From She-Wolf to Martyr

From She-Wolf to Martyr PDF Author: Elizabeth Casteen
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501701002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
In From She-Wolf to Martyr, Elizabeth Casteen examines Johanna I of Naples's evolving, problematic reputation and uses it as a lens through which to analyze often-contradictory late-medieval conceptions of rulership, authority, and femininity.

From She-Wolf to Martyr

From She-Wolf to Martyr PDF Author: Elizabeth Casteen
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501701002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
In From She-Wolf to Martyr, Elizabeth Casteen examines Johanna I of Naples's evolving, problematic reputation and uses it as a lens through which to analyze often-contradictory late-medieval conceptions of rulership, authority, and femininity.

From She-Wolf to Martyr

From She-Wolf to Martyr PDF Author: Elizabeth Casteen
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501700995
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
In 1343 a seventeen-year-old girl named Johanna (1326–1382) ascended the Neapolitan throne, becoming the ruling monarch of one of medieval Europe's most important polities. For nearly forty years, she held her throne and the avid attention of her contemporaries. Their varied responses to her reign created a reputation that made Johanna the most notorious woman in Europe during her lifetime. In From She-Wolf to Martyr, Elizabeth Casteen examines Johanna's evolving, problematic reputation and uses it as a lens through which to analyze often-contradictory late-medieval conceptions of rulership, authority, and femininity.When Johanna inherited the Neapolitan throne from her grandfather, many questioned both her right to and her suitability for her throne. After the murder of her first husband, Johanna quickly became infamous as a she-wolf—a violent, predatory, sexually licentious woman. Yet, she also eventually gained fame as a wise, pious, and able queen. Contemporaries—including Francesco Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Birgitta of Sweden, and Catherine of Siena—were fascinated by Johanna. Drawing on a wide range of textual and visual sources, Casteen reconstructs the fourteenth-century conversation about Johanna and tracks the role she played in her time’s cultural imaginary. She argues that despite Johanna’s modern reputation for indolence and incompetence, she crafted a new model of female sovereignty that many of her contemporaries accepted and even lauded.

Reconsidering Boccaccio

Reconsidering Boccaccio PDF Author: Olivia Holmes
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 148751395X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Reconsidering Boccaccio highlights the great Florentine writer Giovanni Boccaccio’s remarkable achievements in the fourteenth century as a cultural mediator; his exceptional social, geographic, and intellectual range; and the influence of his legacy on numerous cultural networks. Grounded in Boccaccio’s own writings, Reconsidering Boccaccio brings a variety of methodologies and critical approaches to the works of one of the ‘three crowns’ of Italian literature. Containing essays by scholars not only of Italian literature, but also history, law, classics, and Middle Eastern literature, this collection is part of a vital movement to open up a dialogue among researchers in various areas of study that touch on the works of Boccaccio. The volume highlights the necessity of a technical and historical framework when approaching Boccaccio studies, while also shedding new light on the lives of women and their role in the reception of Boccaccio’s works.

Memorialising Premodern Monarchs

Memorialising Premodern Monarchs PDF Author: Gabrielle Storey
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030841308
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
This book examines the legacies and depictions of monarchs in an international context, focusing on both self-representation and commemoration by others. Spanning ancient India through to eighteenth-century Russia, this volume offers several case studies to demonstrate trends and patterns in how different societies chose to commemorate and remember their rulers in a variety of mediums. Contributions highlight several lesser known rulers, alongside more famous ones such as Henry VIII of England, to develop a deeper understanding of how memory and monarchy functioned when drawn together. Memorialising Premodern Monarchs brings to the fore the importance of memory and memorialisation when considering the legacies and records of past rulers and their societies, and allows a deeper reflection on how these rulers live on through the historical record and popular culture.

Ella

Ella PDF Author: Christopher Warwick
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Following the death of her mother, Ella spent some years at Windsor with her grandmother, Queen Victoria. During this time she met & became engaged to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovitch. It was at their wedding that her sister, Alix, formed a love match with the future Tsar Nicholas II, an event which sealed the fate of both sisters.

The Sacred and the Sinister

The Sacred and the Sinister PDF Author: David J. Collins, S. J.
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271084375
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Inspired by the work of eminent scholar Richard Kieckhefer, The Sacred and the Sinister explores the ambiguities that made (and make) medieval religion and magic so difficult to differentiate. The essays in this collection investigate how the holy and unholy were distinguished in medieval Europe, where their characteristics diverged, and the implications of that deviation. In the Middle Ages, the natural world was understood as divinely created and infused with mysterious power. This world was accessible to human knowledge and susceptible to human manipulation through three modes of engagement: religion, magic, and science. How these ways of understanding developed in light of modern notions of rationality is an important element of ongoing scholarly conversation. As Kieckhefer has emphasized, ambiguity and ambivalence characterize medieval understandings of the divine and demonic powers at work in the world. The ten chapters in this volume focus on four main aspects of this assertion: the cult of the saints, contested devotional relationships and practices, unsettled judgments between magic and religion, and inconclusive distinctions between magic and science. Freshly insightful, this study of ambiguity between magic and religion will be of special interest to scholars in the fields of medieval studies, religious studies, European history, and the history of science. In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume are Michael D. Bailey, Kristi Woodward Bain, Maeve B. Callan, Elizabeth Casteen, Claire Fanger, Sean L. Field, Anne M. Koenig, Katelyn Mesler, and Sophie Page.

