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Neil Cartlidge analyses a number of continental texts which are central to any study of medieval marriage - the De amore of Andreas Capellanus, Erec et Enide, and the letters of Abelard and Heloise - but it is the concern with marriage in the medieval literature of England in particular that forms the substance of this book.
Covers the evolution of the legend over time and analyses the major themes that have emerged.
The medieval clergy, aristocracy, and commercial classes tended to regard peasants as objects of contempt and derision. In religious writings, satires, sermons, chronicles, and artistic representations peasants often appeared as dirty, foolish, dishonest, even as subhuman or bestial. Their lowliness was commonly regarded as a natural corollary of the drudgery of their agricultural toil. Yet, at the same time, the peasantry was not viewed as “other” in the manner of other condemned groups, such as Jews, lepers, Muslims, or the imagined “monstrous races” of the East. Several crucial characteristics of the peasantry rendered it less clearly alien from the elite perspective: peasants wer...
This book proposes a fundamental revision of the history of early French romance: it argues that oral and performed traditions were far more important in the development of romance than scholars have recognised. Starting with issues of orality and literacy, it is argued that the form in which romances were composed was not the invention of clerics but was, rather, an oral form. The second part of the book looks at performance, and shows that romances such as those of Chretien invited voiced presentation; moreover, they were frequently recited from memory, sung, and acted out in dramatic fashion. Romances can, and should, still be performed today.
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"Bold, deeply learned, and important, offering a provocative thesis that is worked out through legal and archival materials and in subtle and original readings of literary texts. Absolutely new in content and significantly innovative in methodology and argument, Stumbling Blocks Before the Blind offers a cultural geography of medieval blindness that invites us to be more discriminating about how we think of geographies of disability today." ---Christopher Baswell, Columbia University "A challenging, interesting, and timely book that is also very well written . . . Wheatley has researched and brought together a leitmotiv that I never would have guessed was so pervasive, so intriguing, so wort...
At the beginning of the twelfth century, the region around Paris had a reputation for being the land of unruly aristocrats. Entrenched within their castles, the nobles were viewed as quarrelling among themselves, terrorizing the countryside, harassing churchmen and peasants, pillaging, and committing unspeakable atrocities. By the end of the century, during the reign of Philip Augustus, the situation was dramatically different. The king had created the principal governmental organs of the Capetian monarchy and replaced the feudal magnates at the royal court with loyal men of lesser rank. The major castles had been subdued and peace reigned throughout the countryside. The aristocratic familie...