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While earlier historians have seen the elaborate public rituals of the Burgundian dukes as stagnant forms held over from the chivalric world of the High Middle Ages, Peter Arnade argues that they were a vital theater of power through which the ducal court and the urban centers constantly renegotiated their relationship. This book is the first to apply the combined insights of social, political, and cultural history to an important but little-explored area of medieval and early modern Europe, the Burgundian Netherlands. Realms of Ritual traces the role of ritual in encounters between the dukes of Burgundy (later the Habsburg princes) and the townspeople of Ghent, the most important city in th...
The Dutch Revolt has long been hailed as the triumph of political freedom over monarchical tyranny. In 1781, John Adams observed that the American Revolution was its "transcript." Known for its many protagonists—King Philip II, the Duke of Alba, the counts of Egmont and Hornes, radical Calvinists, obstreperous townspeople, and William of Orange—the Dutch Revolt brought into relief conflicts among civic freedoms, religious dissent, representative institutions, and royal authority. Drawing on a vast array of sources-including archival documents, political and religious pamphlets, ballads, chronicles and letters, and a rich store of popular prints-Peter Arnade gives us a new history of the ...
Among the more intriguing documentary sources from late medieval Europe are pardon letters—petitions sent by those condemned for serious crimes to monarchs and princes in France and the Low Countries in the hopes of receiving a full pardon. The fifteenth-century Burgundian Low Countries and duchy of Burgundy produced a large cache of these petitions, from both major cities (Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, and Dijon) and rural communities. In Honor, Vengeance, and Social Trouble, Peter Arnade and Walter Prevenier present the first study in English of these letters to explore and interrogate the boundaries between these sources' internal, discursive properties and the social world beyond the written...
Proximity to the monarch was a vital asset in the struggle for power and influence in medieval and early modern courts. The concept of ‘access to the ruler’ has therefore grown into a dominant theme in scholarship on pre-modern dynasties. Still, many questions remain concerning the mechanisms of access and their impact on politics. Bringing together new research on European and Asian cases, the ten chapters in this volume focus on the ways in which ‘access’ was articulated, regulated, negotiated, and performed. By taking into account the full complexity of hierarchies, ceremonial rites, spaces and artefacts that characterized the dynastic court, The Key to Power? forces us to rethink power relations in the late medieval and early modern world. Contributors are: Christina Antenhofer, Ronald G. Asch, Florence Berland, Mark Hengerer, Neil Murphy, Fabian Persson, Jonathan Spangler, Michael Talbot, Steven Thiry, and Audrey Truschke.
Public life - Humanism - Civic humanism - Friendship - Ritual - Alberti - Women in Florence - Family - Everyday life in Florence.
In recent years, genealogical websites and government agencies have made millions of valuable historical documents digitally available to the public. There is a tremendous amount of information that can be gleaned from these documents to aid scholars interested in social history. This volume brings together researchers presenting historically contextualized family case studies as a lens to enrich the reader’s understanding of the past.
Renaissance Mass Murder explores the devastating impact of war on the men and women of the Renaissance. In contrast to the picture of balance and harmony usually associated with the Renaissance, it uncovers in forensic detail a world in which sacks of Italian cities and massacres of civilians at the hands of French, German, Spanish, Swiss, and Italian troops were regular occurrences. The arguments presented are based on a wealth of evidence - histories and chronicles, poetry and paintings, sculpture and other objects - which together provide a new and startling history of sixteenth-century Italy and a social history of the Italian Wars. It outlines how massacres happened, how princes, soldie...
In urban life, streets are elemental, but urban history seldom places them centre stage. It tends to view them as mere backdrops for events or social relations, or to study them as material constructions, the fruit of urban planning, but largely vacant of inhabitants. Examining people and streets in tandem, the contributors to this volume strive towards more integrated urban history. They discuss the social and political processes of early modern street life, and the discursive play in which streets figured. Six chapters, based in Sweden-Finland, England, Portugal, Italy, and Transylvania, discuss the subtle interplay of the material and immaterial, public and private, planned order and versatility, spontaneous invention, control and resistance – all matters central to how streets worked. Contributors are Emese Bálint, Maria Helena Barreiros, Elizabeth S. Cohen, Thomas V. Cohen, Alexander Cowan, Anu Korhonen, Riitta Laitinen, and Dag Lindström.
In Shaping the Stranger Churches: Migrants in England and the Troubles in the Netherlands, 1547–1585, Silke Muylaert explores the struggles confronting the Netherlandish churches in England when they engaged with (or disengaged from) the Reformation and the Revolt back in their homeland. The churches were conflicted over the limits of religious zeal and over political loyalty. How far could Reformers go to promote their faith without committing sin? How much loyalty did they owe to Philip II and William of Orange? While previous narratives ascribe a certain radicalism to the foreign churches, Muylaert uncovers the difficulties confronting expatriate churches to provide support for Reformed churches or organise resistance against authorities back home.
This series debates aspects of medieval warfare, and this volume deals with warfare in the 15th century in particular.