Late Fourteenth Century Research Articles

Review: Emulating Antiquity: Renaissance Buildings from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo

Review: <i>Emulating Antiquity: Renaissance Buildings from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo</i>

Revelation and Apocalypse in Late Medieval Literature: The Writings of Julian of Norwich and William Langland

Revelation and Apocalypse in Late Medieval Literature: The Writings of Julian of Norwich and William Langland

Revelation and Apocalypse in Late Medieval Literature: The Writings of Julian of Norwich and William Langland

Revelation and Apocalypse in Late Medieval Literature: The Writings of Julian of Norwich and William Langland

The Cornish Base-Cruck Truss

Four Cornish buildings with base-cruck trusses are described, part of a distinctive group that share the feature of having the blades passing the tiebeams to clasp the arcade plates. They have been dated, using a combination of ring-width and stable-isotope dendrochronology, to between the late thirteenth and late fourteenth centuries, making them the earliest known secular buildings in Cornwall. The paper discusses how these trusses relate to the development of the base-cruck form nationally and sets the buildings into their broader historical context.

Antichrist in Bohemia: A Theme in the Genesis of Hussite Theology

Antichrist in Bohemia: A Theme in the Genesis of Hussite Theology Stephen Lahey The figure of Antichrist loomed over the late fourteenth century as the papal schism divided the church, and its peoples, into bitterly opposed factions. In Bohemia, this was keenly felt, and a widespread interest in church reform combined with an increasingly popular tendency to favor apocalyptic imagery in preaching to give rise to what would become the Hussite movement.1 In particular, the Paris-trained Matthias of Janov (d. 1393) would develop a theory of church reform centered on Antichrist that was to captivate Jakoubek of Střibro (d. 1429), who would become the chief theologian of the Hussite movement on Hus’s death.2 It has also been customary to identify the thought of John Wyclif (d. 1384) with the genesis of Hussite theology. Wyclif’s name had become firmly associated with the reform preaching of Jan Hus, Jerome of Prague, and others (like Jakoubek) during the first decade of the fifteenth century. When Sigismund, King of Bohemia, pledged to do everything possible to oppose “heresiesˮ in February 1428, he swore to oppose “the newly introduced ideas of Wyclif or Hus.”3 That connection has held for six centuries, with some scholars claiming that Hussitism is but a variation of Wycliffism, and others responding that such arguments elevate German (Anglo-Saxon) thinking over Czech thought. The issue became politicized as the Czech nations struggled to define themselves as distinct from the German nature of Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth century. More recently, it has been recognized outside of the Czech literature that earlier Bohemian reform thought had a great deal to do with the content of Hussitism, but aside from very general summaries of figures such as Matthias and Jan Milíč, little has appeared in print.4 Wyclifʼs and Matthias of Janovʼs two different models of Antichrist reveal a much more important difference between the two thinkers. Each had a well-developed understanding of the church. Both described its membership as at best accidentally connected to the church of Rome, and for both thinkers, the clergy [End Page 21] betrayed the mystical body when they embraced secular power and wealth. For both, clerical abuses were evidence of Antichrist’s persecution of the church, to be countered by priests preaching the gospels and exemplifying Christ’s perfect life. The difference lay in whether or not these priests could identify the individual members of Antichrist or not. Wyclif was prepared to identify kinds of members, such as friars, corrupt clergy, and so on, but he restricted himself to generalities.5 Matthias and his intellectual heirs were prepared to identify specific members of Antichrist based on their hypocritical behavior.6 This is what led to the differences between Wyclif and the Hussites, as will be evident in our concluding discussion of one of the Four Articles of Prague. Not being able to identify specific members of Antichrist kept reform at an ideological level, but Matthias’s Regulae provided the wherewithal to identify them with its carefully delineated explanations of their characteristic hypocrisy. More important than questions of influence of specific thinkers was the shift that was occurring as the Hussite movement germinated. Christian theology was expanding venues in the mid fourteenth century, from the province of the Latin schools to vernacular and popular Latin.7 However, descriptions of Antichrist had long been in a liminal zone, as much the subject of prophetic exegesis and mystic eschatology as well as the basis for scholastic arguments about ecclesiology and other formal disputes.8 In this case, Wyclif represented a more conventional, scholastic description of Antichrist, while the Bohemian model, I will argue, represented a powerful readiness within Hussite reform to depart from the discourse of the schools.9 The key will be to show how these two models of Antichrist revealed the contrasting models of the church and how reform could be realized. We should begin with two models by which to understand the relation of Antichrist to the church, of which Wyclif made use of one, and Matthias, and subsequently Jakoubek, used the other. While it is interesting to consider the lineage of apocalyptic theology that led...

