Aristocratic Society Research Articles

Festivities at Court: Places of Vestimentary Luxury and Royal Performance

This paper discusses the luxury of dress and luxurious spaces from the perspective of aristocratic court society. Our modern bourgeois society often defines and morally condemns luxury as conspicuous and wasteful consumption beyond essential. But aristocratic and court society, during the feudal period regarded luxury as a crucial sign and fundamental tool of social status and political ambitions. The wedding celebrations of 1719 held at the Dresden court on the occasion of Augustus the Strong (1670–1733) marrying his son and heir, also called Frederick Augustus (1696–1763), to the archduchess Maria Josepha (1699–1757) are a fitting example of this understanding of luxury.

Элиты и звезды современной архитектуры

In the shift from aristocratic society to democracy professional and social elites still are lacking definite cultural norms and attitudes. Rapid change of tastes and political influence blurs common attitudes and values, intuitive and rational methods of decision making, moral and artistic values. Architectural schools trying to accommodate to those changes lose their professional permanency.

Unhappy Endings: La fuerza de la sangre and the Novelas ejemplares of Miguel de Cervantes

AbstractAdhering to a revisionary practice already evident in early translations and theatrical adaptations of Miguel de Cervantes’s La fuerza de la sangre, many analyses of this novella presume to explain away the contradictory postures of its heroine, Leocadia, in the opening and concluding stages of the work to uphold the ideal of verisimilitude, which they posit as the foundation of early modern fiction, especially that by Cervantes. Attending instead to the ironic design of La fuerza de la sangre and the concerns that it shares with other of the Novelas ejemplares that feature young female protagonists, the present study argues that these contradictory postures are deliberate and, moreover, designed to compel the reader to question the propriety of the work’s ostensibly happy ending, and thus the dominant values and conventions of aristocratic society of the time.ResumenRespetando las pautas de un revisionismo ya evidente en las primeras traducciones y adaptaciones al teatro de La fuerza de la sangre, de Miguel de Cervantes, muchos análisis de la novela presumen resolver las contradictorias actitudes de su protagonista, Leocadia, en las primeras y las últimas fases de la trama para resguardar el principio de la verosimilitud, sobre el cual consideran edificada la ficción de la temprana edad moderna, especialmente la de Cervantes. Atendiendo, en cambio, al diseño irónico de La fuerza de la sangre y a la problemática compartida entre ésta y otras Novelas ejemplares con jóvenes protagonistas femeninos, el presente artículosostiene que la presencia de dichas actitudes contradictorias es deliberada, buscando urgirnos a cuestionar la conveniencia del desenlace aparentemente feliz y, con ello, los valores y convenciones que prevalecían en la sociedad aristocrática de aquel tiempo.

Global Crisis in Shakespeare: Legal, Social, Political and Economic Conflicts in the Merchant of Venice

Shakespeare’s Venice is the prototype of a global city: open to trade and business, it attracts a great flux of money and people. Its laws have to facilitate trade and provide incentives for business interactions. They also have to punish swiftly those who do not respect business contracts to maintain an impeccable image of a trade-based city state. Shakespeare uses this image of Venice to highlight a series of conflicts arising in the rest of Europe and in particular in England. Europe is moving from a class-based Aristocratic society to a trade-based bourgeois society, this creates a great number of uncertainties. Moreover, law is administered by a chaotic number of jurisdictions (in England, common law courts are working side by side with equity courts and ecclesiastical courts), which also increases legal uncertainty as to whom exercises justice and according to which procedures. Last but not least, Europe is plagued by religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants as well as between Christians and non-Christians. Shylock embodies the threat at the legal, social, economic, and religious level. The Merchant of Venice has never been as topical for our contemporary societies where law, religion, economics and politics are undergoing deep transformations and uncertainty reigns sovereign.