Women in the Medieval Court

Women in the Medieval Court PDF Author: Rebecca Holdorph
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 1526739828
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
A surprising look at women who wielded power in medieval Europe, from queens to concubines to abbesses. Medieval society might expect the elite women who decorated its courts to play the role of Queen Guinevere, but many of these women had very different ideas. Great queens, who sometimes ruled in their own right, fought wars and forged empires. Noblewomen acted behind the scenes to change the course of politics. Far from cloistered off from the world, powerful abbesses played the role of kingmaker. And concubines had a role to play as well, both as political actors and as mothers of children who might change a country’s destiny. They experienced tremendous success and dramatic downfalls. This book tells the stories of women from across medieval Europe, from a Danish queen who waged political war to form a Scandinavian empire to a Tuscan countess who joined her troops on the battlefield. Whether they wielded power in battle, from a convent, or from a throne—or even in the bedchamber—these women were far from damsels in distress waiting for their knights in shining armor.

Souls under Siege

Souls under Siege PDF Author: Nicole Archambeau
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501753673
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
In Souls under Siege, Nicole Archambeau explores how the inhabitants of southern France made sense of the ravages of successive waves of plague, the depredations of mercenary warfare, and the violence of royal succession during the fourteenth century. Many people, she finds, understood both plague and war as the symptoms of spiritual sicknesses caused by excessive sin, and they sought cures in confession. Archambeau draws on a rich evidentiary base of sixty-eight narrative testimonials from the canonization inquest for Countess Delphine de Puimichel, which was held in the market town of Apt in 1363. Each witness in the proceedings had lived through the outbreaks of plague in 1348 and 1361, as well as the violence inflicted by mercenaries unemployed during truces in the Hundred Years' War. Consequently, their testimonies unexpectedly reveal the importance of faith and the role of affect in the healing of body and soul alike. Faced with an unprecedented cascade of crises, the inhabitants of Provence relied on saints and healers, their worldview connecting earthly disease and disaster to the struggle for their eternal souls. Souls under Siege illustrates how medieval people approached sickness and uncertainty by using a variety of remedies, making clear that "healing" had multiple overlapping meanings in this historical moment.

Sanctity and Female Authorship

Sanctity and Female Authorship PDF Author: Maria H. Oen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000703096
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Birgitta of Sweden (Birgitta Birgersdotter, 1302/03-1373) and her younger contemporary Catherine of Siena (Caterina Benincasa, 1347-1380) form the most powerful and influential female duo in European history. Both enjoyed saintly reputations in life, while acting as the charismatic leaders of a considerable group of followers consisting of clergy as well as mighty secular men and women. They are also among the very few women of the Trecento to leave a substantial body of written work which was widely disseminated in their original languages and in translations. Copies of Birgitta’s Liber celestis revelacionum (The Heavenly Book of Revelations) and compilations of Catherine's letters (Le lettere), prayers Le orazioni) and her theological work, Il Dialogo della divina Provvidenza (The Dialogue) found their way into monastic, royal, and humanist libraries all over Europe. After their deaths, Birgitta’s and Catherine’s respective groups of supporters sought to have them formally canonized. In both cases, however, their political and theological outspokenness, orally and in text, and their public authority represented obstacles. In this comparative study, leading scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds offer, for the very first time, a comprehensive exploration of the lives and activities of Birgitta and Catherine in tandem. Particular attention is given to their literary works and the complex process of negotiating their sanctity and authorial roles. Above all, what the chapters reveal is the many points of connections between two of the most influential women of the Trecento, and how they were related to one another by their peers and successors.

The Eleventh and Twelfth Books of Giovanni Villani’s “New Chronicle”

The Eleventh and Twelfth Books of Giovanni Villani’s “New Chronicle” PDF Author: Rala I. Diakité
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501514083
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 485

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Book Description
Giovanni Villani’s New Chronicle traces the history of Europe, Italy, and Florence over a vast sweep of time – from the Tower of Babel to the great earthquake of 1348. In the eleventh and twelfth books, Villani depicts a particularly eventful period in the history of Florence, whose grandeur is illustrated in several famous chapters describing the city’s income, expenses, and magnificence. The dramatic account follows Florence’s internal affairs as well as its conflicts with powerful lords like Castruccio Castracani and Mastino della Scala. The chronicler’s perspective, however, ranges beyond his city, as he documents such events as the imperial coronation of Louis of Bavaria, the penitential pilgrimage of Venturino da Bergamo, and the first campaigns of the Hundred Year’s War.