Law manuscripts from fifteenth-century Iceland

This article discusses a number of interdisciplinary aspects of Icelandic law manuscripts, produced in the fifteenth century, which contain important vernacular legal codes dealing with secular and ecclesiastical matters in medieval Iceland, such as Jónsbók and Kristinréttr Árna Þorlákssonar. In this article, it is argued that a continuity of law manuscript production exists in Iceland following the Black Death in 1402–04; this is seen in several ways: indications are found in textual and artistic parts of the manuscripts, as well as in para-texts that accompany the law texts in the margins. With particular focus on the manuscript AM 136 4to (Skinnastaðabók), this article discusses four distinctive cross-disciplinary features of fifteenth-century Icelandic law manuscripts: the adaptation and further development of textual contents initially found in law manuscripts dating back to previous centuries, select types of layouts chosen by the initial scribes, the book painting, and the use of the margins by later users and owners for comments and discussion on the textual content. The article concludes that with the changing Scandinavian politics in the late fourteenth century, Icelandic law manuscripts in the fifteenth century were first and foremost written for, and inspired by, domestic productions. While texts related to Norwegian royal supremacy and trade are rarely featured, the texts most used for domestic issues appear more frequently. On the other hand, statutes and concordats occur as regularly in these manuscripts as they do in earlier works, which indicates ongoing contact with the Norwegian Archdiocese of Niðaróss during the fifteenth century.

Female Desire in Chaucer’s “Legend of Good Women” and Middle English Romance by Lucy M. Allen-Goss

Reviewed by: Female Desire in Chaucer’s “Legend of Good Women” and Middle English Romance by Lucy M. Allen-Goss Michelle M. Sauer Lucy M. Allen-Goss. Female Desire in Chaucer’s “Legend of Good Women” and Middle English Romance. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020. Pp. ix, 225. $99.00 cloth; $24.99 e-book. Lucy M. Allen-Goss has given us a book that we need. Of course, there are a great many books out there on Chaucer, but there are few that concentrate on The Legend of Good Women, and fewer still that focus exclusively on female desire. Allen-Goss begins with an author’s note (viii–ix) that is imperative to her project: in it, she explains why she has avoided using the word “queer.” Whether or not we personally agree with her decision, the careful way in which she has outlined her choice, particularly how it connects with her understanding of Alain de Lille, is appreciated. Similarly, her introduction judiciously defines “female desire,” which is the central idea of her book and thus all the more important to be treated respectfully and completely. Early on, she notes, “As will be clear, the spectrum of female embodied desires I discuss is, because those desires are defined in the negative as not orientated towards masculinity, both wide and difficult to visualize” (6). In other words, to explore female desires adequately, masculinity must also be examined critically. And she does. The straightforward thesis of the entire work is thus: “I argue that, in the late fourteenth century, Chaucer inaugurates an interrogation of the available modes of representing women’s emotions, desires and aversions, carried out primarily through his most radically disruptive poem, the Legend of Good Women” (7). Although I am unsure the Legend is the most radical of all Chaucerian texts, Allen-Goss is ultimately very convincing in her position, and I finished the book even more convinced that Chaucer’s text is an essential tool in understanding the development of femininity, female desire, and medieval feminisms. Her applications to other romances demonstrate how this view works outside a Chaucerian framework. Chapter 1 focuses on the “Legend of Philomela.” It is a good place to start, setting up Allen-Goss’s basic premises well, since Philomela is raped, mutilated, and silenced, seemingly leaving no space for female desire. Allen-Goss instead argues that Chaucer’s “mutilation” of the text—he pieces together multiple sources and leaves off the traditional ending of the tale—allows for the possibility of a recuperative female voice. The chapter [End Page 281] is argued provocatively and adeptly and is ultimately quite convincing. Perhaps most intriguing is the section on Philomela’s prosthetic voice, accomplished through Chaucer’s rewriting of classical texts to eliminate blood (and gore), suggesting that “Chaucer’s lacuna, his omission of the lurid imagery of Philomela’s flesh and bloody tongue, makes visible the tensions within the discourses available for representation of violated female sexuality, showing how easily female aversion to male sexual violence can be made to look like transgressive female desire punished” (48). Eventually, she suggests that the entirety of the Legend reflects Philomela’s voice, thus setting up a “feminine hermeneutic that disrupts the rhythm of traditional narrative and poetics” (60). From here, Chapter 2 switches gear and examines the Alliterative Morte Arthure, which sets the pattern for the rest of the book in alternating Chaucer with other romances. Allen-Goss says that, like Philomela, the Alliterative Morte is a “displaced representation of silenced female suffering [that] brings coherence to seemingly dissonant, fragmented, repetitive and structurally disarticulated aspects of the poem” (62). But more than that, she goes on to suggest that in the Morte, female desire is specifically linked to male sodomy. Sorting through the incident where the giant rapes Arthur’s kinswoman, and various penile images (e.g., Arthur thrusting his lance through Mordred’s anus), the conclusion is that while there is sodomitic energy and possible queerness, the poem also engages with the potential for expressing female desires even as it resists actual female characters. Chapters 3 and 4 are similarly paired, and address first the “Legend of Hipsiphyle and Medea...

