Humour, History and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Humour, History and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages PDF Author: Guy Halsall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139434241
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Although the topic of humour has been dealt with for other eras, early medieval humour remains largely neglected. These essays go some way towards filling the gap, examining how early medieval writers deliberately employed humour to make their cases. The essays range from the late Roman empire through to the tenth century, and from Byzantium to Anglo-Saxon England. The subject matter is diverse, but a number of themes link them together, notably the use of irony, ridicule and satire as political tools. Two chapters serve as an extended introduction to the topic, while the following six chapters offer varied treatments of humour and politics, looking at different times and places, but at the Carolingian world in particular. Together, they raise important and original issues about how humour was employed to articulate concepts of political power, perceptions of kingship, social relations and the role of particular texts.

Humour, History and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Humour, History and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages PDF Author: Guy Halsall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139434241
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Although the topic of humour has been dealt with for other eras, early medieval humour remains largely neglected. These essays go some way towards filling the gap, examining how early medieval writers deliberately employed humour to make their cases. The essays range from the late Roman empire through to the tenth century, and from Byzantium to Anglo-Saxon England. The subject matter is diverse, but a number of themes link them together, notably the use of irony, ridicule and satire as political tools. Two chapters serve as an extended introduction to the topic, while the following six chapters offer varied treatments of humour and politics, looking at different times and places, but at the Carolingian world in particular. Together, they raise important and original issues about how humour was employed to articulate concepts of political power, perceptions of kingship, social relations and the role of particular texts.

Conversion and the Contest of Creeds in Early Medieval Christianity

Conversion and the Contest of Creeds in Early Medieval Christianity PDF Author: Marta Szada
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009426443
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
This study offers new insights into early medieval Christianity, exploring how religious diversity and politics shaped post-Roman Europe.

From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms

From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms PDF Author: Thomas F.X. Noble
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134337647
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
This prestigious collection of essays by leading scholars provides a thorough reassessment of the medieval era which questions how, when and why the Middle Ages began, and how abruptly the shift from the Roman Empire to Barbarian Europe happened. Presenting the most current work including newly-available material such as translations of French and German essays, From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms gathers the key thinkers in the field together in one easy-to-use volume. Examining a wealth of material on the origins of the Barbarian people and their tribes, Thomas F.X. Noble studies the characteristics of the tribes and debates whether they were blood-tied clans or units bound by social, political and economic objectives. Highly readable and student friendly, From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms includes a general introduction, clear prologues to each section and makes the key debates of the subject accessible to students.

Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean

Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004258159
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 603

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Book Description
Publicly performed rituals and ceremonies form an essential part of medieval political practice and court culture. This applies not only to western feudal societies, but also to the linguistically and culturally highly diversified environment of Byzantium and the Mediterranean basin. The continuity of Roman traditions and cross-fertilization between various influences originating from Constantinople, Armenia, the Arab-Muslim World, and western kingdoms and naval powers provide the framework for a distinct sphere of ritual expression and ceremonial performance. This collective volume, placing Byzantium into a comparative perspective between East and West, examines transformative processes from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, succession procedures in different political contexts, phenomena of cross-cultural appropriation and exchange, and the representation of rituals in art and literature. Contributors are Maria Kantirea, Martin Hinterberger, Walter Pohl, Andrew Marsham, Björn Weiler, Eric J. Hanne, Antonia Giannouli, Jo Van Steenbergen, Stefan Burkhardt, Ioanna Rapti, Jonathan Shepard, Panagiotis Agapitos, Henry Maguire, Christine Angelidi and Margaret Mullett.

In Defiance of History

In Defiance of History PDF Author: Victoria Leonard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317084969
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
This volume offers a counterbalance to the dismissal that Orosius’s Histories Against the Pagans has suffered in most recent criticism. Orosius is traditionally considered to be a mediocre scholar and an essentially worthless historian. This book takes his literary endeavour seriously, recognizing the unique contribution the Histories made at a crucial moment of debate and uncertainty, where the present was shaped by restructuring the past. The significance of the Histories is recognised intrinsically rather than only in comparison with other texts and authors, principally Augustine of Hippo, Orosius's mentor. The approach of the book is historiographical, exploring the form, purpose, and meaning of the Histories. The themes of divine providence, monotheism, and imperial authority are examined, and the subjects of war and the sack of Rome receive extended analysis. The book foregrounds Orosius's significant historiographical innovations that are seldom explored, such as the subversion of imperial history within a Christian spectrum in the synchronization of the emperor Augustus and Christ. Each chapter contributes to the progression of knowledge about Orosius’s Histories and the wider literary and historiographical culture of disruption that characterised the late fourth and early fifth centuries CE.

Introduction to the Carolingian Age

Introduction to the Carolingian Age PDF Author: Cullen J. Chandler
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040021964
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description


Medieval Humour

Medieval Humour PDF Author: Kleio Pethainou
Publisher: Trivent Publishing
ISBN: 6156405712
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
Simultaneously pervasive and evasive, rebellious and oppressive, transgressive and socially specific, humour is a vast and interdisciplinary field of research. Seeking to rethink this quintessentially human expression, this volume is bringing together established and emerging directions of medieval humour research. Each contribution explores different artistic expressions, receptions and functions of humour and identifies a series of problems in researching humour historically. Medieval Humour: Expressions, Receptions and Functions dissects humour in art and thought, literature and drama, society and culture, contributing to a deeper understanding of our cultural past.

Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century

Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century PDF Author: Simon MacLean
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139440292
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
This is a major study of the collapse of the pan-European Carolingian empire and the reign of its last ruler, Charles III 'the Fat' (876–888). The later decades of the empire are conventionally seen as a dismal period of decline and fall, scarred by internal feuding, unfettered aristocratic ambition and Viking onslaught. This book offers an alternative interpretation, arguing that previous generations of historians misunderstood the nature and causes of the end of the empire, and neglected many of the relatively numerous sources for this period. Topics covered include the significance of aristocratic power; political structures; the possibilities and limits of kingship; developments in royal ideology; the struggle with the Vikings and the nature of regional political identities. In proposing these explanations for the empire's disintegration, the book has broader implications for our understanding of this formative period of European history more generally.

Humour in the Arts

Humour in the Arts PDF Author: Vivienne Westbrook
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429849885
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
This collection demonstrates the usefulness of approaching texts—verbal, visual and aural—through a framework of humour. Contributors offer in-depth discussions of humour in the West within a wider cultural historical context to achieve a coherent, chronological sense of how humour proceeds from antiquity to modernity. Reading humorously reveals the complexity of certain aspects of texts that other reading approaches have so far failed to reveal. Humour in the Arts explores humour as a source of cultural formation that engages with ethical, political, and religious controversies whilst acquainting readers with a wide range of humorous structures and strategies used across Western cultures.

The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 1, C.500-c.700

The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 1, C.500-c.700 PDF Author: Paul Fouracre
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521362917
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1022

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Book Description
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