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2 The twin demons of aristocratic society in Sir Gowther Alcuin Blamires Sir Gowther is a 700-line narrative probably originating (in its Middle English form) about 1400 in the North Midlands. It is extant in two mildly divergent manuscript texts, which will here be referred to as the ‘Advocates’ and ‘Royal’ versions.1 Sir Gowther is conspicuous for that surface crankiness and drastic speed which are often found in medieval English verse romances and which readily provoke a modern reader’s suspicion that no very challenging contact with medieval society is being
This is a study of noblewomen in twelfth-century England and Normandy, and of the ways in which they exercised power. It draws on a mix of evidence to offer a reconceptualization of women's role in aristocratic society, and in doing so suggests new ways of looking at lordship and the ruling elite in the high Middle Ages. The book considers a wide range of literary sources—such as chronicles, charters, seals and governmental records—to draw out a detailed picture of noblewomen in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman realm. It asserts the importance of the life-cycle in determining the power of these aristocratic women, thereby demonstrating that the influence of gender on lordship was profound, complex and varied.
structures and other potential barriers to it – despotism can become absolute to the extent that ‘men’ could be robbed of their autonomy and freedom as completely as to lose parts of their humanity (666). Tocqueville is equally assertive, though, that ‘reconstructing an aristocratic society’ is not an option: as God himself made us live in a democratic society, we have only one option, namely making it a source of freedom. This is, however, a tricky assignment. The difficulty arises not least from the fact that it is ‘at once necessary and desirable that the central power
the heart of hierarchy, maintaining and exaggerating differences, and thus generating a fundamental social energy within warlike aristocratic society. This energy has a temporal component, propelling a social structure forwards even as it casts a glance sideways to take the measure of its competitors and over its shoulder to check for pursuers. Emblematically, Ulysses, in his diatribe against
Delving into a hitherto unexplored aspect of Irish art history, Painting Dublin, 1886–1949 examines the depiction of Dublin by artists from the late-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Artists’ representations of the city have long been markers of civic pride and identity, yet in Ireland, such artworks have been overlooked in favour of the rural and pastoral, falling outside of the dominant disciplinary narratives of nationalism or modernism. Framed by the shift from city of empire to capital of an independent republic, this book chiefly examines artworks by of Walter Frederick Osborne (1857–1903), Rose Mary Barton (1856–1929), Jack Butler Yeats (1871–1957), Harry Aaron Kernoff (1900–74), Estella Frances Solomons (1882–1968), and Flora Hippisley Mitchell (1890–1973), encompassing a variety of urban views and artistic themes. While Dublin is renowned for its representation in literature, this book will demonstrate how the city was also the subject of a range of visual depictions, including those in painting and print. Focusing on the images created by these artists as they navigated the city’s streets, this book offers a vivid visualisation of Dublin and its inhabitants, challenging a reengagement with Ireland’s art history through the prism of the city and urban life.
military contracts mainly to establish its first-born sons as military commanders within the ranks of international aristocratic society.20 Several other German territories, such as Brunswick, Limpurg, the Elector of Saxony from the Albertine branch of the house of Wettin, and even some of the smaller Ernestine Saxon territories, imitated Waldeck’s subsidy strategy with varying degrees of success.21 Brokering subsidy treaties: negotiations with the Netherlands and Great Britain Count Georg Friedrich von Waldeck (1620–1692), a cousin of Josias, Heinrich Wolrad, and Carl
of treachery where it is least expected that underpins Duke Alexander's fatal faith in Lorenzo, and the significance of social bonds in the play that informs the construction, and later allows for the destruction, of Florence's aristocratic society. Lorenzo's interference here is undertaken to secure his own power above Cosmo because his role as court favourite can never be entirely secure. His position is symptomatic of the Duke's rule by personal power: ‘[t]hinking about royal favourites inevitably meant thinking about the uneasy
within the aristocracy as from without, the reformers undeniably reinforced the pursuit of their own objectives by appealing to, cajoling and censuring the aristocracy as well as setting boundaries for its future roles. It is important, therefore, first to consider in some detail these ‘independent’ developments emerging within aristocratic society in order then to assess the role of the reform movement in promoting or at least justifying such changes. The starting point for understanding how the reformers extended their work of persuasion to the lay aristocracy lies
workers, English peasant and aristocratic societies, the Venetian nobility, Venetian rape cases and Florentine sodomy trials and in a range of studies on the family. 5 To a greater or lesser degree, all approaches demonstrate the view articulated by Peter Laslett in 1995: ‘Together with gender, ethnicity and class, aging is one of the four dimensions of individual and social
had a commitment to the whole of society; and fifth, there existed a network of clubs and salons in which they could meet. Finally, with the collapse of the old order, the emergence of a huge number of social problems required rapid and determined solution by the new centralised power-the perfect setting ‘in which power needed, and sought knowledge’ (Legislators: 25–6). One among many major problems that confronted the monarchy in the new post-aristocratic society was that of the ‘poor’, who had previously been offered some relief by noble landowners. To keep an eye