Dorothy Yamamoto
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198186748
- eISBN:
- 9780191718564
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186748.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Animals and ‘wild men’ are everywhere in medieval culture, but their role in illuminating medieval constructions of humanity has never been properly explored. This book gathers together a large ...
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Animals and ‘wild men’ are everywhere in medieval culture, but their role in illuminating medieval constructions of humanity has never been properly explored. This book gathers together a large number of themes and subjects, including the Bestiary, heraldry, and hunting, and examines them as part of a unified discourse about the body and its creative transformations. ‘Human’ and ‘animal’ are terms traditionally opposed to one another, but their relationship must always be characterized by a dynamic instability. Humans scout into the animal zone, manipulating and reshaping ‘animal’ bodies in accordance with their own social imaginings — yet these forays are risky since they lead to questions about what humanity consists in, and whether it can ever be forfeited. Studies of birds, foxes, ‘game’ animals, the wild man, and shape-shifting women fill out the argument of this book, which examines works by Chaucer, Gower, the Gawain-poet, and Henryson, as well as showing that many less familiar texts have rewards that an informed reading can reveal.Less
Animals and ‘wild men’ are everywhere in medieval culture, but their role in illuminating medieval constructions of humanity has never been properly explored. This book gathers together a large number of themes and subjects, including the Bestiary, heraldry, and hunting, and examines them as part of a unified discourse about the body and its creative transformations. ‘Human’ and ‘animal’ are terms traditionally opposed to one another, but their relationship must always be characterized by a dynamic instability. Humans scout into the animal zone, manipulating and reshaping ‘animal’ bodies in accordance with their own social imaginings — yet these forays are risky since they lead to questions about what humanity consists in, and whether it can ever be forfeited. Studies of birds, foxes, ‘game’ animals, the wild man, and shape-shifting women fill out the argument of this book, which examines works by Chaucer, Gower, the Gawain-poet, and Henryson, as well as showing that many less familiar texts have rewards that an informed reading can reveal.
Michael Ward
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195313871
- eISBN:
- 9780199871964
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195313871.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
Mercury and Hermes in Lewis's scholarship, That Hideous Strength, and poetry. The Babel curse, multivalence, puns, and the faculty of componendo et dividendo. The donegality of The Horse and His Boy. ...
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Mercury and Hermes in Lewis's scholarship, That Hideous Strength, and poetry. The Babel curse, multivalence, puns, and the faculty of componendo et dividendo. The donegality of The Horse and His Boy. ‘Meeting selves, same but sundered’, Castor and Pollux, swiftness, heraldry, theft, skill in speech, quicksilver. A manifestation of hesychastic prayer, of the Trinitarian spirit and of consubstantiality.Less
Mercury and Hermes in Lewis's scholarship, That Hideous Strength, and poetry. The Babel curse, multivalence, puns, and the faculty of componendo et dividendo. The donegality of The Horse and His Boy. ‘Meeting selves, same but sundered’, Castor and Pollux, swiftness, heraldry, theft, skill in speech, quicksilver. A manifestation of hesychastic prayer, of the Trinitarian spirit and of consubstantiality.
DOROTHY YAMAMOTO
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198186748
- eISBN:
- 9780191718564
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186748.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
In heraldry, ‘the names of the nobility were related totemically to the natural world, especially to animals’. Heraldry was vitally important in the late 14th-century English courtly world, as ...
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In heraldry, ‘the names of the nobility were related totemically to the natural world, especially to animals’. Heraldry was vitally important in the late 14th-century English courtly world, as witnessed by Richard II's lavish distribution of his badge of the white hart. Yet the heraldic sign was never an innocent marker, but a counter in political debate — in Mum and the Sothsegger the king is accused of favouring the ‘harts’, his followers, at the expense of young, hungry deer. In fact, heraldic discourse was subject to various kinds of fracturing because of its engagement with physical form. Readings of heraldic texts (e.g. by John de Bado Aureo, Bartolo di Sassoferrato, and Nicholas Upton), of poems, of Froissart's tale of Math, the king's greyhound, and of passages from Chaucer and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight follow, as well as discussions of the Devonshire Tapestries and the Wilton Diptych.Less
In heraldry, ‘the names of the nobility were related totemically to the natural world, especially to animals’. Heraldry was vitally important in the late 14th-century English courtly world, as witnessed by Richard II's lavish distribution of his badge of the white hart. Yet the heraldic sign was never an innocent marker, but a counter in political debate — in Mum and the Sothsegger the king is accused of favouring the ‘harts’, his followers, at the expense of young, hungry deer. In fact, heraldic discourse was subject to various kinds of fracturing because of its engagement with physical form. Readings of heraldic texts (e.g. by John de Bado Aureo, Bartolo di Sassoferrato, and Nicholas Upton), of poems, of Froissart's tale of Math, the king's greyhound, and of passages from Chaucer and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight follow, as well as discussions of the Devonshire Tapestries and the Wilton Diptych.
