging over historical evidence from classical to modern times. In reworking some aspects of his Treatise philosophy, he simplified his metaphysics without abandoning it. His Political Discourses completed the philosophical foundations for the History of England.Less
Information on Hume's childhood education is lacking and his later retrospects on his mature development are sometimes unreliable. Entering Edinburgh University at ten years old, he studied Latin, Greek, two years of philosophy, and some mathematics. New evidence is provided here. He dispar-aged college philosophy, but learnt something from natural philosophy. Leaving college at fourteen, he expanded his literary and philosophical horizons, studying Stoicism and other ancient systems and the religious epistemologies of his day. How far he shared these explorations with friends is unclear. After suffering a nervous crisis at eighteen, and probably a religious crisis, Hume distanced himself from the ancients and sought a more experiential science of human nature that came to maturity in the Treatise. His ‘historical essay’ on chivalry shows this transition in progress. After he returned from France in 1737, Hume's biggest task was to complete the presentation of his moral theory, a project delayed by his introduction to Francis Hutcheson. By 1741, he had moved into political commentary, and towards political economy, ranging over historical evidence from classical to modern times. In reworking some aspects of his Treatise philosophy, he simplified his metaphysics without abandoning it. His Political Discourses completed the philosophical foundations for the History of England.
Richard Kaeuper
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199244584
- eISBN:
- 9780191697388
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244584.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
Medieval Europe was a rapidly developing society with a problem of violent disorder. This study reveals that chivalry was just as much a part of this problem as it was its solution. Chivalry praised ...
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Medieval Europe was a rapidly developing society with a problem of violent disorder. This study reveals that chivalry was just as much a part of this problem as it was its solution. Chivalry praised heroic violence by knights, and fused such displays of prowess with honour, piety, high status, and attractiveness to women. Though the vast body of chivalric literature praised chivalry as necessary to civilization, most texts also worried over knightly violence, criticized the ideals and practices of chivalry, and often proposed reforms. The knights themselves joined the debate, absorbing some reforms, ignoring others, sometimes proposing their own. The interaction of chivalry with major governing institutions (‘church’ and ‘state’) emerging at that time was similarly complex: kings and clerics both needed and feared the force of the knighthood. This book lays bare the conflicts and paradoxes which surrounded the concept of chivalry in medieval Europe.Less
Medieval Europe was a rapidly developing society with a problem of violent disorder. This study reveals that chivalry was just as much a part of this problem as it was its solution. Chivalry praised heroic violence by knights, and fused such displays of prowess with honour, piety, high status, and attractiveness to women. Though the vast body of chivalric literature praised chivalry as necessary to civilization, most texts also worried over knightly violence, criticized the ideals and practices of chivalry, and often proposed reforms. The knights themselves joined the debate, absorbing some reforms, ignoring others, sometimes proposing their own. The interaction of chivalry with major governing institutions (‘church’ and ‘state’) emerging at that time was similarly complex: kings and clerics both needed and feared the force of the knighthood. This book lays bare the conflicts and paradoxes which surrounded the concept of chivalry in medieval Europe.
Patrick Parrinder
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199264858
- eISBN:
- 9780191698989
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199264858.003.0015
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
There are novelists of contraction and expansion in the English fiction of the 20th century. During this time, some the novelists returned to the ideas of chivalry and used it as a theme in their ...
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There are novelists of contraction and expansion in the English fiction of the 20th century. During this time, some the novelists returned to the ideas of chivalry and used it as a theme in their works. Several features of novel-sequences are discussed in the chapter. It uses distinct techniques to captivate the attention of readers such as thematic repetition.Less
There are novelists of contraction and expansion in the English fiction of the 20th century. During this time, some the novelists returned to the ideas of chivalry and used it as a theme in their works. Several features of novel-sequences are discussed in the chapter. It uses distinct techniques to captivate the attention of readers such as thematic repetition.
John Gillingham
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693627
- eISBN:
- 9780191741258
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693627.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter distinguishes two phases in the culture of war in Europe. In the first, the capture and enslavement of women and children were respectable war aims; in consequence the systematic killing ...
