Download or read book The English Medieval Minstrel written by John Southworth and published by . This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a popular history (it) has considerable merits and offers a number of interesting suggestions. SPECULUM
Download or read book Minstrels and Minstrelsy in Late Medieval England written by Richard Rastall and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2023-04-04 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new study piecing together the intriguing but fragmentary evidence surrounding the lives of minstrels to highlight how these seemingly peripheral figures were keenly involved with all aspects of late medieval communities. Minstrels were a common sight and sound in the late Middle Ages. Aristocrats, knights and ladies heard them on great occasions (such as Edward I's wedding feast for his daughter Elizabeth in 1296) and in quieter moments in their chambers; town-dwellers heard and saw them in civic processions (when their sound drew attention to the spectacle); and even in the countryside people heard them at weddings, church-ales and other parish celebrations. But who were the minstrels, and what did they do? How did they live, and how easily did they make a living? How did they perform, and in what conditions? The evidence is intriguing but fragmentary, including literary and iconographic sources and, most importantly, the financial records of royal and aristocratic households and of towns. These offer many insights, although they are often hard to fit into any coherent picture of the minstrels' lives and their place in society. It is easy to see the minstrels as peripheral figures, entertainers who had no central place in the medieval world. Yet they were full members of it, interacting with the ordinary people around them, as well as with the ruling classes: carrying letters and important verbal messages, some lending huge sums of money to the king (to finance Henry V's Agincourt campaign in 1415, for instance), some regular and necessary civic servants, some committing crimes or suffering the crimes of others. In this book Rastall and Taylor bring to bear the available evidence to enlarge and enrich our view of the minstrel in late medieval society.
Download or read book Performance and the Middle English Romance written by Linda Marie Zaerr and published by DS Brewer. This book was released on 2012 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of if and how medieval romance was performed, uniquely uniting the perspective of a scholar and practitioner. Although English medieval minstrels performed gestes, a genre closely related to romance, often playing the harp or the fiddle, the question of if, and how, Middle English romance was performed has been hotly debated. Here, the performance tradition is explored by combining textual, historical and musicological scholarship with practical experience from a noted musician. Using previously unrecognised evidence, the author reconstructs a realistic model of minstrel performance, showing how a simple melody can interact with the text, and vice versa. She argues that elements in Middle English romance which may seem simplistic or repetitive may in fact be incomplete, as missing an integral musical dimension; metrical irregularities, for example, may be relics of sophisticated rhythmic variation that make sense only with music. Overall, the study offers both a more accurate comprehension of minstrel performance, and a deeper appreciation of the romances themselves. Linda Marie Zaerr is Professor of Medieval Studies at Boise State University.
Download or read book Tales of a Minstrel of Reims in the Thirteenth Century written by and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2021-09-17 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anonymous minstrel in thirteenth-century France composed this gripping account of historical events in his time. Crusaders and Muslim forces battle for control of the Holy Land, while power struggles rage between and among religious authorities and their conflicting secular counterparts, pope and German emperor, the kings of England and the kings of France. Meanwhile, the kings cannot count on their independent-minded barons to support or even tolerate the royal ambitions. Although politics (and the collapse of a royal marriage) frame the narrative, the logistics of war are also in play: competing military machinery and the challenges of transporting troops and matariel. Inevitably, the civilian population suffers. The minstrel was a professional story-teller, and his livelihood likely depended on his ability to captivate an audience. Beyond would-be objective reporting, the minstrel dramatizes events through dialogue, while he delves into the motives and intentions of important figures, and imparts traditional moral guidance. We follow the deeds of many prominent women and witness striking episodes in the lives of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionhearted, Blanche of Castile, Frederick the Great, Saladin, and others. These tales survive in several manuscripts, suggesting that they enjoyed significant success and popularity in their day. Samuel N. Rosenberg produced this first scholarly translation of the Old French tales into English. References that might have been obvious to the minstrel’s original audience are explained for the modern reader in the indispensable annotations of medieval historian Randall Todd Pippenger. The introduction by eminent medievalist William Chester Jordan places the minstrel’s work in historical context and discusses the surviving manuscript sources.