Nathan Bedford Forrest: Born to Fight

Nathan Bedford Forrest:Born to Fight Richard Tillinghast (bio) NATHAN Bedford Forrest remains one of the Civil War’s most controversial figures. According to his biographer Jack Hurst, he was both “a soft-spoken gentleman of marked placidity and an overbearing bully of homicidal wrath.” Of his military genius there can be little doubt. When asked to name the best officer who had fought on the southern side, Robert E. Lee unhesitatingly replied, “His name is Forrest.” In the Ken Burns pbs documentary on the Civil War, Shelby Foote remarked that two authentic military geniuses had emerged from the war: Abraham Lincoln and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Not Robert E. Lee, not Stonewall Jackson, and certainly not Ulysses S. Grant. And yet his abilities were never fully appreciated within the Confederate government. In 1869 Jefferson Davis sat by Forrest’s bedside in Memphis the day before he died of diabetes, wasted down to 100 pounds—“broke up,” the old warrior confessed, “broke in fortune, broke in health, broke in spirit.” The next day the president of the Confederacy served as a pallbearer. Riding to Elmwood Cemetery in the funeral cortège, Davis spoke of Forrest’s martial greatness and commented that “the generals commanding in the Southwest never appreciated him until it was too late. Their judgment was that he was a bold and enterprising raider and rider. I was misled by them, and never knew how to measure him until I read the reports of his campaign across the Tennessee River in 1864.” Of Brice’s Crossroads, Forrest’s most enterprising and daring victory, “That campaign was not understood in Richmond,” the former president said. “The impression made upon those in authority was that Forrest had made another successful raid. … I saw it all after it was too late.” What is our final evaluation of Nathan Bedford Forrest as man and soldier to be? What was it like to serve as a trooper under Forrest’s command, or to be among the outsmarted Union officers and common soldiers who had the misfortune to go up [End Page 599] against him? How did his slaves see him—those men, women and children force-marched along the dusty or muddy southern roads from Alabama to Mississippi, from Mississippi into West Tennessee during the years before the war when Forrest was in the business of buying and selling human beings? These are questions I have attempted to answer to my own satisfaction, though probably we shall never get a clear answer to that last question, never plumb the depths of that rage, fear, frustration, and pain. When Forrest was free to fight without having to follow orders from above, he was most himself, and he usually won, often against heavy odds, earning his nickname, The Wizard of the Saddle. But he hated serving under other officers, even when, as with “Fighting Joe” Wheeler, his ranking officer liked and admired him. After he fought under Wheeler in 1863 at Dover on the Tennessee River and Wheeler was dictating his official report on the battle, Forrest was lying in pain on the floor in the cabin they were using as a temporary headquarters, propped up on a cane-bottom chair. He had been thrown from his horse that day, and his ribs were bruised. Forrest said to Wheeler, that though he meant “no disrespect to you; you know my feelings of personal friendship for you; you can have my sword if you demand it; but there is one thing I do want you to put in that report to General Bragg—tell him that I will be in my coffin before I will fight again under your command.” Two things stood in the way of Forrest’s advancement: he was not a gentleman, and he had not gone to West Point. The South liked to see itself as an aristocratic society whose leaders were men of distinguished lineage, their conduct above reproach. Robert E. Lee was the very model of a Christian gentleman, a knight from Arthurian romance reborn in Virginia. Then there was the question of military background. Jefferson Davis’s elevation of generals Braxton Bragg and Leonidas Polk, based on his friendship with...

Society News (excerpts)

The fashionable attire of aristocratic and high society in Rome is the subject of these diary-like texts penned by the poet, playwright, journalist and soldier Gabriele D’Annunzio in the 1880s. Born himself into the aristocracy, with the title Prince of Montenevoso, D’Annunzio casts a close eye, both admiring and critical, over the ball gowns, furs and flounces worn by Roman high-society ladies at various social gatherings: balls, theater openings, operas, and horse races. His tone is both admiring and critical; that of an insider explaining in expert detail the secrets of haute couture.