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This chapter distinguishes two phases in the culture of war in Europe. In the first, the capture and enslavement of women and children were respectable war aims; in consequence the systematic killing of adult males (especially those of high-status) was routine; for a warrior to surrender was shameful and very rare. In phase two, the demise of slavery meant that for the first time women and children came to be regarded as non-combatants, and high-status warriors treated as a source of profit (ransom). In consequence the knightly class came to recognize circumstances in which surrender was both sensible and honorable. It amounts to a shift from the Old Testament-style warfare still characteristic of the early Middle Ages to war in the ‘age of chivalry’.Less
This chapter distinguishes two phases in the culture of war in Europe. In the first, the capture and enslavement of women and children were respectable war aims; in consequence the systematic killing of adult males (especially those of high-status) was routine; for a warrior to surrender was shameful and very rare. In phase two, the demise of slavery meant that for the first time women and children came to be regarded as non-combatants, and high-status warriors treated as a source of profit (ransom). In consequence the knightly class came to recognize circumstances in which surrender was both sensible and honorable. It amounts to a shift from the Old Testament-style warfare still characteristic of the early Middle Ages to war in the ‘age of chivalry’.
Diana de Armas Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198160052
- eISBN:
- 9780191673764
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198160052.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
By way of a comparative context for the achievement of Cervantes, this chapter surveys his status in both Continental and Anglo-American criticism. It documents how the Wattian rise of the novel – a ...
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By way of a comparative context for the achievement of Cervantes, this chapter surveys his status in both Continental and Anglo-American criticism. It documents how the Wattian rise of the novel – a critical construct responsible for marginalizing Cervantes while canonizing Defoe – has been fiercely contested by scholars of the ancient novel. In addition to questioning the usefulness of the term ‘romance’, these scholars of antiquity are enriching the notions of Cervantes's Graeco-Latin subtexts, concealed or avowed.Less
By way of a comparative context for the achievement of Cervantes, this chapter surveys his status in both Continental and Anglo-American criticism. It documents how the Wattian rise of the novel – a critical construct responsible for marginalizing Cervantes while canonizing Defoe – has been fiercely contested by scholars of the ancient novel. In addition to questioning the usefulness of the term ‘romance’, these scholars of antiquity are enriching the notions of Cervantes's Graeco-Latin subtexts, concealed or avowed.
Anthony Close
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159988
- eISBN:
- 9780191673733
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159988.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter contends that the concept of ‘la verdad de la historia’ or the truth of the history, which is thematic in Don Quixote, contains the essence of Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes' ...
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This chapter contends that the concept of ‘la verdad de la historia’ or the truth of the history, which is thematic in Don Quixote, contains the essence of Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes' poetics of comic fiction. This novel has an ironic sense and a basic purpose of ridiculing the romances of chivalry for their solemn pretence of historical truth by offering a preposterous equivalent to it. This chapter also examines the irony in the literal and poetic truth in the novel.Less
This chapter contends that the concept of ‘la verdad de la historia’ or the truth of the history, which is thematic in Don Quixote, contains the essence of Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes' poetics of comic fiction. This novel has an ironic sense and a basic purpose of ridiculing the romances of chivalry for their solemn pretence of historical truth by offering a preposterous equivalent to it. This chapter also examines the irony in the literal and poetic truth in the novel.
Fiona Price
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474402965
- eISBN:
- 9781474422116
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474402965.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Walter Scott is often regarded as the first historical novelist. Reinventing Liberty challenges this view by returning us to the rich range of historical novels written in the late ...
