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example the countergift apparently functioned as payment of relief. Matilda de Avranches in the late twelfth century received one gold mark for making recognition by charter of a vassal entering lands by right of inheritance.26 When Basilia, daughter of Ailrich, c. 1210–15 quitclaimed lands to Robert, son of Matilda, she finalised the agreement in the court of her lord. For the quitclaim and her abjuratione Robert gave her 6s and his wife, Anne, gave Basilia a robe, peplum.27 This example shows that both husband and wife were involved in giving countergifts to seal a
tenant to Holywell Priory, London, in which Earl William received seven marks and Hawise two bezants.3 The other charter records the enfeoffment of Richard de Lucy, a justiciar of Henry II, on Gloucester lands. Both Hawise and Earl William received a gold ring in return for recognition.4 Not only was Countess Hawise a regular witness to the acta of her husband, Earl William, in 1185 she witnessed a charter of Margaret, the widow of Henry II’s eldest son, Henry the Younger.5 How can we account for such a high level of visible public activity by a twelfth
of Worcester portrays both the countess Mabel and Stephen’s queen Matilda as proactively involved in the negotiating process. Both the queen and Mabel are portrayed as supporting their husbands, negotiating with each other through messengers. It is striking that there is no disparaging comment, only recognition of their actions as peacemakers, and indeed power brokers, involved in careful diplomacy.41 Later in the twelfth century Petronella countess of Leicester was also involved in the military campaigns of her husband.42 The main subject of Jordan Fantosme
the countesses of Chester in the affairs of the honor may have declined through the twelfth century. A statistical breakdown illustrates this apparent decline. The figures show involvement as either witness or (co-) alienor, since both represent proactive behaviour, authority, recognition and influence. No distinction is made between types of grant, or beneficiary. The earliest record sources show that Ermentrude was involved in three out of her husband’s five charters – i.e. a participation rate of 60 per cent. Lucy was involved in 11 per cent of her husband
14 Textual face: cognition as recognition James Simpson When university presidents defend the humanities, they do so in the same way they defend the sciences: as discovery of knowledge. That may be true of the sciences, but in this short chapter I want to persuade you that there is a distinctive form of thinking in the humanities. Thinking in the humanities is more a matter of recovery than discovery. Moments of revelation in the humanities are more inventions in the older sense (finding the already known) than scientific inventions in the newer sense
made a Reader at King’s and 1993 she became Professor of Medieval History, a position that King’s College has now made permanent in her honour. In 1996 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy; in 2004 she received an Honorary degree from the University of East Anglia, and in 2007 another Honorary degree from the University of St Andrews. Janet Nelson has used her growing influence and recognition
artefacts and in the scholarship that has circled those lives. At the same time, this is not a conversation that can be easily contained by human discourse; when we talk with things, something always has eluded, and always will elude us. The fact that Anglo-Saxon writers and craftsmen so often employed riddling forms or enigmatic language balances an attempt to speak 217 Afterword: Old things with new things to say 217 and listen to things with a tacit recognition that these nonhuman wihtu often elude, defy and withdraw from us. What are the outcomes of this study of
are a number of factors that distinguish one romance’s treatment of the pilgrim-knight commonplace from another’s, including: the knight’s motivations for concealing his identity; the identity of the person (or animal) who first recognizes the returning knight; the timing and dramatic context of this recognition; and whether the revelation of the knight’s identity resolves the narrative’s conflicts, or generates new ones; and so on.41 As the discussion of the pilgrimage road in The Stanzaic Guy of Warwick suggests, these differences in the treatment of the pilgrim
; it was the epitome of the ideally arranged polity, but also served as a model of the ideal prince, who is obliged to live virtuously in recognition of the fact that he is guided by the rational and divine part of his body – the soul. The role played by moderation as a normative goal for all members of the polity cannot be overestimated. John required that the virtues were neither under- nor over-emphasised; a tyrant exceeds the bounds of his duties, while a selfish preoccupation with vice on the part of the prince can corrupt the polity as a whole. The political
reasoning are summarised. Crucially, they balance each other in terms of length. Only the mother’s advice to her son at the very end, to seek the help of Jesus, is put in direct speech (228–30). Thus, the most important outcome of the developments is effectively emphasised. Tyberea’s story contains the necessary details for Judas to make the unavoidable connection (her son was abandoned in a basket to avert destiny, which nevertheless resulted in the calamity of her husband’s death). Thereby, Judas’s recognition is described as a chain of causal relations which now can be