DOROTHY YAMAMOTO
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198186748
- eISBN:
- 9780191718564
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186748.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter presents a reading of Chaucer's Knight's Tale, which takes up the theme of human-animal relations as an enterprise of control. It is argued that in the Tale, the degree to which the ...
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This chapter presents a reading of Chaucer's Knight's Tale, which takes up the theme of human-animal relations as an enterprise of control. It is argued that in the Tale, the degree to which the human characters attain mastery over events is partly expressed through the way in which they are linked with different animals. Heraldic elements, as well as real animals, permeate the descriptions of Lygurge and Emetreus; while Palamon and Arcite are linked with more lowly bodies — the drunken mouse, the crow's black carcass, the hunted deer — in keeping with their socially marginal status, fated to be acted upon rather than actors themselves. The Tale ends without resolving these questions, despite Theseus's attempt at philosophizing in his closing oration.Less
This chapter presents a reading of Chaucer's Knight's Tale, which takes up the theme of human-animal relations as an enterprise of control. It is argued that in the Tale, the degree to which the human characters attain mastery over events is partly expressed through the way in which they are linked with different animals. Heraldic elements, as well as real animals, permeate the descriptions of Lygurge and Emetreus; while Palamon and Arcite are linked with more lowly bodies — the drunken mouse, the crow's black carcass, the hunted deer — in keeping with their socially marginal status, fated to be acted upon rather than actors themselves. The Tale ends without resolving these questions, despite Theseus's attempt at philosophizing in his closing oration.
Philip Schwyzer
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199676101
- eISBN:
- 9780191762840
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199676101.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter considers the extent to which the some of the central institutions, customs, and practices of the Tudor era were constructed, paradoxically, on Ricardian foundations. The examples ...
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This chapter considers the extent to which the some of the central institutions, customs, and practices of the Tudor era were constructed, paradoxically, on Ricardian foundations. The examples explored here range from institutions founded in Richard’s reign, to buildings on which he left his physical or memorial mark, to the traces of late fifteenth-century trajectories and traditions still evident in the palimpsest of everyday urban life in the Elizabethan period. Shakespeare’s world—the world into which he launched his Richard III—was Richard’s as well: a world whose administrative and cultural contours the last Plantagenet would have recognized, and which he had in certain respects helped to bring into being.Less
This chapter considers the extent to which the some of the central institutions, customs, and practices of the Tudor era were constructed, paradoxically, on Ricardian foundations. The examples explored here range from institutions founded in Richard’s reign, to buildings on which he left his physical or memorial mark, to the traces of late fifteenth-century trajectories and traditions still evident in the palimpsest of everyday urban life in the Elizabethan period. Shakespeare’s world—the world into which he launched his Richard III—was Richard’s as well: a world whose administrative and cultural contours the last Plantagenet would have recognized, and which he had in certain respects helped to bring into being.
Peggy McCracken
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226458922
- eISBN:
- 9780226459080
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226459080.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter argues that romance representations of sovereign relations defined by protection and exile invite a consideration of the shared being of the beast and the sovereign. An analysis of the ...
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This chapter argues that romance representations of sovereign relations defined by protection and exile invite a consideration of the shared being of the beast and the sovereign. An analysis of the symbolic use of animals in heraldry and the material use of animal skin structure the chapter's inquiry. The first part of the chapter reads Chrétien de Troyes’s Chevalier au lion (Knight of the Lion) as a romance about the use of animal skins as armor and animal images as heraldic emblems; both uses of animals designate human identity. The second part of the chapter turns to the thirteenth-century Guillaume de Palerne (William of Palermo), where skins represent both disguise and animal transformation, and where the beast and the sovereign merge.Less
This chapter argues that romance representations of sovereign relations defined by protection and exile invite a consideration of the shared being of the beast and the sovereign. An analysis of the symbolic use of animals in heraldry and the material use of animal skin structure the chapter's inquiry. The first part of the chapter reads Chrétien de Troyes’s Chevalier au lion (Knight of the Lion) as a romance about the use of animal skins as armor and animal images as heraldic emblems; both uses of animals designate human identity. The second part of the chapter turns to the thirteenth-century Guillaume de Palerne (William of Palermo), where skins represent both disguise and animal transformation, and where the beast and the sovereign merge.
David Pearson
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198870128
- eISBN:
- 9780191912955
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198870128.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
We may believe that books should be bought to be read and studied, but there is plentiful evidence, through human history, of people being mocked for owning books more for display and self-image. ...
