291 research outputs found
The twelfth-century Arthur
No full textKing Arthur came into his own in the twelfth century. Around 1135 he acquired a biographer, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and a few decades later a champion poet, Chrétien de Troyes, the pioneer of Arthurian romance. The fame of both these writers, in their own lifetime and beyond, amply justifies their status as the fathers of Arthurian literature. Its mother was an oral tradition about which we know much less. Not many fossils survive, but those that do are so varied and widespread as to leave us in no doubt about the vigour of the popular tradition on which Geoffrey and Chrétien grafted their invention.</p
Henry VII and Henry VIII in the Verse and Visual Art of Early 16th-Century Antwerp:Propaganda, Polemic, and Evasion
No full textRanging from c. 1050 to c. 1600 this volume crosses chronological, linguistic, geographical, and disciplinary boundaries to explore the cultural history of relations between English and Dutch speakers. The evidence consists of many different types and genres, and our contributors take account of the range of languages spoken and written in England and the Low Countries. They move beyond source study to consider other ways in which speakers of Dutch and English took notice of each other in their writing. Above all, this book attempts to join up the study of literary transfer with historical evidence of contact situations. Stories, ideas, and ‘memes’ in our period did not travel without people to carry them. While the literary historians amongst our contributors may come to the question of Anglo-Dutch relations from a different angle than do the historians, we have combined forces in the conviction that findings on both sides will be mutually illuminating
Performing Middle English Romance
No full textProfessor Ad Putter of Bristol University has headed a major research study with the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council in Great Britain and from BIRTHA at Bristol University into the performance of Middle English romances in medieval times. His research has led Ad Putter to produce this recording in which he performs excerpts from some of the better known romances, some of which refer to being sung by the minstrel. Putter's research as well as the research of the Zaerr sisters both focus on performance by singing and accompaniment by medieval instruments, and Rosamund Allen demonstrates features of dramatic readings aloud by good dramatic readers in medieval times and now. All of these performances or lectures were related to the Medieval Romance in Britain Conference being held at the University of Bristol on 11 through 13 April 2014, though the performances with singing and accompaniment occurred the morning before the conference began and can be found on Disc One. Disc two was recorded during the Conference itself during 12 April's afternoon session. Texts and Modern English translations of the romances sung to medieval music in Middle English are included in the large booklet included with the CDs only.Recorded at The Music Room at Clifton Hill House, University of Bristol and in the conference room at the same location. 11 and 12 April 2014 Readers: Singers: Ad Putter and Linda Marie Zaerr Accompanists: Linda Marie Zaerr accompanies herself on vielle, Laura Zaerr plays the gothic harp, and Frances Eustace accompanies Ad Putter on an alto rebec and a medieval harp
Reynard the Fox
No full textStory by Anne Louise Avery, Kristian Moen, Steve Pratley; Puppets made by Katie Elspeth Williams; Music by Duncan McQueen, Alexander Kakadra, Olly Shaw, Lucy Tenet; Producer: Charlotte Warn; Editor and Visual Effects: Lew Gunn; Director of Photography: Mia Solomon Baker; Animators: Briony Havergill and Pilli Woolard; Written by Briony Havergill and Kristian Moen; Directed by Maddy Pull; Executive Producers: Ad Putter and Kristian Moe
Reynard the Fox
No full textStory by Anne Louise Avery, Kristian Moen, Steve Pratley; Puppets made by Katie Elspeth Williams; Music by Duncan McQueen, Alexander Kakadra, Olly Shaw, Lucy Tenet; Producer: Charlotte Warn; Editor and Visual Effects: Lew Gunn; Director of Photography: Mia Solomon Baker; Animators: Briony Havergill and Pilli Woolard; Written by Briony Havergill and Kristian Moen; Directed by Maddy Pull; Executive Producers: Ad Putter and Kristian Moe
The linguistic repertoire of medieval England, 1100-1500
No full textLanguages and literatures do not develop in isolation from each other; and that is all the more true when speakers of different languages live in close proximity, or when two or more languages are spoken by the same person. The linguistic environment of Middle English is especially interesting and complicated, not only because of the many languages it was in contact with but also because of the many variables involved in language choice. In medieval England the language(s) you spoke depended on social status and mobility, profession and business, location and education. All these variables were in turn historically contingent and variable across time, for by the end of the fifteenth century the linguistic landscape had changed almost beyond recognition from that of the early twelfth century. This chapter provides a history of these variables by looking across the wide spectrum of languages spoken and written in England from 1100 to 1500. These include not only the Big Three (English, French, and Latin) but also the Celtic languages and early Scandinavian. A convenient starting point is the Norman Conquest, which in many histories of England features misleadingly as the moment when the national mother tongue became subservient to the language of French colonizers. Like many other myths, this one has its origin in the medieval period. Writing in the first half of the fourteenth century, the Dominican friar Robert Holcot looked back at the Norman Conquest in terms that have become very familiar: Narrant hystorie quod cum Guilelmus dux Normannorum regnum Anglie conquisivisset, deliberavit quomodo linguam saxonicam posset destruere et Angliam et Normanniam in ydiomate concordare, et ideo ordinavit quod nullus in curia placitaret nisi in gallico et iterum quod puer quilibet ponendus ad litteras addisceret gallicum et per gallicum latinum que duo usque ad odie observantur. (The chronicles say that when William, Duke of Normandy, had conquered England, he schemed to destroy the Saxon language and to unify England and Normandy under a single language, and so he ordained that no one should plead at court except in French and that any boy who was to be put to letters should also be taught French and, by means of French, Latin, and this practice is still observed today.) What Holcot says about his own times is confirmed by other sources.</p
"Jaufre": Genre Boundaries and Ambiguity
No full textLa riscrittura della materia arturiana nella Francia meridionale. L'ambiguità generica del test
Multilingualism in Medieval Britain:Sources and Analysis
No full textThe essays collected in this volume deal with the multilingual cultures of later medieval England and Wales and aim to recover the complexities of spoken and written communication in the later medieval period.This book is devoted to the study of multilingual Britain in the later medieval period, from the Norman Conquest to John Skelton. It brings together experts from different disciplines — history, linguistics, and literature - in a joint effort to recover the complexities of spoken and written communication in the Middle Ages. Each author focuses on one specific text or text type, and demonstrates by example what careful analysis can reveal about the nature of medieval multilingualism and about medieval attitudes to the different living languages of later medieval Britain. There are chapters on charters, sermons, religious prose, glossaries, manorial records, biblical translations, chronicles, and the macaronic poetry of William Langland and John Skelton. By addressing the full range of languages spoken and written in later medieval Britain (Latin, French, Old Norse, Welsh, Cornish, English, Dutch, and Hebrew), this collection reveals the linguistic situation of the period in its true diversity and shows the resourcefulness of medieval people when faced with the need to communicate. For medieval writers and readers, the ability to move between languages opened up a wealth of possibilities: possibilities for subtle changes of register, for counterpoint, for linguistic playfulness, and, perhaps most importantly, for texts which extend a particular challenge to the reader to engage with them
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