Habermas, the Public Sphere, and the Creation of a Racial Counterpublic

In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Jürgen Habermas documented the historical emergence and fall of what he called the bourgeois public sphere, which he defined as “[a] sphere of private people come together as a public . . . to engage [public authorities] in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor.” This was a space where individuals gathered to discuss with each other, and sometimes with public officials, matters of shared concern. The aim of these gatherings was not simply discourse; these gatherings allowed the bourgeoisie to use their reason to determine the boundaries of public and private and to self-consciously develop the public sphere. As Habermas writes, “[t]he medium of this political confrontation was . . . people’s public use of their reason.” The bourgeois public didn’t simply participate, but it did so both directly and critically. The development of the bourgeois public as a critical, intellectual public took place in coffeehouses, in salons, and table societies. In Great Britain, Germany, and France, particularly, the coffeehouses and the salons “were centers of criticism—literary at first, then also political—in which began to emerge, between aristocratic society and bourgeois intellectuals, a certain parity of the educated.” Intellectual equals came together and deliberated, an equality that was key in ensuring the requisite openness and deliberation. No one person dominated the discussion due to his status within the deliberative community. Instead, and above all else, the “power of the better argument” won out. Two conditions were critical to these deliberations. First, equality was key to the public sphere. Membership in the public sphere meant that no one person was above the other and all arguments were similarly treated and scrutinized. Second, the principle of universal access was crucial.8The doors of the deliberative space were open to all comers and no group or person was purposefully shut out. Seen together, these two conditions provide a blueprint for deliberative practices in a democratic society.

<em>Imtheacht an Dá Nónmhar agus Tóraigheacht Taise Taoibhghile</em>: an Early Modern Irish exemplary tale

The Early Modern Irish (EModIr) fianaigheacht text known as Toraigheacht Taise Taoibhghile (henceforth TTT) has not hitherto been the subject of any lengthy critical comment. The present paper will argue that TTT is an exemplary tale concerned with the relationships of vassals to their overlords and to one another. In addition, attention will be drawn to the text’s treatment of poets and poetry, in particular with regard to the privileged position of men of art in aristocratic military society and the proper use of praise and satire.

The Fall of Emily Grierson: A Jungian Analysis of A Rose for Emily

This paper discusses the tragic life of Faulkner’s Emily Grierson, a life dominated by patriarchy and traditional Southern social values, which concludes with her living as a lonely recluse in her family’s decaying aristocratic house for more than forty years until her death. The key of the tragedy is her father, who isolates Emily from the outside world and tortures her with traditional patriarchal rules and Southern family duty. Emily is expected to lead a life like other girls; however, under the burden of old-fashioned, patriarchal responsibilities, her inner world collapses. This study uses the Jungian concepts of archetypes, persona and shadow, anima and animus to interpret Emily’s transitions and her fall. By examining the process through the lens of Jungian theories, the aspects that affect her fall in the patriarchal, aristocratic society, as well as the inherited social values, can be revealed and specified

Muzyka w Makura no sōshi

The article focuses on the problem of music and musicality in The Pillow Book ( Makura no sōshi ) written by Sei Shōnagon in the 10th century. It has been proved that Sei Shōnagon exposed many aspects of the problem of music in Japanese literature of the Heian period (794-1185) – the time of the greatest heyday of aristocratic culture as well as the development of Japanese court music gagaku . Unlike any European work of this period, music as art performed an important role in aristocratic society, influencing predominantly themes and composition of the created literature. Apart from many biological-cultural factors being shown in Japanese sensitivity and penchant for nature’s music (Tsunoda Tadanobu’s theory) as well as specific musicality of Japanese language, this work shows unique musical character of Sei Shonagon’s writing, expressed on several levels: the level of thematizing music through introducing description of holidays or popular instruments of that time ( biwa , hichiriki , koto etc.); the level of verbal music through description of the sounds, involving sounds heard during Buddhist and Shinto ceremonies, tones of particular instruments, voices of human and nature, mechanical sounds and artificial ones; the level of music visualization based on detailed description of musical instruments or performance without relating to their soundsphere; musicality on the emotional level manifested in showing strong feelings and emotions provoked by the music heard, and the symbolic level manifested by assigning specific qualities of symbolism to certain musical elements (flute, rain). The analysis of the above aspects was carried out in regard to the musical contexts, especially the popularity of gagaku court music and the musical education of the ladies-in-waiting in Japan of the Heian period.