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We may believe that books should be bought to be read and studied, but there is plentiful evidence, through human history, of people being mocked for owning books more for display and self-image. This chapter looks seriously and systematically at motivations for book ownership in the seventeenth century, recognizing that there is a range of attitudes between textual utility and the valuing of books for their aesthetic or luxurious qualities. Bookbindings, bookplates, heraldic markings, wills, and other kinds of evidence are drawn on, through various case studies, to show that for most people a mixture of approaches was probably involved—that we should think more in terms of a matrix than a linear spectrum. Book historians may define the history of reading as the key interface to be explored between books and people, but this is too narrow a focus if we really want to understand why people owned books.Less
We may believe that books should be bought to be read and studied, but there is plentiful evidence, through human history, of people being mocked for owning books more for display and self-image. This chapter looks seriously and systematically at motivations for book ownership in the seventeenth century, recognizing that there is a range of attitudes between textual utility and the valuing of books for their aesthetic or luxurious qualities. Bookbindings, bookplates, heraldic markings, wills, and other kinds of evidence are drawn on, through various case studies, to show that for most people a mixture of approaches was probably involved—that we should think more in terms of a matrix than a linear spectrum. Book historians may define the history of reading as the key interface to be explored between books and people, but this is too narrow a focus if we really want to understand why people owned books.
Robert Tittler
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199585601
- eISBN:
- 9780191804526
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199585601.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This book investigates the growing affinity for secular portraiture in Tudor and early Stuart England, a cultural and social phenomenon which can be said to have produced a ‘public’ for that genre. ...
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This book investigates the growing affinity for secular portraiture in Tudor and early Stuart England, a cultural and social phenomenon which can be said to have produced a ‘public’ for that genre. The book places portrait patronage and production in this era in the broad social and cultural context of post-Reformation England, and it distinguishes between native English provincial portraiture, which was often highly vernacular, and foreign-influenced portraiture of the court and metropolis that tended towards the formal and ‘polite’. The book describes the burgeoning public for portraiture of this era as more than the familiar court-and-London-based presence, but rather as a phenomenon which was surprisingly widespread both socially and geographically throughout the realm. The book suggests that provincial portraiture differed from the ‘mainstream’, cosmopolitan portraiture of the day in its workmanship, materials, inspirations, and even vocabulary, showing how its native English roots continued to guide its production. The chapters consider the aims and vocabulary of English provincial portraiture, the relationship of portraiture and heraldry, the painter's occupation in provincial (as opposed to metropolitan) England, and the contrasting availability of materials and training in both provincial and metropolitan areas.Less
This book investigates the growing affinity for secular portraiture in Tudor and early Stuart England, a cultural and social phenomenon which can be said to have produced a ‘public’ for that genre. The book places portrait patronage and production in this era in the broad social and cultural context of post-Reformation England, and it distinguishes between native English provincial portraiture, which was often highly vernacular, and foreign-influenced portraiture of the court and metropolis that tended towards the formal and ‘polite’. The book describes the burgeoning public for portraiture of this era as more than the familiar court-and-London-based presence, but rather as a phenomenon which was surprisingly widespread both socially and geographically throughout the realm. The book suggests that provincial portraiture differed from the ‘mainstream’, cosmopolitan portraiture of the day in its workmanship, materials, inspirations, and even vocabulary, showing how its native English roots continued to guide its production. The chapters consider the aims and vocabulary of English provincial portraiture, the relationship of portraiture and heraldry, the painter's occupation in provincial (as opposed to metropolitan) England, and the contrasting availability of materials and training in both provincial and metropolitan areas.
Robert Tittler
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199585601
- eISBN:
- 9780191804526
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199585601.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This chapter examines the place of heraldry in Tudor and early Stuart portraiture. It discusses the social context that made heraldic devices so important in the England of this era; the sort of ...
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This chapter examines the place of heraldry in Tudor and early Stuart portraiture. It discusses the social context that made heraldic devices so important in the England of this era; the sort of craftsmen who painted the devices themselves; and the portraits that featured them. It concludes by suggesting the significance of heraldic painting for the native-English school of portraiture at this time.Less
This chapter examines the place of heraldry in Tudor and early Stuart portraiture. It discusses the social context that made heraldic devices so important in the England of this era; the sort of craftsmen who painted the devices themselves; and the portraits that featured them. It concludes by suggesting the significance of heraldic painting for the native-English school of portraiture at this time.
Nigel Saul
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- February 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198706199
- eISBN:
- 9780191775291
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198706199.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, History of Religion
This chapter examines gentry involvement in the parish and the parish church as an aspect of proprietary lordship, showing how gentry advowson holders might use appointments to benefices to reward ...