Anne Derbes, Ritual, Gender and Narrative in Late Medieval Italy: Fina Buzzacarini and the Baptistery of Padua. Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, 15. Turnhout: Brepols, 2020, 384 pp., 189 ill.

Abstract: Visitors to the northern Italian city of Padua often marvel at the city’s medieval pictorial artworks which adorn the interiors of its ancient buildings. Most queue to be admitted into the environmentally regulated Scrovegni Chapel to view Giotto’s stupendous works completed at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Those who venture further into Padua’s historic center will never forget the experience of stepping into the city’s baptistery. Admitted through a small wooden door nonchalantly by a proud but often helpful Paduan, the viewer ‐ as soon as his/her eyes adjust to the soft light ‐ is embraced by the splendor of the baptistery’s ceilings and walls. Although the city’s adjoining cathedral was gradually transformed from its late medieval form during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, the baptistery has retained both its facade and interior frozen in the late fourteenth century. Perhaps the only significant change occurred early in the fifteenth century when the sarcophagi of the city’s penultimate lord Francesco Il Vecchio da Carrara (1325–1393) and his consort Fina Buzzacarini (1328–1378) were removed.

An unknown horkomotikos horismos of the Despot Nikephoros II Komnenos Angelos Doukas in favour of the bishopric and the town of Stagoi, Thessaly (ca 1356 - ante 1359)

The paper examines a previously largely unknown late-Byzantine document from the archives of the Barlaam monastery in Meteora. Written on paper, the document is only partially preserved, while based on evidence from within the text itself it is attributed to the Despot Nikephoros II Komnenos Angelos Doukas, issued in favour of the town of Stagoi. The type of script dates it to within the late-fourteenth century, while the document provides information regarding society and the economy of the town during the middle part of the century. Following an extensive discussion of the contents of the document, a diplomatic editio princeps is also included.

Ariere tost: A New Attribution to Cesaris

The anonymous ballade Ariere tost is one of the most chromatic songs from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, featuring a variety of accidentals matched only by the more widely-known...

Дюрбе конца XIV – на­чала XV вв. в Солхате (новые материалы)

Research objectives: To present data about a newly discovered architectural monument of the Golden Horde’s Solkhat/Krym. Research materials: As the result of excavations of the medieval settlement of Solkhat in 2018–2019, we have revealed an unknown archaeological object – a türbe (mausoleum) belonging to the Islamic community of the town. The research materials contain architectural measurements and plans, a description and analysis of the burial structures, along with data on coins and other finds, including female jewelry found in one of the burials. Results and novelty of the research: During archaeological surveys in 2018 in the southeastern part of the Golden Horde’s Solkhat, not far from the modern reservoir, a new archaeological object was discovered and identified as a medieval Muslim mausoleum (türbe). As a result of the 2018–2019 excavations, it was found that it is a ruined structure, preserved at the level of the lower rows of the foundation. The plan of the mausoleum is based on a rectangle oriented to the cardinal directions. The structure consists of two parts – the southern which is the entrance and the northern which contains the actual tombs (gurkhan). In the northern part of the türbe at the floor level, two burial underground chambers were discovered: burial 1, constructed of square Golden Horde bricks, and burial 2, constructed of rubble stones. The first female burial contained fragments of architectural details and a pair of golden earrings with a translucent sub-square inlay. The design features of the earrings indicate a style distinctive to Central Asia and China. The gender of the buried individual is confirmed by anthropological analysis. The second burial is a collective one, with bone remains of at least three individuals, two of them being males. According to the numismatic finds, the mausoleum dates to the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. The presence of female jewelry among the funeral inventory of burial 1 formally contradicts the traditions of Islamic funeral rites. Apparently, gold earrings, mar­king the social status of the deceased (among other details of clothing that have not reached us), indicate the persistent preservation of traces of steppe traditions.