“Consecration to Culture” : Nietzsche on Slavery and Human Dignity

In the Infamous Opening Sections from Part IX of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche celebrates a strident kind of elitism and countenances, in however attenuated a form, the institution of slavery. “Every enhancement of the type ‘man,’” he writes, “has so far been the work of an aristocratic society—and it will be so again and again—a society that believes in the long ladder of an order of rank and difference in worth [Werthverschiedenheit] between man and man, and that needs slavery [Sklaverei] in some sense or other” (257). In the section that follows, Nietzsche describes a “good and healthy aristocracy” as “accept[ing] with a good conscience the sacrifice of untold human beings who, for its sake [um ihretwillen], must be reduced and lowered to incomplete human beings, to slaves [Sklaven], to instruments [Werkzeugen]” (258). From these passages taken in isolation, an unsavory picture can emerge of Nietzsche as a defender, indeed a champion, of exploitation of the worst sort: Nietzsche appears to praise a world in which a small elite enhances itself through the subjugation of the rest of mankind, who bear this yoke of servitude and get nothing in return. The assumption undergirding this reading is a natural one: namely, that whatever benefits it may bring to an elite, whatever cultural achievements it may make possible, slavery is not in the interest of the slaves themselves. But it is not, as I shall argue here, Nietzsche’s own way of looking at things. Far from thinking it is contrary to the interests of “the masses” that they be subjugated, Nietzsche argues that ironically it is in being “reduced and lowered to incomplete human beings, [End Page 135] to slaves, to instruments” (BGE 258) that most people—those not part of the tiny aristocracy of Nietzschean great individuals—can come to live what Nietzsche regards as the most flourishing life for them. As I hope to make clear in what follows, the idea of “slavery in some sense or other” (BGE 257) that Nietzsche envisages is far more subtle than one might at first suppose from the connotations of this deliberately shocking word he chooses. In this paper I will spell out what conception of a person’s flourishing Nietzsche is working with, what sense of “slavery” he has in mind, and why he thinks this form of “slavery” is the best sort of life for all but a few exceptional great individuals. My aim here is primarily to explicate Nietzsche’s views, not to evaluate them. But I do hope to suggest that Nietzsche’s remarks about slavery are less odious than they can sometimes seem, even if they ultimately leave us unsettled.

The Struggle for Equality: Sectional Conflict, the Civil War, and the Long Reconstruction ed. by Orville Vernon Burton, Jerald Podair, and Jennifer L. Webe (review)