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This chapter examines gentry involvement in the parish and the parish church as an aspect of proprietary lordship, showing how gentry advowson holders might use appointments to benefices to reward clerical relatives or family dependants, and arguing that gentry lords actively championed parishioners’ interests when these were under challenge from outsiders. It is shown that a more self-interested side to gentry proprietorship might reveal itself in the tendency to incorporate the parish church and cemetery within the moated bounds of the manorial enclosure whenever local landscape improvements were undertaken. The suggestion is ventured, however, that if ordinary parishioners might sometimes feel marginalized by lordly assertiveness, they were nonetheless the beneficiaries of generous lordly expenditure on church fixtures and fittings.Less
This chapter examines gentry involvement in the parish and the parish church as an aspect of proprietary lordship, showing how gentry advowson holders might use appointments to benefices to reward clerical relatives or family dependants, and arguing that gentry lords actively championed parishioners’ interests when these were under challenge from outsiders. It is shown that a more self-interested side to gentry proprietorship might reveal itself in the tendency to incorporate the parish church and cemetery within the moated bounds of the manorial enclosure whenever local landscape improvements were undertaken. The suggestion is ventured, however, that if ordinary parishioners might sometimes feel marginalized by lordly assertiveness, they were nonetheless the beneficiaries of generous lordly expenditure on church fixtures and fittings.
Angus Vine
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198809708
- eISBN:
- 9780191847134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198809708.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter examines the miscellany’s links with antiquarian compilation and chorography (the branch of geography concerned with the particulars of a specific region or place). Its primary interest ...
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This chapter examines the miscellany’s links with antiquarian compilation and chorography (the branch of geography concerned with the particulars of a specific region or place). Its primary interest is with textual production in the two fields, and with the practices of annotation and organization that allowed antiquaries and chorographers to turn their heterogeneous notes into orderly narratives. The manuscript miscellany, it argues, was essential to the kind of assemblage scholars carried out here. Compilers discussed in the chapter include William Lambarde, Edmund Tilney, George Owen of Henllys, Abraham Ortelius, and most extensively William Camden. The chapter shows that this kind of antiquarian assemblage was most commonly conceived as a kind of stitching or tailoring, in keeping with one of the more frequent early modern metaphors for textual and miscellaneous production.Less
This chapter examines the miscellany’s links with antiquarian compilation and chorography (the branch of geography concerned with the particulars of a specific region or place). Its primary interest is with textual production in the two fields, and with the practices of annotation and organization that allowed antiquaries and chorographers to turn their heterogeneous notes into orderly narratives. The manuscript miscellany, it argues, was essential to the kind of assemblage scholars carried out here. Compilers discussed in the chapter include William Lambarde, Edmund Tilney, George Owen of Henllys, Abraham Ortelius, and most extensively William Camden. The chapter shows that this kind of antiquarian assemblage was most commonly conceived as a kind of stitching or tailoring, in keeping with one of the more frequent early modern metaphors for textual and miscellaneous production.
Martin Heale
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198702535
- eISBN:
- 9780191772221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198702535.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, History of Religion
This chapter illustrates how the growing control of abbots and priors over monastic finances provided further opportunities for expenditure on their own office. Over the course of the later Middle ...
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This chapter illustrates how the growing control of abbots and priors over monastic finances provided further opportunities for expenditure on their own office. Over the course of the later Middle Ages, increasingly large sums of money were devoted to the financing of the head’s household and to impressive abbatial residences. Late medieval superiors also adopted new and ostentatious forms of display, utilizing their initials, rebuses, and even personal coats of arms to advertise their high-status artistic and architectural patronage. In short, monastic superiors were becoming more prelatical over this period, adopting the bishop as their model. This increased emphasis on the dignity of the abbatial office should not be equated with ‘worldliness’, but was rather the expression of an ecclesiastical magnificence thought appropriate for princes of the Church—even if this pursuit did not sit particularly comfortably with traditional monastic ideals.Less
This chapter illustrates how the growing control of abbots and priors over monastic finances provided further opportunities for expenditure on their own office. Over the course of the later Middle Ages, increasingly large sums of money were devoted to the financing of the head’s household and to impressive abbatial residences. Late medieval superiors also adopted new and ostentatious forms of display, utilizing their initials, rebuses, and even personal coats of arms to advertise their high-status artistic and architectural patronage. In short, monastic superiors were becoming more prelatical over this period, adopting the bishop as their model. This increased emphasis on the dignity of the abbatial office should not be equated with ‘worldliness’, but was rather the expression of an ecclesiastical magnificence thought appropriate for princes of the Church—even if this pursuit did not sit particularly comfortably with traditional monastic ideals.