Riding Gear Items from the Jurgionys Cemetery of the Late Fourteenth–Early Sixteenth Centuries

The paper publishes information on the riding gear items (namely, spurs and their fragments, a miniature stirrup, as well as horse teeth) discovered during the archaeological excavations of 2010–2011 and 2013–2014 at the Jurgionys cemetery located in the Aukštadvaris eldership of the Trakai district and dating to the late fourteenth– early fifteenth centuries. The paper aims to introduce the artefacts to the scientific archaeological array establishing their typology and chronology and their place in the context of other finds discovered at Lithuanian medieval inhumation burials. The Jurgionys cemetery of the late fourteenth–early fifteenth century (Aukštadvaris eldership, Trakai district) contained numerous items of riding gear. Burials 2 (Fig. 1) and 16 had one spur in each, whereas burial 11 (Fig. 2) had two spurs. Random finds from disturbed burials picked from the ploughed layer added two more fragments of spurs and a piece of a miniature stirrup. The level of preservation of the spurs varied, some of the finds were highly corroded and surviving only partially. Yet the spurs were typical of Western and Central Europe (although spurs with star-shaped spikes are also found in the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Moscow, there are no close analogues to the ones discovered at the Jurgionys cemetery). Two of the three spur finds came from the burials containing weapons (burial 11 contained an axe and a spearhead and burial 16 contained a sword). The rich array of burial goods found in burial 16 (Fig. 3) implies that the person buried therein enjoyed a high social status. The spur found in burial 16 (Fig. 4) is typologically very similar to the ones discovered at the Palace of the Grand Dukes of the Lower Castle of Vilnius and in London. It goes without saying that typologically similar spurs can also be found elsewhere. One of the randomly found spurs has survived only partially (Fig. 5). The other randomly found spur bears strap holders decorated with a scallop shell ornament (Fig. 6). Such an ornament could be related to the cult of St James the Great which used to be rather widespread in medieval Europe. A miniature stirrup (Fig. 7) is similar to the stirrups of the eastern type found in the territory of modern Ukraine and southern Russia; they are related to the nomadic peoples of the steppe. Materials of the Jurgionys cemetery considerably broaden our knowledge about the riding gear used by medieval Lithuanian horsemen, and horse teeth found in burials 35 and 37 should be perceived as horsemen’s symbols. They are unique finds for the cemetery of the Jurgionys community, which was only barely influenced by Christianity at the time.

Historical Earthquake Scenarios for the Middle Strand of the North Anatolian Fault Deduced from Archeo-Damage Inventory and Building Deformation Modeling

Abstract The city of İznik (ancient Nicaea), located on the middle strand of the North Anatolian fault zone (MNAF), presents outstanding archeological monuments preserved from the Roman and Ottoman periods (first to fifteenth centuries A.D.), bearing deformations that can be linked to past seismic shaking. To constrain the date and intensity of these historical earthquakes, a systematic survey of earthquake archeological effects (EAEs) is carried out on the city’s damaged buildings. Each of the 235 EAEs found is given a quality ranking, and the corresponding damage is classified according to the European Macroseismic Scale 1998 (EMS-98). We show that the walls oriented north–south were preferentially damaged, and that most deformations are perpendicular to the walls’ axes. The date of postseismic repairs is constrained with available archeological data and new C14 dating of mortar charcoals. Three damage episodes are evidenced: (1) between the sixth and late eighth centuries, (2) between the nineth and late eleventh centuries A.D., and (3) after the late fourteenth century A.D. The repartition of damage as a function of building vulnerability points toward a global intensity VIII on the EMS-98. The 3D modeling of a deformed Roman obelisk shows that only earthquakes rupturing the MNAF can account for this deformation. Their magnitude can be bracketed between Mw 6 and 7. Our archeoseismological study complements the historical seismicity catalog and confirms paleoseismological data, suggesting several destructive earthquakes along the MNAF, since the first century A.D. We suggest the fault might still have accumulated enough stress to generate an Mw 7+ rupture.