Reviewed by: The Struggle for Equality: Sectional Conflict, the Civil War, and the Long Reconstruction ed. by Orville Vernon Burton, Jerald Podair, and Jennifer L. Webe Edward R. Crowther The Struggle for Equality: Sectional Conflict, the Civil War, and the Long Reconstruction. Ed. Orville Vernon Burton, Jerald Podair, and Jennifer L. Weber. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-8139-3173-9, 320 pp., cloth, $45.00. The Declaration of Independence linked paradoxical ideas about equality with the future of the United States. Four score and five years later, the United States engaged in "a great Civil War," reflecting the regional and contradictory meanings of equality and who defined it. In a splendid Festschrift for James M. McPherson, who came of age during the civil rights movement in the 1950s, a continuation of this national debate, scholars—almost all former students—offer seventeen essays in tribute to his career. McPherson helped reintroduce the theme of racial equality into discussions of U.S. history, especially how the Civil War and the long era of Reconstruction that followed, settled, and failed to settle its meaning. McPherson's exemplary career began with The Struggle for Equality, whose title inspired this collection and reframed how historians viewed abolitionists; his second book, The Negro's Civil War, refocused the profession, then in the throes of Lost Cause constructions of the Civil War, on the centrality of African Americans as the vital actors and symbols of the meaning of equality during the Civil War era. His Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom now undergirds much of Civil War military, political, and social history. His recent works include important reappraisals of what motivated the soldiers who fought in the Civil War. This volume succeeds, first as a measure of McPherson's career. But it does more. McPherson produced many PhDs and influenced other scholars who continue to advance his themes. The seventeen essays are grouped into three sections: "Sectional Conflict," "Civil War," and "The Long Reconstruction." Readers familiar with these scholars' works will find these essays more illustrative than pathbreaking. Case studies of the Society of Friends by Ryan Jordan, Gen. James Wadsworth by Judith Hunter, and Ambassador John Meredith Reid by Philip Katz illustrate how the nineteenth-century debates over race and equality could produce [End Page 399] extreme contradictions. For the Quakers, abolitionism did not mean commitment to racial equality. Scions of wealth, Wadsworth and Reid found the Civil War years transformative. Wadsworth became an egalitarian abolitionist, while Reid lived out his days pining for an aristocratic society. The Civil War section consists of five splendid studies. Joseph Glatthaar argues that the system of elected officers in the Army of Northern Virginia, for all its flaws, worked well enough and was the only system consistent with the political culture from which this army was drawn. Jennifer Weber shows how Union soldiers proved decisive in reelecting Lincoln both by the votes they cast themselves and by their clarion calls for pro-administration voting in their copious letters home. Ronald White's examination of Lincoln's letter to James C. Conkling, which Lincoln read as a speech to an Illinois audience in 1863, reveals a Lincoln determined to make emancipation meaningful, prophetically noting that black men were fighting for freedom while so many white men were fighting against freedom and equality. Bruce Dain's splendid essay on Lincoln and race shows a Lincoln whose views on equality were tempered by an awareness of deeply seated societal racism and a fatalistic understanding of the flaws in humanity. Catherine Clinton's previously published essay on the sexual politics of the Civil War examines three episodes—General Butler's General War Order No. 28, the Richmond Bread Riots, and the saga of the Roswell mill workers—to show how male authority used the image of women of ill-repute to regulate the behavior of the majority of white women. The nine essays comprising the Long Reconstruction highlight the link between the Civil War and the ongoing debate about equality. Brian Greenberg's study of abolitionist Wendell Phillips examines his postbellum fight against plutocracy through advocating structures and policies to promote economic democracy. James K. Hogue, who updated...

