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

Author: Guy Halsall

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2002-06-13

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1139434241

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.

Illuminating the Word in the Early Middle Ages

Author: Lawrence Nees

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-07-31

Total Pages: 589

ISBN-13: 1009239554

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This richly illustrated study addresses the essential first steps in the development of the new phenomenon of the illuminated book, which innovatively introduced colourful large letters and ornamental frames as guides for the reader's access to the text. Tracing their surprising origins within late Roman reading practices, Lawrence Nees shows how these decorative features stand as ancestors to features of printed and electronic books we take for granted today, including font choice, word spacing, punctuation and sentence capitalisation. Two hundred photographs, nearly all in colour, illustrate and document the decisive change in design from ancient to medieval books. Featuring an extended discussion of the importance of race and ethnicity in twentieth-century historiography, this book argues that the first steps in the development of this new style of book were taken on the European continent within classical practices of reading and writing, and not as, usually presented, among the non-Roman 'barbarians'.

The Byzantine Turks, 1204-1461

Author: Rustam Shukurov

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-05-09

Total Pages: 527

ISBN-13: 9004307753

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In The Byzantine Turks, 1204–1461 Rustam Shukurov offers an account of the Turkic minority in Late Byzantium including the Nicaean, Palaiologan, and Grand Komnenian empires. The demography of the Byzantine Turks and the legal and cultural aspects of their entrance into Greek society are discussed in detail. Greek and Turkish bilingualism of Byzantine Turks and Tourkophonia among Greeks were distinctive features of Byzantine society of the time. Basing his arguments upon linguistic, social, and cultural evidence found in a wide range of Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources, Rustam Shukurov convincingly demonstrates how Oriental influences on Byzantine life led to crucial transformations in Byzantine mentality, culture, and political life. The study is supplemented with an etymological lexicon of Oriental names and words in Byzantine Greek.

Dante's Comedy and the Ethics of Invective in Medieval Italy

Author: Nicolino Applauso

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-11-13

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1498567797

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Dante's Comedy and the Ethics of Invective in Medieval Italy proposes a new approach to invective and comic poetry in Italy during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and opens the way for an innovative understanding of Dante’s masterpiece. The Middle Ages in Italy offer a wealth of vernacular poetic invectives—polemical verses aimed at blaming specific wrongdoings of an individual, group, city or institution— that are both understudied and rarely juxtaposed. No study has yet provided a scholarly examination of the connection between this medieval invective tradition, and its elements of humor, derision, and reprehension in Dante’s Comedy. This book argues that these comic texts are rooted in and actively engaged with the social, political, and religious conflicts of their time. Political invective has a dynamic ethical orientation that is mediated by a humor that disarms excessive hostility against its individual targets, providing an opening for dialogue. While exploring medieval comic poems by Rustico Filippi (from Florence), Cecco Angiolieri (from Siena), and Folgore da San Gimignano, this study unveils new biographical data about these poets retrieved from Italian state archives (most of these data are published here in English for the very first time), and ultimately shows what the medieval invective tradition can add to our understanding of Dante’s Comedy.

From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms

Author: Thomas F.X. Noble

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-04-07

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1134337647

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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.

A Companion to Late Antique Literature

Author: Scott McGill

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-07-27

Total Pages: 704

ISBN-13: 1118830369

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Noted scholars in the field explore the rich variety of late antique literature With contributions from leading scholars in the field, A Companion to Late Antique Literature presents a broad review of late antique literature. The late antique period encompasses a significant transitional era in literary history from the mid-third century to the early seventh century. The Companion covers notable Greek and Latin texts of the period and provides a varied overview of literature written in six other late antique languages. Comprehensive in scope, this important volume presents new research, methodologies, and significant debates in the field. The Companion explores the histories, forms, features, audiences, and uses of the literature of the period. This authoritative text: Provides an inclusive overview of late antique literature Offers the widest survey to date of the literary traditions and forms of the period, including those in several languages other than Greek and Latin Presents the most current research and new methodologies in the field Contains contributions from an international group of contributors Written for students and scholars of late antiquity, this comprehensive volume provides an authoritative review of the literature from the era.

Disability in Antiquity

Author: Christian Laes

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-10-04

Total Pages: 490

ISBN-13: 1317231546

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This volume is a major contribution to the field of disability history in the ancient world. Contributions from leading international scholars examine deformity and disability from a variety of historical, sociological and theoretical perspectives, as represented in various media. The volume is not confined to a narrow view of ‘antiquity’ but includes a large number of pieces on ancient western Asia that provide a broad and comparative view of the topic and enable scholars to see this important topic in the round. Disability in Antiquity is the first multidisciplinary volume to truly map out and explore the topic of disability in the ancient world and create new avenues of thought and research.

A Cultural History of Comedy in the Middle Ages

Author: Martha Bayless

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-12-30

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1350187615

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Comedy and humor flourished in manifold forms in the Middle Ages. This volume, covering the period from 1000 to 1400 CE, examines the themes, practice, and effects of medieval comedy, from the caustic morality of principled satire to the exuberant improprieties of many wildly popular tales of sex and trickery. The analysis includes the most influential authors of the age, such as Chaucer, Boccaccio, Juan Ruiz, and Hrothswitha of Gandersheim, as well as lesser-known works and genres, such as songs of insult, nonsense-texts, satirical church paintings, topical jokes, and obscene pilgrim badges. The analysis touches on most of the literatures of medieval Europe, including a discussion of the formal attitudes toward humor in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. The volume demonstrates the many ways in which medieval humor could be playful, casual, sophisticated, important, subversive, and even dangerous. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: form, theory, praxis, identities, the body, politics and power, laughter, and ethics.

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

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-09-19

Total Pages: 603

ISBN-13: 9004258159

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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.

Political Memory and the Constantinian Dynasty

Author: Rebecca Usherwood

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-03-21

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 3030879305

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This book is an exploration of political memory and disgrace in the reigns of Constantine and his sons. It uses the conditions of the early to mid-fourth century to argue that the deconstruction of political legitimacy should be viewed, first and foremost, as a collective phenomenon, the result of the actions of a diverse range of people responding to political change. It also challenges many positivist and teleological narratives of the ‘Age of Constantine’. Shifting the focus from the emperor and his sons onto their rivals and opponents, the Constantinian dynasty is placed back into the messy and ambiguous political environment from which it emerged.