The Transformation of Private Space in the Later Middle Ages: Rooms and Living Standards in the Kingdom of Valencia (1280-1450)

This article undertakes a quantitative and qualitative analysis of probate inventories from a selection of towns and highly urbanized areas from the kingdom of Valencia in the period 1280-1460, which are used to explore the inner distribution of more than 300 housings. Agreeing with the historiographical statement that this period was one of general improvement as to living standards and housing, this article reveals Valencian dwellings were provided with more specialized rooms since the late fourteenth century. This phenomenon was present particularly in the residences of townspeople living in large urban centers. Despite the predominant spatial simplicity of most late medieval housings, this article suggests more people enjoyed a more complex private space, which agreed with the needs of ostentation and privacy that characterized the new domestic culture that developed in the period.

“When a Stranger Sojourns With You in Your Land”: Loving the Refugee as Neighbor in the Canterbury Tales and Refugee Tales

ABSTRACT Inspired by Chaucer’s frame tale narrative, the recent volumes entitled Refugee Tales narrate the perilous journeys of modern-day displaced and stateless persons seeking asylum in the UK. This article examines the Refugee Tales’ goal to create a “spectacle of welcome” through the lens of the biblical injunction to “love thy neighbor” and the related Levitical command that, “when a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong” (Leviticus 19:33–4). As a third-term in the sovereign formula of “friend/enemy,” the refugee threatens to uncouple power from the very criteria on which it depends: history, territory, bare life. And these concerns are arguably as important in the late-fourteenth century as in our own global political age. Does Chaucer think of the refugees he witnessed in his own life? Considering, then, the neighborly relations of literary texts — relations that are contiguous rather than genealogical — this article seeks Chaucer’s own refugee stories by delving into the narrative chasms of the Knight’s Tales’ absent narratives, the residue of Boccaccio’s Il Teseida, and the critically-contentious backstory to the Knight as storyteller.

Sources and Resources John Bradmore and the Case of the Bitten Man: A Tantalising Link Between Three Medieval Surgical Manuscripts

Summary This article examines three English surgical treatises compiled between the late fourteenth and mid-fifteenth centuries. The earliest, a Middle English treatise dated 1392, appears to have been compiled by a surgeon practising in London (MS Wellcome 564). Near contemporary with this is a Latin treatise, Philomena, compiled by London surgeon John Bradmore in the first decade of the fifteenth century (BL MS Sloane 2272). The latest of the three, dated 1446, represents a translation/adaptation of Bradmore’s Philomena into Middle English (BL MS Harley 1736). All three treatises contain anecdotes of surgical cases, and just one of these anecdotes is common to all three manuscripts. Close analysis of this story is used to explore aspects of the practice and regulation of surgery in late medieval London, and also to examine the relationship of the three treatises and the implications this has for the sharing of texts and information among surgeons.