Rue des Syriens by Raphaël Confiant

Conesa, Gabriel. Le pauvre homme! Molière et l’affaire du Tartuffe. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2012. ISBN 978-2-296-96279-8. Pp. 270. 29 a. Conesa’s novel about Molière’s efforts to bring Tartuffe to the stage gives the reader an insightful view of the playwright and the intricacies of seventeenth-century French court, Church, and society. The 36 chapters follow the chronological order of events from 1664, when Tartuffe was banned, to the reversal of this restriction in 1669. Conesa brings the details of the time to life in a witty and humorous way, presenting a vivid account of the reactions of well-known historical figures, notably the famous Italian comedian Scaramouche, Louis XIV, Colbert, Madame de Rambouillet, Henriette of England, Lully, le Grand Condé, Racine, and Corneille. Political events and issues of church and state are portrayed accurately amid the controversies that surrounded the staging of Tartuffe, which of course reflect the sociopolitical conflicts of the time. In Molière’s five-year struggle to have his play reinstated, one is reminded of the opposition between the strict moral code of the old guard and the looser, more hedonistic values of the young group of the court. One can also discern the aspirations of the Church for more influence in politics as well as the role of the Jansenists of Port-Royal in opposing the play. Conesa conveys Molière’s strategic calculations to keep the discussion and thus interest about his play alive and to overcome the reactionary forces of his era. In reading the travail of Molière to achieve his objective, one cannot but be impressed by his resourcefulness and persistence as well as his refusal to surrender to the pressures of the court. During his five-year campaign to bring his play to the stage, Molière wrote and staged Dom Juan and Le misanthrope, both of which offer a scathing portrait of the hypocrisies of aristocratic society. To these plays were added L’école des femmes and La critique de l’école des femmes,both focusing on the hypocrisy of the Church and, by extension, of patriarchal tyranny. Molière’s tenacity and ability to criticize the church and the court for their hypocrisy are skillfully presented. Even more important is his ability to use comedy to entice his contemporaries to reflect on their society and its flaws. The novel ends with Tartuffe finally being brought to the public. Conesa implicitly conveys that Tartuffe was not just a comedy but a play that marks a transition in the values of the time, signifying that God is no longer the center of human preoccupation and that the human race is seeking a new path to find happiness. St. John’s University (NY) Zoe Petropoulou Confiant, Raphaël. Rue des Syriens. Paris: Mercure de France, 2012. ISBN 978-27152 -3254-9. Pp. 372. 22,20 a. Après La panse du Chacal (2004) et Case à Chine (2007), Confiant se penche sur une plus récente immigration en Martinique, celle des Levantins de Syrie ou du Liban au début du vingtième siècle. L’auteur reconstruit l’extrême complexité du melting-pot 266 FRENCH REVIEW 87.2 Reviews 267 caribéen et nous fait parcourir le temps et l’espace jusqu’à la rue François-Arago, la Rue des Syriens. Dans ce texte polyphonique, Confiant donne la voix principale à Wadi, Syrien exilé après la faillite de son père en terre levantine et musulmane, qui, tel Candide, a bien du mal à trouver son chemin. Pour les uns, il est un“faux-blanc”(122). Fanotte, sa concubine, l’appelle “mon nègre” (135), comme de coutume en créole; pour les autres il est‘sirien’ou encore‘la Syrie’. Il doit apprendre le créole et le français, délaisser son écriture, qui n’est qu’un“gribouillis”(123), négocier son entrée entre les mailles de la société. Et puis il y a les Indiens“plus bas que terre”, les Chinois qu’on“ne sait pas très bien où [...] placer” (118). Chacun a son histoire, sa religion, sa langue et même son banc sur...

神田裕理著, 『戦国・織豊期の朝廷と公家社会』(歴史科学叢書), 校倉書房, 二〇一一・四刊, A5, 五一八頁, 一二〇〇〇円

神田裕理著, 『戦国・織豊期の朝廷と公家社会』(歴史科学叢書), 校倉書房, 二〇一一・四刊, A5, 五一八頁, 一二〇〇〇円

Дж. Чосер о гендерном поведении английского дворянства (на материале «Легенды о хороших женщинах»)

The article is devoted to the problem for studying a perception of gender behavior in the noble society by Geoffrey Chaucer, who was the prominent English poet of the XIV century. The author studies sexes’ interrelations in the aristocratic society through Chaucer’s coloured descriptions and estimations of the main characters in the poem, who were the famous heroes (both women and men) of the ancient mythology, also including their marriage behavior. The research is based on the weakly-studied in the Russian historiography source, which «The Legend of good women» is.

Conservative or Reformer?: The History and Fortune of Fénelon’s Traité de l’Éducation des filles in Eighteenth-Century England

Why was François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon’s Traité de l’Éducation des filles (1693) published in part by Richard Steele in his popular The Ladies Library (1614) and serialized by Charlotte Lennox in her periodical, The Lady’s Museum (1760)? This question deserves to be raised because Fénelon’s text was produced in a specifically French Catholic and political context that was fairly different from the English context of the 1710s and the 1760s. Indeed, Fénelon’s educational reforms for girls were part of a wider religious and political platform that clearly sought to defend—in reaction to King Louis XIV’s politeness policy—a conservative ideal of an agrarian and aristocratic society where the traditional gender hierarchy was emphasized. The aim of this article is therefore to analyze the themes and extracts from De l’Éducation des filles that Steele and Lennox chose to translate, in order to assess what trend—conservative or reformist—these two authors privileged when they publicized Fénelon’s ideas on female education. This essay concludes that both Steele and Lennox adapted Fénelon’s treatise for their own ends that were sometimes in contradiction to Fénelon’s original intentions. It seems that Steele ignored Fénelon’s hostility to politeness and used the treatise to promote a Whig agenda that redefined politeness along English lines. Lennox was more interested in Fénelon’s pedagogical methods and their impact on very young children as well as on mothers. This essay therefore seeks to reassess Steele’s and Lennox’s originality and conservatism. It also contends that although Fénelon’s treatise is hardly mentioned by historians of education, Fénelon was alongside Rousseau and Locke as one of the most influential educationalists in eighteenth-century England.

