Andrew Brown
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Civic society and the Court
Jousts, shooting fraternities and Chambers of rhetoric
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This chapter contains an introduction and a selection of translated and annotated texts on Burgundian civic society and the court. The regular contests of jousters, archers and poets in towns of the Low Countries were among the most distinctive features of festive urban society in the fifteenth century. Jousting groups do not appear to have the same formal structures as religious fraternities; but their events would invariably involve attendance at a vigil and mass on the eve of jousting. Their membership demonstrates strong links with the civic government and the upper echelons of civic society. Civic accounts from the late thirteenth century, in several towns in Flanders and northern France, begin to make sporadic payments for jousting activity on their market places. Rhetoric competitions that explored religious themes could also serve as stages for the edification, spiritual and civic, of a wider audience within the town. Moreover, 'urban' rhetoricians could not be seen as 'court' ciphers; festive events rarely offered explicit support of Burgundian rule.

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