Privacy, Interiority and Confession: A Historical Perspective

Privacy, Interiority and Confession: A Historical Perspective Yelena Mazour‐Matusevich Introduction This historical inquiry focuses on the connection between the increasing interiority of a religious experience, confession, and the development of privacy, and aims to demonstrate how certain innovations in pastoral care and new approaches to contemplative practices led to the emergence of privacy as a condition of confession and penance, and, therefore, of salvation itself. Using Michel Foucault's theoretical framework, as well as primary historical sources from the late fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, this essay argues that developments in introspection and a more personalized approach to confessional practices in late medieval‐early modern times resulted in a tension between privacy and safety, which is highly relevant today. The major difficulty in exploring the connection between interiority and privacy results from a lack of a clear definition of either concept. There is no generally accepted definition of interiority, which is sometimes called interiorization, subjectivization, individualization, individuation,1. or “un certain movement intériorisant dans le christianisme,” according to the expression of Jacques Derrida.2. The same goes for privacy, which can be understood in judicial, psychological, economic, political, ethical, and other terms. However, as important as it is to formulate these concepts' meanings, the lack of mathematical precision in their definitions should not hinder the discussion undertaken in this volume, for, as Aristotle rightly put it, in human affairs “we must be satisfied with the broad outline of the truth […]”3. For our purposes, the examination of privacy from the judicial point of view, as presented by Dr. Theresa E. Miedema in her article in this volume,4. offers a sufficient starting point, since some contemporary definitions and insights into this issue turn out to be surprisingly relevant for contextualizing late medieval‐early modern pastoral concerns for the modern reader. Thus, Dean Prosser’s analysis of the case law related to privacy,5. which “was adopted by the Restatement (Second) of Torts (2010), and has been widely endorsed in Canadian and American jurisprudence,”6. is fairly applicable to the late medieval‐early modern concerns with privacy examined in this essay. Among the four torts related to the privacy case and examined by Prosser, two—public disclosure of embarrassing private facts and publicity that puts the plaintiff in a false light in the public eye—are not only relatable to the historical period in question, but also, as we shall see, correspond to apprehensions concerning privacy of confession as articulated by clergy at the time. By the same token, in a leading UK case related to the tort of breach of confidence Campbell v. MGN Ltd, Lord Nicholls' observation that “[a] proper degree of privacy is essential for the [well‐being] and development of an individual”7. is remarkably consistent with both the early modern assessment of the issue and historical anthropology’s view of privacy as a precondition to personhood. The turn inward The spirituality of the late medieval‐early modern period is commonly associated with the “turn inward,” which gradually became synonymous with the beginning of self‐formation in what Foucault identified as the “genealogy of the modern subject."8. Both the Protestant and Catholic faiths came to place a greater emphasis on interiority, testifying to a “massive subjective turn of modern culture, a new form of inwardness, in which we come to think of ourselves as beings with inner depths.”9. While this process remains “all but clear‐cut and easily comprehensible,”10. scholars have recognized several criteria, or triggers formative for future developments, of introspection in late medieval Christianity. Among them are innovations in pastoral care, creative approaches to contemplative practices, the transfer of monastic methods to laity, and the reworking of earlier historical models of auto‐exteriorization.11. Auto‐exteriorization is understood as the process of consciously and voluntarily (not under duress) expressing, in oral or written form, in public or in private, thoughts and feelings, which were up until this point known only to their beholder. Michel Foucault identified three historical models of auto‐exteriorization in the Western world: the classical Greco‐Roman “gnomic self,” from the Greek gnomé, meaning coincidence of will and knowledge;12. the dramatic public exteriorization of sins called...

Syncretism, Harmonization, and Mutual Appropriation between Buddhism and Confucianism in Pre-Joseon Korea

Following the introduction of Buddhism to China, various strategies of accommodation with Chinese culture were developed, all amounting to some form of syncretism with Chinese religions, mainly Confucianism. Buddhism in pre-modern Korea displayed similar forms of interaction with Confucianism. This article aims to critique the notion that such interactions were merely forms of “harmonization”, finding common ground between the traditions. If one religion borrows from another or adopts the message of another religion, it will be affected to some degree, which is why the concept of syncretism is a better tool of analysis. This article concludes that there was a strong official support in Goryeo Korea towards the genuine convergence of Confucianism and Buddhism. Since Buddhism, as a result, took on many of the tasks carried out by Confucianism in China, the reaction against Buddhism by a reinvigorated Confucianism from the late fourteenth century onward was much stronger than in China.

Transcribing Petrarch’s Genres in the Late Fourteenth Century: An Ongoing Conversation with the Observations from MSS Cologny Bodmer 131 and Gambalunga SC-Ms. 93

In spite of its apparent ‘betrayal’ of Petrarch’s visual poetics due to its one-column layout, the copy of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta contained in MS Cologny Bodmer 131 documents a way of employing common graphic devices that still shows awareness of the graphological distinctions among the five genres of the Fragmenta, and yet unavoidably slips in occasional errors deriving from the loss of Petrarch’s original mise en page. Gambalunga Sc-Ms. 93, in its first unit, reproduces the same choices of organization of the genres, and often even the same errors, demonstrating its derivation from the same antegraph as the Bodmer manuscript. The two copies, both from the end of the fourteenth century, provide evidence that such transcriptional choices were already consolidated shortly after the death of the poet, suggesting that scribes of the earliest copies of the Rvf did not follow the formats of their holograph.

A Female Voice in the Middle Ages

Medieval texts frequently leave women out or overlook their contributions to society and describe them in a negative and hateful narrative. Christine de Pizan, a late fourteenth century poet, challenges these slanderous works produced by men. This paper highlights Christine de Pizan’s pro- feminine arguments that are made within one of her most popular works, The Book of the City of Ladies. de Pizan uses prose to effectively demonstrate the false accusations made about women. She uses historical and religious examples to prove that a women’s worth is more than what male authors make it out to be. Some scholars relate this work to early feminism, however, de Pizan is very aware of the female place in society and is simply asking for accurate representation and female virtue to remain in these sources rather demanding equality of the sexes. This article highlights some of the feminist arguments by classifying them as pro-feminine instead of feminist.