Chivalry in Medieval England (review)

Reviewed by: Chivalry in Medieval England Sam Zeno Conedera SJ Nigel Saul, Chivalry in Medieval England (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2011) 416 pp., ill. The stated aim of Chivalry in Medieval England is “to present an account of English aristocratic society in the Middle Ages which puts chivalry centre-stage” (5). Nigel Saul, whose extensive work on the subject prepared the way for this synthetic work, has admirably achieved his aim. Although Chivalry will make an invaluable reference work, it is more of a tour of medieval military, political, social, and cultural developments in England and northern France from the vantage point of the elusive phenomenon we call “chivalry.” Saul’s [End Page 274] blend of chronological and thematic approaches and plurality of perspectives are keys to his accomplishment. The first six chapters are primarily chronological with thematic overtones, moving from the origins of English chivalry at the time of the Norman Conquest to the end of the fourteenth century. The next ten chapters are primarily thematic in orientation, dealing with topics like crusading, literature, and gender, but they proceed chronologically in their internal organization. The final two chapters deal with late chivalry under the Yorkists and its ultimate transformation and decline in the Tudor age. Acknowledging that chivalry is “tantalizingly hard to define precisely” and means different things to different people, Saul draws on a wide range of evidence to view the phenomenon from as many angles as possible (3). His descriptions and analysis of fortifications, churches, and funerary monuments show that his research includes a great deal of legwork outside of archives and libraries. Chivalry is decisively oriented towards solving historical problems. Saul does not rest with demonstrating that a particular development took place, but seeks to explain why it did, in clear and accessible language. Two examples should suffice to illustrate the point. At the same time that war was endemic throughout England and Normandy in the late eleventh and early twelfth century, the conduct of war was being softened by a new courtesy. Saul says that the paradox itself offers the explanation: in a situation of constant warfare, it was in everyone’s interest to agree to a set of conventions that limited the impact of hostilities on participants and their followers (11). In explaining the twelfth-century English aristocracy’s fascination with Arthurian literature and history, the author refers to numerous factors. Within a few generations of the Norman Conquest, the aristocracy began to see itself as more English than French, but it still knew rather little about the history of the conquered country (49). The English, alone among the peoples of the British Isles, had no real foundation myth of their own (43). Thus the Arthur legend was one of the key elements in the creation of English mythology and history, which was portrayed in the nascent chivalric terms of the twelfth century, rather than as the social reality of the past (51). Saul’s treatment of such problems is consistently articulate and well supported. Saul is closely attentive to the changing fortunes of chivalry over the course of time, avoiding the pitfall of sweeping generalizations or synchronic myopia. He notes, for example, the early date for the first decline of English chivalry: the loss of Normandy under John Lackland (61). By the end of the thirteenth century, the number of knights in the country dropped from almost 4,000 to about 1,250 (63). Financial pressures, aspiration to status, the incorporation of knights into the royal justice system, and the absence of large-scale warfare all contributed to the infrequency of dubbing. At the same time, knights of the thirteenth century moved more into the countryside and established the foundations for the gentry (68). Aside from broad social and political factors, the initiatives of particular monarchs played an important role in defining and redefining chivalry. Richard the Lionheart was the first English monarch to personally transform chivalry by incorporating it into the image of kingship. He made war a virtue rather than a necessity and actively encouraged tournaments throughout the realm (34–36). Edward I responded to the aforementioned thirteenth-century decline of knighthood by once again raising the military profile of...