Download or read book Translators and Their Prologues in Medieval England written by Elizabeth Dearnley and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2016 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of French to English translation in medieval England, through the genre of the prologue.
Download or read book Middle earth Minstrel written by Bradford Lee Eden and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-04-13 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twentieth century witnessed a dramatic rise in fantasy writing and few works became as popular or have endured as long as the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien. Surprisingly, little critical attention has been paid to the presence of music in his novels. This collection of essays explores the multitude of musical-literary allusions and themes intertwined throughout Tolkien's body of work. Of particular interest is Tolkien's scholarly work with medieval music and its presentation and performance practice, as well as the musical influences of his Victorian and Edwardian background. Discographies of Tolkien-influenced music of the 20th and 21st centuries are included.
Download or read book Routledge Revivals Medieval England 1998 written by Paul E. Szarmach and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 949 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1998, this valuable reference work offers concise, expert answers to questions on all aspects of life and culture in Medieval England, including art, architecture, law, literature, kings, women, music, commerce, technology, warfare and religion. This wide-ranging text encompasses English social, cultural, and political life from the Anglo-Saxon invasions in the fifth century to the turn of the sixteenth century, as well as its ties to the Celtic world of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, the French and Anglo-Norman world of the Continent and the Viking and Scandinavian world of the North Sea. A range of topics are discussed from Sedulius to Skelton, from Wulfstan of York to Reginald Pecock, from Pictish art to Gothic sculpture and from the Vikings to the Black Death. A subject and name index makes it easy to locate information and bibliographies direct users to essential primary and secondary sources as well as key scholarship. With more than 700 entries by over 300 international scholars, this work provides a detailed portrait of the English Middle Ages and will be of great value to students and scholars studying Medieval history in England and Europe, as well as non-specialist readers.
Download or read book Frauenlob s Song of Songs written by and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Counsel and Strategy in Middle English Romance written by Geraldine Barnes and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 1993 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barnes contends that `rule by counsel' is central to the ethos of Middle English romance.
Download or read book The English Medieval Feast written by William Edward Mead and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-08 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1931, The English Medieval Feast examines the act of feasting and food during the medieval period. The book provides a scholarly look at the human detail involved in the variety of medieval manners and customs which make up the medieval feast. The book introduces the scene of the feast and its service, providing explanations of the food, drink and preparation that comprised the act of the medieval feast. The book also describes in full, certain and notable feasts of the period. The book also includes some historical examination of medieval dietetics which will be of interest to the modern reader.
Download or read book Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England written by J. Leeds Barroll and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 1995-03 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England is an international volume published every year in hardcover, containing essays and studies as well as book reviews of the many significant books and essays dealing with the cultural history of medieval and early modern England as expressed by and realized in its drama exclusive of Shakespeare.
Download or read book Tales of a Minstrel of Reims in the Thirteenth Century written by and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2021-09-17 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anonymous minstrel in thirteenth-century France composed this gripping account of historical events in his time. Crusaders and Muslim forces battle for control of the Holy Land, while power struggles rage between and among religious authorities and their conflicting secular counterparts, pope and German emperor, the kings of England and the kings of France. Meanwhile, the kings cannot count on their independent-minded barons to support or even tolerate the royal ambitions. Although politics (and the collapse of a royal marriage) frame the narrative, the logistics of war are also in play: competing military machinery and the challenges of transporting troops and matariel. Inevitably, the civilian population suffers. The minstrel was a professional story-teller, and his livelihood likely depended on his ability to captivate an audience. Beyond would-be objective reporting, the minstrel dramatizes events through dialogue, while he delves into the motives and intentions of important figures, and imparts traditional moral guidance. We follow the deeds of many prominent women and witness striking episodes in the lives of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionhearted, Blanche of Castile, Frederick the Great, Saladin, and others. These tales survive in several manuscripts, suggesting that they enjoyed significant success and popularity in their day. Samuel N. Rosenberg produced this first scholarly translation of the Old French tales into English. References that might have been obvious to the minstrel’s original audience are explained for the modern reader in the indispensable annotations of medieval historian Randall Todd Pippenger. The introduction by eminent medievalist William Chester Jordan places the minstrel’s work in historical context and discusses the surviving manuscript sources.