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Walter Scott is often regarded as the first historical novelist. Reinventing Liberty challenges this view by returning us to the rich range of historical novels written in the late eighteenth-century. It explores how these works participated in a contentious debate concerning the formulation of political change and British national identity and its response to political change. Ranging across well-known writers, like William Godwin, Horace Walpole and Frances Burney, to lesser-known figures, such as Cornelia Ellis Knight and Jane Porter, Reinventing Liberty reveals how history becomes a site to rethink Britain as ‘land of liberty’. Drawing on the new ways of writing history in this period, upon stadial history, antiquarianism, and debates concerning historical evidence, Reinventing Liberty analyses the anxieties caused by the rise of commerce and the demands for political change. It explores how historical novelists from Horace Walpole to Ann Radcliffe interrogated the idea of an ancient constitution. It examines the radical energies of the historical novel in post-French Revolution debate and the genre’s position as forerunner to the national tale. It then demonstrates how such ideas recuperated by more conservative historical novelists, who redirected historical concern from issues of individual liberty to matters of nation and empire and who emphasized a Christian version of chivalry. Finally, it positions Scott in relation to this complex tradition. The result is a new definition of the historical novel and of its role in the construction of the national myth of Britain as nation of gradual political change.Less
Walter Scott is often regarded as the first historical novelist. Reinventing Liberty challenges this view by returning us to the rich range of historical novels written in the late eighteenth-century. It explores how these works participated in a contentious debate concerning the formulation of political change and British national identity and its response to political change. Ranging across well-known writers, like William Godwin, Horace Walpole and Frances Burney, to lesser-known figures, such as Cornelia Ellis Knight and Jane Porter, Reinventing Liberty reveals how history becomes a site to rethink Britain as ‘land of liberty’. Drawing on the new ways of writing history in this period, upon stadial history, antiquarianism, and debates concerning historical evidence, Reinventing Liberty analyses the anxieties caused by the rise of commerce and the demands for political change. It explores how historical novelists from Horace Walpole to Ann Radcliffe interrogated the idea of an ancient constitution. It examines the radical energies of the historical novel in post-French Revolution debate and the genre’s position as forerunner to the national tale. It then demonstrates how such ideas recuperated by more conservative historical novelists, who redirected historical concern from issues of individual liberty to matters of nation and empire and who emphasized a Christian version of chivalry. Finally, it positions Scott in relation to this complex tradition. The result is a new definition of the historical novel and of its role in the construction of the national myth of Britain as nation of gradual political change.
Richard W. Kaeuper
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199244584
- eISBN:
- 9780191697388
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244584.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter argues that medieval evidence on chivalry and order is filled with tension and contradiction. Elspeth Kennedy, Philippe de Beaumanoir, and Ramon Llull are among the authors of historical ...
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This chapter argues that medieval evidence on chivalry and order is filled with tension and contradiction. Elspeth Kennedy, Philippe de Beaumanoir, and Ramon Llull are among the authors of historical works that provide several pieces of evidence and interpretations of chivalry. The content of the romances, as read in their books, leads to the same conclusion. Anyone who has read thousands of pages of chivalric literature knows that either these texts were meant for men and women, or that woman of the medieval period could not get enough of combat and war, of the effects of sword strokes on armour and the human body, of the particulars of tenurial relationships, and of the tactical manoeuvres that lead to victory. This evidence suggests that the great body of chivalric literature was aimed at knights even more than at their ladies.Less
This chapter argues that medieval evidence on chivalry and order is filled with tension and contradiction. Elspeth Kennedy, Philippe de Beaumanoir, and Ramon Llull are among the authors of historical works that provide several pieces of evidence and interpretations of chivalry. The content of the romances, as read in their books, leads to the same conclusion. Anyone who has read thousands of pages of chivalric literature knows that either these texts were meant for men and women, or that woman of the medieval period could not get enough of combat and war, of the effects of sword strokes on armour and the human body, of the particulars of tenurial relationships, and of the tactical manoeuvres that lead to victory. This evidence suggests that the great body of chivalric literature was aimed at knights even more than at their ladies.
Richard W. Kaeuper
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199244584
- eISBN:
- 9780191697388
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244584.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter examines the tension between an undoubted knightly piety and the considerable force of knightly independence. Knightly lay piety involved a degree of practical lay independence. Chivalry ...
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This chapter examines the tension between an undoubted knightly piety and the considerable force of knightly independence. Knightly lay piety involved a degree of practical lay independence. Chivalry took on the mantle of religion without fully accepting the directive role claimed by ecclesiastics. It absorbed religion for its own purposes. Knights did not only bow before clerical authority but they also absorbed the lessons and patterns for their loves urged by their brothers, sisters, and cousins bearing veils. The nature of their piety and the way in which it combined with their power in the world helps explain the strength of chivalry.Less
This chapter examines the tension between an undoubted knightly piety and the considerable force of knightly independence. Knightly lay piety involved a degree of practical lay independence. Chivalry took on the mantle of religion without fully accepting the directive role claimed by ecclesiastics. It absorbed religion for its own purposes. Knights did not only bow before clerical authority but they also absorbed the lessons and patterns for their loves urged by their brothers, sisters, and cousins bearing veils. The nature of their piety and the way in which it combined with their power in the world helps explain the strength of chivalry.