A clausura feminina no mundo ibero atlântico: Pernambuco e Portugal nos séculos XVI ao XVIII

Garantir a proteção da prole feminina sempre foi uma preocupação das famílias no mundo ibero-atlântico do Antigo Regime. Quando não era possível casar as moças com pessoas de qualidade, buscar o abrigo das casas de clausura para dar-lhes um estado foi uma opção e, em muitos casos, uma demonstração de afeto dos genitores. Os espaços de clausura assumiram múltiplas funções, pois tanto permitiam a almejada proteção e honra como possibilitavam uma vida devota para aquelas que tinham vocação. Mas, contraditoriamente, se constituíram em espaços de prisão para aquelas que de alguma forma romperam as fronteiras dentro das quais era permitido às mulheres se movimentarem. Assim, neste artigo tentamos demonstrar como as instituições de clausura fizeram parte do cotidiano das mulheres e das famílias fidalgas da sociedade do Antigo Regime.

The Memories of the Present Life in Athenian Funerary Monuments

The ancient Greeks attached great significance to the burial ceremonies and monuments(μν?μα) from their early history, as is observed in the epic works of Homeros and Hesiodos. They considered mortality as the fundamental limitation of humans distinguished from the immoral gods, and in Greek society the burial practices were not only the religious duty but also moral and legal obligations of the relatives. As the structure of Athenian society became more sophisticated with the development of democracy, the burial practices and grave markers became the main devices of social propaganda of the individuals and families. The form and subject of the funerary monuments of Archaic and Classical Athens should be interpreted in the social and political context.<BR> The Kerameikos cemetery outside the city of Athens reveals us the role and function of the tombs and their artistic programme; situated near the Dipylon gate of the city walls, the cemetery was highly visible to all the passengers and relatives who visited the graves. During the Classical period, graves of private individuals were grouped in family precincts and walled with masonry terraces and monumental stele in which the deceased were represented in relationship with other family members. It is probable that such an emphasis on the household was influenced by the decree of Pericles in 451 BC that ‘only those should he reckoned Athenians whose parents on both sides were Athenians’. As a result, mother’s extraction and the background of the family (ο?κο?) became an integral element of an individual’s social status and citizenship. The rather drastic change of imagery and the increasing numbers of the female figures in the stele of the Classical Athens reflects the political ideology of that period.<BR> The development of iconography and the representational style through Archaic and Classical period is also closely related to the contemporary social context. The generalized male figures of the ideal youths(?φηβο?) as the ‘athl ete’ type, and the more mature males of the ‘warrior’ type in Archaic funerary monuments were to visualize distinguished members of the state(π?λι?), follo wing the old tradition of the cult of the dead. On the other hand, during the Classical period the age categories of male and female figures became more defined and the features were more personalized, providing the needed infor mation of their relationship in the household. The subject of handshake(δεξ? ωσι?) which was often found in the Attic grave reliefs also indicated the legisl ative ties between the family members. Overall, the funerary monuments of th e ancient Athens were the social and political statements for the living audien ce, illustrating the set of values and ideologies that dominated the aristocratic society.

Nicholas Vincent, ed., Records, Administration and Aristocratic Society in the Anglo-Norman Realm. Papers Commemorating the 800th Anniversary of King John's Loss of Normandy. Woodbridge, Eng., and Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell and Brewer, 2009. Pp. xx, 206; black-and-white plates, black-and-white figures, tables, and maps. $115.

Nicholas Vincent, ed., <i>Records, Administration and Aristocratic Society in the Anglo-Norman Realm</i>. Papers Commemorating the 800th Anniversary of King John's Loss of Normandy. Woodbridge, Eng., and Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell and Brewer, 2009. Pp. xx, 206; black-and-white plates, black-and-white figures, tables, and maps. $115.