Download or read book Performance in Beowulf and Other Old English Poems written by Steven J. A. Breeze and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acts of performance, such as music, storytelling, and poetry recital, have made significant contributions to the rediscovery and widening popularity of Old English poetry. However, while these performances capture the imagination, they also influence an audience's view of the world of the original poems, even to propagating certain assumptions, particularly those to do with performance practices. By stripping away these assumptions, this book aims to uncover the ways in which representations of performance in Old English poetry are intimately associated with poetic production and fundamental cultural concerns. Through an examination of Beowulf, diverse wisdom poems, and the "artist" poems Deor and Widsith, it proposes that poets constructed an imaginary domain of "poetic performance", which negotiated tensions between early medieval creativity and core social beliefs. It also shows how the poems' relationship with oral methods of composition and circulation weakened in later medieval poetry as both language and poetic form altered. Overall, the book explores what depictions of performance within these texts can tell us about early medieval conceptualisations, processes, and practices, in the poetic imagination and in wider culture. Through an analysis of Eddic poetry and Laȝamon's Brut, it also highlights a tradition of "poetic performance" in English poetics.
Download or read book A Cultural History of Animals in the Medieval Age written by Brigitte Resl and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2008 A Cultural History of Animals in the Medieval Age investigates the changing roles of animals in medieval culture, economy and society in the period 1000 to 1400. The period saw significant changes in scientific and philosophical approaches to animals as well as their representation in art. Animals were omnipresent in medieval everyday life. They had enormous importance for medieval agriculture and trade and were also hunted for food and used in popular entertainments. At the same time, animals were kept as pets and used to display their owner's status, whilst medieval religion attributed complex symbolic meanings to animals. A Cultural History of Animals in the Medieval Age presents an overview of the period and continues with essays on the position of animals in contemporary symbolism, hunting, domestication, sports and entertainment, science, philosophy, and art.
Download or read book Divine Ventriloquism in Medieval English Literature written by M. Hayes and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-04-25 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of medieval attitudes towards the ventriloquism of God's and Christ's voices through human media, which reveals a progression from an orthodox view of divine vocal power to an anxiety over the authority of the priest's voice to a subversive take on the divine voice that foreshadows Protestant devotion.
Download or read book Performing Medieval Narrative written by Evelyn Birge Vitz and published by DS Brewer. This book was released on 2005 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A survey of an investigation into whether medieval narrative was designed for performance.
Download or read book The Songs and Travels of a Tudor Minstrel written by Andrew Taylor and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2012 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reconstruction of the life and works of a sixteenth-century minstrel, showing the tradition to be flourishing well into the Tudor period. Richard Sheale, a harper and balladeer from Tamworth, is virtually the only English minstrel whose life story is known to us in any detail. It had been thought that by the sixteenth century minstrels had generally been downgradedto the role of mere jesters. However, through a careful examination of the manuscript which Sheale almost certainly "wrote" (Bodleian Ashmole 48) and other records, the author argues that the oral tradition remained vibrant at this period, contrary to the common idea that print had by this stage destroyed traditional minstrelsy. The author shows that under the patronage of Edward Stanley, earl of Derby, and his son, from one of the most important aristocratic families in England, Sheale recited and collected ballads and travelled to and from London to market them. Amongst his repertoire was the famous Chevy Chase, which Sir Philip Sidney said moved his heart "more than witha trumpet". Sheale also composed his own verse, including a lament on being robbed of 60 on his way to London; the poem is reproduced in this volume. ANDREW TAYLOR lectures in the Department of English, University of Ottawa.
